said, he rose to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether there has been any Official Correspondence from the Commander-in-Chief at Devonport on the subject of the recent inspection of the Research; and, if so, whether he will lay it on the table of the House?

, in reply, said, there was a very great objection to laying the Confidential Reports of Naval Officers to the Admiralty on the table of the House. If his hon. and gallant Friend would state any particular points in the case on which he wished for information, he should be very happy to furnish him with it. He objected to the production of the Correspondence in question simply on the ground of principle.

said, he had put a similar Question to the noble Lord a few nights ago, and he had stated in reply that he would lay the Correspondence on the table.

My hon. and gallant Friend alludes to further Correspondence.

said, he must urge upon the noble Lord the expediency of producing the letter for which he had just asked, as it involved the character of a distinguished officer, and also the quality of one of Her Majesty's Ships.

If my hon. and gallant Friend puts it to me in that way I cannot refuse, but as a rule it is my duty to object to produce Reports from officers, which are always more or less of a confidential nature.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether his attention has been called to the disastrous condition of the Colony of Lagos, and to the circumstance that the policy adopted by the Governor has destroyed the trade with Abbeokouta, and compelled its inhabitants to defend themselves against the recent attack of the King of Dahomey with ammunition purchased in exchange for slaves from French merchants at Porto Novo; and that thus the Colony of Lagos, founded for the alleged purpose of suppressing the Slave Trade, has been the direct means of stimulating it; whether the Governor of Lagos has been or will be recalled; and whether, in order to avert the recurrence of such costly disasters as have recently taken place, both at Lagos and on the Gold Coast, Her Majesty's Government has considered the expediency of relinquishing all territorial Protectorates on the West Coast of Africa?

, in reply, said, the Governor of Lagos had written to him by the last mail stating that he was about to proceed upon a mission to Abbeokouta in the hope of restoring, by pacific measures, the peaceful relations between the people of that district and the King of Dahomey, the war between whom was the chief cause of the depression of trade to which the hon. Gentleman had referred, and also to obtain redress for the long standing claims of British subjects. The answer which he had returned to the communication of the Governor was that he should confine himself to pacific measures in the prosecution of his mission. In reply to the last part of the Question he was not prepared to say that there was any change in the policy hitherto pursued by the Government. He conceived that our object was to promote legitimate commerce, and to discourage human sacrifices by all legitimate means; and he should be always ready to use his best efforts to promote those objects, with the smallest possible expenditure of blood and treasure on the part of this country. It would be satisfactory to the House to know that the Slave Trade was now almost unknown in Lagos; and he wished to add that he must not be regarded as concurring in the assumption that it was the policy of the Governor which was the principal cause of the difficulties in that quarter. The chief cause, on the contrary, he believed to be the war between the Abbeokoutas and the King of Dahomey, which the Governor was endeavouring by pacific measures to put down. He could not, he might add, countenance the imputation conveyed in the question, that the French merchants at Porto Novo had been concerned in the Slave Trade. The Government had not determined to recall the Governor of Lagos, nor was it his wish to say a single word in that House to discredit a public officer who was engaged in the discharge of such arduous duties as that gentleman had to perform.

said, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Trade, Whether his attention has been directed to a statement that a large fleet of oyster smacks has been lately dredging within twenty miles south of Beachy Head; whether this is not contrary to law; and, if so, why the prohibition against smacks putting to sea with dredges on board after the 30th of April, which has been rigidly carried out at Shoreham Harbour, is not enforced elsewhere?

said, in reply, that some information, though not of a very definite character, had been obtained, that vessels were dredging under the circumstances mentioned in the Question of the hon. Gentleman. If that were so, undoubtedly it was contrary to the law. With respect to the latter part of the Question, all he could say was that repeated warnings had been given to the owners and masters of fishing vessels, that if they infringed the law they would render themselves liable to penalties, as well as the loss of their oysters, dredges, and other fishing gear.

said, he wished to know why the prohibition to put dredges on board had not been enforced?

replied, that within certain limits and under certain circumstances it was not illegal to have dredges on board in the fine months. It was, however, prohibited to have dredges on board at certain seasons on the particular part of the coast to which the Question of the hon. Gentleman referred.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had not answered the latter part of his Question. Without dredges on board there could be no illegal dredging.

said, this Bill had been committed and re-committed, amended and re-amended, but it had undergone no discussion in that House; and, so far as he could discover, it had found no favour with the country. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced the Bill he laid considerable stress upon the clause that proposed to exonerate the taxpayers from responsibility in case of defaulting collectors. Nothing was more just in principle than that when once the tax had been paid to an authorized officer, the taxpayer should not be called upon to pay it over again; but it was not necessary to bring in a Bill for that object, and at the same time make the payment of the tax more odious. The object which the Bill professed to have in view might be attained by taking proper security from the collectors. The right hon. Gentleman on one occasion said that the Bill was a reply to the local commissioners; but he remembered that some time ago a project of the same kind was referred to the commissioners with whom he was in the habit of acting. Their opinion was unanimously against the proposal, and he considered they were right in coming to that conclusion. The only way for hon. Members to test the practical effect of a Bill of the kind was to refer to their own districts, and see how it would work there. In a report from the Inland Revenue Office to the Treasury it was alleged that a saving of £50,000 a year might be expected under the Bill; but during the thirty years which he had been connected with one of the largest districts in the county of Bedford, though he had never known a single instance of a defaulting collector appointed by the local commissioners, he could not say the same of officers appointed by the Government. The district contained twenty-nine parishes, which hitherto had been assessed by two persons in each parish, making fifty-eight in all. He had gone narrowly into a calculation of all the charges that, on the lowest estimate, would be entailed under the new system introduced by the Bill, and found that the collection in the twenty-nine parishes would cost £570. In the year 1861, when the income tax stood at 9d. in the pound, the whole expenses of collecting and assesssing the tax in that particular district was £176 5s.; so that the increased charge there would amount to no less than 399 per cent. In his calculation he had taken no account of contingent expenses, or of the known facilities with which all Civil Service Estimates expanded; he had merely taken moderately and fairly those items which were contemplated by the Bill. The Bill was understood to have the warm support of the Revenue department, which might get some pickings, and likewise have its patronage increased; but in the counties adjacent to his own, and in other districts of his own county, having made inquiry, he found that its operation would be attended with much the same effect which he had already shown it would have in his own district. If anywhere, one would expect to find the principal saving effected in large towns; but, strangely enough, the right hon. Gentleman had omitted from the re-committed Bill the whole of the London district. He could not help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman found the Bill so unpopular in London that he was afraid to encounter the opposition of the metropolitan Members. If that were the case, he ought to have some consideration for the country districts, in which the measure was not a whit more popular. He could not conceive that any saving would be effected by the passing of the Bill, and he hoped the House would hesitate before sanctioning a measure that would certainly render the collection and payment of taxes more odious than at present.

said, he had hoped his hon. Friend would have concluded with a Resolution expressing his views on the subject. He had himself given notice of his intention to move an Amendment to the Motion for going into Committee. The fact was, that the House had had no opportunity of expressing an opinion on the Bill. They had, indeed, slid into a very inconvenient kind of legislation in allowing Bills to pass their earlier stages in silence. Those who objected to a measure were hampered by being compelled to state their objections to the principle of a Bill on the Motion for going into Committee. That system had been carried to such an extent during the present Session, that the House had not, up to that time, had an opportunity of passing an opinion upon the principle of the Government Annuities Bill. It was read a first time, and then, after the second reading, was handed over to a Select Committee, which led to much general discussion on Loan and Friendly Societies. The Committee altered the preamble and the title. When the Bill came again it contained seventeen clauses instead of three, and only a few words of the original Bill were left unaltered to save the point of order. He was told that the Committee had heard evidence which had never been reported. The House had since had no opportunity of considering that Bill, and it was in a similar position in regard to the measure before them. Was the House prepared to sanction the principle of a Bill which provided that, in lieu of collectors, who were appointed by the local commissioners, the land tax, the assessed tax, and the income tax should be collected by the officers of the Inland Revenue? The House had not yet gone into Committee on the Bill, although that before them was the third edition. The fact that London was excepted from the measure was striking evidence that there was something faulty in it, because the metropolis was precisely the district in which it would seem to be right and fair to apply the principle of the Bill. When the income tax was proposed by the late Sir Robert Peel he gave two distinct pledges—first, that the tax should be temporary, and next, that its collection, should be local. Was the House prepared lightly to abandon the latter principle, which constituted the only safeguard which the country had with reference to that extremely disagreeable tax. He was not prepared to contend that the law regulating the local collection was what it ought to be. It had been, on the contrary, a disgrace to every Government for the last twenty years that it should have been left in such a state. What was wanted was a consolidation of the law, which was spread over more than twenty confused Acts, having their origin in the Assessed Tax Act of 1803. The law ought to be comprised in a single statute, clear and intelligible to every person, and giving the local commissioners power to appoint, under the sanction of the Inland Revenue Board, a proper number of collectors at fair salaries, taking proper securities for the faithful discharge of their duties. The existing system was unsatisfactory, because it left parishes in this dangerous position—that after they had paid their taxes to the collector legally appointed to receive the same, they might be called upon to pay the same taxes a second time. That system was so unfair and unjust that it was marvellous it should have been tolerated up to that time. Mr. Pressly stated in his evidence that there were 54,000 local collectors, who cost £85,000. Mr. Pressly admitted that if the collectors were abolished it would be necessary to increase the number of Excise officers under the Inland Revenue Board, and he also confessed that any change in the local collection was extremely distasteful to the commissioners, who, he stated, very much reflected the opinion of the country. It was worthy of remark that in the few cases that had occurred in which the local collectors had been superseded by the officers of the Inland Revenue, the expense of collection had been found to be considerably increased. It might, no doubt, be more advantageously carried into effect as a general, and not as a partial measure. He trusted that the House would pause before sanctioning the principle of the Bill. It was the thin end of the wedge, and he would therefore move, That it is not expedient that the land tax, the assessed taxes, and the income tax should be collected by the officers of Inland Revenue.

said, that if there were no other reason for opposing the Bill, he should oppose it on the ground that it would be a great evil to have different modes of collection in various parts of the country. The proposed alteration in the collection of Government taxes was most unpopular in his part of the country. Instead of collection by assessors in the various parishes, the Bill proposed that persons should collect these taxes in the various market towns. Some of the payments under the land tax did not exceed 2d. and 3d., and it would be a great hardship and extremely vexatious to compel persons having such sums to pay to go fourteen or fifteen miles to a market town instead of paying them to the collector of the parish. Moreover, the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed by the Bill to place the collection of taxes in the hands of the most unpopular body in the kingdom—namely, the Excisemen. He had the greatest pleasure in seconding the Amendment.

said, he was sorry to find in the Bill a principle which was generally in, favour with weak Governments when they had any doubt about carrying their measures. It was made a permissive measure, and left to the authorities in the country to adopt it or not. An attempt was made on the previous day to carry a Bill with reference to the sale of intoxicating liquors, embodying that principle. A more successful attempt was made two years ago, and the principle was adopted in the case of the Highways Bill. The Government introduced that measure, and left it to the magistrates to say whether they would adopt it or not. In that case a compulsory Bill had passed a second reading the Session before, and there was no occasion therefore to make the new measure permissive. The consequence was, that the Highways Act had been a bone of contention between the ratepayers and the magistrates in half the counties of the kingdom. In his opinion, it was for the representatives of the people in that House to act in an independent manner, and incur any odium that might attach to them in supporting or opposing a measure, and not get rid of it by a kind of compromise. He protested against their delegating to local bodies the task of deciding whether any particular measure should or should not be adopted in their respective localities. The Bill before the House was open to that objection, for the second clause provided that the Bill should not be adopted in any county, riding, city, borough, town, or parish, if one-third of the Board within that jurisdiction expressed their opinion, in a formal manner, that they were unwilling to adopt it. What, then, would be the position of the unfortunate Commissioners of Taxes? It was well known that in the country the persons who had the duties of making the assessments were, generally speaking, appointed collectors, and looked to be repaid for their trouble in assessing the tax by the small profits of its collection. All those persons would lose a portion of their income if the Bill were to be adopted, and, in such a case, it was only human nature that they should importune the Commissioners of Taxes in their districts to put a veto on the Bill. It was unconstitutional that those persons, not being elected by the ratepayers, should be intrusted with such a power. He protested against the Commissioners having such an odious task imposed upon them; and he felt so strongly on that point that, had it been omitted, he should have been prepared to consider the Bill in Committee, but it being part of the measure, he should support the Amendment.

said that some of the objections which had been urged against the Bill would rather induce him to support it. It was perfectly well known that the payment of the collectors varied enormously in different districts. There might be reasons for leaving out places where the pay for collection was large, but there were districts in which collectors could not be induced without compulsion to work for the remuneration which they received. The consequence was that all sorts of illegal proceedings were resorted to in order to repay the collectors for their trouble. In one place the collector was paid out of the highway-rate; in another a voluntary rate which was collected with the poor-rate was made for him. Another grave objection to the present state of the law was the liability of a man who had paid his tax to be again called upon to pay it in consequence of the default of the collector. The Bill might not be the best remedy for existing evils, but, as no better had been proposed, he should support it.

said, that he objected to the Bill as it was a measure for one class of society and not for another. It would involve the necessity of small farmers having very small sums to pay going sometimes a distance of twenty miles to pay their tax twice in every twelve months. That to his mind was a very serious objection, particularly as he knew the difficulty there was in persuading the ordinary class of small farmers of the necessity of their paying their taxes before any legal process was taken. For instance, a man appealed against the tax charged for his horse, and it was shown that he had used it once or twice for the purposes of pleasure, although at other times for the purposes of agriculture only; and he was ordered to pay. That man felt he had suffered a hardship, and he would doggedly refuse to pay the tax; and he did not think the proposal was likely to diminish the difficulty. By the present system a man's neighbour was the collector, and pressed him to pay the tax; his neighbour was the assessor, the commissioners also were his neighbours, and for them he would be likely to have some respect. Under the Bill he would have nothing but a notice by letter, which would not have the same effect as the remonstrances of his neighbours, and he would at once become liable to a very expensive process on the part of Her Majesty's Exchequer. He was unwilling to accept any measure which was likely to put the poorer classes of his constituents in such a position, and render them liable to such expense. The Bill did not apply to the inhabitants of the metropolis, who would have no difficulty in paying. The collection was infinitely more profitable in London than in the country; but, though the country collector was very badly paid, he (Mr. Barrow) knew from a very long experience that there was no difficulty in persuading men to undertake the duty of collection, because they believed it was a kindness to their neighbours to do so. The Bill had had its clauses altered over and over again by the right hon. Gentleman; it had been put through Committee pro formâ, but there had never been any real opportunity of discussing it. He should, therefore, oppose the measure.

said, he thought the Bill was a step in the right direction. They must bear in mind that the ratepayers had felt the present mode of collecting the rates in many instances to be a great grievance. It was calculated that the saving to the revenue would be £50,000; but from the evidence taken before the Committee it appeared that it would be a saving to the public revenue of as much as £80,000 per annum. At present, in case the collector eloped, although the taxpayer had paid his taxes, he was liable to be again called upon. That was because the collectors were appointed by irresponsible parties, and not by Government. But if a Government collector were to fail, no such thing could happen. When the tax was paid once, it was paid for all. As to the supposed difficulty of collecting the tax by letter, they had it in evidence that in Scotland, where collection by letter had been tried, it had been found easier to collect it in that than in any other way. Though very much in favour of the Bill, he thought the Members for London, sixteen in number, had exercised an undue influence on the Government in the matter, and he should be prepared, if the Bill went into Committee, to vote that the exception in favour of London should be struck out.

said, it seemed to him that an important point had been lost sight of in the discussion—namely, that the Bill was a breach of Parliamentary faith. He always understood that Sir Robert Peel imposed the income tax upon the express condition that it should be locally assessed, and it was accepted by the country on that condition. The in- come tax was an obnoxious, but he feared it was a necessary tax; but now that it appeared to be fixed in perpetuity, to alter the conditions of its assessment was to his mind highly objectionable. The proposed mode of collection was a leaf taken out of the Scotch book. The system had been successful there, but it was introduced with the concurrence of the Scotch people. There had been no such concurrence on the part of the English people, and he should therefore vote for the Amendment.

said, he thought if the late Sir Robert Peel had been alive he would have gladly supported the measure, because experience would have taught him that the present mode of collection was a bad one. He only regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not introduced a Bill to make not only the collection, but also the assessment by Government officers, as he believed there would be a very large amount thereby added to the income of the country; and those who had honestly paid would be relieved by making those pay who had not acted with equal honesty. He thought, however, that the operation of the Bill should be general and include the Metropolis.

said, he objected to the Bill, as it was most undesirable that that sort of permissive Bills should be brought in. So far as the assessment was concerned, it was practically not altered, as the assessment was in fact made by a Government officer. As to the assessors, although they were very sharp men in their own way, when called upon to make the assessment, they were the dullest people possible; and when they had to discharge duties with which they were utterly unacquainted, they were as stupid and ignorant as could be imagined. If, however, it was right to take the collectorship out of the hands of the Commissioners, the same rule should be applied to the towns as to the country districts. He would therefore vote in favour of the Amendment.

said, that the hon. Member for Northumberland (Mr. Liddell), whilst he allowed that there had been a saving in Scotland by the adoption of the system proposed by the Bill, stated that the House would be guilty of a breach of faith if it adopted the measure, as the late Sir Robert Peel made a promise that the collection of the income tax should be a local collection. Puzzled by the conflict in these two statements he endeavoured to escape from the difficulty by saying that the system had been adopted in Scotland by the will of the people; but if the Bill was carried in that House, he apprehended that in England also it would be adopted by the will of the people of England. The indication of the will of the people was to be found, first, in the judgment expressed through the medium of the representative principle in that House; and, secondly, in the various utterances of opinions, which were made known by the usual channels of information. On many occasions during the time in which he had had the honour of holding his present office, the question of the collection of taxes had been raised and discussed in that House; and he was sure all who shared in those discussions would bear him witness that he had always expressed his own opinion that the present system was very faulty, and contained hardships and grievances in different forms; but that while it was easy, in his opinion, to devise an amendment to the system, it would be impossible to carry it out unless with a general concurrence of opinion. Therefore, it must not be supposed that the present was a Bill which there was any endeavour to force by the effort of Government on a reluctant House. If the opinion of the House should be adverse to the measure he would bow to its decision, though he would have to regret the continuance of the evils of the present system. He thought that the course taken by the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham in not giving notice of opposition to a Bill which had been months before the House was not usual; but, as he courted criticism, he was glad to see an opportunity afforded for bringing out the opinion of the House. He did not think himself in the slightest degree wedded to the Bill, and he also thought that it should pass with a great amount of approval or not at all. After what had been said he must remind the House that there were serious evils in the present system with which they had to deal. There had been constant complaints of the conduct of collectors of taxes—not perhaps very numerous when the vastness of their operations was considered—in respect to their incivility, officiousness, for not calling at a proper time for the taxes, on account of nothing being heard of them until some summons or threat of legal process appeared, and on the ground that demands were made for taxes before they were legally due. Year after year these complaints had been mode subjects of debate in that House, and his answer hail been that those officers were persons over whom the Executive had no control, as they were appointed by independent parties. From the dissatisfaction with which that answer was apparently received, he concluded that hon. Gentlemen felt that the existing state of things was not sound, and if any reasons existed for its continuance they should be very strong ones. It was not desirable that taxpayers should have their taxes collected by persons who were practically irresponsible. Another grievance was that unwilling or reluctant persons were appointed to hold the office of collectors. The hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt) said that a great pressure would be put upon the Commissioners to veto the Bill. Such knowledge as he possessed led him to an opposite conclusion, for he believed that in rural districts very generally the appointment to the office of collector was not valued, and many persons considered it a grievance that the office was imposed on them, and that they were bound by law to take it. There were even cases—exceptional cases—where it had been supposed that personal spleen had been indulged through the medium of the power of compelling parties to take the office. Then there was the great and abominable grievance of re-assessment when the local officer failed in his duty, and the Government said that they would divest localities of that grievance, if the local commissioners divested themselves of the power of appointing the collectors. The hon. and gallant Member for Bedfordshire (Colonel Gilpin) had favoured the House with his calculations as to the expenses of the Act, but with the greatest respect for the opinion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, he could not place so much reliance on his judgment, as on that of the Board of Inland Revenue Department, who would have had to carry the Act out, and knew precisely how they could do it with effect, and who had not deserved the censures the hon. and gallant Gentleman had passed upon them; for whatever might have been the tendency of other departments to become more expensive, thrift and economy had always characterised that; and the consequence was a reduction rather than an increase in the estimates for the collection of the Revenue. He did not think the hon. and gallant Member could, moreover, fairly take his district as a sample of the whole country. In tome districts the expense would be comparatively great, and in the more populous districts the saving would be the greatest but, at the same time, the small districts would receive the greatest share of relief. He fancied that he needed not to speak of the supposed breach of faith with respect to the promise of Sir Robert Peel, for how could Sir Robert Peel promise that under all circumstances Parliament would continue to believe it expedient to leave the collection of taxes under local officers? They must look to the principle contained in Sir Robert Peel's words. No doubt there was an important principle involved in the announcement which Sir Robert Peel made—control over the distribution of taxation by local independent authority—but as far as regarded collection, that was not a matter of principle, but of convenience. Very little had been said to enable him to judge of the objections to the details of the Bill: two had been mentioned, one was that the metropolis was omitted, and the other that the Bill was permissive. Now, with regard to the omission of the metropolis. There was one very important reason, besides subsidiary ones, which had led the Government to except the metropolis from the operation of the Bill, and that was that the stamp distributors about the country, through whose instrumentality it was proposed to work the scheme with economy, did not exist in London, and it was not thought desirable to create a special staff for the purpose. In many cases, too, in the metropolis, the collections were on so large a scale that the officers were of a high class, and had round them a large staff, which it would not be for the interests of the metropolis to displace. However, if it were the opinion of the House that the metropolis should be inserted, it was in the power of any hon. Gentleman to move in Committee that the exception should be left out. But the more important objection was that taken by two hon. Members opposite, that the Bill was permissive and not compulsory. He looked upon its permissive character as essential to the measure. It was true that the permissive clause might be struck out, and thus altogether alter the machinery of the Bill; but considering that it had been months in the House, and had been originally announced as a permissive Bill, he did not think the country would have reason to be dissatisfied if the measure were then made compulsory. If the House should, however, agree with the hon. Members for Northamptonshire and Shropshire that the Bill ought to be compulsory, they had better give expression to that opinion by an adverse vote on the Resolution of the hon. Baronet; but he was bound to express a strong opinion that no other than a permissive Bill would ever pass the House. There was the greatest possible difference in the feelings and circumstances of different districts of the country, which would make it difficult to pass anything but a permissive Bill. It might be said that the Bill was a sort of patchwork measure, and the political virtue of some hon. Members might be shocked and scandalized at the law being operative here and inoperative there. But those hon. Members were neither shocked nor scandalized in the matter of church rates, the law with regard to which was altogether permissive. He perfectly agreed that if they were dealing with matters of high politics it would be absurd to have different systems in operation in different parts of the country, and the choice of those systems dependent upon the will of the people; but that was a question as to whether the man who went about and knocked at their doors to ask for the taxes should be a Queen's officer or a local officer, and he was not aware of any principle or usage of the constitution which made it improper to allow a variation of practice in that respect, always presuming what the Bill evidently involved—namely, that the variation of practice could only arise between county A and county B, because county A wished for the Bill and county B did not. It had been said that the Government had admitted that the commissioners were opposed to the Bill. No such admission was ever made. It was, indeed, untrue. A circular was sent round to all the Boards of Commissioners in the kingdom, and the majority of them, in reply, expressed their desire to see the Bill passed. Large communities had also petitioned in its favour. Birmingham had done so. So had Liverpool, which petitioned for a similar change with regard to the assessment as well as the collection. Considering the imperfections in the law and the total want of any other scheme containing an adequate remedy, he hoped the House would go into Committee on the Bill, with a view of allowing such portions of the country as chose to do so to avail themselves of the provisions of the measure. He had no egotistical feeling with regard to the Bill. He hoped he had stated the case fairly; and his opinion was that, after full consideration, the Bill should be freely accepted and passed or decidedly rejected.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had truly stated that the present state of the law on the subject under discussion was not very satisfactory. There were great difficulties attending it, and he was afraid that, make what changes they might, the tax collector, whether he came in the shape of a Government officer or a local collector, would always be a most unpleasant visitor. People would always say that he came at the wrong time, and asked for the money in the wrong way. The right hon. Gentleman had completely misunderstood, and, misunderstanding, had in a great degree misrepresented the objection of the hon. Member for Northamptonshire and the hon. Baronet on the same bench. Because to what did the right hon. Gentleman liken this measure? He said there could be no objection to the permissive character of the Bill, because the ratepayers had an option whether they would or would not levy church rates. What possible analogy could there be between ratepayers levying a church rate and a dozen or half-dozen commissioners not elected by the ratepayers setting themselves against—what? Against the Queen's Government. Because that was what it would amount to. They were to do nothing unless the Queen, through her Revenue department, expressed an opinion that a particular mode of collecting the taxes was desirable in a particular county. It was not a fair thing to put those gentlemen in a position antagonistic to the Queen's Government in a matter of this kind. The taxpayers had no voice in the matter. The commissioners could in no sense be said to represent the taxpayers. All they had to do was to see that the taxpayers were first assessed and then harried and squeezed for the money. The taxpayers would like to get rid of the whole boiling of the commissioners and the whole kit of the collectors, tax, and all. They would pay no taxes at all if they could help it. The hon. Member for Evesham had remarked that the Bill did not come in in the usual way. It did not come in in the usual way. There had been two or three editions of the measure; and the last edition had in one fell swoop struck out one-sixth part of the whole community. If the measure were good why was it not good for London. The hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Horsfall) had spoken of its beneficial operation in Scotland; but Scotland was to be exempted from the measure. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: The system is already in force there.] The next point was, the saving to be effected by the Bill. He supposed the calculations on that subject included London. The hon. Member for Liverpool spoke of the evidence on the matter taken before the Committee. He supposed that did not exclude London. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said he wag certain that the rural districts were so oppressed by the collection of taxes that they would be only too glad to adopt the new measure. But the unfortunate people who were so oppressed would have no voice. It was the commissioners who would have to decide the question. It was difficult to separate the assessment from the collection. The assessment was a burdensome duty. In the country districts the assessors of one year were generally the collectors of the next, and the poundage of the collection paid them for the work of the assessment. The unfortunate officer would be sadly off if he received no more than his three halfpence a line. In conclusion, the right hon. Gentleman said he should vote for the Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham, because he could not see that the Bill was likely to do any good.

said, he felt bound to say that, while there appeared to be a strong feeling against the Bill in the county which his hon. Friend behind him represented, be had heard of no feeling being expressed in his favour. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he might add, had not informed the House what amount of money would be required for the purpose of compensation if the measure were to pass. Now, at the end of the Bill, there was a clause providing compensation to the local collectors who were removed from their present avocations; and as the intention of the Government was to work the measure through the agency of the existing distributors of stamps, it was quite clear that the compensation which would have to be paid, if the Bill should pass, would make a serious inroad upon the saving which the right hon. Gentleman calculated upon. Seeing, therefore, that there was no chance of any saving accruing to the public under the provisions of the Bill, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would not deem it necessary to press the House to a division on the Bill, but would withdraw it.

was understood to allude to a defalcation in one of the parishes of the borough he represented as one of the reasons why he gave his support to the measure.

said, he wished to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to explain the reason why the metropolis was to be excluded from the operation of this Bill, while other large towns were included.

said, he should move, as an Amendment to the clause, that all the words should be struck out which exempted the metropolis from its operation.

said, he trusted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not sanction the Amendment, as all the parties in the metropolis concerned had been under the impression that the Bill in its present form did not apply to them; otherwise they would have shown good reasons why the measure should not apply to the metropolis.

said, he was in favour of the Bill, and had voted for going into Committee, but he understood that only the Land Tax Commissioners, who received £40,000 a year, had been consulted on the subject. The Income Tax Commissioners, who received a very much larger sum, had not been consulted at all. He wished to see London included in the Bill. It would be to the advantage of the metropolis to be within the Bill, because, if it was not, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be more strict as to re-assessment in case of default, than he would be in districts of which the Government had taken the management and control.

said, that the law of re-assessment was a severe and harsh one, and the questions of waiving a re-assessment were among the most unsatisfactory and disagreeable duties which a person in his position had to deal with. It was always difficult to arrive at the bottom of the interests so keenly concerned, and the questions raised were so nice that he frankly owned that no Minister could discharge the duty satisfactorily. He would explain why it was that he had assented to the exemption of the metropolis. One important distinction was this, that in the case of almost every very large town it was the centre of a rural district, in which the payment of the taxes from the rural district took place. Consequently, if they exempted those large towns the Government would be obliged to have offices and officers in those towns, and at the same time the officers would have nothing to do with the most profitable part of the receipts. They would, in fact, have no duty to perform except the receiving of taxes collected in the rural districts; and his hon. Friend would see that the Government could not undertake to discharge the duty upon those terms. But when they came to the case of still larger towns, they found a large business done under a very efficient system; and if they disturbed the collectors, compensation would be required, while under this Bill their services might be continued. Again, as he had already explained, the Government in the metropolis had no stamp distributors, who in the country would have to carry out the Bill, and who in doing so would have to make the best arrangement they could for the public interest. If the Act were applied to London, they would have to do one of two things—either they must leave the collection in the hands of the existing collectors, or else displace the collectors and give them compensation, and then they would be obliged to appoint, de novo, a fresh staff of Government officers. If a burden were placed upon the country districts, then he admitted that London ought not to be exempted; but that was not the case. It had been erroneously stated that the Bill was not discussed before; it had been discussed on two occasions in the early part of the Session. Gentlemen had called the attention of their constituents to its provisions. It had now been four months before the country, and not a single petition had been presented against it.

said, he wanted to know why the metropolis was to be the only place having a brand put upon it, distinct from the rest of the country, of working with the existing collectors, the right hon. Gentleman having stated at the same time that it might be expedient to pursue that system in some of the large towns. Some arrangement seemed to have been come to under which the metropolitan Members were to support the Bill, on condition that the metropolis was excluded from its provisions. In the division which had just taken place they enabled the Government to force the measure upon county constituencies, while they themselves were sheltered and shielded by the compact entered into with Government.

said, the noble Lord was mistaken in supposing that the whole of the metropolitan Members went into the lobby with the Government. No arrangement whatever had been come to with the metropolitan Members, but a large deputation of inhabitants of the metropolis had waited on the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and whatever agreement was entered into must have been with them. He had previously voted against the Bill, because he believed it would have the effect of vesting a great deal of patronage in the hands of the Government, and because it exhibited a centralizing tendency; and for the same reason he should vote against the metropolis being included.

said, that if the Committee sanctioned the Amendment they would produce this difficulty—that, as the metropolis was situated in several counties, the commissioners of the respective counties might come to different resolutions with respect to London itself.

said, the country constituencies had a right to complain of the insertion of the exemption. It was the country constituencies, and not the metropolis, who were taken by surprise. In the original Bill there was no exclusion of the metropolitan districts. There was a very strong feeling upon the subject; and his constituents thought that if the Bill was inapplicable to London, it was equally inapplicable to Liverpool.

said, exceptions were always causes of dissatisfaction, and he therefore hoped the Committee would not sanction a different law for London and Manchester.

observed, that the Bill had been before the House for a considerable period, but no notice had been given of the Motion of the hon. Member, and many of the metropolitan Members, in fact, were not present. Special clauses would be necessary to render the Act applicable to the metropolis, the circumstances of which differed entirely from the rest of the country.

said, he would remind hon. Members for the metropolis that the Wine Licences Bill originally introduced did not apply to Ireland, and the Irish Members assisted in passing it. But later in the same Session a Bill, extending the provisions of the former measure to Ireland, was brought in by the Government, when, of course, the English Members, like foxes who had lost their tails, were naturally anxious that others should be placed in the same condition. He assured the right hon. Gentleman that if the measure passed into law with the assistance of the metropolitan Members, his cordial support would be given to a supplementary measure for applying its provisions to the metropolis.

said, the Bill in its original form was intended to apply to every part of England. The metropolitan Members then opposed the Bill, and in common with others went upon deputations to the Government; but now that London had been exempted they threw their colleagues overboard and gave their support to the Government. Their Friends whom they had deserted felt that they were not well treated.

said, he wished to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if there was any reason for excluding the metropolis, which contained between three and four millions of people, that did not apply to Birmingham, which contained between two and three hundred thousand. The constituency which he represented had sent a memorial which expressed very strong feelings on this question, and they thought if the metropolis were excluded they also ought to be excluded. It appeared to him that if the metropolis were excluded, there could be no reason why such towns as Birmingham and Manchester should not be excluded also.

said, that he had had no communication with any metropolitan Member on the subject of the Bill, except that his noble Friend the Member for Middlesex (Lord Enfield) wrote to him to receive a deputation.

said, he would then move to add to the end of the clause the words "or to any city or town containing more than 20,000 inhabitants according to the last census."

said, he would suggest to the hon. Member that it would be better for him to move that the Chairman leave the Chair. The adoption of the addition which the hon. Member proposed would be the destruction of the Bill.

said, that a personal demand ought in all cases to be made on the taxpayer at his own house before he was distrained upon. Rich men could easily send a check, but men in humbler life did not keep an account with a banker.

said, he should move the omission from the clause of the words "or sent." He thought that the notice for neglect of which a man was liable to be posted as a defaulter ought to be delivered personally. Many persons were careless about letters, and the House ought to take some security that the notice actually reached the defaulter. The letter, for example, might be registered, and the postman instructed to make an endorsement of delivery.

said, that the suggestion of the hon. Member was deserving of consideration. The first step in au Exchequer pro- cess was not execution, but notice to pay, and a defaulter would have a notice personally served upon him before he would be distrained upon. It was proposed to take power to receive taxes in postage-stamps up to a certain amount, and subject to certain regulations. He saw no reason why the amount should be limited to 5s. As objection had been taken to the hardship of making the taxpayer travel many miles, he would state that the greatest distance any man would have to travel to pay his taxes would be four miles.

, as a Commissioner of Taxes, thought the right hon. Gentleman was mistaken. In his district the taxpayers would sometimes have to travel six miles.

said, it was calculated that, with very few exceptions, there was a Money Order Office within four miles of everybody. If the market town where the money was payable was six miles distant, the taxpayer could go to the nearest Money Order Office and send the money thence.

said, he would admit that the arrangements for using money orders and accepting postage stamps had very much obviated his objection to the Bill. He took it that the notice referred to by the right hon. Gentleman would be a proceeding under the Court, but he could not help thinking, however, that some personal notice should be served upon a taxpayer before he was returned as a defaulter to the Court of Exchequer. In the absence of a more satisfactory explanation he must press his Amendment.

said, he could not accede to the principle of the Amendment. To require a public officer to travel several miles to give a personal notice instead of a written one would be most unreasonable. Such a provision would be a premium on carelessness. It was neither the law nor the practice at present. It had happened to him, possibly from the distraction of other occupations, to neglect paying his taxes at the proper time. He had, thereupon, received the usual notice, that if the tax were not paid he would be returned as a defaulter.

said, he did not wish to protect persons whose object it was to avoid paying their taxes, but the present practice was to leave the notice open, while under the Bill the notice would be sent by post in a sealed envelope. He would put the case of sealed applications for taxes coming through the post to a man's house while he was abroad. No one might have authority to open those letters, and the result might be that on coming home a person might find that process had been issued against him.

said, he thought it would be unreasonable to make the Revenue department responsible for the taxpayer going abroad. He would give the subject his attention before the Report.

suggested that the subject of the letters should be marked outside, or that they should be sent open.

said, that proposal was very reasonable, and one of the two suggestions of the hon. Member should be adopted.

asked whether these taxes would be payable at any Money Order Office.

said, they might be paid through any Money Order Office without charge for the order, but the postage would have to be paid.

said, he had not felt himself justified in altering the system of poundage to collectors, further than was required by the nature of the Bill. With regard to the assessed taxes, there was no reason for maintaining the system of poundage which they had in the income tax. It was much fairer to pay the assessors by the amount of work done.

suggested that it should be made obligatory on the Treasury to award compensation in such cases.

assured the hon. Gentleman that the Bill would be worked in an equitable spirit, and said that, practically, it would be obligatory on the Treasury to give compen- Ration in every case in which there had been no gross dereliction of duty. The collectors as a class, so far as he could ascertain, were satisfied with the provision.

said, it might appear presumptuous in a layman to ask the postponement of a measure dealing with so technical a subject; but if the House would grant him a few minutes attention, he thought he could show that the question was not one which required a legal mind, but one which came clearly within the comprehension of every one. The Bill was introduced at a comparatively late period of the Session, and it was not till about ten days since that the Lord Advocate made an extended statement of its scope and objects; he thought, therefore, it would be right that they should have longer time for its consideration. He now asked the House whether, by the light of the Lord Advocate's statement, there was any ground for introducing such sudden find sweeping changes? According to the learned Lord Advocate, one of the great; advantages that would accrue from the abolition of the double registers would be the abolition of a double search, and that different kinds of economy would be accomplished by certain changes in the different classes of deeds in the record. The learned Lord Advocate remarked particularly on the improvements that would be effected by one general register, and the saving of expense in searching; and declared that in proposing the measure he was not consulting the interests of any exclusive body of petitioners, but that, in fact, the proposal emanated from a large and important body in Glasgow, and that Edinburgh was interested in only a secondary degree. He wound up his clear and candid statement by saying that his object was, that dealers in land, whether buyers or sellers, should have a good and clear title at the least possible expense. If the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman accomplished that object, it would be hailed with gratitude by the whole country. There was no object so desirable as the cheap and ready transfer of land. But if some of the things proposed in this Bill were beneficial, it was utterly unnecessary to accompany these proposals by a wide and sweeping change, not called for by any complaint, and which, he believed, would in many respects entail greater inconvenience and expense than had hitherto been experienced. The first merit which the learned Lord Advocate claimed for his measure was the abolition of the double search; but the House ought to know that the necessity of a double search arose from the abuse of the general register, and that were the general register only employed for the purpose for which it was originally designed, there would be no necessity for the double search. Were deeds affecting property in one county recorded only in the particular register belonging to that county, there would he no double search, and it would only be in the case of composite deeds that a double search would be necessary. But it had become the practice to register ordinary deeds in the general register, and hence the necessity of a double search. No one doubted that entailed large expense and inconvenience, and that any Bill which did away with that necessity would he acceptable; and it must be distinctly understood that those who opposed the Bill did not object to the abolition of the double search. But in order to do away with the double search, why was it necessary that the local registers should be removed from the places where they had been kept for two centuries? There was no allegation or complaint as to the manner in which these records had been kept. As to the economy of the scheme, the hon. and learned Lord Advocate pointed out that there were twenty different registries in different parts of Scotland, and that it would be much cheaper to have one staff, by whom the work could be efficiently done. But, in the first place, it was well known that the keepers of the particular registers did not give the whole of their business to the keeping of records—that they usually held other offices, and that but a small portion of their time was required to perform the duties of that office. One man could not perform the duties of the whole of those twenty keepers of records, and, therefore, if one great office were established in Edinburgh, the change must therefore Involve a great increase of staff. It was impossible that one keeper of registries could be conversant with the separate details of the register which the Bill proposed should be kept in Edinburgh. Local knowledge was of the greatest importance for thin business; and it was impossible that the officials of the Register House could be possessed with the same knowledge as the particular registrars. The commissioners themselves who recommended the change pointed nut that it could only be made very gradually on account of the enormous staff that would be required. Present fees must be reduced; but the Lord Advocate evidently anticipated an increase in the expense for a time, because it was proposed that the fees should remain at their present scale for two years. Then if the pay of the registrars and other officers was not found sufficient, they were to be paid by salary; that was, the Bill rendered it competent for the Government—that was, in fact, the Lord Advocate—to raise the salaries of the officers to any amount they could persuade Parliament was proper. He must say he could not see the economy of that arrangement. Then he was told that in numerous petitions which had been sent to that House that considerable delay and inconvenience might arise in the transmission of deeds to Edinburgh. He was also told that deeds were not registered so rapidly in Edinburgh as at the burghal and county registers, and therefore it was not surprising that the county agents should entertain some doubts as to the expedition with which their deeds will he registered in Edinburgh. It was not intended to remove the local registers from burghs on account of the necessity of local knowledge; but surely local knowledge was as necessary in the case of the county as of the burgh registers. Undoubtedly it would be an improvement to have only two books of registers, instead of six, as now existed. But why was the principle not carried further, and one book be kept for the register- of the possession and of the incumbrances affecting the property? That would be a reform of a very simple kind? He believed also that there would be a great inconvenience and delay arising from the transmission of deeds to Edinburgh, for at the general registry deeds were kept longer than at the local registries; and that delay would be a matter of considerable importance. He was informed that it was no uncommon occurrence for persons to register their deeds where they could have them returned the quickest; in addition to which many of the agents desired to witness the process personally, so that it was hardly necessary to point out that in ninny cases great delay would ensue if the deeds must be registered at Edinburgh. The abridgment of the indices proposed by the Bill formed a most excellent feature in the measure, but it was necessary that the abridgment should be as simple and accessible as possible, and he did not see what was to prevent their meeting that requirement in the particular registers, as at Edinburgh. The Bill did not touch the registers in boroughs, and it was urged as a reason that there was a necessity for local knowledge; but that local knowledge was surely as important in the counties as it was in the boroughs, and he believed, therefore, that the real reason was that the boroughs were too strong to make such an attempt upon them. It was no doubt intended by the Bill to make an improvement by having only two books of registry instead of six as at present; but why did the Bill not go further, and provide for one book only, so that the registry of seisin might be accompanied with a statement of the charges with which the estate was burdened? One important fact to which he desired to call the attention of the House was, that the change was not asked for by the country. No petitions had been presented upon the subject before the introduction of the measure, and only three since, and the petitioners included members of every class who would be affected by the Bill. All had complained of the great inconvenience which would result from the passing of the measure. The best test of the feeling of the country upon the subject was to ascertain the method generally followed in the registration of deeds. Hitherto the people had had the option of registering their deeds cither in their counties or in Edinburgh. It appeared, upon examination, that out of 14,405 deeds registered annually, only 3,244 had been registered at Edinburgh. That number did not include the 2,000 deeds which referred to property in the metropolitan counties, but it did include those registered by Edinburgh agents though referring to distant properties. Those figures proved that the proposed change would not suit the custom or inclination of those interested in the matter. He did not come before the House as the champion of vested interests. He represented what they would all acknowledge to be important local interests as opposed to centralization. As regarded Scotland, for some years past all legislation had tended to concentrate business in the direction of Edinburgh. That he believed to be unnecessary and undesirable, and it behoved them to set their faces against such a course, and to insist that local business should be transacted locally. It had been said that an inconvenience occurred in reference to composite deeds, in consequence of the necessity of a double search. Seeing that those deeds only numbered 250 out of the 14,405 registered annually, he did not believe that any special legislation on their account was necessary. No more trouble was caused, however, than would still be the case under the new measure, in deeds relating to property, part of which was in a borough, and another part in the county. He asked English hon. Members what would be the general feeling if it were attempted to remove all the conveyancing business of the country to London. Such a course would, no doubt, be a very good thing for London lawyers, but the inconvenience which the country would experience in consequence would be very great. His opinion was that the reason why boroughs were not affected by the Bill was that the boroughs were too powerful to be interfered with at present; but if the county business were allowed to be taken to Edinburgh, that of the boroughs would soon follow. He maintained that the Bill had been introduced at a period of the Session which was not favourable to its due consideration. The Commissioners themselves recommended that no measure affecting the subject should be hastily introduced. They did not suggest that the present system should be entirely changed in one year, on account of the confusion which would ensue, but recommended that any alteration should be introduced gradually, and that, in the first instance only, some of the smaller registries should be transferred to Edinburgh, whilst by the Bill now before the House, it was proposed in one year to abolish all the registries of seisins. He thought that he had shown reasonable grounds for the Amendment to the Motion, which he now ventured to submit, that this Bill be read a second time that day three months.

seconded the Amendment, and said that the hon. Baronet (Sir James Fergusson) had pointed out so clearly and distinctly the reason why the Bill ought to be rejected, that he did not think it was necessary to trouble the House with a re-statement of the case. But he must say that the manner in which this Bill had been pressed forward supplied a most singular commentary upon the speech of his right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate, the other night, with regard to the admirable way in which Scotch business was conducted in the House. English Members were continually told that the representatives of Scotland were in the habit of meeting privately to consider measures affecting that part of the United Kingdom, and that by this course they were enabled to prevent the occurrence of debates in the House, except upon questions that involved important political considerations, upon which such harmony could not be maintained. He had often thought, and it was as well that English Members should know it, and that the people of Scotland should know it, that there was a considerable amount of misapprehension abroad on this subject, and that here to-night they had a remarkable example of it. What he wished to state was this—for he felt rather aggrieved at the treatment which the representatives and people of Scotland had met with on the subject — that the representatives of Scotland had been assembled by the Lord Advocate to consider this very Bill, and would the House believe it when he said, that not a single Member present could be found to support the measure except his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Black), who, of course, was bound to do so, because this was, in fact, one of those centralizing measures which were every now and then introduced for the benefit of the lawyers of Edinburgh. He had heard it frequently said that Scotland was governed and overridden by lawyers, and he could not help suspecting that the Lord Advocate was sometimes driven to bring forward measures against his own conviction by the pressure which was brought to bear upon him from that quarter. He was strengthened in that conviction by the fact that, although the Members who met the other day in New Street. Spring Gardens, were opposed to the Bill, the Lord Advocate nevertheless felt obliged to go on with it in consequence of the pressure put on him by place-hunting lawyers. What was this Bill about which there was such desperate hurry, and which was in reality being forced through the House. His hon. and gallant Friend (Sir James Fergusson) had stated the main objections to the details of the measure. For 250 years Scotland had had a system of registration of deeds, which upon the whole had worked remarkably well, and was exceedingly popular and highly prized by the people. He agreed with the hon. and gallant Baronet that the system was not perfect, and that it was susceptible of many improvements. The supporters and the opponents of the Bill were equally agreed in objecting to the double system of registration, and desired to simplify and improve it; but the opponents of the measure desired to do it in a different way from that which was proposed by the Lord Advocate, for they wished to get rid of the general register in Edinburgh, in which only 3,000 deeds were recorded, and improve the local registers, which were so popular that upwards of 14,000 writs were recorded in them. His hon. and gallant Friend (Sir James Fergusson) had omitted to state this further fact—that not only had these local registers been more popular in past times, but they were becoming more so every day; for if they looked back ten or twelve years they would find that whilst the increase in the local registers was 70 per cent, the increase of the general register was only 30 per cent; thus clearly proving that, at the present moment, the local registers were the favourite registers of the country. He came now to the question of expense. His right hon. and learned Friend, the Lord Advocate, recommended the Bill to the House upon the ground of economy; but if this were a measure of economy, he must say that it was the first example of a measure of the sort having emanated from the Edinburgh lawyers. He took the 23rd Clause of the Bill, and he should be glad if some English Member who took an interest in the Civil Service Estimates and matters of finance, would pay attention to that clause. Clause 23 provided—

"It shall be lawful for the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, upon the application of the Lord Clerk Register, to regulate from time to time the offices of the general register of sasines, and of the general register of hornings, inhibitions, and adjudications under this Act, and to sanction such increased establishment of deputies, assistants, clerks, or other officers, as may be necessary for the purposes hereof, and to fix the salaries and remuneration to be allowed to the officers of the said departments respectively; and such salaries and remuneration shall be payable out of the fees to be drawn in said departments respectively, or"—let the House observe—"out of any other funds to be provided by Parliament for that purpose."

Now, he entertained a shrewd suspicion, and he believed it would come out in the end, that if this Bill were passed into law, they would be called on to provide for a good many of these officers, and that the expense of the proposed system would be considerably greater than that of the present. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman were really anxious to introduce economical reforms in Scotland, let him begin elsewhere. Let him begin by reducing the number of Judges in the Court of Session. Let him abolish the system of double sheriffships; both of which were subjects that, if discussed in this House, would be found not to stand investigation for a single hour, and upon which it was his intention at some future and not distant time to take the opinion of the House. The fact was that the Lord Advocate dared not introduce measures in favour of the principles of financial economy of that kind, because they would be unpopular among his professional brethren in Edinburgh, and might place him in an uncomfortable and unpleasant position. Looking at the clause he had read to the House, and the additional work that must of necessity be thrown upon the General Register Office in Edinburgh, he believed that so far from being a measure to promote economy, it would in the end lead to a greatly increased expenditure. His hon. and gallant Friend (Sir James Fergusson) had observed that by abolishing the general register the search would be more economically and quite as easily conducted in the local registers, and there was no doubt that it was the desire of the people in the localities that this should be so. A number of gentlemen who took an interest in this matter had proposed a scheme of their own to the Lord Advocate, and he thought it was only reasonable and fair that the House should have both schemes before them, and that they should not be called upon to sanction this Bill until they had had the opportunity of considering the provisions of each. But the Lord Advocate would not consent to wait, although many Scotch Members interested in other important measures—the Rivers Pollution Bill, for instance—were compelled to wait. He could not help suspecting then that there were some places to be created under the present measure, and that this was the real reason for hurrying it forward. Where was the necessity for pushing on the Bill at this time of the Session? Already they had waited ten years for the measure, and it had never before been discussed in the House. The right hon. and learned Gentleman might have brought in a Bill years ago, but he did not; and they were now called upon in the month of June—a few weeks before the Session came to a close — to decide hastily upon the subject, he trusted the right hon. and learned Gentleman would not press the Bill further this Session. The representatives of Scotland were generally very docile; but surely that was the very reason why they might ask that a proposal which was objected to by a large majority of them, and which had excited a strong feeling of opposition in Scotland should not be persisted with until the House and the country had had time and opportunity to consider the other scheme.

said, he had presented a Petition to the House from the Society of Advocates in Aberdeen, a body of gentlemen who, from their experience and position, were quite as competent to form a judgment upon the subject as any body of lawyers in Edinburgh, and they were decidedly opposed to the Bill. The people of Scotland desired to have facilities for registration locally, and without going to Edinburgh. If there were no other objection to the Bill, there was this most conclusive one, that it proposed to take from local bodies the management of their own affairs, and establish a system of centralization in its stead.

said, he did not wish to offer any opinion with regard to the merits of the Bill, but simply to urge that he did not think the House was in a position to legislate upon the subject, and that, if it attempted to do so, it might be legislating in the dark. All he knew was that it was very desirable to cheapen and facilitate the transfer of land—so far he agreed with the Lord Advocate; but that his right hon. and learned Friend's plan would have that effect he had heard nothing to induce him to believe. He should like to know why this measure was not brought forward at a period of the Session when it might have been discussed at the county meetings in Scotland, so that Members like himself, who were not well informed on the subject, might have had the opportunity of hearing the opinions of their constituents upon it. If a measure of this kind could not have been brought forward a little earlier, it might be postponed till next Session, when they would have the means of ascertaining all those facts, without which it would be idle to attempt to arrive at a judgment on the subject. They were told it was expedient that the county registers should be abolished, and that there should be one register in burghs. If there existed such an anxiety to cheapen the transfer of land, that might be effected by lowering the fees on registry, one half of which, he understood, went to the Exchequer. He was informed that the fees paid to the registrar were in some cases greater than all the other expenses; and he thought that legislation to cheapen the transfer of land ought to begin there. He had heard it said that the opposition to the present Bill was an agitation got up by the county registrars and the lawyers in the country districts. He was sorry that such an imputation should be made, as it gave rise to the counter imputation that the present Bill was got up by the lawyers of Edinburgh. He, however, did not wish to attribute any unworthy motives to any person. All he said was, that he did not possess any knowledge of the subject, and thought it would be better to postpone the farther consideration of the Bill until next Session.

said, he should certainly feel it his duty to support the second reading of the Bill. It was said that the House was not in a condition to enter on so difficult and important a measure; but when would it be in a condition to enter on it? It was not a new subject. So far from the scheme having originated with the Edinburgh lawyers, it originated with the professional gentlemen of Glasgow. So far back as the year 1850, there was a report deliberately prepared by the procurators of Glasgow recommending the very change which was now proposed. That report was printed and circulated in Scotland among the different legal bodies there, and the proposal was deliberately considered by the procurators of Edinburgh; and in 1858, this same proposal having been considered by the practitioners of the Supreme Court of Scotland, met with their approval. Since then, in order to test the soundness of the views taken by these various legal bodies, commissioners were appointed by his right hon. Friend to consider the question. These commissioners were not English lawyers, but one of them was a most distinguished advocate of Glasgow—Mr. Bannatyne—and conjoined with him was a gentleman of equal eminence in Edinburgh. These gentlemen, after an anxious investigation all over Scotland, and conferring with the local commissioners in the different towns, agreed upon the plan embodied in this Bill; and as far as he knew, the Bill had not met with opposition from any large body in Scotland. That was a sufficient answer to the observation that they were not in a condition to deal with the question, because that report had been printed for about a year, and had been accessible to every Member of the House. Another objection as to matter of time was, that it was rather late in the Session. He did not think there was much weight in that objection. If no measure of that kind were to be proceeded with unless it were introduced a certain time before the 30th of April, it would be almost stopping legislation altogether. But if the county meetings had not had the Bill before them there was this to be said in its favour, that only three petitions had been presented against it. There was nothing to prevent their calling special meetings to consider it. There had been special meetings in reference to the Valuation and other Bills, but not a word had been said against this. The Bill was substantially a good one, and ought to have a favourable reception from the House. Its main object was to get rid of the system of double search. The fact of there being both a general and a local register involved the necessity of searching both. That caused considerable expense—he believed about £15—and that expense was not regulated by the value of the property, but the expense was the same whether the consideration for the transfer was £150 or £100,000. So serious and so heavy was this expense that the commissioners in their report stated that, in many districts where the property transferred was small, the parties, in order to save expense, ran the risk of taking the transfer without a search, and trusted to the honour of the agent employed that there was no incutnbrance on his property. Therefore he said that so far as the saving of the double search went, this Bill was an improvement which would not be questioned, and which should be effected as soon as possible. The two gentlemen who were appointed to consider this ques- tion made a very elaborate report. They said that if the plan they recommended were carried out, there would be a saving in the ordinary administration of the registrar's department of about £7,000 a year to the public. Well, that being the state of the case, what objection was there to going into Committee on this Bill? The time at which the local registers would be extinguished could be settled in Committee. Well, then, the objections raised were in the first place that this was part of what was called the system of centralization. Now it was a sufficient answer to that to say, that this scheme originated at Glasgow, and was recommended by Mr. Bannatyne, who was a Glasgow procurator. But further than that, the commissioners had no hesitation in recommending this centralization as the only way in which they could improve the present system of registration. It was said thst this centralization was part of a system, which had been introduced a great deal too much of late into Scotch legislation. He was not aware that there had been that great tendency to centralization. Looking at the present facilities of postal communication and of travelling by railway, he did not think there was a Member of that House who would say that there would be inconvenience in having one general registry. In 1617, when the means of communication was quite different, it was necessary to have district registries, and his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayrshire quite misapprehended the matter when he said the general register had crept in by some improper practice. The words of the Act of Parliament were clear, that there should be a general and a local register. He found from the Report that, in regard to registration of deeds in Ireland, the central control was in Dublin; and in 1827, when it was proposed to have a registration of deeds in England, it was recommended that London should be the place. It was said that a risk of delay would probably occur in the transfer of the deeds from the particular county to the city of Edinburgh for registration. Now he thought that that objection was already met by the actual facts. It was stated distinctly by the officials connected with those matters, that there had never yet been known an instance of deeds having been lost; and they went further in saying that at all events, as far as the county of Ayr and other counties were concerned, four-fifths of the deeds sent for registration were transmitted, not by a special messenger, but by the ordinary post. With these facts before them, he did not think that this Bill was fairly open to the charge of risking the safety of those deeds. Well, another objection was, that the measure would interfere with the local practitioners and authorities. The report, however, of Mr. Bannatyne, from Glasgow, and another gentleman from Edinburgh, distinctly showed that the Bill would not interfere in any way with the emoluments of the local agents or authorities. It appeared to him that there was nothing in the Bill which could interfere so as to place the local commissioners in an invidious position. The local practitioners at present sent up their deeds for registration without the interposition of agents on the spot. Why could they not do the same thing in respect to the registration of deeds that would take place in Edinburgh only? If any other scheme was suggested by persons competent to deal with this question—a scheme that would present as effective and economical a system of registration—he, for one, would be most willing to give it the most attentive consideration. It appeared by the Report of the two gentlemen to whom he had already referred, that two plans had been suggested and brought under their consideration with a view of improving the existing system, while preserving the principle of local registration. Having, however, heard all the details of these two plans, Mr. Bannatyne and his learned colleagues deliberately decided against them. One of those plans was that the register should be made up in the county town, and thence sent to the general office in Edinburgh for preservation. Now, the moment they sent up the deeds to Edinburgh for preservation, they would involve themselves in the difficulty of a double search. He had taken the opportunity of inquiring of those gentlemen alluded to as to the feasibility of this plan, and the answer they always gave was that the thing could not be done. He heard it said that the registration should not only be made perfect in itself, but that it should be made for public preservation. Now, that would leave the matter of the double search just where it was, and for this reason—the registration was for the last forty-one years. The books were sent up to the Register Office, and the search must go back for a period of forty years. Leaving the registration of the last forty years in Edinburgh, and beginning the new registration in the county, there must neces- sarily be a double search for the next thirty-nine years. It was for the House to say, whether a subject which had received such patient consideration by the two learned gentlemen so often alluded to, who had reported favourably of the present measure, whether it was one that ought to be postponed until the next year. It appeared to him that the Bill was really open to no objections which might not be better discussed and arranged in Committee. They were all agreed that there was a grievance to be got rid of. They must be equally convinced that the plan under consideration had been deliberately adopted by the various bodies interested in the question, and that it had been specially recommended by a Commission. For those reasons he did not see upon what reasonable grounds they could delay the Bill for three months, or, in reality, to another Session of Parliament.

most cordially thanked the Lord Advocate for having at last introduced a measure of this kind. At the same time, considering that the Government had taken ten years to consider the matter and prepare a definite scheme in the shape of the Bill before the House, he did not think they should grudge very much about granting the country as many months to consider it, as they had taken years. The matter had certainly been talked of in a general way for ten years, but in a vague, general, and uncertain way; and until it assumed the definite form of a Bill, people really did not give their attention to it. They had now a Bill proposed by the Government, and he was sure that in discussing it his right hon. and learned Friend would acquit him of any undue jealousy either of centralization or against Edinburgh lawyers, or of any want of sympathy with him in his desire — for which he gave him the fullest credit—to put the system of registration for Scotland on a footing more efficient than that which had been the admiration of the world at large. They were all agreed as to the necessity of getting rid of the double search. This might be accomplished in two ways—either by abolishing the general register, or by transferring the local registers to Edinburgh. The Lord Advocate proposed to transfer the local registers to Edinburgh. But the great preference in Scotland was in favour of the local registers. There was the option now, either to go to Edinburg or to the local registers; and it was found that only one-tenth of the whole went to Edinburgh, the large majority preferring the local registers. He did not mean to say that that preference alone ought to regulate the matter; but the strong conviction of the great mass of the people in Scotland being so largely in favour of the local registers, the House should consider carefully before they abolish a system which was viewed with so much favour. There was another point of great consequence. It was quite clear that if any change was made now, it ought to be a complete change, so that no further alteration would be required. When they were remodelling and re-organizing a system which had lasted for 200 years, they ought to remodel it in such a way that they should not he obliged to hammer and cooper upon it afterwards. The inevitable result of the change now proposed would be to make further legislation necessary. The Bill was framed on the principle that all burgh registers were to be preserved as local registers, and all county registers were to be taken to Edinburgh. One would fancy at first sight that this was founded on the greater convenience that parties dwelling in towns should have, in having their registration where their agents were, and where they would have every facility for recording their deeds. The deeds, it might be said, might as well be sent to Edinburgh by post as to a county town, while in the towns the inconvenience of sending them to Edinburgh was quite unnecessary. But the Bill did not carry out this principle. The burgh registers did not include the whole urban district. In the burgh of Glasgow, for instance, the extent of the town beyond the burgh was even larger than the extent of town within the burgh; and in that case, in the burghal part on the one side of the street, a person registering would not have the convenience of a local register; whereas a person on the other side of the street, being in the regality district, would be in a more favourable position. Clearly the distinction between the urban territory within the burgh and beyond the burgh could not be ultimately maintained — they must either bring back the urban territory beyond the burgh and give it a register with the burghal territory, or take it all to Edinburgh at once. This, and other questions of difficulty, he did not think had been considered at all by the Commissioners; and the Bill would undoubtedly establish a sys- tem which would leave some great questions to be settled at a future time. As to the merits of the two modes of registration, he did not disguise that he had no decided preference for the one over the other. Under the circumstances he had stated, he urged his right hon. and learned Friend most earnestly not to press this measure against the almost unanimous views of the Scotch Members, and the strong feeling of a very large class of the community in Scotland, without apparently any great object to be attained.

said, it was very significant that the only voice that had yet been raised in favour of the Bill was that of the hon. and learned Member for Bute (Mr. Mure), a practising lawyer and ex-Lord Advocate. This was an instance of the self-conceit of the Edinburgh gentlemen who took upon themselves to speak in the name of all Scotland. The only check upon them was the existence of another city called Glasgow, which had a still larger population; and when it was found that some gentlemen in Glasgow were of opinion that these registers might be removed, the opportunity was eagerly seized, and a Commission was appointed, consisting of one Edinburgh and one Glasgow man, the rest of Scotland being entirely ignored. The Glasgow man was a gentleman who had distinctly enunciated his opinion upon the subject, and, therefore, while wishing to speak with all respect of the commissioners, and to give their report all the weight it was worth, he considered it simply valuable as recording the reasons on which two decidedly clever men supported their pet scheme. The sort of sneer with which the hon. Member for Bute spoke of the county meetings was quite of a piece with the general manner in which the proceedings in regard to this Bill had been conducted. He thought those meetings the most valuable checks upon the general principle of what might be called Edinburgh legislation; and perhaps it was convenient to bring in Bills of this kind at a time when the county meetings were not sitting. They had heard a good deal about the expense of the double search; but he believed that the expense arose solely from the extent of arrears in the indices at Edinburgh, and that they had been kept in arrears for the purpose of bringing discredit upon the present system.

joined in the appeal to the Lord Advocate not to press his motion to a division in no hostile spirit, but because he thought the country required further time for the consideration of the measure. The Lord Advocate acceded to a suggestion of that nature at the meeting of Scotch Members, and he was surprised to find him in little more than a week afterwards moving the scond reading of the Bill. Great credit was due to the Government for grappling with the subject, for there were no doubt abuses in the present system of registration; but the subject was one that required the calm consideration of the country. After the strong testimony in favour of the local system, there ought to be some stronger argument than had hitherto been brought forward to overthrow it. The subject had never been properly considered. They had a most able Report of the Commissioners, but they had not the arguments on which it was founded, and no discussion had taken place throughout the country to enable them fully to see the bearings of the question. The question certainly was one that required consideration, and no injury would result from allowing it to stand over to another Session.

said, it was remarkable only one voice had been raised in favour of the Bill, and that came from Edinburgh. He did not attribute motives to the lawyers of Edinburgh or any one else, but assumed that the opinions expressed on both sides were conscientious views as to what was most conducive to the welfare of the country. But the whole of the country was against the opinions expressed from Edinburgh, and he thought that fact was sufficient to call for a postponement of the Lord Advocate's plan. They wanted to get rid of a double search, and the Bill did not affect that object, it simply removed one set of registers from the county town in Edinburgh. It was said that the Bill would save £7,000 a year, but the real question was which was the best thing to do—to maintain two searches, removing twenty county registers to Edinburgh, or to do away with the borough register and leave the county registers as they were. He could see no advantage in removing the registers from the counties to Edinburgh. Well, it was said in Ireland it was done so, and that might be a good argument if they were establishing the registry for the first time in Scotland, but as it already existed and was working well, the feelings of the people of Scotland should be considered, and they were not in favour of the centralization. If the Lord Advocate had confidence in the principle of his measure, surely the more it was ventilated the more it would gain the support of the country. But, said the hon. and learned Gentleman, the more the Bill is delayed the more opposition it is likely to meet with. Surely there could not be a stronger argument against the Bill than this. The Lord Advocate told them that there was an excess of receipts of £5,000 over and above the requirements of the present system. This money went to the Consolidated Fund. Now, was it right or just that the people should be taxed for the sake of the Consolidated Fund? And then, with regard to another point, it was said that the second reading of this Bill might be carried, and it could be altered in Committee. He (Mr. Craufurd) objected to their doing anything of the kind. They objected to the Bill, and he contended that the second reading was the proper time to enter their protest against the Bill being proceeded with. In conclusion, he pressed upon the Lord Advocate the advisability of withdrawing the Bill, in deference to the wishes which had been so generally expressed by the Scotch Members.

said, that as all the arguments had been one way it would be unnecessary for him to detain the House at any length, but he trusted that his right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate would not press this measure on at present. The petitions against it were signed by ablest men in Scotland, and the Council of the Society of Solicitors, the Lord Advocate's own friends, had in a report presented to a meeting held on the 6th inst. referred to the limited time which had been allowed for the consideration of the measure. Public feeling in Scotland at the present time was decidedly opposed to the plan proposed by the right hon. Gentleman, though not to the object which he had in view—namely, the simplification of the registration system. He implored his right hon. and learned Friend to give more time for the consideration of the measure.

regretted that the opposition to this Bill should have taken the form of imputations upon the motives of the hon. and learned Lord Advocate, whose only object could be to benefit the public. He did not think that it was at all conducive to the dignity of Scotch discussions in the House to have imputations cast upon hon. Gentlemen who might introduce measures for the public good. Every one knew the zeal of the Lord Advocate for the public weal and for the benefit of Scotland, and there was, therefore, no ground for imputing to him any desire to favour Edinburgh lawyers or to advance Edinburgh interests. A great deal had been said about centralization; but, to have a permanent system of local registration they must make it central, and therefore all the arguments on the subject fell to the ground. In his opinion this question was one which essentially affected the landed proprietors of Scotland, as the cost fell upon them; and it was agreed to on all hands that the existing system was not satisfactory, for it was neither, as simple nor as cheap as it could be made. The experience they had went to show that the existing system was thoroughly unsatisfactory; and therefore when the Report of the commissioners was in the hands of his hon. Friend the Lord Advocate—coming, as it did, from gentle-men capable of forming an opinion upon such an intricate question—-it became his duty to prepare a measure for the. consideration of Parliament. It was a misfortune that he was encumbered with so much hostility to his proposal; and he doubted very much whether that hostility would he lessened by the delay which was now sought at his hands, fiat still he thought the debate must have shown him that he had comparatively little choice in the matter, and therefore he (Mr. Bouverie) must concur with his colleagues from Scotland in inquiring whether it would not be wise to postpone the carrying out of this scheme, so that, by further consideration, he might be able to add another claim to the debt of gratitude due to him from his countrymen, by carrying into effect a cheap and efficient system of registering; Cities, in, Scotland.

Sir, I cannot pretend to be acquainted with the legal circumstances connected with this question. I can only say that if I were in the position of a seller or purchaser of property. I should like very well to have the opportunity of ascertaining readily and correctly whether there are or are not any burdens on the property; and it seems to me that it would be better for that purpose that there should be one general register in one particular place, which would give me the information I require, than that I should have to hunt for it in several different parts of the country. The proper place to go to for such a register is, I venture to think, the central office in Edinburgh. I am not speaking now as Member for Edinburgh. I do not care a farthing where the register is kept, whether it be in Edinburgh or in Glasgow or anywhere else, provided it be in one particular and accessible place, and that I should be relieved from the necessity of running from one place to another in order to obtain the information concerning the property. I am quite aware that considerable objection is entertained to this measure; but it is only natural that it should be so. I should like to know when there was ever a reform proposed in this House to which there was not some sort of opposition from persons who thought that their interests would be injuriously affected by it? In the present instance it is perfectly clear that the procurators and other members of the legal profession connected with the different counties imagine—and it is really a very small matter that they are afraid of—that their pecuniary interests will be somewhat affected by having the whole of the registers collected in one particular place. It is said that there are a great many petitioners against the Bill, and pat they come from twenty-four different quarters. I took-the trouble to look into the matter, and found that out of the twenty-four eighteen were from procurators. These persons imagine that they will lose a few pounds a year by the new system, and therefore are very strongly in favour of preserving the present system which is not at all for the interest of those who buy and sell land or houses. That has happened to this Bill which happens to every reform we have individual interests opposed to those of the community at large. Now we must recollect who these procurators are. They are law agents and very important men in the burghs. Members who intend to offer themselves for re-election at the next election no doubt have a notion that if they do not find grace in the eyes of the law agents in the different burghs, it will be a very dangerous thing for them. Therefore, I do not at all wonder that a number of our Scotch representatives should feel a little chary about showing themselves in favour of a Bill which they know is far from meeting the approval of a class of persons who exercise great weight in the return of Members to Parliament. The true question we have to consider is, what would be most for the benefit of those who have dealings in lands or heritages in Scotland? I think there can be no ques- tion that there would be great advantage in having a single and uniform register instead of two or three separate ones. It might not altogether suit the procurators, perhaps, but it would be a great advantage: to the parties to transactions in land. I find it stated in the petition of the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council; of Glasgow, that for years past a system of centralization has been going on in Scotland, by which it is sought to concentrate in Edinburgh, at the expense of the rest of the land, all offices and places of importance—which system the petitioners say they hold to be opposed to the principle and spirit of the Constitution. Now, that is just one of the clap-trap cries which men get up when they want to frighten the public. No doubt there are objections to excessive centralization; but I see no ground for supposing that centralization is, under all circumstances, of necessity a bad thing. Give a dog a bad name, says the proverb, and you may hang him at once, And here an attempt is made to fasten a bad name on centralization; but if it is for the benefit of the people, why should they not have it? I hope nobody will be alarmed by all this talk about centralization into opposing the Bill. I need not go into the matter further. I am satisfied that all the arguments raised against the. Bill could be refuted, and that its passing would be for the benefit of all who have dealings in property.

Sir, the expense of conveyancing has long been a subject of complaint in Scotland among all who are concerned in land; and those who have considered the means of diminishing that expense have, on the whole, come to the conclusion that it is mainly caused by the state of the registration of lands. We have in Scotland the benefit of a very valuable system of registration of titles, but we have to pay for that by a very heavy amount of costs at every step and singe of the transfer of land. There is no doubt about that among all those most qualified to judge of the question. Until the Report of the Commissioners appeared, I am sure that there was in almost every quarter but one opinion on the subject, which was, that the reform of the registers was to be the main channel through which we were to reach economy in the transfer of land; and that the reform of the registers consisted chiefly in bringing them all into one place, under one system and authority, and according to a uniform principle. We have often been invited to grapple with this question. It is a very material one, not merely with regard to the expense of searches, but with regard to other reforms which may be engrafted on it. I hope the House will understand that we have not proceeded at all hurriedly in this matter. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Greenock (Mr. Dunlop) says that we have been ten years at it. That is quite true. It is an ancient system, not to be rashly touched, and we deemed it only proper that the question should be allowed to ripen in the public mind. It has been ventilated from time to time for the last ten years. It is well known, I should think, to every one except the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter), who seems to be supremely ignorant on this subject, that it was the lawyers, not of Edinburgh but of Glasgow, who first put the proposition of this Bill into a tangible shape. They brought it forward in 1856. The question was subsequently remitted to a Commission in 1860–1, and in 1864 we have proposed to carry into effect the recommendation of the Glasgow Procurators in 1856, and of the subsequent Commission, This is a most important reform for the landed interest. I am told that I have not given any estimate of its expense. Now, I am in a position to show, if it were necessary, that by this Bill a large economy would be at once effected. After the compensations run out, the surplus of the Register House would be about £16,000 a year, and that not only a reduction of fees, but a more economical system of working might be secured. I am not prepared to admit that the debate has altogether shown the real sense of the Scotch Members on the subject—I cannot think that—but we have not received the amount of support we were entitled to expect. Have the landed proprietors come forward to help us? How have my hon. Friends assisted us? Even the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Smollett) is not in his place. The hon. Gentleman challenged me to grapple with large questions, who taunted me with bringing in Bills for fish not men, and with the lateness of the hour at which Scotch business is brought on. But now, when we have a night to ourselves for the discussion of Scotch business, when a very important Bill is brought forward at an early hour—and that Bill relates to land not fish—the hon. Member allows me to be torn to pieces by his hon. Friends behind me and is not here to raise his voice to my assistance. It is true, as has been said, that we hand a meeting of Scotch Members on this question. They were not friendly to the Bill; not because they had formed a decided opinion on the matter, but because strong representations had been made to them against it. I was quite aware that representations would be made against it. There was a whisper last year of such a Bill being introduced, and at once strong representations began to be made against it. For the last six years the appointments to the office of keeper of the registers in the counties have borne a clause that if it should happen that the registers were taken to Edinburgh the holders of such offices should not be entitled to compensation. There has therefore, been distinct and ample warning to the country on the matter. I do not impute that this is a mere pecuniary question to the opponents of the Bill. There is a kind of esprit de corps in the counties, and they are unwilling to part with prestige of the ancient registers. That is only natural. It is an element that necessarily arises. It is an element which has arisen in England in regard to the propose system of registers; and it is an element with which we must deal if we want to carry out an efficient reform. I cannot say that I felt confident about carrying this Bill when I introduced it; but I was anxious in the first instance to bring the matter to a point and see what were the difficulties which weighed against my proposal. We have had a discussion to-night which has served that purpose. The hon. and gallant Member for Ayr (Sir James Fergusson) has studied the subject carefully, and expressed his views with clearness and ability. I listened to his speech, I must say, with great pleasure. The hon. and learned Member for Greenock (Mr. Dunlop) has also made some suggestions which derive value from his experience, and the long consideration he has given to the matter. I expected, however, more vigorous support from my hon. and learned Friend. As to my hon. Friend the Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter), I cannot congratulate him on the appearance he has made to-night. That an hon. Gentleman of his position in the House should come forward on a matter of this kind, proposed in accordance with the opinions of men who, in respect of learning, experience, and integrity stand as high as any in Scotland, and should charge us with bringing in a Bill (which he ought to have known was first suggested by the procurators of Glasgow) for the purpose of benefiting the lawyers Edinburgh — I say I much regret that he should have done so. I wish he only knew the feeling with which I heard his words. I am not in the least afraid that any man whose opinion I value will for a moment give credence to the hon. Member's assertions. I must say, however, I am somewhat surprised that any one of the Scotch Members, who generally express themselves with moderation and good feeling, should have given vent to such paltry criticism. This is not a measure for the lawyers of Edinburgh. It is a measure for the landed interest. If it be inferior to any other scheme for the accomplishment of the same object, let the hon. Member for Montrose or any other submit a better proposal, and defend it on philosophical and logical grounds instead of appealing to feelings of the least elevated kind that can be roused. I shall be very gland to give his proposition fair consideration. When charges of this of this sort are levelled against the Edinburgh lawyers, and when it is said that no practising advocate will bring in a Bill for and economical reform of the legal system, it ought to be known that thirty years ago offices to the extent of £60,000 a year were abolished in Scotland at the instance of Edinburgh lawyers. This, however, is all beside the question. It is admitted on all hands that a reform is required. It is admitted on all hands that the system of the old registers requires amendment, and that the amendment should be in the direction of abolishing the double registers. That being agreed, the second reading of this Bill seemed to me a matter of course. The only question that remains is whether you should do away with the local registers and collect them all at Edinburgh, or whether you should keep the registers in the counties and abolish the general office in Edinburgh. Our proposal is that, instead of a score of local registers, you should have a single central one. The expense to the landed proprietors of these local registers is immense. The fees in Glasgow amount to £5,000 a year; in Forfarshire to £1,100; in Aberdeen to £800; and the total comes to £12,000 a year. On the other hand, the chief registrar in Edinburgh would have only £1,000 a year salary, and there would generally be a great saving. Of course, if you increase the staff of the local offices, you must incur an increased expenditure. But even if you keep up the local registers, you cannot abolish the General Register Office altogether. It will still be required for the old registers, and for those of the three Lothian—as well as for the registration of adjudications, hornings, &c. If you want a thorough effectual reform, I can only say it is utterly impossible to accomplish it with twenty different offices, without control, without a uniform principle, and distributed throughout the country. You must have a uniform system, and a complete arrangement for indexing. It was proposed in 1863 that the local registers should be abolished, and that Edinburgh should be made the central office, but that Glasgow should be allowed to retain its register as an exception to the rule. Several of the most distinguished members of the procurators of Glasgow, from whom that proposal emanated, dissented on the ground that it would be incompatible with a uniform national system, and that the facilities for searching would be lessened and the expense increased if so many of thte registers were to be kept in Edinburgh and so many in Glasgow. I have thought it right to make these remarks in vindication of rive course I have taken; but it cannot be disguised that the measure receives but little support from the representatives of Scotland, and as I am usually favoured with their cordial and kindly co-operation, I feel bound, in spite of my own strong feelings on the matter, to defer to their opinion. I have therefore come to the conclusion that the Bill had better be withdrawn in the meantime, and I hope that when we next return to the question we shall consider it on its merits, apart from personal or professional insinuations.

said, he would withdrawn his Amendment.

said, he was very desirous to explain the nature of the measure, because a very considerable amount of misunderstanding and misapprehension prevailed in reference to its provisions. Two years ago his hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Henry Seymour) called attention to the Subject of the Ecclesiastical Statutes, by a Motion of a very wide and extensive character, which proposed that the whole of them should be consolidated. The Government was not prepared to embark in so large a scheme; but they promised to see whether a certain portion of the Acts bearing on the subject, namely, those commonly known as the Church Building Acts, could not be consolidated. One of the most eminent ecclesiastical lawyers of the day, under instructions from the Lord Chancellor, prepared the draft of a Bill for the purpose of effecting that object; and it became his own duty to revise and finally settle the form of a Bill from the draft So prepared by Dr. Stephens, and having done so he introduced it to the House. In performing that duty he laid down for his own guidance the principle of avoiding, as far as he could do so, the introduction of any material changes into the law on subjects of importance on which there were divided opinions in that House and out of doors. His wish was to avoid every innovation Whatever in the substance of the laws of the Church; and the difficulties which he had to experience in effecting that object were more formidable than at first sight they might seem to be. The case was one in which the mere collection and re-enactment of all the Various provisions of the existing law, without any amendment or alteration of those provisions, was impossible; and, accordingly, both the draft Bill originally prepared by Dr. Stephens, and the Bill introduced by himself, contained Various Amendments, principally for the purpose of simphfying and reducing into harmony the confusion and inconsistency which was found to exist in some of the details of the Acts which it was desired to consolidate. Some of these Acts contained provisions expressly relating to the subject of church rates; and these provisions Dr. Stephens, in the proper discharge of the duty intrusted to him, embodied in his draft. The Government, however, felt, that the passing of the measure might be endangered, if these provisions continued to form part of it; and, on the other hand, it was not prepared to repeal them. It was, therefore, determined, neither to consolidate nor to repeal those parts of the former Acts, which related to the levying of church rates for particular purposes; but to allow them to remain in force as originally enacted. On the second reading of the Bill some reference was triads to a question which had then lately arisen before the Courts of Law, as to church rates in new parishes; and he then stated that it was quite impossible for the Government to propose in such a Bill any interference with that subject. The object of the Bill was to simplify and consolidate the Church Building Acts; but the Government were not anxious to, in any way, embark in the settlement of the church rate question by means of that measure. The Bill was referred to: a Select Committee, and he must say that that Committee, in which various opinions were represented, took a great deal of pains with the Bill, and the members of the Committee adopted the same view as that held by the Government—namely, that no attempt should be made by that Bill to introduce any extension of the principle of church rates, or any provision for the abolition of those rates. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Remington Mills) moved to introduce in a particular clause words which would have had the effect of providing that church rates should not be levied in new parishes; but all the other members of the Committee, including two hon. Friends of his own, who always voted for the abolition of church rates, voted against the Motion of the hon. Member for Wycombe, on the ground that it was not a part of the object of the Bill to use it as an opportunity of introducing any important alteration of the law with respect to church rates. The Bill passed through Committee, and the Committee went farther than he had ventured to do when introducing the Bill to the House; for they recommended that clauses should be introduced consolidating, and therefore reenacting, those provisions of the former Acts, expressly relating to church rates, which had been left unrepealed but had not been consolidated. They thought the Bill would not be perfect unless it included all enactments, which it was not proposed to alter. While wishing to pay every deference to the decision of the Committee, he had, nevertheless, felt bound to deal with the Bill in an independent way, when the question arose of introducing it again. He still thought that the recommendation of the Committee would lead to a contest of opinions on the subject of church rates, when the additional clauses came to be considered; and, therefore, he thought it would be more advisable to adhere to the origin a decision of the Government, and neither con- solidate nor repeal the church rate clauses by means of such a Bill. He, therefore, prepared a Bill on that footing, which was in other respects, in substance, as it passed the Select Committee. After it was introduced, a great deal of discussion took place out of doors, and one particular clause was regarded by a large body out of doors and by some hon. Members in that House as having the very effect which the Government desired to avoid in bringing forward the measure—namely, as altering the status quo upon the subject of church rates. Under these circumstances, it became a matter for the serious consideration of the Government how far that objection, whether well or ill-founded, might prove a practical obstacle to the passing of the measure, and also how far it might be met by a modification of the Bill. It had been seriously represented, notwithstanding the engagements which had been given that there should be as far as possible an evenhanded balance held between both parties on the subject, yet that an attempt was made in life Bill to extend the law of church rates to castes in which it was not applicable under the present law. He trusted that there were not many hon. Members who believed him to be personally capable of such an attempt. To say, indeed, that a Government, the greater part of whose Members were in the habit of voting for the abolition of church rates, would be parties to such a scheme would be too unreasonable for any one to believe. Because, however, he was known to be individually in favour of some provision being made for the maintenance of the fabrics of the Established Church, it was inferred by some that he might be capable of abusing the opportunities he enjoyed, and of endeavouring to do indirectly that which he had said he should endeavour to avoid. This rendered it necessary, that he should explain to the House, in a little detail, how the case as to church rates in new parishes really stood under the existing law, and show that there was nothing in the present Bill which could possibly have the effect of making such parishes liable to church rates, unless they were already so liable. There were twelve principal Acts relating to the creation of new parishes, and two principal classes of new parishes to which those Acts referred. The first class were new parishes under the Acts anterior to those of Sir Robert Peel and Lord Blandford, of 1843 and 1856, and the other class were new parishes under the feel and Blandford Acts of 1843 and 1856. The first class consisted of new parishes which by the express enactments of the Acts under which they were founded were authorized to raise church rates within themselves for the purpose of repairing their own churches, but were also saddled with contributions to the mother church for-twenty years. Some persons had fallen into the error of supposing that Parliament had decided against the principle of allowing church rates to be levied for these new parishes. The original Acts which enabled district parishes to be created were the Million Acts of 1818–19, and by the express terms of the 70th section of the first Act it was enacted that—

"The repairs of all such district churches or chapels shall be made fey the districts to which they respectively belong, by rates to be raised within the district in like manner as in case of repairs of churches by parishes, and every such district shall be deemed in law a separate and distinct parish for that purpose."

Section 71 of that Act superadded, by way of proviso, a continued liability to be rated also to the repair of the original parish church for twenty years from the consecration of the district church or chapel. Since that time no less than seven later Acts, passed in 1822, 1824, 1831, 1838, 1845, 1848, and 1851, referred to these provisions of the Million Acts for the creation of "separate and distinct parishes," and "district parishes," with all the incidents and consequences attached to them by the Million Acts, as in full force and effect, and contained a variety of further enactments facilitating and extending their application to cases to which they did not originally apply. There were also powers in the Million Acts and some of the later Acts for building, rebuilding, and enlarging churches by means of church rates. The Government might, with far more justice than there was in the charge now made against them, have been exposed to the imputation of legislating, by this Bill, too much in favour of the views of those who were opposed to church rates in new parishes; because, 6y the process of consolidation and simplification adapted in this Bill they had swept away entirely the whole of the machinery by which those "district parishes," and "distinct and separate parishes," to which the power of levying church rates for the support of their churches was expressly attached, could be called into existence under the provisions of the Million Acts and the rest of that series of statutes; and if the Bill should pass as it left the Committee, there could no longer be any new parishes that would have expressly conferred upon them the power of raising church rates. The Government and the Select Committee had adopted in that consolidation the simplest form of new parishes — namely, the form of the Peel and Blandford Acts, and they had proposed to abolish for the future the earlier forms under which the power of raising church rates was expressly conferred. That was not done in order to affect the subject of church rates, but because it was thought better, for other reasons, to get rid of the older machinery; and they did not consider, in so doing, whether they would or would not diminish the area within which the law of church rates might be applied. The Peel and Blandford Acts of 1843 and 1856 had introduced a new description of parishes; and as some differences of form existed, involving more important considerations, it was thought desirable to reduce all to one single model, and to adopt, for this purpose, the latest form—namely, that of Lord Blandford's Act. Sir Robert Peel in 1843, when he proposed that Queen Anne's bounty should advance £600,000 for the creation of new districts, introduced a Bill for the creation of those new districts. He proposed to endow districts which had not churches at the time of endowing them, hoping; that private benefactors would provide churches, and his Bill proposed that as soon as a church was consecrated for any district, it should become a new parish for ecclesiastical purposes. There was not one word in that Act, one way or the other, about church rates, and from that circumstance it had been inferred that these new parishes would not have the same incidents as to church rates which the older class of new parishes possessed. It had also been asserted that Sir Robert Peel made some declaration of his own intentions on that subject; but he was bound to say that he had not been able to discover that Sir Robert Peel had left on record any such declaration of his intentions. In 1828 Sir Robert Peel was said to have declared that it was not expedient to apply the law of church rates to any new parishes; but nothing could be a greater mistake than that representation. In the first place, the facts already stated showed, that, long after 1828, Sir Robert Peel's Government and other Governments which followed were parties to an extension of the system of the new parishes, created under the Million Acts, to which church rates were expressly annexed. Sirs Robert Peel's declaration in 1828 was, that he did not propose to devolve upon the Church Building Society the power of imposing church rates upon any parish. That was quite true. But he said that, on bringing in a Bill to incorporate that society and empower them not to make new parishes, but simply to receive voluntary contributions for the building and repairing of churches and chapels. There was at that time no legislation at all proposed on the subject of new parishes. Whatever might have been Sir Robert Peel's opinion in 1843, he did not at any time leave it on record; but he (the Attorney General) entirely agreed that the general impression and belief was that the effect of his legislation in 1843 differed from that of the earlier Acts, and that it would not allow church rates to be levied in what were called the Peel parishes. The next stage of legislation upon this subject was the introduction of Lord Blandford's Bill. That was first introduced in 1855, and the measure founded upon it became law in the following year. As to that also there was some misapprehension. In the first place that Bill was in no sense a Government Bill, as was stated at the time by his right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Home Department; it was no introduced with sanction of the Government, though they approved its object. Lord Blandford desired to extend, as far as might be, to all districts the principle of the new parishes under Sir Robert Peel's Act, and more particularly to permit the creation of parishes of that description in districts where there were churches already. When the Bill was introduced it contained a clause expressly dealing with church rates. It was this effict—

"No church rate levied within any parish shall be applicable to any but the church and to the church purposes of such parish."

In his speech upon the introduction of the Bill, Lord Blandford said—

"The districts (i.e. district parishes) were liable for twenty years to the rates of the mother church, and, as no benefit was derived, the district churchmen frequently refused the rates more from this reason than from any disapproval of the church as a great national institution. … The simple remedy, which he had endeavoured to embody in this Bill with respect to this question, was to declare that no church rate should be levied in a district which was not ap- plied to the church of that district. … No church rates were to be collected in any new parish, except for the support of its own church."

When, therefore, that Bill was introduced, its author intended to enable church rates to be raised for the new parishes which he proposed to create. But the Bill was referred to a Select Committee, and came out very altered, and amongst other changes that clause had disappeared. When it was afterwards considered in Committee in this House very little discussion took place. Sir W. Clay asked whether the second clause in constituting separate parishes, would confer upon those parishes the right of levying church rates. Lord Blandford said positively that that would not be the effect of the clause—that the parishes thereby constituted would to all intents and purposes resemble those formed by Sir Robert Peel's Act, under which, as was known, no church rate could be levied. That statement of Lord Blandford might or might not have been correctly understood at the time, but hon. Gentlemen would do well to read the second clause upon which the question was asked, and the answer given. That clause merely provided for the creation of additional parishes in districts which had already a church, Sir Robert Peel's Act having provided for similar object in districts without churches. The Peel parishes were expressly the subject of that clause, and no doubt Lord Blandford expressed his apprehension that these parishes would not be able, under that clause, to levy church rates. But the material clause in the Act, and one which might have the most important bearing upon the question, was not the 2nd, but was the 15th which did not stand now as it did when this conversation took place. At that time the 15th clause wanted seven or eight lines with which it now concluded. It provided that the resident inhabitants of every new parish, whether constituted under the Peel or Blandford Acts,

"Shall for all ecclesiastical purposes be parishioners thereof and of no other parish, and such new parish shall for the like purposes have and possess all the same rights and privileges, and be: affected with: such and; the same liabilities as are incident or belong to a distinct and separate parish."

There the clause stopped originally, and in that state it passed, not only through the Select Committee, but also through the Committee of this House. It was not till the Report, that, on the Motion of the hon. Baronet the Member for the Univer- sity of Oxford (Sir William Heathcote), these important words were added—

"And to no other liabilities: provided always that nothing herein contained shall be taken to affect the legal liabilities of any parish regulated by a local Act of Parliament, or the security for any loan of money legally borrowed under any Act of Parliament or otherwise."

The saving of securities for monies borrowed under an Act of Parliament could scarcely have reference to anything but monies borrowed on the security of rates; and these words were very likely added for the express purpose of producing, or making more clear, the effect which some supposed now to be produced by the clause. That was the form in which Lard Blandford's Act passed; and this was the stale in which Her Majesty's present Government found the matter, with the addition that in the autumn of 1862 the question as to the effect of the Peel and Blandford Acts was raised in a suit about a church rate at Shrewsbury—the case of "Gough v Jones"—in which Dr. Lushington held, not that Church rates might be raised for the repair of the church of a new parish, but that the inhabitants of a new parish were not liable to the church rate levied for the Church of the mother parish. It had occurred to many persons since, and he believed the opinion had been acted upon, that the converse proposition ought also to hold, and that if the new parish were exonerated from the church rate levied in the old parish, it would be entitled, on the same principle, to raise a church rate for its own purposes. Dr. Lushington in his judgment did not proceed upon the interpretation of Lord Blandford's Act at all. He took an earlier clause, the 14th, which said that whenever certain offices of the church should be performed in the church of a new parish or district, and the fees should belong to the incumbent, then it was to be a separate and distinct parish far ecclesinstical purposes, such as was contemplated in the 15th section of Sir Robert Peel's Act. Dr. Lushington said, "The refers us to Sir Robert Peel's Act, so let us see whether church rates could be levied under that Statute." Then he fastened upon the term "ecclesiastical purposes" in the 15th section of Sir Robert Peel's Act. That, in his opinion, must mean all ecclesiastical purposes; and he held that church rates were ecclesiastical purposes. In this way, construing Sir Robert Peel's Act, and not the 15th section of Lord Blandford's Act, Dr. Lushington arrived at the conclusion that church rates were not to be levied in new parish for the purposes of the old parish. He believed it was proposed to appeal from this judgment to the Privy Council, and it was therefore impossible yet to assume that this was actually the law. At the same time it must be obvious to every one that there were elements for further consideration arising out of the 15th section of Lord Blandford's Act, which were not exhausted by Dr. Lushington's decision in that case. He would now explain the course which had been taken in the preparation of the present Bill, under these circumstances. If they consolidated the provisions of Lord Blandford's Act at all, it was impossible to leave out the 15th section, which was the very keystone of the arch; and what was done, therefore, was simply to take the language of that section and reproduce it, church rates not being mentioned, leaving it to have in the new Act just the operation which it would have in the old Act. Nothing was done to authorize the levy of church rates under it, if they could not have been levied in like circumstances under the old Act. Whatever that operation of Lord Blandford's Act was, it was, at present, the law of the land and to alter it, so as to declare that church rates should not be levied for the purposes of these new parishes (if they might be so levied under the existing law), would have been a plain and direct departure from the engagement given by the Government, that they would not attempt, by the present measure, to alter the law of church rates. If a majority of this or of the other House of Parliament thought the law on this subject ought to be as it was, it could hardly be expected that they would recognize the obligation, sought by some to be cast upon them, to alter that law, merely because its effect might have been misapprehended by this or that individual, either when Lord Blandford's Act was passing through the House of Commons, or at any other time. Those who thought that the law ought to be altered, had the right and the power to bring that question to a direct issue, by moving for leave to introduce a Bill for that purpose; but he did not think they could justly call upon the Government to take that responsibility upon themselves, much less to stake the success of a measure like the present upon any such proposal. At the same time, the Government were most desirous of doing all that they properly could to remove any reasonable ground of exception, if such could be shown to exist, to the language or the possible effect of any part of the present Bill. It had occurred to him that the objection with regard to the disputed clause, which had been adopted out of Lord Blandford's Act, might be met by omitting the whole of those clauses which related to the Peel and Blandford parishes, leaving Sir Robert Peel's and Lord Blandford's Acts unrepealed; and that he should have been perfectly prepared to do, if, all things considered, it had appeared the more advisable course to proceed with the Bill during the present Session. But there seemed to be good reasons for withdrawing the Bill just now. On the one hand the Government had been informed that nothing would be satisfactory to certain gentlemen except a substantive alteration in the law, which; of course would be inconsistent with the engagements which had been given when the subject was undertaken. He was also bound to say the moment a cry was raised, on one side, it seemed as if the defence of the Bill, on the other side, might, perhaps, be rested by some on grounds equally remote from that impartiality on the matter in dispute, which the Government desired to preserve; and that any such modification of it, as he had just indicated, would be unacceptable to a powerful class of its supporters. But there was also another subject which had exposed the Bill to objections, sometimes urged in strong terms, from a very different class of opponents, and upon which some explanation was due. The Government had been accused of new legislation, not only on the question of church rates, but also in the very opposite direction, on the question of pew rents. Some zealous churchmen had been as severe on the Bill for that reason as gentlemen who held an opposite opinion had been on account of church rates. He wished to state simply that every one of the Acts under which new parishes were created authorized, without a single exception, the levying of pew rents in the churches of those parishes. The Government, therefore, only took up the system which was found to prevail under the sanction of every former Act. The proportion varied, but the principle existed. His own personal sympathies were with those who did not like pew rents, but were in favour of free churches. But there might often be more harm done by standing up for an abstract principle to an impracticable extent than by adopting the course which, under the circumstances, was practically the best. Finding, therefore, the principle of pew rents pervading the whole of these Acts, it appeared necessary to adhere to it, but yet it was desirable, while consolidating the Acts, not to extend the principle. And in conformity with that object a clause was introduced into the Bill, by which it was provided, that in no church should the number of free seats be diminished by the operation of the Bill. The Select Committee had thought fit with regard to the Blandford churches to alter-the minimum fixed by the Act from half to one-third. He was not present when that alteration was made; it was unnecessary to say how he should have voted if be had been, but he felt bound to introduce the Bill as it came from the Committee in that respect. It was, however, the greatest mistake possible to suppose that the Bill was intended to legislate in favour of the principle of pew rents, or to give that principle a more extended application, any more than that it was intended to legislate in favour of church rates, or to give them a more extended application. The Bill was honestly intended for the purpose of doing some practical good without meddling with controverted matters. He was sorry, that, for the present, the attempt had failed. It was not a Bill of a pretentious or ambitious character; but he was quite sure that the House would give him credit for having attempted to promote a useful object in all good faith, and having no idea in view except to do that which under the circumstances appeared most just and reasonable. He begged to move that the order be discharged.

said, that the principle which those who agreed with him contended for had been admitted by the hon. and learned Gentleman, that, during the last thirty years, no Bill had been carried through the House which did not proceed on the assumption that church rates were not to be interfered with. He wished to call attention to what passed in the year 1828, when an attempt was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day to pass a Bill which was not allowed to be read a second time, although he stated that it would not interfere with the question of church rates.

said, he had listened with great admiration to the able and luminous speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman, but had heard with great regret the announcement that the Bill was to be withdrawn. He had been a Member of the Select Committee which had discussed the Bill, and he felt in listening to the explanations of the Attorney General that a more powerful speech in favour of a second reading he had not often heard, and he learned with sorrow that the unanswerable arguments in favour of the Bill were to be followed by its withdrawal. The Select Committee who sat upon that question was composed of Gentlemen whose opinions ought to command respect: the Committee gave a most attentive consideration to the subject, and most of them were most anxious to carry out the arrangement that the question of church rates was not to altered by this Consolidation Bill. Having been himself always a warm supporter of church rates in that House, he had strictly adhered to the engagement. But what was the course taken by one hon. Member, who was against the maintenance of church rates? Having found that the law of church rates with regard to the new parishes, as laid down by Dr. Lushington, was different from what he supposed, he thought that he had got an opportunity for altering the law, and he proposed to make it, by means of the Consolidation Bill, that which he thought it was. But, to the honour of the other Members of the Committee who were opposed to church rates, they took a contrary view, and they proceeded in the consideration of the Bill in strict accordance with the engagements which had been entered into. The Bill came down from the Committee at top late a period to be proceeded with, but his hon. and learned Friend had introduced the present measure very nearly in the shape in which it left the Committee, and at a period of the Session favourable to its discussion. With regard to the course that had been taken to-night, he deeply compassionated him on the pressure that had been put upon him. If he had been left to his own will he would have carried the measure and earned the gratitude of all Churchmen for having effected that which had been a much desired object for many years past. The condition and entanglement of the law had been a matter of disgrace to the Legislature for many years, and if his hon. and learned Friend had been able to use his great powers and influential position in removing that stigma, and had made the law clear and intelligible, he would have earned the gratitude of all Churchman in this country, and it would have conferred additional honour upon him. He regretted that his hon. and learned Friend had taken service with Ministers whose political exigencies were such as obliged them to violate their own convictions and bow to the unreasoning clamour of a small section of their supporters. There was not a single reason for the withdrawal of the Bill, but it had been done simply to obviate the disaffection and estrangement of a small section. What was the single point upon which some of the anti-Church party dissented from that Bill? The decision in the case of "Gough v. Jones" decided that new parishes under Lord Blandford's Act were not liable to pay church rates to the mother church, and the Committee before whom the Bill was seat well considered it, and, finding they had no power to alter the law, they took it as it had been laid down by Dr. Lushington, and made no change in it; but the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. M. T. Smith), and those who supported him, took another view of the matter, but that was no reason for withdrawing the Bill. It was a Consolidation Bill, and ought to have been proceeded with; and if the hon. Member for Wycombe, and those who took a similar view of it, thought it a convenient opportunity for taking the sense of the House upon their view of it, they ought to have given notice of an Amendment in Committee on this Bill, and then the question would have been decided. The Government had taken a weak and unworthy course in the matter, and they had no right to withdraw the Bill from the consideration of the House simply from fear of a division in their own party. Having sat on the Committee last year for many weeks, and having bestowed his best attention on the subject, he confessed that he felt great regret at the result of the Bill.

said, he two years ago moved the introduction of a Bill for the consolidation of the ecclesiastical law, and in which he was supported by many influential Members of the Government, but from some cause or other he was defeated, and he was unable to carry the whole of the measure. The present law was in a most confused and contradictory state, and its imperfect condition had been alluded to by some of the ablest Judges of the land. Dr. Lushington and Dr. Jelf had tried their hands at it, and the late Sir James Graham pronounced his opinion that its consolidation was impossible, but nevertheless attempts had been made to do so, and he had been informed it was referred to Dr. Stephens. He believed it had been accomplished in an able manner by Dr. Stephens, and any amendments which he had proposed were printed in italics, that the House and the Government might be able to judge of their value. But the learned Attorney General's Bill was a totally different measure, and the mistake the hon. and learned Gentleman had committed was in his attempt not to consolidate, but to amend the law, and make it an entirely new measure, and that, he believed, was the cause of its failure. He believed it was possible to carry a consolidated Bill. Directly the Bill was laid upon the table of the House, he maintained that it was an Amendment Bill establishing an entirely new code. He did not regard the failure of the present measure as any proof of the correctness of the remark of Sir James Graham, because he maintained that a Consolidation Act had not been attempted by his hon. and learned Friend. When the intricate measure, with its hundred clauses, was referred to the Committee, the Gentlemen on the Committee were engaged for four months in performing the duties which should have been undertaken by a draftsman in the solitude of his chamber. His hon. and learned Friend had said that the Bill introduced no changes in the existing law with regard to church rates. Without desiring to impugn the motives of his hon. and learned Friend, or to attribute to him the intention of surreptitiously introducing church rates where they had not hitherto been levied, the measure had no doubt given rise to disagreeable rumours as to the insertion of two or three words in the Bill which it was said would have the effect of introducing church rates into 500 or 600 parishes, at some future date where their existence had hitherto been Unknown. He could not understand how the hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt) could maintain that the Bill was a consolidative measure when he and every member of the Committee -were aware of the numerous amendments and new clauses which had been introduced into it. In that Bill words were inserted which would introduce church rates into many parishes in which otherwise they would not have been known for thirty years to come. Under Sir Robert Peel's Act, and under the Marquess of Blandford's Act, church rates were not introduced, and, therefore, no opposition had been offered to those measures. But would the Conservative party — the successors of these who passed those measures upon that understanding—would they now, because of an accidental interpretation of particular words in a sense that was not intended by the framers of those measures, refuse to listen to a fair appeal of those who objected lo the interpretation? The Bill had failed from the manner in which it had been brought in, and he regretted its failure, because he admired the great abilities of the Attorney General; but he should like to know what was to be the future mode of dealing with the subject. He hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman would, instead of attempting an Amendment Bill, introduce next Session a Consolidation Bill, and if he did so there would be little doubt of his being able to carry it.

said, he could not agree with the last speaker in the conclusions he had drawn from Sir Robert Peel's and the Marquess of Blandford's Acts, that hem. Members on that side of the House should agree with the hon. Member for Wycombe that church rates should never be levied in the parishes thus created. Sir Robert Peel, as was well known, was a cautious man, and he did not say anything about church rates, because his measure contained no direct allusion to them; but it was not fair to argue from that silence twenty years afterwards that church rates never were to be raised in these parishes With respect to the Marquess of Blandford's Act, the hon. and learned Attorney General had put the matter in the clearest light. It was upon a discussion upon the second clause that Lord Blandford spoke, and afterwards the Bill was altered. The measure must be judged by its words, and not by a conversation upon a particular clause. Taking the Act as they found it, and wishing to consolidate it with other Church Building Acts, it would be absurd to suppose that having successfully maintained the existence of church rates; Members on the Opposition side would agree to insert words in a Consolidation Bill, to prevent for all time the rating of church rates in the new and largely increasing parishes. The history which the hon. Gentleman had given of this Bill showed that if this Bill had been carried out merely as a measure of consolidation the present difficulty would not have arisen. The Attorney General told them that instructions were given to prepare a Consolidation Bill, and Dr. Stephens did prepare such a Bill, but political reasons prevented him from accepting the measure. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL: That is not so.] The hon. and learned Gentleman had, in order to avoid controversy, left out certain section from the Bill, but he not gained his object. The hon. Gentleman behind him were not conciliated by those sections being put in the schedules. Now the Committee were unanimous in recommending that, with a view to consolidation, the sections should be inserted in the body of the Bill. Again, the hon. and learned Attorney General thought it unwise to accede to the recommendations of the Committee. The sections were not introduced into the body of the Bill in order to conciliate hon. Members who sat on the benches behind the hon. and learned Gentleman. Those Gentlemen were not conciliated. The moral he should draw from those failures was, that it was an impossibility to conciliate political dissentients in any matter connected with the church. The hon. and learned Gentleman was prepared to make further sacrifices, and to strike out all reference to Sir Robert Peel's and Lord Blandford's Acts. That would no have been consolidation. It would have been a poor and miserable attempt at consolidation. If the hon. and learned Gentleman were really anxious to perform the great work of consolidation he must proceed on a clearer basis, and defy the efforts of the Liberation Society. He admitted that the hon. and learned Gentleman was not to blame in this matter. He had acted, no doubt, in the purest and highest spirit, but he had been overruled by higher powers, and had had to sacrifice his churchmanship to his connection with those who sat behind him. The hon. and learned Gentleman had certainly had to encounter very great difficulties; and as to the legal difficulties of the question there were added difficulties of a political and semi-religious nature, it could not be denied that great praise was due to him for the efforts he had made to surmount them. While regretting that the efforts had failed, he did not believe that the labours of Dr. Stephens and his coadjutors would be thrown away; but, on the contrary, he thought that it would be reserved for happier times and a more united Government to carry out the great work of consolidating the laws relating to church building.

said, he agreed with all that had been said in praise of the hon. and learned Attorney General for the attention he had given to the subject. There was another Gentleman on the opposite bench to whom a tribute of praise was also due, he meant the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies. He was quite satisfied that they would not have arrived at the conclusion which they had reached but for his efforts. It had been stated that the effect of the present Bill would be to authorize the levying of pew rents in parish churches; but there was nothing in the Bill to authorize that, though it was true such a provision might apply to certain new churches. The hon. and learned Attorney General had fallen into an error. The-draft of the Bill, as originally drawn, enacted that one-fifth part of the pews in every church referred to should be free; but the Committee decided that one-third should be free, and therefore the hon. and learned Gentleman could hardly claim for having desired that one-half should be free, when in his own Bill one-fifth was inserted. The practice was to have one-third of the seats free. In the case of those new churches the law only required the consent of the Bishop, but the present Bill required that there should be the consents of the incumbent and the patron also, unless it could be shown that pew rents were absolutely necessary. In the Committee it was also proposed that pews should be let for only one year, and the great evil had arisen in consequence of letting for longer periods. There was another provision that appeared to be an act of injustice on the part of the Committee; it was enacted that during the lifetime of any incumbent, and contrary to his wish, a certain sum of money derived from pew rents should be taken away in the event of the augmentation of his income. He must say that he felt great regret that the Bill had been withdrawn, for he believed that in the hands of the Attorney General it might have been made a useful measure by getting rid of doubts and embarrassments which new existed. He, however, felt little encouragement from what had passed; and he believed that a purely Consolidation Bill could not pass, and if it did, it would only have the effect of bringing to light a number of ambiguities and obscurities in the law.

said, that having been taunted with forcing on the Committee the consideration of the question of church rates, he wished to state that last year, on the second reading of the Bill, he objected to it on the same grounds as he did now. The Secretary of State then said that no doubt it was understood that church rates should not be leviable for the support of those district churches, that the question was one for the Select Committee, and that no instruction would be necessary. Therefore, he was fully justified by what fell from the right hon. Baronet in bringing the subject before the Committee. He altogether disclaimed having imputed to the hon. and learned Attorney General any motives except the most honourable. He believed that the hon. and learned Gentleman never at tempted anything which he did not think right, and that his course was guided by the principles of justice; but from first to last, since the money from the Million Act was expended, it was understood that churches built by subscription were not to be supported by church rates. Nevertheless, he maintained that the present Bill gave the power of levying church rates in district parishes. It ought to be considered that by re-enacting a clause they gave it additional force. He stood alone in the Committee, and he had endeavoured to maintain his principles honestly, which he would always continue to do.

said, he objected to the powers conferred by the Bill, and thought that the President of the Board of Trade should have a discretion in the matter. He would ask why should existing railways be allowed, without any locus standi, to interfere with any new projects? He begged to move that the 9th clause be struck out.

said, he rose to move that the Chairman do report Progress.

said, that that clause was framed with the view of removing any opposition to the Bill. When a certificate for making a branch line of railway was granted by the Board of Trade, it was thought only fair that a Railway Company which petitioned the House, and declared that it had an interest in the Bill, should have the right to be heard before the Select Committee upon the measure in question. He certainly could not consent to make any change in that arrangement.

said, his objection was that landowners were not placed in as good a position in that respect as Railway Companies. He would, therefore, insist upon his Amendment that the Chairman should report Progress.

said, he thought the measure required grave consideration before it was sanctioned by the House, interfering as it did with a large class of persons, and those the poorest of the community. Street music might annoy some persons, but it certainly amused many more, and it was to be regretted that the extreme sensibilities of a few individuals should have led them to enter upon a crusade against, it. If a Bill like that had been proposed for the City of Dublin or Glasgow, it would not have been entertained for a moment. It was said that street musicians were supported by a kind of black mail; that, in fact, they were paid by people for the purpose of getting rid of them; but he utterly denied that statement. They were supported on the ordinary principle of supply and demand. Why should they seek to interfere with the amusements of he lower orders? They might as well attempt to put down smoking, which gave enjoyment of those who indulged in it, but annoyed others who did not. They ought to have a clear proof of the evils resulting from the practice against which the Bill was aimed, and also clear proof that that was the proper mode of remedying those evils; and at present the House possessed neither. That was, after all, a paltry kind of legislation, unworthy of the British Parliament, and if they were to legislate against every petty annoyance which some individuals suffered, they would involve themselves in interminable difficulties. Many people complained of the nuisance caused by children practicing at the pianoforte next door to them. He was thankful he had not to endure such an infliction. Was that to be put down by Act of Parliament also? It was a great annoyance to a house in which there was somebody lying sick that their neighbours should give an evening party. Why should that not be checked by legislation as well as organ playing? If that Bill passed it would enable the Chancellor of the Exchequer to suppress the band which played in the park in the rear of his house, and which afforded so much amusement to numbers. The bands played in the parks to the great amusement of a large concourse of persons; but that Bill would enable any one of the neighbouring housekeepers to deprive the public to that source of enjoyment. He regretted that the bands of the regiments quartered in London, which were only employed by the rich at their entertainments, did not play much oftener for the gratification of the people generally. He remembered that in one of his Budget speeches, the Chancellor of the Exchequer cited it as a sign of the extraordinary poverty of large districts of the metropolis that there were whole streets in them in which the notes of the organ boy were never heard. The right hon. Gentleman meant by that that the inhabitants were so poor that they were deprived of an innocent gratification. If street music was to be considered a nuisance, and required any kind of effected by means of the police, and not by special Act of Parliament like that now proposed. He would conclude by moving that the Bill should be read a second time that day six months.

begged to second the Amendment.

said, he understood that the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Bass), who had brought forward the Bill, had a coadjutor out-of-doors who had written a pamphlet on the subject of street music, and who maintained that the whole body of organ-grinders was supported by the licensed victuallers and the proprietors of public-houses. He believed that the habit of frequenting public-houses and the amount of intoxication was much augmented by means of music at the doors. It therefore found support in the licensed victuallers.

said, there was already legislation upon this subject. He begged to suggest that the Amendment should be withdrawn on the understanding that the Bill should be brought on another night at an earlier hour, when it could be property discussed, which it could not be at that time-of-the-night.

said, he agreed with that suggestion He had told the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Bass) that he would not oppose the second, reading, but that it would be necessary to amend the Bill in Committee.

said, he thought it was absurd to suggest that the discussion should be taken in Committee. The Bill Consisted of only one clause, and consequently the whole question was now, at issue. [Cries of "Oh!"] If anything could induce him to advocate the suppression of street music, it would be the cries of "Oh!" from some hon. Gentlemen, for sounds more resembling those of a barrel organ out of tune he had never heard; but he-should be sorry to put a stop even to the discordant exclamations of the opponents of the Bill by so arbitrary and tyrannical a measure as the present.

said, the principle of the Bill was admitted by the present legislation. The question was its adaptation to what might be called the German crusade, and the prevention of twenty or thirty trumpets blowing a blast into the windows of houses in many of the metropolis. He thought they might pass the second reading, and reserve the discussion for the Committee.

said, he must take issue with the last speaker, and contended that while the principle of the existing law was reasonable, the principle of the Bill was most unreasonable. The principle of the existing law was that for reasonable cause any street musician might be stopped and sent away by the police; but the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Bass) wished to substitute for a reasonable cause the purely arbitrary veto of a single individual. He believed that if the Bill passed in its present shape it would authorize him to require a policeman to disperse the band which now played every evening within fifty yards of his windows, and the performances of which were attended by and amused from 2,000 to 3,000 persons. He thought those who attended concerts and the opera were not good judges of what amused the people in that respect. The Bill, in short, was an unwarrantable interference with the amuse- ments of the people, and there was nothing unreasonable in the demand that it should be discussed at an earlier hour.

begged to move the-adjournment of the debate.

supposed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer opposed the Bill as a friend of the Italian cause, forgetting that Savoy had recently been annexed to France, and that barrel organs were not-included in the French Treaty. For his own part, he objected to all discordant sounds, even though they might come from the Treasury Bench, and his ear had been offended by hearing the Home Secretary say he was in favour of the second reading, and the Chancellor of the-Exchequer that he was decidedly opposed to it; and the President of the; Board of Trade appeared to be the same. He had no wish to interfere with the amusements of the people, and if there were a class fond of street music, in the name of Heaven let them have it; but he maintained that if the inhabitants of any particular street did not want to be driven crazy by the sounds of a barrel organ, they should be permitted to send the grinder away. All that was intended by the Bill; was to prevent those men from wandering into streets where their discordant sound were not appreciated, but where they levied the greatest amount of black mail. As to the case of the band playing near the Chancellor of the Exchequer's house, that scarcely came within the ordinary definition of street music. At any rate, if all street musicians performed as well, he would never wish to send them away. He hoped the hon. Member for Derby would persevere with his Bill. He was as anxious as the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the tastes of the people should be consulted, but he denied that the tastes of the people required the music which it was proposed to remove.

said, he would not now enter on the principle of the Bill, as he had already given an assurance that a full opportunity of debating it would be allowed on the Motion to go into Committee. To show the necessity for legislation on this subject, he would mention an incident in which he himself was concerned. At eight o'clock that morning, while at breakfast, he was put out of aumour by a street band; at nine, when reading The Times, another struck up; and at ten, when he was engaged in his correspondence, a band of trumpets and trombones came under his window and blew a blast which shook his very house. His patience broke down under the last infliction, and he told his servant to ask the band to withdraw. The latter, however, declined, and when the policeman was asked to interfere he replied that his instructions were to do nothing unless the servant could say that his master was; dangerously ill or dead. He was so astonished at that statement that he made his man write it down on paper and return with it to the constable for confirmation. He even went to the policeman himself, and ascertained that he had given the answer attributed to him. He had also an interview with Sir Richard Mayne on the subject, who said that the constable had somewhat exaggerated his instructions; but he believed that the man had done so to very slight extent. Sir Richard assured him that it was impossible to put in force the present law in regard to street music. He hoped the House would read the Bill a second time.

said, he hoped that the debate would be adjourned. He should oppose the Bill. It would interfere most tyrannically with the amusements of the people.

said, he trusted that the House would agree to the second reading of the Bill for putting down the abominable nuisance of street organs. He happened to live next door to a religious club, and. regularly every Saturday morning an Italian came and played the 100th Psalm on a hand organ. He sent his servant out on one occasion to request the man to vary the psalm; but he said he had not another in his repertoire. The evil was not felt in poor neighbourhoods so much as in the large streets and squares. Reference had been made to Ireland, but he believed that organ-grinders never went there. Certainly they would never dream of going to Youghal, where they could have no chance of levying black mail.