moved to omit the first paragraph—

"Subject to the provisions hereinafter mentioned any Court may commit to prison for a term not exceeding six weeks any person who makes default in payment of any sum due from him in pursuance of any order or judgment of that or any other competent Court."

It provided that the proof of the means of the person making default may be given in such manner as the Court thinks just. Now, that was a new paragraph, and was not in the Bill when it was originally drawn. His attention was called to it for the first time in the reprinted Bill last night. He submitted that this was a power which ought not to be given to any Judge, who might declare an affidavit sufficient, and such affidavit might be cooked up behind the back of the party immediately concerned. It was a power which was not conferred upon the Judge of any court of law, and, in his opinion, one that deeply affected the liberty of individuals. He begged to move that the paragraph be expunged.

said, he had some reason to complain of the course pursued by the hon. and learned Serjeant. This proviso had not been introduced at the last moment into the Bill, but it had been discussed three several times when the measure was in Committee. Upon the first occasion when the House went into Committee it was fully discussed, and it was in deference to what he understood to be the general feeling of the Committee that he introduced this clause, which had been very carefully prepared. On the second day the Committee met the matter was also discussed, and the words to which the learned Serjeant took exception were adopted without objection. A third time the whole question was re-opened by the hon. and learned Member for New Ross (Mr. M'Mahon), the learned Serjeant was in the House, and had, or ought to have had, the words of the clause before him, and yet it was passed. The effect of the clause was to maintain to the County Court Judges the jurisdiction they at present possessed, so far as related to the imprisonment of a man who could pay his debts and would not; and it was provided that this jurisdiction should be extended to the Superior Courts. But, so far from a County Court Judge being enabled to exercise this jurisdiction as he pleased, the learned Serjeant would see, if he read the clause, that rules and regulations for the purpose of exercising this jurisdiction of the County Courts would be framed by three County Court Judges, to be selected by the Lord Chancellor, and the rules were to be approved by him; and as regarded the Superior Courts they were to be framed by the Lord Chancellor, assisted by the Judges of those Courts. The hon. and learned Serjeant, therefore, was wrong, not only in the whole of his facts, but also in his law.

strongly objected to the clause. It would be better for the country, as a matter of pecuniary arrangement, to pay every debt for which those poor creatures would be sent to prison, than to keep them there and incur all the cost of their maintenance. He should like to hear from the Attorney General how often a man might be imprisoned for a debt of 10s.

wished to ask if the rules were to apply to persons tried for the fraudulent contraction of debts for large amounts as well as to small sums incurred probably for temporary subsistence. If the rules were not to be analogous in the case of men who contracted debts to the amount of thousands and hundreds of thousands with those for them who contracted debts of a few shillings, great discontent would prevail. He was strongly in favour of the clause, but it ought to apply equally.

desired some information with reference to the manner in which those who had contracted debts by fraud were to be dealt with when they were imprisoned. There were no less than ninety-one debtors of this class at present in Lancaster Castle, and they were confined in a large yard, with nothing in the world to do. So heavily did the time hang on their hands that they were glad to do some trifling work by which they earned 1d. a day, while they were being maintained at an enormous expense by the country. He did not think that this was an advantageous state of things for either the coun- try, the creditors, or the debtors. If a man had committed fraud, he ought to be properly punished, and. not merely shut up with a number of others to pass his time in idleness.

objected to the power of imprisonment contained in the clause. A man was committed, and then re-committed, when the first committal had been the means of preventing him from earning any money.

was opposed to the clause. It was possible that a man who had not the means of paying might be committed under it.

said, that several defaults might be made in respect of the same debt, and in that case the County Court Judge had the power to commit for each default. A debtor was liable to imprisonment as often as it was sup- posed he had the means to pay, but refused to do so.

moved, to omit paragraph 4 of Clause 5—

"Any jurisdiction by this section given to the Superior Courts may be exercised by a Judge sitting in Chambers, or otherwise, in the prescribed manner,"

the effect of which, he said, would be that the Judge, on the hearing of a case, and as soon as he had given judgment, would be competent to commit a defendant at once to prison if he believed he had the means of payment.

said, that the paragraph only retained a power to the County Court Judges which they already possessed.

said, he thought the clause as drawn turned on the question whether default had been made in pursuance of the order and judgment; but the paragraph to which objection was taken would give the Judge power then and there, at the time of hearing to imprison the party. That could not be intended, because it would be contrary to the first part of the clause.

said, he did not understand the paragraph in the same sense as the hon. and learned Serjeant. If, at the hearing of the cause, it should be shown to the satisfaction of the Judge that the party was able to pay the Judge would make an order for payment on a day to be named, and if he disregarded that order then he might be committed to prison.

said, that the object of the Amendment he was about to move was to spare the rate-payers the expense of maintaining these prisoners in gaol. He observed that they were not put to hard labour, and had very little inducement to exert themselves to get their term of imprisonment di- minished. Many of them who were poor men were as well off in prison as at home. He thought that when the creditor was able to do so he ought to bear the expense of putting his debtor in prison. On the other hand he was willing to let the expense fall on the rate-payer when the creditor was unable to bear it himself. He had drawn the clause with great care to avoid the infliction of hardship on the necessitous creditor. He thought his clause would meet the views of the County Court Judges, who, though anxious to preserve the power of imprisonment, wished to have their hands strengthened against the tallymen. The power of imprisonment was now reserved in one case only —that of a debtor who could pay and would not. 80 restricted it amounted simply to a mode of collecting debts from reluctant debtors. Now he put it to the Committee, as a proposition in political economy altogether beyond dispute, that it could not be for the benefit of the community that a trade should be carried on which could not bear its own expenses, and one of these was the collection of debts. If the tallyman had to bear the expense of imprisoning his debtors, he would alter his mode of dealing if he found the expense was eating up his profits. He would be more cautious in giving credit. He would be less ardent in pushing his trade. He would act in conformity with the public interest, because his private interest would be in conformity with the public interest. But as the law now stood he was enabled to throw the expense of collecting his debts on the public, and so carry on with profit to himself a trade which might in reality be a losing trade. He forced the rate-payers into an unnatural partnership with him, the conditions of which were that they should get none of the gains, but bear the larger share of the losses. It might be urged that the Attorney General merely left the law as it was. But this was not so—he had taken the law and re-modelled it. He had extended it to debts above £50, and he had taken it away where the debtor was unable to pay, although the debt had been fraudulently contracted. They must, therefore, consider it as a new law, which they were enacting for the first time, and should not send it forth with such an imperfection in it.

said, he could hardly suppose that the hon. Gentleman was serious in proposing that the creditor should keep the debtor in prison at his own expense. The object of imprisonment was to enable poor creditors to recover their debts. If a labourer earning 15s. a week imprisoned his master for refusing to pay the wages when he had the means to do so, then the labourer was to be called on to allot a certain portion of his weekly earnings for the maintenance of his master in prison. It would be fining a poor man for no fault of his own. It was impossible for him to entertain such an Amendment.

, adverting to Clause 11, said, that the effect of that provision was that if a person did not do certain stated things he should be deemed guilty of misdemeanour, and be liable to two years' imprisonment with hard labour, unless the jury were satisfied that he did not abstain from doing those things with intent to defraud. This introduced a new principle in criminal law, for it had hitherto been held that the accused was to be deemed innocent until found guilty, and that where doubt existed the benefit of that doubt was to be given in his favour. It might be said the objection was a lawyer's objection; but the phraseology of the clause involved a substantial question, and reversed the ordinary rule of our criminal jurisprudence—that the accused should have the benefit of a doubt. He moved the omission of certain words and the addition of others.

observed that the string of Amendments of which his hon. and learned Friend had given notice were Amendments of alterations introduced by him, and if the words proposed to be inserted by the hon. and learned Sergeant should be preferred by the Attorney General, he should of course have no objection to his phraseology being corrected. It was, however, rather a lawyer's than a merchant's question.

denied that the clause threw the onus probandi on the wrong party. The language of the clause was not the best, but the words of the Amendment were less suitable for the purpose for which they were intended. The criticism of the hon. and learned Serjeant was only a verbal one.

said, he hoped the hon. and learned Serjeant's Amendment would not be adopted.

said, the words which had been inserted were rather in favour of the accused. He thought it would be better to retain them.

said, he had placed on the Paper a Notice of Amendment, not only with a view of taking the sense of the House upon it if his friends should desire it, but in order that there might be some discussion on the principle of this important Bill. He was quite aware that his hon. and learned Friend (the Solicitor General), who was for the time the promoter of this measure, might say, as he said before, that no discussion was necessary, and that discussion of it was mere waste of time. But the discussion last year was defective on two very material points. At that time neither the House nor the country had realized the principle of disestablishment, then enunciated for the first time. They did not know how far the right hon. Gentleman proposed to go, nor did they then foresee that this Session he would occupy the Treasury Bench, surrounded by Members of a Cabinet, some of whom had for many years been most determined opponents of all establishments. Again, the debate of last year had another peculiar feature—it was a proposition, a curriculum so to speak, for the election contest then about to ensue in order that Radical candidates might denounce their opponents, and every effort was made by Members opposite to misrepresent the action of the Conservative party on this question, and to prejudice the public mind unfavourably with regard to it. In proof of that assertion he would refer to a speech made by the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent (Mr. Beresford Hope), which appeared next day in the first person in a morning journal devoted to ultra-Liberal politics, and went far and wide through the land. And what was the climax of that speech? It was that the hon. Gentleman had gone into a smoking - room and seen half-a-dozen young gentlemen playing at billiards who owned as many millions of property, but could not get a decent education because they were sons of Dissenters. Although such a statement might do very well for an article in the Morning Star and for an ignorant class of electors such as seemed to exist at Stoke-upon-Trent—it was utterly without foundation as every reasonable being must know. Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House most strongly repudiated the attempts made to charge them with injustice to Dissenters. He had always maintained in that House and elsewhere that the Universities were national institutions, and that the Dis- senters should be admitted without tests; that they should be allowed not only to take degrees, but also to vote as members of Convocation or members of the Senate, and be permitted to establish their own Colleges or Halls if they thought fit to found such institutions. Holding those opinions he could not see how Dissenters could in justice or equity claim to form part of the Governing Bodies of Church of England Colleges. It is time there was a great distinction between property acquired by the Colleges before the Reformation and property acquired after; but it must be remembered that the pre-Reformation endowments were held exactly by the same title as Church property generally throughout the country, and the same principle must apply to both—many Nonconformists, no doubt, were opposed to all endowments—but as regarded Roman Catholics, considering that if there was anybody which had ever struggled to retain every scrap of property it was the Roman Catholic Church, he could not see how they could support this Bill. Some time last year there appeared in the Tablet, which he was informed was the principal organ of the Roman Catholics of this country, an article which said that when they came to the question of principle it was impossible for any Roman Catholic to vote for the Bill; but it must be remembered that the Church of England did not teach truth, and therefore Roman Catholic Members were enabled to support it. But, as the question of denominational education abroad was now occupying the attention of those who were most attached to the principles of the Church of Rome, he hoped Roman Catholic Members would pause before they supported a Bill which was an abnegation of the principles most dear to their Church. By the policy pursued towards the Irish Church he (Mr. Bentinck) insisted that the issue on this question was now altogether changed from that of last year, and it was absolutely necessary before this Bill passed that the House should receive from Her Majesty's Government some enunciation of the principles upon which they were about to proceed with regard to the Church of England. He viewed with great regret the state of the Treasury Bench, without one of the responsible Ministers of the Crown in his place— the result, no doubt, of those disastrous Morning Sittings when Ministers could not be in two places at once. The Government should declare their views and submit a measure as a final settlement. If they proposed a scheme leaving the government of the Church Colleges in the hands of the Church, and establishing a certain number of Fellowships, in the nature of Exhibitions which might be held by individuals who were not members of the Church of England, it would meet with no objection from the Opposition side of the House, but what they objected to were "little tinkering measures"—a favourite expression of the right hon. Member for Birmingham— which were merely instalments of something else. His hon. and learned Friend had talked to them about not hoisting the flag of "No Surrender!" which was sure to be torn down. With a majority of 115 at his back, it was easy for his hon. and learned Friend to say that. And now they were told to be wise in time. But the ultra-Dissenters, upon whom his hon. and learned Friend depended for his election at Exeter, would be satisfied with nothing less than the destruction of the Church of England; and a great measure of that kind lay behind, and would make its appearance when this little measure was got rid of. If there was one individual who ought to be in his place on this occasion it was the Prime Minister. He did not suppose the right hon. Gentleman would refer him to his past career; for if there was one question upon which the right hon. Gentleman had been more erratic than another, it was this University question. The last speech he delivered on this subject was spoken on the 14th of June, 1865. The right hon. Gentleman said that there were then two real questions before the House. The first being whether University education could be separated from the spirit of a distinct and definite religion; and the second being whether the recognition of religion was necessary to enable the University to perform its work as part of the discipline of life. In answering these questions the right hon. Gentleman said—

"I confess for myself that, apart from all distinctions between Churchmen and Dissenters, I am convinced of the soundness and wisdom, under the circumstances of this country, of that which is called the denominational system. I mean that we should not endeavour to tamper with the features and principles either of the Established or any other religion. I would recognize the same sacredness against political invasion in the one case as in the other. To maintain a definite religious teaching is the principle on which we have proceeded in the whole of our recent and most important administrative and legislative Acts with regard to primary and popular education. And that is a principle to which I think we ought to adhere in our Universities as well as in our grammar schools."—[3 Hansard, clxxx. 226–7.]

Now, in the autumn of 1866, a very remarkable criticism was delivered on this speech by no less a person than his hon. Friend the Member for Elgin (Mr. Grant Duff), who must be of high authority, because from a crowd of aspirants he was selected by the right hon. Gentleman to fill the responsible post of Under Secretary for India. It would be well known to readers of the public prints, that it was the annual custom of the present Indian Under Secretary, during the dead season of the year to deliver, at some remote spot in Scotland, a speech, or rather oration, to his breech-less constituents upon the topics of the day. These orations had certainly not the merit of brevity, and he was not going to ask the House to follow him through the oration of 1866; but he would nevertheless venture to read one most relevant passage where his hon. Friend, after stating that the right hon. Gentleman had fired a revolver in the faces of his partizans, proceeded as follows:—

"The only mistake in tactics was that truly astounding speech which he made on the Oxford Tests Bill, and which put the Liberal party in the absurd position of gaining its one great victory in this unhappy Session at once over its enemies and its commander-in-chief. I had, perhaps, more reason than anyone to feel annoyance at his gratuitous onslaught upon his best friends; but, when the first vexation was over, I forgot it in reflecting on the amusing glimpse which it affords into the state of mind of this highly-gifted man. Just at this stage of his career the neophyte leader of the Liberals is a curious study. What he hates most, hates with concentrated malignity, is that thorough - going Liberalism which extends to every department of thought; and he hates it because he has a suspicion that the line upon which he has been moving when produced leads to that end. He has a horrible foreboding that time is on the side of those politicians who, when he started in public life, were at the opposite pole of the political sphere, against whom all the strength of his youth and of his manhood were directed. Read his early speeches; study his early books. He has travelled far since then, and may well murmur at that destiny which may lead him, like the Sicambrian of old, to burn what he adores, and to adore what he has burnt."

In May, 1867, when the Bill was read a second time, the right hon. Gentle- man was found voting with the minority, but in 1868 — and the occurrence exhibited most strikingly the effects of time upon great minds—the right hon. Gentleman rushed into the House just before the division was taken, and went into the Lobby with the hon. and learned Gentleman. When such a great change had come over the policy of the right hon. Gentleman in so short a time, he at least should be in his place to give some explanation of the reasons which had led to that change. He was much afraid that the time would come when the Church of England would be offered up in the same way as the Irish Church was being offered up; and, therefore, he was anxious to know how far the Government intended to proceed in that direction at the present moment. He desired to see the Dissenters and the Roman Catholics confirmed in the indisputable possession of their property, but he claimed that the same principles should be applied to the Church of England, which was that of the large majority of the intelligence of this nation. Believing then this to be a most dishonest measure; that, while his hon. and learned Friend declared the Bill was permissive and would practically be inoperative, the majority of the Members opposite regarded it in a different light, and as a lever to overthrow the English Establishment, he begged to move that the House resolve itself into the said Committee upon the Bill on that day three months.

seconded the Amendment.

If I venture to trespass on the time of the House, it is because on this question I entertain very strong opinions, and my opinions not only differ diametrically from those of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. Bentinck), but also from those held by many supporters of the Bill. It appears to me, Sir, that all the arguments that have been addressed to the House on this subject, both on former occasions and during the present Session, have proceeded on the supposition that the University system is nearly perfect. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have expressed their fears lest the influx of a large body of students unconnected with the Church of England should impair the present excellent system; while ton. Gentlemen on this side have endeavoured to calm those fears. Sir, if I wish to see this measure passed into law, I am almost afraid to say that it is precisely because of what I conceive to be the gross inefficiency of the present system, and because my only hope of its amendment lies in the infusion of fresh blood. Hon. Members look back on the Universities through a mist of pleasant recollections and associations which, to a great extent, blinds their eyes to the real state of the case. But I am only expressing the opinion of a great many University men when I say that not only do those Universities with a maximum of endowments educate a minimum number of the young men of the nation, but to those few young men they afford a minimum of education at a maximum of expense. We used to hear the Universities spoken of as "places of sound learning and religious education." Our belief is that the learning is not very sound, and that the religion is not very learned. Sir, I have no wish to disparage or depreciate the good which a young man receives from his residence at a University. He can hardly fail to acquire, in greater or less degree, that most subtle but most valuable quality which may, perhaps, best be termed knowledge of the world. But this benefit is entirely extraneous, entirely extra-academical; he obtains it from mixing in society with his contemporaries, and not in any sense from the University system. So far as more solid acquirements are concerned the University and Colleges leave him to his own resources; he is obliged to hire for himself a tutor to conduct his studies; and for all practical purposes, he might every bit as well prepare for the periodical examinations in London or Paris, as at Oxford or Cambridge. Now, Sir, let us consider the religious teaching on which the hon. and learned Member for Richmond sets such store, and which he would so jealously guard. What does it amount to? I do not wish to detain the House, but I would remind hon. Gentlemen who have been at a University, and would inform other hon. Members what it is. I will take the largest and most illustrious College at either University. What training in religion does an undergraduate there receive? There is compulsory attendance at chapel. Now, Sir, this a matter of discipline—sometimes even of penal discipline—and I venture to think the House will not attach much importance to the influence of such attendance on the religious character of a young man under these circumstances. Then he is examined in the course of his residence on two or three Gospels or other parts of the New Testament; but these are, very properly, treated as pieces of classical literature, just as a Greek play would be, and not with regard to dogmatic teaching, or moral training. He has also to pass an examination in Butler's Analogy, Butler's Three Sermons, and—if that work be dignified with the title of religious — on Dr. Whewell's Elements of Morality. But the most important piece of this education—the piéce de resistance of this theological banquet — is Dr. Paley's Evidences of Christianity, a work undoubtedly of the highest merit, and of great historical interest; but its interest is mainly historical, and it is hardly suited to be used as a text-book. And as to the value of this as an element in religious education I may say that a week or two ago I met in the Library of this House, two Members of the House who have not very long ago left the University. They asked me if I could remember a certain argument of Paley's; and, in order at once to suggest to my memory, and to refresh their own, they repeated a fragment of a line of wretched jargon, a piece of memoria technica which is used for the purpose of getting up this subject, and which was probably all that remained to them of Dr. Paley's work. Now, Sir, even supposing—which many may doubt—that it is advisable to supplement at the University the religious training which is better received at home, and at an earlier period of life, I venture to submit that this so-called "religious education" has no substantial value. And yet it is to secure the maintenance of this system that the hon. and learned Member for Richmond wishes to clog the clauses of the Bill with all sorts of conditions. I humbly submit that the hon. and learned Gentleman, to whose motives we all so readily defer—is fighting for a shadow—that he has really gone to war for an idea. Sir, I think we are very far wrong if we look on this as a mere question of Churchman and Dissenter. For my part, I have no wish to take from the Church of England anything which rightfully belongs to her; nor, on the other hand, have I any sympathy with the motives of those —and there are not a few—who hope, under the provisions of this Bill, to see a very select number of the Dissenting youth brought up to the Universities, there to be fascinated by the influence of the Church of England, and, as it were, inveigled into her fold. Sir, I think such considerations should not be taken into account by this House. This is not, I say, a sectarian question, it is a national question; it is not a question of aggrandizing or denuding any individual sect, it is a question of raising the efficiency of the Universities as national instruments of education; and I firmly believe that the infusion of new blood, which will result from the adoption of this policy, will speedily bring their teaching organization into greater harmony with the times. Above all, it is not that we wish to have what may be called a scramble for the endowments. I am inclined to think that such overgrown endowments are positively pernicious in their effect; that they create apathy and ineffectiveness, so that sometimes the object for which institutions exist is altogether missed. The Oxford Commissioners reported of some of the wealthiest Colleges that if they were altogether abolished, there would be a loss to the picturesque architectural beauty of Oxford; there would be no loss to the University, the Church, or the nation. Changes have, of course, been made since the time when that statement was made, but they have not been very vital. We wish to see the Universities thrown altogether open to the nation; and thus, while the nation derives the full benefit of the high traditional position of those great institutions, my hope is, that the freer and fuller life of the nation will in turn react on the Universities, and render them better qualified to fill their high position. I hope that the House will not agree to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman.

said, that the speech to which they had just listened was one of those strong orations which were apt to be interposed when a great question was approaching to a practical solution. Its argument amounted to the expression of a wish to alter the Universities radically and fundamentally—the belief that the learning imparted there was not sound; the religion taught was not real, and the endowments were too great. In a single word he wished the Universities of England to become the Universities of Scotland and Germany. Such was the hon. Member's argument summed up briefly and neatly. It was well that the House should see to what some persons were driving, while introducing so great a change under the mild form of an enabling measure. He (Mr. Beresford Hope) however, did not read the Bill in the same way as the hon. Gentleman, and in order that it might be fully discussed, he hoped his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Whitehaven would not persist in his Motion, but would take a division on the 6th clause, which touched the Colleges. In his eyes the Bill proposed two things: first, to open the Universities compulsorily; and, secondly, to confer an enabling power upon the Colleges to open themselves to Dissenters. Those two things had no natural connection; and they had been brought forward in former years in different measures. No doubt we had lately heard that the fusion of the two proposals had become unseverable; but the example of that which was going on "elsewhere" showed that policies might come to life again after their extinction had been declared an article of political faith. He would divide the Bill now as it had been heretofore divided, and consider whether it might not be possible to meet the grievance, such as it was, by trying the experiment of only opening the Universities. He could not tell how far the consideration might weigh with the House, but it seemed to him a hardship that the question had now, for the first time during the Session, come on to be seriously debated, after the bodies vitally affected by the Bill had broken up for their summer vacation, and could not be consulted upon any compromise. He did not deny that there was the sem- blance of a grievance. It was, in fact, a general proposition that no proposal for any change was ever made without some grievance, more or less real, existing behind. But the question at issue was whether the remedy might or might not be worse than the disease to which it was applied. Whether it was good or bad in itself to open the Universities, he was willing to try the experiment; because he thought the time had come when it would be wise to make the concession, and run the risk. He was not of the same opinion, however, with regard to the Colleges. The Universities were already open to a very considerable extent. Dissenters might go through the whole curriculum, and obtain Collegiate distinctions and emoluments in their undergraduate career. They might appear in the Honour List, and in both Universities take the degree of B.A.; whilst in Cambridge they might also take that of M.A., though without the vote in the Senate attaching to the degree. And if a person had taken the M.A. degree as a member of the Church of England, he did not forfeit his vote by becoming a Nonconformist. He would equalize the system in both Universities, and allow the Dissenter to take his degree of M.A., and the degrees in Law, Medicine, and Music, and to obtain the votes attaching to those degrees. He thought they might fairly make the experiment without further disputation; and that would clear away the contention involved in the first portion of the Bill. As to the permissive power of the Colleges to open themselves to Nonconformist Fellows, he would ask the House to consider what was the grievance under which Dissenters lay. The grievance of social degradation was a mere chimera. There was no social degradation at all in it. As an undergraduate the Nonconformist wore the same dress, dined in the same hall, and had the same rooms as anybody else. He got into society not according to the creed he professed, but according to his power of making himself agreeable to those with whom he lived; and so the agreeable and intelligent Dissenter had a great advantage over the surly and niggardly Churchman. At the present moment Cambridge could show the Roman Catholic, the Jew, and the votary of one of the ancient religions of the East mixing together upon a footing of ab- solute equality. His hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-upon-Trent (Mr. Melly) had, during the last Session, made a hit by telling a good story of having met seven Dissenters together, worth the expectancy of £4,000,000, in the billiard-room of a provincial club, who, as he averred, had evidently missed the benefits of a University education, because they were Nonconformists. Now, he ventured to observe that this story was totally irrelevant. These gentlemen might, if they liked, have gone to the University and taken their degrees and all prizes open to undergraduates, and all they could not have taken was just what the reversioner of the seventh part of £4,000,000 could not much care for —a Fellowship. He could not but fear, therefore, that the deficiencies of these young gentlemen arose, not so much from the constitution of the Universities as from a genuine preference for billiards and tobacco. Had he (Mr. Melly) told a story of seven intellectual and hardworking sons of Dissenting ministers not worth 400 pence, it would have been more to the purpose; and to such cases he (Mr. Beresford Hope) now addressed himself. He admitted that there was an individual grievance in the case of every Nonconformist, who having distinguished himself at the University, found himself precluded from the higher emoluments and advantages which that University had to bestow upon its meritorious sons. He made that admission knowing its force; but he would proceed to inquire whether the giving of plenary indulgence to those few exceptional persons would or would not be dangerous to the body politic. He feared that it would be so. It must be remembered that the Colleges were not homogeneous institutions, and though the introduction of the alien element into one of the larger Colleges with its sixty Fellows might or might not have serious effects, it would be otherwise in the ease of the smaller Colleges, with, it may be, under a dozen Fellows in all. The hon. Gentleman who had last spoken had drawn an exaggerated picture of the smallness of the amount of religious education now given at the Universities. Admitting for one minute that his description might, in certain respects, be applicable to the minimum amount of religious teaching with which a layman might be able to scrape through, he would remind the hon. Gentleman that he ignored the much larger amount of theological education which the Universities bestowed upon that considerable proportion of their members who proposed to enter the sacred ministry. It was the injury to those men, arising from permission being given to the Colleges to alter their religious character, which he dreaded. The time might come when such seminaries for the clergy of a disestablished and disendowed Church of England as they had in the Colleges of our two Universities would be of the greatest value; and in face of the possibility of the day for the great crash coming for the Church of England he did not see why they should now huckster away one by one the advantages she now enjoyed. He would briefly touch upon one of the most specious arguments in favour of the change. It had been argued that because the Church of England—the most tolerant Church in the world, by the confession alike of friend and foe—admitted of many shades of difference, and that those who cast those shades, lived together in tolerable harmony within the several Colleges, therefore, that a little more diversity outside of that Church would not spoil the harmony. To him the argument seemed to answer itself. The course of that apparently difficult harmony, in face of antagonistic tendencies, was the secret influence of the occult vexus involved in belonging to the same community, being of the same Church. Take away that gentle yet persuasive restraint, and it would be impossible to say what breaches of peace and charity, what conflicts, might not ensue. Had the Colleges and the Universities themselves invited that change? He contended that they had not. The University which he had the honour of representing had last year presented a Petition against the Bill, signed by between 2,000 and 3,000 of its members. This year it had presented one as numerously signed, and bearing such names as Stokes and Adams, Challis and Willis—men of European fame— men whose genuine zeal for the advancement of scientific knowledge, for its own sake, all must recognize. There might, he said again, be here and there an individual grievance, but had they ever given the Universities a fair opportunity of trying whether they could not in some way or other remedy that indi- vidual grievance? They had not; and he contended, therefore, that it was premature and unfair to apply the cutting remedy of the knife to a complaint which gentle and curative remedies might heal. The present House of Commons had surely done enough this year in the way of pulling down, and might be content with passing only that portion of the Bill that had to do with the Universities, and postponing to another Session the one or two clauses which had references to the Colleges, with a view to seeing whether, in the meantime, when the attention of the Universities had been seriously directed to the question, some means might not be found of indemnifying, of honouring, and of contenting Nonconformists who had distinguished themselves in their University career, without altering the constitution of the Colleges themselves. The method he proposed would be that of enabling the Colleges to alienate some portion of their revenues for the purpose of founding University or honorary Fellowships or prelectorships, which would enable the Nonconformists to enjoy the substantial rewards of their studies without giving them a share in the Government of the Colleges. This solution of the difficulty had often formed the subject of private deliberation among the persons most interested in the question, but it had never been publicly canvassed, owing to the somewhat high-handed way in which the promoters of the Bill had always declined to enter into counsel with the Universities.

said, he was anxious to offer a few remarks, which should be very brief, upon this question, because he was one of those who were prepared to support this Bill, and yet who did not wish to see any very great alteration in the general character of the education at our Universities. He believed that the idea which lay at the bottom of the opposition to this Bill was that the effect of it would be to secularize the Universities, that is, to destroy the distinctive character of their religious teaching. Now, if he thought that secularization was to be the result of this Bill, he did not think he should be able to vote for it; but he was far from thinking that the secularizing of the teaching in the Universities would be the result. By secularization he supposed was meant the destruction or elimination of the religious element. But in what did the religious element in University education chiefly consist? Not, he thought, in the religious teaching given, but rather in the influence which the associations of the place exercised on undergraduates; the respect and veneration excited by the characters of the great men who had lived there, and in the private study of divinity. These influences the Bill would be unable to affect; and, therefore, he should vote for it, as he had voted for it before, believing that it would not destroy the religious influences now felt at the Universities. There were two or three alternatives to the passing of this measure. One was to leave things as they were. That alternative, he thought, they might consider as practically given up. The opinion of the country was growing stronger and stronger against such a course. First and foremost his reason against it was that it was inequitable. The present position of things was one they could not maintain. To allow Dissenters to come to the Universities, to toil through the inferior stages of the course of education, and when at last they offered themselves for examination for Fellowships to say— ''Thus far shall ye come, but no farther,'' was a position which could not long be maintained. But, beyond this, he would submit that the present test system was ineffectual; and for two reasons. It was ineffectual partly because, he was told, there were persons who took the test not bonâ fide, arguing that as it was, in their view, an immoral test, they could not be morally bound to observe it. He hoped there were not many who acted on such a principle, but he had been told, and he believed, there were some. The present system was also ineffectual, because the House must recollect that of late years the tendency had been to throw more and more of the teaching of the place into the hands of quite young men, who were lecturers or private tutors, but who, in many cases, were neither tutors nor Fellows, and who, therefore, were not brought under the test. There was one other alternative— it was the scheme alluded to by the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope) for retaining one portion of the endowments in connection with the rest, and surrendering the other. That had not been hitherto much ventilated; but, as far as he was able to form an opinion of it, it seemed to him that the result of this scheme would be unfortunate. It would tend to bring the various Colleges, if not into antagonism, at least into very marked contradistinction one from another, and to destroy that social equality which was, upon the whole, so satisfactory a characteristic of University education. He also thought it would be the means of introducing that very secularism which he should be very sorry to see introduced. There remained nothing for it but to pass this Bill. Having voted for the second reading, he should vote for going into Committee, because above all he considered it was equitable. He thought to shut out Dissenters from the legitimate rewards of a University course was a thing most invidious for us to do, and most humiliating for them to submit to. Moreover, he was convinced that this change would be highly beneficial to the Universities. The Universities were places of learning and religion; and long might they so continue. But surely they were pre-eminently places of learning, and, if so, he thought it followed that they should be recruited from all ranks, to whatever creed those persons might belong, who were fitted by talent, position, and acquirements to extend the sphere of their usefulness. For these reasons he should vote for now going into Committee; but he trusted the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Bentinck) would not give them the trouble of dividing.

congratulated the House on the speech which they had just heard from the hon. Member for Whitby (Mr. W. H. Gladstone). It was a clear, moderate, and admirable statement of the case on his side of the question. The hon. Member had made a favourable impression on the House, and he was sure that all who had heard him would wish to hear him often again. He desired, however, now, to point out the extraordinary difference there was between the two speeches that had been made in support of the Bill. The speech of the hon. Member who had just sat down, delivered as it was with great clearness, seemed to him to run directly counter to the speech of the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Campbell). That hon. Member argued as if the education now given in the Universities was defi- cient, and as if that deficiency was in consequence of the non-admission of Dissenters. The Universities, he said, gave the minimum of the advantages of education with the maximum of its cost; that they discouraged learning; and, therefore, if any conclusion could be drawn from his premises, they ought to admit Dissenters, when all those evils would disappear, or, at least, be greatly mitigated. Now the hon. Gentleman ought to bear in mind that this was not at all a question whether Dissenters ought to be educated at the Universities or not. The hon. Gentleman's arguments might have been applicable thirty years ago when tests were applied not only on taking degrees but also on matriculation, and by these no doubt Dissenters were excluded. But since that time no tests were applied—no distinctions were made to prevent Dissenters from obtaining the full benefit of University education. Every possible encouragement was given them. Sizar-ships, Exhibitions, and Scholarships, he was glad to say, were open to Dissenters; and, speaking of Cambridge, of which he naturally knew more than of Oxford, he could state that within the last eight or ten years almost every variety of creed had been educated within its halls, comprising not only Dissenters on certain points of the Christian faith, but members of the Jewish persuasion, Parsees, and others, for whose religious instruction the parents undertook to make provision. The hon. Gentleman also alluded to what he called the failure of education in the Universities, and he spoke as if this alleged failure would be remedied by this Bill. Now it was fair to say that he believed there never was a period in the history of the country when the Universities did more to advance the education of the country, of Dissenters as well as Churchmen, than they had done within the last twenty years. The hon. Gentleman also seemed to think that the number of those attending the Universities had not increased. They had not increased as their friends would wish them to do; there were many reasons why the increase did not keep pace—though the fact was doubtful—with the increase in the population. But within the last ten or twelve years the number of matriculations at Cambridge had risen from 400 to 610, in those ten or twelve years show- ing an increase of 50 per cent. The hon. Member said they had not increased equal to the students of foreign Universities. [Mr. CAMPBELL: I said the Scotch Universities.] Well, he had not a word to say against the Scotch Universities; he believed they did their work admirably, and he might advert to them afterwards as furnishing a proper mode of dealing with this Bill. But with regard to the foreign Universities, the House must bear in mind that there was a compulsory system, for no man could enter the service of the Government in any department without being required to go through a course of University education. The English system, on the other hand, was entirely voluntary. And yet, with the single exception of Berlin, there was not a foreign University that was equal in point of numbers to their own. The number of students in Berlin was 2,180, the number at Cambridge 2,153, so that the two were very nearly equal, and Cambridge exceeded all the other foreign Universities. Then it was said that the bulk of the people did not get the benefit of a University education, and that it was the object of this Bill to give it to them. He had already observed that he should be sorry if they did not get the benefit of an University education. But he maintained that every encouragement was given for the purpose, and that the Scholarships and Exhibitions were as so many shafts driven down into the lower strata of society, by which men might be brought up to the highest, and many of the most distinguished men in the country had risen to eminence in that way. It ought also to be borne in mind that Oxford had, some years ago, provided means for young students residing in lodgings, who could not afford to live in College, and Cambridge had since followed in the same course. This, then, was not a question of education; it was simply this — whether by the proposed alteration they could admit every variety of religious opinion to the Universities by opening them more than they were open at present, and by opening the Colleges in the one point on which alone there was anything like exclusion—and here he more particularly adverted to the speech of the hon. Member for Whitby (Mr. W. H. Gladstone) —without the neglect of religious ordinances, without the compromise of reli- gious consistency, and without any disturbance of religious peace. No one could deny that that was a fair test of the merits of the Bill. If they could adopt any scheme which would admit Dissenters to Convocation and to a vote in the Senate, on these terms, and reserving, of course, the Theological Professorships, which implied that the Professors must be members of the Church of England, then he would be among the foremost to say that he had no strong feeling of opposition to this Bill. But with regard to the Colleges, there was this to be borne in mind. In former times it might be contended that the Fellowships were not necessarily a part of the rewards for an University career, but were intended rather as the means by which a Governing Body for the University should be maintained, and it was through them that the Governing Body was now constituted. Well, then, if they were to make such an alteration as to enable any person to obtain a Fellowship, and so to become a member of the Governing Body, would the Governing Body, according to the trusts of the foundation and the usage which had ever existed, be a Governing Body according to the tenets of the Church with which alone these Colleges were connected? He had heard it stated over and over again that the admission of a few Dissenters would not prevent the continuance of the present religious system. But, to test the value of that opinion, they must see what the consequences of the admission of a few Dissenters would be upon the Governing Body. To take the case of Cambridge. The Colleges at Cambridge were divided into two classes—the larger Colleges of St. John's and Trinity, and in the other class all the minor Colleges—minor, he meant, as regards numbers. Now the seniority of St. John's and Trinity consisted only of eight Fellows, while the seniority of the others was even less than that, and consisted of only five or six. If, therefore, no precautions were taken, they might easily get a Governing Body which would not govern the Colleges according to the doctrines of the Established Church. The hon. Member for Whitby said that religious education would still be carried on much as it was now. His belief was that if this Bill were to pass one of two consequences must follow—either every form of religious be- lief must be admitted into the Governing Body—and then it would be exceedingly difficult to carry on the work of religious instruction upon any system—or else they must say that there should be no religious instruction at all. Taking either alternative, they were running a danger which, at least, it was their duty to anticipate before passing the Bill into law. As to what had been said about the deficiency of religious instruction he wished to point out that it was not the amount of religious instruction which was to be given so much as the system established within these institutions which gave them their religious character. They were all the creatures of habit and the children of circumstances; they were governed more by association than by direct teaching and the particular instruction which might be given at the Universities. The influences infused into the youthful mind by such habits and associations were much more powerful than the direct religious teaching on the future life of the student. These influences he was unwilling to do away with. These, he feared, would be done away with if the Bill were passed in its present state. What was there to meet the difficulty? To his mind there were two and only two ways. The one was to establish Fellowships which should not be connected with the Colleges, but which should be made and instituted as the reward of a distinguished career; and that he thought would be difficult to accomplish. The other course was that some such course should be adopted as that which the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir E. Palmer) recommended—that those who were admitted to Fellowships should make a declaration that they would not take advantage of their position to do anything or say anything contrary to the authority of the Divine Scriptures, or that militated against that form of religion which had always been the religion of the University and the Colleges. He was willing to go into Committee to see if provisions of that character could be introduced into the Bill; if not, he feared that he must oppose a measure which could not be passed without detriment or danger to the religious character of our University education.

said, that on a former Bill strong convictions had been expressed, but no division had taken place. The Amendments in that case were proposed from the other side of the House. Now the debate had been maintained from this side of the House, and it elicited from the hon. Member for Whitby (Mr. W. H. Gladstone) the hope that the religious character of the Universities would not be changed. That was a hope in which he did not join. If, however, the hon. Member desired to maintain the character of the Universities, such as it was, that was a desire in which he cordially shared. But what he wished to point out was that in this House they were coming to the habit of expressing strong convictions by their speeches, but of not giving effect to those convictions by their votes. The feeling was spreading still further in the country. Then, it appeared, that strong feelings were not to be expressed, if those feelings were disagreeable to others. The Home Secretary took it upon himself to prohibit a meeting, if he thought the opinions expressed were likely to be disagreeable to certain parties. The Mayor of Birmingham arrested a rate-payer who was going to a meeting, because it was supposed that that rate-payer would do or say something disagreeable. ["Question!"] Now what was this coming to? Hitherto, the system of government in this country, as in the Universities, rested upon the belief that Englishmen would not only express their opinions, but act upon them. On the other side of the House an example was being set of expressing opinions, and not only not acting upon them, but acting in direct contravention of them; and the very measure before the House was to prevent the requirement of the expression of decided opinion in matters connected with religion. To what was all this tending? Why, to a state of things which existed only under despotic Governments. He wished to impress on the House that if the present system of education in this country was to be maintained, it could only exist on the foundation on which it had hitherto rested; and that foundation had always been that not only should the people express, but act upon their convictions, and recognize conscience as the basis of their actions. He saw in the present Bill a proposal to undermine the education of future generations of a higher class; and his belief was that this was but a step in that course of pro- ceedings which would not only change the laws and customs of the country, but effect such an extensive change in the course of education as would alter the whole system of thought and action, disassociating action from conscience, and in the course of time, undermine those institutions, on which he placed the highest value. He did not care how large might be the majority, or how small the minority, but must enter his protest against the course which was now being pursued.

said, that after the appeal of the hon. Member near him (Mr. Beresford Hope) he would not trouble the House to divide, but would withdraw his Amendment.

said, he did not see the necessity for the Amendment, because he believed the feeling of the Convocation of Durham was to do that voluntarily which was now proposed to be done by Act of Parliament. To adopt the Amendment, would, he thought, be setting a new and undesirable precedent in our legislation.

asked whether it was competent to the Committee to extend to the Durham University the title of a Bill, the object of which was to repeal certain statutes relative to Oxford and Cambridge? The whole scope of the Bill referred to these two Universities, and had nothing whatever to do with the University of Durham.

said, it had been held that when the subject-matter of a Bill had not been departed from, it might be extended over a wider area than was contemplated when the Bill was introduced. He therefore thought that the Amendment was not out of Order.

said, that the Preamble only referred to Oxford and Cambridge. Could Durham be introduced without an Instruction to the Committee?

said, the Preamble of the Bill might be amended, without any Instruction.

said, that the University of Durham was established, in 1837, by Royal Charter, which gave the power of conferring degrees. Several years ago all religious tests, except in regard to theological degrees, were done away with. There were, however, still some disabilities and restrictions which were disadvantageous to students, namely —the difficulty of obtaining a seat in the Senate and in Convocation. The object of the Amendment was to do away with those disabilities, and to establish perfect religious equality, and it was calculated in an enormous degree to increase the educational power of the University. As no opposition had been offered, it might be presumed that Durham University was inclined to submit itself to the authority of Parliament.

supported the Amendment, and believed that its operation would, be highly advantageous to the North of England.

said, that Durham University originally formed no part of the scheme, and it would be a strong measure to alter the purpose for which that University was founded, during the lifetime of one of its founders. He had not, however, heard that the University of Durham objected to being included in the Bill, and as he understood from the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Mowbray) that it was likely to do voluntarily what was now proposed, he should offer no objection to the Amendment.

said, he did not see how any objections could possibly come from Durham when the Preamble and the Title only referred to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. No one could have supposed that the Bill applied to Durham, and he did not think it right that Durham University should be included in the Bill by a side-wind. He thought the University of Durham should have had more time to consider the Amendment.

said, the University had had timely notice of these alterations which had been discussed by the Senate, and if they had thought it wise to appear here by Petition they would have done so.

said, that he should have been prepared, on the question of principle, to have divided against the Bill on any stage; and if he did not now divide against the present clause it was not because he had changed in his opposition to the Bill, for he still strongly objected to its principle, and he believed it was impossible to carry it out on any satisfactory footing. He would, however, take a division on the 6th clause, and he thought it right to give the hon. and learned Gentleman timely notice of his intention.

moved, in line 33, to leave out "mastership or headship" and "tutorship." Hon. Members opposite seemed to consider that Collegiate offices should be regarded as academical prizes; but hon. Gentlemen on that side were not of that opinion. The object of this Amendment was to except from the operation of the clause those offices which stood in loco parentis, and there was a wide distinction between such offices and the offices of instruction. The majority of parents who sent their sons to the Universities were members of the Church of England, and it was not unfair that the persons to whom they committed their sons for care and discipline should be members of the same communion to which they belonged. The Amendment would leave entirely open the Fellowships, lectureships, &c, which it would be the ambition of Nonconformists to obtain. When hon. Members opposite had the splendid majority they possessed at present, it was always well to be generous, and if they wished to settle the question upon an enduring basis the best way to do so was by showing some consideration for the sympathies of the minority.

said, that this Amendment was an illustration of the un wisdom of refusing moderate proposals when there was an opportunity of coming to an agreement; because when he first introduced this portion of the Bill seven or eight years ago his proposal did not extend to headships or tutorships at all, but to Fellowships. With regard to masterships and tutorships, he thought the Act of Uniformity afforded no security whatever, the real security was in the statutes of the Colleges. In Oxford, he believed the statutes of every College but one required the master to be a clergyman of the Church of England; and, consequently, a much greater security was in that way obtained for the doctrine, belief, and religious character of the head of the College than could possibly be had by maintaining the provision of the Act of Uniformity which imposed a declaration of conformity with the doctrines of the Church of England.

supported the Amendment, and appealed to the Treasury Bench to meet the opposition in the spirit in which the Opposition were disposed to meet them. If they were to do so, they might obtain a solution which would be satisfactory to moderate men. He would appeal to the First Lord of the Treasury himself, who, up to recent times, had very strong opinions on this subject, to give his views to the Committee. This was a subject upon which very strong opinions were held, not only in that House but out of it, and the clergy felt much more interested in it than even in the important subject now under debate in "another place." He remembered reading a speech of the Prime Minister, in which he said that so long as the people of this country wished that an Established Church should remain in this country so long should the connection between religion, the Church, and the Universities remain. He hoped we had not arrived at the conclusion that the Established Church of this country was not to remain.

said, it appeared to him that they were forestalling the discussion upon the clause as a whole, and that the particular question raised by the hon. Member was one of comparatively trivial importance. The question, it appeared to him, would have to be settled ultimately between the Governing Bodies of the Colleges and the public at large,— that is, the parents of the young men who should go to the Colleges. He, for one, could not imagine, if the present state of feeling continued, and the great majority of parents desired that their sons should receive a religious education, that they would ever send their sons to receive education where no religious instruction whatever would be given. He could not conceive it likely that any College, which expected to retain its hold upon Church of England parents, would consent to appoint to a tutorship or a headship the member of a different persuasion, because that would be the way to lose its connection with that class of parents altogether. But this clause did afford the best possible way of putting a great principle to the test,—namely, whether or not and to what extent the members of other religious bodies than the Church of England should be permitted to enjoy the full rewards of University distinction. While, for one, he was not prepared to go the full length of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) and apply any compulsory measure to the Colleges, he would throw on them the onus of acting as they thought fit, and leave the question of religious instruction in the Universities to be settled between them, and the public at large.

said, the very last course he would wish to take in any matter was to act on the principle of vœ victis to which the hon. Gentleman had alluded. But he wished to point out what they were doing by this Bill and what the hon. Gentleman proposed to qualify. The Bill, as had been said two or three times over, was divided into two parts, dealing with, two separate subjects, and on two different principles. Right or wrong, those who were advocating this Bill thought the Universities national institutions, in the sense that Parliament could dictate to them the policy they should pursue. With regard to the Colleges, right or wrong, they had treated them as quasi- private institutions, as institutions which were to be consulted in all the changes that might be made. They removed all Parliamentary restrictions upon their freedom of action, and left them bound by their own statutes. Whatever their statutes, they would remain unaltered; whatever their feelings, they would remain unaltered; all that was proposed was to remove from their freedom of action those restrictions which Parliament itself had imposed. But this measure would be useless, and would not have twelve months' life, if they drew such distinctions as the hon. Gentleman desired. He left the Colleges free, but did not force them in their action.

, seeing the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister in his place, wished to repeat the remarks he had already made, to the effect that it was important the right hon. Gentleman should state his views upon this measure, with reference to which his opinions had undergone so recent and so important a change. Until last year the right hon. Gentleman had always voted against this Bill, and therefore, looking at the policy he had pursued with reference to the Irish Church, the Committee had a right to expect that the right hon. Gentleman would state what policy the Government intended to pursue with respect to religious institutions generally. It must not be forgotten that the right hon. Gentleman was now associated with those who were the declared enemies of all religious Establishments.

said, he would not put the Committee to the trouble of dividing on his Amendment, but would withdraw it.

said, he wished to make a few observations before the Committee proceeded to a division upon the clause. The hon. and learned Gentleman (the Solicitor General) was mistaken if he supposed that the Bill met the wishes or would satisfy the demands of Dissenters. At a breakfast of the Friends of Religious Liberty, held on the 16th of March last, one of the speakers, Sir George Young, said that the University Tests Bill was not so valuable a measure as some supposed, and would only do away with the restrictions imposed by Act of Parliament, and not with those imposed by the Colleges, and another speaker followed in the same strain, and denied that it ought to be regarded as a compromise. Where, then, was the worth of the concession if these were the views of those for whose sake the measure was intended? The Solicitor General had said that the Colleges were not national institutions like the Universities, and that, therefore, there was no intention to interfere with them. But, if this Bill were passed he saw nothing to prevent an attack being made upon the Colleges next year. He should divide against the clause.

said, it would be time enough to oppose undesirable changes when they were proposed, and that the present clause should be regarded on its own merits, and not as a possible step to future changes. If it were the sound view to allow the Colleges to have as much freedom as to the admission of persons not belonging to the Church of England to their offices and emoluments as would be consistent, if Parliament did not interfere to the contrary, with their own constitutions and laws—and that was his view of the matter—it was also a sound view that they should be freed from all the Parliamentary restraints now imposed upon them. Those who really wished to maintain religious teaching in the Universities would be resting their case upon a false issue if they were to say—"We must either retain the old Parliamentary restrictions or we must give up everything." For his part, he did not intend to abandon religious teaching, and he believed that there were many on his side of the House who entertained the same view. He did not believe that there was a majority on the side of the House on which he sat who were desirous of merely secularizing the education of the University. Whether that were the case or not, the difficulties in the way of legislating for such an object would be infinitely greater than those which were in the way of those who desired to see the Colleges free from Parliamentary restraints. On the whole he could not join in a vote against this clause.

regretted that those who opposed this clause would not have the support of the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer), who had at heart the preservation of the religious character of the Universities. They were now dealing with a state of things which he could not bring himself to look upon in the same light as the hon. and learned Member. The hon. and learned Member said that they were about to remove merely the Parliamentary restrictions upon the Colleges. Why, that was almost an idle remark. Already they had within the House many who were anxious to carry the measure still further than it went at present, while it was quite clear that outside the House a great many persons were by no means satisfied with it. What would be the result if one College were to open its doors to all, while another retained its restrictions? He was unwilling to take away the existing Parliamentary restrictions so as to permit a temporary majority to effect a change in the constitution of the Colleges which would never be reversed. It would be as impossible to restore the restrictions when once abolished as it would be to render the London University a denominational institution. But this was the principle upon which he (Mr. G. Hardy) was acting himself; and it was also the principle laid down by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, and which he had never withdrawn or qualified. Last year, the right hon. Gentleman voted in a different sense from what he had ever done before, without any explanation or without retracting any of the expressions he had uttered on the subject on former occasions. In 1866, the right hon. Gentleman said it seemed to him an act of equity, justice, and policy to demand that nothing should be done which would not secure the maintenance of a religious system of education in the Universities. In 1867, he said he would not question that security should be taken to preserve the present system of religious education in the Universities and Colleges. What did the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Richmond propose? He proposed to do away with the old tests for the purpose of substituting a new one. If they had a divided Governing Body, they would have in it men of no religion at all—men who were anxious to escape from the trammels which they had imposed upon themselves, but which they were anxious to shake off, because they now believed them to be the fetters of superstition. It was idle to suppose that they could continue the religious teaching in the Colleges if the conscientious convictions of each individual were to be regarded, and they must come to secularization, whatever might be their wishes in the matter. It was not the intention of Bills of this kind that things should remain as they are. That might be the intention of the Mover, who began by introducing such a mild measure, and who, a few years ago, opposed this very proposal. Until, however, they relaxed all restrictions and securities in the Universities and Colleges, that system of religious instruction ought still to be preserved, which he believed best for the interests of the Universities themselves and the nation at large.

said, a few minutes ago the hon. Member (Mr. Bentinck) made an appeal to him, which he thought it best not to answer, because the tone and language of that appeal were hardly such as ought to be used on a subject of this kind, or, indeed, on any subject at all. The right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had also referred to declarations of his made some time ago, and had challenged him to declare whether he abided by them or not. The right hon. Gentleman was perfectly entitled to ask him whether he had departed from the principle of religious education in the Universities and Colleges of this country which he had formerly maintained. His opinion on the subject was exactly the same as it had ever been. He heartily and cordially desired that both in the Universities and Colleges the education given should continue to be religious. He desired that the Bill should give, as he believed it would give every facility for the foundation, within the Universities, of Colleges in the constitution of which, the greatest possible freedom should exist. He did not desire to interfere with those who, from benevolent motives, founded establishments for seculiar education; but, on the other hand, they ought to give ample liberty to those who founded Colleges for the maintenance of their own particular religion, with whatever restrictions they thought proper, and they ought to respect those restrictions as the offspring of conscientious convictions. As regarded the general principle, he trusted he had now plainly and unequivocally answered the appeal made to him. With respect to the Bill itself, he had stated, in the first instance, that he would accede to no such Bill without just and adequate securities for religious education in the Universities and Colleges. In the next place he had always insisted — herein strongly differing from his hon. and learned Friend (the Solicitor General)— that it was idle and impossible to deal with the Universities by Act of Parliament without also legislating for the Colleges, because he was not prepared to say, either on legal or historical grounds, that any line could be drawn between them so broad as to make it desirable for them to take their stand upon it, while, in other respects, he saw plainly that any concession given to the Universities, if it were not worthless, would, at all events, be totally insufficient and unsatisfactory so long as they continued to say to young men what they now said in the University of Cambridge—"You may go to the University, and obtain the advantages of its teaching and its highest honours; but, having so done, you shall not be admitted to those College emoluments and powers which are the regular crown and legitimate consummation of a University career." His hon. and learned Friend had completely met his views on this subject in the Bill before the House, and with respect to the securities for religious education, he had not only inserted language which went to establish the present legal status of the instructors, but also expressed his willingness to admit the further declaration on the subject which had been proposed by his hon. and learned Friend (Sir Roundell Palmer). He spoke of the declaration with which the Solicitor General agreed, because in respect to the new test proposed by his hon. and learned Friend (Sir Roundell Palmer), although he did not see the same objections to it which others felt, yet he did not see such a value attaching to it as to make it desirable for Parliament to attempt the formation of a new test at all. No doubt his own views had been modified from time to time on this subject, and if the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Bentinck) thought fit to taunt him for having altered them since he ceased to be a Member for the University of Oxford, he was perfectly welcome to do so as often as he pleased. ["Divide!"] Well, he was answering the hon. Gentleman. The very last charge the hon. Gentleman would succeed in fastening upon him would be, that his career as Member for the University of Oxford had been distinguished by any undue subserviency to the opinions or prejudices of his then constituents. He would simply say that if it could be proved that this House had maintained one firm standing ground on this subject, all those who had done so might reproach those who, acting at one time in a contrary sense, felt bound to take all the circumstances in view in the proposition they recommended. It was, however, most remarkable that on that very day, and on that very occasion, they had heard one of the Members of the University of Oxford say that, so far as the Universities were concerned, he thought it more or less open for consideration whether the Bill should be resisted if it were confined within those limits. They had also heard both the Members for the University of Cambridge, for the first time, plainly and explicitly express a desire to make, so far as the Universities were concerned, the whole concession proposed by the Bill. When concessions of this kind were made, it had always appeared to him that when Parliament did interfere its interference should be sufficient and effectual. It was always, however, his opinion that it was impossible to legislate for the Universities and to refuse to legislate for the Colleges. When the time had come for legislation of this kind it would, he thought, be far better to place it upon a basis sufficiently broad to make it effectual for its purpose. And that was the reason why he gave his cordial support to the measure of his hon. and learned Friend.

rose to propose for the adoption of the House two Resolutions embodying the suggestions of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) made upon a previous Motion of his; and, irrespective of any opinions he might think it necessary to urge, He thought the statements then made by that right hon. Gentleman were sufficient to insure the acceptance of those Resolutions. But 'he was bound to say that he was impressed with a solid conviction that the adoption of the second of those Resolutions involved the peace and good-will of very large bodies of the people of this country and Ireland. It had been for centuries a subject of great anxiety to the statesmen and Government of this country that among the constituent elements of its power there was one that had not been fused into unity with it, and that among the great insular races that had carried the Empire, the language, and the name of England to the uttermost ends of the earth, there was one people that loved her not, and whose daily prayer to God was that He would vouchsafe to them one day the opportunity of causing the disruption of her power. The alienation and hostility of the Irish to the British people was a matter of history. Of what was past and irreparable it would be painful and superfluous to speak; but it was the duty of the Government to consider the present condition of affairs, and the causes that had led to it. Something more than twenty years ago, and before the fires of popular discontent in Ireland had begun to shake the surface of Irish society, and when it was the fashion for Irish popular representatives to declare that the Catholic people of Ireland were as loyal as any part of the population of Great Britain, he made this statement to the House—

"I tell you, on the contrary, that the Catholic people of Ireland are not loyal; they are eminently disloyal, and there are not fifty miles of Irish coast before which, if an English and American vessel were coming into hostility, eight men out of every ten would not wish the American success."

He had seen nothing since to induce him to recall that statement. With the same confidence in which he spoke of the facts he now spoke of the causes, when he said that the alienation of the Irish people was due, not so much to the wicked system of misgovernment which had existed among them for so many centuries, as to the cruel ignominy with which resistance to misgovernment had been treated. It was not so much the misery of the Penal Laws as the whips and triangles of '98 that had alienated the people; and it was with pain that he now saw the Government preparing fresh causes of future hatred. Disaffection had ripened into disloyalty; and because the visionary insurrection of misguided men, despairing of justice, had been punished by a persistent system of organized cruelty and insult, popular resentment had become as deep as it would soon be vociferous and vindictive, not only among the helpless people of Ireland, but among that nation on the other side of the Atlantic whose hostility was an element of danger to this country. He had no intention to indulge in the language of menace; nothing could be less effective; but he wished the House and Government should take this matter into consideration, and take action upon it before anything should have occurred to deprive that consideration and action of its full weight and credit. He hoped the Legislature and the Executive would take counsel in time, because it was too much the habit of the Government in Ireland to despise supplication as weakness. Resistance to English law admitted of no defence or extenuation. In Ireland, as in India, the assertion of self-government was a crime. About thirty years ago Canada rose in insurrection; insult and contumely were poured on the heads of the insurgents, and their grievances were treated with scorn. The insurgents and their American sympathizers were hanged by the score. We redressed the grievances of the Canadians, we granted them a free Government, according to their own desire, and the arch-rebel upon whose head we set a price, and for the suppression of whose opinions we had shed blood without stint upon the field and the scaffold, Papineau himself, was appointed First Minister of the Crown. Nothing could be more ignominious than such a policy, but nothing could be more successful. In 1848, when something like the Fenian insurrection occurred, one of the insurgents was tried on a charge which, if he had been found guilty, would have rendered him amenable to all the punishment now inflicted on the Fenians. He was never convicted; there was what was called a miscarriage of justice; he went abroad, and became a Minister of the Crown. Another insurgent at that time narrowly escaped with his life to America, and there publicly announced with his own hand that he had been a traitor, and his words spoken and written in America had been quoted in that House as a reason for continuing the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. That man went to Canada and there became a Minister of the Crown against which he had rebelled, and not only that, but he became, under the free constitution of Canada, the most vehement opponent of the rebellious spirits with whom he had been formerly leagued. Again, a man who had reminded a portion of his countrymen that the days would soon be short and the nights long, and used language which at first sight would have been supposed to instigate to assassination, had become a Judge, and had sentenced O'Donovan Rossa to penal servitude for life for the use of language rather milder than his own. Some twenty-five years ago the Leader of the Conservative party described the Government of Ireland as a system of policy the obvious remedy of which was revolution, and the First Minister of the Crown had lately acknowledged that the abortive attempt at revolution in Ireland had brought about that change of policy which he was now attempting to carry out—

"Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt;"

and therefore it was not extraordinary that a number of Irishmen who had gone to another country should adopt the policy which the Leader of the Conservative party had nearly thirty years ago stated to be the only true remedy for the ills of Ireland. One who might be truly called a wise man had said—

"The matter of sedition is of two kinds, much poverty and much discontent; and the surest way to prevent sedition is to take away the matter, for if fuel be prepared it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire. The first remedy or prevention is to remove by all means the material cause of sedition, which is want and poverty."

Now, none but simpletons would deny that such causes existed in Ireland, and that they might be removed if the proper remedies were applied. The Irish people did not sympathize with the views and ends of the Fenians, but they did with their feelings and opinions. They did not wish the Fenians to succeed; because, though they greatly disliked the existing form of government, they must feel some confidence in that which was to re-place it. But they had not sufficient confidence in ''the Irish Republic," virtually established to accept that alternative. It was the fact that no class of men in Ireland were satisfied with the Government. The people of Ireland for years had been misled, deluded, deceived, betrayed, and disappointed by successive Governments. Their sympathizing countrymen in America had promised them money, arms, and leaders, but they were to look at home for their bone and sinew, and to the English Army for their trained soldiers. The whole scheme was an absurdity from beginning to end, and could only be likened to the act of Don Quixote in charging the windmill. One of the first preparations for this conspiracy was the setting on foot of a public journal whose special function it appeared to be to announce to the Government the progress of the insurrection. The matter thus being thrust before the Government, it would have been unpardonable in them if they had omitted to take steps for the suppression of the insurrection, and accordingly they employed a number of emissaries to obtain information with regard to it. The Government had excused their conduct upon this point by asserting that they had taken the step for the safety of the State. But the Government had not only to look to the safety of the State, but also to the safety of the people. The Irish Government had always acted as though they were a garrison in an enemy's country. They did not seem to recollect that they owed a duty to the misguided men whom their own emissaries were leading on from disaffection to sedition. He admitted that it might be necessary in certain cases for the Government to employ detectives; but those so employed should be under properly organized control, and should not be permitted to act in an irresponsible manner. But for the assistance of the Government emissaries the insurrection would have proved abortive. Those who were engaged in the insurrection had made themselves remarkable by abstaining altogether from plunder and outrage. The forbearance exercised by these people had been honourably acknowledged by the correspondents of the London Press. For instance, the correspondent of The Times, writing on the 16th of March, in referring to the attack upon the police barrack at Delgany, when five policemen were captured, but were afterwards released, wrote—"It must be recollected to their credit that they have been merciful where mercy was hardly to be expected from them." The same sentiment had been expressed in other Lon-den newspapers. These circumstances, which were so freely acknowledged at the time of the outbreak, ought to be recollected in the hour of their humiliation and misfortune. Certain arrests having been made, the Law Officers of the Crown told the jury at the trial that it would be proved that the writings of these men partook largely of the character of Socialism in its most pernicious form, and that the operations of that revolution were to be commenced by an indiscriminate massacre of all those above the lower classes, and including the Roman Catholic clergy. Such an opinion was well calculated to prejudice public opinion against the prisoners, but it was not confirmed by any evidence whatever, not even the testimony of spies, and it was now admitted on all hands to have been utterly unfounded. The learned Gentleman who made this statement has since exculpated himself by stating that it was made entirely upon the instructions he received, and that he fully expected them to be proved. The allegation, however, was neither withdrawn nor modified up to the end of the trial, and the jury found them guilty, although no evidence in support of this conspiracy was forthcoming. The hon. Member— having read at length extracts from the Lancet illustrative of the results of the separate system upon the mental condition of prisoners; and from the Report of Dr. Macdonald, medical visiting officer of the Mountjoy Prison, remonstrating against the system of inflicting insufficiency of clothing as a punishment for refractory behaviour; and as to the consequences of the cellular system on the mental and physical condition of prisoners—proceeded to say that those who had listened to this statement would come to the conclusion that a state of penal discipline which had caused, or at all events resulted in, seven deaths within so short a period, and in one prison alone had driven four untried prisoners into lunacy, and four more into suicide, had been excessive in severity and unnecessarily aggravated by contumelious concomitants. They had heard of the abominable outrage committed by O'Donovan Rossa upon the Governor of the prison. But who could tell the contumacious treatment which had goaded him to commit it? The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had denied the other evening that O'Donovan had been subjected to the cruel punishment which had been alleged; but he had received the other day a letter from a London solicitor enclosing a statement made by Joseph Cave of 16, Cross Street, Palace Road, Hackney, who had been an assistant warder at Chatham. Cave stated that for about six weeks in the months of June and July, 1868, the prisoner Rossa was handcuffed with his hands behind him from 10 minutes past 5 a.m., until 7 30 p.m., and with his hands before him while taking his meals, and during all that time O'Donovan was confined in a solitary cell, and for three weeks was on bread and water, with alternate penal diet besides; that when the handcuffs were being put on him at first he offered great resistance, but that resistance continued only five or six days, when from the effects of the bread and water he was compelled to submit, and he was afterwards quiet. Such was the account he had received. He did not know the facts himself, but he had given the name of his informant. Now, he had not justified the Fenian conspiracy, or the insurrection to which it had given rise, nor did he attempt to justify it; but he was quite sure that there was not one who had lost his life or his liberty in that insurrection who would have saved his life or purchased his liberty by the admission that he was morally guilty or ashamed of the cause in which he sufferred. Nor would he make such an admission in their name nor his own. In conclusion he begged to move the Resolution of which he had given notice.

said, that those who were in that House some fifteen years ago would recognize in the speech which they had just heard the eloquence of his hon. Friend, and also the continuance of those feelings which he was happy to say had almost entirely died out in the existing generation of Irishmen. The Members of Parliament whom they now had the pleasure of seeing among them representing Irish interests were not less patriotic than those who went before them; but he would venture to draw a distinction and say that their main efforts were directed to heal the wounds of the past. His hon. Friend, as it appeared to him, had unnecessarily devoted no small part of his speech to recalling those bitter memories and continuing to the best of his power the existence of those feelings which all in that House wished to see buried. He could not quarrel with the latter part of his hon. Friend's speech. He was not there to defend cruel treatment either to convicted or unconvicted prisoners; and if what the hon. Gentleman had stated was true, his voice would be joined with his hon. Friend's terms of strong indignation in condemning such treatment. He knew nothing about it. An unconvicted prisoner in this country, a prisoner before trial, was treated, as was well known, in a very different manner from what was described by the hon. Gentleman. Without giving any opinion as to the truth of the statements which had been read by the hon. Member, he might say that it was impossible that such occurrences could have arisen in this country. The hon. Member had given no notice of the special charges he was about to make with reference to the treatment of the Irish prisoners, which, in all fairness, he ought to have done. His hon. Friends sitting near him were as ignorant of the occurrence of the alleged cruelties alluded to by the hon. Member as he was himself. He could not say how far these allegations were true; but if he judged them by the statements of Irish prisoners in this country he should not have much faith in them. Had the hon. Member, instead of dealing with special eases, opened the question as to the proper treatment of political prisoners generally, he should have felt pleasure in dealing with the subject, but, owing to the course adopted by the hon. Member, he was precluded from doing so on the pre- sent occasion. It was no pleasure to him to contradict the statements of the prisoners as to the effects of imprisonment upon their health, because undoubtedly the many humiliations they had to endure would necessarily have a greater effect upon their minds than upon the minds of those habituated to crime. He might, however, remind the House that, fortunately for England, we had been so far blessed that it had been unnecessary for us to make those special provisions for political prisoners that were required in other countries. In this country it was only in the case of the most reckless resistance to authority that the aid of the law was called in. If the law were administered in all its strictness there would be no difficulty in bringing under justice numbers of men who spoke against the Constitution under which we lived, and who urged their fellow-countrymen to acts of violence; but it was only in such cases as those which had occurred during the Fenian insurrection that the law was put in force. With regard to those who had been convicted and who were now undergoing imprisonment, the sentence which had been imposed upon them was that generally imposed upon felons, England having but one punishment for both classes of offenders. He admitted that such a punishment must fall with great severity upon political prisoners; but in the great majority of instances it was their resistance to the prison authorities that caused their most aggravated sufferings. Therefore, it was to themselves, and not to the law, that their principal sufferings were due. He would take the case of Burke as an example. Burke was the man who attempted to escape from Clerken-well Prison at the risk of the lives of from fifty to eighty of his fellow-prisoners, who had in no way offended him. It would be recollected that at a given signal Burke was to have sheltered himself behind a buttress in the prison yard while the gunpowder was ignited that was to blow down the prison wall, to the imminent danger to the lives of the eighty prisoners who were exercising in it. Such a man as that could scarcely j be regarded as a mere political prisoner; and yet having determined to endure his imprisonment like a man, he had conducted himself in such a manner that he had never suffered a single extra punishment. With regard to the case of Lynch, who the hon. Member had stated had died of consumption in Millbank Prison in consequence of being deprived of his flannels, inquiries had been made into the circumstances by three competent authorities at the instance of the late Government. Of those three gentlemen, one was Mr. Knox, the well-known magistrate, who was irremovable by the Crown, and another was Mr. Pollock, the eminent surgeon, upon whom it was impossible for the Government to exercise any undue influence. In their Report those gentlemen say—

"It is stated in the extract from the Irishman newspaper furnished to us that Lynch caught cold at Pentonville, and died from the loss of his flannels. Lynch was received at Pentonville on the 16th of January, 1866. By a reference to the daily record of the temperature of the prison, it is seen that on that day the maximum was 65 deg., day; the minimum, 57 deg., night; and at no subsequent date of that winter was the minimum temperature of the cells at night, when the prisoners were in bed, lower than 53 deg.—a temperature so very satisfactory and sufficient, that with the clothing each convict was supplied there can be no truth that Lynch's subsequent illness was dependent on cold caught from his treatment at Pentonville. Lynch made no complaint to the medical officer of feeling the cold or of the want of flannels. When a prisoner is received at Pentonville he is stripped to be examined, and, as already described, each convict was supplied with new clothing of the usual character. The supply of extra flannels was at the discretion and by the order of the medical officer. In this instance it was on his own judgment, and not at the request of the prisoner, that the latter was supplied with flannels But, irrespective of this point, Dr. Bradley's notes confirm the evidence given by Lynch himself, that he was the subject of cough on admission, and it is also evident by Lynch's statement to Dr. Campbell at Working, that long previous to his conviction he had had cough and spitting of blood. Such a history of a case satisfies us that disease of the lungs existed previous to his conviction, and that Lynch died from the effects of that disease, commonly known as consumption, and that the treatment he received in prison had no share in its production."

As to the general appearance of the Fenian prisoners, the two gentlemen he had named reported that they were robust, strong, healthy-looking men, and that there was no case of illness existing among them. It had been said that they had been subjected to solitary confinement, but the fact was that, being political prisoners, they were subjected to less than the ordinary amount of this preliminary discipline. The House would recollect the very remarkable statement made a short time ago in that House relative to the treatment of O'Donovan Rossa—namely, that he was handcuffed for thirty-five days with his hands behind his back, that his only food was gruel, and that he was compelled to eat this on all fours—although how he could do this with his hands behind his back he could not understand—and that his beard was encrusted with the gruel. It was said that the prisoner's statements to this effect were made in the presence of the Deputy Governor and not contradicted by him. The Deputy Governor of Chatham, who had since been promoted to Portsmouth, declared that he heard every word of the prisoner's statement, and that he did not say one word about this imprisonment or these cruelties. Two or three days ago the hon. Member gave him notice that he intended to controvert the statements he had made on this subject. He applied to the hon. Gentleman for the name of his informant, but he declined to give it. [Mr. G. H. MOORE: I had no permission to give the name.] He gathered from the statement of the hon. Gentleman that his informant was a warder who had been dismissed; but if he had supplied his name he could have made inquiries as to the reasons for his dismissal, and whether his testimony could safely be received. At all events, he had left the establishment. [Mr. G. H. MOORE: I know nothing about it.] He presumed he must have left the establishment in November, as the circumstances to which he spoke occurred between June and November, 1868. It certainly would have been more satisfactory if the hon. Gentleman had given him an opportunity of inquiring into the character of his witness. He, on the contrary, believed, in preference, the testimony of the Governor and Deputy Governor, who stated that after the horrible assault, which he had on a former occasion described, the hands of O'Donovan Rossa were manacled behind his back for half-a-day. They were manacled in front for some days; but when the manacles were taken off, he took advantage of the temporary absence of the warder to wrench off the handle of his cell and to break every article of furniture within his reach. It ought also to be recollected that the man had been guilty over and over again of daring outrages against the prison officials. Owing, however, to the lenity which had been shown him he was now one of the best conducted of prisoners. He could not see what advantage could accrue from agreeing to the Motion of the hon. Member. No such inquiry was necessary in England. The untried prisoners were allowed to wear their ordinary dress, and were maintained by their friends if they preferred it. As to the class of prisoners who were apprehended under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, they ought to be treated as nearly as possible like untried prisoners. Sufficient security ought to be taken for their safe detention; but it was quite possible that in some of the gaols in Ireland some hardships were unavoidably imposed on them. If, however, the allegations of the hon. Gentleman as to their treatment were true, no inquiry by that House was needed to induce the Government to interfere. A question arose whether any distinction should be made between political prisoners and others. If they were a known class in this country it might be necessary to arrange their prison treatment so as to fit it to the precise character of the offences with which they were charged. Political offenders were, however, men of very different character, and their punishments could not be identical. There were, no doubt, great distinctions between the Fenian prisoners, but there had been necessarily a uniformity of punishment, mitigated to a certain extent, but not in a manner especially designed for political prisoners. With regard to the labour imposed upon them the House had the statement of the two gentlemen deputed to inquire into the subject, and the accuracy of which he could confirm. They stated that the out-door work given to them to perform was not laborious or harassing, and that so far from being injurious to health it was the very reverse. The House would have to consider what punishment should be inflicted on such prisoners. Though penal servitude could not be prolonged beyond many years without danger to health and life, yet within certain limits it was comparatively a lenient sentence. It involved labour, undoubtedly, but a life of labour was better than a life of inactivity. In his opinion these prisoners should not be subject to anything unnecessarily humiliating or degrading; but they should not be exempt from labour. The directors of prisons had the power of relieving, in some respects, from the strict prison rules prisoners of a naturally irritable nature, on whom the strict rules might produce mischievous or dangerous results. This mitigation of the prison rules had been extended to the Fenian prisoners. They had been relieved from certain duties, venial offences had been overlooked as much as possible; they had been separated from other prisoners, and every indulgence consistent with the proper observance of obedience to orders in the performance of the labour allotted to them had been allowed. But the offences of the Fenian prisoners were, after all, very serious. They showed themselves to be men who were ready to plunge their country in bloodshed. Though he was not an advocate for unnecessary or severe punishment, nevertheless he could not assent to those offences being overlooked on the ground of the past misgovernment of Ireland. For the last fifty or sixty years, at all events, the Government of this country was engaged, perhaps slowly, but certainly slowly and steadily, in the work of remedying the wrongs of the past. He, therefore, thought the moment was very ill chosen when those misguided men rose in arms against their Sovereign. The law, then, had nothing to do but to impose on them a severe sentence. It had been observed by Edmund Burke that the reason why civil war in England was less sanguinary than in other countries was, because the conquerors always spared the humble and the low. It was upon that principle that the Government had acted in dealing with the Fenian prisoners, and had been happy to extend mercy to those who had sufficiently expiated their offence. This leniency had not been thrown away upon those who had been the objects of it, with the exception only, he believed, of two men—Americans, if not by birth, at any rate by naturalization. Those only had been retained in confinement who, from their character, could not be liberated without danger. With respect to the future of the prisoners he was prepared to recommend the extension to them of the utmost consideration consistent with the execution of the sentences passed on them. And he thought it might be possible to legislate on the subject with a view of giving to the Judge who tried political prisoners the power of distinguishing between crimes of great magnitude and those of a less heinous character, and of passing other sentences than the uniform one of penal servitude. The subject should have the best consideration of the Government, who had no vindictive feeling in this matter, but only desired to see their punishment such as would act as a warning against others repeating these offences. He hoped the time might come when these subjects should cease to be discussed in that House; when, by a system of just and generous treatment of the people of Ireland, we might revert to that proud position this country had once occupied, when no prison in the United Kingdom contained one political prisoner.

reminded the Government that every one of those Fenian prisoners cost the nation as much as three able-bodied seamen, and that their best policy would be to encourage the loyal men who were at home, and to urge the disloyal men to leave the country.

said, he wished to say a few words with reference to the treatment of the prisoners, which he thought had been exaggerated. He had conversed with O'Donovan Rossa in Chatham Prison, in presence of the Deputy Governor of the gaol, who deserved all that had been said of him by the right hon. Gentleman. He had unlimited license to put any questions to the prisoner he pleased. O'Donovan Rossa did not make to him the complaint put forward in the Irishman, as to being obliged to lap his food with his hands bound behind him. He did complain of the insufficiency and quality of his food, and that the reports of his complaints were not written down from his own words and afterwards read over to him, and of his letters being suppressed. He (Mr. Downing) asked if he was guilty of the single charge imputed to him. The reply was he had been, and cried because of that very offence. He looked in good health, there appeared to be no foundation for the statement that he was attenuated or in bad health. He was suffering from nothing, he said, but a pain in his back. It was said that O'Donovan Rossa was a violent-tempered man, but he (Mr. Downing) knew him for many years before his conviction, and could affirm that he was not turbulent, quarrelsome, or ill-tempered. He had also had an interview with Burke, who was deserving of kindly treatment. He, too, complained of the quantity and quality of his food. He was anxious to make this statement because it was supposed he had communicated to a weekly journal in London a statement relative to the treatment of the prisoners; but he had made no such statement either to a weekly or any other journal. Still, he thought the treatment of the prisoners in the different gaols was exceedingly and unnecessarily harsh, and Government would do right to adopt the first Resolution and appoint a Commission of Inquiry into the treatment of the prisoners. The prisoner Burke, it was said, had been engaged in a conspiracy which would have sacrificed the lives of some eighty persons; but, although a felon and a convict, he appeared to be a man of a high sense of honour. ["Oh, oh!"] Many honourable men were ready to enter into a conspiracy, and he believed that conspiracy had done a vast deal of good for Ireland. He had no sympathy with the objects of the Fenians. He had received from them opposition, and had always raised his voice against them. But he must say the wrongs and wants of Ireland would not perhaps have been listened to but for the course taken by these very men. ["Oh, oh!"] He was addressing his countrymen through the Press. It was necessary that what was said in that House should be read by the people of Ireland. It had been admitted even by Cabinet Ministers that but for the Fenian agitation that House would not have listened as it had to the claims of Ireland. He admitted that the Fenian prisoners had done incalculable injury to the country— they had stopped the progress of trade and commerce; but yet it must be said for them that feeling the sufferings of their country, they had the courage to act upon their convictions. He trusted the Government would grant an inquiry.

, in reply to the complaint of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, that he had brought forward a number of individual cases of which he had given no previous notice, said, he had only mentioned one case which did not rest on public authority accessible to every one. That was the case of Lynch, with which the right hon. Gentleman was himself acquainted. With regard to the Resolutions, what he prin- cipally wanted was a public inquiry into these matters, and upon that he should divide.

said, he had not expected from the terms of the Motion to he called upon to address the House; hut, in consequence of what had fallen from the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. G. H. Moore), he would say a few words. That hon. Gentleman had said that the prosecutions by the Law Officers in Ireland had been habitually unfair. To that statement he gave the most indignant denial. If the hon. Gentleman had taken the trouble to read the evidence given at the prosecutions conducted by his successors, he would find they were as fair as those conducted by himself. The hon. Gentleman had thrown out a bait to catch him, but it would not do; he would defend his successors in Office as he would defend himself. What did the hon. Member say? That domiciliary visits had been paid; that floors had been torn up, and boxes examined. But had the hon. Gentleman realized the situation of Ireland in the autumn of 1865? The Government then, from information of undoubted authority, came to the conclusion that a wide-spread conspiracy against the Crown of this country was on foot, and that being so, was it not the duty of the Law Officers to try to discover it? On evidence of the clearest and most undoubted character, the Executive of the day proceeded to seize the Irish People newspaper, to arrest the staff and examine their homes, and what did they discover? The most irrefragable proof of the most wide-spread and traitorous conspiracy ever levelled at the Government of a country. He, with the Attorney General, prosecuted the prisoners, and who alleged that they did not get a fair trial? Not one of them. On the contrary, the main conspirator, in the face of the public, said—"I have got a fair trial." Therefore, he would ask the hon. Gentleman how dared he assert in that House that the prosecutions were unfair? It was the misfortune of men in the hon. Gentleman's position to try to make capital out of such things; but the man who did that was not a true friend of Ireland, but pandered to the vicious passions of those who, when convicted of offences against the law, fretted and fumed because the law was able to master them. What did the hon. Member say to-night? That the Fenians were our masters. He denied that the law, firmly administered by the Government of which he was a Member, and administered with equal firmness by the Government which succeeded—he was a party man, and he had watched the prosecutions conducted by the late Government, and he could say that the law was justly administered by them—he denied that the law was unable to cope with the Fenians. And were they to be told on the 29th of June, 1869, that the Fenians were our masters? Little as he expected to hear that, still less did he expect that the hon. Member should rake up against Mr. Justice Keogh an exploded story, of 1853, about certain words which he was said to have made use of in the West of Ireland. That charge was made the subject of investigation in the House of Lords, and the learned Judge gave it the most indignant denial. [Mr. G. H. MOORE: Never!] He repeated that Mr. Justice Keogh had given an indignant denial to the story. [Mr. G. H. MOORE: No!] Was it fair, then, after sixteen years, to rake up these things? The hon. Member had assailed the present Solicitor General for Ireland; he had assailed the former Attorney General, Mr. Justice Lawson; he had many things to say against absent men, but he had not said a word against him who was there to defend himself. He would not have risen to say a word were it not for the strong language which the hon. Gentleman had used to English ears. He could not sit still and listen to that. He believed he had acted fairly himself, that his successors had acted fairly, and that the law had been fairly, justly, and mercifully administered.

said, that the question was not whether the conduct of the Judge or the Crown Officers had been to blame; but whether the treatment of the prisoners had been such as, in the words of the Home Secretary, would be impossible in England. He hoped the Government would enter upon a humane, generous, and merciful policy towards the Fenian prisoners.

rose to move the second Resolution, and availed himself of the opportunity to deny that he had made any accusation against the Attorney General for Ireland personally. He had made the charge against all who were concerned in the matter equally. He indignantly repudiated the suggestion that he was attempting to make political or any other capital out of the subject. He begged to move the second Resolution.

said, it was unlikely that after the first Resolution asking for inquiry had been negatived, the second, which was only a consequence, would be carried. The question now was what was the amount of punishment already endured by the political prisoners, and what was the feeling entertained in Ireland as to their further confinement or release. He rose, therefore, to express what he knew to be the feelings of a large portion of the large constituency he had the honour of representing. Now there was a very strong and general feeling among his constituents in favour of the release of the remaining prisoners. This feeling was not confined to those who, though not belonging to the Fenian movement, felt sympathy with their motives and objects; but it was equally entertained by those who had no sympathy whatever with them, and who, in fact, believed that the movement had done much injury to the country. There were, no doubt, a certain class in favour of continued punishment, but they were comparatively few; while the great majority of moderate people were in favour of clemency, and held the opinions that enough had been done to vindicate the law; that the prisoners still detained had suffered as much as they ought to suffer, and that their release would be an act of mercy and wisdom. He was convinced that this would be a safe course, for no evil has arisen from the clemency already extended; for although one or two released persons had abused the leniency of the Government, they were Americans. It was the policy now being pursued towards Ireland that would strike the deadliest blow to the Fenian movement; and if it were persevered in there need be no further fear of any revolutionary attempts. He would repeat that it was the general feeling and opinion of the country that the political prisoners had suffered sufficiently for their offence, and that no real danger would result to the public peace from the liberation of those still in prison.

said, he could endorse the statement of his hon. Colleague (Mr. Maguire) as to the feeling in Cork and Ireland generally in this matter. He regretted that the division had not been favourable to the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. G. H. Moore), for he believed that a public inquiry would remove an erroneous idea which obtained in Ireland with respect to the treatment of the Fenian prisoners.

, in moving a Resolution to the effect that it was expedient to increase the salaries of the County Court Judges by the sum of £300 per annum, said, that the jurisdiction of the County Courts had been extended and the duties of the Judges multiplied by a series of Acts which had been passed almost year by year since those Courts were constituted; but although it was true that an increase had been made to the salaries of the Judges as originally fixed, it was wholly disproportionate to the amount of extra work they were called upon to perform. While there had also been an enormous increase in the number of plaints coming before those Courts, there had been a simultaneous falling of in the number of writs issued from the Superior Courts, thus showing that the County Courts were in fact doing, to a great extent, the duty of the Superior Courts and the Judges of Assize. Moreover, the Registrars of certain County Courts would actually receive more remuneration this year than the Judges of those County Courts themselves. The total sum which would be required to pay the additional salary to these Judges which his Motion contemplated was not more than £15,000 a year; and he maintained that the whole of that sum might be met in the present year from the saving which would result from the transfer to those Courts of the Bankruptcy business alone, without the necessity of extracting a single additional 1d. from the pockets of the tax-payers of the country. He concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given notice.

in seconding the Motion, said, that no doubt the Chancellor of the Exchequer would say that it would be better to postpone a decision upon the question until the extent to which the work of the County Court Judges increased; he submitted, however, that it was not the amount but the kind of work; and he, with others, who agreed with the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert) desired to raise the standard of County Court Judges. In 1865, when it was proposed to raise the salary of the County Court Judges, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and present Prime Minister by his observations clearly showed he intended then that the salaries of the County Court Judges should be still further raised if they had duties in Bankruptcy cast upon them. This was now about to be done, and they were, therefore, entitled to extra remuneration.

presumed the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert) had brought forward the question at the late hour of half-past twelve in order to relieve his mind rather than with a hope of obtaining ample discussion of his proposal. County Courts were started twenty-one years ago in the hope that they would be self - supporting; but they involved an aggregate charge of £587,000, and the Exchequer received from them £354,000, so that the deficit was £233,000, which was due to the dis- position of the House to listen to solicitations like that just made, and to show more consideration for officials than for tax-payers. He had heard no adequate reasons for agreeing to this Motion. Reviewing the history of the County Courts, he referred to the fact that the salaries of the Judges had been once reduced, and when their salaries were increased from £1,200 to £1,500, it was understood that that augmentation was made on condition that they should place their whole time and abilities at the service of the State, and were to abstain wholly from private practice. A salary of £1,500 a year was not only reasonable and sufficient, but very liberal for a gentleman in the professional position of the County Court Judges before accepting those appointments, and he believed that in the average of cases their previous emoluments were not more than half that amount. The hon. and learned Member for South-west Lancashire (Mr. Assheton Cross) wished to elevate the Judges.

said, he wished to elevate the office.

said, then the present Judges were to receive the higher pay without being elevated. Probably the Motion was intended to apply to future Judges; but even then he was not aware of any graduated scale of "elevation" in tone and character which could be measured by increased remuneration. He did not believe that higher pay would be likely to result in such elevation. He would remind the House that the duties of the Judges had been lightened by some of their work being thrown on the Registrars. If the House were disposed to spend more money on the County Courts, the worst use of it would be to increase the salaries of the Judges, and a much better plan would be to increase the number of the Judges, where the judicial work rendered an increase necessary. The Returns showed that they did not give up to the service of the country all the time that the country was entitled to expect from them, and in many cases they very little consulted the interests of the public, for they frequently lived at a great distance from their districts. The more this question was examined, the more certain it would appear that there was no necessity for saddling the country with this increase.

said, he was glad to find that this attempt to increase the salaries of the Judges was to be resisted. They had no right to complain unless they were overworked; and if that were the case it was an argument, not for increasing the salaries of these gentlemen, though it might be a valid argument for appointing more Judges.

said, the question was not of the amount of work, but of the quality of the work. These Courts were at first instituted for the recovery of small debts, but now every kind of jurisdiction was assigned to the Judges.

called attention to the fact that the County Court Judges had already had £300 a year added to their income, in 1865, on account of the addition of Equity and Admiralty jurisdiction. The Admiralty cases were, of course, very few, and the cases in Equity, which were usually very trifling in their character, numbered only 640 last year among sixty Judges. They were now asked to increase the salaries of these gentlemen by another £300 a year, on account of duties which had not yet been imposed upon them, and on account of a Bill which was not yet the law of the land, and the provisions of which threw nearly all the work that was necessary to carry them out, not upon those Judges, but upon the creditors themselves. The demand was a most extravagant one, and, indeed, of all cases of a similar character, he had never heard one so weak.

said, he knew an instance where the Judge of one of these Courts lived on the shores of the Mediterranean, and' managed to perform his business by sitting at the end of one month and the beginning of another. If this proposal were agreed to it would be plain that the country was intended for the benefit of the lawyers, and not the lawyers for the country.