asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether his attention has been directed to a discrepancy between the two Parliamentary Returns, No. 157, "Royal Mint, 19th April 1869," and No. 262, "Royal Mint, 31st May 1870;" the first showing for the nine years from 1860 to 1868 an apparent loss on the silver coinage of £5,473 4s. 6d., and the second an apparent profit for the same years of £1,011,668 2s.; and, whether this discrepancy of £1,017,141 6s. 6d. can be accounted for by the difference between the "total amount paid for silver bullion," and the "real cost or value of (silver) metal?"

, in reply, said, there were two sources from which the Mint derived the bullion or silver which it coined; the one was that which was open to all Her Majesty's subjects—namely, to go into the market and purchase silver bullion for that purpose at the market price. The other was that which they were obliged to do in order to maintain the currency in an efficient state—namely, to take the worn-out silver coin at its nominal value, by which, of course, a loss was sustained, as they gave new shillings and half-crowns in exchange for old. In the first Return alluded to by the hon. Baronet—which was made before he himself had anything to do with the Mint—the heading was certainly inaccurate. There were two columns—the one was the total value of the silver coined—that was, the number of pieces issued, which was the same in both Returns; but the second column was the real cost or value of the metal. That was the heading of it, and under that heading they included in the old Return not only the bullion bought by the Mint in the market, but also the money given in exchanging new coins for old, thereby mixing up together two things which were entirely distinct, and thus making that apparent loss. In order to correct that, they had in the second Return divided those two things; they had made one Return for the amount of money paid for bullion in the market, and another for the amount of money given in exchange for worn-out coin. And it was by comparing the amount paid for bullion in the market with the other Return, which included not only the amount paid for bullion, but also the amount given in exchange for worn-out coin, that the apparent discrepancy arose.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Lord Lyons will be instructed to take steps to prevent the deportation or execution of the ten or more Englishmen who are stated in the public journals to be at present prisoners at Satory until they have been publicly and legally tried?

Sir, Lord Lyons has taken the greatest pains to ascertain what number of British subjects were among the prisoners at Satory. Fifteen only could be at first discovered; he has heard of three more since. Of the 15 he has reported the release of four. Two others of the number have been traced to Brest. Lord Lyons has instructed our Consuls at Brest and Cherbourg to ascertain whether any British subjects have been sent to those ports, and to endeavour to obtain the release of any against whom there is not sufficient evidence of being guilty of any serious offence. Lord Lyons hopes the other British prisoners will soon be released. Indeed, with the exception of a boy 12 years old, named William Lowe, arrested behind a barricade with a pistol in his hand, whom the French hesitate to release, many other boys equally young having been found in the Insurgent ranks, there is reason to believe that the greater part if not all the English prisoners at Satory have been released. Lord Lyons was assured some days ago that summary executions had ceased in Paris, and no one would now be punished except after a deliberate trial and sentence by court-martial. He had written and spoken to M. Thiers and the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, and had been positively informed that no one would be punished without trial.

asked the Vice President of the Council, Whether the Veterinary Department is prepared to relax in any way the restrictions on the circulation of cattle imported from Germany?

said, in reply, that the Government were not prepared to relax the present restrictions on the circulation of cattle imported from Germany. A very important deputation of butchers from the northern towns had waited upon him some time ago, and asked for permission to remove imported German cattle from the outports to inland towns—for instance, from Hull to Leeds or Manchester, under strict regulations for enforcing slaughter at the railway terminus so as to prevent the risk of spreading disease. The Government would have been glad to meet the views of that deputation; but, as he had informed them at the time, he much feared they would have been obliged to issue such precise and strict regulations as would have prevented the arrangement from being of much, or perhaps any, advantage to the trade. It was only fair, however, to acknowledge that both the corporations and the Railway Companies had shown a great willingness to carry out strict regulations. Independently of that difficulty, the Government had within the last few days received information which convinced them that this was not the time to make any alterations in regard to the importation of German cattle. They learnt from our Minister at Munich that cattle plague had appeared in Bavaria, near Munich, within the last few days; and although it was to be hoped that it would be suppressed by prompt measures, yet it was obvious that Germany had not yet recovered from the effects of the war, and that it would be inexpedient to make any relaxation in respect to German cattle. In the meantime, he was glad to believe that the late Order in reference to Dutch imported cattle had been of very considerable advantage both to the northern consumers and the farmers who were much in want of store cattle; and inquiry only increased his conviction that there was no danger of cattle plague from the Dutch imported cattle, and as little danger of pleuro-pneumonia as from the home traffic.

said, he must express his regret that the Government, after consideration, did not intend to carry out the promise they had given when the Bill was in Committee, that they would prepare clauses for giving effect to an Amendment he had then proposed, for extending the operation of the measure to England and Scotland. He the more deeply regretted that, because he felt that, considering the course of the discussion in Committee, he should have had a very fair chance of carrying his Amendment on that occasion had he pressed it. It was quite clear from the evidence called by the Crown before the Westmeath Committee, that the Ribbon societies carried on their plans in England; that the leaders came over to England; that some of them lived in England; and, above all, that the watchwords and countersigns came from England. Mr. Seymour and Captain Talbot said that the Ribbon organizations were directed from England, and that the delegates were to be found in Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow; and, therefore, it was quite clear that if the Bill was to be operative, it should give to the Lord Lieutenant power to arrest men wherever they might be found, whether it was in England, in Scotland, or in Ireland, and the object of his present Amendment was to give such a power. Striking out Clause 2 and inserting Great Britain in Clause 8 would have made the Bill operative throughout the United Kingdom. Instead of that, however, the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland (the Marquess of Hartington) had given Notice of his intention to add after the word "arrested" the words "in any part of Ireland;" and he had made a similar alteration in the form of the warrant, thus confining the operation of the Bill entirely to Ireland. As the Bill now stood, the moment the Ribbon leaders took shipping from the Irish Coast and came to England or Scotland, they might defy the law, and live in security, being almost connived at and tolerated by the Government. The Bill would be valueless, unless a power were given of arresting in Eng- land those persons who might fly here from Ireland in order to avoid its operation in that country. Surely no Englishman could wish that this country should be used as an asylum by the miscreants who had disturbed the peace of Ireland, and therefore he did not think that there would be any serious objection on the part of hon. Members to accept the Amendment he proposed; and, further, he thought it would be unjust and unfair to Ireland to allow the Ribbonmen who might think themselves in danger in that country to come over here for the purpose of concocting schemes with impunity for creating further disturbances there. He objected altogether to Coercion Bills, which had been tried without success from 1760 to 1870—the cause of their failure to preserve the peace being that immediately after they had been passed a new power had almost invariably been conferred upon landlords, enabling them to evict their tenants with greater readiness. He thought that right hon. Gentlemen should have gone beyond their Act of last year, and should have still further amended the law of landlord and tenant in Ireland. They should have put some check upon the enormous power of the landlords; they should have assimilated the Poor Law of Ireland to that of England, and should have established Union rating in that country. This Bill had been forced upon the House by the grand jury of Westmeath, and he thought that the time had come when the grand juries of Ireland should be placed upon the same footing as the grand juries occupied in England. In conclusion, if a Coercion Bill were to be passed at all, it should at all events be an effective one, which he did not believe the present one would ever be, unless his Amendment was accepted, for should the contrary be the case, the measure would be merely so much waste paper. Under these circumstances, he would beg leave to move that Clause 2 be struck out.

said, he would observe that had the Bill come before the House in the form in which the hon. and learned Member for New Ross sought to amend it, it would have been objectionable for grave constitutional reasons, which he should have taken the liberty to lay before the House; as it was, he would confine his observations to the practical difficulties to which this Amendment was obnoxious. The Habeas Corpus Act should not be suspended in England, merely because disturbances existed in a certain limited part of Ireland. The Bill was made to extend to the whole of Ireland, not because it would be necessary to put it in force over the whole of that country, but merely because there was no natural boundary by which the particular district in which it was sought to restore order could be accurately defined. If any person who had offended against the law in Ireland crossed over into this country, he might be arrested under the ordinary law, and dealt with accordingly. It would be impossible, owing to objections of a technical character, to apply the Bill to England as it was at present framed. Of course by Act of Parliament they could make a warrant of the Lord Lieutenant run through every part of the United Kingdom; but suppose it was sent to England or Scotland, how could they work it? Suppose it was sent to Manchester; the Manchester police were appointed by the Watch Committee; and a member of that police would not know how to act in the execution of a warrant, signed by some one of whose existence he would very probably be quite ignorant. Suppose an Irish detective were sent to this country to take Michael O'Reilly, that detective might probably make a mistake in apprehending a wrong person of that name, and thus an innocent person might be locked up for two years. There should be no power to remove a man from his own district until he was convicted. In England the widest distinction was drawn between men who had been convicted, and men who had not. It would be enacted by the Bill that all persons who were arrested in pursuance of it should be subject to such treatment in prison as the Lord Lieutenant might direct; did the hon. and learned Member for New Ross mean that the Lord Lieutenant should give directions to magistrates in England and Scotland as to the manner in which persons were to be dealt with in English and Scotch prisons? He thought it odd that private Members should seek to arm the Government with more arbitrary and extraordinary powers than were demanded by Government itself, and at which the House itself had been alarmed; and he was also rather surprised to find private Members so willing to surrender the privileges of the subject in England and Scotland, merely because a state of disturbance existed in Ireland. If the Government had asked for such powers he should have resisted their demand to the utmost of his power; he would never consent to place in their hands extraordinary and unconstitutional powers, which even they did not demand as necessary for the peace of Ireland.

said, the flaw of the Bill was, that it regarded as criminals men against whom there was nothing but suspicion. He thought the Bill ought to be amended by inserting a clause to the effect that the Lord Lieutenant's warrant should run only against the persons named therein, and that they should be arrested only by the constables to whom such warrant was directed, provided always that in case the persons named should be found or suspected to be in England or Scotland, such warrant should, previously to its being acted upon in those countries, be endorsed by a justice of the peace of the district in which the persons so named should be residing. Nothing could be more invidious than that England or Scotland should be placed under the ban of this odious Bill; but it was necessary that a criminal should be followed to his den, be it at Manchester, Glasgow, Paisley, or any other place in Great Britain.

said, he wished to see this question argued on its general merits, and not on purely technical grounds. When the point was discussed before, it was seen that the objections were very great on technical grounds; but they who were in favour of such a provision as his hon. and learned Friend the Member for New Ross wished to introduce, were perfectly satisfied with the assurance of his noble Friend the Chief Secretary, that a clause would be framed which would get rid of all those technical difficulties, and effect the object they all had in view. The noble Marquess, however, said the other day that he was unable to carry that pledge into effect. There might have been very great objections on the part of Her Majesty's Government to the introduction of such a provision, but he wanted the noble Mar- quess or the Solicitor General for Ireland to show that the Bill would be efficient without it. He, and many others who thought a Bill of this kind necessary, felt humiliated at the constant introduction of such measures, and therefore when introduced they wished them to be effective. His hon. and learned Friend (Mr. M'Mahon) had voted against the Bill; he had voted for it, but they were both agreed in endeavouring to render the Bill effective. The Bill was founded on the correct assumption that there were a certain number of men in Westmeath and places adjacent who had completely overridden the law of the land; that these men were perfectly notorious to the authorities; and that if the Bill were passed justice could at once lay her hands upon them. But, as the Bill now stood, justice never could lay her hands upon a single one of them, for they would put the sea between themselves and her as soon as they found that the Bill was about to become law. Now, his wish was, that the measure should be the least vexatious possible to the well-meaning portion of the population, at the same time that it was the most formidable to the evildoers. He had never supposed that those evildoers would be allowed to remain within 12 hours of the scene of their exploits, and that they would have nothing to do but to remove to Manchester or Glasgow, whence they could put themselves into communication with their associates. The consequence of that would be that their edicts would be respected; and when, at the end of two years, they came back, they would be received as heroes by an admiring population. He had been informed that one of those heroes was in doubt whether he should set out for England or America, and that he would not announce his intention to his friends until he ascertained what determination the House of Commons should come to. Now, whether such persons resided in Liverpool, Manchester, or Glasgow, they ought to be subjected to the same law to which they would be amenable if they resided in any part of Ireland. Yesterday he had met a most experienced magistrate from Ireland, who told him that he was in favour of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, provided the evildoers were to be driven out of the United Kingdom; but, if they were not, he should never dream of passing so hateful an Act as the one before the House. This was not the first time that the cry was raised—"Oh, spare my English subjects;" but there was not a human being in England or Scotland that could by any possibility be inconvenienced if a clause were introduced enabling the Lord Lieutenant's warrant to run in England and Scotland against any person that had been living in Westmeath since the 1st of January, 1871. If the Bill should happen to be effectual, let the Government have the credit of it; but if it should not be effectual, let not those who wished to extend the operation of the measure, in the manner suggested, be considered responsible for its failure.

said, he would not trouble the House with many remarks on this question, for he could not conceive that it was seriously intended to prolong the debate. No doubt it was quite open to hon. Members to criticize the course of the Government or the form in which the Bill now stood; but he could not believe that any section of the House seriously intended to force upon the Government powers which after full consideration and upon their responsibility—for it was they who were responsible for the preservation of life, property, and peace in Ireland—they declined to assume. He entirely agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. W. H. Gregory) that it was desirable to discuss this question on its merits, and not on technical grounds. Of course, his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. West) had, upon technical grounds, established a strong case against the Amendment. But if the Government thought it desirable, clauses might have been framed to enable the writ of the Lord Lieutenant to run in England and Scotland. He did, in pursuance of the pledge he had given, endeavour to have such clauses framed; but, in the course of the inquiry which it was necessary to make, the Government had to consider the whole question very carefully, and to see whether it was essential to the objects of the Bill so very greatly to increase the powers of the Lord Lieutenant, for there was no doubt that to make the whole of England and Scotland subject to the warrant was an immense extension of powers which he had already described as unconstitutional. The Go- vernment would, in his opinion, be scarcely justified in asking for the extension of the arbitrary powers which the Bill would confer upon them, unless they thought that such extension was absolutely necessary for the preservation of life and property in Ireland. That it was so they would not undertake to say; and, if they were intrusted with the additional powers which some hon. Members were anxious they should possess, he did not believe that they would use them in more than two or three cases of persons leaving Westmeath for Liverpool or Manchester. The great object of the Government in bringing in the Bill was to resist that terrorism in Westmeath which rendered it impossible for the respectable and peaceable inhabitants there to maintain order for themselves; and they had not been able to hit on any other mode of putting down that terrorism, except the unconstitutional one which the House was then engaged in discussing; but they did not think that system would be continued when these powers were granted, and they did not believe that the residence of one or two persons in Liverpool or Manchester would contribute to the continued existence of that terrorism. His hon. Friend the Member for Galway had attempted to show that there was something invidious in the course which the Government were taking, and that, although they were ready enough to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland, they hesitated to do so when England was concerned. Now, for his own part, he believed the English and Scotch Members were perfectly willing to give the Government the powers in question if they were in a position to say that they were required; but that was not their opinion. It might be contended that, theoretically speaking, there was no better reason for extending the operation of the Act to Cork or Belfast than to Liverpool or Manchester; but the Government had taken the only boundary line which they could adopt, which was the sea, and it was impossible for them to fix on any second line such as that proposed. He had no doubt the Bill would be efficient without any such power, and its effect had already been to reduce the number of outrages to almost nothing.

said, he should like to know what good reason there was why Captain Duffy, if he went to Glasgow, where it was said the plots of the Ribbon conspiracy were hatched, could not be touched, while the hand of the law might be at once laid upon him in Cork or Kerry. If Captain Duffy had left Westmeath at all, he ventured to say that he was not very far from that House. He wished the Solicitor General for Ireland would state why he was under the impression that Duffy had gone to America? So far as he was aware, he neither had gone to America nor had any intention of going there. The probability was that he would take up his residence in some town in England, where the warrant of the Lord Lieutenant could not reach him. There was no difficulty, he maintained, in framing a provision to meet such a case; and the real reason why the Government had not done so was clearly, as had been indicated in an article in a leading journal, because they knew that the English Members would protest against a course which would interfere with the liberty of the subject in this country by suspending the Habeas Corpus Act. That, however, which they dared not do in the case of England, they had no hesitation in doing so far as Ireland was concerned. Mr. Peter Burrowes, speaking in the Irish House of Commons in June, 1809, asked whether the 550 English Members would show the same reluctance in suspending the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland as in England? Those were prophetic words, and they had now been verified.

said, that two entirely different questions had been discussed in this debate—one being the propriety of the particular Amendment now before the House, and the other being as to whether additional provisions should not be introduced into the Bill in order to enable the warrant of the Lord Lieutenant to have effect and be operative in England. With regard to the Amendment now before the House, he coincided with the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland in the view that that Amendment would not effect the object sought by those who promoted it; and that, if it were necessary to have additional legislation, special provisions of an affirmative and positive character should be introduced into the Bill. The hon. and learned Member for New Ross (Mr. M'Mahon) did not, however, confine himself to this one Amendment; for, in the 8th clause, he proposed to change the expression "within Ireland" into "within the United Kingdom." But even that alteration, together with the present Amendment, would not carry out the object in view. The 7th clause, which related to arrest, empowered the Lord Lieutenant to issue his warrant under particular circumstances, and to give that power to the Lord Lieutenant, or to anyone, merely authorizing him to issue his warrant, would not of itself enable the warrant to run or to be executed, except where the jurisdiction of the individual to whom the power was given was independent of the Act and already attached to his office. Under these circumstances, he regarded the Amendment as objectionable, and as incapable of carrying out the purpose in view. Of course, provisions of an affirmative and positive character might be introduced into the Bill, so as to enable the Lord Lieutenant's warrant to run and be executed in England; and several of the objections which had been made to such provisions had been caused by a misunderstanding of the character of the Bill. The Bill did not give an unlimited power of arrest; it only gave power to arrest those who had been domiciled in the county of Westmeath since the 1st of January last. If the Lord Lieutenant's warrant had been made to run in England, it would have been necessary to have provided that those persons who were arrested in this country should not be tried or adjudicated upon here, but should be at once returned to Ireland. If the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland, after consulting with the Lord Lieutenant, whose opinion deserved the greatest respect on any matter connected with the administration of the law in Ireland, had asked the House to give him such a power, he would have supported the noble Lord, without caring whether such a course was popular or unpopular. But when the noble Lord, after deliberation, declined to ask for this power, he would not take the responsibility of interfering with a decision which he believed to be honest, bonâ fide, and well considered. He could not, therefore, support this or any other Amendment which tended to embarrass the Government in putting into execution the law and repressing crime in Ireland. The Bill was in a shape for which the Government were responsible, and there should now be an end of discussions which were productive of no good, and which occupied time with a perpetual renewal of topics ending in nothing.

said, he thought it inconsistent on the part of those who objected to the Bill that they should propose to extend its operation. The Irish people did not wish that the Act should be extended to England. They had protested against its application to Ireland, and they did not desire its extension, either directly or indirectly, to any other part of the Empire. It was no consolation to them, when their own Constitution was suspended, that it should be extended elsewhere. He could not, therefore, support the Amendment, and would recommend its withdrawal.

said, he did not fear that the liberties of English subjects would suffer if the Amendment were carried. Any Irish constable armed with the warrant of the Lord Lieutenant would, he presumed, be accompanied by an English constable, whose local knowledge would prevent the apprehension of the innocent; and no warrant could be directed against an English resident under the Act, because it provided that no person could be arrested unless there was ground for suspecting him to be a member of a Ribbon society and a resident in the district proclaimed. The Amendment was necessary, because the natural refuge of Ribbon conspirators would be the large English towns; and, beside that, it would be most impolitic to confirm a feeling among Irishmen that, while the liberties of the English were to be protected, Ireland could be dealt with at pleasure. Such a feeling had already been excited by that exceptional legislation in which principles adopted for Ireland were repudiated as inapplicable for England and Scotland.

, in stating that he would support the Amendment, said, that no case had been made out against any place except Westmeath and parts of contiguous counties, and therefore the arguments for making the warrant run through Ireland applied equally to making it run throughout the United Kingdom. The policy of acting towards Ireland as a nationality, only for purposes of repression, was most dangerous to the interests of the country; and as he believed the proposal of the Government would be fruitful of evil, he purposed voting for the Amendment.

said, he could not believe more powers were necessary than the Government asked for, but recommended Irish Members, if they were in earnest, boldly to move the abolition of the office of Lord Lieutenant; then the warrant of the Home Secretary would run throughout the whole kingdom. The Motion, too, would not be without reason, because there was more jobbery at the Castle, in Dublin, than in any other Department in the State; and, if the office of Lord Lieutenant were abolished, the Castle would then be at the service of one of the Royal Family.

said, he would ask permission to withdraw the Amendment, as it was impossible not to see what the result would be.

said, he could not allow the Bill to pass the third reading without recording an emphatic, although he knew an unavailing protest, against those provisions which imposed heavy pecuniary penalties on disturbed districts. The extra police tax was condemned by almost every witness before the Select Committee, and the House could hardly be aware of the crushing severity with which it fell upon many poor and loyal subjects of Her Majesty. He knew that this tax was justified, on the ground that the payers of it sympathized with the authors of outrages, but that conclusion was far too hasty. Did the inhabitants of Paris sympathize with the Commune; or were they not, in a large proportion, paralyzed with fear, and terrified into inaction? It was precisely the same thing in Ireland — nothing spread more rapidly than that demoralization, and it was most unwise and impolitic to visit such a state of things alike upon the just and the unjust; and, moreover, he contended that it was altogether illogical. Was it not, let him ask, the first duty of an Executive Government to preserve life, property, and order; and, if it failed in that, did it not abrogate its primary functions? Well, in some parts of Ireland, Government had for years failed to perform the primary duty, and it mattered not, for the purpose of his argument, from what cause that failure had arisen. The fact remained—that a power greater than that of the Government had sprung up and been tolerated for years — namely, the power of secret societies; and that the poor man had come to know to his cost that if he aided the course of justice his life and property became the forfeits, and they, the Legislature, sitting there in security, and not personally feeling any of those things, expected of their humbler brethren a courage and consistency they might possibly not exhibit themselves if the circumstances were reversed. And now that the Legislature had awakened from its lethargy and determined once more to become the masters, and put the law in operation, were those poor creatures, who were really not the supporters, but the victims of those societies, to pay penalties which, in reality, were absolute ruin and civil death to them? He did earnestly trust that the Government would re-consider their position in that matter, and endeavour to discover whether they were not defeating the objects they sought to attain by that exceptional legislation that was to make the people of Ireland loyal and peaceable. The government of Ireland was far too centralized. Instead of consulting the resident gentry, who were thoroughly acquainted with the state of the country, they were far too fond of relying on the reports of the inspectors of constabulary, who were brought up in a semi-military atmosphere not likely to inculcate respect for civil and constitutional rights, and of resident magistrates who were not chosen for knowledge of law, but on other considerations. In all parts of Ireland there were deputy lieutenants and magistrates, many of whom were sober-minded, experienced, and liberally disposed gentlemen, who ought to be much more consulted and referred to by the authorities than it was now the fashion to do. In short, the Government must make up its mind that Coercion Acts would not longer be accorded to them; and unless they could reconcile the different orders of society to each other, and the whole people to constitutional rule, they would find that they would not save society in Ireland, any more than centralization and bureaucratic government saved it in France.

said, the question of the extra police tax had been fully discussed in the Committee, which did not take the trouble of dividing upon it. The hardship of that tax had been greatly exaggerated. Almost the whole cost of the Irish constabulary was defrayed from the Estimates, and there was certainly no injustice, and he thought but very little severity, in making particular districts bear the charge for any extra police force that was necessary within them.

said, it was a matter entirely for the consideration of the House, but it would be for the convenience of the public service if the House were disposed to read that Bill the third time forthwith. There had been full Notice of the Report, and ample opportunity for raising and disposing of every point to which hon. Gentlemen had wished to direct attention, excepting so far as the principle of the measure went; and therefore with the permission of the House, he would move that the Bill be now read the third time.

said, it had been stated that no English Member had risen to protest against the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards Ireland. As an English Member he now rose to protest against that policy, not having been so fortunate as to catch the Speaker's eye on a previous occasion. The policy of the Government might be summed up in two words—"confiscation and coercion;" confiscation for the Irish Protestants, and coercion for the Irish Roman Catholics. Some hon. Gentlemen seemed disposed, like Bishop Nulty, to praise the Government for confiscating the property of the Irish Protestants, and to blame them for coercing the Irish Roman Catholics. He, for his part, ventured to blame them for doing both. Was it not a mockery that the Government, in the teeth of the fact that they were obliged to ask for the renewal for two years of a most unconstitutional measure, should describe their policy in regard to Ireland as a beneficent policy? The answer to their policy had been communicated to the House by the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Martin). The Prime Minister had spoken of the hon. Member for Meath in rather disrespectful terms, as a sort of antiquarian curiosity; but it was the policy of the Government which had galvanized into life the views which that hon. Member represented. That hon. Member only asked that Ireland should have a Parliament of her own, but those who supported him asked that the Union should be repealed. The policy of the Prime Minister during the last three years had given a greater impetus to the Repeal movement than O'Connell had been able to give it during the whole of his career, inasmuch as that policy had united Protestants with Roman Catholics in an endeavour to obtain a repeal of the Union, a result which O'Connell had never been able to obtain. In 1869 Her Majesty's Government sent to Ireland a message of peace; in 1870 they sent her a message of peace with one hand, while they held a drawn sword over her with the other; and in 1871 they were unsheathing two swords against her, without sending her any message of peace whatever. He (Mr. Charley) admired the ingenuity of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, as he listened to the Queen's Speech. The right hon. Gentleman had assigned as a reason for not introducing the Irish Education Bill this Session, that agrarian outrages still prevailed in certain parts of that country; but the real reason for his declining to introduce such a measure was, because he dreaded that it would split up his followers into two hostile camps. The right hon. Gentleman also excused the non-introduction of such a measure on the ground that "Ireland required a period of calm." A period of calm! One would have thought the right hon. Gentleman's messages of peace would have had a soothing effect upon the nerves of his patient, and that a third message of peace would have completed her cure. But the policy of the right hon. Gentleman, instead of soothing the nerves of his patient, only seemed to act as irritants, and he was now obliged to stand over his patient with two drawn swords in order to keep her in order. He was not surprised that the right hon. Gentleman had taken shelter behind the Westmeath Committee; because, after the language he had addressed to the people of South Lancashire, he might well be ashamed to propose the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The right hon. Gentleman, on the occasion to which he referred, had based his policy with regard to Ireland on the maxim that the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act indicated a state of things only one degree short of civil war. The result of his having had Ireland at his feet for the last three years was, that he had been compelled to introduce into that House to renew for two years longer one of the most unconstitutional measure that had ever been proposed, and to ask Parliament to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act with respect to a large part of that country. The right hon. Gentleman might well apply to his Irish policy the motto that he had suggested should be applied to the Irish Church—"Total Failure."

said, he hoped that this case would not be regarded as furnishing a precedent for reading Bills of this character without Notice a third time, immediately upon the Report being agreed to.

said, he could assure the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) that no Notice was ever given in cases where it was proposed that the Bills should be read a third time immediately after the adoption of the Reports. The Amendments which had been made in the Bill on the bringing up of the Report had been of a purely verbal character, and, as the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had said, the Motion for the third reading of the Bill was made solely on the understanding that the proposal would be generally accepted by the House.

said, he must protest against the noble Lord opposite taking upon himself to define the limit of the responsibility of the Government with regard to this Bill. The Bill, in order to be complete, ought to have enabled the miscreants who escaped from Ireland to be followed up into their lurking places in England. He was sorry that a mere technicality had interposed between him and discharging the duty of impressing on the noble Lord the Chief Secretary the necessity of making that addition to the Bill.

said, he thought that the fact that an election was about to be held in Westmeath was a good reason for postponing the passing of the Bill.

said, that as he was unable to succeed in making himself heard, and in doing justice to his Amendment last night, he asked for permission to say a few words further upon the same subject. He could not refrain from saying that he thought that when hon. Members like himself but rarely trespassed upon the attention of the House, and when they showed a desire not to waste more of its time than was absolutely necessary, they had a right to expect a better reception than he had met with last night. Some time since he had attended an indignation meeting at St. James's Hall, and he had then thought that a more unruly or more noisy meeting could not have been held; but since the occurrences of last night he had changed his opinion, and he now begged to apologize to the gentlemen in St. James's Hall for having formed too low an opinion of them. He believed he was the first Member to give Notice of an Amendment on this subject. The Amendment of the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for Norwich (Sir William Russell) was only defeated by a majority of 16, and, considering the number of persons who sat on the Treasury bench, that defeat was tantamount to a victory. He (Sir Tollemache Sinclair) hoped he should be able to carry his Amendment with or without the consent of Her Majesty's Government. The widows and children of officers who died from natural causes, he thought, had a right to be paid, not only the regulation, but the over-regulation price, if other officers received the same. He was a strong opponent of over-regulation prices; but if it were decided that other officers should receive the over-regulation price, the widows and children of officers who died from natural causes should receive the same. The objection of the Shylock of the Treasury bench was that it was not so nominated in the bond. The Government by this Bill would violate the contract between them and a British officer in this way—hitherto an officer entered the Army under a system by which promotion was obtained by seniority. If he conducted himself properly it was a matter of certainty that he would eventually reach the highest rank in his regiment; but, under the proposed system of selection, promotion in the Army would be infinitely less rapid than before; and unless the Government brought before the House an adequate system of retirement, that promotion could not be maintained at proper speed. He thought that promotion in the British service should at least be as rapid as in the Prussian service, and that British officers would have reason to be satisfied with that rate of promotion. It was no answer to say if an officer was not satisfied, let him retire; that was a very heartless way of dealing with men who had devoted their lives to the Army. Last night he saw in the Library a Return of the Secretary of State, which showed that the entire difference between paying regulation down and paying over-regulation under the Government plan was £1,100,000. The country, and, he believed, the majority of the House, felt that justice ought to be done in the case of officers who died from natural causes; that justice ought to be done to the widows and children of officers who died from such causes; and when the cost of doing that justice was so paltry, the country would wonder at the obstinacy with which the Government refused to make that small concession. To spend £1,000,000 in that way would be found to be economical in the long run. He most strenuously complained of the regulation by which widows were prevented from obtaining the value of their husband's commission, unless the officer survived for six weeks after sending in his papers, and would state that his sister had, in consequence of the death from small-pox of her husband, a major in the Army, lost £5,000, while she only received a pension of £70 a-year, which was not quite 1½ per cent on the amount. Officers by being thus deprived of their property at death were thus placed upon a footing with the felon. Would the Government continue to insist on this moral suttee by the widow of an officer who died from natural causes? He wished to know why this dead set was made at the widows and children of the officers of the Army. Future officers must be humanely dealt with; public opinion insisted that their widows and children should be pensioned, and why should not something approaching to justice be done in the case of the present officers? There was such a thing as being too clever by half, and the Secretary for War had devised a system of enlistment on short service, which was likely to be a failure. He ventured to prophesy that if the right hon. Gentleman insisted on depriving the widows and orphans of officers of their just rights he would be too successful; in his anxiety to avoid Scylla, he might run into Charybdis; and he might find himself left at last with stripling officers to command raw and unfledged recruits. It was objected that to pay down the regulation price would be equivalent to increasing the pay of the officers; but if the Government thought the pay was sufficient, they were bound logically to reduce the pay of the officer of the future by the amount of the interest on the value of his commission, and the amount of the insurance on his life. In that manner the pay of the captain would be only £60 a-year. He held, however, that the pay of the officers in the British Army was too low. The result of the present system was to inflict another hardship on British officers, many of whom were prevented from marrying until a late period of life, because the families to which they wished to ally themselves were unwilling to run the risk of their widows losing the whole value of the commission. The regulation in question, therefore, was contrary to public policy, to the welfare of the officer, and to the true interest of the nation. The value of the commission and a pension were given to the widow of an officer killed in action; but suppose the officer had been wounded, and lived six months and one day; then he forfeited the whole value of the commission, and his widow and orphans were put off with a paltry pension. What about the officer who might be killed in a riot, or who died of some disease contracted in the service? Was that officer to be punished by the forfeiture of his commission, instead of the price being paid to his widow? In 1867 an officer in bad health sent in his papers, accompanied by a medical certificate that he was in a very critical state. The War Office accepted the papers, and agreed that his commission should be sold; but there was some delay in gazetting him out of the regiment, and in the meantime he died. Upon that the senior non-purchase officer claimed the step gratuitously; the matter was referred to the War Office, and it was decided that as the papers had been accepted the commission should be sold. But it was owing, he believed, to that case that this monstrous six weeks' regulation had been made. He had proved that to confiscate the commission was contrary to justice, expediency, and humanity, and he trusted he should now be supported by every man with a heart in his bosom.

said, the hon. Baronet the Member for Caithness (Sir Tollemache Sinclair) had done him the favour to compare him to Shylock. He feared the hon. Baronet would suspect him of being ironical if he were to return the compliment, and therefore he would not compare the hon. Baronet to Portia. Seriously, they had really had a great abuse of that liberty of speech which was the privilege and ornament of the House of Commons. He had been a good while in that House; but he had never before heard there what in other edifices gentlemen were accustomed to listen to, a discourse lasting about the same period — namely, half-an-hour, every word of which they had heard from the same performer on the last occasion. [Sir TOLLEMACHE SINCLAIR: No, no!] Now, he must really appeal to the Committee whether it was conducive to the credit of Parliament and the conduct of Public Business that they should occupy their time in that way. That speech of the hon. Baronet's they had just heard was not only listened to by a fuller House—[An hon. MEMBER: It was not listened to.] All he could say was, he had listened to every word, and recognized it all over again. His right hon. and gallant Friend (Sir Henry Storks) having last night given the answer to the Motion of the hon. Baronet, he should be taking a great liberty with the Committee if he went at any length into the matter. The hon. Baronet had said that what caused him to bring the question forward was a case with which he was well acquainted many years ago, and then he referred to another which occurred in the time of his predecessor, the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington), and was brought under his predecessor's notice in 1867. The object of the Bill was not to go back and remedy all the abuses of the purchase system; and he would freely admit that that was one among the many evils of that system that had made him desirous of abolishing it. What they were going to do now was to indemnify those whom this Bill might injure, and it would be against the object of the Bill, as explained by his right hon. and gallant Friend last night, to accept the Amendment.

said, he would remark that the hon. Baronet the Member for Caithness (Sir Tollemache Sinclair), who came very far North, had no doubt given the Committee a doubly-distilled speech; but he had good reason and was justified in doing so, because in consequence of the Committee exhibiting signs of weariness on the previous night, at a time when Progress ought to have been moved, he was unable to command the necessary attention. The subject which he had brought forward was very important, and it ought to be thoroughly discussed. It seemed to be rather inconsistent with the declarations of the Government, who professed that complete indemnity should be given to the officers of the Army upon the abolition of purchase, that there should be the slightest sting left in the tail of the new system when the old one was abolished. The small proportion of officers' deaths while serving was not worth the preservation of so cruel and unnecessary and unjust a regulation; and now that a great measure for Army reform was before Parliament, it was a proper time to remove the greatest blot in the administration of the Army. If the regulation price of commissions were to be paid down at once, of course the question would be at an end; but as the Government had set its face against any officer being repaid until he retired, it would be only right to the Army, and especially to the widow and orphans of an officer who had died whilst serving in time of peace, that a concession of some sort should be made. And as he apprehended it was not the wish or intention of Her Majesty's Government to make any money out of what was the rightful property of the family of a deceased officer, it was undoubtedly a fitting opportunity for considering the Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for Caithness. He should like to be informed upon what he considered an important point, and that was, what would be the destination, or to what fund or purpose would the money so forfeited on the death of an officer be consigned? Under existing circumstances the steps went for nothing upon death vacancies, which was cruel indeed, because the family lost it. But now when purchase was to be abolished, the circumstances were different; and as the money would have had to be paid to the officer had he lived and retired, he wanted to know where it went to? It must be somewhere, for by taxation the money to meet the abolition of purchase was being raised. Was the State or the Reserve Fund to be the gainer, and credited with it because it had not got to pay it? He wished to press that question on the Government now, as it involved a point entailing a very great cruelty to the family of a deceased officer, and a blot on the administration of the Army.

said, he wished to know whether the commissions of those officers had ever been sold to the officers who succeeded them?

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had stated that he rose in sober earnestness; certainly sobriety always distinguished his remarks to the House. But he had drawn a little upon his imagination when he referred to the similarity of the hon. Baronet's remarks to those made by him last night, because if ever there had been a noisy House in the world it was the House which the hon. Baronet addressed yesterday evening. That was some justification, therefore, for the hon. Baronet repeating some of his remarks. There was a point in favour of the Amendment which had been entirely shut out of view, and that was, that it was a very impolitic thing for Government to have a pecuniary interest in the death of their servants. During the Crimean War the regulations had been relaxed, and it was arranged that the regulation price should be paid to the representatives of an officer. But in the case of an officer dying in an unhealthy station, like the West Indies or Hong Kong, and other stations, where they were exposed to epidemics, and where many officers were cut off from their regiments in a very short space of time, the same liberal arrangement did not exist. In such a case the Government gained nothing, and whatever gain there was went to another officer by the step of promotion he obtained. He did not, of course, believe that the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary for War, or anyone occupying his position, would keep any officer in an unhealthy station for any such reason as that he would get a sum of money by his death; but many things might be done in perfect good faith, which were calculated, nevertheless, to create a discontent which it was desirable, as far as possible, to remove. It was not well, therefore, in his opinion, to run the risk of giving rise to any such feeling on account of the paltry sum of money which the Government might make by the death of an officer.

said, he would urge the Secretary of State for War to accept the Amendment. He thought the right hon. Gentleman would be the first man to admit that the state of the present pension warrants was in the highest degree unsatisfactory. Many cases proved that. For example, the term within which it was supposed that a man would die after he was wounded required revision, and nothing could be more unsatisfactory than the way in which they pared down a man's allowances and insisted on his dying within six months. Nothing could be more unworthy of a great country like this. Again, nothing could be more unfair than compelling a man to prove that he was in a certain state of health before he could be permitted to sell; and he would refer to the case of a young officer who had sent in his papers for the sale of his commission in consequence of his bad health, but who had been advised by his medical attendants to withdraw them, and who a fortnight after he had withdrawn them died, whereby the whole of his money had been lost to his widow and family. It would be a very graceful concession on the part of Government to accept an Amendment which would remedy cases of hardship like that. If it was impossible to put such an Amendment in the Bill, the Secretary of State should give an undertaking that the pension warrants, especially 84 and 1069, would be considered, with the view of removing those difficulties which were considered by the general feeling of the House to be objectionable.

said, he must remark that these cases of hardship were greatly increased by the decision come to the other evening, that no officer in bad health, and ordered to go to a foreign station with his regiment, could exchange into a regiment remaining in this country. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would reverse that decision of the House, and consent to its being cancelled.

said, he held that it was perfectly clear that there could be no justice in engaging to pay money to the widows and families of officers, as a condition of abolishing purchase, in cases to which the purchase system would not have applied if it had been allowed to continue to exist.

said, the greatest slur and blot in our military regulations was that which deprived the widow and children of a deceased officer of the value of his commission. He should support the Amendment, and trusted the Government would consider well before they rejected it.

said, he would also support the Amendment as a matter of real humanity and policy. He could not believe that the Government desired to make money out of the deaths of British officers.

, who had an Amendment on the Paper in nearly the same terms said, he would support the Amendment. He took the same view of the subject as his hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North), who had spoken on exchanges. The plea of Government, in opposing the Amendment, was that they did not wish to create vested rights which did not exist at the present moment. But that was not a just argument. If they were remedying the abuses and evils of the British Army, they had no right to remedy evils bearing against themselves, and to refuse to remedy evils acknowledged to exist against the interests of the persons with whom they were dealing. Why should the family of an officer not receive compensation because it happened that his death, which was consequent upon a wound, did not occur until more than six months after the wound was received? He should vote for the Amendment.

said, that no one was more ready than he was to admit that it was a very hard rule; but what they had now to deal with were simply the provisions of that Bill. The question did not arise upon the Bill, but upon the pensions warrant. He had been constantly reproached with the large burdens which this Bill would impose upon the people, and it would be culpable for him to introduce into it anything as to compensation for a state of things which was not caused by the Bill. The Amendment sought to put upon the abolition of purchase something which had nothing to do with it, but rested entirely upon the pensions warrant, when the proper course would be to bring forward the pensions warrant and raise a discussion upon it.

said, he thought that if the Government gave no promise to bring forward the pensions warrant, so as to remedy the injustice that existed, then hon. Members were justified in endeavouring to introduce a proposal like that now made into that Bill.

said, that as the Bill was originally drawn, it contained a limitation of the number of officers who were to be permitted to sell out in any year. That limitation was very much objected to, and before they went into Committee he gave Notice that when the proper time arrived he would withdraw it. That time had now come, and he begged to move an Amendment in the clause in accordance with his Notice.

said, he was glad that the right hon. Gentleman had taken that course; but the reasons that had been given were not sound. He had always viewed this limitation as useless and unnecessarily vexatious; first, because he did not believe that the officers would hurriedly give up their profession; and, secondly, because Her Majesty had power to decline to accept resignations inconvenient to the interests of the service and the country. The alleged reason which the Government said justified them in withdrawing the limitation, was that the Bill was not so unpopular as represented, and in proof of that some high prices were cited that had lately been given for some of the higher commissions. Of course, when a commodity became scarce the price rose. When the sale of commissions is to cease after a certain day, and their disposal hereafter uncertain, it was only natural that in some cases large prices should be given. In the case in point, one of the youngest majors in the service gave a high price for the command of his regiment, because he knew that under this Bill he would not obtain command of a regiment at once, and certainly not of the regiment in which he had served. It was no proof of confidence in the Bill—quite the reverse. It was not often he had the honour of agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell); but he would take this opportunity of thanking him for his remarks the other night, in reply to something very like a threat in the name of the officers. No one could believe, however damaging to their interests the measures passed by this House might be, that it would make one iota of difference in their conduct in the field; but he went further, and asserted that even in the monotonous times of peace no consideration of that kind would interfere with the conscientious discharge of their duties. With regard to the warrant requiring a medical certificate that the officer wishing to leave the service was not in a dangerous state of health, he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to give way. It was always a hard mea- sure; but in future, where the money invested by the officer was lost to him or to his family, and went to the credit of the nation instead of as a benefit to a brother officer, it would be intensified. The measure was fairly just and liberal to those officers about to leave the service, but unjust and illiberal to those who remained in it; and particularly in this case, where the officers had stuck to their profession as long as their strength permitted. He asked why those officers—the most meritorious—were alone of all in the Army not to receive the price of their commissions? Although he had felt strongly upon many points in the Bill, this was the first time he had troubled the Committee, and he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to undertake that the warrant should be cancelled.

said, he hoped that the liberty of retiring would be made dependent upon the interest of the service.

asked whether any limitation upon retirement was to be continued for the future. He would oppose the idea that officers of the British Army were to be made slaves of, as the hon. Member for Berwick would seem to infer.

said, that at present no officer was allowed to sell or exchange except with the permission of the Horse Guards; and if the interests of the public service would not permit of officers leaving their regiments, leave to sell or exchange was refused then. No other restriction than that which now existed would be imposed by that Bill.

said, he was glad to have an admission at last from the Treasury bench that exchanges had never been allowed which were detrimental to the public service. He was glad that the clause was struck out, and was only astonished that the right hon. Gentleman, as a Member of a Liberal Government, and one opposed to compulsory service in the Army, should have wished to impose it upon the officers.

said, that after the decision of last night, he should withdraw all the Amendments that stood in his name.

said, that no notice had been given of this Amendment, which seemed to be unnecessary, as such cases came within the clause that gave the over-regulation money to officers "on promotion."

said, he would suggest that, if the Government objected to the omission of the words altogether, the words "according to the custom of the service" might be substituted for them.

said, that the words of the clause had been carefully considered by the eminent authorities who had drawn up the clause, and, therefore, he could not consent to any alteration being made in them.

said, he must explain that the Commissioners would be empowered, under the words of the clause, to ascertain the real value of the commission of the retiring officer, without any limitation as to how far back they were to go in point of time.

said, he proposed to insert an Amendment, the object of which was to entitle subaltern officers to be paid down the regulation price which they had paid. A Return presented by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War showed that the regulation price of the Infantry, Cavalry, and Guards amounted to £7,600,000. His Amendment would take about £2,000,000 out of that amount; therefore, so far as the subalterns were concerned, the sum of £2,000,000 would absolutely wipe out purchase. He proposed his Amendment by way of a compromise, and hoped it would be adopted. It involved less cost that any other Amendment that had been proposed with reference to subalterns.

rose to call the attention of the House to the state of affairs on the West Coast of Africa, with especial reference to the administration of justice and the necessity of reforming the same; of establishing some form of local and municipal self-government and of revising the system of taxation; further, to urge the importance of relieving the minds of British subjects at the Gambia from the apprehension of their transference to a foreign Power. His object in calling the attention of the House to this subject was a desire only to promote the interests of those Settlements, and to secure to the inhabitants the advantages of British protection and British law—for a very general feeling of dissatisfaction prevailed throughout the whole of these Settlements. Since 1866 Petitions had been forwarded to the Colonial Office almost every year, complaining of certain grievances, and of the acts of certain officials; but those Petitions, he was sorry to say, had not had the desired effect, for the Petitions were, if not treated with contempt, at least taken no notice of, and the grievances still remained; and the consequence was a want of confidence in the administration of justice, and the prevalence of a feeling of sullen discontent which might break out at any moment in insubordination and outrage. He would first bring be- fore the House the state of affairs in Sierra Leone. The Settlement of Sierra Leone was formed by the British Government for the avowed object of suppressing the slave trade and promoting the religious and moral improvement of the Natives. The slaves captured by men-of-war were taken there from time to time and settled upon lands set apart for their own use; the population, therefore, consisted chiefly of liberated Africans from different parts of the continent, and speaking different dialects. The Church of England and the Wesleyans had undertaken missions among those people; the results had been highly satisfactory; and by those means the character of the population had been improved, and trade was rapidly extending, as was shown by the exports and imports having increased from £264,938 in 1854 to £581,485 in 1867. It was to be regretted that with this state of things there should have been found certain drawbacks that had had the effect of retarding the onward progress of the Settlement and the social and moral elevation of the people. These drawbacks were to be found chiefly in the action of the Colonial Office and the changes that had been effected. In 1865 the Settlements were placed under one Governor General. Before that Sierra Leone had a single Supreme Court Judge, who tried all civil cases by a jury of twelve. There was, besides, a Queen's Advocate, who was Public Prosecutor; a local Court of Appeal, composed of the Governor and Council. This system worked admirably. A similar system prevailed at the Gambia and at Cape Coast. In 1866 this state of things was changed. In an evil hour there was appointed to the Governor Generalship of Sierra Leone Major Blackall, who had roused the hostility of the African race in the West Indies. Dominica petitioned the Colonial Office for his recall, and he was unfortunately transferred to Sierra Leone. Under his auspices, by means of an obedient and facile Legislative Council, composed of salaried officials, and sitting with closed doors, there was passed an ordinance which rendered every verdict delivered in civil actions subject to the revisal of four gentlemen appointed by the Executive, who were invested with the power to reduce verdicts to the nominal sum of one farthing. This was the first blow directed against trial by jury in civil actions. The result had been the withdrawal of it altogether. So that, with commerce and civilization advancing, this great constitutional privilege had been withdrawn from the African race in Sierra Leone. The next step in this retrograde policy was the appointment of Mr. Justice Huggins as an additional Supreme Court Judge; then followed the abolition of the local Court of Appeal, leave being given to parties aggrieved by any decision of the Supreme Court to appeal directly to the Queen in Council, but only in a matter involving £300 and upwards. Now, this privilege really amounted to nothing, as most, if not all the cases brought for trial in the Supreme Court were below £300; so that instead of having, as before, the local Court of Appeal, there was now really no redress to parties who might feel they had been hardly or unjustly dealt with. Moreover, as the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone was the Court of Appeal for the inhabitants of the Gambia, Cape Coast, and Lagos, the result was that these Settlements had no Court of Appeal at all. The feeling of the people now was that they had lost all faith in the Supreme Court at Sierra Leone, and they would almost suffer any wrong rather than carry their appeals there; and with reference to that feeling he would recommend to the notice of the House the case of Findley against White, as justifying the existence of that feeling. Another evil sorely felt was the delay in the administration of justice; judgment was not given sometimes for one, two, or three years. If only one-half that was alleged was true, Mr. Justice Huggins was unfit for the position he held. One complaint against him was the cruel punishments he had inflicted on some of the unfortunate Natives. One person had been condemned for larceny to six years' imprisonment and nine whippings—but after the second whipping he died; for the number of stripes not being mentioned in the sentence, it was left to the officials to administer as many as they thought proper. Such proceedings were calculated to bring the courts of justice into contempt. They produced dissatisfaction, and would provoke hostilities which would lead to a repetition of the tragedy of Jamaica, if they were not put an end to. The prisons in Sierra Leone were in a most disgraceful state; no demarcation was drawn between the various classes of criminals, all were huddled together, and the lock-ups were consequently sinks of impurity and immorality. He had now to direct the attention of the House to the taxation of the colony. Under the land and house tax, which pressed very heavily on the poorer classes, by the manner in which the taxation was enacted it resulted that taxation was levied to the extent of 10½ and 16⅔ per cent, without the people having any voice in the imposition of it; and if the party failed to pay the tax he had to work three days for every shilling on the public roads, and to find his own provisions besides. He had now to direct the attention of the House to the state of education. This was at a very low ebb so far as the authorities were concerned. Out of a Revenue of from £70,000 to £80,000, £36,000 was spent in official salaries and pensions, and only £400 on education. It had been suggested that there should be introduced into the colony a system of undenominational education, including a strict conscience clause; and that view was in accordance with the opinion of a large and influential body of Natives. It was also considered desirable that in each of the colonies there should be, in addition to common schools, one high class school giving a superior education to those who were to take a leading part in the affairs of the colony. All these should be paid for out of revenue and be free to all—it was not fair to ask the missionary societies in this country to bear the burden. He was glad to find that Sir Arthur Kennedy had introduced the principle of competitive examination, and hoped that principle would be carried out in its integrity. There was another question which had introduced great heart-burnings into the Settlement—he meant the grants made to the local or Native pastorate. Much dissatisfaction had been caused by the introduction of concurrent endowment; and it appeared strange that it should have been established there, while it was being discontinued in Jamaica. £500 had been given by the Legislative Council for the Native pastors of the Church Missionary Society, and £150 for the Roman Catholics; and the Wesleyans were informed that any representations they might make on the subject would receive favourable notice; but, on consideration, they objected to receive such assistance, on the ground that it was calculated to excite religious strife, and prove injurious to those habits of self-reliance which it ought to be the object of the Government to form and cherish. In that idea they were borne out by the respective opinions of the three unofficial Members of the Legislative Council. The Legislative Council was composed of the Governor, the Colonial Secretary, the Commander of the Forces, the Chief Justice, and the Queen's Advocate, and three unofficial Members nominated by the Governor. Practically, therefore, the Governor was himself the Council. The revenue, as already stated, was £70,000 a-year. Would it be believed that all this money was voted in one brief sitting of three hours, without discussion, and without any Estimates being first placed in the hands of the Members? It might be supposed that with such large revenues proper attention would be paid to the sanitary condition of these colonies; but the prisons and other places were in a disgraceful state. In Sierra Leone there had been recently some improvement in that respect; but in the case of the Cape Coast Colony, which had been under British rule for 40 years, and had a revenue of about £30,000, and £20,000 in the Government chest, the town and the adjacent roads were like a vast privy and dunghill, and the accumulation of filth had swept away many valuable lives. At Lagos there had been great improvement; but for the last three or four years there had been no Returns of the exports—a remark which also applied to Sierra Leone. He had now to call the attention of the House to the state of affairs at the Gambia; and hoped the Under Secretary for the Colonies would state what were the intentions of the Government with regard to that Settlement—whether they meant to carry out the policy indicated by the Postmaster General when he filled the post of Under Secretary for the Colonies, and which was anything but advantageous to the colony. In 1867 the imports and exports of that colony amounted to £143,150. The revenue was about £22,000, and £14,000 was spent in salaries and pensions. No attempt had been made latterly to develop the trade of that colony, or to take advantage of the magnificent River Gambia, which was navigable for 400 miles, for opening up trade with the interior. In the case of Bathurst, such was the indifference to the interests of the colonists, that an application having been made that one of the gunboats might go for three days up the river, in order to impress on the Natives that Bathurst was under British rule, permission was refused, unless the coals which would be required for the trip were paid for. Yet £4,125 was now being spent out of the local revenue in enlarging and embellishing the Governor's house. The present position of affairs with regard to the Gambia was most unsatisfactory. Sir Arthur Kennedy intimated a short time ago that it was still the intention of the Government to hand that colony over to France, although that was contrary to the wishes of the whole population. That state of things was paralyzing trade, and rendering everything insecure. The colonists had neither soldiers to protect them, nor arms for their own defence, and there was an agitation prevailing among some of the Native tribes which might break out in open rebellion. The inhabitants of the Gambia wanted no money from the British Government; they were quite willing to bear their own expenses, and they had sent a Petition to the Colonial Office against the handing over to the French Government of four Settlements containing a population of 20,000 British subjects without their being consulted. Last year the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General stated that there were only 40 Europeans in the place; but the same argument might be adduced to give up all our West African Settlements. During the last 10 years there had been great improvement in trade and in agriculture; the English language was the leading language that was spoken, and the inhabitants had, with one voice, protested against being deprived of British nationality. Although that subject was not an inviting one, he hoped it would be carefully considered. What he would urge upon the Government was that they should see that justice was fairly administered in every Settlement, that trial by jury should be established both for civil and criminal cases, and that municipal councils should be established, which would give the inhabitants a voice in the expenditure. Let the Supreme Court, as a Court of Appeal, be duly constituted by the addition of a third Judge, and let the Judges go on circuit to all the Settlements as they did in this country. Let the expense of this Court, as well as the steamer for the Governor General, be borne in fair proportion by all the Settlements. Let no grants be given for ecclesiastical purposes, but let the Natives be instructed in the duty of supporting their own pastors. Let grants be given freely for educating the people. Let the Government especially call the attention of the local authorities to the improvement of the sanitary condition of each colony, and, above all, let it endeavour to place men in the various official positions who will feel some sympathy for the African race, and who will set an example worthy of respect and imitation. They were proud of the constitutional freedom which they enjoyed in this happy land—

"Spread it, then,

And let it circulate through every vein

Of this vast empire—that where Britain's power is felt

Mankind may learn to feel her mercy too."

They had already expended a large amount of money in putting down the slave trade; they had succeeded in effecting this object on the entire West Coast of Africa. Let them now, by every means in their power, carry to the many tribes brought under their influence the blessings of Christianity and civilization. Those West African Settlements might appear to them small and insignificant, but who could tell the influence for good they were destined to exert over that great continent? They had now no other Power to look to for sympathy or support but us. Let us show that we are not regardless of them. Be it ours to give effect to those noble words uttered by Lord Palmerston—

"As long as England remains pre-eminent on the ocean of human affairs, there are none, be they ever so unfortunate—none, be their condition ever so desperate and forlorn—who do not turn with a look of hope to the light that beams from here. They may be beyond the reach of our power—still our moral sympathy and our influence can support them under their reverses and hold out to them, in the midst of their difficulties, the hope of better days. But if by the assaults of her enemies, or the errors of her sons, England should fail or her star lose its lustre, with her would fall the hopes of the Africans, whether on their own continent or on the vast regions of America; and they would for a time, at least, be buried in despair. I know no nation that is now ready to supply our place."

He thanked the House for the kind attention it had given him. This might not be one of the most interesting of questions but still there were thousands and tens of thousands of their fellow-subjects in that far-off land who would read the debate with great interest, and to whom it would convey the hope that their grievances would be redressed, and that the House of Commons would endeavour to do justice to Africa.

pointed out out that as these were Crown Colonies, and, therefore, not self-governing, some questions might properly be brought under the notice of the House in connection with them which Parliament need not discuss with reference to Canada, or the Australian colonies. He proposed to confine his remarks to the Gold Coast and the Gambia. His hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth (Mr. M'Arthur) had alluded to the sanitary condition of the Gold Coast. A colonial paper described the principal town of the colony as one vast dunghill, and expressed the most fearful apprehensions as to the probable results of an outbreak of cholera, which, dreadful as it was in England, would be far worse in a tropical climate; and, if the authorities there were not sufficiently alive to the exigencies of the case, no doubt the colonial authorities here would urge them to do their duty. In Crown colonies which had no municipal institutions, and which were ruled by officials appointed in England, the Government was practically despotic, the only appeal of the people subject to it being to the House of Commons, and that was a sufficient justification for the course taken to-night by his hon. Friend who, he thought, was entitled to the thanks of the House for bringing the subject under their notice. Under the circumstances, it was the Imperial authorities who were open to censure for the state of things which had been described. In support of the allegation that arbitrary authority had been greatly abused on the Gold Coast, he would quote from The West African Herald of February last, a statement respecting an absconding convict who was recaptured, flogged, put to shot-drill, fainted, and died a shocking death in hospital. The inquest disclosed a severity of prison discipline amounting to inhuman cruelty, and resulted in the suspension of two of the prison officers. Another case he would mention was that of Mr. Joseph Lovell, for 30 years a merchant on the Gold Coast, who for two years was involved in a dispute with the Deputy Collector of Customs at Cape Coast Castle. In one matter there was a bill of costs against him of £4 10s; in another there was one in his favour of £4 9s. 6d.; he naturally thought he might put one Bill against the other; but, instead of the sixpence, he was compelled to pay the amount of the bill against him, after having been apprehended under warrant and lodged in a felon's prison, being immured in a cell where the thermometer stood at 87°. There was another case, in which a woman was condemned to two days' imprisonment for contempt of Court, and where the Judge had, unknown to the gaoler, gone to the prison, and ordered the matron to shave the woman's hair off. Last year his hon. and gallant Friend near him the Member for Stamford (Sir John Hay) brought under the notice of the House the proposed cession of Gambia to France, which was not effected, not because of any change of opinion on the part of the Government, but because on the very day attention was called to the matter, France declared war against Germany, and by the Law of Nations the negotiations came to an end. The people of the Gambia were Wesleyans, and as Protestants naturally preferred connection with this country rather than with France; and those who held it was wrong to transfer Alsace and Lorraine to Germany could not assert that it was right to cede the Gambia to France against the will of the people. He would call attention to the fact that Mr. Jackson, the chief magistrate, held a variety of appointments in the Gambia, such as coroner and police magistrate, which was a plan open to serious objection, and arrangements should be made to obviate such a scandal. He was also Chief Justice, and, as such, he had tried for murder a man whom he had twice preliminarily committed for trial. He thought it was monstrous that one man should hold three such offices, and held that it was the duty of the Colonial Office to direct their attention to such cases with a view to put an end to the existence of such evils. He hoped the interest of these colonies, which were intimately connected with the welfare of the African race, would always command the attention of the House.

said, he was sure the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. M'Arthur) required no apology for bringing forward that subject and making his interesting statement to the House. Those West African Settlements had from time to time attracted considerable attention in this country, and not the less so, because England, held them not for her own advantage or aggrandizement, but from motives of a character essentially high and pure. Founded, as was the first of these Settlements, for slave-trading purposes, that had long since been atoned for by years of labour and heaps of treasure in money, and in lives more precious than money, expended with a view to the extirpation of the slave trade, and the introduction of civilization and Christianity among the Native tribes. The political advantage to England derivable from these colonies was very small, and they had involved her in several very expensive wars. Her occupation of them was rather in discharge of a moral obligation than any self-seeking policy for Imperial interests. Their climate was dangerous to European life during a great part of the year, and the management of their internal affairs also occasioned no small expense to this country; but, while he said that, he must not be considered as advocating the relinquishment of these colonies. Great Britain held them more for their own sake than for hers. She had no other object than to govern them in a manner to advance their welfare—to make her rule as acceptable to the people as possible. If any error could be pointed out in her present administration, or any blot in her system, the Government would be most anxious to repair the one and wipe out the other with the slightest possible delay. Referring to the apprehensions which were entertained about the cession of Gambia to France, a few words would dispose of that subject. The arguments in favour of the cession of Gambia to France, or rather its exchange for certain territories which would be more convenient to us, was very ably stated by his predecessor; but there never was any idea of ceding Gambia to France or any other country without previous discussion and obtaining the consent and concurrence of the House. The trade of the Colony, comparatively small as it was, was chiefly in French hands; the British population was very small—the great French Colony of Senegal was less than 200, whilst Sierra Leone was 500 miles distant; and if the material advantage of England was the only point to consider, it was probable that the arguments in favour of the transfer might be found to preponderate. But he guarded himself against being supposed to state his own opinion one way or the other, the possible value of Gambia as a coaling station in time of war—the determined opposition to the transfer evinced by a large portion of the population—and the unanimous Report of the Committee of 1865 against our total withdrawal from any of our West African Settlements or engagements appeared to him to be points which must have been deeply considered before any transfer could have been effected. However, he need not argue this question, because the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War had put an end to the transfer, and no other country was likely to desire it. He did not say anything that should bind any future Government under different circumstances; but he might freely say that it was not the intention of the Government to propose any renewal of the negotiations for the transfer of Gambia to France. At the same time the House must not forget that the Committee of 1865 adopted as one of its resolutions that the Settlement of Gambia should be reduced by the abandonment of Macarthy's Island, with respect to which the Government must hold itself entirely free. With regard to the defensive condition of Gambia, there was no doubt that it was not so good as might be desired, but within the last three weeks rockets and other ammunition had been sent there. Some cases had been mentioned relating to the administration of justice; and he could no doubt have given satisfactory explanations respecting them if he had been previously informed that the attention of the House would be called to them. The case of Mr. Lovell, on the Gold Coast, had been alluded to, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Penryn (Mr. R. N. Fowler) intimated to him last night that attention would be called to it, otherwise it never would have entered into his mind that it would have been brought forward as a case of oppression. Mr. Lovell declined to pay the money, which was evidently due from him, and defied the sheriff's officer. He claimed as a set-off, some costs against the Government, the payment of which the administrator would not sanction for sufficient reasons. A warrant was issued, and then Mr. Lovell tendered the amount, but, refusing to pay 5s. for the warrant, was taken to prison. The thermometer might have been at 87°, but the prison was clean, and after a few hours' detention somebody paid the 5s., and Mr. Lovell was released. To put forward such a matter as a case of oppression was an absurdity on the part of those who instructed the hon. Gentleman. It was stated by the hon. Member who made the present Motion that memorials sent to the Colonial Office had not received their due effect; but he could state that every disposition was shown at the Colonial Office to attend to any complaints on the part of the memorialists. Nevertheless, some memorials had not a due effect there, because on investigation their allegations were not found to be supported by evidence. Two of the grounds on which the hon. Member based his accusation against the present system were taxation and concurrent endowment, both of which points were touched on by the Wesleyan Missionary Society, in the memorial they sent from Sierra Leone. No one could doubt the value of the exertions of this estimable body of Christians, who had effected much for these settlements, but even their statements turned out not to be wholly accurate. They began by stating that they had great claims to consideration, because they paid the greatest part of the colonial revenue. They called attention to the new system of taxation recently adopted, protested against concurrent endowment and the neglect of their schools in the colonial grant, and complained of the establishment of a Church college at Cape Coast, with a grant of £1,000. With regard to the statement that they paid the largest portion of taxation, that on inquiry turned out to be a mistake; and, though the objection to concurrent endowment was fair enough on the part of those who objected to all endowments, yet in some cases religious equality was best secured by concurrent endowment, and in others by no endowment at all, according to the feelings of the population; and the grant to the native pastorate, which was called an endowment, was a grant to the only purely African institution upon the coast, whilst so great had been the good effected by these native pastors that the governor had stated that the lessening of their influence would entail a larger expenditure for magistrates and police. The refusal of the Wesleyans to accept a grant was no reason why the efforts of other religious bodies should be neutralized by want of support from the State; and with respect to schools, all other bodies except the Wesleyans agreed to the regulations under which grants for schools should be given. The Church college, which the memorialists alluded to, was never intended to be founded, and had never been heard of except in their memorial. The particular tax to which the memorialists objected—namely, the house tax—was not a new tax, as it was introduced in 1854. It did not produce a very large revenue; but it was satisfactory in its collection, and it would be beneficial to extend it as far as possible, because it tended to give the people an interest in self-government, and developed industrial habits. With regard to the administration of justice, there was a magistrate in every one of the four Settlements, and the Court of Appeal in Sierra Leone was constituted by the two Judges to whom the hon. Gentleman had alluded. His hon. Friend had alluded to what he called the abolition of trial by jury in the colony. Now, it should be remembered that they were dealing with a Settlement in which there was a large coloured and a small white population, and they could not apply the same principles in respect of the mode of administering justice in a case in which most of the population were coloured, as they could in a case in which most of the population were white. It had been found that in criminal cases no difficulty had been felt. The juries consisted of coloured persons, and the decision of two-thirds of the jury was taken as the verdict. But while there was no difficulty in a criminal case, in civil cases justice had frequently miscarried. It had been shown, after full inquuy, that the juries frequently came into Court having made up their minds before the cases were called on, and it was therefore that in civil cases the present system was adopted. The case of Mr. Justice Huggins had been alluded to. It was not true, as had been alleged in the complaints made against him, that he had not been called to the Bar. As to his having given unlaw- fully severe punishments, the only foundation for this was, that the Judge had supposed that an Act of 7 & 8 Geo. III. had not been repealed by one of the present reign, which imposed milder punishments for certain offences. The Colonial Office had, however, since sent out an ordinance which would remove any misapprehension upon this subject, and the sentences which had been imposed under a misapprehension had been remitted. His hon. Friend had charged the prison officials with national antipathy against the Native race. He regretted his hon. Friend had done so, as their business ought to be, as far as possible, to allay the prejudices of race, and he was sorry that his hon. Friend should have countenanced what he could not but regard as a mistaken idea. It was quite a mistake to suppose that the officials had any antipathy to the Native race. On the contrary, it was their earnest desire to reconcile the differences of race, and, as far as possible, promote the welfare of all the population, without reference to colour. The climate and the low salaries paid rendered it difficult to procure efficient public servants, and certainly it was highly desirable that those who were out there should not be hastily condemned. Efforts were being made to improve the system of education. It was difficult to establish municipal and local government in such places, and an experiment of municipal government which had been tried on the Gold Coast had broken down in 1860, and had not been revived. As to the want of sanitary regulations, he had not had sufficient notice that that would be brought forward; but he would make inquiries into the matter, and he had already instituted an inquiry in reference to the alleged want of prison accommodation. The case of a woman who was alleged to have had her hair cut off when in prison had been inquired into in anticipation, for having noticed the circumstance in one of the colonial papers, he caused a despatch to be written for an investigation into the statement, but sufficient time had not yet elapsed to receive an answer. Many of the complaints that were made were found upon examination to be by no means of the importance that was attributed to them. There had of late years been a decided improvement in the state of these colonies. It had been said that since all of them were placed under one government, in accordance with the Report of the Committee of 1865, there had been a great increase of expenditure, and that the Settlements were not so prosperous as before; but he found that whereas in 1864 the revenue of the four Settlements was £91,231, against an expenditure of £103,235; the revenue estimated last year was £152,207, and the expenditure £149,330. In 1864 the value of the imports was £524,000, and of the exports £570,600; whereas, in 1868, the imports had increased to £988,000, and the exports to £1,161,000. These figures gave some hope that the Settlements were improving, and that our philanthropy, self-sacrifice, and good intentions could not have been entirely thrown away upon them. The time might come when they would be great and prosperous and advantageous to this country; but, at all events, they had accomplished the object for which they were established. The slave trade was crushed out, human sacrifice had diminished, and there could be no doubt that civilization was progressing in that part of the world. He had now finished the task imposed upon him by the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth. He was grateful to his hon. Friend for having given him an opportunity of addressing the House upon West African affairs. If those affairs were among the most interesting, they were certainly not among the most easy matters with the conduct of which the Colonial Office was charged. It was not easy to manage small Settlements, surrounded by barbarous or semi-barbarous tribes. The laws, the habits, the usages of European States could not be applied with facility to communities which had not yet attained to European civilization. Misunderstandings would sometimes arise; misrepresentations would often be made; and after the facts he had laid before the House, he must ask his hon. Friend to concede that, if Governors of colonies were sometimes wrong, and officials made mistakes, newspaper editors were not always correct, and even missionaries were not infallible. But the policy of this country was clear. She had gained immensely herself from the blessings of Christianity and civilization, and she wished to extend those blessings to every country which owned her sovereignty. It was the wish of the Govern- ment that equal justice should be administered to Her Majesty's subjects in every part of the world; it was their desire that taxation should be fairly and impartially levied; it was their hope that the native population of West Africa might be gradually trained and taught the lessons of self-government, which had been acquired by more civilized nations with real advantage to themselves. But to place these Settlements in a condition such as all must desire to see them must be a work of time. Time and patience were required for this as for every other considerable undertaking. Meanwhile England, recognizing her moral obligation to maintain those Settlements, had endeavoured, and would endeavour, to discharge her duty towards them; and although from time to time shortcomings might be pointed out, there would be, on the part of the Government, no indisposition to apply remedies to such evils as upon investigation might be found to exist; whilst, at the same time, they would cherish a confident hope that such evils would become less and less; that the motives which had actuated, and still did actuate, the conduct of English statesmen towards those Settlements, would become more and more appreciated in the Settlements themselves; and that the result of that conduct would be found in the gradual advance of the Native tribes in civilization and Christianity, and in the permanent establishment of peace, happiness, and prosperity throughout Her Majesty's West African possessions.

said, that after the full and satisfactory explanation of the Under Secretary for the Colonies it would be unnecessary for him to say but a few words on the subject. It was of considerable importance that nothing should go forth from this House reflecting on Colonial Government without its being accompanied with full means of a valid answer. The hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. M'Arthur), who had brought forward the Motion, had made an accusation against a distant Crown Government, against which there were no materials for ascertaining the possible reply. Crown colonies had a special right to appeal to this House, having no representative Assembly of their own; but while he admitted that proposition, he submitted that it was most mischievous to bring to this tri- bunal unauthenticated statements from parties on one side of a dispute.

resumed—With regard to the allegation that the country wanted to get rid of all such questions, that allegation had been sufficiently answered by the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, who had just spoken. With respect to the supposed mal-administration of justice, he must say that the cases which had been brought forward had been disposed of as far as the Minister was cognizant of them; from which the rest might be judged of. They were mere ex parte statements, brought forward in such a manner that no one could answer them. It was not right to make ex parte statements relative to the administration of justice, when they were very probably the views of a defeated party of his own defeat in the presence of witnesses. The only distinct and personal allegation made against the administration of justice in West Africa was that trial by jury had been abolished; but that was only in civil cases of a small amount, and the change had been most beneficial to the poorer classes of the colony, and litigation, got up by a swarm of jobbing attorneys, had considerably diminished. A Supreme Court, with well-paid Judges, was much more satisfactory in the cause of justice than inferior Courts with a larger number of Judges. With regard to the subject of taxation, when he was in office the taxation of the colony only averaged 10s. per head of population, and that, compared with our home taxation at the rate of between £4 and £5 per head, was not, to our minds, open to serious complaint. It was said, however, the taxes were badly appropriated, and that only £400 a-year was granted for education; but the fact was that the grant represented a mere subsidy, for almost all the required money for educational purposes was provided voluntarily. The question of the exchange of the Gambia for other French possessions on the West Coast he did not consider as of immediate urgency, but thought that a time would probably come when it might be advisable to carry that exchange into effect. The English government of West Africa had been a training to self-government, and was only retained by home officials, now that our slave trade suppression was complete, till the residents could take their own affairs in hand; and he agreed with the views of the Select Committee of 1865, that government on the spot should be developed as far as possible, and made self-supporting, so that the government of England might eventually be withdrawn.

said, he was sorry to hear the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Charles Adderley) suggest that a time might come when it would be advisable to hand over the Gambia to a foreign Power; and still more sorry to hear that Sir Arthur Kennedy had made a similar suggestion to the Legislative Council of the colony. Seeing how well the colony had been governed by England he hoped it would continue its present relations with England.