said, he wished to ask the Lord Advocate, Whether his attention has been directed to a Return made to this House dated 18th May 1868, No. 279, showing the number of Committals in Scotland for 1866–7, by which it appears that in sixteen cases 20 days and over, in sixty-six cases 150 days and over, and in 176 cases 100 days and over elapsed between the committal and the trial of prisoners; and, whether it is his intention to take any steps to insure the shortening of such serious delay in the administration of justice?

said, in reply, that the sixteen cases mentioned in the Question, in which the prisoners had been detained for 200 days and upwards were very special cases. In some of them the prisoners were insane, in others unwell, and in others the cases were attended with peculiar difficulty. But no innocent person had suffered, and all the prisoners were convicted, except one, who was found to have been insane. With reference to the other class of cases included in the Question, he might explain that the Assize or Circuit Courts were held in Scotland, in the provinces, once in six months, except in Glasgow, where there was also a winter assize. Of course there must be detention to await the circuit; but Scotland was not in a different position from England in that respect. Further, the course of proceeding was just what it had always been. In serious cases the trials occasionally were removed to Edinburgh; but it would cause very great expense to the country, great inconvenience to witnesses, and also occupy the time of the Court more than was desirable, if all trials for criminal cases were held in Edinburgh. There was, however, a proceeding under the Scotch law by which it was competent for a prisoner who was detained to force on his trial if he was unwilling to wait for the circuit, so that not only in bailable offences could he get out of prison on finding security, but in the case of offences that were not bailable he might take proceedings to force on his trial. As to the concluding part of the Question of the hon. Baronet, provisions were contained in the Justiciary Court Bill now before the House—and which he hoped would be passed this Session—that would greatly facilitate the trial of prisoners who pleaded guilty to the charges brought against them.

asked, Whether the insane prisoners were insane when first imprisoned?

said, some of the prisoners were insane previous to apprehension, and others became insane afterwards. Persons who committed such crimes were often not in the most sane state of mind.

said, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Board of Trade (with reference to an inquiry lately held at Penzance into the loss of the steamer Garonne), Whether the Report of the inquiry published in the Western Times, wherein it is stated that Mr. O'Dowd, Solicitor of the Board of Customs, said in his speech, "The boats were got out, and he would be able to show that the men who were saved brought with them bags full of clothes "is true; and whether the fact so stated by Mr. O'Dowd has not been proved by the evidence to have occurred, whilst the passengers, including several women and children were left to perish; and, if he will lay Copy of the Evidence and Report upon the Table of the House?

said, in reply, that Mr. O'Dowd was in Ireland; but that a telegram from him had been received that afternoon stating that the report of his speech referred to by the hon. and gallant Admiral was accurate, and it certainly appeared from the evidence that some of the sailors who were saved had bags of clothes with them. Very little effort seemed to have been made to save the passengers. There appeared to have been a total absence of order and discipline, owing, no doubt, to a want of firmness and presence of mind in the master and chief officer, who, it was only fair to say, were also regardless of their own safety, and went down with the vessel. The Report and main part of the evidence, which were somewhat voluminous, had been published in the Western Times. If the hon. and gallant Admiral wished to move for those documents there would be no objection to produce them.

said, that as steps were being taken for intersecting the western portion of Rotten Row by a carriage road, and apprehending that that intersection might increase the inconvenience already existing from the crowding of that part of Rotten Row where persons had been accustomed to ride, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether there will be any extension of or addition to the Ride in Rotten Row to compensate for the interference with the Ride, occasioned by the carriage road now being made across Rotten Row near Kensington Gardens?

, in reply, said, the Government did not contemplate this year making any addition to Rotten Row in consequence of the road that would shortly be made across it in the direction mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. But, undoubtedly, next year, on the north side of the Albert Memorial it would be necessary to make considerable alterations and improvements in connection with that Memorial. Then, at the western portion of Rotten Row, which was now very inconvenient and narrow, it would be requisite to take steps to compensate for the part of the Ride that would be taken for the road.

wished to ask, Whether that would be in addition to the £6,000 taken this year?

said, that the £6,000 taken this year would be absorbed by the new roads and lodges to the south and east of the Memorial.

said, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Board of Trade, Whether any regulations have been promulgated by the Board of Trade to prevent the overloading of Merchant Ships?

said, in reply, that no such regulations had been issued by the Board of Trade, who had in fact no power to issue any. It had, however, been proposed to insert a clause in the Merchant Shipping Acts Amendment Bill with the view of enabling a seaman to obtain a speedy survey of a ship in which he refused to sail on the ground of overloading, or other cause. It had also been suggested, and the suggestion seemed reasonable, that in order lo facilitate the obtaining by underwriters of evidence of overloading, the draught of water should be painted in legible figures on the stem and stern of every vessel, and that the officers of the dock or Custom House should take note of the depth she drew as she proceeded to sea. It was impossible to lay down rules on that subject which should apply to all vessels, and it might be questioned whether they did not, even now, err in such matters on the side of over legislation, which must tend to diminish unduly the responsibility of the shipowner.

said, the interests affected by his Motion were graver than might appear at first sight. Some years since the state of things in the prisons of England and Wales with respect to the spiritual instruction of Roman Catholic prisoners was so unsatisfactory that the Government introduced and carried what was commonly known as a permissive Bill—namely, the Prison Ministers Act. That measure made legal what was not legal before, and gave ample power to magistrates to provide spiritual instruction for the prisoners under their care. Speakers in that House, and on the platform, as well as writers in the public Press, frequently quoted certain statistics as to the number of Roman Catholic prisoners in the larger towns of England, and sought to trace a connection between those statistics and the teaching of his Church. Now, his answer to that was, that the authorities of the gaols of those towns—or those, rather, who had control over them—were mainly responsible for the consequences which were thus attributed to the doctrine and teaching of his Church. At present there was by law in Ireland a Protestant and a Roman Catholic chaplain for every prison—a system which had been attended with the most beneficial results. In passing the Prison Ministers Act for England and Wales the Legislature expected that the magistrates or other prison authorities would take advantage of the measure and put its provisions into operation; but his complaint was that they had failed to do so to any considerable extent; and thus a great wrong was inflicted, not only on the most helpless, and probably the most degraded class of the community, but also upon society at large, and especially upon the ratepayers. In England and Wales there were 119 gaols in which Protestant chaplains were engaged, the aggregate of their salaries being £20,133; while Catholic chaplains were only engaged in fifteen of these, and the whole amount paid to them was £1,255. It was a fact, further, that in addition to the £20,133 paid to Protestant chaplains there were additional sums paid to assistants and Scripture readers, bringing up the total to nearly, if not quite, £30,000. In London, which, as the capital, gave the tone to the rest of the nation, there were on the 2nd of April this year 649 Roman Catholic prisoners in five gaols; and the Protestant clergymen attending those gaols were paid over £2,000 for their services in connection with them, besides the £500 or £600 which he had no doubt their assistants received. But, while the Protestant clergy Were thus remunerated for the spiritual instruction which they afforded to their coreligionists, not a single farthing was given for the instruction of the Roman Catholic prisoners. In the prison of Coldbath Fields application had been made that, on Easter Sunday, opportunity might be given for the celebration of the greatest solemnity of their Church; but a room was refused. At last better treatment was given, but no clerk was allowed to give the responses of the sacred office, till at length a Catholic magistrate attended for the purpose; and afterwards a boy of ten years of age was allowed to perform the clerk's office. The Roman Catholic clergyman at Tothill Fields did not ask for a single pound for his ministration, but had simply expressed a wish that a lady, the daughter of a Peer and the wife of a Member of Parliament, might be allowed to play during the time of Divine service. Permission was, however, refused; and the lady, who was a woman of high spirit, waited on the visiting justice and asked to be allowed to play on Sundays for the benefit of the prisoners, observing that his own daughter was allowed to attend in the gaol. "Oh," replied the magistrate, "my daughter is not the only lady who attends; there are three or four others who come here." Did that, he should like to know, look like religious equality? Was that "levelling up" or "levelling down?" Further still, it was true that several priests had broken down with health shattered by the indignity and contumely with which they were treated by the prison authorities and officials. For his own part he did not wish to see a single farthing of the money which they received taken from the Protestant clergy. What he was protesting against was the manner in which the Roman Catholic clergyman was treated. The Government prisons were managed admirably, and he could not see why the same principle could not be adopted in all the gaols. These poor people should not be told that while they committed smaller offences they would not receive fair play in prison, but that as soon as they committed crimes which subjected them to penal servitude, then fair play would be extended to them. At the last meeting of the Board the Chairman said that everything necessary had been provided for the conduct of the Roman Catholic worship in the prison; the fact being, on the contrary, that the priest could not proceed with his duties until he had expended £120 out of his own pocket in the purchase of altar furniture, vestments, and other things that were absolutely necessary for the conduct of Catholic worship. Catholic clergymen who visited prisons were treated with studied indignity, and everything was done to discourage them. Protestants wished to be attended only by Protestant clergymen, and Catholics only by Catholic clergymen; and if a Catholic chaplain attempted to interfere with the faith of a Protestant prisoner he should be expelled from the prison; but nothing of the kind over happened. The good effects of allowing the visits of Catholic clergymen to prisoners of their own persuasion were seen by experience, as in the prison of the Isle of Wight; whereas when prisoners did not obtain spiritual consolation they were committed and re-committed, and descended the hardened steep of crime. This was a question also for the ratepayers, because persons committed over and over again to gaol occasioned a great expense to the community; and perseverance in a system of mere punishment without improvement would only add to the number of the dangerous classes of society, which were the most costly classes of all. All means of improvement should be adopted. They had been tried with admirable effect in Ireland, and the result was that the Irish Judges were going the circuits having scarcely any crime to inquire into. Poverty and misery were the causes of the crimes committed by the poor Irish in London: they were more exposed to temptation than any other class; and he implored the House not to make crime deeper and darker by refusing the means of religious improvement. The matter was one which called for the vigorous action of Government, instead of leaving it to a body of magistrates, who were quite unfit for the purpose, to sit in judgment as to the religion of 200,000,000 of the human race. If the Prison Ministers Act were not made compulsory, ten or a dozen years might elapse before the law would be put into active operation; and as he did not wish to wait so long for such a result, he now, in the name of justice—in the name of the honour and character of that House—in the name of fair play to the poor and oppressed—in the name of civil and religious liberty—would move the Resolution of which he had given Notice.

seconded the Motion; and said that it was very gratifying to those who had laboured in this cause to find that the magistrates of the country generally, aided by the Acts passed in 1863 and 1865, had to a considerable extent conceded the principle that the Roman Catholics had in view, by appointing Roman Catholic ministers to attend to members of their flock who were in gaol. This, however, had only been done to a too limited extent. The principle had been acted upon in large and enlightened towns like Preston, Liverpool and Manchester, where salaries had beer given to Roman Catholic ministers, and various steps taken to facilitate the instruction and reformation of the prisoners Under the former system Catholic prisoners had to endure hardships of which gentlemen, whether in or out of the House, had no idea. They were exposed to great ill usage and oppression if they avowed them selves Catholics, and temptations were held out to them to attend the Protestant service, with increased severities if they refused. The Reports of Inspectors showed that there was a striking improvement in the conduct of Roman Catholic prisoners in consequence of their being brought into communication with their priests; and it was shown that in places where the discipline of the prison had been very bad indeed a complete reformation had taken place It appeared from a Report in December 1866, that the chaplain at Parkhurst Prison had interfered in reference to the school for Roman Catholic children; a system which he (Lord Edward Howard) thought ought not to exist. It was too bad that persons wishing to be reformed were not allowed the means of reformation, thus increasing the expense on the rate payers of the country. The matter we not so important in reference to the Protestant Dissenters, because in many cases they did not object to attend the services of the Church of England; but the Roman Catholics refused the ministrations of the Protestant clergymen. He hoped that a appeal to the enlarged constituency would tend to afford a remedy to that state of things of which he complained. In the present Home Secretary they had a talent of administration and a vigour of action that promised the best results, and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would give his earnest attention to the matter, and do what it was possible to do to redress a wrong and confer a benefit.

said, that the Returns moved for had two sides, one of which only had been presented by the hon. Member to the House. The Returns would show that throughout the country great progress had been made in this matter since the Prison Ministers' Act had come into operation. As he had said last year a permissive Act on a subject of this sort would in most cases lead to controversy and this had been the case in this instance. Still, however, great steps had been taken in order to secure to persons in custody who were of a particular religion an opportunity of seeing the ministers to whose creed they belonged in order to be instructed by them. There were, however, in many parts of the country considerable difficulties, where the number of Roman Catholic prisoners were, perhaps, only four, five, or six, and where, the Roman Catholic population being few, there was no priest or chapel near the prison. In these cases it was almost impossible that there should be a regular Roman Catholic chaplain attached to the gaol; but he found that in no case mentioned in the Returns had there been any refusal of access, and in most cases there was a growing freedom of access for the priest. In the county of Middlesex, for instance, to which special reference was made, considerable progress had been made both as to access to prisoners and the assignment of a proper place for the peformance of religious worship. No one in the gaols was debarred from access to a minister of his own creed for the purpose of religious instruction. With respect to the supply of those things that were necessary for religious ceremonies, he thought that it would be found very difficult for any legislation to compel a supply, for they could hardly by legislation lay down rules to be applied to such matters. If there had been what the hon. Member would call a sort of repulsive coldness in the reception of Roman Catholic priests in gaols he (Mr. G. Hardy) did not see how that could be got rid of by legislation. The hon. Member would take steps by his Motion to call on the House to decide the sort of thing that should in the future be done; but he (Mr. G. Hardy) must confess that he was not in favour of that kind of Motion unless immediate legislation could be founded on it. He was not surprised that Gentlemen who professed a religion which they thought was neglected should be impatient; but he trusted that the House, having thought proper to act by permissive legislation, would give a certain time to see how such legislation would act, and more especially so as facilities for religious instruction were being increased. He trusted that the hon. Member would not press his Motion to a division.

acknowledged the courteous and conciliatory remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the home Department, and expressed his concurrence with him that it would be inexpedient for his hon. Friend the Member for Cork, under the circumstances, to press his Motion to a division. It would be inadvisable for the House to pass a mere abstract Resolution upon the subject unless it were immediately followed up by legislation. He (Mr. Monsell), however, ventured to submit to the right hon. Gentleman that in all the prisons of the United Kingdom there should be an equal system observed in regard to the religious wants of the prisoners. It was curious to mark how differently the prisoners belonging to the religion of the minority were treated in Ireland to the prisoners of the minority as regarded faith in England. He need not speak of the prisoners professing the religion of the Established Church in Ireland, who had always the assistance of the ministers of their own faith. But he would take the Presbyterians as an example. In 1865 he found there were on an average only eighty-two Presbyterian prisoners in Ireland. Well, for the spiritual wants of those eighty-two prisoners there were fourteen paid chaplains. In the county Louth there was only one Presbyterian prisoner, and in Fermanagh two Presbyterian prisoners. Nevertheless, there was a Presbyterian chaplain with a salary of upwards of £30 to attend to each of these gaols. He by no means complained of this expenditure. On the contrary, however few the prisoners were, he believed that the ministrations of the clergy were attended with the best results. In this country, however, the greatest difficulty was experienced in obtaining for the Roman Catholic prisoners in many of the gaols the religious consolation and instruction of their own priests. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would take the question into his serious consideration, and would endeavour to introduce a Bill next Session which should extend the system now in force in Ireland into this country, and not leave to the discretion of the magistrates that which was fixed by law in Ireland.

said, he understood that the hon. Member for Cork had animadverted upon the conduct of the Middlesex magistrates. Now, he (Mr. Newdegate) had been for many years a justice of the peace for Middlesex, and he knew that the Bench of magistrates at Clerkenwell had made some wise concessions in the sense of the demands made by the hon. Member for Cork. What was the result? Had that hon. Gentleman, or any other of the Roman Catholic Members of that Mouse, expressed any satisfaction? Not the least. Count de Montalembert, in writing on the political future of England, described the religious agitation that was going on in this country, of which they had had a sample that day. The Count recommended the Roman Catholics to demand the principle of religious equality for their prisoners in gaols—a principle, by-the-by, which their Church repudiated whenever it had power. Was the fact not enough to prove that whatever concessions that House might make short of granting complete supremacy to the Roman Catholic Church—a supremacy insisted upon by the Pope in his Encyclical—they would give no satisfaction. On the contrary, the result of suck concessions acted as a mere encouragement to agitation. So confident was he that the advice given by Count de Montalembert would be followed out, that he voted against the last of those concessions, and he privately expressed his conviction that those concessions would not be received with satisfaction, but would only lead to further demands. The hon. Member for Cork now proposed to deprive them of the discretion that was vested in the magistrates in respect to the appointment! of Roman Catholic chaplains to gaols, although such magistrates were responsible for the good conduct of those chaplains that were allowed to visit the prisoners. To satisfy the Roman Catholic priesthood was simply impossible. They had the assurance of the Papacy and the Roman Catholic clergy that anything short of supremacy would fail to satisfy them. The Home Secretary, consistently with the amiability of his character, expressed his satisfaction at the concessions being made by the magistrates generally upon this point, and his hope that those concessions would continue to progress. But in the face of the Encyclical of the Pope, all such concessions would be utterly inadequate to the demands of the Roman Catholic Church. The claim of the hon. Member for Cork now was this, that wherever there was an assembly of persons belonging to the Roman Catholic community there should be by law present a Roman Catholic priest to govern them. Many who profess Liberal opinions would, he had no doubt, arrive at the conviction that there was no true liberality or religious freedom to be found in the course they were invited to pursue, and would join with those of his political opinions who preferred incurring the odium cast upon them by the party opposite, rather than resign that trust which as magistrates they were anxious to discharge with a due regard to the sacred interests involved and to the best of their understandings.

said, as he understood the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) although he thought the present application fair and just in itself, he refused his assent to it because he feared that it would be followed by other applications which, in his view of the case, would not be fair and just. He (Mr. C. Fortescue) hoped that the House would decide this question upon its simple merits without reference to anything else. He denied the application of the word "concession," which had been so frequently used by the hon. Member to the proposition now made by his hon. Friend the Member for Cork. Concession meant the granting of something to a part)' who had no right to ask for it. The application now made was one founded upon right and justice, and therefore could not be considered a concession if granted. He concurred with his right hon. Friend the Member for Limerick (Mr. Monsell) in thinking that the advice and instruction of a chaplain to prisoners, however few in number, were calculated to produce great good. Speaking from his own knowledge of what occurred in Ireland, and especially in his own county, he would say that the system of securing for the inmates of public institutions the benefit of religions administrations by law was carried out most completely, even to an extent that might be described as pedantic. He remembered with shame the treatment of the Roman Catholic minority in England when he compared it with the more liberal treatment of the Protestant minority in Ireland. In the workhouse, for example, which he was in the habit of attending, there was a mere handful of Protestant paupers—often only half-a-dozen—among a mass of Roman Catholics, and yet there was a regularly paid chaplain of the Church of England, and a room was fitted up as a chapel for Divine service. Unless the principle of appointing Roman Catholic chaplains to those places in England was more generally acknowledged and acted upon, his belief was that it would be the duty of the House to interfere stringently in the matter.

observed that the Prison Ministers Act of 1863 was permissive, but the Act of 1865, which provided that a prisoner, unless he objected, should be visited by a minister of his own denomination, limited to a great extent the discretion of the magistrates. He could not agree with the Home Secretary that great progress was being made, because in 1866 it appeared there were forty-one gaols, at which ten Roman Catholic chaplains were employed, while in the latest Return, referring to 119 prisons, only fifteen chaplains had been appointed. The Returns showed that at several prisons, containing a very considerable number of Roman Catholics, no Roman Catholic chaplain was appointed.

said, he considered the speech of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) irrelevant to the subject. The question was a very narrow one, being confined to a question merely of prison administration—namely, whether Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to attend Roman Catholic prisoners when in gaol for the benefit of such prisoners, and for the real object for which they were confined—that of their improvement, and for the good order and discipline of the prison. This was not a concession to Roman Catholics, but whether it was right or wrong that Roman Catholic priests should be admitted to prisoners who belonged to that Church. If it was wrong to permit them, there was an end of the question. Prisoners, however, were not sent to gaol merely for their punishment. The State was certainly interested in the reformation of her prisoners, and as the only means of reforming prisoners was through the instrumentality of religion, and as it was impossible to expect the Roman Catholic prisoners to be reformed by the doctrines of a religion in which they did not believe, he regarded this so-called concession as a simple act of justice. He had always objected to the present permissive state of the law, because there was an ingenious perverseness in the nature of Englishmen which frequently prevented their carrying out the benevolent intentions contemplated by Parliament. Looking at the question as he did, purely in the light of an act of justice towards the Roman Catholic prisoners, and of benefit to the State, he trusted that Her Majesty's Government would bring in a Bill in the early part of next Session to make the appointment of Roman Catholic chaplains in prisons necessary.

remarked, that though it was true the contributions to the gaols were not so large for the Nonconformist body as they were for the Roman Catholic portion of the population, the principle was alike the same in each case. The gradual addition to the public expenditure was worthy of serious attention, and he believed that all that was necessary in this case was to resort to voluntary efforts, which had been found successful in so many other directions, and which, if adopted, would put an end to the continual squabbles on all hands for payment from State funds.

desired to allude to an important and delicate point which had not yet received any attention during the progress of this discussion—the principle of concealing the confessions of prisoners who were sentenced to death. He did not think that it was necessary that the details should be published; but, before the House assented to any proposition for the appointment of Roman Catholic chaplains, it should be distinctly laid down that it was incumbent on the priest to say whether the prisoner had confessed his guilt or not. The peace of mind of twelve honest jurymen, even occasionally of the Judge, was involved in the question, and their minds ought, above all priestly considerations, to be set at rest, so that they might not be afflicted with those unpleasant misgivings which, in the absence of any confession of guilt, would prey upon their minds at the most unseasonable hours. ["Question!"] The objection applied equally in the appointment of clergymen of any denomination, for, but for the interposition of the priest or clergyman, the criminal, finding all his hopes gone, would frequently yield to the dictates of that natural morality which was superior to the morality of any priest, either Protestant or Roman Catholic. ["Question!"]

said, he was sure his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Neate) would not be the man to call upon on ordained priest of God to violate his ordinated vow, which would be the result of adopting the suggestion with which he closed his speech. Believing as he did that the desire of the Catholic Members who supported the Resolution before the House was not to increase the resources of the Church to which they belonged, but simply to carry out their conscientious views, he should support the Resolution. He did this mainly on the ground that in his opinion the magistrates of England are at this moment acting in reference to this matter in a manner the House ought not to countenance; and for this reason the Judges upon whom the duty devolved sentenced convicted criminals to terms of imprisonment commensurate with their offences; but after this had been done, the magistrates, whose duties were, in fact, simply ministerial, inflicted a cumulative punishment by depriving the prisoners of the ministrations of the Church to which they belonged.

, in reply, said, that he had in some respects been misrepresented by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. He did not deny that progress had been made, or was still being made, but said that progress had been very slow. The Roman Catholic Members did not want chaplains to be appointed in cases where they were not required; but they said that, in common justice, a chaplain should be appointed to minister to Roman Catholic prisoners in cases where there were many of them confined in gaols. The Roman Catholic Members of the House represented 9,000,000 of Her Majesty's subjects, and they would not rest until they had obtained that justice and equality to which they considered them selves entitled. He asked the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli), who had made so many professions of his desire to do justice to the Roman Catholics, to carry out his professions by placing a Government Bill on the table of the House next Session, to make the law compulsory instead of permissive. He would not now press his Motion to a division.

rose to call attention to the practice of the House in not allowing Members who went by inadvertence into the wrong Lobby in divisions to have their votes recorded in the manner in which they wished to give them, and said it was his intention to move a Resolution which would enable mistakes of that kind, when made hereafter, to be corrected. He had himself, in June 1864, been the victim of the existing rule, having then gone into the wrong Lobby, and consequently had his vote recorded in the opposite sense to that which he intended. The effect of that was that, there being a majority of 1 against the view which he desired to support, a Bill of considerable interest was thrown over for that Session. A similar inadvertence in 1856 was committed by the hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. P. Wykeham-Martin). There were instances of even some of the most experienced Members of the House—including Government "tellers" themselves—sometimes going into the wrong Lobby by mistake; and on the occasion of the first division taken upon the Resolution of the right hon. Member for South Lancashire respecting the Irish Church, the majority was 60; while on the second division when the Resolution was put the majority was 56; the difference between the two majorities being caused by two Scotch Members—for even Scotch Members at times made mistakes—going into the wrong Lobby. A Member, if he made a mistake by going into the wrong Lobby, ought to have an opportunity of correcting it. In the House of Lords the practice was different and although he should not wish to follow the House of Lords in all things, the Resolution which they had, at the instance of Lord Redesdale, adopted to meet the case of Members of that House going into a wrong Lobby, might, he thought, very well be made the rule of practice in the taking of divisions in the House of Commons. He begged, therefore, to move a Resolution in precisely similar terms.

seconded the Motion.

said, he hoped the House would not agree to the Resolution. The only effect of such a Motion would be to point out to the country that mistakes were made from want of attention which were anything but creditable either to the individual Members or to the House. Why was not the House told the names of the Members who had been in the wrong? How they came to be in the wrong box? Whether they were in the House when the Question was put? It argued very little for the competence of Members if, when they were told "Ayes to the right, Noes to the left," they did not know which way to go. If hon. Members were asleep, or on the terrace smoking, or reading newspapers in the vicinity of the House, or, in short, doing anything except what they ought—attending to the Business of the House in their places—that was their own fault, and the matter was, in his opinion, not of such importance as to require special legislation. It would be much better to go on in the old paths, and not draw too much attention to their faults.

said, the mistake in his case had occurred on a Wednesday, when he had been in the House almost the whole morning. It was the first time he had voted in his life, and he was standing at the Bar, when the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair said the "Ayes" were to go to the right. He thereupon went to his own right, and that was the way in which the error arose. As to the Resolution of the hon. and learned Baronet, he did not think it was a matter of much importance one way or another.

said, he was astonished that any hon. Member should oppose so simple a Motion. The noble Lord opposite (Lord Hotham) was a most punctual and painstaking Member of the House himself; but that was no good reason why he should object to the adoption of a rule by which mistakes in voting might be avoided.

said, the hon. and learned Baronet must remember the legal maxim, Vigilantibus non dormientibus sub-veniunt leges. He did not think it desirable to make Resolutions to encourage mistakes. The rules and practice of the House assumed that Members knew what hey were about, understood the Questions that were put, and gave their votes intelligently. The rules and practice were simple, if hon. Members would only take the pains to comprehend them. If they endeavoured to provide for those weaker Members who made mistakes after dinner, they would be led into confusion, the proceedings of the House would be brought into ridicule, and there would be much less care taken to prevent mistakes.

said, he hoped the hon. and learned Baronet would withdraw his Motion. Its operation, if carried, would, he was afraid, be something like that which was said to have followed the invention of life buoys, when the sailors were constantly falling overboard, knowing that the means of safety were at hand.

said, he was sorry that the Leader of the House had not made any observations on a matter affecting the conduct of the Business of the House; but after what had fallen from the few hon. Members who had spoken he would not press his Resolution.

The hon. and learned Baronet has alluded to me, and as I should be very sorry to be suspected of any want of courtesy to the House, I must say that once or twice I was on the point of rising, but was prevented addressing the House by reason of the fact that other hon. Members were the first to catch Mr. Speaker's eye. I should, if I had had an opportunity, have given an uncompromising opposition to the Motion of the hon. and learned Baronet, which would have, as it appears to me, produced this effect: we should have had two divisions on every subject—there would be a division and a revision of a division in each case. That practice would create many mistakes. I think it is always unwise to alter our rules of procedure without grave consideration, and I think that in this case we have not sufficient data upon which to base such considerations. I do not think we are entirely acquainted with the motives which occasion these apparent mistakes. I have sometimes ascribed them to a desire in hon. Members for change of society; and on many occasions it has been the case that hon. Members going into the wrong Lobby have been in a state of some social excitement. As I think also that an agreement with the Motion of the hon. and learned Baronet would cause Members to be more careless than they are at present, I should, if it had not been stated that the Amendment was to be withdrawn, have opposed its passage.

, in moving an Address for Papers and Correspondence relating to the case of a merchant named Adjouri, said, that in 1865 a partnership was entered into at Manchester, which two years afterwards became embarrassed. In 1867 the partner in Manchester received a telegraphic message from Aleppo to invoice £10,000 of Manchester goods for Aleppo, for which a remittance would be provided. The remittance did not arrive. The house of Adjouri and Company had conducted itself with punctuality and respect; but having suspended payment a bankruptcy became inevitable, and Adjouri was made a bankrupt in February. In 1867 Adjouri absconded from Manchester. The merchants of that city sent a messenger to Aleppo to secure debts, but he obtained no payment whatever. An action was instituted in Aleppo, in a Court framed for the trial of international causes. In the course of the trial indications were manifest favourable to the creditors. But as the trial proceeded, very much to the surprise of those engaged in it, the Turkish authorities suspended the trial. Lord Lyons was leaving Constantinople at the time, and Mr. Elliott, his successor, was in a state of transition. Communications took place between various parties, but the Turkish authorities contested the rights of British nationality. What, then, was the British Consul doing? The sum of £2,000 had been spent in seeking redress of the grievance. At this time last year application was made to the Government for redress. The answer was that more information was needed as to what took place in Constantinople. His constituents had had great wrong done them. He did not doubt that ultimately Her Majesty's Government would give them redress. But what he complained of was the unnecessary delay. He wished to have no further delay, "which made the heart sick."

said, that so far as he could understand the case, the facts were these—A man named Adjouri had creditors in England and partners in Turkey. He became bankrupt, and the creditors in Manchester thought that they had a claim upon his Turkish property. In order to enforce this claim they instituted a suit against the partners in the Mixed Court at Aleppo. The Turkish Government interposed, and by a Vizerial order stopped the proceedings on the ground that the case ought not to have been taken into the Mixed Court at all, but to have been tried by the ordinary tribunals. This was unquestionably a sufficient ground for the interference, supposing it to be proved that the Mixed Court had no jurisdiction. Whether, in that view of the case, the Turkish authorities were, right or wrong was a very difficult and intricate question of law. It had been several times referred to the Law Officers of the Crown, before whom every facility had been given to the parties to lay their case. It was not very easy to ascertain the precise facts on which the legality or illegality of the proceedings of the Turkish Government depended. Very lately, by the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown, he had written to Constantinople to obtain some fresh information, which might assist them materially in coming to a decision. Everything turned upon this—was the Court qualified to deal with the case, or was it not? If not, the Turkish local authorities had a perfect right to do what they did. If they were competent to try the case, the Native authorities had no right to interfere, and there was ground for addressing representations to them on the subject. The delay which had arisen had been occasioned partly by the complication of the case itself, and partly, also, from the statement, as first laid before the Law Officers, not arriving in a shape on which it was possible to form a conclusive opinion. He did not know any other course that could have been taken than that a legal question should be settled by legal advice. Certainly, there was no evidence of any improper influence being brought to bear upon the Turkish authorities. Nothing of that kind had been stated to him. It was an assertion that parties were very apt to make, but on which no stress should be laid unless it could be proved. When the information for which he had written was received, no doubt his learned Friends would be able to advise the Government as to the course they ought to take, and Parliament would then be informed on the subject. He thought the hon. Gentleman exercised a very wise discretion in not asking for the production of the Papers, for he thought that would only injure the parties who applied for them.

, in moving that the Speaker do now leave the Chair, was about to address the House, when

rose to Older. The hon. Member had on a previous occasion addressed the House on the Question that the Speaker do leave the Chair, when the Secretary to the Treasury moved the adjournment of the debate.

observed that the Motion for die adjournment was negatived; but he had subsequently assented to the Motion for going into Committee being negatived.

said, he had not the slightest wish to curtail the hon. Member's observations on the Bill; but he had a most distinct recollection that the hon. Gentleman did address some observations to the House on the Question of the Speaker leaving the Chair. Until an Amendment was moved, the hon. Gentleman could not again speak.

said, the hon. Member had on a previous occasion made the Motion that he do now leave the Chair, on which, subsequently, the adjournment of the House and the debate had been moved. The Chancellor of the Exchequer would now be in order in moving his Amendment.

said, he only wished to be in Order, having no desire whatever to curtail the privileges of the hon. Member. The Bill had been read a second time without any observations on the part of the Government or by any hon. Member; and, as the House might recollect, it was by a mere accident that he had not been present when the Motion for the second reading was made. Looking to the really important character of this measure, he regretted there was not a more full attendance of Members when it came on for discussion. The natural tendency of every mind must be to accede at once to the principle of this Bill; it was only in discussion that doubts arose as to whether it would be desirable to do so. It would have been far more agreeable to his own feelings to support the Bill, which was intended to confer the franchise on a very meritorious and efficient body of men, to whom the country and the House were very greatly indebted, than to move, as he felt bound to do, that it be committed this day three months. It was of no slight importance that the action of the officers concerned in the collection of the Revenue should be above all imputation as to their motives; that political intrigue and political feeling should be kept entirely out of the question so far as their conduct was concerned that they should be able to, carry on the discipline necessary for the conduct of business, to make changes and removals from one part of the country to another, and direct their officers to take proceedings with reference to the Revenue without regard to political considerations. The original ground for withholding the franchise from officers thus employed was that it would be giving too great power to the Crown; the feeling of those who were in favour of the measure was, that the franchise having been so widely extended, their numbers were now so small in comparison with those of the electors generally that they would have very little weight in an election. He was not disposed to attach much weight to the argument relative to the power of the Crown; but he thought that in the event of the Bill becoming law, if not the Crown, some of the permanent officers of the establishment might have very great power and influence in particular cases. There were certain places where the number of officers who would be affected by the measure was very considerable. In the port of London between 1,700 and 1,800 Custom House officials alone would be enfranchised by this Bill. The number in some constituencies would be very considerable, besides those employed in the Excise and Post Office. In the port of Liverpool there were no fewer than 840 Custom House officers; and at the last election the lowest of two successful candidates only outstripped his competitor by 300 votes, so that in that particular case the Custom House officers would be three times as many as the majority of the successful candidate. Supposing that in the port of Liverpool the collector should be a strong partizan, and that these 840 officers considered that their position and prospects in the service depended upon him, a knowledge of human nature would enable them to judge pretty well of how the greater part of those officials would vote. If that were understood and known he should not feel called upon to oppose the Bill on that ground, because it was an evil which other considerations might induce them not to rate too highly.

rose to a point of Order, and asked that the record of the proceedings on the former occasion should be referred to, which he believed would show that he was in Order in his endeavour to commence the debate upon this Bill.

said that he had referred to the records of the proceedings upon the last occasion this Bill was before the House, and he found that the original Motion for going into Committee upon the Bill had been negatived, and required to be renewed, and therefore the hon. Member (Mr. Monk) was in Order in commencing the debate. He, however, was given to understand that the hon. Member did not wish to press his right to address the House, but merely desired that it should be understood that he was not out of Order in the attempt he made to recommence the debate.

said, he was afraid that some mistake had been made in the record of the proceedings. In resuming the thread of his argument, he had to state that his main objection to this Bill was that these officers were scattered throughout the length and breadth of the land, and upon their reports and representations to their superiors rested the question whether persons should be prosecuted for offences against the laws of the Revenue, so that there was in their hands virtually the control of the prosecutions. That being the case, it must be evident to every one that it would give to officers so situated very great influence in elections. At present they were not allowed by the rules of the service to take part in any political proceedings, so that their political opinions, if they had any, were suppressed; but if they were allowed to take part in political proceedings connected with elections, they would be allowed to adopt a political colour, and it might be said that they were not in the habit of shutting their eyes to the frauds and defalcations of those of their own political party. He was afraid that such imputations would be cast widely about, and the efficiency of the service would be greatly impaired. Very great discretion was required in those engaged in carrying out the administration of the laws, and it was not to be wished that the difficulties of their duty should be enhanced by allowing political convictions on the part of those officers. It was said that it was a grievance for those gentleman not to be admitted to the full rights of citizenship, He had made careful inquiries amongst the superior officers of the Department, and they made no complaint of being debarred from the exercise of the franchise; on the contrary, they thought it rather a privilege sometimes to be free from the political turmoil which surrounded them. If the superiors made no complaint, he did not see why the subordinates should do so. It was optional with any subject of Her Majesty to enter any of these services, and if he did so, he did so with a full knowledge of the disabilities attaching to the office. The police throughout the country were also affected with the same disability. If they had been introduced into the Bill, it might have been urged that they would follow the lead of the county and borough magistrates: but he thought that when it was desired to enfranchise the Revenue officers, it was hardly fair to the police that they should not have been included in the Bill. There was an anomaly in outlaws on this subject; the dockyard labourers were not disfranchised; but if the matter were inquired into calmly and dispassionately, he was not at all sure that a good case might not be made out for affixing to them the same disability that now attached to Revenue officers. The fact did not at all tend to the purity or the impartiality of electors in places where many of these men were employed, and strenuous efforts were made by Members representing them to increase the privileges of the dockyard men and the number of persons employed, which did not tend to economy, or the proper husbanding of the national resources. The heads of the Revenue Departments held their offices permanently, so that, supposing a strong partizan to be at the head of one, he might for a whole generation influence the votes of those under his authority. At present all these places were filled up on the representations and applications of the supporters of the Government of the day, and if a person was appointed to an office of this kind, it was perfectly well known that the Government would get no political good by him; hut if the present law were changed, it would be understood throughout the country that the Member who procured an appointment for a man would be entitled for ever afterwards to his vote. Continual applications were made by these gentlemen respecting their position and salaries, and those applications had of late years taken a very peculiar form, being not merely made through Heads of Departments, or by simple memorials to the Treasury, but in the form of resolutions at public meetings held by them, and communications to Members of Parliament by delegates appointed to represent their interests. He put it to the House whether, in the circumstances supposed, the influence possessed by them would not be very considerably increased, and whether the Government of the day would not have far greater difficulty in administering these Departments with respect to the position and salaries of the officers concerned, if the measure were carried. The Report of the Inquiry Commissioners referred to the great mischief that would ensue if the Bill should become law, and stated that the efficient administration of the Inland Department and the due collection of the Revenue would, under the circumstances supposed, be next to impossible. Considering that that Department was concerned with the collection of a Revenue of upwards of £40,000,000, he thought the House would not be surprised if the person principally responsible for it should ask them to pause before assenting to a measure of this kind.

said, he thought the right hon. Gentleman to be consistent ought to bring in a Bill to disfranchise all the servants of the Crown. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to think that these officers could not be trusted to exercise the rights of citizenship, though the Government themselves had assented to largely enfranchise the people of this country, and though these officers, whom the Government declined to admit to the privileges which it had lately so widely extended, were superior, in point of education and trustworthiness, to any similar class in the world. If the right hon. Gentleman's argument, that these officers ought not to vote because their appointments were the result of political influence, were good for anything, it was an argument against the House of Lords, which was continually strengthened by the creation of Peers, who were usually very loyal adherents of the party from whom they were selected, though they were frequently by no means its most eminent or distinguished Members. This was no party question; it was one which involved a Department in which there were as many Conservatives as Liberals. He hoped that the House would consent to pass the Bill of his hon. Friend, because, by so doing, they would remove from a worthy class a sense of degradation and insult.

said, he hoped his hon. Friend who had just spoken would not think it betokened any want of respect to him if he said that, after listening to the remarks he had made, they left on his mind the impression that he had not so far entered into the question as to become aware of the difficulties with which it was surrounded. He thought his hon. Friend, with the benevolence which characterized him, had taken the philanthropic view of the matter; he had been shocked by an apparent anomaly in the existing law, and he had rushed to a practical conclusion with a rapidity too great to allow of his guidance being considered a safe one for the decision of the House upon the question. If it was not being too bold, he thought his hon. Friend would see that he had not used the words lightly, and that he had something to say in support of them. He did not intend to approach the subject in the spirit of partizanship—political partizanship was unknown in connection with it, but in the spirit of official or any other partizanship. It was not a matter to be decided by any considerations of this kind, but they must consider broadly and fairly the right course to pursue. On that occa- sion, he could not join with anyone in Attempting to force the hands of the Government. It seemed to him a very serious matter indeed to have a Government responsible, amongst oilier things, for the collection of £70,000,000 of Revenue, most of it raised by processes of a very peculiar and delicate kind, practicable in this country, but many of them hardly attempted in any other country in the world, for he did not believe that Schedule D of the income tax had a parallel in any other country on the face of the globe. It was a most serious evil to take up these questions on general grounds of philanthropy and liberality, and force upon a Government responsible for their duties, measures which the persons so responsible declared to be incompatible with their due discharge. He was not prepared to assume that responsibility, and so long as the Government of the day resisted the passing of a measure of that kind, his vote must be with the Government of the day. Others might not take that view, and he did not intend to limit the field of the discussion. He wished not to force the Government, and he thought that those who supported the measure should endeavour so to dispute as to induce the Government to deal with it in u fair and liberal spirit. He presumed that the arguments to be urged in favour of the Bill would arise from the anomalous circumstance that while a portion of those engaged in the public service were permitted to vote, these officers were not allowed to exercise that privilege; that other citizens had been admitted to the franchise, rind that these ought to share in the general extension of electoral rights; and thirdly, that these officers themselves were exceedingly anxious to possess the privilege from which they alone were excluded. The first consideration of anomaly weighed very little in his mind, more especially as the Bill did not remove it, but rather brought it out more sharply. The case of the police would serve to show that there was a great deal more in the matter than the mere franchise of the officers and servants of the Revenue Department. If they were going to remove an anomaly, and if that be a reason for legislation, they should have something like consistency, and consistency was not to be obtained bypassing on a Motion like this such a Bill as was now before them. With regard to the rights of citizenship, it was said that these persons ought not to be deprived of the franchise, when Parliament had ad- mitted the majority of the male adult population to the suffrage. But Parliament had done nothing of the kind. The number of the adult male population was about 5,500,000, while the number of voters who would in future enjoy the franchise would not amount to more than one in three. Then there was in the third place, the desire of the parties themselves. He was sorry that a series of accidents had prevented his hon. Friend (Mr. Monk) from giving a full exposition of his views, and he confessed he was not aware of the existence of this general and wide-spread desire for the franchise among the 35,000 persons concerned. [Mr. MONK: There is a very considerable desire.] How many petitions had there been? [Mr. MONK: Eighty petitions, signed by about 8,000 persons.] That was about one-fourth or one-fifth of the whole, and it by no means showed a universal desire among a thoroughly organized body. There was a great deal more to be considered, and the House ought not to proceed to legislate in haste on such a subject. The case of the police was an important one, and the Bill should not pass until that claim was considered, and they should decide whether the police should be included in it or not. The claim was also brought into view of those to whom the franchise was theoretically given, but from whom it was practically withheld by the regulations of the public service—he meant the military service. It might be said the soldier was not excluded. Certainly not so far as the letter of the law was concerned; but he was excluded by the regulations to which, under the conditions of the standing army, they chose to subject him. ["No, no!"] How was a soldier living in barracks to be a ratepayer? [Mr. MONK: He might be a freeholder.] He might be a freeholder—one in a thousand of the voters; but how was he to ascertain that the conditions of the service would allow him to attend and vote where his freehold lay? They were barred as to the possession of an occupation franchise, because the public found their residence. The same was the case with the Marines; and in the case of sailors generally, the nature of the service offered the greatest impediment to the possession of the franchise. In dealing with this question as affecting public servants, the House ought to be prepared to examine the case of each class on its own merits, and then determine how far they would go and at what point they would stop. Of all the public ser- vants with whom he had been in contact—and he did not exclude Members of that House or Ministers of the Crown—he never hail known ft body actuated by a more en-; lightened spirit, and more simply desirous of promoting the public service, than the Board of Inland Revenue. He did not speak with the least disparagement of other Boards; but it was very difficult for Members of Parliament to read the papers that had been sent in and not see that there was much to consider in the case. The suggestion he would make would be that Parliament should give the vote, and, at the same time, leave it in the discretion of the Government to inhibit any of these officers from taking any part in politics beyond giving their simple vote. But in doing that they did not get rid of the anomaly when one class of voter could speak ns well as vote and exhibit himself as he pleased while another class could only vote silently. He believed that a rule prevailed in the dockyards prohibiting persons connected with those establishments from taking an active and prominent part and doing many things which, if they were not public officers, they would be permitted to do. It was a matter for grave consideration whether if the vote were given to these men it should be given subject to that limitation or not, Again, before they proceeded to lay down the principle of general enfranchisement, one thing to be considered was the very peculiar rotations between the Revenue officers and the Members of that House. There it was necessary to speak plainly. He was not afraid of Government influence in that matter, nor of an influence in favour of one political party or another; but he owned that he had some apprehension of what might be called class influence in that House, which in his opinion was the great reproach of the Reformed Parliament, as he believed history would record. Whether they were going to emerge into a new state of things in which class influence would be weaker he knew not; but that class influence had been in many things an evil and a scandal to them, especially for the last fifteen or twenty years; and he was fearful of its increase in consequence of the possession of the franchise, through the power which men who, as members of a regular service, were already organized might bring to bear on Members of Parliament. What, he asked, was the Civil Service of this country? It was a service in which there was a great deal of complaint of in- adequate pay, of slow promotion, and all the rest of it. But, at the same time, it was a service which there was an extraordinary desire to get into. And whose privilege was it to regulate that desire? That of the Members of that House. At one period the Government of this country was carried on by patronage through the medium, to a great extent, of the Civil Service; and gross corruption was supposed to be an essential instrument for working the machinery of the State. Lord Liverpool, as he believed, entirely of his own motion, did an act which entitled him to the highest praise, for he voluntarily surrendered the whole power of promotion in the Civil Service and gave it to the permanent heads of Departments. That was an immense reform; but it was very difficult to keep that reform from being touched by profane hands. There was a tendency to interfere in regard to promotion lodging among Members of that House, and it was difficult for them to resist it, because, although Members of the Civil Service had not a vote, yet representations were made to them to recommend the promotion of A B or C D. The nomination to first appointments was in the hands of Members of that House; but the possession of that supposed privilege was, in point of fact, a nuisance of which he believed many of them would be glad to get rid. But if that patronage was to continue vested in Members of that House, it imported a new element of delicacy and embarrassment into the question of the franchise; and it would certainly make it additionally difficult to keep promotion in the Revenue Departments exclusively, as they ought to be, in the hands of the permanent heads of those Departments, if the persons whose promotion was involved were voters and were also active and perhaps vigorous and zealous partizans of Members of that House. That difficulty became greater in proportion as the service became more intelligent, Excisemen, surveyors in the Inland Revenue Department, and those public servants who had to surcharge tradesmen and get intimations of suspected insolvency, were somewhat like the agents of a mercantile house, who must, in a certain sense, almost act as spies for that House. Those Inland Revenue officers must watch for and make use of all the information they could find for the purposes of the Department; and it was in regard to the exercise of those functions that a difficulty again arose. He had never read a document proceeding from persons of higher authority than the letter of the Board of Inland Revenue, and he thought the men who had signed that Paper were worthy of being heard and examined either in that House or elsewhere on that subject. By those gentlemen exchanging views with the Members of that House it might be seen whether it was possible to arrive at ft solution of that matter. In conclusion, he hoped his hon. Friend would concur with him so far as to admit that the anomalies he desired to remove could not be got rid of by a mere stroke of the pen, that the question involved many branches, and required much more careful and detailed examination than could be given to it in a debate in that House, before they could proceed to legislate in a satisfactory manner, and to dispose not only of the case of the Revenue officers, but of all those other cases which were more or less analogous to it.

said, he thought there was a difference between the case of the Revenue officer and that of the soldier, because the latter was excluded from the franchise by a mere accident of his profession and by the exigencies of the service, whereas the exclusion of the former proceeded on an entirely different principle. Undoubtedly the exclusion of the Revenue officers originated in the assumption that they were not to be trusted—that they would not be proof against the influence of their superiors. In the borough he represented (Hull) there was a considerable number of persons connected with the Custom House, the Post Office, and the Inland Revenue. He had known them for many years, and could say that the vast majority of those who had formed any opinion on the subject had always felt their exclusion very much, and now felt it more keenly since the recent extension of the franchise conferred that privilege on many men who certainly were in no way their superiors. Were those officers still to be told that they were either so cowardly that they could not resist the influence of their superiors, or were so much more selfish than other classes that they would use their influence in urging Members of Parliament to obtain professional advancement for them? The patronage of Members of that House only extended to nominations for first admission to the service, and, moreover, there was an easy cure for any undue pressure such as had been referred to. He believed it was a rule that any application through a Member of Parliament for promotion or increased pay should be visited as an offence upon the officer malting it. Now, he enjoyed the intimacy of the Chairman of the Boards of Inland Revenue and of Customs, and he knew from them that that rule was not a sham, but one which was in reality carried into effect. He could not help, he might add, thinking that the exclusion which was the subject of discussion was the remains of a barbarous age, and that any argument which might be urged in support of it might be applied with still greater force to men in the service of a private employer. He said with greater force, because if there were at the present day employers who, more than any others, were precluded from unduly influencing the votes of those in their service, those employers were the Government, for no Government against which the exercise of such influence could be proved dare face the House of Commons. He could not, he might further observe, see why so ridiculous a rule as that which precluded stipendiary magistrates and police magistrates from voting in the districts in which their profession was carried on should be maintained. By that means picked men were, it seemed to him, excluded from the franchise. He was surprised that the Bill did not go further; but he should certainly support it as far as it went. He hoped that it would become law, and that the disabilities with which it dealt, as well as other similar disabilities, would be removed.

said, that the exclusion of the police had occurred only ten years ago, and was attributable to the circumstance that it was considered to be their duty to keep order during election contests, when it was supposed that if they took part in them the temptation might be too strong to break their neighbours' heads not quite impartially. As to the officers in the Excise and Customs, they enjoyed the franchise upwards of seventy years ago, and they were deprived of it to protect themselves rather than because of any distrust of them which prevailed. There were at the time only 300,000 electors in the whole of England, while there were 60,000 of those persons holding office under the direct patronage of the First Lord of the Treasury. It so happened that in one small borough of 500 electors 120 officers were appointed, and Lord North who was about to retire from Office, and expected shortly to return to it, caused them to be informed that they were to expect no quarter if he returned to Office if they voted, while they were threatened with no quarter from the existing First Lord if they did not immediately vote, Under these circumstances, they memorialised the House to be disfranchised, and thus relieved from the painful position in which they were placed. He felt sure, however, that no First Lord of the Treasury would at the present day dare to issue such circulars as those which had been issued in the days of Lord North, and if promotion were left in the hands of the heads of Departments, and the power of nomination taken from Members of that House, there could, in his opinion, be no objection to the change proposed in the Bill.

said, he had been repeatedly asked to co-operate with the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) in seeking to bring about the object which he had in view. As a measure of abstract justice, he felt that the officers in question had a fair claim to the rights of citizenship which the Bill would confer upon them, and if it were pressed to a division that evening he should vote for it. But, as had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire, there were many grave considerations connected with the subject which the Bill did not touch, such, for instance, as how far it was consistent with the privileges which it was proposed to give, that the present system of nomination should be allowed to continue in the case of the Inland Revenue and Customs. Now, if the Bill were referred to a Select Committee, as he understood the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire to suggest, that would be one of the leading points to which their attention must be directed. His own belief was that the nominations must be made non-political. But, be that as it might, he hoped the hon. Member for Gloucester would be satisfied, in the event of the Government assenting to the reference of the whole subject to a Select Committee, with the progress which he had already made in furthering his measure, and would not proceed hastily in the endeavour to legislate on a matter of such importance.

confessed that he had not very clearly understood the speech of the right hon. Member for South Lancashire; but his (Mr. M. Chambers') position was this, that he was, and always had been, in favour of enfranchisement. It had been said by grave authorities about a century ago, that the Prerogative of the Crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished. Well, it was then thought desirable, in order to effect that object, to disfranchise all the officers employed in the Civil Service, they being looked upon as the great supporters of the Royal Prerogative; and a Bill for that purpose was introduced into Parliament. That Bill gave rise to some remarkable debates, in which the leading statesmen and orators of the day took part. Amongst the most distinguished opponents of the Bill in the House of Lords was the great Lord Mansfield, who, in a speech of wonderful power and eloquence, denounced the measure as an attempt to effect a dangerous depression of the Royal Prerogative, by depriving an honourable class of His Majesty's subjects of the enjoyment of that which ought to be looked upon as the inalienable birthright of all good citizens. The first efforts to take away those rights failed, for the Bill was rejected. Now, he (Mr. M. Chambers) founded his support to the present measure for the restoration of those rights which had been subsequently extinguished upon the noble expressions used by Lord Mansfield on the occasion to which he had referred. No answer whatever to those arguments had been given in the fluctuating speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire. It was no answer to this Bill to say that it was only removing one anomaly in the Constitution, and that it should remove them all. They must proceed step by step and by degrees. They said that Parliament ought to remove the disability from the class of public servants comprehended by the Bill—a class who received universal commendation for their integrity and ability, and who did not deserve this slur to be east on them any longer, particularly when Parliament had just passed an Act to extend the franchise widely all over the United Kingdom. No one had ever charged those officials with acting unworthily or dishonourable, or with a betrayal of their duties or their trust to their Sovereign or their country. It was an idle subterfuge for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire to say that because they did not petition the House in greater numbers they did not want the privilege. He (Mr. M. Chambers) was surprised that so many of them had the moral courage to declare their opinions to that House, con- sidering the pressure he believed was generally exercised by the Heads of Departments to prevent them taking action in the matter. What would be said of those officers if they had banded themselves together for the purpose of addressing Parliament on the subject of their grievances? If they did so, would they not be charged with a breach of privilege and a violation of the regulations of their Departments? Would they not be accused of combining and confederating together for the purpose of revolting against their superiors? They had, however, in private conversation, expressed their anxiety for the franchise; and the hon. Member for Hull and other Gentlemen who knew them, and the Heads of their Departments, well said that the Revenue officers, as a body, were men well qualified to exercise the franchise. Their right of choosing their representatives had been unjustly taken from them, because if any wrong had been done in respect of the exercise of patronage, it had not been done by them. Some of the observations which had been made showed, in point of fact, not how corrupt, but how soft and delicate the House of Commons had become. Informer times, Members of Parliament listened to applications which were made to them, and no doubt very great improprieties had occurred as to the introduction of persons into the public service. But from time to time rules were made with the view of checking irregularities in the course of promotion; and he was informed that very strict regulations had been passed, if they were but insisted upon, against the interference of Members of Parliament. He agreed, however, with the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves), who was a very practical man, and knew what was going on, that it might be desirable to alter the system of nomination, which still left much more power in the hands of those sitting for the time being on the Ministerial than on the Opposition side of the House. Both the political parties had been to blame for the proposals which from time to time they put forward for disfranchising what were commonly called "the dockyard men," including a very large number of persons not properly dockyard labourers, but engaged in the public service in those places where the Government dockyards were situated. Those proposals, however, had the effect of exciting a very strong counter feeling to the effect that it was highly impolitic and inconsistent to disfranchise persons at the very time when the franchise was being extended as widely as possible. He (Mr. M. Chambers) would not attempt to follow either the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire in their objections to this Bill, because both of those right hon. Gentlemen had entered into what he would call petty details, and had overlooked the great principle of enfranchisement, which, though recognized by the leading men on both sides of the House, was wilfully violated in the persons of those who were admitted to be an honourable and trustworthy class of public servants. He therefore felt unable to vote with either of those right hon. Gentlemen on the present occasion.

supported the Motion for going into Committee on the Bill. After twenty-five years personal experience of their habits and conduct, he was able to bear testimony to their honesty, industry, and integrity. The civil servants in the Customs he could vouch for being enlightened and educated men, and such as ought to be entrusted with the franchise.

continued: He could not understand why the Government hesitated to enfranchise this class of Revenue servants. They would honestly exercise the franchise, and as it was not known which way these men would vote it could not be said it was a party question. He hoped the Government would withdraw their opposition to the measure.

expressed his regret that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Colchester (Mr. Karslake), should have endeavoured to count out the House during a discussion on the proposition to confer the franchise on 29,000 of his fellow-countrymen. It seemed an improper proceeding, too, that the hon. and learned Gentleman, after making the Motion for counting the House, should immediately run from his place, and not return to it, to hear the comments which were sure to be made on such conduct. With regard to the question under discussion, he observed that at present there were only three classes of persons deprived of the franchise—paupers, criminals, and Revenue officers; and it was threfore incumbent on the Government to show why this degradation was placed on the last-mentioned body of men. There appeared to be no reasons for the disabilities under which the Revenue officers laboured, except such as were embodied in the Reports containing the opinions of the Commissioners of Customs and of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. It would not be difficult to show that there was no force in those opinions, and if they were assumed to be valid they would go the length of justifying the extension of the existing restrictions so as to deprive the Revenue officers of the power of exercising either parochial or municipal duties. The great fallacy of the argument of the Commissioners was, however, that the possession of the vote would produce all the evils and lead to a political combination to obtain higher wages. But it was absurd to suppose that the mere possession of a vote gave a man political influence. He possessed that influence already through his friends and neighbours. The Government had circulated the Reports of the Commissioners of Customs and of the Inland Revenue; but why had they not made known the opinions of officers of the other Departments upon the question? For the simple reason that they were favourable to the Bill without exception. The bulk of opinion was in favour of the Bill, and he hoped the Government would not decline to crown the edifice of enfranchisement by conferring the vote upon 29,000 or 30,000 men who so well deserved it, and who were most capable of using it.

said, he was glad of the opportunity of replying to the speeches of his right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Member for South Lancashire, in order that he might set them right in respect to the extraordinary error into which they had fallen in common with the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, whose Report had been laid upon the table of the House. The Bill before the House was simply and solely a Franchise Bill, and would merely enable the officers in the Revenue Departments to walk up to the polling-booths and there record their votes; whereas his right hon. Friends took it for granted that they might become political partizans, and act upon the committees of candidates at Parliamentary Elections. His Bill would enable them to do nothing of the sort. It did not repeal the Acts of William and Mary, of William III., and Anne, which made it penal in officers of the Revenue Departments to interfere in elections by persuading persons to vote, or by dissuading them from voting at the election, of Members to serve in Parliament. The main objection to the Bill therefore fell to the ground. Its sole object was to relieve the officers in the Customs, Post Office, and Excise from the disability to vote which was imposed upon them by an Act of 1782, passed in consequence of their power to return the Members in seventy boroughs at a time when the House of Commons was numerically smaller than it now was. The principal argument made t use of in favour of that Disability Act was that the officers themselves would be thereby relieved of a disagreeable task, the interpretation of which was, that they would be relieved of the painful necessity of voting for the Whig or for the Tory candidate according to the orders of the Government of the day. It was also stated that they had petitioned to be relieved of the franchise, as they were liable to dismissal if they dared to vote as they pleased. Those arguments no longer held good; but they were superseded by other arguments which, if they meant anything, meant that all the civil servants of the Crown should be disqualified from voting. He was certain that the House would be of opinion that there ought not to be one law for one class and another law for another class in the Civil Service. If these restrictions were to be maintained in the case of the officers in the Revenue Departments they ought to be extended to officers in the Army and Navy, and to every paid servant of the Crown, from the highest to the lowest, commencing with the hon. and right hon. occupants of the Treasury Bench. He was glad to see the First Lord of the Treasury in his place, as he wished to remind the right hon. Gentleman that when the Reform Bill of 1867 was in Committee in "another place," Earl Grey proposed to add a clause prohibiting all persons employed in the Civil Service, or other Departments of Government, from voting. That clause was strongly and successfully opposed by Her Majesty's Government. The Earl of Malmesbury, in stating the views of the Government, said—

"He opposed the clause on the ground that this Bill was an enfranchising and not a disfranchising measure; and on that ground, if on no other, he should oppose the Amendment. But he also objected to it because it would disfranchise a class of persons as well educated and as competent to exercise the franchise as any body of men in England; and, thirdly, because it would be most invidious at the present moment to make an exception in the case of these persons, against whom no imputation, as far as he was aware, had ever been brought in respect of the way in which they had exercised the franchise. He could not conceive a more insulting act to this very useful body of men than to disfranchise them."—[3 Hansard, clxxxix. 748–9.]

He commended these words and these sentiments to the consideration of Her Majesty's Ministers and of the House, for he had that faith in the sense of justice which animated hon. Members on both sides of the House that he believed there would be a general feeling in favour of applying them to the case of the civil servants generally. If they refused to allow free discussion and freedom of action in respect of the franchise, they would certainly raise a suspicion of unfairness, which would be detrimental to the interests of the State, and bring discredit upon the Executive. In truth, the Government was straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. The Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to grant the franchise to the highly-educated class of civil servants in the Revenue Departments, while he had no hesitation in extending it broadcast to those classes, among whom would be found many a "Horder's lot," who would vote for a pot of beer and 10s. a piece. He would ask what were the objections to this Bill? In reference to the Report of the Commissioners of Customs, he could not but express his astonishment that gentlemen of the high character and position of Mr. Goulburn and Mr. Grenville Berkeley could have signed such a document. He did not think he was using too strong an expression when he characterized their objections as of a frivolous and puerile description. The first objection, that the measure would introduce political agitation into Departments at present free from it, militated against any extension of the franchise whatsoever. Were the Revenue officers to have no political opinions, no political aspirations? In point of fact, they had them now, and they deemed it a stigma and a disgrace to be placed upon a different footing with respect to the franchise from their brethren in the other branches of the Civil Service. Social, religious, and political subjects were freely discussed in the Customs ns in any other large establishment in the United Kingdom. The Commissioners went on to say that it would interfere with the convenience and discipline of the service to grant leave of absence to officers whenever they might request it for the purpose of voting, however inconvenient it might be to the public service. Was the microscopic inconvenience of granting leave of absence for an hour or two once in four or five years to be deemed a sufficient reason against restoring to them the franchise? Did not the same objection apply to clerks in the Treasury, the Home Office, the Foreign Office, the War Office, and the Admiralty? Was this argument allowed to weigh against the dockyard men when they were confirmed in their electoral rights last year? But, in point of fact, in nineteen cases out of twenty the Revenue officers would exercise the franchise in the place where they resided, and as the polling-booths were opened at eight o'clock in the morning they might record their votes before their official duties commenced. He would only observe, in reference to the objection, "that it might lead to political combinations for the purpose of obtaining from Her Majesty's Government an increase of salary," that if those officers had just cause of complaint or were insufficiently paid it was far better that their grievances should be brought before that House by their representatives in Parliament than they should be left to seethe below the surface and be brought to light through irregular channels. To the next objection he would reply, that if the superior officers dared not face the imputation of political motives they must be unfit for their high position. He then came to the crowning objection of all—

"That it would be inconvenient to the officers themselves, as subjecting them at times to solicitations for their votes from which they are now free, and plight place them in equivocal and difficult positions."

He thought it would be enough to remind the Commissioners of the well-known line—

"Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti."

The Revenue officers did not fear being asked for their votes. But he would put it to the House whether that was not an extraordinary argument against conferring the franchise on as highly-educated a class as any in the country for a gentleman to use, who was not many years ago well known in that House as the "Whip" of the great Whig party—the namesake and relative of his hon. Friend the Member for Bristol? The force of absurdity could go no further. He came then to the Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. But he must first ask, where was the Report from the General Post Office? The Bill had been in the hands of the Post Office officials for more than twelve weeks, and yet "the oracles were dumb." Had Mr. Scudamore nothing to say on the subject? He (Mr. Monk) could assure the House that the Post Office officials had not been mute. He had presented a petition signed by nearly 1,000 employés in the London Post Office in favour of the Bill. Not a single petition had been presented against it. The Post Office Department employed upwards of 26,000 men scattered over the United Kingdom—nearly five times as many as the Customs, more than five times as many as the Excise Department. The obvious inference was, that the Post Office was favourable to the measure. He had already observed on the extraordinary error which pervaded the whole Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. He was astonished that they should not have made themselves better acquainted with the provisions of the Bill. He observed that they abandoned the argument that the power of the Government would be unduly increased by conferring the franchise upon the officers of Excise; but they urged that it would be fatal to discipline in the country if the officers should become political partizans, and serve on election committees, or canvass for the candidates. As, however, they could do no more than simply record their votes under the Bill before the House, and would be liable to penal consequences if they interfered in elections as partizans, cadit quœstio. In conclusion, he would remind the House that the political objections of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue would apply with equal force to the local Commissioners of Taxes, Those gentlemen were allowed to vote. Of his own knowledge, he could state that they were sometimes election agents, frequently strong political partizans. He would allude to one case more—and one only. Some years ago the Coastguard Office was transferred from the control of the Board of Customs to the Admiralty. The men and the duties remained the same, but the disability to vote was removed, and he would ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether their duties were less efficiently performed in consequence of their enfranchisement? He trusted that the House would give a decided negative to the Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he felt confident that the decision of the House would be in favour of going into Committee upon the Bill.

said, this Bill was intended simply to extend to Ireland the law at present in force in England with regard to the employment of military at elections. Unwilling voters ought not to be escorted to the poll by soldiers for the purpose of being made to vote on the unpopular side, in accordance with the opinions of their landlords. The real truth was that the soldiers were employed not so much to protect the voters from violence as to prevent them from running away. In the county of Waterford at the late election the people were very anxious to support the Liberal candidate, whose father had represented the county before, and was highly popular. It happened that in a mountainous district a body of voters who were being brought under military escort to record their votes in favour of the unpopular candidate were stopped by a multitude of men and women, who refused to allow them to proceed. The resident magistrate who accompanied the troops, a man of great prudence and, at the same time, great determination, told him that he had scarcely pulled the Riot Act out of his pocket, when on looking round he saw that every one of the voters had made their escape. The fact was that it was the friends and neighbours, the sons and brothers of the voters themselves that had stopped them, and the voters were only too glad to get an excuse for running away. The success of the mountaineers on that occasion had the very worst consequences, for it was looked upon by them as a victory over the Queen's troops, while the troops, on the other hand, were greatly exasperated. The following day there were two tragical events in Dungarvan; the harbour master of the town, a man who had always been on the Conservative side, was struck with a lance by one of the soldiers and killed at his own door, and another man in humble position was also killed. A verdict of "wilful murder" in the one case, and "manslaughter" in the other, was returned. [The SOLICITOR GENERAL: By a coroner's jury.] That was so. The soldiers were never brought to trial, for every opposition was given by the military authorities to the attempts that were made to find out the guilty parties. [The Earl of MAYO: That is quite contrary to the fact.] All he could say was that the soldiers were not brought forward for identification. [The Earl of MAYO: They were.] The noble Lord spoke from official knowledge, and therefore he would take it for granted that what he said was correct. But, at all events, he had stated what he had seen happen over and over again at elections, and he believed that it was decidedly impolitic, dangerous, and unconstitutional to employ the troops as they were now employed. The same things would happen at elections again, and at last some great disaster would occur. Then the Government would see that they had been wrong, and would consent to puss a Bill such as that which the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Serjeant Barry) had introduced.

said, as an Irish Member, he thought the Bill was of some importance. It was one of a very simple character. It was a Bill to extend to Ireland a law which had been confirmed by a statute of George II., and by a subsequent statute of Her Majesty. The Resolutions of that House from time to time, commencing so far back as a declaratory Act of Edward I., repeated the words of the Act which he should now read to them as dealing with the constitutional question—namely, "That all elections be made without interruption or molestation by any commoner, governor, officer, or soldier." The Act also said "that all elections shall be free," and that it was essential to the rights and liberties of the people that it should be so. It further enacted that, as it had been the practice to remove all soldiers two miles out of town where an election took place, that should be so in future, only certain exceptions being made with respect to Royal troops in attendance on the Sovereign or Royal Family, and any person in the army entitled to vote. Then came an Act of the present reign, reciting the Act of George II., in which it was said that great expense was involved by the removal of the soldiers, and in which it was enacted that the soldiers be confined within barracks within two miles. That was the constitutional and Common Law of this country, directly aimed at attaining an object which was now of very vital consequence indeed in Ireland—namely, the freedom of election. They had lately been discussing in that House the provision of an Act for securing purity of election; but it appeared that at the present time freedom of election was more assailed in Ireland, and that that vice ought to be provided against. The state of this country at the time of the passing of the Acts referred to appeared to have been similar to what Ireland now was, and he could say with regard to Ireland that the purity of election in Ireland was seldom, indeed, in any way violated or corrupted. That being the state of things, one would suppose that, primâ facie, there would be no objection from any Member of this House on either side to so simple a Bill as this. As an hon. Member had stated, whenever a proposal was made in that House to assimilate the law of Ireland to that of England, the onus probandi rested with the opponents to show why the law should not be assimilated. He might say that the onus probandi laid with Her Majesty's Government to show why this Bill should not be passed—to show why they considered it improper, imprudent, and dangerous to extend the law of England to Ireland. He understood the noble Lord last night to assume the fact that there were exceptional circumstances in Ireland, and that therefore the law in England and Ireland ought not to he assimilated in this respect. But he apprehended that the assumption of the exceptional circumstances was not proof that the law ought not to be assimilated. The noble Lord said these troops were used with great prudence, and went on to show that the exceptional circumstances rendered it desirable that the law should remain as it was. The noble Lord stated that the law ought not to be assimilated; but these are no arguments against assimilation. He (Mr. Synan) did not like to make any particular mention of any particular boroughs, as that would be invidious; but he ventured to say this, that upon on examination of the Reports of Committees upon the subject it would be found that there had been more violence proved against representatives of the boroughs in England than in the Irish boroughs. He contended, therefore, that there were no exceptional circumstances to warrant a different law as to Ireland to that which applied to England on the subject. He admitted there were exceptional circumstances; but he denied that they could be urged as reasons for not assimilating the law. As regarded the elections, generally speaking, of course if there be not any particularly strong political feeling among the electors there was likely to be no hostility whatever between the proprietors and the rural voters, who, as far as the counties were concerned, were three-fourths tenants-at-will. But when any particularly exciting question arose—when the feeling was strong on both sides, this is what occurred—The landlord requested of his tenants to vote against the known and avowed political opinion of the tenant, and the known and avowed political opinion of the non-electors. When the ballot was asked for the purpose of protecting the Irish voter, the answer given was that the elector held his vote as a trust for the non-elector. The non-elector expressed his opinion; opinions were expressed on both sides; the elector not wishing to vote found out that the non-elector would not allow him to go to vote; the local agent, who might be a justice of the peace, took the matter in hand, and there was an order for the military. There was nobody to ascertain the opinion of the voter or of the non-elector. The order goes forth for the troops. The night before the election the electors were collected together: sometimes they were sent into the hotel, and sometimes taken into the house of the landlord for safe custody. But they got warning that they were to be escorted by the troops. The non-electors of the district, among whom were the families of the very voters themselves, met the troops and pelted them with stones. The troops then rushed at the mob, and the voters rushed off the cars and ran away: that was the invariable thing. These voters wanted an excuse to say to the landlord that they had done all they could to vote, but that they were prevented. An inspector of constabulary was examined in the Waterford case, and he said that when he came up to the place the voters had escaped, because, he said, the dragoons were not fit to escort them. Now, they made that which was a popular force in Ireland unpopular. The Irishman was by nature a soldier. He wished to join in the conflicts of war; but when they made the military force unpopular in Ireland they prevented that which ought to make Ireland a recruiting ground for the army. There certainly did not appear any exceptional circumstances of a nature to prevent an assimilation of the law of Ireland to that of England in this respect. There were no exceptional circumstances to warrant the use of the military. Whenever they asked for remedial legislation in other matters, and showed exceptional circumstances to warrant legislation, the answer they got was, "You cannot have remedial legislation. The law of England must be the law of Ireland. We cannot have one law for the one country and another for the other." The exceptional circumstances in Ireland were those he had shown, and they were such as to warrant, not to prevent, that House assimilating the law of Ireland to that of England in that respect. Fie came now to two extraordinary Acts of Parliament, which seemed to make the case conclusive. The Act of 25 & 26 Vict. c. 62, enabled a party who complained of not being allowed to vote to make application to the sheriff who was obliged to postpone the polling until voters came to the poll. Was that law enforced? No. In thousands of cases it had been proved that the voters did not want to come. They wanted an excuse; therefore, the military was of use for the purpose of taking away from the voter an excuse for justifying his absence, and for the purpose of coercing the public opinion of the district. There was another Act of Parliament which showed the total want of any necessity for this practice in Ireland. It was the Act of 13 & c 14 Vict. c. 68, which enabled the voters to apply for as many polling-places as they liked. They did not take advantage of that power—they did not want it—therefore, neither of those Acts of Parliament were put into operation for the reason he had stated. It appeared to him that upon all the circumstances of the case, there was no reason whatever why the law of England and Ireland should be different in that respect; and he thought, both in an Imperial point of view and in a point of view confined to Ireland, it would be a great advantage to both sides of the House if the law were assimilated. It would teach the Irish people that that House had that confidence in them that they would make a law to enable them to exercise their votes free from all control from whatever quarter it might come.

, in supporting the Bill, said that the military employed at Irish elections were really no other than election agents. He did not blame the noble Lord, who, when requisitions were sent to him, had no option but to send the military and escort voters who, at the bidding of the Conservative agents, were about to vote against their inclinations. Voters so escorted were looked upon by the people as prisoners; and, in proof of this, a party of convicts who were handcuffed, and were, unluckily, proceeding to their destination on the day of the County Waterford election, were carried off by the mob, against all the efforts of the constabulary. He had himself been assured by voters who were escorted by military to the poll that their earnest prayer was for the success of the candidate against whom, for want of leases, and for Tear of being turned out of their holdings, they were compelled to vote. The first step towards establishing freedom of election in Ireland would be the passing of this Bill, and he hoped it would be carried by a large majority.

said it had always been a principle of the British Constitution to look with the greatest jealousy on the employment of military at elections. By the ancient Common Law of this country all elections ought to be free, and an Act provided that previous to English elections the troops should be removed from the places of election to a distance of two miles. The onus of proof that in Ireland there were exceptional circumstances which prevented the carrying out of that principle in that country lay upon those who opposed this Bill. It was most impolitic to irritate the feelings of the Irish people against the military by employing them at elections. Irish elections might be conducted without the presence of troops at least as safely as English elections. The measure was founded on justice and expediency, and he was surprised that opposition to the Bill should come from the other side. Ireland was not behind England in its aspirations for military glory; but the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland had admitted that the 12th Lancers had been received with execration at Dublin.

denied that he had ever said that the 12th Lancers were received with execration; he had said that they were received with some hisses.

continued to refer to the enactments against the employment of the military at elections in England, and contended that no election proceedings in Ireland had ever exceeded in brutality the exhibitions of an English mob at the right hon. Gentleman's (Mr. Lowe's) election for Kidderminster in 1857. In this unfortunate affair two persons lost their lives who had taken no part in the affray. He wished that the danger of the recurrence of such scenes should be obviated by the most stringent enactments. He deeply regretted that any such occurrence should have taken place, because it was calculated to shake the foundation of that affectionate confidence which had always subsisted between the people of Ireland and the soldiery of England.

thought the time was come when they should put an end to the exceptional legislation which had been too much in vogue for Ireland. He did not believe that the present system was a fair one, and because it was not justifiable he thought that proper amendments should be effected.

said, that the arguments advanced in support of the Bill, divested of exaggeration, were conclusive against it. The employment of the military at elections was alleged to have occasioned mischievous results; and yet the only instance that had been adduced was that of Dungarvan, in which it was not clearly established that the military were responsible for what occurred. The next argument which had been urged in support of the Bill was that it was desirable that the laws of England and of Ireland should be assimilated. In his opinion, however, if any alteration were made, the law of England ought to be assimilated to; that of Ireland, for at Nottingham and Kidderminster there had been outrages of a kind almost unknown in Ireland. The English law in regard to the employment of the military at elections was founded on the assumption that the power of the Crown might be used to control the electors; but the history of Ireland did not record a single case where the Crown had, since the Union, exercised its influence at elections by means of the military. It had been argued that the present measure would promote freedom of election; but in answer to that it was sufficient to remark that the military were employed in Ireland not to coerce the voters, but to protect them from the violence of excited mobs. Speaking in reference to his personal knowledge of the West Riding of the county of Cork, and of some other districts, he could affirm that the tenants were perfectly aware that their interests were identical with the interests of their landlords, and that the great majority of them would vote with their landlords if they were not coerced in the opposite direction by the spiritual power of the priesthood.

said, it was unfortunately true that instances had been known in Ireland of bands of tenants being brought up and forced to poll under the terror of the bayonets of the military. On every occasion when party feeling was strongly excited they had had these military riots. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to have utterly forgotten the case of Six Mile Bridge in 1862, when several persons were bayoneted. The military were used as the electioneering agents of the landlord; and it was to put a stop to such abuses that they wished an effective measure to be passed. If they really wished for freedom of election, why not take the reasonable and practical mode of ensuring the freedom of the voters? Nothing could be more inconsistent than to give perfect freedom to the electors in England, and, at the same time, to place the whole armed force of the Crown at the disposal of the landlords, for the purpose of coercing their tenantry to vote against their consciences, and driving them up to the polling-booths like prisoners. That was a state of things demanding a remedy, He did not complain that the influence of the Crown was exercised wrongfully; but he maintained that the power of the military was. He held that it was the duty of Parliament to equalize the laws of England and Ireland.

remarked that in the county which he had the honour to represent a case occurred where a man was killed in consequence, not of the presence of the soldiers, but of their absence. He was afraid that that circumstance would prevent him from voting in support of the present Bill.

supported the Bill. He claimed that the troops were attacked in the first instance by the populace at Waterford. He would mention to the House a case which had occurred during an election at which he was a candidate. Forty voters belonging to a friend of his—[Laughter.]—Why, hon. Gentlemen seemed disposed to treat this high moral question very lightly. Those forty voters belonged to a friend of his own. He was not going to enter into a disquisition as to his friend's title to those voters. His friend had had the bad taste to order them to vote against him; hut, in order to avoid doing so, the voters requested that a "mob" might be sent out to stop them on their way to the poll. They further requested that they might be stopped near a wood, in order that they might get into it and avoid being caught again. He had reason to believe that the desired movement had been duly executed. Some of the voters polled for him, as his friend had not been able to recover the whole of his property after they got into the wood. It was to maintain the landlord's right in such property the military were employed at elections in Ireland. He believed the military would he delighted to be relieved from the duty of attending at elections.

, in replying, reminded the House that, in the matter of the Westminster election, the House had passed a Resolution condemnatory of the employment of military at elections. It had been stated that the 12th Lancers, who had acted on the occasion of the Dungarvan riots, were hooted while forming part of the escort on the entry of the Prince and Princess of Wales into Dublin. The noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland had accused him of bad taste, because he had mentioned that circumstance in a former debate. The noble Lord's explanation of the circumstance was as extraordinary as that which he gave of the sense in which he had used the words "levelling up." [The Earl of MAYO: I never used the words.] Well, it was as extraordinary as the noble Lord's explanation of the sense in which he had used the words "elevation, and not confiscation."

appealed to the Secretary of State for India, by whom the adjournment of the debate had been moved on the former occasion, to proceed with his argument.

said, that at that late hour he did not feel justified in launching the House upon a fresh discusssion.

then briefly replied to some of the arguments advanced in the course of the debate a few days since upon this Bill, expressing his regret that the measure, instead of being met with a direct negative by a private Member, had not been left for the consideration of the Government.

said, as this Bill originally stood, it would have been impossible for the Government to have given their assent to its proceeding further; because whatever may have been the intention of the promoters, there appeared on the face of the Bill an attempt to legalize what the law has always set its face against—namely, the dealing in marine policies, as if they were life policies, passing current like bills of exchange. Now, an endeavour has lately been made in this House to alter the law in the same sense with respect to fire policies—this was unsuccessful, and such a change would be fraught with peril. What is fire or marine insurance? It is a contract of indemnity from loss or damage arising from an uncertain event—the object is not to make a positive gain, but to avert possible loss. There cannot be indemnity without loss, or loss without interest. A policy, therefore, without interest is not insurance but a mere wager, and it would, in fact, hold out temptation to the assignee to set fire to. The house, or scuttle the ship, which is the subject of the insurance. The hon. Member has, however, accepted Amendments, and is ready to adopt others which will very much alter his Bill, and will, I hope, secure two necessary things—first, the non-severance of the policy from interest in the property insured; and secondly, that which is absolutely essential when you assign an obligation or contract, subject to rights of set off and mutual credit—namely, protection to the underwriter from all liability beyond that to which he would have been subjected if the policy had not been assigned. The hon. Member has stated that there is a strong desire among the commercial classes connected with shipping for this measure. Under these circumstances, though objection may be taken to it as fragmentary legislation, I have no objection to the Motion that you, Sir, leave the Chair, in order that the Bill maybe committed pro formâ, for the purpose of its being re-printed with Amendments.

contended that the question was one of too much importance to be discussed at so late an hour as one o'clock, and moved the adjournment of the debate.

seconded the Motion.

said, he thought the occupants of the Treasury Bench ought to give the House some reason for the mode of proceeding adopted by them in the present instance. It could not be necessary at that hour of the morning to surprise the House with such a Motion, unless an election were necessary within two or three days. The Report of the Chairman of the Bristol Election Committee was to the ef- fect that bribery had not extensively prevailed at the recent election, considering the number of the electors. Now, that was a statement which involved some ambiguity, and the House could not, in his opinion, properly deal with the matter until they had before them the evidence which had been taken. ["Divide!"] He had no doubt that Gentlemen opposite, in the state of the House, wished to divide; but he objected to this matter being made the subject of a "catch" majority, as was the case the other night when the Chancellor of the Exchequer was placed in a very peculiar and difficult position. A stigma would attach to the Government if they lent themselves to the proposition just made by one with less responsibility than themselves, and he thought that the course in which the Government was now engaged was derogatory to their honour.

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman, who had spoken with his usual fluency, had not adduced a single argument to induce the House to postpone the issue of the Writ. The hon. and learned Gentleman assumed that corrupt practices extensively prevailed at the last election for Bristol; but had not adduced one fact in support of his assumption.

observed, that the commission of every improper act which could occur at an election—bribery, corruption, treating, and personation—was mentioned in the Report; and he therefore thought that the House should not be in a desperate hurry to issue the Writ. They should have the opportunity of considering how the Bristol election had been conducted. He was at a loss to know why the Ministerial Benches should now be so well filled, and why there was now such a great desire for the issue of the Writ. He would sit to any hour, and move those Motions which were necessary to save the honour of the House on this occasion, when such a surprise was attempted by the other side.

said, he thought the sudden proceeding on the other side required explanation. The Report of the Committee showed that corrupt practices did not extensively prevail in Bristol, and when a Report of that sort was presented it was the practice to issue a Writ in order that a large number of persons who had a right to be represented should not suffer by the misconduct of a limited portion of the constituency. No surprise was intended, and the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Noel) told several hon. Members that he was about to move the Writ. He did not see why they should not come to a conclusion to-night, rather than adjourn the matter to another evening.

considered that the Writ should have been moved at the commencement of the proceedings, not at the rising of the House. There were twenty-four cases of bribery proved, and a strong case had been made out for making an example in such a case. He was disappointed at the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, as he thought he would have acceded to the Motion to adjourn the debate. There were good reasons to postpone the issue of the Writ until the evidence was before the House; and there was no time when it was more necessary to give a warning to the new constituencies.

said, he could see nothing to warrant the suspension of the Writ; but the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Ayrton) having expressed his determination to employ his great physical strength in preventing the decision of the question to-night, and misapprehension having been said to exist on the part of some hon. Members, he thought the best course was to agree to the adjournment.