said, he must object to the manner in which this Bill, containing 109 clauses, was presented to the House. It ought to have a tabular index and table of contents, as it would greatly facilitate reference and perusal by hon. Members.

said, he would give the necessary directions for that purpose when the Bill was reprinted.

then proposed the following supplemental Clause:—

"If it shall appear to the Secretary for the Home Department to be necessary for the discharge of the duties imposed by this Act, he shall have power to appoint, for such period as he shall think fit, one or more medical persons, not exceeding two in all, to be Deputy Commissioners under this Act; and such Deputy Commissioners shall receive a salary not exceeding £500 per annum each, to be paid in like manner, and out of the like fund, as the other salaries payable under this Act; provided always, that no sue appointment shall subsist after the expiration of five years from the passing of this Act, and such Deputy Commissioner shall have such of the powers and perform such duties as the Board may direct."

said, the intended appointment of these persons was quite unknown to the Scotch Members. He thought that, altogether, the passing of this Bill had been too much hurried. There was no unanimity as to the machinery of the measure, but some pressure seemed to have been put upon the Scotch Members in respect to legislation on the subject.

observed that, instead of proceeding too hurriedly, they had been more than ten years employed in the work of legislation. He should have thought that the House had greatly failed in its duty if some attempt had not been made in the present Session to remedy the evils at present existing in the system.

observed that he thought the House had delayed too long and hurried too much at last in legislating upon this subject.

said, he quite agreed with the Lord Advocate. The neglect that had taken place with regard to lunatics had brought reproach, upon Scotland, and if something had not been done this year, he believed there were Members in the House who would have compelled legislation in the matter.

remarked that he thought the subject required early legislation and mature deliberation, whereas there had been late legislation and very little consideration.

explained that he had not meant to say that no legislation ought to have taken place this year; he only contended that the House had been too much hurried at last.

said, he begged to give notice that he would move the omission of the proposition for the exemption of Shetland on the bringing up of the Report.

objected to the large powers given by the clause to the Secretary of State.

said, it was absolutely necessary to give large powers to the Secretary of State for sanitary purposes, especially as to the bodies buried in the vaults of churches, from which, owing to the falling in of coffins, the most noxious exhalations sometimes proceeded. It was not at all intended to burn the bodies, but simply to make sanitary regulations.

(in the absence of Colonel Taylor) asked the Vice President of the Board of Trade whether he has received a Memorial from certain persons residing in the vicinity of the Kingstown Railway, and whether it is the intention of his department to interfere to oblige the directors of that line of railway to run trains according to law?

said, the Board of Trade had received the Memorial mentioned. It had been transmitted to the Kingstown Railway Company, and had been in their hands about a week. As an answer had not yet been, received, of course it would be premature to state what steps the Board of Trade would take, but of course they would take care that the provisions of the Act were carried out.

(also on the part of Colonel Taylor) asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether it is intended to amalgamate the Revenue Police with the Constabulary; and, if so, whether provision will be made to secure to the officers of the former service their status and progressive rank and emoluments?

said, the hon. Gentleman was probably aware that three years ago a Bill was passed, by which the Constabulary Force in Ireland was permitted to assist the Revenue Police, with the view of stopping illicit distillation. That measure had operated so well that on the renewal of the Bill in the present year it was proposed to take powers for the further extension of the principle then adopted, and perhaps of ultimately entirely amalgamating the two forces. Of course, in that case, a just and fair provision would be made for whatever officers of the Revenue Police might not be absorbed in the Constabulary.

said, that, at the request of a numerous and influential meeting of the Liberal Members, he had agreed to postpone his Motion on the mode of taking the Oaths in that House. He begged, therefore, to give notice of that postponement.

said, that he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Horsman), who acted as Chairman of the Bath Election Committee, whether it was true that, regardless of expense to the petitioner and the sitting Member, he adjourned the Committee at two o'clock on Thursday, for the purpose of attending a meeting to take into consideration the claims of the Jews to sit in that house?

The question of the noble Lord implies more than can be answered by a mere affirmative or negative; for it implies that, as Chairman of the Bath Election Committee, I did, on my own Motion, without notice, take on myself to adjourn the Committee, to the great inconvenience and expense of the parties before it, for the avowed purpose of enabling me to attend the meeting in question. The noble Lord, then, will be glad to learn that I did not pursue any course so unusual and so improper, and if I had attempted it, the other Members of the Committee were gentlemen who knew their duty too well to permit it. I will state what occurred. It was on the Wednesday morning that I first knew that this meeting was likely to take place, and on the assembling of the Committee I conversed with two of the Members, and we discussed the probability of being able to attend it. In the course of that day's pro- ceedings I stated that if an adjournment could take place next day without inconvenience, possibly such a thing might be suggested. To that intimation I received that courteous answer which hon. Gentlemen, members of the same Committee, were likely to give to one another; but we all felt the matter depended on the convenience of the parties before the Committee. I then asked the counsel if, in the event of the state of business permitting it, a proposition should be made to adjourn the Committee next day at two o'clock, any inconvenience would result. The counsel on both sides stated that, so far from such a step being felt as an inconvenience, it was the course they would both desire to be taken. I begged them to be assured that the Committee sat there for no other purpose than to consult the convenience of the parties before it, and that unless it suited their convenience and duty, there would be no suggestion for an adjournment. They replied that they would themselves have proposed that course, and that they had no objection to it. I then stated that, after that expression of opinion, and as it appeared that counsel, candidate, and agents were all of one accord in stating that they preferred the course I suggested, I would propose an adjournment next day at two o'clock. Nothing was said to the effect that the object of the adjournment was to enable any one to attend the meeting on the Jewish disabilities. No question was asked, and the suggestion I made to the counsel and agents was received, not only with ready concurrence, but with alacrity. Thus twenty-four hours' notice was given of the adjournment, and not one shilling of additional expense was caused by it. The adjournment having been agreed to, I certainly did attend the meeting in question, which was a most interesting meeting, and if the noble Lord had been present he would have been in a position to acknowledge its important character.

As a Member of the Committee, I feel bound to state my impression of what occurred; but to put myself in order I will just move, pro formâ, that the House at its rising do adjourn till Monday. When the Chairman of the Committee stated that he could not sit longer than two o'clock on Thursday, not the slightest intimation was given that he was going to attend the meeting on the Jewish disabilities. Had I been aware of the reason, I, for one, would have divided the Committee on the subject. I think it is a very unfair practice, particularly in respect to Election Committees, the parties attending which are put to great expense, to lose two hours; and in this case it does so happen that we have concluded the business exactly in two hours, and might, therefore, had it not been for the adjournment, have concluded it on Thursday. With respect to the counsel, I am bound to say that the right hon. Gentleman did ask them whether it was to their convenience that the adjournment should take place, and they replied in the affirmative; and no doubt it was, for to have two hours in one committee-room and two hours in another was a great convenience to counsel. It did so happen that the counsel engaged before this Committee were employed in two other rooms. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I have had no concert with the noble Lord in raising this discussion, and, without wishing to find fault with the right hon. Gentleman, I may express a hope that the course taken by him will not be made a precedent in future cases.

observed that the sitting of the Committee to-day commenced at eleven o'clock, and did not terminate until four, so that it occupied more than two hours. When the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Horsman) proposed the adjournment, no objection was made by any one. He (Sir H. Verney) knew what the right hon. Gentleman's object was, and he was sorry to say that the counsel on both sides said they were very glad of the adjournment. In fact both sides consented to it readily.

said, the course pursued with regard to the adjournment of the Committee was directly opposed to the usual practice. It might have been fortunate for the meeting that a gentleman possessing the experience of the right hon. Gentleman occupied the chair, but the object of that meeting seemed to have been to disturb the proceedings of the House. He (Mr. Newdegate) thought that he might be excused for making the observation, because he remembered some unfortunate scenes which had taken place in the House, and he knew that many hon. Members of experience, and many right hon. Gentlemen on the other side, were most anxious to avoid the repetition of proceedings which might bring the authority of the House in collision with the authority of the law. He wished to ask the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) to what day he meant to postpone his Motion, because so long as it remained upon the paper, it must occasion some anxiety.

said, he had inadvertently made use of the expression two hours, but he meant to imply that had the Committee sat for two hours longer on Thursday, they might have finished the business, whereas by the postponement, they had to examine another witness, who was not present on that day, and was only produced this morning.

said, his right hon. Friend had stated to him his reason for wishing that an adjournment should take place, and the counsel engaged in the case expressed their willingness to accede to the suggestion.

I wish to notice an observation made by the noble Lord (Viscount Galway), He said if he had known the object with which the adjournment was proposed, he would have divided the Committee. It is clear, therefore, that the division would have taken place, not on account of the parties concerned, but on account of the feeling of the noble Lord with regard to a particular question. Not knowing the precise object for which the adjournment was desired, the noble Lord made no difficulty in assenting to it; but if he had been aware of that object, he would have opposed the proposal. It is clear, therefore, the object of the meeting would have been the only ground on which the noble Lord would have opposed the adjournment. It is clear, for the fact is acertained, that when the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hors-man), the chairman of the Committee, proposed the adjournment, he did so in the hearing of the counsel and the parties. The noble Lord (Viscount Galway) has insinuated—for he has not openly stated—that counsel assented to the adjournment for their own private interests. I say the noble Lord has cast a slur upon those counsel which he had no right to cast upon them [A laugh]. This may be a laughing matter to the noble Lord. You pelt frogs; it is an amusement to you, but it is death to them. [A laugh]. It may be an amusement to the noble Lord to cast reflections upon honourable men who get their bread by intellectual labour. I say the imputation of the noble Lord was not justified. I don't know the names of any of the counsel engaged in the case. I say that it being clear the parties to the inquiry were present when the adjournment was suggested, that it was made in their hearing, and in the hearing of their counsel, that they absented to it, and that, as has been stated by the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Horsman), neither party has been subjected to one shilling's expense in consequence of the adjournment, the noble Lord's assumption that the adjournment was improper, is wholly attributable to his having subsequently discovered the object of that adjournment. He was not careful of the interests of the parties until his own feelings were concerned.

I do not think it is either the interest or the wish of the House to prolong this discussion, but as a member of the Committee I wish to state, that I believe the facts are these:—The right hon. Gentleman communicated to the members of the Committee, who sat near him, the object for which he desired an adjournment. All I heard passing in the Committee, and all my noble Friend heard, was, that the right hon. Gentleman addressing us said, "It is quite impossible for me to attend to-morrow." The right hon. Gentleman repeated that statement with considerable emphasis. I must say, when that language was used, I for one supposed there was some insurmountable obstacle to the right hon. Gentleman's attendance. I supposed he had some engagement in connection with public business in this House, or at least of extreme importance, and that he therefore felt it necessary to the parties and to his colleagues to adjourn under the peculiar circumstances of the case. I do not think that any one would have anticipated from the right hon. Gentleman's language, that his only object was to preside over a public meeting. I may further say that while under any circumstances I should be unwilling to put parties to the extreme inconvenience and expense which the adjournment of an inquiry must occasion, I certainly would not have consented to the adjournment in this case, if I had known the ground upon which it was proposed, whatever the object of the public meeting might have been. It is perfectly true that the parties to the inquiry, as well as my noble Friend and myself, consented to the adjournment; but it was put to us almost as a matter of impossibility that the right hon. Gentleman could attend. I should not have troubled the House with these observations, if I had not felt that we are to a certain extent culpable for having assented to an adjournment upon such a ground.

I trust I may make one remark upon the extraordinary statement of the noble Lord. I trust the House will permit me to do so, because it is very painful to be at issue as to a matter of fact with gentlemen who ought to be so well informed as the noble Lord (Viscount Galway) and the hon. Gentleman (Mr. S. FitzGerald), I am, however, fortified by the presence of two other members of the Committee, and by my own distinct recollection and positive knowledge, when I say there is not the very smallest foundation in fact for the assertion that I stated that it was impossible for me to attend on the day in question. On the contrary, it was not until after the adjournment had been agreed to that I came out of the Committee-room, saw my friends, and consented to take the chair at the meeting, and if the slightest objection had been made to the adjournment I should not have been able to attend the meeting at all. I stated to the counsel three times over that, if it was quite for their convenience, a suggestion for an adjournment might be made, but I said not one single syllable about my attendance next day. I gave neither the counsel, the agents, nor the parties the least reason to know whether it was for my convenience, or for that of the noble Lord, or the hon. Gentleman (Mr. S. FitzGerald), or any other member of the Committee, that the adjournment should take place. I can only account for the statement now made by supposing that the hon. Gentleman and the noble Lord, after sitting so long on a scrutiny, have brought into the House a great deal of the confusion as to facts which had been displayed before the Committee.

Is the right hon. Gentleman confining himself to an explanation?

The confusion as to facts to which, after a lengthened sitting upon a scrutiny, we are very liable—I make no charge against hon. Gentlemen, but I say that such confusion as to facts may lead to assertion for which there is not the smallest foundation. No person in the Committee-room, except two hon. Gentlemen now sitting near me, knew that it was for my convenience that the adjournment took place. I feel how unfair and unjust it is to the parties that inquiries before Committee should be protracted one day longer than is absolutely requisite, or that they should be subjected to a shilling of unnecessary expense. I should be extremely sorry and unwilling to subject them to any inconvenience; and when I stated to the parties in this case, that an adjournment might be proposed, I took care to say there was no strong wish on the part of the Committee on the subject. I told them three times over that we consulted their convenience, and their convenience only.

then rose and said, that he thought the House could have no wish that this discussion should be continued; and he therefore begged to put a question to the Secretary to the Treasury.

also rose to address the House, with the apparent view of continuing the discussion, but gave way when

said, he had risen to ask his question under the full impression that it was the wish of the House to put and end to the discussion. The question to which he wished to direct their attention was one in which the convenience of hon. Members was involved to no small extent. He understood a rule had lately been made on the recommendation of the Printing Committee, by which papers presented by command of Her Majesty were no longer to be distributed to hon. Members of the House in the usual way, but were to be accesible to hon. Members on application at the Vote-office. No hon. Member could be more anxious than he was to see the expense of printing the papers of the House lessened, but he was still of opinion that if there was one thing of more importance than another in the performance of their functions as Members of that House, it was that all possible information should be accessible to them on all occasions. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. T. Duncombe), had lately given notice of his intention to move for leave to bring in a Bill to repeal the existing laws respecting vaccination. The Government, on the other hand, had given notice that they were about to introduce a Bill to amend the existing law on that subject, and a most important paper in reference to the prevention of the spread of smallpox had recently been presented to the House by command of Her Majesty. Under the new rule, however, to which he bad referred, that paper had not been distributed to Members in the usual way, and he himself had only heard of its existence in an incidental way. He believed, certainly, that the fact that papers had been presented was to be set forth in the Votes, but hon. Members could not, in the present pressure of public business, daily examine the Votes for the purpose of ascertaining whether they contained that particular information. He wished, therefore, to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether he (Sir J. Pakington) had been correctly informed as to the nature of the rule in question?

said, that the rule in question had been adopted in consequence of a Report of the Printing Committee. It had not, however, been adopted on the sole authority of that committee, but in pursuance of a recommendation of a Committee of the House, of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole) was Chairman. The object of the rule was to prevent an unnecessary outlay of public money by the distribution of papers which were in many cases never read; but if hon. Members should think that the new arrangement was productive of inconvenience it would of course be proper that it should be re-considered.

said, he wished to call the attention of the First Lord of the Admiralty to the policy of re-considering the determination as announced by him not to employ any of the screw line of battle ships in conveying a portion of the troops about to be sent to India. The subject had been alluded to a few nights ago by the hon. and gallant Admiral the Member for Southwark (Sir C. Napier) and upon that occasion the gallant Admiral and himself had exchanged broadsides; but he hoped that as that affair was over, and the smoke had blown away, neither of them would think any more about it. He (Admiral Buncombe) found we had now lying idle in harbour ten such magnificent screw line of battle ships as the Algiers, the Cœsar, the Cressy, the Duke of Wellington, the Exmouth, the Hannibal, the James Watt, the Majestic, the Nile, and the St. Jean d' Acre, together with several first-class frigates; and as, with one exception, the whole of those ships were employed during the late war, and therefore had their machinery in perfect order and their engines on board, he imagined that no great length of time would be required to fit them for the conveyance of troops to India, a service in which he thought it would be both politic and proper to employ them. He feared that the number of troops under orders to proceed to India were not all that would be required in the emergency. The Admiralty deserved great credit for having purchased the Himalaya, and he wished they had five or six like her, but as they had not he would submit to the First Lord that it would be desirable, even on the score of economy, to employ some of those screw line of battle ships in the way he had suggested. Besides, any one of those ships would take out a whole regiment, an arrangement in every respect more convenient than sending troops by instalments in different sailing vessels. The men would also be much better off in regard to room and other accommodation during the long voyage. The presence, too, of such a squadron off the coast of India would have a great moral effect, and the strong body of seamen they would carry might be made available in case of emergency. He had ventured to call the attention of the First Lord of the Admiralty to this subject, in the hope that the right hon. Baronet might be induced to re-consider the determination recently announced by him, and employ two or three ships as an experiment.

said, he wished to take this opportunity of troubling the House with a few words, in consequence of two answers given upon recent occasions, by the noble Lord at the head of the Government and by the First Lord of the Admiralty. The substance of the two answers combined was that the country was about to be left in a totally defenceless state by sea and land, and that such a state of things was recognized and concurred in by the noble Lord. The first question to which he referred was, when his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Southwark (Sir C. Napier) asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether there were any steam men-of-war fit to carry troops to China, the right hon. Baronet said there were not, and then went on to say there was not a single screw steamship of the line in commission fit to carry troops to India. The right hon. Baronet added that

"He had stated on more than one occasion that he had given up the idea of maintaining a home squadron. The ships in commission were all calculated for home defence, and not for the conveyance of troops."

Now he (Mr. Bentinck) ventured to assert that the ships in commission at our ports at home were as ill-adapted for the purposes of defence as for carrying troops; and he, therefore, contended that the country possessed no adequate maritime defences at the present moment. The other question was put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli). The right hon. Gentleman asked the noble Lord what were the intentions of the Government with respect to the calling out of the militia in the present year. The answer was one of the most remarkable ever given by a Prime Minister. He (Mr. Bentinck) thought some of the sentences so remarkable that he took them down, and he should no doubt be corrected if he did not quote them correctly. The noble Lord said that there was no intention of calling out the militia this year, because he considered the two previous years' training rendered it unnecessary for the purpose of maintaining the discipline of those corps. But the noble Lord then went on to say—

called the attention of the hon. Gentleman to its being contrary to the rules of the House to refer to answers given by hon. Members on a former evening, and to read those answers in the House in the same Session.

said, he would bow with the utmost deference to the Speaker's decision, but he was very much mistaken if he had not frequently heard the rule infringed. He must throw himself upon the indulgence of the House to allow him to state the substance of what fell from the noble Lord. He would not attempt to read what the noble Lord said, but the substance was that, although he was not prepared to call out the militia in the present year, if anything had happened in Europe which had threatened to involve this country in a war with any European power, and which rendered it probable that we should have to provide for the defence of the country—

again reminded the hon. Member that he was infringing one of the rules of debate in referring in so direct a manner to passages of former debates. It was contrary to the established rule of the House.

said, he was at a loss to know how he was to introduce the subject, which was one of the utmost importance, if he were not allowed to advert to anything which had fallen from the noble Lord. He did not see how he could possibly go on unless he were allowed so far to refer to the statements of the noble Lord, as to call attention to what he conceived to be objectionable and dangerous doctrines promulgated by the noble Lord.

said, that the hon. Member could state his opinion upon anything which had fallen from the noble Lord.

Suppose he said "so and so."

for the purpose of putting himself in order, then, he would imagine that the noble Lord said that, "If anything had happened in Europe which had threatened to involve this country in a war with any European Power, and which rendered it probable that we should have occasion to provide for the defence of the country, it might have been necessary to call out the militia." The noble Lord went on to say—[Cries of "Order!"] If the noble Lord went on to say, as he conceived it possible he might, that he imagined there was no probability or possibility of any such contingency of European disturbance, and if the noble Lord gave that as a reason for not calling out the militia this year, he contended that the noble Lord would have held doctrines most dangerous to the safety of the country. He assumed, for the sake of argument only, that the noble Lord had held such opinions, and he appealed to the House whether such opinions, coupled with the answer of the First Lord of the Admiralty, did not substantiate his statement that this country was to be left without defences by sea or land? The noble Lord rested his case solely upon the ground that there was no apparent probability of disturbances in Europe. It would be extremely indiscreet to go into details as to the various causes which might lead to collision between this country and a great European Power. But he thought the House would agree with him that, whatever the apparent security, the snap of one pistol might destroy that security and place this country in hostile collision with one of the most powerful antagonists with whom she could have to contend. He asked the House whether it was reasonable to leave the country totally without the means of defence both by sea and land—whether it was rational for the Government to trust to the chapter of accidents for security? He would place it on a mere commercial basis, and ask whether it was not perfect insanity to leave the country at the mercy of the first comer who might choose to assail her, when by a trifling outlay the country might be placed in a state of security? He did not think that by such false economy as that the noble Lord would retain the support of the House and the good opinion of the people. The matter was one which required the serious consideration of the House; and he hoped that Her Majesty's Government would be able to assure them that the country was not left in the defenceless condition which their own statements would lead people to suppose.

said, that he was told that an expression had fallen from his lips which, if left unexplained, might be liable to misconstruction. It seemed to be supposed that in something which he said he reflected upon the conduct of two hon. Members of the Bath Election Committee. He was sure that the House would at once acquit him of any such intention. What he meant to say was that there must have been some mistake or slight defect of memory on the part of the noble Lord and the hon. Gentleman, arising from the long and tedious nature of the inquiry in which they had been engaged, but he had not the slightest idea of casting any reflection upon them, and he regretted that any words of his should have been so interpreted.

said, that he wished to state in reply to the question of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) that he could not name the day on which he should bring forward his Motion relative to the oath of abjuration, because it depended very much upon the fate of the measure which the noble Lord, the Member for the City of London (Lord J. Russell) intended to introduce that evening. As he should not be allowed to address the House again, he might take the opportunity of asking the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in pursuance of the notice he had given whether the manufacture of pulp parchment is allowed to continue, pending the decision of the Court of Exchequer as to whether or not it is paper; and, if so under what conditions?

observed that he hoped that the state of confusion into which the House had now got upon the simple question of adjournment would induce them in future to avoid the inconvenient practice of raising debates upon important subjects in such a desultory and unsatisfactory manner. The defences of the country involved a question of the greatest possible interest and magnitude, and ought not to be discussed incidentally, but with becoming calmness and deliberation. He felt bound however to make some observations in reply to the statements of the hon. and gallant Admiral and the hon. Member for West Norfolk, (Mr. Bentinck.) In the first place he begged to assure the hon. and gallant Admiral that the determination of the Admiralty not to employ screw line-of-battle ships for the conveyance of troops to India had not been adopted without careful consideration; and he should add that he saw no probability that they would, on further inquiry, be induced to alter that decision. It was perfectly true, as he stated on a previous occasion, that none of the ships of the line now in commission at home were fitted to carry troops to India or China, although admirably adapted for the defence of our own coasts. Most of them were blockships which served in the Baltic. They were steamships powerfully armed, capable of moving about the coasts of England or even those of a neighbouring country; but they were not calculated for long voyages to distant places. Two of them, it was true, had been sent across the Atlantic in fine weather; but all of them were vessels of small steam power, and he did not think we should be justified in trusting to them for the conveyance of troops to distant parts of the world. No doubt there were lying in ordinary a great number of line-of-battle ships which might be employed as transports if it were thought advisable so to use them. But there were other services to be performed of at least equal importance. He had stated before that the number of men employed had not been reduced to the number voted by Parliament, and later in the evening he proposed to ask the House to vote 2,000 more. But all the men voted were already employed, nearly all of them on foreign stations, and if he were to commission ten or a dozen line-of-battle ships he must raise an additional number of men before he could send them to sea, which would require several weeks to do. The 2,000 men whom he proposed to ask the House to vote that evening were intended to man a squadron to send to the Indian Ocean; and, when he was called upon to commission line-of-battle ships for transport purposes, he begged to ask how he was to provide them with crews? On the other hand he could employ the Queen's ships for war purposes, and at the same time call upon the merchant service to furnish vessels for the conveyance of our troops to India or China—a division of labour which he thought would be productive of far more efficiency than if we employed ships of war in the transport of troops. It had been, said that we ought to have large vessels like the Himalaya for the transport of troops. Now, in point of fact, there were eight ships—not all so large as the Himalaya, but nearly so—in employment at the present moment. One of them, the Transit, had been often mentioned in that House, and he might mention to her honour that she had made the voyage to St. Vincent in a shorter time than the Himalaya. Six of these vessels were now actually employed in conveying troops to India. Perhaps he might be allowed in reference to this transport question, to make a further statement to the House. It had been said that a good deal of injury had been done to the public service by sending our forces in sailing vessels rather than in steam ships. This, however, was a mistake. It was perfectly true that in short voyages steam vessels were far more rapid in performing the passage than sailing ships; but before any particular case could be decided, we must look at the particular circumstances. Long voyages at certain periods of the year were accomplished quicker or as quick by sailing vessels as by steam vessels, and the particular case now under consideration was one of them. Steam power was dependent upon a supply of coal, which must be sent from this country to various stations; now it was not always that an adequate supply could be obtained; while, when it could be obtained, the delay of coaling prolonged the voyage to the time occupied by a sailing vessel. He had recently inquired of the Secretary of Lloyd's what was the average time occupied by sailing ships to India, and he was informed that taking the average of the last three or four years, fast-sailing vessels despatched from this country, at the present season of the year, performed their voyages in from 90 to 101 days, which was pretty much the same time as was occupied by steamers. Some of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steam vessels had performed the voyage in less time, but those vessels were built for speed, carried little cargo, and consumed much fuel. Steam vessels carrying troops would not be able to take on board so much fuel, on account of the space which would be occupied by the necessary provisions and water for the troops, and the numerous places at which they must call to replenish those stores would cause a delay greater than that which the employment of sailing ships would cause. He found from a statement which had been prepared, that of four steamers which had belonged to the hon. Member for Tynemouth, (Mr. W. Lindsay), and which had been employed under contract to convey mails to Calcutta, the contract time was 74 days, whereas the actual time occupied was respectively 107 days, 121 days, 100 days, and 90 days, making an average of 104 days. Another matter for consideration was, that there had been very heavy demands made lately upon the store of coal collected at the Cape of Good Hope, and although fresh supplies had been sent out, yet they could hardly be expected to arrive in sufficient quantities and with sufficient regularity to meet the requirements of the large number of steam vessels which would be required to convey all the troops now under orders for India. Many troops were going in steam vessels, but he did not believe that any delay would arise from part of them being despatched in sailing vessels to Calcutta.

said he wished to ask the Under Secretary for War what force of artillery was to proceed to India, and whether or not they are to take guns, ammunition, and horses, and if not, to state the reasons; also what staff of artillery is to command and direct this force?

said, it was intended to send out to India six companies of foot artillery and two troops of horse artillery. They were not to take out either guns or ammunition, as the arsenals of India were amply supplied, and it was desirable that the men should be sent out as speedily as possible, without the delay which would be caused by sending out guns and ammunition with them. With regard to the latter portion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's question, it referred to a matter of military organization, respecting which he hoped the inquiry would not be pressed.

Sir, although I am sensible of the inconvenience of pressing too far the privilege which hon. Members possess of introducing questions to the notice of Government upon the question of adjournment of the House to Monday, yet I rise in consequence of the strong feeling by which I am animated, and considering that I owe it to my constituents to ask the decision of the Government with respect to a Bill of which I have given notice. The complaint of my constituents is, that although they have four times elected Baron Lionel Rothschild a Member of this House he has as yet been unable to take his seat here. Successive Governments have attempted to relieve him and his Jewish brethren from the disabilities to which they are at present subject, by passing Bills in this House and sending them up to the other House of Parliament. It has been supposed—and maliciously supposed—that the City of London is satisfied with three Members, and do not insist on or feel the necessity of having any more to represent them in this House. But, Sir, that is not the fact. The City of London is most anxious to have its full share in the representation of the country, but has consented for a time to forego that privilege in order to vindicate another privilege—the great privilege of the people of this country to send Members to the British House of Commons without any reference whatever to their religious predilections. Sir, the House of Lords has now again rejected a Bill which was intended to remove those disabilities. It was supposed hitherto—and I think very naturally supposed—that the majorities of this House having been generally small—sometimes twenty-five or thirty—the House of Lords considered, in that divided state of public opinion, they were not bound to give effect to the wish of the House of Commons. But, Sir, it appears from the late division, that that cannot be the ground upon which they acted, because the last Bill, besides being supported by the whole authority and weight of the Government, had a majority of 140 in its favour on the decisive test with respect to the words "on the true faith of a Christian." It is obvious that we may send another Bill to the House of Lords next year and the year after that; but if so large a majority as that is not allowed to prevail with the House of Lords there is no chance what- ever that a Bill in that form will be accepted by that House. Let me say, however, that as this Bill bore the shape of a change in the law, and as the last Bill which we sent up to the House of Lords professed to make a change in the oaths to be taken in this House, it is undoubtedly within the constitutional functions of the House of Lords to refuse their sanction to it. But Sir, a question occurs to me—and I think not unnaturally—it is this: whether the City of London is to rest satisfied with the state of its representation, or whether, on the other hand, we are to be satisfied with defeat on this great question of religious liberty, or whether any other course can be adopted? Now it appears to me that another course can be adopted. The House is well aware that it has been the law for, I believe, two centuries—both declared and acknowledged—that persons in Courts of Justice may take an oath as witnesses, or in any other capacity, in any form most binding upon their conscience. That opinion is declared to have been given in 1657, and a Bill, which upon the proposition of the late Lord Denman passed into an Act of Parliament so late as the first year of the present reign, confirmed it and declared that all persons called upon to give evidence in Courts of Justice are to take the oaths most binding on the consciences of such persons, and that such persons so falsely swearing should be subject to all the pains and penalties inflicted upon those guilty of perjury. But although that is an Act declaring the law, there is this ambiguity about it, that although the words "on any occasion whatever" are contained in it, the question arises whether, as it mentions Courts of Justice only, any higher authority is meant by it, and likewise whether it affects the case of persons in this House. What I wish to propose is that that imperfection in the law should be cleared up, and that it should be declared and enacted that in the High Court of Parliament, as well as elsewhere, and "on all occasions," an oath administered by a person lawfully empowered to administer the same—

The present question is that the House at its rising do adjourn till Monday, and if it is not Competent for me to address the House upon this question out of order, I can soon put myself in order by moving that the House do now adjourn, and I do so with a view of enabling the Government to declare what they will do on this occasion affecting the rights of the Jewish portion of the population.

said, that with all due respect he would again submit that the noble Lord was out of order. A Motion now stood in the name of the noble Lord, having for its object the introduction of a Bill in reference to a certain statute there named, and the noble Lord was now discussing a question which would come regularly before the House at a later period of the evening.

Perhaps I may be permitted to say a few words upon the point of order. I rather think, Sir, your predecessor in the chair always laid down the rule that, although we have deviated widely from regularity in our proceedings upon this question of adjournment, yet he held it was not competent for an hon. Member to take advantage of this Motion, in order to speak upon any other subject relating to which there was a notice of Motion upon the paper of the evening. I mention this in order to put you, Sir, in mind of what has been the ruling in these cases. The noble Lord, as I understand, is now adopting another course, and proposes, in order to put himself right, to move the adjournment of the House, as an Amendment on the Motion that the House at its rising adjourn to Monday. By so doing I believe that the noble Lord would be acting strictly in accordance with the practice of the House, although he was not in order before; but I would venture to put it to the noble Lord himself, the greatest authority in this House, whether he would not be rather increasing the irregularity into which we have fallen by pursuing the subject at this moment.

Although the noble Lord is undoubtedly a great authority in this House, yet nothing is more clearly understood than that this is an order night, and that on such a night, the orders of the day have the precedence. The noble Lord has a notice upon the paper of a Motion for leave to introduce a Bill, and I am certain that many Members have gone away under the impression that it was im- possible that the subject could be brought on until after the orders of the day had been disposed of. It would take those hon. Members greatly by surprise, and I believe also that it would take the public greatly by surprise, if the noble Lord were now to proceed with his Bill.

I desire on the subject of order, in the first place, to pause for a moment to remind the House of the extreme inconvenience of the course which has been pursued this evening. A multiplicity of questions have been discussed upon the one Motion, that the House at its rising do adjourn till Monday next, and confusion in discussion is the result, which is greatly to be deprecated. With respect to the question which has been addressed to me by the hon. Member for Evesham (Sir H. Willoughby) I feel that no duty is more imperative upon me than that of preserving the order of business, as it is laid down by the House for the day; and it certainly is my opinion that, as the noble Lord has given notice of a Motion for this evening, it is going beyond the irregularity into which we have been already led to take advantage of the Motion that the House at its rising adjourn to Monday, for the purpose of anticipating that notice of Motion, and raising a discussion upon it.

With respect of the point of order, I may perhaps be permitted to say, that in the course of this very evening different Members on either side of the House have entered into questions which properly belong to Committee of Supply, and which must be discussed in Committee of Supply this very evening. My right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, though he reprehended the practice, yet immediately followed it, and entered into that which ought to have been discussed in Committee of Supply. Having, however, been misled probably by that very high authority, I am ready to say that I have a particular object in view, from which I will not be deterred, and I shall therefore make myself perfectly in order by moving the adjournment of the House. My particular object is to know whether, supposing the House consents to my bringing in a Bill with respect to which I will not say a single word more, the First Lord of the Treasury will agree to appoint a day, fixed for Government business, on which that Bill can be discussed? It is obvious that unless that is done, and unless that is an early day, there is no chance of that Bill going up to the House of Lords. It is a Bill on which depends a question of great public importance; and certainly I conceive it ought to be discussed before an hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn), brings forward a Motion for the purpose of putting Baron Lionel Rothschild into his seat by a Resolution of tins House, which may involve us in a perilous conflict; and therefore I take the opportunity of pressing for an answer to my question, whether, if I am allowed to bring in that Bill, a day will be given for its consideration? The noble Lord concluded by the formal Motion for the adjournment of the House.

I think that the noble Lord the Member for London was perfectly in order when he commenced his observations, seeing that he had to complain of a wrong done to his constituents, inasmuch as one of the Members returned by them is not able to take his seat in this House; but I certainly think with the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole), that he was not in order in alluding to the notice of Motion which he had on the paper. At all events, it has been my misfortune, Sir, to be stopped more than once by your predecessor when I have alluded to a notice for a Bill which I had on the paper, and when I have spoken under similar circumstances. I rose, however, to remind the House of one fact, and that is that we have not upon our journals any record of the wrong that has been done to the citizens of London. Baron Rothschild has not attempted during this Parliament to take his seat, and you have no right to assume what the House would do if he did attempt to take it. The House may arrive at a different conclusion from that at which the last House arrived. On a former occasion, acting under the influence of the noble Lord, the House decided that it could not assent to the proposal made by one of the Vice Chancellors of England, Sir William Page Wood, that Mr. Alderman Salomons had taken the oath in a manner binding on his conscience, and that he therefore was at once at liberty to take his seat. I would suggest that the hon. Member for the City of London (Baron Rothschild), should present himself at the table before any hasty steps are adopted, and be refused his seat on account of not swearing those words "on the true faith of a Christian," although he should affirm that he has taken the oath in a manner binding on his conscience. It would then be competent for any hon. Member to move a Resolution that he, having taken the oath in the manner most binding upon his conscience, should be at liberty to take his seat, I voted for that Resolution on a former occasion. I am prepared to vote for it again, and I am not at all sure that the Bill of the noble Lord would not weaken our position in that respect. I wish now, however, to remind the House that the citizens of London have not upon the journals any record of their wrong, which, in my opinion, should appear before we proceed any further.

With respect to the question put by my noble Friend, all I can say is that of course I presume that the House would, as matter of courtesy whatever the opinions of any hon. Members may be on the question itself, allow my noble Friend to obtain leave to bring in his Bill. As to the suggestion that a day should afterwards be given to him for its discussion, my noble Friend must consider that there are many very important matters connected with the country still under discussion in this House, and that our days are numbered. Therefore it is impossible, until the public business shall have advanced in a more certain manner, to promise any hon. Members that I will give them, at an early period at least, a Government day for the discussion of the Bills which they may think it advisable to bring in. I am afraid this answer will not be satisfactory to my noble Friend, but it is really all that I can say at present consistently with my public duty.

said, he rose to call the attention of the House to the question, Whether, in their deliberate opinion, it be conducive to the honour or the interests of this country that we should manifest and avow the existence of a jealous hostility on our part to the project of a Ship Canal through the Isthmus of Suez; or whether, on the contrary, it would not be more in accordance with the character for disinterested impartiality, which we seek to maintain, if we were to leave that subject without prejudice, to be dealt with by the natural, physical, and engineering diffi- culties which surround its execution? Though he could understand the difficulties in an engineering point of view which had been suggested, he could not understand why or how the opening of the canal, if accomplished, should he adverse to the interests of this country, or why not extremely conducive to our national advantage.

My hon. Friend has had the courtesy to give me notice of this matter, and I collect from my hon. Friend's letter that he wishes to know whether, in the answer which I gave on a former occasion as to the project to cut a canal of 300 feet wide and 30 feet deep between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, I expressed a hasty opinion, or whether I did not display more jealousy of foreign powers than it was expedient to express, whatever foundation there might be for it. Sir, in reply, I can only say, that whatever objections I may have expressed at any time with regard to that project, I endeavoured rather to understate than to overstate. It is a plan which, in my opinion, is founded on views inconsistent with the interests of this country and at variance with its settled policy. In a political point of view, it is objectionable as regards England, especially in connection with our Indian possessions; for it is plain, that if a great canal were cut from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, there are other naval powers with which we may have difficulties, which would have a very important start as compared with ourselves with regard to any operation that might be undertaken in the Indian Seas. Moreover, I consider it is a plan which has for its object the separation of Egypt from Turkey, which it has always been the policy of Great Britain to prevent, and which the French Government of the present day has abandoned, because that Government, acting loyally and in conjunction with the other States of Europe, by the treaty of Paris entered into an engagement to preserve the integrity and inviolability of the Turkish empire. Politically, therefore, I look upon the scheme as highly objectionable, and one which no Englishman with his eyes open would think it desirable, as regards national interests, to encourage. As regards the engineering difficulties, I am aware there is nothing which money and skill cannot overcome, except to stop the tides of the ocean and to make rivers run up to their sources. But I take leave to affirm, upon pretty good authority, that this plan cannot be accomplished, except at an expense which would preclude its being a remunerative undertaking; and I therefore think I am not much out of the way in stating this to be one of the bubble schemes which are often set on foot to induce English capitalists to embark their money upon enterprises which, in the end, will only leave them poorer, whomever else they may make richer.

said, he would not venture to enter upon the political bearings of the subject with respect to the other powers of Europe, but would confine himself merely to the engineering capabilities of the scheme. He had travelled, partly on foot, over the country to which the project applied, and had watched with great interest the progress that had been made by various parties in examining the question. He had first investigated the subject in 1847 in conjunction with M. Talabot, a French engineer, and M. Negrelli, an Austrian engineer. At the suggestion of Linant Bey, a French engineer, who had been upwards of twenty years resident in Egypt, and feeling how important was the establishment, if possible, of a communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, he had qualified himself to form an opinion on the subject. It had been received on the authority of an investigation of the levels taken by the French engineers during the invasion of Egypt about 1800, that, as stated by the ancient writers, there was a difference between the levels of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea of something like thirty-two feet. It was suggested at that time that the old canal might be opened out again, and that a current might be established between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea of from two to three miles an hour, which velocity of water would not impede the communication between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, as steam tugs might be employed, and the canal might at the same time be kept perfectly open, as the scouring power would be adequate to maintain a clear channel. He went into this scheme under the belief that that difference in level did actually exist. The examination was made by himself and the gentlemen, with whom he was associated, in 1847. They had not any idea, at that time, that if there was no difference of level, it would be practicable for a canal to be made in the first instance, or that it could be maintained afterwards. After investiga- tion, however, it was found that, instead of a difference of thirty-two feet, there was no difference of level whatever, at the period of low water, although for a period of fifty years the world had been under the impression from the published statements and levellings of M. Lepère, that a difference of thirty-two feet existed; and whilst it was supposed to exist, it was believed by professional men that a canal might be maintained, or that, as it was called, a new Bosphorus might be formed between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. But when the difference of level was found to be nil, the engineers with whom he was associated abandoned the project altogether, and he believed justly; and one of them (Mr. P. Talabot) made an adverse Report, which was published in the Révue des deux Mondes of May, 1855. Since then he had travelled over the Isthmus to Suez, and over other parts of the Desert, and had investigated the feasibility of making a free communication between the two seas, on the supposition that they were on the same level, and on the supposition that water might be supplied from a higher level—as, for instance, from the Nile. He might, however, say, without entering into professional details, that he had arrived at the conclusion that it was—he would not say absurd, because engineers whose opinions he respected had been to the spot since, and had declared the thing to be possible; at all events, if feasible (and as the First Lord of the Treasury had said money would overcome every difficulty), yet, commercially speaking, he frankly declared it to be an impracticable scheme. What its political import might be he could not say, but as an engineer he would pronounce it to be an undesirable scheme, in a commercial point of view, and that the railway (now nearly completed) would, as far as concerned India and postal arrangements, be more expeditious, more certain, and more economical than even if there were this new Bosphorus between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

Not having yet contributed to the olio of subjects which have been brought before the House, I hope I shall not be thought to take an extraordinary advantage of the latitude allowed on these occasions, if I now venture to bring forward my share. The noble Lord at the head of the Government has just told us "our days are numbered," but I may remind the House that if our days are numbered our duties at this moment are multiplied. I really think the House would abdicate its functions and place itself, as regards the country, in a most ignominious position, if it allowed this Session to close without a discussion in this House on the present state of India. I think it is one of our first duties to consider the present condition of our Indian empire, I understood the noble Lord the other night, when he proposed to place some papers on the table, to say that he did not suppose that any hon. Gentleman could possibly wish to discuss the important question of the state of India without first reading those papers. Now, I was told last night by a Minister peculiarly responsible for the production of those papers that, so far as the narrative was concerned, those papers were ready and would be laid on the table this evening, but with respect to the other papers some delay would occur in their production. Now, I understand the delay is, or may be, occasioned by the following reason:—There was a wish expressed on my part, and I believe it was very generally the sentiment of the House, that the papers should not be confined to a mere narrative, but that the despatches should be placed on the table which had been written nine or twelve months previous to the occurrence of the recent events in India, so that we might be put in possession of the Reports of the Indian Government with respect to the state of that country at a time considerably before the late occurrences. We were informed by the Minister that no warnings, the rumour of which was freely circulated, had ever been given by the Indian authorities to Her Majesty's Ministers, and I am led to believe, from what reaches me, that the Ministers at this moment are studiously searching their offices for these warnings, of which there had been a rumour, and until they should be discovered, or until all the papers in the possession of the Ministers should be investigated, we shall not be in a position, according to the view of the noble Lord's declaration, to enter on this important discussion. The House will see, especially in the month of July, that when there is on the part of the Government a search for papers which are to prove a negative, that search may be of considerable length, and it is not at all impossible that the House may at the last hour of the Session be informed that it has been fruitless. I for one made no charge against the Government that they had disregarded warnings which had been addressed to them by functionaries in India. I only wished, as everybody would wish, that as rumours of these reports having been circulated, the Government should inform us whether they received them. It is to me a matter of no importance whether they received these warnings or not; and therefore I trust that, as there will be placed on the table to-night papers which give as much information respecting recent occurrences as Her Majesty's Ministers think necessary—I will not say for the justification, but for the explanation of their conduct and the illustration of the course of affairs, the noble Lord will see the advantage to the country, to the Government, and to Parliament, of appointing an early day on which the attention of this House may be called to the state of our Indian empire at the present moment. The noble Lord the Member for the City of London, spoke rather deridingly the other evening of my observation, that we wanted some information as to the cause of these occurrences. "I am of opinion," said the noble Lord, "that what we want is not information as to the cause of these occurrences; what we want to know is whether the Government contemplate the use of means sufficient to put an end to these disasters." With great deference to the noble Member for London I maintain that it is totally impossible that we can form an opinion as to the sufficiency of the measures adopted by the Government to encounter these great contingencies, unless we have some general idea of the cause of their occurrence. Why, we were told last night that these extraordinary events have been occasioned by a sudden impulse of the soldiery, arising out of some superstitious feeling. If that be the true view of the case, and it is the view of the Cabinet, I can easily understand that measures of a very energetic, but, comparatively speaking, superficial character may be competent to encounter the difficulties which meet us; but if the cause be deeper, if it be one of longer standing, if, instead of being the sudden impulse of a disaffected or affrighted soldiery, this is the result of an organized conspiracy in a nation of immense population, then it may be that the means which the Government propose to adopt are not adequate to the greater cause; and therefore I say that in discussing this question, which I trust we shall all approach with the calmness which so great a subject requires, we must take a wider view of what is the duty of the House of Commons than merely to ask the Government how many regiments and how many ships they are going to send out to put an end to these disasters. Now, Sir, I should propose on the earliest occasion which is consistent with due notice, and, of course, with the convenience of the Government, to ask the House to consider the present condition of our Indian empire with these two objects—to arrive before the prorogation at some general conclusion as to the causes of these great calamities, and to ascertain whether the means used by the Government are adequate to the occasion. I believe that these are two great duties of Parliament, and I am sure that, to use an Indian phrase, we shall, indeed, lose caste with our country if we shrink from a discussion of that kind. I should hope that in a few days these papers will not only be upon the table, but will be in the hands of hon. Members, and may be well digested; and what I now propose to the noble Lord is that he should fix as early a day as convenient on which this subject may be brought forward. I shall on that occasion make a Motion—a Motion of course not conceived in any spirit of hostility to Her Majesty's Government, or intended to obtain a party triumph, or to occasion party inconvenience to the Ministry, but having for its object to place before the House the ideas which have occurred to myself and to others upon this subject, and to permit hon. Members generally to offer their opinions upon the gravest and most momentous events which have occurred in our time. If the noble Lord will consent that on this day week I shall call attention to the state of our Indian empire, that will, I should think, be convenient to the House—it will be that which the country expects, it will give ample notice to hon. Gentlemen who may be absent, and will, I should imagine, fairly consult the convenience of the Government. If the noble Lord accedes to this suggestion, I shall on this day week call the attention of the House to the condition of our Indian empire.

I am quite ready to admit the position which the right hon. Gentleman has laid down, that it will be expected by the country that this House shall, before it separates, seriously give its attention to the state of affairs in India, At the same time, as I stated on a former occasion, I should think that the House would wish to have an opportunity of reading the papers before the debate comes on. These papers will be ready in a very few days. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Control has been looking through them, and I think he will without difficulty be able to make a selection which shall go back for such a period as will give all the information which may be required. The right hon. Gentleman proposes to bring forward the subject on Friday next, but I would submit to him this consideration. The probability is that about the end of next week we shall have another mail for India. That mail cannot fail to bring intelligence of considerable importance, especially with regard to the occupation of Delhi, and I would, therefore, submit to the right hon. Gentleman whether Monday week would not be a better day than Friday, and whether it is not likely that on that day the House will have fresh intelligence, which may have a very considerable bearing upon the consideration of this question. If that day suit him we will take care that Monday week shall be free.

I accept the offer of the noble Lord, and quite acknowledge the expediency of waiting for fresh intelligence if it arrive in reasonable time. Probably it may reach us before the day named, and, therefore, we will understand that on Monday week this question will be introduced to the consideration of the House.

The right hon. Gentleman gives us to understand that he will propose certain Resolutions,—will he inform us whether they will be laid upon the table some time before he moves them?

At the present moment I do not wish to bind myself as to the form of my Resolution, which will not be such as to require that it should be laid on the table before it is considered. My original intention was to move for papers, which I thought might probably not be presented by the Government, and to offer reasons why they should be given. After what has occurred it is not impossible that they may appear, and until the papers are produced I must excuse myself from placing any Resolution upon the table.

said that he wished to state, in reply to the question put to him by the hon. Member for Swansea, (Mr. Dillwyn) at an earlier period of the evening, that an arrangement had been made by the Inland Revenue Department with the manufacturer of this article, that he should continue its manufacture until it was decided whether or not it was liable to duty, he entering into conditions to pay the duty in case the decision was against him.

said, that he had given notice of his intention to move that Joseph Tredre, then in custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms for disobedience to a summons to attend before the Lambeth Election Committee, should be discharged on payment of the fees. Since he had come to the House, however, they had received a petition from this person, in which he prayed that, as he was suffering from great distress, the House would consent to his discharge without the payment of the fees. Although the absence of this man was very wilful and blameable, it did not appear to have been the result of concert with any party before the Committee, and when he did appear, his evidence, which was not of very much value to the inquiry, seemed to be given truthfully. Under these circumstances he asked leave to bring up the petition, and to move that the man should be discharged without paying the fees.

thought, if a person who had disobeyed the orders of the House, and who had consequently been taken into custody, was kept a little while in prison, it might do him some good.

was of opinion that the House ought to agree to the Motion.

said, that Tredre had already been in custody four days.

said, the answers which had been given to questions addressed to the noble Lord at the head of the Government and to the First Lord of the Admiralty, led him to the conclusion that the defences of the country were in a most inadequate and defective state. He had to-night put a question on the subject to the noble Lord, but as he had not succeeded in eliciting any answer or explanation he begged to give notice that he would take the earliest opportunity, on going into Committee of Supply, of bringing the condition of the national defences under the notice of the House.

I can assure the hon. Gentleman it was from no disrespect to him that his question was unanswered, but really such a multiplicity of subjects have been dancing before my eyes that his inquiries escaped my recollection. I do not agree, however, with the hon. Gentleman that the country is in a defenceless state. On the contrary, I consider that we are adequately provided against any emergency that can arise, and we have ample means of increasing our defences if it should be necessary to do so. I do not think the public money would be wisely expended in calling out the militia at the present moment, because I don't think their services are at all required. Such a course would not only involve a waste of the public money, but also a very unnecessary interference with the industry of the country, and would be attended with great inconvenience both to officers and men. I think, therefore, it would be a very unadvisable proceeding. We have the militia, with all the military experience they have acquired during the war, and if from any unfortunate course of events their services were required, I am quite sure the shortest notice would be sufficient to bring them under arms in defence of the country. I must say, therefore, that I totally disagree with the hon. Gentleman in his opinion that the country is devoid of proper defences, and I shall be quite ready to maintain my view whenever it may suit him to call the attention of the House to the subject.

said, he had, he believed in deference to the wish of the House, last night postponed his Motion in reference to the Indian Railways, and he now rose to move it. The question had a vital bearing upon the subject of India, and was, in fact, evidence in that important case which would shortly be debated—bearing upon the state and prospects, the successes and the mistakes, of our policy and our empire in the East. He repeated his statement already made to the House that had that system of arterial railway communication, which had been projected by private enterprise and approved by the East Indian Company, been completed, as he should prove it might, and ought to have been before now, the same mail which brought the news of the insurrection in India would have also conveyed the intelligence of its summary conclusion and signal chastisement. He could call in evidence to prove this, the opinion of high military authorities in that House, who would bear him out in stating that had the railway communication which had been projected upon paper, and was now in progress, been completed, the forces of the Crown and of the India Company could have been directed in such overwhelming numbers and with such rapidity upon the mutineers, that instead of that confidence which our temporary weakness had produced—and the results of which had covered us with shame—panic, flight, and submission must have been the result. What had happened? A mutiny or revolt had taken place—unexpected but organized and sudden. One day's licence, unchecked and unpunished, had scattered the flame of revolt over a district of hundreds of miles in length; and we were now to be contented, while the rebels held Delhi, with the fact that a small band of our troops had been able to take six-and-twenty field guns outside the walls. This revolt had disturbed the public mind at home and abroad. It had damaged our prestige with our Allies and our enemies alike, and its repression now, in the plentitude of its licence, would entail a cost of millions, and an annual increase of our taxation for a long time to come. He again repeated that had these railways been completed as long ago as they ought to have been, the mischief would have been crushed in the bud. He should be told that this was a mere practical question—so many miles of railway. So it was. But these practical questions were at the foundation of all political success. Success in anything was the mere reflection of labour and of forethought, and the fashion to contemn practical questions had over and over again, and most signally in the Crimea, led to national disaster and defeat. In India we were holding a vast country by concentration and prestige. The population were becoming every day more instructed in the secrets of our weakness as well as in the causes of our power. If we refused to progress in organization, as they progressed in knowledge of us, that measure of comparative superiority which had enabled us to rule, would bit by bit disappear, and when once the conviction of our power had become weakened in the native mind, we should never again be able to hold the country with a handful of Europeans, directed from Leadenhall Street or Cannon Row. Railway communication meant both industrial development and military strength. It meant that power to concentrate men and guns, on one point from all other points, and in all seasons, which made a small army in India more powerful than a large one. Let the House consider the case of troops coming as they now were from the seat of war in Persia. Those troops now would come in all probability by Bombay, and then overland, or would be sent round to depôts by Calcutta and the Ganges, and thence be marched to the scene of operations. He would not now speak of the route of the Indus. The representatives of the East India Company in that House would not deny that had these railways been completed from Bombay to Delhi, these troops would have been before Delhi equipped and in order of battle in three days from leaving the ship. Would any one of the Members representing India get up in his place and say, that by any route or means whatever these troops could now be conveyed in thirty days? He believed that, according to circumstances, and to the weather, and the route, it might be thirty days, or it might be ninety; and if a thousand men were sent by the present slow and uncertain routes, disease and loss of life always accompanied the march, which need only be long enough to decimate the contingent. Here was the whole question. India, then, had been imperilled by the delay of her railways. Now, railways were first brought before the India Company and the Board of Control in 1843. Parliament had chosen to assume a portion of Indian responsibility by allowing a third of the India Board to be nominated by Government. The India Board was, therefore, two-thirds commercial, and one-third governmental. Hence the Treasury Bench became responsible. Railways were first completed in England in 1830; they progressed in America and in other parts of the world; but, he repeated, they were only thought of for India in 1843. The India Company met the proposition not only with remonstrance, but with positive resistance—and at last, forced to bend to the progress of the age, they encountered the innovation by a system of suicidal interference and control which must be fatal to the rapid progress of any industry. Knowing what he did, it was not matter of surprise to him that, dating from 1843, 1857 should only witness the completion of 358 miles of railway in India! Yes, 358 miles were all; and over that small length of opened railway he supposed the Board of Control would to-night sing a song of triumph. There could be no question as to the importance of these works, especially in reference to the cultivation of cotton. Even the Chairman of the East India Company, the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles) stated before Mr. Bright's Committee, in 1848, that, sooner than they should be delayed, they should be constructed at the public expense. Well, then, the works being so important that the hon. Member would have actually constructed them out of the Company's own funds, how was it that they had been delayed? If the House would refer to the map which he held in his hand, they would see that the arterial lines proposed for India were, first, the East India Railway, from Calcutta along the valleys of the Ganges and the Jumna. This line was first considered in 1845, was first guaranteed by the India Board in 1849, and again in 1854, and only 121 miles, out of a total in progress, or to be made, of 950 miles were opened. Then there was the Great India Peninsular, gazetted in 1843, guaranteed in 1849, and again in 1853; 88 miles only opened, and 1,103 miles in operation, but not yet opened. Then the Madras Railway, gazetted in 1849, guaranteed in 1852, and a further extension in 1855; 73 miles only opened, and 827 more still to open. There were also the Scinde and the Bombay and Baroda. There were also as projects the Oude, the Great Southern, the Eastern, Bengal, &c. But the arterial system shown on the map extended from Madras on the south-east to Cochin on the south-west coast of India, and going north-west to a junction with the Bombay line, and kindred systems extended northward to Delhi and on to Lahore. Then the East Indian came from Calcutta north-west, to a junction with the north line; while a central line would come east and west, and an arm of the system penetrate to Nag-poor. All the Presidencies, all their more important ports and all the military centres were thus to be put in communication. Was he wrong, then, in stating that had these lines been made, troops and stores could have been poured from every portion of India to the seat of mutiny, and the revolt would not have been a month old in success as it was at the date of the last accounts? Why should not these lines, so tardily projected, have long ago been finished? Look at our own country and America. Before a single sod was cut in India we had 6,000 miles of railway open in England, and 8,856 in the United States. In America, with its population of 27,000,000 souls, 26,000 miles of line were now in active work. In the United Kingdom we had 8,307 miles with a population of 30,000,000, while in India, under the parental rule of the India Company, and of the Board of Control, its partner, we had only, at the date of the last accounts, 358 miles of single line open for traffic with a population of 150,000,000 souls. He repeated, why was it? Why even our colony of Canada with its 3,000,000 of people had beaten all India. In 1853 it sanctioned the Grand Trunk Railway; in October, 1856, 853 miles of that railway were actually open and at work for traffic, and Canada had now to boast of some 1,500 miles of railway, while India, that mighty empire, rejoiced over 358. The causes of delay and of failure, for delay was failure in India, could be easily understood. First, there was the original opposition and unaccountable blindness of the India Board in 1843 and 1844. The Board actually turned out the Bill for the Great Indian Peninsular in that House. And here he might allude to an opinion from the hon. Member for Whitby (Mr. Robert Stephenson) who had so much interested the House that evening in reference to the proposed Canal across the isthmus of Suez. In a Report on the Great Indian Peninsular in 1847, Mr. Stephenson said—

"It is much to be regretted that in dealing with the subject admitted to be of so great importance to cotton-growing India and to cotton-manufacturing England, and in the pursuit of which the conduct of the railway company has shown them to be persevering and sincere, that the East India Company should not have felt it prudent to follow the example so recently shown by Her Majesty's Government, both in prompt attention to the proposals made and in the liberality of the terms accorded. It is quite impossible to advise the Great Indian Peninsular Railway Company to limit themselves under terms such as those now offered by the East India Company, since to do so would be to expose themselves to almost certain losses, not arising necessarily out of the undertaking itself, and to bring utter discredit upon the whole cause of railway communication in Western India."

Then there were the obstacles presented through the passive resistance of a party at the India House, which heretofore had resisted all improvement; and more important still, there intervened that system of minute interference and control, and of ironbound routine, which forbad all rapidity and all energy. Then, again, the contracts of the Indian House with the Railway Companies were not framed so as, in any case, to ensure rapid execution or simple and cheap construction. They guaranteed a fixed per centage upon the cost, and they fixed no time to complete, instead of giving a guarantee upon a fixed or maximum sum and stipulating for a fixed time for completion. Thus they found original opposition, passive resistance throughout, red tape and routine, and defective schemes of contract. Again, the India Company, in the present state of its finance, seemed to have a direct interest in keeping the monies of the railway companies in hand rather than in having them rapidly invested in productive works. The Indian railway companies were too large; they had become monopolies; and they were money lenders to the India Company. Let him call attention to some of the facts. The East India Railway had opened 121 miles of line only; it had issued, however, twenty-one half yearly Reports. It had called up £6,700,000; it had laid out in works £5,900,000, and it had a balance in the hands of the India Company of £847,000. Then the Madras Railway Company had opened seventy-three miles; had issued ten half-yearly Reports, had called up £2,313,000, had spent £1,340,000, and had, to quote its Report, "in the hands of the Honourable East India Company," £970,000. Then the Great Indian Peninsular which had issued fifteen half-yearly Reports, and had opened eighty-eight miles of line, had called up £3,039,000, had expended £1,424,000, and had in the hands of the East India Company £1,600,000. Thus the East India Company had possession, in its own till, of nearly £3,500,000 sterling belonging to three Indian Railways—enough to com- plete 600 miles of line of itself—and thus in these times of Indian disaster we possessed 358 miles of opened railway, when 1,000 might have saved us. He had quoted England, Canada, and the United States of America. Was there any radical difficulty in making railways in India? Remarks had been made in that House about cheap railways in India. Some comparison existed between the cheapness which meant inefficient, and the cheapness which yet enabled permanent, construction. Railways could be made cheaply in all countries; it was a question of land and of the nature of the ground. In the United States railways were cheapened often by the use of timber, which was the material of a good part of the country. In India, generally speaking, timber was not the cheap material for railways which it was in America. The cheap material for all railways was, practically, the material on the ground. That material was in India brick-clay and stone, as in America it was often timber. Thus cheap railways in India need not involve timber structures, and cheapness and permanence might be synonymous terms. Now, in America there was not much to pay for land and less for Parliamentary expenses and law, while in England we paid dear for both. In India, Companies had no law to pay for, and the land was to a great extent given to them. The material, with the exception of iron and metals, which both in America and in India were mostly derived from this country, was found on the spot or in the country itself. Then as to labour, in India, it was paid for by pence a day, while in America and in England it was paid for by shillings; and the labour of India was more cheap and more docile than that found in America. Now, apart from the faulty construction of the contracts with the railway companies, and the excessive magnitude of each company's operations—1,200 or 1,500 miles being conceded to one single company, where the energies of two or three companies ought to have been called into play—also for financial reasons—the vexatious and absurd routine of Indian inspection and control was enough to account for much of the difficulty. The India Company claimed the entire surveillance, almost the entire management. They checked, and controlled, and criticised, and the work was impeded accordingly. That interference was most injurious. We sent out hard-working and experienced engineers from this country, and they met with obstruction and contumely. Who did they find to control them? Why, military engineers, whe had never seen a railway before in their lives. These men were, perhaps, excellent military engineers—men who ought to have been at Sebastopol, for at all events they could not have disappointed the country more than the engineers who were sent there—and these men ordered, and countermanded, and interfered, and stopped the pay, and made confusion quite confounded. These men had issued the most ridiculous orders. At the beginning some of them had actually ordered gradients of one foot in 1,000 to be made level—and long and expensive banks were now to be seen across the "paddy fields," on the Ganges, in consequence of this most ridiculous order. Then later on, and within the last year or two, an engineer on the Madras line had ordered a return gradient of one in 120 and one in 140 to be amalgamated and made one in 130, which was done, and the result was an excess of expenditure of some thousand pounds, three months' delay, and, after all, a worse line for practical working. These were two instances out of hundreds. But the interference and routine began from the beginning. For instance:—first, the Secretary of the East India Board is ex-officio a director of all the lines, and has a veto in England. Suppose he approve, then the India Company's Direction, and, after them, the Board of Control may disapprove. These three bodies can, therefore, each veto all the appointments of the Railway Boards. Suppose an Engineer appointed under this system where the line is executed by the railway company and not by contract. He requires materials to be sent from England:—First, he applies to the Agent or Committee in India; then the Agent goes to the Government Consulting Engineer; the Consulting Engineer goes to the Governor in Council; and, if he approve, the application comes back to—1. Your Consulting Engineer—2. Your Railway Agent: who sends on to (1) the Board in London; who, (2) send on to the Consulting Engineer, who, if he approve, gets tenders, and the Board (3) send it on to (4) the India Company's Board, who send it on to (5) the Board of Control, and (6) so back to India. This was the course in England. In India all the plans and drawings of works were submitted (1) to the Government Engineer, who (2) submits to the Local Government, who approve or discuss before the work is begun. All this is done in long letters, and in true red-tape style, hanging up work, often for months and years. Now, he declared unhesitatingly that if such a system were adopted in this country, or in America—if it were employed in our banks, or our commercial houses, or in any large trade—the business of the country could not be carried on, and the word "progress" would soon be obliterated from our vocabulary. Referring again to the Madras Report, he found in this book hundreds of pages filled also with small details, down almost to the glazing of a window, some most startling facts. The military engineer in this case was a Colonel Pears, no doubt a good millitary engineer, but clearly quite unaccustomed to the employment and utilization of labour as a commercial question. The gallant colonel was at sea when he attempted railways. The Madras Railway, slow as had been its progress, had been held up as an example, and its staff of engineers would have long ago completed the works if they had been let alone. But, in fact, they had been in a state of chronic mutiny ever since they were placed under Colonel Pears. [The hon. Member then read some instances of intermeddling, among them the case of the removal of two bath-rooms or water-closets, which would have cost about £20, which proposal after going through a long routine was finally "approved by the right hon. the Governor in Council."] But he had a Report before him from a gentleman well-known in England and in India, namely, the Chairman of the Scinde Railway, which further illustrated the system. In the third Report of the Directors of the Scinde Railway Company it was stated that the Company had been three years in progress, that there was a paid-up capital of £332,000 lying idle, of which £218,000 was in the hands of the East India Company. Nine miles had been surveyed and levelled, when the authorities stopped the proceedings because they had not decided on the exact route to be adopted! Nine lines surveyed (now a tenth) three years time lost, and the India Company in possession of the money! The Reports of other Indian Railway Companies also stated that immense sums of money have been paid up; that a large portion was in the hands of the East India Company; and that a vast deal of money is actually uselessly dispersed over India, in half-finished and straggling works, owing to the suicidal system adopted. He ventured to assert again, and on authority which could not be disputed, that if the India Company would give free scope to the engineering staff, and say to the Railway Companies "complete your lines without more interference," that in two, or at most three years, every one of the arterial railways of India could be completed. The causes of failure were still at work. The evil continued. The East India Board expended itself in orders, and did not see them carried out. That Board was not yet awake to the dangers surrounding our empire. They were talking when they ought to be acting. There was here a mere physical task to accomplish. Was it to be done? It was easy of execution. If so, and in view of the grievous injury of past delays now so painfully realized, a deep responsibility would rest upon the India Company, on the Railway Companies themselves, and on that House, if every effort were not now made in the right direction. He need not recur to the advantages of railways in a military point of view. That part of his case was admitted, and as to the development of the industrial resources of the country, the Chairman of the East India Company had himself made it a matter of boast in that House, that when once the railway system was at work, heavy articles of produce, the result of native labour, cotton for example, could be conveyed so cheaply, that instead of it costing, as it now did, twice as much as the value of the cotton on the place of its growth to carry it down to the sea, the proportions of cost would be then inverted. In fact, India had, physically speaking, all that was necessary for a rapid and full development, except the means of locomotion and of transit. Cease to keep from her those means, and she would, in spite of mismanagement, and of internal disorders, rise in the industrial scale, and the very measures which promoted her prosperity would consolidate our power. He concluded by moving:—

Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the slow progress of the East Indian Railways involves danger to the Military occupation of India, and retards the development of the industrial resources of that country," instead thereof.

seconded the Motion.

said, he hoped the House would not be led away from the question immediately before it (that the Speaker leave the Chair in order to go into Committee of Supply) into a long discussion of Indian railways, which might be in place at the proper opportunity, but was intrusive on the present occasion. He did not think the hon. Gentleman was correct in saying it was a fit subject for the interference of the House. The Government had always considered it as a question of private commercial enterprise; and, with regard to any impediments by the Court of Directors or the Board of Control, the House should recollect the slight fact of the Indian Government guaranteeing five per cent. upon a very large outlay. Under those circumstances they would materially neglect their duty if they did not exercise some supervision over the expenditure of the money. In some instances it appeared that the railway companies contemplated the squandering of money in the most lavish manner, and the Indian Government were, therefore, completely justified in exercising the most minute supervision. The beginning of railways in India was in 1849, and the amount of capital upon which the Government had guaranteed interest was £30,230,000. Nearly £12,000,000 had been already expended, and the whole guarantee of interest might prove a considerable charge on the Indian Exchequer. It was perfectly true that the Indian Government had declined to guarantee some smaller lines at present; and in that judgment the Government at home entirely concurred, as it properly thought that the great trunk lines should be first finished. The means of conveying troops throughout the whole of India would undoubtedly be a great advantage at the present moment; but the charge which had just been made against the Indian Government by the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Watkin), was inconsistent with the complaint preferred a few nights ago by the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Kershaw), that the Indian Government had devoted the railways in that country to military and political, and not to commercial purposes. The complaint of the hon. Member for Stockport might, perhaps, be plausibly advanced against the Indian Government, but that Government was not at all open to the reproach of the hon. Member for Yarmouth. It had confined itself to the construction of certain trunk lines, and those lines had made more rapid progress than was exhibited in the same time in England at the beginning of railways. So far from the Indian Government wishing to keep the money which had been lodged in their hands by the railway companies it would be only too glad if the companies would receive possession of it and make the railways as fast as they could. The companies would have every assistance from him in the prosecution of their undertaking. It was their own fault that so little progress had hitherto been made. The impediments which the hon. Member for Yarmouth said had been thrown in their way arose from a proper supervision of an expenditure of which no small part was borne by the Indian Government, but in all other respects the Government was ready to allow them to proceed at any pace they pleased, and, as far as he was concerned, the more progress they made the better. If the Indian Government had undertaken to construct the railway itself, complaint might fairly have been made that it was not going fast enough; but the construction of the lines had been left entirely to private companies, and it was their duty to proceed as rapidly as they could. His own opinion was, that if, at the commencement of the railways, there had been a Board of Supervision to look after the whole of them, and take care that they were made more for the public advantage than for private profit, a better state of things would have existed now; but the appointment of such a board would have been met with a great outcry, and, therefore, the task of constructing Indian railways had been intrusted to private companies. Matters having been so arranged, he denied the position of the hon. Member for Yarmouth, that any impediment had been thrown in the way of the private companies by the Indian Government, which, on the contrary, desired nothing more than the speedy completion of the railways it had guaranteed to so large an amount. He trusted that hon. Members would be content with that assurance, and, without continuing the debate any further, would allow the House to go into Committee of Supply.

said that, connected as he had been with the establishment of railways in India, and presiding as he now did over the East India Railway Company, he could not allow the present opportunity to pass without saying a few words in reply to the statements of the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth, (Mr. Watkin). He thought that the attack which had been made upon the railway companies for the failure of their efforts to complete their works within a reasonable time was very unfair, and he should submit some facts to the House which would show that the hon. Gentleman had taken very little trouble to inform himself of the real circumstances. The East India Railway Company was established for the purpose of constructing a line of about 1,100 miles in length. In 1849 it entered into a contract for that object with the East India Company; in 1851 it was put into possession of the land, and in 1855 it opened 123 miles of railway—a rate of progress which might bear a favourable comparison with the best examples of railway enterprise in England. Nor was that all. So far from its being true, as the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth had stated, that no progress had been made beyond the 123 miles already opened, the company had at the present moment in active construction no fewer than 900 miles of railway, and during the course of last year the large sum of £1,700,000 was expended on the line, of which £523,000 was laid out upon the permanent way and bridges. In addition to that, the company had spent nearly a quarter of a million in sending out rails and other heavy materials. He did not think that the East India Company was in the slightest degree amenable to the charges which had been preferred against it by the hon. Member for Yarmouth; on the contrary, he believed that the success of the railway companies was owing in a great degree to the able and conciliatory manner in which Sir James Melvill had exercised the supervision with which he had been intrusted by the East India Company. At the same time, he admitted that the conduct of the local authorities in India was often not of the most judicious kind. Their interference was often of a petty and almost ridiculous character; and it certainly might be said that great circumlocution did prevail in India; for instance, the Madras Company was called upon to despatch an express train, but it could not be done without the sanction of the superintending engineer. To obtain that sanction occupied two days, so that the order to despatch the express train came two days after it was required. He was quite alive to the appeal which had been made for going into Committee, and therefore, upon that and other topics connected with Indian railways, he would reserve the observations which he wished to address to the House until the President of the Board of Control brought forward his annual budget.

said, that the speech of the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Watkin) had accomplished, at least, one good object—it had elicited from the President of the Board of Control a statement which could not fail to be satisfactory to every Member of the House. The right hon. Gentleman had declared himself willing to give a full and fair course to private enterprise, and if that were done there was every reason to expect that the railways of India would be pushed forward with as much vigour as those of other countries. In 1853 a Bill passed the Canadian Legislature for the construction of the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada, and in 1856 no less than 853 miles of railway were opened. From a Report of the railway with which the hon. Member for London, (Mr. R. W. Crawford) was connected, it appeared that 88 miles were opened. [Mr. CRAWFORD.—One hundred and twenty three.]—Well, possibly now it may be 123 miles. At the same time he would observe, that when the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Crawford) said that the hon. Member for Yarmouth had taken up this question lightly, he was never more mistaken in his life. No man had taken greater pains with railway matters than his hon. Friend (Mr. Watkin). No man's opinion deserved to be held in higher estimation upon such questions. And it was, first of all, his knowledge of railway matters, and secondly, his sincere and warm interest in all that concerned India that induced him to bring forward the present Motion. He hoped, however, that his hon. Friend would be satisfied with the explanations which had been given, and would not press the Question to a division. For himself, he readily owned that he had seconded the Motion, not with any special reference to the military occupation of India, but from a strong desire to see commercial enterprise progressing there, and from a conviction that such progress was intimately and closely connected with the welfare of our Indian empire, and its restoration to peace and prosperity. Before resuming his seat he would say just one word as to the comparison which had been entered into between the first beginnings of railways in England and India. It had been argued that if a comparison were instituted between the development of railways in the two cases, it would be found that the progress of railways in India had not been so much delayed. Now, that was not a fair comparison, for when railways were first set on foot in England, everything was new to the engineer; whereas in India, these gentlemen were able to commence their work with the experience of the whole world to guide them; therefore, that which might have been fair progress in England twenty years ago, was very slow and dilatory in these days.

said he would content himself with expressing a hope, that in a few days such facts and figures would be laid before the House as would save it from the repetition of the present most discursive discussion.

said, he could not but consider the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Watkin) to be entirely out of place in his present complaint. Whatever had been the past conduct of the Indian Government, he felt bound to admit that in recent times its efforts to promote railway enterprise had been greatly extended; for although up to the present moment there had been only constructed a very small extent of railways, still there was a very large extent in the course of construction. He should be sorry if the statement of the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Watkin) was to go forth without correction, namely—that the 280 miles actually constructed represented the whole of the railway enterprise in India. On the contrary, he (Mr. Ayrton) found that in addition to the 1000 miles under construction in Bengal, there were under construction in Bombay, leading into the interior, no less than 224 miles of railway, from Madras no less than 300 miles, and from Surat about 100 miles; while beyond that some 2,000 miles additional had been surveyed, with the intention of completing different sections as arrangements were completed. It was, therefore, wrong to say that the Government of India had been remiss in its duty; on the contrary, he was sorry to say that the administration of India, being of the weakest and most vacillating character, it was being driven too much in an opposite direction, and by the force of public opinion they were being driven to construct railways with too much rapidity; for if railways were pressed with an over-rapidity, the expense of their construction would be greatly enhanced, and they would run the danger of disorganising the labouring population of the country, by creating and congregating in a few spots a class of labourers at high wages, who, when the demand for their labour had ceased, would be placed in circumstances of great distress. Upon the whole, he thought it would be much better to investigate the administration of the Indian Government when the question was brought generally under review by the President of the Board of Control. As for the deficiency of railway communication having influenced recent events in India, he would only say, that he thought the cause of the unhappy results which had been witnessed must be sought in a totally different direction.

said, that having received frequent communications from the borough which he had the honour to represent on the subject of the production of cotton in India, with which the development of railway communication in that country was so intimately connected, he might be suffered to offer a few observations to the House on the present occasion. The hon. Member below him (Mr. Ayrton) seemed to complain that the work of railway construction had gone on too rapidly in India. Now, in order to disabuse the hon. Gentleman's mind of such an impression he would supply him with some stastictics connected with the Great India Peninsular line. He believed that that line was first brought under the notice of the Board of Control in 1844. However, the Bill was not introduced into the House of Commons until 1845, when it fell to the ground because of the opposition of the East India Company. Well, the scheme remained in abeyance until 1848. When the Bill was permitted to pass, what was the result? Why, the contracts were made in 1849, and now in 1857 just eighty-eight miles of railway were opened. Now, he would ask the House whether that bore any comparison with the progress of railway enterprise in either England or America? It was proved before the Select Committee which had been appointed to consider the growth of cotton in India, that the cotton had to be brought down from the plantations, a distance of 400 miles, on the backs of bullocks to the sea coast, and that the cost of that carriage actually doubled the price of the cotton, while if good roads were made, we should receive cotton at a cheaper rate, and in return find a market for our manufactured goods. The value of our cotton exportation he found stated at between £36,000,000 and £38,000,000 a year; but it would be well if the House understood that at that moment they were paying £10,000,000 more than they ought for cotton. Now, that made the value of our exports appear very much more than it really was, or at all events, it did not follow that the profits to this country with an increased export were greater than before. He believed, on the contrary, the position of the manufacturing interest in Lancashire at the present moment to be very unsatisfactory, and that the difference between the price of the cotton and the profit of the manufacturer was less than at any previous period. The consumption of cotton in this country was increasing year by year, while the supply did not proceed in an equal ratio. In other lands the supply did not equal the demand. The United States of America supplied seven-eighths of the cotton consumed by England, while the increase of slave labour there was but very gradual, and even that increase must sooner or later come to a stand-still. If that were so, it behoved them to look to other countries for a supply of cotton, and to India they ought to turn their eyes in the first instance; but there the difficulty was how to bring the cotton down to the sea-coast. At the same time the production of cotton in India was accompanied with difficulties unknown to America; in India the climate greatly interfered with the work, and in consequence it became necessary that certain works of irrigation should be undertaken by the Government. In conclusion, he begged to assure the House that the greatest anxiety, he might almost say alarm, existed in the manufacturing districts with respect to the future supply of cotton. He believed that that anxiety was well founded, and that the only way of escaping from the difficulty was by connecting the cotton districts in India with the coast by means of railways, and by proceeding with works of irrigation, which, as the East India Company was the landlord of that country, it ought to undertake.

said, he hoped he could show that the East India Company had not been wanting in its efforts to promote the construction of railways in India. He had been connected with the first railway ever constructed in India, and therefore he thought he might be justified in calling in question some of the statements of the hon. Member for Yarmouth, (Mr. Watkin). In the first place let him observe that it was not until the 31st of October, 1850, that an attempt had been made to introduce railways into India, and that therefore the period during which the work of railway construction had been going on in India was only six and a half years instead of fourteen years. In fact the honour had devolved on him of turning the first sod of the first railway commenced in India on the date above mentioned. Well, what next? The East India Company have already sanctioned trunk lines of railway extending in the aggregate to 3,695 miles, of which upwards of 300 miles have been opened. The estimated outlay already sanctioned is £28,231,000, of which £14,196,287 has been paid into the Company's treasury. It is a fallacy to estimate the future progress of railways by what has been effected during the last six years, for he would beg the House to bear in mind how much greater the results of the next six years would be than those of the preceding term. He believed that the system on which the Indian railways were being constructed was much more perfect than any other, because it combined the energies of the private capitalist with the control and authority of a disinterested Power—but he ought not to say a disinterested Power, because the East India Company were interested in the speedy construction of railways in India. Happy would it have been for England if the same controlling influence had been brought to bear upon the organization of her railway system, for then, indeed, shareholders would not have had to lament the fact that the average interest received on railway stock in this country was only £3 12s. 4d., or under 3¾ per cent. We hope to do better than this in India.

announced his intention to withdraw the Motion.

Although the debate of last night related to the proceeding of the Government on the subject of the Persian war, and did not relate directly to the policy of that war, yet before the debate closed that subject received so much discussion that the whole evening was devoted to it. The Committee, therefore, will perhaps hardly wish me to ask their attention to any de- tailed exposition of the accounts upon which I ask for this Vote. I will then merely state that the view which Her Majesty's Government have taken of the Persian war has been that it was mainly a war to maintain the independence of the town of Herat. That was not merely the opinion of the present Government, but the same view was entertained by a succession of previous Governments, who regarded it as a recognised principle, and treated it as a cardinal object of Asiatic or Oriental policy. Seeing, then, that the independence of Herat was threatened, and that the town was actually occupied by Persian troops, we felt justified in instructing the Indian Government to send an expedition to the Gulf of Persia, following in that respect a course which had previously been rewarded with success in a like state of circumstances. I will not trouble the House by re-discussing the policy of this war. I will merely say that were it not for the existence of our Indian possessions the occupation of Herat by Persia would be a matter wholly unimportant and insignificant to this country. It would not more directly concern English interests than a conquest effected in the centre of Africa by the Kingdom of Timbuctoo or of Dahomey. It is only in consequence of our possessions in India that the town of Heart is of importance to us. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, would have been justified in following the precedent of the former war in Affghanistan by imposing the whole expense of that war upon the Indian treasury. Looking, however, to the general policy of Asia and to the circumstances of general interest which characterize the expedition to the Persian Gulf, the Government felt justified in undertaking to repay to the Indian Government one half of the extraordinary expenses of the war, in the event of Parliament sanctioning that arrangement. I need scarcely say that the undertaking of the Government could only be conditional upon the assent of Parliament being subsequently obtained. Therefore, of course, with regard to the financial part of the subject, the view which was taken was this, that the war should be carried on by an expedition from Bombay, and that the expense of that expedition should be defrayed by the Indian treasury. It now becomes our duty, if the House should be prepared to ratify the engagement entered into on behalf of the Government, to repay to the Indian treasury one-half of the extraordi- nary expenses of the war. No time is fixed for repayments of that sort to take place. And I may here observe that at this moment there is a considerable unsettled account between Her Majesty's Government and the East India Company, arising out of the last Chinese war, which was concluded many years ago; and I may add that it will be the duty of my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury, before this Committee is closed, to ask this House to agree to a vote for the remaining account with respect to the old China war. I am happy, however, to say that that merely involves an adjustment of accounts, inasmuch as the East India Company owes the Government a sum equal to the money due on that account. Nevertheless, it is a fact that that account has not been finally adjusted, and can only be brought to a conclusion by a Vote of this House. Early in the Session, before I was able to obtain any precise view of the probable cost of the war, I stated that I thought it would be sufficient to repay to the East India Company a sum of, I think, £365,000 for the expenses of the war in the Persian Gulf, up to the 1st of April last. At that time I was unable to anticipate the probable duration of the war, and the estimate was taken at that low amount. Subsequently we have been enabled to obtain from the East India Company the probable estimate of the ultimate total expenses of the war. But I may state to the House that that is still only an estimate, and must not be regarded as a final settlement, inasmuch as the accounts have not been made out, and the Company is not yet in possession of the final cost of the war. A short time ago I received from the East India Company an assurance that if the sum of £500,000 were paid in the course of this Session that would be as much as would be needed for the wants of the treasury of the Company, and accordingly I have laid upon the table an Estimate to that amount. The total sum which will ultimately be due to the East India Company on this account will, however, exceed £500,000. The estimate on the table exhibits a total of £1,865,000, one-half of which, according to the present engagement, is due by our Exchequer to the East India Company, making, therefore, a sum somewhat exceeding £900,000. The amount which I proposed to vote to the East India Company this Session was £500,000, leaving a balance, according to this Estimate, of about £400,000. But since this Estimate was laid on the table I have had a communication from the Chairman of the East India Company, stating that the late advices received from India, with regard to the loss of money from their treasuries, together with the probable interruption which the collection of the revenue may sustain, will render it convenient that a larger sum should, with the consent of the House, be voted on this account in the present Session. Therefore, I merely mention that all I ask the Committee to grant this evening on this account is a sum of £500,000. But I think it not improbable that I may feel it my duty to present a supplementary Estimate to the extent of £300,000 or £400,000, in order to repay to the East India Company the whole of the money they have advanced on this account. It may be convenient that I should explain to the Committee at the same time the other Vote which I have to propose—viz., a Vote of credit for the military and naval operations in China. The House has already been informed that orders have been sent out to Singapore to divert from their destination, Hong Kong, a portion of the regiments despatched to that station, and, indeed, that Viscount Canning had anticipated the intentions of the Government by addressing a letter to Lord Elgin on that subject. We therefore expect that a considerable part of the military force destined for China will now be diverted to India; and under these circumstances a portion of the expenses of those regiments will fall not upon the English, but upon the Indian Treasury. The Committee are aware that when the Queen's troops are required by the East India Company for service in India their expense is defrayed by the finances of that country. Therefore, I shall not find it necessary to ask the Committee to agree to so large a sum as £500,000 as a Vote of credit for the China service. I shall ask only for £400,000, which I believe will be sufficient both for the extraordinary naval and military services upon that station; and instead of asking for that £100,000 for the China service, my right hon. Friend at the head of the Admiralty has laid on the table a supplementary Vote of £98,000 for the navy. So that the £100,000 which will be taken from the China Vote will appear in the shape of a supplementary Estimate for the naval service; but the total sum for the two Votes will not be exceeded. Having explained these two Votes to the Committee, I may now be permitted to remark that exagge- rated apprehensions seem to exist as to the probable pressure upon the English Exchequer from the recent occurrences in India. It would, of course, now be premature to anticipate the consequences of those events, either in a political or in a financial point of view; but, whatever additional military force may be furnished to India is a burden upon the Indian Treasury, and its cost will not be borne by England. As at present advised, we do not look forward to the necessity of calling upon this House to incur any additional expenditure on account of the military reinforcements sent to India. I understand it is supposed that it may be requisite to make great demands on the English Exchequer for this purpose; but at present I do not anticipate any such necessity. It would, of course, now be vain to speculate as to the future; but as now advised, Her Majesty's Government do not contemplate the probability of asking the House this Session to agree to any additional Estimates beyond what I have just stated—viz., £500,000 for the repayment to the East India Company of the expenses of the Persian war; possibly a further grant of £300,000 or £400,000 for the same service; a vote of credit for the China service of £400,000; and a supplementary naval Estimate of £100,000. I do not apprehend that beyond these charges there will be any occasion to call on this House for increased funds on account of the late occurrences in India. Having given these explanations with respect to the charges upon the Exchequer of this country, it is now my duty to show that there are ways and means to meet those additional charges, inasmuch as the expenditure which I am asking the House to sanction is considerably in excess of the estimate of revenue made by me, at the beginning of last Session, in the month of February last. I think I can satisfy the Committee that the Exchequer will furnish ample provision for these additional charges. The estimate which I gave of the expenditure, for the financial year ending on the 1st of April last, exceeded what turned out to be the actual expenditure by no less a sum than £1,860,000. That is to say, taking the excess of the receipts of last year, together with the decrease of the actual expenditure below the amount I had anticipated, there was a gain to the public beyond my calculations of £1,860,000. This includes both the excess in the revenue and the diminution in the expenditure. In addition to this sum there has been a gain upon tea, coffee, and sugar in the last quarter, beyond the amount at which I estimated these branches of the revenue, of about £500,000. The fall in the duties which took place on the 1st of April last caused the holders of those articles to retain them in bond until the reduced scale came into operation. This has thrown a receipt of about half a million more than I reckoned upon into the returns for the last quarter. Since that period the malt duty has likewise been more productive than the Revenue Department estimated it, to the extent of half a million. Therefore, up to the present time the Exchequer is richer than I calculated it would be when I made my financial statement in February last by the sum of £2,860,000. Against this sum there are certain charges by way of set-off which were not estimated by me in the beginning of last Session. Those charges are:—The Sound Dues Redemption, £1,135,000; the addition to my Estimate for the Persian expedition, £235,000; the naval and military operations in China, £400,000; the supplementary Vote for the navy, £100,000; and the Princess Royal's dowry, which was not estimated, £40,000. These sums added together make £1,910,000, to which I add a further sum of £300,000 for the remaining expenses of the Persian expedition. This gives a total of £2,210,000, against a gain of £2,860,000. The Committee will therefore see that the Exchequer is in a condition to meet the charges for which I ask them now to provide. I would also call attention to the fact that the state of things which I have indicated is actually realised. It does not depend upon estimate. And it would not be unreasonable to expect a gain upon some branches of the revenue beyond that which I have estimated for the remaining portion of the year. Under these circumstances I trust that the Committee will agree to the vote which I now place in the Chairman's hands.

Before any Vote is taken on this question, there are one or two points to which I desire to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention. Last night I noticed the fact that the sum of £265,000 was the amount which, according to the estimate of the Government, was to be borne by the British Treasury during the present year for the expedition to Persia. I doubted then whether that estimate would not be exceeded, and now it appears that the probable estimate of the expense to be borne by this country is £900,000. These, then, are important facts which ought to have been ascertained by communication with the East India Company before the Estimate was laid upon the table, or a statement made to the House. But notwithstanding this correction, I confess I am puzzled to make out the exact computation upon which either he East India Company or Her Majesty's Government have proceeded. I hold in my hand the accounts of the East India company, which were laid on the table of the House on the 18th of last month. The second of those accounts is headed, "An Estimate of the Receipts and Expenditure of the Home Treasury of the East India Company, from the 1st of May, 1857, to the 30th of April, 1858;" and under this heading, I find the East India Company taking credit on account of what is coming due to them from the British Government for the expenses of the expedition to Persia, for the sum of—what? Not £900,000, or even £500,000, but only £250,000. This account was laid upon the table on the 18th of June, 1857; and it shows that the East India Company computed the money coming due to them from the British Government at the low figure of £250,000. The first account is an estimate of the disbursements of the home treasury of the East India Company from the 1st of May, 1856, to the 30th of April, 1857, and no credit is taken there for any money paid to the East India Company on the part of the British Government on account of the Persian war. But when I come to the second account of all the money paid by the British Government to the East India Company on account of the Persian expedition, from the 1st of May, 1857, to the 30th of April, 1858, I find no larger sums taken credit for than £250,000. I am far from saying that this is not capable of explanation, but I say that these papers having been laid upon the table of the House, and what is something like an inaccurate statement appearing in them, some explanation ought to be given to the Committee. In the course of the other observations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I think he a little, more or less, mixed up two Votes together. The Estimate for the China war, which was laid upon the table only last week, was £500,000. Now, if the Chinese war is to be prosecuted for the purpose of obtaining the satisfaction which the Government think is due to the country, and if they thought that £500,000 was necessary for that purpose last week, I should be extremely sorry if they hampered themselves by taking a smaller sum than that now, merely because they want the other £100,000 to pay some expenses on account of India. Whether that £500,000 is, or is not required, of course Government can better explain than I can. If it is wanted, all I can say is that I hope you will not cripple yourselves in the endeavour to get that satisfaction which you think is due to this country. For although I entirely disagree in the policy of all this Chinese business, yet once embarked in it, the credit and honour of the country are at stake unless you get the reparation to which you think you are entitled. With regard to the £100,000 which is to go to pay part of the expenses of the naval force you propose to send to India, on that part of the question the observations I am about to make do not so much affect the British Treasury as the charges to be borne by the East India Company. One million of money will have to be borne for the Persian expedition. In addition to that, there will be a great expenditure necessary to be borne for putting down the unfortunate revolt which has taken place in India. If I recollect rightly, the East India Company at this moment has got an expenditure higher than the receipts by very nearly £2,000,000 of money; according to these figures, therefore, there will be somewhere between three and four millions charged upon the finances of the East India Company over and above the probable receipts which that Company will have to meet those charges. Now, the right hon. Gentleman observed that he thought there would be no further demand upon the Treasury of England for those expenses which will necessarily have to be incurred in India; and I think before we assent to this Vote we ought to be safe in our calculations upon that point; for unless I am very much mistaken, you will find that you must allow something more for these great operations, which are necessarily going on, and which you will have to meet, for the East India Company will not be able to bear them. In calling attention to these points, I do not wish to raise any great controversial questions; still less do I wish to cripple the hands of the Government. On the contrary, I wish to strengthen them. But I do think, having pointed out these seeming in- accuracies in the Estimates hitherto propounded to us, we ought to be sure, as sure as we can be, what further expenditure is likely to be borne by this country; for, I do not think, if I am right in my observations, that the sum the right hon. Gentleman requires will be sufficient for the purposes for which they are intended, and that he will have to ask for further Votes of credit or Votes of money.

said, it did not appear to him that there was necessarily any inaccuracy in the returns presented by the East Indian Company, of the existence of which he was not previously aware. No doubt their estimate was founded upon the announcement which they received at the beginning of the year, that the sum to be repaid to them on account of the expenses of the Persian war before a certain day would be £250,000. But since that time an arrangement had been made upon which the estimate on the table was founded to repay a sum of half a million; and that would have been the total demand which the Government would have made on Parliament during the present Session if it were not for the recent unhappy occurrences in India. This had altered the financial position of the East India Company, and would probably make it desirable that the Government should lay upon the table a supplementary Estimate on the subject. He was not aware that the term "inaccuracy" was deserved. It appeared to him that the circumstance to which the right hon. Gentleman referred was merely an evidence of a change of intention.

said, that the independence of Herat was the cause of the Affghan war, which cost the country £20,000,000, and inflicted upon us much disaster and disgrace. The Persian war of 1856 was founded upon the same policy; but although the Government upheld this view, he did not believe that it was a sound policy to pursue, or that the opinion of the Government had been entertained by the greatest Indian Statesmen. Herat had been called the gate of India, but it was many hundred miles from our frontier, and it was separated from our territory by a tract of country of the strongest possible character, containing amongst other obstacles the Bolan and Khyber passes, the military strength and importance of which we knew too well. It should be remembered in justice to Persia that the importance of the City of Herat was very great to that power, and he thought that if the Committee were to suppose that we could maintain an independent Government or an independent chief at Herat, they would be giving way to a delusion. That city was now occupied by Persia, and if the report were correct the Shah had applied for a reinforcement of British soldiers, in order to aid him in turning out his own troops. The Affghans were the most untrustworthy of men. In his opinion, the policy which ought to be adopted towards Persia by this country had been admirably shadowed forth by Lord Cowley to Ferukh Khan in February last, when he had stated that we desired to see Persia strong, flourishing, and independent. Let that policy, then, be pursued, and let them not by continual interference with her mar the good effect which such a course was calculated to produce. If it were true that the Sadir Azim were the Lord Palmerston of Persia, then his authority should not be weakened, and now that we had ended our second war with that Power, he trusted we should not be over solicitous to plunge into a war to uphold the independence in the insignificant town of Herat of an Affghan cutthroat.

expressed his satisfaction at the circumstance that the Treasury of this country was about to bear some portion of the expense connected with the prosecution of the Persian war, inasmuch as some security would thereby be afforded against embarking in contests which in reality did not tend to the promotion of British interests. As to the occupation of Herat by Persia, he could only say that, in his opinion, that city was too far removed from India to give rise to any well-founded apprehension in reference to the safety of our possessions in the East. It was, however, but natural that considerable jealousy should prevail in this country upon that point, inasmuch as no sooner had Herat become subject to Persia than Russia would by treaty possess a right to have an agent there, and would thus be afforded an opportunity of pushing her intrigues, and carrying out those designs against India which she was supposed to entertain. But while we looked with suspicion upon Russia, why was it that our policy tended to break down every barrier between that country and India? We had, by our conduct in Affghanistan, earned for ourselves the hatred and detestation of the Affghan chiefs, and the wild tribes by which that region was inhabited. We had done our utmost, too, to destroy the military power of Persia, and to lay her more prostrate than ever at the feet of Russian aggression. The course which we had in those respects pursued he could not help regarding as unfortunate. He was strongly of opinion that we should have acted more wisely if, instead of weakening, we had strengthened the resources of the Persian empire, and if we had not exhibited that extreme jealousy with respect to the occupation of a position of so much importance to her as Herat which we had displayed. But, to pass from the consideration of our relations with Persia to the position of India, he felt bound to say that in the sanguine expectations which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to entertain with respect to the state of that empire, he, for one, could by no means participate. The intelligence which had lately been received from that country had filled him with anxiety, and he feared that even the fall of Delhi, of which we might expect to hear by the next mail, would not be sufficient to justify the hope that the mutiny among the native troops had been completely extinguished. It had spread much too far to be so easily put down. It extended from the Punjab to Rohilcund, Oude, and throughout the whole of Central India; and, with that fact before them, bearing in mind, too, the season of the year, and the circumstance that there was but a mere handful of British troops upon the spot, the utmost we could reasonably expect was that those troops should be able to maintain their line of communications through the wide range of territory lying between Calcutta and the north-western frontier, a distance of 1,500 miles, until the reinforcements came to their aid. With the cooler season they might be able to strike a determined blow. Meanwhile, the greatest difficulty would be experienced in the collection of the revenue, in consequence of the want of trustworthy native soldiers; the revenue derived from opium would be greatly diminished, owing to the present unhappy state of affairs; and, under these circumstances, from what quarter the Governor General was to obtain his necessary supplies, unless the Government at home were to come to his assistance, he (Sir E. Colebrooke) could not understand. He trusted, therefore, that Her Majesty's Ministers would be prepared to take that course; and he felt assured that in doing so they would be manfully supported by that House and by the country.

said that the right hon. Gentleman had told the Committee that Her Majesty's Government had sent directions to India to the effect that half of the expenses of the Persian war were to be borne by the Indian Treasury, and half by the British Government. Now, so far as he knew, the statutes relating to the Government of India expressly set forth the purposes for which the revenues of that country were vested in the East India Company, and made no provision whatever that those revenues should be placed at the disposal of the Government of this country; and he wished, therefore, to ascertain from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer by what authority the Government could send out an order to India to apply the revenues of that empire to British purposes in anticipation of a Vote of Parliament? The question was one of great constitutional importance, inasmuch as it involved the consideration of enabling the Chancellor to avoid asking Parliament for a grant of money by drawing upon resources which it had never been intended by the Legislature to place at his disposal. He believed such an application to be wholly contrary to law; but if it were not, he thought the system of administration of the affairs of India ought to undergo a thorough revision.

said, that though he believed there would be a deficiency in the Indian revenues, he did not think this the proper time to discuss the point. The question before the Committee was, whether they should vote half a million for the expenses of the Persian war, and we thought it would be very inconvenient to enter into the larger subjects which had been introduced. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, in proposing that Vote, had challenged observation upon the important question of the general state of the ways and means of this country, and had stated that he had £2,800,000 in hand undisposed of. He (Sir H. Willoughby) could not take the same sanguine view of the public finances as the right hon. Gentleman had done, and would remind the Committee that £9,000,000 of income-tax had fortunately come into receipt this year, but for which the surplus of £2,800,000 would have been a deficiency of £6,200,000. With respect to the Vote of £500,000, he thought that the Committee were placed in rather a painful position; because they must not fancy that they were about to vote supplies in the ordinary manner—they had not the grace of offering supplies to the Crown—but they had merely to pay a Bill and to ratify an expenditure already incurred. He complained that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the spring of this year, had stated that the amount required for this Vote would be £265,000, he must have known that a much larger estimate had been prepared, but that he had kept back that estimate until the last moment. Even now it was only by accident that the Committee had become aware that the whole expense would amount to £1,865,000; and he contended that it was not right to treat the Committee in such a manner when so large an item of expenditure was involved. Good faith, however, must be kept, and he felt that he had nothing to do upon the present occasion but to support the Vote for the £500,000. In conclusion, he wished to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer from what source it was proposed to pay the armaments which were about to be sent to India. Was there to be an additional estimate for the expense of sending 10,000 or 12,000 men to India; was a debt to be incurred, or how was it to be provided for?

I will first answer the question of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton), which he seemed to think was a very formidable one, but which I believe admits of a very simple answer. The hon. Member asked by what authority the English Government proposed a charge upon the Indian revenue, and he said that the statutes in force did not give them the power of making any such demand. I apprehend that the course taken is this:—The President of the Board of Control, by the authority vested in him by statute, has through the secret committee of the Court of Directors, the power of sending out instructions to the Indian Government, either to make war or for any other purpose. When he has sent those instructions to the Indian Government, they, by their authority, carry them into effect, and if those instructions involve any expense, then by their authority that expense is incurred. That, I believe, is the course adopted in this matter, which the constitution, established many years ago with respect to Indian affairs, altogether sanctions. In answer to the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham (Sir H.Willoughby), I have to state that according to law the East India Company have to bear the whole expense of sending troops from this country and of maintaining them in India. There is, however, a question under consideration, which is not yet determined, and that is whether it would be equitable with regard to those troops whose destination was originally China, but which have now been diverted to India, that the whole expense should fall on the East India Company?

My right hon. Friend in the statement which he addressed to the Committee, did not confine himself to the particular Vote which we are called upon to give or to withhold this evening; but he added to his remarks upon the Persian Vote other particulars with respect to the China Vote, other most important particulars with respect to the disturbances in India, and, finally, a brief but important reference to the state of his own balances. Although some hon. Members have regretted that other matters should have been introduced into this discussion, I have no doubt that it is for the public convenience, at this period of the Session, that my right hon. Friend should have thus connected the several subjects together, and I shall follow his example, therefore, in the few observations that I have to make. With respect to the subject of Persia and the Persian Vote, I am afraid that few among us have been surprised at the announcement made to-night. We have seen the demand which, in March was £265,000, grow to £500,000, and we now find it advanced to £900,000. That is a tolerably rapid increment for a period of three months. When the £265,000 was first asked for, we were told by many hon. Members what the result would turn out to be, and their vaticinations have been only too accurately fulfilled. With respect to what fell from the hon. and learned Member for Devonport (Sir Erskine Perry), I would only take exception to one single word in the remarks which he made. I think that he made too large an admission when he stated, that the maintenance of the independence of Herat, and preserving it free from subjection to Persia, had been recognised as a cardinal matter of policy by every Government for the last twenty years. I agree with that observation to the extent that it has been recognized as an object to be desired, but having had the honour to be connected with two Governments which have subsisted during the last twenty years, I venture to say that I am not aware of any act that was done by the Governments of Sir Robert Peel or of the Earl of Aberdeen which implied that either of those Governments regarded the maintenance of the independence of Herat as an object which ought to be pursued by England, even to the extremity of war. It is, of course, vain now to dilate upon the subject of the policy of the Persian war. My right hon. Friend has, however, entered into some discussion upon that subject, and into some vindication of the policy of the Government in that respect; but he had one triumphant argument of which he has not availed himself, but which I think he might have adduced as the most conclusive which the case admits of—I mean the argument to be derived from the division which took place last night, when the House of Commons declared, by a majority of ten to one, either that it approved the policy of the Government, or else that, at any rate, it did not consider that that policy deserved an adverse vote. After that division, I do not think that it would be respectful to the Committee if the small and feeble band of dissentients were now to revive that discussion, and I, therefore, shall not attempt to do so, but will proceed to consider the Vote with respect to the Chinese war. We are told that a sum of £400,000 is about to be asked for, but that sum will, I fear, in all probability prove to be a very small fraction of the charge which we have undertaken. It is not often that I take exception to what falls in this House from my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole), but I must most respectfully express my dissent from part of the language which he has this night used. My right hon. Friend has stated that, doubting and differing from the policy which led to the Chinese war, he thought that now we had entered upon it, that now we had, it was to be presumed, made certain demands, the honour and the credit of the country demanded that those demands should, at all hazards, be enforced. Now, Sir, entertaining the opinions which I do with respect to the policy which has been pursued in China, I could not hear those words without respectfully withholding my assent to them. I, Sir, wholly repudiate that policy. Since the meeting of the present Parliament, the transactions which have taken place in China have been characterized by my noble Friend the Member for London, if he has been correctly re- ported, and I have no reason to suppose otherwise, as flagitious. I entirely concur in that epithet, and I say, without hesitation or qualification, that believing as I do that that designation is a correct one, I cannot admit that because those proceedings have been commenced, therefore they ought to be carried to their natural termination. I must here, Sir, venture to advert to one circumstance upon which I think that it is material that this Committee should be accurately informed. At the time when the transactions which had occurred in China were discussed, it will be recollected that the vindication of the proceedings of the British authorities depended almost entirely upon a single assertion, and that assertion was, the British flag was flying on board the lorcha Arrow at the time she was boarded by the Chinese authorities. That assertion was contested at the time; it was denied by the Chinese authorities, and arguments were advanced in this House to show that there were grave reasons for doubting if such was the case. We were then told that there was not the slightest foundation for any such doubt, that the British flag was flying at the time, and the whole case—such as that case was—depended upon that fact. I did not then consider that the flying of the British flag, even if it were flying, afforded a shade of justification for the proceedings which were adopted; but I am now in possession of new information upon the subject, which the Government, I dare say, can either affirm or correct. I do not say that my information is conclusive, but it has reached me from high authority, and from authority exclusively British, that the British flag was not flying at the time the lorcha was boarded; and that information is coupled with an unequivocal declaration that the British communities of Canton and Hong Kong were perfectly aware that such was the case; in fact, that it was a matter of notoriety that the flag was not flying at the time. I think that this is a subject upon which the Committee ought to receive the fullest information which the Government have it in their power to afford. As regards the charge for the Chinese war, I can only say that, although whenever I see an occasion which affords the slightest hope of stopping proceedings which I believe calculated to bring disgrace upon the country, I shall not be wanting in taking my humble part in endeavouring to effect that result, still, on the present occasion, withholding the money which we are asked to vote would have no effect, and I assume that the Committee is not prepared to adopt that course. I come now to a most important subject, which has been touched upon by my right hon. Friend. The hon. Baronet opposite (Sir H. Willoughby) has made some most just observations in pointing out the false position in which the Committee is placed by being asked in more than one instance to vote money for the expenses of war, not by way of estimate but by way of account, and my right hon. Friend has told us with great ingenuousness that, although this charge for the Persian war has been incurred, yet he would only have called upon us at present to pay some part of the whole charge, but that the financial necessities of the East India Company are so serious that possibly it may be necessary for him to present to the house another Estimate of £400,000. I mention this because it shows that the mind of my right hon. Friend is becoming habituated in the course of his transactions to incurring a bill to be paid by the people of this country without first asking the consent of their representatives, and then sending in that bill to be discharged at such times and in such proportions as will best square with the general state of the public accounts. Whether it be from the policy of the Government or the circumstances of the case, we are unhappily called upon, both in the case of Persia and China, to provide for hostilities undertaken without the concurrence of those whose duty it is to watch the expenditure of the country. I advert to this, because what has fallen from my right hon. Friend inspires my mind with some suspicion, and I wish to express a hope that it may not grow into an usual practice of Government. My right hon. Friend has dropped a few words full of meaning and full of warning. He has very properly referred to the unfortunate disturbances which have occurred in India, and he began by attempting to administer a little comfort, for he made some observations the effect of which was that the charge for the suppression of those disturbances would fall upon the Indian revenue. Now, for my own part, I do not derive so much comfort from that remark as some hon. Gentlemen may do, for I believe in the soundness of the doctrine which was laid down by the late Sir Robert Peel, who maintained that there was a virtual connection between Indian expendi- ture and British liability. That was a wise, a sound, and significant remark. My right hon. Friend, however, went a little further, and intimated that there was a likelihood—which, unless I am very much mistaken, will in due time grow into the proportion of a fact—of it being necessary to make a direct demand upon the House of Commons in connection with the expenditure necessary for the suppression of those disturbances in India. I do not think that I misunderstood my right hon. Friend, but if I did I shall he obliged to him if he will correct me. I am far from saying that my right hon. Friend would be wrong in making such a demand, but what I wish to point out to the Committee is that he has told us, by way of comfort, that it will not be necessary to make that demand during the present Session of Parliament. Now, from that statement, I for one am rather likely to gather matter for complaint than for comfort. If the Government thinks that the finances of the East India Company are in such a state as to require support, the wise and constitutional course—the course which practice and expedience dictated for them to pursue—would have been to come down at once to the House of Commons and ask for an advance. It would not have been necessary to settle the ultimate liability, for that question might have been reserved until we receive a more full information as to the cause of these disturbances. Prima facie there appears to be a connection between those disturbances and the measures of the Government with regard to sending troops from India to Persia and China, for, if a disposition to revolt did exist in the Bengal army prior to the withdrawal of those troops, no doubt their withdrawal afforded an opportunity for that disposition to display itself. What I say is this—that it is only fair to the House of Commons, if the Government anticipate that we are to be put to charge on account of these disturbances, that we should have that charge put before us, not by way of an account of charge, but by way of estimate; and I also say that it appears to me, that if we want to strengthen the hands of the East India Company and give vigour to their financial operations, the best course for the Government to pursue, in order to render that support with vigour and promptness, would be at once to ask from the House of Commons that which either my right hon. Friend or some successor in office will ulti- mately have to demand. I think that the most practical, the most expedient, and the most prudent course to pursue—and the subject is well worthy the attention of the Committee—would be for the Government, if they are of opinion upon the facts, so far as they are known to them, that British aid is necessary to Indian finance, to at once ask the House of Commons to grant that aid. I admit that it would not be convenient, so far as my right hon. Friend's balance for the year is concerned. I thought that there was inconvenience in the manner in which my right hon. Friend stated his account, because he did what I never recollect to have known done before in this House. He brought to the credit of his operations in the present year the surplus of his revenue in the last. Now, a Chancellor of the Exchequer who has a deficiency in any given year is not apt to charge himself with it, and to carry it on to his debt in the next; and, if he does not do that, neither ought he, having a surplus,—if it be a surplus, though it was made from borrowed money—to carry on that surplus, and consider it as part of his available means for the next year. On the contrary, all the surpluses of our annual revenue are, by the well-understood principle of Parliament, appropriated beforehand to the extinction of debt. When we determined to break up the old system of the sinking fund, we said, "We don't mean to give up the steady liquidation of the debt; we mean to trust to our surplus revenue for that purpose." Well, if the surplus revenue is to be applied to that object it must not be carried on and treated as available ways and means by Chancellors of the Exchequer in future years. As I understand the case of my right hon. Friend, however, he still has a surplus. In the month of March he showed that, as the amount then stood, he should probably have a surplus of £500,000 for the year 1857–58. He has told us to-night, and I heard the statement with great satisfaction, that he will have an improvement upon his estimated revenue—one moiety of it from malt, and the other from tea, sugar, and coffee—to the amount of another million. That gives him a million and a-half to make use of. I think, so far as I understood him, that putting out of view the redemption of the Sound Dues, which was an operation by itself, and for which he provided in a different manner, his extra expenses chargeable against the ways and means of the year come to between £1,100,000 and £1,200,000. There is £635,000 for Persia, £400,000 for China, £100,000 for the supplemental Naval Estimate, and £40,000 for the dowry of the Princess Royal: therefore, my right hon. Friend has still a surplus to show. Undoubtedly, if he were to adopt the suggestion that an advance of money should be asked from Parliament to strengthen the hands of the East India Company for putting down these disturbances, I am afraid that his surplus would go a very little way, and that it would be his duty to make to us in the month of July or August this year one of those disagreeable proposals which he will certainly have to make in the month of March or April in the next. No man likes to anticipate the evil day—my right hon. Friend, I dare say, no better than anybody else. Still I am quite sure that if he agrees with me as to the policy of the case, if he recognizes with me the right of this House to have the first information of coming public charges, and to have the earliest means of exercising its judgment with reference to the manner in which the resources of the country are to be wielded and applied for all purposes, whether military, political, or administrative, he will not be withheld by any motives of the nature which I have described from making such a proposal to the House. At any rate, I join entirely and cordially with my hon. Friend opposite (Sir H. Willoughby) in deprecating that which appears, I am afraid, to be growing rather into a system—viz., the presentation to the House of Commons of military expenditure involving high questions of policy by way of account after the fact, instead of by way of estimate before the fact; and as regards that portion of our proceedings of which the unhappy theatre has been the empire of China, I was unable to allow this Vote to pass without repeating, in however brief yet in emphatic words, the strong sentiments of pain and sorrow with which I must ever regard the transactions of the last few years.

said, that he had returned to the House without intending to address a single word to that Committee, and he laboured under the disadvantage of not having heard the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Notwithstanding this, he could not, after the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford, remain altogether silent. The tone and temper in which the Com- mittee had received the demand made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for part of the amount which had been advanced by the East India Company for the Persian war, and many of the remarks which he had heard, reminded him very strongly of some lines which he learnt in his youth—

"It's a very good world we live in,

To lend, or to spend, or to give in;

But to beg or to borrow, or ask for our own,

It's the very worst world that ever was known."

Because the Committee must understand that this grasping East India Company, which came down upon them and made a demand for £500,000, and which had a further demand amounting to more than that sum, had in the first instance advanced the whole amount for them. They merely asked the nation to pay its debts, and the House had no right to treat them in formâ pauperis, and say that they gave the money because the East India Company was in such extreme distress, and on account of the recent disturbances. Whether India had been disturbed or not, they must, if they were honest men, have paid what they owed and what was advanced for a war which was theirs and not the Company's. [Cheers from the Opposition benches.] Let him not be misunderstood. He did not mean to say that the Persian war was not undertaken, and honestly undertaken, by the Government in a great measure for Indian purposes. He felt and had always felt, that the possession of Herat by Persia would be most injurious to the integrity and safety of India. He believed that as regarded the possession of Herat—he had nothing to do with Mr. Murray and his quarrel—this was an Indian question; but he maintained that they had no right to say, as had been said by the right hon. Gentleman, that India was, owing to the disturbances, in such a state of impoverishment that she came to England to ask—[Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no! It was the Chancellor of the Exchequer.] He did not hear the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This, however, he knew, that the East India Company was only asking for the payment of a debt honestly due for money advanced. They did not ask for interest. Hon. Gentlemen smiled at this, but if they had borrowed the money from any other persons they would have had to pay interest. If they had borrowed from the English public they would not have been let off without the payment of interest; but as they borrowed it from the East India Company, which, as he hoped, was part and parcel of the empire itself, it was advanced without interest, and the Company would be quite satisfied and only too glad when they got their principal returned. It was a great object with the East India Company to get this money now, because they annually required from India remittances to the amount of £4,000,000 for the expenses in this country, and at present they were anxious not to draw upon India for a rupee which they could avoid. It was, therefore, a great object to get repaid money which they had advanced in England, and thus diminish pro tanto the amount of their drafts upon India. Whether or not they came to Parliament again to ask the Government to repay the remainder of the sum which they had advanced, they came only as honest creditors, and it was the fault of the Government, not theirs, that this money was to be paid as a bill instead of an estimate. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) had shadowed forth that if the disturbances continued the East India Company might ask for pecuniary assistance from the national Exchequer. Of course, after what had occurred, after the breaking down of the confidence which had, with partial exceptions, been entertained in these Sepoy troops, who from the time of Clive, just 100 years ago, had been universally and proverbially faithful—after that staff upon which we have leant for 100 years had proved a rotten reed in our hands, it was impossible for any man to be so presumptuous as to prophesy with regard to the future; but at present, so far as he could see, he did trust that matters would go no further, and that we should be able to stem the tide of destruction and disaffection—and he was happy to be able to say, in spite of what fell from the hon. Member for Lanarkshire (Sir E. Colebrooke) that, with the most partial exceptions, the disaffection extended only to the troops. Many parts of the country were eminently loyal. It was greatly to the honour of that distinguished man, Sir John Lawrence, who had administered the Punjab since the date at which it fell into our hands, that the people of that country, so recently conquered and annexed to the British dominions, were, up to the date of our latest advices, eminently loyal and true to the British Government. So faithful were they that deserters from the Sepoy regiments who came from Hindostan were caught by the population of the Punjab, and delivered up to our authorities. In no instance had a native of the Punjab shown any disloyalty, or any want of allegiance to his standard or the military oath, and Sir John Lawrence was at this moment raising large levies among the population of that province to join our troops. It was, as he had said, impossible to foresee what might occur, but he hoped and trusted that the finances of India would be able to bear these expenses. So far was public credit in India from being shaken, that the 5 per cent. loan which was now being taken up had drawn more money during the last few weeks than it had done before. Whether the reason of this was that the people having confidence in the stability of the Government, but fearing instability elsewhere, brought their money to the public treasury, he could not say, but the fact was that between the 2nd and 16th of May £47,000 (he spoke from memory) was subscribed in Calcutta alone. The last letter which he received from Lord Elphinstone, not by the last but by a previous mail, stated that the subscriptions in Bombay, had reached £700,000, £30,000 having been subscribed within the last three or four days, and they were going on rapidly. The loan, which it must be remembered was not contracted as in England, but was an open loan, like that raised in France during the late war, had now risen to nearly £2,000,000. As for the losses sustained by the Indian Government, they did not exceed, up to the present moment, from £140,000 to £200,000. It was true that there would be great loss from the difficulty of collecting the revenue in certain districts, but two Presidencies were wholly unaffected and several of the richest districts of Bengal. At the recent sales of opium, too, the prices had been higher than on previous occasions. Therefore, as far as he could see, the Indian Government would not be obliged to make any requisition at present upon England, but if further disastrous events should occur, compelling that Government to apply to this country for money, he was sure the House of Commons would bear in mind that India was an integral and valuable part of the British empire, and would not refuse assistance to those who administered the Indian revenues.

As I did not hear my right hon. Friend's former statement, I wish to mention some points in the statement of the right hon. Member for Oxford University (Mr. Gladstone) which certainly deserve explanation; but I think there is some inconvenience in mixing up in this discussion three subjects of great importance. My hon. Friend who has just spoken, addressed himself exclusively to the subject of India, and what I have to say refers to the subject of China. I am not going to speak with respect to the justice or morality of the proceedings conducted there by the British authorities, they have been properly characterized by the right hon. Member for Oxford University; but what I now wish to learn is, the nature of the hostilities which we are to carry on. It is not pleasant to be engaged in a war which one does not consider just; still one wishes the reputation of this country to be maintained. It appears that our authorities in China, some time in October last, attempted hostilities against Canton. From October to the last accounts, some time in May, there has been nothing done which would impress the authorities at Canton with any sense that they must yield to our demands. On the contrary, we had retired from the positions we held some months ago. In letters from persons in that country it was said, that the naval force there was found to be insufficient—I do not mean in amount, but that it was not of a nature calculated to enforce our demands. In those letters it was generally said, that they must have land forces to enable them to get possession of the heights above Canton and Canton itself; to enable them, too, to hold those heights and the city, in order to induce the Chinese authorities there to comply with our demands. Now, two or three nights ago, my noble Friend at the head of the Government was asked what was to be done with the troops sent to China; and I understood him to reply that those troops would be immediately recalled for India, and that orders had been given to Lord Elgin that they should proceed immediately to Calcutta. No one would find fault with that disposition; but my noble Friend went on to say that there would be still quite sufficient force at Canton to enforce compliance with our demands. Now, this raises a question in my mind which I think the Committee will deem of very considerable importance. I can understand very well that our land forces being in the occupation of Canton may make the Viceroy there yield to demands which otherwise he would not concede. The hostilities—because, mind, all the time it is not war;—some hon. Gentlemen on the hustings and elsewhere have declared themselves very vigorously for the prosecution of the war with China, but the Government never said that there was a war—the hostilities, then, would be with Canton, and Canton, no doubt, would fall into our possession; and we shall have a better prospect of obtaining the terms we demand, whatever they may be. But with a naval force, and a naval force alone, our proceedings must be different. I imagine that we may gain some advantage by means of the gunboats sent out there in the destruction of a number of junks which now conceal themselves in the rivers; but the destruction of any number of those worthless junks will probably make no alteration in the disposition of the authorities at Canton. Then, what other means are there of attaining the desired object? You have in the naval force the means of blockading the northern ports; but with them I must say that you have hitherto, notwithstanding the hostilities at Canton, been on terms of peace and amity. Every account shows that that there is no disturbance in those friendly relations, but that, on the contrary, trade is carried on very vigorously with Shanghai, Foochow, and other places, without regard to the hostilities existing between Commissioner Yeh and Sir J. Bowring. Then the question I wish to ask is, whether, having only a naval force and no power but that of blockading the northern ports with the view of obtaining compliance with the demands you made at Canton, you do not, if you take that course, turn the partial hostilities at Canton, into war with China; because in that case, no doubt, the Imperial Government must consider the empire attacked. If the ports generally are blockaded, there can be no resource but to make war with China, and to enforce your demands by means of war. The very remarkable phrase of my noble Friend, that though the troops would be diverted from China, still the Government had the means of obtaining all their demands there, appeared satisfactory to the House, but was unsatisfactory to me; for I cannot tell whether it meant that we were to transfer hostilities to the northern ports, and thereby make war with China, or whether it meant something else. I should like also to know what is the present object of these hostilities? We know that the first hostilities took place because the Chinese Commissioner refused to make an apology in writing and to restore the men, taken from the lorcha, on board the lorcha, when they had already been restored at the Con- sul's residence. Other demands were afterwards made about free entrance into Canton; and these demands were not being complied with. But what the present demands may be, I, for one, am totally ignorant of. When we are going to vote a large sum of money—probably only a prelude to another sum as large, if not greater—it is fit that we should know whether it is meant to go to war with China instead of carrying on hostilities at Canton; and if so, what are the demands we make on China?

My noble Friend and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford retain their opinions as to the proceedings which have taken place in China. They are perfectly welcome to retain those opinions. The people of England have decided the question; and therefore, though my noble Friend thinks those proceedings flagitious, and though the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford, shares that opinion, that is a matter of total indifference to her Majesty's Government. We rest upon the sanction which the people of the United Kingdom have given to these proceedings, and having made an appeal to the country, we are content with the result. The right hon. Gentleman has stated that on account of some wonderful information received from some authority he has not condescended to name, he is satisfied that the flag was not flying on board the lorcha at the time when she was boarded by the Chinese, and he is pleased to say that on the circumstance of the flag flying rested the whole of the Government justification. Now, in the first place, I beg to remind him that it was proved by the evidence of eye-witnesses, that not only was the British flag flying, but also the "Blue Peter," which was a signal that the lorcha was on the point of departure. I beg leave to say, however, that the case did not turn upon the fact of the flag flying, but upon the fact that the lorcha had been lying for several days in the port of Canton, and that the Cantonese new that she was a British vessel employed for British purposes, and therefore, even if the flag had not been flying, they committed a deliberate violation of international law. I thought my right hon. Friend had had enough of the Chinese question, without perpetually endeavouring to thrust it so unnecessarily into our debates. My noble Friend (Lord John Russell), however, has asked questions which relate much more directly to the subject we are discussing. My noble Friend misunder- stood in some degree what he supposes me to have said on a former occasion. I did not say that the troops were withdrawn from China. What I said was that troops which had not arrived in China, but had been despatched to Singapore to await further orders, had been diverted from their intended destination, which was originally China, and that they were to proceed to India. But no orders have been given to withdraw from Hong Kong any troops that have already arrived there, and the troops at that station are stated to be sufficiently numerous for the services which are required from them. The course which the Government are pursuing has already been explained so clearly, that I am surprised my noble Friend should ask for any explanation on the subject. It is well known that Lord Elgin was sent out for the purpose of entering into communications with the central Government at Pekin, and that until the result of those communications is ascertained by him, no further operations of any magnitude are to be undertaken at Canton. The season of the year, indeed, would render military operations by land upon any considerable scale undesirable until the commencement of the cool season, and in the interval the negotiations will have taken place. My right hon. Friend, the First Lord of the Admiralty, as was stated the other evening, is about to send a force of marines to reinforce the squadron in the waters of Canton, and a number of gunboats were arriving at the time the last accounts were despatched. My noble Friend says that when these gunboats have arrived they will, perhaps, destroy a fleet of miserable junks. Why, these miserable junks are war junks of considerable magnitude, and in great numbers, which have materially interrupted our communications with Hong Kong; and when the gunboats shall have arrived, I don't think any doubt can be entertained that our admiral will give a very good account of those miserable junks—as my noble Friend is pleased to call them—which, as is well known, are formidable to merchant vessels, although they may not be able to cope with gunboats, which can follow them into shallow water. The course we are pursuing is this. We are not going to make war with the northern ports, which maintain the most friendly relations with British merchants. We are going in the first place to adopt a course which seems most consonant with international usages. Great outrages upon the British flag and upon British subjects have been committed by the local authorities of a port in China, we shall address ourselves to the Emperor of China for redress and satisfaction. We have sent a special mission from this country for the purpose of entering into negotiations with the Imperial Government, and making demands upon that Government. As my noble Friend properly stated, we are not at war with China at the present moment. There has been a collision between the local authorities, Chinese and British, and Canton and Hong Kong, but that does not of itself constitute war between England and China, and we may hope that the Imperial Government will take such a view of the transaction that it may be ready to afford that satisfaction and redress, which will render war unnecessary. But, at the same time, anticipating the possibility of a different issue, we are sending a military force to Canton, which will enable the commander of the British forces to act against the city of Canton, if the Imperial Government refuse or are unable to give us the satisfaction we demand. We did not think that a temporary diversion of the force which was directed to rendezvous at Singapore would essentially interfere with ultimate operations in China, if they should become necessary. In the present state of affairs, therefore, I can only say that we have taken measures for opening negotiations with the Imperial Government at Pekin; that we are not without hopes that those negotiations may render any further hostile proceedings unnecessary; but that if those hopes should not be be realized, we shall have the means of carrying on hostile operations in a manner which, I trust, will enable us to enforce the redress we demand.

I am somewhat surprised at the tone of the noble Lord with regard to this subject. He says that the opinions of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) and the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) respecting our relations with China are to him a matter of perfect indifference. I will leave the noble Lord and the right hon. Gentleman to settle that question with the First Lord of the Treasury whenever they may choose to avail themselves of the opportunity, but I cannot help noticing the reason assigned by the noble Lord for regarding the opinions of these two hon. Members of this House as a matter of perfect indifference. It is, he says, because at the late general election the people of England expressed their opinion upon the subject of his Chinese policy. To that national opinion he appeals, and, supported by that opinion, he can afford to treat with perfect indifference the sentiments of two hon. Members of this House whose views have generally exercised some little influence upon our deliberations. But looking to the general verdict given by the people at the late election, to which the noble Lord has appealed, it was, as I understood, in favour of a vigorous prosecution of the war in China, and I am not sure that the people of England will regard the present sentiments of the noble Lord on that subject with the perfect indifference which he extends to the opinions of the right hon. Gentleman and the noble Lord. Is the noble Lord performing that contract into which, according to his own account, he entered with the people at the last election? Is this war with China vigorously prosecuted? Why, according to the noble Lord, it is no war at all. Are hostilities even carried on? According to the noble Lord there are no troops to prosecute them. Why, the very issue which was placed before the people of England, on which their opinion was demanded, and to obtain their verdict upon which Parliament was dissolved, no longer exists. The noble Lord is installed in power, and is proud of his position because he is not performing a contract which, according to his own account, he was bound to fulfil, and in the fulfilment of which this House was elected in order that he might have a powerful majority to support him. It is, then, most extraordinary that the noble Lord should now taunt hon. Members who disapprove his Chinese policy with the perfect indifference with which he regards their opinions, because he can appeal to the opinion of the people of England when upon this very subject he has left the people of England in the lurch. The question which this Parliament was elected to prosecute has absolutely become a matter of perfect indifference to the noble Lord. The noble Lord further assailed an hon. Member of this House, because he had unnecessarily dragged the subject of China into our deliberations. What have we before us. We are called upon to vote £400,000. to defray the expenses incurred in the Chinese waters, and the noble Lord will not allow the subject of China to be alluded to! The fact is, that these discussions are no doubt extremely inconvenient to the Government, because the people of this country must naturally ask themselves "Why are these hostilities with China not vigorously prosecuted? and why is that vindication of the honour of England, which we were told a few months ago from every hustings was so important and so necessary, delayed or forgotten?" and because the policy of the noble Lord has in our own possessions brought about a state of affairs that renders it necessary for us to devote all our energies—all those energies which are requisite to vindicate our honour in China and in Persia—to support in an important part of Her Majesty's empire our own rule, which has been distracted and may be destroyed, by the policy of the noble Lord.

I really must take leave to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon the belligerent impatience he has manifested; and I count upon his entire support when the result of our operations shall crown the wishes he has so ardently expressed. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that he will not be disappointed, for we are pursuing in proper course the objects which the people of this country and the right hon. Gentleman so ardently desire—the redress of injuries and the vindication of our national honour; but we consider that the best mode of attaining those objects is by pursuing the course sanctioned by international usage—namely, by applying in the first instance to the Government of China for redress before proceeding to hostilities. Our intention to pursue that course was announced when Lord Elgin was first sent out. The right hon. Gentleman says I complained that the Chinese question had been introduced into this debate. Now, what I did complain of was that the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford should have gone back to the case of the lorcha, and I said my noble Friend appeared to me to have taken a juster view of the subject when he asked questions relating to our general policy with regard to China, to the conduct of the war, and to the objects we had in view. I could not of course complain that the Chinese question should have been introduced, because that is the very subject of the Vote we are considering.

said, he thought it was a pity those remonstrances to the Emperor of China were not made in the first instance, when we were supposed to have suffered wrong from China. If his recollection served him right, not even twelve hours were allowed to elapse before the admiral in command bombarded the de- fenceless city of Canton, when he destroyed several hundreds lives, and the property of a great number of individuals. ["No, no!"] It was such a bombardment as dropping a shell into the city every five minutes.

said that much had been said in the last Parliament of the wanton bombardment of that defenceless city. He had stated at the time that he did not believe that any bombardment had taken place; and within the last fortnight he had received a letter from Admiral Sir Michael Seymour informing him that he (Sir Charles Wood) had been quite right in the interpretation he had put on the account of what had occurred. In that letter Sir Michael Seymour declared that it was altogether untrue that he had bombarded the city of Canton, or ever thrown a shell against any portion of it.

said his statement was founded on the papers which had been furnished to the House, and if those papers did not bear him out he could only say that no trust was to be placed in the documents inserted in the blue-book.

asked if the right hon. Baronet (Sir C. Wood) had any objection to produce the letter to which he referred?

said that the letter to which he referred was a private letter—it was a private letter from Sir M. Seymour to himself. He would, however, bring it down to the House on Monday evening, and he would then have no objection to read the passage to which he had referred. He could not lay it before the House as it was a private communication; but he would be prepared to show it to any person who might doubt its authenticity.

said, he did not suppose that any hon. Gentleman in that House doubted the word of any individual in it, and no one who had sat with the right hon. Gentleman in that House could for a moment suppose that he would state what was purposely an equivocation. But it was quite monstrous to suppose that a Minister should rise in his place, and on an occasion like the present make an important statement from a document not on the table of the House, and say it was private. It was the rule that a paper used by a Minister in that House became a State paper, even though it were a private letter. And it was monstrous that a gentleman in the position of the First Lord of the Admiralty should take offence because an hon. Member questioned the pro- priety of his appealing to a private letter for the purpose of influencing a debate. There should be no reference to any papers that were not on the table, or that were not meant to be laid on the table afterwards; for the moment a Minister referred even to a private letter it became a State document. That was a salutary principle that had always prevailed in their debates. Were it otherwise the opponents of the Minister could have no chance in debate, for he might always be referring to private papers in his portfolio to support his case. In the debate on the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck), last night, the right hon. Gentleman opposite was about referring to a private letter when he was called in question. [Mr. VERNON SMITH: It was a public letter.] What! a public letter? Then that was a worse case still. It was a most flagrant case—a public document that was a secret from the House referred to in debate by the right hon. Gentleman to contradict a statement made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, and referred to for the purpose of conveying to the House what was the policy of a former Cabinet of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle was a Member. Neither a public nor a private letter ought to have been used if it could not be laid on the table. That was a principle which has ever been accepted in this house, and which he hoped would continue to be the guide in these matters. As regards the point in dispute itself he would only make this observation—before the dissolution of Parliament hon. Gentlemen opposite actually cheered because Canton had been bombarded, and now they vociferously cheered because they were told that Canton was not bombarded.

said, he apprehended that the principle which governed the reading of letters was this: If a Minister read in his place any document, whether public or private, he was bound to lay on the table that which he had read. If he read a portion of a private letter or despatch, and if the House should think that that which he had not read might in any degree alter the sense of that which he had read, he might justly be required to lay the whole on the table, but he could not admit the expediency of the principle which the right hon. Gentleman endeavoured to establish, that a Minister should, more than any other hon. Member, be precluded from repeating to the House information which he had received in a private communication. So little was that the rule that it often happened that Ministers were asked whether they had received such communications; and, in short, were they precluded from stating to the House information received from the private communications of officers and others, the House would be deprived of much information which it now obtained.

said, that as from a long residence there he had obtained a personal acquaintance with China and the Chinese, he trusted he should be pardoned for making a few observations on some of the points which had been raised in the course of the discussion. He thought that it was obvious that the differences of opinion which had arisen as to the bombardment of Canton had sprung up from a misunderstanding on both sides. Canton had not been, as he believed, bombarded in the sense in which military men and civilians understood that word. By bombardment he understood the firing of shot and shell indiscriminately into a town, to compel its surrender or evacuation, and he hesitated not to say that such a bombardment Canton had not undergone. A few shot and shell were sent into the Yamun, or Government offices, and the residence of the Viceroy in Canton (which occupied a large space), to show the authorities what we might do, if compelled; but this was not a bombardment in the ordinary sense of the term. As a commercial man, and as one of a class who deplored the stern necessity of coercive measures in China, besides having a deep personal interest in the early re-establishment of amicable relations with the South of China, he would take occasion to thank the noble Lord for the explanation he had given regarding the northern ports of China, for he felt the policy which had been adopted by the Government of localising this quarrel, was the best policy, and would conduce to a good understanding with the northern ports: and he was, in that House, glad to testify to the magnitude of the British interests involved in the most northern of those ports, in which he had passed so much of his life, viz., Shanghai. It was not alone British energy—British enterprise—which had raised that place (a few short years since not discoverable out the maps) to be a great entrepôt, but it was also the kindly feelings and thorough sympathies of the Chinese residents with us foreigners, which had made Shanghai rank as it now did, the second port in Asia for the value of its imports and exports; and therefore, as regarded the general question of the war, he did not share in that feeling of detestation and abhorrence for the Chinese which had been so freely expressed in the course of these discussions. He deeply deplored that the high intelligence of the right hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) and the great constitutional knowledge of the noble Lord the Member for London, had not led them to address the full vigour of their faculties to this subject, in a calm dispassionate, and non-party spirit. Had they done so, they would have soon found that the quarrel at Canton did not hinge on the fact of whether the British flag was or was not flying on a paltry lorcha, but on the great consideration whether the perverse policy which the Cantonese had so consistently pursued for a long series of years towards the British—as well as other foreigners—was any longer to be tolerated. For himself, he (Mr. White) believed, and was there constrained to avow his belief, that the extravagant expenditure of successive Home Governments, and the impatience of every Chancellor of the Exchequer to secure the tea duties, had compelled the British merchants in Canton to submit to a long series of indignities which otherwise would have been long since suppressed by the power of the British Government. The very flattering reception he had, as a new Member, received, encouraged him to trouble the House with a few more observations; and he would now take the liberty of addressing himself directly to the noble Lord at the head of the Government. It might be that the policy about to be pursued by the noble Lord was wholly consistent with the strict canons of international law, and conformable with the comity of nations; but in its results it must be a miserable failure as an initiative diplomatic proceeding. In appealing first to the Emperor of China, the reply from Pekin would be what it had always hitherto been. There would only be another reference of the appellants to Yeh, the Viceroy of Canton, and who, as directing all external relations, might be considered now as the Lord Palmerston of China. When he said this, he would not wish to be misunderstood. Yeh, was a man of great energy and talent, as well as high intelligence, and filled some of the highest offices in the empire. Besides, being the President of the Privy Council, and Guardian of the Heir Apparent, Yeh was also titular Commander in Chief, and he exercised sundry other important functions. But the main significance of this enumeration of offices was this—that he (Mr. White) would wish to impress on the noble Lord, and on the House, that, as regarded all foreign relations, Yeh was the alter ego of the Emperor of China, and the decision of Yeh would be that which would ultimately take effect, unless, indeed, as he (Mr. White) trusted would be the case, the noble Lord despatched instructions for the immediate occupation of Canton. In offering this advice to the noble Lord, he would add that he, and the class he represented, wanted an augmentation, not of territory, but of trade; and he should be well content with an occupation of Canton, in which England should be cordially united with France, America, and other Christian powers. In point of fact he only desired to see Canton held as a "material guarantee," until all our just requirements should be complied with. In conclusion, he would take occasion to tranquillize the apprehensions of the House, and gladden the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to the financial part of the operations in China, by giving him and the House the assurance that the cost—whatever it might be—could, and no doubt would be reimbursed out of the abundant recources of the Chinese empire. Or if not, by the issue of debentures on the security of the duties now exigible from the foreign merchants on the export of native, and the import of foreign commodities into China. Thus, every charge for the coercive measures now necessitated in China would be very readily liquidated. And he would add, looking to the enormous augmentation of the mutual trade which must ensue from a revision of the existing treaty with China, that any consequent cost could then be easily reimbursed by the adoption of the plan he now recommended, without any real loss or pecuniary mulct to the Chinese.

said he wished to express his conviction that Sir M. Seymour must have used every effort in his power to obtain by peaceable means satisfaction for the outrage on the lorcha before he fired a single shot into Canton; and with respect to divulging the contents of private letters to the House on public affairs, to state that that was a power which the late First Lord of the Admiralty claimed to exercise when in office.

said, that in reply to the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the University of Oxford, who had contended that he was not entitled to take credit in the revenue of this year for the balance of last year beyond the Estimates he had made, because that balance was due to the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, it was only in the case of excess of revenue over the expenditure that the balance was paid over to the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. Therefore the sum he had mentioned was really an addition to the revenue of this year. With respect to the probable demands of the Exchequer with reference to our proceedings in India, the Chairman of the East India Company had truly stated that Her Majesty's Government, as at present advised, saw no reason to anticipate any demand from Parliament this Session, in respect to advances for India.

said, the Chairman of the East India Company had distinctly stated, after complaining of the mode in which the Company had been treated in asking for their own, that after this sum of £500,000 there would be another half million due to them by the Government, whereas the right hon. Gentleman had put it at £400,000.

—The Estimate is upon the table of the House.

said, it was odd, although only an estimate, that the sum should be so different; besides, the estimate at first was for £250,000, then the House was asked for £500,000, and now there was a further sum of £400,000 or £500,000 to pay.

said, the sum originally stated was an estimate of the sum the Government proposed to pay in respect to what fell due on the 1st of April.

said, that seeing the hon. Gentleman the Chairman of the Company again in his place, he would repeat what he had stated in regard to the sum claimed from the Government. The hon. Gentleman should have made his complaint to the Government, because they had found fault with the Government in keeping them in ignorance of what was really owing. He wished an explanation of this matter from the hon. Gentleman. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said according to the estimates the debt was only £400,000 instead of half a million, alleged by the Chairman of the East India Company to be due.

said he spoke from memory when he stated the sum to be £500,000, and could not at that moment give the precise amount. There was, however, a sum which the Company believed the Government owed them, but which the Government, on the other hand, said they did not owe them.

said it would be desirable to know whether the sum of £500,000 was a surplus over and above the Estimate now before the House. [Mr. MANGLES: No, no!] What, then, was the sum in dispute?

said, the Estimate laid on the table contained the entire expense, as estimated by the East India Company, of the expedition to the Persian Gulf. That was all that the Government undertook to defray when they communicated with the East India Company, and the Treasury minute on that subject was perfectly explicit. Some additional expense was incurred by the East India Company overland, amounting to about £300,000, and if that item should eventually be decided to fall within the expenses of the war, one moiety of it would be due from the Exchequer; but at present the Government did not admit that that was so, and therefore he had not included the sum in the Estimate before the House.

observed that he understood that the £300,000 was plus the £800,000 in the Estimate.

said, this Estimate included the whole of the estimated expenditure for the expedition to the Persian Gulf. The other sum related to a matter upon which there was a dispute between the Government and the East India Company.

remarked that he understood the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that the Estimate for the war with China was reduced by £100,000 in consequence of the troops being transferred from Singapore to India, and that, as regarded the £100,000, it was a matter for consideration whether the East India Company should bear a share of that expenditure.

said, the noble Lord had entirely misunderstood his meaning. The hon. Member (Sir H. Willoughby) asked whether the expense of the transport of troops to India told upon the English or upon the Indian Treasury. In his answer he said that generally the rule had been that the expense of the transport of British troops sent to do service for the East India Company fell upon the Indian Treasury; but that with regard to those troops destined originally for China, but now ordered to stop at Singapore and diverted to India, it was a question whether it ought to fall upon the English or the Indian Treasury.

said he wished to ask a question of the noble Lord at the head of the Government. The House had been addressed by hon. Gentlemen who were considered its leaders, but yet he must confess his utter ignorance whether we were or were not at this moment at war with China. They were told that the war was confined to hostilities between Commissioner Yeh and Sir J. Bowring. The question was, whether the money they were now called on to vote was in aid of a war against China? Were we or were we not at war with China?

said, he thought that the condition of our relations with China was pretty well understood by this time. Hostilities of very serious magnitude had occurred between the local Government of Canton and our Authorities, naval and military, at Hong Kong. Those hostilities had led to considerable expense, but with regard to the empire of China we were not at war. We were in a state of perfectly good relations with the other four ports, and were not at war at present with the Emperor of China. We had sent a Commissioner to negotiate with the Emperor of China, in the hope that by his own authority he would give those orders which would prevent actual war with the empire. That was the actual state of things at present.

asked whether this sum included the cost of transport?

said that nearly the whole of the Vote was for the transport of troops. The Estimate was originally £500,000 for the transport and lodging of the troops. Having diverted the troops from Canton to India, they would not be lodged at Canton, and the Vote was reduced from £500,000 to £400,000.

said, that as they now distinctly understood we were not at war with the Emperor of China, he wished to know whether, in the event of Lord Elgin arranging the matters in dispute with Commissioner Yeh, Commissioner Yeh would be authorized to give us indemnity for the expenses incurred?

had not stated that Lord Elgin would negotiate with Commissioner Yeh. Lord Elgin was gone to negotiate with the Government of Pekin.

said the noble Lord had not answered tho question. If he had understood the noble Lord correctly, the noble Lord stated that we were not at war with China. Therefore we had no cause of quarrel with the Emperor. The quarrel was with Yeh, and what he wanted to know was, whether there was any possibility of Yeh having power to indemnify us for what we had expended?

said, he had stated that we were not at war with China, but had great cause of complaint against a subordinate officer of the Emperor, and had demanded redress of the Emperor, seeing that the local authorities were not able to procure redress from the subordinate officer. The Emperor, of course, could do what he pleased as far as giving powers to indemnify us.

said, the number of men voted for the Colonies and for home service was 123,000. The Government was taking away 15,000 or 20,000 men. He wished to know whether the Government intended to raise the force of men up to the number voted by Parliament, and if so, how could it be done?

was understood to say that by recruiting and withdrawing men from the Colonies the Government would replace the men sent to India, or a portion of them.

said, that the Vote of 2,000 additional men for the Navy naturally brought forward the whole subject of home defences. If he were to follow his own view of what was beneficial for the country, he should propose that the Chairman report progress. He did not know whether the exigencies of critical times in India made it a necessity that the Vote should be passed this evening, and as he was a comparatively inexperienced Member, he would not undertake, unless he were supported in his view, the grave duty of urging the postponement of the Vote. But as a Member of the House, and as an officer of the army, he could not refrain from bringing before the notice of the House the extraordinary position in which the country at this period stood with regard to the army. There had been considerable discussion upon the several wars into which we had been brought by the noble Lord at the head of the Government. He was one of those who supported the noble Lord in his Chinese policy, and his main reason for so doing was that he thought that the honour of the English flag should be maintained, and that officers in responsible situations at a distance should be upheld by the Government at home. He shared however in the feeling expressed by the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Buckinghamshire, and agreed in thinking the tone the noble Lord had adopted that night, when he stated, as he had, that England was not at war with China, was very different from the tone he adopted on the momentous occasion which produced the late dissolution—a change which was not likely to meet with the same approval of the country. But what he wished to bring to the notice of the Committee was, that, simultaneously with the war in China; simultaneously with the expedition to Persia; simultaneously, if it could be proved, with warnings both from the Commander in Chief and the Governor General of India, of their uneasy sensations with regard to what they conceived to be an uncomfortable feeling in the Bengal Army—simultaneously with those three events, the noble Lord at the head of the Government had sanctioned an enormous diminution of the army and navy. The regiments of the army had been reduced by 150 or 200 men; the most efficient arm of the service, the artillery, had been reduced by 2,000 trained and practised men, and they were now recruiting young and inexperienced soldiers to fight the battles of England. It was a late hour to detain them—one o'clock; but he felt bound to state, and he believed events would corroborate his statement, that grave responsibility rested upon the Government for entering into wars which they conceived the policy of England required, at the same time that they determined to reduce the army to the extent they had done. The question which he wished to ask the noble Lord was, whether he intended to increase the army? He also wished to know what steps the Government intended to take in order to replace the 20,000 men who were about to proceed to India? The House had heard from different members of the Government the most contradictory statements with respect to the conveyance of our troops to India. One had stated that some were to be sent in sailing vessels and some in steamers; another that no steamers were to be employed as transports; while the First Lord of the Admiralty had instituted a comparison that evening between the capabilities of sailing vessels and steamers. Now, the question was not one of sailing vessels or steamers, but one of sailing vessels with auxiliary screws. Our merchants paid an increased freight for the advantage of placing their goods on board ships with auxiliary screws, because to them time was money, and he asked, was it not equally so to us in the present critical posture of affairs in India? The House was asked to vote 2,000 additional men for the navy; but no addition was to be made to the army, although a large military force was to be sent to India, and events might occur in Europe to render extremely dangerous the want of a sufficient number of troops in this country. He hoped that the House would not be prevented by the Government from discussing the defenceless state of the nation, and thinking that the present Vote would afford them an excellent opportunity of doing so, if postponed till some more convenient occasion, he moved that the Chairman report progress and ask leave to sit again.

said, he could assure the noble Lord that he had not had (in his previous remarks) the slightest wish to prevent a discussion upon the state of our defences. What he had objected to was the raising of that important question incidentally upon a Motion for the adjournment of the House. He had already, in reply to a question from the hon. and gallant Member for West Norfolk, (Mr. Bentinck,) stated the reasons which induced him to ask for 2,000 additional men for the navy. A naval squadron was indispensably necessary in the Indian Ocean; and, in order to provide it with efficient crews, the House must authorize him to increase the seamen in our service by the number mentioned in the Vote. He hoped the noble Lord would not persist in his Motion for reporting progress.

said he was only sorry that the First Lord had not asked for 5,000 men instead of 2,000, because he was persuaded that our navy was far from being in a proper state of efficiency. The blockships referred to by the right hon. Baronet in the early part of the evening were, it was true, in a state of perfect order; but they were only four or five in number, and they were all we had for the defence of our coasts. We had four sail of the line in the Mediterranean, one at the Cape of Good Hope, one in the Indian Ocean, one in the Pacific, and one on the coast of Brazil; but to meet any sudden emergency we had not a single line of battle ship upon which we could depend. He considered that a fearful circumstance, and trusted that the Government would give it their earliest and most serious attention.

said he would beg to call the attention of the Government to the fact that now at twenty minutes past one o'clock there were thirty Orders on the list before they could get to the notices. He asked whether they were to sit there in perpetuo. He thought the Chairman ought to report progress.

said, that if the Committee would agree to this Vote, he would postpone the other two till Monday.

also hoped the Committee would agree to the Vote.

said, as there was no objection to the Vote itself, he trusted the House would assent to it, and any discussion upon the state of the national defences would be taken upon the Report.

warned the noble Lord at the head of the Government that if he took no steps to fill the vacancies caused by the abstractien of the troops which were to be sent to India, they might be placed in a most serious predicament. He could not see the way in which it was to be done.

said, he hoped that the Committee would agree to these Votes, seeing that everything that had been said was in the direction of their approval. The gallant Officer opposite wished to know how the force about to be sent to India was to be replaced, but this Vote was for an augmentation to the navy, and therefore should, so far as it went, meet with his approval. With regard to the army, the intention of the Government was to commence recruiting as soon as possible, in order to supply the places of the men about to be sent to India. If that should not be found sufficient, it would then be for the Government to consider what further steps they should pursue. After the general approval expressed, he hoped that hon. Members would not further obstruct the present Vote.

said he was in favour of agreeing to the Vote.

said, that he had a great many observations to make on this question, and he hoped the noble Lord would persist in his Amendment.

said that he would not object to the Vote being taken now, if a distinct pledge were given that the Report should be brought up at such a period of the evening as would allow the matter to be fully discussed.

assured the Committee that the Report should be brought up the first thing on Monday.

in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the 1st and 2nd of Victoria, chap. 108, entitled "An Act to remove doubts as to the Validity of certain Oaths," said that the Act which he wished to amend was introduced by Lord Denman, to enable persons to take an oath according to the form and ceremony binding on their own conscience. The same Act rendered any person, forswearing himself liable to the pains and penalties attaching to perjury. There was some doubt in that Act as to how far its principles would extend, and he now proposed that that principle should apply to Members of the High Court of Parliament. This would not necessitate any alteration in the substance of the oath, but only in the form in which it was taken in particular cases. It would place certain persons who could not take the oaths as they at present stood in the same position as the Quaker, by allowing them to take them in the way most binding on their conscience. This Bill was in conformity with what he believed was the law for 200 years, and, at all events, with what Lord Hardwicke declared to be the law in the last century. He concluded by asking for leave to bring in the Bill.

The statement which the noble Lord has just made would not certainly lead the House to any just conclusion as to what is intended by the Act; but the statement which the noble Lord made during the evening upon the question of the adjournment of the House to Monday, so irregularly, has intimated to this side of the House what the object he proposes to effect by this Motion really is, and, therefore, I take it for granted that his object is to try, a second time, to introduce a Bill in the same Session of Parliament which has seen it defeated once. The Bill he proposes to introduce he says, is founded upon an Act of Parliament made at the commencement of the Queen's reign; but in doing so the noble Lord has confounded two things essentially distinct, which will readily be seen if you compare the object of the Act of Parliament with the object of the present Bill. The object of that Act was simply that, where a witness should be required for the purpose of justice to give evidence in a court in which an oath was necessary, that oath should be taken in a form most binding on the conscience of the person taking it, in order that justice might not fail. But the object of the noble Lord is totally different. It is not only to admit members of the Jewish persuasion to Parliament, but, as intimated at the commencement of the evening, it has an object not consistent with what has been the law of the country for 200 years, and it will actually set aside the deliberate judgment of the Court of Exchequer, which has determined that the words "on the true faith of a Christian" are a part not of the form, but of the substance of the oath. For that reason, I say that the Bill the noble Lord wishes now to introduce is not founded on the Act of Parliament to which he refers, but on totally different principles. But, Sir, the one objection which ought to prevail in the House of Commons is that this is an attempt to introduce in the same Session of Parliament a question which has been already decided, and which, therefore, cannot be again brought forward in this Session. By so attempting to violate the spirit of the rules and practice of Parliament, you are deliberately putting yourself in opposition to the other House of Parliament, which has never been considered a wise course for the House of Commons to pursue, and which can only be pursued upon the ground, not that you wish to convince but that you wish to overawe the House of Lords (cheers). Those cheers from below the gangway clearly indicate that you are going to do what once only has been done in the history of the country—you are going to make an attempt, by Resolution of one House of Parliament, to overrule the deliberate voice of the other. These principles, so dangerous and so detrimental, are used for the purpose of advocating the admission of Jews to Parliament; but I say that in order to maintain the dignity and authority of Parliament this Bill ought not to be introduced. I may add one other reason. We are now at the end of the Session; you have got a multiplicity of business on your hands; and, considering that this is a question which must lead to prolonged debates, it is far from wise to re-open it. I shall, therefore, oppose its introduction.

said he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman to some extent. This Bill was not wanted; the present law was strong enough. The words of the Act were remarkable—"In all cases in which an oath may lawfully be administered to any person, either as a juryman or a witness in any proceeding civil or criminal in any court of law in the United Kingdom, and in any office or employment on any occasion whatsoever." What could be stronger than that? He asked the House to be their own lawyers, and not to be ruled by any Court of Law or Court of Exchequer whatever. With respect to the House of Peers, let them look at what had been done in the Wensleydale case, and apply the same rule to their own conduct. He should be better pleased to see the House act upon its own Resolution, but rather than there should be no remedy he should support the introduction of the noble Lord's Bill. There were two precedents—the one adopted in 1833. Mr. Pease came to the table of the House and said it was contrary to his religion to take an oath; and the House dispensed with the oath, and allowed him to make an affirmation, and leave out the words "on the true faith of a Christian" and "so help me, God." Had not the other House done the same, and opposed the prerogative of the Crown? When Lord Wensleydale was made a peer for life, the Lords took to themselves a power respecting their own privileges which the House of Commons ought now to take. These privileges were co-ordinate. The Bill ought not to have been brought in, but as it was better than the present state of things, he should vote for it, but he asked the noble Lord to take a bolder course, which would conciliate the people of England. Let them bring the question through by a majority of the House, and if they determined on the course he advised them, he had no fear either of the Peers or of the Judges of England who had been held up as bugbears.

It is perfectly obvious that this is a question which requires great and serious discussion. I must, therefore, move the adjournment of the House; but I cannot pass the statement of the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) altogether without remark. He has argued the question of privilege, and has referred to the House of Lords. The hon. and learned Member argues as though this measure does not affect the constitution of both Houses, whereas, it is evident that the former Bill for the relief of the Jews, which the House of Lords rejected, affected the constitution of that House just as much as it would affect the constitution of this. To say that the Lords have claimed for themselves a privilege which they will not admit us to exercise in this House is simply to misstate the case, because both the rejected measure and the new one proposed would affect the constitution of each House. With respect to what he said about the exercise of privilege in the House of Lords, it is perfectly well known that the constitution of that House, and the appointment of its members is a matter connected with hereditary right, and has nothing whatever to do with the representative principle, and therefore, the constitution of the two Houses being different, there can be no analogy in the cases. It is altogether a mistake to declare that the House of Lords ever exercised a privilege which it would deny to the House of Commons. The House of Lords has a right to express their opinion upon any measure whatever, and this is a revolutionary attempt to crush them in the exercise of that fair expression of opinion as to their own constitution, which would have been affected by the Bill which this House passed, but which they rejected. This is simply an act of revolutionary tyranny. I beg now to move that the House do now adjourn. There are many who take a deep interest in the question like myself. This Bill is just as much a blow at the constitution of the House of Lords as an attempt to interfere with that of the House of Commons, and I shall, therefore, give it my most strenuous opposition.

observed, that he thought that the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) had taken the constitutional course, and he trusted that the House would not follow the advice of the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield. He should be glad to see Baron Rothschild in the House, but he would be no party to admit him in an unconstitutional manner.

said, that seeing the temper of hon. Gentlemen on the other side, he felt it necessary to state the position in which the question stood, and to state, that he had no wish to coerce the House of Lords into a decision upon the subject. He must, however, contend that due regard ought to be paid to the privileges of the House of Commons, and that the House of Lords alone ought not to be allowed to entertain questions by which its privileges were supposed to be affected. A few years ago he was of opinion that it was requisite to have the assent of the two Houses to any alteration of the oaths taken at the table. Since then the case of Mr. Archdall, and more recently the case of Mr. Pease, had occurred, in each of which the House of Commons had dispensed with the oath and permitted an affirmation to be taken in its stead. He also might cite the opinion of Baron Alderson in support of the view that the words "on the true faith of a Chris- tian" had not been originally introduced into the oath for the purpose of meeting the case of the Jews, but to obviate certain doctrines which, upon the part of Roman Catholics, were supposed to have been entertained. He, therefore, believed the House had the power of admitting Baron Rothschild in a similar manner; but he should be sorry to see the House adopt that mode of proceeding, as it was contrary to the opinions of the majority of the Judges of the land. It was for the purpose of avoiding any collision that he had proposed the present Bill. But hon. Gentlemen opposite were determined not to enter into any discussion. If that was not their object, why did they move the adjournment of the House? There was no hon. Member more ready to take the substance of the oath than Baron Rothschild. This was a question of the greatest importance to the electors of the City of London, and of the country generally. If hon. Gentlemen opposite thought they could defeat the object of the Bill by delay it would take a long discussion to do so. Baron Rothschild would conceive it his duty to come to the table and raise the question as to whether he should be allowed to take his seat—and he should advise his hon. Colleague not to forfeit his rights and privileges.

in answer to the noble Lord said, he and his hon. Friends near him were desirous that full discussion should take place on the important subject before them, and it was with that view that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Midhurst had moved the adjournment of the debate. That he thought was no unreasonable proposition, seeing that it was near three o'clock. He must, however, mention, that in his opinion if Baron Rothschild were to present himself at the table in the manner referred to, he would render himself liable to the penalties of the Act.

contended that there was no occasion for the adjournment of the debate, as the proper time to take the discussion upon the Bill would be when it came on for second reading. He for one was disposed to move that Baron Rothschild should be allowed to take his seat in that House without the necessity of taking the oaths, and if he were to do so he (Mr. Roebuck) would be prepared to move, that any person who should prosecute the noble Baron for having taken that course should be deemed guilty of a breach of the privileges of that House.

said, he must protest against the revolutionary doctrine which had been advanced by the hon. and learned Member who had just spoken—a doctrine which was similar to that contained in the Resolution of the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn). If the House were to act in the manner suggested, there would be no longer any securities for the liberties of the people.

said, he begged to deny that the Motion which he had announced it to be his intention to submit to the House was one of a revolutionary character; on the contrary, it would only carry out the law as it at present stood.

said, that his only object in moving the adjournment of the House was that a full discussion upon the important Motion of the noble Lord the Member for London might take place. He most strongly protested against the revolutionary doctrines which had in the course of the discussion been promulgated.

then moved the adjournment of the House.

then rose to express a hope that the unseemly contest in which they had been engaged should be brought to a close. He mentioned that the case was one of no ordinary nature, and should appeal to the noble Lord the Member for the City of London whether an opportunity of fully and fairly discussing it should not be afforded. He should, with that view, move the adjournment of the debate.

observed, that the course which had been adopted by the hon. Gentlemen opposite, in opposing the introduction of a Bill, was one of a most unusual nature. The usual practice was to take the debate on the second reading.

said, that it was an unequally unusual course to ask for leave to introduce virtually the same Bill twice in the same Session; and he protested, more- over, against the introduction of a measure so Important at two o'clock in the morning, after hon. Members had been exhausted by a sitting of fourteen hours.

said, he could have no hope of bringing on the Bill at this period of the Session, at any other than a late hour of the night.

said, the noble Lord might fix Tuesday next for the Bill, as there were no Motions on the paper, except from hon. Members sitting on the same side of the House as the noble Lord, who might easily prevail on them to give way. He thought his hon. Friends around him were taking a legitimate and not unusual course in the opposition they had given to the introduction of the Bill.

said, it was now so near four o'clock, that they might consider they were commencing a new day, with ample time for discussion before them.

deprecated the course pursued by Lord J. Russell, in bringing in a Bill the same in effect as one which had already been rejected in the present Session.

said, he would appeal to Lord John Russell to put an end to such an unseemly discussion, by not persevering with his Bill. If requisite he should be found at his post until that hour next day, in order to defeat such an attempt as that of the noble Lord. He would not allow the House to be bullied.

said, he would at once withdraw the expression if considered objectionable, and would thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for the lesson.

observed, that he thought the hon. Member who brought the question out of the arena of Parliament to a pot-house over the way, did not contribute to the dignity of the House.

said, he was prepared to stay in his place as long as the hon. and learned Member for Midhurst (Mr. Warren) sooner than allow the Bill to be defeated in the manner attempted.

observed, that he had no doubt but the conduct of the Opposition that night would be duly appreciated by the country.

said, he now rose to move what he thought would be considered a most reasonable proposition, namely, that the House do now adjourn. The hon. and learned Member for Sheffield had made some impertinent remarks. [MR. SPEAKER called the noble Lord to order.] He meant to say, that the remarks of the hon. and learned Gentleman were not pertinent. However, in discussing the question of adjournment, they ought not to forget they were breaking the Jewish Sabbath.

said, he would second the Motion out of consideration for the Speaker in the chair.

said, he was of opinion that the conduct of the Opposition on this occasion was unworthy the Commons of England.

conceived that he had been perfectly justified in bringing forward the Bill; but looking at the temper of the House, and seeing that there was nothing very important on the paper for Tuesday, he would consent to adjourn the debate till that day. As many hon. Gentlemen desired to seat Baron Rothschild by Resolution, he certainly should persevere with his Bill, in the hope of preventing a collision, and it would not be his fault if his conciliatory course was not adopted. If, however, the noble Lord (Viscount Galway) would allow his Motion for the adjournment of the House to be negatived, he (Lord J. Russell) would consent to the adjournment of the debate to Tuesday.