, in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said, the Government wished that the House should proceed with the Bill with a full knowledge of the Amendments to the clauses, and of the new clauses which he had placed upon the Paper since the introduction of the measure, and which would materially alter the character of the Bill. In the first place, the Government proposed to re-authorize the practice of compounding by permitting agreements between owners and overseers for the payment of rates, in consideration of a definite commission to be paid to the owners. It was also proposed that owners should make themselves primarily responsible for the rates, so that the collector might go to them in the first instance instead of to the occupiers. Another Amendment authorized compounding in the case of tenants paying quarterly, provided the houses occupied were under £10 in value if without the metropolitan area, and under £20 within it. These, the chief Amendments he had placed upon the Paper, would meet the objections to the Bill as it originally stood—that it would meet the case of weekly tenants only, and that the 25 per cent would not give sufficient leverage to overseers to induce owners to com-pound. A further objection had been raised that the Bill did not offer sufficient inducements to the owner to make him undertake to pay, and this was met by an Amendment proposing that 25 per cent should be paid only to those who took the responsibility of the rates entirely upon themselves. In this way the Government proposed to remedy the economic grievance arising from the abolition of compounding, which had turned out to be far greater than any one anticipated two years ago, when Parliament had to choose between composition for rates and an extension of the franchise; but they had been careful also to avoid the danger of Parliamentary disfranchisement, which the re-introduction of compounding under the existing state of the law of representation might involve. As soon as the overseers had no interest in placing the name of the occupier upon the rate book omissions by the thousand would possibly occur; it was, therefore, not enough to say the name of the occupier should be placed on the rate book, and that his right to the suffrage should not be affected by his landlord's paying the rates. Machinery must be provided for enforcing the action of the overseers in the matter. Before the Act of 1867 passed composition was practised in the case of 95,000 occupiers above the £10 line, but notwithstanding the facilities for bringing such householders on the register,, the names of only 25,000 found their way there. This being the case in respect of occupiers of houses above £10 in value, it was easy to imagine what would be the result in respect of occupiers of smaller tenements, a more shifting class, who would have move trouble in getting on the lists. It might be safely estimated that three-fourths at least of this class would not come upon the register if no further provision were made. The Government, therefore, recommended three provisions us straightforward as any ever put in a Bill for the protection of political rights. Checks were required in these cases. It was proposed, in the first place, that the owner should be lined the commission he would otherwise get. if he omitted to give a list of the tenants he compounded for to the overseers: in the second place, that the overseers should be fined 40s. for each name omitted from the register; and in the third place, that the occupier should be allowed to claim his right before the Revising barrister, and have his name placed upon the register, if these cheeks had not proved sufficient. These were generally additions to the Bill rather than Amendments to it. The House would remember that the main principle of the Bill as introduced was that weekly tenants should be allowed to deduct their rates from their rent; and this system remained, but composition could co-exist with it. In this way, he believed, the Act would redeem all just expectations raised respecting it as regards the political side of the question. He was bound to state what induced the Government to make in the Bill the important change which they now proposed. When his first introduced the measure he stated truthfully and loyally that the Government were endeavouring to effect this economical reform without reviving the debates on the Bill of 1867, and they were anxious to do so without touching any political or party questions. The Bill had been before the country for some time, and they had received communications from a vast number of local authorities. He had obtained information from almost every borough, in which composition had previously existed, and the opinion was almost unanimous that the Bill, as it stood, although a valuable step in the direction of easing the weekly occupier, did not offer the landlords sufficient inducement to come to those agreements between themselves and the overseers which were so universally desired. The Government had thought that the leverage of the reduction of the rent would be sufficient; but they were told that it would not be so, but that, from arrears of rent and the difficulties tenants would have in understanding the arrangements, the deductions would not be sufficient to secure the object which, without any difference of party, they all had in view—namely, the settlement of this very difficult and formidable question. The Government thought, there-lore, that they would be justified in making fresh proposals, if they could not attain the end in view by the means which they had at first proposed, and he felt convinced that hon. Gentlemen opposite would as far as possible co-operate with them. It was also represented to the Government by many Conservatives as well as Liberals, who had come on deputations, that the payment of rates by the poorest class of occupiers was surrounded by such great difficulties, and was so inoperative at the present moment, that it would be better to abandon it altogether. "What he wished to ask hon. Gentlemen opposite was, in what respect would any protection to the franchise which now existed be diminished if they carried into effect the proposals now submitted to the House? It had been admitted, in the debates on the Bill of 1867, that payment by the landlord was practically payment by the tenant. That had been admitted by hon. Gentlemen opposite even when the landlord paid it in a lump sum, and the tenants paid it by instalments in their weekly rent. That was payment within the meaning of the Act. "Qui facit per alium facit per se"was a maxim which covered the principle of the Bill now before the House as well as the Bill of 1867. When hon. Members became aware of the great grievance which existed, when they heard that hundreds and thousands of summonses had been issued, and that great heart-burning had been occasioned, they would feel that they could give up something which, after all, was but a shadow, because, as he had endeavoured to show, the personal payment of rates had, by the force of circumstances, been proved to be utterly impossible, and if impossible, was it worth while to keep up a fiction which led to so much misery, especially as the very class which had been enfranchised was dissatisfied with the very Act which had brought it within the pale of the Constitution"? If they could correct these evils with the good feeling and co-operation of hon. Gentlemen opposite they would do a great deal to strengthen the respect with which the Act of 1867 would be regarded. It now only remained for him to explain the difference between that composition which the Government proposed to establish and the composition which existed before 1867. The difference consisted in this—that the Government were endeavouring to have a regulated and uniform system throughout the country, and did not intend to establish the old system of compounding ov reviving local Acts with all their differences of composition and enormous allowances. They were going, indeed, in the direction of uniformity of assessment. All were agreed that they must do their best to produce that. They wished to have uniformity of rating and uniformity in the collection of rates, and would it be wise, then, to re-establish a system of varying deduction in every borough according to the desires of the local authorities? That was the chief difference between the Bill of the Government and the simple re-enactment of composition. The Government might not have chosen the right line for the deduction; it was for the House to say whether it should be at 25 per cent, or at what point it should be; but he was sure the House would be unable to sanction the enormous deductions—amounting in some cases to 66⅓ per cent—which had prevailed in some boroughs. The Government proposed that an agreement should be authorized between the landlords and the tenants at a scale to be fixed once for all by the House. If £10 in the country and £20 in the metropolis should not appear to be the right limits, that was a matter on which the Government would feel bound to bow to the judgment of the House. It had been suggested in several large, towns that there ought to be two scales of deduction, one for houses between £5 and £10, and the other for houses below £5. However that might be, the two points on which the Government felt strongly were that the weekly tenants ought not to be called upon to pay rates for a longer time than the tenancy; and that there should be one uniform and not a diverse system of deduction, at the same time that the political rights of the newly-enfranchised class should not be infringed. He had endeavoured to state as briefly as possible the effect of the measure, and he would now leave it to the impartial judgment of the House.

We are certainly indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for the explanation he has afforded us of the intention of this Bill, for I confess it does not explain itself to me as clearly as I could wish. We are also indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for sonic admissions he has been pleased to make. Although there may be some reasons for the introduction of a Bill of this nature during the present Session, and sufficient cause for the great dissatisfaction which now exists, I confess that it is with no great sense of its adequacy to remove either such causes or the feelings it has justly created, in the Bill it is now the pleasure of Her Majesty's to introduce. The grievance complained of is this—that an alteration of an arbitrary and unjust nature has been made in a law heretofore existing, permitting owners of private property to make arrangements with the municipal bodies to which they belong, in the first place to the convenience of both parties concerned, and in the second, to the manifest advantage of the poorer classes by whom these tenements were held. They complain that the measure itself was a partial measure imposed upon such Parliamentary boroughs in an unfair and invidious manner, productive of consequences most seriously affecting their comfort, and for purposes to which they attach, perhaps, less importance than some hon. Members of this House. And they have cause for the complaint. I learn that by some the compounding system had been condemned. I believe that it was reported against by the Committee which sat last year; but, although I have carefully gone through the evidence, and the reasons put forward in its support, I think either that the Committee failed to recognize the force of some parts of that evidence, or that they entered into it with minds already strongly prejudiced against it; but I also think that this was sure to have been the case, for that Committee was composed of men who had sat through the great compound-householder debate. They had suffered unspeakable things at his hands, sat through long mornings and weary evenings; and, at last, to use a figure of speech lately employed by a right hon. Gentleman in another case, the House of Commons took courage to itself, the courage of desperation, perhaps—perhaps of imperfect knowledge, and the compound-householder was at one effort disestablished and disendowed. It was to ratify and confirm that decision that the Committee of 1867 sat. The compound-householder had been uncompounded. The Sartor Resartus and they sat upon him to keep him in his place. Throughout the whole proceedings this is obvious enough. If the House will bear with me a short space, I will show this. In the first place, I take Mr. Lumley's evidence as to this, and I would ask the Members to read Mr. Lumley's answers and evidence upon this special point from 125 to 285, and especially the answers at 200, 209, to 214, and lastly 277 to 278, page 14 of Report, For instance, at 206, after some evidence of the favourable working of a local Act, to the question—" Whether the Poor Law Board had always been in favour of rating owners? "he says—Yes," and subsequently at 213 and 214 repeats the same without qualification. And at 278 to question—" You have reason to believe that it is satisfactory throughout the county, and is being generally adopted?" he says—"Yes, I think so; I think it is increasing very much." 279—" You do not hear complaints of the auditor, or any other person in communication with the Poor Law Board?" answers—"No." Nor do I rest upon this. Going back to a former time, and subject to an inquiry certainly not less exhaustive and complete, and conducted by men whose ability has it is probable, no equal in this House, we find under their Report stated that—

" There are grave defects in the present manner of assessing the poor's rate under the provisions of Geo. 59., c. 12, ss. 19–23, for rating owners of property, the occupiers of which are a class of persons too poor or too fluctuating to be conveniently assessed to the rate."

And as a remedial measure they suggest that new enactment should be made to the following effect, namely—

" That owners of all rateable property let for no greater term than one year of no greater annual value than (£), without any minimum, shall be rated in respect of such property, instead of the occupier thereof, to all the local taxes."

Such a change as that suggested would probably be found sufficient to remove the existing complaints upon this part of the subject. Now, in the face of evidence such as this, it will not. at least, seem bold for me to doubt the weight of argument which induced the Committee, under Resolution 20, to affirm—

"That so much of any public or local Act as relates to compositions for rates for public purposes should be repealed."

And I can see no reason to reverse the opinion I expressed in this House, when in speaking upon this question, I said, April 12th, 1866—

"There are two ways in which we may attain this, we may abolish composition, or we can render it equal throughout and recognize it as the full rate. To the former I object. I think that composition is justly esteemed an advantage to the township and a been to the labouring class."

And I must hold that this view has been completely justified. The results—for this I am indebted to the Report, at page 32, under section 8—as to the collection of rates, the most comple evidence exists, and at Norwich, Birmingham, Brighton, Manchester, Liverpool, Wolverhampton, Oldham, &c, the full effects have been realized at once. From the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of the Trade, we have also evidence of this. In a recent speech, at Birmingham, he is reported to have said—

" But I want to speak to you a little upon another point of that Bill, and that is the clause or clauses which have created so much suffering and irritation in this town. I have a note sent to me to state that there have been no less than 15,000 summonses issued in connection with the payment of the rate made last May: that no less than 5,000 warrants of distress have been issued, and that it costs the parish at least £10 a week, or at the rate of £2,000 a year more than before, to collect the rates. It is a very curious thing that Birmingham has been more hardly hit than any other borough in the kingdom by this rate-paying clause, for in this borough the principle of compounding, that is of the landlord paying the rates of his tenants, and receiving a certain discount as compensation for that payment, had been established for a longer period, and to a greater extent, I believe, than in any other town in England or Wales."

Well, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman up to that point; a great injustice had been done, and one widen entailed inconvenience upon some, and absolute hardship upon a larger class. But the right hon. Gentleman will excuse me if I differ with him somewhat in the statement he makes in the latter part of the same speech. If any injustice was done, or wrong suffered, it did not originate on this side of the House. The right hon. Gentleman is reported to have proceeded thus—

"Now, there were three ways out of this difficulty, and it is sometimes convenient to have even one way of getting out of a difficulty. We might have had a pure household suffrage, without any reference to rating whatever, which, of course, would have been the best. He might, according to the Motion made in the House by Mr. Hibbert, bare extended the operation of my clause which operated upon the 94,000, and might have extended it over 476,000, and justice would have been done; or he might have done another thing, which he afterwards agreed to do, and which he did, which was to abolish the system of compounding altogether, which, I think, was the least wise, and the most harsh, and the most unjustifiable of the different propositions offered to him."

The right hon. Gentleman has lately accused the Leader of this party with a home manufacture of history. He has given one more instance of his dislike to monopoly in this case. I repeat it, this injustice, if there is injustice, did not come from this side of the House, and of this the right hon. Gentleman has been also kind enough to furnish the proof. Let me call the attention of the House to this. In explanation of the transaction, he goes on to say—

"I will tell you first what Mr. Gladstone said I understand that our opponents and their orators in the borough, and their newspaper writers lay the blame on Mr. Gladstone and the Liberal party, for the abolition of compounding, and for the infliction of so much suffering and hardship upon a great many thousands of the cottage occupiers in Birmingham. This is what Mr. Gladstone said when Mr. Hardeastle made his proposition. 'My hon. Friend offers us at the expense of an economical and social inconvenience, at the expense, at any rate, of foregoing an economical and social advantage—he offers us, instead of an extension of the franchise, which we conceive to be limited and unequal, equivocal and dangerous, as tending, in many parts, to corruption—ho offers an extension of the franchise which is liberal and perfectly equal. I am sorry, in deference to what seems an unwise judgment of the House, it is necessary to interfere with a system of composition which exists throughout the country. I must choose, however, the lessons of the two evils.'"

Afterwards, on another occasion, when Mr. Gladstone made a proposition to discuss the question, he made use of these words. He said—

" I have deprecated it all along, and have consented to it as I would consent to cut of off my leg rather than lose my life, on the principle of choosing the lesser evil. Well, what was the greater evil? It was that there should be no enfranchisement. Now, this much I can accept, and what it proves is this—that the schema was one deliberately adopted, and duly concerted among leading men on that side for an object distinctly avowed, and that it was done with a full knowledge and conviction of the social injury they would inflict upon the labouring class. To them, no doubt, the sacrifice made did not seem too much, it is perfectly possible to understand that."

Well, the right hon. Gentleman further informs us that Mr. Hodgkinson was a speaker upon the clause, and ends this remarkable chapter thus—

"He was once on our side, who was anxious to give no vote against any part of the Bill, because we were wishful that, in some shape or other, the Bill should pass through Parliament; and he gave notice that as the Government would not take any other mode of enfranchising the people, they insisted that the system of compounding should be absolutely and at once abolished."

And observes, with becoming candour—

"I dwell upon this, because of the passages I have seen in the speeches of our opponents, which show one of two things, either that they know nothing of the matter, or are very careless of the truth."

Well, there is one thing which, perhaps, I may observe for the benefit of those Members, who were not at that time in the House, that this Mr. Hodgkinson, thus casually alluded to, was the Mover of this clause. The actual author we now know to have been the right hon. Gentleman at the head of Her Majesty's Government, and the right hon. Gentle- man the President of the Board of Trade. And when it is duly demonstrated that this plan was neither connected, matured, or moved upon this side of the House, it will be, I think, clear how large a liberty has been taken with facts in the assertions put forth. Now, this is a matter of no small importance if we consider to what issues it lead. This speech of the right hon. Gentleman formed the text upon which the minor orators of the boroughs duly, and according to their lights preached. It influenced many minds, and may have helped to swell that majority which has assumed the grave responsibility of dismembering the English Church. It was done by politicians to servo a distinct party purpose, and they gained their end. Let them, at least, have the manliness to confess the truth. For that deed, good or evil, but certainly attended with hardships, this Bill is the cloak. It does not amount to a restitution of rights. I do not believe that this question has ever been fairly understood either as a social or political question, though I am not about at this time to enter into this. I am content to agree with the high authorities which I quote. To your present Bill grave objections exist. By it you still leave the occupier, at short periods, liable for his rate, and the benefit he derived from his landlord's composition is lost. By it you arbitrarily fix the abatement at 25 per cent, when under the extreme variability of circumstances in various localities it should often be 50, at least, and at this the occupier pays the full rate, if the question was properly understood. Of this, the bargain between the owner and the municipal authority is the best test. It is my belief that it will be a most inadequate remedy for a very great injustice to the poorer class, and that done for a political purpose. Their interests have not been adequately considered, nor adequately met. Acting under this belief, I shall move that the Bill be read this day three months.

said, he would not follow his hon. Friend (Mr. Corrance) in his argument as to who was answerable to the House for the abolition of the compound-householder. If any injury had accrued to the rate-payers in consequence of that abolition, he did not know whether the fault was attributable to the Liberal or the Conservative party; but if to the Liberal party, the present Government had, at all events, brought forward a measure which sought to obviate the inconveniences which had accrued during the past year. For his own part, he was not at all in favour of the system of compounding. He should like to see it abolished in all parishes and he regretted that his right hon. Friend the President of the Poor Law Board had not introduced clauses repealing the operation of the Compounding Acts in the various parishes in which they were at present in force. He would now briefly state why he preferred the present Bill to a revival of the compounding system. That system acted variously in different parts of the country, and was greatly abused in many towns where local Acts were in operation. He need not refer to a stronger case than that of Birmingham. There, although the system only applied to a part of the town, the abuse was carried to the utmost extent. For houses under £5 rental two-thirds off the rate was allowed, half being allowed for houses between £0 and £8, and one-third for houses between £8 and £12. How did this operate? Take the case of a house in Birmingham with a £0 rental. There would be certain deductions allowed by the Assessment Committee amounting to from 20 to 30 per cent, and being on the average 25 per cent. This reduced the assessable value of the house to £3 15s. Therefore, if a rate of 1s. in the pound were imposed it would amount to 3s. 9d.; but under the local Act 2s. 6d. was taken off, so that in reality the owner paid only 1s. 3d. Again, in Brighton, houses up to £20 rental were compounded for. The houses at £20 a year rental were occupied, not by the poor, but by shopkeepers and persons belonging to the middle classes, and he did not think that such people ought to have allowances made to them under the compounding principle. He believed that in Lambeth, Marylebone, and many other districts of the metropolis, houses of £20 rental were compounded for. This was, therefore, a real objection to the compounding system. But compounding had another disadvantage: it took away the advantages arising from the occupiers having a voice in the management of their own affairs. A portion of the town of Birmingham, for in- stance, was under a local Act, and the consequence was that nearly one-half of the householders of Birmingham in that district could not be put on the burgess roll in consequence of their names being off the rate books, owing to the system of compounding. This state of things, however, did not occur in towns under the Small Tenements Act, which contained a clause reserving the rights of occupiers to vote at municipal and other elections. The Bill seemed to avoid the objections to the compounding system, and yet to take advantage of some of the good parts of that system. It secured the votes of all the rate-payers, whether in the vestries, in municipal matters, or at Parliamentary Elections. It would do away with one of the principal objections of the compounding system—namely, compounding to so large an amount, and making so large an allowance as 50 per cent. It seemed to legalize what was now attempted to be carried out in a voluntary form between overseers and owners of property in certain places. In some of the Parliamentary boroughs, where the compounding system had been abolished, there was a voluntary arrangement for the payment of the rates by the owner. A system had been adopted in many towns, where there was no composition, by which the owners paid the fall rate and the occupiers remained on the rate book. That system had prevailed at the time compounding was abolished in the case of 98,000 ratepayers at a rental of £10, and in those towns the occupiers retained their right to vote. In the town which he had the honour to represent (Oldham) the system of composition had never existed, nor did he think his constituents had any wish to see it established; but then the Bill would give them an opportunity of making deductions, and of allowing the owners of houses to make arrangements for the payment of the rates of the occupiers. He preferred it to the system of compounding, because it did not compel every town to make the allowance of 25 per cent. It made 25 per cent the maximum. Another superiority of the pre-sent Bill over a revival of the system of compounding was that it applied to all places and to every parish in the country, while the system of compounding only applied to a limited number of parishes. If compounding was good it ought to be made compulsory on every parish. But if that Bill was good they ought to do away with compounding and make that Bill compulsory on every parish. The right hon. Gentleman ought to have repealed the operation of the Small Tenements Act in parishes where it was at present in force. The Small Tenements Act applied to houses of the rateable value of £6 and under, and this Bill, if the Amendments proposed by his right hon. Friend (the President of the Poor Law Board) became law, would come into operation with respect to houses below £10 rateable value; so they would have the Small Tenements Act in operation in respect to houses below £6 rateable value, and the new Act in operation in reference to houses between £6 and £10 rateable value. That was a distinction that ought not to exist. They would have overseers making agreements with owners between £6 and £10, and they would find the vestries adopting the Small Tenements Act with respect to houses of £6 rateable value. He should like to know also what the right hon. Gentleman proposed to do in regard to a difficulty which would arise in many places with respect to rescinding the Small Tenements Act. It was now necessary that two-thirds of the rate-payers should meet to rescind the Act, but the rate-payers most interested in having it rescinded were not on the rate book, and could not attend the vestry. Some clause should be introduced that would give all rate-payers, including those who were compounded for, the right to vote in the vestry on the question whether the Small Tenements Act should be rescinded or not. He should much prefer that the right hon. Gentleman should adopt the recommendations of the Poor Law Assessment Committee of last Session, and do away altogether with the system of compounding; but if the system were continued, he thought its operation ought to be limited to houses of a rateable value of £8 instead of £10 in the country, and of £10 instead of £20 in the metropolis. He should have felt satisfied if his right hon. Friend had presented his Bill without this 25 per cent deduction principle. When, however, he saw owners made liable for the rates on empty houses, it was, perhaps, only fair and reasonable to give them this allowance of 25 per cent. The Bill with the Amendments to be proposed furnished, he thought, a good and practical method of meeting the difficulties of the question, and it would, he hoped, receive the support of the House.

said, he thought the House was placed in a great difficulty in discussing this question. They had before them one Bill, and they were, in fact, discussing another. He had in his pocket a large correspondence, the parties to which gave by no means a complimentary version of the original Bill. He must say he could never have assented to that Bill. But now they were discussing in reality a Bill totally different. He regarded the course which had been taken by the House in 1867. in doing away in about two hours with the whole system of compounding, without considering what should be done in consequence of so great a change, as a very great mistake. He was also of opinion that another great change ought not now to be made until the country had been afforded an opportunity of expressing its views with respect to it, for, as it was. the bearing of the present measure was very imperfectly understood. What he should suggest was that, before anything like a real decision on it had been arrived at, the Bill should be committed pro formâ, in order that the Amendments might be introduced into it which it was proposed to insert. The subject was one of great magnitude, and it must not be supposed that the Bill would simply restore compounding in places in which it had existed before. It applied not only to houses, but to land, and not only to Parliamentary boroughs, but to every borough in the kingdom; and, while it was not quite clear to him that the system of compounding necessarily did good to the poorer classes of tenants, he had not the slightest doubt that any sudden transition from compounding or to compounding was calculated to produce the greatest hardship, resulting, in the dealings between landlord and tenant, in causing the weaker to go to the wall. Where compounding was established, the landlord would raise his rent; where it was abolished, the landlord would say it was done by legislation and not by him, and he would not reduce the rent. For these reasons he should not wish to pronounce his opinion as being decidedly in favour of the Bill without further information.

said, that in venturing to offer some remarks upon the important question now under discussion, he desired. as a new Member, to claim the kind indulgence of the House. As chairman of a metropolitan organization of parish authorities, formed to procure a repeal of the rate-paying clauses of the Reform Act of 1867, he took a deep interest in this question. The organization to which he referred was based purely upon economical grounds he might explain, and it was composed of men of every shade of political opinion. The large constituency (Hackney), in the representation of which he had the honour to share, was also deeply interested in this matter, and it was from a strict recognition of his duty towards them, as a representative, that he was induced thus early to address the House. In two parishes out of three of the borough which he represented, from 60,000 to 70,000 summonses for rates had been issued in a single year since the abolition of compounding, and in the whole more than 100,000. He need not say that that amounted to a great calamity. It had been productive of the greatest anxiety, distress, and serious loss to thousands of poor families. The cause of that parochial anarchy was the Reform Act of 1867, and the responsibility now rested on the House to remove this great parochial difficulty. A personal and careful inquiry into the merits of compounding confirmed him in this opinion—that it possessed merits which were neither fairly weighed nor considered during the political struggle previous to the carrying the Reform Act. It was a system built on the practical experience of more than half-a-century, economical and simple towards the parishes, satisfactory to landlords, and kind towards the poor. He deeply regretted that the system had been sacrificed to the exigencies of a political party. The compound-householder had been made much too mysterious an individual by hon. Members on both sides of the House. The simple mode of making the landlord the rate collector for the overseers, by the discount that was given to him, fulfilled one of the three important canons on taxation laid down by Adam Smith. All rates ought to be collected at the time and in the manner in which it was most convenient for the occupier to pay them. It was well known that in cases of domestic calamity it was often impossible for the poorer occupiers to pay at all. For the remedy of the present state of affairs there were two plans before the House, and he rejoiced that the Government had agreed that both should be discussed on the same night. He was in favour of the plan laid down in the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Sheridan), because it proposed to restore a system that had been found to work well The parish of St. John's, Hackney, under their local Act, had power to compel the owner of property of any amount, where the tenements were let for a shorter period than a quarter of a year, to be assessed and collect the rates; and they had the further power of compounding with any owners of property let under £20 a year, and for any length of time. What was the result? In the half-year before the passing of the Reform Bill of 1867, upon a rateable value of £440,875 they made a rate of 1s. in the pound, which ought to have produced £22,043, and actually yielded £21,900, showing a deficiency of only £143, which was ultimately reduced to £50. He must, however, confess that in collecting that amount the parish authorities had to issue between 4,000 and 5,000 summonses; they had to excuse some 200 poor persons, and something like 1,200 distress warrants had to be issued. But let them look to the half-year immediately after the passing of the Reform Bill, when that system was swept away. The rateable value had slightly increased, and was £458,952, upon which, in place of a ls. rate, it was found prudent to levy 1s. 6d. in the pound to cover any deficiencies. That rate ought to have produced £84,421, but it only yielded £29,199, showing a deficiency of £5,221, which was ultimately reduced by the payment of some portion of the arrears to about £3,700. But out of that amount a sum of £500 had to be paid to 270 owners of property for collecting the rates from 2,630 occupiers, which was, in fact, an evasion of the law. To obtain the amount of the rate 12,200 summonses had to be issued; 969 persons had to be excused by the magistrates, and 3,800 distress warrants were issued. These figures, however, but very feebly represented the amount of misery inflicted on the occupiers, who were, of course, the heads of families. The evil, though to some extent mitigated, would continue unless the parish authorities could have recourse to the powers which they formerly possessed. With regard to the measure before the House, he might at once say that politically he was satisfied with it, but economically he was not. His broad objection to it was that although the Bill gave powers to overseers to make arrangements with landlords of these poor properties, he did not believe that the landlords would make such agreements with them, because it would not be in any way so advantageous to the landlord to agree with the overseer if he could shift the entire payment off his own shoulders on to those of the tenant, and the consequence would be that neither would pay the rate. With regard to the objection that compounding was not a uniform system, so far from that being an argument against it, it was in his opinion a strong argument in favour of it. Two Bills had been brought in this Session to get rid of the present objections to the mode of valuation—one relating to the country generally, and the other to the metropolis. The great recommendation of the system of compounding before the late Reform Act was that it left people to manage their own affairs, and he was far from thinking it an objection that in Brighton and other towns the system was extended to houses above the value of £20. Hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House need never fear that a large number of these small rate-payers would ever come upon the register—especially in large and populous boroughs—from the great number of removals which took place annually. In two of the parishes comprised in the borough he represented, there were between 5,000 and 6.000 removals every year. The restoration of this system would not in the least disturb these much-valued political and social institutions, and the class who were most directly interested in it deserved generous treatment at the hands of the House, since they had been loyal and peaceable amidst great privation and suffering. The Bill of the hon. Member for Dudley was incomplete, because it made no provision for those persons coming on the register, and, therefore, he would suggest an Amendment to that Bill, suggested by his constituents—that of placing the name of the occupier on the rate book, with power to him to pay the rate, so that he might not lose the franchise in case the landlord neglected to pay it.

said that, as a member of the Select Committee by whom this subject was considered last year, he was desirous of vindicating the conclusions of that Com- mittee from the strictures passed upon them by the hon. Member for East Suffolk (Sir. Corrance). He quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle (Mr. Headlam) in regretting that they had not had an opportunity of considering the present proposal of Her Majesty's Government, which was entirely different from that made by them in the first instance, and which might have been better understood if the Bill had been re-printed before coming on for second reading. But the right hon. Gentleman had also referred to what had occurred in that House two years ago, when the compound-householder was abolished on the Motion of the hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Hodgkinson). Those who were present on that occasion would, he thought, bear him out in saying that there was no ground for the statement that the compound-householder was abolished in a hurry after two hours' debate, and in order to suit the exigencies of a political party. The Motion of the hon. Member for Newark was not accepted separately either by the House or by the late Government, but only when accompanied by the provision suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the present First Lord of the Admiralty. By that provision the owner and occupier were permitted to enter into an arrangement for the term of one year, by which the rates might be paid by the owner, the occupier in such case not being entitled to vote in respect of his tenancy. The right hon. Gentleman the present First Lord of the Treasury expressed himself in favour of this provision being added to the Motion of the hon. Member for Newark, and the late Government undertook to bring in clauses which would carry out both those provisions. They were, however, subsequently withdrawn, owing to the opposition which they encountered, not from the Conservative party, but from Members now sitting on the Government side of the House. Therefore, the late Government could not fairly be blamed for any hardships that might have resulted from the manner in which composition had been abolished by that House; but, in his opinion, that alteration had not by any means been attended by the evils which had been stated. With regard to its financial aspect, the evidence given before the Select Committee showed that at Oldham, Stockport, and Sheffield, where the practice of compounding had not existed, the proportion of the rates lost was much smaller than that lost in boroughs where the practice prevailed, and this was the case, too, with Bolton. In Oldham, where there were 17,800 occupiers, the total loss on £158,181 of rates levied during the time of the cotton famine had been only £21,584; whereas, if the Small Tenements Act had been in force, the allowances to the landlords under that Act would have been £29,337. In Stockport, where a similar composition had prevailed, between the years 1838 and 1850, only 60 per cent of the rates were received, as against 80 per cent collected under the system of personal assessment now existing. In Sheffield, where the district rate is compounded for at an allowance to the owners of 25 per cent on houses of £7 rating and under, £5,800 was lost out of £54,000; while, on the poor rate not compounded for, £937 only was lost on a rate of £80,000. The evidence given before that Committee also went to prove that the towns where the practice of compounding had formerly prevailed had not suffered in a financial point of view from its abolition. He believed there was only one place, Bethnal Green, in which a loss was anticipated by the collectors. The Committee took evidence from twelve or thirteen large parishes of the metropolis and of the largest towns in the kingdom, in almost every one of which an increase was expected. A series of questions was also circulated to towns that did not send up witnesses; of thirty-nine replies sixteen anticipated an increase, and only two a decrease; and in the other cases either no rates had been levied since the alteration, or the amount produced was expected to be much the same as before. Therefore, it could hardly be said that the abolition of composition was any great injury to the parishes; on the contrary, he believed it to have been a great benefit. Two cases had recently been mentioned in The Times, in one of which, that of Bradford, a large proportion of a rate had been collected without any difficulty, which in the other, that of St. George's-in-the-East, a rate of 5s. 1d. had produced as much as a rate of 5s. 3d. would have done tinder the compounding system. Therefore, it must be admitted by all who had given attention to this question, and who founded their opinions upon evidence, that, taking the country at large, the abolition of composition had resulted in a gain to the parishes. But it had been alleged that, though the parishes might have benefited by the change, it had only been at the cost of great hardship to the poorer classes of occupiers. Now, in the first place, much of this hardship was merely temporary. Of course, it was impossible to make a social change affecting large numbers of the poor without creating a large amount of temporary inconvenience and distress, and there had been other cases besides this in which a change of system had brought about a considerable amount of dissatisfaction. It was given in evidence, before the Assessed Rates Committee, that at Brighton, Wolver Hampton and other places there was a great falling off in employment for the inhabitants in the year following the abolition of composition, and again at Manchester and Northampton there was very considerable political agitation in connection with the extension of the franchise, by the abolition of the rate-paying clauses. But the distress was mainly caused by the fact that landlords in large towns, so far from recognizing the duty they owed to their tenants, kept up the rents at the old amount, and made the tenants pay the rates in addition to the former rent, which had included the rates. It must be remembered, with reference to the power of the landlord to act in this way, that it was merely a question of supply and demand. Where accommodation was scarce, landlords had tenants in their power. In such places, if the Government allowed the landlords 25 per cent under the present Bill, it would all go into their pockets, and the tenants would receive no benefit from the proposed change. He could not see why it was necessary to remove the liability of the occupier to the Poor Law throughout the whole country, simply because in certain parts occupiers were too poor, or through circumstances had been too distressed to pay the rate. The real grievance was confined to the case of weekly tenants, and he was ready to admit that they had a substantial grievance. Doubtless, under the present system, weekly tenants might be called upon to pay for a term far in excess of the period of their occupation; and he would co-operate in providing any possible remedy for this grievance. If they had the power to elect to pay the rate by instalments, he thought that would be amply sufficient to meet the case. If the parochial officer could only compel the tenant to pay such a portion of the rate as corresponded to the term for which he might, if he chose, remain in his house, he did not see why they should give the tenant any power to deduct a rate paid by him from the rent due to the landlord, as proposed by the Bill. The Committee recommended that the instalments should be monthly, but he would make them fortnightly. The proposal of the Government was almost entirely grounded upon the Petitions from the East of London and from Birmingham. Now, he could not see why the occupiers in these localities should have greater difficulty in paying the rate than those of Oldham, Sheffield, and Stockport. He had heard of one parish in the East-end of London where it had become a practice for an occupier never to pay a rate until he was summoned; consequently, the issue of summonses was no test whatever of the difficulty of collection. As far as he could see the right hon. Gentleman had yielded to Birmingham and the East of London, and the remedy which he proposed in the revised edition of his Bill was word for word the same as that recommended in the Petition of the Churchwardens of Lambeth. He would deal with it, therefore, as the proposal of the Churchwardens, and not of the President of the Poor Law Board. Now, he entirely objected to the allowances which were made to the landlords under a system of composition, for, while he pitied distressed occupiers, he wished to see every class of properly paying a fair and full rate, nothing being more objectionable than to have a reduction proposed in a rate on any particular description of property. In Norwich, the reduction, in calculating the compound rateable value of low-class property, was so large as three-fourths of the gross value, and the consequence of so absurd an allowance had been, that when the Reform Act compelled the payment of the full rate, there had been greater difficulties in collecting it at Norwich than in almost any other town. Moreover, any exemption of small tenement property from rating, or indulgence to it, would offer great temptations for the erection of cottages not fit for occupation. The full rate could be obtained by the landlord voluntarily paying it, as had been done in 94,000 cases before the passing of the Reform Bill. This number had of course been increased since. But it might happen that the landlords would pay the full rate only for the best tenants, leaving the parish officers to collect from the bad tenants, who would then get excused on the ground of poverty; and if this was carried to any great extent, the landlords might raise their rents on account of these excusals, and thus make a profit at the expense of the parish. To prevent this the Committee had recommended that, when any occupier was excused his rates, the owner, after due notice, should become liable for two-thirds of them; and this deduction of one-third was not open to the same objections as the ordinary com- position allowance, because it was made, not for a long term upon all small tenement property, but only for a single rate, in the case of occupiers so poor that the landlord would probably lose his rent from them. An established system of composition was also objectionable, because, as regarded the common fund or union charges, one parish which compounded would have an advantage over another that did not, as the charge on the latter would be calculated on its real rateable value, but on the former only on its reduced composition value. This system of compounding, which had become a principle of the Bill, was in all eases bad; it relieved a particular class of property of the payment of the full rate; and, if a perfect system, it would prevent compounding occupiers from taking a proper interest in local management. He was astonished to hear the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert) state that in his opinion compounding would create an interest in local affairs; but it was obvious that if a landlord regularly paid for a tenant, that tenant would grow careless as to whether the rales were less or more.

explained that he had said the tenant would be enabled to take a part in parish affairs by having his name upon the rate book.

said, he did not dispute the tenant's ability, but the inducement to interfere. The proposition of the right hon. Gentleman, however, was especially objection- able, because it would allow compounding, which might be approved if confined to eases of tenements let for short terms, to be extended to cases of yearly tenancies of far too high a rateable value: £10 in the country and £20 in London were most absurdly high limits, for which he believed there was no necessity. The Birmingham witnesses who were examined before the Committee last year asked for £7 only; the Brighton witnesses asked for nearly the same, and Cambridge thought £6 would be high enough. But the whole system of calculating composition on annual value was bad, and he could not give his reasons for this in better words than those inserted in the Report of the Committee, on the suggestion of the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Ayrton), as follows:—

"It may be observed, with reference to the practice of making the assessment of the owner depend upon the annual value of property, that where it is let to a tenant for a period co-extensive with that for which the rates are usually made, and the rent is reserved at periods when their payment is collected, the occupier stands in the same relation to the tax-gatherer as to his landlord, and is equally able to pay his rates as his rent. However small the rent may be, the rates will be small in proportion. While, then, there is no sufficient reason for affording any special facility for relieving the occupier from the personal payment of them, or the rate collector from the trouble of collecting them, there are very serious objections to making the collection of rates or their diminution or remission dependent upon some particular amount of annual rent. Any such limit must be most unequal and arbitrary in its application. It leads to various contrivances in the construction and letting of houses for the express purpose of turning the law to the benefit of those for whom it was not intended, and to other abuses. Your Committee, therefore, think that there is no necessity for making any exceptional mode of assessment dependent on the annual value of the premises rated, and that the collectors, under the arrangements they have suggested, will find no difficulty in collecting quarterly rates from yearly occupiers, however small their rates may be."

It was only necessary to add to this that houses let at high rents were sometimes improperly reduced, in calculating their rateable value, in order to get them within the limit of composition. He sympathized with the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, that he should not only have had one of his proposals, as to the quarterly collection of rates and taxes unanimously agreed to by a Committee, and then thrown over by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but that he should have this other recom- mendation—that composition should not be paid upon any annual value—rejected by the President of the Poor Law Board. But even of those who approved of the old system of composition, there were few who did not admit that the allowances under it were excessive. Well, what were they under this Bill? Take a house let at 4s. per week. That would amount to £10 8s. a year. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to reduce this by 25 per cent for repairs and insurance, under the Valuation of Property Bill, and thus bring the sum down to £7 16s. This, again, under Clause 48 of the same Bill, he would reduce by 20 per cent on account of the aggregate payments of a weekly tenant, amounting in the whole to more than the house would fetch if let by the year—a deduction which had never been made before, but to which he had no objection; it would bring the value to £5 15s., and from that would be deducted by the same Bill the rates and taxes, probably about a sovereign in this case, and the value would stand at £4 15s. From this there would be a further reduction of one quarter under the provisions contained in the Amendment placed on the Paper, so that the £10 8s. would be reduced altogether to some £4. The deductions, therefore, would be considerably more than the 50 per cent of the Small Tenements Act, and not far short of the 06 per cent which the President of the Poor Law Board had said the House could not possibly agree to. He did not see why the landlord should claim any deduction if he chose to pay his tenant's rates; of course, it had an appearance of justice when it was considered he paid for empty houses. But why should a man pay rates for empty houses? If it was considered right that the owners of all low-class property should pay the rates instead of the occupiers, he could see no reason against adopting the Scotch system, under which the landlords of houses under £4 in value paid all the rates without deductions; but it was not right in England, any more than in Scotland, to exact a rate from small tenement properly when unoccupied, which was not collected from unoccupied property of a higher value. This payment of rate for all houses, whether occupied or not, was the real principle of composition; and to this he entirely objected. But the most important clause in the Bill was that which provided that the payment of a reduced rate by the owner on behalf of the occupier, should be deemed a sufficient payment of the rate to entitle the latter to the Parliamentary franchise. What was now proposed by the right hon. Gentleman opposite was precisely that which was proposed by the present First Minister in 1867, and which was the occasion of one of the most important debates and divisions on the Reform Bill. The right hon. Gentleman on that occasion proposed that the occupier should be entitled to vote, whether he in person or his landlord was rated to the relief of the poor. That was precisely what the President of the Poor Law Board now proposed to do. He proposed to do away with the personal liability of the occupier. It was very clear, if the tenant was a very poor man, and both be and his landlord were, made jointly liable for the rate, that the liability would in reality fall upon the, rich owner, and not upon the poor occupier. This was a change of great importance, and one which required careful consideration. Various plans had been suggested to meet the hardships which were alleged to have arisen under the existing system. It was impossible that all those plans could be discussed on the present occasion, but they could be very well examined if the right hon. Gentleman would consent that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee Then they might enter dispassionately and calmly upstairs into the complicated and difficult questions which were involved—questions so dry and intricate that it was very difficult to discuss them in that House. There was one thing which he wished to say before he sat down. He quite admitted that difficulties had occurred in some of the large towns, notably in Birmingham and the East of London, from the abolition of composition. He should be glad to do a good deal in order to remove this class of difficulties; but he did not think it was fair to allow Birmingham and the East of London to dictate to the House what should be the law of rating, not only for all other towns, but for the whole country. The present system, as he had said, had been very successful in many large towns, and he believed it would have caused less dissatisfaction in other places had it not been for political agitation and the action of landlords to which he had alluded. He believed every day made it better appreciated, and the distress which it occasioned less felt. What was wanted was a special remedy for a special case, and he believed that a Select Committee could better hit off the exact remedy than could be done by open discussion in that House. But, whatever settlement might be arrived at, he hoped it would be with a view to rating and not political action, because nothing would be more to be deprecated than, if in the midst of so many important matters which demanded the attention of the House, they should be led to revive those acrimonious discussions which characterized the passing; of the Reform Act of 1867.

said, that the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman as it stood at first—and, indeed, the Bill as it stood now—did not satisfy him, and if he might attach any importance to the numerous deputations which had waited on the right hon. Gentleman with the avowed desire of inducing him to enlarge the scope of his measure, neither did it satisfy the country. He had received a great many communications from the country, and from many hon. Members on that side of the House, which led him to believe that his own Bill was preferable to the Bill of the right lion. Gentleman. But the result of the agitation was that the right hon. Gentleman amended his Bill. He had, in conjunction with those who took an interest in the Bill, very carefully considered the alterations proposed by the right hon. Gentleman, and the result was that his original view of the character of the right hon. Gentleman's measure had been very considerably modified. Those alterations had made the Bill nearly everything that the Liberal party wished for. It was true it did not restore compounding to the free and unfettered position in which it stood before the Act of 1867, but for all practical purposes it did restore compounding, and would answer the purpose which the House had in view. In his opinion, the objections urged to the measure that night might ail of them be met in Committee. The right hon. Gentleman had made special provision for the political part of the question, and as the right hon. Gentleman thought that his (Mr. Sheridan's) Bill did not provide for it, he wished to disabuse his mind on that head, and to assure him that it did, though the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman provided for it in a more effective manner. If, therefore, the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman should receive the sanction of the House, he would withdraw that part of his own Bill which referred to compounding. It was rather late to talk of referring the Bill to a Select Committee. The measure would relieve a large body of the people from the suffering they experienced as the result of what he must call mistaken legislation.

said, he was glad that the Amendment had not found a seconder; and that the suggestion to refer the Bill to a Select Committee did not receive much approval. The towns which were suffering from the effects of recent legislation were pressing for relief, and it was high time that the House should take some decisive action on the matter. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Corrance) was not quite correct in saying that the abolition of compounding arose from the Liberal party as a party. The House was exceedingly thin at the time when the hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Hodgkinson) brought forward his proposition as a private Member. After the hon. Member for Newark had made his speech, some communication was held with the Leaders on the opposite side, and then it was agreed, not by the Liberal party or the Liberal Leaders, but by a private Member on the Liberal side and the Leaders opposite, that compounding should be done away with. With regard to the operation of the change, a correspondent who was well conversant with the matter wrote to him to say that no one who had not witnessed the privations to which the industrious poor were constantly exposed could have any idea of the amount of distress and misery caused by the present system. In 1867 the summonses in the town which he represented (Northampton) had amounted to 1,617, and in 1868 they amounted to 3,672, showing an increase of 2,055. The distress warrants in 1867 were 422; and in 1868, 1,480, showing an increase of 1,058. The summonses were more than doubled, while the warrants had increased throe-fold. And if that was the state of things when employment was plentiful and provisions were cheap, what was it likely to be when those conditions were reversed? The repeal of Clause 7 in the Reform Act of 1867 would, perhaps, be the best remedy for the evil; but that was now out of the question; and, therefore, the wisest and most practical course would be to go into Committee and endeavour to make the Bill before them as suitable as possible for its purpose. He could not help thinking the deductions provided for by the Bill were too small; and he feared the measure would put both the owners and occupiers of small tenements in a rather worse position than they were under the old compounding system. It proposed that the franchise might be given either by the occupier paying his own rate, or by the owner making the payment of the rate, and sending in the name of his tenant to the overseers. The occupier would be liable for a larger sum than he would be liable for under the old compounding system, and the landlord might force him to pay in advance at an inconvenient time. Under the new system the reduction to be allowed must not exceed 25 per cent, whereas it was, in some instances under the old system, as much as 50 per cent. It was questionable whether a reduction of 25 per cent would be sufficient to induce landlords of houses under £6 rental to compound at all. In conclusion, he hoped that the Bill would pass, and that no further obstacle would be thrown in its way.

said, he had come down to the House determined to second the Motion of the hon. Member for East Saffolk (Mr. Corrance); but the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board had entirely altered the character of the Bill as originally presented to the House, and had made it a sufficiently satisfactory measure to warrant him in withdrawing the opposition he had intended to offer to it. He should deprecate any proposal to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, as the result of such a proceeding would be to shelve the Bill till another Session. There was a crying grievance to be remedied, and the House was already in possession of sufficient information to enable it to deal with the question.

said, he felt very much rejoiced that they were likely to go into Committee on this Bill. It was trifling to say that the political part of the question was not to be introduced, because that had been the principal question for consideration. During the debates on the Reform Bill of 1867 that was the principal question considered, and it was thought that by the abolition of compounding the whole difficulty would be solved, whereas it was perfectly clear that it was not solved. So far from the Act of 1867 having increased the number of electors, in the parish of Bermondsey—the largest in the borough he represented (Southwark)—the number had actually been diminished. He would suggest an alteration in the Bill. Instead of the poor rate only being alluded to, the rates in general should be dealt with. No less than three or four rates were collected along with the poor rate, and it would, therefore, be wise to include them all in one category. If the right hon. Gentleman would refer to the Report of last year, he would find that the difficulties of the question might be very easily solved. A proposal had been made by the Secretary for the Treasury (Mr. Ayrton) that in the case of houses the rent of which was collected at shorter intervals than quarterly, both the landlord and the occupier might be placed on the rate book, and if the occupier did not pay the rate the landlord should. This would get rid of much of the machinery of the present Bill, and leave the matter for settlement between the landlord and the tenant. He should lay on the table some Amendments framed in accordance with this proposition, which he hoped might obtain the consideration of the House. The great object should be to make the Bill as simple as possible, whereas some of the Amendments proposed had introduced confusion into the plan. It would be advisable to have the Bill re-printed, with the Amendments proposed by the President of the Poor Law Board. If the Bill in its new form were placed before the House in an intelligible way there was no reason why it might not advance speedily and pass. It was absolutely necessary, however, that the political question should form part of the Bill. He did not see the necessity for referring the Bill to a Select Committee.

said, that if they were to have a further complication of the county system of compounding it would render the present almost unbearable anomalies of that system absolutely in- tolerable. As the Bill was to meet an exceptional grievance which had been brought on the Parliamentary boroughs, he hoped it would be confined to them.

Sir, I was rather surprised at a complaint which seemed to be made by my hon. Friend, the Member for Southwark (Mr. Locke), and also at an observation which fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle Mr. Headlam), to the effect, that this Bill, with the Amendments proposed in it, had not been sufficiently long-before the House and the country. Now the Bill itself was brought before the House in the month of February, and the Amendments to be incorporated in it wore laid upon the table before the Whitsuntide holidays. Therefore there clearly has been ample time for everyone interested in the matter to make himself acquainted with the intentions of the Government in regard to it. The object we have in view is a very simple one, and need not draw us into the whole question of rating, and several points raised by Members who have spoken. The object is merely this—to remove a great grievance inflicted on the poorer class of inhabitants in boroughs by the Reform Act of 1867. I shall not now go into any inquiry as to how that grievance was inflicted, or by whom. The action of parties was at that time very embarrassed, and somehow or other the compound-householder of the time was the victim of our difficulties. But what happened was this—that a system of great convenience, and which was constantly extending throughout the country, was summarily and instantaneously abolished, not at the request of any single town, or parish, or person in the kingdom, but because the House at the time was thereby relieved from a difficulty in connection with the question of the franchise. The grievance created was. however, very great—so great that I may assure the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) he is quite mistaken in supposing that if we were to put off the question for another year or two, this grievance would subside and be no longer felt. Perhaps I take an exaggerated view of the matter, because I have seen, in the town of Birmingham, a state of things most deplorable resulting from it, and one the effects of which I am sure will be felt in that borough for many years. Such was the action of the old system of compounding in Birmingham, that in tenements under £16 a year scarcely any person in that town ever paid any local rate. There were 36,000 householders in that borough whose rates were paid regularly and universally by the owners of the houses; and without a single person there asking this House to make a change, the House swept away the whole system, and brought upon 36,000 householders, some of whom were women, without claim to the franchise, an absolutely new tax. we know what local rates are; they are very heavy taxes, which come with great severity and hardship upon those who are least able to pay them. I need not describe the summonses, the warrants of distress, the disturbance and the rioting almost, the misery, occasioned by the change; but I think my constituents—and I speak in their behalf especially, though the people of many other towns are in the same position—have a right to ask the House either to give a strong, sufficient, and conclusive reason for the course it look in 1867, or else to provide a remedy for a grievance so unexpected and so severe. The hon. Baronet opposite suggested that, as there were only certain boroughs affected by the legislation of 1867, possibly some Bill might be adopted that would meet their case, and leave the rest of the boroughs and parishes in the country undisturbed. That, however, I think, would be very difficult. If the House were to attempt to legislate for Birmingham, Wolver-hampton, Walsall, Brighton, Manchester, or any other borough, I think it would find itself in a difficulty that could only be got out of by adopting some such general measures as that before the House. We know the grievance exactly—we know how it was caused—to some extent we know its magnitude, and how it affects those on whom it has fallen. What, then, is the remedy which the Bill proposes for it? That up to the sum of £10 in all parts of the country, excepting London, and up to the sum of £20 within the. metropolis, the authorities of parishes shall be permitted to arrange with the owners of houses conditions tinder which the owners should pay the rate, and in consideration of the owners paying it they should be allowed a discount of 25 per cent. The points of £10 and £20 may be too high, and I think it quite likely that £7 or £8 and £14 or £16 might be sufficient, but that is a question which may be fairly considered and discussed in Committee. So also with regard to the 25 per cent. I may mention as an illustration that in Birmingham, under an Act passed twenty years afro, applying to a portion of the town, houses under £5 were charged only 33 per cent—that is to say, a discount of 66 per cent was allowed to the owners. I have always thought that an excessive and unnecessary amount. At the same time there are many who think that in the case of the lowest class of houses it might be proper to make an allowance of 50 per cent. But whether there are to be two scales of allowances, one somewhat higher and one somewhat lower for different classes of houses, is a matter on which the Committee can decide; and whether the percentage is to be 25 per cent or 33 per cent, or some other figure. That also is a matter for the consideration of the Committee. It is obviously not a matter on which my right lion. Friend the President of the Poor Law Board would wish to be positive, because it must be decided by the general opinion of the Gentlemen who represent the boroughs to which this Bill is intended specially to apply. The old system is one which would have been revived exactly as it stood by the Bill of the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Sheridan); and the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Holms), who spoke from behind mis Bench some time ago, disapproved in some degree of this Bill for this reason—he spoke, not as representing the whole country, but as representing the borough of Hackney, and he wished to have Hackney placed in exactly the same position as it was before the Bill of 1867—that those local Acts should be revived, with all their peculiar and exclusive powers; and those for whom he spoke no doubt preferred that they should be restored exactly to their old position, and not have then grievances remedied by a general Bill like that now before the House. I think, however, the House will come to the con-elusion that, if we are to restore in am shape the principle of compounding, it is desirable that it should be done under a general Bill, and that the gross irregularities which formerly existed should not be permitted to revive; and that, while the discount allowed to owners of property is moderate as compared with some former cases, it should be made, as nearly as possible, regular throughout the country, and established on some basis that the house and the country will agree to be reasonable and right. Now, I have a very strong opinion that on a matter like this, if Parliament fixes a limit as to the value of a house and the discount to be allowed, that which is really best in every parish and every borough will certainly be attained by the judgment of that parish or that borough, and of the authorities by which their parochial matters are conducted. We have this shown in what took place before. What existed, even though it was regular, was a system that gave great and increasing discontent throughout all the boroughs in every part of the country. Therefore, having fixed those limits, I am perfectly content to leave the question whether this Bill shall take effect in any particular parish or borough to the authorities of the parish or borough, and to the opinion of owners of property and the general sentiment of the community. There is only one point more on which I will say a word, and I will address myself to hon. Gentlemen opposite as well as to those on this side of the House. One of the great difficulties in framing this Bill was to decide how the franchise which the Bill of 1867 professed to give, should be secured to the elector. It was necessary that his name should be on the rate book, and on the register. The clauses of this Bill are somewhat peculiar, and they show the extreme anxiety of my right hon. Friend, while making this change and restoring the system of discount, to secure to every householder the vote which the Bill of 1867 intended to give him. I might refer to the almost numberless deputations which have been to the Poor Law Board as showing the satisfaction of the country with the measure as it is now proposed. And my right hon. Friend has reason to believe that the Bill as it now stands, and with the Amendments which he proposes, will meet with the general support of all the leading persons who take an interest in this question in all the great boroughs from which he has received deputations. He has the greatest confidence that so far as they are concerned the Bill will be received in a cordial manner, and I think, after the discussion which has taken place to-night, it will receive the sanction of Parliament. As to referring the Bill to a Select Committee, I have had a good deal of experience on Select Committees, and I suspect a Bill of this kind going to a Select Committee at this period of the Session would be in danger of not coming Lack in the shape of which the House would approve, or of not coming back in time for legislation this Session. There seems to be nothing in the Bill that the House in Committee is not easily competent to discuss and settle; and I have the greatest faith, when the Bill has been re-printed, and the whole scheme is seen in a complete form, that then the House will find that it is comprehensive, that it settles for ever, as I hope, the economic question, and that at the same time it gives perfect security to the franchise which the Bill of 1867 intended to give. I think I speak the sentiments, at any rate, of my constituents with regard to the general scope of the Bill, when I say, without binding myself to the exact sum named in it, that the Bill will be a complete remedy for the grievances which they have so often brought before the House.

said, the Bill would not got rid of this—that by the decisions of the Revising Barristers and of the Judges many persons who paid poor-rates had no votes. As the Bill now stood persons who rented small cottages would have votes, whilst persons who occupied parts of houses, though they paid much more rent, would have no votes, in consequence of the decision in Stamper's case. In his opinion, nothing would satisfy the people but the establishment of household suffrage, pure and simple, without reference to the question of rates. He felt convinced that no legislation would be satisfactory to the country which did not at once and for ever repeal the rate-paying clauses.

said, that if there was one question which more than another, after our policy towards Ireland, excited the interest of the constituencies at the last General Election it was that of amending the Reform Act. The Bill before the House provided a mitigation, if not a cure, of the evils which the country was now enduring in consequence of certain clauses in that Act. He was aware that the Government had quite enough on their hands at the present moment; but the people never would be satisfied without the repeal of the rate-paying clauses, the re- duction of the county franchise, and the security of the Ballot. It was not enough to settle the economical part of the question; the people should have secured to them household suffrage, unhampered and unfettered by the restrictive system that at present existed.

said, that this Bill had a two-fold object—to restore the compounding system, and to abolish the rate-paying clauses of the Reform Bill. He believed that the Government were in earnest in this matter, as was shown by the Bill which they had brought in to settle the question of the compound-householder. He had been induced to move the second reading of this Bill by the fact that many hon. Members had pledged themselves to the repeal of the rate-paying clauses; but, as the Bill just read a second time would accomplish one of the objects of this measure, as various other questions were at present occupying the attention of the Government, and as a private Member could scarcely hope to succeed in carrying through such a measure at this period of the Session without the assistance of the Government and of a large majority of the House, he desired to leave it to hon. Members to say whether he ought to proceed with the measure. He moved that the Bill be now read a second time.

said, the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Sheridan) had stated that he would leave this matter in the hands of hon. Members, and as he (Mr. Gladstone) felt that he came within that definition, he begged to represent to the hon. Member that he would do wisely to withdraw the Bill. They had been engaged that night upon a question of considerable importance, even if they measured it only by the additional franchise that the Bill they had just been, discussing would be likely to confer, but of still greater importance in reference to the removal of a pressing grievance. There were a number of points of detail in reference to that Bill which would require to be carefully considered in Committee; but upon the whole there had been a remarkable concurrence of opinion as to the main provisions of the Bill; and the opinions in favor of it were not confined to his side of the House, for two hon. Gentlemen on the other side had objected to it as not going far enough, and therefore they were supporters of the Bill and something more. He thought that the hon. Member for Dudley, who, as he knew, showed great sagacity in prosecuting his Parliamentary measures, would see that, with a task like that already before them, it would not be wise to complicate the controversy by importing into it somewhat doubtful points. There were a great many persons who cordially accepted the principle that the franchise ought to be separated from personal liability to the rate, and yet who entertained considerable doubt whether, in the ease where they enfranchised the owner of every house, it was an evil that the payment of the rate by some person or other in respect of the property should be a condition of the franchise. In the Bill of 1860 the Government of which he was a Member undoubtedly proposed to abolish the rate-paying clauses; but that was at a time when they were only asking the House to agree to a very limited franchise; and although he did not wish to pronounce any very strong opinion upon the point at that moment, and indeed scarcely entertained any perfectly formed opinion upon the question whether it was desirable to retain the rate-paying classes in conjunction with household suffrage, so long as they took care that the rate should only be one in respect of property and should not be a grievance to the occupier, yet he was sure that the matter was so far open to controversy that any attempt to pursue it at the present moment would place a material obstacle in the way of the House carrying a measure on which they had set their hearts, and on which they were very much agreed. He trusted, therefore, that the House would not then be pressed to accede to the second reading of this Bill, but that it would be withdrawn, while it would always be in the discretion of the hon. Gentleman or of any other Member at a fitting time to challenge the judgment of the House upon the subject.

said, he had been unwilling to take upon himself the responsibility of withdrawing a measure of so much importance; but after the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman he felt there was no other course open to him than to withdraw the Bill.

said, he objected to the amount of the pensions provided for diplomatists by this clause. He thought £1,700 for a first-class pension was too high an amount to award, when all that was required was that the first appointment to office should have been made only fifteen years previously, or when the aggregate length of service was in all ten years. He did not regard a residence in the capitals of France, Belgium, or other Continental States as any great hardship; and he could not understand why these pensions should be so very much larger, and be obtainable on so much easier terms than those which were open to members of other branches of the Civil Service. He trusted that the Government would consent to alter the figures 10 and 15 in the clause to 15 and 20. Unless the Government agreed to adopt that suggestion, he should be obliged to move an Amendment.

said, that practically the first appointment of a diplomatist under the clause, as at present framed, must date nineteen years before his being qualified for the receipt of a pension, inasmuch as he was compelled at starting to give four years' service as an unpaid attaché. There was not that discrepancy which his hon. Friend believed between these pensions, for the! Diplomatic Service and the superannuation of the ordinary Civil Service, al- though it was true that the manner of awarding them was different, because the nature of the services was different. It was in the highest degree improbable that the first class pension would be awarded to any one whose term of aggregate service had not exceeded ten years. The figures, as they stood, were inserted, because the Bill was the result of a Re-solution which was introduced, though unsuccessfully, some years ago, by the hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Dodson), and which was proposed last Session by Mr. Labouchere, the Member for Middlesex, and adopted by the House. The hon. Member must recollect that all future pensions would have to be provided for by the Estimates, and that he could then raise the question as to their amount. If the opinion of the House were unfavourable, it would then be incumbent upon the Government to amend the scheme and bring it into accordance with the feeling of the House.

said, he thought it was desirable when it was proposed to refer to or introduce clauses which were contained in other Bills, to recite such clauses word for word, so as to make the subject-matter of them completely intelligible. This Bill proposed to repeal certain Acts described by their general titles; but it was impossible, except on close investigation, to tell what those Acts were which were to be repealed. It-appeared that after the commencement of this Act, the Treasury, upon the recommendation of the Secretary of State, might grant pensions to persons in the Diplomatic Department, such pensions not to exceed the salaries they received at the time their actual employment ceased. The following scale of pensions was laid down in the Bill—namely, £1,700 per annum for a first-class pension; £ 1,300 for a second-class pension; £900 for a third-class pension, and £700 for a fourth-class pension. Now this portion of the Bill had given much dissatisfaction, when it was considered how very differently the Government treated persons holding inferior situations in the public service when the question of superannuation was brought under their notice. At this time too, when the Government was discharging numerous public servants, high and low, from their service, on the ground that it was necessary to keep down the Estimates, per- sons were naturally induced to be very critical on the expenditure of the public money, and to feel dissatisfied with the granting of pensions of those considerable amounts after a comparatively short period of service. It appeared to him that it would be very desirable, under the circumstances, to revise those allowances. According to the explanation of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stansfeld) the length of service to qualify for those pensions would be nineteen years. Well, supposing a young gentleman got his first commission at twenty years of ago, and served in that most agreeable of all public occupations, a paid attaché. After due time he would be advanced to the office of envoy or ambassador, and at the age of thirty-nine, when in the prime of life, and only commencing his career, as modern usage went, he would be pensioned off upon a salary, perhaps, of £1,700. The gentleman in question then would probably get himself returned to that House, and he would, of course, be found sitting behind the Treasury Bench, paid by the public as a politician. Now he (Mr. Chambers) thought that the length of the service should be extended, and that the party should not be entitled to his pension until he had passed the age of forty-five or fifty years. He could not help contrasting the treatment proposed to be given to persons in the Diplomatic Department under this Bill with that dealt out to the sailors of Greenwich Hospital. If it had been the practice formerly with the Government of this country to be lax and inconsiderate in dealing with the public funds in the interests of the higher class of public servants, it was certain that no such thing would be tolerated at the present time, for the public now watched with the greatest attention the mode in which the revenue of the country was expended, and viewed with great jealousy any grant of public money that savoured either of extravagance or injustice. He should support his hon. Friend who sat near him (Mr. Alderman Lusk).

said, he had received no answer to the question, why there should be so great a difference in point of time between the period of retirement from the Diplomatic and the Civil Service? If the Committee were satisfied with the amount of the pensions proposed, he should not divide against them; but in the next clause he should certainly move an Amendment extending the time of service from fifteen to twenty years.

said, he considered the extension of the period of service which he proposed only reasonable; and he thought the Government ought to concede the point. He would move that the word "fifteen" be omitted, and "twenty" inserted instead.

said, he could not accept the Amendment. What was proposed by the Bill, was to take the diplomatic salaries and pensions under the existing conditions of service from the Consolidated Fund, where they were outside the jurisdiction of the House, and place them on the Estimates, where Ms hon. Friend might raise discussions as to their policy and amount on any future occasion.

said, he thought it would be cruel, when pensions were once granted, to be always discussing their reduction. They ought, in the first instance, to be very careful in what they did about pensions. He could not withdraw the Amendment, which he thought reasonable and fair, and he hoped Government would give way on the point.

said, he thought the proposal of the hon. Alderman a very reasonable one. Considering the length of time officers in the army had to servo before they were entitled to a pension, if those who belonged to the diplomatic body, after service in good climates, and all sorts of favourable circumstances, got their pensions, at the end of twenty-five years they were very well off. He should therefore vote for the Amendment.

said, he must repeat that the object of this Bill, brought in to carry out the Resolution of the House, was not to modify the system or amount of diplomatic pensions, but simply to place them within the grasp and criticism of the House. The Amendment, therefore, of his hon. Friend (Mr. Alderman Lust) was not reasonable or wise. If it were persisted in and succeeded he should be compelled to withdraw the Bill, and diplomatic pensions would not be voted from the Estimates, but remain charged on the Consolidated Fund.

said, before the House consented to read this Bill a second time, he hoped they would consider whether it was just to lay upon the rate-paying community inhabiting the metropolis the peculiar burdens it would impose; and whether it was really for the benefit of the poor to adopt the novel and experimental mode of treatment which they were thus called upon to sanction. The two considerations were distinct, and he should deal with them separately and specifically. They were happily not antagonistic, and he trusted they would not be antithetically set against each other. The right hon. Member for the University of Oxford, when introducing the measure of 1867, which bore his name, had defined the duty of Parliament to be the taking care that the administration of the Poor Law was "in a manner just to those who find the funds, and merciful to those who receive relief." He accepted that definition cheerfully not as implying a balance of obligations, but as correctly stating that, which it was their single duty to do. For he had no more deep and settled conviction than that the true interest of an industrious community like that in the midst of which they dwelt consisted in the preservation, as far as possible, of the physical health and strength of those who lived by labour; and that the best means of preserving the health of the poor, of lessening preventable disease, and of alleviating acute suffering, did not require a wasteful or excessive expenditure supplied by taxation. He was conscious, however, that in this two-fold aspect of what he felt to be a fundamental truth, many persons might not be altogether prepared to follow him; he would therefore deal with the two questions apart—the fairness of laying burthens absolutely unprecedented on a particular section of the community, wherewith to try experiments in relief equally unprecedented, and then the humanity of treating the sick and infirm poor in a way in which they never had been treated before. He was persuaded that on neither ground ought the present Bill to meet; with the approval of the House. The House was asked by this measure to take a further important step in the same direction, in which, with considerable hesitation, they had advanced two years ago. Nothing could be more definite, precise, or clear than the estimate of cost which the right hon. Gentleman opposite laid before the House in 1867. Nothing could be more lucid than the statement of his intentions, or as to the figures which he then laid before the House. The right hon. Gentleman, yielding, as he said, to the pressure of the strong feeling of regret and anger excited by the neglect of duty by particular guardians in the metropolis, asked the House to put London aside from the rest of the parishes in England, and to apply to it a separate system. That was a strong measure, for they were asked to agree to a partial law; but he made the request on behalf of those who had no voice in the general representation, and the whole of the metropolitan Members, with the exception of the Members for Marylebone, accordingly voted for the Bill. But upon what conditions?—Tho right hon. Gentleman, by that measure, asked the House to allow him to spend, in case of exigency, £100,000 upon asylums for the imbecile and insane, £70,000 for those suffering from fever or small-pox, and £120,000 for what he termed district asylums—that was to say, hospitals for groups of parishes whore the guar- dians should neglect to make proper provision. The extreme limit of what would be required was said to be £360,000, or at the most £400,000; but now the estimate reached what the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Goschen) designated as the "frightful sum" of £1,400,000, and the difference in figures was equal to the difference in tone between 1867 and 1869. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. G. Hardy) exonerated thirty-five out. of thirty-nine Boards of Guardians in the metropolis from blame, and frankly owned that they had done all that he had called upon them to do, while there had been but three or four exceptions, which a sensational Press had made the most of by turning as in a kaleidoscope to make a great show, highly coloured bits of abuse and rare samples of neglect. But now the President of the Poor Law Board (Mr. Goschen) laid a sweeping indictment against the whole body of London guardians, and summed up the catalogue of their misdeeds by alleging that the law to provide dispensaries had been deliberately and systematically thwarted and baffled by the wrong headedness and selfishness of the guardians generally; and he was seeking to apply the exceptional expedients asked by his predecessor for exceptional use, as the rule of ordinary administration in all cases. This was in fact the principal plea on which they were now called on to substitute a ruinously expensive scheme of in-door relief for the sick and infirm, for the cheaper and better method of relieving these classes of the poor in their own homes. He (Mr. Torrens) had sought opportunities of asking the guardians to put their own interpretation on their own conduct, and they repudiated the impression the President of the Poor Law Board seemed to entertain, and which he had conveyed to the House; and in one instance they had adopted a strong Resolution, which had been embodied in a Petition to the House, contradicting emphatically the assertion that they had neglected their duty. In the Act of 1867 there was a series of clauses specially intended to provide for an improved system of dispensary relief throughout the metropolis, and it was only in case it was not provided and workhouses were not improved, that it was ever intended by the Government or the House to give the exceptional powers which were now indiscriminately claimed. A good example to be followed was furnished by the Irish Act of 1852. He had heard with astonishment the statement the other night of the President of the Poor Law Commission as to the paucity of the numbers relieved in Ireland under the domiciliary system. The right hon. Gentleman had sarcastically observed that however good in theory it might appear to him (Mr. Torrens), it would practically go but a very short way, for that the total number relieved out of 6,000,000 in Ireland by this means did not exceed 18,000. He turned to the Report of the Commission for 1868, which the right hon. Gentleman must have had upon his official table, and what did he find? not the sum stated by the right hon. Gentleman or twice that sum, or ten times that sum, or twenty times that sum, but as the House would hear with amazement a sum still greater by far. Instead of the number relieved under it being about 18,000, it appeared from a Return that in 1868 there were 572,000 cases, exclusive of 191,000 relieved by means of visiting tickets, making a total of 750,000, relieved at a total cost of £l 18,000. The efficiency of the system was proved by the fact that diseases, including fever and small-pox, which we found it difficult to cope with in England, had been almost stamped out in Ireland. If there was any Department of the State well served by its subordinates, it was the Poor Law Board; and, of its many efficient officers, none was more worthy of commendation than Mr. Lambert. In 1866 he was sent to Ireland specially to inquire whether the dispensary system established there would be applicable here. He reported that, having examined carefully the facts of the case, and the operation of the dispensary system m Ireland—

"He considered it admirably adapted to the exigencies of large and densely populated communities, and did not hesitate to recommend that it should form an element in any scheme for the improvement of Poor Law administration in the metropolis."

Our position, then, was this—the Department having sent its most capable man to inquire into the operation of the system, he made a favourable Report, it was acted upon, and clauses to introduce the Irish system here were put into the Bill, which so far remained almost a dead letter. But he denied that the guardians had set themselves against the Act. He deprecated a further stride in the direction of providing for in-door relief until a Royal Commission or a Select Committee had inquired into the adequacy of the existing means. If £118,000 had been found sufficient for the treatment of preventable and curable disease in an impoverished population of 6,000,000, was it not reasonable to infer that half that sum might be made to go a great way in securing the same object in the richest and densest community of 3,000,000 in the world? Had not the rate-payers of the metropolis a fair right at least to demand that the experiment should be tried of improving and expanding the dispensary system before their property and income were irredeemably mortgaged for the erection of enormous buildings which, as he should presently show, were by no means certain to answer their proposed purpose. When the right hon. Gentleman came into Office in December last, he found anxiety and alarm everywhere throughout the town at the prospect of enormous outlay on brick and mortar with which they were threatened. He (Mr. Torrens) had given early notice that he would ask the opinion of the House, whether in the present depressed condition of trade and industry of all kinds, it was not the duty of Government to suspend further outlay on great asylums and hospitals until full and impartial inquiry should have been made into the existing accommodation which might be made available in the voluntary institutions for the reception of the sick which already existed in every part of the metropolis. That measure of precaution seemed to many so reasonable that for a time he cherished a hope that it would be adopted. But when instead of inquiry the right hon. Gentleman resolved to precipitate matters and to make another plunge blindfold into reckless and ruinous outlay he felt it to be his duty to de- vote what leisure he had, to apply such ability as he possessed, to search out the truth in this matter and to make himself acquainted as far as he could with the actual circumstances of the case. Speaking generally the result of his investigations was this—that though many individuals who were in need failed to obtain the medical or surgical relief they required, it was nevertheless true that ample accommodation existed for all acute cases of disease and accidents, and that it was not for want of skill or for want of suitable buildings that the suffer-in g poor wore not now adequately relieved. He cheerfully admitted the admirable character of the metropolitan hospitals, and he was far, indeed, from charging them with any dereliction of duty. He charged the Poor Law Department, irrespective of party, with not making available these magnificent institutions, which were sufficient to do all that was required, without our building palaces for idiots, or sick prisons at an enormous cost. He had personally inquired into the state of the hospitals in London, and he had found their wards and offices open to all who were prosecuting inquiry with a good purpose. He found from his inquiries that the eleven great or general hospitals contained 4,354 beds, the sixty-four special and smaller ones could furnish accommodation for 4,840; in all, 9,194 beds, and, taking the low average of ten patients for each bed during the year, it appeared that the hospitals could easily relieve 92.000 in-patients per annum. As a matter of fact, they relieved only 78,000, so that it was evident they had plenty of room in their wards to spare; and the managers of the various hospitals assured him they would be only too glad to receive pauper cases and charge the parish so much per bed for them. He asked for a permissive Bill, under the provisions of which this could be done. One-fifth of Charing Cross Hospital was empty; of Middlesex, one-fourth; King's College the same; Westminster, one-third; and St. George's, of which they had heard so much during the last forty-eight hours, had an entire wing, the site of which had been given by the Marquess of Westminster, which would soon be ready for patients. For the means to furnish and maintain this new wing urgent appeals had recently been made by a Royal Duke, an Archbishop, and other distinguished personages, yet the right hon. Gentleman desired to tax the people for another new asylum within rifle-shot of all those empty beds. If the House had no other fact before it, this alone should induce it to pause and direct inquiry to be made before proceeding to legislate further. He did not ask that his word should be taken; let the House appoint its own Committee and be guided by the facts and recommendations it presented. But, putting aside the rate-payer, and dealing only with moral and medical considerations, how did the propositions of the right hon. Gentleman bear the test of experience or forethought? Did the results of scientific inquiry, or of practical observation tend to encourage perseverance in the old way of aggregation? Was it true or was it the reverse of truth that the accumulation of large numbers, under the same roof, who were suffering from accident or disease was the best method of promoting their recovery? This was a very serious question; and it was one which he would not have felt himself justified even in raising had not the voice of warning reached him from all sides, and had he not been satisfied by comparing the testimony of the ablest and the best of men that a more excellent way of relief for the sick and suffering lay in their dispersion, and as far as it was possible in their separate treatment in their own homes. Dr. Sutherland, the valued physician connected with the War Office, had assured him in a letter that hospital treatment was not so beneficial as was generally supposed. He wrote—

"I have no doubt myself that moral reasons are all in favour of home treatment, and I believe that, with the exception of special cases, there is a larger percentage of recoveries where sick are subdivided among separate dwellings than where they are removed in all stages of illness to a distant hospital, even although the surroundings and means of treatment may be greatly superior to those available in their own poor homes. The simple fact of bringing together a number of sick out of a number of separate rooms involves a new class of risks to all of them."

That, however, was a general statement, and he would now come to particulars. Not very long ago he spent a long and instructive day in Guy's Hospital. There was scarcely any form of human misery that he did not see in its wards, which he was bound to say appeared to him to be almost perfect in point of size, light, and ventilation. Nevertheless, what did he find? He conversed with Dr. Steele, the reporter of the establishment, and he asked that gentleman how mutual contagion was obviated. Dr. Steele told him that nothing short of individual isolation would obviate it. In his statistical tables Dr. Steele made this statement—

"Notwithstanding all that has been done it is to be feared that morbific influences still remain to interfere and thwart to a greater or less extent the efforts of the medical officer. To allow patients suffering from the same or from adverse diseases to occupy adjacent beds in the same apartment, and to respire the same atmosphere in common, is an evil necessarily associated with every establishment for the maintenance of the sick, which can only be grappled with successfully by means, which on a largo scale it would be practically impossible to carry out. These would naturally consist of a process of individual isolation, and the stamping out, so to speak, of every disease which showed the slightest tendency to traumatic or spontaneous infection, by providing a separate apartment, with separate attendants, utensils, and furniture for each person."

He found that fever patients were placed here and there among patients suffering from other diseases. The doctors did not dare to put all the fever patients in one building. They thought there was less danger from scattering them through various wards. In the face of that state of facts the Government proposed to spend a vast sum of money with the object of bringing a large number of fever patients together in one great hospital. He had visited King's College Hospital also. It was one of the newest and finest institutions in the metropolis. Formerly a large portion of the building was used as a lying-in hospital; but the best authorities were now against the system of having a number of midwifery cases in the same building. Dr. Priestly, of King's College Hospital, told him that if he had funds for the relief of such cases he would take the two-pair floors of about ten houses in one of the humble streets in the neighbourhood of the hospital, and fit up beds in them. He had been assured that in hospitals persons died of sheer despair, arising from seeing the dying and the dead in close proximity to them. But was this all? Sir James Simpson, of Edinburgh, had published some startling statistics in reference to the system of treating a large number of accidents in the same ward. He stated that of 2,098 cases of amputations of limbs treated in the homes of persons in Scotland and the North of England only one in nine had ended fatally, while of 4,937 treated in great hospitals in England and (Scotland one in three had ended fatally. Dr. Holme-Coote, replying to Sir James, stated that out of 2,131 operations in St. Bartholomew's only one ease in seven and a-half had ended fatally. Sir James Simpson answered this by saying that in the cases referred to by Dr. Holme-Coote there were many of amputations of fingers and of operations on the eye and the like, which rarely or never were attended with fatal results; but, that if only amputation of limbs were taken into the calculation, the facts against the hospital wore still stronger than he had supposed, because, instead of one in throe, one in two and six-tenths of the cases had been fatal. For the sake of the sick poor—discarding altogether the waste of the rate-payers' substance—he said, then, let the House hold its hand until they had mastered these facts, and they had been sifted and reported upon by a Royal Commission. He would refer to one more witness, whose testimony would be received with the respect which her name inspired—one who had devoted her life to hospital work—that person was Florence Nightingale—and let them hear her words—the words of truth and wisdom. She said—

"I have come to believe that the hospital system is an intermediary stage of civilization—at the end of a life spent in hospital work to this conclusion I Have always come—that the poor are better relieved in their own homes."

He could not go further than that to show the necessity for an inquiry by such men as the Government should choose to appoint. He now came to the question of district schools for children. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. G. Hardy) had proposed to take £ 40,000 for district schools, and now the contemplated amount had grown to £ 120,000. Now, he objected to the spending of a single farthing of that money. He said that these district schools were not what they wanted. It was not their duty to exonerate the separate localities from the charge of their own afflicted and their own youth; it was the duty of those localities to keep an eye over them, and it was not the business of the State to assist in huddling their children away in mobs to a great distance, where they would be out of sight. The right Turn. Gentleman said that in the case of foundlings and orphans he would like to put them in separate schools. Even if they could be educated free from disease and from moral deterioration in that way, which they could not be, it would still be a misuse of power to attempt anything of that kind. The Poor Law authorities of Scotland had appointed assistant Commissioners to supervise and inquire during the last two years into the working of the opposite system in that country—the system, that was, of taking the poor children who were neglected through crime or misfortune, and placing them in farm-houses and other situations where they might form new ties and connections. Sir John M'Neil, the tried and trusted administrator of the Scotch Poor Law for many years, had given his imprimatur to the system of boarding out these children in farm-houses and else-where in Scotland, which worked well; and he summed up his testimony in favour of that humane and economical system by saying that these poor creatures seemed again to melt into society, and could not be distinguished from the children whose parents were living in the same localities. The children educated in workhouse schools, on the other hand, turned out badly as often as they did well. After appealing to the House not to take advantage of the fact that thy 3,000.000 of people who inhabited London were represented by only twenty-two Members; to place the metropolis under a separate and exceptional law on these matters, the hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Amendment.

said, his hon. Friend (Mr. W. M. Torrens) had treated the subject on what he might call the theoretical side. He wished to treat it from a practical point of' view as a means of saving the pockets of the rate-payers, and he would show that on this side of the question also a change was most desirable. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Poor Law Board had spoken of the necessity of building Poor Law asylums, because the existing workhouse infirmaries were so small that the sick were lying in the corridors and on the floor. But for much of that the Poor Law Board were themselves responsible. He would illustrate this by a statement of the case to which his hon. Friend had already referred—the case of St. John's and St. Margaret's, Westminster, and St. Mary Abbot's, Kensington. So long ago as January, 1867, the surgeon reported that the sick wards at Kensington were overcrowded. The guardians admitted the crowded state of the workhouse, and prepared a plan for increasing their accommodation by 500 beds, but the Poor Law Board ordered the works to be stopped, inasmuch as legislation on the whole subject was contemplated. Nothing was done till January, 1868, and then by the guardians themselves, who, from the overcrowded state of the workhouse, were forced to erect some iron buildings. At the commencement of last year the amalgamation of St. Margaret's and St. John's, Westminster, took place, and land was purchased at great cost for a sick-house at the extreme end of Kensington. Plans and estimates were prepared for giving accommodation for 600 beds for the three parishes, at the cost of £100 to £130, instead of £40 a bed as formerly estimated. The Board, however, at present had not done what it had undertaken to do; the sick asylum had been stopped, and it was even doubtful whether the site was not to be re-sold. Probably the Poor Law Board would say they were thwarted in their wish to build a sick asylum, but he would ask whether they had not brought about the state of things of which they now complained. In a few months hence it might be found that the land at Kensington was not sufficiently large for the building of a sick asylum, so that next year they might find themselves in no better a position than they were in at present. No doubt the Poor Law Board thought their duty to be to look after the poor, and that the interests of the rate-payers ought not to be regarded as all in all. he ventured to suggest, however, that if the matter were inquired into by a Select Committee or by a Royal Commission there need be no fear either that undue regard would be paid to the interests of the rate-payers or that those of the poor would be neglected. On these grounds he seconded the Motion of the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. W. M. Torrens) for a careful inquiry into the system before the present Bill was passed.

said, that in 1867 he always felt that when the time arrived for carrying into effect the schemes then set on foot, there would be a considerable outery in the metropolis on account of the expenditure which would have to be incurred. It was indeed, but natural that this should be the case. The crying evils which were then brought before the House, and which invited and secured an almost unanimous assent to the passing of the Bill of 1867, had now to a certain extent passed out of sight, and those who at that time were greatly shocked and excited by what had occurred in different workhouses, were now thinking rather of the expense than of the evils proposed to be remedied. For his own part, he should always look back on the part he then took, and which the House was good enough to sanction, as one of the happiest incidents in his political career, inasmuch as he had been able to forward a scheme which, he believed, might serve as the foundation of something that was calculated to do good at once to the ratepayers and to the poor of this metropolis. It was quite true that the expenditure might have gone beyond what he had estimated, and, indeed, it might even have been more than was necessary. If such were the case the expenditure ought to be at once checked, though he trusted no expenditure would be checked which might be really required, as he felt convinced it would, in the long run, be as much for the interest of those who paid it as of the recipients. In estimating the expense that: would have to be incurred under the Metropolitan Poor Bill of 1867 he calculated that it would be necessary to provide accommodation for 2,000 imbecile poor, who he might remark in passing did not come in the same category as the lunatics confined in asylums. No one doubted that the imbecile poor ought to be separated from the other paupers and placed on a different footing altogether. Well, he had estimated that the cost would be £ 50 for each imbecile, making a total of £ 100,000. This estimate was for the buildings alone, exclusive of sites, furniture, and fittings. He thought it would be a sufficient sum for the purpose, because he found that in twelve workhouses built in late years the cost had been only £30 per head; but it appeared he was mistaken, and his successors in Office had come to the conclusion that it would be necessary to erect buildings of a much more expensive kind than those he had contemplated. The buildings were to be in blocks, and instead of there being only two large buildings, as he had intended, there would be in reality no fewer than twenty. The estimate was now for 3,000 imbeciles instead of 2,000, which, of course, greatly increased the charge. With respect to district schools, the estimate made for additional schools was £ 40 per head for 1,000 children. This was for buildings alone, and there was also £ 30,000 for enlarging existing schools. It was now proposed to provide for 3,000 children. As to fever and small-pox hospitals, he stated his opinion that it was desirable to have inexpensive buildings, and that wooden or iron structures would answer the purpose. The cost of these he estimated at £ 70,000–1,000 patients at £ 70 a head. Then there was a sum which the hon. Member opposite (Mr. W. M. Torrens) had said was £ 120,000, but which was, in fact, £ 160,000, making altogether for these buildings £ 400,000. This was exclusive of sites, furniture, and fittings, and also, of course, estimated without reference to the increase in the rates of building which had taken place. With respect to the other items which the right hon. Gentleman had spoken of as making £ 1,400,000, it was not in his power to speak on points of detail. But whether or not a Metropolitan Poor Act had been passed in 1867 there would have been an absolute necessity for new or enlarged workhouses. In round numbers the number of paupers in metropolitan workhouses, in 1867, was 25,000, and the workhouses were even then excessively crowded; but now there were nearly 30,000 in the same workhouses, to which very slight additions had been made. Therefore we must look upon this not merely as a question of the sick and imbecile poor, but as a question of the poor altogether. Probably one of the chief causes of the great amount of metropolitan pauperism was that it was not possible to apply the workhouse test in the case of the able-bodied seeking relief. Owing to the numbers inside the guardians were compelled to provide out-door relief, and doubtless many of the recipients were able-bodied. He agreed with the hon. Member for Fins- bury (Mr. W. M. Torrens), whose exertions to ascertain the facts entitled him to great credit, that it might be desirable, if it were possible, to separate the children and put some out in farmhouses; but in dealing with the masses of the metropolis it was idle to talk of this. On the other hand, was it justifiable to keep these wretched children mixed up with the inmates of workhouses? Was it not better to remove them to district schools? He had had opportunities of making inquiries respecting many of these schools, and found that great attention was paid to the care of the children, and at Stepney, for example, he found that the children, were comfortable, clean, and well educated, and that those who had been sent out into the world from the school had turned out well in the main. Everyone who had read the comparison drawn by Mr. Tufnell, the Inspector, between the children in the district schools and those residing in workhouses, would say that, it being impossible to carry out the system which the hon. Member desired, the district school system in which the guardians generally took a deep interest, ought to be maintained. The hon. Member said he wished to see the dispensary system carried out, and the country was greatly indebted to Mr. Lambert for his Report in connection with this subject on the Irish dispensaries in 1867. He (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) believed that if the dispensary system were properly organized in the metropolis, the number of sick would be much decreased; but he was far from thinking that it would be decreased in such a proportion as to enable them to get rid of the necessity for additional buildings. He did not say to what extent additional buildings were required, but it was necessary to provide hospital accommodation for the destitute poor. It was idle to talk of treating them in their homes; they had no homes in which they could be treated. The places in which they resided were rooms in which three or four families were huddled together, and how could they be tended there? The hon. Member spoke of lying-in wards, and no doubt the deaths in the lying-in hospitals were out of all proportion to the deaths of women confined at their own homes or in the workhouse wards. There had been 10,000 cases, he believed, in the Marylebone Workhouse, and only one death. Owing to the greater isolation there, the proportion of recoveries was in favour of the workhouse hospitals as against the lying-in hospitals, and this, no doubt, showed that there should be some separation of persons in this particular condition. But you could not treat these wretched women in their crowded homes. With regard to London hospitals supported by voluntary subscriptions or endowments, it appeared to him that they were not meant absolutely for the destitute poor, such as those who came into the workhouse. Then, too, the number of cases treated in the hospitals was far greater, and the cases themselves far more severe and aggravated than those treated in the workhouse sick wards. In the latter scarcely any wounds or accidents were treated, and there gangrene was not found. Such cases were taken to the hospitals, where, therefore, that particular disease prevailed. But the class of people treated in the hospitals and in the workhouse wards was also wholly different. Many of those in. the sick wards of the workhouses were people afflicted with chronic infirmity, who required constant care and attention, but who would hardly be admitted into hospitals; and it was for this reason he had proposed a clause to establish medical schools within the workhouse wards, which would be of great advantage in familiarizing the younger students with a class of cases which scarcely ever were brought before them in the hospitals. These hospitals were not meant to relieve the poor rates. There was abundance of sickness and suffering to be treated there without resorting to the destitute poor in order to fill the vacant beds. Those beds were vacant, not from want of sick, but from want of funds; and the destitute poor could only go there by excluding those who wanted relief as much as even the class of workhouse sick. He could not imagine any persons more deserving of such relief than working men visited by some unforeseen sickness or accident, or by some similiar visitation to any member of their families. No one could wish that such persons should become paupers and have to resort to the workhouse sick ward; and it was a greater charity to keep the hospitals open for them than to relieve the parishes by putting the sick and destitute poor into these hospitals. Leaving, then, the details to those who had devoted more attention than he had been able to bestow on them, he would say that he was in favour of the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman. He did not think it was wise that, two years after the House had unanimously agreed to a Bill, and just as the machine was being put into operation, they should take it to pieces to see how it had been made; and he thought that those who supported the measure of 1867 should support the plan of classification and amalgamation which the right hon. Gentleman was now trying to develop still further. If that were done, utilizing all existing buildings and classifying the poor, you could also classify the masters, and employ those best adapted to the work in dealing with sturdy, insolent vagrancy, while those who were better fitted for dealing tenderly with the infirm and aged should be employed in that way. He was not afraid to trust any right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Poor Law Board with a large discretion in these matters. Such a Minister was responsible to the House and the metropolis, and he might be left to deal with the questions as they arose. As to the arguments of the hon. Member for Finsbury, who evidently had carefully looked into the details of the question, and who was an advocate of whom no part of the metropolis need be ashamed, he did not think they were conclusive, for while the hon. Member had pointed out that the wards of the large hospitals in London were liable to particular kinds of disease, he had recommended that the destitute sick poor who were free from those diseases should be placed in these very wards. He hoped the House would not drawback in the career upon which it had entered. Let if. do its utmost to put down with a strong hand that which he believed to be the curse of the country—the wilful pauper—the pauper who would not work, and who degenerated into criminality unless his very inertness prevented him. That class, he was sorry to say, was growing in this country, and if not dealt with firmly, would over-ride the country and bring down calamities upon it. His advice, therefore, was, to clear the workhouses proper of the sick and infirm, and place those institutions upon such a footing as to deter persons from going to live there upon the industry of their neighbours. Let the House show that it was determined to put down that class of pauperism with a high hand; but let it at the same time show the utmost tenderness, mercy, and goodwill towards those who were suffering under unmerited calamity.

said, if even he had not been chairman of the Metropolitan Asylums Board—the first and most important Board constituted under the Act of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University (Mr. G. Hardy)—a Board which seemed strangely enough to have fallen under the ban of the hon. and learned Member for Finsbury (Mr. W. M. Torrens), he should still have been anxious to address the House on this critical point of the question, which had been brought before the House by the Bill of his right hon. Friend the President of the Poor Law Board, inasmuch, as having devoted twenty-five years of his life in the attempt to carry out practically the working of local self-government—to the lowly ambition of mastering the detail of parochial management, whether constituted under legislative sanction, or methodized by voluntary associations—he had not simply interested himself in what he believed a useful work, but given some guarantee of experience—still he trespassed on the indulgence of the House with hesitation—greater hesitation than he should have felt, perhaps, had his knowledge of the difficulties inherent in the subject-matter been less and his confidence been greater in the sufficiencies of the means to cope and grapple with these difficulties which had been presented to the House by his right hon. Friend. He believed this House was hardly likely to regard this as a mere metropolitan question; and. therefore, one in which, as a whole, it had little concern and less interest. They were not dealing with a matter of local but of Imperial concernment, and he warned the House that they were not at the tail-end of a transition state, gentle and progressive, of social government, but at the snout-end of a fierce and bitter struggle—a struggle between a new, hitherto untried system of centralized social government and an old system—the most ancient and once the most popular of all systems, although lately fallen into disfavour of all existing governments; and he would remind the House that the greatness of that change, especially regarding the state of opinion and tone of thought which under-lied the demand for that change, rendered it impossible that the system advocated could be confined to this metropolis, but must eventually, and at no very remote period, extend to every township in the country. Questions of local taxation had become questions of Imperial magnitude, for within living memory the whole Imperial revenue was loss than the sum they annually collected for local government. Already the Legislature had, by the passing of the Houseless Poor Act and the Poor Law Amendment Act of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University, made great strides on the road to centralization, between which system and local self-government there existed not only diversities of feature, but an antagonism of principle. The essential character and efficiency of local administration consisted in local knowledge and local supervision. If they extended the area of local action and responsibility beyond the area of individual knowledge, local self-government lost its characteristic limitation, and ipso facto ceased. But it would be asked why local guardians, ceasing to possess their original power and responsibility, should in a subordinate condition assume an antagonistic attitude towards a central authority? The answer seemed to him, he confessed, most natural. By the operation of the Act of 1867 the local guardians were not placed under the operation of fixed and known laws, to the admininistration of which they were invited by the Legislature, but under the arbitrary impulses of a central power which issued its edicts, according to the shifting policy of every varying controlling head, to unpaid unrecognized local agencies, who had no motive for obedience, and who in the nature of administrators with undefined rules of action had ever-recurring provocations to disobey. Every motive which influenced men opposed harmonious action between a central and local authority so circumstanced; the love of power was outraged, the sense of personal respect lowered, and the exercise of functions of usefulness humiliated. But, as if to render the breach wider, by the operation of the Act not only was the relation of representation to taxation disregarded, but actually an antagonistic interest fostered between the tax-spender and the tax- payer. For parish A collected rates from its constituents for parish B to spend, and parish A had no provision made in the Act of 1867 to send a single representative to control by his vote the expenditure of parish B; and to give the vagary the most reckless name also, it gave to this rate the appellation of the Common Fund. It was argued that, although parish B spent the rates of parish A, yet it spent its own money also, and that was sufficient virtual representation; but statesmen whom this country had delighted to honour had left it on record that to divest the expender of the control of the contributor, or even to diminish the directness of that control, was prejudicial to the liberties and subversive of the principles of constitutional government. But the reply was that the Poor Law Board was the receiver and the distributor in the cases of both parishes; but that was no atonement; the broad fact remained that a revenue of Imperial magnitude was collected and expended by persons over whom the tax-payers had practically no control. It was impossible that the House could long continue a system so unconstitutional in principle and so profligate in practice—the House would never sanction the divorcement of representation from taxation. If the House had determined an extension of the area over which taxation was to be expended, it would correspondingly extend the guarantees for constitutional control over no less an area. But it came as a practical question, what course was he prepared to support? and at once he said he could not accede to the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Finsbury. Whilst opposition to the Act of the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford was a practicable thing, he, and those who acted with him, did all in their power to resist it; but when the Legislature of this country, by an irresistible majority, passed that Act, they thought and felt that the time for opposition was gone, and their duty was, as good citizens, to use their best endeavours to give effect to the provisions of that Act; and believing, as he did, that the moral of our Legislature was nulla vestigia retrorsum, and that they were far on the road of a new system of social legislation, no other course was open to them than that not simply of obedience, but? of co-operation. He did not deny—they never did deny—that the position of the right hon. Gentleman was an arduous one, and that the objects were a real social exigence, and a means to meet that exigence was, therefore, a necessity. Local government had, undoubtedly, disclosed many defects resulting from the altered character of the applicants for poor relief, and the increased demand for the treatment of the day-labouring class suffering under contagious disease and disabling sickness. Local government had to deal also with altered circumstances, arising from the increased requirements in the management of the sick, of space, and sanitary precautions. A number of harmless lunatics and imbeciles, amounting to nearly 3,000, had to be provided for. These were either in county asylums, built and maintained at great cost out of county rates, and necessarily furnished with means and appliances out of character for such a class; or these poor helpless ones were found in out-wards of union workhouses, but where, requring some special treatment, they were not simply an expensive charge, but their presence acted prejudicially to the discipline and management of the other inmates. All these eases demanded to be dealt with, and there were but two methods of dealing with them—either by extending the powers of local boards, or by creating a new machinery. The Legislature adopted the latter course; and, now the matter was settled, he was willing to admit that the system adopted was a less expensive and a more uniformly efficacious means, though he opposed its adoption and introduction. But now, strangely and inconsistently enough, came the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Finsbury, a member of that committee outside that House, whose vehement, and he must add unscrupulous agitation, was, mainly responsible for the heedless haste with which that Act was passed. He asked how it was that the hon. and learned Gentleman had let go by the golden opportunity when the measure was passing through that House, and had preferred that sterile thing an ex post facto discussion? How was it the hon. Gentleman was so innocent of the facts he had that night brought before that House? Not a danger he had deprecated, not a scene depicted, not a hardship exposed, not an alarm sounded, which the metropolitan guar- dians did not bring prominently before the country in their meetings at St. James's Hall. There was no excuse for the hon. Gentleman not knowing that the measure of the right hon. Gentleman would deal a death-blow to local self-government; where was then the voice which should here have been raised, not to avert the needful reformation, but the total destruction of that system he pretended to regret? By the course taken in the Act the whole metropolis was formed into a district from all parts of which a board was constituted, consisting of sixty members, forty-five being the representatives of local Boards of Guardians, and fifteen nominated by the Poor Law Board. Of that Board, of which had the honour to be chairman, he bore testimony that their zeal and patience, their assiduity and accurate knowledge of the subject under their management were worthy of all praise. The first duty of that Board was to ascertain the nature and extent of the duty committed to them. By careful investigation they found that the number of lunatic imbeciles to be provided for was 3,000, and the number which could be economically and safely housed in one institution did not exceed 1,500. The right hon. Gentleman imagined that these imbeciles could be provided for in some huge building, but science had long ago utterly condemned such erections. They were, therefore, compelled to build all their hospitals and asylums on the pavilion principle, an excellent example of which hon. Gentlemen would see opposite the 'House in which they were sitting. Two large pavilion asylums had. therefore, to be constructed; one at Leavesden on the north, the other at Caterham on the south, and these asylums were now in process of erection. Besides those, they were responsible for providing hospitals for from 2,600 to 3,200 cases of small-pox, and 4,500 cases of fever; the Liverpool Road Hospital, in 1866. having received under parish orders 3,342 fever-stricken poor. But that estimate would have been incomplete unless they could have arrived at some conclusion on the relative proportion of fever cases sent from different localities to the fever hospital, and the nests and hot-beds of contagious disease. The result of that investigation, coupled with the desirability that no case labouring from disease should be sent a dis- tance much, exceeding three miles, forced on them the necessity of selecting the sites which had been mentioned and commented on in the House. Strange, indeed, must it sound to the ear of men of ordinary experience that men or women labouring from infectious disease were more safely treated at their own homes. Was it so? Did the hon. Gentleman mean to treat a case of scarlet fever or small-pox in the crowded garret of the day labourer, with his wife, children, and perhaps a lodger, all confined to the four walls of one miserable chamber? Why such a course would endanger the infection of the whole metropolis. The great object of medical science was to find out the hot-bed of fever, and circumscribe it; and the way to do that was to remove the patient to some contiguously suitable asylum. Local self-government was gone. They who fought for its existence asked, now the country had pronounced against it, no dawdling or irresolute scheme. They asked for a bold hand and a resolute policy—a policy which would inaugurate a better system—more suited to the age—a system which would utilize the rates, protect the tax-payer from extortion and fraud, and the deserving poor from the injustice of designing knaves who devoured the substance set apart for them, and alienated that sympathy which their sorrow so justly challenged. Let the system be such as would teach the idle and improvident the necessity of adopting different habits; such as would render assistance to the infirm and aged, and see that the wants of sickness and of childhood were better provided. Let it be such as would inculcate habits of industry in the rising generation; above all, give to the natural guardians and protectors of the poor the assurance that the reproach they vainly sought to avert under the old system had been rolled away, and that whilst the rates were either diminished or increased—either had been effected without one single act which tended to demoralize or to oppress the really destitute and deserving poor.

said, he objected to the principle of this Bill, as he did to that of last year. The President of the Poor Law Board had, on moving the second reading of the Bill the other night, made one or two statements which surprised him, and must have created a sensation not only in the me- tropolis, but throughout the country. In the first place, the right hon. Gentleman told them that the Bill would compel an expenditure of £1,500,000, which was precisely the amount which had been expended in the metropolis on those objects since 1834, when the Poor Law came into existence, The second statement was that, within the last three years, pauperism in the metropolis had increased from 40 to 50 per cent—from 100,000 to 150,000 persons—and that the expenditure had increased in the same ratio. Well, in the teeth of that the right hon. Gentleman asked the ratepayers of the metropolis to expend another £ 1,000,000. The right hon. Gentleman then went on to say that he did not consider pauperism a matter of merely local interest. In that he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman; it was a matter of national interest. It was not only a matter for the rate-payers of the metropolis, but of every town in the country. It must not be supposed that the metropolis was most heavily burdened for the relief of the poor. He would give a few of the amounts paid by some of the towns in this kingdom. Salisbury paid 7s. 10d. on the rateable value; Leeds, 7s. 7½d.; King's Lynn, 7s. 2½d.; Norwich, 7s. 1d.; Southampton, 7s. 0¼d.; Great Yarmouth, 7s.; Plymouth, 6s. 10d.; and Stoke Damerel, 6s. 5d. What were the rates in the metropolis? In Bethnal Green they wore highest—5s. 3½d.; in St. George's-in-the-East, the poorest parish in London, they were 4s. 3¾d.; in the City of London, the wealthiest part, 1s. 4d.; in Paddington, 1s. 6¾d. These figures showed that, in fact, the poor rates of the metropolis were not nearly so high as those in some of the large provincial towns. Indeed, the Bill was the thin end of the wedge; it Mould be a precedent for all other towns. The present Bill was for a consolidation of unions, while that of last year was simply for a classification of paupers, and, therefore, there was a great distinction between the two. The right hon. Gentleman, when bringing forward this measure, confessed that the rate-payers of the metropolis would object to it, but said the public at large were so interested in the question that they would disregard the opinion of the rate-payers. Who were the public at large? Did they contribute to those large burdens? On what principle but the majority principle could the public at large be allowed to interfere in the question? What constitutional right had they to interfere in it? It was easy to be philanthropic at other people's expense. The test of a man's sincerity in the welfare of others was whether he would make pecuniary sacrifices in order to relieve them The great hardship of the poor rate was that it was levied on one description of properly. The ratepayers of the metropolis admit the necessity of this expenditure, but they say—"Our burdens are already intolerable. Why are we to bear these charges, which are for the benefit of the community at large, single handed. You who are owners of other property are equally interested; if you are prepared to bear your fair proportion, we will no longer murmur, but co-operate with you in promoting such needful and desirable objects." There were men in the metropolis with tens of thousands a year from rent-charges and ground-rents who did not contribute to the poor rate; and there were lodgers living in every luxury who did not contribute; to it, while poor shopkeepers and householders were taxed. Lord Overstone staled that there were £ 150,000,000 a year of capital accumulated yearly in this country. Why should not that capital contribute its proportion to the maintenance of the poor? Why should this description of property be exempted and go soot free? It was an unjust privilege and impolitic exemption. He objected to what was called the amalgamation of unions and to the enlargement of areas, because all this meant a loss of local control and local self-government. The large unions would be cumbrous and unmanagable, and every parish would help itself to as much as possible out of the common fund, and thus there would be no economy and little efficiency. The Government were pledged to bring forward the whole question of local taxation, and, therefore, he thought it premature and wrong to pass such a Bill as that now before the House.

said, his experience as an employer enabled him to say that the working people valued the large hospitals very much, and that, as a rule, they came out of them in a much better state than if they had been treated in their own homes. As a governor of the London Hospital he could state that the poorer classes were so anxious to avail themselves of the treatment in that and other similar institutions that the governors found it necessary to enlarge them from time to time, and in some cases could not provide sufficient accommodation for the applicants. It might be a disadvantage to bring a number of diseased persons into one building; but there was no advantage without a drawback. He believed that this Bill, instead of making the taxes on the metropolitan district heavier, would tend to lighten them, inasmuch as, the workhouses now being crowded to suffocation, out-door relief was widely given without the possibility of testing the fitness of the recipients. The amount asked for now was indeed larger than in 1867; but it was shown to be absolutely necessary that they should adopt some such plan as that proposed by the President of the Poor Law Hoard for separating the different classes of the poor, and all that the House could do, therefore, was to watch the expenditure in Committee, and keep it, as far as possible, within reasonable limits. Instead, however, of the estimate of £50 a bed given by the right hon. Gentleman opposite for accommodation in lunatic and infirmary wards, his experience led him to believe that the probable cost would be much nearer £150. One of the main advantages of the Bill was that it pointed to a general equalization of poor rates throughout the metropolis. The capitalist and the labourer no longer lived as they did at the commencement of the present century, in the same portions of the metropolis; but, as this change had been made in the interests of all, there was no reason why the wealthier classes who benefited by the arrangement should not contribute to the support of their poorer fellow-citizens, as they did formerly when residing in the same parish.

said, the subject was important, and hon. Members naturally desired to speak upon it; but as the Session was now getting on very fast he hoped the Bill would be read a second time that night.

said, he was sorry to have the appearance of opposing an important measure. The hour, however, was really very late; only two or three Members for the metropolis had yet spoken, and several were anxious to do so; and as the measure was one involving a large amount of taxation and a great enlargement of the powers of the Poor Law Board, he thought his proposition was really not unreasonable.

said, he was sorry to put pressure upon the hon. Gentleman, but as the House would, in any case sit until two o'clock in the morning, the debate might as well be continued.

said, that unless the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) proceeded with his address at once he would lose the opportunity of speaking upon that stage of the Bill.

said, that yielding to what seemed to be the general sense of the House, he would withdraw his Motion and address himself to the main question. He contended that if the proposed buildings were erected an increased charge would follow for the maintenance of the asylums for the relief of the insane poor already in course of erection. There were to be not only fever hospitals, but district infirmaries to contain 3,000 patients, at a present estimate of £ 300,000. No such hospital had, however, yet been constructed at £ 100 per bed. Hospitals built under the voluntary principle, and which pro-posed the cure of the sick poor usually cost from £ 200 to £ 300 a bed. The estimate, therefore, appeared to him. to be greatly below the mark if six infirmaries, with 500 patients in each, wore to be erected. Another consideration was the cost of the beds when they were once provided. His impression was that if additional provision wore made, additional persons would appear 1o claim it, and that there would be found to be involved a permanent cost of £30 or £40 per bed per annum. No wonder, therefore, that alarm was felt in the metropolis at these enormous figures. There was, in fact, a want of confidence in the Poor Law Board, which rendered the taxpayers of the metropolis unwilling to place greater powers in the hands of that Board. This was not to be wondered at when the head of that Board was changed with every Ministry, and not unfrequently during the existence of the same Ministry. There had been for some time the want of a regular, persistent and persevering policy on the part of the Poor Law Board, and a strong desire existed throughout the metropolis that the administration of the Poor Law should form the subject of a careful and deliberate inquiry. The right hon. Gentleman now at the Board had not yet had an opportunity of mastering all the details of the question, and hence, probably, the vacillation and uncertainty in the administration of the office which had existed during the last three or four months. He did not doubt that Parliament would be obliged to widen very largely the area of administration so far as the existing workhouses were concerned. It would be necessary to separate more completely the able-bodied from the infirm, and the children from adults. On the other hand he was satisfied that the only true system of administering out-door relief was by making it as much as possible local in character, so that those who administered the relief might bring to bear upon it that personal and local knowledge which was found so advantageous in country districts. What was wanted was a street to street, and almost house to house, visitation, for the purposes of out-door relief. The expenditure would thus be greatly lessened by the elimination of cases undeserving of relief. There was, however, the danger of the loss of this personal supervision under the system of amalgamating large unions. He was also apprehensive that when large hospitals were substituted for the present workhouse infirmaries, and when large numbers of sick were congregated in them, they would be found to be as unhealthy and dangerous as some of the wards of the great London hospitals. While they all desired to help the suffering and deserving poor, it was equally desirable to discourage pauperism and prevent the honest and prudent working man from being taxed and compelled to provide comforts for the idle and improvident which he was unable to obtain for himself. He did not wish to impede the erection of these asylums and fever and small-pox hospitals; but it was well worthy the consideration of the House whether the Poor Law administration in the metropolis was as satisfactory as it ought to be and whether it tended to discourage pauperism. The rate per head for the London paupers greatly exceeded that for the rest of the country it being 8s. 4d. per head of the population of London, and 6s. 6d. throughout the whole of the country. To that 8s. 4d. per head must be added the interest of the captial sum employed in the proposed buildings, which would amount to a further sum of 7d. or 8d. per head. There was a large portion of the pauper population of London which was not the pauper population of London alone, but was, in fact, drained from the whole of England. In behalf of (he metropolis, therefore, he protested against that charge being imposed on the rate-payers of the metropolis alone. There were, other sources of taxation—possibly even the Consolidated Fund—which ought first of all to be tried before imposing so heavy a burden upon the metropolis.

said, he thought a well-arranged dispensary system in London would answer perfectly, but only as a subordinate part of a system where good and efficient hospitals existed. Dispensaries would meet the minor cases, which formed the commencement of pauperism; for a large portion of the pauperism depended on the head of the family being thrown out of employment through illness; but nothing could be so disastrous or costly as in a great city to adopt any system of dispensary treatment for every kind of disease. He very much doubted whether the statistics of the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. W. M. Torrens) would bear strict examination. For instance, there were amputations and amputations; and those cases which involved little trouble and no risk should not be compared with or included in the list of those serious cases in which the illness which had led up to the amputation produced half the danger. He did hope that those who had charge of the expenditure would exercise the greatest vigilance and economy. He was perfectly staggered when he heard the President of the Poor Law Board talk of the cost per head of some of the proposed buildings. He could not help fearing that there was to be an outlay for architectural display, which was wholly out of place. He hoped that the estimates before the House would be considerably cut down. The patients should be comfortably and reasonably housed and attended to, and not lodged in a luxury and semi-splendour to which they had never been accustomed.

said, it was from no want of respect to his hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury (Mr. W. M. Torrens) that he would not at that hour attempt to follow him through that most able speech to which they had all listened with so much interest, to show in what points his hon. Friend was mistaken, but also to show the many points in which he entirely concurred with him. He was mistaken if he thought that the Poor Law Board discouraged dispensary treatment. That very Bill contained clauses to enforce it. They found the machinery inadequate; they were anxious to carry it out, and if the House passed that Bill, when he had to give an account of his stewardship next year, the erection of those dispensaries and the improvement of the system of out-door relief would be among the things which he hoped he should have been able to accomplish. But he agreed with two or three hon. Members who had addressed the House that it was impossible to hope to empty the workhouses in the metropolis by any carrying out of the dispensary system. And he might say the same with regard to schools. If they could manage to place orphan children in large numbers, and afterwards draft them into the population it would be done; but it was better to have the children in district schools than in any workhouse school. Then, again, the fever cases would have to remain in the workhouses if there were not fever hospitals, he agreed that it was better to have perfect isolation, but they could not have isolation in fever cases in the metropolis. But would they leave fever cases in the workhouse; or would they treat them in cottages? It was impossible to do that. There were thousands and thousands of eases that could not be treated with any hope of recovery in their own homes. Acute cases and chronic cases must be treated differently. If his hon. Friend would introduce clauses by which arrangements should be made authorizing guardians to send their worst cases to hospitals they should be taken into consideration. He wished to utilize all the space in hospitals that could be used. Then, as to expense, it seemed to be thought that this Bill was intended to authorize the Poor Law Board to spend £ 1,500,000, but that was not so. At pre- sent the Poor Law Board possessed all the necessary authority, but the Bill was intended to enable the Board to supersede the necessity of some of the proposed hospitals. He hoped the greater portion of the six separate infirmaries would be saved by means of the process he had explained to the House. It was with the view of saving the erection of these hospitals and infirmaries that this Bill was brought forward. A great many of the strictures of his hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury did not apply to this Bill at all. It was in order to carry out the system of classification that they wished this Bill to be passed. "With regard to the expenditure, he wished to point out that of the sum of £1,400.000 there was cither expended or authorized to be expended for works in progress the sum of £700,000. That amount was the practical expenditure of the last two years under the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. Therefore, they had the large sum of £ 700,000 to deal with, and if he were able to cut off from that amount some £ 300,000 or £ 400,000, he should have effected, with the assistance of the House, a considerable saving. So far from the Government intending to destroy local government, as stated by the hon. Member for Colchester (Dr. Brewer) their wish was simply to substitute one form of local government for another. As a metropolitan Member himself, he was anxious to save expenditure as far as a saving could be effected consistently with efficiency, and he trusted that the House would not refuse to read the Bill a second time.