asked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether, in accordance with the usual practice, he will, before asking the House to go into Committee on the Public Health Bill, propose a Resolution in Committee of the Whole House, to sanction the imposition on the public Revenue of such part of the expenditure under that Bill as he intends to provide for from that source, in order that the House may have time to consider his proposals on this point, before it is asked to proceed with the Bill?

, in reply, said, it was necessary to take the course sug- gested by the hon. Baronet only when the measure contained clauses proposing a charge upon the public Revenue. The Bill referred to contained no such clause. Whatever charges it would impose would be voted from year to year. Under these circumstances, it would be out of his power to take the course suggested.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had not stated whether the House would have time to consider his new proposals before the Bill was proceeded with.

said, he should be quite prepared to give any information on the subject at such time as might appear convenient to the House.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, before going into Committee on the Education (Scotland) Bill, he will place on the Notice Paper Amendments for giving effect to the Resolution of the House of Commons of the 7th May in reference to that Bill?

said, in reply, that the Government had no intention of placing any such Amendments upon the Paper, for the simple reason that they did not propose to take any step calculated to give effect to the Resolution. The Government thought that the Amendment given Notice of by the hon. and learned Member for the University of Glasgow (Mr. Gordon) sufficiently embraced the spirit of the Resolution, and would afford the House an opportunity of re-considering the question in Committee.

asked when the Bill would be proceeded with?

said, that depended upon the course of Business next week. It was necessary that some provision should be made for such portion of the Miscellaneous Estimates as would not be voted that night, and the Government intended asking for a Vote of Credit for four weeks on Monday. After that the Motion would be made that the Speaker leave the Chair, that the House might go into Committee on the Scotch Education Bill. On Monday, also, he proposed moving the ordinary Resolution relating to Morning Sittings, making them subject to the Resolution of 1869, and he proposed the House should sit at two o'clock on Tuesday the 4th of June, and proceed with the Scotch Education Bill.

said, the present intention of the Government was to proceed with the Scotch Education Bill morning and evening until the close of the Committee.

, in rising pursuant to Notice, to call attention to the relations between the mother country and the colonies, and to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, Her Majesty's Government should consider whether it is expedient and opportune that they should advise Her Majesty to appoint a Commission to inquire as to the propriety and best means of admitting the Colonies, which, by their loyalty and patriotism, their intelligence and vigour, their numbers, geographical position, and resources, have become a highly important part of the nation, to participation in the conduct of affairs that concern the general interest of the Empire,"

said, that the subject, although most important, had as yet received very little attention from the House. Happily, the relations of the United Kingdom with the colonies had never formed a party question, and he trusted they never would. We had just completed arrangements with the Dominion of Canada which had been required, in some degree, in consequence of the want of representation in this country of that great colony, and matters bearing on its connection with the mother country must before long be brought under the consideration of that House. Again, that subject was rising rapidly and prominently into the view of the public here, and especially of the working classes, who regarded the colonies in some degree as their natural future homes, and the vast unoccupied territory held by the Crown as affording lands to be cultivated by subjects of Her Majesty, who would hereafter form communities which would add to the strength and prosperity of her Empire. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy) when starring it in the provinces lately, had publicly stated that if the party with which he was connected came into office again it would be one of their great duties to maintain our colonial Empire. He hoped that declaration would stir up the present Government to greater zeal than they had in time past felt at liberty to show in carrying out the wishes of the people in favour of a consolidation of the Empire. What might now be done with ease in that direction might before very long become a work of difficulty. Into two great groups of our colonies the system had been introduced of what was called responsible government—a high-sounding phrase which he was afraid was rather calculated to mislead them. Sir Philip Wodehouse, a recent Governor of the Cape Colony, in a despatch lately laid on the Table of the House, said he had always held responsible government to be applicable only to communities which were fast advancing to fitness for absolute independence. The then Colonial Secretary in 1870 wrote to Sir Philip Wodehouse that he could hardly expect the concurrence of Her Majesty's Government in the views he had put forward respecting the consequences to be speedily anticipated from the establishment of responsible Government in any colony. About the same time, writing to Sir George Bowen, Governor of New Zealand, the Colonial Secretary said Her Majesty's Government disavowed any desire to bring about any separation between the mother country and that colony. Instead of that somewhat weak language he should have preferred a declaration from the Government of a resolute determination on the part of this country to uphold the relations which subsisted between England and her colonies, and to draw still closes the bonds which united them to her. The late Sir William Denison, another Governor of great eminence, expressed his opinion that in order to get rid of the cost of supporting the colonies we were trying to induce them to claim their independence. Earl Grey, in 1869, stated it as his view that the result to be looked for from the policy declared by Her Majesty's Government was the breaking up of our colonial Empire. After quoting the opinions of Mr. Haliburton—son of the author of Sam Slick—and other colonial writers as to the progress now being made in the career of dismemberment, and denying the power of any Government to fritter away by carelessness or indifference the rights of citizenship from its colonial subjects unless they showed a wish to cast off their allegiance to it, the hon. Member referred to a Commission appointed in the Australian Colonies, which said that the relations now subsisting between those communities and the mother country was so wanting in mutuality that it could not safely be regarded as a lasting one, and that it became necessary to consider how it might be so modified as to give a greater security for its permanence. The Government of Queensland had declared that the time was not distant when the colonies would ask from the British Government a declaration as to how far the latter would recognize any duties towards the colonies in time of war. It was evident that the colonies looked forward to the time when the Government of this country would be inclined to sever the connection which at present joined them to us. Statesmen in this country had uttered predictions relative to the colonies which unfortunately had a tendency to fulfil themselves. They had regarded the future separation of the colonies from the mother country with complacency; they had told us that in such an event they and we should remain allies—a fact which he very much doubted—and that we should not suffer in our trade with them. With reference to the latter subject he felt bound to point out that those countries which had been separated from Great Britain consumed less British goods proportionately than our colonies did. The United States took but a comparatively small amount of British goods. When a man emigrated from this country, if he went to Canada he took with him his property, whatever it might be, and it was not lost to the Empire; but if he went to America, besides the possibility of his becoming an enemy, he took his property with him, and the Empire became so much the poorer. In the event of war our colonies would be of infinite service to us, as they would furnish us with coal and other necessary supplies, while their ports would afford our ships shelter in case of need. Were we, on the other hand, to be separated from them, we should not have a single port open to us in the world, because our colonies, having the neutrality laws before their eyes, would be afraid to receive us. The United States treated their colonies in a very different manner. Instead of constantly threatening them with separation, they asked them to send representatives to Congress, and to contribute towards the general expenses of the country. [The hon. Member proceeded to read somewhat long extracts from the late Lord Elgin's letters, with the view of showing that he was in favour of a more intimate connection than now existed between this country and our colonies.] It was not, however, merely in words that this country had taken pains to inculcate the belief that its connection with the colonies was only temporary, but every opportunity had been taken of showing our intention on the subject by means of our deeds. We had conferred upon one of our colonies the ambiguous name of Dominion; we had withdrawn our troops from them; we had urged them to provide themselves with armies and navies apart from those of the Empire, and we had permitted them to enter into independent negociations with foreign Powers. We had not required the colonies to contribute to the Imperial Revenue, although in time, when the greater part of Her Majesty's subjects resided out of England, the question would arise whether we were to undertake the protection of their trade solely at our own expense. The colonists were excluded from representation in the British Parliament, though they were obviously interested in many Imperial questions, India, for instance, from its proximity and probable future trade, being as much a matter of concern to the Australians as to ourselves. In other respects our treatment of the colonies was very liberal. They bore no part of the burden of the National Debt; the hundreds of thousands who yearly left our shores thus freeing themselves from all liability; the lands won by British valour had, excepting some slight changes, been handed over to them; self-government was allowed them; their Bills being scarcely ever vetoed; they were protected by us in case of war, without obligation to assist us with a man or a shilling; they were permitted to frame hostile tariffs, and part of the New Zealand Loan guaranteed by us was being expended in the conveyance of Scandinavian emigrants—8,000 of whom were now under contract to go to the colony—to the neglect of our own workingmen. The attitude of the Colonial Office towards the colonists was undoubtedly courteous and conciliatory. He trusted that the guarantee of a loan for New Zealand, the policy now pursued towards the Cape, the acquisition of Dutch territory in Africa, and the loan to be handsomely guaranteed to Canada indicated a change of policy on the part of the Government. Having gone thus far we were bound to go further. Considering the anxiety which prevailed to give political representation to every class of the community at home, our millions of prosperous and enterprising colonists ought surely to be represented. Prance and Spain allowed their colonies representation, and Germany—which unless we looked sharp would probably seize upon some island to which we might fancy we had a claim—would probably do the same. When representation of the colonies in Parliament was advocated by Adam Smith, it was objected that the complexion of the House of Commons was corrupt, that the distance was too great, and that the colonial members would be outvoted, but that these objections or most of them had no longer force. Joseph Hume, at the time of the first Reform. Bill, proposed representation of the colonies, and in Mr. Cobden's speeches he found nothing in disparagement of the connection of the colonies with the mother country. He believed a Council of State, on the German principle, would be an advisable arrangement. Persons in the colonies were anxious that a great federation should be established, of which England should be the centre. He thought no time should be lost in carrying that idea into effect. Who were opposed to the scheme? He knew of no one. It might be objected that it was too soon to undertake such a work, but he hoped he had shown that it was not too soon. The danger was rather that it was too late. Surely, when the Empire was at peace, when there was so much prosperity, we should be willing to negotiate with the colonies on this subject. No time should be lost in making earnest endeavours to carry into execution a scheme which appeared to be wise and popular. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution which stood in his name upon the Paper.

, in seconding the Motion, said, he agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, that the connection between this country and the colonies ought to assume a more definite, regular, and intelligible shape than it had at present, and although differing from him as to the possibility of federation, which was a subject full of difficulties, yet he could not see why we should accept the policy of drifting no one knew whither. The reason why our policy of late had been so indefinite was not only owing to the fact that successive Administrations had been lukewarm on the subject, but that the House of Commons and the country had been indifferent to the manner in which the colonies were governed. We had been living too much upon our luck, and so long as things went well we had been content, without looking the dangers and difficulties of the subject boldly in the face. He would confine the remarks he was about to make to one portion of the subject to which his hon. Friend had called attention, and would preface them by the assertion that it was impossible to give assent to the statement that our colonies were in as satisfactory a state as we could wish; for instance, at the present moment it was hardly possible to find one of our colonies in so unsatisfactory a state as our great North American Possessions, and yet it was one that might so easily be brought into a satisfactory condition. We had not in all our dominions a people more thoroughly loyal than the people of Canada, and yet at that moment, because they did not know that England would stand by them so long as they stood by England, a large party was growing up in Canada favourable to annexation; for a small population of 4,000,000 so near a neighbour to a great country with 40,000,000 of people, if left unprotected, must necessarily gravitate towards the latter. It was not that the people of Canada desired to become part of the United States—they were too acute to wish to become one of the most heavily-taxed populations in the world, instead of remaining one of the least taxed; but they believed that they had not got that equivalent in the shape of assured protection which they considered themselves entitled to. In that remarkable, comprehensive, and statesmanlike speech which Sir John Macdonald lately delivered—and which did him such great honour—he showed that he relied ont he promise that England, in the event of difficulties arising, would come to the aid of Canada; but, while we were promising to send men whom we had not on the spot, and fleets which were on this side of the Atlantic, there was no doubt that the principal places in Canada would be pounced upon, nor would they be given up until at the end of a costly and probably a protracted war. Therefore, he was one of those who were sorry at the withdrawal of the last of our troops from Quebec a year ago. He admitted his entire unacquaintance with military matters, but he could not think that a country ought to be left for defence to an ill-trained and ill-provided Militia alone; for instance, in this case Canada had 40,000 Militia on paper, but they had no arsenals, nor magazines fitted for carrying on a campaign, nor were their officers sufficiently numerous or well trained. It was, therefore, in his opinion, the duty of this country, not through menace or with an idea of menace, to keep such a body of troops in Canada as would secure it from a filibustering expedition or a coup-de-main. Then, again, he did not think we sufficiently estimated the grandeur and importance of Canada, a colony growing in wealth and material prosperity year by year, as a proof of which he would name that in the past year we had discovered of what enormous value as a grain-growing country Canada was likely to become. The new Provinces which had lately been made a part of the Dominion, only required capital to bring land of the most fertile description into cultivation. Their climate was capable of ripening every cereal with which this country was acquainted; the summer temperature was of 70 degrees, and in the western portion the cattle might be fed through the winter season out of doors. Then there were in those Provinces gold and copper and minerals of every description; there were fisheries, and everything that went to make up national wealth. Was that a country which we ought to be content to lose for want of a little help at the right moment? There was no more loyal people than the Canadians, especially those of the Lower Province, who at one time were so disaffected. What they asked was, to know one of two things—either that they were to be united to us by closer bonds, or that they were to stand alone. In the latter case Canada would be able to make her own terms, instead of being taken as a conquered country, and one of the first results of adding Canada to the United States would be, that property in Canada would go up at once from 15 to 20 per cent, because the United States would give her ample means of opening up her great resources, while we were looking at both sides of the paper before consenting to guarantee aloan of some £3,000,000 or £4,000,000. Let Canada feel assured of the support of the mother country, and all doubts would cease, and there would be but one Queen, one flag, one destiny, one Empire.

said, there were two deprecatory remarks of the hon. Gentleman who had last spoken which he had listened to with great pleasure—one which regarded the withdrawal of our troops from Canada, and the other with respect to the guarantee of the loan which it was proposed to give. It appeared to him, considering the great value of the connection between this country and Canada, and that we did not risk one sixpence by giving that guarantee, that it was most unfortunate that there should appear to be any haggling or bargaining about the matter. He hoped, therefore, that when brought forward the proposal would receive the unanimous assent of the House. In former times, before the great change made in the Constitution of this country by the Act of 1832, the colonists found it much easier to obtain a seat in the House of Commons; and, although there were, no doubt, countervailing evils in the condition of things before 1832, yet it was very forcibly argued by the advocates of the old system that it practically gave representation to the colonies. Rich Indians or rich colonists could get seats for such places as Old Sarum and Gatton; and the great man who was afterwards Lord Clive, when he first came home from India, was returned for the now extinct borough of St. Michael's. Colonial statesmen, in fact, now found it more difficult to recommend themselves to any constituency, for the reason that they had lived so long abroad, and were consequently not so familiar as others with the class of subjects most interesting to the people, and adapted to the legislation of the day. The time had now come, however, when we should look this question seriously in the face, for there was no doubt of the immense importance of the colonies to this country, and that we maintained our place among the great nations of the world by means of our Colonial Empire. Take that away, and this country would sink into the position of a third-rate Power. We ought, therefore, to do everything we could in reason to meet the wishes of our colonists. All of them united in hearty attachment to the Sovereign. We had evidence of this feeling during the illness of the Prince of Wales. They, moreover, would regret to dissever themselves from this country. While cordially reciprocating this feeling, we ought to do all we could to meet their wishes, and he was, therefore, glad that his hon. Friend had brought this important subject under the notice of the House.

said, that no person could regard the position of affairs in the Dominion of Canada and the group of colonies in the Southern Hemisphere, without feeling that there was great danger in the indefinite postponement of this subject with a view to settle it once for all. Having taken part in the foundation of one of our most thriving colonies, he could not agree with those who thought that the severance of the colonies from the mother country was either desirable or inevitable. On the contrary, he was unable to see anything which should bring about such a severance, unless it were neglect to take advantage of the present opportunity, and establish our relations with the colonies on a satisfactory basis. He could not say that our existing institutions were such as to insure harmonious relations with the colonies, or lead them to depart, if depart they must, in amity and good-will, instead of in bitterness of heart and with angry feeling, for our institutions could hardly be vindicated either upon philosophic or constitutional principles, or on the ground that they worked practically in an advantageous manner. The position of a Governor of a colony under the old régime was one consistent with the then existing colonial system. The Governor ruled the colony through the instrumentality of Officers of State, who were oppointed to carry out the pleasure of the Home Government; and most efficient instruments they were for inforcing upon the colonists that policy. But when the change came, and responsible government was introduced in the colonies, the Governor, who formerly had but one master to serve, then became the servant of two masters, occupying the position of Her Majesty's Representative and the potential advocate of the policy of Her Majesty's Ministers; he had now put upon him the incompatible duty of being the sole recognized medium of communication between the colonists and the Home Government—the advocate to urge upon the Secretary of State the colonists case from the colonists point of view. An officer so placed naturally leaned towards the interests of those upon whose favour his future career was dependent. The colonists were not adequately represented, and whilst that state of things continued he did not think there could be the harmonious understanding which was desirable between the mother country and the colonies. As to the remedies suggested, he could not approve of them. He demurred altogether to the view of the hon. Mover of the Resolution that the colonists should be represented in that House. It might have been so at one time, but now they had given to the colonies a degree of independence which they could not retract, and which was inconsistent with representation in that House. Neither did he concur in the view advocated by some, that an Imperial Parliament should be established superior to and overriding this and the other House of Parliament, which should take cognizance of all the greater matters of State, for he could not conceive how the existence of such a body could be reconciled with our form of Government by Parliamentary majorities. Nor was he in favour of another proposal advocated by some—namely, that the Colonial Secretary should be aided by a Council, to be chosen from retired colonists, for what could a Canadian know of New Zealand, or vice versâ? But there was ready to hand a practical mode of redressing the grievance. The colonists complained, and he (Mr. R. Torrens) thought rightly, that they were not placed at home on a footing of equality with foreign States—many of which were of much less importance—in the matter of diplomatic representation. In his opinion, our colonies should have the right to appoint chargés d'affaires or Envoys to wait upon the Secretary of State and represent their interests. The self-governing colonies had sent home some of their most eminent men to act as agents here for the management of their affairs, and he must at once admit that those agents had been of late placed in a much better position than they used to be. But further advance in that direction was required. The colonists should have the privilege of sending their own political agents to this country, and that those agents should enjoy the same rank, position, and prestige that was at present accorded to the Envoys of foreign States. That would afford a ready and easy solution of the difficulty which existed at present. He would now state, as an instance of the value to this country of the colonies, that the value of the British products exported from this country for consumption to the Australian Colonies alone amounted to £10,000,000 annually, or little less than the amount of our exports to France; quite as large as that of our exports to Spain, Portugal, and Italy combined, and double the amount of the British products exported either to Belgium or to Russia. The tonnage of the shipping, too, which sailed from England to Australia amounted to 4,000,000 tons annually, of which 93 per cent was British owned. Now, some of those who advocated a separation of the colonies from the mother country contended that if they were independent to-morrow, the colonies would maintain their commercial relations with this country just as they existed at the present time. The facts, however, were strongly and clearly against any such view, for when an Englishman or an Irishman emigrated to British North America, he consumed double the quantity of home products that was consumed by an Englishman or an Irishman who emigrated to the United States, and if he went to the Australian Colonies the consumption was twelve times greater than in the United States. That the trade follows the flag was further demonstrated by what took place in settlements originally planted by other countries. The French Canadians retained the language, their habits, their tastes; yet their trade had so completely passed over since their annexation to us that these French colonists consumed £5,000,000 British produce as against £250,000 French. If this were attributed to the less commercial spirit of the French, he would point to the Cape Colony, where the descendants of the Dutch settlers consumed £1,760,000 of British as against £26,000 of Dutch produce. There was another feature connected with this question which deserved consideration. Irishmen who emigrated to British Colonies almost invariably remained loyal subjects of Her Majesty. The truth of that was illustrated by the cases of Mr. Gavan Duffy—formerly a Member of that House—and Mr. D'Arcy M'Gee, who in this country were at least suspected of disaffection; but, emigrating to British colonies, became eminently loyal subjects and advocates of the British connection. But when such men went to the United States they at once began to organize themselves into societies whose object was to overturn the Government of this country and erect some other form of Government in its place. From that he contended that the more intimate were our relations with the colonies, the better it was both for this country and them. Another aspect in which the importance of the colonies to this country was shown, was involved in the consideration of our position in the event of war. England existed simply by reason of her command of the sea: she could not retain that command unless she had numerous and secure coaling stations for the ships composing the Navy, and she could not have these coaling depôts unless she retained her colonial possessions. How long would Great Britain retain her position in the the Mediterranean if she lost Gibraltar or Malta? For what length of time would the Red Sea continue to be the channel between this country and India if Aden was lost to the possession of England? Precisely similar was the case of King George's Sound, which, situated at the south-west angle of New Holland, formed one of the finest harbours in the world. The nation which held possession of that harbour and coaling station absolutely commanded the navigation and the commerce of the whole Southern Seas. He did not wish a shilling of the taxes of this country to be expended for the benefit of the colonies, but it was a mistake to suppose that outlay on naval stations, such as King George's Sound, Halifax, Sydney, and Melbourne, came within that category. The colonists were unable to defend some of those places. King George's Sound, for example, having only about 100 inhabitants, and in case of war it would make a material difference whether those harbours could be used by our fleets for shelter, coaling, or refitting, or whether they would be debarred from those advantages, for the latter would be our position if the colonies were severed from us and acted towards us as neutrals. He thought, then, the custody of those places should be resumed by the mother country, not in the interest of the colonists so much as in that of British shipowners and merchants, for it was a fact that nearly all the ships plying to and from Australia, amounting to up wards of 4,000,000 tons annually, were, with their cargoes, the property of British merchants, Australian produce being paid for, wholly or partially, prior to shipment. The colonists should not be called upon to undertake the armament and defence of these strategic positions. It was neither consistent with security nor justice that this burden should be imposed upon them. In conclusion, he would observe that those philosophers of the closet who spoke lightly of the severance of the colonies could not be aware of the advantage of common rights of citizenship between Englishmen and the colonists. An Englishman who had spent years in the colonies was not deemed the less an Englishman on his return, and might, as in his own case, be elected by a British constituency; while the younger sons of our gentry found a career open to them in the colonies, with similar institutions, habits, and social position; members, too, of our over-crowded Bar were elevated, sometimes in a few months, and in one case that he remembered in a few weeks, to the colonial Bench. On the other hand, the colonists always regarded themselves as Englishmen, and their children were taught to regard the mother country with veneration and respect. Taking those facts into consideration, he thought the colonies should not be deemed less a part of the nation than the Isle of Man, and he saw no possible advantages, whether in a military, economical, or mercantile point of view, in separation. He hoped the Government would not receive the Motion for inquiry in a hostile spirit, and he believed that the policy he had suggested would be the best solution of all pending difficulties.

said, that though he concurred with the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Macfie) who introduced the Motion, that it was most desirable to maintain the most friendly and intimate relations with our colonies, yet he was not prepared to support it in its present terms, and was glad that hon. Members had an opportunity of expressing their opinions on the important question to which it referred, more especially because what was said in that House on the subject might aid in dissipating the feeling which obtained in the colonies—that we desired to separate ourselves from them entirely. With regard to the guarantee proposed between this country and Canada, until its terms were fairly before the House, he would reserve any opinion he might entertain upon the matter; though he could not help saying that the House ought to have a chance of knowing what was the nature of such guarantees, before they were actually entered into, for he believed it would be found that certain circumstances connected with the guarantee between this country and Canada were not so satisfactory so the House could wish. The Government ought not to enter into such a guarantee without the sanction of Parliament, or they might as well impose taxes without its concurrence.

said, he would at once admit the right of any hon. Member to bring forward any Motion which he thought deserving of discussion; but he questioned the wisdom and discretion of the hon. Member for Leith in submitting that Resolution at the present moment, and when informed of the hon. Member's intention he had endeavoured to dissuade him from proposing it. There was some subjects which did not gain by frequent and constant repetition in that House, and he asserted, without hesitation, that the repetition of debates in which the question of separation between this country and the colonies was brought under public notice did not tend to strengthen the ties between the colonies and the mother country. If the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the opposition, or any hon. Gentleman who had some Parliamentary following or long Parliamentary experience, thought fit to bring before Parliament the colonial policy of Her Majesty's Government, or the general question of the relations between this country and her colonies, the result was that public attention was called to the subject, the benches of the House were well filled, persons well known in the political world expressed their opinions on the subject, and the subject was thoroughly discussed; but when an hon. Gentleman who, however respectable his position, could not boast either of a Parliamentary following or of long Parliamentary experience brought forward a question of this magnitude, it often happened that public interest was not awakened, the benches were not filled, and the discussion was sometimes brought to an abrupt and inglorious termination. That had before now happened to the hon. Member for Leith. Of course, the colonists could not be expected to enter into all the considerations which affected the amount of importance given to a debate in this country, and consequently they might be led to attribute to the British Parliament the blame which in reality attached to the want of judgment of the hon. Gentleman who brought forward such a Motion on his own responsibility. Having made that remark because he deemed it his duty to do so, in order that the colonies might understand why a debate on their affairs was not carried on by the Leaders on both sides of the House, he hoped the hon. Gentleman would not think he was actuated by a spirit of personal incivility towards himself. He could state his objections to the present Motion in about four sentences. First, he maintained that the relations between this country and the colonies were satisfactory as they at present existed; and, moreover, that there scarcely ever had been a period when they were more satisfactory; secondly, inasmuch as no demand for a change of that description had been made by the colonies themselves, and as they had, on the contrary, expressed their opinion in opposition to any such change, he did not think it at all desirable that the change should be made by us; thirdly, he maintained that there were great inherent difficulties in the working of all the schemes which had been proposed for an alteration of the present system; whether the plan were adopted of a council to consult with, or rather to embarrass the Secretary of State, or of another council whose authority would inevitably clash with that of Parliament; and, fourthly, the subject had twice been amply discussed in the House of Commons within the last two years, and he was not aware of any new circumstances which should induce the House again to take it into consideration. With these few remarks he should have been inclined to dismiss the subject, but he could not address the House on the general question of our colonial relations without adverting to the language of hon. Gentlemen who carried greater weight even than his hon. Friend behind him (Mr. Macfie). It was no doubt the right, and perhaps it was the duty of the Opposition to criticize the policy and measures of Her Majesty's Government; but these criticisms, however severe they might be, ought to have some foundation in justice; and he was bound to say that hon. Gentlemen opposite and their supporters in the country had, especially during the last year and a-half, delivered speeches which had not such a foundation in reference to the colonial policy of Her Majesty's Government. He wished to call the attention of the House to two statements made with respect to that policy by the noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire (Lord John Manners) and his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy). He had extracts from their speeches which he must allude to in the hope of obtaining from them some satisfactory explanation. Twice during the past year the noble Lord the Member for North Leicester had made attacks on the colonial policy of the Government, and was reported to have said at a dinner of the Conservative Registration Society in the City of London—"They," that was, Her Majesty's Government—"have endeavoured to alienate our colonies." However, since he entered the House that afternoon the noble Lord had informed him that he did not make use of those exact words; but that he meant to say an impression had been created in the country that such was the intention, or was likely to be the result of the colonial policy of Her Majesty's Government. Still, he regretted that the noble Lord should have allowed the words to appear so long uncontradicted in the public Press. His right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford had, during the Whitsuntide Recess, made a short, and he hoped a pleasant tour in the provinces, delivering addresses on political topics at Canterbury and Bradford. In the latter occurred this statement, according to a report which appeared in two daily newspapers—

"The colonial policy of the Government was no better. From every colony came complaints of neglect on the part of the Government; and it was not too much to say, that discontent in the colonies was an increasing danger to the Empire."

Another report, which subsequently appeared in The Standard, and which was probably revised by his right hon. Friend, gave his words as follows—

"Without entering into our colonial policy, I say this—that from every colony almost that we have, there comes a voice saving they are neglected, they are treated ill, and that, if there is no interference with them, there is a want of warmth and heartiness of feeling to reciprocate the affection which they bear to the mother country. They tell us that they are ready to do all for us, if we will do what we can for them. They do not ask us to undertake their liabilities; they do not ask us to undertake their defence now in the same way as we did on former occasions; but they ask that this country, who sent forth the founders of these colonies, shall be a home to the colonists; that they may look to us as the mother country, and that so long—and we should never put forth a hand to separate them from us—so long as they cling to us we will cling to them, whether it be in peace or whether it be in war, and that, under all circumstances and on all occasions, we will not neglect the responsibility of duty which lies on us in this matter."

The House would observe that, under these expressions of sympathy with the colonies, in which he himself heartily concurred, his right hon. Friend brought accusations of neglect and want of warmth of feeling on the part of Her Majesty's Government towards the colonies.

The quotation which my hon. Friend read first is taken from an abstract of my remarks that appeared in one of the newspapers. I had nothing to do with the report which appeared on a subsequent day in The Standard. It does, however, express what I said; but I may remark that I sedulously avoided saying anything in reference to the colonial policy of Her Majesty's Government; and with respect to my hon. Friend himself, he knows I have spoken of what he has done in quite different terms from those I might apply to some of his predecessors. Therefore, that part of my speech was not an attack on the Government, but a statement of my views of colonial policy.

, while grateful to his right hon. Friend for the remark he had just made, was unable to accept any expression of feeling which would separate him from his Colleagues on a question like that. He must stand or fall by the general policy of the Government. He alluded especially to the speech in question, because he had the greatest respect for his right hon. Friend who had held high office under the Crown, and had proved himself an able and efficient public servant; but in proportion to his respect for him was his regret to find him lending the weight of his authority to such statements. His right hon. Friend said that complaints came from nearly every colony, and that the colonies were not treated with sufficient warmth and heartiness. To that statement he was bound to give a distinct denial. Here and there might perhaps be individuals who raised objections; but it was not anything like a correct statement to say that complaints were coming from almost every colony of coldness, neglect, and ill-treatment. He wanted to ask his right hon. Friend—who appeared to have access to channels of information from which Her Majesty's Government were excluded—from which colonies was it that these complaints proceeded? Was it from Canada? Some persons, he was aware, thought Canada had not been well treated in the recent negotiations with America; but such was not the opinion of the Canadian Parliament. With regard to that point, it was not now his intention to enter into a consideration of the Washington negotiations; but he might remark that in a recent speech Sir John Macdonald, the Prime Minister of Canada, used language which by no means bore out the idea than any complaint existed there of the conduct of Her Majesty's Government. Sir John spoke of the relations between England and Canada having been of "so friendly and pleasant a character throughout the negotiations;" and, referring to the proposed loan, he said—

"No one can say now, and under these circumstances, that England has any idea of separating herself from or of giving up her colonies. This will put a finish at once to the hopes of all dreamers and speculators who desire or believe in the alienation or separation of the colonies from the mother country."

And, speaking of the great sacrifice which, in the interests of peace, England had made in consenting to make herself liable to large money payments under the Geneva Arbitration, he says—"Has she not made it principally for the sake of Canada?" And all through the speech of that able and eminent man—the opinions expressed in which were afterwards ratified by the Canadian Parliament, he shows that Her Majesty's Government have acted in a loyal and friendly spirit towards Canada. He (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) would put this point to the House. If during these negotiations Canada had been treated as she would have been, if she had been a separate or independent country, nothing could be urged against us; but if she had suffered in the slightest degree; if any concession had been made by her which would not have been made if she had not been a colony, then by that action we were pledged more deeply than ever to the assertion that we consider Canada to be an integral part of the Empire, and that in her hour of danger we should be bound to use the whole power and strength of the country to defend her as much as if she were a part of the United Kingdom. Were there any other colonies from which complaints had come? Were there any complaints from the great colonies of Australia? The accounts received from them concurred in describing a state of great and, even at this moment, exceptional prosperity. Did the Colonial Secretary and himself display lack of interest and coldness by attending early this year a large dinner given to an eminent colonist about to return to Australia? The language they heard on that occasion, the language they used, and that which was addressed to them, must have convinced all who were present that the most kindly feelings existed between the colonies and the Colonial Office. It was not possible for an Englishman worthy of the name to look at Australia without feelings of the deepest sympathy, without satisfaction at its increasing prosperity, and without being proud of the enterprize and ability which were developing its resources, and which were exalting the English character in that part of the world. In New Zealand, no doubt, the policy once pursued caused bitterness and soreness, which at the time were not unnatural; but a change of policy had been cordially accepted by the colonists, who deserved the highest praise for the conciliatory course they had pursued towards the native tribes. So happy were the results that had followed that within the last few days information had been received that William King, to whom the late war was due, and which lasted almost without intermission from 1860 to 1870, had voluntarily tended his submission, and had become a warm supporter of the Crown. In fact, there never was a period when loyalty was at a higher flow in New Zealand, when the prosperity of the country was greater, nor when the relations with the mother country were more satisfactory. Had the Cape or the South African Colonies complained of the lack of interest taken in them? The Government had lately advised the Crown to assent to the annexation of a large portion of valuable territory, and he took his full share of the responsibility for that, having warmly recommended it to his noble Friend at the head of the Colonial Office. In regard to the Cape and Natal, recent events had shown a sincere desire on the part of the Government to promote the prosperity of the colonies and to carry out the wishes of the colonists in their management, and the debate of the previous Tuesday showed that the House appreciated, as would the colonies, the action taken by the Government. In West Africa we had just effected an amicable arrangement, and though of course there were some complaints—as would be the case everywhere where free discussion and a free Press happily prevailed—there was increasing prosperity in every one of the West African Colonies, and we might anticipate that their material prosperity would promote the advancement of civilization and Christianity in the interior of Africa. Turn to Ceylon, which had now a revenue of £1,000,000 a-year, and an annual surplus and where, on the recent report of an eminent engineer, his noble Friend the Secretary of State had been able, as he had long wished, to adopt the views of the colonists as to the construction of a breakwater instead of an inland dock at Colombo. Turn to the West Indies; the Act for the federation of the Leeward Isles, passed last year, was working satisfactorily; and Jamaica was never more prosperous than now. Had we neglected British Guiana? To that colony we had sent a Commission to enquire into the labour question, and in consequence of its Report we had just sent out an Ordinance, by which we hoped to remove various difficulties and to improve the condition of the labourers. Had Mauritius cause to complain? There had, indeed, been financial embarrassment and complaints of insalubrity of climate, greatly owing, he believed, to the felling of the forests; but we had lately been endeavouring to promote works which would preserve the public health, and the financial prospects of the colony were better than they had been for many years. He might go further through the list of our colonies without discovering whence the alleged complaints proceeded. No doubt something in the nature of complaint must have reached his right hon. Friend, or he would not have made the statement he did, and the only quarter from which he could imagine complaints had come was Hongkong. True, it was flourishing, and had a port the tonnage of which was exceeded by that of only three ports in the United Kingdom. Action had been taken with respect to the licensed gambling-houses there, which had been suppressed, and it was possible complaints might have been received by his right hon. Friend from Chinese gamblers. If such was the case, he heartily, though very respectfully, wished his right hon. Friend joy of his clients. After the kind expressions to which his right hon. Friend had given utterance, it must be inferred that he did not intend to make any severe attack upon the Government; but when these charges were made by Gentlemen of position and authority, and were published in the papers, the damage they did was not confined to the Government; indeed, that was as nothing compared with the damage to the country resulting from the uncomfortable and disagreeable feelings produced in the minds of colonists. Therefore, no public man could make such grave charges without incurring great responsibility. The proper place to make them was the floor of the House of Commons, where they could be answered; and therefore he would say—"Hit us fairly in the face here; but don't stab us in the back at Conservative banquets." If there was a subject on which patriotism ought to rise above party, it was that of colonial policy. Of course, there were difficulties in dealing with the colonies, which required different treatment according to their age, position, and circumstances; and the policy of the Government was to foster and aid their development, at the same time strengthening the links which bound us and our colonies together. What was the difference between this policy and that of the Government which preceded them? It was impossible to discover. Last year it fell to his lot to expound the policy of the present Government. The Prime Minister sat by his side as he did so, and would have corrected him had he been wrong. Therefore his exposition must be taken to have been just and true. He knew that that speech had been received with great satisfaction in the colonies. For himself, he would be the last man to remain connected with a Government which had adopted a policy of separation; indeed, he would rather take his seat on the back benches behind his right hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) than be committed to such a policy upon the Treasury Bench. There might be some who valued the colonial connection less highly than he did; but the policy which he advocated was not only the policy of the present but must be that of any future Government, because it was the only policy which would be supported and endorsed by the spirit of the British people. The colonies did not make extravagant demands upon us; they wanted nothing that we ought not really to grant them; they wanted warmth and heartiness in our dealings with them; and so long as he occupied his present position, that warmth and heartiness of sympathy on the part of the Government would not be wanting. As it had been stated that there was a large party in Canada who wished for annexation to the United States, it must be remembered that there would be varieties of opinion in a country where discussion was free; but he was sure that the great bulk of the Canadian people were thoroughly loyal and true, and the cordial expression of our good feeling was all that was required to secure a continuance of their loyalty. The statements made with respect to the Canadian Militia were not quite correct; a large proportion of the total number enrolled had gone through their annual drill this year, and the Reserve Forces of Canada numbered 700,000, including an increase of between 30,000 and 40,000 which had been made during the last two years. He would not enter into any speculation as to the future of Canada, if certain eventualities should happen; but this he would say—there was every determination in the Government and the country to stand by Canada, and he would add, he knew that the loyal spirit of the English people was thoroughly reciprocated by the Canadians. With regard to the language used by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. R. Torrens), no doubt there were inherent difficulties in the position of some colonial Governors. That was a subject well worthy of consideration; but, for his own part, he did not find that either the colonies or Governors themselves complained of any such awkwardness as had been referred to. No doubt, however, the Governor at the head of a large colony with responsible government must assume a somewhat different position from that of the Governor of a small Crown colony. With regard to federation, so long as they received no complaints from the colonists, it would be most unwise, either by a Royal Commission, or by a Committee, to investigate the subject, especially when our doctors disagreed as to the remedies they prescribed. He entirely agreed with the tribute paid to the colonies in the Resolution. He owned that they were an important part of the Empire, and considered it our duty to cement the alliance between them and the mother country. He considered the colonists separated from us only by water; they were just as much our fellow-subjects as if they lived in this country; and, taking that as the basis of our policy, he always had been and always should be in favour of maintaining and cementing the bonds between them, and of dealing with every colony as much as possible according to the wishes of the colonists themselves. He hoped his hon. Friend would withdraw his Motion.

said, that he was not sorry—even at the expense of what he considered to be a somewhat unfair attack upon himself—that the hon. Gentleman opposite the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies should have risen in his place and spoken out so plainly in regard to the policy of the Government towards the colonies. He had heard the hon. Gentleman read the extract from his (Mr. G. Hardy's) speech with great satisfaction, because it expressed exactly what he felt, but not a word of it justified the attack that the hon. Gentleman had made on himself. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman might have remembered that on one occasion last year, when the hon. Gentleman expounded the policy of the Government on the subject, he (Mr. G. Hardy) had taken the opportunity of expressing then—as he begged now to express again—the satisfaction with which he had heard the hon. Gentleman speak of the union which it was so desirable to maintain between the colonies and the mother country. The hon. Gentleman might have known, therefore, that he had had no intention of attacking him. It was a little inconvenient, however, to say the least of it, that he (Mr. G. Hardy) should be called upon then, at a moment's notice, to defend what he said, because he had had no opportunity of providing himself with documents, but he would say that he was prepared to stand by everything that he had expressed on the question. It might have been a rhetorical expression to say that "every colony" was in a state of dissatisfaction; but any hon. Gentleman who had received the number of pamphlets that had been sent to him from various parts of the world with reference to the grievances of our colonies would admit that the feeling of soreness was very widespread indeed among them. Certainly, all the great colonies considered that they had ground of complaint; the very debate that evening proved it. They had heard one hon. Gentleman—formerly a distinguished politician in Australia—rise and complain of the conduct not of the Government only, but generally of the attitude of the country towards that colony; and the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Dalrymple) considered that Canada had been in some respects unfairly used—nay, more, it was notorious, even with respect to the Governor General of Canada, that he had used expressions with regard to the probability of the separation of Canada which had given rise to the impression that such an event might be near at hand. That very day, moreover, he (Mr. G. Hardy) had been in conversation with a colonist of some distinction who had sent him a pamphlet on the subject, and his tone throughout was—not, indeed, that there was anything specially wrong, but that they had not been treated by the Government or by the country in the way that they had expected. The gentleman in question had also complained of the neglect of the interest of the colonies in that House; but he (Mr. G. Hardy) had assured him that it was not by passing abstract Resolutions that they would show their affection or interest for the colonies. Abstract Resolutions led to no result, but if there were grievances, let them be brought before the House and discussed; while with regard to the Motion, he objected to it as much as the hon. Gentleman himself did. It was vague and uncertain. The hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Macfie), who moved it, was in favour of a federation; the hon. Member for Bath was in favour of something different, which he did not explain; while the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. R. Torrens) wanted neither a federation, nor a Council, but something else—he did not exactly seem to know what—in the interest of the Australian Colonies. Well, he hoped that the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Hugessen) would deal a little more mercifully with him (Mr. G. Hardy) on any future occasion, seeing that he had expressed sentiments entirely concurring with the hon. Gentleman's own, for he had only spoken in favour of a cordial feeling with the colonies, and against that party which was rising up in the country who wished for a dismemberment of the Empire. He knew that there were hon. Members in that House who wished it—there were even some who thought that it would be desirable that we should give up our connection with India. It was against that feeling, which he considered would be fatal to the country, and not against the Government, that he had directed his remarks at Bradford. He was glad, however, to have been the means of stirring up the hon. Gentleman to the vigorous speech they had just listened to; for he did not believe that the hon. Gentleman would have arrived at such a pitch of high enthusiasm if it had not been for the attack that he supposed had been made upon him. Therefore, he (Mr. G. Hardy) had done a great deal of good, by enabling the hon. Gentleman to prepare an answer to the hon. Member for Leith beforehand. The skeleton speech made by the hon. Gentleman last year had been clothed with a degree of warmth which it might otherwise have lacked but for him, and it would now go forth in vigorous flesh and blood. They had now received a fresh and clear embodiment of the views of the hon. Gentleman, who loved the colonies even beyond his party; and if ever any of these insidious enemies of the State who wished for the disintegration of the Empire should creep into the Cabinet or on the front bench, the friends of the colonies on the Opposition side of the House were in that case to have the hon. Gentleman as a recruit to speak with enthusiasm in their behalf, while he would no doubt be received with due consideration if he did not become the great exponent of colonial policy of the Opposition. He hoped that the hon. Member for Leith would be content with the discussion and with the enthusiastic appreciation of the hon. Gentleman, and would not press the Motion, because it would do the colonies harm and the mother country no good.

said, he was greatly obliged to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University for having drawn out the explicit statement they had heard from the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies, and he only regretted the absence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose able speech on the subject they must all remember. They were now acting generously by their colonies, and Canada might dismiss her apprehensions for the future; although he feared that the withdrawal of the troops, both from Canada and New Zealand, at a critical moment had produced an indelible impression on the minds of the colonists.

said, that anyone after listening to the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies would imagine that the Millennium was about to commence. Now, as a colonist, he must say that there was much to complain of. The Under Secretary talked of federation, but how had it been carried out in the Leeward Islands? If he (Mr. Greene) had known the opportunity would have offered itself that evening, he should have been glad to call attention to the manner in which that Confederation had been forced upon the inhabitants of those islands. For six successive times the Governor in chief had caused the Legislative Assembly to be summoned to meet for the dispatch of business, and had afterwards annulled the summons, to the great inconvenience of the Members of the Assembly and of the public, the object of his Excellency being to secure a packed Assembly, in which he might carry the vote in favour of Confederation. He (Mr. Greene) could produce testimony for what he had asserted, and must say that he entirely agreed with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. G. Hardy) that there was a general feeling of dissatisfaction among our colonies at the treatment they were receiving from the mother country.

, in rising to call the attention of the House to the release of the men sentenced by the Lord Chief Baron at the Summer Assizes held at Carlisle in 1871, to twelve months' imprisonment for a riot at Whitehaven, before their term of imprisonment was expired, and to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, the release of the Whitehaven rioters before the expiration of their sentence was not warranted by the circumstances of the case, and has a tendency to weaken the deterrent power of the Law against offences of the like character,"

said, that in calling attention to the subject, he was very anxious that his motives in bringing it forward should not be misunderstood. Mr. Murphy, the Protestant lecturer, who suffered on the occasion of this riot, had since died—a fact which was sufficient to make him speak of him with respect. Having said that, however, he must proceed to state that he had not the slightest sympathy with the manner in which that gentleman enforced his views at the various places where he lectured, and that he had always been of opinion that the authorities of any town in which Mr. Murphy attempted to lecture would have been quite justified in using all means direct and indirect which were consistent with the liberty of the subject to prevent his doing so. His object, however, in bringing forward the Motion was to point out that a very serious breach of the law having been committed, and those who were guilty of it having been convicted and sentenced to certain punishment, in measuring which every weight had been given to all the circumstances which told in their favour, the verdict of the jury ought not to have been reversed, nor the sentence so pronounced mitigated, unless some very strong reasons could have been shown to justify such a course being taken. The facts of the case were short and easily stated. In April of last year Mr. Murphy delivered a lecture at Whitehaven, which was attended with considerable riot, and he subsequently announced his intention to deliver another on the 20th of that month. In the meantime, there was considerable excitement among the Roman Catholic population at Cleator, a place about three or four miles from Whitehaven, and on the day in question a very large body of them marched through the town of Whitehaven to the place where the lecture was to be delivered, their numbers quite overawing the inhabitants; and having entered the lecture hall, in the words of the learned Judge who presided over the trial, they committed a most cowardly assault upon Mr. Murphy, which was attended with circumstances of great brutality. It was right in a case of this kind to give every weight to the circumstances under which this assault was committed. He was not one of those who would deny that the causes which led to this breach of the law were such as deserved special consideration. No doubt, if a man's religion were assailed, he was to an extent justified in feeling a certain amount of indignation; but he wished to impress upon the House the fact that the mitigating circumstances in the present case had been fully considered by the learned Judge in measuring out their punishment. The prisoners were defended by a most able advocate, Mr. Charles Russell, and the learned Judge, after carefully summing up, in passing sentence dwelt upon the brutal nature of the assault, and used the words—

"I make allowance for some degree of irritation—I may even use a stronger term, and say a feeling of indignation, by which some of you may have been actuated, and, therefore I do not sentence you to that extremity of punishment which I cannot help saying you have merited."

He (Mr. Wyndham) regretted to state that from the unfortunate feeling that prevailed between Orangemen and Roman Catholics in the North of England, and from a jealousy which existed between English and Irish miners and "navvies" which had given rise to the riot and assault in question, other assaults and riots were of frequent occurrence, which those who were engaged on the commission of the peace found much difficulty in dealing with, and the fact was that this particular case did not stand alone. Under these circumstances, the mitigation of these men's punishment was greatly to be deplored. Common justice required that sentences of this kind should not be interfered with by the Home Office. At the Summer Assizes of last year, after this case had been tried, three men were put upon their trial for what was either very aggravated manslaughter or murder, which was tried by the Lord Chief Baron, who summed up with the greatest care, and these men, to the astonishment of the learned Judge and of everybody in Court, were found "not guilty." It never occurred to the Lord Chief Baron that such a verdict could be given; indeed, in summing up, he had directed all his attention to drawing a distinction between murder and manslaughter. It was felt at the time by all who were interested in the preservation of the peace in this country that the result of that trial would have a very unfortunate effect, and in the opinion of the magistracy and of those who were capable of forming a correct opinion on the subject, many violent assaults that happened shortly afterwards might be considered as the direct consequences of that verdict, as the people who committed such assaults believed that juries were inclined to regard such offences lightly. One of the misfortunes that followed upon this sort of spasmodic interference with the due course of law was that apparent injustice was inflicted upon other persons whose punishment was not mitigated. Thus, at the Carlisle Christmas Assizes last year three Roman Catholics were charged with an aggravated assault on an Orangeman; but there was this distinction between that case and the Murphy riot—that the offenders in the former had committed the offence in their own town—Maryport—and had not walked to another place four miles distant with the intention of breaking the law. Moreover, a large minority of the magistrates were in favour of imprisoning the men for 18 months with hard labour; but the sentence actually passed upon them was 12 months' imprisonment with hard labour, whereby an apparent injustice was inflicted upon them, for their sentences had not been mitigated in accordance with the precedent set in the Whitehaven case. Now, he wished to know if the Home Secretary would advise the Crown to extend its mercy to those men? He was the last to wish that the Home Secretary should do so; but those kind-hearted people who signed this Memorial would, doubtless, think otherwise, and would believe that the Lord Chief Baron had now himself arrived at the opinion that the sentence he had passed last year was more severe than the circumstances of the case warranted. In the case of the Murphy rioters the Home Secretary had acted upon a Memorial which was sent to him on the subject. That Memorial, like all such documents, should be received with the utmost caution, for it stated facts and evidence without any of those safeguards which attended a trial in an open Court. It was stated, for instance, that the men accused were not armed with sticks or other weapons; but that was not true, for they had sticks, and one of them carried a crowbar, and no doubt some of the injuries inflicted upon Mr. Murphy were inflicted with instruments of that description. It was almost certain, also, that one of the men carried fire-arms; and it was the fact that though there were 40 police in the crowd they did not deem it prudent to make a single arrest at the time, and when they did arrest one of the men afterwards a loaded revolver and a dagger were found upon his person. Another statement in the Memorial was that great peace and good-will had prevailed in the neighbourhood since. How far that was true was shown by the fact that not only at the quarter sessions, but also at the petty sessions since, there had been many charges of assault made between Orangemen and Roman Catholics. Four or five of the magistrates who had signed the Memorial were friends of his own; but he felt bound to say, with great respect, that they did not represent the opinions of the magistrates generally, or of the people of the county upon this question. The memorialists also declared that the effect of extending the mercy of the Crown to the imprisoned men could not fail to be salutary; but certainly that anticipation had not been realized, for on the very night these men were released five others were arrested for assaults. And not only that, but the released prisoners were met at the station by cars and carriages, and were carried in a triumphal procession, which showed that these remissions of sentence were only regarded as the triumph of one party over another. Indeed, before the evening was over, one of the magistrates who had signed the Memorial had himself to try Roman Catholics and Orangemen for assaults arising out of the excitement occasioned by the procession. The Home Secretary had stated on a previous occasion that he referred the Memorial presented to him to the Lord Chief Baron, who gave his assent to the prayer of the memorialists. But nothing could be more mischievious than the practice of making such appeals to the Judges, and giving them the opportunity of revising their sentences. The Judges at present had a great amount of responsibility, and it was very unadvisable to weaken the sense of responsibility which existed in them; and it would be a great evil if a Judge, who might himself feel great doubt in dealing with a particular case, were led to think that he would have an opportunity of revising his sentence before 12 months were over. He (Mr. Wyndham) wished to know what were the general and guiding principles upon which Home Secretaries acted in these matters? He had heard it laid down as one of those guiding principles that if, after a trial, circumstances came to light which were not given in evidence at the trial, and which it was clearly shown could not have been given in evidence then, that would be a valid ground for the re-consideration of the sentence. But apply that principle to this case. So far from anything having been shown after the trial which could mitigate the offence of the prisoners, Mr. Murphy had died since the trial; and his death, though not caused by the injuries he sustained at Whitehaven, was clearly shown by medical evidence to have been accelerated by those injuries. And yet these men were released three weeks or a month after Mr. Mr. Murphy's death. In conclusion, he must say he had brought the subject forward with great reluctance; but he felt that it was his duty to bring it forward.

said, he would have much pleasure in voting with the hon. Member if he divided the House on this question. He (Mr. S. Aytoun) entertained a very strong opinion of the manner in which the Government had acted with regard to the release of these prisoners, and he thought their conduct should not be forgotten with regard to the riotous proceedings which had occurred in various parts of the country in connection with the lectures given by Mr. Murphy. The hon. Member for West Cumberland (Mr. P. Wyndham) had stated very distinctly that he had no sympathy with the meetings held by Mr. Murphy, and he (Mr. S. Aytoun) begged to say that he expressed no opinion as to the propriety of holding them; but he thought at the time, in consequence of the accounts which he read in the newspapers, that riotous proceedings would be occasioned by the ill-will which Mr. Murphy's lectures would excite among the Roman Catholic population. At the same time, however, he thought it was the duty of the magistracy of this country to protect every British subject who was not violating the law, for if when any person was doing anything of which the authorities disapproved, those authorities, though not empowered to interfere with him, were to connive at and tacitly encourage attacks by a mob upon him, all safety for life and liberty in this country would be at an end. What were the circumstances antecedent to the Whitehaven riot? He believed Mr. Murphy attempted to hold a meeting in Manchester, but that in consequence of certain persons having deposed in an affidavit that such meeting would occasion a riot, that meeting was prohibited. Mr. Murphy then gave notice that he intended to hold a meeting in Tynemouth, he believed, which notice excited indignation among the Roman Catholics, the Irish population, navvies, and other persons in that part of the country. It appeared, in consequence, that the local authorities were very anxious to prevent that meeting being held, and a most extraordinary circumstance occurred. The walls of the town, he believed, were covered with a placard stating that a very old Act of Parliament would be put in force against Mr. Murphy and any of those who sympathized with him in holding the meeting or attending it. He (Mr. S. Aytoun) could not have believed that such a placard would have been put on the wall of any English town, and he therefore asked the Home Secretary whether the Mayor of the town was acting within his powers in issuing such a placard, and the Home Secretary replied that he had authorized him to issue it. The Home Secretary further said he believed he had the power to do so. Now, he (Mr. S. Aytoun) found in the Library certain Acts which were passed, he believed, when Mr. Pitt was Prime Minister, and when great fears were entertained of the spread of Jacobin principles. Those Acts, which were entirely opposed to the principles of the Constitution of this country, were passed for the purpose of punishing any person holding a meeting, or even attending a meeting; and one of the most extraordinary things that had occurred in the history of this country was, that at the time when the Home Secretary gave authority to the Mayor to issue the before-mentioned proclamation, the Government had a Bill in this House for the purpose of repealing the statute under which the Home Secretary had given that authority. He was very anxious to hear the Home Secretary explain to the House the reasons for the course he had pursued. He believed the Home Secretary on a former occasion expressed very strongly his opinion on the conduct of Mr. Murphy. He (Mr. S. Aytoun) would not debate the question whether Mr. Murphy's conduct was right or not; but if the Government thought he ought not to hold these meetings, and the law was not sufficient, it was their duty to ask Parliament for an Act to suppress them, and not to have raked up an old Act like the one they had put in force. The course taken by the Government had had a most disastrous effect, and if the hon. Member persisted in dividing the House on what was really a censure of the Government, he should most cordially support him.

said, he hoped that the House would reflect calmly before it came to a decision, and remember that this man Murphy opposed in very violent language the religious opinions of a large section of the community, accusing them of idolatry, and making use of the most offensive expressions with extreme violence of manner, thus exciting the feelings of his hearers in the highest degree, and causing the riot which had occurred. It was to be remembered, however, that the more sincere were the religious convictions of those he assailed, the dearer they were to them, and the greater the hostility which would be created. The insults thrown out against them tried their patience beyond endurance, and they were undoubtedly guilty of riotous conduct, but, at the same time, the law had been vindicated and rioters punished, and he therefore hoped that the House of Commons would not pass a censure upon the right hon. Gentleman who had shown himself so competent to deal with questions of this nature, by attempting to interfere with his discretion when exercised on the side of mercy.

said, that his conduct upon the occasion of the Murphy riots had been the subject of discussion in that House, and he had no reason to complain of the result. He should, therefore, follow the example set by the hon. Member (Mr. P. Wyndham) in strictly adhering to the terms of the Motion. These terms had nothing whatever to do with the conduct of the Government with respect to Murphy; it was simply whether, in the exercise of the functions of the Home Secretary, he (Mr. Bruce) had acted judiciously. All he had to say was, that he had proceeded in this matter without reference to Murphy, or the consideration whether it was a religious question or not; and just as he would have proceeded, if it had been a riot of colliers or of any other persons. A Memorial had been presented to him by the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. C. Bentinck), and when he put it in his (Mr. Bruce's) hands, he said it was signed by a number of gentlemen in Whitehaven who were fully cognizant of the circumstances. That Memorial was signed by seven magistrates, two of whom were clergymen of the Church of England, one of them being the rector of the principal church in Whitehaven, besides which it was pointed out that there was a number of other signatures of persons of the greatest weight and authority in the town of Whitehaven attached to the Memorial. The result was, that he had done what his hon. Friend the Member for West Cumberland had condemned, but which had been universally practised by every Home Secretary—namely, he forwarded the Memorial to the Judge who tried the case and passed the sentence. The case was not exactly as stated by his hon. Friend, who had led the House to believe that the riot had been an organized riot. The Judge was not of opinion that it had been an organized riot. On the 19th of April, Murphy proposed to deliver one of those lectures which had already involved so many of the towns of England in disturbance and bloodshed. A number of Irishmen collected to prevent the delivery of the lecture. On the next day they appeared again in still larger numbers, and the memorialists, among whom it should be remembered were seven magistrates and two clergymen, stated in their Memorial that these men were men of good character, and had not gone with any intention of committing violence. They were not armed, and they had gone for the purpose of expressing their opinion, it might be noisily. That was the view of the Judge as well as of the memorialists. Murphy presented himself at the door of the hall and appeared determined to prevent their entering. In consequence of that proceeding, their passions were roused; he was treated with great violence, and those injuries were inflicted which the hon. Member was right in saying had hastened his death. Twelve persons who had been taken into custody were identified and brought up before the magistrates. Seven of them were committed for trial, and the magistrates took the most unusual course of refusing to liberate them on bail. They remained in prison from 21st of April to July, or for about three months, after which time they were tried and sentenced—five of them to twelve months' imprisonment, and two of them to three months. At the end of their nine months' imprisonment, this Memorial was presented, and he forwarded it to the Lord Chief Baron, who tried the men. He received the following reply, which he had been especially authorized to read to the House. The Chief Baron said—

"I have very carefully considered the case of Dennis Doyle and others convicted at the Carlisle Summer Assizes of last year of a riot and assault upon the late Mr. Murphy. There was much provocation, and the prisoners had all borne irreproachable characters; and, though there was evidence that three or four of them took part personally in dragging about, and inflicting some degree of injury upon Murphy, it certainly did not appear that they had assisted in the attempt to throw him over the bannisters, from which he had received the severest hurts to which he had been subjected. Considering, upon the whole, that the religious feelings of the prisoners were put to a hard test, and may be said to hare been outraged by the perseverance of Mr. Murphy in publicly denouncing the observances and practices of Roman Catholics, and that the agitation caused by these contentions and conflicts has now subsided, I would venture to observe that Her Majesty might well be advised to remit the sentence pronounced as to the yet remaining portion of the term of imprisonment."

There was one other reason which the Chief Baron did not mention; but which he (Mr. Bruce) did not doubt had some weight in the re-consideration of the case by the learned Judge. It was one which was constantly acted upon—namely, that, although a sentence might be right and proper at a time of great excitement, when the law had been violated, yet that upon the return of peace and tranquillity, it might be wise to recommend a remission of the sentence. The same course had been taken not long since in the case of the Thorncliff rioters. A violent riot had occurred in which several persons had been injured. A long and heavy sentence had been passed; but after a portion of it had been undergone, an application was made to the Home Office from the masters, magistrates, &c, representing that it would conduce to the peace and good order of the district if the remainder of the sentence were remitted. The Judge concurred in this recommendation. He had inflicted a severe sentence; but when peace was restored, he was of opinion that the public interests would not be injured by the remission of the sentence. A similar feeling existed on the part of the Chief Baron. The memorialists stated, among other reasons for the remission of the sentence—that since the occurrence peace had prevailed, that the feelings of bitter animosity which had been excited had been allayed; and that, in their opinion, law and order had been sufficiently vindicated. It was the opinion, moreover, as he (Mr. Bruce) had been authorized to say, of the experienced Judge who had heard the whole of the evidence, that the prisoners did not come to the place for purposes of violence, but only with the intention of preventing Murphy from delivering his lecture, and that they were led into violence by accidental circumstances. What, then, was it the duty of the Home Secretary to do? He would have been acting in complete disregard to the principles upon which his predecessors in office and himself had always acted, if he set aside the opinions of the Judge, and why? Simply to satisfy the religious feelings of certain hon. Members. It was no part of his duty to act with a view to those sentiments. He was there to administer the trust reposed in him for the maintenance of peace and good order, and he was satisfied that that had been done. Having acted in accordance with the opinion of the learned Judge who tried the case, and with the views of those who were most interested in the maintenance of peace and order in the district—magistrates, clergy, bankers, merchants—he would have subjected himself to the severest censure, and to the charge of having acted with partiality, if he had followed a different course. Without entering, therefore, into previous circumstances, he put it to the sense of justice and to the good feeling of the House to say whether that was a Motion which ought to be persisted in.

said, he was very sorry that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, towards the conclusion of his remarks, had hinted that the Motion had been brought forward from motives of religious animosity. [Mr. BRUCE said that he had made no such statement.] However that might be, he must say that for his part, he (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) was very much obliged to his hon. Friend and Representative for having brought this matter under the attention of the House, and he thought his hon. Friend would have failed in his duty as a Member for West Cumberland, if he had not taken notice of the proceedings of the Home Office in this business, as the course taken by his right hon. Friend had been the subject of very unfavourable comments in the county. What were the facts? His hon. Friend opposite had stated them ably and most succinctly; and in dealing with that statement, he (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) altogether disputed the construction which the Home Secretary had endeavoured to put upon this outbreak. In his opinion, it could be proved that there was a preconcerted plan, and that the men who took part in the outrage marched into Whitehaven in hundreds, in regular battle array. He believed they were armed with sticks, and his hon. Friend said that fire-arms had been found on some of them. These men marched up to the hall where the lecture was to be delivered, set upon Mr. Murphy, beat him with sticks—he believed drew out knives—and left him half-dead upon the spot. He was not exaggerating, but he did not think anything much worse could be done. His right hon. Friend had appealed to what the Judge said. But surely what the Judge said on the trial, when the facts were fresh in his memory, and he was doing his duty as Judge was still more important. He had not a copy of the exact words used by the Judge on that occasion, but he took the following statement from a well-informed and respectable journal. The Chief Baron said, there was no doubt that there was a riot, and that the prisoners had taken part in it, and he could find no excuse for the riot and assault. When a verdict of guilty was returned, his language was equally emphatic. He dwelt upon the cowardice of the attack, the brutal nature of its incidents, and said that he found himself compelled, in vindication of the law and in the interests of peace, to pass a severe sentence. The paper went on to say—

"The words conveyed to each prisoner that the sentence was the least that the Judge felt himself justified in passing. So minutely did his Lordship go into the details, that he apportioned out the exact amount of punishment for each offender according to his guilt."

His right hon. Friend had talked about the men not having been admitted to bail; but surely that was known to the Judge when he was passing sentence, as were, indeed, all the other features of this remarkable case which had been commented upon. The result was that the men bad served the greater part of the sentence inflicted upon them, when up came this remarkable Memorial, upon which the Home Secretary had said that the Judge would rest his case, and the first argument in which was, that there was at the time when the Memorial was signed peace in the county. Well, probably there was, for the rioters were shut up; but the fact was there was not peace, for his hon. Friend the Member for Cockermouth (Mr. Fletcher) knew that for months past there had been smouldering religious feuds between one party and another, which was continually breaking out in riot and tumult. The second argument was that the particular riot in question was an exceptional circumstance, Yes, it was a case of an ex- ceptionally brutal outrage. The third argument was that the men had previously been men of good character; but all that was brought forward in Court, and was known to the Judge. But what rendered the conduct of his right hon. Friend still more extraordinary was that on the recommendation of the Judge he remitted the sentence absolutely a few weeks after Mr. Murphy had died in consequence of the outrage, and in doing so, his right hon. Friend's defence was that he acted ex officio on the report of the Judge. But the public looked to the Home Secretary for a knowledge of the state of the county, and for acting with a sense of responsibility, and if the right hon. Gentleman had gone to those who knew the condition of the county, he would have received advice which would have led him to act in a very different manner, and which might have tended to induce him to avoid pursuing a course which tended to bring justice into contempt in this country. He (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) regretted very much the religious feuds and animosities which existed; he had no sympathy with any of the parties, and for the life of him he could not understand why men should do evil to one another for holding different beliefs; but they must look at facts as they existed, and when there were feuds it was for the Government to prevent them from doing harm. The course, however, which the right hon. Gentleman had taken would tend to make those men be looked upon as martyrs, for it would be said they were cruelly treated, that they had been sentenced to 12 months, but 10 months had been found sufficient. And not only would they be made martyrs but heroes, for their own party would say that they had triumphed over the other party, as he understood from his hon. Friend the victory had been celebrated by some other disturbances. The present, moreover, was not a time to let men of the kind out, for there had lately been symptoms of a great desire to interfere with the freedom of speech, as, for instance, the chief magistrate of Staley bridge not long since declared that the people who came to lecture in his town ought to be mobbed out of it. Then, a man at Bolton was killed some time since at a disturbance arising out of a public meeting; while in other places where lectures were delivered riots were got up. He himself recently took part in a meeting to promote temperance, and they were attacked by drunken ruffians, and covered with flour as though they had been to the Derby. And now in this case, where there had been a ruffianly, dastardly attempt of the same description, the men guilty of it had been set free before their sentence had expired. In his opinion the course taken by his right hon. Friend in this matter had been most mischievous; and if the Motion were pressed to a division he should certainly vote for it. If not, the speech made by his hon. Friend (Mr. Percy Wyndham) would still do good service, for it would tend to prevent in the future a course calculated to foment strife, to encourage disorder, and weaken that respect for law which it should be the object of every Government to maintain.

Sir, it has been my misfortune to have to impugn the conduct of successive Home Secretaries in the exercise of the discretion which is intrusted to them for the remission of sentences; and in doing so, I was guided by no feeling of party, for, in the first instance, I had to impugn the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy) when he was Secretary of State for the Home Department. That right hon. Gentleman had commuted a capital sentence for a murder committed in Birmingham, against the remission of which I presented a Petition which was signed by 3,000 respectable inhabitants of that town and 10 magistrates. I had again to complain of the remission of a sentence in the case of a murder in my own county, and in my own neighbourhood, which remission was made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who, by a strange perversion of the law, managed to commute the capital sentence into one of a year's imprisonment; but under what statute he assumed that power, I have never yet been able to discover. I am sorry to say that the right hon. Gentleman remitted a sentence for murder in the city of Coventry, and that almost immediately afterwards there was a case of manslaughter in the district; and although I do not mean to say that that crime is to be traced to the remission of the sentence, there certainly was a general impression that such remission had been unfortunate. I mention these cases in answer to the observation which fell from the right hon. Gentleman, that in commenting on the present case, I might be influenced by a feeling of religious animosity. Now, I beg to say that, in these cases, I am performing my duty without reference to anything of the kind. I have brought before the House the whole subject of appellate jurisdiction; and in my observations that I may make on this subject, I claim to be exempted from the imputation of being actuated by anything like a fanatical or religious feeling. But it happens that Mr. Murphy lived in the constituency that I represent, and I feel bound in duty to his friends and relatives to question the propriety of the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary on this occasion. For what are the circumstances? The late Mr. Murphy died, and after his death a post-mortem examination was made by the most eminent surgeons in Birmingham, and they unanimously declared that the cause of his death was distinctly traceable to the injuries which he received at White haven on the 20th of June in the previous year. That was their unanimous decision with regard to the transaction. The funeral of Mr. Murphy took place on the 18th of March last, and the remission of the sentence upon the men—who were, I venture to say, if the judgment of the Lord Chief Baron is to be believed, directly implicated in the riot in which Mr. Murphy met with those fatal injuries—was announced at Whitehaven on the 1st of May. Therefore, in about a month after this man was buried—and it was known throughout Birmingham and the whole country that he had died from the effects of this outrage—Her Majesty's clemency is extended to the rioters who participated in this outrage, although the sentence was originally but one year's imprisonment with hard labour, and would undoubtedly have been of a much more serious character had Mr. Murphy died sooner, as was expected by his medical attendants and those who saw him after he had been injured. Now, the right hon. Gentleman has relied upon some of the statements in that memorial to which he has referred. They distinctly contradict both the charge and the judgment of the Lord Chief Baron, and I will show the House that they do so. The hon. Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) is a magistrate for the county of Cumberland, and he knows—and it is a singular fact—that the evidence given before the magistrates was infinitely stronger as to the existence of a previous conspiracy than the evidence adduced upon the trial, and to that in a great measure I attribute the fact that the opinion of the Lord Chief Baron was more lenient than the opinion of the magistrate. I am sorry to have to impugn, or seem to impugn, the judgment of one of Her Majesty's Judges; but I say this—that the remission of a sentence passed by a Court of Justice is scarcely a judicial proceeding. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State is not expected to act as a Judge; he is expected to act as a politician, or as a statesman: it is to him in that capacity that the matter is referred, and if he chooses to consult the Judge who tried the case, he does so as a statesman, and it is upon him as a statesman, and not as a Judge, that the responsibility of recommending a remission of the sentence devolves. The Judge himself cannot do it without the Home Secretary; it must be the act of the Home Secretary, and it is on that ground that I impugn the policy of the right hon. Gentleman in this affair. I am sorry to say that when the funeral of Murphy took place there was an exhibition of malignant triumph among some of the Irish Roman Catholics in Birmingham which convinced everyone who witnessed it that the feeling which had prompted the outrage had not died out. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say that he has acted in the case of Mr. Murphy as if he had never heard of him before. Sir, he has acted as a statesman, not as a Judge. He was bound to remember what had occurred in reference to Murphy on previous occasions. What was the history of this man? He was the son of an Irish schoolmaster, who had been a Roman Catholic. Father and son both changed their religion; the father was persecuted in consequence, and so was the son. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State cannot plead ignorance on the subject of the history of Murphy. He may deprecate the course the man took; but in no one instance has the right hon. Gentleman been able to prove that that man acted in contravention of the ordinary law of the land. Yet the right hon. Gentleman went so far as this—as to revive the operation of an Act of Parliament passed in the year 1795—an Act for the suppression of seditious meetings; an Act which was passed after the King had been fired at on his way down to Parliament; an Act which was passed after the infection of the first French Revolution had reached this country, and only two years before the Mutiny at the Nore. Such was the Act that the right hon. Gentleman the present Home Secretary was obliged to invoke in order to find legal means by which to deal with this public lecturer. I will now glance shortly at what happened previously to this man. If Murphy had been guilty of libel or slander the law was always open to his opponents; but they never ventured to appeal to it. The man entertained strong religious opinions; he expressed them, and that was the crime for which he was persecuted. It is true that, like others, before it was condemned he had promulgated the pamphlet which is known as The Confessional Unmasked; but until that pamphlet had been condemned in a Court of Law, he had a perfect right to make use of it. It has since been condemned—first, in the Court of Queen's Bench, and next in the Court of Common Pleas. That is an illegal pamphlet; I am ready to admit it; but why is it illegal? Because it contains extracts from Roman Catholic works of high authority, which works have never been condemned, and may be circulated throughout the country. I do not think, however, that that is a state of things which is likely to continue. The extracts from these works having been condemned on the ground of their obscenity, doubtless the circulation of the originals will now have to be condemned also; but until those judgments of the Courts of Law were pronounced, this man was doing nothing illegal in promulgating that pamphlet. Well, what was the history of this man? At Chelmsford, in July, 1865, owing to the influence of Roman Catholics in that locality, Mr. Murphy was refused the use of a hall to lecture in. At Bury St. Edmunds, in August of the same year, a murderous attempt was made upon him at one of his meetings, convened in a meadow, where the people had erected a platform for his use. In October following, there was an attempt to inter- rupt him at Lincoln. In November of the same year his life was threatened and attempted by men under the influence of the Roman Catholic priests at Newark. At Beverley, a Roman Catholic priest, named Smith, told the magistrates while sitting on the Bench—

"That he would not be responsible for the peace if Mr. Murphy were allowed to lecture, for that some of his congregations think no more of breaking Murphy's head than they would of twisting the neck of a duck."

At Frome, in February, 1866, the mob assaulted Murphy, and threatened to hang him, while they offered to bribe him if he would not deliver his lecture on the Confessional. At Stonehouse, in the month of June the same year, Bishop Vaughan, Canon Mansfield, and other Roman Catholic dignitaries failed to prevent Murphy from lecturing, whereupon a body of from 120 to 200 of their flock were organized to upset the meeting by assaulting the attendants, &c. At Stone, in January, 1867, an attack upon Murphy and a serious disturbance were the result of a priest denouncing him from the altar as a heretic, and calling upon his flock to do their duty. Then we come to the visits at Newcastle-under-Lyne, in February, 1867, and these bring me next to the attack upon Murphy at Birmingham. It is the attack in Birmingham with which I have now to do. In 1867—and the case was brought under the notice of this House—Mr. Murphy and his friends erected a building of their own, and one Sunday were about to celebrate Divine service in it when they were attacked and wounded, and his life endangered—this the population resented, and in consequence there was great destruction of property. In 1868 there was another attempt to interrupt him; and now, Sir, I come to what was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary himself. He ought to have known that this man's life was constantly in danger; and he said so himself; he stated it in this House. He ought to have known that there was a conspiracy against this man. As a statesman, he should have known it when he proceeded to remit the year's imprisonment pronounced upon those who, according to the charge of the Lord Chief Baron, were implicated in the riots which produced this man's death. Why, nothing could be more distinct than the evidence of Mr. Superintendent Little, He saw these men, he saw Dennis Doyle, and he heard Dennis Doyle say—this is his sworn evidence before the magistrates—"Don't strike him now." And why? Because Superintendent Little had reached the spot. And what was the other evidence? The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary says that Murphy had excited these men's passions! Did they want to go into the hall to hear the lecture? No; the evidence is, that they dragged the man out of the hall, and trampled him almost to death in the street. How does that accord with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman? I have the whole of the evidence here which was given before the magistrates; but that I may not commit any mistake, I will read to the House that which was given by Superintendent Little on oath. This, then, is the evidence which was given by Superintendent Little before the magistrate as I find it reported in The Whitehaven Herald of April 29th, 1871. Superintendent Little says—

"I was on duty in the streets that night with Inspector Howard, Inspector Wood, and one or two more constables. 8 o'clock was the hour at which he was to give the lecture. I was in the street between 6 and 7 o'clock, and everything appeared very quiet and orderly at that time. Near about 7 o'clock—perhaps 10 minutes to—we observed a large number of men coming down Lowther Street. They were coming as you may have seen them coming from the train, all in a group or nearly so, and they came quietly down the street, passed the inspectors and myself, and went into the Oddfellows' Hall quietly. After they had gone up, I spoke to one of the inspectors, and said—'Can Mr. Murphy be in.' He replied—'No, I think it too soon; it is not yet 7 o'clock.' However, after they had been in a minute or so, I said—'He must be in, because he is checking them; they are coming back.' Immediately we heard a yell, a cry out—'They are murdering Murphy.' We immediately repaired to the entrance door. At that time there was such a scene of confusion as I have not seen for some time. They were all in a crowd, and appeared as if they had got some person under their feet. When we got to the spot, I saw Mr. Murphy on the ground, face downwards, bleeding very much, and these parties round about him. As soon as I sprang in I raised my stick, and they fell back. I saw then that they seemed very much enraged, and that our only chance was to try to get Mr. Murphy taken safely back into the hall through the iron gate, and that we ought to lose no time in doing so. By that time the parties who were kicking him, rushed back into the crowd, some hundreds of people having collected round about. I thought that the man was killed outright. He was taken into the hall and carried upstairs, and I immediately sent for Dr. Lumb, who was not at home. Dr. Henry came in his stead, and, with the assistance of Dr. Horan, attended Mr. Murphy. He was very much cut about the head. They laid him on a bench in the anteroom, and he was obliged to remain there all night. A bed was provided for him; but as he was in such a prostrate state the doctors did not consider it advisable to remove him until next day, when he was taken to his lodgings. I may state that at that time I did not attempt to take any of the parties into custody, because I knew if I had done so there would have been a serious breach of the peace. I have not the least doubt that some of the men might have been armed with firearms. On one of the prisoners taken last night—Dennis Doyle—this loaded revolver (produced) was found in his breast, also this dagger-knife, bullet-mould, and a box of caps."

That was the first time that Dennis Doyle was seen after he was known to have taken part in the outrage upon Mr. Murphy; but I have further evidence than this. These men were all identified as having been engaged in trampling Murphy to death, and upon the pavement were found a broken stick, a poker, and several stones, and upon one of the stones was some hair which seemed to have come off Murphy's head. Sir, I hesitate not to declare that there never was a more determined attempt at murder. True, the man did not die at the time; but that which the hon. Member for West Cumberland (Mr. Percy Wyndham) has most justly impugned is the discretion of the statesman, who, within five weeks or a month after this man's funeral, at which a disposition to renewed outrages was manifested, remits a penalty of one year's imprisonment inflicted on the only men who had been convicted fairly as participators in the outrage from the effects of which Mr. Murphy died. Let me again assure the House, in conclusion, that I bring forward the facts to which I have referred from no vindictive feeling or animosity towards the Home Secretary; but I do, in this instance as I have been compelled before, impugn his wisdom and discretion in the exercise of the prerogative of mercy, and do declare before this House my deliberate opinion that his conduct in this particular case has produced a most evil impression with regard to the administration of justice not only in Birmingham, but throughout the county generally.

said, that if it were allowed that Murphy observed some want of judgment in his method of treating the subject upon which he lectured, it should not be forgotten that opposition usually arose in eases when he quoted extracts from Roman Catholic writers, the accuracy of which had never been questioned. But however that might be, he (Mr. Holt) had yet to learn that when a man entered a hall to deliver a lecture—a hall that was engaged by himself, and which, though open to all persons, no one was compelled to enter—that he had committed an offence for which he should be punished. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department had broadly asserted that no evidence existed of any conspiracy to injure Murphy; but he would call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the evidence reported at the time—that Dennis Doyle, one of the prisoners, was heard to say the first thing that would be seen was "Murphy coming out from yonder top window." That was said before Murphy had entered the hall. It was likewise proved that there were wounds on Murphy's body which must have been given by a sharp-pointed instrument. And not only that, but the men were seen approaching in a body to the attack, and, generally, the evidence clearly showed a preconcerted intention to injure Murphy. The right hon. Gentleman had also said he had decided the case without reference to Murphy's death. That was precisely what was complained of. Usually sentences were remitted when circumstances came to light after the trial showing that those found guilty were less culpable than was supposed at the time; but in this case, subsequent events would have required the infliction of a more severe penalty if the sentence were interfered with at all. When the sentence was passed it was clear a brutal assault had been committed; but when the penalty was in part remitted, it was known that that brutal assault had resulted in the death of the victim. The intervention, therefore, of the right hon. Gentleman in that respect was both unjust and impolitic; for if the right hon. Gentleman had desired to show clemency there were scores of prisoners at present in gaol whose sentences were far more severe than those passed by the Chief Baron upon the assailants of Murphy, and which he might have remitted without fear of adverse criticism. Indeed, he believed that the policy of the right hon. Gentleman would lead the people to think that in the estimation of the Government killing is no murder—that if lawless men had a grudge against any person all they had to do was to collect a mob, to create a riot, and kill him in concert. Then if any fatal result should happen, and the guilty parties should be convicted, an application to the Home Secretary would obtain the remittal of their sentences. He thought that the course which had been adopted was calculated to prevent freedom of speech and action, and for that reason he should most heartily support the Motion.

said, he thought hon. Members ought not to depart from the Motion under consideration; and that if it invited the House to review the judgment of a Criminal Court, he should have been unable to take any part whatever in the discussion, but he did not think that was the subject brought before them. Although he agreed with his hon. Friend (Mr. Newdegate) that it was the duty of the Government to afford protection to all British subjects, yet it was, in his (Dr. Brewer's) opinion, equally the duty of all members of society so to exercise their judgment as to avoid calling down upon themselves the wrath and indignation of their fellowmen. In the present instance, the Home Secretary had followed the ordinary course. If, indeed, it could be shown that the right hon. Gentleman had travelled out of the ordinary course, or had been influenced by passion or by favour, he would undoubtedly have committed a very serious offence. It appeared to him, however, that the right hon. Gentleman had been influenced neither by passion nor favour, but that he had acted in the same way as he always did when the punishment of criminals was brought under his notice.

said, that while unable to agree with all the remarks of his hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), he could not but feel that this was a matter which called for serious consideration, because it involved the right of free discussion. He presumed his hon. Friend would be the last man to defend the noisy and obstreperous endeavours of Mr. Murphy to abuse the Roman Catholic religion and to annoy the believers in it; and he certainly must say that for himself (Mr. Muntz), while he was desirous of offering freedom of religion, he was not inclined to allow supremacy on one side or the other. Murphy travelled over the country delivering speeches which he neither appreciated nor was inclined to tolerate; but it should be borne in mind that other persons made speeches at the same time which were never interfered with. What he complained of, in fact, and what the House could hardly have failed to notice was that, by a singular accident, no doubt, there had been a leniency and tolerance on the one side which had not been displayed on the other. Mr. Murphy, he admitted, was a great nuisance to the town he had the honour to represent, and to the neighbouring constituencies; but, still, he was a subject of the Crown, and had a right to protection during a free discussion. Some of Mr. Murphy's statements had reference to a work entitled The Confessional Unmasked. Now, he had had the misfortune to read that work, which was once published in The Times. It appeared there in Latin, or otherwise that paper would have been liable to an indictment for a disgusting exhibition. Since then it had been translated by Murphy into English, and he had read extracts from it, in indecorous language, all over the country. For his own part, he did not justify this for a moment; but the book, translated into plain English, was sold at the same time in the streets of London, and no attempt was made to punish the persons who sold it daily.

remarked that persons had been prosecuted and punished for selling the work. In fact, there was a man now undergoing imprisonment for this very offence.

said, he was very glad to hear that such was the case. On many occasions persons had been interfered with for distributing lottery tickets; but there was a lottery in Dublin which sent round tickets every year, which many Members of that House received, but he never heard of any prosecution being instituted. He wanted to secure fair and equal play for all parties. Those men who attacked Mr. Murphy in such a brutal manner were certainly not deserving of clemency, and such persons should not only be punished, but their punishment should be carried out.

said, he thought it was a great blessing that the exercise of mercy was entrusted to a responsible Minister of the Crown, and not to the House of Commons. In his judgment, therefore, it was a very grave matter for the House to interfere in the way of censure with any act done by that officer of the Crown; and, unless there was reason to believe there had been some corrupt motive, or great carelessness, or an amount of ignorance in the matter that would be clearly blameable, he, for one, would be very shy in taking part in so grave a matter as passing a Vote of Censure on the right hon. Gentleman's conduct. He could not see, for instance, that any blame attached to the right hon. Gentleman for taking the opinion of the Judge, for he did not believe the right hon. Gentleman took it with a view of shielding himself from any responsibility, but solely with an honest intention to ascertain in the best manner the facts on which the sentence was passed; indeed, he should be almost inclined to say that the right hon. Gentleman would have been blameable if he had not availed himself of every means in his power to obtain the real facts of the case. The right hon. Gentleman had, he might say, a dreadful office to execute in dispensing the mercy of the Crown, and in the present case he certainly could not concur in the proposed censure of his conduct.

said, he wished to take occasion to call attention to the increase of the salary of the Registrar of the Privy Council from £1,300 to £1,500 a-year, which it appeared from a foot-note was only to be a temporary arrangement lasting for three years, a clerk being also appointed under him for the same limited period. Now, what he objected to was not so much the amount of the salary to be given to a highly deserving officer, as the novel principle involved in the mode of remuneration for a specified period to which he referred, and he should like to be told the reason for the course adopted. When the Board of Trade Estimates came on he should have to remark upon a similar case, where an appointment stated to be for 18 months only, and agreed to by Parliament on that understanding, had been forthwith converted into a permanent appointment.

said, the increase of salary had been granted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in consequence of the recommendations of the Privy Council, founded upon any increase in the work to be done.

said, he should like to know why the period of three years had been fixed upon? Who could tell whether the extra duties for which the increase of salary was given, would come to an end at the expiration of that time?

hoped, unless some more satisfactory explanation were furnished on the point, the Committee would decide against it.

pointed out that the reason why the salary was fixed for three years was, that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was at present in a transition state, and that it was also very much encumbered with appeals. It was expected that those appeals would be got rid of at the end of three years, and that there would then be some change. Under those circumstances, it had been deemed to be the best course to reserve the question as to what should be the permanent salary of some of the officers.

remarked that the change referred to depended on the passing of a very important Act of Parliament, and contended that the mode of fixing the salaries of the officials adopted by the Government was not satisfactory.

asked whether the Registrar was bound to devote the whole of his time to the duties of his office for £1,300 per annum? If he was, he could be given £200 a-year for part of his holiday being taken away.

hoped the Amendment of the hon. Member for Warrington would be withdrawn. He objected to the Vote of £1,950 for incidental expenses, and would move its reduction.

said, that in order to allay the alarm that existed last year of the danger of cholera visiting this country in the summer and autumn, it was found necessary to make provision in the event of its visiting this country. That course had been again followed, and it did not follow that because the money was voted it must be spent. It was to be hoped that the money would not be wanted.

thought the Estimates applied to the coming year, and not to the past.

said, the Estimate was for the current year. The Treasury had cut down the Vote, thinking the cholera was not so near as the Department imagined, but still it was only safe to take a Vote. With regard to the personal allowances, they had been adopted as an economical measure, for the Department had been reorganized, and instead of advancing the salaries, these personal allowances had been given.

pointed out that such personal allowances were very common in all mercantile establishments.

thought that few vessels coming from Russia went to Liverpool. Bristol and Cardiff were as likely to take the cholera as Liverpool.

said, there was no rule as to the resort of particular ships to particular ports. He had often taken exception on this Vote, but would not do so now, as the Department had taken a great deal of trouble, and incurred considerable expense, in order to satisfy the public in reference to the prevention of cholera.

complained that the application of the money would be partial. It was to meet cases arising in London, Liverpool, and Cardiff; but in Hull, Newcastle, Sunderland, and other ports, there would be probably as much need for it as the places named. He, therefore, wished to know why, up to the present time, the money had been ex- pended in so partial a manner, instead of being applied to all the ports at which danger might arise?

denied that there had been any partial application of the funds, and strongly deprecated the mischievous and dangerous parsimony involved in the proposal of the hon. Member for Sunderland.

objected to the proposal to make provision in the shape of personal allowances for three years in advance. Let Her Majesty's Government provide for the current year, and leave the future to be arranged for by the Government in office.

said, that the conversation that had taken place was an illustration of the extreme inconvenience of placing under the Privy Council functions so entirely diverse as judicial functions, quarantine, and the veterinary department, and he expressed a hope that the time would come when the Privy Council duties would be confined to one department. He was surprised to find so large a Vote for quarantine, though he was aware that in some ports, especially Liverpool, great alarm appeared to prevail on the subject.

said, there was not the slightest intention of expending the money, unless it was absolutely necessary to do so. The necessity of taking the Vote arose from the fact that the Treasury had been warned by an authority that they dared not disregard that there was danger of cholera this year. If that were to be so, the Government had been greatly to blame for not having taken a Vote in anticipation with which to take the requisite precautions. The Treasury had power to alter the destination of the money, or any portion of it, according as the necessity arose.

asked for an explanation of an item in the Vote for auxiliary scientific investigations concerning the causes and processes of disease.

said, it was true that the State interference in questions affecting the health of the country was by the Act of last year divided between the Local Government Board and the Privy Council; but it had been thought best, for the present year at least, to include in the Civil Service Estimates the Vote for scientific investi- gations concerning the progress of diseases.

said, he wished for some explanation with regard to the item for the Veterinary department of the Privy Council. Whenever a temporary emergency arose, the House was always ready to vote whatever money was required to meet it; but, unfortunately, when the temporary emergency passed away, there was a tendency to make the provision permanent. When Providence removed the cattle plague, Providence did not remove Mr. Williams with it, and relegate him to another office. It had been thought necessary to make provision for him where he was, and his department was rendered permanent for him in the Privy Council, there he remained till the present time, and would remain till eternity, unless the Committee did something in the matter. Mr. Williams had a salary of £1,000 per annum for presiding over this Veterinary department, and there was a large staff, with inspectors, clerks, and temporary clerks. It was true the foot-and-mouth disease, after the cattle plague disappeared, was prevalent in the country; but it did not require the perpetual interference of the Privy Council and the permanent establishment of a Veterinary department, besides great expenses in every county, in the way of inspection, connected with this department. The importation of diseased foreign cattle might be prevented by local officers at the ports. He therefore asked the Committee to consider whether it was necessary to maintain this central department; and he must state that if such a department was required, it seemed proper that subjects of this kind should be dealt with by the Local Government Board. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would explain why this subject should be dealt with at all by the Privy Council Office; and, if so, why so large a staff of officers was permanently employed?

said, the only answer he could make to the first question was, that he found this department at the Privy Council Office when he went there; but he should be glad if it could be removed, for the change would relieve him from much work; although he supposed it would then fall upon some other Minister, so that little public advantage would result from the alteration. Pro- bably the department was originally placed at the Privy Council Office because the Orders in Council were there issued. The right hon. Gentleman was entirely mistaken in supposing that with the present Acts of Parliament, and the expectations of the country, the department could be conducted at smaller expense, because a great deal of hard work was done in the office, and the salaries were carefully examined. During the cattle plague the expenditure was enormously larger than at present; but at that time the country got frightened, and thought it necessary that cattle diseases should be guarded against in future. The duties of the department related to the carrying into effect of those views. There might be some doubt as to whether any trade should be interfered with; but Parliament having decided to interfere with the importation of food, its wishes could not be enforced without a central department, and that department had very grave and onerous duties to discharge. For instance, until the completion of the Deptford Cattle Market, a cordon had to be maintained around the City of London. It would not be sufficient to employ local officers, and Parliament had no justification for requiring a department to perform duties if it did not provide adequate means for the purpose. The House had passed an Act to check home diseases, and if the right hon. Gentleman thought it should be repealed, he ought to move to that effect. But the Act related not only to the foot-and-mouth disease, but to the fatal disease of pleuro-pneumonia. He was glad to say that the House had been pleased also to try to make better regulations for the transit of cattle, and Parliament could not refuse to pay clerks to apply these provisions. He believed the Office was managed economically, and that the clerks in it performed their duties as efficiently and received as little pay as the officials in any other department.

asked for explanations respecting the personal allowances paid to individual officers.

thought that without having veterinary inspectors and an organized staff, with competent authorities to decide whether animals were diseased or not, it was quite idle to pass such Acts of Parliament at all.

thought that a more useless body than the inspectors of foot-and-mouth disease could not exist, and regarded the London superintendents as an equally useless body. A penalty on anyone caught driving diseased cattle on public roads, enforced by Justices, would be quite sufficient, and save every county great annual and useless expense.

submitted that it was impossible for the Government to constantly interfere with the cattle trade without they had the advice of some scientific persons, whose services they could not secure without they were adequately remunerated.

said, he would remind the right hon. Baronet that both sides of the House had forced the Government to take steps to prevent the importation of cattle disease, and that therefore they ought not to refuse now to pay the necessary expenses resulting from the course they had adopted.

supported the Vote, on the ground that it would be unwise to scrutinize too carefully the means that were adopted to prevent the importation of cattle disease into this country.

asked, and repeated the question, whether the Registrar of the Privy Council, like a County Court Judge, undertook, on his appointment, to give his whole time to the duties of the office?

said, he also thought it desirable to check the increase of the staff of the Department, but was willing to leave the matter to its discretion. There was, however, great danger in the accumulation of work on certain individuals. The Department ought to see that each individual had such an amount of work as he could perform properly, and not to give him more than he was able to do. The concentration of work on one individual, and asking him to do more than he was capable of doing, was a false economy.

said, no doubt the understanding was the Registrar was to give his whole time for the salary; but additional duties had since been imposed upon him, and that was a reason for increasing his pay.

said, the explanation of the Secretary to the Treasury was unsatisfactory, and he hoped the hon. Member for Warrington would divide the Committee.

asked whether the Registrar had at first too little to do, or now had too much to do?

said, there was not an officer in the metropolis whose salary was not raised with the increase of duty.

said, with regard to the Registrar, he was quite certain that an official of equal efficiency could not be obtained without the payment of a large salary. It should also be borne in mind that considerable additions had been made to the work performed by this gentleman.

deprecated what looked like a personal attack on the Registrar.

repudiated any intention to make a personal attack, and, while willing not to press the Amendment, would leave it to be disposed of by the Committee.