said, he wished to ask the Lord Advocate, If it is the intention of Government, during the present Session, to carry out the recommendations of the Select Committee of 1868, on the County and Burgh Police systems of Scotland, by relieving Counties from their heavy payments to Procurators Fiscal, and remunerating these officials entirely by fixed salaries, as already is the case in Edinburgh and Lanarkshire?

, in reply, said, he thought his hon. Friend had misapprehended the recommendation of the Select Committee, which was in these terms—

"The Committee recommend that the system which prevails in some counties of remunerating Procurators Fiscal partly by Fees be discontinued, and that these Officers be remunerated entirely by fixed salary."

Procurators Fiscal were paid for certain portions of their work by the Exchequer and for the residue by the counties. The Exchequer had for a long while paid by salary, and many counties did the same. Other counties continued to pay by fees. It was in their power, with the approbation of the sheriffs, to change the mode of payment when they pleased. Any interference on the part of the Government was, therefore, quite unnecessary.

said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether, as it was the former rule of the service that a Post Captain went on to be Rear-Admiral by seniority without any service at sea being required, it is the intention that under Clause 6, Section 2, of the new Retirement scheme, Post Captains will, on retirement, be allowed, under similar circumstances, to rise to the said rank of Bear-Admiral; also, as in Clause 7, Section 8, service is reckoned only from the rank of Acting Sub-Lieutenant, on what principle service as a midshipman, which extends over six years, is ignored, while for seamen service is reckoned from the age of eighteen, and in the Army from the rank of Cornet and Ensign; and, also with reference to the periods of service below or over the limit entitling to retired pay, and according to which periods additions or deductions of £10 and upwards are made to the retired pay, whether a period of six months would not be more equitably assigned than that of a full year as the time according to which the said additions or deductions should be made, inasmuch as cases will arise, as Clause 1, Section 8, at present stands, in which officers will lose nearly two years' service, when the full year of over service and under service have both been nearly reached?

In reply, Sir, to the first Question of the hon. Member, I have to say that he does not appear to be aware that under the present system captains, although never employed, rise to be full admirals on the retired list. Under the new Order in Council they will only be entitled to be retired rear-admirals if they have served their time; all present captains having the option of remaining under the present system. I consider this to be one of the best features of the new regulations, and I certainly do not propose to alter it. In reply to the second Question, I have to say that the new regulations extend the service which counts for retirement. At present the first two years of a sub-lieutenant's time do not count. A lad may be a midshipman at fourteen, and as he may be a sub-lieutenant at nineteen, and in future, in certain cases, at eighteen, I see no reason for any further extension. Time counts in the other branches from even later age. The last Question I fear I do not understand. But no deduction is to be made from the rate of retired pay unless the service is deficient by a full year, so that there is no break of two years such as the Question implies. I see no reason for introducing for the first time half-year calculations.

Sir, before addressing to the Secretary of the Board of Trade the Question which stands in my name on the Paper, I wish, in consequence of communications which I received this morning from Liverpool, to preface that Question by another, of which I have given the hon. Gentleman private notice. I wish to ask, whether all casualties at sea are reported to the Board of Trade; and, whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that since the 1st of January last nine steamships have been lost, seven of which foundered at sea with, great loss of life, and that most of these casualties are attributed to the want of proper bulkheads and of a proper check upon overloading? If my hon. Friend is not prepared at once to answer this Question, which he will see relates to a subject of great importance, I shall be happy to furnish him with the names of the ships and other particulars which have been supplied to me. I wish now to ask the Question which stands on the Paper—namely, Whether any confirmation has been received of a statement in a letter in a recent number of "The Times," that when the "City of Boston" left Halifax "she was deeply laden with wheat in bags, being eighteen or twenty inches deeper than the insurance allows," thus showing the too great probability that the ship, with all on board her, have been lost from the same cause of deep lading that led to the loss of the "London;" whether any action has been taken by the Board of Trade on this subject in consequence of the Report presented to them by the Institute of Naval Architects, as the result of a protracted investigation by scientific men, after the loss of the "London," of this question of overlading; and, whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to take any steps, either by legislation or by the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry, for the protection of Her Majesty's subjects from this great source of danger in packet ships?

said, in reply to that part of the Question of the right hon. Baronet having reference to the City of Boston, he had to inform the House that the Board of Trade had received no confirmation of the statement contained in an anonymous letter, to the effect that the City of Boston was overladen when she loft Halifax. He thought it but fair to the owners of that vessel to state that he had received from Mr. Inman the most emphatic contradiction of this statement. He said that his agent at Halifax had reported to him that the actual draught of water of the vessel when she left that port was twenty-one feet seven inches, which was from seven to nine inches less than on any of her previous voyages. He also enclosed a statement of the cargo actually on board. This had been submitted to the professional officers at the Board of Trade, who reported that it was quite impossible that with a cargo of such a nature and with the great accommodation which, in a vessel like the City of Boston, was set apart for passengers, she could have been overladen, or that her loss, if she were unfortunately lost, could be due to that cause. Mr. Inman, in his letter, added—

"We are uninsured for more than £50,000 on the vessel, her stores, and freight, under which circumstances we are the last persons likely to overload our vessels. It is not for us to appear before the public to buoy up hopes which may be disappointed, but we believe the vessel to be afloat."

With reference to the other Question, he must ask the right hon. Baronet to let him postpone his answer until he was furnished, as promised, with the names of the vessels to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded. He was unable to say whether nine vessels had foundered at sea since the beginning of the year from want of proper bulkheads. The Report of the Society of Naval Architects, to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded, was presented four years ago; but successive Governments had thought it inexpedient to adopt its recommendations, and in the new Merchant Shipping Bill it was not proposed to legislate in that direction.

said, his hon. Friend had not answered his Question whether the Government proposed to remove the source of danger to which he had alluded either by legislation or a Royal Commission?

said, he had stated already that it was not intended to legislate upon the subject in the new Merchant Shipping Bill, nor did he intend to propose a Royal Commission on the subject.

said, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether he has intimated his intention of placing in the hands of his own Department all the works of the Palace of Westminster which have hitherto been under the supervision of an architect; and, if so, whether he will inform the House of the name of the gentleman connected with the Office of Works to whom these professional duties are to be entrusted?

said, in reply, that the Question of the hon. Member was founded in some misconception. The arrangement to be made at the commencement of the present financial year would be that the Palace of Westminster would be placed in the same manner as the other palaces of Her Majesty in London, under the charge of Mr. Taylor, one of the assistant surveyors, whose office was not well described by the title, because it involved duties of considerable importance. The ordinary works were carried on under his immediate direction and guidance, and whenever any extraordinary works arose, they were executed by those whose peculiar capacity fitted them for the performance. For example, an artist was employed for painting, a sculptor for sculpture, and an architect for architectural work. Under the new system, Mr. Taylor would perform his functions under the supervision of another officer recently established in the Board of Works, and called the Director of Public Works. Her Majesty's Government had selected a gentleman of well-known high position for this office— namely, Mr. Douglas Galton.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in reference to his statement in answer to a Question touching the outrage upon missionaries, English and French, in the city of Ngan-king, in China, Whether the Government approve of the same measure of justice not being meted out by the Viceroy of Nankin to the English as to the French missionaries, the former being expelled from Ngan-king and their mission house pulled down, and the latter allowed a site within the city walls upon which to build a church and mission house; and, whether instructions have been or will be sent to Consuls abroad (particularly in China), to report direct to the Foreign Office the occurrence of outrages upon British subjects, that the Foreign Office may not be officially ignorant of events known to the public?

, in reply, said, when he made the statement on Monday night, to which his hon. and gallant Friend now referred, he stated that no official information had been received relative to the treatment of French missionaries, and nothing had been received from China since then. Therefore he was not in a position to give an opinion on the question as to the treatment which these missionaries were said to have received. He could not accept the statement of his hon. and gallant Friend as authentic. In due time all the Papers would be laid on the table. With regard to the instructions to Consuls, they were instructed to report to the Minister at Pekin, under whose direction they were placed; but they were, at the same time, instructed to send duplicate reports to the Foreign Office.

said, his information I had been obtained from despatches published in the North China Daily News.

With all respect to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, he could not accept as authoritative the statement which he had taken from a Chinese newspaper. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman desired to call the attention of the House to this subject, he could do so, and then the Government would be prepared to state their views.

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether his attention has been drawn to a leading article in "The People" paper of Wexford, of March 12, in which, among other expressions of a very similar nature, the following words are used:—

"If a few bad landlords have been shot, or shot at, perhaps by men maddened by their inhumanity, if a few other crimes of violence have been committed, which it is impossible to classify with 'agrarian outrages,' and which, we may add, are as nothing either in atrocity or in number when compared with the dreadful murders constantly committed in England; we are told forsooth that this constitutes a 'reign of terror,' and that exceptional legislation of a severely coercive nature is just now the one thing needful for Ireland. But these sanguinary champions of the 'rights of property' as they call them, as if Providence ever endued one man or one set of men, with 'the right' to defraud another, seem to forget that, according to the opinion of the whole civilized world, evicting landlords really deserve to be hanged, not shot. Assassinations of any kind, even the assassination of one of these territorial ogres, whose ruthless cruelty seems to exclude them from the pale of civil society, is a terrible crime banned by God and man, and Heaven forbid that we should attempt to extenuate its atrocity. But still we are entitled to ask, if 'the terror' does reign, who are to blame for it? Are the people of Ireland? No, surely, but the men who have shown no mercy to the people. If bad landlords are shot, if the whole country is agitated and disturbed, who should be held responsible for the result;"

and, whether he considers that words such as these directly inciting the peasantry to deeds of violence and bloodshed, should be used with impunity by the Press?

Sir, it is somewhat dangerous to give an answer upon an isolated passage of the kind read; but, so far as I can understand it from what my hon. Friend has read, I should agree with him that such language ought not to be used with impunity. At all events, the best answer to his Question will be the Bill I am about to introduce.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, with reference to a statement in the "Standard" newspaper of the 14th instant, copied from the "Toronto Globe," to the following effect:—

"That a body of Loyal Volunteers at the Red River Settlement organized themselves to resist the insurgents, and sent Mr. Stuart Mulkins to confer with Riel, the rebel leader; that Mr. Mulkins was arrested and imprisoned, and that Mr. Schultz, another Loyal Volunteer, is still kept in solitary confinement, and not allowed to converse with anyone;"

also, as averred by Mr. Mulkins, "that the Roman Catholic clergy are at the bottom of the trouble;" Whether the Government has received any information confirmatory of the foregoing; and, in any case, what steps are taken for the deliverance and protection of the loyal inhabitants of this Settlement?

said, in reply, that it would not be well to express any opinion such as would be involved in a complete answer to this Question while negotiations were going on between the inhabitants of the Red River Territory and the Government of the Dominion of Canada. He was, however, happy to inform the hon. Gentleman that a deputation from the Red River Settlement had already started for Ottawa, and he hoped the negotiations would soon be completed. If the hon. Gentleman would then renew his Question, he would give him all the information in his power. To relieve the hon. Member's mind, however, from some of the misapprehension with which it was evidently possessed, he would inform him that the Canadian Government had induced the Vicar General of Quebec to proceed to the Red River Settlement as one of their Commissioners, and also that the Bishop of St. Boniflce heard of these disturbances when attending the ŒEcumenical Council at Rome; and immediately returned to the Red River Settlement to use his personal influence to restore peace.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether, after the Winter Examination, I 1870–71, for admission to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, candidates within the specified ages will he permitted, as heretofore, to compete at two or more successive Examinations?

Sir, under the now regulations, the number of examinations at which candidates will be permitted to compete is limited to three.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether the answer he lately gave with respect to a Cavalry Officer, of or above the rank of Captain obtaining the regimental price of his Commission if he sells out before the absorption of the eighth Captain in his regiment, will apply also to Officers of the same rank in an Infantry Regiment, or whether a distinction will be drawn in this respect between Captains in the two branches of Her Majesty's Service to the injury of Captains of Infantry?

There is no distinction, Sir, between Infantry and Cavalry. The answer I gave on a former occasion may be taken as equally applicable to both.

said, he would bog to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it is true that several cases of smallpox and scarlet fever have occurred on board Her Majesty's Ship "Britannia," among the Naval Cadets; and what precautions have been taken to prevent the spread of the disorders?

Sir, in reply to my hon. and gallant Friend, I have to say that it is unfortunately true that several cases both of smallpox and scarlatina, in each instance of the mildest description, have occurred on board the Britannia in Dartmouth Harbour, and the Admiralty have taken every possible precaution on the subject at the earliest stages, and I believe in the most satisfactory manner. We have belonging to the Department a small hospital or sick quarters in a very airy situation in the open part of the town. We have also taken a house described as "The Mansion House," with a landing-place sufficiently separated from all other buildings for safety from infection; a second house approached through a walled garden, near the sick quarters; and a third house also near the sick quarters, for convalescents. A fourth house for boys supposed not to have either of these diseases, but unwell, has been taken, in order to remove them out of the sick bay in the ship. We have lately received offers of other houses, Claremont House, Shipley House, and Cromwell House, belonging to Mr. Ridgway, who has placed them at our disposal in the most generous manner. These offers are under consideration. We sent to Dartmouth some days ago Dr. Mackay, the Deputy Inspector General, who has reported that all the arrangements are satisfactory as to position and suitability, and who speaks most highly of the steps taken by the captain and medical officer of the ship. The House may rely on no precautions being omitted, at whatever inconvenience and cost, to prevent the spreading of the infection. At the present moment sixty cadets are in sick quarters, none now seriously ill, there having only been from the first two giving cause for any anxiety. Seven have been taken away by their friends, and others will follow if their friends wish. In reply to the Question of which notice is given me for to-morrow, I may say that we fully considered the expediency of sending cadets to a floating hospital; but that we received unanimous advice that it would be most unwise to do so, or to remove them to the hospital at Plymouth.

said, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Privy Council, Whether it is not the case that, under the Assessed Rates Act of last Session, a ratepayer may vote in vestry whether the rate is payable by himself, or by the owner?

, in reply, said, he supposed the Question of the hon. Member had been put with reference to the Education Bill which was now before the House, and he was glad that it had been asked, inasmuch as he would in consequence be enabled to remove a misconception on the subject to which it related. He was informed that by the 7th and 19th sections of the Assessed Rates Act of last Session, the vestry franchise, together with other franchises, were restored to the occupier where rates were paid by the owner. Were that not the case, it would have become necessary to insert a provision in the Education Bill in order to carry out its principle, that the parents of children should have a full and free choice in the election of the school Boards.

said, in the absence of his noble Friend (Lord Henry Lennox), he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty to lay upon the Table of the House a Return of the names of the Flag Officers and their ages who will be retired under the new scheme, and the names and ages of the Captains who will be promoted to replace them?

Sir, it is quite out of my power to state who will be retired under the new Order in Council, because options are given to different ranks of flag officers, and I have no means of knowing how they will exercise their options. I may, however, state that under any circumstances, so far as I am aware, ten flag officers will be at once retired for non-service and four for age, and that if they elect the new regulations, twenty-two more must be retired for age. In the former event, only two captains will be promoted to be rear admirals, and in the latter case seven. If officers elect to retire before the age at which retirement is compulsory, these numbers will be still further increased. I cannot give the names of the captains who will be promoted without knowing how they will exercise the option given them. After the operation is complete I shall have no objection to give every information on the subject.

said, he would beg to put one or two Questions to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, and he trusted that in put- ting them the House would, as they related to matters of some complication and great public interest, grant him such indulgence as its rules would permit. There were two Motions on the Notice Paper for to-morrow, having reference to the health and general treatment of the prisoners who were now confined for political offences in this country. One of these Motions stood in the name of the hon. Member for Dundalk (Mr. Callan), the other in his own. I The Motion of the hon. Member for Dundalk was of a very large and extensive character; but that of which he (Mr. Moore) had given notice touched only on individual cases. It was possible those Motions might give rise to very considerable discussion, and he was aware it was the wish of the House to renew to-morrow the debate on the Education Bill without further interruption. Under these circumstances, it appeared to him that it would greatly facilitate the discharge of Public Business if the right hon. Gentleman could give him such an answer to the inquiry which he was about to address to him as would render it unnecessary to proceed with the Motions to which he referred. It would be in the recollection of the House that various statements with regard to the treatment of the political prisoners had from time to time been made in that House and out of it. Official inquiries had been instituted into those statements, and official Reports had been made on them, of which the accuracy and justice were denied. Of course, he did not mean to express any opinion as to the relative value of these Reports or contradictions. But the Motions which stood on the Paper for tomorrow clearly intimated—in the opinion of those who were to move them, at all events—that the result had not been satisfactory, and that a full and free inquiry into the health and treatment of the political prisoners in this country would be a public advantage. He would, therefore, ask the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, Whether he was prepared to grant such a full and free inquiry on which both sides of the question might be represented, and which would be sufficient to relieve the public mind from all further doubts or suspicions on the subject? There was, however, another question of still greater importance, which he felt it to be his duty to put to the right hon. Gentleman. Rather more than twelve months ago an amnesty was granted to a certain number of political prisoners who were then in confinement. He would make no allusion to the character of that amnesty or its effect. It was a fact that it had been granted; it was a fact that it was partial; and it was a fact that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), under whose Administration very many of the political prisoners had been tried and convicted, had recently stated in that House that an amnesty, if granted at all, should have been complete. It was also a fact, as he had teen informed, that General Burke, one of the political prisoners, had recently become insane, and by the Report of the Medical Officer of Mountjoy Prison it appeared that previously four political prisoners, untried, had lost their senses under the infliction of imprisonment. It was also stated, on authority which no one in that House would, he thought, question, that at least one other of the political prisoners was threatened with a similar calamity. He had, therefore, to ask the First Minister of the Crown, Whether it would tend to the credit or the honour of the administration of justice to retain in durance the shattered bodies of unfortunate men whose minds had wandered away from the control of human jurisdiction? ["Order!"] He considered he was strictly within the limits of the rules of the House. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had received lately a proposition made on behalf of her husband from the wife of one of the political prisoners; and he (Mr. Moore) was bound to say that the right hon. Gentleman had answered her with a chivalrous respect and a courteous forbearance which did him honour, and for which he begged to thank him in her name. It would be unnecessary to say more than to ask the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, Whether, under all the circumstances which he (Mr. Moore) had stated, and many more which he had refrained from stating, the time had not come in which the amnesty of last year might be made complete without endangering the public safety or the ends of public justice?

think, Sir, I shall best consult the convenience of the House and of the hon. Member who has made these inquiries, if divide the answer into three parts. In the first place, with respect to the Question as to the condition of the political prisoners, I stated on a former occasion that their allegations of ill-treatment had been categorically denied by the only persons to whom we could refer—namely, the persons in authority who have the charge of the prisoners, and in whose reports it is our duty to place confidence. But the hon. Gentleman has said very truly that the Notice of Motion given by a Member of Parliament for an inquiry, with which other Members of Parliament appear to sympathize, raises a question beyond the mere satisfaction of the minds of the Government, or the trustworthiness of the officers of the prison, and it is our opinion that, under these circumstances, it will be politic and just to allow an inquiry into the truth of these allegations, which shall be of a perfectly impartial character, conducted by impartial persons. Of course, we shall be responsible for the manner in which the inquiry is conducted, and the hands in which it will be placed; but to the principle of that inquiry we think it, under the circumstances of the case, wise and proper to accede. Then, with respect to the health of certain political prisoners, the information supplied to me by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Bruce) does not entirely tally with what has been given to the hon. Member. But thus far we are agreed—that two of the prisoners, as understand, have passed into a state of unsound mind, and in consequence of that unsoundness of mind they have been released. There is also a third prisoner with regard to whom a question may arise; but as to the fourth mentioned by the hon. Member—

I said there had been four previous cases in Mountjoy Prison reported by the medical officers.

Besides the two prisoners who have been released, there is the case of Richard Burke, who was accessory to the Clerkenwell explosion of 1868. He was afterwards confined in the Chatham Convict Prison, and, up to the 9th of December, 1869, he was reported to be in good health both of mind and body, and also well-behaved in prison. On that day, however, he was reported to be suffering from depression of spirits and loss of appetite, so that his removal to another place was recommended, and, on the 10th of December, he was transferred to the invalid prison at Woking. Shortly after his arrival at Woking, signs of further mental disturbance appeared, and the chief medical officer of the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dr. Meyer, has visited him more than once, and has reported that, after careful examination, he has come to the conclusion that Burke is of unsound mind. At the same time, Dr. Meyer reports:—"I am further of opinion that he is not unlikely to recover from his present state of dementia." Under these circumstances, it was quite right to relieve him from the ordinary treatment of political prisoners; but I do not think the hon. Member himself will be of opinion that the case ought to be treated as one of permanently unsound mind to the extent of entitling such a person to an absolute release. In our judgment there would be no sufficient warrant for such a step at the present time and under present circumstances. Having disposed of these two points, I have now to answer the third and more general Question put by the hon. Gentleman. He asks whether we think the time has now come when the amnesty which was partially conceded, not by an arbitrary choice, but upon particular grounds of selection, somewhat more than twelve months ago, may be extended to the whole of the political prisoners taken up in Ireland? I am sorry to say that my answer must be most repugnant to my inclination; but, at the same time, most imperatively imposed by duty. I must point to the state of Ireland, where we are engaged in what I hope is, materially and morally, important remedial legislation, but are compelled to interrupt this beneficent and, at all events, well-intended process, by a Motion which will presently be submitted by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Chichester Fortescue) for special powers with a view to the security of life and property in Ireland. I do not think it would be possible for us to announce in this House, or to hold out elsewhere, any hope whatever that it would be consistent with our duty to open the doors of the prison on behalf of those prisoners until we can see a different and a better state of things in Ireland—a better state of things which may be due in part to the legislation of repression we are about to ask for, but which, I hope, will also be due to that which will have a deeper and a more permanent operation— namely, the effect of remedial legislation. To anyone who is in authority in a free country, if he enters into the spirit of the institutions of his country, the whole subject of political punishments is, perhaps, the most painful of all the subjects that come before him; and no persons can so much long for the arrival of a period when it may be possible to give a different answer to the hon. Gentleman as those who are responsible for the detention of these prisoners. But, whatever our sentiments of pain and repugnance, do not let there be any ambiguity as to the nature of the answer that we give. It would be cruel to encourage the friends of these prisoners to cherish any hopes whatever with regard to their release, until we are able to see a state of things in Ireland when Her Majesty's peaceable and well-conducted subjects may be enabled to pursue the ordinary avocations of life with that degree of comfort and confidence which is the best test and criterion of a civilized and a Christian country.

I rise with very deep regret, but without doubt or hesitation, to perform a duty, the imperative necessity of which must have been felt by all who sit on this Bench, and I may say by none more keenly than by myself—a duty which nothing but that necessity would have induced us to undertake. The duty is that of proposing to the House a measure for the more effectual maintenance of Life, and, above all, of property, in Ireland. [Laughter.] I see I have occasioned hon. Members some hilarity. Of course, what I meant to say was that it was our imperative duty to take more effectual means to preserve both life and property in Ireland; and when come to explain the provisions of the Bill and to state fully the circumstances under which we propose it, I think the House will thoroughly understand the position in which we are placed and the motives by which we are actuated. Before proceed to describe the provisions of the Bill, it is of course necessary that I should state the general condition of Ireland, in respect of crime, and especially of agrarian crime, which has imposed upon Government the duty I have now to perform on their behalf. We all know that during the last year, and for some months before, there has been in Ireland—not in all parts of it, but in particular districts—an outbreak, not of general but of agrarian crime, such as was not, indeed, unknown in former times, but the equal of which we, happily, have not seen during recent years. The state of the case is this— In 1866 agrarian crime in Ireland had reached its minimum. I believe there has been no year in Irish history in which agrarian crime was at so low an ebb as it was in 1866; and this is the more remarkable, because in other respects Ireland was not in a peaceful or satisfactory condition in that year; but, with respect to agrarian crime, to which I now confine myself, 1866 was the year in which the figures were the lowest. They increased somewhat in 1867 and 1868, and, indeed, the outbreak of agrarian crime with which we have now to deal dates from 1868. I may say it began in the early part of that year with the well-known and lamentable assassination of Mr. Featherston in the county of Meath; or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say that its commencement and source was the tragedy which took place in the county of Tipperary, at Ballycohey, and which was one of the most remarkable agrarian outrages that ever occurred in Ireland, and one whose effects extend to the present time. By the admissions of all parties there was unhappily in that case a very exceptional and excessive exercise of the rights of property, and the result was an outrage which, after all has been said that can be pleaded in extenuation, cannot for a moment be palliated or excused, but which had an effect upon the mind of the public of all classes, both for good, and for evil, with which all who are acquainted with the history of crime in Ireland are familiar. From its occurrence until now the name of Bally- cohey has been used over and over again in most of those missives, threatening letters, notices, and denunciations which have disgraced and disquieted the country. Beginning with that crime, which was unfortunately committed with impunity, as other crimes have been committed since, in spite of the best efforts of the Government of that day, as others have been committed in spite of the best efforts of the present Government—from that day agrarian murders and attempts to murder have occurred, not, indeed, to the extent or number which some statements have represented, but still to a very formidable number. In the month of December, 1868, there were two attempts to murder in the county of Meath, and the escape of the intended victims was merely accidental. One was the case of Mr. Rotherham, and the other that of Mr. Nicholson. At the end of that month there was a successful murder —that of Mr. Baker, in Tipperary. In 1869, according to the police returns, eight agrarian murders were committed. I am bound to add that there was one other murder in that year, which though not literally speaking an agrarian murder, was produced by the same causes as agrarian murders, and originated with the Ribbon conspiracy—I mean the murder of Mr. Anketell, the station-master at Mullingar. This makes nine murders committed in 1869; and in addition there were sixteen cases of firing at the person, many, though not all, of which were nothing less than attempts to murder, which providentially failed. The serious fact in respect of these murders and attempts to murder is this—that there have been only two cases in which any prisoner has been put upon his trial. One was the case of the murder of Mr. Tracey, in the county of Tipperary, and there was a trial which resulted in acquittal. The other was the case of the attempt to murder Captain Lambert, for which Barrett has been twice tried without either jury agreeing upon a verdict. In the month of January, 1870, there was no agrarian murder, properly so called; but there was the murder of a man named Walsh, a dealer in eggs and other things, in the West of Ireland, which in its character could scarcely be distinguished from an agrarian murder; and there was also a case of firing at the person in the county of Mayo. In the month of February there was one very lamentable murder, which to all appearances was connected with the possession of land, although it was not a matter of conspiracy, but was one of individual vengeance; in order to state the matter fully and completely, I am bound to mention this case, in which the man was shot through the window of his own house in the county of Westmeath. In reference to the whole number of all descriptions of agrarian outrages the figures were these—In 1866, the number was only eighty-seven; in 1867, there were 123; in 1868, 160; and in 1869, I grieve to say, 767. [Mr. CONOLLY: Does that include threatening letters?] Yes. In the earlier months of 1869, the agrarian crimes, including everything, great and small, some very serious and others trifling, were not large in number; but in November of that year there were 144 offences; in December, there were 337; in January of the present year, there were 267 showing a diminution; in February there were 271. But, Sir, I should state explicitly that these figures include crimes differing from each other very much, and that a vast majority of them consisted of threatening letters and notices, which, though not by any means to be despised, and though a bad symptom of the social condition of the community, yet are not always of great importance. At all events, it is necessary to distinguish threatening letters and notices from more violent crimes, which have in former years been much greater in number than they are now. Of the 767 agrarian offences in 1869, twenty-six were aggravated assaults, eighteen were incendiary fires, six were firing into dwelling-houses, 171 were the administering of unlawful oaths by force— a very serious and dangerous offence— and 480 were cases of threatening letters and notices. Again, taking the two months of the present year, in January, of 267 agrarian offences reported by the police, 244 were cases of threatening letters and notices; and in February there were 233 of such cases out of a total of 271. I may say that all cases of threatening letters, in whatever form, whether they were notices posted on a man's door, or upon some public place, or addressed to him, are, as far as we can ascertain, sent to the Castle, and are included in these Returns. It is right hon. Members should know that the vast majority of these agrarian offences is made up of cases of threatening letters and notices, and also that they should have the means of comparing the extent of crime thus shown with that which existed in former years, in order that they may not fall into unreasonable panic nor despair of the future. Former Governments have been obliged unwillingly to tolerate amounts of crime far greater than that which we have been unable to prevent. I will not go back to those years which show a prodigious, and I must say an awful amount of crime, both agrarian and of other descriptions, but I will begin with the year 1847. I have to state, however, that the number of agrarian offences committed in 1869, taking them of all descriptions, is a number greater than that of any former year since 1852. In that year the number was 907. In 1852 the number of homicidal offences, either effected or attempted, was about the same as in 1869; but it is curious to mark a comparison between other kinds of offences committed in these two years. Offences of great violence, such as dangerous assaults, firing dwellings, and so on, were considerably fewer in 1869 than in 1852. On the other hand, cases of intimidation, of administering unlawful oaths, and of sending threatening letters, were more numerous in 1869 than in 1852. It is, as far as it goes, some consolation to me that I have not so awful a catalogue of crime to narrate as that which was detailed to the House by my right hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey) when, in 1847, as Secretary of State for the Home Department, he introduced the Crime and Outrage Bill. The crime which he had then to describe was of the most formidable character, and, without detaining the House by going into particulars, I may give some idea of it by mentioning that during the six months ending in October, 1847, there had been committed ninety-six homicides of all kinds, there had been 126 cases of firing at the person, and 116 cases of firing at dwellings, and that during the single month of October, 1847 — the time when my right hon. Friend introduced his measure—there were committed nineteen homicides, and there were thirty-two cases of firing at the person, twenty-six cases of firing at dwellings, and 118 robberies of fire- arms. That catalogue included crimes of all kinds; whereas, on the present occasion, we have specially to deal with agrarian crime. There was also at that time a state, of general crime, far beyond, I am happy to say, anything that has occurred in Ireland, either in the last or in many previous years; indeed, crimes other than agrarian have not increased, but have remained, I am happy to say, at the same low figure at which they have stood for a considerable number of years. Comparing 1847 and 1869, I find that agrarian crimes stand as follows:— In 1847 there were 620 agrarian crimes, and in 1869 there were 767; but in 1847 the crimes of great violence and atrocity were far more numerous, for there were sixteen homicides against eight in 1869, and thirty-five cases of firing at the person in 1847, against sixteen in 1869. On the other hand, the cases of intimidation were more numerous in 1869 than in 1847. I may be asked why, under these circumstances, the Government think it their duty to propose special legislation for the repression of agrarian crimes in Ireland beyond what was proposed in 1847, and that is a question which I desire to answer. I have no doubt that those who live in the disturbed districts of Ireland, and suffer from this state of things would answer it in a very summary manner, for they call upon the Government to put an end to the intolerable system of intimidation which exists in those districts. But, speaking for ourselves, the case stands thus—in the first place, in respect to agrarian crimes the comparison is not favourable to the year 1869. Again, it is very evident that our standard has risen since 1847, and that we are not prepared to endure or submit to a state of crime in 1870 which was considered inevitable in 1847. Again, a Crime and Outrage Act was passed in 1847; and although there is no doubt that that Act must have had, and actually had, a good effect in checking crime in Ireland, yet it must be remembered that it was not so effectual as to prevent the continuance and even the increase of crime in that country during the next two or three years. Again, for the most part, though not altogether, we have during 1869 possessed and exercised most of the powers conferred by that Act, but, nevertheless, they have not sufficed to prevent the continuance and even the growth of crime. There is also this important circumstance to be considered, that in the disturbed districts of Ireland at the present time, intimidation and terrorism — though not accompanied by acts of violence and atrocity so great or so numerous as in former years — are as general and deep-seated and as effectual as ever. The Government feel that, under these circumstances — putting aside all question of comparison, and taking the actual amount of crime prevailing in Ireland — it is their imperative duty, after having done all that a Government could do with the means at their command to check and repress these crimes, not, I am bound to say, without a certain amount of success, but not with any satisfactory result — they feel it to be their duty, under these circumstances, to ask Parliament for further powers. The main characteristic of the disturbed districts of Ireland at the present time is the existence of a dangerous and formidable system of intimidation and terrorism — and that is a point to which the provisions of this Bill are chiefly directed; because that state of intimidation operates so as to make it almost impossible to obtain evidence for the conviction of any criminal, and tends to the spread of crime of every kind, not only in the disturbed districts themselves, but in other districts. The House ought to have some idea of the nature and extent of this terrorism, with which I am but too familiar, because I read cases of it every morning in the records of the police reports. I will give a few, and only a few, extracts from the reports of this month. In Mayo, a police officer hearing that a stack was on fire, went to the spot and found a stack of hay and some oats burning. The windows of the house had been broken and the house wrecked; and the damage was estimated at £166. The following is another police report, dated Ballina, March 12, 1870:—

"About one o'clock in the morning of the 11th instant, a body of ten or twelve men visited the houses of some herds, whom they swore to give up their herdings or they would be shot, and informed them that they would be 'looked after,' one of them saying he was Rory of the Hills from Tipperary. They fired a shot on leaving each house. The herds were reluctant in giving information, and say they could not identify any of the parties. One of them has given up his herding in consequence. As the others have not done so, the constabulary have been directed to patrol the place by night in plain clothes and with revolvers."

In respect to the county of Westmeath, the police report, dated Mullingar, February 28, 1870, states—

"On Saturday night last, about half-past eight o'clock, Joseph Lynch, servant boy to a miller at Kilpatrick, was returning from Mullingar to his master's house; when about half a quarter of a mile from the town a man crossed him on the road, desired him to go on his knees, and fired a shot across his face. A second man then came up and fired a shot into him, a ball or slug taking effect and passing through his thigh. A third man then came up, and they all three set to work to beat and kick him. They then left him, He says there were more in it, but he could not say how many. He managed to crawl on to Leonard's house, which is not far off. They would not keep him in it through fear; but Leonard helped him on towards the town to the house of a man living near the railway. Here he showed his wounds, and the woman dressed the wound on his head, He slept in the house, and next morning was able to walk home with the help of a stick. The wound is not dangerous, being through the fleshy part of the thigh. Lynch can give no description of the men, nor did he, Leonard, or Hope, in whose house he had slept, give any information to the police."

The last extract from a police report, which I shall read, shows the enormous difficulty of obtaining evidence. It is dated Mullingar, February 23, 1870, and states—

"A most respectable farmer, named Michael Kerrigan, was shot last night about ten o'clock in his own house, at Johnstown near Donna. He was hit in the neck, the slugs injuring the spine; he now lies in a hopeless state. (A subsequent report announces his death.) I immediately proceeded to the spot. Kerrigan was hardly able to speak, and refused to make any declaration, although he knew he was dying, and had no hope of recovery. Kerrigan was a man of exemplary character, the sole support of an aged father and mother. The inmates of the house consisted of these and a nephew, a young lad of about twenty, who had been in America, and had returned. The unfortunate victim was an exemplary Roman Catholic, and at the time had been reading a religious book to his family. He stood up to settle his bed, when he received the contents of a gun through the window. The assassin must have been well acquainted with Kerrigan's habits and the plan of the house, for the shot was fired through the small square window, and just at the moment when Kerrigan stood up."

These extracts, which are mere specimens, will show to the House that those murders and murderous outrages, if not so numerous as in former years, are especially lamentable in this respect, that the system of intimidation which prevails prevents us from bringing offenders to justice. The House can have little idea of the difficulties which beset the police and the Executive in this matter. I may say, with all sin- cerity, that no efforts and no exertions have been spared by the Government to meet the state of thing prevailing in the disturbed districts. I venture to say that no Government, and no constabulary force could have made greater exertions for that object during the past autumn and winter than we have. We sent our best officers to the most dangerous quarters; we have augmented the police force as far as possible; we have largely reinforced the police in the worst districts by numerous detachments of troops, who are now engaged, and I believe not without effect, in moving about those districts and patrolling the roads. Further, wherever circumstances seemed to demand it, we have sent parties of extra police to the scene of the outrage, and charged the expenses on a small area, generally consisting of a few townlands. With regard to the investigation of crime, Law Officers, as able and efficient as any Government ever possessed, and able Crown Solicitors acting under those Law Officers, have spared no pains to make inquiries as searching as possible. Those efforts have resulted in only very partial success. The amount of success that has been obtained is as unsatisfactory to the Government as it can possibly be to the House and the country. I know what has been said of the constabulary. It has been said that, however good they are as a military force, they have shown themselves deficient as a detective force. I am not surprised at that observation being often repeated; but I am bound to say that I believe allowance enough is not made by this House and the country for the enormous difficulties which, under the present circumstances, beset the Irish constabulary. I should like to give the House an idea of what those difficulties are, not from any constabulary authority, but from a gentleman entirely unconnected with that force. He is Crown Solicitor in one of the most important counties, and he writes in these terms—

"In most parts of Ireland, and particularly in Tipperary, persona giving evidence are branded as informers, and are shunned by the country people, and even by their former friends; in fact, they lose caste, and their lives become endangered; and the same feeling is extended to their relatives. Previous to 1866 agrarian crimes had, to a great extent, disappeared in Tipperary, where a very good feeling was growing up between landlord and tenant, the latter of whom, as a rule, held their farms at moderate rents, and were becoming industrious and wealthy; but Fenianism, to some extent, unsettled the minds of the poorer class, and encouraged a resort to violence where any bad feeling existed, and it has certainly greatly increased the dread of giving evidence. People are, latterly, more averse than ever to give the slightest assistance to the authorities in discovering crime. They will not even discuss the circumstances which may have led to the outrage, and will profess ignorance of collateral facts notoriously within their knowledge, and, I regret to say, make little difficulty about perjuring themselves rather than appear as witnesses, and when induced to make an information, it is often extremely difficult to get them to adhere to it when placed in the witness box. I have known a man swear an information which I knew from other sources to be perfectly true; and I have seen him afterwards come to the table and swear that every word in it was false; and the cases in which witnesses endeavour to give a colouring to their evidence favourable to the accused are very numerous. Within the last three months a man named Magrath was murdered near Cashel, and one Jeremiah Dwyer was accused of the murder. A man named Jerry Ryan saw the accused near the place about the time the murder was committed, and talked of having so seen him to some neighbours, from whom a knowledge of the circumstance reached the constabulary, who had Ryan brought before the Hon. Martin J. Ffrench, to whom he denied having seen or stated that he saw the accused. Mr. Ffrench, knowing this statement to be false, committed him to the Bridewell in Cashel, in the hope that he might be induced to tell what he knew, but he was only a few hours in the Bridewell when he hanged himself, rather than what is called 'disgrace his family' by giving evidence."

That statement will illustrate to the House the enormous difficulties under which the police labour in this matter of detection. They can gain no clue from anyone in the country. It has been found that men who distinguished themselves as detectives in the large towns of Ireland, when transferred to the rural districts, utterly failed to get such information as could be acted on in a court of justice. But I am far from saying that the detective portion of the constabulary is in a state that does not not admit of improvement. On the contrary, the Government have felt it necessary to take measures with a view of improving it. We have formed for the first time a special detective department in the constabulary force, presided over by an officer specially selected for his capacity in this line, to whom great discretion has been given in the choice of his men, and who has done, and is doing, very valuable service in this respect. The House will see that it would not be my duty to describe what exactly is being done by those detectives; but I may assure hon. Members that a great deal more is done then the public generally suppose. Though it is true, as I have already said, that, in very many cases, those detective officers cannot obtain evidence sufficient to convict the guilty parties in a court of justice, I must remind the House that bringing culprits to justice is not the only function which the constabulary detectives perform. Because, although their information is very often short on this point, they constantly afford the Government information sufficient to enable us to protect life and property in those disturbed districts to a degree of which the House is little aware. If I were to state to the House the number of cases in which, very often from information obtained through them, we have been able to protect the lives of individuals who have been threatened in the worst districts in Ireland, the House would be surprised at the length of the catalogue. It is impossible to prove that which has been prevented; but the House may be assured that however scanty the positive results of the constabulary inquiries may have been in the way of making criminals amenable to the law, yet a large amount of work has been done, which I know to be so important and meritorious, that I feel bound to protest in this House against any want of appreciation of the services rendered by the force. Such, then, as I have described, has been, I grieve to say, the state of things during the last few months in several counties of Ireland— namely, in the counties of Meath, Westmeath, and Mayo. At the present moment, of those three counties, undoubtedly the state of Mayo is the worst. I do not know that I can do better than read to the House a few sentences from the Charge of a learned Judge who has just presided over the Assizes at Mayo, which give a very lively idea of the state of that county. After lamenting the change that had occurred since the last Assizes, he uses these words—

"The county inspector's return disclosed another dangerous system which prevailed among the most primitive sections of the people. Large bodies of men assembled at night in parties numbering from 100 to 200, who went visiting the houses of the farmers, administering oaths, taking arms, and extorting money. There were thirty-five cases of that description reported by the county inspector. In one case thirty persons were sworn not to pay more than the valuation. Fifty men swore the labourers of a Mr. Kenny not to work for less than 1s. a day, and 'to be true to Ireland.' Another party came and fired shots, and warned the people not to pay toll at the market crane. They were also warned not to pay rent. Sums were levied from the people of 1s. and more in the pound. Of this class there were three cases. In all these cases the people declined to prosecute. They said these parties were unknown to them, but that the identity of all these persons was unknown appeared quite impossible. The persons so visited must have known some of them. Their refusal to identify or prosecute such persons should be ascribed to one of two causes—either they sympathized with the offence, or they were terrorized. Their sympathy might be with the refusal to pay a rent over the valuation, but their sympathy could scarcely be with persons who compelled them to pay money. He thought, in that case, the refusing or declining to prosecute could only be ascribed to the terrorism which prevailed in the county, and which cramped the administration of the law."

The learned Judge then speaks of the number of instances in which those nocturnal visits have been paid. Now, Sir, though this system of intimidation and terrorism has not for the most part been attended by any very atrocious occurrences, it is interfering to a most serious degree with the peace and happiness of families, and with all the relations of life, not only between landlord and tenant, but between all other classes of the community. This state of things has been more or less going on during the winter. In the month of January, however, it appeared to the Government that the state of things was improving. No agrarian murder had been committed since October, and there appeared to be a lull in intimidation; threatening letters were on the decline, and we hoped that possibly they might cease. They had broken out in December very actively in the county of Sligo; but there they had not only declined, but almost come to an end. We met Parliament with the hope that by the most vigorous use of the means at our command under the ordinary law we might bring this state of things to an end. That hope, like some other hopes entertained by the framers of Queen's Speeches during the last few years, has not been realized, and we find that a state of lawlessness, both agrarian and seditious, still prevails in a considerable part of Ireland. As to the causes of that state of lawlessness it is not my business to say much. It is very difficult to account fully for these outbreaks of agrarian crime; but there can be no doubt that when they once begin they are propagated by the contagion of the crime itself, and by the impunity from punishment which unfor- tunately results from the difficulty of detection. Again, there can be no doubt they have been stimulated by the violence of much that has been spoken and written during the autumn and winter— sometimes so intended, and often not so intended—and in some degree, doubtless, they are due, unavoidably due, to the excitement attending those great legislative proposals which are now before Parliament relating to questions which so vitally affect the interests, the feelings, and the passions of the lower orders of the Irish population. That is a state of things which we are bound to meet, but beyond that there is a state of lawlessness which has been greatly caused by the co-existence of Fenianism in Ireland together with agrarian crime. Fenianism, as an organization, is very different from Ribbonism and other agrarian systems; but it would be a great mistake to suppose that the pressure and action of Fenianism has not had a great effect upon the whole state of crime and lawlessness in Ireland. Although it is not now showing itself above the surface, there can be no doubt that Fenianism is still active, and determined to avail itself of any opportunity to show itself in arms against the Imperial Government. Fenianism has everywhere in Ireland enormously increased the feeling of hostility to law and authority, even where no crimes are actually committed. I am happy to say that at this moment the South of Ireland is for the most part free from actual crime, yet even there Fenianism adds greatly to the state of terror and intimidation which impedes and almost destroys the operation of the law. My conviction is that the Bill which I am about to describe to the House will have a most valuable effect in Ireland in aiding the lawful authority, not only against agrarian crime in particular districts, but also against the machinations and efforts of the Fenian conspiracy, in whatever part of Ireland it may exist. Now, Sir, I will describe to the House, as briefly as I can, the main provisions of the Bill I am about to ask leave to introduce. The provisions of the Bill apply partly to districts which are proclaimed under what was originally called the Crime and Outrage Act, but which has of late years been called the Peace Preservation Act, and partly to districts which do not come within the scope of measure. With respect to the claimed districts, the first provision relates to the possession and the use of arms—a very important matter in Ireland at this time, both in relation to agrarian crime and to seditious conspiracies. Under the present law the holding of a game licence is of itself a sufficient authority for the possession of arms, and our first proposal is that there shall no longer be such an exemption. The Government knows that this exemption has been used in Ireland for very improper purposes, and that a man, however unfit for the posession of arms, by taking out a game licence becomes entirely free from the provisions of the Peace Preservation Act. It is now provided that the mere possession of a game licence, without an ordinary licence to possess arms, shall not exempt anyone from that Act. The next provision of the Bill relates to a species of dangerous weapon—the revolver—which was not invented until after the Peace Preservation Act was passed. Unhappily, the possession and use of the revolver are increasing every day among what may be called the dangerous classes in Ireland. The Government have reason to believe that extraordinary efforts are made to procure revolvers, and many cases have come before them in which the parties, whether Fenians or members of agrarian conspiracies, were armed with such weapons. We seek to enact that an ordinary licence for arms shall not be sufficient to permit the possession of a revolver; but that the resident magistrate—who is the licencing authority—shall issue a special one in regard to that weapon, and every person who wishes to have a revolver must convince the magistrate that he is a fit and proper person to be allowed to possess one. With respect to the punishment for the unlicenced possession of arms in a proclaimed district, we propose to revert to the original provisions of the Crime and Outrage Act, as it was introduced in 1847, which have been greatly mitigated since. These provisions were that the court should have power to adjudge two years' hard labour as a maximum punishment for that offence, which punishment has since been reduced to one year without hard labour. The real character and magnitude of cases of the unlicenced possession of arms in a proclaimed district vary considerably; some- times they are very trivial, but at other times they are of a very grave nature, the persons apprehended being palpably engaged in the prosecution of some unlawful business. The next point relates to the powers of the constabulary to search for unlicenced arms in proclaimed districts—a matter which is considered by the most experienced persons to be of vital importance. At present, a search for unlicenced arms can only be made during the daytime, and then under great restrictions. The Lord Lieutenant issues his warrant in every case of individual search; this warrant is got for a certain time, but when once executed it cannot be acted upon again. It is frequently essential that the search for arms in a disturbed district should be made promptly, and by the officers who are on the spot, and we therefore propose to enable resident magistrates and county inspectors to search for arms at any hour of the day or night, under a warrant which shall be in force for three months. That is a power which, together with the system of patrolling disturbed districts by both the military and police, we believe will have an important effect towards restoring order, for it must be evident that if the patrols have the right of visiting and entering the houses of suspected characters in such a district at any hour of the day or night, the efficiency of the patrolling will be1 very greatly increased. There is also a new power given to make the present law either more effective or more clear, for the purpose of searching for documents in the houses of persons suspected of writing threatening letters. Threatening letters, we know, have been and are now the curse of these disturbed districts. Sometimes such letters are insignificant; sometimes they are formidable, and they generally cause a vast amount of alarm and disquietude in the families which receive them. The difficulty of detecting and punishing the crime of writing a threatening letter has always been very great. It has always been found to be so. To facilitate their detection and punishment we propose that there shall be a power upon information sworn to search the house and premises of any suspected party for any documents containing his handwriting which may lead to the detection of the author of the threatening letter. The next point relates to arms and ammunition in proclaimed districts, and we provide that no arms and amunition shall be sold by dealers in proclaimed districts, except to persons who are licenced to carry arms, there being no such provision at present. Then there is a proposal with respect to witnesses, which, although it is entirety free from objection will not be found without importance. At present, as most of us know, if a witness examined upon the hearing of a case where some party is charged with an offence refuses to give evidence, or plainly evades the true performance of his duty as a witness, he may be committed by the examining magistrate. But that refers only to cases in which some one is actually charged with an offence. Well, Sir, in Ireland, and especially, of course, in those proclaimed districts, it frequently happens that an outrage has taken place, perhaps, that some one is greatly suspected, but that it is impossible, at the moment, to put anyone actually into the dock, and in these cases, although the magistrate may have the best reason to believe that certain witnesses can give most valuable evidence; yet, because there is no one actually charged, it is impossible for that magistrate to exercise that due control over the conduct of those witnesses which is exercised as a matter of course whenever anyone is actually in the dock. Such control and the power of punishing a witness for improper conduct may, we think, be given as properly in one case as in the other; and it is therefore proposed to empower magistrates to examine persons on oath, even when no person is charged before them with any offences, and to deal with any witness who may misconduct himself by refusing either to give evidence or to enter into recognizances for his future appearance, according to the law which at present applies to such cases. The last point under this head relates to the question of bail as regards prisoners charged with offences under the Peace Preservation Act. At present the magistrates have no power to refuse bail, and they are bound to accept it. We believe there are cases under those Acts in which it would be right that the magistrates should have a discretion, knowing as we do that the offences under those Acts vary widely, from something that is very trifling to something that is very serious. We, therefore, give the magistrates the power, which is possessed, in so many cases, of refusing bail if they choose to refuse it. The greater portion of these provisions in respect to the possession of, and the search for, arms will apply, for the most part, to offences whether of an agrarian or a seditions character. But there are other provisions of a more special and exceptional nature that we do not propose to apply to all the proclaimed districts, but only to districts which shall be specially proclaimed for the purposes of this Act by the Lord Lieutenant, as being in a state of serious disturbance; and I hope there may not be many such. And, first, we propose to provide that if the police, acting under the orders of a justice of the peace, shall find parties out in these proclaimed districts at night—the time during which almost all these acts of terrorism with which we have now to deal are committed—if they find parties out under these suspicious circumstances they shall have the right of arresting them, of bringing them before the magistrates in petty sessions, who shall examine them, the presence of a stipendiary magistrate at the hearing being in all cases required; and if the parties shall not be able to show good reasons for having been out at night on some lawful avocations, the magistrates shall have the discretionary power of imprisoning them for a period not exceeding six months. In these specially-proclaimed districts, of which alone I am now speaking, we also provide that the Lord Lieutenant, by his warrant, shall have power to close public-houses after sunset. We believe this will be a very valuable power to be possessed by the Executive in these disturbed districts. Some of the public-houses—of course only some— are well known to be the haunts and meeting places of those who disturb the peace, and commit acts of terrorism in such districts during the hours of darkness. The next power is one which formerly existed under the general law of the land, and which, with respect to these specially-proclaimed districts only, we propose to restore—namely, that of enabling justices of the peace to call before them strangers moving about the district under suspicious circumstances, who cannot give an account of their business, and who, as we all know in Ireland, very often have no good business to account for; and the magistrates will be enabled to require such strangers to enter into recognizances to keep the peace, or else be committed to gaol until they give security I for their good behaviour. That will be under the safeguard provided in the former law—namely, that whenever such a committal occurs, the committing magistrates shall be bound to report the whole nature and circumstances of the case to the Lord Lieutenant, on whose decision it will rest whether the prisoner shall be detained or set at large. The next provision is of some importance; it enables magistrates in petty sessions, in these specially-proclaimed districts—including in all cases the resident magistrate—to deal with certain offences of a limited character in a summary manner. Our belief is, that in many of those cases, which may be called police offences, it is better to provide a class of punishment which, although small in amount, shall be speedy and certain in its operation, than to trust to a heavier punishment that is remote and uncertain. Therefore, in those cases we propose to give the magistrates in petty sessions the option of either sending for trial as usual, at quarter sessions or assizes, persons guilty of offences under the Arms Act, or of dealing with them summarily by sentencing them to imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months. These are cases in which there can hardly be any question to go before a jury, for they are generally those in which the police themselves were on the watch and have arrested the parties in the act, and there can scarcely be any doubt as to facts. The next point in respect to the speciallyproclaimed districts is one of much importance, and it is this — we propose that in those districts the Crown should have power, upon application to the Court of Queen's Bench, to change the venue for the trial of any offence committed in the district. This, of course, is not a power to be lightly used; but we believe it will have a very great effect on the state of crime and also of intimidation which at present prevails, because it is well known that among the people of a disturbed district, such as Mayo is now, what is commonly said and believed is this—that crime may be committed with impunity, because no Mayo jury will dare to convict. However that may be, it is of the utmost importance that we should show to intimidators that no amount of terrorism against jurors will be of any avail, because they will be liable to have the trial taken to a distant part of the country, where, while properly and impartially conducted, it will be free from all those undue influences. All the five provisions I have described apply not to districts ordinarily proclaimed, but to counties or parts of counties which shall be specially proclaimed for the purpose of this Act. Now, I go beyond the districts proclaimed, whether specially or generally, and come to the provisions, not numerous but important, which apply to all Ireland. The first of these relates to the sale of gunpowder and firearms. At present there are no restrictions whatever on the sale of gunpowder and firearms—a state of things scarcely consistent with what we know of the condition of Ireland, and one which we think ought not to be allowed to continue. We propose that a licence should be required for the sale of gunpowder and of firearms, and, further, that all dealers in them should make returns to the police of the number of their sales, the parties to whom they sell, and so on. The next point is a change of the general law that has been recommend by the Irish Law Officers, and which we introduce here—namely, a power to arrest absconding witnesses who have bound themselves to prosecute, but who either have absconded or are about to abscond. It has long been thought there ought to be a power to arrest such persons and prevent them from breaking their recognizances. The next provision is of some importance and interest. We propose to give to grand juries—and several grand juries have asked for it — the power to present and levy compensation upon such parts of the county as they may choose, on behalf of parties who have sustained personal injuries by agrarian outrages, or on behalf of the representatives and families of murdered persons. It is well known that powers are already possessed and are frequently exercised by Irish grand juries of an analogous kind in analogous cases. They possess power to give compensation in cases of malicious injury to property, and they also have a power, which I believe has been seldom exercised, of giving compensation to witnesses or jurors who have been injured in the execution of their duty. But we propose, in regard to persons who have been murdered or injured through agrarian crime or as the result of illegal combination and conspiracy, to give the grand jury a discretion to present and levy a compensation for the families, to be levied on such an area as they may think fit, whether that of the barony or a lesser one. Of course, all such presentments will be subject— as presentments are now, to the fiat of a Judge. Well, these last three provisions relate, as I have said, to all Ireland. I now come to another provision of far greater gravity and seriousness, which also has no local limitation in Ireland— I mean that by which we propose to deal with newspapers in that country which contain treasonable or seditious writings. Sir, we have felt that when we were endeavouring to find and propose to Parliament the means of stopping or checking disturbances and outrages, whether agrarian or seditious, in various parts of Ireland, it was impossible to separate that question from the consideration of another question—namely, the nature of those weekly publications which form the literature, too often the sole literature, of the classes from which those outrages proceed. What that literature is is well known. It is well known how it teaches and preaches in every form, with an amount of boldness and audacity varying from week to week and from month to month, hatred of the institutions and Government of the United Kingdom. It is known how that weekly literature poisons the minds of the people in Ireland who read it against all law and against the Constitution of their country. It is known how it inflames the passions of the people by rhetorical descriptions of the wrongs of other days. It is known how it makes it impossible for those who read that literature, and read none other, to know the truth with respect to public affairs and the real conduct and intentions of the Government of the country. It is well known how constantly—sometimes openly and undisguisedly, sometimes under some disguise more or less thin—it points, not to any constitutional means for the redress of what may be deemed grievances, not to any action within the law and Constitution, but to violence and civil war. We have thought that, when we were endeavouring to stop or check the flames of sedition and agrarian crime, which are smouldering or burning in certain parts of Ireland, we were bound at the same time to endeavour to cut off or check the supply of that fuel which keeps up the fire. But we may be asked —"If you object to these papers, why not prosecute them? The courts are open—why not use them?" This is a question which has been very carefully considered by Her Majesty's Government both in Ireland and here, and I can assure the House it is one surrounded by great difficulties, and that the course thus recommended is far from clear. There are two ways only in which you can prosecute such a newspaper as I have described. You may prosecute it for seditious writing or for treason-felony. With respect to prosecutions for seditious writing, we have had an experience which is by no means encouraging, because we know that under the late Government the editors of two newspapers in Dublin were so prosecuted. I am sorry the two cases were mixed up together, because there was a great difference in the course which the two newspapers had taken. However, a conviction was obtained, the editors were subjected to a punishment of the mildest kind; long before the time their sentences expired they were released upon the representations and appeals of numbers of respectable people in Dublin; and all the time their papers went on writing as they had written before, only with greater zest and vigour from the fact that their editors wore in prison. Then, with respect to treason-felony, it is well known that it is by no moans an easy or a certain thing to convict any one under the Treason-Felony Act of treason-felony proved only by written words in a newspaper, however really, substantially, and to all intents and purposes treasonable and seditious these words may be. Great ingenuity is used by these newspapers for the purpose of evading technically, and technically only, the penalties of such prosecutions. Upon a criminal trial of course every doubt is given in favour of the prisoner, convictions are uncertain, and an abortive trial of this kind is damaging to those whose duty it is to vindicate the law. Such trials ought not to be undertaken without a strong presumption that they are likely to succeed, and however clear may be the conviction of the legal Advisers of the Government that the expressions of the newspapers are really and substantially treasonable or seditious, it is very often a most difficult task to insure the punishment of the offenders. And then, when such a trial fails, it tends to give increased importance to the paper, and to add to its circulation. Again, even supposing the trial to be successful, it deals only with one particular paper; the effect does not go beyond that; and if you want to prevent this dangerous literature from being circulated among the people of Ireland the same doubtful and uncertain process has to be repeated over and over again. Now, our object is not so much to punish individuals as to stop the evil itself, and that is the end we have in view in the provisions I will state to the House. We propose in this Bill to proceed, not against the person, but against the paper—against the instrument of the treasonable, seditious, or felonious writing. That is a principle not unknown to the law of England. The law now stops publications of another kind—of a very different kind, no doubt—I mean publications of an immoral character. We propose to take powers, if Parliament will grant them, to stop any paper containing treasonable or seditious matter, or incitements to felony, or matter having a tendency to foster and propagate treason, sedition, or incitements to felony. But we ask for that power under conditions which will insure the fullest responsibility of the Government, and which, in case the Executive shall act by mistake or unjustly, will give redress to the sufferer. We propose that the Lord Lieutenant shall have power, if he considers any paper to be of the character I have described, to seize by his warrant the plant in the office in which that paper is published, and all copies of such paper, wherever they may be found. We propose that he should also have power to seize all copies of any paper of that description found in Ireland, wherever it may be printed, whether in England, America, or anywhere else out of Ireland. That being a great and responsible executive act, which we seek to enable the Lord Lieutenant to perform on his own responsibility, we propose to add provisions which will be an important and effectual chock upon the exercise of that power, and which, if need be, will afford means of redress to the party considering himself aggrieved. We propose that any person who feels aggrieved by such warrant of the Lord Lieutenant shall have a right of action against the officer executing it, shall have the right of going into court and maintaining that the seizure is illegal because the newspaper did not contain such matter as the Government described as seditious or treasonable, and the Crown will then have to prove that the newspaper did contain such matter. That issue may go to a jury, and if the jury shall find for the Crown of course there will be an end of the affair; but if the jury shall find that the newspaper did not contain such matter, the Crown will be bound to pay to the person aggrieved such damages as the jury may assess. These are the means which we propose for putting a check upon treasonable or seditious writing, and they are such as, while giving a great and important power to the Executive to be exercised under the gravest responsibility, will at the same time increase that responsibility by the necessity of the Government appearing, if called upon, in open court to justify by evidence the course they have taken, and if the Government have acted by mistake or unjustly will give ample redress. That, we believe, will be a power effectual for its purpose, and at the same time we are convinced it will not interfere with any newspaper in Ireland which does not choose to take the illegal course which will bring it under the operation of the Act. All newspapers, no matter of what complexion of politics, no matter how extreme the opinions of their editors may be, as long as they keep within the bounds of legal and loyal discussion, will be entirely free from any danger or risk from the operation of these provisions. And that newspapers themselves are capable of seeing the case in that light—as I have the greatest confidence most newspapers will, as they will be entirely unaffected by these provisions—I have had proof this very day, because I met this morning, in one of the most respectable journals published in the north of Ireland, a passage which bears out that view, and which I will read to the House. This is the passage—

"There can be no doubt that never in the history of journalism has the liberty of the Press been so grossly abused as by some so-called Nationalist, but really Fenian newspapers. They have hesitated at no misrepresentation, at no lying, in order to bring the Government into disrepute. They openly trade in sedition. Such newspapers, and they are very well known, have no right to appeal to that liberty of the Press which they so grossly abuse. If any means can be devised for checking effectually their licentiousness, while in no respect trenching on the limits of fair discussion, we have no hesitation in saying that such means the Government will be quite justified in employing. Those newspapers display the very worst faults of the Irish character. They appeal, not to the patriotism and intelligence of the people, but to their narrow prejudices, their evil passions, and their ignorance. They regard every means as fair by which the Government can be run down; and they are addressed to readers who peruse nothing else, and have no opportunity of correcting their base misrepresentations. Those journals will, of course, denounce 'the tyranny of the English Government' for interfering with their trade; but as they have always been declaiming against 'English tyranny' in the most violent language, they cannot say worse than they have done before, or than they would say if they were permitted to continue unmolested their evil work. We have long been convinced that if no other measures of repression were required, yet the extreme national papers ought not to be permitted to disseminate sedition with impunity."

["Name."] The Northern Whig. That shows the view taken by a Liberal newspaper editor of provisions which he sees have no concern with him or any other editor who keeps within the bounds of law and loyalty. That is the view taken by Her Majesty's Government, and these are the provisions of the measure which we have to ask leave to bring in. We believe that the provisions I have described will be effectual for their purpose, because we hold them to be directly adapted to the ends in view. It is easy enough to propose strong and violent measures; but unless they are adapted to the object in view they are of little avail. With respect, then, both to the disturbed districts now suffering from intimidation and terrorism, which is the parent of agrarian crime, and also to the Press—and there is but a small number of Irish organs which foster not only that crime, but all sedition and everything opposed to law and order—we believe that the proposals which we make will be effectual. I know very well it will be asked, as it has been asked, why the Government did not come to Parliament for another power—namely, the power which has been exercised more than once of late years, of suspending the Habeas Corpus in Ireland. If such a proposal had been made to Parliament it would, under the circumstances, have been made for the first time in the history of this country, because no Minister has ever yet asked Parliament to suspend the Habeas Corpus on account of agrarian crimes. Therefore, we have felt it our duty, under existing circumstances, to propose a measure to Parliament which does not contain that grave and, for the present purpose, unprecedented departure from the Constitution. We know, moreover, that Parliament is sitting, and will be sitting for months to come; and we know that if an absolute necessity arose for such a measure, Parliament would grant it at once on the application of the responsible Minister of the Crown. And we know, further, that it would be granted with the greater unanimity, and the greater moral effect, if it wore evidently unavoidable, and as a matter of the last necessity. Under the circumstances, I think the measure which is recommended to the House is sufficiently stringent, and for the present Her Majesty's Government will refrain from proposing a renewed suspension of the Habeas Corpus in Ireland. Our object is to restore peace, confidence, and tranquillity in the disturbed districts of Ireland, and we believe that the means proposed will be effectual in securing that end. The Bill will, of course, be for a limited time. Before I sit down, let me say, Sir, that Her Majesty's Government deeply regret being compelled to propose to Parliament an exceptional measure of this kind; but that, at the same time, we make the proposition without the slightest doubt or hesitation as to its necessity. I must be permitted also to express the great consolation I have in knowing that this is not the only measure the Government has in the course of this year and the last proposed in relation to Ireland. We have proposed other measures which we believed, and still believe, with unfaltering confidence, will restore peace, tranquillity, and loyalty to that country; but, as things now are, we think it our duty to recommend to Parliament a measure of temporary repression in order that law and order may be maintained, and an end may be put to the state of anarchy which prevails in some districts of Ireland. This Bill, if passed, will be temporary in its operation; but the great measures to which I have referred will, in their effects, be lasting and permanent. The Government have thought it their clear duty to propose this Bill; and, as its introducer, and as an Irish representative, I may be permitted, while expressing the strongest hope that it will to effec- tual for its purpose, to say that I have now performed a task which I believe to be one not merely of policy, but of patriotism. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in the Bill.

said, he was glad that the Government had realized the remark he made a few evenings back on the subject of their duty in reference to Ireland. No more melancholy duty could have devolved upon a Member of that House than to listen to the sad record of the state of Ireland that had been given by his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary; for, though the number of offences that had been committed might not be so great as in former times, the state of the country, considering the advanced civilization of the present day, must be admitted to be worse than it had ever been. He thought a great many Gentlemen on his side of the House would admit that the Government had, under existing circumstances, taken the right course in not proposing again to suspend the Habeas Corpus in Ireland, for he was convinced that if the Constitution of a country were frequently suspended that country would, in a short time, have no Constitution at all. He regretted that it had been the duty of the late Government on two occasions to move the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, but under totally different circumstances. He must be permitted to express his opinion that his right hon. Friend had not done perfect justice to the Irish constabulary in the remarks he made on the difficulty of obtaining evidence in criminal trials. The condition of the two countries was so different that he did not think it would be possible in Ireland to form a force that would effectually perform the duties devolving on the detective police in England. His right hon. Friend had talked about Ribbonism and Fenianism, but he had omitted one thing which had been a great cause of outrages in Ireland— namely, the extraordinary expectations that had been held out to the Irish people by right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Ministerial Benches. This being so, he was convinced that if what had been stated that evening by his right hon. Friend had been said six months ago by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government many persons now dead might have been still living ["Oh, oh!"] He did not mean to say hat anything said by the Prime Minister had produced the outrages to which he referred; but that his words had on several occasions been grossly misreported and exaggerated, and that up to the present time there did not exist a real belief that the Government were determined to preserve the security of life and property in Ireland. He would make but few remarks upon the means that had been proposed by the Chief Secretary for remedying the existing state of things. He would just suggest that if the provision with regard to the apprehension of strangers were maintained in the form proposed, the position of tourists in Ireland would in future be rather uncomfortable. Leaving this point, there was one clause in the proposed Act which he thought a very good one; he alluded to the provision that grand juries should have conferred on them the power of compensating the relatives of murdered persons, and of awarding compensation for property destroyed by agrarian crime. But he thought it would be a dangerous principle to confer on grand juries only all the power to assess damage. It was contrary to the principle on which other kinds of compensation were granted, and, further, he thought, grand juries would not like to take such a grave responsibility upon themselves. With regard to the Irish newspapers, he thought no one could doubt the propriety of attempting to put an end to the almost incalculable mischief some of them were doing. But what was required most of all to remedy the existing state of things in Ireland was a few good honest convictions of guilty criminals. They did not require more stringent laws so much as that those already in existence should be rigidly enforced. If jurors could agree to bring in a plain verdict, and a criminal was properly convicted, the people would soon see that they must obey the law. But jurors could, as matters now were, scarcely be expected to convict, and he thought that the Scotch jury system might be advantageously applied to Ireland. There a conviction by nine out of twelve was sufficient. [An hon. MEMBER: A majority.] If two or three of the jury were allowed to disagree, and the verdict of the majority could be taken, it would be a satisfactory verdict, and timid jurors would have a loop-hole of escape. He believed the most effective cure for the disorders which prevailed would be a declaration by the Prime Minister of his determination to uphold the law. He sincerely hoped that the result of the action now being taken would be as satisfactory as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland anticipated.

said, he knew of nothing more degrading than that, at this period of the world's history, the Government of Great Britain should have to introduce a Coercion Bill for the Irish portion of her Empire. It was a sad reflection, that, after 700 years of rule, the English Government had nothing to rely upon but a measure to deprive the people of their privileges. The Government, in introducing this measure, had undertaken a very serious task, which might result in good effects or in bad results. The Bill was based on the ground that life and property were not secure. He had no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland desired to do well by Ireland; but he was afraid that he had not taken the right course. He seemed to have forgotten that there had been a Peace Preservation Act in existence for many years, which had failed to produce the good effects expected of it. They had also a Crime and. Outrage Act, than which none had ever tended more to demoralize the people, and render them discontented and unhappy. He spoke as a grand juror of five-and-thirty years' standing; he had known a great number of cases brought before the grand jury of which seventy in 100 were fictitious. If the right hon. Gentleman persisted in giving power to the grand juries to compensate the families of persons injured or assassinated, he would commit a great mistake, for grand juries would have no means of ascertaining whether a case was trumped up or not. Nine out of ten persons on a grand jury were incapable of forming an opinion upon the evidence which would be brought before them. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would find some other channel through which compensation might be awarded.

said, he hoped the provisions of the measure sketched by the Chief Secretary would not be discussed until hon. Members had had an opportunity of examining the printed Bill; and he rose simply to inquire when it was intended to proceed with the measure. It would be expected that a Bill of this kind would be proceeded with as soon as possible, and he presumed that an early day would be named for the second reading.

entirely sympathized with the pain expressed by the Chief Secretary in the duty imposed upon him of proposing this exceptional legislation; but, at the same time, it was impossible to read the daily record of crime in Ireland appearing in the newspapers, and especially was it impossible to read the Charges of the Judges now on circuit in Ireland, without feeling it was the imperative duty of the Government to ask for sufficient power to enable them to perform the first duty of a Government—namely, to maintain order and preserve the lives and property of loyal subjects against outrage such as that now prevailing in Ireland. He rose chiefly to say he entirely agreed with the opinion expressed by his right hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire (Colonel Wilson-Patten), that it would be most undesirable to criticize any of the details of the measure proposed by his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, or even to express any opinion now as to the provisions of the Bill; for he was sure, notwithstanding the full statement he had made, the House could not form a correct judgment of those provisions until it had seen the Bill in print. He had no doubt the Government intended to proceed with the measure on an early day; and the House, having examined into the merits of the Bill, would, he was sure, discuss it with an earnest desire to give the Government those powers which were absolutely necessary to enable them to perform the duty which the country had for some time called on them to discharge.

said, he was obliged to protest against a measure which he deemed entirely inadequate to the emergency. He had acted as a magistrate now for a considerable number of years, and he had never known the local magistrates either sluggish or fearful in the discharge of their duty, and he had known many instances of great energy on the part of the police in bringing crime to light, under circumstances of very great difficulty. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland that he and his bro- ther magistrates in the county which he had the honour to represent would endeavour to support him in rendering the law effective. If Ireland was to be reduced to order, the work must be done through the local magistrates alone; they were well known to the people, and their action in the interest of peace and order would not be regarded as extraordinary. He had never known a magistrate suffer in purse or person through official activity or determination to do his duty. Ireland could not always be governed by a beaureaucracy—she had been governed so too long. The magistrates of Donegal wished the Government to take more prompt and energetic measures to put a stop to the fearful increase of crime which, if suffered to continue, must end in the total disruption of society and the ruin of the country. In a resolution which they had recently passed, they stated their opinion to be that the Habeas Corpus Act ought to be immediately suspended, and that extra powers should be given to the magistrates, and to the constabulary, to enter and search suspected places for arms, documents, and persons; that their number should be increased, and that they should assume more of a detective character. The magistrates in that part of Ireland were thrown upon their own resources. They seldom applied for extraneous powers. They relied upon the constabulary in their own county, and had at present only the number to which by law they were entitled. If the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended he should have no fear of the increase of crime and outrage. The right hon. Gentleman had mentioned Mayo, Meath, and Westmeath, but omitted to mention Tipperary. [Mr. CHICHESTER, FORTESCUE said there was no agrarian outrage in Tipperary.] He believed that not only was there a formidable conspiracy against life and property in Tipperary, but that the nucleus existed there of the conspiracy which prevailed throughout Ireland. Who was "Rory of the Hills," of whom they heard so much? He was very much mistaken if he would not be found in Tipperary. If the Habeas Corpus Act were not suspended he would very soon be found roaring elsewhere. It was idle to talk of the Constitution when neither life nor property were secure. The Government was always legislating for Ireland in a hurry, and of all the bugbears the most absurd was to be crying "Peace, peace," when there was no peace. The right hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Horsman) rightly jeered at the idea of an Irish landlord having any rights at all. If he had not the right to live, what was the use of any other rights? His first right was protection, and that should be of primary consideration by the Government. During the last twenty years a number of measures, called by all sorts of names, had been introduced similar to that the Chief Secretary had foreshadowed that night, but they had none of them proved beneficial. A state of terrorism had seized the vast majority of the people of Ireland, and, as the Solicitor General for Ireland well knew, they were not the gentry, who lived in good houses and surrounded by dependents, or men in towns, who were protected by the police, but the county farmer, who could not leave his small homestead without the risk of being surrounded by a gang of ruffians, who imposed upon him an illegal oath, and afterwards invaded his fireside. That was the man who required protection in Ireland. He (Mr. Conolly) was not afraid. Why should he be? But it was the farmer who lived in the mountain districts, and who dared not speak above his breath, that required protection. If the Habeas Corpus Act were to be suspended, the magistrates and the police would be perfectly capable of maintaining order. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister might smile, but it was so; and he had risen thus early in the debate in order to impress on the Government who had done so much, and who were striving by their Land Bill, which he supported, to do more, to produce peace in Ireland the desirability of their reconsidering the question of suspending the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. Life and property—and, above all, life—must be protected in that country, and to effect that a straightforward, positive, and downright measure was necessary. They had no right to palter with the conspiracy that existed in Ireland; and although the right hon. Gentleman in his statement had abstained from using the word conspiracy, there was no doubt that a formidable one existed in Ireland. Who was Rory of the Hills, and where do all these evil documents that have been referred to come from? The learned Solicitor General for Ireland knows very well. A similar state of things to the present existed in Ireland about twenty-five years ago, and when one of the confederates was detected, and at last hanged, it turned out that he was at the bottom of the confederacy that had kept the whole of Ireland in a state of perturbation for some time, and put the Government to their wits' ends, and that he was a wretched individual, with a mind and body mentally and physically distorted. And when the present conspiracy was revealed, as it would assuredly be some day, they would find they had been trembling before some wretch behind the desk of a National School. If the Habeas Corpus Act were to be suspended tomorrow their friend Rory of the Hills would cease to exist, and they would hear no more of his nonsense. No acting magistrate would permit marauding parties to go about if he could put his finger upon them. Give the magistrates the power, and they would soon secure peace in Ireland. He approved of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, because it had been called the Policeman's Requirement Act. It gave the police a reality which they did not at present possess, and if they were to give them the power they would very speedily arrest certain leaders well known to them all over Ireland, and then the conspiracy would burst like a cloud of smoke, and nothing more would be heard of outrages such as had of late been committed.

said, he collected from the Chief Secretary's statement that additional powers were to be given to the magistrates in Ireland, and it occurred to him that before they enlarged those powers there should be a revision of that body. Without intending to cast any imputation upon them, he must say it was well known that they did not, as a body, command the general respect of the people. What was the constitution of the body? Although the Lord Chancellor might have some control the Government were not responsible for the magistracy. They were appointed by the particular nobleman or gentleman who happened to be Lord Lieutenant of the county, who, it was well known, owed his own appointment to the political services he was supposed to have rendered to his party. To him was intrusted the constitution of the magis- tracy, and under the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the largest possible powers wore given to the magistracy. He did not rise to oppose the introduction of the Bill. Far be it from him to say that the Government would idly bring in a measure which they did not think necessary for the protection of life and property; but the House should not act under a kind of panic as to the amount of crime existing in Ireland. When the Coercion Bill of 1833 was brought in there had been in the previous year, in the Province of Leinster alone no fewer than 163 murders, and the expression Sir Robert Peel used was—"with less expenditure of British blood we rolled back the fiery torrent of French valour at Busaco." However outrageous might have been the conduct of the political conspirators, and however badly they might have acted towards the Crown, no assassinations could be imputed to them except those of members of their own order, who they believed had betrayed them. He had little faith in coercive measures as a means of putting down crime hi Ireland. The only way of securing that result was by creating between the gentry and the people of Ireland a mutual interest, without which all measures brought forward with coercive intention would be as futile as many of those that had been introduced into the House.

said, this Bill was entitled a Bill for the Preservation of Peace in Ireland. The Government had chosen that milder title for their Bill from the Act of 1856 in preference to that of the Act of 1847, which was entitled An Act for the Repression of Crime and Outrage in Ireland. The Act of 1856 was, however, a mere reproduction, with certain modifications, of the Crime and Outrage Act of 1847; and the object of the present Bill was the repression of agrarian crime. Now, he would not charge the Government with having created agrarian crime in Ireland; but, certainly, the speeches of certain Members of the Government had fostered that description of outrage. They had described landlords as "felonious;" they had asserted that "land" in Ireland ought to be "free;" they had spoken of destroying the second branch of the Upas tree of Protestant ascendancy. It was language such as this that had nerved the hand of the assassin, anxious to get by a short cut to the land he so much coveted. Was this a Bill, he asked, framed in accordance with Irish ideas? Since the last General Election the Government had introduced three Bills, which, in order to carry out, their avowed policy, should have been framed in accordance with Irish ideas. First, there was the Irish Church Bill; had it been framed in accordance with Irish ideas? An Irish Roman Catholic Member had informed him that that Bill was a hard, iron, mathematical measure, utterly unsuited to the genius of the Irish people." With respect to the Irish Land Bill, the Prime Minister was fortunately in leading strings. He numbered several English and Scotch landlords among his supporters, and, therefore, that measure had not been framed in accordance with Irish ideas. The present Bill was a penal measure. The Tories had been charged with having originated penal legislation for Ireland; but the penal laws wore passed by the Whigs and not by the Tories, and the present Government, in introducing the present Bill, was only following out their old party political traditions. The Bill violated the conscientious convictions of hon. Members opposite, because it destroyed the freedom of the Press. The Prime Minister, when he introduced his Land Bill, informed the House that the distinguished foreigner approved of his policy. With what effusion would the distinguished foreigner cast himself upon the breast of the right hon. Gentleman, and congratulate him upon this measure, which proposed to establish a system of police night espionage over the people of Ireland? On the second reading of the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman would, no doubt, produce autograph letters from all the European Potentates congratulating him on his having assimilated Irish legislation to that adopted on the Continent. The measure proposed to give compensation to those who suffered from outrages in Ireland—that was to say, those who sustained the outrages would, more Hibernico, have to compensate themselves, provided the Land Bill passed. [Mr. GLADSTONE made a gesture of dissent.] The right hon. Gentleman did not agree with him; but if he would look at the 63rd section of the Land Bill, he would see that landlords of tenancies from year to year, valued at or Tinder £4 per annum, were rendered liable to pay the grand jury cess, although the tenants had taken their holdings subject to the payment of the tax. The hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. Conolly) had ventured to suggest to the Government that the Habeas Corpus Act should be again suspended in Ireland; but for very shame the Government could not propose it, because their only claim to power was that they had undertaken to govern that country without having recourse to such a step. That course would, however, eventually have to be taken before the pacification of Ireland was attained. By passing the Irish Church Bill the Government grossly violated the Constitution, and they could not be surprised if the Irish people bettered their instruction. The Government dangled £16,000,000 of property, which they had no right to touch, before the eyes of the people of that country; and they must not be surprised that they had whetted the appetite of the Irish people for plunder. What had been the language of the Government and their supporters with respect to the legislation of the past Session? The Chief Secretary for Ireland said, last year, that the Irish Church Bill was one of the greatest acts of wisdom and justice over adopted, and that an era of constantly-increasing peace, prosperity, and concord in Ireland must date from that great historic event. He had been amused at hearing that right hon. Gentleman use almost similar terms with regard to the Irish Land Bill that night, which he said was to restore peace and loyalty to Ireland! The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had declared that, when the Irish Church Bill became law, everyone would be conscious that a change had begun to pass over the moral atmosphere of Ireland; and so it had; but he put it to that right hon. Gentleman's conscience whether that change had been for the better or for the worse. Again, the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Miall) stated that that Bill would produce harmony and social confidence among the Irish people. The hon. Member for Kilkenny (Sir John Gray) had declared that the Irish Church Bill would heal the wounds of centuries and prepare the way for securing peace, prosperity, and unity among all classes of his country- men. But the fact was that, after all, the Government had not a single friend in Ireland except the parti prêtre. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Tipperary (Mr. Heron) was defeated by the Fenians single-handed; on the second election he was returned only by the skin of his teeth, and his first act in that House was to vote against the Government Land Bill! The tendency of the passing of the Irish Church Bill had been to make Irish Conservatives sympathize with the National party. With respect to the coercive measures that were to be used against the Press, he was afraid they would injuriously affect newspapers which formerly were the representatives of Conservative policy, but which now extended their sympathies to the National party. The present Irish Executive was the feeblest in the world. It was strong only for evil, and struck terror only into the hearts of loyal men. It had plucked from its socket one of the choicest jewels of the Crown—the Royal supremacy—and had cast it before the Fenian swine; and it was then surprised that they turned to rend their would-be benefactors. Every sin contained within itself the germ of its own punishment. The Irish Church Act of last Session was a national sin, and it was now bearing its evil fruits. The Prime Minister last Session declared that in religious equality there was a potency of charm for healing political and social wounds, and for creating that concord which is the strength and glory of a nation. Religious equality might be fair and beautiful to outward seeming; but, on closer inspection, it proves, like the Dead Sea fruit, to be but dust and ashes after all.

Sir, I have no doubt that the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just spoken thoroughly believes in the relevancy of the speech he has delivered to the question which is now before the House; and he will perhaps believe me when I say that it is rather our misfortune than our fault that we have failed to perceive it. I hope, Sir, that the hon. and learned Member will compassionate us for the necessity which makes us dull, and will be somewhat consoled by the fact that there were portions of his speech which would require no ordinary mind and genius to have appreciated. Sir, the hon. and learned Member has repeated the charge brought against us by the hon. Member for Londonderry (Sir Frederick W. Heygate); but unlike the hon. Member for Londonderry, who has retired to occupy himself more agreeably, he has waited in his place to hear the reply. The charge to which I allude is, that the present condition of Ireland is to be traced to the conduct of Her Majesty's Ministers. That, Sir, is one of the heaviest charges which can be preferred against any person holding a public office. It is, I own, perfectly competent and right for any Member of the House to prefer such a charge if he thinks there is ground for so doing; but it is his duty if he does so to specify the grounds upon which he makes it. He ought not in a case of this kind to content himself with vague allegations. What is the language by which the hon. and learned Member thinks proper to excite well-minded persons in Ireland to act contrary to the law? He says the crime and outrage of Ireland is due to my having used language calculated to convey the idea that the second branch of the Upas tree of Protestant ascendancy was to be cut down. That, the hon. and learned Member thinks, has been the cause of threatening letters, of armed parties at night, of extorted oaths, of firing at persons, and of actual murder in Ireland. It is impossible to say, even under the colour of the stalest metaphor ever known, that Protestant ascendancy cannot be put down by legal means without leading to the perpetration of all those crimes. I am quite sure the good sense of the hon. and learned Gentleman will prevent him from repeating any such a statement in this House, and that it is owing to a complete misconception that he has made the statement at all. However, if it is to be argued, let the natural connection be shown between the words and the consequences he imputes; and, by the way, I must say that if his speeches are to be meted by the same measure and followed by the same results which he ascribes to mine, we may expect rebellions and civil war as a consequence of the very speech he has delivered to-night. I do not so estimate it; but to be consistent the hon. and learned Member must. Reference has been made to a slight omission made by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland with reference to the compensation to be given in certain cases to persons the objects of outrage. It is not proposed to pay this compensation out of the county cess, but out of a fund especially levied for the purpose. The hon. Gentleman will see that the point of his remark will not be applicable to a provision framed in this manner. This error is, of course, the natural consequence of discussing a measure not actually in the hands of Members, and I think both my right hon. Friends the Members for Morpeth and North Lancashire (Sir George Grey and Colonel Wilson-Patten) justly appreciated the situation when they recommended that criticism on the provisions of the Bill should be reserved until the Bill was printed. Of course, the adoption of this course does not pledge hon. Gentlemen to an approval of any of the subsequent stages. The Bill will, I hope, be circulated to-morrow; and, as a measure of this kind requires to be dealt with expeditiously, we propose that the Motion for its second reading should be taken on Monday next, and that it should be afterwards pushed forward with all possible expedition. The hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Brady) has animadverted upon my right hon. Friend for declaring that the grand jury would be the party who were to award the compensations. That, Sir, I may say, is a point that is open to re-consideration, inasmuch as much difference of opinion prevails with respect to it. But the option really lies between this duty being discharged by the grand jury and the central Executive. As far as we are concerned I repeat that this is a matter for re-consideration, our sole desire being to frame a measure which shall prove most effective. The hon. Member for Londonderry (Sir Frederick W. Heygate) has given it as his deliberate opinion, that, although the state of Ireland calls for repressive measures, it does not call for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. That, Sir, is a measure of the last necessity, to which we may at any tune be compelled to resort should circumstances reach such a state as to call for or require it. But, Sir, it is not a measure to be adopted unless under the most stringent necessity. It is one of those strong applications, something like alcohol, which may communicate a sense of comfort at the time, but lays up disease for the future. It ought only to be applied in cases of apprehended outbreak or civil war. It is very easy to say "imprison all persons who are suspected of crimes;" but how can we tell how fast these people may be multiplied, or how fast persons may be found to take the place of those who may be said to be the principal agents and promoters of such crimes? And how, moreover, are you to get over the increasing difficulty from the natural repugnance in the minds of the people of this country to any system which involves the total suppression of the ordinary laws which give security to life and property? These things make it the duty of the Government not to arrive at a fixed resolution under no circumstances to propose the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, but to postpone to the very last the adoption of a remedy so full of objections as well as of difficulty as that undoubtedly would be. But the hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. Conolly) seems to have invented a new description of suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, for he says—"Only give us, the local magistrates, the power of arresting suspected persons; we know who are the rogues all over the country, and we will put them in prison in no time." The hon. Gentleman really supposes that when the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended it is not the Executive Government alone that is armed with extraordinary powers, but that every one who wrote "J.P." after his name throughout the country is able to imprison at discretion. I have no doubt the hon. Member would exercise that power with all the kindness and temper which distinguishes him in this House; but we should be very scrupulous about giving such a power as that to magistrates, even if the Habeas Corpus Act were suspended. The hon. Member for Londonderry wished for some firm declaration from me with regard to the duty imposed on a Government of preserving peace and order. There is one form of declaration which is more solemn and more authoritative than anything which Ministers can say, and that is a declaration conveyed in the Speech from the Throne. The Speech delivered from the Throne at the commencement of the present Session recognized in the strongest terms the duty the hon. Gentleman thinks we ought to have more largely and frequently declared in our own speeches. I am of opinion that he overrates the effect which is produced by showing a disposition constantly to revert to the use of threats and declarations as to what we may do in certain contingencies, though on certain grave occasions like the present our words ought to be well weighed and the blow ought to come soon and sharply after the words. The hon. Member for Londonderry also said he wished the Government would propose to alter the present law which requires the unanimity of a jury before a conviction. Well, Her Majesty's Government have thought of that very much, and the conclusion at which they arrived, was, that it might be a subject well deserving consideration, but that it was not one which it was desirable to treat with reference to Ireland alone, or as one of the provisions of a stringent repressive measure the duration of which will be only temporary. The first and the conclusive reason for not introducing any such provision into a Bill of this nature was that it really would imply a degree of censure and a stigma upon Irish juries which, looking at the history of the last few years, we think would be radically and essentially unjust. If, therefore, the question be a fair one to raise, it is, in our judgment, totally unfit to be associated with a Bill of this description. The hon. Member for the King's County (Sir Patrick O'Brien) spoke of a disposition in this county to get into a panic with reference to matters of this kind; but I must say that we have endeavoured to resist anything like a sentiment of panic. We have thought it our duty to resist the pressure of what might be called public opinion as conveyed through the Press, and we have withheld the proposal just made by my right hon. Friend till the moment arrived when our duty absolutely required us to make it. The pain expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Leitrim (Mr. Brady) at the introduction of such a Bill as this is a pain in which we must all share; but the question, after all, is whether the measure is required by the circumstances and is adapted to the circumstances. It ought to trespass neither in falling short nor in excess, and the question whether it does trespass in either of those respects can hardly be considered at large on the present occasion; and therefore, although I thought it my duty, in due respect to hon. Members, to notice the particular remarks which have been made in the short discussion this evening, I think hon. Members will be of opinion that a general review of the Bill had better be reserved, as has been suggested by several Gentlemen of weight and authority on both sides of the House, till the measure has been printed and placed in the hands of Members, when, of course, it will be again brought under the consideration of the House.

, as an Irish Member who had given an independent support to the present Government, rose to express his dissent from many of the provisions of the Bill as shadowed forth in the speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. In particular, he objected to the power proposed to be given to magistrates of convicting and imprisoning for six months all persons found abroad in the night time who were unable to give reasons which the magistrates might deem satisfactory for being absent from their homes. He maintained that such powers ought not to be vested in the hands of the magistrates. The present Government bad been fifteen months in power, and more than one person in high office had expressed the opinion that the present state of the magistracy of Ireland was a disgrace to the country, and yet the Government had not taken any steps for revising the list of the magistracy. In his own county, for instance, out of fifty-seven magistrates there were only twelve Roman Catholics, although nine-tenths of the people were of that religion, and five-sixths of the property belonged to them. He objected also to the provision which gave power to the magistrates of Ireland to take up and imprison at discretion any person whom they might choose to suspect; and he warned the Government that if that clause were allowed to pass it would evoke a cry of reprobation from every honest heart in Ireland. He would reserve his remarks as to the proposal respecting the Press until the second reading, merely remarking now that it amounted to an abrogation of all laws on the subject.

said, that as it was proposed to read this Bill a second time on Monday, he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman intended to go into Committee on the Irish Land Bill on that day?

Not at an inconvenient hour.

said, in Monaghan, out of sixty-two magistrates, there were only two Roman Catholics, and they were absentees, while the deputy lieutenants were to a man Protestant. He protested against vesting such powers in the hands of the magistracy as the Bill proposed. He also objected to persons who were abroad at night being liable to arrest. As to the Press, he pointed out that Irish juries had hitherto properly discharged their duties when legal proceedings had been taken against newspapers, and in proof of this assertion he need only refer to the prosecutions instituted against the Nation and the Irishman.

said, no Irishman could object to stringent measures being taken for putting an end to crimes and outrages in Ireland, and he, for one, should not oppose any reasonable proposal for attaining that object. He thought, however, that the Bill contained many most unreasonable proposals which the House ought not to sanction, as they had never been heard of in the most repressive Bill ever devised. Where no man was accused the magistrate might seize on any individual, and on his refusal to give general information or proper evidence, he was exposed to the penalty of finding bail or going to prison. That provision seemed to him most objectionable. Another was what was proposed to be done with the Press. Licentious conduct on the part of the Press ought certainly to be put down, but their freedom of discussion ought not to be injured. The Bill did not sufficiently define sedition, but left that duty to the conscience of the Lord Lieutenant, who, at his pleasure, could seize the property of a newspaper, or suppress it altogether, leaving the proprietor to bring an action against the Crown. What chance would an unfortunate proprietor of a newspaper, who might have invested a large sum of money in his establishment, have of recovering damages before a jury against the Crown, with the power which it possessed of changing the venue and rejecting from the jury list any person whom it might please. The proposal relating to the Press, then, was one which, in his opinion, was not consistent with the character of the Government, or one which ought to be adopted by the House. Complaints had been made of the difficulty of securing successful prosecutions against the Press; but in all his experience of Ireland he did not remember one failure of such a prosecution. The prosecutions of the Nation and the Irishman had been mentioned. In both, juries did their duty by convicting, and if the parties did not receive sufficient punishment that was the fault of the Judge who sentenced them, or of the Government who afterwards remitted the sentences, and allowed men to go free. Had any reasonable argument been advanced which should induce hon. Gentlemen to consent to a Bill not providing for requisite prosecutions before proper tribunals, but giving the Lord Lieutenant liberty, upon mere imagination, to say of any newspaper proprietor—"This man is guilty, and I will bring him to total ruin!" He wished to enter his protest against the portions of the Bill to which he had alluded. So far as the suppression of crime, the protection of property and life, and the provision of ample security for the peace of the country went, he would willingly support the measure, but he would not give his assent to these obnoxious clauses.

said, he would not enter into the details of the Bill; but inasmuch as it was not to be read a second time till Monday next, and misapprehension as to its scope might arise meanwhile in the minds of the Irish people, he thought it right to say a few words as to the general provisions which the Bill would be found to contain when it came into the hands of hon. Members. Many of the observations made in the course of the debate arose from a misunderstanding of the language used by the right hon. Gentleman who introduced this measure; and therefore he would briefly explain its nature in order to prevent any misconception on the part of hon. Members, or the constituencies of Ireland, whom it was most important to regard in a discussion of this kind. The Bill dealt with Ireland generally, with proclaimed districts, and with districts specially proclaimed by the Lord Lieutenant. It would enact that in proclaimed districts a person having a game licence should not therefore be entitled to carry arms, but must have a licence specially for that purpose. There was a provision for the execution of warrants to search for arms by day or night, and another provision with regard to persons dealing in gunpowder to which he need not now refer. There were also provisions in the Bill with respect to White boy offences, directing that in order to convict in such cases it need not be proved that the country was in a state of insurrection. No hon. Gentleman could object to that. With regard to a clause which had been objected to by the hon. Member for Kilkenny (Sir John Gray), he thought his objection to it would be removed when he understood the real point of the clause. There was, at present, no power to deal with a witness in the way which justice required when there was no defendant, so to speak, before the Court. This Bill only proposed to give the same power to a petty session court to deal with a witness when a crime had been committed, though the accused was not present, as it now had when the accused was before the court. No additional power was granted. There was another provision in the Bill for searching the houses of persons for documents, on an information in writing, which was to be sworn to, and that was a proposal to which he was sure nobody could object. With respect to the arrest of persons under suspicious circumstancse, it was only in the proclaimed districts that that course of proceeding was to be resorted to, where, in addition to the ordinary proclamation, a second had been issued by the Lord Lieutenant, and the House might rest satisfied that the Executive Government would not issue such proclamation unless there were good grounds for doing so. As to the clause relating to the arrest of persons moving about at night under suspicious circumstances, it created no new precedent, inasmuch as it was taken from a previous Bill. The power to arrest strangers was also taken out of a Bill that had worked well in former days, and it would do so now if properly administered. There was one point in the Bill which, no doubt, required considerable attention, and that was the part giving the power of summary jurisdiction. He was asked now to say the magistracy was in a satisfactory state. He would not say that the magistracy of Ireland was in an altogether satisfactory state. Those who knew him would, he ventured to flatter himself, not suppose that he was going to change his nature, and say that which he did not believe to be the case, be- cause he happened to sit on the Treassury Bench. He must, however, maintain that the special provisions with respect to summary jurisdiction were absolutely necessary if the operation of the Bill were to effect any good. It was proposed to give summary jurisdiction to magistrates in the case of persons guilty of White boy offences. Persons found out at night disguised, and with a band of armed men, would receive under that jurisdiction six months' imprisonment with hard labour; and if they did not like that they could get seven years' penal servitude. The summary jurisdiction might also be exercised when a person committed a breach of the Aims Act; but no man could be dealt with in that way unless arms were found upon him or in his house, and the magistrate, instead of sending him to the Assizes to get two years' imprisonment, might sentence him to six months' imprisonment at the petty sessions. That provision only applied to one other class of cases—namely, those under the statute of George III., prohibiting persons from meeting together for the purpose of being trained or drilled to the use of arms. If for such offences they got six months' hard labour, instead of transportation or penal servitude for fourteen years, he thought a boon would be conferred upon them, while, at the same time, the ends of justice would be satisfied. Those were the only instances in which it was proposed by the Bill to suspend trial by jury, and his hon. Friends below the Gangway would, he thought, find that they were more frightened than hurt by its provisions. If these measures were properly administered, with due regard to justice and law, he believed that they would be very beneficial in securing the well-being of the country; for nothing could be more important than rapidity and decision in such matters. When persons were taken in the act of breaking the law they should be punished as speedily as possible, and thus the law would be made a terror, not only to those who broke it, but to others who were inclined to follow their bad example. As to the clauses relating to compensation and some other provisions of the Bill, they could be better discussed when hon. Members had the Bill itself in their hands. He would simply observe, in reference to compensation, that the Government were of opinion that, in providing for it, they could not do better than follow the 100th section of the Grand Jury Act, which enabled compensation to be given by the grand jury. It was true there were some persons who, like his hon. Friend the Member for Leitrim (Mr. Brady), seemed to have no particular partiality to a grand jury; but it was a constitutional body, composed of country gentlemen, who were well acquainted with the locality with which they had to deal, and who possessed the requisite knowledge to enable them to arrive at a sound decision in the cases of the kind. If the Government had not given the power in question to the grand juries, they must have committed it to the hands of the Central or Executive Government, and if they had done so the Bill would have been objected to as tending to centralization. The hon. Member for Kilkenny (Sir John Gray) very naturally felt an interest in that part of the measure applying to the Press, for he was a distinguished member of the Press, though there was not very much chance, he thought, of the journal with which he was connected coming under the operation of the Bill. It was said, why not prosecute the seditious Press? The reply was, in addition to the difficulty of being certain of a conviction the paper continued to be published, and this was a serious matter to consider. But nothing could be more important in a country like Ireland than to prevent newspapers making capital out of the prosecutions instituted against them. Hitherto, speeches of counsel, denouncing the proceeding of the Crown, had appeared in large type in the very newspaper against which the prosecution was directed. The provisions of the Bill would apply to newspapers teaching sedition; and, with all respect to his hon. Friend, he must say that the people of Ireland knew very well what was treason and what was sedition. There was not a man in Ireland who could not give a definition of either the one or the other sufficient for all practical purposes. He thought the House would agree with the Government that if any newspaper taught treason or sedition, or published to an excitable population incitements to such offences, it was just that its property should be forfeited to the Crown, and seized immediately. The evil would thus be nipped in the bud; but if any person felt himself aggrieved at these proceedings he might maintain his action in one of the superior courts of common law, and the burden would be cast upon the Crown of proving that the newspaper was traitorous or seditious, or contained incentives to murder. It was necessary to reverse the ordinary course of proceeding in order to stop the rapid growth of an evil which, if not prevented, would sap the foundations of society, not only in Ireland, but in England. He asked hon. Members to suspend their judgment on the Bill until they read it, and then they might calmly consider its provisions in Committee. He was satisfied that every hon. Member who represented an Irish constituency would agree with him that the Government were animated by the most kind and considerate views with respect to Ireland. It had pained every Member of the Government to be obliged to introduce such a Bill, and he could say unfeignedly, that it had pained him above measure, to be compelled to inaugurate his career as a Law Officer of the Crown, by having anything to do with a measure of coercion—seeming or real—for Ireland. But he believed it was a measure of real kindness, for the sooner the Irish people were made to understand that they must obey the law, and that it would protect right and punish wrong, the better it would be for Ireland and the Empire at large.

rose to move—

"That it is inexpedient to retire Flag Officers from the active list of the Navy for any other cause but age or physical infirmity, and thus add to the public charge."

He wished to call the attention of the House to the case of some officers, and to the position in which they would be placed under the operation of the new scheme propounded by the First Lord of the Admiralty; but he begged to assure the right hon. Gentleman that he had no wish to be a party to the overthrowing of the scheme in its entirety. All he wished was to see such a modification introduced into the scheme as would keep faith with distinguished officers, with whom faith would otherwise be broken, and as would prevent the country from being deprived of the services of very valuable officers, should an emergency arise in which they might be required. The right hon. Gentleman had taken pains to prove that the time had arrived when a fresh scheme of naval retirement was necessary, and every one who took any interest in the naval service admitted that much, and agreed that the naval lists were overcrowded, and that the time had come when some measure of relief should be afforded. The list had been overcrowded ever since the close of the Great War in 1815; and measures of relief had been carried into effect on four or five separate occasions by subsequent Orders in Council. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stamford (Sir John Hay), in 1863, brought forward a document, signed by 1,200 officers of the superior grades of the Navy, praying for a fresh retirement scheme, and praying that the principle should be adopted of extending the compulsory retirement for age to those officers who had hoisted their flags. His hon. and gallant Friend laid the scheme before the Duke of Somerset, who was then the First Lord of the Admiralty; but it did not meet with that success which might have been supposed. A Select Committee was then appointed, presided over by the right hon. Member for Midhurst (Mr. Walpole), and they agreed with his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) that some scheme of retirement was necessary, although they differed from him in regard to some of the details. While the right hon. Gentleman the present First Lord of the Admiralty did right in proposing a new retirement scheme, he had fallen into the same error with regard to retirement which he had fallen into in almost every other change he had made since he accepted Office. Finding that there was a grievance in one direction, the right hon. Gentleman wont too far in the adverse direction to find the remedy. There were at present too many officers in the various grades of the Navy, who clogged the list; but if the right hon. Gentleman's scheme were adopted, it would be found, according to all the great authorities, that there would then be too few. This was especially true of the lieutenants, whose case he should leave in the hands of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Corry). At the same time, there was much in the right hon. Gentleman's plan which he approved. No one would grumble that he should deal with the want of uniformity in principle and scale of the retired list. The increased scale applied to warrant officers deserved approval. He also approved the pensions to the widows of warrant officers; and to those widows who, after the death of a second husband, were now to receive a pension according to the services of their first husband. The increased pay to the Engineers was only an act of justice to these important members of the service; and he also concurred in the principle of compulsory retirement for age in the case of flag officers. He regretted very much that the right hon. Gentleman had excluded from his scheme that description of service which, instead of being a disadvantage to an officer when he arrived at a distinguished post of command, in point of fact, admirably fitted him for the special duties which would then be entrusted to him. Was it wise, or right, or just, to exclude from the scheme the services performed in the Admiralty Department at Whitehall? If it decided this question in the affirmative, it must go one step further, and consider whether it would not be a breach of faith to officers under the Order of Council in 1866, which gave to officers of flag rank the same privileges that attached to Admiralty rank. The House would do well to inquire how Admiralty service had been regarded throughout the Navy during past years. It had always been considered the one great prize of naval officers in time of peace, because no higher honour could be hoped for than to assist in administering the affairs of the service to which they belonged. What was the course of training which a naval officer received at the Admiralty? It enabled him to take a larger view of public affairs, to become acquainted with the origin and growth of all those great questions which sometimes troubled the political atmosphere with wars and rumours of wars, and to gain a knowledge of diplomacy which, when he was called upon to take a high command, enabled him to exercise his discretion, and to use his fleet in such a way as to save us from unnecessary hostilities. A period of service at the Admiralty was eminently calculated to endow the commander-in-chief of a foreign squadron in times of political differences with those qualities which conduce to the preservation of peace. The question was, how this exclusion would operate in future? If it had been in operation in past years, it would have deprived this country of some of the most eminent names that adorned the naval roll of England, and it would now wipe off the roll some of those who had well served their country. Being a civilian, and having no personal interest in the matter, he had taken some little trouble in looking up the names of those who would have been lost to the service if the new rule of retirement after ten years had elapsed without hoisting their flag had been in existence. Sir Thomas Cochrane, the Admiral of the Fleet, was paid off his ship in 1824, and not re-employed in the service until 1842, during which time he was Governor of Newfoundland and a Member of that House. He was selected as second, and finally as first, in command during the China and Borneo Wars, in which he served with great distinction, and he was subsequently Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth. According to the present scheme, Sir Thomas Cochrane would have been struck off in 1835, before he was summoned to China. The next case he would name was that of Sir Baldwin Walker, who was Surveyor of the Navy from 1818 till 1862, when he was sent off to take the command at the Cape, and who was subsequently at the Nore. No doubt many hon. Members would remember the excitement caused by the unsuccessful attempt of his gallant relative, Lord Clarence Paget, the Secretary to the Admiralty, to catch Sir Baldwin Walker on a trip in which he was in command of a vessel superior in point of speed. Had this rule been in force Sir Baldwin Walker, having been Surveyor to the Navy from 1848 to 1862, would have been ineligible to command at the Cape and at the Nore. There were some cases bearing on what he had already said as to special training at the Ad- miralty; and the first officer he would name was the late Sir George Seymour, a gallant relative of his and a noble officer. Sir George Seymour, when a captain in the Navy, was, in 1819, made Serjeant-at-Arms in the House of Lords. In 1827 he took temporary command of the Briton on a special mission to St. Petersburg. On his return he was Master of the Robes to William IV., from 1830 to 1837. In 1841 he was made a Lord of the Admiralty; in 1844 he went to the Pacific; in 1851 he was on the North American and West Indian station; and, lastly, he was at Portsmouth. Yet under this scheme Sir George Seymour would have ceased to belong to the Navy in 1841. What the results of his training were, and what were the services he had rendered, were stated in an obituary notice in The Times, which said—

"This distinguished officer's services extended over many of the most stormy times of England's naval history, during the wars with France at the end of the last and beginning of the present century. In later times his services in the Pacific were of a very high order. Our relations with France had become of a very precarious nature, in consequence of the misunderstanding which grew out of the Pritchard affair. These difficulties were mainly adjusted through the careful management of Sir George Seymour. So, again, in the arduous negotiations we were carrying on with the United States relative to the fishery question, that these were brought to a satisfactory conclusion was owing to the tact, ability, and decision shown by Sir George, and borne witness to by the two Foreign Secretaries, and Sir James Graham gave a good service pension."

Had the will of the right hon. Gentleman been in force, all this tact, ability, and decision, which saved us from a war with the United States, would have been lost to the country. The cases of Sir Edmund Lyons and Sir Alexander Milne were of a similar character. Sir Edmund Lyons was paid off Her Majesty's ship Madagascar in 1885; in 1836 he was appointed Minister in Greece; he remained in that service until 1852, when he was, by the unanimous voice of Parliament, called to be second in command of the Black Sea Fleet, and the result was amply justified, for he received the thanks of Parliament in conjunction with Lord Dundas. Sir Alexander Milne, a gallant friend of his own, was actually taken out of his ship, the St. Vincent, to serve at the Admiralty, where he remained from 1847 to 1859, all through the Crimean War. He then took com- mand of the North American station, and while he was there the war in the United States broke out, the Trent affair occurred, and he showed so much tact and discretion in the delicate circumstances in which he was placed that, when the term of his command came to an end, in accordance with the general wish, it was extended for another year, until the cessation of hostilities averted the chance of a collision between this country and the United States. Then he joined the late Board of Admiralty, and he was selected by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Childers) for the Mediterranean command. Under the new scheme Sir Alexander Milne would have been retired in 1867. Sir William Parker paid off the frigate Amazon in 1814, and was not again employed until 1827. In 1841 he commanded in chief in the war with China, which he brought to a successful conclusion. He was subsequently continued a double length of command for seven years by successive Ministers during the revolutionary period. Under the new regulation he would have been removed in 1841. Sir Josias Rowley and Sir Pulteney Malcolm were also selected in dangerous times for command in the Mediterranean. In the American Navy one of the most distinguished admirals of modern times—Admiral Farragut, who achieved such successes in the war between the Northern and Confederate States—was for ten years ashore, discharging the duties of a civil appointment. He did not think it was fair to exclude officers of such distinction from offering their services; if we did not have such officers at the Board of Admiralty, we should have retired officers of less efficiency. He certainly did not think that, in these times at all events, it would be wise policy to weaken the naval element at Whitehall; on the contrary, he should like to see greater weight given to the views of the naval advisor; and therefore he did not wish the House to pass any scheme which would tend to make it impracticable and unadvisable that first-class officers should servo there, and would leave those who had the least power to raise their voices in defence of the interests of the service to which they belonged. Sir Frederick Grey was one of the two officers with whom he had official connection, and the only one with whom he had politi- cal sympathy; and the cases of the two officers were in other hands. The case of Sir Spencer Robinson, Controller of the Navy, was a strong one. In I860 a new Order in Council for the retirement of flag officers was introduced by Lord Clarence Paget; it was discussed in the House, and on a division it was affirmed that the Controller of the Navy should be exempted from the operation of the Order. In that debate Lord Clarence Paget said—

"The only able officers exempted were those who had served at the Admiralty or discharged duties in connection with the government of the Navy. Of these the number affected was very few, for nearly all had hoisted, or would hoist their flags. As regards the Controller of the Navy, nobody could say that the duties which he discharged were not equal in importance to those of any officer with his flag hoisted."—[3 Hansard, clxxxii. 550.]

In this he entirely agreed; the duties performed by the Controller had been onerous, and had been performed with great advantage to the State; and he should greatly regret that by this Order the Controller should be driven from his profession. The decision of the House affirmed the principle which it was now sought to overthrow—namely, that exemption from retirement at the age of seventy should be extended to those officers who had hoisted their flag, and also to those who had served at the Admiralty. The list of officers to whom he wished to allude ended with his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stamford (Sir John Hay), who was one of those hit by the now Order. He had served on every station except that of Australia; he was at sea from 1834 to 1850 on the West Africa, the Syria, and the China stations; he served in the Russian War from 1854 to 1856; he was in North America from 1856 to 1858; in 1860, at the request of the late First Lord of the Admiralty the Duke of Somerset, he undertook the laborious task of presiding over the inquiry into the affairs of Greenwich Hospital, which had borne so much fruit in the management of that establishment; from 1861 to 1864 he was Chairman of the Iron-plate Committee; afterwards he was two years at the Admiralty, from 1866 to 1868; and then he asked for a command afloat, which was not granted because his services at home wore valued too highly. The hon. and gallant Gentleman got his flag rank a few days after the Order in Council of 1866, which guaranteed to him that he should not, except from physical unfitness, be called upon to retire from the Navy before the age of sixty-five; yet, after the lapse of four years, and at the age of forty-nine, his hon. and gallant Friend was hit by this scheme and had to retire. He could not help thinking that the First Lord of the Admiralty, on a consideration of these cases, would see whether anything could be done to avoid that which in the eyes of the country would be regarded as a gross breach of faith. By the Order in Council of 1866, no flag officer was liable to retire compulsorily at the age of seventy unless he had hoisted his flag, or had served at the Admiralty. Under that rule many gallant officers had passed the age of seventy and had become Admirals of the Fleet, popularly known as "field-marshals of the Navy." Four years afterwards the right hon. Gentleman said all these officers who had been unconsciously risking their position on the list should take their choice between the new regulation forcing them to retire at sixty-five and the old regulation subject to modification. He had no personal interest in the matter; but he entreated the right hon. Gentleman to pause before he carried out a scheme which would certainly have the worst effect on the minds of those engaged in the service, for they would regard it as a gross breach of faith. From communications which he had received, he was convinced that the c sedition of the scheme would shako the confidence of the profession in the administration of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Admiralty. With regard to the case of the captains, there would be opportunity for discussion when the House went into Committee of Supply; but he must remark that had such an Order of Council been in existence in former days Sir Charles Napier would have been cut short prematurely in his career, and Nelson's name would have been wiped out of the Navy List before he fought those battles which made his name so glorious. The First Lord of the Admiralty took credit for the great secresy with which this scheme had been concocted; but a scheme so extensive, and grappling with so many subjects, ought to have been the work of many counsellors, and he should like to know who were the naval officers consulted in the preparation of this scheme? He should like to ask whether his gallant Friend Sir Sydney Dacres was one of those who drew up the scheme, or whether Sir Spencer Robinson had anything to do with it? The right hon. Gentleman in his speech gave great credit to Lord Camperdown for the labours the noble Lord had bestowed on this subject. The noble Lord certainly showed most extraordinary powers of inquiry. Although the noble Lord had never taken great interest in any of these multifarious subjects, it was perfectly marvellous that so young a man should have amassed so much information on the subject committed to his charge; for the noble Lord had not only been inquiring into the victualling yards, and arranged a scheme for the promotion of the Navy —a subject which had baffled so many naval advisers for many years—but he had been down to Scotland and inquired into the Scotch office and Scotch business generally, and altogether the number of the inquiries showed unwearied zeal on the part of the noble Lord. [Cheers.] Hon. Gentlemen who cheered would agree with him that, for so young a man, the result of the noble Lord's deliberations would have commanded more respect if the noble Lord had confined his attention to one subject instead of so many. He regretted the hurry exhibited by the right hon. Gentleman in bringing forward a scheme so vast and affecting so many officers, who had not sufficient time allowed them to make up their minds as to the step which they should take, and which would be one for good or evil in their career. He did not attribute to the right hon. Gentleman anything but a desire to promote the efficiency of the Navy, and he felt sure that no party feeling had been allowed to have any weight in the matter; for he could not conceive that anyone administering the affairs of the noble profession of the Navy would ever allow himself to be swayed by party feeling in the discharge of his functions; but he again impressed on the right hon. Gentleman the propriety of reconsidering this matter, and of looking at it in the light of its being a breach of faith towards distinguished officers. He feared that in future, if this country should ever be at war, the policy of the right hon. Gentleman would be found fraught with danger to the State, and with the greatest inconvenience to the public ser- vice. He concluded by moving, as an Amendment to the Motion for going into Committee of Supply, the Resolution of which he had given notice.

seconded the Resolution. He admitted that the terms of the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Admiralty were extremely liberal and would be welcomed by many officers, and it was only to a part of the incidence of the scheme that he wished to draw attention. He did not see what the country gained by causing flag officers to retire, because better terms were given to induce them to go. The way to effect economy, so far as pay was concerned, would be to stop the entries. When once officers had entered the service it would never be tolerated that they should be turned adrift. By retiring a flag officer feelings were often wounded which it should be a study to respect. His objections to this scheme wore most particularly directed to the regulation which said, that officers who had not served afloat for ten years should be compulsorily retired, and that service at the Board of Admiralty was not to be counted as sea service. He thought this would work mischievously. In the case of an officer who had not served afloat for nine years, the greatest pressure would be brought to bear upon the Admiralty in order to procure for him an appointment afloat, and the Admiralty might, in consequence, appoint him in preference to another officer, better qualified. With regard to the Board of Admiralty, how would the ten years' rule operate? Either those officers only who had lost their ambition to serve afloat would enter the Board, or the Board would be looked on as a mere channel to procure employment. If it happened that men went to the Board of Admiralty when they had lost all ambition to serve afloat, the result would be the repetition of the old cry that the Admiralty was governed by a set of effete admirals, not up to their work. He should now take the case of the flag officers close to the First Lord. His right hon. Friend at the head of the Admiralty said it was not a good thing to have officers too long at the Board. He agreed with him; but that principle might be carried too far. It would not be a good thing to have those officers come or go too often. The consequences of such frequent changes would be contradictory opinions and conflicting arrangements. It might be suggested that in order to enable those officers to remain in the service the First Lord might send them to hoist their flag for a couple of days; but the great hardship of the new rule was in its retrospective effect, Before 1866 it never had been distinctly laid down that service at the Admiralty was service afloat, because the matter had never boon called in question; but when the compulsory retirement came, an Order in Council distinctly laid down that service with the Admiralty should count as if the flag officer were afloat. That Order was swept away by the Order in Council which his right hon. Friend had just passed. Service at the Admiralty no longer counted as service afloat, or, in other words, the very centre of the Navy was the only place where service in the Navy was not to count. His noble Friend (Lord Henry Lennox) had referred to the case of Sir Baldwin Walker. Even supposing that the Naval Lord might be changed frequently, would anyone say that the Controller of the Navy ought to be changed every two years? Would his right hon. Friend say that the duties of the Controller could be learnt in a few days or a few hours? Why years must be spent by him in the office before the Controller was up to his duties and became master of the details of his gigantic department. He might observe that in the active chase set on foot by the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir John Pakington), he believed that gallant officer was very near being run ashore on the cost of France, because Sir Baldwin was as anxious to escape as the right hon. Baronet was to catch him. Admiral Robinson succeeded him and served with the Duke of Somerset, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry), and his right hon. Friend the present First Lord. His right hon. Friend recognized the importance of the office of Controller, because in a Memorandum which he issued in 1868 he referred to it in the most flattering terms, and proposed to make him a member of the Board by fusing the duties of Controller and those of Second Naval Lord. The Memorandum stated that the dockyards, steam reserves, the inspectors of the steam departments, gunnery, and the stores department were to be under the Controller and First Lord, whose salary was to be increased £500 a year. Connected with this matter there was what appeared to him a touch of bitter irony, of which he had supposed his right hon. Friend incapable. At Christmas, 1868, the Controller was taken into the Board, and his office was magnified; but at Christmas, 1869, he was struck off the list. To anyone who knew anything about naval affairs, could it seem right that the service of superintendents of dockyards should be counted as service afloat, while that of the Controller, who superintended those superintendents, was not to be so counted? He remembered words used by Lord Clarence Paget in reference to the Order in Council of 1866. Lord Clarence said—

"As to the Controller of the Navy, no one will say the duties he performs are not equal to those of any officer serving with his flag."

He concurred with the opinion expressed in those words. He now came to the case of Admiral Eden, an officer well known to a great many Members of that House, and who had served long and efficiently. He had seen a great deal of active service, for during the forty-eight years he had been in the Navy he had served over forty years. More than once Admiral Eden had been at the Admiralty, and he was sure his right hon. Friend would boar testimony to the value of his services there. He had been taken from active service to go to the Admiralty on the first occasion of his appointment, and he was over the Coastguard when the Duke of Somerset took him to the Admiralty, where he continued for seven years. Was that service to be made penal? Was it to strike Admiral Eden off the list? This was all the harder, because, while he was at the Admiralty, the gallant Admiral might have availed himself of many opportunities of going on active service; but he remained at the Admiralty, because he believed it was the wish of the First Lord that he should do so. He would allude to one other case —that of Sir Frederick Grey. He was called to the Admiralty in 1861, immediately on his return from service at the Cape, where he had served for five years; but his time at the Admiralty not being allowed to count, he would have to retire in September next. If he were allowed to remain in the service for a short time beyond that period, the pro- bability was that he would become Admiral of the Fleet. It might be said that these higher distinctions were not of much value; but that was a great mistake. They were highly valued, and they were looked forward to with peculiar interest by men who had nearly reached them after long years of service, because they shed a ray of light on the close of an honourable career. Unless on very good grounds, they ought not to be snatched from men who had all but reached them. One rule ought to be adopted towards all public servants, but especially towards those who, like officers in the Navy, had not a very high scale of remuneration. He had often heard it said, on both sides of the House, that the pay of flag officers in the Navy was scarcely sufficient or scarcely worthy of a great country. The rule he referred to was that of keeping good faith. He was reluctantly compelled to say that, in his opinion, good faith had not been kept with the class of officers whose case was now under discussion. He regretted to criticize any part of the conduct of his right hon. Friend, because there was so much in it which did him credit, and for which no doubt the country gave him great praise. He should not like the House to have to come to a vote on the Amendment of the noble Lord, because the question was so very intricate and difficult that scarcely anyone could understand it except those who had been on the subject for years; but he would suggest that if his right hon. Friend was not prepared to give effect to the wishes which had been expressed in this discussion, he might afford the House an opportunity of having the matter looked into by a Committee, in order that if it should be established that a hardship had been done to flag officers by the proposed regulation an effort might be made to effect the necessary reforms without the infliction of that hardship.

said, the question had been so ably handled by his noble Friend near him (Lord Henry Lennox) and his hon. Friend who had just sat down that he would say only a few words. He entirety concurred in the greater part of the opinions they had expressed in so forcible a manner. He was one of those who had always been opposed to the compulsory retirement of flag officers. There was a good reason for removing officers too old for service from the captains' list, because if the top of that list was encumbered with old officers the result would be the promotion of old men to the flag; but he agreed with the Duke of Somerset, who stated to the Committee of 1863—

"As long as the country can have the services of a sufficient number of admirals fit for command, on what list they are is of very little importance."

It was immaterial how old the officers at the top of the flag list might be, provided it contained a sufficient number of active officers to meet the requirements of the service. With regard to the gallant admirals who would be affected by this scheme, it was his duty a few weeks ago to criticize, perhaps with a little severity, the actions of the Controller of the Navy respecting some transactions in his department; but he could bear testimony to the great efficiency of that officer, who was a man of great ability, and had presided over his department very much to the advantage of the public service. It appeared ridiculous that the rule should apply to an officer in such a position, whose functions had reference to every part of a ship— not only the building, but the rigging, the masting, the armament, and other matters—and who could learn much more in the execution of his duties than in superintending a dockyard. To compare the nautical knowledge acquired by an officer as Controller of the Navy, and as superintendent of, say Pembroke Dockyard, where a ship in commission was hardly ever seen, was so absurd that the comparison could not be entertained for a moment. He felt the greatest respect for two gallant officers who had been mentioned—Sir Frederick Grey and Admiral Eden—and considered that to compel them to retire was a breach of faith towards them after the arrangement which was come to, on the faith of an Order in Council, in 1866. They had both served long and well, and were excellent officers. The case of his gallant Friend and late Colleague at the Admiralty (Sir John Hay) was a remarkably hard one; and he (Mr. Corry) felt it the more, because it was owing to him that his gallant Friend was among those officers who were on the list to be compulsorily retired. His principal object in having risen was to confirm what had been said on that subject. In 1868 his hon. and gallant Friend applied to him to give him a command; but he (Mr. Corry) told him that, although he should be glad to meet any wish of his, his services at the Admiralty and in the House were so valuable that he hoped he would not press his request. Upon this he was good enough to say that he would remain at the Admiralty, and therefore it was his (Mr. Corry's) fault that he was now to be made a retired rear-admiral at the ago of forty-nine. It was really ridiculous. Did his hon. and gallant Friend look like an effete admiral no longer fit for service? The scheme of the First Lord seemed to him to offer a premium for the retirement of the best officers in the Nary. What could be more absurd than to invite rear-admirals to retire at the age of fifty-five. Most men were as fit for work in such a rank at fifty-five as thirty-five; but this scheme offered a premium to rear-admirals to retire at fifty-five, just when their services would be most valuable, when they had physical energy in conjuntion with experience. It was also preposterous to say that captains, physically and mentally fit for service, should be allowed to retire at fifty; but the most absurd of all was the proposition as to the retirement of admirals of the fleet, as if an active officer was wanted in that position. Who over heard of an admiral of the fleet being employed on active service? Would a similar scheme be tolerated if applied to the sister service? What would have been thought if the Duke of Wellington had been placed upon the shelf at seventy? He could not understand why there should be different measures of justice for the Navy and for the Army. His hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) had had special duties to perform at the Admiralty, and he was thereby extremely well qualified to be an admiral on active service. For several years his gallant Friend was at the head of the Iron-plate Committee, which inquired into all questions con- cerning the armour-plating and the armament of ships, and had given him information which would be most useful in an officer serving in a fleet. He hoped that the Motion would not be pressed, and that the subject, as had been suggested, would be referred to a Select Committee. It was one of great importance to the interests of the Navy. If the First Lord, of the Admiralty would consent to that course being taken he would show a consideration towards the service which would be highly appreciated.

considered the scheme of the First Lord as the most sweeping measure that had over been introduced by any Government with regard to officers employed in the profession of arms. The principle on which this plan was founded was totally unintelligible. It professed to draw a clear line between those who were fit for active service and those who were unfit; but the conditions of retirement were dissimilar and opposed to each other. It was proposed that officers reaching flag rank at the age of sixty should be obliged to retire; but officers who had been in command at such a period that they must now be seventy-five years old, were to be permitted to continue on the list of admirals for active service. He understood that the object of retaining those gallant officers was to save them from humiliation or slight; and he was glad that some consideration was shown to the feelings of those veterans whom they had learnt to reverence, and to whoso post it had hitherto been a laudable ambition to aspire. But while the First Lord of the Admiralty was saving them from a slight he was inflicting one upon their younger brethren, who were to be compulsorily retired at an age when they had not reached the extreme limit of efficiency. He felt the great hardship which would be inflicted on those officers who had served at the Admiralty, especially Sir Spencer Robinson, whose abilities and acquirements well qualified him for the position he was to hold no longer. Passing, however, from personal matters, he wished to consider the scheme in a financial point of view, and here its difficulties appeared to increase. Why could not the present list be increased, and why was promotion stopped? It was said that the country objected to paying for a long list of useless officers; but how was it proposed to remedy that state of things? Taxpayers would find that their old enemies disappeared from one part of the Navy List, but re-appeared in another, with a much larger income. There were at present on the active list ninety-five flag officers, and 224 on the retired list. By the scheme of the First Lord the active list would be reduced in number to fifty, and the retired list increased to 269—the total, therefore, still remained at 319. The only change effected was the retirement of forty-five officers upon increased pensions. It was, however, hoped that fifty-five flag officers might be induced to accept the scheme of retirement, which would increase the total number by ten, and that was called an economy. The number on the active list of captains was 292, and on the retired list 404, and the change would reduce the active list to 150, and increase the retired list to 546. He could hardly think that the House would consent to a scheme of retirement such as this. An analogous case of economy would be this—that the Secretary to the Admiralty should dispose of his stock of preserved meats and pickles, of which he told us lately he had so large a surplus, by hiring a store at a very large expense to put them in, and then boast that he had effected a great economy. In fact, we had a retired list already; the Admiralty did not actively employ officers whose age or infirmities unfitted them for service, and his right hon. Friend was merely asking to be relieved from a responsibility in connection with the selection of naval officers from which he ought not to be exempted. For himself, he greatly doubted whether age was the best test, or any test at all, of inefficiency. Many men at sixty or sixty-five were certainly better fitted for service than others at fifty or fifty-five; and it was a most impolitic measure to endeavour to stamp out that laudable ambition and honourable spirit which ought to be the moving principle of the profession of arms. What would the members of any other profession say if told that they must take leave of hope and fortune at the age of sixty? What would the lawyer say if at that period he were to be cut off from all hope of reaching the Woolsack? Or, again, what would be thought of a proposal that our statesmen, at an age when they were often in their prime, should relinquish all further ambition and be content with the few hundreds a year which were deemed sufficient to compensate the officers at the head of a gallant profession? But was age really always a disqualification for naval command? Had the late Lord Dundonald—one of the very greatest seamen this country ever produced — been placed in command of our Baltic Fleet in 1856, in all probability the complaints of the inactivity of that fleet would never have been heard of in this country. It was believed in the Navy that in the interview with Sir James Graham, at which that gallant veteran—then in his eightieth year— offered his services to the Admiralty, he was so energetic, and maintained his position with such vigour, that an inkstand placed betwen him and the First Lord fell a victim to his earnestness, and that Sir James Graham was so alarmed at this little incident that he proceeded to select a gallant officer, much his junior, to whom the fleet might be more prudently intrusted. In conclusion, he apprehended that the sweeping and not most complimentary scheme of retirement was addressed in some degree to the pecuniary necessities of many of his brother officers, whose poverty and not their will might in many cases force them to consent to it; and he trusted that before the discussion closed the House would be favoured with the opinions entertained on the subject by some of the naval advisers of his right hon. Friend the First Lord.

I confess, Sir, that I rise to speak on this question with considerable difficulty. At the same time, I am most anxious that the House, early in the debate, should understand clearly what it is that is in discussion between myself and my noble Friend who moved the Amendment (Lord Henry Lennox), and what is the nature of this question in connection with retirement in the Navy, as to which all those who have preceded me have stated to the House certain classes of objections. I say, in the first place, that I feel some hesitation in speaking thus early in the debate, or, indeed, at all on this particular subject, because almost every gentleman whose name has been brought before the House as being aggrieved by a particular part of this scheme is either a personal friend of my own or a gentleman whom it cannot but be most dis- agreeable to me to have to put—as we have heard to-night—in a position in which he regrets to find himself. Therefore, on that ground, I own I feel some pain in the remarks that I have now to make; and, moreover, I am placed in some difficulty because my noble Friend, having put on the Paper a Motion with reference to one particular part of this scheme of retirement—the whole of which would more naturally be discussed in Committee, when each portion of it would be brought under the notice of the House in turn, and I should have an opportunity of explaining it — my noble Friend, and those who followed him, have launched into half-a-dozen other parts of the scheme; and I shall therefore be obliged, in the single address I shall offer to the House, to do-fend, not that one part of the scheme particularly, but its whole character and details as far as they have been touched upon by previous speakers. I will, however, do my best to place before the House the case of naval retirement as affected by the present plan and by those plans which have preceded it, and also to state, as well as I can, the specific reasons for which I invite the House to negative my noble Friend's Amendment. The case as to naval retirement, in a few words is this—I will not go back before the year 1860, before the Government of Lord Palmerston and the Admiralty of the Duke of Somerset; but from 1860, down to the present time, there has been a succession of endeavours to put pay, promotion, and retirement in the Navy upon a satisfactory footing. And I will undertake to say that, although different schemes have been proposed by different individuals, by a Committee of this House, and have been made the subject of three or four successive Orders in Council, ending with the Order in Council of 1866, up to the present moment it is admitted universally in the Navy, and almost universally outside of the Navy, that this most difficult question of promotion and retirement has not been satisfactorily settled; that all these various schemes have, as it were, merely scratched the ground or gone but little further, and that a thorough and sweeping measure is necessary to accommodate promotion and retirement in the Navy to the requirements of the present time. I do not think my hon. Friends who have preceded me will dispute that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry) almost said so in the course of his speech just now; and I know that is the view of the Duke of Somerset, who, when I some months ago took this important subject in hand, advised me strongly not to do any small matters, as was done by the Orders in Council ending with that of 1866, but to frame a thorough, comprehensive scheme, which should, if possible, set this difficult question at rest. Reverting to the Orders in Council, beginning with that of 1860 and ending with that of 1866, their tendency was one and all the same. They found very large lists of naval officers, from the flag officers down to the lieutenants; they found a very imperfect system of retirement; they endeavoured to effect casual and temporary alleviations of the existing state of things, and aimed at providing more or less efficient remedies for the future. There were introduced, one after another, moderate amounts of retirement in each list; there was no very great system in these efforts, but their object was uniformly the same —namely, in some way or another to clear the lists of the enormous encumbrance upon them, and to provide more satisfactory inducements to officers of different ranks to leave the active and go upon the retired list. I come now to the Order in Council of 1866, which has been spoken of by the noble Lord and others who followed him as if it were a kind of charter, giving certain rights to officers of different ranks, with which the present plan interferes. Now, what was the Order in Council of 1866 as bearing on this matter? It affected, if I remember rightly, all ranks of the military branch of the Navy, commencing with the flag officers, and going down to the captains, commanders, and lieutenants. And as to flag officers, what did it do? We have heard a good deal to-night about the vested interests of gallant officers who had certain expectations of which it is now sought to deprive them. The Order of 1866 swept away altogether, at once and without compensation, largo rights which upon the grounds stated to-night were possessed by a considerable number of naval officers. Up to 1866 any officer who became a captain and served five years as captain, was entitled to be promoted on the active list up to the rank of full admiral. The Order of 1866 took away that right altogether. I will not now go into details as to the manner in which it affected captains. But with respect to flag officers, who form the subject of the present debate, the Order of 1866 said this —"You are upon the active list. You are at present entitled to remain on the active list, whatever your age, until you reach the flag list. This Order, for the first time, compulsorily retires you at a certain age. If you have acquired certain rights by service; you will be given an option in the matter, but if you have not, this Order distinctly takes away your right to remain on the active list, and retires you altogether without giving you any option as to a pecuniary arrangement, or any better terms of retirement than the half-pay." Let me remind the House what happened when this scheme was before Parliament in 1866, and a vote was taken upon it. The Order, with respect to flag-officers, said this—"The only exception to the general provision for compulsory retirement at certain ages shall be to present flag officers, if they have hoisted their flags or served at the Admiralty." But what was the cry of this House, which all but shipwrecked the Order and negatived the vote?—for the vote was carried by a very narrow majority indeed. The cry was from both sides of the House—not from one side merely, but from both sides—"Why make this exception in favour of service at the Admiralty?" and no one urged that objection more strongly, or more clearly, than my hon. and gallant Friend who has just spoken, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington), who, I have no doubt, wall speak in the debate. My right hon. Friend said if this system was to be carried out it should be carried out thoroughly and impartially, and there should be no exemptions of any kind. He could not understand on what principle his hon. Friend proposed an exemption in favour of officers who had the good fortune to serve at the Admiralty. And my hon. and gallant Friend asked, "Why was an exception to be made in favour of officers who had served at the Admiralty?"

said, he objected to the whole principle of retirement, and also to the ages proposed.

made a remark across the table.

The Order of 1866 retired officers of a certain age, but made an exception in favour of those who had served at the Admiralty. That Order making that exception was the subject of a very keen debate on the occasion. I was present at the time. I refreshed my memory on the subject, and I have quoted my right hon. Friend quite correctly. He said he could not understand on what principle an exemption was proposed in favour of officers who had served at the Admiralty.

That was with respect to an ago retirement.

Well, the Order of 1866 in this matter did not produce the effect which was expected from it either by those who proposed it, or indeed by the service generally; and since 1866 it has been absolutely necessary for those who have been at the Admiralty to look forward to the time when, carrying out the general principles of that Order, and avoiding as far as possible all flaws that might be in it, some proposals should be made as to promotion and retirement in the Navy, which should be at once satisfactory both to the service and also to the public, as not throwing on the taxpayers an undue burden. Last year, a few months after we took Office, it was my business to inquire into the subject. We gave unremitting attention to the matter during half of last year and up to the present time. The Order in Council which has been laid on the table, and which is the subject of this debate, is the result of the most careful inquiry; and I think I shall be able to show to the House that, on the one hand, it is satisfactory to the Navy, and on the other it ought to be satisfactory to the taxpayers, as it has greatly reduced the amount of the public burdens in connection with this part of the naval charge. Now, let me state, in a few words, the exact purport of this change. The first object is to reduce the list of officers of the Navy to an amount commensurate with the demands upon the service. I will not now go into the question which is about to be raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry), who has an Amendment as to the extent to which the lists of executive officers below flag rank would be reduced. As he is about to move that Amendment, I will postpone any discussion of his plan until the Motion is before the House; but, omitting that for the present, our plan is this—very greatly to reduce the number of officers of each rank in the services, and to make that number, as I said before, commensurate with the demands upon the different ranks. But I stated, in opening the Estimates the other day, that if you brought the numbers down, for reasons which I need not recapitulate, to what is absolutely required for the public service, there is another condition which you must attach to it, and that is if your lists are short the officers upon them must be efficient, for it is useless to endeavour to reduce the lists to the number really required for the public service, if those lists are encumbered by a large proportion of men past the duty demanded in their respective ranks. We therefore apply, in the first instance, the principle of age in the various ranks. The House will not ask me to define the ages of the different ranks; we are now discussing the question of the flag rank, and the age we propose is for admirals, seventy; for vice-admirals, sixty-five; and for rear-admirals, sixty; protecting, however, as far as possible, the interests of the present officers. But, in addition to the condition as to age which pervades all the ranks, we have introduced, with respect to flag officers, a further condition, which existed before as to other officers. And here I want to supply an extraordinary omission which has appeared in the speeches of those who have gone before me. They thought that the introduction of a period of non-service within which an officer would be disqualified from remaining on the active list was a novelty. It was nothing of the kind. That rule, under which officers who have not served for a certain time are to be no longer on the active list, was introduced in the Order of 18GG. A captain who has been unemployed for a certain time, a commander or lieutenant who has been unemployed for a certain time, may be retired from the active list, and the change which we propose in the present Order is simply this—if the principle is good with respect to lieutenants, commanders, and captains, why not with respect to admirals? That was the question we had to consider, and we came to the conclusion that every reason which justified retirement in the case of captains, commanders, and lieutenants, would also justify it in the case of admirals. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Corry), in connection with his own Board, only the other day retired a captain of the age of thirty-nine, because he had not been employed for a certain number of year. [Mr. CORRY remarked that the retirement of that officer was not under an Order in Council.] The fact remains the same. We only apply to flag officers the same rule which has been applied to captains for some years past. My noble Friend (Lord Henry Lennox) has used some illustrations to show that very distinguished officers, such as Sir Thomas Cochrane, (Sir George Seymour, and others, would be retired under the operation of that Order. Then my noble Friend says—"How injurious"—or "How ridiculous," was, I think his expression—"to the public service must an Order be which would have retired these distinguished officers." But my noble Friend forgets that these officers would have been reared under the present system, independently of the Order in Council which we are now discussing. They would have been retired for the reason that they were captains who had been fen years without service. In fact, in every case which my noble Friend adduced to show the impolicy of the proposed plan, the officer would have been retired independently of the proposed plan if he had lived till the present day. Twenty or thirty years ago changes were very slow as compared with what they are now, and therefore the experience of those days has very little bearing on the question we are now considering. The rule is perfectly justified by the state of things, but that state of things ought not to have been limited to officers of a certain rank; it should have applied to all. But let us consider what would be the state of things if the Motion of my noble Friend was carried. He has moved—

"That it is inexpedient to retire Flag Officers from the active list of the Navy for any other cause but age or physical infirmity, and thus add to the public charge."

He thus challenges my proposition that, in addition to "age or physical infirmity," non-service for a number of years shall be doomed a sufficient cause for retiring naval officers. I will proceed to show the effect which my noble Friend's Motion would have, if carried, on the flag list, which it is our wish and intention, if possible, to reduce, first remarking that even my right hon. Friend (Mr. Corry), who is about to propose another Motion, does not challenge the amount of the reduction. I shall not mention names, for that would be invidious; but I shall mention facts concerning officers who would be retired under the Order in Council, if agreed to, on terms which are admitted to be liberal, but whom my noble Friend seeks to have retained on the active list. Admiral A is sixty-four years old, and last served in 1847; he has, therefore, been unemployed during twenty-three years; but if my noble Friend's Motion is carried, he will have to remain other six years on the active list. Admiral B is sixty-six or sixty-seven years of age, and would have to be retained for three or four years longer, though he has not served since 1841. Admiral C is aged sixty-three years, and has not served for fifteen years; but, according to the terms of my noble Friend's Motion, he must be retained for another seven years. Admiral D is sixty-one, has not held a seagoing appointment, though he has done harbour duty since 1853, but would have to remain on the active list during other nine years. Admiral F, who has never commanded a sea-going ship at all, has been twelve years unemployed, and would have to remain on the list for fifteen years longer; while Admiral G has been unemployed for fourteen years, Admiral H for twelve years, and Admiral I for eleven years. These, omitting exceptional instances, that have been specially alluded to by hon. Gentlemen who have preceded me, would be the result of adopting the Motion of my noble Friend. But though the Motion to which I am alluding makes no reference to this branch of the subject, those hon. Gentlemen who have spoken assume the real question to be whether officers who have not served afloat, but have served at the Admiralty, shall not have an exception made in their favour, and be allowed to remain on the active list. I must say that I was much surprised to hear some of the observations made by my hon. and gallant Friend who immediately preceded me, and who implied, though he did not say it in so many words, that the proposal we make is unpopular in the Navy and does not satisfy the general requirements of the service. Now, I will undertake to say, on the other hand, that the general scheme—and this proposition as much as any other part of it, is popular in the Navy, in that it thoroughly meets the requirements of the service; and, further, I repeat most distinctly, that the exceptional provision of 1866 in favour of officers who have served at the Admiralty ought not to have been made. But, Sir, let me state to the House the distinction between the circumstances existing in 1866 and those of the present day. In 1866 the general rule was that all officers whatever should, on attaining certain ages, be compelled to retire; but an exception was made in favour of certain officers who had served at the Admiralty, not on the ground of fitness for service, but simply as a question of privilege. We, on the other hand, say it is, and ought to be, a question not of privilege, but of capacity, and that if non-service for a certain time disqualifies, in point of capacity, officers of whatever age, there is no reason why an exception should be made in favour of any particular class. My hon. and gallant Friend behind me (Admiral Erskine) has alluded to several cases in which he thinks exception should be made on the ground of service performed by those officers at the Admiralty; and while there would certainly be something to say with regard to them if we were considering the question on the ground of privilege, I cannot see why, as we have offered to those officers most fair pecuniary compensation under the new terms of retirement, the rule that has been proposed by the Government should be altered or departed from. My hon. and gallant Friend has spoken of the distinguished services of Sir Spencer Robinson. Nobody will speak more highly than I will of the efficiency of this gallant officer; but I say most distinctly that the office of Controller of the Navy is not necessarily a naval office. The person holding that position fills a civil office of great responsibility; he is the manager of immense business establishments for the country, and, as such, he is entitled to a pension. But though the person holding that office may be, and has usually been, a naval officer, I see no particular reason why, giving him these great advantages, he should also have the advantage of remaining on the active list when other officers with like service to himself are removed. That is the plain answer to the case of Admiral Robinson. With regard to those who have served at the Admiralty, the same reason prevails. My hon. Friend spoke of Admiral Eden; it is always unpleasant, and I am very unwilling to mention names, but I do so in reply to statements that have been advanced. My hon. Friend's idea is that in 1866 Admiral Eden got some great advantage out of the Order in Council, upon which he built up hopes for the future. But those hopes had no foundation whatever; for the Order in Council was passed in March, 1866, and in June or July, 1866, the Government, of which he was a member, went out of Office. And, therefore, upon a three months' tenure of office of this kind, it is impossible to build upon the terms of any Order in Council, and the distinction which it may have drawn between service at the Admiralty and service afloat, any such vested right as my hon. Friend now claims. The position is simply this— Admiral Eden has not served in command of a ship afloat since 1855, he has held very important and valuable offices, he has been Controller of the Coastguard for some years, and a Lord of the Admiralty for seven years, but since 1855 he has never been in command of a sea-going ship. Then, take the case of Sir Frederick Grey. I have the honour of being a friend and was a colleague of both these gentlemen. Sir Frederick Grey precisely in the same way ceased to have anything to do with the Admiralty a very short time after the Order in Council of 1866 was passed; and it is impossible to say that he acquired any expectations under it. He has not been afloat since 1860, and I have no reason to suppose there is any cause to believe that he might have been since 1866. With, respect to my hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Sir John Hay), I am bound to say, and I say it very frankly, that I think his is a very hard case. But we are told that "hard cases make bad laws," and it is impossible to say that a general law for the advantage of the public service should not be biassed because we find that under it there is one individual hard case. I should have wished, if it had been in my power, to make a, special exception in favour of my hon. and gallant Friend; but I do not believe it would be possible to make an exception without destroying the vitality of the whole scheme. I do not believe there is another similar case in the whole service; and if the system, which we believe to be of very great value to the public, is to be altered, we shall be compelled to retain on the list all those officers, not whose names, but whose services, I described a few minutes ago. My hon. and gallant Friend wished to serve last year. I do not know whether that wish continues; but, I repeat again that I regret exceedingly that the operation of this Order should personally affect him, and I also repeat that I believe his is the only case in which the public interests would be unfavourably affected by this Order. Let me say one word as to the financial part of this question. It has been said that the arrangement which we have made is not an economical arrangement; and my gallant Friend who spoke last rather strongly put this point—Why put officers upon the retired list with an improvement in their pay, when, if left on the active list, they would cost the country less? The answer is perfectly plain, and I wonder that my hon. Friend fell into the trap. When an officer on the retired list dies, his place is not filled up; but the place of an officer on the active list who dies is filled up, according to the invariable rule. Thus, as the retired officers die off from year to year, a very considerable saving will be effected, and this is the only way in which you can get the benefit of great reductions such as we are making now. It is true that there will be no saving, but a small increase of charge, during the first three years, by the transference of these officers to the retired list. In the first year it will cost the country £4,000, in the next year £40,000, in the third year about£10,000 or £15,000, and then the cost each year will gradually become less, until it will produce a total saving to the country of £300,000 or £350,000 a year. My hon. Friend says you need not fill up the places as vacancies occur; but that plan has boon tried once or twice, and has always failed; it is, in fact, most obnoxious to the service. It is an old tradition that death vacancies should be filled; and on this subject I may appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite, though they do not agree with me upon the general question, whether an attempt to introduce a rule under which death vacancies need not be filled would not excite great and general discontent. For that reason, we have not been able to accept the alternative suggested by my hon. Friend. If we were now in Committee, I should have been very anxious to go in detail through the scheme and defend it; it has been absolutely necessary for me to touch upon one or two of its features; but I have tried to limit myself to a defence of the point which my noble Friend has attacked. I would say, in conclusion, that this scheme has been very carefully considered not only by myself and my noble Friend, (Lord Camperdown), whose assistance I so much value, but by my colleague Sir Sydney Dacres, a very distinguished officer, who, in advising me, I believe thoroughly represents the service; by my other colleagues at the Admiralty, and by two or three persons representing every branch of the naval service. The scheme has been, I believe, accepted by the Navy as, generally speaking, a sound and satisfactory scheme; it is a scheme homogeneous in all its parts, which endeavours to do full justice to all, and endeavours to do it uniformly and impartially to the different ranks. I would venture to warn the House against passing a Resolution which would take out of the hands of the Executive Government the responsibility in matters of this kind; and, secondly, against rejecting a particular portion of a scheme, without considering what the effect of this may be upon the scheme as a whole, which has taken six or eight months to elaborate. Such interference would be particularly important at a time when we have been urged to carry through all the public services connected with the Navy very important reforms, leading to considerable reductions of persons in all positions and of all ranks in life. In order to carry out that policy we have been obliged to retire large numbers of men in the lower ranks, in addition to clerks and others in similar grades. I would beg the House to pause before they make an exception in favour of any particular rank, or of any particular officers; but when they see that we are endeavouring to carry out these important reductions impartially, I trust they will give us credit for a desire to do so, and will not interfere with any particular detail so as to destroy a homogeneous scheme.

As the First Lord of the Admiralty has not only referred to me, but has claimed me as a supporter of his scheme, I wish to say a few words. I can assure him that I entirely appreciate the efforts which he has made, I believe with the greatest sincerity, to effect reforms. I am obliged to admit that the right hon. Gentleman has, since he took Office, shown a strict anxiety to effect reforms and improvements; but everything has been done in a hurry, and these changes, in the administration of a great Department, must occasion great hardship both to individuals and classes. The changes which have been brought about by the present Board of Admiralty have inflicted great hardships on the working classes; they have inflicted great hardships on the naval service, and now the changes effected by this retirement appear to impose unnecessary hardships upon officers. I entirely approve the principle on which the right hon. Gentleman has proceeded. This question of retirement has occupied the attention of successive Boards of Admiralty, as the right hon. Gentleman very truly stated, for a considerable number of years. He referred to I860, when the Duke of Somerset took Office; but he might have gone further back, for when I held Office as First Lord, I brought forward a scheme of retirement founded on the principle of retirement by age. Now, the right hon. Gentleman brings forward a large scheme founded on two principles—retirement by age and retirement by time. It appears to me that retirement by age is entirely sound; but retirement by time admits of very great doubt. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the scheme carried out by the Duke of Somerset in 1866, and he quoted words of mine in which I objected to make exceptions in the case of officers on the ground that they had served as Lords of the Admiralty. But he was obliged to admit that I was then speaking not of a mixed system of retirement by age and by time, but of retirement entirely by age. Now, retirement by time makes the whole difference. I do think, not only in fairness to individuals, but on grounds far more important—for the sake of the public service—it is most important that you should not allow officers in the position of my hon. and gallant Friend who sits next to me (Sir John Hay) to retire from the service of the Crown. The case of my hon. and gallant Friend has been referred to, and it is a very remarkable one. I appeal to the Government — I appeal to my right hon. Friend the First Lord—looking at this not as a personal question, but as one affecting the interests of the nation, can it be for the public service —can it be a public benefit—that an officer, in his presence I will say, of recognized great ability, and in the prime of life, should be retired, compulsorily retired, from the service of the Crown? What would be the inevitable effect? The Government will feel that I am dealing with the case in no party spirit, but on the ground of the public service. What will be the effect of such procedure? A Minister charged with the formation of a Board of Admiralty wants to get the most able men he can find. It is necessary that we should have—and we always have had—naval officers of great distinction appointed to the Board of Admiralty for the sake of the services they may confer on the country. What will be the effect of this new rule? The moment an officer of great distinction is asked to join the Board, he would say—"No; I dare not join your Board of Admiralty, because if I did join I should be disqualified from serving the Crown, and I should find myself retired." This dilemma would necessarily arise. My right hon. Friend admitted the Order of 1866 was one entirely of age, and it was one that regarded the lower ranks; but it did not work well. He is perfectly right in introducing the principle of age; but I think he has carried it too far. Why he should introduce the clause with reference to admirals of the fleet to retire at seventy, I cannot understand. From the nature of the appointment, there is no reason why admirals of the fleet should retire at that age. I think seventy a more appropriate age for other admirals than sixty-five. The principle of age I entirely approve; the principle of time is most doubtful. For the sake of the public service, it is not desirable, if you adopt the principle of time, that it should be applied to officers serving their country in the capacity of Lords of the Admiralty. Under all these circumstances, I think I should best meet the spirit of the Motion and the real requirements of the occasion if, with my noble Friend's (Lord Henry Lennox's) permission, I substituted for his Motion the following —that this subject be referred to the consideration of a Select Committee. ["No, no!"] That suggestion was thrown out in a conciliatory spirit by the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread), and I think the House would do well to adopt it. I quite admit this scheme of retirement is a liberal one; and so far as it is liberal no doubt it is acceptable to the service. But, on the other hand, it is open to serious objection; and before Government finally decide to adopt the scheme, I trust they will yield to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Bedford, and appoint a Select Committee to consider the subject.

Sir, before this debate closes I am anxious to say a few words in opposition to this Motion, though I fear from the tone of the discussion it is not the popular side. Sir, I cannot believe that any impartial person can have examined the details of this retirement scheme without coming to the conclusion that it is framed on a most liberal scale, and that it metes out a large and even-handed measure of justice to all the requirements of the case. It is utterly impossible in framing a plan of retirement on so large a scale not to act with some apparent harshness to a few individuals, or to prevent placing a certain number of distinguished officers on the retired list who happen to be in perfect health and strength, but in the present instance this is not done without giving the fullest and most ample compensation, so as to soften the blow as much as possible. It is only necessary to look at the present state of the Navy List, with its numerous alphabetical retirements, to convince the most skeptical of the absolute necessity of some great, sweeping, and radical change in the list being effected; and, in my humble judgment, it would be far better to leave the whole thing alone than to deal with the subject in other than a comprehensive and statesmanlike manner. The benefit of the service demands a change; you must deal in generalities, you cannot make exceptions. Instead of offering any opposition to the scheme, I must most sincerely congratulate the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Admiralty, that he has had the courage in the face of a very considerable opposition to bring forward so comprehensive a measure, and I think we ought to give him the utmost support in our power in carrying out a scheme of retirement, which I am convinced will confer an inestimable boon on the Navy, which will give us a true, healthy, and bonê fide active list, which I am confident will render our naval officers far more efficient by keeping them constantly employed, and which will certainly render them far more contented. Sir, the Motion of the noble Lord opposite is an attempt, by an objection on a minor point, to throw out by a side wind the whole plan. The whole opposition seems to be centred in that clause in the Order in Council which retires flag officers who have not hoisted their flag for ten years, and prevents service at the Admiralty counting as flag-time. The noble Lord and the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) seem to think that in future it will have the most prejudicial effect, that distinguished and able officers will decline service at the Admiralty, and that none but old "effete" officers will be induced to go there, and that retrospectively it will act in the most unfair manner on officers who have already been at the Admiralty, on the understanding that by Order in Council, 1860, such service should count as flag time. Now, Sir, I must beg, with all deference to their opinion, entirely to differ with them, as I believe this clause which puts our admirals on the same footing as captains, commanders, and lieutenants, who, by previous Orders in Council, are now retired after having been unemployed for a certain number of years, to be one of the best in the whole scheme. First of all, let us examine the effect of this clause in its prospective character. In regard to any probable difficulty of obtaining efficient naval officers in future at the Admiralty, I can but quote the words of the noble Lord himself, "that this service has always been looked upon as one of the prizes of the profession," and such I am confident it always will remain. The effect of this provision will really be simply this— that it will limit the length of service at the Admiralty to a period of about five years, and I have yet to learn that it can be any disadvantage to the naval service that the Sea Lords of the Admiralty should be men well versed in professional knowledge and detail, which employment afloat can alone keep up. I apprehend, Sir, it will have the most desirable result, that of preventing offi- cers clinging to the Admiralty for periods of seven, ten, or twelve years, when far more efficient officers could be found to supply their places. In saying this I do not for one moment wish to be understood to imply that the work performed by naval officers at the Admiralty, in carrying on the administrative work of this great Department is at all an easy task, as, on the contrary, no one can have looked into the question without being convinced that the work is most arduous, most difficult, and most responsible. But, Sir, what I do maintain is this—that it is a position which will always be sought after by our most distinguished admirals. We must remember that there are great advantages attending these appointments. There is the especial privilege among others that an officer at the Admiralty is certain, at almost his own time and choice to be able to hoist his flag on the station he prefers. Then, Sir, there is a very considerable amount of patronage, and a man is able to live in all the comforts of his family circle, which by the exigencies of the service he generally sees far too little of, and, lastly, he is able to enjoy the social gaieties of London. If my hon. Friend opposite (Captain Dawson-Damer) does not think this a privilege I can only say, that if he will go to sea for seven or eight years, I am convinced he will return with a very different opinion. Well, Sir, I apprehend these are sufficient reasons for believing that you will always have the selection of the very best men for the Admiralty, and therefore prospectively this clause cannot do any harm. As far as it will act retrospectively, I must confess that I have had considerable doubt in my own mind as to whether it would not deal somewhat unfairly in a few cases, but on looking carefully into the question, I do not see that there is much reason for complaint. The noble Lord (Lord Henry Lennox) stated that it was a most deliberate breach of faith with several distinguished officers, but I am quite confident that my right hon. Friend (Mr. Childers) would be the very last man in this House to desire to break faith with any officer if it could be shown that promises made had not been kept. Certainly as regards two of the officers concerned—Admiral Sir Frederick Grey and Admiral Charles Eden—there is not the slightest shadow of justice that I can see in their complaint. It is always invidious to mention names, and extremely painful in a case of this nature, but so much has been said by my hon. Friend (Mr. Whitbread) respecting these officers, that I cannot sit quiet and allow it to be thought that they are unfairly dealt with. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Childers) has already shown that the Order in Council of 1866, about which we have heard so much, was passed only three mouths before the Government went out of Office; so it is impossible to say that any clause contained in that Order could have had any effect on their tenure of Office; and, therefore, however unfairly it may have dealt with other officers, it cannot be said to have acted so to them. But, Sir, I should like to add another fact, which has not yet been pointed out, and that is that these two officers belonged to the Admiralty, and were the actual framers of this very Order of 1866, which I may, perhaps, be allowed to call one of the most unjust, ill-judged, and unfair Orders in Council which have ever been passed. I protested against it in 1866, and it only passed the criticism of this House by a very small majority. It would have been very much better if it had never passed; and I sincerely wish the mischief then done could be wiped out. The Order in Council of 1866 deliberately, without any warning, without any excuse, retired fourteen of our most distinguished admirals, without giving them any compensation whatever. Most of these officers had served the country with the greatest gallantry before the enemy, and it was an act of the greatest cruelty suddenly to shelve them, without any set-off in the shape of a pecuniary compensation, or at any rate without some letter expressing the necessity of the measure, and showing by way of apology that it was for the benefit of the Navy generally. No, Sir, the House will hardly believe it, that the operation of that Order in Council of 1866, which the noble Lord has spoken of as if it was the great Charter of the Navy, was simply to retire fourteen unfortunate officers without compensation, and to make no less than fifty-three exceptions, which comprised the framers of the scheme and all those admirals who had any influence to back them, and who they feared to retire. And now we are asked to upset the whole plan of this present retirement scheme, in order that those who assisted in framing the Order in Council of 1866 to their own benefit, by excepting themselves, should be again excluded from the provisions of this new Order in Council. Whatever may be the case of other officers, I make it quite clear that these two admirals have no right to complain, more especially so when it is remembered the length of time they have each served at the Admiralty, during which period they must have had every opportunity of hoisting their flag, if they I had not preferred a home appointment. With regard to the two other officers who are affected by this scheme, I must confess that their cases are certainly hard, and if it were possible to make any alteration in their favour, I should like to see it done. My hon. Friend's (Sir John Hay's) is a most peculiar case, and no one can be more sorry than I am that the Navy should lose the services of so active an officer, especially when we remember what he has done for the Navy generally. The case of Sir Spencer Robinson, Controller of the Navy, is also a most hard one; but I fear you cannot make exceptions, and the only thing possible is to give full and ample compensation. Sir, I trust the House will support my right hon. Friend the head of the Admiralty in carrying this great measure of retirement in its entirety, and will not allow any insidious Motion of this sort to obstruct its course. It has been received with acclamation by all ranks in the Navy, and the officers of that profession are looking forward to it as one of the greatest boons that has ever been conferred on the service.

said, he thought that the basis of any system of retirement should be the efficiency of the service, and not the acceleration of promotion. He thought that the discharge by an admiral of important civil duties at the Admiralty was primê facie evidence that he was not disqualified by age and infirmities from the command of a fleet; and that the compulsory retirement of certain admirals under this scheme was a breach of faith of the Order in Council, under which they had accepted service ashore. The right hon. Gentleman might alter his scheme in this respect without any interference with the principles of it; and if he could not promise to do so, it might advantageously be referred to a Select Committee.

said, he had been engaged in a variety of debates upon the subject of promotion and retirement in the Navy, and on one occasion he had beaten the Government by a largo majority when they had attempted to prevent an investigation into the matter, and the subject was thoroughly sifted in Committee. He should like to know what would become of the Government scheme on its being exposed to the slightest breath of war? At this moment he could tell the Government that there was a small cloud appearing in the East, now no bigger than a man's hand, that might call upon England to be ready for all emergencies in a short time, and then they would look in vain for those officers whom they had driven into retirement. The hon. Baronet his distinguished Relative (Sir John Hay) had been thirteen times in action, and they were about to retire him at the ago of forty-nine; and was he, who stood before them, sixty-five years of age, to be told that he was not fit to command a ship? This was a part of the Government scheme for the purpose of disarming England. The present Government were, step by step, lowering this country in the eyes of England. [Dissent.] They were, by every means in their power, lowering the prestige of this country. He had not been at home during the last Recess; he had been abroad, and had heard what foreign nations said of us. The Government were bringing in a Bill to prevent evictions in Ireland; but, at the same time, they were doing their best to evict the best men in the service, and they were degrading the country in the face of Europe. And what were the rewards left for the Navy? Was there a single thing left for those who had given up every chance in life for the service but the bare epaulets on their backs? Orders in Council had become a mockery; promulgated by one Board of Admiralty they were rescinded by another and given to the winds. And why should the Navy be less worthily dealt by than the Army? Was the Director of the Works at the Admiralty to be kept on the strength of his corps, and rise grade by grade till he became a general of Engineers, while his superior officer, Admiral Robinson, a man of great talent and ability, notwithstanding he had built a great many bad ships, was to be retired? It was true the First Lord of the Admiralty was of opinion that the Controller of the Navy was not a naval branch of the service; but it was only his ignorance which made him think so, for it required the very highest class of naval talent to enable a man to construct a ship, and if Admiral Robinson had not attained to a sufficient knowledge of his business he at least knew as much as the present Lords of the Admiralty. The Admiralty reduced its staff; but it would be at war with somebody or other during the next five or six years, and would then have to fill up its lists again, and then would follow wholesale retirements to curry favour with the manufacturing classes. The only proper retirement was the retirement of lieutenants. Of what use was it to retire from the flag list and the captains' list? They still had to be paid, and, at the same time, lieutenants and other young officers were raised a grade and received higher pay. Give lieutenants a good bonus to retire, and let them go into the merchant service, or the Colonies, or wherever they like; but do not thrust an unmerited insult on officers of standing, and say they are unfit for the service. Lord Howe fought the battle of the 1st of June when he was sixty-nine years of age, and he asked whether that battle would be better fought now? Certainly not with the ships which the First Lord of the Admiralty was building. He, therefore, seconded the proposition of his right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) that these matters be referred to a Select Committee.

The hon. and gallant Member seems to be quite unconscious of the character of the Motion he has supported. He has sat down after seconding a proposition that this matter be referred to a Select Committee, a Motion which is not before the House. But if I gather the purport of his speech correctly, he has been arguing in support of the proposal that it is inexpedient to retire flag officers from the active list for any other cause but age or physical infirmity; but that is quite a different notion. And how does he support it? He is greatly scandalized at the idea of sending away from the Navy men of fifty or sixty, because, he says, a most distinguished admiral fought a great battle at the age of sixty-nine; but he also recommends that you should retire lieutenants at the age of twenty-five or thirty. So that he who thinks men at sixty or sixty-nine have a great deal of vigour in them which should not be lost to the service, proposes to retire men of twenty-five or thirty.

rose to explain, but was met with loud cries of "Order!"

said, the hon. and gallant Member could explain himself when the First Lord of the Treasury had concluded his observations.

The hon. and gallant Member is rather sensitive. But his own remarks were not deficient in freedom. He also says that while we are introducing an Irish Land Bill—for his fancy loads him that distance in search of illustrations — to prevent the evil of eviction, we are evicting a multitude of naval officers; but the answer to that is, that these men are voluntarily evicted. ["No!"] Is it not the truth that the measure of my right hon. Friend has been received with general approbation by the service? ["No!"] I think my right hon. Friend has given ample proof that this is the case; for he has, at any rate, shown that, whereas in 1866 gentlemen who are now chief complainers wore forced to retire without compensation, the feature of the present plan is that compensation is offered as far as can be done by a uniform rule to everybody, and that no exceptions are made. An appeal has been made to my hon. Friends below the Gangway, who are justly supposed to have a particular regard for public economy; and a few words have been tacked on to the end of this Motion deprecating an addition to the public charge, by way of fishing for their votes. Certainly the arrangement adds to the public charge of the present year, and to the next and the year after. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir John Pakington) says precipitancy has been the character of the present First Lord's administration; but if he were to go out of Office to-morrow-he could write, in record of his deeds, that he has taken £1,500,000, in round numbers, off the Estimates. And I want to know whether, if precipitancy is the principle of a man's policy, he would show it in a measure like this, which actually adds to the charge which he has to meet, and leave, to his successors the benefit of his economical ar- rangements? It is always invidious to object to a plausible proposal which is not before us; but the hon. and gallant Member thinks it is advisable, and it has certainly been suggested in debate, to refer this matter to a Select Committee. Her Majesty's Government are bound to say that having well considered the subject they have obtained the sanction of Her Majesty to an Order in Council, by which this scheme is promulgated; the House will have ample means of indicating by its vote in Committee whether it approves this order or not, but the right hon. Member for Droitwich will see that the subject has passed a stage in which the Government can assent to the appointment of a Committee. The Government stand with my right hon. Friend on this—that his scheme is an economical measure. It is a liberal measure, because it asks no man to retire from the service without giving him compensation for that which he does, as well as various options of which he may avail himself. It is a uniform measure, and aims at the avoidance of invidious exceptions, and upon these grounds we think it is a measure for which we may venture confidently, and without respect of party, to ask the approval of the House.

said, he was convinced that the proposed scheme of retirement would, on the whole, be a beneficial and an economical one; but he believed it would work a great injustice to certain individuals. Now, it appeared to him that while the House was passing a great measure of improvement it ought to take care that it was not, at the same time, unjust to particular officers, who, relying on what had been done by past Governments, had laid; down plans for their professional career. The point at issue was, in fact, a very small one, for he understood it affected only four officers of great distinction personally. These officers said that, according to the last arrangement with regard to retirement, they were saved from having to retire by an exception which provided that service in the Admiralty should count as sea service, that they were thereby induced to accept Office as Lords of the Admiralty, and that they objected to be now forced to retire by the order now under the consideration of the House. Surely it was not worth while, in effecting.a public improvement, to do an injustice to these gentlemen. The object of all retirement should be to get active, able, and efficient men to discharge the duty of admirals. Instead, however, of this new scheme doing this, it was going to force from, the service a man like the hon. and gallant Member for Stamford (Sir John Hay), than whom there was no more eminent officer or more active Member of that House. It seemed, therefore, to be rather a reflection on the general expediency of his right hon. Friend's scheme of retirement that it should force an officer of the highest distinction to worship against his will his Penates in the country, instead of serving the Queen as an admiral at sea. His right hon. Friend at the head of the Admiralty was, in his opinion, ill-advised to overrule this claim, and had not made out his case at all. The answer he gave to these gentlemen was that he would give them ample compensation; but surely they were entitled to say— "We do not like your terms of retirement, and instead of taking your compensation, we prefer to be allowed to count our Admiralty time as sea service." He trusted his right hon. Friend would reconsider this comparatively small point, and yield to what he regarded as simply a claim of justice.