asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to the verdict of the jury at an inquest recently held on the death of a convict, which was that "the deceased died from consumption accelerated by the unkind treatment of the assistant surgeon," and to the declaration of the jury as published in the "Southern Times" of May 8th, and the "Irishman" of May 29th—

"The jury have given the case a long and at the same time the fullest investigation, and regret that the evidence is not explicit or clear as to what was done with the deceased between the 31st of March and the 2nd of April. The jury also consider that the deceased did not receive the treatment he was entitled to from the assistant medical officer, the deceased being a convict, and therefore not a free agent, and that his death was thereby accelerated. The jury are unanimously of opinion that the Home Secretary should cause an official inquiry to be made at once into the circumstances of this case, and also the general treatment of invalid convicts in the Portland establishment by the assistant surgeon, and that he be suspended from the service; "

and, if so, whether inquiry has been made "into the circumstances of this case, and also the general treatment of invalid convicts in the Portland establishment by the assistant surgeon," and whether he has been "suspended from the service," in accordance with the recommendation of the jury?

, in reply, said, that his attention had been called to that unfortunate case, and in cones- quence of the verdict of the jury he had on the 12th of May ordered that a special inquiry should be made into the facte. An inquiry was accordingly conducted by Captain Stopford, Dr. Guy, and Dr. Briscoe, the Inspector of Prisons; but their Report had been presented to him at the Home Office only that morning. Until he had time to look carefully into the Report, he could not state what action should be taken upon it; but the matter would have his serious consideration.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, When the Mines Inspectors' Reports for 1874 will be laid upon the Table of the House and circulated among the Members; what is the cause of their delay in being printed; and, when the Special Report of the Bunker's Hill Colliery Explosions will be laid upon the Table of the House?

said, those Reports were all in the hands of the printers on the 31st of March. He was sorry that there should be any delay in the printing department, which was not under his control; but he was informed that the Reports would be circulated among hon. Members in a very few days. The special Report on the Bunker's Hill Colliery Explosion would, he hoped, be in the hands of Members in a week.

asked the Judge Advocate General, Whether his attention has been called to the case of Gunner Jures, who was tried and convicted by a district court-martial at St. Helena in August, 1874, and sentenced to be imprisoned for 168 days for making a complaint to the inspecting officer at his annual inspection without first having made his complaint to his commanding officer; whether such sentence was confirmed, and whether such a sentence was legal or illegal, and, if illegal, what steps have been taken in the matter?

Yes, Sir, my attention was directed to this case when the proceedings of the court-martial arrived in due course at the Judge Advocate General's Office in September last. The sentence had been confirmed by the officer commanding the troops at St. Helena. I considered it my duty at once to quash the whole proceedings as illegal, on the ground that neither the charge nor the evidence established a military offence. I also thought it right to call the attention of the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief to the case. His Royal Highness concurred in the view I had taken, and expressed to the military authorities in St. Helena his extreme displeasure at the course they had pursued, on the ground that every man has a right to state his complaint to the inspecting officer, and that to punish a man under such circumstances is certain to create an impression in the Army that soldiers have no redress when they feel themselves aggrieved.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it is true that several cases of sickness have occurred among the crew of Her Majesty's ship "Devastation;" whether, if so, sickness is to be attributed to the defective ventilation of the ship; and whether it is the intention of the Admiralty to keep the "Devastation" in the Mediterranean during the summer?

We, Sir, have no Re-ports with regard to the sanitary state of the Devastation since she arrived in the Mediterranean. The previous Report on that score was very favourable, and during the cruise in which she was employed last summer in the Channel Squadron her sick rate was exceedingly low. If I recollect right, she was the second best in the squadron. The Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean wrote a Report on the ships dated the 21st of May, and I will read to the House the extract from it which relates to the Devastation. It is as follows:—

"I inspected the 'Devastation' yesterday, and with reference to the question of ventilation I found that, with everything open and awnings spread, without any artificial ventilation of fan, the ship was fairly cool below and without any disagreeable sensation of oppression even in the cabins. With the fan in motion there was a sensible difference in the air from being once set in motion, and I am of opinion that it was cooler below than in most iron vessels. When at general quarters, with all the doors closed to the several compartments, it was very close, but not worse than when ships are closed in action."

As to the detention of the Devastation in the Mediterranean, I am unable to give an answer to that question. She is cruising now under the command of Sir James Drummond, and at the expiration of that cruise we shall have a further Report on the ship.

said, he wished to make a correction in a portion of an Answer which he gave the other day. In reply to a Question put to him by the hon. Member for West Cornwall (Mr. A. P. Vivian) he had stated that he was informed that the opinion of the Board of Trade, the Trinity House, and Lloyd's Committee was not favourable to the establishment of telegraphic communication between isolated light-houses and the mainland. He had that morning received a letter from Lloyd's Committee to say that he must have been under some misapprehension on that subject, because, as far as their opinion was concerned, it was favourable to the establishment of such communication. He could, therefore, only express regret that, owing to information which he had thought reliable, he had inadvertently made a statement which turned out to be incorrect.

further proposed that under 5 years of age the sum receivable or insurable might be £6, and under 10 years of age £10.

expressed a hope that after last night's debate the slanderous statements which had been made with regard to the habits of the working classes would be for once and all abandoned. The remarks which had been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been deeply felt by that portion of his constituency (Oldham). As the case the right hon. Gentleman had quoted was in the Report of Mr. Lyulph Stanley it might be accepted as tolerably correct; but it must be taken as an isolated case, and not be allowed to east the slightest slur upon his constituents, which for elevation and morality would bear comparison with any in the country. With regard to the concession which had been made at the instance of the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Callender) that was no special boon to the working classes, inasmuch as their right to insure for that amount (£6) was conceded by the Act of 1855. The change by dividing that sum into two parts was rather against, than in favour of, the working classes, and if any change at all had been made it should have been by increasing the sum from £6 to £7 or £8. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer would make a further concession, and instead of allowing two insurances of £3 each in two separate Societies, would allow the whole £6 to be insured in one Society, it would be a real boon. There were many instances in which there were not two Societies to insure in, or in which one was of such a character as to render the working classes unwilling to effect an insurance with it. He urged this strongly upon the right hon. Gentleman, as the working classes resented warmly any interference with their rights and privileges; and it would show to them that under recent legislation they need not have recourse to democratic agitation, as the redress of any grievance could be best obtained through the constitutional medium of their Representatives in Parliament.

said, the imputations that had been cast upon the members of the working classes had been felt by them most acutely, and he had, therefore, applied to the coroner of the borough he represented (Ashton-under-Lyne) and the coroner for Oldham, and they had severally informed him that they had never had a single case in which they had been compelled to withhold a certificate, and, so far as their experience went, there was no cause to suspect that the lives of children had been taken away for the purpose of obtaining insurance money from the Burial Societies. He therefore thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer would do well to allow a class who were remarkable for their prudence to insure in one office for the sum of £6, thus saving the double expense.

could not suppose for one moment that any hon. Member had intended to say that fathers and mothers killed their children to obtain money from the Burial Societies. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he really entertained such a suspicion of the working classes as to refuse them a privilege which they had enjoyed for years. So far as he could see, the proposal now made could lead to no mischief.

said, he saw no difference in principle between the Amendment of the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Cal-lender) and that which had just been proposed, and therefore, after listening to the discussion which had taken place, he was willing to allow the whole £6 to be insured in one Society. There had been many remarks with reference to the kind of authority to which he had looked for information on this matter. The Report of Mr. Lyulph Stanley gave an account of the existence in Macclesfield of a remarkable Society. He had his information from Mr. George Simmonds, who was Secretary of an amalgamated Association of Burial Societies, formed to watch the action of the Act of 1855, limiting Burial Societies—the Act alluded to by the hon. and learned Member for Oldham (Mr. Serjeant Spinks). There were 10 Societies in this Association. Mr. Simmonds, writing some time after the Act was passed, stated that it had remedied many evils. He said he knew a case in which a child was insured in eight Societies, which would have produced £30 in case of its death. Since the Act the Societies had entered into arrangements between themselves, by which, in such a case, the insurers would only receive the maximum allowed by the Act, which would be paid pro ratâ by all the Societies in which the child was insured. This was interesting as showing how the Societies themselves had found out the proper mode of using that Act. They availed themselves of the clauses relating to returns, and printed inside their books of membership the special provisions of the Act. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had been much struck by the communications he had received from working men, and the spirit in which they had conducted the controversy on a subject, as to which there had been undoubtedly much irritation. The deputations of working men which had waited upon him had discussed the matter in a reasonable, fair, and temperate manner, and had given him great assistance in his inquiry into the cost of burials. The working men all acknowledged that there ought to be no insurance which would give any profit over and above the actual cost of burial. Circumstances varied so much in different localities that it was difficult to fix an uniform rate: they had, however, fixed upon £6—which, although more than enough for the South of England, was hardly enough in the great towns of Lancashire and in the North of England.

remarked on the frequent changes of opinion which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had undergone with regard to this point, and congratulated the Committee on the fact that his suggestion for reporting Progress last night had been agreed to, inasmuch as it had given opportunity for a fresh proposition on the right hon. Gentleman's part.

, for his part, desired to acknowledge the great mastery of the subject which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had displayed.

believed the concession of £6 would give general satisfaction to the country.

said, he thought the House should pause before it sanctioned the £6 limit. He was of opinion that it would have been better had the concession just intimated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer not been made.

thought the Committee and the country ought to be thankful to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the concession he had made in reference to this clause. There was no ground whatever for the imputation thrown on the working classes of this country, that because infant mortality had increased it was owing to their lives being insured by the parents. He represented a large constituency, and he warmly resented on their behalf the imputation cast upon them by those who objected to these concessions.

thought the Committee ought not to cast a gratuitous insult upon the working classes, and he therefore hoped the compromise offered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be accepted readily. He thought great credit was due to the right hon. Gentleman, as well for the knowledge he had shown of the subject as for the manner in which he had dealt with the Bill, and that both the right hon. Gentleman and the House had shown that they were not actuated by any Party feeling, but only by the desire of doing what was best for the country. He protested against those who had been striving to get what the Chancellor of the Exchequer had now given them turning round upon him and denouncing him for his concessions.

protested against the assumption that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had ever cast any slur upon the working classes. On the contrary, he had been just and considerate towards them. His (Dr. Cameron's) objection to multiple insurance of infant lives was based upon the belief that it would encourage baby-farmers to neglect their charges, and not that it would induce working-class parents to destroy their children for purposes of gain.

said, he had no sympathy whatever with the carping criticisms by which the Chancellor of the Exchequer's concession had in some quarters been met. On the contrary, he would join in giving his most hearty thanks to him for what he had done in connection with this matter.

said, a Society existed in his neighbourhood which granted insurances on the lives of children, and no suspicion had ever been entertained that there had been any wrong-doing in the case of any of the children who died. He took that opportunity of expressing his opinion that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had acted wisely and generously in making the concessions which he had made. In the conduct of this Bill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had manifested a desire to meet the wishes of those who were interested in this subject. If hon. Members had followed the example of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a good deal of time would have been saved. Under these circumstances, he should not move the Amendment which he had placed upon the Paper—to leave out the clause.

said, he could not allow this discussion to close without acknowledging the kind expressions which hon. Members had used with regard to his conduct of this Bill. Ever since he had taken this matter in hand—now nearly four years ago—his only object had been to propose arrangements which he believed to he best for the classes for whom these Societies existed. He had had a good deal of anxiety on one or two points connected with the Bill, and he admitted that from time to time he had been com- pelled, in the course of the discussions on this Bill, to abandon opinions which he had formed after due deliberation. He ventured to make an observation the other day in the country to the effect that he remembered reading a book written by a Frenchman, in which the author said that when he had been three weeks in this country he could write a book giving a full account of it; that when he had been here a year, he discovered that it would take much more time than he had supposed; but when he had resided here two years he discovered he had undertaken a task that was well nigh impossible. So with this question. Having begun to study the question of Friendly Societies about four years ago, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) thought it was an easy one; but the more he studied it, the more difficult he found it. But one thing he observed with regard to the working people from whom these Societies had sprung, and that was that they were conducting their business in a spirit and manner from which they all could learn, AU the lessons he had learnt on this matter he had learnt from working men.

, referring to the sub-section of Clause 28, said, the words "all persons and bodies corporate and unincorporate" were introduced to meet the case of certain Insurance Companies which were not registered as Friendly Societies, and yet were doing industrial business. The principal of them was the great Prudential Assurance Company. These Companies were at present outside the law, and there was a great deal of difficulty in ascertaining what their position was with regard to the insurances which they had effected. The object of the clause as it was drawn was to bring these Companies, which were to all intents and purposes doing the same business as Friendly Societies, within the provisions of this section with regard to insurance. He proposed to introduce in some part of the Bill a full definition of Industrial Companies, and to strike out of this subsection the words "all persons and bodies corporate and unincorporate," and insert the words "Industrial Companies."

said, he doubted whether the proposed alteration would carry out the object of the right hon. Gentleman. He doubted whether the point could be cleared up except by adopting something like the Amendment of which the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone had given Notice.

said, he was inclined to think that the words proposed to be introduced would not include Burial Societies.

said, there could be no doubt that Burial Societies would be included. The point was what would be included beside them. The word "Society" in this clause was intended to include all Companies like the Prudential Company which were doing industrial insurance business.

moved the omission of the words "in more counties than one (whether of England, Scotland, or Ireland)." If the clause remained unaltered, all collecting Societies would be divided into two distinct classes, one class carrying on their operations within the boundary of a single county, and the other conducting business in two or more counties. His intention was, by striking out the reference to more than one county, to give the clause a general application.

said, the object of this clause, one of the most important in the Bill, was to deal with Societies carrying on operations by the agency of collectors at a great distance from their headquarters—and, in fact, all over the United Kingdom—without being subject to local influence or supervision. It was in connection with such Societies that so many abuses had been found to exist, as there was a difficulty in exercising control over the collectors, who had the real working and management of these Societies. There might, however, be cases of Societies carrying on their operations within a single and populous county, such as Lancashire or Yorkshire, in a manner very little different from that of the more extended Societies; and, no doubt, it would be anomalous that a Society which happened to be on the borders of two counties should be brought within the meaning of the clause, while another Society of precisely the same character inside one of those counties was exempted. He would, therefore, accept the Amendment, but must limit the effect of the section by inserting words applying it to any Society receiving contributions "at a greater distance than ten miles from the register office of the Society." Interference with small local Societies would cause inconvenience and hardship.

feared that collecting Societies in large cities would escape from these wholesome restrictions.

objected to the second sub-section of the clause, which required the sending of circulars to members who fell in arrears. He knew it was principally intended to benefit those who inadvertently fell into arrears; but he was afraid it would favour dishonest men who systematically fell into arrears. The expense to the Societies would be something enormous. There was, for example, a Society in Glasgow which had 50,000 members. The average payments were a ½d. and 1d. per week, and it would cost quite as much to send them notices. He thought notice should not require to be served till the member was, say, eight weeks in arrear.

said, he could not agree to the proposal of his hon. Friend.

objected to the power given to Societies to cause members in all parts of the country to answer suits brought in the Courts where their head office happened to be. He proposed an Amendment to make it necessary for the Societies to sue in the Courts of the locality in which members resided.

explained that Irish suits would require to be brought in the Irish Courts. In regard to England, he thought it might be desirable to make it optional for the Societies to sue either in the locality of their headquarters, or in that where defaulting members happened to reside.

said, he would consider the matter.

said, that the Scotch appeal was to be in accordance with 20 Geo. II., c. 43; but as this statute only gave an appeal where there was malice or oppression on the part of the Judge, there would be no real and efficient appeal under the present Bill. He therefore moved to omit the words which would limit the appeal.

admitted that it was of great importance that there should be a proper appeal, and he would therefore assent to the Amendment, and insert fresh words upon the Report, if necessary, after the matter had been considered by the Lord Advocate.

proposed a new clause— (No Company depositing annual statements with Board of Trade to be affected by this Act.)

"No company or society corporate or incorporate, which deposits its annual statements or abstracts of accounts or periodical valuations with the Board of Trade in conformity with the provisions of 'The Life Assurance Companies Act, 1870, and Life Assurance Companies Amendment Act, 1872,' shall be held to be affected in any way by the provisions of this Act: Provided, That this Clause shall not refer to or be construed as exempting from the provisions of this Act companies or societies corporate or incorporate which grant assurances on any one life for a less sum than twenty-five pounds, and which collect and receive premiums at less intervals than three calendar months, and which companies or societies, but for this Clause, would have been held to be within the provisions of this Act."

The hon. and learned Member said, the object of his clause was to exempt Insurance Companies from its operation, except so far as regarded Clause 28, and that was inserted because some of the present Insurance Companies might do the business mentioned in the Act, and then they ought to be subjected to the provisions of the Act.

said, it was rather a difficult subject. He was anxious to take care that these Companies were not unduly affected, and as there was considerable doubt upon the point, he proposed to have a conference with those interested on the subject before he assented to the proposed clause.

said, that, in moving last year the second reading of a measure of a similar character to the present one, he indicated what appeared to him to be the necessity for legislation on the subject, the objects for which such legislation was desirable, and the means by which it was proposed to accomplish those objects. He then took the opportunity of directing the attention of the House to the interest which for many years had been taken in the subject of facilitating the transfer of land, as also to the various attempts which had been made to establish a satisfactory land registry, to the failure of such attempts, and to the causes of such failure. He did not therefore propose to travel over the same ground on the present occasion. The great object to be sought by any Bill of this kind was to provide suitable means by which a title could be declared to be good, and by which, when once authoritatively declared to be so, it should be preserved and continued through successive alienations and charges. He did not sug- gest that the present Bill would effect any very great saving of expense in establishing and registering, in the first instance, the absolute title of a person to property. The real advantage of having a register of titles was that, when once an absolute and clear title to a property had been ascertained and placed on the register, it could be subsequently dealt with at a trifling cost and trouble. The Bill differed in some respects from the one of last year. It was less ambitious in its character. Those who had read the Reports of the various Commissions and Committees which had examined into the subject would be aware that one of the chief reasons to be assigned for the failure of Lord Westbury's Act was that it was too ambitious in its scope, endeavouring, as it did, to deal with almost every imaginable class of titles. The present Bill was very much more simple. It was divided into five parts. The first part referred to the entry of property on the register of titles; the second and third parts provided for dealings with registered land; the former for registered, and the latter for unregistered dealings; the fourth part contained supplemental clauses providing for a variety of cases which would arise from the property being of various descriptions and from the varied character of ownerships; and the fifth part related to the mode in which the provisions of the Bill were to be carried into operation. He would explain entry a little more in detail. As regarded the first part, that which related to rating on the register, he would observe that the properties, proposed to be dealt with, were of two kinds, freehold and long leasehold—the last-named being held for a life or lives, or upon terms, tenures, determinable on lives, or for terms of which at least 21 years were unexpired. The persons who were to be entitled to register were also divisible into two classes. When the Bill was originally introduced, it was proposed only to deal with absolute beneficial owners; but Amendments had been introduced to enable beneficial owners to have the names of nominees placed upon the register instead of their own; or the names of trustees or donees of power of sale might be placed upon the register. The effect of registration would be that the owners of property in fee simple would be placed upon the register; but the title so registered would, or might be, subject to incumbrances—some of which would be themselves registered and, others such as tithe-rent charges, succession duty, &c., would be declared incumbrances by the provisions of the Bill, and would not, except under special circumstances, be noticed on the register. In order to lessen the number of this second class of incumbrances it was proposed that, in case the Registrar were satisfied by evidence that any property or properties were free from any or all of them, he should enter the fact upon the register, as, for instance, that the property was free from tithe or tithe rent-charge, or that succession duty had been paid, &c. There were other proposals for lessening the number of incumbrances, which would be explained when the House had resolved itself into Committee on the Bill. It was also proposed that the right to mines and minerals, where such rights existed, should be placed upon the register. In order to guard against improper registration, the Bill contained provisions that notice of intention to register should be given in order that any persons who had the right of objection might have full opportunity of exercising such right before the Registrar. The Registrar would have the power of deciding any objections made; and, in case the parties were not satisfied, there would be an appeal either to the Court of Chancery or to some other Court which might be appointed for the purpose. Registered owners of property would be supplied with documents of title of which they could avail themselves for the purpose of creating equitable mortgages. Power was given to register titles which were not absolute, but possessory. Provision having been thus made for the entry of the title on the register, the second and third parts of the Bill dealt with transfers of property, including the creation of mortgages and charges and the transfers of mortgages and charges; and the object of these portions of the Bill was to give class transferres of a more efficient protection than they had hitherto enjoyed. The next part of the Bill contained supplementary provisions for dealing with property of a peculiar character, and also of dealing with interests of a particular kind, such as those of married women and children. By the next portion of the Bill, amongst other things, power was given to the Lord Chancellor to establish district re- gistries. There remained one difference, between the Bill of last year and that now under consideration, to which he desired to direct attention. In the Bill of last year provision was made for the compulsory registration of titles upon purchases made after three years from the passing of the Act, with an exception in favour of properties, the purchase monies for which were less than £300. In the present Bill there was no such provision. He was bound to admit that he had last year strongly advocated the compulsory provisions, and he still retained the same opinion; but the objections raised to the proposal were so many and so strong, and the doubts whether it would work were so considerable, that it had been thought best on the present occasion not to risk the passage of the whole measure by introducing a provision in regard to which so much difference of opinion existed. The Bill was introduced with an honest desire to deal with an admittedly difficult question, and if it did not attempt so much as was proposed in the Bill of last year, he believed that, if it passed into law, it would at least conduce to the increased security of titles to land, and to facilities of dealing with it.

said,^* if he desired to justify the course he had taken, he might do so by a reference to the Attorney General's speech last year, when, in arguing in favour of the compulsion clause which the Bill then contained, he had emphatically declared that, "to deprive the Bill of its compulsory character, would be to take from it its chief advantage." And yet he now turned round upon them and asked them to accept the Bill shorn of what, according to his own showing, was its chief recommendation. Now, if this were a new experiment in legislation he should have been quite ready to have stood aloof and awaited the result. But they were travelling along a road strewn with the wrecks of former measures. The history of legislation on this subject had been a history of conspicuous, he might say ignominous, failures. To the present generation of lawyers the establishment of a system of land registry had been very much what the discovery of a North-west passage was to the last gene- ration of seamen, a thing which everybody thought could be done, but which nobody ever managed to accomplish. Of eight Bills which he recollected introduced with that object, one alone—Lord Westbury's Act of 1862.—had become law. It would be instructive to examine into the causes of the failure of that measure, in order, if possible, to avoid falling into them. He well recollected the flourish of trumpets with which that Act was introduced. He remembered Lord Westbury's boast that if that Act were passed every landowner would be able to carry his title deeds in his waistcoat pocket, and the picture which he drew of a country gentleman in his easy-chair after dinner regaling himself with the sight of his muniments of title printed upon a piece of paper about the size of a large visiting card. Well, that was the promise. What had been the performance? The Act had only been in operation six years, when its author was called upon to preside over a Royal Commission to inquire into the causes of its failure. That Commission reported that from October, 1862, to January, 1868, the total number of applications under the Act had only been 507, and the total number of titles registered 209; and since that time there had been more applications, he believed, to take titles off the register than to put them on it. The Commission reported that the unpopularity of the system established by the Act was due to two or three small blemishes in it which the present Bill certainly avoided. But the Report was the Report of three Commissioners only out of 12—three having wholly, and six partially, dissented from it. Under those circumstances, he thought they were at liberty to gather, upon the evidence and from the conclusions of the various Commissioners, the causes of that failure. And he thought they were not far to seek. The Act authorized registration with two kinds of title—an "indefeasible" and a "defeasible" title—in other words, a good title and a bad title. Now, if a man had a good title he was generally content to let it alone; if he had a bad title the very last thing in the world which he would do would be to stereotype and proclaim the fact by putting it on a public register. But this Bill really adopted Lord Westbury's division, merely substituting "absolute" and "qualified" titles for "indefeasible" and "defeasible" ones, with one important additional provision, that registration was not to affect adjoining owners. But this alteration cut two ways, for if it made registration in the first instance more easy, it made it, in the long run, less effectual. No doubt the Bill contained a provision for the registration of "possessory" titles; but he hoped to show that the advantages conferred by this mode of registration were so remote, in comparison with the cost imposed, that, now that the Bill had been made permissive, it would be practically inoperative. Further, it was impossible not to see that the machinery provided by the old Act would have proved quite inadequate if the Act itself had proved a success. And yet they took over this machinery—stamped as it was with the reputation of failure—and, without increasing its force, placed upon it all the additional work which it was said this Act would bring with it. Was not this very much like taking a horse which had proved himself barely up to the weight of his hon. And learned Friend the Member for Taunton, and putting the Solicitor General upon it? A good system of land transfer ought to secure three objects—first, security to the holder; secondly, cheapness and facility of transfer; and, lastly, uniformity. And he thought that in none of these three particulars would the Bill be an improvement upon the existing system. As to security, it was a mistake to suppose that the title to land in England was at present insecure. Last year he mentioned that, in the course of a professional experience of more than 20 years, he had only come across three cases in which a purchaser or first mortgagee had been disturbed in his holding; and as a proof that the present system gave practical security, he would quote the evidence of Mr. Rowcliffe—a most competent witness—before the Royal Commission, who said—

"I may say that during nearly twenty-five years of litigated business arising in all parts of England, I have never known a purchaser lose his property from any unknown defect of title."

Now a man could not be safer than safe, so that as far as security went the Bill was not wanted at all. Moreover, it was a fallacy to suppose that even "an absolute title" meant a Parliamentary title, and as to "possessory titles" it was only necessary to glance at the 8th clause to see that registration with such a title gave no present protection whatever. It gave the holder, no doubt, something which 40 years hence, when he was dead and buried, might ripen into protection, but this was obviously not the sort of thing which a person registering wanted for his money. Then, as to the second point—cheapness and facility of transfer—no doubt the present system left much to be desired. When a man bought property in England, he could rarely form a guess even as to the cost of completing the purchase. Cases had been cited in which purchases amounting to £1,000 had been completed for a few pounds, while there were others on record where the cost had exceeded half I the purchase money. The reason was that there were titles so simple that he who runs may read them, or so well known that nobody ever thought of investigating them, while there were others so complicated that it required an Act of Parliament to disentangle them. Now, did the present Bill really remove these anomalies? Would it really effect a material saving wherever it was adopted? Upon this point the course taken by the author of the Bill last year was, in his opinion, at least conclusive. It would be remembered that the Bill, as originally framed, made registration with a "possessory" title compulsory in all cases after three years. It was pointed out to the Lord Chancellor that the cost of such a registration would be so heavy that it would amount to an absolute prohibition on small purchases. The Lord Chancellor admitted the force of that objection, and exempted purchases of £300 and under from the operation of the compulsion clause. Now was not that an admission that this was a rich man's Bill, and not a poor man's Bill? that registration under it was a luxury too costly for those in whose interest such a Bill ought chiefly to be framed—the artizan who had scraped together enough money to buy the cottage in which he lived, or the small farmer who wanted to add a field or two to his little freehold? If they looked to the Bill itself they were loft completely at sea, for it provided simply that the title should be investigated in the prescribed manner, which meant in the manner which the Lord Chancellor might hereafter enact—section 110. So that it really seemed less like an Act to simplify the title and transfer of land than an Act to enable the Lord Chancellor to make such an Act. Certain things, however, could not he dispensed with. Thus, under the 17th clause, the person registering was compelled to challenge the world to come in and dispute his title. The 73rd and 74th clauses, too, with their provisions for arguing disputed questions before the Registrar, with an appeal to the Court, whatever that might be, and so on through the various stages of intermediate and final appeals, looked very much as if his hon. and learned Friend, commiserating the state of destitution to which the legal profession would be reduced when the reforms now contemplated came into operation, had set himself to work to provide occupation for frozen-out lawyers. Then, there was the 41st clause, which provided that when a registered proprietor died, the parties should go before the Registrar, who was to settle whose name was to he placed upon the register, just as if it vas not a sufficient misfortune for a man to die without being compelled to leave behind him the legacy of an inchoate Chancery suit. He might refer to other clauses, but he thought he had made it clear that the Bill left the cost which a purchaser incurred at present untouched, while, by requiring the same process of investigation to be gone through a second time before the Registrar, it added a large mass of additional expense. Then, as to the third desideratum—uniformity of system. There could be no doubt that English real property law was a jumble of half-a-dozen systems, some of which had come directly down from feudal times—the necessary consequence of our having gone on for ever building upon the old lines and with the old materials. One would have thought that the first object of such a Bill as this would have been to simplify and assimilate these discordant systems. But the Bill abolished nothing; it merely added on three new systems of land tenure, while it left the existing systems untouched. If it were passed, a man might purchase a farm consisting of four fields; the first might be held under an "absolute" title, the second under a "qualified" title, the third under a "possessory" title, and the fourth under an "unregistered" title. Let them see what a vast area the Bill left untouched, and then ask whether it was worth while to pass it at all. It left untouched (1) copyholds, (2) customary freeholds, (3) lands held in settlement, which were computed to comprise three-fourths of the lands of England. But was it so sure, now that the Bill was made permissive, that the Act would be adopted even where it was applicable? He had always maintained that a system of registration to be effective must be compulsory. Indeed, the possibility of making such a measure compulsory was a fair test of its merits. For if its provisions were workable, if it conferred great benefits and imposed no comparative burdens, what was the hardship of compelling people to adopt it? If, on the other hand, it did not fulfil those conditions, why pass it at all? But he went farther, and expressed his belief that the best system of registration would not be generally adopted if made permissive. How many titles did Lord O'Hagan say had been registered under the Record of Titles Act in Ireland, which was a permissive Act? You had to overcome a certain vis inertia on the part of the public and their advisers. In fact, you could not coax people into adopting the best system of registration in the world, for it necessarily involved a present outlay for the benefit of those who came after them, and as a general rule people did not care about spending money on posterity. The only person in England who recognized the duty of spending money upon a future generation was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he had the advantage of being able to put his hand into other people's pockets. But would any person voluntarily pay money for the privilege of running his head into such a noose as was provided for him by the clauses of this Bill? The utmost that could be hoped was that the Bill would be a dead letter, and perhaps in the year 1885 we should have the Attorney General, like Lord Westbury, and, let them hope, occupying the same exalted position, called upon to preside over a Royal Commission to inquire into the causes of the failure of his own Act. But it might be said, why not amend the Bill? He believed, however, that the Bill proceeded upon a wrong principle. It begun at the wrong end. It called itself a Bill to simplify titles, and yet it hardly dealt with titles at all. And yet in this lay the whole problem; for if you simplified your titles your conveyancing would simplify itself. While he was upon this part of the subject, he wished to say a few words upon a question which had often been agitated—the possibility of assimilating the transfer of land to the transfer of stock. He would say at once that you could not altogether assimilate the two things, and that for two reasons. In the first place stock was a debt, and in the case of its transfer you had the Bank of England in the background, which was bound to make good to the rightful owner any loss which might occur through its negligence or default. But no one proposed that the Land Registry Office or the State should guarantee the rightful owner of land against the consequences of a wrongful transfer. But there was a further reason why the two things could not be assimilated. Stock was an abstract thing. Land was a concrete thing. One pound of stock was as good as another, but one acre of land was by no means as good as another. Moreover, land was a concrete which was not always easy of identification, differing in this respect from a ship and most other personal chattels. If he wrote to his broker and directed him to purchase £1,000 worth of Consols he might feel as sure that he had got the thing he wanted as if he had the proceeds in his own pocket. But if he wrote to his solicitor or agent to purchase "Dale Farm" it might take weeks and even months before he could be absolutely certain that he had got the very thing he had contracted for. He referred to a case in which he had been professionally concerned, in which a man had taken a mineral lease of land in Cornwall which was described as "bounded on the east by John Vincent's house." It turned out that there was a valuable lode of copper just under John Vincent's house, the right to which depended upon whether the boundary line was drawn from the east or west side of the house—a right which it took two chancery suits and three actions of ejectment to determine. No doubt a good map would do much to remove such questions, and, in his opinion, a good cadastral survey was the first condition of a system of land registry, as necessary to registration as a compass was to a ship. But, admitting that there were causes inherent in the subject-matter which made it impossible entirely to assimilate the transfer of land and stock, there was no doubt that much of the difficulty of transferring the former, as distinguished from the latter, proceeded from the mode in which the aw allowed it to be dealt with. Every pound of stock was required to be registered in the name of some one or more persons who were competent to dispose of it by law. But land might be tied up through successive generations, and split up into a variety of partial interests, and it was in hunting out for the owner of these various interests that time and money were consumed. Settlements, entails, powers of joint-urging, powers of portioning—these were the real criminals whom you had to arraign. Require that every acre of land should be registered in the name of some one or more persons, be they tenants for life and remaindermen or trustees, who should have absolute power to make a title to it, and the transfer of land would become almost as easy as the transfer of stock. It might be said, Would you abolish settlements of real property then? By no means; but then settlements of realty should be like settlements of stock. The trust should be kept off the register, and the equitable owners should be left to protect themselves by the same means as the equitable owners of stock. That was the opinion of some of the most competent witnesses examined before the Royal Commission. He would give one instance, Mr. Ford, who, at page 65 of the appendix, said—

"In my opinion no real advantage will accrue to the public till land is treated like Government stock, and is capable of being transferred by trustees without regard to equitable interests or interests less than the absolute ownership."

That was the system in force in South Australia. True it was that in Australia land was an article de commerce, whereas in England it was becoming an article de luxe. In Australia it was a marketable commodity, in England it represented the pretium affectionis. In Australia the object of people was to make it as marketable as possible, whereas the object of most persons in England seemed to be to keep it out of the market as long as possible. But did not this show that the difference lay not so much in the subject-matter itself as in the associations and sentiments which had grown up around it? No doubt those sentiments were at the present moment strong enough to defeat such a proposal as he had thrown out, however useful and unobjectionable in itself. But what he wished to insist upon was this—that anything short of such a radical change would do little or nothing. As it was, you were merely nibbling at a great question—applying a homœopathic remedy to a disease of 500 years' standing. Did his hon. and learned Friend really think that he could regenerate and remodel the law of real property by such a Bill as this? Why, he might as well attempt to penetrate the hide of a rhinoceros with a peashooter Ever since the Bill had appeared he had been trying to collect opinions upon its merits, and the highest praise he had heard bestowed upon it was that in its present permissive condition it would be innocuous if it was useless; it would do no harm if it did no good. Now he maintained that every Act of Parliament which did no good necessarily did harm. In the first place, it unsettled the law for nothing; in the next place—and the same thing might be said of all these sham Bills, by whatever name they were called—it served as a stopgap in the way of further legislation. The question got shelved, the public conscience was appeased for a time, and it was only some 10 years afterwards, when a Royal Commission was issued to inquire into the causes of its failure, that the public woke up to the fact that they had had a sham measure palmed off upon them. And now he would conclude by very respectfully tendering a piece of advice to the Government. If this thing was worth doing at all, it was worth doing well. Ne tentes aut perfice. If, in their opinion, the time had come for applying a remedy, let them apply that remedy with a bold and unflinching hand; if, on the other hand, they believed that the subject was not ripe for a settlement, in heaven's name let it be left alone.

thought that this was a good Bill, and, having studied the subject carefully for many years, he felt no doubt that this was a step in the right direction—at any rate, it would go far to make somewhat intelligible to the community at large what had hitherto been confined to the special knowledge of the legal profession. The hen. and learned Member (Mr. Osborne Morgan) had argued that this measure was only a benefit to the rich man. In his (Mr. Goldney's) opinion, on the contrary, it would chiefly benefit the poor man; and it carefully guarded against the danger of becoming entangled with the question of settlements. The Bill was, in his opinion, a great improvement over that of last year, because it removed the prejudice entertained by the legal Profession, and a portion of the public, in regard to its compulsory operation. It also removed another difficulty—namely, the apprehension that the compulsory operation of such a measure would give rise to such a mass of transactions that it would require an army of officials to carry it out within the period prescribed by the previous Act. The hon. and learned Member (Mr. Osborne Morgan) had complained of the failure of Lord Westbury's Act; but that Act was confined to the registration of absolute titles, while the present Bill provided for two objects—the simplification of titles and the transfer of land from one person to another. This distinction between the two measures ought to be well understood. The present Bill really went back to the old system of land tenure, a portion of which still remained under the title of copyhold tenure. And it being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, the Debate was adjourned till To-morrow. And it being now Seven of the clock, the House suspended its Sitting. The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

, in moving—

"That an humble Address he presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to issue a Royal Commission to inquire into the dismissal or removal from active service of officers of the Army under the rank of Major General, not incapacitated by bodily or mental infirmity, and who have not been allowed the option of being brought before a Court-Martial,"

said, that when in the course of last Session the Government was asked to concur in the spirit of this Resolution against the removal of officers of the Army without trial—the reason assigned for refusing the Motion was that no sufficient case had been made out calling for the interference of Parliament with the Royal Prerogative. He did not understand the Secretary for War to say there was no justice in what was urged; but it was not unreasonable in the right hon. Gentleman to ask who it was that demanded the change which was proposed. Since last year there had poured in from every quarter of the Empire complaints from persons who felt themselves aggrieved by the exercise of this power of summary dismissal. There had been laid on the Table of the House many Petitions from persons who had nothing in common but their sense of wrong. They came from officers of every branch of the Service, and of every rank in life—from officers of the Guards, of the Cavalry, of the Indian Service, and of the Staff Corps. Some of the complainants had been born to wealth and position; and there was, at least, one Petition from a man who had risen from the ranks. Surely such a concurrence of complaint afforded strong presumption, if not proof of the existence of such hardship. The hon. and gallant Member for Ayrshire (Colonel Alexander) had given Notice of his intention to move as an Amendment—"That to restrict the undoubted Prerogative of the Crown would be neither wise nor expedient." He (Mr. Torrens) had no objection to accept those words—which could not, he apprehended, in point of form, be put by way of Amendment—as an addition to the Resolution; and then, if the Secretary for War declared that what was sought would derogate from the dignity of the Crown, he would withdraw the Motion. He and those who supported the Motion had no idea of doing anything in derogation from the Prerogative of the Crown, and he would observe that the true answer in reference to the Prerogative was given long ago in the House of Lords by Lord Chesterfield. He said—

"I understand the Prerogative of the Crown to be this—that the Sovereign may do the greatest amount of good to the subject that she pleases, but the presumption of the Constitution is that the Sovereign can do no wrong; and they are the true friends of the Monarchy who would take care that the Sovereign was not betrayed into doing an unintentional wrong. It was the duty of Parliament to prevent the Crown being misled into doing a piece of the highest injustice to a faithful soldier, and to prevent a good and brave officer from being reduced to a starving condition."

These are the words of no subversive demagogue, but of the courtliest of courtiers, the friend of Swift and Bolin-brooke, a Tory of the Tories. All that those who supported the present Motion desired was that the Queen's name should not be abused by men who were in a subordinate position, through want of care on the part of the Minister of War, and that the power of the Prerogative should be invoked only where wise, honest, and disinterested men would like to see it invoked. Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

resumed: He would have to state some instances of the manner in which the present system worked, and show that what he ventured to recommend was perfectly compatible with the Prerogative of the Crown. What he contended for was, that when a man had no fault or default proved against him in any branch of the Service, it was wrong to put him on penal half-pay or to dismiss him the Service altogether, without giving him the option of defending his character and conduct. Courts of In-inquiry were a modern innovation, and were unknown in the best times of our Constitution. He admitted the stringency and rigour of courts-martial, but he did not believe that officers in any branch of the Service would shrink from being made amenable to such tribunals, They did shrink from being driven out of the Service which they had chosen as a profession on rumours and ex parte evidence, or what was, in fact, no evidence at all, or upon whispers which did not venture to make themselves audible. They did object to being condemned without being allowed an opportunity of making themselves heard. He would remind the House of what the late Lord Derby had stated on this subject, in a discussion raised on the dismissal of an officer on the report of a Board of Inquiry. That officer was a Peer of the Realm. He was in command of a Queen's ship; the ship went aground; the Admiralty ordered a Court of Inquiry, and without hearing the noble Lord, without confronting him with his accusers, on ex parte evidence, not on oath, they came to a decision that he had neglected his duty, that he was highly censurable, and should be relieved of his command. The case was brought before the other House by Lord Hardwicke as one of grievance. In the discussion Lord Derby said—

"The real ground of complaint was that he had been deprived of his command on the finding of a Court which sat without his knowledge, in his absence, and took evidence wholly ex parte, and that consequently he had not had a fair trial."

He (Mr. Torrens) was content to be as Conservative as the late Lord Derby, and he only asked his Friends opposite not to be less Liberal than that noble Earl. But he might quote even a more striking case from the annals of their own House. In the time of Mr. Perceval a charge of a grave character was brought against an officer of high rank. By the Premier's advice that officer addressed a letter to the then Speaker (Mr. Abbott). That letter was on the records of the House. It was not merely a protestation of his innocence, but it contained a statement of his past services and character. The letter that was then read from the Chair was dictated by Mr. Perceval, as we now know from his Memoirs, and approved of by Speaker Abbott, and signed by the accused at the Bar. The letter was to this effect—

"I claim from the House, justice that I may not he condemned, except upon evidence taken under the sanction which every other British subject is entitled to claim in the administration of the law."

Who was the accused? Why, the son of a King and the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army. He was accused of having sold the patronage of the Crown to strumpets and jobbers, and when brought before the House on that tremendous accusation he claimed a fair trial and testimony on oath. Would they not ratify the prayer of the Duke of York, and say that every man who had served the Crown up to the day of his accusation should at least have that justice meted to him which was given to every thief and ruffian made amenable to law. He maintained that what was then asked was not in defeasance or diminution of any just Prerogative of the Crown. There were no fewer than a dozen Petitions on the Table complaining of injustice in this matter. He would state succinctly, and without exaggeration, the facts set forth in two or three. But before doing so, let him briefly recall the circumstances of a case which had been brought before Parliament in a former Session. Lieutenant Robins was a man of good extraction. When serving in India he had the misfortune to take a severe cold, which took the form of acute neuralgia, and whilst in that state he was ordered to take a long journey in the discharge of his duty. Travelling at night, and suffering great agony, he found himself at the door of an outpost in a wild country. Eager to obtain relief he called upon the guard to admit him without stating who he was. The men were asleep, and did not like to be disturbed. He got angry, and when the door was opened, forgetting that he was not in uniform, he pressed in, and a scuffle ensued. The circumstances were reported to head-quarters, a Court of Inquiry was ordered, and upon its report Lieutenant Robins was told that he must retire on half-pay or sell out, and if not he would be dismissed the Service. He applied for a court-martial, but it was refused; and when he came home he was told by the Horse Guards authorities that he must sell out. That he said he would never do—that he would never take anything but an acquittal. He was, however, informed that he must leave the Service, because the decision that had been come to in his case would not be revised. Up to the present hour that egregious act of injustice remained un-atoned; for, dispairing of redress, their victim had ceased to complain; but no honourable man could cease to feel such wrong; and who could set limits to the evil influence of such an administrative scandal? In the old Army of the East India Company the enterprize and valour of our middle classes were long accustomed to seek and find distinction and reward. It was a perilous, but always a popular service. The veteran father came home to enjoy, in honourable competence, the evening of his renown, and sent forth his nephew or his son to follow in the same career, for the Company was a liberal and a reliable master. Irish and Scotch families often had many of their members in that Service, and there was no family that could furnish more notable and illustrious instances than the family of Grant. The name occurred very frequently with honour in Indian annals. But the name of Lieutenant-Colonel Doverton Grant no longer appeared in the Army List. This gentleman entered the Indian Service in 1842, and rose until he reached his present rank. After he had been more than 31 years in the Service the Government said they had no further need of his sword, and in order to effect a pettifogging and unjust economy, he was forced to retire upon the ordinary pension of £1 a-day, the smallest retiring allowance paid to an officer of that rank. Had he been allowed to complete his regular term of service, as he was willing and able to do, his life risk and life toil would have been requited by a pension of £1,100 a-year. This was what he had been told to look forward to for 31 years; but this was what he had been deprived of by an arbitrary and indefensible decree. He had never been tried, never had a single intimation of any charge whatever against him on the part of the authorities. He (Mr. Torrens) had here his letter—the letter of a brave and bold, but of a grave and decorous man, and he asked what he had done that after 31 years' service he, the son of a man who had served the country for 46 years and died in uniform, with two brothers in the Service who had obtained the rank of field officers—he asked what he had done that he should have been thus stigmatized in the face of his comrades and friends without having been told why or having the power to defend himself? If such doings could be defended, then he was unfit to have a seat in the House of Commons, for he did not know the difference between right and wrong. Well, what was the answer this gallant gentleman received from the authorities? It came to this—"It is true that you have been 31 years in the Service, that you have obtained honours, and that your bravery was conspicuous; but seven years before this an assistant-surgeon of a regiment in which you were serving wrote a depreciatory report to head-quarters, which the Government kept in its pocket for seven years, and which they rummaged out when they wanted to get rid of you." Suppose every word of the report was true, was it justice, was it common sense, was it decency, to keep in petto a report like that until it suited the Government to make use of it? It appeared that during 31 years this officer had been 166 days invalided, and therefore the insinuation of the assistant-surgeon was, that he was not fit for the service of the British Crown. Not long after the clandestine and calumnious report was made, being removed from the unhealthy station where he had been placed, Colonel Grant got perfectly well, was in the enjoyment of robust health, and did active duty under three distinguished officers. The East India Company well understood how to keep up their military force. They had built up their Empire in India by offering brilliant inducements to the youth of this country to enter their service, and by steadfastly keeping faith with them. They knew that they required veteran soldiers who were accustomed to stand firm in the face of enemies that far outnumbered them, and they felt that they must not break faith with these brave men, so they gave them high pay and good pensions. The result of such a system was that we had now our Indian Empire. Was ever Empire kept by breaking faith with those who helped to win it? In drawing attention to this subject he was anxious that it should not be supposed that he had any party feeling in the matter—he found as much fault with the late as he did with the present Government. They had the painful confession already in the Blue Books that the Government at home had got bewildered in the maze of Indian finance, and had been tampering with the question of economy at the expense of gallant men, who were cut off from the Service before they could earn their promised pensions. He regretted to say that the deplorable suggestion had been made and entertained that they should weed out of their Army a number of honourable men who had unsuspectingly continued in the Service in the hope of obtaining the prizes that had been held out to them. A "Black List," in which were entered the names of those who were to be got rid of had been prepared in 1870, but Lord Mayo, to his honour, had refused to be a party to the proceeding, and he (Mr. Torrens) blessed his memory for it. If we could not afford to spend so much money, let us retrench our expenditure, but do not let us attempt to save out of the pockets defenceless individuals; that was spolia- tion. It had in it all the vice and curse of Communism, and was sure to draw down retribution sooner or later. If our officers were incompetent, it must be from one of two causes—either because they were suffering from physical or mental incapacity, which could be ascertained without difficulty by proper examination, or because they had committed some fault or default or had been guilty or some misconduct under the Articles of War. If a man had done anything wrong, by all means let him have a fair trial before he was cut adrift. Why, vermin that were hunted to death were given a fair run, and why should not our officers receive at least equal consideration? If they were incapacitated from serving their country, he did not ask that they should be kept in the Force; but do not let a man be dismissed for some vague incapacity, neither moral, physical, nor intellectual, because somebody did not like the cut of his whiskers, or because it was found that he could not agree at mess with some coxcomb of quality or some influential fool of rank. It was too late to ask the House of Commons to sanction such reasons as these for dismissing a man from the Service. Why did they abolish Purchase, except with the view of opening a profession of arms to persons in the middle class, and to give a career to fidelity and merit, irrespective of rank? For the sake of those who had neither interest nor influence, he as a middle-class man, said that they would not have their sons and brothers made the sport of cabal and slander. They were willing enough to trust to the law and to the Articles of War, and to receive the decisions pronounced in the name of our gracious Sovereign with respectful submission; but it could not be for the interest of Her Majesty that men should be turned out of the Army without any fault having been proved against them. He had now to ask the attention of the House to a still graver case. He knew that it was not the fashion just now to express any doubt that recruiting was in a first-rate condition. He hoped that there was no doubt upon the subject; but if we were going to keep up our recruiting we must not allow cases of great and glaring injustice to become public, and no injury could be greater than, if he were correctly informed, that which he was now about to lay before the House. After the Crimean War it was resolved that a larger number of commissions should be offered to men in the ranks than had formerly been the case—and, surely, after the abolition of Purchase no one would say that we ought to undo what we had done in that direction, because it afforded a great inducement to decent, well-bred, and educated men to enlist in our Army, and it should be our object to make every English soldier believe that he, as well as the French soldier, carried a Field Marshal's bâton in his knapsack. This was a life covenant that when a man had won the prize we would treat him fairly. The case he referred to was that of a man whose Petition was on the Table, and which last year he had glanced at with caution and reserve. William Hawtree entered the service of the Queen in 1846, at 19 years of age. So well liked was he that before 18 months he was made a corporal, before the end of three years he became a sergeant, and was thought so reliable a man that he was sent into Hertfordshire, his own county, to recruit, which he did with success. With the 96th Regiment, he was then sent to India, where he served for eight years. Without his knowledge, he (Mr. Torrens) wrote to his commanding officer, Colonel Cumberland, and the reply he received was a letter stating that he had no fault to find with him, and considered that he was, during those eight years, a most valuable soldier. Returning to this country, he was given charge of a medical station, and for two years acted so creditably in that capacity that the War Office, in consideration of his services and character, gave him a commission, and he was made captain of orderlies at the hospital at Southampton. For 10 years he had charge of that establishment, and during that time tens of thousands of pounds' worth passed through his hands, and no complaint was ever made against him. Unfortunately, the Control department was at loggerheads with the authorities at Netley, and Captain Hawtree wrote letter after letter, as was his duty to do, complaining on behalf of the poor sick fellows under his charge of the short weight and bad quality of the fuel and food furnished to the institution. He asked the Minister for War what became of those complaints, and whether they would be produced? Board after Board of Inquiry was held as to these matters, and over and over again it was found that the weight and quality of the fuel and food were deficient. What was done? When numerous faults were found, and it was thought malversation was going on, two officers of the Control department were placed under arrest; but to balance the account the petitioner was arrested also, and that after 28½ years' creditable service, he was kept in illegal arrest without accusation or trial. A Court of Inquiry sat, before which he was never called. The result was that he was kept under arrest for seven months; and when at length he was released he found his place filled by another. Was that treating the man with common fair play? Was that the way to encourage men joining the Service, or to assure them that good conduct would meet with due reward? What was done with the other? One of the two offficers of the Control department was tried by court-martial and cashiered. In the course of a few months Captain Hawtree would have been entitled to retire on full pay; but he was still kept on his allowance of 10s. a-day. After his release he was told to be in readiness for the West Coast of Africa; but on the news of the fate of King Theodore his services were not required, and he was called before a second Board of Inquiry, whose report the War Office had, but which he did not ask for. For his part they might do with it what they liked. Let there be a clear and impartial examination of the facts, and if he were wrong, he should not regret to find that he had been misled; but he could hardly school his features to the gravity of the occasion when he recalled the charges brought against this injured man. The pay of the orderlies varied from £4,000 to £6,000 a-year. There were 200 of them, and they were frequently sent long distances. Altogether, the accounts dealt with an amount of about £70,000. This officer of 28 years' standing was, however, called before a Board of Inquiry. Certain items were pointed out to him, and he was asked whether there were not errors in his accounts. He admitted that certain figures had been placed by a clerk in the wrong column. There were two days too much, amounting to 1s. 4d., charged in one case, and two days in another, making 2s. 3d. altogether; and this was at the end of an account extending over 10 years There were two other items of 8s. in regard to men who were told off to go to Aldershot. Altogether, the errors of account amounted to 18s. or 19s., and these were the only items in which errors were found. He expressed his regret that his clerk should have made these mistakes; but for these errors of 19s. in accounts spread over 10 years, this friendless man was not tried, or convicted, or suspended, but actually gazetted out of the Army as a thief, and held up to the reproach of all who knew him. Suppose him even to have been guilty, were there no errors in the accounts of Government Departments or mistakes of more than 19s.? If there was something behind all this, why did not the Government disclose it? Why was it not proved? This officer had challenged the authorities to bring him before a court-martial and he (Mr. Torrens) now demanded that he should have a court-martial, before which he might be either cleared or condemned. If the War Office would not tell him what his fault had been, let there be a fair inquiry instituted as the authorities pleased. If there was no charge against him, or if they had no evidence to offer, in the name of justice, let the inquiry be held and the man be acquitted. This was not the only case which had been before the House. Some years ago more than one officer was, by the Horse Guards, compelled to go on half-pay against his will, because he could not find favour with persons in high quarters. One was Colonel Lothian Dickson; the second case he did not know much about; but the third was the case of Colonel Dawkins. He had been kept in arrest and suspended from his command on certain charges, and a Board of Inquiry sat. It was proved to their satisfaction that nothing had been done to justify his suspension, and he was informed that he might return to his duty. This was told him after he had been wrongly accused and kept under arrest. The Court recommended that he should be restored to his position in the Coldstream Guards. Colonel Dawkins warmly protested against the treatment he had received. The Horse Guards endeavoured to induce him to withdraw his indignant protest against the unfounded imputations brought against him but of one thing at least he was tenacious—his honour as a soldier and a gentleman—as a soldier and a gentleman, he could not stultify himself by making such an admission. He had served his country for 20 years, and had been decorated by the Queen and Emperor of the French for his services in the Crimea; and all he wanted was to be restored to his command without any imputation whatever. But the Horse Guards converted his refusal to withdraw his protest into a new offence, and another Board of Inquiry, consisting of five members, was constituted to inquire into Colonel Dawkins's supposed ineligibility for promotion. Instructions were, he believed, given to the Board to find, whether although there was then no vacancy, he was eligible to take a higher position in the Army. It was not stated to him when the Board was constituted that this was to be the object of their inquiry, and it was at least unusual to appoint a Board to inquire whether, if an officer should live for a few years, he should be eligible at the end of that time to hold a command. The Court of Inquiry came to an adverse determination in the case of Colonel Dawkins; but Sir Henry de Bathe differed from his colleagues, and believed that no charge affecting the honour or soldierly qualities of Colonel Dawkins had been sustained. Why, then, did he acquiesce in the judgment? For the same reason that Arthur Wellesley did in the Convention of Cintra—which was that he thought it his duty in the interests of the Service at the time not to set up his own opinion against that of his superior officers. Colonel Dawkins was told he must not resume his command, and in vain did he again and again demand that he should be brought before a court-martial. Let it not be said in this case that it was too late to do justice in some form. Let equal justice be done in both the cases he had just named, as it was in the case of a noble Earl whose name was mentioned by hon. Members sitting near him, but which he would not repeat, and who was re-instated because he had been wrongly removed. Without desiring to raise any question of Prerogative, and without desiring the House to pledge itself to any question of policy, he desired the House to accept his Resolution.

seconded the Motion.

moved the Amendment of which he had given Notice—that to restrict the undoubted Prerogative of the Crown was neither wise nor expedient. He did so on the ground that the adoption of the Motion of the hon. Member for Finsbury would be virtually an infringement of that Prerogative, and it would, moreover, be fraught with mischief to the best interests of the Army and of the country. What was the Motion of the hon. Member? The Resolution was based upon two Bills to which the hon. Gentleman had alluded, and to which he alluded at greater length on a former occasion. Both were brought forward in 1734—one in the Lords by the second Duke of Marlborough, and the other in the Commons by Lord Morpeth, and their object was to prevent the removal of officers under the rank of Colonel of regiments, except after trial by court-martial or by Address from either House of Parliament. The introduction of these Bills lent a certain degree of plausibility to this Motion, and it might be asked why, if 62 Peers voted for the Duke of Marlborough's Bill, the House should not adopt this Resolution under the more enlightened and purer administration of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire. There was, however, no parallel between the cases of 1734 and 1875. The humane object of the Resolution was to protect friendless and nameless officers from oppression by an undue use of the Royal Prerogative. It was not implied that officers were liable to be removed now for their political opinions and actions. The removals which occasioned the debates of 1734 were due to political causes alone. Two great and distinguished Peers, the Duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham, were deprived of their regiments at a time of political excitement, because they did not vote for the Excise Bill of Sir Robert Walpole; and this, as Lord Stanhope told us, was done by an unjustifiable stretch of the Prerogative. Lord Chesterfield surrendered his White Staff; Lord Clinton, Lord of the Bedchamber, was also removed. There was conclusive proof that at that time officers of the Army having seats in Parliament were expected to vote, not according to their consciences, nor even with their Party, but with the Crown; and General Wade, Commander of the Forces in North Britain, subsequently stated in a debate in this House that messages were sent to him threatening deprivation of employment if he did not vote straight, and that he did not care to have recourse to a court-martial, for the rather curious reason that there was a difficulty in getting a sufficient number of officers to serve upon one. At that time it was the practice to cashier officers who happened to be Members of Parliament for not voting with the Government. They all remembered the story of the military officer in the time of James II., who, having voted against the Court on a question of great importance, was accosted by the Minister thus—"Sir, have you not a troop of horse in His Majesty's Army?" "Yes," was the reply; "but my elder brother is just dead, and has left me £700 a-year." In order to show the entirely political character of the events in those days, he might remind them that in the debate on Lord Morpeth's Bill, Sir William Windham said—

"Let the merits of the officers in their military capacity be never so great, let their fidelity to their King and country be never so conspicuous, let their past services be never so meritorious, if they do not implicitly obey all the orders they shall receive from the Crown or rather from the favourite Minister of the Crown, if they do not submit to propagate the most slavish schemes of a projecting Minister, they may probably be turned out of their employments in the Army."

Was there any parallel in these times to such a state of things? Was there any favourite Minister of the Crown now-a-days? Was it not perfectly immaterial to the Crown whether the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire or the right hon. Member for Greenwich was at the head of the Queen's Government, or could either be termed a "projecting" Minister in the sense in which Sir William Windham applied the term? Lord Chesterfield said—

"There are now many military Members in both Houses of Parliament, and it has become the prevailing opinion of late years that the only way of obtaining military preferment is by obtaining a seat in either House of Parliament;" and he added, "The only object of that Bill was that in future no Minister of State should have it in his power to say to any officer in the Army having a seat in Parliament, 'Sir, you shall do so-and-so or starve.'"

A few years afterwards Pitt, "that terrible Cornet of Horse," was deprived of his commission in the Blues because he voted against the Government. He need not say if such a policy was pursued in these days they would have been deprived of the means of carrying on those discussions which had been held on the Purchase System and the state of the Army, and the military advisers of the Secretary of State would have been reduced to the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) and the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Holms). The hon. Member for Finsbury in quoting the debates of past times was referring to a state of things which had entirely passed away—

"Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis."

He was entitled to express his surprise that the hon. Member for Fins-bury had not brought all ranks of officers within the scope of his Motion. Why did he draw this distinction between the different grades of officers? Why was the one taken and the other left? The illustrious Duke of Marlborough himself had been arbitrarily removed from his command—the Queen wrote with her own hand his dismissal, and his enemies resorted to every art, first to procure and then to justify his removal. It was said because the Judges were irremovable and held office quamdiu se bene gesserint, so should the officers of the Army be, except on conviction by a court-martial. But the cases were entirely different, for what similarity was there between Judges who ministered justice not only between subject and subject, but also between the subject and the Crown, and officers whose sole duty it was to obey orders emanating from the Crown through the Commander-in-Chief? Besides, when the great employers of labour and the Heads of Departments were allowed at their will and pleasure to dismiss those who did not come up to their standard of capacity, why should the Crown alone be debarred from that privilege? Courts-martial were not always looked upon in so favourable a light. The hon. Member seemed to be much in love with courts-martial; but they had not always been held in high esteem. Lord Westmoreland, for instance, had once declared that he would rather die by the bow-string of a Bashaw than be tried by a court-martial. Lord George Sackville had very little reason to thank the tender mercies of a court-martial. He had been dismissed by the Crown, but he applied for a court-martial; his request was granted; the court-martial convicted him; he was cashiered and was declared incapable of serving Her Majesty in any military capacity. This was for disobeying the orders of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick at the battle of Minden. This Motion had been submitted to Parliament more than once. It was brought forward in 1808 by Sir Francis Burdett, who said there were persons whom it was hard to expose by courts-martial, but it would be harder still to retain them in the service. It was again brought forward in 1815, when Mr. Tierney vindicated the right of officers to be tried by courts-martial, because, having purchased their commissions, they were entitled to be protected in the enjoyment of them. Lastly, in 1823, when a similar attempt was made by Colonel Davies, Lord Palmerston, who was then Secretary at War, asked whether a man could be tried for want of talent. Could anyone conceive anything more ridiculous than that a commanding officer who had discovered the incapacity of a young subaltern should have to submit his judgment to a court-martial, upon which other young subalterns might sit? At the beginning of the present century five or six officers of the 85th Regiment brought several charges against their commanding officer, only one of which, and that a minor one, they were able to substantiate. The Court reported that in making these charges those officers were not actuated by regard for the public good, and His Majesty dispensed with their services. Insubordination, however, still continuing, His Majesty was obliged to dismiss every officer; and the regiment being re-officered, afterwards distinguished itself in the Peninsula and in America. A case had occurred in his own recollection, in which several officers were dismissed without trial for playing practical jokes of a very disagreeable character upon an unpopular brother officer. What would have been the effect in those cases of trying those officers by courts-martial? Why, that every officer of the Court would take his seat with a bias in favour of the accused. Again, in 1823 it was sought to make capital out of the fact that from 1795 to 1823 some 929 officers had been dismissed without trial. But Lord Palmerston pointed out that in almost in every case these officers had been suspended for absence without leave. No doubt, cases of hardship occasionally occurred, and Lord Palmerston admitted that in regard to Caulfield, Captain of the Navy, the Crown had been improperly advised; but might not the Crown be wrongly advised in the exercising the Prerogative in other matters—as in declaring war, making peace, or dissolving Parliament? The case of Sir Robert Wilson had been mentioned. He maintained that that officer was not improperly removed. Sir Robert Wilson told the Life Guards at Queen Caroline's funeral that they were disgracing themselves by firing on a crowd. He had nothing to do with the troops, being in plain clothes, and was guilty of interfering with troops not under his command. The hon. Gentleman disclaimed any intention of doing away with Prerogative. But the Motion, if carried, would assuredly have that effect—as might be inferred from the answer of Lord Chancellor Cowper, who being asked by Queen Anne whether it would be illegal for her by patent to make the Duke of Marlborough Commander-in-Chief for life, thus limiting her own Prerogative, replied—"I do not know whether such a patent would be illegal, but I know it would be unconstitutional." Similarly, he believed, this Motion of the hon. Gentleman to be unconstitutional. He was certain it would obtain no sympathy from the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government who, in a debate on a kindred question in 1855, said he was not inclined to take a pedantic view of the Royal Prerogative, or uphold the dogma that it was too strong, as he would rather see the influence of the Prerogative increased than diminished. It was said, that we were unlike other countries in this respect. If so, so much the better. It was very seldom that we could boast of anything original; then, when we had got it, for Heaven's sake let us keep it, especially when, being original, it was also good. Believing as he did that the Royal Prerogative was never, on the whole, more judiciously exercised, and that the Motion was both uncalled-for and inopportune, he hoped the House would reject it by a decisive majority.

rose to address the House, but— Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

proceeded to say that he did not understand the hon. Member for Finsbury to have alleged the existence of any political corruption in the matter; and doubted whether hon. Members were advancing the interests of the Army by perpetually calling the attention of Parliament to alleged grievances. Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

proceeded. He did not intend to address himself to the general question of whether or not courts-martial were pleasant tribunals, but rather to call attention to some personal hardships that were within his knowledge. He denied that there was any analogy between the case of a military officer dismissed from the service and that of a railway employé dismissed by his employers, because there was no career open to a military officer on his dismissal from the Army, whereas a man who had been discharged by a railway company might obtain some other employment. A gallant Friend of his who became a cornet in 1826, and who had served 32 years in India, came to this country in 1853 on 10 months' leave in consequence of illness, which leave was granted on a medical certificate. On his arrival in England he read, to his surprise, a notice in The Gazette that he had been dismissed from the Army with a pension of £400 a-year. He had a wife and family, and that was the small allowance that was granted to him after he had spent the greater portion of his life in the unhealthy climate of India. If he had not been thus removed from the Army, he would have been entitled to a bonus of £4,700, and would also have had a chance of promotion. He had no right of appeal. The hardship was even greater in the case of the Indian officers than the officers at home, for these had the Secretary for "War, the Commander-in-Chief, and public opinion to support them, and he hoped to hear from the Government some explanation of the case he had referred to. Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

said, he had some reason to complain of the hon. Member who had moved this Resolution, because he had not only made a speech wide of the Resolution itself, but he had concluded with a Motion which was not that on the Paper. He had moved for a Royal Commission to inquire, not into the general question, but into the cases to which he had referred. He thought that it would have been very much better if the hon. Member had given Notice of the particular cases he was going to bring forward, because there might then have been some means of answering him satisfactorily. He denied that the Government had admitted last year that the Motion was a reasonable one, provided a sufficient number of cases was adduced in support of it. They objected to it then on principle, and they did so now. He did not deny that cases of hardship might have occurred, and he had no wish to stand in the way of reparation: nor did he object to such cases being brought before the Great Inquest of the nation, where the Secretary of State could answer for himself; but he did not admit that the House was a proper tribunal for deciding such matters. He would not go into all the historical cases which the hon. Member had brought forward. The Army had been wholly changed since the earlier cases he mentioned had occurred. When the Secretary for War had stated that he wished to give the scheme of his Predecessor a fair trial, surely this part of the scheme of his Predecessor ought to have a fair trial too. If there was one thing which was contended for more than another by Army reformers it was that supersession and not promotion by seniority was to be the rule. The hon. Member seemed to have forgotten his own Motion, which was that officers below the rank of Major General were not to be dismissed without Court Martial, for he had brought forward, in illustration of his demand, the case of the Duke of York, and that of an Admiral of the Navy. It was not fair to bring forward single eases; he did not admit the accuracy of the statements made, and there was no means of testing them on the spur of the moment. He had no doubt the hon. Member had given what he believed to be a true representation of each case; but it must be remembered that these cases were episodes, single instances in men's careers, and therefore they were not to be considered fair samples of general administration. It was quite impossible in some instances that courts martial could have been held. How could a court martial consider whether a man's intellectual and moral capacities were sufficient, and whether his bodily health was good? Yet these were matters which the hon. Member wished to be brought before a court martial, which was really a Court of Criminal Jurisdiction. This question was fully debated last year and in 1865, and he was not about to repeat the arguments which had then been used. He was surprised to hear a Motion brought forward from the other side of the House in favour of individuals at the expense of the public and of privilege at the expense of the Service. Would it be tolerated in the Civil Service or in any other employment that a man could not be got rid of unless he had committed some crime? He would not allude to individual cases of supposed wrong, because if such cases existed they ought to be brought forward, not as an Amendment to going into Committee of Supply, but in the form of a Vote of Censure against the Secretary of State for War, who was superior in such matters to the Commander-in-Chief. As a rule, a Court of Inquiry was a much more fit tribunal to try the cases that came before it than a court martial would be. Courts martial could not try the state of a man's health, nor want of qualification, nor offences which were neither civil nor military. Employers had often to make up their minds in cases where the evidence would not be sufficient to obtain conviction in a Court of Law. In his opinion, a Court of Inquiry was a very merciful institution in many cases, by protecting an officer from having his character taken from him simply by private report. To sweep away the system on account of a few hard cases arising under it would be most unwise and most unstatesmanlike; while, on the other hand, it would not be right to protect inefficiency for the sake of preserving a theory. It would be absurd to say that no man should be prevented from commanding a regiment unless he had committed some military crime. A man and his friends always thought that he had been illused when the decision of the authorities had gone against him; and it could not be said that the individuals who complained the most of their treatment were friendless men, many of them being of the highest rank and influence in the country. Hard cases made bad laws, and it would not do for the House to allow itself to be influenced by the statement that in a few instances hardships had been endured under the system. It was impossible that the Commander-in-Chief could maintain the discipline of the Army unless some such power as that referred to was given. The charge which had generally been brought against the military authorities was that they had acted the other way, and had kept in high positions men who were inefficient. He was surprised to hear hon. Members who were usually so careful of the finances of India now proposing that they should be burdened with enormous pensions to incompetent men, who were already retired with pensions due to their rank. This question ought to be left to the Executive, who had a most disagreeable duty to perform, unless, indeed, the command of a battalion was again to go by seniority, or the appointment was to be vested in the House of Commons. His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief was most unwilling to exercise the arbitrary power that was intrusted to him, and when he had been pressed by the Army Organization Committee to select officers for the command of regiments, he had declined the responsibility, but surely he ought to have a veto. Some time since His Royal Highness had told the Army Purchase Commission that the exercise of the power of retiring officers must be backed by public opinion. The Commander-in-Chief, therefore, was the last man to exercise the power oppressively, but if he did he was under the Secretary of State, who was responsible to that House and might be censured for his conduct. The hon. Member was not alone in de- siring that we should have a contented Army. He believed that so far from this prerogative causing discontent in the Army, it had been felt in more than one case, not by Englishmen only, but by foreigners who observed closely, that it had been the means of preserving the honour of the British Army, and that its just and resolute exercise had given relief and satisfaction to every class of officers. Under these circumstances, he must offer his humble but very earnest opposition to the Motion of the hon. Member.

rose to address the House; but— Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,