said, he fully concurred in the opinion of the hon. and gallant general, and could not understand on what principle a measure which would deal with the whole of the commerce of the port of London had been introduced as a private Bill, and therefore hoped that before the discussion proceeded further the right hon. Gentleman in the chair would say whether it had been properly introduced as a private Bill.

wished to observe, before the hon. Gentleman's question was answered, that this, which professed to be a merely private Bill, would interfere with the rights of no less than four or five counties.

The hon. Member having done me the favour of mentioning to me last night the doubt which he had on this point, I have given to it the best attention that I could. The Bill was introduced in the last, and has been revived in the present Parliament. The notices have been given in due form, and the Standing Orders have been proved to have been complied with. The Conservators of the river are the promoters of the Bill, and although it is perfectly true that great public interests are involved in it, there have been many other cases in which Bills, dealing in a similar manner with public interests, have been allowed to be introduced as private Bills. I believe that, according to Parliamentary practice, this Bill, however largely it involves the public interests, has been properly brought into the House as a private Bill.

said, that the origin of the Bill was this—About fourteen years ago a great deal of objection was made to the unsightliness of the banks of the river Thames between Westminster and Greenwich, and several schemes were suggested for beautifying both sides of the river. One of the Admiralty engineers and two other eminent engineers devoted a great deal of attention to the subject, and finally they agreed upon a plan, which was submitted to the Corporation of the city of London. The Corporation, who were interested in the property of the bed and soil of the river, desired to have certain indentations along each side of the river filled up, and they proposed to empower the parties who owned property near those recesses to fill them up upon terms to be agreed upon. The Solicitor of the Woods and Forests thought that that course was an invasion of the rights of the Crown, and be instituted a suit against the Corporation, in which the Crown claimed the property of the bed and soil of the river. That suit was prosecuted for several years in the law courts as several ineffectual attempts had been made to settle the dispute; but at length a compromise was entered into, which this Bill would carry into effect. The City had conceded to the Crown the right to deal with the shores and bed of the river, and had entered into an engagement to hand over to the Crown one third of the revenue derived from land appropriated as wharfs; the Corporation had no selfish objects to serve—all they desired was to discharge efficiently one of their public duties. He had been connected with the city for several years, and he could conscientiously say that the Corporation had not the slightest pecuniary or selfish interest in the matter.

thought that the candid declaration of the worthy Alderman was entitled to considerable weight He understood that one or two clauses with reference to a new tax on steamers plying above bridge had been omitted. If that were so, a great deal of his objection to the Bill had been removed. Nevertheless, he must regard the Bill as a species of rather retrograde legislation. Every corporation in the kingdom but that of the city of London had been reformed. The moderate reform proposed by the Government a year or two ago was still opposed by the city Corporation. The House ought to recollect that that Corporation was instituted at a time when the commerce of London was insignificant in comparison with its present gigantic proportions. Liverpool, about 100 years ago, was little more than a village, but its port was now only second to that of London in respect of commercial importance; and as the Corporation of Liverpool had been reformed to meet the existing state of things, so ought that of London. The city of London was in ancient times the capital of the kingdom, but now London proper had a population of 160,000, while that of the metropolis was about 2,500,000. That was a further reason for reforming the Corporation. He concurred with the hon. and gallant General in thinking that one of the principal objections to this Bill was that it proposed to constitute a Board the greater part of whose members would not be qualified to deal with the matters intrusted to them. He entertained the highest respect for the members of the Common Council, but their pursuits and habits were wholly unconnected with navigation. And yet, if this Bill passed, they would always have the power of outvoting the Government on questions affecting the navigation of the Thames. In fact, they would be less responsible than heretofore for the proper navigation of the river, because if any complaint were hereafter made on that subject they would no doubt excuse themselves by saying that the Government was equally responsible with them. Under these circumstances, if the hon. and gallant General should insist on a division, he should be obliged to vote with him; but he recommended the hon. and gallant General to pursue a different course—namely, that of endeavouring to alter to the composition of the Conservancy Board.

assumed that the hon. and gallant General had not read the whole of the Report on which he had based his opposition to the Bill, because he had spoken of it as if it were the Report of a Committee of that House, whereas—General CODRINGTON: I meant to say that it was the Report of a Commission.]—the question had been investigated not by a Committee, but by Commissioners, and that made a material difference. The House would recollect that those Commissioners were appointed to make a thorough inquiry with respect to the Corporation of London, in order to ascertain to what extent that sort of reform which had been applied to other corporations might he applied to it. So far as he was informed, the Commissioners did not make any inquiry as to the property of the Corporation, and it was important to bear that in mind, because the Report of the Board of Trade on this Bill, oddly enough, began by merely saying that the object of the Bill was to put an end to a suit now, or lately, pending between the Crown and the Corporation as to property claimed by the Corporation. But the fact was that that suit had been at that very time ended by an actual agreement entered into with the Corporation, in pursuance of a Treasury Minute, by which that suit, which had been going on for twelve or thirteen years, was compromised. It would have been a more correct description to have said that the object of this Bill was to carry into effect that agreement. But what he complained of was that in all the reasoning of that Report, from beginning to end, the Board of Trade wholly ignored that the City had a right to make any claim in this matter, and dealt with the Bill as if the agreement were a white sheet of paper, And that was not all; for in page 3 of their Report they dragged in another quotation from the Report of the Commissioners, for the purpose of making it appear that the suit was still pending; so that any one who had not read the two Reports with "care—and especially any one who spoke of the Commissioners as if they were a Committee of that House—must suppose that the suit, instead of being settled, was still going on. For what other purpose but that of misleading could an extract from a Report of the Commissioners, bearing date 1854, have been put in so prominent a part of the Report made by the Board of Trade with respect to this Bill? Moreover, the Board of Trade dragged in coal duties, metage, and wine duties, and a great many other things, which might be all very well if this were a Bill for the reform of the city Corporation. It seemed to him that, as this Bill would settle a greatly litigated point between the Crown and the Corporation, it would facilitate rather than impede a general arrangement for the reform of the Corporation of the city. The Report of the Board of Trade was an attack upon the Treasury Minute by which the compromise was agreed to. Every line of that Report was directed, not so much against the Bill as against the Treasury Minute, because the Bill, even with respect to that which had been so much objected to—namely, the constitution of the Board of Conservancy, did no more than carry out to the letter the compromise contained in the Treasury Minute. Counting by noses, no doubt the Corporation had the majority in the Board of Conservancy proposed to be established; but he thought the weight of the minority, and the influence of public opinion, might be relied on to override any undue preponderance on the other side. He had another objection, however, to the new Board, for he must say that the proposed Board, composed as it was of nominees of the Corporation and of the Crown, with two members designated by the Trinity House, did seem to him to be independently constituted. It was said that the Bill would affect private rights, and no doubt it would do so; but full and ample notice was always given in the case of private Bills, and if any private rights were invaded this ought to have been pointed out at the proper time, when the Bill was in Committee. All he could say on this point was that he happened to be the owner of some waterside property on the Thames, and he did not feel himself aggrieved by this measure. It was rather unusual, after a Bill had gone through the ordeal of a Committee, to start such objections as had been taken now upon the present stage, and he should, under all the circumstances, certainly support the third reading.

said, the reason the Bill had not been opposed on the second reading was, that, being a private Bill, the attention of hon. Members had not been called to it in the way it would have been had it been a public Bill. He could not see that the Bill had been introduced for the purpose of carrying out the arrangement entered into between, the Corporation and the Crown. He had read the agreement as recited in the Bill, and there was not a single passage in it which in any way referred to the constitution of the Board of Conservancy; in fact, the Bill did not appear to have any connection with or sequence from the agreement entered into between the Corporation and the Crown, which would hold good whether this Bill passed or not. It stated that, in order to conclude the suit then pending, the rights of the Crown were to be surrendered to the Corporation of London as conservators of the Thames; and it then provided that certain accounts were to be rendered by the Corporation to the Crown; but he could not find a single word in it which had any bearing upon the Bill, or which related to the conservancy of the river, or anticipated that any change was to be made in the governing body, the Corporation of London. The question, then—the Bill having been now brought to their notice for the first time—if it was expedient that such a measure as this should be passed, seriously affecting, as it did, the great interests which were involved in the commerce of the City of London. If the Bill had been referred to a Committee, not of five—regarding it merely as a question relating to the interests of the Corporation—but of fifteen Members of that House, representing all interests concerned, and they had approved of it, he should have willingly bowed to their decision; but, as it was, until the principle involved in the measure had received the deliberate attention and decision of the House, he felt that he was fairly entitled to dissent from it. The position of the Corporation of London in reference to the commerce of the Thames, was far different now from what it was when the conservancy of the river was vested in their hands. As long as the trade and commerce of London were confined between the Tower on the one hand and Fleet Ditch on the other, it was right that the conservancy of the river should be vested in the hands of the Corporation; but that was now no longer the case, and he contended that they must proceed either upon the system suggested in the Report of the Commission, namely, that the management of the river should be vested in members of the Government, directly responsible to this House, or else in those who were most intimately connected with the commerce of London, and might be presumed to be the most competent to manage their own affairs, and look after their own interests. He admitted the principle that the Corporation should be adequately represented in the Conservancy Board, and he was quite willing that the chief of the Board should be the Lord Mayor; but he contended that there should also be some elements in the Board to represent the interests of the great docks and other establishments where the principal part of the commerce of the metropolis was carried on. He (Mr. Ayrton) had therefore no alternative but to support the Motion of the hon. and gallant General, the effect of which would be to refer the Bill to another Session. The wharf owners and the dock companies had the deepest interest in the conservancy of the river, and no Board, therefore, which they did not form part of could be satisfactory. He hoped; therefore, the House would refuse its consent to the third reading; and that, by deferring it to next Session, they would give opportunity to its promoters to make the measure more consistent with the commercial interests of the City of London.

observed, that two objections had been taken to the third reading of this Bill—one to the form of proceeding, and another to the contents of the measure itself. It was said, in the first place, that this ought to have been a public, and not a private Bill; and next that the Constitution of the Court of Conservancy was objectionable. Now, with reference to the first objection, he would observe that, according to precedent, Bills of Conservancy had been always treated as private Bills; and that there was now a private Bill for the Conservancy of the Mersey, which had been referred to a Select Committee, over which his right hon. Friend Sir James Graham had with great ability presided. The House should remember that many securities existed in the case of private which did not exist in that of public Bills. Looking to the vast number of most important Acts now under the consideration of the House, it was not very likely that if a Bill of 166 clauses relating to the conservancy of the Thames had been brought in as a public measure it would have been very carefully debated across the table of this House; whereas, being introduced as a private Bill, notices were required, it went before the Examiners, interested parties were served with notices, and had an opportunity of being heard by counsel before a Select Committee, witnesses could be examined, and Reports of public Departments were made for the information of the Committee. It seemed to him, therefore, that there were more effectual securities for the due consideration of a Bill of this sort as a private than as a public measure. He could not, therefore, concede that there was any force in the objection that opportunity had not been given to the opponents of the Bill. Ample opportunity had been afforded to its adversaries if they had chosen to avail themselves of it; but they had not done so, and it was very inconvenient now to bring forward objections and ask the House to reject this Bill. This was not a usual course to take with regard to private Bills, and he trusted the House would not pursue it, except upon much stronger grounds than had yet been stated. But then it was said—" Why has the Government thrown overboard the Report of the Board of Trade?" In reply to this he might ask why that Report took such little notice of the suit pending between the Corporation, and the Government, and the agreement come to between them. This Bill took its rise exclusively in the wish to settle a long pending suit between the City and the Crown with regard to the bed and shores of the Thames. As to the conservancy itself, no dispute bad existed. It was vested, as had been admitted on the part of the Crown, in the City of London; but the dispute was as to whether that conservancy involved the title to the bed and shores of the river. Now, if this Bill were rejected, the result would be that the whole power respecting the conservancy would revert to the City. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had said that all the House would do by accepting the Motion of the hon. and gallant Member for Greenwich would be to postpone the Bill till nest Session. That was not the case; by adopting the Amendment, hon. Members would not postpone, but would absolutely reject the measure, which if introduced next year must be proceeded with de novo. In his opinion, the settlement—for he did not call it a compromise—proposed with regard to the suit pending between the Crown and the City was a perfectly fair one. The City had conceded the principle contended for by the Crown; and though under the settlement the Crown would be entitled to the whole revenue arising from the banks and shores of the river, yet knowing the difficulty of providing an, adequate fund for maintaining the conservancy of the river, the Government had reserved only one third of that revenue for themselves. The only remaining question was that respecting the constitution of the Conservancy Board. It might be said that it would be better if the majority of the members were nominated by the Crown, instead of by the City. Something, however, was due to existing rights. At present, the whole power connected with the conservancy of the Thames was vested in the City. The Corporation, practically, had found the funds to carry it out, and there was a large debt upon those funds, a great part of which they had already liquidated. Under these circumstances it seemed to him that the arrangement embodied in this Bill was a perfectly fair one. Of the members of the Board he thought he might say, ponderandi, non numerandi sunt; though the nominees of the Government and the Trinity House would be in a minority, yet, representing public opinion and possessing the power of appealing through the Government to this House, their influence at the Board could not be reckoned by a mere arithmetical calculation. He would say, however, that this constitution of the Board of Conservancy was adopted with a view to the public interest and that of the port of London generally, and not with a view to mere sectional and city interests. He would repeat, therefore, what he had stated on a former occasion—namely, that if upon experience it should be found that the City abused their powers for partial objects, it would then become the duty of the representatives of the Government to bring the matter under their consideration, and if he held office he should consider himself bound to revise the arrangement, and submit to this House a new constitution of the Board. He would remind hon. Gentlemen that if the Bill were rejected the effect would be to throw back the conservancy of the river upon the old system, than which nothing could be more unsatisfactory—for some years past the conservancy of the river had been practically neglected, owing to the disputes which (had sprung up, and it was a matter of urgent public importance that this long litigated question should be brought to an issue. He hoped, therefore, that the House would not take the unusual course of rejecting this Bill upon its third reading after a Select Committee had reported in its favour.

was told that there existed a Report which very materially affected the present question. The Bill embodied a compromise between the Crown and the Corporation, but third parties were concerned, whose rights had been entirely lost sight of. He referred to the landed gentry and corporations throughout England, and to their interest in the foreshore which was materially affected by this measure. He suggested that the Bill should be postponed until those interested were made aware of its real effect.

was not aware of the existence of the Report to which the hon. Baronet had alluded; but if he would refer to this Bill he would see that the agreement between the Land Revenue-office and the City was set out at length, and that it merely referred to this particular suit. What the Attorney-General held was that the bed and shores of the Thames were vested in the Crown, while the City claimed them as conservators of the river.

said, he was perfectly aware of the consequences of the Vote he was about to give, and should record it against the third reading of this Bill. He could very well understand that as between the Crown and the Corporation as litigants the arrangement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was advantageous to the former; but there were third parties of far more importance than either—namely, the public and the owners of property on both sides of the river, whose interests his right hon. Friend had unguardedly overlooked. He admitted that since the Bill was last before the House the measure had certainly been rendered less objectionable. At that time there was a clause giving to this body of Conservators a direct power of taxing all steamers plying above bridge, between Putney and Teddington. This power was now withdrawn, and the Bill, therefore, to that extent had been improved. Still, however, very largo taxing powers remained. There were the power of licensing landowners to make docks and wharfs; a power of taking tolls for and leasing new piers and landing-places; and also for making, altering, and removing piers and landing-places—all most import and powers, and all yielding to this conservancy fund a large and, probably, an increasing revenue. It was not for him to defend the Board of Trade from the adverse comments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he did think that that Board had faithfully discharged its duties in laying before the Committee on this Bill the information they had afforded. The question now was really narrowed to this issue:—On the whole, is the proposed Conservancy Board well constituted? On this point he should like to hear a distinct answer to the question whether it was part of the arrangement between the Government and the Corporation when they compounded the suit that this composition of the Conservancy Board should be a fixed principle. If this were a part of the bargain entered into, he objected to it so strongly that he should certainly incur the risk of voting against the third reading of this Bill. One of two things would happen upon the present rejection of the measure,—either it would be brought forward next Session, and this standing majority on the part of the Corporation in the Conservancy Board would not be proposed; or, if the measure were not then reintroduced, the whole matter would remain in abeyance until the general subject of the reform of the City Corporation was undertaken on the responsibility of the Government, and whenever that time came he was confident the conservancy of the Thames would not be placed in such a body as was now suggested. There was, he thought, great force in the argument that a body so nominated was practically irresponsible. For himself, he preferred an elected body; but if there was to be a nominated body he could conceive nothing more incongruous than a double system of adverse nomination by a close body like the Corporation on the one side and partial nomination by the Executive Government on the other. He was at a loss to conceive on what principle the House at this time of day should affirm that the best conservancy for the most important port of England, and for that river on which they prided themselves, should be vested in the Lord Mayor, two Aldermen, and four Common Councilmen of the City of London. What was the peculiar aptitude of that body to administer affairs of such immense magnitude? He spoke with all respect of the Lord Mayor and of the ponderosity and weight which his presence at the Board might be supposed to exercise. But the Corporation were to have both weight and numbers too. He supposed that in the composition of the Board it would be considered, that like turtle soup, the more fat that was put into it the better; while as regarded the tax-payers the principle would be adopted which was pursued in the manufacture of lime punch, in which squeezing was the great necessity. He feared under this Bill that the tax-payers would be squeezed unmercifully and excessively. On the whole he believed that the Board of Conservancy would be an irresponsible body. It would be even less responsible than the Corporation was at present; and being fully aware of the effect of the vote which he was about to give he should record it with great pleasure against the third reading of the Bill.

said, the agreement between the Commissioners of Woods and the Corporation was, that the settlement should be framed on the principle of the Bill of 1847, which had been adopted by the Government.

had hoped that the alterations which had been made in the Bill since the second reading would have conciliated the support of those hon. Members who had previously signified their intention of opposing it. He had been acquainted with the river Thames for forty years, and when he first knew it coasting vessels paid tonnage dues of 4d. and 2d. a ton, but now the only tonnage dues imposed were on first, second, and third class vessels ½d. a ton, and on the fourth and fifth class vessels ¾d. a ton. The Bill had been submitted clause by clause to the proper department of the Government, and every suggestion which had been made by the authorities of that department had been adopted. He contended that there were among the members of the Corporation several gentlemen as well qualified to perform the duties of conservators of the river as any men who could be nominated, and, although practically the Corporation would have a majority on the Board of Conservancy, it was not likely that they would unite to carry out corporate objects to the detriment of the public interests. The Corporation had set apart a large sum out of their revenues for the improvement of the metropolis, and he was satisfied that they would be prepared, in their character of conservators, to lend a helping hand to the improvement of the river Thames, with which they had been long connected, and from which he admitted they had received great advantages. He trusted that the House would sanction the third reading of the Bill, and he was satisfied if they did so that the Corporation of London would prove to the country and to Parliament that their only desire was to promote the interests of the public and to improve the navigation of the river. With respect to introducing the measure as a private Bill, he observed that the forms of the House had been complied with in that respect, and he reminded hon. Members that only on the previous day a precisely similar measure, affecting the navigation of the river Clyde, had passed as a private Bill without a word of opposition being made to it. He therefore did not think that any objection should be raised to this Bill because of the form in which it had been introduced.

presented Estimates to the amount of £500,000 towards the reimbursement to the East India Company of a moiety of the extraordinary expenses of the expedition to Persia (by command); also an Estimate to the amount of £500,000 for naval and military operations in China (by command), and moved that the said Estimates be referred to the Committee of Supply. The right hon. Gentleman also gave notice that in the course of the present month he should move a Resolution in Committee of Ways and Means with the view of founding upon it a Bill for continuing the present duties upon tea and sugar as fixed by the Act of last Session for two years from the 1st of April next.

said, he could not allow this opportunity to pass without protesting against what appeared to him to be a most unconstitutional transaction. A war had been declared, an expedition had been undertaken, a peace had been made, and the first intimation which the House of Commons received of the whole transaction was that a Bill was to be paid. He thought that the House would abdicate its functions, and that it would not deserve to be called the House of Commons of England if it did not mark with its reprobation such proceedings as he had described. In the whole history of the House of Commons, from 1640 down to the present hour, such, a thing had never happened. It had been reserved for a Liberal Government, and for the present Prime Minister of England, to throw that slur and stigma upon the House of Commons, and if the House of Commons submitted to it, it would show that the noble Lord had a better appreciation of them than he (Mr. Roebuck) had.

said, that he had understood, in answer to a question which he had addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the grant to be moved for the Persian war was £265,000. He wished to know whether the £500,000 now named in the Estimate was to be in addition to that £265,000, or whether the smaller sum were included in the greater. He had understood, also, that the Indian Government were to bear half the expenses, and he wanted to know, therefore, whether £1,000,000 would cover the whole expenses of the Persian war?

said, that it would be unusual and inconvenient for the House to enter into a premature discussion upon the Estimates being laid upon the table. He had merely laid the Estimates on the table at this time as a matter of convenience, and he would only state, in answer to the question of the hon. Baronet, that when he stated that the amount to be asked this Session would be £ 260,000, it was early in the Session, before the termination of the war, before the signature of the treaty of peace, and upon the best data to which he then had access. The sum which he now stated was inclusive of, and not additional to, that sum. It would be the entire demand to be made upon the House this Session, and it would replace the advances made by the India Company.

said, that by the peculiar form of the expression used by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, limiting his observations to the present Session, he would seem to infer that there was a further sum to be demanded in respect of this war upon a future occasion. When the right hon. Gentleman said that it was not usual to raise a discussion upon laying Estimates upon the table, he (Mr. Scott) must observe, that nothing could be more unusual than the course which the right hon. Gentleman himself had adopted with regard to this question. As the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield had truly said, the first intimation of the affair which had been given to the House was, that there would be £260,000 to be paid, and that intimation was given to them after the war had been concluded, without any information having been afforded to the country that such a thing had been undertaken. Was not that somewhat unusual? The right hon. Gentleman complained that any one should call attention to the subject, because be had simply doubled the sum which he first stated that the country would be called upon to pay; and then he had guarded his answer to the hon. Baronet in such a manner, as to imply that even double the sum was but an instalment, and that in another Session the country would be asked for some unknown amount for this unknown war. He wished distinctly to be informed, whether this £500,000 was the whole charge which the country would be called upon to pay for the Persian war. He thought that the course which had been pursued with regard to the whole affair indicated more forcibly than anything that had before occurred, the servile condition of the House of Commons.

said, that he did not ask the House now to agree to any Vote. He had merely presented the Estimate, and had moved that it be referred to the Committee of Supply, which was the proper place for the consideration of the Estimate. When the Government asked the Committee to agree to a Vote upon the subject, they would give a full statement of the case, which would involve, among other things, an answer to the question of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down.

said, that his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had taken no course in this matter which was not perfectly usual and regular. On presenting the Estimates he had made a merely formal Motion, which it was neither customary nor necessary to give any notice of. It was a Motion which never gave rise to any debate, and the only thing which had been unusual in the present case was, that on a merely formal Motion being made, a debate had arisen.

again rose, and was about to speak, but—

said, that his right hon. Friend who had just sat down had implied that the course which had been taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was unusual. Now he (Sir G. Grey) believed it to be the universal practice of every Chancellor of the Exchequer, before the House proceeded to the ordinary business of the day, to present the Estimates which were intended to be considered afterwards in the Committee of Supply. The time for doing that was not, he contended, a late hour of the evening, or just before the adjournment of the House; but the period selected was always before the House proceeded to the proper business of the day. They had now been discussing for two hours a private Bill, which took precedence of alt other business, and immediately that discussion ended, his right hon. Friend presented the Estimates. He believed that the course which had been taken was perfectly in accordance with precedent, both with respect to presenting the Estimates and moving that they be referred to the Committee of Supply, because, unless they were so referred, the Committee could take no cognizance of them. [Sir J. GRAHAM: On a Wednesday?] Yes; on any day. During the twenty-five years that he had been in Parliament, he never remembered a discussion taking place upon the presentation of an Estimate, and upon the making of the necessary Motion to give the Committee of Supply cognizance of the Estimate.

said, that he had intended to present these Estimates on the previous evening, and that he had brought them down to the House for that purpose at the usual time, intending to lay them on the table before the business commenced. He mentioned his intention at the time to Mr. Speaker, and went down to the bar, expecting that he should be called. Mr. Speaker, however, did not see him, and therefore his name was not called, otherwise the Estimates would have been presented then. He might add, that he was not aware of any reason why the Estimates should not be presented on a Wednesday as well as on any other day.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer intimated his intention to present these Estimates yesterday, but not seeing him at the bar of the House before the commencement of public business yesterday, he omitted to call the name of the right hon. Gentleman. He believed it had been the universal practice, when a Minister appeared at the bar with an Estimate, that on his name being called by the Speaker he should be permitted to present the Estimate to the House; and the Motion that the Estimate be referred to a Committee of Supply had been considered as a Motion of course. Therefore he himself should have considered that what was new, if not irregular, on the present occasion rather was that a Motion so generally received as a Motion of course should have been turned into a Motion raising a debate. It was for the House to decide whether there was anything in this proceeding which interfered with the regular course of the business; but nothing struck him as being irregular in the Motion made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

proceeded, amid cries of "Order!" to call attention to the commercial inconvenience arising from constant alterations of the dates when certain duties on tea and sugar were to take effect—

trusted that the Motion for the adjournment of the debate would not now be pressed.

thought the Motion for the adjournment might be withdrawn, after what had fallen from Mr. Speaker and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

proposed to add the following proviso to the clause:—

"Provided, however, that the regulations of every such industrial school shall provide that a book shall be kept by the managers, in which the religious denomination or church to which every child admitted to such school, or the parents or the father of such child shall belong shall be entered; and that every minister or clergyman officiating in any chapel or other place of worship duly licensed according to law in the parish within which such industrial school shall be situated shall have free access to such book, and also to every child who shall appear by such book to belong to the religious denomination or church of which such minister is a teacher."

thought that he had altered the Bill so as to make it satisfactory to every Roman Catholic, not only in the House, but out of the House. He felt convinced that the clause proposed would be destructive of these institutions throughout the country. The best way to avoid the risk of proselytism was to allow free scope to persons of all denominations to provide schools for themselves.

said, that the question now was not one of proselytism, but whether the ministers of religion to which the child belonged should have access to the school, in order to give him religious instruction. At the same time, he admitted that the proviso was liable to some objection.

said that the words allowed not only inspection but interference.

said, that the manager of the schools might not be willing to receive the child coupled with such a condition.

admitted the force of the objection of the right hon. Gentleman.

proposed, as an Amendment, to leave out the word "fifteen," and to insert instead the word "twelve." He thought that if children were kept at the schools beyond the age of twelve years, they would not be rendered active and muscular and fit to earn their livelihood in future life. It was important for the physical development of the children that they should be released from school at twelve years of age, when the education for labour ought to begin; and if these children were kept at school after that age it would be for the purpose of giving them an intellectual and scientific education. Thus they would, by the aid of the State, obtain an unfair advantage over the honest children of industrious parents.

trusted the Committee would adhere to the clause as it stood, for it was most desirable that the power of detaining the children in the schools beyond the age of twelve years should exist. This power might not be always acted upon, but it ought to be whenever their detention was essential to their reformation. There were at least two Acts on the Statute-book defining the age up to which childhood should be considered to extend—namely, the Poor-law Act and the Juvenile Offenders Act, and in both the period of sixteen years was taken as the age to which childhood extended.

thought that this Amendment ought to have been proposed at an earlier stage. The second clause, which had been adopted, provided that the word "child" should include any boy or girl above the age of five and under the age of fourteen, and the Amendment now proposed would be altogether inconsistent with that definition of the word "child."

supported the clause. It should be remembered that those would be industrial schools, and that children would receive in them an industrial training.

had always feared that the effect of a measure of this nature would be to encourage idle and worthless parents to send their children, into the streets to commit acts of vagrancy, in order, that they might obtain admission to industrial schools; but he thought that many of the benefits which would result from the present Bill would counterbalance what he regarded as its defects. He would, however, vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Nottinghamshire (Mr. Barrow), because he could not doubt that in most districts of this country work could be found for children twelve years of age. He considered, therefore, that children ought not to be forcibly detained in these industrial schools up to the age of fifteen years.

said, the adoption of the Amendment would entirely change the object of the Bill, by restricting its application to children below the age of twelve years.

considered that some discretion should be left to the managers of industrial schools with regard to the disposal of the children committed to their charge. He did not think it advisable that the inmates of such schools should be educated in any trades or professions which would enable them to compete at an advantage with the children of honest and industrious labourers, who were unable to educate their children for the highly-skilled and better paid description of labour; Moreover, if they were taught trades above those which were paid at the lowest rates, it would be an inducement to parents to watch over their children with less care, if they were placed in a better position if they went astray than if they had not gone astray. He would apply the same principle as was applied to the education of pauper children.

said, the Bill provided for children who had no previous education at all. It was founded not on philanthropic principles, but on the instinct of self-preservation of society. If those children were to be reformed, they should get some industrial training.

said, that in his opinion, if a boy near twelve was brought before a magistrate, some other place than an industrial school was better fitted for him.

said, he thought it would be a most cruel proceeding to declare that at the age of twelve years the unfortunate children who were the inmates of these industrial schools should be driven from the only homes where they could seek refuge. He approved the provision of the second clause, that children might be committed to these schools up to the age of fourteen years; for, although they could not be compulsorily detained beyond the age of fifteen, those children who entered the schools at the age of fourteen would receive a year's training, which it was to be hoped would prove advantageous to them in after life. The way to guard against the abuse of parents neglecting their children that they might get into these schools was, to make the parents pay for their children, as much as they would cost at home.

said, that on the bringing up of the Report he would be prepared to move that the word "twelve" should be substituted for the word "fourteen" in the second clause. The object of his Amendment was, not that children should be turned out of the schools at twelve years, but that they should not be detained against their own wills and their parents, after that age.

said, under the Bill a child might be separated from its parents for eight years; he thought that rather too long a period, and would therefore support the Amendment.

said, he saw no reason why the Committee should adopt the Amendment. As the clause stood, it would merely provide that children who had no one to take care of them might be detained in the school up to the age of fifteen. It was surely not desirable that a child who had nobody whatever to look after him should necessarily be discharged from one of those establishments immediately on his attaining his twelfth year.

remarked, these institutions were called industrial schools, but they had as yet got no information as to what branches of industry were to be taught in them; the education ought to be such as would fit the children for such employments as were most general in the districts from which, they came. A child in the mining districts, for instance, ought to be taught mining in these schools—if they taught him shoe-making he would not be able to earn his living as a miner. The Bill involved a principle entirely new to the law of England, and it drew no distinction between a child who had committed one slight offence and the habitual vagrant, and shut them up in a prison-house for years.

said, that the hon. and learned Member spoke as if they were going to take children whose parents were able to keep them, and dragging them away from the fond care and comfort of home to shut them up in what he called a prison-house. The reverse was the fact, they were going to take children that were lost, and were living in a state of vagabondage. It was not a punishment, but an act of mercy.

said, the managers of industrial schools were placed to a certain extent in loco parentis, and therefore considerable confidence should be reposed in them. He did not think they ought to be required to turn children out of the schools when they arrived at the age of twelve years, and he hoped, therefore, the Committee would agree to the clause as it stood.

opposed the Amendment, observing that, as the industrial schools would be to a great extent dependent upon subscriptions, it was not probable that children would be detained in them for a longer time than was thought absolutely necessary. It was true that when children arrived at the age of twelve years a certain value attached to their labour; and he might observe that he had found employment for several boys of that age among the farmers of his district three days a-week, the alternate days being spent by them at school. This plan had been attended with very beneficial effects in the case of boys of somewhat indifferent character.

preferred the period of fifteen years, provided by the clause, to the period of twelve years, proposed by the Amendment. Considerable experience in the administration of criminal justice satisfied him that the most dangerous period in the lives of young persons was that between the ages of twelve and fifteen, when they were so near the adult period of life that they became the companions of older and frequently of ill-disposed persons. He thought, therefore, it was most unadvisable to facilitate the discharge of children from these schools until they were fifteen years of age.

proposed an Amendment limiting the period during which the parents should be called upon to pay for their children to twelve years instead of fifteen. In many cases the child would be able at that age to contribute to the support of the family, and it was bad enough to deprive the parents of such contributions without obliging them to pay for its support, In many cases the parents were not to blame for the child's misconduct, and they ought not to be subject to fine and imprisonment unless they could in some way be connected with that misconduct.

reminded the hon. Member (Mr. Barrow) that, by clauses 11 and 12, the magistrates—if satisfied that suitable employment could be found for a child—had the power to order his discharge from an industrial school before the expiration of the time for which he had been sent there.

said, he apprehended the moment this clause was passed into a law, there would be a number of kindhearted persons who would seek to fix no small part of our social evils entirely on those runaway boys, who would consequently be hunted from one end of England to the other; and, in that crusade, they would doubtless have the sympathy and assistance of the police. He submitted that if, under this Bill, they chose to take a man's child into one of these industrial schools, and to mulct his earnings—at a time, it might be, when he was already sufficiently pinched—to the extent of 3s. a week for that child's maintenance and education, such a man would become soured, and should such compulsion become at all common, it would give rise to a good deal of unpleasant feeling among the industrious classes.

said, he thought the Amendment proposed by his hon. Friend the Member for South Nottinghamshire (Mr. Barrow) was a reasonable one, and, although he voted against his hon. Friend on the last division, he should support him on the present occasion. After the education and training which a child would receive in any of these industrial schools, he should be able to earn something by the time he was twelve years of age; and he, therefore, submitted that it would be unreasonable to call on the parent of such a child to contribute to his maintenance after he had attained that age. The only difficulty likely to arise from the proposition of his hon. Friend would be in cases where a child was not committed to an industrial school until after he had attained the age of twelve. Such instances, however, would probably not be numerous in comparison with the ordinary run of eases. The great majority of children seat to those institutions would, no doubt, be committed long before they had attained that age, while some would go there at a very tender age; and therefore he did not think that any practical hardship would arise to the managers of those schools by exonerating a parent from contributing to the maintenance and education of his child after it had attained the age of twelve years.

said, he thought this was a vital clause in the Bill, and that the proposed modification of it was not desirable. It did not appear to him that there was any good ground for apprehending hardship to parents from the operation of the clause as it stood. He contended that the refusal of parents to contribute to the maintenance of their children in these schools, when they had the ability to pay, was a difficulty which the Legislature was bound to meet. There were instances within his own experience, of parents in the receipt of 30s. a week, who scornfully refused to contribute a single sixpence towards keeping their children at school. He should, therefore, support the clause in its integrity.

supported the Amendment. He reminded the Committee that a boy, at the age of fifteen, might receive a commission in the army, and contended that a person ceased to be a child long before that age, and ought to be in a position, when there was a necessity for it, to earn something towards his own livelihood, and to assist his parents.

said, that the criminal law had declared, in repeated instances, that childhood extended up to the age of sixteen; and, that being the case, it would be absurd to declare, as would be done by the adoption of this Amendment, that a boy of thirteen was capable of maintaining himself. He did not consider that any in-jnry would be inflicted upon the parents of such children when they repeatedly saw, in the reports of cases before the police magistrates, parents earning from 40s. to 50s. a week refusing to contribute a farthing towards the maintenance of their children, He thought that, considering the law already recognised the age of childhood as extending to sixteen, that they should not emancipate the parents from their responsibility of supporting and providing for their children under that age.

said, this question had been substantially decided by the vote at which the Committee had just arrived, and it would be manifestly inconsistent, after having determined that no child should be detained in any industrial school beyond the age of fifteen, to say that the liability of his parent to contribute to his maintenance in such school should cease after he had attained the age of twelve. Why such liability should cease at that age was to him (Mr. Massey) perfectly incomprehensible. The principle of legislation in this matter was, that sufficient time should be allowed to operate upon a child in an institution of this kind, and those best acquainted with the subject urged that two years was the shortest possible period necessary for that purpose. He hoped the House would not stultify itself by agreeing to the proposal.

said, he thought it a great hardship, not only on the children themselves but on the parents and other children, that the children in these industrial schools should be detained in them for a period of three years after they had attained an age when they might be expected to assist in the maintenance of themselves and the family remaining at home. He begged to remind the Committee that cases might happen in which not one only, but three or four members of a family might be placed in institutions of this kind; and, he asked, who then would be left to assist in supporting the rest of the family at home? He had many and strong objections to this Bill, but he was opposed to this clause in particular, and would therefore support the Amendment before the Committee.

took exception to words in the clause by which, over and above the 3s. a week which a parent was to contribute to the maintenance of his child in an industrial school, he was to be charged with the payment of other "expenses incurred respecting the child, and also the expenses of conveying the child to school." He objected to that part of the clause, because the expenses mentioned in it were unlimited, and because the payment of them would press heavily upon the poorer classes.

assented to the omission of the words objected to by the noble Lord, and the words were expunged accordingly.

complained of the provision as being unnecessarily severe. A single justice ought not to be empowered to inflict so heavy a penalty.

thought magistrates might fairly be vested with a discretion on such a point.

condemned the wording of the clause as singularly vague and loose, and as worse than the wildest of judge-made law.

said, it had been drawn up by Sidney Turner, a very high authority on such questions.

said, that three hours had already been occupied in Committee on this Bill, and it was now time to adjourn the discussion. There were various other Bills on the paper, the second of which was the Tenant Right Bill; and as many hon. Members were anxious to hear the statements which they expected would be made on that measure, he begged to move that the Chairman now report progress.

appealed to the House against this Motion as being an indirect attempt to defeat a measure of which the hon. and learned Gentleman had not the courage openly to move the rejection.

hoped his hon. and learned Friend would not persist in his intention. As regarded the Irish Tenant Right Bill, he believed that the proposer of it intended to make a short statement preparatory to withdrawing it.

thought it very hard that poor parents should be liable to a fine of £5 merely for inducing their child to remain at home, and moved that the maximum penalty be 40s. Ultimately this Amendment was withdrawn; and Mr. ADDERLY subsequently undertook to embody it in the Bill before the bringing up of the Report.

then proposed the insertion of the following clause, in lieu of clause 5, (children taken into custody for vagrancy may be sent to school while inquiries are made.)

"When any child is taken into custody on a charge of vagrancy, under any local or general Act, the justices, on receiving satisfactory proof in support of such charge, may, if the parent of the child cannot at once be found, and provided there be any certified industrial school, the managers of which are willing to receive him, order the child to be sent to such industrial school for any period not exceeding one week, and shall direct due inquiries to be made, and notice to be given to the parent or guardian of the child, if any can be found, or to the persons with whom the child is or was last known to have been residing, the circumstances under which the child has been taken into custody, and that the matter will be inquired into at the time and place mentioned in the notice."

thought this clause was a great improvement on the former one, and felt greatly indebted to the hon. Member for his efforts to conciliate the opponents of the Bill.

thought that primâ facie evidence of vagrancy might be sufficient in the first instance to justify the remand of a child; but before he was committed to custody for a long period a formal conviction would be indispensable.

deemed it one of the principal merits of the clause that it avoided the necessity for a conviction, and only required that "satisfactory proof of the charge" should be given to the justices. At the suggestion of the Home Secretary he had adopted the words of an analogous provision in the Summary Jurisdiction Act.

objected on constitutional grounds to the wording of the clause. They ought not to call upon a parent to enter into any species of recognizance for the good conduct of his child until it had been legally convicted of some offence. Unless they insisted on such a formality they would have no safeguard against an arbitrary exercise of power by magistrates. The hon. and learned Gentleman then moved the insertion of words limiting the operation of the clause to cases in which there had been a previous conviction.

objected to the infliction of a sentence of confinement upon the child, together with a liability for its maintenance on the part of the parent, until a formal adjudication, capable of being appealed against, had taken place.

concurred with the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Bowyer) that a conviction was a necessary preliminary to calling on the parent to give an assurance for the good behaviour of his child. Without an adjudication by the magistrates at this stage of the case the whole proceedings would be irregular and anomalous.

reminded the Committee that the Bill was not a penal one, but was intended to provide for the education and care of destitute and vagrant children. The Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk would alter the whole scope and tenour of the measure.

, while respecting the benevolent object of its author, could not help viewing the Bill as a very imprudent one. It was open to very grave objections, which only grew upon them as they proceeded with its discussion. He, therefore, begged to give the hon. Member for Staffordshire full notice that on the order for the third reading he meant to move the rejection of the measure. He would suggest that the Bill, after passing through Committee, should be reprinted, and an opportunity given for full consideration.

quite agreed that before the parents were called upon for recognizances there should be an adjudication.

thought that the penal element had been admitted into the Bill to such an extent that its nature had been altered and rendered very objectionable.

said, the Bill created an entirely new offence. Parents guilty of no offence might be ordered to make a money payment, and on non-payment be sent to gaol as criminals. Such a provision was without parallel in the whole statute law of England. It might be a man's misfortune to have a truant child. It was not the parent but the child who was to be convicted, and upon that the parent was to be punished. He objected to this multiplication of offences.

said, the offence of vagrancy was known to the law, and punishable by law, but before the parent could be held to recognizances the child must be convicted.

objected to the general principle of the Bill being discussed in Committee.

, on the part of those who objected to the principle of the Bill, said he desired to alter the Bill as far as possible in accordance with their views.

I assent to the Amendment.

said, his objection went further. The parents were to give recognizances for the good behaviour of the child. That was unreasonable. The Bill, in truth, was a Bill of pains and penalties. It was a Bill to extend the period of imprisonment for vagrancy. The clause allowed imprisonment for such period as the justice thought necessary. He should move that it be added "not exceeding six months."

assented to the Amendment.

objected to the Amendment. It really involved this—that there should be no detention in a reformatory beyond six months.

said, the hon. Member appeared to misunderstand the object of the Bill, which was simply to substitute detention in an industrial establishment for detention in a gaol. The Amendment, if carried, would frustrate the intentions of the Bill.

proposed the following new clause, which was agreed to—

"If the child, after such assurance as aforesaid being given, be brought up again on a similar charge within the period for which the parent has become responsible for his good behaviour, the justices may inflict a fine upon the parent not exceeding 40s., should it be proved to the satisfaction of the justices that the last-mentioned act of vagrancy has taken place through the neglect of the parent."

proposed the following clause, which was also agreed to—

"The time during which any child shall he lodged in any certified industrial school under this Act shall; for all the purposes of the Act of the 9th and 10th years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chap. 66, and of every Act incorporated therewith, be excluded in the computation of the time therein mentioned."

complained that he had been unable to hear the clause read. From what he gathered of its import he considered it to be highly objectionable and should therefore oppose it.

observed that many of the children to whom this Bill would apply had no religion at all, and was it intended that they should have no religious teaching?

thought that if a child stated he belonged to no particular religion he would be put down as a member of the Established Church. He thought the clause was one which required more consideration than time would allow upon this occasion, and would suggest that it should be withdrawn for the present and be brought up on the Report.

expressed his willingness to accede to that recommendation.