I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, Whether there is any truth in the report that it is intended to diminish the strength of Her Majesty's Forces now serving in Canada by withdrawing two battalions of Guards now serving there?

I stated, Sir, last Friday evening, that it was intended to bring home two battalions of the Guards and one battalion of the Military Train, without relief. As I believe, the chief reasons for this arrangement are that a very heavy expenditure is now being incurred in the hire of buildings for the use and accommodation of the troops in Canada, and it is very desirable to reduce that expenditure as soon as practicable. It is also thought advisable to give an opportunity to Sir Fenwick Williams to concentrate the troops in Canada, which are now scattered over a long line of frontier. But, further, it is considered that by keeping such a number of Guards in Canada it would be impossible to form a brigade of Guards at home sufficient for service, in case they should be required to serve in any other quarter.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether any information has been received of the imprisonment of the British Envoy to Bhootan; and, if so, what steps have been taken to procure the release of Mr. Eden.

, in reply, said, he had received no public despatch upon the subject referred to by the hon. Member. The only information which had reached him was contained in a private letter from Sir John Lawrence. He had, however, no reason to think that Mr. Eden had been imprisoned, although he was subjected to some species of insult, with the particulars of which he was not at present accurately acquainted. Mr. Eden arrived safely at Darjeeling on the 12th of last month, and he found on his way home that some of the chiefs were preparing to take up arms to rescue him in case he had been detained.

, who had given notice to move the following Resolutions on the subject of Poland:—

"That the negotiations of Her Majesty's Government respecting Poland have not terminated in a satisfactory manner."

"That it appears from the Papers laid before Parliament that the conditions on which the British Government agreed to acknowledge the dominion of Russia in Poland have not been fulfilled by Russia."

"That this House is of opinion that Her Majesty's Government is no longer bound to recognise the sovereignty of Russia in Poland."

said, Lord Wodehouse, on his return from Denmark, had attributed in the other House the failure of his mission to the policy which the British Government had pursued with regard to Poland; and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bucks (Mr. Disraeli) a short time ago had said that there was an intimate connection between the Polish insurrection and the present state of affairs in Denmark, and that the deplorable condition of Denmark was strictly to be traced to the conduct of Her Majesty's Government in those negotiations with respect to Poland. He had heard, also, that an eminent diplomatist, when the rumour reached this country that Lord Clarendon had succeeded in his mission to Paris (a rumour which was unfounded), remarked that if he had been so successful he must have had ample powers to deal with the Polish question. Finding that the Danish and the Polish questions were so intimately connected in the opinion of eminent authorities, he felt perfectly justified, even apart from the European importance of the subject, and the engagements which England had contracted in regard to Poland, in bringing on that discussion at the present moment. Nearly fifty years had passed since the British Government had entered into engagements with respect to the future of Poland, and it was our duty to see how far those engagements had been fulfilled. Poland was an integral part of Europe one hundred years before Charlemagne was crowned, and England had for centuries maintained intimate relations with that country. Malte Brun described the Poland of ancient Europe in glowing language as a most flourishing and prosperous country, where the mechanical arts and manufactures were encouraged by wise sovereigns. Poland was the first country to enforce the principles of free trade, and she had always been distinguished for her religious toleration. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) had on several occasions expressed some doubts on that point, but an authority whom he would no doubt respect — the Rev. Mr. Spurgeon—in a recent address delivered in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, had dwelt with great force on that point, "Religious liberty," he said, "was the chief glory of Poland," even at a time when every other country, England included, was given up to bloody butcheries on account of religion. She was the asylum of the oppressed from all parts of Europe, and, indeed, from all parts of the world. In one city there were three bishops of different faiths; and when a man went to exercise any of his civil rights, no question was ever asked him as to what communion he belonged. He had, he might add, himself heard a Protestant, as eminent in the Anglican Church as Mr. Spurgeon was among Dissenters, declaring at a meeting at Guildhall the same fact—that Poland was foremost in religious toleration —and he confessed that when he listened to Lord Shaftesbury on the occasion to which he referred, he could not imagine the lion. Gentleman behind him would again that evening, ns he had done before, seek to cast a slur on the Poles on the very ground on which Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. Spurgeon were of opinion they were most deserving of praise. But be that as it might be, of the many centuries through which England maintained intercourse with Poland, the century during which Poland suffered under the rule of an elective monarchy was the period to which her weakness and dissensions were to he traced. Although that principle was nominally in force for two centuries, it existed, in fact, only during one century. Even during that period, however, there were to he found in Poland a number of men sufficiently enlightened to discover the weakness of their Government, and they, towards the close of the century, united themselves, under the presidency of Prince Czartoryski, and determined to alter their constitution. How, then, let him ask, did it happen that Poland did not alter her constitution as the Poles desired? The answer to that question was to be found in the attitude which was assumed towards their country by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. When the Empress Catherine of Russia received intimation that the ancient form of Polish government —hereditary monarchy—was about to be restored, she entered into a secret treaty with the King of Prussia, dated June, 1762, in which the following paragraph occurred:—

"Their Majesties the Empress of All the Russias and the King of Prussia mutually engage in the most solemn manner, under any circumstances, and in all cases, that if any one, whoever he may be, should attempt to establish an hereditary kingdom in Poland, their Majesties of Russia and Prussia will not permit it; but, on the contrary, will avert, repel, and annul in all ways, and by all means, projects so unjust and so dangerous to the neighbouring Powers by acting together, joining their forces, and even resorting to arms, if circumstances require it."

Not only was that treaty signed between Prussia and Russia, but the Empress Catherine addressed a despatch to her Ambassador at the Court of Poland, in which she informed him that on account of the proximity of Russia to Poland the whole attention of the former should be directed to preserve entire the existing form of the Polish Government, and that she was determined, if things took a contrary course, to exercise all the power which Providence had given her to settle the affairs of Poland to the advantage of Russia. She added, in the secret instructions which she also sent to her Minister, that if necessary for the accomplishment of her object she would order her troops to invade simultaneously all parts of the Polish territory, and to lay waste their country with fire and sword. Such was the policy of Russia, and he would, with the permission of the House, conclude that part of the subject by referring to a despatch written by the French Ambassador at Warsaw to the Duke de Choiseul, in which he described the effect of that policy, observing that Russia had silenced and intimidated the greater part of the Polish nation by detestable and unheard-of violence on such persons of position as defended public right in the State Assembly, and by repeated acts of tyranny towards all those who ventured to act in opposition to her views. The Poles, however, still determined, even in the face of such opposition, to restore their ancient constitution, and, accordingly, on the 3rd of May, 1791, the Polish constitution was issued by the Sovereign and the Estates of the realm of that kingdom. That constitution, he might add, received the praise of Pitt and the leading English statesmen in many debates in relation to Poland which took place in that House between 1791 and 1795, and the noble Viscount now at the head of the Government might, perhaps, if he had come up from Harrow and taken his seat under the Strangers' Gallery, have heard Mr. Pitt declaiming on the subject. Mr. Burke, moreover, spoke of the Polish constitution in terms to which he wished briefly to allude, because the de jure Poland of to-day was the Poland which Mr. Burke had described when he said, speaking of the change made by the Poles, that, "in contemplating that change, humanity had everything to rejoice at and glory in; nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to suffer." Such was the description given by Mr. Burke of a constitution which lasted only from 1791 to 1795, because then the armies of the Empress Catharine, to which she referred in the treaty and in her letters, entered Poland, and it was divided among the three great Powers. Now, it was a matter of interest to inquire what England did on that occasion. It might surprise some hon. Gentlemen to hear that England, although he believed she did it unknowingly, actually contributed to the partition of Poland; for when that partition was about to take place the King of Prussia solicited a subsidy from the British Government to the amount, if he was not mistaken, of £1,200,000, on the ground that he wanted troops to oppose the French, while it turned out that, instead of employing the troops subsidized by our money against France, he employed them in the subjugation of Poland—a fact which did not escape the attention of the House of Commons, inasmuch as Mr. Jekyll, in referring to the subsidy on the 5th of February, 1795, said the last instalment to his Prussian Majesty had been paid on the 4th of October, but long previous to that period the Prussian troops had gone to co-operate in the infamous project of the dismemberment of unhappy Poland; while the subject was also alluded to by Mr. Whitbread and by Mr. Fox, who said that the Emperor of Germany might conceive that, perhaps, the best way to destroy those French principles against which the war was carried on was to apply the money received from England to the dismemberment of Poland. It was also remarkable that the first Russian fleet which entered the Mediterranean was commanded by an Englishman, took up the transport vessels attached to it in English ports, and was employed to destroy the fleet of Turkey, which was the ally of the Poles, and thus contributed to the dismemberment and destruction of Poland. In 1805 the Emperor Napoleon restored to independence one, and in 1812 another, portion of Poland, and in 1815 Lord Castle-reagh exerted himself with some success to secure the establishment of an independent Poland. The return of Napoleon from Elba deranged the combinations of the Allies, and ultimately, by the Treaty of Vienna, instead of Poland being erected into an independent State, the Crown of that kingdom was conferred upon the Emperor of Russia. In accepting the Crown, the Emperor Alexander told the Poles that, by being placed under his dominion, they had obtained a Constitution appropriate to their wants and their character, the preservation in public enactments of their language, the restriction of public appointments to Poles, freedom of commerce and navigation, and facility of communication with those parts of ancient Poland which remained subject to other Powers, a national army, and a guarantee that every means should be taken to perfect their laws; and soon afterwards, in addressing the Poles, he said—

"Your re-construction is defined by solemn treaties; it is sanctioned by the Constitutional Chart. The inviolability of those external engagements and of that fundamental law insures for Poland henceforward an honourable place among foreign nations."

Notwithstanding these professions, the course which Russia adopted towards Poland was a complete violation of the Treaty of Vienna. The noble Viscount at the head of the Government had himself stated that the stipulations of that treaty were broken as soon as they were entered into, and that the greatest violation of treaties which had taken place in the history of the world was that which occurred in the case of Poland. In 1831 the Poles endeavoured to maintain the treaty by force of arms. He would not say that they rose in insurrection because the Grand Duke Constantine gave to General Zamoiski, one of his aides-de-camp, a letter authorizing him to proceed to the national army of Poland, which was then in the neighbourhood of Warsaw, and to release them from their allegiance to the Emperor. The Poles were defeated, and then fresh promises were given by Russia to Poland and to Europe. The Emperor Nicholas issued the Organic Statute, which up to the year 1862–3 was the law of Poland. The operation of that statute was illustrated by a "confidential report on the condition of the Kingdom of Poland, presented to the Emperor Alexander II. by Tymowski, Minister and Secretary of State, March, 1861." In that report the Minister said—

"The decree of 1831, although it constitutes to this very day the fundamental law for the Kingdom of Poland, and ought thus to be binding on the inhabitants of that country, has never yet seen 'a commencement of execution.' It may be said that since 1831, without any regard being paid to the pledges of the decree, the kingdom has been completely delivered over to the bureaucracy, and has remained exclusively under the thumb of the officials, without any participation whatever of the inhabitants, who were thus placed without the pale of the administrative hierarchy."

He then referred to certain reforms, and continued—

"Nevertheless, it must be added that such a result depends above all on the good faith with which the measures indicated are executed, for the country is radically imbued with the sense of law, and will appreciate the confidence bestowed upon it."

The events of 1861 and 1862 had been described in both Houses of Parliament In the House of Lords, Lord Carnarvon called attention to the subject, and Earl Russell following him said that nothing could justify the violation of law and humanity of which the Emperor of Russia had been guilty. In 1861 there were no less than four successive Viceroys of Poland, each of whom tried a different system, and each of whom was recalled upon its failure. One of them, Count Lambert, took with him into Poland a Russian officer as Commander-in-Chief, who inaugurated the state of siege, and who, being reproached by the Viceroy for a massacre of men, women, and children which took place in the streets of Warsaw, drew out a pistol and committed suicide. Soon afterwards Count Lambert was withdrawn. He mentioned this to show how utterly impossible it was that Russia should govern Poland. It was unfortunate both for himself and for Poland that in 1831 the noble Lord at the head of the Government declined to join France in rendering assistance to Poland; but in 1855–6 there was another opportunity at which that country might have been saved by England. Three years ago he was to his astonishment informed by the noble Lord that, although there was a short despatch written upon the subject in 1856, during the Crimean war no despatch passed between our Government and others upon the subject of Poland. The House would be surprised to learn that at the time of the Crimean war such despatches did pass between England, France, and Austria, and, ns they had been concealed from the country, he would read extracts from them, and ask the Government whether they were authentic. He had a copy of a despatch dated "Paris, December 15th, 1855," from Count Walewski, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Count Persigny, then French Ambassador in London, in which the Minister said—

"The object of this despatch is to call your attention, and to engage you to fix that of the British Government, upon a question which excites, and with justice, the solicitude of the Emperor, and to which, doubtless, the Cabinet of London does not attach less interest. I mean Poland. The first article of the Treaty of Vienna, 1815, in declaring the union of the duchy of Warsaw to the Russian Empire, provided that it should be unchangeably united thereto by its constitution under the name of the Kingdom of Poland. Even this was, doubtless, but a very incomplete reparation for the injustice of the partitions which annihilated Poland. Still it was an act of homage paid by Russia to the indelible principle of Polish nationality; and the Kingdom of Poland, with its constitution, with its distinct administration, and its army entirely national, in reality possessed guarantees which were wanting in the other dismembered provinces. Contrary to the promises arid to the formal assurances of the Emperor Nicholas, the Kingdom or Poland, incorporated with Russia, has since been nothing more than a province of that empire. The treaties which had constituted its political existence were openly ignored. Nevertheless, the Treaty of June 9, 1815, was then, as it is to-day, an act essentially European, by which all the contracting parties are virtually bound towards each other, and each of them towards all the rest. France and England protested against such an infraction of the public law of Europe, and if for the sake of maintaining the general tranquillity, they shrank from making it a casus belli, both of them with only the more emphasis reserved the rights in regard of which they had just protested, until an opportunity should offer itself for renewing them and upholding them with more chance of success. This opportunity, M. le Comte, cannot fail shortly to arise, and the moment is come for preparing to make the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Poland, within the conditions stipulated by the Congress of Vienna, one of the essential objects of the negotiations for peace, as soon as these negotiations shall become possible, as well as one of the fundamental bases of that peace."

What was the reply of the British Government? The House had never received it, and the country had never known it. But it was given in a letter written by Count Walewski to Count Persigny, and dated October 15, 1855. Writing from Paris, he said—

"Lord Cowley has read to me a despatch from his Government, in reply to that which I commissioned you to deliver to Lord Clarendon on the subject of the situation of the Kingdom of Poland, in its relation to the treaties which determined its legal condition in 1815, and to the eventual basis of the future peace. The Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs declares that, not only would the English Cabinet desire, like ourselves, that the obligations contracted by Russia towards Poland should be fulfilled, but that it would see in the independence even of that country the surest barrier for Europe against the invasions of the Russian Power. The only question in the eyes of Her Majesty's Government is, to know if the moment is opportune for entering into an engagement not to treat with Russia, except on the condition that she carries out the stipulations which concern Poland in the Vienna treaties. He comes to the conclusion that, without tying our hands or binding ourselves to any particular line of conduct, it is enough for us to agree that we will take advantage of events, within the measure of the possible, in favour of Poland."

On a subsequent occasion the French Government renewed their application, and met with a somewhat similar reply. Count Walewski, having become in the meantime the French Ambassador, said—

"I have spoken to the principal Secretary of State on the contents of your Excellency's despatch, dated March 26, I pointed out that if in a European negotiation, having for its object the re-establishment of peace with Russia, no mention whatever should be made of the breach of treaties of which the Russian Government was guilty in assimilating the Kingdom of Poland to the Empire of Russia—a breach against which we had protested—our silence might be treated as an implied sanction, and as an abandonment of our previous protests. The principal Secretary of State acknowledged the full value of this observation, and admitted that at an opportune time it would be desirable to take some steps of a nature to support the opinion previously expressed by France and England on the conduct held by Russia towards Poland in 1831; but Lord Clarendon, in his turn, observed to me that at this moment every attempt to bring Russia to restore matters in Poland to the position in which they were before 1830 would be inopportune, and might be attended with consequences to be regretted."

On the conclusion of peace in 1856 the French Government again urged the British Government to do something for Poland; and he came now to the only papers which had been laid before Parliament on the subject. In a despatch from Lord Clarendon to Lord Palmerston, in April, 1856, he stated that on the 9th inst., "at the request of Count Walewski," he held a conversation with Count Orloff on the subject of Poland, and Count Orloff replied that the Emperor had determined to restore to his Polish subjects everything which had been suggested in the conversation, but that the announcement could not be made to the Congress, as that would be misrepresented in Russia. Count Orloff said in a friendly manner—

"Do not, in the interest of the Poles, bring the subject forward in the Congress; for I can tell you nothing there, nor admit your right to interrogate me. My answer, therefore, must be disheartening to the Poles, and the Emperor may perhaps think it a matter of dignity to postpone what he intends to do."

Lord Palmerston, in reply, informed Lord Clarendon that Her Majesty's Government entirely approved the manner in which the subject had been treated by him, both in bringing the question under discussion with Count Orloff, and in abstaining from mooting the matter before the Congress. It was in the early part of 1856 that this conversation took place with Count Orloff. In May, 1856, the Emperor Alexander II. visited Poland, and having assembled round him the Polish marshals, senators, and clergy, addressed them in these terms—

"I am resolved that the order established by my father shall be maintained. Therefore, gentlemen, above all things let there be no dreams— no dreams. The welfare of Poland depends upon her entire absorption into Russia. What my father did was therefore well done. I will uphold it. My reign shall be a continuation of his."

This was the language held one short month after peace had been secured. Since then, from 1856 to 1864:, the Poles had exhibited the greatest moderation and the greatest heroism. Lord Wodehouse, formerly Minister Plenipotentiary at St. Petersburg, bore testimony to this in his place in Par- liament, and the same testimony had been reiterated in the course of their debates. But in 1863 the Russians, in violation of their own laws, enforced the conscription, with the avowed object of carrying off from the country every man possessed of public spirit. Under that conscription, University students and artisans were taken who were exempt from the conscription under the Russian law itself. That was done in the early part of 1863, and it caused the Polish war of 1863–4. Every Member of the House was as familiar as himself with what had since taken place in Poland. The Poles had maintained the unequal contest with greater success and for a longer time than in 1831, The Russian funds had declined from day to day, and were now lower than at any period during the Crimean War. It had been necessary to send hundreds and thousands of Russian troops into Poland, and even the Russian Guards, who had not been sent into the Crimea, had been marched against the Poles. The war had now been going on for thirteen months, and what had England done? Earl Russell had written a great many despatches. In the Christmas pantomime at one of the theatres a large box on the stage was labelled "England's aid to Poland." At the touch of a wand the front of the box fell down and discovered a very small ink-bottle and a very large pen. That was "England's aid to Poland." England, however, had promised to do much, and might have done a great deal. Earl Russell in his despatches showed that Russia had broken engagements to which England was a party, and he denounced Russia for violating public, international, and moral law. At one period of the negotiations Baron Brunnow came to Earl Russell in great alarm, and inquired whether the intentions of Her Majesty's Government were peaceful. Earl Russell published his reply in a despatch which was shown to the Ministers of France and Austria. The noble Earl said, in effect, that the intentions of his Government were peaceful, but that he must not deceive the Russian Government. The Emperor of Russia might reject the proposal he then made, as he had formerly rejected others, but the insurrection would probably continue, and conflicts and difficulties might arise, which all Would deplore. The meaning attached to those words in Vienna and Paris was that the British Government had made up their minds that the engagements of England were to be preserved. The Emperor of Russia rejected the proposal, however, like the rest. The House rose for the recess, and Earl Russell wrote a despatch to Prince Gortschakoff. It was a very long one, and was not worth much, but the three last paragraphs had some sense in them, and struck every one as not having been written by Earl Russell. The question then arose, "Who wrote them?" He would give the House some information on this subject. The Governments of Great Britain, France, and Austria were then all acting together, and when Prince Gortschakoff's rebuff was received the Emperor of the French made a proposal to the Cabinets of London and Vienna, that an identical note in reply to Prince Gortschakoff should be drawn up by Count Rechberg and sent to Russia by the three Governments. The Emperor of the French at the same time represented that Austria was within a few hours march of an enormous Russian army. England and France were remote from such a danger, and it was therefore desirable to enter into a compact guaranteeing to Austria the assistance of the two Powers in the event of any attack by Russia. That was an extremely fair and reasonable proposal. It was worthy of remark that the Government had not given the House the correspondence with the Cabinets of the Tuileries and Vienna on the subject of this identical note. It was, however, of great importance, because, as the note was not sent and no joint action took place, the question arose how Parliament was to know which of the three Powers refused to take this joint action. A paragraph, which appeared to come from an official source, appeared during the recess in The Times newspaper on the 15th of August, 1863. It was as follows:—

"Russia and Poland.—The three despatches in reply to Prince Gortschakoff from Austria, France, and Great Britain will probably reach St. Petersburg this day, and will be presented at once to Prince Gortschakoff. England and Austria objected to an identical note, as proposed by France, because they considered it would too much resemble a menace to Russia. As it is, each Power has contented itself with replying to the arguments addressed to it by Russia."

Beyond this statement the House of Commons had not received the least information as to this identical note, although it was the turning point of the whole negotiation. It was supposed from the statement in The Times that the identical note was refused both by Austria and England. This, however, was not correct. The fact was that the identical note was drawn up by Count Rechberg, and was then submitted to the Governments of France and England. The latter Government refused to agree to the identical note, or to enter into any further combinations, and Earl Russell expressed his intention to pursue in future an isolated policy. On the 3rd of August, in last year, M. Drouyn de Lhuys, writing to the French Ambassador, the Due de Grammont, at Vienna, said—

"I do not propose to recur to-day to the considerations which pleaded in favour of a complete identity of language in the replies of the three Courts to the communications of Russia. Our reasons—I have pleasure in saying so—have been thoroughly appreciated at Vienna; and I consider it my duty to acknowledge that it is not the fault of the Austrian Government that our proposition was not adopted. It was inspired, not only by the desire of augmenting the authority of our proceedings in giving to the Russian Cabinet a proof of the unity of views, which it has seemed to doubt, but, also, by the sentiment of the peculiar situation of Austria, to whom we thought it right to guarantee that we intended to share with her the consequences of a common policy. Our proposition not having been accepted in London, I have prepared the separate despatch, which our Ambassador at St. Petersburg will be instructed to deliver to Prince Gortschakoff. I enclose it herein, with the English draft, which has been communicated to me by Lord Cowley. The conclusion of these two documents reproduces the last paragraphs of the draft originally proposed by the Vienna Cabinet. We desire that at least this partial identity may be maintained."

The Foreign Minister of France, writing to the French Chargé d'Affaires in London, on the 22nd of September, 1863, said—

"We have not changed our opinion concerning the European character of the Polish question, and concerning the rights which the general interest and treaties confer upon us. We deplore the circumstances that three Powers like England, Austria, and France, have not resolved on giving to their proceedings all the efficacy desirable, and the responsibility of assuring to their opinion the irresistible authority of a collective resolution does not rest on our shoulders."

Neither the Emperor of the French nor the Emperor of Austria was therefore to blame for the failure of the diplomacy of the Western Governments. He could not say thus much: of the diplomacy of Austria without also adverting to the conduct of the Austrian Executive at the present moment. While the diplomacy of Austria, following the Foreign policy of Lord Castlereagh, desired the independence of Poland, the Austrian Executive in Galicia imitated the cruelties of Mouravieiff. Ladies whom he had himself seen tending the sick and wounded Poles in Cracow, were now in prison. One of these ladies was kept in solitary confinement, and her letters were not allowed to reach her. The Austrian Government punished these ladies for having assisted the sick and wounded Poles, but their sympathies were naturally with the insurgents. The noble Viscount was to blame for a good deal that had happened in the history of Poland. Since 1831, whenever Poland had had a chance, the noble Viscount had been in office, and had not done as much for her as he ought and could. One cause of this was the disregard he had always shown for public law. His maiden speech in this House, delivered on the 3rd of February, 1808, was against Denmark and in defence of the bombardment of Copenhagen by the British fleet, and he then laid down a principle of policy which had run more or less through his whole career as Foreign Minister. "There are times," he said, "when the Law of Nations must be broken." Now, he (Mr. Hennessy) maintained that the Law of Nations must always be upheld, and, if this had been done, Poland would not have been in her present deplorable condition. At Blairgowrie, Earl Russell, referring to the partition of Poland as an event which was a scandal to Europe and a reproach to the Three Powers who were parties to it, said that,. by the Treaty of Vienna, Europe had given a retrospective sanction to the partition, and had become accessary after the fact; but, as Russia had not fulfilled the conditions under which her title was recognized, we were no longer bound to recognize her sovereignty in Poland. This was the substance of the Resolutions before the House. But the noble Earl was not satisfied with his declaration at Blairgowrie. Eight days before he made it, he was in communication with the French Government on the subject, and they were must desirous that the declaration should be made. Accordingly, in September, Earl Russell wrote a despatch to Russia, which was dated October 20, 1863, and embodied the Blairgowrie declaration. Lord Napier privately communicated its contents to Prince Gortschakoff, who said it was a very serious matter to declare before Europe that Russia had forfeited her sovereignty in Poland. Lord Napier telegraphed home Prince Gortsehakoff's opinion, and, at the same time, Count Bismark actually threatened to make it a casus belli if the despatch were read. The very day the English despatch was written, the French Government wrote to their Minister at St. Petersburg referring to it, stating that they were in accord with every word of it, and directed him to support it. But, after this despatch had received the approval of the Queen and Cabinet, Earl Russell recalled it, struck out the last sentence, which was the only one of importance, and it was afterwards delivered to the Russian Government. So bungling was the noble Earl's surgery that the scar could still be seen—the premisses were there, but he had removed the conclusion. The value of such a declaration, had it been made, could hardly be overrated, and the Poles looked for it with anxiety. It did not mean war. Count Bismark, indeed, might threaten war; but, though he had made war on a weak Power, it was doubtful whether Count Bismark would make war on England. The noble Viscount had stated, on a former occasion, that to tell any country that we did not recognize her sovereignty where she was de facto sovereign, though there might be insurgents there, would occasion war. But, in the case of Circassia, the British Government had distinctly refused to recognize the sovereignty of Russia; and before Greece became independent, Count Nesselrode proposed that the British and the Russian Governments should jointly declare to Turkey that they did not recognize Turkish rule in Greece. Remembering these precedents, and looking at what England had done and omitted to do in Poland, the least which the House of Commons could ask was that the declaration made by the Foreign Minister and inserted in a despatch should be made by the Government. Diplomatically, the Blairgowrie declaration possessed no value. Foreign Governments were not bound to know anything about it, But not so the subjects of the Queen, who, when the Foreign Minister stated in public that Russia had forfeited her title to sovereignty in Poland, were bound to look upon that forfeiture as having been declared with authority. Poland of to-day was Poland within the limits of 1772; and there was something more which made this question a practical one. What were the influences, and who were the parties, that determined the future destinies of Europe? From time almost immemorial, the destinies of Europe had been swayed by two great parties—the revolutionary and what, without reference to the political divisions of parties in this country, might be called the Conservative party. There was a third influence which had modified these two on the Continent of Europe. A house or fa- mily—at one time the House of Hapsburg, at another the House of Bourbon. For the latter we had now the House of Napoleon. And what was the attitude of those three great parties? The revolutionary party, as represented by a disinterested soldier who had recently received an enthusiastic reception in this country, had declared that Poland must be revived. The Conservative party at the other end of Europe had made a similar declaration; and, judging by the information which was in the possession of the public at large, he thought he was entitled to say that the Emperor of the French also was in favour of Poland. The growing greatness of Spain, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had spoken of as one of the great facts of the day, the kingdom of Italy, and the establishment of the Empire of Mexico, were each of them owing to the combined action of some two of the three parties to whom he had alluded. Keeping the fact in view, remembering what were the sentiments of all three as regarded Poland, and having regard to the fact that every man of intelligence, education, and property in that country was in favour of its independence, certainly he did not despair of Poland. After the insurrection of 1831, the Emperor Nicholas tried the effect of banishments to Siberia, and issued ukases under which male children were taken from their country to be reared up in Russia; and yet, notwithstanding all that, the insurrection of 1831 was in the present day vindicated by a generation then unborn. The consistency with which the men of Poland had resisted foreign oppression was due to the heroism of her daughters. At an historic place near this metropolis, the beauty and rank of England were gathered round tables on which the jewels of the women of Poland were displayed for sale at a fancy fair held in aid of their country. On those tables were to be seen the tiaras of princesses, the diamonds of noble ladies, and the less costly ornaments of humble, but not less heroic and patriotic women. The inscriptions on many of those articles told their own tale:—"A birthday gift from a brother;" "A wedding present from a father." And there were memorials even more touching and instructive than all those diamonds. There were the offerings of women who, having sold their jewels to equip their husbands for the field, now, when those husbands had fallen, parted with the last memento of their married life, and sent their wedding rings here to be sold for the benefit of the wounded. It was creditable to the leaders of fashion in England that, when the great ladies of the land were gathered around those tables, and when they looked at those wedding rings, tears started from the eyes of many of them. The women of England had paid that tribute—that tribute in kind to the sorrows of the women of Poland. When would the statesmen and soldiers of Europe pay a tribute in kind to the statesmen and soldiers of Poland? The Emperor Napoleon, Edmund Burke, Metternich, Talleyrand, Lord Castlereagh, and other eminent statesmen, had all declared an independent Poland to be inevitable. The records of the opinions of such men were full of hope; but there were also in favour of that nation less perishable records—records written in the hearts of the people of Europe; and as long as he believed in the existence of a sense of public right in the heart of man, he should refuse to despair of Poland. The hon. and learned Member concluded by moving his first Resolution.

Sir, though there are certainly many things in the speech of the hon. Gentleman in which I agree, yet I cannot concur with him in the conclusion at which he arrived; and I certainly shall vote for the Motion for going into Supply, instead of for the hon. Member's Resolution. I shall not follow the hon. Member through the historical details of the earlier history of the Polish nation. I agree with him in the condemnation he has passed on that great European crime, the partition of Poland; and it is almost needless to say that I concur in the censure and condemnation which he has passed on the conduct of Russia throughout the whole of her connection with Poland. On that part of his speech I might make a well known remark, but inverting the sentiment, Quis vituperavit Herculem? — and say, who has excused, palliated, or justified the conduct of the Russian Government? But that is not the question on which the House this evening is called to give an opinion. The hon. Gentleman condemns the conduct of Her Majesty's Government in their recent transactions with regard to Poland. I do not intend to revert to those former periods to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, because they have in reality nothing to do with the question at issue. Though I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says in his Resolution— that the efforts which Her Majesty's Government have made in behalf of Poland have not been successful—yet I am at a loss to understand from the hon. Gentleman what it is that we have not done which he thinks we ought to have done. He says it is our fault that we have not been more successful in regard to Poland; but I appeal to the memory of the hon. Gentleman himself to say whether, in the course of last year and the year before, when he was urging us to exert the influence of Great Britain in favour of Poland, he did not repeatedly say that he did not ask for war, that he did not ask for the display of arms, he wanted only diplomatic assistance, and especially, he said, he wished that the diplomatic influence of England should be exerted to obtain from all the principal Powers of Europe a concurrent opinion with ourselves as to the duty which Russia owed towards Poland, and as to the violation of her engagements at the Treaty of Vienna. Well, we did all that the hon. Gentleman asked us to do— we went to the utmost extent and length of diplomatic exertions. We did succeed in getting most of the leading Powers of Europe to concur with us in urging at St. Petersburg the manner in which Russia had failed to perform her engagements contained in the Treaty of 1815, and in exhorting her to fulfil those engagements, and to deal in a different manner with the Poles. What was the next step then which we had to take? Only two things remained to be done. One was to cease those representations which, however respectable and powerful the quarters from which they came, had not been attended with success; and the other was to do what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) said would have been an act of insanity—to go to war with Russia on account of Poland. We were not insane, and we did not at any moment contemplate going to war with Russia for the sake of Poland. My noble Friend the Secretary for Foreign Affairs stated that from his place in Parliament on more than one occasion. There are many reasons why it would have been an act of madness to venture on such a war. The hon. Gentleman said that on one occasion we declined the cooperation of Austria and France in favour of Poland, Why, Sir, he afterwards mentioned with condemnation the conduct which Austria is now pursuing with regard to the Poles in Galicia. Is it likely, Sir, that Austria having Galicia, and Prussia I having Posen, both of which are occupied by fragments of the Polish nation, would have concurred in attacking Russia, and compelling her to perform engagements which, in point of fact, they had no great interest in asserting on behalf of the Poles, Sir, it would have been impossible. Then, with regard to France. For many years the French Legislature passed annually resolutions somewhat similar to that which the hon. Gentleman now proposes to us to pass, but at last they felt that they were placing themselves in an undignified position by expressing opinions which were not to be followed up by any practical acts on the part of the executive Government, and they therefore abstained from doing so. If the hon. Gentleman asks me whether in my opinion Russia has, in point of fact, not forfeited the right which by the Treaty of Vienna she obtained to Poland, because she has not fulfilled the corresponding engagements imposed on her by that treaty, I should be very much disposed to agree with the hon. Gentleman. But I say it would be undignified for this House formally to pronounce such an opinion unless this House was prepared to follow it up by an address to the Crown to give effect to the declaration which they had made. If we were prepared to go to war to-morrow and to follow up the sentence of forfeiture by execution, either singly or in conjunction with any other Power; if we were ready to go to Poland and say to Russia, "Not only have you forfeited your right to Poland, but we mean to take away from you that territory to which you no longer have a European right,"—I could understand the propriety of coming to such a decision, if the House were convinced that it was founded on justice and right. But to pronounce such an opinion without being prepared to act up to it would be placing this House not only in an undignified, but I will say a ridiculous position. But has this country a right to deal singly with this matter? Does Russia possess Poland simply by a treaty concluded between England and Russia? By no means. The Treaty of Vienna, by which the Duchy of Warsaw was given to Russia, was signed by eight European Powers— not only by England, but by France, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. England alone has no right to abrogate any part of that treaty which she thinks may have been broken by one of the Powers parties to it. A declaration, therefore, by England alone would not have any validity to put an end to the right of Russia, independently of the circumstances that it would be most undignified on the part of this House to pronounce an opinion of that sort, unless we were prepared to give effect to it in some practical way. The hon. Gentleman says the Poles are most anxious that this House should pronounce such an opinion. If that be so, then I must say the Poles are very shortsighted with regard to their own interests. What happened after the insurrection of 1832? That insurrection was suppressed by the arms of Russia and by the passive co-operation of Prussia. We remonstrated with the Russian Government for abolishing the Constitution which the Emperor Alexander had granted to Poland. What was the reply of the Emperor of that day? He said, "You have no right to appeal to the Treaty of Vienna. I don't hold Poland in virtue of that treaty; I hold Poland by the sword. I have conquered it: it is mine, not by treaty, but by the right of conquest; it revolted and I subdued it; and you have no more right to talk of my treatment of the inhabitants of Poland than of any other part of my dominions." We gained a step—a considerable step, I think, in our recent negotiations, when, in deference to the collective opinion of Europe, the Russian Government admitted that they held Poland by virtue of the Treaty of Vienna, and that they were bound by the engagements which Russia took towards Poland under the stipulations of that treaty. They said, "We acknowledge that we are bound by those engagements; we cannot fulfil them while this insurrection lasts; but when order and tranquillity are restored we will do that which we admit we are bound to do under the Treaty of Vienna." That is a much better position for the Poles to be in than if we were to say to Russia, "We will not accept your admission; we go back to your declaration of 1832; we say that you hold Poland by conquest independent of any treaty; and we leave you therefore at liberty to deal with it as you please—we give the Poles up to your tender mercies, to be treated in such a manner as you may think fit."To the well-understood interests of the Poles such a declaration as the hon. Gentleman asks this House to make would be as injurious as anything this House could do with respect to the Polish question at the present moment. I hope, therefore, that, not with standing the hon. Gentleman's eloquence, not with standing all the statements he has made, and justly made, as to the wrongs which Poland has sustained at all times, and particularly as to the cruel injuries recently inflicted on her by the agents of the Russian Government, this House will not be led away by their feelings, and will not, in a manner which their better reason would forbid, take away from the Poles the only remaining diplomatic protection which the Treaty of Vienna gives them, which, good or bad, effective or not, is still a diplomatic shelter, and throw them back into the condition the Russian Government asserted they were in after the close of the rebellion or the war, I may more properly call it, of 1831–2. The hon. Gentleman has said, and has said truly, that the Poles have manifested a degree of national feeling, of attachment to their country, powers of endurance, and a courage and intrepidity, almost unexampled in the history of any other nation. But the more, in my opinion, we admire the Poles the less disposed ought we to be to agree to these Resolutions; the more we think them deserving the sympathy of Europe the less ought we to deprive them of that diplomatic and political protection which I maintain the Treaty of Vienna still affords them, and the force of which we are entitled to expect the Russian Government will, at some future period at all events, in some degree acknowledge by its conduct. I concur with the hon. Gentleman, as I am sure all who heard him must do, in the opinions which he has expressed in reference to the conduct of Russia, but then I cannot agree with him in the conclusions at which he has arrived. He mentioned two instances in support of his Motion: the one being the declaration which we made to Russia that we did not acknowledge her sovereignty in Circassia; the other the representation which we made to Turkey, to the effect that we did not acknowledge her dominion over Greece. Now, I would ask with respect to the first of those instances, What is the position of Circassia now? Has our declaration saved Circassia from being conquered by Russia? Are there not at this moment hundreds of thousands of Circassians who have been expelled from their country by Russia, receiving refuge in Turkey, and exposed to every possible misery and privation? Has not actual dominion over Circassia been established by the success of Russian arms? Does the hon. Gentleman think it desirable that the same consequences should follow a similar declaration in the case of Poland? Are we now to tell Russia that we do not acknowledge her dominion in that country, and are we to look on while she extends that dominion with the same firmness as in Circassia? The example of Circassia does not, I confess, seem to me to be a very encouraging one for this House to act upon, while, with respect to the case of Greece, I would observe that if Poland were as accessible to England and France as Greece was to England and Russia and France, and if England and France had the same means of rescuing Poland from Russia that England and Russia and France had of rescuing Greece from Turkey, there then might be some force in the hon. Gentleman's illustration, and a declaration of forfeiture might be easily followed by execution. The case of Poland, however, is entirely different from that of Greece, and, therefore, the example which the hon. Gentleman has given us seems to me to have no bearing on the conclusion at which he has arrived. I would, in conclusion, entreat the House, both out of regard for its own dignity and character, as well as for the sake of the best interests of the Poles themselves, of whose cause the hon. Gentleman is so able and consistent an advocate, to agree to the Motion for going into Committee of Supply, and not to give its assent to his Amendment.

said, that the Question which was submitted to-night did not turn upon the past history of Poland. It was simply whether the House should or should not agree to the Resolutions which the hon. Gentleman had put upon the paper. With regard to the Resolutions, they might agree as individuals that they were correct; but it was another question whether the House of Commons would do wisely in giving them their solemn sanction. He could not see what good could emanate from the passing of those Resolutions. He was told on his visit even by Polish authorities, that the insurrection was extinguished, and every day it was attempted to be excited only gave Russia additional opportunity of intensifying the subjugation and misery of Poland. He thought the time would come when Poland would have free institutions given her by the Liberal party who were now growing up in Russia.

said, the argument used by the noble Lord, that great injury would be done to the Poles if they were deprived of the diplomatic protection afforded by the Treaty of Vienna had been refuted a thousand times by every act of cruelty which the Russian Government, not withstanding all remonstrances, inflicted on Poland. The Russian Government had shown in the plainest manner by their conduct that that protection was utterly worthless in their eyes.

said, that while standing below the Bar of that House he had heard a statement which had brought him back to his place. He was told that there was to be no division upon the Motion, but he took occasion to say that he should certainly have a division. He, like other hon. Members, had received a circular asking him to attend the House for a certain division. He had given up every engagement in order that he might be present, and he thought that they ought to have a division. if division there could be upon such absolute truisms as were expressed in those Resolutions.

said, he hoped that the House would allow him to offer a few observations, because the noble Lord at the head of the Government had made a speech which, though in some respects satisfactory, in others deserved and claimed the notice of the House. His hon. Friend the Member for the King's County (Mr. Hennessy) had made statements and referred to documents respecting which the noble Lord, addressing the House upon this important subject, had preserved the most studied silence. One statement was that in 1861 the noble Lord was asked whether, at the time of the Crimean war, any Correspondence passed between the French or Austrian Governments and Her Majesty's Government with reference to the re-constitution of the Kingdom of Poland, and the noble Lord distinctly stated in the face of the Commons of England that there was no such Correspondence. The hon. Member had that evening referred to despatches which then passed.

French despatches.

French despatches addressed to this country.

To the French Ambassador, not to the Government.

But quoting the opinions of Her Majesty's Government, and quoting statements made by the representative of Her Majesty in Paris. The hon. Member for the King's County had quoted those despatches, and yet the noble Lord did not for a moment attempt to explain how it was that in 1861 he made a statement which the despatches which the hon. Gentleman had now read proved to have been inaccurate. [Viscount PALMERSTON: Not at all,] The noble Lord represented the question as being whether there were any despatches from Her Majesty's Government. The question was this — and a most important question it was—whether at the time of the Crimean war any propositions were made by France and Austria, or any communication addressed to Her Majesty's Government, upon the subject of the reconstruction of the Kingdom of Poland. In 1861 the noble Lord distinctly denied that; and, as far as the House could judge at that moment, that statement of the noble Lord was not accurate. That was a matter which deserved notice and required explanation, from some other Member of the Government. But there was another point to which the hon. Member for the King's County had referred. He had stated that after the speech made by the noble Earl at the head of the Foreign Office, in the course of last autumn, at Blairgowrie, a despatch was written by him, and forwarded to Paris, to Vienna, and even to St. Petersburg, and was in the hands of our Minister there, which contained the very declaration which the hon. Member now wished to have repeated by the House of Commons, but that it was withdrawn because our Ambassador was told that the consequences of its presentation might be serious. Surely such a statement was not one to be passed over in silence by the head of the Government. A declaration made upon the authority of the Cabinet, with the assent of the Sovereign, communicated to the other Powers of Europe, and then withdrawn because our Government was informed that the consequences might be serious! Was the statement of such a fact to be made in the House of Commons, in the presence of the noble Lord, and to be passed over in silence? Having pointed out those two circumstances, which he thought ought to be explained by some Member of the Cabinet, he wished to draw the attention of the House to one or two other observations of the noble Lord. The noble Lord said that the speech of the hon. Member for the King's County admitted that the Government had done everything that they could, except that they did not go to war, which, said the noble Lord, was never suggested by any one, and certainly would not have met with the support of the House. That was not the statement of the hon. Member for the King's County. The statement of the hon. Gentleman was that the Government did not do all that they could; and, more than that, that when the Governments of Austria and Prussia were prepared to take another position, their action was paralyzed by the refusal of Her Majesty's Government to concur with them. The hon. Gentleman had pointed out—and the noble Lord made no reference to that part of his speech—that it was proposed by the Government of France that an identical note should be addressed by the three Governments to Russia, that that course was assented to by Austria, and the note prepared by her Minister, but its adoption was prevented by the refusal of England. When, therefore, the noble Lord said that the Government had done everything that they could have done, it was shown that he was endeavouring to throw dust in the eyes of the House, and to make them forget the statements of the hon. Member for the King's County. He offered no explanation why it was that, when there was this combined action on the part of the Continental Powers, when Austria herself was willing to take that course, he and his Government paralyzed the action of those Powers, and prevented that interference on behalf of Poland which but for their resistance would have taken place. Even as far as that declaration was concerned the noble Lord's Government did not do all that they could. It was true that they sent it to St. Petersburg, but they brought it back again, and, as far as the House knew from the documents which were published, the very declaration which was described by M. Drouyn de Lhuys as being in his opinion, and that of the Government of the Emperor, the most important step that could be taken by the Governments of Europe in this question was prevented by the noble Lord and his Government. The noble Lord said that it would be very unbecoming and injurious for this country to assent to such a declaration of forfeiture as this. But surely if the arguments of the noble Lord against such a declaration being made by a Resolution of that House were good, they applied with far more force to that declaration to which the noble Lord consented, which was made upon the authority of the Government and assented to by the Sovereign. Surely if it was now against the interest of the Poles to deprive them of the protection— the protection, forsooth—of the Treaty of Vienna—much protection it had been to them during the late unhappy months— the same objection would apply with still more force to the declaration made by the noble Lord and his Cabinet. But when the noble Lord told the House of Commons that it was contrary to the dignity of this country to hold language which we were not prepared to follow up by energetic measures, he would ask the noble Lord to consider what the Government had been doing in the case of Denmark for the last six or seven months. Talk of strong language—talk of menaces of war, and that it was contrary to the dignity of this country to hold such language unless we were prepared to support it! The last Minister who ought to make such a declaration was the noble Lord himself, who was at the head of a Government which had been using bullying language. ["No, no!" and "Hear, hear!"] The noble Lord might jeer; but if that expressed his opinion it did not express the opinions of the people of England or of the Members of that House. He said that a Government which had been holding the language which the noble Lord's Government had to the Governments of Germany for the last six months was the last that ought to make the statement that it was contrary to the honour and dignity of this country to use language which we were not prepared to support by force. He understood that it was not the intention of his hon. Friend to take a division upon the Resolutions which he had placed before the House, resting satisfied with the declaration which had been obtained from the noble Lord in his place in Parliament, and speaking as Prime Minister, in corroboration of the statement made by the noble Lord his Colleague in Scotland in the month of September last. His hon. Friend might well rest satisfied with having urged upon the Government the rights and the claims of Poland when his arguments had received the cordial and sympathetic assent of the House.

said, he would not detain the House many minutes, but he wished to set hon. Members right on one or two matters of fact. The hon. Gentleman opposite had used very strong language, but it was easy to do so when speaking without any sense of responsibility. If he were asked to point out what the Government ought to have done, or what he would have done himself in the same position, he doubted very much whether the hon. Gentleman would have carried his views to the extent of going to war with Russia on account of Poland.

desired to say that he had never contemplated anything of the kind.

said, there was no other meaning to be deduced from his arguments. Except to take up arms on behalf of Poland, there was nothing the Government had not done. Over and over again, in the case of Denmark, of Poland, and of Italy, the Government had been twitted with not going to war in support of their views. The Government, on the contrary, believed that the country was not prepared for war, and did not wish for it; and the country, he was sure, gave the Government credit for keeping them out of war. As regarded the despatch so much relied on, it was perfectly true that England, France, and Austria had been acting together in the matter of Poland, and that the joint despatch was prepared which had been read by the hon. Gentleman; but though the French Government agreed to that despatch, the hon. Gentleman was completely mistaken in stating that the Austrian Government had ever agreed to it.

I must beg to disclaim the statement. I stated that the joint despatch was agreed to, supported by the French Government, and sent to St. Petersburg.

said, the hon. Gentleman opposite undoubtedly stated that Austria was one of the three parties agreeing to the despatch. But, in point of fact, it was Austria, and not England, which objected to a particular passage. The hon. Gentleman twitted him, over and over again, with failing to produce the despatch. But it was not in his power to produce a despatch which had never been acted upon nor communicated to the Russian Government, and which had been cancelled, and consequently had no existence. The hon. Gentleman knew that it was a very common practice, in order to save time, to send on a despatch which was not delivered till all the parties concerned had agreed upon it. If afterwards the despatch was not agreed to, it was simply cancelled. The cancelled despatch, which was never delivered, had no existence, but the despatch actually presented to the Russian Government was included in the Correspondence laid before Parliament. The hon. Gentleman objected to the last paragraph of that despatch as differing materially from the one originally contemplated, but for his part he thought it conveyed almost as much as the hon. Gentleman alleged to have been left out. The inference to be drawn from the statement that the rights of Poland were contained in the same instrument which conferred the Emperor's title to be King of Poland plainly was, that if Russia violated the engagements and duties imposed on her by that document she forfeited her title to rule over the nation. As regarded identity of communication, the House must recollect the meaning of the term. First of all, it was very difficult to get several persons to agree to a precise form of words, but when the words were agreed upon in a communication of such a solemn and important character, if their representations were not attended to, it threw upon the Powers who combined for this purpose the responsibility of taking measures to enforce attention to their views. The British Government thought it better not to make such a communication, but to make separate representations which, though not identical in language, should be identical in effect. The despatch to which the hon. Gentleman had so frequently alluded had, in fact, no existence; it had been cancelled; and the despatch laid on the table was that which had been communicated to the Russian Government, That was the whole history of the despatch of which so much had been made, and the House would see how entirely hon. Gentlemen had been misinformed.

said that, after what had passed, he did not wish to press the Motion to a division.

said, he had been long of opinion that the present system of dealing with the Estimates, especially those of the Civil Service, was most unsatisfactory. The number of hon. Members attending when those Estimates were under discussion was always limited, and still fewer took any part in the discussions upon them. It was too late to move that the Estimates generally for the present year be referred to a Select Committee, which would be the most satisfactory method of investigating them; but there were one or two special classes as to which an exceptional course might and ought to be taken. It should be remembered that whatever increase took place on the annual Estimates, except with regard to exceptional items like the Prince of Wales's marriage, or the monument to the Prince Consort, became a permanent source of increase. That increase had jumped up £50,000 during the present year. It was very desirable that the various items should undergo preliminary examination by a Select Committee. He confidently felt that the time had come when the House ought to adopt a different system than the present for the examination of the Estimates. A Committee of the Whole House scarcely ever carried a reduction in the Estimates, though he believed that they did much good in discussing the Estimates generally, yet it was very difficult to follow up such in minute particulars in a large assembly. If a Select Committee were appointed to examine Class No. 2, they might in the meantime in Committee of the Whole House proceed with the other classes. It might be objected that such a Committee would diminish Ministerial responsibility, but that responsibility was a perfect myth, because under the present system, as soon as the House adopted the Estimates, the responsibility of the Government was at an end. He should conclude by moving—

"That the Miscellaneous Civil Service Estimates, Class 2, laid upon the table of the House, be referred to a Select Committee to examine the same in reference to the past expenditure for the Civil Services, and to report to the House any reductions, better arrangement, or other particulars connected with that branch of the Public Expenditure which in their opinion deserve the attention of the House when the said Estimates are under their consideration.

begged to second the Motion. He thought that every hon. Gentleman must agree that nothing could be more unsatisfactory than the present manner of examining the Estimates, and he believed that if the Motion of his hon. Friend were agreed to, it would be productive of great good. The recommendations of the Select Committee of 1860 had in many respects been carried into effect, and much good had resulted there from. He did not see that the responsibility of the Ministers would be one jot lessened whether the Estimates were examined by a Select Committee or by a Committee of the Whole House. He firmly believed that the more the accounts were examined the better the works would be executed.

said, he must remind the hon. Member that the House having negatived the Amendment, and having affirmed that "the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," there was no room for the Motion of the hon. Member. The Question before the House at present was that he "do now leave the Chair."

said, he could not help thinking that the House was likely to be disappointed if it expected any results from the Committee proposed by the hon. Member. The Committee of 1860 examined the most vulnerable of those Estimates—Class 1. They took evidence, but they were unable to agree upon any other recommendation than that the First Commissioner of Works should be a permanent officer of the Civil Service. In 1848 a Committee sat on the subject of miscellaneous expenditure, and they came to the conclusion that the best security for economy was the existence of a Government honestly bent on retrenchment and reduction. Any proposal, however, to refer the Estimates of the current year to a Committee was a step in the wrong direction, because the Committee, and not the Government, would in that case be regarded as responsible for the Estimates. The hon. Gentleman had not got over the difficulty as to time by limiting his proposal to the Votes comprised in Class 2. That class embraced all the Civil Departments of the Government, and if a Committee upstairs were to direct its attention to the reductions which should be made in those establishments, it was obvious that the inquiry could not be terminated before it would be necessary to pass the Estimates. He thought the hon. Gentleman ought to acknowledge that there was a reduction in the Estimates of this year, and that it was satisfactory as far as it went. That reduction was not to be explained away by saying that it was due to the omission of the extraordinary expenses which appeared in the Estimates of previous years. There was an average amount of extraordinary expenses included in the present Estimates. There were, for example, the charges for the building of the new Foreign Office and the Record Office. As to the increase of £56,000, to which the hon. Gentleman had alluded, it could easily be accounted for without imputing extravagance to the Government; £16,000 of it was a merely nominal charge for postages, which went back into the Exchequer; another £16,000 was required for the registry of births and deaths in Ireland, and £10,000 more was required for the inspectorate of fisheries in Ireland, the last two items constituting an increased charge for two new establishments created by Acts of Parliament passed in the last Session. After deducting those sums from the £56,000, they had a residue of £14,000, which was not more than the amount of the ordinary annual increment in the salaries of the different public offices.

said, he thought the reason given for not submitting those Estimates to a Select Committee was most incorrect as regarded the responsibility of the Government, because when the Estimates were agreed to, that responsibility was taken away. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would turn his attention to the subject, and direct that the Estimates should be laid before the House before the 1st of April in each year. He begged to call attention to the great inconvenience of voting money on account.

said, he wished, before Mr. Speaker left the Chair, to put a question to the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty. A short time ago certain rules and regulations were issued for the control and management of the dockyards. One of those rules referred to the superannuation of officers over sixty years of age. It was reported that that rule was to be stringently applied in the dockyard at Devonport, and that all officers there over sixty would have to retire, whereas at Ports mouth, Chatham, and, he believed, other dockyards, a certain number of officers over sixty were to be retained. He wished to ask, Whether the rule is really to be applied stringently to all the dockyards, or whether any of them are to be excepted?

said, that by the Act of Parliament of 1859 all persons above the age of sixty were superannuated without any medical certificate; therefore, it was implied that persons above the age of sixty, unless reported to be still fully equal to the performance of their duties, were all liable to be superannuated. In the case of the dockyards, there had of late years been great stagnation owing to the establishments being so full, and there being so few vacancies amongst them, that there was scarcely an opportunity for the hired men getting on in the establishments. It was also felt very desirable in the dockyards that, in order to insure the great works being carried on with vigour and economy, that after a certain age all persons of the artificer class, no matter how worthy, should be superannuated, and the Admiralty decided that after the age of sixty all inferior officers and all artificers and labourers in Her Majesty's naval establishments should be superannuated, unless they were specially recommended by the superintendents as being men of very active habits and still thoroughly able to their work; but on arriving at the age of sixty-five they would be superannuated as a matter of course. This rule had been applied, not to Devonport alone, but to all the dockyards without any exception; and he could assure the hon. Gentleman that wherever superintendents of yards had stated that certain individuals were of peculiarly active habits, and were still able to do a-good day's work, if they were under sixty-five, they had had an extended time in the service; but in all cases all persons on arriving at the age of sixty-five were superannuated as a matter of course.

begged to ask whether an order had not been recently issued and sent down to Devonport, directing that all the men above sixty, without any exception, should be superannuated? He had been told that several men, between the age of sixty and sixty-five, although well able to perform their duties, would be superannuated.

That is not so.

Sir, in moving the supplementary Estimate for the pay of the navy, I need preface the proposal with but very few remarks. Hon. Gentlemen are, I believe, aware that from time to time there have been very strong representations made, both in this House and out of doors, as to the fact that the pay of the officers and seamen of some classes in the navy is not so generous or so adequate as it ought to be. Sir, we know that the navy have of late years had fewer opportunities for distinguishing themselves and enriching themselves with prize money than they had during the great European war; and from that circumstance, the general rewards which fall to the lot of the navy are certainly very inferior to what they used to be in the days of our forefathers. There are two sources of emolument which are almost wholly lost to the navy in modern days. The one is, as I have said, prize money; the other is the freight that was formerly received on the carriage of gold. In former times, we all took our turns on the principal foreign stations of carrying freights, by which a considerable addition was made to our incomes, but that system has now almost wholly disappeared. It is true we still get a certain amount of advantage occasionally from the capture of pirates and slavers, but, generally speaking, as appeared from the evidence taken before the Committee on Promotion and Retirement last year, the emoluments of the navy are very inferior to what they were in the days of our forefathers. This matter has not been wholly overlooked. From time to time we have made considerable additions to the pay of various classes, but still I believe I am only expressing the opinion of the Committee to which I have referred, when I say that the pay of many branches of the navy is not adequate. The Committee was not permitted by the order of reference to make any statement of that nature to the House, but every one of its members felt that this subject would again be brought under the notice of Parliament. Among the recommendations of the Committee was one for reducing the number of certain classes of officers. That recommendation we are now prepared to carry into effect, and I shall refer at length to this part of our scheme presently. Meanwhile, I wish to direct attention to the first Vote I have to propose, amounting to £55,266, being a proposed addition to the pay and allowances of certain classes of officers and others, to begin on the first of July next. The first thing I have to state is, that the proposed addition will extend to that valuable and magnificent body of men —the petty officers of the navy, who, at present, are not paid so highly as the same class of men in the merchant service. It is not intended to increase the pay of flag officers, but merely to make an addition to their allowances. In the case of flag officers and commodores of the first class commanding-in-chief on foreign stations, we propose to increase the allowances by £547 10s. per annum. Flag officers, not serving under the orders of a senior officer, and in charge of separate stations or squadrons, are to have their allowances increased by £365. Flag officers serving under the orders of a senior officer are to receive when at home an increase of £182 10s., and when on foreign stations £365. Flag officers superintending dockyards are to get an addition when at home of £547, and when abroad £182 10s. Commodores of the second class are to have an increase at home of £182 10s., and abroad £365. I now come to the pay and allowances of captains. Officers in command of ships now-a-days are put to great expense. They are often in company with foreign squadrons, and I must say that the naval officers of most foreign nations are better off than ours in the way of allowances. We have carefully looked into this matter, and we propose to increase the pay and allowances of captains commanding in the way I am about to explain. There are three distinct classes of captains in command of ships, who are entitled to different rates of pay. There are likewise different rates and allowances according to the class of ship commanded. I believe the existing system in that respect is generally approved in the navy; the only question is as to the amount. We propose, then, that captains of the first class commanding sea-going ships will receive an addition to their pay and allowances, ranging from £99 to £162. The same class of captains commanding harbour ships will receive an increase of £53. Captains of the second class in seagoing ships will have an addition of from £89 to £153, and in harbour ships of £44; captains of the third class in seagoing ships from £80 to £144, and in harbour ships of £34. One of the strongest points brought before us in the Committee last year was that commanders in command had insufficient pay; and, accordingly, we propose that they should receive an addition of £86 in seagoing and £63 in harbour ships; and likewise that commanders, as second in command in line-of-battle ships and large frigates, and commanders in the Coastguard, should have a similar addition of £63. It was further stated that lieutenants in command were also underpaid, and to them we mean to give an increase of £50 a year in seagoing and £27 in bar-hour ships. The senior lieutenants of rated ships and troopships without commanders and of ships commanded by commanders are also to have a rise of £27. The gunnery lieutenants will by this scheme be divided into three classes. The first class are to have £45 additional, the second £27, and the third £9. As to the other lieutenants, there was no evidence, I think, to show that their pay was inadequate. I come now to a proposal to create a new class of officers, in distinct accordance with the recommendation of the Committee. The warrant officers complained that when they had got their warrants they had nothing further to look for, and that they could not become officers in a higher grade, such us lieutenants or commanders. It appeared, therefore, to the Committee that a superior class of warrant officers ought to be created; and in carrying out that recommendation, our object is to establish a rank to be attained not by mere seniority, but by energy, activity, and meritorious service on the part of warrant officers. These new officers are to be commissioned officers, and to be styled chief gunners, boatswains, and carpenters, and are to receive £164 per annum. We propose to make twelve altogether among each of the three classes. That is a boon, the Committee will understand, not merely to the warrant officers, but generally to the seamen of the fleet from whom they are selected. We propose also to increase the pay of the warrant officers of the first class by £7, of the second by £6, and of the third by £4, in seagoing ships. In harbour ships the addition will be—first class £7, second class £12, and third class £9. I find I omitted to mention the sub-lieutenants. Their additional pay will be £24 a year. Then the inspectors of ma- chinery are to have an increase of £36. In the full pay of the paymasters we propose an increase of £20; and also that effect should be given to the recommendation of the Committee, that these officers should rise in regard to half-pay by length of service, like other officers, and not, as hitherto, by classification. The assistant-paymasters in charge are to have an increase of £27, and the others an addition according to service, giving a mean of £18. We propose to give the naval instructors an increase of from £27 to £54, the mean being £41. The chief petty officers will have a rise of £3 per annum; the first class petty officers the same; and the third class £1 10s. These are the details of the scheme which I have to submit in regard to the full pay of the navy; and here, properly, I ought to close my statement on this Vote. It may, however, be convenient that I should now advert to the items of the other Vote of £5,775 for additional charge for altering and improving the system of retirement of officers of the navy, and reducing the number on the active list. I quite admit that it is immensely inconvenient that we should have so many lists of retired officers, but after very earnest consideration of the subject, we found that there were so many circumstances and so many classes of officers to be dealt with under various Orders in Council, that any attempt to put them in one single category as retired officers was quite out of the question. All we could do was to see whether there were any officers who, by any arrangement of the Order in Council of 1860, had been damaged in their circumstances, and, if so, to endeavour to rectify the matter. This leads me to a subject often adverted to in this House. Of course, as a naval officer, I could not but sympathize with any class of naval officers really aggrieved; and I am now about to advert to a grievance which has been very loudly complained of by certain officers affected by the Order in Council of 1860. I will endeavour presently to explain that Order in Council, but what I now wish clearly and distinctly to state is, that in the scheme I am about to propose I do not interfere with or alter in any way any classes of retirements existing previous to the Order in Council of 1860. One reason why I wish to make that clear is, because there is a distinction between that Order in Council and any previous Order in Council, inasmuch as that was the first instance of any- thing like compulsory retirement of captains. I will now explain what that Order in Council was. At the period when it was issued, our lists of superior officers in the navy were in a very unsatisfactory state. Promotion was almost stagnant, and our flag officers, though most gallant, were certainly not so efficient for active service as might have been wished. Consequently, it was then decided to place captains compulsorily on the retired list upon certain terms. Speaking now entirely of the half-pay active captains, I may here state that in the navy there are three classes of them. The first class receives 14s. 6d. a day, the second 12s. 6d., and the third 10s. 6d. It was then decided, when the Order in Council of 1860 was issued, that captains arriving at the age of sixty should be retired compulsorily. Now, we excluded from that Order in Council the first class of captains entirely, because they were considered to be so near their flag that it was thought that it would be a matter of injustice to cut them off from the opportunity of arriving at it; but with regard to captains of the second and third classes the retirement was compulsory. They got an increase of pay, those receiving 12s. 6d. having their pay immediately increased up to 20s., and those receiving 10s. 6d. having their pay increased to 18s.; but still they felt the arrangement as a grievance, because, as the first class captains would rise to the half-pay of rear admiral, 25s., they thought they might with equal justice rise to the same amount of pay likewise. They undoubtedly got an immediate rise in pay, but they lost the chance of a further ultimate rise. That circumstance had been often adverted to in this House, and it had been stated that the officers felt it as a grievance; and we now propose to issue an Order in Council by which captains of the second class who have not completed their sea service shall, on arriving at the age of sixty, be retired on 20s. a day, as is the case at present, but that on arriving at their flag rank they shall receive 25s. a day. That is the increase we propose with respect to them. The captains of the third class who have not completed their sea service will, on arriving at the age of sixty, be retired on 18s. a day, as now, but on arriving at the flag list they will also receive 25s. a day. This proposal only extends to captains on the captains' list before the date of the Order in Council of 1860, with regard to whom it was said that injustice had been committed. In making this arrangement the Government thought that it would be unjust to withhold a boon from the commanders and lieutenants who, when retired compulsorily by the Order in Council of 1860, did not rise in pay. We propose that commanders and lieutenants, retired compulsorily under the Order in Council of 1860, are to rise in pay in their respective ranks as they would have done had they remained on the active lists of their ranks; and I trust that this will be considered satisfactory by those gallant officers. So much for the Order in Council of 1860; and now I have to propose a new scheme, with the view of carrying out the recommendations of the Committee to which I have referred—that the captains' list should be reduced to 300, and the commanders' list to 400. We propose to set about this in the following way. Those captains who have served one year at sea in their present rank, but who have not completed their term, may, on arriving at the age of fifty, with the consent of the Admiralty, and on arriving at the age of fifty-five may claim, and on arriving at the age of sixty must, under any circumstances, be retired on 20s. a day, to be increased to 25s. on arriving at the flag list. As soon, however, as the list is reduced to the number of 300, we do not propose to have the power of retiring officers at the age of fifty. With regard to the next class of captains, who have not served this one year, it is proposed that on arriving at the age of fifty they may with the consent of the Admiralty, and on arriving at the age of fifty-five they may on their claim, and on arriving at the age of sixty they must, under any circumstances, be retired at 18s. a day, which will be increased to 20s. on their arriving at the flag list. That, then, is the proposal which we have to lay before the Committee, with a view to the reduction of the captains' list from 350 to 300. And now I come to the last recommendation of the Committee— namely, that the commanders' list should be reduced from 450 to 400. The compulsory retirement of 1860 said this—that any officer who had not served within the last fifteen years should be included in that Order in Council. What we propose is that officers who have not served within ten years — which, of course, will include a greater number — shall be comprehended under that Order in Council. They will receive the rank of captains on reaching the age of sixty, or attaining fifteen years' seniority as commanders without increased pay. In addition to this we propose that a limited number of commanders, on arriving at the age of forty-five, may with the consent of the Admiralty be retired, at fifty-five may claim to be retired, and at sixty must, under any circumstances, be retired upon the same terms as I have already adverted to, with pay in proportion to their length of service. There is another recommendation of the Committee which, I am sorry to say, we cannot carry out. It suggested that the lieutenants should not exceed 1,000, or, in other words, that our lieutenants' list should be kept up to 1,000. But I am sorry to say it is far short of that number. What we propose is, that the establishment of lieutenants shall not exceed 1,000, and also—not with a view to the reduction of the list, which is too small already, but as a matter which was brought before us by the Committee of last year — that if from any circumstance lieutenants should be unable to rise in the service they should, on arriving at the age of forty-five, and having seen certain service, be allowed to retire. We propose, therefore, that lieutenants of forty-five, who have had fifteen years' service, may claim to be retired with the rank of commander, under the conditions prescribed by Order in Council of 1860 — that is to say, their position as regards pay will depend, as with commanders, upon their length of service, I may state, likewise, that when they have been fifteen years on the lieutenants' list they may assume the rank of retired commanders, but that is not to carry with it any increase of pay. These are the proposals which I have to make to the Committee. There are two or three incidental matters which have been recommended by the Committee, to which I will now refer. We had evidence to the effect that the time served in the Coastguard had not received sufficient consideration. By the rules of the navy the time passed in the Coastguard counted only as one-third, and the Committee recommended that it should have a greater value. It is, therefore, proposed that in all calculations the time so passed shall count for one-half to officers retiring in future; and that, I think, will be found a considerable boon. There are various other recommendations, one of which, for instance, is that no officer should be promoted to the active flag rank who had not served three years at least in command of a bonâ fide sea-going ship. That is a very proper recommendation, and will be embodied in an Order in Council. I think I have now adverted to the principal recommendations of the Committee, and I have only to add that I am quite convinced, if hon. Members will entertain these proposals, they will confer a great boon on the navy generally; and, although I do not admit that the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. W. Williams) is right in maintaining that the officers of the navy are overpaid, I trust, if these proposals are agreed to, they will be satisfied.

said, he had listened with great attention to the speech of the noble Lord, and was filled with disappointment that no allusion had been made throughout the whole of that speech to a class of officers upon which the safety of the navy of England in a great measure depended, and who he had yet to learn had done anything to deprive them of the benefits which were to be conferred on their more fortunate brother officers—he alluded to the masters of the Royal Navy. That class of officers considered themselves very ill-used. In the year 1824 an Admiralty memorandum was issued authorizing the admission of second-class volunteers, and at the same time forming a new rating open to the merchant service; but instead of training those officers as seamen and navigators, every possible obstacle was, as a rule, thrown in their way, and they were sternly told that they were never to receive any higher pay than that of masters. That order remained in force seven or eight years, and brought many promising young men into the navy, but they soon retired in disgust. That was the first attempt at introducing a class of officers from the merchant service into the Royal Navy. In the Baltic campaigns of 1854 and 1855 the masters were again called into action, and before landing at Bomarsund a consultation of the masters serving in the fleet was held, and to their exertions our success was in a great measure due, as he had abundant evidence to prove. He did not wish to puff unduly the services of any one class of officers, but he thought he might fairly ask, that when the services and requirements of other classes were under consideration, the services and requirements of the masters should not pass unnoticed. On the 30th of June, 1863, Her Majesty issued an Order in Council conferring upon the masters who had served fifteen years the title of staff commander, but that carried with it no additional pay or honour. It was true that under certain circumstances a staff commander might receive additional pay if there should be no warrant officer on board, but that happened so seldom that it was not worth taking into consideration. That order appeared to give rank, but by its last paragraph it placed the staff commanders, in all instances, junior to the lieutenants; and all persons must feel that a man who had served with credit for many years might naturally consider himself aggrieved to find himself suddenly placed under the command of perhaps a mere lad. Then, of all the ship's crew, the staff commanders and masters alone seemed to be disqualified from receiving marks of Royal approbation for distinguished services. In illustration he would refer to the case of Mr. William Roberts, a master in the Royal Navy, who, during the Crimean war, commanded the Cyclops when in action, and performed equally distinguished services with other commanders of steamers, but was passed over unnoticed. The difference of pay between the staff commanders and masters, and the paymasters and surgeons, formed a just ground of complaint. The staff commanders and masters received on promotion £182 per annum, while the surgeons received £273, and paymasters £249. After ten years' service the staff commanders and masters received £237, while the surgeons received £328, and paymasters £349. After twenty years' service the staff commanders and masters received £328, surgeons £401, and paymasters £600. In the half-pay the same difference existed. Now, when the noble Lord proposed to do justice to various classes in the navy, it was hard that those meritorious officers of whom he was speaking should be forgotten. If those officers were not of a meritorious and deserving class it would be far better to abolish such class altogether. The arguments used by the staff commanders and masters of the Royal Navy seemed to him to be founded on common sense, and he hoped that the House of Commons on some future occasion would take their case into their consideration with a view to obtaining for them redress. They asked now that their pay should not be so disproportionate to that of the surgeons and other officers he had mentioned, that they should share in any increase of pay to be provided by the supplementary Estimate, that they should take seniority with lieutenants except when on active service, and should be as competent to receive marks of Royal approbation as any other class of officers in the navy. It appeared to him that it would be only fair play, and in accordance with the dictates of common sense, to remove the present injustice done them.

said, he wished to bring under the notice of the Committee the claims of the warrant officers. He had received an address, signed by a large number of warrant officers, complaining of the stinted amount of their salaries, and of the small increase proposed to be made to their pay. They also commented upon the manner in which the Lords of the Admiralty proposed to create twelve new warrant officers of each class.

We propose to create twelve chief warrant officers, twelve chief boatswains, and twelve chief carpenters; making altogether an addition of thirty-six chief warrant officers.

said, he was then to understand that there would be thirty-six new creations in a body of 1,200 warrant officers. What the warrant officers wished brought under the notice of the House was that they desired an increase of pay for increased services. They complained that at present an officer of twenty years in the first class received no more pay than one just promoted to that grade. They further complained of the maximum retiring pension, and prayed for increased pay instead, and also an increase in the widows' pensions of the first class, the present practice being that the widow who had been longest in the first class received no more than the widow of the third-class officer who had been promoted to a warrant officer. They requested him to place their claims before the Committee with due respect, believing that they were so moderate and reasonable that their justice would be admitted. He was delighted to hear the noble Lord say he had arrived at the conclusion that an increase of pay should be given to the officers of the navy, on account of the large increase of pay that had taken place in the merchant service. Unless some such step were taken by the noble Lord it would be impossible to maintain the Royal Navy in a proper state of efficiency.

said, he must congratulate the noble Lord on having introduced this proposal to raise the amount of the allowances to officers, for the condition of naval officers up to the present time had been so impoverished that it was absolutely necessary that the House should take some means for making the service more remunerative. He did not concur with him, however, in thinking that the distribution of the additional £60,000 was the best that could be adopted. The scale of pay to the officers of the navy was a matter which must emanate from the Ministers of the Crown. It was not a constitutional course for an independent Member to move an increase of pay; but he concurred in what had fallen from the hon. Baronet the Member for Devonshire (Sir Lawrence Palk), with respect to the pay of the masters. The case of the masters had been inquired into by the Admiralty, and had been before a Committee of that House; and though the justice of their claim could not be denied, no allowance was made to them in the present arrangement. It would have been more satisfactory if the particulars of the pay and allowances to flag officers had been set out on the paper which was in the hands of hon. Members, The increase in the table allowances to flag officers on foreign stations would not in all cases be sufficient; and instead of being fixed at £547, it would have been better to apportion the amount of the addition to the expenditure on the particular station. There were three very expensive and at the same time very important stations—the Mediterranean, the East Indies, and the West Indies and North America. It must be for the interest of the country that the best men should be sent to those stations; and yet he knew that certain officers had been requested to accept those commands, and had declined to do so because the pay and allowances were insufficient. He had made that statement on a former occasion, and had been met with a contradiction. Technically he was wrong. He supposed there had been no case in which any one of those commands had been refused by an officer after receipt of the official letter offering him the command; but the custom was for the First Lord to ascertain through his private secretary the wishes of an officer whom he desired to appoint to a com- mand, and it was to refusals made in answer to private letters that he alluded on the former occasion. The command in the Mediterranean was one usually held by an Admiral or a Vice Admiral. Some time ago, to his own knowledge, two Vice Admirals were asked privately whether they would take that command, and both refused to do so. A Rear Admiral, who was now a Vice Admiral, subsequently accepted the command, after four flag officers had declined it. The command in the East Indies and China had been declined in the same way. Sir James Hope, who had just returned from the command, told a Committee that he had been spending nearly £7,000 a year during the whole time he was on the East India station. His pay and allowances from the Admiralty amounted to £2,500, in addition to which he had the East India allowance of £3,000 a year—making £5,500, and as he was a man of considerable private fortune he was able to spend more. Vice Admiral Kuper, who succeeded him in that command, lost the £3,000, the East India allowance, so that he had only £2,500 a year to support the position which it had cost his predecessor nearly £7,000 a year to maintain. The additional allowance of £547 was not enough in such a case as that. On the West India and North American command the pay and emoluments of the Admiral in command amounted in the year 1834 to £14,000. They were now only £3,000, and a commander-in-chief on that station who had not a private fortune could not perform his duty in a manner acceptable to the country, and calculated to uphold good relations with the officers of foreign nations. The Governor of Malta had a salary of £5,000 a year, with allowances which brought his official income up to nearly £6,000, and yet, though his emoluments were greater, his position was no higher than that of the Commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. The Governor of Gibraltar also had pay and allowances far exceeding those of the commander-in-chief. The discrepancy was still more marked in the East. He thought that instead of making a fixed allowance without reference to the station on which the admirals were to be employed, it would have been better if the Admiralty had taken into consideration the nature of the employment, and apportioned the allowance with reference to the demands likely to be made upon the officer. He hoped that during the recess the Admiralty would consider the matter, and before the next Estimate was laid on the table would be ready with a plan which would give admirals commanding fleets a rate of pay commensurate with the duties they had to perform, with the demands on their means, and calculated according to the importance of the stations on which their flags were hoisted. With regard to the home ports, the commander-in-chief at Portsmouth ought certainly to have some addition to his pay. He had much greater demands on his means than the commanders at Plymouth and the Nore. The nearness of Portsmouth to town and to the neighbourhood in which the Court usually was, threw upon the commander-in-chief expenses which had often been felt to be a heavy tax. The estimated increase of £365 per annum for the commodores must be a mistake, because the five commodores already appeared to have 10s. per day, so that the increase would only be £182 10s. The increase to the captains appeared very considerable on paper, but in reality no one would get it. A captain must be in the first-class and must command a first-class ship; but there were only two first-class ships afloat which had not admirals on board, and these were commanded by second-class captains. He did not agree that this mode of paying captains would be agreeable to the service. Officers desired that their pay and command money should all be made into pay; for, though it was quite true that no one could command a ship without spending far more than the command money, yet a captain liked to feel that he was spending the money out of his own pocket, and not a sum of money intrusted to him to be filtered through his fingers for the public service. He regretted that the Admiralty had not considered the question of ships' bands, small though it might be. The bandsmen were paid as men, but the bandmaster was not paid. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: He is rated.] Yes, but he was sure his noble Friend, who was very fond of music, and who had an excellent band on board the Princess Royal, had not got the services of his bandmaster for the ship's rating. When a ship was commissioned the captain had to put his hand into his pocket for about £300 for instruments, he had to put the band into uniform, and to find some £40 a year for the bandmaster. And all this was only for about three years, when the instruments were dispersed and the band broken up, again to go through the same process in other ships. He hoped that some plan would be devised for the organization of bands, by which captains would be relieved from this heavy expense. He should be glad to hear how the gunnery lieutenants were to be divided into classes. If the first class was to be attained only through an examination so stringent that no one would pass it, then the advantages of this new plan were not likely to be very generally enjoyed. With regard to the increased pay to engineers, he believed there were only two chief engineers at present in a position to receive. Turning to the explanatory statement as to retired pay, he was glad to find that some few of the captains were at last to receive that consideration which was their due, and the plan for reducing the list would probably turn out to be a very fair one. He was also glad to hear that the case of the commanders and lieutenants was under the consideration of the Admiralty, while he regretted to find that no provision was made for any increase of half-pay. He would, in conclusion, appeal to his noble Friend to endeavour to procure during the recess the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the subject of the pay of the navy, for he might be assured no Estimate such as that before the House could give complete satisfaction, seeing that whole classes of officers were overlooked. He could not, he might add, think that the proposal to give only half-time to officers serving in the Coastguard would be looked upon with favour, and he would suggest that, as had been recommended by a Committee of the House, the time should be raised to two-thirds. He would only say, further, that he concurred in much that had fallen from the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Ferrand) with respect to warrant officers.

said, the Question before the Committee was the Vote of £55,256. He wished to know what necessity existed for the proposed increase of pay at a time when we were in a state of profound peace? As to the bands on board ship which had been mentioned, he believed they were totally unknown before the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. All the increase was proposed to be for the officers, there was none for the hard-working sailor.

said, it had been the constant effort of the various Departments for many years to make the Estimates as intelligible as possible, but that he never saw Estimates which were less intelligible than those before the Committee. If it had not been for the lucid explanation of the "Explanatory Statement," which they had heard from the Secretary of the Admiralty, it would have been almost impossible to understand it, and in some respects it was inaccurate as well as obscure. He was not, however, disposed to "look a gift horse in the mouth," especially when he recollected that the noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty had not, in the memorandum of last year, held out much encouragement that any increase would be made in the enrolments of certain classes of officers. He quite concurred with his hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Ferrand), and his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wakefield (Sir John Hay), in almost everything which had fallen from them with respect to the warrant officers, and also with respect to i the emoluments of flag officers, both at home and abroad. Indeed, he considered it to be one of the greatest defects of the present scheme that it did not increase the allowances of the flag officers commanding in chief at the home ports, as well as those of flag officers on foreign stations. He had, on a previous occasion, stated that he knew a home port in which he believed no officer could hold a command without having a considerable private fortune. The station he had in his mind was Portsmouth, where the admiral was required, frequently by introductions from the Admiralty, to entertain foreigners and other persons of distinction, The same might be said in a lesser degree of Devonport, but Sheerness was a place to which nobody would go unless he was obliged, and which everyone left as soon as possible. He might state that he had, in order to test the accuracy of his own views on the subject, written to four distinguished admirals, friends of his, who; had held commands in chief both at home and abroad, and that the answers which he had received were as follows. One of those officers said—

"Speaking from my own experience (on a foreign station), I spent more than the naval pay and allowances every year of the whole period of my command. The Portsmouth command is very expensive, from the increasing number of persons of rank and position— foreigners and others—who look for some notice from the commander-in-chief, and who, in many instances, are introduced by letter or otherwise to him. I endeavoured to keep expenditure within reasonable limits, but during the year when I had the pay and allowances of vice-admiral, my naval receipts were £2,697 18s. 11d., and my expenditure £3,384 3s., 0½d., or.£686 4s. 1½d., more. I have carefully rejected payments unconnected with the necessities of my position, and I limited myself to one pair of carriage horses."

Another admiral, who had held command both at home and abroad, said —

"You surprise me by telling me that the proposed addition to the table money of commanders-in-chief does not include any advantage to those serving at the ports at home, as I apprehend those are the very officers whose tables are necessarily the most expensive, although in India the article of consumption cost more."

And he then goes on to say that his expenses at a home port so greatly exceeded his naval pay and allowances that if he had been without private means he could not have retained the command. Another officer said—

"I think the intended increase of table money on foreign stations very necessary, and by no means too much; but if it be required there, it is much more called for at the ports, where it is impossible to get out of the way by going to sea, and where you are continually called on to exercise hospitality which is unavoidable, and more especially so at Portsmouth and Plymouth. While in command abroad my expenses during my three years exceeded my pay and allowances by £1,200."

He then added that his expenses while commanding at a home port exceeded his pay and allowances by a considerably larger amount. A fourth admiral wrote—

"I object altogether to the principle on which our commanders-in-chief are paid, and the most remarkable inconsistency is at Portsmouth. I was very unexpectedly nominated to that command, and although my duties, as well as what was expected of me, were precisely the same as if I had been a full admiral, and Royal and other personages were constantly sent to partake of my hospitality, yet, because I was only a vice-admiral nearly £500 a year, including allowances, was cut off my salary, and the result was that at the termination of my command, I was several thousand pounds out of pocket."

He hoped that the several points urged in the course of the discussion would be taken into consideration by his noble Friend, and that among others he would not overlook the inadequate remuneration given to the commanders-in-chief of the home ports. He thought, too, that the full pay of lieutenants and commanders ought to be in some degree proportioned to their half-pay. This would be only in accordance with the recommendation of the Commissioners of Naval and Military Inquiry in 1860, which was to the effect that, as an inducement to officers to seek active service, the amount of their full pay ought to be fixed in relation to that of their half-pay, but under the present arrangement, a lieutenant (unless entitled to an exceptional allow- ance) of nine or ten years sea service, and on the half-pay list of 9s. a day, would receive no higher an amount of full pay than a lieutenant just promoted to that rank, and on the half-pay of 4s. a day. His noble Friend had stated that all the meritorious officers of long standing were either in command, or serving as first, or as gunnery lieutenants; but he (Mr. Corry) thought that was a very invidious remark, and he believed that there were many excellent officers of long standing who were not serving in any of those capacities. But even if it were otherwise, it would not meet his argument, because he thought that, in addition to their special allowances, first lieutenants and gunnery lieutenants ought also to receive full pay, having some relation to the position they had earned, by service on the half-pay list. In the case of captains their command money varied according to the complements of their ships, but the amount of their pay depended on their position on the half-pay list, and he thought that lieutenants had a special claim to be treated on the same principle, because while captains rose to the higher rates of half-pay by seniority, they did so by actual service at sea. He was glad to hear that the Admiralty had at last consented to do an act of justice to the captains affected by the Order in Council of 1860, and he hoped that the same spirit would guide the Admiralty in dealing with the various grievances which had been pointed out in the course of this discussion.

said, he must complain that a small class of officers would receive no increase of pay by one of the arrangements proposed; but would, on the contrary, rather be deprived of a portion of what was already allotted to them. He alluded to the captains in the harbour ships, the Excellent, the Britannia, and the gunnery ships. At present the captain of the Excellent received £800 a year, and the captains of the Britannia and other harbour ships £700. It was, however, proposed that the salary of the former should vary from £691 to £819, and the latter from £591 to £719, so that although it was possible for them to receive an increase of £19, it was also possible that they might be deprived of £109. He regarded the arrangement proposed, with reference to captains on the retired and reserved lists, as a most extravagant one. It would really give some colour to the statement which had been made, that there was no service where an officer could do so little and get so much, or do so much and get so little.

said, he approved generally of the proposals of the Government, but regretted that they did not go far enough. He could not understand how the noble Lord had overlooked the case of the masters, and hoped that their services would still be recognized by the making of some addition to their pay. If a system of age retirement was adopted at all it ought to be fully carried out, and not confined to a single rank, so that while a captain should be retired at sixty an admiral might remain on the active list till he was a hundred. It would no doubt cost a considerable sum so to extend the system, but he believed that the money would be well spent. The hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Williams) said that if money was given to one service it ought to be given to all; but that argument would not apply until the pay of the navy had been raised to an equality with those of the army and the Civil Service, to both of which it was at present inferior.

said, he wished it to be distinctly understood that, although he should agree to the Vote, he did not approve the scheme which had been brought before the House, which he regarded as totally inadequate, delusive in itself, and, in fact, a complete and perfect sham. Since he had been in the House he had never seen a more awkwardly framed paper than that which had been laid upon the table to explain it, and nothing could more dispose him to regret the retirement of the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) from the Admiralty than the appearance of such a wretched attempt at exposition. When he, three years ago, carried against the Government the appointment of a Select Committee to investigate the claims of the navy, he was told that he had done a most unconstitutional act; but on the 9th of February, 1773, Viscount Howe presented a petition from captains in the navy, praying for a reasonable increase of their half-pay; and it was, by a majority of 154 to 45, referred to a Committee. Hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House had always contended that this question ought to be dealt with by the appointment of a Royal Commission; and the incongruities of this scheme were so numerous and so important, that such an inquiry could not long be refused. It was quite impossible that flag officers on foreign sta- tions should exist upon their pay even with the addition which it was now proposed to make to it, and it was not seemly that officers should be called upon to contribute from their private means to the service of the State, A gallant admiral who had held the command of the China station told him that he could not exist upon less than £3,500 a year, and that to live like those with whom he associated would have cost him £5,000. There was not a clerk in any commercial establishment in China who was not better paid than a post captain, and there was not a man who went there who might not with prudence amass a largo fortune in a few years. It would not be unfair that a trifling percentage should be levied upon the trade in those, seas to remunerate the officers who wasted their lives and spent their fortunes in its protection. The flag in the East Indies was in exactly the same position. At present India enjoyed peace, unrestricted commerce, and other blessings, for which the Indian community was not called upon to pay one farthing, while the British taxpayer had to find the money, and the British officer was called upon to expend health, and even his private resources. The next subject was as to the lieutenants The service might get on without admirals or captains, but not without lieutenants, who were the real executive officers, and therefore were entitled to consideration. It was alleged that the pay of lieutenants for the first two or three years after appointment was adequate, but that certainly would not be the case upon the China, East India, and Pacific stations. The main body of the lieutenants, who could not look for promotion under an average of ten years, remained at the same rate of pay; and as sometimes lieutenants at the age of thirty unfortunately married, it was hard to conceive how they could manage to live upon £182 a year. The recommendation in respect to those officers was an increase of pay every three years. Coming to the warrant officers, who, next to the lieutenants, were most important to the service, he found that their number was 1,200, and the Admiralty proposition was to give to 12 warrant officers of each class a trifling increase of pay. Thus, 36 warrant officers out of 1,200 were to receive 5d. a day additional with the rank of chief of their class. He had to complain that there was not an equal treatment of warrant officers in the navy with non-commissioned officers in the army. Thus in the recent New Zealand war a sergeant in the army and a captain's coxswain in the navy, a petty officer, each obtained the Victoria Cross. The sergeant soon after was appointed to an ensigncy, and the coxswain was offered a warrant, which he from prudential reasons declined, as his acceptance of the offer would have placed him in a worse position. From his own experience upon the Commission for Manning the Navy in 1860, he could say that the opinion of the Commission was that the status of the warrant officers ought to be improved. How was it possible that the men who were the backbone of the navy could be expected in time of war to exert themselves to recruit our navy when no encouragement was held out to them? With respect to the engineers, the complaint of the inspectors of machinery who had sometimes a large amount of horse-power and many engineers under their supervision, was that they only received a guinea a day, while men of the same standing in the commercial marine received £1,000 or £1,200 a year. In conclusion, he would only repeat that he wished to guard himself from approving the paper before the House until a Royal Commission could be obtained to decide upon the merits of the question, instead of the Admiralty, taking advantage of a few observations of a Committee not appointed to consider the subject, adopting their own notions upon it.

said, he thought it scarcely consistent that in bringing forward so large a scheme as the present he should be taunted with wishing to stifle all the fair claims of the navy. He should be extremely happy if ever it fell to his lot to propose an increase of the pay of the navy, but at present he was doing all that lay in his power. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wakefield (Sir John Hay), through misreading the paper which he had made the subject of comment, fell into two unintentional mistakes. The commanders of the second class, it was true, received 10s. a day, which had reference to their captain's commandment, but; they also got £1 a day table money.

begged to ask whether he was to understand that they received both allowances?

Yes; £1 abroad, and 10s. at home. The additional allowance, moreover, to first lieutenants of ships commanded by commanders was 1s. 6d. a day, and not 6d., as had been represented. His hon. And gallant Friend, he knew, was trusting to the statements of a very clever friend who prompted him on these occasions, but when he looked into the matter he would find that he had been misled. He admitted to his right hon. Friend the Member for Tyrone that Portsmouth was a very expensive station, but it must be borne in mind that flag officers in command at home were relieved from the necessity of keeping up double establishments, which formed the great tax upon officers engaged in active service abroad. He wished his right hon. Friend had not attributed to him an invidious remark with regard to lieutenants. As a matter of fact, more than half the lieutenants now employed were receiving extra allowances, either as senior lieutenants or as gunnery lieutenants, and that be thought was a very fair proportion. The invaluable class of officers on whose behalf the hon. Baronet the Member for Devonshire (Sir Lawrence Palk) had spoken, were not included in the present scheme, but questions affecting their rank and position had been very recently dealt with. It was an old moot point in the navy, whether the rank of master ought to be maintained or done away with, and the discussion attained such dimensions that the Admiralty appointed a Committee to take evidence and report. The masters themselves, with few exceptions, were in favour, not of an increase of pay, but of rank; but some grievance having been brought forward as to the widows' pensions, they were increased by a subsequent Order in Council, and likewise fifteen out-pensions were given to these officers in Greenwich Hospital. The rank of staff captain and that of staff commander had likewise been created; but the main difficulty remained, and, for all he could see, must continue, and that was that the officer of the watch must always be in command on deck. In all social matters masters took rank according to the dates of their commissions. There was nothing in the regulations that he knew of to prevent staff commanders from being decorated with the Companionship of the Bath, but these were points affecting the prerogative of the Sovereign, and not properly falling under the cognizance of that House. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Berkeley) complained that officers on the retired list were paid higher than officers of the same rank on the active list. That, however, was always the case. The Admiralty were obliged to give officers some inducement to retire, and thus it happened that retired captains who could not be called upon for service were in certain cases receiving more than officers on the active list.

said, that the noble Lord had either misunderstood him, or was not acquainted with the real state of the case. It was proposed that these particular captains when they became retired rear-admirals should receive the same pay as the active rear-admirals—namely, 25s. a day. That was far more than they ever applied for, and was unjust to all the officers on the active list. He should move for the reduction of the sum voted for retirement,

said, that the officers who had been placed on the retired list under the Order in Council of 1860 were the second and third class of captains. They received by the present proposal as much as rear-admirals on the active list, but the latter could rise to the rank of vice and full admiral with corresponding rise in pay which they were debarred from.

said, he thought it had been shown by his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) that admirals who were formerly in the receipt of batta and prize money, &c., were now placed in an inferior position to that which they formerly occupied. Their position was also inferior to that of the admirals in other services. He lamented that the noble Lord had not proposed some increase of pay for the masters. The noble Lord said he looked upon them as an invaluable class of officers, but it was extraordinary that in raising the rank of those officers he did not place them in a position to enjoy the rank that was given to them. He trusted that the Admiralty would give their best consideration to this subject, and also to the recommendation of the Select Committee of last year, that the pay of a lieutenant on full pay should be increased with length of service. Look at the position in which lieutenants on full pay were now placed. The noble Lord said that if an officer had a love or zeal for the service he would become a gunnery lieutenant or first lieutenant. [Lord CLARENCE PAGET: I said they can get up to it.] But the number of gunnery lieutenants and first lieutenants was limited. The consequence of the full pay not increasing with length of service was, that senior lieutenants of long service would in very many instances be receiving less emolument than junior gunnery lieutenants of very little service. Take an instance from a ship commanded by a captain with no commander. The first lieutenant with eleven years' service and the army rank of major received 10s. a day pay and an allowance of 2s. 6d., making his total emolument 12s. 6d. The second lieutenant with eight years' service and the rank of major was receiving 10s. a day and no allowances; while the gunnery lieutenant with two years' service and the rank of captain was receiving 10s. pay, and allowances varying according to class, and amounting altogether either to 11s. 6d., 12s. 6d., or 13s. 6d. In another ease of a ship commanded by a captain with a commander, the gunnery lieutenant with the army rank of captain and only three years' service was receiving 13s. 6d. a day against an officer of nine years' standing and with the rank of major, but who only received 10s. a day. These instances showed that long service and rank were not considered in regard to emolument. The injustice. however, would be at once removed if the pay increased with service, as recommended in the scheme of his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay). He had received many communications on this subject. which he would assure the noble Lord was regarded with great interest by the lieutenants in the service. With respect to the active list, he considered it highly desirable that it should be reduced. If they expected officers to retire they must offer some inducement for them to do so; and the sum now proposed, among so large a number of officers, was totally insufficient for the purpose. The warrant officers of the navy were a most valuable class. Their services were most valuable, and their position should be made as good as possible. That was the goal to which sailors were encouraged to look, and he had over and over again known blue jackets to refuse a warrant when offered to them because they knew their position would not be improved. The pittance which was now offered to thirty-six warrant officers out of 1,200 was almost worthy of ridicule. There was another point which was viewed with great interest in the service — he meant the question of leave. When an officer came home, after being perhaps four years on an unhealthy foreign station, it was not too much that he should be allowed a few months' leave on full pay—he would say one month for every year of foreign service. That was already the case with regard to seamen. They had six weeks or two months' leave, and it was essential to the happiness of officers that they should know a little of shore life. These questions were regarded with great interest in the service; and, acting in a spirit of fairness, he believed the intention of the Committee was to benefit the position of naval officers.

said, he had no objection to the Vote, but was decidedly opposed to the mode in which it was proposed to apply it. The masters were a most valuable class, whose claims he had repeatedly urged on the attention of the Government; but although he had always been promised that their case would be considered, they were now passed over entirely. Paymasters, who had charge only of accounts and provisions, received double the pay of masters, who were responsible for the safe navigation of the ship; yet the former were by this scheme to receive additional pay, while the latter were passed over in silence. He begged to move that the Chairman report Progress, in order that the scheme might be reconsidered, and he hoped when next it I was produced they would find it embraced the case of the masters and other points that had been urged in the course of the debate.

begged to explain that his meaning, when he spoke, was that all classes of lieutenants should be paid according to their service.

considered that the reserved captains had been treated with great injustice, and he hoped they would yet be placed in the position they deserved.

said, there were many widows of warrant officers living in the poorhouse of Devonport Union. If those persons had the pensions which they enjoyed formerly restored to them, that disgrace would be removed from the country.

hoped that some explanation would be afforded in regard to the case of the reserved captains referred to by the hon. and gallant Member for Beverley (Colonel Edwards).

said, the case of those officers had been disposed of. The boon had been granted to them.

must say he was under a very different impression to that. He did not understand that redress had been given to those reserved captains, otherwise he should not have alluded to their case. Perhaps the noble Lord would state what were the further advantages which had been conceded to them.

said, he could only repeat that they had granted them the boon. The officers now in question were those who retired under the Order in Council of 1860.

The reserved captains on the "F.G." list.

did not know what the list was called, but he referred to a meritorious class of officers who were put upon the reserved list a few years ago, and not allowed to rise to their flag as other officers did. They were excluded from attaining the rank which they otherwise would have attained in consideration of some paltry remuneration that they would never have accepted if the matter had been fairly left to them.

said, he hoped that, as they had been discussing this question for several hours, they would now come to a vote upon it.

said, he would withdraw his Motion for reporting Progress if a pledge were given that justice would be done to the masters.

said, the "F.G." list had not been dealt with at all, and formed a question that must be raised again. The grievance of the lieutenants in respect to leave, demanded attention. Those officers asked for a month's leave in every year, which was a small boon. They were now practically isolated from their friends, even when on the home station.

said, that if the Admiralty would examine that matter, and take into consideration the other officers who were nearly in the same position as those concerned in this Vote, it would see that it could not stop there, but must go a good deal further.

begged to point out the clear distinction which existed between the case of those captains whose retirement on the reserved list was voluntary, and those whose retirement was compulsory.