said, in the absence of his noble Friend Lord George Lennox, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is true that on Monday 29th March a person named Macdonald, who was engaged in Ms occupation of delivering Treasury circulars to the Members of the House, was stopped by a policeman at the corner of Stratton Street, in Piccadilly, and called upon to state his name and address; whether, on his declining to do so, he was seized by the constable on a charge of "loitering," and taken through the streets to the police station, where he was detained for some time, until the officers on duty could verify his account of himself; whether any report on the occurrence had been made by the officials which explained the action of the police; and, whether the instructions issued to the police authorities, authorizing such conduct, can be laid before the House?

Sir, the account I have received of this affair is as follows:—About eight o'clock on the evening of March 29, a police sergeant observed a man standing in Stratton Street, Piccadilly. He afterwards moved stealthily on towards a doorway, stood at that door for some short time, went away without waiting for the door to be opened, and passed on as if wishing to avoid the policeman. The man's conduct being thus, in the opinion of the police sergeant, suspicious, the latter, as he says, asked him very civilly what his name was and what he was doing, but received a very rude answer. Thereupon the police sergeant told him that it was his duty when he observed people loitering in the streets under suspicious circumstances to ask their names, and if no satisfactory answer was given, to take them into custody. As the man still refused his name he was accordingly taken into custody and removed to a police station, where he gave an explanation, and was released after being detained thirty-five minutes. Now, the police sergeant acted under the authority, not of any rule or order given by the Commissioner of Police, but under the authority of the Metropolitan Police Act of 1839 (2 & 3 Vic. c. 47), the 64th section of which enacts—

"It shall be lawful for any constable belonging to the metropolitan police to take into custody without a warrant [among other suspicious persons] all persons whom he shall find between sunset and the hour of eight in the morning lying or loitering in any highway, yard, or other place, and not giving a satisfactory account of themselves."

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether, the Indian Government having inserted in its Budget for 1869–70 an Item for disbursements in India of £8,400,000 as "bills drawn by the Secretary of State for India," it is the intention of the Home Government to carry out the notice so given, all such drafts having been discontinued since the 16th of December last; and, if so, when?

said, he wished to ask a Question arising out of the Finan- cial Statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon a point which had given rise to considerable misapprehension. The Question was, Whether the Papers now issued for the Assessment for the year 1870 on Articles kept between April, 1868–9, are to be filled up as issued; if so, whether the whole amount now assessed was to be levied, and at what period; and when the happy period would arrive at which we should be exempt for nine months from any payment of Assessed Taxes?

said, in reply, that the Resolutions proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be considered in Committee of Ways and Means on Monday, and that would be a convenient opportunity for any hon. Member to ask for an explanation.

said, he had received a telegram asking whether the Corn Duty was not to be remitted at once; he would, therefore, beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, If he would answer that Question?

Sir, inasmuch as there must be some delay before the House can pass judgment upon the Bill to be introduced for altering the time for the collection of certain taxes, I conceived that it was understood in Committee of Ways and Means that it might be for the convenience of all parties that we should take in the meantime the preliminary stages upon the other Resolutions relating to the reduction and remission of duty; but it was also distinctly stated that if we asked that these stages should be gone through, it was on the understanding that no such Votes should be considered as decisive, and that substantially the judgment of the House should only be taken after it had had an opportunity of considering the Bill for the collection of taxes on which these remissions depend. It is, therefore, obvious that the payment of duty on corn cannot be dispensed with until we reach that stage in the financial measures of the Government when the substantial judgment of the House can be given respecting them. It is right that this should be clearly understood out-of-doors. Although the common, but not the invariable practice, has been that re- missions of Customs duty should be carried into effect immediately, it is clear that this course cannot be taken in the present instance until the House have definitely decided that the corn duty should be abandoned.

said, the question he should raise by the Motion which he was about to make, was whether appointments in the Civil and Diplomatic Services should be obtained by personal favouritism and political patronage, or by merit and moral worth. This was no party question, for eminent men on both sides of the House supported the principle of open competition. In 1853, a Commission, on which the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) and Sir Charles Trevelyan served, reported unreservedly in its favour, and the system of open competition was admitted on all hands to have been eminently successful. A few years after the Report of the Commission a Select Committee of that House was appointed to inquire into the subject. It was presided over by the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley), and the whole tone of their Report, and of the evidence was in favour of open competition. It was true that the Committee did not recommend the immediate adoption of that system, because they thought that it had not had sufficient trial, and that its adoption would give too rude a shock to political patronage. Since then ten years had elapsed, and experience conclusive in favour of open competition had been obtained; and, as for political patronage, he did not think that any precious principle worth preserving was involved in that matter. The exercise of political patronage was a source of general corruption. It might be said that there now existed a system of qualified competition, as when an appointment was vacant it was usual for two or three persons to be nominated, and the best of them to be selected by competition for the appointment. That new system, however, was just one of those compromises which created as much mischief as it destroyed. It took away that Ministerial responsibility for bad appointments which was the defence of the old system, because if a bad appointment were made under it the fault might be thrown on the system of examination. There was, moreover, in the new system a peculiar uncertainty which had an unfavourable operation. In the case of an office becoming vacant, men far below the average might be nominated for examination, and thus a person of low attainments might get the appointment; while in another case men might be nominated far above the average, so that it would happen that the man who succeeded in the first case was inferior in point of attainments to the man who failed in the second case. These things tended to create an impression, however unjustly, that a great amount of unfair- ness prevailed in mating the appointments. It might be said that the present system secured a certain average of intellectual attainments, because everyone was obliged to pass a fixed test examination; but a fixed test examination was comparatively useless. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that competitive examination always maintained itself, but that a fixed test examination had a considerable inclination to be degraded; because, if a man failed in a test examination, an agitation was always raised by his friends, who alleged that the examination was too hard, but no one who failed in an open competitive examination could complain because some other person was found to possess greater intellectual attainments. A test examination, too, did not get rid of political patronage, but was, on the contrary, based on political patronage. Those who had read the Report of the Committee to which he had alluded could entertain no doubt as to the practicability of carrying out the system of open examination; and, if it were thought that too many youths might apply to be examined, there would be no difficulty in sifting them, and reducing the number; for open competition by a preliminary test examination. By the payment of a, small fee the system might be made self- supporting, and there would be no difficulty in obtaining the most eminent men to conduct the examinations. It was sometimes said that competitive examination was not a conclusive intellectual test. If property conducted it would be so; and, as the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley) stated at Glasgow, it would, if well managed, have the effect of detecting the imposture of half-knowledge. It was not necessary for him to maintain that it was an infallible test. He needed only to prove that it was an accurate test in the great majority of cases, and the best and available test. No one could deny that the men at Oxford and Cambridge Universities who passed the examination in the first class were better than those who passed the examination in the second, and that the men in the second class wore better than the men in the third. The choice lay between a competitive examination and political patronage. He had already stated that political patronage was a source of corruption which permeated into our electoral system. A Member of the House of Commons was applied to by one of his constituents for an appointment to a son or relative—a thing of daily occurrence. He immediately went to the Patronage Secretary and told him one of his constituents who had worked for him at the last General Election wanted an. appointment for his relative or friend. He knew nothing of the person for whom he made the application, and the Patron- age Secretary knew still less; the Member only knew what important assistance he had received from the applicant at the last election, and how unfortunate it would be if he should vote against him at the next. The Patronage Secretary, always courteous and delighted to oblige, put the name down on the list. Now what was the result? Others of the constituency, seeing an influential elector had obtained an appointment for his son or his nephew, asked themselves why they should not get something at the next election; and if offered £5 for their votes they would naturally think they might as well take it as their influential neighbour the appointment. But the evil did not rest there. The obligation conferred by the Patronage Secretary was not conferred for nothing. The Member of Parliament was expected to render something in return, and thus the system of political patronage seriously detracted from the independence of that House. So much was this felt that many Members absolutely refused to ask any appointment for their constituents. There were, therefore, some constituencies to whom no appointments were given, while there were other small places, such as Wells—which had laboured under the misfortune of being long represented by Patronage Secretaries—on which appointments had been lavished with demoralizing profuseness. If his memory did not deceive him, Sir "William Hayter had boasted in a speech he made at Wells how good a representative he had been since he was first connected with the place, having secured no less than 300 appointments for that constituency. In asking Members to give up this patronage, he did not ask them to forego a privilege of any real value, for if they obliged one of their constituents by obtaining such an appointment, the probability was they would disappoint fifty. He therefore said on every ground—the ground of political morality, the ground of fairness in the distribution of this patronage, the ground of the character and independence of that House, and the convenience of Members themselves—the system of political patronage should cease. But it was said that examinations, while they tested intellectual merit, did not test the physical and moral qualities of the candidates? Did the present system test the physical and moral qualities of the candidates? What did Members know—what did the Member for Shaftesbury (Mr. Glyn) know—about the physical and moral qualities of candidates for such appointments? Dr. Gull, who had been appointed to examine the candidates for the Indian Civil Service, and had a large experience on this subject, said that if he noticed any candidate coming to him with any physical weakness which, in the least degree, would interfere with his usefulness as a civil servant he immediately rejected him, and he of course lost the appointment. There were three standards embracing those who were perfectly unexceptionable in constitution and physical vigour, those who came up to that standard stood at 100; those who possessed the average of physical strength were ranked at eighty-five; and those not quite so good at seventy-five. He had examined about 500, of whom 292 came up to the standard of 100; 152 to that of eighty-five, and fifty-two only fell down to the standard of seventy-five. He could not therefore resist the conclusion that intellectual vigour and physical strength were, in the great majority of cases, necessary to success in open competitions. As to the moral test, he (Mr. Fawcett) would quote the opinion of one of the greatest and most experienced tutors that Cambridge, or, indeed, either University ever had; a man, who, for thirty years, had examined almost all the distinguished mathematicians that Cambridge had produced, and who had for some years been one of the Examiners for the Civil Service of India. He declared—

"The question is sometimes put to me—Is an intellectual test also any test of high moral feeling? I answer that I know of no test that is half so much to he depended upon. Reviewing the long list of men who have taken distinguished degrees, who for more than thirty years have come under my immediate attention, I am as much surprised as rejoiced to find the high moral tone which, almost without exception, has existed among them. These facts prove to me incontestably that intellectual faculties, developed by study and cultivation, co-exist, in a great majority of cases, with a high moral tone. If you wish for a moral test, I know of none so much to be relied upon as an intellectual test."

The hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) seems to think that he has nothing to do but to adduce arguments against political patronage and in favour of open competition in order to support the Motion he has placed before the House. But I think if the House will look carefully into the matter they will see that there is a good deal more than that in it. Because the question is really this—What appointments will you throw open to public competition? And that question involves a further question—What is the state of the public offices and departments at present, and are they in such a condition that it would be fair and right to throw everything in them open to public competition without any change or modification? These are the questions which the hon. Gentleman's Motion raises. It raises, besides, other questions which I think he has scarcely considered. He speaks of "all appointments to the Civil and Diplomatic Services." Does he mean to include Staff appointments? Does he mean that gentlemen of mature years obtaining those appointments are to be subjected to examination? If not, would it not have been better if he had limited the proposition to that part of the argument with which we could concur? [MR. FAWCETT: I said appointments to the Civil Service, and not in it.] Exactly so; but gentlemen are appointed to the Civil Service at very mature years, and that is just the point which the hon. Gentleman has omitted. When he asks us to pass a Resolution of this immense importance it would be more satisfactory, I think, to see that these things had been well considered, and in such a way as to contemplate appointments to the Diplomatic Service. A person may be sent out as a diplomatist who has not gone through the whole course of diplomacy. We are not, it is true, making an Act of Parliament, but, still, if the House is to bind itself by Resolution it ought to guard itself against making it so extensive as to involve consequences which the hon. Gentleman, I am sure, does not for a moment contemplate. But to return to the Motion. I do not think anyone who has ever taken the trouble to consider what I have said on this subject will suppose that I am in any way an enemy to competition. Since I have been in Parliament I have always done everything in my power to promote it. Indeed, I had the happiness to take my share in founding the system of Indian competition in 1854, when I was Secretary to the Board of Control. I have not a word to say against the arguments of the hon. Member in my own individual capacity. What I want the hon. Member and the House to see is this—that the hon. Member seems to suppose that we could simply by an act of our volition, introduce open competition at once into the Civil Service. I wish to point out the fallacy of that supposition. Our public offices are so organized—in some cases wrongly perhaps—that we have a large number of gentlemen on the establishments, many of whom, when they get in, have really a very limited and poor prospect before them—the prospect of a life of labour without any great chance of advancement at the end of it however competent and able they may be. The organization maybe somewhat different in the different offices, but there is not that entirely open career to merit which seems to exist in the University of Cambridge. I am an Oxford man, but I confess I always understood that the University of Cambridge had been very careful in its institutions to guard against the operation of the very principle of which the hon. Member considers the University to be the representative. I have always understood that Cambridge differs from Oxford in this—that whereas for a Fellowship at Oxford every member of the University can be a candidate, for a Fellowship at Cambridge only members of the particular College can be candidates, and that, in fact, the small Colleges exclude the men belonging to Trinity College or St. John's, just for the very purpose of allowing inferior men belonging to their own Colleges to obtain the Fellowships. They have always excluded free competition, and therefore I do not think that the hon. Member's instance of the poor man at Cambridge was a very fortunate one. I would remind the House that no greater cruelty or injury can be conceived than to invite candidates for Government offices to this open competition, to subject them to strict and difficult examinations, and so to obtain the services of superior or highly educated young men, and then to condemn them to a career of hopeless routine, from which there is no probability whatever of their escape. This is a thing that ought to be considered before we can comply with the hon. Gentleman's Motion. We cannot regard it as a matter which we can introduce at once. We cannot say off-hand that henceforth, instead of patronage or limited competition, we will have open competition in all our public offices. The effect of such a sudden change would be great hard- ship and great cruelty, and would undoubtedly not only do a great injury to a number of deserving young men, but would also be a great injury to the Civil Service, because it is not in human nature that a man of high acquirements who has succeeded in a difficult competition should be satisfied unless he had some better prospects open to him than many of the offices under the Crown would afford. I do not say that this is an irremovable obstacle, but I do say that it is one that must be removed by the internal re-organization of these offices, and the division of labour, mechanical and intellectual, before committing a kind of fraud on the public or a great injury on a number of deserving young men by throwing all the appointments open to public competition. The inference is that it would be vain for us to think of passing an abstract Resolution of this kind, unless we carried out a complete re-organization of the different offices, dividing the intellectual from the merely mechanical duties. The question is, what ought to be done with this Motion? I should say that the hon. Member has, in the former career of my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government, as good a guarantee as he can desire that this subject will meet with most favourable consideration. My right hon. Friend was one of those Ministers who, in 1854, inserted in the Speech from the Throne a declaration which was well understood at the time to mean a desire on the part of the Government to introduce competition for appointments in the public departments. From that time to the present the question has never ceased to have the powerful advocacy of my right hon. Friend whenever the opportunity arose. The passage in the Queen's Speech of 1854, which was advised by Ministers, of whom my right hon. Friend was one, is as follows:—

"The establishment requisite for the conduct of the Civil Service and the arrangements bearing on its condition, have recently been under review; and I shall direct a plan to be laid before you which will have for its object to improve the system of admission, and thereby to increase the efficiency of the Service."

said, he had been a Member of the Committee which investigated the subject of appointments in May, 1860. Some scandalous abuses of patronage were brought before them in the Registrar General's Department upon its formation; in one case it was stated that a lunatic had been appointed to a clerkship, and in another a greengrocer. They had several instances of that kind of objectionable appointments on account of age, broken state of health, proper qualifications, and even bad character, and the Committee came almost unanimously to the conclusion that, at all events with regard to the introduction into the service, there should be some proof given that the person appointed should have certain mental qualifications. Appointments in India had been thrown open to competition, owing in a great degree to the efforts of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the experiment had proved highly successful. The standard of mental acquirements, he believed, were higher there than among the civil servants of any other country. The present Government were very favourable to the principle of competition, but at present they seemed indisposed to give effect to it. If, therefore, the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) pressed his Motion to a division, he should vote with him; for he could only mean by his Motion that the qualifications of candidates were to be tested before they were allowed to enter the service.

As I was Chairman of the Committee which sat some years ago upon this subject, I may be allowed to join in the appeal which has been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett). I decidedly think that if the hon. Member were to divide the house upon this Resolution he would place many of us in a false position, who like myself are generally favourable to the principle of the Resolution, but who are not prepared to adopt it in quite so sweeping and unqualified a form. I have always thought, and I do think now, that a great deal may be done in the way of extending the principle of competition in the administrative services of the country; but I do not think it would be a wise or statesmanlike course on the part of this House to say, in an imperative way, by a Resolution to the Government—"You shall adopt exclusively and absolutely the principle of open competition in all branches of the Civil Service," unless you are prepared to do more than that, and to indicate the manner in which the principle can be practically carried out. I must say that if reform in this matter has not advanced so rapidly as it seemed likely some years ago, I think it has mainly been owing to the fact that public interest in it has not been awakened to the extent which one might have expected. When I was at the India Office eleven years ago, I tried the experiment of opening some clerkships to absolutely open competition. Well, there was a very large number of competitors, but those who succeeded, I believe, were neither above nor below the average of gentlemen who ordinarily fill similar situations; but I did not find that any greater interest was felt in the matter, or that any great encouragement was given by the public to the repetition of that experiment. I quite agree, too, with what was said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, if you are to throw open the Civil Service to competition, you must make the prizes worth having, and you cannot do that unless you separate the more mechanical from the more intellectual part of the duties. It is really a mockery to throw open examinations, to invite everybody to come in and take part in them, and to establish a standard of merit, if the rewards which the successful are to obtain are little better after all, if not actually less in amount, than those which could be obtained by the same persons in ordinary private business. I merely wish to add a word upon another part of the question. I always felt—long before I had anything to do with the Foreign Office—very considerable doubt whether the case of the Diplomatic Service and that of the Civil Service stood in this matter upon the same footing. No doubt diplomacy does require some qualifications which you can test in the ordinary way by examinations, but it also requires other qualifications, which one may say without any disrespect, you are not quite certain to find in men who, by their own unassisted industry, have raised themselves from a very humble social position. There is also this consideration. If you were to apply this Resolution to the Diplomatic Service you would exclude yourselves from employing in that profession anyone who had not been exclusively trained to it. No doubt that has been our system of late years and under ordinary circumstances it has worked well. But it is one thing to adopt a system ordinarily, and another to tie yourself down to it by a Resolution, so that you will never be able to depart from it. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be content with having raised this question. If he divides the House, feeling as I do upon the subject, I shall not be able to oppose him; but, on the other hand, neither shall I be able to vote in favor of the Resolution.

said, he thought the noble Lord, the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley), took somewhat too high a view of a vote of that House if he supposed that it would preclude the Government from employing anyone in the Diplomatic Service who had not obtained entrance into the Service by open competition. It was a remarkable fact that Resolutions very similar to that before them had been on two former occasions carried through the House in favour of open competition, and that the reply of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was almost the same reply that was given thirteen or fourteen years ago by the late Sir George Lewis. When the present Premier pressed Sir George Lewis at that time he asked for a delay of one or two years—"Let us wait," he said, "till we see how the principle of open, competition works in India." The Chancellor of the Exchequer had shown by a passage from the Queen's Speech, in 1854, the interest which was taken in this question by the right hon. Gentle- man now at the head of the Government. But, in 1856, a Resolution was moved by the present Lord President of the Council, seconded by the right hon. Baronet, the Member for North Devon, and sup- ported by the present Prime Minister, which, though not perhaps so sweeping in its terms as the Resolution now before the House, equally pressed the Government of that day to adopt the principle of open competition. If the statistics of the Civil Service Commission were looked into, however, it would be found that instead of an increased adoption of the competitive system it was less widely enforced of late years than in 1856–7. The Committee that sat in 1860 reported that the Civil Service should be thrown open for competition to the whole of the Queen's subjects—subject only to certain conditions as to age, health, and other qualifications, and he scarcely thought that the terms of the present Resolution would be found stronger than that. He doubted whether the terms of the present Motion were stronger than those of the former Motion on the same subject, to which several Members of Her Majesty's Government were pledged. He regarded the speech of the Vies President of the Committee of Council, who was speaking as the mouthpiece of the Government, on the second reading of the Endowed Schools Bill, during the present Session, as containing more than a mere promise that the Government would do something at an indefinite time. The objection that it was necessary to separate the merely mechanical from the intellectual labour in the Civil Service was, no doubt, very important; but the gentleman who first suggested that alteration (Mr. Horace Mann) was of opinion that they could not only effect that separation without difficulty, but that it would be better at once to adopt open competition with it. If the Motion went to a division he should vote with the hon. Member who brought it forward.

I do not rise, Sir, for the purpose of adding anything to the able statement of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I am very desirous of undeceiving the House—and, I am persuaded, the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Dilke) himself—with regard to the nature of the discussion which took place upon this subject in 1856, both as respects the terms of the Motion the House was then called upon to adopt, and as respects the manner in which that Motion was met by the Government of the day. I would remind the House to begin with that, as my right hon. Friend has stated, many Members of the Government have declared opinions on this subject very much in the direction of the views held by the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett). They have not altered those opinions; they are desirous to move forward in that direction, but they appeal to the House whether, during the four months they have held Office, they have been idle. The measures which have been submitted to this House have probably been as considerable as ever were submitted by a Government during a period equally short after their coming into Office; and if the House desires to have work well done, there must be some regard as to the quantity of it which is to be undertaken in a given time. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is under the impression that the answer just given by my right hon. Friend is parallel to an answer given, in 1856, to a Motion which he thinks is parallel to the present one. I have hastily referred to the Motion of that date in order to ascertain its terms, and I have also referred to the answer given by the Government on that occasion, and the answers are so different that I am sure the hon. Member himself was not at all aware of the amount of difference between them. You are called upon to-night to accede to a Re-solution which states that all appointments—making no distinction of rank whatever—in the Civil and Diplomatic Services ought to be obtained by open competition, with no exceptions under any circumstances, and no discretion being left to the executive or to the heads of departments. Now, what was the Motion moved by my noble Friend Earl de Grey and Ripon in 1856. It was an Address to Her Majesty, rather a long one. I need not read the whole of it, but the operative part is as follows:—

"To assure Her Majesty of the steady support of this House in the prosecution of the salutary measures which She has been graciously pleased to adopt, and humbly to make known to Her Majesty that if She shall think fit further to extend them, and to make trial in the Civil Service of the method of open competition as a condition of entrance, this House will cheerfully provide for any charges which the adoption of that system may entail."—[3 Hansard, clxi.]

"I wish to argue the question simply upon the ground of efficiency of the public service; whether the principle my noble Friend seeks to introduce will or will not render the Civil Service of the Crown more efficient than it has been heretofore—that is the issue I wish to raise."

said, he rose to call the attention of the House to the proceedings in the criminal trials of "The Queen against Baird," "The Queen against M'Kenna," and "The Queen against Sheridan and Others," in the course of which, on a challenge to the array, the jury panel was quashed, on the ground, among others, that the said panel had been partially and improperly arrayed by the sheriff of said county; and to ask questions in reference thereto of the Attorney General for Ireland. He had already postponed this matter at the request of the Attorney General for Ireland, who wished to be further informed on the subject, and he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman had now made himself master of it, and would be able to answer his Question. The subject was one of great importance to the administration of justice in Ireland, especially in the province of Ulster, where he was sorry to say strong party and religious feelings prevailed. At the last Assizes for Monaghan there were several trials arising out of the disturbances which took place on the 13th of July. Among these trials there were those of an Orangeman named Baird, his son, and another party, who were charged with the murder of a man named Hughes, who was a Roman Catholic. Indictments were also found against a large number of Roman Catholics and against seventeen or eighteen Protestants, for riots and assaults arising out of the same transactions that led to the murder; and there were also informations taken against a number of persons for violating the Party Processions Act, but these were not brought to trial. Also, at the same Assizes, a man named M'Kenna, a Roman Catholic, was tried for the murder, in November last, of one Clark, a Protestant; but this occurred in a hotel, and not during a riot. Now, he had to inform the House that, in the year 1866, also at these Assizes of Monaghan, an Orangeman named Gray, who bore rather a notorious character in Ulster, was tried for the murder of a Catholic named Shevlin, who was shot at the election of 1865, and four witnesses swore that it was Gray who fired the fatal shot. But he was acquitted. He was defended by an able and learned Gentleman, who was then an eminent Member of this House—the present Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in Ireland. On Gray's trial not one of the twelve jurymen was a Boman Catholic. A Mr. Crawford was foreman of the jury. Some strong articles were written on Gray's acquittal in the English journals, and the subject was brought under discussion in that House, the present Attorney General for Ireland declaring that Shevlin's life was wantonly taken without provocation, and that his death was as clear a murder as ever was committed. The panel from which the jury was taken by which Gray was acquitted consisted of 300, a larger number than was ever before known in Monaghan. But among them there were only sixty-seven Boman Catholics. The population of Monaghan consisted of 90,000 Roman Catholics, and 30,000 of all other denominations, or three Roman Catholics to one Protestant. The panel was four Protestants to one Roman Catholic. The manipulation of that jury, and of the jury which tried the case in the last Assizes, was so self-evident, that he thought the House would agree with him that the jury system in Ireland required amendment. Out of the first forty-eight names on the panel that tried Gray, who was an Orangeman, only two were Roman Catholics. Out of the first sixty-nine names only three were Roman Catholics; but then to show the liberality of the sheriff, in the next forty-eight names there were sixteen Roman Catholics. It was, of course, intended, and was sure to be the case, that the jury who tried Gray were taken from the first forty-eight names. The sheriff of this year took a most active part in the election at which Shevlin lost his life, though, in 1838, he had been dismissed from the magistracy on account of partiality. At the trial a person of the name of Mitchell was sub-sheriff. Now it was worth stating that up to 1862 or 1863 Orange-ism was not known in Monaghan, and the people lived together on the best of terms; but at that period the Rev. Dr. Bayley was appointed to the rectory of Monaghan, and an Orange lodge was established, of which he believed Dr. Bayley was the chaplain. On the 1st of July last year an Orange flag was hoisted on the steeple of the church—which he (Mr. Downing) thought was a desecration of the House of God—and this flag remained flying till the 12th. The 12th was a Sunday, but on the 13th, which was a fair day, a band of Orangemen marched into the town with drums and banners, and it was quite clear that a collision was inevitable. A collision did take place. The Orangemen entered the Orange Hall and Baird's house, where they had arms, and commenced firing on the crowd, and Hughes, an innocent man who was standing in the street, was shot. After that an assault was made by some of the Roman Catholic party on a man named Wilson. For that assault seven persons were indicted, and among them four women. A large number of Catholics were indicted for riot, and seventeen Orangemen were indicted, and were to be tried at the same Assizes, at which Judges Lawson and Morris presided, for whom he entertained personal esteem. The seven Ca- tholics who were tried before Mr. Justice Lawson were convicted of an assault, not of a riot. One of them was sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour. Two others were sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment, and the four women were sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour. In the other Court two persons were tried for the murder of Hughes, and they were acquitted. There were twelve Orangemen, and not a single Roman Catholic on that jury. On that trial a policeman named Macdonald stated that he did not try to break into the house, because he might have been shot himself, but he went to the back of Baird's house and asked them to stop the firing. He did not go into the house to see who was firing, for soon after the man was shot the firing ceased. At the opening of the Assizes the Judge charged the grand jury, and stated, that he could not understand how, in a proclaimed district, men carried arms who had no licenses, and that the administration of justice in that way was defective. M'Kenna was put on his trial the next day. He was defended by two very able barristers. Mr. Butt put in a challenge to the array on five issues. Four of them were traversed by the Crown. One was admitted—that the sub-sheriff was an Orangeman. The issue that went to the jury was this—Did the sheriff, in contravention of his duty, to which he was sworn, act as a partizan? The jury found that he did, and the consequence was that the panel was quashed. That was the conduct of the sheriff of Monaghan, and he would state to the House the consequences arising from that finding. In charging the jury the Judge said that it was no matter whether the sheriff or sub-sheriff was an Orangeman, for that was no disqualification. In point of law that might be correct, but he recollected many magistrates having been removed from the Commission of the Peace because they had declared themselves Repealers. When Mr. Roche, the father of Lord Fermoy, was appointed sheriff of Cork, an objection was raised in the Dublin Mail that he was a Repealer, in consequence of which the Lord Lieutenant wrote to that gentleman inquiring if he was. Mr. Roche, as every high-minded man, declined giving a reply to the question, although he was no Repealer, and the consequence was that he was not appointed to the office. he did not think the Government ought to allow an Orangeman to fill the high and important office of sheriff, because to be an Orangeman was to be a partizan. On the trial of M'Kenna's case the panel consisted of 250 persons. In the jurors' book, there were 1,200 names in round numbers, 400 of them being Roman Catholics, showing a proportion of two Protestants to one Catholic. Out of the first seventy names on the panel there were only seven Catholics, and of these three were ineligible; so that there were only four Catholics left. Such was the state of the panel when important cases involving party and religious considerations were about to be tried. Although there were sixty magistrates in the county of Monaghan, not one of them was put on the panel until a demand was made by the attorney for the prisoners, and then one was placed on the panel. He was aware that the sheriff did not take an active part in framing the panel, but he was responsible to the Crown and was sworn to act fairly between party and party. In 1864 Mr. Riley, who was a Catholic, had the arrangement of the panel, and he returned 200 names, forty-eight of them being-Catholics, and 152 Protestants. In 1865, Mr. Mitchell, the sub-sheriff at the last Assizes, admitted that he took the panel of 1864, and altered it, for he appointed 200, of whom forty-one were Catholics and 159 Protestants. But it was not so much the small proportion of Catholics as the position assigned to them on the list, which made it almost impossible for them to serve on the jury; for the prisoner could only challenge twenty peremptorily, and in the first sixty-seven names, there were only three Catholics. In 1867, the same principle was carried out. When M'Kenna was placed in the dock the finding to which he (Mr. Downing) had referred took place. On the next day, when he was again placed in the dock, Mr. Justice Morris stated that the panel had been quashed. That panel was admitted to be one affecting every case, and the consequence was that 100 Catholics and thirteen Protestants were set at liberty on entering into their own recognizances, and yet the jury taken from that panel convicted the seven Catholics who were now undergoing their sentences. That was all owing to the conduct of the sheriff. And one of the questions he would ask the Attorney General for Ireland was, whether that sheriff still retained his office; and, if so, whether it was the intention of the Lord Lieutenant to supersede him. It was not surprising when such proceedings took place that a want of confidence was felt in the administration of the law in Ireland, and that men occasionally took the law into their own hands. At the late trials, on the 5th of March, Mr. Riley, who defended the prisoners, wrote to the high sheriff, asking him to ensure a fair proportion of the prisoners' co-religionists on the panel. The reply of the high sheriff was that he intended making no alteration in the panel, except by adding some fifty jurors to the long panel, thus making it 250—of those forty-nine were Protestants. A similar letter was written by Mr. Riley to the sub-sheriff, who added fifty names to the panel, but forty-nine of them were Protestants, and only one was a Catholic, thus aggravating the case to a considerable extent. Mr. Riley then wrote to the Lord Lieutenant, who replied that it was a matter in which he could not interfere. The result was that the trial proceeded, with the consequences which he had described. The case reminded one of the declaration of Lord Denman—a name that will be ever revered, not so much from his professional knowledge, great as it was, as for his high sense of justice and unbending independence—in relation to the O'Connell trial. He feared that, to use his words, trial by jury in Monaghan had been nothing but a mockery, a delusion, and a snare. the jurors' book was made out and returned by parochial constables who were appointed by grand juries. In the county of Cork, out of thirty collectors, not one was a Roman Catholic. Several hon. Members had on former occasions attempted to induce Parliament to alter the present mode of selecting juries in Ireland, and he wished to ask the Attorney General whether he intended to bring in a Bill for this purpose? The other question he had to ask was, whether the jury panel having been quashed for partiality, it was intended by the Secretary for Ireland to recommend a free pardon to the seven persons who were convicted before Mr. Justice Lawson and sentenced to many months' imprisonment? He should be glad to know, moreover, whether the Attorney General would so alter the present system as that jurymen should be selected in criminal as well as in civil cases by ballot? The sub-sheriff for Monaghan admitted that he had been an Orangeman for many years, and that he knew a great many Orangemen. He stated, however, that he could not tell how many Orangemen were on the panel—whether there were as few as ten or as many as 100. The high sheriff on his part denied that he was an Orangeman, but admitted that he did subscribe a few shillings to give the Orangemen something to drink—a very unfortunate thing for a high sheriff to do. He held in his hand a document under the hand of the clerk at petty sessions certifying against twelve Orangemen, but no step whatever had been taken to bring them to trial. The people of Ireland would watch with great anxiety the answer of the hon. and learned Gentleman to the appeal now made to him, and he hoped that answer would be such as to give satisfaction.

said, it was only justice to the Rev. Mr. Bayley to state that he had been curate for ten years in the parish next his own, and that during that time no Orange flags had ever floated from his church. Mr. Bayley, on the contrary, had always discouraged any displays of this kind, and had incurred the displeasure of some of his parishioners in consequence.

said, this was not a question of putting people on the jury panel for their religion, but for their fitness. He protested against any comparison between the Orangemen and the Repealers of thirty or forty years ago. The latter were rebels, but the Orangemen were loyal men, who had combined, and would combine, together to support the Queen and the Constitution under which they lived. The sub-sheriff said he did not know how many Orangemen were on the panel, and that was the best proof of his impartiality. Orangemen, being loyal men, had as much right to be upon the jury panel as any other persons.

(Mr. SULLIVAN) said, that the matter to which his attention had been called was one of the gravest importance. It was only right to state that he was not responsible for the delay in bringing this matter before the House. The hon. Member (Mr. Downing) gave notice of his intention to ask certain Questions as to what occurred upon a trial at which he (the Attorney General for Ireland) was not present, and he had accordingly asked that the matter should be postponed in order to enable him to become acquainted with what had occurred at Monaghan. In Ireland, where confidence in the administration of the law was everything, it was most important that the administration of trial by jury should be above suspicion. It appeared that two men, Baird and M'Kenna, were to be tried at the last Assizes, and if the charges against them were true the lives of both were in jeopardy. Baird was charged with shooting a man named Hughes in the street, by firing from a window, and M'Kenna was charged with shooting a man in a house. Both cases arose out of circumstances in reference to which the political and religious passions of the people were strongly excited. Baird was acquitted, and having regard to various circumstances which the jury were bound to weigh, it was impossible to find fault with the verdict. M'Kenna was then put upon his trial, and the array was challenged on his behalf. It was the greatest misfortune which could befal the administration of the law that religious considerations should enter into the selection of juries—but the charge against the sheriff was that he had designedly inserted the names of Protestants upon the panel, intending to prejudice the trial of M'Kenna—and the counsel for the Crown could take no other course but to consent to try that issue. The mode of appointing triers was peculiar, and perhaps not over satisfactory, but it had been transmitted from very ancient times. The two first persons who answered to their names were sworn, and in this case it was certainly a remarkable circumstance that the persons appointed to try such a serious issue were both Roman Catholics. They were, however, as he understood, respectable men, and great weight must be attached in law to their finding, which was adverse to the sheriff. It appeared that there were 1,215 names upon the jurors' book, of which, forming the best judgment that his information enabled him to do, 423 were Roman Catholics. It certainly was a great misfortune that out of 250 names returned to form the panel only twenty were from the Roman Catholic barony of Farney, and these were placed at the end of the panel; and no doubt it was a circumstance having great weight with the triers. The explanation of the sheriff was that the barony of Farney being very remote from the town of Monaghan, it would have been inconvenient for jurors to attend, and he swore that their names were placed upon the list without any intention of prejudicing M'Kenna. In a case, however, like that of the last Assizes, where the list for trial was one of the heaviest that had ever been known in Monaghan, the convenience of jurors was not, in his opinion, a matter for the sheriff to consider. When the lives of two men were at stake he was bound to get the best panel he could procure. Personally little blame could be attached to Mr. Coote, for he swore that he had neither hand, act, nor part in the preparation of the list, but, legally, he must of course be held responsible for the acts of his subordinate; it was not for him (Mr. Sullivan) to determine what steps should be taken. "But what occurred at the last Assizes necessarily formed a great obstruction to the law, and, speaking as the public prosecutor in Ireland, in virtue of his office as Attorney General, he was bound to say that when M'Kenna came up for trial again next Assizes it was impossible that the state of things which existed at the last trial in the town of Monaghan could be suffered to continue. Without saying whether the sheriff was wrong or whether he was right, when confidence had once been shaken in the array it would present a serious obstacle to the due administration of justice, if, on a subsequent occasion, the people of the county saw the panel again prepared by the same persons that had been found guilty of framing it so as to press with harshness against a particular prisoner. As regarded the observations said to have been delivered by Mr. Justice Morris, who tried the case, he had inquired particularly into them, and concurred in the propriety of the warning which he had addressed to the triers. It would be, of course, for the Lord Lieutenant to say with respect to the rioters how in his opinion they ought to be dealt with, but he felt persuaded that Mr. Justice Lawson would never have passed upon them a sentence disproportionate to the facts adduced in evidence. The present jury system was universally acknowledged to be unsatisfactory, and he had found it so in practice. With respect to the proposal to select jurors by ballot, an admirable Amendment was to be found in the Business Paper of the House to the Jurors Bill introduced by the hon. and gallant Member for Longford (Mr. O'Reilly). But it was one thing to select a general panel for the Assize by ballot, and it was another to select a jury to try a particular case in that manner. However advantageous the adoption of the former system might be, the latter would never be tolerated for a moment, because it would take away from the prisoner the safeguard which he now possessed in the right of challenging, without assigning any reason, a certain number of jurymen. He could not hold out to his hon. Friend any hope that a Bill would be brought in during the present Session; but no doubt the condition of our jury system would engage the attention of Her Majesty's Government as soon as the state of Public Business afforded a convenient opportunity. With respect to the complaint of his hon. Friend about the party procession he could give no information, as he knew nothing about the matter, which had not occurred during his period of Office, but he thought it required explanation. he trusted that his hon. Friend would be satisfied with the answers he had given.

said, that in answer to the question whether the fact of a man's belonging to an Orange society was not sufficient to disqualify him from serving as a juror, he wished to state that an Act of Parliament had been passed which suppressed the original Orange Society.

You will find that is not so.

said, it was on account of its signs and passwords and oaths that the original Orange Society was suppressed; and a case was laid before ex-Chancellor Napier, and new rules were formed, signs and passwords and oaths were abolished, and a new society was constituted so as to evade the law, and there the fact of being an Orangeman was not a legal disqualification. He believed that in this particular case the evidence of the sub-sheriff was not accepted because it was not consistent, he having stated at one time that he had placed the jurymen from the barony of Farney last on the panel because they would have a great distance to come, and in another that he had taken the jurors indifferently and put them through the panel, in which case of course the names of the jurors from Farney would have been found mixed with the others. The subject was, however, one of some importance as affecting the administration of justice in Ireland. Irish Members could not, unfortunately, but acknowledge that the law was not so much respected in their country as they would wish to see it, and though the population generally were not given to crime, there was too frequently a tendency to protect the criminal. This feeling of antagonism to the law arose mainly from the long years in which the law was against the people of Ireland, and when it represented a tyrannical power which was always against and never for the people. This feeling, which was gradually wearing away, was perpetuated by such cases as this, which, in the minds of a large number of the people, gave rise to the suspicion that partiality had been exercised. He fully concurred in the general principle that a man's religion ought not to be considered when calling upon him to act as a juryman; but it must be remembered that, in cases where party or religious prejudices were enlisted, the due administration of justice could not be secured without adopting what would otherwise appear to be an exceptional course. Even in Wales popular feeling ran so strong, at one time, that trial by jury was regarded as a farce; it being generally believed that no jury in that country would convict a Welshman, while a Welshman on the border, and with a border jury, would have stood very little chance indeed. In cases where anything like a selection of a jury on party grounds was suspected all respect for the law administered by the court was gone. He had before pointed out that the Crown could take measures to have the venue changed from a place in which party spirit was rife. Under the direction of the present Chief Baron Pigott, juries composed one-half of Roman Catholics and one-half of Protestants had been empannelled in party cases, and, he believed, the result was that satisfactory verdicts were in every case returned. He hoped that some Act would be passed to take away the unlimited discretion to form the panel that rested in the sheriff and still more in the sub-sheriff, who was very often a small local official who mixed himself up with party politics. He was glad to hear that the plan, which he had recommended on a former occasion, of forming the panel in criminal cases by ballot, reserving the right of challenge at the time of the trial to the Crown and the prisoner, was under the consideration of his right hon. Friend the Attorney General for Ireland.

said, he rose to call the attention of the House to the question of Friendly Societies; and to move, "That this House is of opinion that the Government should introduce a Measure to remedy the present insufficient state of the Law in relation to Friendly Societies." In 1854 a Committee was appointed to inquire into the question, and upon their Report the Act 18 and 19 Vict., c. 67, was passed. It was found, however, that that Act did not remove the evils against which it was directed, and in 1860, another Bill was brought in by Mr. Estcourt to compel the making of returns to the Registrar General of Friendly Societies; but notwithstanding that Act the returns were most irregular and very faulty. In 1861, another Act was passed requiring every society to render accounts to every member, but that Act also had, he believed, been practically inoperative. The evils connected with these societies had forced themselves upon the attention of Members of both Houses of the Legislature, and Lord Devon's Return, obtained in 1857, no doubt did some good by publicity, but those evils still continued. On a recent occasion a case came before Mr. Selfe, one of the metropolitan police magistrates, in which a man named Bohan made a complaint against the West London Philanthropic Benefit Society, which held its meetings at the King's Head, Chelsea. The man had been a member for years, and £7 was to have been paid on the death of his wife. Well, his wife died; but when he went for the money he was told there were no funds, and that the society was dissolved. The magistrate in that case granted a summons against the secretary of the society, and said that these Burial Societies were a perfect pest, that a week never passed without his having some complaint against a landlord or a secretary; that those societies took the hard-earned pence of poor people for years, and refused to meet their engagements when the deaths occurred. But complaints of this kind were not confined to the metropolis. They were heard from every part of the country. In speaking of Friendly Societies he wished to divide them into two classes. There were the Burial Societies and there were such societies as the Odd Fellows, the Foresters, the Druids, the Shepherds, and others of a similar character. The Burial Societies were conducted in an entirely different manner from those very large associations. Mr. Tidd Pratt stated that, at the time of the passing of the Act of George III., the Legislature had in view Friendly Societies the members of which knew each other and managed their own business without the intervention of paid officers. But the difference between these old societies and the new Burial Societies was very great. The members of the latter were generally poor persons, and were spread all over the kingdom. These persons never participated in the management, which was conducted by a few individuals over whom the secretary generally had complete control, and it was said by Mr. Tidd Pratt that the only means by which these societies, known as Burial Societies, could be regulated was by exceptional legislation. Mr. Tidd Pratt gave certain statistics of ten societies from the Returns made to the other House, which showed that the number of insurers amounted to 486,612; but it was stated that the number of subscribers to those Burial Societies was altogether not less than 1,000,000. The gross receipts for the year amounted to £94,323, the expenses of management came to £36,301, and the payment on deaths amounted to £64,386; so that the payments on deaths and the expenses of management amounted to £6,364 beyond the total receipts for the year. The amount of the funds in hand was about 2s. 10d. per member; it was estimated that the whole amount insured was £1,500,000, and to meet the liabilities to insurers the assets wore £67,267. Mr. Tidd Pratt showed that for every 20s. spent for the relief of members the cost of management was, in the St. Patrick's Society, 16s. 3d. For every pound expended by the Victoria Legal Society, established in Birmingham, in the relief of members, they spent £3 on the management. The average was taken by Mr. Tidd Pratt of the amount each member had in the various societies, and it appeared that in St. Patrick's the amount of funds available for each member was 2s. 4d., in another 5s., and in the Victoria Legal Society, where they spent £3 to give away £1, the amount available for each member was 1d. Mr. Tidd Pratt stated that when the poor people, who had insured, wanted to recover their money they must go to Liverpool or Birmingham to get it in case of any dispute. The Royal Liver Society in Liverpool have in benefit 401,320 members; out of benefit, 52,602; and arriving at benefit, 75,996. The funds amounted to £117,930, or 4.s. 5d. for each member. They spent 15s. 9d. in expenses for every 20.s. in relief. Each of the committeemen received £520 per annum, and it appeared that no governor or committeeman of any life insurance office in England received salaries equal to those paid to the committee-men of the Royal Liver Society. The Victoria Legal in Liverpool was established in 1843; the yearly receipts were £28,000; members, 127,000; payments for funerals, £ 12,000; and nearly 20s. were expended for every 20s. paid for benefits. It appeared that the whole of the assets of Burial Societies, consisting of more than 1,000,000 insurers, and with £3,000,000 insured, including value of property and money in hand, amounted only to £181,000. In one of these societies the secretary's salary was raised to £400 a year, and a Judge decided that he had misappropriated nearly £4,000. and ordered it to be refunded; he had no power to do more, and the secretary set the law at defiance. A collector occasionally went from an old society to a new one on being allowed to keep the receipts to himself for the first six weeks. He told insurers in the old society that their only safeguard was to go with him to the new society, and the consequence was that those who took his advice got out of benefit with the old society, and were not at once in benefit with the new society; and in case of a death within the period of six weeks they had no claim upon the society they left, and no claim upon the society they entered, and were without any remedy at all. That was a state of things that ought to be remedied by the House. They had done too much by legislation or too little, because poor people joined a society under the supposition that because the rules had been certified by Mr. Tidd Pratt all was right and legal. But when Mr. Tidd Pratt certified the rules, all he said was that the rules were not contrary to law as put before him, and Mr. Tidd Pratt did not mean to intimate that he was satisfied that the tables of those societies were correct. Mr. Johnson—referring to the Liverpool societies in a pamphlet—stated that the extravagant expenditure was without parallel. The tables were in many cases drawn up by actuaries who never saw the rules, and who certainly would not have certified to the tables if they had known that so large an amount of the receipts went for management. It had been announced that Government would bring in a Bill to allow insurances of small amount to be effected in the savings bank department of the Post Office, but from the returns of the expenses already incurred in managing that business he doubted whether it would pay. Next, he would refer to such large societies as the Odd Fellows and Foresters. The Odd Fellows Association consisted of 412,000 members, and the receipts last year amounted to £499,000. The expenditure was £326,000, and the gain on the whole of the operations of the year was £172,000. The valuation of their property was £2,600,000, or more than £6 per head for every member. The Foresters had altogether over 300,000 members last year; the receipts amounted to £366,840; expended, £273,000; gain on the operations of the year, £93,000. It was said by the secretary that £40,000 ought to be put to another account, but after so doing the gain by the operations of last year would be more than £50,000. The total assets of the Foresters were over £1,000,000, so that each of the 300,000 members had £3 9s. 9d. to the good. Much might be said in favour of these societies, but still there was an obverse to the picture. The members, for instance, had not yet become sufficiently alive to the necessity of a valuation of their property, and it would be necessary in legislating on the subject to provide that regular periodical valuations should be made of each lodge in the kingdom. The objection hitherto was the cost. But this was a difficulty which might be removed. It would be well to consider whether the Board of Trade could not sanction the appointment of a competent actuary to make these valuations. Stability would be secured to these societies by compelling them to make a quinquennial or a septennial valuation of their assets. He was happy to say that the Friendly Societies themselves were becoming sensible of the importance of these valuations. Every report from the head-quarters of those societies for the last four or five years, he believed, insisted on the necessity for a valuation. He hoped the Secretary of State for the Home Department would carry into effect the wishes of the conductors of those societies in that regard by introducing a Bill to require that such returns should be sent, and that such valuations should be made. It was too much the fashion of writers to assert that all Foresters and Odd Fellow Societies were insolvent. Mr. Neison, the late actuary, gave his opinion some years ago that the Odd Fellows Societies were insolvent to the extent of £9,000,000; but his son, Mr. Neison, actuary, now estimated their liabilities at £2,000,000, and stated that the bulk of that amount was due from the Odd Fellows Societies in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Cheshire. With the exception of these four counties, Mr. Neison believed that the Odd Fellows Friendly Societies by means of increased payments might be placed on a sound basis. He (Mr. Richards) was confident that by the aid of proper legislation and the enlightened management of the gentlemen who were at the head of them, these societies, instead of being insolvent, would become one of the great institutions of this country. A great deal of laughter was frequently occasioned by the regalia and processions of Odd Fellows Societies. It must not be supposed that all who joined those societies approved of all they did. At one of the late gatherings of Odd Fellows Societies, one of their leading men, Mr. Fletcher, said that during the twenty-five years he had been connected with them he had not expended 1d. in decorating himself for a procession, and he hoped the time would come when the Odd Fellows Societies would sweep away from themselves that which other people looked upon as humbug. Again, on the question of remunerating the landlord for the hire of a lodge-room by purchasing beer instead of paying in cash, Mr. Kennedy, of Dublin, lately addressed the Foresters in indignant terms against that practice, and stated that, in Ireland, no court would dare to have beer on the council table, much less to enter in their accounts a charge for the payment of it, and he trusted that this improvement would soon extend to all parts of England. These were the opinions expressed by members of those societies. He (Mr. Richards) hoped that the societies would, ere long, clear themselves of these abuses, and take up the position which really belonged to them—that of being the great insurance societies of the working classes. It might be said that it would be much the readier way for working men to go to an insurance office at once. But that was not his view of the matter. He thought it a matter of great importance that they should themselves have a share in the management of their own business. He believed that it was just that feature in these societies which had constituted a great element in their success, and which gave them a special value. It made them, in fact, a great means of teaching the working classes the duties of citizenship, and he believed that the future of this country would be a great deal better than its past, by the education which a great many men received in the Odd Fellows and societies of that description. As an honorary member of one of them he might state that the order and decorum with which their meetings were conducted, equalled the order and decorum in that House. Every member who entered the room had to make the same acknowledgment of the authority in the chair as was made by Members entering that House. There was no swearing, and neither political nor religious questions were allowed to be introduced. He called upon the Secretary of State for the Home Department to assist these men in making their savings safe. He wished to be informed whether the Government were prepared to legislate on this subject, and if not, whether they would assent to a Committee of Inquiry, or the ap- pointment of a Commission for the purpose of obtaining further information as to Odd Fellows and Foresters, and more particularly with respect to Burial Societies?

said, that for the last twenty years, with the assistance, and under the guidance of Mr. Sotheron Estcourt, he had taken a deep interest in this question. While agreeing with most of what had just fallen from his hon. Friend (Mr. Richards), he could not quite coincide in the opinion that the existing evils were all susceptible of an easy and immediate remedy by legislation. He looked with satisfaction on the great progress that had been made by Friendly Societies of late years. A very startling attack had been made on the solvency of the Odd Fellows some twenty-two or twenty-three years ago, which had very much to do with the reform of that body; and it was greatly to the credit of the working-men that, in spite of evil report, they had gone resolutely on until they had reached a position in which they were trusted and perfectly solvent. He looked upon these institutions as splendid examples of the foresight and self-denial of the better members of the working classes; and if hon. Gentlemen had followed the efforts of those men they would have been sensible of what an up-hill fight they had to make in order to reach that position, and how they had gone on year by year endeavouring to improve those with whom they were associated. He did not deny that there might be a case for legislative action, but with respect to the great societies, he would say lot them minimize their legislation. The Committee which sat upon the subject of Friendly Societies had, in the first instance, thought it would be possible to apply stringent remedies to the abuses which were formerly so rife; hut further consideration had satisfied them that it would be better to trust to the good sense of the working men themselves. It had given great satisfaction to Mr. Sotheron Estcourt himself, and other friends of the societies, to find that the men who belonged to them had responded so completely to the confidence that had been placed in them. There was nothing that the great clubs more dreaded than that this feeling of confidence should be broken into by any interference. They were, and would be quite satisfied with the law as it stood, though there might be some little points of detail which might call for a slight remedy. The question of Burial Societies, however, stood on a totally different footing. They speculated in the most cruel manner on the affection, grief, and ignorance of poor people, whom they induced to make great sacrifices, and whose money they took, and then when the time for meeting the claim came they would say they could only give this or that small sum, and the poor people in the time of their distress had often no alternative but to accept what was offered them. He thought his hon. Friend had, at all events, made out a case for inquiry. An immense body of men, many of them the flower of the working-classes, were interested in the question; and there were but few who really knew what great credit was due to these poor people for the self-denial they practised weekly, monthly, and yearly, and what a cruel thing it was for them to find in the end, perhaps after twenty years' subscription, that there was nothing to depend on after all. Great credit was due to the Earl of Lichfield for his attempt at legislation, and if his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department should not hold out a hope that he would himself take up the question, he had no doubt that the Earl of Lichfield would press the matter again in "another place." In the county in which he (Mr. Bonham-Carter) resided a large proportion of the inmates of the poorhouses were persons who had belonged to Friendly Societies that had broken down. What he would urge on the Government was not to allow that the unsound societies, which brought so many to destitution, should go on without legislation. He was not sanguine that the Government could do anything by legislation on the subject this year, or, indeed, that anything could be done upon it at all by way of legislation; but if, by means of inquiry or otherwise, they could help the people to distinguish between good and bad institutions of that kind they would render a most valuable service to the numerous class interested in that important question.

, having long known the earnest and practical interest taken by the hon. Member for Cardiganshire (Mr. Richards) in all that concerned the well-being of the working classes, was not at all surprised at the mastery of his subject which he had exhibited that evening; and he only regretted that there was not a fuller attendance of hon. Members to hear the hon. Gentleman's masterly, though maiden, speech as a Member of Parliament. It was quite true that the importance of that question could hardly be exaggerated. It affected millions of the working class, and affected them in a manner that was of the greatest possible interest to the House and the country. What they wanted to do was to increase the habits of providence and forethought among the working class; and whatever gave them a security that their savings and sacrifices should not be lost to them was a matter of vital importance not only to that class, but to all other classes whose prosperity so greatly depended upon theirs. That being so, Parliament had not been unmindful of its duty; for, during the last thirty or forty years, its attention had been from time to time occupied with the question of these societies, and occupied with it not quite in vain, because, as was clear from what they had heard that night, where the working men availed themselves of the power offered them by law they had succeeded in establishing societies on a firm and solid basis. That had happened as publicity had brought home to them the knowledge of what constituted the security of those societies, and almost every year it was found that that which had been the shame of those societies was gradually disappearing. Larger masses of the working people were seen attaching themselves to the larger and more stable societies, and leaving those small and unsound societies which had wrought so much misery and ruin. Knowing how strong the love of independence and the jealousy of Government interference were among the working classes, he greatly doubted whether Parliament or the State could do much more than it had done in that matter. What had been done had been done mainly in the preparation or sanctioning of rules on the part of the Government, and also—though not very successfully, he admitted—in giving publicity to the accounts of those societies. The hon. Member for Cardiganshire suggested that an actuary for these institutions should be appointed—[Mr. RICHARDS: Sanctioned.]—well, sanctioned by the Government, whose duty it should be to investigate their tables, to examine their accounts, and see from time to time whether they stood on a firm basis. But what the hon. Gentleman recommended the Government to do on behalf of the Friendly Societies it appeared to him they could do without much trouble on their own behalf. The case of the Burial Societies was a very different one, and the hon. Gentleman had been more successful in establishing the existence of a great evil—which, indeed, had been fully and repeatedly explained in Mr. Tidd Pratt's Annual Reports—than in suggesting a suitable remedy. It was said the more ignorant portion of the working classes were the victims of designing men, who went about the country making attractive statements to them, and inducing them to subscribe to societies which were, in fact, bubble institutions; but the best remedy for that seemed to him to be the spread of greater knowledge among the classes immediately concerned. Parliament could hardly be asked to prohibit the existence of those Burial Societies, although some persons thought they contained the germs of much mischief. The fact was there were honest and dishonest societies. He did not know whether means could be found for bringing the societies into a better condition, except by the one simple method of publishing statements of their accounts, and thus enabling the working classes to obtain accurate knowledge of the good and stable societies as distinguished from those which were of a bad and bubble character. He would leave the remedy, therefore, to time and education. But if his hon. Friend were dissatisfied with that and wished, at a proper opportunity, to move for a Committee of Inquiry into that question, no opposition to the Motion would be offered by the Government. The inquiry need not be a long one, and it would be a matter for rejoicing if its result should be to show that Parliament, without infringing on the laws laid down for its general guidance in dealing with such subjects, could do something effectual to save the working classes from the evils to which they were exposed. The hon. Gentleman deserved thanks for the able manner in which he had brought that question before the House, and he hoped that the hon. Gentleman's statement would have due effect upon the working classes, many of whom took a growing interest in the debates of that House, and that they would be led, with time and increasing knowledge, more and more to adopt securer methods of providing against old age and evil days.

said, he rose to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If His attention has been called to a recent decision of the Irish Court of Chancery on an Appeal arising out of a conveyance of a portion of the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough to a Mrs. Catherine Reilly, the purchaser of a portion of a neigbouring property sold in the Incumbered Estates Court; and whether it is intended to propose any amendment of the Law which sanctions the sale of incumbered estates in Ireland? Every man who owned an acre of land in Ireland was deeply concerned in this matter, which was a glaring act of robbery perpetrated by the Incumbered Estates Court. He would beg leave to read a statement of the facts from a letter by the Hon. Cavendish Butler. In the year 1865, a portion of the estate of Loftus Tottenham, Esq., situated in the county of Fermanagh, was advertised for sale by the Landed Estates Court. As this estate was contiguous to the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough, in accordance with the practice of the court, notice of the proposed sale, a rental, and copies of maps of the estate, were submitted to the agent to Lord Lanesborough, in order that he might satisfy himself of the correctness of the boundaries. No error in this respect appearing on the face of the maps, the sale was allowed to proceed. A certain Catherine Reilly rented a portion of the Tottenham estate, containing 16 acres, 3 roods, 29 perches. At the sale she purchased the fee simple of this land, which was separated from the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough by a deep ditch and a high quickset hedge. A Landed Estates Court title was given to her, and nothing further transpired until the year 1867, two years after the purchase, when she claimed a portion of Lord Lanesborough's property, which was bounded on the one side by the portion of land so purchased, and on the other by a public street in the town of Newtown Butler, and which contained 49 perches of ground, valuable for building purposes. This claim was, of course, resisted, and eventually, as Mrs. Reilly threatened to take forcible possession, an action for trespass was brought against her in the Court of Common Pleas. For the plaintiff the above facts were stated. The Landed Estates Court proved that the defendant purchased and paid for only 16 acres, 3 roods, 29 perches, which were duly conveyed to her; that if the 49 perches now claimed were added to her purchase, she would become possessed of so much more land than she had actually bid for, paid for, or ever had in her possession; that the said 49 perches formed part of the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough, and had been in possession of the family since the original grant of the estate, and that by no act of the present or late proprietor had it been alienated. The defendant, on the other hand, claimed under the conveyance made to her by the Landed Estates Court, which, although it only specified that it had sold and thereby conveyed to her 16 acres, 3 roods, and 29 perches, still went on to say that "the portion coloured red, defined on a map attached to said conveyance, was the land so conveyed." A draughtsman attached to the Engineers' Office caused the red line alluded to include a portion of Lord Lanes borough's estate, containing 49 perches of ground, and thus made Mrs. Reilly's purchase 17 acres and 38 perches, and not 16 acres, 3 roods, and 29 perches, as stated in the deed. Chief Justice Monaghan held the title good and nonsuited the plaintiff. Upon this, reference was made to the Landed Estates Court for redress, and, upon the re-hearing of the case before Judge Lynch, he, in an elaborate judgment, called upon said Catherine Reilly to re-convey to trustees the said portion of ground thus improperly claimed by her, with a view to its restoration to its rightful owner, the Earl of Lanesborough. Against this decision Catherine Reilly appealed to the Court of Chancery, who again reversed the decree of the Landed Estates Court, and held that the line defined by the red paint was a good conveyance, and that, although Catherine Reilly acknowledged, and the body of the deed affirmed, that only 16 acres, 3 roods, and 29 perches were sold and paid for by the said Catherine Reilly, still she was entitled to 49 perches of a property that was never sold by the court, bought by the claimant, or included in the quantity specified by the said deed of conveyance. It appears, therefore, that no matter what the quantity or nature of property described in a deed of conveyance from the Landed Estates Court, the map alone is to be considered the basis of the purchase; and the question was whether a man's property could be conveyed to another, without his knowledge or consent, through the negligence or other default of some official? A portion of the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough had been so conveyed to the purchaser of a portion of a neighbouring estate—no portion of the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough was mentioned in the deed of conveyance—and the only grounds on which Catherine Reilly claimed the portion of Lord Lanesborough's estate, included in the map, was that it was so included. The Attorney General for Ireland would probably remember that when Ahab appropriated the land of Naboth he received a very severe punishment. If the conduct of Ahab was bad, the conduct of the Incumbered Estates Court was worse. Ahab gave notice to Naboth that he wanted the land, but the In-cumbered Estates Court gave Lord Lanesborough no notice whatever. The land, it was true, was of small extent and value, but the question was one of principle, and Parliament ought to interfere to prevent so gross an injustice.

said, he would not allude to the Scriptural illustration just introduced, but would remind the House that when the Incumbered Estates Court was founded in Ireland some twenty years ago it was thought to be of vital importance that every title given by it should be indefeasible. He was perfectly familiar with the facts of the case, for it happened that he had been Counsel against Lord Lanesborough. The estate adjoining to Lord Lanes-borough's property was sold in the In-cumbered Estates Court, and, through a mistake on the part of an officer of the Ordnance Survey, the strip of land in question belonging to his Lordship, and forming an acute angle projecting from the mass of the property, was included in the conveyance, though the map served on Lord Lanesborough, as an adjoining owner, showed this strip uncoloured. The mistake was to be regretted, but he did not think it properly described by the term "robbery." It should be remembered that during the operation of the court, which had conveyed millions of property, these mistakes had been of the most trivial character, this being, perhaps about the second or third which had been discovered. The remedy now suggested was an amendment of the law, but the only amendment that could be adopted would have the effect of rendering the title disputable. Now, it would be little short of a national calamity if, on account of a mistake with regard to some 49 or 50 perches of land, the validity of titles under the Incumbered Estates Court was impaired.

said, he knew nothing of the case until he had just heard it explained, but he must say it appeared to him that a flagrant robbery had been committed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman admitted that there had been a mistake, but pleaded that it was a small one. Now, they had all heard of excuses made by delinquents where the corpus delicti was a small one, and the excuse now offered was about on a par with that of the female delinquent to whom he referred. If the state of the law in Ireland was that, through the mistake of a Government officer, a man might be robbed of his land, and there was no mode of correcting the error, it was the bounden duty of the Government to see that a change in the law was at once introduced.

said, the Incumbered Estates Court had proved an inestimable been to Ireland, but its value would be greatly impaired if any doubts were thrown on the validity of the titles granted under it. At the same time, it would, he thought, be possible to devise a remedy for the injustice here pointed out. In Australia he had introduced a Bill for establishing a court similar to the Irish Incumbered Estates Court, and giving indefeasible titles; but there a small percentage was levied upon the value of the land brought under the system, and out of the fund thus formed the persons injured by such mischances as these received compensation. This system of insurance, which fell very lightly on those resorting to the court, worked satisfactorily. In addition to this there was a provision that the Government could recoup themselves by bringing an action for damages against the person who had benefited by the mistake that had been made.