said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he can inform the House of the measures which he proposes to adopt to secure the continued enjoyment of Epping Forest to the public?

said, in reply, that the pledge given by the Government a short time ago had not been neglected. Measures were in progress, and there was every reason to hope that they would lead to a satisfactory settlement; but the communications had not yet reached the stage at which it would be desirable to make them public.

said, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade, If our Ambassador at Paris has suggested that two English Merchants or Manufacturers should be examined before the French Commission of Inquiry respecting the Commercial Treaty now in force between England and France; and, if so, upon what principle those witnesses are to be selected?

replied that a suggestion was made by the British Ambassador at Paris that two English merchants or manufacturers should be examined before the French Commission of Inquiry respecting the Commercial Treaty between England and France. The Board of Trade had, in consequence, communicated with the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, because the inquiry now going on at Paris related entirely to the cotton manufacture. There was no special principle on which these witnesses were to be selected, beyond that of the possession of the necessary information on the subject.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether it is true that the 18th Regiment have been withdrawn from New Zealand and distributed throughout the Australian Colonies, and whether the expense will be defrayed in full, or in part, by the Colonial Governments?

, in reply, said, the 18th Regiment would remain in Australia for a few weeks, and would probably be removed in the month of August. He could not state in what way the expense for that short period would be defrayed.

rose to call attention to a patter personal to himself, and likewise touching the privileges of the House. During the Recess a great number of comments upon his conduct, and upon the observations he made in moving for the Select Committee of Inquiry respecting Monastic and Conventual Institutions had appeared in letters and articles, and it was surprising that writers in newspapers should venture to assail a Member of the House in a manner of which he should now proceed to give one instance. On Saturday last The Tablet contained the following statement:—

"We hear that in the clubs people are beginning to ask how it is that Mr. Newdegate can suffer 'the lie to be given' him, as he has by Sir Charles Clifford, Father Gordon, Mr. Langdale, and others, and not come forward like a man and attempt to substantiate his charges or to retract them."

The House would observe that this was not only a libel itself, it was a compendium of libels, and that, therefore, it constituted a gross breach of the privileges of that House. He now begged to state that nothing should induce him to take any action out of the House, either in Courts of Law or elsewhere, in reference to statements based on observations of his own made in that House, and bearing on a matter which the House had appointed a Select Committee to consider. He felt it due to himself to state that, in deference to the privileges of the House, he would be tempted by no insult to submit this matter either directly or indirectly to the Courts of Law, or to any other tribunal than that the appointment of which the House had been pleased to order. He was convinced that these imputations were deliberately made. He made this statement, because in 1865, after he had proposed the appointment of a Committee of a somewhat similar character, which was not agreed to by the House, he was pursued by the same person in the most insulting manner, with a view, he was convinced., to deter him from the performance of his duty in that House, by endeavouring to force him to seek some other tribunal nut appointed by the House for the solution of questions as to his veracity raised by similar imputations, and thereby to induce him to waive his privilege as a Member of the House. This deterring system was not only attempted against himself, but also, he understood, against witnesses, whoso testimony might be needed for the inquiry, and this seemed to him to constitute a direct and deliberate breach of the privileges of the House. He was prepared to uphold the truth of the statements which he had made in the House; but when speaking on the 29th of March he committed one error which he now desired to correct. He stated, on moving for the Select Committee, that the daughter of a respectable person in this town was persuaded to enter a convent at Hammersmith before she was 16 years old. That was an error, for the convent referred to was at Finchley. He would not now go into the reasons which led to this confusion; but he hoped the House would excuse his explaining that it was in deference to the decision of the House to appoint a Select Committee, before which the truth of his statements might be tested, and in deference to the privileges of the House, that he refrained from taking any further steps in reference to the gross libel to which he had called attention.

said, seeing the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in his place, he wished to know, Whether he could give the House any information connected with that most disastrous intelligence which has, within the last day or two, been received from Greece?

It is, Sir, with very deep regret that I have to state to the House that information has been received that the English captives who wore in the hands of brigands in Greece have been put to death by them—that is, the captives who remained after Lord Muncaster, who had been one of them, had been despatched to make terms for their release, and whose departure had been preceded by Lady Muncaster, Mrs. Lloyd, and her daughter. No effort had been wanting on the part of Her Majesty's Minister at Athens to endeavour to avert the sad fate that has befallen the captives. There has been no difficulty with regard to the payment of the sum demanded by the brigands as ransom for the persons in their power; nor had efforts been wanting on the part of Her Majesty's Minister to induce the Greek Government to grant an amnesty, which the brigands demanded as a condition of the release of the captives. Unfortunately, that concession was not made, and it appears that the brigands, being attacked by the Greek troops, did proceed to carry into effect the menace they had previously used, and put the captives in their possession to death. The intelligence was received at the Foreign Office on the afternoon of Saturday that Mr. Herbert and the Secretary of the Italian Legation had been put to death by the brigands, apparently under the pressure of an attack by the Greek troops; but Mr. Vyner had been carried off by the brigands, and nothing was known of Mr. Lloyd. That telegram was despatched from Athens at 2 a.m. on the day before that on which it was received at the Foreign Office. A later telegram, despatched from Athens at 1 p.m. on the day following—the 23rd, readied the Foreign Office on the same day, at 8 p. in., by which we learnt the further sad intelligence that Mr. Vyner and Mr. Lloyd had shared the fate of their companions, and that the former had been killed near Thebes. We are waiting with great anxiety the details of this massacre; but we do not expect to receive them before Friday week. In the meantime, the Secretary of State has empowered me to lay on the Table of the House all communications that have passed between him and Her Majesty's representative at Athens relating to the subject, both by despatch and by telegram. I have laid them on the Table this afternoon, and they will be distributed to Members as soon as possible.

Have you any information respecting Lord Muneaster?

said, there was every reason to believe that Lord Muncaster was in safety. The names of the victims had been telegraphed, and Lord Muncaster's name was not among them. There was, therefore, every reason to believe he was safe.

said, that great apprehension had been created in the City by a rumour that it was intended to enact that a penny stamp should be placed on every coupon, although it might be of almost infinitesimal value. He wished to know whether the rumour was correct.

said, he would give, the explanation sought for when the Bill was brought in.

said, he objected to provisoes (1) and (2) as unnecessary. The object of the clause being merely to enable aliens to take and inherit real as well as personal estate, it could not be necessary to further enact that the possession of such property should not qualify an alien for any office, or for any municipal, Parliamentary, or other franchise, and that it should not entitle an alien to any right or privilege as a British subject, except those expressly conferred by the clause in respect of property. As it was undesirable to overload the Act with, more matter than was necessary for its proper construction, he would move to leave out 1st and 2nd provisoes.

said, that the object of these provisoes was to preserve the distinction between the rights which an alien would acquire under the clause, and those further rights which he would acquire by naturalization. If these provisoes were not inserted, the very fact of empowering aliens to hold real property might be taken as a qualification for municipal and other offices and franchises, and then there would be no need of a "Naturalization Bill." Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

said, he believed that it was scarcely understood how great a revolution this Bill was about to make in the present state of the law. Under its provisions an alien would be able to acquire real property on the same footing as a British subject; and, as this change was not recommended by the Commission by whom the subject had been considered, he had the less hesitation in giving notice that he would raise the question on the bringing up of the Report.

said, he thought the word "affect" in the 3rd proviso was somewhat ambiguous in its meaning, and he would therefore beg to move that the word "prejudicially" should be inserted before "affect" in line 25.

explained that it was intended by this expression that the section should not take away any existing right or create new ones.

said, he proposed to omit the 4th proviso, which gave power to Her Majesty in Council to suspend the operation of the Act as to the enjoyment of property held by aliens, subjects of any State at war with Her Majesty, during the continuance of such hostilities. That proviso was not in the draft of the Bill as originally prepared, and it was inserted chiefly because it was supposed that, in time of war, enemies might get possession of portions of our coast and occasion serious inconvenience and danger by affording facilities for the landing of hostile forces. But under the present state of the law aliens could practically hold property for all hostile purposes by means of leases, and therefore the proviso would not have the intended effect. He therefore moved, in page 2, line 1, leave out 4th proviso.

said, it was quite true that the proviso did not appear in the original draft. He would agree to omit the proviso; for, if by any chance or accident, the enjoyment of property by an alien during a time of war should be prejudicial to the country, Parliament had always the power to intervene with a special Act.

said, he would observe, in reply to the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Charley), that the Commissioners considered the question whether there was any public advantage to be gained by limiting the power of aliens to hold real estate in this country, and they satisfied themselves that there was not. The Bill proposed to afford facilities for expatriation and denaturalization which had not previously existed; but, hitherto, the children and heirs of persons emigrating, though by this Bill they would be aliens, had had a right to succeed to real property left by their relatives in this country; and it would be inflicting great hardship upon British subjects emigrating and becoming naturalized in the countries they adopted, if this right, which had never yet been attended with inconvenience, were now withheld. As far as he knew, real estate might be held by Englishmen in almost every other country in Europe, and also in the United States of America; and, profiting by the experience of other nations, he thought we might adopt a provision the withholding of which might cause serious injury to those who, but for this Act, would still have been our own subjects.

said, he proposed, in Clause 4, line 34, to add, as a separate paragraph—

"Any person who is born out of Her Majesty's Dominions of a father, being a British subject, may, if of full age and not undo any disability, make a declaration of alienage in manner aforesaid, and from and after the making of such declaration shall cease to be a British subject."

The 4th clause was not originally contained in the Bill, but was inserted by Lord Westbury in the House of Lords, and the addition to the clause which was now proposed was necessary to give full effect to its intention.

said, he thought that, it would be unfair to impose upon a single magistrate a duty which involved the understanding and the taking cave of documents which he might, perhaps, have a difficulty in understanding. This declaration ought to be made in a petty sessions or a court of record.

said, he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that these declarations would frequently have to be made abroad, where there was no person to receive them but the Consul. Single magistrates were already competent to receive very important declarations. The form and manner in which these declarations were to be made were to be prescribed by the Secretary of State, and it would be his duty to insert whatever safeguards might be deemed necessary.

said, he still objected to a single magistrate having thrown upon him a duty which might be so difficult to perform satisfactorily, and which might yet involve so many and such important interests.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman's objections would be serious if the duties intrusted to the magistrate were judicial, instead of ministerial. The declaration would only be a ministerial act, and he could not help thinking-that a justice here was as good as a member of the Diplomatic or Consular Service abroad.

said, as they were enabling a British subject to alter his status by a mere declaration, that declaration ought to be filed in some court or office, so that a record of it might be preserved.

said, that people who came now to make declarations before magistrates carried off the paper, because it was their own concern. But where a person changed his whole status there ought to be a record of the act some-where, and it was not fair to throw on the magistrate the responsibility of seeing that that was done in his own house.

said, that by the 11th clause, which contemplated that the form and registration of certificates would be provided for, the Secretary of State was to make regulations which would have the force of law; and the question was, whether it was better to trust the Government to do that, or to maket he rules themselves, and embody them in the Act. He confessed he had no doubt that reasonable regulations would be made by the Secretary of State, should the 11th clause pass.

said, that this addition, taken alone, was open to the objection of leaving the law in an anomalous state. As the law now stood, the child born abroad of an English father was an English subject, and the converse ought to be that the child born here of a foreign father was a foreigner. But that was not so. The proposed addition recognized one part of this rule; but it was not thought expedient to alter the law so as to recognize the other. That, in his opinion, was an unfortunate result.

said, that there was no necessity for the clause, inasmuch as it was no part of the common law that an alien should have the privilege of being tried by a jury de medietate linguæ. That privilege, which was limited to cases of felony and misdemeanour, was conferred by a statute of Edward III., altered by an Act of William and Mary, and subsequently by an Act of George IV.

said, that the clause said nothing about the common law. It only said that where an alien was entitled to be tried de medietate, he should, after the passing of the Act, no longer be entitled to be tried by such a jury; but should be triable in the same manner as a natural-born subject.

moved the addition of words, to the effect that all persons already naturalized, who made a declaration and continued to reside in the United Kingdom, should obtain all the privileges conferred by the Bill. The reason why he offered this Amendment was that persons who had gone through the trouble of getting naturalized would, when the Bill passed, be in not a whit better position than others who had not been naturalized. He thought that those who had been naturalized should obtain the privileges of the Act as easily as possible.

said, it was now proposed to give to naturalized aliens a great deal that they never had before, for it really incorporated them into the British body politic; and, therefore, there was no particular reason why they should not take a little more trouble in order to get more substantial advantages. One of the conditions on which aliens would obtain these advantages was residence for a certain time. The time in the Bill was three years; he should propose to alter it to five.

said, he did not propose that a person who had been naturalized only that morning should obtain the benefits of the Bill. He spoke of persons who had resided in this country continuously for a long time; and it was very hard that they should be placed under the disadvantage of having to take all that trouble over again.

said, that section itself enabled the Secretary of State, under certain circumstances, if he thought fit, to naturalize a person at once.

said, it was now proposed by that Bill to give to naturalization political effects which it never had before, except by Act of Parliament. Under those circumstances, he did not see why persons who had obtained a common naturalization should not be subject to the same provisions as aliens would hereafter be on seeking to be incorporated in the body politic of this country.

said, he would not press his Amendment.

said, the clause proposed that a married woman was to be deemed the subject of the State of which her husband was for the time being a subject. The clause did not seem to be sufficiently guarded. A woman might have married a British subject, and might never have intended that by any force of law she should become a foreign subject; yet, by a former clause in the Bill combined with the present one, if the husband made himself an alien, the wife, although residing with her children in this country, and judicially separated from her husband, who lived abroad, would be made a foreign subject against her own will, and against that of her family, through his changing his nationality, and if she were afterwards to reside in any foreign country, she would be deprived of all the rights, privileges, and protection to which a British subject would be entitled.

said, it was almost impossible to provide against every conceivable case of hardship; and the question was what rule, on the whole, was most expedient. It appeared that the balance of convenience was in favour of enacting that the wife should take the status of the husband, rather than in favour of enacting that, under certain circumstances, she should not do so. By the latter course we should get into difficult and complicated questions of domicile, of whether the husband and wife intended to remain separated permanently, or only temporarily, and the like.

said, he thought it would be very oppressive to a wife resident in England, and separated from her husband, to be forced against her will to become the subject of she knew not what power, through his naturalization abroad. He was surprised that, at a time when the rights of women were so loudly advocated, the House should seem determined thus to curtail them, and that no one but the worthy Alderman (Mr. Alderman Lawrence) had been found to say a word in their defence.

said, he would suggest that the case might be met by putting the divorced wife on the same footing as a widow in that matter.

said, they were now arguing a question of words, not of things. All the real rights and privileges of the parties wore protected by the Bill. The only thing that was altered was the nationality.

said, he thought the question was a much wider one than many hon. Gentlemen believed, and the alteration affected not only the wife but the children.

said, those questions were very carefully considered in the Commission, and it was proposed that they should be settled in accordance with the universal principles of private International Law. It was quite settled as a matter of International Law generally that the status of the wife and that of minor children followed the status of the husband and father. The Bill proceeded on that principle, and no harm could result from that, because it was only political status that was in question; the Bill abolished all distinctions which at present existed between aliens and others as to the enjoyment of property. The Bill not only preserved the rights of children who did not go abroad, but enabled those children who left this country, and wives who became widows, or were divorced, to return to the condition of British subjects if they thought fit. He hoped the House would adhere to sound general principles, and not be affected by theoretical cases in which neither personal liberty nor property was involved.

said, he must complain that the Bill did not provide for cases of judicial separation. He was of opinion that the rights of a wife and of children might be seriously affected if the consent of the wife were not required to enable the husband to change her nationality. He could not understand how hon. Members, who talked so much about the rights of women, could, in this wholesale manner, deprive women of rights they possessed, and make them, upon this question at least, mere chattels.

said, he wished to know in what part of the Bill the national status of a divorced wife was recognized.

said, that the result of a divorce a vinculo was, that the woman was no longer married, and therefore she would have the same power of becoming a British subject as any other independent person.

said, he thought that inconvenience might occur in some cases; but he did not see what other course could be adopted than that of making the nationality of the wife follow that of the husband.

said, that the object of the Bill was to amend our naturalization law, so as to make it conform more nearly to International Law; and therefore it was necessary to adopt the general rule that the wife should follow the nationality of the husband. He believed that the objection to the clause was a mere theoretical one; except, sentimentally, the legal status of the wife would not be altered by the act of her husband. If hardship should follow from the provision in a case whore there had been a judicial separation, the remedy would be to alter the law in respect of judicial separations so as to make a woman judicially separated a feme sole.

, in rising to move that the Bill be read the third time upon this day six months, said, as an explanation of his reason for taking the unusual course of proposing the rejection of a measure on the third reading, he must remark that he was, in the first instance, led to suppose from the title of the Bill that it merely related to matters of detail connected with the management of certain Departments of the War Office, and therefore he did not suppose it would be necessary for him to oppose it. But, on examining the Bill in Committee, he found that it proposed to appoint two new Under Secretaries at the War Office, and was in that respect a most important measure. It had not been discussed fully and properly on its merits, because many Members on both sides of the House were not aware of the nature of the proposition; and several hon. Gentlemen had asked him about it, and, on learning the grounds of his opposition, were much astonished at the conduct of the Government in the matter. This was, in reality, a Bill to create a Clerk to the Ordnance and a Financial Secretary, each with a seat in the House and a salary of £1,500 a year. At the time of the Crimean War there was a Board of Ordnance; but the effect of the divided responsibility of management during war was such, that it was found to be essential for the salvation of the Army to abolish the separate establishment, and appoint the Secretary of State for War as the solely responsible Minister. It was now proposed to return to the former imperfect arrangement, and to reproduce the old evils at an increased cost to the taxpayers of the country. He objected altogether to the appointment of these now Secretaries; and even if such officials were appointed, he considered that there was no necessity for their having seats in that House, for the Secretary of State for War was quite capable of answering any Questions which might be put in the House as to the conduct of his Department. The duties in the War Office might be onerous; but those in the House could be discharged by one man. This was the worst possible time that could have been selected for the creation of new Offices, and the proposition came with a very bad grace from those who were such professors of retrenchment and economy—who had been dismissing dockyard, labourers by hundreds and thousands, and who had reduced the number of soldiers and sailors in Her Majesty's service. It was true that by the proposed appointments that party would gain two votes; and he supposed they were looking forward to the time when their majority would be gradually waning away. The cruelty of the hardship imposed upon the dismissed labourers, soldiers, and sailors, could not well be exaggerated. The proceeding might have been necessary; but the Government had not shown much consideration for the feelings of the poor people. It might be very well to cut down national expenditure in this way in order to make a great display of economy; but if the effect was merely to transfer the main- tenance of those persons from the general taxes to local rates, there was no saving to the country. On the contrary, an additional burden was imposed; for when people were reduced to the rank of paupers it was difficult for them to regain an independent position. What would the labouring people of this country, so many of whom had been discharged, say when they fully understood the scheme contained in this Bill, which would, doubtless, eventually create two more pensions? Would they not characterize it, and truly, as a Whig job? But apart from the objection on the score of the time at which the proposal was made, he maintained that the change was not called for, because more head clerks could not be required when the establishment had been reduced. No manufacturer, who was compelled by badness of trade to reduce his establishment, would dream of engaging new higher clerks. He believed, further, that even if more assistance was required in the War Office, the proposed officials were not the men for the work. Men who had to sit in that House from four in the afternoon until two or three o'clock next morning were obviously not the persons to attend an office from ten o'clock in the forenoon until five or six at night. The proper persons to transact office business of that kind would be clerks at £500 or £600 a year, who could devote the whole of their time to the business of the Department. They would not, however, be able to give the Government two votes, which, he contended, was the object of the Bill before the House. For these reasons, he begged leave to move that the Bill be read the third time upon this day six months.

said, he had placed an Amendment upon the Paper to the effect that this Bill should be re-committed; but, in consequence of the Motion of the hon. Member who had just sat down, the forms of the House would not now permit him to move it. He trusted, however, that the Secretary of State for War would be inclined to adopt the suggestions he was about to offer, although he was unable to make any Motion upon the subject. The right hon. Gentleman in introducing this measure had complained that, whereas in former times there had been four or five officers in the House to help the Secretary for War, he had now only the assistance of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the War Lord of the Treasury, who, in his (Lord Elcho's) opinion, acted rather as a check upon than as a help to the right hon. Gentleman. Though this Bill was the most important measure connected with Army administration that had been introduced since 1855, it somehow or another had scarcely excited more attention than if it had been a road Bill or any other ordinary measure, and had it not been for his protest, to which the Secretary of State for War had so considerately responded, it would have been read a third time some weeks ago, at an early hour in the morning. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Fielden) had said that this was a Whig job; but he (Lord Elcho) could not concur in that observation. This measure was not simply one which empowered the Government to appoint two officers, one or both of whom might have seats in that House, and thus give the Government two additional votes; but it must be read in the light of Lord Northbrook's Report, and of the recent attempt of Sir Henry Storks, who held the office of Controller, to get into Parliament, and it was a Bill which proposed to re-construct the whole of the War Office administration. It would depend upon the acceptance of this Bill, in its present or in a modified form, whether the strength of the Army, and, consequently, of the nation, was to be increased for both defensive and aggressive purposes. Distrusting his own opinions upon a question of such vast importance to the interests of the country, he would content himself by quoting authorities which were entitled to considerable weight upon the subject of the administration of the Army. As the hon. Member who had just spoken had justly observed, this Bill sought to partially undo what had been done in 1855 and 1856 after the close of the Crimean War, during which, the then existing system of Army administration was supposed to have broken down, although he (Lord Elcho) believed that it was possible to show that the misfortunes that then occurred might reasonably be attributed to other causes than the failure of that system, which had not had a fair trial at that time. The keystone of that system was the Master General of the Ordnance; but the Master General of the Ordnance was not here, but was in the Crimea. Nevertheless, as we were in the habit of doing in this country on most occasions, we had rushed to a conclusion at once, and had swept away the existing system root and branch. It appeared from the 2nd volume of Mr. Clode's book upon the administration of the Army that this great change was effected at the first Cabinet in which Lord Palmerston sat as Prime Minister, when the Secretary for War (the Earl of Dalhousie) took away with him on a sheet of note paper the memoranda for the destruction of the old system, and the substitution for it of a new one. The hon. Member who had just sat down had assumed that the change then effected had been a very salutary one, but what had been its results? Broadly stated, the results of that change had been that, whereas in 1853–4 the Estimates for the Army had been £10,114,449, they had increased in 1868 to £15,455,400, exclusive of the cost of the Army of Reserve, and without adding to the military strength of the country in any degree to justify so large an increase in the Estimates; though, no doubt, many things had been done to improve the position of the soldier, and in matters of transport and improved ordnance. Had the present system worked without friction? He found that it was stated in the work to which he referred that the Earl of Longford had said in the House of Lords that, during the 12 years that had elapsed since the consolidation of the Departments, 17 Royal Commissions, 18 Select Committees, 19 committees of officers within the War Office, besides 35 committees of military men, had considered points of policy connected with the Army, while there had been nine different Secretaries of State for War during that same period. Under these circumstances, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down must admit that the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly justified in attempting, by the introduction of this measure, to take a step towards the reduction to order of the chaos that had existed during the past 12 years with reference to the Army administration. It was proposed by the Bill to appoint two officers—one, who was to have a seat in that House, to be called the Finance Secretary, and the other, who might have a seat in that House, to he called the Clerk of the Ordnance. Now, the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Captain Vivian) had been appointed War Lord of the Treasury; but of his duties the House had no knowledge, except that they had been told that he was responsible for the finance of the Army, or something of that kind, but if he were to be appointed Financial Secretary his duties would in all probability be more clearly defined. If the House looked at Lord Northbrook's Report, they would find that in former times the system of supply and checks was carried out by auditors of imports, audit commissioners, controllers of Army accounts, an Auditor General, and an Accountant General, and the hon. Gentleman opposite had been appointed to represent the Treasury and to act as a check upon the Secretary of State for War. It thus appeared, as was stated in Lord North-brook's Report, that Army finance had hitherto been conducted upon the principle that that no trust was to be placed in any of the various departments, and that officers and other departments must be placed over them to act as checks upon their extravagance. It was now, however, proposed that, instead of the various departments being antagonistic, they should work cordially and harmoniously together, and that they should all put their shoulders to the wheel in order to keep down the expenditure, while the efficiency of the Army was secured. In his view such a system would be a much sounder one than that which had hitherto been in vogue. The hon. Gentleman opposite would doubtless discharge his new duties admirably, and, as had been stated in Lord Northbrook's Report, there would probably be but little difficulty at any time in finding among the Members of that House a Gentleman who was qualified to fill the office of Financial Secretary. The office of Clerk of the Ordnance would, however, be much more difficult to fill. According to public rumour, the two offices of Clerk of the Ordnance and Controller in Chief were to be filled by one and the same person, namely, Sir Henry Storks, whose candidature for a seat in Parliament was already spoken of. But what were the duties which were to be discharged by the Clerk of the Ordnance? In France one set of officers were appointed to provide what were called munitions de louche, which included everything necessary for the comfort of the men and beasts, such as food, forage, equipage, &c, while, on the other hand, the Board of Ordnance supplied the munitions de guerre, such as ammunition, &c. This officer would be responsible for everything in the shape of food for man and beast, for medical stores and transport; he would be responsible, also, for the food of guns, the big as well as little guns; for deciding whether the funds in the Exchequer would justify any proposed experiments; and for seeing that sufficient and not an excess of stores were provided for the manufacturing Departments. Would any man cognizant with business or the management of an estate say it was possible to get any single man thoroughly competent to discharge all these duties efficiently? His first objection to the appointment described in the Bill was founded on the finite and fallible character of man; it would be impossible to find a single man competent for the post, and even if such a one were found, on what a slender thread would the whole system hang! The efficiency of the Army would be dependent upon the bodily health of this one man, who might fail, perhaps, at the commencement of a war, the very moment when he would be most needed. The second objection was founded on the experience of all foreign nations. The French had a system of distinct control, and a proper division of duties, separating the commissariat for man from the supply of food for guns. The movements in the Crimea could not be taken as an example of war; they were not in the nature of a campaign; the General had any number of bases, the last being connected with the field by six miles of railway; the line of communication was perfectly safe, and the only thing which could threaten it—the Russian fleet—was under water from fear of capture. There could, therefore, be no comparison between the Crimea and the Peninsula, and the progress from the Peninsula to the gates of Paris was not made under a system based upon unity of control, but upon that division which at present exists in foreign armies. But this matter was inquired into a few years ago by a Committee composed of Lord Strathnairn as Chairman; Sir Hope Grant, Q.M.G.; Sir Duncan Cameron; Sir William Power, Commissary General-in-Chief; Colonel Gambier, Deputy Adjutant General R.A.; Colonel Kennedy, Military Train; Colonel Shadwell, Military Assistant, War Office; Mr. Brown, Accountant General. In substance, this Committee recommended the appointment of a Controller, whose duties would correspond with those of the French Intendant, who made all provision for man and beast, including forage, fuel, light, and clothing, but had nothing to do with the provision of warlike stores; in fact, the Committee suggested a system similar to our Peninsular system and to that adopted by every country in Europe. This Committee also referred to the system sketched out by the late Lord Herbert, whoso opinion in Army matters could not fail to carry weight. Lord Herbert's suggestion was that there should be a Parliamentary Under Secretary, a Permanent Secretary, a Secretary for Military Correspondence, a Director of Material (to have superintendence of manufactures of warlike stores, and to be an officer of the Royal Artillery), an Inspector General of Fortifications, and a Director of Supplies.

"I would have," he said, "a military officer to overlook the Commissariat, the clothing, and all stores which are not what are called warlike stores."

Thus they had Lord Herbert recommending practically the same division of duties as existed in this country formerly, and in foreign countries, and was recommended by Lord Strathnairn's Committee. But he had an authority even greater than these, the Duke of Wellington, who, in 1837, gave evidence on the question of combining the Ordnance and the Commissariat. The Duke said—

"I do not think it possible to intrust the establishments of the Ordnance abroad and in the country with the transaction of the business by the Commissariat. I am now adverting to a time of peace. In time of war, I consider it absolutely impracticable—quite out of the question; it could not be done. The poisons charged with the care of the ordnance and stores in the field could not take charge of all those branches of business which are performed by the office of the Commissary General, which go to feed the troops and their horses and animals, and to supply them with the means of transport and all that is necessary."

Again—

"I do not think that this consolidation is practicable; my reason is, that I think the Board of Ordnance have as much to do at present as they can well manage. But when you come to throw upon a great public Department, such as the Ordnance, the feeding of His Majesty's troops, and all the various duties performed by the Commissariat in England and all parts of the world, and the duties done by the officer under the Secretary at War, I conceive that a great deal more would be thrown upon the Board than they could undertake. I confess I do not think any money would be saved by this arrangement. I doubt that the Board could give any effectual assistance in the performance of those duties or could exercise any sufficient control over them. I am certain that in time of war the union of these Departments in the field or elsewhere would be absolutely out of the question."

Viscount Hardinge at the same time said—

"There might by the proposed consolidation he some saving in time of peace, but a great deal of danger in time of war. My opinion decidedly is that everything that is consumed by man or by horse had better be left to the Commissariat, it would be imprudent to place it under the Ordnance."

Again—

"Consolidation is bad when it prevents the head of a Department from personally investigating all the important details, and this applies more particularly to a Military Department, because the Army is a great mass of small details."

The authorities of greatest weight, therefore, were clearly against this combination; and he was bound to say, without wishing in any way to speak disrespectfully, they were authorities of greater weight than those composing the War Office Committee, which included Lord Northbrook, the right hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), Sir Edward Lugard, and Mr. W. G. Anderson. There was some danger of administrators being led away by this idea of unity of responsibility and unity of control, and he hoped the recommendation of the high authorities he had quoted would be so far acted on in the reconstruction of the War Office—for that was what it came to—as to break up the control into departments, and make a manageable system dependent rather upon itself than upon a single efficient man. Another point was the position the Controllers were to bear to the Staff. Clearly, it was intended by Lord Strathnairn's, and he believed by Lord North-brook's Committee also, that the Controller should be completely under the General; he maintained he should also be under the Staff of the General when that Staff was properly constituted. The French had a properly constituted Staff and a Chief of the Staff, who was conversant with every detail and responsible to the General for the proper working of the Commissariat, and he believed we might have a similar officer who should be completely under the control of the General. According to all accounts there was friction in the working of our Control Department. He might, indeed, cite numberless instances in proof of this assertion, but he would refrain from doing so, as this was a matter of principle, and not one of detail; and he would, therefore, assume that when any new system was established, there must be a certain amount of friction. To show, however, that, according to his view, our system of control in relation to the Staff was not a satisfactory one, he would refer again to Lord Northbrook's Report, in which it was stated that—

"A General officer in command would give his orders to the principal officers under him—a Chief of the Staff upon matters of strategy and discipline, and a Controller upon matters of supply and transport."

To show the working of the French, system, he might mention that a relation of his told him that when the English cavalry horses before Sebastopol were starving, he called on General Canrobert, and acquainted him with the state of affairs. The General at once summoned the Chief of the Staff—not the Intendant, be it observed—and said to him—"What forage have we in store for your division? "The Chief of the Staff went out to inquire, and coming back, replied—"There are so many feeds. "The General immediately said—"Then send 30,000 feeds to Lord Lucan. "This was a practical illustration of the French system. He would now cite the evidence given by the Controller himself before Lord Northbrook's Committee. Sir Henry Storks, in consequence of the rumours of friction between the military authorities and the Controller, was recalled and examined on that point. He was asked—

"Can you tell us what the present practice is in regard to such intercourse?"

—(that is, between the Controller and the Staff of the General). The reply was—

"As I understand, the present practice is for Control officers to act in obedience to the instruc- tions I have given them. Mr. Drake, lately Controller in Ireland [and he named several others], have all assured me that they maintain constant and cordial intercourse with officers of the general Staff as regards their public duties, and I hold in my hand a letter from Colonel Martindale, the Controller in Canada, in which he says (dated Jan. 7 last)—'I have laid it down as a first rule; to maintain the most friendly relations with all, I and I hope by steady consideration and consulting them and with them (i.e., the officers of the general Staff) in all practicable occasions, to maintain cordial relations.' "

Now, if the Army was in the field these Controllers would be liable to be hanged by order of the General in command; for the House would remember the story of the Duke of Wellington threatening to hang a Commissariat officer—who was; equivalent to a Controller of the present day, if his Army was not properly properly provisioned. It appeared to him, therefore, that the position of the Controller was not satisfactory in its relation to the Staff of the Army. What was required was a proper division of the various duties. Sir Charles Trevelyan, who was at the head of the Commissariat in the Treasury, laid down a proposition which appeared to him to be a sound one—namely, that the Secretary of State should be assisted by four responsible advisers—the Commander-in-Chief for personnel; the Controller-in-Chief for all; supplies (other than munitions of war) and transport; the Director General of Ordnance for munitions of war, and the Directors of Works for fortifications, barracks, &c. Sir Charles showed that on the Continent this organization was universally adopted, and, considering the degree to which the theory and practice; of military administration were studied on the Continent, this unanimity was; very significant. No doubt, it would be answered that practically we made such a division of labour at the same time that we were providing that one individual should be responsible for the working of all the departments. One person, however, could never have practical knowledge of all the different matters, nor properly look after them; so that he must be dependent upon the heads of the different subdivisions it was now proposed to establish. It appeared to him that, in this way, responsibility was to a great extent got rid of. It was proposed to establish a second Secretary of State for War without the Parliamentary responsibility attaching to a Secretary of State. A much more rational system might, in his opinion, be devised. The Government proposed that this officer should sit in the House of Commons, and this brought him to the question of the title it was intended to confer upon him. Indeed, his object in giving notice of his intention to move the recommittal of the Bill was to change that title. The officer was to be called Clerk of the Ordnance, his right lion. Friend (Mr. Cardwell) being so far a Conservative that he wished to retain the old name, although it would no longer indicate the nature of the office. Formerly the Clerk of the Ordnance was in reality Clerk to the Board of Ordnance, and the title was then perfectly intelligible. He was responsible for the finance of the Army, and made contracts, while the Surveyor was responsible for the quality of the materials supplied by virtue of those contracts. The Ordnance at that time only supplied munitions of war, and the office of Clerk was frequently held by civilians—as, for instance, by the right hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Monsell). But under the proposed scheme the so-called Clerk of the Ordnance would have also to deal with the Commissariat and with the other departments, and he contended, therefore, that the name was a wrong one. If there were to be one person to represent these different departments in the House, and if he were in reality to be the Controller-in-Chief, would it not be more rational to call him so at once? Instead of objecting to the Government gaining two votes, he should like them to have three, as he thought a system ought to be adopted similar to that recommended by Sir Charles Trevelyan. He admitted that in consequence of the ancient constitutional checks established in this country, and of the way in which they wore intertwined, it would be very difficult to devise a system which would secure unit)' of responsibility with a proper division of duties, and which would further give efficient Parliamentary responsibility and ample economical control. This was the problem to be solved; but the danger was that we might over-concentrate, as we had done already. In his judgment, we ought to minimize as much as possible this unity of responsibility as far as regarded the sub-departments. Though the task was a difficult one, yet it might, he believed, be accomplished. It could, however, be accomplished only by hav- ing regard to the precedents which we found in our own history and to the example set us by Continental nations. We must not fancy that we, who by the appointment of so many Commissions of Inquiry into the subject showed the state of confusion which we were in with respect to it, would be adopting the right course by striking out for ourselves a new system differing from any in operation among our contemporaries. Least of all would it, in his opinion, be wise to endeavour to establish a system which, at the best, we could hope to work only in time of peace; but which, as was said by the Duke of Wellington, must infallibly break down in war because of its resting on the fallibility and finite powers of one single man.

said, the two speeches to which the House had just listened were of a very different character. His hon. Friend (Mr. Fielden), who had made a Motion which, if carried, would be equivalent to the rejection of the Bill, appeared to him to have read the Bill and nothing but the Bill, and out of the depths of his own consciousness to have imagined the motives which had induced his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War to propose it to Parliament. His noble Friend who spoke last, on the other hand, had read the Reports of the Committee, which he had evidently done them the honour of perusing carefully; but he seemed, nevertheless, to have imported too much into the consideration of the measure itself the scheme of those Reports. It was by no means necessary, however, that his noble Friend should concur in all the recommendations contained in the Reports, or even in that important one from which he appeared to differ—as to the constitution in all respects of the department of Control—in order to give the Bill his assent. But he wished, before referring further to the noble Lord's remarks, to say a few words in reply to the speech of his hon. Friend. His hon. Friend spoke of the grumbling of the dockyard men who had been discharged by the hundred, and whose case, he seemed to think, had not been considered by the Board of Admiralty with due attention and regard. Now, it might be sufficient for him to say, in answer to his hon. Friend, that there was no relevancy in remarks of that kind in the present discussion, and that the dis- charge of dockyard men for whom, in the opinion of the Board of Admiralty, there was not employment, was not a circumstance which ought to affect in any way the consideration of the Bill before the House. He must, however, observe, in passing, that if it had been the policy of the Admiralty to reduce the expenditure in our dockyards, that policy had been carried out with all the consideration which was consistent with such reduction, and with a liberality of treatment in many instances greater than was justified by ordinary precedents. It was, of course, open to his hon. Friend to question the policy of reduction itself; but the point was one which, as he had already intimated, was not relevant to the present discussion. The conclusive reply which he had to make to the speech of his hon. Friend was that no new offices imposing new charges on the public were created by the Bill. His right hon. Friend proposed to abolish the office of Assistant Under Secretary, because he had arrived at the conclusion that the duties connected with it could with advantage be discharged by a Member of that House; and as to the salary of the Clerk of the' Ordnance, it would entail no fresh charge on the public, because if the Clerk of the Ordnance or the Controller—he was sure his right hon. Friend would not quarrel with the noble Lord on a mere point of nomenclature—were in the House there would be but one salary, while if the Clerk of the Ordnance were in the House and the Controller out of it, it would be found that there would be a saving in subordinate offices much more than sufficient to cover the expenditure, without any reference to those large economies which his right hon. Friend had already effected. He must add, in reply to the hon. Gentleman who opened the debate, and speaking also with some little knowledge of business transactions and the principles of business organization, that in any business, great or small, the first thing a business man looked to was the fitting organization for accomplishing the purposes of his business, it being quite a secondary consideration whether that organization, without which no business could be successful, did or did not involve extra charge. The expenditure against which a business man protested, and which he cut down without mercy, was that wasteful expenditure which was productive of no result; but he never grudged, or feared, or criticized in any mere parsimonious way such expenditure as was necessary for the complete organization of any business which it was worth while to conduct. His noble Friend who spoke last, in referring to the Report of the Committee of which he (Mr. Stansfeld) had the honour to be a member, said very fairly—though he must make an exception so far as Sir Edward Lugard was concerned, who was a very competent and high authority on military subjects—that the Members of the Committee were not authorities on the question of military organization. In that view he entirely concurred with his noble Friend; but he did not know whether his noble Friend himself pretended to speak with more authority upon military matters than belonged to a public man of intelligence who had given long attention to such matters.

I did not speak of the members of the Committee as not being authorities on the subject. I simply compared them with other authorities who I said I thought were the weightier of the two.

said, he had no hesitation in admitting that his noble Friend might, with perfect justice, have put the case as against the Committee still more strongly; for, undoubtedly, with the exception of Sir Edward Lugard, there was no member of it who felt disposed to look upon himself as an authority on the question of military organization. Their attention was directed to hearing and weighing evidence, and to come to a conclusion upon it, just as the Members of that House were in the habit of deciding on all sorts of subjects, whether military, naval, or commercial, which were brought under their consideration. He would further observe that, while the Committee were engaged in taking evidence, he felt no small amount of confidence—knowing the views of his noble Friend on Army organization—that their Reports would meet his approval, based as they were on that notion of military organization which preferred a reasonable confidence to irritating distrust, and which was in favour of the combination of unity which was absolutely necessary with that subordinate organization which was equally indispensable. His noble Friend did not, he was happy to think, differ very widely from the Committee. He said that at the time of the Crimean War, when all the various functions which had previously been distributed between the Board of Ordnance, the Secretary at War, the Secretary for the Colonies, the Home Office, and the Treasury, were combined in the Secretary of State for War, the necessity of distributing labour and responsibility had been forgotten in the search for unity. In that opinion both he and his right hon. Friend at the head of the War Office agreed with the noble Lord, and it was precisely because the history of the post-Crimean period showed that unity had been effected without due regard to the labour of working an enormous Department—for which, after all, the Secretary for War was ultimately responsible—that it was found necessary to go back on the existing arrangements, as was now proposed, and, while maintaining supreme the unity and responsibility of control of the Secretary of State, to see by what means the responsibility of persons responsible to him could be devised so as to organize in a more complete manner the great Department of which he was the head. Taking the Control department, to which his noble Friend had mainly directed his remarks, he would observe that Lord Strathnairn's Committee had recommended the division of the Commissariat and the Ordnance branches. The Government had proposed that the Control department should be divided into two distinct branches; that the one should be the branch for the Transport and Commissariat, and the other the branch for Military and Ordnance stores. Therefore, as far as those two branches were concerned, they had that very severance of which his noble Friend approved, in common with Lord Strathnairn's Committee and all the other authorities. But, having got that as a substratum, so to speak, they came at the next stage of the inquiry to another difficulty. Evidence was brought before them of the evils arising from the absence of unity of management, in war and in peace, of the Transport and Commissariat on the one hand, and of the Ordnance stores on the other. If his noble Friend read the evidence carefully he must know it was by no means admitted, but rather the contrary, that the Continental system of the division of those two functions was perfect. Military men were agreed that they should have that division; but he thought they were not agreed that those divisions, as far as professional subordinate supervision was concerned, should not be united in one superior officer, whether in time of peace or in time of war, who should sum up the labours of those two divisions in himself, and should so relieve the Secretary of State here in time of peace, or the Commander-in-Chief hi time of war or during a campaign, of the difficulty of communicating with two departments instead of with the head of both combined. The theory of the Government, was that they had succeeded in combining the advantages of that division between the Commissariat and Transport branches on the one hand and the administration of the Ordnance supplies on the other; while they had placed both under the Controller, who stood between them and the Secretary of State; thus securing all the benefits of unity of administration, which was so important either in peace or in war. Their notion generally of the administration of the War Department had been this—The Secretary of State was to sum up the various administrative functions under certain natural divisions. Those natural divisions appeared to them to be, first of all, the command of the personnel of the army. Secondly, they thought that under the Secretary of State, in the person of the Controller, should be summed up the supervision of the matériel, the supply, and the Transport business of the army. Thirdly, they had thought that under the Secretary of State should be summed up, in the person of one officer, and that one a Parliamentary officer, the function of finance. If they organized a department not on the theory of reasonable trust, and with an intention that it should be efficient, but on the theory of distrust, and with the intention of preventing expenditure rather than of securing economy, then they might set a permanent officer to watch, and criticize, and chock the expenditure of an administrative department. But if they wished to raise the function of finance out of that condition which had proved rather to be a source of irritation and of inefficiency than of efficiency and economy combined, then they must elevate it, and correspondingly raise the status and power of the person who had to exercise it. The best way of elevating its function was to regard finance as a part of policy, and instead of looking at mere concurrent financial criticism and check, to think of the function of financial initiation and control. They could not give those higher attributes to the function of finance unless they placed at the head of that sub-department of the War Office a man who, as a Member of that House, should possess the confidence of the House, and should carry into that department, requiring the great reforms which they expected his right hon. Friend to accomplish, the prestige and the power of that House. He thought, on the whole, that those principles would recommend themselves, not only to his noble Friend, but also to the House.

said, he hoped his hon. Friend the Member for the West Hiding (Mr. J. Fielden) would pause before calling on the House to divide on his Motion. It was not unnatural on the part of his hon. Friend, at a moment when the Government had been pressing, to an extent which some deemed excessive, the reduction of our establishments and increased economy in the conduct of public affairs, to say that there might seem to be some inconsistency in the Government coming forward to add to the public expenditure by the creation of two new Offices, which would also augment their own official power. But he hoped, on reflection, his hon. Friend would admit that there were other considerations to which weight should be given; and the first of those considerations was, that the business of the Government in that House should be so managed as to be conducted efficiently and well. Another point of no small importance was, that they ought not to add unduly to the labours of public officers. With regard to the office now occupied by his right hon. Friend opposite, and which he himself had had the honour to fill, what was their experience of the last few years? Where was Lord Herbert; where was Sir George Lewis; where was Sir Benjamin Hawes? Was he exaggerating when he said there was reason to believe that those able public servants had fallen victims to the arduous labours of that office. His right hon. Friend opposite, like himself had, filled several important Offices under the Crown; and he believed his right hon. Friend would agree with him that the most arduous, the most laborious of those offices was the one of which he now from day to day bore the heavy burden. On those grounds he must repeat what he had said before—that he thought the proposal of his right hon. Friend opposite in itself, so far as it proposed to increase the power and the number representing the War Office in that House, was a perfectly fair and legitimate one; and it was impossible, therefore, for him, with any propriety or honesty, to vote against the third reading of the Bill. He now turned to what had fallen from his noble Friend (Lord Elcho), who had referred to the changes that occurred in 1856. Since then the War Office had never become thoroughly consolidated, nor had it worked quite satisfactorily; and his right hon. Friend opposite deserved credit, rather than censure, for attempting to effect some reforms in the present system. He thought his right hon. Friend had acted with prudence in appointing a distinct committee, composed of gentlemen who were not all members of the War Office, to consider the best mode of carrying out those changes. They were now called on by his noble Friend to consider whether those changes were the best and most prudent that could be adopted. He must say he agreed with his noble Friend as to the title which had been selected for the new office formerly filled by the Clerk of the Ordnance. If it were intended to introduce into the House a now Member of the Government, to occupy an important place and to fulfil important duties, he ought to have a title which, in the first place, should be indicative of the duty with which he was charged, and, in the second, should convey some idea of the important position he occupied. Another question which Ms noble Friend had not touched upon, but which had been raised on a former occasion, and which was an important one in itself, was whether the appointment of this new officer would not interfere with the distinct position of the Under Secretary of State, who might happen to have a seat in this House, while the Secretary of State was a Member of the other House, in which case the War Office would be represented by him; and such a possibility rendered it important that in the new arrangement there should be no room for the slightest misapprehension as to who was to be the chief representative of the Department in the House. The Government would admit that, whoever it might be who so represented the Department in that House, it was important he should not receive a smaller remuneration than those who were subordinate to him. He understood that the proposal was that the Clerk of Ordnance should receive £2,000 a year, while the Under Secretary of State had only £1,600, and he presumed the salary of the Financial Secretary was £1,500. The proposal might be, to a certain extent, founded upon that which he thought it right to do, with general concurrence, on the appointment of Sir Henry Storks to the Control department. He was quite prepared to defend the course he took on that occasion, and so long as Sir Henry Storks retained the office, it would be impossible to reduce the salary; but it did not follow that the present arrangement should be regarded as a permanent one; and what he would suggest for consideration was, whether it would not be desirable that the Under Secretary of State should have the salary of £2,000, and that the two new officers should be placed on the same footing, and should have £1,500 a year. Another important question was this—what were to be the functions of this new officer, who was at present styled Clerk of the Ordnance? Although his right hon. Friend opposite had responded to his inquiries with the greatest courtesy, he had never succeeded in understanding clearly what were to be the functions of this new officer, and he had entertained the fear that there was to be a too great consolidation of duty and of power. So far as he had been able to form an opinion, the Committee on the Arrangements of the War Department discharged their duty creditably, and no one could read their Report without seeing that they must have given long consideration and anxious thought to the subject. Speaking of this New officer the Committee said—

"Under the Chief of the Department, who may, if our recommendation be curried out, be a Parliamentary officer, there would be—first, a Supply Division, to deal with the business relating to transport and the supply of the articles required for the daily consumption of an army, such as food, forage, fuel, and light; secondly, a Store Division for munitions of war and miscellaneous stores, under an officer specially qualified to deal with munitions of war."

Thus two distinct branches were to be combined; but the matter did not end there, for the Report proceeded—

"We recommend that the direction of experiments relating to munitions of war should be placed under the Chief of the Control Department, because he is the officer responsible not only for the provision of supplies in proper quantities, but also for seeing that they are of proper quality."

It proposes to have a Council of Ordnance.] No doubt; but that did not much diminish the importance of the question whether it was not proposed to throw too heavy a burden on this new officer. He had always thought that in the hurried re-arrangement too much was done, and that consolidation was carried too far. Before the change, there was a distinct Department for Ordnance; but, since 1855, science had effected a revolution in our artillery, guns, and naval ordnance, and the demand made upon intelligence and skill by the rapid advance of science rendered it more than ever necessary that ordnance should have the attention of a distinct Department of the State, which his right hon. Friend would have done well to institute. It was, indeed, a very grave question whether the Ordnance department should be mixed up with others, as it was at present, and whether the superintendence of vitally important experiments which were going on from, day to day, which alone were sufficient to require the undivided attention of the most able and intelligent officer to be found, should be imposed upon a Gentleman who, during the Session, would have to spend many hours daily in the discharge of Parliamentary duties. He thought that there was a great deal of force in what had fallen from his noble Friend (Lord Elcho), and his suggestions wore worthy of attention on the part of the Government.

said, that the experience he had gained as a Member of the Arms Committee convinced him that the business of the Ordnance department would be much better done by an officer not having a seat in that House. Scientific supervision would require an amount of devotion to scientific pursuits and to details of business frequently incompatible with the position of a Member of the House, and this consideration must have presented itself to the minds of those who drew the present Bill, because they proposed to admit as a Member of the House the Clerk of Ordnance under circumstances totally different from those on which the representatives of Government Departments were ordinarily admitted.

said, he was glad to be able, from some little experience, to confirm what had fallen from the right lion. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington). He conceived the House and the country would not have due satisfaction in the management of the Ordnance until it was again separated from the control of the Secretary of State for War. A very large portion of the expenditure of that department was due to the Admiralty. One half of the ordnance wanted was required for the Navy and fortifications; and the constant changes occurring from day to day were such as ought to receive the undivided attention of some officer capable of explaining matters in Parliament; but the practice had been to make the Secretary for War or the First Lord of the Admiralty nominally responsible, and then to appoint various Committees of Inquiry so as to relieve those great officers of State from their responsibility. The sooner that practice was abolished the better. The Secretary of State for War ought to be relieved from the constant supervision of this department, and the ordnance for the Army, Navy, and fortifications ought to be in the hands of one officer, with the view to the economical administration and efficiency of the department.

said, he agreed with his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) in thinking that, having regard to the complicated nature of modern artillery, and the novelties continually being introduced, there should be, for the sake of efficiency, a Director-General of Ordnance for the Navy as well as for the Army. He trusted that the changes proposed by the present Bill, which appeared to be approved, in great measure, on both sides of the House, would produce more harmonious working in the War departments. Circumstances had lately come under his notice showing that there was not a proper understanding between the two great branches. Orders were sent out by one department without the knowledge of the other, and great hardships were thereby inflicted on officers and men, The whole system was in a state of complete disorganization, and the conduct pursued by the War Office to the Commander of the Forces was not such as (should be shown by one great department towards another. Troops were recalled from different parts of the world, and movements made without the slightest communication between the two departments. In the case of one West India Regiment officers were sent out after orders for the reduction of the regiment had gone out from the War Office. He understood that the other day a corps that had been raised for special service in India was recalled by telegraph, and the officers and men were selling their horses and property for almost nothing. Consequently, those unfortunate men and their wives and children would be brought over to this country in a state of practical destitution. If it was necessary to reduce our establishments, there was no necessity for such precipitate and harsh proceedings, and he hoped there would be more harmonious working between the two departments in future.

said, he had hoped to hear from the Secretary to the Treasury some assurance of the introduction of the commercial element into the financial administration of the Army, which had been attended with such beneficial results in the financial administration of the Admiralty, and he trusted his right hon. Friend (the Secretary of State for War), who was about to address the House, would not sit down without giving an assurance to that effect, which he was sure would be received with very great satisfaction.

Sir, the Motion which has been made for the rejection of this Bill on the third reading, after its passing all the former stages with general consent, was based on an entirely unfounded argument. So far as I can collect from the statement of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Fielden), he appears to think that this Bill proposes to add new salaries to those already on the Estimates, and to create new pensions, whereas the Bill proposes no new salary at all; and if it has any effect on pensions, by making an officer before permanent into a Parliamentary officer, the effect, if any, must be the other way. I hope, therefore, if I have entirely de- stroyed the reason on which the hon. Member founded his Motion, I may also I persuade him not to give the House the trouble of dividing upon it. The object: of the Bill is not to increase salaries, but to increase Parliamentary responsibility. My right hon. Friend (Sir John Pakington), who sits opposite, and has so candidly received and weighed every proposal I have made, has alluded to the effect the labours of Office have had on the heads of the Department in which he and I have served, as regards those who have preceded us. I am sure-that neither he nor I, nor any one worthy of serving the public or sitting in this House, would grudge any amount of labour or sacrifice he might make in the discharge of his public duty. But one thing, I think, he has a right to hope for and to expect, and that is the possibility that, by the utmost exertion and the utmost labour, he should be able to discharge his duty satisfactorily. Now, I do not hesitate to say my firm conviction is that, as long as the duties of the Office are discharged only by those men whom in ordinary times you may expect to be able to find, the duties of the War Department, as now constituted, cannot be satisfactorily and properly discharged by anybody. You have never had a War Department in this country properly constituted for the discharge of the whole duties of the Military Department. Before the Crimean War the Commander-in-Chief commanded the Cavalry and Infantry, and was controlled by the Secretary at War. The Board of Ordnance regulated many of the miscellaneous matters, including the munitions of war. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) objects to the Board of Ordnance, and thinks it was abolished on the ground of incompetency, differing in that respect from the great authority of the Duke of Wellington, who considered the Board of Ordnance the best constituted Department in the State. Now, it was the determination of this House, at the time of the Crimean War, that there should be unity of responsibility under one Minister. This Bill maintains that unity of responsibility. But when you proceeded entirely to destroy the whole of the Board of Ordnance, and also placed the financial office of the Secretary at War on the shoulders of the Secretary of State, I think you carried consolidation too far. I think you carried consolidation so far that you rendered the effective discharge of the duties absolutely impossible. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Plelden) considers that a man who has not the labour of sitting in Parliament can discharge those duties far more effectively, and that it Mould be better, therefore, that they should be discharged by permanent civil servants. No one feels more than I do the great value of the permanent civil servants of the country; but I can assure the hon. Member that we do not want additional civil servants in the War Department; on the contrary, I look forward to materially reducing the expenditure of the civil servants in that Department. But what we want is this—that those who are called upon to explain matters to this House shall have the means and leisure, by personal acquaintance, to be informed of what they have to explain; and that those who wish to discharge their duty faithfully shall not be obliged to speak from knowledge which must be superficial, because collected, perhaps, within only a few hours of making their statement in this House. Lot anyone look at the Notice Paper—I will not say tonight, for it is exceptionally a light one, but any other night, and see the innumerable topics on which the civilian—for he is usually a civilian who holds the office of Secretary of State for War—is expected to inform the House. No one could suppose that it was in the power of man to obtain within 24 hours the complete, thorough, perfect knowledge which he ought to have on all these topics before he addresses the House of Commons in regard to them. It is impossible. Well, then, what this Bill proposes to do is really to revive the old Board of Ordnance to a limited extent—in the person of the officer whom the Bill calls the Clerk of the Ordnance, and to revive the office of the Secretary at War in the person of the officer whom the Bill calls the Financial Secretary. This part of the Bill has been I will not say opposed, but criticized in a friendly spirit by my noble Friend opposite (Lord Elcho). What we do is the reverse of concentration—it is disintegration. What we propose to do is this—to effect within the War Office that separation which Lord Strathnairn recommended—that is, that the Supply and Transport should be under the direction of one of the permanent servants of the War Office, and the munitions of war and stores under another; I only ask that one Parliamentary officer should represent both in this House. If in the future there should be a greater demand on the part of any of my successors in that respect, it will be for the House then to consider it; but at present what I think is, that there should be this division of duties in the War Office, and that one Parliamentary officer should be responsible for both. And I do so on this ground—I entertain the opinion myself, in which also His Royal Highness the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief concurs, as may be seen by his evidence—that it is desirable that under one control there should be two assistants; one responsible, as I propose, for Transport and Supply, and the other for munitions of war and stores. I think you would find if you did not unite under one responsibility the whole of the supplies of the Army, you would have some of that confusion you had in the Crimean War. You would have two sets of warehouses, two sets of warehouse officers, and two sets of stores, and frequently a superabundant supply in one department where there was a scarcity in another. I therefore believe that the experiment of having one responsible officer of the two divisions is the best arrangement that can be made. My right hon. Friend opposite asked me what should be the precedence of the Parliamentary Under Secretary as regards the new officers. In the Ordnance Council the Parliamentary Under Secretary is president, and it is proposed that the new officer should be vice president. In framing the Orders in Council, which the Bill enables us to do, it will be quite possible to secure the relative relations of the two officers; but with regard to salaries, I have taken existing salaries as they stand and propose no change at all. They are not fixed in the Bill, but are to be voted by Parliament. Of course, it will be in the discretion of the House to arrange them as they please. I should see no reason why the salary should be higher than £1,500, which is the salary of the Financial Secretary, and I am ready to accept the suggestion of my right hon. Friend, that when the office shall be vacated by Sir Henry Storks, to whom he very properly assigned the salary of £2,000, it shall be taken by his successor at £1,500. I do not know that there is any other question which I have to answer. [Sir JOHN PAKINGTON: There is the title.] I do not know that the title is of much consequence. "The Clerk of the Ordnance" was proposed by me because it was that of the last surviving officer of the old Board of Ordnance, and because it had an economical appearance. The Clerk of the Ordnance was the person who usually moved the Estimates in the House, and I thought the name might have been preserved; but if the name of Surveyor General be more acceptable to the House, I have no objection to adopt it. In point of description that title would, I believe, be more accurate; for the financial department being represented by the Financial Secretary, the control of the ordnance generally would be properly represented by the term Surveyor General. Before I rose, an hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir James Elphinstone) took the opportunity of entering into a general discussion about the relations between the War Office and the Horse Guards. I think I should only waste the time of the House if I entered into a discussion of the various topics which he brought forward. All I can say is that this subject has been fully considered by His Royal Highness the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief in communication with me, and I hope that the most satisfactory relations will always continue to exist between us; in that respect I entirely reciprocate the good wishes of the hon. Gentleman. I do not know that I have anything more to say than to express a hope that the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Fielden), finding that the criticisms which have been passed were in a direction opposite to his own, will not think it necessary to give the House the trouble of dividing; and to express my gratitude to my right hon. Friend who sits beside me (Mr. Stansfeld) and to the Members of the Committee for the great labour which they have bestowed, and the great ability which they have displayed in preparing this Report, and my acknowledgments also to the House for the way in which they have received a proposal which I hope and trust will conduce to the economy and to the efficiency of the War Department. My hon. Friend who sits near me (Mr. Craufurd) said he hoped the appointments which would be made under this Bill would be conducive to economy. All I can say is, that I am most desirous they should conduce to such an excellent result, and I hope that whoever succeeds to these appointments, being Members of this House, will enjoy the confidence of the House. In saying this, I may not be saying all that my hon. Friend desires; but I am persuaded that the possession of this confidence will go far to secure the economy which he desires should be attained.

said, he had not intended to take a prominent part in opposing this Bill; but he could not allow it to be read a second time without observation. He did not deny the existence of the evil which the Bill was introduced to remedy; but he considered that the value of a measure, which at any rate tended to alter the whole policy of local self-government as applied to the management of the poor, ought to be gauged not simply by the force of evidence as to the existence of a particular evil, nor by the adequacy of the provisions of the Bill to remedy that special evil, but by evidence showing that the framers of the Bill and the measure itself grasped the subject in all its bearings. The Bill was intended to provide for one salient evil; but it neglected other evils equally salient. The inequality of the distribution of the charge for the relief of the poor over the whole of the metropolitan area was the evil at which the Bill was aimed; but those who had studied the subject knew that this was not the only evil, and not even the chief or prominent evil, to be remedied. The great defect of local Poor Law government in the metropolis at the present time was its disorganization; and the origin of this could be traced to the various action of the Poor Law Board during the last four or five years. They had taken up the subject bit by bit, had dealt with a part without reference to the whole, and consequently had thrown the whole machine into inextricable disorder. The indefiniteness of the duties and functions of the Local Boards was one of the sources of this disorganization. Another source was the irresponsible management of what was called the Common Fund, the incurable vice of which was that the collection and distribution of this Fund was not under the direction or under the correction of representation; the body responsible for collection had no voice whatever in the distribution of the rates. And by this Bill the principle of representative government in local self-government was entirely and effectually destroyed. He would point out what the sum proposed in the Bill—namely, 3s. 6d. for each pauper in the workhouse—represented. It really represented the expenditure of 31s. a week in every artizan's family for maintenance, lodging, &c. in order for him to obtain the same advantages which the Bill contemplated for the pauper. An artizan must be in very prosperous circumstances to be able to give his wife, for lodging and maintenance, 31s. a week. Supposing that a wife and a family of four children—and that was the average number—cost 21s. a week for food, 6s. for lodging, 4s. for clothing, these items amounted to 31s.; and to do it he must be in receipt of 40s. a week as wages. He (Dr. Brewer) did not believe that the House would sanction such an abnegation of constitutional principle as was adopted in the case of this Common Fund. Those who contributed to it were to have no share in its expenditure—those who were to spend it were not to be responsible to those who contributed to it. A third evil was the utter uncertainty that existed as to the action of the Central Board. Practically, it was impossible to separate in-door from out-door relief, because a knowledge of the persons, circumstances, and conditions of the applicants was an essential requisite in dealing with pauperism. According to the principle laid down by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government on a recent occasion, the fund for the relief of the poor should be taken from the neighbourhood. The right hon. Gentleman said that even the principle of the Poor Law, if you examined it closely, presented the gravest difficulties to the philosophic mind; and this principle of neighbourly love and care was the only one on which a Poor Law could be tolerated at all: the funds being supplied from local levies in each neighbourhood, the sentiment of honour and the sentiment of shame imposed a salutary check on that which would otherwise prove an inroad on the property, the self-respect, the morality, and the independence of the people. The great point, then, was to ascertain how could the scruples of the philosophic mind be set at rest by the Bill before the House. "The funds for the relief of the poor should be taken from the neighbourhood." Why, this Bill established a directly opposite principle; the fund was to be taken, not from the neighbourhood, but from the whole area of this huge metropolis. The idea of providing for neighbours was knocked on the head at once. It was impossible to show that if they collected the money for the relief of the poor over the whole metropolis this neighbourly action could be maintained which the First Minister regarded as so essential. The Bill not simply was opposed to the practice of the people of this country, but directly contravened the principle upon which alone the First Minister said a Poor Relief Law could be accepted by a philosophic, or, in other words, a good practical politician. It was impossible for him (Dr. Brewer), if he had any regard whatever to the principle of the old Poor Law institutions of this country, to support this Bill. The Poor Law Board was practically irresponsible; and the policy of the Board was notoriously fitful. The power given to that Board by the Bill was more autocratic than any power ever before sought by the Government of this country, and was unparalleled in any previous legislation. So far from inspiring confidence, the Bill had created widespread and very reasonable alarm, and this alarm had not been allayed by the course of action pursued by the Poor Law Board during the last four or or five months. A letter had been issued, signed by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Poor Law Board, according to which one-half the rates was decidedly illegal, and yet he allowed 100,000 summonses to be issued in the metropolis against those who could not, or would not, pay. Why should the right hon. Gentleman call upon the law of the land to enforce payment of charges which he himself allowed to be illegal? For his own part, he could not suffer this Bill to pass without protesting against it, in the first place, as a bit of piecemeal legislation, when comprehensive legislation was required; and, secondly, because it proposed to deal with the taxation of the country in a most objectionable manner. He begged to move that the Bill be read a second time upon this day six months.

said, he should give his support to the Motion for the second reading, on the ground that the measure was a just one, and was demanded by the circumstances of the case. Instead of being a piecemeal attempt at legislation it had, in his opinion, been framed from a most comprehensive point of view. He was old enough to recollect when the majority of merchants and manufacturers in the metropolis lived in the places where they carried on their business. But as time went on, and the metropolis increased in size, that state of things was altered for the convenience of all; a separation was made, and one quarter of the town was occupied by those who could afford to live in wealth and ease, and another by those who were engaged in daily toil. The poorer portion of the community having been thus drawn to one end of the town and the richer to another, the wealthy naturally retained the same obligation to pay which they had formerly acknowledged when they lived among their humbler neighbours. Therefore, instead of proposing a total change in the provisions for the management of the poor, as the hon. Gentleman seemed to think, it did nothing more than revive the state of things which had existed formerly, and that in itself was a vast recommendation of the measure. Within the last few years a portion of the charge for the poor had been thrown on the Common Fund, and every one must admit the great advantage which had resulted to the community from that amendment of the law. What was now proposed was merely a further step in the same direction. If the sum to be allowed for each pauper was considered too much, the right place to correct that would be in Committee. But the object of the Bill was simply to assign such a sum as in practice might be found absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the pauper in the different workhouses of the metropolis. If that were so reformation must be sought in each individual workhouse, and no objection could properly be taken to the Bill, which sought to lay clown not an increased sum for the maintenance of the pauper, but an average sum. And after all was said and done, what was the great difference which these changes would make in each parish? It appeared from a Return made about two months ago that, with the exception of the City of London, the greatest difference was something like the difference between 1s. 7d. in some of the most favoured districts, and 2s. 7d. or 2s. 9d. in some of the less favoured. Doubtless, there were exceptions to this. He believed the Bank, of England was exempted from the payment of poor rates altogether, and that the exemption had arisen in this way—that as the institution occupied an entire parish, there were no parochial authorities, no poor, and no machinery for making or levying poor rates, and this was an instance of the inequality resulting from the present system of levying the rates over very small areas, and showed the advantage that a more general distribution would insure. He regarded the object sought to be obtained by charging the cost of maintenance of in-door paupers throughout the metropolis on the General Fund, contributed by all the parishes, as fair in principle and likely to be very beneficial in practice, from decreasing the encouragement to excessive out-door relief, and he gave it his general support.

said, that if the Bill sought only to effect an equalization of poor rates he would not endeavour to dissuade the House from agreeing to its second reading; but the measure disfranchised the ratepayers of London of a large part of the power which they had always enjoyed, while it also gave the Government an unlimited control over patronage of a small pettifogging kind which they would be much better without. It was a Bill to multiply places, which if there was not work attached to them would be "jobs," and which, if there were, would be the fruits and profits of centralizing usurpation. It was a Bill to change the administration of the Poor Law over an area containing;3,000,000 of people. He asked the representatives of counties and boroughs to give London fair play. How would they like to go before their constituents at the next election and say they had voted away the whole power and control over the inmates of workhouses in their respective localities? No Government would venture to propose such a disfranchising Act for the country at large. But London, having only 22 Members, could be treated as the House and the Government pleased. It was the duty of metropolitan Members to protest, and remind the House of the rank injustice to which it would lend itself if it passed the Bill as it stood. The measure went to the root of that which, in point of franchise, of local power, and local liberty, was older than the House itself, older than the monarchy as it now existed, older than Magna Charta. He held in his hand a summary, that he had made with some care, of the rateable property and the population in London, supposing the town to be divided, for the purposes of an equalization of rates, into three great Unions, retaining elective institutions together with local responsibility. If the President of the Poor Law Board only wanted an equalization of rates or of their incidence, let him constitute an Eastern, a Western, and a Northern division in London. The Eastern division that he himself would suggest would contain the City, Southwark, the Tower Hamlets, and the parish of Hackney, with a population of 967,000, and a rateable property of £5,333,000. Taking the Northern division, with which he was himself connected, and which would include the chief portions of Marylebone, Finsbury, and Hackney, it would contain a population of 947,000, with a rateable property of £4,627,000. The Western division would comprise a population of £950,000, and a rateable property of £5,400,000. If they divided London into those three districts, both as regarded property and population, they would have as nearly as possible £5 per head of rated property taxable for the support of the poor. It was not necessary to disfranchise the ratepayers of the whole of the metropolis in order to secure that boon. They might, if they pleased, make 50 different plans of re-arrangement of London, and still arrive at this conclusion, that if they wanted to establish equality in the incidence of the burden they could have it without subverting the whole administration of the Poor Law. If that were so, there was no case for a Bill of that kind. The measure, as the hon. Member for Colchester (Dr. Brewer) had said, was another step in the same direction of centralization and disfranchisement which they had previously taken in respect to the insane and sick poor and the district schools. Every day's experience made him more deeply regret the fatal error of taking the care of the sick poor out of the hands of their own neighbours. That policy, he believed, would have to be retraced; but, at all events, it ought not to be carried further. He objected to London being outlawed. Did the President of the Poor Law Board think he could have a national rate for the whole of England? [Mr. GOSCHEN: No!] Then he ought not to apply the principle of such a rate in an unfair manner to London, stripping the ratepayers of the duties, the charities, and the privileges with which every other town in the kingdom was charged by the law of the land. What was there in the case of London which rendered its inhabitants less fit to discharge those duties and exercise those privileges than the people of other places? The right hon. Gentleman had had a squabble with the authorities of St. Pancras; but whatever might be thought of the proceedings in that parish, the rest of the metropolis had nothing to do with them. There was no grievance to justify that measure. Would the right hon. Gentleman say he would not abolish out-door relief if he could? He (Mr. W. M. Torrens) believed in his conscience that was really at the root of the present proposal; but he should be delighted to find he was wrong. He had seen statements reported to have come from the right hon. Gentleman, which it seemed could only have that meaning. Certainly the right hon. Gentleman had left the impression on the public mind that this was the first step towards locking the door against the poor. He took power by that Bill to charge 3s. 6d. for every in-door pauper to the Common Fund. That was to be at the will and pleasure of the Poor Law Board. He also proposed to take power to limit the number of inmates in every workhouse; and he had already power by other Acts that were concatenated with this measure to multiply workhouses. If the Bill passed in its present shape, the President of the Poor Law Board would be master of the whole system of in - door relief in the metropolis, and he would have nothing to do but to multiply the workhouses, and to say that no out-door relief should be given at all. Whatever might be said of a revival of trade, he (Mr. W. M. Torrens) knew that there was still much distress and privation among the working classes of London, and he submitted that this was not a time for decreasing the power of Guardians to give relief. On merely money grounds, he said this measure was most unfortunate; on social grounds he thought it was highly dangerous. Whatever defects existed in the local administration of the Poor Law could be cured by due supervision; but if the Bill were passed in its present shape, every undue power would be given to the President of the Poor Law Board in respect of the metropolis. In this measure an effort was made to treat London in a manner no Minister had ever attempted to treat any other portion of the United Kingdom. After the changes which Parliament had made in the law of chargeability during the last 20 years he hoped the House would resist an alteration like that which was now proposed.

said, he rose to tender his thanks to the President of the Poor Law Board for this Bill. He believed the constituency he had the honour to represent (Chelsea) were not afraid to see the principle of the measure carried out, even if they lost some of their local power. The Bill was an equitable one; and he was delighted at the prospect of Imperial authority being applied to the supervision of abuses which hitherto had existed in some districts. Both himself and his Colleague (Sir Charles Dilke) would support the Bill to the best of their power, and he trusted the principle of the Bill would hereafter be extended to out-door relief.

said, he regretted to be under the necessity of supporting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Colchester (Dr. Brewer). He should be sorry to give any opposition to a Bill for improving the administration of the Poor Law; but he did not think the Bill would effect that object. It lodged an enormous power in the hands of a Department of the Executive. That power, be had no doubt, would be exercised with discretion, and always with the greatest reluctance; but he thought it would be unconstitutional to give the Poor Law Board the power of compelling a particular district to pay for the maintenance of the poor of another district. The Bill provided that if the Guardians of any parish should neglect to alter or enlarge their workhouse, to construct sewers, to furnish the hospital with proper medical appliances, or to do certain other things which the Poor Law Board; might deem necessary, the Board should have power to omit from their precept the sums which such parish would have been entitled to be repaid under this Bill. That section would give the Poor Law Board the power of telling the Guardians that, unless they made what might perhaps be an enormous expenditure, those sums would not be allowed to them. The working of that provision would be that in some cases the power given to the Poor Law Board would be exercised, while in others the sums having been omitted from the precept in the first instance, would subsequently, after considerable correspondence and negotiation, be inserted. He did not think such a state of things would conduce to the improvement of the local administration of poor relief. No doubt there had been considerable evil in some localities; but the object of those who would get rid of it should be rather to raise the character of the local Boards than to diminish their responsibility. He believed that salutary results would follow if the Poor Law Board exercised the power of dissolving a Board of Guardians, when the general feeling was that it acted in a manner injurious to the public interests. When there was a proposal involving Imperial taxation good cause was expected to be shown to the House of Commons, and an estimate was prepared and laid before Parliament. Why should not cause be shown and estimates be prepared in the case of local taxation, which probably was equal in amount to one-half the whole taxation applied for the public service? There had been an enormous increase in local taxation, and the taxation was pressing severely on the country. It might be difficult to estimate the amount which would be required for the relief of the poor throughout the country during any current year, yet that amount equalled the expenditure of the Admiralty, every detail of which was submitted in advance to Parliament; and was it then unreasonable to object that the President of the Poor Law Board should have the power to increase, at his own discretion, charges which were paid out of the local taxation of the country? One effect of this Bill would be to cause the poor to remove from those districts where the rich also lived, and to go to districts where the poor dwelt almost entirely by themselves. At the present time there were many poor persons living in the parish of St. George's, Hanover Square; but the houses which they occupied were rated at about three times as much as similar houses at the East-end of London; and if by an equalized poor rate such tenants were asked to pay three times as much as if they lived in a poor neighbourhood, the immediate result of such a measure must be to send them away from the rich one. Owing to the difference of assessment there was not that inequality which many hon. Members might suppose; while, if there was any perceptional burden at all, it was to a great extent borne by the owners of property. A paper with which he had been supplied showed that the cost of maintaining the poor in London was 9s. 5d. per head of the population as against 6s. 6d. per head in England and Wales; and therefore he believed that, if there was to be any equalization of the poor rate, the ratepayers would very soon find out how much they were paying in excess of those districts who sent their poor to the metropolis, so that the result of this measure must be a very large advance towards a national poor rate. Such was not, in his opinion, a proper solution of the question. He would much prefer to see one Board of representatives in London having the management of all the workhouses, together with the infirmaries, lunatic asylums, and schools—a Board which would be strong enough to undertake the important duties that would devolve upon it, and at the same time be responsible to its constituents for carrying out such improvements in the treatment of the poor as ought to be effected. Such a Board would render it unnecessary for the Poor Law Board to be watching over the most minute details of daily life in workhouses, and, under these circumstances, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board, would consent at all events to the postponement of this Bill.

said, he had always advocated the equalization of the poor rate, and could not agree with those who were opposing this Bill, the principle of which was to make the maintenance of the indoor poor a charge upon the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund. He could not collect precisely what was the view of the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. W. M. Torrens), who had not declared whether he was for or against the principle of the Bill. The objections which had been taken by the hon. Member for Colchester (Dr. Brewer) should, in his (Mr. Locke's) opinion, be brought forward in Committee, when it would be open to him to suggest that, instead of the Poor Law Board having the management of matters under this Bill, there should be established some other body like that which had been suggested by the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith)—which would not be contrary to the principle of the Bill—or that the metropolis should be divided into three parts, as had been proposed by the hon. Member for Finsbury. For these reasons he should support the second reading of the Bill.

said, he was of opinion that the views held by hon. Members respecting the equalization of the poor rate were very much influenced by the character and circumstances of the constituencies they represented. One of the main objects of the Bill was no doubt to extend the principle of an equal poor rate; but that change really meant the total subversion of the original principle of the Poor Law. Such a subversion might be very proper, but it should be effected after due consideration, and with such conditions as would secure the change against the inconvenience and the perils by which all admitted it to be surrounded. He wished he could think that the recent changes in the Poor Law had worked well. The best test of the efficiency of a public office in administering a public fund was economy; but all the modern improvements in our Poor Law system had resulted in extravagance and in an increase of the rates. There was nothing in the history of modern legislation which afforded a parallel to Poor Law legislation; because, while the tendency of all other legislation of late years was in the direction of decentralization, our Poor Law legislation tended to the entire subversion of local self - government, being founded on the principle that those who paid the rates should possess no control over them. But, beyond that, if the Bill were passed, it would entirely put an end to out-door relief, by offering the Guardians a bounty of 6d. a day from the Common Fund for every in-door pauper. Such a result would be most disastrous to the honest and independent poor, who only required temporary relief during temporary distress, while it would conduce largely to the multiplication of workhouses in the metropolis and the increase of the rates. In the third place, the Bill would extinguish the Boards of Guardians altogether. In sub-Section 4 of Clause 1 it was proposed to enact that—

"If the Guardians of any Union or parish, or the managers of any asylum, shall, during any half-year ending at Lady Day or Michaelmas respectively, have refused or neglected to comply with any Order of the Poor Law Board, issued under the Poor Law Acts, directing the alteration or enlargement of the workhouse, the provision of proper drainage, sewers, ventilation, fixtures, furniture, surgical and medical appliances, or directing the appointment of any officer, or prescribing the maximum number of paupers to be maintained in any workhouse or asylum, or the classification of such paupers, such Guardians or managers shall be deemed to be in default."

If this paragraph were agreed to, not the slightest discretion or power would be left to the Guardians, whose duties would become purely ministerial, if they were not compelled servilely to follow the orders of the central authorities. On these grounds he objected to the measure as he had objected to other measures of the same kind passed by both Liberal and Conservative Governments. The metropolitan Members were in a very small minority, and hitherto their objections to measures of this kind had been with- out effect; but, nevertheless, he again entered his protest against the current of legislation upon this subject, which he believed to be mischievous and disastrous, as tending to increase the burdens of the public without adding to the comfort of the poor, while it brought local bodies into contempt. So far had this gone already, that he wondered any gentleman could be got to accept the office of Guardian.

said, that every hon. Member who had spoken upon this subject had admitted the necessity of the adoption of a better distribution of the poor rates of the metropolis; but they had failed to suggest any plan which was an improvement upon that proposed by the Bill. No one would contend for a moment that it was just that the poor in the East of London, who worked for those who lived in the I West, should bear the burden of supporting their poor while the rich wholly, escaped from it. The leading principle of the Bill was to equalize the rates, and he did not see how it was possible to attain that object in a better way than that proposed by this measure. London, with its 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 of inhabitants, was an exceptional place, and required, exceptional legislation, and he thought the Bill was a step in the right direction. As he saw no better method of dealing with the question than that proposed by the Bill, he should support the Motion for the second reading of the measure.

said, he was not able to agree with the hon. Member who had last spoken in his desire to seen an absolute equalization of the poor rates of London. Having made that preliminary observation, the fact of his supporting the second reading of this measure would not be misunderstood. His difficulty had been to understand why, at so early a period after the recent important changes that had been made in the Poor Law, the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Poor Law Board should have thought it necessary to proceed as far as he had done in this direction. The effect of the Bill of 1867 had been to cause an increase in the charges on the Common Fund, which had mounted from £130,000 or £140,000 to about £200,000 per annum. As he understood from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, he proposed that about half of the charges should fall upon the Common Fund; and, assuming that careful management was to be combined with this division of the charges, he should not offer any opposition to such a proposition. He must strongly urge the importance of putting some check upon those who used the Common Fund; the claim upon the Common Fund should be fixed at a sum which would, under no circumstances, form the full charge for each pauper—not even in the case of a supposed extraordinary cheapness of provisions, so that there should be something remaining for the local body to provide, and thus to ensure that the local body was economical and reasonable in its demands. The objection raised to one portion of the Bill by the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. T. Chambers) showed some ignorance of the duties of Guardians. The provisions in the latter part of the 1st clause, giving the Poor Law Board power to stop contributions in case the Guardians should not have done their duty, did not exact more from the Guardians than was at present incumbent on them; the novelty of the measure consisted in the fact that, just as the power of the purse was used in the House of Commons to compel a great many things to be done, so the Guardians were by the same power of the purse compelled to do some things they had in sonic instances failed to do most egregiously. While justice was being done to the ratepayers, some surety should be taken that the Guardians should be efficiently controlled by more expeditious means than a tedious law-suit. The means the Bill proposed was the power of the purse, and he trusted that, in Committee, the amount fixed on as that to be given to the Guardians would be so far short of the charge each pauper entailed as to oblige the Guardians to study economy.

said, the Bill would lodge immense power in the Poor Law Board; but, without a most expensive supervision, they would not be able to carry out the object in view. It had also been objected to the measure that the 3s. 6d. a day was a premium upon in-door relief, and likely to lead to a considerable increase of expenditure. Great alarm was felt that this was an attempt to abolish out-door relief in the metropolis, and that by the addition to the rates, which would result from such a system, many poor ratepayers who now had great difficulty in meeting the demands upon them, would themselves become recipients of parochial relief.

said, he had no reason to complain of the reception the measure had met with at the hands of the metropolitan Members; though some had spoken against the Bill as many had supported it; and the chief argument against it was based on a misconception of its provisions. There was no intention on the part of the Poor Law Board to take the administration of the workhouses into their own charge, and he was unable to divine the meaning of the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. W. M. Torrens), when he said the Bill would create a considerable amount of patronage for the Poor Law Board. There was not a single line in the Bill justifying this presumption; and the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) had met another argument when he explained that the 1st clause gave the Poor Law Board nothing more than an easier and more sure way of enforcing orders it was at present obliged to give, with reference to the enlargement, alteration, or ventilation of workhouses. The truth was, the Poor Law Board not only had power to direct proper drainage, sewers, ventilation, furniture, and other matters of that kind, but were responsible for seeing those schemes carried out. All that the Bill proposed was that, in place of proceeding by mandamus from the Court of Queen's Bench for the enforcement of their orders, they should be able to exercise, to a certain extent, the power of the purse. The House had to determine whether the Poor Law Board should be longer invested with sham powers, than which, for his part, he could conceive no greater calamity; or, whether it should have the means of enforcing the orders other Acts of Parliament gave it authority to make. Often, when revelations of mismanagement had occurred, it was said—"Why does not the Poor Law Board interfere and remove the abuse?" The Poor Law Board did interfere. The Inspectors reported the cases to the Board, and the Board put themselves into communication with the Guardians; months, however, elapsed without anything being done, because the Guardians refused to carry out the orders of the Board. His hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury (Mr. W. M. Torrens) had asked him to state frankly his motive in introducing the Bill. The motive was indicated by its title—"A Bill to provide for the equal distribution over the Metropolis of a further portion of the Charge for the Relief of the Poor;" and, if the hon. Gentleman only knew what complaints were made in the East-end of London, and what pressure was put upon the Poor Law Board whenever they sought to secure the amount of workhouse accommodation which they deemed indispensable, he would fully understand why they deemed it their duty to meet that urgent need. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) had asked why the Bill was brought in at the present time. There was a very simple answer to that question. In certain parts of the metropolis the overcrowding of workhouses had for some time past been so great that it was impossible to allow it to continue; but, at the same time, the rates were so high that they could not expect poor localities to build fresh workhouses or increase the accommodation in those that existed, unless compelled. Last year, in a Bill dealing with other matters connected with metropolitan poor relief, he proposed a clause under which the expense of building workhouses would have been charged upon the Common Fund, and that proposal not having been accepted, he now endeavoured to meet the difficulty by a proposition that the in-maintenance should be charged upon the Common Fund. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. W. M. Torrens) had proposed, as an alternative plan, that the metropolis should be divided into three large Unions, and had shown that the rateable value and the population would be nearly the same in each of the three groups he suggested. The hon. Member had omitted, however, to state whether the amount of pauperism and expenditure would be the same in each of the groups. It might happen that the Western and Northern divisions, with the same rateable value, would have a much smaller number of paupers to maintain than the Eastern division. There would also be a great difficulty in carrying out the plan, because the proposed Unions would be too large to be able to control the out-door relief; for while it was perfectly true that, as regards in-door relief, the larger the areas were the better, on account of the increased means of classification, yet, on the other hand, if the Unions were beyond a certain size for the purposes of out-door relief, a great danger would result from a total equalization of the poor rate, unless there were some central control. He would now advert to the question raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) respecting the sum fixed in the Bill. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. W. M. Torrens) had asserted that the Poor Law Board prescribed the actual amount that was to be given in relief. In point of fact, the Board did nothing of the kind. They only stated the sum which might be incurred, and the Bill would not enable them to interfere more than they did at present with respect to the amount, to be spent upon each pauper. The right hon. Gentleman, however, complained that 3s. 6d. a week was too much, and he entirely agreed with him that a margin ought to be left. Indeed, in the course of the remarks he (Mr. Goschen) made in introducing the measure, he stated it was the portion of the plan that a margin should be left in order to secure economy in the administration. If it were thought that 3s. 6d. was too high, he should be quite prepared to consider in Committee the propriety of reducing it. To meet the contingency of the sum named proving too high or to low, a clause had been inserted in the Bill to the following effect:—

"At any time not earlier than three years from the passing of this Act, or the issuing of any General Order under this section, the Poor Law Board may from time to time, if they shall deem it necessary, by a General Order addressed to the Guardians of all the Unions and parishes in the metropolis, fix a greater or smaller sum than sixpence a day to be repaid for every such pauper as aforesaid; but no order under this section shall take effect until it shall have been laid before both Houses of Parliament for the space of six weeks."

The object of that clause was to meet the difficulty of 3s. 6d. a week proving to be too high or too low in the future, as compared with the price of provisions. The hon. Member for Finsbury had treated that clause as if it asked for further powers for the Poor Law Board, but he was wrong in his supposition. In introducing the Bill, he had stated that at least £90,000 would still have to be contributed by the local authorities, or, in other words, that the amount of 3s. 6d. per week multiplied by the number of paupers would fall short of what was at present required for in-door maintenance by £90,000. He would now refer to the alleged tendency of the Bill to encourage in-door at the expense of out-door relief. The hon. Member for Finsbury had challenged him on that point, and had asserted that he (Mr. Goschen) desired to stop out-door relief as far as he could, and to substitute in-door relief for it. He would frankly admit that the object of the Bill was to meet the difficulty of obtaining that amount of in-door accommodation which was absolutely necessary, unless the overcrowding which had led to such deplorable results was to be allowed to continue. At the same time he was perfectly willing to inform the hon. Member that he thought if they could put in-door maintenance on a fairer footing as compared with out-door maintenance, we should diminish pauperism in the metropolis. It was among the out-door poor that most of the abuses arose, and the great increase in pauperism was attributable in great part to the insufficient means which existed of testing the applicants for out-door relief. There was very great hope, therefore, that by making it more easy for the Guardians to apply the in-door test they might expect to diminish the amount of pauperism in the metropolis. At present they could not possibly sweep a larger number of paupers into the workhouses, because nearly every bed was occupied. There were never 1,000 empty beds in all the workhouses of the metropolis. If, then, that should happen which some hon. Members were afraid of, and in-door was substituted for out-door relief, what must be done? It would be necessary to build. The cost of building, it should be borne in mind, would devolve upon the Unions themselves, as it was not placed on the Common Fund by the provisions of this Bill. Therefore, if the abuse arose which some hon. Gentlemen feared, it would be necessary for the Unions who wished to extend in-door relief to build new establishments. Now, to build a workhouse for the accommodation of 500 inmates would cost upwards of £30,000, and, taking into account the payment of interest, the cost of furniture and repairs, rates and taxes, and other items not placed on the Common Fund, a charge would be imposed amounting on an average to 2s. a head per week, the average cost of out-door relief being at present only 1s. 6d. Although, therefore, the Bill made it easier for Guardians to build if necessary, it did not give them such an intense inducement to substitute in-door for out-door relief as some hon. Gentlemen imagined. In point of fact, the Bill would ease all in-door relief and place it on a more equal footing with out-door relief, with great advantage to the ratepayers; because a better test would be applied to a portion of the outdoor relief, though not in such a sweeping manner as had been anticipated by some who had taken part in this discussion. He trusted he had now satisfactorily answered all the objections against the measure; and, in conclusion, he would express an earnest hope that it would be allowed to pass into law.

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he must enter into an explanation of its provisions, as he had not done so on the introduction of the Bill. The course which it was proposed to take in this Bill was entirely in accordance with precedent. That House had over and over again acted upon the Reports of Commissions which had been appointed, in pursuance of Addresses to the Crown, to inquire into the existence of corrupt practices at elections, and Parliament tad disfranchised boroughs in which such practices had been proved to have extensively prevailed. He need not in support of that statement go further back than the Reform Bill of 1867, by which four boroughs were disfranchised on the Reports of four Commissions, and on the provisions of which the present measure was entirely framed. Commissioners having been appointed, at the request of the House, to inquire into the existence of corrupt practices, it would be impossible to disregard their Reports without giving rise to the impression in the country that it was not in earnest in its endeavour to secure purity of election. Indeed, it would be a mere farce to appoint such Commissions at all, unless some action were to be taken upon the Reports which they furnished. As to the particular Commissions to whose Reports he was now about to invite attention, he must observe that the House was no less indebted to them than to previous Commissions; for, although he was aware that some sneers had been indulged in at their expense, although it had been said that they were composed of men of no eminence at the Bar, but of mere Quarter Sessions' barristers, he could state that they had been presided over respectively by two of Her Majesty's Counsel and by a learned Serjeant, each of whom was well known in Westminster Hall, and each of whom was among the leaders of his circuit; while, with regard to the junior members of the Commissions, he could inform the House that they were all, without exception, men of ability, and men either eminent or rising to eminence in their profession. With those few words he would pass by remarks which did not show either correct information or good taste on the part of those by whom they had been made. The Reports of those Commissions were very valuable documents, and contained a great mass of information, which had been arrived at with great difficulty and after enormous labour, proving that the Commissioners were determined to penetrate through all the shams and disguises which it was sought to impose upon them, and to arrive at the real truth. It was, indeed, he believed, mainly on account of the thoroughness of their inquiries and the comprehensive nature of their Reports that they had incurred a good deal of odium in those boroughs which were now not unnaturally inclined to struggle to prolong their corrupt existence. He would, without further comment, call the attention of the House to the Reports of the Bridgwater and Beverley Commissions. That of the Bridgwater Commission went a long way back. The Commissioners said—

"But, even so, we have obtained quite enough evidence to justify us in reporting to your Majesty that there is much reason to believe that in Bridgwater, within the present century at least"—they do not go beyond that—"no election has ever taken place except under the influence of practices which, not only by the Lex Parliaments, but by the common and statute law for the time being in force, were corrupt and criminal practices, and lawfully punishable as such."

Whether in those good old times to which the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) had invited attention, when Members of Parliament were paid by their constituents, there were pure elections at Bridgwater was matter of antiquarian interest. It was enough to say that a pure election in that borough within the memory of any man now living was a thing unknown. The Commissioners gave a short summary of the various elections which had been held there since 1832, and the history was not very interesting, inasmuch as it was somewhat monotonous, disclosing, as it did, one unvaried system of bribery and corruption. The Report went on to say—

"It is always three-fourths, at least, of the actual constituency who are said to be hopelessly addicted to the taking or seeking of bribes, and who show by their conduct that the imputation is well deserved; while, of the remainder, a very large part, perhaps by far the largest, are addicted to the giving or offering or negotiating of bribes."

He would now come to the last election but one—the election of 1866—when there was a single-handed fight between two gentlemen whose names he did not think it necessary to mention. In that contest one of those gentleman had spent £6,000, the other upwards of £5,000, while the expenses returned through the election agents were only somewhat about £300 or £400 each. He should pass in the next place to the last election, and undoubtedly what had been alleged by some of the inhabitants of Bridgwater was true—that there had been loss actual bribery at that than at previous elections. That such had been the case, however, had arisen from an exceptional state of circumstances. One of the parties—the Conservative—determined not to bribe, a resolution which did them great honour, and which enabled them to do that which they had not been in a position to do for some time before—to petition with clean hands and expose the corrupt practices on the other side. On that side also the bribery had not been so great at the last election as on previous ones, but it had been sufficient to win the election; as much treasure was expended as was sufficient to produce the required result, the rest they kept in their pockets. They got down from London, made up in bales or in packages, 1,500 sovereigns, and arranged for 1,500 more to be put down by the other candidate; but there having been no corruption on the part of the Conservatives, there were a great many voters who were not to be bought, because they were not wanted, and the price of the article somewhat declined owing to the demand not being so great as usual. The consequence was that not more than £500 was, he believed, actually expended, the rest being sent back to London. He would now read to the House a short extract from the Report of the Commissioners. They said—

"We think it not out of place to state for your Majesty's information that we considered it a part of our duty to inquire of those persons whom we considered best qualified to judge how far in their opinion the extension of the franchise under the last Reform Act had operated towards the purification of the borough. We regret to state that in answer we were told that whereas before 1868 the number of voters was about 600, of whom 50 at most would take no part in corrupt practices, at the present time at least two-thirds of the new voters were of a class who are always amenable to money considerations, and that the old voters remained much as they were before. Mr. Barham, indeed, than whom no one was more qualified to judge, stated that when he came into the town on the morning of the election he saw hundreds of the new voters standing about in the cattle market like cattle themselves, waiting for the highest bidder. Out of the number of voters bribed for Messrs. Kinglake and Vanderbyl, 34 were members of the Conservative Working Men's Association, and the entire number of them had actually promised their votes to Messrs. Westropp and Gray—"

Those men, it appeared, had added the offence of desertion to that of bribery.

"We cannot, therefore, say that with the extension of the suffrage there is any improvement in the moral condition of the borough."

The inhabitants of Bridgwater in their Petition endeavoured to set up a case of "improvement" in consequence of the extension of the suffrage; but the plea was one which could not, in his opinion, be admitted. It was too much to expect that a few new voters, who were at the same time old inhabitants of the borough, and who had been brought up with the idea that the franchise was a right which might be bought and sold, would have their preconceived notions on the subject suddenly altered by the conferring of electoral privileges. The Commissioners were, therefore, in his view of the matter, perfectly justified in saying that the extension of the franchise made no good case for the borough, and such as he had mentioned were the grounds on which they recommended that it should be disfranchised. He next came to the case of Beverley, and he thought it right to observe that in any remarks which he might deem it to be his duty to make on the character of that borough, he should carefully avoid saying anything which might be regarded as in the slightest degree to prejudice the criminal trials in connection with it which were now pending. The House was aware that there were two kinds of liability of a Member for the acts of his agents—the one a civil liability involving the loss of his seat, the other a criminal liability subjecting him to a prosecution, and to be established by a different class of evidence. Sir Henry Edwards had already been visited with the former liability by the decision of a Judge; whether the latter liability should be established against him it would be highly improper in him to assume. But, be that as it might, the case against the borough itself remained the same. The Beverley Commissioners did not go so far back as those of Bridgwater—into remote antiquity; but they went back, nevertheless, he believed sufficiently far, and he would read a short extract from their Report, which showed the character of the borough pretty clearly. They said—

"We found that in all the elections from 1841 to 1868, inclusive, with the exception of the by-election of 1854, in which the borough manifested but little interest, bribery, and other corrupt, practices prevailed; in some, extensively, openly, and systematically, and in others in various disguises and under different pretexts, such as payments for colourable services and moneys given to out-voters as travelling expenses; but at every election a considerable portion of the constituency expected or received a money consideration for their votes in some shape or another. From the statements of witnesses well acquainted with the electoral statistics of the borough, and with the political conduct and ways of thinking of different sections of the electors, we find that out of a constituency of something over 1,100, at the date of the 'Representation of the People Act, 1867,' about 800 were open to bribery and other corrupt influences, there being in the constituency a body of about 300 without political principles, or political likings or dislikings of any kind, locally known as 'rolling stock,' and about 250 others on either side, who, if money were going, expected to be paid, and would not vote unless they were paid, or received some assurance that they would be paid after the election. They appear to claim the usual money payment for a vote as a right from the candidate of their own colour, and only look upon it as a bribe when they accept it from the candidate of a different colour. The calculations we have made in respect of the sums admitted to have been expended by the candidates in various ways in the elections of August, 1857, 1859, 1860, and 1865, and the number of votes polled respectively on their behalf, suggest and support the inference that not less than two-thirds of those who voted at each of these elections had either received or been promised money for their vote."

He would next quote an authority which he thought would have some weight with hon. Gentlemen opposite. It was that of Sir James Walker—a Conservative gentleman of very high character—whose son was a candidate, he thought, at the election of 1865. Sir James Walker said—

"The system of corruption and bribery at Beverley bad been going on time out of mind, and to an extent that it was impossible to arrest or counteract."

Such, then, was the general character of the borough. But within the last ten years or more the system of corruption had been organized at Beverley in a very peculiar manner, the two principal agents by which it was organized being—the one Mr. Wreghitt, a draper in the town, who had acted as agent for Sir Henry Edwards, and the other a. Mr. Cronhelm, the clerk and cashier of Sir Henry Edwards. Mr. Wreghitt appeared to be an electioneering genius; he reduced into shape what might be called the chaotic elements of Beverley corruption, and formed it into one harmonious system; his powers of organization were altogether irreproachable. Attempts had been made from time to time by the Liberal party to counteract Mr. Wreghitt and bribe against him. The Liberals acted with great vigour and spent a good deal of money; but their efforts had been desultory, ill-conceived, and clumsy; and their authors proved no match for the more artistic corruption of Mr. Wreghitt. He might here mention that Mr. Wreghitt and Mr. Cronhelm—the latter of whom supplied the former with the money necessary for his operations—had the presence of mind, just before the Commission sat, to destroy all documents and papers which could throw any light upon election matters, and they did so by the advice of a gentleman in London, than whom, he was bound to say, no person was better qualified to form an opinion on a question of that kind. The Commissioners described the manner in which Mr. Wreghitt went to work, and it was really very curious and interesting. They said—

"There was also in Beverley a body called the 'Working Men's Conservative Association,' that had been instituted under the auspices of Mr. Glover, and consisted principally of freemen; and in accordance with the arrangement between Major Edwards and Wreghitt, previously mentioned, this association was in a short time brought under Wreghitt's influence and control. He was appointed chairman, and contributed to its funds from moneys he had received for general election purposes. Immediate action was also taken, in pursuance of the same arrangement, to eject the Liberals from the Town Council and replace them with Conservatives; and with that view it became a settled plan of action between Major Edwards, Wreghitt, and the candidates for the Town Council, that at every municipal contest Wreghitt should supply the funds that might be deemed necessary to secure their return; and, accordingly, the practice of purchasing votes at these elections became general and systematic. The result of that constant expenditure manifested itself in the fact that, from 1859 to 1869, the supporters and partizans of Sir Henry Edwards obtained and exercised an almost absolute control and mastery in the public and municipal affairs of Beverley."

The freemen of Beverley, by some old gift, possessed a certain light of depasturing their cattle, and certain pasture-masters were appointed by the Town Council; and those pasture-masters distributed the pasturage to the freemen, and in order, therefore, to obtain the freemen it was desirable to secure the pasture-masters. The Commissioners said—

"A similar line of action was pursued at the annual elections of pasture-masters; but with respect to them Wreghitt's use of the funds at his disposal brought about earlier and more decisive results, for in 1860 all the pasture-masters were Conservatives, and the only change that took place in the constitution of that body from 1860 to 1869 consisted in the removal of some of the more moderate, and the substitution of others who had been more active and unreserved in their manifestations of partizanships."

But the operations of Mr. Wreghitt did not end there. There was a certain Beverley Iron and Waggon Company (Limited), which, by the genius of Mr. Wreghitt, was converted into an electioneering agent. The Commissioners summed up the result of Mr. Wreghitt's masterly operations in this way—

"Sir Henry Edwards and Mr. Sykes entered into the contest of July, 1865, under the most favourable auspices. The institutions of the borough had, to a great extent, been brought under Wreghitt's influence; he had succeeded, by the means taken to extend and strengthen the Conservative interest in the borough, in establishing the personal and political ascendancy of Sir Henry Edwards. Magistrates and aldermen, town councillors and pasture-masters, bankers and tradesmen, were working with Wreghitt, and for the same ends. He had been unceasingly labouring for eight years to extend and widen the sources of corruption throughout the borough, and prevent freedom of choice in all the local elections. The Committee of the Working Men's Conservative Association were his nominees and helpers; and, as subsequent events showed, the manager, the secretary, and the foremen of the different departments of the Iron and Waggon Company, as well as the labourers employed under them, became either recipients or dispensers of the moneys that came through him. Men in highly respectable positions as tradesmen owed their seats in the Town Council to the moneys he had provided; all the pasture-masters were in the same condition of dependence."

A more complete description of a series of successful electioneering manœuvres was probably never presented to the House. He now came to the election of 1865. On that the Commissioners said—

"Above 1,100 voters were polled at that election; and, considering the moneys expended in bribery on either side, and the rate at which the voters were paid, we have come to the conclusion that not less than 800 of those who voted had accepted bribes from one side or the other, some from both."

The learned Judge who tried the Beverley Election Petition and the Commissioners also came to the unhesitating conclusion that at the municipal election money was given to many for what was called "the double event"—that was for both the municipal and the Parliamentary contest, between which a few days intervened. And where the municipal election was made a party contest, a voter naturally would not change his colour at the ensuing Parliamentary election, provided always that some stronger temptation was not offered to him by the other side. Thus, in the opinion of the Commissioners, the corruption at the municipal election was not only prior to, but intended to influence the voters at the Parliamentary election. The Commissioners reported to this effect, that at the municipal election—at which the votes were comparatively cheap, or about £1 per head—a Mr. Norfolk spent the sum of £800, and it was very remarkable that he got that sum, or a large part of it, from a certain bank in Beverley at which he had no credit. He also appeared to have expended about £150 that he had received from Mr. Wreghitt, who again had received it from Mr. Cronhelm. The Commissioners had come to the conclusion, from the money spent and other circumstances, that at the late election about 1,000 or 1,100 persons were bribed; and he regretted to say that a great many of these persons were new voters, for he was afraid there was no reason to suppose the new voters in Beverley were less corrupt than their brethren at Bridgwater. It had been urged that as only 327 voters had been scheduled as having been bribed—that was to say, 327 had been actually found out—therefore Beverley ought to be allowed to remain a Parliamentary borough. As he was informed, the Commissioners went on calling witness after witness until they got the names of those 327; and when they had reached that point there they stopped, although they might have gone on accumulating similar evidence if they had liked. He would conclude his observations on this part of the case by reading the following paragraph from the Report of the Commissioners:—

"The municipal contest, in which bribery had been so undisguisedly and extensively practised, was treated as a prelude to the Parliamentary election, if not as a part of it; and the bribes were given, and in many cases received, as an earnest of what was to come. But we experienced great difficulty in discriminating, in individual instances, between those who took bribes for the municipal election only, and those who, to use a local phrase, took them for the 'double event.' The large extension of the franchise under 'The Representation of the People Act, 1867,' made the municipal roll nearly identical with the Parliamentary register, within the limits of the municipal boundary; so that it was reduced almost to a certainty that the man who voted under the influence of a bribe in the council choosing would also have a vote in the election of Members of Parliament."

These were the two cases which he had to lay before the House—the cases of two boroughs whose characters he believed had been tolerably well known to most hon. Members for a very long time, boroughs in which learned Judges had reported that corrupt practices extensively prevailed, their Reports having been confirmed by Commissions which had instituted more complete inquiries. He ventured to think that these boroughs were scarcely, if at all, inferior in corruption to any of those boroughs which were formerly disfranchised. It was, indeed, stated that in Totnes every man was bribed; but the House had dealt with other cases in which there had been a "rolling stock" of 200 or 300 voters who could take £1 from one side, £2 from the other side, and would sometimes vote according to their consciences after all. The House had invariably dealt with boroughs of which these things were reported in the way in which it was proposed to deal with these boroughs; and he, therefore, moved that the Bill be now read a second time.

said, that early in the evening he presented a Petition from Bridgwater praying that the House would pause before it resorted to the extreme measure which would be dealt out by the passing of this bloodthirsty Bill, and he trusted that, as a country gentleman, living in the neighbourhood of Bridgwater, but not representing the division of the county in which it was situate, he should be allowed to express his opinion that Bridgwater, notwithstanding all that the Attorney General had said about it, was not as black as it was painted. He would remind the House that this was the first time since the reign of Edward I. that Bridgwater had not had two representatives of its own to stand up for it in this House. He would not go so far back into the history of the borough of Bridgwater as the Attorney General had done; but he would go so far as to say that from 1832 to 1868 Bridgwater had deserved all that the hon. and learned Gentleman had said of it, and for one he would not have opposed its being scheduled with Yarmouth, Totnes, and other boroughs in the Reform Act. But, bad and corrupt as the borough might have been, we were not content with the Bill of 1832, and were in hopes that the measures of 1868 would have a beneficial effect upon the constituencies of the country. It had the effect of doubling the constituency of Bridgwater, and, as regarded the last election, instead of its being reported that extensive corruption prevailed, only 3 per cent, of the constituency was proved to have been bribed. In order to obtain the names of the 57 men who were scheduled as having been bribed at the last election, Bridgwater had to submit to a searching inquiry; and, notwithstanding that the learned Gentlemen whom the Attorney General depicted in such glowing terms devoted 47 days to the inquiry, and asked 47,500 questions, at the expense of the ratepayers of Bridgwater, they were able to discover only 57 voters who had been bribed. In their Report the Commissioners said,

"We regret to state that in answer we were told that whereas before 1868 the number of voters was about 600, of whom 50 at most would take no part in corrupt practices, at the present time at least two-thirds of the new voters were of a class who are always amenable to money considerations, and that the old voters remained much as they were before. Mr. Barham, indeed, than whom no one was more qualified to judge, stated that, when he came into the town on the morning of the election, he saw hundreds of the now voters standing about in the cattle market, like cattle themselves, waiting for the highest bidder."

Upon what authority did the Commissioners make the statement that the new voters belonged to a class always amenable to money? To say so was a reflection upon the House for passing the Reform Bill of 1868. The Commissioners ought to have given a marginal reference to the evidence on which they founded this assertion. Upon what ground did Mr. Barham make the statement imputed to him, which was merely an opinion of his own? At a contested election were there not always men loitering about without any idea of taking bribes? There was no evidence to prove that two-thirds of the voters of Bridgwater could be bribed. Notwithstanding the magnitude of the Blue Book containing the evidence, which no hon. Member could have waded through, there were many questions put by the Commissioners which were conspicuous by their absence. Not only were the Commissioners Judges and jury and counsel for the prosecution, but they were often Court jesters, and the remarks they made were such as no constituency ought to be exposed to. One witness was asked by the Chairman whether Mr. Kinglake was as long winded in his style of speaking, and as long coming to the point, as he was in his writing. Mr. Trevor, the Conservative agent, was asked whether he had been offered the dignity of knighthood for his party services like Sir Something Drake. A baker named Bowring, was asked whether he was any relative of Sir John Bowring. Another witness was told he appeared to be a kind of monarch of all he surveyed—a remark which called forth a remonstrance. At the close of his examination Mr. Westropp was told he had better go and see to his old woman. A gentleman named Kitch was asked—"Is your name John Ketch or John Kitch?" Another person was told that they would not waste any more time upon such a fellow, to which he replied that he was no fellow; but he was lucky enough to escape the fate of Mr. Simmons, who was fined £50 for a similar reply, to which there had been a similar provocation. He feared that the House agreed with the Attorney General in his blood-thirsty notions respecting these two boroughs, and he regretted it; but he hoped that the House would postpone dealing with the cases until the Motions of the right hon. and learned Member for Newcastle (Mr. Headlam) and the hon. Member for York (Mr. J. Lowther) wore disposed of, and until pending trials in Yorkshire, which might be influenced by the determination of the House, had been held. He certainly did not see any necessity for hurry; he did not see any prospect of an immediate Dissolution; and both the Government and the Opposition had too much to do without participating in a general scramble for the four seats that would be at the disposal of Parliament if this Bill passed. He hoped, therefore, the measure would be postponed until hon. Members had had more time to consider the Reports of the Commissioners, the evidence upon which they had based their conclusions, and the manner in which that evidence was obtained, before it condemned places that had sent Members to this House from the earliest time.

said, the Attorney General, although he took credit for having said nothing on the introduction of the Bill, pledged himself on that occasion to deal with the two boroughs separately in different clauses, and yet both were disfranchised together by the 1st clause of this Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman had taken trouble to throw dirt upon the pasture-masters and others of Beverley; but it was fair that men who had been scheduled by the Commissioners should have fair trials, and he did not think that would be possible if this Bill were passed before the trials were heard. If the Bill passed, how could Sir Henry Edwards have a fair trial, for it would appear that he had been convicted by Parliament before he had been put on his trial before a jury of his countrymen. He trusted the Government would see the justice of postponing the Bill until after the trial in Yorkshire, and he would therefore move, as an Amendment, that the Bill be postponed for three months.

said, he concurred in thinking that it would have been better if the Bill before the House had been divided into two parts, for he thought that the cases of Bridgwater and Beveley stood on distinct grounds. The Attorney General, in his voluminous Bill of indictment against the two boroughs, laid great stress on the fact that actual bribery had occurred at the last election for Bridgwater. Nothing of the kind, however, was alleged by the Commissioners who inquired into the affairs of the borough of Beverley. He did not mean to deny that on former occasions open bribery had been practised, but he maintained that there was not an iota of evidence in the Report of the Commissioners to the effect that bribery was practised there in 1868. What the Commissioners alleged was that there was bribery at the municipal election which occurred before the Parliamentary election, but there was no evidence in the Report of the Commissioners showing a connection between the bribery on one occasion and the vote on the other. ["Oh, oh!"] The Commissioners stated that there was great reason to believe that the payments made during the municipal election were made with the view of influencing the Parliamentary election, but there was no proof bearing out that view; and when, upon a Bill of a penal character like the present, hon. Members were called on to act as judges, they ought to weigh with judicial calmness the evidence on which their verdict was asked. In 1867 a Reform Bill was passed which had the effect of doubling the constituency of Beverley. The number of elec- tors had been about 1,000, but, in 1868, the constituency increased to 2,100. Now, he maintained that the argument of the Attorney General as to the former iniquities of the borough ought not to weigh with the House, because a new constituency was now being dealt with. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Neville Grenville) had said that the inquiry with respect to Bridgwater was most severe, and certainly he (Mr. Norwood) thought that much had been done by the Commissioners that ought not to have been done, and that their zeal sometimes outran their discretion. In like manner the Commission at Beverley was most severe, and what was the result? About 1,900 electors recorded their votes, and only 327, after all the scrutiny of the Commissioners, were scheduled. The bribery alleged occurred entirely at the municipal election, but there were 677 Parliamentary voters who were not municipal voters, and many Parliamentary voters who had votes for the municipal election did not take the trouble to record them. Whatever the past iniquities of Beverley might have been, he thought he had made out a case showing that at the last election there had not been gross systematic bribery, nor, indeed, was there any proof of bribery at all at the Parliamentary election. It was not his wish to palliate the horrid system of bribery, but he again impressed on hon. Members that they were now asked to disfranchise a large number of the new electors to whom the franchise was given in 1867. There was one argument he would address to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, at whose hands they were to obtain the Ballot. That measure was to render bribery impossible; and so, if the Government had granted the Ballot some years ago, Beverley never would have sinned afterwards, even at the municipal election, and there would have been no occasion for the present Bill. He repeated that the cases of Bridgwater and Beverley were distinct; and he thought a proper example might have been made of both boroughs without pushing matters to such an extremity as was proposed by the present Bill. He must say a word with regard to Sir Henry Edwards, a gentleman who sat on the opposite side of the House to that where he himself sat. That gentleman was going to be tried for bribery, and was thus threatened with pains and penalties. His case was to have been tried at the last Assizes for Yorkshire, and it was no fault of his that it was not then tried. He had attended before the I Commissioners for the sake of exculpating himself; but the Commissioners declined to hear his evidence, remarking that his case was too severe, and that he must be prosecuted. But by the 3rd clause of the present Bill he would, in consequence of being scheduled in the Report of the Commissioners, be treated as guilty of bribery before his trial came on.

said, that he was a voter both for the municipal and Parliamentary elections at Beverley. The Commissioners themselves said that no bribery or illegal payment or conduct whatever took place at the last Parliamentary election; but that there were payments made at the municipal election which had operated upon the Parliamentary election which, took place 15 days after. He submitted that the Commissioners had failed to connect the municipal with the Parliamentary election; and he asked the Attorney General whether, having sifted the evidence before the Commissioners with his accustomed acuteness, he could say that the connection between the two elections had been made out. Many of the municipal voters, 157 in number, had received bribes, and they voted at the municipal election as they were bribed—for the Conservatives; but at the Parliamentary election everyone of those 157 men voted the other way. He therefore maintained the connection between the two elections had not been proved; and it was exceedingly hard that such severe measures should be taken without its being established beyond all dispute that the municipal election did influence the Parliamentary election.

said, he was not going to say a word about Bridgwater, except that all must regret the manner in which the inquiry there was conducted; but he could not help saying that the lion. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood) had fallen into an error when he said that there was no evidence of any bribery having taken place at the last Parliamentary election for Beverley. Mr. Baron Martin, a very experienced Judge, in his Report, stated that he was perfectly satisfied on the whole evidence that more than 800 Parliamentary electors were bribed; and from what several witnesses stated there could be no doubt many were bribed for the Parliamentary election as well as for the municipal election. No witnesses were called to contradict that; and the only excuse alleged for the bribery was that the Liberal party were doing the same.

said, he quite agreed with his hon. Friend and Colleague (Mr. Norwood) that there was something hard, if not unfair, in tying together in one indictment Beverley and Bridgwater. It was bare justice to Sir Henry Edwards. These matters were really questions of degree. Perhaps there were few boroughs wholly pure. No doubt the Attorney General would say that his own borough (Plymouth) was entirely so. [A laugh.] If his assertion were too broad it must, at least, be generally allowed that a very large number of the boroughs of England were open, more or less, to charges of that kind, and the question was, whether their delinquency was so great as to justify Parliament in entirely extinguishing them. He entirely denied what the Attorney General had told him elsewhere—that Bridgwater and Beverley were six of one and a half-dozen of the other. The first part of his indictment was that for 70 years no pure election could be traced in Bridgwater; but that was certainly not the case in Beverley. The Commissioners only went back to 1841, but why? Because they had evidence before them that before then the elections at Beverley were pure. He had himself at that election the honour of being a candidate, and he pledged his character as a gentleman and a Member of that House that he did not spend one sixpence, give one glass of beer, or employ a solicitor. His opponent, for many years a Member of that House, Sir James Weir Hogg, had assured him that his election did not cost him £20. Beverley at that time was a Conservative borough. The constituency at that time was 1,000, and of that number he, a stranger in the borough, with no local interest, and without availing himself of any expenditure to influence the electors, had polled nearly 400 votes. He stood on purity principles and lost, and that result was simply an expression of the balance of political opinion in Beverley. No doubt the elections for Beverley of late years had been greatly influenced by corrupt proceedings; he said so in spite of his own experience of the place, which was a happy one. He meant to say that Beverley was anything but a very corrupt borough. Was it so corrupt as to be tied up with Bridgwater? He was sorry for Bridgwater, but was it right to tie up the two boroughs in the same category? He would say nothing further on the question of justice to Sir Henry Edwards; but he would make this suggestion with respect not only to these two boroughs, but all against which a charge of corrupt proceedings might be brought at the last election, and where many of the electors were new—it was clear, at least, they were not old offenders; and as they had already had a severe punishment and grave apprehension as to the consequences of their fault, they might, at least, have more hope for them in future if they were now visited with measures of less severity.

said, he had received a memorial from a former constituent of his for presentation to the House, hoping the Bill might not pass. The gentleman, had gone from the county he represented to Beverley, and he thought it extremely hard that he should have to suffer for the misdeeds of others. His friend knew nothing of any party in the borough. He (Sir Frederick W. Heygate) thought the case of these two boroughs a very hard one. What would the country say of the course they were now taking in selecting them and passing so severe a measure against them when they passed over others, perhaps deserving equal condemnation? Let them take the famous borough of Youghal, where £6,000 had been spent, and the largest sum given per head that had ever been expended on any constituency. It was impossible that corruption could be more flagrant; yet what was done in that case? Why was Sir Henry Edwards to be prejudiced? How could he receive a fair trial if this Bill were passed? Why was not a general measure rather brought in by the Government?

said, he would remind his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General that the Judge before whom the Beverley Elec- tion Petition was tried in the most solemn manner acquitted Sir Henry Edwards of bribery, and that afterwards, when he appeared before the Commissioners and sought to be examined, they would not take his evidence, and refused to hear him, saying that they had sufficient evidence against him already, and meant to report him. Accordingly, as the case stood, upon the only occasion when Sir Henry Edwards was heard in his own defence he was acquitted; and when his back was turned, and no opportunity of defending himself was afforded, he was found guilty of bribery. Was it fair, under such circumstances, to retain his name in a Schedule? Ought he to be found guilty by Act of Parliament while waiting his trial publicly for a criminal offence?

said, that what he promised upon a former occasion had been somewhat misunderstood; his undertaking had been to separate the case of the Norwich voters from the cases of Bridgwater and Beverley, not to put those two boroughs into separate Bills. At the same time the two cases were different; and, whether in separate Bills or in separate clauses, it would be competent for any hon. Member to move the omission of either name if he thought it ought to be omitted. The debate had been commenced by the hon. Member for Somersetshire (Mr. Neville Grenville), who said that Bridgwater, where only 50 voters had been shown to be bribed, was not nearly as corrupt as Beverley, where 327 cases were established, and he accordingly objected to the boroughs being classed together. The hon. Members for Hull (Mr. Norwood and Mr. Clay) seemed to think that the duty was cast upon them of defending Beverley—a duty apparently somewhat painful to their feelings, and which they had discharged with courage but not with entire success, for one hon. Member spoke of the past iniquities of the borough, and the other admitted that the borough was very corrupt. Both, however, argued that it was not quite as corrupt as Bridgwater. His hon. Friend the Member for Hull who spoke last (Mr. Clay) testified, indeed, that at one election for Beverley one of the candidates was pure—[Mr. CLAY: All four]. It was a good deal to answer for four candidates, and his hon. Friend might be satisfied with answering for himself. But, at all events, that certainly must have been, the last pure election for Beverley; and whether it was the first he need not now inquire. One hon. Member (Mr. Broadley) had contended, with some confidence, that there was no direct evidence whatever to connect the municipal with Parliamentary bribery; but on that point his hon. Friend was altogether in error. A paragragh from the Deport of Baron Martin had been read by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. West), setting forth that 800 men were, in fact, bribed for the Parliamentary election, though the money was given at the municipal election; and in the evidence given before the Commissioners—which he had carefully gone through—there were 15 or 16 cases in which the voters said distinctly that the money given at the municipal election was given for the "double event." In answer to the question which had been directly addressed to him, he would say that, in his opinion, the Report of the Commissioners was well founded, and that he should have come to the same conclusion himself. In all these cases it must be borne in mind that there was a certain amount of sham and imposture; bribes were seldom given openly; there was usually some pretext; money was given apparently for something but really for something else. And it could readily be imagined that where a municipal election came just before a Parliamentary election, money would not be given in distinct terms for both events, though such an understanding might perfectly well exist, and according to several witnesses did actually exist at the last election. It had been said that the passing of this Bill might prejudice the case of Sir Henry Edwards; but the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Coventry (Mr. Staveley Hill) did not seem to appreciate the effect of his own argument. The learned Judge reported that no bribery had been proved against Sir Henry Edwards; but he also reported that the borough was corrupt. The two things were quite distinct and quite compatible, and for the purposes of this discussion he had assumed that Sir Henry Edwards was not guilty. The Schedule was no evidence of any kind against Sir Henry Edwards; his name was included with that of other persons, having reference to transactions in bygone years, and it was impossible to place him in any different position from the rest. In the trial, however, that Schedule would not be evidence in any way against Sir Henry Edwards. An lion. Baronet (Sir Frederick Heygate) had stated that the House would not raise itself in public estimation by pick-out out two boroughs for the purpose of disfranchising them. These boroughs, however, were not selected arbitrarily. These were the only cases in which Commissioners had reported that the constituencies were extensively tainted by corrupt practices. It might well be that some other boroughs deserved to be placed in a similar category; but they tad not yet been convicted, and it formed no reason for declining to pass sentence upon a prisoner who was already convicted that there were others equally deserving of trial and punishment. And when the cases of Sudbury and St. Albans wore talked of, he could not help thinking that the House had acted rightly with regard to them, and that the country had a very good riddance of both those boroughs. In following the precedent which was sot in those cases, and in dealing upon similar principles with Bridgwater and Beverley, the House, he believed, would be adopting a course which would meet with the approbation of the country.

said, that after the lengthened discussion on a kindred subject, he would content himself with moving, which he did with a view to justice being done to certain parties included in the Schedule, that the Bill be road a second time upon this day three months.

said, he wished to direct the at- tention to four Petitions which, he had presented to Parliament, complaining of the un-English plan of condemning persons who had no opportunity of defending themselves. One of those Petitions was from a Mr. Orlando Dennis Bay, one of the Liberal agents, who stated that it was thought advisable on consultation with the Liberal candidates and three or four sub-agents of the party to purchase the show of hands, a matter which it was estimated would cost about £40. He might here remark that the Guildhall at Norwich, where the nomination was held, was so small that, in order to prevent a row, it was just as well that it should be filled by the adherents of one party. At all events, that had been the practice at Norwich. It so happened that volunteers were furnished in considerable numbers from a factory, so that the securing the show of hands cost £8 instead of £40; but he contended that if Mr. Ray were scheduled for this payment, the Liberal candidates, and those who concurred in the expenditure, ought to be scheduled with Mm. There were others who complained that they were scheduled, although they were innocent of treating, and were neither directly nor indirectly concerned in spending money to procure votes. The Bill he regarded as being framed in a very unsatisfactory and slovenly manner, for it referred to certain Schedules in the Reports of the Commissioners, marked A, B, and 0. In common fairness, one would expect the names referred to to be found in the Bill; but they could only be ascertained by a reference to an entirely distinct document. The names, too, of the voters so scheduled were frequently very vague. He saw, for instance, that "John Brown" was scheduled. The name was not an uncommon one, and he himself knew three John Browns in Norwich; while he was also personally acquainted with two men called John Abel, another name that occurred in the list. He should, he hoped, have another opportunity of referring to the conduct of the Commissioners; but he desired to say a word or two in vindication of the course he had purpursued on a previous occasion. On that occasion he had stated that he was positive that the amount of bribery at Norwich would be found to be particularly and peculiarly small. The Attor- ney General, in his statement to the House, said that the bribery had been of a very extensive character; but the Report of the Commissioners stated expressly that corruption did not extensively prevail in the borough. It was shown that out of 13,300 electors, only 119 were proved to have been bribed, and 20 to have been guilty of illegal practices. Again, the Attorney General said that if the Commission were granted care would be taken to give effect to the expressed wishes of the Mayor and the magistrates, and that a Petition on the subject would be presented by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade. That Petition, however, when presented, bore the signatures of only two gentlemen, both Dissenting ministers. When the hon. Gentleman said that he was not aware of the presentation of any Petition complaining of the conduct of the Commissioners, he would remind the hon. Gentleman that on the 5th of April he had presented a Petition of that character, signed by 1,269 electors, and that the first three signatures were the signatures of magistrates of that city. He trusted that he had, at all events, said enough to induce the House to give those gentlemen who had petitioned Parliament an opportunity of vindicating their characters, and of showing that their names ought to be exluded from these lists.

moved that the debate be now adjourned.

said, he could not understand the Motion for Adjournment, and he trusted that the House would not agree to it. The practice of referring to the Schedules containing the names of those found guilty of bribery and corrupt practices had been always adopted, and this Bill, in that respect, furnished no deviation from the usual plan. He contended that if an appeal were allowed from the Commissioners to the House they would never be able to make any progress with Public Business, and independently of the fact that it would occupy the House till August if such appeals were admitted, what was the use of appointing Commissioners if their decisions were not to be upheld? They were impartially selected, and the Norwich Commission was presided over by a distinguished Conservative, Mr. Dowdeswell. When the Commissioners reported that the prevalence of bribery was not so extensive as there had been reason to believe, he could only say that he was glad that they were able to make such a Report.

said, trusting that an opportunity would be afforded for bringing forward, when the Bill was in Committee, the cases of those who alleged that they had been improperly scheduled, he would withdraw his opposition.