said, he considered that it was very desirable that Torquay should have additional church accommodation, which could only be obtained by such a measure as the present. It was a place with a large and increasing population, and some time ago a proprietary chapel and a new church at Upton were erected, for which latter Sir Lawrence Palk gave the site and a stipend of 150l. a year for the minister out of the great tithes of the parish. In consequence of the increase of the town, the new districts were at a distance from all the places of worship, the road between them being hilly and difficult of access for invalids, and Sir Lawrence Palk now again gave the land and a similar endowment for another church, as he had done for that at Upton. The only real question was whether further church accommodation was desirable, and as of that there was no question, he hoped the House would agree to the second reading of the Bill.

said, his hon. Friend had not answered the objections that had been on a former evening made with respect to this measure. There was no doubt that a church was needed, and the efforts of Sir Lawrence Palk for that purpose were highly laudable; but the real point was, that what was demanded might be effected by the existing law, and that where this Bill differed from the existing law, it did so for the worse, and sought to lay down a precedent which the House ought to guard against. The Bill gave a power to levy Church Rates, and also to mortgage the pew-rents in the first instance for the expenses of the Bill, and then for repairs, and the charge of the officers of the church, leaving the stipend the last charge, whereas it was usually the first. With regard to the right of presentation, no doubt it was reasonable that the endowers of the church should have it; but that could be done under the existing Acts. He objected to precedents being made in directions against which the House had set its face, and with regard to which it had rather shown an inclination to retrace its steps. On these grounds he felt bound to oppose the second reading.

said, he thought that no private Bill should be refused a second reading, unless it was shown that its principle was so objectionable that it could not be amended in committee.

said, he should oppose the Bill, because it would establish a church rate, and would thus effect a local advantage at the expense of a great principle affecting the whole kingdom.

said, it was a misconception to suppose the Bill gave a power to levy additional church rates; as it only diverted the rates of this portion of the parish into the district, which would otherwise be payable to other churches.

said, he should support the Bill, as being a measure promotive of religion in a district of the country which was at present destitute of church accommodation.

said, he must admit that it was desirable there should be additional church accommodation at Torquay and its neighbourhood, but it appeared to him that the 16th clause of this Bill would have the effect of increasing the church rates. It was not prudent that, while on the one hand, they were anxious to put an end to that vexed question, they should, on the other hand, pass a Bill that would have the effect of not only continuing, but increasing, that objectionable impost. If the 16th clause were taken out of the Bill, he was not prepared to oppose considering the Bill in Committee; but, unless that were done, he should vote against the second reading of the Bill.

said, he could inform the noble Lord and the House, that he had had a communication with the agents of the Bill, and that there would be no objection to withdraw the 16th clause in Committee.

said, he wished to know why the soldiers who were to be encamped at Aldershot, in order to learn their duty in the field, were not instructed in that part of it which consisted in the soldier forming his camp and hutting himself; whether the small extra pay which might be allowed for this would not be a saving of cost of labour, as well as be useful for the instruction of the soldiers; and whether the huts were to be removable, and the men to be instructed in putting them up and pulling them down again.

said, that it was intended that all the soldiers connected with the camp at Aldershot should be instructed in their general duties, whether in the field or in barracks, and although the barracks in which they would be accommodated were not removable, but were temporary barracks, still it was intended that these troops should be taught the way to pitch and strike their tents, and put them up afterwards, and as that formed part of the duties of a soldier, it was not intended to give them any extra pay for such work.

^* I rise, Sir, to move for leave to bring in a "Bill for the better settling the real estates of intestates;" and I feel confident that I bring this great question of justice under the consideration of the House, under more favourable circumstances than I have done on former occasions. Public opinion is now aroused to the injustice of a law which makes a difference, where a parent has made no difference, between one child and other children in the same family; and is not unfrequently the unfortunate engine by which a widowed mother and a whole family of dependent helpless children are rendered destitute, in order that one member of the same family may, through their poverty, become powerful, pampered, and luxurious. It is a law which creates a very anomalous and frequently a very inconvenient distinction between one class of property and another, for even in the very same class of property, in landed property, which it intends to take under its own peculiar patronage, in order to carry out its own intended injustice, land is made to differ from land. Not only on the very same estate, but in the very same field, in the very same house and garden, the property belonging to the same individual, where no one could tell there could be the least difference, the technicality of an absurd law makes such a distinction that one part of the field, or even of the house, is a distinct property, and descends in a different way from the other. What I propose, is by a very simple, short and just measure to do away with all these cruel distinctions in families, and at the same time with these anomalies in properties, by applying a good and sound principle, and one uniform law to all properties, of all persons who die intestate. As there are many persons who are entirely ignorant of the nature of my proposal, as well as others who, I regret to say, have found it convenient to put a false interpretation on my intentions, I will at once state what is the change I really do propose to make. At the same time I will give an unqualified contradiction to those assertions which have been ungenerously made for the convenient purpose of prejudicing unthinking persons against a just measure. I merely propose that where a person dies without having made a will, possessed of real property, that the law should make a just will for him, that it should make the same will for him, as it would have made if his property had been personal instead of real, or if his family consisted of daughters; that the law should no longer make for him the unjust will it now does, a will which every one, whatever may be his prejudices, cannot say is founded on justice, and which the deceased individual would have been ashamed to make for himself. The law which relates to personal property under similar circumstances, and to leasehold laud, leased for 1,000 years, which in many respects is better than freehold, or to houses which in this metropolis are leased for ninety-nine years, is a just law; no on ever ventures to complain either of the injustice or of the inconvenience of distributing all such property to the next of kin. Now all I ask is, to have the same law applied to all the property of all who die intestate. This simple alteration of the law, founded on the most undeniable justice, will at once remove all the anomalies which now exist. The law will then be the means of creating equality, harmony, and content in those families where the parent has neglected to make a will. We shall then hear no more of those cruel inequalities, of those miseries which cannot be concealed, or of those secret discontents of which the present law alone is the cause. I have now stated clearly what I do propose. I will proceed to state what I do not propose. I have been accused of being anxious to interfere with the power of willing property; quite the reverse, for I should like to see that power much greater in this country than it now is. It is a most valuable privilege, and at the same time a great and solemn responsibility. I feel confident that if the parents in many of our noble and great families had more power over their eldest sons, we should not see so many instances of sons, who, in spite of the earnest entreaties of their parents, have been led into vicious and bad practices, borrowing money at exorbitant rates of interest of the Jews, solely because they are independent of their parents. It is reversing the natural order of things to make the son independent of the father, the father dependent upon the son. Then I have been accused of desiring to introduce the French system of succession into this country; quite the reverse, for however much France may have profited by that law, I feel that it is open to the very same objections your system of entail is open to here—the inter-feting with the paternal authority. Here you make by entails one son independent of his father: there all are to a lesser extent independent also. It is by resisting just measures of this kind you yourselves are much more likely to introduce the French law. For when justice is delayed or refused, we have often seen a sort of compulsory justice established, as in France, and which savours much of tyranny. It is well known to those who have read the discussions which took place on this particular point in the Code Napoleon, that Napoleon was not in favour of the law as it now exists in France; he wished the father to have more power over his children. I have said thus much to allay the fears and the prejudices of those who are opposed to me, and who dread this measure, lest it should interfere with the power of making a will, or lest it should introduce the French law into this country. I can positively assure the House that this Bill cannot affect it—I have no such intention; and no one who supports this Bill, with whom I have conversed, has ever expressed such a desire, but the contrary. I must add, that after what I have said such a fear is an unmeaning fear; if it amounts to anything, it is a fear lest the law should provide for all the children of an intestate out of his own property, lest the eldest son should suffer by having his own brothers and sisters provided for out of an estate, which during his father's life, had been used for the benefit and support of all. It is not a fear, but, if persisted in, a bitter determination that younger children should, where a father has nothing but land, be deprived by the law of all support. What we ask is simply this, that where an individual dies without a will, the law should make a just one for him founded on a principle, instead of the unjust one it now does, founded on no other rule than that of injustice. If any person likes to leave the whole of his property, whether real or personal, to one child, to one individual, this Bill cannot prevent him; the only difference will be that he must do it by will; if the act he is desirous of performing be an unjust act, he must put his name to it; the law would, if this Bill pass, no longer do it for him. This really is the whole of the Bill, and yet every possible prejudice has been invented against it. Ingenious, not ingenuous persons have appealed to the pride, to the bad and ungenerous passions of men in order to get them to prejudge the case, and raise up a clamour against this measure. They have endeavoured to blind them and to keep justice out of their sight, and certainly have, I fairly admit, in certain classes for a time succeeded. I have thus been obliged explicitly to state what this Bill will do and what it will not do, because of the many misconceptions which have been formed about it. One noble Lord (Lord St. Leonards) and one of the ablest of the law Lords, seemed to boast with peculiar pride that the other House would very easily dispose of a measure of this kind. No doubt, if they shut out argument and justice, and only legislate for their prejudices, they can without a debate, without an argument, reject it. But the same noble Lord certainly surprised me when, after saying there might be much argument on the subject, he stated why a measure of this kind should be opposed, and why it was unwise to introduce the change. He at once showed that he did not understand the question; he built up a castle that any one might knock down with the greatest ease, because it had no foundation. His reason was, the effect produced by the system of minutely sub-dividing landed property in France. Now the effect of the law of equal division in France can really have nothing whatever to do with what may be the effect of this Bill. In France the law is compulsory; no one can make a will as he chooses: the law in every case disposes of, and divides the greatest part of every person's property, whether landed or moveable. The French feel the nation can make a better will for the individual than he can for himself. They take away from him the absolute power of making a will, and give him only a very limited power. All that this Bill proposes is, that where the individual has made no will, the law should provide for all his children. He will have the most absolute control and power over all his property. I may say, when persons, like Lord St. Leonards, are inclined to legislate solely because of the effects which are to be observed in other countries from different systems, I might ask them to look at Ireland—there you have had the greatest evils that can arise out of small cultivation, caused alone by a most needy class of large proprietors. Bet this Bill could not even touch those great estates, they are mostly settled and entailed, and where they are not, can be left by will. But when persons only talk of the good or bad effects of this or that system, let me show the House the real misery, the cruelty, and oppression which do arise out of the present law. If they are not inclined to argue on the justice of the case, but to reject it, perhaps the effects and the way the law really works, may induce them to alter it. I will now show by actual cases of real hardship how this most unjust law really operates.

"In the year 1826, the owner of landed property to the amount of 15,000l., died suddenly, leaving a wife and ten children. His personal estate, to the amount of 4,000l., was entirely absorbed by bond and other debts. His eldest son, who had been well provided for by inheriting the fortune of his maternal grandfather, took the whole of the landed property. A will which the father left, and which proved inoperative, showed his intention of providing an annuity for his widow, and dividing all he left equally among his children."

The heartburnings and estrangements of feeling caused in this case were great. Here is another case where the relationship was more distant, and if the unjust operation of the law be not greater, the ill feelings caused by it were more serious than even in the former case—

"Some short time ago, two bachelor brothers died intestate, at a very advanced age, within twenty hours of each other, leaving real estate to the amount of 1,000l. yearly, and personalty about 1,500l., with instructions, often verbally expressed, that the whole real estate, as well as personalty, should be equally divided between their two nephews, John B. and William B., two brothers. To this equitable distribution of property laboriously acquired there seemed no disposition to demur, until some few weeks after the decease of the uncles, when the elder brother, John, claimed the real estate as heir at law, and one-half of the personalty. What are the results? An enmity which will never cease until the grave covers it."

I will now give another and a most interesting case, where a father has escaped in the most providential manner, and has, by making a will, prevented the law doing a most serious act of injustice for him. This case will give a very good answer to those persons who say that the state of the law is generally known; the law is not, I maintain, known. I give the name in this case, because the person is extremely anxious that his case should be known, in order that others may take warning and make their wills in time—

"William Collins, of Walton-on-Thames, seventy-threee years of age, the bulk of whose property is in land, has always been looked up to by his neighbours as a person well informed in matters relating to property. Being taken alarmingly ill with a mortal complaint a few weeks ago, his medical adviser thought it right to ask him if he had any final arrangements to make. He said, in reply, that there would be no occasion for him to make his will, as he wished his property to be divided among ail his children, and the law would do that for him. He was most fortunately assured he was in error, for that his property being in land, it would all descend to his eldest son, and his other children would have no share of it. Upon this he made further inquiries, and finding the state of the law was so, he sent for his solicitor without loss of time and made his will. He has now partially recovered, and has expressed the deep gratitude he feels both on his own account, and on account of his children, that he has been made aware of the true state of the law. He admits that he had great difficulty in believing a law of so unjust a nature could be in existence."

There is a class of cases also of extraordinary cruelty to which I will now refer, where not only the law of succession works its own injustice, but also the law relating to marriages comes to complete, and if possible add to, that injustice. A will is made by an owner of landed property in order to defeat the injustice of the law, in order to prevent all younger children being left destitute. A marriage settlement is also required by every thoughtful woman, for no other reason generally than to prevent her being deprived of everything she possesses, and in order that some sort of a provision may be made for her. These cases will at once show the extraordinary injustice and double cruelty of the present laws.

"J. N., plumber and glazier, married the daughter of a respectable farmer, who gave her several hundred pounds, No settlement was made, and some time after the marriage the husband laid out the whole of this money in the purchase of a piece of land. He subsequently died intestate, and without children. The land went to the heir-at-law, a nephew, and the widow was left entirely destitute. She is now a menial servant in a farm house."

I will now trouble the House with only one other case out of. many—

"A. B. was a dealer in provisions, &c.; he had a wife, but no child—they were a most careful and industrious couple, and had amassed besides the stock in trade, furniture, &c. some 2,500l. There was a nephew living, who had been a great favourite with them, but on growing up he had become a thorough scamp. A. B. made a will in favour of his wife, who had, in fact, done as much to earn the property as he had. They were in the vale of years. At the time I speak of, there was a freehold little farm to be sold in the vicinity. The price was 3,000l. A. B. had book debts, stock in trade, &c. and 2,500l. in cash. He knew he could, with a little temporary borrowing, compass the purchase, and stock the farm—he signed the contract, and paid the deposit. Somebody suggested that he must alter his will, or his nephew might succeed to the estate instead of his wife. The poor man said, it will be time enough to do that when the place is my own, I will make a new Will that very day.' Alas, there was not time enough. He died suddenly, before the purchase was completed. His poor wife, as executrix, was compelled to complete the purchase, and what with the expenses of some litigation, every shilling, and every chair and stool went away from her, the nephew took the estate, and the woman lived on charity."

I have now quoted cases of real hardship, and I admit that if cases of similar hardship could be quoted as having arisen in consequence of the law relating to the personal property of intestates—they would have weight. But nothing of the kind—a noble Lord (Lord J. Russell), on a former occasion, attempted to strain himself into a belief that if this Bill were passed into a law much hardship would arise. Against my real cases of great hardship, he adduced an imaginary one. He said, "suppose a landed proprietor brings up one son to the bar, and he becomes a Judge; another is in the army, and he becomes a General; the father has spent largely in educating the one and in buying a commission for the other, it might so happen they might be better off than the eldest." Now, it is quite clear that the noble Lord had not looked carefully into this question. I propose to apply the statute of distributions to landed as well as personal property. In that statute there is a clause with respect to "advancement," the object of which is to make all the shares of the children of the intestate father as near as possible equal. It is expressly enacted that any child who has been advanced by the intestate in his lifetime, shall bring that portion he has received into hotchpot, and receive so much less of the surplusage. This imaginary castle falls in the same way Lord St. Leonard's castle fell, because it has no foundation. I might give a number of cases of hardship. But I have also looked carefully into what my opponents have written and said on this subject, and I think no one has in a more careful and spirited way shown up the technicalities and oppression of the law, than Lord St. Leonards himself. Lord St. Leonards, when Sir Edward Sugden, thus expresses himself in one out of a series of letters he wrote—the object of those letters, no one can doubt, was to warn the possessors of property against the anomalous state of the law—

"A moment's reflection will show what serious consequences may follow from a neglect on your part, for suppose you purchase an estate with the 50,000l. in the funds, which you have given by your will to your younger children, and which constitutes the bulk of your personal property, and should neglect to devise the estate, the money must go to pay for it, at the expense of your younger children, who would be left nearly destitute, whilst your eldest son, to whom the estate would descend, would have an overgrown fortune."

Lest any one should imagine that this is a rare instance of hardship, I call the particular attention of the House to his own remark in the very next sentence; this great authority goes on to say, "Distressing cases of this kind are continually occurring." I now proceed, still reading an extract from my opponent, in order to prove my case—the horrible injustice of this law—and the continues—

"If your personal property undisposed of is not sufficient to pay for the estate, it would be better, perhaps, to direct it to be sold again, and the first purchase money to be paid out of the money produced by the resale."

You must here remark that even he, even Sir Edward Sugden, that most astute lawyer, hardly knows how and what to advise; the technicality of the present law really does seem to be too great even for him. At all events, his plan of solving the difficulty certainly does not seem to be a very simple one. He then goes on to state another case of great importance; I give it in his own words—

"You must remember, that in devising or suffering an estate to descend which you have purchased and not paid for, your devisee or heir will be entitled to have the purchase-money paid out of your personal property, although you may have given it all to another person. A most vexatious case once happened. A younger brother agreed to purchase an estate from his elder brother; the conveyance was accordingly executed, but the money was not paid. The younger brother then made his will, giving his property to his brother, subject to legacies, and made him executor. The will, however, was not executed so as to pass the estate. The younger brother died, and the elder brother took the estate as his heir, and also paid himself the purchase-money out of the personal property, by which he disappointed the legatees, who lost their legacies, whilst he got both the estate and the purchase-money for it."

Now these distressing cases of hardship, which really are continually occurring, are referred to by Lord St. Leonards, when Sir Edward Sugden, with the view of warning individuals as to the state of the law. Is it not, I would ask, imperative on the Legislature after such a warning, and when its attention is called to this deplorable state of the law, to take care that no such distressing cases shall ever again occur? Let not hon. Gentlemen imagine for a moment that this Bill will affect the unjust rights of eldest sons alone, and that the eldest son is the only member of a family who has these unnatural rights, for the rights of the youngest son in many places are just as oppressive and unnatural. There are many places where the custom of Borough English prevails, where the youngest son inherits all the land of his intestate parent, to the exclusion of all his brothers and sisters. There is a large tract of about 40,000 acres in the neighbourhood of Taunton, where this custom prevails, and from which neighbourhood, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Taunton (Mr. Labouchere) presented a petition to-night in favour of this Bill. That petition was more respectably signed than any which ever came from Taunton, and by persons of all shades of politics. The circumstances under which these rights commenced, have now ceased. The law has survived the occasion for which it was at first introduced; that law which was necessary once, is now no longer so. You no longer require that land should be kept in few hands, and descend to the eldest son as a means of protection. You may say that it is necessary it should thus descend for other purposes, but the original object has altogether ceased. Neither is it any longer necessary that land should descend to the youngest son, where the custom of Borough English prevails; for those most revolting, disgusting, and tyrannical rights have long since ceased, which alone made such a descent imperative. These laws, which belong to other times, are no longer required; having arisen out of the necessities of other times, they can no longer be supported either by argument or by expediency. Is it right, I ask, that the Legislature should allow these laws, however necessary they once were, to exist any longer in the oppressive state they are now in? We must look upon all these laws and customs, with regard to landed property, as a part of a great military system. A foreign enemy encamped on these shores and made such laws as they, without the concurrence of the nation, considered best adapted for the purpose of subjugating a conquered people. Those laws still remain, but we, the Legislature, ought not to treat that people whom we profess to represent, any longer as a conquered nation. There has been no great modification in those laws for more than 3U0 years, when an inroad was made upon this great military system, and an owner of land for the first time had the power of bequeathing land by will. Till that time, it may be said, as far as land was concerned, we had a law of primogeniture, for no one could leave land by will. I find in Kent's Commentaries that so great was the dread of land being alienated, "that the hand of him who knowingly wrote a deed of alienation was directed to be struck off." We live in other thnes—there is now a general desire that land should be alienated with facility, that the transfer of land should be easy. I heard with delight a speech of the Solicitor General at the Law Amendment Society—he confirmed these views, and said that he saw no reason why land should not be as easily transferable and divisible as money in the funds. If it be a good and sound rule to make land easily transferable, and to treat it in this respect like personalty, how much more essential does it seem, to let it descend also in the same just way that personalty now does. This is a part of the question, the justice of which is much more cared for by the people out of doors, than the transfer of land. It is often said why, when every one can make a will and leave his land to whomsoever he pleases, why should you alter a law which works well, and gives all to one child, and no portion of it to any of the other children? Now I deny that it does work well, and I say, moreover, that it is roost unjust. I would remark that life is extremely uncertain, there is too often a carelessness and propensity to procrastinate and delay making a will—that repugnance is often carried so far, that even persons have on their deathbeds expressed their wishes in the clearest manner, so as not to leave the slightest doubt, and yet those intentions could not be carried out because they had not been legally expressed, in short, for no other reason than that the deceased had a repugnance to making a will. The result of these laws of succession to real property is, that unfortunate families of helpless young children with their widowed mothers, are plunged from comfort into misery and want. This, indeed, is an artificial system, but is it not a huge imposture to pretend for a moment that it can he right to allow the law to remain in such a state—can it be lawful to persuade the heir that he is doing right in taking all from all his brothers and sisters, only because the law gives him an unjust right to all? I am sure those who have done so have thus acted in blind ignorance—they can never have thought of the justice of the case—if they have thought at all, they have justified their conduct under the comfortable garb of expediency. I do not say to any one who may have thus acted, to restore that to which he has an undoubted right as far as the law is concerned, though a most questionable one as far as justice is concerned. This I do not ask, but what I do ask is, that you should assist in making a just law now, and thus prevent any one from hereafter being placed in the unsatisfactory position, those who have profited by the existing law must feel themselves placed in. We have been told that it would be dangerous to alter these laws of succession and to remove this part of a vast military system of organisation, for that if we did it would endanger our institutions, and that they are necessary for the support of the aristrocracy. But we have been told also the very same thing, with regard to another portion of our great military system, the regimental system which prevails with regard to promotion in the army. It has been gravely asserted that to allow the common soldier to rise from the ranks, as he does in the continental regiments, to reward as it were merit in him, to treat him with common justice, to do unto others as you would wish to be done by, that this would also destroy our aristocracy and our army. Have not the awful successions of catastrophes, which have arisen solely from the extraordinary rottenness of our military system, taught us another lesson; and now we are, at last, when it is almost too late, prepared to reverse the system; to concede tardy justice to the soldier, and reform with one dash of the pen the whole of our military system. You refused to treat your common soldier with justice. You kept him in a degraded position, where merit would have elevated him, because you imagined it was expedient. You now, at last, in consequence of mismanagement in every department, find that it is expedient to be just. You have refused justice, nay, even sustenance to the widow, and to all the younger children of their intestate father, unjust as it might appear, because you said it was expedient. You have found it expedient to degrade all the younger children of a parent whose property is in land; you do not acknowledge their existence, you treat them as if they were illegitimate, and unknown to the law; this treatment you have found to be expedient. May you not find that it is expedient to be just, and to remodel the great cruelty and injustice in this part of the great military system. We mourn over the loss of an army, which has been hurried through our military mismanagement, to an untimely grave; we cannot recall those who are gone, but we may prevent such sad catastrophes again occurring. Neither can we recall and restore to their proper and natural positions in society, the widow with her degraded and insulted children, who have been suffered to pine away, and are now dragging on a wretched existence, solely in consequence of these cruel and unjust laws. We cannot undo this injustice of the past, but we can, by passing a just law, prevent future generations being ever again placed in a similar misery. I hope the House will not refuse me leave to bring in this Bill. If you do refuse it, you will at once proclaim that you have a perfect horror of justice where your prejudices are concerned. I entreat you not to let it go forth that this House, which is almost the only representative assembly now left in Europe, holds in its hands unequal balances and false weights; but I sincerely hope that we shall be able to show our institutions are a model for Europe, and that we shall prove, by passing this Bill, we are willing to do justice, and to remove oppression, wherever it is to be found.

in seconding the Motion, said, that considerable misapprehension existed that this measure would lead to ulterior consequences of a very grave and extensive nature; but his hon. Friend did not propose to introduce a new law; he only sought to extend the provisions of a law which had been in existence for two centuries, and which already controlled the great mass of the property of the country, namely, the Statute of Distributions—a law, the wisdom and policy of which no man could contravene. His hon. friend desired simply to comprehend in the Statute the remaining portion of landed property not now embraced in it. He (Mr. Massey) did not know that he went so far as his hon. Friend in thinking that this measure would have as extensive an operation as he supposed, or as some, who objected to it feared. He believed it would not have that extensive effect. Personal property, leases of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, leases at rack-rent, mining property—probably half the real property of the country—were at present subject to the law which regulated personal property and chattels. The law which had been in operation for two centuries had affected that vast mass of property, and, therefore the House was in a position to judge accurately of the effects of that Statute. There was ample proof of the salutary operation of this law, and on the experience derived from its working he principally founded his advocacy of the measure his hon. Friend asked leave to introduce. He hoped the Government would not oppose the introduction of the Bill, and he could not conceive any valid reason for such a course. The argument that it was a measure that would have an injurious effect on the institution of the aristocracy of the country was without foundation. He considered it almost an insult to him to charge him with being opposed to any of the great institutions of the State. Aristocracy had a much more solid foundation than those who used such an argument could suppose. But our landed aristocracy was founded not on the law of primogeniture, but on the law of entail. He certainly did not wish to see the existing order of society in this country disturbed. But, in reality, the question before the House did not touch the question of aristocracy at all. The alteration proposed by his hon. Friend would come to this—that it would relieve some small owners of heritable property from the ill effects of their own ignorance. Men who purchased a few acres of land did not do so with the view of founding a family, but of obtaining interest for their money, and it was estates such as these which it was sought principally to bring under the operation of the law of Charles II. It might be said that this proposal would discourage agriculture. But they had the experience of the last two centuries to guide them; and he asked hon. Members if they found that agriculture had been diminished through the effects of the Statute of Distributions? If he thought agriculture would be injuriously affected by this measure, he would not give it his support. He trusted that the House would permit his hon. Friend to bring in his Bill, and then, when in Com- mittee, he would be prepared to hear and discuss any objections that might be made to its details.

said, there were some subjects which the House should not let go further, and towards which they should not exhibit any hesitating determination, and one of these was, whether they should admit a Bill to be brought into the House which undoubtedly had for its object, and which unquestionably would have for its result, the altering of some of the most important and established institutions of the country. There was a great distinction between a measure framed with a view to an amendment of the law and a measure which, whatever might be the intentions of its framers, would directly shake the institutions of the country. To all measures calculated to effect an amendment of the law, he trusted that the House would ever afford a ready ear, and an anxious attention; but to a measure for removing the landmarks of some of our valued and most important institutions—for taking away some of the foundation stones of the constitution—to any such measure he hoped the House of Commons would answer, as their ancestors did of old, Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari. This proposition had been debated last Session, and the adverse opinion of the House was most unmistakably declared, by a majority of three to one, and he now called on the House to reject it again by a majority as decisive. The argument urged by the hon. Gentleman who introduced and seconded the measure was an appeal to hon. Members in certain cases of hardship, which they said could not be remedied without their interference. The hon. Gentleman who introduced it to the notice of the House cited a great number of instances of contract for the purchase of estates where the whole of the personal property, in consequence of the death of the purchaser, had been absorbed by the money due under the contract, the estate going to the heir and the younger children being deprived of their proportion. But that was not due to the law of primogeniture. The result proceeded from a contrary principle. In every contract which was to be carried into effect after the death of a party, his personal property was liable at his death to the contract. Whether it be right or wrong that personal property should be liable for the payment of debts was a question altogether beside the one now before the House. With respect to the law of primogeniture they had heard most contradictory arguments—that the law they proposed to alter would affect the most important classes in the empire, the aristocratic branches—that it would affect the great estates—and then it was said on the other side, that it was required to dispose equitably small estates, affecting the lower classes. One hon. Gentleman said that the greater part of the large estates went by the law of entail; but if the law were altered, what became of the principle upon which our settlements were founded and maintained? Would the great settlements of the country be permitted to remain if the law of primogeniture was taken away? The hon. Gentleman who brought forward the measure knew that, should they abolish the law with respect to the succession of the eldest son, the whole principle and form of arranging settlements, and the foundation on which the order of estates was fixed, would fall, and they would have nothing more than estates divided indefinitely, to the great disadvantage of the country economically, socially, and, he would add, that to which the hon. Member who last addressed the House had referred, agriculturally. It was said, too, that this was a question based on the principle of natural justice. But the institution of property and of landed estates was the creature of positive law, and that law was regulated by our political institutions; and they could not alter the one without materially affecting the other; therefore, the question was not to be discussed upon any abstract principles of natural justice, but it must be considered upon the principles by which the constitution of the country was established. He contended that in adhering to the rules of property which had been laid down from the earliest time, and in reference to which their institutions were moulded, they would not at all violate any principle of natural justice. But even if any such principle were violated, it belonged to the Legislature to consider whether any greater advantage did not accrue to society from that partial deviation from the general principle I than from an invariable adherence to it. He begged hon. Members would not consider that in abiding by a rule laid down from the earliest times they would violate any principle of natural justice. But even if there was any principle of natural justice violated by it, it was for the Legislature to consider whether there were not many great social advantages resulting from this institution. He did not know anything that was more important to preserve in this country than the great rule by which the landed property of the father passed to the eldest son. There was not a profession, calling, or occupation in the country that did not swarm with numbers of industrious, intelligent, earnest, active younger sons, whose industry was stimulated, intellect excited, and talents called forth and matured by the mere circumstance that they had to depend on their exertions, and would not have the property they might probably be looking to if this great institution were abolished. The whole constitution of society had been framed on the existing principle, and what were the reasons to induce them to consider the propriety of uprooting the foundation and altering the principles and rules by which the whole of the people of the community had their expectations and views regulated and determined? Having had no apprehension that this matter would be brought forward until he came into the House, he was only expressing his thoughts in a desultory way; but he considered that he should be failing in his duty if he did not declare his decided conviction that this matter, now again introduced, came recommended by no new argument, nor by anything that could induce them to entertain a different opinion respecting it from that which had been repeatedly expressed by that House and by the best-informed persons out of it. With regard to one point to which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. L. King) had directed attention, namely, the anomaly existing with regard to the peculiar custom respecting descent which prevailed in a very small part of the United Kingdom, whereby the younger son, instead of the elder son, became the inheritor, if the hon. Gentleman would direct his attention to it, it might be a proper subject for discussion, but any attempt to alter the great institution to which his Motion had reference should not be entertained by the House of Commons.

said, he should support the Motion for the introduction of the Bill, which was similar to the one introduced by his hon. Friend on this subject last Session, and he had seen no reason to change the opinion he then entertained on the subject. He believed this was a question which could only gain ground by discussion and experience. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General appeared to apprehend that it was a measure which would affect one of our most ancient institutions; but he (Mr. Ewart) did not know what institution the hon. and learned Gentleman could mean. The descent of property by due course of law was no institution. He denied that the proposed measure involved any change in the institutions of the country; what it was really proposed to do was to alter the law so as to suit the existing wants of society. The hon. and learned Gentleman had sheltered himself behind that venerable quotation—Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari; but why did he stop there? Why did he not go on with the sentence—quæ huc usitatæ sunt et approbatæ? He (Mr. Ewart) was equally opposed to the law of France and of Norway, and to the old Roman law of compulsory division. He was for perfect freedom in the distribution of property by will; but when, in the absence of any will, the law made an unjust distribution of that property, then it became the duty of the Legislature to reform that law. It was, therefore, under these circumstances that he supported this Motion. He believed it was a measure in conformity with the changes which had taken place in the opinions and feelings of society, and one which would anticipate and prevent those evils which infallibly resulted from reforms which were too long delayed.

said, he must complain that the question had been argued on both sides too much as a question of natural justice. For his part, he regarded it as one of pure expediency. There was not a shadow of reason why the elder son should receive more of his father's estate than his brothers, unless they went back to the law of Moses; but on the other hand, if they insisted on an equal division, they could not stop there. In order to be consistent, they must carry out the principles of socialism, and assert that every man had an equal right to everything, and that property was robbery. He (Mr. Warner) thought the custom of primogeniture was an exceedingly good one. It was a custom which was strongly recommended, both by antiquity and universality, for it had existed from the earliest times, and had prevailed in every part of the world. If, therefore, it was a question between our English custom and the French custom of continued subdivision, he should say by all means let us keep up to our own law, with all its anomalies, all its difficulties, and all its absurdities, rather than resort to a system of enforced subdivision, which had proved most disastrous to all that had been subjected to it. On the other hand, while it might be right for a man to keep up his name and family, it was still more right that no citizen of this country should be left to starve. He should therefore support the Motion for bringing in this Bill; because he believed that by the measure they would obviate many cases of suffering without materially altering the present system, with which he thought it would be undesirable to interfere to any considerable extent.

in reply, said, that his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General seemed to have prepared his arguments previously to hearing his (Mr. L. King's) speech, for he had made an elaborate defence of primogeniture, which had not been attacked. He was surprised that after his hon. and learned Friend had said he was in favour of the amendment of the law, he should oppose the present Motion.

said, that on several former occasions he had called the attention of the House to the great injustice of imposing the probate and legacy duties upon personal property of every description, while real property was exempt from both. This injustice had its origin in the year 1796, when Mr. Pitt brought in a Bill to subject all descriptions of property to the payment of probate and legacy duty; but the powerful landed aristocracy of that day compelled him to divide his measure into two Bills, one to impose those taxes upon personal property, and the other to impose them upon real property. Mr. Fox opposed the separation on the ground that if the tax were imposed upon one description of property, it ought to be laid upon all; and his view was strongly supported by Mr. Pitt. However, the measure, as he had stated, was divided; and while the Bill relating to personal property was carried through both Houses with little or no opposition, the other was successfully resisted. The injustice thus done had been partially remedied by the introduction of a Bill by the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gladstone), to whom the country was deeply indebted for the measure, although it only went to the extent of laying one-half of the legacy duty alone upon real property. So far, however, from blaming the right hon. Gentleman, he thought that he had acted with great wisdom and discretion in not attempting to do more. Such was the opposition with which the right hon. Gentleman had to contend, that he believed there was no other man in the country whose ability and resolution would have enabled him to carry it through Parliament. The Motion, however, which he (Mr. Williams) was going to propose, had reference solely to the probate duty, and as the circumstances both of that and the legacy duty were precisely similar, he could not conceive how any one could object to his proposition. If the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) were still Chancellor of the Exchequer he should appeal to him with hopeful confidence; and he trusted that he might also do so with the right hon. Baronet who now filled the office. When he (Mr. Williams) brought forward the subject on previous occasions, the only argument with which he was met was, that landed property was subject to stamp duties on conveyances and mortgages so heavy as fairly to counterbalance the legacy and probate duties. But five years ago, at a sacrifice of 450,000l. per annum, the stamp duties on conveyances and mortgages were reduced to precisely the same amount as those paid on the transfer of railway and canal property, of joint-stock bank shares, and every other species of personal property, except shares in the Bank of England, the Bank of Ireland, and the East India Company. That argument, therefore, had ceased to be valid. The House had lately voted something like 40,000,000l. for carrying on the war, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer would shortly have to provide that sum, and very possibly a great deal more money would be wanted for the same purpose. Now, if the right hon. Gentleman accepted the proposal which he (Mr. Williams) was now making to the House, he would at once obtain 2,500,000l. not by imposing any additional tax, but by doing a simple act of justice—that of imposing the same tax on land as is paid on all descriptions of personal property. The right hon. Gentleman might depend upon it that if he attempted to raise the money either by new taxation or by loan before he adopted this just principle of taxation, the country would express the strongest disapprobation of his conduct. To show the unfairness and anomalies of the present system, he might remark, that while the stamp duties on probates from 20l. to 80,000l. varied from 3 to 2½ per cent, above 80,000l. paid only 1½ per cent. Why should the larger properties be thus indulged? But this was only one specimen of the unfairness which was to be found in all our arrangements relating to taxation. Again, legacies chargeable on land paid no probate duty whatever, and the rich landed proprietors were thus exempted from taxation in providing for the younger members of their families. But how did they deal with the tenant-farmer? They valued his lease, all the improvements he had made on his farm, his stock, his implements, and everything he had, even to his wearing apparel, and they charged the probate duty upon that valuation. Houses built on freehold land paid no probate duty; but those built on building leases, which was the case with the great majority of houses in this country, paid probate duty on the full value of the lease. Land held on a lease for 1,000 years, which was as good as freehold, was made to pay probate duty in proportion to its value, while freehold land was wholly exempt. When the Legacy Duty Bill was before the House, much was said about the hardship on heritors having to pay the duty, which only amounted to one-third of a year's rent, and for this four years and a half credit was given. If a man had a legacy of 1,000l. left him, he must pay the duty in sixty days. If a man engaged in commerce died, leaving stock and book debts valued at 20,000l., though his estate might only pay 10s. in the pound, the administrator had to pay duty on the full amount, and there was the greatest difficulty in getting any portion of it back. As an example of the anomaly of this tax, he would take the Duke of Bedford's estate—that in Covent Garden—the leases had recently expired; the property had passed into his Grace's hands, and was not liable to a farthing of duty. His other estates about Russell Square were still under lease; and the leaseholders were liable to the duty. By the law of Scotland, houses built on another man's freehold were considered part of the freehold, and paid no probate duty. The case was the same with mortgages. The result was, that property of this kind in Scotland was wholly exempt. Another instance of the injustice of the tax as at present levied was afforded by the late Duke of Portland's estate. He left one of the largest estates in England, which was inherited by his heir; he also left personal property of about 1,000,000l., on which, if left to the younger children, they would have to pay 1 per cent legacy duty and 2½ per cent probate duty. Legacies were left to the servants, and they actually had to pay 10 per cent. legacy duty and 2½ per cent probate duty. The result was that the younger children paid on the personal property seven times more duty than the young Duke paid on his freehold estate, and the servants paid thirty-seven times as much as he did. Recently Mr. Benyon de Beauvoir died, leaving property worth 7,500,000l.; of this 1,000,000l. being personal property, paid probate duty; and all the rest escaped. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer had brought all kinds of property to his net in the Succession Duties Bill; but he was told that lawyers could still contrive to evade it; and those evasions all applied to the legacy duty, not the probate duty. Lord Stowell, one of the most eminent lawyers of the day, had transferred his property to his son by a regular deed, to evade paying legacy and probate duties; the son died before him, and he had to apply to the Court of Chancery, and contrived to evade the payment of the duty. The late Mr. Porter, in his Progress of the Nation, said that not three in ten of the estates of persons who died paid any probate or legacy duty at all. It appeared that in 1848, on the property of only 26,000 persons who died, probate duty was paid, the property left by 17,000 of whom was of less than 250l. value; showing that the duty was evaded to a great extent. Ho estimated that a revenue of 2,500,000l. might be derived from extending the probate duty to real property. At present the average payment was 2 per cent; he understood the same amount ofproperty very nearly paid the legacy duty and the probate duty; and including impropriate tithes, corporations, colleges, bishoprics, and deans and chapters' property, the amount he had named would be greatly increased. The corporation of London obtained 60,000l. a year by taxing all the coals which came within twenty-five miles of London—why should they not be taxed to the probate duty? It might ho said, because corporations never died; but means might be devised of bringing their property to charge. There were also the livery companies, all which had large incomes—they ought also to be charged in the same way. He would also extend the tax to the two Universities, to bishoprics—not touching the present income of the bishops—and to deans and chapters. Including these, he thought 2,500,000l. a very low estimate of the amount to be raised by the proposed tax. In rendering holders of real property liable to it, landlords would only be paying the same tax as their tenants and menial servants. Nothing could be more consonant with justice than the proposal he now made. Both the late Chancellor of the Exchequer and his predecessor had acknowledged the partiality of the existing probate duty; the latter Gentleman had said that he saw no difference between a privileged noble and a privileged tobacconist. He could not conceive on what ground his Motion could be opposed. It had been said by the Opposition that land was more heavily taxed than any other property. This he denied, and was prepared to prove that the industrious classes were far more heavily taxed than landowners. It was commonly said out of doors that our representative system was on its trial, and nothing could bring it into greater contempt with the people than for the aristocracy to make use of it to exempt themselves from taxation. Could any man oppose this Motion, and call himself a just man and a Christian?

said, he cordially seconded the Motion, believing that the existing law was in a very unsatisfactory state. He had been under the impression that there was an understanding come to with the late Government that the probate and legacy duties should be extended to real property. It was high time that those hateful distinctions between one class of property and another were done away with. While between 18,000,000l. and 19,000,000l. of taxation were contributed by the industrious classes, the aristocracy were almost wholly exempt from the general burdens. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman who now fills the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer would entitle himself to the thanks of the country by removing all odious distinctions in the taxation of different classes.

said, he could not avoid expressing his regret that the hon. Member who had brought this Motion before the House should have adopted the course of stating his views in the form of an abstract Resolution. It was quite competent to the hon. Gentleman, if the House were in Committee of Ways and Means, to bring forward any plan for continuing or extending the probate duty, and had the hon. Gentleman taken that course it would then have been in the power of the House to form a judgment as to the exact nature of the proposition which he submitted to its consideration. But in the present shape of the Motion it became extremely difficult for the House to form any clear judgment as to the plan the hon. Member would wish to have pursued. The hon. Gentleman, according to his speech, appeared to have confounded the legacy and the probate duty, for in many cases he had applied to the probate duty an argument which referred exclusively to the legacy duty, and he had omitted to state the precise nature or the precise object of the distinction between real and personal property upon which the present probate I duty was levied. The system of proving wills had grown out of the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts. Those Courts from an early period of our history exercised jurisdiction over the personalty of deceased persons, whether testate or intestate, the jurisdiction, however, from the nature of the Ecclesiastical Courts themselves being limited to personal property only. The law of England did not require that a will devising real property should be proved in an Ecclesiastical Court, which had not by its machinery or plan any means of deciding upon questions affecting the land. The consequence of this state of the law had been that the probate duty had necessarily fallen upon wills affecting personal property. If it were proposed to extend that duty to real property, it would be necessary not only to take the simple course which the hon. Member appeared to indicate, but also to alter the whole law of real property in England, exempting such wills from the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and further to alter the jurisdiction and powers of those Courts, which now were not applicable to this class of property. That was a difficulty which met them at the very threshold of the question, but if his hon. Friend had, as he had previously observed in Committee of Ways and Means, submitted a distinct plan to the consideration of the House, they would then have been able to form a judgment as to the manner in which he proposed to overcome that difficulty, and deal with the practical questions surrounding this particular mode of taxation. If, however, it were proposed to consider the matter in a more general view upon the merits of the case, he must be permitted to refer to the extensive measure affecting the legacy and succession duties, introduced two years ago by his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) who had preceded him in the office he had now the honour to hold. That measure went most extensively into the relations of real and personal property as affecting the question of succession; the whole subject was thoroughly exhausted in discussion, and a settlement was come to, adjusting those respective claims, which he confessed he was not prepared to advise the House now to disturb or rescind. The probate duty must be considered as more or less involved in that settlement, and as determined by the decision to which the House then came with respect to the proportion in which personal property should be taxed, the question of the legacy duty. It was further to be borne in mind, if they looked to the specialities of the case, that there were charges to which the transfers of real property were subject, not pressing on personal property in an equal degree. No person could deal in land to any great extent without being constantly required to pay stamp and other duties imposed on it. Although there were circumstances in which the transfer of personal property was liable to duty, these were of much less frequent occurrence, and it might be stated with truth, that great inequality in the working of the law affecting transfers existed in favour of personal and against landed property. There were, besides, many local charges affecting the land, from which, no doubt, it derived benefit, but still forming special burdens on it. He was, therefore, not prepared to accede to the first branch of the Motion of his hon. Friend, as it was presented to the House. He ought, perhaps, to congratulate himself in having found so able a coadjutor, who presented to the Exchequer a gift of not less than 2,500,000l. Although in the present state of the finances he should feel not slightly relieved by so great a donation, he could not but fear that the exemption of wills of real property from probate, would very considerably diminish the sum. The hon. Member said he wished to make wills of real property subject to probate, but there was nothing in his Resolution which bore any such meaning. The Resolution did not propose to alter the law respecting probate of wills of real property, but merely the law respecting the probate duty. The hon. Gentleman had also commented on the inconsistency of leases for years being subject to the probate duty, whilst leases for lives were exempted. That was in consequence of the general law of the country, which made leases for years a chattel interest, while leases for lives were freehold property. There was the same distinction between houses on lease and freehold houses. The latter being real property were necessarily exempt, whilst houses on lease, constituting a chattel interest, were included under the duty. His hon. Friend had alluded also to the scale of probate duty. If his hon. Friend had submitted a distinct and articulate proposal to the consideration of the House, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) should have been ready to meet it by argument, but when it was made merely matter for an abstract proposition, it became very difficult to deal with. The same remark applied to the hon. Member's comments on the evasions of the law, which might perhaps exist even at the present time, for which perhaps a remedy might be found, but in regard to which it was necessary to frame specific measures. With respect, therefore, to the other branch of the Resolution, he regretted his inability to accede to it. He had only one further remark to make with reference to impropriate tithes, which the hon. Member said were real property, but which were very often held as a chattel interest, so that in case of any person dying, and making a will bequeathing them, they became subject to the probate duty. With respect to the latter part of the Resolution, proposing that property belonging to corporations of deans and chapters should be made liable to probate duty, he begged leave to say, that a Bill dealing with the whole subject had been brought to a stage of considerable maturity by his right hon. Friend who preceded him. He had not yet had time to make himself master of the details of the Bill, which required careful consideration; but should he find it possible to arrange those details in a satisfactory shape, he should feel disposed, at the proper time, to submit a measure on the subject to the House.

said, he thought the right hon. Gentleman had not fully answered the arguments of the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. W. Williams), and should give his support to the Motion, which he regarded as founded in justice.

said, that he should be sorry to throw any damp upon the feelings of gratitude which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had expressed towards the hon. Member for Lambeth, but he must beg to remind him that the latter part of his speech went to show how easily and successfully the existing probate duty upon personal property was evaded, so that if the arguments of the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. W. Williams) were worth anything, it was that the probate duty upon personal property should be removed rather than extended to real property. The hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield) had spoken of the inequalities of taxation in this country; but the hon. Gentleman himself had with much candour admitted that personal property was not subjected to a stamp when it changed hands, though real property was. They had been told that a hateful distinction and inequality existed in the taxation of this country, but certainly neither the distinction nor the inequality would be found to be in favour of the landed interest. But there were other burdens beside this to which the land was subjected, and from which personalty was exempt. And, indeed, if personal and real property were placed precisely on the same footing, and made liable to precisely the same duties; if, upon the transfer of personal property, and its mortgage and reconveyance when the mortgage was paid off, it were placed on the same footing as realty, he believed that in a pecuniary sense personalty would have nothing to gain. He contended, moreover, that it was most in harmony with the spirit of our free commercial code that personal property should change hands as easily, freely, and readily as possible; whilst it was equally in accordance with the spirit of our territorial constitution that the land of the country should change hands as seldom as possible, and that it should rest in the possession of certain families and be identified with certain names. ["Oh, oh!"] Upon this subject he had no less an authority than that of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gladstone), who, when making his financial statement in 1853, showed that, whereas personal property paid the income tax upon the gross amount of revenue, the same as real property, 16 per cent ought to be deducted from income derived from real property for repairs, management, and other outgoings inherent to the possession of land. From this the right hon. Gentleman deduced, that whilst personal property was only paying 7d. in the 1l., landed property was paying at least 9d. in the 1l. But he went even further than this, and showed that owing to the power of self-assessment which traders and manufacturers possessed, and which the landed interest did not possess, the latter were suffering under a still greater inequality than that. The right hon. Gentleman took the case of some personal property that was to be removed to make way for certain public purposes. He stated that twenty-eight individuals possessing that property claimed compensation for its destruction to the extent of 48,000l. a year. A jury was empannelled, who assessed the income at 27,000l. a year. But what was the gross return of income made by these twenty-eight individuals? Why, 9,000l. a year; so that, in point of fact, whilst the landed interest was paying 9d. in the 1l., the trading and manufacturing interests were paying only 7d. in 3l. When he (Mr. Peacocke) first became acquainted with this statement, he owned that he felt very much in the position of the plaintiff in an action at law who, after listening to the pathetic statement made by his counsel in his behalf, burst into tears, and exclaimed that until that moment he had never known what an injured man he was; and certainly until that statement the landed interest was not aware of the full extent of the inequality of taxation to which it had been subjected. Nor did the inequality cease there; for, according to the Report of a Committee of the House of Lords, the landed interest was subjected to local burdens, which pressed upon it to the extent of 23 per cent. Yet, in the face of this declaration, the hon. Member opposite speaks of hateful disproportionate taxation in favour of the land. A great statesman of the Whig school once told a rising financier of his party, that whenever he intended to impose additional taxes, he should always select the landed interest for that purpose. They could be sheared like their own sheep, but beware, said he, how you lay a finger on the manufacturing or trading interests; if you touch one of them, you will have the whole tribe about your ears. Now, what- ever the Whig party had been in other respects there could be no doubt that it had been faithful to its tradition. But although the country party had submitted to forego the privileges they once enjoyed, and been content to accept the national wish that unrestricted competition should be the law of the land, they would not sit quietly down with folded arms and submit to unjust exactions. The present was certainly not the proper moment to reopen the great question of agricultural burdens, when the country was at war, and its capability for bearing taxation was likely to be strained to its utmost tension; but whenever peace should be again established, he contended that it would be the duty of the agricultural party to demand of Parliament what equivalent it proposed to give for the restricted cultivation of the soil, the unequal burden of local taxation, and the unequal and unfair pressure of the income tax, so ably and graphically described by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer. It would then be the imperative duty of the Legislature to review the entire financial system of the country, to take into consideration the burdens with which the landed interest was exclusively saddled, and to seek by every means in their power at all events to alleviate, if they could not effectually remove them.

said, he was favourable to the principle of the proposition, having always been of opinion that the probate duty on personal property was oppressive and unjust. By the measure of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer that duty was extended to land, but in a very unmerciful manner, for he held that the duty on legacies in money ought then to have been reduced to one-half its former amount. There were burdens pressing on land more heavily than on any other species of property, and he held that the question ought to be examined more minutely before they declared that probate duty should be extended to transfers of landed property. As the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that the case of ecclesiastical corporations should be fully considered, he thought the hon. Member for Lambeth should be satisfied with that declaration, and not press the Motion to a division.

said, he must deny that the burdens on land were, in every instance, greater than those on personal property, for he was aware that, in some cases, the contrary was the fact. Horses that were employed for commercial purposes were subject to taxation, but when used for agricultural purposes they were exempt. Again, insurances of commercial or personal property were subject to taxation, but insurances of agricultural produce were free from duty. He was not in favour of the abolition of probate duty on personal property. He thought that when a man came into the possession of property, to obtain which he had not had to lift his little finger, it was a good time for an officer of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to step in and demand something for the support of the state. He thought, too, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to feel obliged to the hon. Member for Lambeth for having brought forward this Motion. The Government, most probably, would have been glad enough to have supported it, but, fearing that they had not sufficient strength to carry it, they had thought it prudent to withhold their support, in order that their tenure of office might not be cut suddenly short.

said, he objected to this tax altogether, and was therefore unwilling to support the inconsistency of extending it to a larger portion of the community. It was a bad tax, and if the hon. Member for Lambeth would move its total repeal he would give him all the assistance in his power.

said, he would now beg to move for leave to bring in a Bill to limit and regulate the hours of work of females and young persons in the factories of the United Kingdom to ten hours in the day, and to provide the means of more perfectly inspecting the factories. Two years ago he had obtained leave to bring in a similar Bill, but at too late a period of the Session to have any chance of passing it, and last year, though he had made several endeavours to obtain an opportunity for renewing his Motion, he had been unsuccessful. He had, therefore, taken the earliest occasion which offered itself this year, and he hoped the House would allow him now to introduce his Bill, in order that it might be printed and circulated through the country with a view to its full discussion at as early a period as was convenient after the recess. The factory question was one which had excited great interest, both in Parliament and in the country. For fifty years efforts had been made to reduce the hours of labour of children, then of young people, as they were called, from the age of thirteen to eighteen, and, lastly of all, females, to that which every one must allow was a reasonable extent of labour—namely, ten hours a day. In 1847 Parliament passed an Act, by which it was provided that no young person and no female should work more than ten hours a day; and the Speaker, in his speech to the Throne at the end of the Session, congratulated Her Majesty upon the circumstance. Unfortunately, there was a flaw in an Act to which the Act of 1847 necessarily referred, and the manufacturers, in consequence, were enabled to evade it. They adopted a mode of working called the "shift" system, by which, though they worked no person longer than ten hours in any one day, they kept them in and out of the mills in such a manner as to extract from them twelve, thirteen, and even in some cases fifteen hours' labour per day. This was acknowledged to be an evasion of the spirit of the law. It was decided by the Judges that in 1849, though Parliament intended that no protected person should work more than ten consecutive hours in any one day, the words of the Act were not precise upon the point, and thus the evasion was in accordance with the letter of the law. The Ten Hours Bill of 1847, therefore, in point of fact, was abrogated by the fatal flaw to which he had referred. It was admitted, however, that the error was one which ought to be rectified by an amended Bill, but the working people became alarmed in consequence of rumours which gained ground that it was intended so to amend the Bill as to infringe the ten-hour principle. They thought it would be a breach of faith on the part of Parliament to deprive them of any part of what was intended in 1847—namely, a real honest Ten flours Bill, and, in consequence of the fears entertained by the working people, the Secretary for the Home Department was applied to through Lord Ashley, in order to ascertain if it was the intention of the right hon. Gentleman to introduce a proper Ten Hours Bill, or in any way to infringe that principle. This application was made by the Spinners' Association at Manchester; it put the question distinctly to the right hon. Gentleman (Sir G. Grey) whether he intended to adhere to the ten-hours principle in any amended Bill. An answer was returned to the spinners, signed by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, stating that the then Secretary of State for the Home Department intended to do nothing that would be inconsistent with the spirit of the Act of 1847. The factory people, therefore, thought themselves safe, and were justified in believing that, at any rate, the House of Commons in any measure which might be passed would observe the principle of ten hours labour a day. In May, 1850, the right hon. Baronet the present Secretary for the Home Department detailed to the House the principles of a new measure, which he wished to introduce. The right hon. Gentleman stated that, having taken the advice of other parties, and after great consideration, it was found desirable to extend the term of labour to ten hours and a half, but that a great boon would be conferred upon the workpeople by limiting the hours of labour between six o clock in the morning to six at night. Any person practically acquainted with the manufacturing districts would be aware that this was no boon to the factory operatives, as they already possessed this advantage. The manufacturer of course took those hours of the day which were the most convenient in respect to the day light, in order to save the expense of gas or other artificial light. Consequently he would of course work between six and six, and no Act was required for that purpose. This was no boon, but a mere delusion. The right hon. Gentleman, in explaining the intentions of the Government with regard to the factory question, said—

"On the one hand, although during the week this class would be employed somewhat more than under the existing law, on the other hand they will gain this advantage—they will have half an hour in the morning, between half-past five and six o'clock, at their own disposal; they will have, undisturbed, the whole evening after six o'clock at their own disposal; and on Saturday, after two o'clock, the whole day at their disposal."—[3 Hansard, cx. 1134.]

Now, if the custom of the manufacturers had been to bring their workpeople into the mill at half-past five o'clock in the morning, and the Ten Hours Bill had been properly enforced, they could not have kept their hands at work after five in the day, so that here again no boon was conferred upon the operatives. The right hon. Gentleman promised the hands half-an-hour more on the Saturday than they would possess under a Ten Hours Bill; but, in point of fact, no additional time was given at all, as the workpeople, in the present mode of violating the law, went on working till three and half-past three o'clock in the afternoon, instead of stopping at two or half-past two o'clock, as they would have done under the Ten Hours Bill. The measure of the right hon. Gentleman was, therefore, immediately resisted. Petitions were presented against it from workpeople, merchants, bankers, manufacturers, clergy, and trades people in Manchester, Preston, Bradford, and other towns; but, in spite of the opposition of the manufacturing districts, the right hon. Gentleman pursued his course, and Parliament, with too much readiness, supported him. The Bill was, however, passed, and the Act came into operation, and the labour in factories of women, young persons, and children, was extended half-an-hour more on five days in the week, and curtailed, according to the law, half-an-hour on the Saturday afternoon. Well, how did this Act work? Had it been observed since the time it became law? On the contrary, it scarcely came into operation before the Factory Inspectors began to complain that it was violated to such an extent that it was absolutely necessary to pass some further Act to enforce its provisions. He would refer shortly to some of the remonstrances and complaints which were made upon the subject. Mr. Horner, the Factory Inspector, stated in his Report, dated the 30th of April, 1852—

"The details I have given of these cases, and what I have further stated in my Report for the half-year ending the 31st of October last, if you will please to refer to them, will, I think, satisfy you that there must be an amendment of the existing law before the evil complained of by the millowners in the memorial from Manchester, lately presented to you, can be corrected."

The memorial alluded to by Mr. Horner was one presented to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midhurst (Mr. Walpole) during the time he was Secretary for the Home Department, from the manufacturers themselves, in which they stated that the provisions of the Act were so much violated in the country districts of Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire that they required some amendment of the law in order to protect their interests and place them upon an equal footing with other manufacturers who were in the habit of employing their workpeople beyond the hours to which the mills in Manchester were kept at work. So much as to the mode in which the Act had been observed after it came into operation. From that time to the present there had been repeated complaints, showing more or less that the Act was constantly violated by the overworking of the young people, who ought not to have worked more than ten hours and a half a day. In October, 1852, the Factory Inspectors made a joint Report, stating that the clear intentions of the Legislature were defeated because of the difficulty in obtaining the conviction of offenders. After that, down to October, 1854, when the last Report was presented to the House, the inspectors, in every one of their Reports, though they stated now and then that the Act was fairly observed, pointed out the necessity of an amendment of the law, in order to prevent the violation of its intentions. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary might, perhaps, say that he did not go into Lancashire, Scotland, and Yorkshire to inspect the factories, but received information from the factory inspectors, and he was content with those few words used by them, that the law was fairly observed; but it was his (Mr. Cobbett's) duty, in order to justify his Motion for the amendment of the law, to state some strong facts, showing the feeling of the manufacturing districts on the subject. During the last Session not less than 1,083 petitions were presented to the House, asking the House to pass such a Bill as he had introduced in the preceding Session; and the petitioners stated distinctly that violations of the law were systematically carried on, that they desired a Ten Hours Bill in its strictness, and that they knew no mode by which the violations of the law could be effectually put down other than by the proposition he had made for a restriction on the motive power of the mill and for a better mode of inspection. During the Session he had presented from a body of his constituents a remarkable petition, signed by the then mayor and late mayor of Oldham, both large manufacturers, and by, he believed, all the aldermen and a great portion of the town council, and this petition distinctly called on the House to pass his Bill of last Session, alleging that the systematic violations of the present law made it necessary. The gentlemen who signed this petition were, for the greater part, largely engaged in manufactures, and could it be supposed that they would pray the House to adopt that which was inimical to the interests of the manufacturers. Petitions came from all parts of the kingdom; they were signed by upwards of 200,000 persons, and were unopposed by any counter petitions. He thought the facts he had stated were conclusive as to the feelings of the people on the subject, and they ought to have sufficient weight to induce the House to permit him to introduce the Bill he now asked leave to bring in. That was one mode by which he showed the feelings of the manufacturing people of the country on the subject, but he could refer to other proofs of the strong desire that existed for an amendment of the law. In 1852, when he was elected, his opinions on the factory question were well known, and he was able to give a pledge to his constituents which he knew would be satisfactory to them, and which he believed to be founded in justice, that he would support such a Bill. Since his election two other elections had taken place in the manufacturing boroughs of Lancashire, and at those elections it was considered by the factory operatives most important to ascertain whether the candidates would frankly pledge themselves in favour of the Bill he had introduced. At Blackburn the Member returned promised to support his Bill, and, if that hon. Member were not now extremely unwell, he should have the advantage of that hon. Gentleman's advocacy on the present as on a former occasion. The rejected candidate also promised to support the measure. Subsequently, at the election for Clitheroe, the two candidates were asked whether they would support his Bill, and the one who promised to do so was returned, and the other, who gave no such pledge, was rejected. These were facts, which showed distinctly that the factory people were desirous of having the Bill, which he had on a former occasion presented to the House; and the one he should now move for leave to introduce was very similar to the measure he brought under the notice of hon. Members two years ago. With regard to the Ten Hours Bill, he knew that it effected a great deal of good. He knew that under its operation the people enjoyed better health and greater domestic comfort, and that, whereas before the young women had not time to make their own clothing of any kind, they had, after the passing of that Bill, and during its operation, been able to perform many needful domestic duties—it had given them domestic comfort which they had not before enjoyed. This was the reason why he felt so strongly on the subject. The House should recollect what was the condition of the factory people before any factory legislation took place. The long hours of work had enervated the bodies of the people; he meant this literally; this had been fully proved. One consequence, among others, of the long hours of working was that it affected the recruiting for the army. It was ascertained that the working people in the factory districts were, to a great extent, so reduced in strength as to be unfitted for the army. Sir John Elly stated, that when he was engaged recruiting at Leeds, he found a prodigious number of persons rejected, as compared with the agricultural districts. In giving evidence before the Health of Towns Commission, Sergeant Farrell said—

"He had been engaged ten years in the recruiting service. For ten recruits he got formerly, he could only now get one, and that one was frequently rejected. He ascribed this to the circumstance that, when persons go to work in factories early, they do not grow to the proper size, have always some deformity, and are pale and sickly, and thin in flesh. The surgeon refuses them for being too thin, not round chested, and not standing straight. In Rochdale there is almost no use staying. I have been only able to pick out thirty men for the last eighteen months, and out of those only one was passed by the surgeon for every four rejected."

This result of severe factory labour was not confined to England, it existed also on the Continent. In 1840 Lord Ashley quoted an extract from the Report of a Commission of the Chamber of Peers in France, to the effect that, of every 10,000 men believed capable of military service in the agricultural districts, 4,029 were rejected on account of physical infirmities; while of every 10,000 men in the manufacturing districts 9,930 were rejected from the same cause. The same state of things existed in Prussia, where the manufacturing districts could not fully supply the contingents required of them. The consequence was, that, both in France and in Prussia restrictions had been imposed on factory labour. Did not this show that interference was necessary, and did it not show that the Ten Hours' Law ought to have been rigidly adhered to? When he formerly brought this subject before the House, he mentioned, on the authority of Dr. Fletcher, of Bury, the astounding mortality that prevailed among the children of factory operatives. From the fact of the mothers working in the factories, and being thereby kept away for long periods of time from their children, great numbers under two years of age died. Dr. Fletcher stated that, of every 100 deaths among the factory workers, a fraction over sixty-one were infants under two years of age, while among the other operative classes in the same locality the deaths of infants under two years of age were a fraction under thirty-three in 100. Last year, at the meeting of the British Association, a Mr. Ashworth, a manufacturer, furnished a variety of statistics relating to the celebrated strike which took place at Preston. It would be recollected, perhaps, that this strike took place during a very severe winter and lasted for six months, and that those connected with it were exposed to very great privations. After Mr. Ashworth had stated to the British Association a great many details with regard to the strike and its mischievous consequences, the Rev. Mr. Clay, the chaplain to the Preston House of Correction, observed that there was one point so important as to deserve special notice. He had reason to believe, he said, from data in his possession, that there were 1,000 women generally employed in the factories among the 18,000 persons who were out on strike, and who were the mothers of infants under five years of age; and he added that the number of infant deaths in Preston among the operative spinners during the six months of the strike was 497, whereas the number of deaths in the six months before the strike was 594. This, he observed, raised the important question, how far it was proper to encourage the employment in our cotton mills of women who had young infants at home who required their attention. The House would observe that, notwithstanding the privations of the strike and the severity of the winter, there were about 100 fewer deaths in the six months during which the strike lasted than in the six months before, while the same people were in full work. It was quite clear that it was the mother's absence from her family which caused the high rate of infant mortality in these districts, and that absence was entirely chargeable upon the factory system as at present carried on. And this fact he looked upon as a remarkable confirmation of Dr. Fletcher's statement. If the deaths in Preston owing to factory work were so many, what would be the total number in the whole of the manufacturing districts of England and Scotland? With a view of remedying the evils which now prevailed in the working of the law, he now asked the House to permit him to introduce this Bill, the leading provisions of which he would briefly state. He proposed, in the first instance, to reduce the hours of labour to ten. And then, as the only practicable way of giving the Factory Inspectors some chance of enforcing the law, he proposed to place a restriction on the motive power, so as to limit its time of working to that fixed for the hours of labour. He knew that in this last proposal he struck against that which many Members would call hazardous, but which, nevertheless, practical manufacturers had declared to be the only effectual mode of ensuring the object in view. Before the Factory Commissioners, appointed to inquire into the condition of the operatives in 1833, commenced their inquiries, they circulated among the manufacturers a series of questions, and the object of one of those questions was to ascertain the opinion of practical manufacturers as to the mode in which an efficient factory law might be framed. He found that in reply to that inquiry forty-eight manufacturing firms in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Scotland, and Ireland, declared that they could not suggest anything more effective than what he (Mr. Cobbett) proposed by this Bill—namely, the restriction of the motive power. Mr. Bolling, the late Member for Bolton, an extensive manufacturer, who volunteered his opinion on the subject, said—

"I wish to say, that as I use up in my concern one-ninetieth part of the cotton consumed in Great Britain, I think it is right I should declare my opinion about an alteration in the law. Now, my opinion is, that whatever Bill is passed, it should be a tight one, and such as can never be evaded; it should be equal and efficient; and for this it must be a restriction on the moving power; then, if that is not granted, we must have a warden, and he must enforce the law at his discretion, and so place us all on one footing."

One of the clauses of the Bill which he (Mr. Cobbett) asked leave to introduce would impose such a restriction. The other clauses of the Bill carried out the suggestions of the Factory Inspectors with reference to an increase of penalties and some other matters, but there was one new clause by which he proposed to give, to persons who ascertained that offences had been committed against the provisions of the Factory Acts, the power, after giving three days' notice to the Inspectors, to bring actions in the County Courts, in the nature of qui tam actions, to recover penalties. He hoped the House would do justice to that immense and increasing body of the operatives of this country who worked in factories, and who were increasing, according to the reports of the Factory Inspectors, to the extent of about 25,000 persons annually, by allowing him to introduce this Bill, in order that it might be printed and discussed. An opportunity would then be afforded to hon. Members and to the country generally of considering the details of the measure, and after Easter the House might determine whether, in their opinion, it was calculated to provide an efficient remedy for the evils which undoubtedly existed.

seconded the Motion.

I rise, Sir, for the purpose of stating very shortly the reasons which induce me to offer my opposition to the introduction of this Bill. If there were any ambiguity in the object of the measure proposed by the hon. Gentleman—if any advantage could be derived from allowing it to be introduced, in order that we might be more fully in possession of the objects which the hon. Gentleman has in view—I should be quite ready to agree that the Bill should be laid upon the table, and that, when we were acquainted with its contents, we should decide whether it should be entertained or not. But there is no such ambiguity about this measure. The hon. Member has stated very explicitly the provisions of the Bill; and he has stated what is perfectly true, that the measure is identical, or nearly identical, with one which he obtained leave on a former occasion to introduce, which the House had an opportunity of considering; but which the House did not seem disposed to sanction. I conceive, under these circumstances, therefore, that the House can come to a decision upon this Bill without waiting until a distant day, and discussing the measure on the second reading. I think that it would be most mischievous to allow a Bill of this nature to be introduced, if the House is not prepared at once to assent to its principle. The interests concerned are of such magnitude that any Parliamentary interference can only be justified by necessity. In former years I thought such necessity did exist, and I gave my aid in passing that law by which the hours of labour of certain specified classes were abridged; but I believe, unless a case of indispensable necessity is established, that interference of this nature cannot fail to be mischievous, and I must contend that the hon. Member for Oldham has made out no case which would justify such an interference as he proposes on the part of this House. Now, what is the case which the hon. Gentleman brings forward? Many of us remember the keen and protracted debates which took place on this subject of factory legislation in years long gone by; we remember the nights which were occupied by the detailed statements of my noble Friend Lord Shaftesbury, who then had a seat in this House, and who brought the question repeatedly under its consideration; and also by the late Mr. Feilden; and we recollect the accounts given of the suffering and injury to which it was contended the classes in question were subjected in consequence of the long hours of labour in factories. We remember, too, the interest which was excited throughout the country with reference to this subject, and I ask hon. Gentlemen to contrast the statements which were then made with the statements the hon. Gentleman has now addressed to the House, and the indications of interest and excitement which were apparent in the country at that time and at the present. Why the only facts stated by the hon. Member are drawn from a period antecedent to the passing of what is called the Ten Hours Bill. When an hon. Member who is anxious to detail the sufferings of the factory population has to go back for statements to 1840, before the Ten Hours Bill was passed, the inference I draw is, that the evils have been remedied, and the House ought to abstain from further interference. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, that great benefits have been derived by shortening the hours of labour as regards women and children. I believe that those beneficial results have arisen not from the mere operation of the Act of 1847, but from the operation also of the Act of 1850, which he now seeks to set aside. He has stated, that under the existing laws women and children have a great deal more time to spend in their own homes, and that parents have greater opportunities of intercourse with their children, but I attribute this, not to the Act of 1847 alone, but to the Act of 1847 combined with the supplemental Act of 1850, which the hon. Gentleman now stigmatises as a fraud upon the operative classes of this country. Let me remind the House what is the state of the case. By the Act 3rd and 4th of Will. IV., chap. 43, it was declared that young children should work in factories no more than twelve hours, between half-past five o'clock in the morning and half-past eight in the evening. By the 10th and 11th of Vict. chap. 39, the hours of labour were reduced to ten, but the fifteen hours still remained, within which those ten hours labour might be rendered. No doubt it was opposed to the intentions and objects of those who introduced the Ten Hours Act, but there was nothing in the legislation—10 & 11 Vict. c. 39—to render a system of relays illegal, so long as no individual woman or young person was subjected to more than ten hours labour in the day. I at that period held the office of Secretary of State for the Home Department, and received innumerable complaints of the operation of that law which the hon. Gentleman calls the "Charter" of these classes, because the anticipations raised by it were disappointed. In 1850 the subject underwent long and anxious consideration. I communicated with the millowners and occupiers, who wished to have a satisfactory settlement of the question, and with those who had been the most strenuous advocates of the working classes and the means of inducing Parliament to abridge their hours of labour. With their consent and concurrence, founded upon the conviction that the proposal was for the interest of the operatives themselves, and expressed privately to me and publicly in this House, that Act was passed. If that had been a measure which could be justly stigmatised as a fraud, they would not have assented to it, and I should not have proceeded with it. I believed it would confer substantial benefits on the working population, and their warmest advocates felt justified in supporting it as the best settlement which could be obtained, and as a security to the working classes of the utmost extent of benefit they could derive from legislation. By that Act the fifteen hours during which the hours of labour might be taken were reduced to twelve, namely from six o'clock in the morning to six in the evening, being identical with a proposition which Lord Shaftesbury on a former occasion submitted to the House. No doubt only one hour and a half being deducted for meals, during five days, ten hours and a half instead of ten hours' labour might be imposed; still, as there were only to be sixty hours in a week, it gave them the whole of the afternoon of Saturday for their own occupations, recreation, and enjoyment. The hon. Gentleman says this Act has worked ill. That is to me quite novel information. Speaking generally, I have received uniform testimony from all persons competent to form an opinion as to its beneficial operation, and I am entitled to say that it has afforded general satisfaction to those for whose benefit it was intended, while the occupiers of mills, almost without exception, have acquiesced in its provisions. Though with respect to any law there will be some transgressions of it, the Act, on the whole, has worked most harmoniously, and has given no occasion to the disputes which before occurred between the millowners and the persons in their employment. I do, therefore, conceive, that it would be most prejudicial to the interests of all parties to reopen this question, and upon the statement of the hon. Gentleman, without any evidence, again to renew those discussions which took place with regard to the Ten Hours Act. I believe the best course for the House to pursue is at once to declare its intention of abiding by the Act of 1850, which has been found to fulfil all the anticipations with which it was passed. The hon. Gentleman says there are persons who violate the law, and the penalties and means of detection are insufficient. I hope the House will mark that the hon. Gentleman said there was only one way in which these infractions of the law could be prevented. And that mode of prevention leads me to the important provision of the Bill by which he proposes now, for the first time, to extend these restrictions, not only to the protected classes, of young persons and children, but to the whole male adult population. The hon. Gentleman says the only effectual plan is to shut up the mills altogether, except during certain hours, and that if the motive power is stopped it will be absolutely impossible for any person to be employed before six o'clock in the morning or after six in the evening in connection with that machinery. But I must beg to ask, is the House prepared, for the first time contrary to its decision on all former occasions, and contrary to the express declaration of those who advocated the interests of the protected classes, to say that no adult operative shall work in future beyond the hour of six o'clock? That is a principle which the House has hitherto refused to recognise, and I hope will refuse to recognise again, as imposing fetters on manufacturing enterprise which may be fatal to the prosperity of the country. The hon. Gentleman proposes to fall back upon the Act of 1847, limiting the hours of labour to ten, and setting aside the arrangement of 1850, without any proof, that the arrangement of 1850 has been productive of any mischief. I am authorised by those who took part in the factory agitation to deprecate this movement as injurious to the interests of those for whom the hon. Gentleman desires to interfere. I trust the House will not consent to disturb the Act of 1850, or apparently sanction the principle of limiting the hours of labour of the adult male population, by allowing this Bill to be introduced, leaving the question in uncertainty, perhaps, until the end of the Session; thereby exciting expectation and creating doubt as to what may be the decision of Parliament upon a case which is fully before them. The House is as competent to say ay or no now, as at Easter, or at the end of the Session, and I hope they will at once express their opinion, and support me in negativing the Motion of the hon. Gentleman.

said, his hon. colleague (Mr. Cobbett) had so ably brought this subject before the attention of the House, that it was matter of surprise he was not to be allowed to go any further into the subject. They had heard not long ago complaints by the possessors of land that land was unequally taxed, and complaints by the possessors of personal property that personal property was unequally taxed; but the possessors of land and the possessors of personal property could make their voices heard in that House, they could speak for themselves. Now his hon. colleague spoke for those who were obliged to appear by proxy, and whose complaints and desires therefore were more worthy of serious and prolonged consideration. He thought the request was in itself most reasonable. The factory operatives asked for a boon which was granted to them some years ago, and the enjoyment of which failed from no fault of theirs, but from the imperfection with which the measure was drawn, or from the effect of other laws with which it was coupled. Their request was simply that the House should put them in real possession of the boon which the Legislature bestowed, or intended to bestow, upon them, and this appeared to him to be a most well-chosen time to bring the subject under discussion. He considered that it was favourable on two accounts; the cotton-mills were working at short time, and the experiment of further limitation of time might, therefore, be tried now without any danger to those whose capital was invested in such undertakings. That was one reason; another was that the Acts of 1847 and 1850, so far as they had been tried, had had a beneficial operation. The inspectors had had an opportunity of canvassing the operatives as to how they regarded the law of 1847, and he thought they must have found that a large proportion of them, though they might have suffered in their wages, prized the time that was put in their possession much more than any amount of wages they might have lost. He was astonished to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary express his decided hostility to the principle of the Bill. Now, what was the principle of the Bill? Why, it was the very principle which the right hon. Gentleman boasted of having established, and which that House had again and again recognised and sanctioned in its various measures for the regulation of labour in factories. The right hon. Gentleman objected to any restriction upon the moving power in factories, and he called that the principle of the Bill. It was no such thing; it was not the principle of the Bill, but the means by which his hon. colleague proposed to carry his principle into effect. Surely it was incumbent upon the right hon. Gentleman, if he objected to that means of enforcing the principle, to provide his own means; at any rate not to allow the decrees of the Legislature to remain a dead letter for the want of adequate powers to insure obedience to them. Objection was raised on the ground of an assumed previous consent of the operative classes to the Act of 1850. He denied that any such consent had been given. The consent of Lord Ashley was adduced by the right hon. Baronet in confirmation of that statement; but what was the fact? True it was, Lord Ashley did consent to that interpretation of the Bill, but the immediate consequence of it was the disownment of the act of Lord Ashley by the factory operatives and the transference of their cause to other hands. So that remonstrance rather than acquiescence was given to that portion of the measure which regarded the regulation of the labour of male adults. It might be said that the right to regulate his hours of labour was possessed by every individual adult. But how much was it worth? If an individual operative were to refuse to work unless he obtained his own terms, the effect would be to put himself out of employment altogether. It was only by combined action that they could effectually treat with their employers, and it was only by an united effort that they could hope to give effect to their opinions. The factory operatives had accordingly sought to do this by petitioning the House of Commons. They were willing to bargain for ten hours labour per day, but they did not choose to bargain for more. The most able political writer of the day had referred to this case, as the one in which the many might venture to come to the Legislature, in order to give that force, that reality to their wishes and purposes, as to bargaining for their labour, which they were unable to give in their individual capacity. For these reasons he thought that the House should have a proper, an honourable, a kindly regard to the desires of the great mass of the working people. He thought it would be consistent with their own sense of impartiality to treat the subject with that deliberation which its importance demanded, and he trusted that they would not take the advice of the right hon. Baronet, and throw out the measure without hesitation; but that they would allow the measure to come fairly before the House, and enjoy that full discussion which its importance fairly and justly deserved.

said, he was very much struck with the inconsistency of the argument which the right hon. Baronet (the Home Secretary) had used on the present occasion, and that which he advanced in opposition to the Motion of his right hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Sir H. Halford), when he wished to introduce a Bill for the benefit of the working classes connected with the hosiery trade. On that occasion the right hon. Baronet argued that, because that class of labourers was suffering from other causes as well as from the abuses relating to the hours of labour, therefore the evils complained of by his hon. Friend ought to remain unredressed; that because they were suffering from competition they ought also to suffer from unlimited hours of labour. That was the argument by which the right hon. Baronet induced the House to reject the Bill of his hon. Friend, which had for its object the relief of that portion of the working classes. And now, when the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Cobbett) came forward with a measure to secure to the working classes the benefits of the Ten Hours Bill which had been passed by the Legislature, up rose the right hon. Baronet and expressed a hope that the House would reject it, because it would interfere with adult labour. The principle of the Bill of 1847 was, of course, recognised by the Legislature; but the right hon. Baronet had now endeavoured to induce the House not to enforce that principle. The right hon. Baronet had admitted that the operation of the Bill in limiting the hours of labour, as regarded women and young persons, had been most satisfactory. Who denied it? It had been satisfactory where it had been properly carried out; but the right hon. Baronet was using the law where it had been effectual as an argument to justify the infraction of it; he adduced the benefit which had been felt by a portion of the working classes from a limitation of labour to ten hours a day as a reason why that benefit should not be extended to all. The right hon. Baronet had not the hardihood to deny the abuses which had taken place, but even while admitting that there had been gross infractions of the law, he had endeavoured to persuade the House to extend the shield of its authority over the guilty parties. He trusted, however, the House would not in the excitement of a foreign war, allow its attention to be diverted from all other subjects, and particularly the very important one then under consideration. The right hon. Baronet had said that the people were contented with the Act of 1847. True, they were content with its principle, but proofs had been adduced, Session after Session, that the law was evaded, and the working classes had called upon the Legislature to consider what means might be adopted that should give effect to the law which should be at once salutary to the working classes and beneficial to the manufacturers who employed them. He remembered, when the Act of 1847 passed, they were told that one-sixth of the exports of manufactured cotton would be struck off; and yet, year after year since that time, millions upon millions had been added to this production of that manufacture. So great, indeed, had been the productive powers of this country in that branch of manufacture that every market was glutted; and it was at such a time that the right hon. Baronet endeavoured to persuade the House to reject this Bill.

said, the hon. Gentleman had not quite correctly represented what he had said. He did not say there had been gross infractions of this law, for although he was well aware that almost every law would be violated, generally speaking, this law had been well observed.

said, that the supporters of Lord Ashley's Bill were taxed with having admitted the principle of the limitation of adult labour, but in fact that principle had been always repudiated by them; and though the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Newdegate) said that it was the bonâ fide intention to make ten hours universally the limit of work in factories, yet he was sure that there was no such intention. If the proposal of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Cobbett) for the stoppage of mills after a certain number of hours was carried out it would work great hardship on the factories in his part of Scotland, where most of the mills were worked by water power, which was not always available, and especially in winter, and the practical effect would be that such mills would most probably only work six hours a day. With regard to the women and children in factories in his part of the country, they were generally in as good health as those employed in agricultural and domestic occupations.

said, he could speak from experience of the benefit of legislation on this subject. He had for sixteen years attended a factory at six o'clock every morning, and long before any factory legislation he was convinced that twelve hours a day was too long for women and children to work, and the town with which he was connected had shortened their hours of labour before the law came into operation. The system of relays had been tried in Lancashire, though not as far as he knew in Yorkshire, and it had caused great hardships on those persons who were waiting till their turn for work came on. The alteration to ten hours and a half during five days in the week and seven hours and a half on Saturdays, had enabled the people to go home at two o'clock, and had made the number of hours per week sixty instead of fifty-nine, and though there was, therefore, only one hour a week difference between the old and the new plan, if the proposition of the hon. Member for Oldham had been to go back to the old plan he would have voted with him; but his Bill went to the stopping of the motive power at a given time, and he believed you could not do that without causing a great deal of suffering to the labourers themselves. He objected to any legislation for male adults, who were quite able to take care of themselves.

said, the principle of this Motion was akin to that of the Bill proposed by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Sir H. Halford) the other day, and he objected to that principle generally. The hon. Member for Oldham had argued that it would be better for women and children to work ten hours a day instead of twelve. Of course it would, and he only wished that they could work only eight hours. This question ought to be considered in the interest both of the employer and the workman; but he would take it as regarded the workman only, and looking only to that, he thought the true principle was, that the workman should be at liberty freely to contract to work for such a length of time as would ensure him good wages. He, therefore, trusted the House would reject the Bill.

said, he would only make one or two observations on the Motion before the House. The hon. Member for Oldham proposed to disturb a question which most reasonable and patriotic people had hoped was settled for a very long time, if not for ever. The hon. Gentleman appeared to have two objects in view. He proposed to diminish the time of working, not, as the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Crossley) said, by one hour, but by two. He (Mr. Bright) was not able to see the difference which was said to be made by the arrangements of the Saturday under the Bill of 1847; but he took it that instead of sixty hours a week it was to he fifty-eight. The whole matter, then, in dispute was two hours in the week. This question had been much discussed in that House and in the country, and in that House it had been treated as a party question with more than ordinary bitterness, and in the country it had been made a question in which men were hot and fierce in their mutual denunciations of each other. In 1850 the question was understood to have been settled by one of these compromises by which many questions were settled in that House—Lord Ashley being a party to it on the one side, and a large number of the manufacturers on the other. The hon. Member for Oldham said that Lord Ashley was disowned by those who had previously given him their confidence. It was quite true that certain persons had pledged themselves to an agitation, and felt that the object they had contended for was not actually and literally fulfilled; but he (Mr. Bright) did not believe for a moment that anybody in Lancashire would say the factory workers disowned Lord Ashley in consequence of the part he had taken in that Bill. And more than that, he was perfectly sure, being himself an opponent of that Bill, but not on the paltry consideration of the slight gain of those few hours a week, that Lord Ashley did that which the most educated and best informed of the factory population believed to be the best for their case. It was something, surely, to obtain, that a large number of the manufacturers and spinners who had opposed that Bill should agree to its settlement on any terms whatever. There was no person connected, as a capitalist, with the cotton, woollen, silk, or flax trades, that had ever proposed in any way to disturb the fundamental principle of that Act, or to hinder its operation. Was it not better for that House and for the factory workers, to have a law of sixty hours a week, which men agreed generally to abide by and not to disturb, than to have attempts again made which might, after a few years, be successful, or might fail speedily, to obtain a law of fifty-eight hours a week, at the cost of disturbing all the harmony which now, happily, existed upon this question, in spite of what the hon. Member for Oldham said, among the capitalists employing and the employed population of Lancashire? He did not think there was any man, without strong partisan views, who would not agree that it was better to allow the question to settle where it was, than to stir up in the manufacturing districts the fires of discord, a thousand times more perilous and pernicious than any grievance of two hours a week could be. The hon. Member had another proposition, that the steam-engine should be stopped at a certain time, so that not only no woman or child, but no grown-up man, should work beyond that hour! But there were many cases in which more than one trade was carried on in a mill, and the mill was occupied by more than one firm. There was often, perhaps, one room in a mill where the machinery, worked by the same steam power, differed entirely from that of the other rooms, and was worked by a different class of workpeople, and by adult men. Did the hon. Member mean to ask the House, under the pretence of legislating for women and young persons, to stop the steam-engine and all those workmen—for, without opening a door to the widest evasion, no exception could be made? Did he mean to ask the House to shut up that mill, where A B, employing only adult men, was on a separate floor from C D, and using the same power,—must they all be brought under the same law? Much had been said of the advantages which had accrued to the working classes from the diminution of their toil by one hour or an hour and a half in the day—advantages which he (Mr. Bright) would not deny, to those who were temperate and well disposed, as the great bulk of them were. But the hon. Member had made out no case for such an extreme measure as this, which would hinder the working of some hundreds of thousands of adult men. There were many cases now in his recollection in which it would have that effect. The hon. Member had said that this was a convenient time to try such experiments as he proposed, because the cotton trade was not very brisk now. Why, one would have thought that a condition of languor and partial exhaustion was not the time for a wise physician to try the endurance of his patient. There were, unfortunately, times when adult men worked not more than six hours a day, because the Australian, or the Indian, or the home market, had happened to fail. But would a paternal legislature, because those men now worked short time, at reduced wages, to the loss of their families, say to those grown-up, intelligent men who had families to care for, and who were anxious to maintain their independence, when a revival of trade came, that they should not be permitted to recover their position by working a single hour in the day longer than the ten hours prescribed to them? Why, if he (Mr. Bright) set up for a patriot and tribune of the people, he would have a better principle and better objects to advocate than those. Whenever he met his constituents, he had always said about this Bill, that he always disapproved of such legislation as extremely perilous, whatever good it might do; but that since the question had been settled by a judicious compromise and compact, which Parliament were resolved to maintain, he would not abet, in any way, any Motion to disturb the settlement of 1850; and he had always found that answer satisfactory in Lancashire. Now, he would assert, from his knowledge of those districts, that the masters themselves were disposed to carry out that Act in a manner which exceeded, he believed, in their duty to the law, what was found with regard to any other Act that ever was forced upon any persons, of so unpalatable a character. He regarded this as a most unfortunate proposition, chiefly because it disturbed that harmony which he should be the last to interfere with. He had been a strong opponent of the present law; but he would not be the man to move or second any Motion having for its object to disturb the duration of labour fixed upon by the Bill of 1850. He would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary or to anybody else, in support of his declaration, that if he considered the vast interests involved, the technicalities of that law, the insulting nature of the inspectorship carried on, in a most insulting manner, by the most injudicious servant which the Government could have to carry out the intentions of Parliament—he spoke, and he had no wish to conceal the name, of Mr. Horner—yet, under all the insolence and annoyance of that gentleman's character, he maintained that law had been carried out by the manufacturers of Lancashire and Yorkshire in a spirit as complete and as fair as Parliament could have expected. He did not believe—he said it conscientiously and frankly—that there was the slightest necessity, upon any ground, for asking Parliament to reopen this question, and to stir up again those elements of discord which if he thought were to be stirred up, and worked out to their dangerous results, he would himself be glad to leave the country, and to live somewhere else, where labour and capital were allowed to flight their own battle on their own ground, without legislative interference.

said, he thought that the observations which had just fallen from the hon. Member for Manchester, did not tend in the slightest degree to lessen the force of those facts and those statements which had been put forward by the hon. Member for Oldham. That hon. Member had not come to ask the House for a revival of the law—he had simply come to state that the existing law had not been observed; and in support of that statement he had produced the reports of the inspectors to demonstrate that the law had been violated, while he had also informed the House that no less a number of petitions than 1,083 had been presented to have the law of 1850 fully carried out. The poorer classes complained of the violation of the law, and were they, he would ask—the representatives of the people—to turn around upon the poor, and tell them that they would not lend an ear to their complaints? The hon. Member for Oldham merely asked for leave to bring forward a certain proposition for their consideration, and to lay the case of the manufacturing classes fairly before the House. Neither the hon. Member nor the petitioners sought for re-legislation upon the subject—they merely asked that the law, as it stood, should be observed; and in his opinion it would be by no means satisfactory to the country that they should repudiate, the claims of their poorer fellow-subjects. The hon. Member for Manchester had made so many various prophecies which had been so entirely falsified by the result, that he thought it would be rather an amusing occupation to enter into an examination of those prophecies. From 1847 to 1850 there had been considerable opposition offered to legislation upon the subject of factories; and the hon. Member for Manchester had then, among other things, stated that he could not conceive anything more dreadful than to practise such a delusion upon the operatives as was sought to be practised through the medium of a measure which, instead of conferring upon them a benefit, would be the means of causing, as far as regarded them, greater evils than any measure which that House had ever entertained. Such had been the prognostication of the hon. Member for Manchester before the Bill of 1850 had come into effect; and what, notwithstanding the hon. Gentleman's prophecy, had been the result of that measure? He found that the result had been, in the case of the cotton manufacture alone, an increase in the first year after the alteration of the law had been made, of from 350,000,000 lb. to 591,000,000 lb. in the consumption of cotton; while in the next year the quantity consumed had amounted to 648,000,000 lb. But it was not the amount of cotton alone that was to be taken into account in calculating the results of the measure of 1850. He found, that under the operation of that measure, the number of power-looms had increased from 115,182 to 298,916, and that they still continued to increase, notwithstanding the prognostications of ruin and devastation as to the consequence of any alteration in the law of the hon. Member for Man- chester. He also found that the number of new factories constructed since the passing of the measure of 1850 amounted to 255, and that fact, as well as the others to which he had called the attention of the House, seemed to demonstrate the advantages which must result from carrying the law as rigorously as possible into effect. The House ought not, therefore, to hesitate to take into its consideration a question which intimately concerned the wellbeing of numbers of the poorer classes in the community. To do so would be an insult to the poor, a disgrace to the country, and would cast a stigma upon the House itself.

said, that one of the grounds upon which the proposition of the hon. Member rested was, that the law, as it now stood, was grossly violated. Now, it was his duty, when he held the office of Home Secretary, to watch the enforcement of this particular law; and he was bound to say that, although there were many instances in which some small violations of the law took place, still those violations were very small in amount, and they were carefully watched by the inspectors. Many of the violations were, that some steam-engine began to work five minutes too soon, or continued to work five minutes too long in the evening, and some little odds and ends in that way; and although he did not say that advantages were not unduly gained by those who adopted those means, still they were not such instances as could be put forward as violations which should induce the House of Commons to alter the existing law. There was evidently a great distinction between the restrictions placed upon the hours of work of females and young persons and male adults, and the principle upon which Parliament had acted in legislating upon the subject had been that persons of tender years could not properly be considered as free agents, and that it was necessary, therefore, to restrict their hours of labour; but that with respect to adult men, who were perfectly competent to take care of their own interests and to make their own bargains, there could not be a more vicious principle than that of the House of Commons interposing between labour and capital, between the employer and the employed, and saying that a certain limit should be fixed, and should not be transgressed upon any account, either by the willing labourer or willing employer. He thought such a principle both vicious and wrong, and should be sorry that that House should so far encourage the establishment of this principle as to allow the hon. Gentleman, after the full explanation he had given of his Bill, to introduce it merely for the purpose, as he could not doubt, of seeing it rejected on the second reading. He quite agreed with the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) that when the House had come to a settlement of a great question involving the interests and feelings of large classes of people, and when, after long debate and much anxious discussion, a system had been established, it was unwise to disturb that compromise, except upon very much stronger grounds than those which had been put forward by the hon. Member who proposed to introduce the present Bill, and he should, therefore, certainly give his vote against the introduction of the measure.

in reply, denied that any compromise had been entered into by the factory workpeople in 1850—they were no parties to what had been called the "Compromise Act;" but, so far as they had time to do it, had protested against it in every form. At the time when the announcement was made in the House by the right hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey), which was early in May, 1850, the delegates of the working people were assembled in London, and he (Mr. Cobbett) would read to the House a Resolution come to by them on learning that Lord Ashley had given his assent to the right hon. Baronet's proposal for a Ten-and-a-half Hours' Bill. The paper was in these words—

"2, Northumberland Court, Strand, London, "May 8, 1850.

"It having been communicated by Lord Ashley to the factory delegates now assembled that he has determined to accept the Government proposition, it was unanimously resolved by the delegates—'That the delegates now assembled are of opinion that the factory workers will never consent to any variation from the limitation of ten hours per day and fifty-eight hours per week, unless it be to further shorten the duration of labour.'

"THOMAS PITT, Chairman of the delegates."

There was, then, no compromise on the part of the working men, because the proposition was repudiated by their delegates in London as soon as it was announced, and Lord Ashley's adhesion to it was condemned in the paper that he had just read to the House. Besides this, petitions against the so-called compromise came in from all parts of the manufacturing districts, praying the House not to pass the Bill. One petition came from masters alone, signed by a large body of employers of working people, earnestly entreating the House not to interfere with a measure that had worked so well. The masters, the clergy, the merchants, and other inhabitants of Bradford, petitioned to the same effect. Three hundred over-lookers of Manchester did the same. In short, the working people and a very large body of masters and others protested against that Bill, which the right hon. Baronet and the hon. Member for Manchester now insisted was a compromise to which the working people themselves were parties. He (Mr. Cobbett) had never been able to discover who, if there were a compromise, had acted the part of go-between—who it was that had been the parties to the arrangement. The Earl of Derby distinctly asked the question in another place, but failed to make the discovery. He (Mr. Cobbett), however, had read a curious passage in a speech of the hon. Member for Manchester, made at a meeting of his working constituents in Manchester on the 8th of June, 1852. The hon. Member was on his rounds previously to the general election, and the working people catechised him rather strictly upon the subject of his invariable opposition to factory legislation, whereupon the hon. Member made the statement that he would now read—

"The short hours of labour having been agreed to by a compromise, to which he as well as Lord Shaftesbury were parties, he was no longer an opponent, but was willing to do everything in his power that the law should have a fair trial."

This passage he took from The Times of the 12th of June, 1852, and it occurred to him at once that the secret was now out; that we now knew who the compromisers were—namely, the hon. Member himself and Lord Shaftesbury—but did they obtain the assent of the working people?

here explained, that all that he had meant upon the occasion alluded to was, that he acquiesced in what had been done by others. A Secretary of State, he presumed, was the mediating party.

thought that as the hon. Member spoke so positively of a compromise, and of the very parties to it, he must know something more of the manner of bringing it about than he now professed to do; and he (Mr. Cobbett) had been driven to the conclusion that the hon. Gentleman who spoke of himself as a "party" to the compromise with Lord Shaftesbury was what he represented himself to Ids constituents to be—one of the parties who effected that which was now called a compromise, but in which the working people were certainly no parties at all. All that he wished now to do was, to get back for the people what had been taken from them in 1850—namely, the half hour per day; and he wished also to make that secure to them by various provisions for ensuring the means of thorough inspection of the mills. He wished, in short, to make it—what the late Mr. Bolling said it should be—a tight Bill, and he thought he had said enough to show that even manufacturers themselves considered that nothing but a restriction on the moving power could accomplish this. He was not, however, obstinately bent on thrusting this Bill on the House. He wished it to be read a first and second time, and thoroughly discussed clause by clause in Committee, and if the House thought any clause uncalled for or too stringent, let it be struck out. He would not abandon the Bill, even though the clause restricting the moving power should be struck out; but let the whole Bill be discussed. The hon. Member for Manchester had pointed out certain cases where this clause would interfere with the labour of adults working in the same building. The hon. Member had not seen the clause: how could he know what he asserted? There were exceptions made in it to obviate such cases, and such exceptions would be easily extended. The hon. Member had also deprecated the revival of the bitter discussions that had already characterised factory debates. He (Mr. Cobbett) remembered that there had been great bitterness displayed on the subject of limiting the labour of females and children so as to be compatible with their strength, and it surprised him that such a subject should excite bitterness in any quarter, and he did not think it would occur again if the hon. Gentleman himself would deal with it in a more temperate manner than he had done. He (Mr. Cobbett) promised that in any future discussion on the same subject he would treat it as he had hitherto done, without any bitterness of feeling or intemperate language, and he hoped the hon. Member for Man- chester would condescend to take a lesson from him.

in moving for an address for Copies of any Despatches or correspondence that bad passed between Field Marshal Lord Raglan and the Minister for War relative to the wants of the army in the Crimea, said, he would shortly state the reasons which induced him to ask the House to assist him in obtaining these documents. The House would recollect that a few days ago he had asked the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for War, whether there would be any objection to lay upon the table the correspondence that had passed between Lord Raglan and the Minister of War relative to the wants of the army in the Crimea. To that inquiry the hon. Gentleman gave an extremely unsatisfactory answer, for he stated that he objected to the production of the papers because it would not be right to produce a portion of the correspondence, and the House ought, therefore, to wait until the Government was prepared to produce the whole of it. Now, he wished to know, when the Government would be prepared to do so, and who the Government might be when that time arrived? He did not want the whole correspondence, he only asked for such extracts as related to the wants of the army and the causes of the disasters which had befallen it; he did not want those portions which related to other subjects. His principal reason for asking for it was the great interest and anxiety on the subject which existed not only in this country, but also among the officers of the army in the Crimea. It was stated that representations had been made not only to head quarters at home, but also to Lord Raglan, with regard to the wants of the army, the clothing, food, and medicine—and also with regard to the ambulance department, and many persons thought his Lordship had not attended to those representations. He was not one of those who believed that Lord Raglan was wanting in humanity, as it had been represented in some of the public prints; any one who knew that noble Lord must know that he was of a perfectly contrary disposition. He knew from officers who had served with his Lordship in the Penin- sula, that if he were now indifferent to the wants of his men he must he very much altered, because, if he ever had exceeded his duty, it had always been upon the side of too much consideration for the men under his command. He believed that Lord Raglan had made representations to the Government of the wants of the army; he could not believe that the Duke of Newcastle had been indifferent or had not attended to these representations, for he could have no interest in withholding what was asked for; and he (Mr. Duncombe) had a right to assume that the stores of food, clothing, and medicine, had been supplied. The non-production of these papers, which might exonerate Lord Raglan and the Duke of Newcastle, was most unfair to those noblemen. With whom did the blame rest? He believed that these papers, if produced, would show that those whose duty it was to attend to the wants of the army in the Crimea—the Commissariat, the quartermaster general, and the adjutant general—were to blame in many particulars. He should like to know whether it was true, that the French had lent the English army 10,000 great coats; whether the French had been obliged to bake the bread for our soldiers; and also, whether they did not convey our sick and wounded soldiers in their ambulances. He should also like to know the state of our ambulance department. They had a Committee sitting upstairs, and had he been on that Committee, the first thing that he should have asked for would have been the correspondence between the Minister for War and the Commander of the Forces. It would have served as a guide, and should the House consent to its being laid on the table, the next step he considered would be to refer it to the Committee. The production of the correspondence might exonerate Lord Raglan, but it would inculpate, he believed, the Commissariat; and, if it did so, a punishment ought to be inflicted. In the case of the two soldiers at Chatham who were charged with having wasted their ammunition—which was, no doubt, a military offence—in firing at a figure of the late Emperor of Russia, one of them was sentenced to sixty days imprisonment with hard labour, and the other to forty days; and even-handed justice would also require that those through whose negligence and incompetence the army had been sacrificed should also receive punishment. He trusted that the House would support him in compelling the Under Secretary for War to place the correspondence to which the Motion referred on the table.

Sir, having agreed to the appointment of the Committee upstairs, I can, of course, have no desire, or intention, to withhold from Parliament any information which may be necessary for the full investigation of all those matters for which the Committee was appointed to inquire into. I am sure the House will see that it cannot be useful to carry on two inquiries parallel with each other at the same time. The House might have adopted the course of taking the inquiry into its own hands, and then hon. Members might have moved for such written documents as they thought desirable to notice, and they might have examined witnesses at the bar, and inquired into all these matters; but the House determined to appoint a Committee, and delegated to that Committee all the powers which the House possessed. The Committee has full power to call for all these documents, or any other papers which they may think it necessary to have in pursuing the performance of their duties. I therefore submit to the House that it will be far better to leave these papers and writings to be dealt with by the Committee. The Committee will judge of the information which it has before it in investigating all these matters. The Government will grant all those papers and documents in which is not involved political matters which may be inconvenient or dangerous to the public service; I therefore submit to the house that it will be far better to leave these papers in the hands of the Committee, who will exercise their own judgment as to the course which they will pursue, and the proceedings which they will adopt.

said, he must humbly beg leave to demur to the doctrine laid down by his noble Friend, that the hands of the House were to be tied by the Committee. He (Mr. Milnes) had from the first seen the great danger of difficulties arising from this or any Government being enabled to refuse information, on the excuse of a Committee sitting upstairs. That anticipation had been, to a great extent, already fulfilled; and it would be necessary, on that or on some future occasion, to prevent that conclusion from being more fully carried out. The Committee was only now at the commencement of its inquiry; it might last the whole Session, and the Report would probably be deferred till the end of the present or some time in the course of the succeeding Session. Was the House, then, to be prevented from discussing any matter relating to those great transactions which were now causing the hearts of the people of England to palpitate? Were they to wait upon the progress of the inquiry, and was every step of the House on such a momentous question to be subordinated to what might happen in a Committee upstairs? The country really demanded that some of the correspondence between Lord Raglan and the Minister of War should be laid on the table. The character of that gallant commander was not merely imperilled by what had occurred, but the root of all the evil that had led to so much misery and confusion lay in the circumstance that the people of England were not allowed to know, in the frank and open manner to which the spirit of our institutions entitled them, what had been the real defections in the Crimea, what it was that had been asked for there, and what had or had not been supplied. Day after day they had been left without any other official information on these all-important affairs, but what they could glean from those meagre and scanty despatches—for such they undeniably were—proceeding from the commander of our troops. All that they knew beyond what was thus communicated as to the state of our army in the East was derived from those indirect channels which some thought ought to be closed altogether—the organs of the daily press. Where, in all Lord Raglan's despatches, excepting in one solitary instance, had they any record of fraud that had been detected, of incompetence that had been reprimanded, or incapacity that had been superseded? Where were the proofs that he had exercised that vigilant supervision over matters which perhaps, after all, he had exercised, and found himself thwarted, it might be, by great impediments that all his talents could not overcome? So, again, with the Government at home. The Duke of Newcastle would have done well for his own reputation, and that of his Friends in the late Cabinet, if he had not allowed these affairs to come out by chance communications, but had laid on the table such a selection, at least, from the correspondence between himself and the Commander in Chief at the seat of war as might not affect our great military operations, or endanger the interests of the public service. This question seriously involved the character of public men in this country, and especially that of those right hon. Gentlemen who had lately seceded from the Government, and stood at this moment, as it were, at the bar of public opinion. Above all, it affected the commanders of our army, in whom if we had not confidence, how was the cause of this country likely to prosper in the future military operations to be undertaken? Therefore, for the sake of our Ministers and our commanders, as well as for the best interests of the country, his noble Friend should pause before he refused even a modified assent to the present Motion, and said that it must be left to depend upon the mere will of some Member of a Committee upstairs, whether that information upon which the heart of the country was set should or should not be suffered to transpire. The Committee, no doubt, would ultimately reveal the mystery better than some of those who resisted it imagined; but at the same time it would not be just either to that House or to the public that the proceedings of any Committee should estop the progress of that House in demanding what it had a perfect right to demand; or that, while the House was prevented by its own forms from alluding to what passed in the inquiry, the Committee should be permitted to exercise an exclusive right and domination over all those questions with which the House was told it must not interfere.

said, he fully agreed with the noble Lord at the head of the Government in thinking that, as the House had delegated the inquiry to a Committee, with power to call for all papers, documents, and records, it would only be fair and straightforward to leave the Committee to conduct the investigation to a close.

said, that if any Member of the Committee would give the House an assurance that these papers would be moved for, he would not trouble the House to divide.

said, that there was no reason for assuming that the Committee would not do its duty.