said, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Control, why the Return respecting New Roads and Navigable Canals in India, ordered by the House last Session, has not yet been laid upon the Table?

said, the reason was that sufficient materials did not exist in England to enable the Returns alluded to by the hon. Member to be made out. An order, had, however, been sent out to India for the information desired, and he had a letter from Colonel Bateman, in which he called on the local authorities in every part of India to furnish the details necessary. Probably, however, the disturbed state of the country had caused delay, and all he could now say was that they had not the information at present, but as soon as it was obtained it should be brought forward.

said, he wished the hon. Member for London (Mr. Crawford) to postpone his Motion with regard to the destruction of property of British subjects in the Baltic during the war with Russia. The papers on the subject had been delivered to Members that morning, but he had not yet been able to obtain the opinions of the Law Officers of the Crown, and he should be sorry if the House came to a decision on the matter in the absence of those opinions.

said, his Motion referred to a matter of great public importance, but, under the circumstances, he could hardly decline to accede to the request of the right hon. Gentleman. He hoped, however, that the further consideration of this matter would not be indefinitely postponed.

said, he would undertake to give the hon. Member an early day for his Motion.

said, he wished to say a few words with reference to several matters connected with this Vote. In the first place he wished to ascertain what were the intentions of the Government with reference to the report of the Royal Commission which had been appointed to inquire as to the most eligible site for a National Gallery. The Commission was appointed in consequence of a Resolution adopted by that House, that it was desirable that further inquiry should take place before the site of a National Gallery was finally determined upon. In his opinion that commission had discharged its duties most honestly and independently, and its recommendation that the site of the National Gallery should not be changed had been ratified generally by the public out of doors, and, as far as could be judged from what had fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer on a former occasion, by Her Majesty's Government. If, however, it was decided that the site of the Gallery should not be changed, some steps must be immediately taken in order to provide space upon that site for the national collection of pictures, which was at present scattered in different parts of London. It bad been the intention of the late Government, judging from a notice of Motion which had been placed upon the paper in the name of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, to propose the appointment of a Committee to inquire into this question, and also whether further accommodation was required, and in what manner it could be provided at the British Museum. The change of Government prevented this proposition from being submitted to the House, and the present Government determined to settle the question without referring it to any further Committee or Commission. It was, however, absolutely necessary that immediate steps should be taken to provide accommodation for the national collection of pictures. The Director of the National Gallery, in his report which appeared in the Estimates, made this statement:—

"The present crowded state of the pictures, and the necessity of removing many to inferior places in order to display new acquisitions, abundantly shows that the time is arrived when it is necessary that measures should be taken to build temporary accommodation for the pictures till the new National Gallery can be built. With regard to the means of providing space, under the circumstances, for pictures in the gallery in Trafalgar-square, I am still of opinion that the most feasible plan, while it would also be the least expensive, would be to add on the north side of the gallery, and on a level with the present rooms, a long room or corridor, supported on iron columns, so as to encroach as little as possible on the barracks. An estimate of the cost of such a room, about 120 feet long, was in the course of last year prepared under the direction of the Office of Works, the entire proposed cost being £3000."

The Director evidently entertained a strong opinion that the time had arrived when it was necessary without delay to provide accommodation for our rapidly increasing collection of pictures. He (Lord Elcho) would suggest a very simple mode of providing the requisite accommodation with trifling expense to the nation—the suggestion having been made on a former occasion by the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Coningham)—namely, by giving notice to quit to the Royal Academy, which at present occupied one-half of the National Gallery. He did not entertain the slightest feeling of towards the Royal Academy, but the position of that body with regard to the National Gallery had always been false and unfair. In the first instance, a sum of money was voted for the erection of a National Gallery, but at that time the whole of the building was not required for the national collection of pictures, and at the suggestion of the architect, who was himself a Royal Academician, the Royal Academy obtained accommodation within the building. The consequence was the sacrifice of a considerable amount of space, for there were in the National Gallery two staircases, one loading to the national collection, and the other to the Royal Academy, and a great deal of valuable space was lost in the hall, which was common to both. The Royal Academy had no legal or Parliamentary title to occupy the National Gallery, and he thought the simplest course would be to give them notice to quit. Discussions had frequently taken place in the House on this subject, and in 1834, Mr. Warburton inquired of Mr. S. Rice whether the Royal Academy had any title to the rooms which they occupied. Mr. S. Rice said—

"He was very glad that his hon. Friend had put that question to him. An arrangement had been entered into which he supposed his hon. Friend would approve—namely, that the Royal Academy should obtain only the use of the rooms, but that the property of them should rest in the public, and that if the resumption of these apartments became desirable the Academy should resign them."

When the same question was raised in 1850, the noble Member for the City of London (Lord John Russell) stated, on behalf of the Government, that they—

"Intended to act in conformity with the recommendation of the report to which the hon. Member (Mr. Hume) had alluded. The Royal Academicians would be obliged to find suitable accommodation for themselves out of the National Gallery, and the Vernon pictures would ultimately be placed in that building."

If the National Gallery were rendered exclusively available for the national collection of pictures, it would be unnecessary to incur any expenditure for the erection of a new building, at all events for some time to come.

said, he rose to express his concurrence in the views of the noble Lord, and he wished to direct the attention of the house to the constitution of the Royal Academy, which was in reality a private society, enjoying the privileges of a public body. The Academy occupied—he might say to the injury of the public—a portion of a public building which was intended for another purpose; and in consequence of the privileges which it possessed, it was enabled to exercise a pressure upon the profession at large, which he believed, was extremely injurious to art. The Academy was also an unincorporated society, and was therefore totally irresponsible to any power in the State. It levied large contributions upon the public at the doors of its annual exhibition; and it had realized considerable funds, which he believed were amply sufficient for the erection of an edifice adequate to the purposes of the institution. The Royal Academy had, however, refused to allow any investigation of its accounts or any inquiries as to its duties, and it was for all practical purposes a totally irresponsible body. The National Gallery was originally intended for the exhibition of ancient pictures, and lone of the great faults always found with the Royal Academy was, that it had not supplied adequate means for studying antique sculp- ture as well as antique painting. One of the causes of the difference which occurred between Mr. Barry, the well-known painter, and the Academy, and which ultimately ended in his expulsion, was his attempt to enforce upon the Academy the necessity of forming a collection of ancient masters in painting and sculpture for the use of students, the want of such models rendering the system of instruction very inadequate and unsatisfactory. These deficiencies had, however, in some degree been remedied; but although the drawing schools—for they were really nothing else—had been considerably improved of late years; although architecture was recognized, and lectures were delivered upon anatomy and upon various branches of science connected with the fine arts, he believed there was still great room for improvement; and if the Royal Academy were allowed to occupy a public building, he maintained that it was the duty of that House to adopt a measure which would render that body responsible to Parliament and to the public. He thought this private society trafficking for profit should no longer be allowed to enjoy an irresponsible monopoly beneficial only to its members, and the effects of which were, he believed, actually injurious to artists and to the fine arts. In his opinion, the principle of free competition ought to be adopted, and, far from thinking that State institutions intended to diffuse a taste for art were successful, he believed they rather tended to check and to cripple private efforts which were directed to that object. He must urge upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer the necessity that some step should be taken to relieve the pressure which now existed within the walls of the National Gallery, and the simple remedy was to remove the Royal Academy as speedily as possible from Trafalgar Square.

said, he wished to call attention to the want of courtesy displayed by the authorities of the Royal Academy towards that House in taking no notice of a Motion which he had made some time ago for a return of the number of visitors to the exhibition. Considering that the Academy occupied a building granted to them by the liberality of the nation, he thought they might have shown a little more courtesy.

said, that no doubt the state of our national collections of art at present was extremely unsatisfactory. Adequate pre- mises must be supplied in order not merely to afford space for purchases, but to allow our collections to be enriched, as they might be, by donations from private individuals, which were now often withheld owing to the discouraging manner in which the country received such gifts. That being the state of affairs, and it being desirable that some conclusion should be come to upon this subject, he had on a previous occasion expressed his opinion that it was unnecessary to have any further public inquiry, and that there existed sufficient experience, a sufficient collection of facts and of well digested opinions, to guide any persons who really did not wish to shrink from responsibility. On the part of the Government, he had stated that they had made up their minds, after having considered the matter, to take that responsibility upon themselves; and that so far as the National Gallery was concerned—and he would say even with reference to other institutions—they should offer to the consideration and approval of the House at the proper time arrangements which would remove those great deficiencies now so generally acknowledged. He trusted, however, the House would feel that the work not being one of easy accomplishment and requiring a great deal of consideration and preparation, it would be somewhat unfair to require him now to enter into any further communication of their plans and intentions. It was enough that they accepted the responsibility of making arrangements, in order that our national collections should be placed in a position more worthy of the country and more conducive to the advancement of art.

said, he was sorry that no more definite statement had been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Time pressed. The country was spending money in buying most expensive pictures, yet many of these had to be placed in the cellars and basement of the National Gallery, where they could not be seen. Now, this being the case, it rested with the Government to show why the Royal Academy should occupy one-half of the building for a day longer, when the whole gallery was required for its original purpose. He regretted, then, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not stated that he would give the Academy warning. They had been allowed to occupy a portion of the building, because the space at that time was not wanted. It was known that they had accumulated a sum of money during the last 100 years; and, admitting all the advantages they had conferred upon art in this country, he thought Parliament might give them some additional sum so as to enable them to locate themselves in a separate building. But one or two years must elapse before such a building could be erected, and it was most important, therefore, that as soon as possible, notice should be given to them that they would be expected to vacate the building. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman might still be induced, perhaps in the course of the autumn, to give the requisite notice. It was evident that the Academy must leave Trafalgar Square at some future time, and perhaps space might be allotted to them at Kensington by means of a little addition to the zinc buildings there, until they were prepared to erect a gallery for themselves. He believed that great advantage would arise from removing the Academy from its present location, since this would be the first step towards its separation from the State. He agreed with his hon. Friend (Mr. Coningham) that the more completely art was separated from the State, the more original would be its conceptions and the greater its progress.

denied that the Royal Academy could be said to be at all connected with the State. The Government had always declared that they retained the power of calling on the Academy to vacate the building in Trafalgar Square whenever they thought it necessary, and he certainly believed the time had now come when the whole building should be appropriated to the wants of the national collection. The Academy was a private body, protected certainly by Royal patronage, but it was in no degree a national institution. In his opinion the country was not called upon to provide a new building for it. The subject was one of great importance, and while the noble Lord (Lord Elcho) deserved the thanks of the House for bringing it forward, he certainly thought the Government were called upon to act at once in the matter.

said, it was unreasonable that an institution the exhibition of which was only open some three months in the year should occupy one-half of the National Gallery, which might be open to the public nearly all the year round. Nor did he think that it would be difficult for the Royal Academy to find a suitable place for themselves.

said, he then rose to move the reduction of the Vote by £300, which was the amount of the salary of the travelling agent. Last year he had brought the subject under the consideration of the Committee of Supply, at which time he coupled this Motion with one for the reduction of the secretary's salary. This he did because the Committee of 1853, of which he was a member, did not recommend the appointment of a secretary at all, and because it appeared to him that the salary of £800 a year was excessive in proportion to the duties which the secretary had to perform. On the present occasion, however, he did not intend to press that Motion, for after submitting it to the House he had received a letter from the secretary, requesting that before he spoke again on the duties of the office he would inform himself what those duties were, and declaring that, so far from having nothing to do, his duties were so onerous that they occupied his time both day and night. This year, therefore, he should not allude to that matter, because he was an advocate for paying every man liberally in proportion to his services, but he would confine his Motion to the salary of the travelling agent. He objected to the appointment, because this again was one which had not been recommended by the Committee of 1853, and because he believed that the travelling agent was not only an unnecessary officer, but that the appointment was positively mischievous in its result. It was self-evident that if you had a man of that kind going about Italy and elsewhere he would raise the price of pictures, and it was not merely a question of £300 a year of salary, but involved the enhanced price which the nation thus gave for its purchases. This agent was appointed under a Treasury Minute drawn up in 1855, when the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Wilson) was in office, and it was to this effect:—

"In order to enable the Trustees and Director the more easily to acquire fine pictures that may be offered for sale on the Continent, my Lords propose to appoint a travelling agent with a salary of £300 a year, whose duties will be to visit the private collections of distinguished families abroad, ascertaining and describing their contents, and obtaining the earliest information of any intended sale. The agent will be paid his travelling and personal expenses on a scale hereafter to be fixed."

The travelling expenses were afterwards fixed at £650 on these grounds:—

"As regards the travelling agent, it is probable that he will be absent from this country during the greater part of the year; and my Lords have fixed his salary at a moderate rate in consideration of the additional allowance to which he will be entitled while absent on his professional duties on the Continent."

The principle seemed to be to give a low salary in consideration of his being constantly travelling, and the inference therefore was that his travelling expenses were unnecessarily high. The duties to be performed by the travelling agent were also set forth in the Minute, and it appeared that he was called upon to keep a diary, which was to be produced when called for, in order that his employers might be satisfied that he had been active and industrious. Now, he (Lord Elcho) must confess that he should very much like to see that diary. That the gentleman in question had been sufficiently active and industrious in travelling about Italy and in letting it be known everywhere that he was the agent of the National Gallery he entertained no doubt. It appeared, indeed, that when he had first been appointed to his present situation he had announced upon his cards that he was the expert de a Galerie Nationale de Londres, and the consequence was that pictures had risen to price wherever he went, and that the Austrian Government had on that account issued instructions to the mayors of towns, heads of convents, &c., forbidding them to give him admission. He had since, however, ceased to describe himself as the agent of the National Gallery, and was now contented with placing the simple words "M. Otto Mundler" upon his card. In order to show how the affairs of the National Gallery were mismanaged, by having larger prices given for pictures than they were worth, he had upon a former occasion cited the instance of a Paul Veronese, for which nearly £2,000 had been paid, but which in the place where it was bought—and the Italians knew very well how to put a value on their pictures—was valued at something like £370. Then for another Paul Veronese the enormous sum of £14,000 had been given, which he had ventured last year to pronounce an excessive price, the picture not being likely to fetch more than £2,000 if it were set up to auction in this country. Indeed since the picture had been hung up one of the first authorities in London had stated it to be his opinion that if it were put up to sale in the ordinary course of business, and without any previous character accompanying it, it would not fetch at the hammer more than £2,500, and that, with all the advantages which a character could bestow on it, not more than £4,000 would be got for it. There were many other instances where large sums of the public money had been wasted under the existing arrangement with this travelling agent. There was one in particular, a Vandacci, for which in the month of December £1,125 was given, which in the month of September, when be first saw it, he might have purchased, had he pleased, for £470. The managers of the National Gallery had a power of sale; they could dispose of any portion of a collection which they did not think fit to keep. Now, they had paid £2,000 for the Lombardi Baldi collection, one picture in which they valued at £1,000, though he did not think his hon. Friend the Member for Brighton (Mr. Coningham) would be disposed to set such a price on it. They proceeded to try and dispose of the others. Any pictures that they wished to get rid of, and failed to dispose of here, they sent over to Dublin; and he was informed that one of the pictures purchased in that £2,000 collection, not having been disposed of in London, was transported across the water, and was now to be seen in the National Gallery of Dublin or in some other of the public buildings of that city. Many of the pictures in this Lombardi Baldi collection were considerably damaged, and when the trustees gave such a complete historical description of the pictures, with the dates when they were first painted, it was a pity, he thought, that they did not also give the dates of the last time they were painted—that was, the date of their restoration. The restoration of those pictures was, generally speaking, the work of professors in Italy, who operated upon them before they came over to this country; but in his opinion it would be much better if they were brought over here, where they could be restored quite as well as in Italy, and exhibited in the first instance in their original state, in order that the nation might see what we had got for our money. The strongest instance which, perhaps, he could give the Committee of the injurious results in the way of raising the prices of pictures throughout the Continent in consequence of the employment of a travelling agent was furnished in the case of a picture which had been purchased in Florence. A letter stating the circumstances of the case had been put into his hands some time ago by Mr. Barker, of Piccadilly, who was well known for his taste in such matters, and who had received the letter from his agent, to whom he had given a commission for the purchase of the picture in question. The conclusion of the letter was as follows:—

"I open again this letter to tell you that in the meantime I was in the counting-house of the Marquess Ginori. I saw the card of M. Otto Mundler, who has offered 10,000 scudi for the Marquess's picture, which was estimated at 300 scudi only. I tell you, sir, this for your private information. If this offer had not been made, you most likely could have bought the picture for the 200 napoleons you offered; but at present, if you wish to have it, you must do a higher offer than the 10,000 scudi offered by M. Otto Mundler; he began by the offer of 7,000 to arrive at 10,000."

Now, it appeared under these circumstances that a great waste of money was the result of the employment of a travelling agent. Why, he should therefore ask, was not the same plan adopted in the case of the National Gallery which was pursued by the authorities of the British Museum. They had no accredited travelling agent travelling about the Continent, enhancing the value of what they desired to buy, but they had agents in all parts of the world, who went about silently selecting articles which they thought would be suitable for the institution, and obtaining them, if the trustees sanctioned the purchase, at a reasonable price. The same system was followed with equal success by the institution known as the "Brompton Boilers." The Director, indeed, ought to be his own travelling agent—and he did travel every summer and his travelling expenses were charged, although this travelling agent was maintained at a salary of £300 a year. If the Director could not give his whole time to his duties in connection with the Gallery, it was the fault of those who appointed him, But the fact was, he had too many other things to do. He was the President of the Royal Academy, and an artist besides, and could not, therefore, give his whole time to the duties of the office of Director. He ought, however, to recollect that the nation had the first claim, and that if he would take the trouble to travel himself and establish local agencies in the various continental towns, we might obtain all the pictures required for the National Gallery at a reasonable price. Having made those observations he should move that the Vote be reduced by a sum of £300, being the salary of the travelling agent, while he proposed to leave untouched the travelling expenses, notwithstanding that he deemed them somewhat excessive in amount. He was aware that in making the Motion which he had just sub- mitted to the Committee he was likely to encounter the opposition of the hon. Gentleman the late Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Wilson), who invariably stood up for the abuses connected with the management of the National Gallery; who had upon a former occasion defended the scrubbing of a certain lady—he meant "the Woman taken in Adultery," as well as the cleaning of other pictures, and who was no doubt still prepared to contend that, for the advantage of the public service, it was necessary that the office of travelling agent should be maintained. He would bring forward this Motion every year until he succeeded in carrying it. If he unfortunately failed on this occasion he might be disposed hereafter to vary the form of his proposition, and, instead of asking the House to disallow the salary of £300 for the travelling agent, he should be tempted to recommend them to give that gentleman £1,000 a year on condition that he stayed in this country. That he was convinced, would be one of the best bargains ever made by Parliament.

hoped that the House would pause before they thus suddenly determined the career of Mr. Mundler. Without pretending to vindicate the proceedings of that Gentleman, it was yet possible that a good deal might be said on his behalf. The whole question of the National Gallery was under consideration at the present moment, and no doubt a very great revolution would take place in the general management of that institution. Therefore, in a case like this, which concerned a person engaged at no very great salary, he should be sorry if the House, with the prospect of a general revision before them, should commence by adopting what might be a very harsh step towards an individual. He would undertake, on the part of the Government, that the whole establishment of the National Gallery should undergo an investigation, which there was some reason to believe it well deserved. He was not using a mere phrase when he said he deprecated a division, though the result might not be very injurious to Her Majesty's Government. But he wished to avoid that tendency to fix upon an individual, which was too often exhibited, where they discovered symptoms of unsatisfactory management in a public institution. Under such circumstances acts of severity were sometimes hastily accomplished from feelings which were otherwise meritorious. The Government would inquire into the duties of the various officers of this establishment; and if ever this estimate was brought forward again under their responsibility it would be framed in a manner which he trusted would be satisfactory to the House.

said, he hoped the noble Lord would not insist upon a division. The understanding upon which this travelling agent was first employed was that he was to go abroad and ascertain what pictures contained in different private galleries it would be desirable to secure for our national collection. But he appeared to have gone beyond the limits of that understanding, and to have made offers for the purchase of certain pictures. This formed no part of his original duties, and was, moreover, a most injurious practice. At the same time, it would be exceedingly hard on an individual now to strike off this item; and if they voted for it on that occasion they would not be precluded from placing the functions of the travelling agent on a better footing for the future.

said, they were all indebted to the noble Lord for the amusing speech which he annually made on this subject; but he wished to point out before the House came to a division that the noble Lord had been entirely misinformed in regard to Mr. Mundler. It was not to be expected that the person from whom the noble Lord had quoted, being a rival agent to Mr. Mundler, should have any very friendly feeling towards that gentleman. Mr. Mundler had no power whatever to buy pictures. He could not even offer a price for a picture. It was his duty to ascertain where suitable pictures were to be found, and then make his report to the Trustees of the National Gallery, on whose responsibility all offers and all purchases were afterwards made. He had never seen Mr. Mundler in his life; but he believed that that gentleman was an officer whose labours had been of great advantage to the institution with which he was connected.

said, he wished to call the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the expediency of offering the surplus land in Battersea Park (100 acres) for sale by auction, with a reserved price of £284,730 9s. 3d., in order to refund to the Government the loans advanced on account of Battersea Park, Chelsea Bridge, and Chelsea Embankment. It had been contended that it was not fair to make the Chief Commissioner sell this land now, when in fifteen or twenty years it would become so much more valuable; but the toll ought not to be kept on for fifteen or twenty years with that object, as they would thereby be charging the public of Chelsea and Battersea £6,500 a year or £130,000 if it was kept up for twenty years. He agreed that the House ought not to be asked for a single sixpence for the purpose of carrying out improvements in Chelsea or anywhere else in London; but at the same time they had no right to charge the people of those districts £6,500 a year for tolls in order that the land might be more valuable twenty years hence. His proposition was to test the value of the land by putting it up to auction, and if the price fell short of the debts for which it was liable, he had no doubt that the people of London, like those of Birmingham in the case of Aston Park, would raise the difference. The Chief Commissioner had no right to prevent the land being sold merely that he might ride over it as if it were his own, and keep the patronage that was attached to it.

said, he did not doubt but that the Ecclesiastical Commission was of great benefit to the interests of the Church; but that being the case, he thought it would be more just to the public and would tend to the ultimate advantage of the Church if this payment were defrayed out of the estates of the Church, and not out of the public funds. The Church ought to pay its expenses. He did not mean to say a word against that Commission, one of whose members (Mr. Deedes) he was glad to see present; but while he believed that the Church benefited by their labours, he thought the Church ought to hear its expenses. He should therefore move the rejection of the Vote.

said, he wished to remind the Committee that this Vote formed a part only of the expenses of the Commission, and that the other and by far the larger portion of its expenses was borne out of Church property. His own conviction was, that the reason why the Ecclesiastical Commission had worked so well was that it did not wholly represent the interests of the Church, but that it was beneficial, also, to those who might be fairly considered to represent the public as holders of Church property, and, therefore, it was arranged from the first that while a portion of these expenses should be borne by the public, the other and larger portion of them should be borne by the Church. Both the Church and the State gained by the Commission, and, therefore, it was not reasonable that the expense should be altogether saddled upon the property of the Church. Last year the surplus in the hands of the Commissioners was only £5,000, this year it amounted to £15,000, which sum, as was well known, was spent in the augmentation of small livings. But if the Committee insisted on taking this sum out of the surplus, it was his belief that, far from conferring a boon upon the State, it would be detrimental to its best interests, as well as those of the Church.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had only confirmed him in an opinion he had long held, that his Vote was only an indirect mode of endowing small livings, and was most objectionable on that account. He believed that a Committee sitting on the Miscellaneous Estimates had recommended the discontinuance of this Vote, and he believed it was the intention of the late Government to consider the propriety of discontinuing it altogether. He could not expect the present Government to take that course, as they had not yet had an opportunity of considering the subject; and, therefore, he for one would not oppose the Vote on this occasion, but he would hold himself free to reject it in future years.

said, nothing was more common than that every estate should bear the expenses of all that was done for its benefit. A Church establishment like that of England, with a revenue of £6,000,000 a year, ought surely to pay this paltry sum, which, small as it was, was an eyesore to multitudes in the country. He hoped the Committee would reject the Vote.

said, the hon. Gentleman argued the question as if the Ecclesiastical Commission existed for the exclusive benefit of the Church, whereas the fact was, that his right hon. Friend had already stated, that if the accounts of the Commission were analysed, it would appear that a much larger sum than what was now asked for was expended on matters in which the Church was not directly connected. A great deal of the time and attention of the Commissioners was occupied with the enfranchisement of property, which he did not say was of no benefit to the Church, but which was at least of equal benefit to the persons who occupied that property, and he believed that the expense arising from that source was more than double the sum now required. It appeared to him to stand in much the same relation to the public that the Charity Commission did. Why was the expense of the Charity Commissioners charged upon the public, and not upon the property of the charities, some of which were very large, and which were scattered throughout the country? That question had been argued in this House, and it was very properly decided that the question was one of public interest, and that the public ought therefore to bear the expense. With regard to the surplus which had been referred to, the large amount was in part owing to various benefactions which had been received through the year; and if that source of supply were continued, he thought great good would be done. He should certainly have been surprised if the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Wilson) had expressed his intention to vote against the sum; because, if the Government to which he belonged were opposed to it, they had had ample time to strike it out of the Estimates.

said, there could be no doubt the public were benefited by the process of enfranchisement, but primarily and directly the benefit accrued to the Church; and, therefore, the expense of enfranchisment, as well as the other expenses ought to be borne by the Church. The late Government did promise last year to take this Vote into its consideration, which was generally held to imply a pledge that they were in favour of its discontinuance. But it would be hard to bring this Vote to an end wholly without notice, and he believed that if they had still remained in office they would have proposed this Vote, with an intimation that it would be for the last time. He should have been glad to hear the present Government give such a pledge, but he could understand that they had not had time to consider the question.

rose only to say that he was Chairman of the Miscellaneous Estimates Committee in 1848, which recommended the cessation of this Vote. That recommendation has never been carried into effect. He believed the answer of the noble Lord the Member for London (Lord John Russell), who was then Prime Minister, was to the effect that he would put an end to the Vote as soon as the funds of the Commission were in a more favourable state. He thought that the time had now arrived, and that the Commission was now in a condition to defray all the expenses that properly belonged to them.

said, he was not satisfied with the answer of the Government. The public were not at all concerned in the enfranchisements which had been referred to, but the lessees of the property; and if any expense was incurred in that way they ought to pay it.

said, as he was not trammelled by having supported his Vote in office, there was nothing to prevent him going to a division.

objected that though a Bill had been introduced to abolish this Court by the end of the year, its expenses for twelve months were here to be voted.

explained that part of this sum was to be taken in advance for the establishment of the new Court, and that it would be repaid out of the fees.

said, he rose to move that the item of £1,861 for the Statute Law Commission be struck out of this Vote, as the Commission had been long denounced by public opinion. If any one were to look to the bottom of this Commission he would see that it was based upon the most selfish consideration. There was but one paid Commissioner, whom he should not hesitate to name, Mr. Bellenden Ker. That gentleman and a former pupil of his, the Secretary of the Commission, Mr. Brickdale, with the clerks and messengers, divided the grant among them. The old Criminal Law Commission, of which this Commission was the successor, was a job far more liberal. During the sixteen years Mr. Bellenden Ker had been upon that Commission he had received the sum of £10,400. In 1850 that Commission ceased: because Mr. Bellenden Ker was the only Commissioner left, it was found necessary to find or invent another situation for that learned gentleman; hence the appointment of the present Statute Law Commission. Great promises were made by the Lord Chancellor of that day, who undertook that in the next Session the whole statute-book should be expurgated. A staff of learned gentlemen was accordingly employed, who in a short space of time al- most accomplished wonders, but they were ignominiously dismissed, because they did so much that, if their labours had been continued for some time longer, the Commission would soon have ceased to exist. A distinct plan of procedure was laid down by Lord Cranworth, by which expurgation was to precede consolidation; but this plan was resisted and argued against by Mr. Bellenden Ker, and the result was that the Lord Chancellor's promise was broken, and the work of consolidation was to go before that of expurgation. There could be no doubt that the course thus pursued was the wrong one. At length the Attorney General promised that if the matter were left to him he would, in the space of eighteen months, consolidate our whole statute law. Nothing, however, was done. Occupying the post which that learned Gentleman did, he had kept on the notice paper from day to day a reference to a series of Consolidation Bills; but those measures had not yet made their appearance, and at this advanced period of the Session they were not likely ever to do so. In 1856 six or seven Bills were thrown upon the table of the House of Lords late in the Session, but they did not then pass, as it was not intended that they should. In 1857 those Bills were again introduced into the House of Lords, and passed through it with a protest from the Lord Chief Justice of England. Those measures were passed there upon the faith of the Statute Law Commission; but on coming down to that House they did not receive a second reading, in consequence of his own interposition, he having assured the late Government that if they went on with the Bills he would take the sense of the House upon them. It was most fortunate for the country that those measures did not become law, for he had been given to understand that though they were Consolidation Bills they were not accompanied with repealing enactments; so that their effect would have been to continue the old and the new law in force together, thereby adding to the confusion which already existed. Enormous sums had been spent upon these Commissions. The Commission which commenced in 1833 had expended directly £50,000 of the public money, and yet it actually did nothing. The present Commission, too, which had not passed a single Act, except the one relating to the sleeping statutes which he had himself carried through in spite of them, had already nearly absorbed £20,000 of the public money. The Vote now proposed for the Commission was only £1,861; but in addition to this sum, they were warned by a note appended to the Estimate that there were fees which would have to be paid to the draughtsmen employed by the Commissioners to draw Consolidation Bills, and execute other works connected with the revision of the statutes, and which would be defrayed from the Civil Contingencies Fund. The amount of such fees awarded in the year ending December 31, 1857, was £3,312; but whether an equal sum would be required for the present year, the note attached to the Vote said depended upon the course hereafter adopted by the Board. These fees were at first included in the Estimate, but now there seemed to be a disposition to keep them out of sight. When the Attorney General promised to bring in the Bills to which he had referred, the learned Gentleman did not like to say that they should be accepted upon the faith of the Commission, but proposed that they should be sent before a Select Committee. So that the workmanship of a Royal Commission was thus to be subjected to revision in a Committee-room upstairs, and the House was to take the whole responsibility. Believing that this Commission would, as long as it lasted, be the greatest obstacle to law reform, he begged to move that the item of £1,861 be altogether disallowed.

said, it was surprising that one who, like the hon. Member for Surrey, had from the very first devoted the greatest attention to the proceedings of the Statute Law Commission, should have remained up to this time unconvinced that it had already effected great public good, and that it would be most impolitic to stop its progress now, when the whole nation was interested in the result of their labours. It might not be known to the House though well known to the hon. Member, that for at least 200 years the state of our statute-book had been the subject of grievous complaint, and various projects had been proposed and suggestions offered for its improvement by the most eminent lawyers and greatest statesmen whom this country had ever produced. Until the present century, however, not a single Bill was introduced into Parliament calculated to remedy so serious an evil. Since the year 1816 no less than eleven Commissions or Committees had sat upon the subject, presided over or directed by such men as Sir S. Romilly, Lord Brougham, Lord Tenterden, and Sir R. Peel, but down to 1853 nothing was done, and he begged to remind the hon. Gentleman, when he talked about the expenses of this Commission, that three alone of the Commissions of which he bad spoken had cost the country little short of £100,000, and yet nothing was done. The present Commission had sat only since 1854—perhaps, as it was preceded by another Commission, he might say 1853—and the cost of it was scarcely one per cent on the preceding useless and fruitless Commissions. He would state shortly what it had done. He would not stop to consider the great difficulty which had stood in the way of all reform on this subject. The statute-book consisted, as they all knew, of some forty large folio volumes, containing statutes with no other arrangement than according to the succession of the reigns of the Sovereigns and the successive years of those reigns. Many of these statutes, instead of being confined to the subject that one would expect from their title, embraced a great variety of totally different and unconnected subjects. These statutes had grown until the bulk of them constituted a great evil. If this were the time he could quote the language of eminent Judges, in which they complained that such was the state of our statute law that no man, however learned and however vigilant he might be, could know what the law was. It was impossible for any one, in looking through our statute-book, to trace his way through the multitude of conflicting and complicated provisions they contained; and the intricacy was much increased by the fact that out of the forty large folio volumes of the statute law, upwards of thirty were filled with statutes or parts of statutes which were either repealed or obsolete, or superseded, or in some way had become useless. It would be necessary, in order to effect a consolidation, to reduce these forty volumes to something like four, and that instead of from 15,000 to 18,000 public general statutes, and some 36,000 to 37,000 other statutes, they must reduce the general statute law of England to some 200 or 300 Acts of Parliament, each Act embracing an entire subject, and expressed in an analytical and consistent form. He owned he thought it was a discredit to the Legislature that 250 years should have elapsed not only without anything being done, but without anything substantial and really useful being attempted by Parliament. The present Statute Law Commission, which the hon. Gentleman sought to extinguish, had not only attempted, but made great progress in accomplishing this great work, and he hoped, with the support of Parliament, that in a very short period, perhaps in two years from the time at which he was now speaking, the whole work would be effected, and the whole statute law of England consolidated. Nothing but the urgency and the severe pressure of public business which had recently occupied so large a share of the attention of Parliament had prevented him from submitting to the House the scheme of consolidating and amending the statutes and the preliminary measures, such as the appointment of a competent officer or board with a view to future legislation, which he trusted, ere long, would lead to its accomplishment. Before proceeding to state to the Committee what the Statute Law Commission had actually done, it was but right that he should do justice to the late Government, and above all to the noble and learned Lord who lately filled the office of Lord Chancellor, and briefly state the reasons why the efforts so successfully made by the Statute Law Commission had not yet had the effect of bringing before Parliament a number of Bills which he was sure would satisfy both the House and the country that they had made great progress in accomplishing the object in view. In 1853 Lord Cranworth, the then Lord Chancellor, submitted to the Statute Law Commissioners a plan of operations on which they immediately began. The gentleman who had been mentioned on this and former occasions, Mr. Bellenden Ker, was a member of the earlier Commissions, and of the late Commission, and he felt bound to say with regard to that learned gentleman that he had acted in a manner so disinterested, and had so devoted his whole time and attention to the public service, that he felt that nothing he could say for him would amount to the need of praise that was due to him for all he had done in relation to the statute law. It was true that he had received a payment of £1,000 a year, not, indeed, as a member of the Statute Law Commission, but because he had also, during that period, assisted the Lord Chancellor in all Bills, and especially law Bills, which had been submitted on the part of the Government to either House of Parliament. He had made pecuniary sacrifices amounting to a large annual income rather than leave unfinished, without his necessary assistance, the great work which successive Lord Chancellors had wished to accomplish. And now, let them see what the Statute Law Commissioners had done since 1853. In the first place, four Reports had emanated from them, embodying the principles on which it was suggested that the statute law should be consolidated. Besides these Reports, indices had been made, Bills had been drawn, and various other works performed, which, although they were not in their present shape, Bills which could be submitted to Parliament, yet those who had to complete the work of consolidation would find in them all that was required in respect to that particular branch of the law to which they related. Let him say, also, that although down to the year 1853 no one single Consolidation Bill had emanated from the Commissions existing to that time, from 1853 to 1857 the Statute Law Commissioners had caused to be prepared, and, as to most of them, to be completed—and the rest of them were in an advanced state of progress—no less than forty-three Consolidation Bills, embracing, he might almost say, all the most important subjects comprised in the statute law. These Bills were now actually, moat of them, ready to be laid on the table of the House. And he thought he could state to the satisfaction even of the hon. Member for Surrey (Mr. L. King) why they had not been introduced. With respect to many of the Bills, great difference of opinion would inevitably exist, and it became a question whether, having taken the sense of one or the other House of Parliament, or some Committee of one or the other House of Parliament, upon something that might be deemed a fair specimen of the whole system of consolidation, they should bring forward any one Bill until the whole of the Bills of which the consolidation was to consist should be finished. The present Chief Justice of the Common Pleas suggested to the Commission that they should take some one branch of the law involving all the difficulties that could possibly arise, and he truly said that if they succeeded in that, they might hope to succeed in others. Lord Cranworth accepted that challenge. He called on the members of the Statute Law Commission to select a difficult and complicated subject, a fair test of the statute laws, and by common consent the criminal law was chosen. He would not detain the Committee, by going through the means they resorted to in order to accomplish the task allotted to them; but this he would say with pride and with confidence, that, from the very able and strenuous assistance they had received from the learned gentlemen who were employed to reduce to form and order the criminal law of the country, and with the assistance generally of the Statute Law Commission, of Mr. Bellenden Ker, of Mr. Brickdale, the secretary, and, above all, of Mr. Greaves, who had dedicated all his invaluable time and talents without fee or reward, with the assistance of Lord Granworth, of Lord Wensleydale, of the late Chief Justice Jervis, and of other eminent members of the Statute Law Commission, the whole of the criminal statute law had been reduced and consolidated into nine Bills. These Bills were laid on the table of the House of Lords in 1856, and there was the whole of the recess to consider them. In 1857 they underwent some criticism, he would not say opposition, for there was none, but they underwent an investigation, and they then passed the House of Lords and were sent down to this House. The late Government, however, at an early period of the Session of 1857, thought that the subject was too large and important to be dealt with at once by the House, notwithstanding that those Bills had received the sanction of the House of Lords. In that Session, however, the Bills were brought forward in the House of Commons and read a first time, and the intention of the Government was that they should be referred to a Select Committee of the House, who might report on the entire scheme in conjunction with a scheme perhaps scarcely less important—the appointment of an officer to supervise future legislation. In the month of March, however, in consequence of an event which they all remembered,—Parliament was unexpectedly dissolved, and it did not meet again for the despatch of business till the month of May. The consequence was that the Committee which had been appointed was interrupted in its progress, and no complete Report was made; and when Parliament met again, nothing further was done in the matter. At the beginning of the present Session his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Reading (Sir H. Keating) then Solicitor General, gave notice that he should bring forward the several criminal Bills, and it was only owing to the sudden and unexpected change of Government that he was prevented from doing so. Since the present Government had been in power other urgent public measures had been constantly under the consideration of Government, so that it had been impossible for those to whom this matter was committed to consider these Consolidation Bills. The Committee had now to determine whether the Statute Law Commission should be put an end to before Parliament had an opportunity of considering these Bills, and he trusted they would not think of adopting such a course. From the labours of the Committee they would soon have the opportunity of considering not only the consolidation of the statute law, but no less than ninety-three Consolidation Bills, which only awaited the approbation of the House of the system on which the consolidation had proceeded, and which Bills would effect at least one-third, perhaps nearly one-half, of the entire consolidation of the statute law. He should not detain the Committee by going further into the subject. The hon. Member forgot that the Statute Law Commission had not only prepared a consolidation of the criminal law, but the law of real property. The hon. Member for Surrey, much to his surprise, took to himself the great credit of having done all in the way of consolidation that had been accomplished during the last five years. Now, the hon. Gentleman had conferred honour on the Statute Law Commissioners by taking up and passing through Parliament a Bill of which the Commissioners were the real authors, for they had furnished all the materials of which his Bill was composed; but, unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman took up the work before it was completed, and so introduced a Bill with many imperfections. He hoped, therefore, the hon. Member would be persuaded to give a little further time to the Statute Law Commissioners to proceed with this undertaking, and he might feel assured they would at last accomplish a work worthy the approbation of this House and of the country.

said, he was satisfied that the progress of consolidation would only be impeded by the continuance of the Statute Law Commission. If they wanted consolidation, the best course they could take would be to abolish the Commission, and throw the responsibility upon the Attorney General. The consolidation of the statute was in some respects like the work of cleansing the Thames. They should lay down a principle, as was done in France and the United States, and name the proper men to whom the work should be intrusted. At present they had no plan whatever, and if they were merely to have an addition of four folio volumes to the statutes, the Commission would have done more harm than good. The Attorney General had referred to the labours of the Commission in regard to the criminal law; but so little knowledge did they possess of the criminal law of the country that they actually fancied the law that applied to petty larceny in England would not apply to Ireland, and that there must be one law for England and another for Ireland. He had carefully examined the Bills which passed the House of Lords, and to which the Attorney General had referred, and he felt perfectly confident that the right hon. Gentleman would be ashamed to stand up and ask the House to pass those measures as proper and fitting models of consolidation. When they came before the House he should he prepared, with regard to the law of libel, to show that the gentlemen who prepared those Bills evidently knew nothing at all about the subject. In truth, the present mode of proceeding was utterly indefensible. If the Attorney General would take the matter up on his own responsibility, he was sure there was not a Member of the House who would not have confidence in his labours, and there would be some chance of progress, but if they went on as they were now doing, instead of clearing the statute-book, they would find that year after year they were only adding to the evil which they wished to remedy.

said, he would express a hope that the Committee would not enter upon the discussion of Bills that were not before them. His hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General would be able in a few days—probably in the course of next week—to introduce Bills which embodied the views of the Government, and they would be printed for the consideration of hon. Members. In the meantime he hoped they would confine themselves to the question before the Committee, and give their sanction to the very moderate expenditure which was required for the Statute Law Commission.

said, with regard to the criminal law Bills, he believed they bad been drawn up by Mr. Greaves, under the superintendence of Lord Wensleydale. The Attorney General said it was the intention of Government early next Session to go on with the inquiry before the Select Committee, and one object of the inquiry was which of the two methods of carrying out a scheme of consolidation ought to be adopted. Last Session the noble Lord the Member for the City of London suggested that instead of merely stringing together enactments which were scattered up and down the statute-book, they should amend the law as they went on. On the other hand, it was said that to attempt more than a bare consolidation of existing enactments would be to undertake a hopeless task. It was proposed to submit to a Committee the question which of these plans should be adopted, or to ascertain whether some middle course could not be pursued. But in every case there could be no doubt that the Commission had been accumulating for some time past a quantity of materials which would be found of the greatest utility whenever the Legislature determined upon any definite mode of action. He might particularise a work which had been undertaken by Mr. Wood at the instance of the Commissioners—namely, a register or digest of all the Acts of Parliament, or parts of Acts, which were actually in force. Mr. Wood had begun at the present time, and he was going back year by year through the statute-book. He had already reached the commencement of the present century, and he (Mr. Baines) had every reason to believe that when completed it would prove a most valuable work. He believed that the portion already finished would be ready to be laid on the table in about a fortnight; and in his humble opinion the Commission well deserved the confidence and approbation of the Committee.

said, that though according to the Attorney General nothing had been done by any of the Committees or Commissions which had sat before 1853, Mr. Bellenden Ker had been a member of every one. He thought they would be doing a great service to the cause of law reform if they declined to continue the Vote.

said, that the hon. and learned Attorney General said that nothing had been done by the Commissioners until 1853; that since then great things had been done, and that in two years more the whole statute law would be consolidated. But, two years ago, his hon. and learned Friend had promised that the whole statute law would be consolidated in eighteen months. He now promised that it should be done in two years from the present time. He had told his hon. and learned Friend on the former occasion, and he again told him then, that the truth was the House was spending money on that which for practical purposes could never be of any use. It might be true that ninety-three Bills had been prepared. But they were told that Bills were to be submitted to a Select Committee of that House. But how, unless they had a perpetual Parliament, or unless they abdicated their other legislative functions, were those ninety-three Bills to be passed through Parliament? Considering the practical difficulties that attended the subject, he was not surprised that more had not been done; but he thought that consolidation was almost impracticable.

admitted that the question of the mode of effecting the object in view was a very fair one for consideration. And he thought it possible that a better mode of proceeding than that now in force might be adopted. Still he thought there was great force in the words of the right hon. Member (Mr. Baines) that whatever became of the Statute Law Commission they had collected a mass of materials of opposite opinions and of different views as to the subject, which was of great interest, and would be exceedingly useful to Parliament in a future Session. He thought that his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Malins) had unnecessarily alarmed the Committee, for he did not understand the Attorney General to say that ninety-three Bills were to be placed on the table of that House at once. What he understood him to say was that a Committee of learned and able men of that House might, with the materials collected by the Statute Law Commissioners, decide on the scheme or plan to be pursued for the consolidation of the statutes, after which the Commission would be no longer required, but that the individual men who were most competent might be appointed to do the work. He hoped that the Vote would not now be rejected, but that the Commission would be continued a little longer.

said, he wished to call attention to the extravagant fees payable to the law officers of the Crown in England, amounting on the whole to £8,500 per annum, while the Attorney General for Ireland obtained only £1,200, and the Lord Advocate for Scotland £850. It had been estimated that the sum derived by the Attorney and Solicitor Generals for England from their offices under the Crown and from their private practice was about equal to the salaries of three of our learned Judges, or of three Secretaries of State, including the Prime Minister. Their duties in connection with the Patent Office were of the most trivial description, and might easily be discharged by a clerk. It ought to be remembered too, that the persons who paid the fees, whatever their abilities might be, were generally very poor. He moved that the Vote should be reduced by the sum of £4,000.

said, that the hon. Gentleman should recollect what was done in this matter in 1852. The patent law was then materially altered, and the cost of a patent was reduced from £500 to £50 or £60, while the emoluments of the law officers were materially reduced. The hon. Gentleman should remember that there were no two men in the kingdom who were more overworked than the Attorney and Solicitor General. They had a large private practice, part of which they had to give up to attend to their public duties. They had to advise the Government constantly on matters of the greatest importance. It might be that during the period they held office the Attorney and Solicitor General derived greater emoluments than other professional men. But he did not believe that the fees paid by the Government to the Attorney and Solicitor General were anything like those which they would receive as fees for a similar amount of business from private persons. Putting aside the question whether the law officers should or should not be paid by salaries, he must say that so long as the law officers of the Crown were paid by fees he should be sorry to see a reflection cast on them by a reduction of those fees.

said, he hoped his hon. Friend would not press his Amendment which he could not prevent from assuming a personal character. At the same time he did not think they could keep out of view the strong opinion entertained by many that officers of the Government, of whatever kind, should be paid by a direct Vote. He did not believe that the emoluments of the law officers were too large, but he should prefer a different mode of payment.

said, he would assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that he did not intend any reflection upon them. At the same time he must say that the duties of the Home Secretary were quite as great and important, though his emoluments were much less.

said, that these fees were not paid as a general retainer to the Attorney and Solicitor General, but for their services in connection with patents, which he believed were generally of a routine character; that they were very much delegated to others; and that they were in excess of the services rendered in this particular way. Unless it could be shown that this sum was a fair remuneration for services rendered under the Patent Law Amendment Act, it could not, he thought, be fairly supported.

said, it was very odious to speak on a matter so personal, but he felt it due to the office he held to say a few words. He would admit that these sums seemed large, but the Committee must remember that the Attorney and Solicitor General were dealt with in a manner in which no other public officers were dealt with. The Attorney and Solicitor General were provided with no accommodation in the way of offices for the transaction of the business that passed through their hands. In the next place, they had, at their own expense, to engage skilful clerks to transact that business, and a considerable sum was thus expended. He admitted that if, after appointing clerks, the law officers were to transfer to them business which they ought to transact themselves, that would be an abandonment of their duty; but that was not done. Every patent and provisional specification of a patent passed under the eye of the law officer of the Crown to whom it was referred. Not a week passed over in which, out of twenty or thirty patents that passed under the eye of each of the law officers, nine or ten were not sent back on account of some irregularity, or on account of their containing some improper claim which the Crown ought not to grant. He took it upon himself to say that the fees on this particular piece of business were not higher than the fees on a corresponding amount of business, such as would come regularly before the law officers in their ordinary practice, irrespective altogether of the outlay involved in the providing of offices and the engagements of clerks. The business transacted by these law officers in relation to patents was of a serious character, and could not be neglected without serious injury to the trade and industry of the country.

said, he thought this was an exorbitant sum. The hon. and learned Gentleman himself said it could only be justified in consequence of the law officers being put to certain charges, and having to pay for clerks. It was unfortunate, however, that the hon. and learned Gentleman did not look further into the Estimates, for there was an item of £750 for clerks.

said, he could assure the hon. Gentleman that he had the satisfaction of paying two clerks for patent business, for whose salaries no provision whatever was made in the Votes. The fees referred to were not for the clerks who did the patent business; they were the fees which came regularly to the clerks of the Attorney and Solicitor General for the time being.

said, he thought that if the Government would consider the subject before they met again, he would not trouble the Committee to divide.

said, the right hon. Baronet the Member for Radnor (Sir G. C. Lewis) appeared to be under the impression that some portion of the duties of the Attorney and Solicitor General were performed by deputy. He could assure him there was no portion whatever of any public duty imposed upon them that they were not obliged to perform in their own persons. With respect to the fees, he could also state that in consequence of the difference that existed between the fees paid by the Crown and those paid by individuals the acceptance of office was productive of loss rather than of increased emoluments.

said, he wished to draw the attention of the Government to the circumstance that the amount received from stamps upon patents last year was £88,860, while the whole expense of the Patent Department was only £46,840, and therefore he would suggest that the amount of stamp duties levied upon patents should be reconsidered.

said, the whole of the stamp duties would probably be reconsidered next year, and the subject referred to by the hon. Gentleman would not be omitted.

said, he wished for information respecting the sum of £1,500 required for the Museum of Patented Inventions at Kensington, and the further sum of £580 for the salaries of a curator, secretary, and assistant. He should move to reduce the Vote by £2,000.

explained that there was formerly a Museum of Patents in Chancery Lane, containing a number of valuable and most useful models and a library, which were of great assistance to inventors. The space being small and the situation inconvenient it became necessary to remove the museum, and accommodation was offered at Kensington. After some time the space at Kensington was required for other purposes; but the Commissioners offered to allow the Patent Museum to remain if the Government would expend a small sum in providing a building for the reception of the models and library. That arrangement was agreed to, and the present Vote was the necessary consequence.

said, he readily admitted the value of the museum, but he thought Kensington a most inconvenient locality for it.

said, that point had been considered, and the present arrangement was only temporary.

said, that the Museum of Patents had no connection with the Museum at Kensington. It had been removed there by the consent of the Royal Commissioners until proper accommodation could be found, which the Government were now making arrangements for doing.

said, that last year a promise was made to make this Board self-supporting, by imposing a fee on every barrel of herrings branded. The Vote appeared to be a wretched remnant of the protective system, for he saw no reason for putting a brand on a barrel of herrings any more than on a bale of cotton or any other article; and he should move that the Vote be disallowed.

observed, that in the county to which he belonged more fishing was carried on than in any other county in England, and the fishermen there did not receive a single sixpence from the public funds. He thought the time had come for getting rid of this Vote.

said, it was true that a part of this Vote, having reference to the branding of barrels of herrings, was objected to last year, and an intimation was given that a portion of the Vote should be discontinued. A Bill had passed through the House in the present Session to provide for the branding of herring barrels, but not in time to meet the requirements of the fishery for the present year, and therefore it was necessary to continue the Vote for another year. There was a very strong feeling among the fishermen themselves in favour of continuing for a time the system of branding which gave a character to the herrings of Scotland. The Bill which had passed would bring to the test the expediency or inexpediency of that system. If the parties interested did not voluntarily comply with the provisions of that Bill, it would be obvious that there was no great value in the system of branding.

said, he was sorry that the hon. Members for Norfolk (Mr. Bentinck), and Stirlingshire (Mr. Blackburn), who resisted the grant to the Metropolis of any assistance out of the Consolidated Fund, were not now present, for he should like to ask them whether they approved of public money being given in aid of the fisheries of Scotland. He should certainly oppose this Vote, with the exception of the amount required for pensions.

said, he did not mean to include the pensions, and, therefore, he would modify his Amendment by moving that the Vote, with the exception of the pensions, should be expunged.

said, that the Board of Fisheries had other duties to perform besides branding herrings. They had officers stationed along the coast of Scotland whose duty it was, when herrings were brought in, to see that those sent out and exported abroad were properly packed, and were of a proper quality. They had also to supervise the whole of the fisheries, and manage the fishery police, as well as the piers and harbours in many of the fishing stations.

said, that a portion of the Vote was appropriated to the supplementing (in the proportion of one to three) the amounts raised by voluntary subscriptions for piers and harbours on the coast of Scotland, and any hon. Member might satisfy himself that this was a wise expenditure by reading the report of the Commission on the subject.

asked what were the duties of this Board.

said, that at the period of the union with Scotland it was arranged that £2,000 should be applied annually to the encouragement of Scotch manufactures; but, as the manufacturers of Scotland had made such progress that they no longer required this encouragement, it was provided in 1836 that this amount should be applied, under the control of the Treasury, to the promotion of art and science in that country. The result had been the establishment of one of the finest schools of design in the kingdom.

said, the Vote appeared from the Estimates to be required for the encouragement of manufactures in Scotland, but it seemed to be really applied to the promotion of art and science in that country, and he hoped that next year the Government would state honestly and distinctly in the Estimates to what purpose it was devoted.

said, he should oppose the Vote, as he did not see why the expense of these roads should not be defrayed by an assessment upon local property rather than by a charge upon the public purse.

said, that a report of the application of this money was made annually to Parliament.

said, he thought it would be a much more sensible thing to apply this £5,000 to the repair of roads and the abolition of turnpikes in the metropolis and its neighbourhood, instead of devoting it to the maintenance of roads in Scotland which were seldom used.

said, that as he had always opposed imperial grants for metropolitan improvements, he felt bound on principle to take a similar course with respect to the present Vote.

said, the Vote was applied to the maintenance of roads in districts in which it would not be easy to support them by assessment, and those roads were used principally by English tourists.

asked, how many slaves had been captured last year?

said, that he was not prepared to state the exact number then, but he would do so on a future occasion. He understood that a definite sum per head was paid for each captured slave.

said, that if the sum was, as he understood, £5 per head, the number of slaves captured last year was only 400.

observed, that some time ago a Commission was appointed to inquire into the expediency of publishing those laws, which contained much valuable information with regard to the ancient character and habits of the people, and the Commission having reported in favour of the object, this Vote was proposed in furtherance of it.

called attention to several items forming this Vote.

said, that lighthouses had been erected at Ceylon and other places for the protection of the shipping trade. The expenditure had been imposed on the Government by the pressure of the trading community, by whom representations were constantly made by the trade of the country as to the necessity of lighthouses.

said, he wished for further particulars as regarded this Vote, and hoped they would be furnished during future years.

said, there was a diminution in this Vote of £10,000 during the present year.

said, he thought the proposed grant very objectionable, and observed that the Cape colonists had shown very little disposition to assist the mother country in her severe struggles in India. He might refer to a despatch from Lord Stanley to Sir George Grey on this subject, dated May 5, showing that in the four years ending March 1859, Parliament had voted for colonial purposes in Caffraria—£140,000 for promoting civilization, and £210,000 for the passage, settlement, and pay of the German Legion, besides which £30,000 would be required for the pay of the Legion next year, and there was an outstanding item of £35,000 for extra pay last year. To put a stop to this expenditure he should move the rejection of the Vote.

said, he did not object to the policy of the Vote, but he would suggest that its payment should be divided between the Cape colony and this country.

said, that the Cape colony had nothing to do with the Vote. It was a vote for British Caffraria, which was a distinct colony, although it had the same person for Governor. The grant had been originally fixed at £40,000 a year, and it had then been understood that it was not to last for more than three years. But the Government had felt unwilling to withdraw it altogether this year. They had, however, reduced it by one-half, and they hoped to be able to put an end to it altogether next year.

said, he must express his strong disapproval of the practice of making grants of that character. Promises of reduction had been made annually, and he therefore hoped the hon. Baronet would persevere with his Amendment. He believed that if Sir George Grey were not able to govern Caffraria by some other means, the sooner they got rid both of him and of that colony the better.

said, while he was at the head of the Colonial Office he differed from Sir George Grey on many points; but he must say, that in his opinion the energy and ability which that distinguished man had displayed had earned for him the gratitude of his country. There never was an idea held out by Sir George Grey that any part of the money would be repaid to the country. On the contrary, it was a payment necessary for the establishment of the colony—it was money well laid out, and the amount was by no means extravagant. He held that Sir George Grey was entitled to the thanks of the country for the course he had taken.

objected to the grant as an improper application of the public money. It was a species of black mail paid to the Kafirs.

said, he must ask for explanation concerning this Vote, and wished for its postponement. This Vote would lead to a large outlay of public money, which was wholly unwarrantable in the present state of the public finances. Besides, nobody could get to see this collection, and if it were formed at all it ought to be part of the National Gallery. The object, he understood, was to collect the portraits of persons eminent in English history; but on looking over the list of portraits already acquired, there were some whose claims to be there he could not understand. For instance, there was the portrait of Mr. Murphy. He should like to know who he was and what he had done to have a place in a National Portrait Gallery? Again, there was a portrait of "La Belle Hamilton," a very pretty woman no doubt in her time, but he was not aware that it was of any national interest to preserve her portrait.

said, that great results had scarcely ever been obtained at so small an expense as had been accomplished by the National Portrait Gallery Commissioners. Historical interest was of course the first consideration in the selection of the portraits, but many of those which had been collected were works of high art. For instance, the Commissioners had recently been fortunate enough to obtain a portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds by himself, which was really worthy of Rembrant, and was one of the finest productions of the English school. Of course, some day or other, the collection would form part of the National Gallery; that was one of the chief objects in commencing it. The effect of this Vote naturally was to stimulate the public spirit of persons who possessed portraits of interest, and no doubt in time many very valuable works would be presented to the Gallery. Already it was enriched by the Chandos Shakspere, presented by the late Lord Ellesmere, who purchased it at the Stowe sale for 1,000 guineas. The collection would be the germ of a National Portrait Gallery of the highest interest, and he hoped, therefore, that the Committee would sanction this Vote.

said, that having recently seen the gallery, he could bear testimony to its great value, and he had no doubt it was the first step towards the formation of a great national collection of portraits.

said, he hoped the hon. Member would not divide against the Vote.

said, that the boundaries were continually being altered, and required revision.

said, he wished to ask why the country was to be saddled with the expense attendant upon the town of Belfast?

said, some time ago it was considered necessary to build a new custom-house and an inland revenue establishment in Belfast. In order to effect those objects, the Government were obliged to purchase a certain quantity of land, which was to serve as approaches to those buildings. The corporation of the town had undertaken to pay a portion of the cost of this land, but unfortunately they got into difficulties, and were unable to carry out their undertaking. The building of those public offices entailed certain improvements to the town. A portion of the land thus purchased for the corporation would be resold, and the money thus obtained would go some way to cover the present Vote.

said, he hoped that if this Vote were agreed to, Irish Members would remember that public money was sometimes expended on other places besides the metropolis.

remarked that he viewed with some suspicion such a Vote as the present placed upon the Estimates, when he recollected how many members of the Government were connected with Belfast.

, said, he would remind the hon. Gentleman that the debt was incurred long before the present Government came into office, and the present Vote was merely one for the purpose of liquidating liabilities already incurred.

said, that the borough of Finsbury wanted improvement as well as Belfast, but the House of Commons would not Vote money for the "general improvement of the borough of Finsbury."

said, this was the first time money had been voted for Belfast, while grants had been made for parks elsewhere. It should also be recollected that the custom-house of Belfast received large revenues for the general treasury of the kingdom, and, as the building was in a most dilapidated state, it became necessary to build a new one for the collection of the taxation. The same might be said of the post-office of the town.

said, he could not understand why it was necessary to effect those improvements in Belfast at the public expense to the extent of purchasing a quantity of land for the purpose of selling it again.

said, this Vote would go to the improvement of approaches, which was an improvement of the town. The public buildings alluded to had been paid for already.

said, it appeared that money was advanced for the improvement of Belfast by the late Government, and the present Government would no doubt seek for the repayment of that money so advanced.

said, he understood that powers had been taken to purchase land for the custom-house and another public building in Belfast. Power was at the same time taken for the purchase of other land which the corporation were anxious to buy. The corporation got into pecuniary difficulties, and were unable to fulfil their contract when the purchase money became due. The Government, being liable, were obliged to advance the money; but that land was yet to be sold. Already £500 had been received out of it, and ultimately, he believed, that no charge would fall upon the public.

asked, whether the proposed extension of those law buildings was for the accommodation of the new commissioners of the Encumbered Estates Court, and the Land Transfer Offices, and whether it was intended in the meantime to furnish any accommodation to those Commissioners before the new buildings were completed?

said, the object was the extension of the Four Courts, and the removal of the Incumbered Estates Court down there. The object of the Bill now going through the House was to secure the site. He was not able to say whether in the meantime the Incumbered Estates Commissioners could be accommodated in the Four Courts.

asked whether it was contemplated to include the new Court of Probate in this building?

was understood to reply in the negative.

said, he understood that it was intended to make the proposed lions of granite, and to make them rose colour. He trusted that the Government would see that they were made of bronze.

believed that the material was not yet decided, but that the best would be selected. He understood that his noble Friend (Lord J. Manners) was in communication with Sir E. Landseer on the subject of lions, and he hoped that the column would do honour to the metropolis and to the hero whom it commemorated. The suggestion of the hon. Member should be attended to, but though he should admire bronze lions, he should look with some apprehension at the sight of four red lions in Trafalgar Square.

said, he would move that the Chairman report progress.

said, that there were only seven more Votes. He believed there was a general understanding that they should be finished if the hon. Gentleman would allow them to go on.

said, the next Votes that followed were all such as would cause discussion.

thought that when the Committee was so full would be an advantageous time for the discussion to be taken. He would not press the Committee if there was any serious objection to going on.

said, if they were to take the discussion, he must, say that this was a most monstrous proposition. The Committee was called on to vote £8,000, or rather nearly £9,000, for the examination of a plan for the drainage of the metropolis, which was proposed by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1856. The Committee ought never to consent to it. The Metropolitan Board of Works proposed a plan which was submitted to the Chief Commissioner of Works. If that had not been done, the Committee could not have been asked to vote this sum, and the Board of Works would have been enabled to mitigate the evil from which the metropolis had been suffering. How could £9,000 have been expended on the examination of a plan? In fact, it was submitted to three engineers, who were instructed to find fault with it, and they proposed plans of their own which were to cost sums varying from three to eleven millions of money, and it was now said that the plan to be proposed by the Government was that which was originally proposed by the Metropolitan Board of Works. He begged to move to reduce the Vote by £6,000.

said, if the hon. Gentleman had been a Member of the House when the Act of 1855 passed, he could not have made the statement he had just made, for he would have been aware that it was the express desire of the House that the First Commissioner of Works should have a veto on any plan of the Metropolitan Board of Works. When the plan in question was submitted to him he thought it his duty to employ the best talent that could be obtained to advise him as to the course to be pursued, and he placed it in the hands of Mr. Simpson, Captain Galton, of the Board of Trade, and Mr. Blackwell. Captain Galton, of the Board of Trade, made no charge for his services, and the other gentlemen were satisfied with a remuneration of £1,500 for their services, which, looking to the nature of the remuneration received by gentlemen in their position, was little enough. The hon. Gentleman said, that he (Sir B. Hall) had instructed the engineers to find fault with the plan. He denied that statement, and it was a statement which ought not to have been made by the hon. Gentleman; and he called on him to give the authority on which he made such a charge. He would repeat that he did not give any such instructions, and if the hon. Gentleman insinuated that he gave improper instructions, the hon. Gentleman said that which was greatly incorrect. No doubt Mr. Bazalgette might have prepared a plan, as the hon. Gentleman said, and it might be that which was to be carried out now, and it might be a good one; but that gentleman had the assistance of Mr. Stephenson and Mr. Locke, who were members of the Commission of Sewers before that time; and the Metropolitan Board of Works had since appointed two referees—Mr. Bidder and Mr. Hawksley—who must be also paid. He hoped that the House of Commons would not think that he (Sir B. Hall) had done anything but that which was strictly his duty. He regretted that so large an expense should have been incurred, but it should be recollected that this was one of the greatest works that was ever undertaken, and that it was the duty of the gentlemen employed to make every inquiry, at any reasonable cost, and he thought that when it was considered that the work about to be done would cost three or four millions, this sum was not so large in proportion to the magnitude of the work.

said, that although the sum was large, if it had been incurred, it must be paid. He would not, therefore, oppose the vote; but he could not help observing that this was but another specimen of the lamentable condition in which the Government of the metropolis was placed, with no regular body to manage its concerns. It was the duty of the Government, and, if they did not do so, of Parliament, to take early and vigorous measures to regulate the Government of the metropolis. You could not deal with the metropolis as you would with other places; it was so large that if you created one municipal body for its government, that body would become so powerful that it would be almost as powerful as Parliament itself, and might become dangerous to the constitution. But he did not see why districts of the metropolis like the City, Lambeth, and Westminster, should not be put under municipal government, and delegates sent from each district to a Board which should represent the whole community of the metropolis, and which would be worthy to be entrusted with powers which, at the present, no body could be entrusted with. Such a Council, he thought, would command public confidence in the metropolis. The only danger would be, that it might be liable to the charge of being, as respected its relation to Parliament itself, an imperium in imperio. He must say, that he thought the power given to the Chief Commissioner of Works—an official who was appointed for political reasons, and was changed with every Government, to put a veto on the decision of the Metropolitan Board of Works—was a power with which he ought not to have been entrusted. He thought, however, they should be grateful for what the right hon. Baronet (Sir B. Hall) had done during his term of office, for he had done more probably than any of his predecessors.

said, the expense under consideration was uncalled for and unnecessary, but having been incurred, however improperly, the duty only remained to the Committee to sanction its payment. The argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Wortley) as to Parliament being overshadowed by the metropolis being erected into a municipality he regard- ed as puerile, and he looked forward to the day when this great city would have a municipal constitution commensurate with its importance.

said, the course the Government took on coming into office was to consult the law officers of the Crown, whether this expense ought not to be addressed to the Metropolitan Board of Works. Their opinion was, that that body was not responsible for the charge, and the Government had therefore no alternative but to propose this Vote to the House.

said, he would beg leave to withdraw his Amendment, and at the same time to disclaim the slightest personal feeling towards the right hon. Baronet (Sir B. Hall) in proposing it.

intimating that, as there was not much business on the paper, perhaps they might go into Committee of Supply this day,

stated, that there were some supplementary Votes still to be proposed, especially one by the Secretary of War for the sanitary improvements of barracks.

said, he would move the adjournment of the House, for the purpose of asking a question he had ineffectually endeavoured to get an answer to in Committee—When was the Dublin Police Bill coming on?

said, the hon. Gentleman was unreasonable. The Bill was on the paper, and would be referred to in its regular course. He might add, that he hoped to take the Bill at an early hour next Thursday.

said, the Government, by founding this colony, had undertaken the protection of life and property in a wild and lawless district. This could not be done without expense, which he supposed the Government had calculated. He wished they would inform the House what their calculation was, before the third reading of the Bill.

said, he would mention the matter to his right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary.