appeared at the bar of the House, and brought up a Report from the Select Committee appointed to try and determine the matter of the election petition of Dr. W. Forest and others, complaining of an undue election return for the borough of Blackburn. The Committee had determined that William Eccles, Esq. was not duly elected to serve in the present Parliament for the Borough of Blackburn:—that the last election for the said Borough, so far as regarded the said William Eccles, Esq., was a void election. The Committee had also come to the following resolution:—That the said William Eccles, Esq. was, by his agents, guilty of bribery at the last election for the said Borough. The Report also set forth several instances in which persons were bribed; but the Committee reported that it was not proved that the said acts were committed with the knowledge or consent of the said William Eccles, Esq. It was also further proved that treating to some extent was practised at the last election by the agent of the said William Eccles, Esq., but it was not proved that the said William Eccles, Esq. was cognisant of the same.

said, he wished to ask the hon. Gentleman the Clerk of the Ordnance whether a statement which had appeared in the public papers was true or not. It was stated that a suit of Greek armour was to be sold, and the price originally asked for it was 50l.; but subsequently it was put up to auction, and at the sale two persons, both of whom were employed by the Government, attended, and bid against each other, so that the suit finally cost the Government 250l. The two persons so bidding were utterly ignorant of each other, and when the sale was over, and one of them asked the other whom he was biddding for, he was then told that it was for the public. He wished to know first, whether the circumstances he had stated were true or not; and if they were true, whether the Government could sanction such an absurd expenditure of the public money?

begged to say, in reply to the hon. Member, that in many particulars the statement to which he had referred was incorrect. The suit of Greek armour was of great value and of great antiquity. It was the wish of the authorities at the Tower that it should be purchased for the public. It was originally valued at 300l., but at the sale it was purchased for 200l., not 250l., as the hon. Gentleman had stated. At the auction there were not two brokers engaged in bidding, but three; and the third broker, who was not employed by the Government, was ascertained to be the person who had been increasing the bidding. The Tower was unquestionably the proper place for such articles to be deposited in, and care ought to be taken by the authorities of the British Museum, when such cases arose, to give timely notice of their intention to endeavour to obtain possession of such articles. With respect to the fund out of which the money came for the purchase of such articles, he could inform the hon. Gentleman that it was not out of the public purse, but out of a fund arising from the sixpences paid by persons who went to visit the Tower. There was generally a surplus of 300l. over and above the expenses of the establishment, and it was out of that surplus that the armour in question, according to the usual practice, was bought.

said, he wished to inquire of the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the decision to which Her Majesty's Government had come respecting the admixture of chicory with coffee?

Sir, when Her Majesty's Government acceded to office I found the question relating to the mixture of chicory with coffee in this condition:—A Minute was passed in July, 1852, prohibiting that mixture, and laying down certain regulations for the sale of the two articles. Three months were allowed to the traders to get rid of their stock of the mixed articles, and consequently the Minute did not take effect until the 3rd of November. Subsequently to the 3rd of November the parties affected by that Minute addressed representations to the Treasury, and they had certain interviews with the then First Lord of the Treasury upon the subject. Those communications were, in fact, going on upon the subject of the Minute at the time when the present Government came into office. At that period no prosecutions had been instituted with the view to enforce the Minute recently passed. The consequence was, that when I became Chancellor of the Exchequer I found that Minute under discussion and consideration. No measures had been taken to give full operation to the law; therefore the parties very naturally made an immediate application to me, or rather continued the application they had been making to the previous Government, calling for a reconsideration of the Minute. It appeared to me under these circumstances to be my duty to reconsider the Minute upon its merits ab initio, and not to deal with it as I should have done if I had found it in full operation. This investigation has been one of no small difficulty; but it has been narrowed to a certain extent, and the difficulty has been limited by the request of the parties adverse to the Minute. They no longer ask the Government to fall back upon the system which prevailed before the passing of the Minute, because the Government might in some sense be considered accessory to fraud if they were simply to repeal the Minute of last July. They have confined themselves to requesting, not that all the restrictions might be removed, but that they may be permitted to sell the article of chicory mixed with coffee under labels designating it as such mixture. After this representation made by the parties, and after a full investigation of a variety of statements on the opposite side, proceeding from parties engaged in the trades of grocers and coffee dealers, and those in connexion with the colonial interest in Ceylon, and after maturely weighing the interest the revenue has in this question, and the interest the public have in the character of the mixture itself—under all these circumstances, the Government have come to the conclusion that they will best consult the public interest by acceding to the request of the parties who have asked for a modification of the present system—that is to say, by-allowing the article of chicory to be sold in a state of mixture with coffee, provided it is so distinctly designated by labels attached to the packets; but at the same time by attempting to give full effect to the restrictions in all other respects connected with the sale of chicory. I will not now enter into a discussion of the reasons upon which this course has been adopted by the Government. If any Gentleman wishes for such a discussion, I shall be prepared to enter into the details.

wished just to state to the House that the late Government did not accede to any suspension of the Minute.

I did not state that the late Government gave any authority for suspending the Minute; all I said was, that three months were allowed to the tradesmen to get rid of their stock.

asked whether the labels were to state the proportions of chicory and coffee?

The proportions would not be stated on the label. It would be simply in these terms:—"Mixture of chicory and coffee." This would be distinctly and legibly placed on the package.

wished to know whether the same privileges were to be extended to persons who sold pepper?

I must first understand what the hon. Gentleman means—whether be is anxious to mix chicory with pepper. But, if he asks whether it is intended to allow dealers in pepper to mix rice with it, I should say, certainly not. The plain distinction is this—that the mixture of rice with pepper is an adulteration and a deterioration of the article, but the mixture of chicory with coffee is no adulteration and no deterioration.

Sir, I wish to put two questions to the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, of which, for obvious reasons, I have not given notice. My questions are—first, whether it is true, as reported, that the noble Lord no longer holds the Seals of the Foreign Office; secondly, whether his situation in the Government is at present unconnected with any office to which a salary is attached?

Sir, in answer to the first question of the hon. Gentleman, I have to say that it is true that I have resigned the Seals of the Secretary of State for the Foreign Department, and that Her Majesty has been pleased to confide them to the Earl of Clarendon. In answer to the second question, I have to state that I do not at present hold any office in the Government to which a salary is attached.

Then, Sir, I give notice, that I shall move, on the first opportunity, and in the way most conformable to the importance of the subject, a Resolution to the effect that, considering the great in crease which has taken place of late years in the business of this House, and the corresponding increase in the amount of labour and responsibility which devolve upon the leader of this House, rendering it next to a physical impossibility that he should con duct the business of this House, and at the same time satisfactorily discharge the duties of one of the great departments of the State, it is desirable that a salary should be attached to the leadership of the House of Commons (an office second to none in the Government), commensurate with its duties and responsibilities, whenever it is held unconnected with any salaried office.

said, before pro-ceding to call the attention of the House to the subject of which he had given notice, he had a petition to present from Colonel Dickson, a candidate for the representation of Norwich. He would move that it be read by the clerk.

said, he now rose; to call the attention of the House to a breach of its privileges by the unauthorised withdrawal of the petition presented against the return of the sitting Members for the city of Norwich. He considered that the subject of which he had given notice was one which demanded the serious attention of the House, not only because it involved a contempt and a breach of the privileges of that House, but because it also involved an infringement of what had been always considered the sacred right of the people to petition that House for the redress of their grievances. If the House agreed to the Motion with which he would conclude, and called Colonel Dickson, the petitioner, and certain other parties to the bar it would appear, he believed, that a breach of privilege and a contempt of the House had been committed.

rose to order. He wished to take Mr. Speaker's opinion whether this question really involved a breach of privilege.

said, he also rose to order, because it was impossible to tell whether there had been a breach of privilege until he had made his statement. He (Mr. Duncombe) knew very well that an attempt would be made to strangle this Motion; and he hoped that the independent part of the House would prevent their Chairman of Ways and Means from using his ways and moans to swamp this petition, and to preclude him (Mr. Duncombe) from stating his case. He undertook to prove, by witnesses at the bar of the House, that not only a breach of its privileges but a gross fraud had been committed by a Parliamentary Agent—a person appointed by the House itself; and if he succeeded in proving that, if the House wished to retain one particle of public respect, the House must not only visit with its displeasure the guilty parties, but must grant redress to those who in the most constitutional manner—by petition—had laid their grievance before the House and claimed protection at its hands. He therefore appealed to the Chair to know whether he was to be allowed to proceed with his statement.

would say, on the point of order, that if the petition of the parties, which had been read by the clerk at the table, contained all the facts of the case, a breach of the privileges of the House was not involved in its allegations, although, no doubt, it alleged that the agent had acted acted most improperly in withdrawing the original petition. If, however, the hon. Member for Finsbury had any further facts to adduce, of course he (Mr. Speaker) could not say whether they might not involve a breach of the privileges of the House.

continued: The petition did not contain all that he meant to bring before the House. He confessed that his attention had been drawn to this subject by an advertisement which appeared in the morning papers of Wednesday, which was as follows:—

"TO THE CONSERVATIVE ELECTORS OF THE CITY OF NORWICH.

"Gentlemen—It was with the utmost astonishment that I observed by the morning journals that your petitions against the sitting Members for the city of Norwich had been withdrawn. it is, however, highly gratifying to me to he informed that this act has been perpetrated without your knowledge or consent. I hastened to require Mr. Brown, the Parliamentary Agent, to explain this most unwarrantable proceeding, but all that I could learn from him was that he 'had done it for the good of the party.' Gentlemen, as a candidate for the honour of representing you in the Commons House of Parliament, I denounce this most scandalous and political piece of jobbery, thus compromising, as it does, your interests, and that of the party to which you belong. Be assured no effort on my part will be withheld to obtain the restoration of the petitions to their legitimate place, for the purpose of having them dealt with by a Committee of the House of Commons.—I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, your most obedient servant,

"LOTHIAN S. DICKSON.

"10, Stanhope Terrace, Hyde Park

Gardens, Feb. 19."

He (Mr. Duncombe) had put himself in communication with Colonel Dickson, to ascertain whether this matter might not be an electioneering hoax, but that gentleman informed him that it was a real bonâ fide case, offering at the same time to come to the bar of the House and prove, not only that a fraud had been committed, but that a breach of the privileges of the House had been perpetrated by the parliamentary agent who withdrew the petition against the return. The House was aware that the Act of Parliament allowed election petitions to be withdrawn, provided notice was given under the hand and signature either of the petitioners themselves or their agent. Now, he found by the Votes that on the 14th instant Mr. Speaker announced to the House that he had received notice from Messrs. Thompson, Debenham, and Co., that the petition against the return for the city of Norwich was not intended to be proceeded with, and consequently the order was discharged. Now, he (Mr. Duncombe) asserted that Mr. Brown was no agent at all; and was it to be permitted that any person could write to the Speaker of the House of Commons, and say that a petition was to be withdrawn without the knowledge or consent of the petitioners, and then go and boast that "he had done a good turn for the Members of West Norfolk by the withdrawal of the election petition for the city of Norwich, and that they had thrown over Dickson?" If this had been done, had no fraud been committed, had no contempt and no breach of the privileges of the House been perpetrated, and ought no redress to be granted to the petitioners? He, therefore, wished to have Colonel Dickson and Mr. Brown examined by the House on this subject, and he would now move, as a first step, that Colonel Dickson be called to the bar.

said, he quite agreed in everything that had fallen from his hon. Friend as to the necessity of inquiry; but he begged to suggest, as the House had not seen the petition, and had only heard it read by the clerk, that they ought to postpone the consideration of the subject till to-morrow, and that the hon. Member for Finsbury should move that the petition be printed with the Votes, in order that the House might learn the facts of the case.

said, he entirely approved of the suggestion of the hon. Member for Montrose. He wished to defend himself from the imputation of the hon. Member (Mr. T. Duncombe), that he wished to swamp the petition. The very reverse was his object. It was in order that the petition might not be defeated by improper means, and that it should be introduced with the best chance of success, he had interfered. The best course would be to refer it to the Committee of the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond) on Corrupt Practices at Elections. The case was clearly not a breach of privilege. The hon. Member said he would state something beyond the contents of the petition; but he had not adduced a single fact in addition to those read by the clerk.

I will prove them at the bar.

said, he believed the best course for the House to take was that which had been recommended by the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume), namely, that the petition should be printed, that the House might have an opportunity of considering it, and then would be the time to consider whether the House ought to deal with the petition itself in the way which the hon. Gentleman proposed, or refer it to a Committee. But it was quite premature now to give any opinion on the question.

said, that he had moved that Colonel Dickson be called to the bar.

said, he thought it would be establishing a very inconvenient precedent if a Motion of this kind were to be brought on as a question of privilege, merely because an hon. Member thought it a question of privilege. From the petition, as it had been read, it appeared to him that Colonel Dickson complained that the party who acted as his agent had withdrawn, without his knowledge or consent, his peti- tion against an undue return for the city of Norwich. Now, the practice was for petitions to be withdrawn by the parties and their agents. Of course the party was bound by the act of his agent; and although it might be a very proper question to inquire into whether the agent had acted without authority, still, as a question of privilege, he did not think that any privilege of the House had been interfered with in the matter.

said, he was of opinion that the course for the hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. Duncombe) to take, in accordance with the suggestion which had fallen from Mr. Speaker, was to move that the petition be printed, and then to give notice of any Motion which he might wish to found upon that petition.

said, the question was, had or had not a fraud been committed upon this House?

said, he would suggest that the question before the House was not as to whether an act of fraud had been committed, but whether the Motion which the hon. Gentleman had now made could take precedence of the notices of Motion upon the paper. By the Act of Parliament every Parliamentary agent had the power of withdrawing a petition; and, although it might be the duty of the House to inquire into the case, that did not make it a question of privilege. A dangerous precedent would be established if this Motion were allowed to proceed now, and it was one which might cause great interference with the business of the House upon other occasions.

said, he would not press his Motion now, if the House thought. it inexpedient, but would content himself for the present with moving that the petition be printed with the Votes.

reported from the Select Committee appointed to try and determine the matter of the petitioner complaining of an undue election and return for the Borough of Newry, that William Kirk, Esq., the sitting Member, had been duly elected a Burgess to serve in the present Parliament for the Borough of Newry. He further wished to inform the House that the Committee had agreed to a Resolution, the effect of which was, that having examined the Agents on both sides, in order to ascertain the circumstances under which the said petition was withdrawn, the Committee did not feel that the case called for any special remark by them with reference to the forbearance from the prosecution of that petition.

said, he hoped the House would not consider that he trespassed upon their time, or that any apology was necessary for calling their attention to the condition of the Australian Colonies, and the policy which it appeared to him should he adopted by the Imperial Government towards them under the extraordinary and unexpected circumstances in which they were placed. For some years past there had been a growing and increasing inclination evinced on the part of that House to give its attention to Colonial affairs; and certainly there were no parts of Her Majesty's Colonial dominions which at this moment excited greater interest, either in that House or the country, than those which were situated in Australasia. Those colonies had always been free from the difficulties connected with variety of races which had occurred in several of our dependencies that had been acquired by conquest; they had been peopled from the inhabitants of these islands; they had enjoyed very great prosperity, and were favourably circumstanced as to climate. They had consequently attracted much of the attention of that House. No longer ago than last Session the House devoted much of its consideration to the Colony of New Zealand; and in the year 1850, under the Government of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, Parliament discussed and adopted a constitution for the colonies of Australia, unconscious at that time of the important discoveries of gold which were then impending in those colonies. Towards the close of the year 1850 those extraordinary discoveries of gold took place, bringing about a new state of things in those regions, stimulating their prosperity to a marvellous extent, and giving a redoubled impetus to emigration from this country and other parts of the world; and whatever interest had formerly been taken by Parliament and the country in the Australian colonies had been very greatly increased by these startling events. He did not know that there were any statistics in this country which could enable him to state the exact quantity of the precious metals which these colonies had produced within the short period of little more than one year in which the whole of the gold fields had been worked; but he believed that he would not be overrating the amount if he estimated it at not less than 10,000,000l. sterling. Of course these immense discoveries had caused a great rush of population to these colonies, and greatly tended to conduce to their material prosperity; but he wished to guard himself against exaggerating the prosperity which those discoveries had occasioned, and against stimulating the amount of emigration to which they might give rise. On the contrary, it appeared to him very desirable that the truth should be known in this respect; and so far from the emigrants from this country having met with universal success, they had had in many cases to encounter very great suffering and much disappointment. He did not now refer to the great sickness and mortality which had prevailed, he was sorry to say, on board of some of the emigrant ships last year, though this was a subject which required and deserved the attention of Parliament. But, irrespectively of the sufferings which prevailed on board those ships, the emigrants in many instances had landed in Australia labouring under severe sickness and privation. Weakened by a protracted voyage, they had found they were unable to compete with the fatigues and hardships which work at the gold mines involved, increased from the working of those mines being carried on at a considerable depth under ground. Great sickness had, in many cases, been the consequence of a description of labour wholly new to persons who had been accustomed to ordinary industry in this country; and he believed that very many of those who had gone out with high-raised hopes were likely to return to this country, disappointed in the expectations they had formed. He had said thus much in order to show that in the remarks he was about to make, he had no intention of saying anything unduly to stimulate, while on the other hand he did not wish unduly to discourage, the tide of emigration which was flowing from this country towards those distant colonies, and he would now proceed shortly to explain the object he had in view in soliciting the attention of the House. It was the fortune of the late Government to hold office during the year in which the earliest effects of the extraordinary discoveries of gold in the colonies where they occurred began to be felt, for it was during last year that the full effect of the gold discoveries in the increased prosperity and rapidly increasing population of the Australian provinces was first made manifest. In his endeavours to discharge the duties of the arduous office in the late Government which, he had the honour to hold, nothing had given him more anxiety than that the extraordinary crisis which had arisen in the Australian colonies should be met by the Government of this country in a generous and liberal spirit, such as was calculated to promote the interests both of the colonies and the mother country. He desired now to state, and in no boastful spirit, the policy which the late Government thought it their duty to adopt in respect to the future administration of those colonies, and, in no spirit of undue distrust or suspicion, to call upon the Government of which the noble Lord was the loader in that House, to state whether or not it was their intention for the future to pursue the policy which the late Government had commenced, or, if they intended to deviate from that policy, what would be the nature and extent of that deviation. In taking this course he should not detain the House by entering into the early history of those Australian colonies. The House was, of course, aware that the colony of New South Wales had been founded towards the close of the last century, and was originally entirely a convict settlement. Nothing could be more remarkable than the rapid progress of New South Wales from the period at which it ceased to he exclusively a convict colony, and when the departure of many freemen from this country to reside on its shores gave it the interest attaching to those dependencies of the Crown to which the inhabitants of this country carried their energies and industry. In the year 1830 the imports of New South Wales amounted in value to 420,418l., and the exports to 131,461l., whilst the population numbered 55,000. Passing over twenty years, to 1850, he found that in that year the imports of New South Wales had increased to 1,333,413?., and the exports to 1,357,784l. This showed an astonishingly rapid increase in the material prosperity of the territory, which was still more extraordinary during the following year, 1851, in which he had already mentioned that the gold discoveries took place. The imports for that year rose to 1,563,931l., and the exports to 1,796,912; and the population, which in 1830 was only 55,000, had increased to 197,153, or, in round numbers, 200,000, Thus the imports for 1851 were at the unusual, if not unprecedented, rate of about 8l. a head of the population of all ages, and the exports at the rate of about 9l. a head of all ages. These facts showed a rate of prosperity which had hardly been equalled in any other community. He would now beg to call the attention of the House to the still more extraordinary progress of the colony of Victoria. He did not know whether all who heard him were aware that the great and prosperous colony of Victoria, only eighteen years ago, was an untouched wilderness, in which not a single civilised Englishman had yet fixed his abode. Another fact he might perhaps be allowed to mention, in no degree for the purpose of censuring the statesmen to whom it referred, but rather with the object of showing how little human foresight and wisdom had in reality to do with the great changes which in many cases take place around us. About the year 1834 some persons in Van Diemen's Land who were anxious to establish a settlement in Port Phillip applied to the Home Government on the subject, and in December, 1834, the present Prime Minister the Earl of Aberdeen, who was then Colonial Secretary, wrote a despatch in answer. In the following month of July, 1835, Lord Glenelg, who had succeeded the Earl of Aberdeen in the Colonial Office, wrote another despatch on the same subject. Both those despatches were to the effect that no settlement could be allowed at Port Phillip, and declared explicitly that such a settlement would be opposed to the policy of England, which was rather to concentrate than to extend the population of those colonies, and would involve expenses which it would not be worth the while of this country to incur. Happily for both countries British enterprise and British spirit had anticipated the decision of those statesmen, and before these answers had been received in Australia some active and energetic men had established themselves in Port Phillip. That was in the year 1835. In 1845, after the lapse of only ten years, the imports of this infant settlement amounted to 248,000l., the exports to 464,000, and the population to 28,000. In 1851, after six years more had passed, the imports had risen to 1,056,000l., and the exports to 1,423,000l., whilst the; figures of the population had been reversed, for instead of being 28,000, it had increased to 82,000. Such was the rapid increase of the colony of Victoria, which the Earl of Aberdeen and Lord Glenelg had pronounced ought not to be founded, and which, only eighteen years: ago, it was considered by official men impolitic to establish. He repeated that, in adverting to these facts, he intended no censure. He was willing to admit that, had he been in their position, he should probably have arrived at the same decision as they did. He now wished to call the attention of the House to what had been the immediate effect of the discoveries of gold upon the material prosperity of this colony. He asked leave to compare the revenue of Victoria for the quarter ending June 30, 1851, with the corresponding quarter of 1852. For the quarter ending June 30, 1851, the revenue of Victoria amounted to 35,994l.; that was the general revenue. For the same quarter in 1852 the general revenue had increased to 98,456l., being an increase of 62,462l. The Crown revenue in the same quarter of 1851 amounted to 87,874l; in the corresponding quarter of 1852 it was 186,579l., showing an increase of 98,705l., and a total increase of Crown and general revenue of 161,167l. In a few months the population, which in 1851 was 82,000, had 120,000—a result of the enormous influx of immigrants. This would show the House the extraordinary progress of the colony of Victoria, and would show that the state of those colonies was such as to require the serious consideration of the late Government. He would now state what had been the amount of emigration to those colonies during the last few years, with the view of showing the increase that had taken place subsequently to the marvellous discoveries to which he alluded. In 1849 the emigration from this country to Australia was 32,191, in 1850 it was 16,681, in 1851 it was 21,532, but during the last year, 1852, it increased to 87,434. Such was the state of things to which the attention of the late Government had been directed. In considering the policy they ought to adopt towards those colonies, their unhesitating decision was that they were bound to meet the demands preferred in a confiding, trustful, and generous spirit, and that we at this distance from those colonies could not judge of their local interests, or of the expenditure necessary to promote them, so well as the colonists could judge of those matters for themselves, and that we ought to place that confidence in them as English subjects, and men accustomed to the free- dom and institutions of this country, which they claimed the right to share, and which they were so well entitled to possess. The late Government were confirmed in that determination by the very honourable development of national character which had been witnessed in the present extraordinary circumstances of the colony, and which he thought he should fail in the duty he had undertaken if he did not bring under the notice of the House. Nothing could surpass the creditable and honourable manner in which the thousands engaged in the mining operations of the Australian colonies had up to the present time conducted themselves—in the colony of Victoria, more particularly. The House would bear in mind that until the steps taken by the late Government in the course of last year, so sudden was the change of affairs, and so completely did the discoveries of gold take the country and the authorities by surprise, that the Executive Government in Victoria was unprovided with any means of adequate control over the vast population which flocked within its boundaries. Throughout the whole of 1852, both in New South Wales and Victoria, though he did not mean to say that no crimes or disorders occurred, yet the general conduct of the persons engaged in mining adventure had been most moral and creditable. The local Government, to their credit, took early means to provide the persons assembled at the diggings with the means of divine worship by the appointment of ministers; and, notwithstanding the temptations of this extraordinary scene, the Sunday at all those spots had been for the most part properly observed, divine worship had not been neglected, and the conduct of the people had been on the whole most exemplary. He ought to mention another subject, no loss honourable to one branch of the service on which we relied with confidence for our defence—he meant the British Army. Until last autumn the Government of Victoria had no troops except a handful of some fifty soldiers belonging to one of our regiments of the line, who had no barracks, but were billeted about the town of Melbourne. Yet, in spite of all the temptations to which they were exposed at a place within seventy miles of the field of wealth, it was a fact highly honourable to the British Army, that up to the time at which he (Sir J. Pakington) left office he had not heard of a single instance of desertion or misconduct on their part. Looking, then, to the unexpected expenses to which the Government of Vic- toria was exposed for the preservation of order at the gold diggings, the late Government determined to place at the disposal of the local Government the revenue arising from the gold discoveries. Accordingly, in June last, he sent out a despatch, in which he announced that the revenue derived from the gold was to be regulated by the local Legislature, and expended by them. A despatch was also transmitted, in which the Governor was informed that to aid in maintaining order a regiment of infantry would be sent to the colony, and the naval assistance which might be requisite would also be provided. That was the policy which the late Government regarded as most likely to conduce to the welfare both of the colony and the mother country, and they trusted it would be accepted as conciliatory and fair. Very shortly after, he had, with the concurrence of his Colleagues, sent out that despatch, there arrived in this country a petition from the Legislature of New South Wales which attracted at the time very considerable attention, being brought before the other House by a noble Lord now holding office in the present Government—the Duke of Argyll; whilst in that House it was presented by his noble Friend then Secretary for Ireland (Lord Naas). The prayer of that petition contained a bold and energetic declaration of what the inhabitants of New South Wales considered to be their rights, and of the demands which they thought themselves entitled to make on the Government of this country. That petition, which received the earnest attention of Her Majesty's Government, was, in fact, the renewal of a petition and remonstrance sent to this country six months before. In June, 1851, the then expiring Legislature of New South Wales, which was in existence before the Act of 1850 came into operation, adopted this declaration and remonstrance. It arrived in this country in December, 1851, and was answered by Earl Grey, then the Colleague of the noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Russell), and his (Sir J. Pakington's) predecessor in the Colonial department. In a despatch written in the month of January, 1852, the noble Earl distinctly refused every one of the prayers comprised in the petition of the colonists. Just before the Government of the noble Lord opposite went out of office, and within a week of the time at which Earl Grey wrote that despatch refusing the prayer of the expiring Legislature of New South Wales, the new Legislature, elected in the intervening time under the operation of the Act of 1850, adopted the same declaration and remonstrance as their predecessors, and this was the petition to which he had adverted as having been received in this country in the course of last summer. They stated in emphatic language their entire adoption of the prayer of that petition, the last words of which showed the deep interest felt by the inhabitants of New South Wales in this question

"Solemnly protesting against these wrongs, and insisting upon these our undoubted rights, we leave the redress of the former and the assertion of the latter to the people whom we represent and the Legislature which we address."

The objects sought for by the petitioners were arranged under live heads; the first, a complaint of the civil list fixed by the noble Lord (Earl Grey) under the Act of 1850; second, a request that the lands of the colony might be placed under the control of the colonial authorities, instead of that of the Imperial Government at home; third, a reform of the Customs; fourth, that all patronage to Government offices might be left entirely in the hands of the local authorities; fifth and last, that all legislation upon local subjects might be finally disposed of in the colony without reference to the Imperial Government at home, that was to say, without requiring the assent of the Crown. The Government of the noble Lord opposite having refused all compliance with the prayers of the colonists on any of these points, he hoped the House would permit him to state the answers returned by the late Government, and he would enumerate these in reverse order to that in which he had stated the list of demands. First, with respect to the prayer for final legislation, he entirely agreed with the answer sent by Earl Grey to this part of the petition, that it was a subject on which it was extremely difficult to meet the views and objects of the petitioners. He did not know how far the noble Lord opposite, or Earl Grey, might be disposed to agree with him, when he said that on principle the late Government had no objection to this prayer, but a serious difficulty arose with respect to the possibility of granting it. He begged to read what fell from the noble Lord the Member for London on this very subject, in the able and interesting speech he made upon our colonial policy at the commencement of the Session of 1850: —

"Another scheme which has been proposed is that a certain description of laws adopted, by the colonial legislatures should require the assent of the imperial authority, but that, with regard generally to the acts of the colonial legislatures, no such sanction should be requisite; and that a line should be drawn between those laws which require the assent of the Crown, and those which should he enforced without, such assent. Now, Sir, I do not believe that it is possible to draw any such distinction. I think we had a strong proof of this in the debates which took place last year with respect to a measure which was passed by the House of Assembly, by the Legislative Council, and by the Governor of Canada. It was asserted in this House that that was a measure which ought not to receive the assent of the Crown, and that Her Majesty ought to reject it, although it had been affirmed by all the Canadian authorities. The Government, on the other hand, maintained that it was a matter of local government, and that the will of the colony, expressed deliberately by the legislature, ought to be affirmed. I do not wish to revive that contest. I may say, however, that my opinion is very strong that it was a matter for the local authorities to decide; but I mention this as an instance of the difficulty there would be in drawing a precise line, and to show that any attempt to draw such a line would be most likely to raise disputes as to whether a particular law came within or stood without that line. I believe that any man acquainted with the administration of the colonies will come to the conclusion that it is only in rare cases that the authority of the Crown ought to he interposed; and that, with respect to local affairs, the executive and legislative authorities of the colony are the best judges/'—[3 Hansard, cviii. 517.]

he must say, that on this subject he entirely concurred with those expressions of the noble Lord, and the views laid down in the despatch of Earl Grey. He thought that any interference on the part of the Crown, by disallowing local acts, should be of rare occurrence, and that only under special circumstances imperatively calling for it; and he should be glad to see a line drawn, if it were possible to do so, between local and Imperial legislation, and some such distinction established as that between public and private Bills with ourselves. But he felt the difficulties which the noble Lord had pointed out, and he believed that the practical effect of any of the plans which had been yet suggested would be to restrict rather than to enlarge the powers of the Colonial Legislature. On this point, therefore, the late Government returned an answer in effect the same as that of Earl Grey. With respect to the demand that all patronage should be vested in persons resident in the colony, Her Majesty's Government answered that they thought that for the sake of the colonists themselves—though doubtless persons who had displayed ability in the colonies were entitled to local promotion—it would not be advisable to exclude the introduction of fresh persons into the colony, when it might be the pleasure of the Crown to send them out to fill offices of trust and emolument. The general rule was for the Governor to select persons among the colonists for public employments; and he agreed with Earl Grey that it was impossible for the Government to recognise any monopoly of a right to such situations on the part of the inhabitants of New South Wales, so as to preclude them from being bestowed on others of Her Majesty's subjects. With respect to the Customs, Earl Grey had made changes which met the wishes of the colonists to a great extent, and as they had put that branch of the public service on the same footing there as at home, he thought little ground of complaint remained under this head. On the next subject, one of great importance, they arrived at a different determination from their predecessors. The civil list had always been a great grievance to the colony of New South Wales, and the enormous amount of 70,000l. a year was saddled upon them under circumstances which, whether it was so intended or not by Earl Grey, prevented them from exercising any control except in the most unimportant trifles. On this point the late Government thought it impossible to withhold their assent to the demands of the colonists, and they, therefore, called on the colonists only to provide such a civil list as would secure sufficient salaries to official persons residing in the colony. The remaining subject that he had to bring under the notice of the House, was of far the greatest importance, that of the disposal of the waste lands of the colonies. He saw an hon. and learned Gentleman opposite who was much more conversant with it than anybody else, he meant the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Lowe), who, when a member of the colonial legislature, he believed, was himself a party to a very able correspondence carried on for a long period between the Legislature of New South Wales and the Colonial Department in this country with respect to the maintenance or repeal of the Land Sales Act now in operation, The point of all others on which the Legislature of New South Wales felt the greatest interest and anxiety, was that of the disposal of the waste lands. Earl Grey, as he had said, distinctly refused the request of the colonists. One point, that of right, the late Government felt, with Earl Grey, that it was impossible to concede. Upon this subject Earl Grey said—

"It is my duty not to withhold the expression of my decided dissent from the doctrine that the waste lands in New South Wales, or the revenue derived from them, are in any reasonable sense the exclusive property of its inhabitants, or that their representatives ought to have as of right the control and disposal of that revenue."

The late Government agreed in these opinions of Earl Grey, and felt that it would be impossible to admit as a matter of right that which, if admitted, would belong as fully to the 4,000 inhabitants of Western Australia as to the 200,000 inhabitants of New South Wales, and which would indeed have equally belonged to the first few families which settled in a corner of New Zealand. The right to the waste lands was, in the opinion of the late Government, vested in the Crown. Earl Grey admitted that it might be desirable to transfer the control of the waste lands of a colony to its local legislature; but he thought the time had not yet come. The point which the late Government differed from Earl Grey, was in thinking that the time had now arrived at which this concession ought to be made. Looking at what had been done in other colonies, at the circumstances of the question in Canada, and the concessions made only last year by the New Zealand Bill, which yielded this very point of the management of the waste lands; knowing, also, the great weight attached to this point by the inhabitants of New South Wales, and the urgent terms in which their petition stated their wishes, the late Government arrived at the decision that they would best discharge their duty to the Crown, and consult the interests both of this country and the colonists, by giving up to them the management of their waste lands. It was enacted by the Land Sales Act that not less than one half the produce of the land sale should be devoted to the furtherance of emigration. For some years that Act worked well; but, looking to what was now passing there, and to the rapid increase of their population and wealth, the late Government thought it should in future be left to the local legislature to decide at what rate it would be most beneficial to the people generally that their land should be sold; and how far it was desirable for them to spend their revenue in promoting emigration from this country. For under existing circumstances it was far more important to them to receive an addition to their population, than it was to us that the present rapid tide of emigration should continue to flow from this country. He had already stated that the number of emigrants from this country to Australia amounted last, year to 87,434, of whom only 34,329 were sent out. by the funds remitted home under the Land Sales Act, the great majority having gone out entirely independent of the funds provided under the operation of that set. On these reasons the late Government determined to concede this important boon to the colonies, attaching to it, however, certain, conditions which it was right that he should mention. It appeared to them that, independently of recent events, it was clear that these colonies had outgrown their present form of constitution; that it was not conducive to their welfare that they should continue to be governed by a single Legislative Chamber, but that it was desirable that there should be two chambers in each of these great colonies. The late Government thought this change, which had long been desirable, had become much more so in consequence of the rapid advance which these colonies had lately made in material prosperity; and that when they were conceding to the colonies entire control over the revenue derived from the gold licences, which in the colony of Victoria amounted last year to no less than 80,000l., and also of that derived from the land sales, it would be for the interest of the colonies that this control should be exercised by a double rather than a single chamber. And he hoped that, notwithstanding what passed in 1850, the present would not differ from the late Government in this respect. In that year, the late Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. Walpole) moved as an amendment on the Government plan, that there should be a double in stead of a single chamber in the Australian colonies; he was unsuccessful, being defeated by the then Government, It was a second time advanced, and unsuccessfully, by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Southwark (Sir W, Molesworth), who had long taken so much interest in colonial matters that it caused him (Sir J. Pakington) some surprise to see the right hon. Baronet intrusted with the care of parks and gardens and regretted also to find that the right hon. Baronet was not present on this occasion, [Lord JOHN RUSSELL: He is ill.] Then, he regretted the cause of his absence more than the absence itself. Notwithstanding this, however, he believed that even before the recent great discoveries and concessions, the general sense of the House of Commons, and of those who took most interest in Australian affairs, was in favour of these colonies being governed by a double chamber. Indeed, he never clearly understood the ground on which the Government of the noble Lord refused it. It was no doubt alleged that the colonies themselves did not desire it; but he (Sir J. Pakington) scarcely knew the ground on which that statement rested. There was certainly a petition from Geelong, in Victoria, in which they stated that they were at that time more anxious to be separated from New South Wales, and to be erected an independent colony, than about the form of their constitution: and they asked that they might then retain a single chamber. But at the same time, in 1850, a memorial was sent home from the colonists of New South Wales generally, praying for a double chamber. Under these circumstances, and looking to the fact that the petition to which he had referred contained a prayer that the institutions of New South Wales should he assimilated to those of Canada, where there was a double chamber, the late Government thought it was prudent to attach to the large concessions they were about to make to the colonies a stipulation that Victoria and New South Wales should adopt a double chamber; and they notified this to the colonies in the despatch for the production of which he was then moving. And it was with great satisfaction he had since learned that, while the Government here had arrived at this decision, the Legislature of New South Wales was engaged in devising a new constitution, part of which was a double chamber, differing in no essential respect from that which the late Government urged them to adopt. He had now stated to the House the substance of the answer that the late Government felt it their duty to send to this most important petition. It was, as the noble Lord would see, widely different from that which the Government of which he was the head had only six months before sent to the same prayer. This petition did not, however, advert to another subject which had excited in the Australian colonies a degree of interest and excitement not inferior to that raised by any of the subjects which he had already noticed. He alluded to the transportation of convicts from this country to Van Diemen's Land. The noble Lord opposite (Lord John Russell) on the first night after the mooting of Parliament, had in that House, and the noble Duke (the Duke of New-castle) now at the head of the Colonial Office, had, in another place, stated that the present Government intended to act on the declared determination of the late Government not to send out any more convicts to Van Diemen's Land. But neither the noble Lord nor the noble Duke had explained the reasons why it was desirable to make so great a change; and in the meantime the highest possible authority on this subject—the Lord Chief Justice of England—had, in the House of Lords, stated his regret that the punishment of transportation should cease, if it could possibly be continued. In 1847, also, some of the most eminent Judges, who were examined before a Committee of the other House, which sat on this subject, expressed themselves strongly in favour of the continuance of transportation as a secondary punishment. He had also himself in the debates that took place at that time expressed a strong opinion in favour of transportation, being convinced from his experience in a court of justice that it had proved a valuable portion of our secondary punishments, and that it was highly deterring in its effect upon criminals. It was therefore incumbent on him to state why the late Government felt it their duty to promise the Australian colonies that transportation to Van Diemen's Land should cease. Soon after he entered office, he received one of the most influential deputations he ever saw on this subject of transportation. It was headed by the present Chief Commissioner of the Board of Works (Sir W. Molesworth), and its members pressed upon him in the strongest manner possible the determination of the Australian colonies no longer to submit to convicts being sent there. He (Sir J. Pakington) stated in reply to them that he had lately received from Western Australia representations that that colony was willing to receive convicts; and also a petition from Moreton Bay, praying to be detached from New South Wales in order that they might receive convicts. He also told them that when Earl Grey was Colonial Secretary, a representation, signed by about 140 colonists of Van Diemen's Land, had been received, the earnest prayer of which was, that transportation might be continued to that colony on account of the benefit which was derived from the labour of the convicts. At the same time he promised the deputation that the late Government would give their anxious attention to the representations made to them, and see whether or not they could, consistently with their duties to these colonies, continue to send convicts to Van Diemen's Land. The result of their deliberations was that they advised Her Majesty, in Her gracious Speech at the opening of the present Session, to hold out to Van Diemen's Land the hope that no further transportation should take place. It was perfectly true that public opinion in the colony might be said to be divided on this subject. Under the great pressure that existed for want of labour, the inhabitants of Moreton Bay were ready to take convicts; but he thought the House would agree with him, that the prayer could not be conceded without a violation of good faith towards New South Wales. A division of opinion doubtless existed in Van Diemen's Land, and he had no doubt that under the desertion of that colony which to a great extent took place last year in consequence of the gold discoveries, the employers of labour had benefited greatly by the labour of the convicts. But, nevertheless, the late Government were unable to resist the conclusion, notwithstanding these facts, that throughout the whole of these colonies there existed the deepest dislike and hatred of the continuation of the convict system; and as strong and general a determination as ever pervaded the colonists to use every legitimate means to put an end to a system from which they believed they suffered the worst effects. If hon. Gentlemen would turn to the papers with respect to transportation, published in 1852, they would find ample proof of the strong feeling which existed on this subject in the Australian colonies. He would not refer to the somewhat doubtful proceedings of a body calling itself the Australian League, but at the same time the action of that body must not be lost sight of. It was not limited to any one colony; it extended through Van Diemen's Land, Victoria, and Now South Wales; it had been joined by many of the most respectable colonists, and it must be regarded as the result of fixed purposes and feelings on this subject. But the display of this feeling had not been limited to the proceedings of the league. Public meetings had been held— especially in Victoria—when the most unanimous and the strongest feelings had been expressed, and the Legislatures of New South Wales and Victoria had all addressed the Crown, entreating that transportation might be stopped. If he wanted further proof of the extent and depth of this feeling, he should find it in the address of the Chairman of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce to the members of that body, which was certainly not likely to have interfered in a matter of this kind, unless the colonists had the strongest feelings upon this subject. He said—

"Addresses to a commercial association may not generally embrace subjects of a social and moral character, but the situation of our colony is peculiar, and I trust that it is not necessary to plead that the material interests of society are not paramount to virtue and happiness. I am the more encouraged to allude to the absorbing subject of transportation, because I feel that, not only in this society, but throughout the entire colony, there is but one sentiment on the subject. It is, indeed, an enormous evil that into the bosom of this rising society there should be thrust thousands of criminals yearly ejected from the bosom of a mighty Empire."

Even a stronger proof of the feeling entertained on this subject was to be found in the fact of a large public meeting which had lately been held in South Australia. This colony might have been expected to be free from the evils of transportation, because by its charter no convicts could be sent there, and a long distance intervened between it and Van Diemen's Land; still a majority of the criminals convicted in its courts of justice were convicts who had been sent to Van Diemen's Land. Thus it was not free from the taint, and one of the largest meetings ever held in Adelaide was convened to address the Crown by petition on this subject. In Van Diemen's Land, no doubt, a considerable portion of the employers of labour, and particularly of those engaged in agriculture, were in favour of employing the labour of convicts; but the great majority of the population were decidedly opposed to the continuance of transportation. The Governor of the colony, indeed, Sir William Denison, a most able and intelligent public servant, had not up to this time ceased to represent that in his opinion the interests of Van Diemen's Land required a continuance of transportation. But it appeared by the last intelligence from the colony that the Legislature had by an overwhelming majority decided to petition the Crown to terminate transportation. The Legislature of Van Diemen's land, like that of the other colonies, had two-thirds of its members elected by the people, and one-third nominated by the Government. The elected members unanimously supported this address, as did also a considerable portion of the nominated members, including one of the servants of the Crown in the colony; another of its servants staying away. He would ask the House, therefore, whether, under the circumstances which he had detailed, it would have been wise in the Government to have embarked upon a struggle with these colonies on this subject? He thought that no reflecting man would give such advice. We might have succeeded in that struggle by force of arms; but even success so obtained would have been disastrous. Whatever might be the value of Sir William Denison's opinion, could the Government have answered the prayer of the people and Legislature of Van Diemen's Land by telling them, "We are sure that ere long you will require the labour of these men, and for your own sakes we will refuse the prayer of your petition?" It would be impossible for the Government to have taken that ground, and, consistently with prudence and discretion, to have continued to send convicts to Van Diemen's Land, however highly they might value transportation as a secondary punishment. The reasons for this conclusion were materially strengthened by the discovery of gold; for if we now sent out convicts, what we meant as a punishment might be taken as a very great boon, and crime might be committed in order that the criminal might be sent out to the colonies. Indeed, not long since in the Ionian Islands a soldier was shot because the officers in the garrison there found that crime and outrage were become prevalent amongst the men, who committed offences for the purpose of being sent to Australia; and a friend of his having lately visited Gibraltar, found amongst the convicts there three men in irons who had committed an outrage solely that they might be transported to Australia. Were it necessary, he could adduce evidence from this country to show that we could not continue to look to transportation as an efficient secondary punishment. Having thus explained the reasons which induced the late Government to come to the determination to which he was glad to hear that the present Government intended to adhere, he must express his earnest hope that they would not allow any long time to elapse before they explained to the House their views on the subject of secondary punishments; for the noble Lord opposite would admit that there should not be a continued uncertainty in the country on this subject. He had strong opinions in connexion with it, and when the proper time arrived he would probably take the opportunity of stating what the views of the late Government were regarding it. If he understood the noble Lord correctly on a former evening, no convicts were to be sent to Van Diemen's Land after the ships now engaged had sailed. [Lord JOHN RUSSELL assented.] He was happy to find that the Government still intended to send convicts to Western Australia; for the reasons which he had urged against transportation to Van Diemen's Land, did not apply to the latter colony. The settlers did not object to receive convicts, and Western Australia was separated from the nearest settlement by 1,400 or 1,500 miles of an impracticable desert. He thought, however, the noble Lord could not look to send any large portion of our convicts there; though he hoped that means would be devised not altogether to put an end to transportation as a secondary punishment next in severity to death. He had now alluded to all the grievances which these colonies had urged upon the Home Government. He had shown that the late Government conceded nearly every one of those prayers; but he must remind the noble Lord opposite, that the Government of which he was the head refused the most important of them; and although transportation was now given up, there still remained important concessions prayed for by the colonists, but distinctly refused by the noble Lord's Government. They had since been conceded by the late Government; and he thought, therefore, he was entitled to ask what part this Government intended to pursue with respect to them? In Canada, the noble Lord said that he reverted to the policy of Earl Grey; did the noble Lord intend also to revert to the policy of Earl Grey with respect to our Australian colonies? He hoped and believed, that even if he did not take exactly the course of the late Government, he would not revert to the refusal of 1852, but would meet the wishes of the colonists in a generous spirit. He could not on this point avoid making another quotation from the noble Lord's (Lord J. Russell's) speech upon the colonies in 1850:—

"I now come to the question as to the mode of governing our colonies. I think that, as a general rule, we cannot do better than refer to those maxims of policy by which our ancestors were guided upon this subject. It appears to me that in providing that wherever Englishmen went they should enjoy English freedom, and have English institutions, they acted justly and wisely. They adopted a course which was calculated to promote a harmonious feeling between the mother country and the colonies, and which enabled those who went out to these distant possessions to sow the seeds of communities of which England may always be proud."—[3 Hansard, cviii. 549.]

As far as his humble opinion went, he must say that he never read language more worthy of the high position of the noble Lord, or in which he more entirely concurred. During the time he (Sir J. Pak- ington) held the seals of the Colonial Office, he endeavoured to act strictly on these principles; and it was in pursuance of them that he had made the concessions which, notwithstanding this language, the Government of the noble Lord had withheld. He was, therefore, anxious to know what the policy of the Government was to be on this subject. The late Government felt that two courses were open to them. He had no doubt that, supported by the strong arm of imperial power, they might have refused these concessions, and still have enforced the continuance of the connexion between the colonies and the mother country so long as, notwithstanding their prosperity, the former felt too weak to assert their independence. He and his Colleagues, however, felt that there was another and a wiser policy, namely, to win their confidence by conciliating their affection, and thus to prolong their attachment to the mother country. It was upon these principles that the late Government endeavoured to deal with the great crisis that had arisen in these colonies, and upon these principles he hoped that the present Government intended to continue to act. He would conclude by moving for—

"Copies of the Despatch from Sir John Pakington to the Governors of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, dated 15th December, 1852, and his Despatch to the Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land, dated 14th December, 1852."

said, that he entirely concurred in the opening observation of the right hon. Baronet opposite, that there was no necessity for his apologising to the House for drawing its attention to the situation of the Australian colonies. They constituted a group of our dependencies, of which that House had every reason to feel proud. They exhibited, in a remarkable degree, the capacity of the English race to take root in the soil of foreign countries, and there to plant communities, which in an incredibly short space of time appear almost to rival the ancient countries of Europe. The right hon. Baronet had not in any degree over-estimated the results of British industry and enterprise in these colonies. He (Mr. F. Peel) fully endorsed the tribute which he had paid to the fidelity of the troops which were stationed at Victoria, and could say quite as much for the regiment in New South Wales, from which the troops in Victoria had been detached. The right hon. Gentleman had made a speech to which he had listened with the attention which was due to so high an authority. The statement of the right hon. Gentleman was valuable from the extent and accuracy of the information it contained; and he found no fault with the speech, unless it were for the want of a proportion between it and the practical purpose the right hon. Gentleman had in view. It was not needed as a vindication of his own policy. No one had impugned that policy; and he believed there was no one that was not disposed to bear testimony in a general way to the credit that was due to the right hon. Gentleman's colonial administration. The spontaneous communications which had been made by the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) in that House, and by the noble Duke at the head of the Colonial Department in another place, bad, he thought, anticipated one-half at least of the right hon. Gentleman's Motion, and superseded the necessity for the inquiry that had been made by the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think, that because they had reverted to the policy of the Government which preceded his own with respect to the clergy reserves in Canada, there was, therefore, some possibility of their disturbing all the changes that bad recently taken place. The right hon. Gentleman remembered that the Government was not prepared to follow up his views with reference to the Canadian clergy reserves, and he was instantly filled with solicitude lest his instructions with regard to some other matters should meet the same treatment at their hands. He would, however, endeavour to dispel the anxiety of the right hon. Gentleman on the subject. The despatch to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, was written by the right hon. Gentleman about a week before he quitted office, in reply to a communication from the Governor of New South Wales, which had been received some six months previously. That despatch contained the petition of the Legislative Council, on which the right hon. Gentleman had largely commented. It was in the first instance, a reaffirmance of the views entertained in New South Wales on certain points which had long since been in controversy between ourselves and that colony. There were three of the matters referred to which might be considered of minor importance, and which he would, therefore, dispose of in the first place. These matters had reference to their interference in the Customs establishment of the colony, the exercise of a veto power by the Crown, and the manner in which the patronage of the Colonial Office had been exercised. He bad stated the other night, with regard to the Customs establishment, that since the repeal of the Act under which the Imperial duties were levied, and more especially since the repeal of the restrictions on navigation, they had ceased to have any interest in the appointment of the officers of the Customs in the colonies. They had, therefore, before the petition from the Legislative Council reached this country, transferred that establishment into the hands of the colonial authorities, and it was placed precisely on the same footing as any other department. As to the disposal of patronage, he thought any complaint on that head was unreasonable and ill-founded. During his long tenure of office he believed that Earl Grey had given as full a recognition to the claims of colonial talent as he could possibly venture to do. With very few exceptions, every nomination to office in that colony was made upon the recommendation of its Executive Government. It had been contended that ii would be of advantage to have a stringent regulation, by which a monopoly would be secured to the inhabitants of that colony of all the offices of trust and emolument within it; but he believed that the introduction of any such regulation would be attended with great inconvenience to the public service. It must be obvious, that occasions would now and then arise where they would require some special knowledge which could not be procured within the narrow limits of a colonial community. He would give an instance of that. A short time ago the Legislature of New South Wales incorporated the University of Sydney, and appointed a Senate, at whose disposal they placed a permanent annual sum of 5,000l., to be applied by the senate in payment of salaries to professors, and for exhibitions to scholars who had shown un-usual proficiency in literature and science. What was the first thing that the Senate of that University did? They wrote a letter to the Astronomer Royal, Sir John Herschell, and others, requesting they would select gentlemen to fill those professorships, on the express ground that it was impossible to obtain properly-qualified persons the colony. The House would, therefore, see that it would be extremely unadvisable to lay down a regulation that under no circumstances should there be any appointment made of persons in this country to offices in New South Wales. With regard to the veto, it was well known that the Crown was a constituent part of every Colonial Legislature. But the representative of the Crown was empowered in each colony to assent or dissent, on the part of the Crown, to colonial ordinances; and if he assented, he did so subject to the disallowing power of the Crown. Whatever might be their confidence in the ability and good intentions of their governors, it would be impossible for them to give them a full discretion over the confirmation or disallowance of local enactments. It was admitted, he believed, that the alleged grievance was more a matter of theory than of practice, and that few ordinances were disallowed. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that the Legislature of New South Wales had suggested that it might be possible to make a distinction between matters that might be considered as local, and those that had an Imperial interest, or appeared to touch the prerogatives of the Crown and that with regard to the local matters there could be no objection to give the Governor power, without any application to the Crown, to act on behalf of Her Majesty. He (Mr. Peel) could only say, with regard to that proposition, that if it were possible to draw a line of demarcation, distinguishing what were local matters and what Imperial, and to do so without restricting the existing powers of the Colonial Legislature, he felt sure there would be no disinclination on the part of the noble Duke at the head of the Colonial Office to consider the propriety of establishing such a distinction. He would now come to the more important part of the petition, which concluded with a proposition in which the Legislative Council said that if they gave to them the exclusive control of their entire revenue, as well territorial as ordinary, and if they assisted them in exercising the power which was conferred upon them by the Act of 1850, for the Amendment of the constitution of the Legislature, they would on their part be willing to bear, not alone the whole cost of their civil expenses, but also to defray the expenses incurred for their military protection: and as a testimony of the sincerity of those assurances of loyalty and devotion which they had so often requested should be carried to the Throne, they were prepared to vote Her Majesty an adequate and ample civil list, in substitutions of the sums contained in the schedule of the Act of the 13 & 14 Vic. The House was aware that it had appropriated a part of the ordinary revenue to the payment of the civil service in the colony; and he believed himself that a permanent provision of that kind, not liable to be capriciously altered by the Legislature, was necessary, in order to secure the services of able and efficient men to act in the colony. He believed that the local Legislature itself took the same view as the House did of the matter; and the point of their complaint was, not that the provision was a permanent one, but that Parliament, by its sole authority, without their concurrence, in contravention of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Declaratory Act of 1788, by which Parliament once for all renounced the power of levying taxes upon their colonial subjects, appropriated a part of the revenue which was raised by taxes imposed by themselves. On considering this question he was inclined to think that the preponderance of the argument in the controversy rested with the colonial Legislature, and therefore he believed the Government were prepared to accept a civil list voted by the colonial Legislature in substitution of the civil list which Parliament had voted. He anticipated that they would have no occasion to repent having taken that course, or to regret the confidence which it betokened in the good sense of the people of New South Wales. He had recently seen the draft of a measure granting a civil list to Her Majesty, which had been prepared by a Committee of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, and he found the sum they were prepared to recommend exceeded considerably the sum Parliament had devoted to the subject. The sum Parliament had devoted for the purpose was 73,000l., and the civil list recommended by the Committee amounted to 88,000l. Moreover, it was impossible for them to know at such a distance what was the amount necessary to carry on the public service. In the colony of Victoria, for instance, they had reserved a sum of 20,000l. for the chief civil departments of the Government; and one would suppose that was a sum that bore some proportion to the ordinary revenue of the colony; but what did the House suppose was the estimated expenditure for the colony of Victoria for the next year? It was not 20,000l., nor twice 20,000l., but it was 1,750,000l., compared with which the sum of 20,000l. was an absolute triviality. Again, we had reserved 2,000l. for the department of the Colonial Secretary; but, looking to the estimate of the sum required for carrying on that department for next year, he found that in consequence of the enormous rise in the rate of wages, and the price of provisions, the sum asked for was just 11,000l, Therefore it was quite clear that Parliament could not do better than allow the colonists to vote their own civil list, in the perfect confidence that they would provide sufficiently for the public service. He would now come to the question of the unappropriated waste lands in the colony, of which the Crown was proprietor as trustee, not for the benefit of the inhabitants of any particular colony, but for the good of the Empire at large. Here again they had the interposition of Parliament. Parliament regulated the price at which those lands were to be sold—Parliament regulated the manner in which the unsold lands should be occupied—and Parliament regulated the manner in which the produce of the land sales should be disposed of. The right hon. Gentleman had omitted to state that the Legislative Council of New South Wales had qualified that Act as a pernicious and impolitic enactment; but he (Mr. Peel) differed entirely from that opinion. He was quite ready to dispute the justice of that opinion, because he believed that the manner in which the Crown had exercised its trust had been of the greatest advantage to the colony. The right hon. Gentleman was not quite correct in stating the object of the Land Sales Act. The right hon. Gentleman would find that in the years 1838 and 1839 as much had been raised from the sale of land as was raised in any year subsequent to the passing of that Act. He (Mr. Peel) would not say that in the Land Sales Act they had stopped at that point in the ascending scale of price which was best for the interest of the colony; but this he was quite certain of, that the two leading principles of the Crown management of waste lands—first, that the land should be sold; and next, that the price should be a fixed price—were sound and just principles. The old system of management had been one of free grants, and the right hon. Gentleman would recollect that in British North America, under that system, enormous grants of land were squandered on persons without capital to carry on cultivation or procure a supply of labour. If they wanted an illustration of the effects of the two systems, let them take Western Australia and Victoria. The first was ruined by the system of free grants, while Victoria, on the contrary, where land was, from the first, sold at a high price, was the most prosperous, and had been all along, of any colony acknowledging the supremacy of the British Crown. But he was prepared to admit that there were considerations having a political complexion which overbalanced the economical advantages of the present management of this matter. They were told by colonial Governors that there was a settled and widespread opinion, extending to the most loyal and respectable persons in the colony, that that was a subject that should be transferred to their respective Legislatures. The right hon. Gentleman had adverted to the condition which he thought it was of much importance should be annexed to such a concession, and considered that a change in the Legislature of New South Wales should precede the actual grant of that power. The right hon. Gentleman would find that the two propositions made were—first, that the land fund should be placed at the disposal of the Council; and next, that they should assist the present Legislative Council to alter the form of its constitution. Now, the present Government were quite ready to give them such assistance. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that Parliament adopted the single Legislative chamber in 1850 because it was in accordance with the wish of the colonists, but he (Mr. Peel) did not think that was quite correct; the object of the Act of 1850, so far as the colony of New South Wales was concerned, was simply to separate from it the district of Victoria. In reality they had left the Legislative Council of New South Wales exactly as it had been for several years. He understood that the Legislative Council was considering the propriety of amending its constitution, and a Bill had been brought in for the purpose of transforming the existing single chamber into two chambers; and in no long time the reception by the Government of the Ordinances for that purpose might be expected. Under these circumstances, the Government intended, before bringing in any measure with respect to the Land Sales Act, to wait and see what was the permanent basis on which the Legislature of New South Wales was to be fixed. The right hon. Gentleman had also adverted to the question of transportation, and he concurred very much in the remarks that had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman on the subject. They had arrived at a conjuncture when the interests of this country and its dependencies had been brought to coincide. The object they originally had in view in selecting transportation as the chief kind of secondary punishment was, to adopt a punishment which, by the terror it inspired, would deter from the commission of crime, and which, in its operation, would have a beneficial tendency, and a reformatory effect upon the hearts and the habits and moral characters of those who were subjected to the penalty. These two objects had been effectually accomplished by transportation. The removal of the offenders to the antipodes, the long sea voyage, and the infrequency of communication with that part of the world, were circumstances that combined to invest transportation with a sort of vague and undefined apprehension. With regard to the beneficial effect of transportation upon the convicts who were sent to the colonies, he found the testimony of all those who had been in Van Diemen's Land, and the testimony was invariably to the same effect, was, that the great majority of the convicts who had been sent to Van Diemen's Land, having been removed from temptation, had become, as might be expected, orderly and industrious people, who were willing to conform themselves to the laws of society. But since the discovery of gold, all the circumstances had been entirely changed. The removal to Australia was no longer regarded with terror; on the contrary, last summer the office of the Emigration Commissioners was crowded with persons asking to be sent to that colony; and with regard to the effect that was likely to be produced on the discipline of the convicts in Van Diemen's Land, he need only remind the House that the gold mines were in close proximity to the penal settlements, and therefore the temptation to escape and make large gains would overpower the dread of being apprehended. He would remind the House also of the immense increase in the expenses of transportation. It would be impossible to retain the services of the officers in the penal establishments unless their salaries were increased, and if they were kept up he should not be surprised if the House were called upon to pay twice the present amount for their support. But by far the strongest inducement to discontinue transportation to Van Diemen's Land arose from the repugnance to it of the colonists in the Australian settlements. They had established Legisla- tive Councils in each of those colonies, and not one alone; but each and every of the Legislative Councils had petitioned Her Majesty, and had passed Resolutions condemnatory of the system, and asking this country to put an end to the system. These, therefore, were among the considerations that had weighed with Her Majesty's Government in arriving at the same conclusion as their predecessors. From communications that had passed between different departments, he was satisfied that the Government, with the assistance that Parliament might be called upon to give them, and the means they had of removing a certain number of convicts to Western Australia, would be able to make arrangements by which it would be quite possible to dispose of all their criminals on whom sentence of transportation might be pronounced in the course of the year; and he would now conclude his observations, having gone through, he believed, all the points on which the right hon. Gentleman had sought information.

said, it must be a matter of great pride and satisfaction to the members of the Colonial Reform Association, who combined together to recall the attention of the country to the proper principles of colonial government, to hear that almost every suggestion which they had made three years ago, the force of circumstances obliged successive Ministers to carry out. The Ex-Colonial Minister and his successors were vying with each other for the credit of adopting them. He had received a letter bearing upon this subject from Mr. Pox, the agent in this country for the Wellington colonists, who was now travelling in the United States. He contrasted the United States with this country, and says that the rapid growth of the new States in the west was simply attributable to the localisation of the functions of government in them. In reference to Canada, the writer said that since the management of its own affairs was entrusted to it, its progress was most astonishing, and that Western Canada for the first time surpassed the United States in the rapidity of its progress. Toronto had six times the population which it had in Sir Francis Head's time, and was one of the finest cities west of New York. The particular subjects interesting to the Australian colonies were the gift of the civil list, and of the control of the waste lands. He was happy to find that the first point was conceded by the Government. With regard to the land sales, New South Wales from 1843 to 1850 had been pressing the question on the attention of this House, and annual petitions were presented on the subject. These petitions were signed by the majority of the inhabit ants of the colony, and were backed up by the Colonial Government. They were also supported from time to time by all the magistracy and by the unanimous vote of the Legislative Council. In this respect the present Government seemed to lag-behind their predecessors, and to be reluctant to grant this reasonable request, There was no question which pressed so ungently as that of giving the colony the control over the land sales and the appropriation of the proceeds. It was a question of life and death with them. While the Imperial Parliament, or the authorities in this country, managed emigration out of these funds, the cost per head charged upon the local revenue was exactly 50 per cent greater than the cost of sending out emigrants by any other means to Australia. And not only was a waste of 50 per cent out of their resources inflicted by the system, but the kind of emigrants sent out was not such as the colonists themselves wished to have. It seemed to him (Mr. Adderley) that the Colonial Legislature alone could deal with the question; and he was perfectly certain the Government were now only postponing what they would ultimately be obliged to do. Whilst they were postponing it, unfortunately they inflicted great loss on this country; for the Australians themselves said, "Give us the control of our land revenue, and we will undertake to maintain the administration of our own affairs and our own defences." For his part, he confessed he thought the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Pakington) had shown his policy to have possessed considerable superiority over that of the present Government by the resolution he had taken at once to give up the land revenue to the colonies. His surrender to the Colonial Government of the gold discovered in Australia, was one of the most statesmanlike acts he (Mr. Adderley) had ever witnessed. The right hon. Gentleman had the great credit due to him of having done that in time, which the Government would undoubtedly have been ultimately compelled to do. He had thereby elicited from the colonists those thanks which would have been entirely lost had the concession been made from necessity and not from choice. With regard to some of the Members of the Government, he could hardly conceive how, with the opinions they bad so often expressed, they could agree to the delay of the offer of the control of the land revenue which the right hon. Gentleman had made. One of the Secretaries of the Board of Control in particular (Mr. Lowe) had rendered himself eminent as the advocate of giving up the land revenue to the colonies. The most able arguments in support of such a policy had been delivered by that hon. Gentleman, and it was chiefly to those arguments that he (Mr. Adderley) attributed his own strong convictions upon the subject. One thing more he must take credit for to those Gentlemen who three years ago pressed for colonial reform. During the discussions on the Australian colonies which took place in 1850, the point which was more especially urged than any other was this: that Lord Grey, did not take the best mode of giving a constitution to the colony. It was said that he had two courses before him. He might either have given them the best constitution in his power to give, which would have been two chambers; or else have given them an efficient constituent assembly, representing the whole colony, whose sole and immediate duty it would be to frame a constitution for themselves. But the Bill of the noble Karl did neither one nor the other. True, it gave a body which might act as a constituent assembly, but, in the first place, that body did not represent all classes in the colony; on the contrary, it was a sort of nondescript assembly, composed of nominees of the Government and representatives of the people, and, indeed, such as were the least likely to adopt measures that would lead to the formation of a constitution of a satisfactory character. Besides, they were empowered to act as a permanent Legislature if they pleased, and not only as a constituent assembly, and were, therefore, not likely to abdicate to others. The argument used against giving the most perfect constitution to the colony, in the first place, was, that the Government were anxious to defer to the wishes of the colonists themselves, but that those wishes had never been clearly expressed. The result was, in practice, that which had been predicted in 1850—that, as he understood the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Pakington) the Government at home had been obliged to advise the colonies to proceed to the exercise of the constituent powers given to them under the 35th clause of the Act, and which powers they had not yet exercised of themselves. Moreover, he understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that he had been obliged to attach certain privileges to those who acted under the powers of that clause, which operated as an inducement to them to act, and that but for those privileges they would not have been willing to do so. He would add, for the purpose of leaving on record his own opinion, that there were only two or three things more which were necessary to be done, in order to give the Australian constitution a perfectly British form. He concluded, of course, that the division of legislative chambers would be effected; and he hoped that both these chambers would be elective. He hoped also that the veto of the Crown upon local legislation would be distinctly given up. It was so in the New Zealand Act, he would not say absolutely given up, but restricted to two months, which was however, giving it up. Whilst the colony of New Zealand was exempt from the reference home upon its local legislation, he could not see why the Australian colonies should have their local legislation saddled with this reference home, which impeded the operation of the most urgent local enactments and undertakings for two years. So completely did this reference home restrict and impede local legislation, that he hesitated not to say that it was the main cause of the Australian colonies not having advanced with the same rapidity with which the United States of America had advanced. The right hon. Gentleman the late Secretary for the Colonies had stated, indeed, that they had advanced considerably, and he had said how little human foresight had to do with the course of events. On the other hand, he (Mr. Adderley) would say that the comparative progress of the United States of America and our Australian colonies showed distinctly how much human foresight had to do with it; for if we had only had the foresight to remove the impediments which stood in the way of the advancement of our colonies, we should have found that the same great Anglo-Saxon race which had raised the United States to the first rank among the nations of the world, would have raised those colonies to an equal pitch of greatness and importance. He would now say a few words with regard to the subject of transportation. That was another point which the advocates of colonial reform had from time to time pressed upon the attention of Parliament and the Government; and he was happy to find that circumstances had at last compelled the carrying into effect the recommendations they made. It was now high time that this should be so, for he could conceive nothing more injurious to the interests and honour of this country than the system of prevarication, change of purpose, breach of faith, and perpetual infractions of promises, which had attended the long course of experiments by which this country had attempted to keep up that anomalous and vicious system of penal discipline, at one time under the name of transportation, at another under that of "deportation." It had been said, that criminals by transportation frequently became honest men; but did it never occur to those who used that argument, that the improvement of those criminals arose from their having greater space, and being afforded more ample means of occupation? And he would ask the House whether it would not be better to use those corrective means of space and occupation before crime was committed than afterwards? Let them try emigration, therefore. If the colonies were used for emigration, then those who in this country were led by the pressure of their circumstances to perpetrate crime, would find means of honest living opened up to them before they had become criminals. Thus we should avoid the anomaly of first making criminals and then injuring our colonies by making them places in which to punish them. Let it be borne in mind that the Government of this country were pledged upon that subject, though the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Peel) did not seem to recollect it, or to have condemned the system of transportation, as he should do, as a selfish system, in which the country considered its own interests alone, and not those of colonies, and used, or rather abused, the colonies only for its own shortsighted purposes. But what was the main cause which had at last produced the consummation of the wishes of those who had so long denounced the system of transportation? The system of transportation to Australia had become a perfect farce by the discovery of gold in those colonies. In regard to this subject, the colonists themselves had shown a much higher feeling than the Parliament and Government at home; for in the existing pressure of circumstances there, where labour of any kind at any cost was a great object to the colony, it would have been excusable if they had silenced the dictates of conscience, and, acting on the promptings of self-interest, had submitted to be degraded by this country as a receptacle for its convicts, and had accepted as a matter of urgent necessity the convicted felons of England to supply the demands of their labour market. But Australia had been proof even against the influence of such a temptation as that. Undoubtedly there were some parties in the colony who would have been ready to snatch at the cargoes of convicts from this country to supply the deficiency of labour. But that, he was happy to say, was not the feeling of the colony at large. The Anti-Transportation League made it necessary that the system should be abandoned. The Governors of Australia recommended that it should be given up, and the first acts of the new local Legislatures, by large majorities, were to ask us to abandon it. From what he had heard since the commencement of the discussion, he understood that transportation was still to go on to Wes-tern Australia. He was sorry for it, because, although Western Australia might be looked on almost as a distinct country, yet, as South Australia, which by its charter was more guarded than any other Australian colony from this infliction, had suffered from the immigration of convicts, and recollecting that this was a matter of feeling and sensitiveness on the part of the colonists towards this country, he was convinced that it would be impossible to maintain very long a system of transportation to Western Australia. But so long as Western Australia was to be made a depot for the worst criminals they could find, he would beg that House not to drive the convict population there to one more crime, more gross than any they had committed here. He (Mr. Adderley) would even gravely propose that the House should make an annual vote to supply, in the persons of the very lowest outcasts of our women in this country, those who perhaps would make suitable wives for the colonists with which the mother country was going to people Western Australia. He would only add his hope that the noble Lord would carry out and realise those high expectations which his opening speech at the reassembling of Parliament had raised, and that, as transportation had failed and broken down, the Government would deal with the whole question of secondary punishments. They had the power to do much now, and knew not how long their unusual power would last: they might entitle themselves, when it failed, to the grateful recollections of the country, and he hoped they would deal with this great question without delay. One of the principal parts of the subject, however, for their consideration was whether a better system for the treatment of juvenile offenders could not he adopted, so as to staunch the first springs of crime, and so most effectually reduce within manageable amount the number of criminals to be dealt with by such restricted means of punishment.

Sir, the right hon. Gentleman the late Secretary of State for the Colonies, who brought this subject forward, having, as I think, been justified in calling the attention of the House to the present state of circumstances relating to these colonies, and having stated what the preceding Government intended as to those colonies, I should have hardly thought it necessary to trouble the House at all, had not the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, made, as I think, some extraordinary mistakes upon this question, which it would not be right to leave uncorrected. I have long thought that with respect to these questions, and several others to some extent connected with them, though we have had very frequent and long debates in this House, there has not been much difference as to principle, though there has been considerable difference as to the time and mode of carrying changes into effect. What must be recollected in treating this subject is, that the colony of New South Wales was not founded by emigrants and a free Government, but was founded in 1786 for the purpose of transporting criminals to that colony with the consent of the somewhat despotic Government of that day. This was the purpose for which it was destined from 1786 to 1837, when my right hon. Friend, now the Chief Commissioner of the Board of Works (Sir W. Molesworth), whose absence this evening I regret, pressed for a Committee of this House on this subject of transportation: a Committee was appointed, and all the evidence taken before that Committee; and the general opinion of that Committee did but confirm that wise opinion of Lord Bacon, that "it is an unblessed thing to plant with the scum of your population." The greatest evils and the most dreadful crimes were found to result from that system of transportation. Some three years later, being then Secretary for the Colonies, I procured an Order in Council by which transportation to New South Wales was to cease, and from that time the character of the colony was changed, and it became, from having been a large prison, a colony which was thenceforward to run the same career which our free and noble colonies have run In 1842 the Earl of Derby, being Secretary for the Colonies, introduced measures which I think had been partly considered by his predecessors, being measures for the sale of land at certain fixed prices, and by which a Legislative Council in those colonies was to be formed, to consist not entirely of nominees of the Crown, but to be partly elective. At a later period my noble Friend Earl Grey proposed to extend the representative principle to Van Diemen's Land, South Australia, and Western Australia. He proposed also to divide Victoria from the colony of New South Wales. It was on that occasion that the debates arose to which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) has referred, but I don't think in a very accurate manner. The question at that time was whether we were at once to change the whole constitution of that colony by Parliamentary authority, or whether we were to continue the existing constitution of that colony, leaving it to the colonists to frame institutions fitted, it might be, for their government better than anything we could frame in this country. The latter view was what the Government took, and an Act of Parliament embodying those views was passed accordingly. The hon. Gentleman certainly made a proposition for a constituent assembly for those colonies, but that proposition was not approved by the House. The question now raised was brought forward within the last year; and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the late Secretary of State for the Colonies will recollect that when he first came into office I took the liberty of informing him that he would find the subject of transportation most deserving of his attention, and would require immediate deliberation, and that the question of the constitution of New South Wales and of Van Diemen's Land was well worthy of his consideration. I must say that I think the late Government acted wisely, according to the circumstances of the time, in the resolution to which they came. They gave it as their opinion that the Land Sales Act should be altered, and that the colonies themselves should have the power of controlling the sales of land, and the distribution of the proceeds. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) seems to think that the present Government have rather restricted the Resolution come to by the late Government in that respect; but I submit that that is not the case; in fact, they have not restricted it, and, if they have altered it, they have rather enlarged the scope of the Resolution. What the late Government stated was, that they wished a constitution to be framed in which there should be a Legislative Council nominated by the Crown, and a popular Assembly representing the people, and that on receiving a constitution so framed, with respect to the particular number of members in the Legislative Council, the Government intended to introduce a Bill giving power to the Colonial Government and Legislature to dispose of the waste lands. The present Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Duke of Newcastle, has said that if a proposal should reach this country for a change of constitution, he should consider the propriety of introducing a measure on the subject. The difference between the two measures is not much, and the proposition of the present Government is not less liberal than that of the former. With respect to that great question of transportation, I hardly can deal with it at present; but the hon. Gentleman has scarcely in this respect fairly represented the conduct of my noble Friend Earl Grey when he was Secretary of State for the Colonies. What he proposed soon after entering office was, that persons convicted in this country should continue to be sent to Van Diemen's Land, but should not be sent in the character of convicts, but in that of exiles. There would, according to this plan, be about the same number sent to Van Diemen's Land—only under a different name—that there would have been sent before under the name of transported convicts. So far from it being a benefit to the colony that they should bear the character of exiles, it was thought better that the authorities of the colony should have the power over them which they would have over men who had been guilty of crime. The system was adopted of tickets of leave. That was the principal change made. Two circumstances, however, occurred worthy of notice. One was, that Sir William Denison, who is an able and efficient Governor, unfortunately mistook the instructions, and gave intimation to the Assembly that transportation was about to be abandoned, instead of explaining that the same number, or about the same number, would be sent to the colony under a different name. The House of Lords then resolved to inquire into the subject, and the impression produced by that inquiry was unfavourable to the punishment of transportation. It is obvious, from the circumstances stated by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Pakington), that the late Government had resolved at the end of the last year that, as soon as possible, they would discontinue transportation to Van Diemen's Land. That determination having been deliberately adopted, there arises here a most important question with respect to the substitution of a secondary punishment. The right hon. Gentleman the late Secretary of State for the Colonies asked us what was our decision on that point, and what was our opinion; but at the same time no one is more competent than he is to see of how great importance a decision on this subject is, and that the Government ought to take full time for deliberation before their decision is pronounced. I only ask that the Government may be allowed that time to consider this highly important subject. No unnecessary delay will occur; and as soon as we decide on the substitute that is most efficient for the purpose, we shall lose no time in laying a measure before Parliament.

said, he cordially expressed his satisfaction at observing the concurrence on both sides of the House in the propositions and principles which the hon. Member for North Staffordshire (Mr. Adderley) and others had attempted to impress on Her Majesty's Government Recollecting the early attempts he (Mr. Hume) made to impress on the Government the propriety of leaving the Colonies free from the trammels imposed by Downing-street, and recollecting that he had been called a rebel because he advocated reform in Canada, he had the greater satisfaction in perceiving how matters had come round, and would now say, "Let bygones be bygones." Sir William Denison made his statement on the 24th of July, 1847; but last year a sum was voted to take out convicts; and the thanks of the Colonial Assembly had been giver to him (Mr. Hume) for having pointed out what were their wishes to the people of England, ineffective as his opposition ad proved. No man in this House had more clearly expressed the principles on which our colonial policy ought to he conducted, than the noble Lord the Member for the City of London (Lord John Russell), especially in the despatch written by the noble Lord when Mr. Poulett Thompson, afterwards Lord Sydenham, was appointed to the Government of Canada; and when the constitution for the Cape of Good Hope came under discussion last year, the noble Lord, in an excellent speech, laid down the principles which he (Mr. Hume) had always thought might be most beneficially applied to the colonies, as to this country. What he complained of was, that the noble Lord had not been consistent; one year suspending the Canadian constitution, another year resorting to coercion. But he (Mr. Hume) should bury in oblivion what was past if the noble Lord continued to act on the principles he had now laid down. There was some reason to complain of the vacillating policy that from time to time had interfered with emigration—the best remedy for the evils arising from reduction of wages and other causes in England. He did not see the hon. Member the brother of Sir William Denison in the House; but he must say that no man stood more in opposition to the feelings of the people in Van Diemen's Land than Sir William Denison. The Government ought to have people there who had the talent for conciliating and making their counsels and feelings accord with the wishes of the inhabitants. The hon. Under Secretary for the Colonies, who had to-night made an admirable exposition, and with whom he only differed on a few points, would learn from experience that when colonists, in meeting after meeting, and legislature after legislature, persisted in asserting their views, the best course was to remove the causes of agitation. Whenever there was a colony with whom the Governor could not act in harmony, one might depend upon it there was something wrong. He hoped the present Government would he in advance of the late Government, and he should rejoice if every one of our colonies were allowed to manage its own affairs.

said, he hoped the hon. Baronet the Member for the Uni- versity of Oxford would not object to the Motion for going into Committee of the whole House, for the purpose of affording an opportunity for explanation of the views of the Government with reference to the civil disabilities affecting the Jews. It had been customary to bring forward matters of this kind in Committee of the whole House, and when, in 1830, the question was brought forward by Sir Robert Grant, the course now suggested was taken.

said, he was strongly opposed to such a course, because he felt it to be a concession of the first step; and he was not prepared to allow the noble Lord to advance that step in a course which he believed detrimental alike to the religious interests and feelings of the people of the country, and to the civil rights of the House.

Sir, the hon. Member for the University of Oxford having objected to take that course which was allowed to be taken more than twenty years ago, it is necessary that I should state the nature of the proposition I have to make before the House resolves itself into Committee. In so doing I shall state, in the first place, that it would have been more agreeable to me, acting according to the views which I explained to my constituents, if I could have brought forward at this time a proposal with regard to the mode in which we take the oaths in this House before we are entitled to take our seats. I stated to my constituents that I thought the oath we take ought to be but one, and that one simple in its character; that it ought to be for members of all religions, and ought not to be entangled with the various professions made by persons of different religious persuasions; and that it should not be necessary for a Protestant to aver one thing, for a Roman Catholic to aver another, and for both to affirm certain propositions with respect to a person calling himself the successor of James II.; as to whom we need trouble ourselves very little in the present day. But I am aware, and if I were not aware I should be convinced of the fact from the discussion of yesterday and of the previous day, that I could hardly propose to alter the law with respect to the Roman Catholics, without raising a discussion in regard to the Established Church of Ireland, and in regard to the intentions of Roman Catholic Members, and thus producing a great deal of heat and controversy on a question which is not the immediate question I propose at this time to bring before the House. That which I wish to do—that which I propose to myself by this separate measure—is so far to complete the edifice of religious liberty as to allow to the Jewish subjects of Her Majesty the same enjoyment of the rights and privileges of British subjects which is at present possessed by the Protestant Dissenters and by the Roman Catholics. Now, Sir, I am aware that in bringing forward this question I must labour under a great disadvantage. I know perfectly well that those who are opposed to me have it to say that the Jews, being not very considerable in numbers—not being very powerful by their influence throughout the country—have not the means of inducing their opponents to concede those claims, which others, who urged those claims on the ground of religious liberty, possessed. I know it may be asked, where are the petitions, where are the meetings threatening to the tranquillity of the country—where are the menaces against the Government and the Houses of Parliament, which induced us to agree to the concession of the Roman Catholic claims? The opponents of this measure may say—where is that political influence—where is that influence on the elections of cities and boroughs for Members of this House, which made it necessary to concede the claims of the Protestant Dissenters, and to abolish the Test and Corporation Acts? You have, I may be told, nothing to produce but the mere reasons of justice and expediency! You have nothing but the truth, justice, and charity of your proposals! and is it to be imagined that those who so long resisted the same arguments on behalf of the Roman Catholics— that those who resisted the same arguments so long and so determinedly, though enforced by the authority of the greatest statesmen in this House and in this country—that those who so long obliged the Protestant Dissenters to wear the galling chains of the Test and Corporation Acts, will yield now, when the mere question before them is of granting to men inconsiderable in number, and of no means of influencing the House, the claims they come forward to urge? But I trust that if you, who may be influenced by such considerations—without urging the generosity of the House—perceive that these claims are consonant with justice and reason—that the great principles of religious liberty which we have adopted enforce those claims—you will be satisfied by that justice, that yon will be satisfied by those arguments of reason, and that you will show not only that you are willing to grant such claims, when enforced in the manner I have said, but that you will act impartially, and grant them when no such extrinsic means are used to press them upon you. Sir, I am the more persuaded that the House will adopt this course, because I believe that the principles of religious liberty are generally entertained by the people of this country, and I believe that, those principles of religious liberty being so entertained, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Jewish subjects of Her Majesty ought to enjoy the benefit of them. It is not enough to say "there is a prejudice against the Jews—that this name is unpopular—we choose to indulge this prejudice, and we will not listen to what you hare to say on their behalf;" because it would not redound to the character of this House, if, when all reason and argument are in their favour, a prejudice against them should be indulged in. The first proposition I lay down, then, and it is one which will, I think, go far to establish my position, is, that in no time of the history of this country when legislative disabilities were imposed, have those legislative disabilities been grounded on a difference of religious faith. I speak not of the times when men were put to death because they did not entertain the opinions which prevailed among the majority. I speak not of those times when Roman Catholics like Sir Thomas More, and when Protestants like Bishop Latimer were fully satisfied in their consciences in condemning men to capital punishments, and in executing them on account of differences in their religious belief. I speak not of those times—but I allude to the times when disabilities were imposed, and when for certain offices and seats in Parliament oaths were required to be taken. On former occasions when I brought forward this question, I have stated that the words "on the true faith of a Christian," in the oath of abjuration, which are the words —and the only words be it remarked— which prevent a Jew from sitting in this House, were introduced with no such purpose; that they were introduced with a view to no such result; but that they were introduced for the purpose of excluding certain Roman Catholics, whom at the time it was thought necessary to distinguish from other persons of the same religion; the one set being intent on de- throning the Sovereign, on dethroning Queen Elizabeth or James I., and the other set being loyally disposed and attached to the institutions of the country. I endeavoured to prove this from the history of the times; but there has since appeared a most remarkable confirmation of that view, which was alluded to in the judgment delivered by Baron Alderson in the Court of Exchequer, in the case of Mr. Salomons, who was sued for penalties for taking his seat in this House. It was stated by Baron Alderson on that occasion in the following words:—

"It is a curious fact, only lately brought to light by the publication of a manuscript from the Bodleian Library at Oxford by Mr. Jardine, that one of the main proofs used by Lord Coke when he laid that case (the case of the Gunpowder Plot) before the jury was the production of a little book found in the chamber of Francis Tresham, one of the conspirators mentioned in the Act, called A Treatise on Equivocation."

It goes on to say that this treatise discusses the question whether a man being called on to make a declaration or promise, as he thinks unjustly, and without grounds on which he can fairly be called on to make it, may be entitled to break that promise by the use of mental reservation or equivocation, without incurring the sin of lying or the guilt of perjury; and among other positions it was affirmed that he might lawfully do this, even if he were required by the form of the oath tendered in terms to swear "without equivocation or mental reservation." There was, however, one exception to this, and that was in the case where his faith was involved, and if he was called on to make a promise on his faith, and did so, that then he was bound to perform it. Baron Alderson proceeds to remark that after this treatise had been made use of at the trial of the "Gunpowder Plot," an Act was introduced in that year in which the words "on the true faith of a Christian" were for the first time found; and Mr. Baron Alderson, as I think very justly, inferred that they were so introduced for the purpose of excluding persons of the Roman Catholic persuasion, who were not true to the Crown, and who would refuse to take that oath, when these words were introduced, and he comes clearly to this conclusion:—

"I do not, therefore, call this properly an oath intended as a test of Christianity, which it was not, nor as a mere test of obedience, but an oath intended as a test of allegiance, and framed so as to be a test against all equivocation also."

Therefore this oath was intended to be an oath of loyalty and obedience—it was intended to bind all persons who would not break that oath when so framed; and the words "on the true faith of a Christian" were not inserted in any contemplation to exclude the Jews, but for a totally different purpose. That this was so is the more apparent perhaps, because in the time of the Commonwealth an oath was introduced wherein persons declared their adherence to it—declared themselves Christians—and renounced Popery and Prelacy. This oath made a declaration that they were Christians, and was clearly intended by the authorities of the Commonwealth to be a religious oath, and to be a test of religious faith. But on the restoration of the monarchy that oath was not persisted in, but was disused and laid aside; and from that time to the present no oath has been introduced with a view of making the profession of religious faith a ground of exclusion from Parliament. For when, in the days of Charles II., it was again proposed to exclude Roman Catholics, it will be seen very clearly by any one who studies the history of the time, that it was on account of political doctrines which were supposed to be connected with the faith of Roman Catholics, and on account of doctrines held to be adverse to the establishment in this kingdom of a Protestant king and of Protestant institutions; and that it was on account of these doctrines that even a declaration against transubstantiation was introduced. It was the same thing with respect to the Dissenters. The Protestant Dissenters were held up to odium as persons who had lately overthrown the monarchy and established a republic; and it was said that the State would never be safe while the Dissenters, who had thus overthrown both the Church and the Throne, were admitted to political power; and hence Corporation and Test Acts, by which it was proposed to exclude them from offices of trust in the State or in honours. The same argument was afterwards used by Dean Sherlock, but not to the same extent, when he said it was impossible to believe that Protestant Dissenters would not overthrow our institutions in Church and State if they were admitted to full political freedom. You will find also in the reigns of William III. and of his successors, and during the reign of the first princes of the House of Hanover, that the same fear of political dangers arising from the political doctrines of the Roman Catholics prevailed. You will find that from the time when the question of Catholic emancipation was introduced, in 1805, down to 1829, the same fear was entertained, and that the keenest wits of the age were employed in discussing that great question. You will find that Mr. Perceval and many others who argued against the claims of the Roman Catholics, hardly ever alleged that the religion of the Roman Catholics alone was sufficient ground for their exclusion and disqualification; but they said that persons who belonged to that faith would not pay perfect and undivided allegiance to the Sovereign; they were likely to overthrow our political institutions, and that for that reason they were not to be trusted with seats in Parliament. Thus, you see that from the beginning of this disqualification, in 1605, down to its abolition in 1829, the argument had always been, that persons belonging to a certain religion, whether dissenting from the Church of England as Protestants, or dissenting from the Church of England as Roman Catholics, had connected with their faith certain political doctrines which make them unsafe depositaries of power. You never find that faith or religion alone is made a ground of disqualification. I therefore contend, Sir, that it was not until 1830 that, for the first time, this special ground of religious faith was introduced, and that the principle of religious persecution was maintained in Parliament after two centuries in which it had been abandoned. Thus, when we had seen the disabilities of the Roman Catholics and of the Protestant Dissenters removed entirely, it was thought that the time was come for removing the disabilities of the Jews; and in April, 1830, a lamented statesman, Sir Robert Grant, introduced the great principle of religious liberty with respect to the Jews, and proposed the removal of their disqualifications. He argued the question in 1830, and in the subsequent years, on all the grounds of justice and reason, and he contended for the great principle that religious difference—that religious doctrine—is no sufficient ground for depriving a man of the privileges of a British subject. And that, Sir, is the question on which we have now to decide. All those temporary disqualifications, founded on the special ground of Roman Catholics and of Dissenters, have been swept away. With respect to the Jews, no such danger—no such inconvenience—no such obstacles can ever be pretended to exist as were urged in the case of Roman Catholics and Dissenters. I ask you then, are men, on account of their religious faith to be disqualified, or are they not? Can you or can you not maintain, that, because a man believes in the Old Testament, and does not believe in the New—for that is really the question—are you, on account of what you believe to be the errors of his faith, to deprive a man of polical power and of civil privileges? Now I contend—I will not argue the question, for it has been argued over and over again by men whom I should be quite unfit to follow—but I will contend that differences of religious opinion, that errors in faith, are no ground whatever for depriving a man of his right to serve the Crown and to sit in Parliament. These are men who are British subjects, who hold land, who are in the possession of property, who exercise many civil privileges connected with local affairs—who hold office in corporations, who discharge their duty to their fellow-citizens, and perform them faithfully and honestly; —they are men ready at all times to bear allegiance to Her Majesty—they are men on whom you, without doubt or scruple, impose all the burdens which your taxes place on persons, whether for public duties or for the service of the State—and I say that you, being in that position towards them, have no right to say to them, "We will debar you from those privileges and rewards which your station as British subjects entitles you to possess." Well, I say, then, there are no special grounds alleged for this disability. I believe I must refer to some grounds which have been alleged against the course I propose; but I own it appears to me they have been so thoroughly disposed of by former discussions that I will allude to them but very shortly. It is said in the first place, that the Jews are not as much British subjects as ourselves—that they are a separate nation—and that as a separate nation you cannot admit them to the privileges of British subjects. But what is the fact? It is a fact that those whom you propose to admit are not aliens. If they were aliens they could not take their seats in this House nor hold office. They hold offices; they are therefore British subjects by the very force of the proposition, Being British subjects, they perform all the duties of British subjects, and the term "alien" is not in any way applicable to them. If you say, indeed, that they have descended from persons settled in other nations, and that, therefore, they cannot hold office in this country, in saying that you lay down a principle which would apply to many others you could scarcely wish to exclude. If you are putting their exclusion not on a question of religion, but of national prejudice—if you found it on their connexion with other people settled in other lands, I say there are happily many families in this country who came over to us from time to time, as after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, or when they were driven away by religious persecution from other countries, or came over for the purposes of trade, whose descendants enjoy all the privileges enjoyed by other British subjects. Take as an example a great family which came over to us in the time of William III., the head of which now sits in the House of Lords—I allude to the Duke of Portland—while another branch of that family is still settled in Holland, a member of which is at this time the distinguished representative of that country at our Court. It is clear, then, that on account of his connexion with others in a different nation, you cannot prohibit a man from the exercise of the privileges to which as a subject he is entitled. But then it is said—and certainly it is an argument which one hardly dares to touch—that these persons are doomed to be divided and separated from all nations, and that they must remain so till prophecy is accomplished. I have always said in this House, that is an argument with which it is impossible to deal; it is not for us to carry out the decrees of Providence. What we know is, that the Jews are established in many countries— that they are recognised in France, in Holland, and in many other places, and that they are admitted to all the privileges which the native-born subjects of those countries enjoy, and are acknowledged as citizens of those countries. It is not because they are more or less numerous that those privileges are conferred on them; still less it is because you grant a number of privileges and rights to one class of persons in this country, and withhold them from another, that you will either promote the designs of Almighty power or of Almighty wisdom. I hold, therefore, that these arguments do not apply. Well, but then, what doubt is there with respect to the maintenance of the constitution of this country by the Jews if they should be admitted into the Legislature? One argument with regard to the admission of Roman Catholics, and also with respect to the admission of Protestant Dissenters, was intended to show, that if they were admitted into Parliament they would not fulfil those duties which you wished from them in the maintenance of the constitution both in the Church and State. There might have been some ground for such an argument in respect to Roman Catholics and to Dissenters; but, with regard to the Jews, hardly any person would venture to state that it could possibly apply. In the first place, their number is so exceedingly few as a portion of the people, and the number who would be likely to be Members of this House would be so proportionally small, as to make it impossible for them to attempt to injure your constitution; but, in the next place, it is perfectly well known that the Jews are well satisfied to maintain their own religion and faith without attempting to convert others, or to attain a supremacy in any Christian nation. It is well known, that while maintaining most rigidly their own religion, they do not attempt to make that religion prevail, and that the last thing they would think of would be that of entering into any cabal or combination for the purpose of rescinding your civil and religious liberties. With respect to the last question, namely, their moral character, no man can deny that although the Jews are not many among us—some 30,000 or 40,000—yet they are known in the social relations of life as men of great charity, always ready to help whenever any act of charity is to be performed. It is well known that there is no people who more quietly and unostentatiously perform their civil duties to their neighbours and to the State under which they live. What, then, are the arguments—what, then, are the reasons, which remain to be urged why the Jews should not be admitted to the full enjoyment of all the privileges of their fellow British subjects? I believe there is no argument, no sufficient reason, why they should be excluded from those privileges; and that there remains nothing to urge against their claims but the prejudice and the notion that you are a Christian nation and a Christian Legislature, and that you would alter and degrade that nation and that Legislature by the admission of the Jews into Parliament. Well, Sir, if this nation is a Christian nation, as I say it is, it will remain a Christian nation, although you admit Jews into its Legislature. If the great majority —if nearly all the Members of this House will still be Christians, then it is clear that even after this law shall have been enacted, the name of a Christian Legislature will hardly pass away from us. Greatly, indeed, were it to be wished that that Christian spirit which we pray for in the beautiful form of the Church of England, that we should hold to the faith "in the unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life," were a prayer which might be accomplished over all the Members of this Legislature! I have never said that it is a matter of indifference whether the Christian character should or should not prevail in the two Houses of Parliament. I have always said that religion has no business apart from the business of life, and certainly it has none apart or separate from the business of legislation. When I say this, I mean it in that spirit to which I have referred. But when in place of a unity of spirit you have a diversity of doctrine—when, instead of the bond of peace, you have nothing but contention—and when instead of righteousness of life you have such men as Wilkes introduced into this House, I ask what is the benefit of your oath, and in what way does that oath secure that you are a Christian Legislature? Let us then not attempt to found our Christianity upon so flimsy, so worthless a basis. If, as I trust is the case, the Christian character prevails more now than it did a century ago; if it prevails more in the nation and in the Legislature, it is not because you maintain these oaths; it is because greater attention is paid by men to their religious duties, and because a better system prevails for the inculcation of the Christian doctrines. Let us rely then upon this; and, although you may have two or three persons of the Jewish faith in your House of Commons, depend upon it that this House will bear the character of a Christian Legislature far more truly than it did when Gibbon was one of its ornaments. If that is the case, I ask you to do away with this remaining persecution, with this remaining disqualification—I ask you to say that your doors shall be open to men of the Jewish faith who are British subjects like yourselves— men on whose loyalty you can rely—men of whose co-operation you will be glad. So doing, you can then with a clear conscience say, whatever other nations may do, we hold and accept the principles of religious liberty, and we grant that liberty to men who differ from us in religious opinion. Sir, I ask the House to agree to go into Committee upon this subject. I ask you to take away this last disqualification, and then you may with truth say that having, for political reasons, done away with it in regard to others, you have now done away with this remaining disqualification solely upon the grounds of truth and justice; that you have no other ground to do it away upon but truth and justice; and that it is upon that truth and that justice that you found your truly Christian character. I now beg to move that you, Sir, leave the chair, in order that the House go into Committee of the whole House, to take into consideration certain civil disabilities affecting the Jews.

said, before he endeavoured to reply to the speech of the noble Lord, he must be permitted to state why he objected to that speech being addressed to Mr. Wilson Patten. The noble Lord, from the tone of his very first observations, seemed to imply, as he (Sir R. H. Inglis) fully anticipated, that he regarded it as some advantage to have gained one step in the progress of the present measure. If it were a gain to him, it must be an injury to those who opposed him; and therefore he (Sir R. H. Inglis) felt that he at least would not be one who would pull off his hat and open the gate to enable the noble Lord to get into that which he (Sir R. H. Inglis) regarded as a sacred enclosure. Let the noble Lord break down the barrier if he could—God forbid that he should!—still it should not be any fault on his (Sir R. H. Inglis's) part if the course were made easier than it was. The noble Lord had asked, Why should that be refused now which was conceded to Mr. Robert Grant in 1830? Possibly they were wrong in having at that time conceded that step to Mr. Robert Grant; but if they had done wrong before, they were responsible only if they did wrong now. But the course which he (Sir R. H. Inglis) was prepared to take on the present occasion was the very course he took in 1847, when the noble Lord brought forward the same Motion at that time that he proposed to take now; for he felt it his duty, without meaning any disrespect, to refuse, so far as his own individual vote was concerned, the permission which he asked; and he stated that the course upon which the noble Lord was inviting the House to enter, was one hostile to the civil and religious interests of the country. He believed it to be hostile to the ordinary proceedings of that House. The noble Lord assumed through- out all his arguments, by a very convenient petitio principii, that he alone was the advocate of truth and justice, and that all who opposed him were mere bigoted disciples of an obsolete system. His (Sir R. H. Inglis's) proposition was of a distinctly contrary character. He maintained the truth and justice of that system of Christian government which the noble Lord was endeavouring to destroy. The noble Lord also assumed that power was a right belonging to every man, and that he who resisted granting power to an individual, was bound to show on what sufficient ground he made that opposition. On the contrary, he (Sir R. H. Inglis) contended, as he had contended in many other instances, that power was a trust which the State might delegate to those whom it thought fit to exercise it—the exercise of the suffrage for example—but it was the inherent right of no man. If it were, then indeed had they destroyed the value of the principle by all the restrictions imposed with respect to property, to age, and to sex. But again and again he would say that power was a trust and a privilege, and not a right. It was a trust to be exercised with reference! to matters of much greater importance than mere pounds, shillings, and pence, which seemed to constitute the summum bonum of some men. It was to be applied to other and higher objects. He would remind the House that they were called together according to the writ, to advise the Crown "upon certain weighty affairs touching the interests of the Church and nation of England." What was the first estate in the realm? It was the Church. The first interest of the country was its Church; and it was the duty of every man, in public and in private, to act in reference to religion. Having reminded him of this, he would ask the noble Lord whether these Jews, who regarded our blessed Lord as an impostor, were fit to come there and enact laws concerning that Church? He would ask the noble Lord whether those who looked upon the New Testament as a tissue of fables were persons who in a Christian country should be admitted to make laws for the government of a Christian people? Whether they who disbelieved in the last Day of Judgment as it was revealed to us in the Gospel, were persons whom they could safely permit to legislate for the highest interests of the Church and nation? But the noble Lord, without scarcely alluding to these subjects, said that the Jews were so very few. That was one of the very arguments used with respect to the admission of the Roman Catholics into Parliament. He would ask the noble Lord whether he were encouraged by the success of that experiment to repeat it for other men, whether their number was large or small? Let him tell those hon. Members (members of the Roman Catholic Church) who were so fully prepared—with one honourable exception, whom he would not name—to vote for this new instance of liberality, that they at least were not disinterested on the subject; because he verily believed that, in every measure which should be brought forward in that House against the highest interest and duty of a Christian people—certainly against the temporal interests of the National Church—they would find in the Jews, whether they should be two or three, as the noble Lord fondly imagined—or, as he (Sir R. H. Inglis) believed would be the case, unless some very sweeping measure of reform should take place, many more should come in, as many who called themselves Christian statesmen had come in lately—men who would swell the band which was already on the march, united and powerful, as they were told—for union was strength. But this was a low view of the question. Whatever the numbers might be, was not the question with him. The real feeling which animated the minds of the people of England at this moment was, whether the plan of the noble Lord would not deliberately annul the profession of Christianity as the descriptive character of that House? The noble Lord proposed, in the first instance, to alter the words of the oath to be taken by Members of the House, with the avowed object of enabling the Jews to enter Parliament; but he could not do that without depriving the House of that characteristic which it had enjoyed for a thousand years. The noble Lord said that the words which prevented Alderman Solomons and Baron Rothschild from taking their seats "on the true faith of a Christian," were only put into the oath in 1606. If he were to admit the historical accuracy of the noble Lord, he would deny his conclusions; and he defied the noble Lord to contradict him when he said that, whether the words existed in the oath or not, no Jew could ever have entered the House of Commons, or taken his seat there, except by virtue of an oath sworn on some symbol of the Christian faith. The noble Lord would not allow them to go back to an earlier period than 1606, even though it included his own Magna Charta; but whether the noble Lord made his references early or late, he (Sir R. H. Inglis) would repeat that there never was an oath which could be taken by a Hebrew Jew. Therefore, whether the noble Lord were right or wrong, neither he nor any man could deny this proposition, that some Christian symbol or other—(he believed it was almost invariably on the open gospel)—was observed in the oath by which any judicial or civil office of any kind was assumed; and that not any admission to power, even of the lowest degree, was ever made without some Christian sanction. The noble Lord said that the Jews were not a separate nation. The more pious Jews contended that they were, and ever must be, distinctly a separate nation. If they took their stand as Members of Parliament, or of the Council, or of the Treasury bench, it might be matter of convenience to admit that they were not a separate nation; but that could not destroy the inherent, absolute, and essential character of being a distinct and separate nation—separate for 1,800 years before our Lord—for more than 1,800 years since; and separated perhaps for a time hereafter which no man could calculate. No Christian who knew anything of Jewish literature, or of their history, could fail to know that it was their distinguishing boast and characteristic that they were a separate nation—excepted from the rest of the world, and reserved for a great purpose, as a peculiar people, which human eyes could not penetrate, and that their highest aspiration was a return to their own land. He believed that to he the actual historical fact as entertained by the Jews, both with respect to their past state and to their present position. But the House was not to consider whether the Jews were many or few. If it were a claim of right he would yield it even to one solitary Jew, if no other Jew existed in the country; but if no such claim could be maintained, then he refused what was demanded, how many soever might be the claimants. He believed that in this case there existed no claim of right. It was simply and solely a question of expediency, and upon that ground he was prepared to resist it. The noble Lord said that the admission of the Jews into Parliament would not destroy the Christian character of the House. But what said their own writers? There was a man of the name of Van Oven—he (Sir R. H. Inglis) hoped and believed he was not an Englishman, but he wrote English, and had published a pamphlet in which he stated in so many words that we were not a Christian nation—what was his ground for that assertion? Why, said he, because we had Jews in this country who were British subjects, and were admitted to office. He (Sir R. H. Inglis) had heard it said that this was not a Protestant country, because the fourth, fifth, or sixth part of the population were Roman Catholic subjects of Her Majesty. The argument would be still stronger whenever it should be conceded to a Jew that he should have a seat in Parliament. But the great body of the people of England, knowing what their Christian privileges were, believed that they were entitled to be called a Christian nation; and it was in defence of their feelings, and in answer to their continued applications, that he now opposed the proposition of the noble Lord. No man would say that this question was a popular question with the people of England; and it was because he believed he was not resisting a claim of right, nor a claim of concession which would gratify the nation, that he adopted his present course, believing that this course would give satisfaction to an immense majority of his fellow countrymen, and that he was not denying justice to any man, but was consulting the best interests of the Church and of the people of England. But the noble Lord called upon the House to wipe away this last remaining persecution—this last remaining badge of intolerance. ["Hear, hear!"] Hon. Gentlemen might cheer, but he would ask whether it was injustice because he was unwilling that the door should be opened to the admission of one, who might be the adviser of the Sovereign and the keeper of the Royal conscience, who was by principle opposed to the best and highest mysteries of the Christian faith—one who would use all his influence to undermine that faith? He contended that there was neither persecution nor intolerance in maintaining the character of a Christian Legislature; and it was not because he hated the Jew, but it was because he loved Christianity, that he opposed the proposition of the noble Lord. It was not because he would refuse to do a kindness to every human being, but it was because he believed those whom he was now opposing resisted on principle and not, as Wilkes or Gibbon did, from a perverted nature, everything which he held sacred. Did Gibbon ever blaspheme the Christian religion when he came into that House? Did Wilkes? On the contrary, if it were true that hypocrisy was the homage which vice paid to virtue, so it was equally true on the part of those men, that their profession of Christianity and the respect which they externally paid to it, bad as it was as compared with a really religious feeling, was better than open and avowed blasphemy. He (Sir R. H. Inglis) believed that this would not be considered "the last remnant of persecution," the last object of contention, which would remain, if Parliament were unhappily to concede what the noble Lord proposed; other propositions would be brought forward, and would obtain a willing support from some Gentlemen present. Some would urge that the British dominions in India contain a vast number of Parsees and Mahomedans. [Cheers.] That cheer showed that it would he so. But then what became of the principle that the Christian religion of England was its highest privilege, its most sacred trust? Did hon. Members believe, or did they not believe, that they were summoned to Parliament to consult on measures to promote the spiritual as well as the temporal interests of the kingdom? If they did, let them resist the admission of the Jews; if they did not believe it, let them concede the matter. But, in that case, let them not believe that they would satisfy even those whom they admitted. They would be left dissatisfied; and so would many others, who were equally (if this principle were right) entitled to relief, but whom he (Sir R. H. Inglis) believed this country would never tolerate in the House of Commons—the avowed heathen, or the avowed Mahomedan. It was said by Sir Robert Grant, that at all events the Jew believed half of what we did; he (Sir. R. H. Inglis) denied that; but the others believed nothing and yet, if the House were consistent, it must be prepared to destroy, not merely the Protestant, or the Church character, but the Christian character of the Legislature, and of the depositories of power. For these reasons he should resist the Motion which the noble Lord had now for the sixth time brought before the House; and he trusted that the fatal measure to which the House was asked to agree, might yet, by the Divine blessing, be averted.

said, that he had given a silent vote upon this question on the last occasion when it was before the House, and therefore he was anxious to avail him- self of the favourable opportunity now afforded to say a few words; and he had the greater gratification in giving expression to his opinions, because, in addition to their being the result of a conscientious conviction in his own mind, he felt that he was but giving a fair, though a feeble interpretation to the drift of public opinion. He considered that there were just grounds for contesting some of the arguments of those who were for the admission of the Jews to the House of Commons. It was true that Parliament had voted Catholic Emancipation, had abolished the disabilities under which Protestant Dissenters and Quakers laboured; and even the Jews were allowed to exercise functions from which they were formerly and but recently debarred; they could fill the office of magistrate, chief magistrate of the City of London, and chairman of quarter-sessions; and of course the exercise of the elective franchise was open to them, and they were free in the exercise of their religious sentiments; but it was now argued that having admitted the Jews to every other right and privilege of free citizens, it was necessary, in order to complete the edifice of social and religious liberty, to emancipate them from the disability to occupy seats in the House of Commons. It was argued that their exclusion was a slur upon the Christian character of our institutions rather than their admission would be, and that therefore this "last badge of intolerance," as the noble Lord the Member for the City of London called it, should be abolished. He did not agree with this view. But he was ready to admit that, if circumstances required it, there never was a more fitting opportunity than the present for the House to express itself in favour of civil and religious liberty. For, while we saw and must lament the spirit of intolerance and bigotry prevailing abroad, it was our province, who stood at the head of civilisation, to do all we could to extend and promote a spirit of Christian charity and forbearance, and to mark our indignation at acts of oppression which in other countries affected religious opinions. On this account, knowing from experience in the diplomatic profession the good results that spring from a manly, straightforward, and honest expression of opinion, tendered in the shape of friendly advice, no matter whether to the Government of a country of the first order, or to one of comparative insignificance in the European balance of power, he, as a Member of Parliament, begged to offer his cordial thanks to the noble Lord the late Secretary for Foreign Affairs (Lord John Russell) for his admirably composed and high-spirited despatch to our Minister at Florence, which had lately been laid upon the table. And if he (Sir R. Peel) had not been accidentally obliged to be absent from the House last Thursday, he thought he could have answered the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Lucas), when, in attempting to cite Protestant example in justification of the Tuscan persecution, he mentioned what he was pleased to call the extermination of the Jesuits from Switzerland, and also the affair of the seven Catholic Cantons; he could have told the hon. Member that the British Government did not support the views of the Confederation on religious grounds; that this country had nothing whatever to do with either of these transactions; and certainly had nothing to do with the expulsion of the Jesuits, which was entirely the result of the national will most clearly expressed. As to supporting the views of the Confederation against the Catholic Cantons, it did appear that the independence, and liberty, and welfare of the Swiss Confederation depended upon the success which, fortunately, attended that struggle; and subsequent events have indisputably proved the correctness of the views of the British Government of that period. This by way of parenthesis. He (Sir Robert Peel) would maintain that there never was a more fitting opportunity, if circumstances required it, for marking our approbation of civil and religious liberty; but he thought the introduction of Jews into that House had nothing whatever to do with the question of civil and religious liberty. So, at least, he should say, according to the interpretation we had been in the habit of giving to those expressions; but when he found a Member of the Government, who pretended accurately to know what were their views on all the important questions of the day, deliberately stating that those who opposed the introduction of Jews into Parliament ought never to pronounce the sacred words "civil and religious liberty," he (Sir Robert Peel), as one who opposed the revision of Parliamentary oaths for the purpose of admitting Jews into the House, must take leave to say that those expressions were erroneous and malicious. The hon. Gentleman referred to was one whom the Times used to call, and very aptly, the Jew Member for Aylesbury, who now, by some accident or other, found himself Solicitor General; but no doubt we should be told that nothing whatever insulting to the conscientious convictions of others was intended; as when Carlisle echoed with expressions of sympathy "for 40,000,000 of slaves," and the Odd Fellows Hall at Halifax resounded with imprecations against the Emperor of the French, we were told that of course nothing whatever derogatory to the character of the French Emperor or of the French was intended to be conveyed by these very direct insults. Why, Sir, he (Sir Robert Peel) being himself in favour of vote by ballot, might as well say that all who opposed that measure were actuated by improper feelings, and ought never to pronounce those sacred words which the Jew Member for Aylesbury would debar us for using; and he had clearly as much right to say that a Government comprising men who opposed, and men who approved of that measure of the ballot, was not entitled to that confidence and consideration from the people of England which they professed to enjoy. He would maintain that the introduction of Jews into that House had nothing whatever to do with the question of civil and religious liberty. He, for one, thoroughly approved of all that legislation which had marked the course of Parliamentary history during the last twenty-four years—that is, since Catholic Emancipation—on religious subjects, and would wish to be considered the last man in that House desirous of infringing religious liberty, or of retaining disabilities on the score of religion; but he did not think that the Jews felt any dissatisfaction at being excluded from seats in that House; no degradation was intended to he conveyed by their exclusion, and he did not think they felt any. They knew well that the State respected their institutions, their usages, their habits, and that they enjoyed far greater social liberty in this country than in any in Europe. Turn to parts of Prussia, Italy, or Poland, or, if you liked, Russia, and you would find it so. He did not wish to interfere with the liberty they enjoyed here; he thought they had shown themselves perhaps, on the whole, not altogether unworthy for that enjoyment; but he could not consent that laws which had been in existence almost since the great Revolution of 1688 should be abrogated for the purpose of admitting them into Parliament—laws prescribing oaths that had so long existed as a necessary preliminary to a seat in the House. It was perhaps right to say that because we had not now any Stuart to contest the Throne with the House of Hanover, we ought now to revise these oaths. Very probably circumstances required that those oaths should be revised; but that was no argument for doing away with the words, "On the true faith of a Christian," and no subtlety of argument would ever persuade him that those words were simply added, not as forming part of the oath, but merely to give a kind of solemnity to the engagement entered into by a Member of Parliament on taking his seat in that House. He could never believe that the words meant nothing. He was in favour of removing all disabilities from Roman Catholics and Dissenters; but there was no analogy between the case of Dissenters and Roman Catholics and that of the Hebrew community. It was not solely upon religious grounds that he opposed the introduction of the Jews into the House, but because he considered that those words, "On the true faith of a Christian," represented a great principle; and, denying, as the Jews did, the fundamental principles of Christianity, it was incompatible and inconsistent with the dignity and character of a Christian Parliament to admit them to the exercise of the highest functions of the State. This measure was unwise and unnecessary, and, consequently, impolitic. It was idle to say we need be under no apprehension of their swamping our institutions, or filling all the high offices of State. He did not believe any other constituency besides the City of London could be found confiding its political interests to a Hebrew legislator; but really we had seen of late such remarkable changes and contradictions, that it was almost impossible to argue what consequences might result from either men or measures, and he could not consent to run the risk of the possibility of that which might occur, and of the interests of the Church of England being submitted to the legislation of the Jews. What was the character, and respectability, and moral influence of the Jewish community in England? Their numbers were not above 30,000–30,000 among 30,000,000; but it would not matter one straw if there were 30 or 30,000, provided the principle was good, and there was a necessity for Parliament to interfere. Their charitable disposition and general good conduct he was perfectly ready to admit were worthy of our consideration; but he did not think that there was a title to all the great encomiums that some were in the habit of passing upon them in that House when such measures as the present were being considered. He would merely refer the House to what passed before the Select Committee on Juvenile Offenders. There it appeared in evidence that the chief instigators of crime in the metropolis were Jews. This was literally what appeared in evidence, and the statement was justified on the ground that the Jews almost exclusively afforded facilities for the disposal of stolen goods. He maintained, that if this was the case in the metropolis, it must be so in all the great centres of population—in Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham—and therefore the Jews were not, as a body, entitled to those high encomiums which were generally passed upon them. The House, however, must consider that they were now merely considering a personal affair of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London. That noble Lord had the honour of representing the City of London with a Jew, and he had given a pledge that he would annually bring forward in this House a measure upon the subject of the Jews' disabilities. Now, Baron Rothschild was probably a very worthy man—they all knew he was a very wealthy man—but he (Sir R. Peel) did not think he was entitled to a seat in that House on account of his wealth, for everybody was perfectly aware how that wealth had been amassed. It was only last night he had read in a newspaper which was very well informed upon foreign subjects, that the house of Rothschild had consented to grant a loan to the Government of Athens, with very considerable guarantees, at the rate of 9 per cent; and they could consequently very well understand how the Rothschild family had amassed their wealth. He was ready to admit that Baron Rothschild might be a very worthy man; but, at the same time, as much had been said by the President of the Board of Control (Sir C. Wood) about gagging the French and Belgian press, no one had done more to gag the expression of liberal opinions throughout the world than the house of Rothschild, from the loans contracted with despotic Governments, like, for instance, that of Naples. But, even supposing Baron Rothschild to be a very worthy man, he, for one, had expected, considering the qualities of the noble Lord who represented the Government in that House, and that the Government represented all the political factions that had combined to oppose the late Government, that the country would have received at his hands some measures more practical and more important for the material interest of the people of this country. In 1851 and 1852 they had been distinctly told by the noble Lord of the absolute necessity that existed for a new Reform Bill; and yet now that the noble Lord found himself leader in the House of Commons for a coalition Cabinet, that measure was almost indefinitely adjourned. At Carlisle, at Southwark, and in the City of London, we had heard of nothing else but allusions to the gross bribery, corruption, and intimidation which had prevailed over the country at the last election. He did not know whether the representatives of those places now in the Government spoke from personal experience; but he did not think the electors of this country had laid themselves open to that sweeping accusation which certain Members of the present Cabinet had so promiscuously heaped upon them. As, however, the noble Lord had thought proper to adjourn weightier considerations of Government for the purpose of hurriedly introducing a Jew Bill, he hoped, if there was no chance of success in that House, the other House of Parliament would still remain firm in the decision that they had on every occasion arrived at upon this question, and that they would resist the introduction of this Bill; but whether in this House or in the other, success accompanied the present measure, he, for one, upon conscientious convictions, believing that he was best fulfilling the wishes of those whose opinions he was to a certain extent bound to consider—believing also that in so doing he was giving a fair interpretation to the views of the people of this country, he gave to this Bill his most determined resistance, and he hoped that those hon. Members who might not have had an occasion of voting, or considering otherwise than tonight this question, might be found uniting to resist the introduction of a measure which he firmly believed was fraught with very considerable danger to the Christian character of our institutions.

said, the hon. Baronet who had just sat down, had described the question as a personal one of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London. That remark was, no doubt, intended as a taunt, but it was in fact about the highest compliment that could have been paid to him. The man who for the last thirty-years had been connected with every extension of civil and religious liberty might well consider it a personal compliment that the removal of the last badge of intolerance and bigotry should be treated as a matter of personal concern to himself. While listening to the hon. Baronet's speech on the Jew Bill, he could not help being reminded of that celebrated production, The Wandering Jew, so remarkable was it for discursiveness. The hon. Baronet said he represented the feelings of the people of England on the question —

explained that what he said was, that he thought he had given a feeble but fair representation of the feelings of the people of England.

He must say that he did not think the people of England agreed with the hon. Member there; and as for himself, he had been sent there by a large constituency, partly, in accordance with his own convictions, to assist the noble Lord in his attempt to secure the removal of the civil disabilities of the Jews. He was not at all disposed to quarrel with one argument which had been used against this Bill—and that was the desirableness of establishing a complete identity of religious opinion between Church and State—but, admitting it to be sound in the abstract, he believed that, in the present state of the world, it was physically impracticable. It had been objected that Jews could not conscientiously exercise functions in a Christian Legislature; and it was to be presumed that the inference from such a statement was, that the Hebrew was to be excluded, out of regard for his soul. This reminded him of what he had read somewhere or other that in the days of Queen Elizabeth, when the colonists of Virginia applied to the Ministry of the day for educational institutions, basing their application on the fact that "they had souls to be saved," the rather un-courteous reply was, "D—n your souls, grow tobacco." In like manner, the language applied by many at the present time was,"D—n your souls—make money." The House had been told that the Jews felt no annoyance at being kept out of the privilege of sitting in Parliament; but, if so, it must be on the same principle as that on which eels were said to feel no annoyance on being skinned—they were used to it. This was not, however, the feeling on the subject of Jews with whom he was acquainted. No man in that House would shrink more from speaking lightly of sacred things than he would. But he would not allow himself to be led away by a mere jingle of words. He would ask the House what single operative doctrine of the Christian religion was involved in Parliamentary Christianity? Did the Church of England believe that a person who denied the divinity of the Saviour was a Christian in his own sense of the word? Or could they give up every doctrine of the Christian religion, one after another, in order to admit every man who called himself a Christian, and still maintain that they professed a common Christianity? He held that such a course was unreasonable, and that the oath was, in fact, a mere form of words.

said, he would state, in as few words as possible, the reasons why he could not, on his Christian allegiance, give a vote in favour of this measure. He would suggest no personal motives to the noble Lord. When the point was whether Christianity should be an open question in the House of Commons, and whether the faith of 1800 years should again be put upon its trial, the subject should not be embarrassed by personal considerations. After giving to it the most intense consideration, he was compelled to resist the proposition. He put the question thus:—Would the noble Lord agree to admit a deist into that House? Would he consent to admit an atheist? He apprehended not;—his Bill, at least, was confined to Jews. [Lord JOHN RUSSELL: They have sat in this House.] But they had now to consider how the House was to be constituted, and not simply to take notice of the illegitimate intrusion, under a false profession, of those who had no right to be there. The noble Lord would not admit an atheist, he presumed, because he denied even the existence of God, on whose sovereign will depended the existence of every human being. Well, was not our Lord and Saviour God? Did not our whole Christianity depend upon the reality of His existence and sovereignty? Was it not for this very reason that the Members of that House were called upon to swear on the faith of a Christian as a true faith? Was not religion more than opinion? Did it not involve certain facts and a certain Christian faith? Could part of it be allowed to be denied, and the rest maintained? Was not the whole of the Scripture to be received as equally the revelation of the Almighty? Surely religious truth was to be regarded not less than religious liberty. There was an air of persuasive generosity about the sentiments of the noble Lord on the subject, which put the opponents of the measure in an unpopular position. But it would not hear the test of reason. For example, he would point to the fact that Members of that House belonging to all religious persuasions—Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Nonconformists—all united in a prayer to God through their common Saviour. Could they join in prayer to the Saviour with one who denied him? A line of demarcation existed at present between the Christian and the Jew, and were they to remove all religion and call that religious liberty? Could their Sabbaths, their Easter, their Christian arrangements, be subjected to Jewish control? The admission of the Jew into Parliament involved peculiar considerations not attaching to his admission to other privileges. For example, as a magistrate, the Jew only administered laws; as a legislator, he would make them. As a magistrate he was under definite obligations and discharged definite duties, for which he was responsible; whereas the reverse would be the case in his character as a member of the Legislature. He conceded to the noble Lord that the oath was not intended to exclude Jews; but then he maintained that it was based on the assumption that every man who sat in Parliament was a Christian. Let it be remembered that it was their common Christianity which inclined them to legislate on Christian principles, and in favour of religious liberty itself; and let it further be borne in mind, that if they admitted all persons without distinction into that House, there could be no common bond of union between them, and no one could argue any longer on the assumed basis of Christianity. He would make only one other observation. The history and the hopes of the Jew were in his mind surrounded with a heavenly grandeur, and they were asked not to persist in persecuting them. He had no desire to persecute, or in any way to help forward their affliction. He could only say, that having regard to the destiny which still appeared to hang over that nation—when he saw them, after the lapse of near 2,000 years still visibly marked by the hand of the Almighty in testimony of their rejection of our Lord and Saviour —he could not be a party to an act by which that House might be—he would not say denying—but at least dishonouring Him, whom they rejected. He could not consent to a national act which might yet bring down on the constitution of England shadows from Calvary.

rose with very great reluctance to address the House upon a question which had been so thoroughly exhausted during the discussions of the last six years, and which was much more fitted for immediate decision than for protracted debate, but he felt bound to admit that he was now about to give a vote which was entirely inconsistent with the votes which he had honestly given on the same subject upon former occasions. ["Hear!"] He perfectly understood the meaning of that cheer; but he would only say, as the hon. Member for the University of Oxford had judiciously remarked, that we were not so much to be blamed for an error we might have unwittingly committed, as we should be open to blame if we persevered in that error, contrary to our conviction. It was the fact that he had, in 1847 and 1849, voted against the measure now proposed, and that he was now prepared to vote in its favour, and that it was which now induced him to trespass for a few moments upon the attention of the House. He wished to say, that since 1849, he had advisedly and purposely refrained from ever taking any part in the discussion on this question. He had never either voted or spoken on the subject. Even allowing for the sake of argument that his convictions had remained entirely the same as they were, he did not think, after the deliberate and repeated discussions which had taken place, and after the way in which the House had, by large majorities, affirmed the principle that Jews should not be excluded from that House, that he would be justified in any longer offering an opposition to this measure; he had already on two occasions placed his opinion on record, and he thought that if he were continually to renew his opposition to a measure in favour of which the House had repeatedly pronounced, such conduct might be open to the charge of factiousness. He was willing, however, to admit that he did not intend to shelter himself under that plea; for, after the discussions which had taken place in the House, and the consideration he had given to the subject, he felt convinced that the arguments and reasons which had formerly been adduced in favour of the purely theoretical assertion that by admitting Her Majesty's Jewish subjects to their just privileges, the House was unchristianised, were, in reality not sound. He was aware of all the odium attaching to the admission he now made; but of late years he had never approached the consideration of this question without feeling that the old arguments against it, although not without a certain sound of plausibility, were not sound in principle, and there was nothing in them which would allow him further to oppose the entrance of the Jews into Parliament. If he were to speak an hour, he could add nothing to what had been said by the noble Member for the City of London, whose speech had remained unanswered, and was unanswerable; but he did not choose to give a silent vote upon the question. He felt bound to pay the penalty that was due for wrong and hasty votes given in 1847 and 1849.

considered that the measure now proposed to the House, if carried, would be regarded by a large mass of the people of this country as a great slight upon Christianity. It was pressed upon the House by the noble Lord as a claim of justice. If he could be satisfied that it was a claim of justice, he should no longer resist it. But he could not help thinking the noble Lord, in viewing this as a demand for justice, was considering only justice to one party. The noble Lord spoke of justice to the candidate. He wished to know whether justice was not to be shown to the constituencies. There were two questions to be considered. The first was whether it was right or not that some sort of qualification should be required of the representatives to be elected by the constituencies? The second question was, whether this particular qualification, the profession of the Christian religion, was a just qualification to be required? On the first question he thought there was no doubt. It must be remembered that representatives were, by the necessity of the case, elected by a majority of the constituents, and that that majority imposed on the minority, perhaps only by a few votes, a person to be their representative in Parliament who did not represent their opinions at all. That result could not be helped—it arose from the necessity of the case—but surely it was reasonable to say that the candidate whom the majority thus imposed upon the minority should be a man to whom no reasonable exception could be taken. Then came the question, was this requirement of the profession of Christianity a fair and reasonable qualification to require? Considering that this was a Christian country, and that the constituencies were as a whole Christians, he would say it was but reasonable to require that the candidate to be imposed by the majority on the minority of a constituency should be a person of the same faith with the nation at large. They talked of dealing with this matter as a civil and not as a religious question; but the two were so bound together in all social considerations that they could not be separated. If a man were imposed upon him as his representative in Parliament, was it unreasonable in him to say, with practical reference to many questions which might come before that House, that such a man should be a professor and believer of the Christian faith? Supposing a question brought forward touching the observance of the Lord's Day, a Jew, from the nature of the case, was not in a position to exercise any judgment upon it. That institution, which was observed by Christians in remembrance of Christian circumstances, was an observance into which the Jew could not enter. Let them again take the case of education. He did not mean Church education; but suppose they were asked to consider, as a branch of national education, whether instruction in the New Testament should form a part—a most important question in everyway, and one which, from the intimations of the noble Lord, they might soon be called upon to consider—he said it was not unreasonable that the minority of a constituency should have some guarantee that their representative was in a position to form and exercise an opinion on that subject. He said the Jew could not do it. They must have a believer in the New Testament to form an estimate of the advantages of that book forming part of a system of national education. Another question which he feared Parliament might have to discuss was the maintenance of the Established Church in the sister kingdom, and perhaps even in this kingdom. Now, he said a Jew was not in a position to exercise a judgment upon such a question, because he was not a believer in that book on which those institutions rested. Other examples might be put, in all of which it was reasonable to require that the representative imposed by a majority on a minority, should at least be in a position to exercise a judgment on questions of vital interest to the whole com- munity. When these views were taken into consideration, he thought that the argument for justice was against a measure of this kind, not in favour of it. In fact, this Bill sacrificed the justice which was due to the constituency to what was asserted to be the justice due to the candidate. It might just as well be said that it was unjust to impose a property qualification, as that it was unjust to impose the qualification of religious belief. For his own part, he thought that both were perfectly just, if the social interests of the country required them. He should give his most conscientious and earnest opposition to the proposed measure.

thought the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman who last spoke was characterised by the same weakness which had marked every speech that had been made against the Motion. The hon. Gentleman had asked them to consider the position in which they would be placed if they admitted Jews to that House if the question of what was to be done with the Established Church of Ireland should be brought before them. Why, he thought it was a sufficient answer to that objection to ask the hon. Member to look at the bench beneath him, which was occupied by the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Lucas), and other hon. Gentlemen who entertained similar opinions. Every argument which had been used against admitting the Jews into Parliament, applied with equal force against the admission of the Roman Catholics. The hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Napier), for whose acquirements, abilities, and virtues he readily admitted he entertained the highest respect, had told them that they would unchristianise the Legislature of this country if they admitted the Jews into Parliament. Now, he (Mr. Seymour) differed from the hon. and learned Gentleman in that respect, for he submitted that the best way to Christianise the Jews would be to admit them into that House: they would then no longer regard Christianity as the religion of their persecutors, but be won towards it as a system full of political justice and practical benevolence. In the reign of George the Second, when the question was raised whether Jews should be naturalised or not, there were people who prophesied gloomy things for England if such a measure should be adopted, and who said that if Jews were admitted to the privileges of naturalisation, they would purchase estates, and would use their power to the detriment and for the demolition of our constitution. The results that had followed, however, had set the stigma of falsehood upon that prophecy. If this had been the result of the Naturalisation Bill—if it was true that the Jews had hitherto exercised their rights as British subjects in a proper and becoming manner, why should not the Legislature go a step further, and admit them as Members of that House? When the Jew was found occupying our jury-boxes and exercising magisterial functions in our courts of justice—when he had won. his way by slow degrees to the very door of the House of Commons, was that door to be shut in his face just as he had reached the threshold—and was he to be told "You have demeaned yourself well hitherto—you have performed everything you undertook in a praiseworthy manner; but we cannot think of allowing Jew and Gentile Members to represent Jew and Gentile constituencies, and therefore we are compelled to shut the door against your admission? He would repeat that the true way to make the Jew a patriot was to admit him to the rights of naturalisation; and that the true way to make him a Christian was to admit him as a Member of that House. It had been said that the Jews were a degraded race; but if that allegation were true, it was ourselves who had degraded them by excluding them from the the rights of citizenship. It had been said that England had exhibited greater liberality towards the Jews than any other country in the world. He denied the truth of that assertion, and would refer to America and Prance as going further than we had done in liberality to the Jews. He begged to tell the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford and others, who professed to represent the views of the Church of England in opposition to this measure, that it would be well for them to look at the dissensions within that Church, and see how many sores there were that required a healing influence to be brought to bear upon them, rather than to weaken the Church still further by taking in her name an illiberal stand against the admission of their Jewish fellow-subjects to the free privileges of our glorious constitution. In conclusion, he begged to say that if they wanted a precedent for the present measure, he would refer them to the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and the abolition of the Roman Catholic disabilities—if they wanted an example, he would refer them to that of America and France; if they wanted a motive, he would suggest the purest, holiest, and sublimest that could actuate man; and that was to give the Jews that measure of justice and constitutional right which they were entitled to ask as British subjects at the hands of a British Legislature.

said; he was very happy that he was in a different position from the noble Lord the Member for Dumfriesshire (Viscount Drumlanrig), and he (Colonel Sibthorp) might well say of that noble Lord, Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. He (Colonel Sibthorp) would vote on that question as he had always voted, for he should be ashamed to represent that city which he had the honour to represent so many years if he dared for one moment to forget what he owed to Christianity by voting for such a measure. Nor could he understand how the noble Lord the Member for the City of London could attend prayers at that table, where hon. Members invoked the assistance of Him on whom they relied for all favours in this world, and for forgiveness in the next; how could that noble Lord, a Protestant adviser of a Protestant Sovereign, how could he, he asked, bring forward a measure, the only effect of which would be to unchristianise the Members of that House? How could he thus violate his duty to the Almighty? That noble Lord told them he had promised to bring in such a measure, and he would perform his promise; but he (Colonel Sibthorp) supposed he did so on the principle, "Scratch me, and I'll scratch you." That was not what the leader on the other side of the House ought to practise, or hold forth such conduct to the country. He had no doubt the hon. Gentleman for whose benefit the noble Lord introduced that measure was a good, an honest, an excellent man, but he was a Jew. He was proud to give his support to the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford.

begged simply to say, that he belonged to a faith which had been most maligned in that House and the country next to that whose members it was now proposed to admit to legislative privileges; and that, having himself suffered under religious disabilities, he felt that it was his dirty not merely to vote, but to speak on behalf of that portion of his fellow subjects who were still suffering from such restrictions. In recent discussions in that House, the Catholics had been stigmatised as the opponents of civil and religious liberty. He begged to say, that in his humble opinion every subject of the British Crown who acknowledged his allegiance to the Sovereign, and did his duty to the country, ought to be admitted to each and every privilege of a British subject. He believed that that was the intention of the constitution; and he hoped to sec the day when, not only the Jew, but the Mahomedan, would be entitled to all the privileges of a British subject.

begged leave to ask whether the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton would attend upon that Committee?

answered in the affirmative.

said, that out of the names of Irish Members upon the list of the Committee, there appeared only six Conservatives. The system on which the tenant-right principle was carried out in the province of Ulster, had not a single representative in that Committee. There were on it no persons who had any practical experience of the working of that system in the north; and he, therefore, objected to the Committee in toto. He would put the name of every one of the Members to the vote, unless the Committee were considerably altered.

said, that the hon. Baronet who had just sat down had treated the selection of that Committee as partial and one-sided. He could only say, that in framing it he had no intention of making it one-sided; and he had no particular predilection in favour of the Tenant League. In fact, the principles on which he had stood at his recent election, were principles opposed to those advocated by the Tenant Leaguers, and he had been supported by the Members of the Liberal party on the ground that he was not a Tenant Leaguer. He was prepared to justify the selection he had made. He had consulted the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Napier) as to certain Members, and the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. Serjeant Shee) as to others. He thought at first the Committee ought to consist of twenty-one Members, seven to be named by the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin, seven by the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, and seven by the Government. But this difficulty occurred: The hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright), and the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond), had given great attention to the subject, and had served on several Irish Committees, and he thought it desirable to enlarge the Committee, and place thereon the names of these Gentlemen. The House of Commons had decided before Christmas that certain Bills should be referred to a Select Committee, and the Irish portion of the Government had been called upon, in discharge of their Ministerial duty, to name the persons to whom those Bills should be referred. He had so selected the Committee that its Members might represent the various opinions which prevailed upon that subject in the House. He looked upon the apprehensions which were entertained with regard to the constitution of the Committee as perfectly groundless and visionary. The hon. Gentleman (Sir A. Brooke) had said that there was no person on the Committee to represent the property of Ulster. Now, he represented it in his own person. [Cries of "No, no!"] At all events, he was Member for Cavan, and Cavan was in the province of Ulster. His noble friend (Lord Naas) represented Coleraine, in the same province; and his hon. Friend (Sir R. Ferguson) represented Londonderry, and had large landed possessions. He contended, therefore, that the property of Ireland was fairly represented by the selection.

said, that the right hon. Baronet had quite misunderstood him, if he thought he was not aware that Cavan was a portion of the province of Ulster. Tenant Right, however, had not been practised to any considerable extent in Cavan. He (Sir A. Brooke) had especially referred to that portion of the province of Ulster in which the tenant-right had prevailed; and he repeated that there were on the Committee no Conservative proprietors of the province of Ulster acquainted with the working of that system. On the original Committee there had been seventeen borough Members, including the Members for the University of Dublin, while the property of Ulster had been left practically unrepresented as regarded that question.

said, that in some of the counties individuals had been endeavouring to carry out the system of tenant-right on so extensive a scale as to turn the landlords into tenants and the tenants into landlords. One of the Bills which were about to be referred to the Committee was essentially the same as one for which Mr. Sharman Crawford had never been able to obtain a second reading in that House. The question of tenant-right had, he thought, been fairly dealt with in Ulster. On the original Committee, there were seventeen borough Members appointed to decide upon a question connected with land. He would suggest to the right hon. Baronet that he should enlarge that Committee; and that he should select seven Englishmen of knowledge, independence, and property. There would then, he believed, be some chance of their having the tenant-right question fairly considered. As the Committee was at present constituted, he did not think the question would get a fair hearing.

said, he must main- tain the perfectly fair character of the Committee; and he was amazed that hon. Gentlemen opposite, who previous to the late general election expressed themselves so anxious to have this question amicably adjusted, should now turn round and manifest a feeling of so completely opposite a character. He considered that the landed property of Ireland was most adequately represented on the Committee.

said, he would tell the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down why he and others objected to the constitution of the Committee. It was because, as proposed, it consisted in much too great a degree of Gentlemen who had either themselves individually declared for, or attended meetings where such declaration had been made—that they would oppose any Government until this measure of theirs was carried. Now he wished very much to know why Gentlemen from the province of Ulster should not have an opportunity of making their opinions felt on the Committee? He (Sir W. Verner) had property in not less than three counties in that province, and he must say, that until he came into that House, he never heard what the tenant-right of Ulster was. At any rate he could not recognise anything more in the tenant-right of Ulster than that there existed a better feeling between the landlords and tenants of that part of Ireland than elsewhere. However, he must say, that he believed it was greatly owing to the late Government—to their act in having permitted a Bill which had been previously scouted out of the House without attaining a second reading, to remain before them, that things had come to their present pass. Certainly, it had since been stated that that circumstance was entirely to be ascribed to accident, and he had even heard the fact coupled with individual responsibility. Now, with every respect and regard for his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin, he was forced to say that he could discern but very little difference between his Bill and that of Mr. Sharman Crawford. The whole thing originated in nothing else but a desire to attack the rights of property in Ireland.

said, he could not help feeling that a great many very extraneous topics had been introduced into the debate. Their great object at present was to try and constitute as fair a Committee as possible; for it certainly was most desirable that Parliament should come to a settle- merit of the question as soon as possible. Indeed, the matter could no longer be kept open, for it was distracting the people of Ireland, and seriously depreciating the value of land in that country. He had stated to the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Young) that if a reasonably fair Committee were nominated, that he (Mr. Napier) would be most willing, by any assistance in his power, substantially to carry out the objects of the Committee, and to endeavour to modify the Bills before them. He must say, frankly, that he did not approve of the first Committee which had been named; but he thought that perhaps the present Committee might be found to answer the object. The House, however, must keep in mind that the opinion of the Committee would not be binding upon hon. Members, and that the object which such a Committee would have in view was not to make speeches, but to modify the various Bills before them.

said, if he was able correctly to interpret what fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland (Sir J. Young), there had been some two courses before him. One was, to appoint a Committee of twenty-one Members, and the other was, to constitute one of the very large number of thirty Members. Now, as far as his experience went, he must say the larger the Committee the more unfrequent and lax were the attendance of its members. In addition, however, he could not conceal the fact, that the names which appeared on the original list of his right hon. Friend were most objectionable, and that the Committee so constituted tended in the very strongest degree to awaken feelings of alarm and apprehension in the minds of all those connected with Irish property. It appeared to him better that the numbers to serve on the Committee should be curtailed; and likewise that its construction should be reconsidered. He would not detain the House further at that late hour; but, considering the immense importance of the subject before them—considering that the rights of property in Ireland were at stake—considering that new doctrines were broached with regard to Ireland which were more akin to those of Louis Blanc and Monsieur Proudhon, than to any which this country had been hitherto accustomed— [Cries of "Hear, hear!"and "Oh, oh!"] Yes, he was ready to maintain his words. Considering, then, the gravity of the issue, he must say Govern- ment were bound to postpone the appointment of the Committee, with a view to its reconstruction.

said, he begged to thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin for the promise of his most valuable assistance, and was ready to consent to the postponement of the nomination of the Committee.

said, he wished merely to observe, in reference to what fell from the hon. and gallant Colonel below him (Sir W. Verner), that if there was no one in the House who knew anything about tenant-right, or, in fact, if there was no such thing at all as tenant-right, why all this cry about there being no Gentleman from Ulster on the Committee? He considered that all classes, but more particularly the landlord class, were fully represented on the Committee. A reasonable objection to the Committee was, that the right hon. Secretary for Ireland had yielded too much by adding four Members representing the landed interest.

said, that he had objected to the appointment of those Members who had pledged themselves to oppose every measure on the subject except that of Mr. Sharman Crawford; but he had never said that there were not a sufficient number of Ulster Members on the proposed Committee.