said, he rose to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether he is aware that the Charter of Incorporation recently granted to the Central Hall of Arts and Sciences was promulgated without consultation with the subscribers; that much dissatisfaction is felt with respect to certain of its provisions, such as the appointment of an Executive Committee, and the power given to the Provisional Committee to withhold all accounts until one year after the completion of the hall; that under the powers given to the Executive Committee a contract has been entered into of a nature deemed by many subscribers to be improvident, and such as may fail to justify the hopes held out in the statement on the faith of which subscriptions were solicited — namely, that subscribers would obtain for their subscriptions a valuable pecuniary investment; and, whether Her Majesty's Government are prepared on application from subscribers to revise the Charter, and, if necessary, to issue an amended one, affording to subscribers the same powers and the same representation as is usual in joint-stock undertakings?

said, that as the noble Lord (Lord Robert Montagu) had no official connection with that hall, and no official knowledge in reference to it, perhaps as he (Mr. Bruce) was a member of the Provisional and Executive Committee the hon. Member would accept his explanation. The Provisional Committee of the Central Hall of Arts and Sciences was appointed at a meeting of the promoters, who intrusted them with full powers of management until the completion of the hall. The character of the Charter was fully stated in the prospectus, and each subscriber received notice of the Charter, and agreed in writing to accept it. No subscriber had objected to it, nor had any complaint on the subject been received by the Provisional or the Executive Committee. The Provisional Committee being numerous, appointed an Executive Committee, whose appointment was continued by the Charter. The contract was entered into under the powers originally conferred on the Provisional Committee, and continued by the Charter. It was a highly advantageous contract, and no complaint against it had been received by the Committee. It had been carefully examined and approved by the most competent professional authority, and the scale of prices certified by the eminent firm of surveyors, Messrs. Hunt and Stephenson. The accounts were open to the inspection of any subscriber. The management had been conducted in all respects, including even the preparation of legal documents, without any charge to the undertaking. He was not aware that Government had any power to revise the Charter. If its revision were really required by the majority of subscribers, the Board of Trade would, probably make no difficulty about advising Her Majesty to assent to a wish so expressed to agree to a revision.

said, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Council, If Her Majesty's Government, in compliance with the recommendation of the Schools Inquiry Commission, have determined on instituting a special inquiry into the state and effects of technical education abroad?

said, in reply, that to issue a Commission for this purpose would be what Mr. Robert Malet, in a letter to the Schools Inquiry Commission, called, "giving the Commissioners a holiday excursion at the public expense." The best suggestion was contained in the same letter of Mr. Malet. It appeared there were six countries in which there was a system of technical education — France, Belgium, Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, and Switzerland, and all possible information on the subject would be found in those countries in a printed form. The best thing would be for the Government to collect that information by means of its diplomatic agents, condense, and publish it.

said, he was glad to hear that the Government would make use of the services of the Secretaries of Legation, for they had lately shown what excellent Reports they could make. He trusted they would not be merely asked to send the printed documents, but would be requested to furnish Reports.

said, he was quite ready to give all the assistance which the Foreign Office could give to this inquiry. As to the precise part which Secretaries of Legation should take in it, he thought that that might well be left to be settled between the Educational Department and the Foreign Office.

said, he wished to ask Mr. Attorney General, Whether he has taken into consideration the evidence produced at the trials by Court-Martial lately held in Jamaica on Ensign Cullen and Staff Assistant-Surgeon Morris; and whether it is his intention to institute proceedings against those Officers in the ordinary tribunals of this country? He understood Mr. Morris was now in this country.

In answer, Sir, to the Question of the hon. Member, I may say, that since this Question was put on the Paper, I have, as far as possible, mastered the details of the evidence and the proceedings of those courts-martial held in Jamaica, and it is not my intention to advise Her Majesty's Government to take any proceedings against those officers before the ordinary tribunals of this country.

said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, The number of Royal Naval Reserve Men who took part in the late Naval Review; and if any Report has been made on their conduct and efficiency, to state the nature of same, together with any reasons which may have been given for non-attendance?

said, in reply, that the number of the Naval Reserve Men at the; recent Review was 450, exclusive of officers, and the Controller General of the Coastguard, under whose immediate orders they were placed, had reported most favourably of their conduct and efficiency. No reason for non-attendance was given or required; the attendance was entirely voluntary, as the Naval Reserve had not even been invited by the Admiralty to take part in the Review.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, To state the name or names of the persons upon whose recommendation a squadron of the 10th Hussars and a company of the 89th Foot were marched into the town of Downpatrick on the 11th of July, where they were billeted for four nights; whether the Under Secretary at Dublin Castle was not, on the 7th of July, in possession of a special Report from the Sub-inspector of Constabulary stationed at Downpatrick, declaring that neither was a force of Military necessary, nor was any addition required to the number of Constabulary then under his control, adding that he was fortified in this view by the unanimous opinion of the Magistrates of the district, with whom he had consulted; and, whether the above-named Troops were not sent to Downpatrick without a Stipendiary Magistrate, without the knowledge of the Sub-inspector of Constabulary, and contrary to his Report?

said, in reply, that no recommendation whatever came from any persons connected with the town of Downpatrick. The Sub-inspector of Constabulary never sent to the Government a special Report stating a force of military was not necessary, and no information as to the opinion of the magistrates on that point had reached the Government. He had also further to state that the troops were not sent without the knowledge of a stipendiary magistrate. Having stated what had not happened, he would now, with the permission of the House, state what did happen. With regard to the distribution of the troops, his directions were that the course taken by the Government last year, which had been perfectly successful in maintaining the public peace, should be adhered to. Troops were sent as usual to where they had been sent in former years. Last year a very large meeting took place in the immediate neighbourhood of Downpatrick, and it was reasonable to suppose that a demonstration of some kind would take place. There was no information at the disposal of the Government to justify them in making any alteration in the arrangements of former years. The Under Secretary was not on the 7th of July in possession of a special Report from the Sub-inspector at Downpatrick, nor was any report received from the Sub-inspector at all. But on the 8th of July, before which (on the 5th) the arrangements were made for all the principal places in the North, Downpatrick among others, a Report was received from the County Inspector (Mr. Heath) stating, among other matters—

"That the usual exhibition of party feeling is expected throughout this county generally, but particularly in the districts of Ballynahinch, Bannbridge, Newtownards. The Sub-inspector at Downpatrick reports that he apprehends no interruption of the public peace there, as it appears Bangor is to be the principal rendezvous of the Orangemen from Belfast and various other localities."

There is nothing about being fortified in this view by the unanimous opinion of the magistrates, nor any representation from the magistrates themselves. A resident magistrate (Mr. Hort) was ordered to proceed to Downpatrick to arrive on the 11th. Mr. Bannon, R.M., was also ordered to proceed there, but he was ill. Mr. Hort arrived on the 10th; but, finding his services were required at Bangor he proceeded to that place. He was not aware whether it was without the knowledge of the Sub-inspector the troops were sent; but the arrangements were made known to the Inspector General on the 5th, immediately they were made, and there was nothing in the Report of the County Inspector which seemed to make desirable a change in the arrangements already made.

said, he wished to ask a question of the noble Lord relative to one expression he had used. Was "party feeling" intended to convey the same meaning as "Protestant feeling?" He would also beg to ask, whether the Instructions given to the authorities were the same as those of last year? He was present at Downpatrick last year, and he understood Instructions were given to prevent the expression of Protestant feeling.

No Instructions were given to the military; but general instructions were given to the magistracy to take such precautions as they thought necessary to preserve the public peace.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether he can state the names of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Revenues of the Irish Established Church; and, when he will lay upon the table of the House the Instructions to be given to the Commission?

replied, that he was not yet able to place on the table of the House the names of the gentlemen whom it was intended to ask to serve on the Irish Church Commission; but he hoped to be able to do so very soon. Before the end of next week he hoped to be able to announce their names, and the terms of the Instructions proposed to be given to them.

asked, Whether (Sir Goldsworthy Gurney having been in correspondence with different departments of the Government during the past thirty years on the subject of artificial light, having experimented on his Lime and Bude lights for the Trinity Board in 1835, having suggested these lights to the War Office for signalling in 1855, and to the Admiralty in connection with a Coast Line Telegraph for signalling by means of flashing lights in 1859, and also constructed a new light more suitable for this purpose in 1862, which was placed by him in Her Majesty's ship Resistance at the request of the Admiralty for the purpose of testing that light) the Admiralty are now, after five years of its continued use in that ship, satisfied that this light is available for ship lighting, and are disposed to extend its use to signalling by means of flashing lights, an apparatus for which was constructed by Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, and the attention of the Admiralty called to the same in 1862; and, whether the light and plan of signalling at present used by Captain Doty and Captain Colomb are not in fact the same, or nearly so, as those of Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, who has been unable to attend to these matters since 1863, owing to a violent attack of paralysis.

, in reply, said, Reports had been made to the Admiralty on the use of the lights in Her Majesty's ship Resistance, and in consequence of their favourable character a gentleman connected with the Department of Controller of the Navy had been appointed to inspect them, and say whether they could be applied generally to ships of war. He had not sufficient information to enable him to say whether the Admiralty would be disposed to adopt them as signals by means of flashing lights. With respect to the last part of the Question, he was unable to express any opinion. The question, if decided at all, should be decided by a Court of Law.

said, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he will give a promise that Parliament shall be consulted, and its opinion expressed, before either a Charter is granted to a Roman Catholic University, or before the Government sanctions any other scheme affecting University Education in Ireland.

Sir, on the subject of Irish University Education, and on all other subjects, Her Majesty's Government will conduct themselves to the House of Commons according to the practice and in the spirit of the Constitution. But I decline to enter into any promise on that or any other subject at the bidding of the hon. Gentleman opposite.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, When the Correspondence relative to the property of Narrim Rao, the Rebel Chief of Kirwee, will be laid upon the table of the House; whether the amount of 523,253rs. 4. 6., deducted by the Government of India from the Banda and Kirwee Prize Money for lost Revenue, with interest to the date of distributions, will be issued as a further grant to the troops; and, whether the Government of India have taken any further funds which belonged to the Rebel Chiefs of Kirwee, and which might be claimable by Her Majesty's Prerogative as a droit of war?

said, in reply to the first Question of the hon. and gallant Member, that the Correspondence would shortly be placed on the table. The second question had been considered by the Government, and they had referred it to the Law Officers of the Crown, who decided that the amount in question ought to be considered part of the prize money to be distributed to the troops, and a decision to that effect had been announced to the Governor General of India. He was not aware of any other funds claimable as part of the prize money. If his hon. and gallant Friend referred to certain promissory notes stopped by the Governor General, there was no possibility of recognizing them as prize money.

said, he wished to call the attention of Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer to what had taken place on Tuesday evening. He (Mr. O'Beirne) had an important Motion to bring forward which stood first on the Paper; but the Speaker had only been a few seconds in the Chair when an hon. Member moved that the House be counted. When the new arrangement as to Morning Sittings was made it had been felt that it was likely to operate unfairly to private Members having Notices to bring forward, but the right hon. Gentleman rather thought that Members would return at nine o'clock refreshed and invigorated. There had been two or three counts-out, and on the last two Tuesdays such a proceeding was very inconvenient. His object was, to see whether he could not get an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that such an inconvenience should not again occur. He could tell hon. Members what was well known, that the Government had the means at their disposal to keep a House if they thought proper to do so, and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would prevent the repetition of an occurrence which was so full of inconvenience to private Members. The hon. Member concluded by moving the adjournment of the House.

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I much regret that the House was not made on the night he refers to. I must say in vindication of myself that I was present on the occasion—and I may add that I have never been absent on these occasions. I think I was justified in the anticipation I originally expressed when the arrangement for these Morning Sittings was made; but we must remember that the Session is very far advanced, and that at this period there is always greater difficulty in making a House than at other times. I made inquiry as to the "count-out" on Tuesday, and the cause of the great failure of business on that occasion, because I had received an assurance from my Colleagues and the Gentlemen who support the Government that they would be present, and I find that a great number of Gentlemen, who were more than sufficient to make a House, were on their way here, and would have arrived a few minutes after the time when the House was counted out. I very much regret what has occurred, and so far as I can influence the House, the hon. Gentleman may rely upon it that I shall always be present and do all I can to obtain a House. I have been always opposed to counting the House, as nothing tends more to delay — and in an unsatisfactory manner — the transaction of public business.

rose to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether Her Majesty's Government intended to propose any measure for the consolidation of the Irish railway system? His noble Friend knew well that upon the necessity for such a measure hon. Members from all parts of Ireland were agreed. He might also say, for fear that hon. Members representing other parts of the United Kingdom should be alarmed, that the scheme he desired to press upon the Government would not involve the expenditure of a single half-penny on the part of the taxpayers of the United Kingdom. From the Report of the Board of Trade for 1865 it appeared that 1,838 miles of Irish railways now open were divided amongst thirty-five separate companies, each having its separate Board of Directors, and its separate secretary and general staff, their aggregate income being £1,700,000; while that of the English North-Western Railway Company, which was under one management, alone amounted to upwards of £6,000,000. Therefore, in Ireland, they had thirty-five separate boards to manage a concern which was not one-third as great financially as a system in England managed by one Board of Directors. The results of the divided management in Ireland were obvious. Mr. Cawkwell, of the London and North Western Railway, said, if the Irish railways were amalgamated, the result would be that the rates would be reduced, trade developed, and larger returns obtained. The rates charged on the Irish railways were as high, and frequently higher than those on the English lines, and very much higher than those on the Continental lines of railway. If they compared the rates of the Great Southern and Western Company, the best managed line in Ireland, with those of the Caledonian Company and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Company, they would find for travelling 100 miles first-class in Ireland 18s. 4d. was charged on the Great Southern and Western line, while on the Caledonian line the fare was only 10s. 2d., and on the Lancashire and Yorkshire 11s. The rates of the other classes showed the same difference. Taking the foreign railways, which were managed upon a system which they desired to see adopted in Ireland, they would find the difference far greater. From Brussels to Ostend, a distance of ninety miles, the first-class fare by express was only 4s. 4d., second-class 3s. 2d., and third-class 2s. 4d. The difference in the case of goods traffic was still more remarkable. In the article of coal the price of its conveyance was in many instances more than double that on the English lines. Captain Huish, who was for eighteen years manager of the London and North Western Railway, stated the result of this system in a few words—namely, that as regarded the Irish railways, the rates were very high, the speed was very low, the trains were very few, while the remuneration to the shareholders was very small. This was a tolerably fair account of the working of the Irish railway system. Hon. Gentlemen could not be surprised that throughout Ireland there existed a general and earnest desire that this system so unsatisfactory, both as to its working and its financial results, should be changed. This feeling was intensified by the knowledge of the fact that this was not the system originally intended for Ireland. The Irish Railway Commission in 1838 reported in favour of a system of Governmental management and central control. Mr. Drummond prophecied, in the absence of some such system, precisely those results which they now witnessed. Many of the greatest landed proprietors in Ireland were prepared to give their land without compensation if the system recommended by the Commission were adopted. The measures necessary to carry it out were submitted to Parliament by the late Lord Carlisle. Parliament refused to sanction them. Could it be wondered at then that great dissatisfaction prevailed in Ireland at the condition of the railway system? He had ventured in 1865 to give expression to that dissatisfaction, when the right hon. Member for South Lancashire referred the matter to the Royal Commission which was then sitting to hear evidence on the subject of the railways of the United Kingdom. There was great dismay among the Irish people, who were interested in the matter, when the Report of that Commission was published, which, ignoring altogether the evidence that had been laid before them, advocated the maintenance of the present system. Nor was the astonishment of the Irish people lessened by the reasons which the Commissioners gave in their Report for coming to that determination. Their first reason for not interfering with the existing Irish railway system was that it was of more importance to encourage private enterprize and self-reliance in Ireland than it was to do so in Great Britain. They taunted the people of Ireland with a want of private enterprize and self-reliance in this particular matter; but when it was considered that in Ireland there had been a greater number of railways made, which had afterwards turned out unremunerative, than in any other part of the kingdom, that taunt would be appreciated at its value. The next statement of the Commissioners was that the admitted failure of the Irish railway system was owing to the want of commercial activity and mineral productions in the country, and that in countries where commercial activity and mineral productions did not exist it was utterly impossible that railways should prosper. But the evidence taken before the Royal Commissioners showed that that was not the case in foreign countries and particularly in some parts of Prussia, where, with quite as little manufactures as there are in Ireland, the railways were prosperous. They also stated that cheap fares would be of little importance in Ireland because the mileage to be travelled was so small; but they appeared to forget that the produce of the country travelled eastward for England, and not to the nearest seaport; and, consequently, a larger extent was travelled over in Ireland in proportion to its size than in England. Another statement which took the people of Ireland with surprise was that no particular object would be gained by reducing the cost of the transit of coal, because there was so much bog in the country that the people usually burnt turf; but, in reality, there were large portions of Ireland where there were no bogs at all. Besides, the difficulty of transporting turf was very considerable, on account of its great bulk, and experience had shown that coal at no great distance from a bog would be cheaper than turf if English coal rates were introduced into Ireland. It was further said that if the railways were subsidized the canals must be subsidized also. Now, no one ever desired that the railways should be subsidized, but it was a remarkable circumstance that the canals were subsidized already, and that one of them was absolutely in the hands and under the management and control of the Government. The House would not be surprised to learn that these reasons weighed very little with the Irish people. In consequence of the prevalent feeling, a meeting was held of Gentlemen connected with Ireland belonging to both Houses of Parliament to consider the evidence taken by the Royal Commissioners and their Report. The suggestion that the Government should advance money to the railways in order to relieve them from their liabilities was considered. That, however, was regarded as an inadmissible proposition—its adoption, though it might benefit shareholders, would be of no advantage to the public. Another suggestion that voluntary arrangements for promoting the amalgamation of the Irish railways should be facilitated was likewise rejected, and the meeting eventually came to the conclusion—he believed unanimously—that the only means of putting the railways on a sound basis was their purchase by the Government. They had then to ascertain for what sum the railway's could be purchased, and in so doing they considered, of course not what the railways originally cost, but what they were now worth; the liabilities of the railways were not taken into account. That was a question as to the distribution of purchase money and in no way affected the value. The conclusion arrived at that the market value of the railways was somewhere about £19,525,083, calculating the ordinary shares at twenty years' purchase, the preference shares at twenty-two and a half years' purchase, and the debenture loans at their market value, and adding 10 per cent to the two first on account of the sale being compulsory. These figures had been verified by the officers of the Board of Trade, and the only point which was open to controversy was the sum to be paid for those railways which at present paid no dividend. He was informed that experienced persons could estimate their value, as easily as the value of land or houses could be estimated. The original shares of the non-paying railways amount to £2,534,946, and the non-paying preference shares to £1,231,108. The contingent value of such shares, dependent as it is upon the future prospects of the railways, must, of course, vary much according to the circumstances of each railway; but the best calculations lead to the conclusion that an amount which would average 20 per cent on the original, and 30 per cent on the preference shares, distributed according to the circumstances and probable prospects of each railway, would be a sufficient payment. Now, the yearly interest on £19,525,083 at 3¼ per cent would be £634,560, whereas the annual net profits of the railways at the present time amounted to £900,500, so that there would be about £260,000 a year, which might be applied to reducing the fares and giving increased railway accommodation. Several persons, and among them the late Mr. Dargan, stated before the Commissioners that a saving of from £100,000 to £120,000 a year would be effected if the various railways were consolidated. The Commissioners inquired what were the real working expenses of the Irish railways at present, and found that they were on an average from 75 to 37 per cent; the Drogheda and Dublin was 40, and the Great Southern and Western was 43½. They thereupon took 42½ per cent, the mean between these two, and concluded that the Irish railways generally might be worked at that figure; and on pursuing the inquiry, they found the reduction would result in a saving of about £80,000, which, with the £260,000 already spoken of, would make a saving of £340,000, and with this the Government might commence to carry out any scheme they might determine upon for the reduction of the fares on the Irish railways, and the increasing the opportunities of using them. The next question was as to how the Government, alter they had completed the purchase of the railways, should work them. The Belgian Government railways had been managed so satisfactorily that in 1885 it was probable that the whole of the capital would be re-paid, and that the State would be able to apply any revenue derived from them to the reduction of taxation. Nevertheless, we were aware that beside other objections a strong feeling prevailed in this country against any system of Government management; we therefore turned our attention to the view most able witnesses examined before the Royal Commission, among whom was Mr. Bidder, and came to the conclusion that it would be best to lease out the lines in accordance with the plan proposed by the late Lord Canning with regard to the Post Office contracts — namely, that the rent should be the interest of the debt contracted for the purchase, and that the company offering the largest reduction on rates and charges, and giving the greatest accommodation to the public, should be accepted as lessee; but persons of great authority said it would be impossible to induce companies to form themselves for the purpose of competing for the Irish railway system unless a lease of some length—say, from twenty to twenty-five years—were offered. To let a lease for so long was, of course, out of the question until whatever scheme was decided on had been tried; it was therefore decided that the best plan would be to work the system by a Commission appointed by both Houses of Parliament for a short time, and when the system was consolidated, and so brought into economical working order, no doubt there would be ample competition. The next question was the finishing and making of new lines. In our opinion, the Government ought to have nothing to do with either the one or the other. To do anything of the kind would lead to endless jobs; but the Government should have, as Mr. Drummond proposed it should have under his scheme, an absolute veto upon the construction of new lines. In cases where new lines were constructed, the representatives of the Government should be obliged to work them, provided those lines paid their working expenses, and, if there were any profits realized, those profits should be distributed in the way in which it was customary to do so under arrangement between different railway companies. Such were the principal recommendations made to the Crown, and nothing could have been fairer than the way in which the Government received them. It was, of course, impossible for the Government to take any decided steps in the matter without appointing a Commission to ascertain the condition and the exact value of the railways; he believed his noble Friend (Lord Naas) had stated that such a conclusion had been come to by the Government; his noble Friend felt as strongly as he how vitally important this matter was to Ireland. [Lord NAAS: Hear, hear!] It touched every class in the community. In the hope that his noble Friend would be able to give some satisfactory answer to him, he asked the Question of which he had given Notice as to whether the Government intended to propose any measure for the consolidation of the Irish railway system?

said, his right hon. Friend had not in the least exaggerated the great importance of this question to Ireland. There was, in fact, no question upon which all parties in that country were more thoroughly agreed than that something ought to be done with regard to the state of Irish railways, with a view to their being placed in a more satisfactory condition than at present; and he quite agreed with all his right hon. Friend had stated with regard to the great evils which had arisen on account of the want of consolidation of these railways; he would say also that the thanks of the country were due to his right hon. Friend for the trouble he had taken in the matter from the time when it was first mooted. The whole capital of the railways of Ireland was originally something like £27,000,000, but that was comparatively a small sum compared with that of England. Small, however, as that sum was, it was distributed over a number of lines, which were worked by separate Boards of Directors, and the consequence was that little or no attention was paid to the convenience of the public as to the mode in which they dealt with the traffic. That was always the case where there were many Boards of Directors, because whether or not they had separate interests, they always imagined they had, and looked with jealousy towards others, whether they were injurious to them or not. The first thing that strikes every one in considering this subject was the different managements and varieties of interest. They had, in dealing with this subject, to consider whether the anticipations that had been raised as to the advantages that must immediately occur from centralization would be altogether realized, or would lead to an immediate and extensive reduction of fares. A considerable reduction might, of course, be made; but it would be found impossible to realize the extravagant expectation which prevailed of a reduction of 30 or 35 per cent. Any alteration in the Irish railway system must be gradual to be effective; the reduction of fares must be a tentative process, because nothing would defeat the end in view so successfully as an endeavour to carry on the traffic at a loss on the working expenses. The subject must be dealt with in a business-like manner, and that, he believed, was in accordance with the views of his right hon. Friend. He was sure the House would not expect him to follow his right hon. Friend through all the details of his plan. That plan had been fairly considered; but with regard to the action of the Government, he was sure the House would be of opinion that it would be perfectly impossible for them, at the present late period of the Session, to invite Parliament to take into consideration a subject of such great importance. Indeed, if the House were now at the commencement of the Session, according to even the right hon. Gentleman himself, it would be impossible for the Government to propose a distinct scheme to Parliament without having more information on which to proceed than they now possessed. Before any steps were taken in the matter it would, he thought, be necessary that the Government should adopt some effective means to inquire into the accuracy of the statements which had been made in regard, not only to the financial position, the revenues, and the working expenses of the Irish railways, but also as to the position of the rolling stock and all the property belonging to the various lines. It was of the utmost consequence that a rigid inquiry should be instituted for the purpose of obtaining that information. He found that by the 5th section of the Act of 1844 it was provided that all railways should after a specified period make certain Returns as to their position and publish the accounts of their receipts and expenditure. Seventeen lines, extending over 952 miles in Ireland, were now liable to that provision; sixty-four miles of railway were not liable to it inasmuch as they were finished before the Act was passed, and there were 775 miles not liable as yet in consequence of the eighteen years prescribed by the Act not having expired since they were constructed. It was, under these circumstances, the intention of the Government to appoint, through the medium of the Treasury, in conformity with the provisions of the Act of 1844, certain competent persons to make the inquiries indicated by the 5th section. The Government also proposed, inasmuch as there was so large a proportion of the Irish lines at present outside the provisions of the Act, to lay before Parliament a short Bill which would enable the Commissioners appointed by the Treasury to exercise precisely the same powers in their case as the Act provided in the case of others. He intended to ask leave to-morrow to introduce this Bill. It would be a very short one; but he thought it would confer all the powers necessary in order to make the inquiry which he indicated. It would contain, perhaps, one additional power—namely, the power to summon all the witnesses before them whom they might deem it expedient to summon, and to examine them if they should think fit. Those Commissioners would, therefore, be empowered to examine into all financial matters connected with the railways in Ireland. There was, he might add, another Act which enabled the Board of Trade to inspect the works of a line. The provisions of that Act it was also proposed to extend to the present inquiry, so that the Commissioners would be enabled to investigate a very important branch of the subject, the exact state of the lines themselves, and to form a judgment as to the sums which it would be necessary to expend for the purpose of placing them in complete working order. If Parliament should see fit to agree to this proposal of the Government, he thought that by the commencement of next Session he should be in a position to lay before the House an accurate and full account of all the Irish railways, the exact value of the property and state of the lines, and, if Parliament should wish to take up the question either of purchasing or leasing them, the precise sum of money which would be required to carry out that object. The Government would, as far as possible, endeavour to engage in the inquiry the assistance of the ablest and most experienced men whom they could procure. It was an inquiry which was, in his opinion, absolutely necessary as a preliminary step, and he hoped the House would not think he was called upon to say anything further beyond the statement that the subject continued to engage the most anxious consideration of the Government. He could assure the House, both for himself and his Colleagues, that they were fully sensible of its enormous importance, and that they were desirous, as soon as they possessed the requisite information, to deal with it efficiently.

said, the plan which had been sketched in the House was one which met the approval of every class in Ireland. He was prepared to offer statistics to the House, if necessary, to confirm the views of the right hon. Member for Limerick; but after the statement of the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland, he would only congratulate the Government on the step which they were about to take, and which he thought was a liberal instalment of that policy he expected from the present administration.

said, he had no objection to the introduction of the Bill to which the noble Lord had alluded; but must urge on the Government the necessity of great caution before pledging themselves to the purchase of Irish railways. There were English railways in distress as well as Irish, and it was but fitting that the one should be left to take the same means as the other to get over their difficulties.

, as one of the Members of the Royal Commission, protested against the course which the right hon. Gentleman had taken upon himself, in attacking that Commission.

denied that he had made any attack on the Commission.

said, the right hon. Member had attacked the Report of the Commission in a most unwarrantable manner. The right hon. Gentleman ought to have had the common courtesy to have intimated to the Members that he intended to bring their Report under the consideration of the House; and when this was done in accordance with the usages of the House, he (Mr. Horsfall) would be fully prepared to defend that Report. The Royal Commission sat for nearly two years; but the right hon. Gentleman, although he attended the investigation for a portion only of two days, succeeded in getting his Report adopted as the Report of the dissentient portion of the Committee. He hoped the day was very far off when the Government should take charge of Irish railways. When they did so, they would confer on Ireland, not a boon, but the very reverse.

, although one of the Commissioners, did not rise to defend either them or their Report. He had no notice that the Report was to be attacked; and he would leave the defence in abler hands. Although he signed the Report, stating the opinion of the Commission was that the purchase of the Irish railways by the Government would be objectionable, he would be really glad if any scheme could be framed that would be beneficial to the people of Ireland; but he was afraid that what had been stated to-night would raise expectations which would never be realized. The more he considered the subject, the more he was convinced that the purchase of the Irish railways would be no advantage to the country. He understood his right hon. Friend's scheme to be, that these railways should be acquired by the State at a certain number of years' purchase upon the dividends now paying. Well, nothing could be more fallacious.

said, he had distinctly stated that the principle upon which they were to be purchased should be their value.

That was a very vague principle, and he was afraid that it would be very difficult of explanation. As to amalgamation, if it was likely to be so beneficial, why on earth did not the Irish shareholders adopt it as English shareholders did? All the evidence taken by the Royal Commission went to show that an immense advantage would arise from the general lowering of fares; but the noble Lord opposite stated that a lowering of fares was not likely to be carried out. For what purpose, then, was all that evidence taken, if it were not to be acted upon?

said, that as it was important that the Legislature should arrive at some sound practical conclusion next Session, it might be convenient that those intimately acquainted with railways should offer a few suggestions on this occasion. It seemed to him that the chance of arriving at a sound conclusion on the subject depended, not merely on the Government collecting information during the Recess, but on their applying their minds to a consideration of the subject so as to tell Parliament at their next meeting that they were ready to propose a scheme for their adoption. The first thing was to dismiss from the mind all notion of analogy between Irish and English railways. If anything at all was to be done in the matter, it was not to be done on principles adapted to English railways. His own feeling was adverse to State interference on behalf of distressed railways. Whatever might be the result of our legislation with regard to railways in England, it was too late to go back and introduce the system adopted in France, or recommended in the Report of Lord Dalhousie. Railways in this country must, he believed, be left very much on the footing of private enterprise. Whether Ireland were in such an exceptional position that the assistance of Government could be advantageously given, without the risk of incurring any heavy loss to the Exchequer, was another question. During the Irish famine, and some years afterwards, things were done which were not justifiable according to the prin- ciples of political economy, and would not be justifiable in England. The recommendation of the Commission in favour of cheap fares seemed to be regarded as of very little value. That Commission was appointed to investigate a question raised by Mr. Gait, whether Government ought not to purchase railways generally; and the Commissioners, in reporting against such purchase, threw overboard the Irish question, and recommended the introduction of cheap fares. He (Mr. Laing) thought that great advantage would result in a country like Ireland from a lower railway tariff. It would not be worth while to run counter to the ordinary rules of political economy unless they did not a little thing but a great thing—unless they established, a tariff approaching that of the cheapest railway tariff in Europe—namely, that of Belgium. If the Irish railways could be purchased by the State for £20,000,000, the money being obtained at 3½ per cent, £700,000 would be required for the annual interest; and if in this way Ireland could obtain a cheap tariff on railways, then, in his judgment, looking at the whole political and social circumstances of Ireland, it would be worth while to throw overboard the maxims of political economy, and take an exceptional view of Ireland. He would, therefore, suggest to the Government to consider carefully whether, if they did anything at all, they should go even farther than the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Limerick. That scheme was, that after the railways had been taken by the Government, and worked for a time by Commissioners, the future working should be put up to tender. He would suggest that this tendering should be for working the line at a tariff already fixed at a low rate. What the Government would have to guard against would be the making of too bad a bargain for the British taxpayers by buying insolvent railways at too high a rate. If the immediate loss did not go beyond such a sum in the first ten years as might reasonably be expected to be recouped in the next ten, then he thought the British public would not object. But he thought they might make a large reduction of tariff without any material risk of a heavy loss to the public. The net revenue was now £900,000. Well, if the tariff were made very low, the amount reduced would not be all loss; something would be got back by increased traffic. Suppose they lost one-third, there would be £600,000 left. But if there were thirty-five companies it was not an out-of-the-way expectation that there would, by amalgamation, be a saving effected of £2,000 a company, or £70,000 in all, and this would nearly make up the required £700,000 a year. It was clearly a question for inquiry, and he hoped the government would give their best attention to it during the Recess, so that when Parliament met next year some scheme might be produced by which the Irish, railways might be purchased at a fair price, with a prospect of their being worked at a low tariff. Very great political and social benefits would, he was sure, result from such a measure.

said, he considered that the importance of this question was so great that it ought to be the subject of a rigid inquiry into the condition of the Irish railways, both as regarded the lines themselves and the rolling stock. Looking upon it as one of political expediency, they ought to consider whether it was not worth while to do more for the Irish railways than they did for the English? The House seemed quite to have forgotten what had been done in the case of the Indian railways. He believed that only 2 per cent of the holders of stock in those railways were natives; and it was by means of British capital, guaranteed by the revenues of the Government, that those railways had been constructed. The same, he understood, had been done to some extent in the case of the Canadian railways. Surely Ireland had quite as much claim upon the Parliament as India. He looked upon the question of purchasing the Irish railways by the Government with doubt and apprehension, because in the first place he was not an advocate for Government management generally, and secondly, he doubted whether they would be worked in such a manner as to be profitable to the country. He was rather inclined to think that if they purchased the lines and leased them, they would fall into the hands of some great English company who would work them more with a view to their own interests than to the interests of Ireland. Some preferable plan might be adopted by way of guaranteeing the capital advanced at a low rate of interest, coupled with the condition that the railways should run a Government train once a day as they did in England, and giving greater postal facilities. The adoption of some such scheme might lead to the consolidation of the lines in a manner which would be greatly to the benefit of the country. In any case, however, the question had now become an Imperial one; something must be done, and done efficiently, and he was not sorry that the question was to be left over for another year, because he was convinced that by that time the railways would be in such a condition that it would be impossible for the Government to remain passive. The difficulty they had to encounter in dealing with the Irish railways was, that they were dealing with a country in which, from political circumstance, capital was not forthcoming, because in all probability capital would be equally shy in England if circumstances were the same. There was also a declining population in Ireland, which was not the case in England. That the condition of the railways was attributable to a great extent to those causes was proved by the fact that in the neighbourhood of Belfast, where trade was active and the population not decreasing, the railways were prosperous, and the shareholders were by no means in favour of the proposition that the Government should purchase them. Indeed, for fifty miles round Belfast trade was active and the railways largely increasing. In conclusion, he would only say that he thought the Commissioners had fallen into an error in underrating the value of the mineral and coal traffic that might be developed on the Irish railways. In the part of the country where he lived, for instance, a large weaving establishment had been erected, involving the use of extensive machinery, worked by steam, and the coal had to be brought twenty or thirty miles by train to the place, and in this and many similar cases upon the price of the carriage depended whether the works could be profitably carried on or not. For his own part, he believed that the trade and prosperity of Ireland were capable of indefinite extension, and that nothing would move conduce to it than an improvement in her railway system.

said, no subject could be more important than proper principles of legislation in reference to railways, but Parliament had not been successful in dealing with it. Rather more than twenty years ago the question as a whole had come under the consideration of Parliament under the auspices of the Government of Sir Robert Peel. Under the advice of the late Lord Dalhousie and of his hon. Friend the Member for Wick, a scheme had been devised which would have enabled a consistent line of policy on this question to be pursued, giving a department of Government a proper voice in the matter. The only sensible alternative was free trade in railways; due regard being had to the rights of landowners and to conditions of safety for the public; but neither course had been followed. They had allowed the legislation upon railways to be effected by Committees, at the instance of the companies themselves, acting under the advice of able lawyers, and there had been from year to year new lines sanctioned without the adoption of any uniform system, either as respected the principles on which permission to make new lines was granted, the financial arrangements, the tariff, or the nature of the securities. The consequence had been that in the present year they had witnessed a state of things which had probably never been paralleled in the history of England. It was of the utmost importance that on questions of this kind Parliament should be fully advised in the first instance, before it took any particular course. He thought Parliament should require very much fuller information upon the question before they decided to adopt a principle which was not in force in any other country to the extent proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. It would be a great misfortune for the owners of Irish railways were the present Government to hold out at present any promise that they would adopt the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman, and therefore he had heard with satisfaction the cautious statement of the noble Lord, in which he merely pledged the Government to inquire further into the question. As they were aware, it was in the power of the Government, under the Act of 1844, to purchase all railways in England after the 21st year of their existence, and the same Act provided that three years previously the Government should be furnished by each company with a detailed account of its capital and income, its receipts and expenditure, distinguishing between the main line and branches. Several of the railways came under the provisions of the Act five or six years ago, but they had never made any such Returns, and when he was at the Treasury last year he made some inquiry as to the reason of the omission. The answer he received was, that as the Railway Commission was then sitting, it would be improper for the Treasury to interfere. He considered that as Parliament had laid down the principle, it was the duty of the Treasury, in conjunction with the Board of Trade, to ascertain whether under the present system of Private Bill legislation it was possible for the railway companies to comply with that provision, and if not, they ought to consider whether it was worth while to retain such enactment on the statute book? He hoped, therefore, that the Government would extend any inquiry made into the condition of the Irish railways to the English lines also. While addressing the House upon this subject, he wished to point out what he regarded as being the chief reason for the failure of the Irish railway system. It might be stated as an axiom in railway finance that no lines pay well which did not run between great centres of industry—through large mining or manufacturing districts, or between populous inland towns and the sea. The financial position of English railways which did not fulfil those conditions was in almost every case unsatisfactory, and it would be found impossible, by any change of system, to make the Irish railways which ran through extensive agricultural districts profitable undertakings. Ireland was in the condition of an almost exclusively agricultural country, and no just comparison could be drawn between it and Belgium, which was comparatively one of the richest countries in the world, teeming with population engaged in manufactures. The truth was that the present unsatisfactory condition of the Irish railways was not solely owing to mismanagement, or the subdivision of management, but also to the fact that a larger mileage of expensively built railways had been laid down than an agricultural country could bear — there not being sufficient traffic to produce interest upon the capital that had been expended. He had introduced this subject for the purpose of giving the Government an additional inducement to fully inquire into the whole question before they committed the country to any definite course upon this important question.

said, that the observations made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wick (Mr. Laing) seemed to him of rather a startling character, since he began by laying down sound principles, and saying that any Bill brought before the House should have reference to the United Kingdom generally, and not to Ireland merely, but ended by saying that all our notions of political economy should be thrown to the winds for the sake of Ireland. With regard to the proposal to reduce the railway fares in that country 30 or 35 per cent, which it was said would assimilate them to those of Belgium, anyone who had attended to the operation of rates for railway fares must see that it was utterly fallacious. He (Mr. M'Laren) had had a good deal of experience in these matters, and, as a Director, had attended to the traffic for a number of years on a line of railway which passed through several important districts—some of them populous, and others thinly peopled. The result of his observations was to convince him that wherever a railway passed through a thickly-peopled country such as Belgium you might reduce the fares to almost any extent, and increase the traffic proportionably, thus making up a great part of the loss, if not the whole. The reason was that parties would go short distances in a populous country to do their business themselves, instead of writing or employing an agent to do it for them. In districts containing many towns the traffic might thus be increased indefinitely, and an instance might be found in the line between Newcastle and Shields, where, though the fares were fabulously low, the railway paid more per mile than other parts of the line where the fares were three times as high. From Glasgow to Greenock also the fares were very low, yet the line paid a higher rate per mile than any other in the district. But to apply this principle to thinly-peopled districts, as in Ireland, was most absurd, because there the people would not travel, having no business or adequate motive. It was not a reduction of 2s. 6d. or 7s. 6d. on a journey of 100 miles which would induce any one to undertake such a journey; but if you could reduce the fares to 1s. or 6d. for a journey of a few miles in thickly-peopled districts, many would then have no scruple in travelling ten times a week if they found occasion. The same reasoning applied to the goods traffic. The locomotive conveyed 200 tons of goods, on an average, at a cost of 1s. per mile. It was evident that with a load of 200 tons it could convey them very cheaply; but suppose; that in Ireland not more than 100 tons—or more probably 50 tons—of goods could be obtained to carry, the expense per ton must be proportionably greater, because the total cost for locomotive power would be as great for the small load as for the full load. It would, therefore, be of no avail to reduce fares by 30 per cent. If the people of Ireland wished to derive the utmost possible advantage from the railways that had been constructed, the plain system was to unite them by Act of Parliament, and to let the Commissioners appointed to manage them divide the net profits of the united lines according to the average earnings of the three previous years. That principle of amalgamating a system of important railways had been adopted many years ago with the lines centreing at York and Newcastle, and it was the right principle to adopt in Ireland. Then where reduced rates were found advisable, as the result of experience, the people of Ireland would derive the benefit; but he objected most decidedly to the railway shareholders of Ireland coming and putting their hands into the national purse, and claiming assistance which would not be conceded to those of England and Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Motion said that something should be done for Ireland, because, as compared with England, it was a small country, but Scotland was still smaller. There had lately been two distressed Scotch railways before Parliament—the North British and the North of Scotland, and if the distressed railways of Ireland were to be assisted, why should not these two which had a capital amounting to two-thirds of that of all the Irish railways? Then there were the London, Chatham, and Dover and the Great Eastern Railways, of which the united capital was greater than that of all the Irish railways; and why should they not be assisted on the same principle? He objected to this kind of sectional legislation, holding that justice ought to be done to Ireland in matters of far greater importance than cobbling up bankrupt railways. This was a scheme introduced to take away the attention of the people of Ireland, who demanded justice in the questions of the Land tenure and the Established Church. Because the House refused or hesitated to do justice in these matters, it was now proposed to treat the people of Ireland like children, offering them sweetmeats to still their crying for other griefs.

observed, that the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) had stated that the general railway system of the United Kingdom had been a complete failure. Now, he took the liberty of protesting against that statement. [Mr. CHILDERS: I said financially.] If they had been a failure, they had, on the other hand, conferred an enormous benefit on the country. If the development of our roads and canals for the last hundred years had been as financially disastrous to the persons who undertook them as the railway system had been, still the enormous gain to the community had far over-balanced any possible loss in that direction; and where parties, for the sake of their own private gain, laid out their own money, or induced others to spend money for their own private gain, he did not think the country ought to be called upon to come in and stop the gap. He was glad to hear that his noble Friend was prepared to make an inquiry into the subject, but should be sorry to see the Government take these matters into their own hands. It would be the greatest curse to the country that could happen, whether it was done in Ireland or in England.

The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down said that it would be a great mistake on the part of the Government to take into its hands the business of promoting the formation of railways, instead of leaving it to private enterprize. Now, that is a general principle, and, like all general principles—even the soundest—ought not to be pushed too rigidly and too universally, regardless of the peculiar circumstances of particular countries. If we look to the case of India, there are few among us who would think it has been unwise on the part of the Government to run very considerable pecuniary risks in order to promote railways in that country. Again, in some countries of Europe it is very likely that the intervention of Government has been perfectly justifiable. Even in Belgium, which has been mentioned this evening as being one of the richest countries in the world, and one in which the most signal successes have been achieved in regard to railways, I believe the interference of Government was of a most important and vital character. It is very difficult indeed to deal with general principles in reference to this subject; but, with respect to Ireland, I think it perfectly right that the formation of railways should be left to private enterprize. As to the question before us, we are not called upon to pledge ourselves to anything; but still I think it is desirable that some ideas which tend to encumber the consideration of it should be put aside. In the first place, it is to be assumed that we are considering this as a question of a principle which is applicable to Ireland and not to England. Now, with respect to Ireland, we have not, up to the present moment, pursued the same rule as in England, because we had become creditors of the Irish railways to a very large extent, having made loans to them at a low rate of interest. The mere ground of the actual embarrassment of Irish railway shareholders is no ground for the interference of Parliament; it is not for the Government to relieve their embarrassments more than those of any other distressed class. But then, again, I think it should be understood that under no circumstances should a question of this kind be entertained if it was likely to end in the management of railways by Government. I do not think there are any questions of expediency or policy which should be allowed to influence this House to permit Government interference in the Irish railways to end in their management of them. If Government is to become the proprietors of these railways, I apprehend, independently of the high authority of the hon. Member for Wick — and it is a high authority upon these matters—that it is evident there would be no difficulty whatever in providing for the management and conduct of them by independent parties. In my own opinion, we require very powerful considerations to justify even as much as is now about to be done, because we are about to call for information respecting Irish railways, not merely upon the general ground that railways are a matter of public interest, and the more information we have about public interests the better, but likewise there are circumstances and features of speciality in the case of the Irish railways as to make it desirable to examine their case more minutely, and to convey to certain parties greater powers to conduct that examination than we could give in the case of the English railways. When the Government propose their Bill I shall give my assent to that Bill, and we shall merely be affirming, to a certain extent, the existence of special circumstances in connection with the Irish railways which may hereafter form the foundation for special legislation. I think the effect of that inquiry will be, not to decide, but to raise for the decision of Parliament a question of great importance—namely, the question whether, upon grounds not connected with railway interest as such, but upon Imperial grounds connected with the general condition of Ireland and its relations to this country, it may be worth our while to depart, in a particular instance, from, the ordinary economical rules upon which we act with respect to the interference of Government, and to make an experiment which, besides being a departure from those ordinary rules, may involve a certain amount of pecuniary risk to the Exchequer. I wish to convey my own concurrence in the observations of the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing). He said: "Do not contemplate this inquiry at all, and do not entertain any question of this special character, if the experiment you mean to make is to be small." No small experiment can justify a departure of that kind. If we were to embark in this matter—upon which I give no opinion at present—it must be with a view to great and important results. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) has pointed out the difference between applying the principle of low fares in the hope of augmentation of traffic in thinly-populated districts, and applying the same principle with the same hope in thickly-peopled mining districts, and I trust the noble Lord will supply us with all the light upon the subject that he can possibly obtain. The question is as to whether, by a large reduction of fares, partly upon passengers, and much more upon goods of all descriptions, it is likely to stimulate, to a great extent, the industries of Ireland. If it cannot, the case at once falls through. If the evidence, however, lead to the conclusion that it is highly probable such stimulus would be given, I think an important question will come before the House as to whether it is wise to do in Ireland, under those circumstances, what, undoubtedly, none of us would dream of doing in England or Scotland? As regards the proposition of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Monsell), it is not so entirely novel as might be supposed, even if that proposition be, as I am inclined to think it would prove to be, one involving a risk to the Exchequer. We have for years, for generations, been endeavouring by the application of public money in forms not recognized in Great Britain, and which have been admitted only to a certain extent in Scotland, to stimulate Irish industry; but it has been by drifts, and it has necessarily been done with partiality. There has also been great inequality in the application, and very little success has followed. What has been done has had the effect of creating complicated arrangements and relations between particular places in Ireland and the Treasury, leading to a constant desire on the part of the inhabitants to obtain better terms, while on their part the Treasury have endeavoured to force upon those places a continuance of the terms then existing. A great deal of public money has been spent, and I must say spent in an unsatisfactory manner, for the development of traffic and industry in Ireland, without producing in the main that result. In fact, in many cases nothing but local dissatisfaction has been produced. Many of these transactions were necessarily small, and in a great degree secret, and not observed throughout their whole course by the public; therefore they did not fulfil one of the conditions which we deem necessary for a sound administration of the public funds. With respect to the Irish railways, at any rate, none of these objections apply. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Monsell) disclaims a demand for public aid; but I agree with the hon. Member for Wick that the public Exchequer should run some risk, and, if that risk should be run, I think a favourable comparison might be drawn between that mode of running risk and the mode which has hitherto been adopted, because whatever is to be done in this matter will be done in the face of day as an act of Imperial policy, and will be appreciated as such. It would not be done for the benefit of one class of the community of Ireland more than another—and the Government and Parliament would be responsible, and they would only agree to the measure at all after due and careful deliberation. I know of no way in which a benefit could be conferred upon an entire community better than by cheapening the means of railway communication. We must not rush, however, into any conclusion upon this subject without great consideration; but I think there are considerations of sufficient importance to warrant the preliminary steps which the Government propose to take, and I have only again to express a hope that the thinly-populated state of the country will be fully borne in mind by all who deal with the subject.

called the attention of the House to the proceedings of a Par- liamentary Committee on the subject of Railways in 1863, and that Committee anticipated very distinctly that state of railway property which they had had to contemplate with so much regret during the last year or two. The course of legislation in this country with regard to railways involved greater difficulties and greater expense and risk in railway construction than was found in any other country in the world. It was established before that Committee, that in the construction of railways in Wales—a country no more favourably circumstanced in that particular respect than Ireland—out of a sum of £3,000,000, no less than half had been lost or needlessly spent through the risk and uncertainty attending the administration of railway property by Committees of that House, instead of there being some permanent department to administer it on certain fixed rules by which capitalists and others would know how to proceed. The monopolizing tendencies of the large railway companies had also proved a great difficulty in the way of developing the resources of certain districts by the construction of new lines. The system of private Bill legislation was the cause of great disaster and injury to railway property and a great hindrance to future enterprise in that direction, and it was sustained mainly by the influence of the great railway companies in order to increase the difficulty of constructing new lines by other persons. The subject was brought under the notice of Lord Palmerston, when he was at the head of the Government; but, after the full consideration of the capability of the Government to check the influence of the great railway companies and to deprive them of the benefit which they derived from the enormous expense, and risk, and uncertainty created by the system of Private Bill legislation, it was determined by the Government of the day that they were not strong enough to contend with that influence. It was only by a majority of 1 in the Committee which he had referred to that the business of Private Bill legislation was retained in that House; but it was by a majority of more than 1 that a Resolution was agreed to, at one time by that Committee, declaring that competition should not be regarded as a ground of objection when raised by great companies as against new railways. That Resolution, however, was afterwards rescinded — a circumstance altogether with- out precedent, he believed, in the history of Select Committees of that nature. As it was, the great companies, by means of Private Bill Committees, were able to subject other companies to a process of litigation which was, without exception, in the history of any country, the most costly, uncertain, and unsatisfactory of any judicial tribunal ever devised for any purpose whatever.

rose to call the attention of the House to the restrictions which are placed on the importation of foreign cattle into Liverpool. He said, the present Orders in force for regulating the importation of cattle into Liverpool confined the imports to a single dock, and in the immediate vicinity of that dock, in an area of some two, three, or four acres, the cattle were obliged to be slaughtered on their landing. No animal could leave that space alive, and the consequence was that the trade were put to considerable expense by having to keep up two establishments for slaughtering. Liverpool had a population of 500,000, and it imported a very considerable number of foreign cattle. Some 1,500 head of cattle of one kind or another were convoyed daily to Liverpool, and it was necessary that every facility of egress and ingress should be given for passing that large number out of the town inland. The mere stoppage for twelve or twenty-four hours of that regular flow of cattle was attended with consequences prejudicial to the health of the town. Last year, when in consequence of the cattle disease it became necessary to put a complete stoppage upon and movement of cattle, the death-rate of Liverpool immediately increased, and the Government wisely relaxed those restrictions for the supply of the great manufacturing districts of Lancashire; still the evil continued in its application to foreign cattle in a modified form. Now, he strongly maintained that, so long as a single instance of the disease lingered in any part of the country, the wisest policy was to lay down the most stringent precautions with a view to its extinction, and it was only because of the peculiar character of the cattle which were imported into Liverpool that he deemed it to be his duty to bring the subject under the notice of the House. The entire importation of foreign cattle into Liverpool last year, with the exception of about twenty beasts from other places, came from Spain and Portugal, and in those countries the cattle disease was unknown. The evidence given before the Committee which sat last year on Trade in Animals was so conclusive upon that point that the Committee inserted a special clause in their Report confirming the freedom from the disease which was enjoyed by Spain, and saying that there seemed to be no reason for the quarantine of cattle exported from that country. It should be remembered that the tendency of checking importations was to enhance the price of food; and that in the great manufacturing districts of the North, which were so largely dependent upon the cattle trade of Liverpool, it was important to consider whether the restrictions employed were such as public interest demanded. He thought in this case, looking at the character of the cattle, the countries from which they were obtained, their freedom from disease, and the question of public policy and interest, it would be better if these restrictions were, if not entirely removed, at least modified. On these grounds, he ventured to make the Motion of which he had given notice. He had not extended it to cattle from any other countries than Spain and Portugal, because he was unwilling to introduce the possibility of danger; but if, on international grounds, there should be any objection to singling out the two countries he had named, then he would ask to extend the operation of the Motion to all countries, seeing that, as a fact, the foreign cattle trade of Liverpool was really confined to Spain and Portugal.

supported the Motion, as his sympathies were entirely in harmony on this point with those of the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves). Manchester and Liverpool, he believed, were the centres for distributing animal food to as large a population as that which derived its supplies from London, but Manchester and Liverpool were denied those privileges in connection with the slaughtering of cattle which London enjoyed. As long as that difference remained, it was reasonable to suppose either that there was a want of information on the subject on the part of the Executive, or a direct intention to give to London a favour which was withheld from the North. The price of animal food in the North was so high that it was seriously injurious to the welfare of the people, and that price was very much enhanced by the restrictive importation. He complained of the difference which existed in the treatment of London and of the North. There ought to be one common and equal law on the point applicable to the whole of the kingdom. He hoped the Government would be able to accept the Motion of his hon. Friend, or at all events to do something which should remedy the existing state of things.

agreed in the desirability of having one rule which should apply to all parts of the kingdom; but it was important, while the cattle disease was still raging in other parts of the world, that all cattle imported to this country should be slaughtered at the port to which it was brought. At Newcastle all cattle had to be slaughtered on the spot, and if there was a relaxation in one place it ought to extend to others. No doubt it was very desirable to do away with the existing restrictions altogether; but so long as the cattle disease continued in existence, the only safe course was to kill all cattle at the port of debarkation.

said, he entirely agreed with the hon. Member for Newcastle, that the restrictions which the Government had been compelled to impose had been a very great burden upon the country, and had tended to raise the price of meat. But though there was the evil of that burden on the one hand, there was a still greater evil on the other—namely, the danger test. By removing the restrictions they might again let loose the cattle plague in this country. The restrictions were an evil, but the cattle plague was a still greater evil, and the Government had to choose between the two and take the least. The Government, he thought, ought not to run the risk of re-introducing the cattle plague. The hon. Member for Liverpool had, he admitted, made out a good primâ facie case, and he wished he could at once say he was in a position to meet his view of the matter. He would assume that the foreign cattle imported into Liverpool were chiefly Spanish; but he would remind the hon. Member that there was an international difficulty in this case, and that in consequence of the Favoured Nation Clause, the Sovereign of this country could not extend any favourable provision to one country which she did not extend to others; she could not say, "Let Spanish cattle come in, but let cattle from, other nations be excluded." The hon. Member for Liverpool, recognizing the international difficulty in the case, had suggested that the terms of his Motion should be made to extend to cattle imported from all countries abroad. But they were bound to keep this great object in view—that so long as the cattle plague existed abroad, they should not allow the foreign cattle which came into England to mix with English cattle unless both were about to be slaughtered. That was the fundamental principle which guided the Privy Council. With regard to the course pursued at Harwich and Southampton, it should be remembered that at those places no market for home cattle was permitted, so that the foreign cattle could not possibly mix with English beasts. At Liverpool, there was a large home market and a great flow of cattle from Ireland; and if the restrictions were removed, what was to prevent Irish and foreign cattle from coming into contact with each other, or even from being conveyed to other places in the same train? If that were to happen, the seeds of the disease might easily be sown throughout the country again. With regard to the desire which Manchester had expressed to be placed in the same position as London, he would ask, was Manchester prepared to go to the expense to which London submitted, of having a cordon of police constantly drawn round the town to prevent the passage of any cattle outside the limits of the local authority? London was a special case. If cattle were slaughtered at the ports, the offal would not be sent up to London, and the poor would be deprived of a great portion of the food. Only the most expensive meat would be sent to London; for that would leave a greater margin of profit after paying the expenses. The East End would, therefore, have to buy more expensive meat. The sense of the House ought to be taken substantively on that important question before he could assent to such a Motion as this. He could only assure his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool that every restriction which the Government could safely remove they would remove, and they would endeavour to make those which prudence compelled them to maintain as light as possible, not only for Liverpool, but for all other places also. He only wished that the restriction which the hon. Gentleman complained of could be removed at once.

said, he was glad to hear the noble Lord express so earnestly his wish to remove every restriction which could safely and reasonably be removed. He wished, however, to remind the House that the price of food to the consumer was enhanced, not only by restrictions on the importation and removal of foreign cattle, but also by every restriction and impediment placed in the way of trade in our own cattle. Restrictions had been imposed both on foreign and home cattle; and if it was in the interest of the consumer to relax the one where it could be done with safety, it was also in the interest of the consumer to relax the other where it could be safely done. It seemed to him that relaxations could be given to our own traders at home with less danger than to foreign importers; for they were fairly entitled to assume that the cattle plague was introduced here from abroad, and the danger of its breaking out again, arose from the chance of its being re-introduced from abroad. Happily, the cattle plague had now very much abated, and he hoped the noble Lord and the Committee of the Privy Council would take it seriously into their consideration whether, both in the interests of the producer and the consumer, the time had not arrived when some considerable relaxation should be made in the restrictions on cattle at home. By the operation of the present system an advantage was given to foreigners over the home breeders of cattle. Foreign cattle were brought to Harwich and other ports, and from thence were brought directly up to the London market, whereas the home grazier was obliged, among other things, to run, perhaps, from one end of his county to another before he could obtain a license from a magistrate to remove his cattle from home.

We have removed this restriction; any local authority can now appoint persons to grant licenses.

said, he was glad to hear that, and hoped that would be a step to still further relaxation. He wished to call the attention of the noble Lord to another matter. There were many districts of the country which were entirely free from the cattle plague—some districts had been free for more than a year—and he wished to know whether it was not possible to allow the free circulation of cattle within those districts. In Scotland cattle were allowed to be moved into England, but a cordon was drawn to prevent them passing from a foul to a clean district. He thought something of the same kind might be done in groups of counties in England.

said, he hoped, as soon as the Bill now before the House was passed, to be able to remove a great number of those restrictions.

said, that after the satisfactory explanation which the noble Lord had given he would withdraw his Motion.

said, he desired to bring under the notice of the House a case which had excited a great deal of interest and indignation in the district in which it occurred, and which had given rise to a large correspondence in the local papers under the head of "The Whortle- berry Case." The facts were simply these: On Sunday afternoon, the 16th of June, a party of young persons, consisting of three young men and three young women, mostly between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, were wandering through a wood, upon a public path, the openness of which had not been contested for seventy years. They deviated a little from that path, and trespassed upon the wood (which had no fence to part it from the path), for the purpose of gathering whortleberries. It was said by the party themselves that the trespass could not have been long because they had only gathered a few of the berries, which were in great profusion; but it is only right to say it is said three of the male persons were seen in the wood three hours before by the servant of the proprietors of the wood. It was not for him (Mr. Taylor) to decide which is the correct statement, and it did not materially affect the issue. Next day the proprietor took out a summons for "unlawfully damaging the underwood;" they were taken before a magistrate, who lived three miles off (Colonel Peard), and were condemned by him to three weeks' imprisonment with hard labour, and walked off nine miles to gaol. Now, with regard to the character of these people, as regarded the legal question and the facts of the case it could have no importance; yet with regard to the moral view of the case, and the probabilities of it, it was of the greatest importance. Now, he had received a most remarkable and exceptionally good account of the previous character of every one of these persons. Now, it was upon the bare facts, as he had narrated them, that he ventured to ask a question a few evenings ago, which was answered by the hon. Member for West Cornwall (Mr. Kendall). That hon. Gentleman in the first place said, in a somewhat scornful way, that "the case had nothing at all to do with whortleberries;" but that is just as you regard it. If we look only to the wishes, interests, and motives of the prosecutors no doubt they care nothing for whortleberries; but if we condescend to take the motives and desires of the prisoners into consideration, as he presumed it was the business of those who were to deal justly between parties to do, then it became a whortleberry case, pure and simple; because the trespassers had no other motives than to get these berries; nor were they alone in this, for the three male delinquents state in a letter to the local paper that as they and some other lads were walking towards St. Blazey on that afternoon at three o'clock, Sir Colman Rushleigh's servant said to them, "Come on, we are going to have a buster of 'urts'; when, he adds, "they all went into the wood except us." The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Kendall) then proceeded to say that—

"A portion, he might add, of Sir Colman Rashleigh's income was derived from letting part of a large coppice wood every year. The bark of the trees and the young oak shoots in the wood were, it appeared, seriously damaged by trespassers."

And he added—

"One of the parties who had rented the coppice wood had informed Sir Colman Rashleigh that there was no use in taking it—so great was the damage done by persons trespassing upon it."

Now, he must really give the hon. Member credit for possessing that quality which was said to distinguish the late Sir Robert Peel—that of cleverly dressing up a case for the House. Would the House believe that this serious inroad into the income of Sir Colman Rashleigh referred to a wood, of which he was informed the total rateable value was only £25 per annum? But the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Kendall) depended still more upon the letter written to him by the convicting magistrate; therefore, they were not left in doubt upon the case. The convicting magistrate said—

"Parties have constantly been brought before our bench for trespass and damage in Prideaux and Tregrehan woods; we have generally fined the parties so brought before us, hoping that leniency would have the desired effect."

Again—

"When the parties were brought before me they all pleaded guilty, and I sent them to Bodmin for three weeks, in hope that this punishment may have the effect of stopping others, which fining has not done."

We have all heard of the address of the Judge to the man who had been condemned for horse-stealing. The Judge said—

"I do not condemn you for stealing a horse, but in order that other men may not steal horses;"

but this magistrate went much beyond this dictum; he said—

"You are not to be punished because you have committed a crime which deserves this punishment; but you are punished because other persons have, as we believe, committed it, and because we have not been able to get hold of them."

The letter then goes on to say—

"A day or two before these persons were found the keeper met a party, who, on being spoken to, defied him in most violent language. He did not know the parties, so could not apply for summonses. A day or two afterwards Battie fell in with this party."

Now, was it possible for any one to have written a move self-condemnatory letter than this? They had first the clear statement that the magistrates were, beforehand, determined to punish with imprisonment anyone whom they might find in the woods, whether guilty of trespass or not. And secondly, they had the acknowledgment that the keeper, in his turn, had been bottling up his wrath at being "defied in most violent language" by certain unknown parties, and had thus wreaked his vengeance upon the first "parties" he could catch; who, unfortunately for him, and for them, so far as it is unfortunate to suffer innocently, happened to be these six poor people who had never been charged before with any offence whatever. Now there were two legal points which arose in this case—not technically legal but, in a common sense point of view, legal. With regard to the first of these points, in the first place these people were sentenced in a private room in the house of the committing magistrate, and a friend of one of the prisoners was refused admission to that room. If that were so and an absolute refusal was given, as he believed it was, it was most illegal. But beyond this he ventured to assert that it was not enough for justice that the doors should not have been closed against them. It should have been explained to these peasants and their friends, trembling before the awful presence of the squire's dignity, that his justice-room was not for this occasion a private sanctum, to enter which without permission was but to commit a new trespass. To all intents and purposes this was a private interview, and neither magistrates nor prisoners had any legal adviser present. Upon this point the 11 & 12 Vict. c. 43, s. 12, enacts that—

"The room or place in which such justice or parties shall sit to hear and try any such complaint or information, shall be deemed an open and public Court, to which the public, generally, may have access, so far as the same can conveniently contain them."

Mr. Justice Bayly, in Daubney, v. Cooper, 10, Barnewell and Creswell, 240, says—

"The ground upon which our present opinion is formed is that the magistrate was proceeding upon a summary conviction, and therefore exercising a judicial authority. He was, as it were, a Court of Justice for that purpose, and we are all of opinion that it is one of the essential qualities of a Court of Justice that its proceedings should be public, and that all parties who may be desirous of hearing what is going on, if there be room in the place for that purpose, provided they do not interrupt the proceedings, and provided there is no specific reason why they should be removed, have a right to be present for the purpose of hearing what is going on."

He (Mr. Taylor) therefore ventured to state, as the first legal point, that he doubted very much whether any punishment, awarded in that private and secret way, could bear the gaze of legal investigation. Now, according to the letter of the committing magistrate, which was read by the hon. Gentleman opposite, this conviction took place under the 24 & 25 Vict. c. 97. It did not state the section; but he presumed it was the 22nd, the words of which were, in stating the offence—

"Unlawfully and maliciously cut, break, bark, root up, or otherwise destroy, or damage, the whole or any part of any tree, sapling, or shrub, or any underwood, the damage amounting to one shilling."

said, that in the letter forwarded to him the sections were stated as the 52nd and 53rd.

I believe those sections are pretty similar to the 22nd. The words of the committing magistrate are that the sentence was for "trespassing and destroying underwood." Now, with regard to trespassing, there was no power of summary punishment at all. There was no case in which a mere trespass can be punished except by action. Therefore, that part fell through altogether; and as to the damage, no damage was done, he was informed, upon the authority of a gentleman residing in the neighbourhood. They had, therefore, a conviction for trespass which was not legal, and for damage which was never committed. Well, how was a conviction to be got against these people? It seemed that the magistrates had resolved that any person found wandering in this wood should be sent to prison, and the only way in which that could be done was to obtain a confession of guilt with respect to the trespass which they could not punish, and transfer that to a wilful damage of the underwood which they could punish, but could not prove. See how this was managed. According to a statement signed by the whole of the accused, the following was what took place:—

"Colonel Peard read the summons aloud to us and said, 'What do you say to that?' Joseph Coppin replied, 'I was there, sir,' and before I had time to say I was not damaging the underwood he asked the rest. George Bennett and all of us said 'guilty,' meaning of being in the wood. We were about to say that we were not damaging the underwood when Colonel Peard said—'We need not enter any further into the case, you are already sentenced to the House of Correction for three weeks with hard labour. Take them away.' Master Rashleigh was standing close to Colonel Peard's chair, with his elbow resting upon it. We are sure that we did no damage, and think that we have been very hardly used."

Now, with respect to this plea of guilty, everyone that had been accustomed to attend Courts of Justice, or who read accounts of those Courts, knew how nobly, even occasionally how pedantically, Judges sitting in authority warn prisoners against pleading guilty without the clearest understanding. They insisted upon making the prisoners know fully what they were about, and sometimes even when the prisoner insisted upon pleading guilty they almost imply "Will you not take your chance of being fairly hunted down?" Now, he thought he should carry the House with him when he said, under these circumstances, that when these young people went into that dining-room of Colonel Peard's they did not go into a Court of Justice: they did not go into a place where their case was to be fairly investigated, and where their punishment, if punishment were necessary, would be mercifully administered; but they went into a trap out of which they were only to issue with the burden of a fore-determined punishment upon them. A great deal had been said about setting class against class. This was simply a punishment inflicted because of class. Every man in this House knew that if these young people had been members of the squirearchy, or of the tradesman rank of society, there was no justice in the United Kingdom who would have dared to inflict this punishment upon them. It was, he knew, vain to say, "Do not tell us how kind and good these people are!" They all knew that when any case of peculiar injustice was brought to light, the perpetrator was sure to be described as of a judicial mind, perhaps even of an "hereditary judicial mind"—whatever that might mean. In like manner if there was a case of peculiar cruelty and hardship, the man who committed the act was certain to be described, ad nauseam, as a person overflowing with the milk of human kindness. But in this case he accepted it as a fact, and believed it to be true, that the proprietor of this wood was a man who was exceptionally kind and tender-hearted and of a generous nature. But that mode the case ten-fold worse, and more dangerous. If this was the way the peasantry were treated by persons who were exceptionally kind hearted and generous, what was to become of them in those cases—and there would be such even amongst the landed gentry—where they were men of hard, stern, and revengeful natures? This was the case he had to present, and he ventured to ask what had been done in the matter? The Home Secretary heard his Question a few nights ago; he heard the statement of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Kendall), and he heard the excusatory letter of Colonel Peard; and he must have known better than any man in this House how utterly futile, fallacious, and weak was the defence made against such a charge. What had he done? Had he done that poorest and smallest justice that was now possible to be done to these poor gaol birds? Had he sent them a certificate of illegal conviction? In bringing this case before the House he had to consider what practical form he should give to it, and he came to the conclusion that it would be useless to move for Papers, since it was quite manifest that there were, and could be, none worth producing; and he knew it was very unlikely that he could carry a Motion in the present House for the removal of the committing magistrate. He was, moreover, much more desirous to gain, if possible, some security to the people for the future, rather than attempt to legislate and punish for what was past. He therefore had ventured to ask the House to pass a Resolution which it appeared to him no party could object to. The Resolution was—

"That, in the opinion of this House, in all cases of summary convictions before justices of the peace, it is desirable that Minutes of the Evidence on which the conviction was founded should be recorded, and preserved for future reference in case of need."

He would trouble the House with but two observations in support of this Resolution. He thought it eminently desirable there should be a unity of action all through the country. On a late occasion there were hon. Gentlemen who expressed their astonishment to hear that full notes of evidence were not taken in all such cases; while others seemed to express equal astonishment that such notes should be supposed to be taken in any case. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) made some observation, and he understood him to say that, in his experience, certain notes were taken by the clerk, but that the notes which the clerk took were not necessarily related to the proceedings of the magistrate. Those notes were not read, he said, afterwards to the magistrates, and might not therefore convey either the moral or legal ground upon which the decision was given. Now this was a diversity of action which should be remedied. It was also highly desirable that the people of this country, who were subject to summary jurisdictions, should not only be justly dealt with, but that they should believe that they were justly dealt with. There was a general impression that practical justice was not dealt out in many cases by the unpaid magistracy of the country to the peasantry. It was extremely desirable, in the interests of the people, that a record of the evidence in all these proceedings should be taken, to render possible subsequent appeal; but it was, he thought, quite as important for the magistrate himself, unaccustomed as he may be to legal questions or to the careful weighing of evidence, that he should, as it were, have to act upon some recognized basis, and should feel that his decision must be in accordance with written documents, which must be sufficient not only for his own mind, but it may be for the authorities who may have to revise the decision which he may come to. He therefore begged to move the Resolution of which he had given notice.

said, that he fully agreed with the Resolution, but he disagreed very much from the statement with which the hon. Gentleman had introduced it. The whole question really was this—whether a man had the right to deal with his own property and protect it as he liked? He would lay before the House a plain honest statement of the facts of the case. Sir Colman Rashleigh had a considerable property, near St. Blazey, in the mining district. Many landowners, he must observe, refused to grant setts for mines on account of the troublesome character of the miners; but for his own part he had always acted on the opinion that they were susceptible of judicious management. He would also observe, before coming to the main facts of the case, that what the hon. Gentleman opposite had said about Mr. Northey was altogether out of place, for Mr. Northey was a commercial traveller living twenty miles off, who did not see the place where the trespass was committed for weeks afterwards; and how then could he pretend accurately to inform the hon. Gentleman what amount of damage had been done? Now, Sir Colman Rashleigh had suffered a great deal from depredations upon his property, and he might observe that every year a certain portion of an oak coppice wood was cut down and sold, and great damage was done by persons trespassing, for by walking upon the young shoots they destroyed them. Again and again offenders had been warned, again and again they had been brought up and fined, and last year the magistrates said, "We find it is of no use in the world to fine you, for you combine together among yourselves and pay it off, and we are, therefore, resolved that if this occurs again we will imprison you." Notices, warning trespassers off, were actually put up at different points in the very place where this trespass was committed; and when Sir Colman Rashleigh's son was informed by a boy that six persons were trespassing in that place, he went there and determined that the persons should be apprehended. Now, he had lived in that neighbourhood forty years, he knew the people, and he never broke his word with them. Whenever he told them that they would be imprisoned the next time they were brought before him, he never failed. They knew he never did, and it was only by being very firm, and never getting angry, that they were to be managed. It was a great mistake to suppose that the population in Cornwall were poor-spirited or down-trodden. A more independent set of men, or more able to assert their own rights, nowhere existed. Well, Sir Colman Rashleigh's eldest son, when he came across the trespassers, had their names, and laid informations against them at the next Petty Sessions, and on Wednesday the case was heard in the private dwelling of the magistrate and they were convicted. This was the simple story; and, while he re- gretted that the case should have been heard in private, he would ask any one whether, after the repeated warnings and the threats that the next case of the sort would be punished with imprisonment, the magistrate could have taken any other course? He must protest against country gentlemen being held up in this manner to the indignation of the public.

said, this was not, as the last speaker supposed, a question as to whether a man's property was his own or not. The question was, whether six persons had had justice administered to them or not? He wished to point out that Sir Colman Rashleigh had not been attacked in that House or out of it in consequence of this affair. The complaint was made against the magistrate, and it was twofold, as to the mode in which the investigation was conducted, and as to the punishment awarded. For his part he thought that a more monstrous case had never been brought before the House. The offence of which they had been found guilty was described in the statute as that of wilfully and maliciously damaging underwood. But the offence alleged in the summons was simply for damaging underwood. The prisoners alleged that the summons had been read out to them by the magistrate, and they were asked what they had to say to it; they answered that they were there, meaning that they were trespassing in the wood; but they never intended to plead guilty to a malicious injury to property. If the words of the statute "malicious and wilful damage" had been read to the prisoners, he was sure they would not have pleaded guilty. He could not help thinking that if the conviction was in the same words as the summons it was void, as the very gist of the offence was contained in the words "wilful and malicious." It was never intended that the punishment inflicted should be applied to cases of mere trespass with nominal damage. No doubt the magistrate had not committed this wrong intentionally; but it showed that he was so grossly ignorant of the law that he did not know how to conduct his business. The proceedings from the commencement were irregular; such a case should never have been decided in a magistrate's private room; it should have been heard at Petty Sessions, where the magistrates' clerk could have been appealed to for advice. It was quite incredible that three weeks' imprisonment with hard labour should have been awarded as a punishment for such a trifling offence. He trusted inquiry would be made, for as the facts stood at present he thought the only course would be to dismiss the magistrate from the Commission of the Peace.

said, he thought the House was much obliged to the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) for filling the office which used to be so ably undertaken by Mr. Duncombe, the late Member for Finsbury, who, in dull times, used to trot out novel subjects to relieve the tedium of the hour; but he trusted the hon. Member would in future bring forward cases which would hold water better than the present. The hon. and learned Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) seemed to think the charge did not come within the statute; if that were so, as he was an hon. and learned Member, it would have been more to the purpose, and much more satisfactory to the persons most interested, if he had put in that plea in a higher court, instead of assisting at one brief conversation on the subject. With regard to the subject of depositions, he noticed that the people in this instance pleaded guilty, so there was an end of all evidence; and, in his opinion, it was most unadvisable to add to the expenses of such trifling proceedings by insisting on the taking of depositions, because it often happened that even without this expense it was most difficult to keep the people from going to prison, simply because they were unable to pay the expenses and the small fine. He agreed in one remark that had been made, and that was that justice should not only be done, but that people should think it was done. About ten years ago, magistrates were empowered to make summary convictions in cases of petty larceny, and the question put to the offenders was, whether they would like the case to be decided at once or preferred going before a jury. In all the cases which had come before him he had never found one in which the party preferred to go before a jury; and he thought, whatever grievance-mongers might say, that was the best proof that the parties believed justice would be done by the magistrate. He should be extremely sorry when people were brought up for small offences to saddle them with the cost of the depositions, which, in many cases, would more than double the costs which must be paid.

said, the hon. Member for Leicester had called upon him to answer certain questions, and had imposed upon him a duty which, if he were to discharge, would be more illegal than anything that was charged against the magistrate. The hon. Member had asked him to issue a certificate declaring that the decision complained of was illegal; but if, as the hon. and learned Member for Rending had said, the proceedings were wrong ab initio, he would, by acceding to the request of the hon. Member for Leicester, be guilty of usurping the position of the Court of Queen's Bench. With respect to the case itself it never was brought before the Home Office, except on the Question put by the hon. Member. There was no Petition — no memorial—no complaint of the conviction. When the case was first mentioned the imprisonment had expired, and no question was put to him as to whether the men were properly imprisoned or not. When the question was afterwards repeated, he (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) wrote to the magistrate, asking if he wished to offer any explanation. The magistrate, in reply, explained what he had done, and so far as the statute was concerned his proceeding was regular. At all events, nothing was done contrary to the terms of the statute. The hon. and learned Member for Reading had said that the case should have gone to the Petty Sessions, but the terms of the Act were "upon conviction before a justice of the peace." There was no occasion to take the defendants before the Petty Sessions, and the only question was whether the justice called upon to hear the case should have heard it in the Petty Sessions court or in his own house.

said, he did not say the magistrate was bound to hear the case in Petty Sessions as a matter of law, but only that he ought to have done so.

said, he had understood the hon. and learned Gentleman to speak as a lawyer. When the hon. and learned Gentleman called upon the Government to dismiss a magistrate, he should have thought it would have been not for an error of judgment, but for having acted illegally, which he did not understand to have been the case in this instance. The magistrate, in the letter which he had received from him, stated that when the six defendants were brought before him he read over to each the charges made against them seriatim, and then put the question—"You have heard the charge against you: what do you say—are you guilty or not guilty?" The letter went on to say that each defendant pleaded guilty, and the magistrate then sentenced them severally to twenty-one days' imprisonment, with hard labour, in the House of Correction at Bodmin, under the 24 & 25 Vict., c. 97, ss. 52 and 53. The 53rd section of that Act was to meet cases for which no other punishment had been provided, punishment having been provided in other cases where the damage amounted to 1s. Colonel Peard added that persons were continually brought before the bench on which he acted for damaging the plantations in the neighbourhood; that they had over and over again tried to put a stop to such a state of things by inflicting a fine; that, upon the last occasion when offenders were brought before them, they gave notice that, as their leniency had proved ineffectual, those persons would be sentenced to be imprisoned the next time they were brought up. The injury, Colonel Peard went on to say, done to the plantations was very serious, and the magistrates saw no other way of putting a stop to it. He also said that if a heavy fine had been inflicted the hardship would be very great on some families, especially when the present distress in the mining districts was taken into account, and that notice against trespassers had for some time been placed in the wood by Sir Colman Rashleigh's order. Such was the statement of the magistrate, and as to Sir Colman Rashleigh, who was not in Cornwall at the time, there were no materials at the Home Office for instituting, in reference to him, such an inquiry as the hon. Member for Leicester had suggested. He (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) quite admitted that when a magistrate heard cases in his drawing-room, as in the present instance, the room should be open, so that any one who wished might have an opportunity of listening to the proceedings. It was, however, a perfectly novel statement to him that there was any impediment thrown in the way of any one entering the room in the cause under discussion. Such did not appear to be the fact from the letter of Colonel Peard, and he could not under all these circumstances inquire into the conduct of Sir Colman Rashleigh. He had no materials, in fact, on which to base such an inquiry, nor was it his duty to inquire into the conduct of the magistrate, but that of the Lord Chancellor, who, if he had acted improperly, had it in his power to dismiss him. If cases in which an excessive punishment had been inflicted, or in which the reversal of a sentence was called for, were brought before him, then it would be his duty to investigate the matter. Nothing of that kind, however, had come under his notice in the present instance, and he had no statement to make with respect to it to the House on the part of the Home Office. The magistrate had acted within the law, and it was no part of his duty to interfere in the matter.

said, he did not think any blame could, under the circumstances, attach itself to his right hon. Friend who had just spoken. As to Sir Colman Rashleigh and Colonel Peard, with whom he had the pleasure of being acquainted, he felt assured that the one was incapable of acting harshly towards the poor, and that the other would not be guilty of my malversation of his office as a magistrate. The impression, however, which had been left on his mind by the statements which had been made on both sides was that considerable want of caution had been exhibited by the latter. Before taking the plea of guilty he ought to have explained clearly to the prisoners what the nature of the offence was with which they were charged, and that they were not merely accused of having been unlawfully in the wood, but of having committed wilful and intentional damage. From the statement which had been made by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Reading, it would appear that they had pleaded guilty under a misapprehension, and it would seem, from Colonel Peard's letters, that he at once took the plea of guilty, and, without another word, sentenced them to three weeks' imprisonment. Now, no Judge would, he ventured to think, have acted in that way, and very few magistrates. He was also of opinion that the sentence was, under the circumstances, excessive; and he could not help thinking that the prisoners did not mean to commit the offence with which they were charged. He would only add that he regarded it as extremely unjust to his hon. Friend the Member for Leicester to be called a grievance-monger because he brought the case under the notice of the House. In his opinion, he deserved the thanks of the House for having drawn its attention to what he believed was an exceptional case in the administration of justice.

hoped the hon. Member for Leicester would not press his Motion to a division. He did not believe it would lead to any advantage.

I avail myself of the present opportunity for the purpose of inviting the House to consider that portion of the Report of the Select Committee of last year on "East India Communications" which has reference to the Postal Service between this country and India, China, Australia, and the East generally. It is not my intention in any way to deal with that part of the Report which refers to Telegraphic Communication with the East. In proposing to offer some criticisms on the manner in which Her Majesty's Government have proceeded and are now proceeding to carry out the recommendations of that Committee, I wish to assure my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury that I do so in no fault-finding, captious, or party spirit, but solely with the hope that I may be permitted to co-operate, to a certain extent, in placing this important service, as it respects the commerce of the country, upon a satisfactory footing. It will be in the recollection of many Gentlemen now present that early in the last Session I drew the attention of the House to the condition of our communications with the East, with especial reference to the fact that great changes had taken place in India, and in particular that railways were in course of construction or completion there which would very much alter the arrangements of the Postal service with that country. I submitted all these matters to the House at the time. I called attention to the vast interests which were concerned in the trade between this country and India, and to the social and political relations of the two countries. I pointed out the imperfections of the system of communication, and I also stated, from my own point of view, what I conceived would be the proper method by which our communications should be put on a better and more satisfactory footing. The Motion I then made was agreed to, and a Committee was appointed to inquire into the subject. I should like to direct attention, for one moment, to the constitution of that Committee. It was, I think I may venture to say, in every sense of the word, a "Select" Committee. It was a Committee selected for the purpose of considering a particular question; and it was selected entirely on the grounds of the fitness of the Gentlemen placed on that Committee to undertake the duties assigned to it. In the first place, the interests of the Government of the country, or, I should say, of the Exchequer, were represented, and, I need hardly say, efficiently represented, by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers), then Secretary to the Treasury. The India Office was represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), and both these Gentlemen were constant in their attendance on the Committee, and took as much interest in all that occurred as any Gentleman present. Commerce was represented by my hon. Friend the Member for South Lancashire, formerly Member for Liverpool (Mr. C. Turner); also by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton (Mr. Moffatt). My hon. Friend the Member for Frome (Sir Henry Rawlinson) represented generally the interests of the East, of which he is particularly cognizant. The science of telegraphy was represented by the hon. Member for Greenwich (Sir Charles Bright); steam navigation by the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Laird); and almost every interest may be said to have been represented by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton). In point of fact, there was no particular interest afffected by the inquiry which had not its re- presentative and advocate in the Committee. I may say also, in passing, that the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Packet Company, whose proceedings under their contract were to be called in question, were represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Weguelin), who is intimately connected with that Company. The Committee sat for a great number of days. It examined a vast number of witnesses, and the whole question underwent a thorough investigation. The arrangements of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, the manner in which they had performed their service, and the cost to the country of that service, were all fully gone into; and the result was that the Committee, after considerable examination of the subject, came to certain conclusions, which they embodied in a Report, and that Report was accepted by them without any question whatever, passing the ordeal of the Committee without Amendments, except a few of a merely verbal character. I mention this in order to show that the question had been so thoroughly investigated, and was so well understood by those who considered it, that when the Report was settled, no question of doubt arose upon any point connected with the postal service. In their Report the Committee, in the first instance, drew the attention of the House to the vastness of the trade between this country and the East. I need not occupy the time of the Committee by referring to the figures which are given in the Report. The magnitude of the trade is evidenced by the value of the goods which are imported by and exported from this country and the countries referred to in the body of the Report. The tonnage also was given, and other facts stated which justified the Committee in the conclusion they formed that upwards of 25 per cent of the whole of the external commerce of the United Kingdom was transacted with the several countries enumerated in the Report. The Committee then went on to describe the manner in which the postal communications were carried out, and pointed out its imperfections at length. They also discussed various methods which had been propounded for the purpose of improving those communications, and wound up their Report by making certain recommendations. I may say that there is in the Report a paragraph in which it is stated that in the opinion of the Committee, as regards the Peninsular and Oriental Company, who possess a fleet of fifty-seven steam vessels, of the aggregate tonnage of 84,176 tons, and of nearly 20,000 horse-power—

"The services of that company, under the several contracts to which reference has been made, have been well performed,"

and the Assistant Secretary of the Post Office stated—

"That no mail that was entrusted to this company for conveyance was ever lost."

That, I believe, can hardly be said of any other postal service in this country. The recommendations which the Committee made to the House are recorded under seven heads. They point out the changes which had taken place in the internal communications of India, consequent upon the introduction of railways; and they say that the time had arrived when, in their opinion, tenders should be invited for the establishment of a weekly service with India, that that weekly service should be directed to Bombay alone, and that the other communications then existing with Madras and Calcutta should, as far as regards India, be entirely superseded and laid on one side; the fact being that Bombay is now on the point of being connected by means of railways with all parts of India; consequently, letters conveyed to Bombay will necessarily reach any place in the interior of India, to which they are addressed, quicker by way of Bombay than by any other route. They next suggest, with reference to the extreme importance of maintaining our communications with India upon a satisfactory basis—

"That such service should be on the footing of an express service,"

and that it should be—

"Entirely unconnected, to the eastward of Suez, with any other mail services"

whatever; the reason being that where different branch lines of steam communication have to be worked together, great delay must sometimes take place from the non-arrival or late arrival of vessels, independently of the delay that is necessarily attendant upon the trans-shipment of passengers and merchandize. Wherever postal communication has been extended, there commerce has invariably been attracted; in fact, the conveyance of the mails has proved a most efficient agency for increasing our trade in all parts of the world. The then Committee describe what, in their opinion, should be the speed at which these mails should be carried. They suggest that—

"The time-table should be based on a prescribed speed of not less than eleven nautical miles per hour on the voyage between Marseilles and Alexandria, and ten miles per hour between Suez and Bombay."

There are various other recommendations in the Report, and among them is one which will probably form the principal subject of comment this evening, which is—

"That Her Majesty's Government should take into their early consideration the arrangements to be made, in consequence of the proposed separation of the Indian service, for maintaining a fortnightly or half-monthly service to China, and a monthly or four-weekly service to Australia, having regard to any facilities which may be afforded by the monthly service to China, now performed by the Messageries Impériales from Marseilles."

The Report was presented at the end of the Session of Parliament. It had been concurred in entirely by my hon. Friends, who, in the Committee, represented the Departments of the Government which were concerned; and at the time it was drafted it was reasonable to suppose that they would have been the persons to be entrusted with the carrying out of the recommendations of the Committee, and we had every right and reason also to suppose that, as they had been parties to the recommendations, if the execution of them had been left in their hands, we should have seen them fulfilled to the letter. The conduct of this and of other matters, however, fell into different hands. When the present Government came into office they lost no time in taking the matter into consideration, and on the 4th of September a Treasury Minute was recorded in which the Report of the Select Committee was reviewed, and the opinion of the Government generally in reference to the whole question was set forth at full length. In this Minute, "My Lords" state, in the first instance, the nature of the existing service, and then they pass on to a question to which I desire to draw attention, because it is a subject of great importance. I refer to the question of cost. Now the question of the cost of maintaining this communication had been a vexed question between the public and the Treasury, and between the Post Office and the India Office; and the departmental controversy as carried on was of a very peculiar character. It was, in fact, a sort of triangular duel. The Post Office was on one side, the Treasury was on another, and the India Office on the third side, all engaged in trying how they could shift from one another the burden of what was considered to be the loss sustained by the public in the maintenance of these communications. Now, in offering a criticism on that part of the Minute of the Treasury which has reference to this subject, I wish to refer to the evidence which was given before the Committee by a gentleman who represented the Post Office. I have often heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire (Mr. Gladstone) speak in the highest terms of the public servants of the Government and the country, and I have heard the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer do the same. No doubt whatever has been said by them on this point was spoken with a full knowledge of its truth. At all events, my experience justifies me in saying so; and I should say that of all persons Mr. Frederick Hill, of the Post Office, is the last man of whom we should speak as being deficient in zeal, ability, or intelligence. Mr. Frederick Hill has practical opinions of his own on this subject, which he has always expressed, and which he enforced with great vigour before the Committee. His object was to show that there was what he termed a "loss" on this Contract Service; that is to say, that its whole cost exceeded the estimated receipts for postage by a certain amount, and he held that that was a "loss" to which the country should not be put, and that it ought to be recouped in some form to the department. The controversy between the departments of the Government, therefore, was as to whose shoulders this loss should fall upon. An attempt was made—at least it was proposed to charge an additional sum in the way of postage; but that was strenuously objected to by Sir Charles Wood, who was then at the India Office. It was also proposed that India should be called upon to bear the "loss;" but to that, too, Sir Charles Wood stoutly objected. The public, likewise, protested against being called upon to pay a larger amount of postage, and as a result, in reality it was the only practical issue, the public were likely to be the sufferers in the long run, as appeared to be the intention of the Treasury at the time, for they were to be called upon to pay an additional 50 per cent in postage. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us the other day that the Government were occupied in arranging the terms of a Postal Convention with the United States of America, and the expectation of a reduced rate of postage being established between the two countries was made matter of congratulation. But it appears that, at the very time that this great boon was to be conferred on persons engaged in trade, or having occasion to correspond, with the United States, it was actually the intention of the Government to subject those who are engaged in the Eastern trade to a considerable advance in postage. It is a question which well deserves the consideration of this Committee whether the residuum or difference between the cost of the service, and the amount received for postage, is a matter to be viewed in the light in which it was treated by Mr. Frederick Hill. I, for one, hold that there are considerations to be taken into account in this matter which are wholly apart from the question of the profit and loss arising upon the accounts of the Post Office. The difference, as I will explain to the Committee, is not considerable; but whatever it is, that difference represents the whole cost to this country of the means, by which not only the commercial, but the social and political connection, between this country and its Eastern possessions and dependencies and the Eastern world is kept up. Sir Charles Wood, at that time, took a view which, I think, will commend itself to the judgment of the Committee. In a letter which he addressed to the Secretary of the Post Office in October, 1865, he said—

"Sir Charles Wood, however, cannot regard the question as one merely affecting the charge on the Imperial revenues. It has been the perception of the bearing of increased postal communication on the wealth and progress of the country that has induced Statesmen of late years to consent to fiscal sacrifices for the purpose of obtaining it.

"There can be no doubt that increased postal communication with India implies increasing relations with that country, increased commerce, increased investment of English capital, increased settlement of energetic middle-class Englishmen; and, from all of these sources, the wealth and prosperity of England are probably more greatly increased than that of India; and at the present day there are classes in India, not private soldiers, to whom the increase of the rate of postage between the two countries would be not only a hardship, but a positive hindrance to their progress."

I apprehend that there are few persons who do not concur with Sir Charles Wood in that view, and who do not think that it would be a great calamity, if all communication between the two countries were to be subjected to the burden of an increase of not less than 50 per cent in the expense of carrying on our postal communications. The question is what is the whole sum to which I have been referring? In the Treasury Minute the entire cost of carrying out the communication between this country and the East is set down in the gross at £349,625, to which certain additions are made that I need not enumerate in detail, and from which a deduction of about £236,000 for the estimated amount of postage is made. There then remains a sum, stated in the Minute to be £160,000, of which it may be roughly calculated that one half is borne by India and the different colonies concerned, and the other half by the mother country. It was the endeavour of the Committee to separate as much as possible the cost of carrying on our communications with India from the cost of maintaining our communications with China, Australia, and other parts of the East, and for that purpose they obtained from Mr. Hill a Return showing what was, in the estimation of the Post Office at that time, the exact cost of the India service, as distinguished from the China service; and the result was this. The account is in the blue bock, and bears the signature of the Receiver and Accountant General of the Post Office. The last paragraph of the Memorandum is in these words—

"Thus it appears that the present loss on the India service is about £48,000 per annum, and that the loss on the China service is about £34,000, making a total loss of rather more than £82,000."

Now, in the Treasury Minute, the whole sum is set down at £160,000, so that the difference between the two must be borne by the Australian and other Colonies with which communication is kept up. Separating the India service from the others it appears then that, in the very worst view as regards the result, the deficiency does not amount to more than £48,000. A competent witness, however, contended before the Committee that that was not a fair Return, because it was made up of a mileage rate applicable to the combined services of India and China, whereas a portion of the India service is carried on at a considerably reduced rate, and that that reduced rate did not belong to the China service at all. Therefore, the average was not fairly stated, and the probability is that the whole loss on the India service does not exceed £30,000. That sum of £30,000 then is the amount for which the communications are to be scrimped, or the public are to pay in the shape of increased postal charge; and I think I have shown in the words of Sir Charles Wood that there are considerations of an important character that would hardly justify the Government in imposing on the public such an increased postal charge. What I complain of in this part of the Minute is that, with the knowledge that the loss upon the India service, which it was the object of the Committee to keep wholly clear and distinct from the other services, owing to the unfairness of mixing them together, was only £48,000, the whole has been lumped up in the sum of £160,000, in order to magnify the amount. We were told the other day by a noble Lord in the other House of Parliament that the child of Aspasia governed Greece; and I think I am not going far out of the way in suggesting that, in reference to matters postal, Mr. Frederick Hill governs the Treasury. I do not suppose that this Treasury Minute, which was passed within six weeks after the present Government assumed office, was the production of the mind of my hon. Friend, for he would hardly have had time to give his attention to the subject so completely as the Minute indicates. I am not without reason in supposing that it was prepared in St. Martin's-le-Grand; and, if so, it could have been prepared by no one else than Mr. Frederick Hill. I do not question, in the slightest degree, Mr. Hill's fidelity to his own particular views, or to what he conceives to be the interest of the public in this matter, but I think he has not stated in respect of cost the figures in the fair way towards the Committee that he ought to have done. There are also some important particulars with regard to which the Government have failed to recognize the recommendations of the Select Committee. Among other things it was especially recommended by the Committee that the service of India, being the most important, should be kept wholly separate and distinct from every other service to the eastward of Suez: that the Eastern mails being conveyed from this country through Egypt by one service should be separated into two divisions at Suez, one of which, the India portion, should proceed to Bombay and the other should take its departure for Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, China, and elsewhere. That recommendation was based upon other and more important considerations than those which have reference to the special importance of rapid communication with India. The fact is, that if there is any particular fault to be found in the proposed method of communication, it is the utter unsuitability for the purposes of trans-shipment of the port of Aden. I can refer this Committee to competent evidence which was given before the Select Committee as to the difficulties connected with Aden. Being a tidal harbour, vessels can only go in and out of it at certain periods. Thus, time must necessarily be lost there, and, independently of other considerations, there is this great practical objection to Aden being used for the purpose. But, surely, when the Committee were recommending an express service to India unconnected with any other on the other side of Suez, it is not unreasonable to suppose that they had in view the great impolicy of making the voyage to and from Bombay dependent upon certain other vessels keeping up the communication with Aden. The Treasury in their Minute use these words—

"With regard to the conveyance of mails to China and Japan, My Lords are of opinion that the service to be constituted for the conveyance of the Indian Mails should be made use of as far as Aden."

There is therefore a distinct difference of opinion between the Committee and the Government on this point. The views of the Committee were based on strong public considerations independently altogether of the unsuitability of Aden for the purposes of a port. The Government, entirely disregarding the evidence which was given before the Committee, recorded their own view, or that of Mr. Hill, that economy should be observed, and that the mails for China and Japan should be carried not from Suez to the eastward, but from Aden to the eastward, thus making use of the Bombay line, and entirely passing over the view of the Committee that the Indian mails should be conveyed separately and with as much rapidity as possible between Suez and Bombay. It is true that, at the end of the paragraph in the Minute, it is said that the parties tendering are to state for what additional subsidy they would be willing to continue the service from Aden to Suez; but the view of the Treasury is strongly stated that in effect the recommendation of the Committee was not a wise one as regards Aden, and that it was better that Aden should be selected as the point of junction. Another matter was the speed at which the mails were to be conveyed. The Committee recommended that it should be eleven knots an hour; but the recommendation was passed over on reference to the Postmaster General, and a time fixed which, if observed correctly, would restrict the speed to ten and a-quarter miles an hour. Perhaps that is not a matter of so much consequence, seeing that the post is becoming daily more and more supplemented by the telegraph; so that the necessity which was felt some time ago for a highly increased rate of speed does not exist in the same degree now. Another point has reference to the place of departure from Europe. The Committee had under their consideration the Report made by Colonel Tyler, of the Royal Engineers, with regard to the new line of communication proposed to be opened over Mont Cenis, and by the new line of railway to Bologna and Brindisi in the South of Italy. The Committee inquired into the matter, and came to the conclusion, on the evidence before them, that Brindisi was not a port that was fitted at present, or until improved, as the place from which the communication could be kept up. Moreover, the line of railway between Bologna and Brindisi is a single line, and is not, therefore, so well adapted for the conveyance of mails by express train as a double line of railway. Again, the passage of the Mont Cenis is not yet in a state to justify the Government in relying upon its being at all times open for the conveyance of mails. The Committee felt that, in making any contracts, regard should be had to the possibility of this line becoming available during the term of the contract, and that arrangements should be adopted for its being used it necessary. What they had in view was the time when the tunnel now being constructed under the Mont Cenis pass should be finished. But the Treasury in their Minute adopted absolutely the view contained in the Report of Colonel Tyler, that the mails should, in future, be sent from this country to Brindisi instead of Marseilles, and be taken from Brindisi instead of Marseilles on to Alexandria. No doubt a small saving, which would not however be more than twenty-four hours, might be made by the use of that line, if the mails could be carried over the pass of Mont Cenis, and the railway were practicable at all times and seasons for the conveyance of the mails by express train; but I think that, in the interest of commerce, it would hardly be a wise thing to rely entirely upon a means of communication which must be liable to be stopped at various seasons of the year by the inclemency of the weather on the summit of the Alps. There are very few persons in this House who have not been over that pass. I myself have been over it in the depth of winter, and I have known it for days together absolutely impracticable before the paths could be cleared sufficiently to enable ordinary travellers to pass. Surely it must be deemed an unwise thing as regards the interests of commerce that we are to be dependent upon a line of communication subject to these occasional interruptions. At all events I am satisfied of this, that if on any occasion interruption arises very great dissatisfaction would be expressed upon the subject. The next point of importance, and it is, perhaps, the most material one in connection with these contracts, is the disposition which has been shown by the Government to follow up the principle of economy by affording to foreign companies the power of competing with our own steam companies, or other British subjects who might be inclined to tender. On the 3rd of June my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether any overtures had been made to the French Post Office with a view to render the French mail service to India and China more available for the purposes of this country, under the new system of postal communication, recommended by the Committee of last Session; and to this question the Secretary to the Treasury replied, that tenders had been invited, and that he hoped they would be sent in by the French as well as the English companies. Now, what I desire to do on this occasion is to protest, in the name of what I consider to be the interest of the country and the interest of commerce, and in justice to our own companies, against the ships of the Messageries Impériales, or of any other foreign company, being employed in the conveyance of our Eastern mails. You may carry the principle of economy too far. Such a course of proceeding would be Free Trade gone mad. I am convinced that the subject has not been sufficiently considered. For what would be the position of this country in the event of a war or any interruption of existing relations taking place? Supposing the Messageries Impériales or any other foreign company, to whom, as I understand, the forms of these tenders have been sent, are allowed to tender for one part, what is there, if that policy is adopted, to prevent them from tendering for any other part or for the whole of the service; and if they tendered on lower terms, and the contract were awarded to them, what would be the position of our commerce, what the position of our political and social relations with India, in the event of our being unfortunately engaged in hostilities with the country with whose people the contract has been entered into; or even in the event of that country being at war with some other? Take the case of the Messageries Impériales, and suppose them to have made a tender which, as regards price, the Government would feel themselves justified in accepting. Well, some cause of interruption to our friendly relations arises; not only have we lost all the advantages which we at present derive from the existence of a large and formidable fleet of vessels capable of carrying a powerful armament in the East and in the Mediterranean; but the foreign Power with which the difficulty occurs — the French it may be—has those advantages in its hands. We not only should be subjected to the disadvantages resulting from our being deprived of this service, but our opponents would be in possession of its advantages. I need not occupy the time of the Committee by pointing out to what uses those advantages might be put by any foreign Power, and especially France, being placed in that position. Besides, the Messageries Impériales are under contract with their own Government to perform certain services in the East. I find in this blue book a copy of their contract with the French Government, and the contract is one which I should think they would not relinquish for the purpose of taking up one with us; but the terms of it are wholly incompatible with the terms of any contract they could make with us. First, there is a sort of internal police maintained on board the vessels of the Messageries Impériales. Next, their Consuls have power to detain the ships from day to day, whenever they consider it to be in the interest of their Government to require it. And it has happened in the experience of the Penin- sular and Oriental Company that the departure of the French vessels has been postponed in order that the commercial interests of the Messageries Impériales might be served by having the market to themselves before or after the Peninsular and Oriental vessel had taken its departure. Now, the peculiarity of the arrangement which I understand the Government contemplate entering into is this, that the competition is not a fair one. I am not speaking at all in the interest of the Peninsular and Oriental Company as a company. I have not anything to do with that Company; I never had, and am not likely to have, anything to do with it. That Company must hold itself—and it does hold itself—ready to meet any fair competition to which it may be subjected from other companies which are sailing under the British flag, or from any individuals who can fairly come in competition with it; but see what is the position of the Messageries Impériales Company as compared with that of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. The Peninsular and Oriental Company has received during the currency of its contracts various rates; but altogether its subsidy may be put down at 4s. 6d. per mile per annum, whilst the French Company receives from its Government a subsidy of 20s. per mile per annum. Some persons may say that we should act very foolishly if we do not avail ourselves of the great liberality, or perhaps extravagance, of the French Government in paying such an enormous subsidy to a mercantile company, and if they choose to be at the expense of carrying our mails, let them carry them. I confess that I cannot concur in that view of the matter. I am of opinion that there is a question of grave national policy involved in our maintaining these great lines of Packet service; and the French, seeing this, it has been a part of their policy for years past to construct a commercial marine of their own, propelled by steam, which shall enable them to compete with the large companies of this country. The French have seen what the Peninsular and Oriental Company's ships did in the Crimean war. They then carried upwards of 60,000 men from this country, 2,000 officers, and between 11,000 and 12,000 horses. We know, also, what the Peninsular and Oriental Company did at the time of the Indian mutiny. Where should we have been if its vessels had not been in existence then to take out our troops and military stores to India? We know, too, what was done by another company in the Trent affair. We know how 10,000 men were sent out to Canada by the Cunard line of steamers, and other vessels, almost at a day's notice. The French Government have seen all this, and are ready and willing to raise for themselves a power on the seas equal to that which we hold through the agency of these Packet companies. In point of fact, the Messageries Impériales must be considered as almost a department of the French Government. For not only do the Imperial Government pay the Company now, but they are under contract to continue to pay for years to come, not an uncertain subsidy (though a subsidy that will gradually diminish until the average is brought down to about 16s. a mile), but when the contract was entered into the French Government, moreover, advanced the Company £500,000 sterling out of the Imperial funds, to enable them to build their ships; and not only that, they also gave the Company £75,000 to represent the expense of putting the vessels on the station. So that the whole of the service is practically maintained out of the Imperial Exchequer of France. And this is the Company with which our steam shipping companies here, and our steam shipping companies in India, for there are persons there who will tender, are called upon to compete. Now, what I wish to do on the present occasion is simply to enter my protest against any act on the part of Her Majesty's Government which shall saddle this country with a contract either with, the Messageries Impériales or any other foreign company. I hold that such a course would be contrary to public policy; that it would be unfair and unjust to the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and that it would be an act of political insanity for us to put such a weapon into the hands of any foreign Government whatever; and more especially so, bearing in mind that the weapon thus put into their hands has been first taken out of our own. I shall, perhaps, be called upon to explain what it was the Select Committee meant when they made the recommendation in their Report that regard should be had to—

"Any facilities which may be afforded by the monthly service to China performed by the Messageries Impériales from Marseilles."

I can do so precisely and exactly. There is at the present time a fortnightly com- munication between Suez and China maintained under contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Company. We have also a monthly service—the two things seem, perhaps, to have no connection, but they really have in principle—between Southampton and the coast of South America, and a monthly one to Mexico. The French Government, also, in pursuance of their plan to carry on postal communication under highly subsidized contracts, have a communication once a month between Bordeaux and the coast of South America, and between St. Nazaire, at the mouth of the Loire, and Mexico. But the departures of these vessels are so timed as to fit in and harmonize with the sailing of our vessels from Southampton, so that while we have our subsidized line of steamers communicating with those countries once a month, our merchants have the opportunity afforded them of corresponding once a fortnight, at exact intervals, by means of the ships of this French Company. What the Committee had in view, therefore, was that the French Government should be invited to make such alterations in the departure and arrival of their vessels between Marseilles and Alexandria as to give the opportunity of communicating with India at intervals of a week. And speaking for myself individually, I must say that I never had an idea, in making that proposition, that our service would in any way be subjected to competition with foreign vessels, or that foreign companies would in any way be substituted for our own. I have now gone through most of the subjects that seemed to require notice at this moment, and I shall now proceed to bring my observations to a conclusion. I have no Amendment to move, because the Vote is for the service of the current year; but I may say this, and I wish to give the Government proper warning of it—and I am sure in that respect that I shall be fortified by the concurrence, not only of a great number of the Members of this House, but by the public out of doors—that if we find that a contract has been entered into with the Messageries Impériales, we shall then avail ourselves of the Resolution which the House recorded in July, 1860, under which no contract is to take effect until it has been either approved by a direct Resolution of the House, or has lain unchallenged a month upon the table of the House. One word before I close with regard to that point. The Peninsular and Oriental Company have received notice of the termination of their contract on the 1st February next year, and the tenders for the new contract are to be sent in or received by the 16th of September next. Now I cannot conceive how, with that Resolution of the House before them, and as the contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Company will expire on the 1st of February next, the Government can feel themselves at liberty to enter into arrangements with any new company, seeing that the contract for such arrangements could not then have received the approval, or lain a month upon the table of the House. This brings me to another point, rather a small one, but deserving our notice at this moment, which I find embodied in a letter addressed by the Postmaster General to the Lords of the Treasury on the 2nd of March last, and I really must say that I cannot imagine how a person, having any regard whatever for the public interest, could have had such an idea in his mind as is contained in this letter. The Postmaster General says—

"In order, therefore, to allow of effective competition, the forms of tender do not make it absolutely compulsory that the new services east of Suez should begin at the termination of the present contract—namely, on the 1st of February, 1868. Should a good offer be received from a company requiring more time, the difficulty must be surmounted, as far as possible, by the best temporary arrangement that can be made."

That is to say, the enormous interests which in India and in this country are dependent upon an efficient Packet service shall rely solely upon a temporary arrangement. [Mr. HUNT: Read on.]

"The same plan was adopted when calling for the last tenders for the Australian service."

I will come to that presently. The meaning of this, stated in a few words, is, that, be the exigency what it may, if a cheaper tender be presented by anyone else, every interest connected with India or the East is to be suspended and hung up until some other arrangement can be made. All our commerce and communications, social and political, are to be subjected to the best temporary arrangement that can be effected. I was desired by my hon. Friend opposite to read on. I will do so—

"The same plan was adopted when calling for the last tenders for the Australian service."

[Mr. HUNT: Hear, hear!] Yes, and who came to the relief of the Government on that occasion? Why, the Peninsular and Oriental Company the very Company which, if the views of the Government with regard to the Messageries Impériales are carried into effect will certainly be ruined. It came to their relief. I think, then, it is rather too much to expect that the interests of this country, commercial, social and political, should be made to depend upon the good-will of any foreign Government whatever. As I said before, although I differ much myself from the views expressed in this correspondence, and from the manner in which the Government have generally treated this question of postal communication with the East, I am not in a position to offer any Amendment to the consideration of this Committee; but, in conclusion, I repeat what I said just now, that, as the whole of the arrangements which the Government may enter into with regard to these contracts must necessarily come under the review of Parliament next Session, so if they be not suitable in all respects for the exigencies of the service, and if proper respect has not been shown to the recommendations of the Select Committee to whom the matter was referred, I shall invite the House to express its opinion upon the manner in which the whole affair has been conducted.

I am sure that the Committee feel very much obliged to my hon. Friend for the observations which he has made on the subject he invites us to discuss, and I am equally sure that Her Majesty's Government will not complain of the manner in which he has dealt with it; but I think it must be obvious to every Member of the Committee who has heard the speech of my hon. Friend that the main objection which he has raised to the slight deviations from the recommendations of the Select Committee is owing to the endeavours of the Government to promote economy. Of course, as there is a time to weep and a time to laugh, so there is a time to spend and a time to save; but I think the Committee can hardly blame the Government for making the most economical arrangements consistent with the efficiency of the service, and I am prepared to show that the whole spirit of the recommendations of the Select Committee has been embodied in the proposal authorized by the Government, and that therefore the appeal which my hon. Friend has addressed to the House is hardly borne out by the facts. My hon. Friend went in order through the recommendations of the Committee; and the first recommendation is—

"That the time has arrived when tenders should be invited for a weekly service to Bombay alone, and the separate postal service between this country and Madras and Calcutta should be discontinued."

Now, my hon. Friend admits that the Government, although only recently come into office, took an early opportunity to deal with that question, and to give notice to terminate the existing contract with a view to establishing such weekly service. The second recommendation is—

"That such service should be on the footing of an express service, entirely unconnected, to the eastward of Suez, with any other mail services;"

and the hon. Gentleman complains that that recommendation has been disregarded. It is true that another arrangement has been determined upon, as mentioned in the Treasury Minute; and the object of that arrangement is that to which my hon. Friend has alluded—namely, to promote economy as far as possible; for, of course if the service to Aden is made use of for the mails further east to China and Japan the expense of a double service between Aden and Suez will be avoided. My hon. Friend has called attention to the fact that in the Treasury Minute tenders are to be called for a fortnightly service between Aden and Japan, touching at Galle, Penang, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, and those Members of the Committee who have read the tenders will see that the persons offering are distinctly asked to say for what sum they will convey the mails from Aden to Yokohama, and for what further sum they would be willing to continue the service from Aden to Suez. Therefore, it will be seen that this question came under the consideration of the Government, who naturally wished to have alternative terms before them. When this information has been obtained they will be in a position to carry out the second recommendation if it should be thought desirable. My hon. Friend will admit that the question of economy is one that must enter into the consideration of the Government, and if there should be a great difference, which I do not apprehend, between the services eastward from Suez and from Aden, it is a matter which we are bound not to overlook. My hon. Friend has alluded to and complains of the losses on the Eastern Postal services being so mixed up together that the loss on the Indian service cannot be distinguished from that on the China and Australian service. That is perfectly true, and he is quite correct in his figures when he says that the £160,000 of total loss is made up in this way: India, £48,000; China, £34,000; and Australia £78,000. My hon. Friend complains that that the £48,000 set down as lost on the Indian service is an over-estimate, and his calculation makes it only a little over £30,000; but he forgets to tell us that, according to the Post Office Estimate, when the weekly service to Bombay has been established there will be a further loss of £40,000 net, so that putting the two sums together there is an estimated loss of £90,000, or very nearly that amount. Then arose the question with the Government, whether the postal rate was to continue the same? My hon. Friend says that we propose an additional charge on the public; but I think it is fair to assume that it is not an additional charge upon the public, but an additional charge upon those who avail themselves of the service to the relief of the public. At the time when we were expecting that there would be so large an additional loss, it necessarily became a question for our consideration, whether the general taxpayer or those who used the service for carrying on their correspondence with the East should pay the difference, and this no doubt is a matter which is open to discussion. Three propositions were placed before the Government; they were these: should the postage rate remain the same, or should it be increased to 1s., or should some middle point be taken; and after giving the question mature consideration, it was settled that the postal rate for the half-an-ounce letter should be 9d., which is the medium between the 6d. at present charged and the 1s. which was proposed. It was felt that that would not be a grievous charge to persons who have correspondence with India, and that otherwise a great loss would be sustained by the general public. My hon. Friend did not dwell much upon the question of speed. Still he said enough to show that he thinks we have not fulfilled the recommendation of the Committee on that part of the subject. If he looks at the terms of the tender he will find that that is not so, because the advertisement asks for tenders for a rate of speed which is about ten nautical miles to the east of Suez, and about eleven on this side of Alexandria, and the persons tendering are also asked to state what terms they would expect supposing the rate of speed is increased. They are also to name the rate of speed which they can undertake to accomplish. Therefore, when the tenders come in, we shall be able to prescribe the rate of speed, whether it shall be the minimum recommended by the Select Committee, or any higher rate. Of course, the question of speed is one of money; and therefore it was thought desirable by the Government to specify different rates of speed, and that these should be placed in juxta-position with the different charges for those rates of speed. When, therefore, we have all this information before us, we shall be able to come to a conclusion as to what speed shall be prescribed. The next question which was adverted to by my hon. Friend was whether we should continue to use the port of Marseilles or go to the pert of Brindisi as the port of departure from Europe, and I must say that we are not open to any imputation in having asked for tenders for each of these routes. Permit me to call the attention of this Committee to the fact that when the Government resolved upon asking tenders for Brindisi, they had received an important Report from Captain Tyler, which it was impossible to have laid before the Select Committee, seeing that Captain Tyler's Report is dated the 19th of July, whilst the Report of the Committee is dated the 20th. Consequently it is clear that Captain Tyler's Report could not have gone before the Committee. New matter, therefore, was in the possession of the Government which had not been submitted to the Committee; and certainly the Report of Captain Tyler, which is a very able one, put the Brindisi route in a much more favourable light than persons in this country had ever imagined. After perusing that Report carefully, we thought it was not open to us to discard the question of Brindisi altogether, and that we ought to ask for a tender for that route also. Captain Tyler's Report shows, I think, a saving at once of thirty-six hours between this country and Alexandria, supposing the Mont Cenis and Brindisi route were adopted. Under these circumstances, I think the Committee will be of opinion that Her Majesty's Government were not unjustified in inviting tenders for the port of Brindisi. At the same time we have not put by the question of the continuance of the service from Marseilles; but what we asked for was that, concurrently with tenders for a service from Brindisi, we should have tenders for the service from Marseilles to Alexandria. Probably, when the time arrives for deciding on the different tenders, we shall be in a position to judge whether the proposed route by Mont Cenis and the port of Brindisi can be relied upon. Next comes the question raised by my hon. Friend with regard to the French Company, the Messageries Impériales. My hon. Friend seems to think that it is altogether wrong to ask a tender from a French Company; but let me call attention first of all to the recommendation of the Select Committee on that point. It is the sixth of their recommendations, and it is in these terms—

"That Her Majesty's Government should take into their early consideration the arrangements be made, in consequence of the proposed separation of the Indian service, for maintaining a fortnightly or half-monthly service to China, and a monthly or four-weekly service to Australia, having regard to any facilities which may be afforded by the monthly service to China now performed by the Messageries Impériales from Marseilles."

Any one upon reading that recommendation must see that the Committee had in view the making use, as far as they could, of the services of the French Company. My hon. Friend says that what the Committee meant was that they should use it as an intermediate service; but I have also heard another view expressed as to their meaning, which is that any arrangement to be made should be with the French Government, and not with the Company, for the conveyance of our mails once a month by means of the Messageries Impériales. And certainly the sixth recommendation of the Committee does not bear out clearly the interpretation put upon it by my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend has protested in energetic terms against any contract being made with a foreign company. Well, what did we do? We advertised for tenders from all the world. Were we to say, as is done in advertising for servants, that "no Irish need apply," that "no French need apply?" Ours was an open offer. We asked all the world to tender upon what terms they would contract to carry on the service. And we would not exclude French, or even Chinese or Japanese, if they choose to come forward. Not only did we issue tenders for the whole or any part of the service; but the Post Office also sent out copies of tenders to different companies, and among others to the French Company. I should say, therefore, that we are in a position to entertain any offer that comes from any company whatever for any part of the service, and certainly to consider any offer that comes from the Messageries Impériales. After all, I do not think that my hon. Friend need be so much alarmed as to the French Company being likely to take the contract, if the observations he himself makes be correct, because he says that the terms under which that Company are with the French Government would not allow of their entering into a contract with us. If that be so, there is no longer any ground for his fears. I should add that, in addition to these tenders having been sent out to different companies, we have been in semi-official communication with the French Government as to any arrangements that might be made for our mutual advantage. These semi-official negotiations, however, have not yet been brought to a conclusion. I am not therefore in a position to inform this Committee what they are at present; but, generally speaking, I should say that Her Majesty's Government are desirious of having before them the particulars of every possible arrangement that can be made for the efficient conduct of the mail service, and that when they have before them all the proposed arrangements, whether by the French Company or the French Government, they will be in a position to judge of the whole matter, and to place it on a sound basis. My hon. Friend has has referred to the Resolutions agreed to by this House in the year 1860. There were three of them. The first is—

"That in all contracts extending over a period of years, and creating a public charge, actual or prospective, entered into by the Government for the conveyance of mails by sea, or for the purpose of telegraphic communication beyond sea, there shall be inserted the condition that the contract shall not be binding until it has lain upon the table of the House of Commons for one month without disapproval, unless previous to the lapse of that period it has been approved of by a Resolution of the House."

(2.) "That every such contract when executed should forthwith, if Parliament be then sitting, or if Parliament be not then sitting, within fourteen days after it assembles, be laid upon the table of the House, accompanied by a Minute of the Lords of the Treasury setting forth the grounds on which they have proceeded in authorizing it."

(3.) "That in case where any such contract requires to be confirmed by Act of Parliament, the Bill for that purpose should not be introduced and dealt with as a Private Bill, and that power to the Government to enter into agreements by which obligations at the public charge should be undertaken, should not be given in any Private Act."

My hon. Friend can hardly fail to observe that in the terms of the tender which we have sent and the conditions we have specified the second Resolution is included. Certainly there is a difficulty about a contract which has been made when the House is not sitting, but that is an inherent vice of the Resolution. And if this contract is made when the House is not sitting, it will be open to the House to refuse it when they meet again. My hon. Friend can hardly consider it to be the duty of the Government to call Parliament together in the month of October or November to express the opinion that the contract should not be made, but if that be his view, he will no doubt take means for giving expression to it. My hon. Friend has been very severe on the letter of the Postmaster General of the 2nd of March, to the effect that if an advantageous offer were made the period for the commencement of the contract might be postponed. He says, that is another of your mere economical notions, and that it would be preposterous for the sake of pounds, shillings, and pence considerations to postpone the commencement of a contract. But as this contract is proposed to be for six years, and supposing that we had a very reasonable offer and could make a temporary arrangement which would be perfectly efficient until the new service could be commenced — remembering, I repeat, that it is proposed the contract should last for six years—I think that considerations of pounds, shillings, and pence are important, and that we should consider whether the adoption of some temporary arrangement under the circumstances might not lead to a considerable cheapening of the service. I believe I have now gone through all the points which were referred to by my hon. Friend, and I hope after the observations I have made that the Committee will be of opinion that Her Majesty's Government are not really open to the strictures that have been passed upon them.

I am sorry that I cannot agree with my hon. Friend opposite in the opinion that all the arrangements of Her Majesty's Government are entirely satisfactory. So far from that, having sat upon the Select Committee with my hon. Friend the Member for London, and having had the honour with him of preparing the Report of the Committee, and the Committee having unanimously adopted that Report, I think it is much to be regretted that in several instances the Government have not complied with the recommendations of the Committee, and that in cases where they have complied with them in the letter, they have, in several respects, departed from them in their spirit. In fact, it is easy to show that they have not been quite so regardful of what my hon. Friend describes as pounds, shillings, and pence, as to satisfy the just economical requirements of the subject which is entrusted to them. Let me remind this Committee of what is the nature of the service with the East which it is proposed to deal with. There are at present, practically, two contracts for the Eastern Postal service. One is for the service of India and China, consisting of two sections. The first of these has a trunk line to Point de Galle, with extensions to Calcutta and China respectively. The second section is the branch service between Suez and Bombay, which, during a portion of the year, has been on the footing of a weekly, or fourth of a monthly service. The service between Point de Galle and Calcutta is not, by the recommendations of the Committee and the judgment of the Government, in future to be carried on. Under the facilities which will in a short time be afforded by means of the railways which cross India, from Bombay to Calcutta, to Madras and to other parts of the Peninsula, the whole of the Indian Postal service will be carried on from Suez to Bombay, and the service viâ Galle will then only be available for the China service, with, perhaps, a branch to the Mauritius. The other contract is for a service from Point de Galle to Australia; and its expense is entirely unconnected with that for India and China. There is this further difference between the two contracts—that for Bombay, Galle, Madras, Calcutta, and China is terminable at one year's notice; and that for the Australian route, from Galle to Australia, is terminable at two years' notice. And the question which came before the Select Committee was, in what way these contracts should be dealt with; and, in the first place, was it expedient that the Indian service should be entirely dissevered from that to China and Australia? The evidence which was laid before the Committee was to this effect—The railways from Bombay to Madras, and from Bombay to Calcutta and the North Western Provinces of India, are not yet opened; but they will be in the course of next year. The Committee were unanimously of opinion that the future service to India should be exclusively to Bombay and over these lines of railway. But some regard should be had to the time when the railways would be open. If tenders are called for, and a contract entered into at once for the service to Bombay only, you will find yourselves in this most awkward and inconvenient position, that the steamers which carry your mails will not be available for passengers wishing to go to Madras and Calcutta, and that there must be kept up a branch service for passengers from Galle to Madras end Calcutta, carrying no mails. Adopting then the plan of the Committee, the sound policy would have been to give notice to the existing contractors to determine the whole service at the expiration of the two years, and that fresh tenders should be called for, for which other companies would be at liberty to apply as well as the Peninsular and Oriental Company, for the Indian service only viâ Bombay, and for the China, Australian and other services via Galle. But what the Government have done is to call for tenders for the India and China services only, to come into operation next February, whereas the railway from Bombay to Madras, Calcutta and other parts of India, will not be opened until a later period in the year. In doing this my hon. Friend has exposed the Treasury to the payment of a great deal more than they would have had to pay had they made a temporary arrangement on the basis of the present route, and called for tenders for the permanent service, to commence after the railways were open. This was clearly the view of the Select Committee. The evidence of Mr. Frederick Hill, the able officer of the Post Office to whom my hon. Friend has referred, given before the Select Committee, clearly sets forth these points. It is at page 14 of the Evidence. It is perfectly clear, I think, from that, and indeed from all the evidence which was given before the Committee, that what ought to have been done was this—not to have rushed at once into calling for tenders to come into operation in February next, a year, or at least many months, before the railways to Calcutta and Madras are open, but to have made arrangements by which tenders would be called for, to come into operation at the same time for the whole of the services; and it would only have been necessary so to have arranged the notices that the present contracts would cease to operate at the expiration of the two years' notice required by the terms of the contract for the Australian line. At the end of that two years' notice, it is clear from the evidence before the Committee that the railways would be in full operation, and that a weekly line of steamers to Bombay would carry not only the mails, but the whole of the passengers for Madras, Calcutta, and the North Western Provinces of India, as well as Bombay. I think, then, that my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury was ill-advised in taking this precipitate step, and calling for tenders all at once for the India and China services. But let me point out to this Committee that there has been committed a grievous mistake in respect of the Australian contract. As I have said, it was intended that notices should be given for the whole of the services, but up to this moment no notice whatever has been given for the Australian service. Instead of giving that notice, however, the Government entered into a correspondence with the Australian Governments as to what they wished to have done, and the effect of their doing so has been that the Australian Governments have said, "We should like a better and more complete service, and we estimate such a service to cost the Home Government and ourselves £300,000 instead of £160,000;" and, accordingly they have combined to press upon Her Majesty's Government to undertake a Postal service to Australia, costing this country more than double the present service. That has been the first effect of consulting them as to what arrangements should be made before giving the notice. But it will have another unfortunate result. I do not assume what company will have the contract for India, whether it be the Peninsular and Oriental Company, which has certainly done its work remarkably well, or any other company. But whether it be the Peninsular and Oriental or any other company, next year there will be a company in possession of the field, and carrying on the service for two-thirds of the route, that is, between India and China viâ Point de Galle; and, of course, if notice is only to be given now or some months hence for the branch service to Australia, the Company in the field will be able to make what terms it pleases with respect to that service; at least no other company would be able to compete with it on anything like an equal footing. I say, then, that I think Her Majesty's Government have not acted judiciously in postponing a part of the notice, and that in making arrangements prematurely in regard to the other part they are likely very much to prejudice the Australian contract. These are the two grievous mistakes which, in my judgment, they have committed in making their arrangements for the service. Let me now say a word or two about the Messageries Impériales. My hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury says there was some little difference of opinion with regard to the meaning of the paragraph in the report in which the Committee state that they think the Messageries Impériales service may be made more available than it is for the postal service with China. I explain at once that I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for London that it would be most inexpedient for this country to enter into a contract for that service with a foreign company which has already a contract with another Government for the same service. No man can serve two masters, and I undertake to say that no steamboat company can have a contract for the same service with two different Governments. It is impossible that the conditions of both contracts could be the same. Therefore, putting aside the question of nationality, I believe it is practically impossible to make arrangements under which the Messageries Impériales could contract with us and also with the French Government. Such an idea as that could never have entered into the heads of the Committee. The policy distinctly advocated by the Committee was this: we did not think it was expedient that tenders should be invited from the French Company; but what we thought my hon. Friend ought to have done, and that a year ago, immediately after the Committee reported, was to have asked the French Government this question: You have now a service once a calendar month to China and some intermediate ports. We are going to alter the times of our service from calendar to lunar months; that is to say, we are going to carry on our India and China services at weekly, fortnightly, and four-weekly intervals: will you, the French Government, so alter your service that it shall fit into our service, and thus avoid the clashing between the two services which must arise from time to time if our boats go the lunar and yours the calendar month? That is the kind of arrangement which we wanted to make with the French Government; an arrangement under which the two services would fit in with each other, and whilst they would have had the advantage of our service we should have had the advantage of theirs. I repeat I regret that my hon. Friend a few weeks ago, in answer to my question, said that he had not made at that time, though he has done so since, any communication to the French Government on the subject. Let me now point out what will be the effect of our having neglected this. I think this principle will be admitted by everybody, that if we contract with any company for our mails, and do so for a larger service than is required for the business and traffic in passengers and goods going by that service, the public will have to pay the difference. Supposing, for instance, that you contract for a third service a month when two only would pay, the amount you pay for the third service will be its entire cost, or the contractors would get into difficulties, and the whole thing break down. The Peninsular and Oriental Company, most efficiently as it has carried out the service entrusted to it for a long series of years has, so far as its own interests are concerned, gone a little too far, and the present state of things is such that it has not been able to declare any dividend for the last half year in consequence of insufficiency of traffic for its number of communications in face of the severe French competition. It is clear, from the evidence of Mr. Howell, the Secretary to the Peninsular and Oriental Company, given before the Select Committee, that there is not, during many months of the year on the China route, in consequence of the competition of the French service, more passenger traffic than enough for one ship a month. Would it, then, be wise that we should subsidize a company to carry on a service more than there is business to justify, and that this House should pay not the proper proportion due for the mails, but the entire expense of the ships employed in the service? Supposing, for instance, there is only trade enough between Galle and China for two mail ships a month, and you establish now, on some principle of nationality, three mail ships a month, though the Secretary to the Peninsular and Oriental Company tells you that one ship is often enough, the result must be that this country will have to pay out of the Exchequer the whole of the cost of the third ship. I think, then, that in any permanent arrangement you should well consider the probable passenger and goods traffic which will come by mail ships, and not induce contractors to undertake unremunerative services, when you would have the company with whom you contract either unable to pay dividends or coming to the Exchequer and asking for additional sums. Upon the various grounds I have stated, I think sincerely that my hon. Friend is somewhat mistaken in the course which he has taken. I am of opinion that it would have been better to have given notice so that all the services should have ended at the same time; that until those notices had been given he should not have opened up the whole question with the Australian Governments, and that communications should have been made with the French Government at once, and not put off until within, a few weeks of the tenders being opened, as I fear that the course he has taken will end in this, that we shall not be able to make a satisfactory arrangement with the French Government. We shall have thus expensive tenders for the service to India and China, and when we come to contract for the service to Australia, we shall find that we are practically handing over the service to the company then in the field.

The question which we have before us to-night appears to have passed out of the category of an ordinary Vote, and to have assumed the importance of a question of national policy. It seems to me that, owing to some great misunderstanding which has taken place with regard to the Report of the Select Committee, especially the light in which the recommendations contained in that Report are understood by the Government, a totally different course has been adopted from that which, after careful attention by the Committee, they intended to recommend. In answer to a memorial from the Peninsular and Oriental Company, a copy of which has been placed in my hands, addressed to the Lords of the Treasury, and praying that no contract for any part of the Postal services with India and China may be entered into with a foreign company, the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, says—

"I am desired by their Lordships to state that, in consequence of the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons which sat last Session on East Indian Communications, and adverting to the Report of the Committee which sat in 1860 on Packet and Telegraphic Contracts, Her Majesty's Government have felt it their duty to open to public competition the services in connection with the proposed postal communication with India and China; and they have, accordingly, invited tenders by public advertisement, without reference to the nationality of persons or companies inclined to submit offers for the whole or any portions of the services."

Now, it appeared to me, on reading the Report of the Select Committee, that there was nothing in it to justify this competition being asked for "without reference to nationality." Again, when I looked at the other Paper referred to, the Report of 1860 on Packet and Telegraphic Contracts, I could not find there any trace of an intention that a special application should be made to a foreign country to tender. The great question which the House ought to deliberate upon is, whether it be advisable that the Government should prosecute the idea which they have taken up of subjecting the Peninsular and Oriental Company to the competition of a company in the position of the Messageries Impériales. How does the matter stand with reference to the case of the two companies? First, let us take the position of the Peninsular and Oriental Company; and here I am free to say, before I go further on this subject, that, if the offer of the Peninsular and Oriental Company is not considered fair and reasonable, it is perfectly right that the Company should be subjected to competition, in order to obtaining fairer terms. I do not consider, however, that the simple figure of the tender ought to govern the decision of the Government. I know this is not a very popular proposition to make; but I am sure that if it be investigated very closely it will be found to to be a logical proposition, that the quality of a tender should receive more consideration than actual price, and in no case more so than where we have to place such implicit reliance in the contractors, as in the case before us. This Committee should remember what position the Peninsular and Oriental Company is in at the present moment, and the way in which it has treated the country during the many years in which it has been engaged in this service, and the advantages the country has received and continues to receive from the possession of this magnificent fleet that has been called into existence for this great mail service. In speaking thus of the company I desire to be understood as not seeking to obtain for it any advantage beyond that to which it is fairly entitled; but the Committee will bear in mind that this company was incorporated as far back as the year 1840, and that it has fifty-three vessels employed in the mail service of this country. These vessels have been brought into existence at a cost, including the establishments necessary to maintain them of upwards of £3,000,000. Now, to those who are at all acquainted with shipping, it is well known that an enormous depreciation takes place in the value of property of this description, and the effect on this company, if it were no longer found useful to conduct our packet service and only useful for a commercial service, would be to cause such a depreciation in the value of its stock as to be almost equal to 10 per cent per annum; and if that is taken over the last ten years of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's career, the amount of depreciation in its stock would be equal to £2,000,000 sterling. What I mean is that if by any act of legislation you deprive that Company of the opportunity of being longer useful to us as a mail-carrying company, and it is obliged to make use of its first-class vessels to do second and inferior class work, those vessels which cost £3,000,000 would not sell for more than £1,000,000; and thus £2,000,000 would be lost. If reference is made to what the Peninsular and Oriental Company has earned, it will be found that the total amount it has paid in dividend, during the last ten years has been less than £2,000,000. In fact, the whole sum of its earnings has been less than the depreciation in the value of its property would be if we were suddenly and violently to stop its operations as a mail company. The whole sum paid in dividend during the ten years was only £1,800,000. I would also call attention to this fact, that this service is most exceptional in the exigencies to which it is subjected. The amount of money which has to be earned is so large in proportion to the margin of profit that a very little disturbing cause upsets the entire arrangements of the Company. Owing to this circumstance, as the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) has told us, the Peninsular and Oriental Company has fallen from being a company paying a fair dividend, amounting to something like 9 per cent, to be a company without any dividend-paying power at all. The sums of money it has paid in dividend have generally been under £200,000 a year. Well, now let us take the item of coal. The quantity of coal which the company consumes is enormous. Last year a rise took place in coal to the company of nearly 12s. a ton. The effect of such an advance amounts in the Company's whole consumption to about £120,000 a year. The Company has, moreover, on every occasion that it has made a fresh tender, gradually decreased the prices at which it has done its work; and, whereas, it commenced with a rate of 17s. 6d. a mile, at the present moment it is charging the country only 5s. a mile. The Peninsular and Oriental Company has hitherto derived a large revenue from the conveyance of troops; now, however, it must look to the reduction of that revenue, for the Government themselves are about to become their own carriers of troops. In addition to that the Company is subjected to a severe competition with this Messageries Impériales; that competition, I believe, exists in its most intense form in the shipment of goods, silk, and specie. I find that the Peninsular and Oriental Company has experienced a deficiency of specie and silk for the year ending the 31st of March, 1867, as compared with the year preceding, of not less than £226,000. Now, this brings me to the question as to the advisability or propriety of putting the Company in further competition with the Messageries Impériales, in the shape in which it is proposed to do it, by allowing the Messageries Impériales to tender for the carriage of our mails. On that point I have no doubt whatever myself. I consider it to be a most ruinous policy. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hunt) says that we cannot complain of the Government because they intend to get the work done at the cheapest rate; but allow me to observe that if this course were pursued I think we should be working at the most disadvantageous rate at which the country could work. Why, how would it act? The Peninsular and Oriental Company would have to enter into competition with an establishment which is no company at all, but in fact is nothing more than a branch or an offshoot of the French Government itself. There remains only one other matter for me to notice: it is this—so long as we keep the Peninsular and Oriental or other English, companies engaged in the large operations they have hitherto performed for us, we possess an enormous advantage as a maritime power. The other night, when debating the question of Army Reserve, we saw the importance of having a large stock of men to draw upon when occasion re- quires; and here we have employed in the service of the Peninsular and Oriental Company a force of not less than 16,000 men, who are constantly engaged in navigating and working the ships of the Company. That force is at this moment in a thoroughly efficient state. It is composed of admirable sailors who are invaluable to us in every possible way. Surely it is not desirable that these men should be drawn off into other channels of service, so as not to be available for us? when required in a national emergency. There is also a point in connection with the cost of these mail services which has not been sufficiently noted. It is argued that it is an important object to obtain these services on the lowest possible terms on account of the great loss which is involved in the subsidy. But it appears to me that the subsidy involves no loss whatever. For how does the case stand? The subsidy paid is for a portion of the work done by the Post Office for the nation. But when the total receipts of the Post Office are ascertained and the total expenses (including all the Packet subsidies) deducted, at the end of the year the Post Office pays into the Treasury a balance of upwards of £1,000,000. The true policy of the Government is to look mainly to the efficiency of these great services. To obtain this result competition on fair terms should undoubtedly be made available, but when fair terms have been secured the contracting companies should not be kept continually under a harrow, and under the fear that they may be deprived on a short notice of the services they are performing, and which, it may be, has cost them millions to create and years to organize.

I am anxious to make a few remarks to the Committee on this occasion, because it seems to me, Her Majesty's Government do not fully appreciate the gravity of the issue involved. It is evident that the recommendation contained in the Report of the Select Committee was entirely different from the course which has been taken by the Government. The recommendation of the Committee went only to the extent of taking advantage of the bi-monthly communication established by the Messageries Impériales Company for the purpose of giving more frequent opportunities of corresponding on the China route. But the course taken by the Government, makes it quite clear that they contemplate some- thing very much wider than that; that they contemplate throwing the tenders open for important portions or, it may be, the whole of the service to that foreign Company. It is not a mere theoretical question. In inviting tenders you cannot expressly exclude any particular nationality. You cannot say, "No French" or "No Irish need apply." But this is a very important part of the question; for only consider with what object and view this French Company was established. It was established by the French Government especially with a view to acquiring political influence in the East. The motive assigned by the French Government themselves, and which induced the Legislature to consent to an extravagant grant of money for subsidizing the Company, that we should regard as an intolerable burden upon our finances, was distinctly that of showing the French flag at as many points as possible in the East with the object of acquiring political influence and prestige for France in that part of the world. That being the case, if the Postal service throughout the East, especially with Bombay, which will hereafter be the emporium for the trade of the East, be thrown open to this French Company, we shall find that the French Government and the French Chambers will be prepared to back up the Messageries Impériales with any amount of additional subsidy in order to enable that Company to compete with the Peninsular and Oriental Company. Looking at the question broadly, are there any points of political interest involved in this matter which make it inexpedient to assign any branch of the service to a foreign company? Upon that point, having had some experience in the East, and having spent six months of my life in travelling backward and forward between England and India, I must be permitted to express my conviction that it is impossible to imagine a course of policy more disastrous to the security of our Indian Empire than that which is involved in the course proposed to be taken by Her Majesty's Government. I will venture to say that, if it had been suggested to any of the great statesmen who have governed India of late years—if it had been suggested to Lord Dalhousie, Lord Canning, or Lord Elgin—that a measure of this sort had been in contemplation by the Government at home, they would have received such an announcement, first with entire incredulity, and then with something like dismay. Now, look at the political interests and prestige involved in the question. I am not one of those who attach an exaggerated importance to what is called "prestige;" but when you come to a question like this; when all the steamers that enter the ports of the East, and which are employed in conducting the correspondence and communication with all parts of the East, are seen to carry the French flag, then I say there is nothing so dangerous to the prestige of the English name as to have it supposed that French enterprise and French influence have the preponderance, and that the French flag has taken the place of the English. There is nothing, I am satisfied, that tends so surely to keep up the name and the influence of England in the East as the sight of those splendid steamers coming and going with the regularity of clock-work on the weekly, fortnightly, or monthly performance of their voyages. Then look at the political considerations which are involved in the question. What complications might we not find ourselves involved in with France or with some other Power if we establish a contract with a foreign Company like the Messageries Impériales. Look at the questions which may arise respecting the establishment of coal depôts and stations on the route. But, independently of these broad political considerations, let us look at the question as one of economy—because it is on that ground alone, if at all, that the proposal of the Government can be justified. Take the following practical illustration of a case which has already occurred in India. When during Lord Canning's administration it was determined to abolish the Indian navy — what was the ground on which they were enabled to take that very bold step? It was because they knew that they had in the large mail steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Company a powerful reserve for the purposes of transport in cases of emergency, and for enforcing the police regulations along the coast, far more efficient and universal than any special naval force. The Indian navy was abolished; and the result was that the annual expenditure was reduced from £1,250,000 to £500,000, a saving of £750,000 a year to be set off against a supposed loss of £40,000 or £50,000 a year. But supposing you enter into this contract with this foreign Company, you cannot rely on them for the conveyance of your troops and sustaining your authority; you must keep in India 5,000 additional European troops at an additional cost of another £500,000 a year. Here then, by your present arrangements, you have a saving of £1,250,000 against a "loss" of £40,000 or £50,000 on your Postal arrangements. With regard to the question of postage, it will be a great mistake to look upon it as a "loss," because that which you get directly in postage is only a small part of the revenue compared with that which you get indirectly. Looking at the postage alone, what a mass of correspondence is occasioned by that enormous traffic of £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 a year which is fostered with India? If you had not this Postal service with India, what would your commercial and mercantile transactions with it come to? Very probably not half the present amount. That being the case, do not you think that you are getting more than the £40,000 or £50,000 a year which you are nominally losing on the postage? What we ought to consider is the growth of wealth which has been caused by this great increase of commerce with India, and I say that it is preposterous to look upon the question as simply one of profit and loss on the postage, or regard it in the narrow way in which some of the Post Office officials view it, whose sole object seems to be to make a profitable contract. That being so, what the Government have to do is to keep in view the maintenance of the Postal communication with India on the best and most efficient system. Consequently they must not entrust it to any foreign company, and the problem is how to get the work done at the cheapest rate for the public consistently with the utmost efficiency. I do not wish to go into the question of the claims of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. That company, like railway and other companies, must shift for itself, so far as dividends are concerned; but it is our duty to look the whole thing full in the face and consider the position in which we stand in reference to these contracts. And I say that to put up these contracts to tender when no real competition is possible, is simply a device for sheltering departments of the Government from responsibility, and is not conducive to the best and most economical result. You cannot afford to try experiments and run risks. Your first object must be to deal with a company which, you are sure, has capital, power, experience and organization, and who are able to do the work successfully. If you have another company in that position by all manner of means invite competition; but if not, look the matter straight in the face, and try if you cannot make a fair bargain between the State and the Company which has hitherto performed the service in the best possible way. What you want is the weekly communication to Bombay conducted directly from Suez without stoppage at Aden. I look upon that as a matter of prime necessity, and that the service should be properly conducted at the highest degree of speed consistent with regularity, and, secondly, at a moderate expense. I only hope, after the unmistakeable expression of opinion given by so many Members of the House to-night, that Her Majesty's Government will correct what I may be allowed to say was a venial mistake arising from the fact that they were new to office at the time they made it. It would not be fair to find much fault with them under the circumstances; but I think it is clear that they quite mistook the recommendations and views of the Committee, and the wishes and views of the majority of this House. I hope, then, they will reconsider the question in the recess, and that in the next Session we shall not be not be under the disagreeable necessity of exercising, for the first time, the prerogative of the House of Commons to rescind a contract which has been made by the Government.

said, as a Member of the Select Committee, that he was satisfied that no contract would be made on the basis of the tenders that had been issued. Any contract would be the subject of a great deal of negotiation, and would probably result in being arranged upon a very different basis from that which was now proposed. If that were the case, it was the more necessary to have a clear understanding with the Government regarding the view they took of that important Resolution to which the House arrived in July, 1860—because the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury took a very light view of that Resolution. He seemed to think that it might be treated as if it had been unadvisedly adopted by the House; but the Committee would recollect that that Resolution was the result of the labours of a Select Committee, and was come to by the House with the view of enabling the House to exercise a control over the conduct of the Government in entering into contracts of this nature. He should like to know how the House was to exercise the power it claimed for itself if the Government were to issue a tender which was to be accepted in September, and was to come into operation on the 1st of February? What possible opinion could the House express when it met next Session on a contract that was actually in operation on the 1st of February? But the Secretary to the Treasury said he proposed to put a provision in the contract to the effect that Parliament should be at liberty to rescind it. Such a provision could be of no value at all. If it meant anything it meant that if Parliament rescinded the contract it was to indemnify the party whose contract was rescinded by paying him all the expenses he had incurred in providing for the service. After a party had built or purchased the steamers required for the service, how could anybody propose to rescind the contract? But the matter did not rest there. The Government, as regarded a considerable portion of these contracts, proposed that the Governor General of India should make the contract with the parties, and in these tenders there was no such provision as the Secretary to the Treasury had intimated—that the contracts entered into by the Indian Government should be subject to the review of Parliament, or that Parliament should have liberty to cancel them. Therefore, as regarded the most expensive parts of these contracts, they had been withdrawn by the Government from the review of Parliament. A new scheme had, in fact, been devised. Instead of the Home Government making the contracts and submitting them to the review of Parliament, the Government of India was to make them, and then they would be free from the control of Parliament. That was certainly a most extraordinary mode of carrying out the Resolution; and if the Government persisted in taking that course, they would expose themselves, when the House met the next Session, to a Resolution of the House of a very serious character. Undoubtedly, if the Government persisted in the view which the Secretary to the Treasury had enunciated—if they held themselves at liberty to make contracts in such a manner as to render nugatory the power of revising them which this House had reserved to itself—it would be the duty of the House to take these matters into its consideration and arrive at such a vote as it was impossible to pro- pose at this stage of our proceedings. The question was one that could not be treated lightly, and it would only be doing injustice to it if it were raised at this late period of the Session; but he for one should feel it to be his duty if, when they met again, he found that the Government persisted in those views, to propose a Vote of Censure at the commencement of next Session.

said, the Government had been blamed for terminating the contract for the India and China service apart from that for the service with Australia. But it was clear from the speeches of hon. Gentlemen that the Report of the Select Committee was not interpreted in the same way by the different Members of it. The hon. Member for London (Mr. Crawford) understood it to mean that the Government should use the Messageries Impériales as an extra or intermediate mail, while the hon. Member for Pomfret would have an arrangement with the Company by which they were to fit their service into ours; but what difference was there in principle between a direct contract with a foreign company and an arrangement with a foreign Government which was equivalent to a contract with that company? All the objections, then, which have been raised by the hon. Member for London and the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing) applied equally to that proposal His hon. Friend said that the meaning of the Committee was that the services to India, China, and Australia should all terminate at the same time. What did the Report of the Committee say? Their first recommendation ends in this way—

"The time has arrived when tenders should be invited for a weekly service to Bombay alone."

That points clearly to immediately inviting tenders. And what are their words with regard to inviting tenders for the other services? Their sixth recommendation is—

"That Her Majesty's Government should take into their early consideration the arrangements to be made, in consequence of the proposed separation of the Indian service, for maintaining a fortnightly or half-monthly service to China, and a monthly or four-weekly service to Australia, having regard to any facilities which may be afforded by the monthly service to China now performed by the Messageries Impériales from Marseilles."

On the face of this recommendation, then, the simultaneous termination of the two contracts was not contemplated. But who, after all, must be the best judge of the meaning to be put upon the Report but the person who proposed it? He found upon reference to the minutes of the proceedings of the Committee that this Report was proposed by the Chairman (Mr. Crawford). What took place before the Government took any step on the subject? He invited his hon. Friend to furnish the Government with his opinion as to what were the views of the Committee respecting it; and it was his recommendation that we should give notice to terminate the contract for India and China, and not wait for the termination of the contract for Australia; he thought it would be advisable to wait until the expiration of the two years. So much, then, for the alleged unanimous opinion of the Committee that the two contracts ought to terminate together. But supposing that they had received no such advice from the Chairman of the Committee, it was really a case of "Hobson's choice;" for before the Government gave notice to terminate the contract, the Peninsular and Oriental Company came to them and said, "Are you going to terminate the contract? because if you don't give us notice we shall give you notice." That being the case, he did not think the Government were much to be blamed under any circumstances in giving notice to terminate the contract. But his hon. Friend then said, "See what you have done in the Australian colonies." Well, what was the case? Why, that the Australian colonies were constantly complaining of the service;—in fact, one of them threatened to withdraw its contribution to the subsidy, owing to its dissatisfaction at the way in which the service had been conducted. The Government then said, "If you are dissatisfied with the service, make your own contract;" and he (Mr. Hunt) thought that was a very reasonable proposition. The Government then communicated with the Australian colonies, to ascertain if they would like to combine for the purpose of making their own contract, and, if so, the Government intimated their intention to continue the arrangements now made. It was true that they had proposed new and extensive arrangements—three services instead of one; but the Government were not bound by that. It was said that the company that had the contract for India and China must necessarily drive all others from the field; but that was not so; there was a competitor actually in the field — the Australasian Steam Navigation Company — expressing their readiness to tender for the service. With regard to the question which has been raised by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton), the Resolution of the House, to which he had referred, hardly seemed to affect the case of a contract which terminated at a time when Parliament was not sitting. At all events, it was no fault of the Government that that Resolution created a difficulty. He supposed his hon. Friend would hardly wish that the services should terminate, and the whole of the negotiations for the new services be suspended until Parliament met again. [Mr. AYRTON: Was that condition in the Indian contracts?] No, it was not.

said, this was a most important subject. He had always been an advocate for obtaining the performance of public services at the least possible cost by means of competition; but those who were to tender for these services must be put upon an equal footing. And would that be the case in this instance? He understood that an offer had been made to the Messageries Impériales to compete by tender for this service. No doubt the question of the amount of subvention to be given to that Company must be left in the hands of the Treasury; but the Messageries Impériales was supported by an amount of subvention from the French Government which neither the Government of this country nor this House would consent to pay to any company. Therefore, to invite our public bodies to compete with a body which was supported by the French Government in that way was an act of injustice and mockery to English competitors. They could not afford to do it upon the same terms. Supposing, then, they had an offer from the Messageries Impériales Company, which would, of course, be infinitely below anything that could be tendered in England, would they accept it? If they did, what then? They placed our Postal communications with our Eastern dependencies in the hands of a foreign Government; for the Messageries Impériales Company was nothing more or less than a Government institution. It would therefore be an act of very great impolicy indeed to do it, or to accept any tender from any foreign body whatever. They knew that merely as commercial speculations many steam shipping com- panies had failed, to the cost of a large number of shareholders. With regard to the Peninsular and Oriental Company, it had for a lengthened period been considered as in the light of an auxiliary to the navy. It had fifty-three large well-manned ships, and the whole service was in such a state of efficiency, that at any time it might co-operate with the navy. Under these circumstances, if a contract were entered into between the rising of this House at the end of the present Session and its meeting again next year, the contractors should agree that, in case the contract was not assented to by Parliament, they should have no power to recover anything in the shape of compensation.

said, it was true that his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury spoke to him in February last with regard to these contracts; but that was six months after the Committee had made their Report, and he did not know what steps had been taken in the interval. He told his hon. Friend they were exceedingly anxious that the recommendations of the Committee should be carried into effect, seeing that six months had then expired. His idea was at the time that notice would have been given to the Peninsular and Oriental Company to this effect—"Take notice that a year hence we shall give you a year's notice."

thought it a matter of great importance that the Committee should know what were the views of Her Majesty's Government with reference to the power of the Indian Government to enter into these contracts. He should like to hear what are the views of the Secretary of State for India upon that point.

said he wished to know from the Secretary to the Treasury whether the contract for that part of the service for which the contract was to be made by the Governor General of India, and half of which was to be paid out of the British Treasury, was or was not to be submitted to the British Parliament?

said, he should like to ask the same question with regard to the Australian service. He should like to know whether that contract, one-half of which also is to fall upon this country, is to be subject to the approval of this House?

asked, whether the Governor General of India and the Lieutenant Governors of Bombay and Madras had been consulted with reference to this pro- posal to let the contracts to a foreign company?

said, that this matter was decided by means of communications between the Treasury and the India Office before he was connected with the India Office; and it was a matter to which his attention was not called until lately. The point raised by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets did not occur; to his mind until now. He was not prepared, therefore, at that moment to give an answer to his question, but it was certainly a matter that demanded attention.

said, it did not appear that the Government were in a position to give full information with respect to the exact state of things in connection with the contracts to be made by the Governor General of India and the Colonies. He hoped he was not wrong in construing the language of the Secretary of State for India, as meaning that, whoever the functionary by whom these packet contracts were to be made, involving a charge on the British Exchequer, effectual measures must be taken for preserving to Parliament the same control as if the contracts were made in Downing Street, so that the public interests may be protected.

said, he most entirely agreed with his right hon. Friend that it would be quite wrong if, by virtue of any separate contract made by the Government of India, the control exercised by this House should be withdrawn. In a letter written by the Under Secretary of State for India to the Secretary to the Treasury on the 11th February last, he found this passage—

"I am directed to state that Viscount Cranborne agrees in the opinion of the Duke of Montrose that the contract for the Bombay and Suez section of the Eastern Postal services, for which new tenders are about to be invited, should be entered into by the Government of India, and not by Her Majesty's Imperial Government. With regard to his Grace's offer to include the service for this portion in the forms of tender for the other sections of the Eastern services, I am to state that Lord Cranborne is of opinion that it will be more convenient that the tenders for the Bombay and Suez line should be made to Her Majesty's Postmaster General, but in this case ample time should be afforded to companies in India to make their tenders."

He apprehended that those tenders would be brought before the Governor General, and his opinion be taken on the subject.

asked, whether in the case of the Australian Government undertaking the contract, seeing that we were liable for half the amount, a clause would be inserted in the contract making it subject to the approval of Parliament?

The Resolution of the House said, that in all contracts extending over a period of years and creating a public charge, actual or prospective, entered into by the Government for the conveyance of mails by sea or for the purpose of telegraphic communications beyond sea, there should be inserted the condition that the contract should not be binding until it had laid upon the table of the House of Commons for a certain time. That was a contract extending over a term of years, and the Government must come to the House of Commons for the Vote for it; and it appeared to him that the House had complete control over the matter, and could refuse to sanction the contract by refusing the Vote if it thought proper to do so.

said, it was clear, that the hon. Gentleman's acquaintance with the subject dated from a recent period. No doubt that was the state of things which existed before the Committee of 1859 was appointed. At that time these contracts were made by the Government, and the House of Commons never heard of them until asked for the Vote. Technically and nominally it was in the power of the House to refuse the Vote; but that was a state of things from which the Committee of 1859 released us, and back upon which the hon. Gentleman would send us. It was now absolutely necessary, whether it be convenient or not that the contracts should be made elsewhere, that provisions should be inserted in them for reserving the control of the House of Commons the same as if the arrangements were made with the Treasury in Downing Street.

stated the circumstances under which the Committee of 1859 had come to this Resolution; and said that the obvious meaning of the Committee was that the contract should come before the House in such a state that the House should be free to express an opinion upon it without incurring any pecuniary responsibility to the persons with whom the contract was made. He trusted that no violation of that Resolution would take place; but that when the Government submitted to the House their proposals next Session the House should be free to express its opinion upon them. If, however, they deprived the House of that freedom, they would incur a deep responsibility which the House would certainly take notice of.

said, that as the tenders sent out contained no such reservation as now advocated, some inconvenience might arise, especially if the Messageries Impériales should make the lowest tender. He would therefore suggest that the most desirable and most practicable course would be to make some arrangement with the Peninsular and Oriental Company to continue the service for a certain number of months longer, so as to bring it up to the probable re-assembling of Parliament, when the new tenders had come in. If there be any insuperable difficulty in doing that they ought to amend their advertisement and let all parties know that, in tendering, they do so subject to confirmation by Parliament when it meets in February, by which means they would have no claim for compensation.

advocated the claims of Falmouth in preference to those of Plymouth as the port for embarking and debarking the West India mails. The hon. Member contended that much time would be economized by the selection of the former port; which was admirably adapted for such a service as this. The railway was constructed to within a very short distance of the water's edge, while the communication between Falmouth and other parts of the kingdom was free, good, and liable to no interruption. The only increase of expense might perhaps be a special train now and then between Plymouth and Falmouth; but if two such special trains were run every month the expense would only amount to £160 throughout the year. The advantages which Falmouth presented were so numerous that he trusted the Treasury would re-consider their determination to select Plymouth for this service.

said, that the advantages of Plymouth were so patent, and had so been frequently pointed out by official authority, that the claims of Falmouth could be regarded as superior by no one but the Member for the borough.

said, he hoped the Government would re-consider the claims of Falmouth, the claims of which were advocated by the Chamber of Commerce at Liverpool.

stated his opinion that Southampton had peculiar advantages.

thought that the experiment of sorting on the system about to be tried ought to have been made when Southampton was the port of departure.

advocated the claims of Plymouth.

gave his opinion in favour of Falmouth, and hoped there would be a further inquiry.

concurred with the right hon. and learned Member (Mr. Russell Gurney) that the new system of sorting ought to have been tried when Southampton was the port for those packets. He believed that on the whole Southampton had claims superior to the other ports.

said, there seemed to be a pretty triangular duel between Falmouth, Plymouth, and Southampton, with which, he would not interfere, except to say that if the Plymouth experiment did not answer, Southampton, he supposed, would have a trial.

said, he proposed to take Class 4 of the Votes to-morrow, with the exception of the Irish Education Vote, which would be taken on Monday.