said, he would beg to ask the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle, who was the Chairman of a Committee which had sat recently upon a matter affecting the privileges of that House, whether he intends calling the attention of the House to the circumstances which transpired upon that inquiry, or to recommend to the House the adoption of any course which will for the future clearly define the circumstances under which a Member of that House might accept a reward for advocating the interests of persons out of it.

Sir, the hon. Baronet was so kind as to notify to me a few minutes ago his intention to ask the question which he has just put. In reference to the past, I have, as Chairman of that Committee, no instruction from them to make any proposition to the House. With respect to the future, individually, I have no such intention. Hon. Members have probably read the evidence, and it will be open to any hon. Gentleman to submit any proposition with respect to the future which on the whole he may think conducive to the honour of this House and to the observance of its privileges.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland if the Government intend to introduce any Police Bill for the city of Dublin this year?

said, it was the intention of the Government to bring forward such a Bill, and he hoped to be able to do so very soon after Easter.

said, he would beg to ask the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland Whether the Commission now inquiring into the circumstances connected with the recent unfortunate occurrence at Trinity College, Dublin, was conducting its inquiry as a closed one; and he also wished to know from the noble Lord what were the principles upon which that inquiry was to be conducted?

said, he believed, from information which he had received, that the inquiry alluded to by his hon. Friend was at an end. There was a Notice of Motion connected with this subject on the paper from the hon. Member for Wexford; and if that Motion came on, his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland would state to the House the exact position in which matters were.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of the Board of Control, Whether the Board has received any intelligence that the Government of India has confiscated and annexed the Principality of Dhar; whether orders for such proceedings emanated from the Board of Control; and if not, whether the Board approves of, and sanctions this annexation?

in reply said, that by the mail which arrived on the previous day, a Despatch was received containing a Proclamation issued by the Political Agent of the Governor General for Central India. In that proclamation of Sir Robert Hamilton, the Rajah of Dhar was deposed. The Rajah, a lad of about thirteen years of age, had lately succeeded by adoption to the inheritance, and the reason stated in the Proclamation for his deposition was the treason of his durbar, composed of his own relations and friends, who governed the State during his minority. No orders had been issued on the subject from this country, but the deposition was proclaimed entirely upon the responsibility of the Governor General, and as yet the question itself had not come before Her Majesty's Government.

said, he wished to ask the Lord Advocate Whether it is his intention to introduce during the present Session any measure for the simplification of the Titles to Land in Scotland?

said, that he was not prepared at present to give his hon. and learned Friend an explicit pledge as to the character of any measure which might be introduced upon this subject. The question, however, was one of great importance, demanding very serious deliberation, and it appeared to him that, although a great deal had been done by his predecessors in the way of improving the law of Scotland in this department, still more remained to be clone in the way of rendering the transmission of real estate more simple, expeditious, and economical.

said, he rose to claim the attention of the House to the vexations to which British subjects are exposed by the late alteration in the passport system in France, and to move for the following papers:—

"Copies of Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and that of the Emperor of the French on the late alterations in the Passport System.

"And of the several Regulations respecting Passports issued by the Foreign Office since 1815, with the fees charged on their delivery."

The grievance to which he was about to call their attention rather concerned those whom they represented than themselves. It was not probable that any Member of that House, or persons residing in London, with every convenience for making their arrangements, would experience any great embarrassment from the alteration which had taken place in the passport system in France, and in the corresponding alteration in the delivery of passports in England; but the question excited considerable interest out of the House among large classes who considered themselves annoyed by the change, and who were earnestly desirous that some modification should be made. The whole matter of passport regulations was uncongenial to Englishmen. In different parts of the world the system prevailed with different degrees of intensity, hut perhaps it was carried to its extreme in the Chinese empire. The city of Canton was the model and the victim of the passport system. The inhabitants would allow nobody to go into Canton, but nevertheless the French and English armies were now in occupation of that city. Owing to political circumstances, with which Englishmen had nothing to do, the passport system had long been established throughout Europe, and it was strongest in those countries which savoured of an Oriental character. Thus, among the countries of Europe, Russia was the one most hampered by the passport system. There were other countries in which the passport system had been carried out with great vigour, and caused much inconvenience to strangers. One of these was Austria. In that country, however, the passport regulations had been considerably relaxed. No inconvenience was now occasioned to any foreigner the moment he passed the frontier, for then he might go from one part of the Austrian empire to the other without showing his passport. As respects the subjects of Austria, the system of passports was now reduced to a simple card called a "Legitimations Scheme," which was nothing more nor less than a card of identification, declaring who the holder was. With that card the person to whom it was given was perfectly free to go to any part of the Austrian empire. The whole system of passports was one which, he would admit, turned on the principle, not merely of establishing regulations for the admission of foreigners into the country, but it had reference also to the natives of the country. Now, it was the good fortune of this country that there was no historical record of any bar or hindrance like that presented by the passport system being thrown in the way of the movements either of British or foreign subjects here. There was certainly one practical evil connected with the entire freedom of this country on this point. It had been the habit of late years of foreign Governments to land per- sons whom they did not wish to remain in their own countries on our shores. The French police had frequently brought persons whom they considered too suspicious and dangerous for France, and forced us to receive them. They were often persons of strong opinions and desperate feelings, and they were frequently landed in a state of the utmost destitution, and thus was most unfairly thrown on this country the obligation of protection and guardianship with regard to them. This, however, was an incident to which Englishmen must submit in consequence of their general freedom. He would not now discus3 the general use of the passport system, though he had no doubt that many persons would be able to tell some most amusing' stories on the subject, and to narrate how the rogue always had his passport most accurately visé, and how the honest man alone was troubled. Some one — at a diplomatic dinner — told the Foreign Ministers who were present that he would undertake to produce passports in a false name from their own offices, and signed by themselves in the course of the week, and did it accordingly. An increase in the rigour of the system between this country and other Continental nations would, no doubt, check commerce to some extent, and impede the intercourse between man and man, but it would not inflict any wider injury either on themselves or upon this country; but he could hardly conceive a more serious practical evil than any system which would check the intercourse between two such nations as Eng-land and France. It was, therefore, chiefly as respected intercourse between this country and Franco that the passport system became of grave interest to Englishmen. As lung as France and England continued at peace they ought to be considered but one country for all purposes of commercial and individual communications. Ever since 1815, until just recently, the French passport system between England and France had been conducted on the part of the French Government with very great liberality. There used to be different species of passports,—some issued by the Foreign Office and by the foreign Ambassadors, called passeports de Cabinet, which were given to all persons of considerable importance freely. There was also, as probably most hon. Members recollected, an office in Poland Street, to which on any Englishman going, he was perfectly certain to receive, within twenty-four hours after writing down his name and residence, a passport, without fee, by which he could travel to every part of France. Even this delay of twenty-four hours was excused in the case of a Member of Parliament or magistrate, or of illness or urgent business. There were also delivered passports by the French Consul on the payment of a small fee. The same system continued under Charles X. and Louis Philippe. He regretted to say that it was only in later days, when they might have hoped that a long period of communication had produced the best feeling between the two countries, that any hindrance or bar had been placed on the intercourse between England and France. On the establishment of the French Republic the passeports de Cabinet were abolished, as was also the office in Poland Street, the passports of the French Consulate alone remaining. The distinguished individual who became President of that Republic, and who was still at the head of affairs in France, had resided in England, and it was no secret that in the opinion of the Emperor of the French — for he had written on the subject—this passport system was not a useful system, and that as between England and France, at least, it ought to be abolished. Nor was it any secret that a French commission had been issued to inquire whether it was possible to abolish the passport system in France; but it had produced no effect. The passport system, indeed, employed an enormous number of persons, who of course were all interested in maintaining it, and no blame could be imputed to the Emperor for not having carried out his intentions, seeing the obstacles he had to encounter. If things had remained as they wore there would not have been much fault to find with the system, for besides other facilities of intercourse there did exist the habit of free communication, which, though not positively established by law, was sanctioned by custom, between the ports of England and France. The English people never thought of obtaining passports when they went over to visit the ports of France, and, indeed, natives of this country who resided on the French coast were generally unprovided with passports. The communication between the French and English coasts was so entirely free that since the establishment of excursion trains some 100,000 persons had gone over from this country every year to enjoy themselves at Calais and Boulogne for a few days, and their visits had been a source of considerable profit to the inhabitants of those towns. Great changes had, however, now taken place in the passport system. On the 18th of February, 1858, the following notice was issued from the Foreign Office:—

"Her Majesty's Ambassador at Paris having, in pursuance of instructions from the Earl of Clarendon, inquired of the French Government whether British subjects will be permitted to land in Franco without passports when they have no intention of proceeding into the interior, and also whether Her Majesty's Consuls will have power to grant passports to such persons to proceed to Paris or elsewhere, his Excellency has been informed by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs that no person whatever will be permitted to land in France without a passport, nor will a Consul's passport be given to any one who may have landed without one be recognized."

The effect of this proceeding was that the free communication without passports between the coasts of France and England, of which multitudes of persons had availed themselves, was at once stopped, and no British subject was permitted to land at a French port without an English passport. Another effect of the regulation was, also, that British subjects resident at Boulogne and other places on the French coast were deprived of the facilities which had previously been afforded them for visiting the interior of the country. He was anxious to ascertain—and that was one of his objects in moving for the production of these papers—what was the real meaning of the document he had read and what was the nature of the communications which passed between the French and English Governments previously to the issue of the notification. He thought Parliament was fairly entitled not only to demand that those communications should be laid upon the table, but also to inquire whether any remonstrance against the change had been made on the part of the English Government, and also be placed in possession of the manner in which this and other changes had been imposed on the British people. It was not for him to speculate upon what motives had induced the Government of the Emperor of the French to adopt such an important change, but he could not believe that so intelligent a Government could consider that these changes, involving almost the destruction of communication between England and France could in any degree tend either to the security of the Emperor's person or to the general advantage of France. He was rather disposed to attribute the measure to the inconsiderate zeal of subordinates, who with the very best motives might commit most foolish and injurious acts. The restrictions placed upon the communication between France and other countries since that melancholy and wicked event, the attempt on the life of the Emperor, had not, however, been confined merely to passports. He had heard most ludicrous stories of the manner in which the Custom-house regulations were carried out. He had been told, for instance, that a lady was detained at Boulogne for twenty-four hours by the sage officials there, in order that the tooth-powder in her dressing-case might be carefully analyzed with the view of ascertaining whether it contained any detonating matter. The Emperor of the French had undoubtedly, like every other potentate, a perfect right to make any regulations he pleased respecting the admission of foreigners within his territories; but he (Mr. Milnes) thought the people of this country were also entitled to ask why fresh restrictions had been placed upon their intercourse with France. If the French Government were as desirous as they professed to be, and as he believed they really were, of maintaining friendly and intimate relations with the British Government, — if there was no desire on their part unnecessarily to annoy us,—if there was no good reason for preventing Englishmen from visiting Franco on pleasure or on business as they had been accustomed to do,—he thought the people of this country were entitled to ask whether the restrictions recently adopted by the French Government were friendly and neighbouring acts, and were likely to increase the amity of the two nations. The effect of these regulations would undoubtedly be to subject the French themselves to considerable pecuniary loss. Although the restrictions had only been in force for a few weeks, they had been attended with most disastrous consequences with regard to the communication between the two countries. The return of the number of passengers between Dovor and Calais during the last six weeks, as compared with the corresponding six weeks of last year, showed a diminution of no less than 1,167, and the rapid and admirably managed steamers plying between those ports were not now carrying, on an average, more than nine passengers a day. A large number of persons who had left this country unprovided with passports, have been sent back, without money, and without their luggage, which had been carried on into France. He regretted to say that many ladies and children had been sent back, in this helpless condition, to Dover and Folkestone. This evil was every day increasing, and felt more and more painfully; and, in his opinion, the subject required immediate action on the part of Her Majesty's Government. He had now to refer to the course which had been taken by the English Government with respect to this question. He was aware that just decorum would be observed by the present occupants of the Treasury benches in criticising the conduct of their predecessors, and that it was quite unnecessary for him to appeal to their feelings of delicacy with regard to the disclosure of the proceedings of the late Government. He believed they would execute that duty without favour to their predecessors, and as conscientiously as if they had themselves been responsible for the course that had been pursued. Some time ago, passports issued by the Foreign Office were extremely expensive, and were generally procured by persons who wished to produce an impression of their personal importance. Such passports were issued to officials, but they were paid for at a high rate by those who wished to assume a similar character. He was not aware, from his own experience, that these passports wore attended with any peculiar advantage. He certainly remembered hearing of a gentleman who travelled with a Foreign Office passport, signed by the noble Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston), and who, on presenting the document at the gate of a small town in the south of Italy, was immediately seized and carried before the police, the captor believing that he had caught the redoubtable Palmerston himself. Those passports were very sparingly issued, and were not much in demand, the intercourse with the Continent being carried on chiefly by means of the ordinary French passports. The noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston), however, fulsome reason, cheapened the price of the Foreign Office passports, and rendered it possible for almost any man to procure them, at very small cost and trouble. He had no doubt the noble Lord had acted with the best intentions, probably thinking-it right that every Englishman should possess a guarantee of his nationality from his own Government. He (Mr. M. Millies,) however, considered this a mistake, as it was the beginning of the passport system in this country. Until passports were is- sued from the Foreign Office, they were always received from foreign consuls, and the English nation had nothing to do with them. The effect of the new regulations had been entirely to alter the system, with regard to the issue of passports by the Foreign Office hero. It was not necessary to read to the House regulations which were in everybody's hands. At the first glance, they appeared to be more liberally conceived than those formerly issued. Such passports used only to be granted to persons known to the Foreign Office, or recommended to it by bankers, while the present regulation extended the power of recommending to every mayor and every magistrate in this country. This liberality, however, was in appearance only. Hon. Members who acted as magistrates had probably received a communication, desiring that their signatures and their seals should be forwarded, with a view to the identification of any person recommended by them to the Foreign. Office. Now, he did not consider this was a proper use to be made of the magistracy of England. The unpaid magistrates were already called upon to discharge very laborious functions, and the Government had no right to impose on them any other duties than those which the interest of the country fairly demanded. It was most unjust to force the magistrates, as the present system virtually did, to furnish a guarantee for the respectability of every person whom they recommended for a passport. With such a demand he, for one, would not comply, and he believed that a large body of the magistrates were similarly disposed. Suppose, for example, a person unknown to him, but who had recently obtained a very unenviable notoriety in this country, had come to him and asked him for a recommendation. Suppose this person had described himself as a man of letters, as an intimate friend of Coleridge and other literary men, he (Mr. M. Milnes) should have given such a person a passport at once; and then, when it turned out to be Mr. Allsop, it would have been at once asked at the Foreign Office, "Who recommended him?" No gentleman would like to be fixed with such a responsibility, or to find himself in such a position. As to the sending one's seal to the Foreign Office, this perhaps was no great requirement; but it was not every magistrate who could produce such a thing. He lately read in the biography of a distinguished literary man, who conceived that his genius raised him above all the parade of rank, that, on being applied to for his coat of arms, he said he never carried any about with him, for, as far as he knew, from time immemorial all his ancestors had sealed their letters with their thumbs. He (Mr. Milnes) did not know whether the use of this ancient and simple process was customary among any of the magistracy, but to require their seals in this way was certainly a most novel regulation of police in this country. He wished to know what were the causes which had led to the introduction of all this apparatus for the purpose of providing Englishmen with what was nothing more nor less than a mere card of identification on going to the Continent. Everybody knew that this elaborate contrivance was producing the most extreme inconvenience here. A person had now to obtain a recommendation from a magistrate, then to go to the Foreign Office, then apply to the French Consul, and at all these stages necessary delays took place. The case of a young officer who arrived lately in town from the seat of war in India would present these inconveniences forcibly to the minds of hon. Members. This gentleman having been absent for a considerable period had but few acquaintances in London. On a certain Thursday he received a letter from a stranger, telling him that his father was lying at Boulogne at the point of death, and that every hour was of importance. He applied to the Foreign Office for a passport, but was told there was no resource for him, except an application to a magistrate. It was in vain that he represented that he had no friends in London, and that he had only just arrived from India; there was no resource for him. The result was, that he passed the whole of Friday in the endeavour to find a magistrate who would grant him a recommendation, but without effect. In the evening of that day he was fortunate enough to meet a relative who remembered that he had once dined with a police magistrate, and who gave him an introduction to that personage, and so he obtained the necessary recommendation. Next day (Saturday) he went to the Foreign Office, where he got the passport after waiting a certain time, and then proceeded to the French consul's, where the proceedings were completed. Owing to these delays he arrived at Folkestone too late for the boat, and it was not until the Sunday that he could pass to the opposite coast, having been detained no less than four days, by reason of these frivolous regulations, from the dying bed of his father. In another instance a gentleman wrote to him to say that he was summoned one Friday to see his child, who was lying ill at St. Omer. He received the telegram at half-past two, went to the Foreign Office just before four, was desired to call next day at twelve, lost in this way much precious time, and arrived at St. Omer just four hours too late—his poor daughter was dead. Here were cases which had occurred within the last six weeks, and they were only the first fruits of these unhappy passport regulations. The Lord Mayor of London had declared that it was impossible for him to grant all the applications made to him, and that it was his determination in future to limit his recommendation to those whom he personally know, or to persons resident in his district. The police magistrates stated that it was impossible for them to go on with their ordinary duties, and at the same time perform the new functions with which they were so unexpectedly clothed. As to the inconvenience felt by the commercial classes in this country, it was hardly to be told. Every shipowner was in continual fear that a ship of his might be stranded on the coast of France, and that, whereas a surveyor would formerly be able to go at once to the spot, the probability now was that the ship would be lost and the cargo destroyed, long before he had any chance of reaching it. Another disadvantage, surely worth consideration, was that practically every passport must now be granted in London; because, although the authorities at the Foreign Office said they were perfectly ready to send a passport into the country by return of post, on receipt of a proper recommendation, everybody acquainted with the machinery of a great public office must know that it was impossible for them to do so. Thus, a lady wrote to him complaining that she sent for a passport on the 24th, and only received one on the 28th, which happened to be a Sunday, so that it was not available until the 29th. Such instances were not to be wondered at. They must occur every day; and, as he was informed that all the duties in connection with this system devolved on two clerks, he thought it quite impossible that the business to be done at the Foreign Office should be performed even in such a way as would carry out the tenour of the present regulations, illiberally as they were conceived. The question for the con- sideration of the House was, what description of passport should he given to an Englishman so as to enable the Government to guarantee that the person possessing it should travel under the protection and œgis of this country throughout the world. The word "passport" was one of which it was somewhat difficult to give a definition, but in his opinion it ought to he held to mean nothing more than a mark of identification, entitling the holder to the protection of England. It was absurd for the English Government to think of making the passport a certificate of morality or respectability; and so far as our Government was concerned the whole matter turned upon the point, not whether a British subject should leave the country or not, but with what privileges he should travel in other lands. They had no right to refuse a passport to a convict discharged from gaol yesterday if he wished for it. In three cases only could they refuse—if they doubted whether the man was an Englishman; if he was under the immediate action of the law; or if he was endeavouring to evade the law of bankruptcy. These were the only cases in which the Government had a right to say you shall not travel. We were bound to afford protection to every Englishman who behaved himself with propriety upon the Continent, and who obeyed the laws of the nation in which he happened to sojourn, no matter what his antecedents were. He might also observe, that it was extremely desirable that the passport system should no longer subsist in connection with our Foreign Office. No other country did so, and in his opinion that connection had led to a great deal of confusion and abuse. The investigations of the Committee to inquire into the consular service, which had been moved for on the previous evening, would, he thought, servo to show that facilities had been afforded to the members of that service to lay unnecessary fees upon English travellers. Indeed, a case had lately been brought under his notice in which, although the passport had been properly visé, both as regarded England and the country in which the holder happened to be travelling, yet expense had been incurred which need not have been entailed. Under these circumstances it would, he maintained, be extremely desirable that the Government should direct their attention to the question, whether the whole passport system might not with advantage be transferred from the Foreign Office and attached to the Home Department, and whether the onus of refusing a passport should not be thrown altogether upon the shoulders of the Government of the day. The Executive might, through the agency of the police, become acquainted with almost every person who could not be safely trusted to bear the English name abroad, and he would have the refusal given in the case of any such person so recorded, that if the individual felt himself aggrieved, he might be in a position to appeal to public opinion. This was a question which he humbly placed before the notice of Her Majesty's Government, and asked them to consider it. They were in a particularly favourable position for doing so. They were not bound by the conduct of their predecessors, and it was in their power to remedy the matter in a great degree. The course of action of a foreign country with regard to passports was a question of policy, with which we Englishmen had nothing whatever to do. If the French Government, or any other, chose to throw obstacles in the way of their best customers travelling within their dominions—if they chose to deprive their innkeepers of the profits which were to be acquired by the outlay of English tourists, and their merchants of the benefits of English dealers, it was beyond all doubt in their power to carry that object into effect. It only remained to us to pursue our own course, and, with the aid of that constitution and that liberty which we had the happiness to possess, to realize the vision of the prince of lyric poets who, in the olden times of Greece, sung of

"A certain island set apart by fate,

The sea its frontier and the shore its gate;

Where every stranger with free foot can stand,—

May Time ne'er shake the columns of that land!"

The hon. Member concluded by moving for

"Copies of Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and that of the Emperor of the French on the late alterations in the Passport System.

"And of the several Regulations respecting Passports issued by the Foreign Office since 1815, with the fees charged on their delivery."

said, that in rising to support the Resolution which his hon. Friend had just moved, he should feel it his duty to trespass for a few moments upon the indulgence of the House, while he briefly stated the reasons which appeared to him to render it expedient that Her Majesty's Government should at the present period make some effort to mitigate the grievance to which his hon. Friend had called their attention. The question involved in that grievance was one which, although somewhat new to the debates in that House, required no apology to be made for its introduction to its notice, for of all those subjects connected with our relations with foreign countries there was not one which concerned Englishmen individually so closely or which so materially affected our personal comfort and convenience. He must also observe that he regarded the present moment as one which was not altogether inopportune for bringing a subject so important under the consideration of Her Majesty's Ministers. The French Government had in the first place, by their own act, abdicated that responsibility, which they had hitherto undertaken, of issuing passports to British subjects, and permitted it to devolve exclusively upon the Department for the administration of foreign affairs in this country. That step had of course, brought the matter more immediately under the notice of Her Majesty's Government, and had, in his opinion, imposed upon them a corresponding responsibility as to the mode in which they should fulfil the duties which had been recently assigned to them. Fortunately for the country, we had at the present moment at the head of the Foreign Department a Minister who appeared to possess the knack of writing conciliatory letters, and who, as he had been the means of removing the misunderstanding which existed between England and Franco, might very properly be looked to to frame such a despatch as would, without running the risk of creating a fresh misunderstanding between us and our ally, have the effect of mitigating the grievance which the House was engaged in discussing. The age in which we happened to live was one in which the prophecy that "many will run to and fro" was being fulfilled. It was an age of travelling — an age in which capital combined with science and industry appeared to be associated for the purpose of rendering locomotion as great a luxury as it had formerly been a misery. We now possessed increased facilities for moving from one place to another, whether in the pursuit of health or business, and were enabled to fulfil the designs of Providence by the promotion of a spirit of friendly inter- course with other countries, while the several provinces of our own country were brought into closer contact with one another. Could anything be more provoking than that at such a period as this the perverse ingenuity of man should be employed in throwing every possible obstacle in the way of free social intercourse? The House might depend upon it that so long as the passport system continued, no matter what diplomatic alliance might subsist between this country and France—no matter whether we should for a time be bound up with her in a contest against some third power—we never could realize that cordial friendship with France which every Englishman desired to see prevail. When Englishmen went abroad they were, generally speaking, disposed to enter a foreign State in a spirit of the utmost good feeling, and to quit it in a spirit of gratitude and kindly sentiment. He must, however, for his own part say—and in entertaining that feeling he believed he was by no means peculiar—that he never set his foot upon French soil without a sense of indignation at being obliged to submit to a system of interference which was, he thought, as useless as he knew it to be offensive. With the permission of the House he should for a few moments call its attention to a statement of the nature of that system, and as his own feelings might lead him into the use of language which might wound the susceptibilities of our neighbours across the Channel, he should prefer taking the description of it from writers of their own. The only system in this country which was parallel to the passport system of the Continent was that to which it had been found expedient to resort in order to protect society against convicted criminals. He hoped the House would permit him to read an extract from an article in the Encyclopédie du Langage et des Sciences Politiques, under the head "Passeports." The writer said:—

"In a financial and political point of view passports are at once vexatious and useless—vexatious, because the faculty of moving about and travelling being one of common right, and essentially affecting individual liberty, it is a violation of that liberty to force citizens to give the description of their persons (signalement), and to inform police agents of the place to which they happen to be going. It is useless, because reason and justice require that a tax should give to those who pay it some advantage towards their wellbeing and security. The tax on passports affords no such advantage. In spite of the rigorous prescription of the law which looks upon those who travel without passports as rogues and vagabonds, it is certain that a precautionary measure of the kind very rarely attains its end. Persons without any honest calling or livelihood, those who are within reach of the Penal Code, know perfectly well how to procure for themselves faultless passports. Sharpers, bankrupts, and many others whose occupation consists in getting into their hands other men's purses and property—all such voyageurs forces have never been found in want of passports (feuilies de route) which enable them to evade justice. Passports do not exist in England. There the citizen who travels has no need, in order to traverse the three kingdoms, to obtain the permission of a police magistrate. There commerce and industry are not exposed to such impediments, but are perfectly unfettered. There people go, and come, and stop, as it suits them, or as it pleases them. The roads and streets are free from all police inquisition."

Those were rather strong terms for a French writer to use in speaking of a domestic institution of his country, and if they had been penned by an Englishman they would probably have been condemned as exaggerated and unfair. But he had a still stronger passage from the works of a very eminent French writer, who was perfectly acquainted with the subject. That writer said: —

"No inhabitant of Great Britain, excepting convicts, can be expelled from the United Kingdom. Any infraction of this clause (the Habeas Corpus Act) would be visited with the severest penalties."

After describing the Habeas Corpus Act, be continued:—

"In England those violations of a citizen's domicile, so common in France under the name of domiciliary visits, are unknown. In England the secrets of families are respected, and correspondence remains intact. In England the first of all liberties, that of going where you please, is never disturbed, for there no one is asked for passports— passports, the oppressive invention of the Committee of Public Safety, which are an embarrassment and an obstacle to the peaceful citizen; but which are utterly powerless against those who wish to deceive the vigilance of authority."

The House would doubtless wish to know who was the author of those remarks. It was no less a person than the present Emperor of the French, than whom no man had had more experience of the passport system, or was better able, from personal experience, to speak as to its utter inutility. It was unnecessary to refer to cases of annoyance and inconvenience which were of daily occurrence under the present passport system, and which must be familiar to every hon. Member; but he might be allowed to mention one instance that had come to his knowledge, in which no less distinguished a person than Sir Hamilton Seymour, then Minister at Brussels, having received an invitation from the Court to attend a great state ceremony at Ostend, accidentally left his passport behind him, and, notwithstanding his card of invitation, was arrested by the police, and was very near being taken to prison for travelling without a passport. It might perhaps be said that passports were a domestic institution of the French nation with which we had nothing to do, and that if we did not like the arrangements we could keep away from the country. He should like to know how far hon. Members were disposed to carry that argument, as it appeared to him to be capable of a reductio ad absurdum. They had recently seen in this country the Ambassadors from two Foreign Sovereigns who had peculiar notions as to the proper attitude in which to approach the presence of Royalty, and some amusing illustrations had shown the manner in which those Ambassadors crawled upon their bellies into the presence of the Queen. Now, supposing that in the country whence those Ambassadors came an Englishman should be charged with a mission to the Sovereign, would it be imperative on him, or consistent with the dignity of the country he represented, to adopt a mode of address so repugnant to our feelings, although to the natives of that country it might not appear at all degrading or unworthy? To take another case nearer home, it was said to be a custom that persons who were presented to the Pope should perform the ceremony of kissing his great toe. He (Mr. Walter) did not quarrel with the ceremony, but if it were compulsory, instead of optional, would Englishmen travelling in Italy be content to comply with such a requirement, or would they not remonstrate upon what they might consider to be an outrage upon the national dignity? Therefore he thought the argument that passports were a domestic institution of France, with which we had no concern, might be carried too far. Indeed, it was a matter upon which we were not altogether free to choose for ourselves, for nature had established certain geographical relations between this country and Franco that could not be got rid of, even if we wished it. Although it was perfectly competent for any nation to exercise its legal rights and to adapt its laws and customs in such a manner as might become offensive and disagreeable to its neighbours, yet it was a question of prudence and expediency us well as of good feeling how far it was wise to enforce such laws and customs. He wanted to know what it really was that the French Government desired or expect- ed to obtain from the passport system. Was it their object to exclude Englishmen from travelling in their country? If so, the simpler plan would be plainly to tell us so. Was it wished to make travelling as disagreeable as possible? He could hardly imagine that to be the motive, for, if it were, the easiest plan would be to tell us that our company was not wanted. The only object could be to provide such securities for their laws and their ruler as might be consistent with ordinary reason and common sense. How far any passport system, however rigorously enforced, could give such security might be a fair subject of doubt. For himself, he did not believe that any conspiracy or attempt at assassination could be prevented by any system of the kind. It appeared to him that all a foreign Government was justified in exacting from the British Government was that each British subject travelling abroad should be furnished with a certificate of identity and nationality, sufficient to satisfy the police of the country that the bearer was the person therein described. He also wished to know who was the person responsible for the concoction of the present form of passport. He held in his hand a document familiar to all—a passport signed by the Earl of Clarendon, containing a long rigmarole enumerating all the titles and marks of distinction possessed by that noble Earl, and concluding with a flaming illustration of his coat of arms. If the late Duke of Wellington had been Foreign Minister, and the same form had been followed, the document must have been a yard long to contain all his titles and distinctions. All that was very immaterial to the French Government, and afforded no security against ill-intentioned visitors. Perhaps he might be allowed to make a practical suggestion that the best form of passport would be a simple card, something similar to a Crystal Palace season ticket, containing on one side the date, the signature of the bearer, with the declaration that he was a British subject; and on the other side there should be the Government stamp. All that foreign Governments had a right to require was that every Englishman leaving this country to travel in their territories should be marked as such; although, indeed, it might be said that Englishmen were stamped by nature and needed no Government identification. The plan he had suggested appeared to him to be the simplest and the most sensible, if any passports at all were necessary. He did not think that visé's should be required, for it was a disgrace to England that after the Government had given a certificate of identity and nationality it should require the visé of any foreign Power. Pie submitted those suggestions to the consideration of the Government, and he would only add, in conclusion, that the Minister who succeeded in abolishing or even in mitigating this offensive system would be more entitled to the thanks of the country than many Ministers who claimed credit for more important successes. He cordially seconded the Motion of the hon. Member for Pontefract.

was understood to say, he hoped he should not be regarded as having treated the House with disrespect if, on a question which had excited public attention to a considerable extent, he occupied only ten minutes in replying to speeches which had occupied upwards of an hour. The question was one of a very practical character, and it should receive a practical reply from the Government; and therefore he would not follow the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. M. Milnes) and the hon. Gentleman who succeeded him in their quotations from distinguished French writers, neither should he allude to the opinions of the present Emperor of the French with respect to the value of the passport system. As regarded the general question of the use of passports and of the desirableness of maintaining the passport system, it must be remembered that that was a matter of internal regulation on the part of the French Government, with which they had nothing whatever to do. If for the convenience of travelling in France it was requisite that British subjects should have a certain authority to travel—he did not mean in reference to their character, but merely a statement that they were British subjects, and as such entitled to considerate treatment abroad—and that was all that was required—the regulations which our own Government made on that subject was the grand point for consideration. That was the point to which he should direct the attention of the House; that was the point to which Her Majesty's Government were bound to direct their attention, and not the regulations which, whether rightly or wrongly, whether advantageously or otherwise, foreign Governments had thought it necessary to establish. Now, the hon. Gentleman who made this Motion had complained that great impediments were, by the arrangements at present made by the French Government, thrown in the way of British subjects travelling abroad. He could not but think, however, that the hon. Gentleman had spoken without that information on the subject which he might easily have acquired; and that the House would acknowledge, when he had submitted to them the manner in which this matter had been put by the French Government to the British Government, and the manner in which they were prepared to deal with the question, that, so far from this country having any cause of complaint against the French Government on account of the course which they had adopted, it had in fact been treated by that Government in a liberal and generous spirit. ["Oh! oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen would, perhaps, be kind enough to wait until they had heard the information on which his opinion was founded, and not interrupt him in ignorance of the facts. Now, the position in which the matter stood was this. The French Government had, as was stated by the hon. Gentleman who introduced the Motion, been in the habit of permitting their consular authorities to issue passports to British subjects desirous of travelling abroad. It was perfectly true that that permission was withdrawn, but it was withdrawn with a distinct declaration on the part of the French Government that they were not only willing, but bound to admit any regulations which the British Government might establish in reference to the issue of passports to British subjects, and consequently it was perfectly clear that if any fault was to he found with the restrictions attached to our passports, it rested with the British Government and not with the French Government, who said they were willing to accept British passports under whatever regulations they might be issued. Well, one result of the late regulations had, doubtless, been considerable inconvenience to travellers. The matter having early attracted the attention of Her Majesty's Government, as he had no doubt, and indeed he had reason for believing, it attracted the attention of their predecessors in office, they had considered by what means they could best meet and remedy the inconveniences which had arisen. The practical question which they had to determine was, how they could best devise such passports as the French Government would be willing to accept. Now, Her Majesty's Government consider- ed that in issuing passports they were not entitled to inquire in any way what were either the political or the moral antecedents of those who demanded them. In their eyes a passport was a certificate of citizenship—a certificate of the fact that the bearer was a British subject—and the Government did not consider themselves entitled to go beyond that. Still, in order to obtain an assurance that a person was a British subject, there must be some formality, and at the present moment the Department with which he had the honour of being connected, was engaged in considering how they could afford the greatest facilities for the issue of passports consistently with the identification of the bearer as a British subject. It appeared to them a great inconvenience that London should be the only place where passports were issued. His hon. Friend who spoke last said it was a new feature that passports could only he issued in London. Practically that was not the case, inasmuch as the return showed that as much as 80 or perhaps 90 per cent of all the passports granted by the French consulate were issued in London. With a view to providing a remedy for this evil, he might state that it was in contemplation by Her Majesty's Government to establish in some of the principal ports of this country offices where passports could be readily obtained by British subjects. Such offices would probably be established at Dover, Folkestone, Newhaven, Southampton, and Liverpool. In fact, suck arrangements would be made as experience showed to be most calculated to prevent inconvenience. Another difficulty had been pointed out by his hon. Friend who preceded him —namely, that connected with the visé, of passports in France. Now, in reference to that he was bound to say that, having seen a statement in the papers — indeed, he believed it had been officially communicated—that British subjects had been sent back from Boulogne in consequence of their passports not having the visé of the consul-general in London, Her Majesty's Government asked for explanation, and they were distinctly informed that if any such case occurred, which appeared doubtful, it must have arisen from some misconstruction of the instructions on the part of the authorities at Boulogne, it being an instruction from Paris that the French consul at any British port might visé a passport. He had, he said, the authority of the French Government for saying that if any such case occurred it must have been a solitary one, and the result of misconception, the fact being that French consuls, being Frenchmen, in any port of this country might vise. British passports. In order to give a further exemplification of the spirit in which Her Majesty's Government had been met by the French Government, he might state that, it having been communicated to the French Government that it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to establish passport offices at some of the principal ports of this country, they at once said that, in order to meet them half way, they would themselves establish at those ports French consular agents, who should have the power to visé passports issued there, so that no inconvenience might arise afterwards. The sole object of Her Majesty's Government as regarded the regulations for the issue of passports was to prevent, as far as possible, inconvenience to the public. One inconvenience which had been complained of was that the amount now charged for a Foreign-Office passport was too largo; that whereas previously a passport could be procured from a French consul for a very small sum, at present it could only be had from the Foreign Office on payment of a fee which pressed severely on artisans. On this point he could not say what course his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer might feel it his duty to follow, but this he did know, that it was the earnest desire of the Department with which he had the honour to be connected that such a reduction should be made in the charge for Foreign-Office passports as would place them within the reach of almost any one of Her Majesty's subjects. He thought he had now stated all that it was necessary for him to state on this subject. He had desired to deal with a practical subject in a practical manner, and he trusted the House now felt that, so far from there being at the present moment any reason to complain of the course pursued by the French Government on this question, that Government had manifested a desire to mitigate, as far as possible, any inconveniences which the passport regulations had occasioned.

said, he had one suggestion to offer, by which he thought they might avoid establishing new Government offices in the various towns. He would suggest that the Mayors of Manchester, Birmingham, and all the large towns, should be empowered to issue passports. He believed that the Lord Provost of Edinburgh had long been in the habit of issuing them, and he believed also the Lord Provost of Glasgow. All that they wanted to know was, that persons were British subjects, and that they were respectable people; and the magistrates of towns were likely to have the best information as to that. He would also suggest that the fee should be reduced to a shilling.

said, he thought there was a doubt which ought to be cleared up. He thought the House had a right to ask in what manner this change in the passport system had been brought about. If it had originated with the present Government he could have understood it. because they might be supposed to have sympathies with the continental Governments; but when he remembered that the change was made by the late Cabinet he could only conclude that it had been suggested to the noble Lord by some persons who knew very little of the feelings of this country. He would warn the Government that if they were prepared to enter into a complicated arrangement with the French Government, and for the purpose of assisting them in carrying out their new system, to regard a passport as a guarantee for the good behaviour of every person to whom they granted one, they would place the country in a very dangerous position. As, however, the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs hardly seemed sufficiently aware of the inconveniences of the new regulations, and the magnitude of the evils they occasioned, he would beg to recall to his recollection facts which had appeared in the newspapers daily for some time. The Lord Mayor had last month stated on the bench that, however anxious he was to facilitate the issuing of passports, he found the number of applications quite intolerable; and many persons applied whom he did not know, and letters stating who they were, were of no avail. On the same day Mr. Arnold, the police magistrate, had made a statement to a similar effect, and had said that he would not recommend any person to come to him. These cases showed that there was no uniformity of practice in London, and if the practice was not settled here how much more uncertainty might be expected to exist in the country? The only safe and dignified course for the Fo- reign Office to adopt was not to pretend to answer for the character of every person who obtained a passport, but to grant freely to every British subject the protection to which he was entitled.

As far as the late Government are concerned they can have no objection to the production of the papers in the way in which the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs has agreed to them; but I would suggest an addition to the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Moncton Milnes)— namely, copies or extracts of any correspondence that may have been received at the Foreign Office from British Consuls on the coast of Fiance—say within the last two years—on the subject of the inconvenience caused by British workmen arriving in France furnished with passports given to them by French consular agents in Great Britain. It has often happened that British workmen have been induced to go to France by means of passports granted by French consular agents in this country, templed to proceed thither when there was no real demand for their labour, and they have frequently been exposed to great inconvenience, while the public has incurred considerable expense, by their being sent back as distressed British subjects, unable to procure their own means of transport. The addition which I have suggested will complete the view which my hon. Friend wishes to lay before the House with respect to the passport system. I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs that the passport system is an internal and domestic regulation of the French Government with which the British Parliament has really no right to interfere; and I quite differ from my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. M. Milnes) in the opinion which he expressed, that the late Government, by enlarging the facilities for getting passports, established a passport system in this country. They did no such thing. The passports issued from the Foreign Office had nothing whatever to do with any internal regulation hero, but was merely given to a British subject for the purpose of enabling him to travel without interruption on the Continent. My hon. Friend blamed the Government for reducing the price of passports, but he ought to have recollected that the reduction from £2 16s. to 7s. 6d. was made in compliance with the expressed wishes of this House. It was not at all a spontaneous act on the part of the Government; on the contrary, it was attended with a good deal of departmental inconvenience, and was resolved upon in deference to the repeated wish of Parliament that British subjects should be enabled to obtain at a small cost that sanction of their own Government which would secure them from molestation when travelling on the Continent. I quite agree, however, with those who hold that the passport system is, in truth, of very little value. The only real effect of it is to embarrass innocent travellers, and to cloak the proceedings of those who go about with mischievous intentions. I am able to state an instance of each kind. Many years ago (not in the reign of the present Emperor, not in the reign of Louis Philippe, but in that of Charles X.,) I was travelling from the north to the south of France, and one evening, when I arrived at my inn, an officer of police came to inspect my passport. Having looked at it, he said, "Sir, if I did my duty I should arrest you." "I am sorry to hoar it," I replied, "but I hope you will do no such thing. Why?" "Because your passport has not been visé since you landed at Havre." I told him that was the fault of the French officials. But here was a harmless traveller threatened with arrest because his passport was not in the condition required by the French regulations. Take the other instance. Orsini, who lately suffered for the attempt upon the life of the Emperor of the French, was actually travelling with one of my passports. He had obtained possession of a passport which was given, not by myself, but by the officials at the Foreign Office when I was Secretary of State, to a British subject named Allsop. The passport was procured on the recommendation, of a very respectable mercantile firm in London, and having been given to Allsop was handed over to Orsini, who, although he did not carry upon his features that stamp of nationality which the hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. Walter) thinks would be sufficient to identify a British subject, had nevertheless that stamp of nationality which is implied in the possession of a passport granted to a British subject by his own Government. Does not the case of Orsini show that passports are of no real use for the purpose of impeding the movements of dangerous characters on the Continent? It shows also that no regulations which the British Foreign Office can establish for the purpose of identification can be effectual, because great may be the care taken to confine the passports given by them to British subjects there is no means by which you can prevent them being transferred to foreigners, and then all precautions fail, and the whole system becomes a useless restriction on the motions of those who have no bad intentions, and who go to the Continent only for the purposes of business or of pleasure. But, as I said before, these are matters which foreign Governments have a right to regulate according to what they deem necessary for their own internal security. At the same time, if passports are required—not for British but for foreign purposes — by British subjects, I quite admit that every facility ought to be given to British subjects for obtaining the papers necessary to enable them to travel on the Continent. It is quite true, as stated by the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, that the inconveniences resulting from the recent regulations were felt by the late Government. Those regulations were established experimentally and provisionally, in consequence of the French Government having forbidden their agents here to give passports to British subjects; but I have no doubt that when the matter is looked into, and with the new regulations which the Under Secretary says the Foreign Office is about to establish, many of the inconveniences which are the necessary result of arrangements made in consequence of the action of another Government will be removed, and greater facilities will be given to British subjects wishing to travel abroad. I have only to say in conclusion that if my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract has no objection to the addition I have suggested, it will, I think, complete the case by showing the representations which have been made by British consuls in the French ports, of the inconvenience to individuals, and the expense to the public, occasioned by the facilities which were formerly afforded by French consular agents here to tempt British workmen to go to France, when there was no real demand for their labour, and when, having nothing to do when they arrived there, they were compelled to be sent back as distressed British subjects.

I think the noble Lord was in error when he stated that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract had found fault with our Government for reducing the price of passports. I rather think that the hon. Gentleman, on the contrary, is one of those who think that passports should be as cheap as possible. The question of the price has nothing to do with the objects for which they are granted. I have listened to the discussion to-night with great satisfaction, and I am sure the country will receive with pleasure the observations which the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs has addressed to the House. There are two things which our Government can do. In the first place it can make friendly representations to foreign Powers for the purpose of prevailing upon them to lessen as much as possible the difficulties which are interposed in the way of a traveller on the Continent. It can do nothing further with foreign Powers, because I take it for granted that we are bound to submit to any internal regulations on this matter which a foreign Government may make; but with respect to the second point—in relation to our own country, it can do almost anything. Our Ministers do not care a straw, I presume, what Englishman travels abroad, where he goes, or how long he stays away; they give him a passport merely because foreign Governments will not admit him into their territories without one. But foreign Governments do not ask that we should charge 7s. for our passports. They do not ask that we should bring men from all parts of the country to any particular city for the purpose of getting passports, nor do they require that poor people, who have no influential friends, who do not know a banker or a Member of Parliament, should find it almost impossible, as we have recently seen proved in the newspapers, to obtain a passport at all. The inconveniences, of which so much complaint is made, are owing to the conduct of our own Government and to the want of common sense in these matters manifested by the Foreign Office in past times. I agree with the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. J. B. Smith) that it would be very undesirable to establish passport offices in the various towns throughout the country. We know what a passport office would become. First of all there would be a considerable amount of patronage. All Members of Government, it is true, when they speak of patronage profess to care nothing whatever about it. At the same time, whenever any measure creating patronage comes before Parliament, I observe that as much patronage is provided for as can he conveniently put in an Act of Parlia- ment. If you were to have passport officers in Liverpool, Hull, and other large towns, the passport officer would not have enough to do, for the few persons he would have to attend to would not give him more than one or two hours' employment a-day, and he must be a respectable person and have a competent salary. My hon. Friend (Mr. J. B. Smith) proposes that the mayors of the different cities should have the power to give passports; and I have no doubt whatever that that would be a convenient arrangement. The Mayor has the confidence of his fellow-townsmen, otherwise he would not be in that position, and a very small fee would cover any expense he might incur. What object could there be in charging for a passport more than 6d.? You do not want more money than would just pay the expense, and that might be provided for by a vote of that House, or by some small fee, for we do not want to tax our countrymen going abroad. If it were not for foreign countries we should have no passports; and therefore, being compelled to have passports, it is the duty of the Government to make the infliction as little as possible. Acting upon that principle, any two men in this House might sit down, and in half an hour draw up a scheme by which all the difficulties would be removed, and which would be satisfactory to the country. I hope the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs will not conclude from these observations that I am dissatisfied with what he said. I think that what he has stated shows that the Government are paying attention to the subject, and I hope that as long as he occupies his present position the House may be as well satisfied with any explanation he may have to give in future as with that he has just offered.

said, that he would not detain the House for more than three minutes, but that he wished to correct one error in a matter of fact into which the hon. Member who had just sat down had fallen. It was quite a mistake to suppose that foreign Governments did not care from what particular office a passport was issued. The possession of a Foreign Office passport made all the difference in the world to the comfort of a traveller. He would relate one instance of this within his personal experience. He was travelling in Hungary before the effects of the revolutionary war had quite passed away, and when the authorities were much exasperated against England. He arrived in Semlin simultaneously with a young Eng- lishman, who was going to Bucharest on commercial business of great importance. He had a Foreign-Office passport, signed by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston), and to this the Austrian military authorities paid the greatest possible respect; while they treated as little better than a more nullity the perfectly regular passport granted to the young Englishman by Colonel Hodge, our then representative at Hamburg. He (Mr. Duff) was offered every facility for the prosecution of his journey, while the bearer of Colonel Hodge's passport was forbidden to proceed to Bucharest, at which place, for all he (Mr. Duff) knew to the contrary, he may not yet have arrived.

It appears to me that the observations which have fallen from the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) are like those that usually fall from him, well worthy of the consideration of the House. I feel, as I think the House must feel, that we have two objects before us—namely, to make the obtaining of passports both easy and economical. The office with which my hon. Friend is connected has the subject before it, with the intention, if possible, of accomplishing these two objects. The mode which he has intimated is not one which has been definitely fixed upon. we are only so far pledged that we are desirous, if possible, to carry out the objects to which I have already alluded. Some difficulties have been started by the municipal bodies; but I feel sure that, after some little discussion and arrangement, those difficulties will be overcome. The great object is, so to arrange that in future Englishmen, who wish to leave the country, will find that the preliminary process, instead of being expensive and difficult, can be entered upon at a moment's notice, and with little or no expense. The proposition of the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) with regard to an addition to the Motion, appears to be one to which no objection can be made. I trust that the result of this discussion will be the bringing about of a system more satisfactory to the country.

replied. He certainly thought that the reduction of the price of Foreign-Office passports had, though unintentionally, a bad result, for it had induced people to use English passports instead of keeping to the old foreign passport system, which kept the English Foreign Office free of this matter. He begged to thank the hon. Gentleman oppo- site (Mr. S. FitzGerald) for his statement, in which there was but one point omitted, and that was the consideration of the enormous number of people who had been in the habit of frequenting the ports of France without any passports whatever. That was a custom of thirty years' standing, and the sudden abolition of the privilege was a fair matter for complaint. With regard to the suggestion of his noble Friend (Viscount Palmerston), he had no objection to extend the terms of his Motion, so as to include those further returns which his noble Friend desired to have.

said, he rose to move for leave to introduce a Bill to legalize marriage with a deceased wife's sister. He felt he ought to make an apology for attempting to handle a subject which had employed the talents of a distinguished Member of that House; but he believed that the best apology he could make would be the assurance that he had not ventured to rise for the purpose of addressing them without having given his best abilities to the consideration of this question. In his opinion there ought to be no ambiguity in the law on this subject; but its provisions and prohibitions should be clearly and distinctly declared. The law in its present state was, however, open to very considerable doubt. To prove this he might refer to the case of "Brook v. Brook," by which the question of the validity of these marriages between British subjects abroad had been raised. In the absence of any parallel case, Mr. Justice Creswell's opinion upon that trial must be regarded as the authoritative declaration of the existing law of England. That decision had not been arrived at without very laborious and minute examination, and it was therefore evident that the state of the law was by no means clear and satisfactory. Indeed he had been told that some of the most distinguished orna- ments of the legal profession had, upon precisely the same evidence, arrived at diametrically opposite conclusion. Upon any subject of importance, this state of dependance on the ipse dixit of a single Judge for the enunciation of the law was much to be deplored; but in this case it was above all things to be complained of, for no doubt could exist as to the feelings of the Legislature. That House had on three separate occasions expressed its deliberate opinion that the present law on this subject should be reversed, and that principle had been affirmed upon no less than thirty divisions. Upwards of 5,000 petitions, with hundreds of thousands of signatures, had been presented to both Houses of Parliament in favour of the change in the law which would be effected by the Bill he asked leave to introduce. The law as it stood was, he believed, at variance with the feelings of a large majority of the community, and it was therefore fitting to inquire how that law had been established. It was a remarkable fact that history showed them no civilized nation in which this question stood as it did in England. The Roman law, which coincided almost exactly with the Mosaic law in this respect, contained no prohibition of these marriages; and after the partition of the Roman Empire during the first three centuries of the Christian era, these marriages were lawful both in the East and in the West. There was no record of any collision between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities on the subject, and it must, therefore, be concluded that they were held lawful by the Church. In the early history of the Reformation also, they would seek in vain for any such prohibition. In the reign of Henry VIII., and his three successors, Scripture was constantly referred to as the ultimate court of appeal, upon whose decision all human legislation must turn. The question to be determined seemed, therefore, to be reduced to these narrow points — whether the alleged Scriptural prohibition really existed; and whether, failing such prohibition, these marriages were so inexpedient that it was necessary they should be forbidden upon other grounds. It could scarcely be supposed that the Almighty had left such an important subject unregulated, and the Scriptural argument seemed to he within a very narrow compass. Either these marriages were prohibited by Scripture or they were not. If they were so prohibited he called upon those who objected to them to point to the passages containing the prohibition. If they were not prohibited by Scripture he contended that the provisions of the statute law ought to he brought into conformity with that Divine Law upon which they professed to he founded. The 18th verso of the 18th chapter of Leviticus was the only passage in Scripture which referred directly to marriage with a deceased wife's sister; but this verse forbade such marriages only during the life of the wife. He believed, however, that the opponents of such marriages did not rest their Scriptural objections altogether upon that passage. They relied upon the 16th verse, in which a man was prohibited from marrying his brother's widow, and they argued that as the relationship was the same in both cases, the law which forbade one marriage equally forbade the other. he thought the answer to this argument was that all the prohibitions contained in Leviticus were amplifications of the prohibition in the sixth verse of the chapter, as to marriage with near kindred; but the sister of a man's wife was not near of kin to him. If the argument by analogy was to be insisted on, it appeared that, even by analogy, marriage with a deceased wife's sister was sanctioned, for although the 16th verso of Leviticus prohibited a man from marrying his brother's widow, and by the 18th verse he was forbidden to marry his wife's sister in her lifetime, in the 2.5th of Deuteronomy men were commanded, under circumstances which must often have occurred, to marry their brothers' widows. He could not admit the authority of any one who would say that God intended to prohibit marriages which He did not expressly prohibit, because if God had so intended He would have clone so. The Scripture must be taken literally as it stood. With regard to the argument drawn from the Canon law, that law was based on Scripture, and if the argument drawn from the Scripture itself failed, that educed from the law, which was based on Scripture, must necessarily fail with it. Moreover, the Church of England did not claim infallibility for its Canon law, and Lord Lyndhurst's Act, for instance, totally subverted a canon, by declaring absolutely void marriages which, according to the Canon law, were only voidable. It was true that marriages of this nature were prohibited by two of the early councils; but they were not œcumenical or general councils, and the prohibition extended only to the dioceses of the Bishop by whom the councils were attended. A similar prohibition was also contained in the Reformatio Legum, commenced in the reign of Henry VIII., and continued in that of Edward VI.; but as it never received the assent of Parliament, Burns, in his Ecclesiastical Law, declared that it could not he regarded as having the force of law. In 156.7, Queen Elizabeth, wishing to establish her legitimacy on more definite grounds, requested Archbishop Parker to draw up a table of degrees within which marriage was prohibited. In this table the prejudices of the Queen who employed him were naturally regarded. A brother's wife was declared to be one of prohibited degrees, because on the nullity of Henry the Eighth's marriage with Catherine of Arragon de-pended the legitimacy of Elizabeth. And it was said that a deceased wife's sister was also declared a prohibited degree, in order that Elizabeth might be enabled to say to Philip of Spain, who wished to propose for her, on the death of her sister Mary, that the feeling in England was so great and general against such a marriage that she dared not accept him. Be that as it might, Archbishop Parker only called his work "an admonition suited to the requirements of the times," and he was so careful not to assert for it an authority which it did not possess, that he noted on the fly-leaf the names of certain eminent divines who differed from him upon this point, he next came to the Statute law. Since the time of Henry VIII. eight statutes had passed, but all the laws of that monarch arose out of his capricious desires and anxiety to get rid of his successive wives. At last, having exhausted various statutory devices, this monarch returned to the Levitical prohibition, and the law was fixed as he believed it would be found to stand at the present moment. There was, in fact, no absolute statutable prohibition in this country on the subject of these marriages. Though the Judges had once or twice interpreted the law in another sense, their interpretation turning mainly on the sense to be put upon the words "prohibited degrees" in Lord Lyndhurst's Act. The present Bill would simply be an explanatory one, declaring that, whatever decisions might have been given in the Court of Queen's Bench or elsewhere, marriage with a deceased wife's sister should be no longer void or voidable, but should be just and honourable in every respect whatever. Indeed, from all that Parliament had done in the matter, they could only educe the one fact, that although the Legislature had, in despotic times, acted upon the caprice of the reigning monarch, it had never ceased to overlook the authority of the Bible as the basis of their legislation. There were some hon. Gentlemen, however, who did not found their objections, to these marriages either on the canonical or statute law, or on Scriptural grounds, but who urged the argument of social expediency. He was now merely asking leave to introduce a Bill, and this therefore was not the time to enter at length into this point. He could only answer such objections, vague and shadowy as they were, by asserting against them the broad principle, that every man should be free to do what seemed good in his own eyes, provided it did not interfere with the rights of his fellow men. He thought the advocates of these marriages might fairly claim that the scruples of their opponents should not he thrust upon them, seeing that they believed no Scriptural prohibition existed. If such a prohibition could be pointed out, they would at once give up their advocacy of this measure; but if that was not the case, the present law certainly abridged the liberty which belonged of right to Englishmen. He would frankly acknowledge that there were great, and good, and wise men, who disagreed with him upon that point, and he hoped he had said nothing, and that he should never say anything, which could shock their feelings. He believed that the Scriptural objection to the proposed alteration of the law was not well founded, that the canonical objections could be easily set aside, and that as the statutory prohibition had originally been framed in deference to the caprices of a wicked King, and had been adopted by a subservient Parliament, there was no reason why it should be respected and maintained. Reserving, then, for another occasion any reference to the argument of expediency, he should now simply ask leave to introduce this Bill, and he trusted that Parliament would not refuse their permission.

said, he had never heard a speech more conciliatory in its tone, or more calculated to win the favour of the audience to which it was addressed, than that which they had just heard from the noble Lord. But he (Mr. Divett) should add that he totally disapproved of the conclusion at which the noble Lord wished that the House should arrive. He confessed that he had great doubts in reference to the argument drawn from Scripture; but he entertained a strong conviction that the proposed change in the law was fraught with the most serious moral and social evils. The noble Lord had only recently become a Member of the House, of which he promised to be one of the greatest ornaments, and therefore scarcely knew the feeling of Parliament in reference to these marriages. But he (Mr. Divett) had been a Member of the House when the last Act upon the subject had been passed, and could remove the mistake under which the noble Lord laboured, that it was not a prohibitory statute. There were certainly at that time certain things connected with it which seemed to throw upon it a slur, but in legalizing those marriages, which had taken place prior to the enactment, it in no way sanctioned a compromise. He should, however, have hardly taken any part in the discussion of the question if he had not been a witness of the efforts made by an association called the Marriage Law Reform Association, to obtain the legalization of those marriages; and he wished to say a few words in reference to the proceedings of that body. Soon after the Act of 1835 was passed, by which these marriages were rendered illegal for the future, a gentleman of great wealth, a banker (whose name he would not mention, but which was well known in that House), wishing to marry his deceased wife's sister, engaged a firm of lawyers in the city to get up an agitation on the subject. By the machinery thus set in motion pamphlets were distributed, every constituency was canvassed, every man who did not know exactly what he was saying was induced to pledge himself in favour of the abrogation of the existing law. He himself had been canvassed—and, in common with other hon. Members, he had been inundated with pamphlets, and having nothing bettor to do, he had read them all. Having by these means been led to devote to the subject some time and attention, he had arrived at a settled conviction that all attempts at change ought to be earnestly resisted. The Association had further inserted advertisements constantly in The Times, informing the world generally that these marriages, although prohibited by the law of this country, were legal in Germany, Holstein, and many other countries. The consequence was, a great number of unfortunate women who, of course, were ignorant of the real state of the law, were induced to go across the Channel, and get married in those countries, though such marriages were, in point of fact, no more real than a broomstick marriage in a gypsy camp. Some of those women had since been abandoned by their husbands, and their children had been bastardized in consequence of a decision recently pronounced in a case in one of the courts of this country, to the effect that certain property had become forfeited to the Crown through the illegitimacy of the children of such a marriage as this Bill would legalize. The whole proceedings of the Marriage Reform Association were most demoralizing, and it was essential to the wellbeing, the sound morals, and social position of England, of which we were so proud, that a stop should be put to that most dangerous association. He had been asked not to divide against the introduction of the Bill, and, if he intended to persevere in his opposition to it, to postpone dividing the House against it till some further stage. That course might be very proper with respect to a Bill to whose principle he had no objection, but of whoso details he did not approve. This, however, was a Bill to the whole of which he was resolutely opposed; and, therefore, however small might be the support he should receive, he would insist on a division on the Motion for its introduction. he protested against any such Bill being laid upon the table; but if it should unhappily be introduced, he should oppose it at every stage. He had been favoured that morning—ho presumed by the Marriage Reform Association—with a pamphlet entitled, "Opinions and National Testimonies tending to prove the Scriptural Lawfulness and Social Expediency of Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister, and the Desirableness of Removing Doubts as to the Legal Validity of such Marriages." Now, if any doubts heretofore existed as to their illegality, he thought the decision of Mr. Justice Cresswell must have completely removed them from every reasonable mind at all events, He (Mr. Divett) had no doubt, and he believed that nobody except those who wished to abrogate the law in order that they might have the power of marrying their deceased wife's sister, and indulging their fancies in some other mode, had any doubt as to the illegality of these marriages. But the pamphlet proceeded to give an opinion of the noble Lord the late Prime Minister, which he certainly did not hear the noble Lord express during any of the previous discussions of this question; and he therefore thought it right to read that opinion in the hearing of the noble Lord, in order to ascertain whether he had really expressed such an opinion. The pamphlet attri- buted the following language to the noble Lord:—

"It seems to be established and admitted that the moral feeling of the community at large is not with this law—that the law, in fact, is not obeyed, and that a great number of persons, not considering themselves to commit any moral offence, do contract marriages which the law prohibits. That is not a state of things which ought to exist; and, not being of opinion that there is any moral objection to the contracting of these marriages, and believing that the law as it stands is the cause of a great deal of misery and social evil, especially among the middle and lower classes of the community, I shall with great pleasure give my vote for the Motion."

That speech, according to the pamphlet, was delivered by Viscount Palmerston on the Motion made on March 13, 1856, for leave to introduce the Bill. The pamphlet then gave a great many opinions of eminent lawyers and divines. We all, of course, know that lawyers were not very scrupulous in giving their opinions, and that, in fact, for a certain consideration we might obtain from them any opinion we pleased. He therefore did not attach much. weight to lawyers' opinions. But the pamphlet ended with the following very extraordinary statement: —

"Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is not known to have been prohibited in any age or country before the fourth century of the Christian era, at which period the Churches had widely departed from the simplicity of earlier times. The most exaggerated notions were entertained respecting marriage and celibacy, and, influenced by the doctrines of the ascetic Basil, Bishop of New Cæsarea. the Greek Church, without Scriptural warrant, prohibited marriages of consanguinity, of affinity, and even of spiritual affinity, to the seventh degree. At the present clay these marriages may be lawfully celebrated in the following countries, each of which has an independent jurisdiction in (ho matter, and the united population of which amount to more than 700,000,000."

Now, would it be believed that in this population of 700,000,000 were included the populations of Turkey, Morocco, China, as well as 400,000,000 Bhuddhists and idolaters? It was most extraordinary that the pamphlet omitted to add that these marriages were equally in accordance with the public opinion and law of 180,000,000 Hindoos. The pamphlet proceeded to give a list of all those countries to which the Marriage Reform Association had induced these poor unfortunate women to go and put themselves into a state of concubinage. Next, it quoted, as being in favour of the principle of this Bill, all the States of America, with one extraordinary exception—it did not quote a State which one might suppose to be almost a model nation in the opinion of those marriage law reformers— namely, the state of Utah, the territory of the Mormons. He would conclude by stating that he would oppose the Bill at every stage, because he firmly believed that it was fraught with danger to the well-being of England, and would produce the most melancholy moral and social evils in every English home.

said, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was in error with regard to the case which had recently been argued before one of the Courts, involving the question of the legality of marriage with a deceased wife's sister. No judgment had yet been pronounced in that case. The question involved in it arose thus:—A gentleman of the highest respectability, a magistrate and extensive manufacturer, had, after most mature consideration and with the full assent of his own family and his wife's family, married a sister of his deceased wife in Denmark— a country where, as it was well known, such marriages were lawful. A more admirable match he (Mr. Malins), from the facts which had been laid before him as counsel in the case, believed there could not have been. They were informed by counsel of the highest eminence that although they could not marry in England their marriage in any country where such marriages were lawful would be legal in this country also. Three children were born of that second marriage, and two of the first. The father had the greatest anxiety with regard to the legality of the second marriage, and he framed a will with the view of providing for the children thereof in the event of their being declared in this country to be illegitimate. Some time afterwards he fell suddenly ill in Germany, and at his request a clergyman, who superintended the hospital where he lay sick, drew a new will, which he executed, leaving the whole of his property among his five children absolutely. About a year after his death one of the children of the second marriage died, and no contest arose between the Crown and the surviving children as to the personal property of the father and mother. The alleged illegitimacy of the children of the second marriage however raised the question between them and the Crown, whether there was any legal heir or next of kin to the deceased child of the second marriage. The families of the deceased husband and wife were of the highest respectability, and the question of the legitimacy of the mar- riage had put them in a position of very great distress. On account of the great importance of the case the learned Vice Chancellor before whom he had the honour of practising—namely, Vice Chancellor Stuart, the Judge before whom it was brought, called in the assistance of Mr. Justice Cresswell, who at the end of about a month after the arguments were concluded, gave his opinion (which was not a judgment) that the marriage was invalid. The Vice Chancellor had not as yet given judgment, and the case, therefore, must be regarded as still remaining sub judice. There were, he might add, hundreds of other cases in which persons, not of an immoral character, but who were desirous to fulfil to the best of their ability all the duties of life, had been led to contract those marriages, and he must contend that if it were the intention of the Legislature to prohibit, such prohibition should be laid down in terms the most plain and distinct. Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act declared that all marriages which were not solemnized in a particular way—such, for instance, as those which used to be celebrated in Scotland—should be void, yet the decisions of our Courts under the operation of that Act held such contracts to be not void but voidable. The present law with reference to marriage with a deceased wife's sister was liable to the same freedom of interpretation, and it was time, therefore, that some alteration should be made in it which would place the intention of the Legislature beyond all doubt. Nothing could, in his opinion, be more ridiculous than that a person not permitted to marry in this country should be enabled to do so beyond the seas. If the incapacity attaching to the contracting parties were of a personal character—such, for example, as was created by the Royal Marriage Act—then it could not be obviated by the mere fact of residence in a foreign country. It was, under these circumstances, perfectly clear that the existing law stood in need of amendment; and, although he had upon two previous occasions voted against any such amendment, yet he felt bound to say that, upon more mature consideration, great social evils appeared to him to result out of the present system. He also quite concurred with those who thought that the Scriptural argument against marriages with a deceased wife's sister was untenable. It was reduced, therefore, to a question of social expediency, of social propriety, of social advantages, and if it was found impossible to prohibit the desire to contract these marriages, he thought that if they could not prohibit attempts to evade the law, they had better alter the law. At present it appeared that in spite of Legislative prohibition these marriages continued to be solemnized; wives on their death-beds, expressed their desire that if their husbands married again it should be to their sisters; and under that state of things it behoved the House to consider whether they should continue to make illegal what they were incapable of prohibiting. At any rate, he (Mr. Malins) should vote in favour of the introduction of the Bill, in order that the whole subject might undergo re-consideration.

said, that he was largely indebted to the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down, not only for a clear exposition of the law as it was understood to exist by many persons, and the evils hearing upon that supposed state of the law, but for the testimony which he had borne to the character of the persons who were most affected by it. What did the agitation that prevailed upon this question show? Why, that there were persons who felt strongly on this matter—men of character, persons of probity, who year after year devoted time and property to bring this question under the consideration of the Legislature. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Divett) had thrown a slur, which might or might not be deserved, upon the opinions of lawyers; was he prepared to throw the same doubt upon the opinions of divines? Because, in the pamphlet to which he alluded the speeches and opinions of divines were as numerous as those of lawyers, and it contained also those lawyers on both sides, men of very high character in the '. world. Whatever might be said with respect to the Scriptural prohibition alleged to be involved in the question, he thought it was a subject on which the utmost liberty of interpretation must be allowed. There were individuals, and there were Churches; who considered that these marriages were absolutely prohibited. But there were individuals who were equal in intellect, equal in character, equal in talent, in piety, and in the discharge of all the offices of religion, who took an opposite view. There were not only individuals, but there} wore Churches also who did so. The opinion of the Church of England might be considered ambiguous in the matter. A great number of clergymen of the Established Church had petitioned in favour of the Bill, and many of them were practical protesters against the existing law, by having become themselves obnoxious to its disqualifications. If they looked at the Nonconformist bodies in their free synods and assemblies; they would find that the Independent Union and the Baptist Association had declared their opinions in favour of an alteration of the law, and that particular alteration of it proposed by the noble Lord who introduced this Bill. That being so, he could not understand the justice of a proceeding by which one particular body should endeavour to force its own interpretation of the Scripture upon those who happened to entertain contrary opinions. He (Mr. Fox) had a great regard for tenderness of conscience, no man had a greater; but of all tenderness of conscience that which he was least disposed to regard was the disposition to force the convictions of one's own conscience upon the consciences of others. To his mind the passage of Leviticus, so much disputed, belonged to a set of others which applied to the state of polygamy that not only existed, but was tolerated and regulated, among the Jewish race. In that view he was fortified by the fact, that to this day the Arabian women who were not allowed to show themselves unveiled, except to certain of their near relations, as to a father or a brother; but a woman was allowed to show herself unveiled to the husband of her sister—a fact which was tantamount to expressing the possibility of a marriage at some future day. This rule was also permitted by the written laws of Mahomet, as contained in the Koran. The Mosaic prohibition might therefore, not unfairly, be considered as corresponding exactly with this Arabian custom, and should be interpreted by it. He felt, however, less disposed to place reliance upon the authority of the passage in Leviticus, even if it had been more distinct, because not far from it there occurred the passage declaring the punishment of witchcraft. Now, as it was about a century since we had removed all laws against witchcraft from our statute book, he thought that we had long since abrogated any authority which was to be derived from the Mosaic prohibition. Then there was the great fact of such marriages continuing to take place. They had survived every change in the law. They had first been ambiguously prohibited in foreign countries, whilst they were prohibited here under a doubtful interpretation of the law of marriage; but still such marriages had continued to multiply with consistent regularity throughout all classes of the community. It was clear, therefore, that such marriages could not be put down, and the question for the House to consider really was whether they would oppose the law of the country to a law of nature. The best guardian of the deceased wife's children would be her sister, and he could not see why the sanction of the law should be withheld from marriage within that degree. For these reasons he should cordially support the introduction of the Bill.

, in reference to what had been said as to Lord Hardwicke's Act and Lord Lyndhurst's Act, observed that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wallingford (Mr. Malins) had quoted rather from memory than from the accurate letter of the Acts of Parliament; for Lord Lyndhurst's Act recited that marriages within the prohibited degree were ipso facto void, not merely voidable; and enacted, in the first clause, not that such marriages should be hereafter void, but that they were null and void. So did Lord Hardwicke's Act; but its last clause but one made an express exemption from its operations of the marriages of Quakers, Jews, and those celebrated in Scotland or beyond the seas. This exemption did not occur in Lord Lyndhurst's Act. But, still, this was not a question that hinged on the interpretation of one or two Acts of Parliament, but one that agitated deeply and seriously all classes of society, the highest, the middle, and the poorest. Often as he had opposed this measure, both in and out of the House, he did not say that he should have been disposed to take the sense of the House at this stage of the discussion; but still he was not surprised that the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Divett) should fool so strongly upon it as to determine him to do so upon the introduction of the Bill, and he would himself follow him into the lobby. The question was one that interested the highest, the middle, and the lower classes; and why had it so interested them all? Because the question had been fostered by a paid and systematic agitation. A few persons, who had themselves broken this law, or who desired to break it, formed themselves into a league, and put their case into the hands of a lawyers' firm. These lawyers sent round their paid commissioners, and made an ex parte inquiry. In a House of Commons, as thin as the present one, a Royal Commission was ob- tained, and met, and laid on the table a Report, which was nothing more than the re-cooked fragments of that ex parte inquiry. The Report of this Commission ought to be read by every Member of the House, and they, in conjunction with the Noble Lord who introduced the Bill, would, he believed, come to the conclusion that all this had been brought about by a mere firm of solicitors, representing individuals who had either a personal interest in having the law altered, or in shielding themselves from its violation. Several witnesses were examined, and some of them belonged to or had been employed by this firm of solicitors; others were persons who had broken the law; and some few others were jurists and divines; but no care was taken to bring before the Commissioners persons to whom an alteration in the law would have been a destruction to their domestic happiness, the women of England, who were as interested in the inquiry as the men. They had no part in the Commission. Ireland was represented by one man, who made himself notorious by being put on his trial in the dock for a long course of systematic swindling in a Government office —the notorious Mr. Matthews, who had also some alias. Scotland, where a feeling on this subject was almost unanimous, was not represented by witnesses before this Commission. The case of the brothers' widows was not represented, and that of those who wished to marry the wife's niece was thrown overboard. At this stage of the Bill, he should best consult the feelings of the House by not entering on the theological discussion of the question, and, therefore, he should confine himself to a few remarks upon what had fallen from the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Fox). That hon. Gentleman had spoken of the natural affection existing between a widower and his sister-in-law, and between the latter and her deceased sister's children. That was a holy feeling, and long might it be preserved among us; but it was with a desire to maintain those sacred affections in all their purity that he resisted a change in the law. A woman who married her deceased sister's husband, and had children by him, would naturally prefer the interests of her own offspring to those of her sister, and thus the generous affection hitherto existing would be destroyed. He wanted the sister-in-law to he the sister of her deceased sister's husband and the mother of the children; but how could she be so if she was their stepmother, having, perhaps, been looking forward to that position while her sister was yet living? Let it be said that the temptation to cohabitation was great if the sister-in-law, who was the most natural female protector of the children, performed that duty. That might be an argument as regarded the widower and the sister; hut let not the helpless children be imported into the question, when they were really pandering to the unholy desires of the man and the woman. As for the case of the upper class of society, theirs was a case which he thought did not deserve five minutes' serious attention. They appeared in this question—

"With all the world before them where to choose."

They existed with all the advantages of education, and the usual opportunities that the upper classes possessed, and he thought, as regarded them, the hardship that existed under the present law was one of a very slight and inconsequential character. Then they came to the lower and poorer classes, the people, who were huddled together in one or two miserable rooms—brothers and sisters, adults, male and female, pigging together in contempt of all decency. In these families, was it the wife's sister that generally became the inmate? Any one who had studied the condition of the working classes of this country knew that among the working classes the families were more completely broken up and scattered to the four winds than among the higher orders of society. The sons went out to labour, and the daughters went out to service, and the chances were that the man who married in that class of society might never have seen the family of his wife, or if so, very casually, and without there being about it those elegant refinements of social intercourse which belonged to the upper classes of society, and which created the feeling of relationship. So when the wife died, and he was looking out for a mother for her children, he (Mr. Hope) did not believe that he would appreciate these advantages of relationship as an inducement to an alliance which at present, under the law, he was forbidden to contract, when he had to choose another woman, honest, sober, and well conducted, to take charge of his widowed children. Then they heard it asserted that cohabitation took place among persons in this degree of relationship and of consanguinity one to another. Such might be the case; hut again he pointed to the miserable want of accommodation that existed among the poor as the inducing cause, of the deficiency of moral education, and of the miserable blunting, in too many cases, of the mind's moral feeling. Thence arose the cases of intercourse of other and nearer degrees, too terrible to mention, that were brought before our assizes and police courts, which went to prove the totally inadequate condition of our cottages, which were the hotbeds of all these criminal occurrences, which had hitherto failed to be arrested or rooted out by the attention of either our courts of judicature or our territorial classes. Then the experience of foreign countries was alluded to, and we were told that England was almost the only country in the world in which a man was not allowed to marry his wife's sister, and that only here and in Russia it was not permissible. That might be so; but England and Russia wore the only countries in Europe, nearly, in which a man might not, either by the law of the country or by a dispensation, marry his blood niece or his blood aunt. Then the question came, was the legislature prepared to relax the existing law to that extent, and to declare that marriage with a blood niece or a blood aunt, was not an abomination? If not, cadit qucestio, the system of relaxation which prevailed abroad and our system of prohibition run upon all fours. The attempt to establish an intermediate one would assuredly fail. Let them once alter the law; once introduce the firebrand into families; once make the wife upon her deathbed watch every look, every smile, every word that passed between her husband and her sister; once make it a matter of calculation with the fortune-hunter, where there were two heiresses in a family, how he should first win the affections of the one in delicate health, and then, when she was in articulo mortis, how he should bring the second sister within his attractive wiles, and see what a very happy change they would have effected in the social condition of the people! But they were told that this was a question of religious freedom. If there were an hon. Gentleman in that House who was devoted to the cause of religious freedom, it was the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield. Yet they must remember how in 1850 that hon. and learned Gentleman had denounced in withering terms the whine of those who pretended to advocate this measure on the ground of religious freedom, characterizing their argument as a "hypocritical pretence." That was the language of the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield, and with that language he should now conclude.

said, he could assure the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. B. Hope) that his arguments would not find acceptance of the poorer classes in whose interest he himself would support the Bill. He was exceedingly unwilling to argue the question upon any isolated texts of Scripture, which no doubt might be produced upon both sides of the case; hut he wished to remind the House that some 3,000 or 4,000 years ago no great blame was excited by a man's marrying two sisters during the lifetime of them both. The arguments of the hon. and learned Member opposite might do very well for those rich persons who were able to consult lawyers upon the subject; but if he were to address them to a poor man in the manufacturing districts he would probably be told, "Sir, while my wife was alive I loved and had every reason to respect her. Now that she is removed from me, Providence has in His goodness seen fit to allow to my helpless children a guardian as kind and as good. I see her moving about my cottage engaged in all the offices of a mother to my children. I love her for my former wife's sake, and she is willing to marry me for my children's sake. We have studied the Bible; we see no prohibition, and we have no qualms on the matter." What right had Parliament to interfere, and to say that in such a case such a marriage should not take place? There might, no doubt, be some who would be ready to transfer their worthless affection from the wife to the sister-in-law; but with such persons would the intimacy of the sister-in-law be safe now? They were told that the whole fabric of society and the very existence of the people were built upon the purity of the marriage institution, and the close knitting of family ties. He believed that; but he hoped that they rested upon something a little clearer to every intelligence, and a little more comprehensible to the conscience, than the prohibition which was the subject of consideration. He did not give his vote in favour of the rich few, but of the many, upon whom the existing state of the law operated as a real grievance, and on behalf of whom he claimed, not a favour, but a right.

said, he considered that on all grounds, legal as well as social, it was desirable that the law as it stood should be investigated, so as to ascertain whether or not it ought to be altered. He was led to this conclusion from a belief in the fact, that notwithstanding the present state of the law these marriages were very constant and common among the lower classes, and this condition of the law, from its not rendering these marriages valid, caused them not unfrequently to be contracted across the border, or in some foreign country, in order to give a status to their legitimacy. He supported the introduction of the Bill on the ground that it deeply affected the interests of the lower classes, among whom these marriages, in spite of the laws of prohibition, prevailed and were contracted.

said, that the hon. Gentleman who talked of the newness of this agitation (Mr. B. Hope) might be surprised to hear that 100 years ago these marriages had been advocated by the Rev. Mr. Robinson, of Cambridge, the predecessor of Robert Hall, in a tract of great ability, so that after all the movement was a century old. He disliked as much as any one the introduction of theological questions into the discussions of Parliament; but he knew of no question with which theology had less to do than this. The law of Leviticus had no connection whatever with the question whether a man in England in the nineteenth century should be permitted to marry a deceased wife's sister. Such attempts to twist the meaning of particular texts ought to be looked on with great jealousy. But if the theological point were relied on, opinions of the greatest weight might be cited in favour of this measure; for instance, Robert Southey asked—

"But has it never occurred to you that this law is an abominable relic of ecclesiastical tyranny? Of all second marriages I have no hesitation in saying that these are the most suitable, and likely to be the most frequent, if the law did not sometimes prevent them. It is quite monstrous, judges and lawyers speaking as they have done of late upon the subject."

Luther said—

"The union of husband and wife is of divine right, which is binding, however contrary it may be to human laws, and the laws of men ought to yield to it without reserve. For if a man leaves father and mother to cleave to his wife, how much rather shall he trample under foot the contemptible and unjust laws of men, and cleave to his wife?"

Archbishop Whately said—

"You are at liberty to refer to me as approving of the abolition of the restriction on marriage to which you allude."

The opinion of the present Bishop of Carlisle was given in these words—

"I cannot say that such marriages are forbidden in the word of God; on the contrary, the limitation in Leviticus seems to sanction marriage with the sister of the wife after the death of the latter."

Dr. Chalmers, too, thought that the prohibition in Leviticus was only against marrying a wife's sister during the life of the former. There were other ministers—such as Dr. Eadie, of Glasgow, and Dr. Bunting —who held the same opinion. He had read these opinions as being sufficient, and more than sufficient, to prove the case as a. question of theology. He was convinced that unnecessary legislation was a mischief, and that a law which did not recommend itself to those who had to obey it was an evil and not a good law. He hoped, therefore, that the House would allow the Bill to be introduced, that they would carry it, and that it would receive the sanction of the other House, for he was convinced it was in accordance with the feelings and wishes of the people.

said, he should support the measure. He had presented a petition from upwards of 100 of his constituents, praying the House to reconsider the question. As an acting magistrate in a large manufacturing population his views, gathered from his own experience, were diametrically opposite to those of the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Divett) as regarded the effect of the prohibition on the morality of the people, and he hoped that no impediment would be thrown in the way of a Bill which a considerable number of people believed to be necessary, not only for their liberty, but their happiness.

said, that the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Gilpin) had complained of being dragged within the shadow of ancient, while he had himself brought them within the shadow of much more modern, authorities. He (Mr. Lygon) agreed, however, that theological discussion ought to be avoided in that House, for he had never observed that when they had indulged in discussions of that character they had ever risen from them cither better or wiser. For his part he could not see any difference between the mother or the daughter by a former marriage of a man's wife and her sister, yet nature revolted from the idea of his marrying either of the two former, and by what process, then, could the sister be eliminated from the category in which those two stood? It was not enough to say that the instincts of mankind were sufficient to justify such marriages. The instincts of mankind had not res trained men from committing the most horrible crimes; yet that was no reason for generalizing the infractions of the law into a code for the future guidance of men. Which instincts of human nature were to be consulted, the higher or the lower? In a discussion which took place last Session it was admitted that polygamy was one of the instincts of human nature, ought that instinct to be legislated for? He believed it to be the duty of Parliament to legislate for the higher instincts of our nature; and being convinced that this question, if argued on purely rational grounds and with reference to the higher instincts of our nature, would be found altogether repugnant to those higher instincts and to that law of nature which was synonymous with the law of God, he felt they could not agree to the proposition before them without impairing the stability of our institutions and the happiness of the people who lived under them.

said, he had not intended to take any part in this debate, but he trusted the House would permit him to say a few words in reply to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had last addressed them. The hon. Gentleman, in discussing this question, rightly refrained from entering into the theological argument. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman in thinking that that House did not rise from a debate on a theological question with any advantage; but the hon. Member had certainly not abstained from throwing aspersions on those who might differ from him on the subject, which must have been greatly tinctured by his theological opinions. He told the House that those who entered into the marriages his noble Friend sought to legalise had been guilty —at least that was the conclusion—of a grave offence against morality, and were to be placed in the same category with those who practised polygamy. He (Viscount Goderich) must distinctly protest against that opinion. Again, the hon. Gentleman said he considered it would be a perfectly parallel case if it were proposed to legalize marriage with the mother of a deceased wife, or with the daughter of the deceased wife by a former marriage. But on that point he (Viscount Goderich) would be content to appeal from the individual opinion of the hon. Gentleman to public opinion; and he would emphatically say that the hon. Member was not justified in maintaining that in the eyes of the public, at this time, the cases he had put were regarded as at all parallel. It seemed to him (Viscount Goderich) that this was an eminently social question. It might be true, as had been more than once said, that with regard to the rich, social difficulties might arise if a Bill for legalizing the marriages in question were passed. He did not agree with that opinion, though he could understand it. But he could not understand how any man acquainted with the feelings of the great body of the people of this country could argue that if such a Bill were passed it would tend to injure their social condition or to lower their morality. The House ought to look at this question practically; and, so looking at it, he believed if they said to the working classes that these marriages should be legalized, instead of weakening or injuring their social relations in this respect, or of lowering the tone of their morals, the result would be, in the course of time, that the morality of the great mass of them would be considerably raised. After all, it was surely true that social laws required the sanction of the age, and he was convinced there were few among our social laws less sanctioned by the judgment and feeling of the great body of the people of this country than the prohibition which his noble Friend the Member for Norwich (Viscount Bury) now Bought to abolish. This was a question on which a very strong opinion existed among his own constituents, and in the manufacturing districts generally. It might be said that we ought not to give way to what was after all an improper desire on the part of those who sought an alteration in the law, but if once they abandoned the theological argument, they could not rest anywhere on such a question, except on the feeling of the country in reference to its being a question of morality. If the theological considerations were laid aside, and the other part of the question was looked at, nothing could be more dangerous, because nothing could be more futile, than legislation which had not the sanction of, but which was constantly disregarded by the people of this country.

said, he felt, with the noble Lord who had preceded him, the difficulty of dealing with this question in a satisfactory manner, from the little hope there was of treating any theological argument in that House in a way commensurate with its importance. If that difficulty was felt in an ordinary case involving theological considerations, it would be obvious at once that it must be experienced in a tenfold greater degree in a question like the present, in which the true solution of the theological argument required not only a logical mind, but a knowledge of the Hebrew language. He entirely agreed with the noble Lord who introduced this Bill when he said that if the scriptural argument was against him there was an end of the question. That was exactly the ground taken by Luther in the passage quoted by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Gilpin), in which Luther said that he could not be bidden by any human mandate to do away with a marriage which wa3 according to the law of God. That was the view of the question taken by the law of England as early as the time of Henry VIII., for the statute of that King laid it down as a principle that those marriages were to be considered prohibited which were contrary to God's law. The law of England, then, in this respect professed to be based on the Divine law; and the House would bear in mind that the construction of that law was established at a time when theological scholarship was much more profound, and when the Hebrew language was more extensively studied than at the present day. He submitted, therefore, that it was not enough for any noble Lord or any, hon. Gentleman to come down to that House and say simply that he had looked into the English version—"the received version," quoted as it was called—and had satisfied himself, without any study of Hebrew or of the opinions of theologians, that on this very difficult question the right construction of a very difficult passage in Scripture was so and so, and, therefore, that the law of England, which had given satisfaction for three or four hundred years, ought to be changed, and that, too, to suit the convenience of parties who, from interested motives—and he (Mr. Puller) could not blame them under the circumstances— sought to bring about such a change, and who had, with that view, raised up a certain amount of agitation in the country. So far from adopting the conclusion that the general opinion of this country was in favour of a change in the law, he confessed he was surprised that, after all the pains that had been taken, and the expense that had been incurred to influence the popular mind in the direction of such a change, so small an amount of general feeling had been produced, knowing as he did how very easy it was to get up an agitation on a subject so closely and nearly affecting our dearest and strongest feelings. He declined to enter into any consideration of the Scriptural argument bearing on this question—first, because that was not the proper place to do so; and, secondly, because he felt he was incompetent to do justice to it. He entertained a very decided opinion that the chapter of Leviticus did prohibit these marriages, and unless he heard stronger reasons in their favour than had yet been urged he should support the existing law.

seconded the Motion. The present system of rating for the poor in the metropolis was most oppressive and unequal. The rates in the different parishes ranged from 7d. to 5s. in the pound, and the districts in which the highest rates were levied were precisely those in which the assessment was based upon the real as distinguished from the nominal value of the property. The existing state of things arose in a great measure from the recent change in the law of settlement. Formerly, when servants obtained a right to parochial relief from remaining in situations for a certain period, the richer parishes paid the heaviest rates; but since the introduction of the New Poor Law Act, giving such persons a claim to relief after having resided in any parish for five years, the burden of maintaining them in their days of adversity had fallen almost exclusively upon the poorer districts. The result was that those who derived advantage from the labours of the poorer classes were exactly the persons who contributed least to the poor rates. At the time of the distress in Ireland there was an immense immigration of poor people into this country, and a great increase in the rating of certain parishes had taken place in consequence. Another evil of the existing system was the inequality of the assessment, the rateable value as assessed in different parishes being from 15 to 57 per cent. below the real value, and was nearest to it in those parishes in which the rates were highest. He would not further detain them. He understood that no metropolitan Member would oppose the Motion, and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board would follow the same course and allow the Bill to be introduced.

said, he was glad to acknowledge that the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had brought his Motion before the House with great discretion, moderation, and judgment, and he congratulated the hon. Gentleman upon having submitted his proposal in a different shape from that in which he asked the House to deal with it last year. Last Session the hon. Member moved for a Select Committee to inquire into the system of rating in the metropolis; but to that proposal, in addition to the many excellent arguments urged against it at the time by the then President of the Poor Law Board, there was this further objection to be taken —that it was calculated to excite expectations which possibly might not be realized. Therefore, if the hon. Gentleman had repeated his proposal of last year, he should Lave felt it to be his duty to oppose it on the part of the Government. The hon. Gentleman had, however, taken another course, and in very moderate language had laid before the House a state of things which, whether it could be fully borne out or not, nevertheless was considered by a largo number of respectable persons in the metropolis to constitute a grievance. The hon. Gentleman had also asked leave to introduce a Bill which he believed would remedy that state of things. Consequently, if the House assented to the proposition, it would in a week or ten days be in possession of the provisions of the Bill, as would likewise the numerous persons out of doors, who for good or for evil would be affected by the measure if carried into law. Under these circumstances he thought it would be ungracious to oppose the introduction of the measure, which had been brought forward with so much moderation and discretion; and, moreover, he should be sorry to shut the doors of the House against any complaint of a grievance, whether it could be fully borne out or not. However, he must guard himself against being supposed to give any opinion whatever either as to the principle or details of the measure. The hon. Member had not stated at much length the principle of the Bill, while the details, as described by him, seemed to involve so much complication that he should be sorry to be expected at the present time to offer a positive opinion as to their expediency or practicability. He certainly had great doubts on both those points; but a more suitable opportunity of judging of the measure would be afforded when it was laid before the House. Nevertheless there were some few remarks which he thought he might not inappropriately make at this stage. The hon. Gentleman considered it a recommendation of his plan that it was not necessary for him to introduce any new principle of legislation, since he found in the old Poor Law Statute, the 43rd of Elizabeth, ready to his hand, machinery applicable to what he considered the grievance of the metropolis. The hon. Gentleman thought that the power there given to magistrates to levy a rate in aid for any parish would with large additional facilities and a little adaptation to modern wants, serve his purpose. Now, that might be good machinery, but it was not old machinery as intended to be applied by the hon. Gentleman, for it was only intended to be brought into operation in cases of the inability of a parish to raise a sufficient sum for the poor. If it were otherwise, how happened it that for 250 years so very few instances could be found of a rate in aid being resorted to? He was told that there was only one authentic case of a rate in aid being really carried out. That occurred in reference to a small parish in the city of Worcester; and even there it was abandoned after a certain number of years, for it was found that exactly in proportion as the Justices assigned to that parish contributions from the neighbouring parishes the local officers contrived always to spend the money drawn from their neighbours. He believed that the real reason that this provision of the 43rd of Elizabeth had been so seldom brought into use was, not the difficulty of putting the machinery in motion, but the risk of mismanagement when persons who had to contribute to the general fund had not the control of it. He feared that that risk would be incurred from the hon. Gentleman's plan, unless he guarded against it with more caution than he appeared from his speech to have done; for, as he understood the hon. Gentleman's plan, the rate in aid in the metropolis was to be fixed by the Justices, and the ratepayers who were to contribute had nothing to do but to pay. He doubted whether the latter would agree to such a proposition. In reference to the question of the in- equality of rating, he observed that, according to returns prepared by the Poor Law Board, it seemed that in consequence of the difference in the basis of assessment, a 1s. rate in one parish did not represent the same amount in another. For instance, there was a difference between the gross rental and the rateable value, on the latter of which the assessment was made. He had returns of the assessments in all the metropolitan parishes, and in some instances the difference between the gross rental and the rateable value was 50 per cent; but in St. George's, Hanover Square, which had been characterized as a favoured parish, the difference was not 10 per cent. Consequently, as far as the assessment was concerned, 1s. in the pound in that parish would be equivalent to 1s. 6d. in the pound in another parish where the rateable value was put at a low figure. He therefore concurred with the hon. Gentleman in thinking that if Parliament should seriously entertain the proposition now enounced it would be absolutely necessary, as a first stop, to put all the parishes on the same footing as regards assessment. He would further ask whether the hon. Gentleman, and were those whom he represented, prepared to accept the consequences of such a measure? The result would be that all the local Acts under which some of the parishes were managed must be put an end to, and those parishes must be placed on the same footing as the rest of the metropolis. He doubted whether the parishes, attached as they were to their local Acts, would like such a result. Moreover, he was sure that the hon. Gentleman would be obliged to have recourse to a much more stringent power on the part of the central authority — the Poor Law Board — than he seemed to anticipate. Supposing the whole of the metropolis formed into one district, could any man suppose that the local guardians, having such an enormous purse to draw on, would not exhibit a laxity in the expenditure? He feared the inevitable result would be that the Poor Law Board would be requested to undertake the management of the poor throughout the metropolis. He could not assent to the proposition of the hon. Gentleman that there was any material difference between the position of parishes in the metropolis and of parishes in the country, and unless very good reason could be shown for such a proceeding he certainly would be very unwilling to apply to one part of the kingdom a law relating to the relief of the poor differing from that which was generally established. If the system proposed by the hon. Gentleman was adapted to the metropolis he thought it would be equally applicable to the country generally; and it was for the hon. Gentle- man to show upon what grounds he would oppose an attempt to extend the same principle to all large towns and to country districts. If that were done what security would there be against the adoption of a national rate? He admitted that the great inequality of rates throughout England might well excite dissatisfaction; he admitted that in theory the scheme of the hon. Gentleman was extremely plausible; it might be that his scheme would involve no innovation upon the existing law, and would merely amount to the resuscitation of an old statute; but he feared that the adoption of the hon. Gentleman's plan would prove to be the insertion of a wedge which, within a very few years, would be driven home, and that the result would be the annihilation of all local government and the substitution of the authority of a central Board in London for the administration of the Poor Laws throughout the kingdom. Although these apprehensions were strong in his mind, nevertheless, adhering to what he had said, he thought it would be only becoming of the House to allow the hon. Gentleman to introduce his Bill. He hoped, before the question again came before them, the several parishes in the metropolis would have an opportunity of considering all the details of the measure, and that they would not altogether confine themselves to merely an opinion upon the merits of the question, but that they would be prepared, through their representatives, to show how the provisions were likely to affect their respective localities, and to furnish the House with some substantial grounds for their wishes on the subject. As far, however, as he had considered the matter, he was sorry to say that the hon. and learned Gentleman could not hope for his support on the second reading. At the same time, the subject was of great importance, and, therefore, he thought it would be only proper to allow the hon. and learned Gentleman to lay his measure before Parliament and the country.

said he wished to congratulate his hon. and learned friend with having met with such a kind recep- tion from the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Poor Law Board, and also upon his having been apprised of all the arguments which the right hon. Gentleman could urge against the passing of the Bill. If those were the only arguments likely to be brought forward against the Bill he could have no fear whatever of the result, for in that case he was confident that this Bill must necessarily pass into a law. They had heard these objections put forward over and over again. The right hon. Gentleman said that if they transferred the power of managing those rates from the many small localities that at present directed them and placed in the hands of a central body there must necessarily be great extravagance indeed. When, however, he (Mr. Locke) had the authority of the late Mr. Charles Buller and other eminent men to guide him—when he recollected the nature of the Report made by the Committee on the subject, he bad no fear of any such argument being successful against the proposed measure. The right hon. Gentleman, the late President of the Poor Law Board, had contended on a former occasion that if they passed such a Bill as that brought forward by his hon. Friend it would lead to an equalisation of the poor rates throughout the whole country. What was the consequence of that observation? Why, a feeling of horror immediately appeared to pass through the minds of all the country gentlemen. [Sir J. SHELLEY: Hear, hear!] He did not know whether his hon. Friend cheered in his character of representative for Westminster, or as a country gentleman of Sussex. [Sir J. SHELLEY: Both.] The hon. Baronet objected to the Bill, then, as Member for the city of Westminster, and as a landed proprietor in Sussex; but he thought he could remove the hon. Gentleman's objections by showing him that there was a clear distinction between the case of the metropolis and that of the country districts. The position of the metropolitan parishes differed most widely from that of parishes in the country districts, excluding, of course, large towns such as Liverpool, Manchester, or Birmingham. During many years past great improvements had been effected in various portions of the metropolis, and as an instance he might mention that, in order to construct Regent Street, the dwellings of some thousands of persons of the poorer class were demolished. The consequence was that the persons thus driven from the richer parishes located themselves in the poorer parishes to the east and south of London. The President of the Poor Law Board had said that if an equalisation of poor rates were adopted there must also be an equalisation of the rating. That was exactly what he (Mr. Locke) and many others desired; and petitions had been presented, signed by thousands of ratepayers, asking for an equality of rating as well as an equalisation of the rates. He might also refer to the wealthy parish in which the Bank of England stood. That enormous establishment was only rated at between £200 and £300. Surely that was a sufficient reason for demanding an equalisation of rating. The greatest social evil to be found in the metropolis was the fact that hundreds of thousands of the poor were huddled together in the poorer neighbourhoods, and obliged to live in dwellings wholly unfit for their reception. He submitted that this Bill would be a remedy against crowded dwellings in this metropolis. If we had an equal rating it would no longer be the interest of any particular parish to prevent suitable houses being built for the poor to dwell in, in their particular localities. Under existing circumstances, the richer parishes would not allow dwellings for the poorer classes to be built. When the houses of the poor were taken down in order to the formation of Vittoria Street, in Westminster, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster congratulated themselves upon getting rid of 2000 or 3000 of their inhabitants. This largo number of the poor were obliged to betake themselves to crowded dwellings, generally upon the south side of the metropolis. He maintained that there were hot in this metropolis a sufficient number of small houses for the poor to reside in. It was true that there was a Bill brought into the House last Session, with the professed object of improving the dwellings of the poor. That Bill was, however, an insult to the poor of this metropolis, because the only remedy it proposed to meet the evil complained of was to send in the police, who were to be authorised to turn out some of the inmates, if they found there were too many residing together. Such was the effect of high rating in the poor parishes that, notwithstanding the want of houses for the poor, the landlords of many houses were obliged to shut them up because they could not pay the rates. Take the City of London as it was properly called. He believed by the last census it contained 128,000 inhabitants. Those persons were generally the richest in the whole metropolis, but they only kept their offices in the City, and resided in other districts. In some of the parishes there were no paupers at all; it was true there was a union rate, but the principal parishes paid next to nothing. But they clearly ought to pay towards the relief of those who were in their employ, though they lived on the other side of the water. Two of the principal parishes on the south side — Bermondsoy and St. George-the-Martyr—could get no relief from the union, being unions in themselves. In those parishes resided most of the poor persons employed in the docks and other commercial establishments in the City. The great merchant of the City, who owned a dozen Indiamen, and perhaps employed 1,000 men in loading and unloading them, merely paid a nominal poor-rate upon the rating of a small office in some alley out of Cornhill, whilst their splendid residences at the West End were comparatively free from any charge for the support of the poor, inasmuch as there were scarcely any paupers in their neighbourhood. He submitted that the whole community should contribute equally to the support of the poor. There was every reason why the Bill should be discussed. Legislation had caused the evils, and therefore legislation ought to remedy them. Thousands of the inhabitants of the metropolis had been reduced by the preseut state of the law to a state of penury, and it was incumbent on the Legislature ts consider the question.

said, be believed this to be one of the most important subjects which bad of late been brought before the notice of Parliament, but it was also one which ought not to he treated as it had been by his hon. and learned Friend, who had imported into it a variety of considerations which might indeed tend to rouse public feeling out of doors, but which really had nothing whatever to do with the question. He congratulated the right hon. Gentleman who now presided over the Poor Law Board (Mr. Sotheron Estcourt) upon the great facility with which he allowed himself to be influenced by official exigency. The right hon. Gentleman said that the hon. and learned Member last year proposed a Committee, but that he should have opposed a Committee, had it now been moved for, because it would have excited expectation. Now, would not the introduction of a Bill excite expectation? And ought not the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, on his own showing, to throw out this Bill at once? He (Mr. Roebuck) would not follow his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Ayrton) by drawing a contrast between the poor and the rich, which was quite beside the present question. Instead of this he would simply inquire what the Bill would do. Now, in his opinion, it sinned against two very important principles, the consideration of which ought to guide the House upon this subject. First, it sinned against the wholesome rule that each locality should watch over and control the expenditure of money raised for the relief of its poor; and then it sinned against the plainest principle of justice, because it declared that a sum of money invested in two different localities ought not under the same circumstances to produce exactly the same return. His hon. and learned Friend said that a house in the Tower Hamlets paid a great deal more in the shape of poor rates than a house in St. George's, Hanover Square, and that this was because the poor had been driven out of the latter parish. That had nothing whatever to do with the question. Suppose a man had a thousand pounds which he wished to invest in the best possible manner in house property in London. It might be assumed that this sum, whether invested in the Tower Hamlets or at St. George's, Hanover Square, would yield about the same interest. In the Tower Hamlets a man was told "there is so much to pay in the shape of rates." Well, that diminished the actual price of the property, and a house which would cost £1,000 in St. George's would he sold for £700 in the other parish. If this were so there really existed no difference between the real ratings in the two parishes; and should Parliament do what this Act proposed to do, and spread over the whole area of the metropolis the same rating, they would place the man who had paid but £700 for his house on the same level with the man who had paid £1,000, and would thus be taking money out of the pocket of the latter to give it to the former. Would that be just? The hon. and learned Gentleman appealed to the poor, but what bad the poor to do with it? The poor were the recipients of the rates; it was the proprietor of the houses who paid them; and he contended that the proprietor paid according to the sum which the house cost him, and according to that alone. The same argument held good throughout the United Kingdom. There was this further consideration. If the payment of the poor rales were placed on the Consolidated Fund, no man would have an interest in keeping down the expenditure. Everybody would be putting his hand into the public purse, and would seek to take out the largest possible amount. That was the tendency of the Bill, and it was the duty of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. S. Estcourt), who was placed in the position he occupied to watch over the public interest, to meet such a Bill steadily in the face. He (Mr. Roebuck) did not care one farthing about popularity. Uninfluenced by considerations of this kind, he would endeavour to fulfil the general duty which devolved upon him as a Member of this House. But the right hon. Gentleman had a peculiar duty to perform. He was bound to watch over the public interest in his official capacity, and it behoved him at once to meet such a proposition as this, opposed as it was to every principle of justice. As to the subjects which had been introduced by his hon. and learned Friend, he believed that in no country in the world were the poor provided for as they were in England; and he would say of the rich classes in this country (though he did not belong to them) that they manifested towards the poor a feeling which made them really appear as brethren. Such being the case, he thought it unworthy of any man in this House to attempt to array poor against rich on a question of this sort. He believed the Bill to be fraught with very great mischief, and if he were in the right hon. Gentleman's place he would have resisted its introduction. At all events, he hoped that on the second reading the right hon. Gentleman would gather courage, obey the dictates of his own clear intellect, and, seeing that the measure was opposed to the interests of the community, that he would dare to meet it by a direct negative.

said, he should support the introduction of the Bill, but he entertained a strong objection to the power of taxing the inhabitants which it conferred on the Middlesex magistrates. With regard to the Bank of England, his hon. and learned Friend was mistaken in stating that it was only rated to the relief of the poor at £300 a year. The fact was that the Bank stood in four or five different parishes, and in one of these, St. Christopher-le-Stocks, it was rated at £320 a year. In Broad Street, in which one corner of the Bank was situated, it was rated at £10,000 a year, and what it might be rated at in the other parishes he did not know. It was certainly not fair to say that because the rates were low therefore a parish was rich, or that because the rates were high, a parish was poor.

said, he considered it a misfortune that his right hon. Friend had consented to the introduction of the Bill, thereby giving some kind of encouragement to a most mischievous measure. His right hon. Friend had based his assent to the introduction of the measure upon the forbearing manner in which the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had introduced his measure. Now, surely that was only a reason for commending the manner in which the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had brought forward the measure; but it was no reason to justify a Minister in assenting to the introduction of a Bill of this nature. It must he borne in mind that the question was not a mere metropolitan question, or a mere parish question; if it were so it had better have been discussed at a vestry board than in the House of Commons. The fact, however, was that it was a national question, and one which indirectly affected the whole of the kingdom. The hon. and learned Member who introduced the Bill had compared the case of the metropolis with the case of towns like Cambridge, and other towns of similar size scattered throughout the kingdom; hut what analogy was there between the metropolis and the places mentioned? Cambridge had a population of only 35,000 inhabitants, while the population of the metropolis was about 2,500,000, and the net rental rated to the poor-rates amounted to nearly £12,000,000. The question, therefore, was one of great magnitude, and he was obliged to confess that the explanation of the Bill which had been given by the hon. and learned Gentleman appeared to him very like the mist which had pervaded the House during the hon. Gentleman's speech, and had it not been that by the courtesy of the hon. and learned Gentle-man he had been permitted to see the Bill itself he should not have known what it was about. It appeared that there were in the metropolis thirty-eight jurisdictions for ad-ministering relief to the poor, and that those jurisdictions comprised 178 parishes, and the scheme of the hon. and learned Gentleman was, that each parish should goon spend- ing the poor-rates as at present, and that at the end of the year an account should be taken of the expenditure in each parish, and an average struck, and that those parishes which had spent more than the average should receive the difference from those the expenditure of which had been below it. Now, such a principle, in his opinion, would destroy all motive for economy. Why every parish would be regardless of the public purse, and naturally preferring to spend its rates on its own inhabitants, would be induced to spend money in fanciful schemes lather than to place itself in the position of paying money towards the necessities of another parish. The hon. and learned Gentleman who had brought forward the subject had taken for granted that some necessity existed for some scheme of some kind to be introduced. Now, upon that point he begged to take issue with the hon. and learned Gentleman, and he thought that his right hon. Friend at the head of the Poor Law Board ought to have joined him in doing so. He had himself last year shown that the poor-rates in the metropolis were not heavy as compared with those levied throughout the kingdom, and he did not see why any special relief should be extended to parishes in the metropolis which was not extended to other parishes throughout the kingdom. As regarded the poor, the fact was that they had no interest in the matter, for it was a question for the ratepayer alone, and he hoped that the House would not be induced by any consideration that the matter was one affecting the poor, to give their sanction to such a scheme as that which was now proposed. He observed that it was urged out of doors, that the adoption of this scheme would lead to a more liberal administration of relief to the poor, but everybody was aware that a profuse administration of relief invariably collected a crowd of paupers, who appeared to spring from the ground, and who all came forward to share the advantages of a profuse administration of relief, and he did not think that any one could maintain that there was any advantage in too profuse a system. For his own part he should give a silent negative to the introduction of the Bill, and when it came to a second reading he hoped that his right hon. Friend opposite would pluck up a little more courage and give it a decided negative.

said, that he could not help rising to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the courtesy which he had shown in not opposing the Motion for leave to bring in this Bill. This was either a mode of equalising the rates, or of raising a rate in aid. he had received letters from several rev. gentlemen in the cast end of the town on this subject, and he told them he never could consent to any scheme for equalisation of poor rates. He admitted the great distress which the poor in the parishes at the east end of London had suffered during the past winter, but submitted that the remedy proposed was not a proper one. He should look with different feelings upon a proposition for a rate in aid, which he conceived to be the best method of meeting this difficulty, and hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would reconsider the question, and adopt that course. Hitherto they had not been discussing the question of the condition of the poor, but rather the principles of rating. He had expected to have heard some details of the sufferings of the poor, for he was persuaded that nothing could be more horrible than the distress which existed in the eastern portion of the metropolis during the winter. As, however, that question had not been touched upon, he must express his opposition to a system which he could not conceive would be attended with any ultimate benefit to the poor.

said, he should cordially support the Motion of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets, considering that such a measure was imperatively called for. As reference had been made to St. George's Hanover Square, he would call their attention to the parishes of Paddington and Westminster, which escaped with 6d. or 7d. in the pound, whilst St, George's in the East, Stepney, Poplar, Bethnal Green, and Whilechapel, paid as much as 5s. in the pound. The district in which the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange were situated paid no more than 1½d. in the pound. But perhaps the greatest discrepancy in the rating would he found in the district in which the docks were situated; for while the London Docks paid no less than £19,756 towards the relief of the poor, St, Katherine's, which were nearly equal in extent, escaped with the moderate payment of £440. Deptford was divided into two parishes—that of St. Paul and St. Nicholas; but although the latter was much smaller in extent, it actually paid a much larger sum, the average being 10s. 6d., though sometimes it paid 16s. to 18s. in the pound. That was owing to the fact that two-thirds of the other parish was occupied as Government works, which did not pay one penny to the poor rate. The persons inhabiting the heavily taxed part of the district were the poor hard-working labourers, who were thus ground down under a system as impolitic as it was oppressive. He denied that this was not a poor man's question, as had been asserted by the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield; for although it might be true that in many cases the landlord paid the taxes, yet the houses were let at a much higher rental in consequence of these heavy impositions. He thought the whole metropolitan district should be treated as one, for the purposes of rating, and he denied, in toto, that the Government works were placed in any particular town with the intention of benefiting that district; on the contrary, they were intended as much for the benefit of Belgravia and Hanover Square as they were for Deptford, because they were national establishments, for the service of the country at large.

said, that in reference to the statement of the late President of the Poor Law Board, that he was unable to comprehend his plan from the description he had given of it, he wished to express his regret that a gentleman who had had so much experience of affairs like these failed to understand what was perfectly intelligible to hon. Gentlemen who had had no such experience. This was not a new question. Most eminent men had sanctioned the proposition that the area of rating should be altered; and if you once altered it you had then simply to deal with a question of degree, of special circumstances, and particular localities. He might further state, that for the last twenty-five years every man of ability who had been connected with the administration of the Poor Law Board—he should not, perhaps, include the right hon. Gentleman, who could not understand a plain statement— had recognized the necessity of departing from the original principle of parish rating in some degree. He should, he might add, be the last person to propose a measure which would infringe upon the legitimate rights of property; but the argument founded upon that ground had, he must contend, been raised at least thirty years too late, for if it were a valid one the question of the poor laws should never have been touched at all. When the law of settlement had been changed, an alteration had been effected in the liabilities of property. He had simply to say, in conclusion, that it was a mistake to suppose that the question involved in the Bill was a landlord's question. The tax with which he proposed to deal, was to a great extent a tax upon the occupier, and levied in its present shape it operated as a grievous burden. He therefore hoped the House would assent to the introduction of the Bill. Leave given; Bill to provide a remedy for the inequality in the rates for the relief of the poor in the metropolis, ordered to be brought in by Mr. AYRTON and Mr. JOHN LOCKE.

said, he rose to move for leave to introduce a Bill to regulate the Qualifications of Practitioners in Medicine and Surgery. The question was one that was so beset with difficulties, and gave rise to so much jealousy, that he should have been very unwilling to bring it forward had he not been solicited to do so when he held office at the Board of Health; and he must state, that iu framing the Bill he had availed himself of the aid of the medical officers, in order that he might be able to devise a measure which should no t revive obsolete monopolies, or unduly weigh upon the rights and privileges of the medical corporations. The proper objects of all legislation upon the subject appeared to him to be, in the first place, that the qualification required by law to entitle a person to become a medical practitioner should be maintained up to the standard of modern science and practice, and should be valid in all parts of the United Kingdom; and, secondly, that a register should be established, which would enable the public generally, and the less educated portion of the community in particular, to ascertain what practitioners were really qualified, and in what the nature and extent of their qualification consisted. Constant reference was made in our statutes to the due qualification of medical men, and public appointments could, generally speaking, be held only by persons who were legally qualified. That was a principle which he thought it was desirable to uphold, notwithstanding that he was disposed jealously to guard the right of private individuals to consult whomsoever they pleased, whether they happened to be learned or unlearned. For appointments connected with the army, navy, friendly societies, or other institutions, it seemed right that the re- striction should exist, in order that from caprice or other motives, unqualified persons might not be chosen. That practice had been justified by usage from the earliest times. There were a dozen Acts of Parliament concerning the medical profession always referring to qualified persons, but none settling what the qualification should be. Some of these Acts dated from a time as far back as that of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. Although it was to be expected that many incongruities would creep into those statutes from the course of time and the necessity of allowing the tests to meet the changes that had taken place, still he believed that former efforts in that direction, although foiled by the rival pretensions of class interests, had not been without some use, and there was an extending opinion of the necessity for the organization of the profession, for some established qualification, and for some arrangement whereby that qualification might be made known. One of the greatest defects of the legal qualification at present existing was, that it was partial in application and jurisdiction. Many assumed the position of a general practitioner on the strength of only a medical or only a surgical diploma. Then, again, an English practitioner had no standing in Scotland or Ireland, and vice versâ; while, even the London University, which conferred degrees for practice in the country, could not authorize any one to practise in the city wherein it was situate, and whence it derived its name. It was agreed, amongst those who had considered this subject, that the first step must be to establish a better minimum qualification, without which no one should be permitted to practise. The proposal in the Bill of last year was, that a new board of examiners should be created, consisting of persons delegated by the College of Physicians, the College of Surgeons, and the Society of Apothecaries; but the Bill altogether deprived the Universities of the share they now possessed in the examinations for licenses. The Bill which was prepared by the Select Committee of 1856, and which was laid upon the table by the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho), provided a now board of examiners, consisting of persons nominated by the medical corporations and the Universities, the intention being that the Universities should examine as to the sciences collateral to the study of medicine, while the professional colleges should examine as to medi- cal practice itself. There were, however, objections that that plan would compel graduates to undergo a second examination after obtaining their degrees, and there would be also a difficulty as to the apportionment of the fees among the various bodies entitled to receive them. He thought it would be wise to make the least amount of change that was necessary, and the best course would be to leave the examination to be conducted by the present licensing bodies, under the general control and supervision of a general council, to whom power should he given to decide upon what examination should be required, or what certificates should be produced before any person could be placed upon the register. If the Council had the right to be present at the examinations of the College of Surgeons and the Society of Apothecaries, they would be enabled to prescribe the standard which should be required, that at present existing being admitted to be too low. If the low standard were raised benefit would be obtained by more skilful treatment, and to the profession by reducing the competition of those who underbid one another from the want of remunerative practice. The principle of registry was an important part of any scheme in connection with this subject, but it was one with respect to which great difficulties had been raised. The Bill which was introduced last year by the hon. and learned Member for Newcastle (Mr. Head-lam) proposed a new division of the medical profession—the higher class to be called physicians and the lower class surgeons. That created a difficulty, as many who were always considered surgeons, would then be called physicians, while the ordinary understanding was, that a physician attended to the interior of the human body, while a surgeon attended to the exterior. The College of Physicians, moreover, had had always been anxious that they should he distinguished by being placed upon a separate register. An alphabetical register might have physicians and surgeons appended, but this detail might well be left to the consideration of the Medical Council. He now came to the mode of constituting the Council. Since 1834 the proposals had oscillated between a Council nominated by the Crown and a representative Council. In 1848 the medical profession were unanimous in favour of a nominated Council. As they subsequently declared in favour of a representative Council, however, be recommended the House to adopt that plan, which would be open probably to less objection than a Council nominated by the Crown. He proposed that it should consist of six members to be nominated by each of the present licensing bodies, and six to be nominated by the Crown. The great objection hitherto made against a representative Council was its great size, but this difficulty might be got over by giving the Council the power of forming committees. In order to connect the Council in some way with the Executive, it had been suggested that the President should be either the Secretary of State for the Home Department or the President of the Board of Health; but he thought that a better course would be to follow the precedent of many other commissions, and to provide that the rules of the Medical Council should only be adopted when they had been confirmed by an Order in Council. By these means the medical profession would derive the benefit of an organization which it never had before. While the legal, the military, and the naval professions were amply represented in that and the other House of Parliament, it was rarely that one of the medical profession ever found his way there; and yet there were sanitary and other social questions with which no men could be more competent to deal. Moreover, the medical profession required the exercise of as great skill, and was actuated by as noble an aim as any other profession, for it was not less noble to seek to save, than to destroy life, or to preserve life than to preserve property. In conclusion, he moved for leave to bring in a Bill to regulate the qualification of practitioners in medicine and surgery.

said, that the Bill which the right hon. Member bad suggested appeared to be by far the best proposition which he had yet heard on the subject, and he should not object, therefore, to its introduction.

said, that the Bill which had just been proposed by his right hon. Friend was an old friend with a new face, for it was precisely the same measure which he had himself ventured to introduce in 1856; and wonderful as were the changes which daily took place around them, there was no change more wonderful, perhaps, than that which had occurred in the mind of his right hon. Friend upon this subject. His own Bill of 1846 and the Bill of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Newcastle (Mr. Headlam), were referred to a Select Committee, and the former was preferred and sent down to the House, but too late to pass into law. The hon. and learned Gentleman had then turned his back upon his own Bill, and supported another which was totally different in principle. With regard to the constitution of the council a most unfounded prejudice had been created against his Bill in that respect, but it was shown before the Committee that a council appointed by the Crown would be the most acceptable to the profession and the public. The question of the council was not the principal point of the Bill, but he would observe that he should be very happy to modify that part which related to the institution of the council in the direction of the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman.

said, he had voted against the Bill of the noble Lord at the time, thinking the question of the council the main point of the Bill. He rejoiced that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cowper) was prepared to grant representation to the medical profession. This would produce greater confidence in the public mind, as well as cause satisfaction to medical men.