said, he wished to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, since the dreadful loss of Her Majesty's steamer Avenger, in the year 1847, any steps had been taken to erect a lighthouse on Galita Island, or the Aguglia Rocks; and whether the still greater boon to navigation of the Mediterranean, a lighthouse upon Keith's Reef, in the Skerki Channel, where Her Majesty's ship Athenian, 64, was lost in the year 1806, was obtaining the attention of Government?

said, he felt that the questions which his hon. Friend had put were of considerable importance. In reply to the first question, he had to state that the best naval authorities he had been able to consult with reference to the erection of a lighthouse at Galita entirely disapproved of any such construction. The site of the island was well known, and the great danger to vessels in that quarter arose from the attempts made to sail by the southern passage with a view to shorten voyages. The Avenger had been lost in an attempt to take that course. The Royal hydrographer, and all the highest naval authorities, were of opinion that the erection of a lighthouse on the island of Galita would operate as an inducement to select that passage after night-fall; and it was not the intention of the naval representatives of this country to recommend the construction of a building which they believed would be dangerous to navigation. With regard to the second question of his hon. Friend, he had to observe that there could be no doubt that the erection of a lighthouse on Keith's Reef would be productive of great benefit to the commerce of the Mediterranean. But it certainly did not at first sight appear reasonable that England should bear exclusively the cost of such a work. However, it was his intention to have those rocks carefully examined before he came to any final decision upon that subject.

wished to know whether, with respect to the proposed mode of voting, by which the noble Lord the Member for the City of London supposed he should be able to represent the minority—a plan something like making the last in the race the winner—it was intended to apply that method to the constituency of the City of London? He also wished to know whether the noble Lord proposed to make any provision by which, in case the honourable Member for the minority should die, the minority might be represented by his successor?

stated, that there was a clause in the Bill with respect to the City of London, which proposed that the electors, instead of voting for four Members, should vote only for three out of the four. With respect to the second question, he presumed he need give it no answer.

said, he wished to put a question to the First Lord of the Admiralty as to certain complaints, whether well or ill founded he could not say, made on behalf of that portion of the coast guard which had lately been transferred to the Royal Navy, with regard to the disadvantageous position in which they were placed in some respects by their change of service. It appeared that the men enrolled in the coast guard were entitled to a pension for their wives and children in case of loss of life. By the Act of last Session they were compelled to enter the Navy when called upon, and he wished to know whether, under those circumstances, those men entering the Navy from the coast guard would lose their right to a pension which they had formerly enjoyed? He also wished to know whether it was true that the wives and children of the men so transferred had been turned out of the coast-guardhouses which they had formerly occupied, under circumstances of some hardship?

said, that the appointment of sailors to stations in the coast guard was a very great reward for long and continued service on board ship. That service must be at least five, and was generally ten years—it was the reward of meritorious conduct. The pay of the coastguard man was considerably higher than that of a sailor on board ship, even of the highest rate. When that reward was given, it was always with the condition that the men should be liable to serve again afloat, leaving the coast-guard service. While in the coast guard, there was a civil pension given to the wives and children of the coast-guard men whose lives might be lost in that particular service; but of course, when the men left that civil service, in compliance with the engagements into which they had entered, they stood upon an equal footing with their comrades on board ship, and their right to the civil pension, if they should incur any danger or loss, either of limb or life, on board ship, would be the same as that of seamen serving afloat. That the wives and children of the coast-guard men had been compelled to leave their dwellings on the coast appropriated to the coast guard had no doubt led to some inconvenience, but he had given orders that every effort should be made to make that inconvenience as light as possible. The House would learn with great satisfaction that 1,500 coast-guard men had in the course of ten days embarked on board Her Majesty's ships, with the greatest good-will and the greatest enthusiasm, and amid the acclamations of all their comrades.

said, he would beg to move for leave to bring in a Bill to regulate the practice at the election of Members to serve in Parliament, and to prevent bribery, corruption, intimidation, and undue influence at such elections, and to diminish the expenses thereof. He believed that they all concurred in regretting the existence of that corruption which dis- graced our representative system, and that they only differed as to the best mode of applying a remedy to the evil, an evil at once great and grievous, and which had hitherto defied legislation. He contended that no extension of the franchise, especially in a downward direction, would have the effect of preventing or diminishing corruption, and the assumption that it would do so was altogether contradicted by experience of many boroughs, and unhappily we had yet no system of general education, to enlighten and purify the humbler classes of the elective body. In the borough of Cambridge, out of 111 persons who had accepted bribes at the last election, between thirty and forty, or about one-third of the entire number, were unable to write their names. The number of electors in this borough had been increased from less than fifty before the Reform Act to 1,800. In Liverpool, Hull, Norwich, among the largest, wealthiest, and most populous towns of the British Empire, corruption had been found most extensively to prevail. Neither did he think that they could look to the ballot for a removal of that crying evil. It might be well doubted whether the adoption of that mode of voting would tend to diminish rather than to encourage bribery at elections; and even though it should in many cases contribute to restrict the exercise of undue influence, it was the belief of many of the highest authorities upon the subject that it would introduce other evils into our constitutional system which neither the Parliament nor the people of this country were yet prepared to encounter. At any rate, looking to the great difference of opinion which prevailed in that House, and still more in the other House of Parliament, as to the wisdom or expediency of the introduction of the ballot, he thought it would be unwise to wait for the establishment of the ballot by law, before proceeding to deal with this great evil. The Bill which he was about to submit to the House contained provisions which he believed calculated to remedy the evil of bribery and corruption, and would, if adopted, introduce into our electoral system that purity which all parties professed to be desirous of obtaining. Now what was the precise nature of the evil which the House was called upon to deal with, and what ought to be the nature of the remedy proposed? With respect to bribery, by what means, in what manner, with what funds, and upon what system, was it that the evil, of which all persons so much complained, was practised at elections for Members of Parliament? After considering, as far as was practicable under the pressure of other occupations, the greater part of the Committee Reports and the Reports of Commissions, with which the table of the House of late years had been loaded, upon the subject of elections and electoral corruptions, he thought he might say that, amidst many circumstantial varieties, there was a substantial identity in the mode and system under which that extensive corruption had prevailed. Let them consider in what way it was, as far as they could judge from the information with which the Reports in question had supplied them, a corrupt election was, from its beginning to its end, conducted. A writ was issued for a borough election. Three or four gentlemen, the heads of a political party in the borough, came to London in search of a candidate, who of course was soon found. He was invited to stand for the borough. He inquired naturally into the numbers and state of the borough, and the prospects of success; and, being answered, then came the all-important question—what was the amount of the expenses? He was told 1,000l., or perhaps 1,500l., would cover all. He was content to pay that sum, and he paid it into the hands of an agent—some man of influence among the party in the borough—and all were satisfied. The candidate expressed a firm determination to avoid all bribery on every occasion; he enjoined his agent, and all those who were to act in the election, against resorting to any corrupt practice whatever; and he was assured that the funds which he had placed at the disposal of the agent should be fairly, honestly, and legally applied. Then he proceeded to the borough, and announced himself as a candidate, satisfied there would be no violation of the law, in respect either of the money he was about to spend, or the means by which he sought honestly and properly to procure his return to Parliament. A candidate so placed might, with a safe conscience, swear, either then or when the election should have been completed, that he had taken no part in bribery or in any other species of corruption. Yet within twenty-four hours of the time when he placed his 1,000l. or 1,500l. in the hands of an agent, a third part might go to pay some old election bill for treating or bribery; another third of it might be spent in his own election in bribery, in treating, or in other modes of corruption; and perhaps some 400l. or 500l., a little more or a little less, was fairly and properly spent in the legal expenses of the candidate. In the course of the canvass he was generally applied to for some 200l. or 300l. more. Well, the money was given, the election proceeded, and he was returned to Parliament. In due time a petition was presented against his return, together with extensively circulated rumours of bribery and corruption. The petition was either withdrawn or it was compromised, or it proceeded, and the member either retained his seat or he was unseated, Or it might be there was no petition at all, in which case, soon after the time for petitioning was past, the member was pretty generally waited upon by some of the heads of the party, by whom he had been supported, and he was told that, besides the sum of money he had placed in their hands, there had been a further expenditure for his benefit and on his behalf of at least 1,000l. He of course became naturally anxious to know in what manner this money was expended, but then it was more or less obscurely intimated to him, that he had better not inquire into the precise particulars of that expenditure. Most persons placed in such circumstances were apt to treat such a claim as a debt of honour; but if the returned member hinted an objection, he was told that the money had been paid out by some friends without whose support he never could have been returned; that it had been employed—and not unsuccessfully—for his benefit, and that if he refused to repay it the loss would fall on the families of his staunchest supporters. That appeal was generally successful, and after some reluctance the 1,000l. was paid, a large proportion of it being spent in direct or indirect bribery, or in some other mode of corruption. It might be, however, that a member of a firmer character, or of a larger and, perhaps, harder experience, would refuse to satisfy such demands, in which case an intimation was very soon after conveyed to him that he need not appear again in the borough for which he had been returned; and when another election took place a fresh candidate was found who paid his 1,000l. or 1,500l., and with a portion of the sum which he so paid, the old election debt of the former member was liquidated. The system, and the amount of money, of course varied considerably; candidates often paid much larger sums than those he had stated; but he thought he had accurately described the mode in which, in a great many boroughs, elections for a number of years past had been invariably conducted. Sometimes the truth was brought to light, and those investigations followed which had furnished them with the information that he hoped would guide them in the path they had undertaken to pursue. Sometimes, however, these practices escaped detection at the moment. It might be that for an election or two no discovery took place; but sooner or later it was found by the proceedings before an Election Committee, or from the Report of a Commission, that such for many years had invariably been the practice in the boroughs in question. How, then, were they to prevent that practice—to remedy that great evil? It was quite obvious that, in all cases similar to that he had described, the candidates were legally innocent, and more or less morally innocent according to the degree in which they might suspect that their funds were illegally applied. But it was quite obvious that a gentleman who paid a larger or a smaller sum of money into the hands of persons of character and reputation, who assured him that not one farthing of it would be illegally applied, and whom he earnestly enjoined against any resort to corrupt practices, might fairly call upon an Election Committee, while they unseated him by reason of the acts of his agent, to declare him blameless. It was obvious, also, that so long as candidates were found to pay large sums of money into the hands of agents, sub-agents, or the heads of parties in boroughs—so long as there were no means of tracing the money from the hands of agents, sub-agents, and heads of parties, to the final application of every shilling of it—and so long as it was possible for agents to apply to illegal purposes large sums of money placed in their hands, with directions to apply them to legal purposes only—it was in vain to multiply penalties and punishments, to visit upon members the consequences of those acts by unseating them, and to charge the country with the cost of Reports and Commissions. So long as that state of things existed, whilst human nature remained as it was, and whilst the franchise was in the hands of the poorer and more helpless and dependent classes of the community, so long would bribery and corruption prevail. He would now proceed at once to state to the House the means by which he proposed to guard against this great evil, and to render the illegal spending and application of the money of a candidate, who did not himself desire or intend to violate the law, if not altogether impracticable, so difficult to practise, and so easy of detection, that he could not but think, at least as far as regarded candidates and their funds, the evil would be at once and effectually remedied. The case ought to be considered, first, as regarded the candidate; secondly, as regarded the agents; and thirdly, as regarded the electors. Now, first, as to the candidate. In the Bill which he proposed to submit to the House, he should provide for the appointment of a public officer at every election—a person of character and knowledge, and of habits and in a condition of life which would entitle him to confidence, and render him competent to the duty which he would have to perform. The Bill would provide further, by adequate provisions and machinery, that at every election in the kingdom the candidates should pay all moneys emanating from them, directly or indirectly necessary for the legitimate expenses of the election, into the hands of this election officer, and of him alone. If a candidate solemnly swore that he had not paid, and never would pay to the last moment of his life, directly or indirectly, one single guinea for any purpose connected with, or having relation to, the election, except into the hands of the election officer, why then it was manifest that no part of his money, either before or after the election, could be illegally applied, except the election officer became a party to the bribery and corruption. He proposed, therefore, that at a certain period in every year an election officer should be appointed; and he thought the person so appointed should be a barrister, the appointment to be made by the Judges in their respective circuits, for every place returning Members to Parliament. These election officers would have various duties to perform, which he should afterwards fully describe to the House when he came to deal with the other provisions of the Bill; but it was enough for his present purpose to state that the election officer, from the time of his appointment, or rather from the time of the writ for an election issuing, would have the sole management and control of the whole pecuniary concerns of the candidates, and the legal expenses of the election. The candidates would be required at the nomination, when first by law they could be said to be candidates, to pay over to the election officer in the terms which would be found in the sche- dule of the Bill, all the moneys which were necessary to pay the legal expenses of the election, and to swear that they had not paid any expenses or any money at all touching or concerning the election, except it might be unavoidable personal expenses before the day of nomination, and of which they must render a detailed account, upon oath, to the election officer. They must likewise swear that they would not pay, directly or indirectly, to any person whomsoever, any money whatsoever touching or concerning the election at any future time, except into the hands of the election officer, who would therefore be the single and sole agent between the candidates and their other agents, and the whole body of electors. All persons having any claims of any kind upon the candidates, whether those which might be common to the whole of the candidates, such as the expense of the hustings and the fees of the returning officer, or those which had relation to individual and particular candidates, must send in their accounts to the election officer, and to him only; and it was the election officer, and he only, who, having considered the accuracy, the legality, and the justice of such claims, was to pay them out of the funds placed in his hands for that purpose. He would now state to the House why it was he thought the election officer should be a member of the bar, though he might observe—and the remark would apply to every other provision in the Bill—that he had no personal predilection or preference whatsoever in favour of any particular mode or machinery, or of any particular class of persons, which he conceived to be matters for the consideration of the House. He had always thought that when, in any kind of legislation, they could move and act by the light of experience, they ought to avail themselves of that advantage. Now they had had for more than twenty years the experience of that class of persons so essential in our electoral system, the revising barristers, who had duties of the most important and sometimes of the most difficult character to discharge. They had, in fact, under their control the entire elective franchise of England and Wales; and yet from the time of the Reform Bill, which brought them into existence, to the present moment, although many warm political partisans were included in their number, he had never heard the shadow of an objection made to the impartiality with which they discharged their duties. He proposed, therefore, that the election offi- cers should be appointed in the same manner, and from the same class, as the revising barristers. The expense of these election officers would not amount to a very large sum, and would certainly be as nothing when divided among the candidates, compared with the immense expenditure under the present system. He knew of one or two instances of persons who, though they might be free from bribery with respect to the electors, had paid, or consented to pay, a considerable sum of money, with the view either of preventing other candidates from coming forward, or of inducing candidates already in the field to withdraw. He therefore, proposed, that in all cases—whether there was a contest or not, the election officer should attend at the nomination, and that in his presence the oath should be taken by the candidates, who should also be required, as previously stated, to pay into the hands of the election officer the legal expenses of the election. When there was a contest the effect of this payment would be, that the money being lodged in the hands of the election officer, who would take care to avoid paying any part of it for any illegal purpose, the funds of the candidates would be secured from illegal application. Another advantage which would result from his scheme, if carried into effect, would be this. He would not speak of the numerous cases of Election Committees that had occupied the attention of the House for many years past, nor point invidiously to particular instances, but he would allude to the six cases which might be said to be sub judice, and in which the writs had been suspended on the Motion of the noble Lord the Member for London. The remark which he was about to make with regard to those six boroughs would be found to apply to by far the greater proportion of boroughs in which bribery or corruption of any kind had been practised, and of which they had any detailed and satisfactory account. It was this—that in all those cases, whether the payment had been made in one sum or in many sums, or whether before, or during, or after the election—whether the corruption had been practised with or without the knowledge of the candidates—it was the money of the candidates which, sooner or later, paid for the corruption which had been practised. There were but one or two instances mentioned in the Committee Reports in which the funds that had been spent in bribery had ultimately come from other persons than the candidates. If, therefore, the effect of the measure of which he had now submitted the outline to the House would be to stop the sources of corruption as far as the funds of the candidates were concerned—if, in fact, after the passing of his Bill all the money proceeding from candidates would be legally expended—it would at once stop the stream from which flowed the greater part of the corruption which was practised in boroughs. If no money came, or was expected from, the candidate, and if the candidate were bound by oath to pay nothing towards the expenses of the election beyond the sum paid down to the election officer, then, in case of bribery and corruption, it became evident that the funds must be derived from some other source, not from the pockets of the candidates. He knew he was now treading upon tender ground. Whence were the sources from which, and what were the modes in which money might be obtained for bad purposes at an election without the knowledge of the candidates? He could not but think that, although they found sometimes that persons of local influence in a borough were willing to advance their own money for the sake of gaining an election and obtaining a triumph for their own political friend, trusting to the honour of the candidate to have the money paid back at a future period, if it were once known and established as a matter of perfect certainty that no money whatever would be forthcoming from candidates, except for defraying the legal expenses of the election, very few parties would be ready to apply their own funds to that purpose, at least to any considerable extent. He thought if the sources of corruption were stopped at once and for ever, on the part of the candidates, bribery would very soon wear itself out. He was bound to admit, however, that there had been cases in which bribery had been practised by the money of other persons than the candidates. It had been said, but he knew not whether truly or untruly, that it had been the practice of certain clubs to collect together sums of money, by subscription or otherwise, upon the eve of an election, and that those large sums had been divided and apportioned out to be spent in securing the return of candidates belonging to the same political party. That might, or might not, be so. But if the money thus raised for election purposes were only paid into the hands of the candidate himself, no harm would be done, because the candidate in his turn would be obliged to pay all the funds which were to be spent in the election into the hands of the election officer, and no portion of them could be used for illegal purposes. The same observation applied to cases in which not the candidate himself, but some wealthier relative or friend, paid the expenses of his election. But here another difficulty arose. Cases had occurred in which persons of no character, or of reckless character, had obtained from the relatives or friends of candidates, or even from candidates themselves, considerable sums of money to be spent at an election, had then gone to the borough and put themselves in communication with those who had local knowledge, and had finally disposed of money placed in their hands through the old and practised agents of bribery. Such cases were extremely difficult to deal with, because, though they might impose an oath upon a candidate, and upon those who were known to act as his agents in the election, and though they might require a declaration from the electors, yet they could not impose an oath upon all mankind—they could not send for the clubs of London, and the friends of the candidate, and impose an oath upon them. How, then, were such cases to be dealt with? It was obvious, in the first place, that, if the candidate should no longer be looked to as the source of the funds for election purposes, the cases would be few in which other persons would collect together a sufficient sum of money to practise corruption to any very considerable extent. It must likewise be remembered, that any one going down to a borough for such purposes would be vigilantly watched by the heads of parties and persons having local knowledge; and if it were quite certain that offenders against the law would be subjected to a severe punishment, inflicted with little mercy, he thought the number of such attempts would be very small indeed, and a repetition of them would scarcely be attempted. That consideration was the more important, because, although before Election Committees and under these Commissions it was sometimes impossible to trace out with particularity the various agents and subagents in the work of corruption, yet there were practised and experienced men connected with the local parties in every borough, who knew as well when bribery was going on, either on their own or the other side, as if it were done before their eyes, and practised in the broad daylight. Considering the vigilance with which they watched each other, he could not suppose a stranger from London or elsewhere could go down to the borough under the circumstances which he had suggested and yet escape detection; but in order to meet that danger as far as practicable by legislation, he should venture to propose certain provisions in the Bill, rendering it incumbent upon every candidate to declare to the election officer the names of the agents whom he employed. Those agents would also be called upon to take an oath before the election officer in conformity with that taken by the candidate, and which would have the like effect in regard to any funds in their hands, so that no money should be paid at all, but by the election officer, excepting in certain cases of necessity, for which the Bill provided, in which case the agent would be likewise bound to render a true account from time to time, as those minor and inconsiderable expenses were incurred. Having thus provided for the candidate and the agents, he came next to those who were the real, but not the avowed agents, and through whom alone, if the provisions he had mentioned were carried into effect, corruption of any kind could be practised. One man, and that man a stranger, never could commit bribery to any extent. He could not himself know who were the voters open to bribery; and any one, without precise information, going to offer a bribe, would incur the risk of being denounced at once, and brought to justice. Every one going on such an errand must receive local information from those who were on the spot, and who possessed all the knowledge necessary for the practice of corruption. Thus a great number of persons besides the one who actually gave the bribe must be engaged in these nefarious schemes—a circumstance which he could not but deem improbable, having regard to the measure affecting the agents and candidates. But to meet this class of persons there was another provision in the Bill, by which it was competent to the returning officer, upon oath being made to his satisfaction that any person was in or about the borough, and acting in a manner that rendered it likely he meant to proceed to illegal practices, to call upon that party to take the agents' oath. For instance, if a person was seen going about the borough among the lower class of electors, who were most susceptible of corrupt influences, it was competent to the election officer to call upon him to take the agents' oath, and in all probability, in going through that form, he would be detected, and the threatened corruption prevented. He would not detain the House by more than alluding to a series of clauses designed to render illegal a number of practices, now the source of great expense and the cause of corruption, both direct and indirect, such as the employment of flag-men and flag-bearers, processions, and music, and chairings, which were the bad adjuncts and features of an election under the present system. He trusted, therefore, by this measure ample security would be provided against corruption of any kind, either by the candidates or agents; and the remaining and all-important consideration in any reform attempted to be effected in our electoral system was, what legislative safeguard should be attempted with regard to the protection of the voters. He approached this part of the subject with great diffidence, for whilst, on the one hand, the many persons in and out of that House with whom he had communicated—persons of great knowledge and ability, who had favoured him with their counsel, opinions, and suggestions—had, without exception, approved of the measure as to the election officer, he was bound to admit he had met with many doubts and much disapprobation of the other and not less important measure to which he was now about to call the attention of the House. It was his intention, then, to submit to their consideration a series of provisions to enable the voters throughout England and Wales to gives their votes by means of voting papers. He entreated the House not to be misled by the use of that term into supposing that the voting paper which he should suggest was at all in its form, or that the machinery by which it was accompanied was at all like any yet known in the election of Poor Law Guardians or any other proceedings in this country. He proposed to accompany the voting papers with machinery which he could not but believe would afford most perfect security against fabrication, mutilation, or fraud; and before he proceeded to detail the precise nature of the voting papers, he would enumerate the advantages which would be secured, if this part of the measure should be carried successfully into practical effect. If they could but provide some adequate means by which the votes of the electors of this country could be given by means of voting papers, in the first place they got rid of all the tumult, agitation, and violence, often attended with danger to human life, which unfortunately prevailed at so many elections. Instead of going to the poll, voters, whether timid, vacillating, bribed, coerced, treated, or intimidated, might give their votes at times and under circumstances when coercion, violence, intimidation, bribery, and corruption were all impossible; and even in the case of infirmity, age, or sickness, they might give their votes in their own bedrooms or in their own parlours. It was well known to those who heard him, that the item of travelling expenses alone in a contested county election amounted to from 5,000l. to 20,000l. It was difficult in the smallest county to carry on a contested election without that item of expense to each candidate being 4,000l. or 5,000l., and when they considered that in the larger counties (not to mention the West Riding of Yorkshire, where the amount must be terrific) vast sums were expended under that head alone, he could not but think they would agree with him it would be a benefit of the greatest magnitude and importance if they could at once annihilate and expunge that item of expenditure from the system altogether. But the evil did not stop there. The consequence of travelling expenses being paid and payable was this: a voter came perhaps 50, or it might be 500 miles, to vote, and he might ask 5l., 6l., 7l., or 8l. Who was to determine what was the proper sum? To provide a scale of charges by Act of Parliament was impossible. The difference even between a first and a second or third class fare on a railway rendered anything like the same sum being applicable to all the voters perfectly out of the question. The result of the impossibility to fix any sum, with certainty that justice should be done the voter and the law observed, was, that whatever the voter asked, unless it was manifestly extravagant, was paid, and thus the system became an indirect but common mode of bribery. If a man having spent 2l. or 3l., obtained double the sum, that was indirect but complete bribery, to the extent of the surplus. The evil was still greater; for whatever might be the intentions of those who had to satisfy these demands, however anxious they might be to conform to the law, and to pay only such sums as were reasonable, it was impossible to do so in all cases. They might unknowingly pay a man 10l. whose expenses only amounted to 5l., or even a smaller sum. An election petition followed, and although the candidate might come in by a thousand majority, and be as well entitled to represent the constituency as any Gentleman in that House, if the Committee found a man paid more than he was entitled to, and that the surplus was only an indirect means of bribery, they would, as a matter of course, declare the election void. The enormity of the expense, the danger to the candidates, however fairly and lawfully returned, of being unseated, and other considerations, rendered it a matter of great importance to do away altogether with the system of travelling expenses, and that would be one of the consequences of the adoption of voting by voting papers. The same observation applied to treating. Distant voters, who came 200 or 300 miles to vote, whether at a borough or county election, must eat and drink somewhere till their return, and the door consequently was opened wide for treating without limit. If, then, they could do away with the system of voting in person, and enable the absent and distant voter to vote at well where he was as if he came to the polling-place where the election was going on, they would at once annihilate the evils of indirect bribery by travelling expenses and treating at elections. Another evil, of a different character, but an evil of serious magnitude, would be mitigated, if not altogether remedied, should that system of voting by papers succeed—he meant that evil which was the subject of so much complaint in that House—the procuring votes by intimidation and the exercise of undue influence. He hoped that some good would be done in all these respects, and that something like freedom and purity of election would take the place of the bribery, intimidation, and corruption which now so extensively prevailed. He would as briefly and perspicuously as possible state to the House the machinery by which these provisions would be accompanied, and the mode proposed by which votes would be given by these voting papers. In the first place, he proposed that the giving of the vote itself should be the act of signing the voting paper and the declaration which it contained, and the delivery of that paper so signed and declared to some public officer competent to take the declaration and transmit the paper to the returning officer. He proposed, therefore, that at certain periods—once in every year—the magistrates in every county as to county elections, and the magistrates in every city and borough as to city and borough elections, and the returning officers and certain other assistants in respect to those boroughs which, like the metropolitan boroughs, had no municipal corporation and no local magistrates, should meet and determine upon the number of places, and the places themselves, within the counties and within the cities and boroughs at which the magistrates or other public officers competent to administer and take this declaration should sit for some three or four days before the day of election, in order to take the declarations of the voters, to receive their votes, and to transmit their votes to the returning officer. These places must be sufficiently numerous, and so situated, in counties, that one should be within one, or two, or three miles, at most, of every resident voter. With regard to every voter in counties, they would have three or four days after nomination to give their votes; they would be supplied with voting papers, and they could go to some place appointed, in their own neighbourhood, to which every man in good health could walk without difficulty or loss of time, to give their votes. With regard to absent and distant voters, the provisions of the Bill being that any magistrate in any part of England or Wales, whether in the part for which he was magistrate or not, might take the declaration, they might go to a magistrate or to a barrister and there deliver the declaration, to be by him transmitted by post or otherwise to the returning officer, and thus the vote would be complete. Even in the most numerous constituencies, it was his belief that the greatest number of votes could be given at a very early period of the election, without pressure and without difficulty, and nothing would remain but that the votes should be enumerated. With regard to the voting paper itself, he proposed it should consist of a declaration by the voter of the place for which he was entitled to vote, and that he was the person named on the register. He also proposed that it should contain a solemn declaration, with all the sanctity, though not in the form, of an oath, that he had not received, and would not receive, any species of bribe, reward, or consideration in respect of the vote which he gave. He might as well, perhaps, allude to a few words in it which might have some effect on intimidation. He proposed that the voter, besides abjuring bribery and any species of corruption, should declare, in direct and solemn terms, that he gave his vote freely and willingly, and according to the best of his judgment and conscience, and not under any intimidation or coercion or undue influence whatsoever. He could not but think that the introduction of those words into such a declaration would have a beneficial effect, and that, when men of power and influence, whether landlords or employers, went to canvass a voter, and the voter said, "My principles are the other way, and you know I have to make a declaration, with all the sanctity of an oath, that I give my vote freely and willingly, and according to the best of my judgment and conscience," the answer would, he conscientiously believed, prevent any pressure of undue influence. That was the nature of the declaration; and to complete the subject, he need only say he proposed that the Queen's printer should print a sufficient number of them, that they should he transmitted to the election officer, and that the election officer, having power under the Bill to obtain the assistance of persons of local knowledge, should transmit them to all the voters on the register. In case of miscarriage, they would be sold at or ½d. or ¼d. at every stationer's shop in the Kingdom, so that if a paper failed to reach any voter, he could buy one for a trifling sum, go make his declaration, and transmit it to the election officer. The election officer would then be bound, on the return of the whole of the voting papers, to examine them by the register, and with the assistance of check clerks, employed on behalf of the various candidates, as under the present system, and then the votes would be recorded, and the return made. He did not propose to prevent anybody going openly to the poll on that which was happily now the single day of election throughout the Kingdom. Every one who preferred the notoriety of open voting might go, and openly make their declaration, and deliver their vote as publicly as under the existing law. He might finally observe, that it would be necessary to reserve the power, in cases of personation, forgery, and fraud, of laying aside any of these voting papers objected to by the check clerks or inspectors, either on the ground that the person was dead or the signature fabricated. If the return was not affected by the number of voting papers so objected to, the return would be made; but if, on the contrary, it was affected, the returning officer would have power to investigate the validity of such voting papers; the personated voter could be called before him, and he would have the means of determining at once the question of the validity or invalidity of the vote. Under those circumstances, personation, fabrication, and fraud would be almost impracticable, but, wherever practicable, certain of detection; and he could not think any one would incur the severe penalty imposed by law for such an offence when it was certain the return would not be influenced thereby. Such was an outline of the measure he had the honour to submit to the House. He ought to observe, that with respect to the expenses of the election, and in order that the election officer should well discharge the duty he undertook, and that justice should be done to those who had clear and just demands, and also that there should be no excuse for the application of money by or through any one but the election officer, he proposed that that functionary should exact from every candidate a deposit of the amount deemed necessary, according to the prospect of contest or no contest, not exceeding 300l. for counties and 200l. for boroughs, which he trusted would soon become the largest sum to be expended at any election; and that he should likewise make each candidate give two sufficient securities in 1,000l. to meet the expenses of the election. If the House permitted him, in the event of the present Bill receiving its sanction, he proposed by another and a separate Bill to abolish at once the law of property qualification for Members of Parliament. He was not sorry to find the task had fallen into abler hands than his, and that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Devonport (Mr. Tufnell) had, as he understood, given notice of his intention to bring that question before the House. He (Sir F. Kelly) could only say that should this Bill receive the approbation of Parliament, they would enjoy security for the proceedings at elections, and for the respectability and independence of every candidate for a seat in that House, and he should be very happy to lend his assistance to the right hon. Gentleman in carrying through the House the measure of which he had given notice. He had now given the House an outline of the measure he should have the honour to introduce. He felt he had entered upon a task for which his humble abilities were altogether inadequate, unless he was supported and encouraged by the assistance and approbation of the Members of that House. With that assistance he did not despair of effecting a very great good, and of putting an end to a very great evil in the constitution of that House. Such were the provisions and such the object of the measure he now asked leave to introduce. He had brought it forward with no party views. He had prepared it in all its details without the slightest regard or reference to party considerations. If it should receive the sanction of Parliament, and should conduce to the great end which he had laboured to attain, he should rejoice that he had lent his humble assistance in giving freedom and purity to that part of our constitution upon which the liberties and the well-being of the people of this country depended.

said, he did not rise for the purpose of opposing this Bill. He had listened with very great attention to the whole of the hon. and learned Gentleman's speech, and he had come to one conclusion, namely, that such a system as had been proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman was impracticable in its machinery, would be futile in its results, and was by no means calculated to put an end to the existing evils connected with the election of Members of Parliament, admitting that such evils existed. A variety of measures had been proposed in that House for removing these evils, but they had proved to be of little avail. He was happy to say that the constituency which he had the honour of representing was free from charges of intimidation and corruption. He had never yet been able to arrive at a knowledge of what bribery really was. Let the whole of the Treasury bench be closely examined and purified before they talked about putting down bribery outside of that House. If that were done, there might be some hopes of arriving at purity of election. If a more liberal system were carried on at elections, he should have better company in that House, and paupers would not ask to be sent to Parliament. There were persons then in that House, who, he did not hesitate to say, ought never to have been permitted to sit there. Gentlemen of local influence and authority, who exercised Christian charity towards their fellow men, and not paupers, ought to sit in that House. With regard to the officer whom the hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to empower to put impudent questions to voters on tendering their votes, he (Colonel Sibthorp) must say, that to such a Mr. Tomkins or Mr. Jenkins he should be inclined to apply the argumentum baculinum for asking such questions. The whole of the machinery proposed by this Bill was mean, from the beginning to the end. He hoped that this Bill would never pass, but that every liberty would be given to gentlemen of local influence to exercise liberality towards their fellow-creatures, and that that House might be composed of hon. Gentlemen, and not paupers.

said, that perhaps he might be allowed to state, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, that it was not their intention to oppose the introduction of the Bill, but it must not be inferred from this that they in any way assented to its provisions. He was quite ready to admit, however, that there was much in the Bill which deserved the serious consideration and attention of the House, while, on the other hand, there were parts in it which he could not help thinking were doubtful, both in policy and detail. For instance, it would be a very doubtful policy to allow votes to be taken through the medium of voting papers. For, if such a plan were agreed to, it would be renewing again what they had flattered themselves was got rid of—namely, the system of protracted polling and scrutiny at elections. The Bill proposed to make a sort of four days' scrutiny, which would be productive of great injury; but it was perhaps premature to enter into a discussion of the provisions now, and he would therefore abstain from touching upon the other parts of the scheme. Still he was bound to confess that the Bill of his hon. and learned Friend was novel alike in principle and details; and on that account it was well deserving the best attention of the House. They could all have but one common object in view, and that was—not as the hon. and gallant Member seemed to suppose, to put down charity—but to put a stop to that tendency to corruption which unhappily had so largely prevailed at elections, and which all men who took a reasonable view of the subject—he meant no disrespect to the hon. and gallant Member—could not but feel was sapping the very vitals of our representative system.

said, he was of opinion that very many of the provisions of the Bill of the hon. and learned Member for East Suffolk would only add to the evils which it professed to remedy. But, if the House was really determined to put down bribery and extravagant expenditure at elections, why not take the simple and the only effectual mode of doing it? He had introduced a Bill in the year 1826, which was founded on the Report of a Committee, and by which he proposed to provide that no candidate should be subject to any expense whatever. That counties, in the case of county elections, and boroughs, in the case of borough elections, should provide the polling places, and pay every necessary expense; that any man should be at liberty to appear as a candidate; and that every candidate should be called upon to take an oath that he had not applied, and would not apply, a single shilling in the payment of election expenses. The present system was entirely at variance with the course which every man pursued in private life in the employment of servants; and the Members of that House were the servants of the public. It had been hitherto considered that men entered Parliament to serve their own purposes; but that was not the object for which they were elected, and it ought not to be so in practice. The Member of Parliament was the servant of the county or borough which he was elected to represent, and it was his duty to watch over and protect the interests of his constituents and of the country at large. Was it not contrary to all sound principles to place a man in the position of a servant, and to call upon him to incur great expenses before he entered upon his duties? How could they expect him, if they did that, to discharge his duty honestly? So long as they made the Members pay election expenses, how could they hope to escape venality? If Members of that House were beggared by these expenses at the outset, how could they expect them to stand out against the temptation to indemnify themselves in one way or the other? He wished, therefore, that the present system should be altogether done away with, and that every Member returned to that House, whether by a borough or a county, should be returned free of expense. He had already said that he had introduced a Bill which had that object in view, and which also contained a provision that the poll at every election should be taken in one day. This latter provision, rejected at the time, had since become law, and he hoped, if he lived long enough, to see the common sense of Parliament adopting the other also. With respect to the Bill of the hon. and learned Member, he would remind the House that there was already an election officer, called a returning officer, appointed; that he took from the candidates a deposit, for the payment of such expenses as were recognised by law; and that the money so deposited was expended under his direction, and by his authority. He did not say how the system had worked; he knew that in many instances these officers had taken five times as much as they ought to have done for expenses; but there, at all events, the system was. He thought that the simple protection of the ballot, with a considerable extension of the suffrage, would be the most effectual protection against intimidation and undue influence. He had no wish to destroy that fair and proper influence which the man who was kind as a landlord and as a member of society, who stood high and was respected in his station, and who endeavoured to benefit his fellow man and to promote the welfare of his neighbours—he had no wish to destroy the influence which such a man must have when an event like an election came round. It was the bribery which was a great evil, and he thought they would be putting an important check on that by adopting the simple mode which he had proposed of putting an end to all expenses, and imposing an oath on every individual Member before he took his seat that he had not paid, and would not pay, any.

said, he was not about to oppose the introduction of this Bill; but he must express his opinion that it would not only not stop intimidation, but would give increased means to the intimidator; neither was it calculated to stop bribery. If a very stringent oath would stop bribery, he would admit that his hon. and learned Friend had invented one which was very stringent indeed; but they all knew that those who had done wrong would swear they had done right; and he was satisfied that no oath, however stringent, would have the desired effect. He trusted that hon. Members would make themselves masters of the measure before it came on for a second reading; but, giving his hon. and learned Friend full credit for the sincerity of his intentions, he must express his opinion that the House would be neglecting its duty in permitting it to pass another stage.

said, that in moving for leave to introduce a Bill to alter and amend the Truck Act, he requested the kind indulgence of the House while he brought under its notice a subject of great importance to the mining districts of South Staffordshire, and to various other parts of the Kingdom. It was a question which was not now for the first time presented to the consideration of that House. In the year 1831 a special Act of Parliament was passed, popularly known as Littelton's Act, for the purpose of enforcing the payment of wages in money; and no man could be more sensible than himself of the great benefits which that Act had conferred on the district in which he lived. The time, however, had come when it was necessary to introduce into it some mote stringent provisions. The noble Lord who had introduced it (Lord Hatherton), and with whose name it was connected, now a Member of the other House, was fully sensible of this necessity. Previously to the passing of the Statute to which he was referring, an employer, in an action for wages, could set off the amount of goods supplied in lieu of wages against his servant's demand; but the Act not only provided that no such set-off should be allowed, but went on to enact further, that no action brought by an employer against his artificer, to recover the value of goods which had been furnished on account of wages, should be maintained. These provisions established the illegality of any but money payments, and paved the way for that further legislation which he was now about to ask the House to sanction. From 1832 to 1842 complaints of evasion were frequent, and in the latter year a Select Committee was appointed to inquire into the truth of these alleged evils. The Committee did not report, but the existence of the evil was amply proved by the evidence adduced before them. In 1851 a deputation, composed of gentlemen from the localities in which the truck system prevailed, waited on the right hon. Baronet the Member for Morpeth (Sir G. Grey), then Secretary of State for the Home Department, with respect to these evasions of the Act, and in consequence a Commissioner was appointed to inquire into them, and report as to whether they resulted from the state of the law, and at to what amendments would be necessary. The Commissioner, Mr. Tremenheere, collected a mass of evidence on the subject, which was published two years since, and the Bill which he proposed to introduce was founded upon the facts which Mr. Tremenheere's Report had established, and was in accordance with the recommendations contained in it. The Act was most frequently evaded by a system of collusive payments, which the Report briefly described. The workman, or some one in his behalf, ordered at the shop a certain quantity of goods, which were packed up and put aside for him; and, at the same time, a bill was delivered to him, specifying the amount of his purchase. With this bill, or the memorandum, he went to the cashier, who gave him the amount in cash; and he immediately returned to the shop, paid the money there, and received the goods in exchange. Another mode which was resorted to was to make advances to the workman, ostensibly by way of loan, upon the understanding that a certain proportion—and it was generally a large proportion—should be laid out in goods at the shop. Sometimes goods were supplied upon the credit of a third party, and the workman gave an order on his employer on the account. The result was that the men never got the full value of their wages, being obliged to lay out a considerable part of them in goods, which were not only of inferior quality, but were charged for at a rate much higher than the market price. The existing Act, while it struck at the root of collusive contracts, overlooked the question of collusive payments; and, for the purpose of remedying this defect he proposed in this Bill to enact that anything done to prevent the workman from having the entire control of his wages should be a violation of the third section of the Truck Act, and be punishable by the penalties which that Act prescribes. He held in his hand a letter from a correspondent at Bilston, containing information as to the working of the present system, some of the statements in which he would briefly bring before the House. It appeared from that letter that in some cases the workman was expected to lay out at the shop 10s. out of every "draw," so that if the "draw" amounted to 12s. he had only 2s. to take home to his family; if he did not lay out the full amount, he was punished at the next draw by the ordinary payment on account being withheld from him, and by being told that he must wait for his wages until the next general settlement, which might not be for two or three weeks. If he refused to work he was liable to be sent to prison. The goods supplied were charged at from 1d. to 1½d. per lb. above the retail price, and the women were often kept waiting about for hours; so that instances had occurred in which children had been burnt to death during these absences of their mothers. He did not object to the masters becoming shopkeepers if they pleased. It was a libel on those who wished to put down the truck system, to say that they had any such objection. If the masters chose to descend to the position of the retail dealer, let them do it by all means. In that case, let them put themselves upon a footing with the other shopkeepers in their neighbourhood. What they wanted was to put an end to a system of collusive payments, under which the workman received his money in one part of the establishment and exchanged it for goods in another. Let him have a bonâ fide payment in money of the wages he had earned, and let him be free to lay it out where he pleased, so that he might have what was accorded to the rest of the community—the benefit of full and free competition. He proposed to make an alteration also in the amount of the penalty. At present it was not less than 5l. nor more than 10l. for the first offence—not less than 10l. nor more than 20l. for the second—and it was only a third breach of the law that was liable to be treated as a misdemeanor. He proposed to make the penalty not less than 10l. nor more than 20l. for the first offence, and to constitute the second a misdemeanor, for it was evident that, while the profits of the "tommy shops" amounted to hundreds, and sometimes to thousands a year, penalties so light as those which now existed would have no effect in putting an end to the system. The knowledge that he would have to answer the charge before a jury of his countrymen, would probably have more influence upon the master in preventing him from persisting in it than anything else that could be devised. As regarded the time for laying the information, taking into consideration the difficulty of getting men to come forward to give evidence, he proposed to enlarge the time within which informations might be laid from three months to six, and instead of leaving it to the discretion of the magistrates to dispose of the penalty—a discretion which had been sometimes exercised by awarding to the informer no more than 40s., he proposed that the informer should be entitled to one-half the penalty absolutely. He knew that this was an arrangement which was generally looked on with some jealousy; but, considering the enormous expenses which were incurred in prosecuting to conviction—in one case they had amounted to as much as 80l.—and considering that the funds for the payment of these expenses had to be provided principally by the workmen and small shopkeepers—he hoped the House would not object to carry out in this case the principle which had been recognised in reference to officers of the revenue; and, instead of leaving the local associations to fight the battle unassisted, would give them some portion of the penalty to assist them in enforcing the law. He knew it had been said that the increased value of labour rendered all legislation superfluous, and that there was no pressure from those on whose behalf they were called upon to legislate. He could only refer to the petitions which he had presented, and state the fact that not only from his own constituents, but from other parts of the country, he had received communications representing that the evil was one of urgency, and one that called for the immediate interference of Parliament. He would admit that there was not the same pressure, the same agitation, that there had been in other cases; but he thought they ought to take advantage of that circumstance to deal with the difficulty while they could do it calmly and with deliberation, and before it had assumed that formidable shape which other differences between masters and their workmen unhappily now presented. They had here an opportunity of applying a practicable remedy to an admitted evil, and of promoting thereby the interests of social order, of the honest employer, whom these "truck" masters or "tommy" shopkeepers, by reason of the large profits which they derived from the present system, were enabled to undersell, and of the labouring poor. A Bill had been introduced last year by the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which was withdrawn on account of the approaching termination of the Session; the noble Lord proposed to refer that Bill to a Select Committee, and he (Mr. Forster) was prepared to adopt that course with the present measure; and—although he knew the disadvantage of its depending upon his feeble advocacy instead of being introduced by the noble Lord, so distinguished for administrative talent—by doing so, they would give a proof to the working man that, amid more exciting topics, they were not neglectful of his interest, and convince him that the protection of his rights was not to be found in trade-unions or strikes, but by stating his grievance, which, when proved, stringent legislation should prevent his being deprived of his right to receive a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, the payment for which should be in the lawful coin of the realm.

said, that in supporting the hon. Gentleman's motion, he would beg to suggest that there was no necessity for the Bill being referred to a Select Committee. A great deal of attention had been given to this question and many inquiries made, and he (Mr. Peto) could not conceive any circumstances under which the payment of a man's wages should be withheld, or that for such payment anything else should be substituted for money. When first he became connected with public works the payment of money was the exception and not the rule; but, from twenty-five years' experience, he could conceive no reason why there should be a departure from the rule, that a man's wages should be paid in the current coin of the realm. The firm with which he was connected had employed in England, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and various parts of the Continent, 30,000 men, and they never paid wages otherwise than in money, and always took care the men had it in sufficient time to derive the full benefit from it for their families. He asked the hon. Gentleman and the Government not to refer the matter to a Select Committee, but to a Committee of the whole House, and he was certain there was no hon. Member but would say that the proposed measure sought to secure to the workman his simple and inalienable right. Let them make the Act as stringent as they might, they could not be doing an injustice, as it was but right that an obligation should be discharged in the spirit in which it was incurred—by a proper payment at the proper time.

said, no man could be more anxious than he was that the workman should receive the fullest and best remuneration for his labour; but it was only deluding the workman if they thought a Bill of pains and penalties like this would prevent the master and workman from making whatever bargain they thought proper. Such Bills as this always had been, and always would be, evaded; but it was never evaded except when it was for the interest of both parties; and therefore the hopes which these Bills served to hold out were purely delusive. Far better would it be for the House, instead of wasting time upon such measures as this, to instruct the workman upon the law of political economy, and remove from his mind everything like an idea of injustice in a system which could be made to work as much, nay more, for the advantage of the employed as for that of the employer. For instance, when Mr. Dale established his mills in Lanarkshire, he supplied his workpeople with provisions much better, and at a far cheaper rate, than they could have got them in the market; and he had no doubt there were numerous other cases where the same principle of reciprocity had proved advantageous to the workman. An experience of thirty-five years had taught him that these Bills did more harm than good, and he hoped the House would not sanction the present measure.

said, that as he lived on a borderland, just between two parts of the country, in one of which the truck system prevailed, and in the other it did not, he could give the clearest evidence as to the effect that system had on the workpeople. As there were but few savings banks in his part of the country, the people of the populous district near Merthyr Tydvil, where the truck system did not prevail, invested their money in building cottages, a large proportion of which were built by them out of their savings. On the other side of the mountains, where the truck system prevailed, where their circumstances were in other respects precisely similar, not one-tenth of the cottages were built by the workmen. This, he thought, was conclusive evidence that the surplus, after ordinary expenditure, did not reach them in such fulness as it did those whose wages suffered no diminution from the truck system, and who were free to purchase as other people were. The result of his observations upon the working of the truck system was, that it had a mischievous and baneful effect upon those habits of economy which it was most desirable they should encourage, and which formed the surest basis of the present well-being and future progress of the working classes. Whatever might be the opinion of the House upon the truck system, he thought it was clear that the present law ought to be seriously considered, and, if necessary, amended. The working classes saw the law violated daily by the rich and powerful, and the natural conclusion to which they came was, that the rich and powerful were allowed to break the law, while the poor were not permitted to do so. They constantly saw rich men brought before the magistrates; they witnessed a failure of justice; and it was natural that they should attribute the circumstance not, as was really the case, to the imperfection of the law, but to the leaning of the magistrate towards the course of the rich and powerful. He could himself vouch for the existence of such feelings, having, unfortunately, had to hear charges brought under the Truck Acts, and occasionally to inflict penalties, and he had had frequent occasion for remarking how difficult it was, under the existing Act, to administer the law in the spirit in which it was intended to be administered by the Legislature. He had little doubt, however, that if the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. C. Forster) succeeded in carrying this Bill, which had been very carefully drawn, many of the existing difficulties would be removed, and that a deathblow would be given to a system which, in his conscience, he believed had been one of the greatest causes of the degradation of the working classes in the mineral districts of England and Wales.

said, he was not disposed to offer any opposition to the introduction of the Bill, though he had not the smallest faith that any benefit would arise from it. He believed it to be one of that numerous class of measures introduced every Session which the House received with a great deal of amiable feeling, and which they allowed to go on two or three stages, because, though they were satisfied that such measures would do no good, they believed they would do no harm. The hon. Member for Montrose had referred to the various measures that had been passed upon this subject in the course of his experience. He (Mr. Bright) presumed that the argument in favour of any legislation on this question was, not that workmen were supplied with food, but that they were supplied with food at shops to which they were forced to go, and where the price charged was higher than they would have to pay if they were to go to other shops, and if what was called "unrestricted competition" was allowed. It had often struck him that though the truck law was the same all over the Kingdom—except with regard to farmers, who, he believed, were excepted altogether from its operation—although that law extended through the cotton as well as the iron districts, since he had been in that House, a period of ten years, he had never heard any complaint of the existence of the truck system in the cotton districts of Lancashire and Cheshire. He thought it would be worth while to consider whether there was any reason why they had such complaints from the iron districts and none from the cotton districts, although the law with regard to both was the same. What could be more easy than to establish the truck system in the cotton districts? The cotton manufacturers employed as large a number of persons as were employed by the majority of masters in the iron and coal districts, and yet they did not find it to their interest—or, if they did, they did not avail themselves of the opportunities taken in the iron districts—to establish this system. They certainly had every motive to adopt it so far as profit was concerned, but yet they had not adopted it. He did not know whether the employers and workpeople in the cotton districts were a superior class to the employers and workpeople in the iron districts, but, at all events, they obeyed the law; and, if this system was bad for the workmen, he did not think that, in the long run, it could be good for the employers. He understood that, both in the iron and coal districts, there was at this moment a great dearth of labour, and that wages were extremely high. Indeed, they had seen in the newspapers accounts of strikes among the workpeople in those districts. If men were striking who received 6s., 7s., or 8s. a day—men whose incomes rendered them liable to the income tax, why should Parliament be called on to legislate for them? Would Parliament legislate for men who received 100l. a year wages for eight or nine hours' daily work, and who yet complained that they were forced to go to particular shops to get their goods? Surely, men who could get up strikes against the owners of ironworks and collieries, who could maintain those strikes for weeks and months, who could organise trades' unions and fight contests before the courts of law—surely, if these men felt the truck system a real grievance they would put down such a tyranny as this was represented to be. He believed that in the cotton districts the working population would not submit to be forced to a shop to which they were unwilling to go. Would it not be as well if his hon. Friends the Members for Walsall and Merthyr Tydvil would recommend to those whom they represented in this matter, that, by an improvement in the moral feeling and the moral views of capitalists and employers, this evil might be put down altogether, as it was, he believed without exception, in Lancashire? He believed that Acts of Parliament would not have the slightest influence in repressing the practice. He believed that no law, however carefully framed, would effect that object. He would undertake to say, that if the 109 lawyers in that House, and those who were to be added by the Reform Bill, were to lay their heads together and draw a Bill on the subject, unless some much more powerful influence operated both upon masters and workmen, the truck system, if it was profitable, would still be continued in spite of Acts of Parliament. He did not object to the introduction of the measure; it was not worth while, for that House always favoured the bringing in of these little peddling measures of legislation. He admitted that his hon. Friend the Member for Walsall (Mr. C. Forster) was actuated by the best motives in bringing this subject forward. His hon. Friend might think that he (Mr. Bright) was mistaken as to the probable operation of the measure. He might be mistaken, but he concurred entirely with his hon. Friend as to the result he desired to attain, and he wished that the districts of Staffordshire were in the same position as Lancashire with regard to this system. He (Mr. Bright) could only say that if the truck system was established in his district and was prospering there, he would do all in his power to dissuade the workmen from submitting to it, and the masters from carrying it on. He believed that the reasons which had induced its discontinuance in Lancashire would be sufficient to prevent its continuance in other districts; and he was satisfied that such a Bill as that of his hon. Friend, which warred against the interest and customs of a district, would only share the fate of those measures which had preceded it on the same subject. It would hold out delusive hopes to the workmen that something would be done for them, and in the end they would be disappointed.

said, as one of the 109 lawyers to whom his hon. Friend had referred, he rose to say how much he agreed with him in the view which he took of this subject. He believed that no law, however stringently drawn and carefully carried out, would be successful in putting a stop to the truck system while it was the interest of masters and workpeople to continue it. A Bill on this subject was introduced last Session, and he formed one of a deputation which waited upon the noble Lord the Home Secretary, and made representations to the noble Lord that resulted in the withdrawal of that measure. That deputation brought facts under the noble Lord's notice which showed that, so far from the establishment of shops in connexion with mines and collieries being in all cases obnoxious to workmen, in some of the large iron districts such shops had been specially established at the unanimous request of the workmen themselves. One case was mentioned where extensive works were situated in a large valley, Coalbrook-dale, eight or nine miles distant from any town to which the workmen could go to purchase the articles they required. It was found that all the trade in that valley was in the hands of small hucksters, who had a complete monopoly, who combined together, who sold bad goods at high prices, and who also used false weights. The masters established shops themselves; there was on complaint on the part of the workmen of the manner in which those shops were conducted; and it appeared to him that this Bill was an attempt to legislate against a system which, under the care of fair and honest employers, might be a benefit, rather than a disadvantage to their work-people. He considered that the laws relating to masters and workmen were in so complicated a state, that a full inquiry into that question ought to take place before any further legislation was attempted. This Bill was introduced upon the assumption that a Truck Act was the only means of preventing the abuse of the truck system. Now, he held that a Truck Act was not only utterly useless, but actually mischievous, and he thought there were other means by which they should seek to benefit the workmen, and to break down the overbearing influence of capital in this country. He would suggest whether the establishment of the principle of limited liability would not be more likely to bring about the independence of the working classes than any interference of this kind. The subject was, however, so beset with difficulties, that he thought the best course would be to appoint a Committee of the House to investigate the whole question. He was happy to understand that the Commission appointed to consolidate the Statute Laws were at this moment engaged in drawing up a report on the whole state of the law as between masters and workmen, from which he anticipated great good. He would not oppose the introduction of the Bill; but he thought, before they allowed it to proceed further, the House should consider whether it would not be more advisable to repeal the existing Truck Acts, than to enact new ones. He hoped his hon. Friend would not press the second reading of the Bill until time had been given for a Select Committee to investigate the subject.

I shall, of course, Sir, support the Motion of my hon. Friend for the introduction of this Bill, in conformity with the pledge I gave at the close of last Session. I brought in a Bill to the same effect as that of which my hon. Friend has given notice, and I did not withdraw it in consequence of any change of opinion as to the principle of the Bill, but only because the Session was drawing to a close. There was also considerable objection to some details of the Bill, and it appeared to me impossible at that period of the Session to give those objections that fair inquiry and consideration to which they were entitled. I quite agree, that on general principles it is much better to leave classes of men to arrange between each other, and to settle as best they can, all matters connected with their mutual interests. But at the same time we know perfectly well that, from the artificial arrangements of society, cases will arise in which some of the parties are more or loss dependent on the others, and unable therefore to take proper care of their own interests and concerns. It cannot be disputed that before the introduction of the Truck Act there were great abuses practised in some of these districts. It is perfectly notorious that at times when the masters had a pull on the men, in consequence of the state of trade, they compelled them, on pain of dismissal, to accept things which were given them at prices far beyond their value, and for which they had no use whatever, such as shovels, tongs, and pokers, as part of their wages; and the men were obliged to sell them again for a very small proportion of the sums for which they had been received. On principle, I am therefore prepared to say that wages ought to be paid in money; but then comes the difficulty which has been alluded to. You may compel the master to give the man a payment in money, but there are many ways in which that arrangement may be evaded and impeded by subsequent operations. The workman is told, for instance, "Here is your money," but there is a shop, and unless you take your money to that shop, and leave part of it there, we cannot employ you any more, and some other man shall be put in your place." The natural provision of the Bill was, that no shop should be allowed to be established on premises belonging to the master. But it was stated to me, last year, that in many of the iron works, for instance, where the premises formed an entire district, or filled a considerable space, a provision of that sort might clearly interfere with the comfort of the men; because, as an hon. Gentleman said, cases may happen in which there is not any difference between the prices of the provisions supplied at the shop established by the masters, and those of any other shop where the workman could, at a fair price, obtain the goods they wanted. I thought these difficulties were sufficient to induce me to withdraw the Bill at the end of last Session, and to enter into an engagement with my hon. Friend (Mr. C. Forster) that, if he would bring in the Bill this year, I would agree to its being read a second time, and referred to a Select Committee. I think that would be the best course for the House to pursue; and I hope my hon. Friend will, in the first place, put off the second reading for some little time, to enable those whose duty it will be to examine the provisions of the Bill, to look into it, and will then refer it to a Select Committee.

said, he did not wish to oppose the introduction of the Bill, but he thought the noble Lord had shown that, with very few exceptions, such laws were totally ineffectual. After forty-five years' extensive experience in the employment of workmen, and never having adopted the truck system, and never desiring to do so, perhaps he (Mr. Muntz) might be allowed to give the House a little advice; and to show them that all that could be done in the way of legislation would be disappointing to the parties whom they wished to serve. He remembered that ten years ago, when Sir Robert Peel was in office, and when Mr. Ferrand made violent attacks upon masters for their treatment of their workpeople, and ascribed all the evils that afflicted the working classes to the truck system, he (Mr. Muntz) ventured to offer to show the House that all the laws they could pass would never prevent the system of truck. His statements at that time convinced the House generally that it would be quite unavailing to pass laws to put down that system, and Sir Robert Peel said that he (Mr. Muntz) had perfectly satisfied him that they would be ineffectual. He (Mr. Muntz) then said that it was not necessary for any master to have a shop for truck; it was not necessary for him even to say that he wished to truck his men, or to say that they should buy their provisions at a certain shop or place. All that it was necessary for the master to do was this—he could make arrangements with any shopkeeper to allow him so much per annum if he sent his men to that person's shop to buy provisions. It was only necessary for the master to recommend his men to deal at that shop, and if the men did not deal there the consequence would be that there would be no work for them. Here they had the truck system without any power of legal prevention. He thought the present was an unfortunate time for the introduction of such a measure as this, when the employed were disputing with their employers. There were not now half a dozen men running after masters, but the masters were running after the men, and any workman of sober and industrious habits might obtain work at higher wages than he (Mr. Muntz) had ever known. Under such circumstances how was it possible that any master could truck? But let a time of pressure arrive, when the men were running after the masters, and then let them see if they could prevent the truck system. By the simple plan he had mentioned any truck law might be evaded, and therefore he disapproved of this Bill, which, in his opinion, would deceive the working classes and the country.

said, that in the last Session of Parliament he had introduced a Bill with the object of securing the payment of wages without stoppages. That measure applied mainly to the hosiery manufacture in the midland districts, but the system to which it related was intimately connected with the truck system, and he hoped that the system of stoppages would be investigated by any Committee that might be appointed on this subject.

said, that all the measures intended to put down the truck system had failed because the only punishment provided was a pecuniary penalty. The crime had been committed because it had been profitable. The punishment was a penalty of 10l. for the first offence, by which the offender might have realized 1,000l., and 20l. for the second offence; but when a man was making thousands of pounds by the truck system it was absurd to endeavour to repress it by such penalties as these. The hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) had suggested that the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. C. Forster) should appeal to the moral feeling of his constituents. He (Mr. M'Mahon) considered that if the truck system was a crime at all, the proper course would be to substitute personal for pecuniary penalties. By the existing law, a person who had been convicted twice before the magistrates of offences against the Truck Acts, and who committed a third offence, might be indicted for a misdemeanor. Now, the cost of a prosecution for misdemeanor would be upwards of 100l., and there was no opportunity for the prosecutors to get back their costs; but the highest penalty to which a manufacturer was liable for a third offence against the Truck Acts was a fine of 100l. He (Mr. M'Mahon) conceived that a person convicted of such an offence should be liable to fine and imprisonment. As the law now stood, the expenses of the prosecution exceeded the fine, and the person who was convicted of the misdemeanor laughed at the prosecutors, who suffered more than the offender.

said, the circumstance of past legislation not having been effectual in checking the evils of this system, was no reason why they should not attempt to do something more. He was assured, however, that, so far from the present law being nugatory, it had been productive of much good, and it only required to be made more judicious in order to work more satisfactorily. Until they applied a judicious law, it was mere nonsense to say that legislation was useless. The fact of an Act of Parliament being evaded ought to operate as an inducement to them to amend its defects. It was quite evident that the truck system had a mischievous effect upon the working classes; and as they were the support and strength of the nation, it became the bounden duty of that House to do their utmost to throw around them some protection.

, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to provide compensation for improvements made by te- nants in Ireland, said that it might not be unnaturally supposed that, after the Bills which had been brought in and sanctioned in all their provisions by this House, and in their principles by the House of Lords, a person asking to introduce another Bill had some intentions to disturb rather than to promote a practical settlement of the question. He was anxious, therefore, that his Object in bringing forward this measure should not be misunderstood. He felt the most implicit confidence in the assurances received on the first night of the Session, from the right hon. Secretary for Ireland, that Her Majesty's Government were not weary of the good work they had so nearly conducted to a successful issue during the last Session of Parliament. If he were asked, then, why he did not wait till the Bills of the Government came down from the House of Lords, his answer was that he did it to prevent disappointment, and because he thought it of the almost importance that, before Parliament and the Government were committed to the provisions of any particular Bill, they should have before them, in precise and definite language, the views of one whom the people of Ireland had entrusted with the expression of their opinions upon the subject. He was not afraid that his views would be considered too extreme for either that House or the House of Lords. His belief was, that the Parliament and the people of England were anxious to see the people of Ireland prosperous, contented, and happy. He differed from the right hon. and learned Gentleman who represented the University of Dublin (Mr. Napier) in one respect—namely, that he was not so much afraid of the House of Lords as the right hon. and learned Gentleman appeared to be. He believed that the House of Lords, equally with the House of Commons and the people of England, would pass any measure proved to be useful, and which would not trench upon those sacred rights of property which were the foundations of all civil society, and the main support of the institutions of the country. Having never in the slightest degree contemplated an entrenchment on the rights of property, he was not afraid of the House of Lords. What he proposed was for the benefit of all classes—landlords, tenants, labourers, shopkeepers, and artisans. It was not his intention to enlarge upon the principle of compensation, as it had been already affirmed by the Bills of different Governments, that of Lord Derby as well as that of Lord Aber- deen. He wished rather, while pointing out the main features of his Bill, to show in what it differed from that passed in the last Session of Parliament. Last Session a Bill had been passed entitled the Land Improvement Bill, enabling proprietors to borrow money for the purpose of improving their estates, and it specified the various classes of improvements which it was most desirable to encourage, enabling landlords to borrow money, and to charge their estates for every 100l. with a rent-charge of 6l. 10s. during a period of twenty-two years. And it contained a clause which authorised the Board of Works, when those improvements were made, to raise the rents upon the tenants of the lands thus improved. Next came the Leasing Powers Bills, which enabled persons of only limited estate to grant leases to their tenants for terms of years varying from 61 to 999 years, according to the nature of the lease, and provided that, such concessions so granted should be binding upon their successors. And it also provided that persons with only limited interests—such as corporations, trustees, &c.—should have power to make agreements without the intervention of a lease, which should be binding upon their successors, authorising tenants, in consideration of compensating periods or money payments, to undertake a variety of improvements. These were, to erect agricultural buildings, to make farm-roads, to execute main and through drainage, the clearing of land from rocks and stones, and the construction of boundary fences. The next Bill, the Tenants' Improvement Compensation, secured for the tenant who should hereafter make, or had already made, certain specified improvements in his holding, compensation, in case of his eviction for other cause than non-payment of rent, or breach of condition contained in a lease or agreement. In a word, the Bill declared that the value of the specified improvements ought to be secured to the holders, and the improvements thus provided for by the Bill were of four kinds—namely, the erection of farm-buildings and farm-houses; the reclamation of waste land, or cut out bog, the making farm-roads, and the making of boundary fences. It was impossible for any one who had read the Bill with an understanding mind, not to acknowledge that it was a vast improvement upon the existing law, or that it was a Bill constructed upon a truly conservative basis, and contained principles which, if carried to their legitimate conclusions, would put an end to that succession of crime and outrage in Ireland which had been so long a scandal to the world. It appeared to him, however, that there were defects in the Bill which must be remedied in order to make it a really useful measure. His object was to effect an alteration in the Bill, so as to do away with those defects. Now, in the first place, the Bill proposed that there should be compensation for only a certain class of improvements. In this respect the Bill seemed to him to be wholly insufficient; for it omitted one class of improvements that had never been omitted in any of the Bills of Mr. Sharman Crawford, Lord Lincoln, Lord Stanley, and Sir William Somerville—namely, the important improvements of main and through drainage. What was the use of promoting the improvement of land in Ireland if the most important description of improvement was to be excluded? Such an omission was not to be found in the Bill of the right hon. and learned Gentleman below him (Mr. Napier), for it contained a provision compensating the tenant not only for all main and through drainage to be executed, but for that executed already. It contained also a provision for the improvement of the land by clearing away rocks and stones. Indeed, the Legislature had already evinced its idea of the importance it attached to works of this kind, when it authorised, by the 9 & 10 Vict. c. 101, the public money to be lent for such a purpose. As to the utility of encouraging such improvements, abundant information would be found in the Work on the "Tenure and Occupation of Land in Ireland," by Messrs. Vance and Fergusson, both members of the Irish bar, and who were very well known to the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Napier). Sir Robert Kane also stated that, between the years 1842 and 1844 no less than 48,000 acres of land had been drained, at an expense of 120,000l., out of which 95,000l. had been expended in labour. He had with him letters from nine Irish tenants in the County Down, men of character, which proved that this idea of the value of such improvements was not a mere theory, put forth by scientific men, but that it existed among the farming classes themselves. It was, then, exceedingly unwise to exclude from the Bill such a class of improvements; and the same objection was to be urged against its non-admission of clearing away rocks and stones as an improvement, for it was very well known that there were large tracts of land in Ireland, of otherwise a very valuable character, so encumbered with rocks and stones that it was impossible to undertake in their regard the operations of sub-soiling or trenching. And he saw no reason why all other improvements which increased the annual letting value of the estate—such as embanking from the sea or tidal waters, the repair of fences or drains, streams, or water-courses—should not be admitted. He had also a very serious objection against clause 10, and here he believed he had ground for quarrel with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, for he believed it might be attributed to him. The clause declared that there ought not to be any compensation for improvements made with the capital of the tenant unless he was evicted for other cause than the non-payment of rent or breach of condition. He believed that this was placing too great a power in the hands of the landlord. The forfeiture of the lease was sufficient protection for the landlord against a breach by the tenant of its conditions. The landlord was entitled by the 13th clause to set off against any claim which the tenant might make for compensation,—claims for dilapidation, waste, or want of repair in the improvements which the tenant might have made with his own capital, arrears of rent, or any damage arising from breach of condition or non-payment of rates and taxes; surely this was enough. Was it reasonable that where the tenant fell into arrear the landlord should have the power of evicting him, and thus, to use a local phrase, "rob him of his improvements?" There might be cases where the tenant was only 100l. in arrear, and his improvements had cost 300l. Under this clause he would thus lose 200l., of which the landlord would have the immediate benefit by letting the farm at a higher rent to another tenant. The Bill compelled the tenant to lay out money up to the last day of his tenancy in keeping his own improvements in repair. It was therefore unreasonable that the landlord should have the power of taking away the tenant's whole property in his improvements. It would be quite sufficient to give the landlord the power of deducting the arrears due to him from the value of the tenant's improvements. It was not generally true that the improvements of the tenant were made at a time when, instead of spending his money on them, he ought to have paid his rent; that objection was to be met simply by a denial of the fact. In Scotland, every man who let a farm let it with a warrandice that it was fit for the purposes for which it was let. He was supposed to have provided all that was necessary for those purposes, and if he had not done so the tenant was entitled to do so himself, and charge the expense of it to his landlord. In Ireland no such law existed. In all parts of the world except Ireland, if the landlord did not provide what was called the proper instrumenta for the farm, the tenant had the right to do so, and if a landlord, as the right hon. Gentleman supposes, said to an improving tenant, "You have done this with my capital," the answer was, "You ought to have done it yourself; it was impossible for me to pay you the rent without its being done." There was a work published lately by Mr. Gisborne, an eminent agriculturist, in which he stated that it would be impossible for any tenant to carry on agriculture upon his farm with advantage to himself or his landlord, without a series of improvements which he enumerated, and for which improvements it was but common justice that the tenant should be entitled to claim compensation. But, further, the measure introduced by the Government in the last Session deprived the tenant of all claim for compensation for improvements, except in the case of his eviction. He (Mr. Serjeant Shee) wanted to know why only on eviction? It should be recollected that the farms in Ireland, generally speaking, were let to the tenants from year to year. The tenant could always leave his farm by giving six months' notice to quit. The tenant under this limitation could not exercise his right of giving notice to quit, except at the sacrifice of all his property invested in the land. The Government Bill proceeded upon the supposition that the tenant was the man to improve. If that be so, why did they not give the tenant every inducement to improve? The inducement they had given him was by no means sufficient. The landlords of Ireland were to a considerable extent English as well as Irish. It was remarkable that the English landlords improved their estates in England, while they neglected to improve their estates in Ireland. The fact was, that a custom had grown up which exempted the proprietors of land in Ireland from the responsibility of their neglect in this respect, and no disgrace attached to it. After all, to the tenant they must look for improving the agricultural condition of Ireland. The average size of the farms in Galway was thirty-five acres; in Mayo, twenty-nine acres; in Roscommon, twenty-two acres; in Clare, thirty acres; in Kerry, forty-six acres; in Cork, thirty-nine acres; in Down, nineteen acres; and in Armagh, thirteen acres: the two last-mentioned counties being the most prosperous in Ireland. On farms of this size none but the tenants could be expected to make improvements. He was assured that in one Joint-Stock Company in Ireland there was no less a sum than 1500,000l. deposits, the property of small farmers, and in another 1,300,000l. belonging to the same class. All this would be invested in the soil, if security was provided for it by the law. In Ulster, where a tenant-right custom existed, it was calculated that there was an amount of tenant improvements to the extent of 14,000,000l. or 15,000,000l., being property that was regularly made the subject of family settlement, bequest, and sale with the knowledge and sanction of the landlords. Some few years ago Lord Caledon wished to throw some of the land that was in the occupation of his tenants into his own park. The land was held by tenants from year to year. His Lordship positively paid those tenants 12l. an acre for such land, and threw it into his own park. Surely, if a tenant died, and left a family after him, his representatives should have the power of claiming compensation for the improvements he had made. Again, if the tenant should find himself in difficulties, he ought to be permitted, before a large arrear of rent has accumulated upon him, to sell his improvements and apply time proceeds of them to the benefit of all his creditors. A difficulty was suggested as to how arrangements for securing compensation to tenants for their permanent improvements could be adopted with justice to the landlord. The tenant's claim might be made at a time of great depression, when the value of a permanent improvement was, for the moment, dependent on that which was the most variable of all things—the value of agricultural produce. At the rents agreed upon when prices were high, permission to sell or assign would be of no benefit to him; and the same reason which prevented the tenant from assigning advantageously, would deprive the landlord of all chance, of reimbursement—should he make the compensation—from an incoming tenant. If the tenant have a right to call for compensation under such circumstances, the landlord should have the right of answering him in this way—"Well, then, let the land be fairly and properly valued—let it be valued, if you please, according to the terms of the General Valuation Act, and I will be willing, if you can find a tenant to take it at the valued rent, after allowing for the annual permanent increase of value arising from your improvements, to accept him as a substitute for you; but I stipulate that all arrears of rent shall be first paid, and that when prices rise, my rent shall rise with them." What could be fairer than such an arrangement? I would amount to nothing more than adopting the principle of corn-rents, as practised in Scotland, and sanctioned by the Tithe Composition and Church Temporalities Acts. It is impossible to read the General Valuation Act without at once seeing how easily the object which all have in view, the promotion of improvement with justice to both landlords and tenants, would be secured by it. He should not ask the House to entertain his Bill in any other stage than the first reading until the Government measure had come down from the other House. Then he should be afforded an opportunity of asking them to proceed with the second reading of the Bill, or of moving that certain Amendments, in conformity with the views which he advocated, should be introduced into the measure of the Government. He should, therefore, merely ask the House to assent to the introduction of the Bill, in order that it might be printed and circulated among hon. Members, and that they thus might be enabled to consider more maturely the provision which it contained.

seconded the Motion. He said that, three or four years ago, the question involved in this Bill had been brought forward as a subject for popular agitation; but that was no longer the case, and whatever the Government might now consent to do would be concession, not to agitation, but to reason. The Government had the opportunity of dealing with a vital and momentous question, and he trusted that it would not be thrown away upon them. Recent events in Ireland had shown that the popular party there were not opposed to the present Government. Many of them though that the Government were prepared in bonâ fide spirit to redress the grievance of which they complained, and they were inclined, therefore, to give them a fair trial. He sincerely hoped that the Go- vernment would not disappoint the expectations of their friends. If there should be no higher motive, he trusted that the Government would bear in mind how valuable a source the cottier population of Ireland was whence to raise levies in the event of war, and that they would be induced to do justice to the small cultivators of the land in that country, who were now being driven from its shores in hundreds. He looked on Ireland as a country with great undeveloped resources, and, instead of considering the emigration going on as a reason for not improving the law, he thought that emigration to be deplored, and he attributed it to the operation of those bad laws. A sense of expediency, if not of justice, should be sufficient to induce the Government to deal in a liberal and comprehensive spirit with this question.

said, he must congratulate both the House and the country upon the altered tone which had pervaded the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kilkenny (Mr. Serjeant Shee) that evening, as compared with that by which his introduction of topics connected with the relations of landlord and tenant had last Session been characterised. The hon. and learned Member had upon that occasion—as he had done in the speech which he has just delivered—stated that he had no intention of asking the House to assent to a single provision which could be said to have for its object the destruction of the rights of property in Ireland. He (Mr. George) had, however, been obliged last Session to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman Whether the perpetuity of tenure clause, and the compulsory valuation clause—two clauses which the hon. and learned Member had introduced into his Bill, for they were not in Mr. Sharman Crawford's measure—would not, if they had passed into law, have proved to be in their operation utterly destructive of property in Ireland and its rights? Such in his (Mr. George's) opinion would have been their tendency. He, therefore, had listened on the present occasion with some doubt and hesitation to the assertion of the hon. and learned Gentleman, that this Bill which the hon. and learned Gentleman had just introduced did not interfere with property. He most sincerely hoped that existing interests were not sought to be disturbed by that measure, and that no retrospective legislation upon the subject of the relations between landlord and tenant was contemplated by its supporters. The hon. and learned Member had presented to the House a sad picture of the amount of crime and destitution which he said prevailed in Ireland, and which he had attributed to the absence of legislation of a character similar to that which he has just called upon the House to sanction. He (Mr. George) was, however, happy to be enabled to state that the condition of Ireland had of late become greatly altered for the better. Population and labour now bore a more just proportion to one another in that country than had hitherto been the case. The employer had to seek for the labourer, not the labourer for the employer, and the rate of wages had been considerably increased. It was to these circumstances, and to the more abundant harvests, that, in his opinion, the improvement which now manifested itself in every quarter of the island was to be attributed. He should like to see this better state of things allowed to develope itself gradually, and deemed it unwise, by too much hot-bed legislation, to endeavour to push too far the increasing prosperity, to which it afforded him so much gratification to be enabled to bear evidence. In those cases in which compensation could be made to the tenant without prejudice to existing contracts he should have no objection to see it granted; but it was his opinion that in general, to leave the landlord and the tenants to regulate their own affairs was a mode of proceeding preferable to the enactment of any law upon the subject. At all events he trusted that no measure affecting different interests would be passed so far as Ireland was concerned, which hon. Members would not be prepared to advocate for England.

said, he could assure the hon. Member who had just sat down that he should certainly not have given his support to the measure of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kilkenny had he been of opinion that it was calculated to operate injuriously upon the rights of property; and he should be ready to give his favourable consideration to any alterations in that measure which hon. Members might deem it desirable to introduce.

said, that the hon. and learned Gentleman who had brought the subject under their consideration had announced his intention not to proceed with his measure until the decision of the House of Lords should be taken on a Bill upon the same subject which had been submitted to them; and under these circumstances there could be no objection on the part of the Government to the Motion that the hon. and learned Gentleman should be allowed to lay his Bill on the table. But the Government, in assenting to that Motion, did not pledge themselves in any way to give any facilities or any support to the measure at any future time. Until the House of Lords should have decided on the Bill under their consideration, and which had received the approval of the Government, it would be a manifest waste of time to continue any further debate on the question.

said, he thought the course proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman very inconvenient, of laying a Bill on the table of that House, which was not to be proceeded with until a Committee of the House of Lords should come to a decision with respect to another Bill. He considered that it would have been better to have waited until the other Bill, with such modifications as the House of Lords might think necessary, should come down from that House. Besides that objection, the amendments of the hon. and learned Gentleman were negatived in a Select Committee of the House of Commons last year. He was very anxious that this question should be settled this year, for the uncertainty which prevailed tended very much to the depreciation of property in Ireland, and he knew of instances in which sales had been prevented in consequence of that uncertainty. In the conduct of the measures of which he had charge during the last Session, he was bound to say, that those who more particularly represented the interests of the tenantry had offered no obstruction of which he had reason to complain, but had assisted him very fairly. The House would recollect that he proposed three Bills. There was also a fourth Bill—the Land Improvement Bill—to enable a tenant for life, and persons having a limited interest, to do with private money what they would have been able to do out of a public loan. The three Bills to which he referred, were the Landlord and Tenant Consolidation Bill, the Leasing Powers Bill, and the Tenant Compensation Bill. The latter Bill contained a clause relating to draining, subsoiling, and other matters which were omitted from the Bill which passed the House. The Select Committee were of opinion, that all that kind of improvement should be done under express contract, and he felt bound to surrender his private opinion to men of greater experience. Another decision of the Committee made Tenant. Compensation Bill to a certain degree nugatory, because it cut out improvements in the soil, and he, therefore, thought the better course was to take the fixture clause and transfer it to the Landlord and Tenant Bill, and he must say, he considered that clause one of very great benefit to the tenant, for it covered cases of building, gates, &c., on the soil, and did as much with regard to existing improvements as could be done consistently with the decision, of the Select Committee. With regard to the future, the Leasing Powers Bill, passed last year, enabled all persons having landed estates in hand to make beneficial leases, and contracts for all classes of improvements on the soil and in the soil. With respect to the Compensation Bill, when it was in the House last year, he felt it to be his duty to take an independent part, from a sincere and earnest desire to have this question settled; and he could assure the House he would continue to apply his mind and judgment to it, to the best of his ability. But he hoped that the House would endeavour this Session to bring the question to a conclusion; and he would earnestly advise those who were honestly anxious for the improvement of Ireland, that there must be a little "give and take" in this matter; and whatever law might ultimately be passed, that it should be accepted in a friendly spirit by those who were the subjects of it. Some concession ought to be made on both sides, and they ought to take what was practicable and what was agreed to by all parties; but he did hope to see such a Bill passed as would do substantial good to Ireland, and he would advise all parties to accept a moderate and a practical settlement of a question which had created a good deal of angry dissension, and, to a certain extent, disturbed the welfare and prosperity of the country.

said, he should not have ventured to address the House on the present occasion had it not been for an observation of his hon. colleague (Mr. George) with respect to the effect of Mr. Sharman Crawford's clause in conferring perpetuity of tenure. He (Mr. M'Mahon) felt convinced that that clause was essential to the security of property. Nothing could be worse, in his opinion, than the operation of the existing laws. They did not answer the landlord's purpose, for the landlord did not escape from difficulties; and they did not serve the tenant, because tenants were flying, and their lands lying waste. The result, therefore, of the legislation of this wise and politic nation on this subject was the greatest political error that could possibly be committed—that of keeping the land waste, and giving away their labour. Land and labour were the great elements of national prosperity, and yet we had a magnificent country, one-third of which they kept waste. Within the last seven years they had got rid of between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 of the population of Ireland; and although they might not be rated any higher than mere cattle, and speaking in the sense of the merest political economy, they were the most valuable and costly articles that could be produced; and the Americans well knew this, for they valued every adult emigrant who landed on their shores at 1,000 dollars, or 208l. At this rate, the value of those who had left Ireland for America was 400,000,000l.—the value of the fee simple of the whole rental of Ireland at forty years' purchase. If that were true, it was clear that they were worth as much to ourselves, if we only knew how to make them valuable to us. We might, for instance, make them till the lands of Ireland instead of those of America; but we should not succeed if we drove them away, injuring the prosperity of the country, and perilling, to a certain extent, the progress of European liberty. Every nation that pursued this policy evidenced symptoms of great national decay. What had they been doing for the last two centuries but making laws against tenants? They had constructed 260 statutes, all of which were inimical to the occupier of the land. This question would never be settled until Parliament considered what were the rights given to the landlords of Ireland by the common law of the country. There was no other country in the world where these things could be done. They could not be done in Belgium, France, Italy, Sardinia, or anywhere else. Let the Government inform themselves upon what terms land was held in foreign countries, and then a basis might be found for a plain and satisfactory settlement of the question. He did not mean a "blue book," but a plain and intelligible digest of the laws of other countries; for until this was done, the existing laws would remain a stumbling-block in the way of the advancement of the Ireland.

begged to offer his thanks to the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. Serjeant Shee) on the spirit and temper he had evinced in bringing this question under the consideration of the House, and in attempting to do that which had been recommended by the Committee which sat on this subject. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Napier) had also boldly, courageously, and ably entered upon the consideration of the question—a circumstance which would always greatly redound to his credit. It appeared that this Bill was not to be proceeded with further until the other measure came down from the House of Lords. He thought that a very good arrangement, but he would beg to press on the Government the importance of not allowing this subject to rest or be delayed in the other House. This was a question of vital importance to Ireland. He believed a great deal of the emigration which had gone on there was caused by the unsatisfactory state of the law of landlord and tenant. But, putting aside the two questions of the relations of landlord and tenant and emigration, which were but cause and effect, their real, social, and practical business in that House, with respect to Ireland, was the applying themselves to the final settlement of this vexed question.