asked the honourable Member for Truro, If he will state to the House why, as there are seventeen Companies supplying Gas within the area under the Metropolitan Board, the legislation proposed by the "Metropolis Gas Companies" Bill is limited to only nine Companies, whilst the Parliamentary notices for the Bill included all Companies supplying the district under the Metropolitan Board of Works?

Sir, in answer to the hon. Member, I beg to state that although there are 17 companies supplying gas within the Metropolitan area, eight of them supply outlying districts, and are not subject to the provisions of the Metropolis Gas Acts, 1860. The Metropolis Gas Bill is an amendment and partial repeal of the Act of 1860, which expressly excludes from its provisions the eight companies alluded to by the hon. Member. I cannot enter more fully into the question at present; but I would remark that the company in which the hon. Member is interested objected before the Examiner on the ground that the Standing Orders had not been complied with upon the point referred to in the Question, but the objection was disallowed.

asked the Postmaster General, If he is aware that the Returns issued at the instance of the Revenue authorities, and for assessment purposes, are not allowed to pass for a halfpenny stamp, but are charged letter postage; and, if so, will he give instructions to discontinue it?

, in reply, said, one or two instances of the hind referred to by the hon. Member had had been brought to his notice, in which the Assessment Returns were improperly charged with letter postage. He had no doubt they were entitled to pass for a halfpenny postage. He would take care, now that he had received information from the hon. Member, that instructions should be given to prevent a recurrence of the inconvenience.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether, having regard to his promise of legislation on the subject of the area of Poor Law Taxation in Ireland, and the admitted necessity for such legislation, he will introduce his intended Bill on that subject on an early day?

, in reply, said, there were other important subjects relating to Ireland to which it would perhaps be his duty to call the attention of the House before he approached the subject alluded to in the hon. Member's Question; but he must say, looking at the state of Public Business, he did not think it desirable to introduce a Bill on the subject before he could see a reasonable prospect of passing it.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Government intend to complete the Return, presented on the 4th of this month, in answer to the Address of 27th of July 1874, with respect to the Laws of Foreign States relating to Monastic and Conventual Institutions, by adopting the suggestions made by Herrvon Bülow, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the German Empire, in his letter to Mr. Adams, dated June 11th, 1874, and given on page 12 of the Return, by applying for the required information to the proper officers of the Prussian Government, and to those of the Governments of the other German States, or by otherwise procuring copies of the Laws of the above States which have been published and relate to the subject-matter of the Address; whether the Government will procure and furnish the extract from "the work of Rönne (Das Staatesrecht der Preusseschen Monarchie)," especially mentioned by Herr von Bülow as containing valuable information; whether any communication has been made to the representative of Her Majesty's Government in Brazil, urging him to obtain published copies of the Laws in that Empire relating to the subject-matter of the Address, should the Brazilian Government further delay furnishing such information; and, when any further Papers in completion of those presented on the 4th of this month are likely to be furnished to Members of this House?

Sir, in accordance with the Order of the House, we applied to the German Government for all the laws, ordinances, and precepts affecting the Convents and Monastic Institutions at present in force in the German Empire. We received the letter upon the subject from Herr von Bülow which is mentioned in the Question; but I do not gather from that letter that there is any suggestion of the nature alluded to by my hon. Friend. That letter points out, among other things, that Church affairs do not fall within the competence of the Imperial authority, and that no Imperial law has been issued on the subject; but that the laws of the several Federal States affecting the Roman Catholic Convents are very various, and that many disputes have arisen as to their effect upon Convents recently established; and Herr von Bülow mentions a work by a gentleman of the name of Rönne, in which a detailed examination of those laws is set forth. That work is said to be a very learned one, and I would recommend my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire, if he wishes for further information, to procure a copy of the work for himself. That is the state of the case. Under those circumstances, I am afraid Her Majesty's Government cannot undertake the task proposed to them by my hon. Friend—by applying to the officers of the various German States for copies of the laws in question. And with regard to the excellent work of Herr Rönne, Her Majesty's Government do not think that the House would expect them to place it on the Table in the form of a Parliamentary Paper. With regard to Brazil, Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Rio has stated that he had been promised copies of all the laws and ordinances relating to these Institutions, and he hoped to be able to send them by the mail of the 24th of January. In a further despatch, Mr. Drummond reported that he had not up to that time succeeded in obtaining those documents, but he hoped to do so in a few days. I am not prepared to lay on the Table any other Papers upon this subject.

asked, whether Her Majesty's Government objected to apply to the Governments of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and other German States for information on the subject-matter of the Address voted last July?

I think I can best answer my hon. Friend's Question, by reading an extract from Herr Von Billow's letter—

"A most lengthy correspondence would be necessary to obtain the required materials from all the Prussian Provinces and from the 24 other Federal States, which materials would have to be submitted to a scientific elucidation and criticism before they would be serviceable to the British Government—a task which the Foreign Office, with the most earnest wish to make these explanations clear and useful, scarcely feels itself capable of undertaking."

said, the hon. Gentleman had not answered the Question. What he had asked was, whether Her Majesty's Government objected to apply to the Government of Prussia, to the Government of Bavaria, to the Government of Saxony, and to the other German States, for the information required by this House under the Return ordered on the 27th July, 1874?

I have, Sir, already informed my hon. Friend that we have done our best to get the information from the Imperial Government of Germany, the proper authority to apply to both as to Prussia and Saxony.

said, the Government of this Country had been informed——["Question!"]

pointed out that the hon. Member was not at liberty to raise a debate on the question.

said, he would repeat his Question on Tuesday next.

, in rising to call attention to the working of the Parliamentary and Municipal Elections Act, and to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the existing machinery of elections, with power to suggest Amendments in the same, said, that last year, when the subject was raised by the hon. and learned Member for Derry (Mr. Charles Lewis) and himself, they were told in public by the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), the father of the Bill, and in private by the Home Secretary—

"That the time was coming when it would be really desirable to review the operations of the Act, and to find out exactly what had been the results;.…. that they ought to wait for the Reports of the Judges."—[3 Hansard, ccxviii. 375.]

They had waited for the Reports of the Judges, and they had those Reports before them. The case for inquiry could not be better put than it had been put last year by the right hon. Member for Bradford himself, when he said—

"He did not think the House would underrate the difficulties with regard to the passing of such an Act. It was a perfectly new machinery, of great complication, and exceeding difficulty."—[3 Hansard, ccxviii. 376.]

There had been points of difficulty in connection with the Ballot Act, and especially with regard to the marking of papers, raised by a large number of municipal petitions, and decisions had been given, which—to say the least of them—were not in agreement one with the other. In the case of a municipal election at Southport, the Commissioner decided that the ballot papers marked with a cross on the left-hand side, instead of on the right, were perfectly good. In the Athlone case, Chief Justice Monaghan said—of the Court—

"We give no opinion of the validity of the papers marked on the left-hand side. They had been previously rejected by the sheriff, but luckily they did not affect the result of the election, as the Petitioner had a majority without them."

In the case of Wigtown, the Scotch Court had decided that those papers were bad, but in the Southport case, the Commissioner stated from the bench that he knew as a fact that the English Judges thought them good. England one way, Scotland the other, and Ireland neutral. In the case of Athlone, he might say, in passing, that one-thirteenth of the whole of the ballot papers had been more or less improperly marked. The Irish Court, however, decided certain points in that case—namely, that as regarded crosses on the right-hand side of the candidate's name, it was not necessary in Ireland that they should be placed upon the square left blank for them. In the case of the Wigtown Boroughs, Lord Ormadaile had decided that a vote should be rejected which was delivered by means of a cross "designedly made of a peculiar form," and he reserved that vote for the decision of the higher Court in the special case. Lord Ormadaile had also reserved two papers which had been marked in ink, instead of pencil. He had also, in opposition to the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford, said—

"Numbers.… had a stroke, not a cross, opposite the name of one of the candidates, and that is in no sense in conformity with the statutory direction. Whether it has been done innocently, or accidentally—or in pursuance of a preconcerted design in order to identification—it is impossible to say; but I think that if statutory declarations are to be given any effect to at all, it is very difficult to hold that these papers are marked in compliance with them."

He had reserved for the higher Court, in a special case, a paper on which the cross was only a little above the candidate's name, but on the right, "because such a mode of marking the paper might be done for the purpose of identification." He had also rejected a paper the corner of which was torn off, because that might have been done with a view to identification. Lord Neaves, in delivering judgment, said—also in opposition to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford—

"I think it essential to a good vote that the voter should make a cross thus pointed out, and that any mark materially different would be a deviation from what is prescribed, and a failure to fulfil the requirements of the statute. For anyone to put, instead of a cross, a circle or any other geometrical figure, would not be a compliance with the law, independently of the consideration that such a plain and wilful departure from what was intended would suggest strongly the suspicion of some sinister purpose."

He rejected absolutely the papers which had lines or ticks on them, instead of crosses. He also rejected all papers on which there were two crosses in the place of one, a line on the back, or any marks in addition to the cross. He had also laid it down that the cross must be on the right-hand side. Lord Ormadaile concurred with Lord Neaves on all points. Lord Benholme differed from his two Colleagues on nearly all. Lord Moncreiff being absent, the opinion of Lord Ormadaile and Lord Neaves stood, and contradicted all the English municipal decisions, the statements repeatedly made in that House by the promoters of the Bill, and the almost uniform practice of the Returning Officers in England at the last Election. Although the Scotch Judges had differed on many of the papers by two to one; they had unanimously agreed that the mark must be one cross, whereas the right hon. Member for Bradford had repeatedly observed that any mark in the proper place was sufficient. He (Sir Charles Dilke) could not think that that was a satisfactory state of things as a preparation for the next General Election in this country. He might add that the Commissioner in the Southport case had decided to count the papers marked on the left, although he had the opposite decision of the Scotch Judges actually before him at the time. He said that he did not think their decision binding on him, and that he thought it wrong, but considered the point open to great doubt. The Commissioner, in delivering judgment in the Southport case, had said—

"I shall state in my report the difficulty there is in construing the 25th rule of the Ballot Act, and in all probability some enactment may be passed, either for the purpose of amending that section, or getting some declaratory Act explaining what is its meaning."

He meant the words "then mark his paper," the question being, what is a sufficient mark? The other points in connection with the inquiry which he (Sir Charles Dilke) proposed, and which had been dealt with by the Judges, were those of the secrecy of the vote, which came up in the case of Bolton, and in the case of Drogheda. The Bolton election had been held by the Judge to be a good one; but, in giving that decision, he had used very strong language with regard to Parliament. He said—

"If the Legislature have failed in providing safe-guards, the misfortune may be the misfortune of the public, but the fault lies at the door of the Legislature. I am satisfied that a deliberate violation of the provisions with regard to secresy was attempted in this borough."

In the case of Drogheda, it had been contended that there was a conspiracy between the sheriff and the under-sheriff to set aside the provisions for secrecy; and the Judge then said that if that had been proved he should have voided the election. He found that it had not been proved—although it was a fact that arrangements had been made by which secrecy was altogether violated—and he reserved for the consideration of the higher Court the question, whether, looking to the fact that the rules of the Ballot Act had in no sense been complied with, the election itself was invalid? Two of the Judges hold that the election was valid, and two that it was invalid. The case, therefore, had been returned to the original Judge, who decided that it was valid. That was, the Judge said, sitting in appeal against a Court of four Judges, and reversing the decision of two of his most learned Colleagues. So much for the cases which had actually been tried and decided. In addition, however, to the actual decisions of the Judges, which, as he had shown, were of a contradictory nature, and left them in more need of inquiry than ever, they had now a very much larger amount of information than the hon. and learned Member for Derry and himself possessed last year, when they brought this question before the House, as to the principles which had guided the various Returning Officers in their practice. He would deal with certain of the details of the Act, one by one, with a view of showing that if they went to another General Election without inquiry, and without clearing up some of the most important points that could be raised, they would go to it with a certainty of Petitions involving scrutiny in a very largo proportion of the constituencies of the country, and scrutiny meant, in the case of large constituencies, an expenditure utterly without parallel. He had there before him—and he had leave to use it, for it had already been partly published—an opinion as to the proper way of marking ballot papers, which was the first point of detail, and the most important, that he would raise. That opinion was given in 1873, at the instance of Mr. Curwood, the Town Clerk of Leeds, by the then Attorney General—the present Lord Chief Justice Coleridge. He might state that Mr. Curwood—who was one of the most skilled town clerks in England, and who had paid much attention to the details of the Ballot Act—had informed him that the aldermen of Leeds, each of whom was a Returning Officer for one of the 12 wards of that borough at the election of councillors, were about equally divided upon the question of what was a properly marked ballot paper; and that the circumstances under which Lord Coleridge's opinion had been obtained were these—That an election had been carried in one ward by the acceptance of papers which had been rejected in all the surrounding wards. Lord Coleridge had given it as his opinion that the cross need not be in the square, but he held that it must be opposite to the name; and he had advised—and his advice had been followed in the counting of votes at the last election of Leeds—that those papers were bad which had been held good by the Irish Court in the Athlone case, where the cross, although made on the right hand side, was a little above or a little below the name. He had also held that a line added to the cross, and that two crosses, were bad—in opposition, therefore, to the opinion of his then Colleague, the father of the Bill, the right hon. Member for Bradford, who had distinctly given the opposite opinion in that House. Lord Coleridge added a note at the end, that where—

"The voter has put an additional mark, his case appears to me to be directly within the mischief of the statute, and his voting paper may in my opinion he rejected."

Of the elections which he (Sir Charles Dilke) had personally attended at the counting of the votes, he might add that in the case of Hackney, the Returning Officer counted all the crosses on the right hand side, even though above or below the name, and held those on the left to be bad. At Chelsea, the Returning Officer held those placed on the left to be just as good as those on the right, and counted every paper, however marked, from which the voter's intention was clear, except those upon which had been written any words of handwriting. The Town Clerk of Glasgow had written to him—

"In deciding on the sufficiency of marks on papers, I proceeded on the principle that it is not necessary that the mark should he a cross [X], and that any other mark clearly indicating an intention to vote for a particular candidate would suffice. I also considered it not necessary that the mark should he on the right side of the paper.…. It is to my knowledge that a large number of sheriffs of other counties proceeded on the same principle as I did, holding that the directions in the Act as to a cross on the right side of the candidate's name are merely illustrative of one of the best ways of putting the mark—not as prescribing the only way of doing so. But the Scotch Judges have adopted the rule that nothing but a cross on that side is admissible. I think, with deference to them, that this is wrong. I understand that the English Judges take the view on which I went."

That was to say that the practice of the largest city in Scotland was contrary to the decision of the highest Court of Scotland, and was supported by no decision but a municipal one in England—for it was idle to speak of mere hear-say as to the opinion of the English Judges. He maintained that that was not a satisfactory state of things. Hon. Members would be able, from their own experience, to confirm the statement that there were hardly two boroughs in England where exactly the same decisions had been given, which must certainly, in the case of a hotly-fought General Election next time, lead to an incredible number of Petitions accompanied by costly scrutiny. Mr. Pearson, an alderman of Stockport, had made a suggestion which ought to be considered by any Committee that might sit upon this subject—namely, that the ballot papers should be dark in colour with the exception of the square intended for the cross. Mr. Pearson had printed a large number of various forms of ballot paper of that kind, and they certainly made matters very much clearer for the voter than they were at present. Mr. Rayner, the experienced Town Clerk at Liverpool, had expressed his opinion in favour of Mr. Pearson's view. Mr. Pearson had been led to make that suggestion, by the fact that at the last municipal election at Stockport; the votes set aside amounted in the majority of the wards, although the election was very close, to 10 per cent of the total number polled; so that, subject to petition—and, as he had shown, the decisions on petition had been of an opposite character, one from another—the decisions of the ward aldermen as to the validity of doubtful votes gave, in many cases, the majority to one or other of the candidates at their discretion. A Committee would also probably reopen the question of whether the putting the cross against the name of the candidate for whom one voted was as simple a plan as that of striking out the name of the candidate against whom one voted, and judging from the letters that he had received from town clerks he should say that a majority of town clerks of English boroughs, who were on this subject the most experienced persons, considered that striking out was the better plan, although he himself did not share that opinion. One wrote,

"A voter says, 'I shan't support Blank'—'Then cross him off,' is the reply, and the vote is lost, even if it is not counted the wrong way."

The Town Clerk of Tiverton, like the Town Clerk of Leeds, had obtained a high legal opinion as to what, under the present law, was a properly-marked paper. In the Tiverton ease, he (Sir Charles Dilke) had not leave to name the distinguished lawyer—also a Member of the late Government—whose opinion had been thus given, but he might say that it was directly at variance with the opinion of his learned Colleague, Lord Coleridge, for he held that the Act permitted of any mark—for instance, a mere tick—to be made, and that the Schedule was only directory, and not necessarily to be strictly followed so as to exclude votes. At Tiverton, where the contest was very close, a large proportion of votes, had, according to the town clerk, been rejected on account of two crosses being made instead of one, to indicate the voter's wish to plump, and of the cross being made on the name itself. Leaving the question of how the papers should be marked, he came to one only second to it in importance, and that was the subject of stamping. He had circulars in his possession from two rival firms, each of whom stated that there was nothing in the world so easy as to forge the marks of their rivals; and having carefully examined the subject, he was bound to say that both were right. Messrs. Shaw and Son, who had supplied a vast number of Returning Officers with perforating machines, and Messrs. Loe-wenheim, who manufactured the embossing machinery, abused one another in the choicest English. Now, the perforating machine had been most popular with the past Returning Officers, because it would do for ever and could be set to any design that might be wished. Mr. Gresham told the Committee on Returning Officers last year that—

"The perforator is an arrangement of pins of such a character, that if a man takes out his voting paper and shows it to a mechanic outside, and that if the mechanic has one of those perforators and arranges the pins to make the particular mark, he forges it within ten minutes. I myself will undertake to forge it in ten minutes."

Now, he believed that statement to be absolutely true. Nevertheless, town clerks of such vast experience as Mr. Curwood in Leeds and those of others of the biggest boroughs in Ireland, were using those perforators and proclaiming their merits to their less experienced colleagues. The perforator worked very easily, and was therefore popular with Returning Officers; the embossing machine worked more stiffly—and whereas the perforating machine was pretty and simple, and spoilt very few papers, but was Hable to be forged in ten minutes—on the other hand, the embossing machine, which took longer to forge, worked so stiffly that when a Returning Officer's hands got tired the mark made became so faint, that in the case of the Chelsea Election, for instance, they had to count—and did count by agreement—800 papers which would have been rejected by a judge, there having been on them but a very slight trace of the machine, they being equally divided between the two sides and not affecting the result of the election, and there being no reason to believe that any forgery had taken place; but still, they had only such a mark upon them as could, in fact, have been imitated by a thumb-nail. Sir Joseph Heron told him (Sir Charles Dilke) that at Manchester the number of unstamped papers was very large. But the whole question of stamping was one of exceeding difficulty. There was no check whatever upon "ballot-stuffing" frauds, except the official stamp on a ballot paper. A scrutiny cost so many thousands of pounds that an unscrupulous agent would run a good deal of risk to place his man at the head of the poll on the first occasion, and take his chance of a scrutiny. Now, he ventured to say that while the perforating machine was capable of easy forgery, there were very few large constituencies where the embossing machine was used, in which a sufficient number of papers were not wholly unstamped, or so improperly stamped that they would not have passed a Judge, as to affect the result of a return; and at the next General Election, when these things had been found out and appreciated by agents, a very pretty state of things for the lawyers would be the result. He might state a fact which came to his personal notice in the last election for Hackney, when he was representing the present Members in a booth on polling-day. The deputy Returning Officer, who stood in front of him, finding that when the pressure of voters was great, he could not supply them fast enough with papers, stamped a considerable number of papers before they were applied for, during those moments when there was less to do. He cautioned him as to the illegality of this proceeding, and as to its probable inconveniences, but he continued nevertheless. At last that happened which might have been foreseen—namely, that forgetting the point up to which he had stamped in advance, he issued a large number of papers in a wholly unstamped condition, and thus disfranchised a considerable number of voters. He had already expressed his opinion of the perforating shifting stamps. The embossed stamps, if frequently changed, would be good enough, if they worked more easily; but the designs being complicated ones, it was essential that they should be clearly struck. When the hand got tired, that was rarely the case. He held in his hand the Glasgow stamp, which consisted of the arms of the City of Glasgow, the change in various years being made by a change in the shape of the rim which surrounded the arms. It was essential, therefore, that the rim should be clearly shown. Now, while some marks showed very fine, the rim itself did not show sufficiently clearly to prevent fraud. He might add that the provision that the official mark should be visible on both sides was rarely complied with by the embossing machine, although it was essential to the proper working of the Act. Of course, if the presiding officers really insisted on seeing the official stamp on the back of the paper, before allowing it to go into the box, which it was their duty to do, these difficulties would not arise. But when the voters were polling fast, the presiding officer was too busy, either stamping, or looking out, or ticking, as the case might be, to attend to the marking of every paper placed in the box. The one additional cause of the weakness of the mark in many cases was, that the clerks often stamped in batches—stamping, say, a dozen of papers at a time, instead of each separately as they ought to do. He thought that stamping papers in advance ought to be distinctly prohibited, for in Hackney, when the clerk in front of him went out for about five minutes to his dinner, he could have abstracted from his book a large number of papers already stamped, and after making crosses on them he could have got them put into the box by voters at a later period of the day. It was difficult to devise means to make deputy Returning Officers carry out the law; but inasmuch as the whole of the Ballot Act depended for its proper working, upon not only the honesty, but also the ability, of the presiding officers at the several stations, it was of great importance to direct their attention, in even a higher degree than had as yet been done, to the need that there was to prevent the putting into the boxes unstamped papers. At the present moment, many Returning Officers did not look at each paper as it was placed in the box, in order to recognize their stamp, and unless they did so, there was an opening for any possible amount of fraud. No doubt, it might be said that fraud was always possible at elections as regarded the effect of the first declaration of the poll, and that the only remedy lay, and must lie, in the provision of allowing Petitions. But take the case of a Radical ward in an equally divided borough, and a partizan presiding officer at a period of the day when voting was going on fast—he might disfranchise enough of voters to turn the election, by making an improper use of his stamping machine; that was, by not sufficiently clearly stamping the papers; and there was no means of setting this right by petition, but the contrary—that was to say, while the votes might possibly pass muster at the original counting, they would certainly be rejected by an Election Judge upon a scrutiny. Those which he had mentioned were the principal points on which he rested the case for inquiry. But in addition to those points there were a good many smaller ones, which ought to be dealt with by any Committee that might be appointed. For instance, the Act of Parliament was very far from being clear as to the attendance of the agents of the candidates at the counting of the votes. Certainly, the candidates ought to be represented, where a number of clerks were employed to count, by as many agents as there were counting clerks, as otherwise there was no cheek upon dishonesty on the part of the clerks. At the present moment, some Returning Officers allowed that to be done, but others forbade it. Then, again, there was the point of time, of which they spoke last year, the time allowed by the Act being wholly insufficient in the case of a borough so large as any of the metropolitan boroughs, Manchester or Liverpool. There was also a provision as to illiterates, to which they alluded last year, which in some parts of the country had, in its present form, produced much inconvenience. The new law also appeared to be far from clear as to the number of personating agents at each station, which the candidate might appoint. The law with regard to the appointment of agents to attend at the counting of the votes fell under the new Act. It was contained in these words only: "The candidates may respectively appoint agents to attend the counting of votes," and nobody could really say what those words meant, and whether the Returning Officer would be upheld by the Courts of Law on a Petition, in those cases where he had decided that only one agent of the candidate should he allowed to attend the counting, although there were many clerks engaged in it. On the other hand, as to the attendance of agents at the booths, the law was in such a state that it allowed the appointment of any number, who might crowd into the booth in the form of a perfect mob after they had once made their declarations of secrecy. The clause in the old Act, which was still in force, said that it should be lawful for any candidate to appoint an agent or agents to attend at each or any of "the booths." Sir Joseph Heron, the experienced Town Clerk of Manchester said, that the mode of counting ought to be prescribed by law, and he agreed with him. The numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4, which were placed on the left-hand side of the candidates' names, caused some confusion and were in the Act, he believed, by mistake. They had been put in to guide the illiterate voter, and were retained after another provision for the illiterate voter had been made. They confused the voter, and it was questionable whether they should not be omitted. On the other hand, whilst those were subjects which ought to be considered, there were many points connected with the Ballot Act which ought to be held to be outside the scope of the inquiry—for instance, the question whether there should or should not be a scrutiny. In the year in which the Ballot Bill passed, the Lords introduced a scrutiny, and they had weakened or made useless the clause inflicting penalties on the violation of secrecy. They had also somewhat relaxed the provisions relating to the illiterate voter. The two latter points remained in a condition of confusion, and needed inquiry. The former, or provision for the scrutiny, although personally strongly opposed to it, and although believing that it involved an immense amount of difficulty, he nevertheless felt bound to regard as an essential part of their present electoral law, and as one which must be viewed as being, until 1880, outside the scope of inquiry. Everything that could be said against the scrutiny, and by way of showing how unnecessarily it complicated the machinery of election, had been said by Sir Henry James, in 1872. Although the hours of polling had been dealt with by the Lords in the Ballot Act, still, as the hours had not been affected by the Bill in the form in which it ultimately passed, he should almost regard that as being also outside the scope of inquiry for the present. The strong point in the case for inquiry at the present time was that when the Committee sat and when the three Bills were discussed, even those Members who took the greatest interest in the question had less knowledge of the working of the Ballot than was now possessed by almost any hon. Member of the House, and it was curious now to look back, and notice what extravagant blunders were made and what misapprehensions prevailed. He made no allusion to a number of other points which had been raised last year by the hon. and learned Member for Derry and himself, because it seemed to him that the case, as it stood, was a sufficient one, and any one who wished to see them could find them in Hansard. By way of general remark he would say only this, that while opponents of the Ballot in general—if there were any, now that it received the support of the Conservative party—would probably desire inquiry in order to reveal the weakness, as they must think it, of the system; the strongest friends of the Ballot ought certainly to wish for it, because if they went to another General Election under the Ballot, without having cleared up these hard points, and all the wire-pullers in the constituencies being thoroughly informed upon the weak points of the Act, and having had ample time to consider the best modes of dealing with them, they would certainly have such a number of Petitions and scrutinies as to cause an outcry to be raised against the Ballot itself, and to seriously weaken the chance of its being continued when the new Bill was introduced—as it would have to be in 1880, immediately after the General Election itself. The hon. Baronet concluded by moving for the appointment of a Select Committee.

, in seconding the Motion, said, that the exhaustive speech of the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea (Sir Charles Dilke) had left him but little to say in favour of an immediate inquiry being granted. On neither side of the House would there be any disposition to look upon the Ballot in an unfriendly spirit. In the main, both sides were actuated by one motive, which was to make such amendments in the Act as their past experience of its working told them to be necessary to prevent anything like wholesale disfranchisement. The old system had three advantages—namely, a minimum power of disfranchisement on the part of the Returning Officer, a minimum of disfranchisement in point of fact, and general uniformity of practice; and the new system had three correlative defects—namely, great power of disfranchisement, great disfranchisement in fact, and great diversity. The result was, that a great loss of votes took place under the change. At the last Tipperary election hundreds of votes were pronounced had, and at the last Galway Borough election, out of 1,200 votes, 190 were bad. The practical disfranchisement of a constituency might result from two causes: either from ignorance, or incapacity on the part of the Returning Officer. At the last election for Tyrone it was found that an entire set of voting papers at one of the booths were without the official mark which it was the duty of the Returning Officer to place on them, and all the votes to which they related were in consequence rejected, without any default on the part of the voters, and without any means of setting the matter right. That fact proved the necessity of guarding quite as much against incapacity in the Returning Officer as in the voter. With respect to securing accuracy in the counting of the votes, that was entirely a matter of detail; but the very fact that it was a matter of detail—a matter at the same time of signal importance—formed one of the most cogent reasons why it should be remitted, amongst other things, to a Select Committee. The question of diminishing the expenses at elections ought also to form a subject of inquiry before the Select Committee. Both sides of the House were interested in taking care that everything should be done that was necessary to render the Ballot system perfect in all its details, especially where its defects led to the disfranchisement of voters, and he trusted that the Government would grant the proposed inquiry, as the interests of the constituents, above all things, required that the existing defects of the system should receive the earliest attention. By doing so, there would probably be few objections raised in future to a renewal of the Act.

said, he should hardly have ventured to intrude on the attention of the House, had he not rather a strong personal case to put before them. He was returned for the county of Renfrewshire by a majority of 90 votes at the last General Election, and like all successful candidates, he was highly delighted at the result, because there were circumstances in his case which rendered his return rather a surprise to himself. He was surprised and not delighted however, a few weeks after, to find that a very remarkable Petition had been presented against his return. It was, in fact, a Petition quite unexampled in the history of elections in this country. It was simply this—There was no question as to the formalities, there was no question, either, as the validity of the votes recorded; but two ratepayers, under the powers of the Act, declared that in their opinion the votes had not been correctly counted. There was no primâ facie ground for supposing that they had been wrongly counted, because the agents of both parties, as well as the Returning Officer, had been present at the counting. However, these two electors declared their belief that an error had been committed, and according to Scotch form the question was brought before the Court of Session, first on the point of revelancy, as to whether there was a primâ facie case against him. He had to engage counsel, and he secured the services of the best to be had, and he was necessarily put to very considerable expense. The question of revelancy was decided against him and in favour of the Petitioners, on the ground that there could be no better instance of the invalidity of an election than the fact that the candidate who had polled the smallest number of votes should be returned. The objectors said—"We believe that the votes were not properly counted;" the other side said—"We believe that they were properly counted;" and, consequently, the point of revelancy was sustained. At great expense and annoyance to himself the Petition was tried by the Court of Session; the numbers having been brought before the Court, were counted, and in the end it was found that he had been returned by two more votes than had first been credited to him. That was exceedingly satisfactory; but on the other hand, some people might say that was an argument in favour of bringing these charges, seeing that after all a mistake had been made; but he thought the House would see that the successful candidate was entirely at the mercy of two voters who declared that they did not think the numbers had been correctly counted. What he would suggest was very simple. That there should be a legal obligation on the agents of the respective candidates not to separate, or declare the result of the poll until they were agreed as to the correctness of the numbers polled on each side; and, further, that each agent should be bound to make a statutory declaration before the Returning Officer that he was satisfied with the correctness of the counting—such declaration being final and conclusive as to the question of numbers, but to have no bearing on the validity of the votes. Such a Petition as that to which he referred could not then be afterwards brought. It seemed to him extraordinary that some machinery had not been devised to settle the numbers on the night of the poll. He believed his was the only instance in which a Petition disputing the correctness of the counting had been presented, and he spoke to the late Attorney General on the subject, and he thought the matter was one worthy of the consideration of the present Law Officers of the Crown.

said, there was great hardship caused by the rejection of votes in cases where the presiding officer in any one of the polling booths had placed a mark upon the voting paper by which the voter could be identified. The provision of the Act on that point was intended to prevent the voter making known his vote in order to claim a reward; it was never meant that a voter who had voted in perfect good faith should be disfranchised by the act of another person. The result of the County of Leitrim election last year depended upon the reception or rejection of votes of that character. The matter had never been authoritatively decided, but it demanded careful consideration, for the objection on this account threw an enormous amount of power into the hands of the presiding officer, and it was therefore one that particularly wanted deciding at the hands of a Committee.

said, he thought the House ought to feel very much indebted to the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea (Sir Charles Dilke) for having brought the matter under their consideration, and he had made it quite clear that there ought to be some inquiry on the subject, so that the victims of the Ballot Act as it stood might not be martyred again when another election took place. The hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure) and his own were the only instances, he believed, of Petitions in Scotland, and that might be taken as a satisfactory result of the working of the Act in that country; but when great hardship fell upon any individual by the bad wording of a clause, or the difficulty of interpreting provisions, it was fair that they should come to this House and ask, at all events, that something should be done to repeal or alter those clauses. He was returned for the Wigtown Burghs, certainly by the narrow majority of 2, and every means was taken to ascertain whether or not he had been actually returned. The Returning Officer declared his election valid, and he accordingly took his seat in this House. But the opposite party embraced an early opportunity of presenting a Petition against him. The investigation into that Petition showed that the polling sheriffs had neglected to stamp three of his papers and he was disqualified from sitting in this House. That was a hard case, because the act of the polling sheriff, whether done advertently or inadvertently, was sufficient to vitiate an election. He was not there to impute anything to those officers who otherwise presided so efficiently at his election, but he considered the House ought to watch over the interests of its Members. Had his case come before an Election Committee of the House of Commons, he would not have been put to the annoyance and expense of a second election. That case was brought before the Court in Scotland, and some of the most learned on the Scotch Bench set themselves to decipher what the Act meant, and whether the Schedule was not to be taken as part of the Act or not, and whether the spirit or the mere letter of the Act was to govern any decision arrived at. The questions were argued by counsel by the hour, and the public could form but one opinion, and that was that the Act was inefficient as it stood, because what had been declared in many other instances to be good votes, were declared to be bad in his case; for instance, whether if the cross was a little to the right or left, whether it was a little above or a little below the name. After all this annoyance and anxiety, he came to his second election, when he increased his majority by six votes, but still it was thought necessary to petition against him, in the hope of finding out some flaw. A second time he had to undergo this annoyance, and one or two papers were again found not to be stamped at all. The polling sheriffs, who were engaged at great expense to the candidates, were alone to blame, it being no fault either of him or the constituency, and his second election was very nearly being voided through the carelessness and indifference of these officers. He thanked the House for having listened so patiently to what he had told them, and which was in his case a personal grievance.

said, that his hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir Charles Dilke) had in his very fair statement referred to him so often that he trusted the House would permit him to say a few words. Having had to discharge the duty of framing the Ballot Act, he had looked forward to the Motion with a good deal of anxiety, lest a great deal of fault might justly have been found with the machinery. The clauses which set forth that machinery went through 14 or 15 revisions, and the Bill itself through a second edition; and it was due to himself to say that such complaints as had been made on the subject were not owing to any want of care, for he had taken great pains in framing the measure, and had the assistance of an able draftsman. But, besides the difficulty of adjusting an entirely new election machinery, there was much difficulty in carrying a measure of that kind through the House of Commons; and frequent alterations in Committee were a great danger to the correctness of the Bill. He was glad to find that no more flaws than those mentioned had been discovered in the Bill. As to the difficulty about the cross, he could speak as to what was the intention of the House in passing the Act—namely, that there was no intention of making the use of the cross compulsory, neither was it to be a disqualification if the voter did not put the cross in exactly the place or in the manner set out in the Schedule. The body of the Act simply required the voter to mark his paper; the first Schedule which laid down the actual rules was to the same effect; and the only allusion to the cross was in the last Schedule, containing directions for the guidance of voters. It would be most dangerous to the freedom of voting if the ruling of the Scotch Judges on this point were to affect elections generally, and in the result a great many fair and honest voters would be disqualified. That difficulty, however, might be met without a Select Committee. The House might strike out this direction in the Schedule, so as to render the present ruling in Scotland impossible in the future. His hon. Friend had brought forward several other blemishes. With regard to the illiterate voter, he could not help thinking that, with their experience, if the House had to pass the Act over again, there would be a large majority in favour of the provision which he had first brought in—namely, that there should be no special provision made for the illiterate voter. A very large proportion of those voters had not made use of the provision of the Act; but it was stated to have been used for the purpose of delaying an election. As to the Motion of his hon. Friend, he thought the time had come when it might be desirable for the Government to discover whether it was needful to amend the machinery of the Act or not, and he felt the most satisfactory mode of doing that would be by a Committee. It was for the Government to say whether it would be convenient to have a Committee that Session; but he thought they ought to have one in good time, before they were sent back to their constituents. Whatever might be the power given to the Committee, however it might be constituted, and whatever might be its Report, he thought the House should not lose sight of this consideration—that there was danger in prescribing absolute uniformity of practice. They must leave some discretion to the voter and to the Returning Officer. It was a difficult matter to guarantee uniformity, which might result in disqualification of the voter. On the other hand, he thought that any reasonable ground of doubt ought to be removed. He would only say further that he thought the time had come when inquiry would be advantageous.

said, that whatever might be the opinion of individual Members as regarded the advantages or disadvantages of secret voting as established by the Ballot Act of 1872, they were all agreed in this—that inasmuch as it had been determined that that system should be adopted for a certain number of years, they should give it a fair trial. It would not, however, be receiving a fair trial if, when defects in its machinery were pointed out, measures were not taken for the purpose of curing them. He admitted, therefore, that it was desirable that an inquiry into its working should be instituted, for the purpose of ascertaining how improvements in it could be made. The hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea had drawn attention to a number of defects in the practical working of the system, and, certainly many of them were very serious; and, on the hon. Baronet's showing, there was a grave question to be dealt with. It would be within the recollection of the House that in the course of the debate last year, the Secretary of State intimated that, inasmuch as the system of Ballot had had the test of one General Election, it would be desirable that its working should be considered before another election took place; and he believed there was now a very prevalent feeling that it would be advisable ere long to investigate the working of the Act. The hon. Baronet had adverted to a circumstance which pressed on the Government at the present time—namely, the number of Committees of importance now sitting. This rendered it undesirable to appoint a Committee during the present Session; but he (the Attorney General) felt he was in a position, on the part of the Government, to make this statement—that next Session they would be prepared either to deal with the question by legis- lation, or by moving for the appointment of a Select Committee, with a view to legislation taking place. Under those circumstances, he suggested to his hon. Friend that the present Motion should be withdrawn, and the matter left with the Government on the understanding he had pointed out.

said, that the suggestion of the hon. and learned Gentleman entirely met his view, and he would accordingly consent to withdraw the Motion.

, in rising to call attention to the case of Luke Hills, an agricultural labourer, sentenced by the Cuckfield Magistrates to three months' imprisonment, on a charge of breach of contract; and to move—

"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to grant a free pardon to the prisoner."

said, the case reminded one of the highhanded proceedings of the magistrates of the last century, and was such as he would rather have expected to have read of in the novels of Fielding or Smollett, than to meet with as an actual occurrence in the 19th century. The case raised a question as to whether justice could be properly administered by an unpaid magistracy. It appeared that in November, 1874, Hills entered the service of Captain Hyde; that in February last he gave a fortnight's notice to leave; and on that notice being given, the latter intimated to him, for the first time, that his engagement was of a permanent nature, the only written evidence being a memorandum said to have been made by Captain Hyde's son in a pocket-book at the time of hiring. He was thereupon brought before the magistrates on the charge of leaving his employment, and was fined £5, in addition to £3 18s. 2d. costs, or in default sentenced to imprisonment for three months. Now, Hills, who was 50 years of age or so, and who had obtained a good character from his last master, was simply ruined by such a sentence, for if he remained three months in gaol the stigma of being a gaol-bird would attach to him, and he would find it difficult in future to obtain employment. There was some dispute as to the amount of costs; but he could only say that the answer of the magistrates, given through their local clerk, did not say that £3 18s. 2d. was incorrect. There was, he might add, no pretence that there existed any written agreement between Hills and his employer; and the man and his wife had declared that not only had no memorandum ever been read to them to the effect that there was a yearly engagement, but that no such engagement had never been entered into. The magistrates had before them the statement made on the one side and the statement made on the other, and he knew no reason why the word of a working man of good character should have been utterly disbelieved by the Bench any more than that of his employer. But it was determined that the man should be convicted, and the magistrates accepted the employer's own estimate of the damage he had sustained through the man's leaving him. The man was a carter, and when he left his employer had only to get a new carter. What damage the master sustained it was difficult to see; but he nevertheless declared it to amount to something like £10, and Hills was sent to prison for three months. As to the legality of that decision he was informed by a magistrate and a lawyer that there was no summary jurisdiction in justices of the peace or petty sessions to determine questions of contract under the Master and Servant Act, except under the provisions of a former statute of George IV., and that that only applied to contracts in writing that were signed by both parties, which was not the case in the present instance. But, however, it might be legally, he unhesitatingly said that that decision was an act of gross oppression and tyranny. When Captain Hyde took Luke Hills before the Bench, composed as it was, he took him to a foregone doom. Hills was not tried by his peers, but by men who, if not aliens to him in blood and religion, were at least aliens to him in their interests, sympathies, and associations. They were employers—not employed. Six men taken entirely from the locked-out workmen in South Wales to try a dispute between their own class and their masters would be as fair a tribunal as that which tried that poor labourer. The case had excited considerable feeling in the neighbourhood, and a memorial, signed by some hundreds of the inhabitants, was sent to the Home Office praying for the release of Hills, who had been one month in prison. Pressure had been applied to prevent people from signing such a memorial, and he feared that those who had interested themselves in the matter would have reason to regret that they had done so. The memorialists received no answer from the Home Office, beyond a bare acknowledgment of the receipt of their memorial, and he thought the matter was entitled to greater attention from that Department. On the 9th of March the Home Secretary informed him, in reply to a Question, that he had had an answer that morning from the magistrates, but that he had not yet had time to read it. The magistrates, he thought, should have been requested to send an earlier answer. On the 8th of March a communication was sent from the Home Office to Brighton, saying that the right hon. Gentleman had thoroughly examined the case, and had come to the conclusion that he could not interfere. The right hon. Gentleman said he was not aware of that letter; but there ought to be some inquiry how it came to be sent, for it looked as if there was somebody behind the right hon. Gentleman greater than he was in his own Department. On the 11th the right hon. Gentleman endorsed the decision of the Bench, saying they had acted with perfect justice, benevolence, and kindness; but as the Labour Law Commission suggested that there should be no criminal punishment for simple breach of contract, the right hon. Gentleman recommended that the man should be freed from the rest of his sentence. On Monday, when asked if Hills had been released, the right hon. Gentleman said there had been some hitch, or he would have been released; but that from the form of the committal there was some doubt whether the pardon of Her Majesty would run. He, however, hoped it would be the opinion of the House that means should be discovered for liberating that poor man, and for removing the stain which at present attached to his character. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Amendment.

thought that, although there could be little doubt as to the legality of that decision, as there were, in fact, two statutes, either of which would warrant it, its propriety was another question, and might be a fair subject of discussion. As one of the Representatives of the county the case had come under his notice, for he had received a statement referring to it, but previous to coming to an opinion upon it, it occurred to him that there might be two sides to the question. He accordingly put himself in communication with the magistrates' clerk, and there had been no delay in forwarding him an answer on the matter. The version of the story that had reached him was somewhat different from that put forward by the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Taylor), and in laying it before the House, he would say that, as the hon. Member had referred to two eminent novelists, he (Mr. Gregory) would refer to another novelist of a more modern time, the late Mr. Thackeray, who laid down this great principle—that there was not a piece of mischief in the world without a woman being at the bottom of it. Captain Hyde swore that the man in question had entered into a contract with him for a year's service at 18s. a-week, and he was corroborated in that statement by his son, who produced a minute made by himself at the time to that effect, and, therefore, unless these two gentlemen were guilty of wilful and corrupt perjury, their account of the transaction must be taken to be true. It was further proved, in corroboration of this, that Captain Hyde had been to some trouble and expense in moving the goods of the man and of his family from a distant part of the country to his neighbourhood. It was true that the man's wife had declared that no statement was made at the time that the hiring was to be a yearly one; but both Captain Hyde and his son swore that the woman was not present when the contract was made, and the man himself declined to be put upon his oath, and to give evidence in support of his wife's story. Under these circumstances, what were the magistrates to do? Were they to believe the evidence upon oath which was before them, or were they to act upon the mere statement of the woman which her husband refused to confirm upon oath? As they believed the evidence of Captain Hyde and his son, the case resolved itself into one of more damages. Captain Hyde satisfied the magistrates that through the breach of contract on the part of the man he had sustained damage to the amount of £9; but as he had only claimed £5, they limited their order to that amount in addition to the costs, which were 18s. 6d., and not £3 18s. 6d., as stated by the hon. Member, and instead of issuing their warrant for the payment of the £5 18s. 6d. at once, they gave the man a fortnight to make up the sum or effect some arrangement. To this order the man made no objection at the time; but his wife having subsequently advised him not to pay the money, he unfortunately followed her advice, and refused to comply with the terms of the order. The magistrates upon that had no alternative left them, except to sentence him to imprisonment in default, but without hard labour, telling him, at the same time, that he could obtain his release from prison at any time on payment of the fine. The man, therefore, was now in prison for non-payment of the sum of £5 18s. 6d., and he could not help thinking that the hon. Member, and those petitioners who felt so much sympathy with the prisoner, would have done better if, instead of bringing the matter before the House, they had subscribed the necessary sum to pay the fine, and so have obtained the man's release at once; and at all events, he trusted that the House would not lightly interfere in a matter of this kind, where a man was suffering imprisonment for wilfully refusing to obey the legal order of the magistrates.

hoped that he should be acquitted of any desire to interfere with the course of justice or to throw any impediments in the way of magistrates discharging their important and often very difficult duties; but he could not help pointing out that the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory) had altogether failed to answer the legal objection that had been taken to the conviction. He should, therefore, wish to ask the Home Secretary whether, in his opinion, the conviction of this man was legal or not? The hon. Member for East Sussex had said that some doubt existed under which of two Acts the conviction had been obtained, but he must know that the terms of the conviction itself must show under which Act it was obtained. The version of the story which had been given to the House that evening by the hon. Member varied in some of its details from that which had appeared in the newspapers; but the hon. Member had not informed the House that the contract in question was one that could never have been enforced in any Civil Court, it being, according to Captain Hyde's own account, for a year's service to commence on a future day, and not being in writing it was void under the Statute of Frauds. The prisoner, therefore, had been sentenced to imprisonment for the non-payment of damages for breaking a contract which could not have been enforced before a Civil Court. The Schedule of the Act of 1867—under which this conviction must have been made—set forth all the forms of contracts of service to which the Act applied, and he wished that the Home Secretary would point to the particular contract set forth in that Schedule which had been broken by the prisoner, so as to bring him within the operation of the statute. If the right hon. Gentleman was unable to do that, it would be a grave question whether the conviction was legal in any sense. It would, perhaps, be too late now to take steps to set aside the imprisonment, and he was afraid that, owing to the technical reason that the imprisonment was for the nonpayment of damages, the Crown itself had no power to grant a pardon. [Mr. ASSHETON CROSS assented.] Under those circumstances, where the legal question was involved in so much doubt, he did not think that the House would press the right hon. Gentleman to interfere in the matter. The case, however, revealed a very sad state of the law, because it appeared that the doubtful decision of the magistrates, resulting in the unjust imprisonment of one of our fellow-subjects, was, for all practical purposes, final and irreversible, and that it was even beyond the power of the Home Secretary to sot matters right. The magistrates had found a doughty champion in his hon. Friend the Member for East Sussex, but what he had stated did not appear to have been stated by the magistrates' clerk who was present. That was comparatively a small matter; but when the hon. Member said that this was the man's own fault, because he did not accept the alternative given to him, it must be remembered that that alternative was that his home should be broken up, and his wife and himself turned into the streets without shelter.

hoped that the House would be very cautious as to the course it adopted in this matter. The case was disposed of under the Act of 1867; but he did not intend at the present moment to enter upon the question of the wisdom or the non-wisdom of that Act, because he intended to bring the subject under the notice of the House shortly after Easter. He hoped that the House would also be very careful that it did not enter into a discussion of two questions which it was perfectly incompetent to enter upon—first, the question whether the conviction was or was not right in law; and, secondly, whether, upon the bare statements of two Members of the House, however honourable, they would venture to come to a conclusion upon a question of fact that had been already determined by persons who had heard all the evidence upon it. He thought if the House discussed questions of law or fact in such cases, except in very flagrant cases, it would be entering upon a very dangerous course indeed. His attention having been called by the Notice given by the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor), he went through the Papers, and thought that the case was worthy of grave consideration. In administering the law of 1867 as a magistrate he had always thought that the powers under the statute ought to be very leniently exercised. In the present case, the magistrates had before them the question of fact, whether this man was a yearly servant or not. He certainly thought that if he had been one of the magistrates, and if he had been aware of the unanimous Report of the Commission which sat to inquire into the operation of the Act, he should have administered that Act in a more lenient spirit. However, the magistrates had I not that advantage, and they dealt with it in the ordinary way. They found that Luke Hills was a yearly servant who had broken his contract, and he was not convicted, but was ordered to pay a certain sum for damages. He was a carter, and it was no doubt held that he might have caused considerable loss to his employer. As to the amount, the magistrates decided that question upon the evidence before them. Under all the circumstances, he should have advised Her Majesty to allow the man to be discharged if it had been in Her Majesty's power to do so; but, after consulting those to whom he looked for legal advice, he found that, as the order was for the payment of damages—whether right or wrong he would not discuss—the power of the Crown did not run, and that to release a person who was imprisoned for debt would be interfering with the rights of one subject as against another. There was, therefore, no course open to him in the way of interfering. As it was impossible for the Grown, if the Motion were carried, to exempt the man from the penalty, he trusted that the hon. Member for Leicester would not press his Motion to a division that would be futile.

said, he thought that the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary were a perfect justification to his hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) for bringing the question before the House, and if the conclusion were a right one upon that Act of Parliament, the House had lost that power, which it once possessed, in reference to the detention of subjects of the Crown. It appeared that if the Home Secretary could carry out his wish he would advise a free pardon, and that strongly justified his hon. Friend the Member for Leicester; and it was a strong opinion that they should not leave the Act of 1867 in the position in which it stood. He was glad that the right hon. Gentleman proposed to call the attention of the House to the operation of the Act soon after Easter, as should there be a repetition of these cases the operation of the law would be most disadvantageous to the community, for they could not take up a newspaper without seeing that broaches of contract were very frequent, and the damage which they occasioned to persons was much greater than the loss of £9 by Captain Hyde. In the case under notice this man had been sent to prison for three months because he had broken a civil contract, while hon. Members of this House could break civil contracts without any such consequences.

agreed in thinking that the hon. Member for Leicester was fully justified in bringing the question before the House. Cases of the kind were occurring daily, and he therefore trusted on that account the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department would bring in a measure after Easter which would allow a full discussion of the subject.

said, he did not complain that the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) should have brought the question before the House, but he did complain of his having done so upon imperfect information of the facts, and he also complained of the hon. Member having used hard words against the magistrates who determined the case. He spoke from personal knowledge, and not from hearsay, and he could say they were men who did all they could for the welfare of their neighbourhood and their fellow-creatures, and who were beloved by all around them. They knew how to do their duty mercifully, but they were appointed to carry out the law, and it was unbecoming of an hon. Member who could know nothing of these gentlemen to stigmatize them as tyrants and oppressors. Such language was deserving of the severest reprobation.

said, it was no use pressing a Motion asking for a free pardon, which it would be impossible for Her Majesty to grant. He hoped, however, the discussion would do good, in the way of hindering the occurrence of similar eases, and in that view he would withdraw the Amendment.

, in rising to call attention to the Regulations for the Government of Prisons approved by the Home Secretary as regards persons wait- ing for bail or remanded By a magistrate, and to the infraction of such rules in the Clerkenwell House of Detention, said, that after the warning he received last night he would do what he could to avoid bringing down upon himself and his subject the ridicule of the Home Secretary. There was something ludicrous, no doubt, in persons who were waiting for bail, or who had been remanded by a magistrate, scrubbing their own cells; but he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that when Cawnpore was taken the native chiefs who had participated in the mutiny were compelled to scrub floors as the most degrading act which it was possible for human beings to perform. He would now refer to a case of which he had no personal knowledge, but the particulars of which had been communicated to him by letter. A man named Mackay, living at 32, Coleman Street, near the Bank of England, was charged with some trifling offence, for which no punishment was inflicted upon him beyond being required to find bail for his appearance if called upon. His friends were not in London, and during the interval which elapsed before they entered into the required recognizance, he was detained in Holloway Prison, where he was obliged, although labouring under an attack of bronchitis and acute rheumatism, to scrub stone floors, on one occasion for eight hours almost continuously, with cold water; and the effect upon him was that he had to be removed to the hospital. Those were the facts of the case, and, if incorrect, he would hand the author of them over to the tender mercies of the House. They all remembered the case of the foreign clergyman who, about two years ago, having been arrested on a charge which was dismissed, was compelled to scrub the asphalt floor of his cell, and perform other menial offices. He, as a magistrate, had visited the House of Detention in which that gentleman was confined, and ascertained that all unconvicted prisoners were treated in the same way, while there were many unconvicted prisoners in the House of Detention who would be glad, for a trifling consideration, to do the work. He therefore gave notice at the Quarter Sessions of a motion to abolish that part of the rule which referred to the cleaning of their cells by prisoners on remand, and, after a very stormy discussion, on demand- ing a poll, found that the resolution was carried; and not lost, as the Chairman had declared it to be. No alteration had, however, since been made in the practice, and he could only suppose that the amendment of the rule had not received the sanction of the Secretary of State. In his opinion, however, the broad principle of justice required that the change he recommended should be made on behalf of a friendless and obscure class of persons who might be innocent; who frequently were proved to be innocent; and had, at all events, not been shown to be guilty. He sincerely hoped that view would be acted upon by the Government, especially as he understood, from what had passed between them, that it was in accordance with the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman. With respect to what had occurred last night, he might be permitted to say that, having been a Member of the House before the right hon. Gentleman, he had never seen a Minister turn round to his Party and ask for a cheer, without eliciting a response to his call; but he had never before known a person in the eminent position of the right hon. Gentleman to turn round to his own Party and, speaking to a humble and constant supporter, ask for the derision which the right hon. Gentleman had succeeded in obtaining yesterday.

, in cases such as the one which had been brought under notice, regarded it as a defect in the law that an innocent person, who was unavoidably injured by its action, could not obtain compensation for the wrong which he sustained. He should be very glad if that fact were taken into consideration by Her Majesty's Government.

regretted that, having spoken once upon the Motion to which that of the hon. and gallant Gentleman was an Amendment, his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was precluded from replying to the Amendment and the observations which had been made by its Mover. With regard to the Amendment itself, he could assure his hon. and gallant Friend that the subject which he had brought under the notice of the House was one to which the attention of the Government had never been called. The Inspector General of Prisons stated in his last Report that there had been no complaint with regard to the rules and regulations for the treatment of prisoners. It was only that morning that the Home Office had received any complaint with regard to the particular case to which his hon. and gallant Friend had referred, and he could assure him that no time would be lost in inquiring into the facts. That being so, he hoped the Amendment would not be pressed to a Division.

I feel it my duty to make a few remarks upon certain observations of my hon. and gallant Friend, which I heard him make with regret, in reference to the manner in which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department received his Question in reference to this subject yesterday. I have for many years known my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kidderminster; I have valued his acquaintance, and I am very glad to see him again in the House of Commons; but I cannot but feel that on this occasion he has shown a sensitiveness for which really there was no adequate reason. I happened to be in the House when the Question was asked by my hon. and gallant Friend; I heard the Answer of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and, as both an impartial witness, and an old friend of the hon. and gallant Member I must express my own feeling as to what occurred—namely, that nothing of the kind which my hon. and gallant Friend has expressed was ever intended by the Secretary of State. If the House was fuller I could appeal to many hon. Members to confirm my view of what passed. I think that has occurred on this occasion, which in this House happens to all of us sometimes, and at this time it happened to my hon. and gallant Friend, to misunderstand an observation or an action. I am authorized by my right hon. Friend, who by the Rules of the House is unable again to speak, to state that nothing was further from his mind than to express by word or action any such feeling as my hon. and gallant Friend has described, and which he will, I trust, from this moment discard from his mind.

said, he would withdraw his Amendment.

said, he wished at the outset to express his regret that any observations he used on the previous evening had been understood by hon. Members to reflect on the hon. and learned Member for Salford (Mr. Cawley) and give him pain. Nothing was further from his intentions than to use observations which could have been interpreted or understood in any such sense.

said, though he admitted that the observations of his right hon. Friend did for a moment give him pain, and were noticed by other hon. Members, he most cordially accepted the explanation which he had given. He was sure, from his personal knowledge of his right hon. Friend, that he could not have had any intention to cause pain or annoyance to any hon. Member.

, in moving, as an Amendment, in page 2, line 29, to leave out from "if satisfied," to "shall," in line 32, inclusive, and in- sert "shall, unless they show cause to the contrary," said, he objected very much to the manner in which the clause was drawn, which, in his opinion, would make it inoperative. If a local authority were to have a debate, on the proposal of a resolution in favour of an improvement scheme, as to whether the official representation made to them was true, as to the practicability of applying a remedy, the sufficiency of their resources, and the advantage to be derived by the locality from the application of the proposed remedy, there would be serious risk that no resolution would ever be passed.

supported the Amendment as necessary against recalcitrant and reluctant local authorities. When a nuisance was ascertained, the local authority ought to be required to remove it, at whatever cost.

thought the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hastings (Mr. Kay-Shuttleworth) was much too extensive, as the Bill sufficiently provided otherwise against hostile efforts by unwilling vestrymen and others. The whole country would be thrown into a state of confusion if local authorities were compelled to apply a remedy without satisfying themselves that it was feasible.

believed the hon. and learned Member for Poole (Mr. Evelyn Ashley) was wrong in supposing that local authorities did not care a farthing about sanitary improvement. The local authorities throughout the Kingdom, he believed, did care for the health and the general well-being of the people in their districts. As to the metropolitan authorities, he knew they devoted a great deal of time and trouble to the well-being of those around them. He was against the Amendment.

suggested that the only condition which the clause need express was contained in the words "if satisfied of the truth thereof," which might be left standing and the other conditional passages omitted. The question of sufficiency of resources was a consideration which the local authorities were certain to entertain sufficiently.

said, that the clause had been drawn with great care, and, in his opinion, the terms of it were correct. He thought the confirming authority should be at liberty to exercise all moral, but not legal pressure, in the first instance, and that it should have every opportunity of making the necessary inquiries respecting the state of a given area. He should be quite willing to strike out the third "if" and the passage in which it occurred. In the metropolis he believed very great action would be taken under the Bill, and, although, of course, the effect would not be immediate, he expected that after a few years London would be quite a different place from what it was at present. He was disinclined, in the first instance, to compel the law to be carried out irrespective of any judgment as to resources.

remarked that the Labouring Classes Lodging House Act, passed in 1851, had been carried into effect by only one local authority—namely, Huddersfield.

felt inclined to support the Home Secretary. In the three burghs he represented, great things had been done by the municipalities in regard to drainage and the improvement of the public health.

was happy to be able to testify to the remarkable readiness of sanitary authorities, speaking generally, to undertake works of improvement.

said, that as the Home Secretary had met him half-way, he would withdraw his Amendment.

, in moving, as an Amendment, in page 2, line 36, after "area," to insert—

"And if it shall appear necessary or expedient to purchase any or all of the lands and buildings within such area, or to alter, vary, or stop up any steeets within such area, or to make any-new street therein, they shall apply for a Provisional Order for the same in the manner provided by the Local Government Acts, and the scheme shall he deemed to be an undertaking under those Acts,"

said, he proposed the addition with a view of simplifying the working of the Act, unless some reason could be shown for adopting a Provisional Order other than the Provisional Orders which could now be obtained. At present local authorities could obtain powers to purchase lands, make new streets, and otherwise improve a town. It was now proposed to re-enact what was enacted by other Acts, and he could not see the necessity of establishing a new form of Provisional Order differing only slightly from that which already existed. Such a multiplication of Acts was quite unnecessary.

said, the Amendment would no doubt shorten the Bill, but it would not accomplish the purpose which the Government had in view as to the object of the Bill. In the first place, these Local Government Acts did not apply to the metropolis. In the second place, if the Amendment were adopted, it would give to the Bill too much of the character of a Towns' Improvement Act. This might seem a technical, but it was really a substantial, distinction. He did not wish this Bill to be dealt with as one passed for the purpose of beautifying towns. It was simply a Bill for improving the wretched and unhealthy rookeries which were to be found in towns, for re-building them in such a form as would be least expensive to the ratepayers, and, above all, for providing proper accommodation for the people who were displaced. One thread ran through the Bill, and he did not want to break it. Moreover, it was desirable that all the provisions of the Bill should be contained within the four corners of the Bill itself. Although he knew his hon. and learned Friend took a great interest in the Bill, yet, if his proposal were adopted, it would break through the arrangement, and for that reason he could not accept the Amendment.

said, he rose to move an Amendment which would bring within the scope of the Bill spaces cleared under the provisions of Torrens's Act. These spaces frequently remained a long time unoccupied, and became an eyesore and a nuisance. A space of this kind belonging to the Foundling Hospital had been for some time unoccupied. He was happy to say that within the last few days it had been disposed of to the Peabody Trustees. Under his Amendment such a space might be made available for the purposes of the Act. He would move, in line 36, at end of Clause, to add—

"Where, under the provisions of 'The Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Act, 1868' (31 and 32 Vic. c. 130), any houses occupied wholly or partly by persons of the working class have been or may hereafter be demolished, and an area has been or shall have been thus cleared, the local authority may, if they think fit, pass a resolution to the effect that an improvement scheme ought to be made in respect of such area, and after passing such resolution they shall forthwith proceed as aforesaid."

said, it was impossible to accept the Amendment without going beyond the scope of the Bill. It was equally impossible for the local authority to say that a vacant space was a source of injury to the public health; and to take that ground for the purpose of the Bill would be an unwarrantable interference with the rights of property.

said, the Bill carefully avoided touching property which was not pronounced injurious to the public health; and owners of these cleared spaces might naturally say—"Why take this building land from us, when the nuisance you complained of has been removed?" He argued that the Amendment would interfere unduly with the rights of property, and he must therefore oppose it.

said, that people ought not to be tied down in the way proposed. Unless a man was at liberty to let his land in a way commercially advantageous, no matter what theories they might hold, they would fail.

was of opinion that the object of the Proviso—namely, that an alternative should be left to the local authorities to proceed either under the Act of 1868 or the present Bill—was desirable and should be carried out, if possible.

was of opinion that the Bill would not work satisfactorily, unless it gave power to take more land than that it was immediately dealing with. He, however, did not think it would be wise to effect that object in the form proposed by the hon. Member for Hastings.

said, his object was that the very worst places should be dealt with by the Bill. Obviously, the local authorities would see the advantage of putting Torrens's Act into operation with respect to those places; but when they had done so, they would have no power to build under this Bill. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would re-consider the matter before the Report.

moved, as an Amendment, in page 2, lines 39 and 40, to leave out—

"To such board or vestry, who shall forthwith forward the same," and insert "or by such medical officer as is hereafter in this Act mentioned."

objected to giving so much power to medical officers, who, although well educated and intelligent, were often crotchety and defective in judgment. Why should they ignore the vestries and other local authorities? In his own constituency he knew that the members of the vestries were men of great intelligence and ability. They were elected by their fellow-ratepayers, and were therefore representative men. He thought that the House of Commons should be very careful in setting aside the authorities, who represented the principle of local self-government, and who were the proper persons to decide on questions which affected those who elected them. Taxation and representation should go together, and whatever might be said against vestries, they were at least as much to be trusted in such matters as a medical officer with a salary of £100 or £200 a-year, whose opinion might happen to be biased by a variety of causes. Those who elected the vestries would have to pay the costs of any improvements, and ought to have a voice in the matter. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able in some way so to shape the clause as to give that power.

said, he had a very high opinion of local self-government and of the general intelligence of local authorities, who though undoubtedly doing a great deal, yet did not at all times do what one wished them. For the purposes of the Bill they must take things as they found them, and he would point out to the hon. Baronet that he did not by the Bill in the slightest degree interfere with the principle of local self-government, or sever taxation from representation. In the early part of the Bill the Committee had settled that the Metropolitan Board was to be the authority to put the Act in force, and there would be no use in having an intermediate authority. As the Bill was originally drawn, the medical officer was required to report to the local authorities. Some of the vestries had objected to this, and seeing that the Metropolitan Board was elected by the metropolitan vestries, they constituted, though not directly, a representative body. They were to be the local authority for the metropolis without the boundaries of the City, and what was now proposed was simply to do away with the Report to an intermediate body. The vestries would not be charged with the removal of rookeries; the Metropolitan Board would; and it was better to fix the responsibility on the body which would have to take action in these matters. So long as it existed as it was, it was the authority which ought to administer this Bill.

moved, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 2, to leave out "twenty" and insert "six." Its object was to obviate the cumbersome nature of the quantity of persons named in the Bill to be able to make a complaint to the medical officer.

, who had given Notice of a similar proposal, said, it would be extremely difficult, as it was unnecessary, to get so large a number as 20 ratepayers to lodge a complaint.

thought the Amendment which he would propose better than the one under notice. It was in page 3, line 2, to leave out "twenty," and insert—

"Two or more justices of the peace acting within the jurisdiction for which he is medical officer, or twelve."

His object in putting two or more justices of the peace was in order to give additional support to the medical officer upon whom devolved an important duty in carrying out the Act.

said, he thought six were too few for the purpose desired.

said, after consideration, he would accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for South-East Lancashire. He approved of 12, but had not put down any Amendment, because he could accept that of which Notice had been given.

moved, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 7, after "officer," to insert "within three weeks from the date of such complaint."

said, he had no objection to insert the word "forthwith," in lieu of the words proposed.

accepted the proposal.

moved, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 10, at end of Clause, to add—

"The Local Government Board may, at any time when they deem it necessary to make a special inquiry into the sanitary condition of any part of any urban sanitary district, send one or more medical officer or officers to make such inquiry, who, after making such inquiry, may make an official representation to the Local Government Board, who shall forward it to the local authority, and such representation shall have the same incidents as if made by the medical officer of health of such authority."

hoped the Home Secretary would accept the Amendment. There was the utmost variety of medical officers in regard to qualification and salary. In many cases the salary was merely nominal, a medical officer of health being appointed just to comply with the Act. It was wise to empower the Local Government Board, when some great scandal occurred, to send down their own medical officer to institute an inquiry.

said, the proper time to discuss this proviso was on Clause 9, which related to the metropolis.

moved, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 10, at end of Clause, add—

"Every registrar, when required by a vestry or district board, shall transmit by post or otherwise a return, certified under the hand of such registrar to be a true return, of such of the particulars registered by him concerning any death as may be specified in the requisition of the sanitary authority.

"The sanitary authority may supply a form of the prescribed character for the purpose of the return, and, in that case, the return shall be made in the form so supplied.

"The registrar making such return shall be entitled to a fee of two pence, and to a further fee of two pence for every death entered in such return, which fee shall be paid by the authority requiring the Return."

thought that such a provision would be to encumber the Bill, and was really a clause amending the law relating to the registration of births and deaths.

said, although fully aware of its importance, he had not dealt with the question in this Bill, because he thought it should be dealt with in some other measure, such as the Public Health Act now before the House, and it was in that way that he proposed to do what was necessary. He hoped the hon. Member would withdraw the Amendment, and he would consult the Local Government Board about it.

moved, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 12, after "estimates," to insert—

"It may exclude any part of the area in respect of which an official representation is made, or include any neighbouring lands if the local authority are of opinion that such exclusion is expedient or inclusion is necessary for making their scheme efficient for sanitary purposes, it may also provide for widening any existing approaches to the unhealthy area, or otherwise for opening out the same for the purposes of ventilation and health. Also."

moved an Amendment with the object of providing for "lands" instead of "neighbouring lands," as proposed by the Home Secretary. The right hon. Gentlemen was endeavouring to do that which would be absolutely impossible in many towns, and if his proposal were carried it would defeat the object of the Bill.

proposed to amend the Amendment by inserting words, the object of which was to enable the local authority to add other lands and houses to those already condemned by the medical officers, on the ground that such additions were necessary to develop fully the valuable building sites for the purpose of this Act. The difference between the Amendment of the Home Secretary and his Amendment was this—the right hon. Gentleman bore in mind sanitary considerations only, but he (Mr. Shaw-Lefevre) added other considerations.

said, he was bound to stick to his original Amendment, as this was essentially a sanitary measure, and ought not to be made use of for building and speculative purposes.

thought the Amendment solved the difficulty, and would provide for the accommodation of the persons who might be displaced by improvements. He was quite willing to give a dispensing power to the proper authority in this matter. He had introduced in the Bill a provision of the Lands Clauses Act, which enabled persons to take lands, and unless it be absolutely necessary, he did not desire to make the power compulsory.

said, he would admit that the clause was greatly improved by the addition just made to it by the Home Secretary. There were cases, however, in which it would be most undesirable that houses should be rebuilt upon the particular area cleared, which might be in itself unhealthy from its situation near a river or otherwise. Or again the local authority might be able to show that sufficient dwellings existed already for the accommodation of the people who were displaced. It was desirable to lay down on what grounds, and on what grounds alone, the sites might be allowed to be elsewhere than on the areas which had been cleared. He begged, therefore, to move the Amendment which stood in his name—namely, in page 3, line 13, after "compulsorily and," leave out to end of Clause, and insert—

"(Except as hereinafter provided) shall, within the limits of the area included in the scheme, or in the vicinity of such area, afford a site or sites for suitable dwellings capable of housing as many persons of the working class as may be displaced, and shall make provision for proper sanitary arrangements. Provided, That the site or sites for suitable dwellings as aforesaid may be afforded on any lands to be taken by agreement within the district of the local authority, that the scheme may prove to be equally or more desirable, having regard to the wants of the working classes, to health, and to economy. Provided also, That if the scheme shall prove that sufficient and suitable dwellings already exist, capable of housing the said persons, no site or sites as aforesaid need be afforded."

said, that his objection to the Amendment was, that it might relieve the local authorities of the burden of providing houses for those displaced, which they knew would be the least productive part of the scheme, and he doubted, in the next place, whether the local authorities would undertake the responsibility of providing lands. He should be willing to give the confirming authority power to class these restrictions to a reasonable extent.

said, the object of the Bill professed to be to provide suitable buildings for the working classes, but the place should be an open question. He had passed many years of his life in the City of London, and he and almost all merchants were glad to get away from the City in the evening for the beneficial effects of fresh air. Then why should they wish to confine the working classes to the City? To do so would be to expose them to damage and deteriorate their health, and render them the little, puny people such as those whom they daily saw in the streets. He should like to see the working classes get out into the fresh air, and to have the physique of their forefathers. People seemed to forget what London was—a metropolis comprising many miles of streets; and was it, he asked, a place to confine the working classes in if it could be avoided?

wished to put a question to the Home Secretary. He wanted him to tell the Committee why there should be this special provision for the working classes, who were quite capable of taking care of themselves? He had read throughout this Bill that if the working classes were displaced accommodation must be provided for them. Now, why should the working classes have accommodation provided for them more than for any other class of people? There were small tradesmen whose conditions and wants should be thought of, and for whom suitable accommodation should be provided—

I beg to remind the hon. Gentleman that he is not in Order in discussing the general principle of the Bill on the Amendment. The question before the Committee is the Amendment requiring such legislation as would provide suitable accommodation for the working classes.

submitted that the question he had addressed to the Home Secretary was perfect relevant.

, with respect to the question of his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), submitted that if the hon. Member had the least notion of the great displacement of the dwellings of the working classes in London by railway companies' works and for other improvements, and of the miseries which they suffered, he would admit that the Bill was necessary to provide suitable dwellings for their accommodation in lieu of those pulled down.

did not concur with the hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury (Sir Andrew Lusk) that it would be either convenient or accommodating to the working classes to be borne away from London to the Arcadia which the hon. Member wished to see provided for them. He would take, for instance, the class of printers, and it was well known that it would not be convenient for them to live far away from their work.

said, he was not satisfied with the answer given by the Home Secretary to his question, and he would raise the question again on the Report of the Bill. The Home Secretary seemed to think that he (Mr. Fawcett) had not considered the miseries of the working classes; but he begged to state to the right hon. Gentleman that he was as anxious as any man could be to alleviate the sufferings of those classes. That did not, however, affect the point he had raised. He should be glad if the words "working classes" could be left out, and the words "those who have been displaced" substituted.

moved that the words "at the least" should be added to the Proviso requiring that any improvement scheme should provide for the accommodation "of as many persons of the working classes as may be displaced." His own experience had proved that it was possible to provide by new buildings for even more persons than had before occupied the particular area.

thought cases might occur where it would be impracticable to accommodate the same number.

moved, with regard to the same provision, that the words, "of the working class" should be omitted with the view of substituting "those who earn wages." There were others besides working men, such as clerks and those of small means, who might be displaced, and who were entitled equally with them to the consideration of the Legislature.

said, that the objection of the hon. Member to the clause as it stood was one that went to the principle of the Bill, and ought to have been made on the second reading.

thought that the Government ought to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), which was quite consistent with the principle of the measure.

was afraid that the right hon. Gentleman opposite had not apprehended the principle of the Bill at all. If he would be kind enough to read the Preamble he would find that it recited that the object of the measure was to provide accommodation for such of the working classes as might be displaced from their dwellings under the provision of the Bill.

said, that where houses were removed the "working classes" were understood to be persons who occupied under weekly tenancies, and therefore the definition would include poor clerks and other people of slender means. Quarterly tenants, on the contrary, would receive compensation. If the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) were accepted, the unfortunate ratepayers might be called upon to provide accommodation for any Members of Parliament who might be turned out of their houses in consequence of this measure being put into operation.

said, he could not accept the reproof of the right hon. Gentleman, who was too much in the habit of administering reproofs to those who thought differently from himself. The right hon. Gentleman assumed that no hon. Member who sat opposite to him had read the provisions of this Bill, but he begged to inform him that he had read them most carefully. As to the Preamble of the Bill, to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred, he wished to remind him that it had not yet been passed. The object of the Bill, as he understood it, was to provide accommodation for the same number of persons, whether they belonged to the working classes or not, who were deprived of their houses under the provisions of the measure.

said, he felt bound to take a division on his Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman had stated last night that the object of the Bill was to abolish rookeries; but the measure had grown considerably since then, and it was now a paternally patronizing Bill for the provision of habitations for the working classes.

hoped the Committee would not proceed to a division before knowing more clearly on what it was about to divide. He could not agree with his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) that the Home Secretary, in seeking to remove a very crying evil, desired to make the Bill a piece of class legislation. If, however, he wished to retain the clause as it was, he ought at least to give the Committee a definition of the words "working classes." For his own part, he thought that the term might be omitted without interfering with the beneficial operation of the Bill.

considered that the question which had been raised as to what was meant by the working classes was an idle one. No one could doubt the meaning of the proposal, which was to the effect, where a number of houses and small shops were pulled down, and the tenants displaced, they should, within the same area, be provided with houses and small shops, or else they could not have suitable dwellings. With regard to the expression "working classes," it comprehended not only artizans, clerks, translators, but even the Solicitor General; in fact, every person who earned his income by industry.

hoped that the words objected to—and which would lead to invidious distinctions, which would be well understood outside the House, as he thought they were inside it—would be struck out by the right hon. Gentleman having charge of the Bill.

considered the retention of the words "working classes" would lead to difficulties being placed in the way of the working of the Bill. The local authorities who would have to carry out the provisions of the Bill would be unable to discriminate between who were the working classes and who were not, unless they were provided with a definition.

called upon hon. Gentlemen opposite who objected to the definition "working classes" to suggest some words to be substituted which, being inserted in the Bill, would be likely to effect the object which they all had in view. That object was to secure suitable dwellings for those persons, and not throw upon the local authorities the responsibility of ascertaining to what particular class the persons inhabiting the houses to be pulled down belonged.

said, the object of the clause was to provide a substitute for displaced buildings, and he saw no reason why they should raise difficulties by the use of the words "working classes." If it was meant to provide houses for the poorer classes, the words ought to be left in a general sense. At all events, it was not a question whether they should supply licensed victuallers with new shops or supply small shops in the place of those which might be pulled down. It was simply a proposal to provide suitable dwellings for those destroyed in the way of a numerical replacement. He hoped the Home Secretary would give the Committee a definition of the words "working classes."

said, it was only the preceding evening that he was asked to change the title of the Bill to the designation of the very class it was now proposed to strike out. The term "working class" was no new one. It was to be found in the Standing Orders, which were passed annually, and in which no definition of the words were given. Beyond that it was made use of as far back as 1866 in the Edinburgh and Glasgow Improvement Acts, and was perfectly well understood. The authorities who had the carrying out of those Acts were not allowed to pull down dwellings unless they obtained a certificate from the sheriff that accommodation had been provided for such and such numbers of the working or labouring classes, and no difficulty had ever arisen in the matter.

moved, as an Amendment in page 3, line 18, after "area," to insert—

"It may also provide for such scheme or any part thereof being carried out and effected by the owner or with the concurrence of the owner of any property subject to the same, under the superintendence and control of the local authority, and upon such terms and conditions to he embodied in the scheme, as may be agreed upon between the local authority and such owner."

He understood that the Home Secretary had consented to the insertion of this Proviso.

wished to know whether the Home Secretary had any reasons for not inserting a Proviso of this sort in the Bill originally; and if he had, what were the arguments that induced him now to consent to the insertion of this Proviso?

said, one great object of the Bill was to relieve ratepayers from all unnecessary expense. Surely, if owners wished to effect improvements of their property, they should be allowed to do so.

said, the question could not be settled in that offhand way. Under the Proviso corrupt arrangements might be made between the owners of tumble-down houses, by which extravagant compensation would be given to the latter, and the expense of building houses in lieu of the houses that had been taken down would be thrown on the ratepayers.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had put an Amendment on the Paper for a long time similar to this Proviso. He hoped it would be accepted, for there were many landowners in London anxious to improve their property, like the Dukes of Bedford and Westminster, who were now prevented by the temporary interests which other persons had acquired.

pointed out that the provision by which the re-building of houses could be carried out on areas which extended beyond the municipal boundaries might have the effect of disfranchising some of those who were evicted under improvement schemes. The Bill applied to some of the boroughs in which he was interested, and he hoped the Home Secretary would consider whether or not the effect that he had referred to might follow.

said, as the clause required that the local authorities should carefully ascertain the number of the working classes who would be displaced by a proposed scheme of improvement, it was essential to define what persons belonged to the working classes. Did the phrase include persons in reduced circumstances, a curate living on £100 a-year, a clerk whose salary was £80 a-year, or simply a labourer who worked for daily wage, or an artizan earning weekly wages? If a mistake was made last Session in inserting the phrase in a Standing Order without defining its meaning, that was no reason why a similar mistake should be made now.

said, that as representing one of the local authorities who would have to carry out the Bill, they knew perfectly well who were meant by "the working classes," and it was unnecessary further to define the meaning of the words.

said, that as the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) wanted Parliamentary authority, it should be borne in mind that between the year 1851 and the present time a long series of statutes had been passed bearing such titles as the "Labouring Classes' Lodging House Act," the "Working Classes' Dwellings Act," and the "Artizans' Dwellings Act." Surely, these statutes afforded sufficient Parliamentary authority for anybody.

hoped the Committee would still continue the consideration of the Bill.

said, that the clause was a most vital part of the measure, raising as it did the question whether the carrying out of the scheme should be obligatory. As he had pointed out at the previous Sitting, the local authorities might by that clause adopt either of three courses—namely, first, sell or lease the land, when cleared, to private individuals for the carrying out of the scheme; secondly, sell or lease it to a body of trustees for the same purpose; or, thirdly, with the consent of the confirming authority, they might carry out the scheme themselves. But there was no absolute security that the scheme would be carried out at all after the land had been cleared. In that state of things the hon. Member for Maidstone (Sir Sydney Waterlow) had given Notice of an Amendment to the effect——

interposed, and said, that it was not in Order to discuss a prospective Amendment on a Motion to report Progress, though the hon. Gentleman might refer to it if he wished merely to indicate his grounds for supporting that Motion.

said, what he wished to do was merely to show that his Motion to report Progress was reasonable. In case neither of the three courses to which he had referred was adopted, the hon. Member for Maidstone proposed that if any person offered a price for the ground and that price was refused by the local authorities, the person who had made the offer might appeal to the con- firming authority, who would appoint an arbitrator to say whether the price was a reasonable one or not. That Amendment raised a question too important to be satisfactorily discussed at half-past 12 o'clock, and it was for that reason he had moved that the Chairman do report Progress.

said, that as with the exception of some eccentric assumptions of the hon. Member for Hackney the Government had no cause to complain, having made reasonable progress, he would consent to the Motion.

moved an Amendment the effect of which would be to allow a court martial to sentence noncommissioned officers to a lesser punishment than reduction to the ranks, by giving it power to reduce them to a lower grade of rank, or to put them at the bottom or in any other position on their list.

thought the Amendment was not necessary or desirable, inasmuch as a non-commissioned officer need not be tried by a court martial, but could be reduced to the ranks without it. To place him, therefore, at the bottom of the list by sentence of court martial would be a useless waste of power. A commanding officer was not obliged to promote a non-commissioned officer according to seniority. It was only the class of duty that was affected by seniority, not pay or promotion. If a man was not fit to be a serjeant he was seldom fit to be a corporal. If he was degraded, he lost authority over the men, and it was far better that he should at once be reduced to the ranks and recover his position by good conduct.

, in moving, as an Amendment, in page 64, line 9, to leave out all after "be" to "State," and insert "served on the commanding officer of such soldier, and the said commanding officer," said, it was intended to transfer to the commanding officers of regiments a power which was now exercised by the Secretary of State for War, and which was most embarrassing to him. It was a matter of great regret to commanding officers of regiments that they had not the power so to direct things in relation to the wants of soldiers' wives as that they should not be sent away dissatisfied. Commanding officers should have a power which they now had not, to compel soldiers to support their wives and children in the same way as civilians were bound to support theirs. He submitted that soldiers' wives should be compelled to show their marriage certificates. When he commanded a regiment, he felt the want of such a power; however, as he apprehended that his Amendment would embarrass the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, he would withdraw it.

said, that the Mutiny Act formerly exempted the soldier from the necessity of supporting his family. That provision was repealed, while Lord Cardwell was at the War Office; but the concession was accompanied by so many difficulties as to be altogether valueless. When any order had been made against a soldier, copy of such order should be left at the office of one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, and the said Secretary of State might withhold a portion, not exceeding 6d., of the daily pay of a noncommissioned officer not below a serjeant, and 3d, of any other soldier. When such soldier was quartered out of the district where the action arose, the summons should be served on his commanding officer, and such service should not be valid unless there be left therewith a sum sufficient to enable the soldier to attend the hearing of the case and return to his quarters; and no summons should be valid if obtained after an order had been given for the embarkation for service out of the United Kingdom. He would therefore in page 64, line 10, move, as an Amendment, to leave out "may" and insert "shall" the Amendment having no reference to the case of women who might have claims upon soldiers. The words "may" and "shall" might almost be taken as convertible terms.

denied that the words could be regarded as convertible terms. It must be remembered that the Army was in an artificial position, and the Secretary of State ought to have a certain amount of discretion in his power. Soldiers were especially liable to charges of this kind by loose women who knew they had a better chance of getting money out of them, than from civilians who could and did constantly abscond. There were two things to guard against, vexatious charges, and collusion. The late Government were responsible for the wording of the clause; but after very anxious consideration he did not know how it could be improved.

said, the clause was framed by the late Government with the view, while admitting the liability of the soldier in such cases, of protecting him against got-up charges. As such, it was of a tentative character, the principle of liability being entirely novel to the Army. He wished to know how it had worked.

said, it was a principle put forward by the late Lord Hardinge, that the Crown alone should interfere with the pay of the soldier, and that no other authority should intervene at all. The only case in which that rule was broken was that of drunkenness, when the pay was stopped by the commanding officer. No instance had been brought before him as a grievance, and he was informed that the Act was considered to work well.

said, he thought that as a change had been so recently made, the question was whether it would work well. He could confirm the statement that the clause had been introduced by the late Government as merely tentative.

moved, line 13, after the word "soldier" to add words enabling the Secretary of State to withhold a portion of a soldier's daily pay for such a time as might suffice for the payment of the amount required to be paid under the order or decree of the justices.

objected to the Amendment, the object of which, so far as it could properly be done, was carried out by the clause.

moved, as an Amendment, in fine 15, to leave out after "decree" to the end of the Clause—namely, that part relating to the summons. No woman could now proceed against a soldier in a case of affiliation without first lodging money enough to bring him from the place where he might be and then to convey him back. She must, in fact, lodge £2 which could only be repaid to her out of a payment of 6d. a-day. That was a bar to the possibility of the woman getting justice.

opposed the Amendment. The soldier must have money to travel to the place where he was summoned to appear, and how was he to get it? It was not to be expected that the captain should provide for his travelling expenses, and his comrades were not likely to make a purse for him. The clause had been in operation for two years. The hon. Member had not brought forward a single case of hard- ship nor had he proposed an alternative. Had he done so, it would have been considered. But the Government were certainly not prepared to strike out the provision altogether.

said, that in 99 cases out of 100 the necessity of lodging £2 was a practical denial of justice to the woman. Certainly the poor betrayed woman should not be called upon to make a deposit which was beyond her means. Let the Government pay the money, and then deduct it from the soldier's pay.

resisted the Amendment, as there was no practical complaint against the working of the present arrangement. No instance had been brought forward of any such denial of justice as had been assumed by the last speaker to be its effect; and in the absence of any such proof he hoped the House would retain the proviso.