said, that he had lately asked whether there would be any objection to lay upon the table the Report of the Commissioners who had been appointed to inquire into the system of military administration in France; and he wished to know if the Government could now state whether that Report would be produced?

stated, that Her Majesty's Government had applied to the French Government for permission to make inquiries into the detailed arrangements of the military departments in France, and their application had been received with the courtesy which might have been expected from a Government with whom our relations were of so friendly a character. He must say, however, that the inquiries which were made related to matters of so confidential a nature—to the internal arrangements and organisation of the French army—that Her Majesty's Government would not think themselves justified in laying the result of those inquiries before Parliament, without ascertaining whether the Government of France had any objection to such a course.

wished to ask the Clerk of the Ordnance, what measures had been adopted by the Board of Ordnance for investigating and deciding on mechanical and other inventions laid before them for the more vigorous prosecution of the war, and what has, so far, been the working of such measures?

replied that, until lately, such inventions as those to which the hon. Gentleman referred had been investigated by a Committee consisting of ex officio Members, and which did not comprise any Members who were appointed strictly on account of their scientific knowledge. The late Secretary of War, the Duke of Newcastle, seeing that the then existing state of things was not satisfactory, added very considerably to the numbers of the committee, and placed upon it many men who were eminent for their scientific attainments, including Mr. O'Brien, professor of mathematics; Mr. Abel, instructor in chemistry; Mr. Anderson, inspector of machinery; Captain Boxer, Professor Wheatstone, and Mr. Gregory. The committee had since been working very satisfactorily; they held meetings two days in the week; and a sub-committee had been appointed for the purpose of eliminating those inventions which were really worth considering from the enormous mass submitted to the committee. During the six months previous to the commencement of the present year, 221 inventions were submitted to the old committee. From the 30th of January to the 30th of April in the present year, 451 inventions had been submitted to the committee; there were now remaining for consideration, 181; the remainder had been disposed of.

asked whether the noble Lord at the head of the Government had any objection to state to the House the nature of a telegraphic despatch which was said to have been that day received from the East?

said: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no indisposition on the part of the Government to publish, so far as may be consistent with their public duty, any information which they may receive from the East, and which may be of public interest. I am informed that the substance of the telegraphic communication received to-day is in the evening papers. It refers to an attack which was made yesterday morning upon part of our lines by the Russians, and which was defeated with great gallantry and success by our troops. Before sitting down, I will suggest one consideration to the House. The telegraphic despatches from the Crimea necessarily come in cypher. Now, everybody who is conversant with these matters knows that if you have a cypher on one side, and a literal translation of it on the other, the cypher will very soon be of no use whatever. It is impossible, therefore, for the Government, in communicating intelligence which comes by telegraph in cypher, to give the exact words, or anything approaching to them.

said, it would be in the recollection of those hon. Members who saw day by day the accounts of what was supposed to pass in the Sebastopol Committee-room, that in the course of his examination, the Duke of Newcastle produced a dispatch written by himself to Lord Raglan, containing the orders of the Government with respect to the expedition to the Crimea and the siege of Sebastopol. The production of that despatch necessarily created a desire to see the answer returned by Lord Raglan to it. The Committee, however, did not call for the production of that reply, but simply instructed their Chairman to communicate with the Government as to the propriety of its being produced. He presumed the Chairman of the Committee (Mr. Roebuck) had had that communication with the Government, and that the result was the notice which stood on the paper for that evening. If the intention of the Government was to produce a copy of the despatch from Lord Raglan, he should not have a word to say; he should wait with patience and anxiety for the production of that despatch; but, looking to the terms of the notice which the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield had given, he inferred that the Government, in their view of the interests of the public service, could only consent to the publication of extracts from the despatch. Now, as a general principle, where it was considered necessary that a correspondence between two parties should be published, the whole of the correspondence should be given to the world. He was aware, however, that it was necessary in cases of this sort for the Government to exercise a considerable degree of reserve. That reserve he was prepared to respect; but the question arose whether the reserve thus imposed upon the Government would enable them to lay before the public such portions of the despatch as should embrace a full and fair answer to the communication addressed to Lord Raglan by the Duke of Newcastle? It was that feeling which induced him to ask the noble Lord at the head of the Government whether he could give the House an assurance that the extracts from the despatch, which he might think it consistent with his duty to lay on the table, would or would not materially alter the tenor and character of the despatch itself, and give a tolerably fair and accurate account of the views of Lord Raglan with regard to those important subjects to which the despatch referred? If the noble Lord could give that assurance, it would be satisfactory to every one; but if, on the other hand, the noble Lord, in his desire to comply with the wishes of the Committee, was so restrained by his sense of public duty, that he was able to give partial extracts only from the despatch, it was to be hoped that neither the Committee nor the House would call upon the Government to produce such portions of the despatch as would be considered by any one meagre and inconclusive. While, on the one hand, they ought to be careful not to wound the susceptibilities of one party, they ought, on the other, to be equally careful not to inflict an injustice upon another party; and, above all, they should take care not to publish important documents in such a shape as should create in the minds of the public nothing but dissatisfaction and disappointment, and possibly do a wrong to a distinguished servant of the Crown.

I have no doubt it will be in the power of the Government to give the despatch referred to in such a shape as will completely answer the object of the Committee, without doing the injustice the noble Lord seemed to fear.

rose to put a question which arose out of statements that had been made respecting the Report of the Maynooth Commission—statements to the effect that the Report had been sent to Rome without the permission of the Commissioners, and that there the Report was garbled. He wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether it was true that Mr. O'Ferrall, one of the Commissioners for inquiring into the College of Maynooth, and the two secretaries to the Commission, had been summoned to London and examined as to the circumstances connected with the transmission of the evidence and Report to Rome, and the alleged additions and alteration in the evidence, without the knowledge or sanction of the Commissioners?

It is quite true that the gentlemen referred to in the question of the hon. and gallant Member have arrived in London, and have been examined relative to the evidence taken before the Maynooth Commissioners. I will state as briefly as I can the results of the inquiry which has been made by the Government. When the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) brought forward his charges, I could only state in reply, that those charges did not appear to me to rest upon sufficient evidence; the information of the hon. Gentleman being, as I understood, anonymous. Subsequently, however, in consequence of what took place here and elsewhere, I was led to the conclusion that a general impression prevailed that those charges were very important, and called for an inquiry on the part of the Government. Accordingly, on Monday last I told the hon. Member for North Warwickshire that if he would be so good as to give me an opportunity of seeing the documents upon which he founded his accusations, I would make them, if necessary, the subject of an investigation. I wrote the same day to Ireland, requesting that the two secretaries to the Commissioners would come to London, bringing with them all the documents in their possession, the evidence in proof, the original transcript of the shorthand writer's notes, and anything additional which they might be able to get from the printer. On Wednesday morning the hon. Member called on me, and showed me all the documents to which he had referred in his speech, and very fairly, fully, and candidly stated to me the whole of the case upon which he had founded his charges. After he left me I saw the secretaries to the Commissioners, and asked them for their explanation. Subsequently, Mr. O'Ferrall, one of the Commissioners, and Mr. Thorn, the printer, also arrived in London; and I am, therefore, now able to state the result of the inquiry. The first charge made by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire was expressed in the following terms—

"Was the noble Lord at the head of the Government aware that in the return of the priests educated at Maynooth, made by the officer of the College, and published in the appendix to the Report, the full territorial titles were given to the Archbishop of Armagh as the 'Primate of all Ireland,' and to Dr. Cullen as 'Apostolic Legate of the Pope,' both of which designations were in open defiance of the Act of Parliament passed by the noble Lord the Member for London a few years ago? The law had thus been trampled upon, apparently with the sanction of the Commissioners; but the sanction was only apparent, because he was authorised by Lord Harrowby, one of their number, to say that these territorial titles did not appear in the return when given in evidence before them, and must have been inserted afterwards."

In answer to that, I will state to the House the real facts as they occurred. In page 33 of their Report, the Commissioners say—

"In order that we might learn the proportion of priests who had been educated at Maynooth, we sent to the president of the College a copy of Battersby's Catholic Directory, and requested him to mark off the names of those priests who had been educated at Maynooth."

I hold in my hand the original document sent to the President of the College, and as returned by him. The letter "M" is written after the names of the priests who were educated at Maynooth, and in the list I find that certain Roman Catholic dignitaries are designated by their territorial titles. I think, therefore, that the statemeat that the document when put before the Commissioners had not those territorial titles is not correct. The explanation which is given for the appearance of the territorial titles is this:—In Battersby's Catholic Directory, the catalogue of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church takes up sixteen pages, and in the twenty-eight dioceses which exist in Ireland there are only two in which territorial titles were given to the dignitaries of the Church. Dr. Twiss, who was properly described by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, being anxious that nothing objectionable should appear in the Report, turned over the pages of the Directory, and having satisfied himself by looking at fourteen and fifteen that territorial titles were not given to the Roman Catholic dignitaries, instead of continuing his examination through the whole list, he concluded that a territorial title was given to none. It was not until the return was printed in the appendix, and brought under the vigilant eye of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, that it was discovered that in two cases territorial titles were given. In those two cases the entry in the appendix is a literal transcript of the titles, as given in the Directory; and I have told the House the manner in which the thing occurred. The second statement made by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire was—

"That alterations had been made in the evidence, that the full territorial titles had been given on the third time of correction, while in the transcript of the shorthand writer's notes the Roman Catholic bishops were only designated by their legal titles of bishops, and that they were afterwards inserted."

I hold in my hand the original transcript of the shorthand writer's notes of the evidence of Dr. O'Hanlon—the evidence to which the hon. Member more particularly referred—and I find that every one of the ten Roman Catholic bishops who are mentioned are designated by their territorial titles. The explanation of the secretaries to the Commissioners is, that when a Roman Catholic came before the Commissioners and called a dignitary of his Church by his territorial title, they did not think they would be justified in refusing to let the witness give his evidence in his own words; but when a Protestant witness came forward and called a Roman Catholic bishop by a territorial title, they checked him at once. One of the witnesses examined was the Rev. Mr. Leahy, now a Protestant clergyman, but formerly a Roman Catholic priest. I hold in my hand the original transcript of the shorthand writer's notes of his evidence. During his examination he spoke of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Clonfert; but Mr. West, one of the secretaries, with his own hand struck out the territorial title, and the evidence was thus given to the printer. But Mr. Leahy, the Protestant clergyman, having received a proof of his evidence, himself reinserted the territorial title, which accordingly appears in the evidence as printed. The strangest part of the statement of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire was this—that he had the authority of the Earl of Harrowby, one of the Commissioners, for asserting that the territorial titles were inserted after the evidence was taken, without the authority of the Commissioners. I can state to the House that Lord Harrowby's recollection of what took place between the hon. Member and himself differs considerably from that of the hon. Gentleman. Lord Harrowby has written a letter to me on the subject. I showed it to-day to the hon. Member along with all the other documents in my possession, and he requested me to read it to the House. It is to the following effect—

"My dear Sir—I find that a question is to be put to you to-night on the subject of some charges which have been brought by Mr. Spooner against the secretaries of the late Maynooth Commission, and as I have reason to believe that he supported those charges by reference to a conversation held with me, I am anxious that this opportunity should be taken for a clearer statement of the spirit at least of what passed between us than seems to have been conveyed. A few days before Mr. Spooner's Motion he called me out of the House of Lords and told me that he had discovered that the evidence given before the Commission had been tampered with; that the ecclesiastical titles which Parliament had forbidden parties to assume had been admitted into our Report and evidence; that it had been ascertained by the indisputable testimony of some of the original transcripts, which by some strange accident had fallen into his hands, that these titles had been subsequently introduced into the printed evidence; that it appeared also, by a comparison of the same papers, that other and large alterations had been introduced subsequently to our last revise. He asked me if the Commission had sanctioned the assumption of these titles. My answer was—Certainly not; that we had been very careful on the subject, and my learned colleague, Dr. Twiss, particularly vigilant, so that I thought no such assumption could have escaped his observation. I told him that, the evidence having been returned by some of the witnesses after we had left Ireland, we had given it in charge to the secretaries to compare the evidence so returned with the shorthand writer's notes, and to admit what appeared to be mere clerical corrections, reserving for our consideration any more material changes; that I had not read through the evidence as finally laid on the table of Parliament for the purpose of comparing it with the original transcript, and therefore could not deny off-hand his assertion, but that I had no reason to doubt the fidelity and honour of the secretaries on whom this care devolved; but that at any rate, I said, laughing, he must admit we had ample security in Mr. West, one of the secretaries, a good strict Protestant, against any such operations as he had described. To the best of my recollection I warned my friend Mr. Spooner against mares' nests in general, telling him that my experience had led me to the conviction that they abounded everywhere, and not less than elsewhere in Ireland, and not less than elsewhere among my good friends the Irish Protestants. This part of our conversation I have not seen reported. If my authority has been quoted for the purpose of giving any other impression of the spirit of what passed between us than the above statement conveys, it must have been given under misapprehension of a few hasty words, listened to with strong previous impressions by the hearer. On other points you will be fully informed from other quarters; but I should have been sorry if you had not had from my own pen an authoritative disclaimer of imputations cast upon honest and upright men, who had discharged a responsible and laborious duty with zeal, ability, and faithfulness, and appearing to rest on my authority."

So far I think I may say that the assertion that the territorial titles were not in the original transcript, but were afterwards inserted without the authority of the Commissioners, is totally incorrect. The next and most important statement made by the hon. Member was, "That the evidence taken before Her Majesty's Commission was sent by Dr. Cullen to Rome without Her Majesty's consent, and without the knowledge of some of the Commissioners; and that the document remained in Rome for several weeks, if not months. This happened while Parliament and the country were anxiously awaiting the result of the inquiry; and the Report was being 'cooked' with the view of making things pleasant." Now, as to the fact of the evidence having been given by one of the Commissioners to Dr. Cullen, there is no doubt. That has been publicly admitted on more than one occasion by Lord Harrowby, who has given such an explanation as he could for what was undoubtedly a great irregularity and impropriety; and if the hon. Member for North Warwickshire chooses to use a stronger phrase I do not wish either to explain or to extenuate it. But the question is, did the evidence in consequence undergo an alteration? The hon. Member speaks of two witnesses—Dr. Flanagan and Dr. O'Hanlon—whose evidence, he says, has been greatly altered. The explanation is a very simple one. Dr. Flanagan and Dr. O'Hanlon were the first two witnesses examined by the Commissioners; and the secretaries, in accordance with what they believed to be the usual practice, permitted them to correct their evidence in print. At their very next meeting, however, the Commissioners, hearing of what had been done, gave directions that in future the printed evidence should not be given to the witnesses, but merely the original transcript from the shorthand writer's notes, and that I believe was ever afterwards done. Dr. Flanagan was the first witness. He was examined upon merely formal points connected with the college arrangements. He is a very old man, infirm, nervous, and deaf, and the Commissioners had great difficulty in making the examination intelligible. When it was concluded, he himself was annoyed at seeing the confused state in which his evidence was. He asked permission to revise it, and endeavoured to do so on the printed paper; but, finding there was not room to make all the corrections he wished, he was allowed to write out the whole of his evidence, and return it in manuscript. The House recollects, of course, that he was examined upon purely formal points. The other witness referred to by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire was Dr. O'Hanlon. He also endeavoured to correct his evidence on the printed paper; but, finding that impossible, he asked and obtained permission to write it out with his own hand. The instruction given by the Commissioners to their secretaries was, that whenever a witness gave in his evidence with nothing but clerical corrections, it should be allowed to pass without notice; but whenever material alterations were made, they were to be submitted to the Commissioners. That inspection was followed in the case of these two witnesses. In Dr. O'Hanlon's case the rewritten evidence was submitted to the Commissioners by the secretaries on the 9th of December, 1853, along with that of Dr. Flanagan; the former because it had been rewritten, though the secretaries at the same time expressed their opinion that no alterations had been made in it; the latter, because it had been corrected in a manner which appeared to them ought not to be allowed. In the former case Lord Harrowby, by a letter dated December 12, 1853, allowed the rewritten evidence of Dr. O'Hanlon to be inserted; in the latter case, where substantial corrections had been made, and evidence inserted which had not been given, they refused to receive them. I beg the particular attention of the House to the dates which I am about to bring under their notice. The above letter was written by Lord Harrowby on the 12th of December, 1853. On the 3rd of January, 1854, orders were given for the printing of the evidence, including that of Dr. Flanagan and Dr. O'Hanlon. On the 9th and 11th of the same month proofs of the evidence were delivered to the Commissioners. On the 24th the types were distributed. On the 25th of April a letter was written by Lord Harrowby desiring that the evidence might be sent down to him to his mansion in the country. On that day it was bound up in the form in which it now appeared before the House, and was despatched to Lord Harrowby. It was in the month of May that the evidence was given to Dr. Cullen. In the month of October following Dr. Cullen went to Rome; and the evidence as it appeared in the blue boot now on the table of the House was word for word the same as the original transcript from the shorthand writer's notes in December, 1853. I am speaking on the authority of documents which are accessible to any hon. Member in this House, and which I showed to-day to the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. There is no doubt, therefore, of the fact that, with respect to that portion of the evidence from which he quoted in his speech on the Maynooth grant, the types were distributed in the month of January, 1854, four months before the evidence was given to Dr. Cullen, and eight months before Dr. Cullen went to Rome; and that, moreover, on comparing the original transcript of the shorthand writer's notes with the evidence, as printed in the blue book, neither alteration nor addition is discernible. There is only one other statement made by the hon. Member which I desire to notice. He said that to a question respecting the turbulent conduct of certain students at Maynooth, during periods of political excitement, the original reply was this:—"That such conduct was scarcely to be wondered at, when it was discovered that very many of those students were sent from dioceses such as that of Dr. M'Hale, and the students imagined that such ebullitions were tolerable because they were in unison with the avowed principles of their patrons." "This answer," added the hon. Member, "appeared in the shorthand writer's notes; but in the transcript where it appeared the word 'irrelevant' had been marked against it, and the question and answer were left out in the printed Report." Now, even if this were so, the evidence had only been struck out; just as many answers given before the Committees of that House by the permission of the Committee when they seemed to the witnesses, on reading them over, to be irrelevant. But, the whole of the transcript from the shorthand writer's notes, which is now in London, has been examined; the shorthand writer himself has made a further examination of his original shorthand notes; and both he and the secretaries have assured me that they cannot find any trace of such an answer having been given by any witness—that they do not believe it was given—and that, therefore, it could not have been erased. I wish to state these facts to the House without comment. The only remark I intend to make is this, that whatever may be said of Lord Harrowby, of the Commissioners or of the Government, their position and character will sustain them; but it is far otherwise with the secretaries. Their good name is valuable to them, and when it has been insinuated, if not directly asserted, that they have been guilty of a gross and culpable neglect of duty, I do feel that the hon. Member for North Warwickshire will do them at least that justice to which they are entitled. If the hon. Member does not think, after the documents I have shown him, that he was mistaken in the charges he made the other night—if he thinks that further inquiry is necessary—I can only state that the Commissioners court that investigation, and the Government have not the slightest objection to grant it.

hoped the House would grant him its indulgence after what had passed. His right hon. Friend, if he would still allow him to call him so, had placed him in a painful position. He was obliged to say, and he did it with great pain, that the letter of Lord Harrowby was full of inaccuracies, and he was now prepared to reassert in the strongest manner, that what he (Mr. Spooner) had stated on a former occasion, was exactly what passed between them. The noble Lord said, he merely gave the spirit of the conversation which passed; that, of course, was a matter of construction, but he (Mr. Spooner) had given, not the exact words, certainly—for that would be impossible, of any conversation which was not written down at the time—but the substance of what passed, and that substance differed very much from what Lord Harrowby represented to be the spirit. He did not mean to impute to the noble Lord any intentional misrepresentation, but he could show such inaccuracies in the letter, as to convince every one that the noble Lord was under a great mistake, and did not give a correct account of what had taken place. The noble Lord gave as one conversation that which was, in fact, two conversations—one in his own House, and one in the passage leading to the House of Lords. It was in the conversation which took place in his own House that the noble Lord had warned him (Mr. Spooner) against "mares' nests;" upon which occasion he (Mr. Spooner) answered that he would take good care before he took any steps in the matter. He (Mr. Spooner) informed the noble Lord that he had the facts of the case respecting the garbling of the evidence on the best authority. Then it was that the noble Lord warned him against "mares' nests." This was before the conversation in the House of Lords. The noble Lord, in his letter, admitted that "he called me out of the House of Lords, and told me that he had discovered that the evidence given before the Committee had been tampered with; that the ecclesiastical titles which Parliament had forbidden parties to assume had been admitted into our Report and evidence; that it had been ascertained by the indisputable testimony of some of the original transcripts, which, by some strange accident, had fallen into his hands as the printed evidence, that these titles had been subsequently introduced; that it appeared also by a comparison of the same papers, that other and large alterations had been introduced subsequently to our last revise. He asked me if the Commission had sanctioned the assumption of these titles? My answer was, certainly not." Now, on the honour of a Gentleman, and as a Member of that House, in his place in Parliament—a declaration he considered to be as binding as an oath—he must state that the noble Lord had left out a most material part of the conversation. The material part was the commencement. He (Mr. Spooner) had asked the noble Lord this—"Are you aware that in the appendix to the Report, the Commissioners have inserted the territorial titles of the Roman Catholic bishops?" The noble Lord's answer was—"I know nothing of it. If it was done, it was done without my knowledge." He (Mr. Spooner) replied, he made no doubt about that; but had he looked over the evidence? The noble Lord replied "No;" and the noble Lord gave him his unqualified authority to state that to the House, and to say, that the alterations made in the Report of the evidence laid before Parliament were made without his knowledge or authority. That was what he stated to the House the other evening on his honour, and that was what he again stated as the fact. He was ready to meet the noble Lord anywhere, and to assert the same thing in his presence; and he was sure the noble Lord, on recollection, would find, and would admit, that he the noble Lord had been inaccurate. He had had the honour of the noble Lord's acquaintance for many years, and he would fearlessly ask him, whether, from his personal knowledge of him, he thought that he (Mr. Spooner) was capable of wilful misrepresentation? The noble Lord should be his judge, and he was confident the noble Lord would, from his sense of truth, admit he had not misrepresented what took place. He again asserted he was not mistaken, and it was on that assertion he now acted. He spoke in the presence of hon. Friends to whom he could appeal—to whom he had made the same statement a few hours after he heard it, and who would say he used the very words to them he had used in that House. He must say that the noble Lord had not used that courtesy which one Gentleman ought to show to another. In his letter, the noble Lord says, "I have reason to believe that he (Mr. Spooner) supported his charge by reference to a conversation held with me." Reason to believe! Why, by that courtesy shown to Members of the other House, the noble Lord was himself present during the debate, and from that time to this he had never received from the noble Lord one word, either impugning what he said, or asking him to explain, on the subject. The first communication he (Mr. Spooner) received, was from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland, and he would put it to the House to say, whether the conduct of the noble Lord was courteous from one Gentleman to another? He would put it to the House to say whether, if Lord Harrowby considered that he had given an improper colour to what had passed between them, that noble Lord ought not to have addressed him personally on the subject. He could, however, account for the noble Lord's conduct in this way. The noble Lord was a kind, a compassionate man; he fancied some charge was fixed on the secretaries, and, feeling this, he wished to palliate and to weaken what he said. He would, however, again unequivocally declare the noble Lord said that the alterations had been done without his knowledge and authority. The noble Lord would not deny that he had used the words "you are authorised to state to the House, &c." What was he (Mr. Spooner) "authorised" to state, he would ask? Not that the asscription of territorial titles was made with the knowledge arid consent of the noble Lord, for that appeared upon the face of the appendix of the Report which he had signed; but it must have been, as he (Mr. Spooner) stated, and again asserted, an "authority" to declare that it was done without his knowledge or consent. He felt deeply concerned at being obliged to impugn the statement of the noble Lord. Having thus shown the House that Lord Harrowby had mixed up two different conversations, and had omitted the commencement of the conversation which took place in the passage of the House of Lords, he confidently asked whether he had not proved that at least he (Mr. Spooner) had not been guilty of misrepresentation? The noble Lord would not deny that he had stated that the ultimate making-up of the Report for the press was left to the secretaries; the reason alleged for this being that there were so many delays and so much diffiulty in getting in the evidence that the Commissioners were obliged to leave Dublin before it could be printed. He (Mr. Spooner) had never charged the secretaries of the Commissioners with any dereliction; he had only stated his inference that, from what had occurred, the secretaries ought to be required to account for the omissions and alterations that were proved to have been made in the evidence since it first appeared in the transcript of the shorthand writer's notes. It was confessed, both by the noble Lord and the Government, that the Report had gone to Rome. He had referred to an anonymous letter handed to him, though the writer was known to those who gave him the letter, in which the writer said he was ready to make oath that what he (Mr. Spooner) had stated was true—namely, that there were many things in the printed Report laid on the table of that House which did not appear in the original Report, and that many things that did appear in the Report were not to be found in the shorthand writer's notes. What he said at the time was that the secretary ought to account for this. He had heard who the Commissioner was who had given the evidence to Dr. Cullen, and as the evidence was altered and changed one of the secretaries, at least, must have been in communication with those who made the alterations. The inference was plain. He was justified in drawing that conclusion which every one who looked at the evidence impartially must draw. He was told that the alterations were made in the evidence of two only of the witnesses. It was true he only proved that two of the witnesses' evidence had been altered, because he had only documents relating to two witnesses, but he did not say that was all that had been altered. Lord Harrowby said that it was the Parliamentary practice to correct evidence before it was printed. But would any one in that House say that evidence was given out for correction before it was printed? Where did the noble Lord get his Parliamentary practice from? and, if the noble Lord was inaccurate in that statement, he might be equally so in others which he had made. He thanked the right hon. Gentleman for consenting to an inquiry, and he would appeal to the House to institute such an inquiry that should satisfy the House and the country. He had from the first told the House that the letter he had referred to was anonymous. He should not have paid attention to it, had not the parties who transmitted it to him been two gentlemen well known in Dublin—one of them had authorised him to use his name, the other was not at present in England. One of them was Dr. Gregg, a clergyman of the Church of England, a highly-respectable, able, honourable, and trustworthy man; he sent the letter with an assurance that he had seen and talked to the writer, that he knew him to be a hardworking man, and one that could be safely relied upon. The letter could, therefore, hardly be called anonymous; but be the letter what it might, it contained facts confirmed to him by Lord Harrowby in his conversation in the House of Lords—that the territorial titles in the evidence had been given without his knowledge or authority. He had shown so far that he had stated nothing but what was grounded on a sure foundation, and on a strong primâ facie proof. But he had made out more than this—he had made out a case which was unanswerable, and he felt convinced that the impression which must have remained on the minds of those he had the honour of addressing was, that the charges which he had brought forward were true, and that the evidence had been cooked. The right hon. Member had accused him of saying that the Report had been cooked, but he had not done so; and what he had said he would read from his speech on the former occasion, which had been furnished him by the right hon. Gentleman. His words were:—

"The evidence remained in Rome for some weeks, if not months; and, while Parliament and the country had been waiting the result of the inquiry, it had been cooked to make things pleasant."

He had said the evidence had remained at Rome and had been cooked; but he had not made any charge as to the Report. He did not say that it had been tampered with. This evidence, as they had been told for the first time, was concluded in December, 1853, and was all printed in April, 1854, and when they were waiting for this Report the noble Lord at the head of the Government had told them that the delay in presenting it had arisen from part of the evidence having been sent to Dr. Cullen, as the Commissioners wished to have his opinion on some questions connected with the ecclesiastical discipline of the Church of Rome as applicable to Maynooth College. Was this consistent with the statement that had been made that the evidence had been completed? He had looked for Dr. Cullen's evidence in the Appendix, and could not find that a question had been asked, or that a communication had been made from that gentleman on the point which had caused so much delay. He was sure that this circumstance would convince all that the evidence had been delayed for some other purpose than that which had been alleged, and he considered it an insult to Her Majesty, the House, and the country that the Report should have been so bandied about, and parts of it published at Rome before it had been laid before Her Majesty. It was more than twelve months after the Report was not stated to have been finished that it was delayed for the opinion of Dr. Cullen. He did not charge the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) with having given an incorrect answer as to the cause of the delay, but those who had stated the cause to the noble Lord had done so incorrectly, and the Report must have been delayed for some hidden and mysterious reasons which had not been laid before Parliament. They ought to have a searching inquiry to ascertain who had dared to give the evidence to Dr. Cullen, and, if steps had not been taken to ascertain this, the Ministry had neglected their duty. Now, what had been the course taken by Gentlemen who had felt so much hurt, and who now preferred a claim to be heard. The statement of which they com- plained was made last Tuesday week, and would be in Dublin at the latest by Thursday; but no explanation was asked for, nor any complaint made until it was felt that the pressure from without was becoming too strong. Thus, these much-injured secretaries—these much-misrepresented Gentlemen—had remained silent and passive for a week until they were stirred up by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. [Mr. HORSMAN made a movement of dissent.] The right hon. Gentleman shook his head. Why, the right hon. Gentleman had told him (Mr. Spooner) so himself. But if the right hon. Gentleman stated distinctly that the secretaries had complained before he wrote, then he (Mr. Spooner) would withdraw that expression, and give them credit for the feeling which they professed to have entertained. But, unless the right hon. Gentleman made a statement to that effect, it could only be supposed that the secretaries had been perfectly content to remain under the heavy charges preferred against them until the remonstrances of the right hon. Gentleman, of the country, and of the press—which always came forward to unravel a mystery, expose a wrong, and bring discreditable tricks to light—compelled them to come forwar'd with what they called a fair statement of the case. If the House would grant a Committee of Inquiry, it would soon be seen who was mistaken in the matter. The statement he had made to the House had been made after full examination and due deliberation, and in laying it before the House he had merely acted in the exercise of an undoubted privilege, and with no other view than to insure a complete investigation of the subject. With regard to Lord Harrowby, if that noble Lord had heard a statement made, which he knew to be incorrect and which impugned the conduct of those whose administration he had joined, charged them with negligence, with a dereliction of duty and with not having properly vindicated the honour of the Crown, he should have thought that the noble Lord, in his place in another House, would have asked for a Committee of Inquiry to examine into and thoroughly sift the matter. It was in the House of Lords, that the Committee ought to be formed, but no move had taken place. He was anxious that the Committee should be in the Lords. He would not ask witnesses from Maynooth College to be examined. He would not call Maynooth students. He would call witnesses, who would prove the allegations he had made, and who would be free from the trammels of the priests, by whom other witnesses had been surrounded. One remark more. The Commissioners appeared to think it was their duty to allow the Roman Catholics to use what titles they pleased, but denied this privilege to Protestants. How strange was this! In the name of the country at large, he implored the Government not to let this matter sleep. Ho had furnished documents and information, with the view that the whole question should be examined to the very bottom, and that the country should know whether we were to be governed by priests educated at Maynooth, or whether we should preserve our Protestant Constitution untainted and unimpaired. Keep up the dignity of Parliament—meet the wishes of the people, and vindicate the Crown from the gross insult which had inflicted upon it in consequence of evidence taken by a Royal Commission being altered and garbled to such a purpose. He hoped the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) would take means to have a full investigation in the House of Lords; but, if not in the other House, he (Mr. Spooner) would have no objection to its taking place in that. All he wished was a searching inquiry, and that witnesses should give evidence under the pains and penalties of perjury, by which means they should come at last to the truth, and make manifest the working of the system. He might be called uncharitable; but he was speaking of doctrines, not men, which were the result of such pernicious teaching, as that equivocation in a good cause was to be permitted, and the definition of what constituted a "good cause," was left to the priest. To his original statement he adhered. The original draft of the shorthand writer's notes could be referred to, and that would hear out his statements. He thanked the House for the attention it had afforded him. He was prepared to prove everything he had advanced, and he hoped the matter would have full investigation.

said, he wished to correct a false impression under which the hon. Gentleman was labouring. The secretaries had not remained passive and silent. He had himself had no communication with the secretaries, but he had learned that a letter had been addressed by those Gentlemen to the Chief Commissioner (the Earl of Harrowby), in which they referred to the statements of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Spooner), and they requested his Lordship to do an act of justice to them.

said, that his right hon. Friend had never told him of that. What was the date of the note? [Mr. HORSMAN intimated that it was soon after Mr. Spooner's speech reached Dublin.] And yet Lord Harrowby had remained silent up to the present moment.

said, that the hon. and gallant Member (Major Reed) had a notice on the present state of public affairs, and as another hon. Member (Mr. Layard) had already occupied that ground, he would put it to him whether he would think it expedient to anticipate the discussion of the hon. Member for Aylesbury, upon the issue of which the fate of the Government might depend.

said, that, in answer to the question of the hon. Gentleman opposite, he could only say that he had no desire to violate any rule of the House. He, however, could not see that similarity between his Motion and that of the hon. Member for Aylesbury, which appeared to have made an impression upon the hon. Gentleman opposite. The Motion of the hon. Member for Aylesbury was a vote of censure upon the Government. His (Major Reed's) Motion was of an entirely different character. As an independent Member, neither desiring nor seeking office, he wished to give his cordial support to Her Majesty's Government in the critical circumstances in which the country was now placed. His object was to induce the noble Lord at the head of the Government to make such a general statement, consistent with his public duty, as would be satisfactory to the country at large. Under these circumstances, he did not feel it would he consistent with his position as a Member belonging to no particular party or faction, to acquiesce in the proposal of the hon. Gentleman; and he should accordingly proceed in the terms of his Motion—

"To call the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the highly critical position of public affairs, and to the increasing anxiety and dissatisfaction which at present pervades all classes of society, and to impress upon Her Majesty's Government the wisdom of immediately anticipating those consequences which are certain to arise from continual popular demonstrations, by at once introducing such reforms in every branch of the State as are consonant with the intelligence of the age and the just demands of the people."

In support of this Motion, he would only call the attention of the House to this important fact—that, after the Earl of Aberdeen had tendered his resignation, the noble Viscount (Viscount Palmerston) was entrusted with the formation of a new Administration, with the entire approbation of the people, who felt satisfied that he was equal to the emergency. But, he would ask, what had been the result of the good opinion which had been formed on that occasion? He regretted to say that the country had been wofully deceived. He regretted to say that the noble Viscount had not moved with the spirit of the times—that he had not introduced reform—that he had, in fact, only formed his Administration out of the same materials as the late Ministry. The taunts of the Opposition that the party to which the noble Lord belonged were democrats in opposition but oligarchs in office appeared to be well merited. As an independent Member, he called upon the noble Lord now to make such a declaration as to the future intentions of the Government as would satisfy the voice of public opinion in this country. He was inclined to give the Government his cordial support—he wished to do so in the circumstances in which they were placed, and he would give them that support if the noble Viscount now made a satisfactory declaration; but if he did not do so, he should oppose him. He could assure the noble Viscount that the seeds of discontent had already been sown broadcast throughout the land, and that those seeds were producing fruit—that they were daily watered by the tears of the thousands who had lost relatives and friends during the present war. He therefore called upon the noble Viscount to make such a statement as would give those who wished to support him a tolerable excuse for doing so. If the noble Lord would not do so, the days of his Government were numbered. He could no better conclude his observations than by addressing to the noble Viscount the words of the great poet, Milton—

"Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen !"

Sir, the course which the hon. and gallant Member has taken is, in my opinion, perfectly justified by the present position of public affairs, and by the feeling of the House and of the country. I am not disposed, therefore, to find fault with the hon. and gallant Member on this ground, and I do full justice to the motives which have induced him to bring forward this subject. It is perfectly true, as he has stated, that when it was Her Majesty's pleasure to authorise me to form a Government, public expectation had risen high, and, if I may be allowed to say so, had overrun the bounds of reasonable and practicable realisation. It was my duty to endeavour to obtain the assistance of those persons whom I thought most capable, from their position in Parliament, of making a strong and efficient Government. I was actuated by none of those considerations which have, without cause, been imputed to me, of private partialities, of family connections, and of regard for rank; but my object was to look around me and see who were the men most eminent and distinguished in public life, who had shown themselves capable of governing by the part they had taken in public affairs, and whose opinions were most in conformity with my own. I apprehend that to be the duty of any man who may be called upon by his Sovereign to form an Administration for the conduct of public affairs. I know it has been frequently said, and felt by many, that instead of taking those men who had by their previous experience acquired knowledge, and to whom opportunities had been afforded of displaying their abilities in the management of public affairs, or who had hitherto devoted themselves to a public life, it was the duty of an individual placed in the situation in which I found myself, to go elsewhere, and select the Members of a Government principally from persons engaged in commercial and business transactions. My answer to that statement is plain and simple. Those persons who have devoted themselves to commercial and business-like pursuits, and who have been endowed by nature with eminent talents for such pursuits, have generally engaged themselves in transactions which make it imposible for them to abandon those pursuits and to accept a precarious political office. Why, does not everybody know that when Lord Derby was commanded to form a Government upon a former occasion, he was desirous of having as his Chancellor of the Exchequer an eminent hon. Member of this House, most fitted by his talents for that situation, and whom it would be an honour to any Government to have enlisted in its ranks—I mean the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Baring). But that hon. Gentleman was obliged, being unable to give up the immense engagements in which he was concerned, to decline Lord Derby's offer. When I was forming the present Government I wished to obtain the assistance of the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing). I wished that hon. Gentleman to represent in this House the commercial department of the Administration; but he told me, what was naturally, perhaps, to be feared—that his commercial engagements were such that he could not possibly abandon them and accept the duties of the office which I proposed that he should take charge. A person who is appointed to form a Government has not that entire freedom of choice which some Gentlemen imagine he possesses. He must look out, in the first place, for political experience; he must look out for men who, by their former conduct, have shown that they are capable of discharging political duties, and who are free from any of those private engagements which would prevent them from accepting temporary political appointments. Well, Sir, I cannot but think that the Government, as it stands, is composed of men who are entitled, from their former conduct, their known ability, and their political acquirements and sagacity, to command the confidence of this House and of the country. The hon. and gallant Officer has said that he wishes to know what are the views of Her Majesty's Government with regard to those administrative changes which the voice of the country has so loudly called for. Well, Sir, I am free to admit that considerable improvements are required, or have been required, in many of the departments of the State; and I can assure this House and the country that these matters have not escaped the attention of Her Majesty's Government. Much has been done, and I am happy to say that very successful results have already been achieved. If we take the army—that branch of the public service which has more peculiarly, from unfortunate circumstances, attracted general attention, I am happy to say that our army now in the Crimea is, by universal consent and admission, in as perfect a condition as any British army ever exhibited. I make this statement, not merely upon the testimony of officers who are friends to the Government—not merely on the evidence of official reports— but upon the unsuspected testimony of the Commander of our Allies, who has rendered honourable justice to the condition of the British forces in the Crimea. Now, Sir, I am asked what has been done, and what is going to be done? I will, in the first place, call attention to what has been done by Her Majesty's Government. It is vain to conceal or to deny that of which everybody is aware—that when, after a forty years' peace, we undertook an expedition upon an extensive scale and at a great distance, under circumstances of very considerable difficulty, great mischances in the way of detailed arrangements took place; and that those who were employed to execute arrangements with which they were not conversant, did, undoubtedly, make many mistakes. The result could hardly have been otherwise, though it might perhaps have been less severe; but certainly these mistakes did exist to a great degree, and were productive of consequences locally which we must all lament. With reference to the changes effected by Her Majesty's Government, I will begin with the Commissariat Department. That department was under the control of the Treasury, but by an arrangement made by the Government of Lord Aberdeen, and which has been continued by the present Administration, the Commissariat has been placed under the Secretary of State for the War Department. The Commissariat is a military department, and ought therefore, I think, to be under the command of the military chief; it ought to be administered by that officer of State to whom it belongs to arrange the military details of the public service. Sir John M'Neill, a most able man, has been sent out to organise and arrange the details of the Commissariat Department in the Crimea, and I believe that, under his superintendence, the Commissariat arrangements are as complete as the nature of such a service will admit of. Arrangements have been made for furnishing to the army an ample supply of all the articles which it is the duty of the Commissariat to provide. Great inconvenience arose, in connection with this department, from the combination of the duties of supply with the duties of distribution and transmission—that is to say, great inconvenience arose from the circumstance that the same Commissariat officers who were charged with providing the supplies for the army were also charged with the duty of providing the means of transport for carrying these supplies inland from place to place. The department of transport has now been separated from the department of supply, and, under the con- trol of a very able officer, Colonel M'Murdo, the Transport Department is in a state of complete efficiency. We have, therefore, every reason to entertain a confident hope that, from henceforward, our army in the Crimea will not only be furnished with an ample supply of those articles which it is the duty of the Commissariat to provide, but that it will also possess an ample supply of the means of transport, consisting of animals and carriages. I will next refer to the Medical Department of the army, which is about to be immediately remodelled at home. New persons will be placed at the head of the department, a military man and a civilian, both under the immediate orders of the Secretary of State for the War Department, with whom it will rest to give all directions for the management of the Medical Department of the army, and to regulate the appointment and promotion of persons in it. Of course officers of this department on foreign service, being subject to military law, will, in point of discipline, be under the orders of the officer commanding the force with which they may serve. I am happy to state, with reference to this subject, that the hospital arrangements in the East have been placed in a most satisfactory condition. Not only have civilians been sent out to assist in some of the hospitals, but a commission purely civilian, consisting of men well versed in sanitary arrangements—Dr. Sutherland, Dr. Gavin—who unfortunately lost his life by a most painful accident—and Mr. Rawlinson, an engineer—have also been sent out for the sole purpose of placing the hospitals, the camps, and all the stations of troops in a condition as free from those influences which impair health as it is possible to do by any arrangements. I am glad to say that the arrangements of the Commissioners have been productive of the most beneficial results. Well, Sir, great complaints have been made of the want of sufficient arrangements with regard to naval transport. That department was formerly under the control of one person, who was charged with other duties, and the consequence undoubtedly was, that sometimes, from the pressure of business, the arrangements for this service were not carried out, either so promptly, or with so much perfection, as was desirable. My right hon. Friend the late First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir J. Graham) made an excellent arrangement, by which the naval transport service was placed on an official footing under a separate Board acting under the immediate orders of the Admiralty; and I believe that arrangement will produce the best results with regard to that most important branch of the public service. So far, then, with respect to the Commissariat, the Medical Department, and the transport service by land and by sea; and I trust the arrangements which have been made affecting these most important subsidiary branches of the military service have already produced good results, and will prevent the recurrence of those inconveniences from which the army suffered in the course of the autumn and winter of last year. Now, Sir, with regard to what the Government propose to do. It has struck everybody who has paid any attention to military matters, that that part of our military arrangements which separated a very important branch of our military service from the rest, and placed it under the control of the Board of Ordnance, was an arrangement which was highly inconvenient and which it was most desirable to change. My noble Friend (Lord Panmure) has given his anxious attention to the subject of effecting an improved arrangement in regard to that department, and I will now proceed to explain what Her Majesty's Government propose to do, in order to effect this object. I am sure the House will feel that there must be far more difficulty in remodelling any of the public departments, while they are engaged in carrying on important services, than there would be at a period when there was, comparatively speaking, less pressure upon the time and attention of those who have to remodel such department. That difficulty must be especially felt at a period when every hour of the day, and even of the night, scarcely affords sufficient time for transacting the daily and current business which presses upon the heads of departments; for, under such circumstances, not only is it difficult to mature the necessary arrangements, but also to carry them into operation, without in some degree interfering with the despatch of current affairs. In the first place, we propose to remodel the Board of Ordnance, to abolish the office of Master General of the Ordnance, and to abolish also the Board of Ordnance as a separate establishment. The corps of Artillery and Engineers will, as military bodies, in point of discipline, be placed under the same authority which governs the discipline of the army at large. I certainly never could understand the principle—the result of ancient arrangements—upon which the forces of the line were placed under one military chief, and the artillery and engineers under another. I believe such a regulation does not exist in any other army in the world. It was, however, the result of ancient arrangements, and was allowed to continue for a long period of years. Great advantage will accrue to the service from placing the Artillery and Engineers, as military bodies, under the same head as the rest of the army. It will be of advantage to the service at home—it will be of greater advantage abroad. There will be no longer a sort of distinction between the Ordnance corps and the army in general, a distinction that does not exist in any other army, and which on many occasions has been attended with inconvenience to the public service. The Board of Ordnance being abolished as a separate establishment, together with the office of Master General and Lieutenant General, and the discipline of the Artillery and Engineers being intrusted to the Commander in Chief, the civil department of the Ordnance will be placed under the Secretary of State for the War Department. Our object has been to centralise as much as possible—to give unity of direction in all matters in which there is unity of nature—and to bring as far as possible all the military departments under one supreme and directing control. Therefore, the preparation of stores, ordnance manufactures, the manufacture of arms, of cannon, of ammunition, all things connected with the construction of fortifications and barracks, and all that belongs to the civil branches of the Ordnance, will be put under the direct control of the Secretary of State for the War Department. He will, of course, have under him subordinate heads in all these different branches. The House will see, then, that the Commissariat, the Medical Department, and the Ordnance Department, will henceforward be under the immediate control of the Minister for War. There then remains a branch of the military service, the business of which has hitherto been transacted by the Secretary at War—that is to say, the examination of the accounts of the army. That is a department of great importance, in which much business is done, and which must be done under some responsible head. The office of Secretary at War and Secretary of State for War having been united in the person of Lord Panmure, he will be also the head of the department which examines the accounts of the army. The House will see that in so far as public expectation goes in favour of the consolidation of the military departments under one head—giving unity of action and promptitude of execution—the arrangements we propose, those which we have partially effected, and those which are about to be completed will, as far as possible, meet that desire; because there will be one official head who will have under him all those matters, both departmental and political, that appertain to our military system. By political, I mean the distribution of the troops, the direction of expeditions, and everything connected with the political relations of the country. He will also have all those duties which have hitherto been performed by the Secretary at War. He will also have the direction of the Commissariat, of the Land Transport, of the Naval Transport, and of the Medical and Ordnance Departments:—all these departments will hereafter be brought under one head. Some persons, I am aware, have thought that the system of consolidation should be carried still further. They think that the Minister of War ought also to be what the Ministers of War in some other countries are—the Commander in Chief, and to have the discipline of the army as well as the direction of the political relations and civil branches of the army. I confess, that for one, I am tot of that opinion. There are great objections to such a consolidation—objections belonging to the interests of the service, and also objections belonging to other matters connected with the working of our constitution. This country is under Parliamentary Government. Its Governments are liable to change from time to time, and the Government must be composed of men of a political character. If the Minister of War were to be also the director of the discipline of the army, I say he must in that case be a military man. It would be fatal to the character and spirit of the army to commit its discipline to a mere civilian. I cannot believe that any army would feel that respect that it ought to feel for a chief who was not a soldier. His praise would have no value, and his censure would command no respect. It is absolutely necessary, in my opinion, that the commander of the army, in order to insure its excellence and superiority, and to be able to judge of the merits and demerits of the officers, should be a military man. It would be impossible, however, amid all the changes to which Governments are exposed, always to find a military man who had so devoted himself to political matters as to be, by that circumstance, pointed out the representative of the army in the Cabinet. Therefore, with regard to the interests of the army, I think it is undesirable that such a change should be made. But I am also of opinion that if all the patronage of the army were to be dispensed by a Member of the Government of the day, it would be an arrangement open to great and serious objections. I think, therefore, the present arrangement is one that ought to be continued. There is great advantage in having the discipline of the army directed by a military man rather than by a citizen; and there are very weighty reasons why the patronage of the army should not be dispensed by a man connected with the political party which may at the moment be at the head of affairs. It is very well for persons to talk of abuses in the patronage of the army, and to point to individual cases in which they think due attention has not been paid to particular merits and services by the Commander in Chief at the head of the army. It is impossible for any man, however pure his motives, or however correct his judgment, to avoid reflections like these, or to meet with universal assent in whatever way he may exercise his choice. Complaints, therefore, must always be expected when the army is governed by a military man; but how much greater, I ask, would the outcry be, and how much multiplied would be the number of complaints if the patronage of the army were dispensed by a man who sat on the Treasury bench in the House of Commons or in the other House of Parliament? He would be open to every kind of imputation—and, of course, men are naturally governed by motives; and it is quite clear that the inducements to allow favour and partiality to overpower his judgment of merit would be tenfold greater on the part of a person belonging to a Government than they could be in the breast of a man who has no other object than the character and officering of the army, at the head of which it is his good fortune to be placed. I have stated to the House what has been done, and what we propose to do. I think these arrangements will accomplish great and important results, and be greatly to the advantage of the military branch of the public ser- vice. These are, however, matters that cannot be made perfect at once. It is very probable that experience and the working of those arrangements which we have made may lead to further improvements. We have done all that, in the meantime, we think the nature of things will admit of, and that the interests of the public service require; but we are ready to reconsider any of these arrangements, and, if it is found by experience that improvements can be made in what we are going to carry into execution, we shall be ready to do so. I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Major Reed) and the House that the great object the Government have at heart—and I do not pretend to claim any particular merit for these desires, because the object of any persona who stand in the position of Ministers of the Crown must be the same—is to render all the departments of the public service as efficient as it is possible for us to make them. We can have no other motive than that of discharging our duty to the best of our abilities, because it is only by a successful administration—by correcting errors where errors have been committed, and remedying defects where defects are found to exist—by introducing into every branch of the public service the utmost vigour, and activity, and the most successful energy which it is in the power of the Government to infuse—it is only by that means that it is possible to carry the country through the great war in which we are now engaged; it is only by a successful prosecution of that war by improvements in the public service;—it is only by these means that any Government that may be honoured with the confidence of the Crown, and supported by the confidence of Parliament, can expect to render themselves worthy of either that service or of that confidence, and can expect to earn the approbation of their Sovereign and their country. I trust, therefore, that if the country, from an impatient but very natural desire of seeing these improvements carried out, has shown itself desirous to go rather ahead of the Government in carrying out these changes in our military institutions, they will not ascribe any delay that has taken place to apathy on our part, or to indifference to those interests which it is our duty to promote, but will believe that what to them may appear delay has simply arisen from those difficulties that are inherent in the arrangements which we are about to carry into effect, and which it would have been unbefiting for us to launch forth until by mature deliberation and examination we were satisfied we were taking that course which was the best we could for the moment devise, and which would be attended with the greatest advantage to the country. I admit that this House has given generously and largely its assistance to the Government in respect to all matters in which the public service was concerned; I am bound to say that the way in which this House has afforded to the Government all the means they required has presented a most gratifying spectacle to the world, for we have seen no party feeling and no strife of different sections interfering with the interests of the public service; I am bound to make the most handsome acknowledgment to all in that respect; and I say, if that has been the case, and if the country has also been willing to wait to see what changes and improvements we were able to make, I trust this House and the country will think that those changes which have already been made, and those which we are about to make, and that great and marked improvement already effected in the condition of our army abroad, will justify the forbearance which this House has shown, and will entitle us to at least a continuance of the confidence of the country. We are now engaged in a great struggle. It is not, depend on it, simply a question of this condition or of that, or merely a question of those points which have lately been discussed, but all Europe, all the world, all the human race have their eyes fixed on the contest now carrying on by two great Powers on the one side against a gigantic and colossal Power on the other. On the issue of that contest depends not the question of minute arrangements or conditions, but whether England and France shall continue to hold the high position which they have hitherto occupied among the nations of the world, or whether, on the other hand, we and France shall sink down to the condition of inferior and secondary States, and whether the enemy with whom we contend shall henceforth be the dictator and dominant Power in the world.

Sir, on Friday night a Secretary of State, on a similar motion to that which is now in your hands, read a lecture to the House on the great inconvenience of making that motion, by an abuse, the opportunity for indulging in desultory discussions. I believe the Secretary of State even intimated that if the abuse was persevered in, it was not impossible that steps might be taken to restrain and restrict the privileges of Members of this House. Well, Sir, remembering what occurred last Friday night, upon speaking on motions for adjournment, I am rather surprised that the First Minister should, notwithstanding that warning, have taken advantage of that same machinery, and in a manner so unexpected by the House, to make what all must acknowledge to be a communication of some importance, and to express sentiments which, coming from an individual of his great position, are no doubt calculated to arrest the attention of Parliament and the country. I cannot help thinking, Sir, that if the Minister had to make a communication to the House relative to changes which we may consider considerable in public departments, and in those departments especially connected with the conduct of the war, there would have been no surplusage of courtesy if some notice had been given to us that a communication of this kind was to be made. I think it would have been more appropriate, far more convenient to the House, and I think much more dignified in the noble Lord, if a communication of this kind had been made with due notice, and had not been introduced in the very strange manner in which this communication has been made. Sir, when I entered the House to-night, and took up the paper of business, I confess I was much surprised by a sort of portentous announcement to be introduced to our notice. Perhaps I might have been better prepared for what was to follow, if some gentleman of great experience, "the Father of the House," for example, and not one of its youngest Members, had given such a notice. We are told here that the condition of public affairs is not only critical, but highly critical—that an "increasing anxiety and dissatisfaction at present pervades all classes of society," and I find by the notice that there is a gifted individual anxious to "impress upon her Majesty's Government the wisdom of immediately anticipating those consequences which are certain to arise from continual popular demonstrations, by at once introducing such reforms in every branch of the state as are consonant with the intelligence of the age and the just demands of the people." Now, I should have thought a subject of that kind would certainly, after the general opinion of the House upon the inconvenience of desultory debates on Friday night, have been brought forward with a little more ceremony than it has been on the present occasion. Although at first perplexed to discover what was the real occasion of this enormous notice, in examining its language, there seems some clue as to the real author of this proposition. We had a discussion the other night as to whether the first edition of the Essay on Man was anonymous or not; and having the first edition of the essay in my possession, I had good authority for stating that it was anonymous; and it is a curious circumstance in connection with it that Mr. Pope, when he issued the first edition of that Essay, put in some false rhymes in order to draw off the scent from himself; because everybody would feel immediately, "This cannot be Pope, because Pope never would have made a bad rhyme;" and so I suppose the flagrant violation of grammar I find in this notice, when we are assured that "increasing anxiety and dissatisfaction at present pervades all classes of society," was introduced by the noble Lord to draw the scent off himself, so that everybody must see this "cannot be Pope," or that other name which begins with the same initial, but which it would not be Parliamentary to pronounce in this House. Well, what is the answer of the noble Lord to this interesting inquiry put by the hon. Member for Abingdon? Here we are told that we must have reform in every branch of the State, and certainly, considering "the highly critical position of public affairs, and the increasing anxiety and dissatisfaction which pervades all classes of society," I must think the noble Lord has offered to the House and the country to-night but a meagre and frigid programme. I think it would have been just as well if the noble Lord had informed the House what are the intentions of the Government with respect to the state of the country, which the notice so pointedly refers to. Why, what has the noble Lord done? The only information of importance which he has communicated to us to-night we had had notice was to have been communicated in another place. A strange way of carrying on public business! A notice has been given in another place, that great changes and reforms are to be made in the departments connected with the conduct of the war. Observe, the notice is given in another place; but the communication is not made. Here we have the communication, without any notice. And, Sir, what has the noble Lord announced to-night? I need not touch upon what the noble Lord thinks should induce us to have confidence in Her Majesty's Government—namely, the improved state of the army. It is gratifying intelligence, no doubt, and I hope events will prove that the noble Lord has some foundation for his confidence. I shall not touch upon the simple but necessary sanitary measures which the noble Lord says his colleagues have adopted for improving the condition of the army in the field and in hospital, and things of that kind—no doubt of the utmost importance—no doubt of urgent necessity—but not, I think, of sufficient importance to communicate in the manner in which the noble Lord has communicated them tonight, in order to induce the Parliament and people of England not to lose heart in the struggle we are now involved in. I come, then, to the more important announcement of the noble Lord—the only real announcement in fact—and what is that? It is that Government are about to introduce measures for the consolidation of the military departments. Now, Sir, there is nothing profoundly original in that plan, because the subject has long been before Parliament, and long been submitted to the scrutiny of our Committees. I approve of the general principles upon which such a change is contemplated; but of course, until we have the measures in detail before us, we can form no opinion of the prudence and adroitness by which these principles may be brought into practice. It was not merely, however, the mind of Parliament that has been long bent on this consolidation; but the labours of our Committees have been brought to bear upon it, and their recommendations must be familiar to us all. These were changes, then, which ought to have taken place, even supposing we were not involved in a great and, I am almost afraid, I must say, disastrous war, because this is a subject which has occupied the attention of previous Ministers, and which, we believed, was on the point of almost immediate solution. Why, it was only last year that we were called upon to deal with the office of the Minister at War. You told us, then, you were about to recommend Her Majesty to appoint a new Secretary of State to preside over the Department of War; and we pressed upon you the necessity, not only of appointing a Secretary of War, but of at once defining its duties, and of at once taking steps which would place under his immediate supervision and control all these departments. You, however, refused to follow our advice—you refused to adopt that course, and much of the disgrace, much of the disaster, much of the misery, which has since occurred, is to be attributed to your neglect in that respect. I shall not be told, of course, that the noble Lord is not responsible for the Government of Lord Aberdeen; that would be a shabby excuse, and I hope it will not be adopted. The noble Lord was highly connected with that Government, holding, as he did, one of the highest posts in the Cabinet. He was a Secretary of State, who exercises some control over the military affairs of the country, and it is mainly owing to the neglect of the noble Lord that the militia of this country is in the state we now unfortunately find it. I say, the noble Lord who comes forward now with this proposition for consolidating the military departments as the great panacea which is to cure all the evils of our administration, which is to extricate this country from increasing and abounding difficulties with which we have to contend, is proposing measures which, enlightened as they may be, are recommended by no novelty, and which he himself rejected last year, when they were pressed on the attention and the acceptance of the Cabinet. I reserve for the proper occasion the task of entering into the details of the plans of the Government—if they have plans—I will only say that to the changes which they may propose, if salutary, I shall give my support:—but, if on the other hand, I find they have taken up the matter crudely, hastily, that they are measures which are not well considered, or which are not adapted to meet the emergencies of the case, I shall, of course, oppose them. If they are neither bold in their conception nor well matured in their details, I shall not be afraid to oppose them, whatever may be the motives attributed to me for doing so. I have not risen to-night, to enter into any discussion on these subjects—they are not before us in sufficient detail to enable me to take anything but a very general review of them. I have only risen to express my surprise that the noble Lord should have taken this means of communicating the intentions of the Government upon a subject which is, no doubt, of great interest in the House of Commons, and my regret that the noble Lord, instead of candidly, manfully, and openly giving notice to the House, that upon a certain day he would express the views of the Government on the subject of the consolidation of the military offices, or on such other plans as they might deem necessary for the public good—that the noble Lord should have availed himself of means and an opportunity which may certainly be Parliamentary, but which his own colleagues had themselves, only a short week ago, regarded as embarrassing to the proceedings of the House.

, in rising to draw attention to the state of the transport service, observed that unless he brought forward the subject in its present form, the whole session might pass over before he could have an opportunity of referring to it. The hon. Gentleman then proceeded to allude to the ease of the Seringapatam premising that a gentleman who had served in the navy was cautioned by an old messmate before taking his passage in her, for that she was not seaworthy. He mentioned this circumstance to show that, with a very little inquiry, the Government might have found out that the Seringapatam ought to have been looked into before being intrusted with the conveyance of troops. The plea of the great scarcity of shipping could hardly be adopted in the present case, because a fortnight after the accident to the Seringapatam one of Mr. Bligh's A 1 ships sailed, which was perfectly capable of conveying troops. The hon. Gentleman then quoted General Sutherland's report, dated October 12, 1854, from which it appeared that the Seringapatam was in a dangerous and un-seaworthy state, and that the troops on board were exposed to imminent peril. She was a ship of 17 years' standing, lettered "^* Æ." A few Weeks before leaving England she had returned from Bombay, and although then, it would appear, in a leaky and shaken condition, received only trifling repairs. On getting to sea, Major Simmons, the commander of the troops on board, observed that the deck and sides of the ship leaked unusually; but although the evil increased, and in rough weather the deck was literally inundated, the captain informed Major Simmons that nothing could be done to remedy the defect. The leak at length became dangerous, and it was found necessary to throw overboard the deck-guns and some 200 tons of cargo. The soldiers worked at the pumps like galley-slaves, while the crew scarcely ever assisted in pumping, but became in subordinate got drunk, and plundered the cargo. Although no really very bad weather was experienced during the voyage, the whole frame of the vessel was dislocated, the iron fastenings were generally loose, the copper was worked off in many places, butt-ends were started, and the oakum was worked out of the seams. "Indeed," added the Major, "had we met with any very bad weather the ship must have been broken up." The report of the harbourmaster of Port Louis, Lieutenant Kelly, entirely confirmed the report of Major Simmons, except that it stated the weather to have been fairer than Major Simmons represented, and also that the soldiers had run very considerable danger from the improper stowage of a cargo of large masses of corn, though there was not sufficient on board to have done any damage to the vessel during her voyage, had it been properly stowed. On receiving these reports, General Sutherland issued a general order in which the conduct of Major Simmons and the soldiers of the detachment was spoken of in the highest terms. The reports of the professional man employed to survey her, showed that she was in a very unseaworthy state, and that very extensive repairs were necessary before she could be fit to carry cargo. This was certainly not a proper vessel to be taken up for the conveyance of Her Majesty's troops. By a letter which he had received that day from a gentleman who was a stranger to him, he was informed that the Seringapatam had not been surveyed since her return from India, when she was sent for repairs into Mr. Green's private dockyard. This letter was signed "Henry Bell." He had now shown that a grievous act of negligence had been committed in sending out these troops in such a vessel as the Seringapatam. He had brought this subject forward from no factious motive, and nothing was further from his wish than to embarrass the Government in carrying on the war; but when officers like Major Simmons and Lieutenant-General Sutherland sent home reports, of which no notice appeared to have been taken, it was the duty of some private Member of that House to afford the Government an opportunity of making such explanations as it might have to offer, and of showing to the officers of the army that it might rely upon it that their reports would not be treated as mere waste paper, and that our soldiers would be as much cared for as the poorest emigrant who left this country without a sixpence in his pocket.

could assure the hon. Gentleman that he did not object to this case being brought forward, but he should have been glad to have had a more specific notice of what case was to be discussed, for he could not gather from the notice of Motion what particular case was to be brought forward.

said, his reason for not giving a more specific notice was, that as the Secretary of War had signed the papers connected with the case, he supposed that he had submitted so gross a case to the proper authorities, and he was not aware that he would be answered by the First Lord of the Admiralty.

did not make it a subject of complaint, but all he wished was, to show that unless some sort of notice of what was to be asked of the Government was given, it was difficult to give a proper explanation, and he hoped the House would not impute to him want of care in not being acquainted with the details of a particular case, when the notice was only "to call attention to the transport service." He could state that a reform had been made in the transport service; a Board had been constituted of three gentlemen—a captain in the navy, an experienced captain in the transport service, and an officer in the army—all of whom were the most competent persons that could be found, and he had every reason to hope that the service would be efficiently performed. With regard to the particular case of the Seringapatam, he was glad that these papers had been brought forward, for they showed how great had been the skill and gallantry of the officers on board this vessel, and how creditable to them their conduct was. He was sorry that anything of the kind had happened; but he was glad that an opportunity of explanation had been given, which enabled him to show that no care or precaution had been omitted before the vessel left this country to ensure her being in a proper state. There was a survey, and there was no reason to suppose that she was not in a fit state for the voyage. He happened to have with him one or two documents relating to the Seringapatam; for when the report of General Sutherland was received, the Admiralty called on the proper officers to report on what had been done. It used to be a complaint against the Transport Board that they did not take up ships from the best owners. In this case, out of eight ships which were tendered, six belonged to owners who were said to be favoured, while two, of which the Seringapatam was one, belonged to Messrs. Green, one of the first ship-building firms on the Thames, and their high character might fairly have been considered presumptive evidence that she had been offered for the voyage in seaworthy condition, but besides that, she was warranted by them. It appeared that the vessel was built in 1837, and was classed "A 1" at Lloyd's for twelve years; at the end of that time—in 1849—she was re-surveyed by Lloyd's, and was found in so good a state that she was continued in the same class for four years more. In 1850 she was again surveyed by Lloyd's, and placed in the second class, or "^* Æ," which was next to the first class, or "A 1." It was stated by Messrs, Green that before she was taken up, the vessel was put into thorough repair. She was also surveyed by the transport officers before she was taken up, which was indispensable, and the report of the surveying officers was that she was in thorough repair. When General Sutherland's report was sent in, these officers were called on for an explanation, and they sent in a report dated January, 1855, [which the right hon. Gentleman read]. It therefore appeared, whatever the vessel might have suffered in the course of her voyage, that there had been no negligence on the part of the surveying officers, or the persons taking up the vessel, in ascertaining whether she was seaworthy. If there had been an improper stowage of heavy iron which caused her to labour, that did not show that she was not properly looked to before she sailed.

said, he was glad to find that the First Lord of the Admiralty was in a position to state that the proper measures had been taken to test the condition of the ship, and was able to deny the statement, so discreditable to the authorities, which had been made. He (Admiral Walcott) did not, however, consider the explanation of the right hon. Baronet quite satisfactory, for he doubted whether the improper stowage of the iron was sufficient to account for the dangerous state of the vessel when at sea, a state so critical that it was evident that, had she met with a heavy sea or bad weather, our gallant troops must have gone down in her. He gave every praise to Captain Milne, the head officer of the transport service, than whom no one performed his duties more zealously or indefatigably; but, looking at the magnitude of that service, it was impossible for him to give sufficient attention to minor details, and therefore he (Admiral Walcott) suggested that there should be a naval officer, in whom the Government could put the utmost confidence, appointed at every port from which transports sailed with troops, who should inspect them previous to their sailing and be responsible for their seaworthiness.

said, it appeared from the report of Major Simmons, that the vessel was not provided with a fire-engine, pumps, or fire-annihilators, and had only eighteen buckets on board; and he did not think that those officials whose duty it was to carry into execution the orders of the First Lord of the Admiralty had performed their duty in a satisfactory manner. He wished to know if they had made a report on that point, and also on the manner in which the ship was loaded? It was reported that the circumstance was brought under the notice of Mr. Green at the time, but that he said he could not afford to have the cargo moved.

said, as he was altogether unprepared with documents, it was impossible for him to enter into any detailed statement. If the hon. and gallant Member would call at the Admiralty, he should be glad to afford him every information on the subject.

said, there was either a deficiency in the survey or in the qualifications of the vessel. He held that a Transport Board composed of three persons of equal authority could never prove efficient. If they wished to fix responsibility on a department, they should place one man over it as its head, giving to him assistants and advisers, but that his voice should be supreme; but when they made a Board consist of three members of equal authority, one a soldier, another a sailor, and the third a civilian—it was impossible that those members could agree on any knotty point, as each saw from opposite points of view. He believed that, under the conduct of so efficient an officer as Captain Milne, the transport service might have gone on very well as it was, without the revival of the Transport Board, after it had been some years ago abolished by the right hon. Gentleman the late First Lord of the Admiralty. He was sure that, as it was at present constituted, it would not go on satisfactorily, and he supposed they would next hear of the revival of the old Navy Board.

said, that he could not allow the House to go to a division on this Motion without entering his protest against this Bill, which he considered was as unfair, unequal, and unjust a measure, as regarded taxation, as had ever been proposed to the House of Commons. One portion of this Bill provided for the transmission of periodical publications by post; but there was no occasion for any such provision, as, under the present law, newspapers circulated alike in town and country on the payment of the stamp. The present measure would give to the metropolis, and the large towns throughout the kingdom, newspapers free of expense; but what would be its effect in the agricultural districts? Hon. Members were aware that newspapers were sent forth every morning at six o'clock by means of the railways—they could not go by post—they would continue to be so sent, and all persons in the metropolis and large towns would receive their commercial intelligence free of any charge of duty; but The Mark Lane Express and other agricultural papers could not be so conveyed to the rural districts, which would therefore be taxed while the towns were free. At present, every man who took in a paper, paid his portion towards the revenue. To this he did not object; but he protested against this measure, which was brought forward to benefit one class at the expense of another. They had seen, from the budget of the Chancellor of the "Exchequer, that there would be a loss to the revenue on this measure of a quarter of a million; and what would be the effect of this on the towns? It had been found necessary to levy an additional tax on tea, sugar, and coffee. The large towns would get an equivalent for that tax in the abolition of the newspaper stamp; but the rural districts would have to pay the additional tax on these necessary articles of consumption without any equivalent whatever. Looking at this as a matter of revenue, he thought it unworthy of the House to pass a measure which would operate so unfairly on one body of the community as this Bill undoubtedly would. On these grounds he should feel it his duty to vote for the rejection of the Bill.

said, he had hitherto refrained from saying anything on this measure, because he had a direct personal interest in it; but the question was now no longer one of personal interest to him after the decisions which had been come to, and he had no feelings of delicacy as to speaking on it. He was anxious to make a few observations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in order to cause him to reconsider a proposition which would stand as a barrier against the complete success of his measure. He understood that the principle on which the right hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Milner Gibson) had pushed this measure before the House, and the principle on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his colleagues had proceeded, was from a desire to give to the public the largest amount of political intelligence through the best channels, and not to benefit individual newspaper proprietors, but to give the largest amount of advantage to the public. He went entirely with the Government and the right hon. Gentleman on this question. A proposition had been put before the House for the introduction of a copyright clause, but this had been withdrawn on account of strong expressions of disapproval from all sides of the House. One newspaper, he believed, asked for a copyright for a certain number of hours, in order to protect itself from the piracy of other journals, and especially of the cheap newspapers. The House was against this proposal, and, had it been put as a substantive amendment, he should have voted against it, no matter how great might be the inconvenience to one newspaper of the refusal of such a copyright. He considered that the adoption of such a restrictive law would have been the means of injuring not only the London evening papers, but the papers in all parts of the kingdom, for they would have been dwarfed into mere insignificance, as they would only have contained local news and the stalest foreign intelligence. One journal had been aimed at by this Bill—he was sorry to say this of any measure promoted by the right hon. Member for Manchester—but it was his belief that the Government had aimed at one journal. He was in the, perhaps, unenviable position of a provincial newspaper proprietor, and he knew the value to the provincial newspapers of the London journals, especially of—he did not wish to say it invidiously—the foremost journal of the day. The London newspapers furnished the country papers with the most important foreign intelligence which they obtained at a great expense from all parts of the world. They derived from all sources information which was valuable to every class in society, and especially to the Government itself, whose despatches were often anticipated by the energy, vigour, and enterprise of the London press. He would not stop to ask whether the denial of that protection which was originally proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself was a denial of justice; he certainly thought it went to the very verge of injustice. Still, so great, in his opinion, would have been the inconvenience to the public press and to the public generally, had a copyright been established, that he thought the House was wise in coming to the determination not to adopt the copyright clauses. No doubt, it was perfectly right to resist that proposition; but when the House refused to recognise a copyright to the journals, and particularly The Times, what by that very denial were they at the same time doing? They immediately offered up The Times as a prey to a set of adventurous speculators, by removing the barrier from their path, and enabling them to start cheap publications filled with news pirated from the columns of that journal, and circulated within a few hours after the issuing of that paper, by the plundering of which they would contrive to live and prosper. If it was right, as a matter of public benefit, and with a view to give a bonus, as it were, to the starting of cheap newspapers, to inflict this injury upon the morning journals, and especially upon The Times, still they ought not to do anything that would injure that journal which the paramount interest of the public did not demand. But the limitation of a right of transmission by post, at a charge of 1d., to the weight of four ounces, was in direct violation of the very principle which they were endeavouring to carry out. Now, with respect to The Times newspaper, against which this enactment was most unquestionably aimed, he had no hesitation in saying that he entertained a strong personal feeling against that journal; nevertheless, he was in common honesty bound to admit that The Times gave the public a larger amount of intelligence than any other journal in the world; that there was no journal so eagerly sought after, nor any that exercised so influential a control over the public mind. In arguing this question as a matter of policy he would submit to the House that the extra tax which would be imposed on The Times was calculated to be ultimately highly detrimental to the public interest, because The Times newspaper derived no profit upon the supplement; it did not demand any additional price for that portion of the paper. If an extra charge were made for the supplement, The Times would then have no peculiar claim upon the consideration of the House. But it was well known that the publication of a supplement was pecuniarily injurious to The Times, while it was highly beneficial to the public. By the publication of a supplement The Times was able to give to the public in the principal sheet itself a larger amount of general intelligence, of foreign news, of Parliamentary debate and of local information than it otherwise could do. But, supposing the advertisements were printed in the ordinary sheet, the important intelligence that would otherwise appear would be compressed and the paper itself, in proportion, deteriorated. It was a necessary consequence, therefore, that the public generally were immediately benefited by the publication of a supplement. But there were peculiar interests to which the publication of a supplement was of essential importance. The commercial public particularly required the intelligence which the supplement conveyed. This consideration reminded him of a point to which he begged to call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. A Bill was introduced into Parliament, with the universal sanction of the nation, to do away with the advertisement duty. Was that measure adopted for the benefit of newspaper proprietors? Certainly not. It was for the benefit of the commercial public. Why, then, if you would act on the same prin- ciple throughout, would you place a restriction on the circulation of the journal containing those advertisements, such circulation being of the utmost importance to the advertising, and therefore to the commercial public? His own feelings with respect to The Times was one of hostility; he had often cursed that journal; he believed that many Irish gentlemen had at different times expressed the strongest feeling of opposition to that paper on account of the course it had pursued with regard to Ireland; but he was, nevertheless, bound to say that no journal in Europe had ever done more service to the public interest than The Times had done. He admitted that it was rather in disfavour with the treasury benches whatever the Government might happen to be—whether presided over by Lord Derby, Lord Aberdeen, or the noble Lord now at the head of the Treasury. The Times lashed with terrible severity all kinds of humbug. It exposed abuses, and often by its timely interposition and censure stopped disreputable jobs, which the Minister of the day would have been too ready to have sanctioned. All this, no doubt, gave grave offence to the Administration for the time being, but that was no reason why that journal should be marked out as an object of oppression. A comparison had been made between the transmission of a newspaper and of a letter; but it was the idlest thing in the world to attempt to institute any such comparison. A letter was merely a communication from one private individual to another private individual, and concerning themselves only; but the transmission of a newspaper by post was an act by which matter of the greatest public utility was communicated to the whole world. He would not then, on public grounds, say to The Times, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer did, "You shall not transmit your paper by the post on equal terms because you give a larger amount of intelligence than any other paper does." But such was the principle of this measure. It gave a preference to the journal which employed inferior talent and embarked less capital in its management. It was, in fact, imposing a penalty on industry, energy, and intellect. It placed an unjust restrain upon the enterprise of talent, and, commercially speaking, it exacted the heaviest duty from the very best article. But the whole evil of this partial spirit of legislation did not rest there. It was not only saying to TheTimes newspaper, "Because you, by the great efforts you have made, have placed yourselves in the foremost rank, we will therefore impose an extra tax upon you," but it was saying to all the other London journals, to The Herald, The Post, The Chronicle, The Daily News, and The Advertiser, "if you imitate the activity and energy of The Times, and raise as much capital, and increase your circulation to the same extent as that journal, and if in consequence you are obliged to extend your space and increase your bulk, the moment you do so you must submit to be additionally taxed." A more unfair or unjust principle he could not conceive, and he really could not understand how such a principle could be acted upon by the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite (Mr. M. Gibson and Mr. Bright) who were the professed advocates of the utmost freedom in all commercial transactions. He would ask, in all fairness, what was the object in imposing this restriction on a paper which was of the utmost value to the whole empire? He had heard of no reason, unless it was that it would be inconvenient to the Post Office. Now he did not think it would be. What inconvenience would there be in carrying a weight of six ounces instead of a weight of four ounces? It was true there was a difference of two ounces, but what reason was there to restrict the weight to four ounces? If to four, why not restrict it to two, or to three, or three and a half? He could only imagine one reason for assigning the specific weight to four ounces. All other papers came within that weight—The Times only exceeded it. But why this hostility to The Times? The truth was, that The Times newspaper, from its boldness, its vigour, and some said, its audacity, was marked out as an object of indignation by all classes in that House. But was it possible that the two hon. Gentlemen the Members for Manchester could seriously advocate this unjust restriction? Suppose The Manchester Examiner, an admirable journal, and, what was more, one which had great success, should ultimately attain to the circulation and the size of The Times, would those hon. Gentlemen say that the provincial proprietors of that paper ought not to have the benefit of postal transmission? Why not as well as the journal that weighed a quarter of an ounce, or one, two, three, or four ounces? After reviewing the whole matter, he could not help feeling that this was a most un- just attack upon one particular journal; and he attributed that attack to the circumstance that that paper was considered dangerous. That it often exercised a power dangerous to the Government of the day could not be denied, but it was equally true that it at the same time did great good to the public. If The Times in years gone by had done wrong, it had since done one great and important service which would wipe out all its faults. The noble Lord at the head of the Government spoke of certain reforms having recently taken place in the army; but he (Mr. Maguire) would ask whether those reforms were owing to those hon. Members who were occupying the Treasury benches, or to the remonstrances of The Times? He believed that The Times had done more towards the salvation of the British army in the Crimea than any Government could have done. It had shown how much that army had suffered, and how men filling public offices were incompetent to discharge the duties required of them. It had done more—it had evoked the strongest manifestation of public sympathy for those men who had shown themselves greater heroes in the hour of suffering and of patient endurance than in the hour of the bloodiest conflict. If The Times had only done that, it ought to have been treated with liberality, and in a spirit of generosity, rather than have been made an exception in a fiscal arrangement by which it became subjected to an extra and unjust tax. As to the limitation of the period of retransmission to a fortnight, in his opinion a month should be the smallest limit. Very few newspaper proprietors had any personal interest in the question, though some postmasters might take advantage of the provision to annoy them. But that was a very minor consideration. It was the interest of the poorer classes, which demanded an extension of time. The hon. Member for Manchester, who unfortunately for his own credit, was anxious for the limitation, might glance over a newspaper and gather the contents of it in an hour. Some gentlemen with more rapid eyes and more comprehensive research might do it in half an hour; but the poor man who purchased a newspaper might only be able to read a portion of it one night and another portion the next, and so on, till the whole limit of time was consumed; and because he had less capacity and less leisure without trenching on the important duties due to his employer and his family, he was to be subjected to a penalty in having to pay another penny for postage. Such a provision was neither generous nor fair, and he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not insist upon retaining it. Upon the other question he would only remark, in conclusion, that if it were intended to make the press free for the benefit of the public, they should give the public every possible advantage, and, conscious as he was of the value of that organ, of which the country had every reason to be proud, he did say it was not right to make the industry of that journal penal, and to mark it out for the vengeance of Ministers, who either were incapable or suspected themselves to be so.

said, he agreed with much that had fallen from the hon. Gentleman who had spoken in opposition to the Bill, but he objected to making it a personal question. As a Member of the Committee appointed to consider the removal of the stamp and advertisement duty, he agreed with those who held that great advantage would arise to the community from the freest possible communication between the press and the public. Still he could not consider that it was necessary to give to the newspaper press any particular monopoly. He would carry out the principle of free trade in newspapers as in everything else, for it did not appear to him that newspaper proprietors required such a monopoly. He thought he was well advised, when he said that a newspaper would cost three times as much as a letter in its carriage. A newspaper weighed four ounces at least, while an ordinary letter weighed only half an ounce, and the House was now called upon to allow four ounces to pass through the post eight or ten times while an ordinary half-ounce letter could pass only once. He did not for a moment believe that the press would call upon the House to do such an act of injustice, inasmuch as newspaper proprietors had the privilege of one transmission for a penny, which was quite as much as they required. He must protest against the statement that newspaper proprietors required any such privilege.

contended that injustice was, by this measure, inflicted on provincial newspapers, because, while they were of less weight and passed through the Post Office less frequently than the London papers, they would have to pay the same for transmission. He believed the Post Office could carry all newspapers at a profit for a halfpenny, and that if they did not do so, private enterprise would take the circulation of papers, especially those in the provinces, entirely out of their hands. On behalf of the general tax-payers of the country, he objected to any extraordinary privilege as to weight being granted to any newspaper of any description, and, considering the measure as unfair and unjust, he should certainly vote against the third reading.

thought it a very unusual course for Gentlemen to object to the third reading of a Bill, every point of which had been thoroughly discussed and investigated, and on the principle of which they themselves had voted. As he understood the objection, it was this—they objected to the third reading of this Bill, because they thought a particular newspaper was about to be injured by it. He liked that little persons should be considered by that House. He did not like that persons of great importance, weight, and authority, should alone be considered by them, and, as he understood it, this was a question (he would not shrink from saying it) between The Times newspaper and the House of Commons. He thought they were bound to meet this question. He understood that those who objected to the third reading of this Bill, did so, because they thought that there was to be an additional stamp to enable newspapers beyond a certain weight to pass through the Post Office. This, then, was a discussion between a particular newspaper and an important measure, and he should state why he would vote for the third reading of the Bill. He believed it was unusual to oppose a Bill on the third reading. [Cries of "No."] It was true that in late times such things had happened, but it was not very customary to oppose the third reading after there had been a full discussion on the previous stages. He contended, the postal arrangement now proposed was not unjust as far as the particular newspaper was concerned when it published a supplement, because that supplement earned to the parties circulating it a considerable sum of money. If he had stated correctly the ground on which the opposition to this Bill was based, he could not encourage such a course of argument; and he should vote for the third reading of the Bill.

could not but regard, among the various objections to this Bill, the manner in which it had originated. He did not believe that it was a spontaneous act on the part of the Government, for if it were possible to take the individual opinion of a large number of the Members of the Government, and of those hon. Members who usually supported them, he believed the Bill would be rejected by a considerable majority of the House. The measure originated not in the pressure from without, but in the pressure below the gangway. It originated in the ability, eloquence, and perseverance of his right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester (Mr. Milner Gibson) who had applied the "screw" to the last Chancellor of the Exchequer, and had compelled his successor, who was similarly circumstanced, to yield to the same powerful pressure. No advocate of the character of the press of this country could support this measure. He had never yet heard it argued that the press, able and enlightened as it was, was not in want of some check and safeguard against the ebullitions of party and personal feeling. Nothing could be more injurious to the character of the press, or of the public whom it served, than to take away the restrictions that had prevented not the liberty, but the licence of the press, and the want of which would cause the country to be inundated with publications that would not only lead to the destruction of the character of the press, but would be attended by the most mischievous results in all large and populous communities.

, in the absence of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Enniskillen (Mr. Whiteside), then moved that the following clause be added to the Bill:—

Every periodical publication that shall be printed and published at intervals not exceeding seven days between the two consecutive parts or numbers of such publication, and the weight of which shall not on the whole exceed six ounces, shall be entitled to the said privileges of transmission and retransmission by the post, if duly stamped with the appropriate die of one penny."

said, it was substantially identical with a clause which had been moved by his hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Milnes), and had been fully considered by the House, and negatived by a large majority. One alteration, however, had been made by the hon. and learned Gentleman who had framed the present clause, the effect of which was to render it more complex and more difficult to work. It was proposed by his hon. Friend in Committee that a limit of superficial inches should be taken according to the existing law, whereas it was now proposed to substitute the limit of weight for that of superficial inches. The effect of such a provision would be, that up to six ounces the Post Office would have to determine by weight, while beyond six ounces it would have to ascertain the measure of superficial inches with respect to all periodicals published at intervals of less than seven days. With regard to those published at greater intervals, the existing law as to superficial inches would apply both to periodicals of greater and of less weight than six ounces. Such was the state of the law which would be the result of this clause. The House would hardly expect him again to go over ground which had been so fully examined upon previous nights, and he would only state that his proposal, by the present Bill, was to leave the existing law unchanged with the single exception of making the stamp upon newspapers optional instead of compulsory. The only change which this measure would produce would be in favour of newspapers publishing a supplement. One of the principal arguments used in support of an increase in the limit of weight was that hardship was at present inflicted upon newspapers publishing a supplement, inasmuch as they did not make an additional charge to their customers, whereas they were obliged to pay a halfpenny stamp for it. When this Bill became law, a newspaper would pay the stamp upon its supplement only for that portion of the impression which was circulated through the post. The whole of that portion of its impression which was distributed in the place where it was published would be free from the stamp duty; there would be no compulsory stamp upon it, and, therefore, it would not be subject to that disadvantage which was at present found to constitute the chief element of its loss. Thus the operation of the measure would be favourable, not detrimental, to newspapers publishing a supplement. In other respects the present law was left wholly unchanged, and it would be in the power of parliament at any future time, if they should think that newspapers did not enjoy sufficient privileges and advantages by that law to increase their privileges and advantages. But he hoped it would not escape the attention of the House that at present the privileges enjoyed by newspapers were large, beyond what they could reasonably expect, compared with those of letters and other printed matter conveyed through the post.

said, the effect of the Bill, as he understood it, was to expose the public to the great inconvenience of not being able to send The Times in the way they had hitherto been accustomed to send it, by post. It had become so much the habit of the people of this country to take in The Times newspaper, and after they had read it, to send it to their friends in the country, that anything which would restrict their right to do so would be a serious interference with public convenience. He believed that the weight of The Times averaged 4½ ounces, and he wished to know if he was right in supposing that after the passing of this Bill, he was not to have the privilege of sending it to a friend in the country without paying for an extra stamp.

said, that the present Bill made on alteration with respect to the limit of superficial inches which had hitherto been permitted to be conveyed in the first instance for 1d., and afterwards for a halfpenny. It imposed no limit whatever as to weight.

thought the explanation was not sufficiently distinct. The public knew nothing about superficial inches, what they knew was—The Times newspaper. There was now no such thing as a supplement, for the advertisement sheet, containing the births, deaths, and marriages, taken together with the other sheets, constituted one newspaper. He thought it important that the House should know whether, after the Bill passed, they would be able to send The Times newspaper by post with as much freedom as at present. ("Yes.") Then what was the limit as to weight? ("There is none.") If The Times would still go by post for a penny stamp, there could be no necessity for pressing this clause, because he understood the object of his hon. Friend to be to fix a limit of six ounces, in order that The Times—which after all, was the paper of the country—might go free without any further restriction than existed at present. If the Government gave their assurance that that was the meaning of the Bill, then he for one would raise no further objection to it. The real question for consideration was not a question with regard to any particular newspaper, but a question of public convenience. If the House once interfered with the freedom of transmitting a newspaper, they would interfere with the daily enjoyment of large classes of the people, and he, therefore, trusted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was quite right in the understanding he had given that the transmission of newspapers would be as free as at present.

thought that, after the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, his hon. Friend would act wisely in not pressing his clause. He wished, however, to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he was willing to consent to an extension of the period for retransmitting newspapers through the post? The ostensible object of the Bill was to extend the circulation of news, but if the limit at present proposed to the retransmission of newspapers were not extended, the circulation of news would be considerably curtailed.

remarked, that the power of retransmission was no advantage to the newspaper proprietor, but was a great advantage to the public.

was not present when his hon. Friend brought forward his clause, but it occurred to him that it was a reasonable proposition, because otherwise an additional tax might be placed upon the circulation of advertisements, and it was of great importance to the community generally that every facility should be given to the circulation of advertisements. As, however, the feelings of the House was in favour of the Bill as it now stood, he thought his hon. Friend would not feel inclined to press the clause.

said, he had put amendments of a serious nature on the paper, but he understood that there had been an arrangement entered into with the parties interested to pass another Bill to obviate certain grievances. When would it be introduced?

said, it was in preparation.

trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would consult the interests of the trade in allowing the Bill to come into operation on the 1st of October.

, in consequence of the arrangement alluded to, withdrew his amendments. But he trusted the Bill would come into operation on the 1st of October, otherwise great injury would result to the trade.

said, he was aware of the wish of the trade, and had promised to consider it, but could not pledge himself.

said, that much injustice would be done to the distiller in Ireland if the same amount of drawback were not allowed upon spirits already distilled from malt and now in bond, as Was proposed to be allowed upon spirits hereafter distilled. He proposed, therefore, to insert in Schedule B the words "or bonded under the Exportation Act of the 17th and 18th Vict. chap. 27, and mashed on and after the 8th day of May, 1854."

suggested that if the hon. and gallant Member would withdraw his amendment for the present he would consider it in the interval before the third reading of the Bill.

moved that, instead of a duty of 12s. 9d. per cwt. being levied upon yellow Muscovado and brown clayed sugar, or sugar rendered by any process equal in quality to yellow muscovado or brown clayed, and not equal to white clayed, for the year following the 5th day of April, which shall first happen after the end of twelve months, from the date of a definitive treaty of peace with Russia, the duty be fixed at 12s. 3d., and for subsequent years at 10s. instead of 10s. 3d., and that during the same period the duty upon brown Muscovado or any other sugar, not being equal in quality to yellow Muscovado or brown clayed sugar, be fixed at 11s. 5½ and 9s. 2d. respect- tively, instead of at 11s. 8d. and 9s. 6d. per cwt.

said, that the scale had been established in accordance with what had appeared to him to be the express desire of the House upon the second reading of the Bill. He still adhered to the opinion which he had then expressed, that it would have been better for the House not to predetermine the decision of the House before the period at which the proposed scale of duties would come into operation should have arrived. In framing the prospective scale of duties, he had endeavoured to bring back the duties to the amount at which they stood before they were increased in consequence of the war. The question before the House depended upon a small consideration. One class of sugar upon which the duty had been 10s. per cwt. had, for certain reasons, been divided into two classes, the duties upon which were different, and in the two columns of duties which he had drawn up he proposed that when the increased duties should be reduced those two classes should respectively pay 9s. 6d, and 10s. 6d. per cwt., instead of being amalgamated into one class, paying a duty of 10s.

said, it was agreed last year that the whole of these duties should be laid down at a minimum price; and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer feeling, when he increased these duties 20 per cent, that an injustice would be done to a certain description of sugar, he created another class with a reduced duty. All the West India interest was to be put on the same footing as the East India interest, and he (Mr. Hankey) was surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman regret that he had assented to this arrangement.

said, the House might recollect that he stated, on a former occasion, that he should submit to their consideration a proposal for extending the present penny stamp on bankers' cheques to all cheques which were drawn within a distance of less than fifteen miles from the Bank. As soon as his proposition was made public, he received various communications from bankers and others who would be especially affected by the proposed duty. It was represented to him that the operation of the duty would be to discourage, to a great extent, the banking trade, by preventing customers from drawing cheques of small amount; and he learnt that the practice of making small payments by cheque had increased of late years, and that it had been found beneficial to traders, more especially to small traders, who were thus enabled to economise their payments and to keep their accounts in a more regular manner. He confessed that before he received the communications to which he had referred, he was under the impression that the average amount of the cheques drawn upon bankers was considerably above 5l., or even 10l.; but from the evidence laid before him he could not doubt that in London, particularly, the practice of drawing cheques for small sums prevailed to a very great extent, and that it was on the increase. It had been stated to him by gentlemen with whom he had had an interview, that the number of cheques paid by the London and Westminster Bank, and the National Provincial Bank of England, not exceeding 10l., was 33 percent of the whole. It could scarcely be doubted that the imposition of a penny stamp in the case of cheques of that description would operate as a discouragement, and it had therefore been suggested to him to exempt from the proposed duty cheques below 10l. Now, if this suggestion were adopted, a very complex state of the law would arise. With regard to the cheques drawn more than fifteen miles from the Bank, there would be a stamp duty of a penny, whatever might be their amount. On the other hand, with regard to cheques drawn within that distance, there would be a double class; there would be cheques above 10l. with a stamp, and cheques below that sum without one; and this distinction would create great inconvenience, and would be sure to raise the question, whether cheques ought to be subject to a stamp at all. Moreover, a difference with respect to amount would open an easy means of evasion, and persons who were influenced by a desire to save even the small sum of a penny on a cheque might draw several cheques under 10l. in order to evade the duty. He thought the House would agree with him that in imposing new charges on the public, it was most important to avoid, if possible, doing anything which would interfere with the operations of trade, or in any way check the production of wealth. Having given the best consideration in his power to the facts and arguments which had been presented to his mind with respect to the probable operation of this small stamp duty on cheques—looking to the present state of the finances, and to the fact that in estimating the Ways and Means to meet the expenditure of the next year, he deemed it prudent to leave a sufficient margin for contingencies, he had come to the conclusion that for the present, at least, it was not desirable that he should persist in his proposition. He had estimated the amount to be derived from the new duty at 200,000l. There were very different opinions on that subject. On the one hand ho had been told that his estimate was greatly under the truth, and that the duty would produce 600,000l. or 700,000l. Gentlemen who took that view of course did not concur in the opinion that it would discourage the practice of drawing small cheques. On the other hand, he had been told that, inasmuch as cheques would be payable, to a great extent, to bearer and not to order, the cheque would, by a simple process, be converted into a receipt, and the public would lose the benefit of the proposed duty—that he should lose in receipts to a greater amount than he should gain in cheques. On the whole, he did not think the present state of the finances of the country made it incumbent on the Government to urge this proposition any further.

had heard with great regret the announcement of the right hon. Gentleman. He could see no reason why the same rule should not be followed in the case of cheques drawn within sixteen miles of London, as in those drawn beyond that distance. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would afford some explanation of the reasons for this exceptional legislation.

moved the following Resolutions:—

"That it is the opinion of this House that a new, complete, and systematic edition of the Sta- tutes now in force, omitting all such enactments as are repealed, obsolete, or expired, would be more accessible and intelligible to Members of Parliament and to the generality of Her Majesty's subjects than the present Statute Book, and ought to be undertaken under the authority of this House."

"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the best mode of making a new, complete, and systematic edition of the statutes now in force, omitting all such enactments as are repealed, obsolete, or expired."

The hon. Member observed that his object was to substitute a living law, as it were, for a dead one. There were some 17,000 statutes scattered over 100 volumes of the 8vo. edition in existence, only 2,500 of which were in force. His object was, to substitute those 2,500 for the 17,000, and when that should be done he thought that there would be the raw material for the consolidation of the statutes hereafter.

seconded the Motion.

said, that Her Majesty's Government were not prepared to assent to the Motion. The object of the hon. Member, the consolidation of the statutes, was a very important one; but there was a Statute Law Commission actually sitting, and if the statute law was to be consolidated at all, it could be much better done by a Commission than by a Committee. If the hon. and learned Gentleman thought that the Statute Law Commission was not properly discharging its duty, he should bring that question formally before the House.

said, that the practical object of the Motion appeared to him to be a most desirable one. With regard to the Commission that was actually sitting it was proposed to include Ireland, and a communication was made to him soon after he was appointed a Member of that Commission, requesting him to make suggestions as to the course that should be adopted with respect to Irish law. He made a number of suggestions accordingly; but up to this time was not aware that they had produced any effect. They were going on every day in that House increasing, by the passing of new Acts, the anomaly that existed with regard to statute law of the Empire. The plan he suggested was, that the Commission should take up by degrees the subjects that were of immediate and pressing importance, and that they should pay a number of gentlemen of experience to frame statutes to be submitted to the decision of practical men, and thus they should in time get the statute law reduced into shape; but the keeping up a Statute Law Commission merely to be consulted as to the form of new statutes to be passed was a totally futile proceeding. They were getting no good at all from the lahours of the Commission, though the object for which that Commission was appointed was considered a most important one, so far hack as the time of Bacon. He would earnestly press upon the Government the necessity for having our statute law put into proper shape. If proper means were taken to get competent persons to give their attention to different departments of the law, the task of consolidation, though a Herculean one, might he accomplished. He should certainly support the Motion for a Committee, if for no better purpose than that that Committee should inquire what the Commission were doing.

would wish to leave things as they were at the present moment, if he could think that the Commission was doing any real good; but neither from experience nor from inquiry had he learned that that Commission had yet consolidated any branch of the law. The state of our statute law was a disgrace, and subject of universal ridicule and contempt both in this and in foreign countries; and the injury caused by its condition, not only to English lawyers, but to the public, was very great. He would suggest that they should re-instruct the Commission—not in the terms of the hon. Gentleman's Motion, but taking great branches of the law, and consolidating the statutes upon those great heads.

said, he was a Member of the Statute Law Commission, though he must say he had not had an opportunity of attending many of their meetings; but he had sufficient knowledge of their procedure to be able to say that it was by no means fair to represent their labours as being so fruitless as hon. Members had stated. The task that Commission had to perform was one of the most difficult that could be imagined, and if a Committee of the House took upon themselves to decide what statutes were repealed, obsolete, or expired, they would very soon find they had undertaken a task far beyond their powers. He knew this—that upon various subjects of the law there had been drafted consolidation statutes, not final, but to be referred to the deliberation of the Commission; and it would be very impolitic to supersede those labours in the manner proposed. If the hon. and learned Gentleman desired to have full information as to the labours of the Commission, such information would be at once afforded him.

said, he was one of those who did not expect much from the labours of any Commission which was not empowered to say that the statutes which it drew should be the only ones necessary to be referred to. People talked about consolidating the statute law as though there was not already in existence a collection of the statutes by Sir W. D. Evans, from the earliest period down to the time of George IV., which, in eight small octavo volumes, contained everything that was required for ordinary purposes; and even a professional man would scarcely have occasion to refer to anything else above once a year. With regard to this motion, he was not very much impressed with the idea that a Committee would be of any great utility. The consolidation of the statutes must be a labour of years. It could not be done in one Parliament, and it was a task which a Committee could not be expected to undertake, and which, even if it did undertake it, it could not satisfactorily perform.

said, that what had passed showed two things, namely the great importance of the subject, and the extreme difficulty of accomplishing the object in view. If the Committee which his hon. Friend proposed to appoint was to be expected to perform itself any part of the work to which the Resolution applied, what fell from the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite was quite conclusive that the Committee was not the instrument by which it would be possible in any degree whatever to accomplish so great and arduous an undertaking. He concluded that the object of his hon. Friend was, not that the Committee should proceed itself to effect a consolidation of the statutes, but to inquire into the proceedings of the Commission. With all deference to his hon. Friend, he thought that was rather the duty of the Government than of a Committee of that House, and he was sure that the Government had better means than a Committee to go into the examination. He agreed in the statement that should the Committee begin by taking evidence, the proceedings would be of great length, and after all they might not come to a clear and definite conclusion. Many persons thought that the duty of the Commission was to pick out the statutes which were in force, and to separate them from those that were obsolete or had expired, or been repealed, and that the Commission could present a volume which would be a guide to those who wanted to seek what the law was; but he apprehended that was by no means the function of the Commission any more than of a Committee. When a Commission had consolidated the law on any particular subject, it must rest with Parliament to pass a new law founded upon their report, because they could not entrust to any Commission the powers of legislation. They might embody in a Bill the laws which they thought should be retained in existence, but they must go to Parliament to give that compilation the force of law. Therefore the particular process which the Resolution pointed out was not a process which the Commission could, of its own authority, by any means or possibility accomplish. He thought, undoubtedly, that this was a subject which required the most earnest and early attention, and he could only say that it would be the duty of the Government to inquire what was the state of the Commission, whether it required augmentation, or strengthening, or spurring on. They should undoubtedly inquire into the matter; and he trusted if there should be wanting in the Commission sufficient force to carry on its labours with adequate expedition, they would be able to give it that additional force; but what had fallen from the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite should be borne in mind was that the task was one of immense magnitude. Nobody must expect that the most able and learned men, and in the greatest numbers, could accomplish that task of which they were talking within any short period of time, for the very importance of the subject and its magnitude would necessarily require that a considerable period of time should be devoted to it. He could assure his hon. Friend that it would be the duty of the Government to inquire into the subject, and take every possible means for accelerating the object he had in view.

understood that the object of the Motion was not—as had been alleged—that a Committee should undertake the work of consolidating the statutes, but that it should simply consider the best mode of effecting that task. It was impossible that the Government, with so much already on its hands, could accomplish this additional task; and, as for the Commission that had been appointed to execute it, immense sums of money had been expended upon it, and a great deal of labour thrown away with but little result. That the task was a feasible one was evident from the example of the excellent work of Sir W. D. Evans, referred to by the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Malins), and, believing that the appointment of a Committee would have the effect of advancing the object which the hon. Mover had in view, he (Sir H. Willoughby) should give him his cordial support.

said, that he did not think the task would be so difficult as the noble Lord had stated. The admirable work of Sir D. W. Evans was produced during his intervals of leisure from professional business in Manchester; and if a competent person were appointed to continue and complete the same work, it would no doubt be executed in a much more satisfactory manner than it ever could be by the Commission of which the Lord Advocate was an ornament. The matter would only be cushioned for many a long year to come by being referred back to the Government.

said, if the House undertook the duty set forth in the hon. Member's Resolution it would be unprecedented. What was the authority of the House to compile a second edition of the statutes? A publication of that kind would have no more weight than the compilation which had been referred to. What would be the use of sending out a volume which would have no weight in the courts of law, or be any guide to lawyers? He was anxious at all times to uphold the dignity of the House, and therefore he was reluctant to see the House deal with matters which it was unfit to deal with, and could not execute properly.

observed, that any work which consolidated the statutes might, as a literary work, be very useful to lawyers and to the country generally, and might be undertaken by any lawyer; but as the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had pointed out, it would be a work of no authority, and if questions came before the Judges they could take no notice of such a compilation, but would decide upon the statutes as they existed; neither could the authority of the House of Commons give any weight to the omission in such work of particular statutes. But there was another task which the Resolution before the House contemplated— that of revising the statutes. That was a work which could not be done by the House of Commons alone, by itself; it must be effected by Parliament, and the Crown and the House of Lords must concur in the revision. He thought the assurance of his noble Friend that, as there was a Commission sitting on the subject, steps would be taken to expedite the work, ought to be sufficient, and Bills would probably be brought in, from time to time, for the consolidation of the statutes.

had no doubt that the present discussion would be productive of beneficial results, inasmuch as it would show that attention was directed to the subject. At the same time, people would deceive themselves if they imagined the consolidation of the statutes could be very speedily effected.

expressed a fear that, if the Commission went on at its present tardy pace, they would all be dead and buried before the consolidation of the statutes was completed. There would be no greater blessing, in his opinion, than such a consolidation as would do away with those obsolete enactments which now disfigured the statute book.

opposed the Motion. It was very probable that the Committee asked for would recommend the very gentlemen who now edited the statutes to do the work which the hon. Member for West Surrey desired to be executed, and which they, in fact, already did to the satisfaction of the legal profession and the public. If the Commission which was now in force properly performed its duty, it would recommend to the Government such a plan as ought to be the foundation of a Bill to be passed by Parliament on the subject. He therefore hoped that the House would not render useless the labours of the Commission now in force by agreeing to the Motion.

observed that, although the Royal Commission for consolidating the statutes did not at first get into the right track, yet they had done so now, and he believed that great benefit would be derived from their labours. Under these circumstances he thought it would be idle for the House to enter upon the task which the hon. Member for Surrey wished them to assume.

said, that he would omit from the Motion the words, "ought to be undertaken on the authority of this House;" but he thought the House ought to accede to his Motion in order to prove to the country that they were in earnest on a subject which had been trifled with For twenty-five years.