said, he should move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. The Bill purported to carry out the award made by Sir John Patteson in the dispute between the University and town of Cambridge. It was agreed by both parties that a Bill should be brought in to carry out that award. Now what he complained of was, that the Bill before the House did not carry out that award, but a different award. The Bill contained clauses for rating all the parishes of Cambridge as one parish, and the following letter from Sir John Patteson, which he would beg permission to read, stated that that matter was not within the scope of the award submitted to him.

said, he hoped that the Bill would be sent before a Committee, which was the proper tribunal for deciding the point raised by the hon. Gentleman. As to the merits of the question between the parties, he did not wish to give any opinion. The hon. Gentleman was wrong in saying that the award proposed to be carried out by the Bill was altogether different from the award of Sir John Patteson. The Bill was simply and accurately confined to that award, with the exception of the 35th and 36th clauses, which provided that all the parishes of Cambridge should be rated as one parish. The people of Cambridge wished that Sir John Patteson should make an award on that point, but he said that it did not come within the scope of the matters submitted to him. At their request, however, he introduced a recommendation that it should be adopted, and it was in consequence of that recommendation that Clauses 35 and 36 were introduced into the Bill.

said, he should also support the second reading, because he did not consider that the Bill was contradictory, but supplementary to the award of the arbitrator

said, he would appeal to the hon. Member to withdraw his Amendment, and allow the Bill to be considered in a Committee upstairs.

rose to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether there were any letters or papers illustrative of the probable effect of the late convention with the Emperor of Japan on the trade of this country; and whether the Government would lay on the table copies of such letters or papers?

The only paper we have in relation to the treaty with Japan is contained in the despatches of Admiral Stirling, in which he gives his interpretation of the effect of that treaty.

Are there no letters between the Board of Trade and the Foreign Office on the subject?

I apprehend that letters between these departments containing anticipations of the effects of the treaty would only tend to mis- lead the House. If those anticipations are realised it will be known by the facts; but if the treaty is not successful those inter-official communications will be judged after the event. The treaty speaks for itself, and the letter of Admiral Stirling will show his understanding of the effect of the treaty.

said, he begged to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, whether the Sultan's recent edicts, granting civil and religious equality to all his subjects, abolished the penalty of death upon a Mussulman becoming a Christian; and, if not, whether Government would exert its diplomatic influence to repeal that law?

Sir, Her Majesty's Government have received a telegraphic communication, stating that certain edicts have been signed by the Sultan, but the edicts themselves have not yet reached this country. I will not say what may be the effect of those edicts, but I will assure my hon. Friend and the House that the Government have for many years earnestly urged the abolition of the penalty to which he adverts, and, that if it does not form part of that edict, no exertions shall be wanting to induce the Sultan to abolish that penalty. At the same time, my hon. Friend and the House must see that matters relating to religious opinions and prejudices of this kind are very difficult to handle. The Turks have persecuted until lately Mussulmans who have become Christians, but it must be remembered that in some of the Italian States Christians have been persecuted who have changed from one sect of that religion to another.

said, he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the Government were about to take measures for carrying into effect the Resolution of the House of last Session in favour of a further adaptation of the coinage to the decimal system?

Sir, in reply I beg to state that the Government have taken steps in consequence of the resolution to which my hon. Friend has alluded. A Commission has been issued under the Great Seal to three persons qualified to inquire into the subject, namely, Lord Monteagle, Controller of the Exchequer, Lord Overstone, and Mr. Hubbard, late Governor of the Bank of England. These Commissioners are now acting in discharge of their duties, and the subject is under their consideration. In due time they will make a Report, which will be laid before Parliament.

said, he begged to ask whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to take any steps to ascertain the correctness of the allegations reflecting on the conduct of certain officers in Sir John M'Neil's Report?

Sir, the House is already aware that several of the officers have announced their intention to make a statement in explanation of their conduct. I shall this evening lay on the table the answers of Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan to the Report in question.

said, that in consequence of the answer he had just received, he would beg to give notice that on an early day he should move a Resolution to the effect that the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Supplies of the British Array in the Crimea be referred to a Select Committee of the House of Commons, and that it be an instruction to the Commission to ascertain whether the allegations made in that Report against many officers of high rank were borne out by the evidence.

said, he had already given notice of a Motion on the subject, which he had been obliged to postpone until Thursday week. He found, however, that his Motion was so low down in the list that there was no chance of its coming on. It was of great importance to many Members to know when it would come on; and, as the subject was a Government one, the First Lord of the Treasury would probably give him a day. The Government might, he thought, fairly do this, and might give him that day fortnight for his Motion.

Sir, that sort of appeal may be a very fair one towards the close of the Session, when private Members have only one day in the week open to Motions, and when the period is fast approaching the termination of the Session. But we are now just at the beginning of the Session, when hon. Members have two days in each week for their Motions, and when the business of the Government is very pressing. I think, therefore, the hon. Gentleman might as well try the ballot again, and acquire as a right what he is now asking for as a favour.

said, he thought the answer of the hon. Undersecretary for War did not meet the question of his hon. Friend (Mr. Palk). The hon. Gentleman had said that the answers of Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan would be laid on the table that evening; but he wished to ask whether the officers implicated in that Report, and who were not Members of the Legislature, would have the same opportunity of making their defence that was extended to Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan because they were Peers?

said, he had already stated that General Airey intended to make an answer to the charges which affected the Quartermaster General's department. As soon as these and any other replies were in the possession of the Government, they would he laid before the House.

said, he would now beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it was his intention to repeal the duties on fire insurance, which it had been stated enabled foreign companies to insure at a less premium in consequence of their freedom from a similar tax?

In answer to the question of the hon. Gentleman, I beg to state that it is not my intention to make any proposal for the repeal of the duty. In the event of the Companies paying that duty being exposed to unfair competition with untaxed policies of assurance, it will he my duty to bring in a measure of a different character for the protection of the revenue and the interests of those companies which may be subject to that competition.

I beg, Sir, to ask a question of the hon. Under Secretary for War of which I have given him notice. After the dispatch of General Simpson containing the account of the attack on the Redan, a second dispatch, bearing date September 18, was forwarded to Lord Panmure, giving the usual routine list of officers, including those of the staff engaged in the attack. To that dispatch, when published, was appended a significant note from Lord Panmure, stating, that the list of officers recommended for promotion for distinguished services had not yet been received. I wish to ask if that recommendation has been received, and if it has, why it has not been published, and whether the Government would have any objection to lay upon the table the dispatches from General Codrington and General Wyndham containing an account of the attack upon the Redan?

Sir, the hon. Gentleman has not put his question very clearly, but I will answer it as well as I am able. Of course, General Codrington, General Wyndham, and the other officers in command of the divisions or brigades concerned in the attack on the Redan, made reports to General Simpson, upon which General Simpson founded his report. General Simpson did not, however, think it necessary to send home those reports at the time, and, although they have since come into the possession of the Government, it has not been deemed advisable to publish them in the Gazette.

Will that list of officers recommended for distinguished services be given to us?

I will make inquiries about it.

said, he wished to ask whether any arrangement had been made for securing to the Speaker for the time being the nomination or recommendation to the Crown of the officers of that House, more especially those who sat at the table?

said, the Bill now in progress through the House gave the appointment of those officers to the Crown, according to an arrangement made some time ago. He should deem it to be his duty—and no doubt his successors would feel it to be their duty—to place the appointments so made on record, and to act under the advice of the Speaker with regard to them.

Then the power of appointment would, in fact, be vested in the Treasury.

I rise, Sir, to call the attention of the House to our relations with the United States of America. It is incumbent on me to make an apology to the House for bringing forward a Motion on this subject. It has been stated by the Government, through the medium of the noble Lord at its head, that the reason why no mention was made in the Speech from the Throne on the subject of America was, that the negotiations were now in such a condition that they could not, in fairness to all parties, be published at present. The noble Lord, therefore, appealed to the House and said—"Do you think, under these circumstances that I ought to have made public an incorrect statement of the affairs in question? Now, Sir, I quite agree with the noble Lord that it would have been wrong to do so, but as I believe that silence would now only lead to confusion I am determined to break that silence. It appears to me that an incorrect statement of affairs has been laid before the public of this country, that they do not know what has occurred; and I think I now held in my hand the means of dissipating that ignorance, and of making them acquainted with the actual state of affairs. As my intention is to convey to the House and to the nation at large a correct statement of facts, I hope the House will bear with me while I attempt, feebly as I know it will he, to perform that duty. The noble Lord at the head of the Government, taking an illustration from the hon. Member for the West Riding (Mr. Cobden), said that we had done all that a man of honour could have done in the case between ourselves and the Americans; that we had apologised for that which had been taken amiss by them; that we had expressed our sorrow for having trenched upon their laws; and that we had done everything which, as persons desirous of peace and honourable men, we could be called upon to do. Now, Sir, if the facts were as the noble Lord stated, I should have been the first to support him in his view of the case; but as I believe they are very different, I have come forward to enlighten the ignorance of the world (if I may so express myself) in this matter—an igno- rance fostered by the holding back of all that militated against England in the circumstances which have occurred. We have been led to suppose that we have right on our side, and that our cousins on the other side of the water, taking advantage of our position, were nevertheless endeavouring to force us to make a sort of; supplication to them for peace. Now, what is the real state of the case? It is this:—After the Parliament of Great Britain had passed a Bill for the enlistment of foreigners, the Government determined, under the provisions of that enactment, to enlist people in America. Being unable to intercept the emigration flowing from Germany to America, they went to America, and they gave instructions to our authorities there to form a foreign legion, to be composed of persons enlisted in America. One of the persons employed upon that occasion was our Minister at Washington (Mr. Grampian), another was the Governor of Nova Scotia, and a third was the Governor General of Canada; there were also some others. The noble Lord said that, as soon as Government discovered that umbrage had been given to the United States by the course they had taken, he gave instructions to our Ministers and agents not to trench in any way upon the municipal laws of America, and at the same time sent a full apology to the American Government. The noble Lord then appealed to the House, and said, "could we do more?" If the noble Lord had only done what he stated, I should have answered his appeal by saying that nothing more could be done. But the Government did more, and what they did I will now state. Mr. Crampton went from Washington to Nova Scotia, and he there entered into a sort of combination with the Governor of that Colony, and laid a plan by which the laws of the United States might be contravened, in order to obtain surreptitiously that which could not be obtained by other means. I will prove directly all that I assert out of Mr. Crampton's own mouth, or rather out of his own pen, but I ought first to state the law of America upon the subject of enlistment; and the House will then see that it is in I accordance with the opinion and feeling of the country. In the first place, it is illegal to enlist anybody in the United States for the services of a foreign State. The Government are not however charged with that offence, but with something more. Any person going to the United States and inducing people to leave those States for the purpose of being enlisted abroad also acts in contravention of the law, and this is the part of the law which Mr. Crampton is accused of having broken through. He went to Nova Scotia, he there engaged persons going to the States to enlist people—that is, to induce them to go to Nova Scotia to be enlisted. Now, the very act of inducing people to leave the United States for the purpose of being enlisted is a violation of the law, being a contravention of that neutrality to which the Americans wish to adhere. Mr. Crampton thought he could do this without being discovered by the authorities of the United States. They did, however, discover what was taking place, and, in consequence of that discovery, Mr. Crampton issued a proclamation from Nova Scotia, suggesting a means of evading the law of the United States, and giving the parties whom he employed a cypher by which they might communicate with him. Now, how do I prove this statement? Why, Sir, I hold in my hand a document, curious in many ways. It is a report of a trial that took place in Pennsylvania, in which one Henry Hertz was the defendant, being charged by the United States Government with certain breaches of the law set forth in the indictment. One peculiarity of the indictment is, that it is intelligible. This Henry Hertz was a man who had been employed by Mr. Crampton to crimp people—that is, to induce them to leave the United States and go to Nova Scotia for the purpose of being enlisted there, and then sent to the Crimea. Now, we are supposed to have made an apology to the United States, and it was supposed, too, and at one time supposed by myself, that the apology was one which the United States ought to have accepted; but it now appears that either Mr. Crampton went beyond his instructions, and, if so, the United States are fully justified in requesting his recall, or his instructions went beyond what the laws of the United States would permit, and in that case the United States would be justified in saying that the apology of our Government was disingenuous, and could not be admitted, and that they still insisted on the recall of Mr. Crampton. I will mention a circumstance known to every one familiar with the history of the United States, that during the revolutionary wars of France, and during the Presidency of Washington an envoy from France, Citoyen Genet, went to America, and endeavoured to fit out privateers contrary to the rules of neutrality which the United States had laid down. Washington and Jefferson complained of this conduct on the part of the citoyen, and they sent to the republican Government of France a requisition for his recall. He was recalled, and the demand of the United States was satisfied. The United States then did by a friendly Government—the Government of France —what they now do by England—namely, they demanded the recall of the man who had broken their laws of neutrality. Now, I want to make it clear that Mr. Crampton has also broken through the laws of the United States, which laws he ought to have known; and if he has broken through those laws without the authority of the Government here, the Government of the United States are fully justified in demanding his recall. If he has broken through them by the command of the Government here, then I say that the Government in making their apology have endeavoured to palm off a deception on this House and the country for which they are responsible. What, then, has been done? I will endeavour, as nearly as I can, to give the facts of the case from the report of the trial: and a curious one it was. Mr. Vanderliste, the district attorney for the United States at Philadelphia, was the prosecuting counsel. He got out of the witness that he had seen Mr. Crampton, and had been authorised by him to act as a recruiting sergeant for the troops of Her Most Gracious Majesty. The witness admitted that he had been in Nova Scotia, and got from Mr. Crampton a paper. That paper shows the system of deception that has been practised. The following is the paper:—

"Memoranda for the guidance of those who are to make known to persons in the United States the terms and conditions upon which recruits will be received into the British army:— 1. The parties who may go to Buffalo, Detroit, or Cleveland for this purpose must clearly understand that they must carefully refrain from anything which would constitute a violation of the law of the United States. 2. They must, therefore, avoid any act which might bear the appearance of recruiting within the jurisdiction of the United States for a foreign service, or of hiring or retaining anybody to leave that jurisdiction with the intent to enlist in the service of a foreign Power. 4. There must be no collection, embodiment of men, or organisation whatever attempted within that jurisdiction. 5. No promises or contracts, written or verbal, on the subject of enlistment must be entered into with any person within that jurisdiction."

Now, tins showed clearly that they knew the law, and that they were not breakers unknowingly. We were inducing persons to act in contravention of the law, and sought to evade the consequences of their acts. What was the inducement held out to men to go to Nova Scotia? Oh! there was a railway there, and in one breath they were told to go there to be navvies, and in another they were to go there to receive, according to the proclamation issued, thirty dollars on enlisting, and eight dollars a month while they remained in the service of Her Britannic Majesty. The paper goes on to state—

"The information to be given will be simply that to those desiring to enlist in the British army facilities will be afforded for so doing on their crossing the line into British territory, find the terms offered by the British Government may be stated as a matter of information only, and not as implying any promise or engagement on the part of those supplying such information, so long at least as they remain within American jurisdiction."

Can it be said, I ask, to be in accordance with the dignity of the British Government to publish such a statement as that? As honest men ought we so to act? The document proceeded:—

"It is essential to success that no assemblages of persons should take place at beerhouses or other similar places of entertainment, for the purpose of devising measures for enlisting, and the parties should scrupulously avoid resorting to this or similar means of disseminating the desired information, inasmuch as the attention of the American authorities would not fail to be called to such proceedings, which would undoubtedly be regarded by them as an attempt to carry on recruiting for a foreign Power within the limits of the United States; and it certainly must be borne in mind that the institution of legal proceedings against any of the parties in question, even if they were to elude the penalty, would be fatal to the success of the enlistment itself."

I ask whether the sentiments in that statement are consistent with English honour? It appears that the authorities of the United States did take umbrage at the proceedings, and what then occurred? Another paper was shown to the witness, and this is the evidence given:—

"In whose handwriting is this paper? — At that time I also received this cipher to telegraph with to Mr. Crampton, and to Halifax, about this recruiting business. I cannot swear to whose handwriting it is in, but I believe it is Mr. Crampton's. I did not see him write it, but he handed it to me."

The attention of the United States authorities was naturally drawn to these acts, and proceedings were taken against those engaged; their object was enlistment, an they knew that enlistment was contrary to the laws of the United States. I cannot but think that this was a discreditable display on the part of the English authorities. Mr. Crampton was responsible for all this. The attempt to evade the law was degrading to himself, and to the name of England, which he represented. The authorities of the United States did take umbrage at these proceedings, and this trial was instituted in consequence. Now, Sir, is anything more required to prove that Mr. Crampton knew the law, and that he took means to evade it, and that he was abetted therein by the Governor of Nova Scotia and the Governor General of Canada? All these English authorities endeavoured to break the law of the United States. It appears to me that a war between us and the United States would be a war between brethren, the evils of which, would surpass anything that could be imagined. We are the only two great free nations at the present time, and shall it be said that we cannot preserve peace between ourselves? This House and the country has been led to believe that it was by ignorance that a breach of the municipal laws of the United States had been committed by us, and that for that breach we made every atonement in our power; but could this House believe that we committed that breach with our eyes open, and that when we made an apology we were attempting to evade the laws of the United States, which we promised to observe? It may be said that these are statements made fit a trial by persons who turned evidence against their employers. That is true, I will allow; nay, I will allow that the report itself is a discredit to the United States. I think it is, and I will tell you why. Throughout the authorities show a feeling of violent hatred to England, and the defence of the parties charged is entirely excluded from the Report. In itself that Report is not worthy of any regard, but it contains documents written by Mr. Crampton, it contains statements which have never been contradicted, and which in themselves prove the case against our Government. Now, what I want to know is this—I want to know distinctly what were the instructions given to Mr. Crampton. It may be said that he was told not to break the law, but I want to know whether ho was told to enlist men in the United States, because to tell a man not to break the law, and in the next breath to tell him to do something by which the law will be broken, is nugatory. It is a farce—an idle direction, not worthy of any man who pretends to be a man of sense and honour. That Mr. Crampton knew the law is proved by his own written statements; he knew that to do certain acts was to break the law, and he laid plans by which he fancied that law could safely be broken. He was aided in this by two high functionaries—Sir Gaspard Le Marchant and Sir Edmund Head, as well as by Mr. Joseph Howe, a gentleman of some celebrity in Nova Scotia. Mr. Joseph Howe was sent to the United Stales; by his intervention people were employed to break the law of the Sates, and by his hands they were paid for so doing. After spending about 100,000 dollars he got together about 200 men, when he might have had the same number of thousands for half the money. I may be asked what good I expect to derive from this Motion. ["Hear, hear!"] I perfectly well understand that cheer. I know whence it proceeds and what it means, and my answer is, that I wish to obtain from the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government a distinct answer to this question— was Mr. Crampton instructed, not simply not to break the law, but not to do deeds by which the law would he broken? I wish further to draw forth an expression of opinion on the part of Members of this House which shall show the people of America that we are no parties to those dishonourable proceedings. I want this House, on the part of the people of this country, to say to our brethren across the water, that we sympathise with them, that we rejoice in all their greatness and good fortune, that we are running with them the race of improvement as brethren and not as enemies, that we desire the good of humanity, and that we would work it out with their aid, but that we feel that a war with America would retard the advancement of mankind for centuries, and that a war with any part of Europe would sink into insignificance compared with it. I do not like to plead my own inefficiency, but still I cannot help wishing that some more powerful person had undertaken this question. My heart is so bound up in it, my feelings are so strongly enlisted in it, that I feel I am advocating the rights of humanity when I am endeavouring to lay hare what I believe to be the misconduct of Her Majesty's Government in regard to the American people. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving that a copy of Mr. Crampton's instructions he laid on the table.

seconded the Motion.

Sir, the hon. and learned Gentleman who has made this Motion began by reproaching and condemning Her Majesty's Government for not having either mentioned our differences with America in the Queen's Speech, or laid on the table of this House the papers especially connected with the subject to which he has now called the attention of the House.

I beg the noble Lord not to disappoint me. I did not find any fault with the Government. I simply pointed out that they had not done what I said.

The hon. and learned Gentleman, I am glad to find, draws a distinction between an assertion of what the Government did not do, and a condemnation of them for not doing it. He is very much in the habit of animadverting on what the Government does not do, and I trust the House will understand for the future that, when the hon. and learned Gentleman recites the omissions of the Government, he does not mean any censure thereby. I must, however, remind the House that the American Government did not think fit to lay before Congress the correspondence relative to this question, and the same reasons which induced the American Government to withhold the correspondence in the present state of the matter were the reasons which induced Her Majesty's Government to pursue that course. I stated upon a former occasion, that Her Majesty's Government had thought until a few days before the meeting of Parliament that they would have been in a condition to lay that correspondence before Parliament, but that, either the day preceding, or two days before the commencement of the Session, the American Minister at this Court gave to my noble Friend at the head of the Foreign Office a long dispatch, containing a great variety of statements and asser- tions touching the conduct of Her Majesty's Minister at Washington and Her Majesty's Consuls in different parts of the United States, to which assertions and statements it was impossible for the Government to reply without referring to the parties themselves to know to what extent they were accurate. I said then that this made it impossible to answer that dispatch, and that as on the one hand we could not give the correspondence without an answer to that dispatch, so, on the other hand, it was equally impossible for us to give it with that important, dispatch entirely omitted. That, Sir, was the reason why Her Majesty's Government could not lay the correspondence before Parliament, and that was also the reason why I declined to enter into a detailed discussion of the question before Parliament were in possession of the necessary data. That state of things still remains. We have not yet received the information which will enable us to reply to that dispatch. As the hon. and learned Gentleman is aware, that dispatch contains a demand for the recall of our Minister at Washington and for the recall of our consuls, and to a demand of such gravity and importance it would be unbecoming for Her Majesty's Ministers to reply, either one way or the other, until they had accurately ascertained the foundation on which that demand was made. The same reason which made it our duty to withhold the papers then would, of course, make it equally our duty to refuse to give them piecemeal in the manner proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman. I said then, and I repeat now, that I trust that a very short time will elapse before we shall be in a condition to lay the whole of that correspondence before this House, and it will then be able to judge whether Her Majesty's Government and its officers in the United States have done that which ought to expose them to its censure, or whether, on the other hand, their conduct has been such as to entitle them to receive its support. I therefore cannot now follow the hon. and learned Gentleman through those details into which he has entered. All I can say is, that it was the desire and the instruction of Her Majesty's Government that nothing should be done which should be at variance with the laws of the United States. The hon. and learned Gentleman says that giving information to persons who might be willing to go to our provinces that they would there be enlisted if found fit, that the offering any inducement to leave the United States, was a violation of their municipal law. Sir, the United States is not the empire of Russia. Civitas non carcer est. The United States is a free country like our own, and would not impose upon any man the slightest restraint to prevent his quitting its boundaries for his own advantage. I will not now therefore argue a question which will be more properly examined when the papers, without which it would be unbecoming to enter upon it, are before the House; but this I will say, that during the course of these transactions offers were repeatedly made to Her Majesty's officers in the United States by persons whose sole object was to entrap them into something which might afterwards be construed into a violation of the municipal law of that country. A conspiracy was got up for the purpose of entrapping and misleading them, and inducing them to do that which might afterwards be fastened upon them as a violation of the national laws. As to the trial which has been referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman, I think that, when the details are made public, the House will not be disposed to attach to the statements which were made upon it so much importance as has been given to them by the hon. and learned Member. The hon. and learned Member says that the apology made by Her Majesty's Government was insincere and treacherous. The truth of that assertion I utterly deny. I utterly and entirely deny that we made that apology, intending to continue the violation of the law for which it professed to be the satisfaction. Sir, we had given directions that those proceedings, which might give umbrage to the United States, should be discontinued. The assertion made in the last dispatch from the American Government is that, after these directions were given, and after the explanation was tendered, some of these proceedings were continued. The truth of that assertion remains to be ascertained. If such was the case, the proceedings were clearly against the intentions and without the knowledge of the British Government. I repeat that that explanation, that statement of orders revoked, that expression of regret—not regret, as the hon. and learned Gentleman says, that the laws of the United States had been violated, because we did not believe that such a violation had occurred—but regret that anything should have occurred which could be considered by the American Government to amount to such a violation—was received by the American Minister at this Court with an expression on his part of a belief that it would be deemed satisfactory by his Government. As a proof that such was his belief, I may mention that lie sometime afterwards received a dispatch directing him to make a second remonstrance, and that he put that dispatch into his pocket, and abstained from communicating it to this Government, because he believed that the communication which he had previously forwarded to his Government would be deemed satisfactory. Sir, I am forced to make these statements, prematurely perhaps, because they belong to a part of the question which cannot be fully explained—by the extraordinary conduct of the hon. and learned Member. The fact, then, is, that a considerable time after our communication, stating that we had discontinued these proceedings, and expressing our regret if anything had happened which was contrary to the laws of the United States, the American Government re-opened the question, and it now stands in the undetermined position which I have described. Under such circumstances it really is very difficult for a person in my situation to deal with an hon. Member who pursues such a course as the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Roebuck) has adopted this evening. He knows that this question is still pending between the two Governments; he knows that Her Majesty's Government has received a communication from the United States, calling upon them to do things to which none but the most valid reasons would induce them to consent; he knows that we are waiting to receive from officers in America a Report upon the grounds on which those demands are founded; he knows that but a short time will elapse before that Report will be received, and a final answer one way or other be given to these requisitions; he knows that this question deeply concerns the feelings and the interests of two great nations; he must know, also, that to trifle with such feelings and such interests is a course unbecoming any man who belongs to a great National Assembly like this; and yet, knowing all this, he rushes with hasty impatience to interpose between the two Governments, and, if it be possible, to prevent that amicable arrangement which on matters of so delicate a nature cannot be come to unless both Governments are left to their own action without being swayed one way or the other, either by popular clamour, or by the expression of national feeling. These are differences which will only be settled in an honourable way by the two parties examining with dispassionate judgment their respective cases; yet in regard to them, the hon. and learned Gentleman rushes with this impatient haste to deliver himself of opinions formed upon an imperfect knowledge of the facts, and without the full statement of the whole case between the two countries, of which he might be in possession in a fortnight or three weeks, if indeed so long a time should elapse before it is ready; and, rising in his place, and holding in his hand the brief of the antagonist of his own country, he makes himself the mouthpiece of calumnies which have been uttered by interested parties in the United States against Her Majesty's officers in that country; and, not content with expressing his own opinions, calls upon the House of Commons, forsooth, to pronounce upon facts of which they are ignorant, and to draw conclusions from premises which have not been submitted to their judgment. Sir, in this House, every man is master of his own conduct. It is competent for any man to adopt such a course as he pleases. If he is so deeply imbued with the opinion that his country is wrong, as to rise in his place and call upon the House to condemn by anticipation, and without knowledge of the facts, the Government and his country, I am bound to suppose that in doing so he acts from motives which are paramount to every other consideration, and that he believes that in taking that course he is performing a duty to those who sent him here and to his country. All I can say in that respect is, that neither the spirit of party, the vehemence of opposition to any Government, nor any other motive, would induce me to take a part of which I should feel ashamed—to step between the House and the facts upon which an opinion is to be formed, and to call upon Members ignorantly and without information to pronounce a judgment against my country in a matter in which it is at issue with another. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded his address with the expression of a feeling which is entertained, I firmly believe, by the whole country—a sense of the calamities which would arise from a conflict between this country and the United States. No man can feel that more strongly than I do. Sir, I will not allow the hon. and learned Member a monopoly of those sentiments. I will venture to say that those are the feelings of the people of this country, and that no American can traverse Great Britain from John O'Groat's house to the Land's End, nor pass from the northern to the southern extremity of Ireland, without finding that there is, on the part of every man of information, and of every man who has the slightest influence upon others, the most friendly disposition towards the people of the United States. It is, however, one thing to entertain friendly sentiments towards a neighbouring and kindred people, and another to lose that self-respect which is due to ourselves. Under circumstances like these it is incumbent upon those who are charged with the public interests to consider, not whether they feel the most kindly sentiments towards another country, not whether the interests of the two are equally bound up in the continuance of friendly relations—I say equally, because let it be clearly understood that the interest in the maintenance of peace is perfectly mutual, and that, if to us war would be distressing and calamitous, it would be equally calamitous and distressing to the inhabitants of the United States—but to consider what is the justice of the case, and what is right and befitting the dignity and honour of the country with the interests of which they are charged. I am convinced that this good disposition is reciprocated on the other side of the Atlantic, and that, in spite of what we may have seen of speeches which savoured but little of such a feeling, the sentiment of friendship which prevails in this country is no stranger to the breasts of our American cousins. Notwithstanding these ebullitions, which have, in my opinion, a tendency to anything rather than the settlement of differences, I am persuaded that there is so much right feeling in the people of the United States, that they attach so much value to the friendship of the people of this great empire, and that they are so sensible that the interests of both are inseparably bound up with the maintenance of friendly relations between the two, that these matters of difference, when they are laid before the Congress of the United States, as they will be before the Parliament of Great Britain, will receive the calm, dispassionate, and reasonable consideration which is essential to their amicable settlement, and which will, I trust, prevent any intemperate individuals, either on the one side of the Atlantic or the other, from plunging the two countries into the calamities of war.

I had hoped, Sir, that I should not have had to address you on this subject until the whole of the papers relating to it had been laid upon the table of the House. I have ever felt that in all cases of this kind, where the conduct of a foreign Government is called in question, and especially where it is called in question under the circumstances which appear to apply to the present instance, it is of the highest importance that no opinion should be expressed upon it in this House until the House has been made acquainted with all the particulars of the case, and until we are in possession of such full, clear, and authoritative information as may enable us to arrive at a fair and accurate decision. To that opinion, notwithstanding the speech just made by the noble Lord the First Minister of the Crown, I still adhere, and, therefore, I shall most assuredly not support the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) in the Motion he has placed in the hands of Mr. Speaker. But I may be permitted to say that I, for one, protest against the principle which the noble Lord has laid down as that which should govern the conduct of Members of this House with respect to foreign transactions and the negotiations of this country with foreign Governments. Sir, I have always considered that it was the first duty of a Member of Parliament, if he believed that our affairs with foreign countries were not managed in a manner conducive to the interests and, above all things, to the honour of this country, it was his first duty, I say, to call the attention of Parliament to the subject. I have ever held, that if a statement were made by a Minister of the Crown, which a Member of Parliament deemed to be inconsistent with certain documents in his own possession, it was the imperative duty of such a Member to demand an explanation, and to ask for the opinion of this House in reference to the matter in question. This doctrine is, I venture to submit, a sound one; and I certainly think that it is not the duty of a, Minister of the Crown, filling the office of the noble Lord, to taunt an independent Member of Parliament with holding a brief from the enemy, or to call in question the motive that may have induced him to take a course which, however little I may be disposed to agree with the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield, I can have no doubt that he has adopted in fulfilment of what he deems his duty. I am of opinion, Sir, that, under the circumstances in which we now find ourselves with respect to this question, which so violently agitates the people and Government of the United States, the utmost forbearance and most cautious reserve are duties incumbent on this House. Thus much I am willing to concede; yet I cannot say that I am surprised that the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield should have made this Motion to-night. From the very moment that the noble Lord at the head of the Government volunteered an ex-parte statement in this House, while affecting to answer a question, I felt that it was inevitable that some effort would be made to induce the House to suspend its judgment, and refrain from sanctioning the conclusions which, with some unfairness and with great indiscretion, I think, and in a manner and spirit most premature, the noble Lord attempted to make it adopt, before it was in possession of the documents which alone could enable it to arrive at a correct and deliberate decision. Nor can I think that the tone of the noble Lord to-night will in any degree compensate for the indiscretion of which he was guilty in making that ex-parte statement the other evening. The noble Lord talks of the danger of trifling with the feelings of two great nations. Is the model of discussion to be taken from the speech of the noble Lord, who more than hints—who intimates to this House, that there has been a conspiracy on the part of the Government of the United States to entrap. [Loud cries of "No, no !"] I can only say that such was the impression I received from the statement of the noble Lord. ["No, no!"] That was what I collected from his words; but, if I be mistaken, what, let me ask, was his meaning?

I stated that which I believe to be the fact—that there was a certain number of persons, not connected with the American Government, who entered into a conspiracy to entrap the officers and agents of the British Government, into the commission of acts contrary to the laws of the United States.

Sir, I am willing to accept the explanation of the noble Lord; but the inference from the statement he now offers appears to be, that the circumstances to which he refers were really too trifling and indifferent to be brought before the House this evening. But I am bound to say that this subject, since we are forced to speak of it, assumes in my opinion a far graver character than I had hoped it would possess. I trust that no great length of time will elapse before these papers shall be submitted to our consideration, and until they are before us I shall scrupulously refrain from forming any opinion as to the conduct of the Government in this affair. However, Sir, one of the statements made by the noble Lord this evening has filled me with great alarm. He appeared to me to admit that even after the apologies, to which such frequent allusion has been made, had been offered to the American Government with respect to the behaviour of our Minister, and with reference to conduct acknowledged by Her Majesty's Government to be illegal, a course equally illegal was pursued by the agents of the Government, and apparently with the concurrence of the Government.

I said that an allegation to that effect had been made, and that inquiry as to its accuracy was deemed necessary.

I am sorry, Sir, to have misapprehended the noble Lord, but I certainly conceived him to have said, that the conduct of Her Majesty's Ministers and agents in America, with respect to the enlistment of troops, did not end with the apologies offered.

I am really ashamed. Sir, to have again to interrupt the right hon. Member. I stated that that was the allegation, and that it was with regard to the truth or erroneousness of that assertion that further information was required.

Sir, I beg the noble Lord to believe that there I have no desire to misinterpret him. I speak with the hope and wish of eliciting from the Government a satisfactory expression of feeling on a subject of the deepest interest. It is by no Motion of mine, but rather to my great regret, that this question has been brought forward; but, since it has been introduced, I venture to speak on it lest my silence might be misconstrued, and because I wish it to be understood that I do not approve of the tone adopted by the noble Lord on the present occasion. I will not revert to the point he has just noticed, further than to say that an apology founded on equivocation is the most dangerous instrument that any Govern- ment can use, and, when the promised, papers are produced, I hope that we shall not find the conduct of Her Majesty's Government impugned in that respect. Sir, I cordially concur in the hope expressed by the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield, that in this House there will be such an expression of opinion on the part of the representatives of the British people as will assure the subjects of the United States Government that here the question will be discussed without prejudice and without passion, and that we will not willingly defer to the rumours—on whatever authority founded in either country—that these questions are pretexts, and not causes for a misunderstanding between the two countries, which, if persisted in, I cannot but regard as one of the most calamitous events that could possibly occur. I trust that the hon. and learned Member will not persist with his Motion, for a division under the circumstances in which the House now finds itself might lead to much misconception. For my part, I think that if the hon. and learned Gentleman believed that there was an inconsistency, and a most important one, between the statement of the noble Lord the other night and certain documents in his own possession, he did nothing more than his duty as an independent Member of Parliament in bringing the question before the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman has done so, and he will stand clear before the House and the country for the course he has adopted. Should he, however, press his Motion to a division, I shall vote against him—not to imply approval of the Government, but because I think it would be injudicious to proceed further in this business until we shall have received the papers which have been promised, and for which I wait with great anxiety.

My object is sufficiently attained. I will withdraw the Motion.

I wish, Sir, to put a question to the noble Lord at the head of the Government. He stated the other evening that a formal offer of arbitration had been made to the Government of the United States with regard to the Central American question. Would the noble Lord have the goodness to say when that offer was made?

I will not trust my memory as to dates; but all the papers are in process of preparation. They will be before the House in a very short time, and will be found to contain the whole of the details.

said, that if he were not precluded by the forms of the House from moving an Amendment to the Motion, he should certainly call upon the House to refer these Estimates for consideration to a Select Committee, especially as these Estimates were for the first time submitted to the revision of the House only two years ago. As it was, he must content himself with laying before them some facts in justification of such a course. In the first place these Estimates, dealing with such an enormous amount of public money, and referring to the three great departments of the Customs, the Excise, and the Post Office, had only been in their bands a day and a half; it was obvious, therefore, that there had been no time to consider them. The expenses in the Customs, Excise, and Post Office amounted to £4,588,000. There was an increase in 1855 over 1854 of £333,000; and in 1856 over 1855 of £202,500; making a total augmentation of charge within the short period of two years of no less than £535,000. Surely, then, an investigation of the circumstances which had led to so large an addition to the public expenditure was imperatively demanded, in order to ascertain whether every portion of it was absolutely unavoidable, or whether waste and extravagance were not practised somewhere. For this purpose the day and a half that had been allowed the House to examine these Estimates before being called on to vote them was manifestly insufficient; and a reference to a Select Committee would alone enable them to check the different items with the view to a proper economy. He would, however, call attention to a few instances. They had in the Post Office Department officers called packet agents all over the world, and supported at the public expense. Taking Jamaica for example, he found that the management of the post office there involved an expenditure of no less a sum than £11,080 a year out of the public money. There was at Jamaica a deputy postmaster with £1,000 a year, and the clerks in the establishment received £4,480. He found also that the conveyance of mails in Jamaica cost this country £4,200, and that the surveyors' department cost £1,400, making together £11,080. Now he should like to know why the people of this country were to be called upon to be taxed to this enormous amount to maintain the post office of Jamaica. It was true that against that charge had to be set the receipts derived from postages, but it was obvious that the revenue accruing from that source must be very inadequate for reimbursing such a large outlay. Then there were the petty islands in the West Indies, whose names were hardly known, where postmasters were paid large sums out of the funds of this country. In Grenada, for example, the postmaster received £120 a year. Then, again, at Hong Kong, the postmaster received out of the public money a sum of £600 a year. At Canton the postmaster received £300 a year. These establishments altogether were put down in the Estimates at £2,200 a year. Then, again, we had a packet agent at New York. What could a packet agent have to do there? He did not think it would be found that New York had any such officer as a packet agent in this country. The Post-Office packet expenses cost the country the large sum of £800,000 a year, compared with which the receipts from the foreign and colonial postage was a trifle. In the Estimates of 1854 there was a charge for Custom-house officers in the North American colonies. In other words, we paid Custom-house officers for collecting the revenue of the colonies from which we derived no benefit whatever. In 1854 the charge under this head was £20,910 for the salaries and allowances to those officers in the North American colonies. On a previous occasion he had pointed that out to the Government, and last year it was reduced to £2,700. This year, he was happy to say, it had disappeared from the Estimates altogether. The other evening he brought the question of the Crown lands under the consideration of the House. He was sorry that nothing was said in the Estimates on that subject. He should like to know why these were withheld. It was a well-ascertained fact that in that department there was more waste than any other. It was a department which ought to be fully explained, for it belonged absolutely to the public, the Crown having, in consideration of the Civil List, made it over to the public. He had shown that £111,000 had been expended without in any way being accounted for. If he had gone to a divivision, as he had intended to do, he should have stated some additional facts, with a view to show the enormous character of the expenditure, but he would not now detain the House with them.

said, he wished to impress upon the House that the Estimates must be voted before the 13th of March, which was perhaps the principal argument against their being referred to a Select Committee, as had been suggested by the hon. Member who had just addressed them. There had been of late years so many investigations by Commissions and otherwise, and he thought the work which the hon. Member for Lambeth desired to accomplish had been more effectually accomplished by Commissions than by any other means. In 1848, a Commission was appointed to inquire into the whole of the Customs department, and their labours were attended with very beneficial results, and many important changes had been effected. A Committee of that House had also laboured very beneficially in reference to improvements in the Custom system. Then, with regard to the Post Office. Last year, there was laid upon the table the result of a very careful inquiry into that establishment, the recommendations of which were now being carried into effect, and which had occasioned a part of the increase to which the hon. Member had referred. The increase to which the hon. Member had referred had been occasioned by the greater facilities of railways, and by the extension of district ports into every part of the United Kingdom. At present, the authorities of the Post Office were engaged in improving the communication with Ireland, in consequence of which there would probably be an increase in the Estimates next year. Then, again, with regard to the Customs, the labours of the department must be reckoned by the number of ships entering, and not by the amount of revenue received; and, to show how the business had increased, he need mention but one solitary fact—that, in 1820, the cost of collection was £8 19s. per cent, and the amount of shipping 2,115,000 tons, while, last year, the cost of collection was reduced to £5 14s. per cent, and the amount of shipping had increased to 9,151,000 tons. [Mr. W. WILLIAMS: What was the increase last year?] The increase in 1854 was 200,000 tons. With regard to the Post Office, it had been said that the charges abroad ought not to be paid. If £800,000 a year were paid for packets, it was clear that we must have some persons to receive the letters thus conveyed. The hon. Member had said that there was no occasion for packet agents at Now York. The Government were obliged to send their Canadian letters and dispatches through the United States, and it was indispensable therefore that some one should be at New York to take charge of them in the interval between their arrival there and their despatch for Canada. Then, in regard to the Crown lands, he might state that a Return had been laid before the House, in which the whole revenue was stated in one column, the cost of collection in another, and the net receipts in a third. The public only held this property in trust, and at the death of any Sovereign the successor might take it, so that there was no constitutional reason why the House of Commons should not have the Estimates, more especially when it had the best possible information about the expenditure. As the hon. Gentleman was not to press his Motion for a Committee, he would not make any further remarks.

said, in respect to the Crown lands, it was true that the accounts were given in the annual finance accounts, but they were given in such a confused shape, that he thought they would puzzle the hon. Secretary himself to understand them. He found amongst those accounts the item of £49,000 under one head, which was no account at all. The House was placed in a difficult position as regarded those Estimates. They were now called upon to Vote something like £5,000,000 without being able to ascertain whether the money was well applied or not. If the House had undertaken the duty of passing the annual Estimates, they ought to be prepared to examine into their details. He recollected when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) had made the change regarding the mode of dealing with those Estimates, and at the time he entertained much doubt as to the policy of the change. Now, with respect to those Estimates, what happened in 1854? Why, those Estimates were all passed on a Wednesday, within a period of eight minutes. The House had lost the security which it possessed before, when the heads of the various departments were held responsible for those Estimates. Between the responsibility attached to the Government and that attached to the House if it passed those Estimates without inquiry, he was afraid that it would be difficult to place the responsibility upon any party. In respect to the payment of the clerks in the Custom House and the Post Office, there were great complaints from all parts of the country that their salaries were entirely too low. Unless they placed those Estimates in the hands of a small body of men for investigation, it would be impossible for the House to consider them properly. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he had taken into his consideration the propriety of submitting those Estimates to some special ordeal. Those Estimates had been only for three years presented to the House in their present shape. It behoved them to ascertain whether the right hon. Gentleman had considered the propriety of referring those Estimates to Select Committee.

said, he was perfectly ready to enter into a fair discussion of the Motion of the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. W. Williams), whenever he brought it on. His answer to the question just put to him by the hon. Member who spoke last was this—If those Estimates had never undergone any ordeal—if they had never been submitted to any investigation—it would have been very proper, not only for the Government, but for every independent Member of the House of Commons, to demand that they should be submitted to a certain scrutiny; but, inasmuch as they had been annually submitted to Parliament, and from time to time had undergone a searching investigation, it would be only an unnecessary waste of time to refer them now to a Select Committee. It was, of course, the interest of the Government to collect the revenue in the cheapest and most efficacious manner. Not only had those Estimates from time to time been investigated by Commissioners of Revenue, but Commissions almost without number had investigated the collection of the revenue. There was scarcely any part of the expenditure more thoroughly considered during a long series of years— certainly as far back as the peace—by persons well skilled in all the departments of finance, with the double view—in the first place, of making the collection as economical as possible; and in the next, of organising the revenue department as efficiently as possible in order to prevent evasions of the revenue. Those observations applied to the department of stamps and taxes, including the income tax, to the Excise, to the Customs, and to the Post Office. The perpetual complaints made to the Government were, that sufficient accommodation had not been given to the public in the delivery of letters; that the speed was not sufficiently great; that the deliveries should be more numerous; that not sufficient use was made of the railways; but that the old and less expeditious mode of conveyance was still resorted to. Now all the grounds of those complaints had been investigated, and the best remedies possible applied. Any further alterations would only lead to increased expenditure and greater cost in the collection of the revenue. Now, having given to those Estimates, in regard to that particular branch of the revenue, his especial care, he would express his confident opinion that there was no part of the public expenditure which could bear, without difficulty or without discredit, a more searching, a more jealous, and even a more hostile investigation than the expenditure for the different branches of the revenue. As far as any apprehension as to the result was concerned, he entertained none whatever as to the result of an inquiry into the subject by any impartial tribunal. If the House could satisfy itself that there was a rational ground to employ fifteen hon. Members as a Committee for the rest of the Session in investigating into the revenue departments—and if they thought that the result would be the introduction of some essential improvement, or that there would be a reduction effected in the expenses of the department, he should certainly offer no objection to such an inquiry. In the absence, however, of any such assurance, he confessed he did not see any advantage arising from the appointment of such a Committee.

said, he begged to ask for an explanation in respect to three items—namely, the medical inspector, with a salary of £800 a year; £28,000 for rent of warehouses for bonding tobacco; and the employment of three inspectors to look after twelve persons.

said, that a medical inspector was employed in the Customs department in the fulfilment, of the following duties. The Committee would observe that 1,800 persons were employed in that department in London. To some of these an annual payment was made, to others a small daily addition whenever they were actually employed. Amongst so large a number of men, it was necessary to have some one competent to examine those who were desirous of entering the service. It was also necessary that a medical inspector should visit those who were absent on the ground of disease, in order, amongst so large a number, that the public should not be defrauded by simulated ill health. There was yet another reason for this officer; it was that it was found to be very essential to have some one to visit the poorer classes of employés when they were actually unwell. So necessary was this, that he could inform the Committee that many large establishments had of late years appointed such an officer, and as an example of this he would mention the Bank of England. The next question was as to the charge of £28,000 for bond ware-houses for tobacco, in respect of which only £8,000 was received from the merchants placing tobacco in bond. There was no doubt but that the revenue was a loser upon this item, but it was necessary to keep up the bond warehouse by reason of an Act of Parliament binding the Government to do so, the Government by statute being responsible for warehoused tobacco. The Act was rendered necessary from the character of the tobacco trade, and the probability there was of frauds occurring without especial care being taken. The last question of the hon. Member was, as to the employment of three inspectors to look after twelve under officers. The hon. Member seemed to suppose that the inspectors did nothing but look after those who were placed under them; but the fact was, that they worked at their particular branch in the same way is the subordinates, and were, in fact, a sort of superior officer.

said, he should wish to see the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. W. Williams) taking up greater subjects than those connected with the payment of men, most of whom had discharged their duties in a manner most creditable to themselves, and advantageous to the public, at a miserably low rate of salary. Considering that the revenue from tobacco amounted to £5,000,000 a year, he thought that the Government could not do better than to provide proper ware- houses for the article. He believed there was no other country in the world that paid their really working clerks such small salaries as ours did. He did not know any class of men so badly paid, and who worked so laboriously as the clerks in the department of the Post Office.

said, he must complain of the inadequate remuneration given to the junior clerks in the Customs. He thought some of the higher officers should be reduced for the purpose of increasing the pay of the juniors. There wore thirty-four clerks receiving £38,000 a year amongst them, while there were 1,800 junior clerks, amongst whom £300,000 was given. Such an unjust discrepancy ought not to be allowed to exist. He must also complain of the manner in which the duties of those clerks were apportioned. Money was paid for extra time in the long room, but such money was most partially awarded, some getting nothing, while the more favoured ones got a great deal. Those who were required to attend before eight o'clock in the morning got nothing for overtime, but those who remained after four o'clock in the afternoon were those who were paid overtime. He trusted the whole system would be looked into and improved. He could bring forward circumstances connected with the Customs, which would astonish the House, He knew of a case of fm officer in the Customs who was so aged and infirm that he was carried out of a cab into his office, and had to sit in a chair every morning for half an hour before he could proceed with his duties.

said, he begged to call the attention of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to an item of £28,500 for providing warehouses to store tobacco. This was reduced by a sum of;£8,000 received from merchants for the use of those stores. Now, what he desired to know was, why the sum received bore so small a proportion to the sum paid?

said, that warehouses of a very extensive and peculiar kind had to be provided for the storage of tobacco. Such provision was made for the protection of the revenue, but the merchants ought not to suffer for that, and therefore it was not thought right to charge them a higher storage rent than would be charged for ordinary warehouses. An additional reason for the disparity between the sum received and the sum paid under this head was, that while the Customs de- partment were obliged to have warehouses sufficiently large to contain any quantity of tobacco which might be stored at any one time, they could only charge for the space occupied. During the greater part of the year there was a great deal of unoccupied storage in the warehouses.

said, he thought the revenue should not lose £20,500 a year by those warehouses. The parties who derived advantage from them ought to pay for them.

said, he thought an expenditure of £28,000 to get an income of £8,000 was an astounding fact. Either there was a great want of judgment in the expenditure, or of vigilance in collecting the income.

said, he wished to ask how had the vacancies caused in the coast-guard service, by so many of the coast guardsmen having joined the navy, been filled up? and whether the coast guards, who were now novices at their business, had been trained sufficiently to prevent any loss to the revenue from their want of skill and experience in their duties? The next question he would ask was, what average proportion did the pay of the now hands bear to that of those who had been placed in the navy?

said, that the vacancies which the hon. and gallant Member alluded to had not been all filled up. In the selections they had made of new hands the department had done the best they could to procure efficient officers. An increase of a sum of £2,700, that appeared in the Estimates, occurred in this way—the Customs had been obliged to provide pensions for a number of men who had joined the navy, but who, it appeared, were not entitled to pensions on account of naval service.

said, he begged to inquire whether there was not a difference between the pay of the coast guards employed in this country and those employed in Ireland? He did not know why there should be.

said, that up to a recent period there was a difference, owing to the coast guardsmen in Ireland having been paid in Irish currency. However, on a representation of that fact being made to them, the Lords of the Treasury had come to the conclusion that there was no reason why there should be this difference, and an assimilation of pay had been the result.

said, he would also beg to ask whether care had been taken, when the recent appointments were being made, to appoint to the coast guard service men who had been to sea, and who were of such an age as that their services could be made available for the navy, in case of a continuance of the present war, or of a new war arising? He made this inquiry in consequence of the number of coast guardsmen who had come into the navy bald-headed and with, spectacles.

said, that every care had been taken to procure efficient men. It was, however, very difficult at the present time to get them. Many of those who had temporarily left the service to join the navy would expect to be restored to their former positions when peace should have been restored.

said, he wished, before this Vote was taken, to call the attention of the Committee to the amount of poundage paid for the collection of the income tax. Although under an increased taxation, the income tax collectors had only the same duty to perform as when the amount to be collected was much smaller, they were allowed the same poundage, and the result was, that they had made, in 1855, double what they had in the previous year. The poundage paid to one gentleman was, for the year 1855, £5,740, out of which he bad to pay a sum of £800 for clerks, leaving him a net income of £4,900 for the year. Now, if this gentleman were to be paid the same rate of poundage for the present year, his pay for collecting income tax would amount to between £6,000 and £7,000, besides which he was paid for other duties discharged by him in connection with the revenue. If there were no other mode of dealing with this matter a Bill ought to be brought in to change the system. There was an anomaly in the matter too; for the gentleman whoso name appeared first on the list of the London collection, and whose services were of the highest order, received only £450 a year.

said, that the Committee was aware that the collection of income tax was different in principle from that of any other tax. As a general rule, the collector of a revenue tax was an officer paid by the department of the Government under which he was employed, and was an officer of the establishment; but on account of the jealousy that not unnaturally existed in regard to the particular nature of the income tax, Commissioners were appointed, who were not officers of the Crown, and those Commissioners appointed collectors, who were paid a poundage settled by Act of Parliament. This system might occasionally lead to such anomalies as that now under the consideration of the Committee. He confessed himself that, though he entertained great respect for the jealousy manifested by Parliament in all that pertained to the income tax, he nevertheless had some doubt as to the expediency of the present system of collection, and he believed that, on the whole, it would be more advisable to assimilate the system of income tax collection to that on which the other revenue taxes were collected. He had for some time had a plan for effecting this object under his consideration; but there were difficulties in the way of carrying it out, which must be overcome before he could submit any proposition on the subject to the House.

said, he must complain of the discrepancy of the incomes of the collectors, some being £6,000 a year and some only £27. In the country, farmers had to collect over large and thinly-populated districts for the latter remuneration. He also had to complain of an item of £10,000 for copying wills, he presumed with a view to the collection of the legacy and probate duty. The amount seemed enormous, and, he believed, gave an income of from £8,000 to £9,000 a year to an officer of Doctors' Commons. Why not have the wills copied by the clerks from the Inland Revenue Department? He also wished for information respecting £63,000 for the revenue police in Ireland, including a charge for a screw steamer.

said, that the fees alluded to by the hon. Member were paid in pursuance of a regulation of the Ecclesiastical Courts, with which the Treasury had nothing to do. However, from what bad recently been stated as to the number of wills lodged in Doctors' Commons in a year, this sum of £10,000 would show a fee of 5s. for each will, which was not an extravagant sum. The employment of the revenue police in Ireland had been rendered necessary by the increase which had from time to time been made in the duty on whisky. The steamer was employed in consequence of a number of cargoes of tobacco having been landed on the coast of Ireland, which afforded facilities for that kind of smuggling.

said, he should like to have seen the increase made in the salaries of the superior officers of the Post Office in Ireland extended to the inferior class of officers; but he saw no reason whatever why the head of the department in that country should have his salary increased to £1,000 a year, especially as there were no additional duties imposed upon him. It would be in the recollection of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, that last year a Committee was appointed to inquire respecting the conveyance of the mails and the manner in which the Post Office carried out the service in certain parts of Ireland. Subsequently the Committee was instructed to extend its inquiries to the whole of Ireland; but its sittings commenced so late in the Session that it found it could not get through the details in sufficient time to prepare any recommendations upon the subject. It recommended, therefore, that it should be permitted to resume its inquiries during the present year. He now wished to know if the Government were prepared to allow the Members of that Committee to re-assemble; for he believed he might say he was authorised to state that many of the most useful of its Members were ready to serve again. At the present moment there was a fresh necessity for the resumption by the Committee of its labours. Within the last two or three days a Treasury Minute had been issued with regard to the postal communication between England and Ireland, which was drawn up, as it appeared to him, satisfactorily to the Irish people. It pointed at some acceleration in the mail communication between London and Dublin; but he apprehended that those alterations would entail an almost total change of times of arrival and departure, not only between one country and the other, but in all the provincial towns of Ireland. He thought the Committee might well take these arrangements into its consideration, and he hoped the Government would allow it to reassemble for the purpose of concluding its labours.

said, there was no change in the conditions upon which the office of secretary to the Post Office in Ireland was held, as his hon. and gallant Friend seemed to think; but, according to the original conditions, it was to be augmented £100 a year, from £700 until it reached £1,000. With regard to the Treasury Minute, his hon. and gallant Friend had fairly stated that the great changes which were contemplated by it might possibly cause an alteration in the hours of arrival and departure of the mail between the two countries, and in that event involve the necessity of some reorganisation of all the internal mails. But a work of that kind could not possibly be undertaken by a Committee of that House. It was of so extensive and minute a character that it would require the officers of the chief office themselves, in their individual capacity, to lay it down and work it before a Committee could possibly judge of the propriety of the arrangement. If, after the new arrangements were completed, it appeared to Irish Members that it was desirable the Committee should inquire further into the local postal regulations, he should not, on the part of the Government, oppose it.

said, he certainly considered that it would be better that the new arrangements should be carried out by the Post-Office officials. He would not, therefore, move for the reappointment of the Committee, until he saw how the arrangement worked.

said, he wished to draw attention to the circumstance that a memorial had been presented to the Post-Office authorities, from the local magistrates and inhabitants of Dundee, complaining of the small number of lettercarriers—seven only—employed in that town. He hoped the number would be increased, and also that the carriers would be provided with a distinctive uniform.

said, he thought the letter-carriers were, as a rule, very badly remunerated. For his part he was not surprised that so many robberies were perpetrated by that class of servants; he rather wondered that there were not more. The poor men were kept on their feet for eight and ten hours a day, and received in wages the miserable pittance of 19s. a week. It was a disgrace to the department, that with so large a revenue, it should pay the men such scanty wages. He willingly admitted that Mr. Rowland Hill had done a great deal to improve the postal service and promote its efficiency; but there was much more yet to do before he would have placed it on a proper footing. The times of Sir Robert Walpole had been referred to as distinguished for corruption. [Laughter.] The Secretary to the Treasury might laugh; but he (Mr. Michell) could tell him that the Post Office could furnish him with cases of corruption worthy only of the times of Walpole. See, for example, the invidious distinction that was made between the post offices in the borough towns and those in towns which were not boroughs. Why, in the former, the officials were paid double what they were in the latter; and the reason was palpable. Political considerations were at the bottom of it all. In Honiton, with a population of 3,437, the post-office expenditure was £161 per annum, and the letter-carrier was paid £36. Honiton was a borough represented by two Whigs. But in Sidmouth, with a population of 3,444, the expense of the post office was £90, and the letter-carrier was paid only £18. Sidmouth, however, was not a borough. These cases were not exceptional; for there was a long list of others precisely similar in their character, and among these he might mention Bridport. [An hon. MEMBER: "Bodmin."] Yes, Bodmin, too; he would not excuse it more than any other place; Chard, Crewkerne, and St. Austel. He considered the system was a disgrace to the Post-Office authorities, and the sooner a Committee was appointed to inquire into it the better.

said, he quite concurred with the hon. Member for Bodmin that the letter-carriers were most inadequately paid. He also wished to draw attention to the smallness of the remuneration awarded to postmasters in villages in remote districts. He did not, however, blame the officials for that, but the system. It clearly showed that there was something radically wrong in the mode in which the large funds of the Post Office were appropriated. If the revenue of the department was sufficient to cover the expenditure proposed, and give a surplus, he thought they should not have persons in the service who were insufficiently paid. The answer given by the General Post Office to the representations made to it on the subject was, that the profits of those districts were not enough to justify an increase of the allowance made to those persons. But he regarded the Post Office as a national establishment; and if they were receiving too little in one part of the king- dom, they were receiving so much in another, that, in his opinion, they might with the greatest justice and propriety make that increase.

said, he must confess that he was astonished at the wonderful regularity and despatch with which the Post-Office arrangements were carried out, although, no doubt, there might be some small matters which required adjustment. He thought it would be a useful change in London and large cities if all the receiving houses were required to have some sign or distinguishing mark in the day, and a coloured light after dark to attract the eye, so that a stranger might know where to go to post a letter by night and by day. He would also suggest that the letter-carriers should wear a similar kind of uniform in the country as they did in London.

said, that the practice of giving uniforms had, within the last year, been extended to several towns, including Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Liverpool. In answer to some remarks which had been made by different hon. Members, he begged to observe, that there could be no question that the large towns had been well supplied with letter-carriers, but that the great difficulty of the Post Office hitherto had been in permeating the rural districts; and that was one of the special objects to which Lord Canning had with great assiduity directed his attention. Eight or ten years ago there was scarcely such a thing as a sub-post office in the small hamlets and villages throughout the country. In 1854, however, there were as many as 7,986 of such Post Offices; in 1855 the number bad been increased to 8,479; and at present there were 8,960—showing an increase of nearly 1,000 in two years. The hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Michell) had complained of the low rate at which the keepers of those offices were paid; but the fact was that either those persons must be paid a very small sum, or the sub-post offices must be given up. Small as the amount was, however, there was a great deal of competition for it, and it was somewhat enhanced by the poundage received upon the sale of postage and receipt stamps. The gross revenue of the Post Office was £2,700,000, and the cost of collection was £1,700,000, leaving a balance of £1,000,000, of which, however, the packet service consumed £800,000. Strictly speaking, the Post Office must not be regarded as a branch of revenue, but as a great public service which conferred vast advantages upon the community, and did little more than pay its expenses.

said, ho wished to point out that there was an increase in the salary of the solicitor to the Post Office at Edinburgh from £100 to £400 a year, and, without saying that the amount was too large, he wished to know the reason for the increase? He also begged to ask what this country had to do with paying for the postal arrangements of Jamaica and Hong Kong? There was a deputy postmaster general at Jamaica with a salary of £1,000 a year; what were his duties? There were numerous clerks also, and various incidental expenses, which brought up the item for salaries to £4,480. What did this country, he would ask, receive in return for that payment? The postmaster general at Hong Kong received £600 a year; that appeared to be an extravagant sum, and the Committee had a right to some explanation on the subject.

said, that the increase from £100 to £400, for the salary of the solicitor to the Post Office in Edinburgh was accounted for by the fact that the £100 had been paid to a deputy while the office of solicitor was vacant; but a new appointment having been since made, the salary of course returned to its former scale. With regard to the case of Jamaica, the amount of the post-office salaries (£4,480) was far more than compensated by the postal revenues derived from that island. Should the Colonies hereafter prefer to undertake the management of their own postal establishments entirely new arrangements would have to be made; but as long as the mother country collected the whole of these revenues she must be content to bear the whole of the expense. As to the salary of the postmaster at Hong Kong, £600 was not an excessive remuneration for a man who expatriated himself to an unhealthy climate to fill such an office; and when it was borne in mind that we carried on an export trade with China amounting to more than £2,000,000 annually, together with a very extensive import trade, it would he obvious that regular postal communication with that distant quarter was indispensable, and could not be provided except at considerable expense.

said, that a larger trade was carried on at Canton, where the postmaster's salary was but one-half the sum paid at Hong Kong. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Wilson) had not explained the whole of the items relating to Jamaica. There was a charge of £42,700, which he had not accounted for.

stated, that only £1,300 of the £42,700 applied to Jamaica. The hon. Member had committed the serious mistake of placing a charge, spreading over the whole of the British Empire, to the exclusive account of the island of Jamaica.

Sir, I rise to ask for leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Act relating to the Superannuation of the Civil Service. In submitting to the House the Motion of which I have given notice, I will take the liberty of calling its attention to the manner in which the existing system of superannuation in the civil service originated and has worked. In the last Session of Parliament the subject of administrative reform deservedly engaged a considerable portion of the attention of this House. Her Majesty's Government; fully appreciated the importance of that subject, and is desirous, to the extent of its power, of contributing to the reform of the administrative departments. One important element in that reform is the just apportionment of the remuneration of persons employed in the civil service. This remuneration, according to the present mode of payment, is divided into two parts. It consists partly of an annual salary received by a public servant while he is discharging the duties of his office. It also consists of an allowance which he receives at the time when he ceases to be able to perform those duties. During the last Session of Parliament I was asked whether it was my intention to submit to the consideration of the House a Bill which I found in existence at the time of my accession to office. I replied, that the business of the Session would not admit of any probability of its being considered at that period, but that as soon as an opportunity should present itself I would call the attention of the House to the subject. In fulfilment of that promise I have now to ask the House to permit me to introduce, this evening, a Bill which is sub- stantially identical with that which I found in existence on my coming into office. Before I explain the provisions of the Bill, I will trouble the House with some remarks upon the nature of the present system of superannuation. I will do so for various reasons. In the first place, the existing system of superannuations has given rise to extensive complaints and dissatisfaction on the part of the members of the civil service. Those complaints and that dissatisfaction have found numerous modes of expression. They have been circulated in printed statements, they have teen expressed in newspapers, they have found organs in this House; and I think it due to so important, so respectable, and so public-spirited a body of men as the civil service, that their complaints should be fairly considered and investigated. I am sure that every Member of this House, casting aside those old prejudices which used to be entertained against placemen merely as such, will admit the great importance to the due conduct of the Government of the country of the permanent civil service. We know how much importance was attributed to the permanent civil service connected with the army during the painful discussions that took place last Session. The civil service connected with the administrative departments at home is equally important to the due conduct of our public affairs; and those Gentlemen who give an unpaid attention to the business of the State as Members of this House will, I am sure, be not slow to recognise the valuable assistance which the stipendiaries in the civil service render to them in the discharge of their public duties. There is another reason why I am desirous of calling the attention of the House to the state of the existing system of superannuations. That system has grown up within a comparatively recent period; but during the short time it has existed there has been much inconsistency shown in the conduct of this House in dealing with the subject. Important changes have been made without due deliberation, and, now that we are called upon to reconsider the question, it seems to me of the utmost importance that we should proceed to that consideration with a full knowledge of all the antecedent circumstances, in order that any measure we may adopt in the present Session may be of such a nature as will prevent future vacillation and uncertainty on the subject. During the last century there was no system established by Act of The Chancellor of Parliament for the superannuation of the civil service. The Treasury had a general power, in certain cases where it thought fit to interfere, of granting retiring pensions, but that power was not very frequently exercised, because there were then numerous sinecures in existence which were called in aid for the purpose of providing for persons whose time of service had been so long as to give them a fair claim for retirement. The system was altogether irregular; it did not, indeed, deserve the name of a system, and about the end of the century remarks were made by several Committees of this House as to the expediency of introducing a more regular and better adjusted mode of superannuation for the civil service. And here I must be permitted to say, in connection with the plan which then existed, that in my opinion nothing can he more shortsighted than to abstain from providing superannuations for civil servants who are unable, from ago or infirmity, to discharge their duties efficiently. When a person of liberal education has given the best part of his life to the service of the public, and the time comes when it would be for the public advantage that he should retire, it will be found that no Government, from whatever side of the House it may be taken, will consign such a gentleman to poverty and destitution, if such would be the effect of compelling him to retire. The certain result, if no system of superannuations be provided, inevitably will be that a largo number of persons, incapable of performing their duties on account of old age or ill health, will be kept quartered upon the public offices, incumbering the departments to which they belong, and excluding from the upper branches more efficient persons, who would be entitled to an increase of salary, they themselves performing scarcely any duty, but receiving high salaries, and the chief business of the departments falling upon their juniors, who, with inferior and inadequate salaries, would be called upon to discharge their duties. Such an unwholesome and inefficient state of the public service would, I venture to predict with great confidence, be the inevitable result of attempting to carry on the civil service of the State without superannuation allowances. Well, Sir, about the beginning of the present century the foundation of a system was laid. A Treasury Minute, of the 10th of August, 1803, is the first authority by which a system of superannuations was introduced. The operation of that Minute was confined to officers of customs. An officer who had served with diligence and fidelity, and was reported to be absolutely incapable, from infirmity of mind or body, of executing the duties of his office, might retire upon one-third of his salary. Service from ten to twenty years was rewarded with one-half of the salary; and above twenty years, with two-thirds. This was, I consider, a very liberal provision. We next come to the first Act of Parliament on the subject. The 49th of George III. c. 96, entitled "An Act to provide for a durable Allowance of Superannuation to the Officers of Excise" was passed in the year 1809. An officer who had served less than ten years was entitled by that Act to three-fourths of his salary, if incapable of duty; and an allowance was also provided for officers who had served between seven and ten years, and who were incapacitated by injuries received in the execution of their duty. There is one peculiarity in this Act which I would venture to point out to the House. The Act recognises the principle of making deductions from the salaries of Excise officers for the purpose of creating a fund from which superannuation allowances were to be paid, and directed that the sums so collected should be invested in Government securities. The next Act of the Legislature on the subject was in 1810. That Act approved of the Treasury Minute of 1803, and fixed certain limits, but less restrictive than those of the Minute. It set forth a scale of superannuation and determined the conditions upon which allowances were to be made. This was the first general Act for superannuation of the civil service, the previous Act having been confined to the department of Excise. I come now, Sir, to the fate of the Customs' Superannuation Fund, which it seems had not a very long existence. It was originated in 1803. In 1811, when in consequence of the war the finance Minister of the day was obliged to resort to various expedients for raising the revenue, a Bill was passed for abolishing the superannuation fund in the department of the Customs, for transferring it to the Consolidated Customs; that is to say, for carrying it to the account of revenue—and for authorising the payment of all retiring allowances in that department out of the Consolidated Fund. Now the meaning of that phraseology was simply this, that the Government took possession of the fund, paid it into the Exchequer, and made the superannuation allowances a charge on the general revenue. The sum thus paid over was £165,071. Such was the fate of the I Customs' Superannuation Fund. That I brings us to the year 1821, when, in consequence of an Address of the House of Commons, originating in a Motion by the late Member for Montrose, Mr. Hume, for an inquiry into the several civil departments, the Treasury, among other things, took the superannuation allowances into consideration. The House will recollect that at that time there was no fund in existence, the Government having appropriated the only one that had been created. A Treasury Minute was issued on the 10th of August, 1821, recommending that those who enjoyed the benefit of the superannuation allowance should be called upon to contribute to a superannuation fund, and also proposing an amended scale of allowances, somewhat less liberal than that of the Act of 1810. At this time the amount of the superannuation allowances began to attract much of the national attention, and a movement took place for the purpose of diminishing the expenditure under this head. The Treasury Minute to which I have referred led to the Superannuation Act of 1822, by which the superannuation fund was authorised to be raised by a percentage on salaries and emoluments. All the salaries of persons to whom superannuation allowances might be granted were charged as follows, and this is the first introduction of the system of deductions, which is one of the many grounds of complaint urged by the civil service. Salaries under £100 were exempt; those between £100 and £200 paid a deduction of 2½ per cent, and those above £200, 5 per cent. I ought to mention that at this time all the departments of the civil service had undergone a general revision by the Treasury, in consequence of the movement originated by Mr. Hume, and on the ground of the regulation then made it was required that all salaries increased beyond a certain regulated rate should pay 10 per cent—that is to say, that if a civil servant received an increase of salary beyond the regulated rate, he had to pay upon it an annual deduction of 10 per cent. It was further enacted that the contributions should be paid into the Bank of England to an account to be raised in the names of the Commis- sioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, being entitled the General Superannuation Fund; also, that in every case where an officer retired from the office held by him, under any circumstances that would not allow of the grant of a superannuation allowance, he should be entitled to the return of all the money deducted from his salary, but without interest; and that if an officer died while in office, the sum contributed by him should be paid to his executors, also without interest. The repayment of contributions was likewise authorised where an officer might die after his resignation or removal from any office without having received a superannuation allowance. The Act also introduced a new scale somewhat more liberal than that of 1810. The Act was made applicable to the case of existing officers, and this caused so much objection that in the following year a Motion was made in Parliament on the subject which was supported by a majority of the House, though opposed by the Government of the day. The result of this Motion was, that in 1824 a Bill was passed by which so much of the Act of 1822 as related to the superannuation fund was repealed, and the sums paid during the two preceding years returned to the contributors. The whole amount of these contributions I have not been able to ascertain; but in 1823 they amounted to £88,000, so that probably the entire sum was something short of £180,000. We now arrive at this result—Parliament, having created a superannuation fund in 1822, changed its mind two years afterwards, and the contributions to the fund were repaid to the contributors. That was the state of the second superannuation fund which Parliament created, the first having been made a charge on the general revenue of the country. The second fund, after two years, was, as I have just stated, dissolved by the return of all the contributions. I wish to draw attention to these circumstances, because one of the plans now proposed by members of the civil service involves the creation of a superannuation fund. I have now shown the attempts which have; been made to create a superannuation fund, and the breaking down of the system in two years. Nevertheless, the opinion of Parliament was that a superanimation allowance ought to exist, and that it might be effected; and the subject, came before a Committee of the House which sat to consider the state of public salaries and expenditure in public offices in 1828, and which was presided over by Sir Henry Parnell. The object in view was the diminution of the charge for superannuation allowances on the public revenue, and the restoration of the system of deductions from salaries, which was established by the Treasury Minute in 1821, enacted by Parliament in 1822, and repealed by Parliament in 1824. The attainment of that object was recommended by the Committee. I hope the House will give me its attention while I read a short extract from the Report of that Committee, because it excited much attention at the time, and will explain clearly the idea which was then entertained as to the best mode of settling the question. The Report first speaks of the persons holding office at the time, and then proceeds—

"With respect to persons who may hereafter come into office, there is no difficulty in making a more economical arrangement. The Committee, therefore, recommend that the means of granting allowances to such persons in case of age or infirmity should be wholly provided by deductions front their salaries; the scale and conditions of the allowances to be made; to them should be so regulated, that the charge may be fully provided by the fund which their contributions would I create, so that the public may not eventually have to bear any part of the expense of these allowances. The Committee have fully considered whether it might not be more expedient either to leave the salaries wholly in the hands of the parties themselves, wherewith to provide by insurance or by other arrangements of their own for the contingency of a forced retirement from office, or to diminish the salaries in the proportion of the deductions proposed to be made, and to provide the charge of the retired allowances out of the public moneys; but neither of those modes has appeared to the Committee so advisable as that which they now suggest."

The plan of the Committee, therefore, was, that a fund should be created by annual deductions from the salaries of persons in office, and that the superannuation allowances granted should be exclusively derived from the fund so created. The Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time, Mr. Goulburn, whose recent loss we all so much deplore, introduced at the end of the Session of 1828 a Bill to give effect to the recommendations of the Committee. This Bill was to be made applicable to the entire civil service, and every officer's salary was to be subject to the deduction by which the fund was to be created. The measure underwent a close examination in this House, and strong objection was taken to the introduction of a system of deductions applicable to existing officers who had entered the service on other conditions. The consequence was, that after the discussion on the second reading the Bill was withdrawn. The recommendations of Sir Henry Parnell's Committee, therefore, were followed by no action on the part of Parliament. But the Government of the day thinking themselves bound to take some course in consequence of the recommendation of the Committee of 1828, issued in 1829 that Treasury Minute which is the foundation of the system now in operation. This Minute imposed a deduction on all persons entering the civil service from that date of 2½ per cent for salaries not exceeding £100 per annum, and of 5 per cent on all above that sum. These deductions were carried into effect; but Parliament did not legislate on the subject, and there was no rule laid down with regard to the appropriation of the deductions, which remained invested in Exchequer Bills till Parliament should decide upon the question. In 1831 a Treasury Minute was adopted which made some reduction, taking off one-fifth from the scale authorised by 3 Geo. IV., imposing some checks with regard to superannuation, and providing that no superannuation allowance should be granted without an examination of the application by two Lords of the Treasury. No change took place until 1834, when the Bill was passed under which superannuations are at present granted. That enactment adopts the rule of the Treasury Minute of 1829 with respect to deductions, and declares that all persons entering the civil service after the year 1829 shall be subject to deductions of 2½ per cent from salaries under £100, and to deductions at the rate of 5 per cent, from salaries of higher amount, but it contains no specific provision with reference to the appropriation of these deductions. The Act docs not direct that the deductions shall he constituted into a fund, but it clearly contemplates that they shall be carried to the account of the revenue, in diminution of the expense of superannuations. So far, then, as the deductions are concerned, the Act of 1854 introduced no new principle. It merely gave the authority of Parliamentary legislation to a rule which had been laid down five years before ill a Treasury Minute. It made, however, this important change—it altered the scale of superannuation allowances which was laid down by the existing Statute, and it made that scale less favourable to the civil service. One principle was introduced into the Bill while it was passing through this House, which had considerable effect upon its operation. When the measure was introduced, it was intended that all increases of salary which might take place after its adoption, should be subject to deduction, but by an alteration introduced during its progress through the House, the rights of all persons employed in the civil service at that time were recognised, and it was declared that every person who was engaged in the civil service in 1829, whatever office he might hold, and whatever his salary might be, should be exempt from deduction. The sytem of deduction was, therefore, limited strictly to those persons who entered the civil service after 1829. During the earlier years of the operation of the Act, the number of persons whom it affected was small; the persons in the public offices consisted mainly of those who had entered the civil service before 1829; and complaints with regard to the deductions were not much heard. I find, however, from the best information I can obtain, that about one-third of the persons at present employed in the civil service entered that service before 1829, and about two-thirds have entered it since. The consequence is, that about two-thirds of the persons now engaged in the service are liable to the annual deductions, and inasmuch as they feel greatly the diminution of their salaries caused by these deductions, their united complaints have reached the cars of Parliament. The complaints of the civil service are distributed under several heads, and I think it due to them to put the House in possession, as briefly as I can, of those points in the existing system, to which I understand the objections of the civil service chiefly to apply. In a printed paper which has lately been circulated, I presume widely, among the public offices, and which bears the signature of Mr. Bromley, a very able gentleman, employed in the department of the Admiralty as Accountant General of the Navy, who has acted as Chairman of the Committee of the Civil Service, who have considered the subject, I find very strong assertions with respect to what he considers a distinct breach of faith on the part of the Government—namely, that there has been an illegal application of the funds derived from the deductions, and an attempt—I will not say to defraud the civil service of their just dues—but at any rate, an attempt, deliberately carried on by a succession of Governments, to withhold from the civil service, by the non-creation of a fund, those deductions from their salaries, which ought in justice and in law to have accrued to them. I have stated distinctly the charge that is made, in order that I may meet it with an equally distinct denial. I have looked through the whole series of Treasury Minutes and the Acts of Parliament which bear upon this subject, with as much care as I have been able to bestow upon them, and I have shown the House how variable the policy of Parliament and of different Governments has been. At one time, undoubtedly, they created in the most distinct terms a superannuation fund, and it was the policy of Parliament that a superannuation fund should exist, from which the pensions should be paid. It appears to me equally clear that that policy was abandoned in 1829, and that under the Act of 1834, which we have now alone to consider, there is not the slightest trace of any direction to create a fund; and the absence of any direction to create a fund, coupled with the precise enactments in former Statutes, directing the creation of a fund, prescribing the title under which it is to be raised—as it is technically termed—in the books of the Bank of England, and making provision with reference to the Commissioners in whose name the account is to stand, shows in the most conclusive manner that it was not intended by the Act of 1834 to create a superannuation fund. I will read to the House the recital of the clause in the Act of 1834 which imposes the deduction—

"And whereas the Commissioners of the Treasury did, by a minute dated the 4th day of August, 1829, record their intention to adopt certain regulations with a view to reduce prospcctively the charge incurred in providing for superannuation allowances, of which notice was given in the several public departments, for the information of those who should thereafter enter the public service; and whereas, in pursuance of the said minute, an annual abatement hath been made from the salaries and emoluments of the several persons who have entered the public service subsequent to the date thereof; and whereas it is expedient to continue such abatement in those cases, and to extend it to others, as hereinafter provided."

That is the entire recital, and the section goes on merely to define the amount of the deduction, but the Act contains no provision whatever relative to the appropriation, or application, or management of abatements. Now, if the House should desire it, I will state to them the precise practice which is followed with regard to the disposition of the money which accrues from these deductions. Inasmuch as such charges as those to which I have referred have been made, it is important the House should be informed of that practice, that they may be satisfied there has been no departure from the terms of the Act which has guided the conduct of all the Governments which have dealt with this subject since 1834. In the Revenue Departments—the Customs, Inland Revenue, and Post Office, the deductions from salaries are made when the salaries are paid, and the amounts are carried to the account of pensions for superannuations. Those amounts are never paid into the Exchequer. With respect to the other departments, the practice up to 1848 was similar to that of the Revenue Departments. The deductions were stopped, and were carried to the account of the departmental charge for superannuations, and reduced pro tanto the Vote of the following year; but since 1848 the deductions have been paid into the Exchequer, in order that Parliament may vote the full charge for superannuations. If any further inquiry should be made on this subject, I believe the House will find, on looking into all the documents bearing upon the question, that there is no ground whatever for the charge of a breach of faith on the part of the Government, since the year 1834, with reference to the administration of these deductions. The terms upon which these deductions were to be made were, as I have stated, communicated to the several, departments in the year 1829; they were afterwards embodied in an Act of Parliament; all persons who accepted office since 1829 had full notice that such deductions would be made; and it is impossible to say that they have any right to complain on the ground of breach of faith or non-observance of engagements on the part of the Government with regard to these deductions. It is, however, important that the House should bear in mind the nature and operation of the deductions. When you vote the salaries for the Revenue Department you vote the full salaries, but every salary above £100 is subject to a deduction of 5 per cent. I will, for example, take the instance of Sir Thomas Fremantle, the First Commissioner of the Board of Customs. His salary is set down in the Estimates at £2,000. The present First Commissioner is, however, liable to a deduction of 5 per cent, and never can receive by any possible combination of events more than £1,900 a year. If he had entered the service before 1829 ho would receive the full salary, but having entered since, he is liable to a deduction of 5 per cent, and that remark applies to every salary which is voted by this House. Those who plead the cause of the civil service for remission of deductions and increase of pensions have drawn a very highly-coloured picture of the enormous profits which they state the Government has made by the present system. They say that if the deductions which have been made since the year 1829 were funded, and if they accumulated at compound interest, in a certain number of years a sum which certainly would move the envy of any Chancellor of the Exchequer would rise before his eyes, and they make it appear that the Government have achieved a most profitable bargain, and that the civil service has been defrauded of a very large sum. Now, Sir, these speculations about compound interest are similar to those of Dr. Price, who, in reference to a sinking fund, estimated that a halfpenny at compound interest would, after a certain number of centuries, produce a sum sufficient to pay off the National Debt; but, if instead of such calculations we refer to facts, we shall find this result—that the total amount of compensations and superanannuation allowances payable on the 31st of December, 1854, was £767,559. A further sum of £75,000 is paid for pensions to artificers, labourers, and others in the Naval and Ordnance Departments. Those two sums make £842,659, which is now the annual charge of the compensations and superannuation allowances. The deductions in 1854 were £61,214, so that at present the deductions bear a very small ratio to the total amount of superannuations, and, I must say, taking the most sanguine views which any calculators can form of the probable amount of those deductions, even if they could he funded, I can hardly conceive the time will ever arrive when the fund will cover the probable expense of the annual superannuations. Another objection to the present system is, that it is partial and capricious—that it spares the high and the low, and that it strikes only those whose salaries are of the middle class. The complaint of the civil service reminds me of two quaint old monkish lines, in which the same idea is expressed, probably in reference to some former system of taxation—

"Deuce ace non possunt et seize cinq solvere nolunt,

Omnibus est notum quater tray solvere totum."

Those lines express in a few words the complaint by the civil service—that the chief officers of the State escape deductions, and that a large class of artificers employed in the Naval and Ordnance Departments are likewise exempt. I believe at this moment there are only four political pensions in existence. Therefore that class scarcely affords any ground of legitimate complaint. Then it is said Ambassadors and Ministers and the whole diplomatic establishment ought to be subject to deductions. The system under which they are placed is peculiar, a charge of £180,000 is made on the Consolidated Fund, out of which both these salaries and these pensions are defrayed. They are not entitled by right to superannuation allowance. Their pension depends on the discretion of the Government; it is impossible, therefore, without an entire change, to bring them under the system of deductions. The next head of complaint is, that the India Board is also exempt from the superannuation system. That department has always stood by itself, and has not been brought under the general rules as to salaries and superannuations. Then, also, it is said the judicial establishments are not subject to the Superannuation Act. They also must be considered as standing upon different ground. The Court of Chancery is paid from the suitors' fund, and many officers are paid from fees of court. They are not voted in the same manner as other departments, and have always been considered as standing apart from this system. Many of the officers in the Judicial Department do not come under the description of high officials. Nevertheless, they are exempt from this charge. So far this is an anomaly in the system, but an anomaly for the reason which I have stated. Then there are a number of inferior officers in the Naval and Ordnance Departments also exempt from deduction. In the Ordnance, in the year 1855–6, there were 9,472 workmen entitled to pensions without being liable to the superannuation fund abatements, whose aggregate pay was £504,000 a year. In the Admiralty the number was 12,508, with the aggregate annual pay of£821,085. There is also a considerable number of persons in the Post Office who are in the same position. The annual pay of persons in that department, who are entitled to pensions but do not pay deductions, is £174,000; the number of officers is 2,398. That shows that there is a considerable number of persons in branches of some of the large departments whom it is found advantageous to the public service to bring under the benefits of the system of superannuation, but who, receiving, in many cases, weekly pay, in all cases small salaries, are not placed under the system of deduction. Another very serious complaint, made by many members of the civil service, is, that out of the number subject to deduction a very small proportion receive superannuation allowance. Dr. Farr, a member of the Registrar General's Office, who has given much attention to the subject, and whose authority on statistics is very high, estimates the number of persons who will be superannuated under the new scale, provided the system is fully brought into effect, at not more than 6 or 7 per cent—that is to say, that out of every 100 persons entering the civil service since 1829, ninety-three or ninety-four will pay deductions without receiving any benefit from them. That, however, refers to a future period. I will now shortly state to the House some facts as to the operation of that system during the last five years. In the Inland Revenue Department, during the last five years, the number of persons who have retired altogether from the department is 1,348. Out of that number 667 have retired on pensions, or rather less than one-half; 242 have died in the service; 243 were discharged; and 196 left for other pursuits. The House, therefore, will see that out of 1,348 persons who left the department during those five years rather more than half paid deductions without deriving any benefit. With regard to the Customs, the total number who in the same time left that department was 1,280. Out of that number 509 retired with pensions; 22 were discharged on gratuities; 329 dicd in the service; 238 were discharged for bad conduct; and 182 left voluntarily for other pursuits. One objection made by the civil service is the double operation of the deductions and the income-tax. Sir, I am bound to say that in my opinion this combined operation produces cases of considerable hardship. I will state to the House one case which will show in a strong light how this combined operation is felt. A clerk who is promoted from £105 to £110 a year in consequence of his new liability to income tax becomes a loser by his promotion. His salary of £110, less superannuation abatements (£5 10s.), is reduced to £104 10s. It is still further reduced by £5 0s. 1d., being the amount of income tax at 11½ in the pound, which leaves him £99 9s. 11d. His previous in-come, after deductions, was £99 15s., and he is thus a loser of 5s. 1d. by his promotion. Now, that is a case of considerable hardship, and, without confining ourselves to the low rates of salary I have just mentioned, this combined operation of the income tax, and the deductions, makes a largo inroad in the small incomes of the chief part of the civil service. I have now stated, I hope fairly, the objections which are urged by the civil service to the combined systems of deductions and pensions. Well, the House will perhaps expect me now to propose to them to accede to the prayer of the memorialists—namely, to abolish the deductions and to substitute the old for the new scale of pensions—the more liberal for the less liberal scale. In answer to that memorial of the civil service, I must, in the first place, remark that the notice given to all persons entering the civil service after the Act of 1834 is as distinct and explicit as it can be. Every one who accepted office after that time must know that his salary would be subject to these deductions. Although the salaries voted by this House are not diminished by the deductions, every person entering the civil service must have known, or might have known, that his salary was liable to that rate of deduction. We may, in fact, consider the Act of 1834 in the light of a contract entered into between the nation and the civil service. I cannot, therefore, admit as valid, the argument that any breach of faith has been committed on the part of the Government and the nation. I think that great objections exist to inconstancy and vacillation on questions of this sort. We cannot look to the conduct of Parliament in former years as holding out any very useful example of steadiness of principle. But it behoves us the more to beware that we take no rash step; and that we do not, without strong and valid reasons, rescind that which has been decided upon by a former Legislature, and acted upon, without intermission, for nearly a quarter of a century. Therefore, Sir, in the measure which I ask for leave to introduce I do not propose to make an alteration in the system of deductions. The amendments that I ask the leave of the House to make are limited to alterations in the scale of superannuation allowance. I purpose to make it more liberal than the existing scale, and to make it resemble more nearly the old scale than that which is now in existence. These amendments will be accompanied with several changes, rendering the allowances more liberal to the civil service; but beyond this I do not purpose to go. I will not trouble the House with any detailed statement of the Bill which I seek to introduce. If the House should permit me to carry the Bill to a second reading, I propose to refer it, not to a Committee of the whole House, but to a Select Committee, giving that Committee the power of examining witnesses. The Committee will then be able to examine thoroughly a subject full of difficulty, and embarrassed by numerous details. The Committee will also compare the provisions of the Acts of Parliament in force, and will be able to say whether there is any foundation for the complaint that there has been any illegality on the part of different Governments. I shall wish to submit to that Committee the whole series of Treasury Minutes and other documents of the departments on this subject; and the Committee will, moreover, have the opportunity of learning from different members of the civil service what are the complaints they make, by what arguments they are substantiated, and what remedies they have to propose. After considerable reflection, this appears to me to be the most satisfactory course for the House to adopt, and the fairest to the civil service. Before I sit down there is one other remark with which I must trouble the House. One of the measures proposed by different members of the civil service is simply the abolition of the deductions, combined with the increased scale of pensions. The other proposition is that the present system of superannuation allowances taken out of the Consolidated Fund shall be continued, but that the abatements shall be allowed to exist, and be made into a fund distinct from the pensions, which should go to the survivors in the nature of an assurance to the wives and families of members of the civil service. I express no opinion upon these two plans. I submit them to the judgment of the House, and I hope that if the subject is thoroughly sifted and investigated by the appointment of a Select Committee, the House will be able, with a full knowledge of the facts, eventually to arrive at a judgment which will be satisfactory to the civil service, and will be found conducive to the efficiency of the administration of public affairs.

said, he must beg to express his approbation of the attention which the right hon. Gentleman had devoted to the subject, and his satisfaction that it was not intended hastily to alter the settlement that had been effected in 1834. When a claim was raised on the part of the civil service to a superannuation fund, it should be borne in mind that there neither was nor ever had been such a fund except during the short period from 1822 to 1824. All the other branches of the public service had suffered great deductions, whereas, since 1821, the salaries of civil servants had been untouched. In 1821 some reductions were sanctioned, but which were not such as to prevent the imposition of 5 per cent deduction for the superannuation fund then recommended. That had been abolished soon after, but in 1828 Sir Henry Parnell's Committee recommended a recurrence to it. Under Lord Grey's Administration there had been large deductions in the political, judicial, and diplomatic departments, but the civil service had been untouched, except by the reimposition of the deduction of 5 per cent for superannuation, to which it formerly had been subject. But even this regarded only those who should hereafter enter that service. There was no ground, therefore, for complaint of breach of faith with the civil service. The civil service were better paid than the Army, the Navy, or the Church, and had greater certainty of promotion. On the other hand, was the service so very hard? The service was so attractive that there was a constant pressure on the Government for admission into it. The proposition of the right hon. Gentleman to refer his measure to a Select Committee was a prudent concession to a pressure from without on the part of the civil service. He hoped the Committee would not be swayed by clamour or complaints, but would consider the subject carefully and justly. It was not conducive to the good working of the service that it should be filled with relatives of noblemen and Cabinet Ministers. The observations he made were not to cast any reflections upon the service, which, from what he knew of it, he believed to be efficient.

Sir, after the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, I think it would be extremely inexpedient to enter into any detailed discussion as to the principle we ought to adopt in the superannuation of our civil servants. When the la- bours of the Committee are completed and their Report is before the House, we shall have a proper opportunity to enter into a complete discussion upon the subject. I must look upon this Motion as virtually one to refer to a Committee, proposed and sanctioned by the Government, the consideration of the whole case. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: Hear, hear!] If I have rightly gathered the meaning of the right hon. Gentleman, the Committee will have not merely to consider his Bill, but also to make such suggestions on the subject as they may think expedient—in short, to recommend to the Government the course which in their opinion ought to be adopted in reference to the subject they were appointed to consider. It would, therefore, be unadvisable, as well as uninteresting, to enter at present into any discussion upon the details of this measure. I approve of referring the whole question, whether in the shape of a Government Bill or otherwise, to a Select Committee, and I shall defer greatly to any recommendations they may make to the House. The right hon. Gentleman gave the House a very perspicuous historical narrative of the whole topic under our consideration, but that narrative did not very much facilitate the solution of the difficulties we have to encounter. The history of superannuation in this country is the history of spoliation. It is a very short history, for it may be condensed into one sentence—"You promised a fund, and you exacted a tax." You will find that this fatal error is at the bottom of the whole business, that it is the origin and cause of all the difficulties which present themselves, and which you have to overcome. This is not the time, however, and, after what the right hon. Gentleman has proposed, this is not even the place to enter upon the perplexing subject of these difficulties; but I trust the Committee will be appointed speedily, that it will be composed of those who, from their acquaintance with the subject generally, and their position in this House, will arrive at conclusions which, if they do not command the sanction, will at least deserve the attention of Parliament, and that this question will, at last, receive the most practical solution they are able to give to it. I was a little disappointed when I heard from the right hon. Gentleman that this Bill is the greatest measure of administrative reform we are to expect from Her Majesty's Ministers. The right hon. Gentleman, told us, that the question of superannuation was a great branch of that question of administrative reform which he and his colleagues were prepared to advance as much as lay in their power, and when I learnt, in a subsequent part of his observations, that the result of their great effort in favour of administrative reforms was a measure upon this, not little, but comparatively speaking, inferior question, which is, after all, to be referred to a Select Committee, I confess that I felt some disappointment. I do not think it is a fulfilment either to the letter or to the spirit of that consent to the Amendment proposed last year by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire (Sir B. Lytton) on the subject of administrative reform, which alone saved the Government from a defeat in this House. I did expect, although the House was placed in a difficult position, and called upon to exercise great patience and forbearance towards Her Majesty's Government—I certainly did expect that, when the subject of administrative reform was introduced by Her Majesty's Ministers, they would have felt their responsibility and have been prepared to hold out to us a prospect of far more extended and important measures than we are now led to believe it is the intention of the Government to introduce; and I think that, whether we look to the formation of the new measures, which have been intimated, or to other circumstances connected with the Administration of the country, if the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer did think fit to advert upon this occasion to that question, he might, I think, have found it convenient on the part of his colleagues to inform the House what were the intentions of Her Majesty's Government with respect to that Resolution which was carried last Session with their sanction. I should not have referred to this subject had not the right hon. Gentleman, with some parade and ostentation, announced to the House that, the question having been under their consideration, the Bill which is to be laid upon the table to-night is the first, and as I collected, the most important fruit of the deliberations of Her Majesty's Government.

said, he could not avoid expressing his regret that the right hen. Gentleman who had just spoken should have made the question of the civil service an opportunity for a display of party feeling. He hoped the Committee which was to be appointed would enter upon a consideration of the subject in a different spirit to that displayed by the right hon. Gentleman. He would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the question would be brought more satisfactorily before the Committee if the form of his proposition were a Committee to inquire into the superannuation question, and to refer his Bill to that Committee, and thus bring the whole question before it; for he could not see how the Committee could go into the whole subject with only the right hon. Gentleman's Bill before it. For what would be the use of discussing the Bill before the Committee without having all the circumstances of the case before it? There had been so much canvassing, so much unfair representation, that he thought it would be for the public advantage to have an inquiry into the justice of the charges and allegations which had been made on the part of the civil service. He considered the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had disposed of the allegation of fraud practised on the civil service, which, it was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), had been promised a fund, and got a tax. He (Sir F. Baring) had something to do with the Act of 1834, and would ask whether there was any concealment then about its objects? He had heard it said that that Act promised a fund, but it did no such thing. Such a thing was not mentioned in the Act; it was not intended. He held in his hand the Estimates for 1836, when, if it had been intended there should be a fund, it must have appeared as a separate article; but instead of that, in 1836, there was a deduction made from the vote for civil superannuation allowances. If there had been any promise of a fund, hon. Gentlemen opposite, who had served in civil departments, and who were then in communication with civil servants, would not have failed to urge that point. There was an impression that the Committee had recommended that the deductions should be such as to cover the whole superannuation allowances. That was true, but he must say he never believed that those deductions would cover all the allowances the public would be called upon to pay. It had been alleged that the sum which was or would be received was larger than that which was necessary for the purpose of fairly paying those charges. That was, therefore, a fair subject of inquiry. He did not believe there were on the last occasion, or would be on the present, any means of ascertaining what the real charges were likely to he. His impression was, that if the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the part of the public, could hand over to the Bank of England the whole deductions upon the condition of paying all the charges, he would make an exceedingly good bargain. His own impression was, that this was a simple question of salary. It was quite true that payments were made, and that in consequence retired allowances wore made, and, therefore, if the deductions were not made, it would be an increase of 5 or 2½ per cent to the salaries of the public servants, an arrangement of which he could not approve. He thought the whole subject could be discussed in a Committee with advantage to the public, and the House would do well not to be led away by papers circulated among Members, but to wait and see what the real facts connected with the question were.

said, the civil servants had done him the honour to address to his charge their petition to that House, which he should shortly present. In justification of some statements made in that petition, he wished to answer an observation of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. He said that the House would take an exceedingly good step if it were to hand over the sums taken from the salaries of the civil servants to anybody who would take upon themselves the obligation of paying the superannuation allowances. That might be true; and it might be a good bargain if all the superannuation allowances were included in the obligation; but there was this peculiarity—that the civil servants were divided into two classes: the first class was not taxed at all; the second was taxed under this Bill; and there was a third class, including the people in the dockyards, who also were not taxed; but all the three classes came upon the superannuation fund. So that, in fact, one class was now taxed for the benefit of all three. Therefore the people who were taxed complained, and said that they were suffering an injustice because they were taxed for the benefit of the other two classes. But as the whole question, and not the Bill only, was to be referred to the Select Committee, he should, when he presented the petition of the civil servants, move that it also be referred to that Committee.

said, he hoped the Committee would be appointed in such a manner as to have the opportunity of considering the question of the deductions; for, as he understood, the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer contained no provision to abolish those deductions. In the speeches which had been made a good deal had been done to remove or alleviate the feeling of injustice which had certainly rankled in the minds of many who considered they were wronged by the Government, which, having promised them a fund, inflicted a tax instead. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring) had shown that, technically, such was not the case, but it must be borne in mind that civil servants generally were not aware of what had taken place in Parliament in 1834, and, knowing that schemes for a superannuation fund had been sanctioned by Parliament, it was not unnatural they should suppose that the deductions were made for the purpose of providing for them, and, when it was shown that those deductions were more than sufficient to provide their own superannuation allowances, it was not surprising they should consider themselves ill treated. He would submit to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that it was not expedient the civil servants should even suppose themselves labouring under injustice. The hon. Member for Richmond (Mr. Rich) had said that if there was any case of injustice there was none of expediency, as there were plenty of persons knowing all the circumstances who were ready to enter the civil service. He (Sir S. Northcote) could point out that, although the civil service had been going on in a satisfactory manner to the public, it had not been doing so without discontent. They had been told they were paying, what many of them for a long time believed to be, a deduction for their own benefit, but which they were now told was a tax imposed on one portion of the civil servants, not for their own benefit, but to pay a certain portion of the charges which ought to be borne by the nation. If civil servants had now no pensions in any shape, and when superannuated were sent about their business, there would be a good reason for establishing pensions to get good servants, even as a matter of true economy. Even now it was in the power of the Treasury to give or withhold the retired allowances, and if they were withheld a feeling of injustice would be natural when sums had been paid for a certain number of years in expectation of a return. He believed they would consider themselves better off if the deductions were taken away, and the allowances left in the hands of the Government, so that they could apportion the rewards to good services, which they could do now certainly, but not without creating a sense of injustice in the breasts of those who, feeling that they had paid money, thought that they ought to have the benefit of it. The whole system required arrangement and supervision all the more from the tendency of late years to create offices at low salaries, and he thought the scheme proposed should have embraced some such supervision. If it was intended to improve the condition of the civil servants, it would be much better to effect that object either by abolishing the present system of deductions or increasing their pensions. He was not one of those who thought both should be done, for he conceived that it would be better to do away with the deductions, and give the Government power to grant pensions according to the deserts of the civil servants.

Sir, I shall not prolong the present discussion by many observations, since the Chancellor of the Exchequer has expressed his willingness to refer the Bill to a Committee. This system of superannuation has been called spoliation by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli), who said that not only was a fund promised, but disappointment had been created, inasmuch as the Government had, moreover, imposed a tax, and the hon. Baronet the Member for Dudley had repeated that assertion. [Sir S. NORTHCOTE: I only said that such is the feeling in the minds of the civil servants.] The right hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring) has cautioned the House not to believe all they hear on this subject, and I go further, and caution them not to believe all that they read on the subject, for a circular has been distributed among hon. Members which I regret to see proceeding from civil servants, some of them of high station. When I had the honour to deal with this subject in 1834 I had some experience of the civil servants, and since then I have had a larger experience of their merits. Every successive year has confirmed me in the opinion that they are the most valuable class of men in the service of Her Ma- jesty, and that their integrity and exertions cannot be overestimated, and ought to be liberally remunerated by the public whom they serve so effectively and zealously; and nothing would induce me to take any part against them if I thought their case demanded any further concession. But, in 1834, so far from the superannuation fund being considered an exaction, the converse was proved. As has been stated most accurately by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, between 1818 and 1829 there was great indecision on the part of the Legislature, and the proposition for the fund was more than once made and abandoned. In the Finance Committee of 1828, in which sat Lord Althorp and many distinguished Members, and over which Sir Henry Parnell presided, this question was considered. They made a Report on the subject, part of which has been read by the Chancellor of the Exchequer this evening, and in 1829 a Treasury Minute founded on that Report was introduced. So far from that Report promising a distinct fund, it was based on the opposite principle. The enactment of 1834 only gave legislative sanction to the Treasury Minute of 1829, and was not based on any idea of a separate fund, but upon a tax which was to be carried to the Exchequer generally, and in consideration of that tax a limited interest was given to the parties paying it in respect to their own contributions. To this extent, and on certain considerations, pensions were to be granted varying in amount according to the extent of service of which the Treasury was to be the judge. The hon. Baronet who has just sat down has said that, technically, if not really, a fund was promised. I know not the meaning of that expression, for nothing can be more precise than the enactment, and I cannot believe that persons could enter the civil service without well understanding the conditions offered them. It is again said that these conditions are hard, but I never heard that there has ever been the slightest want of persons for the performance of the duties of the service. The inconvenience is the other way, because the pressure of applications to obtain situations is extreme, and I cannot see any justification for any parties objecting to the existing arrangement unless it be those who, having small salaries, suffer from the pressure of the income tax. I think that is a portion of the case which does require the consideration of the House. There are hon. Gentlemen opposite who in 1849 and 1850 voted for the reduction of 10 percent in the salaries of those very officials who are now said to be treated unjustly— and the Motion having been rejected—the salaries maintained—the sweeping deduction of 10 per cent having been refused— the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) now talks of the history of superannuations being a history of spoliations. Surely it is in the power of Parliament prospectively to diminish salaries, and it was only prospectively that the Act of 1834 operated. Vacillation on this subject unhappily marked the conduct of the Legislature up to 1828, but since there has been a firm adherence to a fixed principle, and while I am willing to see this Bill referred to a Select Committee, yet I should feel great difficulty, if I were called upon to vote for the Bill, in departing from the principle established in 1834, and before giving such a vote I should be anxious to study the details of the measure. I certainly shall be ready to give the most calm and indulgent consideration to the claims of those public servants whose salaries are small, and on whom there falls the pressure of an income tax, as heavy as it is at present, in addition to the reduction of their salaries for the purpose of providing pensions; but I should be sorry if my right hon. Friend, through any pressure on the part of the civil servants, were to consent to a measure which would be equivalent to a remission of the tax imposed on them, as well as a direct augmentation of their salaries. I certainly hope he will not listen to a proposal on their part that there shall be not only an increase of salary, but an increase of pension, a proposal which appears to me to be altogether unjustifiable, and to which I hope this House will not think of consenting.

said, he must beg to explain that he had never designated the Act of 1834 as an Act of spoliation. He had spoken generally only, and had said that the history of superannuation was the history of spoliation, referring more particularly to a statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with respect to the superannuation fund of 1811—a period of war—which was appropriated by the State—an act for which the Chancellor of the Exchequer could find no excuse except in the circumstances of the time.

said, he was of opinion that the civil servants of the Crown entered the service without knowing the precise state of the law, and the nature of the contract they were making, but with the belief that the full amount voted by that House would be paid to them. He thought it would be much better for the Government to give their servants the amounts which they intended to pay them, instead of naming a certain sum, and afterwards making deductions from them, and it appeared to him that the Act of 1834 was founded on that false system. Those individuals appear also to have imagined that the deductions that had been made from their salaries had been made for their benefit, but such was not really the case, and hence the errors and misunderstandings that had occurred. The explanations that had been given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the right hon. Members for Carlisle and Portsmouth on the subject had been satisfactory, inasmuch as they had stated that their superannuations had never been promised or carried into execution. He would suggest that in future instead of telling a man his salary was £100, and then deducting £5 from it, it should be stated to him as only being £95 without deductions. With regard to the State obtaining suitable servants, he was of opinion it was the height of absurdity to prevent gentlemen holding high positions in the service of the Crown from introducing to subordinate offices their relations, who were possessed of talents and ability sufficient for the discharge of their duties. He was an administrative reformer, but he was afraid that in many instances the term was perverted. The offices of the State should be open to all persons capable of discharging their duties, whether they be the relations of persons high in the service of the State, or strangers to them.

said, he would now move for leave to bring in a Bill to appropriate the income of such one of the canonries of the Cathedral Church of Carlisle as shall next fall vacant to the augmentation of certain ecclesiastical incumbencies in that city.

said, this was the third time this measure had been brought before the House. He thought it was desirable the Government should state to the House whether it was their intention or not to support private Members in bringing forward Bills involving such important principles as the Bill in question. If the House acceded to the principle of the Bill, it would be competent for any hon. Member to introduce a Bill affecting the various cathedral establishments of the country, and to appropriate the revenue of the canonry of St. Paul's, which was, from the accounts he had read in the papers, likely to become vacant. Two opinions were entertained with reference to cathedral establishments—one was that they were useless sinecures, and ought to be abolished; and another was, that owing to their bad patronage they had been made sinecures, and failed to discharge the duties which they ought to perform. He was one of those of the latter opinion, and believed they were still to be made of great advantage to the country. He entirely disapproved of the principle of the Bill now sought to be introduced.

said, he hoped the House would not assent to the introduction of the Bill. It was part of a great subject so important in its bearing, and so complicated in its details, that the House had already placed in the hands of a properly constituted body the arrangement of all matters connected with it. If the House assented to this kind of legislation it would be inviting the inhabitants of every cathedral city in the country to make similar applications. But there did not appear in the present case to exist any strong necessity for a measure of this description. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners had at their disposal property to the amount of £3,200 a year, which was applicable to the ecclesiastical purposes of the city of Carlisle alone.

said, he considered it would be most unusual and ungracious to oppose the introduction of a Bill which had been on former occasions discussed and passed through some of its stages without an adverse vote of the House; and which would now have been the law of the land if it had not been introduced at too late a period of the Session.

said, he hoped the House would support the hon. Member for Carlisle, at least so far as to allow him to introduce the Bill. He himself knew of a similar case to the one which it was the object of the Bill to relieve. He had applied to the Church Commissioners on behalf of an unfortunate rector whose income was only £100 a year, but he could obtain no assistance from them. It was highly necessary that there should be a better arrangement and distribution of the revenues of the cathedral churches throughout the kingdom, and this was a measure which in a small degree would promote that desirable object.

said, he would suggest to his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Liddell) that it would not promote his object to divide the House on the present occasion. The Bill was one the object of which all must admit to be excellent; it was also a Bill which had been entertained by the House, and to the principle of which no vital objection could be taken, because it was undoubtedly a matter open to consideration how far in certain cases the revenues of cathedrals might be made available for the purposes of the cities in which the foundations were situated. That such might be done was a principle which with due limitations he was disposed to regard with favour. At the same time he must confess that he had the greatest possible doubts as to the expediency and convenience of legislating in this form; and the speech of the hon. Member who had just sat down, and who had said that the case of Carlisle was not the only one with which the House would be called upon to deal, had rather increased than diminished those doubts. It would be very inconvenient for the House to be called upon to deal with each case by a separate Bill. This was a subject as to which the House ought to be placed in a position to take a comprehensive view. There were thousands of cases in which assistance was required, and the House ought to have all the cases before it in order that it might judge where it was expedient to apply a remedy. He was far from promising to support the Bill upon the second reading, but he thought that it would hardly be consistent with courtesy to the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ferguson) to object to its introduction.