said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether Her Majesty's Government will give their favourable consideration to the propriety of extending to all the other public offices the Saturday Half Holiday, which has long prevailed to a certain extent in the Audit and some other Offices, and which, as the Secretary to the Treasury has stated, has been granted to the Post Office, without entailing on the public inconvenience or expense?

said, this was a Question of some importance to the public service, and without communication with the heads of Departments he was unable to answer the Question of the hon. Gentleman.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, Whether there would be any objection to lay before the House a Letter addressed to Earl De Grey by Mr. Alfred Jeffery on the 29th of April last in reference to his Correspondence with the War Office, and the results of his experiments with Rifled Ordnance since July, 1854?

in reply, said, there would be no objection on the part of the War Office to lay on the table the Correspondence which had taken place between that Department and Mr. Jeffery if the hon. Member thought fit to press for it, but there would be some inconvenience in producing an isolated letter from that Correspondence. He might, however, state the opinion entertained with regard to Mr. Jeffery's inventions. Mr. Jeffery, as long ago as July, 1854, submitted a specimen of his compound shot to the Government, which very shortly afterwards determined to institute experiments with projectiles on Mr. Jeffery's principle, and also to place at his disposal guns to be rifled on any system which he might think best adapted for carrying his projectiles. Experiments with cast-iron guns had been conducted and brought to a conclusion, and there had been further experiments with his projectiles from wrought-iron guns. More importance had always been attached to Mr. Jeffery's projectiles than to any system of rifling which he had brought forward. The Ordnance Committee had given it as their opinion that Mr. Jeffery had succeeded in the objects which he originally proposed to himself—namely, that he had effected a mechanical junction between the two metals, iron and lead. They also thought that Mr. Jeffery was the first to propose a very slow twist in guns. Yet no practical result had been attained, because the Ordnance Committee had not deemed it their duty to recommend that Mr. Jeffery's system should be adopted in the service; but it was by no means impossible that at some future time some part of his inventions might be adopted. The Ordnance Committee had on all occasions borne willing testimony to the public-spirited motives which appeared to have actuated Mr. Jeffery in his transactions with that Department, and to the fair and open manner in which he had always acted; and the Secretary of State for War was quite prepared to concur in that opinion of the Committee.

said, he would beg to ask, What Her Majesty's Government deemed to be the present position of the Treaty of 1852, and whether they held it to be still in force?

The position of that treaty is like the position of any other treaty, the conditions of which have been found practically not to be capable of being strictly enforced. All the contracting parties to that treaty have been sharing in negotiations, the object of which was to modify it. It is perfectly competent for those who make a treaty, if after the lapse of time its conditions are not applicable to existing circumstances, to agree to a modification of that treaty; and that was the result of the Conferences which were lately held in London. The position of this treaty is, therefore, like that of any other treaty in which the parties who signed it are willing by common consent to make some modification.

said, he rose to call attention to the Report of the Inspector of Reformatories, on the state of the St. Bernard's Reformatory at Whitwick, in Leicestershire. In doing so he begged to assure his noble Friend the Member for Arundel (Lord E. Howard) and the other Roman Catholic Members of the House, that he was actuated by no invidious motives. Last year an outbreak had taken place in this Reformatory of so serious a nature that some of the police who were called in were nearly murdered by the boys who were engaged in the disturbance. The Reformatory was then under the management of the monks of St. Bernard; but as it was found they were not able to deal with such refractory youths, it was afterwards transferred to other hands. On the 19th of June, 1863, it was agreed to commit the management to a number of gentlemen, whose names were among the most respectable of the Roman Catholics of this country, and among them were two clergymen. On the 19th of June Mr. Harper, one of the committee of management, wrote a letter stating that the government of the institution was completely altered, and that rules had been formed by means of which the boys would be kept in the most perfect order. One of the rules was to the effect that no boy should be suffered to go out of the school without being under the supervision of one of the authorities. That rule the managers had no means of enforcing. Mr. Sydney Turner, the Inspector of Reformatories, wrote to the Secretary of State, informing him that the arrangements were complete; that the new system ought be allowed to go on for one year from the 1st of July; that during that interval the number of inmates would be limited to 100, and that the experience of twelve months would enable them to see whether the Reformatory could be successfully conducted. Within four months from that time the Inspector visited the institution again, and expressed himself perfectly satisfied with what he had seen, although he said there were 143 boys within the walls. It appeared, then, that as regarded the number of boys the arrangement which had been entered into with the Secretary of State four months before had been altered. At the end of the last year the chairman of the bench of magistrates in the neighbourhood of the Reformatory wrote to the Secretary of State, informing him that for several nights the police had been obliged to be in the institution; that between thirty and forty of the inmates, who had got loose, had been put into gaol for various offences; and that four of them had been committed to take their trial for burglary. The facts of the case were these—the boys had got up at night, tied the sheets of their beds together, let themselves down from the windows, a height of about nineteen feet, and so having escaped committed this burglary. Here was a body of nearly 150 of the worst young scamps to be found in the country, youths brought up to crime, who having the means of escape within their reach might commit any depredation they liked in the neighbourhood. When he was a boy at Eton the windows of the boarding house in which he lodged were barred, so that there were no means of getting out at night. Well, he should like to know whether boys who were notorious for vice were to be trusted in rooms where there were no bars to the windows. Things soon after arrived at such a pass that the police were several nights obliged to remain in the Reformatory to help to take care of those boys. His right hon. Friend the Home Secretary sent down Mr. Sydney Turner to investigate the facts. In his Report Mr. Turner stated that an effective staff of officers ought to be engaged. What he (Mr. Packe) had apprehended had taken place, and the authorities had shown that they could not manage the maximum of 150 boys. Mr. Sydney Turner was in error when he said that the number would be limited to 100. But this gentleman concluded his Report by stating that he believed there was no reason to fear their being taken by surprise in the future. Why they should have been taken by surprise between 1863 and 1864 he could not understand, as the authorities well knew the ferocious temper of the boys. When the new management was instituted an efficient staff of officers was to form part of the establishment; but the sequel showed how far the staff had been able to keep the boys in any kind of order. As an acting magistrate of the county of Leicester the point on which he wished to dwell had reference to the employment of the county police in aid of the management of this Reformatory. In Leicestershire they had no more police constables than were necessary to keep the peace of the county, and they could not, therefore, spare any part of the force to assist the authorities of that institution in maintaining order there. How was it that this Reformatory could not be managed without such extraneous assistance? The chief constable, in his letter of the 5th of June, said he trusted that arrangements had been made with Inspector Ward and constables for speedily calling in other assistance in case of need. But the police ought not to be made to stand sentry to a Reformatory. From a letter addressed to a local paper the other day, he found that Mr. Quick, the manager of that Reformatory, said he had sent for twenty of the London police, but he was referred to the police of the county, on whom he had to fall back. Mr. Quick was, he believed, a very respectable man, and a clergyman, who wished to manage these unruly lads by mildness and kindness; but he was deficient in firmness, and was really no more capable of managing such an institution than he was of being Governor of Newgate. These boys were principally Irish, from Liverpool and its neighbourhood. As matters at present stood, the conductors of that Reformatory did not find efficient men to restrain these felonious boys from committing depredations over the county; and he desired to impress upon the Secretary of State that the county of Leicester ought not to be called upon to furnish police to control this ill managed institution.

said, he was not surprised that the hon. Gentleman, as a Member for the county of Leicester, should have called the attention of the House to the disturbances which had recently taken place in the St. Bernard's Reformatory. The facts of the case were all contained in the papers which had been laid on the table, and from them it appeared, that although the Reformatory some time ago was certainly not managed in a way which could be regarded as in any degree satisfactory, yet its management had been greatly improved during the past year. The gentlemen in whose hands the management of the institution had been placed last year had exerted themselves to the utmost in reforming it and placing it on a better footing. At the same time, he agreed with the hon. Gentleman that sufficient energy had not been shown by the rev. Mr. Quick, who was, no doubt, anxious to do his duty, but who was not a fit person to have the control of lads of such a class. But since the late outbreak, which certainly did take the officers by surprise, he was given to understand that the managers had determined to increase their staff materially, by which means the attendance of the police would be dispensed with. It was not reasonable that any large number of the county police should be obliged to abandon their ordinary duty elsewhere, and to go to the neighbourhood of that Reformatory. He was informed that there would be associated with Mr. Quick a lay manager, who had been accustomed to the discipline of the army, and who would be better able to control these lads than a clergyman. It should be mentioned also that this wa3 not the only case of outbreak in a Reformatory. There had been outbreaks of a similar description in other Reformatories, which were under Protestant management; but he hoped that the precautions now taken would prevent any recurrence of these disturbances. [Mr. PACKE: The windows should be barred.] If such disorderly proceedings were continued, it would be absolutely essential for the peace of the neighbourhood to withdraw the certificate from the institution; but it would be difficult to avoid doing more harm than good by its immediate withdrawal, because the lads would no longer be in legal custody, and would, perhaps, be guilty of acts more mischievous and calculated to excite greater alarm than if they were detained in the Reformatory, A ship had been assigned by the Admiralty to be placed in the Mersey for the reception of hoys of that class; and although the lads now at St. Bernard's Reformatory might not be transferred to that ship, yet, by using that vessel as a means of exercising an efficient discipline over all the boys who might hereafter he committed to a Roman Catholic Reformatory from that part of the country, the necessity of sending any more of them to the St. Bernard's Reformatory would be obviated. At all events, unless every ground of complaint was effectually removed, the permission to send boys to this Reformatory would not be continued. But, although the alarm which had been excited in this case was in a considerable degree well grounded, he hoped the House would not discourage the efforts now being made—which were certainly well meant—for the improvement and good management of this Reformatory.

said, the House could not be surprised that very considerable interest had been excited in the neighbourhood of this Reformatory by the proceedings which had taken place, and he believed he might say that the feeling was unanimous that the Reformatory ought to be removed. The boys placed there had been brought from a great distance, and it was quite clear they had been placed under a management which was not capable of conducting an establishment of that description. The whole neighbourhood had been kept in constant apprehension, and even the monks themselves were quite as anxious as others to be freed from the neighbourhood of these refractory lads. The right hon. Baronet had detailed the steps which had been taken for improving the future management, and as representing that part of the county he must say he should be very glad if those measures did succeed; but if another outbreak should occur he hoped the certificate would not be extended; that the boys would be sent to the ship at Liverpool; that measures would be taken to free Leicestershire from the evils to which the county had in no way contributed, and that they would hear no more of these most serious and unpleasant outbreaks.

said, the alarm which prevailed on this subject had been somewhat exaggerated in the newspapers and elsewhere; still, as he lived in the immediate neighbourhood, he must say he could not look with indifference at repeated out-breaks of this character. The right hon. Baronet, however, had exercised a wise discretion in not withdrawing his certificate, as a very great improvement had taken place in the management. These outbreaks were to a large extent attributable to the number of boys crowded together being greater than could well be managed in one reformatory; and a Report to that effect had been made two years ago by the Inspector. The reconvictions almost always came from reformatories where the largest number of boys were collected together. With re- ference to the increased expenditure which these outbreaks had occasioned to the county, it was quite true that two or three policemen had for some time after patrolled the neighbourhood; but the expense, even if it had not been repaid, which it was subsequently, had been insignificant. He hoped the change which had been made in the government of the Reformatory would lead to a better state of things, and that the right hon. Baronet would recommend a smaller number of boys to be kept there in future.

expressed his hope that no establishments of this kind would be set on foot for the future.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether passports are required by British subjects travelling in France? The subject would, no doubt, be interesting to the large body of persons who were about to travel on the Continent. Looking to the tone of the articles which appeared in the German papers, he did not think Englishmen going to Switzerland would be likely to go through Prussia—they would, no doubt, much prefer going through France. Some time ago a notice appeared in the Moniteur, which stated that the subjects of Her Majesty would not be required to produce passports when travelling in France. This very liberal notice not only showed the kind feeling of the Emperor of the French, but it was also a most politic statement, for it induced large numbers of Englishmen to take the route through France to the Continent; but, notwithstanding the notice to which he referred, cases had occurred of British subjects being seriously molested in consequence of not having passports. He could mention several such instances. One English gentleman while travelling in the South of France, on arriving at the chief town of a department, was asked by the gendarmes for his passport. He replied he was a British subject and he understood a passport was not required. The demand was repeated: he made the same answer, and calling his servant pointed to his baggage, which bore his address in London, Notwithstanding this, he was forcibly removed and marched along a hot road in the South of France, in order to be brought before an official—he supposed the sous préfét of the department. This gentleman stated that there was no charge against him, he was dismissed, and he found his way back to the hotel. Complaint was made to the English Ambassador, who, he believed, communicated with the Government of the Emperor; but the gentleman in question had, he believed, received no apology or redress from any one. He did not bring forward this particular case as a grievance, but he had heard of many others, and that for one case that obtained publicity many were probably never heard of. The answer of the French Government might be—"True, a British subject needs no passport in France; but how are we to know that a traveller is a British subject?" He admitted the force of that dilemma. They had all read the description of Britons by the Irish poet—

"Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,

I see the lords of human kind pass by."

But if foreigners might be pardoned if they did not recognize the travelling Briton by this description, for the haggard individual, generally accompanied by females, who was seen wandering about railway stations of a morning in a state of listlessness, hardly bore any of the poet's marks of a Briton about him. Still he did not think that he ought to be exposed to the risk of being detained for some hours for not having a passport when he had been told that no passport was necessary. He believed that if a communication were made by the Foreign Office to the French Government it would be a convenience to a large number of persons. The Government of the Emperor having notified that British subjects required no passport, the onus probandi was, he thought, thrown upon the French officials to show that a British subject was not what he professed to be, instead of the onus being upon him to show that he was a British subject. He trusted that some arrangement would be come to for doing away with this source of inconvenience to English travellers in France.

said, that the subject should receive the attention of Her Majesty's Government.

in rising to put the question of which he bad given notice, in regard to the West India Contract, said, he wished to make a few remarks in explanation of his meaning. Early in the Session he had been surprised to receive at the West India Committee the copy of a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury to the Colonial Office, dated the 11th of March, calling upon the colonies to contribute towards the expenses of the Packet Service. That letter contained some remarkable passages; among other things credit was taken for the liberality of the proposal only to desire the colonies to contribute where they are directly concerned. They were not to be asked, for instance, to pay for the service from St. Thomas to Mexico. It would certainly be somewhat astonishing to call upon a British colony to pay any portion of the expense of the packet service from one foreign country to another. The geographical knowledge of Government Departments bad been said to be limited, and a story had been told of a despatch addressed to "the Island of De marara," but he (Mr. Cave) would not suppose that the Treasury could be ignorant that St. Thomas was not a British island, but was, perhaps, by that time almost the only possession left to the unhappy King of Denmark. The last passage, however, of the letter was most worthy of note. It ran thus—

"It will be necessary that the payments to be made by the several colonies should be made not later than the 30th of June next, and the corresponding payments not later than the same day in each succeeding year."

This looked so much like an attempt to tax the colonies without their consent, that he put a question to the Secretary to the Treasury, who informed the House that the meaning intended to be conveyed was that those colonies which wished to avail themselves of the packet service would be expected to contribute. He (Mr. Cave) then moved for the correspondence relating to these circumstances, which had lately been delivered to hon. Members. He there found that in 1862 there was a letter from the Treasury to the Colonial Office, stating the intention of Government to terminate the contract at the beginning of this year, indicating very vaguely, and, as it had turned out very incorrectly, the substance of the new contract, and suggesting that the West India Colonies should contribute in certain imperfectly explained proportions. The letter was communicated through the office to the West India Colonies. Owing to the vague and hypothetical nature of the communication but little attention was paid to it in the West Indies. Such replies, however, as were sent home were in the main decidedly unfavourable. Under such circumstances, he should have imagined that the Government would have gone more closely into the matter, fixed upon a maximum contribution for each colony, which might easily have been done, and then either left the conveyance of mails to open competition, or in case the replies received were sufficiently encouraging, entered upon the new contract only in respect of such colonies as came into their terms. But what did the Government do? They left the matter wholly in abeyance for two years, and sent no other message to the colonies, and entered into a fresh contract with the Royal Mail Company without giving the colonies any voice in the matter. They bound themselves for six years to pay nearly £173,000 a year, and passed the contract through the House in a hurry at the end of last Session, suspending the Standing Order which required contracts to be laid on the table for a month, or rather, inducing the House prematurely to approve of the contract, as it was impossible to comply with the order, and that with so little publicity that there was no trace of it in Hansard. He did not, however, complain either of the new contract or of the Royal Mail Company. He believed the terms were fair enough, as contracts went, if it was requisite to have a contract at all. And he quite concurred in the opinion expressed in the Postmaster General's last Report, that the company had done their part remarkably well. He (Mr. Cave) had every reason to speak well of them, The contract was approved by the House, and therefore was a matter of certainty at the end of last Session—namely, in July, 1863. Nothing was hinted about West India contributions, which might, of course, have been calculated by the same time; but on the 11th of March this year the peremptory demand to which he had alluded was made, which reached the West Indies about the beginning of May. This gave them two months to convene their Legislative Assemblies to pass the necessary Bills, after debate through both branches of their respective Legislatures, to raise and pay the money, amounting in the case of Jamaica alone, the most impoverished of the colonies, to no less than £11,634. Why, the demand of Austria and Prussia that the unhappy Danes should revoke their Patent of Constitution within an impossible time was not more unreasonable. No wonder if the replies were—as he had been informed they were—unfavourable; and yet credit was taken in these estimates for the whole amount of £37,554—a remarkable instance of reckoning chickens before they were hatched! Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could give the House some information upon the point, as well as upon the course Her Majesty's Government intended to take. If the right hon. Gentleman replied that he would simply refuse to carry the mails, then—if he (Mr. Cave) might be pardoned for using a very ordinary expression—he would be cutting off his nose to spite his face, as he would lose the postage of the letters and yet be bound to pay the whole subsidy, nearly £173,000. He doubted whether the right hon. Gentleman would punish the colonies so much, after all, as he supposed. When the contract which had lately expired commenced, the West Indian waters were in the undisturbed possession of the Royal Mail Company. Now, no less than five competing steamship lines had appeared, or were in contemplation. There was, first, the heavily-subsidized French line of the Messagéries Impériales, sailing once a month, calling at the English Islands of St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, and Trinidad, and passing within hail of Jamaica. There was, secondly, the Spanish mail line from Havannah and Porto Rico, passing close to Jamaica, and not far from the Leeward Islands. There was, thirdly, the West India and Pacific Company, sailing four times a month from Liverpool, and calling at Jamaica and Trinidad. These three lines of steamers were actually running, and their days of sailing were advertized. Fourthly, a line was projected between Jamaica and New York in correspondence with Cunard's steamers; and, fifthly, a line was contemplated from England to Madeira and Demerara. The Government, while they were thus deprived of the power of sealing up the recusant colonies—which, if it could be done, would probably inflict greater inconvenience on this than on the other side the Atlantic—had positively tempted them, under any circumstances, to avoid sending their correspondence by Her Majesty's mails, because they had lately doubled the postage on letters sent by the Royal Mail steamers, and very much reduced that on letters sent by private ships, which would, of course, apply to every line he had enumerated, except, perhaps, the French and Spanish. He could not imagine on what principle the Government had acted in dealing with this postage. Formerly the postage to foreign countries was three times the amount to the British colonies; for example, it was 6d. to Jamaica and 1s. 6d. to Cuba, on the ground, as he had always understood, that foreign countries which contributed nothing directly should thus pay indirectly some portion of the subsidy. He asked the right hon. Gentleman last year, when the change was made, whether any part of the subsidy was now to be paid by these foreign countries. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to wonder at the question, and said that such a thing was never heard of. He would now give him a precedent. A correspondence had lately taken place between the Colonial Office and Mauritius, in which that Island had been called upon to pay £6,000 a year more to the Peninsular and Oriental Company on account of the refusal of the French colony of Réunion to pay any longer its proportion of £12,000 a year, the French Government having determined to run a line of its own. And he might add that the West India Telegraph Company had applied for a subsidy from those foreign colonies through which it might pass, and that those applications had been favourably received. Either this packet service was, according to one opinion, such a benefit to this country, both in maintenance of communication and securing large and swift vessels in case of emergency, that it ought to be kept up by the Imperial Exchequer; or, according to another view, it was of equal advantage to the countries to which the mails were carried, in which case we should neither demand payment from British colonies alone, nor continue to bear the whole loss of running mails to foreign countries. It was only fair to admit that the case was one of difficulty. The colonies and their correspondents here would doubtless have complained had the contract been abruptly terminated, and there would have been difficulties in the way of bringing all the colonies to an agreement; but there were two years to spare from the time that the idea was first propounded by the Postmaster General, and those difficulties would have been far less than these in which the Government found themselves involved by the course they had preferred. He, therefore, begged to ask what prospect there was of recovering the proportion to be paid by the colonies, £37,554, and what measures would be taken by Her Majesty's Government in the case of the colonies declining to contribute their quota?

thought that, upon whatever question of detail the hon. Gentleman might raise objections, he would not deny that the claims upon the West India Colonies were perfectly fair and legitimate. It was quite as much for the advantage of the West India Colonies as for the advantage of this country that regular postal communication should be maintained, and if they shared the benefit it was only reasonable that they should share the cost. The rule applied to those colonies was a rule generally adopted with respect to other colonies. In the case of India, one-half of the expense of the mail service was defrayed by the Indian Government; and in the case of Australia, one-half of the loss arising upon the postal service was paid by the different Australian Colonies. Canada and Mauritius maintained mail services at their own expense; and with respect to the Cape, which made no contribution, the proceeds of the postal charges were more than sufficient to meet the expenses. With respect to the mode in which the claims upon the colonies had been computed, he would observe that the mail line went direct to St. Thomas and there branched off in three directions, and no claim was made upon the West Indian Colonies for the expense of those portions of the service which extended beyond St. Thomas to Brazil or Mexico. The Correspondence upon the table showed that when the West India Mail Company was asked what reduction in their terms they could agree to if their service was confined to the West India Islands, and not extended to Mexico and other foreign ports, the answer was, that no reduction could be made, because it was precisely from those other portions of the service beyond the West Indian Colonies that they expected to derive a remuneration which would compensate for the loss upon other branches of the service. The hon. Gentleman had asked what answers had been received from the West Indian Colonies. He (Mr. Peel) had only seen three answers—of Jamaica, of Granada, and of British Guiana—all of which were unfavourable. What he had stated at the beginning of the Session was, that if the colonies were able to contribute but declined to do so, then the Government would consider what steps should be taken. But if it were proved that a colony was unable to pay the amount demanded, the Government would be disposed to treat it with every consideration. With respect to the difference between the treatment of our own colonies and those belonging to other countries, he would remind the hon. Gentleman that a very large proportion of the whole amount of sea-postage was derived from those foreign colonies—as much as £45,000 out of a total of £60,000 in 1860.

did not think the cases of India and Australia were quite in point. India had not self-government, and the consent of the Australian Colonies had been obtained before the contract was concluded, a course which ought to have been followed in regard to the West Indies. He did not object to the principle of the colonies paying their fair proportions; he objected most to the manner in which the demands upon them had been made. He thought the Government should have asked their consent, and should have waited for their answers before making arrangements.

said, he had upon former occasions called attention to this Vote, and he felt bound to do so again, because recent occurrences had made it still more necessary that the attention of the Committee should be given to it. He did not desire to go into any discussion of the Asbantee war or of the transactions connected with it, but he wished to call the attention of the Committee to the imperfect control of Parliament over this Vote, with a view, if possible, of inducing the Government to make a better arrangement in future. For his own part he thought it a mistake to endeavour to extend our forts and our possessions in that part of the world. By such a course they did not advance the great cause which was the justification for the great sacrifice of life upon that coast—the suppression of the slave trade—while, on the other hand, these settlements were of little or no advantage in a commercial point of view. It appeared that at Lagos, of which place we took possession because of the once flourishing trade carried on there, since our occupation the trade had very much diminished. He was afraid that our occupation of Lagos had been in part the cause of some of the squabbles which we had got into in that part of the world. What he wanted to press upon the Committee was, that there ought to be some control over what was done on the African coast. At present Parliament knew hardly anything of what was going on until it was called upon to vote the money which had been spent. It was very difficult for the Secretary of State to control the Colonial Governors. They did what they thought proper, and when they told their story to the Colonial Secretary he had to choose between disavowing and recalling the Governor or of approving steps which, had he been consulted beforehand, he would probably never have sanctioned. There were in the colonies none of the checks which existed in this country; probably the resident Europeans were all for taking possession of their neighbours' property, desired to spread their power and influence, and looked at things in a light very different from that in which they were regarded in this country. Some check or control over the doings of these Governors was more than ever needed now, because there seemed to be among them a disposition to spread the territory of this country, seizing a bit here and a bit there in a manner which would produce difficulties that might ultimately take the form of war, like that with Ashantee. As an illustration of the sort of thing which went on upon this coast, he would mention what had occurred at Lagos. He did not intend to repeat any opinion upon the steps which had been taken—although he retained his original opinion, he would now say nothing about the occupation of Lagos itself; but what he complained of was that all these things were done without any check or control, and without Parliament knowing anything of what was being done. On the 14th of November, 1862, the Governor of Lagos issued a proclamation recalling from Abbeokuta all English residents in that place—a measure he should say of very doubtful legality, and one which was not brought to the knowledge of Parliament until the publication of the blue-book about a month ago. The difference which had caused the issuing of this proclamation led on the 2nd of March, 1863, to a blockade of Abbeokuta, which had this unfortunate result—that although the King of Dahomey, who seemed to be rather in favour at present, was marching towards that place, the Abbeokutans were prevented from obtaining guns and gunpowder with which to defend themselves against him. Last year there was another small war which was only brought to the knowledge of that House by a private Member; and in the month of February Governor Freeman took possession of a small piece of territory, as he declared, because it interfered with his financial arrangements. These measures might be right, or they might be wrong, but they ought not to have been taken without the knowledge and without being subject to some control on the part of the Home Government and the Parliament of this country. He was afraid that the Secretary of State would always have difficulty in dealing with Colonial Governors; but in his opinion the best mode of protecting the country against their mistakes was, that all these matters should as early as possible be brought to the knowledge of Parliament. There was nothing like a discussion in that House for making men act with caution. If these Governors knew that within a certain time after they had taken a step it would be discussed in that House, he would answer for it that there would be considerable hesitation and delay before they took the initiative in wars, or seized upon territory. What he should recommend was, that the Secretary of State should address to all the Governors stringent directions in the spirit of those contained in his despatch to Governor Pine, forbidding them, except in cases of necessity, to seize territory or to go to war without previous communication with him; and that beyond that, whenever such an event occurred, the Government should, if Parliament was sitting, immediately, and if it was not, then within a few days after its meeting, lay upon the table papers explaining what had been done. He felt satisfied that if some such course were pursued, matters would be much more carefully conducted, and that the Secretary of State would be assisted in keeping a check on those whom, under existing circumstances, he was unable to keep in order.

said, he observed a charge of £2,000 a year for a steamer for the use of the Governor of Gambia. He should like to know what duties were performed by that steamer? There was also £4,000 for the maintenance of forts and establishments on the Gold Coast. Was there any need of such an outlay in order to keep off the poor blacks? The Vote of £4,600 for Lagos included £3,125 for works and buildings. He should be glad to know what those works and buildings were?

said, he wished to draw the attention of the Committee to two items in the Vote—that of £500 for the relief of famine on the Gold Coast, and that of £2,000 for the Ashantee war. It was hardly just to the country, he thought, to lead it to suppose that the expenses of a war which would more probably cost £200,000 would be defrayed by the latter amount, or that the famine in question could be effectually relieved for the sum which the Committee was asked to vote for the purpose. Since, he might add, the question of the Ashantee war had been discussed in that House, some further papers with respect to it had been produced, and the Colonial Office had, he was bound to say, duly performed its part in that respect. He was, however, surprised to find that the military authorities had furnished no information as to the operations which had very recently taken place. But to return for a moment to the famine, he found at page 9 of the "Further Papers" to which he alluded, a despatch addressed to the Duke of Newcastle, and dated July 13, 1863, in which Governor Pine said—

"I highly approve and earnestly join in the prayer of the deputation, that your Grace will be pleased to provide this Government with supplies of provisions; for I firmly believe that the greatest distress will exist ere long, and that thereby, unless provided against, the movements which I so earnestly advocate, so soon as the rainy season shall be over, will be retarded,"

Now, shortly after that letter was written, 500 additional troops were landed on the Gold Coast, and in the month of October, the Governor having evidently received from the Colonial Office a letter which was not to be found in the papers wrote as follows:—

"I regret to perceive that your Grace is not in a position to hold out any promise of aid from Imperial funds with respect to a provision against the famine which I now regret to state is ravaging the country, in proof of which I have to mention that the price of a bushel of Indian corn, the staple article of food, has risen from 2s. 6d. to 13s. 6d., and I have not the slightest prospect of being able to alleviate the distress from colonial funds."

While such was the state of things, 1,600 men had been sent out to add to the distress, who never drew a trigger, who died, or were dying off, under the influence of the climate; and it, therefore, appeared to him absurd to come to the House of Commons to ask for such a sum as £500 to alleviate the famine which prevailed. Mr. Blanc, the Commissary General, had, he believed, endeavoured to make provision for the troops to a certain extent, and by his labours the distress had, no doubt, been diminished; but there must have been a large outlay of public money, which we should eventually have to pay. To advert, however, more particularly to the operations of the war, he must say that the papers with respect to it, which had been preceded by such a note of triumph, were not of the value which hon. Members had been led to hope. When he came to examine them he found they contained only the plan of operations of May, 1860, in which many places in which operations had now taken place were not mentioned. [Mr. CARDWELL: They relate to Major Cochrane's operations.] Exactly so; to Major Cochrane's operations four years ago, and not to those under discussion. There was no plan of the operations in which the troops were engaged which could be of any advantage in the present discussion. There was nothing about the Prah or the expedition to Comassie. Now, in the West African Times, which should be an authority on the matter, he perceived that great jubilation was expressed at the expenditure which was going on throughout the course of this year—something like £14,000 a month for the last fourteen months. To ask for a sum of £2,000 under those circumstances did, he must confess, seem to him to be somewhat absurd. He could, he might add, to some extent confirm what fell just before from the right hon. Baronet the Member for Portsmouth (Sir Francis Baring), because he had information to the effect that in the course of last autumn an English officer arrived at Sierra Leone, having with him some sick men, for whom he wished to provide; but he found the military hospital quite full, most of the cases arising from gunshot wounds, the result, as he was told, of a battle which had taken place at Lagos. Now, how was it, if that were so, that we had never heard of that battle? It was desirable, he thought, that the House of Commons should be enlightened as to when and why, and by whose orders a war was being conducted in Lagos. But to return to Cape Coast Castle; he believed that matters were worse than they were when the House discussed the question. He held in his hand a letter frem a medical officer, who was now the principal, and, indeed, the only medical man at the station, in which he said—

"I have now but bad news. There is no end of sickness here. I never had so much to do in my life; one of my assistants died in my room last Monday evening. His was a most melancholy case. He was sent out from the West Indies in charge of the troops which came to aid us, and which have only helped to crowd our house. He and Dr. Flynn, an old Trinity chum, were sent in charge, and with general orders to proceed at once back; but the great want of medical officers required that I should detain them. Dr. Flynn I sent on to Lima (after being two months here) with invalids. Dr. Greig, the other, I sent in charge of troops on the march to the Prah, with orders to return at once. On his return he took ill of fever and dysentery, not severe at first. I brought him out of his lodgings to stay with me in my own room, where I could often see him; but, notwithstanding all care, he died on the 31st of May. He was buried on the 1st of June, the first officer in the new burial ground. Since its use on the 1st of May a man has been buried every day nearly. I have now only one to help me, and he is constantly taken ill. I have been sometimes alone for the whole work. Since I have been here, of five officers four have died, three of the medical staff, and one engineer—nine altogether, and fourteen invalided home. An officer of the 2nd West arrived with the troops on the 9th of April. He brought his wife, an old traveller, well accustomed to the tropics. She was carried on board ship in a basket on the 14th of May, and died two days after at sea. Anything like the privation and abomination of this place it would be impossible to find. I forgot to mention that if the military staff had been invalided home every mail that leaves carries a freight of fever-stricken mortals, who are hoisted on board in a basket, and then have to bear a single sea voyage in the worst ocean-going steamers that leave England. Coal coasters at home are larger and better than this African line. I wish the English people knew the real cost in life and money of this attempt to put down slavery. I suppose that is the only reason for keeping up these settlements. I am convinced. What the war is for I don't believe is known in England, and what it is costing in the articles above mentioned, I don't think either is known; or else, if so, they must see some great value unappreciated out here in the natives or country. Well, this is all unpleasant, and so any news of this place is ever likely to be."

That letter would prove that the statements which had been made upon the subject had not been exaggerated. No doubt the Government had had their attention directed to the letter from Commodore Wilmot, a man of consummate ability, and than whom no one was more competent to express an opinion upon matters relating to the West Coast of Africa. In that letter that officer spoke of the insane nature of our operations upon the coast, and urged upon the Government the impropriety of carrying out the scheme upon which they had determined. He was sorry that his noble Friend (Lord Clarence Paget) had hesitated to give him the information which he had asked for on a previous occasion, with reference to the speed of the squadron stationed on the West Coast of Africa; but as his noble Friend had hesitated to afford him that information, he had been compelled to obtain it from other sources. We maintained seventeen steamers on the coast, and of these he found that the Rattlesnake was the only vessel capable of going ten knots an hour, and that of the others the fastest could only go 8·3 knots an hour. This calculation of speed was made according to the measured mile, and, as they all knew, the measured mile was the greatest possible effort that could be made, for something always occurred to prevent such a rate of speed being attained when a ship came into actual service. The fact was that we had a squadron of about seventeen vessels on the coast, the speed generally being seven knots an hour, some of them not being even so fast. And this was the case when they knew that the very fastest American steamers were sold to the Spaniards for the purposes of the slave trade. He had in his pocket an account of a very fast vessel passing through four of our steamers, communicating with the shore, and going out again with impunity—in fact the traders laughed at our ships. The senior officer of a squadron had given orders to our steamers not to give chase to any vessels, because by such a course they would only be led off the station without doing any good, but to lay at anchor near the places where it was expected that slaves might be embarked. It was absurd to suppose we could put an end to the slave trade by spending £700,000 upon a squadron which was insufficient for the purpose, and that not owing to any fault of the officers or men on board the vessels themselves, In addition to this, we had had a war in the swamps of Africa in which we had lost more than half of our men without seeing an enemy, and had fought the battle of Lagos about which we had never heard a word. He maintained that we were spending a million of money in vain, and, unless we altered our tactics, the sooner we recalled our slave squadron and abandoned our forts on the coasts the better. He had himself seen service in that quarter of the world, and no one could be more anxious to see an end put to the abominable traffic in slaves, but he could not approve any policy which involved only loss of life to our men without affording us any corresponding advantage. To promote a famine by landing men when a famine already existed, and to come down to the House to ask for £2,500 for that which had cost £250,000, was nothing less than absurd.

said, he could give an answer to the question that had been put as to what we were doing in the colony, from a letter which he had received from a gentleman who was not connected with the army, but who was residing at Cape Coast Castle. This gentleman said that the protectorate was supported by the Imperial Government at a cost of £4,000 a year for the salaries of the Governor, the Chief Justice, the Colonial Secretary, the Collector of Customs, and the Police Magistrate; besides £750 a year for house rent for the Governor and other officials, Besides that amount the Governor borrowed £2,000 a year from the military chest, but it did not appear that he ever repaid that sum. It was to be returned when the protectorate was in a position to pay it. As the receipts from the customs were about£3,000, it was evident that the protectorate would never be able to support itself. In a war the Natives refused to render the slightest aid to the Government unless they were paid high wages, and they even declined to protect their own country unless they were paid for it. The gentleman whose letter he was quoting from said that the war was useless and unjust. It was useless, because no good could come of it, as there was not a single Ashantee on the coast; and to show that it was unjust he said a chief of the Ashantees having stolen a quantity of rock gold, and according to the law of his coun- try had incurred the penalty of death, he ran away to the protectorate and claimed protection of the Governor upon which the King of Ashantee sent to the Governor to give up the chief; the King was invited to a conference; but he replied that he could not hold a palaver with white men. Palaver was the phrase used to designate diplomatic proceedings, and a very good word it was for the purpose. The King, therefore, returned to his own country. Our troops were sent into the bush on the 14th of April and returned in June. They again took the field in January, and remained until June, when: this letter was written. Although the army had not met a single enemy, the small garrison had lost sixteen white officers, six white sergeants, and over 200 men, by fever and dysentery. Twenty-three officers had been invalided, and many of them would never be fit for duty again. Four West India regiments arrived in two divisions in August, and most of the officers were invalided. The military expenditure before the war was about £800 a month; it was now over £8,000, and that did not include stores sent from home. He might mention that one steamer took out £45,000 worth of stores, and received £5,000 for it. The surgeons had been particularly unfortunate, for out of five four were gone. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Portsmouth (Sir Francis Baring) asked what was to be done to check the Governors from entering upon transactions of this character, and he (Mr. Whiteside) answered him by saying that it should be a direct Vote of Censure upon the men who, though they might not be personally answerable for the results of the war, had given it their sanction; and although his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) failed in such a Motion the other evening by some six or seven votes, yet both fact and argument were with him. It was inhuman to send our soldiers into the bush where the men died without meeting an enemy. The King of Ashantee left the climate to do the work which his troops could not so efficiently perform. Now, somebody must be responsible, The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth had raised the question whether this thing should be repeated. They could not get at the Governor, but they could get at the Colonial Office. That office had acted most unwisely, and although they did not intend to do wrong, yet were they responsible. Directions had been given to aban- don the stores, which cost £45,000, and the King of Ashantee would find them very useful for the next campaign. Of course arrangements were made—they always were after a Vote of Censure had been passed—for removing the survivors from the Gold Coast; but had the Government calculated what the King of Ashantee would do? Might he not come down and remove Governor Pine and the rest of them? To invade his territory was just what irritated one of these Kings most. [Mr. T. G. BARING: The territory was not invaded.] No, but the army was sent for that purpose. They went, but they did nothing. If it had been intended to march against the capital and kill the King, they might have done that, but they did not. They did nothing but suffer and die. The Colonial Office was responsible for what had taken place, for the Governor would never have made war without their consent, and they had not taken any step to alleviate the suffering they had caused until a Vote of Censure threatened them in that House.

I entirely sympathize with every expression of regret for the sufferings of our soldiers on the Cape Coast, which has fallen from the hon. Member; but the right hon. Gentleman ought to have had the candour to acknowledge that the Colonial Office has done everything in its power to mitigate those sufferings the moment the news of thorn reached this country. The right hon. Gentleman, with that disregard for accuracy of dates which so frequently interfered with the good effect of his eloquence, has said that my proceedings were the natural result of a Vote of Censure. Now, so far from waiting for a Vote of Censure, the necessary measures were taken long before any Vote of Censure was heard of, and as soon as the news reached this country, as the right hon. Gentleman might have known if he had read the papers with any care. So, with regard to the stores also, the right hon. Gentleman might have known by reading the papers that special precaution was taken to prevent any part of the stores, particularly guns of any kind, falling into the hands of the King of Ashantee. There is quite enough to be regretted in this affair, and when we are speaking of a great public calamity it is just as well that hon. Gentlemen should be more accurate in their facts and their dates than the right hon. Gentleman has been. There are a few points on which I wish to offer an explanation to the hon. and gallant Member for Wakefield (Sir John Hay). The hon. and gallant Gentleman remarked very naturally that the item of £500 for the relief of famine was a very small one. But this item was the only sum which had been sanctioned by the Treasury as yet, and therefore was the only one proper to be introduced into the Vote. It has nothing whatever to do with the support of the troops, an item which will be included in the Military Estimates. It only related to the civil department. The hon. and gallant Baronet read a passage from a despatch of Governor Pine, in which he asked that supplies of provisions might be furnished to avert the distress which he believed would shortly exist; and in accordance with that request, with the sanction of the Treasury, twenty-seven tons of rice were sent out, at a cost of £390, which, with freight and sundries, came up to £500. Then the hon. and gallant Baronet said that this was a costly war, and that £2,000 could not possibly be the whole expense of it. That observation is, no doubt, perfectly correct. I am afraid it has been a costly war, and I am conscious of the evils of costly wars; but this item of £2,000 has nothing to do with the military expenditure—it relates only to charges incurred by the Civil Government, and civil charges only are comprised in the present Estimate. In the early part of this war the Governor sent home two items of expenditure, the first of which was £1,395, on account of this war, already paid by the Colonial Government. There was afterwards an account of £3,123 more spent in the war, but not paid, because the Colonial Government had not got the money—making a total of £4,158. The Treasury here declined to have anything to do with the £1,395, which they said was a charge properly belonging to the Colonial Government; and, with regard to the £3,123, they said they were not satisfied with the explanations they had received; but, looking to the urgency of the case, they would allow £2,000 on account until more satisfactory explanations were sent, and that is the sum set forth in this Vote. The hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Williams) asked me why £2,000 was given to the Governor of Sierra Leone. Now, I must remind hon. Members that there has been a greater reduction on the Colonial Estimates of late years than on many others, as hon. Members will see on looking through the Votes. For myself, I am most anxious to co-operate with the House in further reductions in these Votes, but with regard to this £2,000 it has always been included in the Estimate. The £2,000 for the steamer was a part of the settlement with the colony, and has also been always included. Whether the Government of this country should pay for its maintenance is a question very different from the use and value of that steamer, which is undoubted and cannot be disputed. Of all the accessories of a colonial establishment a steamer, doing the work which this does, is the most valuable. Portions of the settlement are removed 150 miles from the mouth of the river, and the steamer affords the inhabitants a most invaluable means of communication. With regard to the £3,125 for buildings and works at Lagos, that sum is for buildings required in the colony, such as a courthouse, buildings for the Customs' service, a powder magazine, &c. I believe I have now answered the questions which were put to me in detail, and all that remains for me is to notice the weighty matters referred to in the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, who opened this discussion. I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend in most of the principles which he has laid down. I think the object of this country in establishing a settlement on the West Coast of Africa cannot be a self-interested one, having in view the increase of the wealth of England. The great design which has always interested this country in connection with our proceedings on that coast is the repression of the slave trade, and with it the introduction of legitimate commerce and of Christianity as the civilizing agent of mankind. An extension of territory in that country would be what no one would wish to see carried into effect; and certainly any desire of aggrandizement or territorial acquisition there would be foreign to our purpose and alien to our policy. What our policy should be and is was well laid down by a Committee of 1842, of which Lord Derby, Earl Russell, Mr. Speaker, and other distinguished men were Members. Speaking of the Western Coast of Africa they said—

"The relation of the Native tribes to the English Crown should be not the allegiance of subjects to which we have no right to pretend, and which it would entail an inconvenient responsibility to possess, but the deference of weaker Powers to a stronger and more enlightened neighbour, whoso protection and counsel they seek, and to whom they are bound by certain definite obligations."

That policy may be right or it may be wrong—I am not now arguing that question; but in Lord Grey's book our policy is described in the same sense, and as it is the policy to which this country has adhered, I hold with my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth that to extend our territorial possessions on the West Coast of Africa is not the most desirable mode of giving it effect. Such a system of acquisition would be attended with many evils which, as far as possible, should be avoided. I am asked what the view of the Government is with respect to expeditions into the interior of Africa? I may answer that question by pointing to the policy which we have endeavoured to give effect to in reference to the expedition which has been brought under direct discussion. We have sent out orders to put an end, if possible, to expeditions on the Gold Coast. With respect to Lagos, I anticipated these discussions by announcing to the Governor of Lagos that our policy was to be one of abstaining from taking part in the disputes among Natives. A war that has been raging there between two tribes is very mischievous to trade, and inflicts great suffering on the Natives; but I do not think it would have been right for us to take a part in it, or to endeavour to put an end to it by force. It is difficult to lay down in clear terms what the details of a policy are. Those details must be complicated and difficult where our object is not the usual one of acquiring wealth or extending our power, but where our policy is solely and entirely a disinterested one—namely, at great inconvenience and no inconsiderable sacrifices to ourselves, to abolish a traffic disgraceful to human nature, and extend the advantages of religion, civilization, and legitimate commerce to the miserable inhabitants of Africa.

said, he believed that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies had done all that could be done in the case which had been brought so prominently under the notice of the House. He thought that of the papers now before Parliament the most satisfactory one of all was the despatch of the right hon. Gentleman, in which certainly he showed a determination to apply a remedy to an existing evil, and to prevent a recurrence of the unfortunate complications and embarrassments that had given rise to it. But, unhappily, these steps had been taken too late. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth (Sir Francis Baring) that under such circumstances remedial measures must come too late. That was the point which they had to consider. It was difficult to fix a censure and to say who was to blame, and, even if it was not, censure would be too late. What they wanted to do was to prevent a recurrence of circumstances in which it was useless to blame any one for disaster, and in respect to which information came too late. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies had stated to the House the expenditure which we had incurred accurately according to the Returns which had reached him; but he doubted whether these Returns gave all the military expenditure for recent operations.

It was not the military expenditure. I said we were on the Civil Service Estimates, and that these were expenses incurred by the Civil Governor on account of the war.

He was, then, quite correct in thinking that they had not before them an estimate of the expenditure for the whole of the affair. The present case afforded a striking exemplification of the mistaken policy we had adopted on that coast. The policy of setting up a protecting Power on the West Coast of Africa was both wasteful and mischievous, and he took this opportunity of giving notice that on the first day of next Session he should move for a Select Committee, which might inquire into the whole subject, with the view of preventing a recurrence of such evils as those which we were now lamenting. By assuming the task of protecting barbarous tribes, we not only scattered our army to an unnecessary extent, but exposed our troops to a demoralizing and deadly service—not only by warfare, but by the pestilential climate of some of the most unhealthy parts of the world. It was folly enough for us to assist great colonies as vigorous as ourselves in their wars for self-defence, without setting up Protectorates on the coast of Africa to which barbarous tribes would look for aid in mutual hostilities, and for plunder for themselves. We have had experience enough to show us how insane a policy this was, and the sooner we backed out of it the better. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies told them he had written to the Governor of Lagos, urging as the wish of the Government a pacific policy. But would the Governor, with the English flag and the English Exchequer at his back, carry out the wishes and intentions of the Government in that respect? He would remind the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee of the saying of the first Napoleon, that the true policy of this country was to concentrate our forces at home, and send them abroad as they might be required; not to scatter them, as we do, in every direction, in search of service, and embroil ourselves with all the world; and he said that it was fortunate for mankind we so wasted our strength, which concentrated would make us almost too powerful for the rest of the world. It was said that the policy adopted by this country was necessary in the interests of commerce and of civilization. But the fact was that commerce was disturbed and impeded by such a policy. Look at what had taken place in the present instance. Governor Pine wrote home to say that it was useless talking of peace, for he had an arduous task to perform in defending an extensive line of coast, bordered by tribes, some of whom were under British protection, while they had rivals under other protection; and he seemed to have grand notions of his position, calling upon the Home Government to support him, but fortunately calling in vain. The time had come, he wrote rather magniloquently, when the question must be settled now and for ever, whether the English flag was to be trampled on by savage and sanguinary tribes. But, surely, there was a prior question to be settled, namely, whether the English flag should be trailed about all over the world as an Irishman trailed his coat-tails at a fair, to be trodden on and insulted by any one who had nothing to do, and nothing to lose. Governor Pine thought that good policy, economy, and mercy would be served by sending him a force sufficient to decide at once and for ever the supremacy of England over African barbarians. The House of Commons would probably be of opinion that none of these results would be so insured. Major Cochrane and Commander Wilmot both cautioned the Governor that the House of Commons would never stand such a course; but he was blind to their remonstrances, pressed on the Colonial Office the necessity of doing what he asked, and at last quarrelled with these two officers because they had so wisely cautioned him not to quarrel with the King of Ashantee. What made the absurdity the greater was, as appeared from Governor Pine's own statement, the war he proposed could only be carried on by the sacrifice for the time of the chief object for which we maintained this settlement—namely, by suspending our efforts for the abolition of the slave trade. He (Mr. Adderley) deprecated strongly the policy of sentimental colonization which was too much adopted by this country. He considered that a better case than this could hardly be brought forward to illustrate the impolicy of the course we were pursuing in this direction. He thought the time had now come to consider whether we had any inducement for exposing our officers and men any longer in a climate so deadly that when it was proposed at the end of the American war to make West Africa a convict station, Mr. Burke made a celebrated speech in this House, in which he described it as a place where "all death lives and all life dies"—a place too dreadful even for criminals to be sent there in commutation for death. He should take the first opportunity next Session of moving for a Committee of Inquiry into the use of our West African establishments, and he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies to enable him to prepare for it, and to have in readiness the evidence which would be necessary for a fair investigation. He hoped that that inquiry would lead to the abandonment of the Gold Coast forts, and the concentration of our settlements, or disposal of them otherwise. The right hon. Gentleman said that he was against all extension of our possessions on this coast. But with the best intentions this extension was going on, and would continue to go on unless they resolutely set their faces against it. Fifteen years ago the Gold Coast was only a lieutenant governorship under Sierra Leone. Then it was constituted a governorship. During Earl Grey's tenure of the Colonial Office we purchased the Danish forts there for £10,000; and the Dutch forts were now being offered us for sale. If, as the result of the inquiry he proposed, the Government could see their way clear to withdraw from the Gold Coast, and concentrate their forces in two places, or even in one, upon this coast, the greatest benefit would result from the appointment of a Committee. It should be remembered that whatever our squadron might have done for checking the slave trade, no such end had yet been in the least advanced by the troops, whom we had employed on shore, for they could do nothing but embroil us with the tribes along the coast, while they certainly did nothing for the civilization of the country. The slave trade could be best repressed by a differently composed squadron on the coast, and he quite agreed that it would be well to have faster and fewer vessels there. He hoped, however, that the Protectorate would be abandoned, for the only result had been a large loss of valuable lives, while neither commerce, nor suppression of the slave trade, nor civilization of the tribes, had apparently been promoted by it.

said, he was glad that the right hon. Gentleman was resolved to move for a Committee next Session: if he had not made the announcement he (Mr. Henry Seymour) should have done so himself, for he wished to see the whole question ventilated. He hoped, however, that in the meanwhile the Colonial Office would have devised some better means of managing the affairs of these settlements. He must say, however, that he thought the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) was riding his hobby too hard when he designed to confine England to the limits of these Islands; it seemed to him (Mr. Henry Seymour) absurd to talk of restraining this nation within such narrow limits.

said, what he desired was to restrict the number of our forces abroad.

remarked, that the natural course for a people so powerful, vigorous, and enterprising as that of England was to expand and to occupy nearly every region of the world; and if Napoleon had seen the present wealth, power, and influence of this country in all parts of the world, he would have approved the policy of the British Government for the last thirty or forty years. As to the outcry about these paltry military expenses, he would ask how our colonies could have become so prosperous if they had not been aided in their weakness by the mother country? While our colonies and possessions added largely, on the whole, to the wealth of the mother country, there must necessarily be some which, like the territories of the United States, required for a time an expenditure from the mother country in order that they might become the sources of wealth to the generation which followed. Instead, therefore, of restricting our present policy, he would extend it still further; and if this question were debated he should be prepared to prove, that our expenditure all over the world was returned to us a hundred-fold by the prosperity of our colonies and possessions. Take the case of Ceylon—we were now exporting from that colony 40,000,000 lb. of coffee a year, and British capital there was to a great extent bringing 10, 20, and 30 per cent per annum to those who laid it out. The imports into this country from the West Coast were increasing, but the products from the interior could not be obtained without the aid of posts established upon the coast; whereas on the east coast, where there were no British settlements, it appeared from accounts given by Captain Speke, that at a short distance from Mozambique towards the interior, the price of Manchester goods increased 2,500 per cent, in consequence of the difficulty, from want of possessions on the coast, of causing the goods to penetrate into the interior. Until they broke the outer crust of the continent they could not gain the interior. Then let them look to the progress of civilization. He thought the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) could not have examined the position of Sierra Leone and the Gambia, where schools and missionary stations were established, whereby Christianity and civilization had been extended, as well as commerce promoted. Then as to the suppression of the slave trade—Commodore Wilmot, in a valuable minute on the subject, had proposed the occupation of Quettah, as a means of putting an end to the slave trade on the only part of the western coast of Africa where it still prevailed to any extent. He wished to observe that our vessels on the coast were most inadequate in speed; not one of them could go more than nine miles an hour, whereas the slavers were notoriously the fastest vessels that could be built. It had been said that this squadron, besides its proper duties in suppressing the slave trade, could be relied upon as a squadron of reserve in case of war; but it would be of very little use against the fast vessels of other nations. He did not find fault with the policy of the Government, but with the way in which that policy was carried out. Why, slavery was acknowledged in British courts of justice in the limits of the Protectorate! We had done away with protectorates almost everywhere, and he did not see why the protectorates on the Gold Coast should not be done away with also. Reference had been made to the Dutch possessions, and the Minister for the Colonies was aware that a move- ment was taking place in the Chamber in Holland with regard to the Gold Coast, and it was said there, "either let us have our affairs managed better, or sell the territory to the British Government." The estimate of the revenue which might be obtained from these possessions was £50,000 a year. The cost of management was £20,000. Now, if we could settle the question satisfactorily with the Dutch the customs revenue might be divided, and the colony be made self-supporting. The climate was not so bad as had been represented, and was not nearly so injurious to health as the Gambia and Sierra Leone; and he trusted the Government would not abandon the coast, but that next year the subject would be thoroughly sifted by a Select Committee. There was one great defect in the Estimates, for it was impossible to ascertain how much these colonies cost this country. The civil expenditure was set out, but there was no statement as to the naval and military expenditure. The House ought to be furnished with an estimate of the expenditure of each colony. He believed that if we entered into any well-devised scheme for the suppression of the slave trade, Lagos would form an important portion of that scheme; but all the efforts that had hitherto been made had failed from want of administrative ability, for neither Mr. Freeman, at Lagos, nor Mr. Taylor, at Abeokuta, had conformed to the habits of the people. He should like to know when the account of the military expenditure of the Ashantee war would be laid upon the table, and what was its estimated cost for the coming year. It was understood that the Vote was to be postponed until that statement could be laid before the House, and until the policy of the Government could be explained. The question had been shirked by one Member of the Government, because it was not in his department, and he thought the responsible member of the Cabinet ought not to consider it beneath his dignity to give the necessary explanation as to the civil and military expenditure.

said, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had misunderstood the remarks of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Adderley). He did not understand that his right hon. Friend had stated his intention of moving for a Committee to inquire into the whole subject, but that the question of the Protectorate was one which ought to be inquired into; and in that opinion he (Mr. A. Mills) fully concurred. He should be sorry if the investigation was directed to particular acts of the Government on the Gold Coast. With respect to the policy which had been pursued by this country, people were asking who was to blame—the Admiralty, the War Office, or the Colonial Department? But if any body was to blame it was not any particular Ministry, or any one official Department, but Parliament itself, which had allowed a system to go on which might at any time explode in disasters similar to those at Lagos or the Gold Coast. He trusted the attention of Parliament would be aroused to the subject, and that an inquiry would be instituted for the purpose of ascertaining whether an attempt to protect the Native tribes was a wise course, and one likely to extinguish the hateful traffic which had been so long carried on. The case of Lagos showed one of the most remarkable failures of our policy resulting from an attempt to interfere in the quarrels of the Native tribes. That colony was founded for the purpose of extinguishing the slave trade; and no doubt that was a very laudable object, in which the country would sympathize if it could be carried out without an undue sacrifice of life and treasure. But what had been the result? Why, when Abeokuta was invaded, it had to depend on supplies of powder from Porto Novo, which was supplied by French traders in exchange for slaves. So that this colony of Lagos, which was planted for the specific purpose of abolishing the slave trade, became, through the foolish policy of the Governor, the means of carrying it on. How could they expect a proper man for Governor of such a colony as Lagos when the salary was only £500, not enough to tempt a country apothecary in fair practice? The whole question of our protectorate over Native tribes ought to be fairly and impartially discussed. The country did not grudge a moderate expenditure for the suppression of the slave trade, but it did grudge the indefinite expenditure involved in protecting Native tribes.

said, the hon. and gallant Member for Wakefield (Sir John Hay) had quoted a private letter from a personal friend, in which it was stated that our squadron on the coast of Africa was unable to cope with the slave trade. A similar statement was made the other night, when he (Lord Clarence Paget) stated that, he had no knowledge of any slaver having escaped from our squadron after a fair chase.

said, he should be happy to supply his noble Friend with the information.

said, the statement of his hon. and gallant Friend was, that in spite of four steamers the slaver got away. All he could say was, that he had heard nothing of such a case, I nor had any information to that effect reached the Admiralty. His hon. and gallant Friend said that positive orders had been given to the various ships composing the squadron not to leave their station for the purpose of chasing slavers. But his hon. and gallant Friend knew that if our vessels were to leave their station it would be one of the most advantageous things that could happen for the slave dealers, as they would immediately take the opportunity of despatching slave ships during the temporary absence of the station ship. It was quite possible that a certain number of fast American steamers might be employed in the trade, and no doubt it would be advisable to match them by faster ships; but we wanted fast steamers all over the world, and to send a fresh squadron to the coast of Africa every year because fast American steamers were sent there would be attended with great inconvenience. The Admiralty were perfectly alive to the subject, and would not neglect any opportunity for providing for any contingency.

said, the question before the Committee was, whether they should practically pass a Vote of Censure upon the Government by withdrawing this sum of £2,500. Now, it seemed to him most unfair to cast the blame for the present state of things upon the Government, who were simply carrying out a policy inaugurated in 1842 upon the re-commendation of a Committee of which Lord Derby was a Member, and adopted by successive Colonial Secretaries. The occasion of this war really was that the King of Ashantee had threatened the extermination of tribes which we were bound; to protect, and the Government would I have been wanting in their duty, if they had declined to afford their assistance. The loss of life on the occasion was, no; doubt, to be deplored; but according to Commodore Wilmot, if Major Cochrane had done his duty our troops would have marched to the capital of the King of Ashantee, and it was impossible for the Government to provide that all their officers serving on distant stations should be as efficient as could be desired.

said, he had no wish to put the House to the trouble of dividing upon the Vote. The only reason why he had urged upon the Government the necessity of suspending the Vote, was that the sum of £2,500 altogether inadequately represented the expenses entailed upon the country by this war. He thought the Government ought to have laid a supplementary estimate upon the table, showing the expenses already incurred for this calamitous war. He believed that something like £250,000 had been expended, of which only this small item of £2,500 was to be found in the Votes.

said, no statement of the military expenses incurred in this war had been laid on the table by the War Department, because it was quite impossible that such a statement could be made. The war had taken place in this and the last year, and the accounts for the military expenditure of last year were not yet laid upon the table, nor could they be included in this year's Estimates; but the commissariat charges and field allowances had been taken at an increased amount, in case the war should continue. The expense of organizing a large transport corps had been estimated, but it would be absolutely delusive to attempt to lay on the table an account of the actual expenses incurred. When the Army Expenditure of 1863 was laid before the House, it would be seen what expenditure the war had entailed.

asked if he was to understand the noble Marquess to say that all the military estimates were two years behindhand?

Not the Estimates, but the account of the military expenditure.

said, the Government for some time had been spending £1,200 a month for this war, and an account of the estimated expenditure ought to be laid upon the table, as he believed was done in the case of the China and Crimean wars.

said, that the expenses, so far as could be done, had been included in the Estimates which had been laid before the House; but the war was going on at the time.

said, it would be quite possible to give an approximate estimate of the expenses from time to time. To get an estimate two years after the event was of no use. It might as well not be printed.

asked, how it happened that while we were voting £2,000 a year in aid of the Government of the Gold Coast, the magnificent tanks which were in the country had been out of repair, so that no water could be had? He should move to reduce this Vote by £500, the salary of the Governor of Lagos, unless he should receive an assurance that Mr. Freeman was to be removed.

asked for an explanation of the circumstance that Governor Pine was adverse to raising any taxes in the colony itself. He said in one of his despatches he had neither the face nor the courage to do so.

said, that owing to the invasion of the King of Ashantee and the extraordinary severity of the season, there had been a great famine and great distress in the colony, and the passage to which his right hon. Friend had referred related to that state of things. It was only when the revenue of the colony was deficient that that House was asked to defray the expense. He had received no information as to why the tanks had been suffered to go out of repair. They ought to have been kept in repair out of the revenue of the colony itself. The salary of Mr. Freeman, at Lagos, was made up in this way—£500 was taken for him as Consul in the Consular Estimate, and £500 for him as Governor in that Vote.

asked, whether the right hon. Gentleman could give the Committee an estimate of what the revenue of Lagos was?

said, that in 1862, the last year of which he had any account, it was £7,120. The Estimate for the present year was considerably larger.

quite agreed with the noble Marquess, that an exact estimate of the war expenses could not be furnished, but he did not see why an approximate estimate could not. It might be right or wrong to pursue the policy which we had adopted on the Gold Coast, but then it had been followed ever since 1842.

said, his belief was that in the matter between Lagos and Abbeokuta the former was more sinned against than sinning. He held out hopes last year that Lagos would this year be able to pay its own expenses, and such was his belief at the time. But the reason why they were now obliged to ask a slight assistance for the colony was mainly because the neighbouring tribes had persisted in waging war among themselves, and because Abbeokuta, in spite of our advice, had carried on hostilities against its neighbours. He hoped that people would not be too elated by their recent victory over the King of Dahomey to adopt a policy of peace, that the trade of Lagos would make great advances, and that the colony would become self-supporting,

said, it was a personal question with the people of Lagos.

said, they were not fighting with Mr. Freeman—it was their neighbours that were fighting.

said, that the people of Abbeokuta had not been on good terms with them since Mr. Freeman had become Governor.

said, he understood that the military correspondence was to have been laid upon the table, but it had not as yet been produced.

said, he was not aware that the military correspondence had been promised.

said, he should move for it.

said, the Committee was perfectly aware of all the circumstances which had led the Government to recommend this purchase to Parliament, and therefore he would not take up time by making any statement upon the subject. He should be very happy, however, to answer any questions which might be put to him.

said, he hoped they should receive from the Colonial Secretary a more satisfactory statement than had yet been given as to the nature of the security which was to be good enough for that House but was not good enough for the merchants of the City. Unless he could elicit some such statement from the right hon. Gentleman, he felt disposed to move that a Select Committee be now appointed to inquire into the relative financial position of Great Britain and New Zealand, with a view to a final adjustment of any outstanding balance of accounts between them, and to a fair understanding as to how the liabilities of either country were to be borne in future. When a former loan of £500,000 was asked, in 1857, a Committee of Inquiry was appointed; but now, at the end of the Session, when there was little opportunity for discussion, the Government came down with a highhanded proposal, without giving the House a proper account of the security on which that guarantee was to rest. As soon as the guaranteed part of the loan was put upon the market nobody would have anything to do with the unguaranteed part of it; so that this proposal would not really effect its professed object. He must tell the Government frankly that their colonial policy of late years had not been such as to entitle them to the blind confidence of the House of Commons for the next six months. He was prepared to incur the expense of defending New Zealand against any foreign attack; but when such extensive powers of self-government had been placed in the hands]of the colonists, he was not ready to consent to undertake the responsibility of internal wars like the present. The House was bound in duty not to leave such a question open for the future; and unless the Government gave some satisfactory explanation of the course they intended to pursue during the next six months he would, by way of precaution, move the appointment of a Select Committee.

Sir, before the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell) answers the hon. Baronet, I wish to put this question to him:—What power has the Government of New Zealand in directing the movement of the British troops in that colony? I ask that question in consequence of having seen a private letter from New Zealand, and which, being private, I cannot read to the House. The first question raised by the writer is—Why were we in Taranga at all? and he says it was because it was so willed by three lawyers, members of the Colonial Government, contrary to the direct wishes of the Governor; because this triumvirate, under the fiction of responsible Government, overrules the representative of the Queen, overrules the commander of 10,000 troops, overrules the expenditure of £1,500,000 of other people's money, and overrules the wishes of the Native race which is not represented at all in the political system. And this is the Colonial self-government which the Duke of Newcastle upholds! The writer then goes on to inquire, how it is that the representatives of 100,000 colonists, consisting of Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen, Germans, and Yankees, have the control over an unlimited expenditure of British money and British blood? He says the war has proceeded from these representatives themselves—that it arose in consequence of their calling upon Colonel Browne in the first instance to use British troops for the purpose of taking the land of the Native British subjects—a measure that roused that rebellion which you are now required to put down. He says in respect to the military operations—and I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he can to answer this—he says that our going to Taranga was the greatest mistake that ever was made. He says this place is distant about 150 miles from Auckland; that it is accessible by sea; and we can easily transport our troops thither; but when they have got there they are separated by 50 miles of bad country, a wood of 12 miles, the Thames river and its swampy valley, and the Waikato river, from our posts at Maungatantari; whereas this 50 miles is a two days' march for a light-armed Native force, and the country between is in their hands, On the contrary our men have to come back 150 miles by sea, 35 to the Waikato, and to ascend 100 miles of the river to get back to Maungatantari; so that while our General with his 3,000 men is practically shut up by woods, hills, and swamps, it is in the power of the Maori General (if they have one) to resume the offensive on the Waikato with a concentrated force. The fact, he says, is that—

"If the Maoriea did not make it a point of honour to fight each man for his own land, they might have led the General from Taranga to Waikato and from Waikato to Taranga, as would have exhausted his patience in command, and Mr. Gladstone's in paying the bill. Instead of this they have dug their intrenched camps on the open ground, sometimes without provisions, once even without water, and then they have braved four or five times their own number, and all our Armstrong guns, mortars, howitzers, and hand grenades, when they might have gone into the bush, and from thence cut off our convoys and orderlies without much loss to themselves, but with vast injury to us. Their one feeling is, if the land dies let us die with it."

I wish, therefore, to know what control the Colonial Government have over the movements of the troops in New Zealand, or whether the control rests with the Governor? When we look at the fearful calamity which has taken place—for I can call it by no other name—when we see the prestige of one of the finest regiments in the British service shaken—of that regiment with respect to which Sir William Napier in his History says he was congratulated by everybody on being placed in command of such a corps—that regiment which stormed the breech of Badajoz—that regiment, as we are now informed, has retired before the Natives of New Zealand. And what was the reason of that? Why, it was because every commanding officer in the regiment was killed upon the spot. Sir, an hon. Member of this House once told us, that if all our generals, our colonels, and other officers were swallowed up by an earthquake, their places could easily be replaced. I only hope that that hon. Gentleman's constituency will find it much easier to supply his place than it will be to supply the place of the lowest officer who fell on this occasion. I have to ask another question—How is the increased expenditure for the war to be met? The great increase in the Army Estimates was put down to the New Zealand war. We were told that, in consequence of that expense, it was necessary to reduce the expense of the Yeomanry force. The Vote against that reduction was carried by a majority of only one. Then came a demonstration from the noble Viscount at the head of the Government, who suddenly announced that, in consequence of the excellent news that had been received from New Zealand, the Government were enabled to forego their determination of not calling out the Yeomanry for exercise or permanent duty. But when the Estimates were brought forward, every one of the Votes was reduced. How, then, are these expenses to be paid? We have heard that no estimate can be given of the expenditure on the Ashantee war; and I have been trying to impress on the House the necessity of asking some more satisfactory answer than we have yet received. If we cannot have accounts of expenditure within two years, they can be of very little use after. I wish to know from the Colonial Secretary, has the Colonial Government the power of directing the movement of Her Majesty's forces in New Zealand, and how is it proposed to make up for the reduction in the Army Estimates in consequence of the excellent news from New Zealand?

My right hon. Friend has put to me a Question which I understand to be this—In whom rests the control and command of the Queen's forces in New Zealand?—does it rest with the Colonial Minister or with the Colonial Governor? My right hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State read the other night an extract of the despatch of the Duke of Newcastle, in which the government of Native affairs was given over to the Colonial Minister, but in which the control, command, and management of the Queen's forces was exclusively placed in the Governor of the colony. The Correspondence has been laid on the table. I have stated the views of Her Majesty's Government with reference to the policy that ought to be pursued in reference to the land question, and the feeling of the House appeared to be favourable to those views. But they were already in writing, for it so happened that the post left that very day, and they went by that day's post to New Zealand; and they have been laid on the table of this House. They were intended to obviate the risk and possibility of war arising from a desire of making the forces of the Queen subservient to taking land from the Natives. So much for the general policy; but with regard to the control of the Governor over the troops, I will read an extract from a despatch which I addressed to the Governor, and which is also on the table. It is dated the 26th of May, and is in these words—

"I entirely anticipate that your Ministers will be animated by a just sense of the exertions and sacrifices which have already been made by the mother country for the colony, and that on colonial grounds they will be as anxious as you will be yourself to terminate the present hostilities. But it is my duty to say to you plainly that if, unfortunately, their opinion should be different from your own as to the terms of peace, Her Majesty's Government expect you to act on your own judgment, and to state to your Ministers explicitly that an army of 10,000 English troops has been placed at your disposal for objects of great Imperial concern, and not for the attainment of any merely local object—that your responsibility to the Crown is paramount, and that you will not continue the expenditure of blood and treasure longer than is absolutely necessary for the establishment of a just and enduring peace."

I do not know how it would be possible for language to express more plainly with whom the control rests, and what is the expectation of the Government with regard to the exercise of that control. But further, by a subsequent mail information reached me of a difference between the Governor and his Ministers with regard to the treatment of 183 prisoners who had been taken in action—not that there was any charge of cruelty in their treatment if they were to be kept as prisoners, but that there was a difference of opinion between the Governor and his Ministers whether they should be treated as prisoners at all. I addressed a despatch to the Governor on the subject. I have not a copy of it with me, but I am quite sure I state it correctly when I say that I told the Governor that I looked to him for determining a question of that kind—that I wished him to obtain the concurrence of his Ministers if he could; but if not, he should decide without their concurrence, and that I should be perfectly prepared to support him if I found from subsequent despatches that he had taken that course. I think I have completely answered the question proposed to me by my right hon. Friend. Now, with regard to the origin of this war. My right hon. Friend read a letter with reference to the origin of the former war, which took place in the time of Governor Browne. I do not mean to say there is no connection between the present and the former war; but this I say—Governor Grey went in 1861 as a governor of peace, and he abstained from insistiag on the terms prescribed by Governor Browne. He was regarded by the Natives as their friend—he told them that the King movement would not be the cause of war, and he withdrew by proclamation that fatal blot which had been the cause of the former war. I stated that Governor Grey held the origin of the war to be a conspiracy of chiefs of a particular district, who had been preparing for an attack on Auckland. But it was no part of Governor Grey's policy, and certainly it was no part of the policy of the Government, to maintain an army and continue a war for any purpose of oppression to the Natives of New Zealand. But I was a little surprised to learn from the hon. Member for Tavistock (Sir John Trelawny) that I had given no evidence with regard to the security on which this loan was to be raised. I should have been afraid, sitting in judgment on myself, that I had occupied the time of the House too long on the subject of the security for this loan. I certainly stated what was to be the security pledged—that it was to be all the revenue of which the New Zealand Assembly has the command. I stated the ordinary revenue for the year ending June 30, 1863, as it appears in the papers before the House; I also stated the estimated revenue for the following year. I showed, I thought, to the satisfaction of the House, that there was an adequate, ample security in the ordinary revenue of the colony; but in addition to that there was another considerable revenue arising from land sales. The way in which this loan comes to be proposed is this:—Last year an offer was made by my noble Friend the Duke of Newcastle to ask the House to guarantee a loan of £500,000 for New Zealand—£200,000 for the expenses of the former war, £200,000 for compensation to settlers for losses incurred in that war, and £100,000 for the purposes of the colony. That proposal only passed the first stage last Session, and it fell to me to redeem the pledge in the course of the present Session. But in the meantime a further liability of £300,000 had arisen from the circumstances of the present war, and if the guarantee were limited to £500,000, almost the whole of it would come to the Treasury. There is a great expense incurred by the mother country, but there is also a great expense on the part of the colony. They have to pay the expense of a local force of 10,000 men in arms against the Natives. The payment which the colony makes to this country for the Imperial troops in New Zealand is under an arrangement which terminates at the close of the present year. It is, I must admit, an unsatisfactory arrangement. There is a nominal payment of £5 per head per man, but the larger portion of that sum finds its way back to the Treasury of the colony. It is a part of the present proposal that this arrangement shall terminate, and that the payment by New Zealand should be the same as by the Australian colonies—namely, £40 per man per annum, from the beginning of 1865. All this is given in detail in the papers before the House. It will be seen that, in consideration of the arrangements recited in the letters of Sir Frederick Rogers and the repayment of all the debts due from the colony to the Treasury, it is proposed to guarantee this loan of £1,000,000. I have already stated my belief that the security is quite ample. Of this I am sure, that it is desirable that all running accounts between the Treasury and the colony should be closed, and that a substantial arrangement should be made for the payment of Imperial troops, so that it may be no longer a matter of indifference to the colony whether they provoke a war or not. Considering, however, that the colonists are now engaged in a formidable struggle—that all those of age to bear arms in the province of Auckland are under arms for the defence of their hearths and homes—that they are removed from the productive pursuits of industry—that they are incurring vast expenses, and that this beneficial arrangement has been made between the colony and the mother country, I trust that the hon. Gentleman having fully discharged his public duty, will permit the House to go into Committee on this Bill, on the distinct understanding that the Lords of the Treasury will riot advance any money until the Assembly of New Zealand have formally adopted the terms of the arrangement.

said, that as the House had been told that a portion of this loan would be employed in compensating the colonists who lost their all in the last war, he trusted that compensation would also be given to those who had lost their property in the present war. There was, for example, the case of Mr. Calvert, who was sitting by his own fireside when his child was murdered by the Natives. He rushed out, was wounded while gallantly fighting, and his property was destroyed. He hoped that a part of the money would be employed in making good these losses.

must repeat his objections to this Bill, and to the entire policy of guaranteeing colonial loans. The war was part of a system of continued aggression on the Natives for the ultimate purpose of extermination. Then as to the guarantee, what was it? The revenue of the colony was stated to be £700,000 per annum, but the expense of 10,000 troops at £40 per man would be £400,000. Then there were the items of the payment of local troops, the interest of the debt, compensation to sufferers, and the local government expenses. After these charges had been met, what would become of the security? The revenues of the colony, too, were not in the hands of the Treasury but under the control of local Ministries, which were ephemeral; and although they might have an honest Government now, you might have a democratic one to-morrow and then they would never get their money. [A laugh!] Although he was a Liberal himself, he believed that under such democratic Governments as existed there they could never be certain of the Government, and that their guarantee was good for nothing. If any one would divide with him, he would oppose the Bill.

protested against it being said that this was a war of aggression against the Natives; the war had nothing to do with land, but originated entirely in the massacre of some of our troops. He wished also to say that Sir George Grey had stated in New Zealand that he had traced the origin of this war to the Roman Catholic Missionaries. He put the question on a former occasion three times in one night, and he received for answer that it was too late to discuss the matter. Too late to put such a question! He spent nearly a whole day at the Colonial Office on the subject, and he was told there were floating recollections in the minds of the officials there that some such communication had been received. He then put the question in the House, and cited the Canadian rebellion and other recent cases; but only got for answer that the loyalty of the Canadians was unimpeachable, and that it was absurd to cite them in reference to New Zealand. He wished for a distinct answer, and if he did not receive it he would ask the House to grant him a return of all the communications which had been received from Sir George Grey relative to the origin and progress of the war.

said, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (General Peel) had called attention to the immense mischief likely to arise if the practice prevailing in New Zealand were persisted in, of allowing the responsible Ministers of the Governor to dictate to the Commander of the forces with reference to the movement of the troops in that province. It was said by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Card-well), that he had written a despatch which, if attended to, would have the effect of preventing the recurrence of such a bad practice in future. But he (Mr. Arthur Mills) wished to call the attention of the House to the very difficult position in which they were placed with regard to the consequences, or rather probable want of consequences, resulting from that despatch. It was the fact, however, as appeared from the papers before the House, that the prac- tice had prevailed, and as long as the present system continued it was likely to prevail—the practice of dictation in these matters by the responsible Ministers of the Governor; and it was questionable how far any despatch from the Colonial Office could put an end to it. As an illustration, he might mention that the Deputy Commissary General remonstrated against an attempt made not very long ago—and which, indeed, was carried out—of advancing lump sums from the Treasury chest, as £100,000 at a time, for the payment of the militia of New Zealand, for which ostensibly it was the duty of the Colonial Government to provide. The Governor referred the matter to these Ministers, who said that it was absolutely necessary the sum should be advanced, considering the exigencies of the colony, and that it should be repaid in three months. That sum had never been repaid. The simple fact was that the Ministers dictated to the Governor, who acted under compulsion. He wanted to know what despatch written from the Colonial Office would prevent the continuance of the practice? The despatch might be sent out, but the responsible Ministers of the Governor would say, "We cannot hold office on these terms—we will resign." Their successors would do the same, a succession of crises would occur, and in the end the Governor would be forced to yield. If such practices were allowed to go on, and the responsible Ministers of the Governor were allowed to spend money voted by Parliament, the result would be indefinitely to prolong the war. Then again, in the time, he believed, of Governor Browne, the Commander of the forces said that in his judgment the troops ought to be sent to a certain part of the province. The Minister of New Zealand said, "Oh, I trust you will do nothing of the kind. I have property there, and I shall have to begin life again if you send them there." The Minister was all powerful, and prevented the arrangement which the Commander of the forces wanted to carry out. Now, as to the origin of the war, the right hon. Gentleman said the Natives were the cause of it, and the colonists had nothing to do with it. He had that morning received a letter from Mr. Gorst—a gentleman who had written a very able and intelligent book on these transactions in New Zealand—in which letter Mr. Gorst, speaking of the allegation that the war was the result of a conspiracy of the Maories, expressed his absolute disbelief of it from the personal knowledge derived from a residence on the spot some time before the war broke out. Tales of such plots, he added, were common during the whole time of his residence in New Zealand, many of them, to his certain knowledge, utterly false. He stated further that he could undertake to disprove the existence of half-a-dozen former plots stated upon evidence as credible as that upon the faith of which Waikato was invaded. This confirmed the opinion which he had formed upon information received from both civil and military authorities; and when distinguished military authorities expressed their opinion that the Queen's troops were being employed in carrying on an unrighteous war, not to protect the lives and property of the people of Auckland, but to enable the colonists to get as much fertile land as they could, and a small knot of persons in Auckland to coin fortunes out of the commissariat, he did think that it behoved the House of Commons to interfere,

said, he rose at the request of several of his Friends to read an extract from a letter which he had received since the right hon. Gentleman had begun his speech. The writer, who was known to many Members of the House, and for whose shrewdness and ability he could answer, and who, though now within a few miles of the seat of war in New Zealand, till about fifteen months ago knew as little about that country as most hon. Members did now, after describing an engagement in which of 400 Natives 200 had been killed or wounded continued—

"They are a brave race, and it seems a great shame to take their land from them. We all out here consider the war an unjust one. But the cry of the colonists is still for land. Moreover, the troops are the making of Auckland, as contractors and that kind of people are making large fortunes. So long, therefore, as you are fools enough to supply the needful, so long will they keep on the war. General Cameron has captured millions of acres which a few months ago belonged to the Natives."

He then went on, after expressing an opinion that this winter might starve out the Natives, to give a deplorable account of the repulse which our troops had sustained, and stated that the people of England had no idea how many of the valuable lives of our soldiers were lost in every petty skirmish, and declared his belief that if the colonists and the Maories were left to fight it out, so well had the colonists supplied the latter with arms, that probably the Natives would have the best of it. If the right hon. Gentleman wished to be distinguished as the wisest Minister who ever presided at the Colonial Office, he would by the next mail send out orders to make peace as soon as possible, to wash our hands of an unrighteous and iniquitous war, and leave the colonists to reap the fruit of their own misdeeds.

said, that if when the Estimates were passed the Government had foreseen the unfortunate turn which events in New Zealand had subsequently taken, they would not have proposed reduction in any of the votes. At the same time he saw no reason for introducing a supplemental Estimate at the present moment. If the Estimate was exceeded there would be ample time before the close of the financial year to adopt that measure. It, unfortunately, seemed probable that hostilities might continue for some time longer; but, looking at the war from a financial point of view, hon. Members must recollect that the chief source of expense was the cost of transporting commissariat supplies and stores for a large army in the field in the interior of the country. General Cameron had, however, now removed the greater part of his forces from the interior, leaving only a sufficient number of troops to hold the posts from which he had driven the Natives, and had transported them by sea to the eastern shore of the Island, where the operations were likely to be less expensive than those carried on in the interior. Besides this, the Commissariat had, according to the last advices, made arrangements for supplying the troops left in the interior by means of water carriage, which would be much cheaper than the laud transport which they had hitherto had to employ. The House would gain no information from any supplemental Estimate which could now be laid upon the table, founded, as it must be, upon no certain data, and he still hoped that the Estimate already presented would not be materially exceeded.

said, that he had received a letter from that distinguished naval officer Sir William Wiseman, commanding on the New Zealand station, in which he described the excellent service rendered by the naval brigade at Tauranga, where he himself directed the operations, and detailed the particulars of the gallant and noble deaths of Captain Hamilton of the Esk and Commander Hay of the Harrier, and other officers. From the conclusion of his letter he gathered that he was of opinion that the war might be indefinitely prolonged, and that it was totally unjustifiable.

said, that in the despatch he had sent to Sir George Grey he had distinctly stated that no portion of the guaranteed loan was to be applied to the purposes of a military settlement.

regarded the war as being most unjust, and he hoped that as soon as it was ended an entirely new policy with reference to New Zealand would be initiated, but it was another question what should be done in the present crisis. Our policy had been quite sufficient to provoke the inhabitants of the colony to the acts which they had committed, but we could not conduct ourselves towards a colony when in a crisis in the same manner as we would deal with that colony at the conclusion of the war.

said, that having engaged in an unjust quarrel, the only course left for us to pursue was to end it as soon as possible. The proper course would be to allow the colony to obtain their loan without the guarantee at an interest of 6 or 7 per cent. Such a course would practically put an end to the war at once; but if they entered on the course of guaranteeing loans the war would never come to an end.

thought it had been shown that the security would not be sufficient for the loan of a million, and he should support the Amendment of his hon. Friend (Mr. Morrison), as he thought it might be good enough for the loan of half that amount.

wished to know, whether the colonists intended raising a further sum of £2,000,000 upon the security of colonial debentures, and whether they purposed applying it to their grand scheme of colonization?

said, that the £2,000,000 had nothing to do with the present loan, which would have a prior claim upon the revenue.

would not vote for the Amendment, for he objected altogether to the principle of a guarantee.

could not sit still and hear the war stigmatized as being unjust. Had the Government concurred in that view, orders would have been issued long since to put an end to it upon any terms. He maintained that any one who would carefully examine the subject could not fail to come to the conclusion that the war was a just and necessary one. The Governor (Sir George Grey) had used every effort to prevent a most warlike, turbulent, and misguided portion of the Natives from renewing hostilities with their neighbours, but had unfortunately failed; and he had been forced by the perversity and unjust and extravagant suspicions of the Natives into a war which was strictly a war of self-defence.

wished to know, if the war had not originated in the objection which some chiefs entertained against the sale of some land by another chief, which they said he had no right to sell without their consent?

said, that the hon. and gallant Member referred to the former and not to the present war. The Governor in that instance not unjustly refused to submit to the dictation of a Native chief who had usurped the prerogative of the Crown.

thought the Under Secretary of the Colonies was mistaken as to the origin of the war. Governor Browne had stated that the colonists were determined to get possession of the land of the Natives, rightly if they could, if not by any other mode.

asked, whether the arrangement that this country was to pay half the expenses of the war was to be permanent?

said, that in the Correspondence it was stated distinctly that the arrangement was subject to revision hereafter.