said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, Why the Papers relative to the Banda and Kirwee Prize Property, which were moved for and promised at the end of July 1866 and again in 1867, have not yet been produced; and, whether the Booty realized by the Government of India from the seizure of the Funded Property of the captured Chiefs of Kirwee is to be distributed to the Troops?

Sir. these Papers were delayed because, after communication with all the Departments concerned, we could not succeed in getting the whole of them. I should think that since the payment of all the money due they will have lost their interest; but if the hon. and gallant Member will communicate with me, and wishes to have what we can give, we shall do the best we can to meet his wishes. I understand his second Question to refer to certain Government promissory notes, about which a memorial was lately sent to the Secretary of State. If that is so, I have to say that the Secretary of State has informed the memorialists that he cannot accede to their petition.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, When the Correspondence relative to the Scale of Consolidated Allowances to the Troops in China and Japan, ordered on the 23rd February, will be laid upon the Table of the House?

said, in reply, that the Correspondence in question was rather voluminous, but he believed it would be laid on the table in a very few days.

said, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Trade, Whether he has considered the desirability of introducing a dietary scale for Seamen into the Mercantile Marine Bill; and, whether he has been informed that the carrying out of the Admiralty Scale for Troops and Her Majesty's Emigration Commissioners' Scale for Emigrants has been highly satisfactory, and that a similar scale for Seamen could now be arranged without entailing additional cost to shipowners?

, in reply, said, the answer he had to give to the Question put by his hon. Friend was very short. By the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 a dietary scale, as agreed upon between the parties, was to be inserted in the articles of agreement. The Board of Trade had no power in the matter; and, generally, he might say he thought that to settle questions of what should be the supply of food between employer and employed would not be a very desirable occupation for that Department.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether the sale of wines and spirits in a canteen to non-commissioned officers and civilians (such canteen being licensed for the sale of beer only) is in accordance with the regulations relating to barracks; and, whether the Commanding or any other Officer has the power to authorize the sale of wine or spirits in any part of a barrack?

said, he must answer the first part of the Question of the hon. Member in the negative, and add that any person selling in a canteen either beer or spirits and wine was obliged to take out an Excise licence, and could sell only those things which his licence covered. As to the second part of the Question, no Commanding or any other Officer on the home stations had the power to authorize the sale of wine or spirits in any part of a barrack without the approval of the Secretary of State for War.

said, he would beg to ask the Postmaster General, Whether he has any objection to lay upon the Table Copy of Letters from Mr. John Burns to the Secretary to the Post Office, dated the 9th, 10th, and 12th instant, in regard to the Cunard and Inman Contracts; and, whether any, and, if so, what arrangements have been made by Her Majesty's Government for the conveyance of the British Mails to the United States, in the event of those contracts not being ratified?

said, in reply, that there would be no objection, that he was aware of, to laying on the table the letters which his hon. Friend asked for. As to the latter part of the Question, he had to state that he had not thought it necessary at present to make any arrangements in the case of those contracts not being ratified. In that event there would still be existing the contract with the North German Lloyd's Company, to convey the Mails to America once a week. Other companies had also made offers to carry those mails, but at present it had not been deemed necessary to enter into any arrangements on the subject.

said, he would beg to ask the noble Marquess, in reference to the answer he had just made, Whether it were true, as had been stated in the Debate the other evening, that the Government had given notice to the North German Lloyd's to terminate the Contract they had entered into?

No; it was stated the other night that, in a letter addressed to the Post Office, the Treasury suggested that it might be desirable to give such a notice, but I thought that, as the debate was about to come on, it -would not be desirable to give the notice.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, On what day he will be prepared to answer the Question as to the defalcations by a clerk in the Royal Patriotic Fund Office; and, if he will now say what was the date of the last audit of the accounts?

Sir, a meeting of the Commissioners will be held about the middle of next month, and immediately after that meeting has been held I shall be ready to answer the hon. Member's Question. With regard to the second part of the Question, I have to state that the last audit was down to the end of the year 1866. The accounts, however, are ready to be audited down to the present time.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, On what day the Returns, ordered on the 8th of this month, with respect to the College of Maynooth will be in the hands of Members?

I am sorry, Sir, I cannot positively state the date when the Return will be ready to be placed in the hands of Members. Although it is a plain and simple one, some confusion has arisen as to which Department is bound to furnish it, and it has been found necessary to send over to Dublin for it. I trust, however, that the Return may be supplied without waiting for any further correspondence on the subject. As to the information itself, I think the hon. Gentleman will find that it is already before the House in the Report of the Maynooth Commission.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether any application has been made to the Treasury by the Irish Poor Law Commissioners for the deficiency in the amount requisite for the payment of the Medical and Education Charges under the Poor Law during the past year?

replied that he was not aware that the Poor Law Commissioners had actually made the application.

said, he would beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, When the Jhansi Prize Money (second instalment) will be paid; and, whether there will be any prize money for Gwalior, Calpee, and other places in Central India captured by Sir Hugh Rose?

Sir, nearly the whole of the money known as the Jhansi Prize Money was paid away at the first distribution. Only about £10,000 was kept back to meet expected claims. Most of this reserved fund has now been paid away. If there is any further distribution it will be an altogether trifling one. The term Jhansi Prize Money includes all the prize money due for the booty captured by Sir Hugh Rose's force at Gwalior, Calpee, and other places in Central India.

said, he wished to ask the Vice-President of the Council, Whether the Government intend to proceed with the Contagious Diseases (Animals) (No. 2) Bill in time to give the House a fair opportunity of discussing it?

replied that he had originally put the Bill down for the first Monday after Easter, but as he had been informed that that day would not suit many Members, in consequence of the quarter sessions being held on that day, he had since postponed the second reading till Thursday, the 8th of April. It was certainly the intention of the Government to press forward the Bill this Session.

said, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would postpone the second reading till the Monday following, instead of Thursday, as a large number of quarter sessions would be held throughout the week.

said, that if the Bill were to be postponed from time to time, it would be very difficult, considering the state of Public Business, to have it considered at all during the present Session.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he can give any information to the House as to the result of his investigation with respect to the state of Hammersmith Bridge?

Sir, by the direction of the Board of Trade, this bridge has been minutely examined by a competent engineer, who was assisted in his examination by the engineer of the company to which the bridge belongs. The result showed that the bridge, although never a very strong structure, is fully as strong now as it has been at any previous time. As it has borne large crowds without any accident occurring, it has not been thought expedient to prevent its use on the occasion of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race tomorrow. Notices have, however, been posted that access will be limited to the footway; and, in addition to this, there will be a force of policemen, who will endeavour to limit the crowd to the footway, leaving the carriage way for the use of carriages only. It is believed that the bridge will be fully competent to bear that diminished crowd.

Mr. Speaker, I I wish to call your attention for a few moments to a point of Order which arose last evening on the second reading of the University Tests Bill—in reference to the right of the Mover and Seconder of a Motion for the adjournment of a debate to speak on the Main Question. It appeared to many Members of the House that the decision which you, Sir, then announced from the Chair was somewhat at variance with the practice of this House, as that practice is ordinarily understood. In calling attention to this question, I must state that I wish to show no disrespect whatever to you or the high office which you hold. Ever since I have had the honour of a seat in this House I have done my best to bow to all the decisions that you have announced, and to share in the admiration which has been expressed by the highest authorities as to the mode in which you have conducted yourself since you have sat in that Chair. The circumstances of the case are briefly these—After twelve o'clock last night my hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. B. Hope) moved the adjournment of the debate. He did not address himself to the Main Question, but simply moved the adjournment. Some confusion then arose, and, without rising from my place, I endeavoured in the most formal manner to second that Motion. The division was taken, and the Motion for the adjournment having been rejected, I proceeded to address myself to the Main Question, whereupon I was stopped by you, Sir, and was told that, having seconded the Motion in the manner I have mentioned, it was not competent for me to speak on the Main Question. These are the simple facts of the case, which can be corroborated by three or four of my hon. Friends near me, and I wish to ask you, Mr. Speaker, Whether, under such circumstances, I had or had not a right to speak on the Main Question?

Perhaps, Sir, in answering the Question of my hon. Friend you will also kindly inform me and the House what are the rights of a Member who has moved the adjournment of a debate. I have always looked on such a Motion as containing all the elements of a perfect Motion, and that if it passed in a short and informal manner it did so only by the connivance of the House. I may say that the Motion I made last night was pressed to a division against my own wish. The result of that Motion did not appear to me, with all respect to you, Sir, to be of the essence of the question, the essence of the question was the Motion put from the Chair. Of course, however, I did not raise any question last night, as you, Sir, had ruled upon the matter; but the House will, I am sure, he glad to know for its guidance what is the law on the subject.

I will answer the Questions of the hon. Gentleman in the order in which they have been addressed to me. After the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope) moved the adjournment of the debate the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Bentinck) said, in a very distinct tone of voice, that he seconded the Motion. The House declined to permit the adjournment; and after that the hon. Member for Whitehaven rose to address the House. Of late years there has certainly been a relaxation of the rule with regard to seconding Motions, partly for the convenience of discussion; but hon. Members will bear in mind that when there have been contests for the adjournment of the debate, if one Member has moved the adjournment of the debate, and another Member has seconded it, it is not competent for either the Mover or Seconder of such a Motion immediately to rise and move the adjournment of the House. That must be done by some other voices. It was on that account when the hon. Member for Whitehaven rose to speak I told him that, having seconded the adjournment of the debate, it was not competent for him to move the adjournment of the House or to speak on the Main Question. If he had power to speak on the Main Question he would have had power to move the adjournment of the House; but, having seconded the adjournment of the debate, it was not competent for him to speak until some other Member had moved the adjournment of the House. That is the reason for the judgment which I gave last night, and it is, I believe, in accordance with the practice of the House. With respect to the Question which has been put to me by the hon. Gentleman who moved the adjournment of the debate, I may observe that when the House is disposed that the debate should be adjourned, it is constantly the object and desire of the hon. Member who wishes to have pre-audience on the next evening to rise and move the adjournment of the debate, and such a Motion is generally acceded to even without being seconded, by the common acceptation of the House. But when the adjournment of a debate has been moved, and the House has declined to assent to the Motion and has divided upon it, the hon. Member who moved it and had an opportunity to address the House if he chose, has under those circumstances lost the power of addressing the House on the Main Question,

Sir, before calling the attention of the House to the subject of the Ballot, I must express my regret that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol (Mr. Berkeley), whose lieutenant upon this occasion I am, feels himself unequal at the present moment, through ill-health, to the task of bringing the question before the House with the necessary attention to detail. I hope that even before it shall have passed through this preliminary stage my hon. Friend may find his health sufficiently re-established for him to resume his old position, and to crown with his own hands the work upon which for many years he has bestowed indefatigable labour. I think that we shall all hail the return to the front of a champion whose strokes were always playful, and who at a time when the Ballot was probably the most unpalatable question which could be brought before the House, invariably contrived, by the flow of his genial humour, to impart a relish to it. Sir, I fear that I cannot emulate the sparkling fancy of my hon. Friend; but I can, at least, emulate the spirit of fairness and courtesy which distinguished his speeches, and I hope that when I sit down it will be in the power of no opponent of the Ballot to say, however mud) the question may have suffered in advocacy, that the discussion has suffered in time. For, Sir, I wish it to be understood at the outset that I am not bringing this question before the House as a party question. It is clear to my mind that, in a strictly party sense, neither party has anything to gain from the Ballot. The evils which we believe that it is calculated to check are equally inimical to the interests of both parties in the country; and I am sanguine enough to believe that before long men of both, parties will acquiesce in the expediency of adopting a measure which is our only probable escape from them. But, Sir, if the Resolution which I am about to move is to be regarded as in no degree offensive in intention to hon. Gentlemen opposite, it must be accepted as equally friendly to Her Majesty's Government. No one could have been more pleased than I was with the speech which a few days ago was made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Home Department, and, as the House well knows, many other Members of the Administration—I think the majority—have already expressed an opinion in favour of the Ballot, while the remainder, in their recent utterances, have certainly not displayed that inveteracy of repugnance which would lead us to infer that their minds are hermetically sealed against argument and persuasion. I rejoice at this, because I do not believe it possible for any Liberal Government to occupy that Bench for a twelvemonth which does not make the Ballot a Cabinet question. But it may be said the question is already in the hands of the Government; why cannot you leave it there? The question is not in the hands of the Government, but of an impartial Committee of this House. I know that we have assented to the appointment of that Committee. It may be open to doubt whether the great question of the Ballot was one which ought to have been referred to a Committee at all, especially in conjunction with a number of other questions more or less irrelevant. But it is too late to discuss the policy of this course now. All I wish to say is, that we did not assent to that Committee in order to stifle discussion, in order to shelve this whole question without debate for another Session of Parliament; but many hon. Members assented to that Committee simply in order that those who were manifestly praying for more light might receive it. This is not one of those crude, undebated, ill-digested questions which we are in the habit of referring up-stairs, and then waiting patiently until the Report comes down. It is regarded by many Members of this House, and by vast numbers of persons in the country, as a question of vital and urgent importance—one with regard to which this House does not abdicate its right of deliberation to any Com- mittee for a single hour. And it has reached a stage when free discussion is essential—discussion out-of-doors, discussion, if you will, upstairs, but especially discussion in this House, the debates of which exercise a most material influence upon public opinion in the country. Now, those who have assented to this Committee are disqualified from opposing the introduction of the Ballot, on the ground that the Legislature has recently passed a measure which was adapted to put an end to the evils against which the Ballot is directed, because by appointing this Committee they have admitted the insufficiency of that statute. And evidence of this insufficiency is afforded by the universal chorus of congratulation in which at this moment the whole tribe of electioneering agents exults. Even if it were possible to construct a harmony of the Judges, just as we have constructed a harmony of the Gospels, what would such an encyclopædia of wisdom be but a handbook to the science of bribery and intimidation? Does anybody who has read the recent decisions doubt the possibility of sailing completely through the Act of last Session? No doubt the navigation in some parts will be intricate, but the intelligent navigator, armed with the judicial chart, will have no difficulty in threading the passage. Why, Sir, the Judges, when they have completed their labours, will have buoyed the channel from end to end. So much for the efficiency of our measure in putting a stop to bribery, intimidation, and treating. But I shall be told, perhaps, that the Ballot will prove equally delusive. No doubt the perverse ingenuity of man will at times evade all your precautions; but the question is not, will the Ballot put an end to bribery and intimidation, but whether it will not heap discouragement and obstacle in their way. In proportion as the bargain becomes less secure there will be less inducement to make it. The intimidator himself will tremble when he reflects that the victim of his coercion has a safe and sure revenge. You might as well discard the use of locks and bolts—because the perverse ingenuity of man can pick or force them—as discard the precaution of the Ballot on the ground that picklocks and crowbars are still left in the hands of the thieves and robbers of the Constitution. But this question will be settled by an ap- peal to facts rather than to theories. Our opponents go on arguing just as though the Ballot were a bold experiment of the political empiric. The Ballot is not a conjecture, it is a fact. The Ballot is a success. So far is it from being an innovation, that yours is almost the only free country where it is not an established institution. The moment a nation becomes free it takes to the Ballot as naturally and heartily as it takes to liberty itself. The other day a great country in the south of Europe became free. It threw off a yoke so odious and yet so long endured that men began to wonder, not only at the patience of their fellow-men, but at the long-suffering of Heaven. This newly-enfranchised nation had to choose the form of government under which it meant to live. The passions and prejudices of centuries, inflamed to the utmost by religious rancour, embarrassed and embroiled that choice. The people who had to make it had grown positively grey in the ways of violence and discord—they were children in those of liberty and order. They made their choice by Ballot. Let me read to the House the testimony of an eye-witness, of one who appears to have been no enthusiast about the Ballot, and who was communicating his impressions to a great leading journal which has never been enthusiastic about anything. Writing from Madrid, he says—

"I have never heard a Spaniard speak of an election in his country except as of a disreputable farce. In order to satisfy myself about the grounds for this general distrust, I attended yesterday at one of the polling places, and I must say that to all outward appearance anything more fair and exemplary than the proceedings of a Spanish election I have never seen."

The spectacle of order presented by Madrid was, with very few exceptions, presented by the whole Peninsula. And what happened in Spain has happened in the case of every nation which has become free. Its freedom has been sealed by the Ballot. The country which achieved liberty immediately before Spain was Prussia. The whole nation was enfranchised after Sadowa, and as a necessary seal to their enfranchisement they have the Ballot. Retracing the history of freedom in Europe, the next name which we find upon the roll of free nations is Sweden, then Italy and the Netherlands, then Belgium and Greece. All these have the Ballot. Even Austria and France—nations which as yet have only contrived to get glimpses of freedom—have the Ballot. There are three great countries in Europe still without the Ballot—Russia, the last stronghold of medieval serfdom; Turkey, the outpost of barbarism in Europe; England, the fortress of liberty throughout the world. But why follow the example of universal civilization? The Ballot is un-English. It was not un-English in 1526, when we find it in full operation at the election of the magistrates of London. Nor was it un-English in the days of the Stuarts. James I. attempted to strangle in its cradle British power in America in obedience to the will of Spain, and by the election of his creatures as officers of the Virginia Company. He was baffled by the Ballot, and hence British America. In the reign of Charles I. the king quarrelled with the great company of traders known as the Merchant Adventurers, because by Ballot they refused to elect, to their own destruction, his nominee as their deputy at Rotterdam. It was then that that Father of English liberty proceeded to make the Ballot un-English. I am indebted to a most able speech by Mr. Hepworth Dixon upon the Ballot for a State Paper, which I will read to the House. It is Charles I.'s Order in Council against the Ballot—

"At Hampton Court, this 17th of September, 1637—His Majesty, this day sitting in Council, taking into consideration the manifold inconveniences that might arise by the use of Balloting boxes, which is of late begun to be practised by some corporations and companies, did declare his utter dislike thereof, and, with the advice of their Lordships, ordered that no corporation nor company, either within the City of London and liberties, or elsewhere in this His Majesty's kingdom, shall use, or permit to be used, in any businesses whatsoever, any Balloting box, as they tender His Majesty's displeasure, and will answer the contrary at their peril. Whereof, as well the Lord Mayor of the City of London for the time being, and all other mayors and head officers of corporations, as all governors, masters, and wardens of all companies in and about the cities of London and Westminster and elsewhere, are to take notice, and see this, His Majesty's pleasure and commandment, duly observed."

But although Charles I. proscribed the Ballot, the use of it still lingered, after Charles I. was removed, within the walls of Parliament itself, and Commissions and Committees were frequently nominated under it. But, perhaps the House will be startled when I state that Members have been returned to thin House by Ballot. Within the last few days Mr. Boyd Kinnear has presented us with extracts from a pamphlet in his possession, dated 1688–9, signed "N. T." and entitled "Some remarks upon Government, and particularly upon the establishment of the English monarchy, relating to this present juncture; in two letters written by, and to a member of the Great Convention." I will, with the kind permission of the House, read part of one of these extracts. The writer says—

"It is customary in the borough of Limmington in Hampshire, to elect by the Ballot. The manner is to give to every electing burgess (their number being limited and known) a different coloured ball for every competitor, each colour being respectively appropriated to the several competitors; as suppose there should be three candidates, each elector has three small balls given him, which he so manages as to keep only that in his hand which by its colour belongs to the person he intends to choose. This being inclosed in his hand, he puts it into a close box made for that purpose, leaving no possibility to anyone to detect what coloured ball he put into it. Thus, each having put in his ball according to his vote, the balls of one colour are separated from those of another colour, and so, according to the majority of balls of one colour, the return is made. This method I know to be of great advantage where it is made use of. It prevents animosities and distastes, and very much assists that freedom which ought to be at elections. No man in this way need fear the disobliging of his landlord, customer, or benefactor, for it can by no means be discovered how he gave his vote if he will but keep his own counsel. If this or some such device were appointed to be made use of in every borough all over the kingdom, I am persuaded it would abundantly answer expectation in the many advantages which would attend it."

And so a most material precedent has been established in our favour, and against the foolish cry of those who say that the Ballot is un-English. A few years before Charles I. attempted to make the Ballot un-English, the Ballot box was carried over in the Mayflower to America. I need not remind the House of the story of the Pilgrim Fathers, how, unable to endure the thraldom under which they lived at home, they left home, friends, country, fortunes, everything except those free institutions which no longer flourished in England, but which were borne by them into the unpeopled wilderness to flourish for ever beyond the sea. The Ballot was adopted by the free colony of Massachusetts in 1634. It was adopted by every other colony or State in succession in the order of their civilization—the New England States leading the way, the slave States bringing up the rear. I shall be told that the American Ballot is not a close Ballot, and in most of the States no doubt that is so. But why is it not a close Ballot? Because the relations between land and capital on the one hand and labour on the other there are such that the Ballot is no longer necessary; and the example of America shows how we may return to open voting under the Ballot the moment those conditions are removed which make the Ballot desirable. But there are other populations more nearly allied to our own even than the Americans who elect by close Ballot. In the colonies of Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and New South Wales, all elections take place by Ballot. Its adoption has been attended with the most signal and indisputable success. The first authority which I shall cite is that of my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Childers). In the course of a speech upon the Ballot, in 1860—which, was my right hon. Friend's maiden effort in this House, and which was full of that promise which he has since so amply redeemed—he thus expresses himself—

"Ever since the first concession of representative institutions to Australia, vote by Ballot had been one of the measures of reform, agitated in the Colonies and their Legislatures. It was not, however, until the eve of the introduction of what is called 'Responsible' or Parliamentary government, that it met with general advocacy. About that time public attention was directed to the corrupt practices which there, as in this country, too frequently attended Parliamentary elections. The prevailing evil was not so much intimidation as bribery.…But bribery and treating, in the vulgar forms in which we know them, were rife in the town constituencies; and to check them, and at the same time to reduce the excitement and expense of contested elections, the Ballot was proposed.…The Ballot was not in Victoria as in England exclusively advocated by the popular or Liberal party, and opposed by Conservatives. On the contrary, some of its most strenuous advocates Bat on the Conservative side of the House, and unquestionably its most formidable opponents were the leaders of the extreme democratic party. And to this, I think, much of its success is due. For not being a party measure, its details were honestly discussed, and settled by the ablest men in the House.…And what, Sir, has been the result?…Why, by the common consent of almost every public man who has seen its working, the Ballot has been thoroughly successful. It came into operation in the year 1856, when I was myself elected under its provisions. I cannot speak to the number of elections in other colonies; but in Victoria I understand that about 200 have taken place since that time, They have been dis- tinguished by the almost entire absence of those practices which were previously so prevalent."—[3 Hansard, clvi. 788–90.]

Shortly after my right hon. Friend delivered this speech he gave evidence before the Select Committee on the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act. We are always having Corrupt Practices Prevention Acts, and Select Committees upon them—we are always washing our hands upstairs, but they are never clean. My right hon. Friend was asked by the Chairman, with reference to a constituency in Australia which had been notorious for bribery: "What was the result after the adoption of the Ballot as to that particular constituency?"—"I may say," replied my right hon. Friend, "that bribery became almost extinct there." "Was there treating also in the constituencies?"—"The treating used to be worse than the bribery, but treating in the towns became almost extinct." The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole) asked: "Was the intimidation of voters a common subject of complaint?"—"No; the intimidation talked of was rather mob intimidation. That is entirely done away with: the election is now conducted as quietly as a funeral." Contrast that with the scenes proved to have taken place at Drogheda. The Chairman next asked: "Is canvassing as keenly conducted as it was before you had the Ballot?"—"I think that it is not nearly so keenly conducted." The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) asked: "Have you the means of knowing whether the expenses of candidates have much diminished?"—" I should say that they have, very much, judging from popular rumour." Finally, after my right hon. Friend had given a great deal of evidence to the same effect, the Chairman asked him: "I understand you to say that you consider that that change in the mode of taking the votes has given general satisfaction in the colony?" My right hon. Friend replied, "I think it has given undoubted and universal satisfaction." Now, Sir, there is just one point in this evidence to which I would specially call the attention of the House in passing—namely, the effect of the Ballot on bribery and treating. This is most material to our case, because while almost everyone admits that the Ballot must check intimidation, there are those, as I shall; show presently, who dispute altogether the fact that it will check bribery and treating. If the House is anxious for corroborative evidence as to the success of the Ballot in Australia, I am in a position to furnish it in abundance. But I am anxious as much as possible to economize the time of the House, and therefore propose to cite one more authority only. It may be said that when my right hon. Friend gave his evidence the Ballot had only been a very few years in operation, and that his experience only extended to the colony of Victoria. The evidence which I am about to cite is not only very recent, but refers to the colony of South Australia. Mr. Anthony Forster, late Member of the Legislative Council of Adelaide, published, in 1866, a most able and interesting work, entitled South Australia; its Progress and Prosperity. He says (p. 200)—

"The operation of the Ballot in the Australian colonies has placed the constituencies beyond the suspicion of bribery and corruption. Speaking for South Australia, I may say that there has never been a question raised there as to the perfect adaptation of that mode of taking rotes to all the requirements of the elections. Whilst one of the last elections for the city of Adelaide under the system of open voting was simply disgraceful, requiring the intervention of the police and almost of the military, the first elections under the Ballot were conducted with the utmost propriety and decorum. The contrast was so striking as to be a subject of general congratulation."

Now let me take a witness from quite a different part of the world. In an interesting book entitled From the Levant, published a few weeks ago, Mr. Arthur Arnold gives a description of a Greek election which he witnessed last year. He says—

"No stranger would have supposed that an excited struggle for power had commenced when the poll opened. In no city with which I am acquainted are politics so generally the subject of conversation. The people are by temperament most quarrelsome, and you will expect, as I did, that a Greek election would be at least as riotous as a similar ceremony in Ireland. On the contrary, English people do not go to their churches and meeting-houses in a more orderly manner than the Athenians did to the poll. And it cannot be doubted that this remarkable absence of anything approaching disorder was due to the mode of election—the Ballot. With the vote by voice in Athens, after the English manner, we should certainly have seen the Greek capital full of bloodshed. Every other man in Athens and in the Greek provinces every man is armed with weapons not slow to take life."

Now, Sir, before I leave this part of the subject, let me remind the House that what is virtually the Australian Ballot has been resorted to in this country upon more than one occasion with marked success. "When the Maryport Improvement and Harbour Act was applied for in Parliament, in 1866, the promoters sought power to secure voting by Ballot at the election of trustees, that being the method of voting which had been practised in the town since 1833, when the first Act was obtained. When this clause of the Bill was brought before Lord Redesdale his Lordship drew his pen through it, and wrote on the margin, "I cannot consent to this fanciful legislation;" but the promoters made out such a good case in favour of the mode of voting which they had hitherto been accustomed to, that a compromise was effected, by means of which the promoters of the Bill obtained legislative sanction for the continuance of the Ballot; for, although the Act established open voting, a proviso was added that open voting should not be practised until the ratepayers found that the Ballot did not answer. Thus the Ballot continues at Maryport. The votes are taken upon the Australian system, and the Ballot at the trustee elections is held in high estimation. This opinion is not confined to people who advocate the adoption of the Ballot at Parliamentry elections; on the contrary, many of those who speak so highly in its praise are genuine Tories. They would not have the Ballot introduced into Parliamentary elections, they say; but in these local contests they freely affirm that they could not arrive at a just estimate of the opinions and wishes of the electors without secret voting. There are so many people in positions in which they would fear to incur the displeasure of their customers or employers by voting against them, or giving offence to friends that, on every side, it was confidently asserted that, if the Ballot were not in use at Maryport, but a very small proportion of the people who now vote so freely would come to the poll at all." The only other instance of an English Ballot with which I shall trouble the House, occurred the other day at Manchester. It was a test Ballot, to decide the relative claims of two candidates belonging to the same political party. Of the entire success of the experiment the whole London Press bore witness. The utmost order prevailed, although the contest was a very keen one. I need only say that having been present both at the polling booths and at the declaration, it is impossible to over-rate the efficiency of the machinery employed, which was a modification of the Victoria system. The representative of the leading journal says—

"There were many critical observers of the whole process, but no one has yet suggested a loophole for fraudulent evasion of the rules, unless it was by the very difficult and probably useless attempt to conceal a card and carry it away, and thus prove, at all events that no vote had been given by the person who obtained it."

Well, Sir, against this array of facts, all tending to prove that the Ballot is practicable, and that it is in the highest degree salutary, we have to set the speculations and arguments of theorists. In the first place, we are told that the Ballot will not defeat the ends of bribery and intimidation, because a sense of moral rectitude will restrain men who have promised from corrupt or fraudulent motives to vote in a particular way from voting in any other way when the vote is secret. We are told that it is a venial thing to vote against one's conscience, but a crime to break the immoral promise to do so. There is shame and remorse for us in the latter case—there is only mortification in the other, and so the immoral promise must bind, but the violated conscience may take care of itself. Sir, I wonder where some people pick up their morality? What casuist affirms that a wicked or immoral promise is binding? or that any engagement to do wrong is paramount to the eternal obligation to do right? Is there any hon. Member who seriously doubts that the coerced elector will soon discover this, and act accordingly? But we are told that the Ballot would lead to lying. Whether is greater—the lie in the words, or the lie in acts? Sir, I have read with great attention the arguments of a great writer who recently had a seat in this House, and who will always have a place in the respect of Europe. I think that it will be admitted upon all hands that the argument adopted by Mr. Mill could not possibly have been more strongly stated than it has been stated by him. Indeed, he has bestowed so much care upon the exact shape into which this argument has been thrown, that he seems scarcely willing to trust himself—he, who is so great a master of expression—with any other form of words by which to convey his precise meaning, and in his work on Representative Government, has re-produced the argument in the very terms in which it is stated in his pamphlet on Parliamentary Reform, because, as he says, "he does not feel that he can improve upon them." If, therefore, we can show; that an argument so fully considered, and so carefully drawn, is unsound, it may be taken, I think, that the case of our opponents has collapsed. Now, no one regrets more than I do the absence of Mr. Mill from the seat which he i adorned in this House. I regret it especially to-day, because his presence; would have guarded mo against the possibility of misrepresentation; but in his absence it will be with a peculiar anxiety that I shall guard myself. Well, Sir, Mr. Mill not only lays down a line of argument, but he makes a great admission. I will endeavour to deal with the admission first and the argument afterwards. The admission is practically contained in these terms—that if the state of things which existed in this country thirty years ago existed now, he would still be in favour of the Ballot. He says—

"Thirty years ago it was still true that in the election of Members of Parliament the main evil to be guarded against was that which the Ballot would exclude [note in passing this testimony to the efficacy of the Ballot] coercion by landlords, employers, and customers. At present I conceive a much greater source of evil is the selfishness or selfish partialities of the voter himself. A base and mischievous vote is now, I am convinced, much oftener given from the voter's personal interest or class interest, or some mean feeling in his own mind, than from any fear of consequences at the hands of others, and to these influences the Ballot would enable him to yield himself, free from all sense of shame or responsibility."

Sir, in one sense it is a great misfortune that Mr. Mill is cut off by the very rigidity of his principles from those sources of information which are open to less scrupulous men. If Mr. Mill had personally canvassed the great constituency which has just failed to appreciate his services at their true value, I cannot but believe that he would have re-written the whole passage which I have read. And what is the whole system of canvassing but an elaborate scheme of coercion—coercion by landlords and agents, coercion by customers, coercion by the men of a man's class or clique or sect? In how many thousands of instances may a man's vote be mathematically described as the resultant of divergent forces acting in the same plane, and all of them illegitimate; or the neutrality of voters as a statical couple, when the two forces exactly balance one another? But perhaps I shall be asked, where are the evidences of this pressure? Why, are not the newspapers filled with the complaints of men who have been coerced? Because it is the province of intimidation not only to strangle opinion, but to strangle it in silence. The hand which is strong enough to stifle it, stifles its cries. There is no offence committed by one man against the liberty of another which is so difficult of proof. What little self-respect remains to the man who has been coerced suggests every possible excuse for the base vote, except the shameful one that he is no longer master of his own actions. Men are thus made accomplices in their own dishonour, and with their own hands efface the evidences of the violence to which they have succumbed. An instance in point was brought to my notice the other day which, if it were not so pitiable, would be infinitely amusing. Four tenants upon an estate in a Scotch county promised with alacrity, and some of them with enthusiasm, their votes to one of the candidates at the last election. They were summoned to two meetings at the landlord's house, and there they were plied with such irresistible arguments that they came in a body to withdraw their pledges. But the point to which I wish to draw the attention of the House is this, that subsequently these four men—though every neighbour they had knew that they had been coerced—signed a paper to the effect that they had not. But, Sir, it is not only intimidation of this character, or the intimidation of workmen by masters, like that of Mr. Harrop at Westbury, which we have to deal with—this is a many-headed monster. We have to deal with the intimidation of mobs like that at Drogheda—where the Judge said, that beyond all doubt a system of organized intimidation and outrage prevailed on the part of agents or friends of the sitting Members which deterred supporters of the opposing candidates from recording their votes. And we have to deal with that form of mob intimidation which was practised the other day; at Blackburn. Now I have no hesita- tion in alluding to the Blackburn case, because I have just heard the issue of the Petition, which has terminated in the unseating of both Members petitioned against. The facts, therefore, which I am about to state may be taken as proved. After the publication of the result of the registration, I am informed that the following Circular was issued:—

"Dear Sir,—At a very influential meeting of the Conservative party, held at the Registration Rooms, Clayton Street, on the 8th instant, for the purpose of making arrangements for securing the return of Messrs. William Henry Hornby and Joseph Feilden as the representatives of the Parliamentary borough at the ensuing election, the gravity and importance of the crisis in our national history at which this election occurs was very prominently referred to, and it was decided that all millowners and their managers and over-lookers, and all master tradesmen and others possessing influence should be strongly urged to exert that influence, so as to secure in the municipal elections as well as in the Parliamentary, the success of the candidates who adhere to the constitution in Church and State," and so forth.

Now, what followed the issuing of what is now known as the Blackburn "Screw Circular?" The days immediately succeeding the municipal election, and immediately preceding the Parliamentary election were marked by a series of outrages which drew upon Blackburn the attention of the whole country. On Tuesday morning, November 3rd, by a simultaneous movement, the operatives in at least half-a-score of factories expelled from the rooms their Liberal fellow-workmen to the number of several hundreds. These expulsions were aggravated by many gratuitous outrages upon the persons of obnoxious individuals. Even women were kicked, hustled about, their hair and clothing torn, and otherwise maltreated. Masters and managers when appealed to, with but one or two exceptions, refused to interfere; in some instances with slight expressions of regret and disapproval, and in others with curt discourtesy. In scarcely a single instance was a remedy afforded to the aggrieved parties, not even the customary notice of discharge. Now, I make no comments upon this Blackburn intimidation, for the obvious reason that I did not bring the question before the House as a party question, and that I should scorn to make political capital for my party out of the narration of atrocities which I am sure hon. Gentlemen opposite must condemn equally with ourselves. But it is not merely intimidation of this remorseless and lawless character with which we have to contend. There is a kind of undue influence which is infinitely safer, equally efficacious, and all but universal; the coercion which is subtle and impalpable, which never commits itself; which I may describe as being in the air, a deadly but invisible miasma. This is a species of intimidation which exists even in the face of elaborate assurances to the contrary—in the face of notices posted up in conspicuous places, to the effect that the tenants or the workmen, or the employés, are at liberty to vote as they please. But the tenants and workmen know better. They know that if they vote as they please they will become marked men, and men not marked for special indulgence. The tenant knows that in all probability that barn will not be built, and that there will be difficulty about the rent. The workman knows that if he votes against the master his next oversight will be followed by dismissal, and the next feast of St. Monday by a penitential Tuesday, and so these men vote as it is prudent to vote; and because the law is not broken, because there are no open menaces—nothing vulgar or ugly—everybody is delighted with the high-minded generosity of the master and the squire—I say generosity, for if a man in the position of landlord refuses to canvass his tenants personally or by his agent, it has come to this, that such conduct on his part is regarded, not as the necessary result of the least spark of gentlemanly feeling, but as the most signal proof of virtuous forbearance. But there is a form of intimidation more subtle even than this—a form of intimidation which exists in the imagination of timid men, and which very possibly is the result of a false inference. Let me give an illustration or two taken from what occurred at the last election. Hon. Members will be aware that at the city of Carlisle there are large railway works. At the last election 157 men who were voters were employed at those works. One of the candidates was a railway director. Of these 157 men, 139 plumped for the director, three splat their votes, and fifteen voted against him. Now take a county. I have here an analysis of the polling at more than a dozen little centres of population in a county constituency not 100 miles from London. First, we come to a village, the chief resident being a member of the Conservative committee. The votes polled were 21–19 by the Conservatives, and 2 by the Liberals. Then we come to a small town; the chief resident a leading member of the Liberal committee. Votes polled, 57—Liberals, 45; Conservatives, 12. Then a town, the chief resident a nobleman, who, my informant states—I know not upon what authority—is at present out at elbows with his party; the steward a Conservative. Votes polled, 127—Conservative, 93; Liberal, 34. Then a village; chief resident, a Liberal Baronet, whose predecessor was a Conservative. Votes polled, 65—Liberal, 49; Conservative, 16. At the previous election, when the Conservative predecessor was alive, the votes polled were 48—Liberal, 20; Conservative, 28. Then a village; the chief resident a convert to Liberalism. Votes polled, 45—Liberal, 31; Conservative, 14. At the previous election, before the conversion, the votes polled were 35—Liberal, 14; Conservative, 21. Then we come to two adjacent villages; chief resident, one of the Conservative candidates. Votes polled, 27—Conservative, 25; Liberal, 2. Then to two adjacent villages; chief resident, a Liberal Peer, the relative of one of the Liberal candidates. Votes polled. 53—Liberal, 36; Conservative, 17. Then to two adjacent villages; chief resident, the chairman of the Conservative Committee. Votes polled, 44—Conservative, 37; Liberal, 7. Then to two adjacent villages; chief resident, one of the Conservative candidates. Votes polled, 118—Conservative, 82; Liberal, 36. Of the 82, 36 plumped for their candidate, but not until near the close of the poll, thus helping to throw out the other Conservative candidate. Then we come to two adjacent villages; chief resident, a Liberal Peer, the relative of the other Liberal candidate. Votes polled, 71—Liberal, 62; Conservative, 9. Then to a village; the chief owner a non-resident Liberal Peer. Votes polled, 22—Liberal, 19; Conservative, 3. See how this man is respected in his absence. Then to a town parish; chief resident, a Conservative Peer, formerly Member of Parliament for the county. Votes polled, 55—Conservative, 47; Liberal, 8. Then to a village; chief resident, a nobleman's son, formerly Conservative Member for the county. Votes polled, 50—Conservative, 34; Liberal, 16. Lastly, we have a village; chief resident, a gentleman who aspires to be a Conservative candidate. Votes polled, 33—Conservative, 27; Liberal, 6. Now none of these figures include split votes. I respectfully commend them to the attention of Mr. Mill. Does he think that votes are thus swept up, and not only swept up, but swept backwards and forwards with every change of ownership, without the presence in the mind of the voter of that "fear of consequences at the hands of others," which existed thirty years ago, and the existence of which then made the Ballot the lesser evil? Now, Sir, it is very possible that Mr. Mill may say that his arguments referred to a different situation from that which exists, and that the wide extension of the suffrage which has since taken place to men in dependent positions, by immeasurably extending the area over which intimidation may be applied, has virtually restored that state of things which existed thirty-nine years ago, and under which the Ballot is the lesser evil. If this be so we shall be delighted to hail his return to our ranks; but, in the meantime, we are compelled to deal with arguments which have never yet been withdrawn. I have endeavoured to show that a state of things exists under which it is expedient to adopt the Ballot even if we must admit that its adoption will be attended by the evils anticipated by Mr. Mill. I will now endeavour to show that it will not be attended by those evils. What are those evils? Mr. Mill says that—

"People will give dishonest or mean votes from lucre, from malice, from pique, from personal rivalry, even from the interests or prejudices of class or sect, more readily in secret than in public."

Now, I maintain that the interests and prejudices of class or sect would dictate the vote more generally under public voting than they would under the Ballot, for a mail's class or sect is his public; and even if he be desirous to vote above these petty and sordid considerations, the displeasure of his class restrains him. How does Mr. Mill think that the saw-grinders would vote under open voting when the selfish interests of the saw-grinders were at stake? Even the extreme case put by Mr. Mill of a majority of knaves restrained from repudiation by the difficulty of looking an honest man in the face afterwards may be disregarded, because repudiation is never resorted to in a civilized community without reasons so plausible that they govern public opinion, and so rob it of public disgrace; and even if this were not the case, the man who votes with a majority screens himself behind a multitude. I must strike out private malice and pique, too, for we are not a nation who care to stab in the dark. More than half the pleasure of revenge is to think that our victim knows the hand from which the blow has come. Give the Ballot and you will blunt the weapon at once. Nor need we regard the assertion that the voter may vote from feelings of personal rivalry, for it can only apply to the very limited class out of which Members of Parliament are chosen, and it is to be hoped, for the honour of our class, to a very limited fraction of that. There only remains, then, as the inducement to vote meanly—lucre; and Mr. Mill thus raises the whole question of the Ballot in its relation to bribery. It has been contended that the Ballot would act as a check upon bribery, because the briber would never know that he had value received, and because the voter could take the bribe, and then please himself, as indeed in a multitude of cases he does now, under open voting; for example, the Yorkshireman who sold his gamecock for £7 to a supporter of Mr. Ripley's, though he assured him any other cock at 1s. would answer his purpose as well, and then, having pocketed his £7, went and voted for my right hon. Friend the Vice-President of the Committee of Council. But the idea is, that the man who does not respect his conscience will respect his bargain, and that the rogue who has been bought will vote as faithfully for the rogue who has bought him in the dark as in the daylight—an idea of the supremacy of conscience among rogues which, to my mind, is ludicrous in the extreme. But I understand Mr. Mill to contend that the Ballot will positively encourage bribery, because men will take bribes under it who would be ashamed to do so if their votes were known, their previous predilections being known also. Possibly there may be isolated cases of this character, although bribery is always a secret transaction, but such a possibility is far outweighed by the certainty that under the Ballot that most outrageous species of bribery known as half-past three o'clock bribery will positively cease, because the relative position of the candidates upon the poll cannot be known, and, therefore, all the data which govern the half-past three o'clock market price of votes will be absolutely wanting. Take the recent case of Norwich as an illustration of what is meant by half-past three o'clock bribery. I will give it in the words of the Judge—

"The election took place on the 17th November. Up to the middle of the day everything seems to have gone on honestly. About the middle of the day there was a considerable majority in favour of Mr. Tillett and the other gentleman who stood with him. Between three and half-past three, in No. 3 ward, there were forty votes polled for Sir Henry Stracey. Between half-past three and four the number was 121. In No. 6 ward, between three and half-past three the number voting for Sir Henry Stracey was forty-three; between half-past three and four it was 103. In No. 7 ward, between three and half past three sixty-six votes were recorded for Sir Henry Stracey, and between half-past three and four 123 voted for him. It is further proved that in three public-houses at least—and it may be in many more—there were a number of men of the lowest class of voters waiting and on the 'lookout,' according to the expression of one of them. I have not the slightest doubt that these men were collected in these public-houses waiting to be bribed. I have not the slightest doubt that they were bribed, and that the great proportion of that low class of voters who voted in the afternoon of that day, between half-past three and four, were bribed voters."

So much, then, for the argument that the Ballot will tend to encourage bribery; and, bear in mind, our experience in Australia is an ample confirmation in fact of the conclusions of reason. I have now endeavoured to show that the evils supposed to be incident to the Ballot will hardly exist. I have also shown the magnitude of those evils which do exist under open voting, but which the Ballot is calculated to remove. In conclusion, let me endeavour to deal with an argument which in wildness transcends anything which even the inventive ingenuity of our opponents has devised—the assertion that, if the vote be made secret the voter will naturally infer that the vote is his absolutely—his to do precisely what he likes with as much as the money in his pocket—his to barter for any private advantage—his to sell to the highest bidder—his to use in the promotion of the greedy interests of his class. This is the "false and pernicious impression" which Mr. Mill expects the vote by Ballot to make upon the mind of the elector, and the inference of course is, that instead of voting for the general good, for his party, for his colour, for the candidate of his choice, for anything which men vote for now—when he finds himself alone with his conscience he will stifle it. Or this argument is based on the hypothesis that a man's conscience is a thing outside him, something which he borrows from the public and leaves in the ante-room of the polling-booth with his umbrella. It is certainly based upon the hypothesis that the voter never reads the newspapers, never listens to the candidates' speeches, never discusses politics with his friends; that, in fact, from the dissolution of Parliament to the day of polling he is shut up in the Ballot box, for he can do none of these things without being reminded at every turn that as an elector he is the guardian of great principles, and that the very reason why the State secludes him at the moment when he performs this sacred trust, is that she may leave him alone with his responsibility. But says Mr. Mill, if the public is entitled to his vote, it is entitled to know his vote. Unquestionably in one sense it is, and know it it will, along with that of all his neighbours, at four o'clock. It is the decision of the majority that the public is concerned with. The public is much too great a personage to interrogate every individual elector and to criticize his vote. It cannot descend to such details; and if it could, it would abstain. The public itself although it has a right to demand that the vote shall be given in its interest, is in doubt upon the truth of the very principles which in the persons of the candidates are striving for the mastery. The public is divided in its own mind, and at the very moment when it would pretend to criticize my choice, it is dependent upon my choice, among many, for the way in which it is finally to make its own. If, therefore, this halting, expectant, irresolute creature-—the public, is by the very nature of things incapacitated from deciding upon the propriety of my vote, is it not a gross intrusion for it to step in and say—" I cannot trust you to vote for me unless I watch you, although I do not know as yet what voting for me means?" The fact is, that our opponents mistake the knot of persons by whom each voter is surrounded for the public. I demand the exclusion of this knot of persons, in order that he may see the real public which stands beyond. The public which stares the philosopher in the face in his closet with such intensity of expression that he can see nothing else, is absolutely shut out by the voter's entourage. Put the voter into a closet, and he may see what the philosopher sees. At present he sees his landlord with startling distinctness; he studies every line in the frown of his displeased customer; the sawgrinders' deputy peers round the corner at him. All these are realities. But the public which is on such easy terms with the philosopher is to him a distant and retreating shadow, armed neither with horse-pistols nor notices to quit. It is in the interest of that public that I speak. This is the public which you leave with the juryman when that other public is shut out. Why do you isolate the juryman? That he may consider the verdict his to sell to the highest bidder, or his to render to his country and his God? Do for the political juryman what you have done for the judicial one. Show him and those about him whose the verdict really is. When the squire is not by, and the priest is not by, and the agent and overlooker are not by, and the secretary of the trades union is not by, and all a man's customers are not by, perhaps the idea may grow up among them—the idea which has hitherto presented itself in a feeble, hesitating shape—the idea which your open voting has done its best to encourage for centuries—the idea that they are not entitled to his vote. This is the idea which I wish to see established—the idea that the vote is so sacred a thing that even a man's bosom friend has no right to meddle with it—that it is an affair of his secret conscience—a trust not only for the public, but for Him who made the public, who is infallible and just, while the public is full of error, prejudice, and passion. Enact the Ballot—establish this idea, and you will clothe, for the first time, with a sacred inviolability that which is not only the foundation of this great House of Parliament, but of the whole structure of the liberties of England. And now I fear that I have trespassed so long upon the patience of the House that I have left myself but little claim to speak to my Motion. I hope, however, that it is one which will commend itself at once and without argument to the judgment of the House, The House is no doubt aware that there are marked differences, both in principle and detail, in the mode in which the Ballot is taken in the various countries in which it is in use. Your Committee will, no doubt, examine witnesses from these countries to show the efficacy or otherwise of the Ballot. It will not add to the expense or labours of the Committee to examine the same witnesses with regard to the actual machinery by which the Ballot is taken. If the Committee should report in favour of the Ballot, the information thus acquired will enable us to legislate at once with all the details before us. If, on the other hand, the Committee should report against the Ballot, then details cannot fail to be useful to those who will discuss this question afterwards—for do not let any hon. Member go away with the impression that whatever may be the Report of the Committee this question will be allowed to drop. For these reasons, therefore, Sir, I beg to move the Resolution of which I have given notice.

said, that, in rising to second the Motion, he would offer no apology for doing so, as this was a question in which he took a strong interest—one, in fact, for which he had given his first vote twenty years before. He regretted now to see very few faces of those who then went into the Lobby with him. At that time, the question was considered to be one of great interest by all electoral reformers; but since that time, and up to the present, it had sunk considerably in public estimation. During the slack water later years of Lord Palmerston's Government, the Ballot fell very much in public estimation, but the last General Election caused it to resume all its original importance. If he wanted any evidence of the fact, he had only to refer to the Committee which had just been appointed. He agreed with his hon. Friend, who had proposed this Motion, that it was unnecessary to regard the Ballot as a party question. At the same time, when he remembered that all the influence of one description which could be exercised on a Parliamentary Election was territorial influence, he could not expect that the Ballot, or any other system of voting which was calculated to lessen that influence, would be received with much favour on the other side of the House. That was not the case, however, in other countries, for in a pamphlet, published by the First Lord of the Admiralty, it was stated that in the colony of Victoria the Ballot was regarded with favour by the Conservatives, whilst open voting was preferred by the Democrats. The power of voting in this country was conferred on certain classes, classes which had lately been very much enlarged. The members of those classes were not compelled to exercise their franchise, so that the power of voting could not, in the strictest sense of the word, be looked upon as a trust; no doubt, it was a moral trust, but not a legal one, to the exercise of which any legal responsibility was attached. Being, however, a moral trust, anything that interfered with its free exercise must be at variance with the spirit of the Constitution, and they had to ask themselves under what circumstances could a man vote freely. When he spoke of voting freely, he meant when a man voted according to his own unbiassed convictions, or as the result of legitimate persuasion and argument addressed to him by others. Now, any detail of electoral practice which interfered with either of those alternatives must be injurious to the freedom of voting. They had then to ask whether open voting, which was, in fact, only a detail of voting, did or did not interfere with those conditions; and he thought it was absolutely unavoidable that they should answer that question in the affirmative. He did not think it necessary to refer to anything beyond the events of last year to prove his affirmative. What had they not seen during the last General Election? Was it not manifest that workmen always voted with masters, tenants with landlords, and shopkeepers with customers? There was one explanation of this state of things as between the ruling and the subject classes, and that was that the latter so voted because they could not help it. If this was the case, it was a disgrace and a danger to our representative system, and, he believed, would be ultimately fatal to it. They had tried many remedies, and only one remained to be tried—namely, secret voting. Two forms of influence were prevalent in all elections, one addressed to the hopes, and the other to the fears of the voter; and those influences were known as bribery and intimidation. Which of these two was the worst? Clearly intimidation, because bribery could only be exercised on the dishonest, whilst intimidation might be applied to every member of the constituency. This was his belief, and he thought he should be able to justify it. With secret voting the first of these influences, bribery, would be greatly diminished; and the second, intimidation, would entirely disappear. It was true that men might still be bribed in batches; but for one person who would be willing to bribe in batches under the Ballot, ten would be willing to bribe in batches under open voting. But there was another kind, of bribery to which he must allude—namely, what was familiarly known as the half-past one o'clock bribery, which, in his opinion, would be destroyed, because under secret voting the state of the poll at that hour could not be known. A cheque for £200, changed for half-sovereigns at Norwich, to which his hon. Friend had referred, would not have been cashed if the persons bribing were not aware that the opponents were neck and neck; in short, bribery would be seriously damaged by the Ballot, and intimidation would be entirely effaced. He thought that this could not be too strongly stated—that bribery could only act on the dishonest, whilst the more honest the voter the more likely was he to be influenced by intimidation. They must remember that conscientious voting was the very salt of the electoral system. He believed that if it were possible to ascertain in what way the House could be constituted so as to secure the best of all combinations of parties—and to secure that votes should be so given as to effect that combination, still if the votes given for that purpose were given under undue influence the purpose must fail, the state of our Constitution would be dangerous, and its freedom must ultimately fall away. With this belief he urged the adoption of secret voting; but there were two questions to which he must address himself for a few moments. One was, could they get a plan to make voting really secret? and the other was, was the present the time that that plan should be adopted? His hon. Friend had referred to the several forms of the Ballot that existed in foreign countries. He had told them that the Ballot was in force in every country in Europe, ex- cept Russia and Turkey. He (Mr. Hardcastle) was not going to trouble the House with all the details, but he should like to refer to the manner in which the Ballot was worked in a neighbouring country. He selected France, because they were told that in that country the edifice of liberty was not yet crowned, nor was it likely to be for some time. The Ballot laboured under great disadvantages in that country, and yet it was remarkable what results it produced. In a pamphlet—about the accuracy of which there could be no question—the writer said that the Government named the candidate for every district, and even the placards and announcements were under the control of the Emperor. The placards were not like our election posters, but were official documents, signed by the prefet or his deputy, and those prefets and deputies and all the maires of communes and villages were appointed by the Government. Those officers had to approve of every address of a candidate before it was published, and all the preliminary proceedings were arranged under their orders. The police, the gendarmes, and other subordinates in their employ were used to canvass for the official candidate, and when the election took place the polling places were surrounded by those officials, who gave every possible obstruction to the candidate of the Opposition. In spite of all that, however, Paris and Marseilles were entirely represented by Members of the Opposition; let him ask, what chance would such men have had had there been open voting? Some reference had been made to Spain, and he should like to read one or two sentences descriptive of an election in that country, because it showed that in that country, and in times of great political excitement, the Ballot could be exercised in the most peaceable manner. The writer said that he went to the Ateneo, a kind of political club, where he found the President sitting with four secretaries, and each voter came in and gave his vote without the slightest ceremony, and went out as quietly as he had come in. He did not exactly know how the voting was carried on for the North German Parliament further than that it was stated in the official Register that it was taken by Ballot. It was hardly necessary to go to any other country in Europe; but with the permission of the House he would say a few words about America, because there it had been said that the Ballot was a failure. In the first place he believed that although the Ballot was originally introduced into America for the purposes of secresy, it had since been adhered to more for the sake of expedition; the fact being that all elections were not only Parliamentary, but municipal, and included the return of many classes of local officers. For this reason the printed lists were used merely to save time and where no concealment was necessary. It had been said that the elections for New York were usually the scenes of great disturbance; but a friend who had been in New York informed him by letter that he was present at an election there in 1867; that the printed lists of names were no essential part of the Ballot machinery, but were provided for the sake of convenience and to save an elector the tremble of writing many names. Electors who did not wish to conceal their votes could obtain tickets at booths, which must be 100 yards from the polling place. All that the State could do was to give the opportunity of secresy to all who chose to avail themselves of it; but if a man chose to wear a parti-coloured riband, he could not be prevented. His friend described all the arrangements as being excellent, and stated that even in the rowdiest wards the proceedings were carried on in the most peaceable manner. Each ward had its own polling place, into which the voter came, gave his name and address, and dropped his ticket into the urn, and there was not the slightest difficulty of either ingress or egress. His friend could not recollect hearing of any row, and his only means of knowing that it was election day was, that when he went into a tavern to get a chop neither wine, beer, or spirits could be obtained—a restriction which he (Mr. Hardcastle) hoped the Committee would bear in mind. It had been frequently urged that the use of the Ballot in America had not been attended with success; but the same charge could not be urged against its employment in Australia, where it had been remarkably successful. Mr. F. S. Dutton, a gentleman who had watched the working of the electoral system in South Australia for many years, and who had stood contested elections under the system of open voting and under secret voting, bore testimony to the riot, tumult, and extravagance which prevailed in the former case, and the orderly, inexpensive, and thoroughly efficient system of vote by Ballot. According to this gentleman's description the voting continued from nine till four, the returning officer and clerk sat with the Ballot box before them, and upon an elector giving his name certain questions were put, and if it was ascertained that the name appeared upon the electoral role, the vote was taken by the Ballot. There was this objection to the plan that it was impossible to scrutinize the votes thoroughly, but this was met by the sys tem adopted in Victoria and described by his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty. Then after the nomination, the returning officer sent a re quisition to the Clerk of the Peace for a number of voting papers equal to the number of electors on the roll, and the papers were handed to the electors with an instruction to them to strike off the names of candidates for whom they did not poll, and the returning officer signed his name and affixed a number to each paper. When the elector came up to vote the returning officer wrote on the back of the paper the elector's number upon the roll, and then handed it to him. The voter took the paper to a table not overlooked by the poll clerks or by the public, and after erasing the names of those for whom he did not vote, dropped it into the Ballot box. The voting papers were examined in the presence of the scrutineers, but they were so placed that the numbers could not be seen. They were then sealed up, and until an election committee ordered the seals to be broken, the votes were protected by the strictest secresy. That was about as perfect a system of balloting as the ingenuity of man could devise, and he trusted it would be the plan adopted when the Ballot was introduced in this country. The Leader of the Opposition, in his speech upon the Address, at the beginning of this Session, said in reference to this subject—"In my opinion it would be a very un wise course" ["Order, order!"]

The hon. Gentleman cannot quote a speech made in the present Session.

said, he would only refer them to the speech without reading it. The right hon. Gentleman was desirous that nothing further should be done in the present Session to alter the law just introduced, and spoke in a complimentary way of the inquiries that had taken place, describing them as searching and satisfactory. He would admit that they had been searching, but very much doubted whether they had been satisfactory. He found that one of the principal results had been to make bribery and corruption more easy than it was before. He believed, moreover, that the decisions of the Judges had done very much to discourage further petitions and further inquiries, and this had been the effect especially of that most anomalous of all the petitions, the petition with reference to the Westminster election. At Bradford, Baron Martin, observing that with 21,000 electors on the roll, £7,200 had been spent by Mr. Ripley, doing no more good than if it had been thrown into the sea, declared that such an expenditure would never stand scrutiny while a Judge had to try election petitions. But in the case of Westminster the same Judge, dealing with an electoral roll of only 18,000 names, seated the respondent, who had spent £8,900 in 1868, not to mention £5,000 spent in 1865, and who had been in a very extensive and lucrative business, consisting partly of the business of a printer, and might therefore be supposed to be able to carry through many of his election arrangements at a cheaper rate than the other candidates. Immediately after the publication of the result of the Westminster petition a very remarkable state of things occurred. At the beginning of the Session there were fifty-four election petitions. From that time to the 1st of March twenty-three of the number were tried and seven withdrawn; but in the first Right days of March following the trial of the Westminster petition nine were tried and six withdrawn, so that the proportion of petitions withdrawn to those tried had increased from one to three to two to three. What were the facts brought out at this searching but not satisfactory inquiry? What he disliked far more than the expenditure of £8,900 among 18,000 electors was the kind of persons employed. Mr. Grimstone told the Judge that he had at first attempted to dissuade the hon. Gentleman from standing; but, when he insisted, expressed his readiness to become his chairman for the St. George's Ward, but required that "old Harry Edwards" should act as secretary. From the Report of the St. Alban's Commission, which led to the disfranchisement of that immaculate borough, it appeared that in 1847, out of 295 votes polled for Mr. Raphael, who came in at the head of the poll, only about thirty were not bribed, and that £3,500 was advanced to Mr. H. Edwards for the purposes of the election, of which sum the greater part was expended, with the knowledge of Mr. Raphael, in bribing voters. In 1850 £2,500 was advanced, of which the greater part was expended in bribery, and in the course of the evidence Mr. Edwards admitted that since the passing of the Reform Act about £19,000 had passed through his hands for election purposes. Election Committees and Election Commissions had been tried and had failed, and election trials having equally failed to secure electoral purity, let them see whether the object could not be obtained by the substitution of secresy for open voting.

I do not rise, Sir, to say anything against that part of the hon. Gentleman's Motion which refers to the expediency of adopting the Ballot at our municipal and Parliamentary elections. I rise to speak strictly to the Motion placed on the Paper by the hon. Gentleman, and to state the reasons which make me think it will be inexpedient that the House should consent to give the proposed Instruction to the Committee. In waiving all discussions as to the expediency of adopting the Ballot, I do not in any way undervalue the importance of the subject. I am perfectly willing to admit the evils under I the present system of voting, and am perfectly conscious of the deep interest; that is taken in the question of the Ballot by many of the largest and most important constituencies in the kingdom. The hon. Gentleman who has brought forward this Motion has said that by adopting the course he has suggested much valuable evidence may be obtained. But while advocating in his own person the adoption of the Ballot—and, of course, I am well aware that there are a great many who agree with him—he has wisely abstained from asking the House to express any opinion while we are on the eve of an inquiry on the Motion of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bruce), with a view to inquire into the best means that can be adopted for securing tranquillity, freedom, and purity at our municipal and Parliamentary elections. Now, Sir, it is perfectly well understood that one of the subjects which the Committee will have to consider is the expediency of adopting the Ballot; and I cannot think that in considering that question the Committee will exclude that evidence which my hon. Friend wishes the House to be in possession of—namely, evidence as to the machinery by which the Ballot should be worked., supposing it to be adopted, in order that it might fulfil the purpose for which it was intended. I agree with the hon. Gentleman fully that it is not so much the Report of the Committee—the opinion of the Committee, which may be an opinion arrived at unanimously, or may be one come to by only a small majority—that we ought to look to in a question of this kind, as the evidence taken by the Committee and the authority of the witnesses by whom that evidence has been given; but it is a clear and well-understood rule in respect of Committees of the Whole House on Bills, that no Instruction can be given them to do what could be done without such Instruction, and although this rule does not strictly apply to Select Committees, it is unusual and inexpedient that the House should direct the attention of the Committee to one particular topic, to the exclusion of or in preference to others which fairly come within the scope of the inquiry, or give the Committee a particular direction to consider a matter which, without such direction, would necessarily come under its consideration. It appears to me that is a sound rule; because, if you instruct a Committee to direct its attention to one special subject, your doing so implies that you wish it to direct its inquiry to that particular subject, to the prejudice or exclusion of others. ["No, no."] If that is not your wish, why do you give special instructions? If it is not, why do you not give specific instructions to the Committee on other points? In this case, why not direct the Committee to consider whether the custom of nomination at the hustings should be continued or abolished, and, if abolished, what machinery should be adopted instead of it? The House is not asked to express an opinion as to the adoption of the Ballot, but merely to give an Instruction to the Committee to consider the question. That Instruction is unnecessary; and, as in the list of the Committee are some strenuous supporters of the Ballot, I cannot see that any good object can be achieved by the proposal of my hon. Friend, while its adoption might be regarded as an attempt to restrict the Committee in the performance of its duty of giving a fair and impartial consideration to all the topics that will come before it. I have another objection to the proposal of the hon. Gentleman. If the Gentlemen whose names have been placed on the Paper should be appointed to serve I shall have the honour of being one of the Committee. Now, I should wish to enter on that Committee with as little prejudice as possible in favour of my own opinion, and with a desire to give calm, and impartial consideration to all that may be said for or against the Ballot. I think the advocates of the Ballot, as well as those who may be opposed to it, ought to enter on the inquiry in that spirit; but if the House adopt the Instruction of my hon. Friend their doing so will have the appearance of prejudging the question. It will intimate a foregone conclusion, and convey an impression that, in respect of the Ballot, all which the Committee has to do is to inquire as to the most convenient and efficient form in which the Ballot can be adopted. The discussion raised by my hon. Friend may be useful in directing the attention of the country to the subject, and indicating the points to which the attention of the Committee may usefully be directed when it is considering the question of the Ballot; but for the reasons I have already stated I hope he will not divide the House on his Motion. When the House appoint a Committee of this kind, they ought to place full confidence in that Committee, and unless it is supposed to be failing in its duty, we ought not to restrict its action by Instructions such as those now proposed to be given.

said, that he entirely agreed with the right hon. Gentleman (Sir George Grey) that the Committee ought to enter upon their duties wholly untrammelled by any such Instruction as that which was now proposed. He thought the high character and fair bearing for which the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had always been distinguished ought to have been sufficient to satisfy the Mover and Seconder of the Instruction that the Committee would be an impartial one. He regarded the Motion as an improper endeavour to fasten on the Committee a preconceived opinion. During the many years he had been in that House he had heard the subject of the Ballot discussed very frequently without ever having said a word on it himself; but after the extraordinary speeches of the Mover and the Seconder of the Motion he could not remain silent. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion (Mr. Hardcastle) had taken, he must say, a most narrow-minded and one-sided view of the question. He had said a good deal about; the expenditure at the Westminster election, but not a word respecting the money that had been squandered at Youghal. What were the facts? At Westminster, with a constituency of nearly 20,000, the hon. Member (Mr. Smith) had spent £8,900; at Youghal, with a constituency of 120 voters, £5,000 had been distributed; yet to the latter expenditure the hon. Gentleman—that consistent Ballot man—had not a word of objection to offer. For himself, he must say that he had been in the House thirty-three years, and he had never before known a case of such extravagant election expenditure in so small a constituency, and by one who was a total stranger to it. The only connection between the Borough and its representative seemed to be that the one had money to spend, the other votes to sell. On looking through the list of those who had supported the Ballot in that House, he found the name of the only candidate who, in the trials since the last General Election, had been pronounced personally guilty of bribery. If the Ballot had been in use, the probability was that gentleman would now be in the House and amusing his hon. Friends with accounts of how he had paid his money and secured votes. The hon. Gentleman who seconded the Motion had abstained from any reference to these facts. All the stress had been laid on the expenditure at Westminster. He never remembered a more marked instance of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. The Ballot was advocated, not because it would prevent bribery, but conceal it; and for that very reason it would never receive his support. The House had been told how well the Ballot worked in France, where, in such towns as Paris, Marseilles, and Lyons, Opposition candidates were returned, notwithstanding all the influence of the Government; but the hon. Gentleman who cited these examples said nothing about those remote districts in which the French Government even prevented the names of Opposition candidates from being published. In the rural districts the Ballot was the purest farce, the grossest fallacy, and the direct cause of coercion, intimidation, and falsehood. The hon. Gentleman said he thought intimidation worse than bribery. Of course a man who liked secret voting would not wish public opinion to be brought to bear upon public crime, but he thought that the more secret the crime the more dangerous it was, and intimidation could not be so secret as to escape notice. Did those who supported the Ballot honestly and sincerely wish to put down bribery, or did they desire by means of secresy to secure its continuance, and to protect those hon. Members who owed their seats to its influence from those little inconveniences to which, if they now resorted to it, they were exposed? After sitting for thirty years in that House he had come to the conclusion that there was no sincerity upon the subject, and that hon. Members tad no real desire to put an end to bribery. ["Oh !"] He would give them good reasons for his belief presently. It would be useless to mention names in this matter because those whose names he could give, as having been declared guilty of bribery, were those who had been detected, and who were well known in that House. But those who now desired the Ballot wished to protect themselves from the risk which had been run by their poor friends who had been found out. An hon. Gentleman who had been found out during the last Parliament made a manly appeal to the House. He said—"You know these arrangements are well understood; don't you pretend that you don't do the same;" and this statement was met with cheers. He had known instances where men who professed the most spotless purity had been guilty of the most systematic and the most corrupt bribery. Of course the hon. Gentleman who had brought the question before the House had investigated the matter, and was well acquainted with the cases to which he alluded in this distant manner, in which those who had been the most guilty had successfully concealed the facts from the public. He begged to enter his protest against this systematic hypocrisy. While denunciations were hurled against Tory corruption thousands of pounds were sent down to the local bank in a feigned name for the purposes of corruption on the Liberal side. But when such a case was made public, did any of his fellow-Ballot men declare that the guilty party had lost his social position because he had obtained his election by corrupt means? And this brought him to the point to which he wished to draw the attention of the House. He wished to say that it was the hypocrisy of those who pretended that they wanted to secure purity of election by means of the Ballot that had kept up the system of bribery in this country. ["Oh, oh !"] Ah, he knew they would not like it, but he would prove his point, though he would not bring the blush of shame to some of their faces by mentioning names. ["Name, name !"] He declined to mention any names, because, by so doing, he would be only holding up the man to general disapprobation, whose chief fault was—not that he had been guilty of the crime, but that he had been detected—and detection did not prove he was worse than his fellows, but merely that he was less experienced and skilful. It was notorious that when bribery had been the most barefaced the constituency, afraid of being disfranchised, had managed, by means best known to those who desired secret voting, to get the petition withdrawn from the cognizance of that House, and thus the parties bribing escaped the punishment they deserved. ["Oh! oh!"] They said "Oh!" did they. Well, of course they did not like to be probed in a sore place, and no wonder at it. The reason he disliked secret voting was that, in addition to the crime, disgrace, and immorality of corruption, they would have the baseness of hypocrisy superadded. In a free country, possessing a free Constitution, a free Press, having free institutions, and affording perfect freedom of action, if there was any real desire to put down bribery, bribery could not exist. Instead of skulking into the secresy of the Ballot box, let them improve the moral tone of the community, and elevate public feeling upon the subject. If they were really sincere upon the subject, they would have the remedy in their own hands. Let it be announced publicly that any man guilty of bribery shall be excluded from the pale of society as though he were a swindler or a thief, and they would hear little more upon the subject. Instead of doing this they listened with complacency, and perhaps, enjoyment, to the tales of the successful dodges by which bribery had been perpetrated with impunity. As long as they admitted men having the moral stain of corruption into their society, he did not believe in the sincerity of their wish to put down bribery. The late Mr. Coppock was one of the most successful Liberal bribers and corruptors that ever lived in this country. He was the life and soul of the Reform Club. He was in the habit of receiving enormous sums of money from gentlemen at the Reform Club, and then he went down to the country and bribed any constituency that was willing to accept his bribes. One of the best instances of that gentleman's practices was at the borough of St. Albans. There was a very respectable gentleman of the name of Mr. Bell, who in an evil hour fell into the hands of this purist, Mr. Coppock, and who said to him—" If you will give me £4,000, I will get you a seat in Parliament." The boldness of the man appeared in this, that he used to send the money from the Reform Club direct, and he never sent bank-notes-—he always sent sovereigns. In this case Mr. Bell's address was printed in that fine glowing tone which Ballot men use; then came denunciations of Tory bribery; then came a layer of sovereigns—then came another layer of denunciations of Tory corruption—and then another layer of sovereigns—this was all stated in evidence and can be seen in the Library—and the whole was packed up together and sent down to St. Albans. The affair was managed so badly however that Mr. Bell was unseated, and the borough was disfranchised. He had alluded to these circumstances to show that a high assumption of purity was not always truthful. A friend of Mr. Coppock had told him that Mr. Coppock had said that if they could get the Ballot he would be answerable for every borough in the kingdom. A man, he said, who was prepared to give £3,000 or £4,000 for the chance of a seat, with the possibility of an election petition, would be quite willing to pay £5,000 or £6,000 for a safe seat. And once the Ballot was adopted, his course would have been to open negotiations with the leading Liberals of a borough, and give them to understand that he had a friend, and, if he were returned to Parliament, that it would be in his power to place £5,000 or £6,000 at their disposal; but that not one farthing would be given till the time for petitioning had expired, and the seat was perfectly secure. In that way Mr. Coppock declared that with the Ballot he could answer for almost every borough in the kingdom. To attempt therefore by a preliminary discussion to create the impression that the advocates of the Ballot had any disinclination for corruption or bribery was a delusive proceeding, against which he felt it right to enter his protest. If in a free country public opinion could not raise the moral tone of the constituencies, and lead them to look with scorn upon the demoralizing and disgraceful practices of corruption, it was hopeless to expect that good would be effected by the adoption of a secret system. Nothing was supposed to prevent misconduct and robbery at night so effectually as gas lamps. Let society therefore turn the indignant blaze of enlightened opinion upon conspirators in their dark holes and hiding places, and a remedy for this degrading practice may be secured. But the Ballot once adopted criminals would rejoice, and purity of election would be further removed than ever.

said, he feared he was one of those who would fall under the sweeping denunciation of his noble Friend opposite, for he was an advocate of the Ballot. But the House, he thought, was placed in a somewhat false position by the proposition of his hon. Friend near him (Mr. Leatham). For what did he propose? That the Committee should be instructed to do that which it was its bounden duty to do—that which it was stated it intended to do, and that which, in fact, formed one of the reasons for its appointment. Yet, if Gentlemen opposed the Motion from a wish not to place the Members of the Government—who were the advocates of the Ballot, and who would contend that the Committee should be left free—in a false position;—then, they might be suspected of not being true to the principles which they professed; on the other hand, if, as advocates of Ballot, they supported and carried the Motion, they would merely leave the question in precisely the position in which it stood at present—without having obtained any new advantage. He would therefore ask his hon. Friend to withdraw at least that part of his proposition which contained an Instruction to the Committee. He spoke the more freely on this subject because he did not entirely approve of the course adopted by the Government. He thought the country was the Committee on this question. Vote by Ballot had been canvassed through the length and breadth of the land for many years; and he, for one, should not obtain any light or instruction or any sanction for his opinions from whatever Report this Committee might deliver. Those who were in favour of the Ballot had no need for the resolution of any Committee on the subject; they never told their constituents that their opinions were not formed, and that they waited to see what a Committee appointed by the Government would think of it. On the contrary, they said—"We are in favour of the Ballot; we have reflected upon it, and we are in favour of that mode of ascertaining the opinions of the electors." He thought then the Government Committee was not required, but he thought also the present Motion was superfluous; it could do no good, and might do harm by giving the appearance of a division amongst those who were in reality united. He had not intended to trouble the House with any observations on the general question, but having risen, he would venture to point out to the noble Lord (Lord Claud Hamilton) the conclusions to be drawn from his own observations. The noble Lord, in alluding to France, had said the Bal- lot succeeds in all large towns where the influence of public opinion was felt; but in the country, where the force of public opinion did not exist, the Ballot was a failure. What stronger argument in favour of the Ballot could possibly be addressed to Englishmen? Where were the remote towns in England in which public opinion did not exist and make itself felt? He ventured to say that there was not a great town and hardly a small town—not even Tamworth, which he himself represented—in which there was not as strong a public opinion as in the great centres of France, to which allusion had been made. He had always been and was in favour of the Ballot—not from party motives—for, though he believed it would be a great individual benefit, he did not think it would much affect the condition of parties. But he was in favour of the Ballot because he thought it a simple act of justice. He could quite understand how gentlemen might differ on the question as to who should vote for Members of Parliament and who should not; he could quite understand how the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade might be wide as the poles asunder as to a proper constituent body; but when once you had given a man a vote you were bound to see that he could vote as he liked, without injuring himself by doing so. The duty of an elector was to vote conscientiously, and the duty of the Legislature was to see that he could vote conscientiously. In fact, it was the peculiar province of the Legislature to make it easy for a man to do his duty; and if an elector could not vote without incurring the loss of employment or of the habitation in which he dwelt, it was for the Legislature to see that this danger was removed from him. Nay, if such was the case formerly, it was much more the case now, for we had been adding immensely to the constituencies from those classes of our population who were most dependent. What benefit was conferred upon these electors by the extension of the franchise if they were not protected in its exercise? It was no advantage to men to be placed in a position where they had to choose between their interests and their opinions. Hon. Members doubtless had called before now at a shop and been told by the proprietor—" Well, I think you are a very good sort of gentleman and I should be very glad to vote for you, but my customers are all on the other side;" or -at a cottage where the occupant had said—" I think you made a very good speech at the Crown and Anchor the other day, and I should be glad to vote for you; but if I did I should have to walk out of the door by which you have just come in, and my wife would never forgive me if we were turned out of the house where all our children have been born." Candidates might, perhaps, wish that the electoral body had the spirit of martyrs, but they could not expect such spirit—and. the law which had to deal with men must deal with them as they were, and not as it might be desirable that they should be. He would not, however, be led into a speech on the Ballot on this occasion, because he thought the question before the House was not that of voting by Ballot, but that of instructing the Committee to consider the various modes of voting by Ballot. If the Committee adopted vote by Ballot it would naturally do this; if it did not, there wouldbeafairopportunity—no earlier one having been taken—fortheHouse to pass its own opinion on the general question. He therefore again ventured to advise his hon. Friend, since he did not propose a Resolution which would decide the Main Question, to leave the details of it to that body which would have, when it made, to justify its Report.

, having sat on every Committee which had been appointed to consider the Corrupt Practices Act, said, that to the best of his recollection no Instructions of any kind had been given to such Committee, and he did not see any reason why the Instruction now proposed should be given.

said, that he entered the House without any intention of speaking on the present debate, and should not have done so but for the attack made upon him by the noble Lord the Member for Tyrone (Lord Claud Hamilton). He could not in justice to himself and to the constituency which he still represented allow the noble Lord's observations to pass unnoticed. He felt certain the noble Lord could not have read the evidence given on the trial of the election petition against him, or the judgment of the learned Judge who had tried the case. Had he done so, he would not have made the remarks of which he rose to complain. So far as he (Mr. C. Weguelin) was personally concerned he wished to take all the blame that was justly due for any folly that he had committed; but those who knew him, and the position in which he was placed, were well aware that if he had sinned it had been more through ignorance than corrupt intention. As for the opinion of those who did not know him, or the circumstances in which he was placed, he confessed he was tolerably indifferent, but he did protest against a supposed criminal being tried twice over. He had always thought that when a man had been fairly tried the judgment of the court should be final; and, as that House had elected a tribunal for the trial of cases which it had before tried by its own Committees, he could not help thinking it was bad taste on the part of any Member of that House to call in question the judgment of that tribunal. He would only say that in spite of the large expenditure at Youghal—which no one deplored more than himself—after a trial of ten days, the Judge declared that not one single case of bribery had been, in the smallest degree, established. He was charged with personal bribery in seventeen cases, but they did not dare to ask him one question in regard to any of those charges, and the Judge declared that the witnesses by whose evidence the charges had been attempted to be substantiated had all grossly perjured themselves. The Judge said he had been asked to declare that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed in Youghal; but he declined to do so, and said it would be a gross injustice to the town if he did so. How, then, did it happen that a larger expenditure took place than had ever occurred in any constituency of the same size? Those who had read the evidence would see how the money went. It was not proper for him to say more about it. It was recorded in the evidence, and he believed the Judge was convinced that he sincerely and to the best of his ability during the whole course of the election—and it lasted four months—did all he could to stop it, and he could assure the House that he had no intention except to win his election fairly and honourably. Members were too prone to accept the garbled reports about his elec- tion which had appeared in the London Press. They seemed to have been made up from the speeches of the counsel for the petitioners, but every one of those allegations was disproved by the evidence. The hon. Member concluded by thanking the House for the indulgence with which they had listened to his explanation.

begged to assure the hon. Member for Youghal (Mr. C. Weguelin) that, when he came down to the House, he had not the slightest intention of alluding to him; but that the reference made to the Westminster election by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Hardcastle) induced him to place the case of Youghal in contrast with that of Westminster.

said, he earnestly hoped that, whether the Instruction proposed by the hon. Member (Mr. Leatham) were accepted or not, the inquiry by the Select Committee would be a most full and searching one, because his vote on the question of the Ballot would entirely depend upon their Report. He had voted against the Ballot, and his reasons for being unable hitherto to support it were not so much theoretical, but because he saw very great difficulties and dangers in the way of secret voting. In the first place, the very worst form of corruption—that of personation, because it was accompanied with perjury—was liable to be increased. If an election were carried under the present system by personation the wrong could be amended by means of a scrutiny, but with the Ballot that became more difficult. He could not at present understand how the evidence could be obtained that was to justify a scrutiny. Another objection was that the election might not depend upon the votes actually given. In America this result had occurred, and the manufacture of a new phrase, "ballot stuffing," seemed to denote a very common habit in that country. The hon. Member (Mr. Leatham) told them that the Ballot had passed the age of experiment, and had been adopted by the whole civilized world. But was independence always obtained by it? All over the Continent it appeared that when a Sovereign called a new Minister to his Councils, that Minister obtained a large and overwhelming majority at the elections. That, he thought, proved that the Ballot did not, as practised in those countries, secure the independence of the voter. With regard to America, it should be remembered that, in by far the greater part of the United States, secret voting was unknown. It had been adopted in Massachusetts after long discussion and much opposition, and the advocates of secret voting were permitted to draw up the Act. But a year afterwards it was discovered that there were things to be amended, and they had gone on amending the Act until it had become a large and bulky statute. At last, so complex and difficult were the necessary arrangements found to be, that though the Act was not abolished, a clause was added to enable any elector to vote either according to the complex and secret system or the open system of Ballot. From that day, as he was informed, not a vote was given by secret Ballot. They had been told that in Australia the difficulties and dangers to which he had alluded had been successfully met. He hoped it was so; but he should like to see a very careful inquiry before we should follow the example of Australia. We ought to remember that Australia was comparatively a new country, and it was just possible that the arts and sciences of electoral corruption had not been there so fully developed as they had been here; and, perhaps, neither the candidates were so rich, nor the voters so poor. If the Report of the Committee should prove, as he hoped it would, that the evils which he feared would be avoided, he should joyfully hail the result and accept the Ballot as the means of getting rid of the practices which now disgrace our elections.

said, the noble Lord the Member for Tyrone (Lord Claud Hamilton) had made a statement in which every one would concur, and that was, that if human nature should be very much changed for the better in this country, and we should get rid of all those inclinations which induced men to intimidate and corrupt, the Ballot would not be needed. The noble Lord had illustrated at considerable length the benefits to be derived from open voting, for he said that no mode for checking burglaries and crimes of that description had been found so effectual as to throw a flood of light on everything. But the misfortune was that in this case light was not thrown on the landed proprietor who coerced his tenantry, or the man of wealth who bribed his fellow-man, but on the victims. It was quite clear that the noble Lord had mistaken the scope and object of the Ballot, as well as its effects. The object of the Ballot was to screen the person who might be made the victim of intimidation or corruption; it was not in any way to protect the briber or the person who had recourse to intimidation. He would very briefly describe the manner in which the Ballot had been put in operation in Australia, and state from his own personal experience how effectually it had remedied the mischiefs of which, we complained at home. In the first place, it was evident that the show of hands was entirely inconsistent with the Ballot, which would at once do away with the necessity of the Bill proposed to be introduced by the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett), for there would be no hustings, and none of those expenses of which the hon. Gentleman sought to relieve the candidate. What was done in Australia was this. The candidates were prohibited from addressing the constituencies for forty-eight hours before the day of election. On that day the returning officer attended at the court house, and two citizens presented to him in writing the name of the candidate whom they wished to nominate and second. If the number of candidates was not greater than that of the vacant seats the matter was at an end, but if it was, a Ballot was had recourse to. The poll book of the district had been prepared several months before the day of election, and was kept in the custody of a Government officer. Another Government officer of high character was sworn to take charge of the Ballot box, and in addition scrutineeers were appointed by the different candidates. The business of the scrutineers was to examine the different voters, and they were selected because they knew the district well, so as to be a check on personation. As each voter came up he mentioned his name, and the scrutineers had an opportunity of seeing that he was the right man. Care was taken to have a sufficient number of polling places, and that made it all the easier to get scrutineers who knew the faces of the persons who came to record their votes. The penalties against per- sonation were very severe, and that together with the scrutineers prevented anything of the kind. The voter on coming to the poll received a card, on which was printed the names of the candidates, and he walked into a place like a sentry-box, and with a pencil scored out the names of those for whom he did not wish to vote. He then came came out and dropped the card into the Ballot box. When the Ballot box was opened the scrutineers overlooked the counting of the votes. Every step in the process was checked. He had himself been elected under this system, and as an elector had frequently used it in voting for members of both branches of the Legislature, and could certify that the system did not conduce to personation, nor had it been attended with the mischievous consequence which had been predicted concerning it. He would give a practical proof of what he advanced. The hon. Member who had introduced this subject (Mr. Leatham) quoted, from a work oil South Australia, a passage which referred to two elections which had occurred in the city of Adelaide. At the first election, which was carried on by open voting, a great deal of bribery and violence had been practised; at the second election, which was conducted by Ballot, no bribery or intimidation of any kind occurred. He was present on both occasions. On the first, he saw many broken windows and broken heads, men carried by on stretchers, and a great deal of drunkenness. He had it from the mouth of one of the candidates that his expenditure amounted to nearly £2,000. He himself was a candidate at the next election, which only cost him £200, and it was conducted in so quiet a way that a stranger passing through would probably never have observed that an election was going on. There was not the smallest disturbance, and the expenses were mainly incurred in the hire of committee-rooms to address the electors in. It was said that there was now no secret voting there; but it should be recollected that there were certain medicines which produced no effect whatever on a healthy body, but were very useful in expelling a disease when the system stood in need of medicine. Such was the effect of the Ballot. When applied to a community as corrupt as that of Australia had been from bribery, intimidation, drunkenness, and violence, it operated very effectually. But after a few years the very idea passed out of men's minds of trying to coerce their neighbours or bribing them. The thing was looked upon as utterly disgraceful, and then all might acknowledge how they intended to vote. The machinery of the Ballot was still availed of, though men at public meetings came forward and said they would vote for Mr. So-and-so. Let them contrast that system with the one which obtained in this country. The evidence placed on the table showed that extensive drunkenness and ruffianism prevailed at elections. In some places Right women out of every ten in the town were drunk on the polling day; in others, men were brought to the polling-booth in such a state of intoxication that they could not utter the name of the candidate they wished to vote for. Sometimes a voter declared that he would "vote for the brewer." In the course of his own canvass of the borough which he represented the gentleman who accompanied him on his rounds again and again told him that it was of no use calling at one voter's house because the man's wife was a bed-maker at a College, nor at the house of another voter, who was himself a cook at a College, for neither of them would dare to vote for him. He did not believe the superiors of those Colleges and ecclesiastical establishments would exercise the amount of coercion which people in the town believed they would exercise; but the dread of it prevailed among the electors. Many tradesmen had told him—" You may place my name on your reserve list, and if your return is in danger I will come up and vote for you; but I shall not vote unless you really require my vote, as I should injure my business in voting for you." Those men should be protected from such influences. Having himself voted repeatedly under the Ballot in Australia, and having also been elected there by it, he could state that, although not a perfect specific in all matters, it operated as a complete remedy for intimidation and undue influence, and it likewise put a check upon bribery. He did not; wish to over-state the case for the Ballot. Bribery might still occur where the electoral districts were very small, because a candidate might send down a very large sum of money to be distributed in a borough in the event of his being returned. But that was done at this mo- ment. To his own knowledge that practice prevailed in a small borough not far from where he lived in the country. The hon. Member for that borough had been in the habit, for years, of sending down to it a very large sum of money—he was informed £4,000—and then there was no contest; but if he did not send the £4,000 then there would be a contest. He did not regard the Ballot as a party measure, for although it might exempt certain voters in the country districts from the coercion and undue influence of their landlords, and thus diminish the power of the great territorial magnates, on the other hand, it would operate in a very salutary way in the boroughs. When they considered the organization of the trades unions, there was ground for serious alarm lest, under the influence of their different executives, who were absolutely despotic over those who joined those trades unions, the expression of individual opinion might not be entirely annihilated among the various trades of the country. The Ballot would protect them from that danger; and with such a shield the decrees sent forth by the executive of a trades union, ordering the members to vote in favour of particular candidates, would have no effect. When any candidate was proscribed by one of those bodies, the workmen, under the system of open voting, durst not vote for him, for if they did none of their fellow-workmen would enter into any employment with them, and they would thus lose the means of earning their bread.

said, he wished to contribute a few facts to that discussion without entering into any argument. He desired to place his own experience of the Ballot in opposition to what a noble Lord on the other side (Lord Claud Hamilton) had said of its operation under some mischance in some backwood State of America. He came to that House fresh from the ranks of the people, having taken a most active part in political measures during the last twenty years—and he believed there was no measure of so much political importance, and which would give so much satisfaction to the country as the Ballot. He had seen the Ballot in operation in America, and he had watched with the eye of a student of political economy the last contest but one in that country, when Abraham Lincoln was elected President for a second time. He went, accompanied by the British Consul and Mr. Cyrus Field, to fourteen different polling-booths during that contest and noted the whole conduct of the voting; and what was the result? Why, that in New York, which had been agitated to the greatest extent for the previous six months, on the day of election all was as quiet and orderly as could possibly be conceived. The people went to exercise their suffrages as if they were performing a great moral and religious duty. It was true the public-houses, the gin-vaults, and the beer-houses were closed—a regulation which we might well imitate; and it was also true that they were spared the riotous proceedings of the nomination day—another precedent which this country might advantageously follow. He denied that a person could bribe, control, or intimidate under the Ballot. He believed the mode of voting by Ballot in America was as near perfection as they could expect any human institution to be. The American voter's landlord might walk before him, and his employer behind him, without either of them being able to intimidate or coerce him. He could likewise, as the result of twenty years' experience in elections, confirm the opinion of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Leatham) that bribery, intimidation, or undue influence prevailed over two-thirds of the electors of every borough and county in this country, such practices not being confined to politicians on one side only, but being resorted to by the friends on both sides. It was a very difficult thing to convince employers that their workmen ought not to accept their advice in political matters. He had asked an employer why he would not favour the Ballot, and that employer could not understand why an employer of labour should not have more influence over those he employed than anyone else. That employer could not understand why his workmen should not believe that his intelligence was superior to their own, and accept his judgment on political questions in preference to their own. He (Mr. Chadwick) said to that employer—"I would venture to place the political intelligence and experience of any half-dozen of your foremen against your own," and he Mr. (Chadwick) dare say that in point of intelligence, experience, and knowledge of political economy they would be superior to that employer. A vote was in his opinion a right and not a trust; but, however that might be, it ought certainly to be given with perfect freedom. It was as unjust as impolitic, and as wrong, to interfere with the voter in the exercise of his vote as it was to tamper with a juryman in the box. There was no political question of half such importance as that of purifying the mode in which Members of Parliament were elected, and he hoped therefore that the hon. Member for Huddersfield would persevere with his Motion.

recommended the noble Lord the Member for Tyrone (Lord Claud Hamilton) to read at his leisure the speech which was delivered by the present First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Childers) on the 9th February, 1860, shortly after the right hon. Gentleman first obtained a seat in the House. The noble Lord did not advance a single argument against the Ballot, but contented himself with saying that it meant secresy, and that secresy meant deception. If the noble Lord looked at the report of the speech referred to, he would find that in Australia the adoption of the Ballot had not produced the evils he so much dreaded. He entered Parliament about seventeen years ago, with a determination to do all he could to make the House in reality what it was in name—the House of Commons. The Conservatives were then adverse to extending the suffrage, fearing that a disturbance of the settlement of 1832 would tend to Americanize our institutions. He found, too, that most of the Leaders on the Liberal side of the House, with the notable exceptions of the present Prime Minister and Earl Russell, were afraid to make any change in our electoral system. Lord Palmerston professed himself content with the settlement of 1832, although if the people had clamoured for an extension of the suffrage he would have acquiesced in it rather than resign Office. He did not, however, believe—when he was well off with things as they were—in building up a wall to run his head against, and was determined "neither to burn his bridges or destroy his boats." After Lord Palmerston's death, however, the Leaders on both sides of the House found it impossible to resist the demand for Reform, and for his own part, as far as the extension of the suffrage was concerned, he was very well satisfied with the change which had been effected. But every man upon the electoral register should have the power of voting as he liked, and should not be controlled or compelled to vote in a particular way by somebody else. They were told that a vote was a trust, and that the way in which it was used should be published to the world. But now that every householder had a vote that argument lost much of its force, because the trust, if it was one, could only be exercised for women, children, and lodgers. But if it were a trust, why could not the voter be trusted with it? Could he not use it better if allowed to vote as he thought right than he could by being compelled to vote as some one else thought right? An hon. Friend of his, who was a Member of that House and a large landowner, once said to him, "I have never any trouble about the votes of my tenants. When a farm is to let, my manager tells the applicants that it is the farm which gives the vote, and not the tenant; that he can put in any tenant he likes, and that there must be no misunderstanding whatever about the vote. Consequently I have no trouble with my tenants, who go to the poll like sheep." But that was altogether wrong in principle; if it were not, it would be better for the landlord to have all the votes of his estate in his own person and for the tenants to have none at all. He himself was a large manufacturer, but he had no desire whatever to have any influence over the votes of the people in his employ. He was in favour of the Ballot, because he believed that under that system we should have no more chance of personation or of bribery than existed at present, and we should get rid of intimidation and of the disgraceful turmoil and riot that too frequently occurred now at election times.

I can very well understand the object of my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Leatham) in making this Motion, and in raising the discussion which he has raised. There was undeniable truth and force in his objection that the appointment of the Committee, which, however, he did not in other respects criticize or condemn, has the effect, so far as public debate and public indications are concerned, of consigning the question of secret voting, in which he feels so deep an interest, to silence for a considerable length of time. I cannot wonder, therefore, nor can I make the slightest complaint that my hon. Friend should have thought fit to invite the attention of the House specifically to this subject, while I am bound to admit—in common, I think, with all who heard him—that he performed his task in a speech of remarkable ability. I do not know, from the desolate state of the Benches opposite, whether it be true that it is the business of an Opposition in this country to oppose the existing Government. If so, I do not think, in the present state of those Benches, that they are sufficiently performing that duty. With the exception of that specially independent portion of the House which sits below the Gangway, I might say that in this debate we have had the matter almost entirely to ourselves, and that we can discuss it as persons who are united for the most part in a common object—a common object as regards political purposes for which we are associated, and the subject of this discussion. There is not, I believe, a man sitting on this side of the House—and certainly I am not he—who will deny or question, for one moment, that it is our absolute duty, as has been so well said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer), to give every facility we can to the voter for the proper discharge of his duty, and to take out of his way, if it be in our power, all impediments which lie in the way of the attainment of that object, and to secure, on his behalf, the means by which he can exercise his right of suffrage with perfect freedom. It is in that spirit that I, for one, am disposed to look at this debate; and undoubtedly I think my hon. Friend has considerable reason to feel grateful to the more strenuous opponents of secret voting, most of whom are to be found on the other side of the House, for the manner in which—with little more than one single exception—they have left him this evening in the possession of the field. Having said this much, and having fully recognized the legitimacy of this discussion, I can well account for the earlier part of the Motion of my hon. Friend. With respect to the latter part of that Motion—namely, the Instruction which he proposes should be given to the Select Committee the House is about to appoint almost immediately—I hope he will permit me respectfully to make a few representations. He proposed the Committee should take into consideration the various methods of taking votes by Ballot, which are at present in use in various portions of the British Empire and in foreign countries, together with any modifications thereof, which may be suggested, and report on the most efficient and convenient system of balloting. As I have said, I look upon this debate—with which my hon. Friend has no reason to be dissatisfied—as the main object which he has in view; and therefore I feel the less difficulty in urging upon him, or, at least, in laying before him some considerations which appear to me to show that his Motion should not be pressed. I am sure my hon. Friend will feel that this is a Committee which has some peculiar claims on our consideration. It is a Committee which will be formed of Gentlemen of great weight and ability, who have been carefully selected, and who possess every qualification necessary to enable them rightly and fully to discharge their duties; and it is a Committee which derives its title from a paragraph in the Speech from the Throne. In that Speech it was recommended to Parliament that an inquiry should be instituted "into the present modes of conducting Parliamentary and Municipal Elections," and that we should consider "whether it may be possible to provide any further guarantees for their tranquility, purity, and freedom." The terms in which the Committee has been appointed follow precisely the language of the Speech from the Throne, and require the Committee to conduct their examination with the view of promoting, if necessary, further guarantees for tranquillity, purity, and freedom of election. I understand my hon. Friend, however, in this Instruction, to have before him an object which I conceive to be perfectly legitimate, that is to say, to make sure in the face of the House and of the country that the subject-matter which he covers by his Instruction will unquestionably form a part, and a very important part, of the investigation of that Committee. I think I may venture to assume that if my hon. Friend feels satisfied in that essential point he will not desire to lead the House somewhat out of its usual and more convenient path, as was well observed by my right ton. Friend the Member for Tamworth, in instructing the Committee with regard to what, if I may use the phrase, it is already of itself instructed. The Committee is to examine into the necessity or possibility of further guarantees for tranquillity, purity, and freedom of election. Is it possible to adopt words comprehensive in their character and not therefore narrowly or exclusively directed to secret voting, but which must, by a moral compulsion, if that should be necessary, lead the Committee to inquire into everything connected with the subject of voting? What are your great objects in regard to secret voting? They are these—first, to provide better guarantees against bribery; and therefore the Committee has to inquire whether it may not be possible to provide better guarantees for purity of election. Your other great object is to provide guarantees against intimidation; and therefore the Committee has to inquire into the means by which the freedom of election can be better secured. There cannot, I think, be the smallest doubt that this is the obvious duty of the Committee, and I would point out to the House that it is clearly right we should presume that duty will be performed. I do not by any means question the propriety of the rule which allows a Member to move an Instruction to a Select Committee, because it may often happen that when a Select Committee is appointed the precise province within which it is to act may not at the moment be distinctly understood, and it may be extremely desirable to remove all doubt upon that point. But I think that is not the case in the present instance. If I refer also to the speech in which my right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. Bruce) moved for the appointment of the Committee, I think that had there been a lingering doubt upon this point that speech must have effectually removed it. My hon. Friend, therefore, has the fullest assurance that the very thing which he desires to do will be unquestionably done, but subject to this condition, that if we are to suppose that Committee to be free we must suppose it capable of forming an opinion on the other side; and if it were to form a judgment adverse to secret voting, I do not suppose that my hon. Friend would be very anxious that the same tribunal should investigate the matter with a view of discovering the best mode by which secret voting could be carried out. On the other hand should the Committee find—and I have no doubt my hon. Friend is sanguine upon that point—that secret voting is desirable, there cannot be a doubt that the very words "providing further guarantees" direct them not to a mere abstract discussion of what system may be the best on the whole, but to a careful consideration of the practical means whereby that system shall be carried into effect. I would venture to add one more consideration which appears to me to be of no inconsiderable weight. In the former evening, when this Committee was proposed, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy) expressed a hope that the Committee would enter into a real and impartial inquiry, and was not merely to be a cover for a foregone conclusion. That is, I fear, a reproach to which this Committee may in the end be subject. The time may come—and especially if the Committee gives the engagement which my hon. Friend desires and anticipates—when we may be open, unjustly but possibly, to the suspicion or imputation that this Committee was a Committee of intrigue—that it was devised for the purpose of covering and hiding the accomplishment of an object which we did not like openly and manfully to avow. I only mention that because I think it is a reason for our abstaining from a proceeding which might appear to give colour to such an imputation. My hon. Friend. I think, may be satisfied with the fair meaning of the reference to the Committee, together with the construction which the Government, as the Advisers of the Royal Speech, and as the Movers of the Committee, have put upon it. I do not, for a moment, question the wisdom of the course which has been taken by my hon. Friend in raising the discussion this evening with the view of bringing this great and important question under the notice of the public. But I am convinced that he will, if I may use the expression, exercise a wise discretion if he will take the advice he received in the course of the debate, not only from a friend, but from a veteran friend of secret voting—my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer)—and if he will not ask the House to en- large the Committee by specific instructions, but will leave it to exercise its freedom in full confidence that that freedom will be rightly used.

said, that after the full and satisfactory explanation given by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government he felt that he should best consult the convenience of the House by withdrawing his Motion.

rose to move in Committee of the Whole House—

"That the Taxes on Locomotion should be revised, reduced, and equalized, and that the Mileage Duty and Licences on Stage Carriages and Omnibuses, Viz., one farthing per mile and £3 3s. annual Licence Duty to carry more than eight persons, and ten shillings annual Licence Duty to carry not more than eight persons, should be repealed: and that the Post Horses and Carriage Licences Duties be repealed, viz.:—Keeping 1 Horse or Carriage, £5 per annum; not exceeding 3 Horse3 or 2 Carriages, £10 per annum; not exceeding 4 Horses or 3 Carriages, £15 per annum; not exceeding 5 Horses or 4 Carriages, £20 per annum; not exceeding 6 Horses or 5 Carriages, £25 per annum; not exceeding 8 Horses or 6 Carriages, £30 per annum; not exceeding 12 Horses or 9 Carriages, £40 per annum; not exceeding 16 Horses or 12 Carriages, £50 per annum; not exceeding 20 Horses or 15 Carriages, £60 per annum; exceeding 15 Carriages, £70 per annum; exceeding 20 Horses, then for every additional number of 10 Horses, and for every additional number less than 10 over and above 20 or any other multiple of 10 Horses, the further additional Duty of £10 per annum. And that the Metropolitan Hackney Carriage Duty and Licences be repealed, viz.:—7 shillings per week, or 6 shillings per week if not used on Sunday: and a Licence Duty of £1 per annum on each Hackney Carriage: And that there should be substituted in lieu thereof the following annual Licence Duties under the Excise levied in the same manner as the present Licence Duties on Dogs, viz.:—Every person letting Horses or Carriages for hire, and every proprietor of any Stage Coach, Omnibus, or other Public Conveyance, and of every Hackney Carriage or other Vehicle plying for hire in the public streets or roads, the following Duties:—Upon every Horse, £1 per annum; upon every Vehicle drawn by one or more Horses, £1 per annum, unless such Horses or Vehicles are used wholly and solely for the purposes of trade or agriculture."

The hon. Gentleman said, he was aware of the difficulty which a private Member must have in proposing a remission of taxation, for if he did so before the Financial Statement was made he was told that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not yet know with certainty what taxes could be remitted; and if he did so afterwards he was told that the financial arrangements for the year could not be varied. In the one case he was too soon, in the other case too late, and it was difficult to hit the exact time for making such a proposal. The right hon. Gentleman was the fourth Chancellor of the Exchequer to whom he should have appealed for the remission of these taxes—a result which would be not only for the interests of the trade, but for the advantage of the public generally. In 1866 the First Lord of the Treasury stated that the whole subject of taxes on locomotion required to be reviewed, and the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) in 1867, and the right hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt) in 1868, without denying that the question deserved the attention of Government, merely pleaded their inability to take the matter in hand, as the revenue was declining and the expenditure increasing. With regard to the stage coach duty and the duty on cabs and omnibuses, it might seem, at first sight, that they applied simply to the metropolis, but the fact was that every place throughout the country was affected by them. In 1844 Parliament compelled the railway companies to carry third-class passengers at 1d. a mile, but Parliament never provided the means for those third-class passengers to be carried to and from the railway stations, and the duties on stage coaches and flys remaining unaltered, the conveyance of the poorer classes from the railway stations to their towns and villages often cost as much as the fare for a long distance by the third class in a railway train. In 1864, before the reduction of the duty on stage carriages, the amount of mileage traversed by them increased by only 20,000 miles over that of the preceding year; but in 1865, after the duty had been reduced from 1d. to ½d. a mile, the mileage increased by 690,000 miles over the preceding year; in 1866, by 600,000 miles more; and in 1867, when the duty was further reduced to ¼d. per mile, there was the immense increase of 1,179,000 miles, in addition to all the preceding. It appeared that after the reduction of the mileage duty to ¼d., the sum paid for licences and mileage duty was still twice as great in proportion to profits as the amount of duty paid by railways. The London General Omnibus Company in 1864 paid £53,300, or 8¾ per cent on their earnings; while the railway companies paid £430,000, or 1 3–10ths on their earnings. The next duty to which he would refer was the post horse duty. All cabs and vehicles throughout Great Britain, excepting London, were charged to that duty. In London there was a graduated scale of duty, the effect of which was that the smaller the trade the greater amount of duty was paid proportionally, because the duty diminished in proportion to the extent the trade and the number of vehicles kept. The hackney carriage duty was confined to the metropolis, and was the most oppressive of the duties levied on locomotion. The House would scarcely credit him when he stated that, while the amount of duty paid by the proprietor of fifty horses and. carriages in Birmingham or any other country town was something like £170, in London it was £962 10s. If a small trader should set up a four-wheeled waggonette and drive it twice a week to a market town, or take four or six passengers to a railway station, he would have to take out a stage carriage licence and pay the mileage and post horse duties, and if he wanted to drive his wife and family a little way into the country he would have to pay on that one-horse carriage not less than £10 18s. He had received numerous letters from various parts of the country where persons keeping a one-horse conveyance for family use and letting it to a neighbouring tradesman had been surcharged and compelled to pay the assessed taxes and also the expenses of the appeal; and the Treasury, when applied to, answered that when the carriage was let out the customer paid the duty, and when it was used to drive the owner's family it was necessary that he should pay it. These taxes must fall most heavily on those who had only one or two carriages, and tended to prevent that locomotion throughout the country; which was essential to the general comfort, health, and happiness of the people. They were not only oppressive in some districts, but perfectly prohibitory in others. He should suggest that there should be an uniform excise duty of 20s.; on each horse, and of 20s. on each car- riage, and that both the horse and the vehicle might be used in any way the proprietor thought proper. That would be a boon to the whole community. He had entered upon the question how these taxes were levied and collected. They formed five or six items of the account in the public revenue. He proposed to reduce, not only the expense of management, but the collection of these taxes. In 1866 the amount of taxes on these descriptions of vehicles amounted to £427,000; but after they had been reduced, in 1868, the amount was £200,000; and in 1869 it was £276,000; so that these taxes were in a very different position from that in which they stood formerly, and he objected that the system of collection and assessment should remain the same. The hackney carriage trade in London was the only one in which the charges of those engaged in it were fixed by law, and in which there was no competition. They were told on high authority, that if they had open competition dirty and ricketty cabs would soon vanish from our street. That was the testimony of the Commissioners. In 1866 there were 7,160 cabs, but the number was now reduced to 5,300. Persons interested in this business had been crushed by the oppressive tax, and had not been able to turn their attention successfully to any other trade. When the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. G. Hardy) had published regulations, the fulfillment of which involved some little expenditure, which the proprietors of these cabs could not afford, they compelled him to withdraw the obnoxious provision because they could not afford the extra expenditure. He appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say whether it was creditable to the metropolis that the public carriages should be in the state in which they were at present? It must be admitted that the metropolis ought to be supplied with better public vehicles than it had at present, and the first thing to be done to secure this object should be to have this enormous charge of £19 5s. per annum for each vehicle reduced, while at the same time the charge was only 6]d. per mile. Why should not London have conveyances equal to those possessed by Paris or Geneva? If they took one of the largest provincial towns, it would be found that in Birmingham a cab paid only £5 per annum to the public re- venue. He trusted the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and plead for postponement until a more convenient season. No season was as convenient as the present. The eleventh Report of the Inland Revenue Commissioners, that for 1867, stated with reference to this matter—

"We can scarcely add anything to our statement in the tenth Report on the taxes on locomotion, except that we are disposed to doubt the expediency of any further alteration in the stage carriage and post horse duties short of such a measure as would allow to every man the free use of his horses and carriages unfettered by fiscal regulations."

This described the object of his Motion; he wished the owners of horses and carriages to be allowed to use them or let them on hire without being subject to any fiscal regulation whatever. He accordingly moved that the House resolve itself into a Committee to take into consideration the taxes on locomotion.

seconded the Motion.

urged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to equalize the rates if he could not reduce them. Simple justice required this, because at present the owners of a few horses and carriages were taxed more heavily than their wealthier competitors. He thought the scale proposed—namely, £1 for each horse, and £1 for each carriage—was a fair one. The owner of a single carriage paid £5, but the owner of nine paid £40; a still larger proprietor of twelve carriages paid the reduced tax of £50, and the owner of fifteen paid only £60, instead of £75, which would be payable at the rate of £5 each. The result was that the proprietor of thirty-five carriages paid only £2 each, and the proprietor of seventy paid but £1. The law, therefore, gave the larger trader an advantage over the small. The rule as regards horses was most extraordinary. Six horses could be kept at £3, and every horse above twenty could be kept for a duty of £1 a head. What would be thought of a law which relieved the owner of twenty ships from paying full dues for lights and docks while the poor shipowners paid full dues for their one or two ships? He had a constituent who had about 500 horses, and he only paid at the rate of £1 a head for all exceeding twenty, but his poorer neighbours, who had fewer than twenty, paid £3 15s., £4, £4 3s. 4d., for each horse, and so on—for the scale was a sort of a jump one. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, no doubt, might say he wanted £250,000 from those duties; but then let him lay it on honestly. Let there be an equality between the rich and poor. The present scale of duties enabled large proprietors to ruin small ones and obtain a monopoly. He called upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whatever might be the state of the finances, to do justice by equalizing the rates.

took exception to the worthy Alderman's proposal to abolish the existing distinction between six-day and seven-day cabs, urging that the six-day cab movement had been most beneficial to cabmen, and had raised their social, moral, and intellectual condition, and that it had received an impulse from the difference of duty in favour of the six-day cab. It was only fair that the difference should be allowed, and he trusted the Chancellor of the Exchequer would continue it in any changes he might propose.

, as representing an important Irish constituency, called attention to the fact that in Cork the tax charged on each vehicle was £2 4s. 1d., but a man could keep thirty or forty vehicles for this one payment. What the car-proprietors in Cork had petitioned for was that each vehicle should be taxed, so that the same amount as now might, in the aggregate, be produced for the Exchequer.

said, several of his constituents had requested him to support this Motion. They felt that the law dealt hardly with them in imposing an amount of duty on cabs from which carriages were exempt. The Chancellor of the Exchequer might say he needed the money the present duties produced, but necessity was the tyrant's plea; and why should we punish a useful class so much when the money might be saved in many ways?

I think the worthy Alderman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Alderman W. Lawrence) has well discharged his duty to his constituents by making himself so thoroughly master of the question, and bringing it before us in so tangible and clear a form. He must have taken great pains with the subject, for he seems to have made himself completely master of it. The hon. Member has been fortunate in his campaign in this matter; for although he has attacked three Chancellors of the Exchequer—he has vanquished them all. He may well exclaim with the poet—

"Thus far with victory my arms are crowned; For tho' I have not fought, yet have I found No foes to fight withal."

He has only appeared in character, and every one of them, has been prostrate before his lance. I am not an exception to the rule. I have not a word to say against his arguments, and therefore he may have me as a fourth captive to his bow and spear. Nor will I do as the worthy Alderman (Mr. Alderman Lusk) fancifully anticipates—trouble the House with any pleas about my miseries and necessities; these will come soon enough when I open my Budget. I frankly admit that these taxes press very heavily, and that they are relics of other times and other manners. The post horse duty seems to have outlived the post horse itself; and there is no doubt, whenever the time shall arrive when the Chancellor of the Exchequer shall again address himself to the delightful task of alleviating the burdens of taxation, no subject can be mentioned that will be better worthy his attention than this. I hope the worthy Alderman the Member for the City of London, and other Gentlemen who have addressed the House, will be satisfied with this general declaration. The subject shall have my most serious attention whenever that attention can be profitably and practically applied to it. I will say one word in reference to what was said by the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Murphy); and I am much obliged to him for having mentioned Ireland, for it is a peculiarity of that country that it is exempted from assessed taxes, and amongst others from the tax on carriages; and no doubt when we come to consider the subject—listening to the exhortations of the hon. Members for Edinburgh and Finsbury (Mr. M'Laren and Mr. Lusk) to "Be just and fear not" in this matter—we may take into consideration the pro- priety of equalizing these taxes in the two parts of the United Kingdom. I hope the worthy Alderman will not persevere with his Motion, which can answer no good purpose; but that he will be satisfied with having thrown a great deal of light on this question, and with having made suggestions as to the way of dealing with it which I do not doubt will be useful to any Chancellor of the Exchequer who may be fortunate enough to constitute himself a pupil of the hon. Member.

said, he readily accepted the very frank and candid statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as an earnest that the right hon. Gentleman might at some future period relieve the public from this taxation. The right hon. Gentleman had felt himself unable to meet the arguments in this case; and it was to be hoped that it might be reserved to him to carry out his views upon the subject in the most satisfactory manner.

said, he rose to move the Resolution, of which he had given notice. He urged upon the House that the adoption of this Motion would not depend upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer having a surplus to deal with. This was really a serious question, and he trusted that he would have the serious attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was a subject which had entered into the hearts of the people as one involving a grievance of great magnitude. He had that day presented fifty Petitions, signed by between 20,000 and 30,000 members of the trading classes and others, complaining of the way in which trades were assessed to the income tax. Amongst the petitioners were about 200 county magistrates, and it was reasonable to assume that in their view it was to the interest of the land—the successful cultivation of which mainly depended on the prosperity of the trading classes—that the trading and professional classes should be relieved from the intolerable burthen of the income tax. It was only fair to say that a very large proportion of the traders who had signed these Petitions did not concur in the view he took on this subject. They said it was reasonable that they should pay a special tax as long as the income tax was imposed on land and fixed property. They were willing to pay for licenses for carrying on trade, or any other tax which it was not difficult to devise, but all of them said they would no longer submit to the unjust, inquisitorial, and most injurious system of assessing and levying the income tax. He hoped the House would recognize that sentiment by at once unconditionally repealing the income tax. The Government said to a tradesman—Fix your own value on your trade. He generally gave the benefit of a doubt to himself by putting the amount of his income at a very low figure. In nine cases out of ten it was not possible for a trader to state the amount of his profit for the next year, or for the next three years, with such accuracy that it would not be open to dispute. Well, he sent in his return to the Commissioners, who generally surcharged him upon that. Such had been the anomalies of the system, and such irritation and sense of indignity and insult had been produced by it, that to his own knowledge many most respectable persons had been driven out of trade; and the general demoralization of trade was not very indirectly to be traced to the wholesale demoralization which the Government spread broadcast throughout the country, when they called upon traders to sit in judgment upon their own case, and subjected them afterwards to the ordeal of the Commissioners, who sat in judgment upon their own surcharge. The only objection to the Chancellor of the Exchequer at once acceding to the Motion was that it would be hard upon the landed property of the country that they should have to bear an addition to the present income tax sufficient to make up the deficiency arising from the repeal of the income tax under Schedule D; but he suggested that if the Resolution were carried the hon. Member (Sir Massey Lopes) would be in even in a better position than he was now for transferring a portion of the local burdens upon land to Imperial taxation, to which the trader would contribute through the indirect taxes.

seconded the Motion.

I agree with the hon. Member for Peterborough in two things. First, I agree with him when he says this is a serious subject. Secondly, I agree with him that the question whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a surplus or a deficiency cannot in respect of this subject make the slightest difference in the world. On these two points I agree with him; but I have listened to the rest of his speech without being able to agree with him in anything whatever. The hon. Gentleman is certainly very fortunate in having created so high an opinion of his merits in the breasts of the 200 magistrates and others who have intrusted him with this message to the House of Commons, and who, although they do not agree with him, have selected him to plead their cause. I do not agree with him, and certainly I should not have selected him to plead my cause. But the question is very easily stated; it is this—that trade and commerce, in the opinion of the hon. Gentleman, ought to be encouraged by having the burdens imposed on their profits taken off and imposed on land—on realized property generally. I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman, if he wishes to encourage trade and commerce, whether the way to do that is to hold out to persons successful in these pursuits that when they have made a fortune that fortune shall be taxed, in order to lighten the burdens on all the rest of the community? He tells us that the object he has in view is to relieve those persons of intolerable burdens and mischief; and in the same breath he tells us they do not really pay this tax, but that it falls on the consumer. He tells us the great misery they suffer is that they have to assess themselves and be judges in their own case. I can quite understand the Chancellor of the Exchequer and those who represent the Government objecting that persons on whom the tax is imposed are from the necessity of the circumstances judges in their own case—and no doubt that is the great defect in this Schedule, and affords an argument against it; but why persons who are the judges in their own case, and who, the hon. Gentleman says, invariably give themselves the benefit of the doubt, should object to that favour- able position I cannot tell. When the hon. Gentleman talks about grievance and oppression, and tells us in the same breath that enormous frauds are committed, and that a great deal is not paid 'which ought to be paid, does he not show us that the grievance and oppression carry with them their own alleviation? I really wish to be serious. I do not want to offend the hon. Gentleman, but really it is difficult to be serious when such propositions are brought before the House; and yet, at the same time, I know that, when approaching this subject, we tread on delicate ground, for there are a great many people who do feel, and have been induced to feel by a long series of agitations, that there is great injustice in this tax. That is not my opinion. I believe, with Adam Smith, that every man should be taxed according to his ability. His ability, as Smith goes on to say, is the revenue which he derives under the protection of the State. I believe that to be sound ground. At any rate, if it is not so, we must not think we can amend the income tax, but we must give it up altogether. The notion of income is one very difficult to seize. It is like "now." In a moment it flies from you while you stop. It is the notion of a man's annual revenue abstracted altogether from the idea of the sources whence it comes and the purposes for which it goes. That is the idea of an income; and the moment you begin to say you ought to pay more on this Schedule and less on that, or abolish, as the hon. Gentleman says, a Schedule altogether, you are not amending the income tax, but destroying it, and making, instead of it, an unfair and bungling property tax. Unless you look at income without reference to the sources whence it comes or whither it goes, it is impossible to maintain an income-tax by any argument. You cannot make any difference by looking at the destination of income; and whencesoever it comes, if it is raised under the protection of the Government, it ought to contribute to the Government. The real evil of the income tax, in my judgment, is not that it is levied in a partial manner on land, or realized property, or profits of trade, but that, from the necessity of the case, persons having such income as that included in Schedule D are judges in their own cause, and that this in many instances holds out a temptation to those persons to give too favourable an interpretation of the amount of their liability. But to say that there is an objection to income tax is only to say that this tax is a tax; for the ingenuity of the human mind never did and never will devise a tax to which there are not objections more than plausible, and which would be absolutely convincing and irresistible if taxation were not a necessity. I am quite sure it is not necessary for me to take up more of the time of the House in resisting the proposition of the hon. Gentleman.

said, he fully admitted that he had not done justice to the cause that had been committed to him, and that he was an unskillful advocate; but he considered that the right hon. Gentleman was discourteous in his criticism of the gentlemen who had committed the question to him. The right hon. Gentleman had no business to be discourteous. He was young in his place. The right hon. Gentleman had exceeded all ordinary license. ["Oh, oh!"] He had not only been discourteous, but impertinent—["Order"]—in the observations he had made. He assured the House he was labouring under a very severe cold. It was very little importance to him what opinion the right hon. Gentleman might hold of Mm; but it was unfair of him to have spoken as he did of those gentlemen who had signed the Petition. Of this the right hon. Gentleman might rest assured that the matter would not rest where it was. The House must excuse him if he put them to the trouble of dividing. ["Withdraw."] His right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, he observed, wished him to withdraw his Motion. Well, at the request of his right hon. Friend he would withdraw it.

, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Metropolitan Poor Act (1867), said, he had hoped to be able that evening to make a statement explaining the results of the Metropolitan Poor Law Act of 1867, but as such a statement would entail the necessity of laying a number of statistics before the House, he should scarcely be justified in entering upon the subject at that hour. He would therefore merely state that the object of the Bill was to amend and not to repeal any part of the Act of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gathorne Hardy). With the permission of the House, he should wish to be allowed to reserve a full statement of the details of the Bill until the second reading, which he hoped to be able to fix for the first Thursday after the Recess.

trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would give him notice if he intended to make any observation on what he had said or done with regard to the subject.

promised to comply with the right hon. Gentleman's request.

trusted that, as a new Member, and as the representative of the working man, he should not ask the indulgence of the House in vain while he drew attention to the subject of the employment of women and children in print works. Under the existing law male children above the age of eight years and under the age of thirteen, and girls above the age of thirteen and under the age of sixteen, and women above the age of sixteen, might be employed for sixteen hours in one day in print works. This arose from the peculiar definition given to the words "day" and "night" in the 8 & 9 Viet. c. 29, whereby the word "day" was defined as being from six in the morning until ten at night, and the word "night" as being from ten at night until six in the morning. Boys above the age of thirteen could be employed from day to day continuously, without any interval being allowed for either meals or sleep. The educational clauses of the Print Work Acts were very defective—so much so that he understood that the inspectors had given up the attempt to work them in despair. Under those clauses a child was only required to attend school for thirty days in the half-year, and those days were to be continuous, so that a child might be at work for five months in the half-year and only one month at school. Of course, such a system of education was practically useless. The working men proposed to assimilate the Print Works Act to the Factory Act, under which young persons, women and children, could only be employed from six in the morning until six at night in factories; and under the educational clause a child must be instructed for three hours every day in the year except Saturday, and if the child was employed for ten hours in any one day it was to attend school for five hours during the following day. Nothing could be more easy than to apply the principle of the Factory Acts to the print works. It was almost superfluous for him to endeavour to point out the evils arising from the present system adopted in print works. Attention had been drawn to them in 1855, in a Report signed by four factory inspectors. In that Report these inspectors said that the school attendance under the Print Works Act was only a farce and a mischievous delusion, and that there was nothing peculiar in the labour in print works that would prevent the provisions of the Factory Acts being applied to those establishments. That Report was presented to both Houses of Parliament fourteen years ago, but no action whatever had been taken upon it. In 1867 a joint Report was presented by two factory inspectors—Messrs. Redgrave and Baker—which contained a similar suggestion, and stated that the Print Works Act had caused great dissatisfaction in many localities. From the hours she was at work it was impossible for a woman, employed in the print works, to attend to her household duties, and she was obliged to get up at two or three in the morning in order to do her washing and mending; to look after her children was, of course, an impossibility. The consequence was that the children were brought up without education, and were put out to nurse—a practice which led to great infant mortality. Of course, the young men engaged in these works did not go to any mechanics' institution, because they would not pay their money in advance when they were subject to be called upon to work continuously night and day. Under these circumstances it was not surprising that they could neither spell nor do a small sum in arithmetic. There were, however, two honourable exceptions to this system in establishments where the provisions of the Factory Acts were adopted with the most satisfactory result. When the attention of the Select Committee, which was appointed in 1867, was drawn to these facts they suggested that a Royal Commission should be appointed to inquire into the question. A Royal Commission, however, was not appointed, but a gentleman named "Wright was sent down two years ago to inquire into the matter, but he had not yet made his Report. This was not a party question. Some years ago no doubt it would have been. Many gentlemen then in the House, of advanced Liberal views, were opposed to factory legislation, on the ground that it violated the principles of political economy. Factory legislation was denounced by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, with all that eloquent vehemence of which he was so great a master. But the right hon. Gentleman had recently acknowledged that he then made a mistake, and that on that subject, at least, he was radically wrong. He was not aware that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had ever lifted up his voice against factory legislation, though the first vote he gave was a silent vote against it. Recently, however, he too, had changed his opinions, and a letter, written by the direction of the right hon. Gentleman, and bearing the date of the 25th of February, 1867, expressed his disposition to take a favourable view of the operation of the Factory Acts. No doubt it would involve a violation of the principles of political economy if the House were to interfere in contracts between man and man. Here, however, the case was different; the interference of legislation was sought on behalf of women and children, who, unlike men, were unable to protect themselves, Women and children, it must be remembered, were exposed, not merely to the cupidity of employers, but to the cupidity of those who ought to be their protectors—their fathers, brothers, and husbands—who frequently sought to live in dissipation upon the earnings of those whom they ought to shelter. He knew that this question was a large one, and that it extended not merely to print works but to the case of workshops and bleach works as well. His Motion, however, was confined at present to print works merely. He knew that the Secretary of State for the Home Department was anxious to do what he could in the matter, and he therefore asked him to give an assurance, if possible, that a measure for assimilating print works to factories would be introduced in the present Session. If the right hon. Gentleman were unable to give such an assurance, he would himself,—though but a new Member and occupying a very humble position—be happy to introduce a Bill, upon the understanding that every reasonable facility for its progress would be afforded. He hoped he should not be met with the objection that the Irish Church would engross the whole of the attention of Parliament this Session. The Reform Bill in 1867 and the Irish Church in 1868 prevented legislation in those years, but he hoped legislation in reference to the present works would not be further delayed. The Irish Church question admittedly was but a sentimental grievance, while the grievances he had mentioned affecting English women and children were a practical and most serious wrong.

seconded the Motion, and on the part of the constituency which he represented, forming one of the largest hives of industry in the country, endorsed the statements made by the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Charley). His only question was whether the same measure might not only include print works, &c. in large towns, but dye and other works.

said, he thought the House was discussing the question rather prematurely, and he expressed an opinion that it would be better to wait until they had received the Report of the gentlemen appointed some time since to inquire into and report upon the subject. For several years he had been in constant communication with the working classes of the northern division of Cheshire, and he could testify that their feeling was entirely in favour of the operation of the Factory Act. He was informed that—under a pressure of business—the women and children in print works were worked sixteen hours a day. Now, that was a state of things which everyone would wish to see altered. The Factory Acts were found to work admirably, and the working men, who never before sent their children to school, expressed themselves satisfied with the compulsory attendance of their children at school. He thought it would be better to wait for the Report, and he hoped that when it was presented the House would be in a position to legislate this Session upon the question of long hours and education.

said, it was very natural that the hon. Member for Sal-ford (Mr. Charley), should bring forward a question in which his constituents was largely interested. At the same time it would be only prudent to wait for the Report of the Commission. "Whether circumstances had changed since then he could not say, but the reason given at the time why print works were not placed on the same footing as ordinary cotton factories was that, owing to the nature of the business in them, there was at times immense pressure to fulfil foreign orders, requiring almost continuous work for several days together. It was then found that a Bill resembling the Factory Acts would cause such an interference with the ordinary course of the print works as to be intolerable. Whether the course of the trade had since been altered he could not undertake to say, but the matter was one of importance, and the hon. Member for Salford would do well to wait for the Report of the Commissioners. He did not see that the hon. Member would gain any advantage by the Resolution, because his proper course, if he thought the matter ripe for legislation, would be to bring in a Bill. It was, however, illogical and inconsistent to say, as he did by this Resolution, that an Act ought to be passed, and at the same time not to bring in a Bill. If the hon. Member induced the House to pass his Resolution he would be no nearer than before. The remedy was an Act of Parliament, if it could be passed without damage to the trade concerned, and he hoped that when the Report of the Com- missioners was laid before Parliament it would appear that the change was both advisable and practicable.

said, the question was before a Committee two years ago, when there was a disposition to go into the whole matter, but it was found that legislation at that time would be practically useless. In 1845 the first Print Works Act was passed, and the fact that fifteen years elapsed up to 1860 before legislation was again attempted, showed the difficulty of dealing with, the question. He fully admitted that the existing law required amendment; but, as a magistrate, he had never met with a case of infringement in his own district. He believed that masters would be very glad if the Government would take up the question, all they wanted being a fair workable Act. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Charley) seemed to have no idea of the difficulty of legislating, but the fact was that every trade and every branch of it required to be treated by itself. The earnings of the persons engaged in print works were much larger than those of any other class of persons engaged in manufactures. It was a healthy occupation, and the average age was better than that of any other class of manufactures. While the earnings of the workpeople were very large it was gratifying to be able to state that they were not spent in dissipation, and there was no better or more respectable class of workmen. The Report of the Commissioners would require careful examination; but from what he knew of the gentlemen engaged in the inquiry, he did not think there would be any great difficulty in legislating satisfactorily on this subject.

said, that the subject, so ably brought before the House by the hon. Member (Mr. Charley), was of great importance, and excited great interest in the manufacturing districts. The hon. Member for Salford must have derived great satisfaction and encouragement from the remarks of the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Potter), which he hailed as a harbinger of the satisfactory settlement of the question, which had long agitated the minds of numbers. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bouverie) said that the nature of the print trade was such that the provisions of the Factory Acts could not be applied to it. He could not forget, how- ever, that a similar argument had been used year after year when it was proposed to apply the Factory Acts to bleaching, dyeing, and analogous works. It used to be said that it would be impossible in that case to carry out the orders of foreign houses; but at last that superstition was discarded, and now the Act was applied both to bleaching and dyeing works, and it was found that there was no real objection to the application of the principle and many of the details of the Factory Acts to these excepted works. Having been Chairman of the Committee to which reference had been made, he could confirm the statement that there was no reluctance on their part to go on with the inquiry, but in their opinion the reference from the House precluded them from going into that subject. They, however, accepted the proposition of an hon. Member to recommend the appointment of a Commission. He regretted that the Report of the Commissioner had not been laid upon the table; but he hoped to hear that a Bill would be before long, upon his Report, brought forward by the Government, and that the principle of the Factory Acts would be adopted and further carried out in these trades, with due provision for the special circumstance of the case.

said, that the workpeople employed in print works took a deep interest in the subject. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bouverie) had truly stated that one difficulty in legislating on' this subject arose from the peculiar state of the markets, which might render it necessary for these print works suddenly to turn out an increased quantity of work. The hon. Member for Carlisle had also correctly stated that the occupation was much healthier than that of persons engaged in other manufactures. Still, the House would see at once that the question was whether it was right that young children under fifteen and women should be allowed to work for a period so long as sixteen hours. He hoped the hon. Member for Salford would not press his Motion tonight, but that the Government would give a promise to legislate upon it.

agreed in the opinion that legislation was required. If the power to employ women and girls for sixteen hours were given, they might be sure that it would be exercised by some unscrupulous employers. As to what had been said about the pressure of foreign orders, that statement would apply not only to the print works, but to various other works. It appeared to him that the whole question of the Factory Acts required revision and assimilation.

said, that the Print Works Act was one of the earliest efforts of factory legislation, and it was defective and imperfect. As the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Manners) had stated, a Commission had been appointed by the late Government to inquire into the subject. He understood that the Report might be expected in a short time—soon enough to enable the Government to undertake legislation on the question. With respect to education and the limitation of the hours of labour, it would be necessary to introduce some change, and, he believed, there could be no doubt, especially after hearing the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. E. Potter) that alterations might be made without any injury to the manufacturers themselves, and with great advantage to those whom they employed. He could assure the House that the moment the Report was presented the Government would consider it, and no unnecessary delay should occur in proceeding to legislation. He hoped, under these circumstances, the hon. Gentleman would withdraw his Resolution.

said, he was perfectly satisfied with the promise of the right hon. Gentleman that, upon receiving the Report of the Commissioners, the Government would take the question into their serious consideration and introduce a Bill.

appealed to the hon. and gallant Member for Longford (Mr. O'Reilly) that, in consideration of the Attorney General for Ireland having moved for the production of the Report of the Judge who had tried the petition, he would postpone his Motion with respect to the City of Dublin election. It was most desirable that the action of that House should be in conformity with the decision of the Judge, and therefore it would be necessary that they should have an opportunity of seeing the Judge's Report.

said, that as the matter affected a constituency so important as that of the City of Dublin, he thought it was but right the judgment of the learned Judge should be laid on the laid on the table before his hon. and gallant Friend's Motion was submitted to the House.

said, that after what had fallen from the two right hon. Gentlemen he should postpone his Motion until the judgment was laid upon the table.

, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend "The Salmon Fishery (Ireland) Act (1863)," and the Acts continuing the temporary provisions of the same, explained that, in 1863, an Act was passed of great moment to the salmon fisheries, and under it a Commission with extensive powers was constituted, and three Special Commissioners appointed under the Sign Manual, whose tenure of office was at the pleasure of the Crown. It was provided by that Act that the office of Commissioner should last for two years, and thenceforth until the end of the next Session of Parliament. By the 42nd section it was provided that on the determination of the office of the Special Commissioners all the powers and duties vested in them should be transferred to two permanent inspectors, to be appointed by and subject to the control of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, The office of the Special Commissioners was continued by several Acts of Parliament passed at various times, and ultimately. by an Act passed last Session, the office was prolonged till the 1st of August, 1869. In 1866, Captain Spratt and Mr. Lane were appointed Commissioners, and in 1867 Mr. Pattison was appointed third Commissioner. It appeared, however, from representations made to the Home Office, that certain differences had arisen between the three Commissioners as to the mode of working the Commission, inquiries which appeared to be absolutely unavoidable were made, and the conclusion arrived at by the Home Office was that the harmonious working of the Commission was impossible. In October, 1868, the Home Office intimated in distinct terms its intention that the Commission should cease and determine on the 1st of December last. When that day came the Home Office sent a communication to Dublin Castle that the Commission had terminated, but it appeared that no communication was made to the Commissioners themselves. On that day the Lord Lieutenant appointed Major Davis in their place as permanent inspector, and on the 4th Mr. Brady was appointed another. Soon afterwards the present Government came into Office, and Mr. Lane, one of the inspectors, wrote to the Government to say he was still a Commissioner holding his seat under the Royal Sign Manual, which had not been revoked, and that consequently the appointment of the permanent inspectors was illegal and invalid. The Home Office adopting the view that the Commission could not work harmoniously, revoked the appointment of the Commissioners by warrant under the Royal Sign Manual on the 30th of January, 1869. Having regard to the large jurisdiction vested in the inspectors, and the important rights which they had to decide, it was necessary to bring in a short Act of Parliament to solve the difficulties which existed, and enable the inspectors to be appointed under the Act of 1863, as if the office of the Commissioners had determined. It was most desirable that the measure should be passed as rapidly as possible. The right hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in the Bill.

said, the learned Attorney General for Ireland had explained what took place with regard to the Fishery Commissioners to a great extent, but not quite accurately. While at the Home Office he received frequent complaints that the Special Commission, then consisting of two members (Captain Spratt and Mr. Lane) was at a dead lock, and that nothing could be done. He, accordingly, appointed a third Commissioner, as he believed admirably fitted for the position, in the hope that the Commission would be brought to an early termination, but, unfortunately—and he would not then say who was in fault—the same difficulties arose between the three Com-missioners as had arisen between the two; the proceedings were protracted from month to month, and the Commission had cost the country £5,000 too much. After due inquiries, the late Government gave the Commissioners notice that their Commission would f terminate on the 1st of December, 1868; and he regretted that the Royal Sign Manual was not then obtained to bring it then to a close. That omission, however, happened at a time when many circumstances were occurring, and when, as everybody knew, there was much business to be wound up. He was only sorry that he had not taken steps to terminate the Commission a, year sooner, for such a course would have saved the country much money.

said, he wished to say a few words on behalf of a brother officer, Captain Spratt, who, he thought, might have been mentioned with more respect.

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I have not said a word against Captain Spratt.

said, he was aware of that; but still his name was mentioned in such a way as to pass over the fact that Captain Spratt's conduct was approved, as he understood, by the right hon. Gentleman himself. [Mr. HARDY made a gesture of assent.] Captain Spratt was a distinguished officer, and his name ought not to be mixed up with others, as if he were to blame equally with them.

must say a word on behalf of Mr. Lane, whom he had always found most courteous and attentive to the duties of his office.

suggested that it would be only fair towards all the parties concerned that the correspondence on the subject should be produced, when the House would see that the late Government were perfectly justified in endeavouring to put an end to the Commission. On looking over the proceedings of the Commission he was surprised at the way in which the public money had been wasted. He should support the Bill, because he thought it was absolutely necessary that the Commission should be put an end to.

remarked that the correspondence showed that Mr. Pattison, who was called in as umpire, had ful- filled his duties in an unexceptionable manner.

said, he thought it desirable that the correspondence should be laid on the table, and he understood its production would be moved for by his hon. Friend behind him.

said, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would consent to add to the Committee a Gentleman in whom a large section of the community would repose confidence with regard to the question of throwing the expenses of elections on the rates. The hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett), had introduced a Bill on the subject, which was exciting very great public interest, and he had only been defeated on the second reading by a small number of votes. It was also desirable, in his opinion, that there should be on the Committee a Member who supported the adoption of representation by minorities, and the scheme of personal representation which was rapidly gaining favour among thinking people, and especially among the working classes. On a future day, therefore, he should propose that the Committee should consist of twenty-two Members, and that the name of his hon. Friend the Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett), should be added to the Committee.

, in moving the second reading of this Bill, said, it would not be necessary for him to enter into the history of the Act of 1850, commonly called the Party Processions Act, but it might be as -well to remind the House that that Act was passed in consequence of an occurrence which took place at Dolly's Brae, in the county Down, in 1849, where unfortunately blood was shed, and much ill-will produced between different classes of Her Majesty's subjects. The House would remember that, in 1848, there were exciting circumstances in Ireland. The Government of the day thought it right at that time to encourage the Orangemen to make a demonstration in the interest of law and order. It was supposed that there was likely to be a contest between the civil powers and that party, who, with honesty and sincerity, he believed, were anxious, although mistakenly, to obtain a separate and independent existence for Ireland as a separate kingdom; but they adjourned their little fight in 1848 to Dolly's Brae in 1849, and the consequence was found in the Act of 1850. That Act was brought in by Sir William Somerville, the then Chief Secretary for Ireland, on the 8th February. Hon. Members on his side of the House, he knew, had been found ready to accuse those on the other side of bringing in these repressive and penal enactments against the Orangemen and Protestants of Ulster; but he reminded the House that the Act of 1850 was not opposed by the Gentlemen who then sat on the Opposition Benches. That Act was supplemented, in 1860, by an Act called the Party Emblems Act, which was found to be so useless and irritating in its effects that it was permitted to expire in 1865, having only been enacted for five years. One provision of the Party Processions Act he objected to as being eminently calculated to provoke party animosity. The Act of 1850 was not held to apply to the O'Connell procession, which took place on the 8th August, 1864. The then Attorney General for Ireland said there was no ground for treating it as a party procession or an illegal assembly in Common Law, as there were no party banners or emblems, and no party tunes, and everything went off peacefully. It was alleged that green was not a party colour, and that the "White Cockade" and "Garryowen" were not party tunes. It was alleged, in fact, that everything on one side was of a party nature, while nothing on the other side partook of that character. It seemed that there was, with regard to this Act, a choice of three courses—to tolerate all demonstrations with green emblems, and put down all Orange demonstrations; to suppress all party demonstrations impartially; or to tolerate all peaceable demonstrations, whether Orange or green. The last course had been adopted in Canada, where at one time an irritating Party Processions Act was adopted and found to promote violence and. bloodshed; but, by the unanimous consent of Protestant and Roman Catholic members, it was wiped off the statute book, and ever since the Orangemen had their demonstration on the 12th July, and the Roman Catholics had theirs on St. Patrick's Day, without any attempts to interfere with the liberty of the subject or with constitutional rights. When the feeling arose in the minds of the Protestants of Ulster that there was one law for the South and another for the North; that demonstrations of a certain character were to be tolerated south of the Boyne, and in the North other demonstrations were to be punished by imprisonment, a great deal of ill-feeling arose in Ulster. It was stated by that great organ of English public opinion, The Times, that it would be better to have no law at all against party processions than one which was so unequally administered as the law was in Ireland. In 1866 there was a change of Government, and it was believed that the Conservative party would deal more leniently with the Protestants and Orangemen of Ulster, who had assisted them to obtain place and power. It was not unnatural for the working classes of Ulster to expect more toleration from the Conservatives; but they were told by the noble Lord then the Prime Minister (the Earl of Derby) that the Fenian processions in the South were not illegal, and the same thing was reiterated by Lord Mayo. That was felt to be simply intolerable. The Orangemen found that they were prosecuted for peaceable and orderly processions. They had never asked that their Roman Catholic fellow- countrymen should be prosecuted for wearing green, but were ready to concede to them in the broadest spirit of liberality the right to wear that colour, and to have party processions, provided they themselves had the same liberty. It would perhaps be in the recollection of the House that a prosecution was instituted against certain parties for taking part in a public demonstration at Bangor, on the 12th July, 1867, and afterwards, as a sort of set-off, a prosecution was instituted against some parties in Dublin for taking part in a Fenian procession. The prosecution in Dublin failed, however, but the prosecution in Down succeeded. He regretted that Lord Mayo was not now in the House to give an explanation of his Irish policy, and he (Mr. Johnston) must say that the people of Ulster looked upon his Lordship's transference from the misgovernment of Ireland to the government of India as a most mysterious dispensation of Providence. It was right that he should inform the House that previous to the Act of 1850 a Party Processions Act was brought in, in 1832, by Mr. Stanley, then the Secretary of State for a Whig Government, and afterwards a Conservative Prime Minister. If they were to have a Chapter of Autobiography, they might have one from that (the Opposition) side of the House, as well as from the Ministerial Benches. The Processions Act of 1832, however, was opposed by Mr. O'Connell, who, on the 25th June. 1832, declared in this House that there was not a Roman Catholic who did not rejoice that King William succeeded, and that King James failed, and who did not hold the character of the former in the greatest respect, and the character of the latter in the most sovereign contempt, and he therefore argued that there was no ground for considering Orange processions as an insult to the Roman Catholics. Mr. O'Connell also argued that the proposed Act was unnecessary, as the Common Law was sufficient for all purposes. Those were the words of a great man, and though he (Mr. Johnston) had the honor to be an Orangeman—for he considered it an honor—he would not be worthy of the name of an Irishman if he hesitated to pay a passing tribute to the memory of one who fought the battle well for his co-religionists in Ireland, and whom it was Ireland's proud boast to look upon as one of her most illustrious and famous sons. He was glad to know that the Motion for the second reading of the Bill was to be seconded that evening by a relative of the man who, in the year 1832, so energetically resisted that tyrannical enactment. It was said that those party processions were calculated to create animosity and to provoke breaches of the peace. Now he had sometimes attended trials under the Act from a feeling of interest, and he had once unfortunately done so when he could not help it; and. he had never heard any evidence brought forward at those trials, except the evidence of policemen—who were ready to take their instructions from "the powers that be"—which would prove that the processions were calculated to provoke animosity, and lead to breaches of the peace. On one occasion a policeman was asked if certain occurrences were, in his opinion, calculated to create animosity, and he said they were. He was then asked if they created animosity in his mind, and Ms reply was "Oh no, not as a policeman." He (Mr. Johnston) was as strongly opposed as anybody could be to the carrying of arms in these processions, and as long as he had anything to do with political life he had deprecated, by every possible means, the carrying of even a pistol by a, boy in an Orange procession. He believed, too, that if the Government, of whatever party, would undertake to protect the peaceable processions of the members of all parties, no arms would be carried on the one side or the other. He felt persuaded that more animosity was created by the present Act than by all the processions which it was intended to prevent. He would appeal to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, whether great irritation had not been produced by the partial administration of the Act, by its enforcement in the Northern districts of the country, and in its complete failure in the South. He was convinced that the Common Law was amply sufficient for the suppression of all offensive demonstrations, and he had received a letter from a gentleman who had formerly been a Crown Prosecutor under a Liberal Government, stating that at the Armagh Assizes, in Spring 1867, a number of persons who had taken part in an illegal procession. had been indicted under the Common Law, and had all been convicted. If he was rightly informed, all the indictments that had been drawn under Government authority against persons taking part in party processions or illegal assemblies were, until a recent date, instituted at Common Law, and not under the Party Processions Act. He hoped, then, that the Government would give up this partial legislation, and would go back to the Common Law. He made no claim on the part of the Protestants or Orangemen of Ulster to exclusive loyalty; he believed there were other people in Ireland ready to rally round the Constitution and Throne of these realms. He had no desire to see the ascendancy of Protestants over Roman Catholics; he had no desire to see the members of one sect trample upon the members of another sect, or obtain privileges which were not conceded to the whole of their fellow-subjects. He only wished for fair play for the Protestants and Orangemen of Ulster. He only asked that fair play to them as well as to the Fenians should be included in the programme of justice to Ireland. He would beg to remind the House, in the eloquent words of Lord Macaulay, "That the path of justice is the path of wisdom." He asked the House and the Government to enter on the path of justice towards the Protestants of Ulster, and he would venture to say that they would find it the path of wisdom. He trusted that Ireland would soon cease to be the shuttlecock of parties. He hoped that the day was not far distant when people of all creeds would learn toleration. Let them put an end to injustice and wrong; let them aid in developing and protecting the industry and the enter-prize of Ireland; let them legislate so as to protect the rights of labour as well as the rights of capital and property; let them respect the interests of the tenant-farmers and the artizans as well as of the employers and the landlords; let them give the people just laws fairly administered; and then he would venture to assure the House and the Government that Ireland would share in the welfare of the Empire, and rejoice in the glory of England. In conclusion he begged leave to move the second reading of the Bill.

rose to second the Motion in the anxious desire that the course he was taking might tend to promote the union of all classes of Irishmen. He was aware that the law which this Bill proposed to repeal was regarded with great aversion by his hon. Friend and those whom he represented. They complained that the Party Processions Act curtailed their liberty of action, that its provisions were never enforced except as against them, and that in its conception and by its operation it was intended to gratify Roman Catholics by the suppression of certain ceremonies to which a section of the Northern Protestants attached considerable importance. Although he was convinced that neither the framers of the Act, nor those who had prosecuted under it, were animated by those intentions, such motives were ascribed to them, and the belief was industriously kept alive in the North, producing an amount of irritation which did more than anything else to bring about those periodical manifestations which he on many grounds deplored. It was the duty of everyone to endeavour to dispel the illusion that class, or race, or creed furnished any ground upon which any man or body of men could claim special favour, and it was the duty of every one to propagate the doctrine that the State could recognize no distinctions incompatible with perfect religious equality. The interests of all Irishmen were inseparable, and it was the duty of all to obey the laws, and maintain their supremacy; and he was the best friend of his country who endeavoured to promote union by encouraging friendship amongst men of all classes and denominations. He could not give a greater proof of his desire to co-operate in that good work than by assisting the Member for Belfast in repealing this Act, which that hon. Gentleman and his friends believed to be of a partizan character. The main object of the Act was no doubt to prevent the recurrence of exhibitions which whenever they took place must necessarily wound the feelings of every Catholic. It might be said, "Do you, then, mean to give full scope to those who would insult and annoy your Catholic brethren?" His answer was that the law had failed to accomplish the aim proposed; that like all other penal laws it created and fostered a spirit of resistance to authority; and that, while partially removing from public view certain emblems much cherished by some, it had given fresh vitality to i feelings and passions which would only yield to influences far different from those that a penal law could bring to bear. Violent measures only aggravated the evil they were meant to repress, and penal laws were powerless when opposed to sentiment and feeling; they could not substitute amity for enmity of heart; and until a change of that nature could be brought about in the North of Ireland there would continue there these scenes of strife which were a disgrace to our boasted civilization. He consented to the repeal of this Act because he had faith in the impartiality of the Executive, in the resources of the Common Law, but above all in the disposition of his Catholic brethren to make every sacrifice for the sake of union; and he believed it would be impossible for the generous and impulsive minds of Protestants in Ulster long to remain insensible to forbearance springing from so noble a motive. At all events, he was convinced that it was the duty of the Catholics of Ireland to make an effort, even at some sacrifice of feeling, to close divisions and heal wounds which were an incalculable weakness to Ireland. If peace and concord followed they would have proved this patriotism, and if discord continued they would have shown that they had done their best to put an end to it. He regretted the manifestations which annually occurred in the North of Ireland on the occasion of certain anniversaries, not on account of the recollections which they suggested, but because they indicated an unwillingness on the part of Protestants to amalgamate with their fellow-countrymen. The struggle which took place at the Revolution might be said to have involved a two-fold issue—the foundation of the Protestant monarchy in these kingdoms and the establishment of Protestant ascendancy. The Catholics, in the first instance, yielding, no doubt, to necessity, accepted the two-fold result, but with the reservation that they would assert for themselves the exercise of the most sacred prerogatives of conscience. No one could contend that a Protestant monarchy necessarily implied Protestant ascendancy. The Catholics were ready to fight for a Protestant monarch, and they admitted the virtues in social life of their Orange fellow-countrymen, but the latter must not object to the Catholics claiming equality with them. All must admit that the Catholics had done their part; that the Protestants had no just ground of complaint against them, and that it was foolish and barbarous to perpetuate feuds by the annual revival of bitter strife and by the assertion of pretensions which were inadmissible because they were unjust. He would remind his hon. Friend that the vast majority of the Protestants of these kingdoms were quite as much against Protestant ascendancy as the Catholics. His hon. Friend had referred to processions in other parts of Ireland besides the North; but there was no analogy between them to warrant the inference he drew. It was only proper to consider whether the objects and intentions of the processionists were morally and legally legitimate. With regard to the O'Connell procession, to which his hon. Friend had alluded, that was intended to celebrate the partial emancipation of the Catholics from a position of political and social inferiority, and to inaugurate the erection of a statue in memory of one who was regarded as a benefactor of his race. There was not the slightest ground to suppose that it was meant to give offence to anyone. But if secret processions were held two or three times in the year, they would become a nuisance; and if they were formed in districts where they were likely to lead to disturbances it would be the duty of the Catholics to abandon them, no matter how good their object might be. No one knew better than his hon. Friend that it was impossible to show that the Catholics were actuated by any intentions inimical to their Protestant fellow-countrymen. If they wanted an extended franchise, and the ballot to enable them to exercise it freely, the Catholics were willing to help them to get both the one and the other; and if they desired security of tenure to enable them to live for ever on the soil of Ulster, they might count on the earnest support of the Catholics in the accomplishment of their wishes. They were both destined to dwell together in the same land, and it was their duty to unite together as the citizens of one common country. How could this be done? Certainly not by the annual recurrence of processions to remind them of the time when their ancestors were arrayed in hostile bands. He would, therefore, appeal to his hon. Friend to use his great influence to put an end to distinctions which must lead to disunion, and could not be productive of one single good result. In that appeal he was sure he would be supported by the majority of that House and by the people of England. The policy had been abandoned for ever which was embodied in the words "divide and govern," and henceforth justice, which knows no distinction of race, creed, or class, was to be the great principle of government.

said, that last year, at a late period of the Session, he gave notice of a Bill, similar in effect to the present one, on account of the strong feeling he entertained that immense injustice was practised on one particular party by the manner in which the Party Processions Act was carried out. He had been blamed for not proceeding with that Bill, but he could not proceed with a Bill without the support of either one side or the other. His own party said the great measure—the Reform Bill then before the House—must have the precedence of all legislation; and from the other side, with some few exceptions, he received no support. Since then there had been a General Election, and these reasons were all changed, and the measure was now taken up by both sides. Many friends of his thought this so important a measure, that it ought only to be proposed by the Government, and then only in case it could be proposed with perfect safety to the country. But it had always appeared to him that the Act had this peculiar disadvantage—it left a jury to say how far these processions were within the law, while, in almost every instance, it was most difficult to define what was the intention and object of the processionists. He therefore thought it better to trust a generous nation like the Irish, and leave the future to the ordinary law of the land. He hoped he would sooner or later see this Act disappear from the statute book. [Cheers.] He was delighted to hear such generous sentiments emanate from the other side of the House; he was only sorry he did not hear them oftener. But why were those on that side of the House again twitted with a desire for Protestant ascendancy? For himself he must say he never had any feeling of ascendancy; it was only because Protestants belonged to a religion which was not that of the great body of the people in Ireland, and because they lived under a Protestant Queen and a Protestant Church, that they were taunted with Protestant ascendancy. He hoped they would be able to put an end to those acrimonious debates which formerly only contributed to the amusement of the House, and if the Government thought they could take the responsibility on themselves of repealing the Party Processions Act, he was sure they would be supported, by all the Members from Ulster and many others on that side of the House.

said, he must strenuously oppose the second reading of this Bill. If the Party Processions Act were repealed it certainly would lead to a breach of the public peace. He felt very strongly the arguments which had been urged by his hon. Friend the Member for Belfast (Mr. Johnson) and his hon. Friend the Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue); he also agreed in a great deal of what had been said by the hon. Baronet the Member for the county of Londonderry (Sir Frederick Heygate); but he did not think the House should consent to the second reading of this Bill, which had been proposed so fairly, so calmly, and so eloquently, by his hon. Friend. He believed the Common Law was not sufficient to put down party processions in Ireland, and there was great wisdom in the Act which had been passed for the purpose of curing the defects of the Common Law. The Legislature thought the jury, especially with the musical education they received in the North, would be able to tell what was the meaning of a party tune, and not being colour-blind, that they would be able to tell what was the meaning of a party emblem, and therefore all the jury tad to do was to say whether there had been a procession of 100 or 200 persons playing a party tune and having a party emblem calculated to excite animosity. The law said that was an unlawful assembly. He spoke as a Protestant and as a Liberal; above all, he spoke as an Irishman. He wished to represent in that House the feeling of his Catholic as well as his Protestant fellow-countrymen—he was strongly of opinion that if this Act were repealed it would lead to something which every lover of his country would afterwards have to deplore. He would trust the Orangeman in many things. He believed they were a plucky and independent race, and he did not think they would allow themselves to be dragged along by an oligarchy. He thought the return of his hon. Friend the Member for Belfast a proof of their independence; but he did not want to put the Orangemen of Ireland on their mettle yet. He wanted to give them a little more time to complete their political education. He wanted to disestablish the Irish Church, and when that badge of ascendancy was removed under the first Statesman of the age, when that Magna Charta of Irish liberty was passed—he would say when they enjoyed religious and social equality in Ireland. The Orangemen would give up the party processions of the 12th of July rather than vex their neighbours, just as we had given up the celebration of the 18th of June rather than vex an Imperial neighbour. All the Catholics in the North of Ireland were not as well read in the history of the British Constitution as the hon. Member for Tralee, and, as regarded the Protestants, he thought it would be as well if they would let King William rest in his grave, and not bring him up every 12th of July. If this Bill were passed, it would lead to misconception, and the Orangemen of Ireland would feel that they were at, liberty to do as they pleased on the 12th of July. Processions would take place, many of them, no doubt, would be peaceably conducted, but others would lead to bloodshed. He should vote against the second reading if it were pressed to a division.

regretted that the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Dowse) should have made his maiden speech for the purpose of crying down the Protestants of Ireland. Every true Protestant should rally round an institution which had more than once stood between the Crown and revolution. The Prime Minister was about to throw the Bible on the floor of the House—he was going to treat the Protestants of Ireland worse than Mrs. Star treated Miss Saurin, for, did she not leave her one tunic? He was proud to belong to that glorious Orange society which they should look to protect them, not only from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone), but from those who wished to destroy the Church in Ireland. He had not always approved of the conduct of the hon. Member for Belfast, because he considered it the duty of every Orangeman to obey the law, whether it were harsh or not; but the law should now be repealed, and Protestants be placed in the same position of equality as the right hon. Gentleman told them he was going to place other Irishmen. He trusted that the Government would not come forward and propose a Committee or a Commission or any other "dodge" to keep the Orangemen in suspense for some time longer.

said, he did not approve of the celebration of the Protestant anniversaries; but, on the other hand, he did not see why processions should be tolerated in the case of those who were not loyal to their country.

rose to Order. The hon. Gentleman had no right to speak on the Main Question.

ruled that the hon. Baronet was in Order.

said, he wished to throw oil on the troubled waters. [Laughter.] Hon. gentlemen might laugh, but he despised such conduct. While in one part of the country loyal men who broke a law with regard to processions were convicted by juries and punished, in another, men, who had not the same loyalty, indulged in similar conduct with impunity. That was a state of things which ought not to continue. He hoped that he should see no more Orange processions in Ireland, for he altogether disapproved of them.

thought the House would agree with him that the proposal to adjourn the debate was a reasonable one, because the discussion could not be concluded that night with satisfaction to either side of the House. It was the desire of the Government that the Bill should be thoroughly discussed, and it was his desire to take a proper, and, he hoped, an early opportunity, of making a full statement on the part of the Government, both of the information in their possession on this much disputed subject, and of their views as to what ought to be done. These were good reasons for ad- journing the debate. He did not think the time passed that night had been wasted, because they had heard two remarkable speeches, considering not only their ability but the quarters from which they came. He referred to those of the Mover and the Seconder of the Motion. The speech of the hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. Johnston) was not only able, but moderate and large-minded, and it came from a Protestant of the Protestants and a Saxon of the Saxons. Its sentiments were echoed in the same spirit by a Member (The O'Donoghue) of another religion from the most opposite point in Ireland, both in geography and in religion. Whatever might become of this Motion, these things augured well for the future of Ireland. As they had spent an hour and a half to such excellent purpose, he thought the House would agree it was impossible to conclude the debate at such an hour.

said, that if it had been stated to which day the debate was to be adjourned, perhaps the opponents of the Bill would be more forbearing. The House ought to know when the debate would be resumed.

said, it was impossible for them to name a day when the debate should be resumed. The second reading of the Irish Church Bill was fixed for Thursday next, and consequently he could not now name a day with confidence. It was not desirable that the discussion should be long postponed, and he would give every facility for its being resumed on an early day.

said, it was extremely desirable that the discussion should not be postponed. The people of the North of Ireland were looking with intense interest to the result of the discussion.

said, no conclusive reasons had been given for the adjournment of the debate. Half-past one o'clock was not a late hour to continue the debate.

called the attention of the House to the fact that the Lords had appointed a Committee to inquire into the Business of Parliament. He said this was of itself a sufficient reason for this House to appoint a Committee to confer with them. He would therefore move "That a Select Committee of Six Members be appointed to join with the Select Committee appointed by the House of Lords, as mentioned in their Lordships' Message of Monday, 15th March, to consider whether any facilities can be given for the Despatch, of Business in Parliament, especially in regard to the relations of the two Houses."