I am so fully aware of the very general, and I must say the very natural, indisposition of the House to listen to long statements of figures, that I should not venture to ask its attention to a matter relating to past expenditure, which has already been provided for by means to which I shall hereafter refer, if the subject was not of far greater importance than the Vote of £206,000 would appear to imply. This sum forms a very small portion of the excess of expenditure beyond the money voted by Parliament for army services in 1859–60, and I do not know how I can give a better idea of the importance of the subject than by drawing a comparison between the amount of this sum (spent without the authority of Parliament, and apparently without the knowledge of the Government) and some of those items of expenditure which have created the greatest interest during the present Session. Great alarm has been expressed at the amount required to build a new Foreign Office. The excess would have built five Foreign Offices. Another matter of the greatest interest is the amount required for the national education of the country, and complaints have been made of the gradual increase of that Vote; but this excess exceeds the whole amount required for the national education of the United Kingdom, and is five times the sum that we have been told would insure the permanent enrolment of 200,000 volunteers. It is to this excess, and the provision, or rather want of provision, made for it in the Budget of last year, that I wish to call the attention of the House. In referring to what took place on the 19th of March, 1860, when the Secretary for War moved the Vote of Credit to cover his expenditure, it may be supposed by some that my object is to claim some triumph over my noble Friend, or to find fault with the policy of the Government, that led to this expenditure; but it is neither the one or the other. If it was a mere question as to the accuracy of my statement on that occasion as compared with that of my noble Friend, I should consider that matter completely settled by the production of the account of the receipts and expenditure for Army and Militia Services for the year ending 31st March, 1860, which I now hold in my hand, and I should have been quite willing to leave it to the judgment of those Members who are in the habit of interesting themselves and paying attention to these matters; and as to the policy of the Government, I have not the slightest doubt that they were fully justified by what was passing at the time in exceeding the number of men voted by Parliament, which naturally entailed the increased expenditure; but what I complain of is that having done so they did not provide the means to meet it—that either they did not know, or, knowing (which I do not believe), they concealed from the House the amount required to meet the expenditure—that the calculations upon which the Budget was framed were erroneous, and that that Budget on the faith of the accuracy of which the House was called upon to make great changes in the taxation of the country, and to repeal the paper duty, was a delusion, and for that delusion the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in my opinion, was quite as much responsible as the Secretary for War. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has on two or three occasions alluded to what he was pleased to call a controversy going on between myself and the Secretary for War, with which he had nothing to do, and he has laid down this doctrine, "that if the Treasury undertook to cut down the demands of the Military Departments, it would be incurring a great responsibility;" and in this I entirely agree; and if I was Secretary for War I would take care that the Treasury did not so interfere. The number of men and means of defence required by the country is not in the province of either the Secretary for War or the Treasury to determine. That is settled by the Cabinet; and I take for granted that my noble Friend the Secretary for War did not proceed to raise a new regiment and exceed the number of men voted by Parliament by more than 22,000 men without first obtaining the sanction of his colleagues. Having done so it was the duty of the War Office, in the first instance, to frame the Estimates to cover the necessary expenditure; but all Estimates must be submitted to the Treasury, and obtain the sanction of the Treasury before they are laid upon the Table of this House. No Department can incur any expenditure not provided for in the Estimates without the direct sanction and authority of the Treasury; and this sanction, I maintain, makes the Treasury equally responsible with the Department for it. If this is not the case—if the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not responsible—then, I think this House ought to insist on having the Minister responsible for the Estimate and expenditure of upwards of fifteen millions of money, here to account for it. Nobody can bear more willing testimony than I do to the ability with which the hon. Gentleman, the Under Secretary for War has discharged the duties of the office. But he is not, and cannot be responsible for the accuracy of Estimates or expenditure over which he has no control. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his financial statement last year, he professed to provide for in it, not only all excess of expenditure that had already taken place in consequence of the Chinese war, but for all prospective expenditure not included in the Estimates that could be foreseen and estimated for, and he announced that in order to do so two Votes of Credit would be required, one of £850,000 to meet the expenditure of 1859–60; and another of £500,000 for 1860–1. On the 19th of March, 1860, my noble Friend the Secretary for War moved for the first Vote of Credit of £850,000, of which £500,000 was to be devoted to the army, and it was on that occasion that I expressed my opinion that £500,000 would not meet the excess of expenditure on five Votes alone of the ordinary Estimates of the year— namely, votes 2, 3, 4, 9, and 10 entirely dependent on the number of men borne on the establishment during the financial year, and I stated my grounds for coming to this conclusion—namely, that having framed those Estimates, and knowing that they were only calculated to provide for 134,600 men, including the embodied militia, and that the average number of men during the whole year exceeded 142,600 men, there must be an excess of expenditure amounting to at least this £500,000 on these, five Votes, and that to meet the whole expenditure, the greatest portion of which had taken place in India and had been paid for by the Indian Government, that at least another £500,000 would be required, and I concluded by appealing to that time (which has now arrived) when the accounts are before us, to bear me out in this assertion. Now, what I said may be of very little importance, but what the Secretary for War—the Minister responsible to this House for the accuracy of these Estimates—said, is of such vital importance, that in order to prevent the possibility of my misquoting him, I will read from what I take to be a corrected copy of his speech, what he did say—

"He, too, would appeal to facts—not to estimates, but to formal accounts of the money which had been spent—and the House might rest assured that the Government were running into no excess beyond that met by the present Vote."— [3 Hansard, clvii. 920.] He then proceeded to enter into an explanation about an Army of Reserve which it had been intended to raise, but of which, as we have never heard a word more from that day to this, it is useless for me to dwell upon. And then he said—

"In the Estimates of 1859–60, which his right hon. and gallant Friend had moved, provision was made for 121,601 regular troops, in addition to £410,000 for militia, which would maintain 13,000 men during the year. In the Vote of Credit for China services for 1859–60, also moved by his right hon. and gallant Friend, £210,000 was taken for pay and allowances, which would maintain 7,000 men for one year, so that provision was made in that year for a total force of 141,600 men. In April of last year the force was less than this number by 14,000, which produced a saving of £43,200. In May there was a saving of 12,400 men, and of £37,000. The amount of saving then went on decreasing until November, the upshot being that if in March all the troops going from India to China had actually gone, there would be 15,000 in excess. In point of fact, however, it was known that the vessels which were to convey those troops had not sailed from Bombay and Calcutta in time to land the troops in China before the expiration of the financial year, and would not come within the Estimates until they were disembarked. There would thus be an excess of £97,000 for the payment of the men against £192,000 of savings accruing as he had mentioned in the early part of the year. To make all safe £50,000 had been added as a difference between the organization of the militia and the regular force, the militia having a greater number of officers in proportion to the men than the regular army. Again, £50,000 had been added for an increase which might occur upon the miscellaneous items of Vote 3, but with all these additions, which were stated to be more than ample, there was still £192,000 to meet the £187,000 of excess. But this was not all. Upon the Votes taken for buildings, stores, and so on, it invariably happened, he was sorry to say, that the deliveries were not fast enough to allow of the payments being made in the financial year, and there was almost a saving under this head. Accordingly there was this year a large saving upon the Vote of stores."

"As he had said, he would only assure the right hon. and gallant Officer that he had looked through the accounts with the greatest possible care, and he was confident that there was not only enough for the troops, but a surplus to provide against any deficiency."—[3 Hansard, clvii. 921–22.]

"And he asks me whether every sixpence of the £500,000 which we took has not been expended in making up the deficiency on the ordinary Estimates of last year? In the first place I have to reply that not one sixpence of that sum was applicable to making up any deficiency which might have occurred in the ordinary Estimates of last year. My gallant Friend, who is well acquainted with these matters, must have spoken without reflection, for he must have known that you cannot apply one farthing of a Vote of Credit to any purpose but that for which it was voted. You cannot spend it in making up an ordinary deficiency in the ordinary Estimate of the year. If his vaticinations, therefore, should prove correct, which I trust they will not, the deficiency will have to be made up by a Vote next year, specially taken to cover it. But so far from all that sum being spent in that way, we have reason to believe that a large portion of it still remains unexpended."—[3 Hansard, clix. 1813.]

said, his right hon. Friend seemed to expect that he would be found fault with for bringing this subject before the House, and that he would be told it was too late to do so. But the truth was that the subject of the army excesses could only be discussed with effect in the year next but one after the Estimates were voted, so that his right hon. Friend had taken the right time for the discussion which he had raised. The charges which he had made divided themselves into two parts. One might be settled by a discussion in that House—the other [was of a far more serious nature. The lighter portion—that which related to the discrepancy between the actual sum asked for the service of the army and the ultimate expenditure—he would leave to be answered by his hon. Friend the Under Secretary for War. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had spoken of the relations between the Treasury and the War Department, and had ascribed to him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) a doctrine which most certainly was not his, but was the reverse of his. No doubt it was the special duty of the Treasury, with respect to the Army Estimates, to examine whether or not the services taken were in excess of the purposes to which they were to be applied. The Treasury had the greatest possible interest in the accuracy of the Estimates. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, therefore, it was his duty to make a careful examination of them; and it was no reproach to the gentlemen connected with the various departments to say that this examination, as well as the discussions that took place in Parliament, were useful in securing accuracy of detail. His right hon. Friend said the Treasury must necessarily have known the increase of payment for the army called for, in consequence of the increase which he said had taken place in the number of men voted by Parliament. But the fact was that the Treasury were in ignorance of the number of men. The Cabinet itself could not have a perfectly effective control over the number of men chargeable on the British establishment; because, in the state in which affairs had been in India, they had been but little else than servants of the Governor General. They were compelled constantly to have forces ready for the service of India, and to proceed there often without notice, so that no preparation could be made for the amount of change, and it was impossible to say how much would be thrown upon the British establishment. He would pass on to the question of departmental responsibility, and upon this he wished to observe that if the, statements of the right hon. Gentleman (General Peel) were correct the matter ought not to end with a simple discussion across the Table of the House. The charges which he had brought really amounted to this—that at the time when the Government laid their proposals before Parliament with respect to the impending military expenditure they were in possession of information which ought to have convinced any rational man that the charge they proposed was too small. Now, that was a charge which would require a more minute answer than, without preparation, he was able to give. He was in a condition, however, from recollection, to meet the charges pf his right hon. Friend so far. The points on which the Treasury was responsible were three. It was responsible for fixing the amount of any Vote of Credit that was proposed; it was responsible for the transfer and distribution of the Votes under the Act of Parliament; and it was responsible for adjudications on the claims of the respective departments to a share of the Vote of Credit. His right hon. Friend stated that, so far back as the 10th of February, 1860, the Government ought to have been sensible that there was a sum of —1,800,000—including £400,000 for the China War, and £600,000 due to the Indian Government — which they would have to pay, and for which they had made no provision. Now, he denied that the accounts to which, his right hon. and gallant Friend referred were in such a state as to enable the Government to found any estimate on them, with a view of getting a Vote from Parliament. All he could say was, that if an excess of £1,800,000 really did exist in the expenditure of the army, it was not within the knowledge of the War Department, nor within the knowledge of any other department of the Government when he made his financial statement in I860. He, therefore, did not admit that any portion pf that alleged army excess could have entered the calculations of the Government in framing their financial arrangements. Many of these questions— such, for example, as the £400,000 voted for the China War£could not be settled across that table. Neither he nor his right hon. Colleague the Secretary for India, nor any one else connected with the Government, could have had the smallest idea that any portion of that sum mentioned would go to any other than its original purposes. If his right hon. and gallant Friend wished to make good the opinion he had stated, he ought to have submitted to the House a question, not to be settled across the table, but one that would have led to a more minute calculation, and investigation of accounts than could take place in that House. His right hon. and gallant Friend stated that the charge of £600,000 for India was known to the Government before the financial statement was made. It was in reality known on the 28th of January, but it was not to be taken for granted that the claim was one that should be paid; for, in truth, claims for India not unfrequently required to be corrected after investigation. His right hon. Friend taunted them with having proposed a Vote of Credit of only £1,350,000 to meet an excess of £1,800,000; but that sum was believed fully adequate to the occasion, and was fixed upon partly in consequence of information from the Foreign Office with regard to the probability of an increased charge being required for China, and partly with reference to the Indian account. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that they ought to have left a wide margin for charges that might occur; but, on the other hand, it must be borne in mind that at the time there was an expectation that should the Chinese expedition lead to an accommodation, there was a payment from that country of £500,000 under the Treaty of Tien-tsin, which would have been available in aid of the Ways and Means of the year; and it would not have been right of the Government to have made any demand on Parliament without taking that matter into consideration. If the right hon. Gentleman were not satisfied with that, he hoped he would carry the matter further, It was a matter of vital importance that every department, and especially the Minister of Finance, should deal with Parliament not only in good faith, but with as much intelligence as could be expected from him, or as the nature of his office would allow. Then, with respect to the appropriation of what were called the savings on different heads. It was the absolute duty of the Treasury to appropriate the balances in the Exchequer before dealing with the Vote of Credit; and if they did otherwise they would have acted in excess of their legal power. His right hon. and gallant Friend found fault with the Treasury for having appropriated £600,000 out of £850,000 taken for the China expedition to the expenses of the military department. His answer to that was that it was a matter which depended for its accuracy on careful and minute examination in detail, and it had been examined with care and pains under his (the Chancellor of the Exchequer's) responsibility. They might, however, have been wrong, and that was a very proper matter for Parliamentary investigation. If his hon. and gallant Friend was disposed to devote his leisure hours to the inquiry during the recess, with a view to its being again brought forward next Session, and thoroughly investigated, he should have every assistance that it was in his power to give him. He was glad that he had directed his mind to the subject, as every Government was the better for being called to account with regard to its expenditure.

thought the question between the right hon. Gentleman and his noble Friend the Secretary for War (Lord Herbert) could be very easily settled. The right hon. Gentleman in March 1860 stated his belief that there would be at least £500,000 of excess in the military expenditure of the year, and Lord Herbert thought and stated that the ordinary army Votes for the year would be sufficient, with the addition of the Vote of Credit for the China War for that year. The question was not which was right and which was wrong, but which was most right and which most wrong. He had now to ask the House for a Vote of Credit for £200,000 to make up the deficiency for the year in question; this was the whole deficiency after the increased expenditure caused by the China War had been paid, as provided for by Parliament, out of the Vote of Credit. It must be plain, therefore, that when Lord Herbert said there would be no deficiency he was more right than the right hon. Gentleman, who put down the deficiency at £500,000. Lord Herbert was, however, far nearer the truth than that, for out of the actual excess of £200,000, at least £120,000 could not have been known in March 1860, when, as the right hon. Gentleman well knew, six months at least had to elapse before the accounts for the Army were closed. This £120,000 was made up of items of account unexpectedly brought on charge in the year 1859–60. Lord Her- bert, therefore, was only out by £80,000 out of a total expenditure of £14,000,000. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to five Votes, which he said were entirely dependent on the number of men; but that was an incorrect assumption. How could the £120,000 charged to the clothing Vote for items of account, as explained in the Parliamentary paper in the hands of Members, be attributed to the number of men, as stated by the hon. Gentleman? How could the increased supplies purchased for the garrisons of Malta and Gibraltar be caused by the number of men borne? He denied the accuracy of the conclusions drawn by the right hon. Gentleman. He could, having examined the accounts, assure the House that no portion of the £600,000 for China had gone to the ordinary expenses of the Army in the sense stated by the right hon. Gentleman. Had there been no war with China that charge would not have been incurred. The right hon. Gentleman had also stated that there would be an excess upon the Vote for men for the current year. There was at present, including the men on passage home, an excess of about 5,000 men which chiefly arose from the unexpected return of troops from India and from the calls made upon us from India; 3,000 were artillery to be charged to India, leaving 2,000 men as the excess. There would be probably 1,000 men in China to be charged to the Vote of Credit, and this would make the excess about 1,000, or say 1,500 men. Then recruiting had been stopped, so that he did not anticipate that the money voted would be insufficient to meet the cost of the men for the whole year.

said, he thought the gratitude of the House was due to his right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Huntingdon, who had raised a great constitutional principle, to which he too wished to call attention. In the year 1859–60 the House voted £122,655 men, but in the course of the year they had 9,557 more men than Parliament sanctioned. In April 1860, they had 11,507 more men than Parliament voted for. He wanted to know where the money to pay these men came from? It was evident that it must have come out of the Treasury chest; but he wished to ask if the House was disposed to let go its hold over the control of the Army, the number of men voted, and the sources from which they were to be paid? If not, he thought there ought to be a clear and distinct explanation of the cir- cumstance. He wished, therefore, to have an answer whether or not it was true that 10,000 men in round numbers were kept up last year in excess of the numbers voted in this House? The question was of the more importance, as the House was in a strange position arising from the large standing army kept up in India over which they had no control whatever.

said, he thought the questions raised by his right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Huntingdon would be better inquired into before a Committee upstairs than in that House; but there were one or two points which he thought ought not to pass without notice. He gathered from what fell from the hon. Under Secretary of State for War that he considered the whole matter turned very much upon the question of whether his right hon. and gallant Friend (General Peel) or Lord Herbert were nearest the truth in what they respectively stated on the 19th of March, 1860. The House should bear in mind how extremely different were the positions of the two speakers. One spoke from a general estimate which he was enabled to form from his knowledge of the manner in which business was conducted at the War Office, and of the operations which were being carried on; while the other spoke from official knowledge on the subject, and from documents in his possession. But, after all, he (Sir Stafford Northcote) did not see that the balance was as the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for War had stated it. It seemed to him that his right hon. and gallant Friend was upon the whole much nearer the truth than was Lord Herbert. It was said that they were to measure the whole by the £200,000 asked for in excess. But that did not measure the whole. They were distinctly informed last year that only £500,000 would be wanted for the army and £250,000 for the navy. It was simply in consequence of the postponement of some ships building for the Admiralty that the latter sum was not required, but if it had been there would have been a still greater deficiency in respect of the army Vote than there was at present. He made out that the real deficiency was at least £300,000. The hon. Gentleman said the deficiency arose from circumstances which could not have been foreseen. No doubt many things, especially considering our relations with India, would at times arise to baffle the calculations of Government, but they ought on that account to be the more cautious, and to take care in their arrangement for the year to make allowances for uncertainties. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to think that he was entitled to take as a set off to the £600,000 required by India the possibility of the war with China coming to an end, and that in such a case there would have been no deficiency. If that statement had been made to the House last year they would have known what they were about; that they were dealing with a certainty on the one hand and with an uncertainty on the-other; but the complaint was that the Government did not tell them all the grounds on which expenditure would be required. He thought the statement of his right hon. and gallant Friend last year was justified by the result, and that he had taken the only means in his power by a reference to the five Votes which he had pointed out of getting at the expenditure for the year. It was not fair for the Government after advising the House to agree to a large expenditure to come forward as they now did and tell them that there was an excess of expenditure through causes which they had not foreseen.

said, that he, too, thought the House ought to feel obliged to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Huntingdon in bringing the matter forward, for it was clear that these accounts ought to be examined into in detail. It was not the first time that such accounts had been mystified, and if a Committee were moved for during the next Session he should give the Motion his support.

said, he thought the thanks of the House were due both to the right hon. and gallant Officer and to the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham for having called attention to that important question. There could be no doubt that the large army in India did give any Government an opportunity to shuffle the cards between the two armies—men in the one country and men out of it—men on sea and men about to go to sea—men to be accounted for now and men to be accounted for hereafter—that he was afraid it would puzzle even a Committee to discover what was the exact state of things at any particular moment. The right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer said there were many of these matters which it was impossible to foresee when the Estimates were being made up.

Those were not my words.

said, he had not taken down the right hon. Gentleman's words; but that was his impression. He could only say that if it had been to lay on a tax the prevision of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have been considerably strengthened. He had been amused with the manner in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer recommended his right hon. and gallant Friend to employ his leisure during the recess. Was his right hon. and gallant Friend to step into the War Office and into the Treasury to overhaul these accounts? For his part he thought the best way to investigate the matter would be by a Committee. Then the hon. Under Secretary, curiously enough, accounted for the excess of 5,000 men by saying that 3,000 of them were wanted for India. Why that might as well be 10,000. What security, indeed, was there against any number of men being sent? If a great army was to be kept up in India some arrangement should be made with the Government of India, so that the present state of uncertainty might be done away with. The House ought to remember that the question was by no means new. His right hon. and gallant Friend had returned to the charge again and again—he had told both Lord Herbert and the hon. Gentleman opposite, both that year and the last, "You are not taking money enough for your men." And the result of all the mistification was that they were called on to-day to vote £200,000 for excess of expenditure. The Chancellor of Exchequer had in effect said that he had no answer to make to his right hon. and gallant Friend (General Peel). He neither admitted his right hon. and gallant Friend to be right, nor did he deny his statement — he left them in a state of blessed uncertainty. In his opinion no answer had been given to his right hon. and gallant Friend, either by the Chancellor of the Exchequer or by the Under Secretary for War. The subject was not an agreeable subject, and he hoped the House would apply itself to prevent its recurrence in future.

said, he wished to know how the 5,000 men that were admitted to be in excess were to be paid for? If recruiting was stopped what was to become of the large Vote taken during the year for recruiting, and why was the passage money for soldiers from India to be paid for by this country, instead of, as formerly, by the Indian Government? He hoped the hon. Gentleman would give a clear answer to these questions.

said, he could not understand what was the necessity of sending out 3,000 artillerymen to India. Surely out of the volunteers into the Queen's army, of which they had heard so much, they might have obtained the number of artillerymen required.

said, he rose to move I that an Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the sum of £15,000, voted for an increase to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst to contained five hundred cadets, might not be expended till the House had had time to consider the details of the plan for which it was proposed to make the increase. He wished at the outset to disclaim the intention of making any attack on Lord Herbert, whose merits he fully recognized, and whose retirement from office, which he was afraid was made certain by the writs moved for that day, he considered a great loss to the public service. But one of the merits of that noble Lord was that he was willing to listen to opinions different from his own; and he believed if he had been in his usual health the plan would never have been proposed. That plan was that every officer of the army should pass through the college. The Committee on military organization which sat in 1859 and 1860, took evidence on the subject, and considered it but settled in their Report that they had not information enough; before them to justify their making any recommendation on the subject. From that day to this the Government have given no further information on the question, and yet asked the House of Commons to devide upon it, although the important Committee to which he had referred declared that the information produced was not sufficient to justify any opinion being formed on it. When the Vote was under consideration it was objected to, and the hon. Gentleman made the offer that the Government would incur no expense till further information was obtained. The House, however, divided on the Vote, and it was carried; and after that the hon. Under Secretary stated that, as the Opposition had divided, the Government would not stand by the offer he had made. That was, to say the least, sharp practice, for how could the hon. Gentleman know how many votes were influenced in his favour by the offer he had made? He hoped the hon. Gentleman would even now repeat his offer and save him the trouble of arguing the question further. As the hon. Gentleman remained silent he was compelled, though with great reluctance, to go further into the matter. The hon. Gentleman then stated at some length his objections to the proposed plan, referring more particularly to the question of patronage, and the competitive system for admission to the college. It seemed to be settled that every student who passed through Sandhurst was to have a commission. The question, then, was, how was a young man to get into the college? It was at first proposed that they should enter by competitive examination, but that was now overruled; so that the question came to this—that the Commander-in-Chief, instead of giving commissions directly, would give them indirectly by a nomination to Sandhurst. That would practically be the case in time of peace; it would be still more emphatically the case in time of war, for they had the evidence of his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief that the college would he inadequate to the supply of officers in time of war. Yet it was proposed to make every officer of the British army pass through this college. The reason alleged was that the education there given was necessary for the officer in the discharge of his duties. Practically, however, it was found that the theories taught by professors were not of much service in the field, and he had heard men of great professional experience declare that the proposed plan would be injurious to the service. Indeed, he believed the Duke of Wellington was always opposed to the plan of making all the officers of the army pass through one college. But all he asked was that the Government should give a pledge they would not carry out the plan till the House was in possession of further information. The plan of the college was that every officer was to enter the college at the age of seventeen. At present any man might enter the army between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three. It might be advantageous in some respects to make the army, like the armies of the Continent, a separate class; but the great object had hitherto been to combine among their officers the qualities of a soldier and a citizen. To introduce a set of men who were to be soldiers only, and not citizens, might be injurious both to the interests of the army and the Constitution. He concluded by moving the Resolution.

said, he rose to order. He wished to ask whether, when a Vote had been agreed to in a Committee of Supply and been reported to the House, it was competent to move an Address to the Crown to Buspend, if not to annihilate, that Vote.

said, great latitude of discussion was allowed on going into Committee of Supply, but one restriction was put upon it by the House, namely, that any Vote which had passed, or any Vote which was about to be discussed in Committee of Supply, was not a proper subject for discussion on going into Committee. That was the rule of the House. When the hon. Gentleman was making his statement there was much in it which could not be objected to by the House. Therefore, although the speech was founded on a Motion which stood on the paper, he did not think it consistent with his duty to interfere. But, in reply to the appeal now made to him, he would say that it was not consistent with order that he should put the Motion to the House. The Vote to which it referred had been passed in Committee, and had been reported and agreed to by the House. If a practice should arise of moving an Address to the Crown on every Vote which had been passed by the House it was clear that discussion never would end, and that Supply would be postponed indefinitely. Any other subject once considered and disposed of by the House was held to be disposed of for that Session. The Vote had passed in Committee, and been agreed to by the House, and he, therefore, was of opinion, that it was not competent to move an Address to the Crown that the Vote should not be expended.

said, that as it appeared to be contrary to the rules of the House he should at once withdraw the Motion. He might add, however, he had waited until then to bring it forward, in order to see whether the Government would produce papers on the subject.

said, he did not think, if the Motion was withdrawn, that the discussion was, therefore, disposed of. He thought the hon. Gentleman was entitled to the thanks of the House for bringing the question forward. Let the House consider the circumstances under which the Vote was passed. It was passed at half-past one in the morning, when the House was tired out. No explanation of the Vote was given, but a promise was held out that some explanation would be given afterwards. A division took place, and the Vote was only carried by a majority of five. They were taking a step towards the formation of an institution that was to put the whole officers of the army on a new footing with regard to the mode of entering the army. The Committee on Military Organization would not sanction the plan of the college because it was brought forward in an incomplete; state, and the Government themselves did not know what the plan was. If they did not take care the £15,000 then asked for would swell up to £200,000. The House was surprised into a division in favour of the scheme, and he hoped some means; would be devised to get rid of it.

said, he wished to ask whether the rule, as stated by the right hon. Gentleman, would prevent any Motion being made on the subject when they were not going into Committee of Supply?

had stated what was the rule of the House which it was his duty to enforce—namely, a rule, that in going into Committee of Supply restriction was placed upon the general liberty of discussion on two points—one, that Votes passed in Committee of Supply were not to be discussed on going into Committee; and the Other, that any Votes standing for consideration must be considered in Committee, and not on going into Committee.

said, that if they were to be struck over upon a point of order on a Vote taken at half-past one in the morning, he trusted it would be a lesson to the House never to allow a Committee of Supply to go on at such an hour.

said, that as a matter of fact the Vote was not carried at half-past one in the morning. At no time were the Votes of the Army Estimates taken at so late an hour.

said, that in a matter of such importance one would be justified in moving the adjournment of the debate, in order to enable the hon. Under Secretary for War to give an explanation, because he said he would have no objection to lay before the House the plan upon which this money was to be expended. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the debate be now adjourned."

said, he would second the Motion. He would not say whether the Vote was taken at one or half-past one, but it was very late, and the Vote on the division was mainly influenced by the hon. Gentle- man's explanation, that no part of the money would be spent till the plan was laid on the table. He feared there was an attempt making to Germanize the education of the army. Hitherto the officers had been chosen from all the public schools of the country, and it was well known that the Duke of Wellington shortly before his death, pointing to the boys on the playing fields of Eton, said, there is the stuff of which the British officers are composed. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would delay the expenditure of the money till the papers were prepared, which he believed was not yet the case, as there was a dispute between the Horse Guards and the War Office on the subject.

said, that nothing could be further from his wish than to interfere with freedom of discussion in that House; but the House would see that it would be impossible to take into account whether the Vote was carried in Committee by a large majority or a small one, or at what hour.

said, that he altogether disputed and denied any want of faith on his part. A discussion took place in Committee, and he said if those who opposed the Vote consented to pass it he would undertake that no expenditure should take place until the scheme was produced. The opposition was not withdrawn; and, therefore, when the hon. Member for Windsor asked him about it the following day, he told him that he was bound to no pledge on the subject. But he was perfectly ready to agree that the establishment of the new system should not take place before Midsummer, so as to give full room for the expression of opinion upon it.

said, he wished to ask the hon. Gentleman if he would state that the money should not be expended?

observed, that the Vote could be struck out of the Appropriation Bill, and he would suggest to the hon. Member for Windsor to be in his place.

said, he objected to the sum of £512 in payment of the fees for the patent making Lord Brougham's barony pass at death to his brother. He also objected to a payment of £150 for conveying the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from Holyhead to Kingstown, and moved, as the last-mentioned item stood first in the Vote, that it should be reduced by that sum. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the item of £150, for the Conveyance of the Earl of Carlisle (Lord Lieutenant of Ireland), between Kingstown and Holyhead, be omitted from the proposed Vote."

said, he thought the charge for the Lord Lieutenant was most extravagant. If the Lord Lieutenant wished to spend his Christmas holidays at his own residence, he certainly ought to go at his own cost. If, indeed, the money were to take him altogether out of Ireland he would not object to paying it.

said, he would beg leave to ask whether they could discuss the Vote, as it had been already expended?

said, though the money had been expended it had not yet been made good.

said, that the item was not an estimate, but an account rendered of money expended, and in all the expenditure of this country there were only two Votes of that description—one the Treasury chest, and the other the civil contingencies. Both these subjects had been before the Committee on Public Accounts, and, if the recommendations of that Committee with regard to civil contingencies were agreed to, it would never again occur that the House was deprived of the opportunity of discussing such Votes as the present before the money was paid. The recommendation of the Committee was that instead of the present mode of voting money already expended, and over which they had no control, the amount should be converted into a deposit account, and that the money should not be expended till the Vote had been submitted to the revision of Parliament. No doubt, the Report of that Committee would be acted upon by the Government for the future; and, in these circumstances, perhaps, they had better agree to the Vote before them—thus giving condonation for the past, while they took care to act differently for the future. At the same time, he must say there were items in the Vote which he regretted to see there.

said, he did not think that the position of that House with respect to the money voted under the head of Civil Contingencies was at all satisfactory, and he was glad that the Committee had objected to the system which had been so long in operation. The Committee would see that that was one of those cases in which the Executive Government wanted the assistance of the House. The charge of £150 for the Lord Lieutenant was one of those minor charges that were allowed to go on from year to year simply on the ground of usage, and which it would be invidious to disallow. Certainly the Government would be disposed to give full consideration to the Report of the Committee, as its recommendations would tend to increase the control of the House over these Votes.

said, he wanted to know, as the money had been spent, what would be the consequence of omitting this item?

said, one effect would be that Government would not again introduce such items.

said, another effect would be that if the House condemned it the noble Lord would, perhaps, refund the money.

said, he desired to ask whether it was a matter of usage to pay the fees for patents in connection with the peerage? If they voted upon the sum of £150 for the Lord Lieutenant, would they be precluded from voting afterwards upon the £512 for Lord Brougham's patent?

said, that by a recent Standing Order it was open for hon. Members in Committee to canvass every item of a Vote, if they thought fit to do so. The effect of the omission of any particular item would be to reduce the gross Vote, and he did not know of any rule of the House which would entitle him to decline putting a Motion such as that made by the hon. Member for Lambeth; but, undoubtedly, if he put the Motion the Committee would be precluded from afterwards considering the item of £512.

But how then can we arrive at the other items?

said, that it appeared to him that the Committee ought to discuss all those points to which it was proper their attention should be directed before coming to any Vote, and then some proposition might be made which would include in one aggregate reduction the sum by which they thought the Vote for next year ought to be reduced.

said, that as one of the Committee, he understood that it was their intention in the Report which they made to the House to leave the various items open to discussion.

said, he thought the convenient course would be to discuss the items of the Vote. In order to give full scope for that discussion he would recommend his hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth to withdraw his Amendment. If after discussion any hon. Member thought the sum of £75,000 too large a sum to place at the disposal of the Executive, be might, without reference to any particular item, move that the sum be reduced.

said, he would withdraw his Amendment.

said, he would move that the Vote be reduced by the sum of £500. [An hon. Member: Make it £5,000.] He had no objection to make it £2,000 or £5,000. There were several items in the Vote which he disapproved. There was one charge of £280 for the conveyance of colonial Bishops in ships of war. There was another of £944. 4s. 8d. for the Commission for the Encouragement of Fine Arts. It would be a dear Commission at the odd 4s. 8d. He would say of them in another sense than the monument on Sir Charles Wren—

Order. The time for adjournment has come.

asked what business would be taken in the evening?

said, the Indian Loan would be taken first; after that they would go on with Supply.

And when shall I have an opportunity of going on with my circumspice?

said, his hon. Friend was not so oddly situated as a certain Mr. Andrews, who was stopped on one occasion, not in the middle of a sentence, but in the middle of a word. He presumed his hon. Friend would have an opportunity of taking up circumspice in the evening, when Mr. Speaker had again left the Chair.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, Whether Troops ordered home from North China have been detained by the British Minister? If so, for what time they are to be detained? And whether the Troops at Tien-tsin are supplied with fresh water by Coolie labour?

said, that a Despatch from Mr. Bruce stated that he bad found it necessary to detain one regiment of infantry and one troop of Fane's Horse at Tien-tsin. He was unable to say whether the troops were supplied with fresh water by Coolie labour.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, When the Return with reference to Stipendiary Native Princes of India, for which an Address was moved as unopposed on the 2nd of May last, will he laid upon the Table of the House? He would also beg to ask, if the light hon. Gentleman will lay on the Table a Copy of the Speech of Mr. Laing in bringing forward his Indian Budget?

said, he was sorry be could not say when the Return, ordered to be made on the 2nd of May, with reference to the Stipendiary Native Princes of India would be laid on the Table. He was, however, as anxious as the hon. Gentleman that it should be printed and given to the world. He must decline to lay upon the Table Mr. Laing's speech on bringing forward the Indian Budget at Calcutta. It was true that Mr. Wilson's speech was laid before the House; but that speech was necessary for the elucidation of public and official documents.

said, he wished to ask a question of which he had given notice. He wished to know, Whether a despatch existed in which the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston), when Foreign Secretary, had stated, with reference to Poland, that the rights of the Czar were in-contestible; and, if so, whether there would be any objection to its production?

I have looked at these despatches since notice was given. There is no such expression in any despatch as that the rights of the Czar were incontestible. There will be no objection to the production of the despatches. There is a note from Count Sebastiani to Prince Talleyrand, communicated to me at the Foreign Office, and a despatch from me to the British Ambassador at Paris in answer to it.

rose together. Yielding to the loud calls for Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE, the hon. Member for Lambeth gave way.

said, as he was cut short in a quotation at ten minutes to four o'clock, it was rather unkind in the hon. Member for Lambeth to wish to prevent his resuming it in the evening. But, on the other hand, he was rather glad he had had time, since the adjournment of the House, to examine the Vote, as he was the better able to propose what he thought would be right to deduct from the credit of £75,000. He would put it at £2,000, a sum which would give the Committee an opportunity of discussing some of the items, and allow him to make a few observations upon them. The first item was the charge of £273 for the expenses of the various colonial Bishops in visiting their dioceses. He would not, however, insist on being too particular as to that Vote. There was another to which he would direct the attention of the House, chiefly for the sake of asking for some information on it. It was the charge for fees paid on conferring titles of dignity. A sum of £512 was asked for passing under the Great Seal a patent granting to Lord Brougham a barony with one remainder. He was the last person in the House who would ever say anything to detract from the justly-established merits of Lord Brougham; he thought he had well earned the gratitude of the country. But when he saw an item of the sort for the first time brought under consideration, he felt bound to call attention to it, and he was told that this was a peculiar patent, as it proposed for the first time in the history of granting peerages to skip one generation. The successor to this title was a Whig of acknowledged ability, who, like other Whigs, had retired on an acknowledged pension of £2,500 a year after a few years' services. He would not object to the Vote if it was admitted that great men's patents of nobility were to be paid for by the public; but, if not, why was an exception made in favour of Lord Brougham? Some explanation ought to be given before that item was voted. There was another charge of £188 for passing under the Great Seal the letters patent appointing the Duke of Argyll Postmaster General. A good explanation might, perhaps, be given of that item; but the House would be curious to hear what were the circumstances under which the Postmaster General's patent was to be paid for out of the public taxes? He came next to the charge of £1,415 for erecting galleries in Hyde Park for the Volunteer Review of last year. He believed more ill-will than pleasure was created by these galleries. He was told by an hon. Gentleman next him that he could not obtain a ticket for the gallery, nor could any of his friends; and if it had come to this, that galleries were to be erected on public occasions for the friends of whoever might happen to be in power, he believed it would be a very strong argument in favour of a Reform of Parliament. To that Vote he objected altogether, and would certainly divide the House against it. He now came to the last item of £944 for the Commission appointed for promoting and encouraging the Fine Arts in connection with the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament. The appointment of that Commission was a most unfortunate thing for the Fine Arts, as well as for the pockets of the people of the country. It was appointed in 1841, when the new Houses of Parliament were first begun, under the pretence of taking advantage of the opportunity to encourage the Fine Arts. The Commission originally consisted of twenty-one members, all gentlemen highly distinguished in society. No doubt they felt themselves very well employed while spending the public money in promoting the Fine Arts — with what effect let the House judge. Since the appointment of the Commission eleven of the members had died, and it at present consisted of fifteen; and—what the House should always avoid—they were gentlemen of great taste. Whenever they appointed a Commission of gentlemen of great taste they might depend the public purse was in great danger. In 1846 the Commission proposed that £4,000 a year should be spent in decorating the Houses of Parliament, and since that year £60,000 had actually been expended for that purpose. Was any hon. Member of the House not connected with the Fine Arts satisfied with the way in which that sum had been laid out? He would not make his quotation again, but if the Houses were ruins, and the New Zealander Lord Macaulay had depicted were sitting on a fragment of Westminster Bridge, if any of the frescoes remained, would he not think that they had been painted by Pagans? Not that there was any chance of their being in existence, for at the present moment they were falling from the walls. Cordelia was defaced, and Lear was almost invisible. Had not the £60,000 been grossly and wantonly wasted by this Commission? He had spoken of the frescoes only; but the Commission had been been in the habit of laying out money for purposes for which it was not originally voted. Mr. Maclise, the celebrated artist, contracted to paint certain pictures, to be completed in ten years, for which he was to receive £10,000. In 1855 the House granted £1,500, on account, to Mr. Maclise. But Mr. Maclise had since repudiated his contract. What did the Commission do? The Kensington Museum was convenient; there were rising artists to be encouraged, and this £15,000 was employed for that purpose. Hon. Gentlemen had been in what was called the Painted Chamber. There was there a series of what had been called "splendid sign paintings." Twenty-eight Tudor portraits, furnished by the Kensington Museum at £70 a head, so that the money voted for Mr. Maclise was devoted to the encouragement of unknown artists, and twenty-eight, not paintings, but inferior copies of the most approved Wardour Street School, were purchased in order to encourage the rising artists of the Kensington Museum. It was a little too much for the Fine Arts Commission to take upon themselves in that way, and it was high time for Parliament to step in and put a veto upon such proceedings. Then, again, as to the frescoes, he could only say, although not a man having a taste in that House, that he thought they were disgusting exhibitions. They cost £600 each, and the only good the country would get for the money was that in five years they were all likely to fall off the walls. Who were the designers? Who had commanded them? That House had nothing to do with them, but the fifteen hon. Gentlemen had who met to spend the public money, though not to the public satisfaction, He was fortified in his opinion by the right hon. Gentleman whose vote perhaps he could not claim, but whose silence at least he should expect—the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. That right hon. Gentleman could defend and adorn any subject—he could even prop up Her Majesty's Ministers. He said, on August 3,1860, "He did not hesitate to admit that the ornamentation of the Houses of Parliament had been in many instances enormously and ludicrously overdone." That was the Chancellor of the Exchequer's opinion of the Fine Arts Commission. The right hon. Gentleman was not only a man of real taste, but he had a sincere desire to save the public money, and it could only be by the pressure of gentlemen in his neighbourhood who had enormous taste that he could be brought to consent to so prodigal a waste of money. But there was not only a question of taste but one of historical judgment in respect of the statues about to be put up. He was sorry to make any charge—he made no inuendo— but he did not think the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works had acted with candour in the matter. Upon the same occasion when the right Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer denounced the Fine Arts Commission in August, 1860, there was a great debate as to the sum to be appropriated for the erection of statues. Originally in 1845 the Fine Arts Commission, with that prodigality that distinguished all gentlemen who were putting their hands into other people's pockets, and spending other people's money, proposed to have statues of British monarchs from Egbert to William IV. The House had then one of their fits of economy, and rather objected to have a series of statues from the renowned Egbert down to the equally renowned William IV. and it was agreed that there should be only four statues, one at each corner of the Royal Gallery. The right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works—if he would only save them from such works as these, had hardly acted with candour, his love of monarchy exceeded his admiration of that House. On August 3,1860, there was an item of £1,600 for two British Sovereigns, and great contention arose as to who those Sovereigns should be. The hon. Member for Brighton was all for Oliver Cromwell. [Mr. WHITE: Hear, hear!] The hon. Member for Dundalk would not hear of Oliver Cromwell. [Sir GEORGE BOWYER: Hear, hear!] The tide of opinion ran strongly, and the House, not feeling that confidence in the First Commissioner which they ought to have felt, the right hon. Gentleman withdrew the Vote, and in doing so said— "He did it with a view of considering whether some selection of Sovereigns might not be made that would he generally acceptable to the House." Of course it was expected then that they were going to have four respectable Sovereigns, at £800 each, and, therefore, he (Mr. Osborne) made no objection, relying upon the First Commissioner; but it now appeared, from the 12th Report of the Fine Arts Commission, signed by one Royal personage, one literary Peer, and one late Radical M.P.—the Prince Consort, Lord Stanhope, and Lord Llanover—one of the recent creations. They now recommended that Mr. William Theed be invited to undertake two of the marble statues to be placed in the Royal Gallery —those of William IV. and George IV. They were to be seven feet high upon proportionate pedestals. Mr. Thorneycroft was to he invited to undertake other two statues—those of Charles I, and James I. The money had been voted, and now the Committee found themselves in the same position as they were with respect to the Military College which they had been discussing that morning. They voted the money for the College, and the College would be erected; they had voted money for four statues, and these four statues of four distinguished monarchs would he undertaken at the expense of the nation. No doubt they would hear from the Treasury bench some talk about the necessity of promoting the fine arts; but in answer to that, by anticipation, he would refer to a previous Report of the Fine Arts Commission, in which it was stated that since the institution of the Commission the encouragement of art had been so much increased in this country by private orders that it was no longer an object to apply the public money for its promotion. He repeated that it was high time that Commission of gentlemen for spending other people's money should cease. Ho thought he had shown fair reason why that particular Vote of £994 should be refused, and if hon. Gentlemen could not agree with him in voting that £2,000 he deducted from the Estimate, he hoped they would join him in aiming a blow—for he avowed his object was to put an end to the Fine Arts Commission—in aiming a blow at this "profligate expenditure," to use a celebrated phrase of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He should move that the Vote be reduced by £2,000. Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £23,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge of Civil Contingencies, to the 31st day of March, 1862."

said, that as he had been personally alluded to by the hon. Gentleman, he supposed he ought to say a few words in defence of his candour, even if he did not enter into the general question of his vote. His hon. Friend had been kind enough to remember what he (Mr. Cowper) had said during the last year, but he had not remembered what he had said in reference to these statues in the present year, when the Vote was passed. The estimate as framed in the previous Session appeared to pledge the House to a series of forty-two statues, from Egbert down to the last Sovereign who preceded her present Majesty. There was no such intention on the part of the Government, but as the form of the Estimate did appear to pledge the House he withdrew the Vote, stating that consideration would he given to the question whether a selection could not be made that would he acceptable to the House. When it became his duty to explain the Vote of this year, he gave his explanation in such a manner as, he thought, ought to have guarded him against any charge of want of candour. He had not trusted to his own memory, but referred to what he was reported to have said on that occasion. He was reported in The Times to have said that the Fine Arts Committee had been engaged for a long series of years in endeavouring to promote art in that building, and that they proposed that four out of the twelve statues in chronological series were to be placed one at each side of the principle doors of the Royal Gallery. It often happened to them in that House that they said too much, but he ought, perhaps, to regret that on the occasion to which he referred he had not said a little more. He ought, perhaps, to have explained at some what greater length the meaning which he had endeavoured to sketch out in those few words; but he had taken it for granted that hon. Members interested in the subject had read the Report of the Commission on the Fine Arts, which had been on the table for some time before the Vote came on. In the report of the Sub-committee, which was referred to in that of the whole Commission, it was proposed to divide the chronological series into three portions: —first, twelve statues in the Royal Gallery; and then a certain number in two others respectively. In St. Stephen's-hall were statutes of men who had been distinguished in the House of Commons; and the Fine Arts Commission suggested that in the Royal Gallery and other parts of the approach through which the Sovereign passed there should be statues to illustrate the Monarchy and the history of the country. He thought that that view was not an unreasonable one on the part of the Commission. The Fine Arts Commission had been in existence for nearly twenty years, and it had produced twelve Reports. The Commission had been proceeded by a Committee of that House which sat in 1841, and which recommended that an encouragement should be afforded to the fine arts which could not be given by private persons. Private persons had not houses sufficiently large to have large pictures, and without large dimensions they could not have frescoes, or any historical art on a grand scale. It was thought that advantage should be taken of that building to encourage high art. He did not presume to put forward his opinion against that of any other Gentleman who thought himself more competent to form an opinion on the subject, but it was the opinion of very good judges that the proceedings of the Fine Arts Commission had done a great deal to encourage an important school of painting. [Mr. B. OSBORNE: Oh, oh.] When the hon. Gentleman found fault with the decay of the frescoes—[Mr. B. OSBORNE: I did find fault with that.]—he thought that his complaint was not well founded. With two exceptions the frescoes were in good preservation; and he hoped they would last 300 years. The hon. Gentleman might go over the good frescoes and rub them with a towel without doing them injury, or he might endeavour to get rid of them by scrubbing them with water and a brush. [An Hon. MEMBER: And soap.] No; without soap; but he would find that the operation would have no effect in removing them. It was in that building that the practice of painting frescoes was commenced in England. They had been painted in other buildings since; and there was a very fine painting of that kind in the hall of Lincoln's-inn, With regard to sculp- ture, there was a demand for statues in the streets of our great towns, and it was important to set forth good examples in the Houses of Parliament. Excellence of sculpture was more easily attained and developed in the representation of historical and Royal personages, than in the imitation of the costumes of the present day. The Royal Commission was appointed for the purpose of giving encouragement and support to the fine arts, and he believed it would be conceded that the internal decorations of the Houses of Parliament were a credit to the country and elicited the admiration of foreigners. [Mr. B. OSBORNE: Oh, oh!] His opinion was that, on the whole, they had reason to be proud of the manner in which the money had been expended in those decorations. He admitted that in the lavlsh carving of the exterior money had been wasted. The names of the members of the Fine Arts Commission were a guarantee for confidence in that body. These were men who might be well trusted with the selection of a few statues and paintings. For a long period of years a sum of £4,000 had been annually placed at the disposal of the Committee of Fine Arts, but that year, for the first time, a much less amount was demanded, and that sum was to be spent entirely on the four statues, no new pictures being contemplated at present. He repeated his belief that no one was to blame for the manner in which the money was expended. At the time the Vote passed, the Committee of Fine Arts had not come to any decision regarding the statues to be selected. They of Fine Arts had not come to any decision regarding the statues to be selected. They had received a Report from the sub-committee, but had arrived at no conclusion upon it; and it was after the Vote of the House that their decision was given.

observed, that he was bound to say that it would have been better had the right hon. Gentleman been either a great deal more laconic or a great deal more communicative. On three different occasions the right hon. Gentleman had addressed the House on the subject of those statues. Last year, when the question was fully discussed, there unquestionably prevailed in the House a feeling of opposition to the proposed series of thirty-eight statues of British monarchs in chronological order; the objection being taken wholly from an artistic point of view, and without the smallest disrespect to any of the former monarchs of England. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets on that occasion objected strongly to imaginative statues of Saxon monarchs, and laid great emphasis on the fact that one of them was an extremely immoral character. The result was that the right hon. Gentleman withdrew the Motion, stating in the most clear and unmistakable terms, as preserved in Hansard, that he did so "with a view of considering whether some selection of sovereigns could not be made which would be favourably accepted by the House of Commons." Now, he asked, what chance was the right hon. Gentleman giving the House of Commons of favourably accepting any selection of monarchs? No one had been more amused than himself at the good-humoured jest of the noble Lord at the head of the Government, a few nights before, who asked him whether he could wonder at the difficulty experienced in selecting sovereigns, when he himself had such trouble in finding Members to serve on the Galway Committee. But at that very time the selection had been made. The House was allowed to believe by the First Commissioner of Works at the time the Vote of £3,200 was agreed to, that the question of what four monarchs would be selected was still open to consideration. Certainly the impression left upon his mind was not that the monarchs chosen would be George IV., William IV., James I., and Charles I.; but that the choice lay between the Edwards and the Henries, or possibly Alfred the Great. Not to use an offensive word, he believed that in the proceedings of the Government on the question there had been a want of candour amounting to a suppressio veri. The Government knew perfectly well that four statues had been selected which would be unpalatable to the House of Commons, and that if a plain issue had been raised with regard to them their execution never would have been regard to them their execution never would have been sanctioned. They shifted and they shuffled; and having last year withdrawn their scheme, with a view of considering whether some selection acceptable to the House; of Commons could not be made, they now came forward and declared their intention of persisting in the chronological series of statues which was repudiated by the House of Commons last year. It would have been much better and more candid had the right lion. Gentleman, on their part, come forward to declare that a pressure which they could not resist had been brought to bear upon them; that they had changed their original intention, and called upon the House of Commons to support them in their altered views. There was some difficulty in discovering whether those marble statues were ordered with the object of doing honour to Royalty in England or of encouraging English art. If with the former intention, he certainly did not think honour had been done in the right place. If with the latter be believed the proposed method to be the very worst way of encouraging art which could be adopted. The old maxim of fiat experimentum in corpore vili was to be applied to the House of Commons, and artists were to try their 'prentice hands on statues to adorn its approaches.

said, he could not help feeling that his hon. Friend who had just sat down had been unjust towards his right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works in charging him with a want of candour. Several of those occupying seats upon the Ministeral bench had a distinct recollection of the facts as they really happened. Last year, when the Vote was proposed, the feeling of the Committee was very adverse to it. His right hon. Friend withdrew the Vote for the time, and undertook that the question should be thoroughly reconsidered. He took measures to secure that reconsideration, and, as they now knew from the Report of the Commission on Fine Arts, great difficulty was experienced in making any proposal upon the principle of selection. His right hon. Friend made up his mind that it was not expedient to proceed upon that principle, and came down to the House with a proposition founded upon that opinion, at which he had deliberately arrived in conjunction with his colleagues upon the Commission. It was not, however, only his hon. Friend who had changed his opinion. The opinion of the House had also undergone some change, because the Report of the Commissioners of Fine Arts was on the table; there was no suppression or concealment about the matter, and the proposal made was a proposal to take money for the erection of four statues out of a chronological series. A very animated speech made by the noble Lord the Member for Leicestershire turned upon the impossibility of acting upon the principle of selection, and although the hon. Member for Galway had not changed his opinion, but stood to his task, he was in the recollection of the Committee that the discussion which took place made the object of the Vote as clear as possible, and it was passed without any call for a division. His hon. Friend the Member for Liskeard had quoted an opinion of his, which was, perhaps, expressed in too strong terms—[Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE: Not at all.]—but, as far as be recollected, that opinion referred only to what appeared to him to be an enormous waste of pains, of money, and of ornament upon the exterior of the Houses, because, with regard to the interior decorations, although they might go to excess in quantity, yet he was boound to say that he did not think that anything more beautiful waste be found in any existing fabric. He entirely agreed with his hon. Friend that the sum charged for the expenses of the Fine Arts Commission ought to be submitted to the House by way of estimate, and undertook that in a future year that course should be adopted. As to Lord Brougham's patent, the Committee was, perhaps, not in full possession of the state of the case. His noble Friend, in advising Her Majesty upon the subject, thought fit to treat this as a patent granted for special services, and it was set forth in the patent that it was granted for Lord Brougham's "eminent public services, more especially in the diffusion of knowledge, the spread of education, and the abolition of slavery and the slave trade." No doubt it was the general rule, that when honours were conferred by the Crown the charges attendant upon the conferring of those honours should be borne by the parties who received them. That was a wise regulation if only for the reason that it tended to limit the range of solicitation for such honours. But there were precedents for the course pursued in the case. In 1846 Sir Henry Hardinge was made Viscount Hardinge, not for military but civil services, and in 1852 Lord Fitzroy Somerset was made Lord Raglan also for civil services, and in both these cases the charges were defrayed by the public. Again, in 1859, Lord Canning received promotion in the peerage for civil services, and Lord Elphinstone in the same year was made an English peer, and in these cases also the charges were borne by the public. But, with respect to the charges, it should be known that a considerable portion of them went back into the Exchequer. The charges on Lord Brougham's patent were, he believed, a little over £512, and of that £440 went back again into the Exchequer, leaving £147 to be paid by the public. In short, in various cases where peerages had been conferred in consideration of civil services, the practice obtained of defraying tice expense out of the public purse.

said, that the principle upon which the Fine Arts Commission was founded, that they could by spending the public money promote the fine arts or create great artists was entirely fallacious. That it was so was proved by the fact that although portrait painting was the branch of art which received most encouragement in England, we had now no portrait painter equal to Sir Joshua Reynolds or Sir Thomas Lawrence, and by the quality of the frescoes which had been painted on the walls of that building. The amount of money which had been paid for them was greater than that received by Michael Angelo or Raffaell0e, and yet look what things they were. It was said that they were coming off the walls, and he thought it would be a good thing if they did. With regard to some of thom a basin of whitewash and a brush might be very beneficially employed. The selection of subjects for the paintings was singularly injudicious. One of the frescoes, entitled the "Funeral of Charles I.," represented a brutal insult offered by a Round-head soldier to the remains of that Sovereign. It was extremely offensive to his feelings as a Royalist and cavalier, and could not be agreeable even to a Republican. Again, there was a piece of sculpture in the room behind the throne in the House of Lords, representing the murder of David Rizzio. He was at a loss to conceive on what principle such a subject could have been selected. It was surely most inappropriate for commemoration. Then, as to the artistic part of the question, it was impossible to gather from the paintings in the House of Lords the subjects there pourtrayed; they were perfectly unintelligible. For instance, there was one which was said to represent the "Baptism of King Ethelred," in which a man was to be seen kneeling without any clothes on his body, and with a crown on his head. To all appearance he seemed prepared for a whipping rather than a baptism. The King could not have stripped for the purpose of immersion, for the font was also shown in the picture, and was so small that he could no more get into it than into a tea cup. Before they went on spending money on such paintings they ought to know more about them. He would recommend the Government to put a stop to an expenditure which produced results discreditable to the country, for they gave foreigners a very low idea of the standard of art in England. He hoped the noble Lord at the head of the Government would look to the matter. He placed great reliance on the noble Lord in matters of taste, and was sorry he was not present during the recent debate on the style of the Foreign Office, to show that there was at least one Italian question on which he agreed with the noble Lord.

said, that a reference to Hansard would show that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Commissioner of Works had distinctly stated that the original intention of having a chronological series of Sovereigns had been abandoned, and that it was intended to have only four statues in the Royal Gallery. In his opinion there was no difficulty in making a selection of Sovereigns to be represented. If the choice lay with him he would name Alfred, Edward I., the greatest of the Plantagenets and the English Justinian, Elizabeth, the greatest of the Tudors, and then, coming to the beginning of our constitutional history, William III. He pointed out that the sub-Committee of the Fine Arts Commission bad not reconsidered the subject since the decision of the House last year, as their Report was dated June, 1860, while the Vote did not take place till August. He agreed with his hon. Friend as to the Brougham patent, which was a most unusual proceeding. It was a compliment not to Lord Brougham but to William Brougham. That gentleman was appointed a Master in Chancery solely on his brother's account, and when objection was raised on the ground that the office was to have been abolished, people were led to believe that he would not claim his pension. As to the galleries in Hyde Park at the Volunteer Review last year he objected altogether to the presence of either House of Parliament in its collective capacity at such spectacles.

said, that the next heir of Lord Brougham was a nephew, then in Australia. There had never been an instance of a patent in remainder where the next heir had been passed over.

asked whether the Government had abandoned their idea of raising statues of all the Sovereigns of England, and whether they had abandoned the chronological series?

said, the House and the Government had been accustomed to leave the selection of statues to the Commissioners of Fine Arts. Last year it was stated to be the intention of the Commissioners to erect the statues of twelve Sovereigns immediately preceding her present Majesty. The four statues voted this year were not a selection of the Commissioners out of the twelve, but were an instalment of the twelve; and the instalment consisted of James I. and Charles I., and William IV. and George IV.

asked when had the House received an intimation of the change in the sentiments of the Government from the determination last year that there should be four statues, one in each corner of the Royal Gallery?

said, it was clear that if the speech to which reference had been made had been uttered by the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works, he could only have been expressing his individual opinion; and he could have had no communication with his colleagues on the Fine Art Commission.

said, there had been an estimate last year for a chronological series of forty-two Sovereigns, but it had been afterwards resolved, in deference to what was believed to be the opinion of the House, that an estimate for four only should be asked for, and nothing had been said which would convey that four would be the entire number. He had done nothing to mislead the House. Last year he contemplated a selection; this year he did not; and he had a right to change his mind as he had done after deliberation, and after consultation with the Fine Art Commissioners.

said, he wished for some explanation of an item in the Vote of £7,000 to be paid to Pepple King of Bonny.

said, that a person named "Pepple, ex-King of Bonny," set up a claim, arising out of certain proceedings of the British Government in regard to the slave trade. It appeared that the King was deposed by his subjects, but was taken under the protection of the British Consul, to whom the King's subjects were to pay a certain annual sum. The Consul, it seemed, sent the King to the Island of Ascension to keep him out of the way. There he remained for some years, and then came to this country, when he made large claims against the British Government. The matter was referred to arbitration, when "Pepple" set up a claim of £200,000. The Government then put a stop to the arbitration, but referred the matter to the Judge Advocate and the Attorney General, who recommended that £7,673 should be given to him as compensation for the annuity of which he had been deprived.

inquired what progress had been made in the labours of the British and French Newfoundland Fishery Commission?

thought that a Gentleman representing Newfoundland had been on the Commission, which, he believed, was now closed.

said, he noticed with surprise a sum put down in connection with Her Majesty's licence to the Convocation of the clergy of the province of Canterbury to alter the 29th Canon, relating to godfathers and godmothers. He wanted to know whether Convocation could alter a canon without the sanction of Parliament?

said, that Convocation had deliberated on the subject, but no decision had been come to, and as the Convocation had no funds it was thought proper that this expense, having reference to a matter of a public nature, should be paid out of the Civil Contingencies. Some canons, made by Convocation with consent of Parliament, could only be altered with the consent of Parliament; but others, made by Convocation with consent of the Crown, could be altered by the same authority as made them.

said, he wished to know upon what question the hon. Member (Mr. Bernal Osborne) intended to go to a division?

said, the Amendment was that the Vote be reduced by £2,000.

said, he would propose his Amendment in another form. He should take the opinion of the Committee on the item of the expenses of Lord Brougham's patent, because he thought it was a mischievous principle to lay down that a Minister should himself make such a charge on the public. If he had come to the House first, and asked for their sanction, he (Mr. Bernal Osborne) would not have offered one word of objection. He also proposed to take the opinion of the Committee on the item for the Fine Arts Commission, especially after the explanation that had been given about the four Sovereigns, to which number he re- gretted that Pepple, King of Bonny, had not been added. He should move the reduction of the Vote by the latter item first, his object being to get rid of the Fine Arts Commission. Motion and made, Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £24,050, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge of Civil Contingencies, to the 31st day of March, 1862."

said, the item which his hon. and gallant Friend wished to have disallowed in the case of Lord Brougham's patent had already been expended, and consequently no reduction of the sum which the House was asked to vote for the Civil Contingencies for the next year would have any effect upon the amount expended under that head last year. That being so, and the item for the Fine Arts Commission appearing, as had been already stated by his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the shape of an Estimate, the proposed Amendment had, he contended, no application to the object sought to be attained.

suggested that the hon. and gallant Member for Liskeard should lump together the two items to which he was opposed, and take a division upon both at the same time.

expressed his readiness to withdraw his Amendment if the hon. Member would make a Motion in accordance with his own suggestion.

observed that it was not necessary the Amendment should be withdrawn in order that an hon. Member might move a larger reduction of the Vote. If such a Motion were made, it would be competent for the Chairman to put it at once.

said, the remark of the hon. Member would be correct if the question with reference to the smaller amount had not been actually put.

said, he would then move that the Vote be reduced by two items—namely, £944 4s. 8d. for the expenses of the Fine Arts Commission, and £512 16s, for Lord Brougham's patent, being in the whole £1,456.

then took occasion to say that Lord Brougham had expressed a strong desire—a desire natural and honourable to him, that the title which had been conferred upon him as the result of his professional career should be continued after his death. Having taken into account the long-continued services of the noble Lord, lie had felt no hesitation in advising Her Majesty to comply with the request, while the wish that the title should descend to his surviving brother seemed to be also a question which ought to be determined by the feelings of the person who made the application. Then arose the question of the fees to be paid, and he could not help being of opinion that when it was known that the new patent gave Lord Brougham no additional rank, and merely created an alteration of the remainder, the noble Lord ought not to be called upon to incur the necessary expenses for the purpose. Lord Brougham had, by the decree of Providence, no immediate descendant of his own, and the ground on which his application in favour of his brother had been acceded to was that he himself had in the course of a long life rendered, quite independently of political considerations, great and eminent services to his country, and that by assisting in the promotion of knowledge, by greatly contributing to the diffusion of education, and by the zealous and able manner in which he had advocated the freedom of the slave and the abolition of the slave trade, he had rendered conspicuous services not only to his country, but, it might be said, to the human race itself. That being so, it had appeared to him, and to his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the expenses of the patent in question should be defrayed by the public, and he could scarcely bring himself to think that the House of Commons, when it bore in mind the eminent career of Lord Brougham, the high position which he occupied, not simply in the estimation of his own fellow-countrymen, but in the eyes of Europe—in short, the world wide reputation which he enjoyed, would allow any remnant of party feeling to interfere with the giving its sanction to a Vote the rejection of which could not be otherwise than painful to the noble Lord whose name was connected with it.

said, he was astonished the noble Lord should insinuate that there was any objection to granting the sum in question on party grounds. He as well as the noble Lord was alive to the eminent services of Lord Brougham, but he could not, therefore, see why he should not oppose the grant of money for the making out of a patent of peerage for a gentleman who, through no merit of his own, was appointed to succeed to the noble and learned Lord in an indirect line of succession.

said, he also thought the noble Lord had been somewhat rash in the insinuation which he had thrown out, when it was taken into account that the proposal to strike out the item in question had come originally from his own side of the House. For his own part, he could not see why a grant of public money should be made in the instance under discussion which was not even asked for in the case of men who had rendered such distinguished services as Lord Eversley or Lord John Russell.

said, the remainder-man would no doubt enjoy the benefit of the peerage in question, but then it should be recollected that it was granted not so much to him as to the living Peer. He wished it to be clearly understood that under no circumstances could the fees of this patent have been payable by Lord Brougham's brother. They would have been payable by himself. Motion made, and Question put,

"That a sum, not exceeding £23,544, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge of Civil Contingencies, to the 31st day of March, 1862."

said, he would move the reduction of the Vote by £512 3s.

said, the proposal was a testimony to the great services rendered by Lord Brougham, and was a honour conferred on him by perpetuating his name and title. The name of Lord Brougham was known throughout the whole civilized world, and it would be a disgrace to the Committee to refuse to pay the fees. Hon. Gentlemen disclaimed all party feeling, but when the name of Lord Brougham was first mentioned, that feeling was indicated by a party cheer.

said, the peerage was given to Lord Brougham as Lord Chancellor.

observed that Lord Brougham received £10,000 a year during the period he was Lord Chancellor, and during the twenty-seven years which had since elapsed he had received a pension of £5,000 a year.

said, it was all very well for the hon. Member for Southwark to make statements on hustings which could not be contradicted, but he had made a very untrue statement to the Committee. The cheer came from Gentlemen behind him.

rose to order.

said, the hon. Gentleman must perceive that the use of the words "untrue statement" conveyed a charge against the hon. Member.

said, he would at once withdraw the words. What he wished to say was, that the cheer proceeded from behind the hon. Member for Southwark. Motion, made, and Question put,

"That a sum, not exceeding £24,488, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge of Civil Contingencies, to the 31st day of March, 1862."

said, he would ask for information as to certain sums in the Estimate for preparation of Irish Bills, though he did not expect to have any information on the point, seeing that there was neither Secretary for Ireland, Attorney General, nor Solicitor General for Ireland, nor, in fact, any person who knew anything about Ireland, on the Treasury bench.

said, that it was impossible for the gentleman who was employed at the Home Office to draught all the Bills which were introduced during the Session, and it was, therefore, necessary occasionally to employ others.

said, he should move that the item be reduced by £100, being the sum stated to be paid for the draughting of the Irish Tramways Bill, which was so badly drawn that it was impossible it could be passed by the House. Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £24,900, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge of Civil Contingencies, to the 31st day of March, 1862."

resumed the Chair:—House counted, and 40 Members not being present: