said, he would beg to ask whether it is the intention of the Board of Trade to institute any inquiry as to the cause of the loss of the Candace African steamer?

said, it was true this unfortunate vessel was run down by a Dutch vessel bound for Batavia, and several lives were lost. The Board of Trade, under the circumstances, had not thought it necessary to institute legal proceedings, as it was the intention of the survivors to do so, and that he had no doubt would be of a very searching description.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been called to the state of the Municipal affairs of the Borough of Belfast; and if it is the intention to take any steps in relation thereto.

said, that the attention of the Government had been called to the subject, and that they proposed as soon as possible to inquire into the municipal affairs of Belfast, both as regarded the money borrowed as well as expended under the supposed powers of the corporation, and also as to the present state of taxation in the borough.

said, he did not rise to oppose the House going into Committee, but to express a hope that a provision would be introduced for the reservation of an open space in the vicinity of the Kensington Museum.

said, he had no doubt that the agreement between the Commissioners and the Government which this Bill proposed to terminate was a very unwise one, and that the sooner it was put an end to and the money paid into the Exchequer the better. In order to prevent any delay in the matter, he would suggest that a specific day for the payment should be named in the Bill, and that 4 per cent interest should be charged from the passing of the Bill till the payment of the money.

said, that the same reasons which had operated against the payment of interest during the last five years would apply to the interval between the passing of the Bill and the payment of the money. It would be almost impossible to specify an exact date for the payment, because the arrangements under which the Commissioners could raise the money depended upon the passing of the Bill. The best guarantee that the affair would be brought to a conclusion as speedily as possible was to be found in the fact that it was as much for the interest of the Commissioners as of the Government that it should be concluded.

said, he could not but express his dissatisfaction at the different mode in which the Government proposed to treat two very similar and excellent schemes—Battersea Park and Chelsea Bridge on the one hand, and the measure contemplated by this Bill on the other. The Government had lent the sum of £280,000 for carrying out Chelsea Bridge and Battersea Park, and the Commissioners were informed that they must not only repay the capital sum, but 4 per cent interest thereon, which amounted to no less than £70,000, making a total of £350,000. He was ready to show that the whole of that sum could be repaid by a sale of the surplus land, and, he contended, if that could be proved, that the Government were bound to throw open the bridge free to the public. On the other hand, the Exhibition Commissioners had £200,000 lent to them, and when there was to be an end of the arrangement between them and the Government, not a word was said about the payment of interest, or the improved value of the land. As he understood the Bill, from the £180,000 that the Commissioners were ready to pay to the Government, £60,000 was to be deducted in respect of twelve acres of land, which the Government might hereafter require for the purposes of art and science. He objected to that arrangement; £60,000 was too much for twelve acres; moreover, he did not think it was desirable to reserve any power as to the taking of land from the Commissioners, and hoped that the partnership with them would now terminate once and for ever. He thought that the Commissioners ought to undertake the care of Mr. Sheepshanks' Collection.

said, he thought those words were unnecessary, inasmuch as the Act would not take effect until the money was paid.

said, that the remark of the hon. Gentleman was quite true, but he still thought the Amendment worthy consideration. An interval of a year was a liberal period to give the Commissioners to complete the arrangements for the refunding of the money which they had borrowed.

said, the proposal of the hon. Baronet was an unusual one, and might be inconvenient. The Act could not come into play till the money was paid. The Commissioners were much more interested in terminating the partnership than the Government. They could not carry their arrangements into effect, in consequence of their connection with the Government.

said, he should support the Amendment, as he thought it most desirable that some time should be fixed within which the Commissioners should repay the money to Government.

said, he had at all times opposed the partnership between the Government and the Commissioners, and he thought that if a time were not fixed, the repayment would be delayed for years to come.

said, he was in favour of the dissolution of the partnership between the Government and the Commissioners, but he thought that if a time were fixed for paying the money intending purchasers of plots for building purposes would take an unfair advantage of the Commissioners.

said, the persons most interested in the termination of the arrangement were the Commissioners. The longer the money remained unpaid the greater interest would have to be paid to the Government. The Commissioners, as soon as the Bill passed, would make arrangements for payment of the money, and reasonable time ought to be given to them for completing those arrangements.

Then there could be no harm in inserting the Amendment.

said, that so far as he understood the Bill, the Commissioners were the only persons who were to be benefited by the increase in the value of the land, but with what advantage to the nation he was yet to learn. The present arrangement appeared to him of a confused character; the Sheepshanks and the Fine Arts Collections must be placed somewhere, and, he presumed, when the £60,000 was paid over it would become necessary to look for another site. He should look for some explanation upon these points when Clause 2 came under the notice of the Committee.

said, he wished to know what would be considered a "reasonable" time within which the Royal Commissioners would have to repay the money, and he should contend that some definite period for such repayments ought to be specified in the clause.

remarked, that if any limit of time was inserted, the result would be, that if the money was not paid within the time, this Bill would be nullified and the old arrangement revived.

said, he thought all that the Government had a right to expect was the capital sum they had advanced, and a moiety of the rents which had been actually received.

said, he rose to move the insertion of the following words—"With interest at the rate of 5 per cent calculated from the passing of this Act." His object was to ensure to the Government a fair rate of interest upon the sum in question from the time of the passing of the Act until that sum should be repaid by the Commissioners.

said, he could not adopt the Amendment. The partnership would not be put an end to until the money was repaid by the Commissioners, and in the meantime they ought not to be liable to the payment of interest.

thought it would not be fair to ask for interest while there was no beneficial occupation.

said, he wished to ask the Government whether they had considered the advantage that would be derived to the public service if they were to take power to receive a portion of this payment in land in lieu of money; because there was a very heavy expenditure which it would be necessary to incur very shortly for barracks. He could not see in what part of the neighbourhood of London land could be so cheaply and so well acquired as in this locality. The Portman Barracks were about to be given up; the lease had expired; they were now held only from year to year; and the state in which they stood was lately proved to be positively dangerous to the inmates. It was also proposed, for the purpose of extending the National Gallery, to take the site which was now occupied by St. George's Barracks, Trafalgar Square. Barrack room would, therefore, be wanted for at least a battalion, or a battalion and a half; and if, as had been recommended, the men were not to be packed so closely together as they now were, provision would be required for two battalions. The site at Kensington no longer to be occupied by buildings for the accommodation of the different learned societies might perfectly well be made available for this great public purpose; and it was quite certain that the longer they delayed the purchase of land for the barracks which must be erected, the more they would have to pay, because the more day by day every plot of ground was being covered with valuable buildings. He did not intend now to make any proposition on this subject, but he thought it would be well if the Government would take the subject into consideration, as an arrangement might be made by which a large sum would be saved to the public.

said, no doubt the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman related to a subject of great gravity; but it had not escaped the attention of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to misunderstand the nature of the arrangement which this Bill was proposed to sanction. At present it was not for them to consider whether or not it would be expedient for the country to have a plot of ground in this particular quarter, or whether they might avail themselves of their position in relation to this property, in order to secure it. The position in which they were placed was this. The Royal Commissioners not only desired, but were prepared to carry out the original plan of 1852, which would require, generally speaking, the whole of the purchase, and their proposition to the Government was this:—"Either join us in carrying into effect this plan, as you promised to do in 1852, or release us from the trammels of our connection with you, and allow us to carry it into effect from our own resources." This offer had been made in a fair spirit, and the Government did not think it would have been becoming in them to make a third proposition. They could not have said to the Commissioners, "Well, let us dissolve our connection, and we shall allow you to carry out your plans, but only in part, be- cause we are desirous, or are under the necessity, of appropriating to the public use a portion of this land." The land had been originally obtained for a public purpose under the belief that the Government would co-operate in the object of the Commission; and the Government having been unable to fulfil its part of the engagement, the Commissioners now offered to allow it to draw out its capital, in order that they might themselves accomplish their original purpose.

said, that as he understood it was not possible for the Commissioners to accomplish their original purpose, because the public had decided against the removal of the National Gallery which was part of the original plan; and, moreover, the learned Societies, though they had been offered sites on this land, would not go there. Therefore the greater portion of the scheme of 1852 fell to the ground, and could not be fulfilled with or without the assistance of the Government. Under these circumstances he thought it would be wise for the Government to secure a part of this land at a fair price, relieving the Commissioners from a corresponding payment into the Exchequer.

said, that the original purpose was, not to have the National Gallery or the learned Societies there, but that there should be the means of giving a complete industrial education to the artisans of this country, and that the improvement of our manufactures should be sought through the medium of a scientific and artistic training for the operatives of England. It was the belief of the Royal Commission that they could so far accomplish their original design that, though, they might not have the National Gallery or all the learned bodies in this locality, they would yet have the means of contributing towards the desired result, by securing the presence of many of the societies devoted to learning and science.

observed, that he had, on the second reading of the Bill, understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that, is order to repay this large sum of money to the nation, the Commissioners would have to sell a portion of their estate. Why, then, should we not take land instead of money?

said, that it was not the intention of the Commissioners to sell any of the land. Some small outlying portions would be let on building leases, as was originally contemplated in the scheme of 1852.

said, the answer of the right hon. Gentleman opened a wide question, and he would beg leave to ask, what would be the use of the Department of Science and Art, if, as stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, these Royal Commissioners were to carry out the complete artistic and industrial education of our artisans? Was it intended that the professors of the two bodies should give antagonistic lectures on the same branches of art at two different industrial colleges at Brompton, whither the people would not go to be instructed?

said, he believed that some security ought to be taken against an indefinite extension of the time at which the money would be repaid by the Commissioners; and with that conviction he should move the addition of the following words at the end of the clause:—

"Provided always, that if such payment be not made within six months from the passing of this Act, there shall be added a sum equal to one-half of the net rental, which shall accrue from the time when such payment shall be made."

said, that if they looked at this matter in the light of a building speculation, the lion. Member for Devonport (Mr. Wilson) had put the compensation to the public a great deal too low. He believed that it was the intention of some hon. Member, on the Report, to propose the addition to the Bill of a clause giving interest at a somewhat lower rate than he had himself proposed.

said, he begged to remind the Committee that this was not a building speculation, and it could not possibly, under the charter of the Commissioners, bear such a character. The object of the Commissioners was to apply the land to the promotion of art and science; and the Bill was introduced for the purpose of relieving them from an unfortunate partnership which prevented them from carrying that object into effect. But at the same time he felt it his duty to support the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Wilson), as he believed the Government would be fairly entitled to a moiety of the rents that might be received from the property in case any considerable delay should take place in the repayment of the £180,000.

said, that as the provi- sion for the dissolution of partnership would not come into operation until this money was paid, the country would up to that time be entitled as a partner to one-half the rents, and therefore the proviso of the hon. Member for Devonport was unnecessary.

said, it seemed to him that before the Bill passed the Commissioners ought to be prepared to state when they would repay the money; and in order to afford time for obtaining information upon that point, he would suggest that the further consideration of the Bill should be postponed for a month.

said, he understood that, instead of being applied to the purposes of art, the land was already being let on building leases. If the value of the estate had so greatly increased, as was stated, it was hardly fair that the country, which had found the greater portion of the purchase-money, should lose all advantage from that increase of value, and should at the same time have to wait for the repayment of its money.

said, that the estate consisted principally of one large plot of land, containing more than eighty acres, which was originally and still intended to be the chief scene of the operations of the Commissioners, but they had been obliged to purchase several small pieces of land which were connected with that plot. The Exhibition Commissioners were permitted by their charter to let out these detached blocks, which had no value to them in effecting their own objects, on building leases; but the rents of these buildings must be applied to the same purpose as the estate generally—namely, the encouragement of science and art. That was the original plan contemplated in 1852. It was contemplated, of course, at the present moment; it had been carried partially into effect, and it was the only means by which the Commissioners could enable themselves to repay the proportion of the capital which the Treasury advanced to them.

said, he moved the omission of the clause altogether. It was not a very reasonable thing that in dissolving a partnership the division should be so unequal as to give to the Commissioners all the value of the land, between £5,000 and £6,000. The clause would enable the Government to retain in their hands twel acres of land covered with buildings, which it seemed to him would defeat the main object of the Bill.

said, he should oppose the Amendment, because he thought it necessary that the ground in question should be retained for any future public service.

said, he would rather have wished to see the clause modified than rejected altogether, because he thought that the terms under which alone the clause would permit the Government to retain possession of this valuable piece of land were too stringently defined. The Government was not permitted to retain the land for public uses on its own responsibility, or for the encouragement of science, art, and education largely defined, but it was allowed to retain it only for purposes connected with the Department of Science and Art, and that limitation was to be imposed by an Act of the Legislature. It appeared to him that the Committee ought to enlarge the discretion of the Government with respect to the application of the land. The effect of omitting the clause altogether would be to put the Exhibition Commissioners in possession of the whole estate at Kensington Gore, with all the buildings upon it, full as they were of valuable public property. Some of those contents had been purchased by the nation, and some, like the Sheepshanks' Gallery, presented in such a manner that they could not be handed over to any Commissioners. He thought the price fixed was perfectly equitable. The land was about twelve and a half acres, which cost £4,000 per acre, or £50,000 altogether. A small piece of land was purchased for £2,000 to improve the approach, and £2,000 more was expended in laying out the road, and £4,000 per acre was paid for two acres, which formed the site of the road. These sums made together £62,000, and therefore £60,000 was a very fair price for the public to pay. He hoped that so far from leaving out the clause, the Committee would rather enlarge the discretionary power of the Government in dealing with this land.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had spoken as if the Commissioners were not trustees for the public. In point of fact they were so, and therefore there was no reason why the Sheepshanks' Collection should not be placed in their hands. The object of those, who wished to have the clause omitted was that the Government should have no more to do with the Department of Science and Art; and if this second clause were given up, and the twelve acres handed over to the Commissioners, these gentlemen would afterwards act in the matter as trustees for the public. It was bad in principle that money proceeding from the general taxation of the country should be spent for a matter in which the whole country was not concerned. He might be told that the whole country benefited by the arts and sciences, but he maintained that there must be a great number of persons who would never be benefited by the institutions in question. If the persons interested in arts and sciences were told that they must in future rely on their own resources, they would be stimulated thereby to act more for themselves, and the arts and sciences would derive advantage from that circumstance. He should vote for the omission of the second clause.

said, that if the hon. Gentleman, who appeared to think that the Sheepshanks' Collection could be handed over to the Commissioners, would read the blue book he would see that Mr. Sheepshanks objected to his collection being handed over to any board or set of Commissioners, but wished it to be placed under the control of those responsible Ministers of the Crown who had the supervision of the Educational Department. He believed that very few people in this country shared the views of the hon. Member who had just spoken with regard to art and science. Such views were more suited to the times of the Goths and Vandals than to the present enlightened days.

said, notwithstanding the allusion made to the Goths and Vandals he should not abdicate the function of protecting the tax-payers of this country. He maintained that Mr. Sheepshanks' wish with regard to his Collection would be carried out by the responsible Minister of the Crown arranging that a Royal Commission should take charge of it.

said, that the objection of his hon. Friend the Member for Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) might be a very valid one as against the Department of Science and Art, but it had no connection with the matter now under discussion. As he himself was responsible for the insertion of this clause in the Bill, he could state that it had been inserted for the protection of the public interest. When the Government and the Royal Commissioners agreed to dissolve the partnership which existed, the latter paying to the Government £182,000, it was natural enough for them to say, "If we pay you this money you must put us in possession of the property we have purchased." That appeared to be only fair; but at the same time it happened part of that property was covered with buildings occupied by collections having reference to science and art, and, indeed, it formed what might be termed the Home Department for the Administration of Science and Art. Inasmuch as the Commissioners had purchased the land, it was quite open for them to tell Government that they must remove that department. It was, therefore, necessary to make some arrangement; they had no other site to which they could remove the department, but were nevertheless bound by the conditions of Mr. Sheepshanks' will. The question, therefore, was, whether they should pay a rent for the use of the present site. That rent would have been very heavy, as it naturally would have been calculated upon the original cost of the buildings and ground. It was suggested, therefore, that instead of paying a rent, the establishment should remain until ulterior arrangements were made, an amount of purchase money being retained equal to the price given by the Royal Commissioners, making no allowance for the increased value of the land and the improvements of the neighbourhood. It appeared to him that that was one of the most moderate arrangements which could have been entered into. That was the only issue raised by the clause, and all that his hon. Friend the Member for Warwickshire said about the inexpediency of Government interference with science and art, had no more to do with this matter than it had to do with Kensington Gore. As to the Commissioners taking charge of Mr. Sheepshanks' Collection, that was simply impossible. They had no more right to take charge of Mr. Sheepshanks' Gallery, or of the Department of Science and Art, than any Member of that House. They could not do it under their present powers, and the hon. Gentleman might just as well propose that they should administer the Home Department. It was a public department; and if it was established solely on the land which belonged to the Royal Commissioners, the Government was there virtually as a tenant.

said, he did not quite understand the right hon. Gentleman. Were the Government prepared to carry out the Department of Science and Art, or not? On his part he had never dissociated the Department of Science and Art from the Royal Commissioners. This was the first time an attempt had been made to separate them. He thought that as they had decided that the National Gallery was not to be removed, they ought not to allow the Department of Science and Art to go where they did not admit the National Gallery to be carried. He must, therefore, if necessary, vote against the clause, though he should be very sorry to give up the present establishment as it was.

said, he thought that the exact sum which the Government was going to give ought to be stated in the clause.

said, it was plain that this matter did not go on all fours—that there was some secret or other behind. At one time it was said that the Commissioners had nothing to do with the Department of Science and Art, at another that they were going to set up schools at Kensington. But what could they teach there? Some hon. Gentlemen had been very severe on the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) for advancing notions which they said were worthy only of the Goths and Vandals; but those much abused nations when they wanted to teach anybody anything generally went the very shortest way to work about it. If they wanted to teach a boy shoemaking they apprenticed him to a shoemaker, and he learnt the art by actually putting it into practice. In the same way a boy was taught to be a builder by being engaged in building houses, a carpenter by being put to carpenter's work, and so on. But this kind of teaching could certainly not be carried on at Kensington.

said, if the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer wished to advance science and art he could not do better than assent to the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashton (Mr. M. Gibson) for the repeal of the paper duty.

said, that if there was anything mysterious or secret about the clause it arose from the misunderstanding under which some hon. Members laboured as to its meaning. He was responsible for the arrangements proposed regarding Kensington Gore, and he was now prepared to answer any questions and give any explanations on the subject which might be put to him. The arrangements were perfectly bonâ fide. There seemed to be some false impression that the clause about to be inserted was in the interest of the Commissioners, but in point of fact its tendency would be quite the other way. The Government had put up certain buildings at Kensington Gore for the temporary use of the Science and Art Department; those buildings were only of a temporary nature, but the materials were of intrinsic value, and might be removed when the temporary object had been attained. The Science and Art Department, for which those buildings were erected, was a department of the Government, and they had no connection with the Commissioners except as a matter of negotiation. When the Commissioners came to enter into occupation, a question would arise as to what was to be done with the buildings, and if some measures of precaution were not taken the Commissioners might sell those buildings. He hoped the Committee would agree to the clause before them.

suggested, that it would meet the difficulty if the clause was amended so as to provide that the land in question should be retained for the use of the public instead of the Department of Science and Art.

said, passing by the objection that the word "public" was not such as was generally used in an Act of Parliament, he thought that would be putting too great a restriction on the Commissioners, because the Government might not only keep the land longer than the duration of the Department itself, but might apply it to another purpose.

did not consider that that would be any great disadvantage.

said, he rose to move an Amendment:—

"That this House is of opinion that the maintenance of the excise on paper, as a permanent source of revenue, would be impolitic, and that such financial arrangements ought to be made as will enable Parliament to dispense with that tax."

He thought it might be right for him to say, in order to avoid being misunderstood, that in proposing the Resolution which he had placed upon the paper, it was not his intention to oppose the House going into Committee of Supply. It was immaterial whether his Resolution were carried or negatived, so far as regarded the subsequent going into Committee of Supply, as, he believed, that should it be the pleasure of the House to adopt the Resolution, a Motion could be made immediately afterwards to go into Supply. He was aware, that there was some difficulty with respect to a proposition of this kind, for he knew that many experienced Members entertained an objection to unofficial persons presuming to propose, in the form of a Motion, fiscal changes or remissions of taxation, and thought that such propositions should be left exclusively to financial Ministers. When that objection was urged upon the House on a former occasion he remembered that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer laid down this doctrine—that to hold that unofficial Members were to be precluded from making propositions of this kind was to maintain a very dangerous principle, which the House ought not to sanction. Recollecting well, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman objected altogether to that feeling being entertained against unofficial Members, he approached this question under the present Administration with more than usual confidence. He might be asked why he had not brought forward this proposition as a substantive Motion, instead of connecting it with a Vote in Supply. His reason was that he thought the subject to which his Motion related was intimately connected with the Resolution which was about to be moved in Committee of Supply, which was to the effect that a sum of money should be voted for the purpose of promoting education in England and Wales; for he believed that the repeal of a duty which stood in the way of the diffusion of knowledge was also a proposition for promoting education throughout the country. If he were to say that he had high authorities—many of them Members of that House—in favour of such a Motion as he was about to submit, every one must acknowledge the truth of his statement. In fact, if he were to mention the various distinguished persons who had voted for such a proposition he should trespass too long upon the time of the House. He was overwhelmed, as it were, with authorities in favour of his Motion. But the difficulty which he had always experienced was that, although all expressed themselves in favour of the Motion, he had never been able to induce them to agree to place their opinions in the form of a minute upon the Journals, and thus to take the first step towards carrying their views into practical legislation. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he knew, from previous votes and public statements, to be in favour of the Motion. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford had on many occasions in public also expressed himself in favour of such a proposition. In fact, he really had not found any enemy openly avow himself to be such, except the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (and perhaps the phrase was too strong to apply even to him), who had gone the length of saying that he considered the paper duty to be a good tax in itself, thereby implying that it ought to be continued as a permanent branch of our ordinary revenue, and that financial arrangements ought not to be made to enable Parliament to dispense with it. The House must observe, however, that he was not asking them to vote any repeal of taxation at this moment, and he did not wish them to disturb the financial arrangements of the present year; he only asked them to contradict by a vote the assertion that the paper duty was in itself a good source of taxation, and that its maintenance was consistent with the public welfare. He felt, if such a principle were laid down, that when the proper occasion arrived the Minister of the day—whoever he might be—would deem it to be his duty on general considerations of public policy to make a proposition to Parliament for the repeal of this tax. If he were to bring forward this Motion simply as a financial proposition for relieving the community of a certain amount of a mischievous kind of taxation, he should have a very good case to rest upon, putting aside altogether those important educational views which were connected with the subject. He believed that he could prove by past experience that taxation was one thing and revenue another, and that it was possible to repeal taxes, if it were done judiciously, without permanently injuring the public revenue. No one had more lucidly explained that doctrine to the House than the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford. He remembered the right hon. Gentleman telling the House that the late Sir R. Peel, during a period of eleven years, had repealed many taxes and imposed others, and that, although the balance of the remission of taxes amounted to £7,000,000 per annum, yet that at the end of the eleven years, instead of there being a loss to the public revenue, there had been an absolute gain of £5,000,000 per annum, showing that by a judicious selection of the taxes which were repealed lie had relieved the industry of the country from oppressive burdens without injuring the permanent revenue of the State. In the particular matter of Excise, that eminent Statesman repealed in that period upwards of £1,000,000 of duties, and yet at the end of that time the revenue derived from the Excise was £1,500,000 larger than it had been before, proving incontestably that taxes starved one another, as it were; and, although they might be told that old Arthur Young was in favour of a multiplicity of taxes, experience proved that more money might be obtained with less pressure upon industry, and less injury to trade, commerce, and manufactures, by the levying of a few principal duties only. The paper duty was a most pernicious tax in every point of view in which it could be considered. From the return for which he moved a short time ago, as to the number of paper mills in England, it appeared that during the last twenty years the paper mills in England had diminished from 525 to 393. He had the honour of accompanying a deputation to the Earl of Derby, and when that fact was mentioned to the noble Earl, he said that it was owing to the effects of an advanced civilization, which caused trades and manufactures to be carried on by large capitalists. He spoke also of congestion from advanced civilization, but with all respect to the noble Earl, he (Mr. M. Gibson) thought he was mistaken, because if he were right we ought to see the same effects on the other branches of industry. We did not find that the number of cotton mills, of silk mills, and of other mills carrying on the various branches of manufacture were diminished. On the contrary, those mills were gradually increasing, while the paper manufacture was falling more and more into a few hands, The small paper mills spread over the rural districts were all being ruined, and the whole supply of paper in the United Kingdom must, if this obnoxious Excise system were continued, fall into the hands of a few large capitalists. That was one of the most striking effects of the Excise system, for it undoubtedly did require more capital to carry on the paper manufacture under that. system than if it were free. The paper manufacture was gradually producing that congestion of capital which produced the alarming results set forth in the return which he had moved for. Hon. Gentlemen should recollect that the paper manufacture was a rural manufacture. It was a manufacture that sprung up by the side of pure streams in agricultural districts, that was capable of employing the agricultural population, of diminising poor-rates, and spreading happiness and contentment among the peasantry. But if the paper duty were maintained all these small rural paper mills would be destroyed, the whole of the paper manufacture of the kingdom would be inevitably driven into the manufacturing districts, and placed in the hands of persons who used steam and other power instead of the water power that existed in the rural districts. The immediate object of proposing this Motion was to show to the House the great inconsistency they were guilty of in asking Parliament continually to increase the votes for education, while they maintained a tax which he could prove stood in the way more than anything that could be conceived of the diffusion of knowledge among the great masses of the people. For how did the paper duty press? It did not press upon the large book. It was not to be viewed as something of inappreciable value that might be deducted from the price of some three volume novel. The amount of the paper duty was large just in proportion as the publication to which it was applied was cheap and extensively circulated. Cheap and extensively circulated publications were the very publications that ought to exist if they wished to spread knowledge among the great masses of the community. The paper duty affected precisely those cheap and extensively circulated publications which it should be the object of the Go- vernment, that professed to support education, to encourage. The paper duty arose in the time of Anne, just after newspapers began to be party organs, to reflect upon the Ministers of that time, and to defend the party leaders who were then occupying the attention of the country. Mr. Hallam said, that the vivacity of the press attracted the attention of the Ministers of that day. A message was brought down, which was now upon the Journals of the House, informing the House that the press was too free, that it reflected with two much freedom upon the Ministers of the day and upon the institutions of the country, and calling upon the House to take some steps to put down that great evil. The House in reply to the message, said that they would endeavour to find out a remedy adequate to the mischief. And what was the remedy? Why, in a Committee of Ways and Means it was for the first time suggested that heavy taxation upon the press might have all the effect which a censorship or actual licensing of the press had in other countries, and for the first time taxes on knowledge were invented in a Committee of Ways and Means for the express and avowed purpose of restraining cheap periodicals in this country. The newspaper stamp was one tax and the advertisement duty another. These had been already repealed. The paper duty was the third tax which now remained to be repealed. The position of the House was now reversed; they now professed to be the advocates of education and knowledge, and they ought, if they were consistent, to repeal that third tax, which impeded the diffusion of cheap knowledge throughout the land. When these taxes were imposed there was an opposition, on principle, to the diffusion of knowledge; and therefore, if the Parliament of Anne was consistent in imposing, them, the Parliament of Queen Victoria, which professed to advocate a contrary principle, was bound, in consistency, to repeal the whole of them. The right hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Colonies, in an able and interesting speech delivered by him on the occasion of his recent election for Hertfordshire, made use of the following words:—

"In my early youth there were two political measures to which I was most warmly attached. One of them was the emancipation of the newspaper press, as the great agent of political knowledge, from all taxes and fiscal imposts. The other was the question of Parliamentary Reform. When the newspaper stamp repeal was proposed I supported it, and said I had such a strong confidence in the good sense and good feeling of the masses of the people of this country that I was persuaded that the change would tend, not to create, but rather to put down and extinguish licentious and revolutionary periodicals. I said that it would prove a great boon to the Conservatives, because then we could have a cheap newspaper which would defend our opinions among the masses. Well, both these predictions have been verified. We have a penny press, on the whole conducted with singular propriety and talent, and the Standard newspaper, which advocates Conservative opinions, has an enormous circulation, and now penetrates large masses of the population which were never approached by a Conservative organ under the old system."

Now, this Standard newspaper—which he did not doubt had as large a circulation as was represented—must pay an enormous amount of tax. He believed that if that paper had anything like the circulation that was represented—namely, 50,000 a day—it must pay £50 a day. And if its circulation were only 25,000 a day it must pay £25 a day. Well, what sort of a deduction was that to make from the returns of this cheap Conservative newspaper? Why, it was quite impossible that this or any other cheap paper could live if so large a deduction were to be made from the funds that were to carry it on. For, let them recollect that this cheap Conservative paper could not be sold for a penny and some small fraction of a penny that should reimburse its proprietors the paper duty. The paper must be sold at its round penny, and this deduction must be made from the funds required to conduct the paper. And what was the effect? Why that deduction rendered necessary the printing of the paper on an inferior material. It rendered the conductors unable to employ the best literary talent, and in all respects it prevented their making the paper as good as it otherwise would be. If this paper duty were repealed the £25 or £50 a day would not go into the pockets of the conductors, because there were other penny papers—the Telegraph and the Star—and competition would compel them to apply that remission of the paper duty to the improvement of the periodical, and thus the readers would be benefited. The same argument applied to all cheap periodical literature. The paper duty was a fund withdrawn from those who conducted a paper, and could not be replaced by any additional charge to the consumer. It therefore made cheap literature bad literature. It prevented people from employing on cheap periodicals the most respected and ablest writers in the country. Was it a judicious policy to allow the people to have a cheap press, but at the same time to take care that that press should not be as good as it might be but for the interference of the Excise? Should any paltry consideration of revenue—for a large portion of the revenue was not now in question—stand for a moment in the way of the moral improvement and advancement of the great body of the population of this country? Mr. Charles Knight in a sentence disposed of the question of cheap literature. Mr. Knight said:—

"The problem especially necessary to solve upon the principle that 'the bent of civilization is to make good things cheap' cannot be solved in England under the paper duty. All literature is tending to cheapness; taxed literature, to be cheap, must lose some portion of excellence, or involve a loss. A revolution has been effected in which sound literature might have higher encouragement in the many than in the few, if the Government did not stand in the way."

That placed in very forcible and clear language the pernicious effect of the paper duty upon the cheap literature of the day. The statesmen of Queen Anne's time had some qualms of conscience even in proposing that tax, for they enacted it with certain exemptions. The Holy Scriptures, Psalm Books, the Scotch Confession of Faith, books printed in the Latin, Greek, or in any of the Northern languages, or in the Oriental languages at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, with the consent of the authorities of those Universities, were exempted from the tax. They thought, perhaps, that the obscurity of a learned language, and the caution of the heads of houses, might justify them in exempting such publications from the tax. Nor could anything be more monstrous than that when the House was voting sums of money for educational purposes, it should at the same time consent to tax a little school book 30 per cent more than those books which, addressed to the richer classes, came within the exemptions. What was a Northern language? Was not English, or at all events Scotch, a northern language, and if so books in the English language, according even to the Act of Parliament which imposed it, were exempted front the tax. The Report of the Society, to which he belonged, for the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge placed the question in a very true and terse way. It set forward that there was no reason why the history of the Calmucks in the Russian language should be entitled to an exemption from a tax to which was subjected the primer of the artisan's child. For his own part, he hoped that if this obnoxious tax were not repealed, the Government would have the decency to apply it fairly to all classes of the community. He remembered the present Secretary for the Treasury endeavouring to obtain a further exemption by asking that school and college books published by the University of Dublin should be exempt from the tax. That application was without success, but he did not wonder at its being made. Now constant applications for exemption from a tax and constant yielding to those applications was, he thought, an augury that the tax was drawing to a close. Now, he objected to all exemptions, for if a tax could not be applied equally to all portions of the community, it ought to be repealed, and some other source of revenue relied upon for the deficiency. He dared say that it had passed through some hon. Gentlemen's minds that before proposing the abolition of a tax he ought to provide a substitute. Now, he begged most respectfully to decline making any suggestion as to a substitute. It was not his duty, and it would be irregular for him to find new taxes, and in point of fact, he believed that no substitute would be required. The tax upon paper produced but 1-64th of the whole revenue of the country, and could any one pretend to say that the country was reduced to such straits that it could not afford to abandon a tax which, while it produced only 1–64th of the revenue of the country operated most mischievously upon industry, trade, and the diffusion of knowledge? No one could maintain a position so indefensible. We were capable of dealing with our financial system, and still maintaining the revenue and credit of the country. He was as ready as any one to admit the extreme caution with which they ought to deal with the public revenue, but they ought not to be afraid to condemn this tax because they might suppose that it was not possible to say what substitute could be found. He believed that the other sixty-three parts of the public revenue would swell out so that they would be very shortly equal to what the whole now was. He believed it might be shown in figures that in the very first year there was an almost certain chance of a very large portion of this duty being replaced. But there were economists in that House, and he was sure that they would not see any difficulty in dealing with so small a revenue. He did not think the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford, and those who thought with him, would find any difficulty, agreeing as they did with Sir R. Peel, and the policy which he carried out with such success. Nor did he think that any difficulties would be thrown in the way by those who preferred direct to indirect taxation. Before he closed this portion of his subject, he wished to refer to one or two other newspapers, in order to show the effects of the tax upon their welfare. He might take the case of The Times. He had no doubt that journal felt the paper duty a very great burden. He recollected having seen in a number of that paper a statement to the effect that they paid some £16,000 or £17,000 a year to the revenue in the shape of paper duty. He believed that at present they paid much more. There was also a paper called the Manchester Examiner and Times. He had a letter from the editor of that journal, who said that during the last year he had paid to the State a revenue of £5,000 in the shape of paper duty for the privilege of giving his cheap newspaper to the public, and that if that £5,000 were not taken from him, he should still sell his paper at a penny, and apply the money now paid for the tax on improvements. The editor of another paper told him that he paid £3,500 a year, and certainly these were very large sums to be deducted from the profits of the proprietary of a small newspaper. In point of fact the cheap press could not flourish and be good and successful unless it were relieved from that most mischievous burden. A correspondence had recently taken place between a gentleman engaged extensively in the manufacture of paper and the Board of Inland Revenue. This gentleman was very anxious to promote education in his immediate neighbourhood. A voluntary subscription had been raised for a school, and he made the following application to the Board of Inland Revenue:—The letter was dated in June, 1858, and was from Mr. Rawlings, of Wrexham Mills, and it said that being about to open a day school in connection with their mills, they had to ask whether they might be permitted to use the cuttings of their paper free of duty for stationary purposes exclusively for the use of the schools; or, if that were not allowed, whether they might receive a drawback on paper rendered unfit for sale by use in the school? And what was the answer?

"The Commissioners have had before them your application, and I am directed to state that you cannot be allowed to use the cuttings of your paper free of duty, nor to receive a drawback on paper rendered unfit for sale by use in your school."

The small boon, it did appear to him, might have been granted without any loss to the revenue, but it was the unfortunate system of Excise regulations that anything new was sure to be rejected. They were guided by old regulations, and every new proposal seemed to them to contain something in disguise dangerous to the revenue. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that they were going to vote a million, in Committee of Supply, for schools and instruction for the labouring classes. The right hon. Gentleman had also told them that the educational vote was gradually developing itself, and in a very short time would become three or four millions a year. If, then, they had all this growing expenditure in the distance, surely they ought to consider whether they would not remove the obstacles which stood in the way of the diffusion of knowledge, and prevented the people from educating themselves. The repeal of the paper duty, which now yielded little more than a million annually, would do more good to the general interests of the community than the addition of another million to the educational votes. Another branch of this subject was the bearing of the excise system on this important manufacture. What could be more monstrous in a country where so large a mass of the population lived by manufacturing industry than that the manufacture of an article like paper should have to be carried on under an Act of Parliament originally passed in the reign of Queen Anne, and which now remained very much what it was then. The Act consisted of no fewer than sixty-nine clauses, every one of which was open to more than one interpretation; and, though it contained a series of pains and penalties against a particular manufacture, strange to say it did not in any one of its numerous provisions give a difinition of what paper was. At this moment a law-suit with the Government was pending in order to determine what the thing really was to which the tax applied, because a new article, made from new materials, had been discovered, which the manufacturers contendered was not paper within the meaning of the statute. Every petty regulation which might seem nothing in the opinion of the Board of Excise was a very great hindrance to the improvement in manufacture of paper. Mr. Rawlins, the manufacturer to whom he had already referred, asked the Board of Inland Revenue the other day to permit him to use for weighing paper a new machine of great accuracy by which three-fourths of the time now occupied in weighing paper for the duty would be saved, and which was now adopted all over the country. The Board, of course, refused his application, and told him that he must stick to his old beam and scales. This was a sample of the vexatious restrictions of our excise system and their injurious operation. They stood very much in the way of the cheapening of production; and in times when a very trifling impediment turned a foreign trade against us it was of vital importance that our manufacture should be free and unfettered. Freedom, like necessity, was the mother of invention as well as of economical production; and without freedom it was impossible for our paper manufacturers to compete with their rivals in other countries who enjoyed that boon. Mr. Rawlins, to whom he had before alluded, had made a tour some time ago in the United States, in order that he might see with his own eyes how the paper manufacture of America was carried on and compare it with our own. And what was his testimony? [The right hon. Gentleman then read a passage from a letter addressed to him by Mr. Rawlins, in which the writer drew a strong contrast between the position the paper manufacturer in Canada and the United States and that of the British producer, maintaining that owing to their freedom from fiscal restrictions the manufacturers in America were a generation in advance of their English brethren in all the mechanical arrangements of their business.] The result was, that we, who might be supplying the markets of our own Colonies, of India, and of other countries with the product of British industry, were actually, by this stupid system of Excise regulations, throwing this valuable trade which might employ our agricultural peasantry, into the hands of foreigners, and at the same time increasing ignorance, pauperism, and crime at home; and this for the sake of a pitiful amount of revenue, which might easily be raised in a much less pernicious manner. He had been told by an eminent manufacturer, who furnished The Times with a large portion of its paper, that at one period we supplied Monte Video, Buenos Ayres, and other parts of South America with paper; but that now this trade had gone away from us, that the French, Belgian, and German producers had superseded us, and that he was afraid the im- provements made in the manufacture by their foreign rivals, together with the backwardness of our own system, would for many years to come preclude our manufacturers, even if they had the advantages of freedom, from entering into successful competition with those paper-producing countries. The Board of Inland Revenue would, no doubt, say that all this was very true, but they must have all this surveillance for the protection of the public revenue; and that arguments such as he was urging struck at the entire Excise system. He denied, however, that these restrictions prevented or could prevent frauds. In their last report, now on the table of the House, that Board stated, as a proof of the efficiency of their system, that nothing but bribery could beat it. Could anything be more monstrous than to allege, as an argument in favour of excise regulations, that a little bribery on the part of the manufacture towards the exciseman would break up the whole system? An efficient system was a system of checks and counter checks, which set bribery at defiance. And if they admitted that large quantities of paper which had not paid duty might, by the aid of a little bribery, be thrown in the market to compete with paper that had paid duty, that was tantamount to acknowledging the system to be one which ought not to be continued, and one which was conducive neither to the good morals of our public officers nor to the interests of the community. The gross return yielded by this duty last year was about £1,200,000. This year it was less by a considerable amount. No doubt the revenue had very much increased since the paper duty had been reduced by one-half. But the gross quantity of paper assessed did not give quite a correct account of the actual amount of revenue obtained. Why, the State paid the tax upon all the paper it used. A single parliamentary return, printed the other day, consumed no less than thirty four tons of paper, the duty paid upon which by that House was £500. To put down this item and many others like it, first as an addition to their expenditure and next as an addition to their revenue, did not look like the perfection of human wisdom. When, therefore, the amount which the State paid on the paper it consumed, together with the various drawbacks to which he had referred, was deducted from the total sum derived from this tax, the net produce would not be found much to exceed £1,000,00 ster- ling. It might be an evil to have to support a large expenditure, but it was a worse evil, and one against which he must protest, to have the revenue from which they defrayed that expenditure raised in a mischievous manner. He held, that after it had been laid down by a late Minister of the Crown that the paper duty was good in itself as a branch of our permanent and ordinary revenue, the time had come for that House to take the subject into its serious consideration. And though it might be true, as a general principle, that it was not right to condemn a tax which they were not prepared instantly to repeal, yet involving as it did a question of sound fiscal policy, and the advancement of the people in knowledge and morality, the case was one which ought to be made an exception to the rule.

Sir, I shall, with permission of the House, make a few observations on the Resolution proposed for adoption by the right hon. the Member for Ashton. I consider the country is greatly indebted to him for persevering in bringing to the notice of the House the injurious effect of the paper duty to our manufactures, and in its operation as a tax upon knowledge and education. The paper duty is a tax levied of 1½d. per lb., with an additional 5 per cent on all paper manufactured in the empire. There is a Custom House duty of 3d. per lb. on all paper imported into the United Kingdom, which may be said to be protective duty, and this fact, we suppose, may account for the circumstance that so few manufacturers of paper join in the agitation for its repeal. I believe, however, that those gentlemen are somewhat short-sighted in their views, but after all they have only followed the example set years ago by all the manufacturers of silk and printed cotton goods, who considered Custom House duties as protecting their trade, and therefore of advantage to them. It may be remarked that manufacturers were protectionists long before the agriculturists; and we have now a rag of protection left with the paper manufacturers under which they imagine they find security. Printing paper only pays 1½d. per lb., which cannot be considered as any protection to the printer. As I stand in the double position of manufacturer of paper as well as a consumer, I think I shall be able to show the injurious effects of the paper duty on the public generally, and that the only possible defence for its continuance is the revenue derived therefrom. But, in my opinion, the net revenue is so small as to make it wholly unimportant to the Exchequer when weighed with the many evils that the impost necessarily entails upon society. On this point it is, in my opinion, the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to find a better tax as a substitute, if a substitute be necessary; and, if called upon, I think I could propose a much better tax. In the condemnation of this tax we are supported by the opinions expressed by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, the noble Lord the President of the Board of Control, the right hon. Baronet the head of the Colonies, the right hon. the Member for the University of Oxford, the noble Lord the Member for London, and by many other distinguished statesmen and sound political economists. This objectionable tax, therefore, cannot long continue; it has no defenders of its principle, and is inevitably doomed. When this tax was first proposed it was considered to be a war tax; but it has, nevertheless, continued in existence for a century and a half. At first the more rumour of such a tax being in contemplation caused great agitation in the country, and the House of Commons passed the following Resolution in the Stuart Parliament:—

"Aspersions had been cast by malignant persons on the House of Commons that they intended to introduce excises—the House for its vindication therein doth declare that these rumours are false and scandalous, and that the authors should be apprehended and brought to condign punishment."

The British Parliament, however, soon afterwards passed Excise laws, and the paper Excise among the rest. It has varied in amount per lb. since it was first proposed, and up to 1832 was 3d. per lb. on printed paper. Immediately on the reduction from 3d. to 1½d. the lb. the consumption of the article doubled, and the price of it was considerably reduced. Paper with a duty of 3d. per lb. was charged 1s. to the public; the same quality with a duty of 1½d., may now be bought for 8d. per lb. This decrease of duty has had a marvellous effect on the publications issued from the press, and has been the means of diffusing considerable information to the people. We may, therefore, fairly conclude that the entire abolition of the duty would produce proportionally beneficial results. I have here, Sir, a publication circulated among the working people amounting to nearly half a million per week, paying a duty of 30 per cent on its cost of production. If this publication paid no duty it would be considerably improved in its character of usefulness, and produce greatly increased benefit to the population. [An Hon. MEMBER: What is it?] The London Journal. The duty paid on a three-volume novel is not 1 per cent. It will thus be seen how unjustly this law acts on all cheap publications and periodicals. Lord Stanley, while addressing his constituents at King's Lynn, on Wednesday, May 14th, 1856, referred to this subject in the following language:—

"The paper duty was vexatious in collection, checked improvement in manufacture, tended to raise the price of an article of which the demand already exceeded the supply, and hindered the diffusion of cheap literature and news."

I will now read also a communication from a gentleman who has recently effected an extraordinary change in the newspaper world:—

"Standard Office, 129, Fleet Street,

June 19, 1858.

"Sir,—Seeing that it is intended to bring forward the question of the paper duty on Monday next, and as you are likely to take part in the discussion, I beg leave to send you a few facts which I think will go far to convince the House of the necessity of repealing that duty.

"In the first place, the tax acts most injuriously on the progress of education. Taking the duty itself, and the obstructions occasioned by the impost, it may be reasonably calculated that paper from the time it leaves the mill to its being circulated amongst the people is increased 50 per cent on its original cost.

"In our case the duty paid by the Standard, we being consumers of upwards of two tons daily, amounts to no less a sum than £29 per day. Now, if that duty were repealed, we could not only print upon better paper, but we should be enabled to expend at least £20 a day of the duty saved in additional literary talent. We should be at the same time not only reaping a benefit ourselves of nearly £10, but we should be also effecting a saving of at least £10 more in being relieved from the necessity of wetting the paper ourselves, an operation that requires the employment of a considerable number of hands. The large quantity of paper that is constantly spoiled by this practice would be likewise a great addition to our profits, because, if the duty were abolished, we could have our paper conveyed direct from the mill in its normal state, that is, sufficiently damp for printing. We cannot enjoy that advantage at present, inasmuch as the weight of the paper must be taken before it leaves the mill, and the amount of water with which it must be saturated before it is fit for printing on would weigh as much as the article itself in its original state, and therefore the duty would be considerably increased if taken after the paper had passed through this process.

"In order further to show the enormity of this tax, I may mention, that since I reduced the price of the Standard to 1d., on the 4th of February last, we have been paying at the rate of £10,000 a year duty!

"If the paper duty were repealed, I feel confident that the already enormous circulation of the Standard would be at least doubled, and the profits arising therefrom would enable us to give employment to a considerable number of extra hands in the various departments of the establishment, thereby creating more labour for the unemployed. Those results would, of necessity, lead to the greatly-increased consumption of exciseable articles, and thus, in a great measure, the deficit caused by the abrogation of this duty would be very soon made up.

"In addition to the Standard, the office I have the management of issues two other daily papers, and two weekly papers, all of them having a very large circulation.

"I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,

"F. T. FOWLER, Manager of the Standard.

"Herbert Ingram, Esq., M.P." &c.

Such are the evil effects of the paper duty on cheap publications. I trust I may be pardoned if I say a word about its effects on a publication higher in price and extensively calculated—a publication with engravings—the Illustrated London News:—

"Loudwater Mills, near Rickmansworth,

"Herts, April 28, 1856.

"Dear Sir,—I enclose a statement of cost of finishing paper as at present incurred through Excise regulations, also cost of same if it had not to go through exciseman's hands.

"There is no doubt that the paper would arrive in town in much better condition, and with less loss from damage, if it were put in boxes, than by the present mode.

"There are many circumstances attending excise rules which are troublesome and inconvenient; for instance, the paper must be in reams of a certain number of sheets, or parcels of not less than a certain weight, nor more than a certain number of sheets less than a ream. We cannot pack two reams together, nor be above or below the estimated weight, under risk of forfeiture. We cannot send the paper from the mill for more than fifty hours after it is made, however urgently it may be required; thus we must give forty-eight hours' notice of the intention to charge, and keep it at least two hours after charging, besides the time actually occupied in charging, to give the supervisor an opportunity to reweigh, the trader finding the men for such reweigh. The supervisor also is to test the weights used on the premises, the trader again finding men for that purpose; and, as we have about eighty half-hundred weights in use, it is a very great loss of time.

"The paper in stock also must be so stacked that the officer or supervisor can see every ream and label, causing a great loss of room, a fact of great importance in a finishing room. These and other minor matters taken separately may appear trifling, but collectively are a source of great loss of time, extra labour, and harshly carried out by the officers, as they may be, very great annoyance.

"Paper mills should certainly have as little impediment in their working as possible, for they make a great difference to the poor. The expenditure by the relieving officer of this parish was, for the two years while the mills were still, £1,400 per annum; it is now only £650 per annum.

"The rates paid by ratepayers of this parish are just the same as when the mills were still; but that is because it is in the Watford union, consisting of, I believe, five parishes. I enclose declaration of the churchwarden and relieving officer as to the benefit of paper mills.

"With respect to envelopes, I have not yet succeeded in gaining any authentic details, the business being carried on with great secrecy. I think, however, in a day or two I shall have information that may be relied on.

"There is one class of tradesmen who, though not often considered, are great sufferers by the excise duties on paper; I mean the makers of boxes, and cartons for drapers, fan manufacturers, &c. I believe the trade, though now very extensive, to be very much cramped, from the obnoxious duties. There are already seine thousands of women and boys engaged in the trade, and were the excise duty repealed, I have no doubt that it would be so extended as to employ six or eight times the number, a great consideration, when we reflect on the multitude of females who are obliged to work so many hours together for just keeping soul and body together. In that trade the plainer the article the greater is the demand, and the more oppressive and crushing is the effect of the duty. It is also very unequal in its pressure, for while the more expensive and highly decorated articles, such as boxes to contain handkerchiefs, fruit, &c., do not pay a duty of more than 5 per cent, from the small quantity of material, in comparison with labour, the cheaper and snore extensively used sorts, to contain gloves, ribbons, nets, &c., actually pay a duty of 30 per cent from the very reverse of the causes quoted above. These are fusels which I can prove. There are also the bookbinders who are affected similarly as the boxmakers, though not to the same extent, the highly embossed and tooled Church Service and Bible not being taxed in anything like the same proportion as the plain homely copy used by the workman and cottager.

"Stiff cardboard or paper is also, as you are doubtless aware, used very extensively by the lacemakers of Nottingham, the duty on the cards used by them amounting to 25 per cent. Again, with button-makers, Birmingham houses, who use plain card or paper, the duty will amount to 25 to 35 per cent. There are many other trades which will occur to you as being extensive consumers of low-class papers, the rule being that the lower the paper the higher is the percentage of duty.

"Trusting I have complied with your wishes in the foregoing remarks,

"I remain, dear Sir, yours respectfully,

"II. Ingram, Esq. "W. D. STANSELL."

The regulations of the Excise involve an extra expense of at least £2,000 per annum, besides decreasing the quality of the publication. I now come to a higher authority—the Commissioners of the Excise—respecting the paper duty. Here is a blue-book lately placed in the hands of all the Members of this House, in which the Commissioners state the increase of trade caused by their new regulations respecting drawbacks on pieces of waste paper cut from envelopes. Here, no doubt, was a great increase of trade created by the means alluded to, but they must recollect that it was only after considerable agitation and speeches from myself and others, that they consented to take such a step.

"In the United States of America there are 750 paper mills, worked by 2000 steam-engines, producing 270,000,000 lb. In England only 166,000,000 lb. were made, and only 150,000,000 lb. for home consumption, only about one-half the product of the United States. England only has 400 mills, and many disappear every year."

If the Commissioners think they give such facilities to get the drawback, and do so much to increase the trade, let us hear what the trade say upon the question generally. The following letter is from Messrs. Ward and Lock:—

"Sir,—Some time since I took the liberty of writing you a letter upon the subject of drawbacks upon books, paper, &c. At the risk of being intrusive, I repeat something of what I previously said, and you will clearly see that in many instances the pretended boon of a drawback absolutely comes to nothing, as the process is far too troublesome for the small advantage received.

"Find ship to port. Write to officer, and beg him as a favour to attend, say at ten o'clock in the morning; but in consequence, perhaps, of half a dozen other appointments, he cannot attend until, say, twelve o'clock. All this time packers, carpenter, and solderer have been waiting, and consequently the fore part of their day is wasted. The officer attends, and at length you consider all is arranged, and the packing goes on; but before it is finished he most likely has to go elsewhere to witness the completion of some other shipment; thus another serious delay is occasioned. And here let me mark the consequences of this apparently slight delay. Very likely the merchant loses his ship; and all the trouble which he has to incur by attendance, &c., at the office in Tower Bill, has to be gone over a second time.

"A shipper must attend personally, perhaps at great inconvenience, to sign a bond, which must be attested by a householder, and also make a declaration that the books about to be shipped have not been before sold to any person exercising the trade or profession of a bookseller. The shipper must now attend the Custom House to find when the ship is entered outwards, and get the shipping bill signed by the clerk. You have now to proceed to the docks and enter on a ticket-paper the case or cases of books, and give in your shipping bills to the searcher of Customs, and wait perhaps for some time until all is ascertained to be right. But the trouble does not end here; and you must wait six weeks before you can obtain the drawback, and even this must be applied for and received by the shipper, as he is not allowed to send his clerk for it, as there is another debenture to sign.

"Each shipment, however small, requires a separate stamp, varying in amount and price according to the amount of drawback claimed. As the whole of this procedure in the shipment of books entails so much trouble, whether it is large or small, it must be obvious that a large amount of paper in the form of books never recovers the drawback, because the merchant cannot attend personally to watch such small matters.

"I am a shipper of books, and speak of my own personal trouble and annoyance, but it is well known that many stationers in England refuse colonial orders for paper because the time and trouble of shipping for drawback small parcels is not worth their while. Under these circumstances many orders for paper, stationary, &c., find their way to the Continent instead of coming to Great Britain, as the English merchant is obliged to add on to his wholesale prices the 1½d. per lb., rather than waste his time in obtaining drawback. This sum, small as it may appear, is quite sufficient in this sharp age of competition to divert the orders which otherwise he would be glad to execute."

I will now trouble the House with a letter from Messrs. Chambers, who have done so much to give instruction to the people:—

"Edinburgh, May 15, 1856.

"Dear Sir,—Along with this we hand you a short statement respecting the pressure of the paper duties on our publications. You will observe that during 1855 we used 378,350 lbs. of paper, costing £11,780 11s. 3d., and that in this price was included an excise duty of £2,482 18s., such duty being about a fifth of the actual cost of the paper. Nearly all our publications are of a cheap class, designed for popular instruction and improvement; and the price of paper is by far the haviest item in producing works of this kind. Although the duty is 1½d. per lb. weight, with 5 per cent, additional, it is our belief that practically the price of paper is enhanced fully 2d. per pound weight, by reason of the duty and attendant excise regulations. This is upwards of a fifth in the price of most printing papers.

"So heavy an increase on the price of paper acts discouragingly on all our operations. We are constantly prevented from entering upon schemes for issuing cheap publications of an improving tendency, from no other cause than the pressure of the paper duties. Some years ago we issued a series of instructive and entertaining tracts at a penny and a halfpenny each. The sale was enormous, and we should hope some good was done. After issuing as many as twenty volumes of these tracts, we found that the State had received £5,000 of paper duty, while our profits were nothing, and we accordingly were compelled to drop the work, although the sales at the time were 80,000 weekly.

"It is chiefly from such facts that an adequate idea can be obtained of the damage done to literature through the pressure of the excise duty on paper. Of the injury done to trade enerally by this tax on production it is not necessary for us to say anything.

"We are, Sir, your obedient servants,

"W. and R. CHAMBERS.

"Herbert Ingram, Esq., M.P."

I will here remark that the quantity of paper distributed by these gentlemen and by the proprietors of the London Journal is considerably greater than all the Bibles and Prayer Books distributed by the clergy and the Bible and other religious societies put together, and, be it observed, the amount of the latter publications is decreasing. Nearly six parts out of seven of all paper made is printed paper, and the paper used for Bibles and Prayers is not inure than 1½ per cent. of the printed paper used—showing, I think, a great remissness somewhere in the Church. No drawback is allowed on the A B C book for the poor child, or the spelling-book; without the duty, those books would be decreased in price one half. I state my full conviction that you would do more good for the education of the people by a repeal of the paper duty than by granting the large amount placed on the Estimates, which will no doubt be voted this evening. Let us look at the question as a manufacturing question only. In doing this, let us take a glance at other branches of industry formerly subjected to excise duties. We will take, for instance, the printed calico duty, repealed thirty years ago. At that time it was objected the tax was so small that a printed gown was scarcely affected in its price by the extra duty for printing. Now, what is the result? Why, that a printed gown sells, for considerably less money than the duty formerly paid. The manufacturers and the printers at the time defended the duty; what has been the effect on our commerce in this repeal of the excise? Why, our trade has increased by millions, and we have so improved in our manufactures that we beat the whole world in our printed goods. The last manufacture freed from excise duty was the duty on glass. Now, the repeal of this duty has exhibited in a marvellous way the advantage of freeing our manufactures from the depressing influence of the exciseman. The quantity manufactured increases enormously every year, and our export trade increases in proportion. Without the repeal of this duty we should not have seen the Crystal Palace of 1851, and the great trade now done in tins country in every description of glass manufacture, and the employment of many thousands extra of the population. If this House should agree to a repeal of the paper duty, I have no doubt many more manufactories will spring up; and it is peculiarly an employment suited for the rural districts. I also think that vegetable fibre produced from the land will be extensively used in the manufacture of paper. Lately a mill for the manufacture of paper from twitch was established in the county of Lincoln. I will take the liberty of reading a letter from the manager on the subject:—

"We have now collected about 1,200 tons of twitch, and our doing so has tended to promote the interests both of landowners and landholders:

"1. By stimulating the farmer to clean his land, and as far as possible to eradicate from it a weed of most extraordinary rapidity of growth, and which, while it exhausts the land in a corresponding degree, often chokes and kills the young corn plant.

"2. By enabling the farmer, with the money paid him for his twitch, to buy a really serviceable manure, as a substitute for the small and oftentimes very questionable amount of benefit derived front the ashes of burnt twitch—abundance of ashes (when required for turnip sowing, &c.) being producible from the burning of other weeds, sedge, parings, and rubbish.

"By these two operations (thus stimulated) of cleaning and manuring, the land will be gradually and greatly improved, at small (if any) cost to the farmer, at the same time that the value of his crops will increase.

"My time being very fully occupied, I have very hastily and imperfectly replied to your queries; but I hope what I have written is sufficient to answer the purpose you had in view when you wrote.

"I am, Sir, yours obediently,

"SAMUEL SHARP.

"II. Ingram, Esq., M.P."

Paper is an article used in almost all other manufactures; in wrapping up articles, and in boxes, it forms a serious amount in the expense to which trade generally is subject. Many of our goods can scarcely compete with French manufactures on account of the freedom from paper duty in France. This grievance is complained of in all our manufacturing towns. Now, let us consider the paper duty as a source of revenue:—

Amount of Excise duties in the three first years of the century, the three last years of the old duties, the three first years of the new duties, and the three last years of which we have any account.

AMOUNT OF GROSS DUTY.—OLD DUTIES.
1803	£394,572
1804	359,278
1805	452,926
	3)1,206,776
Average	402,258

1834	£833,822
1835	868,437
1836	790,775
	3)2,403,034
Average	831,011
NEW DUTIES.
1837	£555,942
1838	584,162
1839	610,289
	3)1,750,393
Average	583,464
THREE LAST YEARS.
1855	£1,145,572
1856	1,123,561
1857	1,244,142
	3)3,513,275
Average	£1,171,091

"From this it appears that under the old duties the revenue from paper was a little more than doubled between 1804 and 1835, or in thirty-one years, while under the new duties the revenue doubled in eighteen years, or from 1838 to 1856. So much more advantageous are low than high duties, and so much more rapidly would the consumption of paper increase were there no duties at all."

In conclusion I would observe, that as the question of revenue is really the only thing under consideration, and as we have no advocates for the paper duty except on these grounds, I do say, with the greatest conviction of the truth, that the increased trade, the increased employment, the increased consumption of taxable articles which would necessarily follow from an abrogation of this duty, would compensate for the amount levied by the Excise on paper. I do hope, therefore, that the House will have the courage and the justice at once to pronounce its opinion that this tax is doomed, and that we shall not stand in the world as the exception in levying taxes on the intelligence, the literature, and the industry of the nation.

said, he was prepared to corroborate the statements of his hon. Friend the Member for Boston. He had been connected some years ago with the Art Journal, a publication which he believed had done more than any other to educate the people in a knowledge of art. The proprietors of that journal had paid £1,200 a year for eight years in paper duty alone, during which time they had derived no profit whatever from the publication. Personally, therefore, he felt a strong desire to see the duty abolished. He had, however, other reasons for the support of the Motion, for he had ascertained during his canvass for a seat in that House that the working classes felt a deep interest in the subject. The working men of Chester had in fact made him give a pledge that he would vote for the abolition of the duty, and he gave it cheerfully, because he felt that it evidenced a desire on the part of the working man to leave the public house in favour of more elevated pursuits. He hoped, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would assure the House that in the course of next year he would make arrangements to get rid of the duty altogether.

observed, that the paper duty was a tax which all parties appeared to agree in condemning; and, that in advocating its abolition it was extremely desirable to anticipate the financial arrangements of the coming year, for if they waited until the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought forward his Budget, they would then be told that they were too late, that all the financial arrangements had been made, and that it was impossible that they should be disturbed. He was also of opinion that the subject was one which might be fairly disdiscussed in connection with education, because education was not to be confined to the efforts made in normal schools, or to the subsidising of establishments in which the elements of education might be picked up. This tax, then, pressed heavily upon the means of education, not only as regarded the instruction given in normal and ordinary schools—in some of which, owing to the great cost of copy-books, children were only taught to write upon slates—but also as concerned that after instruction which was needed even by men who had gone through a University training, and was still more required by those humbler classes who left school merely with a knowledge of reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic. The cheap publications which were daily issued were the real means by which the education of the people was advanced, and it was upon these that the paper duty most heavily pressed. He confessed that in former times he was one of those who thought the repeal of the paper duty a question rather of dilitante legislation, but, on the repeal of the stamp duty, his attention was first called to the importance of the subject in consequence of his desiring, with some other gentlemen, to establich a penny newspaper. He then made the discovery that the whole question of whether it would be profitable or not turned upon the very question they were discussing—the paper duty—and that unless the circulation was enormously large, or the paper was conducted under the most favourable circumstances, it would be impossible to carry it on without loss. This fact applied to all the cheap publications, for it was found practically that the profit derivable from them was dependent in a large degree on the price of the paper as enhanced by the duty itself; and if the duty were removed, the difference would be so great as to enable the proprietor of a publication to employ a degree of talent he could not otherwise command, and to carry on his enterprise to an extent which it was now utterly impossible for him to achieve. A remarkable proof of the oppressive character of the duty appeared in the Report of the Commissioners of Excise; which stated, that so much did the trade in paper depend on the price, that when the price of raw material rose from 15s. in 1852 to 19s. in 1854, the production of paper remained stationary, and that in 1855 it actually diminished. It was at the following rate—154,000,000 lb. in 1852, when the price of the raw material was 15s.; 177,000,000 lb. when it was 16s., and rising from 16s. to 19s.; but 166,000,000 lb. only in 1855, when it was 19s. But, when the price of the raw material fell to 14s. the production of paper increased to 187,000,000 lb., and in 1857 to 191,000,000 lb. It was, therefore, found that the increase of 5s. in the price of the raw material actually resulted in a diminution of production. The amount of the duty was 14s., and from that single fact they could estimate what must be its depressing effect and oppressive character; for if an increase of 5s. in the price of the raw material produced such results, what must be the effect of an impost of 14s., and what the benefit produced by its total extinction? What would be the effect of taking off this duty? In America the consumption of paper was triple that of this country, and there could be no doubt that this difference was solely caused by the amount of the duty. If that duty were remitted it was obvious that the manufacture and consumption of paper in this country would quite equal what was experienced in America. Surely that was a consideration which ought to have great weight with the Chancellor of the Exche- quer in any future financial arrangement that he might be called on to make. He would not go into detail on the inconveniences that were experienced under the present system of excise, but he might observe that if there were no excise regulations it would be possible to print on paper as it came from the mill, without allowing it to dry and then submitting it again to the process of wetting, by which a considerable saving both of time and expense would be effected. There was no commodity that entered more largely into the general purposes connected with trade than paper. In the statute to which his right hon. Friend had referred there was but one exception allowed to the payment of duty, and that was on paper used for pressing woollen cloth. Now, it was difficult to see on what principle an exception was allowed in the case of paper used for pressing woollen cloth, and not in others. Last Session he moved for a return of the applications made to the Commissioners for a remission of the paper duty, with the names which accompanied those applications, and he must say that the return was a very extraordinary one both as regarded the applications made on the one hand and the concessions of the Commissioners on the other. A remission was made in favour of millboards and papier maché because, as was stated, "the existing regulations proved injurious to trade." A manufacturer asked for a remission of the duty on paper used in making buttons, and the Commissioners declared that the duty ought to be remitted; another sought for it on paper used in making patterns for jacquard looms; and so with regard to other articles of manufacture—as, for example, the cuttings of paper envelopes, to which reference had already been made. It seemed, indeed, that whenever a person was sufficiently persevering he succeeded in obtaining from the Treasury a remission of duty on the paper which he used as a manufacturer. But what good reason could be given for such practical anomalies? Why should the duty be remitted in the case of papier machié, or on the paper used in pressing cloth, and not on the paper employed in other kinds of manufacture? If equal justice was done, every manufacturer in Manchester was entitled to have the duty taken off all the paper he made use of for packing goods. And he would particularly ask, if the claim for exemption was admitted for commercial and manufacturing reasons, on what ground could they consistently insist upon the duty being levied upon paper which was used in the highest, the best, and the most righteous employment to which it could be devoted—the education of the people? Again, why should prayer-books printed in one form be exempt from the paper duty, while prayer-books printed in another form were charged? The exemption in favour of Bibles and prayer-books no doubt was originally made because at that time they were the principal means of education; and now, when the means of education were so largely extended, why should not the exemption be extended in the same proportion? Why should not every man be allowed to have his form of prayer free of this tax, and why should not all religious professions be put on the same level? Then, if they got quit of the tax, as far as education and manufactures were concerned, what remained of it? There seemed to him to be nothing left but waste paper, and surely the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not keep up an Excise for that? They had no alternative, therefore, but to repeal the entire duty. But there remained the question, how were they to find the Ways and Means to carry on the Government of the country. His answer to that was, reduce the expenditure of the country within reasonable limits. There were a great many causes that led to the late change of Government, some severely felt and some only expressed; and if there was one cause felt that more than any other led to the change, it it was the growing extravagant expenditure of the country. He could not, however, imagine that that expenditure would continue year after year to offer an obstacle to the removal of this and other pernicious taxes. Why, for example, should they not return to the average expenditure for the Army and Navy that existed between 1843 and 1853, when the Russian war was commenced? All his right hon. Friend asked was, that when they could reduce taxation the first tax taken off should be this inconvenient and oppressive paper duty. He hoped the subject would receive the serious attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He knew this tax to be one of the most vexatious, burthensome, and unjust, that pressed upon the community, and he hoped he would arrive at the conclusion that it was one which, before all others, should be made the subject of remission.

said, that from long experience as a paper manufacturer, he could confirm the statement of his right hon. Friend as to the injurious effects of the present duty. Many years ago he had exported paper to Monte Video, and hoped soon again to have that large market opened to him, but had been obliged to discontinue doing so by reason of the operation of the excise duty. He was glad to say that the Excise no longer interfered with the manufacture of paper, properly so called; but there was still a most cruel detention caused by the system of labelling. So great had been the recent changes in papermaking, that it would soon be absolutely necessary to introduce a new law or to repeal the duty altogether. Indeed it was difficult now to say what was paper. Three or four years ago a gentleman took out a patent for an improved parchment, but the Excise interfered, and insisted that the manufacture was paper and liable to the duty. The question came on for trial in the Court of Exchequer; but, after a long investigation, it was impossible to say whether the article was paper or not; and a verdict having passed for the Crown, a new trial was granted on account of the doubt in which the matter was involved. The question, however, was still unsettled. In the first trial the counsel for the defendant produced in court a number of untaxed articles used as paper, and amongst others a spelling-book, the material being cloth so closely woven that few persons were able to detect whether it was the produce of the loom or the paper mill. Was it not, too, an anomaly that cotton waste, which was formerly carted away as refuse, now that it was employed in the making of paper, should be subject to a duty six times the amount of that which was charged upon the cotton as it came originally from America? He would not advocate any measure that should endanger the public credit, but he could not forget that, if they were under an engagement to the public creditor, they were also under a long standing engagement to the paper manufacturers and the public in reference to this tax, which ought to be discharged. The paper tax and the soap tax were imposed together, as war taxes, in the time of Queen Anne. A few years ago the soap duty was remitted, and he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be prepared to carry out the remainder of the pledge of the Government of Queen Anne by abolishing the paper duty also.

Sir, while I by no means overlook or underrate the importance of the proposition contained in the Resolution proposed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashton, I would remind the House that have had an opportunity of expressing my opinion on this tax to the House before, and I have even given a vote in indication of it. I again take this opportunity of stating that I look upon the tax upon paper as one of those particular taxes which, when a favourable opportunity arises, I shall be very glad to see remitted and erased from our fiscal system. As well in a commercial as in a moral, literary, and educational point of view, I should be very glad if I felt it was consistent with my duty at this juncture to propose a remission of that tax. These are the opinions that I have always expressed upon that tax, as on all others of course, with due deference to my position as a Minister responsible for the state of the finances of the country and the condition of the public credit. I cannot, however, give my assent to the Resolution proposed by the right hon. Member for Ashton. There is a portion of it to which I would willingly find no objection, although I do not see the use of pressing such a declaration upon the House. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman "that the maintenance of the excise on paper as a permanent source of revenue would be impolitic;" but I cannot agree with him "that such financial arrangements ought to be made as will enable Parliament to dispense with that tax." I think that if a Resolution such as that contained in the latter portion of the Motion is carried, you will only cripple and hamper the Government, and I do not think it is fair to hamper the Government with any such declaratory Resolution on this particular tax, as we entertain very little difference of opinion on the topic with the right hon. Gentleman who proposes this Resolution. The paper tax alone, however, is not the only tax forming one of the great sources of revenue derived from indirect taxation that requires our consideration. Whether we look at the revenue derived from our Customs, or at the various branches of our inland revenue, there is no doubt that, notwithstanding the great changes and the great improvements which have occurred with respect to the mode of raising the revenue in these two particular departments during the last ten years, or, I might say, generally speaking, during the last twenty-five years, still there is a great deal that de- serves our consideration, and still there is great room for improvement in both these branches. Now, there are many duties in our Customs that really do not pay the cost of collecting and receiving them. That is a state of affairs which, in my opinion, it is not at all desirable should be maintained. When the cost of collection is not really paid by the duties that are levied, then I think it is quite clear that such an item should disappear from the schedule of taxation. Then there are a great many regulations in our Customs with reference to bonding, which require consideration and revision; and no doubt, in connection with the sister branch of revenue—namely, that derived from inland revenue—there are many subjects a consideration of which is very much required. The whole question of drawbacks and of credits is one which really ought not to be overlooked, and I admit that the regulations with regard to the production of paper are open to very serious objections, and that they ought to be considered, I am not prepared to say that the tax upon paper itself is not one which requires, if not immediate, yet early consideration; but the subjects are so numerous, both in the Customs and in the Excise, that I think it is the duty of the Government to submit both these branches of the revenue to an early and severe revision. It will be the duty of the Government, during the recess, to take all these subjects and heads of inquiry into consideration; and I trust that when the House meets again I shall be able to offer some suggestions worthy of its acceptance, and which may very considerably affect the state of the Treasury; but I hope that the House will not, by passing the Resolution proposed, hamper the course proposed to be taken by the Government, or cripple those efforts they desire to make in the way of improving that portion of the revenue which is derived from indirect taxation. Although an hon. Member who has spoken on this subject could not maintain that the present state of the Exchequer was one that would justify a proposition of this kind, he has yet indicated means by which further resources might be placed at our disposal in the reduction of our expenditure and public establishments. I would urge on time House, as I have formerly done, when they consider such subjects as the present, the importance of remembering that a reduction of the public establishments is not a thing that can be accom- plished in a moment. A proposition for the reduction of our public establishments, and especially of our naval and military establishments, requires long preparation—a preparation arising from circumstances that are not mere circumstances of routine. Public expenditure, as I have frequently felt it to be my duty to impress on the consideration of this House—public expenditure depends on public policy; and it is only by a change in that policy that you can ultimately and considerably affect the expenditure either way. Now, I hope that the policy pursued by Her Majesty's Government with respect to their foreign arrangements and relations has not been of a character that would give the House any reason to believe that we are anxious to encourage a wasteful expenditure in our military or naval establishments, or that, on the other hand, we are not open to the great advantage that would accrue to the country—taking a more selfish and contracted view of the question—from a reasonable and economical administration of financial affairs, and a fair and well-considered reduction of public expenditure. In this way we should have more means at our command for a reduction of taxation, and when, in due course, we can effect a reduction of expenditure no one will be more glad to hail such a state of affairs than myself, and no one will be more happy to propose a reduction in expenditure or a remission in taxation, which will be the natural consequence of such a state of affairs. But I must repeat, I hope the House will not hamper the Government by passing Resolutions respecting taxes on which the House cannot act. It is quite impossible at the present moment that you can take off the paper duty, and why should you bind any Government to remit that particular tax, when you are aware at this moment of the various considerations, and seeing that the question of additional taxation must come on in the course of a year hence, that must act on the Government before they can come to a decision on this question. I say, therefore, that under the circumstances it appears to me to be highly impolitic and inexpedient to pass any Resolution on the subject, and that it would be particularly unfair to a Government which, on the subject of this particular tax, does not wish to conceal its general opinion that it is a tax that ought not to form a permanent source of revenue. I trust, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman will be satisfied with having brought forward this important question before the House and the country, and that he will not press to a division the Resolution he has proposed.

said, the speech which they had just heard was much the sort of one which they might have expected any Chancellor of the Exchequer to make on such a subject; but his right hon. Friend (Mr. M. Gibson) might feel satisfied that his case was so good that no Member of that House had attempted to make any reply to it, and the friends out of doors by whom he was supported might take courage when they knew that the paper tax was so bad that no one in that assembly was prepared to make the smallest defence of it. He thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer took too serious a view of what he called the danger of hampering a Government. If the right hon. Gentleman would look back only a few years to the questions connected with this question, which had been already satisfactorily settled, he would remember that his (Mr. Bright's) right hon. Friend induced him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) on one occasion to vote in favour of a Resolution which had reference to the newspaper stamp; and he believed the effect of passing that Resolution was very much to bring about the abolition of that stamp. He believed the object of his right hon. Friend in bringing forward this Resolution was merely to put on the records of the House the opinions of hon. Members on both sides, so that whenever the condition of the Treasury should be such as to permit the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consent to the abolition of this tax, the right hon. Gentleman would select it as the very first for remission, and so get rid of it. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to certain other taxes, particularly the Customs duties; but he would undertake to say that the right hon. Gentleman was not more anxious than he (Mr. Bright) or his right hon. Friend (Mr. M. Gibson) was to get rid of the obnoxious and unproductive Customs duties to which he had referred. He thought, however, it would be very easy to show that the abolition of a Customs duty of an equal amount in money would not afford anything like the relief to the public which would result from the abolition of this particular Excise upon paper. It was first of all a tax which operated as a code of pains and penalties upon a considerable number of persons engaged in this country in carrying on a useful and meritorious occupation, and upon different important branches of industry. He did not believe it was possible for any person not engaged in a trade which was brought under the cognizance of the Excise to form any fair idea of the intolerable nuisances which arose from having an exciseman about one's premises. We lived in a free country—at least we boastingly told people so abroad—and we had a certain amount of freedom, but we had not the freedom to manufacture paper. Every exciseman was necessarily a spy. He might dress very well, and be very civil; but he had an awkward habit of coming in and out of people's premises at times when they did not want him. He trusted nothing to people's word, he examined everything they did, and insisted that they should give a particular statement about everything they did or contemplated doing in regard to their trade. Now, inhabitants of a free country ought not to be subjected to this sort of inquisition, and on that ground alone persons engaged in that trade had a right to ask for relief. Another important point was, that the duty was a tax upon the raw material of another important manufacture—of books and newspapers. He, as a cotton manufacturer, had been relieved from a small tax which was felt to be injurious, but those who were engaged in the manufacture of books were exposed to a tax of a most onerous character, the grievance of which none but those engaged in that manufacture could rightly comprehend. An eminent publisher had stated that in twenty years he had paid £80,000 to writers and authors, and in the same period had paid £50,000 to Government for paper duty. Other facts of a similar character had been narrated to the house that evening. Those were circumstances which pressed upon a trade more than could be measured by the mere amount of money levied upon it, and £1,000,000 of taxation remitted upon tea or sugar would not afford one-fourth the relief which the remission of the £1,000,000 paper duty would afford. One respectable paper manufacturer in the neighbourhood of Birmingham had told him that he paid £120 a year in wages to men whose sole occupation it was to attend upon the exciseman upon his premises. With regard to school books, the right hon. Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. G. Hamilton) would tell the House that of every 1,000 books published by that University—and some of the best school books were published there—not less than 250 were seized by the exciseman for the Excise duty upon paper. There was one other fact he wished to mention. His right hon. Friend (Mr. M. Gibson) had referred to the deputation which waited upon the Earl of Derby. He (Mr. Bright) was present upon that occasion and heard one paper manufacturer from Yorkshire state that when the commercial panic broke out he had entered into a contract to supply a quantity of paper. the original cost of which at the mill was £400, while the duty was another £400. He had to pay the duty in six weeks, but he had to receive payment in a bill at four months, at a period when the commercial hurricane was sweeping over the country. It really was astonishing that a trader could subsist at all under such circumstances, and it was not exactly a fair argument for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to put £1,0000,000 of tea or sugar duties in comparison with the same amount raised by the paper duty, which interfered with trade in a most offensive and ruinous manner. He would remind the representatives of Ireland that they were interested in this matter, for when the paper duty should be abolished a larger quantity of that article would be required, which would be made doubtless from straw, and especially from oat straw, which was best adapted for that purpose Ireland possessed that material in abundance, water power at command, and a good supply of labour. Ireland, therefore, offered an admirable field for the extension of the paper trade, and consequently there could be no doubt that that country would be benefited by the abolition of this impost. The agricultural districts of England, too, would see revived their ancient paper-mills, which, under the operation of the present Excise duty, had ceased to exist, and he would recommend the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, upon his next visit to Buckinghamshire, to ask of any papermaker there, if one should be left, and he would then learn how much that industry had been thwarted and garotted—how much capital had been lost under the influence of this obnoxious tax. His right hon. Friend was justified in asking the House to say that a duty was bad for which no defence had been made, and respecting which there was so universal an admission of its in jurious effects, and therefore had a right to ask them to say "that the maintenance of the Excise on paper as a permanent source of revenue would he impolitic." The Chancellor of the Exchequer wished his right hon. Friend to stop there, and so far was willing to agree to the Motion. It was true that as to the other portion of the Motion there might be two opinions as to the expediency of passing a Resolution pressing the Government to act in a particular way, when it could hardly act in any way, and, therefore, he thought that his right hon. Friend might fairly be asked to confine his Resolution to the words he had just read, and if that were agreed to the House would be merely doing what, in fact, all speakers had done, expressing a complete condemnation of this tax. He agreed that it was not desirable to hamper the Government, and if the House declared that it regarded the paper duty as impolitic as a permanent source of revenue, they would have made a step in the direction in which he wished them to travel, and towards freeing the paper trade and all those instruments by which knowledge was mainly diffused throughout the country from the pressure of a tax which was alike destructive to industry and an impediment to education.

said, he should not have added anything in prolongation of this debate, had not the right hon. Gentleman who made the Motion attributed to him opinions he did not entertain, and expressions which he had not used. The right hon. Gentleman had described him as regarding the paper duty abstractedly as an excellent tax, which ought to be maintained at all hazards.

denied that he had used the words "at all hazards." He said the right hon. Baronet expressed an opinion that it was a good tax.

remembered that what he said upon a former occasion when making a financial statement was, that comparing the paper duty with other taxes, there being a necessity for raising a certain amount of revenue, it did not appear to him that in the circumstances of the country it was expedient to abolish that duty. He had a distinct recollection that he said no more than that, comparing it with other duties there was no reason for placing it before others which it was expedient to repeal. When the right hon. Gentleman accused him of calling it a good duty, he would ask, would any one point out among the whole list of duties levied a single "good duty?" There was not a single duty to which solid and valid objections could not be raised. Every duty was attended by its own peculiar disadvantages and was productive of inconvenience to the community. But what the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to do was, to select those duties which compared with others were productive of the least amount of inconvenience. He objected that, upon a mere abstract proposition, without reference to any particular amount of expenditure or revenue, they should be called upon to lay down the proposition that this particular duty should be abolished. They were told that in a particular year the income tax was to be abolished. That announcement was received with approbation by many hon. Members of that House, but it must be remembered that it involved the fact that in three years we should abandon £5,000,000 of taxation. The question then arose, under those circumstances, not whether any other tax could be remitted, but whether some new one must not be created. When the proposition was made as to the prospective abolition of the income tax he made the same observation as he now did, that it was objectionable for the House to bind itself down by an abstract proposition with respect to the prospective reduction of a particular tax. When they knew that they had a surplus revenue and the means of diminishing the taxation of the country, then was the proper time to consider what, under existing circumstances, were the taxes which had the first claim to reduction. He saw no advantage in the House binding itself down by prospective Resolutions of this kind, which it might subsequently find inapplicable to the circumstances of the case.

was understood to say that he was always glad to listen to the honest and direct statements of the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright). The hon. Gentleman had called on Gentlemen on that (the Ministerial) side of the House to defend this tax. The hon. Gentleman must not suppose that he (Mr. Drummond) would defend any tax. He had heard with delight what the hon. Gentleman had said about the exciseman in a man's house, but he only wondered that the hon. Gentleman had expended his indignation on that subject in connection with this miserable tax of one million, and never said a word about the malt tax. This motion was, after all, only a flattering of newspapers—that was the only end with which this annual Motion was made. It was the newspapers which supported hon. Gentlemen opposite that it was sought to catch in this trap. Yet he did not believe that constituents were as green as hon. Members of that House thought they were. He suspected that they saw through speeches, and motions, and votes in that House in a way hon. Members little thought. But he must say, that simply repealing a tax, without pointing out the way of raising the same amount of revenue, was only, in other words, robbing the public. The words might be different, but the thing was the same. The repeal of all taxes must stand or fall together; and, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said, that was in effect a question of policy. If he (Mr. Drummond) had his way, he should like to double and quadruple that tax which was called the tax on knowledge.

who was indistinctly heard, was understood to say, that he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he said that this tax was one of the few remaining Excise duties which, as being vexatious, ought not to be kept up as a permanent source of revenue. With regard to several Excise duties, it had been found that after their abolition the revenue continued as large as before, and he believed that their abolition gave a spring and an impulse to the general revenue. But as to the exact time for repealing this or that tax, great latitude should be given to a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He thought that this was not the exact moment for such a step. When a Chancellor of the Exchequer was called on to repeal a tax, he ought to have before him the whole of the Customs and Excise duties, and on a review of them all, to ascertain which would cause the most benefit to the public by its repeal. There was a question which had been touched on by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) with regard to which he (Lord J. Russell) differed in opinion with that hon. Member. The House would recollect that last year the then Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed that the income tax should be kept up at 7d. in the pound, and that, instead of 1s. 3d., the duty on tea would be 1s. 5d.; and that there should be a proportionate increase in the duty on sugar. This year they had allowed the income tax to fall from 7d. to 5d. in the pound; but they had kept up the duty on tea at 1s. 5d., and also retained the proportionate increase in the duty on sugar. It was, therefore, almost a matter of good faith when next there was a reduction in taxation that the duties on tea and sugar should be reduced, which were, in fact, war duties; and there could be no greater claim for reduction of taxation than in those articles of consumption which entered so largely into the comforts of the people. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he was in office before, was of that opinion; and he (Lord J. Russell) was sure, that if there was a duty of 1s. on tea, the increased consumption would soon bring up the revenue. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take these taxes into consideration. He trusted his right hon. Friend would not press his Resolution, but would assent to the suggestion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leaving out the latter part, be satisfied with the declaration contained in the first paragraph, "that the paper duty ought not to form a permanent source of revenue," and as the amount was so small it would probably be one of the first taxes which would be repealed.

said, that as he understood there was no objection to the first part of his Resolution—namely, that the retention of the paper duty was impolitic, he would withdraw his Resolution, and move—

"That in the opinion of the House the maintenance of the Excise duty on paper as a permanent source of revenue was impolitic."

said, he apprehended that if this Motion was agreed to, it did not commit the House to the opinion that there was no other tax equally impolitic.

In assenting to this Motion, I must express a hope that the House tnay be allowed at once to go into Committee of Supply, and proceed with the Vote on education.

said, before the question was put, he wished to say a word. He hoped that it was clearly understood that the Resolution meant nothing.

in the Chair.

said, he supposed the Committee would naturally expect that before they assented to the Vote, he should furnish them with some information as to the present position and future prospects of the important question in connection with which so large a sum of money was required at their hands. He should endeavour to do so as shortly as was consistent with his duty. He had, since his accession to the office which he had the honour to hold, endeavoured to render the code of by-legislation which bore upon the question as distinct as possible, and he was happy to be able to state that, owing to the very valuable assistance which he had received in carrying out that object from Mr. Lingen, the successor to Sir Kaye Shuttleworth in the office of Secretary to the Council of Education, not only the Minutes of the Council from the day upon which it had first been called into active existence were chronologically arranged, but that a classification of the several subjects which came under the particular superintendence of that department had been completed. He might further observe, that all the additional Minutes would be from time to time codified, in accordance with the principle upon which he had proceeded in the case of those which had already been arranged. Having said thus much with respect to the form in which the information in reference to the question might be placed in a clear and concise manner before Parliament, he should, with the permission of hon. Members, direct their attention to the Vote to which they were asked to assent, and which he would beg them to regard under three distinct heads. The whole amount of the Vote for public education in Great Britain for the current year was, in round numbers, £663,000, of which sum £157,000 might be considered as being expended under the head of building and furnishing schools; £400,000 in training various classes of schoolmasters; and £57,000 in defraying the expenses connected with the management of those schools and in the payment of the salaries of inspectors. The £157,000 might again be subdivided into the two sums of £150,000 for building and £7,000 for the purchase of maps, diagrams, and scientific apparatus; while the £400,000 might be looked upon as having for its principal items £230,000 for the payment of the annual stipends of pupil teachers and gratuities to the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses instructing them, £45,000 for capitation grants in England and Wales, and the remainder in different sums in augmentation of salaries of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, grants to assistant teachers, and grants to training, reformatory, and industrial schools. £16,000 of the remaining sum of £57,000 to which he had alluded, being expended upon the maintenance of the establishment in London, and £40,000 in defraying the cost of inspection. The increase in the present as compared with the Vote for last year amounted to £83,000, and that sum, he might add, might be spread over the whole of the items of the Vote with the exception of two — namely, the Vote for building, which was the same as that of last year, and the grant for assistant teachers. Now, the increase of £83,000, which he had just mentioned, must, he thought, be a circumstance of unmixed satisfactions to the Committee. There were, indeed, only two suppositions upon which the contrary could fairly be anticipated to be the case; the one being that the present system of national education was one of which the Committee did not approve, and therefore desired to have changed; the other, that the money laid out upon the promotion of that system was improperly and wastefully expended. If the system was a good one, the growth of the grant must be a source of satisfaction. If the organization under which the Vote was expended was a healthy one, its income must be a matter of congratulation. With regard to the system—namely, the subsidizing out of the Treasury the local efforts of all recognized religious denominations—that was the object for which the Vote was asked, and which the House had adopted. He would not enter now into a discussion of other systems of educa- tion; he would not say whether a wholly voluntary system would be efficacious; but he would only say, in passing, that no one entirely depended on that system, except in theory. With regard to a system founded on local rating, whether rightly or wrongly, the House had always resolved to understand by it, either the domination of one religion or the elimination of all religion in the system of education, and neither of these systems would the House accept. It might then be assumed that the existing system was the system adopted by the country. He did not take the same gloomy view as some persons did of the capability of the system to supply the educational wants of the country for a long time to come. With regard to the probable extension of the system, and the limits which might be set to the expense which it entailed, he might he permitted to state very briefly the calculation which he had made. We had laid out upon buildings for educational purposes, in the purchuse of furniture, &c., about £1,000,000 from the period when the first grant had been made. That sum might be looked upon as permanent capital, which, at the rate of 6 per cent, would constitute an annual charge on the Treasury of £60,000. Now, the current expenses for public education was, deducting the cost of building and furniture, £500,000, which, added to the £60,000 which he had just mentioned, made the entire annual charge upon the Treasury in connection with the subject £560,000. With that amount of expenditure it was sought to provide for the education of 800,000 children. Now, taking the population of England, Scotland, and Wales at 24,000,000, one-eighth of that number, or 3,000,000 would come within the range of persons requiring education, from which number, if one-third were deducted to make allowance for those who would receive their education at private schools, 2,000,000 of children would still be left dependent for the means of instruction upon the national grant. The present rate of expenditure contemplated, as he had said before, the education of 800,000 children; and, starting from that fact as a basis of calculation, it was easy to show by computation for how much the education of 2,000,000 children could be dealt with, namely, about £1,400,000. That sum might be greatly economised in its extension. The building grants had naturally decreased; the grants to normal and training schools were almost complete; and he, therefore, hoped that £1,000,000 a year would be sufficient at the present rate of population to meet the educational demands of all the children who might be expected to be brought into schools aided by Treasury grants. Now, if he were right in that view, he did not think the Committee ought to object very strongly to intrusting the expenditure of so large a sum to such a department as the Council of Education, especially if the minutes of departments were regularly kept and produced for the inspection of the House of Commons, and were classified and codified as was at present the case. Every hon. Member of that house was equally anxious to carry out the end aimed at, and the only difference was as to the means. Now, it might be a source of satisfaction to the Committee, and perhaps might tend to abridge any proposed debate that evening, if he informed them that the Commission which the house had agreed to address Her Majesty for some months ago on the Motion of the First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir J. Packington) was formed and would be gazetted, he believed, to-morrow. He had certainly opposed that Commission, but now that it was formed it would be his wish, as it was his duty, to do all in his power to render their labours efficient and useful, and he thought it possible that they might throw some light on this great subject. It was not for him to say that the existing system of education was the only one possible in this country. In such a centralized system what was gained in strength and efficiency was certainly lost in want of proper control over local expenditure, and of that active interest which everybody took in works which were immediately and solely the result of local efforts. But could this more efficient and economical system be obtained? Was it possible to avoid that duplication of grants and of machinery, and that perhaps rather wasteful application of public money, which resulted from the use of religious denominational agency? Other nations might get rid of the difficulty by recognizing but one form of religion, and America by recognizing none, but in this country he did not see how they could dispense with the religious machinery now made available. With regard to the present expenditure, he had heard it said that the terms of the minute of Council in distributing the education grants led to the neglect of the poor districts throughout the country, while the rich obtained an undue proportion of aid. He thought the alarm prevailing on this point, however, was a good deal exaggerated. For his part he did not willingly recognize the plea of poverty in any district. There were always landlords somewhere, and if the mere fact of their being absentees or unwilling to contribute their fair share were once admitted, the effect would be to create the pauperism which was assumed to exist. A practical example of this kind was afforded in a metropolitan district, St. George's in the East, which was called poor, and which was said to be unable to provide education for its inhabitants. An active incumbent, however, found that, though a great part of the inhabitants of the district were in a wretched condition, the landlords were living in luxury; he appealed to their honour and self-interest, and, through their help, the district, poor as it was said to be, was supplied with perhaps better schools than existed in any other part of London. The plea of poverty, therefore, was one which ought not to be too readily admitted, for he believed that every district of England had, if properly appealed to, sufficient means of its own, subsidized, of course, by the State as other districts were, to provide for its own educational wants. He believed a more just complaint was that these grants did not meet the wants of the remote agricultural districts; but he believed they must be content to put up with that smaller success which was so unsatisfactory to those who were sanguine in their views upon national education. They must be content with a low age and short attendance from the pupils in the country schools. It was certainly lamentable to hear as they did from Mr. Moncrieff the School Inspector of the Northern Counties, that seven-tenths of the grants in his district went to the education of children under ten years of age; but any attempt to keep the children of the labouring classes under intellectual culture after the very earliest age at which they could earn their living would be as arbitrary and improper as it would be to keep the boys of Eton and Harrow at spade labour. There must be labourers, and there must be scholars, and no Act of Parliament could make these convertible terms. All that could be done was, to make the most of the time during which the children remained at school, and to supplement the day instruction by evening schools. With regard to the education in the remote agricultural districts, he confessed he thought it was of rather too ambitious a kind. From the reports recently issued, it was clear that this grant was mainly expended in towns, and that the agricultural villages did not share in it to the extent they ought to obtain. They were coming more and more within the scope of the grant, but not so rapidly as could be wished, and he believed the fact to be, that when a Government department undertook the education of the poor, the tendency was to make the standard of instruction too high and raise it above the level of those who were to be benefited. If time had allowed, he would have been glad to have made some remarks on industrial schools which came within the Vote, and which he considered of primary importance in the distribution of the money, because in them you had a class of children who were clearly altogether dependent for their education on the charity of individuals and the patronage of the State. With regard to middle-class schools, which, of course, required no such assistance, he was happy to say that this was the first day on which the University of Oxford was conducting its middle-class examinations throughout the kingdom. This movement afforded a most significant and satisfactory evidence of the increased appreciation of education which now prevailed among the middle classes. He believed this to be owing in no small degree to the immense pressure put by the State on the education of the labouring classes, which had thus extended its influence to the upper ranks of society. He was convinced that if employers only pressed forward vigorously, as Englishmen always did everything they took in hand, the intellectual training of their children, the chief difficulties of national education would be solved, for, when employers had once been highly instructed and sought for skilled labourers, there was no fear but that the class below would answer this demand, and readily and eagerly seek for the advantages of a good education.

said, he was glad that we now had a real educational Estimate, and that all the items which naturally came under that head were associated together. Still, however, he must express his regret that the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) had not taken a larger view of time subject. His speech fell very short of the various details in the Estimate and he had made no reference in his statement to schools of design, to schools for art education, to museums of practical geology, or to institutions of a similar character. He thought the Minister whose duty it was to propose these Estimates to the Committee ought to furnish them with a general statement, not only with regard to schools, but with respect to the manner, and habits, and effects of school education on the people. He (Mr. Ewart) hoped that, with regard to the poorer classes, endeavours would be made to afford them a really useful education, for he found it was stated by the School Inspectors that, in consequence of the adoption of a practical education for their children, the labouring classes were beginning to appreciate the means of instruction provided for them. In Scotland hereditary teaching had shown the people the value of education. It was now a part of their nature and habits, and he trusted that, it would soon produce the same effect in this country. He believed that the existing system of education, with its complications of masters, pupil teachers, Queen's scholars, and inspectors, was very good as far as it went, but he regarded it merely as a temporary system, which must be replaced by one more extensive and efficient.

said, that while he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) that this was not, and ought not to be, made a party question, he entirely differed from that right hon. Gentleman in his statement, that no man now depended upon the Voluntary system. He had felt seine hesitation in expressing his opinions upon this occasion, for he knew that it was commonly supposed that those who in any way doubted the propriety or the application of the continually increasing Parliamentary grants to this object, were opposed to the great cause of popular education. For himself, he yielded to no man in his interest in that cause. In his youth he had been a Sunday-school teacher, and up to the present time he had aided educational efforts to the extent of his power. But he looked upon it as a most important question—a question which called for the earnest consideration of the house, how far the Parliamentary grants, commencing at £20,000 — already increased to £1,000,000, and going on at a rate which, on the authority of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would, are long, amount to three or four millions—answered the purpose for which they were made. Of course this vast expenditure involved a large amount of patronage, extending over the country, and centring in the educational department. By a Return he had recently moved for of the means and salaries of those inspectors and sub inspectors appointed by the Board, who received upwards of £100 per annum, he found that about £40,000 per annum was spent in those salaries, and out of fifty-six inspectors and sub-inspectors, thirty-two were clergymen and ministers, having, he concluded, other sources of income than their school inspectorships, though whan he found that some received £600 per annum, as well as £250 per annum for travelling expenses, he confessed he thought the Council might fairly require the whole of the time of these gentlemen. He was not about to detain the Committee with going into the various arguments for the Voluntary system; but let them recollect, that sonic of the clearest and closest reasoners who had written on the subject, still doubted the efficiency and efficacy of the present system. He would quote a few lines from an able writer on this subject:—

"We have abundant evidence, if we will but look around us, how, under the pretence of educating the people, they may be trained almost to anything; and it appears to me quite possible by this insidious system to undermine the liberties of a people, and rob them, by slow degrees, of their most cherished rights, when all other more direct means of attack would fail in accomplishing the purpose. It is the moral result of education that should be kept in view, and we should remember that by the means we adopt to promote education, we are teaching a lesson, and more certainly educating the people, than by the books we place before them. If the channel through which education is conveyed to the people lead them to undervalue independence and self-reliance; if it lead them to a craving for help from Government to do that which is essentially the duty of the individual; then I say the lesson so taught is bad, pernicious, and enervating."

So far was he (Mr. Gilpin) from agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) that no man now had faith in the Voluntary principle, that lie believed that that principle had been the mainspring of educational effort, long before many of the present advocates of education were alive. Let it he remembered (for after the statement of the President of the Education Board it was only fair that the other side of the question should be shown) that there were those who believed that Government aid was not necessary, and that ample means for the education of the people would be provided by voluntary agency, as fast as and faster than the people were prepared to desire it, and avail themselves of it. On this point he would read an extract:—

"Government has contributed the soon of £654,851 during the last eighteen years towards increasing school accommodation. In the same period there was subscribed, towards the same schools, by the voluntary benevolence of the promoters, the sum of £1,637,534 5s. 6d. Of the total sum there has, therefore, been contributed:—

By voluntary benevolence	72	per cent.
By Government ditto	28	per cent.
	100

Was the proportion contributed by Government actually needed or not? We are happy to say that we can answer this question with all the formal exactness required by the official mind. The total number of children for whom accommodation has been created by this great expenditure is £529,410. The total number of buildings erected or enlarged, 4,247. Keeping these figures before us, we will go on to another table. We find in the general summary of results of inspection for the year 1855–6, that the school inspectors visited during that year 5,179 schools, in which the average attendance of children was 571,239; the attendance on examination day, 645,905; but the accommodation at eight square feet of superficial area per child, 877,762. The accommodation, therefore, exceeds the largest attendance by exactly 231,857. But Government has only provided accommodation for 28 per cent of 529,014 or 148,124. There would, therefore, have been an excess of accommodation over attendance in the inspected schools alone, without the aid of a single penny from the State, from the time the first grant was voted until now, for no fewer than 83,733 children. This result will be seen more clearly by the following statement:—

INSPECTED SCHOOLS.
Actual accommodation	877,762
Accommodation required	645,905
Surplus	231,857
Deduct accommodation provided by Government aid in inspected schools from the commencement of grants (namely, 28 per cent of 529,014)	148,124
Surplus without Government aid.	83,733'

It would be, he thought, worthy of the right hon. Gentleman's inquiring, what proportion of those whom we educated as pupil teachers with the hope that they would continue to devote themselves to the work of education, did continue so to devote themselves. He thought it would be found that a large proportion became clerks, mechanics, and labourers, and however much it might be desired to have able clerks, he submitted that this was not the purpose of these Educational Grants. Again, we had the Capitation. "One of the items in the expenditure which is most rapidly increasing is the Capitation Grant." This was originally confined to rural districts—it is now extended to large towns. Of this grant, the Rev. F. Temple, late Principal Inspector, has thus written in the "Oxford Essays:"—

"The Capitation Grant has had a slight effect in improving the regularity of attendance. It has compelled a few more schools than before to employ certificated teachers; it has induced a few other less important improvements. But the probability is, that two-thirds of it has been spent on schools which were doing quite as well without it; and that two-thirds, therefore, has not been spent in promoting education, but in relieving others of the burden of doing so."

Now the duty and the privilege of the working man, as, indeed, of all men, was to provide for the education of his children,—physically, intellectually, morally, religiously,—and he who will teach the working classes of this country the importance of education, and induce them, themselves to provide for the education of their little ones, would do more for the success of real practical education than all your Government grants. On this point he agreed with the following passage, extracted from The Times of April 21:—

"But, though we might not be able to hit a blot in the Budget, there is a blot in modern finance which shows itself in this Budget, and this is the true mark of most of the criticisms made upon it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself has pointed it out in the continual and still increasing additions to the national burdens, in the shape of miscellaneous, civil service, and extraordinary expenses of all kinds. The Education grant within a very few years has reached a million; and, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer says, if it goes on at its present rate, will soon be three or four millions a year. Yet there is scarcely a shadow of Parliamentary interference. Any subject whatever, anybody's petty quarrel with anybody will get a night or two; but the working of a system which is fast absorbing the whole education of the country, and moulding the future mind of England, does not get an hour in the Session. In a country like ours, where people are really able to govern themselves, and rich enough to find the money, the less done from Downing Street, and even Parliament itself, the better for the work, and the better for the people."

The House would do well to consider the question:—Are these grants, large already, and continually increasing, really serving the cause of free, sound, and unsectarian education, or are they paralyzing the arm of voluntary effort, which cannot be prized too highly, and subversive of that voluntary principle which, in his opinion, formed no small part of individual success and of national greatness? He trusted that he should obtain from the House a response to his sincere, though he was well aware, imperfect advocacy, of a principle which lay, in his opinion, near the very root of national morality and independence.

said, that he was sure the hon. Gentleman did not attempt to mislead the House, but he felt that his statements were calculated to have that effect. Who would understand from his praises of the voluntary system that so far from the great advance lately made in education being owing entirely to voluntary efforts, it was notorious that those voluntary efforts had in a great measure been called into existence by Government aid? If the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down would refer to the state of education twenty-five years ago, before these grants were commenced, and when the schools were pray entrusted to broken-down shopkeepers and discarded serving-maids, he would very soon see that the voluntary system by itself was not to be depended on for meeting the wants of the country. That system was now discarded in the United States, in Germany, in France, indeed in every country which had made any advances towards civilization, and to say that it could have produced the effects in England which had been produced by our present system was really to throw aside all the evidence furnished by the facts of the case. The hon. Gentleman's argument as to the pupil teachers was scarcely fair. He had complained that the pupil teachers did not in many cases follow out the profession of a teacher; but he would remind the Committee that the pupil teachers gave full value in their services as pupil teachers for all the payment they received. It would not be fair that a boy apprenticed at the age of thirteen should be held to be bound for life to the work of a schoolmaster; and in these days, when there was such a great demand for skilled labour, the country was almost as much benefited by some of these young men finding employment as engineers or clerks as if they had remained schoolmasters. For his own part he rejoiced at the extension of this system, knowing, as he did, that every £1 advanced by Government, called out £2 from the voluntary subscriptions of the people.

said, he wished to direct attention to the reduction of the capitation grant to those very useful institutions, the ragged schools. By a minute of Council of June 2nd, 1856, a grant of 50s. per head per annum was made to them, to enable them to feed those who resorted thither, it being considered impossible to induce the lowest portion of the juvenile population to attend those schools unless they were provided with food. The effect of that minute was to give a great impulse to ragged schools, and the success of their efforts had been very considerable. By the minute of the 2d of December last, however, the allowance had been reduced to 5s. a year, which was totally inadequate for the purpose. He hoped that the Government would restore these schools to the position in which they were placed by the minute of June, 1856; for unless they did so, there was great danger that they might cease to exist. The sum required for this purpose was so trifling, compared with the object to be accomplished, that he thought the most parsimonious Government could not object to it. He observed, also, that the allowance to industrial schools was so niggardly as to baffle all the attempts of those who were interested in them. It was only £5 a year each, while the reformatory schools, which were institutions of a kindred nature, received £18 or £19 a year each. He suggested that all these schools should be placed under the management of that large and well-organized department, the convict department, and that the question of the aid to be afforded to them should be withdrawn altogether from the Committee of Education.

said, he agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, that the class of children to whom he referred stood most in need of the fostering hand of those who had the disposal of the public money. He was glad to hear that a Commission would shortly commence its labours on this subject, and he thought that the proper time for a complete revision of the plans which had hitherto been pursued in the matter of education would be when the Commissioners should have collected all their evidence, and have presented their Report upon the subject. Then, too, would be the time to inquire whether that combination of the voluntary principle with Government interference, whether that delegation of instruction altogether to the religious bodies scattered throughout the country, whether that heterogeneous and mongrel plan, in short, which was now in vogue was the most efficacious one for the country to pursue. He suspected at they would find that it was not, and certainly the Report which had just been made tended to confirm him in that impression. It was by no means an encouraging Report. They were told that the same amount was to be asked for this year as last for the erection of school buildings, when the fact was that they had already done a great deal too much in that direction. School building had been carried on throughout the country until it was stated, on good authority, that there was now accommodation for twenty or thirty per cent more pupils than were ever gathered together. The impulse to erect a school was generally strong. It appealed to one's liberality which poured out with a gush, but did not continue to flow permanently so as to support the school. They were not told in the Report that there was any improvement in the ages of the children who attended the schools or in the length of their attendance. So far from this being the case, the children presented a younger appearance every year, and the schools were degenerating into a better kind of infant schools, by no means answering the purposes for which they were intended. Until they could devise some mode for insuring the continued attendance of children for a greater length of time all their efforts to promote general education would be vain. They were not told so much either of the moral effect of the education imparted as he would fain have heard. They still found from the gaol returns that by far the larger proportion of prisoners consisted of those who were not entirely ignorant, but who had been at some school or other, such as now existed—a class of schools of which one of the inspectors himself said that it would be by no means a gratifying thing to the lovers of education if every child in the country were in one of them. They were too often only the portals of the gaol or the ginshop. This too must be attributed to the system which had been established. On those instructed for the office of schoolmaster there had been a great waste of the public money. They had trained people for an office which offered no encouragement, no ambition, nothing but solitary starvation, and which, consequently, many abandoned to enter upon more profitable paths of life. He doubted whether there was any ground for the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that education covered a greater area than heretofore. If they took the number of children of the school age in the last census and compared it with the number in former years, they would find that the number of children of that age who were neither at school nor at work was continually on the increase. Their exertions did not keep pace with the population. There was still an increasing mass of ignorance, and consequently of vice, which required very different and much more energetic modes of struggling with than any yet adopted. He believed the voluntary system had egregiously failed. The mixed system had also failed; and it was only to be hoped the Report of the Royal Commission would put them in the right way. He believed the Government could do more indirectly than directly for the encouragement of education; on that account he had been glad to hear the discussion which preceded their going into Committee; the repeal of all taxes which interfered with the diffusion of knowledge would tend much to the spread of education. He had also heard with satisfaction the announcement that the University of Oxford had their examinations under the new system; he believed those examinations would tend to create an honest and honourable ambition in the minds of young men connected with mechanics' institutions and other associations for self-culture, and eventually create a public opinion in favour of good education, not only amongst them, but in the class below them. If they examined the returns they would find the schools remarkable for giving good instruction were more frequented than the others, thus showing that even the poor were able to appreciate a good education. He trusted the new University movement would create a public opinion in favour of good education amongst the lower classes; if that were done they would require neither the help of Government nor the charity of congregations

said, he hoped that the Government would not break faith with the ragged schools the patrons of which had incurred considerable expense on the faith that Government help would be continued to them. He protested against the transfer of ragged schools to the superintendence of those who were intrusted with the administration of the criminal law, and urged the Government to persevere in the present educational system.

said, it seemed to be generally assumed that all which could be done was effected if they provided the poor with the means of education; if they did not choose to avail themselves of these means the State could do nothing more. He, however, was rather disposed to agree with the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Fox) a very high authority on these subjects, that the Government could, perhaps, do more indirectly than directly for the encouragement of education. Their great object should be to have a voluntary system. He used the word in its natural not the controversial sense. He did not mean what was generally called a voluntary system, the upper classes making a voluntary contribution for the education of the poor—that was not a real voluntary system. The sense of the benefits of education was now sufficiently diffused amongst the higher and middle classes and the problem which they had now to solve was by what means they could make a sense of the benefits of education penetrate the lower classes, for whom this educational system was intended. They ought to hold out some prospect to the poor of their children obtaining a direct advantage from the education which they so earnestly pressed those poor parents to allow their children to receive. His experience of the University system and the direct pecuniary advantages which it held out induced him to believe that without such a prospect they would find great difficulty in impressing upon the minds of the poor a sense of the benefits of education. Prizes innumerable and valuable in the eyes of those who competed for them ought to be offered to the children of the poor, just as prizes were offered to students at the Universities. The Government had a great deal in its power in that respect. He did not allude to clerkships in the public offices, but to the office of messenger in the Post-office, of letter-carrier, and situations of that kind, which ought to be thrown open to the competition of such as could best pass an examination at the public schools. That competition would benefit not only those who were successful, but also those who were not, inasmuch as it would give a stimulus to their education, and ultimately the people at large would feel the beneficial effects of that competition. The poor would then attend to the education of their children, not to please the squire or the clergyman, but for their own benefit. Public companies also and persons in the different walks of business might, by offering employment to be competed for in this way, do much to promote the general education of the country, without the expenditure of a single shilling of the public money. If such a plan were adopted by the Government and by public companies the people at large would have a relish for education. The people unfortunately had a very strong taste for fermented liquors. The demand created the supply, and at every corner there was a gin palace to minister to their wants. If there were the same taste for education there would be no need of any Government machinery to supply it. It might be Utopian to suppose that there ever would be such a taste, but was it not right to do all they could to stimulate the desire for education, that when once created they might dispense with the necessity of any Government aid. If they were to provide every possible means of education it would still still be distasteful, because they would be enforcing on the people as a boon and a favour to their superiors that which ought to be desired for its own sake.

said, he objected to the sectarian system upon which they were proceeding in respect to education, and which he regarded as essentially wrong. He thought a system ought to be introduced under which children of different persuasions would be taught to sit on the same forms, and not regard each other in the light of heretics; this, he contended, the House of Commons could accomplish if it seriously took the matter in hand, and earnestly applied itself to the task. He had no objection to the Vote for Ireland, for he thought the plan pursued in that portion of the kingdom much to be preferred to the system which prevailed in England and in Scotland. It was not his intention to remark upon the Vote for England—of the working of the educational system here he knew comparatively little, but he was well acquainted with its effects in Scotland, and he regarded them as tending to propagate sectarian differences. If the Established Church opened a school in a parish the Free Church opened another immediately. Both received grants, and the consequence was, that the parish had two bad schools instead of one good one. The Vote in aid of Scotland for the present year showed an increase of £14,751; this he regarded as a proposal to make the differences already existing more widely felt, and, such being the case, as calculated still further to remove the prospect of a better system, free from the sectarian influences to which he had adverted, and under that conviction he begged to move the reduction of the Vote by that sum—namely, £14,751.

said, that liberal as was the educational Vote for the present year, he, for one, thought that it fell short of what was so urgently required for bettering the condition of the people, and believing that to be the general opinion of the House, he felt sure that the Amendment just moved had little chance of success. He rose, however, for the purpose of expressing his dissent from the statements made by more than one hon. Member as to the light in which the people regarded the efforts of the Government for the extension of education amongst them. Now so far as his own experience went he felt persuaded that there was not any general unwillingness on the part of the people to avail themselves of the advantages afforded them, although, no doubt, hon. Members might have met with individual instances of apathy which justified their statements. But as a general rule he thought that the working men of England were not insenible to the value of educational opportunities, and he knew of cases where they had in more than one northern county invited taxation themselves in order to extend more widely the cause of education.

said, the Motion made by the hon. Member (Mr. Black) was one he should hardly have expected from a Scotch Member, and he was quite sure that it had not been made in concert with other Scotch Members, for the effect of it would be to deprive Scotland of advantages which that country would otherwise acquire. For his own part, he was very anxious that these grants should be applied to tuition exclusively and not to food, except in the case of abandoned children, for whom the Minute of 1857 made provision. It had been said that children could not be attracted to these schools except by feeding them. That had been the course in the schools of Aberdeen, but it had not hitherto been the case in England, and he thought that the expense of feeding the children might be left to the benevolent persons who had charge of the schools. For children in the lower classes, education was a necessary, and when hon. Gentlemen talked of leaving such education to the parents, they should remember that in no country of Europe had parents been enabled to raise the necessary amount, and if it were left to parents there would be no education at all. They might be left to pay a portion of the expense, but to suppose that they could pay it all was entirely. out of the question, The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Gilpin) had spoken as though State provision was opposed to the voluntary principle, but that was a great fallacy, for in England, he thought, the balance had been most successfully kept between the two systems. The combination of the two was the principle for which he thought, experience showed them they ought to contend. He doubted whether the education of these classes should be stimulated by prizes. In the Universities men strove for honours because they might be useful to them in after life, but amongst children who would have to gain their living by labour, he thought this artificial stimulus should be avoided, and that all that should be attempted should be to give them practical instruction which would be useful to them in their future career.

said, the Motion of the hon. Member for Edinburgh applied to the whole Vote quite as much as to the increase, but he did not think any one would for a moment contemplate moving such an Amendment.

said, the hon. Gentleman was under a mistake, as there was no such Vote as that which he wished to reduce. The hon. Gentleman referred to an item of expenditure in the Vote of last year.

said, he presumed he could reduce the Vote from £563,435 to £548,684—namely, make a reduction of £14,751.

said, he could add his testimony to that already borne as to the value of ragged schools. By encouraging the education of the poorest classes a stimulus would be given to parents immediately above them in social position to send their children to good schools at their own expense.

said, he would withdraw his Amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

suggested that at the school examinations the cleverest and most intelligent pupils ought not alone to be rewarded. Prizes should also be given with a view to draw out the quieter and less obtrusive virtues, on which the future happiness of the children so much depended.

adduced figures to show that Scotland, in proportion to her population, did not receive an equal share with England of the educational Votes. Moreover, Scotland was taxed in a way from which England was exempt. She paid about £40,000 a year for her parochial schools, and England ought to be similarly assessed. Many persons in Scotland thought the system upon which these grants were distributed was radically defective. The parochial schools of Scotland were too sectarian in their character.

said, he would put it to the Government whether they would proceed with this Bill at so late a period of the evening, as they had now come to the most important clause of the whole Bill (Clause 51)?

said, he could see no objection, as they had got to Clause 51, to their going into Clause 52.

said, it has been agreed that contested business should not be proceeded with after twelve.

said, he had no objection, if it was the general feeling, to the Chairman reporting progress, as there was a good deal of business on the paper to get through.