said, he wished to ask the under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the agreement made with the Governor of Western Australia to send out Emigrants to that Colony at the expense of the Imperial Government has been entirely completed; and, if not, what number of Emigrants have still to be sent out in order to fulfil such obligations undertaken by the Government?

said, in reply, that when Western Australia was made a convict station, the Imperial Government had undertaken to send out there a free emigrant for every convict it received, subject to the condition that the colony really required them, and could absorb and provide for them. The number of free emigrants stated by the Legislative Council to be now due to the colony was 3,550, but on investigation that number turned out to be inaccurate, and probably, the true number due was somewhere about 1,800. Unless, however, in answer to a despatch which was about to be sent out to him, the Governor could give satisfactory proof that emigrants were really wanted, and could be absorbed and provided for by the colony, none would be sent out except the families of convicts, and—but this had not yet been altogether determined—a few persons to be nominated for free passage by their relatives in the colony.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If it is the intention of the Government to adopt the suggestion contained in the verdict of the jury at the recent inquest at Hounslow—namely, that the Government should appoint permanent Inspectors to carry out more strictly the purposes of the Gunpowder Act?

said, in reply, that the Home Department had taken the suggestion referred to by the noble Lord into consideration. He had to state, however, that the accident had not been traced to any want of vigilance or to any negligence on the part of the Inspectors. As a matter of fact, the magazine in question had been visited by Colonel Young husband and by Captain Smith about three weeks before the explosion occurred, and they then reported that the state of the magazine was perfectly safe and satisfactory.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether some means might not be taken to put down the prevalent practice of Cabs plying for fares off the regular stand?

, in reply, said, it would be impossible to take any steps against "crawling cabs" till a larger number of stands were provided; for at present there was only room on the stands for about 2,000 vehicles; Colonel Henderson was, however, making a careful survey of the metropolis, with a view to supply the defect.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether, from the reports that have reached the Government relative to the lamentable affray at Portadown on the 1st of July, he considers that the Police were justified in acting on their own responsibility when the assistance of a Magistrate residing on the spot might have been instantly obtained; and, whether their conduct on the occasion is in accordance with the instructions issued by Government for the maintenance of the public peace in Ulster during the July anniversaries?

said, in reply, that it would be wrong for him, and he declined, on the part of the Government, to pass any judgment on the conduct of the police, which would be subjected to a strict investigation, both judicially and by the Government, as was absolutely necessary whenever a public force used their firearms against the people. Besides that, the inquest on the body of the unfortunate man who was killed was still proceeding. But he must add that the police could hardly be said to have acted on their own responsibility, because they fired on the order of their sub-inspector, after they had been violently assaulted with stones, and their lives put in danger. Besides, he had no reason to think that they could have reached the local magistrate, who was not at that time with them, or have availed themselves of his assistance at a moment of great pressure and danger, when they were making their way back to their barracks. There were no special instructions issued to the police with reference to the July anniversaries beyond those ordinary rules that they were to preserve the public peace and protect their lives by all legitimate means.

said, he wished to ask, Whether the Government will institute an Inquiry into the matter, and what will be its precise nature?

said, that as soon as the inquest was concluded, he would be happy to answer that Question.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Government have received any official information as to a riot which occurred at Portadown, in the county of Armagh, on the evening of the 1st July, when two young men were shot by the Police?

, in reply, said, of course he had received information as to the unfortunate event in question, although he did not know that he could add much to what was contained in the public papers. The state of the case appeared to have been this—On the night of the 1st July two parties of police were sent out patrolling the town and neighbourhood of Portadown. One of those parties, at the time when those occurrences began, were upon one side of a bonfire which had been lighted on the road, and the other party were on the other side, the two being separated from each other by a considerable interval. As far as his official information went, he had no reason to believe that the police interfered with the bonfire, or attempted to put it out, although it was so stated in the public Press. His information went to this—that the first party of police were attacked violently with showers of stones, and, being armed only with sidearms, they were obliged to run for their lives into the country, from which they did not get back to their barracks for many hours, and then they returned one by one, and some of them in disguise. Upon that, the other patrolling party armed themselves, and went in search of their missing comrades, who they had reason to believe were in danger. They were still more violently assailed by the crowd, and after being apparently subjected for a considerable time to volleys of stone, which wounded nearly everyone of the party, they at last, on the order of their sub-inspector, fired, and the unfortunate result was that two young men were shot; the one, being a Protestant, mortally; and the other, a Roman Catholic, not mortally. The police then escaped to their barracks, and so the affair ended. He might add that ample provision had been made for the preservation of the public peace in Portadown, and now there were a large force of police and a company of soldiers in that neighbourhood.

said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, taking into consideration the fact that the occasion just referred to was the first in Ulster on which there had been a collision between the Police and the Orangemen, and considering the great amount of irritation and excitement in the North of Ireland, he will give the House an opportunity of discussing the Party Processions Act before the 12th of July?

Sir, I am not able to combine the preamble or first part of the hon. Baronet's Question with the closing part of it; and I think it is very doubtful whether, in what he recited in that preamble, there is a reason for the conclusion that he intimates. The case of the Party Processions Act (Ireland) Bill, is peculiar. The hon. Gentleman the Mover of the Bill (Mr. W. Johnston) has declared his view of the subject, and the Government, by the mouth of my right hon. Friend near me (Mr. Chichester Fortescue), have declared their view of it. If the Mover had continued in his place it might have been material to go forward with the discussion on his Bill, because the discussion might have had a practical result, and might have operated on the course of conduct of the Mover, who, as I apprehend, is the person having the principal control of the measure, his Colleague in introducing it being an hon. Friend of mine who sits on this side of the House. But now that the Mover is absent, the discussion would simply be a discussion on the Bill, without the possibility of any practical result. Therefore, the Question of the hon. Baronet really amounts to this—whether the Government is distinctly of opinion that benefit would arise from a general discussion of this subject in the House of Commons at this particular moment in the present state of feeling? "We are not satisfied that benefit would be likely so to arise, or that such a discussion would have such a soothing effect—as we may judge from slight indications from time to time in this House —on the public mind, or so contribute to the maintenance of the public peace, which is the main object we all have in view for the moment, as to induce us to interfere with the due course of Public Business in order to give an opportunity for that discussion.

said, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the following extract of a Letter, purporting to be written by him, dated 5th May, 1869, and read at a public meeting on the 21st June, be correctly reported:—

"I do not in the least doubt the signal merits of Faraday, and I hope that a monument may be erected worthy of so great a man; but I cannot I consent to appropriate public money towards the monument of a private citizen, however illustrious; I do not make this rule—I find it."

Sir, the extract is perfectly correct; but I am sorry to say that I am not able to state the exact terms of the rule to which I referred. I find that the statues in London, putting aside the Kings, have been erected by means of funds provided in the following manner:—That of Lord Nelson was paid for by public subscription and by Parliamentary Grant. The statue of Richard Cœur de hon. was erected by Parliamentary Grant, aided by private subscription. The statue of Sir John Franklin was erected entirely by Parliamentary Grant. All the other statues have been erected by subscription; and I deduce from these facts the rule that it is not the general custom for Parliament to make grants for this purpose. Of course, Lord Nelson was an exceptional person, who does not appear twice, perhaps, in the history of a nation. The only other exception was the recent one of Sir John Franklin, whose strange and tragic death and the feeling occasioned by it may well account for his case being made an exception. I think, also, that the history of England shows that it has not been customary for us to erect monuments at the public expense to private citizens, however illustrious they may have been. Take the catalogue of illustrious names—Shakespeare, Milton, Newton, and Locke—and you will find that no monuments were erected at the public expense to their memory. Without any disrespect, therefore, to his memory, I think that Faraday may be well content to be passed by in such company. I will say, further, that the principle of this country has been to have its citizens actuated by a feeling of duty rather than of glory, and that the nation is not in an ascending scale which is prodigal of its rewards.

, in rising to move that the Bill be read a second time upon this day three months, said, that disguise it as they might, it was universally believed by the country that this was a Bill of a very exceptional character, an ex post facto Bill, which was not only bad in itself, but would form a most pernicious precedent. Hon. Gentlemen opposite said, it was impossible to please Members on that the Opposition side, whatever form the legislation on this subject assumed. He admitted it. When the change was made in the Law of Election Petitions last year, the House was told that if they got rid of the Election Committees and transferred their jurisdiction to the Judges, all imputations upon the fairness of their de-3isions would be removed, these questrons being removed from the arena of the House. It was said that the Judges would go to the spot, that they were above all suspicion of political bias, and that when they were sent down to make these inquiries the House would have done everything that was possible. Having now trusted the Judges with this great commission, it was not for the House to go behind their backs and institute an inquiry as to whether the facts had been fairly investigated, and whether the House ought to believe their Reports. The greater the weight which ought to attach to the Report of a Judge the more necessary it was to inquire whether it justified the proceedings by which it was to be followed. He asserted, without fear of contradiction, that the House would not have taken the step which they were now asked to take if they had been acting upon the Report of an Election. Committee instead of that of a Judge. The right hon. Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey) had betrayed the animus by which he and those around him had been animated; but nothing could be worse than that the House should be governed by political or party motives in taking the course that was now proposed against the freemen of Dublin. The only motives he could imagine for this Bill were either to discover a greater number of culprits for prosecution, or to discredit the freemen of Dublin, so as to lead to their disfranchisement. With regard to the prosecution of these delinquents, he would not believe that if a Commission issued it would be likely to obtain the names of any more freemen who had been bribed. It was impossible to suppose that the Election Commissioners would be in a better position than the Judge, or that they could, indeed, take so severe and stringent a course as he was enabled to pursue against the delinquents. The object of the Bill was, in fact, not to obtain an additional number of culprits, but to disfranchise the freemen of Dublin. He went to the consideration of this question with no prepossessions in favour of freemen as a body—rather the contrary. But he must say that the freemen of Dublin seemed to him to be favourable specimens of the class. The guilt of no more than fifty-nine had been proved before the Judge out of the whole body, which numbered nearly 3,000, and it was obviously unjust that the offences of the few should be visited on the heads of their innocent brethren. He found that those hon. Members who supported the Bill, however disposed they might be to punish or disfranchise the freemen of Dublin, took a very different view of freemen elsewhere, and invariably had a particular regard and esteem for those freemen of their constituencies who had voted for them. Were the Government, with a majority of some 118 at their back, so afraid of the result of a new election for the City of Dublin, which might, he hoped, be the return of a Conservative Member—that they would not allow the issue of the Writ? He believed the House would have reason deeply to repent this dead set at a small portion of a particular class in one constituency, while they shut their eyes at the practices which prevailed in so many others. The country would say that the House of Commons from party motives had determined to strain the Judge's Report, which did not justify the issuing of a Commission. It would be no imputation on the learned Judge if the House did not act on his Report. It would be better to have an inquiry into the case of freemen generally, than resort to this unconstitutional ex post facto legislation in the case of Dublin, when Bradford, York, and other places had escaped. He moved that the Bill be read a second time this day three months.

said, he must strongly protest against the Bill, which had evidently been brought forward to disfranchise the freemen of Dublin because three-fourths of them had expressed dislike to the First Lord of the Treasury and the policy he advocated. Anyone who knew the constituency of Dublin would recognize the intolerant hand which guided this action. An attempt was made to cry down the Protestants in that city. Under the plea of religious equality the greatest tyranny was exercised. A number of medical men joined in the cry; and they proceeded to such lengths as to insist that, even in the case of hospitals endowed by Protestants, Protestant doctors ought not to be appointed, because the majority of their patients were Roman Catholics. This Bill was a gross insult to a body which comprised a considerable amount of the intelligence, wealth, and respectability of the constituency. Why had not a similar Bill been introduced for Galway, Youghal, and Bradford? The same Judge (Justice Keogh), out of 449 freemen named fourteen, and mentioned that from eighty to 100 were proved to have asked money for their votes in the case of Galway. There were thus more one-fourth of the electors of Galway who had asked—he did not know whether they had received—money for their votes; while in Dublin, out of 2,700 freemen, only fifteen were named as having been guilty of corrupt practices, and forty-four not named, or about l–46th part of the whole. Yet the Judge did not, in the case of Galway, recommend any inquiry. Why? Was it because Liberal Members had been returned for Galway and the Petition was directed against a Conservative in the case of Dublin? Yet the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. James) the other night preached them a sermon on the purity of election—and almost immediately gave his vote for the impurity of party. This cry about purity was really damaging to the House, and would not gain for it the respect of the country. He begged to second the Amendment.

said, the hon. Baronet who moved the Amendment (Sir Frederick W. Heygate) had stated he would not go behind the Report of the learned Judge now under consideration, but he could hardly say he had adhered strictly to that course, for he had passed considerable criticism upon the conduct of the Judge on the occasion. But, however that might be, the course he professed to take was certainly not adopted by the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment (Mr. E. W. Verner). The hon. Member had in effect charged the learned Judge who tried this case with gross injustice and partiality; he had charged him in the face of the House of Commons with gross judicial corruption. Now, for him (Mr. Chichester Fortescue) to defend the conduct of Mr. Justice Keogh would be totally unnecessary; he would only say that he preferred the Report of the learned Judge to the line taken by the hon. Member (Sir Frederick Heygate) and also by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley). They had been told that the Government were reverting to the bad precedents of old times, and were re-introducing these angry discussions into the arena of the House of Commons; but they would be indeed guilty of that offence if they were to take it upon themselves to decide upon the merits of such a case when a learned Judge had pronounced upon one side with the authority which his character and position carried with it, and eminent Members of this House pronounced upon the other. Were they to take the decision of this question into their own hands? They proposed to do no such thing, but to refer the question at issue to the proper constitutional tribunal, and they therefore asked the House of Commons simply to appoint a Commission to inquire into the conduct of the Dublin freemen. It had been said that there had been a decision by the House of Lords that the Government were taking an illegal view of this question. Now, there was no judicial decision at all. The question was debated in the House of Lords, and a difference of opinion was expressed by high authorities. That difference had not shaken the opinion of the Government as to the justice and propriety of their interpretation of the Act. Nor did the House of Lords pronounce any judgment upon the merits of the case, or upon the question whether this was a proper subject for further investigation. What the majority there held was that this inquiry did not come technically within the terms of the Act now in force. Supposing that decision to be correct—and he did not admit it to be correct—this was nothing but a casus omissus in the present statute. Could it have been the intention of the statute that such a state of things as that recorded by Mr. Justice Keogh was not a proper subject for inquiry? They were told that the motives of the Government were of a party kind. But if they were to be accused of party motives because they asked for an inquiry into this matter in pursuance of the Report of a Judge, what was to be said of the motives of those who opposed any such inquiry? He denied that the Government and those who acted with them were actuated by party motives. They would have done the same whatever were the class of voters impugned, and He ventured to say, that if right hon. Gentlemen opposite had been in the position of responsibility occupied by the Government they would have found it impossible to allow Judge Keogh's Report to pass without some action. The hon. Baronet (Sir Frederick Heygate) said that an inquiry ought to have been instituted into the whole subject of freemen everywhere. But it really mattered nothing to the Government what class of voters were impugned by the Judge's Report. The fact of their being freemen was a mere accident; if they had been lodgers or rated occupiers the result would have been the same; and the House had nothing to do with the question of the freeman franchise all over the kingdom. The question before the House simply was whether they would issue a Writ for the City of Dublin in defiance of the Report of Mr. Justice Keogh, or do their duty by instituting an inquiry into the conduct of one important portion of the constituency in pursuance of the Report. In the concluding sentence of his judgment the learned Judge said—

"It has been proved to me by the most conclusive evidence, direct and circumstantial, that the Freemen of this City have been shown to a great extent to be corrupt voters, and I shall leave the House of Commons to deal with their ease and with the constituency as affected by them."

said, this was not a Bill to remedy a defect in the law; it was an attempt at ex post facto legislation, and therefore he opposed it. The existing Act directed that an inquiry should be made if the Judge reported that bribery extensively prevailed in the constituency, but, in his opinion, it did not authorize inquiry if the Judge reported that bribery prevailed among a portion of the constituency. The House of Lords had come to the same conclusion, and the Government did not meet the defect in the Act of Parliament, but tried to reach individuals who acted without violating the existing Act. Objection had at all times been very properly raised to the practice of making laws to meet, not a general principle, but a particular case; and it was not fair in this instance to make a special law in order to deal with that which had escaped the grasp of the ordinary law. It was better far that the freemen of Dublin, even had they been trebly guilty, should escape, than that a great principle of legislation should be set aside in order to meet their particular case. What good would come of the Commission? When the Commission, of which he had been the Chairman, sat to inquire into the existence of corrupt practices at Galway, although the Report showed that bribery had been practised among the freemen of that borough, no such steps as those now proposed were taken, because it was felt that by so doing they would be practically setting aside the certificate of indemnity which had been given under the Act. No special Act had been passed in the case of Great Yarmouth, which was dealt with in the ordinary way under a Report of the House of Commons. The Report of the Judge did not reveal such an extraordinary amount of corruption existing among the whole constituency as would justify Parliament in taking unusual steps to punish it. Assuming, however, that legislative action were necessary, he had no objection to the Bill in itself, which he regarded as being fairly drawn. He had the utmost confidence in the three gentlemen whose names had been recommended by the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for insertion in the Bill.

said, that if the 2,700 freemen of Dublin had been a constituency of ordinary voters, there was not a lawyer who would say the Commission should not issue. These freemen were a privileged class, and that of itself was a sufficient reason for disfranchising them. A single vote in that House did not matter to the Liberal party; and that fact took the question at issue out of the range of party politics. It had been suggested that it was sought to disfranchise the freemen of Dublin because three-fourths of them were opposed to the policy of the First Minister of the Crown, but he (Sir Patrick O'Brien) knew, from thirty years acquaintance with them, that, for a consideration, three-fourths of them would accept the policy of the right hon. Gentleman. It was notorious in Dublin that on an elec- tion—and he did not profess to be a patriot—the first question put was—How much money will the Tories give for the freemen? and if they gave £2 10s. a vote, it would take the Liberals £5 to buy them. He would not, however, vote for the disfranchisement of these men without first giving them an opportunity of showing, on this inquiry, that they were as pure as they had been represented to be.

said, he approached this subject in no party spirit, but with the disposition to consider it on grounds of abstract justice and expediency. He made no imputations, but he could assure the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Mr. Henry James) that the Opposition side of the House were quite as willing as the Ministerial supporters to put down bribery; and the late Government brought in and carried one of the most comprehensive measure for the suppression of bribery and corrupt practices that had ever been passed. The simple issue was, whether this was a case calling for special legislation. He had carefully read, the able judgment of the learned Judge who tried the Petition; but it seemed to him that the finding of the learned Judge in one part was inconsistent with the finding in the other, and that the Report differed from the judgment. The Report went to the extent that the learned. Judge had reason to believe that extensive bribery prevailed at the last election amongst the freemen of Dublin. It was worthy of observation that the statute provided two modes of finding for the Judge—one, that extensive bribery prevailed; the other, that he had reasonable cause to believe that bribery extensively prevailed: and as eleven persons only were actually found to have been bribed, the learned Judge had adopted the milder form of finding. It must be presumed they were freemen, though the learned Judge by no means reported that they were. Special legislation should only be resorted to in extreme cases, and he submitted that this was not a case of that description. The precedent of Great Yarmouth had been relied upon in support of this Bill; but it was, he thought, quite distinguishable from the present case. The Report relative to the freemen of Great Yarmouth alleged that ''gross, systematic, and extensive bribery prevailed at the last and previous elections." There was an- other distinction between the two cases. No Act of Parliament had then been passed for the punishment of those who were found guilty of bribery. Now, however, a most cogent and stringent punishment existed for that offence. There were other reasons why the House should not legislate specially against the freemen of Dublin. The margin between the candidates on the poll was so narrow that there was only a difference of 105 between the candidates at the top and bottom of the poll, and it might be supposed that party spirit had prompted this special interference of the Legislature. Then, again, three-fourths of the freemen were Protestants, and was this a desirable time to pass a Bill disfranchising the Protestant freemen of Dublin? The only difference between the measures of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey) and that of the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Sullivan) was, that the former proposed sudden death to the freemen, and the latter a more protracted but equally certain death, supplemented by a decent interment.

said, the opposition of the last three speakers against the Bill seemed to rest on widely different grounds. The first charged the learned Judge with having given a corrupt decision, the second opposed it on the ground that it was ex post facto legislalation, and the third told them it was only when corruption had been reported to exist in a large degree they ought to inquire into the subject. One special reason in his (Mr. Denman's) opinion for appointing a Commission was that some of the principal delinquents had managed to be out of the way during the inquiry into the Election Petition, but that that could not happen in the case of a Commission, which might be extended over any length of time. All that was now being done was exactly in the spirit of what had been done before in similar cases. In such matters legislation must of necessity be ex post facto to this extent—that finding a very great piece of corruption had been committed, Parliament set to work to try and prevent corrupt persons in the future destroying the purity of elections in places where such practices had existed. Considering what cogent facts had been reported, nothing could be fairer than the appointment of a Commission, especially as it was said that the allegation of bribery was a gross libel and injustice.

said, he was glad that no hon. Member on the other side had attempted to carry the number of the persons corrupted in the Dublin constituency beyond a very limited amount. An Act of Parliament had been passed by means of which the dealing with corrupt practices was taken out of the hands of Parliament and placed in the hands of Judges. For some reason or other the learned Judge who tried this case did not bring himself within the four corners of the Act of Parliament, and it was, therefore, said that the House must try the case de novo. The Chief Secretary for Ireland asked the House to take a certain passage in the learned Judge's Report and act upon it; but high legal authority had declared that to make that statement was extra vires of the Judge, and that it was consequently no better than waste paper. If the House wished to legislate on the matter it ought to look on the evidence upon which the Report was founded, and in his opinion the evidence afforded very meagre ground for the conclusion to which the learned Judge came, and he thought it very unwise to bring these matters back again to the floor of the House of Commons. If they did so, they could not escape the suspicion of being actuated by motives other than the love of abstract purity of election; and the evil which would in that case result would be ten thousand times greater than any inconvenience which would be produced by permitting the conduct of these parties, who might be wrong, to pass without inquiry.

said, he failed to understand the argument of the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), because when a Motion was made for the issue of a Commission of Inquiry, the matter to some extent must be discussed in that House; and the right hon. Gentleman had himself brought back the question upon the floor of the House by saying that the evidence in the case of the Dublin Petition did not warrant the Report of the learned Judge. The right hon. Gentleman stated that no one had ventured to carry the number of the persons corrupted beyond a very limited amount. Now, it so happened that on a previous occasion he (Mr. Sullivan) had stated that it appeared by the Judge's Report that more than 280 of the freemen of Dublin were connected with corrupt practices. The right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball) spoke of the present proceedings as being ex post facto legislation; but that was not the case. It would be ex post facto legislation to constitute acts already done by individuals into bribery, though they had never before been deemed to be acts of bribery; but the object of the present Bill was simply to inquire into corrupt practices as defined by the Legislature, and his right hon. Friend the Secretary for Ireland had pointed out that by passing the Act of 1852, the House had not deprived itself of the jurisdiction of instituting an inquiry in such a case as the present. He hoped the House would pass the Bill, for if it were rejected the conclusion would be this—that the conduct of the freemen of Dublin—they being only a part of the constituency—could never be inquired into, and that they might, therefore, be as corrupt as they pleased. Before sitting down he must say he had heard with the deepest regret the statement of the hon. Member for Lisburn (Mr. E. Wingfield Verner), in effect accusing the learned Judge who conducted the inquiry of partiality He was sure the hon. Member for Lisburn would feel, in calmer moments, that he had not done a learned Judge anything like justice who had for the last fourteen years, by the manner in which he had discharged his judicial duties, commanded universal respect.

said, he rose to call attention, pursuant to notice, to the effect of the present arrangements for Morning Sittings upon the Business of the House. Previous to 1861, ample time had been afforded to private Members for the discussion of those questions which they desired to propose. In that year the House was induced by Lord Palmerston to give up the Thursdays to Government Business, in exchange for the Fridays, when subjects might be introduced by private Members on the Motion for going into Committee of Supply, instead of, as before, on the Motion of adjournment from Friday till Monday. That state of things continued, without any great inconvenience to independent Members, until the change which was adopted in the Session before last, at the suggestion of his right hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), who, in proposing that the House should meet for Morning Sittings at two instead of at twelve o'clock, and should sit to seven and re-assemble at nine, instead of sitting till four and re-assembling at six, as in accordance with the previous practice, expressly stated that he had no wish to interfere with the rights of private Members, and that the Government would always undertake to make and to keep a House at nine o'clock. The practical result, however, of the alteration had been that while the Government gained one hour before dinner, during the cream of the day, the time at the disposal of private Members after dinner was shortened. The idea of his right hon. Friend, when the change was made was, that the House when it re-assembled at nine o'clock, and entered upon a discussion, might continue it until two o'clock the next morning; but, on the 8th of last month, when his hon. and learned Friend the Common Serjeant (Mr. T. Chambers) sought to press on his Bill respecting marriage with a deceased wife's sister at half-past twelve o'clock, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department immediately objected to its being proceeded with at so late an hour; although on the previous day his Colleague the President of the Poor Law Board had Contended, when his hon. Friend the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) protested against his urging forward his Poor Law Bill at a similar hour, that it was by no means too late to go on with the discussion. Now it was quite clear that any person who wished to oppose the progress of a Bill after twelve o'clock had the means of doing so most effectually at his disposal; and, as a matter of fact, private Members could calculate only on having at their command the three hours, from nine till twelve, on those days on which Morning Sittings were held. But there were, independently of that, two other extinguishers put on their privileges. One of these was the practice of "counting out." When the House re-assembled at nine o'clock, there might be a bonâ fide intention on the part of the Government to keep a House; but the good intention was completely frustrated by such Motions as that which had been made on Friday evening last, as soon as the Speaker took the Chair. But he must say that on a recent occasion—when a Motion respecting the Boulogne Harbour stood first on the Paper—he was given to understand that some Members of the Administration had not only connived at, but had actually assisted the efforts that were successfully made to empty the House for a count. It was the duty of the Government, he maintained, not merely to assist in making a "House," but also to set its face against "counts out." Another point to which he wished to call attention was the encroachment as to the period at which Morning Sittings were resorted to. Previous to 1862, they were rarely held before the month of July; and ever since then, with the exception of 1867, they had not commenced until the middle of June. 1867 was exceptional. Morning Sittings commenced that year on the 28th of May. In 1868, they commenced on the 15th of June; but this year they commenced on the 4th of May; and if, in future years this year's precedent were followed, the rights of independent Members would be almost entirely extinguished. They could not expect hon. Members, after sitting five hours, to come down again at nine o'clock for another long sitting, for the sake of the private Motions. The thing was impossible. Human nature could not stand it. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman the First Minister of the Crown would take this matter into consideration, and be prepared, next Session, to introduce a new system. He would content himself with having called attention to the matter, and would not move any Resolution on the subject.

said, that he regretted at the time—as he had done ever since—that the suggestion had not been adopted which he threw out two years ago, for preventing Motions to count until 10 or 15 minutes after the Speaker had taken the chair. Some such provision was absolutely necessary for the protection of the rights of independent Members. He considered it to be decidedly unfair, and an abuse of the Standing Order, that the moment the House had re-assembled the Motion for adjournment should be put; but the only way to prevent the practice was by giving 10 or 15 minutes' grace. He must say, in regard to Friday last, that it was generally understood that there would be no House. He did not say that he was told so by any Member of the Government; but the rumour to that effect was very widely diffused. He was not sure that the whole of the time at the Morning Sittings should be at the command of the Government; and it ought also to be remembered that many private Members who had their own affairs to attend to, were greatly inconvenienced by these regular sittings, which left them no alternative but to neglect their own interests or those of their constituents. Morning Sittings used to be resorted to only exceptionally, and for some special measure. They had now become a recognized procedure, and Members were incapable or unwilling to sit as a rule from two in the afternoon until three o'clock the following morning. If any Motion was made for preventing counts being attempted until 10 or 15 minutes after the Speaker was in the Chair he should gladly support it.

said, he thought Morning Sittings had become an absolute necessity; and much more business was done when the House sat from 2 to 7 than when it sat from 12 to 4. When there was any subject on the Paper of importance there was no difficulty in getting or keeping a House. When the Evening Sittings were protracted till three o'clock in the morning, it was not surprising that occasionally there should be a "count out" from sheer exhaustion; but "counts out" were no more frequent now than formerly. He hoped the grievance would be remedied, and that the Speaker would give his attention to the subject.

said, he entirely agreed with the observations which had been made by the hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. Crawford). These Morning Sittings, recurring so frequently as they now did, were unquestionably productive of much inconvenience to private Members who had large businesses of their own as well as the public affairs to look after. He hoped some better arrangement would be come to.

said, he admitted that when the Government were under an implied or actual engagement to keep a House, it would be a virtual failure in. their engagement if Members of the Government took any part in promoting a count out; but he certainly was not aware that any such case had occurred. With respect to last week he might say the case of private Members, as compared with the Government, was not a hard one—private Members having occupied fully three-fourths, and the Government only one-fourth of the time. With regard to Morning Sittings, he thought the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for London (Mr. Crawford) well deserving consideration; but he would not now presume to give an opinion upon it. The difficulty really lay in this—that with the growing demands of the business of the Empire the House of Commons, which attempted to do, and did more than any legislative assembly that ever sat since the days of Adam, wanted more hours in the day, more days in the week, more weeks in the month, and more months in the year, and until some such device could be adopted perfect satisfaction would not be given. According to the theory of the House there were five days for business, of which three were appropriated to independent Members and only two to the Government. Now, was that a fair division of the time of the House relatively to the respective responsibilities of the Government and independent Members? The Government were charged necessarily with the Votes in Supply, and he thought he put it moderately when he said that nine-tenths of the legislation of the House, looking to numbers and importance, passed through the hands of the Government. If that was so, there must be a discrepancy between the actual results and the time—only two days a week being allowed to the Government and three days to private Members. All who had held Office must admit that the Two o'clock Sittings had eminently contributed to the progress of public business. He was far from wishing that private Members should suffer unduly in consequence of that arrangement. There was a Morning Sitting on Tuesday; and it was rarely that the House broke up before two on the nights when they met at nine o'clock. Probably the Speaker and the Clerk at the table who assisted him were the chief sufferers by that system; but he did not think the time available for the Motions and Bills brought forward by private Members had undergone any very great reduction. When the time absorbed by the Government was spoken of, it should be remembered that the portion of the business of the country which the Government was expected and required to transact was increasing from year to year. Again, in the case of important measures brought forward by private Members, like the University Tests Bill, for example, the Government were called upon to facilitate their discussion; and in the case of others the Government had often to take them into its own hands when they had reached a certain state of ripeness. He did not disguise that to some extent, though he thought to a very limited extent, the time at the disposal of private Members was abridged; but then the only alternative open to them was a somewhat longer Session of Parliament. If hon. Gentlemen were willing that another fortnight should be added, on the average, to each Session, then, no doubt, the Two o'clock Sittings might be given up; and it would not be for the Government to resist such an arrangement. If, as he believed, they had no choice but between comparative inconveniences, he did hope that hon. Members would be disposed to abate something, not only of their personal convenience, but even of their personal convenience when it stood in some connection with public duty, for the sake of their common desire to do what was best on the whole to expedite the enormous mass of business which the House had to transact every Session, without utterly overtaxing the physical as well as the mental strength of its Members.

said, he thought that the practice of holding Morning Sittings at two o'clock and meeting again at nine might be confined to Tuesdays. Then private Members would be certain of having the Friday for the Questions and Motions which they desired to bring forward. He thought, also, that the Government should introduce the Estimates at an earlier period of the Session than is now done; and if before Easter, or immediately after that date, the House knew that they would have to meet for four hours or so in the morning to discuss the Estimates, he believed the result would be more satisfactory both to the Government and to independent Members. He hoped the First Minister of the Crown would consider that suggestion during the approaching Recess.

said, that during the last Session of the last Parliament a measure of great importance, and one that was supported by large and constant majorities in that House (the Metropolitan Foreign Cattle Market Bill), happening to be down on the Paper for a Nine o'clock Sitting, was counted out by a Member of the present Government. He should look with some dread on the adoption of Morning Sittings even earlier in the Session than they had commenced this year; the system once begun would never be given up. While admitting that most measures of real importance ought to originate with the Government, he yet thought that private Members, who occasionally attempted to bring forward measures, ought to feel some certainty that they would have a fair chance of carrying them through successfully. He was inclined to support the suggestion of the hon. Member for London (Mr. Crawford) in reference to "counting."

said, he rose to call attention to the difficuties which had attended the carrying out the provisions of the Exchequer and Audit Act of 1866. He did so in consequence of some observations reflecting on the late Government which were made in his unavoidable absence by the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Candlish). That hon. Member charged the late Government with gross negligence in the matter—an accusation which, he thought, he should be able in a very few moments to show was wholly unfounded. That Act was passed in 1866, before the change of Government, and the Government of Lord Russell was responsible for it. The name of the present First Minister was on the back of the Bill; but it was principally attended to by the present First Lord of the Admirality. The Government who then had charge of the Bill had under-estimated the time it would require to bring the Act into working order. The present First Lord of the Admiralty—a man of great zeal and great energy, as well as of rather sanguine disposition, had rather hastily come to the conclusion that that Act could be brought into operation within the time limited by it—namely, April, 1867. When he (Mr. Hunt) first came into the Treasury he had hoped to take up that Act and carry it into effect within the time laid down. The difficulties of doing so, however, were so great that it was a very serious question whether a Bill should not be brought in to postpone the operation of the Act; but that proposal had been rejected, as it was thought that by adopting it they would be removing the stimulus to exertion among those appointed to carry the Act into effect. Before 1868 sums to be expended by different Departments were voted in a lump; and, in order to carry out the provisions of the Act, it was necessary that those sums should be separated and placed under the head of the respective Departments to which they were appropriated. Finding it was utterly impossible that the necessary investigation and arrangements could be completed within the stipulated period unless some extraordinary means were adopted, he had appointed a Commission for Public Accounts, under the control of Mr. Vine and Mr. Anderson, who was succeeded by Mr. Foster. The investigation proved very laborious, the accounts of Irish and Scotch Departments having to be examined, and it was only in consequence of extraordinary exertions that he was enabled to get the Estimates framed, so that the provisions of the Act could be complied with in the year 1868–9. When the Estimates for that year were brought forward they presented a very different appearance from those of previous years, a large number of the Votes having been separated and re-classified under sub-heads in a new shape, and on a uniform prin- ciple. This was a necessary step, because it was desirable that the Estimates and the accounts should correspond. This, which entailed labour of no slight magnitude, was performed under his personal superintendence, although such superintendence did not come within his ordinary duties as Secretary to the Treasury, and although he had not the assistance of a Third Lord. Therefore, the task imposed upon him by that Act had entailed no ordinary addition to his duties. He had further to superintend the preparation of a new form of accounts, under which the new audit system was to be carried out. It had required considerable time to effect all these changes, and he quite admitted that the Act had not yet been fully complied with; but he believed that that was owing to no lack of exertion or of zeal, but to the labour entailed by the Act being greater than those who had originally drawn up its provisions had conceived. He thanked the House for having permitted him to make this statement, and the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) for giving him the opportunity of making it. He had thought these few words necessary to justify the conduct of the late Government and of himself personally.

said, he found some difficulty in following the explanation which had been given by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hunt), which would doubtless be more satisfactory to the official mind than it was to his. There was an interval of eight or nine months between the passing of the Act and the time when it was to become operative, and it seemed to him that that interval, if it had been properly used, was long enough to make all the necessary arrangements. It was far from his intention to do injustice to the right hon. Gentleman or to any other Member of the House; but he could not dismiss from his recollection the fact that, in the Civil Service Estimates of last year, out of a total of 168 Votes only twenty-two had been subjected to the operation of the Act of 1866. He should be glad if the effect of this discussion should be a more strict application of the Act. He did not cast any imputation upon the Audit Office, because they could not audit accounts that never were submitted to them. With the exception of the Board of Trade, the Office of Works, the Woods and Forests, and one other, none of the Government Departments had submitted their accounts to the Audit Office—not even the Treasury—and the Treasury accounts were still unaudited. Although the work of the Audit Office was not done, the cost of the establishment to the public had not failed to increase. Either the Act should be abolished, and the whole thing voted a sham, or the office and its work should be made a reality. The accounts of the various Departments should be audited by an independent Audit Department, which should be under the direct control of Parliament, and not connected in any way with the Departments whose accounts it had to audit.

said, he feared that his hon. Friend (Mr. Candlish) was labouring under a misapprehension as to the position and duty of the Auditor General. His hon. Friend said that the Auditor General was nominated by the Crown, and could not, therefore, be independent in the performance of his duty, but must be the servant of the Treasury. True, the Auditor General was appointed by the Crown; but so were the Judges, and no one would assert that they were not independent. There could be no better evidence of the independence of the Auditor General than the language of his Reports, which were made for the purpose of being laid before the House; and in which he canvassed the proceedings of the Treasury and every other Department of the Government in the most independent manner, and with the consciousness of responsibility to that House and the country; and it was to those Reports that his hon. Friend was indebted for the strictures he had made on the audit of public accounts. No doubt the audit to which reference had been made took much more time than had been anticipated. The matter had been referred to a Select Committee, who had endeavoured, but in vain, to make their Report in time for the present discussion. It would, however, be before the House in a few days. He quite agreed with his hon. Friend that it was for the interest of the public that the provisions of the Act should be carried out to its fullest extent; but it was better, while there was a Committee of Accounts investigating the matter, to wait until the Report was presented. He should be quite prepared to enter into a full discussion of the subject when it was properly before the House.

said, that there was this difference between the Judges and the Auditor General, that the former appointed their own officers, and were subject to no interference on the part of the Executive, while the Act gave the Treasury the power of appointing the officers and clerks of the Auditor General, and of fixing their salaries. The Treasury were also to prescribe the forms of the accounts to be adopted, and even had the power of dispensing with vouchers when they thought proper. The Accountant General could also appeal in certain cases to the Treasury against the Auditor General. He had always been of opinion that the Auditor-General would never be independent until he was appointed by the House, and made his Reports to a Standing Committee of hon. Members. The Auditor General was even dependent on the Treasury to be placed on the superannuation list.

, in rising to call attention to the grave evils which may result to the public from the possibility which had been shown to exist that the Law Officers of the Crown may be retained as Counsel for the Defendants in such a ease as "Regina v. Gurney and others," said, there were one or two points connected with the subject which he regarded as of the greatest importance. It was not his intention to controvert the decision of the other night, which, he believed, was due mainly to the speech of the First Minister of the Crown, the effect of which must for ever dispel the impression that existed out-of-doors, that the votes of Members were not liable to be influenced by speeches delivered in the House. The Attorney General admitted on Thursday evening that in some public cases the Government ought to appear as a prosecutor, but he added that those cases were exceptional; and he went on to observe that whether the Government should appear as a prosecutor or not was a question which was in the main to be decided by two con- siderations. The Government must, the hon. and learned Gentleman contended, in the first place, pay regard to the importance of the case, and, secondly, to the probability or the improbability of obtaining a conviction. Now, with respect to the importance of the case, that was a point on which most men were competent to form an opinion; but as far as the probability or improbability of a conviction was concerned, that was a question which, as the Attorney General had most truly said, could not be determined by laymen, but by competent legal authorities such as the Law Officers of the Crown. That being so, what was the conclusion to be drawn from the doctrines which the hon. and learned Gentleman had laid down; it was that beyond all dispute the advice which the Government ought to be able to derive from the Law Officers of the Crown they might at any moment be deprived of by the circumstance that those Law Officers had been retained for the defence; indeed, that very thing had occurred in the present instance. The Government had been deprived of the able assistance of the Solicitor General, and it would seem to be owing to accident that they had not lost the services of the Attorney General as well; so that, in a matter vitally affecting the public interests, they might have been left without the advice of either of their two Law Officers. That was a danger which, in his opinion, something ought to be done to obviate. Nothing was further from his intention than to censure in the slightest degree the conduct in the matter of his hon. and learned Friend (the Solicitor General). He felt satisfied that he had done nothing more than that which had been done by other Solicitors General before him, and that he had acted entirely in consonance with the practice which now prevailed at the Bar. He alluded to his position with regard to the case of which he was speaking, simply because it afforded a pertinent illustration of our present system as it related to public prosecutions. As a layman, it would be presumptuous in him to say anything as to the wisdom and policy of appointing a public prosecutor; but it must, he thought, be evident that the danger which he had indicated, and the partial danger which had been incurred in the present instance, pointed to the necessity of having something done to prevent a recurrence of such a state of things as that by which public attention was now engaged. He was, he thought, expressing the opinion, not merely of that House, but almost of the whole nation, when he said that the public were most deeply anxious that the trial to which his observations referred should be fair and complete; and it would be a consummation not only unsatisfactory to the country, but discreditable to our system of jurisprudence, that the trial should fall through, a result of which there appeared to be imminent danger. The impression, he might add, seemed to prevail—and that impression had been fostered by some speeches which had been made from the Treasury Bench—that he and others who had taken an interest in the matter had done so on behalf of private shareholders. Now, that was an imputation which he begged altogether to repudiate. He had interested himself in the matter because he believed it to be of the utmost importance that public justice should be vindicated. He cared nothing about the shareholders. They could look after themselves; but he thought it of the greatest moment that persons who were accused of a grave offence, and in whose case a reasonable suspicion of guilt existed, should not be allowed to escape merely because of the inability or otherwise of a private individual to carry on the prosecution. In conclusion, he begged to say that he did not desire to move the Resolution on the subject which stood on the Paper in his name.

said, it was with some reluctance that he was about to break the silence which he had hitherto observed on the subject under the consideration of the House, because he thought it was, as a general rule, unwise that a lawyer should discuss in that House matters in which he happened to be professionally engaged. Since he had the honour of a seat in Parliament he had never done so, and he should not have risen to say a single word that evening but for the persistent conduct with regard to the case in question, which, from some motive or another which he was unable to divine, the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) had pursued. His hon. Friend must excuse him for telling him in plain, but he hoped not offensive, language, that it would be just as well that he should, before he interfered in matters of the kind, make himself acquainted with the facts of the case and the first elements of the subject with which he was dealing; because it seemed to him that the hon. Gentleman, for want of that knowledge, had wasted the time of the House, and imposed on some of its Members a good deal of unnecessary trouble. It was one of the first rules of the profession to which he had the honour to belong, which, although like other rules—like those of the House of Commons, for instance—they might not be at first sight intelligible to those who did not happen to live under them, yet were in reality the expression of common sense and good feeling and honour, and were necessary to regulate those singularly complicated and delicate relations which existed between the advocate and the client—it was one of the first rules of that profession that a man, whether guilty or innocent, whether the victim of cruel and unjust prejudice or not, had an absolute and indefeasible right to retain the services of the advocate whom he might think qualified to represent him, and to see that, whatever his merits or demerits, justice was done him in the Law Courts of the country. It was because the Bar had not the right to make selections and to form their own opinions on cases that the profession he belonged to was the profession of a gentleman, and one which a man of honour could practise. If the Bar were to identify themselves with their clients and to exercise their own selection and judgment in respect to the cases submitted to them, they would be open to the base and hateful charge of selling their convictions and opinions, which no person with a knowledge of the facts could venture to impute to them now. He confessed that he was speaking with some warmth; but he trusted that the House would excuse him, because the hon. Gentleman had forgotten, or was unaware of one of the plainest and simplest rules which guided the profession he belonged to. In respect to the particular case now before the House, if, after the years they had acted together, the hon. Gentleman had done him the honour to communicate with him, or if he had taken the pains to understand the plainest elements of the case, he would have found that nothing had been done in this matter which was not consistent with common sense, and with the strictest rules of etiquette and honour.

said, he wished to be allowed to say one word.

said, that the hon. Member had no right to interrupt unless with the permission of the Solicitor General.

said, that in September, 1866, he was engaged, as any counsel might have been, to defend Messrs. Gurney, two years and two months before he accepted the office of Solicitor General, and Sir John Karslake was also retained some ten days later, five or six weeks before becoming Solicitor General in the late Administration. They were both engaged by general retainers to defend the Messrs. Gurney in any proceedings in which the Messrs. Gurney might be engaged. A general retainer simply gave the person who delivered it the right to the refusal of the services of the barrister to whom it was delivered, and it gave the barrister no right to force his services on the person retaining him. Some time afterwards, when the Messrs. Gurney got into peril and the matter came before a legal tribunal, the ordinary retainer to defend them was delivered to him. Everyone who delivered an ordinary retainer to a Queen's Counsel knew that he delivered it subject to the right of the Crown to require the Queen's Counsel to appear for the Crown in the particular matter. When, therefore, the ordinary retainer was delivered to him he took the proper precaution that the Government should be consulted, and he held the license of the Queen, under the sign manual, to defend the Messrs. Gurney in the present case. The right of refusal had many times been exercised. On one occasion his learned friend, Mr. Giffard, was retained to defend a man who, in a case before Lord Penzance, was clearly proved to have been guilty of forging a will; but the Crown thought Mr. Giffard's services were of great importance, and refused them to that man, telling him that there were plenty of other Queen's Counsel whom he could employ to defend him at the Old Bailey. Very recently the Attorney General and himself thought it their duty to withhold from a gentleman who wished for the services of the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer), permission to have them, and for the plain reason that it was a matter in which the Crown was concerned, and the hon. and learned Member, as formerly Law Officer of the Crown, had cognizance of the case. So, too, in the case of Miss Shedden, in the House of Lords, the Attorney General having been formerly her counsel, and knowing her affairs, yet, as by statute he was necessarily a party against her in her appeal, had abstained, as every honourable man in his position would, from appearing in the case at all, though it was conducted in his name, and had left it to be practically conducted by the hon. and learned Member for King's Lynn. These were matters which everyone perfectly understood, and he could not comprehend what the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) would have. Did he mean to say that a barrister ought to refrain from giving his services to a private individual, because he might at some future time, by some personal or political accident, happen to be a Law Officer of the Crown? Or did the hon. Member suppose that the barrister would, on being appointed a Law Officer, immediately go over to the Government with all the information he had acquired in the sacred character of counsel to a private individual? Or did the hon. Gentleman mean to say those barristers only should be selected as Law Officers of the Crown whom no persons would engage in any important case, and that the confidence of the Crown was to be extended only to those whom nobody else would extend confidence to? This question had nothing to do with that of a public prosecutor; and he might say that whenever a public prosecutor should be appointed, it would not be the Attorney General or the Solicitor General who would fill the Office, for they had too much to do already. He repeated that he did not know what motives induced the hon. Member to persist in the course he had pursued, and he would not stop to inquire into them. There were some persons who found a vulgar pleasure in carping at a great profession to which they did not belong, and which they did not understand, but which had in its day done great things for the liberties of Englishmen, and which contained within itself men as pure, as high-principled, and as honourable, as any who carped at and detracted from it. He did not know whether the hon. Gentleman wished to teach him his duty, but he would say that he did not desire to be taught by him, and when he did desire it he would let him know and would attend his lectures. In the meantime, he hoped the hon. Gentleman would make himself acquainted with the elements of the subject he ventured to discuss. He did not know whether he intended to cast a censure on the general conduct of the profession. If he did it was because he did not understand it. If, on the other hand, the hon. Gentleman brought forward this matter in order to concentrate public attention on a trial which was almost imminent, and which involved the fortunes and characters of many individuals, he was acting most unjustly and most cruelly. Outside the House he (the Solicitor General) was the paid advocate of the Messrs. Gurney, and, therefore, inside the House he would not say one single word which might convey his opinion about the case; but this he would say, that whatever their merits might be—whether guilty or innocent of the matter now specifically laid to their charge—it would be well for the hon. Gentleman —it would be well for himself, it would be well for most of us—if our lives could show instances of such noble and magnanimous disinterestedness and self-sacrifice as these defendants had displayed.

begged to be allowed to explain. He had been most careful not to say a single syllable of censure against the Solicitor General. He said he had simply done what every Solicitor General had done before him, and what he was bound to do by the rules of his profession. He never said a word against the legal profession, for which he had been himself preparing, and for which he had every sympathy. He had called attention to the matter, not to show what his opinion was with reference to the conduct of any person, but with the simple view of exposing what he considered a defect in our system of jurisprudence.

said, he entirely agreed with what had been said the other evening by the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney) on this subject. When property was to be acquired by the Government, it was most desirable that its acquisition should be made at once, not piecemeal. In the present instance the original estimate had been £104,000; and the revised estimate now reached £147,000.

explained that there was an error in the revised estimate. It should be £129,999.

said, he had put a Notice on the Paper to urge that this Vote should not be proceeded with until the Committee had a little more information in regard to it. A large question was involved which had been before the House for some years. About twelve years ago it was proposed to rebuild the Foreign Office on account of its dilapidated state. A long discussion ensued, and a great many plans were brought forward. A portion of the land on the other side of Parliament Street was purchased, including part of Fludyer Street and Gardiner's Lane. In 1857, a scheme, almost identical with that of last year, was brought forward. That scheme, of which the expense approached £11,000,000 or £12,000,000, for purchasing the whole property from the Horse Guards to Great George Street, and covering it with public offices, was wholly rejected. The plan was so extravagant—it reached to the Thames and comprised a flower garden. In 1865, the late First Commissioner brought forward another Bill for the extension of the purchase of land from Gardiner's Lane, stating that there was no intention of running into the great scheme of eight years before. The whole expense was then limited to £30,000. In 1866, a short Bill was brought in at the end of the Session by the present First Lord of the Admiralty, then Secretary to the Treasury, for a small acquisition of land. He asked for £20,000, and the estimate for the completion of the purchase was £12,000. In 1866 there was another estimate for £84,000, but no plan was laid on the table. In 1867, the sum which appeared in the Estimates was £104,000. But in the interim a new plan had been discovered by accident, and the great scheme of ten or twelve years ago was to be promoted again. Notices were given and plans deposited in the Private Bill Office for purchasing the whole property right down to Great George Street. This scheme, as he had stated, would involve the expenditure of from £11,000,000 to £12,000,000. Persons holding very high positions in the existing Government had gone fully into the question, and said it would be a most unwise thing for any Committee to sanction such a scheme without a full statement of what the expenditure contemplated would be, and until plans were laid on the Table. Unless the House looked carefully at what they were about to do, they would find themselves committed by that Vote and by the measure introduced by the Government to an expenditure equal to what had been incurred for the Abyssinian War. They ought to pause before agreeing to a Vote like that, in the total absence of any plans or estimates. Public Business did not require palaces for its transaction; all that was wanted was good public offices. It might be a fine thing to remove St. Margaret's Church because it obstructed the view, but the question was whether the outlay was prudent and desirable. They had the ground requisite for building the Colonial Office and the Home Office, and he denied the necessity of going further with that scheme before those two new public offices were touched. Parliament had not yet assented to that enormous expenditure, and now was the time for them to make a stand on the matter. The Foreign Office and the Indian Office had taken ten or twelve years to complete. There was an equal time before them to complete the Home and Colonial Offices, and until that was done he hoped the Government would not proceed with that Vote, especially as the Committee had no plans and estimates before them, and were, therefore, entirely in the dark.

said, the hon. Gentleman had mixed up two things that were entirely distinct. The present Vote was asked to purchase the site for completing the quadrangle, one-half of which only had been erected, that half containing the Foreign and the India Offices. The Act on the subject was passed, in 1865, and unless the property was purchased this year, the notices which had been served would lapse. Last year Parliament voted £10,000 for the foundations of those two buildings. Those foundations were now laid, and the next Vote to the one now under discussion was a further sum to erect those buildings. Therefore, the Vote now asked for was merely to complete the purchase of the site required for those buildings which had been authorized by Act of Parliament. Beyond that there was a scheme for purchasing additional land, with respect to which he had introduced a Bill that had been read the second time, and which would to-morrow be considered in Committee upstairs. When that Bill came from the Select Committee it would be brought before the House, and the House would then have a full opportunity of discussing it on its merits, and he would be prepared to state what land the Government proposed to take. He wholly denied, however, that either he or the noble Lord who preceded him in his office (Lord John Manners) ever contemplated an expenditure like that incurred in the Abyssinian War. He thought, indeed, that the expenditure upon the new Foreign Office had been of a lavish and scandalous character; but the estimates for the new Home and Colonial Offices had been subjected to the strictest examination, and he trusted that in regard to the erection of those two buildings there would be no such just ground of complaint.

said, he must express himself still dissatisfied. The House ought to be furnished with a plan and an estimate.

said, he thought that if the foundations of the Home Office and Colonial Office had already been laid, the future line of King Street must now be determined. He should wish to know whether it was proposed to remove the whole of the block of buildings between King Street and Parliament Street?

said, it was only contemplated to remove a portion of that block at present. Parliament had always contemplated the eventual removal of the King Street block.

said, he wished to know how far the present Government intended to adopt the scheme of the Treasury Commission appointed in 1866–7, by which an expenditure of £3,300,000 was contemplated. By that scheme it was proposed to put a stop to the ever-increasing demands for hired offices, where the business of the country was conducted under the greatest inconveniences. The Commission was originally appointed in 1866 by the Government of Lord Russell, and it continued its labours under that of Lord Derby. In 1868, it made its Report to the Treasury, and in accordance with the recommendations in that Report notice was given of the intention of the Government to purchase the block between King Street and Parliament Street, and the announcement of that intention on the part of the Government had been received with satisfaction by both sides of the House. The matter was then left in an advanced stage in the hands of their successors in Office, but up to the present moment he had been unable to ascertain what was the intention of the present Government with respect to the purchase of the King Street block. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Layard) was unable, owing to the late hour, to enter fully into this subject when he moved the second reading of the Public Offices Bill. However, from a map which he had been shown by the right hon. Gentleman, he found that the Government proposed to take only half the property which it had been the intention of the late Government to acquire; but whether that was a permanent or only a temporary arrangement he had been unable to ascertain. The object that the Commission had in view was the continuity of the works, and to avoid anything like a hand-to-hand and bit-by-bit purchase of land for the erection of public buildings. The purpose for which this particular Vote was asked had been sanctioned over and over again by Parliament and by Committees of that House, and he hoped it would now be voted without a division.

said, he wished to know what it was the Committee were voting? He admitted the necessity for the proposed new building; but was it necessary that £48,000 should be expended in clearing the space in front of the buildings?

said, the sum asked for the purchase of this property appeared to have grown from £30,000 to £147,000.

said, that the Committee were now asked to vote a sum to complete the buildings that had been already partly erected. In order to finish these buildings it was necessary that a portion of the King Street block should be purchased.

said, that Sir Charles Wood had stated that the House had formerly rejected the scheme of Lord Llanover to purchase all the buildings between Downing Street and Great George Street, and that the Government were merely seeking to purchase only the amount of property absolutely necessary for the erection of the buildings. The cost of the site, it was added, would be only £30,000, and what he had now to complain of was that the estimate had increased from £30,000 to £147,000. Before the Committee granted money in that reckless way, they ought, he contended, to have some plan before them to show what was actually going to be done.

said, he was not in the slightest degree surprised to hear the remarks of the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney); because, when he (Mr. Ayrton) sat below the Gangway, no one had commented more freely than he had done on the conduct of successive Governments in obtaining Votes of money from that House. He hoped, however, that such schedules as that which he had caused to be attached to the present Vote would place the House in possession of the actual state of affairs, and that thus a repetition of what he had frequently witnessed during the progress of Committees of Supply would be avoided. The Committee had, no doubt, in the present instance, been led to sanction a very large expenditure, without being conscious on several occasions of what it was doing. Not only, he might add, had an Act been passed for the acquisition of the property in question, but Votes of money had been taken in previous Committees of Supply for the purpose. The gross amount of Votes and re-Votes, up to March, 1868, was £167,000. That money had not been expended, because the compensation to be paid to the owners of different plots of ground had not been ascertained; but the property had been accurately described by his right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works as being required to complete the surroundings of the new buildings. It might be very fairly said that there was a great want of foresight on the part of the Government of the day in giving an undertaking that the land required for the completion of the buildings would only cost £30,000; but whatever might have been the blunders of the past, we had come to the point that those buildings must be erected, and, being erected at a proper elevation must have a sufficient space around them for the purposes of light and air. He would only say, further, that, in agreeing to the present Vote, the Committee would in no degree be pledging itself to the Bill now before the House for the further extension of the design.

said, he would leave the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hampshire (Mr. W. F. Cowper) to settle with the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken as to the gross blunder which he seemed to think had been committed in fixing upon the estimate of £30,000. The hon. Gentleman was, however, he thought, wrong in saying that the House would not be committed to the plan of the late Government. In passing the present Vote the Committee would be pledging itself to the project of carrying on King Street in a new line, for the foundations of the new Home Office were to be laid in the middle of that street.

said, he thought the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Ayrton) could scarcely have taken the trouble to make himself acquainted with the facts of the case when he referred to the estimate of £30,000 as being attributable to a gross blunder. It was capable of a very different explanation. The £129,000 embraced two different Votes for land in four streets, the first being only for a sum of £30,000 for land in Charles Street and Gardiner's Lane. An estimate for building, based on a proper contract, ought never to be exceeded, but the cost of the purchase of land depended on the verdict of juries. It might have been convenient if all the money had been voted in one year, but the amount to be so appropriated in each year was limited. It was clear from experience that to buy land rapidly was to buy it expensively. Time was required for negotiation. When the Downing Street site was bought it was at first contemplated that King Street should remain, but this arrangement would have spoilt the plan, and given an inadequate frontage to Parliament Street; and the right thing to do was to bring the front of the new Foreign Office into continuation with the line of the new Treasury building. Trafalgar Square and Parliament Street ought to be united by a broad and wide street worthy of the capital of this great Empire. He understood that the freeholds of the houses required in King Street were bought, and that the leaseholds only remain.

said, he wished to know if the whole of the foundations had been laid. If so, it appeared that the Vote was not required for the site of the Government Offices, but to clear the lands around them. He should like to know what was proposed to be done with the present Home Office and the Board of Trade.

said, that part of this sum—namely, £13,000, was a re-vote of a sum granted last Session, but which had not been expended. The sum was for the block of buildings in Parliament Street, between Whitehall, King Street, and Charles Street, and the demolition of which had already been authorized by Parliament. The amount really required for the purchase of the remainder of the site was not £48,000, but only £35,000. The money was wanted to buy a few houses in Charles Street, and the block ended by Upper Charles Street, so that the view of the new Offices might not be shut out.

said, he objected to this bit-by-bit purchase of land for public offices, and thought that the Vote should be postponed until the House could see the Bill. It seemed probable that they would be asked to purchase the houses on the western side of Parliament Street, in order that it might not be a screen to the nobler and handsomer building behind.

said, this was a re-enactment of a comedy that had been performed there on many former occasions. Whenever there was a new Ministry there was a new policy with regard to public buildings. He wished to know to what extent the Government were pledged. During the last Ministry an architect was appointed to prepare a design for a public building, and a great scheme was shadowed out. But that scheme fell to the ground, and he did not think that further money should be granted till a distinct policy was arrived at with regard to the public buildings. Dover House had lately been acquired by the Government, and it was desirable it should be known whether it was intended to incorporate Dover House with the Treasury buildings.

said, he wished to know what would be the cost of the alteration of King Street? He believed that it would amount to a large sum, as the whole of the buildings between King Street and Parliament Street were, as he understood, to be swept away. It occurred to him that keeping the new buildings a little further back, so as not to intrude upon King Street at all, would have saved a very large sum of money.

said, he thought the House was entitled to know what the expenditure on the surroundings would amount to.

said, there was no question before the Committee as to the purchase of Dover House, nor of any land or buildings beyond the block of houses in King Street which he had described. The late Government were prepared to recommend the purchase of the whole site between George Street, Delahay Street, and the Park. There was a plan of the late Government as to the space between George Street and Delahay Street. But bypassing this Vote the Committee would pledge itself to nothing but the completion of that for which money had already been voted. It would be impossible to finish the Home and Colonial Offices without removing the block of buildings between Parliament Street and Upper Charles Street. He was not responsible for this purchase; he found the scheme in progress, and the foundations of the buildings already laid.

said, he would venture to say that no one understood what they were voting the money for, nor could they do so unless a distinct plan were laid before them.

said, he wished to know whether, as an encroachment had been made on King Street by bringing forward the new buildings, it was intended that there should be a new King Street, and what would be the cost?

said, he thought he had already answered that question. The remainder of King Street would remain as at present. The late Government had appointed a Commission which recommended that the remainder of King Street and the block of buildings between that street and Parliament Street should be purchased, and a Bill for carrying out this part of the scheme was now before a Committee. The estimates for that purchase were contained in the Commissioners' Report. The purchase of the whole property between Parliament Street and the Park was estimated at £1,200,000, but there was no intention on the part of the present Government to recommend the House to go to that expense.

said, he had a firm conviction, if the policy of the present Government as he understood it was carried out, in a very few years the country would have to pay a far greater sum than if the proposal of the Commission were adopted. Had the right hon. Gentleman been proposing a new Vote he, no doubt, would have been prepared with a plan, but it was clearly unnecessary to produce plans for a scheme already sanctioned by Parliament.

said, the plan in question had been laid before Committees of the House of Commons in 1865 and 1866.

said, he wished to know how it was that the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who formed a very wealthy body, were not left to repair and decorate their own Chapter House?

said, perhaps the hon. Member would be satisfied when he was informed that for 600 years the Dean and Chapter had had nothing whatever to do with the Chapter House, and Parliament everything. For about 300 years the Chapter House had been the House of Commons, and when 300 years ago St. Stephen's Chapel had been converted into a House of Commons the Chapter House was not returned to the Dean and Chapter, but was used as a Record office. The result was that one of the finest buildings in the country had been brought to a state of ruin. A few years ago the nation undertook to restore it, and year after year Parliament had cheerfully voted the money, and now the building was nearly completed. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the reason of the vote being decreased by £2,000. He hoped there was no attempt at cheese-paring or scamping the work.

said, that he was under the impression that the decrease arose from the fact that the painted windows had not been executed.

said, he doubted whether the work could be called a "restoration," for he did not think the building had ever been like what it was now.

said, he wished to know whether this Vote would complete the work?

said, he expected that it would do so, with the exception of the painted windows, which was a matter for future consideration. The sum of £25,000 had been granted for the restoration, and the present Vote exhausted that sum.

asked on what grounds increased accommodation was required by the Registrar Office?

replied that he had no personal knowledge of the matter, and that, therefore, the question had. better be put to the Secretary for the Home Office on the bringing up of the Report.

said, as no reply was vouchsafed to the question that had been put he should move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £238, the additional sum asked for cleaning.

said, that as the Offices of the Registrar would shortly have to be moved to the new Courts of Justice, he should move that the Vote be reduced by the sum asked for providing additional accommodation for that Office.

said, he would withdraw his Amendment.

moved that the Vote be reduced by the sum of £1,500. He did so, he said, because he thought it would be unwise to grant money for the erection of a building to contain certain documents before it was decided whether that building would be devoted to such a purpose or not.

said, he should admit the force of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks as applied to an original outlay under circumstances like the present; but that which the Committee were now invited to do was simply to vote £1,500 for the purpose of completing a work on which £16,500 had already been expended.

pointed out that the original estimate was only £11,000, whereas £16,500 had been laid out on the building. The question was whether it would not be the wisest course to pursue not to go further in such an expenditure under all the circumstances of the case?

said, he was of opinion that as the building was nearly completed, it ought to be finished. If it were not used for this purpose it might be for some other.

said, that the £1,500 were not required to complete the building, but to make an addition to that already completed—an addition which might never be required.

said, the Vote was really for additions to the principal Registry.

said, he thought the money already expended would have been thrown away if the further trifling sum of £1,500 were refused for the completion of the building and the rendering it thoroughly useful.

thought it would be better to complete the building.

said, the Estimate was not his. He found it prepared by the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Manners), when he came into Office.

said, it was necessary some plan should be adopted to stop these increased expenditures over estimates.

said, he thought the City of Edinburgh should provide for its own museums. In the absence of any statement or explanation he thought that the sum should not be granted.

said, that the late Government made an agreement with the Town Council of Edinburgh that if they would widen a street in the neighbourhood of the museum the Government would propose a Vote for increasing it to a certain extent. The Town Council complied with the condition, and the present Vote was, therefore, a matter of good faith.

said, that if a Government entered into engagements of this kind they took away the option from the House of Commons, which had not been consulted in the matter.

said, that the agreement bound the Government to submit the Vote to this House, and to support it. If one Government did not accept the bargains made by another, within certain limits, people and public bodies would refuse to deal with any Government.

said, the money was not for the Museum, but for widening a street.

said, he thought that when so much public money was spent upon London, they ought not to be too chary in respect to giving money to be expended in the capitals of Edinburgh and Dublin.

said, that the money asked for was not for widening the street, but for the Industrial Museum attached to the College. The Town Council agreed with the late Government to spend some £50,000 in widening the street.

said, that when the late Government came into Office the negotiations on this subject were going on, and it was found impossible to enlarge the Museum, unless the miserable street in question was altered.

said, that the Vote was for the extension of the Industrial Museum, and as they had been liberal in granting money for the British Museum and for the Kensington Museum, they could not refuse some aid to the capital of Scotland.

asked what amount they were going to spend upon these buildings. It was originally agreed to give accommodation to three learned societies at Burlington House, and the accommodation ought either to be extended to other learned societies or the amount should be reduced. He moved to reduce the Vote by £18,000.

said, accommodation had been provided in Burlington House for six learned societies. The question had already been discussed, and the House had decided that these buildings should be erected, and they were now being erected.

proposed to reduce the Vote by £6,194, the sum that had been incurred in the purchase of certain chambers in the Albany, the light of which had been interfered with by the new buildings.

said, that the difficulty was one that could not well have been foreseen by the architect, and had only arisen after the commencement of the building. The claim was so doubtful that it had to be decided by a court of law.

said, though the chambers had been purchased they would be either re-sold or re-let, and the ultimate loss would be a very small one.