said, some time ago he presented a Petition, professedly signed by Licensed Victuallers in Hull, in favour of closing public-houses on a Sunday. The Licensed Victuallers of that town had instituted an inquiry into this Petition, and they contended that of 176 signatures to the Petition ninety-four were those of beer-house keepers, some of whom were deceased or had left their premises; seven, of those who died some time ago; fifteen, who left their premises in 1862; thirty-two were genuine signatures; eighteen were doubtful, having been called on and not seen; two were not known, and seven were false signatures. He (Mr. Somes) bad also instituted an inquiry, and he found, on reliable authority, that although it was mentioned in the note that accompanied the Petition that it was from licensed victuallers, eighty-four signatures were those of beer-house keepers; seventy-six were licensed victuallers; nine had wine licences; one signature was supposed to be that of a servant; one was unknown; one house from which a signature had been obtained had four occupants in twelve months, and two of the people who signed the Petition had gone away and left no address. He should say that the Petition was got up in 1862, in anticipation of some measure for closing public-houses on Sundays. It was merely for that purpose, and not in favour of his (Mr. Somes's) Bill. He mentioned this matter because he did not wish to deceive the House.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, If any sum or sums of money are to be paid to the Elswick Ordnance Company under any indenture or agreement; and if any sum or sums of money are to be paid, out of what funds will the payment be made, and by what authority?

said, in reply, that in consequence of its being found that adequate employment could not be advantageously given to the Elswick Ordnance Company, Sir George Lewis determined to put an end to the Contract between the Government and the Company. It was referred to valuers to state what sum should be paid for compensation, and they sent in an award amounting to £85,000, of which £65,000 was not disputed, and £20,000 was doubtful; the valuer on the part of the company claiming it on account of depreciation of plant, &c., the other valuer objecting to the validity of such claim altogether. Sir George Lewis obtained the sanction of the Treasury for the payment of the £65,000 out of the Vote of last year; and as to the £20,000 negotiations fallowed, and the result was that £65,000 had been paid, with the sanction of the Treasury, out of the Estimates of last year, and the Government had taken plant and stores to the amount of £20,000. The total amount which had been and would be paid was £85,000, the Government receiving full value for £20,000 of that sum. The £20,000 remained to be paid out of the present year's Estimate.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for War. If there is any objection for the Government to supply Volunteer Corps of Engineers with the implements necessary for their duties?

said, a Circular, dated the 24th of August, 1861, had been issued, which contained certain Instructions on the subject, and which was accompanied by a list of no less than thirty-five articles, which were issued gratuitously, on application, to the Commanding Officers of Engineers.

said, he would beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, Whether he will lay upon the table of the House a Copy of the Correspondence which has lately taken place between the Meteorological Department of his office and the Royal Society?

Yes, all that Correspondence will be laid on the table.

said, he would also beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, When the Index to the Report of the Commission on Lights, Buoys, and Beacons, will be printed and presented to the House?

said, in reply, that the Commission had supplied no Index, nor did he think it necessary to add an Index to the Report, inasmuch as it was accompanied by tables which made reference very easy.

said, he wished to ask Mr. Attorney General, When the case of the Alexandra is to be tried?

said, he must apologize to the hon. Gentleman for having been absent from his place when he had put the Question on the previous evening. He had, he might add, every reason to believe that the case of the Alexandra would stand for trial at the sittings after the present term, and might be expected to come on on Monday week.

said, he wished to ask, whether the hon. and learned Gentleman would object to furnish the informations in the case?

said he could not assent to the furnishing of any informations of the nature to which the Question of the hon. Gentleman referred, and for which application had been ineffectually made on a former occasion.

rose to move that this House immediately resolve itself into a Committee to consider the Act 8 & 9 Vict., for the Endowment of the College of Maynooth, with a view to the repeal of the same, due regard being had to vested rights and interests. The hon. Member, having presented thirty-seven Petitions, signed by 50,000 persons, for the repeal of the Maynooth College Act, proceeded to say that the large number of Petitions he had presented was his justification for bringing the subject once more under the attention of the House. The purport of those Petitions was that every year had more strongly confirmed the conviction of the Petitioners of the inexpediency, in the first place, of the grant to Maynooth; and secondly, the inexpediency of its withdrawal by the Act of 1845 from the control of the House of Commons. The subject had been continuously before the House for the last seven years; and as the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) had frequently submitted it to their attention, and ably shown the results of this institution on the religious and civil liberty of the country, the task he had to perform on the present occasion was comparatively easy. Instead of being obliged to solicit the attention of the House to possible future dangers, to doctrines in books or abstract teachings, he was enabled to show the practical results of the teaching at Maynooth, which, he thought, amply justified him in bringing forward the question. In the present Session the leaders of both parties in the State had vied with each other in cordially and completely ratifying an alliance with the priest party who were trained and educated at Maynooth. This, and other circumstances, fully warranted them in asking what that party was. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, on the last occasion when this subject was brought before the House, admitted that Maynooth was an experiment, and that it had been an ignominious failure. But another right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury bench declared that Maynooth was not only an ignominious failure, but that it would be a thorn in the side of England so long as it was allowed to continue. Though the grant to Maynooth out of the public purse was only £30,000 a year, it resulted in a drain upon the public purse to the extent of £400,000 a year. The unfortunate in- fluence of the teaching given at Maynooth made itself felt in a variety of ways. They had found, within the past year, the social and political disorder which had for so many years prevailed in Ireland extended to this country. The House should remember the riots which had recently occurred in Hyde Park and at Birkenhead, and the disloyal demonstrations which had accompanied the attempt to celebrate the marriage of the Prince of Wales in certain Irish towns on the 10th March last. Would any one attempt to deny that these riots were the result of organization; that Cardinal Wiseman had made himself a party to the demonstration in Hyde Park by passing through the park at the time it was going on—would any one deny that the rioters were organized and paid by the Roman Catholic priests, and that the priests paid the penalties imposed on the convicted rioters? In the same way, did any one doubt that the disturbances at Birkenhead were organized by the priests? Looking to the feeling in the country, he asked, whether it was not the duty of the Government to make some inquiry as to that organization. Government, however, made no such inquiry, but they shut the gates of Hyde Park and prevented meetings being held there, thus depriving the people of the right they had exercised for many years, and in every town in the kingdom freedom of debate was prohibited, lest it might be offensive to the Roman Catholic priests; and the Lord Mayor, acting under the same influence, had refused the use of the Guildhall for a meeting. On one occasion he was fortunate enough to bring the Secretary for Ireland on his legs in answer to a question as to the Prince of Wales being burned in effigy in Ireland, under the direct encouragement of the priests; and the right hon. Gentleman treated the matter as if it was not of the slightest consequence, and said that he had himself been burned in effigy on one occasion. He ventured then to tell the right, hon. Gentleman, and he now repeated, that these indications of the tendency to political and social disorders which had ravaged and continued to ravage Ireland were but the natural result of those doctrines which the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) had year after year been endeavouring to force upon the attention of the House as the doetrines taught at Maynooth. From the day when the canon law was introduced into this country in 1851 (when the country was roused and then went to sleep again on the assurance of the Government that the matter should be taken care of)—from that time agents had been engaged collecting evidence showing that the Ribbon Societies in Ireland were the source of the agrarian disturbances in that country, and that they were essentially the organized courts of the Roman Catholic priesthood, to give effect to the canon law. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire, when he brought forward his Motions on this subject, always asked the House to withdraw the grant. He (Mr. Whalley) did not, on this occasion, ask the House to come to any conclusion that the teaching at Maynooth was disloyal, or that it was the source of those troubles in England or in Ireland. He merely called attention to these circumstances, as he might also do to the recent Reports of Sir George Grey from New Zealand, that wherever he went he found that the Roman Catholic priests were at the bottom of the rebellion of the Maories; or to the reports which he received every week from Canada and Newfoundland to the same effect. He did not ask for any decision of that kind at the present time. All he now asked was that the exceptional nature of this grant, which by an Act of Parliament was removed from the control of that House, should no longer continue. On a former occasion he showed that the practical effect of taking the grant out of the control of the House was that the teaching at Maynooth, which was formerly Gallican, had become Jesuitical. He was desirous, after the Motion of last year, to enable himself to bring before the House the practical working of this system, as shown in the conduct of those priests of Rome who had matriculated at Maynooth; and he moved for a Return of the priests who had been educated at Maynooth, and where they were ministering. Of course, his object in making that Motion was obvious, because it was well known that Maynooth was no longer the college for Ireland, but for every part of the British Empire. The House acceded to that Motion; but would it be credited, that on an order emanating from Maynooth, Her Majesty's Government came down to the House and rescinded the order, and thus he was unable to trace these priests to various parts of the world. This grant was withdrawn from the control of the House in order to prevent the expression of the strong religious feeling which was expressed in the Petitions he had presented, and in order to prevent the grant being the subject of discussion. This was an additional wrong to the people of this country, and an outrage to the Constitution. The grant ought to be placed under the annual control of Parliament, so that the College of Maynooth might have an opportunity of defending itself; and if it could be shown that the books used there did not contain the principles which he had read in them, none would be more benefited than the Irish Members, and none more gratified than himself. There were circumstances which might justify a grant being made permanent, but in that case there should be a general concurrence of opinion on the subject. But there was no such concurrence with respect to the Maynooth grant, and it was for the express purpose of putting down discussion that the grant was made permanent. Last Session they had the fact admitted by the Chief Secretary for Ireland that the grant was an experiment, and that it had proved a failure; and it was acknowledged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it was a thorn in the side of this country. In the year 1829, when the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed, it was thought necessary to protect this country against the incursions of the Jesuits by expressly providing that no Jesuits should be allowed in this country. But it was a fact that Maynooth was become, to all intents and purposes, a Jesuit College; that nunneries had increased from 50 to 200; that chapels had been increased by some hundreds, and that the Jesuits received a considerable portion of the money which was intended to go to the support of the Church of England. When they found that the Government did not put in force the Act of 1829, that nothing was done to enforce the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, he thought if ever there was a case when the House might, without acceding to the statements of a person who, like himself, might be considered over-zealous, take the matter into its own hands, this was the case. That was the object of his Motion. Whether the House might be disposed at a future time, the statements he bad made being fully substantiated, to withdraw the grant, was entirely another question; but he respectfully submitted that on the statement of the Secretary for Ireland the experiment of continuing the Maynooth grant by Act of Parliament had failed, and in the fact that Maynooth had thereby been converted into a Jesuit college be had shown sufficient reason for the Motion he had brought forward. [The Speech of thehon. Gentleman had been listened to with great impatience, and when he sat down, there were loud cries for a division.]

seconded the Motion.

rose to address the House, but theories of "Divide!" "Divide!" rendered his speech almost inaudible. The hon. Member was understood to say that he had given notice of an Amendment to the Motion of the hon. Member for Peterborough. He did not, however, propose to bring it forward upon the present occasion. He would, at some future time, bring it forward as a substantive Motion. Seeing that the Roman Catholics of Ireland received only 1¼d. per head of State aid, while the Presbyterians received 1s. 7d., and the members of the Established Church nearly £1, he thought it would be most unjust to withdraw this 1¼d. from the Roman Catholics by repealing the Act for endowing Maynooth.

, who also rose amid loud cries for a division, said, the House is impatient for a division, and I will not detain it except for a very few minutes. The hon. Gentleman who made this Motion has paid a just compliment to my hon. Friend opposite the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner), for the pertinacity with which he has argued this subject, and which left him an easy task to perform. Certainly, in performing that task, the hon. Gentleman went into a number of matters not connected with his Motion, for he not only alluded to the riots at Birkenhead and Hyde Park, but to the refusal of the Lord Mayor to lend the Guildhall for a public meeting. He said that this is the only grant which is removed from the observation of Parliament, and he wishes to repeal the Act of 1845. This, however, is not the only money-grant for educational purposes which is thrown upon the Consolidated Fund, because there is paid out of the Consolidated Fund a grant of £22,000 a year for the Established Church of Scotland, which never comes in the annual Votes of Parliament. ["Divide, divide!"] I will be very short. The hon. Gentleman has alluded to some remarks made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and myself respecting the failure of this institution. Whether it is a failure or not I am not in a position to judge, but I think it would be very unfair to withdraw a grant that was made for the spiritual care of a great number of our fellow-countrymen. The hon. Member said, repeating a remark that he made last year, that the Ribbon societies in Ireland were representatives of the Canon Law of Rome. What he means by that observation I know not, but nothing can be more absurd than such an expression.

I rise to order. ["Order!"]

The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity of answering me next year.

Sir, I rise to order. I submit that the right hon. Gentleman is out of order in misrepresenting a speaker's words.

The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity of reply.

I did not use the words imputed to me.

I wrote them down, and I do not think I misrepresented him. The hon. Gentleman says that the Roman Catholic priests are intolerant. Whether they are intolerant I know not—I do not believe they are. But as members of the Established Church of England and Ireland, and with another Established Church in Scotland, and contributing, as we do, to the maintenance of other sects, like the Presbyterians in the North of Ire-and, I think it would be intolerant in us if we should endeavour to preclude our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen from the opportunities of religious instruction and spiritual knowledge which they derive from the efficient maintenance of the establishment of Maynooth. I speak the views of the Government when I say that we must oppose the Motion of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Peterborough. ["Divide, divide!"]

said, he was sorry to see a renewal of the attempts which had been made on previous occasions to stifle all discussion of this subject, which attempts were similar to those made recently throughout the country to stifle discussions on subjects analogous to that now before the House. He thought it was disrepectful to the people of this country to vote away their money in silence, enforced by a system of opposition to free discussion. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, and the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland, had spoken of the grants to the different religious denominations as if they regarded Roman Catholicism, the Established Church, and Presbyterianism, as only so many forms of superstition, one more absurd than another. This was not a rational way of looking at the question. To take the lowest view, a desire for religion was a positive appetite of the human mind; and it was incumbent on the Government to take care that the doctrines it assisted to disseminate were not such as were inimical to the true interests of mankind. He wished for a moment to call the attention of the House to the position in which this country stood among the nations of the earth. It was perfectly obvious that Maynooth had become what it was predicted early in the century by Lord Chancellor Redesdale it would become—a monastic institution. If they turned to Roman Catholic countries, they would find that the people and Government of Spain, France, and Italy had found it necessary to reduce and suppress such institutions; surely, then, it was very absurd that this Protestant country should pay for maintaining and extending them. It was only right that the House should be made acquainted with the views taken by persons of extreme Ultramontane opinions with regard to the effect of this grant upon the Roman Catholic population in Ireland. At a dinner at Liverpool the other day, at which a person who claimed to be the Roman Catholic bishop of the district presided, the health of the Pope was given before that of Her Majesty, and then the Rev. Mr. Wilberforce delivered an address, in which he said—

"After a period of 300 years they had seen that the Anglican religion had failed to spread itself in the extended empire which had been given to the English. It was as a sickly exotic, fortified, as it had been, by grants from the British Parliament, taken from the money raised from Catholics as well as Protestants. The Catholic religion, on the contrary, had taken deep root, and was overshadowing the land until it had become, not the sole religion, but the prevalent religion, and was dominant in Australia, the United States, and Canada. As other religions were dying out, the Catholic religion was spreading and taking root. All this was owing first of all to the providence of God, but the great instrument had been the Irish nation."

Speaking of the progress which Catholicism had made in that town (Liverpool), he said—

"That fifty or sixty years ago some of their congregations numbered only thirty or forty persons, but the question was whether there were not 150,000 Catholics in Liverpool at the present time. The Catholic religion had risen to its present state not by the help of any political party or any particular public man. Public men had flattered them alike, not from any love to their religion, but because they saw the Catholics were getting strong enough to be useful to them, and so they 'sought their help.'"

That was a very significant declaration from a highly-educated and influential gentleman, the editor of The Weekly Register. It amounted to this, that Rome considered the Irish people as the great agents for the extension of her dominion, while the Parliament of England were asked to furnish the means for educating the Catholic priesthood in the Ultramontane doctrines of the Church of Rome, that they might become the directors of this agency. When the grant was first made, the Church of Rome was in a very different position. At that time the Pope had suppressed the Jesuits, and Rome had receded from the principles of aggression into which she had been driven by the Jesuits at the commencement of the seventeenth century: the Roman Catholic Church was endeavouring to become, in the Catholic countries of the world, a local and national Church. When Mr. Pitt saw the Roman Catholic hierarchy and priesthood endeavouring to nationalize themselves, and found them threatened by the revolutionists, he stepped forward to aid the efforts of the Irish Roman Catholics to furnish themselves with a priesthood educated in their own country and animated by all those national feelings which were likely to spring from an establishment instituted under such circumstances. But the circumstances now were totally changed. The Jesuits had been re-organized, and at this moment it was notorious that the Court of Rome was under the influence of the Jesuit party. There was ample evidence that the action of that party was scarcely religious, so essentially political had it become. Its organization was opposed to free institutions, and sought the establishment of despotism; in corroboration of this we had recently seen in the United States the Roman Catholic Archbishop Hughes preaching a war of extermination against the Southern States, and treating Ireland as though it was his legitimate recruiting ground. There was now no plea of poverty upon which to justify the grant to Maynooth. Only the year before last Cardinal Wiseman congratulated the Roman Catholics of England upon the evidences of the wealth of their Church and upon the ex-tension of their religions and monastic establishments. Legate Cullen had written in the same sense with respect to Ireland; therefore the people of this country were only reasonable when they asked that Parliament should resume its control of the expenditure for Maynooth, in order that the public money might not be made accessory to purposes which were opposed to the national character and laws, and were dangerous to the institutions of the country.

, in reply, complained that the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland had put words into his mouth which were mere nonsense. What he had really said was, that the Ribbon and other secret societies, which changed their names as the chameleon changed its skin, could not be better described than as agencies whereby the Roman Catholic priests carried into effect the canon law of Rome. The only object he had in view was to bring the grant within the control of the House of Commons, whatever might be the amount they chose to devote to the purpose.

rose to move,

"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to issue a Royal Commission of inquiry into our Sea Fisheries, with the view of increasing the supply of a favourite and nutritious article of food for the benefit of the public."

There could be no doubt, he said, of the importance of our sea fisheries, which furnished a large supply of food for all classes of the people. No complete statistics could be obtained of the quantity of fish annually consumed in this country, but it must be enormous. Some idea of the extent, however, might be formed from the Returns he bad procured from some of our principal railway companies, of the quantities of fish conveyed over their lines into London during the year 1862. Those Returns were as follows:—London and Brighton, 5,174 tons; Great Western, 2,885 tons; North British, 8,303 tons; Great Northern, 11,930 tons; North Eastern, 27,896 tons; South Eastern, 3,218 tons; Great Eastern, 29,680 tons. He had, in addition to this, a Return furnished by Mr. Heron, the town clerk of Manchester, showing that the average weekly sale of fish in the markets of that city in 1862 was 380 tons weight, or 19,760 tons for the whole year. The quantities of different kinds of fish sold in London within the year were these:—Upwards of 500,000 of codfish were disposed of at Billingsgate, 25,000,000 of mackerel, upwards of 100,000,000 of soles, 35,000,000 of plaice, 200,000,000 of fresh herrings, while the number of sprats could hardly be estimated. Coming to shellfish, there were 40,000 lobsters consumed daily in England; of oysters upwards of 500,000,000 a year were sold in Billingsgate; while 50,000,000 of mussels, 70,000,000 of cockles, and 300,000,000 of periwinkles were eaten in the year by the poorer portion of the London community. Upwards of £10,000,000 sterling of capital was embarked in this branch of industry, and 240,000 brave and hardy men earnt their livelihood by it. With such an enormous consumption of fish as he had stated, it might be supposed there was no occasion for the Motion he was about to make; but the fact was quite otherwise. He had been in communication with every fishing port in the country, and the almost universal cry was that our fisheries were falling off year by year, and that unless something were done, very serious consequences would ensue. It might be asked what was the cause of this diminution. It was the same cause as that which destroyed our salmon fisheries—namely, the neglect, perhaps the ignorance, of Nature's own laws. Unfortunately, much connected with the habits of sea fish was beyond our ken, but we knew that its natural abode was in deep water, and that it approached the shallows near the shore for the purpose of spawning. When the spawn was deposited, it took some time before it vivified; and when the fry was produced, it remained for a certain period about the place of its birth, until it became more mature. Another fact which he believed to be true, although it was not universally recognised, was, that for the spawn to be raked up and carried into deep water, or taken into the nets or boats, was destruction to the embryo fish. Any mode of fishing, therefore, which had the effect of raking up the spawn, or otherwise destroying it, by taking it into the boats, or carrying it into deep water, must be prejudicial to our fisheries. The question then arose, how was this to be prevented? Now, two destructive modes of fishing were now in use—namely, the system of trawling, and the seine system. Part of the apparatus employed in trawl fishing scraped up the mud at the bottom of the shore in a manner somewhat analogous to the action of a shrimp net. Thus the trawl net, when improperly used—that was, when taken over the shallow breeding ground, raked up the spawn to an enormous extent, prevented it ever afterwards from vivifying, and necessarily destroyed a great amount of fish life. In addition to that, the fry which hovered about the breeding place was raked up by the same process, and part of it carried into deep water and part taken into the boats, causing a great destruction of the young fish. One afternoon, only a few months ago, he was astonished to see exposed for sale, in a northern city, two cart-loads of codfish, the largest of which was not bigger than his hand; and he appealed to the House whether that did not show a wanton waste of God's gifts to man? But besides this, the fish were frequently so much bruised by the trawl net as to be considerably deteriorated in quality. The trawl net was worked in this way:—It was attached to the stern of a boat of about forty tons burden, and allowed to drift with the tide at the rate of from four to seven miles an hour, and it sometimes ran for seventy or eighty miles before it was taken up. It passed over a great deal of hard ground, with a great quantity of spawn, and small as well as large fish; and the large fish, which would otherwise be in good condition for the market, were bruised, had their scales torn off, their gall bladders burst, and were otherwise injured—one-third being rendered entirely unfit for use. It was easy to tell by the bruises on the fish, and other marks on them when offered for sale, that they had been taken by trawl. The system of fishing with the seine net was attended with very much the same results. The seine was either attached to the boat or the shore. It was a long net, which was drawn out to sea, made to encircle a large space, and then dragged in to the shore, scraping the bottom of the ground as it was brought to the land. Here, again, they had the same effect produced as he had already described; for the shallow water being the breeding ground, the spawn was disturbed. If the House would allow him, he would adduce some testimony in support of the views he had indicated. The first witness was Mr. J. Couch, a gentleman of very great information, and one of the first naturalists in the country. The witness lived in a fishing district, and had paid great attention, for a number of years, to the subject of trawling. He stated that—

"Since the practice of trawling has been introduced into this locality [Cornwall] it is the expressed belief of the fishermen that the produce of the fisheries has greatly fallen off. The destruction of the spawn, spawning ground, and food of young fish is well known; but precise evidence of this could scarcely be obtained, as all this mess is swept overboard at sea; and as many, perhaps most, of the proprietors of trawl vessels live on shore, being sailors, sail-makers, and fish merchants, the actual fishermen may be afraid to acknowledge the truth of the case through fear of being dismissed from employment. It is well known that fish caught with a trawl are much inferior in value to such as hare been taken with a line, as might be supposed, when we consider that they have been dragged along the bottom of the sea for several miles amid a mass of rubbish. Their fins thus become torn and their bodies bruised, so as to become putrid long before such as are caught in any other way. I have seen sur mullets caught in a trawl, that, for a time, I could hardly tell what sort of fish they were. It is my opinion that much of the injury inflicted may be obviated by only limiting the time when the trawl may be employed—that time being when the more valuable kinds of fish are engaged in spawning, and at other times they should not come within a given distance of land. I have heard it remarked, by those who are well acquainted with the subject, that the practice of trawling is as adverse to its own prosperity as to the fishing by hook and line, since for one fish carried to market many hundreds are destroyed; so that trawling itself must end at last by its own acts. But this is poor consolation to the public, who, now that the railroad could convey them rapidly and cheaply, might be supplied abundantly, if fish were as abundant as formerly they were."

Mr. J. G. Williamson, of Billingsgate, one of the largest fish-salesmen in London, wrote—

"I believe that the destruction of small fish and spawn by the trawl is one of the causes of the scarcity offish as regards our own coasts, the trawl retaining so much of the smaller fish as it does… I am sure that if any one understanding fisheries were to see the small soles and other small fish sold in Billingsgate Market, and which is often disposed of for less than its cost for carriage, be would soon come to the conclusion that something ought to be done. I believe, if the wholesale destruction of small fish that now takes place is continued, that in the course of a few years the fisheries on our coast will suffer very materially."

An extensive wholesale firm of Billingsgate reported that—

"The fish caught by trawling is not either so good in quality or condition as that caught by hook or floating nets."

The Rev. J. Wilcox, of Fowey, in Cornwall, states that—

"The destruction caused by the trawl is most terrible to contemplate. The trawl sweeps everything before it. The destruction of spawn is immense."

He now came to the evidence of a man who was himself the captain of a trawler. He stated that—

"When the trawl is pulled up, such fish as haddocks are found to be completely scaled. They are obliged to be gutted at once, otherwise, owing to the bursting of the gall bladder, they would become quite black or green, and be utterly unsaleable. Dividing a haul of the trawl into three parts, one part would be fit for food; another would be quite small and immature fish; while the third would be utterly useless. He had sometimes thrown overboard as many as 7,000 or 8,000 fish at once. As to spawn, on one occasion while he bad three tons of spawn, as he estimated by the weight of the trawl, in his net, he had only besides some crabs, and a dozen flat fish. He considered that a single trawl destroyed hundreds of tons of spawn yearly."

Another man, who for the last thirteen years had regularly worked in a North Sea trawler, gave him the following evidence:—

"The test used to ascertain the best fishing ground is the existence of spawn on the ground. The lead is heaved overboard. If it comes up covered with spawn, then the trawl is at once heaved over, and good fishing is expected. When the trawl is hauled on board, the pockets would be full of soles, and a few haddocks—perhaps a turbot or two. Spawn will hang around the ground rope, stick outside the net, and drop out of it as it is pulled up from the sea and the water drains out. The bag, or cod end, will contain all sorts of fish—shells, spawn, sea anemones, occasionally the dead body of a man, portions of bodies, some dead stinking fish, which have been killed by other trawl nets previously passing over the ground. Fish, such as haddocks, gurnets, &c., with their backs injured, their fins gone, their eyes out—plaice with their spots rubbed off. The larger the take, the more damaged the fish. He has sometimes thrown overboard as many as seven or eight baskets of fish after one haul—five or six hundred fish in a basket—some alive, some dead, some dying. At other times there have been so many small and worthless fish that the bulwarks have had to be unshipped, and they have been swept overboard with brooms. Trawlers always got turbots, soles, haddocks, and in the summer time plaice."

One person stated that—

"The fishing grounds in the North Sea were gradually becoming poorer. That the produce of the silver pits, near the Dogger Bank, one of the most prolific grounds in the English waters, did not produce one-third of the quantity they once did. Some grounds were altogether exhausted by the trawlers."

Again, Mr. Dawson Campbell, of Folkestone, wrote—

"When trawling near shore in spawning time, quantities of spawn are brought up by the trawl, and also large numbers of small fish, and these remain in the boats till the net is cleaned, when, of course, the greater part of them are dead. All fish, except flat fish, are very much disfigured by the meshes of the trawl; in fact, during the whiting season, those caught by the trawl do not fetch nearly the price that whiting caught by the hook and line do. As regards the number of trawlers generally at work, it is impossible to obtain accurate information."

From all parts of England he had reports as to the decreasing quantity of fish that were now caught; and that state of things he believed was attributable to the use of the trawl. He did not ask the House to pass any Resolution against trawling, which he believed might be conducted under such regulations as would prevent any real injury to the fishing—by being confined, for instance, to deep waters, and kept off the spawning grounds; but as now practised it inflicted very great injury. Parliament had already passed laws for the purpose of regulating trawling; but those laws had become obsolete. No action could be taken upon them except by the Attorney General. A Commission had been issued, a short time ago, to inquire into the operation of the Acts relating to trawling for herring on the coast of Scotland. The Report was one of very great ability, and was signed by Sir Lyon Playfair, Professor Huxley, and Mr. Charles Francis Maxwell. That Report distinctly recommended that no interference should be made with trawl herring fishing on the coast of Scotland. But the trawl net used in fishing for herrings was not the trawl to which he referred. This was stated to be so by the Commissioners themselves. The Commissioners proceeded to consider the effect of beam trawling upon white fish, and they went on to say that cod, ling, and other white fish were great enemies of the herring, and inferred that the more those enemies were destroyed the more herrings there would be. But the herring, although a most valuable fish, was not the only kind of fish to be considered, as there were others equally deserving of being regarded as valuable for human food. Another Report had been made by the Inspectors of Salmon Fisheries in England and Wales, to the concluding paragraph of which he would invite the attention of the House—

"There is one other subject to which we think it is our duty very shortly to refer, although the notice of it is not imposed upon us by the 32nd section of the Act. On very many parts of the coast our attention has been called to the decreasing value of the sea fisheries. Complaints have been made to us that the inshore banks, which a few years since supplied food and employment for the population of the neighbouring country, are now fished out, and there is some danger that the deep-sea banks will also fail, unless such regulations are sanctioned by the Legislature as will prevent excessive and wasteful fishing. In some respects the habits of sea fish and of salmon are the same. The parent fish of both resort to shallower water than they usually frequent, for the purpose of spawning, and the fry generally are gregarious, and in the fresh or tidal water, as the case may be, they frequent the shallows and the shores. The stages in the life of both, then, in which they are most exposed to capture are those when they are of least value as food and of most value for reproduction; and the injury that is done to the sea fishing by the destructive capture of the fish in these stages, especially that of the fry, we believe to be very great; At Topsham, near Exeter, we heard 'that hundreds of waggon loads of small fish, soles, cod, whiting, turbot, are taken in the year, and bushels and bushels are thrown away with the weed from the nets to die.' At Seaton, on the Devonshire coast, we saw the mackerel nets this year draw to shore thousands of the fry of all sorts of sea fish. The large proportion of these fry were so small that they were left on the beach. In our report on the Bristol Channel we have referred to the puts and to the hose nets. Similar evidence of their destructive influence upon the fry of sea fish has been repeatedly given us, and by the hose nets Bridgwater Bay fisheries are said to be nearly destroyed. On the Lancashire and other portions of the coast the fry are also much killed. On the North-east coast loud complaint has been lately made that the trawlers are destroying the fisheries, by working too near the shore. The oyster fisheries are also suffering, and the demand is increasing as the supply diminishes. At Milford Haven this has been so much felt that the common fishermen have requested official interference. Sea fish of most kinds are wonderfully reproductive; but, on the other hand, the loss to which all the breeds are naturally exposed, is undoubtedly very great. The sea is teeming with life; but that life in one form is supported by life in another; and we may accept the large power of reproduction that nature has given to sea fish as a proof of the heavy drain that is constantly made upon them without any artificial aids from man."

He believed these words embodied much good sense. A few years back he had made a similar Motion to the present, in respect to the salmon fishery. The House then assented to the Address which he proposed, and a Royal Commission was appointed, which prosecuted its inquiries in all parts of the kingdom, and presented a most valuable Report. Upon the recommendations of that Report, an Act was passed, which, although it had been only two years in force, had proved so successful that he was constantly receiving letters of congratulation and thanks for the humble part which he had taken in the matter. He was assured that that Act had actually resuscitated the salmon fisheries, and that many rivers, where before no salmon could he found, were now becoming well stocked. He might mention that on Saturday last four salmon were taken in the Thames at the Nore, in the stage between smolts and grilse, one weighing about a pound, which proved that even in respect of the Thames, with all its disadvantages, the Act had answered its purpose. Upon the former occasion he had been met with something like a taunt that he was taking measures to protect the salmon, the rich man's food, but did not take any care of the humbler fish which formed the food of the poorer classes. He did so now, and therefore he hoped the House would agree to his Motion.

seconded the Motion. He had himself placed a notice on the paper of a Motion for a Committee on this subject; but the hon. Member for Sunderland having been first in the field he willingly gave way to him, besides which, on consideration, he thought that a Commission was better suited than a Committee for the purposes of the inquiry. The hon. Member had gone so fully into the general question that he should say but little upon it. His own opinion was that the Convention of 1839 between France and England, and the two Acts of Parliament by which its provisions were carried out—namely, the 6 & 7 Vict., c. 79, and the 18 & 19 Vict., c. 101, erred in attempting too much. The exclusion of fishermen of each country from the territorial limits of the other was a wise measure; but the minute regulations as to fence months and size of nets, which could be but imperfectly enforced in the deep sea, and could only be enforced by municipal authority within the three-mile limit, were more vexatious than useful, especially as they could not be imposed upon the fishermen of other nations. Such regulations were necessary, and he agreed with the hon. Member that they ought to be far more strictly enforced. But they should be enforced, not in the deep sea, where fish do not breed, and where the fry are seldom found but on our own shores, on the inshore banks and shallow waters; and if there were any doubt upon this point, the observations of the Inspectors of salmon fisheries in their second report, alluded to by his hon. Friend, would entirely remove it. There was no point in the Convention more open to remark than that which regulated oyster fishing. Oysters were of various species, but for convenience they might be classed in two divisions—large and small, or deep and shallow water oysters. The latter, from being more under the influence of the sun, spawned earlier than the former, and the fence months had been fixed in reference to those alone, so that no fishing was allowed after April. Such regulations were, no doubt, valuable to prevent the fish being disturbed during spawning; not that the small oysters would be sold as food during the spawning season, for they were not fit to be eaten. The small oysters, generally called 'natives,' were not seen in London markets from May to September, yet they came from private and river beds to which the fence months did not apply. Still he advocated no relaxation as regarded these. But the law pressed most injuriously en the deep-sea oyster fisheries. The beds from which they were taken, and which had been discovered since the date of the Convention, lay in mid channel, more than twenty miles from land, thirty fathoms deep; and the fish there spawned two months later than the smaller oysters. Yet fishing was rigorously forbidden during May and June, when the oysters were in highest perfection and weather most favourable. Any vessel found with oysters and dredges on board, only a few hours after the 30th of April was liable to seizure by French or English authorities, and the owners might be subjected to fine, confiscation, and even imprisonment. But fishing on these beds was not prevented by this law. The French and English could only bind each other; every other nation might fish these deep-sea banks during the fence months, and in fact the Dutch were in the habit of doing so. In reality, the disability only affected the English, as the French did not like fishing so far from home, nor did they appreciate the large coarse oysters found on these banks. What would be thought of the sense of two men who bound each other with a penalty not to walk in Regent Street? But how much more absurd such a compact would seem if one would nominally pass through it to his ordinary avocations, while the other never went near it. Yet this was just the case as between the English and French. The result of the law was that the deep-sea beds were dredged in winter and spring during boisterous weather at great risk of loss of boats and tackle, and even loss of life; that the fish were brought to the private beds in the river Adur, at Shoreham, at New-haven, Bosham, Havant, and other places on the coast to which the fence months did not apply, where there was frequently great mortality among them from frost, fresh water floods, and other causes, and where they deteriorated and became less wholesome when taken out for summer consumption than if brought direct from the deep-sea beds. This was not a small question. The large coarse oyster was the luxury of the working classes of this country; and while the price of the small delicate oyster, best known to hon. Members, was 44s. a bushel, that of the deep-sea oysters was only 8s., and would be cheaper were it not for these artificial disabilities. During summer these oysters might be seen on stalls in almost every street; they were found in the great manufacturing towns of the midland and northern counties and at every fair and race-course in the kingdom. In Shoreham alone some 150 vessels of from eighteen to twenty-five tons, with four to six hardy seamen, were employed in the trade, besides about 100 men carting on shore, and the carriage by the Brighton railway between Shoreham and London amounted to between £6,000 and £7,000 a year. There would be no difficulty in restricting the oyster dredgers to that part of the sea which would prevent any chance of their interfering with the shallow-water beds. He hoped this Commission would be appointed, and that one of its first fruits might be the removal of this disability, which he regarded as a disgrace to our statute-book.

said, there was no doubt a deal of jealousy between the line and the trawl fishermen, and the statements on both sides should be received with caution. Perhaps a Royal Commission might be of some service in determining whether the trawlers or line fishers were right in their statements; for the trawl fishermen not only denied that they injured the fishing grounds, but they asserted that, in fact, they improved them. Certainly, the difference between them was most astounding; but he could not see that it would serve any other useful purpose. The question was— is it worth while to go to the expense and trouble of a Commision for that purpose? There was no real reason to believe that any sensible harm was being done, or that there was any real decrease in the fisheries. The fact was, that within the last few years the supply of fish had enormously increased, and the price of fish had not increased in a greater degree than the price of other articles of food. Mr. Mahew, in his book on London said that more than 1,500,000 lb. of soles and more than 28,000,000 lb. of plaice were sold from the barrows by the hawkers about the streets of London. The number of boats employed in trawling had not fallen off, which was a pretty fair proof that there had been no diminution in the amount of fish to be found in the seas. He would remind the House that the French fishermen had a right to fish within three miles of our coast, and they could not be controlled by any rules which this House might adopt; so that even if the object of his hon. Friend were attained, trawling would not be put a stop to—it would simply be handed over to the foreigner. He had no objection to an inquiry, and he was sure the trawlers were not the least afraid of any inquiry which could be made.

said, it appeared to him that his hon. Friend (Mr. Fenwick) had fallen into an error in reference to trawling. He (Mr. Bentinck) had been in the habit of trawling for forty years, and he had never seen a trawl of the description given by his hon. Friend. He talked of a trawl which had attached to it a chain which went tearing along the ground at four miles an hour; but he (Mr. Bentinck) had never seen a trawl with a chain attached to it, and no trawl ever went over the ground at the rate of four miles an hour, unless, indeed, it were some peculiar kind of trawl used on one particular part of the coast and unknown elsewhere. The very object of the trawler was not to disturb the ground more than he could help. His hon. Friend said, that there was great diminution in the quantity of fish taken at particular places; but that might be accounted for by the enormous increase in the number of fishing boats. At the Dogger Bank, for instance, a hundred men were employed now, where twelve were employed formerly. His hon. Friend, however, said that at Dover and Brixham, the fishing was as good as ever, and there was no place where there was more trawling than at Brixham. If the House should put a stop to trawling, they would stop the supply of fish, for nothing like the present supply could be obtained by line fishing. He did not say that inquiry would do much harm, though he certainly thought that it would not do much good; but he asked the House to be cautious in dealing with an industry that employed so many hands, and supplied the people with such an abundant and valuable article of food as fish.

wished to say a word in favour of the trawlers, who had been subjected to a rather unmerited attack. It was an ancient industry, and employed a great number of people. He had frequently inspected the fishmarket at Plymouth, and he could assure the House that the fish there showed no appearance of the mangling and mutilation of which his hon. Friend spoke. He had never heard of any complaint against trawling either in Devon or Cornwall, and on the coasts of those counties a large proportion of the inhabitants obtained their living by that occupation. His hon. Friend had spoken of the disappearance of fish from particular localities; but the capricious disposition of the fish accounted for their appearance and disappearance off certain coasts. It was well known that they often changed their grounds. Pilchards used to be found off the north coast of Cornwall, but they no longer appeared there. They could not have been destroyed, and it could hardly be supposed that they were so annoyed with the trawl nets as to leave in disgust. He thought the real object of the Motion was to favour the line fishermen at the expense of the net fishermen, and he hoped the Government would not accede to the appointment of an expensive Commission.

said, he thought no reply had been given to the arguments of his hon. Friend who had introduced the Motion, and the House should bear in mind that what was asked was not that there should be any interference with the trawl fishing or any other description of fishing, but that they should inquire whether it was practicable to apply to the preservation of sea fisheries similar legislation to that which had been so successful in reference to the inland fisheries. Whether fish were or were not in the habit of changing their ground capriciously, no natural law was better ascertained than this, that they came to the shallow water to spawn; and it was in these shallow waters that the trawl nets did so much mischief. It was not desired that the trawl net should be put down, but sim- ply that there should be an inquiry; and the reports which the hon. Member (Mr. Fenwick) had received from all parts, except from Brixham and Dover, showed that the fisheries were falling off, which clearly proved that inquiry was necessary. At Brixham and Dover, moreover, it was deep-sea fishing that was carried on, and not trawling, which was practised only in shallow water. Considering the destructive modes employed in these fisheries, he thought there was fair ground for a Commission of Inquiry.

said, his hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Fenwick) had introduced the Motion under discussion in a speech of great interest, and had no doubt laid before the House with great correctness the different reports which he had received from different parts of the country in reference to the alleged decrease in the supply of fish. But he must at the same time observe that he thought the terms of the Motion itself were extremely wide, and that a Commission such as that which he proposed—to inquire generally into the sea-fisheries of the United Kingdom—would take a long time to complete its inquiry, while it would also be attended with considerable expense. If the Commission were likely to prove valuable, no doubt the expense ought not to stand in the way of its appointment; but a Commission of inquiry—especially one without any definite object—a large searching fishing inquiry—would not, he thought, be found a very practical mode of dealing with the subject. The Commission which was appointed last year or the year before on the subject of Scotch fisheries had for its object to make a definite inquiry. There had been great quarrelling and even bloodshed in regard to the mode of catching herrings, and it was absolutely necessary to investigate the particular point in order to find out what alterations were required in the law in reference to those localities. The inquiry was soon completed, and some of the information furnished to the Commission was very valuable. Reference having been made to the French treaty, he would take that opportunity of reminding hon. Members how we stood in reference to sea fishing. We had bound ourselves by various international obligations with respect to the fisheries in the Channel and on the coasts of the United Kingdom, but the principal clauses of the treaty were applicable to the channel between England and France. Well, at the present moment we were on the point of negotiating a joint inquiry by Commissioners of France and England into the working of the laws now in force under that treaty. Those laws related to many of the questions to which his hon. Friend had referred. For instance, the size of the meshes of the nets, the fence months, the proper months for taking oysters, and many other regulations relating to the preservation and breeding of fish, were contained in the treaty and in the Act of Parliament for giving effect to that treaty, which they were about to investigate by the appointment of a joint Commission. That being the position of affairs, he did not think it would be an advisable course to start an independent Commission of this roving character, that had to inquire into oyster, herring, mackerel, and pilchard fishing, trawl fishing, and deep line fishing in the North Sea. All these branches of industry employed large numbers of persons, most of whom would, no doubt, feel some little alarm at this inquiry. The Commission proposed with reference to the French treaty would have a very definite object, and be attended with a most useful and practical result; and therefore, without denying that a scientific inquiry might be useful, he must oppose the Motion for this independent Commission. It was upon that ground mainly that he rested his opposition; though if he were asked to agree to the appointment of a Commission to inquire into a particular industry, say trawling with a beam net, he would say that he could hardly conceive any kind of restriction which it would he advisable to put upon it. He thought it would be very difficult indeed to restrict or interfere with the industry of that class of persons who carried on their pursuits in the deep sea, far from any coast—in fact, where they were practically beyond the reach of police regulations; and if they were to make an inquiry special into this method of fishing, it would create alarm, perhaps unnecessarily, among a body of men forming some of the most praiseworthy and hardy of British sailors. He hoped, in conclusion, that his hon. Friend would rest satisfied with having raised a discussion of much interest, and would adopt the course which he bad suggested.

said, he denied that the inquiry proposed was too wide, or that it would necessarily occupy a great deal of time and involve considerable expenditure. He thought that the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Fenwick) had been unfairly treated and misrepresented by several of the speakers, in the imputation that he desired to interfere specially with trawl nets. That was not at all his intention. He would support the Motion; but he had risen chiefly with the purpose of expressing a hope that the inquiry, if the Government should sanction the appointment of a Commission, should be extended to Ireland. His hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. McMahon) had a notice on the paper for that evening with respect to the distress. He was sorry that it was postponed, for one of the most important elements in the consideration and solution of that question was the supply of fish on the coast of that country. He did not see why we should be silent on this subject until the new arrangements were made under the French treaty, for the principal object of the inquiry was as to the fisheries within the three miles which formed the boundaries against foreign vessels. He looked upon this question of the deep-sea fisheries as one of great importance as regarded Ireland. The fisheries on the coasts of that country were a mine of wealth totally neglected, and an inquiry would lead to their development, conduce to the best interests of the country, and yield an immense supply of food to the poor. And this inquiry, he contended, might be conducted, considering all the appliances at the command of the Government, with comparatively trifling expense.

said, he should support the Motion if it were pressed to a division. In his locality the supplies of fish had diminished. It was quite true, that owing to railways and the electric telegraph, the London market and the markets of the manufacturing districts were better supplied now than they had been formerly; and, that being the case, it was said by some Gentlemen we ought not to interfere in the matter. But in the case of the salmon fisheries, though Parliament had delayed too long, nevertheless the measures which it ultimately adopted had resulted in a great increase of the take of salmon. In Boston there was a considerable diminution in the take of mussels about four years ago; but owing to measures adopted by the corporation the mussel fishery there had been brought up again, and it now produced a remuneration of about £60 a week to the fishermen.

did not see that be cause we were about to enter into new arrangements with the French Government we ought not in the first instance have an independent inquiry with regard to British interests. Those who understood the question of fisheries had stated that in our arrangements with France, and with the Belgians and the Netherlands, we had given away substantial advantages which we ought not to have given, and had got nothing in return. With regard, for instance, to foreign vessels fishing within three miles of our shores, it was not a settled point before the Convention Act that they had a right to come so near. This inquiry was essential and desirable with regard to Ireland. There were more fish upon the coast of Ireland than would amply feed and employ the entire population, and yet under the existing system they were obliged to import £100,000 worth of herrings every year from Scotland and £30,000 or £40,000 worth of other fish. In some places, where trawling had been prohibited on the coast of Ireland, it had been found necessary to remove the prohibition. The restrictions on fishermen were so numerous and oppressive in Ireland that it seemed to be the object of the Government to keep all the fish from being caught rather than to develop the fisheries.

rose to call the attention of the House to the state of the Laws relating to Charitable Donations and Bequests in Ireland, and to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, the Laws relating to Charitable Property in Ireland ought to be assimilated to those in force in England as far as circumstances will permit."

The hon. and learned Gentleman was proceeding to address the House, when—