said, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, If it be true that he has the intention of substituting any other material for Mosaic-work in carrying out the designs for the decoration of the Central Hall of the Houses of Parliament; and, if so, what materials he is prepared to substitute?

said, in reply, that the subject of the decoration of the walls of the Houses of Parliament and the Central Hall was still under consideration, and no conclusion had yet been arrived at.

said, he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman has it in contemplation to substitute any, and what, new material?

replied, that he had it in contemplation to do that, which on full consideration, might be found to be best.

said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, What measures, if any, are being taken to procure a new and correct Survey of the Red Sea, seeing that it has been stated in one of the London daily journals that the existing Admiralty Charts are inaccurate, and therefore likely to lead to loss of life and property?

, in reply, said, that no member of his Department, including the Hydrographer of the Navy, had observed the statement referred to in the Question of his hon. Friend; and that up to the present time, no representa- tion had been made to the Admiralty, that the charts of the Red Sea were incorrect. It was, however, true that the charts were of old date, and the survey made by the officers of the Government of India was not on a scale which was satisfactory for the present purposes of trade. They, therefore, proposed, during the present summer, to consider what steps should be taken for procuring an improved survey of the Gulf of Suez, which is the northern part of the Red Sea; but it would be necessary to communicate with other Powers before taking action, and he might be able, prior to the close of the Session, to state what had been done.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to withdraw the troops from Natal?

said, in reply, that there was no present intention on the part of the Government to withdraw the troops from Natal. He would take the present opportunity of asking the hon. Member to put off his Motion, which stood for that night, relative to the recent, disturbances at the Red River, as it was not desirable, in the interests of the public service, that there should be a discussion at present.

said, he was ready, under the circumstances stated, to postpone the Motion till the 20th of May.

Sir, I rise for the purpose of inquiring into the correctness of the report, which has been circulated very freely through the House to-day, that the junior Member for East Surrey, Mr. Buxton, has been fired at at his own house to-day, by a person who arrived in a Hansom cab, and after firing the shot, which fortunately did not take effect, departed, after giving his name as White, and stating his residence. One report says that the man is one of the tenants of an estate purchased by Mr. Buxton in Ireland, and that having been evicted he has now committed this act upon his return from America. Another account says that the person who shot at Mr. Buxton was his private secretary. Under these circumstances I wish to ask the Home Secretary, Whether he can give the House any information on the subject?

Sir, the facts of the case, as I have been informed by Colonel Henderson, are these—The person who shot at Mr. Buxton—for he was shot at—is not an Irish evicted tenant, but an English shorthand-writer in Mr. Buxton's employ, whom he had just dismissed for impertinence and inattention to his duties. Mr. Buxton was engaged in writing, when he suddenly heard a shot fired. Turning round, he saw the person referred to standing at the door with a revolver in his hand and still smoking from the fire. The person immediately left the room and jumped into a cab. Mr. Buxton gave information to the police, and they are now in pursuit of the man.

said, he would beg to ask a question of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, of which he had given him private notice, Whether, as he understands there are something like 800,000 stand of arms converted of the Enfield breech-loading pattern, there is any good reason why the Militia and Volunteers should not be armed with them?

, in reply, said it was true that 575,000 Sniders had been converted; but there were only 300,000 in store, which was a smaller number than it was usual to keep. As to supplying the Militia with them, they had already supplied 64 regiments, and he hoped, as conversions went on, to supply a greater number with them.

said, he wished to know, as there were only about 140,000 effective Volunteers, and as the number of breech-loaders admitted to be in store was 300,000, if there was any good reason why these should not be put in the hands of Volunteers at once?

said, he had already stated that the number in store is smaller than it is usual to keep.

, in rising to call attention to the Paper relative to the resignation of Colonel Boxer of the office he held in the Royal Laboratory, and to move for a Select Committee to inquire into and report on all the circumstances which led to that result, said, he should I make no apology for bringing the subject before the House. The interest displayed throughout the country, as expressed in the public prints, when it first became known that Colonel Boxer had been called on to resign the position he hold in the public service, and the fact that the right hon. Baronet the late Secretary of State for War (Sir John Pakington), very soon after the assembling of the House, had thought it his duty to move that the Papers connected with the subject should be laid on the Table, expressing at the same time his opinion that it was desirable, and even necessary, that all the circumstances connected with the event should be known and apppeciated by the public, and, if he rightly remembered, that they should be discussed in that House, would be a sufficient apology for his proposing that the facts should receive a mature and complete investigation. He should have much preferred that the subject had been taken up by some Gentleman connected with the service, and therefore more capable of doing it justire; but he hoped his deficiencies in knowledge would be supplied by others who were more capable than he could be of doing entire justice to the question. What he proposed was, not that the House should now express an opinion on the whole subject, but that it should be carefully inquired into not only as regarded the individual, but as regarded the rule of the public service in relation to inventions and patents taken out by j public servants. He would begin with a brief historical sketch. Hon. Members would recollect that, when it was first announced that Colonel Boxer had been called on to resign his position, two theories were suggested—first, that he had been obliged to resign because one Secretary for War took a different view from another of the rule as to officers in the public service with regard to patents; and, secondly, it was assiduously circulated that Colonel Boxer had taken ad- vantage of his official position to get patents adapted to the public service, and received pecuniary advantages from those into whose hands the supply of articles required had been thrown. Now, he should be able to show that there was no truth in the latter of these statements. Who and what was Colonel Boxer? In 1854, when we were engaged in the Crimean War, we undertook the siege of Sebastopol with a siege train little different from that with which the Duke of Wellington undertook sieges in the Peninsula. It was soon found how inadequate the public Departments were to supply the required artillery and ammunition. The strain on the public Departments was immense. They failed under it; and if we finally took Sebastopol it was, as a Russian officer expressed it, by covering it with a fire resembling that of hell. In 1854 Colonel Boxer was taken into the Royal Laboratory, where he soon distinguished himself by his ability, fertility of invention, and energy in carrying out the improvements suggested. Not long afterwards he was placed at the head of that department, and every authority connected with it spoke in the highest terms of the valuable services he had rendered to the country. A memorandum of the Clerk of the Ordnance stated the exertions of Colonel Boxer to adapt the machinery of the laboratory to the supply of any amount of shell that might be required. In six months his expectations had been realized, while the saving effected in the department had been £40,000. Lord Panmure and Mr. Sidney Herbert fully and entirely recognized his great services, for which the sum of £5,000 was voted to Colonel Boxer. In 1857, during the Indian Mutiny, his exertions had been equally successful. The Enfield rifles, from the difficulty of loading them, were found almost useless, and officers declared that they would infinitely prefer the old smooth-bore. Colonel Boxer, then in the Royal Laboratory, devoted his attention to the subject, and was able effectually to remove the defects complained of. It was found that the space left between the bullets and the sides of the barrel was so small that the material, tallow, used as a lubricator, speedily clogged the rifle, and the bullets could not be got down. Colonel Boxer employed a different material, bees'-wax, as a lubricator, which was distinctly a new invention, and subsequently he reduced somewhat the size of the bullet. In 1859 he asked, not unnaturally, for some recognition of his services; but the authorities of that day seemed to consider that the small official salary which he received ought to cover not merely his official labour, but his inventions, and everything. Feeling that if he was not to receive from the public service any recognition of his inventions, he was at least entitled to a reward at the hands of private persons who might use them, he determined to protect those inventions by a patent; and whatever inconvenience such a proceeding might occasion—and he would not attempt to deny that inconvenience afterwards resulted from it—there was no rule of the service at that time in existence to prevent an officer from taking out a patent. It was in 1863 that the idea of taking out a patent first occurred to him. He considered that he was bound to give his services in the ordinary manner at the War Office; but as regarded any investigations or inquiries that he might pursue out-of-doors, he stood in the same position as a private inventor. Colonel Boxer, however, determined to inform the War Office of his intention, and accordingly wrote to the Solicitor of the Department, pointing out that inventing formed no part of the duty of the Superintendent of the Laboratory Department, all that he was called upon to do being to manufacture in accordance with certain patterns and specifications. As, however, the fuses which he proposed to patent had been manufactured some time before, and the trials to test the construction as applied to the Armstrong system of ordnance had been made at the public expense, he considered it his duty to communicate with the War Office in the first instance, pointing out that in securing his right by patent he had no intention of preventing the English Government from making use of the fuses, if they thought proper to do so. In answer to that letter, Sir Edward Lugard, by desire of Earl De Grey and Ripon, wrote to say that—

"Without admitting your right to inventions arising out of experiments prosecuted in the Royal Arsenal, Earl De Grey sees no objection in the present instance to your obtaining a patent for the fuzes in question, upon the distinct understanding, on your part, that the fuzes are to be made for the public service free from all claim to royalty or patent-right, either from yourself or other the owner of the patent for the time being, and that the supply of fuzes for foreign Powers shall be such only as the Secretary of State for the time being may approve."

He had read the whole of the correspondence—he might say that he had examined it microscopically—to discover of what meanings the expressions employed were capable. It was certainly possible that an acute casuist after the event might interpret the meaning of Sir Edward Lugard's letter to be that fuses made for the public service, even outside the Royal Laboratory, and by strangers holding the patent for the time being, should also be made free from royalty or patent-right; but the plain and obvious meaning of the passage had reference simply to the fuses manufactured for the public service in the Royal Laboratory itself. Colonel Boxer's reply clearly showed the meaning to be attached to the correspondence, for he stated that he was prepared, if it were considered necessary, to grant the Government a free licence to manufacture these fuses for the British service; but that he should expect a royalty when "repayment" was made, as in the ease of supplies for India. The point, however, was made clear by a legal decision in 1865, in the case of "The Queen v. Fellowes," to the effect that no claim for royalty could be set up by a subject against the Queen for the manufacture in the Royal establishments of any patented article. The War Office must be presumed to have had full knowledge of all the correspondence that had passed, though he did not extend that remark to the individual Secretaries of State; for one, at least, had used language that, if not contradictory, was certainly ambiguous, and declared that he not only was ignorant of what his predecessor had written, but that he did not understand it, which was probably true. In 1863, however, the War Office, as he had shown, was fully aware that Colonel Boxer had taken out a patent. In June, 1866, and in October, 1866, he took out other patents. On the 29th of March he was asked in a letter from the War Office why he had acted without informing the Department, and replied that under a recent decision the rights of the Crown could not be interfered with, and notice to the Department, therefore, became unnecessary; but that if it was desired he would give notice of such matters for the future, on the under- standing that such a step would not militate against his private rights as an inventor. To that distinct claim on his part no answer whatever was given. When it transpired that the War Office were not only manufacturing these articles for themselves, but for other Departments and for the Colonies, and even, as it appeared in a later instance, for a foreign State, from whom they received payment, Colonel Boxer boldly claimed his royalty. There was a peculiar sharpness in the way that he was met. The Secretary of State for War informed him that he did not consider that a royalty ought to be charged for supplies issued to the troops in India; but that if he had a claim to make, he should address it to the Secretary of State for India. By that Department a very ingenious distinction was drawn. Colonel Boxer was informed that no infringement of his patent had been made by the India Department, and that was perfectly true, for it was the War Office that had manufactured the articles and supplied them to the India Department. Similar proceedings and similar correspondence occurred with regard to supplies which were issued to the self-governing Colonies. Colonel Boxer had also patented certain improvements in Lake's life-saving rockets, with which, as the Department concerned in the destruction, not the saving of human life, the War Office obviously had little to do. Some of these rockets, however, were furnished by the War Department to the Turkish Government, and a payment made for them through the Board of Trade. Colonel Boxer was referred upon the subject to the Board of Trade, but again failed to obtain payment. Throughout the whole of the correspondence it was evident that the War Office had been aware of the patents which Colonel Boxer had taken out, and of the assignments which he had made of them. In refusing Colonel Boxer any reward from the public money on account of his inventions, the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington), in a letter dated January 4, 1868, observed with regard to the fuses, breech-loading ammunition, and shrapnel shell for rifled ordnance—

"You must look for reward from the royalties or other remuneration you may receive as a patentee from private manufacturers."

That was the summing up of the whole case by the War Office, and on this, as the House would see, no restriction whatever was placed. He would at once admit that this was, to a certain extent, inconsistent with that written from the same Department on the 17th of August, 1867, in which the then Under Secretary of State for War (the Earl of Longford) said—

"I am directed to inform you that Sir John Pakington, having given the subject his fullest consideration, regrets that he cannot consider your explanation of the circumstances satisfactory. The circumstance of the possession of a patent by a Government officer, for articles with which he is specially concerned, has been the subject of unfavourable comment in Parliament and elsewhere; and the assignment of a patent taken out by an officer in the very responsible position which you hold, to a firm which does, or may possibly at any future period, hold a contract for the supply of the articles, or any parts of them, specified in such patent, cannot fail to be a source of embarrassment, and may lead to imputations highly injurious to the public service. It is not the desire of Sir John Pakington that I should enter into all the reasons which you have assigned for the course which you have thought proper to pursue, but I am to inform you that the possession of your patents by Messrs. Eley, instead of, as stated by you, tending to reduce the cost, would be calculated to give that firm a practical monopoly of the production. In conclusion, I am desired to inform you that Sir John Pakington much regrets your proceedings in this matter, and to express his desire that you shall not for the future undertake any personal agreement with Government contractors or others with whom you may possibly be brought into communication in your official capacity."

But the proper time to have made the objection to an officer having patents was in 1863, and not in 1867. Even that communication, however, recognized what was past, and simply requested him not to enter into personal agreements for the future, while in 1868 he was informed that he was to look for his reward to the royalties which he might receive as a patentee from private manufacturers. And it was essential to remark that from that date no assignment of his patent had been made to any manufacturer by Colonel Boxer. All the assignments he had made had been made before that date, and were known to the War Office. With full knowledge of all these matters, however, the War Office appeared occasionally to have relapsed into ignorance. In 1863 the officials of the Department had been informed that Colonel Boxer had taken out patents, and that though he did not intend to claim royalty, which at that time it was supposed he intended to do, from manufactures engaged in by the Royal Departments, he should do so in case his patents were employed by private firms. Yet suddenly, on the 20th of May, 1867, the Assistant Director of the Ordnance wrote to Colonel Boxer, asking him—

"Will you be good enough to say whether Messrs. Eley and Co. have purchased your interest in your patent for small arm cartridges, or whether you receive any royalty or other consideration from them?"

To this communication Colonel Boxer replied on the 23rd of May—

"An absolute assignment of my patents for cartridges has been made to Messrs. Eley Brothers. These patents are, therefore, the property of this firm. The assignment was made upon the distinct understanding that it was not to interfere with the manufacture or use of my cartridges by the English Government."

That was followed by an inquiry. Evidently the theory had been suggested that Colonel Boxer, having taken out patents, was able to get the articles he had patented adopted into the service, and the manufacture of them placed in the hands of those who had purchased his patents. But as everyone in the Department knew very well, although it was not so generally known by the public at large, these articles were adopted by the Ordnance Committee, a body of which Colonel Boxer was not a member. Therefore, the charge against Colonel Boxer of securing the adoption of these articles by his recommendation fell to the ground. Now, on the 31st of May, 1867, the Director of Ordnance directed the following letter to Colonel Boxer:—

"With reference to the Superintendent's Minute, dated the 23rd inst., in which he states that he has made an absolute assignment of his patents for cartridges to Messrs. Eley Brothers, it is requested that he will state, for the information of Sir John Pakington, whether at the time he recommended the late Secretary of State to give a contract for the supply of cartridges and cases to that firm, he had entered into arrangements for the sale of his patents to Messrs. Eley, and, if so, whether he informed General Peel of the circumstance."

And in answer to this Colonel Boxer made the following reply:—

"1st. That the assignment of my patents for cartridges to Messrs. Eley Brothers was not made or contemplated when I recommended that a supply of portions of my cartridges should be obtained from that firm. 2nd. That the portions of the cartridges recommended to be supplied, and for which the contract was made, are not covered by my patent, as may be seen by referring to my specification and claims. 3rd. That Messrs. Eley Brothers were recommended by me because they are by far the largest and most reliable firm in the kingdom for the supply of cartridges."

That was followed by another inquiry—

" … It is requested that he will state, for Sir John Pakington's information, whether it is to be understood that he admits that neither the whole nor any part of the cartridge cases which that firm have contracted to supply are covered by his patent, and whether Messrs. Eley would be justified in increasing the price charged for these cases to the department, in consideration of any expenses incurred by them in purchasing the Superintendent's patent rights, whether by way of royalty for the use of the same or otherwise."

He might point out, for the benefit of those hon. Members who had not read this correspondence, that only three supplies of cartridge cases had been obtained on the certificate of Colonel Boxer, one for 20,000,000 from Messrs. Eley, on the 17th of July, 1866; another for 15,000,000 on the 1st of July, 1867, also from Messrs. Eley; and a third for 4,000,000 from Mr. Ludlow. To this inquiry Colonel Boxer replied on the 2nd of July, 1867:—

"1st. That the cartridge cases which Messrs. Eley Brothers contracted for in July, 1868, are not covered by either of my patents. 2nd. That the cartridge cases for which tenders have been lately received from certain firms are covered by my patent, No. 2,658, dated 13th October, 1866. 3rd. That when my patents for cartridges were assigned to Messrs. Eley Brothers, it was not anticipated either by me or by them, that any further supply of my cartridge would be ever required by the English Government from the private trade, and no provision was therefore made for such a contingency; and, 4th, that the assignment of my patents to Messrs. Eley Brothers, so far from being calculated to increase the cost of the cartridges obtained from that firm, would tend, on the contrary, to reduce the cost, as the possession of the patents warranted them in making the necessary outlay to manufacture these cartridges cheaply, rapidly, and of the proper standard of quality."

In spite of the letter written on the 17th of August, 1867, by the Earl of Longford, in answer to this, in which Colonel Boxer was told that such conduct could not fail to be a source of embarrassment, and was calculated to lead to imputations highly injurious to the public service, he (Mr. O'Reilly) could easily conceive that the possession of a patent of this kind could, by permitting its possessor to erect sufficient machinery, enable him to supply the article at a much cheaper rate than he otherwise could do. It was evident that the War Office, represented by Lord Longford, were of opinion that the possession of the patent would enhance the cost; but they were able to test the truth of that conclusion; for it appeared that when Mr. Daw, one of the largest manufacturers, was desirous of getting a contract from the War Office, his tender—and he was a most competent judge of the cost—was very considerably higher than that of Messrs. Eley, who had paid for the patent. The practical test, therefore, whatever Lord Longford's opinion might have been, did show that the possession of the patent had not the effect of enhancing the cost. In 1869 the question was again raised when his right hon. Friend (Mr. Cardwell) was Secretary of State for War. The War Office had again apparently relapsed into ignorance, and, forgetting the information received in 1866 and 1867, the Secretary of State directed a letter to be written by Sir Henry Storks, asking Colonel Boxer whether he had received any royalty or other pecuniary consideration on account of the manufacture of Boxer cartridges by Messrs. Eley subsequently to the assignment of the patent made to them on the 10th of April, 1867. To that Colonel Boxer replied, refusing to answer the question, on the ground that it arose out of a statement made on the subject of his patents, which he regarded, and had always regarded, as his private affair. The Secretary of State, through Sir Henry Storks, said he considered it absolutely necessary that an officer in the position of Colonel Boxer should not be personally interested in the contracts made by the Department; and, therefore, he insisted on an answer to the question, and proposed the alternative of Colonel Boxer's resignation. Colonel Boxer refused to answer. Now, he would express his own opinion that Colonel Boxer was not justified in refusing; he should have answered and taken the consequences. So far he was not there to justify Colonel Boxer, and he thought his right hon. Friend justified in accepting his resignation, because here there was a question of insubordination. But whether his right hon. Friend was justified in putting the question to Colonel Boxer with regard to his patents was an entirely different thing, or in blaming him for doing that which the War Office knew he had done, and did not object to. The substantial question was, whether Colonel Boxer could or did throw into the hands of Messrs. Eley a profitable manufacture in which he had himself a special interest, and whether he could do that without the knowledge of the War Office. He found only three instances bearing on the point in question. In 1866, 20,000,000 of cartridges were ordered with which no patent was connected; in 1867, 19,000,000 were ordered in which Colonel Boxer had an interest, and as to which, as he had shown, the tender of Messrs, Eley, who had the patent and paid Colonel Boxer a royalty, was less than that of Mr. Daw, who had no patent, and that tender was made with the full knowledge of the War Office. There was only one other supply of 2,500,000 cases, which was ordered on the 11th of September, 1867, and the War Office was well acquainted with the matter. If Colonel Boxer's advice had been taken the Royal Laboratory would have been in a position to manufacture all those cartridge cases, and none would have been manufactured by Messrs. Eley, and on none would Colonel Boxer have received a royalty. The whole correspondence on the subject with the War Office, he maintained, showed that Colonel Boxer had pressed for the establishment of machinery in the Royal factory for the purpose of manufacturing their cartridges, whereby he would have obtained no profit in the shape of royalty. Could it, then, be said that he had delayed the establishment of the factory in order to throw the supplying of cartridges into the hands of Messrs. Eley, and thus himself derive a pecuniary advantage? Colonel Boxer had acted openly throughout; and he asked whether it could be shown that there was any rule or regulation of the service forbidding his having a pecuniary interest in the patents that he had been told he might take out, and for his reward for which he was to look to the royalties he might receive from private manufacturers without any limitation? The possession of that pecuniary interest, he further alleged, had been "fully recognized by Mr. Secretary Cardwell's predecessor as to his patent for a breech-loading cartridge and other inventions." The result of the official correspondence had led to the resignation of Colonel Boxer—a very distinguished officer, who had served the country well and faithfully for many years. That officer had been called upon by the Secretary of State to answer certain questions or resign, and he had refused to answer; and so far he was technically guilty of insubordination. He accepted the alternative of resignation, and his resignation was accepted. The right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir John Pakington), who himself had been Secretary of State for War, and was thus officially acquainted with the distinctions of the service, had, to his surprise, said in that House that Colonel Boxer had been dismissed the service. [Sir JOHN PAKINGTON: Hear, hear!] Having been in the House at the time himself, he thought the right hon. Baronet must have made a slip of the tongue; but the word "dismissal" was repeated in the right hon. Baronet's Notice of Motion for the production of the Papers on the subject. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would distinctly state whether Colonel Boxer was dismissed or not. For himself, he maintained that he was not, and every line of the Papers showed that he was not. The distinction was not unimportant. When a man held views of his own lights that were inconsistent with those of his superiors, he was called on to yield or to resign, and, rather than yield in his views, he might choose to resign. In the Army a man was given the option of either doing a certain thing or of resigning. He might choose to resign, and his resignation might be accepted. That was one case. Another case was, that where an officer was given no option and was called upon to resign. That was compulsory resignation. An officer was ordered to sell out without any option; that was going yet a step further. Again, an officer was dismissed the service; that was still a further and a very different step. And it was the last of these distinctions that the right hon. Baronet (Sir John Pakington) applied to the present case. Well, Colonel Boxer—a man of energy, talent, and inventive genius, who had long faithfully discharged his duty—had left the public service without any reward except the opinion expressed by the right hon. Baronet (Sir John Pakington) upon his services. The War Office had, indeed, previously increased his salary by £300 a year for other inventions, and as he still had three years to serve lie had foregone £900 by resigning his office. It was important for the future that it should be distinctly known whether there was or was not a rule of the service against an officer patenting any invention he might make, and they ought to be clearly told what were the position and the duty of an officer in respect to his inventions. The opinion which had been expressed on that point by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich was that an officer in the position of Colonel Boxer was not bound to produce inventions for the benefit of the public. To his (Mr O'Reilly's) idea there was a broad distinction to be drawn between an invention and an improvement in a manufacture. An intelligent officer at the head of a manufacturing department might make improvements, and for such improvements he would have a claim, not as an inventor, but as a skilful and diligent officer; but if he made distinct inventions, beyond the scope of his manufacture, he was decidedly entitled to additional remuneration from the public. Could it be said that when the Government employed an officer they bought his whole brains? He would put the thing in the concrete. Sir William Armstrong had been employed to direct the manufacture of the old ordnance. While so employed, if he had invented the coil principle, would such an invention have been considered part of his duty? Colonel Palliser had been employed in connection with the manufacture of cast-iron projectiles. Had he invented the chilled shot while he was so employed would that have been a part of his duty? Colonel Boxer had made several distinct inventions of great value. The first and greatest invention was the total change in the lubricator and in the ammunition, which redeemed the Enfield rifle from the charge of being worse than useless in India, and had made it an effectual arm up to this day; the second was the change in the fuses; then there was the improvement in shrapnel shells, replacing of the segment shell, at first used in the Armstrong ordnance; and lastly, there were the improvements in the life-saving rockets. All these were valuable inventions, of which the public had received the benefit, and the only reward of Colonel Boxer was barren praise from one Secretary of State and enforced retirement from the public ser- vice, owing to unfounded charges having been made against him of having unjustly used his inventions for his own advantage, and because he had a mistaken idea of his duty with regard to the answering of questions. It was under these circumstances he (Mr. O'Reilly) now begged to move for a Select Committee to inquire into and report on all the circumstances which led to that result. He asked for an inquiry in order that the question might be set at rest whether Colonel Boxer had done anything unworthy of his position, or whether, having long and faithfully served the public, and given it the benefit of his inventive genius, he was not entitled, not merely to reward, but to substantial emolument

seconded the Motion.

said, he made no complaint of the manner in which the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Mr. O'Reilly) had brought this subject forward. On the contrary, he willingly admitted that the hon. and gallant Member had made the best of what he was sorry to say was, in his opinion, a very bad case. But the hon. and gallant Member throughout his speech had fallen into one error from which he had not for a moment deviated. He had spoken again and again of the patents known to have been held by Colonel Boxer; but he had never said a word about the royalties received by Colonel Boxer from those to whom he had sold the patents, and which he received on a private understanding which was entirely incompatible with his duty as a servant of the Crown. He would not follow the hon. and gallant Member through the early part of his speech, in which he referred to the valuable inventions of Colonel Boxer, and the benefit the country derived from those inven- tions. He fully admitted, and no one could fairly deny, that Colonel Boxer had made many valuable inventions, and that the country had derived great advantage from them. Nor would he enter into that part of the hon. and gallant Member's speech in which he alluded to his refusal to recommend a grant of public money to Colonel Boxer in consideration of those inventions. That was not the question on which the House was now asked for its opinion. His reason for the refusal was on the Table of the House. He had nothing to recall. He continued to think he was right in the course he had adopted; and as the Papers on this subject were in the hands of Members, he would not allude to it further. His object now was to make a short statement in answer to the imputations of Colonel Boxer, which involved a charge that would be discreditable to him as a servant of the Crown. Among other inventions of Colonel Boxer was a cartridge which went by his name for breech-loading ammunition. He took out a patent for it, and sold it to the manufacturing house of Eley Brothers. Mr. Daw was a rival manufacturer; and in a letter written to his right hon. Friend opposite (the Secretary of State for War), in September last, he used these words—

"Now, Sir, I have a proposition to make, but I most respectfully protest against Colonel Boxer's opinion being called for upon it, inasmuch as it is well known that Colonel Boxer is an interested person in the central-fire cartridges that bear his name, and which are now adopted in Her Majesty's service, millions of which have been manufactured for Government, and for which a royalty has been paid to that officer."

On receiving the letter containing that statement, his right hon. Friend took what he thought was the only proper course. He directed a letter to be written to Colonel Boxer, in which this sentence from Mr. Daw's letter was quoted to him, and he was asked for an explanation. Colonel Boxer refused to make any statement. He said he considered the whole question of these patents to be entirely of a private nature; and further, that he was justified in what he had done by a letter which he had received from him (Sir John Pakington) in January, 1868, and which contained this statement—

"While the other inventions you have enumerated—viz., your fuzes, breech-loading ammunition, and Shrapnel shell for rifled ordnance, having been patented by you, you must, he considers, look for reward from the royalties or other remuneration you may receive as a patentee from private manufacturers."

In the first place, he denied that he ever gave those instructions to Colonel Boxer; and, secondly, he denied that, if he ever had given those instructions, they would have afforded Colonel Boxer the slightest justification for the course he had adopted with regard to his inventions. He at once raised those two issues. After some correspondence his right hon. Friend opposite very properly called on Colonel Boxer to resign his appointment. He did resign it, and in the very same letter in which he resigned he distinctly confessed that he had done what Mr. Daw charged him with doing. In that letter he gave what he called his explanation, of which these statements were a portion—

"2nd. That when these patents were assigned and became the property of Messrs. Eley Brothers, a private agreement was entered into between myself and that firm, which gave me a pecuniary interest in the working of the patents.

"3rd. That the private agreement which gives me a pecuniary interest in my patents for cartridges is still in force."

He must now ask the attention of the House to the facts as they related to himself. In July, 1866, shortly after the late Government took Office, and when General Peel was Secretary of State for War, it was found that the War Office required cartridges of the kind which Colonel Boxer had invented, and Colonel Boxer recommended to General Peel that Messrs. Eley should be applied to for them. An application was made to them for 20,000,000 cartridges, which were supplied. In the spring of 1867, he (Sir John Pakington) succeeded to the office of Secretary of State for War, and very soon afterwards, early in May, it was found that a further supply of those cartridges was required. He called for tenders. Four were sent in; but Colonel Boxer, who was employed to inspect all such goods when they were sent in, and on whose advice the Secretary of State for War always acted, stated that of the four persons who tendered two could not be trusted, and he recommended that the Messrs. Eley and Mr. Ludlow should be employed.

said, he believed that one tender, that of Messrs. Kynoch and Co., was rejected as being inadequate, and another because it was higher in price than the other two.

said, he spoke from Colonel Boxer's words which were before him. They were these—

"Messrs. Eley Brothers and Mr. Ludlow are the only firms which have the necessary means and experience to make these cartridge cases."

He hoped the hon. Member was satisfied. [Mr. O'REILLY said, he was.] In consequence of that recommendation, Colonel Boxer was intrusted to employ those parties and he did so, but in what proportions? He employed Messrs. Eley to make 15,000,000 more cartridges; but for some reason, which he (Sir John Pakington) did not know, Mr. Ludlow received an order for only 4,000,000. The third large transaction was in September, 1867, when, on the recommendation of Colonel Boxer, and without competition, Messrs. Eley were employed to make 2,500,000 more cartridges, so that between July, 1866, and September, 1867, that firm was, on the recommendation of Colonel Boxer, employed to make 37,500,000 cartridges, which cost the country upwards of £75,000. They had now had the confession of Colonel Boxer that he had a pecuniary interest in that large amount of money, though to what extent he (Sir John Pakington) did not know, and probably never should, though it was clear that Colonel Boxer must have made a very large sum of money by his employment of Messrs. Eley, with whom he had a secret understanding, which was not known either to General Peel, to himself (Sir John Pakington), or to his right hon. Friend opposite (the Secretary of State for War). The hon. and gallant Member had stated that when General Peel ordered the 20,000,000 of cartridges the patents had not been assigned to Messrs. Eley. That was quite true; but he ventured to refer the House to Colonel Boxer's confession. In his letter of the 22nd of November, resigning his office, Colonel Boxer made this explanation—

"An absolute assignment of my patents for cartridges was made to Messrs. Eley Brothers, with the sole purpose of enabling that firm (which had by previous agreement the exclusive licence from me) to work the patents."

So that, although it was clear that, at the time General Peel gave the order, the patents had not been sold to Messrs. Eley, there could not be much doubt in any dispassionate mind that there was then, as afterwards, a pecuniary arrangement between Colonel Boxer and the firm. April, 1867, was the date at which the patents were sold to Messrs. Eley, and in the beginning of May of that year he (Sir John Pakington) received a letter from Mr. Daw, who said—

"An order for 1,000 cartridges, value £2 15s., apparently for experimental purposes only, has been given to me, whilst it would now appear, from the refusal of the Director of Contracts to furnish information, that a contract of a private nature has been executed with Colonel Boxer's agents to supply some millions of cartridges or cases."

In May, 1867, therefore, he (Sir John Pakington) found himself in exactly the same position as that in which his right hon. Friend was placed last autumn, and he then took precisely the same course as that which had been adopted by his right hon. Friend. He immediately ordered that Colonel Boxer should be asked whether the charge made against him was true, that he had a money interest in the orders which had been given; because neither General Peel nor he had suspected that any underhand arrangement existed. He, therefore, addressed the following letter to Colonel Boxer:—

"Will you be good enough to say whether Messrs. Eley and Co. have purchased your interest in your patent for small arm cartridges, or whether you receive any royalty or other consideration from them?"

He begged the attention of the House to this, which was the most painful part of the matter—a part so painful that he could not help expressing some surprise that the hon. and gallant Member had thought it to the interest of Colonel Boxer to compel him (Sir John Pakington) to make this statement. What was the answer he received? It was in these words—

"May 23, 1867.

"Director of Ordnance,—An absolute assignment of my patents for cartridges has been made to Messrs. Eley Brothers. These patents are, therefore, the property of this firm. The assignment was made upon the distinct understanding that it was not to interfere with the manufacture or use of my cartridges by the English Government."

He was dealing with a Colonel of the Royal Artillery, with one who was classed as an officer and a gentleman, who held a high position in a Government Department; and he could not suppose it possible that such a man would attempt to practise upon him what he could only describe as a gross deception—for if it was not the suggestio falsi it was the suppressio veri. He was not ashamed to state to the House that he was deceived. Considering the man with whom he was dealing he accepted the statement and believed it; and he could not help thinking that every Gentleman on either side of the House would agree with him, that if, after having received such an answer, he had written to Colonel Boxer and said—"You have not given a specific reply to my question—Do you receive a royalty, or any other consideration?" he should have been offering to that officer a decided insult. That was the view he took, and he asked the House whether they could have believed it possible, after such a reply, that Colonel Boxer had made a private agreement, which was in force and gave him a direct pecuniary interest in the working of the patent? He accepted, and he could not do otherwise than accept, the assurance of an officer of the Royal Artillery that he had absolutely assigned his patents to the Messrs. Eley; but there was this unpleasant circumstance, that it was admitted the patent had been sold for a considerable sum of money to a firm which was then supplying the Government with the materiel of war; and he confessed he had fear whether there was not danger of public scandal, and whether there was not considerable public inconvenience in allowing such a relation to exist between an officer in the confidence of the Government and a manufacturing firm. Some further correspondence consequently took place, and on the 17th of August he wrote the letter to which the hon. and gallant Member had referred, and to which he must beg leave to refer again. That letter was founded upon dissatisfaction with the nature of the relation which, upon Colonel Boxer's admission, still existed between him and the Messrs. Eley; and there were two sentences in the letter he wished to read. The first was—

"The circumstance of the possession of a patent by a Government officer, for articles with which he is specially concerned, has been the subject of unfavourable comment in Parliament and elsewhere; and the assignment of a patent taken out by an officer in the very responsible position which you hold, to a firm which does, or may possible at any future period, hold a contract for the supply of the articles, or any parts of them, specified in such patent, cannot fail to be a source of embarrass ment, and may lead to imputations highly injurious to the public service."

The last paragraph of the letter was as follows:—

"In conclusion, I am desired to inform you that Sir John Pakington much regrets your proceedings in this matter, and to express his desire that you shall not for the future undertake any personal agreement with Government contractors or others with whom you may possibly be brought into communication in your official capacity."

He intended this to be a distinct prohibition of any such relation as that which, without his knowledge, existed between Colonel Boxer and the Messrs. Eley. The hon. and gallant Member said there was no concealment. Why, there was the most profound concealment, the most absolute secresy from beginning to end of this somewhat scandalous transaction. This passage of the letter, which he intended to be, and which, in his opinion, was an absolute prohibition against this transaction, had been spoken of by the hon. and gallant Member as a direction for the future and a recognition of the past. Recognition of the past! What was the past? It consisted of Colonel Boxer having, from time to time, recommended this house for these large transactions, and then giving him an assurance upon which, as between gentlemen, he relied implicitly, that there was no improper communication between Colonel Boxer and the firm. After writing this letter, which he thought was conclusive, he spared no means to place the matter upon a proper footing; for, notwithstanding the assurance he had received, and the letter to which he had just adverted, he thought it right and prudent to direct inquiries to be made at the Patent Office whether there was any record of the assignment to the Messrs. Eley. It was found there was a statement showing that £2,000 had been paid for the patent; but there was not a single word to be found in the Patent Office with regard to any reservation of royalty or any other consideration. This reference to the Patent Office therefore strengthened his erroneous impression that he knew the whole truth. He confessed, nevertheless, that he thought the relation between the parties of so doubtful a complexion that he hesitated very much at the time whether he ought to permit Colonel Boxer to continue in the office he then held; and he had no hesitation in saying if he had been aware then of that which he knew now he should have held it to be his duty to dismiss Colonel Boxer; and, further, he very much doubted whether he should not also have thought it his duty to bring the whole subject under the consideration of the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, with a view to ascertaining whether the conduct of Colonel Boxer was consistent with his position as a Colonel in the Army. It was with feelings of doubt he permitted Colonel Boxer to remain in the office he held. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite had naturally referred, as Colonel Boxer had done over and over again, to a passage in a letter of his of January, 1868, as an alleged justification of the course Colonel Boxer took; and he begged the attention of the House to the circumstances connected with that letter. In the year 1867, Colonel Boxer applied to him to recommend Parliament to make him a large grant of money in consideration of his valuable invention. At that time he knew nothing against Colonel Boxer, was fully aware of the value of the invention, and he seriously considered whether Colonel Boxer was not entitled to a special reward in the shape of a Parliamentary Grant; but after giving the matter the most deliberate attention, in conjunction with his colleagues of the War Office, he determined that Colonel Boxer was not entitled to be recommended for a special reward in money. The letter of January, 1868, was written to inform Colonel Boxer of this decision not to recommend him for a special reward, and it was, therefore, a letter to which he attached considerable importance. In accordance with his custom in such cases he drew up the Minute upon which the letter was to be founded, and a copy of that Minute, in his own handwriting, might now be found in the War Office, and might be referred to by anyone to whom the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State would allow it to be shown. In that Minute there was not a word relating to royalty or other remuneration, to patentee or private manufacturer; in short, there was in the Minute no portion of the passage upon which Colonel Boxer relied for his defence. That being so, it was obvious that the gentleman in the War Office who was intrusted with the writing of the letter must have introduced the words named without proper authority. He did not wish to speak in anger or asperity of the gentleman by whom the mistake was made; he was sure it was done without any bad intention; and he should be ungrateful if he were not to do the most ample justice to the zealous assistance which he always received from the War Office Staff. But the words inserted in the letter were never authorized by himself; and he hoped the reference to the Minute would convince the House that he did not give any such instructions. On the other hand, he was equally bound in candour to admit that Colonel Boxer received the letter with these words in it; that Colonel Boxer could have no knowledge that they were not duly authorized, and that he was, therefore, fully entitled to any benefit he could derive from the fact that the letter bore these words on the face of it. He now came to the second question—what were those words? Did they justify Colonel Boxer in receiving the royalty? He contended that they did not, and any Gentleman would see they did not who would consent to draw a distinction between a Government contractor and a private manufacturer. No doubt, Colonel Boxer, with a patent in his possession, was entitled to go to the private trade; there was nothing to prevent his deriving whatever advantage he could from it in that way. But, on the 17th of August, he had written to Colonel Boxer—

"You shall not for the future undertake any personal agreement with Government contractors or others with whom you may possibly be brought into communication in your official capacity."

And, on the 4th of January, he wrote to Colonel Boxer—

"You must, he considers, look for reward from the royalties or other remuneration, you may receive as patentee from private manufacturers."

Bearing in mind the distinction between Government contractors and private manufacturers, these sentences removed every pretext from Colonel Boxer for supposing that he was authorized to do what he did. What was Colonel Boxer's own view at the time? In answer to that very letter, Colonel Boxer said—

"If, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, it was objectionable for an officer in my position to take out a patent, or if, in the event of my doing so, it was intended to refuse me a pecuniary reward, I ought, in common fairness, to have been at once informed accordingly; for, in the case of war matêriel, which is not used except in the Naval and Military Services, the advantage likely to be derived from the private trade is very small, as compared with what I had a right to expect from the Government."

It was, therefore, clear that Colonel Boxer drew the distinction that from the nature of the articles much profit was not to be derived from the private trade. Colonel Boxer also referred to the instructions of Earl De Grey in 1863, that the fuses "are to be made for the public service free from all claim to royalty or patent-right." However, on his own showing, Colonel Boxer was receiving a royalty after Earl De Grey's prohibition, and after his (Sir John Pakington's) prohibition in May, 1867, and his strong letter in August following. Could he have been supposed by a man of the intelligence of Colonel Boxer to have been seriously desiring him to do in January, 1868 that which he had prohibited him from doing in the previous August? Such a supposition must appear to anyone considering the whole case perfectly ridiculous. He could only imagine that Colonel Boxer, having been found out, resorted to that supposed passage as the readiest excuse which he could find. It appeared from the following passage, in the last letter written by Sir Henry Storks to Colonel Boxer, that his right hon. Friend, now at the head of the War Department, took the same view of the case as he had done:—

"It did not appear to Mr. Cardwell that this letter, taken in connection with the previous correspondence, warranted him or his predecessor in supposing that Mr. Daw's statement as to your receiving payment on the supplies furnished to this department was correct. Indeed, his expectation, in communicating this statement to you, was that you would have been able to take the opportunity of contradicting it."

Under these circumstances, he earnestly hoped that hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House would come to the conclusion that there was nothing in his conduct inconsistent with his duty to the Crown, or his character as a minister.

said, he was glad that the subject had been brought before the House, for it was one on which a distinct and emphatic opinion should be pronounced by the House, and no Ministers would be able to economize the expenditure of the country unless the conduct of the War Department in this instance received a decided approval. He spoke as a commercial man, and, according to his view, the letters commencing the correspondence, and which had not been read, made out a far stronger case even than that which had been presented by the right hon. Baronet (Sir John Pakington). Colonel Boxer's letter to the Director of Ordnance, dated the 21st of July, 1866, was clearly intended to show that he resigned absolutely his entire right to the patents, without reservation of royalty or any ulterior consideration. In that letter Colonel Boxer stated—

"As far as I can judge at present we should be quite unable to supply ammunition for the extra 100,000 arms, as we have as yet little experience of the manufacture of the description of cartridge required. I will take immediate steps to ascertain whether a supply of ammunition can be obtained from the trade."

Of course "from the trade" meant open competition; but on the 27th of July Colonel Boxer recommended that the offer of Messrs. Eley and Co. to supply 20,000,000 cases should be accepted, as it was fair and reasonable. Was not the recommendation of Eley and Co. really the recommendation of Eley, Boxer, and Co.? [Mr. O'REILLY: No!] Well, if Colonel Boxer was not a partner in the firm when the correspondence began, but afterwards became a sleeping partner, and carried on the same transaction, then the case was stronger. What would be thought if a person connected with the clothing department of the War Office became a sleeping partner in a Leeds establishment, and secretly took a profit on the goods supplied by that establishment to the War Department? Colonel Boxer seemed to have entertained the idea that he was entitled to extra remuneration; but it must be remembered that he had the whole use of the Laboratory, and all the advantages for information which his office afforded him. He believed that the conduct both of the late and of the present Secretary of State for War was just what it ought to have been under the circumstances.

Sir, regarding the present Motion in the light of an attack on the Department over which my right hon. Friend opposite (Sir John Pakington) presided, and over which I now have the honour to preside, I shall certainly offer it an uncompromising opposition; for I consider that our conduct has not been such as to be a fit subject for impeachment or inquiry, and I do not think that the House will fail to give its support to those who have endeavoured to discharge their duty to the public in a most efficient manner. With regard to myself, the part I took in the matter was a small one. As soon as I received the letter written to me by Mr. Daw—which called my attention to the fact—I should like to quote his own words—he said—

"It is well known that Colonel Boxer is an interested person in the central fire cartridges that bear his name, and which are now adopted in Her Majesty's service, millions of which have been manufactured for Government, and for which a royalty has been paid to that officer."

As soon as that knowledge came to me, I felt there was but one course for me to pursue, and that course was to call on the gallant officer to state if it was the case, and to have his explanation upon it. The gallant officer elected to say—

"I beg most respectfully to express my objection to answer any questions which arise out of statements made by Mr. Daw upon the subject of my patents, which I regard, and shall always regard, as a private matter, and which is indeed distinctly admitted to be so by the Secretary of State for War in War Office Letter dated January 4, 1868."

And he then quotes the letter my right hon. Friend has referred to as follows:—

"While the other inventions you have enumerated—viz., your fuzes, breech-loading rifle ammunition, and Shrapnel shell for rifle ordnance—having been patented by you, you must, he considers, look for reward from the royalties or other remuneration you may receive as a patentee from private manufacturers."

Now, my right hon. Friend appeals to me to confirm the statement he made that these expressions were not contained in the memorandum as written by him at the War Office, and undoubtedly that is the case. I had no alternative, it appeared to me, but, in the first place, to insist on an answer; and, secondly, to lay down the principle I did lay down and adhere to it. I therefore consider that no charge is brought against the conduct of the Department so far as I am concerned, for my hon. Friend who brought forward the Motion admitted that, in point of discipline, I was called upon to require an answer, and that, in point of principle, the principle I laid down was the only one on which the public service can possibly be conducted. My right hon. Friend also appealed to me on another point, and that is whether I understood that he acted under the same impression as myself. Now, certainly, as I stated in my letter on Page 25, I gave the most careful attention to the whole of the correspondence, and I will acknowledge, with perfect frankness, that I was a good deal perplexed by the passage which I have just quoted about the royalties. It was not so clear to me as my right hon. Friend thinks it is clear what the meaning of that passage was. I thought it a perplexing passage; but I am bound to repeat, in the plainest terms, what I stated in my letter—that I had no doubt the impression of my predecessor in Office was the same as my own—namely, that the assignment of the patent—I believe in April, 1867, was made for a sum down, and did not involve the continuance of any royalties or subsisting engagements between the parties. And that is very important, because, as I stated also, the person who fills the office of Superintendent of the Royal Laboratory is one to whom the Secretary of State has a right to be able to have recourse in advising with regard to the patterns of articles manufactured in the Laboratory. My hon. Friend who brought forward this Motion thinks that is no part of his duty; but it is his duty to be an independent officer, capable of giving important and valuable advice to his superiors and the Secretary of State on that subject. It is his duty to report upon contracts and inspect supplies received from contractors; and I do hold that he should be free from any pecuniary interest connected therewith. I have not the least doubt that my right hon. Friend believed that the payment of the sum of money for the patent was a payment for past transactions, and that there were no continuing royalties. I did not, however, feel that the correspondence was so clear as I should wish it to have been. What I have to say is this—I feel no doubt as to the course I ought to pursue. It appears not the slightest blame rests on my right hon. Friend for the course he pursued. Therefore, speaking in the interest of the War Office, I shall not be prepared to consent to a Committee involving in the slightest degree any imputation on my predecessor any more than upon myself; but with regard to the case as it stands on the debate, I must appeal to my hon. Friend who made the Motion, and in whose hands is the honour of Colonel Boxer, to state to the House what is the view he now takes with regard to the appointment of a Committee on the subject.

said, he wished, before the debate closed, to call attention to one point which had not been cleared up by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, and which appeared to be one of the most extraordinary circumstances which had come under the notice of the House for a considerable time. He alluded to the precis of the letter which the right hon. Baronet (Sir John Pakington) had ordered to be written on the 4th of January, 1868. The right hon. Baronet said that he carefully prepared the memorandum; and what he (Mr. W. H. Gregory) wished to know was, whether the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had made an inquiry as to how the passage about royalties, which the right hon. Gentleman declared was never written by him, had crept into the letter? This was a most important point. It was the cardinal point on which Colonel Boxer's case turned, and he was not surprised, therefore, at the stress which the Mover had put on it. The interpolated passage was directly contradictory to the whole spirit of the memorandum, and he thought they should have some explanation from his right hon. Friend as to whether he had made inquiries how the passage had been interpolated. It was a distinct admission of a principle of the most dangerous kind. If his right hon. Friend had not made inquiries, he ought still to do so, and let the House have further explanation on the subject.

said, he would call attention to the long letter, dated January 11, 1868, which Colonel Boxer had written to the War Office relative to his patents, the complaints he made against the War Office, and the directions he had received from that office with regard to his patent rights and inventions. He said—

"I am informed by your letter that I 'must look for reward from the royalties or other remuneration I may receive as a patentee from private manufacturers.' As regards this point, I beg to draw the especial attention of the Secretary of State to the instructions I have received from the War Office relative to this matter."

He went on to call attention to the War Office Letters of the 20th November, 1863, and August 17,1867, and he wound up by saying—

"These instructions practically amount to this—that I am to make no arrangements at all with the private manufacturers to work my patents. But I am now told that I must look for reward from the royalties or other remunerations I may receive as a patentee from private manufacturers."

In a letter, dated March 5, 1868, the Director General of Ordnance acknowledged the receipt of this letter, and stated that he had laid it before the Secretary of State. Therefore, the right hon. Baronet having these words before him, and making no remark upon them, committed himself to the statement. He was sorry his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War declined to sanction the appointment of this Committee, for the whole manufacturing department was in an unsatisfactory state, as he had shown two years ago. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) had taken a very different line that evening from what he did three years ago, when he was endeavouring to impress on the right hon. Baronet that the practice of giving large rewards to the heads of Departments was as objectionable as allowing them to take out patents. At that time the Secretary of State for War was most indignant with him for making serious charges against high officials, and insisted that he should move in the House of Commons for a Select Committee, before whom these charges would be investigated. The right hon. Baronet would not investigate these charges himself in the War Office, but insisted that a Committee should be moved for; and when this was done, did not rest until he had secured the presence upon the Committee of one of the ablest lawyers in the House to oppose the charges when brought forward. This, therefore, was a precedent for referring the matter now under discussion to a Committee of the House of Commons. As far as Colonel Boxer was concerned, he had nothing to say in his defence. Nobody had more strongly denounced than he himself had done the system of patents; but he thought the War Office at least as much to blame as Colonel Boxer, for, in one way or other, they knew of the existence of those patents, recognized the rights of persons in his position to take out patents, and therefore the question was one of degree. It would certainly be for the good of the service, as well as for the satisfaction of the public, that the matter, having been raised, should now be thoroughly investigated; accordingly, he hoped his hon. and gallant Friend (Mr. O'Reilly) would press his Motion to a Division.

said, he adhered to the sense in which he had originally proposed his Motion; he thought the whole subject well worthy of inquiry.

said, his hon. and gallant Friend was the best interpreter of his own Motion; but if his object was to make of it a foundation for pursuing an inquiry generally into the principles upon which the War Office had acted and was acting, the Government could not consent to any such proposal.

, in rising to call attention to recent magisterial appointments in the county of Leitrim, and to move for Papers, said, he should make no objection to these appointments on the score of religion, which he hoped would never be a matter brought into question on appointments of this kind, or upon the ground that a man might at some time or other have followed a humble trade or occupation. On the contrary, men who had raised themselves by their intelligence, industry, and ability, frequently made the best and most energetic magistrates. But he did object to men being selected as magistrates because of their religion, or whose social position or occupation was such that they could not inspire in the people among whom they lived that confidence in the administration of the law which was essential. The first two appointments to which he felt it necessary to call attention were those of Mr. Nathaniel Maguire and Mr. Francis M'Keon, made in December last. Mr. Maguire rented a farm valued at £103 15s. a year; he had no fee-simple property whatever in Leitrim, and there was no necessity for an additional magistrate in the district, as there wore already three or four living near, and all within a radius of four miles. There was no objection to Mr. Maguire personally; he was a member of an old family, and he had a fee-simple property in an adjoining county worth £400 a year. The next appointment, however, was one of a very different nature. Mr. Francis M'Keon, no doubt, was a highly respectable man in his line of life, but hardly the proper person to intrust with magisterial functions. He lived in Drumshambo, where he rented the Market Place, with two or three small houses in the village, and two small farms in the neighbourhood, raising his rating to £134 10s. a year. He had no fee-simple property whatever in the county. He was originally a rag and feather merchant, and one of his nearest relatives kept a public-house in Drumshambo, and was succeeded by his two sons, who became bankrupt. The special objection to this man as a magistrate was that he rented the Market House, and as weigh-master was bound by his lease personally to superintend the crane. He might, therefore, be seen on Bench days, previous to the assembling of the magistrates, weighing lumps of butter and other articles for the country people, receiving coppers in payment from their hands, and issuing in return tickets, with the name "Francis M'Keon, weigh-master," attached. The fact that all the arrangements of the Market House, and any complaints connected therewith, came under the cognizance of the magistrates, made his appointment to the Bench one especially to be deprecated. It was accordingly not to be wondered at that the other magistrates had declined to act with him, the result being that the administration of justice in that part of the county had fallen exclusively into this man's hands. The noble Lord proceeded to refer to the appointment of Mr. Bernard Maguire who, he said, was a tenant-farmer paying £28 a year rent, holding a farm valued at £48 10s. That was his whole locus standi in the county. Mr. Bernard Maguire was not only a lawgiver, but a law-breaker, having within the last 12 years been brought before the quarter or petty sessions no fewer than five times, besides civil bill actions. Under these circumstances, it was hardly to be wondered at that the local magistracy were very indignant at these appointments, and that a memorial had been signed by 30 or 40 of the resident magistrates, protesting against the studied insult which had been offered them. The Government, it was true, were not directly responsible for the qualifications or for the persons recommended for the commission of the peace. The person who was supposed to inquire into their qualifications and antecedents was the Lord Lieutenant of the county, and he believed it was impossible to acquit the Lord Lieutenant of Leitrim either of culpable negligence or of a desire to degrade the Bench by placing such men upon it. The Lord Lieutenant of Leitrim was the Earl of Granard, whose name had more than once been mentioned in that House and in public, and it would, in his opinion, be better if that noble Lord, instead of airing his Vinegar Hill reminiscences, were to remain at home and perform the duties imposed upon him by the office which he held. He trusted that the House would receive an assurance that the most objectionable of these appointments would not be made if only in contemplation, and if made would be revoked. The noble Lord concluded by moving for the Papers referred to.

seconded the Motion.

said, that as Member for the county of Leitrim, and having personal knowledge of the parties spoken of, he wished to say a few words in defence of Mr. Bernard Maguire. The hon. Member then explained the charges on which Mr. Bernard Maguire had been brought before the magistrates, and testified that he was a most respectable man, holding a good position in society. As to the charge which the noble Lord had brought against Mr. M'Keon—he had accused Mr. M'Keon of having no property in the county—of his being a weigh-master of butter and corn, and of his still officiating in that capacity. Now, the fact was that he never did so officiate, and for the last 10 years he had not been connected with trade. Mr. M'Keon had formerly amassed considerable property, and was now living in independence. He took a lease of land from the Earl of Belmore for 999 years at a rental of £4 a year, on which he had built a market for the benefit of the town, with stores and weighing machines, at an expense of some £4,000. These were his own; and no doubt in the official papers certifying the weight of various articles, his name appeared as the weigh-master; but that did not imply, and it was not the fact, that he weighed these articles with his own hands. For 20 years he had acted as a grand juror at the sessions, as a guardian of the poor, as secretary of the Medical Relief Committee, and in other offices, and he had always discharged his public duties to the satisfaction and benefit of the community amongst whom he acted. It was said that he had no stake in the county. But in that very county there were nine magistrates who had not a particle of property in the county except as the agents of other men. The charges, therefore, which the noble Lord had brought forward reflected no great credit on him. He (Mr. Brady) was convinced that, in spite of the charges which the noble Lord had brought forward, the duties which those gentlemen had to fulfil would be performed to the entire satisfaction of the people of Leitrim, and believed that it would cause great discontent in the county if Mr. M'Keon, through the interference of the noble Lord, were to be deprived of the office to which he had been appointed.

said, that until he heard the statement of the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Brady), he was very much struck with the speech of the noble Lord (Viscount Crichton). With regard, however, to one of the gentlemen, Mr. Nathaniel Maguire, it appeared that the noble Lord withdrew his charges; and as to Mr. Bernard Maguire, the matters which the noble Lord referred to might be capable of explanation. As for Mr. M'Keon, no charge whatever had been brought against him, except that he had risen from a humble position in life. He thought that this system of bringing forward charges against individuals without giving them an opportunity of knowing what they were would work great injustice. He believed the resident gentry in Leitrim were very few. If an investigation were to be instituted into magisterial appointments in Ireland generally, it would be found that agents who had no property, but who merely represented other persons, were chosen for the commission of the peace far more frequently than men who possessed property. The Lords Lieutenants of counties, with whom the recommendation rested, though they might exercise all the discretion in their power, were in many instances quite unfit to determine dispassionately who ought to be appointed.

said, he was glad that his noble Friend (Viscount Crichton) did not oblige him to defend the Government or the Lord Chancellor. He would state the facts of the case as they had been furnished to him by the Lord Chancellor. He was glad that the noble Lord had withdrawn his charge of unfitness with regard to one of the gentlemen, Mr. Nathaniel Maguire; but he had not withdrawn that gentleman's name from the Motion, and if the Motion was to be agreed to it was only right that that should be done. The facts were, as he had been assured by the Lord Chancellor, that Mr. Nathaniel Maguire was a man of substance, in the enjoyment of a property, a considerable portion of it freehold, of nearly £1,000 a year, in a good position, and a near relative of a gentleman who filled the office of High Sheriff of Fermanagh. He was a man highly respected, and, moreover, his appointment was not only expedient, but almost necessary, in the district where he lived. It was, therefore, greatly to be regretted that any charge had been brought against Lord Granard on account of that gentleman's appointment. As to Mr. M'Keon, the Lord Chancellor had found many of the statements made by the deputation to the Commissioners of the Great Seal in his absence directly contradicted on good authority. Mr. M'Keon was represented as a man of substance and intelligence, who commanded the respect of his neighbours. It did appear that, being the owner of a considerable part of the town in which he lived, and enjoying the appointment of weigh-master, he had acted as weigh-master in person. There seemed to be no doubt of that fact. [Mr. BRADY expressed dissent.] Well, he was not quite clear about it. The Lord Chancellor had informed him that he had found so many irreconcilable statements as to the social position of Mr. M'Keon that he was not perfectly satisfied on the point; he had taken steps to make further inquiry, and upon the result he would make up his mind and communicate the conclusion he had come to to the Lieutenant of the county. With respect to the other gentleman, the Lord Chancellor stated that he was informed by Lord Granard that he had been very much misled by the representations, or want of representations, which had induced him to recommend Mr. Bernard Maguire for the commission of the peace, and both the Lieutenant of the county, who in this ease did not inform himself about the position and antecedents of the person as carefully as would be desirable, and the Lord Chancellor were agreed that if the facts of the ease had been known Mr. Bernard Maguire would not have been placed in the commission of the peace. Mr. Bernard Maguire, however, had resigned the commission. Such being the state in which the question stood, he would ask his noble Friend not to press his Motion, if only for the reason that the Lord Chancellor was making further inquiries, and when they should be concluded he would be happy to lay the Papers on the Table of the House.

, who had given Notice to call attention to the state of public measures affecting England, said, he was aware the Bill that had so long occupied the attention of the House was one of the first importance. At the same time there were other measures of very great importance which should not entirely be overlooked, and the requirements of England ought to receive some attention as well as those of Ireland. Since the meeting of Parliament they had scarcely discussed one subject that was not directly or indirectly Irish; while the interests of England and Scotland had been, to use a common phrase, "shunted," to make room for Irish matters. The Queen's Speech at the open- ing of the Session contained this passage—

"We are further directed by Her Majesty to state that many other subjects of public importance appear to demand your care; and among those especially to inform you that a Bill has been prepared for the enlargement, on a comprehensive scale, of the means of National Education."

The importance of the question of national education no one would deny. They had had debates on various occasions on that very topic; and the Government had so far redeemed the pledge they gave at the commencement of the Session by laying on the Table a measure on that subject, which he thought he was not wrong in describing as most satisfactory to all the different religious bodies in the kingdom. It was also a measure that had received the support of both sides of the House; and he did not know why so important a measure should be entirely shelved for the sake of Ireland. The question of education, as it now stood, might, he thought, be very easily settled. He was aware it was said there was a religious difficulty in the way; but he did not believe, when they came to face that difficulty, it would be found anything like so great as some had assumed. He, for one, should be extremely glad to hear the arguments that might be offered in favour of irreligious education, or education without religion; but he confessed that he held such a system to be an impossibility, and that those arguments, however ably urged, must signally fail. From the way in which the measure had been, from time to time, postponed, there was a great feeling arising in the country that the Government was not sincere in its intention to deal with national education—a great suspicion that the Amendments the Government proposed to lay on the Table would not carry out fairly and honestly the principle it announced when it introduced its Bill. On the other hand, there was a small, but extremely vigorous section who were anxious to make the question of education the stalking-horse of battle against the Established Church of England. It was, therefore, most desirable that an answer should be given on these points. First, would the Government proceed with the Education Bill this Session? Secondly, would they lay on the Table the Amendments they proposed to make in the Bill, so that they might be fairly discussed in all the various parishes they would affect, and that the opinion of the public might be obtained as to whether they would or would not be consonant with the principle which the vast majority in England and Scotland were determined to maintain—namely, that religion should be taught in the schools assisted by the State? He hoped he had placed the matter on a clear footing. The information he ventured to ask from the First Lord of the Treasury could, he thought, hardly be refused. The right hon. Gentleman could not deny that the question of education, at all events, was to England as interesting as the vast Bill on Irish land tenures; and if he would deal with the great question of education, he would not find placed in his way the impediments he encountered in regard to the Irish land question. The right hon. Gentleman could look with but little satisfaction to the legislation of the present Session. All that they had yet passed into law was the Coercion Bill for Ireland—a measure which he trusted would not be the single result of a barren Session. If the right hon. Gentleman was fortunate enough to confer, as no doubt he hoped to do, on the Irish people a Land Bill that would give them peace, tranquillity, and confidence, he was also bound not to neglect the still greater interests of education. That subject had occupied public attention for many years; there were many anxious to see the measure on the subject carried into effect, and if the right hon. Gentleman would rely on the support he would obtain from all who conscientiously held that all education must be based on religion, he firmly believed he would pass a Bill which would be creditable to himself, and go far to redeem the Session from the barrenness that had hitherto characterized it.

Sir, I am sure the hon. Baronet (Sir Lawrence Palk) will accept in good faith the assurance I give him—that I am not surprised at occasional manifestations of anxiety, or even of impatience in reference to measures of the greatest importance announced in the Queen's Speech, but with which we have not been able to make the progress that would on all hands have been deemed desirable. On the other hand, I feel, as I expressed on an occasion that occurred immediately before the Easter Recess, that discus- sions regarding the order and precedence of business, and competition for priority in the handling of it, do not really tend to advance the purpose we have in view, because what is to be desired is, that there should be pointed out some mode in which the Government can find a greater stock of time available for the purpose of forwarding those measures, or that a vigorous exhortation should be addressed to independent Members to abate considerably the demands they make—as I admit they are entitled by the rules of the House to do, on the time of the House for the discussion of the subjects which they think fit to introduce. If we are merely to debate which of various measures ought to take precedence of the others, we shall, in that very act, be consuming the precious time which might enable us to dispose of them, and the position of those who do so rather reminds me of two lines in that very clever volume, Rejected Addresses, where the author speaks of persons who loudly call for silence in a theatre—

"He who, in quest of quiet, 'silence' hoots

Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes."

We should take care that the mode we take to correct an evil does not increase that very evil. I must say there is no means in the power of the Government to adopt which would have produced a greater aggregate result than we have actually attained. In regard, however, to the Irish Land Bill, I may observe that many of the criticisms passed on the slowness of its passage through Committee are founded very much upon the very small number of clauses that have been disposed of. But if the number, the variety, the novelty, the sweep, and the importance of the propositions contained in those clauses are considered, it will be seen, I think, that the work really done by the House in respect to the Irish Land Bill is a very great deal larger than the public out-of-doors suppose. In respect to the hon. Baronet's question on the subject of the Education Bill, all I have to do is, in the first place, to refer to the Queen's Speech, a passage in which was studiously framed to give, as far as was in our power, to the English Education Bill, next after the Irish Land Bill, the position of the greatest prominence and importance among the measures of the Session. Two or three weeks ago, I referred to the state of business, and declared it to be the inten- tion of Government to press forward the Irish Land Bill, with all the resources at our command, in the first instance, and, when that Bill was disposed of, to place the English Education Bill in the same position. Of course, all such intentions are necessarily liable to be modified from time to time, owing to change of circumstances; but I see no reason now existing to induce me to recede from the declaration I then made. It would be idle to name a day for proceeding with the Bill at the present moment, for I cannot estimate the number of days that must necessarily be devoted to Supply, and to the transaction of other business that cannot be postponed. All I can say is, that the question is always in the thoughts of my right hon. Friend near me (the Vice President of the Council) and of myself, and that no time will be lost in bringing the subject under the attention of the House for a practical purpose on the first opportunity within our reach. With regard to the Amendments, I hope they will not be of so grave a character as the hon. Baronet seems to think; but the question of the hon. Baronet, with respect to the Amendments is most reasonable. I can assure him that he shall have ample means of judging of their character when they are reduced to form. In adequate time, say a fortnight before we go into Committee, we will take care that any Amendments we mean to propose, in pursuance of the pledge given by me on the second reading of the Bill, shall be laid on the Table of the House.

rose, pursuant to Notice, "to call attention to the case of the convict, Jacob Spinasa, who was sentenced to death at the March Sessions of the Central Criminal Court for the wilful murder of a woman, and who has lately received a reprieve and a commutation of his sentence." He found, by the report of the trial published in The Times, that there was no recommendation to mercy; that Baron Channell, the Judge who tried the case, expressed his entire concurrence in the verdict; that the learned Judge said the jury, by their verdict, had negatived the supposition of the prisoner having been in such a state of mind as to be irresponsible for his actions; and that he (Baron Channell) observed he was glad the jury had had "the courage" to consider the case in all its bearings. After all that, the case came before the Secretary of State for the Home Department in private, and he advised a commutation of the sentence. He believed that fresh evidence had been brought under the notice of the right hon. Gentleman; but that was the very point to which he wished to call the attention of the House. He objected to the practice of producing fresh evidence for the consideration of the Secretary of State after a trial in Court. When evidence was held back at the trial and produced afterwards to the Secretary of State, without being submitted to the test of cross-examination, he thought that it ought to be viewed with doubt and suspicion. He begged to be understood as not saying anything against the right hon. Gentleman personally, who, he was sure, had acted in this case in accordance with what he considered to be his public duty; but if sentences in such cases were to be set aside by one man sitting in a private room, the confidence of the public in the course of justice would be shaken. He did not say that the system was badly administered, but that the system itself was bad. His objection was against the Secretary of State, whoever he might be, sitting as a Court of Appeal. In reference to a somewhat similar case with respect to which he asked a Question last year, he wished to mention that Mr. Justice Mellor, the Judge who tried that case, had expressed his thanks to him for having asked the Question, because it afforded him (the learned Judge) the only opportunity he could have of correcting any misapprehension in the minds of the public as to the propriety of any sentences passed; and he had received a number of communications in which the writers stated their approval of the course he had taken. The particulars of the ease of Spinasa were known to the House and the public, and therefore, declaring once more that he introduced the subject because he thought the system of an appeal to the Secretary of State a bad one, and hoping that the law would be altered, he left the matter in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman and the House.

said, the House would remember that last year a Bill was introduced by his hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Gilpin) to abolish capital punishment, and he (Mr. R. N. Fowler) stated, in the debate upon the second reading of that Bill, that though he believed that the powers vested by the present system in the Secretary of State for the Home Department were exercised as satisfactorily as possible by the right hon. Gentleman who at present presided over the Homo Office, yet they were powers which it was perfectly impossible for any man to exercise to the general satisfaction of the public. There could be no doubt that different minds took different views, and it was quite possible that two men of equal ability and fairness, and with an equal desire to do justice to the case before them, might arrive on the same evidence at very different conclusions. Formerly when a Judge left a man for execution, not having received from the jury any recommendation to mercy, the idea was that the convict was sure to be executed; but of late years public opinion had moved considerably in the direction of mitigating sentences of capital punishment, and whenever a man was sentenced to death now-a-days, the Home Office was always besieged with memorials to spare the life of the culprit. He himself had never signed any such memorials, and he should be most unwilling to do so; because he thought that under the present state of the law the Secretary of State ought to be left to exercise the powers intrusted to him on his own responsibility, guided, as a man holding such a post always would be, by the importance of the decision at which he would have to arrive. But it was impossible that the decision of the Home Office could give general satisfaction, because while the trial in Court was an open one, the grounds upon which the Secretary of State arrived at his decision were secret. The Secretary of State frequently had facts put before him which were not before the public, and consequently the public were often puzzled to understand why he spared one criminal and hung another. The whole subject, however, was ably debated on the second reading of the Bill he had referred to, and the Bill was rejected by a majority of 2 to 1, which he took to be a decision of the House to abide by the present system. He hoped to see the day when capital punishment would cease in this country; but he thought that that time was not likely to arrive during the existence of the present House of Commons. After the House had decided to leave these questions in the hands of the Secretary of State, he thought it would be better if the time of the House were not taken up by discussions on particular cases like the one now before them. Such cases ought to be left entirely in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. This House was, in the nature of things, one of the worst places where the question of the comparative guilt of a murderer could be properly considered, for it was a legislative Assembly and not an executive body.

said, he concurred in thinking that it was not desirable that the time of the House should be taken up in the discussion of individual cases which had or had not received the clemency of the Crown. He did not see, however, how it was possible for the hon. Baronet who had brought this question forward to limit himself to this particular case, for not merely the act of the Home Secretary but the Prerogative of the Crown was called in question. The Crown had the indefeasible right of mercy, and according to the Constitution of the country that right was exercised through responsible advisers; and to deprive the Sovereign of that power would be to rob the British Crown of one of its brightest jewels. The hon. Baronet had treated this case as if the Secretary of State had seen right on his own responsibility to set aside or alter the decision of a Judge. For many years he (Mr. Gilpin) had been in the habit of going to the Home Office to ask for a remission of the death penalty in cases where he had reason to believe that special circumstances existed which might fairly be brought under the consideration of the Crown; but he had never known reprieves to be granted by the Home Secretary without the fullest consideration and investigation, and unless new facts had been elicited which would have altered, if not the verdict of the jury, at least the sentence of the Judge. As a rule, too, the Home Secretary acted on the advice of the Judge. Within the last three years there had been a case in which a man was left under sentence of death in the con- demned cell, and the Judge had declared that he was fully convinced of the justice of the verdict; and yet ultimately, within a few days of his sentence being executed, the man was set free, with the most perfect concurrence of opinion on the part of Judge, and Home Secretary, that he was quite innocent of the charge against him. What would be the feeling of the country, if in such a case as that a man was hanged because there was no power of mercy such as that which was now vested in the Home Secretary? It was right that there should be in those cases a power vested in the Crown, and he believed that power, whether placed in the hands of the present Secretary of State for the Home Department, or of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gathorne Hardy), would be exercised with equal conscientiousness. As to the instance under the notice of the House, he might state that one of the counsel engaged in the case had called upon him, and had told him that he was perfectly satisfied it was not one of wilful murder; and there were also Gentlemen in that House who had seen the convict, and whose opinion was that there was no malice aforethought. He would, therefore, appeal to the justice and kindness of the hon. Baronet who had brought the question forward (Sir George Jenkinson) to say whether, when fresh evidence was laid before him, it would not be monstrous to interpose between the Secretary for the Home Department and the exercise of the prerogative of mercy. If, he might add, that had the recommendations which had been unanimously agreed to by the Commissioners on Capital Punishment been acted upon, Jacob Spinasa could not have been executed; and he would, therefore, urge upon his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary not to allow any more time than was absolutely necessary to elapse before he introduced a Bill founded on the Report of that Commission. The result of the passing of such a measure would, he felt convinced, be not more to lessen the number of executions than to increase the certainty of convictions. There was a moral in those cases which could scarcely fail to present itself to one after another of the holders of the Office which the right hon. Gentleman filled, and that was that it was neither right nor wise that an irrevocable and irreversible punishment should be inflicted by fallible and erring men. Having always been an advocate for the abolition of capital punishment, he was more hopeful than the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. R. N. Fowler), that he should see its abolition during the existence of the present Parliament. It would not be the first instance of a majority, on an important question at the commencement of a Parliament, becoming through discussion, and the progress of conviction, a minority before its dissolution.

said, he thought there was great inconvenience in raising the questions of the expediency of appointing a public prosecutor and abolishing capital punishment, in dealing with an isolated case such as that under discussion. His own experience for many years as chairman of quarter sessions led him to form a very favourable opinion as to the mode in which business was transacted at the Home Office; but as to its giving perfect satisfaction, he must remind the House that the days of perfect satisfaction were gone. He had read, in a very able letter which appeared in The Times not long since, that "civilization had enlarged the bounds of criticism," and the observation was, he believed, perfectly just. Those who complained of the present system ought to have some distinct idea of what was to be substituted for it, and until some well-defined plan was devised it was not wise, in his opinion, to do anything which might tend to impair the authority and efficacy of that system.

said, he believed he was one of those who had laid themselves open to the charge of impertinence in interfering with this case; but he had felt it to be his duty to act as he had acted. If Spinasa had been executed it would have been a grievous outrage on public justice, and a deliberate murder in the name of justice. The man had acted in a fit of passion and mania; and if he had been hanged it would have been in defiance of the unanimous recommendation of the Royal Commission, for there was no deliberate malice aforethought. After the reprieve he visited the man, and toot great interest in his case. He had made it his business to inquire into the antecedents of this man, and to obtain the opinion of persons conversant with the particular malady to which he had been subject. The malady was one well known to medical men as "homicidal mania." This man, in his youth, had been subject to these fits, and on three occasions he had been restrained from committing suicide, and injuring himself and others at times when he was entirely irresponsible for his actions. The account which the man gave of himself had been corroborated by the medical men. Police magistrates and others stated that at the least one-half of the charges of murder ended in acquittal, and the return to society of persons who were probably guilty of the crime. This was one effect of capital punishment, for juries were reluctant to pronounce a verdict of guilty. He believed that the hon. Baronet (Sir George Jenkinson) was entitled to the thanks of the House for having brought this matter forward; he was also of opinion that the Secretary of State for the Home Department had in this case exercised his powers in a satisfactory manner.

Sir, I am not going to allow myself to be led by the present discussion into any argument either as to the punishment of death or the mode in which justice is administered in this country. While the law respecting murder remains as it is, and while the spectacle is so often seen of Judges and juries dissenting—the one from the verdict and the other from the sentence which, in accordance with law, they are obliged to pass—there must be lodged somewhere the power of administering the prerogative of mercy. No person will be a greater benefactor to the public than he who successfully deals with this subject, so as enable justice to be administered with more entire satisfaction than it is at present, for the office of Secretary of State for the Home Department, with whatever care, wisdom, and prudence it may be administered by any individual, must be always exposed to a great deal of criticism. The circumstances which influence his decisions are very frequently unknown to, or, as in the present instance, vaguely surmised by the public. In some instances I have seen them approved or disapproved for reasons altogether apart from the truth; and, as long as there exists no means of imparting to the public the reasons on which the ultimate decision is arrived at, this must continue to be the case. Attempts have been often made, though not always successfully, to improve the administration of criminal justice; but I hold that we must always retain the prerogative of mercy, although we may limit as far as possible the number of cases in which it shall be exercised. Before I come to the case of Jacob Spinasa, let me notice one or two remarks which fell from the hon. Baronet (Sir George Jenkinson). I am sorry he should regard as harsh anything which fell from me as to the line of conduct he pursued, but I think the House will be of opinion that I was right when I objected to the course of procedure he adopted when he called upon me to state, by way of answer to a Question, my reasons for advising that the prerogative of mercy should be exercised in certain cases. The hon. Baronet had on one occasion, during last Session, asked me to give my reasons for remitting sentences in as many as 11 cases, and on the last occasion his Question referred not simply to this man Spinasa, but to two other cases. Now I have never before known a Question to be put to a Home Secretary, involving even the case of a single prisoner. Formerly, whenever such a subject was submitted to the notice of the House, it was brought forward under a sense of great responsibility on the part of the person who challenged the decision of the Home Secretary—he brought forward the case in all its details, showed that principles of great importance were at stake, and gave the Minister the amplest opportunity of vindicating his conduct. But the manner in which the hon. Baronet brought forward this Question was altogether different. For aught I know, he may have put into the form of a Question something he had seen in the newspapers the day before. He may have taken no pains whatever to master the subject. At all events, that is consistent with a great deal of what one sees going on every day in this House. The other mode, however, is one which secures that care on the part of the questioner which the hon. Baronet has probably not bestowed on the case now under consideration. Then, he says that one man sitting in a private room overrules the decision of a Judge and jury; but does the hon. Baronet think that a decision has ever been overruled without the most careful and intimate communication with the Judge? For myself, I may say that in no single case have I ever overruled the decision of a Judge without the fullest approbation on the part of the Judge himself. In two of the three cases to which the hon. Baronet's last Question referred, the decisions were overruled at the specific request of the Judges themselves, before any other representation had been made to the Home Office. In the present case the facts are not exactly the same, for I was besieged with Petitions. These Petitions, I may remark, are very closely scrutinized, and are only sent to the Judge for his report if it is found that they contain real and substantial reasons why the sentence should be remitted. In the present case it appeared to me that there were substantial reasons for consideration set forth in the several Petitions which were sent to me. I accordingly referred them to the consideration of the learned Judge who presided at the trial, and I received from him a most clear and elaborate answer, to the effect that the evidence adduced at the trial, and the facts set forth in the Memorial afforded no sufficient grounds for disturbing the verdict of the jury. I should have acted on that opinion had not new facts of a most important character subsequently come in. Those who have read the reports of the case must have noticed that it was altogether a mysterious one. A murder was committed, for which no motive could be assigned, by a person who was apparently labouring under some temporary and violent hallucination. The Judge and jury, however, thought there was not sufficient evidence of this state of mind, and therefore they treated the prisoner as a man who had committed a murder, with a full knowledge of what he was doing. After the trial evidence was given upon oath in Switzerland by a surgeon who had repeatedly attended Spinasa while he was in a militia regiment, and who had seen him in a state of hallucination similar to that described at the trial, and accompanied by acts of violence, of which he was unconscious. Then it was proved that persons in a German hospital in London had seen him under similar circumstances. Well, I sent this evidence to the learned Judge, and his answer was that if these facts had been presented to the jury, they would probably have induced them to take a different view of the subject; but even then, in- stead of acting entirely on the opinion of the learned Judge, I sent the whole of the papers to my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor, although this is not a course I usually adopt. The Lord Chancellor was kind enough to consider the case, and he concurred with me in thinking that, after the statement which had been made by the learned Judge, it would be impossible to inflict the sentence of death. I am aware it may be objected that these witnesses were not subject to cross-examination. Now that is perfectly true, but I beg of hon. Members to look at the other side of the case, which presents itself to me often and very strongly. Attempts are often made to induce me to remit the punishment in cases where evidence has been held back, in order that it may afterwards be alleged that if the witnesses had been heard the result of the trial would have been very different. I pay no sort of attention to allegations of that description; but the case of Spinasa, a poor man and a foreigner, who could not provide properly for his defence, was of an entirely different kind. In such a case it is impossible to avoid giving weight to evidence adduced after the trial. I may here mention another case which was brought under my notice more recently. A prisoner was entirely undefended, not a palliative circumstance was adduced on his trial for murder, and he was consequently convicted and sentenced to death; but other evidence was afterwards brought forward which, in the opinion of the Judge, would, if laid before the jury, have turned the scale in favour of the prisoner and shown that he was guilty of manslaughter instead of murder. Cases of this kind are very frequent in consequence of the imperfection of our system. A poor ignorant man cannot bring forward the evidence necessary to do him justice. It is only when public sympathy has been aroused that all the facts are brought to the knowledge of the Home Secretary, who, with the assistance of the Judge, performs his duty to the best of his ability. As the hon. Member for Falmouth (Mr. E. N. Fowler) says, different Home Secretaries take very different views of cases that are similar in circumstances. That I admit, but may not the same thing be said of Judges and juries? I would appeal from the opinion of the hon. Baronet to those learned Judges who have experience of the last 30 or 40 years, as to whether they were satisfied with the manner in which the Home Secretaries had discharged their duty. I believe the general opinion is, as was stated by the hon. Member for Pembrokeshire (Mr. Scourfield), that the decisions come to in the Home Office are, on the whole, sound, righteous, and satisfactory. In this particular case I think, after the statement I have made, the House will see I could come to no other conclusion than I did.

said, he must express satisfaction at the judicious and temperate speech of the Secretary of State for the Home Department; but he trusted his right hon. Friend would permit him to say he was a little hard upon the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Sir George Jenkinson) when referring to what he did last year, when dealing with cases which at that time were exciting considerable attention. His right hon. Friend had not then been long at the Home Office; very little was known of his mode of dealing with such cases, and fears were entertained that mercy had been injudiciously exercised; but the explanation given at that time entirely removed that impression from his mind, and probably from the mind of the public at large. He thought the Home Secretary would have been justified in requiring that if any hon. Member desired to question the propriety of any exercise of the prerogative of mercy it should be done after fair notice, and in such a way as to enable him to make full inquiries, and come before the House prepared to go fully into the case, and it would have been better if the right hon. Gentleman had contented himself with making that request. The explanation given in the particular case referred to showed that the Home Secretary had acted with the utmost care; nor could he have come to any other conclusion than that he had. It was, however, much to be regretted in cases of an aggravated nature, when the commission of a shocking crime had been followed by a sentence without any recommendation to mercy, that the sentence should be commuted on the ground of evidence unknown to the Judge, not given upon oath, and not subject to the test of cross-examination. He did not say that cases might not arise which would justify a commuta- tion of sentence upon such grounds; he desired merely to observe that the more seldom sentences were set aside under such circumstances the better for the ends of justice. He was not one of those who desired to put an end to capital punishment; he would go further, and say, that in such a case as the recent horrible attempt to assassinate a magistrate in Ireland, prevented from being actual murder only by the interposition of Providence, the sin of the criminal was the same as if his victim had fallen by his hand. No distinction should be drawn between actual murder and such a case, and he was sorry that the law had been so relaxed as to permit of a distinction. Still, although he did not desire; to separate the punishment of death from murder, it was necessary that the evidence in every case should be conclusive and satisfactory, and he was bound to confess that in this case the explanation afforded by his right hon. Friend threw doubts upon the justice of the sentence. Among all the duties which devolved upon Ministers of the Crown none required such careful and anxious thought as the one which the Home Secretary had to discharge in dealing with the prerogative of mercy. His conduct in exercising that prerogative, however, should be open to the fullest review by the House, and nobody would be more the gainer than the Home Secretary himself.

, in rising to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the Questions of which he had given Notice, respecting the capture and condemnation of the Tornado, said, he had not ventured to put these Questions on the Paper without a full consideration of the difficulties of the case. First, there was the difficulty naturally incident to a Session so full of business as the present; and also that Foreign Affairs, owing to the pressure of matters of more domestic interest, were not discussed in that House so frequently as they once were; and in asking the attention of the House to the subject, there was also a special difficulty, of the fact that the capture of the vessel took place nearly four years ago; that it had been discussed to and fro between the English and Spanish Governments ever since, the correspondence being comprised in 750 pages of Blue Book; and in the singular hesitation and contradiction displayed by the British Foreign Office. But there was, nevertheless, the almost absolute authority that there had been no legal trial of the question; but that a British ship had been unjustly condemned, and that the interests of British subjects had been sacrificed. The subject was still further complicated by the constant references to Spanish law, which nobody appeared to understand—and the Spaniards themselves least of all. For all these reasons, he had thought it best to address a series of Questions to the Government containing the principal points of the case. It was not his intention to go into the merits of the case of the 21 British subjects who had been imprisoned and plundered—he rather desired to inquire of the Government what was the state of the law at the present moment. The first difference with reference to these prize cases occurred in 1865, when the war between Spain and Chili broke out, during which the proceedings of the former country were characteristic of the arbitrary acts of their Government, both in the present age and in times past. From October, 1865, the Blue Books were filled from first to last with protests from the British and Foreign Governments against the acts of Spanish commanders, with complaints of disregard of blockades, of illegal seizure of vessels, and of illegal prize tribunals. The principal of these complaints was that Admiral Pareja, the Spanish Commander-in-Chief, had determined to constitute a Prize Court on board his flag-ship. Against these illegal proceedings, successive Ministers for Foreign Affairs—Earl Russell and the Earl of Clarendon—had warmly and persistently remonstrated, insisting that no British ship should be tried or condemned except by a properly constituted tribunal. [The hon. Member then read numerous extracts from the "Correspondence during the War between Spain and Chili," pp. 67, 69, 104, 118, 127, 144, 157.] Summed up, therefore, the demands of the British Government were, that a neutral vessel had a right to be tried by a properly constituted Court of First Instance, presided over by a Judge possessed of a competent knowledge of law, to have agents, counsel, and all substance of justice, and moreover an appeal to a proper appellate tribunal. All these demands the British Government were led to believe would be complied with. Under these circumstances he wished to ask Her Majesty's Government whether the law laid down in Lord Clarendon's dispatches was not general in its purport, and not limited to the particular cases of prizes adjudicated by Admiral Pareja? The case of the Tornado arose in 1866. She sailed from Leith, after due examination by the Custom House authorities, on the 10th of August in that year. She arrived at Madeira on the 21st. She left Funchal at half-past 8 o'clock on the following evening, and at half-past 10 she was captured by the Spanish frigate Gerona. It was not his intention to enter into the question of the treatment of the crew; but, as regarded the capture of the vessel, he wished to point out that it was, from first to last, undoubtedly illegal, and that it was the duty of our Government to protest against it directly it occurred, and to insist, in the strongest manner, upon the restitution of the ship. The capture was illegal: in the first place, it was a violation of the right of asylum; and secondly, because it was effected in Portuguese waters. He knew that this question had been raised by the claimants, and that the Foreign Office said that it was one which must be tried by the Prize Court; but, in matter of fact, claimants never had had the opportunity of laying their case at all before any tribunal which had the slightest pretension to administer justice upon recognized principles. That the vessel was captured within Portuguese waters was admitted by the captain of the Gerona (Captain Benito Di Escalera), who, after stating that his orders were to intercept the Tornado at any cost, reports his proceedings in the road of Madeira, and his arrangements with persons in that port for capturing the vessel the moment she should put to sea. Now, according to the highest authorities, and the decision of Lord Stowell, in the case of the Anna, with which his hon. Friend was, no doubt, familiar, the acts of the Spanish captain were sufficient to render the capture illegal. It had been laid down, and would be found in Wheaton, at page 715, that captures made by vessels stationed without, or hovering on the coast of maritime juris- dictions, were absolutely illegal and void, and that all proceedings in neutral territories, preparatory to acts of hostility, were equally illegal. The admitted combination, therefore, between the captains of the Spanish vessels and the Spanish Consul to signal the movements of the British ship in a neutral port was a clear breach of international law, and was sufficient of itself to render the capture void. According to the statement of the crew, the capture was effected at half-past 10 o'clock in the evening, within a mile of the shore, and, therefore, within Portuguese waters. The Spanish authorities disputed that statement, and said the capture was effected 4 miles to the northward of a certain cape. When they came to examine the distances—and he saw by the newspapers that a letter had been written to the Foreign Office giving the exact measurements as verified by the highest geographical authorities in this country—they would find that if the Spanish captain's statement be true, he must have made 33½ geographical miles in less than two hours. That, however, was impossible; and, therefore, there was no reliable evidence to contradict the positive affidavits of the crew and captain of the Tornado, and there could not be the slightest doubt that the capture was, from first to last, illegal. Under these circumstances, it did seem most extraordinary that the Foreign Office should have failed to raise this point, and should have allowed this ship to be captured by the Spaniards without remonstrance, and without the assertion of that right which every Foreign Government asserted against England wherever similar cases arose in our jurisdiction. This capture of the Tornado became the subject of serious remonstrance on the part of Lord Stanley, who was then at the Foreign Office. The principal point made by the Foreign Office was against the character of the first tribunal—that it was composed entirely of naval officers, sitting without any legal assistance. Admiral Quesada, who had ordered the seizure of the ship, was the President; three of the officers of the Court were actually interested in the capture; and all, including the President, were totally ignorant of international or municipal law. Now, if it should be said that they were assisted by a legal assessor, and that, therefore, the tribunal had, to some extent, a legal constitution, he (Mr. Bentinck) had a contradiction upon the Spanish Government's own showing. In a despatch to Sir John Crampton (Correspondence (1867) Part I. No. 135), General Calonge said the protestors had disregarded the character of the functionary from whom emanated the Report: the assessor was not a judge; but his duties were confined to recapitulating the motives and legal provisions which might serve as a foundation for its opinion. Now, he asked hon. Gentlemen, I who were familiar with legal forms, whether the assessor in this case fulfilled the office usually discharged by such a functionary? He had no voice in the decision of the Court, but simply formed his own opinion, which he might, or might not, communicate to the Court; and was afterwards employed in drawing up the Report. Therefore, it was impossible to say that, by the mere appointment of such a person, this tribunal embraced any element cognizant of municipal or International Law. The principal objections of our Foreign Office to these proceedings were set forth in a despatch addressed by Sir John Crampton to the Spanish Government, dated November 6. On the 21st of November, a most important despatch was written by General Calonge (Correspondence (1867) Part I. No. 103). He therein stated that the defendant in a Spanish Court, the owner of a prize, was fully at liberty, according to Spanish law, to defend his interests at every stage of the suit; and that the British Government had not sufficiently appreciated the difference between the preliminary and the full inquiry—the first was necessarily secret; but in the second, the suit had arrived at a stage when the defendant could take measures for his defence; he might also appeal against the sentence which might be given in the first instance, and amplify in the second instance his defence for sustaining the appeal. On the 19th of January, not long after the despatch, Lord Stanley intimated his doubts as to the legal character of the ship; but on the 8th of February, he wrote a review of the case, which constituted his (Mr. Bentinck's) strongest point against the Government. In that despatch, Lord Stanley said—

"A neutral State consents that a vessel belonging to its subjects may be seized on the high seas only upon the faith and understanding that such vessel shall be tried in a Court in which International, and not municipal, law is administered. It is an essential requirement of such trial that the rules of natural justice shall be observed—that the proceedings shall not be protracted by unnecessary delay, which is in itself a wrong, and that a sentence shall not be pronounced in the compulsory absence of the parties interested. Her Majesty's Government do not instruct you to dwell on the disregard shown by the Spanish Government to the assurances which they so constantly gave that the parties should be heard before a decision was pronounced in the case. And if it be true that the appeal is to be made to the same Court which pronounced the original sentence, the position of the defendant is so aggravated that it is a mere mockery to offer him an appeal. He has been condemned already behind his back and in the dark by the Court whom he must persuade to recognize their own wrongdoing as an indispensable condition of his acquittal on appeal. Such a mode of proceeding has been hitherto unknown among civilized States. Her Majesty's Government, under all these circumstances, cannot acquiesce in the consequence of its being applied to British subjects or their property."—[Correspondence (1867) Part I. No. 123.]

On the 28th of January, Captain Collier and other parties were cited to appear before the Junta in "plenario" proceedings; but under the advice of their Spanish counsel they limited their defence to a protest against the jurisdiction of the Court. The Junta, having declared its own competency, proceeded to re-examine witnesses and pronounced a ratification on the 26th of March, 1867. It might be argued that the parties interested, having failed to discuss their case on its merits, barred their rights; but the answer was, that they wore acting under the direction of the Foreign Office, which, from first to last, protested that the sentence was void, and it was clear they could not have acted contrary to the principles which the Foreign Office laid down without forfeiting the protection and assistance which they might expect to receive from their own Government. The Foreign Office, therefore, could not object, neither could Spain; for it was an important element in the case that the defence adopted in the first instance was a demurrer to the jurisdiction, because the suit had been commenced in a judicial and not in an administrative form; and, more than that, the demurrer was allowed. No man acquainted with the principle or practice of law could object that a defendant had failed to adduce evidence when he had successfully pleaded a demurrer to the jurisdiction; but it was clear, from the evidence of Sir John Crampton and. of Mr. Dunlop, the Con- sul at Cadiz, that the condemnation of this vessel was a foregone conclusion on the part of the Spanish Government; and he could prove that from their own statements. On the 4th of March, 1867, Sir John Crampton stated that little confidence was felt that a decision favourable to the defendants could be obtained on the merits of the ease, no matter in what tribunal the case was judged, or to what Court of Appeal it might be referred. On the 26th of March, Mr. Consul Dunlop, an unimpeachable witness, wrote to Sir John Crampton to say he had, in conformity with instructions, attended the Court or Commission assembled under Admiral Quesada's orders, for the re-examination of Mr. Collier and seven of the crew, with the view of ratifying the former evidence, and repealing the sentence. Mr. Dunlop proceeded to give a very extraordinary narrative of the proceedings on this occasion. The hon. Member then read Mr. Consul Dunlop's letter from the Correspondence (1867) Part VI. No. 2. On the 21st of March final condemnation was pronounced, and on the 11th of April the protest of the claimants was entered in due form. On the 20th April Lord Stanley wrote, complaining of the course adopted by the Spanish Government, and adding—

"Her Majesty's Government would not refuse to allow the proceedings, informal and unjust as they were, to be set aside with a view to a new and proper trial. Her Majesty's Government would probably agree to any fair proposal for a new judicial investigation."

The demurrer was then heard before the Court of War and Marine; and the sentence of the Inferior Prize Court was set aside after nearly a year's delay—on the ground that the suit was administrative and not judicial. He would here point out that there was a wide difference existing between the administrative and judicial suits in Spain. In a judicial suit a private person was the claimant; in an administrative suit the claimant was the Government. There was this difference between the two proceedings—whereas in a judicial suit the claimant or the defendant had a positive right to appeal to the Council of State; in an administrative suit, where the Government was the claimant, the defendant could not appeal except by the permission of the Government. Therefore it was obvious that by changing the suit from a judicial to an administrative one the Spanish Government obtained a great advantage for themselves by acquiring the power of preventing any appeal being made by the defendants. Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

After the Supreme Court had quashed the first proceedings, the case was hung up for two months. During the interval a debate took place in that House upon the case of the Tornado, in which the present Attorney General protested eloquently against the cruelty and injustice which the captain and crew of the Tornado had undergone. The remarkable circumstance in that debate was, that it appeared Lord Stanley had been induced to believe that the question was at the time actually before the Council of State, and that an immediate decision might be expected. Lord Stanley was misled by the Spanish Government; for on the 27th of April, four days after Lord Stanley had made that statement, the Council of State issued a Royal Order, apparently manufactured for the very denial of justice, and by that order Captain Collier and the parties interested with him were cited to appear within 30 days before the same Court, described by Consul Dunlop as unworthy of any civilized State. He apprehended that the main point on which the Government would rely would be, that it was the duty of the owners and parties interested to appear and plead on this the occasion of the second trial, and that, in default, their remedy was gone. But it must be shown, if Lord Clarendon's law was not repudiated, that the Court fulfilled the conditions laid down by Lord Clarendon. It must be shown, first, that the Court fulfilled the conditions as regards the qualifications of the Judge; and secondly, that a fair trial of the question at issue took place when International as well as municipal law was duly administered. The proceedings of the new suit were defective in three material particulars—first, with reference to the constitution of the Court; second, from the nature of the evidence; and third, from the want of parties. First, with reference to the Court, excepting Admiral Quesada, who was dead, and one other officer, the Court was composed of the same persons who sat on the first occasion, and they were destitute of the qualifications for Judges, as was clearly shown by the statement of Consul Dunlop. Further, as they sat on the former trial, any opinion they might express as Judges on the second would, as Lord Stanley said, be a mockery. Then, as to the character of the evidence, it was also condemned by Lord Stanley. The suit was entirely defective for want of parties. The owners were absent, Captain Collier was on the West Coast of Africa, the crew were scattered all over the world, and the Spanish Government by their citation gave a period only of 30 days for the parties to appear. The owners, however, had a representative at Madrid, and he consulted eminent lawyers, who advised a protest. A petition was presented to the Court, received, and referred by it to the Council of State two or three months afterwards, but no further notice was taken of it. On the 1st of July, 1868, without making any communication to the defendants or hearing any further evidence on their behalf, the Court pronounced its decision, which was the same as that previously given. A few days after, the representative of the owner presented a petition appealing to the Council of State, and on the 11th of July the Council of State, without hearing the defendants at all, pronounced a final decree confirming the decision of the Court below. Under these circumstances, the denial of justice was perfectly clear. The whole case was well summed up by Senor Retortillo, (Correspondence (1869) Part No. 54) in consultation with Sir John Crampton, pointing out that it would have been absurd to defend before the Junta of Cadiz, and advising a defence before the Council of State, where the defendants would have full rights. The Council of State, besides, was bound to hear the case by the obligations of diplomatic notes, and by the power it had to do so even under Spanish law. It was clear that if diplomatic notes had never been written the Spanish Government might have allowed the appeal, and their refusal to do so by availing themselves of a technical point was a clear denial of justice, as well as the repudiation of a solemn engagement. That was Lord Stanley's opinion, for in his last despatch, dated August 24th, he insisted on a fair trial, and declared General Calonge's despatch to be an authoritative statement that an appeal in prize cases was allowed. There the case rested till Lord Clarendon succeeded to the Foreign Office. The first despatch on the subject written by Lord Clarendon, dated the 17th of December, 1868, was one of the most extraordinary productions ever issued from the Foreign Office. It was quite inconceivable how a statesman of Lord Clarendon's experience should ever have put his name to such a document. That despatch was wrong in its facts, inconsistent in its conclusions, and most unreasonable in its demands; and, above all, it showed signs of yielding, of which the unscrupulous Government of Spain did not fail to avail itself with all celerity. The hon. Member then read in extenso the despatch of the Earl of Clarendon to Sir John Crampton (Correspondence (1869) No. 58). In the last paragraph of the despatch Lord Clarendon said—

"I have to instruct you to represent to the Spanish Government the circumstances under which the claimants postponed and declined to enter into their defence, and you will request that under these circumstances a special tribunal, after hearing both sides, may determine whether the Tornado was or was not a good prize."

Here we find Lord Clarendon abandoning his rights and asking most unreasonably for a Special Tribunal, to which he was not entitled. This demand, as a matter of course, was refused by the Spanish Minister on the 4th of May, who then communicated to the British Government the Memorandum of the Council of State referred to in my last Question. This Memorandum professed to give the reasons why the appeal was denied. The Council of State allege, that the administrative nature of the matter did not, however, prevent the interested parties from bringing all the proofs and making all the defence compatible with their rights, and they refer to the organic law of the Tribunal of Cadiz, according to which by No. 8 of Article XLV., the Government was obliged to hear the Council as to the legality of the maritime prizes, and to which the Royal Order of the 27th July, 1867, declared this obligation was in so explicit and decisive a manner that after it they could entertain no sort of doubt upon, that point. He (Mr. Bentinck) had searched through the Papers relating to the case, and had been wholly unable to find either Section 8, Article XLV., of the Organic Law of the Council of State, or the Royal Order, dated July 27, 1867, under which it was alleged that claimants might have produced before the Council of State, the arguments which they did not choose to bring before the Court in the first instance, and he hoped there would be no objection to produce these Papers. For his own part, he believed this allegation, on the part of the Spanish Government, to be a pure and simple fabrication. The Foreign Office then referred these matters to the parties interested, whose replies, evidently settled by counsel, were both explicit and unanswerable. But shortly after their receipt, without either explanation or comment, in a brief but a degrading despatch, dated 25th June, 1869, Lord Clarendon hauled down his flag to the Spanish Government, and, in page 24, writes to Mr. French—

"That Her Majesty's Government, after the fullest consideration, have come to the conclusion that, although there are many circumstances connected with the proceedings against the steamer Tornado to which exceptions might very reasonably be taken, yet, upon the whole, they are prepared to acquiesce in the sentence of condemnation."

If he were dealing with an Irish question, he should be strongly tempted to speak of that despatch as "felonious." Why should the Foreign Secretary go out of his way to make admissions? He had always understood it was the duty of the Foreign Office to take exceptions to the conduct of foreigners where these become necessary, and to press the matter upon the attention of the particular Government at the proper time. There was scarcely an act of the Spanish Government to which exception might not be taken; but what was the use of recording irregularities, if in a case like that of the Tornado the Spaniards were allowed to have it all their own way? He had now made his statement with as much brevity as possible, and it only remained for him, in the name of the maritime interests of this country, to ask Her Majesty's Government, whether the law laid down by Lord Clarendon in 1865 was good law or bad law; and, in the latter event, by what new code of maritime regulations the commerce of this country was to be regulated? The opinion was gaining ground upon the Continent that the power of England was no longer what it used to be; that a great disposition existed to surrender our rights, and that the only thing thought of was a policy of economy, so frightened had Her Majesty's Government become of certain hon. Gentlemen sitting below the Gangway. He well remembered the cases of the Cagliari and of Brazil, neither of which was so strong as the present case, though his hon. and learned Friend opposite (the Attorney General) in one of them won his spurs and a seat on the Treasury Bench. In the Cagliari case it was never proved that we were in the right; but, for the imprisonment of two British subjects, we extracted £3,000 from an old friend, or enemy, the King of Naples. Here, on the contrary, 51 British subjects had been plundered of some £1,500, and confined for months in Spanish dungeons, yet the Spanish Government were allowed to do wrong with impunity. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government might have a very large majority at his back, and his popularity might be very great; but if he did not maintain a firm attitude where the maritime interests of the country were at stake, his majority would dwindle and his popularity fade away. On questions of foreign policy he had been opposed to Lord Palmerston, yet Lord Palmerston's foreign policy met with the approbation of this country. That policy was summed up in his well-known phrase of the Civis Romanus sum, a character of whom, in the present day, very little indeed was seen.

said, his hon. Friend (Mr. Bentinck) had entered into the question at unexpected length, after the promise which he (Mr. Otway) understood him to make of deferring the discussion of the merits of the question to another opportunity. His hon. Friend, however, had made several violent assumptions—that the Tornado was an innocent vessel prosecuting an innocent voyage; that she had been unjustly condemned by a Spanish tribunal; that a variety of opinions respecting the irregularity of the trial had been expressed at different times by the Foreign Office, and also as to the barbarous and oppressive treatment to which the crew were subjected. Of not one of these assertions had his hon. Friend thought it necessary to adduce any proof. The vigour of his language, however, was undeniable; for he thought it not unbecoming to accuse his noble Friend (the Earl of Clarendon) of having written a "felonious" despatch—one more degrading than any that had ever before emanated from a British Minister. [Mr. BENTINCK: No!] Well, on that point he would not argue with his hon. Friend; but it certainly would be his duty to show to the House what sort of vessel this was, and who the persons were on whose behalf the sympathy of the House, and the interference of the British Government was so warmly demanded. Of the many confident assertions made by his hon. Friend there was, unfortunately, but one in which he could fully concur, and that was the remark that it was very difficult to comprehend the proceedings of the Spanish tribunals. And, as both the Attorney General and himself had been accused of being unacquainted with the legal merits of the case, he would endeavour to give the House a short account of the legal aspect and stages of the controversy. All that the Government had a right to demand was, that the vessel should have a fair trial according to Spanish law. His hon. Friend (Mr. Bentinck) had declared that the tribunal was composed exclusively of naval officers. Such, however, was not the fact. The first Court that tried the case was the Junta of the Department of Cadiz, a permanent tribunal of naval officers aided by a legal officer, called an auditor, and acting under fixed rules and methods of procedure. The examination was conducted in strict accordance with Spanish law—namely, with closed doors; all the evidence taken was reduced to writing; and upon this evidence the auditor advised the Junta, and the Junta on the 15th of December, 1866, pronounced the prize good. This was the first step taken in the trial, and is that known as sumario (preliminary inquiry). But, according to Spanish law, if either party does not acquiesce in the decision given on the sumario process, then the decision goes for nothing, and the plenario, or contentious proceedings, begin. The depositions taken are communicated to the parties, and the case is argued by counsel in solemn form before the same Court, and from its second decision there is an appeal to a superior tribunal. On the decision of the 15th of December, 1866, being made known to the claimants, they protested against it, as well as against the power of the Junta to condemn the vessel. Doubtless, they imagined that the decision on the sumario process was a definitive sentence, and not merely a preliminary step in the legal proceedings, in which, according to Spanish law, they were at liberty not to acquiesce. When this protest of the claimants was made known, the Junta commenced the examination of the case on the plenario process, and called upon Captain Collier and the other interested parties to appear before the Court, and show cause why the vessel should not be condemned as lawful prize. This apparently the claimants refused to do, and continued their protest against the jurisdiction of the Junta and the validity of their proceedings. They were cautioned that if they did not appear and make their defence, the trial would proceed precisely as if they had so appeared. As to their receiving instruction from the Foreign Office in the matter, the Foreign Office had never interfered to give any advice. The trial went on, and the Court on the 21st of March, 1867, pronounced verdict on the plenario process, and condemned the vessel as good prize. Against this second verdict the interested parties again protested, and an appeal was carried to the Supreme Court of War and Marine, which pronounced their verdict null and void, not because the Prize Court was incompetent to try the case or had acted illegally either on the sumario or plenario process, as far as mode of procedure in regard to the evidence was concerned, but because it had pronounced sentence—in other words, that it had acted judicially instead of administratively. The Court was therefore ordered to try the case administratively, and Captain Collier and others were cited to appear and give evidence. The citation was acknowledged, and when the day for their appearing arrived, instead of making their defence, they merely entered a protest, and declined to give evidence. The grounds for their protest were based on the incompetency of the Court to deal with the case at all, and upon the injustice of allowing any portion of the evidence, taken either in the sumario or plenario, to be used again. They demanded a fresh trial before a fresh Court; but the Supreme Court of War and Marine, in quashing the verdict of the 21st of March, 1867, not only admitted the validity of the Court as a Court, but likewise admitted the validity of the evidence taken in the sumario, and Her Majesty's Government held precisely similar views. The new trial, therefore, was to commence from the original sumario—in other words, the Court was ordered to take evidence, hear counsel, &c, from this point; in fact, to institute a fresh plenario investigation, but not to pronounce sentence. This was done, and the evidence thus obtained was subsequently forwarded by the Court to the Minister of Marine at Madrid, and the whole case was submitted by him to the Council of State, which ratified the proceedings of the High Court, and pronounced the capture good. These proceedings might appear to be somewhat complicated; but they were strictly in accordance with Spanish law, and his hon. Friend had apparently forgotten that Her Majesty's Government had had the advantage of being advised in reference to this matter by gentlemen of very great legal eminence, gentlemen belonging not only to the present but also to the past Government—six legal gentlemen in all—and though he was far from underrating his hon. Friend's knowledge of International Law, he could not help feeling that Her Majesty's Government were perfectly justified in acting as they did, considering the advice they had received. His hon. Friend had stated that the vessel was captured illegally while sailing in Portuguese waters; but he (Mr. Otway) would remind his hon. Friend that that, again, was an assertion made without proof. But even if that were the case—and that it was so had been always denied—it would be the duty of the neutral Power and not of Her Majesty's Government to claim reparation. Her Majesty's Government were not slow to protect the rights of British citizens and of British ships when called upon to do so; and if the career of this vessel had been an innocent one, and if it could have been satisfactorily shown that in this case there had been any hardship and injustice inflicted, Her Majesty's Government would probably have thought it their duty to take some steps in the direction suggested by his hon. Friend. But what had been the career of this vessel, and what were the facts connected with her history? To those facts his hon. Friend had been too prudent to allude, for the fact was that this vessel had been steeped in crime from her very cradle. He held in his hand a document which he believed had not been seen by his hon. Friend. Indeed, if his hon. Friend had seen it he would scarcely have interested himself in this matter as he had done. This document was a statement made by the captain of the Cyclone who had had the Tornado with the Cyclone under his orders, both ships being in company and belonging to the same owners, and certified by him in writing to be correct. It contained evidence which fully bore out nearly every one of the charges alleged against the vessel by the Spanish Government. Now, his hon. Friend had said that the Foreign Office had continually changed its opinions on this matter; but in this his hon. Friend was mistaken, for the Foreign Office had always maintained that there was great suspicion about the vessel. All that they had done was to demand that there should be a trial by Spanish law, and when that had been done they gave that acquiescence in the proceedings which his hon. Friend had characterized as so degrading. It appeared that the vessel was built on the Clyde for the Confederates. She was, however, condemned by default, under the Foreign Enlistment Act, and remained in possession of our Government until the conclusion of the American War, when she was restored to the owners. In January, 1866, Her Majesty's Government received information that the Tornado and Cyclone were fitting out as Chilian privateers, Spain being at that time at war with Chili; but there was not sufficient evidence on which to detain them. They sailed for Hamburgh, from whence the Cyclone proceeded to Valparaiso and entered the Chilian service. The Tornado returned to Leith, after an unsuccessful attempt to ship arms from two vessels at the Faroe Islands. A fortnight afterwards she left Leith, nominally for Rio de Janeiro, but she called at Madeira to coal, and the day after leaving Madeira she was captured by a Spanish frigate and sent to Cadiz for trial. [Mr. BENTINCK: What is the date?] The document bore no date; but it was handed to him the other day while at the House by the gentleman who had written it, and the dates and other matters his hon. Friend could easily verify. The Tornado and the Cyclone were built, manned, and equipped alike, and were both under the command of Captain Holmes, at Hamburgh. Captain Holmes admitted that lie was furnished with two sets of letters—one describing her as an ordinary trader, bound to a Brazilian port; the other instructing him to avoid all Spanish cruisers, and to destroy the papers if chased or boarded by them; and, in the event of being pressed, to make for a Chilian port, there to take orders. When Captain Holmes returned to London he gave up the original instructions; but, previous to so doing, he had had photographs taken of them. When his hon. Friend (Mr. Bentinck), therefore, asked the Government to do all in their power to induce a neutral Power to seek reparation for a violation of neutrality he would ask the House whether this was a fitting case? His hon. Friend had addressed to him a series of questions which it was his duty to answer. His hon. Friend had complained that the proceedings connected with the Tornado had been drawn over a space of some years; but he had added to the difficulty of which he complained by extending that time back from the capture of the Tornado to that of the steam vessel Matias Cousino. Then his hon. Friend asked, Whether, in the matter of the Matias Cousino, Lord Clarendon, in three several Despatches, dated respectively the 1st of December, 1865, the 20th of December, 1865, and the 20th of February, 1866, and addressed to Sir John Crampton, then Her Majesty's Minister at Madrid, did not insist, on behalf of British subjects, that "The neutral has a right to be tried before a properly constituted Court, and that a civil Judge should try the case, &c.?" No doubt his noble Friend did use that language; but under circumstances altogether different from those described by his hon. Friend in the case of the Tornado. In the case of the Matias Cousino, the Admiral demanded that the Prize Court should be held on board his own ship, and under his own presidency. Sir John Crampton thereupon pointed out that the Admiral's blockading ship was not the proper place to try such a question, because the parties interested in the vessel had a right to a Court where they could have proper legal assistance. His hon. Friend also asked whether the rights of neutrals thus defined and asserted by Lord Carendon were not ad- mitted by the Spanish Minister De Castro in 1866. On the contrary, Senor De Castro, in his note of the 6th of January, 1866, wrote as follows:—

"The second consideration which I must notice is that which affirms that, according to International Law, neutrals have a right to require that the Prize Court shall be presided over by a 'civil Judge of sufficient legal experience,' a principle which does not appear to me to be in conformity with what publicists of the highest authority have written on the subject. The Government of the country to which the capturing vessel belongs being the Judge recognized by the Law of Nations who is to decide the legality or illegality of the capture, it delegates its authority to the person or persons it may judge fit, without any nation having the power to indicate the class or category to which they should belong. From this indisputable right of the Sovereign arises the diversity of measures adopted by each country with respect to the tribunal which has to take cognizance of the prizes made by its cruisers, and in Spain the cognizance of cases of prizes is the special province of the naval commanders, with power to appeal from their decision to the Council of State."

His hon. Friend also asked whether the Spanish Minister General Calonge, in a note dated the 21st of November, 1866, and addressed to Sir John Crampton, did not state

"That the owners of prizes had full liberty by the Spanish law to defend their interests in all stages of the suit, and might also appeal against the sentence given in the first instance, and amplify in the second instance their defence for sustaining that appeal;"

and whether this declaration did not amount—as, in fact, maintained by Lord Stanley—to an authoritative statement on the part of the Spanish Government that a full appeal in prize cases was allowed. This quotation is correct, but, as will be seen by Parliamentary Papers, incomplete (Parl. Papers, 1867; Part I. p. 48). The owners had a full opportunity of defending themselves, but neglected to do so. As regards the question of what occurred in Funchal Roads, that concerned the Portuguese Government alone. His hon. Friend asked. Whether the conduct of the Captain of the Spanish frigate "Gerona," as admitted by himself in engaging another Spanish vessel in Funchal Roads to signal the movements of the "Tornado" to the "Gerona" hovering outside, was not in direct violation of a well-known rule of International Law touching the right of asylum? The fact itself as to the place of seizure was a matter of dispute, and the statements of the claimants could be accepted as disproving counter statements made by the captors. Nor did there appear to be any ground for supposing that the claimants themselves called in question the right of the captain to engage another Spanish vessel to signal the movements of the Tornado. What they apparently did call in question was the place of seizure, and this, as had been above stated, was a matter of dispute. Then it was asked, Whether it is not a fact that the "Tornado" was fired into and her capture effected in Portuguese waters; and whether this fact has been brought by Her Majesty's Government under the notice of the Governments of Portugal and Spain? The answer to that was this—The claim for exemption from the exercise of belligerent rights on the ground of the neutrality of the place of capture ought properly to be made by the neutral State, and not by the State to which the captured vessel was alleged to belong; and though it was competent to a neutral State to allege that the vessel said to be the property of her subject was not captured in a place where the right of the belligerent could be lawfully exercised, nevertheless the captor might reply that he had evidence to prove that the vessel was not the property of the subject of the neutral State, but of his enemy, and that if any reclamation was to be made on this ground it could only be made by the other neutral whose territorial rights had been impugned. The fact itself, if not urged by the neutral, was one to be urged by the claimants before the Prize Court. In answer to other questions he might say that the sumario, which was what was probably meant by the first trial, did take place before a Prize Court; but he was not able to state whether that Court was exclusively composed of naval officers sitting without the advice of legal assessors. One of their number, however, was Senor Galvez, the auditor. The second Court did pronounce a sentence of condemnation, one of their number being the licentiate José Gonsalez Tellez Warleta. As to whether the claimants were advised by their Spanish counsel to desist from presenting their defence to the second Court, he could not say but they seemed in these various proceedings to have been very ill advised. The claimants entered a protest, but allowed judgment to go by default. The state- ment in the other Questions was not according to the advice which the Government had received; and in matters of such a strictly legal character they were guided by the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown. As to the Royal Order to which his hon. Friend referred, if he had any curiosity to see it, though it was not in the hands of Her Majesty's Government, he would apply to the Spanish Government to get a copy of it. There would be no difficulty in producing the other Papers. His hon. Friend had made a very serious charge against the Foreign Secretary and the head of the Government, and said that the Prime Minister would lose his popularity in consequence of this affair. But if the loss of popularity by his right hon. Friend was to be only in consequence of not bringing the power of this country to bear on the Spanish Government on account of the Tornado, it would be a long time until his hon. Friend would cross to that side of the House. The principle on which Lord Clarendon and all Secretaries of State acted was to maintain the rights of British citizens and ships; but the Foreign Minister of this country being satisfied that that vessel had been tried before a properly-constituted Prize Court in Spain and had been adjudged as good prize, how could he be expected to make a claim of an exceptional and extreme character on the Spanish Government? How could it be expected that the force of this country should be brought to bear upon the Spanish Government in defence of a vessel which had pursued the career that he had described from the Paper, on authority such as he had given? His hon. Friend referred to the £1,500 that had been obtained from the Spanish Government, and said they had extracted from an Italian Government £3,000 in a case in which they had no right. [Mr. BENTINCK explained, that he had said it was a case of doubtful right.] Now, in this instance there appeared to be a case of clear guilt. The Spanish Government had throughout denied any liability in the matter, and the Government of this country were satisfied that the Tornado, having been engaged in an illegal errand, was justly captured; but in consequence of the appeals of his noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the personal influence he possessed with the Spanish Government, that Government was in- duced by the statesman whom his hon. Friend accused of writing degrading despatches, to offer the crew, as a matter of kindness and consideration, that sum of £1,500 for the losses they had sustained; and in that arrangement the British Government acquiesced.

said, he had listened with much interest to the explanation of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but, he must confess that, in his opinion, the charges which he had hoped to see cleared away from that Department had not been satisfactorily removed. That explanation did not at all touch the point that, the noble Lord at the head of the Foreign Office having begun his protests in December, 1865, and those protests having been continued, partly by the noble Lord and partly by his successors, up to December, 1868, then in May, 1869, without any scintilla of additional information, as far as they knew, the case was suddenly dropped, and the rather contemptuous refusals of the Spanish Government to give a special tribunal, or enter into any further correspondence in the matter, were meekly accepted. The seizure of the Tornado was not an isolated case, but part of a system by which the Spanish Government for some years past had ignored the rights of British subjects. He would not say a word in defence of privateering, but of all nations, no Power in the world had less right to complain of that practice than Spain. It was said they all knew the Tornado was a suspected vessel, but the question was not as to suspicion, but as to proof. Was a person suspected of an offence not to be tried according to forms of law. At the instance of the Spanish Minister in London, the Tornado was, to use the words of the Customhouse authorities, "watched, searched, rummaged, and re-rummaged," without anything being discovered to justify her detention. After that severe scrutiny, this vessel, declared by the British authorities entitled to the protection of our flag, cleared from Leith, and sailed on the 10th of August, with an English captain and crew against whom there was nothing to prove any criminality. Yet those men, who had engaged themselves innocently, were cruelly treated, barbarously imprisoned, wounded, and stripped of their property by the Spanish authorities. On the 14th of August the Spanish Government issued instructions to the commander of the Spanish 50-gun frigate Gerona to pursue the Tornado and take her wherever she was found, without asking for her papers, or examining to see if she had contraband of war, or any other justification for seizing her. She was seized accordingly, in neutral waters, near Madeira. The instant she left Funchal she was pursued by the Gerona, and could not have reached the place which the Spanish officers said she had done when seized. There was not a tittle of proof that she had got out of neutral waters, while, on the other hand, there were the sworn depositions to the contrary of the English captain and crew; and he owned he was inclined to believe his own countrymen, whose evidence was confirmed by the disinterested testimony of Portuguese sailors. The statements of the Spanish witnesses had been repeatedly shown to be untrustworthy. There was distinct proof that the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs had deliberately stated to Sir John Crampton that those English sailors were comfortably lodged on shore, when they were being cruelly imprisoned on board ship. On the 23rd of May, 1867, months after all those trials on which the Under Secretary of State had laid such stress, the Supreme Court of War and Marine pronounced that all that was done had been done in error. He would just refer to similar cases that had occurred. The first he would mention was that of the Mermaid, a British vessel sunk by a shot from the fort of Ceuta in October, 1864. In this case, in spite of the depositions on oath of the English captain and crew, who had a narrow escape of being drowned, the Spanish artillerymen had the effrontery to pretend that it could not be their fire that sank the vessel, as they were instructed not to hit her! The next case was that of the Queen Victoria, which was seized by a Spanish revenue cutter in January, 1866, and regarding which Lord Stanley declared in 1867, that the capture was lawless and wholly unjustifiable. The noble Lord's statement might stand as a description generally applicable to the proceedings of the Spaniards in these matters. It was as follows:—

"The original capture was a lawless and wholly unjustifiable act; justice, though frequently demanded has been denied; the sale of the cargo and of the vessel was illegal; and all the proceedings taken against the vessel were not only contrary to justice and therefore void, but they must have been taken with a full conviction of their illegality, and were adopted, as Her Majesty's Government are constrained to believe, for the purpose, or in aid of the purpose, of covering or concealing the original lawless act of the captain and crew of the Spanish guarda-costa."

He could mention many other cases of flagrant injustice on the part of the Spanish Courts, but he would simply remind the House of that of Captain Carvell, who went to Peru to obtain the property bequeathed to his wife by her father. He was seized and kept in prison for many months, notwithstanding the representations of Mr. Jerningham, our Chargé d'Affaires. Our Consul afterwards declined to interfere, on the ground that he was not sure of being supported by the Government; and Captain Carvell was indebted to the French Consul for having interposed to protect him, and having put him on board a man-of-war. Was that creditable to the British Government? He thought that all those cases were well worthy the consideration of the House.

said, he had taken much interest in this matter, because several of the crew were Scotchmen. He believed the ship was guilty; but, as she had been twice visited by the Custom House officers, who pronounced everything to be straightforward, he thought the men who had been kept in prison for five or six months had much to complain of.

said, he had never heard a more complete answer than that given by his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Bentinck). The general principle applicable to cases of this kind was, that we had a right to interfere and demand redress from a Foreign Government, if we were really satisfied that some British subject had suffered a wrong for which that Government was responsible, and had failed to obtain redress. But we could not prescribe to foreign countries what exactly ought to be the procedure of their tribunals, and how those tribunals ought to be constituted. Neither could we measure the precise time within which their proceedings should be taken and concluded. If we were satisfied on the whole, that there had been a failure of justice; that the party alleging the grievance had not been heard, and that what ought to be the essential rules of justice in all countries had not been observed, then, and not till then, were we called upon to demand redress. That was the case in the Don Pacifico affair. Now, it appeared from a Paper referred to by the Under Secretary of State that, beyond doubt, the Tornado was a privateer, or was engaged in a contraband adventure. The question we had to consider was whether there was before the Spanish tribunals evidence on which they could come to the conclusion that this vessel was a fair prize. He was bound to say that he thought there was such evidence. Consequently, it appeared to him that the ground failed because we had not merits. As to the constitution and procedure of the tribunals a history of that had been given by his hon. Friend the Under Secretary. Although he was of opinion that there had been ground for complaint on the score of delay and also of the ill-treatment of the crew, still it was plain that there was no ground of complaint with regard either to the constitution of the tribunal or its proceedings such as would justify the English Government in disputing the right of Spain to condemn the vessel. The case, after a preliminary examination, came before a Court where the parties had a right to be heard, or where they ought to have been heard; but they declined upon the advice of their counsel, which was doubtless given because counsel knew there was no answer on the merits of the case. Lord Stanley had stated in August, 1868—

"They had an opportunity of being heard, but did not avail themselves of it, because, as they represent with a perfect consciousness of their own innocence, they knew the vessel would be condemned."

As to the rules of procedure with respect to international remonstrances, before a complaint could be made to a Government about the failure of its tribunals, it must be shown that the subjects of the complaining Government had resorted to those tribunals, and had failed on account of the manifest disregard of some principle of justice. No such case had been made out in this instance, because, after being warned that, if they did not appear, judgment would be given against them, the parties deliberately declined to appear, preferring, he took it, to have a grievance rather than to state their case. There was no ground of complaint against the Foreign Office in the time either of Lord Stanley or of Lord Clarendon; on the contrary, that office had done its duty in having allowed the parties to take their own course, and in having requested the Spanish Government to expedite their proceedings. The Foreign Office, it was true, never consented to become the mere advocates of these parties, and they did not profess to advise them; but they did all they could to procure a fair hearing and a decision with the utmost possible speed. The hon. Member had alluded to the "good old times" when Lord Palmerston acted on the maxim Civis Romanus sum; had said that the present Prime Minister would lose popularity, because he did not sufficiently protect Englishmen abroad and the foreign commerce of this country; but he was sure that those who represented the commercial classes would repudiate contraband traders who were reckless as to plunging their country into difficulties. So far from being the friends, they were the bitterest enemies of the mercantile classes; they deserved no sympathy from Parliament, but, on the contrary, they deserved the reprobation of all fair traders and honest men.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is his intention to issue any rules or to take any other steps for the guidance of the police as to the duties implied by the words "supervision of the police" in the Habitual Criminals Act, 1869? After a second conviction persons were to be subject to police supervision; and, in order to carry the Act into execution, it was necessary, first, that the criminal as well as the ordinary policeman should know what was meant; and, secondly, that those who had to pass sentence upon prisoners should know how that sentence was likely to be carried out. In some cases he knew that magistrates had declined to put the law in force, except for a very limited time, thinking that its provisions would be very severe upon prisoners; while, in others, they had allowed, as a matter of course, supervision for the full term of seven years. Was it intended that the police should keep a watch over persons who had been twice convicted, and, finding them under suspicious circumstances, should exercise the power vested in them? All that, however, would be useless, if convicted persons had the opportunity of removing to other parts of the country and living there practically unknown, and he, therefore, suggested that such persons should be required to give notice to the police of their removal. It might be said that those who had superintendence of the police should be left to make their own regulations, but he considered it very important that the action should be uniform throughout the kingdom.

said, the word "supervision" was certainly open to criticism; for there was no provision defined by the Act, which, however, enacted that persons who had been twice convicted should lose that assumption of innocence which attached to everyone else in this country. The extent to which supervision was ordered by the Habitual Criminals Act was, that the police should exercise special vigilance with regard to those who had been twice previously convicted, but the Act could not define the manner in which that vigilance was to be displayed. The principal security for the public was the system of registration of criminals, which was now being carefully pursued, and would, he hoped, in a short time have excellent effects. Steps were now being taken to photograph criminals, and descriptions of them, and statements of all circumstances likely to lead to their identification, were now circulated, so that habitual offenders might be the more readily recognized. He would consider the recommendation of his hon. Friend, and when they came to discuss the Bill for the Amendment of the Habitual Criminals Act, he should be in a position to say on behalf of the Government whether it was possible to comply with the recommendation, and prepare instructions for general circulation for the use of the police throughout the country.

moved that the Chairman report Progress.

said, he thought that some increase in the staff of the Poor Law Board would be rendered necessary by this clause, which placed a large proportion of the in-door relief, estimated by the right hon. Gentleman at £250,000 a year on the Common Fund. To check this in some degree, he proposed that 4d. instead of 6d. be taken from the Common Fund for the maintenance of the in-door poor. He begged to move in Clause 1, sub-section 3, line 30, to leave out "sixpence," and insert fourpence.

said, he would consent to an Amendment making the charge 5d., which would put upon the Common Fund £168,000, while £117,000 would remain on the parishes.

said, he preferred 4d.

said, he was of the same opinion.

said, he also was of opinion that some check should be placed on the disposition to use the Common Fund too freely.

said, the principle of the Bill was to equalize the rates as far as possible.

said, he would withdraw his Amendment.

said, he proposed to omit that part of the clause which authorized the levying of fines upon parishes for not carrying out the orders and regulations of the Poor Law Board.

said, the clause tended to the suppression of outdoor relief, and, therefore, he should support the Motion for its omission.

said, that if the Boards of Guardians were to draw upon a Common Fund, some authority should exist for the purpose of keeping them up to a common standard. By the end of next year, there would be 11,000 more beds in the metropolis, which he hoped would prevent overcrowding; and it was not the object of this sub-section to give further powers to the Poor Law Board with regard to the enlargement of workhouses, but simply to avoid those dead-locks which sometimes occurred. There were as yet social dangers in a system of out-door relief as in that of in-door relief.

said, he regarded this provision as a blow at out-door relief, and as conferring powers utterly unheard-of before, and he, therefore, thought the matter ought to be discussed in a fuller House.

said, the provision did not propose anything new; it only said that when a Board of Guardians neglected to carry out an Order issued under an Act of Parliament, the Board should lose the advantage they enjoyed under that Act.