asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether Her Majesty's Government intend to take any action on the Report of the East India Officers Compensation Committee; and, if so, whether he would object to say what that action would be?

Sir, the Report of the Select Committee has for some time past been under the consideration of the Secretary of State for India, and a Despatch will be laid within the next week before the Council addressed to the Government of India, and assenting generally to the recommendations of the Select Committee.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, with reference to the remarks of Count Munster at the National Club, Whether he has become informed, either by means of the public journals or otherwise, that there is now resident in this Country, in contravention of the Act 10 Geo 4, c. 7, s. 28, a considerable number of members of the Society of Jesus, commonly called Jesuits; and, whether he is prepared to enforce against such persons the provisions of the said Act; and, if not, whether he is prepared to adopt some other and what means of protection against the perils contemplated and provided for by the said Act?

Sir, there is no doubt that there are in this country "members of the Society of Jesus, commonly called Jesuits," and there is also no doubt that their presence in this country is, under the Act of 10 Geo. IV., known as the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act, a misdemeanour. During, however, the period which has elapsed since the passing of that Act, now nearly half a century, the Government of this country has, I believe, in no instance—none at least known to myself—proceeded against any Jesuit for committing a misdemeanour under its provisions, and so far as Her Majesty's present Advisers are influenced by the circumstances with which they are acquainted, the same policy will continue to prevail. At the same time, I beg it to be understood that the provisions of the Act are not looked upon by Her Majesty's Government as being obsolete; but, on the contrary, as reserved powers of Law of which they will be prepared to avail themselves if necessary.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is true, as stated in the public press, that on Monday the 31st of May, in a procession of the Roman Catholic Church at Ladbroke Grove Road, Bayswater, the canopy over the Cardinal Archbishop was borne by four soldiers of Her Majesty's Life Guards, in the uniform of their regiment; if true, whether the authorities at the War Office approve of the conduct of those soldiers in so officiating; and, if they approve it, whether he will state to the House under what regulations and restrictions, if any, British soldiers in uniform are authorized to officiate publicly in religious processions or in other religious observances?

Sir, I have been informed by the Lieutenant Colonel commanding the 2nd Life Guards that four Roman Catholic soldiers of that regiment applied for leave to attend certain religious services at the church in question. He is not aware what ceremonies were observed during the performance of the service, but there was no procession outside the grounds of the College. I believe, as a matter of fact, that a canopy was borne by those four soldiers over the Cardinal Archbishop who carried the Host. By the Queen's Regulations, officers and soldiers are forbidden to institute or take part in any meetings, demonstrations, or processions for party or political purposes in barracks, quarters, camp, or elsewhere. By the same Regulations soldiers are obliged never to appear except in uniform, and if therefore they attended religious services it would be a breach of the rules if they were not in uniform. No military offence, therefore, has been committed even if the statement of what these men did were correct. I do not think it desirable to take cognizance of what may pass within the precincts of any church or place of religious worship in respect to the religious ceremonies observed, or to the part which soldiers not on duty but attending the services of the denomination to which they belong may take.

asked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether he has received a Report, pre- sented to the Canadian Parliament by a Select Committee of that body, on Immigration and Colonization; and, whether he will lay a copy of the same upon the Table of the House?

, in reply, said, he had not received any Report of the nature alluded to by the hon. Gentleman.

asked the Judge Advocate General, What steps are taken to provide military officers with sufficient legal instruction to enable them efficiently to discharge their duties as members of courts martial, and whether advantage can be taken for this purpose of the services of those officers who have been called to the bar; whether any legal qualification is required of such officers as are appointed deputy judge advocates; and, if not, whether he will consider the advisability of making a change in this respect; and, whether a different course is not pursued in the administration of justice and the appointment of deputy judge advocates, properly qualified, in the Army to that which prevails in the Navy; and, if so, whether, as far as his own department is concerned, he is prepared to recommend such alterations as will tend to assimilate the procedure in both services as far as possible?

Sir, the Queen's Regulations insist upon the acquirement by all officers of a competent knowledge of military law and the practice of military courts. For this purpose there are professors and instructors at the Military College and at the Staff College, where the examinations are conducted by General Laye, one of the Deputy Judge Advocates. There are also frequent examinations in regiments and garrisons. Sub-Lieutenants are obliged to attend courts martial as supernumeraries, not only the open court, but the deliberations in reference to the finding and sentence. There is nothing to prevent an officer who has been called to the Bar from becoming a professor or instructor; but such qualification is not required of these nor of Deputy Judge Advocates. No special aptitude is insured by a mere call to the Bar. In military as in other courts it is practice rather than book-learning which makes perfect. In the Navy, owing to the summary powers committed to captains of ships, the number of courts martial is extremely small as compared with the Army. The persons officiating as Deputy Judge Advocates of the Fleet, who are sometimes civilians, do not give their whole time, but are retained when required. I do not admit that they are more properly qualified, nor do I see any advantage in adopting this plan in the Army. On the other hand, I agree with the Commission of 1868 that, as the issues tried depend to a great extent upon the usages of war and of military service, it is essential to maintain strictly the military character of the court.

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he would explain the circumstances which, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, rendered it necessary to deal with the Judicature Bill of 1873, in the manner proposed by the present measure. In 1867 a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the operation and effect of the Court of Chancery, the Superior Courts of Common Law, the Admiralty Court, and the Probate and Divorce Court, as then constituted, with the view of ascertaining whether any, and what changes, or improvements could be advantageously made so as to provide for the more speedy, economical, and satisfactory despatch of the judicial business transacted by such Courts. That Commission was constituted in a manner which secured the respect and confidence of everyone: after taking much evidence, it made its first Report in the year 1869: the Report contained a variety of recommendations, the chief of which might be classified under four heads. First, the consolidation into one Supreme Court of the various Superior Courts of Law and Equity; secondly, the adoption of a uniform mode of procedure, so far as was consistent with the various classes of cases that came under the cognizance of the Courts; thirdly, the appointment of skilled referees to whom the hearing of certain classes of cases should be handed over; and, fourthly, the creation of one Court of Appeal, which should take the place of the existing Court of Appeal in Chancery and the Exchequer Chamber. There were a variety of other recommendations, of more or less importance, to which it was unnecessary to allude, but he must ask the attention of the House to one passage in the Report; the Commissioners, referring to the question of appeals, said it might hereafter deserve consideration whether the decisions of the Court of Appeal, mentioned in their fourth recommendation, should not be final, unless under certain exceptional circumstances an appeal to the House of Lords might become necessary. Having thus stated the effects of the recommendations of the Commissioners, he would proceed to consider the Act of 1873. That Act contained provisions for carrying into effect everyone of the four heads of recommendation to which he had just alluded. It provided for the consolidation into one Court, under the name of the Supreme Court, of the various Courts of Equity and Common Law, and for vesting in such Court and its several Divisions all the jurisdiction possessed by the Courts of which it was constituted; it provided for the adoption of an uniform procedure, for the appointment of a system of Referees, and for the formation of a Court of Appeal to take the place of the Court of Appeal in Chancery and the Court of Exchequer Chamber. But the Act of 1873 did more than give effect to these recommendations of the Commissioners; it abolished the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords as far as regarded English causes; it also provided for the transfer, under certain circumstances, to the Court of Appeal which would be formed under that Act of Parliament of matters hitherto disposed of by the Privy Council. The first thing that struck us when we regarded this Act was that, with the exception of matters hitherto disposed of by the Privy Council, it was confined to English causes. Now, if the Act had been limited to the recommendations of the Royal Commissioners, it did not occur to him that it would have been open to objection on the ground that it was limited to English causes. But when we found that it abolished the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords with regard to English causes, but left the Appellate Jurisdiction untouched as regarded appeals from Scotland and Ireland, there certainly appeared an anomalous state of circumstances which was open to very considerable objection; and he could not but think that it was generally felt at the time when that Act was passed that it would be necessary, before the lapse of any long period of time, to extend its operation to appeals coming from Ireland and from Scotland. It certainly would appear from observa- tions made by the noble and learned Lord by whom that Act was introduced into the House of Lords (the Lord Chancellor) that he contemplated the adoption, at no distant period of time, of a measure which would abolish the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords as regarded Scotch and Irish causes. It might be in the recollection of hon. Members that when that Act was passing through the House of Commons it was generally understood that a measure would be introduced at the earliest possible period for the purpose of remedying that difference. However that might be, Her Majesty's Government were now, and always had been, of opinion that there should be one Final Court of Appeal as far as regarded all the appeals of the Three Kingdoms; that if the Final Court of Appeal for England was to be the House of Lords, the Final Court of Appeal for Scotland and Ireland should be the House of Lords; and that if the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords was to be abolished as far as regarded England, it should be abolished also as far as regarded Scotland and Ireland, and that, in either event, one Final Court of Appeal should be established. In that view of the case the Bill of 1874 was introduced by the present Lord Chancellor into the House of Lords, and, having passed that House, it was read a second time in the House of Commons without opposition. It contained provisions for putting an end to the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords in respect of Scotch and Irish causes and for establishing a Supreme Court of Appeal, to be called the Imperial Court of Appeal, which should have power to deal with appeals from all parts of the Empire. As he had already said, the Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons without opposition; on the Motion for going into Committee, an Amendment, moved by the hon. Member for Wexford (Sir George Bowyer), expressing an opinion that it was inexpedient to abolish the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords, was negatived without a division, and subsequently Amendments of a similar character were defeated by large majorities. He believed that the votes upon those occasions did not correctly represent the actual proportion of feeling on one side or the other, as many votes were given under the impression that the question had been finally and conclusively decided respecting England in 1873, and that it was therefore desirable to settle it in regard to Scotland and Ireland. In consequence, however, of the late period of the Session, and of the opposition raised by certain hon. Members, and, amongst others, by the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. Butt), it became necessary to withdraw that Bill, and a short Bill was passed suspending the operation of the Act of 1873. So matters stood at the close of the last Session of Parliament. In the present year the Lord Chancellor introduced another Bill, which, as far as regarded the particular question now under consideration, was substantially to the same effect as the Bill which had been introduced in the last Session of Parliament. It was, however, very soon apparent that the Bill would be very strongly opposed. Its opponents had two objects in view; the one to prevent the Scotch and Irish Appeals being carried to the Court of Appeal, established by the Act of 1873; the other, to repeal the Act of 1873, so far as regarded the Appellate Jurisdiction in respect of English causes; the former of these objects could be obtained by the action of the House of Lords alone; the latter required the joint action of both Houses. It became necessary to withdraw that Bill, in consequence of the wish of an influential portion of the Members of the House of Lords that the operation of the Act with regard to the hearing of final appeals in English causes should be delayed. Having withdrawn that Bill, the next question was—what would be the best course to take? A variety of courses were suggested, one being that it would be best to repeal the Act of 1873. The hon. and learned Member for Barnstaple (Mr. Waddy) had moved in that direction, for he had given Notice of a Bill to repeal that Act. He ventured to think the House was not prepared to stultify itself by such a proceeding as the repeal of that Act. That Act, whatever might be the views of hon. Members as far as regarded the clauses about Appellate Jurisdiction, would effect a very great reform with regard to judicature generally. Another view was to postpone all dealing with the matter till next year. A large portion, however, of the Members of the House, and public opinion was substantially in agreement with them, thought the Act should come into operation at the earliest possible period. It would occasion great inconvenience to postpone the operation of the whole of the Act. There remained a third course, which had been adopted by Her Majesty's Government. It was to suspend the operation of so much only of the Act of 1873 as dealt with the disputed question of the Appellate Jurisdiction. In the Act of 1873 only three sections had reference to the ultimate Appellate Jurisdiction, and one of these had reference solely to the Appellate Jurisdiction of the Privy Council. If the operation of these clauses were suspended for a certain time, the whole of the rest of the Bill might be allowed to come into operation on the 1st of November in the present year. It might be asked, however, why the operation of these particular clauses should be suspended. The reason was, that it would be necessary to consider the general question as to what should be the ultimate Appellate Tribunal in this country, for it did not appear that, at the present moment, public opinion was firmly established in one direction or another. For himself, he held the same views as those which he expressed last year. When the Bill of 1873 was before the House, he objected to those clauses which put an end to the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords. He did not, indeed, object to them in toto, but he thought that the decision of the question, whether the jurisdiction of the House of Lords should be abolished, should be suspended until we knew that the new Appellate Jurisdiction would work satisfactorily, as was in fact recommended by the Royal Commissioners. Last year, however, the Act of 1873 having been already passed, he considered that the House was not dealing with the question as a new one, inasmuch as it had determined that, as regarded England, at all events, the jurisdiction of the House of Lords should be abolished, and the House of Lords had itself assented to the application of the same principle to Scotland and Ireland. Under these circumstances, he last year moved the second reading of the Government Bill, with the principle of which he thoroughly concurred. It would, however, be idle for him to ignore the fact that he had heard from time to time expres- sions of opinion by Members in different parts of the House differing from the opinions expressed by them on former occasions with reference to this subject, and there could be no doubt but that, at the present time, there was a feeling entertained by many Members of that House similar to that which had found expression in the other House of Parliament. But assuming, for a moment, that a majority of this House were prepared to maintain the principle of the Act of 1873, and to extend its operation to Scotland and Ireland, he thought he might venture also to assume that that opinion would not be shared by a majority of the other House. Any attempt, therefore, to legislate, at present, in that direction would be futile. The Government had, therefore, determined—wisely, as he thought—to bring into operation those portions of the Judicature Act which carried out the recommendations of the Royal Commission, and as to which there was practically no objection, and to postpone for a twelvemonth the operation of those sections—namely, the 20th, 21st, and 25th—which abolished the jurisdiction of the House of Lords in English cases. Turning next to the other portions of the measure, the hon. and learned Member drew attention to the fact that some of the rules and regulations, which were to govern procedures were embodied in the Schedule of the Act of 1873, while others, which would come into operation at the same time, were to be drawn up by the Judges and confirmed by Order in Council. There was also a provision that, after the passing of the Act, the Supreme Court should have power to make such alterations in the Rules and Regulations as might from time to time be deemed expedient. In the course of last autumn the Judges gave a great deal of time and attention to the subject, and prepared voluminous rules and regulations, supplementary to those contained in the Schedule of the Act. When the first Bill was introduced into the other House in the present Session, a suggestion was made to the effect that it was undesirable to have a portion of the Rules and Regulations in the Act and another portion outside it; and the Government, acting on this suggestion, had determined to include them all in the Schedule. Such of the Rules and Regula- tions as were contained in the Schedule to the Act of 1873 had already received the approval of Parliament, while the others had been most carefully considered by the Judges. He hoped, therefore, that hon. Members would be willing to accept these Rules and Regulations as a whole. If, after the Act came into operation, any errors were discovered in the Rules, it would be in the power of the Supreme Court to correct them. He would add a few words as regarded the Intermediate Court of Appeal which was proposed to be constituted; it would consist of a smaller number of members than provided by the Act of 1873. So large a number would not be required now that English appeals were alone to be taken to it. It was now proposed that it should consist of nine members. He had heard it asserted that the Chiefs of the different Courts of Law, who were named members of that Appellate Tribunal, would have their time so far occupied with the business of their own several Courts that they would scarcely be able to act on the Court of Appeal. But the result of recent communications with those Judges showed it to be their opinion that the time they would be able to spare collectively for the hearing of appeals would be equivalent to the regular attendance of at least one Judge throughout the year. In addition to this there would be the occasional assistance of the Lord Chancellor; and, upon the whole, he (the Attorney General) was of opinion that, until the ultimate Tribunal should have been established, the Court now proposed would be fully competent to deal with all the cases brought before it. It was proposed that the Court should sit as a body of three for the purpose of deciding all questions of final order, and as a Court of two for the purpose of deciding interlocutory applications. Having regard to the amount and the nature of the business now discharged by the Appellate Court in Chancery and the Court of Exchequer Chamber, he had no doubt the new Tribunal would be amply constituted for the business which would come before it. Adverting to the Amendment which the hon. and learned Member for Barnstaple had placed on the Paper, he said his hon. and learned Friend's proposal to entirely repeal the Act of 1873 would not find much favour in the House, The Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for the Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Watkin Williams) was simply for the rejection of the present measure; but this proposal also, he thought, would not secure the approbation of many hon. Members, for, if it were carried, the anomaly would remain of having one Appellate Jurisdiction for England with a different one for Scotland and Ireland. Having thus endeavoured to explain the reasons which had led the Government to adopt the course he had just described, he would conclude by moving that the Bill be now read a second time.

, in rising to move that the Bill be read a second time that day three months, said, he hoped the House would prevent this measure from drifting into the arena of Party politics, and would deal with it from the point of view of the public interest and the interest of suitors. It was an entire mistake to suppose that he meant to imperil the Act of 1873. On the contrary, he opposed this Bill because of his belief that if it passed without such substantial alterations as would make it a different measure, the success of the Judicature Act of 1873 would be most seriously endangered. He concurred with the Attorney General in the opinion that the Act of 1873 had produced changes of the most extensive and valuable character, and its postponement or repeal would be most disappointing. It was true it had been criticized in a hostile and supercilious way, as though the amalgamation of all the Courts into one supreme Court was a nominal change. But in the opinion of practical men who had the best opportunity of judging this apparently small reform was one of the most important description. In point of number the existing staff of Judges was perfectly sufficient, though, unhappily, there was an enormous waste of judicial power. Having watched the three Superior Courts of Common Law during the last three Terms, when four Judges were sitting in each, he had noticed a vast quantity of important business standing in the cause list, yet the Courts of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer during three-fourths of the time had been almost wholly occupied with matters of very secondary importance, such as motions for a decree nisi, while important business was waiting to be disposed of, and waiting in vain. It might be said, why did not the Judges distribute their time more economically and set apart one of their number for hearing those matters? Unfortunately, these were all distinct Courts, which had their own cause list to get through, and thus they did not act together very cordially, or with such sympathy as they would have shown if they only formed one Court. Fusion into one Court was not therefore a small or a nominal change. The Act of 1873 not only made sweeping changes in our jurisprudence and practice, but it left a vast new machinery to be created. The Act of 1873 designed to distribute the Judges. If this were done, care should be taken to prevent there being an absence of concurrent action. As to the Appellate Courts, they were fitful in their sittings. What was desired was to do away with the fitful character of these Courts, and to have an Appellate Court which would sit continuously, and that the Judges composing it should be uniformly there, so as to introduce complete uniformity of decision. By the Act of 1873 there was not to be a second appeal, but there was a provision to meet the objection that important decisions should be re-considered. The House of Lords had decided 60 or 70 cases in a year, and, if they were to have a second Court of Appeal, he had not yet heard any such Court of Appeal proposed which was comparable in any sense to the House of Lords. That, however, was a very different thing from saying he had changed the opinion which he expressed in 1873 that it was better to have one Court of Appeal, an opinion to which he still adhered. Some persons had asked him why he approved of the House of Lords. His reply was that there was a degree of solemnity, gravity, patience, and attention displayed there which he had not seen anywhere else. His own experience enabled him to say that he had argued a case in the Exchequer Chamber for two and a-half days, and he sat down feeling that he had not fully presented the case. The case had been carried to the House of Lords, and he felt that in their House it had been satisfactorily presented. The truth was that cases were heard there with more gravity, attention, and solemnity, than in any other Court. Therefore, he would say that, if they were to have a second appeal, by all means let it be to the House of Lords. But he was not in favour of a second Court of Appeal; he preferred the procedure of the Act of 1873, and regretted that it had been departed from. If a Court of Imperial Appeal really worthy of the name had been established, he believed they never would have heard any suggestion from lawyers for the restoration of the House of Lords as an Appellate Tribunal. But when the Imperial Court of Appeal was proposed almost everybody was dissatisfied with its construction; the details were objectionable in everyway. It might be asked why he did not try to remedy that in Committee; but his experience of that House taught him that any such attempt in Committee would be vain. They must at an earlier stage join their forces with the malcontents of every sort in order to bring about the result they desired. [A laugh] That was the honest truth. There had, no doubt, arisen much misconception in consequence of the combined action of those who objected to that Imperial Appellate Court on account of its bad constitution and those who were sorry they had ever consented to abolish the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords. The Government had given way to the efforts of those who desired to maintain the appellate functions of the House of Lords, and the universal opinion had been completely revolutionized. Almost everybody was now agreed that the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords was to be restored." Well, he said "content" to that; but if he was right in believing that the Appellate Tribunal was the very essence of the Act of 1873, they would get into inextricable confusion under that Act if they established the Court of Appeal proposed by the present Bill. He should prefer seeing the Act of 1873 postponed for another year than to see it come into operation with an incomplete and professedly provisional Court of Appeal. What had happened showed how dangerous it was to pass the Act of 1873 without the coping-stone. The 4th section of the present Bill provided that there should be five ex officio Judges of the Appellate Court and also not more than five ordinary Judges at one time, as Her Majesty might appoint. The five ex officio members were to be the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Master of the Rolls, the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL dissented.] The ordinary Judges were the two Lords Justices, two Judges to be taken from the Privy Council, and one new Judge. In all final matters they were to sit as a quorum of three, whilst there were to be only two for all interlocutory matters, which latter would constitute in the long run the machinery upon which the sound working of the Act of 1873 would depend almost entirely. Now, what would the appeal be reduced to? The utmost that the Lord Chancellor, the Chief Justices, or the Master of the Polls could do would be to come to the Appellate Court occasionally. It was impossible that they could sit continuously; and, therefore, he protested against their being brought in casually as if to make up a quorum and lend a hand. Besides, it constantly happened that lawyers who had risen to the great office of Chief Justice were not always men who had studied law the most, or were most familiar with the practice of the Courts, and they might therefore not be the best qualified to frame the procedure of this great Court. For these reasons he rejected the Chief Justices altogether as efficient members of the Court. It really came to this with regard to the efficiency of the Court, that the two paid Judges of the Privy Council and one additional Judge, with occasional assistance from the Lords Justices, were to be the Appellate Court. Could it be considered satisfactory that appeals should be determined by Judges whose experience had been more with Indian cases and matters of that kind? He protested against this, and he was sure that the country would not be satisfied with it. These gentlemen themselves were put into the Court that now existed under the Judicial Committee Act of 1871, they being by that Act appointed Judges of a Supreme Court of Appeal, which was to hear appeals from all parts of the world without there being any appeal from their judgment. Now, would it be right to transfer these high judicial officers from the Court to which they had been solemnly appointed and to put them into another Court, which was to be an Intermediate Court of Appeal? It seemed to him that this would be a violation of good faith, and a breach of the Parliamentary engagement which had been entered into with them. It had been said that there were provisions in the Act of 1871 which would entitle the Government so to treat them; but he contended that there was no justification whatever for that statement. It was distinctly understood that upon any fresh constitution of a "Supreme Appellate Tribunal" they were to be considered to be at the service of the country, but this would not justify the treatment which it was now proposed that they should receive. He wished to point out that it was no part of his intention that this Bill should be rejected and nothing further done. On the contrary, it was clear that the Act of 1873 was passed in an imperfect form. It was contemplated that something more should be done, and something more must be done; and the Government had no right to place before them this dilemma—that they must either take this Bill, or the Judicature Act of 1873 must be left to take its chance. If the Appellate Jurisdiction in the present Bill was not satisfactory, it was their duty to bring in a Bill likely to be satisfactory, and there should be some assurance that a really efficient Court of Appeal would be established. If such an assurance were given he would withdraw his Motion.

remarked that the Attorney General, in discussing on the introduction of the Bill the various courses which might be taken, and in speaking of that of pressing forward the Bill of 1873, said that such a course on the part of the House would stultify it, and in that opinion he agreed with him. He also agreed with his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Watkin Williams), that this should not be converted into a Party question. But the part of his hon. and learned Friend's (the Attorney General's) explanation which did not commend itself to his mind was the grounds upon which he asked the House partly to stultify itself by rejecting an integral and essential part of the Act of 1873. The Attorney General, referring to the Report of the Judicature Commission, said that it did not recommend the abolition of the jurisdiction of the House of Lords. But they expressly stated that they made no recommendation on the subject, because they did not consider it within the Order of Reference. In 1873, the then Lord Chancellor (Lord Selborne) proposed a measure, the effect of which was to constitute one single Court of Appeal for England, but it did not deal with Ireland or Scotland. On the 3rd of April, that Bill was referred to a Select Committee of the House of Lords, and by that Committee the provisions ultimately passed with regard to the question of Appellate Jurisdiction were approved. On the 8th of July, Lord Cairns said, as to this Bill which abolished the House of Lords as an Appellate Court for England though not for Ireland or Scotland, that he not only approved of this course but insisted upon it. He thought that the Bill should be confined to England, and that Ireland and Scotland should be afterwards dealt with. On the 2nd of May, Lord Redesdale proposed an Amendment in the Bill, the object of which was to retain the jurisdiction of the House of Lords; and upon a division only 13 Members of the House of Lords voted with him. The present Lord Chancellor entirely refused to assent to the proposition that there should be an Appellate Court that should be applicable to the Three Kingdoms, and insisted that the Bill should be confined to the Appellate Jurisdiction from England. When the Bill had reached the House of Commons the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Charley) moved an Amendment to retain the jurisdiction of the House of Lords; but the result was that he got so little support from his Party that he withdrew his Amendment without any division being taken upon it; and the abolition of the jurisdiction of the House of Lords with reference to England was affirmed upon the second reading.

said, that he only brought forward his Amendment in order that so important a constitutional question might be fully discussed and a division was taken in Committee, on which occasion he was supported by the Party to which he belonged.

observed, that he had not yet got down to the Committee, and as to the second reading, the explanation did not differ from what he had stated. On the 3rd of July, the 6th clause, by which the new Court of Appeal was constituted, came up for consideration, and the right hon. Member (Mr. Spencer Walpole) moved the postponement of the clause. Thereupon the right hon. Gentleman the present First Minister of the Crown made a speech on the subject, and as he was now in a position to give effect to his views, it was important to consider what they were. The effect of the right hon. Gentleman's speech was that we ought to have only two Courts, one of Primary Decision and one of Conclusive Appeal, and that all Courts of Intermediate Appeal ought to be abolished, together with the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords, which was not fitted to undertake the business of the Intermediate as well as that of the Final Court of Appeal. The right hon. Gentleman having laid down these principles, expressed his approval of the Bill of 1873 because it carried out those principles and abolished the Intermediate Court of Appeal as well as the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords. The right hon. Gentleman, therefore, was far from saying what the legal Advisers of the Crown now said—that the Bill of 1873 was anomalous in placing England in one condition and Scotland and Ireland in another with regard to their Courts of Appeal; on the contrary, he had declared that the measure of 1873, which gave England and Scotland and Ireland different Courts of Final Appeal, was a prudent and a sagacious one. He had thus established his proposition that up to the end of 1873 the lawyers and the laymen of both parties were agreed that there should be only one single Court of of Appeal, at all events, for England. The present Solicitor General, especially, had contended that the double Courts of Appeal in this country occasioned serious evils, and were a fruitful source of delay and of expense to the suitors, and that it was better to have one good tribunal. On the 8th of July, 1873, the present Lord Chancellor having objected to the operation of the Bill being extended to Scotland and Ireland, the late Prime Minister yielded the point, and the Bill passed into law as it was originally introduced, and consequently it only applied to England. A last attempt was made by Lord Redesdale and the other noble Lords who opposed the measure to prevent its becoming law, but the Amendment they proposed was negatived on a division by 61 to 34. What had happened since then to cause the Members of the Government to alter their views on the subject of this measure? The Prime Minister having declared that it was the very essence of Judicature reform that they should have only one Pinal Court of Appeal, how was it the Government now came forward and asked the House to accept a Bill which constituted an Intermediate Court of Appeal and did not constitute a Pinal Court of Appeal? That was a matter which required explanation. In 1874, the state of affairs had greatly changed. The Dissolution had occurred and the present Government became masters of the situation. But the result of that change was that the present Lord Chancellor introduced a Bill on this subject which was on exactly the same lines as that of 1873, inasmuch as it proposed to abolish the Scotch and Irish Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords. There was, it was true, a slight change in the Bill, inasmuch as it introduced the principle of re-hearing, and it was argued that, in point of fact, that was a second Appellate Court; but the Lord Chancellor upon that occasion entirely repudiated that view of the matter, stating that a re-hearing was a totally different thing from a second appeal. What happened to that Bill in 1874? Lord Redesdale, who had been a constant opponent of the measure, proposed an Amendment to it on the 11th of June, which was intended to keep alive the jurisdiction of the House of Lords, and not to allow its abolition. The Lord Chancellor at once said that this Motion was one to which the Government were entirely opposed, and because it involved consequences which had not been anticipated it was necessary that this question of appeal should be settled once and for all, and not be left any longer hanging up before the public as a question undetermined. If that was true on the 11th June, 1874, was it not still more true on the 10th June, 1875? and on a division of 52 to 23 they affirmed the principle of the Bill, The Bill came down to the House of Commons late in the Session, when the hon. and learned Member for Wexford (Sir George Bowyer) moved his Resolution on the subject, and the Attorney General was of opinion that the matter was settled, and could not be re-opened. Why did he think it was settled in July, 1874, and why did he think it was not settled in June, 1876? Did the Government think there was any change in public opinion on this question in the present year? No; they introduced in the third year a Bill founded upon precisely the same principles, and containing practically the same provisions as that of 1873. It was introduced in the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor, and then occurred the circumstance of which they had had singularly little explanation. Circumstances occurred which were not very familiar to our Western civilization or to our Parliamentary life. So far as he could understand, something took place of the character which devolved upon Eastern potentates and their representatives. There seemed to have been a sort of émeute of the Janizaries, and, so far as he could learn, the expression of it was not very articulate. The mutes of the Seraglio posed round the Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack, and what happened was only known by report and not through the ordinary channels of information. All they knew was that the Lord Chancellor, at the head of a powerful Government, having received the support of both Houses of Parliament for a measure in 1874, produced a measure of a similar character in 1875, but before it could be discussed the noble and learned Lord was obliged to make the humiliating admission that he could not proceed with his Bill, and consequently withdrew it. What was the meaning of such a proceeding? If there were reasons to be given against the Bill and policy of 1873 why were they not given? Was that the way in which Parliamentary Bills were to be dealt with—in which Parliamentary discussion was to be treated? That was a proceeding which was totally unexampled, and which his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General had totally failed to explain that day. They were now asked to approve of two Courts of Appeal, and that was contrary to the declarations of the Prime Minister, as one of the first principles which the Press, philosophers, practitioners, and everybody else agreed upon was that there should be only one Court. In the 4th clause of the Bin they were called upon to create a new Intermediate Court of Appeal without any Final Court of Appeal at all. That was contrary to the protest of the Lord Chancellor a year ago that it was mischievous to the public interest that these questions should be kept in suspense. He (Sir William Harcourt) knew that in politics they must take things as they found them. He should have been very glad if he thought there was any possibility of carrying into effect at once the Act of 1873, and of not suspending the Appellate Jurisdiction at all. There was one question which he ventured to submit to the consideration of his hon. and learned Friend on the opposite bench. If they were going to suspend the question of Appellate Jurisdiction, was it not idle to deal with a part of it? He adhered to the principles of the Act of 1873, and was willing to save as much of it as could be beneficially saved. So far as the present Bill had for its object to save a portion of the Act of 1873, so far he agreed with it, and therefore he should support the second reading. That being the object, and the suspensory clauses only being proposed to apply to the Appellate Jurisdiction, what was the purpose of passing half an Appellate Jurisdiction and leaving the other in suspense? He agreed that a multiplicity of appeals were a great evil; but they need not decide that question now. If they were going to hang up the question of the Final Court of Appeal, why was it necessary to produce an Intermediate Appeal at all? Why not suspend the Appeal question altogether? They abolished the House of Lords Jurisdiction in 1873, and in this Bill that was in a sense revived, for it suspended the clauses which abolished it. Why not do the same thing with the Exchequer Chamber and the Lords Justices, and then they would leave the whole question of Appellate Jurisdiction open to be settled at some future time? If they were going to re-consider the whole question of Final Appeal next year, it was not worth while to go and pull about the Courts of Privy Council and appoint new Judges, and so forth, and so make a mere botch for a single year. They had far better leave things as they were. It was not merely that they were tying their hands in the consideration of the Ultimate Court of Appeal, if they chose to constitute an Intermediate Court without knowing what the Final Court would be, but they were using up some of the materials which they might want for that Final Court. This question could be much better dealt with as a whole than as a part. It was impossible the profession could accept as satisfactory a Court such as that proposed in Clause 4. They were going to take two Judges from the Privy Council. What right, he asked, had they to weaken that important Appellate Court? It was one of the most important Courts of the country, and as India and our Colonies grew in prosperity more and more suits would come before it for decision. Why were they to take away two Judges of the Appellate Court for India and the Colonies and to utilize them for England and Scotland? The proposal was one which he regarded as being wholly untenable. Clause 12 provided that three Judges were to be a quorum, and in some cases it was two; but he thought that the decision of two or three Judges would not be regarded as satisfactory. He should have liked the Bill of 1873 to come into operation, but as they were going to leave over for the present the question of the Final Court of Appeal, involving the jurisdiction of the House of Lords, then they might as well postpone also the other portions of the measure. Why not leave all over? The Lord Chancellor had been careful not to make the statement which the sanguine candour of his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Watkin Williams) had induced him to offer, and he should follow the example of the Head of the Law rather than that of his hon. and learned Friend. He understood the principle of the present measure was to keep alive the Act of 1873 in respect of everything but the final Appellate Jurisdiction, and in that he acquiesced rather than concurred. He would ask the Government, if they were determined to suspend the Appeal question, not to prejudge any part of it, but to leave it all open, the constitution of the Intermediate Court included. That decision might cause some difficulty of detail; but he hoped the Attorney General would maturely consider the suggestion. For the reasons the had given he could not vote for the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend, but must vote for the second reading of the Bill.

said, he did not propose to follow his hon. and learned Friend who had just sat down into the history of the Commission of 1867, or that which gave rise to the Act of 1873. But, having been a Member of the Judicature Commission, and having to a very great extent approved the Act of 1873, he did not wish now to see it repealed. He thought that Act was, in many respects, most beneficial. That Act was passed through the House of Commons after previous attempts had been made to legislate according to the views expressed by the Judicature Commission. The first attempt at legislation failed; but ultimately, in 1873, the Act was passed, for which so much credit was claimed by its authors. He was, however, bound to say that from the first, in the legal profession throughout the country, he had heard great dissatisfaction expressed as to some of the provisions of that Act. But for what had subsequently occurred that Act would have come into operation last year, and he, for one, should have been glad if that portion of the Act which it was now proposed to bring into operation had come into operation a year ago. It would have been a very great advantage to the country if last November a High Court of Law had been established, because they would have been making at the present time some of those alterations which the Judicature Commission of 1869 pointed out as desirable, and which had been enacted by the Act of 1873. It was hardly right for the hon. and learned Gentleman to say that the object of the present Bill was to keep alive the Act of 1873. It was rather, for the first time, an Act for giving it life; and although it gave life only to some of its provisions, and not to all, he was glad his hon. and learned Friend (Sir William Harcourt) was going to vote for the second reading, in order to enable the Courts next November to establish a system which he, for one, hoped would be of the greatest possible benefit to this country. He had for many years felt the scandal of having different Courts—Courts of Law and Equity—in which partial justice only could be administered; and it was found to be essential that every Court in which a cause commenced should have the power so to deal with it as to do full and final justice, whether on legal or equitable principles. That was by no means the sole object of the Act of 1873, independently of any question of Appeal. There were other matters which required amendment. There was the great scandal prevailing that, in consequence of the intermittent sittings of the Courts—especially in London and Middlesex—the cause lists were crowded, suits were delayed, and the suitors were disappointed; whereas, if the sittings could be prolonged and made continuous, the cause list would be exhausted, and the suitors would go away satisfied, instead of being disappointed, as at present. A very large number of causes were waiting for trial which were not reached under the present system. A great number of these cases, however, remained in the lists because the defendants made special jury cases of them; but if the sittings of the Court were continuous, perhaps 20 of these cases would be arranged and would be gone through in a single day. An act of justice would therefore be done to suitors which had been long wanted. He did not propose to enlarge upon the merits of the Act of 1873; but in that year it was thought right by Parliament to alter the state of things which had existed in this country for many years, and to create a new Court of Appeal. That Court was created, not in consequence of any advice given by the Judicature Commission, but in consequence of some other counsels which prevailed at that time. Unless, however, he could find some very superior Court of Appeal, he should say it was better to continue an Intermediate Court of Appeal, because he was convinced that an Intermediate Court of Appeal did decide many cases, ultimately and finally, between parties, and thereby relieved a Superior Court of Appeal of a great deal of business which would otherwise devolve upon it. The hon. and learned Member (Mr. Watkin Williams) appeared at first to have some vacillating feelings as to the merits of the House of Lords as a Court of Appeal; but at last he blessed them altogether, and seemed inclined to exclaim—"Thank God, there is a House of Lords!" One great merit, at any rate, in that tribunal was, not only that cases were heard by men of great patience, learning, and dignity, but because they had the oppor- tunity of hearing cases which had passed through the ordeal of a Primary Court, and which had afterwards been thoroughly sifted by a First Court of Appeal. Every case that came before the Final Court had been thoroughly discussed, and the judgments printed; and it was because the best possible consideration had been given to each case and every argument on both sides had been brought forward, that judgments given by the House of Lords had been so satisfactory to the public. With regard to the question, whether the House of Lords should remain the ultimate Court of Appeal, he suspended his judgment entirely. A vast deal of consideration ought to be given to the matter, and many lawyers had been canvassed to give their adhesion to the principle of retaining the final appeal in the House of Lords. No doubt a strong feeling had arisen that the state of things provided by the Act of 1873 was not satisfactory, and that upon two principal grounds. First, there was to be a Final Court of Appeal. The Act began by saying that three Judges would be sufficient to constitute a Final Court of Appeal, unless those Judges allowed their judgments to go before a larger number of Judges, who were only in that event to have the opportunity of overruling the three Judges. The state of things might still exist that the Court of First Instance might be composed of two or three Judges, and that the Court of Appeal might consist of three Judges not more learned than the Court of First Instance; and unless a re-hearing was allowed that Court of three Judges was to give final judgment in that case. The possible result he wished to point out was, that a point involved in the construction of an Act of Parliament or of a will might be decided in a particular way by the three Judges, and, in another case, the same point might be decided by a Court of First Instance, and then the Court of Appeal, consisting of the larger number of Judges, might overrule the Court of Appeal consisting of three, although its decision, as far as the parties were concerned, was final. He did not think this would be satisfactory. Therefore, he thought it was expedient to see whether that public opinion which had expressed itself pretty strongly in reference to the matter ought not to be considered before the Act of 1873, so far as Appeal was concerned, was made the ultimate legislation upon the subject. In 1874, a Bill was introduced to establish an Intermediate Court of Appeal, and also to constitute a Court which it was hoped would ultimately be a Court of Final Appeal for England, Scotland, and Ireland; and no one could doubt that the best Court of Ultimate Appeal would be one which could entertain appeals from England, Scotland, and Ireland. It might be right to say that, on hearing an appeal from either Kingdom the House of Lords sat as a Court of Appeal for that Kingdom; but the practical effect of the Act of 1873 was in operation that the Court for each Kingdom would be different from the Court for either of the other two, and there would be in England an Appeal Court by whose decisions the House of Lords would not be bound. Irish appeals would come from the Irish Court of Exchequer Chamber, and in such cases the House of Lords might give decisions at variance with those of the Court of Appeal for England, which might differ on the same question from the Irish Court. He was anxious that this Bill should be read a second time in order that so much of the Act of 1873 as was unobjectionable might be brought into operation as soon as possible. Something had been said as to the impropriety of taking two learned Judges from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and importing them into a Court of Appeal, which did not deal with Indian and Colonial appeals and other matters which the Ultimate Court of the Privy Council did deal with. There would, no doubt, be some objections to the removal of those Judges from that tribunal; but he was astonished that the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Watkin Williams) should make the objection he had made, that the learned Judges of the Judicial Committee were hardly fit to assume the functions of Judges of Appeal in the Court proposed by this Bill. In the Act of 1873—which the hon. and learned Member was, as he understood, instrumental in passing—some of those learned Gentlemen were made Judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal established by that Act; and yet the hon. and learned Member now said they were not fit, or might not be fit, to be Judges of the Intermediate Court of Appeal proposed by the present Bill. He doubted very much whether it was sound advice that things should remain as they were until the question of Ultimate Appeal was finally settled. He should be sorry if, except as a matter of necessity, there should be anything like a permanent and continued absence from the Privy Council of any of those learned Judges who sat there habitually now, and who had raised that tribunal to its present high character. If it came to be shown that there would be sufficient judicial strength to constitute a strong and continuous Intermediate Court of Appeal during next year, it would be convenient to allow it to continue even when the new Supreme Court was established, so that the Legislature might not be trammelled next Session by the new Court proposed by this Bill. He would pass no opinion now as to continuing or strengthening the House of Lords as an Appeal Court. It was not what it used to be when a Lord Chancellor sat alone and confirmed his own judgment; and, although it would not be stronger than at present, the time might come when it would be weakened, unless some provision were made for continually strengthening it and making it sit continuously to hear appeals. On these matters he reserved his opinion; but meanwhile he was clearly of opinion there was much advantage in bringing into operation that part of the Act of 1873 which had been well considered and had met with public approval; and that it would be well to pass the suspensory clauses of the Bill, because the public were not now satisfied with the appeal clauses of the Act of 1873, and it would be wise to take further time to consider a step which would have a bearing on the Judicature of the country for a long time to come.

, after congratulating the House and his hon. and learned Friend (Sir John Karslake) upon his re-appearance in that House, said that, although the debate had only lasted two hours and a-half, they had at least ascertained two things—namely, that they were in a great mess, and that the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for the Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Watkin Williams) would not get them out of it. As the Attorney General had pointed out, they must suspend the Act of 1873 for another year, or as the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Waddy) wished, they must repeal the Act altogether. For his part, he contended that they ought not to suspend that Act, or they might be suspending it year after year. Instead of standing shivering on the bank, they had better at once take the cold plunge, or put on their clothes and go home. Repealing the Act of 1873 was a serious matter, for the Act was not passed in a hurry; this House devoted 10 nights to it, and had 23 divisions upon it; the Judges had spent 18 months in maturing a body of rules, and yet it was proposed to undo all that had been been done. He did not deny the competency of one Parliament to reverse the decisions of another; but it would be a very strong measure so to deal with the Act of 1873, particularly as it had never yet had a single day of trial. Nobody wished to return to the old state of things—to set up, as Lord Westbury used to say, one Court to do injustice and another to remedy it—nobody wanted to revive the old distinction between Courts of Law and Equity, to have one system prevail in Lincoln's Inn and another in Westminster Hall. In 1874 a Motion was made by the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. Butt) that the House of Lords should be retained as a Pinal Court of Appeal; but it was rejected by 191 to 29, and in the list of the majority he found the name of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Denbigh Boroughs. How had the sudden collapse occurred? Who was responsible for this change of front? Not Parliament, for Parliament was committed to the abolition of the House of Lords as a Final Court of Appeal, but some assembly sitting in St. James's Place. At the first blast of the trumpet of that self-constituted caucus, which had no official, recognized, or Parliamentary existence, the strongest Conservative Government since the days of Sir Robert Peel ran away, like the French Army at the battle of Fishguard, from a few old women in red cloaks. He wished to point out that they were committing one great and fatal mistake by passing this Bill in its present shape. They settled the constitution of the Intermediate Court of Appeal, without attempting to deal with the far more important question of the Final Court of Appeal. The House of Lords as a Court of Appeal was to be placed in a state of suspended animation for another year, and subjected to a process of vivisection. If this subject was to be dealt with at all, it ought to be dealt with as a whole. His advice to the Government would be to re-cast this measure, and legislate on the question in a comprehensive form, dealing not only with the Intermediate Court of Appeal, but also with the Final Court of Appeal. If the House of Lords was to be continued as a Final Court of Appeal, let it be under improved arrangements with respect to the duration of its sittings and the mode of selection, and let it be made a first-rate tribunal; and if that was to be done, let it be done at the same time that they were dealing with the Intermediate Court of Appeal. There was no reason why that should not be accomplished in the present Session; but if that could not be done, and if any part of the scheme was to be suspended, let it comprehend all the clauses which related to the subject of Appeal; for if they dealt with it in this piecemeal fashion the result could only be that their last state would be worse than their first, and that in attempting to avoid one difficulty they would fall into another and a greater one.

said, he thought it would relieve the House from a great difficulty to re-cast the Act of 1873 with this Bill, and make out of the two one measure. The Act of 1873 had never yet been fully considered either by Parliament or in the country, and he believed it would be the best course if the Government, instead of proceeding with the present Bill, which was to amend an Act which had not as yet, and would not for some time, come into operation, could see their way to amalgamating the two. In his opinion, neither the profession nor the public were in any very great hurry for the Act of 1873. He did not quite agree with his hon. and learned Friend (Sir John Karslake) in his anticipation of the great advantages to be derived from the operation of this Act. There were anomalies in our judicial system before 1873; but it was a complete mistake to suppose that they were then put an end to. All the advantages which the public would derive from the Act of 1873 might have been secured by the enactment of half-a-dozen clauses. The boasted fusion between Law and Equity was a mockery. It was absurd to suppose that the fusion of Law and Equity could be secured by simply enacting that the same Judge should administer both, but even that was not secured. Suppose a man whose wife had run away from him went to the First Division of the Court. He would be referred to Sir James Hannen. Suppose another applicant were a man whose ship had been run down in the Thames. He would be referred to the Admiralty Court; and a horse case would be sent to the Queen's Bench, the Common Pleas, or Exchequer just as it was now. As to the Appellate Court, the Act of 1873 either did too much or too little. The present was not the proper occasion for discussing the question whether the House of Lords should be retained as the Supreme Court of Appeal or not. He would content himself with asking, If the House of Lords were a good thing, why should Ireland and Scotland alone get the benefit of it, and why should England and Wales be excluded? If, on the other hand, the House of Lords were a bad thing, why impose on Ireland and Scotland a tribunal not thought good enough for England? He would urge on the Attorney General to take the course of dealing with the subject of this Bill and the Act of 1873 in one measure.

unfortunately did not altogether agree with some of his learned Friends. He could not join the hon. and learned Member for the Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Watkin Williams) in his eulogies on the Act of 1873. He had always felt that that Act was a very pretentious one, that, if ever it came into operation, it would be found to fall far short of what it purported to effect. It proposed to bring Lawland Equity together in one Supreme Tribunal, while it split up that Tribunal into divisions, stereotyping and perpetuating the present distinctive character of the present Superior Courts and of the Courts of Equity under other names. Such a mode of dealing with the question could only be justified on the ground that the measure was a transitional one. Nor was he satisfied with the Appellate part of the measure, one great defect in which was that it separated the Appellate Court into three divisions which might each arrive at a different decision on the self-same questions. The Bill, however, apparently came down to this House with orders that it was to be passed en bloc, and no suggestion was listened to. What greater condemnation could there be of such a Bill than that it left open the question of an Appeal Court for Ireland and Scotland? He did not blame the present Government for not completing a measure which should have been completed by the Government in 1873. But he held them responsible for an attempt to repeal, by a side-wind, an Act of Parliament solemnly passed, and he asked what unseen influence, what hidden power, had been used to bring about a change which no influence in Parliament had succeeded in effecting? As he (Mr. Serjeant Simon) understood his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, he was going, with the permission of the House, to appoint a temporary Court of Appeal, and to shift Judges from one Court to another. If that was so, it seemed to him that they were going to do a most unwise thing, and that instead of reforming the law, they would unsettle and confuse it. He was not speaking in a spirit of opposition to the Bill of his hon. and learned Friend, nor did he contemplate going into the Lobby in a division against it; but he hoped his hon. and learned Friend would consider whether the question of the Appellate Jurisdiction should not be postponed until the Government were in a position to take the question up as a whole, and in the meantime to leave the existing Intermediate Courts to remain as they were until the question of the Final Court of Appeal had been settled. As he (Mr. Serjeant Simon) understood it, the Attorney General himself did not expect that the proposed Court of Appeal would be a permanent one; but he (Mr. Serjeant Simon) considered that if they were to have a temporary Court of Appeal that would be a most unsatisfactory state of things. He asked the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General whether it was wise to establish a temporary Court of Appeal, when it was understood that they were at a future time to consider the whole question of an Appellate Court.

said, he thought when some future historian would come to write the history of the change in the laws of this country which they were now considering he would have some difficulty. The Parliament had been now three years occupied in considering and legislating on this subject, and there had been three Bills in reference to it brought in; but he ventured to say that no person was yet satisfied with the position of the question or knew in what direction it was tending. The intention of the Judicature Commission and of the framers of the Act of 1873 was, in the first place, to obtain a fusion of Law Equity, and, in the second, to secure such a division of the judicial work of the country among the Courts as would utilize the judicial power to the fullest extent; but, in his opinion the Bill of his hon. and learned Friend would create a great deal of confusion. It was said that it was a scandal to their legal system that there were two sets of Law and two sets of Courts; and when the question was asked what was the use of Law, the answer was go to Equity. Lord Erskine, asked a learned Judge in a case, what course he was to take, and was told he must go to Equity, when he replied—"Surely, my Lord, you would not send a fellow-creature to such a place as that." The system in the Courts of London and Westminster was said to be a scandal. With regard to the Act of 1873, it disturbed the Judicature system of this country. It spoiled and confused everything. The Judges were all mixed up together, and for equitable causes it was said there should be Common Law Judges, and in certain Common Law cases it was said there should be Equity Judges to whom a preference was given over the Judges of the other Courts. Thus it was indicated there would be a conflict of law, and that in the conflict one Court should have the preference over another. Well, if that were so, it could all be done without this sort of proceeding. Under the Act of 1873 a Judge might be transferred by Royal Sign Manual from one Division of the Supreme Court to another. Such a removal might be made in order to accomplish a dishonest and unconstitutional purpose of an evil Government. These removals would be most unconstitutional because they were contrary to the principle of the Constitution as to the irremovability of Judges. Unless the Judges were fixed so that they could not be removed without their own consent their independence and dignity would be gone. The style of the Judges would be altered under the Act of 1873; instead of being styled Puisne Judges or Barons of the Exchequer, they were to be called Judges of Her Majesty's High Court of Justice. That, he thought, was a great innovation upon the historical existence of the Courts of Law. The names of the Judges were not so unimportant as some people thought. There was another thing which he had not heard mentioned in the debate. Under the Act of 1873 the Crown in Council might on the report of the Judges—which might be the report of a majority of one—change the number of the Divisions, or make any number of Divisions, and abolish the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and the Master of the Polls. Those were most ancient offices in the Constitution of England. How the Act of 1873 was passed through Parliament no one could tell. He did not sit in that Parliament and therefore was not responsible. At the time there was a Government which prided itself very much on what was called progress. They did not, he thought, draw a distinction between progress and change. They did not see that though progress was good when you were going in a good direction, it was bad when you were going in a bad direction; or that a man going over a precipice might reasonably be glad of what had been stigmatized as a retrograde movement. The Act of 1873 was brought in as a measure of progress. A great portion of the other side of the House thought it necessary to follow suit. He would venture to say there was scarcely a member of the legal profession of any position or experience who did not regret that the Act of 1873 was passed. The late Government went out of office and they bequeathed to their successors a damnosa hœreditas, the completion of the work which they had begun. People said—"The Act is passed and Parliament cannot stultify itself by undoing what is done." He thought a man very often stultified himself by sticking to a thing which he knew to be wrong. He was glad to say he had the opportunity of stopping the Bill of 1874. He took advantage of the late period of the Session. He did so deliberately; because he thought Parliament should have a chance of re-considering these matters, especially the great question of the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords which had been immaturely decided under the influence, he thought, of a peculiar Party combination. He did not agree with some of his hon. and learned Friends who thought the Government had done wrong in providing an Intermediate Court of Appeal. If there was only one Court of Appeal it would be completely blocked with business. The effect of having an Intermediate Court of Appeal was that the Appellate business was percolated through it, so that nothing went to the Ultimate Court of Appeal but what was of great importance and difficulty. The Ultimate Court of Appeal ought to establish a set of principles on which to decide difficult cases. The French did this by the jurisprudence of the Cour de Cassation; but the decisions of the House of Lords formed a body of law unsurpassed in any country in the world. The reporter in the House of Lords, Mr. Charles Clark, told him only the other day that during the present Session five decisions had been delivered which had fixed the law on most important questions. He ventured to say that no tribunal had yet been suggested which could be at all compared with the House of Lords as a Final Court of Appeal, The Irish Bar, practitioners and people, would not be satisfied without an appeal to the House of Lords; opinion in Scotland was the same; and the people and legal profession of England were content with the Appellate Jurisdiction of the Lords. He admitted the existence of sentiment upon this subject; but sentiment must not be despised. What was patriotism? Sentiment. What was loyalty? Sentiment. What were love of honour and desire of fame—which had been the main springs of great and heroic actions—but sentiment? Therefore the sentiment which was in favour of retaining the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords ought not to be despised. The House of Lords was a great tribunal, which had not its equal in Europe for dignity and historical antecedents. Its dignity and independence rendered it precious to the people of this country, and he ventured to assert that its actual working was not at all below its actual pretensions. It was said that a Court composed of the Law Lords only was a fiction. He did not think it was; but even supposing it to be so, he would ask, how much of the British Constitution would be left, if all the fictions in it were abolished? Besides, there was nothing extraordinary after all in a body delegating peculiar functions to those members of the body who were best qualified to perform them. Many things might be done to strengthen the judicial force of the House of Lords whenever it might require strengthening, and he felt sure there would be no difficulty in maintaining the Appellate Jurisdiction of that House in its pristine vigour. He did not agree with those who held that a Court of Appeal should consist of numerous members. On the contrary, he thought three persons might constitute a good Court of Appeal. Those who had acted with him in preserving the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords did not wish to embarrass the Government, who had, in his opinion, acted very fairly and properly. It was the fashion to blame them for weakness in giving way as they had done; but he thought they would have done quite wrong, had they obstinately set themselves against the opinions of Members of both Houses, the Bar in England, and the wishes of the Bench and the Bar in Ireland and Scotland. They had done quite right in leaving the question to be re-considered before it was too late. If the Government were to declare their intention not to suspend the clauses in the Act of 1873, but to repeal them, he believed that such a course of proceeding would be most satisfactory, for it would leave the matter to be settled during the next Session. He thought the Government were bound to preserve the ancient jurisdiction of the House of Lords, as a most important part of the Constitution, and an essential part of the judicial system which had so long been the pride and ornament of the nation.

regretted that the Act of 1873 had been drawn in the lines in which they found it, but believing that both branches of the profession were desirous that that Act should become law, he trusted that no factious Amendments would be proposed to delay its progress through the House. At the present time the question was continually put—"When are you going to settle the present unsettled state of things?" In reply to the question put by an hon. Member opposite as to why and how the Act of 1873 was passed, he would state that it was because the then Lord Chancellor and the Government of the day were not content to be the authors of a simple amending Act, such as the various Equity and Common Law Procedure Acts had been, but were desirous of bolstering up a failing Government and a waning popularity by introducing a sweeping measure which would have the credit of re-organizing the whole of the judicial system of the country. If the noble Lord had followed the directions and recommendations given by the Commissioners the country would not have been in the mess in which it was now placed. The main principles of the Judicature Act of 1873 were desirable, and if the Government had carried out the Amendments which had been proposed by an amending Act there would have been no alteration in the Judicature of the country. But instead of being content with that they desired to alter the whole judicial system of England, and the then Lord Chancellor introduced matters which had not been properly considered by the Judicature Commission. He believed the country regretted that the Government were so ambitious as to try to re-organize the whole system of our law. He did not intend to discuss the question of an Intermediate Appeal, because the country had pronounced itself unmistakably in favour of a second Court of Appeal, and the great body of practitioners in the country were in favour of such a Court. The real question now before the House was whether the temporary Court of Appeal proposed by the Government was as desirable as the existing Court of Exchequer Chamber. In his opinion it was impossible that the present Court of Exchequer Chamber could exist under the Act of 1873, and the Government, therefore, could not allow that Act to come into operation without at the same time creating some new Court of Appeal, even if it were only of a temporary character. The Government had determined that the number of Common Law Judges should be reduced to 12. Now, if the present Act should pass he believed there would be a greater amount of litigation than before, and he did not see how with that reduced number of Judges an Appellate Court could be formed. The great objection to the Court of Exchequer Chamber was the uncertainty of its sittings. But there was another objection, and that was that under the Act of 1873 it was intended that there should be a greater power of interchanging Judges from one Court to another, and thus it might happen that some of the Judges sitting in appeal might be the Judges who had determined the original trial of a case, and that had actually happened more than once during the past month. By the Common Law Procedure Act of 1852 many of the technicalities which previously existed were simplified, and the result of that Act had been that in almost every case equity had been done where it was desirable that equity should be done. The questions now to be determined were whether the House of Commons should pass this Bill or not; and, as another Court of Appeal must be established, whether a better Court could not be created than was proposed by Her Majesty's Government. He agreed with the hon. and learned Member for the Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Watkin Williams) that the Court proposed to be constituted was not the best. But that could be remedied in Committee, as Her Majesty's Government were not afraid to say to the country that they had spent some money for the country's benefit. He hoped they would not grudge £5,000 or £10,000 for the purpose of making the Court effective, especially when they considered the amount involved in the cases pending before the Court. He appealed to the Government to re-consider this portion of their measure; but, at the same time, he had great satisfaction in giving his vote for the second reading.

said, that as he had placed a Notice on the Paper, he did not feel inclined to give a silent vote. It was agreed on all hands that there should be a Court of Intermediate Appeal and a strong Court of Final Appeal. Although there was some difference of opinion on the point, it might also be taken as generally agreed upon that they could not have a thoroughly efficient Final Court of Appeal without an intermediate Court to sift the causes and prevent the Supreme Court from being overburdened. He regretted that the Attorney General had not spoken out freely. His complaint against the Government was not that they had altered their policy, but that they had not placed before Parliament a clear statement of their views with a determination to abide by it. The Government had proposed by this Bill the formation of an Intermediate Court of Appeal, which must, by its very nature, be an imperfect Court for the purpose. Perhaps, under the circumstances, they could not have done more; but they might, at all events, have given Parliament some indication of their own views as to what the Final Court of Appeal should be. Without some such indication, he felt that they were talking, so to speak, in the dark; and he regretted the Government had not made up their own minds on the subject, so as to enable Members on his side of the House to make up theirs as to the course they would take with reference to this Bill. Although he did not, like some hon. Members, think it the perfection of legislation, he was in favour of the measure of 1873, and thought that, having gone so far, they were bound to carry it into operation. He thought the best course would be to leave out the question of the Final Court of Appeal altogether for future consideration, and to confine themselves simply to the Intermediate Court. Next Session they would be able to deal with the question of a Final Court on its own merits, unfettered by other considerations. He believed that the House of Lords would satisfy public opinion as the best, because it was an Imperial Court capable of dealing not only with home appeals, but also those from India and the colonies. There were two provisions of the Act to which he thought fit at this stage to call the attention of the House. Under one section it would be competent for the Queen in Council, without consulting Parliament, to abolish any or even all of the circuits, and by another section an unusual power was given to the Lord Chancellor, whereby he might alter at his own discretion certain enactments of the Legislature.

said, that the historical accuracy of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt) might be judged from the fact that he stated that no division took place with regard to the question of Appellate Jurisdiction in 1873. The question now was whether they should have a second appeal, and if they decided that point in the affirmative it revived the question whether the Court of Pinal Appeal should be the House of Lords. When the Bill of 1873 was in this House he moved a Resolution in favour of retaining the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords, and he was supported by every Conservative lawyer then in the House, with one exception. He desired to withdraw his Amendment, but the then Attorney General (Lord Coleridge) was so irritated by an eloquent speech delivered by the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland (Dr. Ball), that he insisted on the Amendment being withdrawn—a wanton and very unnecessary proceeding. A large number of very practical and utilitarian persons were in favour of retaining the jurisdiction of the House of Lords, because it merited the confidence of suitors on account of the admirable manner in which it administered justice. It rose above the petty jealousies of "Westminster Hall; it was entirely free from the iron fetters of case law, and the active members of it approached the consideration of the questions submitted to them from a point of view which was not found in the other Courts. The House of Lords was essentially an Imperial tribunal, uniting England, Scotland, and Ireland; and many people thought that its association with the Judicature was an old landmark of the Constitution which should not be removed, especially by a Conservative Government. Last year he set himself to form a Committee for maintaining the Jurisdiction of the House of Lords, and that Committee now consisted of 40 Queen's Counsel, 35 Peers, and 138 Members of Parliament. It represented every phase of political opinion and every part of the Kingdom, and it had no intention of dissolving until it had secured the object it had in view. By the course which they had taken in introducing this Bill, the Government had rooted themselves more deeply than ever in the affections of their followers, and if the Government next year preserved the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords they would earn the lasting gratitude of their supporters.

supported the second reading of the Bill, and thought that the Government deserved great credit for the firm and honourable manner in which they had stood by a measure introduced by their opponents. There could be no doubt that the constitution of the Appeal Courts was a question on which there was great diversity of opinion, and upon which public opinion was evidently in a state of flux. Even his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Watkin Williams) was halting between two opinions, and it was not easy to determine either from his Motion or his speech what was his feeling in reference to the Act of 1873? His own opinion was that that Act was a very valuable measure of Law Reform, and one which promised great good to the public. No doubt it was looked upon with some apprehension by those whose professional position would be affected by it, and, like all other changes, it would possibly at first occasion some inconvenience, but in the long run it would, he hoped, justify the promises of its authors. Speaking with reference to his own experience, he could welcome the Act for its abolition of the present mode of taking evidence in Chancery upon affidavits made out of Court, and substituting for it the examination of witnesses in open Court—a change which, of itself, would be a very' great improvement, and, upon this ground, he was very anxious to see the Act of 1873 come into immediate operation. No doubt there were many imperfections in the Act—to say that, was only to say that it was an Act of Parliament dealing with a complex and difficult subject. But its affect should be tried, and its defects could then be remedied. For his own part, he had no hesitation in saying that when evidence was taken in open Court the existing staff of Chancery Judges would be found to be altogether inadequate to the work to be done, but nothing but actual experience would satisfy the House of this. Now as to the present Bill. Upon all sides it seemed to be conceded that, until the Ultimate Court of Appeal was determined upon, an interim period must be provided for, and of the three propositions that had been made in reference to this he must say that it seemed to him that the proposal of the Government was the best entitled to their support as involving the least expense, and as most completely recognizing a transition state of things, and he trusted they would be able to carry it substantially in the form in which it now stood. He concurred in the necessity for having an Ultimate Court of Appeal, because experience had shown that there were cases affecting civil and political rights as well as mere pecuniary interests of such importance as to justify, and even to require, a second consideration even upon appeal. The Court of Appeal now proposed must necessarily, in order to get through its work, sit in Divisions, and having regard to the different training which the members of those Divisional Courts had received, it was possible, and, in matter of procedure and practice it was almost certain, that those Divisions would give conflicting opinions, which could only be reduced into harmony by being brought before an Ultimate Court of Appeal. Whether this Court should be the House of Lords or a Supreme Court to hear appeals from all parts of the Empire, was a different and far more serious question. For his own part, he adhered to the principle of the Act of 1873, which provided a Supreme Court apart from the House of Lords. The value of the House of Lords, and of every other Court of Appeal simply depended, not upon the room they sat in, or the name by which they were called, but upon the men who sat there. Now, no doubt, they would have the same men in whatever Court of Ultimate Appeal they might establish; but in a new Court there would be this advantage—that the Members of it would be paid officers of the State, bound to attend whenever there were appeals ready for hearing, instead of sitting, as the House of Lords now did, at uncertain intervals. There never was a time when the judicial strength of the House of Lords was greater than now, and he would hesitate long before he sacrificed such power; but there was, in his opinion, no danger of that being required, and other talent would be available for a Supreme Court, of which the burden of the Peerage now deprived the country. The constitution of the Ultimate Court of Appeal could be very well discussed next year, and there was nothing in the present Bill which would interfere with their decision upon that matter.

moved the adjournment of the debate.

said, he hoped that proper provision would be made for the resumption of the debate, and that it would be put the First Order of the Day, so that there might be opportunity for having a substantial debate upon the question.

urged that a proper opportunity should be given on a future day for discussing the Land Titles and Transfer Bill, which had been adjourned from time to time.

wished to know, if the debate was to be adjourned, when it would be brought on again? It was most desirable that this should be as early as possible, so that legal Members might have an opportunity before they went on Circuit not only of joining in the debate upon the second reading, but also of discussing the Bill in Committee.

also hoped that full opportunity would be given to discuss the Bill.

said, he would make an arrangement that this debate should be proceeded with as soon as possible consistently with other business before the House. He hoped the House would not press him to name a day for the resumption of this debate, which he thought should be concluded as soon as possible consistently with the absolute requirements of Public Business.

said, he hoped when the debate was resumed that it would be the First Order of the Day.

, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to enlarge the powers of County Courts in respect of disputes between Employers and Workmen, and to give other courts a limited civil jurisdiction in respect of such disputes, said: I should not have moved the adjournment of the debate if I had not thought, with the concurrence of my Colleagues, there was a general wish that my statement with regard to this subject should be made to-night; and I hope that it will be considered by both sides of the House in no Party spirit, but with a genuine desire of arriving at a satisfactory conclusion on the question, and that it will not be mixed up with the question of strikes and trades unions, as it affects large interests which have nothing to do with one or the other, and thereby arrive at a satisfactory conclusion with fairness and calmness. The ancient law with reference to the relations between master and servant did not promote freedom of contract in any way, and the laws as originally laid down were very oppressive and restrictive. The original Statute of Labourers, which was passed, as everyone knows, in the reign of Edward III., after a great plague and pestilence in this country, contained very restrictive provisions to prevent the rise in wages which labourers were demanding. That statute enacted that—

"Every person able in body, under the age of 60 years, not having means to live on; being required shall be bound to serve him that doth require him, or else be committed to the gaol until he find surety to serve; and if a workman or servant left his service before the time agreed upon he should be imprisoned."

It also contained a section fixing what wages were to be paid, and declared that no higher wages should be paid. Passing over all the statutes which were enacted with regard to labourers at various times, I come down to another great period in our history—I mean the period after the suppression of monasteries. In the time of Elizabeth, I find the next great statute, sometimes called the Statute of Apprentices and sometimes the Statute of Labourers, contains provisions equally infringing on freedom of contract. First, the acceptance of work was made compulsory, the hours of labour were fixed, and the wages were to be fixed by it and under another statute by the Justices at the Easter Quarter Sessions. A master for dismissing his servant was only subjected to a penalty of 40s. The servant was liable to imprisonment; and no person was allowed to leave his shire without permission—no doubt to prevent vagrancy, which was increasing at that period in consequence of the relief given being cut off by the suppression of monasteries. No one can read that statute without feeling that, at all events, it was entirely out of date in the present age. I need not refer to any of the later statutes which were passed from time to time in the same spirit: but I would remind the House of this—that the same law of coercion against servants certainly did exist down to the year 1813, and to a very great extent down to the year 1824. If we look at the long list of statutes relating to master and servant—they amount to 17 or 18—we will find that every one of them was passed at a time when these coercive measures against servants were enforced in this country. The next thing to consider is what really was the state of the law before the passing of the Act it is proposed to amend, and in doing so it will be convenient to take the state of the law before the Royal Commission was appointed and consider first the Master and Servant Act, then the Criminal Law Amendment Act, and lastly the question of conspiracy. Before the passing of the Master and Servant Act, as far as I can make out, the state of the law was this—the relation of servant and master and that of master and servant was by no means the same. With regard to any action which a servant had to take against his master he must begin invariably by summons; on nonappearance he might have a warrant against his master; an order for payment of wages might be with or without costs; if that order was not complied with it might be followed by a distress, and if the master had not sufficient goods to satisfy the demand he might be imprisoned. But when we come to deal with the action of the master against the servant the law assumes a very different complexion. A summons was not necessary; there might be a warrant in the first instance. A summons or warrant went against the servant not simply for breach of contract, but for any misconduct in the execution of the contract. The penalty was that he might be sent to prison for three months, and in the first instance the wages might be abated; or he might be discharged from his contract. So that the law, before it was altered in 1867, was in this state—the remedy against a master was entirely civil, but the remedy against a servant was entirely criminal. In the case of a servant he might be arrested on a warrant and taken to prison if necessary before the case was heard, and when it was heard he was not allowed to give evidence in his own defence; whereas, if he brought a charge against the master, it being a civil matter, the master was entitled to give evidence against the servant. There were certain other evils. A case might be heard before a single Justice in his own private house; im- prisonment was the only punishment which could follow, and there was no appeal. To this state of things, which is a remnant of the old coercive laws, there is no doubt that servants took great exception. To inquire into the subject the House appointed a Select Committee, of which the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) was Chairman. That Committee reported that the state of the law was unjust and arbitrary, and they recommended certain alterations—that the inquiry should be in public; that it should be before two Justices, or one stipendiary; that there should always be a summons before a warrant; and that, instead of imprisonment being the necessary punishment, a fine should be imposed in the first instance, and then distress, followed by imprisonment: they also reported that there might be an order made for the specific performance of contract; that in an aggravated case of injury to person or property a servant might be sent to prison, and that he should be allowed to give evidence in his own defence. A great many of these recommendations were embodied in an Act which was passed in the following year. There was to be a public trial before two Justices; there should be a summons in the first instance before a warrant; and the party be allowed to give evidence in his own defence. According to the original Bill there might be an order for fulfilment of the contract, or it might be annulled, compensation might be assessed for injury, and wilful and malicious injury was made a crime indictable at Quarter Sessions. In the progress of the Bill changes were introduced, and when it became law it had assumed a difierent complexion. Power was given to the Justices to order the fulfilment of a contract, or annul it and award compensation; and then followed in the 9th clause remarkable words, to the effect that where compensation would not meet the circumstances of the case there must be a fine, and on failure to pay it or to do what was ordered there must be imprisonment. The 4th and the 9th sections made these words refer to several breaches of contract and cases of conduct and misdemeanour, as well as to the offences defined by the 17 statutes named in the Schedule, the operation of which was only suspended by the operation of the Master and Servant Act, not being repealed. The 14th clause had given rise to much discussion. It provided that where the conduct complained of had been of an aggravated character, and not committed in the bonâ fide exercise of a legal right, and if it appeared that the case was not a fit one for pecuniary compensation or other remedy, then a man might be sent to prison. That was the Act of 1867 which is about to expire. When it became law it was considered by the servants generally throughout the country as a very great boon; and it was spoken of in terms of credit and praise, not simply by the Press, but by persons occupying high positions in life, and the Secretary to the Society of the Operative Classes, in an address, said that the previous laws had been replaced by one which put the employer and the employed on an equal footing. The question arises, what are the objections which are now taken to that law which was so much approved at the time it passed? The objections may be traced to what the Act retains of the character of our ancient law; that forbade freedom of contract for service; and this Act, although it mitigates the ancient law in many ways, still retains a criminal character. It is said that civil contracts ought to be enforced in Civil Courts, and that the contract of service is the only one that is enforced by the Criminal Law. That is the main objection to the principle of the Bill, and other objections went to matters of detail. By common consent it was an ill-drawn Act, and one very hard to be thoroughly understood. And then came the 14th clause, with reference to aggravated breaches of contract, which it was said really formed a kind of sliding scale from the difficulty of being able to say when it was, and when it was not, an aggravated case—some justices considering the eases were only breaches of simple contract, whilst others held upon similar facts that they were aggravated breaches of contract. Some held that they might imprison for any breach of agreement, however slight and excusable; and on this account it was said that the old law survived in spirit in spite of the qualifying words in the Act. No doubt, great objections to the Act of 1867 still exist. When the Government came into office they, on finding this Act was going to expire, took a course which I believe to be right under the circumstances. Instead of immediately legislating upon the subject, they appointed a Royal Commission in order to ascertain what were the difficulties experienced in working the Act of 1867; what were the great objections to it; and how they could best meet those objections and difficulties. The Commission appointed was one composed of Gentlemen of the highest standing in the country, who could have no interest one way or the other in finding out what were the anomalies that existed and what should be the remedies to be applied. No doubt, they entered upon their labours with a sincere and earnest wish to do what they thought right. They did not spare either time or trouble in their deliberations, and they have this year presented their Report, and it is upon that Report I desire to make some suggestions to the House. Before, however, leaving the Act of 1867, I ought to say that those who represented working men stated, before the Committee of 1866, as well as before the Commission, that they had no wish whatever to prevent the punishment of anyone who had committed a crime, and that there were crimes which were necessarily committed only by breach of contract on the part of those who stood in the relation of employed to employers. For instance, Mr. Harrison admitted that a man who maliciously exposed his employer to injury committed a specific offence, and he instanced the case of an engine-driver abandoning an engine at full speed, or a driver abandoning a horse on the highway. So, again, Mr. Crompton admitted that there were specific employments in which distinct breach of contract undoubtedly involved serious risk or injury to life and property; and these offences, he contended, should be dealt with, not by the 14th section, but by express provisions of the criminal law. The instances named were those of the police force, miners, railway servants, merchant seamen, all of whom have special dangers attached to the employments in which they are engaged—special dangers, too to the general public for whose interest, and not particularly for the interest of their masters or fellow-servants, it is that they should be subject to special laws. Passing by those special cases, which should be dealt with as such, let us see what the Report of the Commission is upon the Act of 1867. They first discussed very properly the 4th and 9th sections, leaving out of view the aggravated cases under the 14th section. I will read one or two paragraphs of the Report showing the conclusions to which the Commissioners came on cases of absolute breach of contract. But, first of all, I should state that this is the unanimous Report of the whole Commission, without any single exception; for although there is a separate Report from the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Macdonald) at the end of the Report, his Report is entirely in accord with the rest of the Commissioners on this—

"That the mere breach of contract such as was contemplated by the 9th section of the Act should be divested of all character of criminalty, and we therefore recommend that the power of the magistrate to impose a fine under that section, when compensation cannot be assessed, should be taken away. If the complaining party has sustained or will sustain loss, compensation can be assessed; if he has not, he has no claim to damages, and the infliction of the fine can only operate by way of punishment, which Presupposes a criminal act, and not a claim of damages arising from a breach of contract."

The Commissioners then went on to say—

"But for the reasons we have already given; we cannot advise that imprisonment in the last-mentioned form should be done away with, although we think that the servant should be sent to that part of the prison in which persons imprisoned for debt are confined, and not to a common gaol. And the jurisdiction here conferred should, in our opinion, be limited to matters arising specifically out of the contract entered into between the parties."

On this particular there is no difference of opinion whatever—namely, that in all ordinary cases of breaches of contract between master and servant, the whole of the old law, so far as it is coercive, shall be swept away, and that they shall be treated simply by a civil proceeding. I now come to that part of the Report which deals with breaches of contract of an aggravated character. The Commissioners state—

"Some of our number, feeling the force of the objection founded on the anomalous character of the law by which breach of contract is treated as a criminal offence, and thinking that a sufficient remedy can be found for the prevention of breach of contract, though of an aggravated character, are of opinion that it would be better that it should be dealt with as falling within the civil rather than the criminal law. To those Members of the Commission it appears that it would be sufficient if power were given to the justice in aggravated cases, such as we have pointed out, to commit to prison for a longer time not exceeding six months in the event of the compensation he may award not being paid, the prison being a civil prison, and without hard labour. The other Members of the Commission, impressed with a sense of the serious mischief which may result from such aggravated breaches of contract, are of opinion that the law as it now exists under the 14th section, but subject to the provision hereinafter proposed of having such cases tried by a jury at the option of the party accused, should be maintained."

The Commissioners submitted both those views for consideration, leaving it to the wisdom of the Legislature to decide between them. I will, therefore, shortly state what the decision of the Government is with respect to cases under the 14th clause. Before leaving the Report of the Commissioners I must refer to two recommendations which are made in it. The first is as to the jurisdiction that shall try these oases between master and servant. A great deal of evidence was taken before the Commissioners on that point. The County Court was named, but it was objected that the County Court did not sit continuously, and that in many instances intervals of a month or six weeks elapsed between the sittings, which is a great disadvantage to suitors of this particular class. Therefore, the Commissioners discussed the question as to whether the Registrar of the County Court should be empowered to deal with such cases in the meantime, and at length they came to the conclusion to advise Parliament to leave these cases in the hands of the magistrates as civil proceedings, making it a consideration, wherever there was a stipendiary magistrate, that the cases should be heard before him. Such being the Report of the Commissioners, I will now shortly state what is the opinion of the Government, and how we propose to deal with the matter. "We propose on this head, first of all, that whatever the crimes may be, committed by persons engaged in this kind of employment, those crimes should certainly be specified distinctly in the Act of Parliament, and not left to the discretion of the magistrates to make one a crime and another not. Therefore, we propose to present to the House two separate and independent Bills, one dealing with all such matters as we think ought to be treated criminally, and the other with all that ought to be dealt with civilly. This was a matter on which a great number of witnesses had been called, not merely before the last Commission, but before the Committee which sat in 1856. I apprehend there is no doubt whatever on this point—that wherever there is what is called a general public danger to the State or a large body of the community, ensuing from the neglect of duty to perform a contract, each neglect may be looked upon as a crime. What we then propose is that, wherever a workman is employed by a municipal authority or a public company, upon whom is imposed by Act of Parliament the duty of supplying any city or other place with gas or water, and that workman wilfully and maliciously breaks his contract of service, knowing, or having reasonable cause to believe that the probable consequence of his doing so, either alone or in combination with others, would be to deprive the inhabitants of that city or place or a great part of them, of gas or water, such a breaking of contract shall be considered as a special offence. Such a workman will be placed by that provision in the same category as the police force, seamen, and railway servants. Then there is another class of crimes to be dealt with. There are in the Malicious Injury to Property Act two general clauses—51 and 52—which enact that anyone wilfully and maliciously committing injury to the property of another shall be guilty of an offence the degree of which shall vary according to the amount of damage done. Take, for instance, the case of any man who wilfully with his hands strikes a blow at any property belonging to another, and inflicts an injury to that property maliciously and aware what the consequences would be, that offence falls within the existing law. Now, a man may do precisely the same injury with his feet as he does with his hands when he walks away from his work, knowing at the same time that injury to the property will ensue. We therefore, propose to place such an offence in the same category as that where a workman strikes a blow at property with the hand and injures it. These two crimes, we think, may be put under the criminal law. When we come to consider other breaches of contract, we think they ought to be brought under a different system. We think the time has come when, considering the various attempts to modify the ancient laws, which have been coercive and oppressive, we may in other branches of contract between master and servant, do away with all criminality and proclaim, once for all, that as between master and servant contracts shall be treated civilly as any other contract case. That, I think, ought to be the satisfactory conclusion of all parties concerned. We propose that this kind of contract shall be dealt with as a civil proceeding, with all the incidents of civil proceeding. The ordinary cases will go the County Court, as suggested by the Comissioners; but I do not think the County Court has sufficient powers to deal with such cases. It is therefore proposed to supplement their powers by saying that they shall not only assess such damages as they think proper, but also have ample powers to adjust all the claims which may exist between master and servant, and to rescind a contract if they think it equitable that it should be rescinded. That is giving to the County Courts the same power exercised by magistrates under the Master and Servant Act. There is another question which has been very much pressed upon our notice, not simply by the Reports of the Commissioners, but also by everyone who has written upon this subject. They have all thought that contracts could be enforced, as in the Court of Chancery, by an order of specific performance. It is extraordinary what a number of persons have written and have said that; but the obvious answer is that the Court of Chancery never does enforce contracts; it has always steadily refused to do so. Therefore, to order specific performance is not possible. There is, however, one way in which a good many of these cases may be met with equal justice to both parties. A servant is brought up for having broken his contract—I am not speaking of strikes, but of the ordinary cases of breach of contract—as, for instance, when a servant goes away for a week without permission. He is brought before the Court which can assess damages; but it may often be better for the servant to go back, and we think it would be unwise not to give to the Court the power of saying—"My good fellow, the best thing you can do is to go back, and if you will undertake to do so you will hear nothing more about the matter; but if you do not, with security or without, then, of course, we shall assess the damages, and unless your security or yourself pays you will have to go to prison." It is perfectly optional for the man to do which he pleases, and that is as far as we can go towards making an order for specific performance. Another question has been very much considered—namely, to what other tribunal can we go? The evidence given before the Commission by the police magistrates of London and other places shows that the County Court is expensive as well as dilatory, and we therefore propose in small cases—that is, where the claim is limited to the amount of £ 10—both master and servant shall be entitled to go to the stipendiary magistrate, or where there is none, to the nearest petty sessions, and they shall have the same power as the County Court of making an order for the payment of damages. There is one point of importance here. The Commissioners reported that if a man does not pay the damages assessed he shall go to prison—they did not see their way to avoiding that. But there is this remarkable paragraph in their Report. They say—

"If it is a small case of damages the term of imprisonment shall be three months in that of the prison allotted to debtors; but that if it be a large amount he shall go to prison for six months."

I confess that there seems a great inconsistency in that. If we send a man to prison for three months or for six he must feel it to be a punishment, and we cannot say he should go to prison for six months if he owed £20, and only for three months if he owed £10. There is this further difficulty. It puts the man against whom the damages are given practically, though not nominally, in a worse position than he was in before; because if a man is subject to a fine of a few shillings under the Small Tenements Act, he would only be sent to prison for seven or 14 days. In this case, however small the amount of damages, he is liable to three months' imprisonment. I think the Commissioners have made some mistake here. [Mr. MACDONALD: Hear, hear!] The end of the whole business is then, that if this matter is to be treated civilly, treat it civilly. We specify what are to be crimes, and everything else is to be treated as a civil debt. Therefore, we propose in this Bill that any damages assessed they should become a debt, to be treated like any other debt, and recoverable in the County Court—that Court to have the same power of enforcing payment of the debt as in all other cases. We have come to this conclusion, and we believe it to be the only logical conclusion to which we could come upon the Report of the Commissioners. That being so, let us go to the other part of the case. When we declare there shall be absolute freedom of contract between master and workman, we are also of opinion that there must be equal freedom of contract between workman and fellow-workman. If a workman is entitled to make a contract with his master as he might make a contract for his bread, or his house, or anything else, if he breaks his contract he is to be as free from his fellow-workmen as from his master. There is to be no infringement by Parliament on his liberty as regards his master, and there must be no coercion on his free will by his fellow-workmen or bodies of his fellow-workmen. He must have precisely the same liberty as anyone else in this country; and therefore we come now to consider what must be done in the case of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. Before I touch upon that, let me say that it must not be imagined for a moment that we are doing what has never been done before. Do not run away with the notion that by equalizing the law of servant and master we are doing anything that will hinder us in the race of competition with foreign countries. Foreign nations are a long way ahead of us in this matter. In Italy, Prance, Belgium, and Germany there is absolute equality, and all these matters have for a long time been treated as civil contracts. We are therefore taking precisely the same step which has already been taken by foreign nations, and we shall be in no worse a position as regards these contracts than any of those nations. I now come to the Criminal Law Amendment Act, and if the House does not think I am trespassing on its attention too long I should like to read a short extract from the 1st section of the Act of Parliament, because I cannot help being of opinion that the Act is one which has been very much misunderstood. There have been a great many cases in which there has been great misapprehension as to what the law really is, and how far it goes. It has been said that this Act is a piece of class legislation; but that I deny, because the first and main clause does not refer simply to master and workman but to every person who does any one or more of the things specified in it—

"1. Use violence to any person or any property. 2. Threaten or intimidate any person in such a manner as would justify a justice of the peace, on complaint made to him, to bind over the person so threatening or intimidating to keep the peace. 3. Molest or obstruct any person in manner defined by this section with a view to coerce such person."

Thus the molestation or obstruction must be done with the view to coercion—that is, interfering with the free will of another. But then we have a definition of what molestation is—

"1. If he persistently follow such person about from place to place. 2. If he hide any tools, clothes, or other property owned or used by such person, or deprive him of or hinder him in the use thereof. 3. If he watch or beset the house or other place where such person resides or works, or carries on business, or happens to be, or the approach to such house or place, or if with two or more other persons he follow such person in a disorderly manner in or through any street or road; "

but the whole thing is with a view to coercion. On the other hand, the working men have urged—"We always thought we had absolute power to go to a place for the purposes of persuasion. We have not gone for purposes of coercion. We only want to inform those persons who have been brought from other districts by advertisements as to the real state of things. We thought these things were innocent, but by this Act they are made crimes." Now, that is a mistake, because none of the things mentioned are crimes. I have this on the very highest authority; first, that of the Commissioners themselves, amongst whom were the Lord Chief Justice of England and many other persons very learned in the law, and I wish shortly to call the attention of the House to one or two paragraphs of their Report. The Commissioners said—

"It was alleged that the provision against picketing was too general; that picketing might sometimes be perfectly innocent, and on some occasions absolutely necessary for the protection of the Union; that, for instance, when the Union was on strike it would be necessary to keep watch to see that men receiving pay from it, as being on strike, did not take work, and thus defraud the body. But the answer is obvious. Such a case ought certainly not to be held to be within the Act, which makes molestation penal only when used for the purpose of coercion. Again, it is alleged that too loose a construction has been put on this part of the Act, and that language addressed to a man for the purpose of persuading him has been held to he molestation with a view to coerce. If, however, such a construction, which would, undoubtedly be too large, should have been put on the Act, the fault is not in the statute, the language of which is sufficiently clear and precise."

Then they referred to the language of Mr. Justice Lush, and his words were so clear that he felt bound to read them. In a case which he was trying—the case of "The Queen v. Shepherd "—he said—

"The defendants merely waited outside the place where the workmen were employed, and tried to induce them not to work there, their conduct being peaceable, orderly, and civil. The learned Judge, in summing up the case to the jury, pointed out the distinction between force put upon the will of another by violence, intimidation, or molestation, and persuasion used as a means of influencing the will, observing on the difference between the case then before him and one which he had tried at Leeds, in which the parties, charged under a similar indictment, had abused their fellow-workmen, shouted and hooted at them, and had been otherwise violent in their conduct. Finally, he directed the jury, if they should be of opinion that the defendants had done no more than employ persuasion, to acquit them, which the jury accordingly did."

[Lord ROBERT MONTAGU: In what year?] In 1869, before the Criminal Law Amendment Act was passed; but I am now speaking of the existing Act of 1871. The Commissioners went on to say—

"Believing this to be the true exposition of the law, we cannot doubt that the ruling of the learned Judge will be followed in any similar case."

There is another exposition of the law which was given by a right hon. and learned Gentleman for whom we all have the highest respect. I mean the Recorder of London (Mr. Russell Gurney), and there cannot, in my opinion, be any clearer exposition of the law of 1871 than he laid down to the Grand Jury in the case of five men who were sent to prison. The House will see whether there is the slightest difference between that exposition and that which I have just read. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said—

"Among the acts forbidden by that Act was this—the molesting or obstructing any person by watching or besetting any place or the approach to such place where his business was carried on, with the view to coerce such person to alter his mode of carrying on his business. That, then, was the question the Grand Jury would have to consider—whether the evidence laid before them was sufficient to establish a primâ facie case that the defendants did conspire to molest or obstruct the prosecutors by watching or besetting their place of business, in order to coerce them to alter their mode of carrying on their business. And there the Grand Jury must observe a distinction. The question was not whether they had endeavoured to cause them to alter their mode by themselves refusing to work or by persuading others not to work. That they had a right to do; but the question was whether they agreed to effect their object in the way forbidden by the Act. That they did watch the place of business there would probably be no doubt, but there were some purposes for which they had a perfect right to watch. When a contest of that sort was going on it was not unusual, he believed, to watch in order to sec that none of the men who received what was called 'the strike pay' were also receiving-wages from the employers; but the more important object that the watchers had in view was to inform all comers—those, for instance, who might have been brought by the advertisement—of the existence of the strike, and to endeavour to persuade them to join in it. All that was lawful so long as it was done peaceably, and without any interference with the perfect exercise of free will by those who otherwise would have been willing to work on the terms proposed by the prosecutors. The sort of questions," the Recorder proceeded to say, "which the Grand Jury would have to ask themselves was, whether the evidence showed that the defendants were guilty of obstructing and rendering difficult the access to the prosecutors' place of business, or whether there was anything in their conduct calculated to deter or to intimidate those who were passing to and fro, or whether there was an exhibition of force calculated to produce fear in the minds of ordinary men, and whether the defendants or any of them combined for that purpose. If they thought that was proved, it would be their duty to find a true bin; but if they thought their conduct might be accounted for by the desire to ascertain who were the persons working there, and peaceably to persuade them or any others who were proposing to work there to join their fellow-workmen who were contending for what, rightly or wrongly, they thought was for the interest of the general body, then they would ignore the Bill."

Well, then, I put it to the House whether that is not the law that ought to be maintained? If a man can do all these things under the law, has he anything to complain of if the Act is fairly and honestly carried into effect? Is it not equally necessary to maintain the perfect free-will and independence of the workman as against his fellow-workmen as it is to maintain his freedom and independence against his master? "We therefore do not propose to make any alteration in the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1871, except the one recommended by the Royal Commissioners—namely, that the defendant should have the option of having his case tried, not by the justices before whom be was brought, but by a jury. I have now simply to deal with the Law of Conspiracy. The subject of the Law of Conspiracy is a very difficult one to approach at this late hour of the evening; but I do not propose to take up much of the time of the House in referring to it. The first question that arises here is—will you deal with the Law of Conspiracy as a whole, or merely as a particular branch of the law relating to the subject engaging our attention. The hon. and learned Member for the City of Oxford (Sir William Harcourt) some years ago endeavoured to deal with it on a limited scale, but the Ministry of the day were more ambitious. They made considerable additions to his Bill, and the result was the measure came to an untimely end. To deal with the whole Law of Conspiracy would be a very serious matter in the present state of the criminal law. Indeed, I doubt whether any Ministry can so deal with it, until the criminal law is in a very much more perfect state than it is at present. The Government, therefore do not propose to deal with the Law of Conspiracy as a general subject in the Bill which I shall lay upon the Table. But we do propose to deal with the peculiar grievance which is alleged to exist so far as regards master and workman. That grievance arises in consequence of the discrepancy between the Trades Unions Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which were passed in the same year. The latter Act, after imposing penalties for threats and molestation with a view to coerce, added a Proviso that no person should be liable to punishment for conspiring to do an act that tended to restrain the free course of trade, unless the act was done with the object of coercing. It was therefore thought, and generally understood by the country, when these Acts were passed, that so far as the case of trades unions was concerned they were free from the Law of Conspiracy. But one or two decisions have since been given by the Judges which have tended to shake confidence on the subject. Upon that point the Commissioners say—

"It has been urged that by the ruling of the Judges, and the Proviso to the 1st section of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, the construction of the Act is deprived of any practical value."

With that opinion of the Commissioners the Government entirely agree. I need hardly point out that in the celebrated case of the gas stokers it was not upon the count on which they were convicted that the ruling of the Judge was challenged, but on the count on which they were not convicted. The ruling of Baron Pollock was also brought before the Commissioners. He is reported to have directed the jury that if several workmen combined not to work with a particular person, and refused to work for an employer unless he dismissed that workman, that would amount to a conspiracy at Common Law; a doctrine which would equally apply to masters agreeing not to employ a particular workman unless he left a particular society or union. The Commissioners did not choose to enter into the question whether that is a true interpretation of the law, but say, if it is, it ought to be changed; and with that opinion we entirely agree. Therefore the proposal we have to make with regard to the Law of Conspiracy is this—that we shall put a clause in the Criminal, and not in the Civil Act to this effect—

"That an agreement or combination of two or more persons to do, or to procure to be done, any act in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute between employers and workmen shall not be punishable as a conspiracy, if such act as aforesaid, when committed by one person, would not be punishable as a crime."

That is the whole of the Government proposal upon this point. I would say again, we want the most absolute freedom of individual will between the master and the servant; and we are determined to maintain the most absolute freedom of will between the servant and his fellow-servants. I have an instinctive dislike to put persons in prison unless they have committed a crime. I think it is of very great importance that when a man has committed a crime he should know he is going to prison. It is of equal importance where a man is convicted justly of crime, and goes to prison, that the punishment should be certain. I know of nothing more mischievous than interference, except for the most just and proper cause, with the course of the administration of justice. But if no crime has been committed do not send the man to prison. Keep up the broad distinction in the minds of the public that gaols are for criminals, and maintain also the belief that if a man becomes criminal he shall go to gaol, but that you will not fill your prisons by persons who have not committed a crime. Upon these broad and plain, and I hope distinct issues, we have placed these Bills before the House. I hope they will receive the attention which, in the opinion of the Government, they deserve, and that they will afford some satisfactory solution of these very difficult questions. I am afraid I have detained the House some time; but I was anxious that it should clearly understand what the law is proposed to be, and the reasons for the change. It will be necessary, I may add, as there are a number of Acts in the Schedule, to pass a repeal measure of certain Acts which will become obsolete in consequence of these Acts. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in the Bill.

reminded the right hon. Gentleman that at present men might be made criminals according as the tribunal that tried them was formed, and that Judge after Judge gave different decisions as to what the Law of Conspiracy really was. He believed there was no wish on the part of workmen to coerce their fellow-servants, and that a sense of honour prevailed in their dealings with one another.

remarked that there was much in the Bill for which the House and working men would be grateful, but that there were some points on which further information was required. In the earlier part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman he seemed anxious to prove that since the remotest times of our history there had been coercive measures against workmen—that there had never been any freedom of contract. This was utterly fallacious. There had always been perfect freedom of labour in olden times in England until, in the reign of Elizabeth, a man who would not work was flogged for the first offence, branded for the second, and hanged for the third. Coercive measures against working men began in the reign of William III., when the right of representation was taken away from the working classes and transferred to the employers. The House of Commons had since that time been the House of the middle classes. He was glad that the Home Secretary had divided his measure into two, and he would recommend him to pass his Civil Bill with certain amendments and to drop the Criminal Bill altogether. The right hon. Gentleman argued that in the case of gas and water companies breaches of contract ought to be criminal offences because of the injury to the public. He should make the gas and water companies liable to the public, and then they would put a clause in their contract with their workmen subjecting them to penalties if they left their employment without giving a month's notice, and by this contract the men would abide. But by making it a criminal offence, an enormous and tyrannical power would be put into the hands of gas and water companies. With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's observation that the working men should be as free from their fellow-workmen as they were from their masters, he (Lord Robert Montagu) would say that that would lead to the dissolution of the unions of working men. ["Divide!"] If hon. Members did not like to hear him they might go home. The right hon. Gentleman in speaking of malicious injury done by working men, whether it were done by hands or feet, said it ought to be treated as crime. He (Lord Robert Montagu) objected to that. The Commissioners said that the working man on strike should either work or knock under. Well, that was a feeling which led to the formation of trades unions. They became an incorporated body to assist each other, and to say that the working men should be as free from each other as they should be from their masters amounted practically to a dissolution of trades unions. That was what the Home Secretary was driving at and what he wanted to do. ["No, no!"] He (Lord Robert Montagu) said yes; but would urge that instead of pursuing that policy—a policy which had been pursued for 100 years—in trying to get rid of trades unions, they should adopt a course exactly the reverse, and seek to increase the power of trades unions. They should re-constitute them as the ancient guilds were constituted, and then the country would get all the advantages which it had derived from the guilds, while injustice would be done neither to the masters nor to the men.

said, he did not rise at that late hour of the evening to prolong the debate, especially after the liberal explanation which they had had from Her Majesty's Government with regard to the Labour Laws. He rose simply to say that, although it was stated in the early part of the evening he was burning with a desire to make a speech on this subject, it was not really his intention. He had only been desirous that the country, which had been anxiously looking forward to the proposals of the Government, should have the earliest possible opportunity of knowing what they were. He thanked the Home Secretary for the prompt manner in which he came forward and redeemed the pledge given by the Prime Minister early in the evening by moving the adjournment of the debate on the Judicature Bill. With respect to the Bill, as the question would have to be judged by the public most concerned, he hoped the Home Secretary would give considerable time to enable them to get the opinions of those who were most interested in the matter. He would add, further, that he was certainly glad the Home Secretary had seen fit to eliminate the criminal portion of the Law of Contract altogether. With regard to the character of the tribunal, he was afraid that it was not quite satisfactory. He must also say that he regretted the continuance of the Criminal Law Amendment Act very much indeed. The Bill would be laid, however, on the Table for second reading, and then he should be able to state more explicitly his views, and then the working classes could give theirs in so far as they thought them to be the opinions entertained by the general body of the people on this subject.

said, he wished to add a few words to what had fallen from his hon. Friend (Mr. Macdonald), and to thank the Home Secretary for having so promptly redeemed the pledge given by the Prime Minister. The late Government gave many promises to take up this question, but had failed to do so. He was perfectly satisfied that the working classes throughout the country regarded this question with the deepest interest. He knew this was the case in the city he represented (Perth), and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give sufficient time for the consideration of the Bill before it was brought forward for the second reading.

said, he must disclaim the sentiments which had been attributed to him with reference to trades unionism. He hoped the Bill would be laid on the Table to-morrow, and he proposed to take the second reading in a fortnight.

opposed the Bill, on the ground that it unsettled the present electoral arrangements, and moved that the House go into Committee that day three months.

expressed a hope that the Government would state the view they entertained in respect of the Bill. It would give to an exceptional class—namely, the letters of lodgings—the benefit of the franchise on a six months' residential qualification. He was willing to close with the proposal contained in the Bill, provided that the general householder qualification for the borough franchise was reduced from 12 to six months.

said, he had been somewhat surprised to hear the extraordinary statements which had been made in respect of this Bill. With respect to the letters of lodgings, a person might lot every room in his house separately, and not be deprived of his right to vote, but if he let his furnished house for a short time he was deprived of his vote by this Bill. The Bill was no revolutionary one, but one which the House might fairly take into its consideration.

objected to the Bill.

disclaimed any Party motives in bringing the Bill forward, and trusted that the House would allow it to pass through Committee.

contended that the measure was a specimen of piecemeal legislation which ought not to be encouraged.

moved that the debate should be adjourned.

pointed out that the hon. Member for Stockton was rather fond of opposing Bills on the Motion for going into Committee upon them. He had done the same thing to a Bill which he (Mr. Ritchie) had introduced.

said, he had simply opposed a very bad Bill which the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had managed to persuade the House to read a second time.