said, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether the following Statements, purporting to be made on his authority, correctly represen the present practice of the Education Department:—1. That if an application for a building grant for a National School proceed from a parish of fewer than 900 souls, the proportion of Dissenters being more than one-sixth, the Education Department suggest the adoption of a Conscience Clause for a school adequate for the entire parish, but do not insist upon the Clause being adopted. 2. That if the promoters decline the Conscience Clause they may reduce their plans to the needs of their own Church people, and receive a grant on the diminished scale. 3. That the Department will grant aid for building schools planned for as few as twenty scholars in a parish having fewer than 900 souls, but composed partly of Churchmen and partly of Dissenters. And whether the Education Department takes any, and what, measures to encourage the elementary education of a Dissenting minority in parishes in which a grant is made to a National School, and in which there is no prospect of a separate school for the use of Dissenters being adequately supported?

Sir, I have given no authority for statements of the kind referred to, for when I made a full statement to the House on the subject, I thought I had done all that my duty required me to do. As regards the first Question, if the hon. Gentleman would omit the limiting words, my answer to it would be in the affirmative. As to our insisting on the Conscience Clause when building grants are applied for, that is what we do not do. When an application is made from a parish of less than 900 inhabitants, where the Dissenters amount to one-sixth, we suggest the Clause; but if it is refused, we do not insist upon it, for the promoters may themselves build the school without the grant. As to the second Question, that does not apply to places with less than 900 inhabitants. It refers to large or two-school parishes. In those cases the Churchmen may apply for a grant for themselves, and the Dissenters for a grant for themselves; but we have no such rule as regards one-school parishes—that is to say, parishes with less than 900 of population. From the third Question, also, I must also omit the limiting words at the end. A grant has been given to build a school for as few as twenty children; another grant was given to build for thirty children; and a week ago I gave a grant to build a school for twenty-eight children. This was because the labouring population was so scanty. As to the limiting words at the end, the case has never arisen. In each of the instances I have mentioned, there were no Dissenters in question. Lastly, our principle is not to take the initiative, but to trust to local voluntary effort. Where a minority is very small the State cannot notice it. The right hon. Member for Calne in one of his speeches laid down this principle in the words of the old maxim of law, "De minimis non curat lex." "Where the minority is considerable the House may think it always right that it should be represented.

I do not understand the noble Lord as having answered my second Question—namely, whether in a parish of less than 900 inhabitants, the Dissenters not being a small minority, the Churchmen may take a smaller grant without the Conscience Clause?

I said that in a large or two-school parish Churchmen and Dissenters might have each their own school, and each might have a building grant; but in the parishes to which the hon. Member alludes of 900 inhabitants or less, where more than one-sixth of the population are Dissenters, we do not follow such a rule; and if the Conscience Clause is refused, the grant is not made.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether he has received any information from the Registrar General, or other authority, with regard to the very fatal disease, called in the newspapers "Black Death," which has of late been prevalent in the neighbourhood of Dublin?

I have, Sir, received information from the Registrar General of Dublin that up to the 13th of May fifty deaths were registered in Dublin as resulting from febris niger and purpura maligna, but no death from the "Black Death" appears upon the Register; and I have his authority for saying that the diseases specified have no analogy to the "Black Death" of the Middle Ages — a disease which since those times has not been known in this country.

said, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, When the new design for the elevation of the University of London is likely to be finished; and, whether he will, before giving orders for its execution, afford the House and the University an opportunity of expressing an opinion upon it?

Sir, I am not able to say when Mr. Pennethorne will be able to complete his new design. The view I take of the vote of Friday is that the House itself wishes to choose the design, and I shall therefore place Mr. Pennethorne's design in the Library, in order that the House in its capacity of Building Committee may have an opportunity of inspecting it. As regards the University; I am bound to say that I do not feel it part of my duty to add so largely to that Committee.

said, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Council, Whether his attention has been called to the present system of ventilating the sewers by shafts covered with open iron gratings placed in the centre of narrow and much frequented thoroughfares; and, whether the gases dispersed by means of such gratings could not be carried off in some other way?

Sir, there is no smell from well-constructed and well-kept sewers. It is only when a deposit is allowed to collect that noxious gases are given off; if the sewer is well flushed no deposit can take place. If the sewers were not ventilated from the streets they would be ventilated into the houses. That is a fact which is well known to occur. The only way of avoiding the difficulty would be to have shafts carried up the sides of the houses; but as that would interfere with the rights of property, it could not be done without leave from the owners. The whole matter, however, is in the hands of the local authorities, and the central Government have no power whatever to deal with it.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he can obtain and lay before the House a Copy of the Papers found on board the Tornado, and referred to by the Spanish Auditor in his Report dated the 6th day of September, 1866?

As soon, Sir, as I saw the hon. Gentleman's notice I telegraphed to Sir John Crampton, and Sir John has promised to send us the information required. He says that no copy of the papers is kept at Madrid. I therefore suppose he will have to send for them from Cadiz; there may consequently therefore be some delay in producing them.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether he has received any fresh accounts on the subject of the distress prevalent in the West of Ireland, and what course the Government is taking in dealing with this calamity; and, if he will lay before the House a Copy of the Memorials presented to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by the Proprietors of Lands adjacent to the River Suck, and by the Town Commissioners of Ballinasloe, and the Reply of the Government to these Memorials?

in reply, said, he did not know whether the Question referred specially to Connemara or to the West of Ireland generally. [Mr. GREGORY: Connemara.] As regarded Connemara, the Government had received from time to time various accounts of distress said to be prevailing there; and the Treasury had ordered the commencement of certain works, which would, in the ordinary course of things, be undertaken next year. The works were confined to the erection of two new piers, and to the enlargement of one or two existing ones. At Spiddal the sum of £6,000 would be spent upon works of this character, and at Clifden £1,200, to be supplemented in each case by sums derived from local sources to the amount of one-fourth of those grants. There were also small works at Lenane which would cost £240, and at Barnedarrig £100. These works would be undertaken under the provisions of an existing Act of Parliament, and a Vote would be submitted to the House for this purpose. He had great hopes that the em- ployment thus given, together with the any objection to state the decision to which efforts made by the proprietors of the district, would be sufficient to alleviate the distress. With regard to the distress existing in the county Mayo, he had last week received a copy of resolutions passed at a meeting held on that subject, and the Poor Law Inspector had been instructed to visit every portion of the Westport Union, and particularly the islands which lie along the coast. It was principally to the proprietors and to the local resources of the district that the Government must look for the alleviation of distress, and every effort would be made on the part of the Poor Law Commissioners to impress upon the guardians of these unions the necessity of using their utmost exertions with this object. With regard to the Westport Union, the affairs of that union were in a comparatively prosperous state, and they had at the present moment a considerable sum of money to their credit. As to the second part of the Question, he had asked for information, and would be prepared to answer it to-morrow.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, If any regulation has been promulgated prohibiting exchanges, or the sale of Commissions by Officers of the Military Train; with the reason and date of such Regulation; whether Officers recently appointed or permitted to exchange into the Regiment have been previously made aware of such Regulation; and, whether promotion has been suspended in the Regiment, and for what time?

said, in reply, that no regulation had been promulgated prohibiting exchanges or the sale of commissions by officers of the Military Train; but since 1863 it had been the custom to inform all officers receiving their first commission that the Military Train would probably cease to be a purchase corps, and, therefore, that they would no longer be at liberty to sell their commissions. It was entirely untrue that promotion had been suspended in the corps.

said, he rose to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If he has the Government have come with respect to the Fenian Prisoners still under sentence of death for high treason, and who as yet have received no announcement of their sentence having been commuted?

said, in reply, that the sentence of death passed on the two chief Fenian convicts had been commuted to penal servitude for life, and in the case of the prisoners sentenced to death at the Cork Special Commission, their sentences had been similarly commuted last Tuesday. All the Fenian prisoners upon whom sentence of death had been passed had been dealt with in the same way.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is true that the Archbishop of York has declined to serve on the Royal Commission on the ground that the Church of England, as distinct from the Ritualists, is not fairly represented on the Commission?

I regret, Sir, to state that the Archbishop of York has declined to serve, but he has never assigned any such reason to me, or to anybody else, as far as I know. I need not say that if he had done so, it would have been received by the Government with the most respectful attention, and with a desire to remove any such objection.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to the outrages committed upon respectable persons walking in the streets in the day time by bands of ruffians, who take the opportunity of crowds collected by Volunteer, Militia, and other Military bands passing through the streets to hustle and rob them; and if any orders have been issued to the Police to protect the public from a continuance of those disgraceful attacks in the Metropolis? From what had appeared in the newspapers, it appeared that in some instances the police, when appealed to, had refused to do their duty.

said, he had placed upon the Notice Paper a similar Question. On Monday, the 3rd of June, three robberies were reported as having taken place between Great Stanhope Street and Hyde Park Corner, and the police-offices of Marylebone, Worship Street, Clerkenwell, Southwark, and Lambeth were thronged with complainants. One witness, whose statement was partly confirmed by a constable, said he saw thirty watches taken within a short distance. A lady living in Devonshire Terrace was robbed and very much bruised. Another person, who was maltreated and robbed, could with difficulty be heard in Court, owing to the injuries he had received in his throat. A foreigner was seen flying down the City Road followed by 100 ruffians. It should be understood that these outrages were not confined to the line of march of the militia, but occurred contemporaneously on the South side of the river, in Pall Mall, in the New Road, and in Park Lane. A wedding in Cavendish Square was the occasion of many robberies in that neighbourhood, and the usual reliefs of the guard at St. James' Palace were stated as the cause of similar practices in the Mall. He thought it high time that the Secretary of State for the Home Department should, in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police authorities, take some steps to put an end to these outrages.

I saw, Sir, with great regret in the papers yesterday morning an account, written by different persons, of outrages committed the day before on the march of the City of London Militia, accompanied by a large mob of persons. I immediately directed a letter to be written to the Commissioners of Police, calling their attention to these statements, and asking for an explanation. From the information I have received it appears that the City of London Militia, without any notice whatever to the police, marched through the streets from Finsbury to the Regent's Park, going through some of the most public and open thoroughfares in the metropolis. They were accompanied by an organized gang, many of them convicted thieves, and these persons necessarily took by surprise the ordinary police force which was on duty. The police were not in numbers enough to prevent the attacks made upon persons who were quietly passing along the streets, not suspecting any harm. The police, however, took no fewer than nine of those persons at the time; altogether, I think, fifteen persons have been arrested; several of them have been identified before the magistrate, and have been remanded for further examination. The amount of property taken in twenty-six instances amounts, I think, to somewhat more than £150; that is putting, probably, a very low value upon the articles taken. As it sometimes happens that after such outrages have once been commenced there is a tendency to renew them, directions have been given to strengthen the police as far as possible at the points where it is likely that attempts of this sort may be made. It is only just however to the police to say that there is only one case in which a policeman has been called to account for not assisting to prevent these outrages. It happened in this way: at the time when one of these robberies had taken place a large number of children were beating the bounds of the parish. A gentleman came up to the policeman and said, in great agitation, "That is the man! Take him!" Put he made no charge, and when the policeman asked, "What is it?" he gave no answer. The excitement of the gentleman was so great that the policeman did not know whether he referred to the mob or the children, and it was only when another person came up and said, "The gentleman has been robbed of his watch," that he could understand what had occurred. The policeman then went across the road and secured the man. It should be known that the police at this season have very onerous duties to perform, and between 300 and 400 of them are now employed in protecting the metropolis against the intrusion of the cattle plague. I am sure that after what has passed the Commissioners of Police will do all in their power to prevent the recurrence of robberies which, I must say, are a disgrace to the metropolis.

said, he wished to say in explanation that he had spoken upon the evidence given in the police-court by Mr. Brett, who had been robbed, and who stated that when he pointed out the man to the policeman, the latter said, "You can go and catch him yourself."

said, that a question arose the other night, after midnight, as to the competence of a Gentleman sitting on that (the Opposition) side of the House moving Resolutions that certain charges relating to Courts of Law should be defrayed not only by Votes of Parliament, but also out of the Consolidated Fund, and it had been found impossible to dispose of the matter on that occasion. It was understood, however, that his hon. Friend who was to move the Resolutions would communicate with Her Majesty's Government with a view to determine what should be done. Now it appeared to him that such a Motion should be made by some Minister of the Crown, and he would therefore beg to ask the hon. Member for Pontefract or Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what was to be done in reference to this matter?

said, that the Motion which stood in his name, and which was to have been moved in a Committee of the Whole House, was one preliminary to which the usual assent of the Crown had been given, and as a matter of form he was perfectly justified, with the consent of Her Majesty's Government, in making it. But he agreed with his hon. Friend that as a matter of policy it was better that any Resolution placing a charge upon the Consolidated Fund should be moved by a Minister of the Crown, and should not proceed from that (the Opposition) side of the House, What he proposed to do, then, was, when they came to the Order in question, not to move Resolutions 1, 2, and 3, but to move Resolution 4, that the salaries and expenses therein specified should cease to be charged on the Consolidated Fund. That was a Resolution diminishing the charge on the public, which any Member might move.

said, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Board of Trade, In what month the Government intend to collect the Statistics of Live Stock and Crops this year; when it is probable those Returns will be complete; and, when they will be published?

said, in reply, that forms for making Returns of the acreage under crops and of the number of live stock would be transmitted by post to all occupiers of land in Great Britain previously to the 25th of the present month, upon which day the occupiers were requested by the printed instructions to fill in the forms, and return them as soon as possible to the collecting officers. The time of completing and publishing the aggregate Returns must greatly depend upon the promptness with which the forms were filled up and returned by the occupiers. It was the wish of the Board of Trade that the information to be furnished by the Returns should be in the hands of the public at the earliest practicable period.

rose to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether, by the Royal Warrant of July 1, 1848, as well as by the Horse Guards' Circular of April 15, 1862, the Troops engaged in repelling the Fenian Raid in Canada in June, 1866, are not fairly entitled to receive three month's extraordinary field allowance, instead of one month's allowance which has been issued? The House would remember that on the morning of June 1, 1866, about 1,200 Fenians, well clothed and armed, under a person calling himself Colonel O'Neill, crossed from Buffalo and landed at Fort Eric, intending to destroy the Welland Canal. That same day the 1st Battalion of the 16th Regiment, a wing of the 47th, and a field battery, took the field under the command of Colonel Peacocke, and encamped that night at Chippewa. Next day auother field battery, the right wing of the 47th, and a detachment of the 60th Rifles, went to the front under Colonel Lowry. These troops were several weeks under canvas, were entitled to field allowance, and, if entitled at all, it seemed clear, by the Horse Guards' Circular, that it should be for three months, and that paid in advance. The War Office Warrant, although "to be administered and interpreted by the Secretary of State for War," was perfectly clear, and was as follows:—

"Extraordinary field allowances are sanctioned in cases when and wherever troops are engaged in military operations in the field in time of war, disturbance, or insurrection, whether actual or apprehended. Mode of Issue.—Extraordinary for three months in advance, commencing from the date of the order to take the field. Rate.—Ensigns, 2s.; lieutenants, 2s. 6d.; captains, 3s. 6d. per diem."

If it was answered that the General Commanding-in-Chief in Canada did not apply for more than one month's allowance, or thought it enough, he would reply that the General in immediate command had frequently applied for the three months, did think his officers entitled to it, and both he and his officers were extremely dissatisfied. That dissatisfaction was increased by the fact that General Hastings Doyle, commanding in Nova Scotia, did at once draw and receive three months' field allowance for his division for precisely the same service; and the Home authorities had tacitly admitted the justice of the claim of the Upper Canada Forces by sanctioning General Doyle's claim on behalf of his officers. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War would give this matter his favourable consideration.

said, he rose to call attention to the manner in which important alterations in the Articles of War, seriously affecting the liberties and increasing the penalties that may be inflicted upon the officers and men of the Army, may be effected without the previous knowledge of the Army, of Parliament, or of the country, and to move that in future it will be desirable that the Articles of War, as intended to be issued, with the alterations proposed to be made in them by the erasure of the old and substitution of the new Articles, in the manner now employed, should be laid upon the Table of the House at the same time as the introduction of the Mutiny Bill. He must complain of the way in which supplementary legislation for the Army was permitted by means of the Articles of War. This House had always kept a jealous care over the constitution and regulations of the Army; and though the nominal command of the Army was placed in the hands of the Crown, that was only as a matter of general convenience, and did not in the least affect the entire subordination of the Army to Parliament. The complaint which he had to make did not relate to the present Secretary for War, but to his predecessor, the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Hartington). In 1865 the 18th Article of War set forth that any officer or soldier who was arrested should not be kept in confinement for more than eight days previously to being brought to a court martial, and that any officer keeping him longer in confinement should be liable to be cashiered. Since then, however, an alteration had been made in the Articles of War without Parliament, or the public, or the Army knowing anything about it, and the alteration was to the effect that an officer or soldier under arrest should be brought before a court martial or discharged "within a reasonable time." That reasonable time, of course, was left to the discretion of the commanding officer, and no such unlimited power of imprisonment without trial was ever delegated by Parliament to any one, even to the Crown itself. It was a suspension of the Habeas Corpus of the Army without any notice to the public or to the profession. The tendency in official quarters would be, no doubt, to assume that the alteration had been made under the prerogative of the Crown; but he contended that the prerogative of the Crown could only be exercised for the benefit of the people. That had been the acknowledged policy of the country for many years. For instance, take the recent Treaty respecting Luxemburg—though the noble Lord now at the head of the Foreign Office possessed in a larger measure than any of his predecessors the confidence of the country, he was called on to explain the course he intended to take in the recent Conference, and he would not have been justified in committing England to such a treaty without the approval of the House, and without apprising it of the policy that was being pursued. The House ought to have had before them the intentions of the Government and of the Commander-in-Chief with regard to the supplementary: part of this Army legislation, and they should have the Articles of War on the table of this House, in order that they might know what was enacted. The Crown, without the authority of Parliament, had no power to frame the Articles of War, and if they were framed without that power it would be a piece of despotism which this House would be the very first to repudiate. He would not, however, press the Resolution of which he had given notice, and would merely express a hope that Her Majesty's Government would promise to take the matter into consideration.

said, his hon. Friend had very properly acquitted the Members of the present Administration connected with the War Department of the particular change of which he complained, and which, although it in some measure affected the liberties, yet it in no degree affected the penalties which might be inflicted upon officers and soldiers. His hon. Friend had omitted to notice the 77th Article of War, in which provision was made that if any officer in command did not bring an officer or soldier under arrest to trial within a reasonable time, he was liable to be cashiered. The hon. Member's complaint was that the House was not made acquainted with the supplemental legislation which might defeat the Mutiny Act, and which, therefore, ought to be known, but that supplemental legislation was authorized by the Mutiny Act itself. The Articles of War were made in pursuance of the Mutiny Act:—under the 1st section, which authorized Her Majesty to frame those Articles. Indeed, there was a provision to restrict the prerogative of the Crown, there being an express provision that this supplementary legislation should only be legal so far as it was in accordance with the provisions of the Mutiny Act. The House was always acquainted, as soon as it could be, with what was done. If the course recommended by his hon. Friend had been adopted this year, there would have been an Article of War framed in pursuance of the Mutiny Act of last year, and that would have been laid on the table for a certain number of days, and then a revised Article of War, in accordance with the Motion of the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway), would have been framed in the very terms of the clause which this House sanctioned. The truth was that the Articles of War, being under the authority and framed in pursuance of the Mutiny Act, were framed subsequently to that Act. As soon as the Mutiny Bill received the Royal Assent it was laid on the table of the House, and the Articles of War and the Act were bound up together and formed one volume. The prerogative of the Crown was exercised by a Minister responsible to the House, and nothing could be done save what was in accordance with the law.

in rising to call the attention of the House to certain of the recruiting orders of Her Majesty's regiments of Foot Guards, and to move a Resolution on the subject, said, the subject was noticed by him a short time ago on the occasion of the introduction of the Oaths Bill of the hon. Member for Clare (Sir Colman O'Loghlen). He then stated that, as a general rule, Irishmen and Roman Catholics were not admitted as recruits into the Brigade of Guards, and that it was only as a matter of favour that exceptions to this rule were allowed. At that time he was able to refer positively to an order of only one of the regiments. Since then the recruiting orders of the three regiments in force January 1, 1867, had at his request been laid on the table of the House, and he found that the accuracy of his statements was borne out quite as fully and plainly as he anticipated, and it was no longer possible for anyone to say that he had made an assertion for which he had insufficient authority. In the recruiting orders of the Scots Fusileer Guards, page 8, it was directed—

"Natives of England and Scotland only to be enlisted, unless special permission is given to the contrary."

In the orders of the Coldstream Guards, page 4, it was set forth—

"Owing to the impossibility of your obtaining the requisite information respecting age and character, natives of England and Scotland only are to be enlisted."

Why it should be impossible to ascertain an Irishman's age and character he was at a loss to know. The order of the Grenadier Guards, page 5, was—

"Natives of England and Scotland only to be enlisted. Should a man offer himself to be enlisted who is a Roman Catholic, the sergeant will ask the permission of the regimental Adjutant before he enlists him."

He admitted that the strictness of these orders had been in certain exceptional instances relaxed, and the result only tended to strengthen the case of those who asked for their total abolition. The few Irishmen who were admitted into his late regiment, the Coldstream Guards, were, as a rule, well conducted, some of them had attained high posts as noncommissioned officers, and the universal testimony was that no taint of disloyalty had ever manifested itself in the Irish soldiers of the brigade. The Coldstream Guards went over during the first disturbances in Ireland, and only one or two cases occurred in which any attempt was made to tamper with the Irishmen in the regiment, and then, without exception, the men had delivered over to the civil power those who were rash enough to try the strength of their fidelity to the Crown. In the Crimean war, when men to fight were wanted, an anxiety even was shown to enlist Irishmen for the Guards, and the Irish recruits did themselves no discredit in that campaign. When peace came the old rule of exclusion came into operation again, as if to show that Irishmen might have the fighting, but not the privileges. The rough work of the service might be their portion; faithful before the enemy, they were not to be trusted at home. But some one might say — "Have not the recent disturbances in Ireland shown the wisdom of this policy, and that Irishmen are not loyal enough to serve in these regiments?" One fact was a sufficient answer. What corps was it that proved itself most effective in that emergency, and by its loyalty restored public confidence and earned the thanks of all? It was the Irish constabulary; a force recruited entirely in Ireland, and composed chiefly of Irish Catholics. The secret of their fidelity was that they felt that confidence was placed in them; they were true, because they were not suspected of being false; for, in Ireland, to manifest distrust was the surest way to promote disaffection. He did not want to interfere with the prerogative of the commanding officers of the Guards, who might, without assigning any cause, accept or reject whom they pleased; but a man's nationality should not be a bar to his entrance into the favoured regiments, and the issuing an order for the exclusion of Irishmen from these regiments was naturally regarded as a slur upon the whole Irish nation. Such an order, printed and put into the hands of every recruiting sergeant, could hardly be called private. Its existence was no secret. More than once when in Ireland he had suggested to men that they should enlist in the Brigade, but he had been met with this answer, "They won't take Irishmen if they can help it." It was no wonder that men were offended at the refusal, and formed too low an opinion of English generosity. There was no Irish regiment of Guards, but he wished there were. It might be many years before it could attain the high prestige and historic associations of the older corps. It might—he hoped it would — have to wait long for opportunities which Vimiera, Badajoz, Salamanca, and a hundred battles more gave to Irishmen to show how bravely they could fight, but when the time did come it would not fail. Ireland was taxed equally with England and Scotland for the support of the army, and its recruits should have an equal right to enter even the more honourable parts of Her Majesty's service. It was, perhaps, a little thing that they should be excluded; but it was one of those many little things the removal of which would foster a better feeling and tend to unite the two countries in a firmer bond. He begged therefore to move that in the opinion of this House no order should exist which has for its object the exclusion of Irishmen from Her Majesty's Regiments of Foot Guards.

in seconding the Motion, maintained that it was both impolitic and mischievous to draw invidious distinctions between men coming from different parts of the United Kingdom; and said, that the adoption of the rule in this case was a very bad return for the services rendered by Irish troops in the British army from the days of Cressy and Agincourt downwards.

wished briefly to state for the information of the House the system of recruiting for the brigade of Foot Guards. The Grenadier Guards was an English regiment, and had from time immemorial been recruited from England, with a few exceptions, when they were recruited from Scotland. The Coldstream Guards, also an English regiment, were almost exclusively recruited from England, but occasionally from Scotland. The Scots Fusiliers were, of course, a Scotch regiment chiefly recruited from Scotland; but on certain occasions, when sufficient men could not be obtained in that country, the recruiting had been supplemented in England. Under that system each of those regiments had established a local connection—that local connection of the very description which had been so much approved by the Recruiting Commission. The result was that not only were men induced to enlist, because their friends and relatives were in these regiments, but the officers in charge of the recruiting were enabled in a great measure to ascertain the character and antecedents of the men offering themselves for enlistment. Now, the order to which his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kerry (Mr. Herbert) took exception remain in the enlistment books because the class of Irishmen who offered themselves as recruits in England or Scotland were naturally travelling Irishmen, about whom, speaking generally, little information could be gained. But so little exclusive was the rule to which his hon. and gallant Friend objected that every recruiting sergeant received this instruction—that if any likely-looking Irishman offered he was to make the fact known to the officer in charge of the recruiting, giving a description of the man and stating what he alleged of himself, that the officer in London might make the necessary inquiries for the purpose of deciding whether the recruit should be accepted. How did that system work? He had a Return of the Irishmen serving in the Brigade of Guards. They were 116 in number. In the battalion to which his hon. and gallant Friend so recently belonged there were sixteen Irishmen, and among them were the sergeant-major, the senior drill-sergeant, and, he believed, the pay - sergeant of his hon. and gallant Friend's own company. It might be said that that was a very good reason for at once filling the ranks with Irishmen; but he maintained that it was the very manner in which they had been selected which I enabled those Irishmen to rise after they entered the Brigade of Guards, when it could not be denied that they had every justice done them. The patronage rested entirely with the colonels of battalions, who did not select a man if he was unfit, and the fact of his being an Irishman was not allowed to stand in the way of a good soldier's promotion. With reference to the praises which had been bestowed by the last speaker on the conduct of Irishmen, he was bound to say they had been too lavish; for he must admit that the conduct of a few Irishmen in the Guards had recently been open to reprehension. When the first battalion of the Coldstream Guards was a short time since sent over to Dublin in consequence of the Fenian difficulty, it contained three Irishmen, and two of those were reported by the delectives soon after their arrival to be regular attendants at Fenian meetings. It was in consequence thought desirable, with a view to prevent disgrace being brought upon the regiment, that the two men should be sent back to London to rejoin the remainder of the force under observation. But, apart altogether from collateral matters, he saw no occasion for the Motion before the House; our Brigade of Guards was now above its strength—so that it could not be said the change was needed in order to gain men; the regiments in question were second to none in the world, and those who were responsible for the maintenance of discipline within them should be permitted to continue a system of recruiting which had proved to be simple, economical, and eminently successful.

asked, if he was to understand the last speaker to infer that an Irishman should be presumed to be of bad character unless he was proved to be the reverse? [Sir CHARLES RUSSELL dissented.] There was no doubt that the object of the order of the Horse Guards under discussion was intended to keep out Roman Catholics rather than Irishmen; and he asked whether it was right to continue such an order in force, seeing that it was a slight to a whole country, and created an ill-feeling unnecessary for any military purpose.

said, the hon. Baronet was in error in describing the order as an order of the Horse Guards; it was but a regimental order. And as for the question at issue, he should leave it to the officers of the Guards to decide whether it was judicious upon their part to issue such an order; but if Irishmen were excluded from the Guards in time of peace, it would be unreasonable to expect that they should accept invitations to enter the brigade during the time of war—such as that which had been addressed to them during the war in the Crimea. He would remind the House that the Horse Guards were not averse to receiving Irishmen; special missions had even been sent to Ireland to recruit for them. He, however, had always recommended men to enlist in regiments of their own nationality, and he did not think it was likely that an Irishman would chose to enlist in any regiment which was not recognised as the peculiar pride of his countrymen.

said, that if the order in question had specified that no Irishman was to be enlisted it would have been an insulting order; but it did nothing of the sort. The last regiment in which he had the honour to serve—the Royal Irish Fusiliers—was almost exclusively Irish, in the same manner that two of the regiments referred to were almost exclusively English, and the third almost exclusively Scotch. It was the pride of the regiment to be Irish, and he could say of it that it was as distinguished a corps as there was in any army in the world. The fact was that it was a common practice to recruit regiments in particular localities, and that system naturally afforded facilities for ascertaining the character of the men offering themselves for service. The Guards had no recruiting party in Ireland, and it would therefore be difficult for them to select the proper kind of men from that country. Nothing could, he was sure, be further from the thoughts of those who had framed the order referred to than to throw a slight upon those whose countrymen had ever shown the greatest desire to uphold the honour of England on many a glorious battle-field.

supported the Amendment on the ground that it was advisable to do away with all distinction between Irishmen and Englishmen. It appeared that the regiments referred to had already some Irish in them, so that they could not be regarded as exclusively English, and it was absurd to keep in existence an order which was not strictly adhered to. If exclusiveuess were to be the rule, however, why should we not have a regiment of Irish Guards as well as of Scotch and English. He believed that such a step would be extremely popular.

said, that there were regiments which were entirely enlisted in Scotland, and regiments entirely enlisted in Ireland. Of the latter were the 86th, 87th, and 88th. It therefore ought not to be considered any affront to Ireland if the three regiments of the Guards were exclusively English and Scotch, though, in point of fact, those regiments were not so very exclusive, as they appeared to have received a certain number of Irishmen. On the other hand, there was no regiment of the line exclusively enlisted in England. When, therefore, the exclusive character of the Guards was complained of, Englishmen might, in like manner, say that it was an insult to them that they were not allowed to enlist in the 87th (Irish) Regiment. With regard to the suggestion to add another regiment to the Brigade of the Guards, he could only say that he would be glad to see any addition to the army which the House would sanction.

observed, that the question was whether Irishmen were to be excluded from serving in the privileged Guards, who enjoyed superior rank and pay, who were never sent to unhealthy climates, and who had better barrack accommodation than other regiments.

trusted that the Secretary of State for War would express the opinion of the Government on this subject, as it was one with regard to which Irish Members felt a great interest. They did not complain that a great portion of the recruiting for the regiments of the Guards went on in Scotland and England; but what they complained of as a great injustice was the existence of regimental orders distinctly excluding Irishmen from those regiments.

hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War would not express an opinion in favour of maintaining those orders. All that was required was that the orders should be struck out of the regimental books, and that it should be left to the discretion of the recruiting officers to enlist what men they thought proper. That was a reasonable request; and if it were not granted it was only fair that, as there were English and Scotch regiments of the Guards, there should also be an Irish regiment of the Guards. Speaking as a Scotchman, he confessed that if regulations were in existence excluding his own particular countrymen from serving in the Household Brigade, he should feel it as a reproach. It was not to be forgotten that the Guards formed a corps d'élite, and it was therefore not to be wondered at if Irishmen sought admission to their ranks.

said, the House was no doubt aware that the system of recruiting for the Guards was upon an entirely different footing from that of the other regiments of the British army. An hon. Member had referred to the question of the interference of the authorities at the Horse Guards in this matter; but the fact was that neither the Horse Guards nor the War Office had anything to do with it. Recruiting for the Foot Guards was entirely regulated by the officers commanding the regiments. On the whole, after listening to what had been said during the debate, he confessed it did not appear to him that Irishmen alone had any peculiar cause for complaint. It had been pointed out by the hon. and gallant Member for Berkshire (Sir C. Russell) that the Grenadier Guards were chiefly recruited in England, and the Scotch Fusilier Guards in Scotland, and the hon. and gallant Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North) had alluded to his own service in a regiment which consisted almost exclusively of Irishmen, and in which the admission of any man who was not a native of that country was regarded with considerable jealousy. ["No!"] He hoped, however, it would not go forth as the opinion of the House or the feeling of the Government that anything like ingratitude existed in regard to the services of the Irish soldiers. On the contrary, every man of right feeling was ready to do justice to their gallantry; indeed, it was impossible to deny that the future of England, in the various wars in which she had been engaged, would probably have suffered materially had it not been for the valour of the Irish portions of the army. After what had passed he felt some doubt whether there really was a rule excluding Irishmen from the Guards. He was not aware that any such regulation existed. No doubt, preference was given to English and Scotch recruits. He wished, however, to call the attention of the House to two peculiarities in the system of recruiting for the Guards. One was, that no man was admitted to their ranks, no matter to what country he belonged, unless he received a good character; and the other was, that the recruiting was carried on chiefly in country districts and not in London, in consequence of which the proportion of Irish soldiers necessarily could not be large. It was quite clear that both Irish soldiers and Roman Catholics were admitted. In fact, a Return had been presented to the House showing the proportions of Roman Catholic soldiers in the regiments of the Guards. He believed that a considerable number of Irishmen were now serving in those regiments. He trusted that the course which the debate had taken would be satisfactory to the hon. Member for Kerry (Mr. Herbert). For his own part, he was quite averse to anything like au exclusive rule of the nature referred to; and if the hon. Member would withdraw his Motion, he would make it his duty (although the matter was not one coming under the control of the Secretary of State for War) to communicate with the officers of the three regiments of Guards, and express his opinion that if there was in their recruiting rules anything that could be considered offensive or painful to Irishmen that rule should be rescinded. With reference to the Question previously asked by the hon. Member for Wigtonshire (Sir Andrew Agnew), all he could say was, that the hon. Baronet had mistaken the effect of the warrant. Instead of there being any difference of opinion in the sense in which the hon. Baronet had spoken, his (Sir John Pakington's) own opinion, and that of the War Office authorities he had consulted, were that the hon. Baronet was not justified in the conclusion he had come to.

said, that as the right hon. Gentleman appeared to doubt the existence of the orders excluding Irishmen from the Guards, he would read the orders again to the House. In respect to the Scots Fusilier Guards, it was directed by the orders that natives of England and Scotland only Were to be enlisted, unless special permission was given; and with respect to the Coldstream Guards, it was directed that, owing to the impossibility of obtaining the requisite information respecting the age and character of natives of Ireland, English and Scotch only were to be enlisted. So, with regard to the English regiment, natives of England and Scotland only were to be enlisted; and it was expressly stated that in case any Roman Catholic presented himself permission must be had from the regimental colonel before he was enlisted. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that he had no authority in this matter, and therefore it was the duty of the House itself to interfere.

thought his right hon. Friend the Secretary for War had said enough to satisfy the House that, although it was not his province, he would use his influence with the commanding officers of the Guards that anything obnoxious in this order—and he must say he did think it obnoxious—should be entirely removed. So far as it lay with his right hon. Friend, he had pledged himself to use his influence; and he thought the Secretary of State for War should have some influence with the commanding officers of the Guards to get this matter arranged. He therefore hoped the hon. Member would not divide.

was very sorry he had not heard the statement either of the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for War, or of the hon. and gallant Member for Berkshire (Sir Charles Russell). Certainly, the orders did seem to imply that England and Scotland only could find recruits worthy of serving in those distinguished corps, and therefore they had an invidious, he would not say offensive, aspect towards Ireland. He was quite aware there was great delicacy in the position of the right hon. Baronet with reference to the Commander-in-Chief—

Not the Commander-in-Chief—the colonels of the Guards.

said, whether it rested with the Commander-in-Chief, or with the commanding officers of the regiments of Guards, he hoped the right hon. Baronet would not find it impossible to remove from these orders this sort of stigma upon Ireland, which, looking to the antecedents and services of the Irish regiments and soldiers, he must say was wholly undeserved.

begged to inform the hon. and gallant Member that he had already in his absence given the House an assurance that he would do so.

said, that if the matter rested with the Secretary of State for War, the House might rest contented with the assurance he had given; but the right hon. Baronet had stated that the question did not come within his province. It was therefore essentially within the province of the House, and could be dealt with by the House, because they voted the money by which the Guards were maintained, and they ought to see that no invidious distinctions as to admission to the ranks of these privileged regiments should be kept up.

hoped the hon. Member for Kerry would not divide. The Secretary of State had said all he could be expected to say, and every one who knew his character and his antecedents in that House would place the most implicit confidence in the assurance he had given.

said, he was convinced that, notwithstanding the delicacy of his position, his right hon. Friend would have no difficulty in communicating what appeared to be the feeling of the House to the officers commanding the regiments of Guards. He could assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that nothing in these orders was intended to be offensive to Ireland; but there was a difficulty in obtaining the character of Irishmen casually recruited, because of the distance of their homes from the recruiting stations. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would not divide. The Report of the Recruiting Commission, which had just been laid on the table, recommended that no alteration should take place in the recruiting of the Guards. He hoped, however, that anything which was considered disrespectful to Ireland would be immediately withdrawn.

said, he would withdraw his Motion.

who had given notice to ask Questions with reference to the European Garrisons in Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, China, and Japan; and to make a Motion thereon, said, he had on a former occasion asked the Secretary for War, whether it was the intention of the Government to erect barracks for the troops at Point de Galle, when he received the reply that it was. Now, he thought it would not be difficult to show to anyone practically acquainted with the locality that that was a project which ought not to be entertained. The great desiderata in posting troops under such circumstances were their health and discipline; and these objects were to be gained by placing them in the healthiest parts of the country, and keeping them in as large bodies as possible—for distributing troops in small detachments over a country was most detrimental to their discipline. The system generally pursued in the East was exactly the opposite; it was to pick out the most unhealthy localities and distribute the troops in small detachments over those localities. This was notably so in Ceylon and the Straits Settlements. It was said to be the intention of the authorities to erect barracks at Point de Galle. In his opinion it was in the highest degree inexpedient to build barracks at Galle, as it was the most unhealthy station for troops in Ceylon. This could be proved by the health Returns, which showed a greater percentage of sick in hospital, and a higher death-rate than either in Colombo or Kandy. In the hill station of Newere Ellia, now used as a sanatorium for troops, there was a climate which long experience had proved to be as healthy as could be found in England. Newere Ellia would be soon easily accessible by a railway now in the course of construction. He held that it would be much better on every account to build the barracks there than at the place proposed by the Government. The hill station, where be had lived for many years, was very healthy; it was approached by good roads, and was within 100 miles of the sea. There was no strategical reason why the troops should be kept in the plain. He hoped to receive an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that the proposed new barracks at Galle would not be built, and that the troops would be located at the healthy hill station. At any rate, he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would assent to his proposition that the barracks at Galle should not be built until after the Report of the Select Committee upon the distribution of troops in India and the Colonies should have been received. He also hoped the Government would take the same course in regard to the new huts at Hong Kong, which he understood were about to be built at an expense of £20,000 upon a site the soil of which emitted a pestilential vapour. He also wished to be informed how long the 1,000 British troops in Japan were to remain there. These troops were quartered in barracks which had been built in the neighbourhood of Yokohama by the Japanese Government, who might expect that they were entitled to the services of these troops in quelling internal disturbances. We had no right whatever in the country, and he thought it undesirable that we should be mixed up in their internal affairs or be expected to assist the Government of the Shogoon because he had placed us under obligations to him. Again, our keeping troops in that country was an invitation to other Powers to set up military establishments in the island. It was therefore desirable that the right hon. Gentleman should give the House an assurance that our military force in Japan would soon be withdrawn. He trusted that the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman would be satisfactory; but in case of the assurances he asked for not being given, he should feel it to be his duty to divide the House upon the Motion of which he had given notice.

said, he had not the least hesitation in giving the assurance asked for by the hon. Member; for it would be absolutely impossible for any arrangement to be concluded with reference to the construction of barracks at Point de Galle within a much longer period than would be required for the production of the Report of the Committee. With respect to the situation of any barracks which might hereafter be constructed at that place the Government had come to no decision whatever as to the locality, as that was a point upon which the Government could not presume to have an opinion to be compared with that of the hon. Gentleman opposite, who had had such a long local experience. Negotiations were going on between the Colonial Office and the authorities in Ceylon. The barracks were to be constructed at the expense of the colony, and he could not suppose that the authorities would place the barracks on a low and unhealthy soil if they could obtain a high and healthy one, if such a one were procurable. With respect to Japan, he had no hesitation in saying, on the part of the Government, that there was no intention of making any permanent military occupation there. It was, however, intended to keep a regiment, or wing of a regiment, at Hong Kong. The expenses of these matters were, however, included in the Estimates, and could be more conveniently discussed when the items came before the House.

thought the question of the locality of barracks for British troops was too important to be left to the decision of colonists.

in rising to call attention to the Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the Administration of the Transport and Supply Departments of the Army, expressed his surprise and regret, after the appeal which had been made by the Secretary of State for War to the right hon. Member for Inverness-shire to postpone his Motion for a Committee of Inquiry on the War Department until the Report had been placed on the table, at not finding anything in the Report beyond a mere repetition of what had been inquired into year after year. The Committee had no sooner got into the inquiry than they found the War Department so disorganized and so unfitted to carry on the details which it had to deal with that they asked the Secretary of State to give them leave to inquire into the whole system of the War Office. It was at once found that the duties of the head officials so jarred that no head of a Department knew exactly what was expected of him, and the confusion extended down through all the subordinates. The Committee, therefore, soon made up their minds that the entire of the store and material of the service should be brought under one head. Then came the question how that head was to be represented whenever there was a General in the field or in garrison. They recommended that the several departments of commissariat, stores (excepting munitions of war), purveying, and Treasury accounts, &c., should be placed under one chief—the Chief Controller. Now, it might have struck any ordinary mind that up to this time the Chief Controller was the permanent Under Secretary for War. It appeared, however, that the various heads of Departments looked to the Secretary of State for War; and it was impossible that any one man in that position could master all the details. The question which the House had to consider was whether the proposition made by Lord Strathnairn's Committee would carry out what they wished. As far as the War Office was concerned, there could be no doubt that a Chief Controller, having charge of five departments, would relieve the Secretary for War of a great deal of daily work; but they had to consider how far such a system would lighten the Secretary's work as regarded that House. He would still be responsible to the House of Commons for all the expenditure in all the departments. As to the position of the Controller with regard to a General in the field or in garrison, Lord De Grey, in a letter which he addressed to the Treasury in 1864, proposed to make the Controller adviser to the General, the former to be responsible to the War Office, and not to the General. That appeared to have alarmed the Committee; for in every paragraph which they had written on the subject he found the statement that the Controller should always be under the orders of the General Officer. He must say that the Report was one which it was difficult to understand—it was not written with the clearness desirable in a Report of such importance. But he should have thought it was hardly necessary for the Committee to dwell on the point that the Controller should be subordinate to the General Officer. It was all very well to talk of a General Officer being responsible only for strategic movements; but would any General Officer who was worth anything allow any one in his army to move a little finger without his instructions or authority. Either in the field or in garrison the General Officer ought to be responsible for everything, and unless you made him so he would not be worth anything. A very important point was whether all the stores in the field ought to be amalgamated under one chief, or whether there ought to be a division. The Committee seemed to wish to make a distinction between ordinary stores and actual munition of war. He (Major Jervis) was of opinion that they might be blended, for while all the artillery stores in the field should be under the charge of the Ordnance Commissariat, it was essential that all stores having to be conveyed to a distance must be placed under the management of a Controller. On board a ship you could not have two systems of management. The person who shipped all the stores must be responsible for them all. This question of a Control Department was raised by Mr. Godley, of the War Office, in 1855, and Commissary General Fonblanque had written most ably on it some ten years ago. Yet during the last ten years there had been various Committees differently constituted, and yet things remained in confusion to the present time. He would instance the office of Director of the Ordnance. It had always been understood that he was responsible to the Secretary of State for all the Ordnance Department; but what was really the fact? We had large manufacturing departments in connection with that Department. Each of these had heads whose instructions were that they should consult the Director General on all questions which required a higher authority, but that they were to be responsible themselves to the Secretary of State for the manufactures in their department, the management of which was to be left entirely in their hands; so that we put an officer in a position of important trust, and then told him that he was not to interfere with anything. Lord Strathnairn recommended in his Report that there should be two officers of high position, one of whom should discharge the duties which now devolved on the Director of the Ordnance, in addition to the charge of the Ordnance Commissariat, while the other should be head of the Control Department. It would be very satisfactory to him if the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for War would state to the House whether it was his intention to carry out that recommendation—because it was impossible for the right hon. Baronet to superintend all these details himself. Indeed, he believed that the public had not the slightest idea of the multifarious duties which the Secretary for War had to perform. Some Secretaries, indeed, had broken down under them. No man in the public service was more zealous, for instance, than the late Lord Herbert, but he killed himself by overwork; and with regard to Sir George Lewis, if the amount of work did not actually kill him, he died from weakness occasioned by his excessive application and attention to the duties of his office. It had killed Sir Benjamin Hawes; it had killed Mr. Godley. He might also mention that the late Director of Ordnance had to rise at half past four in the morning to get through his papers and had to work until midnight. He understood the present permanent Under Secretary of State had to do the same. Now, that was an amount of work which no man in this country ought to be obliged to undergo. This Report of Lord Strathnairn only touched a small portion of the War Office work — namely, the stores, the purveyors in chief, the commissariat, and the barrack department. But, in addition to that, there was all the work connected with the army—the clothing, equipment, hospitals, the fortification branches, Chelsea Hospital, pensions, and many other matters. What he desired, therefore, to point out was that it was not simply necessary to reorganize the War Office, as far as the Office itself was concerned, but also that a revision of the War Office was required as regarded that House, which naturally expected that every item in the Army Estimates should have been carefully scru- tinized by some Member of the House responsible for the detail, and such a scrutiny could not be conducted by one person. Before the amalgamation of these departments they had about seven representatives in Parliaments who could go into all the details; but now the departments were united under one authority, who, if he could toil forty-eight hours instead of twenty-four in the course of the day, could not get through all the work. This Report merely simplified the working of the War Office by uniting five of the sections under one head, but it in no way lightened the duties of the representative of the War Department in that House. He thought the House should, before going into Committee of Supply, clearly understand what was the present position of affairs with regard not only to the reorganization of the various proposed sections under one head, but also what was the relative position of the Department with that House.

said, bethought that the House must cordially concur in many of the remarks of his hon. and gallant Friend. It was quite impossible that one person could manage the unwieldy business of the War Department. The present War Office was a compound of what was formerly the War Office and the old Ordnance Department. Now, although it used to be generally imagined that the old War Office was by far the most important of the two, such was not in reality the case, because the whole finance of the Army was under the control of the Ordnance Department; and he could assert from his own experience—having for a short time been connected with the latter—that the business of that Department used to be conducted in the simplest, the easiest, and the most efficient manner. He hoped a return would be made to a similar system. In treating of the re-organization of the Army, two things were likely to be confounded together—the organization in the field, and the organization in the Department at home. In the field, of course, everything ought to be under the control of the General in command. He thought such matters as the lodgment in tents and huts, the purveyor's, the commissariat, and the cash departments, ought to be under the control of an officer of high rank, attached to the head-quarters of the army, and always with the General Officer. That he believed was the system in vogue in the French army, and he could not conceive why it should not be carried out in every other. As to the manner of carrying out the arrangements, he might point out that there were in the Ordnance Office papers on the subject drawn up during the Peninsular War — reports from the Duke of Wellington and other officers of great eminence — which contained hints which might be found very useful under present circumstances. A Committee of that House was about the worst tribunal, except a Royal Commission, to carry out the object which the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. H. Baillie) had in view. It should be remembered that the present arrangements were hastily matured to meet an emergency; and there was no reason why there should not be a return to the system under which, through the exertions of Lord Hardinge, large additions of guns and materials were made for the Crimean war. He could see no reason why the Audit Department should not be swept away—he would put it at Somerset House. It was most undesirable that any department should audit its own accounts. In the manufacturing department, what need was there for the great mass of offices at head-quarters, and why need there be Inspectors of Contracts there? He hoped that in the course of a short time the right hon. Baronet would effect a re-organization, and thereby benefit the country both in efficiency and economy. There was no nation on earth that got so little for the money it spent.

said, the House was under obligation to the hon. Member (Major Jervis) who had opened the discussion, but the subject was too large for debate at that time. He had once introduced it in moving for a Committee on the Organization of the Army; and the Report of the Committee, of which Lord Herbert and Sir James Graham were Members, had effected some beneficial reforms in the administration of the War Department. No Department had been so unfortunate, for it was reorganized at a time of great difficulty, when we were carrying on a great war, when our military resources were taxed to the utmost, and when our existing administration had completely broke down. Since its formation it had had difficulties to contend with which no other Department of the State ever had, and it was not now so much a matter of suprise to find it in a state of confusion, perhaps greater than those who had not gone into the details bad any idea of. If the War Office were put into a proper system, there would be no difficulty in its administration: and he looked with confidence to the great administrative ability of the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of State for War to correct the confusion that now existed. He looked also to the Report of Lord Strathnairn's Committee as one step towards a colossal reform of the Administrative Departments. There were five Departments that were to be consolidated and put under a Controller, who would look to their proper administration, and with whom alone the Secretary of State for War would have occasion to communicate. This recommendation to some extent followed the French system; but that was not always perfect. General Trochu, in his recently published work, complained that owing to bad administration the French troops suffered privations in the plains of Lombardy; and he said that while he wept over the misfortunes of the English army in the first year of the Crimean war, which were to be attributed mainly to our ignorance of active service, he found that experience improved our system until it became superior to that of the French, who suffered more than our soldiers did in the second and third years of the war. Although the Report of Lord Strathnairn's Committee fell short of what was required, it would lead to the introduction of much needed reforms, and would not only improve the army, but go far to produce order where disorder prevailed. He would not then enter into the general question of the re-organization of the army; but he hoped the Secretary for War would apply his attention to that subject. He hoped that before long the right hon. Gentleman would be able to improve upon the Report, and that he would be able to devise a scheme by which the evils now existing might be swept away.

said, that while highly approving of the Report to which reference had been made, there were some details of it in which he could not concur. The radical difficulty to be encountered was the complication which existed at the War Department. That was so great that if we went to war to-morrow we should find things as bad as they were when we went to the Crimea—if not indeed worse. A book of Regulations for the Supply of an Army in the Field, issued by authority as a manual for the guidance of officers, stated that an English corps d'armée would have 16,010 combatants, and the transport required for them was 10,371 animals, and 5,390 officers and men of transport corps. A Prussian corps d'armée consisted of 36,317 combatants, and its transport was 4,278 horses, and 3,201 officers and men. In plain English the Prussians had less than half the transport for more than double the number of combatants. Such a statement in a handbook showed the necessity of some reform at head-quarters. The Report which had been presented proposed to give all control to one chief officer, to be denominated the Controller, and to divide the transport department into two — one for ordnance stores, and the second for all other articles—stores, clothing, medicine, and what the French called munitions de bouche. The Report, again, recommended the separation of naval from military stores; suggesting that the navy should supply itself from its own arsenals, without taxing the military arsenals. The practice of charging all the maritime transport connected with the army in the Navy Estimates had long appeared to him the most extraordinary jumble of accounts—the expenditure really belonged entirely to the army. But a more extraordinary thing, still, was the system of audit, under which an official paid money with his right hand and audited it with his left. Not a single voucher was examined or checked; and anybody who knew anything of accounts or public companies must know that this was no audit at all. A good practical illustration of the working of the system fell under his own notice some years ago. Extensive barracks were ordered to be painted, four years earlier, as it was reported to him, than the average period when such works were necessary. After the usual difficulty in discovering the proper official from whom to make inquiries, he ascertained that the order had been given because a Vote of money having been taken for the purpose, it would complicate the accounts to pay it back again. Had there been any officer to control the expenditure he would cheerfully have received back the money, and applied it to some other purpose. The proposal now before the country was a step in the right direction, and the right hon. Baronet, he trusted, would be able to afford some hopes that it would be carried into effect.

said, his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir Charles Russell) might have accurately stated the nature of the transport of arrangements for a Prussian corps d'armée, but those could hardly be sufficient where operations were carried on at a considerable distance from their base. If, for instance, a ship were loaded with stores for some distant service, the stores should be put on board under the charge of one person, and received at their destination. The right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for War, he trusted, would carefully consider before accepting the recommendations of the Committee that Ordnance stores should be separated from the other stores. There had been trouble enough about these things during the Crimean War, and unity of control in the matter of stores he looked upon as absolutely essential. It was likewise indispensable that Transport Corps and all military bodies should be treated like other soldiers, and placed under the same military control. It was not likely that command would ever devolve upon an officer belonging to the Transport Corps; but a rule could hardly be laid down that if a senior officer of that service were staying where there was only a subaltern of infantry or cavalry, he should not do the duty. As to the Controller not being under the order of the Commander-in-Chief, that arrangement might hold good at home when the Secretary of State for War was enabled to have communication every day with the Horse Guards, if necessary; but when the army went abroad for service the officer in command represented not merely the Commander-in-Chief but also the Secretary of State for War, and, consequently, the Controller was as much under his orders as any officer in the service. An error which was very prevalent seemed to have found its way into the minds of some of the Members of the Committee by whom this Report was drawn. The Controller was not to be in; communication, as it was called, with the Military Secretary, the Quartermaster, or the Adjutant General, but was to take his orders personally from the Commander-in- Chief. Every military Member in the House, however, must know that orders from the Commander-in-Chief were never given in person, and could only be received through one or other of these staff officers, who were the hands of the Commander-in-Chief. The Military Secretary had cognizance of all matters relating to finance, the Adjutant General of all matters connected with discipline, and the Quartermaster General of all matters connected with the quartering of troops. These three officers conducted the whole of the correspondence emanating from the Commander - in - Chief's department; and it would be ridiculous and preposterous, as well as dangerous to the efficiency of the service, if the Controller were to receive his orders other than through the ordinary channels just as the commander of a corps d'armée received them.

said, the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for War, who entered on the duties of his office with the confidence of Members on both sides of the House, had the opportunity of conferring greater benefits on the army than almost anybody else; and he trusted he would not fail to apply to the question of army reform that capacity for administration which he had shown in other Departments. It was unfortunately too true that if war were to break out suddenly in Europe, or attempts were made at invasion, we should not be prepared. A dozen years ago a French officer did come to this country, formed a plan for an attack upon England, which he communicated to foreign Governments. He described the; points which could be most easily assailed, and the means of communication existing with different parts of the coast, laying particular stress on the mistake which had been made in our break of gauge upon the railways. Our army always fought well and was generally victorious, but at an enormous expenditure of life and money; and the cause, he believed, was to be attributed to the system. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would endeavour to obtain the same efficiency at less expense. We wanted the means of immediately commencing effective operations which other nations possess. A French General had nothing to do but to fight his troops—an English General would have to see to everything in addition to what should be his sole duty. Some years ago, when riding on the Plains of Chalons with General Canrobert, he remembered asking him what he should do if a telegram came to apprise him that France was going to war with Germany. He said he should do nothing but continue the march upon which the column was engaged at that moment; everything in camp was in readiness for immediate departure; he should send for his Intendant General, telling him the places at which he required to halt on successive nights, and desire him to have everything prepared for the soldiers when they arrived. "In your country," said General Canrobert, "you do not understand marches of that description. You have got the best soldiers in the world, but your organization is not to be compared to ours. I should have nothing to do but think how to fight the enemy. Your General would have not only to fight the enemy, but to consider how best to take care of his troops." The late Mr. Hume said that the House of Commons would always vote money for the army and navy if they were convinced that it would be well expended; but they objected to the money being spent upon the civil part of the service, instead of for the benefit of the soldiers. There were many points of our service in which, as compared with the French service, we showed a lamentable want of attention to economy. Every soldier in the French army was taught a trade, and why should not our soldiers have that which would be preferable to a pension—instruction in a trade which would contribute to their amusement and benefit while in the service, and by means of which they could earn their living when the period of service should expire. He believed that the task which the right hon. Gentleman had to perform in the reorganization of our army was one which only demanded deliberation and consultation with those who were able to advise him, and that the British army might then be made perfectly efficient without further expenditure of money.

said, he did not think that until they had heard the answer of the Government to the observations of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Harwich they were in a position to enter upon the discussion of the Report; and under any circumstances it was impossible to suppose that this could be the final discussion of a subject so important. Hon. Members might have had time to read the Report of the Committee, but probably few among them had had time to read the whole of the Evidence and the Memoranda attached to it, both of which he thought were of extraordinary interest. The proposals of the Committee had justly been described as little short of revolutionary, and it was hardly possible that the Government could yet have come to any definite resolution respecting them. There were one or two points to which he should like to call attention. He wished, in the first place, that the right hon. Gentleman would explain a point which appeared at present to be somewhat ambi- guous, and that was how far the Government were pledged by the right hon. Gentleman (General Peel), his predecessor in office, to an approval of the principles contained in the Report. In a letter dated September 27, 1866, Sir Edward Lugard expressed on the part of the right hon. Gentleman (General Peel) approval of the general principles recommended by the Committee in their preliminary Report, But he (the Marquess of Hartington) was unable to find from the blue book what that preliminary Report was. It was true there was a series of opinions upon points submitted to them; but these could not be the preliminary Report referred to in the letter. It was useless to criticize the Report until they knew what course the Government would take respecting it. The Committee was a very able one, and well qualified to give an opinion upon transport and supply; but it could hardly carry with it the confidence of the army or the country when it extended its labours so vastly as it had. He did not wish to show the least disrespect to Lord Strathnairn, or any of the officers composing the Committee; but it should be remembered that the Committee which prepared this preliminary Report was a purely military one, with the exception of Sir William Power, the Commissary General; and when great questions like these were to be considered, it was not possible that a Committee so composed should carry with it the full confidence either of the army or of Parliament. As to the single civilian, Sir William Power, no one had a higher opinion of his ability; but Sir William Power had for a considerable time formed very definite views upon this very subject, and had drawn up, he believed, the greater part of this very Report. In general it was a very able Report; but under the circumstances it was not wise to adopt without grave considerations the recommendations of such a Committee. He fully approved the suggestion of the Committee that the supply departments should to some extent be amalgamated and placed under some department of control — and indeed the previous Government had formed some plan of the kind. In moving the Army Estimates last year he informed the House that a proposal of a similar kind, though a much more limited one, was made to the Treasury by his predecessor at the War Office, Earl De Grey, and the correspondence upon that subject would be found in the Appendix to the Report of this Committee. That proposal involved nothing revolutionary, but the principle that in each military station and district the supply departments should be brought to a focus under an officer called the Controller, Intendant, or what you like. To a certain extent, therefore, he concurred in the suggestion that some change of this sort should be made. The Committee proposed to intrust to the Chief Controller duties which, in his opinion, it was impossible for one man adequately to supervise; but even if it were possible, he did not at all see the necessity of making so great a change in the organization of the departments themselves. Any one who had read the Report of the Committee with attention would see that in the supply departments of the army they had hardly left one stone upon another. The military store department was to be broken up, the surveyor's department was to be broken up, the barrack department to be entirely done away, and the duties of these departments to be divided among various persons. Now, he did not mean to say that the departments were formed at present in the best possible way; but such great and fundamental changes as were recommended by the Committee could scarcely be needed, and must produce much inconvenience for a considerable time. There was one part of the Report which did not seem quite clear—namely, where the Committee referred to the Accountant's branch. As far as he could make out, the whole of the Accountant General's branch, as well as all the supply department, was to be placed under the direction of the Chief Controller, and if that were so he had no hesitation in saying that the duties proposed to be intrusted to that officer were very much greater than he could possibly superintend. With regard to the formation of a new Ordnance Department, he quite concurred in what had been said by the hon. and gallant Member for Harwich (Major Jervis). As far as he could make out, this new Ordnance Department, to be composed, as he understood, of artillery officers and noncommissioned officers, would be entirely independent of any civil control whatever; and knowing as he did the difficulty there was of keeping the expenses of the department within bounds without civil control, he could not discover what means the Committee had recommended for preserving the control of the Secretary of State over the Department and check- ing unnecessary expenditure. On these two points, then—namely, the arrangements of the Controller's Department and the arrangements of the Ordnance Department—further explanation was needed. And now a word as to the way in which the Committee recommended that their new system should be introduced. In that part of the Report which dealt with this point, the Committee appeared to him to begin entirely at the wrong end. They urged very strongly, if the proposals were to be adopted, that no time should be lost in the appointment of a Chief Controller. In his opinion, however, it was extremely dangerous, when the supply department had been got into proper order, to supersede the heads of the different branches by intrusting the duties to one gentleman who could not possibly be acquainted with the work. If changes were to be made it seemed to him that the plan proposed by Earl De Grey in his letter to the Treasury was the right one—that the new system should be introduced gradually, station by station, and district by district. It would be a most dangerous experiment to supersede at once, without further preparation except the appointment of a Chief Controller, the heads of the existing departments. He did not know what answer the right hon. Baronet was about to give to the hon. and gallant Member for Harwich, but he would do well if before making the changes which he was urged to make in the War Department he would refer the most valuable materials contained in the blue book to—he would not say more able men, for he did not know that more able men could be obtained—but to men whose report would carry with it more of the confidence of the House of Commons.

considered it was strange that the army of a country whose manufactures were never equalled, whose ships could sail against any ships in the world, and who could successfully compete at farming with any nation on the earth, should cost more, man for man, than the army of any other country, and that they should be always in trouble respecting it. He apprehended that it was owing to the fact that the men who had the management of the affairs of the army were not men of business. They had had Committee after Committee of Inquiry into its organization and management, but no men of business to conduct it. The right hon. Gentleman at present at the head of the War Department possessed good administrative ability, and he trusted he would give his attention to putting the machinery of the army into better condition, making it at once more efficient and less expensive.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Why the duties of inspecting Artillery Volunteers are thrown upon the Field Officers of the Royal Artillery in addition to their own special duties, and why Assistant Inspectors of Volunteer Artillery are not specially appointed to perform the duties as in the case of Rifle Volunteers? He did not wish to give any opinion as to which of the two systems of inspection referred to in his Question was the better, but was simply desirous of ascertaining why one system was applied to one portion of the Volunteer force, and to another portion of it a system entirely different. If the objection were made to the appointment of Volunteer Artillery Inspectors that they would be more expensive than the performance of the same duties by Field Officers of Artillery the remark would be equally applicable to the system of the Rifle Volunteers.

said, his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Harwich (Major Jervis) had brought this subject forward in a very clear and able manner, and of nothing that had been said on either side of the House had he the slightest right to complain:—on the contrary, he had to thank all those who had taken part in this discussion for the tone in which it had been conducted. He was glad to hear from the noble Lord opposite (the Marquess of Hartington), who had himself held the office which he now had the honour to fill, that in his judgment it would be rash if he (Sir John Pakington), having held his present office for such a short time, were at once to come down to the House and give an opinion as to the proper mode of carrying out the recommendations of this important Report. There was one Question which was asked by an hon. and gallant Friend behind him which he had no difficulty in answering at once. He asked whether this blue book was to follow the fate of so many others, whether it was to be laid upon the shelf, and that nothing was to be done with it? He had no hesitation in answering that Question distinctly and decidedly in the negative. Considering the importance of the question with which the Report dealt, and the intricate and difficult points that it raised, it seemed to him that if there was one duty more incumbent on him than another it was to give this Report his most serious consideration, and carefully and deliberately to consider what part of it should be acted upon. But time was required for such deliberation. His hon. and gallant Friend (Major Jervis) had given a description—as far as he could see, by no means an exaggerated description—of the onerous duties of his office. At the same time, the noble Lord opposite had dwelt at great length on the important and difficult questions which the Report embraced. It would therefore, he thought, be great presumption in him, having held the office of Secretary for War for only two months, and with those incessant calls upon his time to which his hon. and gallant Friend had referred, if he were to come down to the House and state at once the course he intended to take in reference to the Committee's recommendations. If he were to do that he could only adopt one of two courses—he must either come down to the House and state as his own views the views of some other person, or else he must state views which he had so hastily and presumptuously formed, as to entitle them to no weight. Now he did not wish to lay himself open to censure on either of these grounds; and neither on this nor on any other subject would he offer any opinion except that which he might have deliberately and conscientiously formed. The noble Lord (the Marquess of Hartington) suggested the reference of this Report to a Committee. He could not yet say whether he was prepared to take that course. What he had done was to refer the Report to the consideration of the various heads of departments in the War Office, Many of them were deeply interested in the recommendations of the Report; the offices of several of them would be materially affected by it; and he thought it just and right to them that they should have an opportunity of examining it. When he was in possession of their views he would be able to consider deliberately and conscientiously how far he was able, with such advice and assistance as was at his command, to prepare a plan which he could submit to the House. When he had thus fully made up his mind on the subject it would then be time enough to consider how far it might be wise to remit the whole subject either to a Committee, as the noble Lord suggested, or to a Commission carefully formed. It was true, as various speakers had suggested, that there had already been several Committees on the subject. There was the Committee presided over by Sir James Graham; then there was what was called the Departmental Committee; and another Committee had sat within the last few years. Still the subject was so important that he did not know it might not be wise to have another Committee. The importance of a proper organization of the War Department could not be exaggerated. The inconvenience arising from the want of system was so great that changes were compelled to be made even while the Crimean war was raging; and the hon. and gallant General (General Dunne) behind them thought that most of these changes were bad. It was not to be denied that the changes had been made in great haste, and he thought the time had now come for a deliberate and careful consideration of the whole question. He hoped the House would consider that he had given good and substantial grounds in justification of the course he proposed to take. With regard to the Question of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Aytoun) the matter to which he referred was purely one of arrangement. He asked why there were not special Volunteer Artillery Inspectors as well as Rifle Volunteer Inspectors. His answer was that the Inspecting Officers of the Royal Artillery were quite competent to undertake the duty; they were very glad to do it, and why should the country be put to expense for doing that which these competent officers were both ready and willing to do?

asked whether the preliminary Report to which the right hon. and gallant Member for Huntingdon (General Peel) had referred when he was at the War Office would be produced?

must apologise to the noble Lord for having inadvertently passed over the Question which he had put in the course of his speech. The Question was whether anything that had been intended to be done by the right hon. and gallant Member for Huntingdon when he was in office would preclude Her Majesty's present Government from perfect freedom of action in dealing with the Report? To that Question he would give the most decided answer that he was entirely free to adopt those means that might most commend themselves to his judgment. With regard to the preliminary Report, he did not know to what it referred. He rather suspected that it referred to some Report that had not been presented. The Commissioners first agreed to a Report which was afterwards re-considered; after that they brought up the Report which was now on the table. He suspected that that re-considered Report was the Report to which the noble Marquess referred.

said, there was a peculiarity about this Vote to which he wished to call the attention of the Committee. He had gone back on the Estimates for the last five years, and had found there was a systematic increase in the Manufacturing Departments. Thus in 1863–4 the Vote for the Manufacturing Departments was £956,365; the next year it was £973,031; the next £972,900; last year it was £1,105,800; and this year it was £1,162,052. This was the more remarkable as the Vote for Warlike Stores had decreased from £836,000 in 1863–4 to £393,000 this year. He should have supposed that as the Warlike Stores decreased the Manufacturing Departments would decrease also, the labour being diminished, for the materials to be worked up were diminished; instead of which there had been a regular increase.

thought that the term which his hon. and gallant Friend had used was an exceedingly appropriate one; but his hon. and gallant Friend would see that the "gradual and systematic increase" in the expenditure under this Vote was attributable to the "gradual and systematic increase" in the size of all our munitions of war. Nothing would prove this more clearly than the weight of the guns at present being manufactured at Woolwich Arsenal. At present guns were manufactured at Woolwich weighing twenty-three tons, whereas at the former period there was nothing known beyond guns of 95 cwt.

remarked that the cost of the Warlike Stores out of which these guns were manufactured had actually decreased, implying a decrease in quantities, so that the excess over former years would probably be due to some other cause than the one stated by his right hon. Friend.

said, he wished to ask a question in reference to the conversion of small arms into breech-loaders. The late Secretary of State for War wisely undertook the conversion of the Enfield rifles into breech-loaders. That conversion had been most successful; the difficulties which at first threatened to render the converted arms inefficient had been overcome, and at the close of the financial year 350,000 rifles had been thus converted. As far as he had heard, the difficulties with regard to the ammunition which had led to the fear that the conversion would be a failure had been overcome, and he believed that the converted Enfield was considerably better than the arm in its original condition. He wished therefore to ask what the Government proposed to do in reference to the Volunteer Corps? Of course, the Government were, in the first place, supplying the army with the improved weapon; they would next attend to the wants of the militia; but there was a natural wish on the part of the Volunteers to be also supplied with the superior arm as soon as a sufficient number had been converted. They had expressed a wish that the Queen's prizes should be shot for with the converted rifle; and they had a strong desire to know what was the probability of their being supplied with the superior arm at an early period, say, in a few years? Personally, he thought it would be better, inasmuch as a Committee had been appointed to determine the best breech-loader for the British army, that their Report should be waited for. Still, however, knowing how much the Volunteer force owed its continuance to the spirit of competition which existed, and how necessary to that spirit it was that its members should be furnished with the best weapon, the question was one which he thought deserved every consideration.

said, that from no one could the remarks that had been made more properly come than from the noble Lord. The conversion of the Enfields was being rapidly proceeded with, but there was still much to do. The colonies had pressed to be supplied with the converted weapons, and their request had been acceded to; and India would also have to be supplied. He hoped, however, that the Government, and that at no distant period, would be able to attend to the requirements of the Volunteers.

in rising to advocate the grievances of the officers in the Military Store Department, said, it was not for him to inquire into the reasons why the Treasury refused to sanction a measure which the War Office deemed essential to the well-being of the army. The officers of the Military Store Department were anxious that their claims should be fairly considered, and their position determined before their relative rank was affected by the amalgamation which had been recommended should take place; otherwise their position in point of rank would be depreciated. It might be said that the duties of these officers were not so important as those of the Commissariats; but, as they had charge of all the improved weapons and arms of the service, and as their duties required great training, their position ought to be at least equal to that of the Commissariat. Consequently, any invidious distinctions by which the officers of one branch were placed in an inferior position to that of another were not calculated to improve the efficiency of the service. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War would give him some assurance that the claims of these officers would be considered prior to any proposed amalgamation with any other Department. He believed that the measure proposed by the noble Marquess the late Secretary for War, but not carried out owing to the opposition of the Treasury, was quite satisfactory to these officers.

said, there was a difference between the two classes of officers quite evident to those acquainted with military matters. One class was military; the other civil. He knew that the feeling of the Storekeepers was that they had been unfairly treated, and he hoped that their case would be taken into consideration.

said, that since he had been at the War Office the complaints of the officers of the Military Store Department had come under his notice, and he could assure the hon. Gentleman that he should be sorry to inflict upon them any injury or hardship. It was true that the noble Lord (the Marquess of Hartington) had, shortly before he retired from office, prepared a scheme to meet the alleged grievances under which they laboured. It was, however, scarcely matured before the noble Marquess left office, and the Treasury declined to accede to the plan on the ground that the Report of Lord Strathnairn's Committee was then expected, and that it must necessarily refer to the position and claims of the Military Store officers. That Committee had made its Report. He was afraid it was impossible for him to promise to reverse the recommendation of that Committee until it was finally decided what course was to be taken thereupon. He would, however, undertake — and he thought that with this promise the hon. Gentleman ought to be content—that these officers should not be placed in a worse position on account of the delay.

said, he doubted whether these officers could be in a worse position than they were at present, so that the promise of the right hon. Gentleman was not likely to carry much consolation to them. What those gentlemen wanted was some assurance that they would not be amalgamated in such a way as they had been by that scheme. They required to be put relatively in the same rank as the officers of the Commissariat.

said, the hon. Member stated that these gentlemen could not be put in a worse position than they now were, and yet that they would be put in a worse position in consequence of the Report of Lord Strathnairn's Committee. It was not very easy to reconcile those two assertions. However, he could not undertake then to predetermine what course might be adopted in consequence of that Report; but the position, or the grievances, of these officers would be fairly considered before they were amalgamated.

in reference to the item of £10,194 for Wages of Masters and Crews of Store Vessels, inquired what sort of vessels they were and where situated?

explained that they were employed in carrying stores along the coast.

said, that he could assure the hon. Member, from his own experience—as he lived in the neighbourhood of Chatham — that those vessels were very usefully employed, and that their crews well deserved the wages they were paid.

said, there was an item in this Vote for the manufacture of iron ordnance. They heard a great deal about the manufacture of large guns and the different systems of rifling. They had the Woolwich gun, the Palliser gun, the Armstrong, and the Whitworth. There was another system of rifling called the Lancaster system. He had himself called attention to that system of rifling for small arms, and it was reported upon by a Committee of officers appointed for the purpose as being superior to the system which was in force. For some years, however, the Government went on manufacturing the other description of rifle, which had been declared inferior in shooting qualities, because had they adopted the Lancaster system they would have had to pay Mr. Lancaster a royalty of 1s. on every barrel they made on his principle. The result was that they saved that 1s. on every barrel, but they got a very inferior weapon for the army, the militia, and the Volunteers. That was a short-sighted policy as far as the efficient equipment of the service was concerned, and it also discouraged invention. The late Secretary of State for War (General Peel) had settled the claim of Mr. Lancaster, and had secured the benefit of the invention to the service, by paying him £4,000, which previous Governments had refused to do. But the Lancaster system of rifling was held by many eminent mechanics to be the best not only for small arms, but for large guns, combining as it did great durability with great accuracy. They also required to have a projectile that was composed of one metal, and not of two. The Armstrong projectile was composed of two metals, the one hard and the other soft, which it was found, especially in hot climates, to render it liable to injury from galvanic action, so that in the rough wear and tear of service the lead became loosened from the iron. The projectile fired from the Woolwich gun was likewise open to the objection of being made of two metals instead of one. Both the Whitworth and the Lancaster systems had the advantage of being both free from this objection, their projectiles entirely dispensing with a soft coating to the iron of which they were composed. It might be objected that the Lancaster guns in the Crimea frequently burst, owing to the projectile jamming; but this was a defect that had been re- medied, and he believed that with the new projectile the Lancaster system was found to answer admirably well. There was a gun rifled on the Lancaster system now in the Woolwich Arsenal, having a remarkable history attached to it. It was one of six guns which had been tried; the five were found wanting, and the one only stood the test the whole were subjected to; it was a cast-iron gun, yet it had fired 2,000 rounds with wrought-iron projectiles and remained sound. Many thought from this and other circumstances that the Lancaster gun would supply the much desired want of a large gun which would accurately fire a projectile made of one metal only; he commended this opinion to the Secretary for War, and informed him that the late Secretary (General Peel) had said he had ordered a large gun to be made upon the Lancaster principle, and hoped to have it tested in the course of the winter; he desired also to know whether that gun had been tried?

inquired whether the six guns referred to by the noble Lord had all been tested by charges of the same description?

said, he was not able to answer the QUESTION.

thanked the noble Lord for his observations in reference to the Lancaster gun, which had so many admirable qualities; but he regretted that it was now "too late." Having interested himself in this invention because of its worth, he had found in the course of his inquiries that Mr. Lancaster was dying "worn out and used up," as he had said, from fruitless efforts to procure proper acknowledgment of the worth of his gun; but still ready to be of use if opportunity was given him. This deplorable result had arisen from the fact that the War Office was indisposed to pay the extra cost of 1s. a rifle which the Lancaster gun entailed; or at least some such parsimonious conduct as this had deprived the country of the use of a most admirable gun.

stated, that although the Committee of 1864 had resolved to try Mr. Lancaster's gun, another Committee decided that the army should be supplied with breech-loaders—so that no rifles were made on Mr. Lancaster's principle; it should not be forgotten, however, that Mr. Lancaster had been paid £4,000. He had not the slightest doubt that the Committee of 1864 were right, that the Lancaster gun was the best, and that it would be adopted.

said, it must be admitted that since the Committee of 1864 reported a large number of rifles had been made upon the Enfield system, which the Committee had condemned. He desired to mention another matter which deserved attention, because it had the effect of deterring competitors from coming forward. It had been found that when gentlemen had sent in the result of their brains, other gentlemen had picked their brains, and that the officers and members of the Testing Committees had taken advantage of the plans sent in, and had constructed the Woolwich gun, and the probability was that they had patented that invention. He was glad that the late Secretary for War (General Peel) had put a stop to this most improper practice, whereby officers receiving allowances from the public purse to perform a public duty had devised patchwork guns and patented them in the hope of private gain. He urged the present Secretary to look into these matters himself; he had heard that rifle trials had been carried on to such an extent that those competing had been reduced to eight, and he felt sure that if those trials were continued with judgment we should soon have the best arm in the world.

said, the gun referred to had been made, but it had not been rifled, owing to press of work; it was ready for rifling, however, and he thought it should be rifled as soon as possible. His noble Friend need be under no fear that the War Office would lack competitors, as manufacturers had recently sent in upwards of ninety small arms; these were being carefully considered, and all praise was due to the gentlemen who had courage enough to superintend the firing off of some of them.

was ready to admit that some delay had occurred in adopting the recommendations of the Select Committee in favour of Mr. Lancaster's gun; but at the time his invention was occupying the War Office it was not a question of emergency, or his gun would certainly have been adopted. At the same time, its superiority over the Enfield was found to be very small. When his noble Friend (Lord Elcho) brought forward the matter two years ago many were in favour of adopting the small-bore Enfield, and before a settlement was come to the breech-loader was competing for public favour. And during this unsettled period, ranging over the last two or three years, he believed there had hardly been a single bore of the old pattern Enfield rifle manufactured. No one could regret move than himself that Mr. Lancaster had suffered in health by the anxiety and trouble he had undergone in connection with his invention; but the hon. and gallant Member for Berkshire (Sir Charles Russell), when he said that the War Department had almost killed Mr. Lancaster, ought to have brought forward some evidence in support of that statement. The hon. Member referred to the £4,000 granted to Mr. Lancaster by the late Secretary for War; but a considerable time previously a sum of money was offered to Mr. Lancaster, and refused by that gentleman.

thought that the principle adopted with respect to competition in the matter of small arms was the right one. The War Department said that everybody might bring in a gun for experiment, and laid down rules so simple and clear that they were willing to allow any one whom the competitors themselves chose to decide on the excellence of the arms. Therefore he had proposed that the Committee appointed for the purpose should be perfectly independent of the War Department, and, in conformity with a suggestion of the noble Lord opposite (Lord Elcho), the National Rifle Association was represented on the Committee by Earl Spencer, who had been most assiduous in the discharge of his duties. He believed that by far the cheapest and surest way of obtaining the best rifle was to offer a reward to any person in the world who could produce the most excellent weapon.

disclaimed any intention of blaming the noble Lord the Member for North Lancashire in mentioning the case of Mr. Lancaster; but he only hoped that after the remedy applied by the late Secretary for War, in the shape of £4,000, the dying man would be completely revived.

said, he had reason to believe that his statement with reference to the number of small arms that had been manufactured since 1864 was correct; but if he found on inquiry that it was incorrect he should have pleasure in correcting that statement, and apologising for having done so. The gunmakers and others had informed him that the greatest satisfaction prevailed amongst them in consequence of the instructions given by the late Secre- tary of State for War, that no member of the Ordnance Select Committee should patent inventions. They had also now an independent Small Arms Committee, which gave great satisfaction to the trade, instead of a Committee consisting of artillery officers. He quite confirmed the noble Lord's statements respecting Earl Spencer, who was performing his duties right well. He begged to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether he intended to adhere to the resolution come to by his predecessor on the subject of patenting inventions by officers?

said, he had not come to any decision upon it as yet.

said, that he had intended to call attention to a subject of considerable importance—namely, the expediency of granting a practical trial to the Whitworth system; but in consequence of the Secretary of State for War having lately laid on the table of the House the correspondence which had taken place between Mr. Whitworth and the War Department and the Admiralty, which had not yet been printed, he thought it would be more convenient not to raise his intended discussion upon the merits of Mr. Whitworth's system that evening, but wait until such time as the correspondence was in the hands of Members. The invention might turn out an entire failure; but before he left office the system had so far proved to be founded on a sound principle that the late Government decided that Mr. Whitworth's system was deserving of a practical trial on board ship and on fortifications alongside of the Armstrongs. It appeared, however, that the present Government had come to the conclusion that in consequence of the inferiority of the system no steps should be taken to introduce it into the service. It was a subject well deserving the attention of the Committee. The noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho), who spoke of a large gun on the Lancaster plan, seemed to forget that at a trial of large guns rifled on different principles the Lancaster gun was reported against. Under these circumstances, he thought it rather objectionable that the late Secretary for War should have ordered a large gun from Mr. Lancaster.

said, he had ordered the gun to be manufactured on the recommendation of the Ordnance Committee.

hoped the Committee would not then enter into a discussion of the merits of the Whitworth system; but in justice to Mr. Whitworth, wait until the correspondence he had laid on the table had been printed and circulated. It was far from his mind to disparage the high merits of Mr. Whitworth, for whom personally he entertained the highest respect.

asked the Secretary of State for War to give an answer to the Question put by the noble Lord (Lord Elcho), without there were public reasons for declining to do so—namely, whether he intended to continue to permit officers employed in Public Departments to take out patents. There could be no doubt that such a practice deterred skilful scientific men from forwarding their inventions to the Government.

said, he was not then prepared to state that he condemned the system. There was a great deal to be said on both sides. He would give the subject his best attention and consideration, with a view to shortly come to a decision upon it. He, however, very much doubted whether it was wise or politic to depress the energies of clever men engaged in the public service—especially considering the right of the Crown to override all patents. The prospect of obtaining a patent was no doubt a great stimulus to inventive genius.

said, that his rule applied only to the Members of the Ordnance Select Committee. The objection to officers generally taking out patents originated with the Admiralty, and not with the War Office.

entirely agreed with his right hon. and gallant Friend that Members of the Ordnance Select Committee should not be allowed to take out patents. They bad to act in a judicial capacity.

thought it would be most improper to allow members of the Ordnance Select Committee to take out patents. No employer of labour could ever carry on his business if the heads of departments were allowed to avail themselves of the improvements that were constantly being made, take out patents for them, and make other inventions subordinate to their own. Officers had the opportunity of carrying out experiments at the public expense, putting prominently forward whatever they approved, and discouraging all other inventions. It was therefore mani- festly unjust that they should be allowed such advantages in competing with independent inventors.

hoped some explanation would be given of an Estimate on page 81, amounting to a sum of £63,000 for billiard-rooms. It was true that only £3,000 was required for the present year, and £60,000 was left for future years to complete the Vote. Now, the Committee must feel that this was a very large sum for billiard-rooms. This was in addition to a considerable sum for reading and recreation rooms.

said, this item had been entered on the Estimates by his right hon. and gallant Friend (General Peel), and he (Sir John Pakington) was ready to support it. He thought it most desirable that officers' quarters in different parts of the country should at least have the same means of indulgence which had been given very largely to soldiers in the shape of reading and recreation rooms, and with great advantage to the service. In the Department with which he was formerly connected—the navy—the plan had been for some time in operation. The Royal Marines had a billiard-room provided for them; and it was not proposed to do more for the army.

said, he had found that both at Sandhurst and at Woolwich billiard-rooms were found, and he thought that young officers on joining their regiments ought not to be deprived of similar opportunities of amusement.

understood that the Vote referred to billiard-rooms, not tables.

thought this a very large sum to be spent on billiard-rooms; and it was not creditable to the House to encourage gambling in any shape. ["Oh, oh!"] Those who knew anything of the world must be well aware that the fact was so. The Legislature ought to set their face against anything of the sort.

said, he could testify to the beneficent results of such a Vote as this. All the State did was to find the billiard-room—the officers found their own tables. Gambling was prevented by having such amusements provided within the barracks where the officers played among themselves and associated with those who could keep them in good behaviour. It was outside that young men got into bad company.

said, he wished to call the attention of the Government to a circumstance connected with the pay of civil officers in the Royal Engineers department. Previously to 1858 those officers were not compellable to serve abroad in unhealthy climates; but since that time they had been compelled to serve on foreign stations. But, unlike all other officers in the same position, if they died on foreign service their widows received no pension, and that was a great hardship, which was increased by the fact that if such an officer insured his life he vitiated his policy of insurance by going abroad, and then if he died his widow got nothing.

said, he believed the matter referred to by the hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. P. Wykeham Martin) was under the consideration of the authorities.

wished to know to what part of the world the £60,000 of billiard-tables were to be sent?

said, that the £60,000 was for billiard-rooms, not for billiard-tables.

thought that considerable reduction might be effected in the Vote of £3,193,278 for the colonics. He hoped that when the Estimates for next year were being prepared this large item of expenditure would be carefully looked into.

inquired whether the huts at Hong Kong, for which £10,000 was asked, were for the accommodation of Native troops or of Europeans?

asked how much of the £5,909 asked for China and Japan was required for the latter country?

moved to reduce the Vote by the £3,000 asked for billiard-rooms.

in reply to the question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Major Anson), said that the huts at Hong Kong were intended for Native troops.

desired to ask a ques- tion relating to a previous item in the Vote—namely, £9,300 for the removal of Portsea lines. By the removal of those lines the Government would become possessed of a large quantity of most valuable land—worth many thousand pounds—and he wished to ask whether any definite arrangement had been come to as to utilization of that property? If judiciously laid out it might be a source of considerable income.

said, the hon. Gentleman was of course aware that the lines at Portsea for any purposes of defence were utterly useless; it was therefore considered advisable to remove them. The value of the land was no doubt very great; but he was not aware that any plan had as yet been laid before the Government for utilizing it.

remarked upon the inconsistency of the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers), who the other night offered the greatest opposition to an increase of a few thousands in the Vote to augment the salaries of the miserably paid clerks in the Convict Prison department, but was now an ardent supporter of a Vote for £63,000—for that was the amount they were going to vote, though only £3,000 was to be expended this year—for billiard-rooms for officers all over the world. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman (General Peel) had informed them that in another page of the Estimates there was a Vote for billiard-tables. He had no objection to the buildings being found; but if they were to provide the tables where were they to stop? Of course, they would be called upon for the cues and other requisites. He hoped the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Alderman Lusk) would persevere with his Amendment for reducing the Vote. He was sure that the officers themselves would repudiate the idea of the taxpayers of the country being called upon to pay for their amusements.

thought that, after the personal attack made upon him, he might be permitted to point out the inconsistency in the conduct of his hon. Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway), who stated his unwillingness to support the Vote for the billiard-rooms, while in the same speech he called on the hon. Member for Finsbury to persevere with an Amendment for its rejection. As for himself, in or out of office, he should always oppose anything which appeared to him to be extravagant, and on that ground he had opposed the proposal for increasing the salaries of the convict clerks; but he did not see the connection between that proposal and the Vote of £3,000 for billiard-rooms for the officers of the army. In each case he had formed his opinion on what appeared to him to be the merits of the case itself.

did not think there was any good reason for opposing the small Vote for billiard-rooms. Hon. Gentlemen who were so very sensitive on the point of spending the public money on matters intended for the recreation of gentlemen serving in the army ought to remember that dining and smoking-rooms were provided out of the public funds for the recreation and comfort of the Members of the House of Commons.

asked, whether this was a new Vote, and whether billiard-rooms were voted for other Departments of the public service?

said, it was quite a new Vote. He ventured to think that the public would not object to billiard-rooms and billiard-tables being provided for the officers of the army, who were a very badly paid class of public servants, and were often sent for months to very dull places where there were no amusements. Were regiments to carry their billiard-tables about with them?

said, his personal experience of the army was that the regiments ordered to such places always purchased the billiard-tables and other amusing games their predecessors generally had to dispose of on leaving. The Vote itself was not of much importance; but he submitted that it was a new principle for Parliament to provide amusements for military officers. Such a proposition was the more objectionable at a time when the reasonable demands of badly paid Government clerks for a small increase of salary were peremptorily refused.

reminded the Committee that though a great deal had been done in recent years to improve the condition of soldiers, the officers had not participated in the grants for that purpose. This was a trifling matter, yet might be of very great service. Billiard-rooms in barracks would be of use in keeping young officers from going to public billiard-tables at which gambling might be going on.

hoped that his hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury (Mr. Alderman Lusk) would not press his Amendment. At some remote stations officers could not find billiard-tables if they were not provided in the barracks. The officers of the army were very badly remunerated, for they received little more than interest on the money paid for their commissions.

hoped the reduction would not be pressed; because, although it was true that the privates had not been provided with billiard-tables, libraries and reading-rooms had been established for their recreation, and bagatelle-boards and draught-boards had been provided for their amusement. He saw no reason why they should not adopt a similar liberality in their treatment of officers.

said, he objected to providing either billiards or billiard-rooms for officers. He believed it was not desirable to hold out any encouragement to these young men to engage in that amusement. He persisted in his Amendment for the omission of the £3,000 from the Vote.

called attention to the largeness of the sums to be expended on the Military Schools of Sandhurst and Woolwich. Sandhurst cost the country £17,313, and Woolwich £15,363. This large outlay was, he believed, occasioned by the disproportionate supply of teachers to the number of pupils. There were at Woolwich 180 cadets, and fifty professors and executive officers; while at Sandhurst there were 300 cadets, and forty-five professors and forty-five executive officers; so that at Woolwich the proportion was one professor or executive officer to about every four cadets, and at Sandhurst one professor or executive officer to about every six cadets. He wished to know why these two establishments should entail so much expense on the country, for there were, he believed, no other educational establishments which cost, proportionately, so much. In his opinion either the two Colleges ought to be amalgamated, or the number of professors in each of them ought to be reduced. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would take this matter into consideration when he proposed a scheme for military re-organization.

referring to the Staff College at Sandhurst, remarked that a Parliamentary Return respecting the appointments to the Staff from 1859 to the present time gave the following results:—The number of lieutenant-colonels who had received their education at the Staff College was only four, while the number who had not passed through the establishment amounted to eighty-two. Then only eleven majors had passed through Sandhurst, while seventy-seven had not. In regard to captains the proportion was still more striking, for only fifty-seven had come from Sandhurst, while no fewer than 202 had been appointed to the Staff without having passed through the College. Of lieutenants only three had passed through the Staff College, as compared with 116 who had not received that education; while of the nineteen ensigns or cornets not one had passed through the College. Unless the right hon. Gentleman were able to state that the future results would be more satisfactory, he should feel inclined to move that the sum which was asked for the maintenance of the Staff College at Sandhurst should be omitted from the Vote.

bore testimony that the education given at the Staff College at Sandhurst was most admirable, and he hoped the Committee would do nothing to impair its efficiency. He hoped that measures would be adopted to prevent the appointment to the Staff of officers who were really not capable of performing Staff duties. There were, he believed, 1,600 officers in the French army who were perfectly competent to command a regiment of cavalry or infantry, to lay down the country, and to perform all the duties of a Staff officer.

said, that unless the number of professors at Woolwich and Sandhurst were reduced there was but little chance of the Estimate being diminished. At Woolwich there was a professor of practical geometry and also a master for geometrical drawing; but he could see no reason why a master for geometrical drawing could not teach practical geometry. Then there was an item for the payment of a Master and Adjutant at Sandhurst, but at Woolwich the two offices were combined. Again, there were three Instructors in Military History at Sandhurst and none at all at Woolwich. These and various other matters required investigation.

said, he could not understand why a poor man's son, who could not purchase a commission, was compelled to spend a year at Sandhurst, while a rich man's son might obtain his education anywhere else. Let the examination be made as strict, as special, and as military as possible; and if a youth could pass it and perform the duties required of him, why should inquiry be made as to where he had received his education?

would repeat a complaint made last year, that there were at Sandhurst four Professors of Military History, and in all thirty professors, for 180 cadets; while at Eton 800 boys were taught with a smaller staff of Masters. Surely, two of the four Professors of Military History might be dispensed with? A calculation showed that the education at Sandhurst cost £130 or £140 each cadet; that was what was voted by Parliament. It was a ground for complaint that only a small proportion of the officers who thus received their education at the expense of the State were appointed to those places they were best qualified to fill, while others, who had not received special training, were selected for Staff appointments.

said, he was not prepared to oppose the Vote for the College although he had no great love for it. He concurred with the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Selwyn) in thinking that the present regulations at Sandhurst tended to preserve an invidious distinction between the sons of the rich and the poor. A clergyman might educate a rich man's son with his own, and yet the latter must go to Sandhurst for a year, while the former would escape because he could purchase his commission.

said, it was desirable to know what proportion of those who had passed the Staff College had not been appointed to the Staff.

said, there was an imprinted Return showing that several lieutenants, cornets, and ensigns who had passed the Staff College had not received Staff appointments, although there were nineteen cornets and ensigns who had received appointments on the Staff and had not passed the College.

fancied there would be more ground for complaint than there was if the system at Sandhurst was assimilated to that at Eton, and that it would be a great misfortune for the army if the College were done away with. With regard to the question that had been put as to residence, the requirement of a year's residence from the man who received a gratuitous commission was the guarantee that the officer receiving it was well educated. The sons of officers were admitted on lower terms than others. The education given at Sandhurst was extremely good; and this was the only College in England in which a military training was given, and it was better than that given in any other country in Europe. The rule was, that officers who had passed the Staff College were appointed on the Staff; but a special exception was made in the case of officers who had gained distinction in the field, and he believed that would be the real explanation of the figures quoted. It was not supposed that all Staff appointments were given to those trained at the College; they were given also to those who had been on the personal Staff of a General Officer. With regard to what had been said as to the number of professors, he thought the real question was, whether the education given was not of the very best kind. At the Staff College officers received a training which qualified them for all Staff duties, and their services would be required in the event of war breaking out.

said, he believed the education given at Sandhurst was of the best kind, and provided at a very slight cost. He had been told that officers trained there were found perfectly prepared to undertake their military duties when they joined their regiments. He wished that all officers were required to go there before receiving Staff appointments; for it was unfair to officers who worked hard at Sandhurst that others, who did not understand Staff duties, should be appointed.

said, he did not take objection to Sandhurst or Woolwich particularly; but complained of such an enormous expense as £32,000 a year on account of executive officers and professors.

wished to explain that he had not argued in favour of a relaxation of the standard of competition. Let the examination be made as high, as technical, and as military as they pleased; but when a candidate did what was required of him, why should the War Office make it a condition that he should acquire his knowledge in any one particular place?

said, the objection was not a military but a financial one. It appeared that an average number of ten and a fraction had passed through the Staff College at a cost to the country of £8,596 a year.

without wishing to be egotistical, said, that he had been employed in the department of Quartermaster General and Adjutant General without passing an examination. On behalf of others as well as himself who had entered the service before the rule of examination was established, yet who had had experience in the field, he begged to say that it would be very hard to exclude them from the chance of service. He did not depreciate special education; but, at the same time, thought that practical knowledge gained in the field was worth all the theoretical knowledge which could be crammed into a boy; and that if a man from actual service showed aptitude for the profession he should not be debarred from rising in it.

said, he had not for a moment intended that his remarks should apply to those who, like the hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Charles Russell), had won the Victoria Cross for services in the field. He thought those who had obtained distinction by their services before the enemy were of all others most entitled to Staff appointments.

said, that if the statement of his hon. Friend were correct that the education of every officer who passed through the Staff College cost the country £800, and when the knowledge imparted was possibly only a smattering, the Secretary for War would do well to consent to the appointment of a Committee to investigate the matter.

said, he did not know on what authority the hon. Gentleman made this statement. Whether the education given at the College were costly or not, he had never heard that it was not a thoroughly good military education. The Vote for the College was exactly the same as last year; and he therefore assumed that it had been considered satisfactory by the House.

having had a son at Sandhurst, felt bound to express his belief that a thorough and excellent military education was imparted there. The country, at all events, received full value for the money expended in training the junior department, and it was desirable that the country should be able to secure the services of young men duly qualified. He heard instances during the Crimean war in which officers who obtained their commissions by purchase were some months before they were able to perform their military duties. The officers trained at Sandhurst, on the other hand, were able at once to enter upon their regimental duties. If war broke out again, the War Office would want a large supply of such officers. The late Lord Herbert was of opinion that all officers on entering the army, whether by purchase or not, ought to pass some description of military college like that of Sandhurst. With regard to the senior department, it was worthy of inquiry whether the country obtained an adequate return for the large expenditure upon the Staff College. Staff appointments were now held for only a limited number of years; and perhaps the reason why so comparatively small a number passed that institution was that it was not considered worth an officer's while to qualify himself for a Staff appointment.

called attention to the expenses—altogether £28,271—attendant upon carrying out the Act for the prevention of contagious diseases at certain naval and military stations. He disapproved thus taking away the penalty which immorality brought with it, and of giving facilities to crime, and he moved that this item in the Vote be reduced by the sum of £26,624.

said, the question had been so often debated that he should decline to follow the hon. Gentleman into the policy of this legislation.

said, that great encouragement might be given to enlistment if more places in the service were opened to old soldiers. By no class of men was the work of public offices better discharged than by non-commissioned officers, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see whether they could not be appointed in greater numbers than at the present time.

said, that both at the War Office and at the Horse Guards non-commissioned officers were now employed as messengers, and in some cases as clerks.

while approving of some parts of the measure, objected to it in two particulars. In the first place, the Bill took away the common law right of creditors to obtain execution on judgment against Railway Companies, and that, he thought, ought not to be done. He should propose an Amendment to leave this power in the hands of the creditors, unless the Court of Chancery should appoint a receiver. The other Amendment of which he had given notice was this—The 7th clause proposed to give an extraordinary power to the Directors to propose a scheme of arrangement with creditors upon a certain majority of shareholders being obtained in its favour; it added that the scheme might be with or without provision to alter the rights of shareholders as amongst themselves, and gave to the Court of Chancery power to confirm the arrangement, and give it the same force as if an Act of Parliament had been obtained. He could not conceive how any alteration of the legal rights of different classes of shareholders, as between themselves, could be justified by the vote of any majority. The creditors must, of course, first be provided for; and, as to them, arrangements made with the concurrence of certain majorities might be justified by the analogy of the Bankrupt Acts. But if after providing for the creditors there was any surplus left, the shareholders ought to continue entitled to that surplus, according to their original rights; and nobody ought to have the power to take those rights away without the consent of every individual interested.

opposed the Amendment the hon. and learned Gentleman intended to propose. It was not desirable that a locomotive should be liable to be seized for a very small debt, and the traffic of a railway thus brought to a standstill.

having given a brief history of the progress of the Bill, stated that it had originated in the Railway Companies Arrangements Bill, brought in by the Secretary of State for India (Sir Stafford Northcote), and after being read a second time, had, in conjunction with the Debenture Holders Bill, introduced by the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Watkin), been referred to a Select Committee. This Committee was a very strong one, numbering among its members the Attorney General and the late President of the Board of Trade. It was not too much to say that the duty intrusted to them had been performed with the greatest care and ability. The first part of the measure precluded a railway company from being stopped by a contract creditor, giving him instead the remedy of a receiver. It did not, however, interfere with distress for rates and taxes, or rent, nor with claimants in cases of tort—such, for instance, as injuries to person or property. In other cases it substituted for execution, after two months' default, a receiver appointed by the Court who would distribute the net earnings according to priorities to be determined by the Court. Part 2 was intended to meet cases of companies desirous of making arrangements short of winding up. It followed the analogy of voluntary arrangements between debtor and creditor by deed under the Court of Bankruptcy. Great care was taken to protect all parties who were interested. The majority of three-fourths was according to the Companies Act of 1862, and the minority was protected by appeal to the Court. Part 3 regulated the compulsory winding-up of insolvent Companies. Some exception had been taken to this being done after the appointment of a receiver and manager for a year only; but that minimum time was fixed after great consideration, and it could be enlarged by the Court. Part 4 regulated proceedings in Court. Part 5 provided a remedy for an evil mentioned in various debates during the present Session—that, namely, of providing funds for permanent works by a floating, instead of a fixed debt. It allowed debenture stock to be issued at any rate of interest, and gave facilities for raising money to pay off existing debentures. Part 6 extended the Abandonment Act of 1850; and part 7 remedied an injustice to landowners in the case of the insolvency of a railway company; which had been long complained of. The Committee having obtained power to consolidate the two Bills, it was only necessary, according to the rules of the House, that the new Bill should be re-committed. This was done on the 21st of May, pro formâ. The Bill was then reprinted as amended by the Committee, and was in the hands of Members on the morning of the 24th. It passed through Committee on the 27th, and had since been re-committed for an Amendment. Fault had been found with him for not having explained the nature of the Bill. It was his duty to do so at any time if required; but as it closely followed that which had been laid down by the House in the debates on the earlier stages, as the principle of such a Bill as would meet the exigencies of the times, he considered that objections, if any, would only be taken in Committee on the details, and as both sides of the House and all interests were well represented in the Select Committee, and great anxiety was expressed for the rapid passing of the measure, he did not feel justified in doing anything to cause delay. And when it was said, or at any rate suggested, that a concealment almost amounting to a fraud had been practised upon the House by altering the title and hurrying the Bill through, he would ask what sort of concealment was that to which not only the Government, but the Opposition, were parties — not only the promoters, but the opponents of the original measure? And when it was said that the alteration of the title had been misleading, he could only say that, having been informed that the title could not be the same, the Committee had made the smallest alteration they could—namely, from Railway Companies Arrangement Bill to Railway Companies Bill, which would scarcely mislead the most careless. It would be difficult to find a more innocent fraud than one practised with due notice to the representatives of all parties concerned. The hon. and learned Member's opinion upon these points was, of course, entitled to the highest respect; but he thought he would see, when the House entered upon the discussion of the Amendments, which he had placed upon the Notice Paper, that one of them completely frustrated one of the main objects of the Bill. There could be no objection to the one which he had now proposed.

said, this Amendment was antagonistic to the principle of the Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman did not propose any instructions to the Court of Chancery as to the circumstances under which it should refuse or allow an execution. He thought this was a proposition to which the House ought not to consent. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman's object would be gained by small debts, say under £20, being exempted from the operation of the Bill.

supported the clause as it stood. The proposition was not directed against existing creditors, but future creditors of railway companies would give them credit with the full knowledge that they could not levy executions in case of default in payment, and so stop the traffic on the public highways. They would, however, have a better remedy—namely, by applying to the Court of Chancery for the appointment of a receiver, so that they would be paid out of the earnings of the company. Existing creditors, moreover, would retain their powers of execution and would have this new mode of redress in addition.

contended that the clause would encourage solvent companies in delaying the payment of their debts. He could not see any necessity for obliging the creditors of solvent companies to resort to the cumbrous and perhaps tedious plan of getting a receiver appointed. If a company were insolvent it would itself apply for such an appointment; but the debts of solvent railway companies ought to be on the same footing as the debts of any other solvent undertaking.

hoped that the hon. and learned Gentleman would not press his Amendment, because a creditor would have a better remedy without it, inasmuch as a solvent company would, under the provisions of the Bill as it stood, make immediate payment, while a receiver ought to be appointed in the case of a company that was insolvent.

also trusted that the House would not agree to the Amendment proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman.

thought it would be better to leave the clause as it stood, especially as the whole matter had been most carefully considered in Committee. No company that was solvent would think for an instant of allowing a receiver to be appointed.

objected to the introduction of the words, which, he said, would fetter the discretion of the Court, by introducing a doubt as to the priority in which judgment debts were to be paid.

supported the Amendment, which, he said, was not likely to mislead a Judge. Under the Bill as it stood a creditor was not a "person interested in the railway."

contended that, if the object of the Amendment were not to create a prejudice in favour of judgment creditors, the insertion of the words was needless.

had no objection to the insertion of the words "in payment of the debts of the Company or otherwise," if that would meet the view of the hon. and learned Gentleman.

said, the wording of the clause had been very carefully considered in Committee, and hoped it would not be altered.

supported the proposed addition. Unless the words were inserted every creditor, in self-defence, must sue out judgment, and apply to the Court of Chancery.

opposed the Amendment.

pointed out that the words did not, as supposed, give the right to create pre-preference stock. He suggested the substitution for "altering" of the words "settling and defining."

said, he was willing to accept this Amendment.