said, he rose to ask the President of the Poor Law Board a Question in regard to the removal of a pauper named Mary Brophy from the Marylebone Workhouse to the South Dublin Union. That pauper had stated to the authorities in Dublin that she entered the Marylebone workhouse five weeks previously in consequence of the illness of her child. About eight days ago she asked for her discharge, when the master said he would not grant it without her being passed to Ireland. She refused, and subsequently, when she was forced to leave the workhouse, a struggle took place between her and the officials who were forcing her off, in which her face was blackened, her shoulder put out of joint, and a strait waistcoat put upon her. She said she had been twenty-six years in London, and had two children in the Marylebone schools. Under these circumstances, he wished to ask, Whether, in the opinion of the President of the Poor Law Board, this was not clearly a cruel and illegal removal?

said, in reply, that no communication had been made by the Irish Poor Law Commissioners to the Poor Law Board on the subject. The hon. Member had not given him full notice of the terms of his Question, and therefore he must defer answering it until he had had an opportunity of learning the facts.

said, he would repeat the Question on Monday.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the pauper had not been removed back from Ireland and received into the Marylebone workhouse, and whether that was not an acknowledgment of the illegality of the previous removal?

said, he had heard of the case, and he believed the facts were as the hon. Member had stated.

said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he will give a Government night immediately after Easter, to bring under the notice of the House the present state of the Cotton Trade, and of half a million of Cotton Operatives living in unwilling idleness. As the case was one of extreme urgency, he hoped to have a favourable reply.

Sir, I can assure the hon. Member and the House that the subject to which his Question relates is one that must necessarily excite great anxiety in the mind of the Government, and we shall be anxious and desirous to give the House any opportunity that might be required for full consideration of the subject in any point of view. I believe that after Easter the two early Tuesdays are very much engaged; otherwise I should have said to the hon. Member that he would probably have found room on a Tuesday. But if he is anxious to bring the subject on earlier than he could by waiting for a Tuesday, I can assure him that, subject of course to due attention to pressing public business, we are willing to give him every facility that can be given to him for the consideration of the question.

said, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether he will have any objection to lay upon the table of the House any Plans, Reports, and Estimates which may have been laid before the Admiralty in reference to the proposed extension of Portsmouth Dockyard?

replied, that together with any future Estimates which might be presented to the House for the extension of Portsmouth Dockyard, he trusted to be able to lay on the table plans connected with that work.

said, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether it is true that in the trials at Shoeburyness on Tuesday last, 5J-inch iron plates were penetrated by Shells, and the wooden backing set on fire; and, if so, whether the Admiralty still intend to build of wood the five new Ships, to be plated with iron?

said, in reply, that on Tuesday last some very important experiments took place, not only with the Armstrong shells but likewise with the Whitworth shells; and, undoubtedly, he might state that those shells pierced plates 5½ inches thick. It was, however, quite impossible to state the extent of the effect produced by the shells until the target was taken to pieces. He mentioned this circumstance, because last year, when experiments took place, the House was exceedingly anxious to learn the results; and being asked a question upon the following day, he made a statement on the subject, and afterwards he had occasion very much to modify his expressed opinion. Therefore, he wanted a complete examination of the target, in order to be able to give, if the Mouse should desire it, a more accurate account than he could at present of the extent of the effect produced by the shells.

said, that the noble Lord had not answered a part of the Question put to him—namely, whether, as the wooden backing was set on fire and blazed up, that circumstance had any effect upon the intention of the Admiralty to build five new ships of wood?

said, he must beg pardon for omitting to answer that part of the Question; but he could state, that the Admiralty had not, in consequence of these experiments on Tuesday last, as at present advised, found it necessary or expedient to alter the opinions previously expressed by him as to the desirability of preparing some wooden frames of armour-plated ships in the course of the year.

said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Russian Government recently applied to Her Majesty's Government for information respecting a Polish Refugee named Abicht; whether Her Majesty's Government complied with that application, and afforded information to the Russian Government; and whether this Polish Refugee is the individual referred to in a Letter of Earl Russell, dated Foreign Office, February 14, 1863, as "a person lately arrested in Poland as a political agent"?

No application of any kind, Sir, has been addressed to Her Majesty's Government by the Government of Russia upon the subject of of this man Abicht; and, of course, no answer or communication of any kind has been made by Her Majesty's Government to the Government of Russia on the subject. The history of this person was this:—In a despatch of the 11th January, from the Acting Consul at Warsaw, Her Majesty's Government were informed that a certain number of persons had been arrested, and that among them was a man of the name of Abicht, who, it was supposed, had been engaged in treasonable enterprises. OH the 14th the Acting Consul wrote to us that Abicht was found to have been travelling with a British Foreign Office Passport, under the name of Brett, and that that Passport had been viséd and signed by different authorities on the way to Warsaw. Thereupon an inquiry was made at the Foreign Office, and it was found that a Passport had been issued to a person named Brett. Examination was made, and it was found that in July, 1861, an application was made by a Mr. Leverson, residing in St. Helen's in London, for a party of the name of Brett, whom he described as his confidential clerk, whom he wanted to send on business of his to the Continent, and that he was to go in company with another confidential clerk whose name I do not remember. Well, Mr. Leverson was asked by the letter to which the hon. Member refers, written by Lord Russell, how it happened that the Foreign Office Passport granted at his recommendation to his confidential clerk, Brett, should have fallen into other hands —had, in fact, got into the hands of the man Abicht, of whom the Foreign Office knew nothing whatever. Mr. Leverson replied from Paris that he thought the inquiry had better be addressed to Mr. Brett. Accordingly a letter was written to Mr. Brett, asking to know how his Passport got into other hands. But up to this time Brett had not answered. He had a defective memory, no doubt; and not having duly posted up in his mind that the letter required an answer, he omitted to make any reply to that communication.

said, he would bog to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he has made any arrangements for having the British Museum Estimates moved in the House by a Minister of the Crown?

said, in reply, that the arrangement by which the British Museum Estimates were introduced and moved by a distinguished Member of the House— who was also a member of the governing body of the Museum—had not been considered by the Government with a view to change. It appeared to be an appropriate incident of the system, and had hitherto worked very well. It was not the intention of the Government to propose any change at present, but he was not prepared to say, that if the whole question of the government of the Museum were reconsidered, some such change might not be proposed.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, For the name of the Agent referred to in the following paragraph of the Russian Ambassador's Letter applying for the services of the English Police in Poland:—

"The first step to be taken should be to allow Sir Richard Mayne to put himself into communication with a gentleman to whose care the Grand Duke has directly and privately intrusted this object."

And whether any money has been paid by the Russian Government to the English Police since the return of the latter from Warsaw?

Sir, I can only give the same answer that I gave the other night. The name of the person was never communicated to me; and not knowing his name, I cannot inform the hon. Member what it was. With regard to the other Question, the general rule is, that when applications are made by parties for police, if the application is complied with by the Commissioner, it is always on the condition of the expenses being paid by the parties making the application. The police are frequently allowed to receive gratuities in excess of their expenses. In this case the whole of the expenses were paid by the Russian Government, and I have no doubt that a gratuity was also paid by the Russian Government to the two officers. The Russian Government, however, did not benefit by anything paid out of the police rates of this country.

The officers got their pay when they were away, of course?

I cannot say, but I rather think not.

said, he rose to bring before the notice of the Chief Secretary for Ireland the present position of the General Marriage Law of Ireland, and to suggest that, under the authority of the Government, a revision of such Law shall be undertaken. He believed that the efforts of private Members to deal with this question would not be attended with any satisfactory result, inasmuch as these propositions were entirely incomplete and insufficient, and nothing but the adoption of a hold and direct system would satisfy the public expectation. He trusted that the Government would undertake vision of the marriage law in all its forms, and would introduce into Ireland a system of registration which would involve a change in the law. There were five distinct laws of marriage celebration in force in Ireland, and most vexatious restrictions were imposed. In the north of Ireland, and he believed in all parts of Ireland generally, the Act of 1844 was regarded with disfavour, and its repeal, or its very extensive modification, would give wide-spread satisfaction. Its forms were cumbrous, partial, and unjust. He was strongly of opinion that there should be for Ireland one simple general law of marriage which, repealing all disabilities, should confer equal privileges upon all religions, should carry with it equal rights and responsibilities, and should embrace a system of marriage registration under which the interests of the whole community might be advantageously placed. The present marriage law imposed vexatious restrictions upon the clergy of all denominations. The clergy of the Established Church, who by their learning and religious activity had gained a high position in Ireland, were nut allowed full discretion. A Presbyterian minister was privileged to officiate in a mixed marriage where a member of his own congregation was concerned, but only after the proclamation by banns and the production of a licence. Roman Catholic clergymen could not officiate in mixed marriages, and experience daily proved that that exclusion was both unjust and ungenerous. He could not believe that the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church would object to the adoption of a uniform marriage law. Another class of marriages were those at which the attendance of the Registrar was enforced —namely, those of the Nonconformists, who were the chief sufferers under the present Act. He asked on what principle of reason or justice were Wesleyan, Baptist, or Independent ministers precluded from the right to celebrate marriages in the same manner as the Episcopalians or the Catholics? In his opinion there were many forcible reasons why there should De a complete uniformity in the marriage aw throughout England, Ireland, and Scotland, and why the highest legal officer of the Crown should direct his atten- tion to the subject. If, however, the amendment of the marriage law were confined to Ireland, he asked that all religious denominations should possess the power of celebrating marriages according to their forms, conscientiously prepared, and that there should be a system of lay agency, similar to that so successfully established in Scotland in 1854. In a season of prosperity there was an increase, and in seasons of adversity a diminution in the number of marriages. This was completely illustrated in the records of marriages in Lancashire during the last two or three years. Marriage statistics, it was admitted, formed an admirable social barometer, and it was one that he should be glad to see applied to Ireland. He appealed to Her Majesty's Government to direct their attention to the subject, with the view of removing an unjust and intolerable grievance.

said, that he rose to move the two Resolutions of which he had given notice on this subject—

"1. That, in the opinion of this House, in cases whore ordinary traffic supports several lines of Steamers, the present system of granting Subsidies for carrying the Trans-oceanic Mails ought to be dispensed with."

"2. That this House is not prepared to grant a sum of Money to the Atlantic Royal Mail Company for conveying the Mails between Galway and North America."

The hon. Gentleman said, he thought that the time had arrived when it became the duty of the House to take a stand against the extravagance of successive Governments in granting large sums to Steam Packet Companies for the carrying of mails. Being a merchant himself, and keeping up a correspondence with all Foreign countries, he had a deep interest in seeing that the communication with Foreign ports should be as speedy and as regular as possible, and his sympathies might naturally be expected to be on the side of Government subsidies. But as a representative of the public it was his duty to see that those large grants of money were well bestowed, and that value was received for them. It would not be difficult to show that subsidies, in the cases referred to in his first Resolution, injured both the commerce of this country and the public in general. On this subject he was no theorist, and he was not opposed to subsidies under all circumstances. On the contrary, he freely admitted that most of our great Ocean Companies could not have been established, and some of them even now could not be carried on without help from the national exchequer; his position was simply this, that they had carried this assistance too far, and that the system might be dispensed with on oceans where there was effective competition. The subsidy had been permitted to increase, whereas it might have been gradually reduced, not only without detriment or injury, but with positive advantage to the trade of this country. He found that in 1856–7 the Packet Service Vote amounted to £743,000, and in 1859–60 it had risen to £977,000, being an. increase of £234,000. In the following year it had exceeded one million sterling. In 1860 Mr. Frederick Hill told the Packet Service Committee that £450,000, of that sum of one million sterling, was a dead loss to the revenue of the country, and that £79,000 of that loss arose from the Cunard service alone. There was not a Member in that House who must not acknowledge the admirable manner in which the Cunard service had been conducted, and he was free to acknowledge at once that in times past that company deserved all they obtained. But what he wished to call the attention of the House of Commons and Her Majesty's Government to was the state of things on the North Atlantic Ocean, which had been entirely changed, and that they might now, with advantage to the trade of the country, dispense with those subsidies altogether. In 1861 there were no fewer than fifty large steamers employed on the North Atlantic Ocean, making 226 outward voyages, and the same number of homeward voyages, in the course of the year. One company, the Liverpool, New York, and Philadelphia Company, which was totally unaided by Government, at present possessed a fleet of large ocean steamers, comprising 22,000 tons, being an increase of 7,000 tons since the manager of that company gave evidence before the Packet Service Committee in 1860. In 1862 that one company carried 29,000 passengers across the Atlantic, being one-third of the whole number conveyed by steam across that ocean; and he found this very re- markable circumstance, that their passages had been as regular and as speedy as the passages of the Cunard line. In 1861 the average passages made by the ships of this unsubsidized company were shorter than those made by the vessels of the subsidized Cunard Company. In 1862 they were longer, but during the last three months—namely, December, January, and February—the unsubsidized boats had anticipated the arrival of the Cunard boats at New York by an average of five hours. By three successive mails he had received his letters from the United States by the unsubsidized vessel that left on Saturday, only one day after the subsidized vessel that left on the previous Wednesday; and on a fourth occasion he received his letters by the vessel which left on Saturday on the same day as that on which the mail arrived which left on the Wednesday previously. There were also at Southampton two lines of steamers performing their voyages as regularly, and very nearly as speedily, as the subsidized steamers. Sir Samuel Cunard's firm had repeatedly told the Government that unless they obtained a large subsidy they could not afford to build a sufficient number of new vessels to carry on the service. But what was the fact? he found, that while the Cunard Company had put four new vessels on the station within the last seven years, the three unsubsidized companies had put respectively, eight, seven, and five vessels on the station; so much, therefore, for that reason for a large subsidy. They had, on the North Atlantic Ocean, to which his first Resolution applied, precisely that state of things which the Committee (appointed by the Treasury in 1853, and presided over by Lord Canning) recommended should be abolished. That Committee reported in effect that in cases where passengers and commerce were available and an effective competition existed, that it was not necessary for the Government to subsidize the packets for the conveyance of the mails. In 1860 the Chancellor of the Exchequer appointed a Committee to investigate the subject, and it stated—

"Your Committee cannot conclude their Report without recording their conviction that it is quite practicable to dispense with large subsidies in cases where ordinary traffic supports several lines of steamers, and that in the circumstances which have for some years existed with regard to the communication between this Country and North America no such subsidies are required to secure a regular, a speedy, arid efficient postal service."

Notwithstanding those recommendations, and in the face of the competition which he had shown to exist, what was being done? The Government continued to pay £170,000 a year to the Cunard Company, and they proposed to pay £78,000 a year to a new Company. Now, he believed that arrangements might be made for carrying the mails across the North Atlantic Ocean without giving another subsidy, the effect of which would be to perpetuate that system of subsidizing which ought to have been got rid of long ago; and he maintained, that so far from being an advantage, it was a barrier in the way of obtaining a more constant and more speedy communication with America. If the House would adopt his Resolution, they would strengthen the hands of the Government in getting rid, at the proper time, of a system which prevented the development of private enterprise by giving an undue advantage to one of two competing Companies. Instead of the Government thus paying a large sum of money, let them advertise that every steamer of a certain tonnage, which passed the Admiralty examination, which sailed from and arrived at an Irish port by a certain day, should be a mail steamer, and be paid at the lowest rate that any company would offer to convey them for according to the number of letters conveyed, and he was satisfied that in three or four months, or say six months, they would have obtained a communication between Ireland and North America, and would find the Companies rivalling each other in producing the best vessels. There was no reason why the well-known maxim of "A fair field and no favour" should not apply in this as in other cases. If the House would pass his first Resolution, it would strengthen the hands of any Government disposed to economize expenditure, and interpose a barrier in the way of any Government who might be careless or reckless of the public resources. In a financial point of view his second Resolution would be of secondary importance, although there were circumstances connected with the matter which might render it the more interesting of the two to the House of Commons. It would be impossible, on the present occasion, to arrive at the merits of the case without glancing, at all events, at the history of what he would designate as nothing else than a bubble company and a political job. He was opposed to this Gal way contract on the broad and general ground he had already stated, that there was no occasion on the North Atlantic Ocean for any subsidy at all, and that every shilling spent in that direction was money thrown away. But he opposed it also on account of the origin of the grant, and of the position of the Company now demanding it. He would he sorry to say a word to hurt the feelings of any gentleman, or which might he considered uncalled for; at the same time, it would be quite impossible, and it would also be improper and unjust to the cause he advocated, were he to withhold, from mere motives of delicacy, any portion of the facts necessary to establish his case. Any Gentleman who read the evidence given before the Packet Service Committee of 1860 would find that it was not denied that this contract was originally granted by Lord Derby's Government at a time when it was important for them to strengthen their somewhat precarious position, and render themselves popular in Ireland. Did they know that Lord Colchester, who was Postmaster General in Lord Derby's Government, was opposed to the grant? Did they know that Mr. Stevenson, of the Treasury, strongly objected to it? Did they know that the hon. Member for Stamford (Sir Stafford Northcote), who was then Secretary to the Treasury, and was naturally disposed to look favourably upon the question, but whose judgment it might have been inconvenient to put forward, had little or nothing to do with it? Let any man read the straightforward evidence of the late Lord Eglinton and Lord Derby, and he would see that the grant was made in total ignorance of the state of things existing with regard to Galway; ignorance of the active competition that was going on; ignorance of this, that the interest of Ireland would have been much more effectually provided for than it could have been by this Company, and that without raising and encouraging a delusion, and the throwing away of the public money. There was no Gentleman who had served on that Committee who would not do him the justice to remember that from the beginning he was just as much opposed to the renewal of the Cunard contract as he was in giving it to the Galway Company; and ho contended that it was the duty of the Government to insist that Ireland should be the point of arrival and departure, that the American mails should be landed on the first point of British soil; but it was as improper as unnecessary to limit the choice of the port to Galway, and to a particular company sailing from that port. He had been told that Galway was 100 miles nearer America than Valentia. But it was only forty miles nearer; and if we extended the telegraphic communication to Crookhaven, we should get a nearer point than Galway itself. Besides all this, he had beard it stated that it was difficult and dangerous for vessels to make for the port at certain seasons. the Irish Times of the 24th of March, 1862, concluded an able article on this subject with two sentences, which he asked the permission of the House to read—

"On the other hand, little has been done to render Galway what it should he in order to become the great centre of traffic between Ireland and America. The Board of Trade has refused the sum required for the establishment of piers and docks, and there is no hope that the money can be procured from any source."

So that there appeared to be not only a difficulty to get into the harbour, but a further difficulty when in. The merchants of Belfast were in much alarm at some recent rumours lest the American ships should merely call at Galway; and he found that they had memorialized the Treasury in March last, stating that the people of Belfast were indignant at the proposed change, and would have no other place than Galway. And why? Because the merchants of Belfast found that the subsidy enabled them to ship their goods at £2 per ton when they would have to pay £3 elsewhere. Would any Gentleman say that, this subsidy was to be kept up in order to increase the profits of the merchants of Belfast? The subsidy was given for carrying the mails; and he never yet beard any one contend that the nation ought to make a grant of money to enable the merchants of Belfast to ship their goods upon cheaper terms. But the merchants of Belfast were beginning to find out the trick which had been played upon them, and he was sure the House would be amused at one of the sentences of that memorial to the Treasury—

"The subsidy would, if means were not taken, to prevent it, be made a private job to benefit a few individuals, and not for the great commercial benefit of Ireland."

It was remarkable that these gentlemen should have been so long in finding out that this was a private job; for it was a job at the beginning, it had been a job all along, and it was a job still. And as to the commercial benefit of Ireland, the thing was positively ridiculous. He had heard the merchants of England make merry at the speeches of the noblemen and gentlemen who assembled in Dublin on the subject of this grant to Galway; and to judge from the tone of their speeches, one would suppose that the subsidy was to make Ireland "great, glorious, and free." And why did the English merchants make merry? Because they knew that neither £78,000 a year, nor double £78,000 a year, would make the undertaking pay. He maintained they could not; and if they could, they had no right, out of the public money, unnaturally to stimulate the trade of any particular port. The Postmaster General had staled, that every letter sent by the Galway Company cost this country 6s. He therefore put an end to the con tract. This raised a clamour in Ireland; and then the present Government yielded, and renewed the contract. He would endeavour to establish two points—First, that the yielding on the part of the Government had been owing to inaccurate and improper representations; and secondly, that Her Majesty's Government had not shown proper wisdom and precaution in the matter. He had taken the trouble to look over the papers. The Chairman of the Packet Committee of 1860, the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Angerstein), writing of them, said —

"The Galway packet papers make a most melancholy exhibition; and it is difficult to say whether that of the Government or that of the Company is the most pitilul."

The Chairman went on to say that even worse still was the spectacle of the poor Irish contributors for ordinary shares, who had been swamped, and who were seeking to get their subsidy through the weakness of Her Majesty's Government. The other day he received a letter from a poor man in Ireland (who had been induced to invest £80 of the hard earnings of some years in this undertaking, and who naturally expected that he might get some of it back again) remonstrating with him on his cruelty in opposing a renewal of the subsidy. He felt the deepest sympathy for this poor man and the many hundred other persons in Ireland who had likewise been induced to throw away their money; but he maintained that it was the part of true friendship not to hold out false hopes, but to tell them frankly that the money was finally and irrecoverably gone. Lord Clanricarde the other day, at a meeting of this Company, used these words, "Undoubtedly, the original shareholders appeared to be in a very disadvantageous position." That was a very mild expression—"disadvantageous "—a word, he supposed, suited to the atmosphere of another place. But what was their position? What was their disadvantageous position? In order to answer this question let them go to the balance sheet of the Atlantic Mail Company. There he found the following items:—

"To deposit and calls paid upon the original shares, £377,271 8s. 9d.; less amount written off in conformity with the resolutions of general meetings, for expenditure and losses up to the 31st of December, 1861, £388,109 14s. 6d."

So that at that date, £11,000 more than the original capital was all lost. Alderman Reynolds, of Dublin, who was once a Member of this House, used this expression at the same meeting—

"Somebody said to me in Dublin the other day, 'Alderman Reynolds, you ought not to consent to this issue of £000,000 preference stock, because, if you do, the original shareholders will not get anything 'Why,' I replied, 'the present capital is gone, and it is the only chance we have of getting anything.' This seemed to take him by surprise; but he made no other objection to raising the preference stock. The whole of our money has gone by mismanagement, and I would tread lightly on the ashes of the dead."

He would also tread lightly on the ashes of the dead; but there were some things which would not die. Seeing, then, that this Phœ Company was still in existence, it became his duty to show its present position to the House. They had raised £400,000 by means of preferential shares; and according to the correspondence on the table, page 12, those shares were to have priority, in all respects, over the original capital, to be entitled to 7 per cent dividend, and participate with the original shares in any dividend there might be after the payment of that 7 per cent. Was there any man in existence so foolish as to imagine there was the slightest chance of the original shareholders getting back a single farthing? At this point he would, with deep regret, part with the 1,877 shareholders, many of whom were poor people, and all of them, he believed, anxious to advance the interests of their country. Then came the preference shareholders, of whom there were only 23. Of these 23 preference shareholders how many did the House suppose lived in Ireland? Only one. He recollected him well, for he gave his evidence before the Packet Committee in the most patriotic manner. That gentleman was Mr. Denis Kirwan, of Castle Hackett, in the county of Galway, who was a subscriber for 500 preferential shares out of the £400,000. And who were the others? They were all friends, retainers, and adherents of a well known banking firm in Lombard Street. The only effect of the policy of Her Majesty's Government, if ratified by the House, would be to enable those persons to sell their preferential shares without incurring a total loss. Well, then, what possible good could such a Company do for Ireland? Apart from the shareholders, neither financially nor in point of ships had this Company ability to carry on the trade. In the admirable Report drawn up by Mr. Soudamore, of the Admiralty, and Mr. Stevenson, of the Treasury, there appeared these words—

"It does not appear, from the accounts and information rendered by this Company, that it possesses any funds from which those claims, amounting to upwards of £160,000, can be met. From the foregoing extract it appears that the real commercial value of the Company's fleet, upon the security of which the sum of £216,000 has been borrowed, is considered by the Admiralty to be £407,000, instead of £608,000, the value set upon it by the Company."

Then, as to the ships. The Hibernia and the Columbia were two years ago condemned as being somewhat unseaworthy. He was perfectly aware that they had since been strengthened in the yard of the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Laird); but he was prepared to state to the House, after a careful consideration of these papers and many communications from gentlemen who were thoroughly acquainted with these steam ships, that these patched-up vessels and the Adriatic were utterly unable to render the service required of them in the manner in which the late Government wished it. For although he blamed the late Government for entering into this contract, the contract was strictly worded that the vessels should go from Galway to St. John's in six days. The two gentlemen appointed by the Government had declared that six vessels were necessary to carry out the contract. At present the Company had only one vessel capable of fulfilling the conditions of the contract. [Mr. BAGWELL: What is the date of that?] This was the Report of October last, of Mr. Scudamore and Mr. Stevenson. In August, 1862, the Controller of the Navy, after inspecting the Hibernia at Liverpool, sent in a report in which he said he considered it doubtful whether that vessel would be able to do more than keep her time with favourable weather, especially when she had on board her ballast and sea stores. A friend of his, having noticed a statement respecting the speed of the Hibernia with 800 tons of coal on board, wrote to him saying that the Con-naught burnt 120 tons a day, and that, at that rate of consumption, the Hibernia ought to carry 1,300 tons of coal on starting for her winter voyage; for steamers half the size and half the horsepower, sailing from Liverpool, carried 1.000 tons. The Government seemed to have been hoping against hope that something would turn up to justify them in acceding to the wishes of certain parties in Ireland, and on receiving the letter of the Company, of the 26th of January last, they promised the restoration of the subsidy. The Company stated that their fleet was wholly unincumbered, and not subject to any liability which could in any manner affect the service, for which they had ample working capital. He was much surprised by that statement, but equally surprised by the Government replying, that they regarded the letter of the Company as conveying compliance with the demands of the Government with respect to the independent possession of the ships of the Company. He was not so satisfied as the Government, and he obtained copies of the registers of the ships, which showed, that although on the 17th of February the Hibernia and the Adriatic were free, there were still mortgages on the registers of the other two vessels, dated March 1861. He had said it was quite impossible that a subsidy of £78,000 could make the Company pay if their vessels sailed from Galway; and they had found that out themselves. Mr. Inman, the agent of one of the Liverpool Companies, said he had reason to know that a desire existed not to confine the Galway steamers to the port of Galway, which restriction was made the ground of application for the subsidy, but to obtain power to make Liverpool or some other English port in reality the port of departure, in which case the subsidy would be equal to £3,000 a voyage to enable a new company, consisting of a small number of preference shareholders, to undersell and take from the Philadelphia Company a trade hardly earned by thirteen years of anxious toil without any Government assistance whatever. This was the statement of Mr. Inman; but he had read in seven newspapers the following announcement:—

"It is intended that the subsidized Galway packets shall start from Southampton in order to secure portion of the vast and lucrative continental traffic with America. The steamers will depart from Southampton in time to leave Gal-way at the contract time."

So the vessels were lo start from Southampton and make a pleasant voyage round Ireland, and were to go by way of Newfoundland to New York. Not only had the Government agreed to renew the subsidy, but they had voluntarily intimated their willingness to modify the terms of the contract made by the late Government, and to reconsider the ports of arrival and departure. All this, they were told, was owing to a vague declaration made eighteen months ago by the noble Lord at the head of the Government, which declaration was founded on a sentence of the Report of the Committee of 1861, presided over by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory). That sentence was—

"Your Committee are of opinion, that should it be deemed advisable to re-establish postal communication between the west coast of Ireland and America, the Atlantic Steam-packet Company are deserving of the favourable consideration of Her Majesty's Government."

This was no promise for the restoration; and if it were, was the Atlantic Company, because backed by a few Irish representatives, the only Company with which the Government and the House of Commons were bound to keep faith? Had the House forgotten that four years ago the Treasury pledged itself to parties in Liverpool that there should be no further contract for the conveyance of mails to America that should not be open to public competition, and that on the 30th of May, 1861, the noble Lord made exactly the same statement? What could be the reason that the Government, in the face of the Report of Messrs. Scudamore and Stevenson, had renewed the contract? Did any man doubt that it was to secure the support of the Irish Members? Some weeks ago the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir James Elphinstone) said, that the great Liberal party had been making political capital out of the Galway contract for three years, and now the present Government had done the very same thing that was done by their predecessors, and had done it for the same reason. That statement was quite true; and if it were wrong of the late Government, on insufficient inquiry, to give to an unknown Company a contract for an ocean mail service which was not required, was it not more wrong of the present Government, after all the concerns of the Company had been elucidated, to continue a delusion and to Con firm a job? He had heard a rumour that some kind of a compact had been entered into between the Government and certain of the representatives of Ireland, the price of whose support being the renewal of this contract; and whilst he disbelieved the rumour, he must say that the conduct of the Government in renewing the subsidy with the information they possessed gave colour to a rumour of that kind. He was utterly at a loss to understand why the Treasury Minute had been issued, if it had not been to provide for the political exigencies of the moment; the words uttered by Lord John Russell, on the 30th of May, 1861, were still ringing in his ears—

"And, Sir, with respect to the matter of the Galway Contract, I say that rather than the Government should make any concession on that question in order to obtain votes, it would be better ten Ministries should be defeated, and that the House of Commons should be ten times dissolved, than that such a stain should be cast upon the Government of this country. And when I say that it is better ten Ministries should be defeated, and the House of Commons ten times dissolved, that is a consequence that would not be avoided; on the contrary, it is a consequence that would be brought on if any Government in this country were to act in so profligate a manner; because it is not to be supposed that this is a question in which one part only of the United Kingdom is interested. Galway Contracts might spring up in other parts of the kingdom; and if any ten or twenty Gentlemen, in the divided state of the House, or of the great parties which are represented here, found that they had defeated one Ministry by this means, the new Ministry would soon experience a similar attempt to make them stoop to this degradation."

These were noble and stirring words; but they had soon been forgotten, and he called upon the independent Members of that House to impress them on the front benches of both sides of the House. Though £78,000 might be a "paltry and contemptible" sum, yet it would be improper and unconstitutional in a Government to give it for political reasons at the instance of a certain number of Members, and it might pave the way for practices which might be common in the lobbies of the Capitol at Washington, but which would not be tolerated in the British House of Commons. He was informed, that according to the rules of the House, he could not divide on both Resolutions. He had considered the first the more important of the two, but it was not so immediately pressing as the second; and therefore he moved, as an Amendment to the Motion, that Mr. Speaker leave the Chair, the second Resolution that stood in his name. He entreated the House to take a course which, however small and paltry the sum involved might appear to be, would teach a lesson and establish a principle which would not be forgotten by the Cabinets of England in time to come.

begged to second the Amendment of the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter). He said the House was much indebted to that hon. Gentleman for his able and impartial statement of the case. He was sure the country would be greatly astonished at the course taken by Her Majesty's Government in granting the Galway Contract after the strenuous manner in which the Members of the present Administration had opposed a similar contract when made by the late Government. His attention was first called to the Galway Contract by a letter from Mr. Inman, noting partner of the Liverpool, New York, and Philadelphia Steam Ship Company, who brought it under his notice on the ground so strongly urged by his hon. Friend in the conclusion of his speech — namely, the ground of breach of faith. In the Report of the Committee of 1860 would be found J references to interviews had by different gentlemen representing Steam Packet Companies with Departments of the Government. It is stated that Mr. Inman offered to convey the mails for the amount of the ocean postage. On the 15th of October, 1858, Mr. Inman wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury remonstrating against any mail grant to the Lever Company without competition. He said—

"If any mail grant is to be given between Galway and any other port, I bog to submit it ought to be put up to public competition."

In reply to that, and a further communication, Mr. Inman received from the Secretary to the Treasury a letter to the following effect: —

"I am desired by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to inform you, in reply to the letter addressed by you to the Board, on behalf of the Liverpool New York, and Philadelphia Steam Ship Company, that when a new postal service is about to be established by the Government it is the practice of their Lordships to invite tenders by public advertisements, thereby affording to all parties the opportunity of competing for such services, provided they conform to the required conditions."

Very shortly after that letter was addressed to Mr. Inman, the Government of the day, without any further communication with him, entered into a contract with the Galway Steam Packet Company. From the fact that the Montreal Ocean Steam Ship Company offered to take the contract of the Galway Company, and give the latter a bonus of £25,000 a year to relinquish their contract, it must be obvious to every one that the Government must have made a very liberal contract with the Galway directors. He would now refer to a letter which Mr. Inman addressed to the Postmaster General on the 9th of February last, in which he said—

"On reference to the original contract it will be seen that the time fixed for the conveyance of the mails between Galway and Boston and New York by the Galway boats offers no advantage of speed over our own between Cork harbour and New York; while several years ago we offered to convey regularly the British mails for the ocean postage, and the records in your Lordships' Department will show that we have never failed to despatch a steamer every week from Ireland without any subsidy whatever, and, when required, two steamers in the week."

The House had been told that the chief argument in favour of the contract was that it was one made to an Irish company. He thought it had already been shown that for all practical purposes there was only one Irishman connected with the Company, and only one holder of the 7 per cent preference shares. In the Report presented to the House on the 22nd of May, 1860, the Committee stated that Lord Derby's decision sanctioning the contract with the Galway Company had been given in ignorance of several of the circumstances bearing strongly on the case, including the implied pledge to Mr. Inman that any new service would be thrown open to competition. But the present Government could not have been ignorant of that pledge, and therefore their conduct in the matter was far worse than that of the Government of Lord Derby. However, the question was not one between the late Government and the present. It was the duty of the House to decide whether the contract should be made, and that issue was submitted to them in a practical form by the Resolu- tion of his hon. Friend, which he now begged leave to second.

said, that he could not find fault with the fairness of his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter) in treating this subject, but he would make an appeal to his hon. Friend. He would ask him, after the decision to be arrived at that evening, to leave this Galway Company in peace. The reason he made this appeal was that there was very great distress in Ireland at the present moment. Really the existing poverty in that part of the world was shocking, and to alleviate it in some degree it was intended to make very extensive improvements in the harbour of Galway; but so long as there was uncertainty as to the action of Parliament it was impossible to obtain the necessary funds for those improvements. He therefore trusted the decision of that evening would be considered ns final. As to the Resolution of his hon. Friend, he objected to it in form and substance. It was skilfully drawn for bringing into the lobby with the hon. Member two different classes of opinions. Some Gentlemen were anxious for the reduction of all subsidies; others, though generally in favour of subsidies, had a strong objection to the Galway Contract; and the hon. Gentleman's Resolutions were framed to catch the support of both these classes. He objected altogether to the hon. Gentleman's first Resolution; for though he was as anxious as any man to see reductions made wherever they were possible, yet the greatest care ought to be exercised lest the efficiency of the Postal Service should be impaired. In the Postal Service regularity of despatch and speed of transmission were of vital importance, and these could not be obtained except from subsidized companies. A paper had recently been put into his hands, which showed the average rate of speed of subsidized and non-subsidized lines. This showed that the average passage of Inman's line, which was not subsidized, was 16 days 20 hours in winter, and 13 days 16 hours in summer; whereas the passage of the Cunard line, which was a subsidized line, was 12 days 10 hours in winter, and 10 days 6 hours in summer. At the rate of speed required from the Galway line the passage would be 10 days 13 hours in summer, and 11 days 17 hours in winter. A high rate of speed, too, greatly increased the expense. The increase from nine to ten knots an hour made it necessary for the West India Company to increase their expenditure from £264,802 in 1851 to £403,769 in 1853. The speed required from the Galway Company was over eleven knots, and it had been calculated by Mr. Atherton, chief engineer at Woolwich, that the freight of goods carried at ten miles an hour ought to be double the freight of those carried at eight miles. A purely commercial company, therefore, must either increase its freight to almost double the amount on its goods if it is to keep up the present rate of speed of postal companies, or the public must be content with a great loss of time in delivery of the mails. Lord Canning's Committee had laid the strongest stress on the punctuality and rapidity of the transmission of letters attained by these subsidized companies. They said—

"Not only is this service simply rapid—it is also regular, and the mercantile community can reckon, with the utmost certainty, on the punctual despatch and arrival of mails."

This regularity and punctuality it was impossible to obtain unless the Government had that stringent power of enforcing rides and regulations which the grant of a subsidy gave them. By the aid of these subsidies the great Steam Navigation Companies had been able to create magnificent fleets of splendid vessels, which in time of war were an important element in the strength of England. In the Crimean war the Government took up from three companies 29 vessels, of an aggregate tonnage of 53,000 tons and 12,700 horse power; and two of these companies, the Peninsular and Oriental and the West India Mail, still continued to keep up their communications with uninterrupted regularity. These companies never could have kept up these great fleets without subsidies, for it was well known that the working expenses exceeded the net earnings of the lines. The Emperor of the French had subsidized lines to Brazil and the Southern Seas, for the expressed and declared object of increasing commercial traffic, and of creating additional elements of maritime strength; and the Americans, as might be seen in almost every American paper, had never ceased to regret that they had not kept up their great Collins line. He could not, therefore, agree with the hon. Gentleman's reasoning as to subsidized lines. Turning, however, to a subject much more important to himself and the Irish Members generally—the Galway Contract—he was not in the least affected by the opinions of Mr. Dunlop (which the hon. Gentleman had read to the House), nor was he prepared to allow the truth of the accusation so strongly made by the hon. Gentleman that this Galway Contract was entered into by Lord Derby's Government for political purposes. It had been shown over and over again in that House, that that assertion was utterly untenable. It had been proved over and over again, by dates, and by reference to various communications, that the late Government had determined to grant the subsidy, on the recommendation of Lord Eglinton, long before there was a question of a dissolution. The hon. Gentleman said it was done to gain popularity. Popularity certainly did follow on the act. The people of Ireland were grateful to the late Government for the course they adopted, and the hon. Gentleman said Post hoc, ergo propter hoc— because popularity followed, therefore it was done for popularity. He contended that the Government and the House were bound in honour to confirm the grant. The Committee of which he was Chairman came to a resolution, that if the Government were of opinion that there should be postal communication with a western port of Ireland, the Atlantic Company should be favourably considered. It had been intimated to the House, by the noble Lord at the head of the Government, in July, 1861, that the demand made by the Irish Members for postal communication between the west of Ireland and America was a very fair one; the noble Lord on that occasion said he could assure his hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory) that Her Majesty's Government were of opinion that the port of Galway presented the greatest natural advantages. Now, be was perfectly satisfied to advance that opinion against all the calumnies which his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter) had that evening lavished upon the port of Galway. He would go further, and tell the House in reference to the capabilities of that port, that during the whole of the exceptionally severe winter, during which the ships were running to and from America, not a single accident happened there, except one, the circumstances connected with which were of a very suspicious character. It was well, also, that hon. Members generally should be informed that the Secretary to the Treasury had written a letter on the 31st of January last, in which be said, that subject to the Admiralty being satisfied as to the efficiency of the vessels themselves, Her Majesty's Government were prepared to enter into an engagement with the Company, and to propose a Vote to Parliament in pursuance thereof. On the faith of those assurances the Company had spent £200,000 in improving their vessels and rendering them; fit for the service. Under all the circumstances of the case, therefore, the Government were, he thought, bound to grant them the subsidy for which they asked. But his hon. Friend had found fault with the merchants of Belfast for having; petitioned in favour of the Company, alleging that they had done so on the ground that they would get their goods carried by it at a cheaper rate. It should, however, be borne in mind, that they had petitioned in favour of a grant for postal communication between Ireland and America in 1851, long before the ships were ready, while it was also represented that they were anxious for its continuance in order that they might have an opportunity of sending their linens to Galway, and thus prevent their being injured in the transport to Liverpool or some other English port. When, moreover, his hon. Friend said that letters which had been sent by the Galway line cost the country at the rate of 6s., he was conveying a false impression to the House, because, in consequence of the doubts connected with the action of the Government towards the Company, only a small part of the Irish correspondence passed over the Galway line. Of course, therefore, the smallness of the number of letters sent increased the average expense of each letter. That was, however, an exceptional state of things, and no one knew better the fallacy he was employing than his hon. Friend (Mr. Baxter). It was perfectly notorious that one-third of the letters despatched from the British Isles which went to America went from Ireland, so that she was perfectly entitled to ask for some portion of the money expended on postal communication with that country. Another cause of complaint alleged against the Company by his hon. Friend, was that it was carried on by English capital. For his own part, so far from feeling aggrieved at hearing that most of the money of the Company was subscribed by English capitalists, he should be very glad to find them applying their resources to the amelioration of Ireland. His hon. Friend, had, however, proceeded to take great exception to the ships of the Company; but he believed the Surveyor of the Admiralty had nothing to say against them now, while he was given to understand that the trial of one of them—the Columbia—had recently proved to be perfectly satisfactory. He had, indeed, been challenged by his hon. Friend to proceed to America in one of these vessels, but he begged leave to decline the challenge, not from any want of confidence in the ships, but because he was perfectly aware that the Northern States were in that state of moral blindness that they were unable to appreciate their true friends, and he had no desire, for the mere sake of inaugurating the undertaking, to run the risk of undergoing certain processes sometimes inflicted in those States under the influence of popular excitement. But his hon. Friend had quoted the letter of Mr. Inman, to show that there was some underhand dealing on the part of the Company with reference to the place which they intended to select as a port of departure, it being insinuated that they proposed to fix upon Southampton. Now, to that rumour he was in a position to give a most positive contradiction, inasmuch as there was not, he believed, the slightest intention on the part of the Company to transfer—nor had there ever been any communications between them and any other body which could reasonably give rise to the impression that they meant to transfer—their vessels from Galway to Southampton, or any other English port. His hon. Friend had gone beyond that, and had stated that a compact had been entered into between the Irish Members and the Government on the subject. To that statement, also, he could give an equally emphatic and peremptory denial. The Irish Members only asked firmly, but respectfully, for a renewal of the grant, on the ground that large sums were spent in England for various public undertakings— for arms, ships, clothing, dockyards, &c.—and that the Irish people, who were taxed for all those purposes, were entitled to some share in the benefits of the national expenditure. His hon. Friend asked what would be the effect of granting the subsidy. He could, from his own observation, assure him that during the time the vessels were running from Galway to America the greatest improvements were taking place in that port. Everything there, in fact, seemed to be undergoing a change for the better; and he was convinced that if the subsidy were renewed, Galway and the West of Ireland, indeed the whole of Ireland, would derive from it the greatest advantage. There was at present, he might add, much misery and no small amount of discontent prevailing in Ireland, and such was not the moment when the House should refuse the small boon she asked. He sincerely trusted that in the future the Treasury would not raise unnecessary obstacles, but would deal with the Company fairly, honestly, and in a generous spirit, saying, "We have done our best to help you through your difficulties; now go and help yourselves."

said, that the hon. Gentleman who had introduced the subject had expressed his surprise that there should have been acts of jobbery on the part of two Governments, and his hope that in future there would be no renewal of such practices. He could not share either in the feeling of surprise as to the past, or in the hope as to the future. A study of the political history of the country had convinced him that there never had been a Government which did not job, and he believed there never would be a Government that would not job. He looked upon the Galway subsidy as having been, in the first instance, what is commonly called a job. It was a job in the sense in which every Government has jobbed heretofore, and every Government will job hereafter; it was a wasteful and indiscreet expenditure of public money for the purpose of making political capital. The hon. Member for Galway had indignantly repudiated the idea that it was ever intended to have the effect of influencing the votes of Irish Members. He entirely acquitted the Irish Members of that imputation, but the hon. Gentleman admitted that it was to make the Government popular in Ireland, and he would not go into the distinction between obtaining popularity and obtaining votes, as it appeared to him to be a distinction without a difference. But if the whole affair was a job in the first instance, what was it in the second? The Company undertook at starting that which they had neither capital nor ability to perform; but when their affairs had been looked into, as they were recently, when their inability to carry out the con- tract was clearly shown, that which was a job in the original grant was a greater job in the renewal. He regretted that the hon. Member (Mr. Baxter) had omitted the first Resolution, as it was of far greater importance than the second. The Galway Contract question was a small mutter as compared with the general subject of subsidies, which he hoped the House would at an early period consider. He went further than the hon. Member, for he thought, that in accordance with the principles of free trade, every description of subsidy should he done away with. The House had no right to tax the great mass of the people for the benefit of the mercantile portion of the community. The changes that took place in the rates of postage some years since were, he believed, ill-advised; they benefited a small portion of the public at the expense of the great mass of the people. The poor man who wrote a letter perhaps once a year, derived but a small advantage; while the mercantile community reaped a large benefit. The effect of granting subsidies was exactly similar; and he trusted the day was not far distant when they would be entirely discontinued. Those who had occasion to correspond with America should pay whatever was required to enable the correspondence to be transmitted. He admitted that the question was one which should be dealt with cautiously, and that care should be taken that no injustice was done to those who now held contracts. In the present case, however, no injury could result except to the twenty-seven shareholders who had been spoken of, who were not Irish. He hoped the House would affirm the Resolution, and that they would thereupon enter into a discussion which should lead to the doing away of till subsidies,

Sir, the hon. Gentleman who introduced the Motion said that he had bestowed immense attention upon this subject. I can fully appreciate the force of that remark. The Galway Contract seems to have occupied his waking and his sleeping thoughts for a long period of time, and he appears to have staked his political reputation on destroying what he has been pleased to pronounce a gross political job. It is a very long time since this question was first raised in Ireland. A Committee sat upon the subject in the Mansion House, Dublin, in the year 1850; and that the House may understand who were the political jobbers who commenced the movement which ended in the attainment of the Contract, I will read the names of the members of that Committee. They were:— Benjamin Lee Guinness, John D'Arcy, Joshua Pim, David Latouche, Denis Moylan, Francis Codd, Joseph Napier, and another individual whom I will not mention. The question has occupied the attention of the public for a long period, and I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it ought to be considered on Imperial grounds. I know my duty to this House too well to press the provincial view, nor can the question be fully argued on narrow principles. But how did the hon. Gentleman prove on Imperial grounds that tin's contract ought not to be granted? Was it by facts? He has no facts. Geography is against him; the terrestrial globe is the strongest argument in our favour. If we had a Parliament sitting in Dublin, and an opportunity of representing to the Minister upon the spot that there were 2,000,000 of our countrymen in America, that the trade of the North of Ireland was mainly with that part of the world, and that according to the laws of nature and of justice our letters and communications ought not to be carried past our shores, how should we act towards a Minister who declared that those letters should continue to be carried past the coast of Ireland and sent back to us again after a considerable delay? For the benefit of the country we should deal with him as a political idiot, and dispense with him accordingly. What was the opinion given by Sir Rowland Hill before a Commission years ago on this very point? —

"It appears to me, as far as the convenience of the Post Office is concerned, that the port of arrival and despatch of American mails cannot be too far to the West; that the further it is situated in that direction the better; so long at least as it is not beyond the reach of railway communication."

That is a direct authority in favour of the principle for which we contend. It is not an Irish witness seeking to establish Irish views, but a man in high position giving testimony which no one can contradict, for it appeals to the evidence of our senses, he says further—

"I entertain this opinion partly because the progress by railway would be quicker than by steam packet, and partly because a more westerly packet station would enable us to serve the western parts of Ireland better than at present. If the port were situated in the West or South. West, it would be possible to bring letters to all parts of England and Scotland probably ten or twelve hours earlier than at present, while as regards Ireland, which receives one-third of the whole correspondence, the time saved would he much greater."

It is quite true that the movement in which the South and West are so interested began in the North of Ireland. The residents in that part of the country are clear-headed gentlemen with a good deal of Scotch blood in their veins, but softened by a residence in Ireland. Sir Rowland Hill was also asked how Belfast would he benefited by the establishment of a packet station in the West or South West as compared with existing arrangements, and as compared also with arrangements for landing the mails at Holyhead. He replied—

"Assuming the packet station to be Galway, and the railway thence to Dublin to be completed, I find, as compared with existing arrangements, that the town of Belfast would, under ordinary circumstances, benefit to the extent of about forty-one hours; and when the arrangements for landing the mails at Holyhead are carried out, the saving will be about twenty hours."

The time of which he is speaking is ten years ago. Since then the merchants of Belfast have subscribed to the formation of a railway, which is now, completed, bringing the North and West into immediate communication. Anybody who lives in Scotland will be able to dine in Glasgow, to sail from Greenock the same evening, and to land on the quay of Belfast at four next morning, to proceed thence to Galway without delay, and, if he chooses, to sail out into the Atlantic before midday, thereby avoiding the voyage through the Channel. A few years since I happened to be staying near the coast, within six or seven miles of Belfast, and saw a steamer passing rapidly; and on asking what it meant I was told it was going to take off the passengers belonging to the Africa, one of the Cunard vessels, which had grounded on the Copeland Rocks. If it had not been a perfectly calm night, every soul must have perished; but, as it was, all the passengers were brought in safety to Belfast. It has always been matter of surprise how the Great Britain, under the care of a skilful navigator, could have found her way to the place where she remained so long an object of curiosity; but it was easier to get ashore than to get off again. On a third occasion the America, whilst in the Channel, went ashore. The witness examined regarding the danger of the Channel passage, re plied that it would no doubt be a very great advantage to escape it altogether. Is it surprising that Belfast men should wish to escape it and to get their letters forty hours sooner than they did under the old system? To men of business time is money, and unless you are prepared to say that Ireland is to be governed on principles which would utterly ignore the interests of the Irish community, you cannot justify bringing letters past their shores and sending them hack again. The hon. Gentleman says the Irish representatives are unanimous on this point. I admit it, and I cannot see that he has given us any reason why they should not be. He has failed to show that letters will not be obtained quicker, and telegraphs more satisfactorily, by the Galway line than by any other route. Until he does so, I cannot understand how the natural advantages of the line can be impeached. The hon. Gentleman appeared to night, as it seemed to me, in the character of an indignant patriot. He said the question was originally Irish, and therefore the scheme ought to be rejected. Certain English capitalists took it up and embarked money in it; therefore, a multo fortiori, it ought to be rejected. Nothing remains but to make it Scutch, to concentrate our thoughts and affections on the far north, to carry the undertaking to "Aberdeen awa'," and then its patriotic character will be immediately established. The hon. Gentlemani nquired whther one of the ships had not been mortgaged. Suppose Mr. Cunard mortgages one of his vessels, does that affect the contract entered into with him? [Mr. BAXTER: It ought to do so.] That is a point which it is necessary to clear up. If there be a contract under stringent conditions, those conditions must be complied with, or the contract will not be fulfilled. But if the services stipulated for in the contract be performed, how is the question affected by the mortgage of a particular ship?

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say that the charge is utterly untrue.

That interposition entirely changes the nature of the argument, for it shows, that however telling may have been the speech of the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter), one of the facts on which he mainly relies is no fact at all. The hon. Member also asked how the service could be conducted by this Company. That is a very proper question. But, looking at the correspondence, can any one suppose that the Treasury, the Admiralty, or the Post Office have boon particularly lenient with the Gal way Company, or that they have not watched it with the closest and strictest scrutiny? The hon. Gentleman says other persons apart from the Company are interested in this contract. Let me ask, if a contractor sells his interest to another, does that in the slightest degree impeach the validity of the contract? Why, I was told that Mr. Cunard once parted with his interest to some extent. I deny the right of the hon. Gentleman, or of the Government, to make that a ground of objection. If he performs his engagements faithfully and efficiently, you have no right to inquire whether he shares the remuneration with other persons. The hon. Gentleman placed two Resolutions on the paper. The first was a just Resolution; the second, in my opinion, an unjust one. With great disinterestedness and generosity he withdrew the Resolution which raised a principle, and pressed that which struck at a contract. It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman put down the first as a cover for the second, and appealed, I am sorry to say, to prejudices unworthy of a statesman against a country which wants nothing but what is right, and will not support the Government one whit more for granting the subsidy than it would have done had it been refused. Such, at least, I can assure the hon. Gentleman is my intention. Now, let us hear what Mr. Lai it g says —

"There would be no sort of justice in cancelling the contract on the grounds of general policy, unless we are prepared to take the same course with the Cunard and other contracts which stand precisely upon the same footing."

Now, Mr. Laing is a political economist; he was Secretary to the Treasury, and, I understand, is about to enter the House again as the representative of a great commercial city. He then made this remark —

"That as long as subsidies for steam services across the Atlantic were granted, inasmuch as Ireland contributed about a third of the whole postage, and afforded the nearest point of departure, and therefore the speediest route to America, Ireland might justly claim a right to the contract."

I think that is good logic. No doubt it is true that many curious things are done by the Government. I was turning over the statute book the other day, and by mere accident I lighted upon the 23 & 24 Vict. c. 48, in which I found that the Commissioners of the Treasury are empowered to accept £50,000 in full satisfaction of £228,374 9s. 8d. due to the Commissioners of the Treasury on security of the harbour and docks of Leith, and secured by bonds payable by the City of Edinburgh. I commend that case to the consideration of the hon. Gentlemen—it was passed at the end of the Session, and I mean to preserve it as a curious illustration of the care bestowed upon their friends in Scotland by hon. Gentlemen from the North who give a steady support to the Ministers of the day. I make no attack on the Treasury for that transaction. I am content to believe that the inhabitants of Leith made out a good case, and that the Ministers were convinced on that occasion. Now, with regard to the passengers carried by the Galway route, I find by a Return which has been presented to the House of Commons, that while by two rival lines there were carried 84 and 163 passengers respectively each voyage, by the Galway line 373 were carried. The cause of that difference in amount was that the Galway line attempted to carry third-class passengers, which the other lines did not, and it is among that class that the greatest loss of life usually occurs. From the Report of Major Robinson it appeared that in 1874 there were 89,000 emigrants from Ireland, of whom 5,893 perished at sea and 10,000 died upon their arrival in America. Now if you give to the Empire at large its letters more quickly by the Galway than by any other route—if you do a great service to Ireland, and at the same time preserve human life, then I say there is a strong case for giving the contract to Ireland. With regard to Liverpool, when the Commissioners inquired respecting its harbour, Mr. Cunard himself stated that at present the departure of the packets depended upon the fluctuating state of the tide, and the mails and passengers were often detained for a length of time varying from six to seven hours, And with respect to Holy bend, Mr. Cunard said he did not see any particular objection to it as a place of call on the passage home, provided a proper pier were erected; but to call at Holy-head in the passage to America would deprive us of the use of the northern passage, which was of very great consequence, and would frequently cause considerable delay. I have said what would be the gain to Glasgow by making Galway a packet station. Glasgow carries on an extensive business with Belfast, they have admirable steamers there; and, as I said before, a man leaving Glasgow in the evening might arrive at Belfast about four o'clock in the morning It must, then, be a clear advantage to Scotland to have a station at Galway; and therefore the hon. Gentleman is in this instance disinterested, because I believe he is the first Scotchman that ever spoke a word against the interests of Scotland. Can the hon. Gentleman inform me of any instance where a merchant who has entered into a contract has repudiated it without sufficient reasons? This Contract has been made by a Vote of Parliament. Will you not apply to public matters a line of conduct which would be followed in private affairs? But how do you propose to get rid of this contract? By an abstract Resolution. I have a horror of all abstract Resolutions. Whenever I think of them, my mind turns upon Parliamentary Reform. And with all the great questions before us—Poland, Naples, Greece, and all the other matters which occupy the thoughts of our distinguished Administration—why does the hon. Gentleman concentrate his abilities upon this small question? It was not usual in old times to fetter the Executive. The money is not granted; but the new practice is to make the executive Government a mere creature of the House of Commons, and to tell them they shall not be at liberty to propose a Vote which they have not proposed, but which upon good grounds they are likely to propose. The hon. Gentleman has said this contract is a political job. Every Gentleman has a right to his opinion; but having head the views of a distinguished countryman of the hon. Gentleman, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (the Earl of Eglinton) upon the subject, I believe a decision was never arrived at upon more conscientious grounds. Believe me, it is a narrow and short-sighted policy which endeavours to raise a prejudice in this House against a project for encouraging rapid communication with the only country in the world with which we have a constant interchange of ideas and interests. The Italian Government has not as yet opened up Italy to the linen trade. France, I am glad to say, is improving in that respect. But America is the market of the North of Ireland. When I lately asked a gentleman (who, from his accent, did not appear to belong to Galway) the following question, "What interests you so much in this matter?" he answered me at once, "My pocket;" and a very fair answer it was. He said he felt the injustice that was done him. "Here I am," said he, "and the ships carry my goods past Ireland, they carry my letters past Ireland, and my money past Ireland; and because we have established a trade, and because America is our market, our rights are not to be respected." I told him to go to the noble Viscount and tell him all he had told me and I had no doubt he would satisfy him. But it is said, that the contract has been confirmed by the noble Viscount from an unworthy motive. But I do not believe the noble Viscount will get the support of Irish Conservative Gentlemen on my side of the House (and we are the majority) if they are asked to give their support to a policy which they do not understand. It is my duty to do justice to the noble Viscount, and to express my entire disbelief that he has restored the contract on any other grounds than those of justice and good policy. I trust that the House will affirm the decision of the Government; and if, in addition to benefiting the Empire at large, the arrangement will confer great service on Ireland, that is no reason to a just and enlightened mind why it should be unfavourably regarded.

Sir, My hon. Friend moved two Resolutions, or rather announced his intention of moving two Resolutions, but he tells us that he will not propose the first. It becomes us, then, following his precept, "to tread lightly on the ashes of the dead." My hon. Friend has launched against the present Government a charge, which is easily made, which always obtains cheers, and which pleases those who entertain very superficial and shallow notions of Government, and who are willing to adopt anything tending to disparage an Administration. He has said that the present Government, in adopting this Galway Contract to the extent we have, has committed, or attempted to commit, a great political job — namely, that we hope, and had reason to believe, that by adopting this contract we should obtain support from the Irish Members. He has, in that statement, certainly pronounced a double censure on the Government, because in the first place he impeaches our political morality, and in the next place he impeaches our political sagacity; because —and I would appeal on this point to my hon. Friend the late Irish Lord of the Treasury (Colonel White)—experience has shown, that if we did reckon on the support of Irish Members in adopting this contract, we have been move wofully deceived and disappointed than often falls to the lot of a Government of this country. But I entreat my hon. Friend, who brought forward the present Motion, to raise his views a little higher than that state of morality by which he seems disposed to judge of the actions of others. Cannot my hon. Friend imagine that it is possible for a Government, in dealing with a public question, to be influenced by legitimate public considerations of national advantage? Can he not believe it possible, that, in recommending to the House a confirmation of this contract, we may Lave been influenced by the desire to promote the interest of Ireland, one-third of the letters passing to America being sent from that country? Can he in it imagine that, in looking to the state of the United Kingdom, we may have seen a large portion of the people inhabiting a country to which nature has denied many of the advantages this island enjoys, in which that abundance of coal which is the foundation of the manufacturing industry is in a great measure wanting, and where all local circumstances have been so arranged that in it the accumulations of national defence, the marine establishments of the Empire, are not placed. Ireland is a country where, though it has harbours in abundance, circumstances beyond the control and discretion of the Government of the day have be ordered it that there are not in it any of those great naval establishments which, in a considerable degree, contribute to the welfare and prosperity of the districts in which they are placed. Cannot my hon. Friend—if he would only enlarge his mind and liberate it from the narrow scope of consideration by which he seems actuated—can he not believe that the Government, whose duty it is to watch equally over the welfare of every part of the dominions of Her Majesty, may have been influenced (if an arrangement were presented to the consideration of the Government, calculated in the opinion of the Irish nation to contribute to their prosperity and welfare, and which, with a view to the benefit of the whole United Kingdom, would be useful and desirable) by considerations of the same sort, and not by such a flimsy hope as that of simply gaining support in this House. The host chance a Government has of obtaining support, not only in this House, but in the country, is to do the best they can to promote the interests of the whole Empire, including Ireland. That was one of the grounds on which the Govern- ment thought it right to adopt the course they have taken. My hon. Friend has argued this question as if no interests were concerned but those of Scotland and Liverpool. He has totally forgotten that Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom and has an interest in speedy communication and in getting its letters and goods transmitted across the Atlantic, independent of considerations which attach simply to the different ports of communication. It is a great evil for Irishmen to be compelled to come to England, when they want to go to America, or to wait for their letters from America until they are forwarded from England, or to send their goods from Ireland to England for transmission across the Atlantic, and any arrangement which gives them a more direct and ready communication between the western part of Ireland across the Atlantic and America must obviously be an advantage to Ireland, must tend to assist the development of the natural resources of the country, and to increase the commercial and, to a certain degree, the manufacturing prosperity of the country. These were the views of the Government on the general question with respect to this contract, which, if well carried out according to the engagements offered by the contractors, would contribute to the benefit of the Irish people. But there is another consideration which could not fail to prevail on the mind of any Government who had to deal with the question, and that is the consideration that the faith of one Government had been pledged, and the faith of Parliament had been pledged to a certain degree. A great number of Irish people—1,800 my hon. Friend stated —had embarked their limited means, their all, in this enterprise. Though no engagement may now exist, all this constituted some claim on the present Government, who would not have acted right in repudiating it, unless in the case of a great failure on the part of the Company to complete the conditions of their contract. At first they did fail, and no doubt their contract was at an end; but the Committee appointed by this House recommended the Company to the favourable consideration of the Government, and we certainly did think that if they should, by enlarged arrangements and by getting more capital at their command, fulfil the engagements they offered to enter into, it would be fair to the parties —to those whose only chance was making good the money they had invested—to renew the contract, from which they expected to derive some interest for their money. That is the way in which the question at present stands for their consideration. My hon. Friend calls on the House to do that which I think would be an act of great cruelty and injustice, to interpose and say that this contract should not be renewed but should be extinguished. In that case, whatever chance these unhappy 1,800 people had of retrieving their losses, and deriving some interest from their money, would be disappointed and their ruin complete. With respect to those who have invested their money in the enterprise, my hon. Friend thinks he will persuade this House to per form what I think an act of cruelty and injustice. I do not believe that this House will do anything of the sort. I believe that this House has a greater regard for political morality than my hon. Friend seems to give it credit for. I think it would be an act of political immorality and an arbitrary act if, in consequence of an abstract proposal, which my hon. Friend is afraid to submit to the decision of the House, and which he does not make the foundation of his second Resolution, the House were to call on the Government to crush all the hopes which these unhappy contributors to the enterprise may yet retain of realizing the profits of their investments, and were immediately to pass a Resolution putting an entire end to this Galway Contract. I say, that if the Company, whether consisting of preference shareholders or ordinary shareholders, can make good their engagements, I think that the good faith and pledges given by the Government in this House will lead the House to negative the Motion.

said, that every person in the district of Belfast, and many in other parts, considered that the granting of this contract would lead to a great saving of expense and time in carrying the mails between this country and North America. Lines of railway had been formed and other enterprises entered upon in the expectation of good faith being kept in this matter by Government. He therefore hoped the decision of the House upon the Resolution would be in accordance with that which had been formed by the Government.

said, he rose to call attention to the circumstances connected with the assassination of Mr. Braddel, in July last, in the town of Tipperary. Mr. Braddel was the agent of an estate belonging to a gentlem n residing in England. On the estate was a man named Hayes, who acted as a bailiff. This person was therefore well known to the people in that quarter, and no great admiration was entertained for his character. A son of Hayes was tried for murder and acquitted. On the conclusion of the trial, Mr. Braddel told him that he must either send the son away or quit the estate. In July, Mr. Braddel went to Tipperary to collect the rents. While sitting in a room of his hotel, with a bailiff named Moore, to receive the tenants, Hayes entered and pressed him to accept his rent. Braddel refused to take it. Hayes asked him a second and a third time, and then discharged a pistol at his breast. Three shots were fired in an hotel in the middle of the day, in a town of 6,000 inhabitants, and containing innumerable police, and yet the assassin escaped. Mr. Braddel named the man, but he did not believe the wound to be mortal. He locked his desk and proceeded to another house, where he believed he should be safe. A man named Moore was present during the scene; and when asked why he did not secure the murderer, he said he tried to hold him but was afraid of him. The consequence was that fifteen minutes elapsed before the alarm was given, and the pursuit was unsuccessful. Hayes was an elderly man, his person was well known; and although his crime might have raised him in the estimation of some, he was before this event very unpopular. He may have caught a railway train and have proceeded to Waterford and Liverpool. There were 1,000 policemen in that division of the county, and he had heard that an investigation had taken place into the conduct of two of their body, on the ground that the man was not arrested when it was possible. He had heard that one or two men were dismissed on this ground. He did not believe there was a body of police superior to that in Ireland, They were steady and veracious witnesses, and they generally found out a criminal. This, however, was a very remarkable case. A strange story was current that Hayes was seen at Berehaven, and that he attempted to leave in a ship hound to America. The police were, however, on his track, and on pulling to the ship, it was said that Hayes was not on board and had been refused a passage. This was at a date long subsequent to the commission of the crime. Mr. Braddel lived forty minutes after receiving his wounds, but his thoughts ran nut so much upon his murderer as upon his wife and children, in whose favour he desired to make a codicil to his will. He male a dying declaration, but owing to the cause above mentioned it was not in due form. He (Mr. Whiteside) did not impute to any one engaged in the administration of the law in Ireland a lukewarmness in bringing so detestable an assassin to justice. There was, however, no proof that he had left the country, and he certainly had not yet been arrested. The police in this case had command of the electric telegraph: they had the means of communicating with the various harbours on the coast, and they had notice of the crime fifteen minutes after its perpetration. He wished, therefore, to receive from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland some explanation of the conduct of the police and the Government in this matter.

said, that the remarkable part of the case was that Hayes was well-known in the country, being a notorious character and greatly disliked from having been instrumental in carrying out a great number of ejectments. Yet the man walked out of the hotel and might have sunk into the earth for anything that had since been heard of him. One policeman was dismissed for not arresting him —not that he believed he actually saw Hayes, but that he failed to apprehend a man whom he thought to be the murderer. Tipperary was very centrally situated in regard to railways, and thus the murderer had many facilities for escape. He happened, however, to be at the time at Queenstown, which was the principal port of embarkation, and he was told, that although the murder was committed at noon on Wednesday, and telegraphic communication existed, it was not until noon on Friday that the police at Queenstown had information of the assassination. He believed that a ship sailed for America on Thursday, the day after the murder, but there was no one to stop the assassin. Hayes was known to have £37 in his pocket, and he might have escaped by this vessel. All parties in Ireland had been entreating the Government, but in vain, to alter the system of police in that country. Numerous petitions had been presented to that House complaining of the whole organization of the police. Crimes were committed, but they were not found out. One of the finest body of men in the world had been converted into indifferent soldiers and had policemen. Each policeman carried a rifle, which he could not use, and a sword bayonet a yard long, which got between his legs and threw him to the ground upon his attempting to run. The men were marched out at night in large bodies, and, encumbered as they were, could be heard a mile off. He trusted the Government would seriously consider the expediency of introducing some change into the organization of the police in Ireland. So long as they allowed the present system to continue, they would be morally guilty of all the murders perpetrated in that country.

said, that he desired, before the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland addressed the House, to call attention to another case in which justice had not been done. In September last there resided on his property in Sligo an elderly gentleman, named Davey, who had amassed a considerable fortune in the merchant service, and who had two daughters living with him. Both girls had been well educated in the Ursuline Convent, in the town of Sligo. On the 30th of September, about nine in the evening, a person named Michael O'Connor, accompanied by another man, went to Mr. Davey's house and attempted to carry off one of his daughters. He dragged her to the door and tried to force her into a car, but was obliged to drive away, leaving the girl lying on the road. The following morning he was apprehended by the police, taken before a magistrate, and ordered to be tried at the next petty sessions. Early on the morning of the 15th of October, which was the day before that fixed for his trial, he made a second attempt to abduct Elizabeth Davey. Accompanied by seven or eight men, all the worse for liquor, he broke into the house, threatened some of the inmates, and destroyed a good deal of property. There could be no doubt that his object was to carry off the girl, but she was concealed by the father, and so escaped. O'Connor was apprehended and fully committed for trial. The case being thought too serious to be tried at the sessions it was sent to the assizes. Meantime O'Connor was admitted to bail, and in the interim married the young woman. The assizes came on, and people were anxious to know what would become of O'Connor. The indictment found by the grand jury was for the abduction alone, and of course it could not stand, because the wife could not give evidence against her husband. the accused appeared, and the Crown prosecutor said, that as he had made amends and married the daughter with the father's consent, it would be sufficient if he were bound in his own recognizance, and O'Connor was bound accordingly in the sum of £100. His complaint was that the ends of justice had been defeated, first, by the admission of the man to bail, and secondly, by with holding the indictment against him for the more serious offence; and if the action of magistrates were to be completely overruled, as had happened in this instance, by persons in authority, the very worst possible results must ensue to the peace and good order of the country.

said, that he did not exactly understand the object of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. O'Hara) in submitting this case to the House. Apparently, no doubt, violence had been offered to this young woman. It was certainly a very serious crime to break into the house, but it appeared to him that the affair was rather a rough species of courtship—the young man being in love with the young woman; that the father opposed the match, and that an abduction was attempted. A second attack was made, and after that the young man married the young woman. He presumed that they were living happily together. The hon. Member complained of the young man being released on bail without the knowledge of the magistrates, and said the proceeding was an outrage on justice But O'Connor appeared when called upon, and pleaded guilty to the charge; and he really could not see that there was any very great infringement of the principles of justice in his being admitted to bail after having been six weeks in prison. At all events the affair was, he hoped, happily finished, and he trusted that the young man would conduct himself properly for the future. Coining next to the remarks made by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Whiteside), he was also unable to perceive very clearly what his object was in bringing forward the unfortunate murder of Mr. Braddel in July last. That case came before the House on two or three occasions last year, when he had endeavoured to explain, he hoped satisfactorily, that everything had been done by the Government in order to discover the known perpetrator of that most audacious offence. But up to the present time, as his right hon. Friend had truly said, the criminal had escaped them. What had become of him they did not known. All kinds of reports had been current, and every attempt been made to mislead the Government and the police. The right hon. Gentleman had clearly narrated the circumstances under which this awful tragedy took place in the town of Tipperary in the afternoon of a market day. It would seem that some of the persons present had acted a cowardly part, and that Hayes, a rather powerful man, succeeded in effecting his escape to the country. The case had given the Irish Government great anxiety, and no stone had been left unturned to bring the criminal to justice. In regard to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Clonmel, (Mr. Bagwell) he would only say, that although fifteen minutes elapsed between the commission of the offence and the police receiving an intimation of it, no time was lost in having the country scoured in every direction in search of the perpetrator. In this case, as unfortunately sometimes happened, the people of the neighbourhood sided with the murderer, or at least would give the police no information; otherwise a clue might have been obtained to his whereabouts, and he might have been arrested. Immediately the police found that they could get nothing to put them upon his track, they telegraphed to all the towns and ports of Ireland, as well as to Liverpool and Glasgow, in order, if possible, to intercept his flight. Much stress had been laid on the whereabouts of Hayes. One assertion was that he had escaped from Berehaven, or that, not being able to take a passage in a ship, he returned; another that he escaped from Galway immediately after the murder; another that he was confined in a building underground somewhere in King's or Queen's County. These various statements had, of course, been made by interested parties for the purpose of misleading the Government; but he was bound to say that he did not think the police were at all to blame in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman had passed a just panegyric on their conduct. It was not only an admirable force, but it had very much contributed to the comparatively peaceful state of Ireland. He did not know what Baron Hughes might have said at Clonmel, but in the north and north-west the reports of the Judges had been most satisfactory. In some cases murderers did unhappily escape the powers of human justice, and this was one of those cases; Lord Nor-bury's murderer remained unknown to this day, although thousands of pounds had been offered for his discovery. In this country also the famous Road murder and the murder in Waterloo Road were still mysteries unsolved; and so in the case of Hayes, although a man most re markable in stature and of very considerable age, he had managed, up to the present time, to elude apprehension. But he believed confidently that Hayes was not dead—that he was still somewhere concealed in Ireland, and although it was impossible to have any accurate data on the subject, the constabulary, on whom the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Whiteside) had pronounced a eulogium, had yet hopes of finding him. Letters had been received from America stating that Hayes was there, but in the present state of that country it was impossible to get accurate information such as under other circumstances they might make available. With regard to the conduct of a policeman who had been dismissed by the Government because it was asserted that he saw Hayes on a particular day, and that he refused to arrest him, the facts were these: — Shortly after the murder two constables, named Costigan and Hughes, asserted on oath that they saw Hayes. Hughes would not himself arrest Hayes, when he said he could do so, and forbade Costigan, who volunteered to do so or to fetch assistance. These points were submitted to an inquiry on oath by the justices at Clonmel, and the finding of those justices was this: "We are of opinion that both the above charges are proved." But though they declared the charges against the constables proved, they gave no opinion as to whether Hughes acted prudently or otherwise; and therefore they left it to the Government to decide what course should be taken in regard to him. He had read the papers most attentively, and he had come to the conclusion that in the in- terest of the public Hughes had failed to do his duty, and that he should be dismissed; and dismissed he was. But it had since come out that he did not see Hayes. That, however, did not alter his view of the case, for Hughes swore that he saw him. He had acted on his solo authority because the Court declined to give an opinion, but he was quite sure that the public would say that he had acted rightly. Their military equipment had frequently been made a charge against the constabulary, but he should be very sorry to see any alteration in that respect. Their present armament and dress did not in the least interfere with the efficient performance of their duty. A report had just been received by the Government of a case in which a constable had been in pursuit for twenty miles across country, and yet his dagger and gun did not in the least encumber him, for he captured his man. Besides, his hon. Friend knew that in addition to the constabulary there was a force of detectives in every county of Ireland, who went silently and prudently about their business. If be had known the reports which had come to the Government within the last year, when the constabulary had rather hard times of it the hon. Gentleman would not find fault with them. They were still taking active steps. Hundreds of men had been on foot solely for the purpose of discovering Hayes; and he might just mention, to I show the extreme activity of the police what had been done in the case of the murder of Mr. Fitzgerald. Two assassins were hired to shoot him; be was shot dead; nobody was present but the wife. The assassins shot their victim from behind a hedge, and ran off immediately. One was immediately brought to justice, and executed. The other was also brought to justice, and suffered the extreme penalty of the law; and only within the last few days the police had been able to trace the man who hired the two assassins; he was found guilty at the recent Limerick Assizes, and would suffer the extreme penalty of the law on the 15th of next month. He did not think, therefore, that the charge of inefficiency was well-founded because the police had not been able to bring the heinous criminal Hayes to justice. Another Question had been put to him by his hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry, with reference to the Law of Marriage in Ireland. No one knew better than the right hon. Gentleman, who intro- duced a Bill last year for the purpose of Assisting the Dissenters of Ireland, the difficulties of dealing with this subject. They all admitted that the Marriage Law of Ireland was in an unsatisfactory position. It was based, not on the Civil rights of parties, but rather, as it were, on religious differences. That was a great objection, which certainly ought to be dealt with. They had in Ireland a state of things which it. was very difficult to deal with. There was a law of marriage for Protestants, a law of marriage for Roman Catholics, another for Presbyterians. Quakers, and Jews. It was a complex system to treat in one uniform measure. There were at the present time three Bills before the House relating to the subject, which alone would prove the extreme difficulty of dealing with it. It was said that the Government should take up the subject, and he should be very glad to do so if he could perceive any prospect of dealing with it in a satisfactory manner, having regard to the conscientious scruples of persons of different religious persuasions. He, however, did not think that was possible at the present moment. His right hon. Friend opposite had failed to carry a Bill bearing his name, and not only that, but had violently attacked the hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Mr. White-Bide), whose name also was on the back of the Bill. [Mr. WHITESIDE: I made no violent attack.] He had heard the right hon. Gentleman differ from his hon. and learned Friend, particularly as to the hours of marriage. That was a very important point, and such differences showed the difficulty of dealing with the subject. He could only say, that if the Bill now before Parliament should fail, and he should continue in office, he would endeavour next Session to introduce a measure which would meet the wishes of all parties. He would not go into a history of the Marriage Laws in Ireland from the time of Henry VIII., which would occupy too much time, but would only remark that from that period until 1822, very severe restrictions had been imposed upon the Roman Catholics. Of late years there had been some modification, and it was very desirable to bring the whole system into harmonious action, but at the present moment the Government had no intention of dealing with the question.

said, that he had given notice of a Motion, stating it to be the opinion of the House that Yarmouth Roadstead should be fully protected from the attack of gunboats at sea, but ho found that he could not move it now. He should therefore confine himself to calling attention to the subject. In consequence of representations made by the town in 1859 as to the defenceless state of the roadstead, the Secretary for War, the late Lord Herbert, had an inspection made by engineers and others competent to investigate the matter. They reported that there never was a port which required more defence. It was determined to erect three batteries, but only two had been constructed. In reply to an application made to the War Office in 1860, Lord de Grey and Ripon said the Government required a site for the remaining battery. A site was procured and paid for. There was then a delay, which was explained by the omission from the Estimates of any Vote for the works. On the 12th of December, 1862, the mayor of the town wrote to the War Office on the subject, and, in reply, was informed that his letter should be considered, but that Sir George Lewis did not propose to erect any works in Yarmouth "at present." The right hon. Gentleman, in a conversation, had stated that ho was not so great a man for fortifications as his predecessor; but he might observe, that the opinion of Lord Herbert on fortifications was as good as that of most Secretaries of State, and perhaps as that of the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary for War. His predecessor, the late Lord Herbert, had pledged himself that the work should be carried out; and, under all the circumstances, he hoped the Government would not commit a breach of faith in the matter.

rose to reply, but was called to order, having once spoken.

begged to ask whether the Galway Contract would be laid on the table for a month before it was ratified, in accordance with the Resolution of the Select Committee, or whether the Government intended to treat it as an old contract which had not expired? The hon. Baronet begged to complain of the practice which had grown up lately of going into Committee on Friday nights. He did did not know whether the right hon. Baronet, Sir George Lewis, meant to go into Committee to-night, seeing that it was past ten o'clock, and there was barely a House; but it certainly was an abuse of the change made for the convenience of the Government when Thursday was made a Supply night. Formerly Friday night was, to a considerable extent, occupied by questions on the adjournment; and when the Thursday was made a Supply night, the Order of Supply was retained on the Papers on Friday, in order to give an opportunity for the usual miscellaneous discussion. To-night there were thirteen different topics on the paper for discussion, and no one could tell whether they would not consume the entire night. The consequence was, that hon. Gentlemen who took an interest in financial matters were perplexed what to do, find the House ran the risk of passing a number of important Votes without discussion, and of gaining a reputation of being neglectful of the public money. Last year 103 items, involving £5,000,000 of public money, had been passed through Committee after ten o'clock, and hon. Gentlemen who took an interest in financial matters did not know that Supply was coming on.