said, he rose to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether further Papers respecting proceedings in China will be laid upon the table of the House; whether the Consul at Amoy has reported his visit to the Taeping Chief at Chang-chow, and with what results; and whether information has reached the Foreign Office of the reported revolt of the Imperialist Troops in the cities of Hang-chow and Chang-chow, with the rumoured connivance of Tsing-kwo-fan, the anti-foreign Minister of State?

replied, that there were no papers of sufficient importance to lay on the table. They were aware of the intention of the Consul at Amoy to visit the Taeping Chief, but his Report on the subject had not yet been received. No information had reached the Foreign Office respecting the reported revolt of the Imperial Troops in the cities referred to by the hon. and gallant Member.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to the state of the road lying between Newington Green and Hornsey, and whether he is aware that the duty of keeping in repair this road is a disputed point between the parishes of Hornsey and Islington?

in reply, said, it was quite true representations had been made as to the state of this road, and the dangers arising to the public from its bad state of repair, and the police had as far as possible diverted the traffic by another way in order to prevent accidents. The repair of the road was a very small matter, costing about £40 per annum, and it was to be hoped that the two parishes concerned would come to some arrangement between themselves to repair the road, and thereby remedy the inconvenience to the public, without the necessity of resorting to legal proceedings.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, Why the detachment of the 64th Foot, consisting of five or six officers and 200 men (who, being part of the Lucknow Garrison, were shut up in the Alum Baugh from October to November, 1857, when they were relieved by Sir Colin Campbell), have been deprived of the second donation batta, which has been received by the rest of the regiment who were in Lucknow? This detachment has received the year's pay, and the second donation batta was first allowed, but has since been refused.

said, in reply, that the service performed by the different portions of the regiment were of a totally different character. One part was shut up in the garrison of Lucknow, and exposed to all the hardships, risks, and dangers which were well known by all, whereas the other detachment to which his hon. and gallant Friend referred was never in Lucknow at all, but in the Alum Baugh, some distance off, and was not exposed to the same hardships. The second donation batta was first allowed under a misapprehension, believing that the detachment had been in the garrison of Lucknow, whereas they had no communication with it, except by spies and deserters, and they were not cut off from communication with the rest of the army, their rear being-open to Cawnpore. They were never exposed to serious hardships or privations. The Government of India had expressed a strong opinion upon the subject, and they were not only the judges on the spot of the services rendered, but also the parties by whom the allowance was given.

said, in reference to the reduction of the Duty on Tea, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he will allow a drawback; and whether, if not, he will extend the time when the reduction will come into operation?

Sir, with regard to the first question asked by my hon. Friend, whether a drawback will be allowed upon stocks of tea which would have, by some process quite unknown to our usages, to be ascertained as being in the possession of every retail grocer throughout the country, I may say that to allow such a drawback would be entirely foreign to the usage and the practice of Parliament, and I very much doubt, if such drawback were allowed, whether it would be possible for us to proceed with the reduction of the Income Tax by 2d. Under these circumstances, I hope that the subject will not be renewed. The time for the reduction of the Tea Duty will be decided according to the pleasure of the House. I propose on Thursday evening next to proceed with a Resolution upon this subject, and supposing it receives the consent of the Committee, the usual course is to report the Resolution to the House on the following evening, and for the reduction of the duty to come into operation the day after. It is, of course, in the power of the House to fix the time when the reduction should come into operation, or to interpose any time they may think proper between the sitting of the Committee, and the reporting the Resolution to the House. My hon. Friend asks me if we will agree to insert in the Resolution some clause providing that the reduction of the duty should come into operation at some distant period. I am sorry to answer my hon. Friend in the negative. If we did, I believe the effect would not be to remedy the inconvenience which I grant may in some instances be felt from the alteration of Customs like this—an inconvenience, too, which I should really be very glad to remedy if I could—but to cause a general paralysis of the trade and revenue in connection with tea. The buyer and the householder would postpone their purchases, the trade would be paralyzed, and the object desired by these gentlemen would not be attained. We, therefore, intend to adhere to the usual course, and to propose that the reduction of the duty shall take immediete effect. I wish now to remedy an omission of which I was guilty the other evening when making my financial statement. That omission related to the Bill for the renewal of the Income Tax, and I should have mentioned that in the discussion on the subject last year my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Hubbard) pointed out a great defect in the working of what is known as the 133rd, or the Average Clause. By that clause, as it now stands, it may be possible for parties who have made any exceptional gain in any one particular year to exempt those exceptional gains from taxation. We shall propose a clause for curing this anomaly, and for bringing in those gains for the purpose of assessment.

said, he wished to know, whether, on a previous occasion, when the duty on tea was reduced, the time had not been extended until July?

I believe that I may confidently answer the question in the negative.

Sir, I very much regret the unavoidable absence of my noble Friend at the head of the Government, in whose name the notice was given of the Motion which it now devolves upon me to ask the House to agree to. I feel, however, that it is comparatively unimportant by whom the Motion is proposed, because I am confident that the Address to the Crown which I am about to ask the House to agree to is one which will meet with the cordial and unanimous assent of the House. When the news a few days ago of the assassination of the President of the United States, and of the attempted assassination—for I hope we may now confidently expect that it will not have been a successful attempt—of Mr. Seward reached this country, the first impression in the mind of every one was that the intelligence could not be true. It was hoped by every one that persons could not be found capable of committing so atrocious a crime. But when the truth was forced upon us, when we could no longer entertain any doubt as to the correctness of the intelligence, the feeling which succeeded was one of universal sorrow, horror, and indignation. It was felt as if some great calamity had befallen ourselves. In the Civil War, the existence and the long continuance of which we have so sincerely deplored, it is well known that the Government of this country, acting, as I believe, in accordance with the almost unanimous feeling of this country, has maintained a strict and impartial neutrality. But it is notorious, and it could not in a great country like this be otherwise, that different opinions have been entertained by different persons with regard to the question at issue between the Northern and Southern States of America. I believe that the sympathies of the majority of the people of this country have been with the North. [Cries of "No, no!" and "Hear, hear!"] I am desirous, on this occasion, of avoiding everything which may excite any difference of opinion. I may say, therefore, that in this free country different opinions have been entertained, and different sympathies felt, and that the freest expression has been given, as it is right should be the case, to those differences of opinion. I am. sure I shall raise no controversy when I say that, in the presence of that great crime which has sent a thrill of horror through every one who heard of it, all difference of opinion, all conflicting sympathies for the moment, entirely vanish. I am anxious to say at once, and I desire to proclaim that belief with the strongest confidence, that this atrocious crime is regarded by every man of influence, position, and public estimation in the Southern States with the same degree of horror which it has excited in every other part of the world. We may, therefore—and this is all I wish to say upon this subject—whatever our opinions, and whatever our sympathies, cordially unite in expressing our abhorrence of the crime, as well as in tendering our sympathy to the nation now mourning the loss of its chosen and trusted chief, struck to the ground by the hand of an assassin, and that, too, at the most critical period of its history. Sir, while lamenting that war, and the loss of life inevitably occasioned by it, it is impossible, whatever our opinions or our sympathies, to withhold our admiration from the many gallant deeds performed, and acts of heroism displayed, by both parties in the contest; and it is a matter for painful reflection, that the page of history, recording such gallant achievements, and such heroic deeds, by men who have freely shed their blood on the battle-field in the cause which each considered right, should also be stained with the record of a crime such as we are now deploring. A new era appeared to be dawning, and the time had come when there was reason to hope that the war would speedily be brought to a close. Victory had crowned the efforts of the statesmen and the armies of the Federals, and most of us—all I hope—had turned with a feeling of relief and some hope for the future from the nar- rative of sanguinary conflicts to that correspondence which had recently passed between the Generals commanding the hostile armies, the character of which was equally honourable to each of those distinguished men, and all eyes were turned to Mr. Lincoln, with the hope and expectation—and I have reason to believe that that expectation would not have been disappointed—that in the hour of victory and in the use of victory he would have shown a wise forbearance, a generous consideration, which would have added tenfold lustre to the fame and reputation which he had acquired by his firmness of purpose and persevering stedfastness throughout the varying fortunes of this war. Unhappily the foul deed which has taken place has deprived Mr. Lincoln of the opportunity of thus adding to his well-earned fame and reputation; but we may hope, indeed we may expect, that the good sense and right feeling of those upon whom will devolve the arduous and difficult duties of the administration of affairs in this conjuncture, and their respect and veneration, the wishes and the memory of him whom they are mourning, will lead them to act in the same spirit and to follow the same counsels by which we have good reason to believe the conduct of Mr. Lincoln would have been guided, had he survived to complete the work in which he was engaged. Sir, I believe I am only expressing the general opinion when I say that nothing could give greater satisfaction to this country than that by means of generous forbearance, and of wise conciliation, the Union of the North and South should be again accomplished; especially if it can be accomplished by common consent, freed from what has heretofore constituted the weakness of that Union—the curse and disgrace of slavery. I wish it were possible for us to convey to the people of the United States an adequate idea of the depth and universality of the feeling which this sad event has occasioned in this country. From the highest to the lowest there has been but one feeling entertained. Her Majesty's Minister at Washington will, in obedience to the Queen's command, convey to the Government of the United States the expression of the feelings of Her Majesty and of her Government upon this deplorable event; and Her Majesty, with that tender consideration which she has always evinced for sorrow and suffering in others, of whatever rank, has, with her own hand, written a letter to Mrs. Lincoln, conveying the heartfelt sympathy of a widow to a widow under the terrible calamity with which she has been so suddenly overwhelmed. From every part of this country, from every class, but one voice has been heard, one of abhorrence of the crime, and of sympathy for and interest in the country which has this great loss to mourn. The British residents in the United States, as of course was to be expected, lost not an hour in expressing their sympathy with the Government of the United States, and the people of our North American colonies are vieing with each other in the expression of the same sentiments. And it is not only among men of the same race who are connected with the people of the United States by origin, language and blood, that these feelings prevail, but I believe that every country in Europe is giving expression to the same sentiments and sending the same message of sympathy to the Government of the United States. I am sure, therefore, that I am not wrong in anticipating that this House will, in the name of the people of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland, be anxious to record their expression of this sentiment, and a desire to have it conveyed to the Government of the United States. Of this I am confident, that this House could never more fully and more adequately represent the feelings of the whole of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom than by agreeing to the Address which it is now my duty to move, expressing to Her Majesty our sorrow and indignation at the assassination of the President of the United States, and praying Her Majesty that, in communicating her own sentiments to the Government of that country upon this deplorable event, she will express at the same time, on the part of this House, their abhorrence of the crime, and their sympathy with the Government and the people of the United States in the deep affliction in which they are involved.

Sir, there are rare instances when the sympathy of a nation approaches those tenderer feelings that, generally speaking, are supposed to be peculiar to the individual, and to form the happy privilege of private life; and this is one. Under all circumstances we should have bewailed the catastrophe at Washington; under all circumstances we should have shuddered at the means by which it was accomplished. But in the character of the victim, and even in the accessories of his last moments, there is something so homely and so innocent that it takes as it were the subject out of all the pomp of history and the ceremonial of diplomacy; it touches the heart of nations, and appeals to the domestic sentiment of mankind. Sir, whatever the various and varying opinions in this House and the country generally on the policy of the late President of the United States, on this, I think, all must agree, that in one of the severest trials which ever tested the moral qualities of man, he fulfilled his duty with simplicity and strength. Nor is it possible for the people of England, at such a moment, to forget that he sprang from the same fatherland, and spoke the same mother tongue. When such crimes are perpetrated the public mind is apt to fall into gloom and perplexity; for it is ignorant alike of the causes and the consequences of such deeds. But it is one of our duties to re-assure the country under unreasoning panic or despondency. Assassination has never changed the history of the world. I will not refer to the remote past, although an accident has made the most memorable example of antiquity, at this moment fresh in the mind and memory of all present. But even the costly sacrifice of a Caesar did not propitiate the inexorable destiny of his country. If we look to modern times, to times at least with the feelings of which we are familiar, and the people of which were animated and influenced by the same interests as ourselves, the violent deaths of two heroic men, Henry IV. of France, and the Prince of Orange, are conspicuous illustrations of this truth. In expressing our unaffected and profound sympathy with the citizens of the United States at the untimely end of their elected Chief, let us not, therefore, sanction any feeling of depression, but rather let us express a fervent hope that from out the awful trials of the last four years, of which not the least is this violent demise, the various populations of North America may issue elevated and chastened; rich in that accumulated wisdom, and strong in that disciplined energy which a young nation can only acquire in a protracted and perilous struggle. Then they will be enabled not merely to renew their career of power and prosperity, but they will renew it to contribute to the general happiness of mankind. It is with these feelings, Sir, that I now second the Address to the Crown.

Sir, as some modifications have been made in this Bill, perhaps it will be as well that I should describe how it stands at present. The starting point, I think, in any discussion of this character, must be the Act of 1844, previous to which we were in a chaos of unsound principles and dangerous practice. That Act, however, laid down a complete system for the regulation of the issue of paper money. The principles on which it proceeded were four—first, that the paper money of the country should proceed from one single source; secondly, that the issue of that paper money is the prerogative of the Crown, consequently, that the profit attaching to it should form a legitimate portion of the public revenue. In the third place, that it is the duty of the State to see that the paper money was so secured to the noteholder that it might be accepted in the manner in which paper money is intended to circulate without doubt or question, and with perfect security against loss on the part of those who might so accept it. The fourth condition of the issue of paper money is that which is most clearly expressed in the Act itself—that an absolute and rigid limit should be placed upon the issue of that paper money except so far as it is adequately secured by being represented by a corresponding amount of bullion. Of these four objects the last is absolutely and finally secured by the Act of 1844. The object of this measure is distinct. We desire to place Parliament, so far as the issue from a single source is concerned, in such a position that it will be able, after the expiration of a moderate time, to deal with these questions freely and without prejudice. We do not ask Parliament to announce the adoption of any principle, or to add anything in that respect to what was done by the Act of 1844. With regard to the other two questions contemplated by the Act of 1844, as attendant upon the normal system of issue—namely, that the issue of bank note paper should be productive of revenue, and that the payment of the notes should be secured to the holder, our view is somewhat different. Under the present system of issue it has been found that the machinery provided by the Act of 1844 for the purpose of absorbing private issues has to a great degree failed. If the process of absorption were to go on at the same rate only at which it has proceeded for the last twenty-one years, some centuries must elapse before it is completed. It is not desirable obviously to postpone the object of the Act for so long a period, and as regards the productiveness of the issues to the revenue it is plain that under the law as it at present stands that principle is rather acknowledged than carried into effect. The amount paid by" the issuers of private bank notes was an acknowledgment, perhaps, of the principle, but it was an acknowledgment within limits so narrow, amounting between the payment for composition and the payment for licences to less than one-half per cent, that it should be regarded as but a very partial application of the principle. It is provided by the Act of 1844 that, as private issues are absorbed after the payment of a regulated compensation, which was supposed would only endure for a limited number of years, the whole profits of these issues should pass to the State; but the proportion of issues that have lapsed has been so moderate that very limited effect has been given to that principle. We propose by the present Bill that for a term of years, which will be fixed, as far as regards the banks which may conform to this Bill, a payment of £1 per cent shall be substituted for the present payment of 7s. per cent, together with a certain moderate annual charge for licences on the issue of notes not very easy to calculate. Larger profits might have been asked for, but the main object of the Bill is not so much to open an additional source of revenue during the term of years specified as to fix a point at which Parliament should be at liberty to deal with all the points which appertain to the soundness and security of the system of the issuing of bank notes. I have, therefore, no scruple in asking for a reduction of the percentage which we at first required. There is another point in regard to which it is still more important that Parliament should adopt a measure which would place it in a position to act freely in these matters, and that is the question of the security of the noteholder. There is no occasion to speak either of the high character borne by the private issuers in general or the prudence of their transactions ordinarily, but at the same time painful instances which occur from time to time remind us of our duty to contemplate a system of complete security of bank issue. One instance in particular of recent date, and which it is not necessary to name, has tended to bring the subject home to the public mind. The object of this Bill is not so much to obtain immediately any great end as to lay the foundation experimentally of a system under which, so far as regards the issues of the banks which may accept the provisions of the Bill, it shall be brought easily and by a quiet process of voluntary operation within the power of Parliament to deal satisfactorily with the important subject of private is sues. I may be asked, what is to be the position of the banks which will come under the Bill, and what is to be the position of those which will not come under the Bill? With regard to those banks which come under the Bill, it would be impossible to give them any rights beyond those j which will be conferred upon them provisionally, and which will determine with this Bill. Anything beyond that belongs to the great and important subject of the regulation of the principle of issue; and my desire is satisfied, provided we shall secure for Parliament, as I think we shall secure for it by this Bill, a free, unbiassed, and untrammelled consideration of that subject at some time—a time which will come some years hence. When that time, arrives we shall have before us the principle on which our great bank statutes are framed. If we are not satisfied with them, it will be in our power to go upon another system; but if, as I believe will turn out to be the case, those statutes are vindicated by experience, it will be our duty to extend them and give them a further operation. I think we may readily see that this Bill will place these banks under no disadvantage as regards the other banks. If, when the operation of this Bill shall have come to a termination, it be the pleasure of Parliament to establish a single issue, as far as the privilege of these banks is concerned, that privilege ceases, and Parliament will be perfectly free to deal without embarrassment with the whole question. In respect to the other banks, Parliament will have to deal as it thinks fit, and I do not think that those privileged banks will be dealt less favourably with than the others. But so far as regards those banks which do not conform, considerable anxiety has been felt by members of the banking body, and I have endeavoured on the part of Her Majesty's Government to meet it by a proviso, which I propose to insert in the 6th clause. I do not conceive that by this Bill we shall establish any new right of the State as against those banks which think fit to conform, and on the other hand we shall not establish any new rights of those banks as against the State. The relations between them and the State are regulated by the Act of 1844, and by that Act they will continue to be regulated. I am led to believe that a very considerable number of the issuing banks will avail themselves of the privilege of this Bill; but whether they do or do not, is not the question. Those which do not will continue in their present position, but without the privilege. We know what that is. The Act of 1844 did not secure them the privilege and issue for any definite term, except it was for a term which long ago expired. At any time Parliament thinks fit it is free to legislate with respect to all the private banks of issue. Free to legislate it will still continue; bound to legislate it will not be. With regard to the two conditions of issue—first, the question of profit to the State, and next the security to the noteholder—in neither does the Bill at once attain its object. The payment to the State is smaller than what the Bank of England pays, and smaller still than that which it has offered to pay. Then, as to security to the note-holder, I think that the obvious and natural operation of the Bill will be that, under the power of transfer in it, the weaker banks will sell the privilege which they possess, and stronger banks will buy it; therefore the position of the noteholder will be improved, even during the term of the Bill. But I do not say that on either points—especially that of security to the noteholder—the Bill establishes a final system. I do not think it would have been possible in any Session since I have held office—certainly not in the present Session—to carry by a summary Act of Legislation the establishment at once of a compulsory and final system; and that being so, I am glad to aim at doing that which other financiers have been content to do before—namely, by the voluntary action of the parties, and by the adoption of intermediate and provisional measures, to lay the ground for coming nearer to the objects which all legislation on the currency ought to have in view. I think that by this Bill we do not give any shock to private rights or private interests, nor any shock to private feelings or private wishes. As regards the Bill in its original form, it is true that apprehensions which I thought needless were entertained. With regard to the present Bill, a document had been drawn up by a Committee representing the views entertained by a meeting of the whole issuing body of the country—by the joint-stock issuers and those who may more properly be called private issuers. In this document, which bears date the 31st of April, and is signed by Mr. Rodwell as hon. Secretary, the Committee state that, acting under the authority given them by a public meeting on the 19th of April, they unanimously approved the proposed Amendments and alterations in the Bill, and withdrew their opposition to it as altered and amended in accordance with the notices which I have placed on the table. Under these circumstances I hope there will be a general disposition on the part of the House to accept and adopt this Bill as one which removes many existing evils, and which, with regard to the re-construction or final" determination of our system of issue in this country, opens and prepares the way, and clears the ground, for a final settlement of the question. It must not be forgotten that the prime object of the Bill is the removal of the limitations placed on the private business of the banks—not on the business of issue but on that of banking. The framers of the Act of 1844, which was wisely and prudently constructed for its objects, finding in existence privileges which they were not willing to recognize as a permanent right but which they did not think it fitting peremptorily to terminate, left those privileges to the holders, under certain penalties which did not apply to issuing only, but to their trade as bankers. They were not to be permitted to have more than a certain number of partners; they were not to be allowed to do that which in the progress of monetary transac- tions has become a matter of great importance—namely, to transact their own business in London, even though it might appear to them that they could do so better than others could do it for them. This Bill, then, is a measure tending to that freedom of trade which we all agree in thinking desirable; and with respect to issue it is a preparatory and partial measure, doing good as far as it goes, and opening the ground for doing more good hereafter. I hope the House will accept it as modified; and with these prefatory remarks, I move that you, Sir, do leave the Chair.

said, that when this subject was first brought under the notice of the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it appeared to him that some further information from the right hon. Gentleman was desirable, and he put a notice on the paper with the object of eliciting that information. He had listened attentively to the right hon. Gentleman on the present occasion; but he could not say that he was satisfied with the explanation which he had given the House with reference to the Bill, or to the Act of 1844 which was at the root of the matter. If the right hon. Gentleman's explanation of that Act were strictly accurate there might be sufficient apology for this Bill; but if the explanation were incomplete a great deal of the foundation of this measure must fall to the ground. Previously to the Act of 1844 private bankers possessed the right of issuing their own notes without limit, except in that part of the kingdom purposely reserved to the Bank of England, The Parliament of that day, not wishing to deprive them suddenly of a right which had grown up during a long course of years, entered into a contract with them by which they were to enjoy their monopoly for a further period of twelve years, on the distinct understanding that such extension was to be regarded as an ample compensation for the rights of which they were then to be deprived. This contract was the whole scope and object of the Act of 1844, so far as he understood it. The provision in that Act declaring that all compensations by the Bank of England to private bankers should terminate at the expiration of the twelve years clearly showed that the extension of the private bankers' monopoly was limited to that period, and that the exclusive right of issue during that period was to be the measure of their compensation. If that were the right construction of the Act, at the end of the twelve years the bankers, who had enjoyed this extraordinary and exclusive privilege during that period, had no claim upon the House in respect of the abolition of their rights. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer said it was the intention of the Legislature, in passing that Act, that at the end of the twelve years there should be but one exclusive source of issue, and he rather suggested that such exclusive source was to be the Bank of England. There was no foundation for such a surmise in the Act itself; then whence did the right hon. Gentleman derive his information relative to the intention of Parliament on the subject? For his own part, the inference he drew from the Act was that Parliament never intended that the Bank of England should be the sole source of issue. But, in any case, what was the position of the private bankers when the period assigned had elapsed? Why, the public were involved in the complexities of the Russian war, and in the face of those difficulties it was not found convenient to deal with the matter, which was accordingly allowed to stand over from year to year, and thus the bankers had enjoyed ten years of grace after the expiration of the extension granted. "Was it possible, under such circumstances, to say that they had any claim whatever to the monopoly of the issue of bank notes? That was the question for the House to determine, and, unfortunately, that was the one point to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not alluded. What possible right, had the private bankers to ask the House to grant them the exclusive right of issuing paper money in this country for fifteen years longer? The Chancellor of the Exchequer was bound to show that they were about to confer some extraordinary benefit upon the country, in return for the extension of the monopoly asked; but it rather appeared from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that the benefit would be on the other side, and that the public were to be sacrificed for the good of the bankers. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was, however, entitled to ask any person objecting to his scheme what other proposition was to be brought forward in its place. There were two methods which might be adopted. In the first place, it might be said that the right of issuing paper money was common to all persons in the realm, and that one man had as good a right to issue it as another; that it was not an affair of the nation, and connected with the current coin of the realm, but a species of credit which every man had a right to enjoy, consistent with the liberty accorded to the subjects of the State. If they could devise a scheme in which any number of select and favoured people should issue bank notes, they could devise a scheme under which all persons could issue them. A scheme founded upon that assumption was, doubtless, open to very serious objections, still regulations might be adopted which would meet them in a large measure, and would afford sufficient security to the public against a false and fraudulent issue of paper money. In this era of free trade Parliament had no right to adopt this entirely new system of legislation, and to sell such a monopoly to a certain number of persons. If they adopted the measure as it stood, they would be reverting to the times when it was the fashion to legislate in favour of particular classes—a fashion which led to the adoption of the system of protection. This was not a question between Government and the bankers, but between the public, on the one hand, and the claimants of this exclusive privilege on the other. Then what claim had the bankers upon the public? They had not been stricken down as a large proportion of our population had been—the unfortunate victims of free trade—they were not in dire want, for they were the richest among the community; in fact, on no ground whatever could they ask Parliament to continue this unparalleled monoply. The second view which might be taken of the subject was that no private banks should issue paper money. That view might be a very reasonable one, for it might be policy for the State to issue exclusively paper money as well as coin. That was a principle which it might be very easy to defend, and which might be carried out in all its integrity. But the Bill before the House adopted neither of these principles. Instead of carrying out the policy of Sir Robert Peel it postponed that policy for fifteen years longer. The payment at present made by the bankers was in the nature of a stamp duty on bills of exchange, whereas that now proposed was a consideration for an exclusive monopoly. They now proposed to grant to these private bankers the right of issue for a term, for which they were to pay a rent of £1 per cent. This was a most objectionable proceeding. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that if this Bill were passed no injustice would be done to those banks which did not come under its operation. But the practical effect of this Bill would be to suspend all legislation on the subject of banking and the issue of paper for the period of fifteen years. The present Session, the last of this Parliament, was peculiarly inopportune for the consideration of a question affecting so favourably a class of the community who were most influential at a general election. It was, therefore, extremely desirable that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should postpone this matter, and bring forward next year a comprehensive measure more worthy of his antecedents. He had heard with great regret the apologetic speech made by the right hon. Gentleman for these chartered monopolists. He had evidently found how difficult it was to conciliate monopolists having once fallen into their hands. He first of all told the House he should get a percentage of £2 5s. per annum for the privilige he had to dispose of under this Bill; then it fell to £1 5s.; and it was now down to £1. Such was the state of the auction in which he was exposing the public interests. It was, indeed, most lamentable. Far better withdraw the commodity altogether and wait for a better opportunity. Regarding the Bill with unqualified regret and with great disapprobation, he moved that its consideration be adjourned for one month.

said, that he objected to the mode adopted of selling at that time of day privileges to any class of persons whatsoever. He believed that every one admitted that the Act of 1844 was a vrey wise measure, but they still might question some of the reasons on which that measure was supported. The Bill before them had two objects in view. One of them was to remove the restriction limiting private issuers to the number of six partners. That limitation was a part of the old monopoly of the Bank of England—long since abandoned by them—and was of no use to the public or to bankers themselves. Nothing was more desirable than that restriction should be removed. Another object of the Bill was not to limit country issues, but to extend them by allowing country issuers to become bankers in London, which they could not be at present. The right hon. Gentleman wished to remove that which he called an anomaly in the interest of free trade, and told the country issuers that if they paid 25s. and a commuted sum of £1 per cent he would give them the privilege of being bankers in London. But the right hon. Gentleman did not propose, as in the Act of 1844, that security should be given to the public for such issues. If they were to legislate at all for the country issuer, they ought to take a larger view of the question than had been taken by the right hon. Gentleman, and give increased security to the public while they extended the business of the bankers.

said, he would not oppose the Bill at this stage, but he should like to say a few words, because, in fact, the principle of the Bill had never been discussed. On the second reading the House immediately rushed into a debate on the Act of 1844, from which, when once begun, it was always hopeless to recall it. Now, he thought this Bill required grave consideration, and that a more ample discussion of its provisions was necessary than was possible after going into Committee, fie did not object to banks of issue having offices in London; that was a question between themselves and their agents, and not one of public policy, lie was glad the Chancellor of the Exchequer had determined at length to maintain the sixty-five mile limit with regard to issues. His first proposal would have given these banks an unfair advantage over those which had not the same privilege, and, independently of profit, would have enabled them to advertise themselves, as it were, by means of their issues. If, according to Sir Robert Peel's statement, the withdrawal of private circulation within that limit would not have been felt in 1844 in consequence of the general use of Bank of England notes, still less would it be felt now, and surely we should legislate according to the requirements of the country, and not on the principle of making money by the sale of privileges, which would really be privilegiumin the bad sense condemned by writers on old Roman law. Whatever might be the intention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Bill, even as amended, was a grave interference with the Act of 1844. The late Sir Robert Peel, the author of that Act, was one of those statesmen "who still rule our spirits from their urns," and it was almost treason to doubt many of his doctrines; but he never succeeded in convincing the country of the policy of the Act of 1844. Indeed, it was one of those questions, like matters of faith, on which it was easier to silence an opponent than to convince them. And on this particular point of paper issues there had always been a party which considered that bank notes should be left to the ordinary laws of supply and demand; that you should indeed insist upon the convertibility of the note, but exact no security, except, perhaps, in case of the Bank of England note, which was the sole legal tender. But the Chancellor was supposed to agree with the principles of Sir Robert Peel's Act, and to consider that the holder of a country bank note was not always sufficiently protected. He took, however, a very different course. Sir Robert Peel was anxious to get rid of the private issues, but he was opposed to violent change, and wished them to die a natural death. Hence he prohibited transfer of right to issue, and forbade any change in the constitution of the partnership, but though he specially stated he could not guarantee the continuance of the right, he fixed no limit. He proceeded rather by temptation to surrender the right; by insuring division and preventing combination, and by other disabilities which made the right burdensome. Certainly the effect was not so speedy as he had anticipated from various causes. Still the circulation, which was eight millions, was now reduced practically to six, and the midland counties had nearly abandoned the use of country paper. The Chancellor, with the same end in view, took an entirely opposite method. He seemed to think that division was strength, he therefore gave existing banks the power of concentrating, and fixed a time for their circulation coming to a sudden and violent end. Now, the first effect of this would be an increase in the issue of private bank paper, and in this way. Banks of issue were at present obliged to allow a considerable margin to avoid the penalty for over issue, so that while the authorized issue was seven and a half millions, the actual issue was under six; but if this right were concentrated in a few large banks, the necessary margin would be much diminished. Again, the private issues would be introduced into new places, and when people had become familiarized with them, they would be suddenly stopped, which was calculated to create the maximum of inconvenience. This was supposing the right would really terminate in fifteen years; but, long as this lease was—though shorter than the original proposal—how could they be sure of its termination? The right hon. Gentleman had on a former occasion given them his idea of the flexibility of Parliamentary compacts, and this might be changed one way or the other in a similar manner. There were minor details in the Bill which seemed objectionable. If the object was to throw open the traffic in issues, why not admit those banks which had not now the right to a participation? He thought the scheduled banks had reason to complain, as they had been induced to surrender a right which they might have parted with under this measure on far more advantageous terms. He had ventured, when the Chancellor made his preliminary statement, to question the propriety of making the right to issue an asset in the case of bankruptcy, and the reply of the right hon. Gentleman, that it was in the nature of a lease, had not convinced him; for, though a lease might, no doubt, be transferred, and was therefore a quasi-property, still, on certain contingencies, it became absolutely void and valueless. He was glad the Chancellor had now adopted the same opinion. The changes announced by the right hon. Gentleman were decided improvements, but he thought others were necessary. Several amendments were on the notice paper, and he earnestly hoped the Bill would not be adopted without the greatest caution and such other modifications as might be necessary to prevent the mischief which, in its present state, he feared it might occasion.

said, on reference to the Act of 1844, he could not find any authority to support what had been stated by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton), that the private banks had a right to continue their issues under that Act. The object of the Act was to extinguish altogether the circulation of the private banks so far as it could be done consistently with right. The Parliament maintained its right to stop the issue, but not without compensation. The limit of the Act of 1844, as regarded the Bank of England, was ten years, but he did not say that that limit attached also to the rights of private issue. The private banks would go on from year to year till Parliament should choose to stop them, and Parliament would not stop them without taking their claims into consideration. The hope was that this circulation would gradually die out, and in order to increase that prospect the rights of transfer were denied, and no provision was made for the continuance of the right in the case of a certain number of partners being admitted. He could not say that the private bankers were in any worse position now than shortly after the passing of the Bank Act. If immediately after the passing of that Act, Parliament had exercised its extreme authority, great injustice would have been done to the private issuer.

said, this was so vital a question to the interests of this country that the House would not be doing justice to it by dealing with it in any partial or special way. There were a great many different opinions upon the system proposed by the Bill. All such matters ought to be submitted to the consideration of a body composed of the most experienced merchants and of those best acquainted with political economy and who understood most thoroughly the system of banking. Before any plan was adopted the Bill should be remitted to a Committee to consider what ought to be done. The main object of the Bill was very proper. It was intended, as he understood, to give facilities to those who dealt in money, and to merchants who were bankers, and who were at present restricted from having places of business in London. He could not see why bankers in the country should be prevented from having places of business in London, or what objection could be urged against adding to the number of partners those who were, perhaps, better qualified to manage the business than others, and thereby give greater security to the public. The object of the Bill, therefore, was good so far as it went in this respect, and ought to be supported by the House. There was another object of the Bill, that the whole of the paper issues should be confined to the Bank of England, or to some national bank. That was ob- viously the tendency of the Bill. It was dangerous to make any alteration in a matter of such vital importance without first making every inquiry into the circumstances of the case, and he thought the question ought to be thoroughly examined into by a Committee who were qualified to look into the matter. He denied that banks ought to be intrusted with freedom in paper issue as there was freedom in other departments of business, because while the latter was an affair of trade, the former would in reality be nothing more or less than coining money.

said, he was of opinion that, while this measure had conciliated a few, it had excited opposition in many different quarters for many different reasons. The settlement which had already been come to by the House of Commons, by the Act of 1844, ought not to have been departed from unless that departure were called for by strong reasons of public necessity, and he would submit that in the present case the reasons adduced in support of a change were not sufficiently strong. A few applications from banks complaining of the restrictions under which they laboured might possibly have been made to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but one or two applications were not sufficient to warrant their dealing with a subject so large and comprehensive in its character. In his own locality he might venture to say that the present measure had been received by all the country bankers with whom he had communicated with the most unmitigated feeling of distrust and dislike. They were perfectly satisfied with the Act of 1844.

said, he could not see that the Act of 1844 was carried out or furthered in any way by the present measure. It would, on the contrary, rather retard the object which the Act sought to accomplish. There could be no doubt that by the spirit of that Act, Parliament was considered at liberty to deal with the question in 1855. A Bill was then introduced to render that Act permanent, subject only to a notice for its discontinuance. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer had explained, the intention of Sir Robert Peel and of the Act of 1844 was that there should be one issue within a limited time. He contemplated the final extinction of country issues, and that there should be one issue, but whether of a national bank or of other banks in England was a question to be considered by the Government of the day. But there was to be one bank based on the great principle of undeniable security, which had never been obtained up to that time. The principle, however, had never been carried out, because Sir Robert Peel had found the country bankers' interest in the House too strong for him, and he was unable to carry out what was a sound principle; therefore he carried out a part of it, holding out a hope that at the end of ten years the thing would finally end. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had shown that this was a slow process, but that was no reason why they should depart from a beneficial principle. He objected to giving another lease of fifteen years to country issues. He should like to see them put an end to. But if that was the desire, he hoped the present Bill would not be passed. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer were in office fifteen years hence he should be content to leave the matter in his hands; but that might not be. Let disabilities be removed, but he hoped the House would not perpetuate for fifteen years what appeared to be a most vicious principle. He should have no fear to let matters go on as they were; but if there was to be legislation at all, it ought to be to carry out the principles of the Act of 1844, which were to limit issues, to give security for the note, and to have one bank of issue only.

said, that country bankers looked upon this measure as an act of confiscation—as much an act of confiscation as it would be to take a man's rents from him. They generally disapproved of it, regarding it as uncalled for as a piece of legislation that would unnecessarily disturb the existing order of things, and do more harm than good. If the hon. Member (Mr. Ayrton) persisted in his Amendment he would go into the lobby with him. He protested against this sort of Government interference when it was not required. Until he came into the House that night he never heard that the country bankers generally assented to this Bill. He did not believe that they did assent to it. This he knew, that the principal bankers in his constituency—many of them—declared that they did not approve of the Bill, and wished him to give it all the opposition in his power. The bankers of Hull and York, from whom he had had many communications on the subject, also disapproved of the measure.

said, he was sure the hon. Member for Peterborough would acquit him of any unfriendly feeling towards the Act of 1844. He fully admitted all the advantages which that Act had conferred upon the country, and if he thought the Bill proposed by his right hon. Friend would in any way tend to impair the usefulness of the Act of 1844 he would be the last to support it. It was true that Sir Robert Peel in 1844 did contemplate the extinguishment of the country issues, but at that time it was more easy to propose than to carry out such a plan, and he was therefore compelled to proceed more guardedly by gradually undermining rather than by putting a sudden end to them. The Act of 1844 attained a great good, but not the whole of the good contemplated by Sir Robert Peel. The measure which Sir Robert Peel then passed was intended to encourage country banks to enter into compositions with the Bank of England, whereby the notes of the latter establishment should be substituted for their own issues, his object being undoubtedly to have but one national issue. What he did was to prevent the great mischief that might arise from the country banks improperly increasing their issues. There was no doubt that Sir Robert Peel contemplated a revision of the Bank charter at the end of ten years. The state of affairs which was brought about by the Act of 1844 was an unlimited continuance of the country | issues to the amount then in circulation until Parliament came down with a new Act. This step had not yet been taken. Now, the question arose upon application being made to his right hon. Friend for some facilities to bankers beyond the sixty-five miles circuit. His right hon. Friend proposed to give these banking facilities, but also proposed that, in consideration of these banking facilities being given, the right to issue notes should absolutely cease at a given time. At present the country banks had an unlimited lease of issuing notes, unless Parliament should interfere, but under this Bill they would only have a limited lease, and the right of issue would absolutely cease unless Parliament should interpose to prevent the termination of the lease at the expiration of a period of fifteen years. He thought that in this respect the Bill would be a great step towards carrying out the principles of the Act of 1844, and therefore he could not hesitate to give it his utmost support.

said, he desired to make an observation with regard, not to the principle of the measure, but as to the position in which they stood in reference to it. The question was not as to the course they should take with respect to the provision of the Bill which gave the lease, but whether they should go into Committee on it at all. He put it to the hon. Member for Peterborough—admitting for the sake of argument all that he had stated—whether it was desirable to allow matters to go on exactly in their present condition by refusing to go into Committee. The whole argument against proceeding with the Bill resolved itself into this, that country bankers were bankers of issue, and should continue to hold that position; but as they were bankers of issue he contended that it was important on behalf of the public to obtain all possible security for the validity of their issues. Was it not desirable, seeing that there was no immediate prospect of dealing with these banks this or next year, to put them on the best and most secure footing possible, instead of allowing them to die out to the mischief of the public? By going into Committee, an opportunity would be afforded of discussing the provision, of which notice had been given by the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Alderman Salomons). A provision ought to be introduced, obliging these banks of issue to give security for a whole or a part of their authorized issue, and if this were done, a great step in advance would be gained in securing the validity of the country issue. He hoped the House would go into Committee upon the Bill.

said, that the security of the public in the limitation of a paper issue, and in the application of the profits which might accrue, were conditions which could not be too largely insisted on. He agreed with his right hon. Friend who introduced the Bill as to the House being perfectly free to deal with that subject. But, that being so, where was the necessity of entering now into a sort of compromise which tied up the hands of the House for fifteen years to come? This was not a general measure affecting the issues of all banks, but was a mere Permissive Bill to meet the convenience of one particular bank; but his right hon. Friend offered the same convenience to other banks which might follow in its train. In his own opinion, very few banks indeed would follow in the train of that one particular bank. He therefore deprecated the proposed legislation. The right hon. Member for Stamford wished to go into Committee in order to consider the Amendment suggested by the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Alderman Salomons); but if a certain compact had been entered into by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with all the important issuing banks, it was clearly not in his power to re-adjust the terms he had made, and to go into Committee to rectify the Bill would be a delusion. If the Government interfered in that matter and gave any further sanction to the business of private issue, its first duty was not to share the profit, but to protect the public. He was in favour of the public having a sure and available medium of currency, and of security being given for a certain portion of the issue. Seeing that that was the last year of the Parliament, and that they would not be able now to deal satisfactorily with the question, they could not do better than postpone the whole matter.

said, the country bankers had opposed that measure very strongly, because they saw in it the thin end of the wedge; but he supported it himself because he admitted that it was the thin end of the wedge. It was desirable gradually to get rid of the private issues; and as a friend of the Act of 1844 he supported the Bill, because the result would be that it would put an end to private issues altogether. When the period of twenty-five years appeared in the Bill, he felt a strong objection to it, and he had put an Amendment on the paper for substituting ten years. He now supported the measure because it placed a limit—although, he was sorry to say, rather a distant one—to private issues. The most valuable parts of the measure were the provision fixing a term when the country issues should cease, and the tax of £1, which involved an important principle, as showing that the State claimed the right to deal with the currency.

said, he would withdraw his Amendment, and leave the House, if it chose, to divide on the main Question.

said, that the proposal of the Government was to remove certain banking disabilities on condition of the issuers placing themselves in a position more conformable to the Act of 1844. The proposal of the hon. Member would tend to remove this hold upon the banks.

said, he agreed with the clause as first proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but altogether disagreed with the Amendment. He had intended to move in the Committee that a term of ten years should be substituted for the term of fifteen, as proposed in the clause as it now stood; but, as it appeared to him, the whole principle advocated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was given up by the Amendment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he meant that the bank issues should cease at a certain time by Act of Parliament; but, by the wording of this clause, it was merely that the country banks should not issue after that time without further notice—so that any Chancellor of the Exchequer who might take another view of the matter might, if he liked, postpone altogether the issue of the notice. He (Mr. Hankey) wanted the Act passed in such a form as to make the country issues class entirely independent of the will of any future Minister.

said, he understood that the opposition of the country bankers had been withdrawn on this condition.

said, that after all, the Act would only operate in the case of those banks which voluntarily adopted it, and who might or not be called upon by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in fifteen years' time, to execute the bond they now undertook. He contended that, so far from being a great commercial measure, it would be found that, from its optional character, they had after all their labour done nothing at all. He believed it would only be accepted by one or two banks, and considered the Bill one very unworthy of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer.

said, that he should support the Bill as it had been modified by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; had it remained in its original shape he should have opposed it.

said, one great argument for the Bill as it originally stood was, that private issues would terminate at a given date; but as the clause was now proposed to be amended it would only enable the Treasury to terminate those issues or not, as they should think fit.

said, that he thought that the first offer of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the best for the public, because it was some satisfaction to see that in 1875 those banks which came under the Bill would cease to have any rights at all. The substitute was that in 1880, instead of being extinguished, they were to receive a notice from the Treasury to that effect. The result would be that if a strong Government, which could carry everything, happened to he in office, and an enterprizing Chancellor of the Exchequer who held sound opinions upon this question, this notice would probably be given; but not otherwise.

said, that there was a great deal of difference between issuing a notice from Downing Street and bringing a proposition before the House and having to contend with a variety of suggestions and Amendments. It was not intended to refer the policy of this Bill for re-consideration by any future Chancellor of the Exchequer. The one great object of the Bill, for which many sacrifices were made, was that as to those issues which came within the scope of the Act Parliament should at a certain period have absolute power, and there was no way of giving to Parliament this absolute power except by providing for an absolute determination of the right of issue. He undertook nothing with regard to the view which Parliament might take at the period indicated. The question upon what principles the policy of issue should thereafter be conducted would depend upon the judgment of the Parliament of the day, who would no doubt pay greater attention to the great and wise Act of 1844 than to any words of his, and would avail themselves of all the experience which would by that time have accumulated. As to the notice from the Executive, this would be a purely Ministerial act, and one which, whether the Government of the day were strong or weak, they need not hesitate to perform. Upon this question he had found it impossible to bring in a large and comprehensive measure. He had framed one satisfactory to himself, but in the face of the opposition by which it was sure to be met it was hopeless to propose such a measure, and so when he found he could not do all he wanted he tried to do part. He saw no mischief in providing for the notice; and as the bankers seemed to attach great value to such a warning he had acceded to their views.

said, that the optional power could be done away with by leaving the word "if" out at the commencement of the words proposed to be added.

said, it would be better still to leave out the words "if, on arid after," and then the sentence would begin by definitely stating that the notice should be given by the Lords of the Treasury.

said, it would be an improvement to leave out the four words, "if, on and after," as suggested.

proposed that the Amendment which he had moved to the clause should read thus—

"On or before the 1st day of January, 1879, notice shall be given by the Commissioners of the Treasury, by publication in the London Gazette, to all the hanks issuing notes, in respect of which such percentage as aforesaid is payable, requiring the termination of such issues, and then, unless Parliament shall otherwise determine, the said issue shall cease on the 1st day of January, 1880."

withdrew his Amendment.

said, that if, under this Bill^* a right now possessed by the banks was absolutely to cease at the end of a given number of years, the measure was ones of great importance, and the clause was deserving of great consideration.

said, he wished to ask what was to be the position of the banks which did not comply with the provisions of the Bill?

said, he was rather surprised at this question. Before the House went into Committee, with all the variations of language which the powers at his command enabled him to employ, he had gone into this same question, and had at length checked himself from the fear that the House would experience a species of nausea in being obliged to listen to so much on the subject. The banks referred to by his hon. Friend would incur no loss and obtain no benefit under the Bill. Under the Act of 1844 they occupied a certain position, and in that position they would remain.

said, that the Bill would not leave those banks precisely as they now stood. The banks would be divided into two classes—namely, conforming and nonconforming banks; and the question was what effect would this clause have upon the nonconforming banks? If the measure was a good and a proper one, it would, of course, be desirable, in the interests of the public that as many banks as possible should accept its terms. But the managers of provincial banks would naturally argue that it would be better to forego the advantages offered rather than absolutely to resign their right of issue at the expiration of the fifteen years' term fixed by the Act. He thought that, under the circumstances, it would be better to place both classes of banks on the same footing at the expiration of the term.

said, to adopt such a suggestion would be to throw away the principal object of the Act, which was to advance another step in the direction taken by the Act of 1844.

said, that he wished to draw attention to the fact that of late one large bank had been compelled to close its doors, and that the public had been glad to accept 10s. or 12s. in the pound upon its notes which were in circulation at the time of its stoppage. In his opinion banks ought to give some security for the payment of their notes. He understood from an hon. Member of that House, who was a director of a very large bank—the National Provincial Bank of England—with an ample capital, that the managers of that establishment would have no objection whatever to give security for its notes; and he thought most of the substantial banks would be equally able and willing to give the security the clause he proposed pointed out. It was certainly a great anomaly that while the Act of 1844 compelled the Bank of England to give security for its issue, the public should have been left at the mercy of the private banks. He begged to move the adoption of the following new clause:—

(Deposit of Government Securities by Banks of Issue.)

"Provided always that, previous to any Bank of Issue having a house of business or establishment as bankers in London, or at any place not exceeding sixty-five miles from London, such Bank shall deposit with the Commissioners of the National Debt an amount of Exchequer Bills or other Government Securities equal to its maximum authorized issue, to be retained by the said Commissioners so long as such Bank shall continue a Bank of Issue, with a house of business or establishment in London, or within sixty-five miles thereof."

said, that the argument of his hon. Friend might have been understood to apply to a different clause from that which he had moved. His hon. Friend said, there was a great amount of unsecured issues of bank notes, and it might be supposed that he was going to move a clause to put an end to that state of things, and to require all private and joint-stock banks of issue to give security for their notes. The House had passed a clause through Committee by which certain of the banks of issue would place themselves in a position much more favourable to the public than banks of issue in general, and his hon. Friend wanted to draw a fundamental distinction between these banks to the disadvantage of the conforming, and the advantage of the non-conforming, banks. He would rather say, on the other hand, that it was the notes of the non-conforming banks that ought to give security, and not the others. The hon. Member was free to hold that at any moment Parliament would be justified in imposing the duty of giving security upon all private issuers whatever. But he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) protested against imposing the duty exclusively on the conforming banks. If there were any necessity for giving security for notes, that necessity was strong or weak, as the banks were weak or strong. Where the bank was weak there was the more need of security; where it was strong there was the less need of security. Did his hon. Friend think that the weak bank, to which reference had been made, would have been a conforming bank? If there were any banks now in existence with a rotten circulation, they would remain untouched by the clause, but if there were banks strong, flourishing, extending their business, having the confidence of the public, solid and solvent, these banks would conform to the Bill and become banks of issue. He protested against drawing the distinction proposed by the clause. It was both unfair and inconvenient. His strong objection, however, to the clause was that this question of security was essentially one which, if it were dealt with at all, ought to be dealt with by direct legislation. The right of Parliament to require banks of issue to find security was one deeply rooted in the nature of note issue, and it was the duty of Parliament to provide for the soundness of the issue. By the Bill now before the House, the Government did something, although not everything, with regard to conforming banks. Upon the general question of legislation he would not on the present occasion give an opinion, except to say, that it was within the right and competency of Parliament to take security. But his hon. Friend's clause would require a great deal of subsidiary legislation to carry it out, and of a kind not belonging to the measure before the House. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was not seeking by this Bill to prejudice the question of security by banks of private issue, but his hon. Friend, on the contrary, was, by his clause, going far to prejudice the question. It would be most unwise to deal with this important question of security at the present moment. His hon. Friend required that the notes of the banks in question should be secured by Exchequer Bills or other Government securities. He, on the other hand, was by no means certain that it was either necessary or equitable to limit the banks that might be required to give security to Government securities. There might be securities quite as good—mortgages, for example, which might be bad securities for the bank itself to take, but which might be as perfectly good as the securities contemplated by his hon. Friend. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was not sure that the security for the notes of issuing banks might not be provided by very different means—by constituting, for example, their notes as a first lien on their assets. That, however, was a matter of great delicacy and importance, and before legislating upon it, it would require more consideration than had been given to it. He believed there were many topics that should be taken into view before they proceeded to deal fully with this important question; but he did not intend to treat it lightly, or show disrespect to his hon. Friend's authority. If it were the opinion of Parliament that banks issuing notes should give security, that would be of great advantage to the public. He would almost venture to say that his hon. Friend himself must see that to attempt to close the consideration of the subject by this clause would not be sound or good policy.

said, he thought the distinction drawn by the right hon. Gen- tleman between strong banks and weak ones was likely to be misunderstood. If only two or three banks conformed to the proposal, the condition of the non conforming banks would remain unimpaired; but if the right hon. Gentleman were enabled to split up the banks and to induce one-half to conform, the others standing alone would find their position materially disturbed. The hon. Member for London (Mr. Goschen) was correct in the view which he took when he regarded the Bill as the thin end of the wedge. That hon. Member was a determined opponent of country issue, and was therefore consistent in wishing the passing of the measure.

said, what he intended to convey was that the banks, generally speaking, were strong; but in the case of issuers they could never be certain that there might not be one or two weak ones. And these would possibly be found among the non-conforming ones.

said, that he understood this contract with the banks to refer altogether to matters apart from the security for issues. It appeared to him that the obligation of the note issuer to give an adequate security for issue was of a general nature, and could not be possibly affected by a Bill of this kind unless specifically expressed. The liberty of Parliament to deal with the security of issue would remain totally unimpaired.

said, he believed that the measure would never come into operation save with regard to two or three banks, and wished it had never been brought forward.

said, he thought there could be no impropriety in dealing with the issuing banks, to whom under the terms of the Bill a privilege for fifteen years was given.

said, he should require legal authority higher than that of the right hon. Gentleman for the assertion that rights of issue already enjoyed by banks under Parliamentary authority could be affected or withdrawn without compensation being given for the loss ensuing from the alteration.

said, that seeing how well Gentlemen with Univerversity educations had argued against his proposal, he felt more sensible than ever of the great disadvantage which he suffer- ed in not having had one himself. He still adhered to the opinions which he had expressed, but in deference to the feeling of the House would withdraw his Amendment.

said, there was a limited portion of the country banks who were in the habit, not of compounding for their issues, but of paying stamp duties on their notes. Those persons would be under a certain disadvantage if at any time they should wish to compound for the rest of their notes. He bad, therefore, prepared a clause which gave power to the Treasury to make those banks such compensation as might be fair on their stamped notes yet in circulation.

in moving the second reading of this Bill, said, it would be in the recollection of the House that, in the course of the proceedings of the present Parliament, his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Scholefield) had introduced a measure for the purpose of amending the law of partnership. The object of that measure was to enable a person or persons carrying on business with unlimited liability to enter into partnership with others who should be liable only for a specific amount, those others being designated "limited partners." The measure contained various rules and restrictions which rendered it necessary that the Bill should have a great number of clauses, and it proposed to effect a very considerable change in the law of partnership. It was referred to a Select Committee, of which he himself was a Member; but, upon its being afterwards proceeded with in Committee of the Whole House, his hon. Friend found the difficulties in his way so hard to be surmounted—difficulties which usually beset the path of private Members in dealing with such subjects—that he abandoned the measure, an understanding having been come to between himself and the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the question should receive the serious consideration of the Government. Under those circumstances the Government had deemed it to be their duty to take the matter in hand, and it had occurred to them that the benefits to be derived from such a measure as that of his hon. Friend might be secured by another mode of proceeding of a simpler character, and one which would be attended by less alteration in the rules and principles of the law of partnership. The Bill which he was about to submit to the House had for its object so to relax the rule of law which laid down that a participation in profits constituted a partnership, as to enable a person to lend a firm carrying on trade a sum of money, on the condition that the remuneration for the use of that money should be in the form of a portion of the profits, instead of a fixed rate of interest. Under its provisions a person lending money on such a contract would stand in the relation of a creditor to the trader, and would not be constituted a partner simply because he received for his loan a share of the profits by way of remuneration for the use of his money. That was the proposal embodied in the first and principal clause. The second clause would enable persons to pay their servants as a reward for their labour, instead of a fixed salary, a portion of the profits of the business in which they happened to be engaged; while the third clause would entitle the widow or child of a deceased partner in any commercial house to receive a portion of the profits by way of annuity without thereby being constituted a partner. These were the three proposals which he had to make, but it was provided that the different parties whom he had mentioned—the lender of the money, the person who received a share of the profits as a reward for his labour, and the annuitant, although they should stand in the relation of creditors to the trader with whom they had had transactions, yet they should be "postponed creditors," and should not be entitled, in case of bankruptcy, to recover what was due to them until all the other creditors of the firm had been paid. He had adopted in this Bill pretty nearly the words which were suggested some years ago by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns). A Bill was at that time before the House to accomplish the object which he now had in view. It was a very cumbrous Bill, containing a great many regulations and restrictions, and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Belfast gave notice of his intention to move the omission of all the clauses and the substitution of those which were, with the exception of a few words, the same as those of this Bill. Two of those clauses were to this effect—

"1. The advance of capital or money to be used in any trade or undertaking upon a contract with the person carrying on such a trade or undertaking that the person making such advance shall be remunerated solely by a share of the profits of the undertaking shall not of itself constitute the person making such advance a partner in the trade or undertaking, or render him responsible as such.

"2. A contract for the remuneration of the servant or agent of any person engaged in any trade or undertaking by a share of the profits of such trade or undertaking shall not of itself render such servant or agent responsible as a partner thereof."

The clause which was contained in the Bill now before the House with reference to the widows and children of deceased partners was an addition. He mentioned these facts to show the origin of the simple form of enactment which he had adopted, and to obtain from it the benefit of the authority of the hon. and learned Member for Belfast. "When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) introduced his comprehensive measure for authorizing limited liability to joint-stock companies, he at the same time brought in a Bill similar to that now before the House, and also adopted the form of words which had been suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman. There were some words in the first clause which he should be prepared to omit from this Bill—namely, "or bear a share of the loss." He was informed by his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General that those words were not necessary to the attainment of the object which he [had in view, and therefore he should be willing to leave them out. It must be remembered that at the time that limited liability was given to joint-stock companies it was admitted that private traders carrying on business with unlimited liability could not be left under any restrictions which could properly be removed. It was recognized that these great mercantile associations, which were to have the benefit of limited liability, would come into competition with private firms and individual traders carrying on business with unlimited liability, and it therefore seemed reasonable that all the restrictions which could safely be removed from the operations of this latter class of traders should be got rid of. It was at the time contended that they ought to be allowed to raise capital in the best way that they could, and upon such terms on which lenders were willing to advance it. The argument that the repeal of the usury laws had enabled lenders to advance money to traders at any rate of interest they could obtain was not a sufficient answer to that appeal, because it was clear that a trader would rarely engage to pay a high fixed rate of interest, whether he made any profit or not, if he did he would not be acting as a prudent tradesman or taking a course which was likely to conduce to his commercial welfare. Now that great joint-stock associations had obtained, not as a matter of privilege, but as a matter of right, power to carry on business with limited liability, private partnerships had a right to claim some greater facility for raising money than a mere repeal of the usury laws, which, though right in principle, and productive of much benefit, was not of itself sufficient. What he proposed was simply this—that a lender should be allowed, without becoming liable as a partner, to advance money to a partnership carrying on business with unlimited liability, at a fluctuating rate of interest; in fact, receiving a portion of the profits in lieu of interest; and he could not see any difference in point of principle between an agreement of that sort and an agreement to receive a high rate of interest. It would be better for the creditors and it seemed in itself more reasonable that if a lender wished to assist a trading firm he should stipulate to be paid a portion of the profits, so that he should receive no interest when no profits were made, and a high rate of interest when large profits were earned. That seemed to him to be a fair and reasonable bargain, and he did not see why the law should deter persons from entering into such arrangements by making them liable to the debts of the firm to their last shilling; while if they advanced money at usurious rates—20 or 25 per cent—it allowed them, in case of bankruptcy, to rank with the rest of the creditors, and perhaps sweep away a large portion of the assets. That did not seem to him to be a reasonable state of things, and therefore he proposed that a mere lender upon the terms which he had described should not by that act alone be constituted a partner. Let the House observe that he was not in any way interfering with the general laws of partnership. If a man lending money to a firm was with his own knowledge put forward to the world as a partner; if he allowed his name to be used as a means of obtaining credit; if he was, in fact, the person who was trusted, then, although he was only a lender, he must be responsible for the debts that were contracted. But if he was a mere lender, if he was not known to the creditor when credit was given to the firm, he did not see upon what principle of justice he could be called upon, should the firm to which he had advanced money fail, to pay all the debts even to his last shilling. He believed that it was doubted by competent authorities whether the law laid down in the case of "Waugh v. Carver," which established that participation in profits constituted a man a partner, was not erroneous. He had a high authority to cite in support of his assertion. When Mr. Baron Bramwell, then Mr. Bramwell, was examined before the Mercantile Laws Commission he said that he should have thought that nothing could have been conceived more contrary to law than the rule which was laid down in that case, but that it had been so long received as law that it could not be changed without legislation. What he was now proposing was, therefore, according to this high authority, not to change the principle of our law, but rather to restore the law to what in his opinion it ought to have been held to be. It appeared to him that permitting persons to advance money upon condition of receiving a share of the profits, without thereby becoming liable to all the debts of the concern, might be of great utility in enabling assistance to be given to clever, prudent, and industrious men who had all the qualities necessary for the advantageous and safe administration of capital, but had not the capital itself. Now, he thought that it was good policy—it certainly was the policy which lay at the root of recent legislation with reference to limited liability—as far as you could with safety to the public to facilitate the bringing of capital into conjunction with talent, prudence, and industry, thus enabling men who possessed those qualities legitimately and properly to acquire wealth and raise themselves in the social scale. He therefore thought that on moral grounds, and as a matter of public policy, the proposed change should be made. With regard to the second clause, he thought it a very reasonable thing that an employer should as a reward for labour pay a portion of profits either in addition to or in lieu of wages. He was told by those learned in the law that an employer might pay a servant a sum calculated in proportion to profits as a reward for his labour; but for his part he could not see the distinction between a percentage on profits and a portion of profits. What public policy could there be in preserving such a distinction? It appeared to be a sort of trap. Men really acting from the best motives in giving their servants an interest in their business, and paying them in the most legitimate manner, felt uneasy under the present state of the law, and therefore he was of opinion it would be good policy to get rid of this distinction. Mr. Anderson had stated before the Mercantile Law Commission that a mercantile house sending out a traveller might agree to give him a certain salary and £10 for every £100 of profits made by the firm; that was no partnership; but to agree to give him one-tenth of the profits, which would be the same amount, would constitute the traveller a partner. That state of the law should not continue. On grounds of general policy it was very desirable to remove all doubts in this matter, and enable employers and employed, if they thought proper, to make such contracts without any fear under the law of partnership. Too sharp a line was drawn between employers and employed. Strikes and turnouts frequently arose from an exaggerated view of the profits of capital; and the more the system proposed was acted upon, giving the labourer in reward for his labour a portion of the profits, the more likely would correct views on this subject prevail, and the less likely would strikes and turnouts become. He therefore thought the measure now proposed was politic, and might be productive of in this way some advantage to the country. So, again, with regard to paying a portion of profits by way of annuity to the widow or child of a deceased partner. The Attorney General would tell him that even a fluctuating annuity would not necessarily entail liability. But if it were dependent on profits, probably the widow or child would thereby be constituted a partner; but, whether that was established law or not, this Bill would put an end to all doubt, and enable this most reasonable thing to be done, that the widow or child of a deceased partner in a mercantile house might receive a portion of the profits by way of annuity without any question arising as to whether the widow or child were constituted a partner. In the case of "Waugh v. Carver" Chief Justice Eyre said—

"This case has been extremely well argued, and the discussion of it has enabled me to make up my mind, and removed the only difficulty I felt, which was whether, by construing this to be a partnership, we should not determine that if there was an annuity granted out of a banking-house to the widow, for instance, of a deceased partner, it would make her liable to the debts of the house, and involve her in a bankruptcy; but I think this case will not lead to that consequence."—[2 H. Bl. 235.]

To this, however, a note was appended to this effect—

"Provided the annuity be not dependent on the profits of the business."

This Bill would put an end to all that doubt. It had been stated that there was a great difference between a fluctuating and a fixed rate of interest, and it might be very well to deter men from contracting for the one and allow them freely to adopt the other. It could be shown, however, that the necessity of traders in trouble having recourse to the advance of money upon high fixed interest had more than anything else been disadvantageous to regular creditors, and generally, as he was informed, these advances, which might be made under the usury laws, were, in fact, too often the precursors of bankruptcy. He had a letter from a solicitor in extensive practice in connection with bankruptcy, who said—

"I know many cases in which persons have lent traders large sums of money at exorbitant rates of interest, and when bankruptcy or insolvency has followed, as usually happens in these cases, the lender has proved the whole amount of the debt and interest against the debtor's estate in competition with bonâ fide trade creditors; but I know of no case in which money has been lent so colourably, so as to insure the lender a share of the profits, without incurring the consequences of partnership. In fact, where money is lent at high rates the lender takes good care to steer clear of any suggestion or suspicion of participation of profits, lest the debtor should turn round in any subsequent stage, disclose the secret arrangement, deprive the lender of his claim to rateable payment with the other creditors, and render him liable to pay the debts of the secret partnership."

That was from Mr. Lawrence, of Old Jewry Chambers. How much better it would be if the loan in these cases had been made under the provisions of this Bill—namely, upon profits with postponement until all the bonâ fide creditors were paid? He had another letter from an eminent Liverpool house. The writer said—

"I cannot remember how many cases I have met with in which the parties have wished that a capitalist should advance capital into a business, and receive a share of profits, without incurring the liability of a partner; but men in business are now so familiar with the actual state of the law on the subject that the number of times which an attorney has been consulted upon such a subject will form no sure criterion of the number of times that the difficulty has been felt, as in most cases the parties themselves would know that what they sought to do was impracticable. The course which in my experience has been taken to get rid of the legal difficulty in those cases in which the transaction has not been abandoned altogether has varied according to the circumstances. I have known the difficulty disposed of in the following different ways:—By an ordinary partnership, with stringent restrictions on the working partner for the protection of the moneyed partner; by the formation of a small joint-stock company, with limited liability; and by a loan, at a high fixed rate of interest, secured according to the circumstances of the case. I have also met with cases in which the agreement has been entered into, and the secret partner has sought to protect himself by a refined distinction, recognized by some of the cases, between taking a share in the profits, which would make him liable as a partner, and taking a sum of money in proportion to the profits (whatever that may mean), which has been held not to constitute a partner."

He thought it was much better to provide a straight and proper mode of entering into these contracts rather than drive people to this indirect and circuitous mode of proceeding. This measure had been frequently approved in one form or another by Parliament. The right hon. Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) succeeded in getting the House to read his Bill two or three times, and it failed only because there was some amendment introduced in Committee which he thought would be so injurious to the measure that it was not worth while to proceed with it. Though he was sorry to find the Bill now before the House was threatened with opposition at the second reading, he hoped the House would now do what had been so frequently done before—namely, to affirm the principle that a man may lend money and receive remuneration by a fluctuating instead of a fixed rate of interest without incurring unlimited liabilities. If the House was not satisfied with the other provisions of the Bill, it would be quite competent for the Committee to make Amendments. He did not profess to have that knowledge of the law which would entitle him to say that the Bill drawn at the Board of Trade was perfect in all its parts, and he should be most happy to take the advice of those who by their experience were competent to judge of the practical working of the measure. What he asked the House to do was to agree to a sound and salutary principle. He knew that hon. Gentlemen might raise objections to the Bill and say that a person might lend his money to a trading firm, that he might receive profits when profits were made, but when days of adversity came he would take good care to get out of the concern and defeat the object the Bill had in view. It was easy, however, to meet this objection, and it only referred to matter of detail. It was easy to provide for such dangers by merely putting in words to the effect that money so advanced, if withdrawn within a certain period before the bankruptcy, should be paid back; or that the money advanced should be for a fixed period. He believed, however, the present law of Bankruptcy provided a remedy for that case. He confidently placed the Bill in the hands of the House, and begged leave to move that it be now read a second time.

said, before moving the Amendment of which he had given notice, he wished to explain his objections to the Bill. In the first place, he could not assent to the declaration in the preamble, "that it was expedient to alter the law relating to partnership." He believed there was no part of the world in which such great facilities existed for the transaction of commercial affairs as in England, where capital found its way so readily into channels of enterprize, and where credit was 60 extended, and at the same time founded upon such great security. The present law of partnership was one of the main props upon which our present healthy credit system had been erected, and he could not find out that there was any important portion of the commercial community who desired an alteration in that law at present. He had taken great pains to ascertain the opinions of men engaged in commerce—bankers, merchants, and manufacturers, and he found among all those whose judgment was entitled to respect the greatest apprehension of the consequences that would ensue from the adoption of the principle of limited liability in private partnerships without most ample publicity. He also believed that the present moment was particularly inopportune for any speculative alterations in our Commercial Code. It would be better to leave well alone at present. He wished to make a few observations with regard to the first clause of the Bill, which, in fact, embodied its principle. If the House were to adopt that clause, the remainder of the Bill must pass as a matter of course. There was a good deal of ambiguity as to the wording of the clause, and "lender" was made use of instead of the old word "partner." So far as he could understand the clause its object was to enable two persons to associate themselves for the purpose of carrying on a trade or calling under a contract by which one should provide the capital and the other contribute his skill and knowledge with his personal attendance to the furtherance of the common object. That each should participate in the profits or losses, and while the working partner should be subject to all the responsibilities of a partner, as under the present law, the person who furnished the capital should have no further risk than the loss of the capital which he originally put into the concern. There was no provision for any publication or registration of the partnership, so that as far as the public were concerned the contract might be a perfect secret. This would be productive of very evil consequences, and a probable result would be that cases of this kind would occur:—A scientific person, or a man of mechanical skill, would invent some improvement in the manufacture of a commodity, but not having sufficient capital to carry out his plans he would invite the co-operation of a man of capital, and make a contract with him that money should be provided sufficient to carry on the business for a term of years. During that period supposing the business to be eminently successful, the capitalist would be never named, but the business carried on in the name of the inventor, the ostensible sole proprietor. Being so successful, every one would be anxious to give him credit and supply him with the articles which he required. His credit increased, at the end of the term of the contract the monied partner would withdraw his capital and retire. The working partner, very naturally seeing that he could get any amount of credit, would think he could get on without capital, and continue the business as before. The credit would have been given in the belief that the working partner was in the possession of all the accumulated profits obtained during his successful operations. A slackness might occur in the demand for the article which he manufactured, and he would go on for a while with the hope that trade would revive, and avail himself to the utmost extent of the credit which people were willing to give him. Trade not mending work would be stopped, he would be obliged to call creditors together, tell them he was unable to meet his engagements, and the creditors would then find for the first time that, instead of gaining largely from year to year, he had had all this time a vampire on his back in the shape of a monied partner who, after sucking his life blood, left him a mere skeleton. This was one of the results which was likely not unfrequently to happen under the operation of such a Bill as that before the House. It was most probable that the Bill would also have the effect of leading to ruinous speculation and over-trading. It was obviously the interest of the monied partner in any concern at present to exercise continual supervision over those who had not the same capital as himself, and to exercise a salutary control over those who might be more energetic and speculative than prudent, and the result was that in very few instances firms of that kind came into difficulty. If this Bill passed the interest of the capitalist would be exactly the reverse—namely, trading to the utmost extent, and encouraging the working partner not only to avail himself of the capital he had advanced, but to stretch his credit to the utmost, and that for the sake of making the annual profits as large as possible. It was quite probable that during a few years of prosperity the capitalist might take out five or six times as much as he had advanced, and if bankruptcy came his loss would be small, while many of the creditors would be involved in a common ruin. This, he believed would be a certain result of the Bill. It would, in addition, open the door widely to deliberate fraud. He would be sorry to give instances which he might readily adduce, lest if the Bill passed they might be adopted as suggestions. In times of panic, which we must expect occasionally, he was afraid that the distrust which prevailed on those occasions would be greatly increased by the suspicion that every man would entertain of his neighbour, that he might have some unseen partner taking the profits unknown to the public out of the concern. He thought he had said enough to show that this Bill was pregnant with mischief and danger, and he should not be doing his duty if he did not do all in his power to oppose it. He therefore begged leave to move that it be read that day six months.

in seconding the Amendment, said, he wished to explain that he had. no objection whatever to the principle of limited liability. He believed that under that system many extensive businesses, both in banking and mercantile operations, had been carried on, which would never have been contemplated under another system. He thought that great advantages had been derived from the establishment of limited liability in joint-stock companies, but the confidence of the public had been given to those companies mainly by reason of the system of registration and publicity of accounts which were required of them. But under this Bill nothing of the kind was provided for, and the public would be perfectly ignorant as to the position of any concern which might have a sleeping partner, or rather a sleeping lender of money. He would have at all times—without the creditors being at all aware of the fact—the opportunity of taking from the profits of the concern with which he was connected a large proportion of the profits for which no doubt he would bargain when he was lending his money—a proportion which would not only represent the capital he had advanced, but ultimately the whole of the capital itself. In the course of a few years, if the concern should fail, the creditors would find that they had been left in the lurch, and that the capital had to a very great extent been withdrawn by the lender who had, in reality, been an exhausting creditor. He, therefore, disapproved of the Bill. The Manchester Chamber of Commerce had intrusted him with a petition against the Bill unless the principles of registration and publicity were provided for in the clauses.

said, it had been his duty to introduce in two Sessions of Parliament a Bill founded on the same principle, and he thanked the right hon. Gentleman for having introduced a Bill which he (Mr. Scholefield) thought would be so efficient and simple as the one now before the House, and which he believed was a better Bill than his own. The present Parliament had on several occasions affirmed the principle of this Bill, and therefore he had been in hopes that the hon. Member for Tamworth (Mr. J. Peel) would not have felt it his duty to have moved the Amendment which he had done. All the objections which had been offered to the Bill were objections not so much to the principle of the Bill as to its details, and he thought, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman would have done well to have allowed the Bill to go to a Committee. The hon. Member for Manchester was anxious that there should be publicity in regard to the names of those who lent their money on the ground that they shared in the profits, but he (Mr. Scholefield) wanted to know why a man who lent his money on the ground that he should share in the profits of a concern should have his name registered any more than a man who lent his money out at 5, 6, or 7 per cent. If a man lent money on condition of his receiving a return from the profits, he would not be paid in case of the insolvency of the man to whom he had lent that money until the demands of the other creditors had been satisfied; whereas, if the money were lent at a fixed rate of interest, the world knew nothing of the transaction, and the man who lent the money would share with the other creditors in the estate, and would in many cases receive the largest amount. The law as it stood at present did not depend upon the deliberate decision of the Legislature at all. It was not governed by statutes, but by the decision of one particular Judge, and the correctness of that decision had been questioned by many of the first lawyers in the kingdom. He believed that this measure would effect a great improvement in the law, and he therefore hoped that the House would proceed with the second reading.

said, it was clear that the second clause of the Bill did not govern the case of the servants or the widows and the children. As it was at present drawn he believed it would be a dead letter. He did not think it likely that any person who risked money to a trader in difficulties, with a right of receiving a rate of interest for the profits, would do so if he were bound by the penalty contained in the second clause, and in the present state of the law a man advancing money under these circumstances would exact 20, 30, and even 50 or 60 per cent, while cases constantly arising in our Law Courts proved that this was actually the case. Such a person would be entitled to receive, to the detriment of the trade creditors, 50 or 60 per cent. In such a case was it likely that a man would lend his money upon the fair chance of receiving a rate of interest out of the profits of the trade when he knew that if the trader failed he would have no chance of receiving a sixpence? He did not object to the principle of the Bill, and in much that had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman as to the benefits that had flowed from limited liability he quite concurred; but he would suggest that a proviso should be attached to the first clause to the effect that every contract for a loan of money to a trader, upon a certain rate of interest out of the profits of trade, should be registered. In the absence of such a proviso they would be opening the door to a large amount of fraud. It had been stated that registration would be useless, because the person who lent the money would not be known, but he only desired that the fact should be registered.

said, it appeared to him that the opponents of the Bill based their objections to it on the ground of the uncertainty of the commercial transactions that would be effected under it. But if that uncertainty were great under the principle of limited liability, what, he asked, was it now under that of unlimited liability? He reminded the House of the vast number of failures they had had recently, and of the unlimited confidence reposed in many of those firms up to the very moment of their failure. When they remembered the failures of banks such as Hammersley's, Paul, Strahan, and Co.'s, and a still more recent instance, there could be no doubt that under no system that could be adopted could the public be more misled. With such facts before them, surely this proposed addition to the law of limited liability need not frighten them much. He was a Member of the Select Committee on the Bill of the hon. Member for Birmingham. After considerable labour that Committee left the Bill more complicated than they found it. He thought the present a more simple Bill, and, as confessed by the hon. Member for Birmingham himself, a better Bill than his own—and for this reason, that it did not deal with the law of partnership, but simply allowed a man to lend his money at a fluctuating rate of interest according to profit. What charm was there in a fixed rate of interest? During the existence of the Usury Laws there might be some reason for such a thing, but it had now disappeared. Surely an exorbitant fixed rate was far more oppressive than a varying rate. It would be small consolation to the creditors of a bankrupt's estate to find that the bankruptcy was owing to a fixed rate of 80 per cent for a portion of borrowed capital, as in a case before the court the other day, it was proved that a bankrupt had paid £130 upon a loan of £22 10s., the whole of which was nevertheless still due. The public would not be deceived by this change in the law, they gave no credit to the lender, they trusted A and B, partners, on account of their reputed means, and they derived additional security from the borrowed capital of C, which was under this Bill postponed, to all other claims. Those who insisted upon publicity and registration would defeat the object of the Bill, and would expose the public to a danger of thinking they had a better security. If there were publication of lenders the public would associate the credit of the lender with that of the trader, and thus would be liable to be deceived. He agreed with the hon. Member for Brighton in thinking that the Bill would not be acted upon in a great many instances, but at the same time it would not be altogether a dead letter, as many respectable persons would be very glad to assist a rising trader or clever inventor with a certain amount of money when they ran no risk of losing their whole capital. The only objection, perhaps, that could be raised to the second clause was that what it proposed was already the law; but, as some doubt existed as to this, it was only fair to make the Act declaratory in that respect. Payment of work- men by a share in profits, was becoming more and more the practice, and among other recommendations was this, that it was a remedy for the unfortunate strikes of which they had lately heard so much. He had some doubts as to the third clause, whether it would be for the advantage of widows and orphans to be paid according to profits, and thought that it would be better to leave out that clause in Committee, On the whole, he heartily supported the principle of the Bill.

said, that the arguments of the hon. Member for Tamworth were the same which had been urged against extending the principle of limited liability to joint-stock companies. The questions of registration and publicity were questions for consideration in Committee, and did not affect the principle of the Bill. He could not agree with the hon. Member (Mr. Moor) who had said that the Bill would be a dead letter. On the contrary, he thought it would be extensively acted upon, and would be productive of the greatest advantages to the commercial community. A great change had taken place in public opinion as to the principle of limited liability, and now in the north, the whole mercantile community were in favour of it. He was prepared to give the Bill his cordial support.

said, he ventured to surmise, notwithstanding the opinions which had been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman and others to the contrary, that the object of the Bill was to alter the law of partnership in a most material point, in a point which had been hitherto accepted as constituting the true test of partnership. The whole of the law, on that point would be impaired by the Bill as it now stood. The right hon. Gentleman said that the measure was intended to bring together capital and skill, to raise a competition against large corporations and trading companies, and to avert strikes. How it was to avert strikes he could not see, and he could neither admit that a stimulus to competition was required, nor that any fresh means for bringing capital and skill together were necessary, as there never was a time when capital and skill were on such cordial terms. The terms in the Bill were very vague. A lender might be a mere lender of capital to another, or a capitalist employing his servant, or a principal employing his agent. In either of those cases he might take a lion's share of nine-tenths of the profits, and leave only one-tenth to his agent or servant. If the business went on well the arrangement proposed in the Bill would be perfectly satisfactory, because there would be profits to share; but suppose there were no profits at all? He wished to know how the lender would be satisfied in that case. As to inspection of accounts, the very essence of the proposal was that the lender was to be a sleeping partner, and no sensible man would allow himself to be put in a position in which he was asked to rest satisfied with statements as to the accuracy of which he had a right to obtain information. He looked on the Bill as mischievous, not merely as touching the law of partnership, but as affecting the law of principal and agent. That was a most important commercial law, and if they impaired that which was the test of a man being a principal they would destroy that law altogether. He was, therefore, at a loss to know how the right hon. Gentleman reconciled this Bill with the law of principal and agent. This Bill destroyed that law and substituted one which had no countervailing advantages. Under it the capitalist or principal might, the moment an undertaking was going wrong, take all his capital away; and the expectation that the creditors would reap the benefit of his contributions would prove quite illusory. He must deprecate a change which he thought would operate most detrimentally on the character of our commerce. It was argued that if a failure took place the creditors would be better off, because they would have the money of the lender. But how were they to get at it? There was no provision to compel the lender to leave his money in the concern a single day. It was said that the Bill was opposed by great capitalists; but if there was one point on which he felt more confident than on another, it was that those who opposed that measure did so in the interest of the community at large, and not of our great capitalists. If the Bill passed it would he easy for men of large capital to set up servants and agents and themselves direct their operations from behind a screen, reaping the profit as long as things went on smoothly, but withdrawing their money from the concern when they saw insolvency appproaching, but before bankruptcy was declared. It was asked why, if one man had skill and another capital, they should not be allowed to come together upon any terms they chose? There could be no objection to any arrangement which concerned themselves alone, but if a third party is brought into their transactions, if they incur liabilities, if they obtain credit, ought not the creditors to be considered? If losses were made, who ought to bear them? Ought it not to be the man who had conducted the business, or the man who had received the profits, rather than the creditor, who had given a perfect consideration for his claim? For these reasons he should cordially support the Amendment.

said, he was always glad to receive instruction from Gentlemen conversant with the practical operation of the law of partnership; but perhaps those hon. Members did not speak with equal authority when they referred to the principles of the law. The effect of the Bill as regarded the law of principal and agent was quite the reverse of that described by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. It would repeal an arbitrary law, established by judicial authority alone, which did interfere with the law of principal and agent. The law of principal and agent was that a man should be held responsible for contracts which he authorized another to make on his behalf, but not otherwise. Then, putting aside the arbitrary decision in the case of "Waugh v. Carver," he asked—did the man who lent money to be repaid with interest according to a fluctuating rate out of profits really authorize the borrower to bind his whole fortune by any contract which he might make? Clearly, nothing could be more foreign from his intention than to give any such authority; and the court of law which said that he should not lend money without being taken to give that authority interfered with the natural course of mercantile transactions, and virtually prohibited them by imputing to them a false character and intention. The principle on which the Legislature had hitherto proceeded in altering the law of partnership and introducing limited liability had been that of leaving the parties free in mercantile matters to make such contracts as they pleased, and not by arbitrary legal rules to circumscribe the range of contracts which had nothing evil in themselves. As long as a man knew what he was about let him do it. If A knew that B did not undertake to be responsible to him beyond a certain limit, that was his affair; he knew whether or not it was worth his while to deal on that footing. Many un- successful undertakings might be started on the principle of limited liability, and he confessed that when the principle was first introduced he looked upon it with jealousy, but experience had shown that the principle of limited liability had extended itself, and was practically successful in the mercantile world, as applied to companies, and why should it not be extended to other contracts? The simple question was, would they allow a man to lend money to a borrower on the terms which they might arrange between themselves? If the law did not interfere the transaction would not make the lender a partner. Then, why should they interfere to make him so? It was said they might mislead those who became creditors of the concern. But this was a transaction the creditors knew nothing about. To whom did they give credit? They gave credit to the man carrying on the business, and to the business he was carrying on; and the Bill did not take away or limit the liability of the person to whom they gave credit. His property was made liable to the trade debts before any part of it could be applied in repayment of those who lent him money on the terms described in this Bill. The object of the Bill was to prevent the arbitrary interference of law with the actual meaning of contracts made by parties. It was said there might be evasion, and that if a lender saw danger he might require repayment of his advances, and so withdraw the means which the trader had of carrying on business. But the law of bankruptcy, to a certain extent, provided against that. If, however, the House thought any further safeguards should be introduced they might be introduced in Committee. Nothing could be more irrational than the present state of the law. No practical man could understand the distinction between a loan for remuneration in the shape of interest in proportion to the profits, and a loan of which the interest was to be paid out of the profits. Could anybody but a lawyer follow that distinction? Every writer who had referred to this part of the law had condemned it, and its maintenance surely could not be essential to our commercial prosperity.

said, that the law was not quite so unreasonable as had been stated by the Attorney General. The principle of the law was perfectly intelligible—namely, that a man who took the benefit should also sustain the loss. Every merchant and every lawyer would concur in that principle. It had been said over and over again that this was a Bill to establish limited liability. He was not opposed to the principle of limited liability, but the object of this Bill seemed to be to absolve persons from all liability; in fact, it might be designated as a Bill to enable capitalists to commit frauds on the public. By its provisions a capitalist might place £10,000 in the hands of a person of skill, agreeing to remunerate him with £500. Large and gradually increasing commercial transactions might be carried out, and so long as they were prosperous the capitalist might draw out all the profit beyond the £500; but let the reverse be supposed, let there be a loss, the capitalist would withdraw his contribution, would be absolved from all liability, and leave nothing for the creditors. It was a mere farce to say that the capital could not be withdrawn. The Bill provided for no such thing. If an example were required he would refer to the large cotton speculations lately carried on in India. It had been said, that the House had in two previous Sessions approved the principle of the Bill. In the Bills of 1862 and 1863 safeguards were provided, but the House was asked to read this Bill, and then send it to a Committee, and leave them to make such insertions as they chose; but against that course he protested. According to the Bill, a man who subscribed £10 or£l0,000 might sweep away the whole of the profits and leave the ordinary creditors without any remedy. In the Bills both of 1862 and 1863 provisoes had been introduced for the protection of the public, which were omitted from the present measure. There were in those Bills clauses which provided that all partnerships should be registered, and that no partner should withdraw his capital unless the debts were paid; but the present measure contained no such clauses. It would simply enable capitalists to lend money and reap the advantage without incurring any portion of the loss in the event of failure. His hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General said that credit was given not so much upon the security of a name as upon the security of a business; but that security was utterly fallacious if the capital could be withdrawn and nothing left for the creditors. He repeated that all the securities contained in the former Bills were removed from the mea- sure then under the consideration of the House.

said, that the House had twice assented to the second reading of Bills precisely the same as that they were then discussing.

The Bill, when it had first been introduced, had been read a second time and had then been abandoned; and it had, upon a subsequent occasion, been referred to a Select Committee, who had introduced into it a number of Amendments which had been struck out of the present measure. It was said that this was a very slight alteration of the law, but he could not regard it in that light. He contended that the Board of Trade were bound, before introducing the Bill, to see that it contained those guarantees for the safety of the public which were recommended by a Select Committee of the House, and which it contained when introduced by private Members. In the interest of the public he should feel it his duty to give to such a proposal the most decided opposition; and he should cordially support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Tamworth.

said, that the object of the Bill might be very briefly stated. It was to distinguish between lenders to a firm and members of a firm. To a certain extent the law distinguished between them now. If a man lent money and received for it a fixed rate of interest, he was not liable for the debts of the borrowers; but if, instead of a fixed interest, he received a share of profits, then he was liable, although he never was, and never intended to be, a partner in the concern. As the law at present stood, it made some lenders partners in spite of themselves, and in spite of the truth of the transaction. That was a defect which the present Bill was intended to remedy. It separated the lender and his liabilities from the partner and his liabilities. If, as his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Bovill) had urged, in illustration of his objections to the operation of the Bill, a man should advance a sum of £10,000 for the purposes of trade, and should pay a man £500 a year to carry on that trade, he was in reality the trader, and would therefore be responsible as such. The case adduced by his hon. and learned Friend had, therefore, nothing to do with the present question. Assuming that a man who advanced £10,000 was a real lender, where was the distinction between a man lending that sum at a fixed interest, and his doing so for a portion of the profits? The same argument was applicable in either case. The present Bill would define who was really a lender and who was really a partner, and would make clear that which at present was in a great degree confused. Every single inconvenience which his learned Friend had supposed was as applicable to, and was as likely to arise under the present state of the law as under this Bill. The whole subject really lay in a nutshell. The Bill would make a great improvement in the present state of the law, and he hoped the House would pass it.

said, he agreed with the Solicitor General that the question lay in a nutshell, and the nutshell was this—should a system of trade be established in this country, under which a man should be enabled to get any amount of credit he chose, to trade to any extent, and when a time of misfortune came, should be able to withdraw his capital and leave the public to bear the loss, by turning round and saying "I am not a partner but a lender." The system of trade hitherto had been to inculcate on our traders that everything depended on their integrity and prudence. A man in trade hesitated now before he rushed into speculation, because he knew that he would risk the whole of his capital and his future prospects, and it was this knowledge that had made the British merchant prudent and calculating. It was true that you could not even under a system of unlimited liability get rid of all frauds, but this was no argument against the adoption of every necessary precaution. Two-thirds of the trade of the country were carried on upon credit, and this rendered necessary all the safeguards which could be provided against plans to deceive the creditor. The commercial system of this country drew a distinction between limited liability in individual private partnerships, and from the same principle in great concerns which could not be carried on by individuals. The latter had always been sanctioned in one shape or other by Act of Parliament, Royal Charter, or, lately, by the system of limited liability; but hitherto this House had always rejected proposals for applying the same system to individual partnerships. This measure was without any of the safeguards contained in former measures which had been proposed. It was, therefore, necessarily crude and imperfect and ought to be rejected. The Bill, in whatever shape it passed, was sure to give abundant employment to gentlemen of the long robe. If safeguards were not to be maintained because their existence did not insure against fraud, then on the same principle policemen ought to be dispensed with in the City as they were unable to put down burglaries. This measure did not give the protection which was afforded to creditors in other countries; it would not clear up the law, but would rather introduce further confusion; it would lead to great difficulties in carrying on the commerce of the country, and he hoped it would not be sanctioned by the House.

said, the latter argument of the hon. Gentleman rather showed that jewellers' shops should not be permitted in the City because they were incentives to crime, and the opponents of the Bill seemed to argue on this principle when they said that there was so much fraud that business of this kind could not be carried on at all. The opponents of the Bill wished to prevent the English trading public from doing what they liked with their own. It was poor testimony to the honesty of British capitalists to sup pose that there would be a rush of capital in the direction described by the opponents of the Bill, and that it would be advanced with a fraudulent tendency. This argument presumed, besides, a considerable amount of folly as well as dishonesty on the part of the capitalist, because if you were to trust £10,000 or £100,000 to a man who was to deceive the public you must assume, for the success of such a collusion, that he would assist you in defrauding others, but would not assist others in defrauding you. He doubted whether a man of this kind would be able to impose upon the sharp money-lenders of London. If capitalists and men of straw desired to collude and deceive they had ample means of doing so at present. Did they not hear of many men with £5,000 or £7,000, getting credit to the amount of £200,000 or £300,000? It was the public and not capitalists who were really anxious to have the Bill passed. The question really amounted to this—whether a contract should be allowed to be made freely between two men or not. He believed that the proposed system would not lead to fraud in the way suggested, and that the managing partners would not allow those who advanced their money to share in the profits without sharing in the losses. Fraud there always was and would be; but a varying rate of interest was not more likely to encourage a disposition to fraud than a fixed rate of interest.

said, he must protest against the doctrines laid down by his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Bovill) that the Bill was one under which the lender would incur no risk whatever, while he would share in the profits. This was certainly not the principle of the present Bill, because it jeopardized his capital the moment it was advanced. All the evils contemplated by the opponents of the Bill could be brought about by a loan of money at a fixed rate of interest. He had heard of a case in which the lender and borrower met every three months to fix the rate of interest to be paid, and it was increased or diminished in proportion to the amount of profits. That was doing indirectly what this Bill proposed to do directly. The arguments he had heard against the Bill were the old arguments which were used against limited liability, and it was one of the satisfactions he had that he did his best to establish that important principle for which he had contended. Capital and skill ought to participate alike, but there was great difficulty in bringing them together. The Bill of the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Scholefield) was one to establish limited liability between ostensible partners; but the case now contemplated was one in which a man was not, in point of fact, a partner, but a lender of money. The evils which his hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Thomas Baring) said would arise under this Bill existed at present to an extent which was discreditable. They all deplored the case of a bank which affected a Member of that House (Mr. Spooner), for whom they had great respect and affection. He alluded to a bank in the Midland Counties, which everybody for twenty years believed to be as good as the Bank of England. It came suddenly to a stop, creating great ruin in the district, and then it was discovered that it became insolvent twenty years ago, when the money partner drew out all his capital. The fact was, that under the present law there was greater facility for taking out capital in a firm than there would be under this Bill. Take a case, which had actually occurred, of an advertisement inserted in a newspaper, in which a person required capital to work a patent. A gentleman came forward, and the borrower said that it was a most admirable patent, and the gentleman agreed to lend the requisite amount on participating in the profits. Could any one say that such an arrangement was unreasonable; but could anything be more unreasonable than that if a man lent £500 for working a patent the man who was working the patent should be entitled to spend the last farthing of him who lent the £500? Was it not apparent that the lender intended to do no more than to authorize the spending of the sum advanced? He considered the Bill to be founded on the soundest principle, and that it was one of national importance. He was rather impressed with what fell from the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Moor). He was by no means certain that the Bill would be extensively adopted, but that was no reason why they should not adopt a sound principle. He gave its opponents credit for entertaining an honest and conscientious objection to it, but having as a lawyer and a man of the world considered the subject many years, he must give his opinion distinctly in favour of it, and should, therefore, vote for the Government.

said, he believed that the measure would aggravate the evils already felt by too great an extension of the principle of limited liability. The case referred to of the Bank at Birmingham would become the rule instead of being, as at present, the exception. At present, if a man had dealings with a limited liability company, he knew that each shareholder was liable only to the extent of his subscription, and the House might perhaps be surprised to know that, taking the whole list of limited liability companies, there were scarcely more than 10 per cent of them paying. It was now proposed that a man might withdraw money without liability, after receiving a large proportion of the profits of such company. In his opinion the present Bill was a monstrous misapplication of the principle of limited liability.

said, that allusion had been made to the failure of an eminent banking firm in the midland counties. Nobody regretted that failure and its consequences more than he did, but by what was it occasioned?—the withdrawal of capital unknown to the great body of creditors. This Bill would enable a sleeping partner to share the profits of a limited liability company without appearing before the public in the sense of liability for the engagements of the firm. It appeared to be totally over- looked in the debate that this sleeping partner, whose name might be used to enlarge the credit of the company, might withdraw every shilling of his capital—after participating in the profits—at a period which would enable him to walk off with most of the profits, while the unhappy creditors would have to divide the losses amongst themselves. Thus the effect would be that all the evils which resulted from the management of private firms would be extended to companies founded on limited liability. There had been great confusion in the debate. No one justified the law as it at present stood, the question really at issue was solely what remedy should be applied. The advocates of the Bill could not escape from the fact that they did not propose to register the lenders as well as the partners, those lenders being participants in the profits. They could not justify refusing to register the lenders who might contribute two-thirds of the capital, and he begged to ask the President of the Board of Trade why he had omitted any provision for registering these lenders, when he himself admitted that there ought to be a provision introduced to prevent the withdrawal of the loan of capital within a certain period of bankruptcy. The loans might be two-thirds of the capital. That point pinched the right hon. Gentleman very closely, and he could not escape from the argument, which compelled him to register the share capital of the company, and, if so, how could he justify the omission to register that portion of the capital, which would be contributed by lenders, who were to participate in the profits? There was, in fact, no justification for omitting to register the lenders, and therefore his advice to the hon. Member (Mr. Peel) would be to withdraw his Amendment, and in Committee to propose to register the loans; then he admitted they would approach something like an amendment of the law. Unless they introduced such a provision they would be practising a fraud upon the public, because companies might borrow to any extent, the lenders participating in the profits, and yet the creditors would not be able to touch one shilling of their property, not even to the extent of those profits. This Bill as it stood would only aggravate all the evils attending limited liability and introduce a general insecurity. The true remedy would be found in the registration of these loans, an issue which would not arise if a division were taken on the present Amendment.

said, that he differed from the Gentlemen who sat near him, because he did not believe that this Bill would either make dormant partners or sleeping partners. On the contrary, it expressly declared that lending money in a particular manner should not in itself create a partnership. Had the Bill proposed to create a new form of partnership, he would not vote in support of it as he intended doing. Whether the Attorney General was right in saying that the present state of the law was unreasonable to everybody but lawyers, he did not know, and time only could show whether the new state of things proposed would make it better or worse for them. The hon. and learned Member had stated truly that a great portion of the trade of this country was carried on upon credit, and year after year they passed laws to facilitate its operation. The best maxim for the present day was caveat emptor—they must give perfect freedom and let every one look out for himself. He thought it useless to mince matters, and he believed that to be the plain state of things to which they had come. He had heard a great many ugly words made use of during the course of this discussion, but having a very bad memory for such things he would not repeat them. He supposed pretty large profits had been made lately, and, although people objected strongly for it to be known that they were getting 60 per cent for their money, they had no objection to receive 100 per cent if they could get it. He did not believe that under the proposed system there would be a great deal of business done, because he did not believe that persons in ordinary circumstances, even for the sake of getting 30 or 40 per cent, would be induced to lend when there was a risk of not getting their principal back again. He did not think people would be over ready to lend their money to firms just on the verge of bankruptcy for the purpose of cheating the creditors by withdrawing their loans at the last moment. Whether the safeguards provided by the Bill were good or bad might be considered in Committee. The principle of the Bill he understood to be that a man should not be a partner because he lent money and took instead of interest a share in the profits, and he should vote for the second reading.

in moving the second reading of this Bill, said, its object was to remove the toll as far as the foot passengers were concerned. The whole sum which had been advanced out of the Consolidated Fund for the construction of Battersea Park had been recouped; and the fund which remained was applicable to setting the bridge free. To the working classes especially this would be a great boon; as, since the improvements on the north side of the river, they had been obliged in large numbers to seek for dwellings on the south side of the Thames. One of many similar cases had been brought under his notice, in which a man living in a £20 house and paying £3 10s. taxes being obliged to cross Chelsea Bridge every day with his two sons, expended an amount which at the end of the year came to £3 18s., or actually more than all the taxes upon his house. The proposition of the worthy Alderman (Mr. Alderman Solomons) the Member for Greenwich to do away with the tolls upon metropolitan bridges generally went far beyond what the present measure asked for. It was not advisable that the Government should remain in possession of a toll-paying bridge, and he hoped the House would allow the Bill to be read a second time upon the understanding that by so doing they were not pledged to the principle, but that the measure should go to a Select Committee, with a view to devise some means for recouping the Consolidated Fund for the loss occasioned by the abolition.

said, it often happened that when those distinguished Gentlemen, the metropolitan representatives, came forward with financial proposals they were looked upon with some suspicion, because suggestions were made that might be beneficial to their constituents and injurious to the public purse; and he believed the present to be a proposal of that character. Some years ago, for the convenience of the locality in question, a sum of money was advanced out of the Consolidated Fund on the faith of tolls to be levied on the bridge. Until that money was entirely repaid there ought to be no diminution of the security so given.

observed, that all the money had been repaid.

said, if that were the ease the toll would at once cease. He desired to promote the interests of the working classes, but there might be another motive for the proposed change, and that was the increased value that would be given to the property on the other side of the bridge. He concluded by moving that the Bill be read that day six months.

seconded the Amendment, as he could not consent that public money should be taken for such a purpose.

said, the chief fault he found with the Bill was that it was too short. It consisted simply of one clause of only two lines, providing that, after a certain time, the foot toll should cease. It ought, he thought, to have an addition made to it, providing that the money which would be lost by the proposed abolition of tolls should be made good out of a local rate or some other local fund. It was quite clear that the Government could not support, as it stood, a measure which would entail a sacrifice of £96,000 to the public revenue, but if the hon. Baronet would consent to refer the Bill to a Select Committee—as a somewhat similar Bill had been—who might suggest some plan for recouping the money, he should have no objection to vote for the second reading, for he should be glad to see the poor relieved, as far as possible, from the necessity of paying these tolls.

said, he could not understand how the right hon. Gentleman could vote for the second reading of a Bill of which, as it stood, he so entirely disapproved. He could not see how Chelsea Bridge could be placed in a different position from Waterloo or Lambeth Bridges, or why, if the poor were to be relieved from the payment of tolls in the case of the one, they should not be freed from them in the case of the others also. As for the plea that the working men would be benefited, was it not a fact that the moment the tolls were abolished the rents would be raised? The abolition of the toll at this one bridge was a jobbing piece of favouritism, which would place the House in an absurd position. He was decidedly against the payment of all tolls, but then he thought they ought to be abolished on some general principle.

said, he had to express his astonishment that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not present to protect the public revenue. If an Irish Member were to ask for £96,000 out of the Consolidated Fund for the purposes of Ireland he would be looked upon by the right hon. Gentleman as a mendicant. There was not the slightest necessity for the Bill, which sought to effect for the metropolis, what the House would be loath to do for any other part of the Empire.

said, he thought the proposal of the First Commissioner of Works to refer the Bill to a Select Committee was a most reasonable one.

said, it was his intention that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee, when there would be an end of it if it was found that no means could be devised to refund to the Government the £96,000 in question.