said, he hoped he should he allowed to urge against this measure those objections which he had not had an opportunity of offering before. He objected to the Bill, in the first place, because he deemed it to be an unnecessary continuance of a had system; and secondly, because it delegated important duties to persons not the best qualified to perform them. The measure he thought was wrong in principle. The custody of prisoners was an Imperial duty, which did not properly belong to the magistrates. However skilfully prepared were the provisions of the Bill, he considered that the matters of which they treated were matters rather of administration than of legislation. Another grave objection to the Bill was the appointment of Governors to gaols, which under this system was left in the hands of the magistrates. He had had many communications with Governors of prisons, and they all expressed their dissatisfaction with such an arrangement. Another great objection he had to the Bill was its increased severity; he thought it a great stain on the legislation of the country that we should be employing prison labour on unproductive works. In all other countries, and in all ages, the labour of prisoners, however distasteful and disgusting in its character, was applied to some useful end. Labour for the mere sake of punishment was a form of torture. [An hon. MEMBER: The treadmill.] The original purpose of the treadmill was that the labour which it provided should be productive. He had recently paid a visit to a French prison, where prisoners were confined under sentences similar to our own—periods of one to seven years. There was no solitary or separate confinement; the diet was 1½lb. of brown bread per diem, a pint of good soup of carrots and other vegetables every day, and with meat on Sunday. The prisoners were employed in productive labour, and were permitted one quarter of their earnings day by day, on the purchase of some little indulgence, amounting to about 2d., receiving another fourth on leaving the prison. Prisoners worked together, and took their meals in common; but no conversation was allowed. The prisoners did not sleep separately, but the monitorial system was employed for the purpose of keeping order during the night—one prisoner of better conduct than the rest was placed over a cell in which several slept; and of course the warders paid frequent visits. The prisoners had also the liberty of seeing their friends three times a week. This might to some seem ridiculous lenity. It might be said that we were fitter to give lessons to the French than the French were to teach the English; but, in his opinion, it was more desirable to move towards lenity than towards severity. We professed to be the most Christian, the most religious, the most moral, and the most prosperous community in the world; yet while other nations were steadily pursuing a more humane and gentle system, our legislation was characterized of late years by a return to greater severity of past times.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether third-class pay, as well as an extra sum of seven shillings a week, is received by the Police on duty at Somerset House, the Tower, the Gun Factory, the Clothing Stores, South Kensington Museum, Chelsea Hospital, and Greenwich Hospital?

said, in reply, that the noble Lord did not appear to possess very accurate information. The policemen in question did receive third-class pay, but they did not receive seven shillings a week, or any other extra payment whatever.

in rising to move the Resolution of which he had given notice for an inquiry into certain charges impugning the conduct of magistrates of Belfast contained in the evidence taken before the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the recent riots in that town, said, that on the 9th of February the Chief Secretary for Ireland stated that the Report of the Commissioners on the Belfast Riots would be in the hands of Members in a few days. It was not, however, printed until Easter, and he therefore could not call attention to it at an earlier period. As an Irishman, however, he would frankly confess that if he could tear this page from the history of his country he should be too happy to do so. Were these riots but isolated outbreaks, without antecedents and with no probable consequences, the best thing would be to forget them; but unhappily it was not so. The Chief Secretary for Ireland stated that the riots of Belfast went back as far as 1688. He (Mr. O'Reilly) would not go so far back as that, but he might state that during the last thirty years no ten years— no five years—no three years—ever had passed without riots of a serious character breaking out in Belfast. The last riots of this kind occurred on the marriage of the Prince of Wales. While all the rest of the Empire was rejoicing, the auspicious event was celebrated in Belfast by riot and bloodshed. The evidence went to show that there was no certainty that there would not be a recurrence of these riots, and that the only hope of their prevention was by the vigorous repression of the Executive. The Commissioners stated that there was, indeed, a danger that future riots would be more serious, because there was a probability that the combatants would be better armed. It was necessary to look back into the causes of these riots, in order that they might be avoided in future. In speaking of Belfast they were speaking of a place where the causes of disturbance still remained, and where the fires were still smouldering—

"et incedis perignes

Suppositos cineri doloso."

The first serious outbreak occurred on the 8th of August last, and the riots were not finally put down until August 20. The list of casualties gave a total of twelve deaths, eleven of which were in the Report. and one other death had since occurred from a gunshot wound. There was one case of mania produced by fright—but it was necessary to state that this was not the mayor or one of the magistrates. Not less than 312 persons were wounded. The number of gunshot wounds was ninety-eight, of which thirty were serious. It was, indeed, difficult to ascertain the total number of persons injured. The market tolls fell off in one week £50, in consequence of the danger to the market people bringing provisions to market; and the sum levied at the last sessions for the damage done to the town was about £8,000. Was it nothing that one of the first cities in the Empire should be in the hands of a mob for twelve days, that twelve lives should have been lost, and that there should have been 300 people wounded? Now, what was the cause of so extraordinary a result? What was the conduct of the authorities of the town? The first and most remarkable fact was that though during the first two days of the riots the mayor slept by night at a small distance from the town; on the 10th of August he left for Harrogate. All were anxious to escape from the cares and toil of business to some quiet spot; and it seemed to him that if they desired a harbour of refuge— a bower of seclusion—Harrogate was the place to select, for they had it on the authority of the mayor, that during the eight days that he was there he heard nothing of the riots. Now, he (Mr. O'Reilly), with another Member of that House, was in Germany at the time, and every morning the telegraph flashed the accounts of the riots to Berlin and all the German capitals, and English travellers were horrified at what was called the civil war in Belfast. At the end of eight days the mayor heard something about the disturbances, and he returned to the town. But if the local authorities were at fault, what was the executive Government doing? The late Earl of Carlisle was at that time the nominal head of the Government in Ireland, but he was absent owing to his failing health; the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary was at Tam-worth on family business, but he communicated by telegraph and gave the aid of his advice; there was but one Lord Justice in Dublin, General Brown; and the Executive was practically in the hands of the permanent Secretary, Major General Larcom. It was not until the riots had been going on for several days that 150 additiona lconstables were sent to Belfast, and not until the second week that stipendary magistrates were dispatched thither. After ten days, however, it was found necessary to make a force of about 1,000 infantry, a large body of cavalry, and some artillery entered the town, and at last, on the 20th August, the riots were put down. The case was very different in 1857, when there were serious riots in Belfast, when Lord Carlisle, not then haunted by approaching death, was Lord Lieutenant, and the reigns of Government had not dropped from his hands into those of Major General Larcom. After the riots had lasted for two days the Right Rev. Dr. Denvir reached Dublin from the Continent and, upon hearing what had occurred, he waited upon the Lord Lieutenant. But Lord Carlisle was not the man to tell Dr. Denvir, as the right hon. Baronet had once said, that "he did not care two rows of pins" for what a Catholic bishop said, and the consequence was that prompt measures were taken and the disturbances were speedily supressed. That contrast afforded a strong condemnation of the conduct of the Government on the last occasion. One of the most remarkable facts connected with the riots was the mode in which they were estimated by gentlemen of position in Belfast. A magistrate and alderman of the town stated that the proceedings of last August were not riots at all in the ordinary sense of the term—the whole was merely a series of small faction fights. Far different, however, was the testimony of a Presbyterian clergyman, the Rev. Isaac Nelson, who gave an account of the gutting of houses, and the destruction of property, and the hunting of Roman Catholics from their houses by the Orange mob. The first serious rioting occurred on the 8th of August. It was quite true, as stated by the hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns), that that was not the beginning of the riots, but it was the beginning of the more serious riots. It was said on a former occasion that the cause of this illegal assemblage and disturbance on the 8th August was the procession in honour of laying the foundation stone of the O'Connell monument in Dublin. Now, that was a very Irish way of accounting for these disturbances; for the procession in Dublin took place at two o'clock in the afternoon, and the intention to burn the effigy on Boyne Bridge was known in Belfast on the Saturday before. On that evening the Sandy Row party, the Orangemen, assembled in their own district with guns, as it was admitted by the police that some shots were fired, and they burnt the effigy of O'Connell on the top of the bridge. The magistrates and police were present during the proceedings. On the following day there was another assemblage, when the half-burnt effigy was burned; and on neither of these occasions did the authorities interfere to supress these riotous proceedings. The turning point was the beating of helpless women as they were going to their work by the Orange party; and this it was that provoked that spirit of retaliation which produced the fearful rioting that occurred and devastated Belfast. On Friday the 12th August the Roman Catholic Female Penitentiary was attacked and wrecked, and the factory girls going to work were beaten. At this time there was an available force of 200 men in the town. Fearing the consequences the Roman Catholic clergy were appealed to. The Roman Catholic population were told that they would be protected; but next day a great deal of violence was again used towards the Roman Catholic women, and on the Saturday two Roman Catholic priests were fired at. These acts, and the absence of the protection which had been promised for their women roused the spirit of the Catholics. On Monday, August 15, the navvies, who were chiefly Roman Catholics, turned out and committed that savage outrage—the attack on the Brown Street schools. He had no wish to extenuate their conduct, but he wished the House to understand what was the neglect of the authorities which gave rise to it, and which led to the atrocious outrages that followed in every part of the town. He believed that if the magistrates had protected the women on the previous day, or given to them afterwards the protection they had promised, these outrages would not have been committed. In referring to the conduct of the magistrates, he should express no opinion of his own, but merely state the evidence on this point. True, that evidence was not taken upon oath, and was so far deprived of weight. But the principal witnesses were the magistrates, the officers in command of troops, and other gentlemen of position; and he submitted that their evidence raised a prima facie case for inquiry. One witness deposed that on the 15th of August, when the riots were in progress, Captain Verner, a magistrate, was walking up and down the street arm-in-arm with a gentleman, and did nothing. Again, in the attack on the Pene- tentiary, a witness named Sullivan, who was connected with a newspaper in Belfast, stated that he was cruelly beaten and his head covered with blood, but that Mr. Verner, who was close by with a body of constabulary and must have seen him, made no offer of protection. Another witness stated that he saw two women apparently severely beaten, and that Captain Verner was within a yard of them, but offered no protection. That was evidence relating to a magistrate in command of the military and police which required investigation. On Tuesday, again, women were beaten when they were going to work. On the previous day the navvies, who were chiefly Roman Catholics, struck work and attacked the Protestant schools and on the Tuesday the ship-carpenters, who were all Protestants, struck work at eleven o'clock, in order to have their share in the disorder, and marched into the High Street of Belfast. No police were there. The ship-carpenters broke into two gunsmiths' shops and armed themselves with guns, and marched calmly through the High Street totally unopposed by the authorities, who, as always happened in such cases, were round the corner. Now, he came to another magistrate (Sir E. Coey), who was in command of a company of soldiers. An officer who gave evidence said that he observed that the mob, a body of sixty men, carried rifles sloped in a soldierlike fasion; that he was ready to arrest them, but that the magistrate took no step whatever for the purpose. That was a matter which required investigation. While the magistrates were engaged in searching the Pound for arms, the ship-carpenters crossed the river in boats and passed down to the place where the navvies were employed to attack them. The attack lasted for an hour, and no police came up. When all was over the only persons arrested were two of the navvies; and it was stated by one of the witnesses that this excited a good deal of ill will among the people, because they expected that the assailants would have been arrested. On the 18th a still more remarkable occurrence took place. A man named M'Connell had been shot by the police in the discharge of their duty, and it was determined to make a party demonstration of the funeral. At two Catholic funerals the clergy refused to attend unless none but immediate relatives were present. The consequence was that those funerals passed off quite peaceably. But M'Connell's fu- neral, which it was well known beforehand was to be a party demonstration, was accompanied by a procession of 2,000 persons, and it appeared from the evidence that, though they were firing shots, no interference with them was attempted. The funeral, moreover, did not take the direct road to the churchyard, but went round, accompanied by the military and police, through the public streets of Belfast. The magistrates stated that they did not expect that such would be the case; but, nevertheless, they took no efficient steps to prevent it. The officer in command of the troops said that he had sufficient force to disarm the people, but had no directions to do so; and another officer stated that no attempt was made to arrest them. The procession might have been disarmed when it was crossing the bridge, and the reason given for not adopting that course was that the people might have thrown their arms into the river—perhaps the best use that could have been made of them. On their return, too, all these people might, according to the evidence, have been disarmed without any difficulty, but no steps were taken to effect that object. Such was the conduct of the authorities, and the House would now be able to form some idea how it was that the riots lasted so many days. He did not know that further inquiry could throw any light upon the conduct of the mayor, against whom no absolute charge had been made; but against the other magistrates charges had been recorded which he should be glad to see disproved, if they could be so disposed of, but into which a due regard to the character of English justice itself rendered it absolutely necessary that some investigation should be made. The hon. Member concluded by moving his Resolution.

seconded the Motion.

said, that he had no fault to find with the manner in which the hon. Gentleman had brought this question before the House; but he should have thought that after the discussion which had taken place upon a former occasion he would not have deemed it desirable, at the close of the Session, to renew that discussion in detail. The hon. Gentleman concluded his observations by giving a warning to the Government that the season of the year was approaching when, perhaps, the recurrence of these disturbances might take place, and said that the responsibility of maintaining the tranquillity of the town of Belfast rested mainly on the Government, in consequence of the changes which they had undertaken to make in the police arrangements. He (Sir Robert Peel) quite admitted that the main responsibility for the peace of the town of Belfast rested with the Government, and they were, he hoped, prepared to check any tendency towards the renewal of disorders, such as those which occurred last year. The hon. Member commenced his observations by saying that he should be glad that the occurrences of the past year should be forgotten; and he (Sir Robert Peel) thought it would have been better if the hon. Member had allowed bygones to be bygones, and permitted those events, as far as possible, to be buried in oblivion. Both parties in that town appeared now, he was happy to say, to manifest towards one another a better spirit, and it was not desirable that former animosities should again be raked up before their eyes. It was true that some delay had, as the hon. Gentleman had stated, taken place in laying the Report of the Commissioners on the table of the House; but the Report was ready long before the date attached to it, and it was simply to the difficulty which there was in having the evidence transcribed and brought together in one complete whole that the delay was to be attributed. For his own part, he had repeatedly urged on the Commissioners the expediency of producing their Report as speedily as possible, and the House would therefore, he hoped, be of opinion that the Government were not open to the charge which the hon. Member had made against them. There had, no doubt, as the hon. Member stated, been similar occurrences to those which he had called attention to in Belfast in former years; but the Bill which he (Sir Robert Peel) had recently submitted to Parliament would, he thought, exercise a mate- rial influence in checking such proceedings in future. That the elements of riot still existed in the town there could, he was sorry to say, be no doubt, and it was in appealing to the feelings of the better classes in it, that, perhaps, the best chance of extinguishing them lay. The late riots, as the hon. Gentleman remarked, begun on the 8th of August; but it was the fact that at the close of the first week the impression very generally prevailed that they had come to an end. That, indeed, seemed to have been the opinion of everybody on the Friday, and it was not until the following Monday that they burst forth with so much fury. The mayor of Belfast was present in the town during the first days of the riot; and then it appeared that, after consulting the magistrates, and he as well as they having arrived at the conclusion that the riots were subsiding, he absented himself from Belfast, in accordance with a pre-arranged plan, for the purposes of health. Now, he must say that he thought the mayor was wrong in leaving the town at such a time, and he himself must feel that he had not adopted a wise course in doing so, placed as he was in the responsible position of chief magistrate; hut he believed that it was the opinion of the magistrates—he knew it was the opinion of one magistrate—that there was no clanger in his leaving. He (Sir Robert Peel) was not, however, surprised that the mayor did not hear of the renewed outbreak of the disturbances immediately at Harrogate, for the first intimation which he himself had upon the subject, being absent from Ireland at the time—an absence which he deeply regretted — was from a French paper, which spoke of Belfast, Ville d'Ecosse, being flooded by a most serious riot. No more could, however, he believed, have been done than had actually been done by the Government of Ireland under all the circumstances of the case. In only one or two instances, as far as he could ascertain, had the military or constabulary force fired on the people; and indeed the great desire of the Government was to keep their hands clear from the shedding of blood—they were most anxious to avoid everything which could tend to the exasperation of the feeling which already prevailed, and they could not forget that there were at the same time riots both at Turin and Geneva, in which a considerable effusion of blood had been the consequence of the discharge of shot by order of the military authorities. The hon. Member said that it was only in the second week of the riots at Belfast that a stipendiary magistrate was sent down there; but he believed that more than one was sent down before the close of the first week.

I quoted the hon. Baronet's own words. He said that in the second week of the disturbances additional magistrates were sent down.

Yes; but two were also sent down the first week. He might further observe that it was scarcely fair of the hon. Member, although he felt sure that he had no wish to produce an erroneous impression, to allude, as he had done, to an expression which he had used on a former occasion in reference to an ecclesiastical dignitary of high position in Ireland. It was not through any want of respect for that personage that he had used that expression. He had done so in a moment of haste. He admitted that he was wrong, and the circumstance was one which he regretted. He felt sure he might add that the dignitaries and clergy generally of the Roman Catholic Church would admit that he was in the habit of conducting such communications as he had with them with the most respectful deference to their position. As to the riots which took place in 1857, and to which the hon. Gentleman had referred, he would observe that they were not carried on with the same intensity of feeling as those of last year. In 1857 Lord Carlisle did not take a very active part in the transaction of the business of the office, beyond giving advice on important questions, and recommending the course which he thought ought to be adopted; and he (Sir Robert Peel) did not think that any blame attached to the Government for not acting in 1864 as they acted in the former year. As to the attacks on schools and chapels, they had no doubt taken place—the Report was full of such details, and they were to everybody a subject of regret. He did not suppose the House was desirous that he should enter at any length into an examination of the evidence contained in the Report; but he must remark that, while the statement of the hon. Gentleman was, in the main, substantially correct, he did not think he was justified in seeking to cast blame on the magistrates. The Motion had reference chiefly to the conduct of the magistracy and of the authorities intrusted with the supervision of the magistracy in Ireland. Now, they had first to consider whether the conduct of the magistrates of Belfast had been such as to expose them to the judicial censure of the Lord Chancellor. There were several statements in the Report before them as to the conduct of the magistrates; but it would be for the House to judge whether they thought they had sufficient ground for any very stringent action on the part of the authorities. It might be that they had acted with want of judgment—that "they had lost their heads" on the occasion; but great allowance must be made for them, and the Commissioners said that, in their opinion, the existing authorities and police force of Belfast are not adequate to the future maintenance of the order and tranquillity of the borough. He did not think they would find a stronger accusation against the magistrates than want of judgment. He did at the time submit to the Lord Chancellor whether he thought it desirable that any action should be taken against the magistrates of the district. The Lord Chancellor said it was desirable to wait till the Commissioners had time to give their opinion; and he did not think any further inquiry was necessary — he thought the evidence given was sufficient to show that they had not acted with that prudence they should have exhibited; but it would be most unwise and even dangerous to set about an inquiry into the conduct of the magistrates after the investigation which had taken place before the Commission. He (Sir Robert Peel) hoped that inquiry would he final. Every one knew what was the great blot of the town—namely, the inadequacy of the local police; but he believed it would have led to exasperation if further action had been taken by the Government in consequence of these disturbances. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had referred to Mr. Lyons and Mr. Verner. Well, the case with reference to these gentlemen had been submitted to the authorities, and it was the opinion of the Lord Chancellor and the Government, looking to the depositions, that it was not desirable that any further action should be taken in the matter beyond passing the Bill now in its progress through Parliament. He did not wish to prolong this discussion. His belief was that a better feeling would spring up in the town. These disturbances had been the result of faction fights and animosities, the outbreak of which it was impossible for the Government to foresee. Every one would concur in the hope that in the future they would see a better state of things in Bel- fast. Its position, its prosperity, its character demanded that. If there was to be a rivalry in Belfast, for God's sake let it not be a rivalry of one creed against another creed, but of all classes in acts of forbearance and charity one towards another! Looking to the progress which Belfast had made under all disadvantages in everything tending to develop trade and commerce, what further advances might they not expect if all her sons and citizens united in one harmonious effort to promote her prosperity, hearing and forbearing one another!

said, that in the course of the debate some observations had been made on individuals, many of whom were intimate friends of his, and he was sure the House would extend to him for a limited time the indulgence which was always shown when individual character and reputation had been assailed, and the defence had to be made through the mouth of a Member of the House. He might take exception to the course pursued by the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. O'Reilly), inasmuch as in his speech he had gone into matters much wider than was covered by his Notice of Motion on the paper. He had given a history, according to his own version, of these most melancholy riots, and put his own construction on their origin, cause, and progress, and on the various occurrences that took place while they existed, altogether irrespective of the persons whose conduct he was assailing. Now, he wished at the outset to say that he did not intend to follow the hon. Gentleman in that course. He did not intend at present to resume the discussion as to the real cause of these most unfortunate riots, indefensible as they were, whether they had or had not a cause; nor did he intend to follow the hon. Member in the mode in which he dealt with the evidence before the Commission. The hon. Gentleman had selected such evidence as in his opinion made out his view of the conduct of the persons engaged in the riots during the time they prevailed. As he said before, no person could deplore the riots more than he did; and it was no consolation to him to say that one party more than another was to blame. He said much blame lay on one side or the other. The occurrence of these events was a matter they had all to deplore, and he certainly would not endeavour to keep alive passions which he hoped would now go to rest, by entering on an investigation which could do no possible good. But the case was altogether different when they took the Motion, which dealt with the character and reputation of individuals, and above all the character and reputation of that class of men of all others entitled to seek fair consideration both from Parliament and the public—he meant the unpaid magistracy of the country. In England they had boroughs where local magistrates were appointed. Their duty was in the borough. There was nothing of the kind in Belfast. There were no magistrates appointed for Belfast, except the stipendiary resident magistrate. Belfast was situated partly in the county of Antrim and partly in Down, and the magistrates of either county might act magisterially in that part of Belfast which lay in their respective county, but there was no obligation on any particular magistrate to leave his residence in the county, go into Belfast, and act in his magisterial capacity for the town. There was one magistrate—a resident magistrate—who received a salary from the country for the performance of his duties. It was his duty to perform magisterial functions in the town. The name of the Mayor of Belfast had been mentioned. That gentleman had filled the office of mayor for two successive years, and all who knew him must admit that a more upright, estimable, and sagacious man than the present Mayor of Belfast did not live. It was quite true that during his tenure of office the mayor was ex officio a magistrate, but it was not usual to consider that his authority superseded that of the resident magistrate. No doubt he was in the habit of rendering as much assistance as he could, but it was the resident magistrate who discharged the bulk of the duties connected with the town. The charge made against the mayor was, in the first place, that during the earlier days of the riots he slept out of the town. Now, Belfast was a business town, and there was not, he believed, a single magistrate who did not sleep out of it—indeed it was somewhat remarkable that the person who enjoyed the name of "Resident Magistrate," Mr. Orme, had always been permitted by the Government to reside two or three miles from the town, and was so residing when the riots took place. And that was the explanation of part of Mr. Orme's evidence when he said that upon hearing of the first appearance of a riot he came into the town, but it was all over when he arrived there. The accusation, therefore, that the mayor slept out of the town during the first days of the riot had nothing it it. The next charge was that he went to Harrogate, where, according to the hon. Member, he heard nothing about the riots for eight days. He (Sir Hugh Cairns) did not know what was the nature of the telegraphic communication between Belfast and Harrogate, or how long it ought to take to communicate between those places, but they had a curious instance of the uncertain way in which intelligence travelled in what the right hon. Baronet had stated—namely, that the first information he had of the disturbances was from a French newspaper. In referring, however, to that point he did not mean to attach the slightest blame to the right hon. Baronet; and he at once admitted that the right hon. Gentleman had given the most satisfactory reason for his absence from Ireland at the time. But to return to the mayor. He was in ill-health, and had been ordered to go to Harrogate; he had made his arrangements for going some days before, and previous to setting out had consulted the resident magistrate, Mr. Orme, who told him he might safely leave the town, and he went on the night of the 11th. Now let hon. Gentlemen be just in the position in which they stood. The mayor went on the 11th; he got a telegram on the evening of the 16th; and he started by the first train next morning for Belfast, where he arrived on the morning of the 18th. It was perfectly idle, therefore, with the knowledge we now possess of the facts, to do more than regret that the mayor was absent during those days. It was but fair that those who wished to judge his conduct should put themselves in his place. But in the meantime the Government had sent down to assist Mr. Orme two gentlemen, whose names he desired to mention as being among the most efficient of the stipendiary magistrates in Ireland—Mr. McCance and Mr. Coulson—who remained in Belfast with the usual resident magistrate during the whole of the period of the absence of the mayor. So much for the case of the mayor, to whom no impartial man would, he believed, be prepared to assign the slightest blame in connection with those events. He would next pass to the case of Mr. Verner. He should, however, first of all observe that the resident magistrate did not feel it his duty to call on any of the county magistrates to act with him until after the 12th, although the riots began on the 8th, and that he did not summon any meeting of the county magistrates until the 16th. But what was the case of Mr. Verner? Mr. Verner was a well known gentleman, a relative of the Lord-lieutenant of the county, and he was happy to say, was a personal friend of his (Sir Hugh Cairns), and he could state that a more firm, a more impartial, or a more prudent magistrate, and more humane man never lived; and even if he had not discovered some conflicting evidence in the Report— evidence which had been wholly disregarded by the Commissioners—he should say with as much confidence as he ever felt in his life, that the statement which the hon. Member had taken from the allegations of one or two witnesses could not be true. But the matter did not rest on his mere opinion, he was in a position to adduce evidence on the other side, which the hon. Gentleman did not give, and which utterly blew into the air the idle and malicious statements which had been made with regard to Mr. Verner. There was a great desire on the part of some persons in Belfast to throw blame upon the local magistrates; but it was a very curious thing that against not one of them, with the exception of Mr. Verner, was a single accusation brought. But it so happened that at the time of the inquiry Mr. Verner was the only one of the magistrates who was absent; he was in the south of France; he did not hear that a Commission was about to be held, and he did not think that anything would be done in the matter until the spring assizes. Now it was said that Mr. Verner saw two women being beaten by a mob of men, that one of them came and begged for assistance, that he had with him a party of seventy or eighty soldiers, and that he declined to interfere. But it was a remarkable thing that though there were seventy or eighty soldiers, and two officers, with Mr. Verner at the time, the witnesses were unable to identify any either of the officers or soldiers, though the officers must have been very generally known to the inhabitants of Belfast. Such a circumstance must be considered fatal to the credit of the witnesses against Mr. Verner. But two men of respectability, who did not know Mr. Verner, and had no kind of connection with him, the day after this evidence was published in the papers, volunteered to come forward and give their version of what had occurred. One of these was a Mr. James Fergusson, a Scotchman, who was no party man and had never been in a witness-box before, and he stated that he saw the attack on the two girls: that Captain Verner was not near where the assault was committed, that no appeal was made to him in witness's presence, and that he saw the whole transaction. Another person, Mr. James Hill, confirmed what Mr, Fergusson had stated; and so little weight did the Commissioners—having heard the evidence on the one side and on the other—attach to the charge, so utterly exploded did they conceive it to have been, that they did not deem it worthy of notice in their Report. With that explanation he would leave the case of Mr. Verner, and proceed briefly to notice that of Sir B. Coey. The charge against him was, that when there was a riotous mob in the street, and he was the magistrate leading a military force commanded by Captain Hale, he did not order that military force to disperse the mob and to take prisoners. Now it was all very well for the hon. and gallant Member, who had won such laurels on a well-fought field, to imagine that once they had soldiers they must have extremely easy work, and that all they had to do was to fight and conquer. But the House would remember the position of a magistrate in a case of that kind. The magistrate had with him a certain number of troops, he knew that he had power to order them to fire, to disperse the mob, and take the prisoners; but he also knew that if he gave those orders, it must lead to the shedding of blood; and it was the part of a sagacious magistrate to consider whether it was not wiser to allow a mob to pass off at a moment when he supposed it was not likely to do any particular harm, rather than force the troops under his charge into collision with it, when it was not doing actual injury to anybody. Captain Hale and Sir E. Coey were at issue in their evidence as to what then took place. He felt sure that they each stated exactly what they believed to have occurred: but everybody could easily perceive how the recollection of two persons thrown into the midst of a tumult of that kind might differ as to what had happened. Sir Edward Coey said that Captain Hale asked him whether he should order the troops to fire; and Sir Edward Coey replied, "By no means; nothing of the sort;" and Captain Hale said his question related to whether the troops should disperse the mob and take prisoners, and that Sir Edward Coey used words to dissuade him from doing that. Could anything be more natural than a misunderstanding of that kind between a magistrate and an officer? and could such a circumstance justify the language of the hon. Member's Resolution— namely, that the evidence contained "statements so seriously impugning the official conduct of certain magistrates" that "a due regard to the vindication of the impartiality of the administration of justice requires that a full inquiry into the truth of these charges should be instituted?" It was idle to assert anything so preposterous. The hon. Member also told them that on a particular day during the disturbances there were some three or four funerals of persons who had lost their lives in the course of the riots; that those funerals were largely attended, and that they became the cause of increasing disorders. Now, he felt sure there was not a Gentleman in that House who would not agree with him in saying that it was a grave error of judgment to have permitted those funerals to take place, accompanied by such numbers of people. But the hon. Member, in his zeal to attack what he called the local magistrates, had rather overshot the mark. Anybody who desired to know what occurred in connection with those funerals would find it in the Report of the Commission. There were in the town at least six stipendiary magistrates. A meeting was held in the morning of the day when the funerals were to take place, at which six stipendiary and three or four county magistrates were present. It was the stipendiary magistrates who were of opinion that the funerals should proceed without being interrupted; and not only were they of that opinion, but four out of the six were told off to accompany each funeral and take charge of it. It was a curious fact that at that meeting the only persons who suggested that the funerals should not be permitted was a county magistrate, and he was that very Sir Edward Coey whom the hon. Member attacked and accused of want of discretion ! But Sir Edward Coey was overruled, and the stipendiary magistrates were assigned to attend the different funerals, with the consequences which the House had heard. The next magistrate who had been referred to by the hon. Member was Mr. Lyons, a gentleman whose reputation was well known in Belfast. The owner of a large property, Mr. Lyons had had the good fortune early in life to receive a legal training as a member of the Bar. For many years past he had, sometimes single-handed, always with the greatest diligence, as a volunteer, discharged what might be thought to be about the most disagreeable of duties—namely, those of a police magistrate in Belfast, in which capacity his services had been of the greatest advantage to the administration of justice. A more skilful magistrate from long experience than Mr. Lyons did not exist. But it did not at all, therefore, follow that he was necessarily the best man at quelling a riot when it had gained considerable head. The charge brought against him, however, was that, having gone to one of the funerals, when he found that the crowd was armed and was firing shots, he did not order the military force accompanying him to disarm it. And the hon. Member, in martial ardour, brought forward the testimony of Lieutenant Kennedy and Colonel Lightfoot to show that the disarmament might have been easily effected. Now, it so happened that there was then a greater military authority in Belfast than those two officers — namely, General Haines— who differed toto cælo from them on that very point; and the Commissioners, being a little more impartial than the hon. Member, in their Report, after mentioning the evidence of Colonel Lightfoot, went on to say—

"It is right to observe that General Haines seemed to doubt whether the crowd could have been so easily dispersed here."

When they found those military authorities differing whether it would have been a proper strategical movement to have endeavoured to disarm a mob under particular circumstances, surely it was rather too much to say that an unfortunate peaceful magistrate, who had never seen fields of battle, like the hon. and gallant Gentleman, was to be called upon at the spur of the moment to decide that he would take on himself the responsibility of ordering such a movement. The hon. and gallant Member also remarked that on a particular day— the 16th —the Lord-lieutenant of the county, Lord Donegall, came into the town, and the moment he appeared everything was reduced to peace and quietness, and a search for arms was made. But, if he recollected rightly, the Lord-lieutenant was in the town during the whole time, and if he had chosen to call out the posse comitatus, it would have been available; and, therefore, the very witness cited by the hon. and gallant Member went against him, He had now only to say a few words on behalf of two other magistrates—Major Mackenzie and Mr. Sinclair, who were mentioned on the testimony of a witness about which he would say no more than that any person who read it through would see what kind of evidence it was. The witness accused Major Mackenzie of neglect, and of refusing to perform the duties he was requested to discharge; but it turned out that, although Major Mackenzie was an officer in a militia regiment, and happened at the same time to be a magistrate for the county of Antrim, he had never in his life acted as one of the borough magistrates, his name not even being on the list of borough magistrates. Under such circumstances, he was justified in saying that he was not the proper person to act in the matter, and that one of the regular borough magistrates had better be applied to in order to secure the peace of the town. Mr. Sinclair, another magistrate, was accused by the same witness of neglect of duty. Now, that gentlemen was one of the leading merchants in the town, as well as one of its most efficient magistrates having been appointed by the present Lord-lieutenant of the county. It appeared that, at the time spoken of, districts were assigned to different magistrates, and they most naturally and properly declined to act out of the districts assigned to them, and when a man came up in breathless haste to him to summon him to a remote part of the town, he properly refused to comply, saying that as it was not his district he would not go there. And so little did the Commissioners think of it that when Mr. Sinclair offered himself for examination, as every other magistrate had done, the Commissioners did not think it necessary to put a single question to him upon the subject of this accusation. He thanked the House for permitting him, on the part of those absent gentlemen, to make the observations he had done in their behalf; and he would only in conclusion remind the House of what the Commissioners said with regard to the charges that had been made in the press and elsewhere against the local magistrates in respect of what was called their want of firmness during the riots. They stated in their Report that there were some errors in judgment which the magistrates might have made; but beyond that they stated, in the words of one of the most sensible and experienced of the magistrates, that they were most anxious to do their duty; but where a large number of gentlemen were armed with the same power a diversity of opinion and contradictory orders were likely to prevail, and in consequence the military and the police were crowded together in some places, whilst others were not attended to as they ought to have been, which, no doubt, was the consequence of having no head over them; it was, therefore, hardly fair to criticize too closely the course that they pursued. They also stated that the prevailing idea was (and that idea he (Sir Hugh Cairns) thought seemed to prevail in the hon. Member's mind) that from the 8th to the 18th of August there was a series of increasing disorders going on in the town owing to the apathy of the magistrates. But the Commissioners stated that this was a mistake, and that whilst they felt their proceedings were open to strong disapproval in some respects, and two or three committed serious errors, they were not chargeable with such a neglect of duty, and that the subsequent riots were wholly unexpected. He concurred in the hope expressed by the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that the measure which had been passed that Session with regard to the constabulary force would be useful on future occasions; but he did not augur that quite so much good would result from it as the right hon. Baronet did. He, however, hoped and trusted that the good sense of the people of Belfast would see, as no doubt they did, that these riots brought discredit on the town. and great affliction and injury to the people; and he agreed with the right hon, Baronet in hoping that for the future a better state of things would prevail, and that such scenes would not recur in Belfast.

said, that the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland had found fault with his hon. Friend (Mr. O'Reilly) for bringing forward this Motion on tie present occasion, on the ground that the subject had been already discussed, upon the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Belfast, at an earlier period of the Session. He thought he remembered, however, that when the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Hugh Cairns) brought the matter forward the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel) said that the House could not then properly entertain it, and that the debate ought to be deferred until the Report of the Commissioners, and the evidence they had taken, were in the hands of hon. Members; and it was that plea, and the feeling that the debate was in that respect premature, which induced many hon. Friends of his to abstain from taking part in it, especially as the debate on that occasion did not run very much on the occurrences which took place in Belfast, but was rather confined to the question of the advisability of appointing a Royal Commission of inquiry. The right hon. Baronet said, "let bygones be bygones," and deprecated anything calculated to revive ill-feeling and animosity. He could not see anything in the Motion of his hon. Friend of this character. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Hugh Cairns) said he would not go into the evidence taken before the Commissioners, because he had, on a former occasion, introduced a Motion on this subject. Yet upon that occasion he declared that he had nothing to say to the causes of the riots, but only as to the expediency of appointing the Commission of Inquiry. His hon. and gallant Friend did not by his Motion make any charge against the magistrates, but merely called attention to the fact that in public documents there were certain grave statements affecting the conduct of those gentlemen which ought either to be proved or disproved. The right hon. Baronet defended the conduct of the Government in the course it took to quell the riots, and said that troops and police were sent in force to Belfast sufficient to put down the riots. But the magistrates did not use that force, and that statement was, therefore, no answer to this Motion. The hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns), who had refused to go into the case before the evidence taken by the Commissioners was before the House, now quoted the testimony of two amateur witnesses in defence of the magistrates, and particularly of Mr. Verner; but that evidence appeared to him strongly to inculpate Mr. Verner. These witness said they were within fifty yards of the spot at a time when a woman was ill-treated—and the fact that they themselves did not interfere to prevent the outrage no doubt greatly invalidated their testimony; but they also said that Mr. Verner, with forty or fifty soldiers, was almost as near. The charge against Major Mackenzie and Mr. Sinclair was, not that they refused to go outside the particular districts allotted to them, but that they refused to interfere at all, because they said "they were so much mixed up with the people that they could not do so." These were grave charges against any gentleman, especially grave against any persons in the position of ma- gistrates, and he had not yet heard any answer given to them.

said, he would not have risen to address the House on this painful subject but for the personal tone the debate had assumed, and the manner in which the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. O'Reilly) and the hon. Member who had just sat down (the O'Conor Don) had spoken of a relative of his. The magistrates of Belfast might have behaved with indecision, or might not have been equal to the occasion; but they had never heard of riots where magistrates had acquitted themselves otherwise, and he did not see why greater sins on that account should be laid to the charge of the Belfast magistrates than any others. His cousin (Mr. Verner) had been attacked by evidence not received upon oath. There was a Commission sent down to Belfast which received evidence from witnesses upon whom no reliance could be placed, and some of them attacked his cousin, who, they knew, was absent from the town at the time. The hon. Member (the O'Conor Don) said that two volunteer witnesses had been put forward in defence of the magistrates; but his cousin had gone abroad before he knew of the Commission, and never heard of these witnesses until he saw it mentioned in the newspapers. His cousin, therefore, was not responsible for anything they might adduce; but he (Captain Verner) begged to say, on the part of his cousin, that he gave the fullest denial to all the charges brought against him, and treated them with the greatest contempt. Those charges, however, and the evidence by which they were supported, showed an animus which, he was sorry to say, had been only too rife in Belfast of late, causing the worst feeling between different classes. He ascribed the troubles which Belfast had experienced of late years entirely to the existence of a newspaper, the editor of which was one of the principal accusers of his cousin. Agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary that bygones should be bygones, he should be sorry to retort on the hon. Gentleman opposite by alluding to transactions in which magistrates of opinions akin to his own had exposed themselves to censure; but he put it to the House whether Motions such as the present were likely to bring peace to Belfast. The hon. Gentleman said he was only actuated by a feeling of justice towards the magistrates. The magistrates, no doubt, were very much obliged to him; but he thought the hon. and gallant Gentleman was the last person whom they would have chosen as their spokesman and defender.

said, that while the Speaker went out to tea he had looked at The Freeman's Journal of the previous night, and there found an account of rioting at Lisburn, where an Orange mob had paraded the town with the usual insignia. The fact was that rioting was, and had long been, a permanent institution in the North—it was no accidental occurrence— and that no steps were taken for its prevention. At Belfast, where the riots attained to the dimensions of a civil war, the police were composed of young Orange lads, appointed by those most just and impartial gentlemen the Belfast magistrates. [An hon. MEMBER: Not at all; by the Corporation.] He was told that the young Orangemen of the surrounding district looked regularly for appointments in the Belfast police, and that the Corporation employed Orangemen and nobody else. The result was that these riots were continually occurring, until at last they reached such a climax that the Government had been obliged to supersede the local and substitute the general police. In thus removing, however, the humblest instruments of the riot, the Government had not done enough, for these men would not have acted as they did if their conduct had not been connived at or encouraged by the magistrates. Two instances had been given. The police in one of the affrays had captured only navvies who were Roman Catholics; and in searching for arms they had found arms only in the Catholic district. This showed a bias on the part of the superior authorities of the borough in favour of the Orangemen. He contended, therefore, that the House should go further, and instead of limiting the inquiry to the conduct of particular magistrates should inquire into the whole system of government in Belfast. Did the corporation of Belfast represent the toleration and intelligence of the whole country? As to any hope that rioting would cease, it was idle to expect such a result until you checked the dominance of the Orange oligarchy in Belfast and the neighbourhood. The barbarous bigotry of that part of Ireland was perfectly shocking. There was nothing like it in any other part of Ireland or in England. A distinguished writer had spoken of the barbarous bigotry of Scotland, and had compared it with that of Spain; and perhaps some of the in- habitants of the North of Ireland had brought their bigotry from Scotland. At all events, he was sure that until something was done to check the present system of local government in Belfast there would never be anything like order and contentment.

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. M'Mahon) had raised the question from one of details to one of much general importance. When he characterised the peculiar feelings of the people of the North of Ireland by the term "bigotry," the hon. and learned Gentleman should have given some definition of the term. He agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman that the inquiry should he somewhat more extensive than was proposed; in his opinion, it ought to extend to the nature of the influence exercised by the Roman Catholic priesthood at Belfast, and in what particular direction it had been exercised. The hon. and learned Gentleman stated that riots had taken place at Lisburn—but had no riots taken place in London and Birkenhead? The difference between Orangemen and Roman Catholics was this—that Orangemen only thought themselves aggrieved when their heads were broken or they were otherwise maltreated; but Roman Catholics had such sensitive feelings that they could not bear a particular song, and (hey could not bear to see certain banners, or to hear certain tunes. There had been that evening a manifestation of singular humility by the Secretary for Ireland, who had apologized to a dignitary of the Irish Roman Catholic Church for the expression "two rows of pins," said he had regretted this expression ever since, and professed the greatest possible respect and deference for the heads of the Roman Catholic priesthood. What did this mean? It must be because Roman Catholics were supposed to control the minds and feelings of the people under their charge; and, in point of fact, they received from the State some hundreds of thousands a year for no other purpose that he could conceive, except that of influencing the population on the side of order and good government. Well, then, it was too much to demand inquiry into the conduct of magistrates who discharged their difficult and responsible functions voluntarily and gratuitously, and yet not call in question the conduct of men whom we thus subsidised to the extent of something like a million a year. The Orangemen in Ireland challenged inquiry into the statement that never upon any one occasion within living memory could they be accused of beginning an attack upon the Roman Catholics. He contended that they were entitled to keep in mind the traditions connected with such tunes as "Boyne Water;" and this was very often the beginning and the end of their offence. This was called rioting. The suggestion that the inquiry should be extended was an excellent one; the Government should investigate how far the Roman Catholic priesthood acquiesced in or stimulated, or ought to have interfered to prevent, the riots at Belfast.

said, the statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. M'Mahon) that the Belfast police had been universally recruited from Orangemen was utterly erroneous, and was not borne out by the Report of the Commissioners, who said—

"A reason analogous to that which we have been just considering, assigned for the distrust in the local police, is that Orangeism prevails to a considerable extent among its members. Of the fact that it docs so prevail no proof was offered us, and the witnesses connected in any way with the force declared their ignorance of its existence among them; and generally expressed a belief that men who are, or have been, members of the Orange Society are not to be found in the police."

With respect to another point touched on by the hon. and learned Member, he might mention that of the twenty-two magistrates at Belfast, thirteen magistrates were Roman Catholics or Liberals and nine were Protestants, and he was sorry that the hon. and learned Member had not been a little more accurate in his statements.

expressed a hope that the hon. Member who proposed the Motion would be satisfied with the discussion which had taken place, and would not press his Motion to a division. It was impossible to read the Report of the Commission without deeply regretting the events which had taken place at Belfast, and, no doubt, errors of judgment had been committed by various persons; but he did not think that the proposed inquiry would be productive of any other effect than that of promoting dissension. If nothing had been done it might be proper that inquiry should take place, but there was before the House a Bill, the principle of which had met with general concurrence, and the effect of which, he hoped, would be to prevent the recurrence of such disorders in future. He conceived that no practical benefit could result from the adoption of the present Motion except the revival of animosities which it was to be hoped were now allayed, and he trusted it would not be pressed to a division.

wished to make only one observation. He admired the hon. Member for Lisburn (Captain Verner) when he stood up to defend his absent relative, but he did not admire him when he attacked a man who could not defend himself in that House—a man who was worthy of the respect of all who knew him. The hon. Gentleman had said that the morbid and wicked feeling which existed in Belfast had been introduced by one gentleman, the editor of a newspaper in that town. He had the honour of knowing Mr. M'Kenna, and he assured the hon. Member that Mr. M'Kenna could not be the author of the bad feeling that existed in Belfast in 1857, as he only went there two or three years ago. He appealed to the hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns)—the temper and moderation of whose speech that evening did him great credit—whether the manner in which Mr. M'Kenna had conducted himself before a Committee of the House of Lords was not such as entitled him to the good opinion of all who had read his evidence. If Mr. M'Kenna was placed in a position which called upon him to defend his co-religionists, and to expose abuses which every Irishman deplored, that was not a reason for attacking him for having instigated riots the causes of which he had laboured to vindicate.

in reply, stated that he had himself made no attack on the magistrates of Belfast, and declined to take upon himself the onus of proving the charges made against them. All he said was, that certain allegations stood in record against them in the evidence taken before the Commission, and that those statements required investigation. He expressed his determination to press his Motion to a division.

said, he rose to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, Her Majesty's Ministers should now adopt measures for the construction of some of the Harbours of Refuge on the coast of Great Britain and Ireland re- commended by a Committee of this House in 1858, and by a Royal Commission in 1859."

Much as he had regretted the absence of his hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Lindsay) from the House, he never regretted it more than on the present occasion, for if his hon. Friend had been there he would, no doubt, have brought the subject before the House, and he (Sir Frederic Smith) would have liked to have the honour of seconding him. His hon. Friend had devoted himself for years to this great question, and he (Sir Frederic Smith) was a humble follower. It was within the knowledge of many Members of the House that in consequence of the great number of casualties on our coast a Committee of the House of Commons investigated the subject in 1857–8. The Committee was presided over by the late Mr. James Wilson, and the Chairman and nearly every Member of the Committee were of opinion that harbours of refuge ought to be constructed, and that their construction would result in the saving of one-third of the number of lives and the same proportion of property that were now annually lost, and they recommended that a Royal Commission should be issued, as being more able to investigate the subject than a Committee of that House. A Commission was accordingly appointed, composed of men well qualified to conduct such an inquiry. Sir James Hope, one of the best officers in the naval service, presided; and the late Admiral Washington, Hydrographer of the Navy, Admiral Sullivan, and other men of ability and experience, as naval officers and engineers, and the Member for Sunderland and himself were Members of the Commission. They examined witnesses at every port in the kingdom, and they reported in favour of the formation of various harbours of refuge, giving estimates for the works which they recommended, and in short coming to conclusions not very different from those of the Committee. As showing the accuracy of the calculations made by the Commissioners, he might observe that contractors were to be found who would undertake the construction of those harbours of refuge at the estimated cost. Unfortunately the Report of the Commissioners was followed up by a document emanating from the Board of Trade in 1861—the work of a civilian, though of great talent, yet totally unfit, from his want of knowledge of nautical affairs, for the task. If his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, with his great nautical skill, had drawn up that document of course the result would, no doubt, have been different. The document of 1861 attacked the Commissioners' Report as to the estimates and the probable saving of life and property, and the Commissioners were accused of speaking of the foundering of vessels as if such foundering could be avoided by harbours of refuge. But was not the cause of these disasters the very fact that harbours of refuge did not exist? The harbours on the East coast were tidal harbours, and could only be entered at or nearly at the top of the tide. It was well known that the very wind which stopped the laden vessels coining from the north was the wind which took the light vessels down from the south, and that at Flamborough Head collisions took place, and that these collisions would not take place if harbours of refuge were provided, as the laden vessels would put in there, and the light vessels would pass on to their destination. They were told by the document in question that the age of vessels was a fruitful cause of destruction and wreck. What said the Wreck Report of 1863? Why, that the great majority of vessels lost did not in age exceed seven years. Another cause assigned by the document of 1861 for this loss of vessels was bad seamanship. How could this be proved when, in most cases, all hands were lost? The statistics of the Wreck Chart of 1863 gave some extraordinary facts. The annual average of wrecks for eight years to 1862, inclusive, amounted to 1,298; in 1863 they were no less than 1,664—and no wonder, looking at the vast increase that had taken place in our shipping. In the year 1843 the total tonnage of the United Kingdom was 7,000,000 odd British, and the foreign 2,600,000, or an aggregate of more than 9,000,000 tons. At the present moment the aggregate was not 9,000,000, but actually 26,000,000 tons—17,000,000 British, in and out—9,000,000 foreign, in and out; showing an increase quite marvellous. But this great increase in tonnage made the necessity for harbours of refuge still greater. No sailor would get up in that House or elsewhere and say that harbours of refuge were not needed for our coasting trade, for it was in that trade that the casualties chiefly occurred. Notwithstanding that the coal trade was now chiefly carried on by means of steamers, yet the casualties in that branch were still increasing. The total number for the five years ending 1858 was 5,594, but in the five years which followed it had risen to 7,441, being an increase of 1,847 in five years. This was a question of humanity. We were spending money in all directions on objects which were not necessary, and yet in a matter of this sort, where lives were to be saved, the Government would not spend a single farthing. Much stress had been laid upon the adoption of one of the recommendations of the Commissioners to lend money to inhabitants of places willing to construct harbours of refuge on their own account; but where were the Government themselves forming such harbours? 700 or 800 of our sailors and marines were lost every year, and in 1863 there were lost 2,001 ships, of these 1,600 were known to be British, and of them 443 were foreign going ships; and therefore the large proportion of the entire must have been coasters; 533 were total wrecks, 332 owing to stress of weather, and only 31 from defects of ship. These were facts which the President of the Board of Trade ought to take into account. With regard to the cost there had been great exaggeration, and some stress had been laid on the different estimates made by the Committee and the Commission. The Committee only recommended an expenditure of £2,000,000, but when the Commissioners went about and inspected the various sites they found it necessary to increase the number of harbours and the expenditure. Certainly, as one of the Commissioners, he could say that they had entered on their task with an anxious desire to do their duty to the country. For himself, he could say that he had never undertaken any duty with more anxiety, and while desirous not to impose any unnecessary charge on the taxpayers, he was also desirous to provide places of safety for these poor mariners. In the report to which he had alluded it was said that so much was not needed for the East coast, but the Returns showed that it was on the East coast that the casualties chiefly occurred. The value of property lost in the last five years amounted to £4,292,812, and that, without taking into account the loss of life, was a matter of some importance to a commercial country. The Returns showed that 8,114 sailors were lost in the same period, a great portion of whom would have been saved had there been harbours of refuge. That was surely a matter of national importance, and one which the Government might well be asked to consider. He was one of a deputation of Members of the House of Commons who waited on the Prime Minister; and the noble Lord, having listened for two hours to their tale of sorrow, gave them reason to believe that his sympathies were with the sailors, and that he would turn his attention to the subject. He (Sir Frederic Smith) hoped that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would devote a portion of his surplus to the relief of the sailors, the only class for which he had as yet done nothing. Of the wrecks and casualties for five years, which amounted to 1,971, there were 1,200 from stress of weather, and the men lost in the ten years would have been enough to man fifteen or twenty line-of-battle ships. The scope of the Motion did not point out what was to be done, but left to the Government to consider what most required assistance. In 1863 he brought forward a much narrower Motion, in which he specified the harbours of Wick, Carlingford, and Waterford; but it was raised as an objection that, in thus selecting harbours, he was taking the matter out of the hands of the Government; but that could not be said upon the present occasion. He only wished that the hon. Member for Sunderland had been present with his manly eloquence and practical knowledge to support him upon this occasion. It was said that shipowners did not care for those harbours; but it was natural that in the case of large vessels they would not, for these were sent out to sea, and avoided the dangers of the coast. It was in behalf of the coasters, which were liable to be dashed on a rock-bound coast, that he spoke. But it was objected that these were too fully laden. If they did not take heavy cargoes they could not compete with the railways, and the trade would leave them, and thus the best school for the navy would be lost to the country. Then it was said that harbours of refuge would tempt men to go to shore when they ought to keep out at sea; hut this was absurd. It might be said that the estimates for this subject could not be relied on, He admitted that the estimates of the Committee were not sufficiently detailed and carefully prepared; but those prepared by the Commission were made by competent men, who would be responsible that the works would be done for the money; and although Holyhead and Portland were given as instances of harbours the construction of which exceeded the estimates for them, it was to be recollected that the change was the cause of the increase in the plans made by successive Governments. If an action took place between the Humber and the Firth of Forth there was no harbour into which a disabled man-of-war could betake itself, and it would be liable to be dashed ashore not being able to weather the headland. All that was wanted was a sum of £1,340,000 to be spread over a period of ten years, or an annual outlay of £134,000, which would be sufficient for the construction of harbours along the most important points on our coast—harbours that would lead to the saving of a vast amount of life; and it would be niggardly, on the part of this great country, to refuse so moderate an expenditure for the accomplishment of so desirable an object. The hon. and gallant Member concluded by moving the Resolution.

in seconding the Motion, said, that although Waterford Harbour was one of those recommended for a refuge, it was not altogether on that account he desired the Motion of his hon. and gallant Friend to pass, as the entrance to the port was deep enough for the local shipping; but many of his constituents were shipowners, and a large number of the inhabitants followed maritime pursuits; both classes were therefore interested in having proper precautions taken round the coasts of the United Kingdom for the preservation of life and property from shipwreck. In selecting Waterford as an instance of the good that might be done in that way for a small outlay, he only did so because he was better acquainted with it than with any of the other harbours of refuge recommended. He must express his regret that the recommendations of the Committee and of the Commission had not been carried into effect. The hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Lindsay), who had rendered such important services in reference to this question, had shown that during ten years the average loss of life on the coast had been 800, and of property £1,500,000; and he had expressed his opinion that from the increase of trade these losses would probably be increased during the next ten years unless harbours of refuge were constructed. His hon. and gallant Friend (Sir Frederic Smith) had appealed to the humanity of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Milner Gibson); but he (Mr. Blake) was not sanguine as to the success of the appeal, because he feared that the holding of office had rather hardened than softened the heart of that right hon. Gentleman. It would be interesting to contrast the sentiments of the right hon. Gentleman as expressed by him five years since with those to which he gave utterance the previous Session. In 1860 the right hon. Gentleman admitted the necessity which existed for the construction of those harbours of refuge, and repudiated any intention on the part of the Government of attempting to shuffle out of the Resolution which the House had arrived at upon this subject. The noble Lord at the head of the Government on the same occasion admitted the absolute necessity which existed for the construction of these works. A year or so afterwards the right hon. Gentleman introduced the Harbours Improvement Bill, a very useful measure, undoubtedly, but not calculated to afford any compensation for the absence of those harbours of refuge. As he had said, his (Mr. Blake's) constituents did not personally suffer from the want of a harbour of refuge at Waterford, because the harbour was at present sufficiently deep for the purposes of the local trade; but nine-tenths of the English ships going to America passed close to the harbour, and those large ships could only enter it at particular states of the tide. In 1861 eight, and between 1850 and 1860 forty-two large vessels were lost close upon the coast of Waterford, and not one of those vessels intended entering the harbour. Between 1850 and 1860, 673 lives were lost in the same neighbourhood. No doubt it might be urged that a good many of these vessels would still have been lost even if the harbour had been improved, and he was not disposed to deny that this would have been the case; but still the benefit would be incalculable if only the small sum of £50,000, which was all they asked for, were expended. Harbours of refuge were also very much wanted for our new iron-clad fleet, which, though very well suited for attack and defence, were not so well qualified to contend with a tempestuous sea. It had been said that most of the vessels lost were insured, but the loss of property was still the same, although it was shifted on to other shoulders; and, in addition, there was heavy loss of life. It might also be said that a great many of the vessels would still be lost even if there were harbours of refuge; but if only one-sixth of the loss were prevented this would be amply sufficient to justify the proposed expenditure. He earnestly joined in the appeal made to the House by his hon. and gallant Friend, believing, as he did, that the interests of commerce and the claims of humanity were alike affected.

I do not rise to advocate the claims of any particular port, for this seems to me hardly a fitting time to do so. I cannot, however, help expressing my regret at the apathy which the Government has shown with respect to this question since the departure from England of that most able public servant, Mr. James Wilson, who had it so much at heart, and whose premature death in a distant portion of the empire was not the least of the misfortunes which have fallen upon the Liberal party during the continuance of the Parliament that is now drawing to a close. That nothing should have been done during the earlier years of that Parliament towards carrying out even the schemes of the Royal Commission, is intelligible enough, for vast and immediate national exigencies had to be satisfied, which left no sufficient surplus in the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do trust, however, that the right hon. Gentleman who presides over the Board of Trade will give us to-night some brighter hopes for the future. Making due allowance for the unseaworthy state in which vessels are too often sent out, and for those chances and changes of the seas which harbours of refuge could not remedy, I do think that such harbours would, if judiciously placed, be of great benefit. Before I sit down, I wish to say a few words on another subject. It seems to me that the nation would find its advantage in aiding the seafaring population of Scotland, and probably of other parts of the United Kingdom, in obtaining better boat refuges than are at present at their command. The size of fishing boats has much increased of late years upon our north-eastern coast, and harbours which might once have answered very well, are now quite inadequate. In the long nights of summer as many as 10,000 men are often at sea in the Moray Firth, and if a sudden gale comes on are placed in the greatest danger. I should like to see the Government take this matter seriously in hand, and whether by a Commission or otherwise investigate the question, whether—as was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Banffshire—some additional small portion of the taxation which Scotland pays to the Imperial Treasury might not be applied to making boat refuges at various points on the south side of the Moray Firth, as well as at whatever other points in other parts of Scotland there may be proved to be an equally pressing need.

observed, that the Resolution they were called on to affirm was in these words:—

"That, in the opinion of this House, Her Majesty's Ministers should now adopt measures for the construction of some of the Harbours of Refuge on the Coast of Great Britain and Ireland recommended by a Committee of this House in 1857, and by a Royal Commission in 1859."

Now, he begged to remind the House that the hon. and gallant Gentleman had not advised them to really carry out the recommendation of the Committee. What was the recommendation of the Committee over which the lamented James Wilson presided? The recommendation was to spend £2,000,000 on harbours of refuge; but, looking to the considerable benefit which was to be conferred on the shipping interest by the saving of their property, the Committee also recommended that three-fourths of the cost of those harbours of refuge and three-fourths of the expenses of their maintenance, should be defrayed by the shipping interest to be benefited by the outlay. Now, the shipping interest objected altogether to pay for harbours of refuge. They had never so appreciated the benefit to their property by the construction of these harbours as to be willing to submit to any toll or tax for their construction and maintenance. Then as to the Commission, it was not authorized to make any recommendation to Parliament on the question of finance. All it was authorized to do was to point out what were the sites on which harbours of refuge might be most advantageously constructed by the outlay of £2,000,000, which the Committee had recommended should be expended It must strike every one as most extraordinary, if all those millions of property were to be saved by so small an expenditure, that the great shipping interest of England should be unwilling to contribute to that outlay. If the benefit was so indisputable, why was this case to be an exception to all rules? why were they to find that a great interest could not be made sensible of the benefits which harbours of refuge were to confer on it and willing to contribute to their construction? He received a few days since a deputation from shipowners urging the erection of a lighthouse upon the eastern coast of England in order to facilitate the navigation. He asked at once whether they were willing to pay the requisite tolls. The reply was, certainly; they were quite willing to pay the additional toll that would be cast on them, because they were convinced of its utility; but he could truly say that since he had been connected with the Board of Trade he had never had, to his recollection, any representation from any shipowners on the subject of these harbours of refuge. On the contrary, so far as his communications had gone with them, they had shown in some cases, if not opposition, at least great indifference. He had not found the same indifference in the persons inhabiting the particular localities in which it was proposed to expend these large sums of money. The hon. and gallant Member proposed as the best sites Filey, Wick, Waterford, and Carlingford. [Sir FREDE-RIC SMITH: That was in 1863; now he left the matter entirely in the hands of the Government.] He must decline the responsibility of agreeing to such a Resolution. It would be very unwise and imprudent for the House to bind itself by a proposition so very indefinite as this. He did not deny that it was a great advantage when a ship was in difficulties to have a good port under her lee, but he entirely denied that there was any evidence to show, if the larger expenditure recommended on particular harbours of refuge on the coasts of the United Kingdom took place, it would have any perceptible effect on the loss of life which unfortunately took place annually on our coast and in seas adjacent to the coast. He held in his hand a statement of the number of lives lost in certain districts on the coast of the United Kingdom. In 1863 the whole number of lives lost on the coast of the United Kingdom was 620. That was considerably less than the average of the last five years—the average being 875. But if they took the lives lost actually on the coast, in order to see what benefit harbours of refuge would give, they must to a great extent confine themselves to ships lost along the coast and in a situation to avail themselves of harbours of refuge. The total loss on the coast during 1863 was 330, which was nearly 400 below the average of the previous five years. There were many losses during the last year, but they were not attributable to the absence of harbours of refuge in this country, but rather to those violent westerly gales which drove many vessels on the coast of Holland. Taking the year 1863, he found that between the Farn Islands and Flamborough Head there were in all only three lives lost; so that if a harbour of refuge had been constructed at Filey that was the highest amount of life which could by its means have, during the year, possibly been saved. But it was not on the east coast that the greatest loss of life occurred—it was between the Skerries, Lambay, and Fair Head; it was where lesser sacrifice of life took place that the hon. and gallant Gentleman wanted to have harbours of refuge constructed. Be that as it might, he would venture to say that any hon. Gentleman who took the trouble to enter into the statistics on the subject which had been laid before the House, in a fair and impartial spirit, could not fail to arrive at the conclusion that the harbours of refuge which the hon. and gallant Member recommended would have but a very small effect in reducing the loss of life on the coasts of these kingdoms. There was, he might add, a gradually increasing saving of life on our coasts. By a judicious and, he was happy to say, successful expenditure on lifeboats, rocket apparatus, and such other appliances as could with facility be made available at the spot required, much had been effected in the saving of lives. In the case of a ship in danger, there was comparatively small chance of her being in such a position as to be able to avail herself of the shelter of a single harbour on a considerable extent of coast; but if the appliances which he had just mentioned were placed along the whole coast, ships, when stranded, would almost invariably find that aid could be afforded and life saved. There had, he might observe, of late years been many important changes in the law, all tending to the saving of life from shipwreck. At the present moment, under the operation of a Bill which had been introduced by his right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Colonies, there was a salvage claim on ships for the rescue of lives therefrom, which had been recently extended to the cargoes, so that an inducement was held out to persons to exert themselves for the purpose of saving life as well as property. Bounties for the saving of life were also given out of the Mercantile Marine Fund, and his belief was that such means tended to secure the end which they who advocated the construction of harbours of refuge professed to have in view. He, at all events, felt satisfied that the construction of one or two such harbours would not be followed by the results which they seemed to imagine. While these were the views which he entertained on the subject, he retained the opinion that it was desirable to aid voluntary efforts in improving the harbours which were already in existence, and which were the natural places of resort for large numbers of vessels. That had been done to a considerable extent under the Harbours Act. Up to the present time, under the Harbours Act, money to the amount of £1,000,000 had been advanced, or promised to be advanced at a low rate of interest. The money so advanced had been laid out in many cases in the actual improvement of the entrances to harbours, where formerly vessels were compelled to lie outside during the long nights under circumstances of great danger; and it would, he thought, be found that sailors preferred bearing up for their own port, though it might be more distant, to putting into a strange harbour, where they, perhaps, had no friends or connections. In the case of the Tyne £100,000 had been advanced. At Wick, too, the people had set to work themselves, and were receiving under the Harbours Act, something like £60,000. They had applied for £20,000, and their request was under consideration. Other harbours, the names of which he could mention, had also received sums of money. Carlingford, he believed, had obtained a provisional order, and was applying for an advance from the Public Works Loan Commissioners. Now, that appeared to him to be a more wholesome system than the giving the grants to places through the operation of Parliamentary influence in that House. The grants were made at a lower rate of interest than that at which the money could be obtained in the market, and were therefore so far in favour of the particular localities which received them; but they were advanced, on good security, to persons who were desirous of helping themselves, and who were engaged in many cases in the improvement of harbours which were likely to contribute to the saving of ships and life. He hoped, under all these circumstances, the question having repeatedly been discussed before, that the House would not assent to the Resolution of the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite.

thought that the President of the Board of Trade had dealt unfairly with the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir Frederic Smith), who stated distinctly that he did not wish to name any specific harbour on which that money should be expended. A Committee and a Royal Commission had reported on this subject; the House of Commons had voted in favour of harbours of refuge; hopes had been held out that something would be done; and what they asked the Government to do, was to do something in accordance with the recommendations that had been made.

said, the House was placed in some difficulty with regard to the question before it. The hon. and gallant Member (Sir Frederic Smith) had not specified any particular harbour to which he wished money to be applied, but left it to the choice of the Government to select the harbours which should be assisted; and the Government absolutely refused to assist any harbour. This was a matter which had attracted public attention, so much so that a Committee, of which he (Mr. Liddell) was a Member, sat for three years; a Royal Commission had been appointed to inquire into the subject, and Parliament had discussed it over and over again. The claims of the coast with which he was connected had been repeatedly admitted. It was the most defenceless, both for purposes of war and trade, of any coast in the world. The loss of life and property was augmenting annually. The President of the Board of Trade had said that great efforts were made to save life; but he wanted to know how the Government aided those efforts, which were the result of the voluntary subscriptions from private individuals. [Mr. MILNER GIBSON: We give a subsidy to lifeboats.] He was glad that the Government at last did something. But he wanted to call the attention of the House to this really national question. The Government had been for years apathetic on this subject. What was now asked for was, not that public money should be expended on any particular port, but for the benefit generally of the commerce of the world, in such places as the Government might consider best. He objected to a Minister of the Crown forcing figures on the attention of the House, because that was easily to be done in a case of this kind. If the money was not forthcoming let the question be deferred, because it was probably not a fitting time to bring it forward in an expiring Parliament; but it was the bounden duty of the Government to promise to do something.

thought the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had made a mistake in stating that the Government made a contribution towards lifeboats. There was one from the Mercantile Marine Fund, but he was riot aware that any public money was voted by the House for that purpose. He quiteagreed with his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chatham, that it was the duty of the Government to do something to alleviate the dangers to which our shipping were exposed; and he must say that the conduct of the Government in this respect was not creditable to them. He had recently visited Harwich, and he found that the Government in getting rid of Felix-stow Point had diverted the course of the tide to such an extent that it had narrowed the harbour from 400 yards to 100 yards, so that they had considerably damaged that harbour. It had been suggested by the right hon. Gentleman that the Public Works Loan Commission could advance money for these improvements; but as one of the Commissioners, he (Sir John Hay) was able to state that at many of the places where harbours of refuge were required, there was no property upon which such loan could be satisfactorily granted, and those places were of the greatest importance to the commerce of this country. Take Filey, for instance, and there was no local property upon which they could grant loans. And yet it was of the utmost importance that contributions should be made in the very way that had been suggested by the Royal Commission. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the loss by gales on the eastern coast would be very little lessened if harbours of refuge existed; but he would venture to say that if there had been such harbours the vessels that had been wrecked on the coast of Holland would have been at anchor in the harbours and the losses would not have occurred.

reminded the House that it was the Government and not the localities who first instituted this movement. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had stated that vessels would bear up for their own ports instead of going into harbours of refuge. No doubt they would do so if they could; but what he wanted was harbours of refuge for them when they could not bear up to their own ports.

in moving the second reading of this Bill, explained that such a measure had been rendered necessary in consequence of the action taken by the managers of certain theatres. Having obtained a monopoly, they wished to prevent all other persons who did not possess the Lord Chamberlain's licence from giving any stage performances which interfered with such licence. These powers were claimed under the 6 & 7 Vict. c. 61, called the Dramatic Licensing Act, which empowered the Lord Chamberlain to license theatres (not being patent theatres) in certain districts of the metropolis — namely, in London and Westminster, Fins-bury, the Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lambeth, and Marylebone. Theatres situate in other parts of the metropolis and the country generally were licensed by the magistrates—with the exception of certain places in which there were Royal residences, concerning which there was some dispute. Previous to the passing of this Act the patent theatres—Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Haymarket —possessed the exclusive right of performing the legitimate drama—although what that was it was difficult to discover, for, with the exception of Sadler's Wells and one or two other theatres, the performances were by no means legitimate. Besides the Dramatic Licensing Act, the 6 & 7 Vial. c. 61, there was the Act of the 25 Geo. II. c. 36, which was commonly called the Music and Dancing Act, and was passed to restrain persons from having public music or dancing on their promises without the licence of the magistrates granted at quarter sessions, the object being mainly to restrain what were called disorderly houses. By section 2 of that Act, the Justices in London and Westminster, or within twenty miles thereof, after the 1st of December, 1752, were empowered "to grant licences for public dancing, music, or other entertainments of the like kind." Under that Act the minor theatres, as distinguished from Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Haymarket, were in the habit of playing what were called burlettas and melodramas, which were not prohibited under the 10 Geo. II. c. 28, the Act which established the licensing of plays by the Lord Chamberlain as at the time of the passing of that Act, this description of performances was unknown, the words in that Act were "any interlude tradegy, comedy, opera, play, farce, or other entertainments of the stage, or any part or parts therein." It was also the custom to keep the piano going, so as to bring the performance within the 25 Geo. II. c. 36. It was, however, decided by the cases of Rex v. Neville, 1 B and Ad. 489, in the year 1830, and Levy v. Jales, 8 A & E 129, that the licence for music and dancing did not authorise the acting of plays, and the Victoria Theatre was held not to be a licensed theatre. This being the state of things in 1831–2 a Select Committee of that House was appointed to consider the subject of dramatic literature. The Committee came to the conclusion that the trade in theatres ought to be thrown open, that the peculiar privileges of the three principal theatres should be done away with, and that all the theatres ought to have the power of performing any plays they thought proper. The Report of this Committee gave rise to the present Dramatic Licensing Act, under which Act the term "stage plays" was taken to include "every tragedy, comedy, farce, burletta, interlude, melodrama, pantomime, or other entertainment of the stage, or any part thereof. "The words burletta, melodrama, and pantomime, being for the first time introduced into the definition of "stage play." What was the course which the grasping managers of these theatres had taken on the present occasion? A ballet had been performed at the Alhambra and other places. The managers of the theatres laid an information against Mr. Strange, the proprietor of the Alhambra. The case came before Mr. Tyrwhitt, at the Marylebone Police Court, and he decided that the performance was within the Act of Parliament. Mr. Strange appealed to the Middlesex magistrates, and they quashed the conviction. The theatrical managers were not satisfied, and Mr. Tyrwhitt had since granted a case for the opinion of the Queen's Bench. It was not only in London that a crusade had been commenced against the music-halls, for proceedings had been taken in Birmingham of a similar character. There was not a literary institution in the country, if these managers of theatres had their way, that would be permitted to perform a scene out of Shakespeare's plays or a portion of an opera. Under these circumstances the House was, he thought, called upon to interfere by legislation. The managers formerly complained that they had not the same privileges as the patent theatres; they then cried out for free trade; but they were now monopolists. They claimed to go further than the proprietors of the patent theatres, and wanted to have a monopoly of every species of stage performance. Such a state of things ought not to be permitted. The theatrical managers alleged that they were actuated by the desire to uphold the true drama—but, in fact, they hardly ever performed a piece that came within the definition of the legitimate drama. It was said that in some of those music-halls eating and drinking and smoking were allowed. Well, was the House aware that a licence to a theatre to perform stage plays carried with it a wine, beer, and spirit licence? This was in consequence of a clause having been introduced into an Act, the 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 39, the 7th section of which Act authorized the Commissioners of Excise to grant retail licences to sell beer, spirits, and wine, in any theatre established under a royal patent, or licensed by the Lord Chamberlain, or by the Justices. Until the year 1858 this section of the Act had been considered as making it optional with the Excise to grant such licence, but a case was submitted to the Law Officers of the Crown, and Sir FitzRoy Kelly gave it as his opinion that the Commissioners had no option whatever, and that the production of the Theatrical Licence entitled the holder of it to demand the licence to sell beer, wine, and spirits in the theatre as a matter of right. It appeared that there was no doubt that the opinion given by Sir FitzRoy Kelly, was a correct opinion, at all events it had been acted upon ever since, and it was the custom for the officers of Excise to bring the beer, spirits, and wine licences to every new lessee of a theatre as a matter of course, and receive payment for them. He (Mr. Locke) had endeavoured, when the Refreshment House Licences Bill was in Committee, to introduce a clause repealing the 7th section of the 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 39, but he was met with the objection that such a clause was not germane to the subject of the Bill then before the House. This Bill provided that although the licence to be obtained under the 25 Geo. II. c. 36, should extend to the public performance of stage plays, still that licence should not, any more than it did at present, authorize the sale of beer, wine, or spirits, and that the 7th section of the 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 39, should not apply to any place so licensed. In many theatres there was a beer-engine in the pit, gin and cordials were sold there, and so in the gallery and at the back of the boxes; but the managers were not content with this, for between the acts cans of beer were carried through the theatre, greatly interfering with the knees and backs of the audience. Was it not better to sit in a chair before a little table and drink your sherbet or what not? But then, forsooth, the theatre managers said, "Oh, you degrade the drama by allowing its performance in these music-halls!" After what he had told the House about the sale of liquor in theatres, he thought they would not be of opinion that the dignity of the drama had much to do with the question. And now what had been the decisions upon the music-hall performances? In the Birmingham case there was what appeared to be dancing and talking upon the stage; but, in point of fact, nobody was on the stage at all, the figures of the actors being reflected on the stage from a looking-glass placed out of sight of the audience. The manager thought he was safe, but the case was brought before the Common Pleas, which held that, under the Dramatic Licences Act, this was a stage performance. In the case of the Canterbury Hall performance, which he invited hon. Members to go and see, shadows were also thrown upon the stage, and Mr. Norton went to Canterbury Hall, and having seen the performances said that, though very unwillingly, he was obliged to give judgment against the proprietor, expressing his opinion, at the same time, that it was an admirable one, and was more amusing than most of the performances he saw at the theatre. For his own part he could not understand how the reflection of a person dancing seen in a mirror was anything improper so long as that person was decently garbed. Why should the stage be the only place where there was not free trade? No less a sum than £1,667,000 had been spent in building and fitting the London concert halls, music-halls, and entertainment galleries. These places would accommodate 179,000 people, and he believed that they were conducted with the greatest propriety. The number of theatres in London was twenty-three; the number of these places of entertainment forty-five. Stated shortly, the object of the Bill was to legalize the performance of stage plays at any place for which the magistrates' music and dancing licence had been obtained. But if the House thought that the performance of every species of stage plays ought not to be sanctioned at any but licensed theatres, could there be any objection to the music-halls having the same privilege which the minor theatres possessed before the monopoly was broken up—namely, the performance of burlettas, interludes, and melodramas? It must be remembered that the Lord Chamberlain's surveillance would still apply to the performance at these places, as the Bill reserved to the Lord Chamberlain the licensing of the plays performed; and he proposed certain provisions to insure the safety of the audience. He regretted that at that late hour (five minutes post one o'clock) he had not the opportunity of explaining the provisions of the Bill as he should desire to do. Although he could scarcely expect that the measure would become law this Session, he hoped the House, by reading it a second time, would affirm the principle that alterations ought to take place in the present system, and that the unseemly struggles which now took place between managers ought no longer to continue.

said, it was evident from the statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman the subject was a very wide one. He therefore moved the adjournment of the debate.

said, if his hon. and learned Friend meant to press the Bill, it was quite necessary that the debate should he adjourned. Considering the very late hour to which the House had sat that morning, that there had since been both a day and an evening sitting, and that the House would again assemble a few hours hence, he should not attempt to enter upon a discussion of the details of the measure. He suggested for the consideration of his hon. and learned Friend whether, having called attention to defects existing in the present law, it would not be well to withdraw the Bill for the present, and re-introduce it in a new Parliament, where his hon. and learned Friend, he hoped, would find a place. In the state of public business, an adjournment, moreover, really implied a relinquishment of the Bill for the present Session.

believed that if this Bill became law it would have the effect of turning every pothouse into a theatre, and every theatre into a pothouse.

also thought the passing of the Bill would reduce the drama to the lowest pitch it had ever stood at in the country.

said, he was not disposed to accept mere assertions as an answer to his arguments. As for the comment of the hon. Member for Bristol (Mr. Berkeley), he had heard it before; it was not original, and he knew where it came from. Being anxious that the subject should be fully discussed, he would not oppose the Motion for adjournment.

suggested that this Order should be discharged. The Bill was one of 140 clauses, and there was not the least likelihood of its passing this Session.

said, they never could pass any Bill unless they tried to do so. It was only fair towards the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho), who had taken such pains with this important measure, that the Government should afford him all the assistance in their power.