asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether Constable Joseph Webster, together with thirty- one other constables and sub-constables, were discharged from the Royal Irish Constabulary, on the 31st of July 1873, on account of ill health and long service; and, if it was a fact that those men were thereby deprived of eight pound some odd shillings each back-pay, to which they would be justly entitled if allowed to remain in the service one day longer?

The present Government are in no way responsible for what has been done. The facts of the case are, I believe, as follows:—Constable Webster and 31 other men were pronounced unfit for further service by a Medical Board on the 9th of July, 1873. According to the usual practice in such cases, their pay was made to cease on the 31st of the same month, and their pensions to commence on the 1st of the following month. In accordance with the terms of the Act 36 & 37 Viet., c. 74, s. 1 (last paragraph), the men in question, together with many others almost similarly circumstanced—having ceased to be members of the Force before the 1st of August, 1873—wore excluded from the benefits of the increased rate of pay which commenced on the 1st of December, 1872.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether he proposes, after introducing a measure to establish in Ireland a now area of taxation for county purposes, to legislate further, during the present Session, with a view to alter and improve the Grand Jury Laws in that part of the Kingdom?

, in reply, said, his hon. Friend seemed to have failed to apprehend the purport of the Answer which he had some time ago given to the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) in connection with the subject. He then intended to say that, finding the area of Poor Law chargeability was very much connected with county taxation and management, he hoped to introduce a scheme to the notice of the House which would include both those questions. He had such a scheme in preparation; but he feared some time must elapse before he could present it to the House. It dealt with a difficult and complicated subject, and ought not to be proceeded with without full and careful consideration.

asked Mr. Attorney General, If, having regard to the Resolution of this House declaring John Mitchel to be incapable of being elected or returned as Member of Parliament, it is optional with the Sheriff of Tipperary either to receive or reject a properly filled nomination paper presented to him on behalf of Mr. Mitchel?

I am as desirous as any person can be of answering, to the best of my ability, all such Questions as may be put to me by hon. Members; but I must submit to the House that there is a limit to the privileges of hon. Members in respect of Parliamentary questionings; and I venture to think that the hon. Member for Westmeath has passed that limit in asking me as to the course which the Sheriff of Tipperary should pursue in the possible event of a nomination paper being presented to him, filled up with the name of a gentleman who has been declared by this House incapable of being elected. The Sheriff is both a ministerial and a judicial officer, and it appears to me—and I trust that the House will agree with me in thinking so—that it would not be consistent with my duty as Attorney General to express an opinion in this House as to the way in which the Sheriff of Tipperary should discharge his duty in a possible state of circumstances.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the neglected sanitary and educational condition of our Canal population; and, whether as a Royal Commission is about to inquire into the expediency of extending the provisions of the Factory and Workshops Acts to certain classes now exempt from their operation, he is willing to recommend that the condition of our Canal population should be included in the inquiry?

, in reply, said, his attention has been called to the very neglected condition, both in a sanitary and an educational point of view, of what was termed our floating population on the canals of this country. There might, however, as the children in question were not employed in workshops or in labour which came under the operation of the Factory and Workshops Acts, be some difficulty in including them in the inquiry to be made by the Commission which was about to be issued. He hoped, nevertheless, to find some remedy for the existing state of things, and he would undertake that a sufficient investigation should be made into it in a formal shape.

asked the hon. Member for Truro, Whether it is a fact that the costs of a private Bill, the "Metropolis Gas (New Works) "introduced by the Metropolitan Board of Works, and withdrawn before the Second Reading, amount to several thousand pounds; and, whether he would state the amount and out of what funds such costs are proposed to be defrayed?

, in reply, said, the accounts not having yet been received by the Metropolitan Board of Works, it was quite impossible for him to give the House any idea what the amount was. When they had been sent in they would, after due investigation, be placed under the head "Legal and Parliamentary Expenses," and would be charged in the usual manner against the revenue of the Board.

asked the President of the Board of Trade, How many prosecutions there have been under Clause 11 of the Merchant Shipping Amendment Act of 1871; and what have been the results of such prosecutions; if he is aware that ten British steamers have foundered in the Bay of Biscay during the last six months, drowning upwards of two hundred people; and how many inquiries have been held or are likely to be held in regard to these disasters; and, whether, supposing any of these vessels to have been unseaworthy, it is proposed to prosecute anybody; and, in such event, how he proposes to reach the persons responsible for the improper condition in which vessels that have gone to the bottom, with all hands, sailed from foreign ports homeward bound?

There have been several prosecutions under consideration. The cases of the Nimrod, of Belfast, the Mary, of Glasgow, the Alcedo, of Waterford, the Ceres, of Whitehaven, and others are now in the hands of the Crown Lawyers. But there has been no Public Prosecutor hitherto; now the Board of Trade have a solicitor. Hitherto prosecutions have been conducted indirectly by correspondence between the Board of Trade and the Home Office, the Treasury, and the Law Officers. Of the 10 steamers named, five are reported as having foundered in the Bay of Biscay, with 100 lives lost; five are missing. Inquiries have been held in the first five cases—namely, the La Plata, Cortes, Mary, Clifton, and Alpha—and inquiries will be held in the other cases if any trustworthy evidence should be forthcoming. Of the first five, the Mary was found by the Court to have been unseaworthy, and the case is in the hands of the Lord Advocate for a criminal prosecution. As to homeward-bound ships from foreign ports, it is the Consul's business to report any suspicious cases, and he may summon a Naval Court which can order survey. Owners of unseaworthy ships would be prosecuted on evidence sent home by the Consul.

I beg to give Notice that to-morrow I shall ask the President of the Board of Trade, on what authority he imputes to me. any responsibility for the inquiry into the case of the Viceroy, as at the present moment I am entirely unaware of having had anything to do with it; and, whether he thinks it wise on the part of the Board of Trade to parade themselves before the public continually by attacking me without just reason?

rose to call the attention of the House to the operation and present uncertain state of the law relating to the trial of Election Petitions, and to move—

"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the working of the 'Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868,' and to report what, if any, Amendments are necessary."

The hon. and learned Gentleman said, that the subject to which he was about to call the attention of the House was one of considerable importance. It concerned the dignity of the House, its composition, its privileges, and the independence of its Members. Happily that was not a party question. It affected both sides alike, and every constituency in the kingdom, Conservative or Liberal. He need not remind the House how jealously they had claimed, and for centuries had exercised, the right of determining all questions relating to the return of Members to sit there. Until the passing of Mr. Grenville's Act, in 1770, those questions had been decided by the House itself. From that time down to 1868, when the present Act was passed, the jurisdiction over Election Petitions had been delegated to Committees appointed from time to time. In 1868, the House, after an inquiry before a Select Committee, and after lengthened debate, parted with that power, and transferred it to a new tribunal outside the House, created for that purpose, and independent of the House. He was not going to question the policy of that proceeding. It was probably too late to do so now; and if he said anything upon the subject, he wished it to be understood that it would be simply for the purpose of illustration, to show how the new system had worked, and what had been its necessary cones- quences. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, on a recent occasion, said that the Act of 1868 had, upon the whole, worked well, although, as he (Mr. Serjeant Simon) understood him, it was susceptible of amendment and improvement. He agreed to a certain extent with the right hon. Gentleman. The investigation of election cases by the Judges had the advantage of despatch, and of being free from any imputation of political partizanship; but, in other respects, he did not think that the Act had been a success. It had been always held, as a cardinal principle of constitutional government, that the legislative and executive functions of the State should be kept apart, and independent of each other, each in its own proper province, and that it was detrimental to both, and to the public weal, that they should be brought into conflict. Here, however, under this Act, the Judges of the land—the judicial branch of the Executive power—were brought into continual conflict with the House of Commons, and with popular opinion as well, upon matters of mere political partizanship. Their judgments were questioned and discussed—sometimes angrily discussed—both within and without the House; and what was the consequence? The dignity and authority of the Bench must be lowered, and public confidence in the administration of justice weakened by these unseemly conflicts. That was not a state of things that ought to continue, for however important it might be to have an efficient tribunal for the trial of Election Petitions, that was a small matter in comparison with the general administration of justice. The Judges, moreover, had been taken out of their proper sphere, and called upon to discharge duties, and to exercise functions entirely new to them, and wholly out of the range of those investigations to which they had been accustomed. The Act of 1868 required every year a rota of three Judges to be appointed in England, and three in Ireland. The last Parliament continued five years; so that in England there had been 15 different Election Judges, and in Ireland 9; making in all 24 tribunals consisting each of a single Judge, each sitting alone and apart from the others, independent of each other, without the opportunity of consulting one with the other in cases of doubt or difficulty; I and each of these tribunals so constituted was charged with the duty of deciding and determining questions of fact as well as of law; and against its decision, except in certain cases, there was no appeal. How was it possible to obtain, or to preserve, uniformity in the law; or to prevent dissatisfaction with decisions arrived at under such circumstances? What did the Judges themselves say on the matter? Before the Committee of 1869, Mr. Justice Willes, in reply to the question whether he would like to have four Members of Parliament associated with him, said—

"Two would be sufficient; they would afford the greatest relief to me personally, and would, I think, strengthen the tribunal."

Mr. Justice Blackburn, before the same Committee, said—

"If two Members of Parliament would serve, it would greatly improve the tribunal, and be a means of relief to myself."

The same learned Judge, in delivering judgment in a complicated election case, said, speaking of the difficulty of his position in having to decide alone upon the facts, that he had "to apply his common sense to the facts "before him; "but," he added, the "common sense of one Judge must differ from the common sense of another;" and he quoted the. famous saying of Selden, "that a standard of common sense on the part of Judges would be as uncertain as a measure of length of which the unit was a Judge's foot," and he then used these words—" I wish with all my heart that the Legislature would find out some test to relieve us from that uncertainty." He (Mr. Serjeant Simon) did not think it possible for the Legislature to discover such a test; but it had the power, which he hoped it would exercise, of so constituting the tribunal as to relieve the Judges from undue responsibility, and assist them in arriving at satisfactory decisions upon questions of fact while securing uniformity in the decisions upon questions of law. [The hon. and learned Member then proceeded to cite a number of decisions pronounced by Election Judges, in order to show that, as the law admitted of many diverse readings, it was necessary to amend it.] For instance, he said, a lawyer hearing the term "agent" would understand it to refer to a person appointed by another to act for him under a given authority, and whose acts would bind his principal only so far as they were in accordance with the authority so given. In election matters this was different. It had been laid down that, the relation between a candidate and his agent was analogous to that of master and servant, and further, that the candidate was not only responsible for the acts of his agent, but responsible even when the agent acted contrary to, and in direct defiance of, the instructions which the candidate had given him. Purity of election was, of course, the principle upon which the law so laid down was based; but it surely was a matter well worthy of consideration whether there ought not to be some limit to this doctrine. Indeed, it was too stringent to be always acted upon, and accordingly they found that the Judges themselves had endeavoured to relax its severity, as he (Mr. Serjeant Simon) would presently show. In one. case, a learned Judge hold that a candidate who had instructed his agent in these words—" Do not bribe; I will not be responsible for it," was nevertheless responsible, although the agent had positively disobeyed the instructions of the candidate. In another case, however, a learned Judge said, that where an agent acted inconsistently with the intentions and determination of the candidate, expressed in his public communications with the electors, the inference was, that the act was not authorized by the candidate, and he therefore was not responsible for them. Again, it had been decided to be immaterial whether the candidate was aware of the fact that his agent had been treating, and that even though the majority on the poll was not composed of persons treated, the seat was forfeited. In another case, however, a decision the reverse of this was given under very similar circumstances. With regard to treating, it had been laid down by a most distinguished Judge, that the intention was the test of a corrupt act, and that a thimbleful of drink given with a corrupt intention was sufficient to void an election. Another Judge, however, ruled that drink given by an agent in order to keep voters quiet who, during the election, had informed him that the other side were busily engaged in treating, was not corrupt, because it had not been given voluntarily, but under pressure, in order to keep the voters quiet; while a third learned Judge, in Ireland, held that treating, in order to be corrupt, must be proved to have operated so as to change the mode in which the elector would have voted. There were also judgments with reference to the payment of the rates of voters, and bribing at municipal elections in order to influence subsequent Parliamentary Elections, which it was very difficult to reconcile. In some instances, payment of rates by an agent had unseated the Member; in others, it had not. Bribery and treating at a municipal election shortly before a Parliamentary Election had not unseated a Member; while in another it had. Of course, there were differences in the circumstances of each case, but not such differences, he ventured to affirm, as might be expected where such opposite judgments had been pronounced. Then, with regard to money bribery, it had been held that a single bribe was sufficient to void an election, and that, too, even where the bribed voter voted contrary to his promise, and against the candidate on whose behalf he had been bribed. This principle of a single bribe voiding an election was applied in the Norwich case, and applied under very peculiar circumstances, for it involved another point of election law—namely, the influence of an act done at a previous election upon a subsequent election. In the Norwich case, Mr. Tillett was unseated, not for any act done at the election in question, or for any act done by him, or on his account; but because, at an election two years before, the agent of the candidate with whom Mr. Tillett coalesced, and who, after the coalition, acted for both, bribed a voter to vote for that other candidate, and he had voted for both. Mr. Tillett failed at that election, but stood again at the next vacancy, and was unseated upon Petition because of the bribe so given at the former election. The learned Judge who tried the case said he had—

"Arrived at a perfectly clear conclusion that Mr. Tillett really and in all sincerity desired to conduct all election matters in which he was engaged with the utmost purity, and free from anything approaching to illegality or bribery. It seems to some people hard," said the Judge, "that a single act of bribery should void the election, but, in truth, it is not hard at all; but where an act of bribery is committed, the election is tainted. It is no longer an election; it is utterly void. I consider," said he, "that Mr. Tillett was desirous of conducting the election of 1868 with the greatest purity, and I consider that the result is undoubtedly a cruel consequence of the Law of Election, which, however, is a necessary law—a law arising from the necessity of the case."

Mr. Tillett was unseated. But what said another Judge in another case? He said, speaking of a single act of corruption—

"I cannot take it as a hard-and-fast rule that, whenever a case of corruption can be proved within the letter of the Act, therefore the seat should be declared vacant. Each case," he said, "must be taken with reference to the facts taken together,"

and he refused to unseat the Member. So also, in another case, another learned Judge refused to unseat a Member on the ground of a single bribe. To quote his words, he said—

"One would really be sorry to upset this election, unless it could be shown beyond a doubt that these acts of alleged bribery," (amounting in all to half-a-crown), "were done by the candidate."

But it had been laid down already that a single bribe of half-a-crown was sufficient to void an election, oven though the act of the agent in bribing had been directly contrary to the express instructions of his principal, and in spite of them. With regard, also, to the influence of corrupt acts at a previous election upon a subsequent one, there was a case in which payments by a candidate after an election as "debts of honour," in respect of corrupt acts done at a previous election, at which he had failed, did not effect his return at a subsequent election, and the candidate retained his seat. With respect to treating, too, whore refreshments had been ordered at a public-house, and voters were regaled there, and afterwards driven to the poll to vote, the learned Judge, while he condemned these and other proceedings at the election, saying that "the course pursued shows that it was known to be wrong," and that he had no doubt of the treating, yet he held that "it was not corrupt, considering the customs of the people." He (Mr. Serjeant Simon) would ask, in all respect, could anything like a safe guide be found in these varying decisions? Payment of voters' expenses in going to vote has been a subject of not unfrequent consideration on Election Petitions, and one learned Judge very properly described it as a means of giving gratuities in the shape of excessive payment for travelling expenses. In a well-known case—"Cooper v. Slade"—the House of Lords decided that a promise to pay a voter's travelling expenses, conditionally upon his voting for a particular candidate, was an offence under 17 & 18 Vict. c. 102; but the Judges were divided in opinion as to whether an unconditional promise—that was to say, a mere promise to pay a man's expenses for going to vote, without specifying how he should vote—was a corrupt act. A statute was afterwards passed, the 21 & 22 Vict. e. 87, declaring that to provide a conveyance was lawful, but that it should not be lawful to pay any money, or give any valuable consideration to a voter for, or in respect of, his travelling expenses. It has since been held that, to provide a railway pass for a voter was not unlawful, while in another case the permission to tenants to shoot rabbits was declared to be corrupt, because rabbits had a money value. That was perfectly true; but it might occur to some that a railway pass had also a money value. It certainly had been so treated. In the Launceston case, the circumstances were these—The gentleman who was unseated, on coming in to the property, like his predecessors, reserved, or continued to reserve, the right of shooting the game on his estate. Complaints having been made by some of the tenants of the injury done by the ground game, he, like a good landlord, made arrangements for trapping them, and dividing some of the proceeds of their sale among the tenants who had been injured. This was some time before the election, and when the election was not thought of, and could not have been thought of. When the election came on, the rabbit grievance was brought up against him; and, finding himself unpopular, in a speech which he made during the election, referring to the rabbit grievance, he told his tenants to shoot all the rabbits, and do what they liked with them. "I am anxious," he said, "that every rabbit should be killed, and every tenant is at liberty to kill them as he can." The gentleman was unseated for giving this permission, on the ground, as he (Mr. Serjeant Simon) had said, that the rabbits had a money value. He (Mr. Serjeant Simon)did not presume to question the decision. He pronounced no opinion upon it. All he wished to say was this—and it was his chief object in referring to the case—that the decision had excited much attention, and much surprise, and dissatisfaction had been expressed at it, and that this would not have been the ease if the tribunal that pronounced it had been composed of more than a single Judge. So also of the Windsor case. Much astonishment and dissatisfaction had been expressed at the result of that case, and for the reasons assigned in the judgment. He (Mr. Serjeant Simon) did not feel it necessary to detain the House by discussing a question of casuistry as to whether, or how far, or in what degree, a good motive was tainted or destroyed by a bad one, or whether an illegal motive vitiated an act which of itself would otherwise be legal. He referred to this case simply as another instance of a class of cases as to which no amount of judicial learning or ability would render the decision of a single Judge satisfactory. He had hitherto referred to cases tried by single Judges. He had before him abstracts of 40 election cases; but he thought he had shown enough to satisfy the House that discrepancies were inevitable where they had a number of tribunals, each composed of a single Judge, and that confusion in the law must be the result where there was no general controlling power. He would refer to two cases more, however, in one of which the Judges of a Superior Court had differed among themselves, and where two Superior Courts had differed from each other. In the Galway case, the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland unseated a Member, the Chief Justice differing from the other Judges. The same question arose here out of the Launceston case. The question to which he (Mr. Serjeant Simon) referred was, as to the ineligibility of the candidate, and the time when, after certain acts, the ineligibility commenced. The Common Pleas of England gave a decision the very reverse of the decision of the Common Pleas of Ireland. They had thus two superior tribunals—the ultimate Courts of Appeal in each country—differing from each other, the one over-ruling the judgment of the other, upon the selfsame question. But he (Mr. Serjeant Simon)would offer a few remarks upon some points arising out of the defective provisions of the Act itself of 1868. When the case of the Tipperary Election was before the House in the Session of 1870, and the question of the eligibility of O'Donovan Rossa was discussed., it would be remembered that the right hon. Gentleman the late Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. E. P. Bouverie), raised the point whether it was competent to the House to entertain the question at all. He called attention to the 50th section of the Act, and contended that under that section the House had relinquished its power entirely over election matters, except where the Judge had made a Report. He (Mr. Serjeant Simon) took part in that discussion, and expressed his dissent then from the right hon. Member; but he (Mr. Serjeant Simon) was bound to say that his own opinion rested only upon construction. Now, an Act of Parliament such as that, and upon such a point, should be clear and definite; but here the vital part—so to speak, the very purpose and object of the Act—had been left an open question, and to be decided by a Resolution of the House. Another instance arose in the case of Mr. Mitchel's return, which was mentioned in the discussion in the House last week. According to the provisions of the statute, a Petition against a return, except in certain cases, must be presented within 21 days after the return of the Writ to the Clerk of the Crown, and he ventured to think that if some elector chose to say—" I thought when I was voting for Mr. Mitchel that I was voting for an eligible person; the House of Commons have declared that he is not, but I am not satisfied with their decision, I will appeal to a Court of Law," he might even now, the 21 days not having expired, petition the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland and have the question of Mr. Mitchel's eligibility decided there. In the debate last week, it was suggested by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt), that Mr. Mitchel might be returned again, and the question raised by another candidate's standing against him and petitioning for the seat. His own opinion, however, was, that they need not wait for that; that it was not necessary that another candidate should petition for the seat, but that it was open to any elector before the expiration of the 21 days to petition against the return. It might thus turn out that the proceedings of the House had been premature, and that a solemn Resolution of the House of Commons was in direct conflict with the solemn judgment of a Superior Court of Common Law in Ireland, charged too by Parliament with the jurisdiction over this very matter. Perhaps it might be said that the Court of Common Pleas would take cognizance of the Resolution of the House of Commons; but as that Court had, at least, a concurrent jurisdiction, it would not be bound by a Resolution of the House. Such a conflict as he had indicated might arise, and that entirely because of the defective provisions of the Act. Of course, it was not to be expected that the framers of an Act of Parliament should foresee every possible contingency; but as contingencies of the kind he had mentioned had arisen, or had been seen to be possible, and even probable, we ought to consider whether the statute should not be amended, so as to prevent the recurrence of similar difficulties. There was another point worthy of consideration. The House might consider the Report of a Judge, and in doing so might criticize or dispute the correctness of the Report, perhaps even question the conduct of the Judge; but was it desirable or becoming to subject the Judges of the land, every now and then, to angry comments and discussions in the House—comments, discussions arising generally out of disappointed party feeling, and very often from the mistaken views of those who questioned the decisions of the Judges? That was one of the great inconveniences of the new election tribunal. For his own part he professed no superstitious reverence for the Judges; but he might be permitted to say that, having passed the better part of his life at the Bar, he knew them well. They were high-minded men, devoted to the duties of their high office, and sensitive of the honour of the Bench as of their own individual honour as gentlemen. Their conduct and their character should not be lightly touched, nor their judicial acts questioned in that House, which he ventured to say was not competent to deal with such matters. Apart from what was due to the Judges themselves, upon public grounds, it was in the highest degree objectionable. He had now concluded what he had to say about the working of the Act. His object had been simply to point out the inevitable results—and only as inevitable results—the discrepancies and uncertainty in the law, and in the decisions arising out of the present system of a large number of independent and varying tribunals, composed of single Judges, called upon to decide both law and fact. But it might be asked—" What do you propose as a remedy for the evils you have pointed out? "What sort of tribunal would you have? It was not for him (Mr. Serjeant Simon) to provide a remedy. That was the duty of Her Majesty's Government. The subject was one specially within their province. There were also on the Treasury Bench several Members of the Government that brought forward the Bill of 1868, and caused it to be passed into law; and the present Prime Minister, he believed, had himself introduced it, if he was not the author of it. But if the Government should decline the task, then he would say that the proper course would be to refer the whole matter to a Select Committee. Without presuming to prescribe what should be done, he would throw out a suggestion or two which a Committee might fairly consider. A learned friend of his, Mr. Serjeant Pulling—a gentleman of great learning and ability—had devoted much attention to the subject when the matter was before the Committee in 1869, and in a pamphlet which he wrote, he recommended that the revising barrister, as assessor to the returning officer, should, immediately after an election, go down to the place, and hold an inquiry into the proceedings and deal summarily with all corrupt practices, and in certain cases where the return was questioned, the County Court Judge of the district should preside and inquire into the return along with them. Another suggestion which he (Mr. Serjeant Simon) would venture to make was, that the Election Judges should conduct the inquiry and simply report to the House, and that there should be a Standing Committee of its most experienced Members, to consider and determine upon the Report. The House would thus retain the power which it had so long exercised, and the Judges would be relieved from undue responsibility, while their Reports would be received with confidence and respect by the Committee, and by the House. Another mode was suggested before the Committee of 1869, and that was to associate two or more Members of the House with the Judges. This, perhaps, would be the best possible method under the circumstances. The Judges, or some of them, as he had shown, had borne their testimony in favour of this plan. It would greatly assist and relieve them in trying the facts, and the right of appeal, not limited as it now was, but given as of right, upon all questions of law, would have the effect of keeping the law straight, and preserving uniformity, which was impossible under the present system. One subject more, and he had done. He would refer to it but briefly. It was supposed that in transferring the trial of Election Petition to the Judges there would be great saving of expense, especially as to the witnesses, who had formerly to be brought from remote places, and kept in town while the inquiry was going on. But the saving had not been so great after all, for against it there was the expense of three new Judges, and the taking them, with their suite, to the town where the trial took place. This expense fell upon the country; and besides that, there was the expense of special retainers, and heavy fees to counsel, which fell upon candidates and others concerned in the case, and which were considerably greater than they were when the cases were tried in town. He had now only to say how sensible he was of the kind attention with which the House had listened to his remarks upon a subject which, however important and interesting to them, was necessarily of a very dry character. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving the appointment of the Committee.

, in seconding the Motion, said, he thought the time had come when the Act of 1868, which for the first time took away a jurisdiction which existed in this and every other Legislative Assembly, and gave to persons outside the power to determine the right to sit in the House, should be considered by a Select Committee. He himself last year gave Notice of his intention to move for a Select Committee on the subject; but he had not an opportunity of bringing it before the House. The Act was origin- nally introduced by the present Prime Minister as a permanent law; but on the suggestion of Mr. Mill, the late Member for Westminster, its operation was limited to three years. It expired in 1872, and had since been annually renewed by the Expiring Laws Bill without being submitted to the consideration of the House—a practice "more honoured in the breach than in the observance." He found that the number of Petitions tried under the Act since it passed in 1868 was 48 relating to English constituencies in the last Parliament, and 21 in the present Parliament, making together 69; while in Ireland 17 cases were tried during the last Parliament, and four in the present Parliament, a total of 21; and in Scotland during the last Parliament one, and in the present Parliament three. It was complained of the old system that it gave rise to great and unnecessary expense and inconsistent and uncertain decisions. After the speech of his hon. and learned Friend there could be little doubt that under the present practice the state of things had not much improved. They had not got rid of inconsistent and uncertain decisions, and the expenses equalled, if they did not in some cases exceed, those of former days. Last Session he moved for a Return of the taxed costs, and he found that the average costs of each party in England was from £1,000 to £1,500. In the Oldham case the taxed costs amounted to £3,036 3s. 6d., and in the Southampton case to £2,951 6s. 4d. In Ireland the costs averaged from £1,000 to £1,500. The taxed costs of the petitioner in the Galway case amounted to no less a sum than £6,789 17s. 2d. Then some of the decisions had surprised him a good deal. For instance, in the Windsor case the following passage occurred in Baron Bramwell's judgment:—

"As I have endeavoured to explain, I do not think that the considerations on which I am going to decide the case will be intelligible to any but lawyers."

For an Election Judge to so decide a case was not a satisfactory administration of the law. There were also the contradictory decisions in the Galway and Launceston cases. In the first a decision was pronounced seating a Member which the Court of Common Pleas in England would not follow be- cause it did not think it was law. They had two decisions of Ultimate Courts of Appeal different ways, and there were no means, except by Act of Parliament, of declaring what was the real law. The question arose, what was to be done under the circumstances? He was strongly opposed to transferring the consideration of Election Petitions from Members of the House to the Judges, and he agreed fully in the Letter of the Lord Chief Justice, laid on the Table, in which he said that the House was imposing on the Judges a duty which would expose them to great odium and was foreign to the purpose for which they were appointed. Forty years ago a Committee presided over by Mr. Buller, the only surviving Member of which he believed was his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Roebuck), came to the same conclusion—that duties of this nature ought not to be given to the Judges. Facilis est descensus—and he feared it was now too late to take away from the Judges the power of deciding in election cases. He thought, however, that every Election Petition ought to be tried by two Judges instead of by one; and if the two could not agree the election ought to stand, and the successful candidate should be allowed to take his seat. It would be said they had not a judicial staff for the purpose; but that was a mere question of expense. A very serious matter was that if the Judge reported against any persons for bribery or corrupt practices they were exposed to a species of outlawry for a period of seven years, and yet they had no appeal from his decision. They had not even an opportunity of being heard before the Judge who reported their names. A remarkable, and now historical case, that of Galway, was a good illustration of that hardship. In that case Mr. Justice Keogh reported against the Archbishop of Tuam and two Bishops for corrupt practices or undue influence, and an Order was made by the House that they should be prosecuted by the Attorney General. One of the Bishops was tried before a Judge and a jury, and he was acquitted, to the satisfaction of everyone who heard the evidence. Still, he remained disqualified, under the Report of Justice Keogh, from taking part in any election until the seven years had expired, and the Archbishop and other Bishop were in the same position. But there were other matters connected with the subject which also deserved attention. It was provided in the Act that in November of each year one of the Puisne Judges of each Court not being a Member of the House of Lords should be placed on the rota to try Election Petitions during the ensuing year. It was not usual for Puisne Judges to be Members of the House of Lords; it was possible, however, that some might be, but he presumed that this House thought that Members of the House of Lords should not interfere in the Election Petitions. And yet Lord Coleridge, a Member of the House of Lords presided over the Court of Common Pleas, and on an appeal to that Court might decide on the right of persons to sit in the House of Commons. He had called attention to this point, because it seemed to show some inconsistency in the policy of the Act. He thought there ought to be some Court of Ultimate Appeal from the decision of the Court of Common Pleas, and he suggested it should go to whatever Court might be established by Parliament as the Final Appeal Court of the Kingdom. In the case of the Drogheda Election Petition, Mr. Justice Barry referred a certain question to the decision of the Common Pleas in Ireland, and the Court being equally divided, was unable to give judgment. The case was remitted back to Mr. Justice Barry to give a decision as best he could, and he was obliged to do so. This was one of the most important questions which could be referred to a Select Committee; before it every one would have an opportunity of placing his views, and he trusted that a satisfactory conclusion would result from its labours.

said, that the subject to which his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dews-bury (Mr. Serjeant Simon) had drawn the attention of the House was one which had been under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government for some little time, in consequence, among other causes, of the circumstances to which the right hon. and learned Member for Clare (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) had referred. The House was aware that the Act of 1868 would expire at the close of the present year, and it would, therefore, become necessary to do one of three things:—to include it again in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill—against which there was a strong expression of opinion at the close of last Session—or to bring in a separate Bill to continue or amend the Act, or to appoint a Select Committee to inquire into the working of the Act. The conclusion the Government had arrived at—and he might say they had done so before the Notice of the hon. and learned Member was placed upon the Paper—was, that, under all the circumstances, to proceed by the appointment of a Select Committee would be the best course. He understood from the observations of both his hon. and learned Friends that, in their opinion, the appointment of such a Committee should be made at the instance of the Government, and that it should be done during the present Session. He believed he might say that the Government would ask the House to appoint a Select Committee for the purpose of dealing with this question. It would be necessary, however, to consider a little more in detail the form of the Resolution by which the Committee should be appointed, and for this reason—that another very important Act connected with elections, the Act of 1854, would also expire at the close of this year. Under those circumstances, it would be undesirable that he should attempt to follow his hon. and learned Friends in discussing the general merits of the question. There was one thing, however, which he was glad to hear from the right hon. and learned Member for Clare, and that was that he had no desire to alter the character of the tribunal by which Election Petitions were to be tried—a tribunal which he (the Attorney General) thought had given general satisfaction. At the same time, there was force in the observation that the proceedings of the tribunal might be, in some respects, improved. He desired, however, to say that he did not concur in the opinion that there was so great a discrepancy in the decisions of the learned Judges as his hon. and learned Friends thought. A very difficult duty had been east upon the Judges, and he thought their decisions could be reconciled when the different circumstances which affected their opinions were taken into consideration. Whether those discrepancies did exist or not, as also the various circumstances affecting them, could be all inquired into by the Committee. If his hon. and learned Friend thought it consistent with his duty to withdraw his Motion, he would undertake, on the part of the Government, to move on a future day for a Select Committee.

entirely concurred in the Motion, but not in the remedies which had been suggested by the Mover and Seconder. When the Bill of 1868 was before the House, taking away the jurisdiction of the House, and giving it to a single Judge without a jury, he thought it was a very extraordinary and unconstitutional measure. How did the matter stand? If a man was indicted for an offence which would subject him only to a light fine or imprisonment, he had a right to be tried by a jury; and yet a Member of Parliament could be convicted without trial by jury, and by the Act of a single Judge, and subjected not only to the forfeiture of his seat in this House, but to grave disabilities. He had the greatest respect for the Judges; but the Judges were not trained or accustomed to try issues of fact without the assistance of a jury, and that accounted for the unsatisfactory nature of their decisions. With regard to the question of providing a remedy for the present state of things, he would remind the House that anciently the validity of returns of Members of Parliament could be tried at Common Law, on the return being traversed in the Court of Chancery, and sent for trial to the Court of Common Pleas. Moreover, there were two ancient statutes which bore upon this question—11 Henry IV. e. 1, and 6 Henry VI. c. 4—the former providing for an inquiry by a method resembling a coroner's inquest, whilst under the latter the inquiry was before a Judge and a jury at the Assizes; and it was a matter of grave consideration whether it would not be expedient to revert to the old principle of the Common Law and of the Constitution and provide for the trial of those questions as to the election of Members of Parliament before a jury. What he would suggest, was that where the return of a Member of Parliament was questioned in point of law, the Peti- tion should be heard and determined, not by the Lord Chancellor, as was formerly the case, but by the full Court of Common Pleas or the full Court of Queen's Bench; and that, where the return was questioned on matters of fact, the trial should be before a Judge and a special jury—a course which would be in accordance not only with the ancient law of this country, but with the principle that cases of this kind should be decided by the Commons, and that a man should be tried by his Peers. He did not wish to prolong the discussion now, but threw out the suggestion with the view of ventilating the subject.

recommended that the question as to the amount of deposit required to be made by petitioners should be taken into consideration by the Committee, as he thought that the present amount of £1,000 was totally inadequate.

said that, after the statement made by the Attorney General, he would readily withdraw his Motion. His only object was to procure inquiry, and he thought that object would be best attained by means of a Committee.

rose to move that a Select Committee be appointed—

"To inquire into the circumstances attending the making of Contracts for Loans with certain Foreign States, and also the causes which have led to the non-paymant of the principal moneys and interest due in respect of such Loans."

The hon. and learned Member said: I can assure the House that I am sensible of the responsible nature of the task I have undertaken in submitting the Motion with which I shall conclude my observations. I am sensible of that responsibility, especially, because I feel that in the course of the statement I am about to make to the House, I shall, of necessity, be making charges against certain persons resident in this country; but, for my own part, I shall content myself with making a simple, and, I trust, a brief statement of certain facts which I think sufficient to justify the inquiry I am seeking for. If those inquiries subsequently prove the existence of those facts, the facts themselves must be answerable for the charge, and not the person who introduces the Motion. Perhaps it may be in the knowledge of many hon. Members that at this moment the amount of foreign debt in relation to which there is default amounts to the large sum of £240,000,000. The extent to which that stock is held by creditors in this country I am unable to state to the House; but without doubt a portion of that sum of £240,000,000 is very largely held by English creditors. In relation to many of the countries that are in default, I do not seek to apply this Motion. In those cases the circumstances under which the loans have been raised have all been known to, and probably investigated by, the Government of this country in past times. I am not seeking to re-open those questions. I am not asking Her Majesty's Government to interfere on behalf of the English creditors against all those States that have made default. It is a burden which, according to the habits of Governments, I do not say they ought to bear; but I am endeavouring to deal with, and if possible to destroy, a system that has sprung up comparatively of late years, of bankrupt States, knowing themselves to be in a state of complete bankruptcy, recklessly coining into this English market and endeavouring to obtain from English creditors money which it is clear that those States can never repay. I am anxious also to deal with the system under which the agents of those States, according to the statements of their own Governments, have appropriated and retained that money on its way from English creditors to the State for which it has been borrowed, in order, if possible, to destroy that system. I think I can show there is no remedy existing now, without inquiry, and I am asking this House to and in achieving a good end by allowing this inquiry to take place. The States to which I wish to call attention now—not that they form the whole of the States that have made default, but which I wish to place before the House rather as examples than as including the entire case—are Honduras, Costa Rica, San Domingo, and Paraguay. My statement as to Honduras is very simple, and the House will pardon me if I think it necessary to occupy its time in briefly glancing at the condition of that State, and the circumstances under which these loans have been obtained in this country, and the way in which they have been applied by the persons who, without doubt, received the money. As far as we know—and our knowledge of the place is very limited—Honduras is a State that contains some 250,000 inhabitants. A great proportion of these are aborigines, so scattered through the country that no Census can be taken, and certainly they do not form a population capable of bearing much taxation. Their revenue, so far as it can be traced, has never exceeded £100,000 annually, and out of that £100,000 all the expenses of their internal administration, of their Army and diplomatic officials, have to come. What little further is known of Honduras does not tend to show that its resources are very great; because in 1839, when the debt of the Federate States was divided into 12 parts, it had to bear 2–12ths of that amount, the sum it had to pay being £27,000, bearing interest at 10 per cent till 1867. Honduras was in such a state of insolvency it never was able to pay that amount; and the arrears amounting to £92,000, it had to do what many an insolvent person has had to do—namely, to compound with its creditors. It admitted its insolvency in May, 1867, and asked its creditors, in lieu of the £92,000, to accept £50,000 in bonds, bearing a lower rate of interest. I assume that Honduras was unable to pay its debts; and, that being its not unnatural condition—looking at its revenue in May, 1867—it commenced a new life as early as November, 1867. In that month the Minister of Honduras, a gentleman whose name must be mentioned, Senor Gutierrez, the accredited Minister to this country, introduced a loan of £1,000,000, and it was issued at such a price that the loan produced the sum of £800,000, bearing interest at the rate of 10 per cent. Senor Gutierrez issued his own prospectus, and, as Minister of Honduras, he asked the English capitalists to invest money by way of loan to his Government, and he made certain distinct statements as to the application of the loan. It was to be applied to the construction of the first section of a railway—the first section to be 56 miles in length. He said a contract had been entered into for making it for £18,000 per mile, and that it would be amply sufficient if that section were completed, to provide for the future completion of the remaining sections by the hypothecation of the domains and forests of Honduras, the forests being applied first to the repayment of that loan to the English creditors, and then for the further construction of the railway. Having obtained that money in November, 1867, in February, 1869, Senor Gutierrez appears again on the scene. It is now in conjunction with his colleague in Paris, Mr. Herran. There they introduce into Paris, and later into the English market, a loan for £2,490,000, producing in actual monies a sum of £2,000,000. The prospectus announces that that loan "is the first mortgage of the domains and forests of Honduras," which had been already mortgaged when the loan of 1867 was made. That prospectus states that "the produce of the present loan will be applied in its integrity "to the completion of the Interoceanic line of railway. We now find that Honduras has obtained £2,800,000 to complete the railway. Having obtained it in June, 1870, Senor Gutierrez's plans appear to have enlarged as time proceeded. Well, he applies in the London Market for this £2,500,000, and he obtains £2,000,000, in order to complete the same railway. There is no mention of the previous loan having been obtained. The Minister in his prospectus speaks of this loan instead of a previous loan; and he also' states this—" That the contractors are under heavy contract to complete this railway." What is the sum of money, therefore, obtained? The sum of £4,800,000 was obtained to complete this railway. But the ambition of Senor Gutierrez did not remain there. Having obtained from the English people the comparatively small sum of £4,800,000 to complete this railway, the representative of the Honduras Government appeared again on the scene in May, 1872. His plans increased, as I said before, as time progressed, and he now demands a loan of £15,000,000, or an actual sum of £12,000,000, from the English people to complete the same railway. But I must do this gentleman justice. It was not an ordinary railway that was said to be about to be constructed. It was suggested, in the first prospectus, that there was a necessity for this railway to provide for the carrying of British enterprise and British goods across Honduras. The prospectus states that 16,000,000 of British tonnage yearly passed Cape Horn, which ought not to have gone that dangerous voyage. So far as I have been able to ascertain, 1,700,000 tons only passed Cape Horn; but a statement of that tonnage only would not have justified probably the expenditure of so large a sum of money. But, as I said—this was no ordinary railway that the gentleman suggested should be constructed. He said that every ship that sailed from England and passed Cape Horn should call at the Eastern shores of Honduras; and, up to 1,200 tons of burden, I think, fully manned and equipped with stores and cargo on board—it should be placed on a railway truck and carried by the railway truck over the table land of Honduras, and dropped in the same character and in the same manner on the Western Sea that washes the shores of that country. If anyone would like to relieve himself of monotony, I hold in my hand the original prospectus—in which Senor Gutierrez depicts the ships passing over the table land, and being carried in that way to the eastern or western coast. The English public did awake to the real condition of things, and a representative body made a demonstration against this demand, and pointed out to the English creditors—who had been credulous enough hitherto—that this proposal was an impossibility; and on the 17th of May the Minister announced that he thought it consistent "with the views and motives of my Government to withdraw the same "—that is, this last scheme—" and to await a more favourable opportunity." I am anxious, if I can, to prevent that more favourable opporfunity from occurring. Probably the House would wish to know that we have not learned what has become of this sum of £4,800,000. Allow me first to point out to the House that if this scheme had been successful, the indebtedness of Honduras would have amounted to the sum of £21,000,000, and that in the case of a country hopelessly insolvent—so insolvent that it could not pay £27,000 with a revenue of £100,000 a-year, while the annual sum for interest and sinking fund would have approximated to £3,000,000, which, of course, never would have been paid. One looks round to see what was the object of all this, and to whom and for what purpose has this money been applied. The statement was clear and distinct when it was announced originally that the money was to be applied to the construction of the railway, that the forests of Honduras were mortgaged, so that the creditors should receive the results of those forests. I will tell the House that whilst £4,800,000 has been paid to the financial agents of Honduras through Messrs. Bischoffsheim and Goldschmidt, or to the financial agents in this country, so far as can be discovered out of that £4,800,000, only £562,000 has been applied to the construction of the railway. The rest is lost sight of. The railway remains. It is in existence, but it is abandoned—it is perfectly useless; and as to the forests, so far as is known, not one piece of timber from the Honduras forests has ever come to this country. If any has, the financial agents do not know about it. The result is that of that £4,800,000 all that the English creditor can obtain by way of answer is that there is a certain tin box in the Bank of England. It is stated there was a sort of general bond that was to give full security to all the English creditors. I hold in my hand a correspondence between a gentleman at Glasgow and the Bank of England. The gentleman applied to the Bank of England to know what was the security, and the answer he obtained from the representative of the Bank of England was this—

"In reply to your letter of yesterday, I beg to state that the box, said to contain the general bond of the Honduras Loan, has been deposited with the Bank of England; but as the Bank are only the custodians of a locked box, with the contents of which they are not acquainted, I am unable to give you any further information on the subject."

Senor Gutierrez keeps the key, and what is in that box no one has been able to discover. And that is all that remains, for there is a repudiation of Honduras to pay this sum of money. All that remains is, then, this locked box. A gentleman who has sent me that information tells me of another box. He says—

"Many hundreds and hundreds of letters he in the tin box hero (Glasgow) from people ill able to afford the frightful losses sustained. All of the same tenour. Naval and military men obliged to leave the service to find other employment to maintain their families, widows reduced to absolute destitution, aged men unable to work, find a life's savings swept away, find themselves with worthless bonds, and all characterise this Honduras fraud with one form of expression."

What I believe is this—that all that remains, and all that the creditors are likely to obtain, is the expression of their judgment on the fraud, for they can never obtain any compensation from the State. I do not stop now to endeavour to show to this House that those who have received that money should give it up. Everything I have stated I have proof of under my hand. The prospectus is now on this Table. I pass quickly on to the statement in relation to the loan of Costa Rica; and the reason why I mention this next is, that it is a singular fact that, although not making himself very conspicuous in the country, the same gentleman, Senor Gutierrez, is responsible for this. He was appointed to this country as Representative for Costa Rica in November, 1870, and soon after that, or early in 1871, he dealt with Costa Rica as he had done with Honduras, and introduced a loan of £1,000,000, for which he received £720,500. Immediately afterwards—that is to say in the following year, 1872—he introduced a loan for £2,000,000, or rather the State of Costa Rica authorized it, and a sum of £1,200,000 was obtained; so that the State has obtained altogether the sum of £2,000,000. All the amount that we can find to have been sent to Costa Rica of that sum is £926,000; the rest has been detained from going there. One statement is made in the prospectus of this loan which of course is interesting to every one. It is that the Representative of the British Government is the person in whom certain Customs duties have been vested, and that he will forward the proceeds of those duties to this country. I will assume that the Representative of the British Government has received those duties; but whether he was over authorized to do so, I do not know. A clergyman writing to me from the North of Ireland, sends me a copy of the statement made to him by the financial agents of this loan, Messrs. Bischoffsheim and Goldschmidt, who say they know nothing of the Representative of the British Government being authorised to receive these duties. They say, writing on the 16th July, 1874—

"We beg to inform you that the statement put forward in the advertisement of the second issue of the Costa Rica 6 per cent Loan, to which you take exception, was made upon the autho- rity of Don Carlos Gutierrez, the Minister for the State of Costa Rica in this country, who vouched for the truth of it by signing the prospectus, and as we received the remittances through Mr. Corbett, we had every reason to believe it was true."

The remittances have ceased from Honduras, and not a sixpence has been received on cither of the Costa Rica loans. The next loan—the San Domingo Loan—is a comparatively small matter; yet the gentleman who took charge of the loan is one whose enterprising character is worthy of note, if not of commendation, for although the loan is small, he took the whole of it, or very nearly. It was introduced in 1869 for £757,000, and at the price of issue the enterprising contractor obtained the sum of £529,000. I have had an opportunity of reading the shorthand writer's note of that gentleman's account of the affair in the trial in which he appeared; and the result of his statement is, that the San Domingo Government only received £50,000, and that was sent back again. There is some doubt whether they have not recovered £37,000, which I will assume they did. At any rate, they had no more of the £529,000 than the sum of £37,000; and the contractor puts such a value on his own services, that he has a heavy claim on the San Domingo Government for having introduced the loan to England. His name, like so many others of his class, is not an English one; it is Hertzby Hartmont. I have to deal with only one State more. The next is that of Paraguay, the revenue of which is put clown at £110,000. In 1871, a loan was introduced nominally for £1,000,000, and the amount actually raised was £800,000. All these loans follow the same course. As soon as the money is obtained, which seems so easy to get, in the year 1872 another loan, which produced in actual money £1,640,000, was subscribed by the English public, making the total approximate amount £2,500,000. The prospectus introducing the loan stated that it was the first public debt of Paraguay, and that Paraguay had no funded debt. I will not answer for the truth of the statement, but that book to which we are all in the habit of referring, The Statesman's Year Book, alleges that the debt of Paraguay amounted at that time, in consequence of the war, to £47,200,000, and I have seen no contradiction of that statement on the part of the gentleman who introduced the prospectus. But, whatever the truth as to the indebtedness of Paraguay at that time, the material point for consideration is—what has become of the money which the British public subscribed? I hold in my hand a communication from the gentlemen who now represent the Government of Paraguay in this country. They say—" In order that you may form an exact idea of the troubles of the Government after receiving the said advice, we will only tell you that of the loan of 1872 "—which amounted to £2,000,000 nominally—"we have onlyreceived£239,687." The effect of that on Paraguay is stated to be that not only has Paraguay not received the money contracted for, which was all subscribed, thus losing the benefits she was entitled to look for, but for the want of that money the principal sources of the wealth of the country have had to suffer; it has sustained losses in respect to its agricultural development, railway works have had to be suspended, public buildings have sustained serious damage for want of repair, and the Government have had to pay, and are still paying, increased interest for the obligations contracted on the receipt of the advice that all the loan had been subscribed. ["Name."] There is some difficulty in ascertaining who is the contractor, and that I may not do an injustice to anyone, I had better not mention any names. I have now mentioned all the instances I think it necessary to give to justify the necessity of this inquiry. I have been asked—what is it you intend to do when this inquiry has taken place? I tell the House very frankly that I really do not know what ought to be done, or what is the proper remedy of an evil, until we have traced that evil to its source, and ascertained what it is against which we have to contend. But, at any rate, we should obtain exposure. We shall obtain the exposure which will give warning to the unwary, and prevent the repetition of such offences by men placing their views before the public in the way they have done in the past. There are many aspects of this evil against which we may have to apply this remedy, if I am right in what I said a few minutes since. I am not pressing on the Government the obligation that they, representing the State, should always fight the battle of the English private creditor. But there is this condition of things—that if a State, knowing it is impossible to pay a debt, that it is in a bankrupt condition, comes into this country and takes away money from the people of this country, it is obtaining money by way of false pretences. And I believe it is a question worth consideration by those who take care of the interest and honour of this State, whether some action ought not then to be taken by the Government to prevent such proceedings by foreign States against our people. May I detain the House a few minutes longer by reading the views of Lord Palmerston as to the intervention of the State on behalf of a private creditor against a foreign State which did not pay what was due from it? It was on a Motion brought by Lord George Bentinck, in June, 1847, when he endeavoured to impress on the then Government the necessity of on-forcing the claims of the English bondholder against Spain. Lord Palmerston said it was always a question of expediency whether a State should interfere or not on behalf of a creditor. He admitted that it was, under certain circumstances, an obligation to interfere, and he concludes thus—

"Although I entreat the House, upon grounds of public policy, not to impose at present upon Her Majesty's Government the obligations which the proposed Address would throw upon them, yet I would take this opportunity of warning foreign Governments who are the debtors to British subjects, that the time may come when this House will no longer sit patient under the wrongs and injustice inflicted upon the subjects of this country. I would warn them that the time may come when the British nation will not see with tranquillity the sum of £150,000,000 due to British subjects, and the interest, not paid. And I would warn them that if they do not make proper efforts adequately to fulfil their engagements, the Government of this country, whatever men may be in office, may be compelled by the force of public opinion, and by the votes of Parliament, to depart from that which hitherto has been the established practice of England, and to insist upon the payment of debts due to British subjects. That we have the means of enforcing the rights of British subjects, I am not prepared to dispute. It is not because we are afraid of these States, or all of them put together, that we have refrained from taking the steps which my noble Friend would urge. England, I trust, will always have the means of obtaining justice for its subjects from any country upon the face of the earth. But this is a question of expediency, and not a question of power; therefore let no foreign country who has done wrong to British subjects deceive itself by a false impression either that the British nation or the British Parliament will for over remain patient under the wrong; or that, if called upon to enforce the rights of the. people of England, the Government of England will not have ample power and means at its command to obtain justice for them."—[3 Hansard, xciii. 1305.]

But there is another view—if it should turn out that the States have not authorized the loans, that the agents have not remitted the money, that they have not fulfilled the obligations they gave personally, then am I to ask the House, is there no remedy against them for such proceedings? At present we have no means of proceeding against the Representatives of foreign States. They are free from process, and free from any proceeding in our Courts, and we now see how some of the Representatives of these States, entering into semi-contracts, after making these statements, are able to set everything at defiance. There is only one other statement I wish to make. I have heard some objection made to this inquiry. It is said, in the first place, Why should not people look after themselves? Why, if they are credulous, should you seek to protect them? Well, why should we not protect the credulous as well as any other person who is the victim of fraud and deceit? However foolish he may be, why should he not be protected? I cannot understand the argument that can be used by those who are the friends and partizans of some of those who have introduced these loans, when they say that there ought to be no protection against these false statements. It is also said that litigation is pending. It is litigation, however, of which I only know by rumour and report, and I protest against this House being relieved from the duty of inquiry, because one individual bondholder is trying to obtain £1,000 of his own money, not against the particular State, but against some individual contractor, against whom he may or may not succeed. The litigation may go on for 10 or 15 years, and all prove futile, and in its result will probably be so. I can only say that, if this Committee be granted, and if there be shown that there is any injustice to any individual, then will be the time to ascertain how far the inquiry should be pushed. One word more in support of this Motion. Is it not just to these gentlemen who have issued these prospectuses and received this money that this inquiry should take place? These statements have been mentioned and referred to in the public prints, and with very great distinctness to-night; surely, therefore, these gentlemen will not wish that no inquiry should take place. Will they not rather be ready to afford every explanation? Whatever may be the view of this House, I have brought this Motion forward, accepting a labour which is not a pleasant one to me, and taking some little trouble about the matter, in the hope that restitution may be indirectly obtained for those whom I deem to have in some instances been the subjects of fraud, and that we may also protest against a continuation of this system, and rid from our midst men who are careless alike of our national name and everything save and except that of putting money into their own pockets. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving for the appointment of the Committee.

said, the question raised was one worthy of the consideration of Parliament and of the country. There could be no doubt that the system complained of by the hon. and learned Member was surrounded by very great scandals, and had produced great distress among the class of persons who were in the habit of investing small sums of money. This arose mainly from two causes. In the first place, the investing public evinced a reckless determination to act upon prospectuses which offered high rates of interest; and, in the second, they became infected with the gambling spirit engendered by the system of annual drawings, under which, if lucky, persons who had invested, say, £75 in the purchase of a £100 foreign bond, might—if the borrowing State happened to be solvent—obtain payment of the £100 in addition to a high rate of interest after the lapse of a very few years. He did not want the House to forget the principle of caveat emptor, but he hoped some protection would be extended to those who were misled and helpless. The House might deal with the matter by having a system of registration in order to let the creditors know with whom they were dealing, and how far the debentures were proper and legitimate instruments to bind those Governments to the performance of their obligations. He hoped some system of registration would be enforced, and that it would be made illegal for persons to advertise without complying with certain regulations, the issue of foreign loans, and this would enable persons to trace out those with whom they were dealing. No one could accuse the hon. and learned Gentleman of any exaggeration; but he (Mr. C. Lewis) knew from good authority that the hon. and learned Gentleman had been misled as to Paraguay. The issue of loans for that State had been £2,000,000 or £3,000,000; but the amount really due to the public was only £1,000,000. He (Mr. C. Lewis) had ascertained this fact in the course of a judicial investigation. He believed that that loan was only nominally issued by the promoters. He agreed entirely with the principle of the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman; and, in the main, with the Motion.

said, it was evident from the way in which the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Henry James) had been received, that the House sympathised with his expressions of indignation at the stories he had felt it his duty to bring before the House. Everybody must feel at the same time that however much they might be disposed to smile on one occasion and be angry on another at the simplicity of those who fall into these traps, yet it was melancholy to think that the principal sufferers upon whom the blow fell with the greatest severity were those people who were least able to protect themselves. Nobody could wonder that the hon. and learned Gentleman, having had his attention called to this subject, should have called the attention of the House to it. But they had to consider what was the proposition that he made to them. He asked that they should appoint a Select Committee of the House for the purpose of investigating these complaints and of endeavouring to discover some remedy for the evils which existed. He told them very frankly that he was not able himself to suggest a remedy; but that he believed the investigation which might be made before a Committee would lead to the discovery of one. Well, it was a matter for consideration how far it was desirable to appoint a Committee without any very clear and definite ideas of the line which they were to take and of the issue at which they were to arrive. The House, therefore, ought to consider carefully what they were about when they agreed, if they did agree, to the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman. There were one or two considerations they must bear in mind. In the first place, they had to consider how any proceedings they might take might affect our relations with foreign Governments. That, of course, was a serious question, but it was one which the Government had considered, and which had been brought specially tinder the notice of his noble Friend (Lord Derby) since Notice had been given by the hon. and learned Gentleman. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was in a position to state that Lord Derby, after carefully considering the question, was of opinion that there was nothing in the proposal of the hon. and learned Gentleman that need in any way produce difficulties between us and foreign States. If the Government had felt that it might embarrass our foreign relations they would have felt it their duty to state so to the House, and they might have been inclined to resist the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman; but he desired to say, on behalf of the Government and of his noble Friend, that he was prepared, so far as the Foreign Office was concerned, to waive any objection that might be suggested of a possible complication with foreign Governments, merely stipulating that clue caution should be taken in any inquiry the House might make properly to observe all the courtesies and privileges of foreign Representatives. Well, then, there was another question which arose out of the proposal, which was this—Everybody must feel that when any story of fraud, and of suffering which resulted from fraud was brought before anybody of Englishmen, there was a natural desire to come forward and see whether they could not obtain some redress or devise some mode of punishing that fraud. But the House must always be careful to consider whether the particular body to whom the appeal was made was precisely the body whose business it was to come forward in the matter. And they must bear in mind that there were many tales of wrong—moving tales of wrong—that might be brought before Parliament which it did not belong properly to the functions of Parliament to deal with. They must take care that they did not interfere in any way with the proceedings of the Courts of Law; that they did not arrogate to themselves duties which more properly belonged to the legal tribunals of the country. They must not turn a Committee of the House into anything of the nature of a Star Chamber. They must bear in mind that Committees of the House in conducting inquiries had not usually the same advantages for the investigation of questions of a judicial character as were possessed by the ordinary Courts of Law, whose business it was. He thought the House, whatever sympathy or indignation they might feel, should be very cautious indeed how they undertook a duty which might be discharged by an ordinary tribunal. Nevertheless, he was bound to say, speaking on behalf of the Government, that after listening to the statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman, they did think that there were in the case he had laid before the House circumstances of so peculiar a character that they seemed to justify a departure from the ordinary cautious rule of the House. They must be very careful to draw a line in these cases. They knew it might be very easy to push cases of this kind a little further; and, as was said in common parlance, "hard cases make bad law." It might very possibly be that if they undertook to make inquiries into cases of an extraordinary and exceptional character, they might ultimately find themselves in a position of some embarrassment and difficulty. They must also bear in mind that a great number of cases which arose with respect to foreign loans, were cases of a very different character from those which were referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman, and were cases in which they should be doing a great deal of mischief, and, perhaps, a great deal of injury to the country if they attempted to interfere. Therefore, it must be with extreme caution and consideration that they entered into the inquiries which the hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to them. But the motives which led the Government to believe it was desirable to grant this Committee were these—they found from the statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman that there was not at present, in his opinion—and his opinion upon the subject must be looked upon as a very high one—any sufficient and satisfactory way of dealing with cases of this kind such as there was in cases of ordinary fraud. The hon. and learned Gentleman told the House he could not discover a remedy, but that he thought if a Committee were appointed, they might, by investigating the case more fully, be able to discover a remedy. And this, at least, was quite certain—that if the House were to legislate at all upon the question of foreign loans, it was extremely important that they should be able to investigate these cases very carefully, and have lights thrown upon them by persons who were able to give them information with regard to foreign loans of different characters, so that care night be taken in any legislation they might undertake not to do mischief in the case of those foreign loans which were wholly free from any taint such as that referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman. Therefore, upon the whole, with great caution and some misgiving lest it should be drawn into a precedent for going beyond the circumstances of the present case, the Government did, for the sake of endeavouring to find out a way to some legislation that might meet cases of this kind, assent to the appointment of a Committee. But he hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman would put himself in communication with the Government, and that great care might be taken in the selection of the Gentlemen appointed to serve upon the Committee, and that great care might also be exercised in the conduct of the inquiry. He was quite satisfied, from the way in which the hon. and learned Gentleman had made this Motion, that he was prepared to proceed upon it in that spirit, and in that spirit it was that he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) assented to the Motion.

, in moving that a Select Committee be appointed "to inquire into the operation of the Act 11 Geo. 4, and 1 Will. 4, c. 68 (commonly known as 'The General Carriers Act, 1830 ')" said, in 1830 an Act of Parliament was passed to put an end to certain evils of which carriers then complained. At that time there were no railways in operation, and all carriers did their business by horse-power. Stage coach proprietors, and other carriers, found that they could not protect themselves against losses from pilfering by loiterers and thieves, and they were driven to give public notices that they would not be liable for valuable parcels, such as bankers' packages, unless special intimation as to the nature and value of the parcel were given. The validity and the effect of those notices gave rise to litigation; and, to prevent this, the Carriers Act was passed. That Bill was introduced on the 25th May, and it be-came law on the 23rd July in the same year. The Bill was brought in by a private Member (Sir. Thomas Acland), and was not founded on a Report of a Committee, or on the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown. Under it some 23 articles of the more costly descriptions, such as gold and silver, watches, silks, furs, &c, were placed in a separate category, and carriers were relieved from liability for their loss, unless the sender had first declared the nature of the property and paid a sum for insurance, while they were expressly made liable for the loss of all other goods, notwithstanding notice to the contrary. The Act, however, provided that the Common Law liability of the carriers for loss should only be retained where felony on the part of their servants was proved. That Act had not worked well, for the rates of insurance charged and the regulations made were of a prohibitive character. In consequence, great loss ensued to the trade, and especially in the case of Coventry, where the two staple trades were the silk and watch manufactures. The loss in transit of watches during the last 15 months was really formidable, and even the provision that the Company should be liable for the proved felony of their servants had worked very badly, for the subordinate railway officers could not be found to prove a state of facts which would render their employers liable. Further, the Act did not operate fairly towards Railway Companies, which were sometimes unduly exposed to great loss for want of proper care on the part of persons who sent goods in an insecure state. In 1868 the Government of the present Prime Minister actually attempted to deal with that question, admitting that a change in the law was necessary, and he hoped, therefore, his Motion would now be acceded to.

said, the Act of 1830 was clearly not adapted to the existing state of things as regarded either railways or trades. Not only the system of carrying, but also the nature of a large portion of the goods conveyed, had entirely changed in the interval, and an 'alteration of the law had become necessary. The hon. and learned Gentleman had pointed out where the law was inapplicable, unfair, and incomplete, and in many points he (Sir Charles Adderley) agreed that it required revision and alteration to bring it into harmony with the present circumstances of the country. He not only assented to the Motion on the part of the Government, but he thought that the inquiry should take place as soon as possible, and the Government would afford every facility to the hon. and learned Gentleman for that purpose.

quite agreed with what had been said by his hon. and learned Friend. He (Mr. Staveley Hill) had prepared a Bill on the subject, which he would have asked leave to introduce. However, as his hon. and learned Friend had moved for a Committee, and the Government had assented to its appointment, he would simply express a hope that no question with reference to the rate of insurance would be raised, as he thought it would prevent the Committee from coming to an early conclusion on the subject.