said, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty Whether Her Majesty's Government bearing in mind the existence and extension of the Naval Stations of the United States near San Francisco, and of Russia at Sitka, propose to establish any means for enabling the docking and repair of Her Majesty's ships in the North Pacific; and if so, whether the barbour of Esquimalt has been selected as the site?

, in reply, said, the Government had received a proposal from a company for the construction of a dock at the end of Esquimalt Bay, and asking for certain water rights, and offering that Her Majesty's ships should have access- to the dock. Under certain restrictions with regard to the powers of the Indian Council, those rights had also stated the number of ships that had also state the umber of ships that would in all probability use that dock. There was no other proposal at present on the subject, but there was a committee now sitting upon the docks for the use of the Navy, both at home and abroad, before which the matter wound come.

said, he rose to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Af- fairs, By whose orders and under what instructions Major Gordon was appointed to the command of the Chinese Disciplined Force now employed in the suppression of the rebellion in China, and empowered to conduct the recent Military operations, having for their object the restoration of Nankin to Imperial rule, inasmuch as Sir Frederick Bruce, in the Inclosure of a Des patch to Earl Russell, dated June 12, 1863, being copy of a Memorandum ad dressed by him to Prince Rung, on June 5, 1863, stated;

"That he, Sir Frederick Bruce, must decline to allow Officers of Her Majesty's Army to take any part in Military operations further than may be necessary for the protection of British interests, and his first step consequently will be to desire that Major Gordon and others serving with him at Shanghai', shall not pass the boundary described as the thirty-mile radius."

, in reply, said, he must beg to refer the hon. Gentleman to the blue-books laid on the table of the House on the "Affairs of China," Nos. 31 to 37, from which it would be seen under what authority Major Gordon took the command of Chinese troops. The authority was given by Brigadier Staveley on condition that Major Gordon should retire on half-pay. And by the Order in Council and other instructions, officers retiring on half-pay were permitted under certain circumstances to take service beyond the thirty mile radius.

Was that sanctioned by Sir Frederick Bruce?

said, he had every reason to believe it was sanctioned by him.

said, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether, in accordance with the statement of the Lord President last year, "that the Government were considering the best means of effecting an improvement in the Vaccination Law,'' and having regard to the great loss of life from small-pox which has lately occurred in London, it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce any measure on that subject in the present Session?

, in reply, said, there could be no doubt that a very large and unnecessary loss of life resulted from neglect of the provisions of the Vaccination Act. The right hon. Gentleman was of course aware that, although the Vaccina- tion Act was obligatory, its successful application depended on the active concurrence of Boards of Guardians, vaccinating surgeons, and parents of the children. Where that was given the operation of the Act had been tolerably successful, but where it was wanting deaths had been frequent. A similar question had been put this year to his noble Friend the President of the Council, who stated that in his opinion there were only two methods by which the disease could be successfully grappled with. One was by increasing the compulsory powers of the Act, the other by offering pecuniary inducements to the vaccinating surgeons. Parliament, his noble Friend thought, would not sanction greater compulsory powers, and he did not see his way to the application of the other alternative. He understood that notice had been given by a noble Lord in the other House of an intention to introduce a Bill on the subject which would ha referred to a Select Committee. He hoped that measure would have the effect of strengthening the law and removing the evil now complained of.

said, he rose to more that "A Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the claims of his Highness Azeem Jah to the title and dignity of the Nawab of the Carnatic, and further to report upon the circumstances under which the Treaty entered into between his High-ness's father, Azeem ul Dowlah, and the East India Company, dated the 31st day of July, 1801, has been declared void." Four years ago some papers relating to the case had been laid on the table of the House at his request. Being then a new Member of the House, he did not feel himself competent to carry to a successful issue a question of such magnitude. He, therefore, looked for aid, and communicated with the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Layard), who, after examination into the matter, was so satisfied that gross injustice had been done, that upon one or two occasions he accompanied him to the India Office and endeavoured to obtain justice. Of course they were unsuccessful. Restitution was a word not known in the vocabulary of the India Office. Since that time, the hon. Gentleman had been appointed Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and he was, therefore, not in a position to support a Motion that might bring into discredit a Department of the Government which he served. Last year the hon. and learned Member for Suffolk (Sir FitzRoy Kelly) brought forward this question. On that occasion the Government had recourse to the usual expedient of counting out the House, and that they succeeded in doing after one or two unsuccessful efforts. He had, therefore, undertaken to bring forward the Motion himself, although he approached the matter with reluctance, painfully sensible of his incapacity to do it justice. He would, however, do bis best, and trusted he should receive the indulgent consideration of the House. He approached the subject with regret, because he should have to speak in terms of some asperity of Gentlemen with whom he had for some years been officially associated; but whilst he should call a spade a spade, he should, in speaking of their conduct, "nothing extenuate nor aught set down in malice." He could safely say that, during the whole time of his residence in Madras, he had no communication direct or indirect with the Nawab or his family; and he simply brought forward the Motion, because he believed that the Indian Government had violated the principles of truth and honour, and that the flagitious treatment which the Nawab's family had experienced would long rankle in the minds of the Indian people, to the discredit of this country. He would give a detailed statement of the circumstances of the case, and he hoped he should make the injustice clear to the House, and he should most certainly go to a division upon it. The case of the Princes of the Carnatic was not an isolated one. The history of that family was the history of almost every Prince of India that had had the misfortune to enter into political relations with the Government. When the East India Company was a body of merchants trading in the Carnatic, their obligations to the Royal Family were great, and they were constantly acknowledged; but when the East India Company became a powerful body, the political connection subsisting between the two Powers was looked upon as cumbrous, and the family had been ultimately trampled out in the scandalous manner he should endeavour to demonstrate. Towards the end of the last century, when the East India Company had great power in the Carnatic, the existing engagements based upon the Treaties of 1787 and 1792 were considered by the Governor General of that period complicated, and no doubt they were inconvenient, because they involved the necessity of a double government, the districts of the Carnatic being administered partly by the officers of the Company and partly by those of the Nawab. To get rid of the doable government strong pressure was, therefore, brought to bear on the Nawab at the commencement of the present century in order to induce him to cede the civil and military administration of his dominions to the East India Company for a payment in cash; but that Prince would not listen to any cajolery of the diplomatists, and then threats of deposition were had recourse to. The threats of deposition were founded on the allegation that from the archives of Mysore he was known to have been engaged in a treacherous correspondence against the Company. But all in vain. The Nawab Omdut ool Omrah died in 1801, leaving behind him a son, of whose illegitimacy no doubt was ever entertained. The Marquess of Wellesley was then Governor General, a man of great ability and not very scrupulous. The Marquess at once proposed to acknowledge this illegitimate son as heir to an hereditary monarchy upon one condition. He said that no inquiry should be made into the young man's birth, provided he would make the concession demanded with respect to the civil and military administration. Unexpectedly, however, Hoossein AH, the illegitimate son, not being made of very squeezable materials, positively refused. Upon that the Marquess full of expedients took quite the opposite course—he declared the throne of the Carnatic to be vacant on the ground of a disputed succession. He did more than that, in all the public and semi-official correspondence of the period he proclaimed his belief that he might then have lawfully seized on the Carnatic and held it by force, and he would have justified such a proceeding on the grounds of the treacherous correspondence which he affected to have discovered in the archives of Mysore. But he declared he would not act upon those grounds, and for this reason, that if he did, a strong impression would be created, that lust of power and a desire for territorial aggrandizement are the principles of our rule in India. The Marquess of Wellesley therefore instructed Lord Clive, the ancestor of the present Earl of Powis, his lieutenant at Madras, that he should acknowledge as heir to the Carnatic, Prince Azeem ul Dowlah, the first cousin of the late Prince, the real heir, with whom was made the Treaty of 1801, which existed for fifty-six years, and then was disgracefully violated. That treaty set forth in the preamble that security had not been obtained for British interests in the Carnatic, that therefore a new treaty was necessary to correct the defects of the Treaties of 1787 and 1792, and to place the relations between the two parties upon a permanent basis of security. It spoke of drawing closer the ties of amity heretofore existing, so that they might endure for ever. The main object of the treaty was stated to be to settle the succession as against the reputed son, and to that end the Prince Azeem ul Dowlah was declared to be established in the rank and dignity of the Nawab of the Carnatic, with the consent of the East India Company. The Prince so acknowledged ceded in perpetuity the civil and military administration of the Carnatic to the British Government. The East India Company undertook on their part that the Nawab and his heirs should preserve his title and dignity, and agreed to pay to him one-fifth of the net revenues after defraying all the expenses, with the proviso that the amount should not fall short of £100,000 per annum. It was also stipulated that such portions of the former treaties as were not expressly repealed by that of 1801 should remain in full force. The treaty was signed by Lord Clive on the one part, and by the Nawab on the other, and it was ratified by the Marquess of Wellesley. As soon as the treaty was ratified, a proclamation was issued and sent to all the Native Courts in India, announcing the nature of the arrangements that had been made. The Prince thus acknowledged died in 1819. The fact was immediately announced to the Madras Government, and that Government, in communicating the event to the Supreme Government at Calcutta, inquired whether it considered the treaty a permanent one, whether it guaranteed the succession in the direct line of descent, and whether some modification of the treaty might not be advisable. The Marquess of Hastings, then Governor General, and a man of the highest honour and integrity— and he wished they bad some of the same cast now—replied that it wag not necessary to require the surviving Princes of the Nawab's family to acknowledge their adherence to the treaty, because ipso facto they were parties to it already; that the treaty was permanent and not temporary, and that there was no necessity for making the slightest modification in it. It was now allged that the treaty expired in 1819, and that it was a temporary one. But would such an answer have been made by the Marquess of Hastings, if the treaty had been merely a personal one, and not permanent? Such a supposition was too preposterous to merit refutation. As soon as the reply of the Marquess of Hastings was received, the Madres Government installed the eldest son in the Musnud, and a ceremony equivalent to our coronation was performed. General Abercrombie, then holding the rems of government at Madras, attended and made a speech, in which he congratulated the Nawab on ascending the throne in the direct line of hereditary succession, and informed him that the Treaty of 1801 was held by the Governor General to be as equally binding upon the sons as it was on their late father Azeem ul Dowlah. In 1825 the second Nawab died, in the prime of life, leaving one child. Sir Thomas Monro, then Governor of Madres, at once acknowledged that child as the Nawab, but as he was an infant in arms, the next brother of the deceased Nawab was acknowledged by Sir Thomas Monro Regent and heir apparent, and as such he was received with regal honours at the Government House. The Regent addressed a letter to George IV., who responded, congratulating him on his elevation, and hoping "that the splendour and dignity, which are the inheritance of the illustrious house of the Carnatic, might long continue." The man thus congratulated was now a beggar. The Regent also wrote to the Court of Directors, and they too replied, expressing their gratification at the succession, and concluding with these words—

"We pray God" — he never knew that they prayed, but it seemed they did in 1828— "we pray God that the young Nawab may long live to enjoy the honours and perpetuate the line of the ancient and illustrious family of which he is the heir."

That devout prayer was not fulfilled. Indeed they themselves prevented its fulfilment, for they supposed his dignity. The child who was thus acknowledged in 1825, wag permitted to grow up in perfect ignorance. Successive Governments took no care to see that he was educated; and he had a urinate in his band in which Lord Harris justified his being kept in ignorance on the ground that if be had been educated he would have been discontented. That was the opinion of a liberal lord. He was happy to say it was not his. The successive Governments of Madras did more than this — they permitted and connived at the plunder of this young Prince. They allowed his revenues to be made away with, although they had a resident at his court, which was not a quarter of a mile from the Government House. No pains were taken to see that Ms revenues were properly appropriated; the consequence was that the Nawab's property was, he believed, largely dissipated by the ladies of his family, and hon. Members knew what ladies would do in that way, if they were net placed under control. Many European gentlemen were als0 allowed to sell him property at three times its value, and that was allowed to go to wreck and ruin. Under these circumstances, when the young Nawab came of age, instead of being in the possession of a considerable fortune, he found himself overwhelmed with debt, and his impecuniesity embittered and shortened his existence. Yet the Government that had permitted this state of things charged the family with such improvidence as justified their suppression. The Nawab died at the end of 1855, and did not leave behind him the numerous progeny for which the Court of Directors had put up their prayers. His decease was reported by the Regent to the Government, and be requested to be acknowledged as the Nawab's successor, and to receive the sums that had been paid through the Treasury and were guaranteed by the treaty. To this application no answer had ever been returned. The Governor of Madras had received the Regent with regal honours, yet he now treated him as though he had been a base and impudent impostor. But although the authorities gave him no answer they were not idle. Within ten days of the death of the Nawab the Governor and his Council—Mr. W. Elliott and Sir H. Montgomery, now of the Indian Office—put on record a minute embodying every objection that ingenuity could suggest to the treaty. Now to this Minute be (Mr. Smollett) most advert at length for two reasons, first because the reasons contained in that minute were endorsed by Mr. Vernon Smith then the President of the Board of Control, now Lord Lyveden, and to him he attributed the greatest share, of the blame in the matter. Others were responsible—the Court of Directors, for example, and Lord Dalhousie —but they were both defunct. Secondly, he must advert to this document because it was a minute which for hardihood and recklessness, of official statement exceeded anything he had ever heard of. It began by admitting that the uncle was heir to the nephew just deceased, and that if the treaty were worth a rush, he must have obtained the same privileges and received the same income as his nephew. But the minute then proceeded to show how the whole engagements of the treaty might be safely if not honourably dispensed with. The Governor started with the astounding, assertion that the treaty bore on its very face the character of being a personal treaty, made with the late Azeem ul, Dow lah, for a temporary purpose. In the minute, the temporary purpose was not very clearly designated, but he assumed that what the Company- wanted in framing this treaty wag a title deed, by which at a future time they might cheat and swindle the family out of their inheritance. Lord Harris admitted that there was an obstacle in the way of construing this treaty as a personal engagement — namely, that in the preamble the terms "perpetual" and "permanent" were used; he also admitted that the treaty was described as one that was to "endure for all time to come" and "for evermore," the terms being more than once repeated. But the noble Lord was very adroit in his argument. He construed "perpetual" to mean "temporary," and contended that "for evermore" and "for all time" meant "during the life of the prince." In this way, and this construction of the word admitted, the argument of Lord Harris was quite serene. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen might laugh; but the fact was so. Did, any one ever hear such an argument? Did any one ever hear such an argument even from a lordling? even from a Lord Tomnoddy? He presumed that many hon. Members had seen that amusing piece at the Haymarket, Our American Cousin. The hero of the; piece was a lord who was such an idiot that he could not count his fingers;, but even Lord Dundreary, he believed, would be ashamed to contend that "perpetual" meant "temporary," and that the expression "for all time to come" meant "for the life of himself and his bro- ther Sam." Lord Harris then went on to admit that one main object of the treaty was to settle the succession. But "settling a succession," in the Madras vocabulary, meant the suppression of a dynasty, and the noble Lord and his council "settled the succession" of the unfortunate Nawab with a vengeance. The noble Lord went on to speak of the "well-known sentiments of the Marquess of Wellesley;" and he quoted sundry small sentences front long despatches written by the Marquess of Wellesley to Mr. Dundas, afterwards first Viscount Melville. In those sentences the Marquess of Wellesley certainly said he thought that at the time—in 1800—he would have been justified in seizing and confiscating the: Carnatic, on account of the traitorous, correspondence in which he seemed to put implicit credence, though no one else did But What did: this prove? Why, nothing at all; for Lord Harris for got to add that although that was the Marquess of Wellesley's opinion he did was act upon it. But still further, if it Were really desired to know what Lord Wellesley proposed to effect by this treaty, if his actual. intentions were not apparent in the words of the document itself, he (Mr. Smollett) was fortunately enabled to prove them by the evidence of the greatest subject Her-Majesty ever had, he meant by the late Duke of Wellington. In the earlier part of his career the Duke of Wellington,: then Colonel Wellesley, was secretary to his brother, the Marquess of Wellesley, at Calcutta, In that capacity he had access to the cabinet of the Marquess, and was acquainted with the motives for all the great measures of his policy, and was also well aware of every fact connected with them. It chanced that the Duke of-Wellington, having returned to this country in the earlier part of the century, was Solicited by the Board of Control to write an official account of his brother's brilliant career, who had been impeached in the House of Commons by a Mr. Paul, a tailor of Calcutta, who afterwards aspired to be a metropolitan representative, and stood for the City of Westminster. Well, what did the Duke of Wellington write in that memorandum? It should be remembered that it was submitted to the Board of Control and the Court of Directors, that the blanks were filled up by those functionaries, and that it wag now a State document in the office of the India Board. What said the Duke of Wellington in that memorandum? He told the story of his brother's great achievements in Madras; he adverted to the decease of Omrah ool Omrah; be referred to the supercession of the reputed son Hoossein Ali; he described the investiture of Azeem al Dowlah; and then he concluded—

"The Prince Azeem nl Dowlah having agreed to an arrangement with Lord Olive, a treaty was concluded by which the whole of the civil and military government of the Carnatic was transferred for ever to the East India Company, with a condition that Prince Azeem ul Dowlah and his heirs were to preserve their titles and dignities, and receive one fifth part of the net revenues of the country."

The Duke of Wellington then asserted that his brother, Lord Wellealey by this treaty, confirmed the right, title, and dignity, and one fifth of the revenue, to Aseem ul Dowlah and his heirs. Now, who were his heirs? Two of bis sons were still alive; the last Regent was his second son, and there were yet two sons who had not "shuffled off the mortal coil." Without waiting for that event, however, they bad been basely and scandalously disinherited. One object which he (Mr. Smollett) had in view in quoting from that memorandum of the Duke of Wellington was to rescue the memory of the Marquess of Wellesley, who with all his failings was a great statesman, from the foul assertion that he purposely made the treaty of 1801 vague and ambiguous in order to aid in the plunder of the family at a future period. The Governor of Madras, Lord Harris, asserted that all this guarantee of succession was fake, that the treaty was a personal treaty, that it was purposely ambiguous, But the Duke of Wellington wrote when the events were fresh in his mind; he had no ulterior object to serve; the narrative was acknowledged and sanctioned by the Board of Control and the Court of Directors. But, besides all this, the Duke of Wellington was incapable of falsehood; and that was more than could be asserted of some other men. He trusted, therefore, that the House would believe the statement of the Duke of Wellington, and treat with contempt the assertion of the Governor of Madras and his satellites, that the treaty was made to expire in 1819; that it had never been renewed; that it was mere waste paper. He repeated that these Madras assertions were untrue, they were concocted more than half a century after the events, and they were framed to carry out a foregone conclusion, and to bolster up a scheme of robbery and spoliation which was then rife in India. The Madras Minute went on to speak of the two successions in 1819 and 1825, and Lord Harris admitted that these were very stubborn facts; but he added that no argument as to the duration of the treaty could be drawn from those two successions, because on both occasions the authorities of Madras made use of language which showed that the treaty was conceived to be at an end, and was not worth a rush. That assertion was untrue. It was untrue that such opinions were ever given by the Governor of Madras, and certainly ail idea of this sort was never expressed by Sir Thomas Monro, Unfortunately for the accuracy of the Madras narrative, Sir Thomas Monro wrote a minute about the treaty in 1822, three years after the death of Azeem ul Dowlah, and three years, therefore, after the treaty, according to the Governor of Madras, had expired. That minute was not on the question of succession, for no lapse in the succession had then been anticipated. It was written in the case of one of this first gentlemen of the Carnatie, by name Kullum Oollah Khan, who had become entangled in a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Madras. It appeared to Sir Thomas Monro that the action of the Supreme Court of Madras in this nobleman's case, trenched on the prerogatives of the Nawab as a sovereign prince. He appealed to England, and the decision of the Supreme Court was reversed. On that occasion Sir Thomas Monro went into a complete inquiry, the time being three years after the period when, according to the Governor of Madras, the treaty had expired, and declared the treaty to be valid and in full force, the Nawab and his family to be sovereign princes, and he insisted that not one of the provisions of the treaty could be changed without the consent of the Nawab and his family. Yet, with this document before him, another Governor, twenty-five years afterwards, boldly declared that the treaty expired in 1819, and was never renewed, and was mere waste paper, insolently quoting Sir Thomas Monro's dictum in support of his declaration! The boldness, the audacity, and effrontery of such an assertion was really almost beyond belief. The Governor of Madras having then, to his own entire satisfaction, shown that the treaty was a personal one, that it had terminated in 1819, and was never renewed, proceeded to speak of the treaty as if it were a perpetual one; and he argued that, according to the authority of Vattel and another great writer Wheaton, even if it had been intended to be perpetual it was void by reason of containing immoral conditions. These writers, the Governor urged, had held that treaties containing immoral conditions were voidable. The argument went over thirty paragraph of the minute; but he would endeavour to condense it into a syllogism. Treaties containing immoral conditions were voidable; new, that Treaty of 1801 contained a provision that was immoral; therefore it was void. Voidable would be the logical conclusion; but logic was not much studied in Madras. The noble Lord got still wilder as he Advanced; In paragraph 38 of Lord Harris's minute; his Lordship said, and the language was terse and epigrammatic, "wonder that any one can think this is a treaty at all." That was a very insolent assertion even for a nobleman to make. It was very insolent to speak thus of a treaty framed by Lord Gibe, and ratified by the Marquess of Wellesley, men both immeasurably his superiors, andacknowledged by the successive Governments of various monarchs of Great Britain. But how did; the noble Lord make out that this treaty contained immoral provisions? In this way. He said, "If the treaty is permanent it, contains a provision for a perpetual annuity. Now, a perpetual annuity is a nuisance." Well, so perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer might deem the -payment of the National Debt. "But if the annuities were paid to a black prince- it would be a dangerous nuisance." No danger, however, his Lordship admitted, had happened during the last sixty years. Nevertheless, a nuisance might arise from paying the annuity in future and nuisances ought to be abated therefore the treaty was void." That was the argument, it was upon that pretence, which was too pettifogging for even an Old Bailey lawyer to address to a Middlesex jury; it was on the pretence that it was inconvenient to pay just debts that the Government was asked to put an end to a treaty and declare it to be null and void. And what was the treaty they would de-clare to be null and void? Why, it was the single title deed by which the British Government held the Carnatio. The noble Lord seemed-to have forgotten that that treaty was the single title deed of his Government for the possession of that country, and that title deed he declared void. And what was the Carna- tic? A country worth £2,000,000 or£3,000,000 a year, the possession of which, that treaty being annulled, was nothing but a usurpation. The noble Viscount at the head of Her Majesty's Government often spoke of treaty rights; and their sacred nature. He said we had a treaty with Chinas and we must compel the barbarians to observe it; we had a treaty with the Japanese, and we must compel them to respect it. He wished the noble Viscount would compel his Colleagues to pay some Respect to treaties with the Native Princes of; India, which; they had violated on the most- false and frivolous pretexts. But towards the end of that precious minute the Governor and his Council argued as follows: — After all, it would be good thing to acknowledge this poor old- fellow for ha is very old, and cannot long subsist-on our bounty; and if the payment of this subsidy expired on; his demise, I should have little hesitation in recommending this act of justice; but there is an obstacle in the way." And what did the House think the obstacle was? "He the quondam Regent, has got brothers; his brothers are sons of Azeem ul Dowlah, with wbom the treaty was made; they have equal rights with himself, and they have children, If, therefore, we recognize this man, there will be no end to the payments of this annuity, at least in our own time "It Seemed, therefore, to the Governor that the best thing they could do was to put a-bold face on the matter, and once for all declare the treaty at an end. Unfortunately the Government was nothing 10th to act on that advice, and thus a family was allowed to be trampled upon, who, of all: the Royal Princes in India, had manifested the greatest devotion to the East India, Company, giving them various grants of land, and ceding a valuable kingdom without the shedding of a single drop of blood. He would not go farther into this miserable minute. From beginning to end it did not contain one word of truth or honest Statement. It was not true that the treaty of 1801 came to an end in 1819, and was never renewed. The Governor who asserted that knew right well that it was not renewed, because the Marquess of Hastings declared it to be permanent and did not require renewal. It was not true to state that Sir Thomas Monro said it ended in 1819, for in 1822 he declared it to be still in full force. It was not true that the family had been regarded as pensioners since 1819. The very reverse was the fact, for they were ever treated as Royal Fringes. An instance had come under his own cognizance. In the government of Sir H. Pottinger, a civil servant in high office was charged with having had pecuniary dealings with the Nawab, and was brought to trial for it, under the Act which declared any pecuniary transactions on the part of members of the service with Native sovereign Princes a misdemeanor. He put it to the House whether he had not fully justified his description of this minute as surpassing in hardihood of official assertion and recklessness of misstatement any state paper ever panned? One word with regard to the Motion with which he should conclude. The Motion was for a. Committee to inquire, and he thought he had shown ample grounds for an inquiry. The Motion was be reasonable that he really could not tee what answer could be made to it. He had often spoken of the Prince's treatment to gentlemen out of the House, and some bad said he was a d—d nigger, awl ought to be plundered. [Laughter.] That was no laughing matter is his opinion; be could mention the names of these gentlemen— gentleman of high position. Others had said, "Oh, why should you fall foul of the authorities about these things? They did not benefit personally by the Act." He hoped that no such defence would be put forward in that House. The question was in a nutshell. He had heard people of honourable station say, "Well, there would be an imperium in imperio at Madras if the Nawab were restored. It was a bad tiling for a man so circumstanced to be receiving £100,000 a year, and it was desirable that an end should be put to it." But the Prince did not receive £100,000 a year. He admitted that that would be a large sum for an individual to receive; but the £100,000 went to maintain ten or twelve families living apart. But was there no such imperium in imperio in England as a subject of Her Majesty with £100,000 a year? The question, as he had said, lay in a nutshell. It did not involve the transfer of a kingdom, nor the transfer of a single inch of soil from Her Majesty to any one else. The simple question was, should or should not a pecuniary engagement entered into in 1801, and observed for fifty-six years, be carried out? Should an engagement to which the faith and honour of England were pledged be persevered with? Or should the honour of England be trampled in the dirt? That was the question. He would assume that the men of whom he complained were honourable men in private life. He would admit that they were. Still, they were charged with a grave political misdemeanor by men whose honour was as unassailable as their own. They were charged with setting aside a treaty as the most frivelous pretence, calling for that purpose "permanent," "temporary," and "for ever and all time coming" the uncertain duration of one man's life—were it a day, or a year, or twenty years. How ought charges of that nature to be met? They ought to be met by inquiry. An honest man, conscious of his own in integrity, would naturally say., "Sir, deny the charge; stand upon my honour, and claim inquiry; assert that in the matters in question was actuated by the beat motives; if there has been mischief it has been done unwittingly, if errors or injustice have been committed let them new be rectified. will not stand on the support of my superiors alone, for nay employers benefited by the judgment in this case, and were therefore interested in the decision. therefore demand a full and fair inquiry, and shall be satiated with nothing less." That was the language which an honest man would use in such a position, unless there was something behind which would not bear investigation. That also, he hoped, would be the language which would that evening be held by the Secretary of State for India for his own sake, and for the sake of those other gentlemen who were connected with the transaction, and whom he should be glad to see purged from the accusations which he had brought against them, for he bore them no malice. But if the right hon. Baronet took a different line, if with that lofty eloquence for which he was renowned he endeavoured to throw dust in the eyes of the House, or if with that sophistry which Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench so aptly used he should endeavour to elude inquiry, then he hoped the independence of the House of Commons would come to his aid and compel the Government to institute an investigation into the dark and iniquitous transactions to which he had called attention— words which he would not use did he not believe them to be fully deserved.

said, that having examined the different Motions which had been submitted to the House on the subject, he found that the Motion of the hon Gentleman opposite differed from that of tire hon. and learned Member for Suffolk (Sir FitzRoy Kelly) which was discussed last year; and he thought the hon. Gentleman had acted wisely in taking that course. The Motion proposed last year prayed for an inquiry, not merely into the claims of Azeem Jah, bat into the circumstances which Jed "to the Treaty of 1801. But this year the Motion was for an inquiry into the circumstances which fed to the breach of that treaty. The Motion this year was more prudent than the; speech with which it was introduced, for he could not conceive any Circumstances more telling against the "claims of Azeem Jah than an investigation into the events which led to the treaty. It was clear to him that Azeem Jah had; not suffered either in his position from any wrongs inflicted by the Government. His father Azeem ul Dowlah was removed from that unfortunate position which the uncles and younger brothers of a Prince on the Musnud usually occupied in Mahomedan so vereignties, and was placed in the enjoyment of the throne of the Carnatic. He was placed oft the mock throne of the Carnatic, and but for that he would probably have passed his life in prison, and if his son and grandson had succeeded him it was very probable Azeem Jah would have Spent his life in prison. Therefore he maintained that so far from Azeem Jah having suffered wrong he had enjoyed the protection of the British Government, and had thus been enabled to use; or misuse, as might be, the privileges which accompanied his high rank and position. He would not he might add, follow the hon. Gentleman into the observations which he had made with respect to the Minute of Lord Harris, to which he had called attention. It would be the duty of the right horn Gentleman the Secretary for India to defend Lord Harris, but he might be permitted to say that it was the duty of Lord Harris to inquire into the details of the question in order that he might be able to lay before the Government at home all that was said on both sides. An examination of the minute would moreover, he thought, clearly show that the very existence of mock thrones, such as that of the Carnatic, was the infliction of a wrong on the public, while they were of very little advantage to those by whom they were occupied. He wished to submit to the House some considerations with respect to the Motion under their consideration, and the consequences which must follow its adoption. If it should be adopted it would be tantamount to an assertion on the part of the House, that Azeem Jah had suffered some wrong at the hands of the British Government, thus reversing the opinions of some of the greatest statesmen who had ever lived, and whose views had been formed under all the weight of the responsible positions which they held. If the House granted a Committee it would virtually give an instruction to the Committee to afford Some remedy for the wrongs which it was supposed Azeem Jah had suffered. They must either recommend his restoration to the throne, or make him some larger pecuniary recompense than he now received. Now he thought the House would pause before taking any such step, for he maintained that to justify such a step it should be shown either that a private wrong had" been sustained, or that the remedy would effect a public benefit, or that the letter of the treaty had been broken. He had already shown that Azeem Jah had suffered no wrong, and he believed that, an examination into the matter would show that the existence of these mock thrones was against public policy and a wrong towards the people. Then, supposing the Committee should decline giving any recommendation with regard to the throne, the second alternative was the recommendation of a larger money grant. He did not see any ground for an additional money grant. It appeared that Azeem Jah had not accepted the terms of the Government. But although he had not done so, he actually" drew the sum of money allowed him.

Certainly not.

The greatest part of it.

Not a penny of it. He never accepted a part.

said, that he did not say that he accepted the grant, but that he had drawn the money. Now, with regard to the recommendation of a larger money grant from the Indian revenue, it was clear the House had a right to withdraw its confidence from any Government which did not do its utmost to procedure such a grant from the Indian Council; but, for his own part, he thought it would be unfortunate that that House should be placed in opposition to the Indian Council as well as to other Indian authorities. [Lighter.] Hon. Members might laugh, but there might come a time when they would have to consider whether the Indian debt should be charged upon the Imperial Exchequer, and the making of grants out of the Indian revenue would deprive them of one of their best arguments for keeping the two Exchequers separate. There only remained the letter of the treaty. And what were the authorities quoted by the Iron, Member against the formidable array of statesmen who agree in their opinions. A stray memorandum of the Bake of Wellington, who was not a party to these transactions. The correspondence of Lord Olive and Lord Wellesley, who were officially charged with these matters, showed that they did not consider the treaty permanent, or the mock throne hereditary.

The memorandum was acknowledged by the Board of Control and the Board of Directors.

No doubt the memorandum existed; but it was not made official with the responsibility which would have attached if the Bake of Wellington had been a party to the transaction. For these reasons he opposed the Motion. The position which the present Government of India occupied towards that which had preceded it greatly resembled the position occupied by Lords Cornwallis and Canning towards the Marquess of Wellesley and Lord Dalhousie, Those noble Lords went out with the express intention of adopting a more conciliatory policy than had been pursued by their predecessors, but they did not give up the conquests which bad been made, or the provinces which had been annexed by them. So ought the Crown to act now that it had assumed the government of India. It ought not to abandon any of the provinces which were subject to its sway, or shrink from the responsibilities incurred, but to do all that was possible to conciliate the Princes who remained, and the people who paid to it so vast a revenue.

said, that his hon. Friend near him (Mr. Smollett) had established some claim on the consideration of the House, which on a former occasion the subject had not deserved, because he had confined his remarks to the merits of the particular case, and had not launched out as had been done before into general invective against the policy of the Indian administration; and although he had made use of some expressions of unusual force the House had a tangible case to deal with. As his hon. Friend had truly remarked, the gast of the case lay in very small compass. It was well known that Lord Mormagton on arriving in India found that among the otter great questions that were awaiting his decision the condition of the Carnatic called for his early interference. The Mahomedan Government which had been established under the Emperor of Delhi had fellen into a state of the greatest and anarchy, and that the greatest distress and misery was felt by the people. Of all the evil acts which existed none mere more manifest than those which arose out of the ambiguous Sovereignty exercised partly by the East India Company and partly by the Nawab. The treaty then in force was the Treaty of 1792, which was an extension and emendation of the Treaty of 1787. By that treaty it was stipulated that in consideration of the enjoyment of four-fifths of the revenue of the Carnatic, the Company should guarantee the stability of the throne of the Nawab, and maintain peace in his province. In fact, it amounted to an offensive and defensive alliance between the Company and the Nawab, Lord Wellesley found that the payments of revenue to the Company ware no less than sixty-six lacs in arrear; and that although the Government of India was combating an enormous Power both in India and in Europe, these Princes, instead of assisting them, as by treaty they were bound to do, were throwing ovary possible obstacle in their way. The real point upon which this question turned was the Treaty of 1801. [Mr. SMOLLETT: Hear, hear !] He was glad that bis hon. Friend admitted that. After Lord Wellesley had, by the valour of British troops and his own firmness, gained the victory of Seringapatam, he brought under the notice of the Government of Madras the conduct of the Nawab of the Carnatie to the British Government. He wrote to Lord Olive stating that the capture of Seringafatam had brought to light the existence of a secret correspond- ence of a most hostile nature to the British -power, in which Tippoo Sahib was implicated, and that the late Nawab was guilty of a flagrant violation of the Treaty of 1792. His failure to furnish the British troops with the supplies which he had covenanted to do, together with other proofs of his treachery, were recapitulated. The papers upon which these charges were founded were examined by a Commission appointed by the Government of India, a principal member of which was the Secretary of the Government of Madras; and, after a most careful examination, proofs were afforded of the treachery of which the parties implicated had been guilty. It was proved that in defiance of the Treaty of 1792 the Nawab of the Carnatic had been in constant communication with Tippoo Sultan, giving him secret information with regard to the intentions of the British Government towards the French, and as to the best means of rendering nugatory those preparations which were being made in reference to the war, that very nearly proved fatal to our empire in India. Year by year, down to 1797, Tippoo Sultan received most useful information from the Nawabs of the Carnatic, who, when the war actually broke out, threw obstacles in the way of the British Government receiving the supplies so necessary to carry on the war successfully. [Mr. SMOLLETT: That has nothing to do with the treaty.] He begged his hon. Friend's pardon, it had & great deal to do with the treaty. He could quote page after page from the most competent authorities in India, from Sir J. Outram, Mr. Elphinstone, Lord Wellesley, and Lord Olive, all1 of whom pointed out that the Treaty of 1792 had been violated to the most flagrant degree by the Nawabs of the Carnatio. He now came to the Treaty of 1801, on which his hon. Friend had laid so much stress. What was the foundation of that treaty? His hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire said its chief intention was to confirm the Succession of the Nawabs. Now, its chief intention Was to place the affairs of the Carnatic upon a more satisfactory footing; and Che first most necessary measure to be carried into effect was, to place the whole of the civil and military force of the Carnatic in the hands of the East India Company. Lord Wellesley said he had to do with a. tabula rasa, because the Government had a right to declare the establishment of the Nawab at an end. His hon. Friend talked of this as an ancient sovereignty of India being swept away by British power; but let him remind him that the very father of Mahomed Ali was established in the government of the Carnatic by the British Government ten years before he was recognized by the Emperor of Delhi. The Nawabs were, in the first place, the deputies of the Nizam, who was in turn the deputy of the Emperor of Delhi, and it was not until the British Government, with its growing power, established them in their rule that they were acknowledged as independent Princes. And that was the ancient sovereignty that his hon. Friend— [Mr. SMOLLETT: George IV. said so]—said had been swept away! Lord Wellesley pointed out that it Was not desirable in the troubled state of affairs in India at the close of the great war with Tippoo, that a great Mahomedan family should be altogether extinguished, and that what should be done should be done in such a manner as to be honourable to the family and not dangerous to the empire. Well, the Treaty of 1801 was drawn by Lord Clive and forwarded by him to Lord Wellesley, at Calcutta, for approval. The treaty was approved of, but for fear that there should creep into it anything that the Government did not design to continue, he forwarded with it another treaty to be placed before the Nawab for his acceptance. The Nawab accepted them unreservedly. Now, by the Treaty of 1792, we recognized the Nawab and the right of his heirs and successors to the government of that country. But in the Treaty of 1801, on the contrary, there was no mention of heirs and successors; and whereas in the original draft there had been a reference to hereditary right, Lord Wellesley expressly substituted the term "by the grace and favour of the East India Company." If it was possible for a man to shut the door upon such a claim as this, it was done by Lord Wellesley, and done designedly, as might be seen by the correspondence between Lord Wellesley and Lord Clive. In 1819 and 1825 the successors of the deceased Nawabs had been appointed; but it was not true that they had succeeded upon any claim of hereditary right, because when it was proposed to the Central Government that such successor should be placed on the throne at the death of the Nawab, the succession was conferred as "an act of grace and favour." In 1855 the matter was considered and determined by one who, if living, would have been the last to disclaim any responsibility that he had incurred. Both Lord Wellesley and Lord Dalhousie were men who stood far too high to be affected by the abuse of his hon. Friend or by any defence that he (Sir James Fergusson) could make for them. The grounds upon which they had proceeded were on the table of the House, Indeed there was no public question more completely ventilated, for the most important papers had been) before the House for sixty years. A Committee, if it were appointed, could not elucidate any fresh evidence; but the House by assenting to the Motion, might draw an indictment against public servants who had done their duty to their country, and who had gone to their graves. It might revive, too, claims from one end of India to the other which had long ago been settled. He trusted that the House would not act thus towards public servants of the Crown who bad raised the reputation of this country higher than it had ever stood before, but would sustain them in their high and difficult position. He hoped that the House would determine that the question should not be re-opened by arguments contrary to reason and recorded facts; that it would not revive a question settled sixty years ago, and that it would not so administer as to, unsettle the affairs of that distant country which Providence had committed to our care.

said, that his hon. and gallant Friend who had just sat down had laboured to make unintelligible what, in fact, was a very simple question. His hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire complained that a treaty made with a Native Prince had been violated., Her Majesty, on assuming the direct administration of the Government of India, issued a solemn proclamation stating that all the treaties made by the East India Company with Indian Princes should be faithfully and scrupulously maintained. The question, therefore, before the House involved the honour of the Crown, and was one in which the House was deeply interested. What was the view taken of the treaty by the East India Company when it was first signed? Immediately after the signature of the treaty the Government of India published a proclamation addressed to all the great Chiefs and high Officers of the Carnatic, warning them to pay due allegiance and obedience to the East India Company, which was about to assume the government of that country by virtue of a compact made with the lawful Sovereign of the Carnatic. There were, as the House would perceive, two important admissions in that proclamation—first, that the Nawab was the legitimate Sovereign of the Carnatic; and next, that the Company had acquired their rights to govern the Carnatie solely by virtue of the treaty referred to in the proclamation. What he wanted to know was—and he trusted the Law Officers of the Crown would answer the question—by what right or title we governed the Carnatic at the present time if that treaty had ceased to exist? We could not claim to govern the Carnatic by conquest, for it had never been conquered. We could not say that we governed the country by virtue of a treaty which had ceased to exist. We could not say that part of that treaty had ceased to exist, and a part remained in force, because that would be absurd. But what was it practically that the Government maintained? The Government maintained that that part of the treaty which gave us the right to govern the Carnatic remained in full force, while that portion of the treaty which assigned an income of £120,030 a year to the Nawab had ceased to exist. That was really the argument which might be suited to the old East India Company, but not to the British House of Commons. Under the treaty the Company stipulated to pay a sum equal to one-fifth of the revenues of the Carnatic, or £120,000 a year, to the Nawab for the maintenance of his dignity, and that sum was regularly, honourably, and honestly paid by the East India Company for a period of fifty-four years. In the year 1855 the Marquess of Dalhousie announced that the money should be no longer paid, on the ground that the guarantee, being a personal one, had ceased to exist in 1819, and that the payments made to the Nawab's descendants from that time until 1855 were made as matters of grace and favour by the East India Company. He knew something of that Company and their mode of conducting affairs, and he was persuaded that they never did pay and never would have paid £120,000 a year to any Nawab in India as a matter of grace and favour. The fact was that in 1819, as soon as the former Nawab died, the whole subject was taken into consideration, some fears being entertained that his successor might demand to assume the government of the country. The Madras Government suggested that a distinct treaty should be entered into with the new Prince, but the Supreme Government thought that a continuance to the Nawab of the benefits enjoyed by his deceased father, and an adhesion on his part to the existing treaty, would be preferable to new and precise stipulations. Accordingly, the Governor General was authorized by the Council at Calcutta to make a formal declaration to the Nawab, binding him to the treaty signed by his father, and such a declaration was made by Lord Hastings. It really required more than ordinary impudence to declare in 1855 that a treaty ceased to exist in 1819, when in that very year the Governor General bound the Nawab to the observance of that identical treaty. He knew that in the Madras Government, as in the Government of India, there was a party anxious to continue what was called the annexation policy, and strong enough to prevent the order sent out by his noble Friend when Secretary of State for India, to restore the Principality of Dhar, from being obeyed. That, however, was a direct disobedience of orders, which would have to come before the House. His right hon. Friend, now Secretary of State for India, asked, on the occasion when this subject was last before the House, why the Earl of Derby's Government had not taken up the question. The reason was obvious; the question never came before the Earl of Derby's Government. During the whole time the Earl of Derby's Government were in office the great rebellion was in progress, and when they had subdued the outbreak which former Governments by their misconduct had provoked, the Nawab naturally did not think the time a favourable one to bring forward his case. He waited till the proclamation was issued by Her Majesty's Government promising that all treaties made with Indian Princes should be maintained, and then he addressed his memorial to Government. When it arrived the right hon. Gentleman opposite was Secretary of State for India. [Sir CHARLES WOOD: It arrived in the year 1858.] The first that Parliament heard of the matter was when the hon. Gentleman now Under Secretary for Foreign Affaire, at that time an independent Member, asked the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of State for India, whether it was intended to revise the case of the Nawab of the Carnatic? The right hon. Gentleman might have answered that it was impossible for him to revise all the acts of the East India Company, and so have declined to enter into the question at all; but, on the contrary, he said that he was prepared to revise the case. He did revise the case, and re-decided it as it had already been decided by the Marquess of Dalhousie. It was the decision of the right hon. Gentleman and not that of the Marquess of Dalhousie, which was now complained of. Last year the right hon. Gentleman said that the Marquess of Dalhousie and Lord Harris both laid down that it would not be sound policy to pay down this large sum to a Native Indian Prince to enable him to maintain a rival court within a few miles of Madras, which, like that of Delhi, might become a focus of intrigue against the Government. If it were simply a question of policy he should be disposed to agree with that doctrine, but the question was one of justice and of the faithful observance of treaties; it was a question whether we were to stand before the people of India as the perfidious violators of our national engagements. We might look with great complacency at the perfect tranquility at present prevailing in India, as the Marquess of Dalhousie did upon the state of that country when he left. A short time before quitting India the Marquess of Dalhousie, in the plenitude of his power, and with all the arrogance of office, told one of the Native Princes that he regarded him no more than the dust beneath his feet. That Native Prince was the Nizam, and but a very few months afterwards it was to the loyalty, good faith, and eminent services of that Native Prince that we owed the salvation of our Indian Empire. He should say no more. The House was asked for a Committee in order to enable those who brought forward the Motion to prove their case. That request was made in the name of justice, and they trusted their appeal would not be made in vain.

said, he could not help rising to express his regret at the tone of that part of the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire in which he assailed so unfairly the administration of Lord Harris. It was quite unnecessary to say a word in vindication of Lord Harris's Government of Madras, which was admitted by all impartial and competent authorities to be such as to entitle him to be regarded as one of the most just and successful governors who had ever presided over that presidency. The Motion of his hon. Friend completely confirmed the predictions as to the result of transferring India from the late East India Company to the more immediate influence of the House of Commons—namely, that every conceivable grievance, with or without the slightest foundation, would be brought forward in the House, and, if possible, converted into a party question. The Carnatic, which formed the subject of his hon. Friend's Motion, became the theatre in which, during the last century, the English contested for the mastery in India against the combined forces of the Mahrattas and the French—now, happily, our truest and firmest allies. The House should distinctly bear in mind that even at that far distant period the title of Nawab of the Carnatic was merely nominal and titular, the British Government having assumed all actual power. These events, therefore, having occurred upwards of a century ago, and in 1855 it having been resolved, on the last Nawab dying without any lineal heirs, that this titular, empty, and useless dignity should expire, it would be quite loss of time to refer the claims of his hon. Friend's client to a Select Committee. By doing so they would establish a most dangerous precedent, for it could not fail to give encouragement to native pretenders to set up the most unfounded claims to provinces now in their possession, provided they possessed sufficient influence to secure the services of an hon. Member of that House to advocate them. It appeared to him that, should it be deemed expedient to interfere in such a case as that under consideration, the preferable course to pursue would be to refer it to the India House, to be investigated and reported upon by a Committee selected from the members of the Indian Council. [A laugh,] His hon. Friend might laugh, but the Members of that Council, from their ready access to papers and documents— and the claim had been frequently very closely inquired into—and from their superior Indian experience, would be more likely to draw up a satisfactory report than could be done by a Committee of that House. Besides which, he knew upon the most undoubted and reliable authority, that the Members of that Council were actually sighing and pining for the want of something to do beyond the arduous duty of drawing their salaries, and therefore it would be an act of charity to refer the inquiry to such a Committee.

said, if the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ayrshire had read Orme and the Carnatic Treaties he would have been aware of the relations which had existed between the Nawabs of the Carnatic and ourselves, and the assistance which we had received from the family in our struggles with the French for the mastery in India, and might have been induced to look with more favour upon the Motion before the House. In 1787 there were two Nawabs at the same time, one of whom was Dupleix, the French Commander, who had assumed the dignity, and the other Mahomed Ali, who supported us. In 1787 we made a treaty offensive and defensive with Mahomed Ali, in conjunction with the Nizam, by which the Government of the Carnatic, as a free government, was made over to Mahomed Ali and his heirs for ever. In that treaty it was declared that Shah Aulum, the Emperor at Delhi, who was paramount Lord with the approval of the Soubahdar of the Deccan, released the Nawab from all dependence upon the Emperor and the Soubahdar of the Deccan, and that he and his heirs for all time should enjoy the free government of the Carnatic. The person who drew up the treaty said, "with the approval of the Soubah;" but that showed the ignorance which prevailed at that time among officials in India, because "soubah" meant a large territory or province, whereas "soubahdar" meant the person who governed it. The rights so given necessarily descended to the Nawab's children and successors, whoever they might be. Was there any treaty to the effect that they had given up their possessions? Not at all. But after we had fixed on the Nawab an enormous debt, ostensibly for maintaining him in the nawabship, but really to strengthen ourselves against the French, we forced a treaty upon him by which, in consideration of receiving one-fifth of the net revenue, or something about £130,000 a year, he would hand over the civil and military power, and the dewanny, or collection of the revenue of the Carnatic. But, though there was a second treaty guaranteeing the same conditions, the Nawab had doubts and suspicions, which remained upon his mind for several years. There was a passage in the diary of the Marquess of Hastings, in 1813 — twelve years after the Treaty of 1801—in which he said that the Nawab had expressed his anxiety for an assurance that the Marquess should cause the provisions of the treaty to be observed. He had been told that the Nawab was in great alarm lest he should be still further degraded. The Marquess, in reply, said that

"The treaty plighted the public faith of the nation, and therefore it must be his duty to maintain its terms according to its true spirit. Treaties ought always to be construed most favourably for the party whose whole dependence was on the honour of the other."

But one of the terms of the treaty was the possession of the titular dignity by the Nawab, his heirs and successors. But if there was any doubt on the subject, what objection could there be to let it go before a Committee of that House—before a body of men who would judge impartially whether the construction put upon the treaty was justified or not? It would be some consolation to the party concerned even to have the case considered, whatever might be the result of the inquiry. He had been reminded that, as an East Indian Director, he had signed a despatch confirming the Government view of the case, and that he was now, therefore, arguing against former convictions. To that taunt he replied that despatches were signed ministerially by the directors, thirteen of whom had to sign, and that the opinions he entertained at the time he signed that despatch were the same as those he entertained now. He trusted, therefore, the House would send the matter to a Committee.

said, the case was capable of being stated in a few words. The first Nawab of the Carnatic owed his elevation to the power of England, and as a reward for the assistance he had given her in the struggle between Lawrence and Dupleix. His son who succeeded him died in 1790, and the next in succession died in 1800. When we took Seringapatam we discovered that a correspondence of a highly treasonable nature had been carried on in cipher, which proved that the Nawab was one of the allies of Tippoo Sultan. Unfortunately for the Nawab the key to the cipher was also found, so that the meaning of the correspondence became known. Upon finding that the Marquess of Wellesley declared at once in council that he considered the Nawabship of the Carnatic was forfeited by Omdut ool Omrah, and that it was his right, if he thought fit, to take possession of the country forthwith; but he considered it would be best, from motives of leniency and policy, to take away from the Nawab only the civil and military administration, and to make him a suitable allowance of about one-fifth of the revenue. The proposition was made to a person who appeared to represent the Nawab's family, but who declined to have anything to do with a treaty handing over the govern- ment of the Carnatic to the East India Company. Another person — Azeem ul Dowlah—was then sought out, and that was the person with whom the treaty was concluded. The territory became British property in consequence of seizure on account of treason; but the Indian authorities were content to surrender a certain amount on specified conditions, and not finding the elder branch wilting to agree to those conditions, they fixed upon the younger branch. The treaty made on that occasion was quite different from that executed in 1792, for nothing was said in it about heirs or successors. There were some words in it about perpetual alliance and friendship, but these were words of course which appeared in every treaty, whatever might be its nature. There was no doubt as to the intention of the Marquess of Wellesley, for, according to the first draught of the treaty made by Lord Clive, the new Nawab was stated to succeed by inheritance from his ancestors, and Lord Wellesley wrote to Lord Clive that that should be cancelled, and that it should be made to appear, that the Nawab held by the grace and favour of the Company. That was done, and the new Nawab assented in that manner to the treaty. In 1819 that Nawab died, and the case was referred to the Government, and they decided as a matter of policy that the son should succeed; and a new treaty was not deemed necessary, on the ground that the son succeeding was included ipso facto in the former treaty. The proper construction of those words was, that as soon as the English Government agreed that the son should succeed, he became entitled to all the stipulations of the treaty which existed for the benefit of the Nawab, his predecessor. The same thing was repeated in 1825; but at last the English Government, exercising the same control over the succession, decided that the time was come to put an end to the pageantry they had created. He did not say that such transactions as these were matters which any one could look at with great pleasure; but the treaty and the acts of the Government were all consistent. The treaty was meant to give no right of inheritance, and the Government by their acts exercised the right of deciding whether or not there should be a new Nawab. Therefore, it would answer no good purpose to have a Committee to inquire into these transactions. It appeared to him that no good purpose could be answered by appointing a Committee. There really seemed to be no end to these Indian questions. Such questions slumbered for years, and, long after they had been considered settled, hon. Gentlemen took them from the shelf, and again revived them. It certainly appeared to him that if these elements of uncertainty were allowed to be imported into the consideration of such questions, there was danger of our Indian empire being shaken to its foundation.

said, he would take that occasion to ask, What the intentions of the Government were with respect to any change in the Office of Public Works in Ireland?

said, the Government did not propose to make any change in the Board of Public Works in Ireland at present. Sir R. Griffiths, who held the position of its chairman, and who had several other important public duties to perform, was desirous of resigning a portion of his offices, the labours of which at his advanced age he found to be somewhat too heavy, and a Bill had been introduced by the Government for the purpose of making it sufficient if the Commission of Public Works consisted of two persons only, instead of three, as required by law. That Bill had, however, been abandoned, it having been considered that a better course would be that Sir R. Griffiths should retire from the chairmanship; that one of the two remaining Commissioners should be appointed to that office, and that Sir R. Griffiths should act as an ordinary Commissioner. His colleagues would thus continue to have the benefit of his advice, and the arrangement would, he thought, be found to be generally satisfactory, besides rendering it unnecessary to make any change in the law.

remarked, that the Board of Works was one of the most unpopular institutions in Ireland, and the reason why it was so was, that there was no real responsibility. He thought the arrangement stated to be in contemplation amounted to an evasion of the Act of Parliament, which required that there should be three Commissioners, for it was evident that Sir R. Griffiths was to be merely a consulting member of the Board.

said, he could not but express his regret that Sir R. Griffiths, who was so popular in Ireland, and who discharged his duties so satisfactorily, should be obliged to surrender any portion of them because of decaying vigour. The best course to pursue with regard to the Office of Works in Ireland would, he thought, be to place at its head an able man, to furnish him with an efficient staff, and to make him responsible for the manner in which the works were executed.

said, he wished to have some information from the Government with respect to the office of Inspector of Fisheries in Ireland. He had himself been the victim of the ill temper of Mr. Barry, who was an old man of eighty, and seldom went out of doors, and was so irascible that if a person differed from him upon any point, he would not only not get his business done, but would be insulted, as he (Mr. Blake) had been. He had already had occasion to bring his conduct under the notice of the House, and he should be compelled to do so again unless he received a satisfactory answer from the Secretary of the Treasury that it was not intended to continue him in his office.

said, that a Commission was at present inquiring into the subject of the Deep Sea Fisheries, and there was no intention to change the existing arrangements before its report was received.

said, he wished to call attention to the fact that, whilst the Inspecting Commissioner of Fisheries received £600 per annum, the legal member of the Board, who had to discharge very important judicial functions with regard to the rights of property which yielded £200,000 a year, had only £350 a year salary. Questions of vast importance to the owners of property came before him for decision, and he knew of an instance where an eminent Irish barrister was taken before him to plead at a fee of 150 guineas, with appropriate refreshers. He thought the salary was ridiculously low for the discharge of such important duties. He should move the reduction of the Vote by £500, in order to bring the question before the Committee.

said, the principle upon which the legal Commissioner was paid only £350 per annum was this. In the case of the legal member of the Fisheries Commission for Scotland, his salary was limited by the Scotch Act to three guineas per day, and not more than £350 per annum, and the Home Office recommended to the Treasury that a similar limit should be applied in Ireland. When Mr. Morris was appointed, the Government did not know the full extent of the responsibility that was to devolve upon him. An application had been made to the Treasury for an increase of salary, but it was desirable not to revise it until they had had further opportunities of considering the importance of the duties to be performed.

said, he trusted her Majesty's Government would re-consider the amount of salary with as little delay as possible. It was preposterous to suppose that £350 was an adequate salary when they paid the Secretary to the Commission £500 a year.

said, he regretted to learn that Mr. Eden, one of the ablest members of the Commission, whose judgments were marked by signal ability, only received £100 for his labours in Ireland, over and above the salary of £500, which he received for the duties in England that he still continued to discharge.

said, he could not but complain that no Member of the Irish Government was present during the discussion of the Estimates relating to Ireland, especially as there was a Motion of the hon. Member for Limerick county on the books complaining of a failure of justice. It had been stated that the legal Commissioner only received £350, and there ought to be some explanation given in respect to this matter, for a very exceeding failure of justice was said to have taken place. Decisions had been given involving hundreds of thousands of pounds, and it now appeared that those decisions were illegal. In fact, the gentleman who had given them, and who had been appointed by the Government, had declared that his decisions were illegal and improper. That being the case, it was a very serious matter, and he thought the Attorney General for Ireland should have been present to give the necessary explanations. The Vote for the Irish Chief Secretary's office created discussion in former years, but they had taken a silent vote for it that night, and in the Chief Secretary's absence. To enable some Member of the Irish Government to be present to answer the necessary inquiries, he moved that the Chairman report Progress.

said, he hoped the hon. Gentleman would not press his Motion, and thus mar their chance of getting rid of Committee of Supply that night.

said, he wished to point out that the Scotch Fishery Commissioners bad no judicial functions to perform, so that the analogy sought to be established failed altogether. The Secretary to the Treasury overlooked the fact that persons whose property was at. stake, and was ultimately forfeited, had a right to expect that their cases would be decided by a competent tribunal. It was understood that one of the Irish Commissioners should be a barrister of the highest eminence, and he put it to the right hon. Gentleman whether he thought the services of such a gentleman were to be had in Ireland at £350 a year. The Fisheries Bill had so far worked well. The receipts for fish in one district had increased from £105 last year to £710 this year, and the value of the nets from £49 and £98 to £128 and £180. The Government ought to pay an adequate sum for the services rendered.

said, the salary required augmentation. He was sorry Mr. Morris had resigned, but he hoped the Government would give him something more than his salary for the services he had rendered, and that they would materially increase the pay of his successor.

rose and said, that he must remind the Committee that the discussion was irregular, as it referred to an item in the Vote that had been passed.

said, that in that case he would withdraw his Amendment, and raise the discussion on the Report.

said, he would request the hon. Member for the King's County to follow the example. Any observations which he thought necessary might be made upon the Report.

said, he hoped that when the Report was brought up the Attorney General for Ireland would follow the example of the noble Viscount and be in his place.

suggested that the sum was large for the mere duties of a tithe commission, which must be small.

explained that the duties of the Commissioners were not only with regard to tithe, but to inclosures of land as well, and were very heavy.

said, he wished to know what was the meaning of the items for newspapers and railway guides.

said, the Commission was required to advertise, and, therefore, the newspapers were necessary. It also sent agents over the country, and, therefore, needed railway guides.

requested some explanation as to the purposes to which the money was devoted, and what the Commissioners did.

said, he wished to know if there was any prospect of the Commissions terminating.

said, the same persons filled both Commissions. The Public Works Loan Commission had a sum of £360,000 advanced annually out of the Consolidated Fund, of which £60,000 went for works in Ireland; latterly they had also the further annual sum of £250,000 to advance for improvements of harbours. All these advances were repaid by instalments. The West India Islands Relief Commission was appointed under an Act of Will. IV., for the purpose of administering funds amounting altogether to about a million, which was advanced for the relief of the planters of Jamaica after the emancipation of the negroes, and to the planters of Barbadoes, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia. The money was repayable by instalments, extending over thirty years, of which eighteen had expired, and the duties of the Commissioners were to take measures to obtain the payment of these instalments. The cost of the Commission was about £1,000 a year.

said, the Vote bore a striking resemblance to the Vote rejected some years ago for Highland roads and bridges, and ought to share the same fate.

said, he should oppose the Vote, as the people of South Wales ought to support their own roads, and pay for their superintendence.

said, the Public Works Loan Commissioners some years ago advanced £250,000 to construct roads in South Wales, the repayment of which was spread over a period of years. These instalments had been regularly paid, and there were still twelve years over which the repayment would extend. The business of the superintendent was to superintend the financial operations of the county Boards, to make out the estimate for the repair of the roads, and to see that the sum required for the payment of the instalments was duly provided for. The office of superintendent would be abolished when the whole of the loan had been repaid.

observed, that when similar loans were advanced in Ireland it was not found necessary to have a superintendent to recover the debts.

said, he believed the office of superintendent was created in consequence of the exceptional legislation applied some years ago to South Wales.

remarked, that the annual instalments payable by the counties should include the cost of superintendence.

said, he would take upon himself the responsibility of moving the rejection of the Vote.

said, he should support the Vote, which he trusted the Committee would pass.

said, the money was borrowed some years ago; and it was the duty of the superintendent to see that the roads were not starved, and that the proper preparations were made, when necessary, for providing the money necessary to pay off the instalments of the borrowed principal.

said, he wished to know what were the duties of the Commissioners?

stated, that there were no less than 50,000 charities in Great Britain, with an income of nearly £3,000,000; and that no officers could perform their arduous duties with greater industry and zeal than those in whose favour the Vote was sought.

said, he rose to ask for an explanation of the Vote. The Keeper of the Records in Dublin received a salary of £400 a year. Who was he?

said, there used to be an auditor of the Land Revenues who had charge of the records. The office was abolished, the accounts were transferred to the Board of Audit, and the office of Keeper of the Records was created. It was connected with the sale and purchase of the Crown lands.

said, he wished to know whether the Keeper of the Records was Mr. Harding?

said, he did not know the name of the officer in question.

said, that if the office was connected with the sale and purchase of the Crown lands exclusively, it ought to be a charge against the revenues of the Woods and Forests.

said, that perhaps the Attorney General for Ireland could tell the Committee the name of the Keeper of the Records.

could only say that it was not a legal office, and that he had never heard of it before.

The answer is, Non mi ricordo.

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland can tell us.

It is Mr. W. Harding.

The Secretary to the Treasury just now told us it was not Mr. Harding.

It is, though.

Yes, he kept a cellar in the Custom House at Dublin. He had known Mr. Harding for thirty years. It was singular that no Member of the Irish Government knew the name of the Keeper of the Records. That came of hating no Irishman connected with the Government of Ireland. He saw the index finger of the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for Ireland pointed at the noble Lord at the head of the Government, but the noble Viscount knew perfectly well he was not born in Ireland. He was the Civis Romanus of England. The noble Lord was an English Gentleman, but he became an Irishman when it suited the purposes of those about him. The truth was that there was no Irishman in the Cabinet. The Lord Lieutenant who was sent over to Ireland in an ornamental character was an Englishman, and, as for the Chief Secretary, he was as much an Irishman as he (Mr. Scully) was an Englishman, because his mother was an Englishwoman.

said, he hoped the hon. Gentleman would confine his remarks to the subject before the Committee.

said, to constitute a Keeper of Records there must be two things — records to be kept and a man to keep them. But the Attorney General for Ireland had never heard of those records, for the keeping of which the House was asked to vote £1,000 a year.

said, the office had been formerly called the Quit Rent Office, but recently its name had been changed. The Landed Estates Office was, in fact, the old Quit Rent Office.

said, he believed those offices were entirely different. He wanted to know whether there was really a Quit Rent Office.

said, the object of the office was to record the transactions connected with estates in which the Crown had an interest, and the Crown's landed interest in Ireland consisting chiefly of quit rents, the deeds to be recorded were very numerous.

said, that this Vote was constantly increasing. While the expense of the printing of papers ordered by Parliament amounted only to about £17,000, the cost of papers laid upon the table "by command," as it wag called — that is, by the departments when they wish to conceal the printing done for themselves, was no less than £15,000. A paper moved for by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, and printed only last April, contained a Treasury Minute relative to the slovenly manner in which the departments sent their papers to the printer. It was a shame after all the competitive examinations which they had, that the departments could not be got to turn out their papers in a correct form, and that the public should be saddled on that account with an expense which on the computation of the Controller of the Stationery Department amounted to £15,000.

said, that the Vote was considerably less than last year, although the business which gave rise to the expenditure was constantly increasing. Although the nominal amount of the Vote was £344,165, yet in reality it should be reduced by £65,000, which came back into the Exchequer as the proceeds of sales, profits of the Gazettes, and other receipts. The Treasury Minute had been promulgated in consequence of the slovenly way in which the manuscripts had been prepared for printing.

said, that the careless way in which the papers were sent to the press was not the fault of the clerks, but of the heads of the departments, who, it was shown, sent in the first part of the composition of a blue-book before the second part was even thought of.

said, the expenses of Parliamentary printing greatly depended on the number of Returns which were moved for by hon. Members. Only a day or two ago an immense blue-book had been printed concerning convictions for game offences, which he believed was a great waste of public money. The cost of stationery for the War Office and the Admiralty last year was £76,000, while in the two great departments of Customs and Inland Revenue the cost was only £57,000. He thought the former amount required some explanation,

said, he thought that a vast saving might be effected, and benefit conferred on Members, if the latter could be provided with only just the blue-books they required. Every Session tons of papers were sent to Members' houses which they never read, and of which they were somewhat troubled to dispose. It would be much better to circulate lists of papers printed, and let Members have what they wanted. The expenses of printing for the different departments were prodigious, and might be considerably cut down, and he thought the printing for the different departments might be advantageously consolidated.

said, this item was an illustration of the fact, that when once an expenditure got to a high figure there was no bringing it down again. From the year 1835 to the time of the Crimean war the Vote under consideration never exceeded £260,000. In the following year it increased to £400,000, and had never been less since that time. The discussions which had taken place showed that the House was not so much to blame as was generally supposed, for the printing which took place under its direction was not liable to much complaint. He should like to know from the Chancellor of the Exchequer who was the party who exercised any control over the departmental expenditure. Of late years some of the departments had taken to printing neat essays at the public expense, which few persons ever read. In the old Tory days of Lord Liverpool a much stricter control was exercised over the departments in these matters than was exercised at the present time.

said, he wished to know what saving had been effected in the Stationery Department in consequence of the reduction of the paper duty. It was stated by the controller, that the moderation of the present estimate was owing, in a great degree, to the reduction of that duty, but the amount was larger this year than in the preceding year.

observed, that if the hon. Gentleman wished to ascertain the direct effect of the repeal of the paper duty on the estimate, it could no doubt be supplied by the Stationery Office. That effect, however, was not to be measured by the amount saved in duty, because it had effected a still more important result by extending the operations of trade. With respect to the question of the hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Willoughby), he had to state that the ex- pense of printing ordered by the House was entirely within its own control. The only control exercised over the Government Departments was that of the Treasury, and that control was not less than it was forty or fifty years ago. In looking at the expense of printing regard should be had to the circumstance that the different establishments had been very much enlarged, and that their business had considerably increased. The enormous demand for information was quite new in our history, which although it led to increased expense could not be regarded with unmixed dissatisfaction. No doubt the dissemination of information had been the means of bringing up a feeling of affectionate loyalty amongst the people towards the system under which they lived. The practice now adopted was this. The controller exercised his best discretion with regard to printing, and discharged his duties with proper vigilance. Whenever he thought that the expenses incurred by one department were extraordinary in amount he called the attention of the Treasury to the fact; but with so much other business pressing upon them it was difficult for the Treasury to give the necessary attention to the matter. He was glad the attention of the House had been called to this expenditure, and thought that some time it might form a very proper subject of inquiry.

observed, that the whole expenses of printing and stationery were now in one Vote; but formerly the printing and stationery of a department were included in the estimate for that department. The change had the effect of increasing the item now under consideration; but, of course, the vote of each department was reduced at the same time.

said, he should be very sorry to see any curtailment of the information given to the House and to the public.

said, he observed from a note in the estimate that there was some Return which had been in preparation for the last three years, and had been corrected twenty times. He should like to know what it was. Perhaps it was one of the missing despatches.

said, he was unable to inform the hon. and gallant Gentleman of the exact nature of the Return to which he had just referred.

said, the Vote contained an item of £190, postage for the Lord Chancellor. The postage for the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland only amounted to £50, and none was charged for the Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

observed, that the postage for the Poor Law Commissioners was increased from £4,305, its amount last year, to £5,280. The Commissioners interfered in so many small matters that they made themselves unbearable to Boards of Guardians, and thus it was that the expense for postage increased.

said, he wished to ask what was the reason the sum for the postage of the Admiralty had increased from £13,945 to £17,000?

said, that the estimate was founded on the expenditure of the past year. The correspondence was increasing in every department, as greater information was required from public officers.

said, he wished to notice that in the postage for inland letters there was a jump from 2d. to 4d. if a letter exceeded the weight of an ounce in the slightest degree. He wished to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the 3d. adhesive stamp, which was already in use for colonial purposes, might not be allowed to be used for letters weighing more than one ounce, and not more than an ounce and a half?

said, that he had not had any communication with the officers of the Post Office on the proposal now made, but he would communicate with them in reference to it. He was, however, not certain that it was worth while to interfere with the existing system which, on the whole, worked very well.

hoped the right hon. Gentleman would inquire into the general question, so as to ascertain whether it would be desirable to adopt uniformly a rate per ounce or half-ounce. At present one could divide the contents of a letter and send the parts separately cheaper; than he could send them together. He noticed that the sum paid for postage last year for the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was £45, and that the sum of £50 was now asked for. The postage of the ! Irish Office was also increased from £220 to £275. The postage of the Chief Secretary for Ireland had nearly doubled, it having increased from £710 to £1,390.

said, that the correspondence of the department had enormously increased. Last year the active measures taken to ascertain the state of the country and every part of Ireland had, no doubt, nearly doubled the correspondence.

said, he wished to call attention to the deductions which had been made by the Treasury in the one-fourth contributed by the Government to the pay and clothing of the county police. For five years after the Act of 1856, regulating the county police, came into force, the one-fourth allowed by Government had been given in the gross expenses of pay and clothing of the constabulary; but in 1862 a notice was issued by the Treasury which, much to the surprise of the counties, made certain deductions from the sum upon which that one-fourth had previously been paid. The deductions made were for the amounts paid by the counties for lodgings, medical attendance, superannuation allowances, and for fines. The result had been great dissatisfaction, and strong representations had been made to the Treasury on the subject; and eventually the two first items were struck off, deductions were confined to payments of the superannuation fund and to fines. That was literally a question of what was the legal construction of stoppages. There was great dissatisfaction, and small as the sum was the principle was great. He trusted that the Government would yield to a simple demand for justice. The hon. Baronet concluded by moving—

"That the deductions now made were contrary to the provisions and intentions of the Act of Parliament, 19 & 20 Vict. c. 69, which never contemplated that payments made by the police to the Superannuation Fund and fines should be taken account of in calculating the amount to be paid by the Treasury."

said, there could be no doubt that the original compact, when the counties were induced, or rather com- pelled to raise the police force, was that one-fourth of the amount of the cost of each force should be repaid by the Treasury.

said, he found it necessary to examine with great care the claims of local jurisdiction, and in repaying one-fourth of the county police he could not help thinking that they were justified in making the deductions in question. They found there was a tendency in making the claims to place new charges in the account, which had not formerly been included. The practice was growing up in many of the counties of increasing nominally the pay of the constables, either by converting the allowances to which the Government did not contribute into pay, or by granting an increase of pay, but stopping it to defray rents which had not previously been required to be paid; and thus, while no benefit was derived by the constables, an increased amount was obtained from the Government. Thus, in Hampshire, until September, 1862, the superintendents and superior officers had never been charged anything for the rent of their stations. Since that date their pay had been increased; but the increase was stopped from them under the plea of being a payment for rent of the stations. Thus the nominal pay was increased, and the portion to be paid by the Government was also increased, but the police had no corresponding benefit. Under these circumstances the Treasury thought it necessary to institute a strict examination, and to require the county officers to give in detailed returns for every item. His hon. Friend complained of the deduction on account of stoppages of fines; but if £10 was stopped out of a constable's pay in the year, why should not the Government have the benefit of one-fourth of that amount when it paid one-fourth of the pay from which that £10 was stopped? It might be that the county would raise the entire £10 for the pay of the constable, but it was not what the county raised, but what it paid that the Government were to keep in view. And with regard to the superannuation, if they contributed one-fourth, the Government would be paying what they were not authorized under the act to do. There was, moreover, a precedent in the case of the Civil Service When deductions on account of the superannuation Fund were made in the Civil Service, the amount was not considered a portion of the pay, and no income tax was charged on the deductions. However, he was willing to refer the question to the Law Officers of the Crown, and if they were of opinion that the Government ought to pay one-fourth of the deduction for superannuation deductions, he would have no objection.

said, he had no doubt that the proposal just made would prove satisfactory to his hon. Friend; but, at the same time, he wished to point out the fallacy into which the hon. Member the Secretary of the Treasury had fallen. He said the Act of Parliament threw upon the Government the payment to the counties of one-fourth of their expenses in certain matters, and introduced the instance of the income tax as an analogy to what the Government had to pay in this case. But the income tax was not a case in point; for when the income tax was to be levied, it was the duty of the officials to ascertain what the man received into his pocket. In this case, on the other hand, what was to be considered was the amount paid by the county. If the Government were advised that the allowances were equitable, and would act upon such advice, he was sure the result would prove satisfactory to his hon. Friend.

said, the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Peel) had brought into the discussion matters which might be analogous, but which certainly were not relevant. The right hon. Gentleman claimed credit for the Government that they had saved £100,000 in the matter of prosecutions; but every one knew that that attempt at saving had been the cause of much greater mischief. Since the cutting down of the allowance to witnesses, it was almost impossible to get a second conviction. Constables, gaolers, and others who could prove former convictions against thieves were oftentimes troubled with very short memories, because they knew that in giving proof their expenses would not be adequately defrayed. That was the result of the economy—not economy, but parsimony—of the hon. Gentleman. It was a mean and nasty exercise of power not founded on right or reason, but on the principle of "We won't pay." Hence thieves got off, and there was more expense incurred in the end. Nothing could be more unfair than the conduct of the Treasury with regard to the immediate question under discussion, for what did the right hon. Gentleman say? His argument was that he had learned that certain coun- ties had entered upon queer practices with regard to payments to their constables; but instead of trying to put m stop to these improper practices, the Government proposed to make an entire change in an unjust direction.

said, he would bear testimony to the illiberal treatment of police officers who were witnesses upon prosecutions, and to the injurious consequences arising there from.

said, that having raised the question be would rather leave it to be dealt with fairly by the Treasury, and therefore would not press his Amendment.

drew attention to the circumstance that, while the costs of erecting and repairing courthouses in England and Scotland were placed upon the Estimates, in Ireland the charge was paid out of the county rates.

said, that there were other cases in which Ireland by local taxation paid for what in England was paid for out of the national purse.

said, the Estimates set forth the authority or Acts of Parliament under which the provision for repairing and building county court-houses was made.

inquired what was the precise nature of the duties of a Procurator Fiscal? He wished to know whether they were analogous to the duties of a coroner in England?

said, the Procurator Fiscal in Scotland is the public prosecutor for the county. He acts directly under the instructions of the Sheriff; and his duty is, in case of death under suspicious circumstances being reported to him, to cause an inquiry to take place, and, if he sees fit, to apply to the Sheriff for a warrant of examination, or to apprehend in case of suspicion attaching to any one. If the matter be serious, and there seems to be sufficient ground for proceedings, he reports the examination to the Lord Advocate or his Deputies. It is under the Sheriff's warrant that all these proceedings take place. His duty is to take precognitions, which are not generally taken on oath, and the Advocate Depute either indicts or takes the advice of the Lord Advocate. The proceeding differs from that of a coroner's inquest. The investigation is not public in the first instance, but takes place under judicial responsibility, and ultimately under the responsibility of the Lord Advocate. stated the other evening, and expressed the view of those most competent to form a judgment on the subject, that although it is quite true that these investigations before trial are not public, they are in many instances a great advantage—indeed, they are a double benefit. In the first place, they secure, I think most efficiently, the conviction of the guilty, and conduce most effectually to the protection of the innocent; for there can be no doubt whatever that preliminary investigations before coroners and grand juries have sometimes resulted in the escape of the real criminals, and, in other cases, attached a stigma to the names of parties altogether blameless. Such is the nature of the functions of the Procurator Fiscal, and, in my opinion, the system works admirably.

Do the Procurators Fiscal act of their own motion, or are instructions issued to them?

In cases of sudden death, there are instructions from Crown Counsel or from the Lord Advocate to the Procurator Fiscal to make inquiry. In other cases, complaint is usually made to the Procurator Fiscal.

The inquiry before the Procurator is private?

The inquiry is not public until the, whole investigation has taken place. It is confined to the department of the Public Prosecutor.

asked whether it was intended to bring in a measure for the regulation of the duties of the Sheriffs Substitute and the Sheriffs Depute? He had received a very well Written pamphlet on the subject.

I may remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman that in 1853 the whole of this subject received the most careful consideration before a Select Committee; and the Act of 1857, which now regulates the Sheriffs Courts, was based on the Report of that Committee. believe the Act has given general satisfaction, and it is not my intention to propose any alteration in it.

said, that the appointment of examiner in chief was in the hands of the Master of the Rolls; and that Judge, believing that there could be no worse mode of taking evidence than by an examiner sitting in a back room, would not appoint anybody to that office, which was vacant. He (Mr. Whiteside) wished to know whether it was intended to persevere in this mode of taking evidence?

said, he hoped that under the Bill for the reform of the Court of Chancery the duties of the examiner would in the main be transferred to another office. He hoped this explanation would satisfy the right hon. Gentleman.

said, it by no means satisfied him. He wanted to know whether the practice of taking evidence in writing was to be continued?

repeated that the Bill provided for the mode of taking evidence hereafter; but depositions in writing would be still necessary in some cases.

said, that the law of judgments in Ireland was in a very confused and unsatisfactory state, and he hoped the system in Ireland would be assimilated to that of England after the Committee upstairs had reported.

said, the law in Ireland was in a disgraceful position, and he would exert himself to improve it.

said, that no expenses ought to be incurred in reference to these offices than what would be absolutely necessary.

said, he thought that some stop ought to be put to the publication of the "Black List," which inflicted a great deal of injustice upon some parties.

said, it was an inconvenience which landed proprietors had to submit to, but he trusted the nuisance would be removed.

said, that some of the Judges of the Court were quite unnecessary, and that the first opportunity should be taken of reducing their number.

said, he wished to call attention to the outbreak which took place at the Dartmoor prison in November last, and to ask why the military had been withdrawn from the prison, and whether any means had been adopted to obtain the immediate assistance of the military in case it should be required.

said, that in the outbreak to which the hon. Gentleman referred the convicts in general took no part. It arose from the attempt of thirteen convicts to make their escape, but they were all captured, and none of the other prisoners had given them any assistance. The number of convicts had since been reduced. With regard to the other question, during the Russian war the troops had been withdrawn from most of the prisons, and a civil guard substituted. Since the occurrence in question a telegraphic communication had been established between the prison at Dartmoor and the residence of the Commander-in-Chief at Plymouth, so that he might readily send troops to the aid of the prison authorities whenever it might be required.

said, he thought it only fair to the officers of Dartmoor Prison to state, that on the occasion of the outbreak in November last they exhibited the greatest bravery and determination.

said, he wished to know whether information had been received at the Colonial Office to the effect, that one of the Australian colonies had resolved to send 600 convicts to England in retaliation for our sending convicts to Australia.

replied, that no such information had been received.