asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether he is prepared to announce the intentions of Her Majesty's Government with regard to the abolition of Corporal Punishment in the Navy?

Sir, since the abolition of corporal punishment in the Army the attention of the Admiralty has been anxiously directed to the question of flogging in the Navy. The practice has already been brought within very narrow limits, and, on a review of the whole circumstances, I am now prepared to state the extent to which we intend to abolish flogging in the Navy. Corporal punishment has been abolished in the Army in time of peace. It has been retained in time of war. It has been abandoned where other punishments are possible. It has been retained when, in time of war, or on the march, or on board ship, other punishments are practically impossible. We propose to follow the same principle as regards the Navy. We propose to abolish corporal punishment everywhere and on all occasions except in the single case of mutiny, where the offender can, within a reasonable period, probably within seven days, be sent to a suitable prison. We propose to abolish corporal punishment altogether for all offences which do not require prompt and immediate punishment, not being contagious in their character, and to limit it to the fewest possible offences. These offences will be mutiny, using or offering violence to his superior officer, and desertion of post under aggravated circumstances; in fact, offences which may imperil the safety of the ship on the high seas. I should add that, except in the case of mutiny, men in the first class will, as at present, continue exempt. The main outline of our plan is contained in the following Memorandum, which I will read:—

"1. No petty officer, or seaman, or marine in the first class belonging to one of Her Majesty's ships, shall be liable to corporal punishment except for mutiny. 2. No seaman or marine, in the second class belonging to one of Her Majesty's ships shall be liable to corporal punishment in time of peace, except for one of the following offences:—Muting, using or offering violence to a superior officer, desertion of post under aggravated circumstances. 3. A Court Martial shall not in time of peace award corporal punishment for any offence except mutiny, if in their opinion the offender can be sent within a reasonable time to a sufficient prison under a sentence of imprisonment. 4. A commanding officer shall not in time of peace summarily award corporal punishment for any offence except mutiny, if within seven days the offender can be brought before an authority competent to order a Court Martial, or can be sent to a sufficient prison under a summary sentence of imprisonment."

I should add that most of these changes can be carried out by the Admiralty without legislation. As regards Courts Martials, however, they have no power to prevent them from imposing corporal punishment under the provisions of the statute; but the Admiralty will recommend the course which I have indicated. Special regulations will be necessary for a time of war. In conclusion, I may say that we have great confidence that the higher education of our seamen, and the general condition of the Navy, will enable us to make these changes without detriment to the efficiency of our Fleets and with much advantage to the popularity of the service.

observed that the right hon. Gentleman had not stated what changes were made with regard to boys in training ships and boys at sea.

said, that these regulations did not refer to boys.

said, that as it required a little time to consider the effect of these regulations, he should, reserving for future consideration the question of the total abolition of corporal punishment, refrain during the present Session from persevering with the Motion he had given notice of respecting flogging in the Navy.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether his attention has been called to certain Statements which are said to have been made at an inquest lately held at the Castle Tavern, Holloway, as to the death of a clerk in the Telegraph Department, and whether those statements are true?

Sir, the statements in the extracts referred to by my hon. Friend give a very incorrect view of the case. The young man to whom they refer had been in the Telegraph Street office since the transfer in February, 1870. Up to January of last year he had appeared to be in good health, and had made no complaint whatever of illness or of excessive work. In January of this year he was attacked with smallpox, and was absent from duty for six weeks, and he does not appear ever to have completely recovered his strength after that attack, as on subsequent occasions he had been absent from duty through illness. Prior to his illness of January he had been on night duty, the night staff in Telegraph Street consisting exclusively of male clerks. When he returned to duty after the attack of smallpox he resumed night duty, but in the middle of June last, on his own application, he was placed on day duty. His proper spell of night duty was on one day a spell from 8 P.M. to 9 A.M., and on the following day a spell of from 8 P.M. to 11 P.M. Thus he had 16 hours of duty in every 48 hours, with an interval of 11 hours between one of the duties and 21 hours between the other. Once in six weeks he had to come on duty on Sunday at 9 A.M., and on these occasions he remained in the office (but of course not on duty all the time) until 9 A.M. on Monday morning, but he was free on all other Sundays. The whole of the Sunday duty was counted to him as overtime, and he might at any time have relieved himself of it by paying to a substitute the amount which he received from the Department for it. This, however, he never seemed to have attempted, but, on the contrary, he occasionally acted as a substitute for other clerks, and was paid by them for the extra work. On this point, however, further inquiries are being made. He need not, unless he had pleased, have done more than the 16 tours duty out of 48 hours on week days. Overtime attendance is not compulsory, and no clerk is required to give it who does not wish to give it. As I have stated, he was taken off night duty at his own request in the middle of June, and he had no more than eight hours day duty from that time until the time of his death. It is not true that on the Saturday before he died he was refused permission to go home. On the contrary, having come on duty at noon on that day, he requested permission to go home between 2 and 3 o'clock, and was actually released from duty, and did go home immediately after 4 o'clock. So far from refusing him, the female clerk in charge under whom he worked took especial pains to find a substitute for him, and eventually put herself to much personal inconvenience in order to let him go. There is not the slightest foundation for the imputation that the Post Office in its dealings with this unfortunate young man, or with the other telegraph clerks, has been actuated by parsimony. I am informed that the medical officer at Telegraph Street saw Whittaker on the 12th of July, and did not consider him to be in ill-health. He appears to have died very suddenly from the bursting of a small bloodvessel, although I see no reason to suppose that his state of health was due to overwork. I think it wrong that even voluntarily boys should be allowed to work so long as on some occasions it appears he did, and I will give directions to prevent it.

said, in his opinion, it was difficult to see what was the necessity for this clause.

said, he wished to move the insertion of words to the effect that a list of the voters at each election shall be placed on the church and chapel doors in each district. The clause left the mode of publication to be determined by the Secretary of State.

said, he objected to the Amendment, which introduced a novel practice. He thought it was better not to carry the result of the elections to churches and chapels.

said, he wished to ask in what manner the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster) proposed to make the publication. He (Mr. J. Lowther) did not think the Amendment a novel principle. The idea was to ex- hibit the list wherever it could be best subject to inspection, and the doors of churches and chapels were selected because they were the places most easily accessible. If the right hon. Gentleman did not accept the suggestion of the hon. Baronet (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), he should say where the proclamations were to be made.

said, he would support the Amendment. The objection to it could not be on the ground of expense, as an election occurred once in every six years or so. He thought the list of the persons voting should be published wherever the registration lists were published. There could be no better means of preventing personation than the knowledge that the names of the persons voting would be publicly posted up.

said, he must hold that there was no analogy between the notices at present posted at church doors and the list of persons voting, and he deprecated publishing the list on church and chapel doors.

then moved the Amendment in altered form, to the effect that such portion of the list of persons voting as related to any district should be posted on the doors of any registered place of worship.

said, that the question really for the Committee to consider was, whether there should be an authorized list published, or whether the publication of a list should be left to the parties themselves.

said, he did not want the publication to be left to an electioneering agent, or electioneering club. The cost of publishing such a list should not be left to be defrayed by some wretched club, and he wanted the electors to be entirely independent of such clubs. If churches and chapels were objected to by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster), the list could be posted at the market cross; at any rate there should be some place where the electors could see it.

said, he wished to point out that in whatever manner the list was published, any elector would have the right to inspect it for the purpose of seeing whether it contained his name.

said, he should support the Amendment. What was wanted was that the list should be published on some public place where the poor man who had only a few hours a day to spare might have an opportunity of seeing whether he had been personated, and who were the parties who had voted. He would remind his hon. Friend (Mr. Collins) that there were very few market crosses now in England, and, little palatable as church doors might be to some, they were probably the best alternative that was left.

said, he would recommend that the Amendment should not be pressed. What might be good in one place might be bad in another. A combination of boroughs would require a different form of publication from a large borough, and it was impossible to lay down any inflexible rule such as the Amendment proposed.

said, he should be quite content with sufficient publication. What was wanted was a fixed place, no matter where, and a real publication.

said, he would suggest that the clause should be made to read—if the Amendment was rejected—that in the event of the Secretary of State not prescribing the time and place of publication, the returning officer should not refuse to allow the list to be inspected.

said, he had an Amendment bearing on this subject on Clause 17. In all the regulations connected with this Bill a very wide discretion was left to some authority, and according to the precedent established by the House that authority ought not to be connected with the House, and should not be a political officer. That the House had decided in a most emphatic manner, by transferring to the Judges the whole jurisdiction in Election Petitions. It appeared to him that it would be better to put into the hands of the authority who was to judge of the proper or improper use of the franchise, the regulations which should become necessary by the operations of this Bill. Either the decision of Parliament was right in having removed from the jurisdiction of this House the whole conduct of Election Petitions, or it was wrong. Assuming it to be right, it was perfectly clear that where regulations were needed under Act of Parliament in order to avoid abuses which would become subject of Petition, it would be infinitely preferable to interpose, in the first instance, the jurisdiction of that authority which Parliament had selected to supersede this House and every political officer connected with it. Because one great misfortune flowing from this Bill was this—that it would give the widest scope to suspicion, and he could not conceive any suspicion more disagreeable than that arising from the Secretary of of State, who was one of the leaders of a political party, being compelled to make regulations for an election in which his party and himself had a deep and immediate interest. Parliament had decided to relieve their House from all imputation of unfairness in the jurisdiction connected with seats in the House, and this was why he had introduced an Amendment on Clause 17. He wished to ask whether, in the present state of the discussion, it was competent for him to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice?

said, that the hon. Member could not competently do so at the present stage of the proceedings.

said, he did not wish to press the question, but he felt there should be some place where the list should be published.

said, that as the Amendment was withdrawn, he would propose an Amendment which would essentially meet all that was wanted. He proposed to omit the words in line 18, "open to public inspection," and to substitute the words "shall be posted in some public place within each polling district." This phraseology would govern both boroughs and counties.

said, he would be guided by the sense of the Committee with regard to the Amendment, but he preferred the clause as it stood.

said, he thought that it would be wise to adhere to the clause in its present shape, as the words "some public place" were vague.

said, he thought it was a waste of time to go on discussing matters which had nothing to do with the Ballot, the only thing the country expected they were discussing. This Bill entirely failed to realize the idea of the Ballot as foreshadowed by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government. He (Mr. Whalley) denied that this was a Ballot Bill at all.

said, he must call the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) to Order. The Question was whether the Amendment before the House should be adopted, and the observations of the hon. Member had no connection whatever with that Question.

rose, and having been called upon by the Chairman, said that he would withdraw his Amendment, and substitute for it "and the transcript thereof shall be posted in some public place in each polling district."

said, that the Chairman had called him to Order, and he having sat down in obedience to the Chairman's authority, but intending to continue his observations in proper form, the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope) was called upon to address the Committee. He (Mr. Whalley) asked whether, upon reflection, the Chairman considered that that was a proper course of proceeding?

said, he was of opinion that the Amendment would not effect the object sought—

said, he rose to Order. The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) had asked a Question, and the hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. Goldsmid) should not have interfered to prevent an answer being given.

I was engaged with another hon. Member as to the terms of an Amendment to be proposed, and I did not hear the Question of the hon. Member for Peterborough.

was about to continue his observations, when—

again rose to Order, and said that the hon. Member for Peterborough, having addressed a Question to the Chairman, had sat down, waiting for an answer. He wished to know whether that hon. Member was not in possession of the Committee.

According to the statement of the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Candlish) the hon. Member for Peterborough had resumed his place when I called upon the hon. Member for Rochester.

He had resumed his seat to await your answer, Mr. Chairman.

said, he had to submit that the Amendment did not provide any machinery for making the copies which were to be posted. He believed that the words in the clause were the best, and should be retained.

said, he must again inquire whether it was within the competence of the Chairman under the plea of calling an hon. Member to Order to prevent his continuing his observations, provided that he kept within the rules of Order. He wished to advert to what he had heard said by a Member of the Treasury bench—that the reason why the Chairman did not answer his question was that it was not worth an answer. He submitted that it was not becoming in a Member of the Ministry to throw out such an observation.

I called the hon. Member for Peterborough to Order because he was making observations that were not relevant to the Amendment before the Committee, and the hon. Member having thereupon stopped, I called upon the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge. With regard to the observation that is said to have been made by some Member of the Treasury bench, I did not hear it, and I do not know that any such observation was publicly made. Of course the hon. Member is at liberty to address the Committee subject to the condition that he will obey the rule of confining himself to the question before it.

said, he thought the discussion which they had been carrying on was really a frivolous one. He wished to refer to observations which he had made on a former occasion, and which in substance he would repeat — that nineteen-twentieths of this Bill had really nothing to do with the Ballot.

rose to Order. The question before the Committee was as to the publication of certain notices; and the observations of the hon. Member had nothing to do with it.

said, that without troubling the Chairman for his opinion he would refer to the objection of the hon. and learned Member (Mr. James). He had been 19 years in that House, and he did not consider it consistent with his self-respect or his duty to his constituents that he should sit silent and see a delusion practised upon the country, and this with such an unconscionable waste of time as must bring discredit upon the House of Commons. There were very lengthy discussions upon details when neither the principle nor the details were in accordance with the promises of the First Minister of the Crown.

said, he wished to modify his Amendment by saying that—

"A transcript of so much of the same as relates to each polling district shall be placed upon some public place in each polling district."

said, he preferred to adhere to the clause as it stood, which provided for everything.

said, he would suggest that the lists should be placed for inspection in the vestry hall.

said, he hoped that the Amendment would be withdrawn.

said, that he should prefer to take the opinion of the Committee upon the matter.

said, he would propose in line 19, of Clause 15, to leave out "a Secretary of State" and to substitute for these words "the judges appointed under the statute 21 & 22 Vic., c. 125, for the trial of Election Petitions." The measure for the establishment of secret voting was one, he thought, well calculated to create suspicion of foul play or a political bias in the conduct of the officers, from the highest to the lowest, appointed to carry out its provisions. It therefore behoved the Committee to do everything possible to remove or mitigate that feeling. Now, it must be admitted that the Secretary of State was a political officer, and necessarily connected with the conduct of the political party he represented. It seemed to him that his Amendment, if adopted, would commend the Bill to the judgment and satisfaction of the country, inasmuch as it provided that the regulations in respect to elections should be intrusted to some officer who could not be suspected of party bias in respect to the conduct of elections. He did not, however, believe that his Amendment would cure the radical defects of the Bill, but he thought that the promoters of the measure would be acting wisely by adopting his proposal—a proposal that was in complete accordance with the course adopted in respect to the trial of Election Petitions. It might be said that the acceptance of his Amendment would have the effect of burdening the Judges with a task which they had not assented to, and that they would not be always present to frame the rules or regulations in question. Now, he was not aware that the Judges had expressed their unwillingness to undertake this new duty, and though the Judges in the case of Election Petitions acted only as they stood upon the rota, the power for the trial of those Petitions was vested not in a single Judge but in the Judges generally. It could not be said then that the subject of those rules and regulations was wholly unfamiliar to them. It should be also remembered that there were always some of the Judges present. He contended that the duties under this clause would most probably be more efficiently discharged by the Judges than by a Secretary of State.

said, he trusted that the Committee would not accept the Amendment of the hon. Member (Mr. Newdegate) because it would be introducing a novel arrangement into our legislation—namely, that of adding administrative functions to the judicial business of our legal dignitaries. He questioned very much whether it would be in the interests of justice to impose such duties as those referred to upon our Judges. The hon. Gentleman had remarked that he had not been informed of their unwillingness to discharge this duty, but in all probability they had had no opportunity of consulting together and stating their opinions on the subject.

said, he would remind the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster) that in regard to the Registration Act it was provided that the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas should from time to time make rules for the regulation of the registration. It appeared to him that that was a prece- dent very much in point. He (Mr. J. Lowther) was one of those who had objected to transferring the jurisdiction of the House over Election Petitions to the Election Judges, but as the House had been of a different opinion on this point, he approved the Amendment proposed by his hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire, because it would merely impose upon the Election Judges duties analogous to those which they now had to perform. The Judges, he might remark, were fully qualified to do the work.

said, the question was not whether the Judges were competent to do the work, but whether the making of regulations respecting the inspection of the registers was congruous to their present duties. In all probability the President of the College of Physicians was perfectly competent to draw up such regulations, but it by no means followed that Parliament ought to select him for the purpose. The duties were purely local and administrative, and he thought the Secretary of State might well be intrusted with them. It was really a comfort and consolation to him (Mr. Beresford Hope) to be able to say something in favour of the Bill. He certainly thought that the proposal of the Government was a reasonable one, and that it would not be prudent to assent to the Amendment of of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate).

said, he desired further to call attention to the fact that the learned Judges had the appointment of the revising barristers, who had to discharge duties connected with the qualification of voters. If, however, hon. Members desired more time for the consideration of his proposal, he would withdraw it for the present, and would make it again on the bringing up of the Report.

said, considering that there were at present 6,500 polling-places, and that they were likely to be multiplied ten times under this Bill, he thought the clause would cast upon the Secretary of State for the Home Department a burden almost too great for any individual to bear. At all events, the right hon. Gentleman could not give his personal attention to all the local arrangements under this clause. In his opinion the regulations ought to be made by some official in each locality, the right of appeal to the Home Office or to a Judge being reserved to anyone who felt dissatisfied with the arrangements.

said, he would withdraw the Amendment, and propose it again on the Report.

said, he wished to draw attention to an ambiguity in the wording of the clause, which said that any portion of the register might be copied on payment of such fees as were prescribed by the Secretary of State. This would seem to imply that it would not be the business of the official in charge of the register to make copies for persons who required them. In order to raise the question he would beg to move in line 20, to omit the word "and."

said, he had intended to move an Amendment to obviate this difficulty.

said, he would undertake to insert words for the purpose of removing the ambiguity complained of.

moved, in page 12, line 20, after "State" to insert—

"And a poll book containing the names of such voters shall be published at a period of not less than six months after, upon the requisition of any of the candidates at such an Election, or of the persons signing their names to the nomination paper."

The information would be of great value in the working of the Act.

said, he must object to the Amendment, which was an entirely new proposition. Under the clause opportunities for obtaining information were given to all persons interested.

said, he considered no benefit would be derived from printing the names of the voters in one large volume.

asked at whose cost it was to be done—the ratepayers, the candidates, or the defeated candidates.

said, the lists were now printed before the election, and he could see no objection to the printing in the same manner, and by the same authority, the names of those who voted at an election.

said, any person could, without the Amendment, publish such a list if he thought fit.

said, hon. Gentlemen appeared to forget that this was a Bill for regulating Municipal as well as Parliamentary Elections. If the Amendment were agreed to it would be necessary to publish, at very short intervals and at great cost, a volume in some boroughs and counties as large as The London Directory, and when done it would be worth no more than waste paper.

said he intended that the Amendment should only have reference to Parliamentary Elections.

said, that the clause authorized the Secretary of State to make rules for the construction of polling-places and the compartments therein "with a view to secure secrecy." He could not understand what was the object of inserting the latter words, and he would therefore beg in page 13, line 14, to omit the words "with a view to ensure secrecy.

said, he would not insist on the retention of the words.

said, he rose to move an Amendment in page 13, after line 23, to insert the following sub-section:—

"4a. For enabling masters and officers in the Mercantile Marine, holding certificates of competency, and pilots holding the licence of any licensing authority, and whose names may be on the registration list, and who may be compelled to go to sea between the nomination and the opening of the poll, to vote by means of ballot papers."

There were exceptional reasons for the exceptional treatment of the claim of persons to whom the Amendment referred. They numbered between 60,000 and 70,000, and unless some such provision as he had moved were adopted they would be virtually disfranchised. The effect of the clause, unless enlarged as he desired, would be to stop the coasting trade for at least one day, because it would be impos- sible to provide suitable substitutes to discharge the duties which devolved upon these men, as none but licensed officers or pilots could be employed, and the number so licensed was regulated by the ordinary laws of supply and demand. He should like to see this experiment tried in the first instance with officers holding certificates of competency, but if it answered there was no reason why the system of voting papers should not be extended to all other classes of seamen and especially men engaged in the deep-sea fisheries. He had not drawn up a clause on the subject, as he was perfectly content to leave it to the Secretary of State for the Home Department to draw up the necessary regulations.

said, that his hon. Friend (Mr. Graves) was, in fact, reviving the question of voting papers, which the Committee, after a long debate had resolved not to adopt. His hon. Friend would not be surprised to learn that he (Mr. W. E. Forster) could not accept the Amendment. He would not deny that the case brought forward by the hon. Member was a strong argument in favour of voting papers; but the Committee, with all those exceptional cases before them, had come to the conclusion that the public disadvantages of voting papers were greater than their advantages. The hon. Member must perceive that it would be hardly possible to make an exceptional rule in favour of the class for whom he pleaded. If they were permitted to vote without personally attending at the polling-place, medical men and the members of other professions might justly claim the same privilege. Even if the Committee wished to allow marine officers holding certificates of competency to be exempted from attendance at the poll, the power of making the necessary regulations ought not to be vested in the Secretary of State, who would thus be rendered liable to charges of partizanship and unfairness. He however thought the proposal enlarged the scope of the existing law. Railway guards were placed under electoral disadvantages as great as those which attached to a seafaring life, and it was only fair, if provision were made to meet the exigencies of the one class, a similar provision should apply to the other as well.

said, the inherent difficulty was that these men were obliged to vote on one particular day, without that latitude that was given in University elections. As the representative of a maritime borough (Boston) he had seen the great hardship inflicted on the seafaring population by the present state of the law. A fisherman must either forfeit a week's wages or lose his vote. If he remained on shore to vote his friends by some means would have to make it good. It would be a great boon to the maritime population to make a law in accordance with the Amendment which had been proposed, and if the clause were sanctioned he thought it ought to be extended to common sailors; but as there were other classes of the community placed in similar circumstances he did not think the question ought to be dealt with by an incidental Amendment like the one before the House, and therefore he thought it would be as well not to push the proposal to a division.

said, as representing a maritime constituency—[Mr. CANDLISH: Oh, oh!] He did not know why the hon. Member should say "Oh, oh!" except that it was the only kind of argument he was permitted by the occupants of the Treasury bench to use. As representing a maritime constituency, he hoped the proposition of the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves) would be adopted by the Committee. He remembered one case in which a number of seafaring voters were blown out to sea in a sailing vessel on the morning of a polling day, and the political party to which they belonged had to charter a steamer in order to fetch them back again to vote.

said, he thought the proposal of his hon. Friend (Mr. Graves) inadequate, but would vote for it on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread. If the Amendment were passed he should move to in- sert words which would extend its operations to persons other than seafaring men, who were prevented by exceptional circumstances from being present at the poll.

said, he thought the seafaring population deserved to be relieved from their present electoral difficulties.

said, he hoped the Government would favourably consider this proposition of his hon. Friend (Mr. Graves). They should remember that for a long time—more than 40 years—the tendency of all our legislation on this subject had been to reduce the period during which a vote could be given. On the whole, there was no doubt very good reasons for our first efforts in that direction; but within the last few years the time secured to the elector for the recording of his vote by the Bill of Lord Grey, had been reduced to one day, a reduction which amounted to the disfranchisement of considerable classes of the community. Now that the constituencies had been enlarged this grievance was proportionately increased, and it always had appeared to him to be absolutely necessary, whether ballot were adopted or not, that some arrangement should be made by which certain classes of electors — seafaring men and others similarly situated — might be enabled to exercise the franchise without being personally present at the polling-place. Otherwise, this concession of the franchise would become a mere mockery. Considering that this was an insular country, with a very large maritime population, and that we were peculiarly dependent upon the virtues and character of that class of the community, he must say that to give them the franchise under circumstances in which they could not exercise it, was to create a state of affairs amounting to a great public grievance, and a source of national danger. Therefore, he thought the proposition of his hon. Friend was one well worthy of consideration. Nor did he think, whatever might be the decision of the Committee, that this was a subject which could really be neglected. He could not, with the Vice President of the Council, see a similarity between the case of sailors and railway employés in regard to this question. The one class were frequently compelled to go to sea between the nomination day and the day of polling, while the other class were always on land, and had the greatest facilities afforded to them by the railway companies to give their votes. For these reasons he hoped the proposition of his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool would be adopted.

said, he thought it a little suprising that the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli), if he thought the point so important, did not think of it in 1867 when he was passing his Reform Bill through the House.

I proposed voting papers in the Bill of 1867.

said, he had quite forgotten the fact; but he did not think the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was a very vital one. At any rate the right hon. Gentleman abandoned it.

I divided the House upon it.

At any rate, the number of persons entitled to vote who were prevented doing so by having to go to sea was very small as compared with the whole number of those whose voting power was crippled by exceptional circumstances, and if personal voting was dispensed with in the case of seamen, it ought to be dispensed with altogether. Why ought commercial travellers, for instance, to be excluded from the advantage now proposed to be conceded to the seafaring class? He did not think the proposal was at all necessary; and, as far as he was concerned, he did not, as the representative of an important maritime constituency, ask for the concession to be made. He believed he served his constituents best by refusing the offer. But if the proposal were adopted, why should it not be made to include the men as well as the masters and officers, the former being much more numerous?

said, the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) was undoubtedly one of great importance; but he thought the Committee would come to the conclusion that, as the question was altogether new to the Bill, it would be better to adhere to the one day of voting. He did not say the question was not worthy of consideration, but it involved conditions perfectly new to the Bill, and was one of great difficulty. He agreed with the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves) that this Amendment could not be taken by itself. There would really be no consistency in it. The only mode in which the matter could be considered was on making a provision by which any person who might satisfy some official that his calling took him from home should be allowed to vote, not at the regular time, but at some other time between the day of nomination and the day of election. Such a provision would involve an important change, the principle of which should not be adopted by means of the Amendment of the hon. Member. He believed that the opinion of the country would be in favour of one day's poll and of personal voting, and his hon. Friend would see that the Government could not in consistency accept the Amendment.

said, he hoped his hon. Friend (Mr. Graves) would go to a division and secure to a deserving class the means of exercising the suffrage.

said, he admitted that the principle was a new one, and that it could not be limited to a particular class; but he thought it was not a new principle in the Legislature. He saw no reason why some indulgence should not be extended to electors engaged in a seafaring life.

said, it should be borne in mind that this particular class were debarred by law from recording their vote, because a seaman, absenting himself for the purpose when the ship had to leave port, would be guilty of desertion. The law was so set in motion as to prevent such persons from exercising the franchise. For that reason he should support his hon. Friend (Mr. Graves).

said, he was surprised that hon. Members could not see the distinction between voters whose avocations took them to sea and others who were employed on land. He maintained that there was no analogy between employés on a railway and seafaring people, since the former possessed the advantage over the latter of being able to provide substitutes while they went to the polling-booth. From his connection with one of the principal railways in the kingdom, he knew that the greatest possible facilities were given to railway officials to record their votes. The subject was of such moment that he should again take it up if no one else would.

said, he objected to the proposition of the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves) to confine the operation of his proposal to those seamen who were above the rank of ordinary sailors. Officers and men ought all to be included, as all suffered under an equal disability. There were various modes by which the ballot paper might be delivered in the absence of a seaman who had a vote to give. One method he would suggest was to empower the collector of Customs, at the port from which the ship sailed, to receive the signed ballot paper, and give it up on the day of election. A pilot had no option, but was bound to attend a foreign-going ship. Why should he lose his vote for doing so? The collector of Customs was aware of this necessity, and he therefore would be the best person with whom to deposit the voting paper. He denied that the case of seamen, the incidents of whose lives were so exceptional, and who were dependent upon and obliged to watch tides, the action of which no man could control, was in any sense within the rules applicable to working men on shore. Their interests required to be protected just as much as those of any other persons, and those interests would be ignored if they were not allowed to vote as suggested.

In accordance with the arrangement come to late last night, or rather early this morning, I now propose to report Progress, with the intention of proceeding with Clause 18 on Monday evening. I think I may be allowed to say that the rapid progress made to day has justified me in the idea which I yesterday entertained that we might have proceeded with all the clauses of the Bill, and that if the same rate of progress had been observed complete discussion might have been secured upon each. However, the arrangement was entered into for the convenience of the Committee, and though we may regret the loss of two hours — [An Hon. MEMBER: An hour and a-half.] An hour and three-quarters. ["No, no!"] Well, even an hour and a-half is a very precious commodity at this time, I the less regret the delay, however, as I shall have to ask the House to take the Education Vote some time in the course of the day.

said, he rose to move for Copies of the Evidence taken before a Public Court of Inquiry held at Glin, in the county of Limerick, by certain Constabulary officers into charges affecting constable M'Kinly and sub-constable M'Carthy; of the Report of the said officers, and of the Order dismissing from the service said sub-constable M'Oarthy and sub-constable Madden. And, in the event of the said Return being refused, to move the following Resolution:—

"That, in the opinion of this House, the dismissal of the said sub-constable M'Carthy, and the confiscation or discontinuance of his pension after nineteen years' service was arbitrary, unjust, and cruel."

The facts of the case were simply these—sub-constables M'Carthy and Madden had been in the constabulary service in Ireland, but were dismissed the service under the following circumstances:—M'Carthy had been 19 years in the service, and in 1868, whilst stationed in the county Clare, he got into bad health, and was sent by his inspector, with an excellent character, to Dublin for medical inspection. He there entered Stevens's Hospital, where he was pronounced by two eminent medical men to be labouring under heart disease. He was thereupon recommended for a provisional pension, not having completed his 20 years' service, when he would have been fully entitled to a pension. He returned to Clare in 1869, and was soon afterwards sent to Glin, on the Shannon, in Limerick, that place being near the sea. In March, 1870, he was ordered not to be employed on active duty. It appeared that upon a certain day he was sitting in the barrack kitchen, reading his Prayer Book, in company with sub- constables Madden and Perrin. Constable M'Kinly, a Scotchman, having entered the kitchen and looked over the shoulder of M'Carthy, observed to him that he was praying to saints. M'Carthy denied it. After some interchange of words between the two sub-constables, Madden, who was listening, observed to M'Kinly, that if he looked into his own Book of Common Prayer he would find that prayers to saints were recommended. The result was a bet of 5s. between M'Kinly and Madden, the former asserting that there was nothing of the kind to be found in the book. Whereupon the book itself was produced, and it was found that it contained a prayer for the intercession of saints. Madden then demanded his 5s., but M'Kinly refused to pay, denying that he had made any bet at all. These facts having come to the knowledge of the sub-inspector he reported the matter to head-quarters. A Court of Inquiry was thereupon held upon M'Carthy and Madden, and the result was that an Order was issued by the authorities in Dublin by which they were both dismissed the service. He (Mr. Synan) submitted that that was a most unjust and arbitrary proceeding, wholly unwarranted by the evidence adduced at the Court of Inquiry. He on-treated the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in considering the case of these men, not to allow himself to be influenced by the prejudices of the local constabulary authorities. In conclusion, he begged to move for the Papers mentioned in his Notice. It was the duty of the House to see justice done to the lowest and meanest of Her Majesty's subjects. M'Carthy had no appeal for justice except to that House, and unless it interfered he was helpless and without remedy. The poor man was on his way to the workhouse with his wife and family.

, in seconding the Motion, said, he must warn the noble Lord (the Marquess of Hartington) that great dissatisfaction prevailed amongst the Irish constabulary. The best men were leaving the force and emigrating to America, because promotion was not by merit, but of the men who preferred the most cases and most annoyed the public The stereotyped answer to any complaints made to the Government was that they could not interfere with the head of the Constabulary Department, and thus there was no appeal even in the case of the most unjust decisions. He had not the slightest knowledge of the circumstances of this case until he heard the statement of his hon. Friend (Mr. Synan), which impressed him with the belief that injustice was done to these two men in dismissing them from the service. It was impossible to deny M'Carthy's right to demand a copy of the Papers. The police force in Ireland required re-organization—the time had come when there must be a change in the system, and the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland could not undertake a more useful and popular duty than to inquire into the organization of the Force, with a view to its alteration and improvement.

said, he did not think the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Downing) had given any very valuable assistance to the mover of the Motion, for he had frankly admitted that he knew nothing whatever about it. He regretted that he was unable to accede to the Motion, and he believed that no practice could be more injurious than to set up the House of Commons as an appeal from the decisions of tribunals properly constituted, and in which, speaking generally, the Constabulary felt perfect confidence. The facts of the case were these. A complaint was made by M'Carthy to the effect that sub-constable M'Kinly had unjustly withheld from him a sum of money to which he was entitled, M'Kinly having lost it in a bet. He (the Marquess of Hartington) had no wish to attribute to sub-constable M'Carthy a bad character; but his character was not so absolutely free from reproach as the hon. Member would lead the House to suppose, for there were passages in the career of M'Carthy that gave rise to the impression that he was in the habit, to some extent, of shirking his duty, and of preferring frivolous complaints. The Report in reference to this charge of M'Carthy was that it was frivolous, and it recommended that he should be summarily dismissed from the Force. But the Inspector General declined to act on that recommendation, and ordered a Court of Inquiry to be held, before which M'Carthy might substantiate the charge made by him, if he was in a position to do so. The Court, after hearing the evidence on both sides, decided that the charge against M'Kinly had not been proved, and thereupon the sentence followed, which he (the Marquess of Hartington) could not admit to be too severe; for he need hardly say that a more serious offence could scarcely be committed by a police constable than that of preferring false charges against a comrade in the Force. The evidence no doubt was of a contradictory character; but it was material to observe that M'Carthy in his sworn testimony varied from his original statement as to the presence of certain witnesses who when examined denied that any such occurrence as alleged had taken place in their presence. The officers could have no motive whatever for arriving at any unjust finding, and he thought that they, having had the witnesses all before them, were better qualified to form a sound opinion than the House of Commons could be from merely reading the documents. Then as to the pension. It was true that M'Carthy had been 19 years in the Force, and that, on the recommendation of a medical report, he had been granted a temporary, not a provisional pension of £13 10s. for six months. At the end of that time he was re-examined, and being reported fit for duty was readmitted into the Force, and it was not until a considerable period after that time that he committed himself by the act which forfeited his claim. He (the Marquess of Hartington) could only express his regret that M'Carthy's conduct should have deprived him of the pension which another year's service would have entitled him to receive. There could be no doubt about the facts, for he (the Marquess of Hartington) had telegraphed to Ireland specially for information on that point. Under all the circumstances, he could not help regretting that this case had ever been brought before the House. He did not mean to say that if there were a doubtful case it would not be proper that it should be brought be- fore the House; but when the evidence was taken not privately but publicly the case was different. The hon. Member (Mr. Synan) had inspected the Minutes of Evidence in the case, and he (the Marquess of Hartington) must say that the Court of Inquiry was a better tribunal than that House would be in such a case.

said, he regretted the decision at which the noble Marquess had arrived. It was evident both from his own (the Marquess of Hartington's) statement and that of the hon. Member who brought forward the Motion, that considerable doubt, if not positive conflict, existed as to the facts. Much dissatisfaction existed both in the Force itself and in the district with the decision, and the obvious, simple, and satisfactory way to meet and get rid of this dissatisfaction would have been to produce the Papers. The way in which the noble Marquess had attempted to meet the case was, in his opinion, far from satisfactory.

said, that whatever might be the merits of this particular case the Motion itself was useful, for it was well known that the action of the heads of the Irish Constabulary force was in many cases arbitrary and unjust. One case had come to his knowledge where an officer after 30 years' service, and after being many times complimented publicly, was dismissed without inquiry and without pension, and was now rotting in a debtors' prison. The matter was too important to be passed over sub silentio, and if the Government when appealed to by members of the Force were naturally unwilling to interfere, the only possible appeal was to the House of Commons.

said, the question raised in this case was not as to the form of procedure, but whether the man convicted, and punished by the heads of the Force was guilty or not. That was a question which could only be solved by the production of the Papers. It had an exceedingly suspicious look when the Government refused the details of a case which an hon. Member showed conclusively to be one of doubt and direct conflict of testimony.

said, he had placed a Question on the Paper which involved a point most important to the subjects of this realm. It related to the seizure of the Tornado by the Spanish Government some years ago. The circumstances of the case were well stated in the judgment of Vice Chancellor Malins pronounced on Thursday last, and which he should have read to the House but for its length. ["Hear, hear!"] He thought it rather extraordinary that an Irish Law Officer of the Crown should venture to sneer at the decision of an English Judge.

I rise to Order. There is really no foundation for the remark of the hon. Gentleman. I only said "Hear, hear!" If he wishes me not to say "Hoar, hear!" I will not do so again.

The hon. and learned Gentleman said "Hear, hoar" in an Irish tone. He would state the circumstances of this case as shortly as he could. In 1866 the British ship Tornado was seized by the Spanish Government, and the crow having been imprisoned and robbed of their effects, they made a claim against that Government, through the medium of the Foreign Office. Mr. Forbes Campbell was employed to defend their rights. They executed an irrevocable power of attorney to Mr. Forbes Campbell to receive any sum that might be recovered from the Spanish Government. That document was held by the Vice Chancellor to be an equitable assignment. After lengthened negotiations, in the course of last year the Spanish Government paid over to the British Government the sum of £1,500 as compensation for the wrongs which these individuals had suffered. Mr. Forbes Campbell was recognized after the execution of the power of attorney as the legal agent of these individuals by the Foreign Office, as he could himself testify. He took the opinion of the Attorney General, and paid a large fee for it, and the opinion of the Attorney General in favour of the rights of the claimants would be found in the Parliamentary Papers. The sum of £1,500 was accepted by Mr. Forbes Campbell on behalf of the crew in satisfaction of all claims and demands on the Spanish Government. When, in April last, the money was paid the Foreign Office declined to distribute it, and handed it over to the Board of Trade. He had consulted his right hon. Friend on the subject, who stated that he could not himself deal with the matter, and must abide by such legal official advice as he might receive. All of a sudden he was informed by Mr. Forbes Campbell, who held this equitable assignment, and was entitled to one-third of the money for his commission, that he had been ignored by the Board of Trade. He attended with Mr. Forbes Campbell at the Board of Trade, saw the private secretary of his right hon. Friend, and placed before him the whole circumstances of the case, specially requesting that Mr. Forbes Campbell might be communicated with before there was a division of the money. Unfortunately, though there was virtually an undertaking to that effect, that course was not followed, and the Board of Trade proceeded to distribute the money. Mr. Forbes Campbell again consulted him. He told him there was no alternative but to go to law, file a bill, and move for an injunction against the Board of Trade distributing the money. Mr. Forbes Campbell acted on his advice, moved for and obtained an interim injunction from Vice Chancellor Malins. The following morning, counsel for the Crown applied to the Lord Chancellor to dissolve the injunction, which his Lordship refused with costs, and an expenditure of £200 was thereby uselessly incurred by the Government. Last Thursday week a Motion was made in due form for an injunction to restrain the Board of Trade from proceeding any further in the division of the money; the application was made by Mr. Glasse; it was opposed on behalf of the Board of Trade; and, without calling on Mr. Glasse for a reply, Vice Chancellor Malins decided against the Board of Trade. In the course of his judgment, he said—

"The correspondence on the part of the crew has been carried on between Mr. Campbell and the Government, and at a very early stage of the proceedings the Board of Trade had notice that Mr. Campbell was acting under a power of attorney from the crew. … . Therefore, the officers of the Board of Trade were bound to know, and I very much regret that this Motion should have been caused by a total neglect on their part, of the existence of this assignment, and anybody who had knowledge of its existence, and yet acted as if it did not exist, must have entirely overlooked the powers of the Court of Chancery…… That they did have notice of the assignment here is clearly beyond doubt. … . I consider the whole proceeding a most unjustifiable one. … . I am surprised that the Government should have allowed the time of the Court to be occupied ten minutes with the case. If the Government have distributed this money after notice, in defiance of the notice of Mr. Campbell, they have done that which is exceedingly wrong. … . If in defiance of the rights of which they had notice—if they have paid over the money in derogation of those lights, if Mr. Campbell shall hereafter establish them, the Government have acted in a manner which renders them liable to pay the money over again. I cannot conceive a more unjustiable act. … . Mr. Campbell, for the purposes of his motion, has distinctly shown that he has an interest to the extent of one-third of the sum that has been allotted to each of the persons to whom the Government have made allotment. Is it right that, in defiance of Mr. Campbell's rights, the Government are to invite these men to come and take the whole fund? . … I can only repeat, and repeat most emphatically, that if the Government have paid over any money since the notice of Mr. Campbell's rights, they have acted in a manner which I very greatly regret, which is wholly without justification, and I hope Mr. Campbell will find the means of making them pay the money over again if he establishes his right to it at the hearing of the cause. I therefore limit my injunction to their parting with one-third of the money appropriated to those persons who have executed the power of attorney or any other instrument in favour of Mr. Campbell."

The Attorney General knew from the first that Mr. Forbes Campbell had been recognized by the Foreign Office as the agent of the crew. The Parliamentary Papers in the hands of Members proved Mr. Campbell's legal position. That position had never been doubted by the Foreign Secretaries in succession, as he (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) could testify; and now that view was fully and absolutely confirmed by the Vice Chancellor. His object in bringing the matter forward, now that the opinion of the Court was known, was to prevent Mr. Forbes Campbell being oppressed by the delay and cost of useless litigation with the Government, when the Government were in the wrong and would ultimately have to pay; and, if the Government thought their dignity would be compromised by stopping the proceedings and paying the claims of Mr. Forbes Campbell, which it was clearly their duty to do, he would suggest that the matter should be referred to the arbitration of the leaders on either side—Mr. Glasse and Mr. Cotton.

rose to Order. He submitted that it was improper for an hon. Member to enter into the details of a case which was under litigation.

said, the question whether a matter which was under the consideration of the Court of Chancery was a proper subject to be discussed in the House had often been raised, and the House had always declined to enter upon questions which were sub judice. He was not aware of the exact position of this case, which the Law Officer would perhaps explain.

said, he had carefully guarded himself against this objection, and he had cited only a judgment which was public property, and which had, to all intents and purposes, decided the case; and, having done that, all that he desired to do further was to ask the President of the Board of Trade, Whether, under the circumstances, he will not at once stop the proceedings in the cause, and pay to the plaintiff the amount to which he is entitled, and also all the costs of the suit?

said, he had been many years in that House, but had never heard so irregular and improper an appeal made. A counsel practising in the Court of Chancery, professing to be cognizant of its proceedings, and having advised a person to file a bill against his right hon. Friend (Mr. Chichester Fortescue), and an interim injunction having been granted almost as a matter of course, and no answer having been put in, while the case was still pending the counsel who had advised the institution of those proceedings now came to that House.

rose to explain, ["Order!"]

said, that the hon. and learned Member was not entitled to interrupt the hon. and learned Member in possession of the House without that hon. and learned Member's consent.

continued: The hon. and learned Member had said that he advised Mr. Forbes Campbell to institute the suit now pending, and yet he made a long speech in the House of Commons, and endeavoured to obtain the opinion of that House on a question still sub judice. In his recollection nothing so irregular had ever been done before by a barrister in that House. He would not follow the hon. and learned Member's example by now discussing the case, for that House was not a Court of Appeal from the Court of Chancery, or from any other tribunal. Indeed, he did not know how the proper Business of the House could ever be done if every barrister in it who had advised a client to institute a suit, and who was dissatisfied with the course of the proceedings, was to come and tell his grievances to that House. [Mr. CAVENDISH BENTINCK said he had done nothing of the sort.] A Bill had been filed in Chancery by the advice of the hon. and learned Member—and bad advice it was in his opinion—against the President of the Board of Trade, to obtain payment to Mr. Forbes Campbell, the owner of the Tornado, which was condemned as a Chilian privateer, of the sum of £1,500 paid by the Spanish Government to be distributed by Her Majesty's Government among the sufferers—that was to say, the innocent crew, who had been induced to serve on board of that vessel without knowing what she was. He filed a bill praying that the whole of that money, or a large portion of it, might be paid to him, and the Vice Chancellor granted an injunction to a very limited extent—namely, there being 53 persons concerned, and he having originally represented that he was entitled to obtain the shares of all of them, some 11 of them, according to his own showing at present, had entered into some agreement that he was to have one-third. The Vice Chancellor had granted an injunction restraining his right hon. Friend from parting with that one-third of the money of those 11 persons. He had no wish to enter into the merits of the case, and had only to say that whatever might be the ultimate decision of the Court, it would of course be acquiesced in by the Government.

said, he regretted that the Attorney General had not allowed him to explain. The hon. and learned Gentleman had attributed to him that he was counsel for the plaintiff, and had acted for and advised, him professionally. There was not a shadow of foundation for such an accusation, and it was most improper in every respect. He (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) had only advised the claimant because he was intrusted with the conduct of the Tornado case in Parliament.

said, in answer to the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Macfie), he was unable to give him his Return precisely as it stood on the Paper, but would endeavour to frame a Return which would give him the information he required. In proposing to substitute a kind of Commercial Council for the present Department of Trade, his hon. Friend rather fell into an anachronism, because the consultative functions of the Board of Trade, from the nature of things and the progress of events, had become comparatively small, whereas its administrative functions, from the same causes, had very largely increased, and by the present staff were very efficiently discharged. The amount of work which fell upon the Department was by no means trifling. The administrative and consultative functions of the Board of Trade were often mistaken and confused by the public, who expected the Department to act in matters over which it had no direct control, and which it could only bring to the notice of other Departments. A case of that kind occurred the other day in regard to the importation into London of adulterated and fictitious tea—a matter in which the President of the Board of Trade would naturally take great interest and endeavour to get remedied, though he had no power to give orders to the officers of Customs. A Commercial Council would not, however, forward nine-tenths of the business now brought before the Board; and his hon. Friend's reforming intentions in that direction were not suited to the present time.

said, in the absence of his hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell), it would be his duty to move the Amendment of which his hon. Friend had given Notice. Even had he no other grounds for doing so he thought the House would feel that half-past 2 o'clock in the morning was very much too late an hour at which to begin so important a discussion. But on general grounds, and in the interest of ratepayers generally, he strongly protested against proceeding with that Bill. In the first place, it was a Bill in which ratepayers were much more interested than the Governing Bodies of towns. He deprecated strongly the arbitrary powers which it was proposed to confer upon those Governing Bodies. He also deprecated very strongly the proposal to take away from ratepayers the checks and safeguards which they now enjoyed against plans and schemes brought forward by those Governing Bodies upon insufficient grounds. He repeated that that Bill affected ratepayers a vast deal more than it affected the Governing Bodies of towns and other places, and the interests of the ratepayers were entirely disregarded and set at naught in that Bill. The powers it created were so wide in their bearing that he believed Governing Bodies, if the Bill passed, would be able to undertake almost any mortal thing they pleased. It was impossible for the ratepayers to estimate the amount of the expenditure for which they would be liable if Governing Bodies were to be at liberty to undertake any schemes they might have a fancy for. The powers given by the Bill were so unprecedentedly wide that he said there was scarcely a scheme which Town Councils and other bodies might not undertake, and whether those schemes were wanted or not, or whether they were successful or not, the ratepayers would be obliged to sanction them, and to pay for them. That would be a very great hardship upon the ratepayers. Again, he considered that that Bill would be a great incentive to litigation. It had often been said that when they had one attorney in a small town he starved; but directly they had two, they prospered and grew rich, because one made business for the other. That would be the case here, for one legal gentleman would promote a Bill, another would oppose it, and they would do all this at the expense of the ratepayers. At present the expenditure of every borough was strictly limited and denned by Act of Parliament. That had been so for 35 years, and the system had always worked well. They proposed to remove all those restrictions, as well as the right which ratepayers now enjoyed of appealing to a Court of Law or Equity. Corporations now could only use the borough funds for purposes limited by the Act: but they took away all such limitations by that Bill. Now, he said that at such an hour as that, and at such a period of the Session, they should not be asked to discuss such a question as that. The Bill was a bad Bill when it came into Committee. Hon. Members, however, thought that the powers it conferred would, in Committee, be much restricted. Instead of that, those powers had been considerably enlarged. The ratepayers now were to have no appeal, and where formerly the Bill only applied to towns of 5,000 inhabitants, they had now made it apply to towns of 3,000. Now, it might be true, in large towns like Liverpool or Manchester, where the Corporations were large, respectable, and intelligent bodies, it would be quite right to give such Corporations those powers; but when they proposed to confer them on small towns containing 2,000 or 3,000 people, such a proposal was manifestly absurd. Moreover, there was one clause in the Bill—the retrospective clause — to which he strongly objected. That provision empowered a Governing Body to pay law expenses out of the borough rates in respect of anything done within the last three years. It mattered not whether the ratepayers had opposed those measures. It was notorious that the case which had given rise to that clause, and the Bill generally, was the case of Sheffield. Now, something like 3,000 ratepayers there did not wish the Governing Body to do anything either in the way of promoting or opposing Gas or Water Bills. However, the Corporation persisted, and the ratepayers then subscribed a large amount of money to test the question, and were successful against the Corporation, both in the Court of Chancery and Court of Queen's Bench. Yet, in spite of those proceedings, they were going to legalize and set at naught the decisions given by both those Courts. Such a course was most unprecedented. If there was no other reasons for the step he was taking, the notion of their having to consider an important Bill of that description at that hour in the morning would, he thought, justify him in opposing the Bill in every possible way. He would therefore move, as an Amendment to the Motion for now going into Committee, that the House do resolve itself into Committee on the Bill this day three months.

said, he rose for the purpose of seconding the Motion. The larger ratepayers in the borough he represented entertained the strongest objection to that Bill, and felt sure that if they conferred those powers upon Governing Bodies the amount of rates would greatly exceed those which were now levied. He presented a Petition to that House last week, in which the largest ratepayers in the borough of Ashton stated that they observed with grave alarm the proposal to confer such extensive and unprecedented power upon the local authorities of the district in which they resided, inasmuch as those authorities had involved the district in heavy liabilities for unprofitable undertakings which were not required, and therefore the petitioners emphatically protested against any further powers being granted to the local authorities of the district. He fully concurred in that prayer, and felt satisfied that unless that measure was rejected, it would create great dissatisfaction, and give rise to no small amount of litigation throughout the country.

moved that the debate be now adjourned.