asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether any negotiations have been entered into by Her Majesty's Government with respect to the cession or exchange of the Gambia territory; and whether Papers upon the subject will be laid upon: the Table of the House?

, in reply, said, negotiations, as the right hon. Gentleman was aware, with respect to an exchange of territory upon the West Coast of Africa were entered into some time ago between the French and English Governments, but had not yet been brought to a conclusion, nor would any final step be taken until an opportunity had been afforded to Parliament for a consideration of all the questions involved. Papers upon the subject were being prepared, and would shortly be presented to the House.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If he will lay upon the Table of the House, on as early a day as possible, a Return giving the amount awarded in compensation under the third Clause of the Land Act, since the passing of the Act, showing the amount in each county, and distinguishing between the sums awarded as compensation for improvements, and the sums awarded as compensation for disturbance?

, in reply, said, that information on the point alluded to in the Question of the hon. Member was already tabulated in the statistics which were in the possession of the House, though not in the form, perhaps, which he desired. If the hon. Member would confer with him on the subject, he would endeavour to arrange what additional information on the subject should be laid before Parliament.

asked the honourable Member for Wigtonshire, Whether it is his intention to introduce this Session a Bill for the abolition of the Landlord's rights of Hypothec in Scotland?.

, in reply, said, he had not as yet moved for leave to introduce a Bill for the abolition of the Landlord's right of Hypothec in Scotland, because last Session they were given to understand that Her Majesty's Government intended to introduce a Bill on the subject of agricultural holdings in Scotland similar to that which had been passed for England. If he was disappointed in the hope that such measure would deal with the question of Hypothec, he should be prepared to bring the subject before the House in the form of an Amendment to the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Bill.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, What steps Her Majesty's Government have taken, in consequence of the facts established by the evidence taken before the Select Committee of this House on Foreign Loans, with reference to the continuance of Don Carlos Gutierrez as the Representative of Honduras in this country?

, in reply, said, it had not been found necessary to take any official steps with regard to Don Carlos Gutierrez, as, in consequence of unofficial communications which had been addressed to him, he had resigned his position as the Representative of Honduras in this country.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If it is his intention or the intention of the Government to introduce a measure this Session to prohibit the use of blasting powder in firing Mines?

, in reply, said, the opinions of the Mines Inspectors as to the use of blasting powder in firing mines were so widely different that he did not at present propose to introduce a Bill on the subject. The question would be again submitted to the Inspectors on their next meeting in London, which he believed would be within a fortnight, and as soon as he received a Report upon the subject it would be laid before the House.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether Telegraph Cards will be reissued; and, if not, if he will explain to the House why this convenience is to be withdrawn from the public?

, in reply, said, it was not intended to issue any further telegraph cards, the experience of more than three years having shown clearly that the public could not be induced to use them.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he will lay on the Table of the House, before he brought on the Vote for the purchase of the Suez Canal Shares, the concession and statutes of the Suez Canal Company, referred to in General Stanton's despatch to Lord Derby, of December 11, 1875, and also the Firman of the Sultan confirming the concession to the Egyptian Government?

I shall have much pleasure, Sir, in laying the Papers on the Table of the House.

gave Notice that to-morrow he would ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he has any objection to lay upon the Table of the House a Copy of the Instructions given to Mr. Cave with regard to his mission to Egypt, and also of the Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the Khedive in relation to the subject.

, in rising to move that the Bill be now read the second time, said, it was substantially identical with the Infanticide Bill, as amended in Committee last Session. It would be in the recollection of the House that the scope of that Bill was enlarged in Committee. Originally confined to cases in which death was caused by the injuries inflicted by the mother on her child during or immediately after its birth, the scope of the Bill was enlarged in Committee to all cases in which grievous bodily harm was inflicted by the mother on her child during or immediately after its birth. Whether death was caused thereby or not, the name, "Infanticide Bill," no longer, therefore, defined accurately the scope of the Bill, and the wider term "Offences Against the Person," had been adopted as a more appropriate title. The name "Infanticide," moreover, although used by statisticians to denote the murder of a new-born infant by its mother, was, as pointed out by the Capital Punishment Commissioners, unknown to the English law. Infanticide was only one form of murder. It was a matter of doubtful policy to coin a new legal phrase, and it was now no longer necessary, the scope of the Bill having been enlarged. The Bill came before the House supported by a great weight of authority. It was founded on the unanimous recommendations of the Capital Punishment Commissioners. That Commission was presided over by the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond), and amongst the signatures to its recommendations would be found the names of three other Members of the present Cabinet. He might add that amongst the signatures to the recommendations he found the name of a right hon. Gentleman opposite, the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright). The Bill had been read a second time without a division in three successive Sessions—namely, 1873, 1874, and 1875. In 1874 it was sent up to the House of Lords in the form in which it passed the Committee on Homicide, a form of which it was difficult to approve. In 1875 the Bill would have been sent up to the House of Lords in its present form, if it had not been for the unaccountable opposition of the late hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. Vance), whose loss as an old and respected Member of that House they all deplored. On the second reading of the Bill last Session, it was supported by the right hon. and learned Recorder, the present Attorney General, the Attorney General of the late Government, and the hon. and learned Members for Durham, Penryn, South Derbyshire, South 'Warwickshire, and he might add, for Beaumaris—subject to certain Amendments which were now embodied in the Bill. He would appeal to these facts as his justification for urging on the second reading of the Bill thus early in the Session. It was important that the House of Lords, and especially the Law Lords, should have ample time to consider the Bill. He hoped that the Bill would do away with the necessity of trying a woman for an offence of which it was impossible to convict her—that it would afford a means of overcoming the technical rule of the necessity of establishing that there was an independent circulation in the child apart from its mother, which had so often led to a defeat of justice—that it would lead to a decrease in the crime of infanti- cide, which was the disgrace of our modern civilization—50 out of 51 murders being, according to Dr. Neilson Hancock, infanticide—while, at the same time, it would guard the sacredness of the lives of infants by enabling the prosecutor to proceed for the major offences of murder or manslaughter, if he thought that he could secure a conviction, and that it would better meet the justice of the case. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving the second reading of the Bill.

said, he strongly objected to the House being called upon to read the Bill a second time, at that early period of the Session. He could not help thinking it somewhat unreasonable that they should be called upon to pass the second reading—that was, to affirm the principle of a measure which had only been delivered that morning, and within 24 hours, or scarcely more, from the introduction of the Bill. What he was anxious to obtain was time for its due consideration, and whatever might be the ultimate event of the measure, so far as Parliament was concerned, it was very desirable, or indeed actually necessary, that the scope of the Bill should be thoroughly understood. Although that was the chief reason by which he was actuated, he had also this further objection to adduce—namely, that he thought any proposed change in the framework of a law which must necessarily be of such great importance, ought to be made—if at all—by the responsible officers of the Crown. So far as he understood the suggested alteration, the Bill proposed to insert in an indictment the word "feloniously," in place of "unlawfully," thus transforming the charge from a misdemeanour into a felony. He must confess that he thought the present law was sufficient for the purpose—as he understood it—in view; and he had strong doubts as to the advisability of anything like piecemeal legislation on such an important subject. He had to remind the House that, in cases of this character, it often happened that a woman, at the very time she was said to have committed the alleged offence, was not always respon- sible for her own actions, and however much he might feel for the preservation of infant life, he thought it was absolutely necessary to take especial care of the position of the unfortunate mother in such eases. In conclusion, he would move the rejection of the Bill.

trusted that the House would consent to read the Bill a second time without further delay, on the ground that the principle of the measure had been fully discussed and approved last Session. In his opinion it was a most important measure, and one which ought to be passed, as it was founded on principles of humanity and justice. He should therefore support the second reading.

said, the Bill in its present shape was the Bill that was read a third time last Session. He opposed the Bill in its original shape last Session, but certain alterations had been made, and the consequence was, he believed the majority of the legal profession in the House approved the present measure.

said, the Bill, as he understood, was exactly in the same form as the measure which was introduced last Session, except that it had a different title. It appeared to him that the Bill was worthy of support for this reason—that it was designed to remedy a very considerable defect in the law—namely, that under existing Acts, when a woman was indicted for the murder of her child, and the evidence was such that no one could for an instant doubt that a grave crime had been committed, such, for instance, as wounds inflicted upon the body, or a cord round its neck, she might escape according to the law as it now stood, because it could not be clearly proved by medical or other evidence that the child had had an existence apart from the mother. It was to remedy this that the Bill provided that when a woman unlawfully or maliciously inflicted grievous bodily harm upon a child at or immediately after its birth, then although it could not be proved that a separate circulation had been set up in the system of the child, she should be punishable for the offence she had committed. He saw no injustice in that. The object of the Bill was to prevent a criminal from escaping, and he thought the provisions of the Bill for that purpose were so wisely framed that it was entitled to support. The hon. and learned Member for Leeds (Mr. Wheelhouse) seemed to think that this Bill would put in jeopardy a woman who had inflicted injury on her child when she was in a state that rendered her not responsible for her actions. But that could not be, because no Judge would be justified under this Bill in directing a jury to convict, and no jury would be justified in convicting, unless it was clearly proved that the injury was inflicted maliciously. When the Bill was before the House last Session he supported it, because he thought it was a good and useful measure, and for the same reason he should support it now.

, in rising to move. That the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Law relating to Insurances and other Maritime Contracts, said: Sir, the Committee are well aware from the terms of the Queen's Speech that it is the intention of the Government at the very commencement of this Session to invite the attention of Parliament to the question of legislation with respect to Merchant Shipping, and my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has given Notice that he will this evening move to introduce a Bill upon the subject. But, in the course of the careful consideration which the Government have given to this subject during the Recess, it has appeared to them that any legislation upon this matter would be incomplete unless it extended beyond the subjects which will be included in the Bill which my right hon. Friend has to introduce, and upon that consideration they have come to the conclusion that it would be desirable that two measures should be introduced, independent one of the other, but forming, when taken together, a complete exposition of their views as to the legislation which is required and which is possible at the present time upon this great question. I will not weary the Committee—indeed, I should be trespassing on the province of my right hon. Friend if I were to do so—by going into anything like a general review of the course of legislation with regard to Merchant Shipping of late years. I will only say this much with regard to it. The Committee will bear in mind that for 30 or 40 years the attention of Parliament has been directed at constantly recurring intervals to measures for improving the condition of our Merchant Shipping, and especially for preserving life at sea; that a large code of laws has been created within that time, and that year after year the attention of the public has been called to it. Now the principles upon which the Government and successive Governments have proceeded in this matter seem to have been very much of this character—they have felt that it was the duty of Parliament, as far as possible, to give facilities for the improvement of the Mercantile Marine, and to pass such measures as should enforce the responsibility of shipowners and of those who have the conduct of the great Merchant Service of this country. But they have felt that it was rather in the direction of assisting on the one hand, and of enforcing on the other the duties of shipowners, than to direct intervention on the part of the Government by laying them under the restraints of penal legislation, that satisfactory results were to be looked for. And that certainly is the feeling which animates Her Majesty's present Advisers upon this matter. A great deal has been done in the way of improving the character of masters and mates, of improving the condition of seamen, and other matters with which hon. Gentlemen are familiar. Important measures have been taken for inquiring into the apportionment of the proper punishment in cases where it was required, and moreover, of late years, a new step has been taken in the direction of Government interference which may be shortly described as the initiation of a policy of detention—that is to say, powers have been given to the Government to detain ships when it appears they cannot proceed safely to sea, or when there is any reason to suspect they are at all unsea-worthy. Last Session a measure was proposed which would have carried further that policy; but under circumstances to which I do not advert at any length, that measure was not proceeded with as had been intended, but a temporary measure—a short one—was passed towards the end of the Session, which will expire in the course of the present year. Now, the principles on which the Government propose to legislate this year will be in harmony with those which they professed last year. My right hon. Friend will by-and-by introduce a Bill which will be found in principle similar to the temporary measure which was passed at the close of last Session, but which will be found to meet some of the defects and difficulties which have been experienced in the working of that short temporary Act. But, in addition to that, it is the opinion of the Government that we should take a step further. That will be a step for enforcing more strictly than at present the liability of shipowners and throwing on them more distinctly the duty of taking care that their ships and the lives of their seamen on board of them are properly provided for. As I said before, whatever the Government can do in this matter the Government is attempting to do; but, after all, what the Government can do is as nothing compared with what the shipowners themselves can do. The Government may stop one or two patent leaks or prevent one or two patent evils; but, after all, it cannot take that care—that continuing, that efficient care—which a shipowner is himself liable and bound to take of his vessel; and it is, therefore, to the exertions of the shipowner that we are mainly to look for improvements in this matter. I wish, on the part of the Government, to say that we have approached this subject with an anxious desire to do justly and deal fairly with what may be called both of the parties interested in this controversy, if I may so describe it. We are, above all things, anxious to preserve and protect the valuable lives of our sea- men. We are, on the other hand, anxious to take care that no unnecessary inconvenience is inflicted and no injury is done to that great interest on the prosperity and welfare of which so much of the prosperity of this Kingdom depends. We feel that a natural, a noble, and a generous impulse has led the people of this country to call loudly for the protection of those whose lives are, perhaps, more exposed to danger than the lives of most other classes, and who from various circumstances possess a peculiar interest in the eyes of Englishmen. And it may be that in some of the expressions which have been used and some of the proposals which have been made for the purpose of obtaining that great object something in the nature of injustice has from time to time been done to a body of men as honourable, as desirous to promote the welfare of those dependent on them, and as deserving of the consideration and attention of Parliament as any body of men in this country can possibly be. We have, therefore, been anxious to guard ourselves in what we may do from anything that may appear to reflect unfairly or in any way to be prejudicial to the great body of the shipowners. And, in saying that, I feel that we are not in any sense chargeable with the imputation that we are setting property against life, because not only is the property of the shipowner concerned in this matter and the national welfare greatly concerned, too, but also the interests of the seaman himself are involved in the maintenance of the general prosperity of that great interest in which he ranks as one of the component parts. If you destroy or materially injure the Merchant Service of this country, I need not ask what would be the effect on the merchant seaman. You cannot injure the shipowner without materially damaging and injuring the sailor; and not only is that in a general way the case, but it is also obvious that you may by over-restriction and over-regulation directly defeat your own object, because, inasmuch as you cannot prevent all mischief, if you lay too many restrictions and impose too many burdens on the shipowner he may defend himself by taking less care in those matters where you are not able to reach him. Now, looking at the subject from the simplest point of view, I think we may say that our seamen and all connected with ships would natu- rally have their great protection in the interest the shipowner must have in the preservation of his ship. Naturally, and in the absence of any legislation or of any system which might prevent the operation of that law, there would be a law by which the shipowner is more desirous of preserving his ship than any other person can be, because if his ship is lost he loses that which constitutes his property. But there has long prevailed in this country and elsewhere a system of insurance the effect of which is that if a man partially insures his ship he mitigates his loss; if he wholly insures her he covers his loss; and if he over-insures her it is possible that his loss may even become his gain. Therefore, unless proper attention is paid to this subject, and care is taken to prevent as far as possible the over-insurance of ships, it is possible that a system most excellent in its intentions, most valuable in its working, may be the cause of great abuse and evil. There is another point which I may also mention. Besides the natural interest which the shipowner would have but for the system of insurance in the protection and preservation of his ship, he is under obligation to the shippers who have consigned their cargoes to his care, and he would be responsible to those persons for any loss that might occur. He would, therefore, for the sake of protecting himself against that liability, naturally be anxious to take all possible pains to see that his ship was well found, well navigated, and of such a character as would enable him to accomplish the undertaking into which he has entered. But a practice has, as we know, arisen in many cases in which shipowners have found it possible to contract themselves out of this obligation by the introduction into their bills of lading of stipulations protecting them against losses which may occur to the cargoes committed to their charge. Well, Her Majesty's Government have carefully considered in what way it would be right to deal with these questions, and I wish to say that we have not attempted in any way to set aside the great principles of insurance or to deal on what may be called cardinal and doctrinaire principles with a matter which is of such old standing, which has so many ramifications, and is connected with so many interests. We feel that it would be a very serious thing—in- deed, a very improper thing—rashly and ill any violent manner to tamper with the system of insurance. We do not propose any great radical or revolutionary change in that system. We have not attempted to alter the principles upon which it rests, but we have endeavoured in the measure we shall submit to the Committee to meet certain of the objections which appear to us to be on the face of the case and to be the most easily dealt with. It may be said—"Why do you touch contracts of this kind at all? Why cannot you leave the underwriters and the shipowners to regulate such matters as contracts of insurance in their own way?" Well, we recognize and feel the fact that it is a very serious thing indeed to interfere under any circumstances with full freedom of contract; and where contracts are made between parties who are competent on both sides to enter into them, and where they do not affect the interests and rights of other persons, we feel that it would be wrong and contrary to sound policy to meddle with freedom of contract. But when contracts are of such a nature that the interests of third persons are or may be involved in them, and those persons are not parties to or able to control those contracts, it may and does become the duty of the Legislature, at all events, to protect the rights of those who may suffer as third persons between the two parties. For example, not to speak of other matters less cognate to the present subject, you have in this very instance of Marine Insurance a provision of law that a seaman is unable to insure his wages. A seaman is interested in the wages which he will earn by the voyage in which he engages. It would be natural, considering that he is embarking in a very venturous and risky occupation, that he should be allowed to insure the wages he will receive if the voyage is completed. But the law does not allow Mm to do it, and for this reason—that it is thought if he were to insure his wages, and were sure of getting them whatever might happen to the ship, he would be rendered less careful in the discharge of his duty. And, therefore, for the sake of the interests of the owner of the ship, and also of the persons whose goods are in it, you restrain the seaman from that contract into which he naturally would have every right to enter. Well, if you employ law in this way against the seaman, it may also possibly be a consideration with you whether it would not be right that he in his turn should be protected in the application of that same system of insurance between other persons. I will not, however, detain the Committee by going at any length into theory on this matter. I think I shall best consult its convenience by describing very briefly the provisions of the Bill I am about to ask leave to introduce. It is a very short measure, and its provisions are not so numerous as its clauses. It contains, I think, 12 clauses, of which two or three are merely formal, and others only consequential. It deals with six points. In the first place, it treats of the question of warranty and of those stipulations in bills of lading by which shipowners are able to contract themselves out of their liability to the shippers of cargo. The Bill deals also with another class of interests which is not at present provided for. At the present time, supposing there be no provision in the bill of lading to take the case out of the Common Law of the land, the shipowner is liable for the safety of the cargo, but not for that of passengers. Therefore, in the 4th clause of the Bill, which is the first of any importance, it is provided that—

"In every contract made after the commencement of this Act for the carriage of goods or persons by sea there shall, by virtue of this Act, be an implied warranty by the shipowner, charterer, or other person contracting, that the ship is seaworthy at the commencement of the voyage to be performed under the contract."

This is a novelty, for the passenger, in short, is here put on the same footing as the cargo. Then provision is made for rendering this warranty efficacious—that is to say, for preventing the shipowner from contracting himself out of his liability, for the clause further provides that any contract made after the commencement of the Act contrary to, or inconsistent with, such warranty is to that extent void. Passing over some minor points in the Bill, we come to Clause 8, dealing with the case of valued policies, about which there has been much controversy. In the case of open policies the shipowner insures his ship for such a sum as he thinks right, and in the event of a dispute arising, steps are taken to ascertain the ship's value, in accordance with principles which have been clearly laid down in a series of judicial decisions. We Jo not intend to interfere in that matter, except in some minor particulars which I need not here mention. But, in the ease of valued policies the shipowner and underwriter at the commencement of the contract agree upon a certain sum—which may or may not be the fair and full value of the ship—as the value of the ship in the event of her loss. Well, this is, no doubt, a convenient practice. It saves, I dare say, a great deal of trouble and controversy, and if the valuation is fairly stated it is a practice with which no one would wish to interfere. But, on the other hand, it may be made to cover an excessive and unreasonable over-valuation, and it is perfectly clear that, if a man having a ship worth £10,000 insures her on a valued policy of £20,000, it may be more to his interest to lose her than that she should safely complete her voyage. God forbid that I should impute to shipowners as a class, or, indeed, to any man, that he would deliberately send his ship to sea overvalued in the hope that she maybe lost; but I would point out that this practice of over-valuation exposes shipowners to very great temptation. And not only has it that effect, but it produces on seamen and the public at large an unsatisfactory feeling—namely, that the loss of a ship may be an actual gain to her owner, a feeling which cannot be at all good for the service. It cannot be satisfactory that that which is loss of life and property to a great mass of the population, should be not only no loss but a subject of gain to any one class of that population. It may be said that this over-valuation does not often occur, and that it is exceedingly difficult to say what the true value of a ship is. She may be of more value to one man than to another, or her value may vary according to the service in which she is engaged. In fact, there may be a great many considerations which render it difficult to fix the value of a ship with precision. Yet that difficulty has to be overcome, and is overcome every day by processes with which those who conduct them have become familiar. It may surprise some persons unacquainted with the working of the law in this matter to learn the discrepancy which sometimes comes out between the real value and the estimated value of a ship. There is a case, I suppose of not infrequent oc- currence, which prominently brings out this point. A ship having been seriously damaged, the question arises whether she is to be treated as a total loss. In Courts of Law this case is known as "constructive total loss." The principle of it is this:—If a ship has been so much damaged that it would cost more to repair her than her full value when repaired would be, she is judged to be totally lost, and if the policy is a valued one the underwriter has to pay the total amount for which she was insured. Well, if the ship is partially lost, the owner claims to receive the amount of the valuation, on the ground that she is totally lost. He is asked to prove that she is totally lost, and to do so he proves in the first place what the ship is really-worth, and, secondly, what it would cost to repair her. In this way it sometimes comes out that what it would cost to repair a ship and what the owner proves she is really worth is very far below the amount at which he has valued her, and which he is entitled to recover. Let me just give an illustration of this. Some little time ago a case of constructive total loss was tried in respect of a ship valued at £36,000. The ship had been materially injured, and the owner endeavoured to prove that she was a total loss. With that view he showed that it would cost £15,000 to repair her, and that when repaired she would not be worth more than that sum. If he could make out that the ship was not worth more than £15,000 altogether, what is it to be supposed he would receive for her loss? Not £15,000, her true value, but £36,000, her assumed value. Probably cases of this kind are not numerous, but that they can occur is in itself sufficient evidence of the evil tendency of over-valuation. In the case I have just mentioned the Lord Chief Justice, who was trying it, was so much struck by the discrepancy between the real and the estimated value of the ship, that he adjourned the proceedings in order to give counsel an opportunity of considering what course they would pursue. How are we to deal with this kind of possible over-valuation? It has been suggested by some that we should prohibit valued policies altogether, but that is out of the question; others have recommended that the underwriter should at any time have power to open the valued policy. Well, we do not encourage that. The provision we make is a very guarded, and, I think, a very reasonable one; and I do not know that I could state it better or more clearly than by reading the clause itself—

"Where, in an action on a contract of insurance on ship or freight made after the commencement of this Act by a Valued policy, it appears to the Court, at any stage of the action, whether application in this behalf is made by the defendant or not, that there is ground to believe that the valuation is unreasonably in excess of the real value of the subject-matter of insurance, the Court may, if it thinks fit, direct an inquiry before referees, on such terms and conditions respecting costs and other matters as to the Court seem just, to ascertain what would have been the value of the interest of the insured, if the policy had boon an open one. If, on the report of the referees, it appears to the Court that the valuation is unreasonably in excess of the real value of the subject-matter of insurance, then the insured shall not be entitled to recover in the action more than the value as ascertained by the referees."

It goes upon the principle that the natural kind of policy is the open one, which, as construed by successive decisions, gives to the insurer the amount to which he is fairly entitled as compensation for the loss of his ship, and no more. The valuation policy is a device introduced for the convenience of parties. So far as it is legitimate we have no wish to interfere with it; but if the Court has reason to suppose that it is abused, then it sets it aside, and throws the insurance policy back into the natural position of an open policy. That is the most important and most striking provision in the Bill. The next clause relates to the case of freight. Now, with regard to freight it is, of course, right and necessary for the shipowner to insure, not only the body of the ship, but that which makes the ship valuable—the freight which it has to earn for the voyage in which it is engaged. A man expects when he sends his ship from London to Calcutta, or when he sends it from Calcutta to London, perhaps, with the view of the ship coming back, he expects to make certain profits out of the voyage. At present he may secure the gross amount of the freight which he has to receive, and certain expenses which he may have to incur. If, for instance, he expects to incur expenses to the amount of £500 and make a profit of £500, he will insure for £1,000, and if the voyage is complete he receives that which he is entitled to receive. But it may happen that before the ship has got far on her voyage she may be lost, and he will then be saved a great proportion of the expenses he would have to incur, and yet he would be entitled to receive the total amount at which he valued the gross freight, although not liable to various deductions to which, had the ship reached its destination, the freight would have been subject. "We propose, therefore, to provide against that by the following clause:—

"Where there is an insurance on freight effected after the commencement of this Act, the insured shall not be entitled to recover in respect of any freight lost without allowing for the proportion of expenses remaining, at the time of the loss, to be incurred in earning such freight. The amount to be so allowed shall be ascertained or estimated as the Court, in any action on the contract, directs."

I think that that is a condition naturally equitable, which will commend itself to any one who will take the trouble to consider the point. The next point which it is proposed to deal with is what is called double insurance—or I should rather say, insuring the same thing twice over in different forms, for the term "double insurance" has a different meaning. It is, I believe, understood that when a man insures his ship in the ordinary course he insures not only the ship itself, but also what is known as the outfit—the furniture, I think, is the usual expression; "furniture" being used to cover various items, such as wages of seamen and other charges. But as this outfit might also be reckoned over again in the insurance of freight, it may happen that a man may first of all insure this, and afterwards get it insured over again in his freight. It is obvious that that ought not to be so, and the mode in which we propose to deal with it is to provide that—

"Where an insurance on freight effected after the commencement of this Act covers cost of wages, outfit, and other charges, and that cost is also insured by any other policy effected by the same person, that cost shall be deemed to be the subject of a double insurance. So much of the cost aforesaid as has hitherto been covered by an open policy on ship shall, in case of a policy upon ship, whether open or valued, effected after the commencement of this Act, be deemed to be covered by that policy, unless expressly excluded thereby."

Double insurance means that if a man insures his ship in one office, and then goes and insures it again in another office, he can only recover from one of these offices, and the other office may claim from the office to which he does not apply its contribution towards the amount insured. Suppose a man under the present system insures for £500 in two offices, he could only recover £500 in the whole; but suppose he insures his outfit once under the insurance of the ship, and again under the insurance of freight, he would be able under the present law to recover the sum twice over; but under this provision he will only be able to recover once. There is but one other point to which I need refer, and that is the question of time policies. There are two different policies—voyage policies and time policies. Voyage policies cover a ship from one port to another, and when a ship is insured for voyage only, a warranty is given on the part of the shipowner to the underwriter, that the ship is seaworthy at the commencement of her voyage. But there is another kind of policy which, I believe, is coming very much into use, and that is what is called a time policy. A man insures, not for a particular voyage, but for a particular period of time, generally for a year. That is the outside time for which a man can insure a ship. In the case of insurance by a time policy he is not understood to give any warranty whatever with regard to seaworthiness, and there are good enough reasons for that, because a ship might be in the middle of the ocean, and in that case it would be unreasonable to give a warranty. It is no doubt a harder thing to deal with insurance by time than insurance by voyage, because in the case of a voyage policy we know what upon the whole is likely to be the work the ship will have to perform, and what perils she will have to encounter. In the case of a time policy it is difficult to say what the work may be in the course of a year; therefore the provision we propose to make is this—That

"Where an insurance on behalf of a shipowner on ship or freight by time is effected after the commencement of this Act, the insured shall not be entitled to recover in respect of any loss occurring, if the loss would not have occurred but for the unseaworthiness of the ship, and that unseaworthiness existed at the time of the ship leaving the port or place of safety (if any) in which she was at the commencement of the risk, or the port or place of safety in which she was last before the commencement of the risk, and could have been prevented by the exercise of reasonable care on. the part of the owner or of the master of the ship, or of any agent of the owner, charged, as such, with the loading of the ship, or with the sending of her to sea from that port or place."

There is a further provision that

"For the purposes of this section, unseaworthiness arising from the defective condition of the hull, equipments, or machinery of the ship, or by reason of overloading or improper loading, shall alone be deemed unseaworthiness."

I have now endeavoured to explain the objects of the Bill, and I have explained what the proposals are that we have to submit. If we were now for the first time forming a code of Marine Insurance we might probably be inclined to frame somewhat different machinery, but we have kept in view the existing state of things and endeavoured to avoid the introduction of new terms or systems. "We have endeavoured to amend patent and obvious blots, and we hope that the measure which we submit, which is the product of great thought and anxious consideration, however it may meet theoretical objections, will be found of considerable practical advantage in the direction in which we wish to go. I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen wish to discuss the clauses of the Bill; I have no desire to limit discussion, but it may be more advantageous if the Bill is allowed to be printed before there is any general discussion. At the same time the matter is one of so much importance, and affects so many interests that I am anxious no mistake should be made, and that is why I have read the ipsissima verba of the clauses to which I have referred. If there is any point on which I have not made myself clear, I shall be most happy to answer whatever questions may be asked, but knowing that the House is anxious to hear my right hon. Friend, who will cover a large range of the subject, I have to apologize to him for having stood in the way of his more interesting statement. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution.

said, he had no desire to anticipate the full discussion of the measure that must ensue on the second reading of the Bill; but after its introduction by a speech of considerable length, enunciating the views of the Government on so important a subject, he wished to offer a few observations. He had not a word of disparagement to say with reference to the general tone of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, or the description he had given of the feeling that animated the Government in approaching the subject, and, speaking for his class, he (Mr. Norwood) could say that it was the desire of the shipping interest, not only to have a final and satisfactory settlement of this large question this Session, but, as far as possible, to work heartily and cordially with the Government in obtaining it. He regretted that the Government had decided upon entering upon so intricate, delicate, and difficult a subject as the alteration of the Law of Marine Insurance—which had been raised, not by statute, but by a series of decisions of past years by able Judges, confirmed by the highest Courts of Appeal, clearly understood and acted upon—without first having a full and complete investigation into the whole of the subject. There were strong and valid reasons why some of the Government propositions should not be carried out. As a member of Lloyd's and of several insurance clubs, he was able to state that the evils resulting from over-valuation were extremely light; not a dozen cases of the kind had come under his observation, and the view taken by the Royal Commission on this part of the subject ought to have some little weight in guiding the decision of Parliament. The Royal Commissioners did not recommend an alteration in the law as to total loss on valued policies, and said it would be unwise and unjust to interfere with contracts between the assured and underwriters, unless our whole system of Marine Insurance were completely revised and amended; and, further, that the revision of such laws was a task of great difficulty, requiring evidence of an exhaustive character, and careful and lengthy investigations, which did not fall within the scope of a Royal Commission. The right hon. Gentleman had not informed the House whether he intended to make any breach of the proposed law punishable by fine and imprisonment; but without it how could he prevent shipowners from joining together for mutual insurance or resorting to honour policies, and was he prepared to prevent, under severe penalty, any shipowner from insuring his vessel abroad, as was done now in Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, and even in Switzerland? There was, then, ex- treme danger in interfering with our present system of Marine Insurance by the machinery described by the right hon. Gentleman, as it might open the door to constant dispute and litigation. The effect would simply be, that instead of going to Lloyd's to insure, shipowners would adopt mutual insurances to a greater extent, and instead of effecting legal policies would enter into honour policies, under which they were more secure than any other form of policy. The right hon. Gentleman did not propose to deal with partial losses and other matters of much interest. He would not then go into details by which he could throw a different aspect on the description and elucidation of the right hen. Gentleman; but with regard to the tone in which he had introduced the subject he had not the slightest objection, and he had shown considerable mastery of a subject of a technical and detailed character. The interference with the law of contract as proposed was an interference that would be strongly objected to not only by shipowners, but by underwriters also, and as a member of Lloyd's he could say that there was a general objection to this interference. The whole of the shipowning body of the country were sincerely desirous to have a settlement of this question upon a broad basis that would satisfy the country, but they seriously objected to a question of such extreme difficulty and danger being opened without a full and complete inquiry, which they thought the importance of the subject deserved. So far as he was personally concerned, he would not take any step until he had perused the Bill; but he was disposed to anticipate it would be the duty of those who represented the shipping interest to move, on the second reading, that it was inexpedient to alter the present law without a full and complete investigation into the whole subject, either by a Royal Commission or a Committee of that House.

congratulated the Government on having resolved to legislate on the important subject before the House, and upon the extreme moderation and caution with which they seemed to have approached it. The shipowners of this country were, he admitted, as a rule, a noble-minded body of men, but then they were not free from the evil to which every other great interest or profession was liable—that the profits which they realized attracted to them a certain number of persons who were unscrupulous and reckless, and who did not care what they did in order to put money in their pockets. Even the profession to which he had the honour to belong included some members whom they were sorry to see amongst them. Those who were experienced in the subject knew perfectly well that there were three great sources of danger to life in the carrying on of the shipping business. In the first place, the practice which had sprung up within the last 15 years, by which the shipowners exonerated themselves from every species of liability to persons who put goods on board their ships, had a tendency to cause recklessness not only on the part of the shipowners, but of the mariners themselves. That was in itself a source of danger, and, having had much to do professionally with that class of bills of lading, he had years ago warned shipowners and shipping companies that the day would come when the Government would interpose and put a stop to this practise of exonerating themselves from responsibility. He was glad the Government had had the courage to deal with the subject of bills of lading. As to valued policies, he thought the matter was too clear for argument, and he could not help thinking that his hon. Friend the Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood) must have prepared his observations with the idea that a Bill of a totally different kind was about to be introduced into the House. Indeed, his objections seemed altogether contradictory, for first of all, the hon. Member seemed to ignore the existence of such things as excessive insurances, and then he said that this Bill would be nugatory, for that the insurers would go to Austria, to Switzerland, to Italy, and elsewhere. What was the meaning of that, if the evil struck at by the clause in question did not exist? He (Mr. Williams) was under the impression, from what he had heard out-of-doors, that the Government was about to introduce a much more violent change in the law, but they seemed to him to have prudently abstained from going the length that some had urged them to do, and had presented to the House a moderate and useful measure. By the Bill valued policies were not forbidden; it was not said that assurers should not recover, but that if it should appear to the tribunal before which the question came to be tried that there were good grounds for believing that there had been an excessive and improper valuation, that tribunal should have the power, not of declaring the insurance to be illegal, but of causing an independent inquiry as to whether there had not been an abuse of this convenient practice, and the consequence would be that the insurer would only recover what amounted to an honest indemnity. He could not conceive any objection to that provision. No honest man would be injured by it. He might remind his hon. Friend that cases of excessive insurance might occur inadvertently, as, for example, the case of the Sir William Eyre, on which an insurance on a valued policy of £15,000 was effected. It was not known at the time to the assured or the underwriters that the ship was practically a wreck. She went on shore at New Zealand, and the injury the ship had received was so great that it had reduced her value so that she was not worth £1,500. She was destroyed by fire, and the assured sought to recover on the policy, not £1,500, but £15,000, and it was held that he was entitled to recover the larger sum. He never could see the sense of that, and he should hail with pleasure any law which would prevent the recovery of the amount insured under such circumstances. He congratulated the Government for the courage which they had shown in introducing that clause, and he hoped they would persevere with their Bill, which, as far his judgment wont, was a moderate and useful measure.

said, he was of opinion that the Government in this measure had gone the shortest possible distance in the way of satisfying public expectation. When the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer first gave an intimation of his intention, it was expected that, in order to meet a great public demand, some limitation would be placed on the amount to be allowed to be insured—say three-fourths of the value. If any such limitation had been proposed, he should have objected to it, because he should have regarded it is an undue restriction upon trade and commerce. Every one free from prejudice who had listened to the right hon. Gentleman must have felt that, if he had erred at all, he had proposed a Bill which erred wholly on the side of moderation, and he regretted it did not go far enough in protecting the other classes concerned. He was sorry to hear his hon. Friend the Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood) threaten an opposition to the Bill on the part of the shipowners. The Government would, he feared, experience difficulties from not shaping their measure sufficiently in accordance with the other classes interested. For himself, he objected to hear the honourableness of shipowners so much insisted upon in that House. Parliament, in its legislation, did not assume dishonourableness in any particular class, and the House had no right to be told so often, and its time ought not to be taken up by so many assertions of the honour of the shipowning class, when legislation for that interest was rendered necessary by the conduct of some of them. But, as so much was said about the honour of the shipowners' class, he should take the liberty of mentioning a circumstance which did not speak well for the conduct of certain persons belonging to that body. Last year Parliament passed an Act to compel the shipowners to mark their vessels with a load-line. That was a moderate proposal; yet it was stated the other day by The Times that in one of the Northern ports the shipowners had marked the load-line in a manner, not only to evade the Act, but to bring legislation on the subject into ridicule or inoperativeness. There was an absence of want of proper feeling and a proper sense of honour on the part of certain of the representatives of that class. They were represented in that House by Gentlemen of eminence, and honour, and probity; but they ought to be free to discuss that question like any other, without having it assumed that in shaping their protective legislation they were attacking the honour of the class to be affected by it, and he hoped that in future debates they would hear a little less of it and a little more of sympathy for the other classes concerned. The right hon. Gentleman, in his speech that evening, deprecated the bringing in of any measures on the Opposition side of the House having a tendency to injure the shipping interest.

I did not say that they were introduced with the intention of injuring the shipping interest, but that they might have that effect.

said, that any measures of the kind alluded to were brought in and supported with the idea, not of injuring, but improving the shipping interest, and the House had heard at a most untimely moment the old threat that the effect would be to drive British trade from being carried on under the British flag. He believed it would be found, on the contrary, that the effect would be to protect and invite trade to stop under the British flag. He was glad the Foreign Office had received assurances from some of the most important of the Governments of Europe that they were quite disposed to go with us in our legislation for the protection of ships and sailors. He hoped that, so far from driving any ships from under the British flag, temperate and careful legislation of this kind would have an opposite effect. He hoped that the Government would not look too much to the shipowning interest of the House, while treating it with all due respect, but would remember that there were others in the country beside shipowners; and, in conclusion would say that, although the clauses of the Bill did not go so far as some might wish, he thought the honourable and moderate efforts of the Government to modify legislation in the direction of promoting the saving of life at sea could be effected without the least injury to any shipowner whatever.

said, there were very few shipowners in the House, and of late very little attention had been paid to them when their interests were under discussion. In bringing the subject forward the Chancellor of the Exchequer had put things in the best light he could. It must be remembered that the Bill went in the direction of unsettling many important matters that had come to be understood; and, having once begun to do that, it would be difficult to know where to end. It would be an incessant annoyance to shipowners if they had to fight disputes with underwriters about value. Many of the shipping laws, like those of the British Constitution, had never been passed by Parliament. In legislating about insurance they would be dealing with men who were quite able to take care of themselves; but the attempt raised the ques- tion of all kinds of insurance, including, he submitted, fire and life, and went on the principle that a man could not properly judge for himself. The hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood) was therefore surely justified in explaining the way in which the measure would affect him and the interest he represented, and he thought the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. E. J. Reed) had been a little hard on him. The tendency of the proposed legislation was to throw all the shipping interest into the hands of the great shipowners, and to place difficulties in the way of poor men who, perhaps, owned only one or two ships, and were trying to rise in the world, which would prevent the consummation of their desires.

, while admitting the propriety of the appeal made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that they should discuss the Bill as little as possible now, said, no one could complain that shipowners should rise and state their views, and he would appeal with confidence to the Committee to admit that shipowners need not shrink from stating their views with perfect frankness. Those who represented the land or other interests that were affected by legislation would be heard patiently on every point; and a like indulgence would be granted to shipowners. From inquiries he had made, he found that a large body of underwriters considered that they had no pecuniary interest in the settlement of the question, and they would not be disposed to offer any opposition to legislation which would not lead to litigation. What the underwriters feared more than anything else was the possibility of litigation, and they would desire to oppose the Bill only so far as the changes involved might lead to the hindrances arising from the unnecessary interference of the legal profession. There was one point which would be acceptable to underwriters, and that was the implied warranty which already existed in other cases. He hoped the Bill would be examined mainly with the object of seeing how far it accomplished the object at which it aimed, and whether it would lead to so much litigation as to make it unworkable. The main task of the Government would be to prove that their measure would be effectual, and that it could not be evaded, as it would pro- bably be if it were not very precise. The hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood), for instance, had himself pointed out one danger which might possibly arise when he suggested that honour policies would supersede legal policies. He hoped the Bill would be examined carefully with a disposition to meet the Government, if it could be done without injury to the great interests involved, and with the certainty that saving of life would result from the changes proposed.

thought that the hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury (Sir Andrew Lusk) was on the horns of a dilemma; either excessive valuation was frequent—which he himself did not believe—in which case some such Bill was surely necessary, or it was confined to rare cases of fraud, in which case the Bill would not affect honest shipowners; but, on the contrary, by diminishing marine risk, would tend to benefit them by lowering premiums. As chairman of a Marine Insurance Society, he was not afraid that this portion of the Bill would drive insurance abroad or to clubs, for clubs would not permit excessive overvaluation. It must be remembered that the Bill tended to assimilate the law of marine assurance to that of fire and life, in neither of which overvaluation was permitted. He had made inquiries of two of the principal fire offices as to the danger of litigation, and he was informed that there were very few cases of litigation arising out of overvaluation in fire insurances; still fire insurance offices would be sorry to alter the existing law, for the power of opening the question of valuation had in many instances led to the detection of gross frauds which would otherwise have been successful. He believed such would be the effect of the clause in the present Bill, and that shipowners, instead of being injured, would be benefited by the proposed measure. If fraud were stopped by the Bill the honest shipowner would be the gainer. As regarded the question of freight and the other clauses, the matter required careful consideration, but he could not but hope that on the whole the Bill would prove a valuable measure.

thanked the Committee for the manner in which they had received the Bill, and said he could assure the hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood) that in what he said at the conclusion of his speech he had no wish to prevent hon. Gentlemen who were interested from making any remarks they pleased. What he was anxious for was that they should, in the first place, go on with the interesting subject which his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Charles Adderley) would have to bring forward, and also that hon. Gentlemen should not be in a hurry to commit themselves with regard to this Bill until they had had time to think it over, because he apprehended it was of a character somewhat different from that which many hon. Gentlemen might have expected. It would require some little consideration and study as to the way in which it would work before they could form an opinion of its effect, and how far it met the circumstances of the case. He was as anxious as the hon. Member for Hull that no prejudice should be raised, and that they should consider the Bill calmly and see how far it really would work. In reply to the remark of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. E. J. Reed), that he had said too much of shipowners and too little of another class, he desired to say that he was anxious to avoid raising anything like feeling in this matter, which it was desirable to consider calmly and carefully and without respect to classes; and he was also anxious to say, in reply to other remarks, that the measure was not brought forward in any spirit of hostility to shipowners. He was asked whether it would be effective, and he hoped it would, for it would give the sanction of an Act of Parliament to proper principles, which in this, as in other cases, was in itself a desirable object to accomplish.

, in rising to move that the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Merchant Shipping Acts, said, the Committee would recollect that he had introduced a Bill on the same subject, with the same title, last Session, which, unfortunately, was dropped; but he had the good fortune to retrieve some of its most important clauses in a short and temporary Act at the end of the Session. In one point of view he was not sorry that those important clauses were so temporarily passed, because an opportunity had thus been given of a six months' experiment to test whether they were wisely conceived and worked satisfactorily. It was now a gratification to his own mind to have to recommend to Parliament to make permanent all the provisions which were temporarily passed in the Act of last year, and which, with one exception, were all taken out of his original Bill; and he wished to show to the Committee that the experience of the last six months, though certainly only a short term, still afforded some test, and had been satisfactory. The Bill he asked leave now to introduce proposed to take up other clauses also of the dropped Bill, and to make two or three additions which he hoped the Committee would consider improvements. Before he described the provisions of the Bill in detail, he might, perhaps, dispose of one suggestion which had been freely and widely made—namely, that Parliament would do more wisely to proceed at once to the consolidation of all the Acts relating to Merchant Shipping. He thought he could adduce two valid reasons against adopting that suggestion. The first was that generally it was unwise to go on amending at the time of consolidating any portion of the law, because every amendment gave cause for further consolidation, and the process would become interminable. He therefore thought that in this case, as in all others, it was wiser to finish amending the law before proceeding to consolidate it. He had another reason—he thought this would be a most unpropitious time to attempt to consolidate the Merchant Shipping Acts; because there was certainly an amount of excitement in the public mind on the subject which would render it unfit to discuss all the details of something like 20 Acts of Parliament. A consolidating law would consist of at least 600 or 700 clauses; and, in the present state of the public mind, it would be difficult to put up for discussion such a map of details without running the risk of appealing from decisions which Parliament had formed in calmer moments to the impulses of more exciting and less dispassionate times. He had himself attempted, in the Bill that was dropped last Session, to consolidate the discipline clauses of the Merchant Shipping Acts, but he certainly found by experience that it was not a wise attempt; and therefore he did not now propose to re-introduce that portion of the dropped Bill. They had spent the greater part of the time allowed in Committee in discussing the re-enactment of what was already on the Statute Book. He had thought it wise to avoid the repetition of such delay, and had confined the provisions of the Bill to the points most prominently before the public. The late Government had attempted to consolidate the Merchant Shipping Acts in three consecutive years, and their Bills for that purpose, introduced in 1869, 1870, and 1871, now to be found in the Library, certainly were a valuable repertory of information; but on every occasion they were brought forward without any legislative result. He thought the Members of the late Government would therefore agree with him in refraining from consolidating. When he spoke of the agitation of the public mind he did not wish to deprecate or depreciate the value of the agitation which had arisen on this subject. On the contrary, he thought that agitation had roused the attention of Parliament to very important purpose; but, at the same time, it must be borne in mind that a vast deal of exaggeration and misstatements of facts generally attended agitation, and this case would prove to be no exception to the general rule. He would indicate very briefly some heads upon which statements were greatly exaggerated—the deterioration of our merchant shipping; the disasters which were represented as increasingly happening; the deterioration of our seamen, and the greater amount of recklessness, disaster, and loss of life. The conclusion which must be arrived at after a careful examination of statistics of the highest authority was that British tonnage had trebled since 1835; that British ships clearing for foreign ports had sextupled in the same period; that the men em- ployed in British ships in the trade of the United Kingdom had doubled in the last 20 years; and that British ships were not only absorbing the trade of the United Kingdom, but the best trade of other countries also, some of which was even falling off, and coming into the hands of British shipowners. Again, the wrecks since 1836 had steadily decreased in proportion to the number of voyages; and whereas for every life lost between 1832 and 1835 the tonnage was 4,600, for every life lost in the years 1870 to 1873 there were 13,000 tons employed in the foreign trade of the United Kingdom, so that the falling-off in the loss of life was the most remarkable part of these records. He thought it desirable to correct these misrepresentations and exaggerations, and he thought so for four different reasons. In the first place, for the credit of the country; secondly, in the very interests of the agitation itself, as such misstatements might render men sceptical as to the evil which did exist and which should be met; thirdly, because such misstatements and misrepresentations should make them doubly cautious lest they dealt under the influence of any panic with a subject of such vital importance as the shipping interest of this country; and fourthly, as the evil of recklessness which they had to deal with was so shown to be a very exceptional one in the general enterprize of the country, it was the duty of the Government strictly to confine itself to those exceptional cases, and not to attempt to take part in the general conduct of the enterprize, nor to render itself responsible in the place of the undertakers by prescribing the mode of conducting it. The main spirit of the Bill was to check reckless imperilling of life in the merchant sea-service of this country, and with this view to take steps simply as a matter of police for the public protection, but, at the same time, to refrain from harassing the whole Mercantile Marine by needless and even mischievous interference. He would now proceed to describe the contents of the Bill. The first enacting clause laid down broadly the principle that any man who sent a ship to sea without taking reasonable precautions that it was sent in such a condition as not to endanger human life was guilty of a misdemeanour. That was the law at the present moment. By the first statute on the subject—the Act of 1854, Section 239—any master or seaman who, by neglect of duty, endangered life, was guilty of a misdemeanour. The Merchant Shipping Act of 1871 extended this liability to the owners of ships and to all persons having authority to send a ship to sea. The temporary Act of 1875 extended the liability still further; it not only made anyone, whether owner or other person, who sent, or attempted to send, or was party to sending a ship to sea in an unseaworthy state guilty of a misdemeanour, but also the master who took the ship to sea in that condition. It was a recommendation of the Royal Commission to extend the provision of 1871 to the master; and he introduced a clause to that effect in the dropped Bill. But the clause which he first drafted was largely extended by the hon. and learned Member for Durham (Mr. Herschell), and was, in fact, now called "the Herschell Clause," and had the advantage of his high authority, though it was so extended with his own full concurrence. It was, however, open for the owner to show that he had taken reasonable means to insure the safety of his ship. He had observed that in a discussion on the subject the Shipowners' Association considered this provision as a hardship upon the owner, and not in the spirit of the English law. But they entirely misunderstood the object of the provision, for it was not against, but in favour of, the shipowner that the permission of exculpation was offered. When it had been proved that a ship had been taken to sea in an unseaworthy state, there was a primâ facie case against the owner; but this provision gave him an opportunity of showing in exculpation that he had taken all reasonable precautions; and as it would be impossible for the prosecutor to prove a negative, or that he had not taken reasonable precautions, this was the shipowner's proper defence. That clause put the owner of a ship and all engaged very much in the position of other carriers. When an accident occurred on a railway it was usual to prosecute the company's servants for manslaughter through whose fault a loss of life was occasioned, and it was for them to avoid the charge by showing that they had taken all reasonable care. A very important provision in this clause was the registering a managing owner in every British ship, so that there should always be some one under the obligations, and subject to the liabilities of ownership in the Act. There were no successful prosecutions under the 239th section of the Act of 1854, and under the Act of 1871 he believed there were only two. But the Board of Trade had now, under the Act of 1875, a very efficient Law Officer, by whose assistance the law had been more actively put in force than before; and although he (Sir Charles Adderley) could not say, as but a short time had elapsed, that there had yet been a completely successful prosecution under it, yet he believed the indirect operation of the law had been very effective. The next subject with which the Bill dealt was the obligation of a shipowner to his crew—that he or his agents should take all reasonable precautions to make and to keep the ship in a seaworthy state. This was one of the clauses of the dropped Bill of 1875. Before the Act of 1875 the Common Law bound a shipowner to his crew as a master to his servant—that he would take due care, especially in dangerous employment, to have his machinery in safe condition. But there was no warranty of safety; and in the ruling ease on this subject, "Couch v. Steel," it was decided in 1854 that seamen could get no damages for injury from unseaworthiness. It was found that there was a statutory obligation to find medicines, but not a safe ship. It was the opinion of the Law Officers in 1865 that a seaman could refuse to sail on the ground of the unseaworthiness of the ship; but when once he had sailed there was no redress for damage in the voyage. The Act of 1871, with a view to amend that unsatisfactory state of the law, allowed to the seaman as a plea in defending himself against a charge of desertion, that the ship was unseaworthy; but in order to get the benefit of the provision he had first to desert. It also gave seamen a right of inquiry by the Board of Trade if a fourth of the crew complained. The clause which he proposed to introduce adopted Section 9 of the temporary Act of 1875, which gave the seaman a civil remedy for injury sustained by the unseaworthiness of a ship, thus imposing on the owner an obligation to the crew out of which he could not contract himself. It brought the seaman within the operation of Lord Campbell's Act; if he lost his life his widow had a claim, but the owner's liability was kept, as heretofore, limited. As to the detention of unseaworthy ships, the Bill next proposed to embody the provisions of the Act of 1873 for the surveying of ships, but substituted an easier and more expeditious Court of Appeal against the judgments of surveyors; and with the provisions of the Act of 1873 it embodied those of the temporary Act of last year for appointing district officers to whom the Board of Trade delegated their powers of detention. The process of detention under the existing law was this: Whenever there was any complaint made to the Board of Trade that a ship was unseaworthy, or when the Board of Trade had reason to think that a ship was going to sea in that condition, they might send a provisional order for her detention and an officer to survey and report. Upon receiving that report the Board of Trade could send a final order for the ship's detention until the conditions of the order were fulfilled. There was now an appeal to the local Admiralty Court—that was, the County Court. It was proposed that an easier appeal should be given to the shipowners against the judgment of surveyors. The Bill substituted for the County Court a Court of Survey, consisting of a Judge and two assessors, one the nominee of the Board of Trade, the other of the Local Marine Board or Association of Shipowners. To this Court shipowners might appeal in the case of any charge of overloading, and even before appealing they might require the Board of Trade surveyor to take an assessor with him, and settle the point at once. In more serious cases of unseaworthiness the appeal was to be only against the final order. If a Board of Trade surveyor refused to certify to the safety of a passenger or emigrant ship, the same Court was open to the shipowners' appeal; and if a point of science or an important principle were involved, either the Board of Trade or the shipowner might refer it to scientific referees appointed by the Court of Appeal. The Judge of the Court of Survey would be either a stipendiary magistrate or one of a list of fit persons stated in the Bill; while one of the assessors would be a persons of nautical, engineering, or other special skill and experience. These provisions, he hoped, would fairly meet the wishes of the ship- owners for a more easy and satisfactory Court of Appeal and the just demands of the case. The clause also made permanent the provisions in the temporary Act of last year as to officers to whom might be delegated the powers of the Board of Trade in case of emergency. Upon this point he would state what he had done in execution of the first section of the Act of 1875 under which he had to make these appointments. After Parliament was prorogued, he sent the chief professional adviser of the Marine Department of the Board of Trade, Captain Murray, to make a circuit of the districts throughout the whole Kingdom and report as to the condition of the Survey staff. Captain Murray's Report, which had been laid on the Table, showed the necessity of an entire re-organization of the staff. The fact was that the Survey staff of the Board of Trade had from time to time, by numerous Acts of Parliament, had so many and such difficult and complicated duties thrown upon them that they were no longer adequate, either in number or qualification, for the discharge of all these duties. They had to inspect ships, survey ships both as to their loading, equipment, and machinery, examine officers for certificates, record the draft of water, and attend to tonnage measurement. These numerous and onerous duties were imposed upon a limited number of surveyors, receiving, he must say, rather inadequate pay. Shipowners might also, with some justice, ask for a higher class of officers to deal with more important questions and to superintend the ordinary staff, so as to insure greater order in their action, and, what was of more importance, greater uniformity of judgment. With this view, following Captain Murray's Report, he had made a consultative staff in London, besides the district Survey staff; he had put principal officers over 10 districts, which embraced the whole coast of the United Kingdom; and these officers would superintend the whole staff of their respective districts. He had also given authority, under the Act of 1875, to some existing officers to detain ships on the part of the Board of Trade, and subject to their sanction; and he had also weeded out what might be called the in effectives of the staff, and placed efficient men in their stead. On the whole, he thought he had fully carried out the intentions of Parliament, ex- pressed in Section 1 of the temporary-Act of 1875; and he had the gratification of knowing that what he had done was thought satisfactory in the different districts where the principal officers had been placed. The reports already made by these officers showed, too, that great benefit had already ensued, and there had already in consequence been less overloading; and that by the presence of these officers on the spot many questions had been settled by amicable correspondence instead of by dilatory reference to the Board of Trade, while they had given material assistance in carrying out the objects of Parliament last year. Next he came to the question of grain cargoes. Immediately after the passing of the Act of 1875 the Foreign Office sent a copy of the Act to all our Consuls at grain-exporting ports, and told them to report upon any violations of Section 3 in the Act of 1875. Here he might frankly say, for he had no wish to detract from the credit due to the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Plimsoll), that it was owing very much to his exertions in the Black Sea that the Board of Trade took the steps they did. The Board telegraphed to our Consuls to do what they could to carry out the Foreign Office order, employing fit persons to go on board ship, with power to incur expenses to the amount of £2 per ship. There could be no doubt that the hon. Member did great service in visiting the grain ships, giving information as to the Act, and offering advice. But, at the same time, the hon. Member would probably acknowledge that a Government could not do exactly the same thing which could be done by a private individual in a matter of this kind. The hon. Member's name naturally carried great weight on this subject, and his advice was readily taken. But a Government officer was not received in the same way. His advice was in the nature of a Government order, which, unless he had some means of enforcing it, would perhaps be better omitted altogether. Much, therefore, of the private action of the hon. Member was more effectual than the action of the Government, which had rather followed his suggestions and in his wake. All, however, that the Board of Trade could do was done. The telegrams to our Consuls to take these steps were immediately followed by a circular of instructions, with orders to report home monthly, and in special cases to report immediately, and at the same time to call the master's or the agent's attention to any violation of the Act. In December the Board of Trade sent out a second circular of instructions to all Consuls, Vice Consuls, and Agents, empowering a selected list of them to employ persons to inspect, and they were told to send home reports of all British ships loading or unloading grain at their respective ports. The Baltic, Black Sea, and American ports comprise seven-eighths of the grain-loading ports, and in many of these ports vessels loaded under local regulations, or under the strict supervision of the Government or of underwriters. From such ports, therefore, reports were not required. Instructions were also given to all Board of Trade Surveyors at home to inspect grain ships arriving with any "list" or appearance of improper loading, and to enforce penalties where the Act had been violated. The next clause related to deck cargoes. This was a very difficult subject to deal with. The Committee must bear in mind that already in the eye of the law deck-loading was in itself primâ facie evidence of unseaworthiness; it was cargo in an improper place, impeding navigation and causing danger. Goods on deck were not covered by a general insurance of goods, unless there was a special trade usage; and they gave no claim to contribution if jettisoned, though they were made to contribute to general average. The Customs Act of 1862 abolished the prohibition of deck-cargoes of timber, not only because the prohibition had proved impracticable—a sufficient reason in itself—but because the attempts to carry it out were mischievous. Some things must be carried on deck, since they could not be carried anywhere else. The law ought to check in every possible way such deck cargoes as need not necessarily be carried on deck; and, at all events, the law ought not to give a premium for that kind of loading, as it did at present, inasmuch as deck cargo was the only kind of cargo which did not pay tonnage dues. Various proposals had been made for checking unnecessary deck cargoes. The first proposition was to prohibit them altogether. Among the Notices of Amendments to the dropped Bill of last year was one to prohibit the discharge of all cargoes as might be so imported, and to prevent them from being landed. In his judgment such a proposal could hardly be supported by Parliament. Suppose a deck cargo brought safely across the Atlantic, and, to the delight of eager customers, arrived safety at an English port, it would be absurd to say—"By all the rules of the sea you ought to have gone to the bottom, and you must put out to sea again to ascertain whether you will not go to the bottom." The second proposal was that no vessel should go to sea with a deck cargo without a licence from the Board of Trade. Now, although he had the highest respect for that Department, he could hardly expect that Parliament would give it power to grant such licences. The third proposal was that extra port-dues should be levied on deck-loaded ships generally; but then these dues would be levied equally on all deck-loads of whatever kind they might be, and the rule would apply very unequally in different cases. For Ms own part, he was in hopes that the Bill proposed a mode of dealing with the difficulty that would prove satisfactory to the House. It was intended specifically to exempt some cargoes from prohibition—such as cattle, meat, and several things which must be carried on deck; but with regard to unexempted cargoes carried on deck, or in any space not included in tonnage measurement, such space would be measured into tonnage measurement and uncovered cargo on the open deck would be measured by its area and the rectangle of its bulk. This, he thought, was a very feasible plan, and would provide an effective check on deck cargoes, or, at least deprive them of their present unfair advantage, while at the same time it would not do more than was in itself reasonable. The proposal was free from all the objections applicable to the plans he had just alluded to. It would give no offence to foreign nations—it would not lead to evasive awning decks—it would carry out the fair principle that all cargo bearing space should pay. He was told by the men most acquainted with the subject that no difficulty or delay whatever would arise, for a ship coming in with a deck cargo would be met as usual by a Customs officer, who would measure that portion of her cargo which was so carried on the way into port. Coasters, however, would not be included in this provision. It was also proposed to insert the deck-cargo clause of the dropped Bill. That was merely a precautionary clause; but it had had considerable effect as a caution. It rendered it imperative on every owner of a ship which cleared with a deck cargo to insert in the log both the quantity and quality of the cargo carried. This would be of great importance to him in case of any question arising as to casualty. The next clauses of the Bill related to the load-line, which, as the House was well aware, was one of the most difficult and most vexed questions connected with the Merchant Shipping Laws. The present Bill would make permanent the 5th and 6th sections of the temporary Act of 1875. The reports he had received from all parts of England with regard to the enacted load-line were satisfactory, with the sole exception of Liverpool, where, at all events at first, some attempts were made to render the provisions of the Act ridiculous, if not nugatory, by fixing the load-line absurdly high. But, after a little reflection, the shipowners found it was not quite such a trifle as they had imagined. In the first place, the load-line by the words of the Act indicated the point up to which the owner intended to load, and, consequently, if the vessel were lost he would have to prove to the underwriters that he had not really loaded the ship up to that point—for the underwriters, of course, had a right to assume he had done so. Again, in the agreement with the crew it was a very important check, as it gave them a right, which they would not otherwise possess, to make claims and remonstrances. Besides, for marking so as to mislead there was a penalty of £100, which might be repeated any number of times. Consequently, it had been found at Liverpool that the matter was serious, and practical, and evasive load-lines had been changed. At the same time, he was anxious that there should be as little as possible of uncertainty or arbitrariness in the judgments of the Board of Trade surveyors as to the overloading of ships. He wished, therefore, to ascertain whether any general rules could be laid down by way of instructions to surveyors, so as to render their judgments about overloading as far as possible generally intelligible and uni- form. For the purpose of procuring the best opinion on the subject he had invited a committee of 12 persons, of whom four were from Lloyd's, four from Liverpool Lloyd's, and four from the Board of Trade, as the best judges, to decide whether any such general rules and principles could be laid down. They debated the subject for two days, and on the third day they separated without being able to come to an agreement. It might be concluded, then, that such general rules were impossible. Every ship, every voyage, every cargo, and every season made the load-line a matter of utter uncertainty. Under these circumstances, he simply proposed to incorporate in the present Bill the load-line section of the temporary Act. He would next advert to the system of wreck inquiries by the Board of Trade. Objection had been made to the mode of such inquiries because, though they were really intended to be principally useful for eliciting the circumstances of a casualty, they took the character of a criminal proceeding against the captain. In an inquiry into the cause of a wreck it was of the greatest possible importance that all the information that was procurable should be forthcoming, and it must tend to vitiate the inquiry if the evidence of the captain, not to criminate himself, were excluded. It was also objected to the present system that, under it, masters of vessels were brought before Police Courts. The dropped Bill of last Session endeavoured to meet this objection by restricting the inquiry to an inquest, leaving anything in the nature of criminal proceedings to the Courts of Law. All question as to the officer's certificate would thus be decided separately elsewhere. But any endeavour in that way would only render another inquiry necessary to investigate the competency of the master to hold his certificate. However restricted the first inquest might be, the master would have before him the fear of afterwards losing his certificate, and his evidence would be just as much impeded as if the two inquiries remained as now in one. The Bill, therefore, gave up all attempt to divest the inquiry of so far a criminal character, as to involve the competency of the master to retain his certificate. The Bill proposed to take up a suggestion of the Royal Commissioners by the appointment of a superior class of Judges to con- duct the inquiries, to be called Wreck Commissioners—three in number, of whom one only would at first be appointed to preside over the largest—namely, that of London. The existing tribunals would continue with this addition. The last important wreck which had occurred—that of the Deutschland—showed the importance and illustrated the usefulness of such a step. It was most important that an inquiry should take place quickly, and before the very best authorities; but it turned out that there was no police-court in London which was ready to undertake such an inquiry. A letter was received by the Board of Trade from Sir Thomas Henry, to the effect that it was utterly impossible from the enormous amount of work he had to dispose of to undertake it; and in that letter, which would be laid before the House, he gave extremely good reasons why in such cases not only time but special qualifications were necessary to render the inquiry complete and satisfactory. Under these circumstances, the Board of Trade commissioned Mr. Rothery, Registrar of the Admiralty Division of the High Court of Judicature, and he undertook the inquiry as an Inspector of the Board of Trade under the Act of 1854. He believed that anyone who had followed the proceedings would agree with him that the inquiry was in all respects a full and satisfactory one. While it was so, it nevertheless afforded evidence of the fact that the difficulty as to placing the captain in the position of a defendant could not by any means be avoided. It would, he thought, be found that the Wreck Commissioners, if agreed to, would be a superior and better-qualified class of judges than now existed for the purpose in view. The Bill also proposed that the Wreck Commissioners should be allowed to take depositions in the same manner as the Receivers of Wrecks now did. By such means it was very probable that a great improvement would be effected by the fact that such depositions so taken would gradually supersede the protests now made before notaries. Two clauses only remained for him to touch upon, and one related to the subject of training ships. He need say nothing to enforce the view that if they could get well-trained and well-disciplined boys to supply the Merchant Marine with better crews they would do more for the safety of ships and for the abolition of the reign of crimps than any Act of Parliament could effect. The Government could not undertake the charge of schools for that purpose. That was impossible. Fortunately, however, there were a great number of persons in the Kingdom who were ready to do so, and the number happily was increasing. It should be remembered, however, that in the existing state of things most of the school ships were filled by boys who had been committed by the magistrates under the Reformatory or Industrial Schools Act, and thus only public aid was given for the supply of merchant ship-crews by training boys of the worst class, and premiums were given out of public funds to the employment of such boys in preference to boys of respectable parents, who would supply merchant crews of the best materials. He knew it was very easy to show objections to grants of public money for the purpose of training the independent poor in any kind of industry, and that such a system would be open to the grossest abuse. Still, he thought that aid could safely be given from special funds to existing training-ships, and to new training-ships which he hoped to see established in all parts of the Kingdom, to enable them to train boys of respectable parents for the merchant sea-service. What the Bill proposed on this subject was to authorize grants out of any surplus of the Shipping Office fees—which surplus they might expect to become greater than now—in aid of school ships training boys of respectable parents who had not been committed by a magistrate, and who when turned out from training and obtaining employment in a merchant ship passed an efficient examination. He had hoped to get a larger sum out of which to make such grants by shipowners assenting to a special fee—say of 3d. a ton—on engaging crews; but he had not met with sufficient encouragement to justify him in making the proposal. He trusted, however, that the small beginning he might be able to make would if successful and found practically useful, lead to greater results in the future. The proposal would be greatly supplemented by what had been done by his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, who had made an offer on the part of the Admiralty to such boys so trained, and who entered the third class boy Naval Reserve, by which they would have certain payments, a dress every year, and the prospect of a pension, and that he could not but think would have great effect in holding them permanently to the service. He now came to the last clause, which proposed something in the way of a certificate of health to be procured by seamen on their engagement. There was no greater source of danger to ships than the diseased and rotten state in which seamen joined their vessels on starting. He had heard of a number of cases occurring on the Thames, the Mersey, and other rivers, of ships having to be taken to the sea by foreigners, owing to the drunken and diseased condition of the British sailors on board. A large number of such seamen were left abroad diseased, and the expense of bringing them home was a charge upon the taxpayer of this country, now amounting to about £30,000 a-year. It would be of great importance, then, in every point of view, that steps should be taken with a view to secure that this advantage to shipowners of throwing a diseased crew on the support of the country, should be allowed only when they had taken the little trouble to see to their being first engaged in a healthy state. Medical officers were employed at public expense to enable them to do so—paying only a fee of 1s. per man. He proposed, therefore, that unless the captain had taken the slight trouble of obtaining a certificate of the fitness of his crew for service, the cost of bringing his sick men back should be charged not to the taxpayer, but to the owners of the ship. Having avoided many of the topics that occupied so much of their attention last year, and which were better suited to a consolidating than to an amending Bill, he trusted that they had in the present Bill of 32 clauses fairly and carefully attempted to meet all the points in which the public were chiefly interested at the present time. Many who were personally interested in this question in this House had met the subject in a patriotic spirit, and had endeavoured to carry out, even at considerable sacrifice to themselves, what the public interests required. He could not but think that those who represented the demands of the public were also inclined to put forward those demands in a conciliatory spirit, and divest them of anything like hostility to the great shipowning interests. He therefore felt confident that this Bill would be passed, and that when passed it would meet the objects which the public had in view. If the Bill should pass he could promise that the Board of Trade would vigorously, faithfully, and carefully carry out its provisions. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution.

, whilst congratulating the right hon. Gentleman on the clearness and, simplicity which characterized his statement, regretted that he had not introduced a Bill to simplify and consolidate existing laws. He thought the proposals contained in the Bill so simple that very little time need be occupied in passing the measure as it stood. At the same time, he could not regard the proposal as altogether satisfactory, in that it did not fix any one with the responsibility of determining the load-line. This responsibility ought, in his view of the subject, to be undertaken by the Government, in order to satisfy the public mind on the question. It was proposed that the grain-loading clauses should be left as they were last year; but he adhered to his own opinion that the only way of dealing with the matter was to provide that one-fourth of the cargo should be stowed in bags and loaded on the top of the bulk. As to deck cargoes, he failed to see why one portion of the cargo should be exempt from tonnage dues whilst another was liable to them. Some information was required as to what the right hon. Gentleman had done during the Recess with respect to foreign Governments. If restrictions were to be placed upon deck-loading in British vessels they ought also, by international agreement, to be imposed in the case of foreign ships. The Court of Survey proposed to be constituted was an improvement upon the plan contained in the Bill of last year; but he could not say the same with regard to the training-ship scheme, unless the Government was prepared to undertake the sole responsibility of establishing such ships at the expense of the country, and so providing for the merchant service the improved class of seamen which was so much required. On the whole, there were many objections to various clauses in the Bill; but he should reserve himself for their discussion during its future progress, and especially when it went into Committee.

said, he did not propose to offer any general opinion on the subject of the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman until he had had the opportunity of reading it and considering it carefully; because, although the statement which they had heard was lamentably short of what would be necessary as a satisfactory solution of the question, he was conscious of the great advantage of the Government taking up the measure, and of the possibility of improving it in Committee. He should meet the Bill with every disposition to see an opportunity of amending it rather than of embarrassing the Government and seeking to keep open the question a day longer than was absolutely necessary. He would like, however, to make one or two remarks upon some of the principal points. He had been very much struck, on the subject of the survey of vessels, with the complaint on the part of shipowners that the onus of proof was thrown upon them, that the vessels which had been lost started in a thoroughly seaworthy condition. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir Charles Adderley) contended that this was a mistaken view of their position. Because nothing could be proved, inasmuch as anybody who could tell anything was at the bottom of the sea. The difficulty of proving a negative was so great that he saw no reason why they should regard the position as unfavourable to them. The right hon. Gentleman had taken much credit for the fact that an efficient Law Officer had been appointed to see that the provisions of the Act of last Session were carried out, although he admitted that there had been no conviction under the Act. Surely if that efficient officer had done his duty he might have discovered in some out of the 500 or 600 cases in which the Board of Trade had stopped ships which were proved to be unseaworthy, sufficient evidence to have convicted the shipowners of an intention to send an unseaworthy ship to sea. He saw no reason why ships should not be placed on the same footing with factories, mines, and mills, and properly qualified persons sent to inspect them, armed with authority to require all necessary conditions to be complied with. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to leave the subject of grain cargoes as it was left last Session, and he added that the Board of Trade issued instructions to its agents on this point. He (Mr. Plimsoll) had seen those instructions, and they warned the agents that they were not to interfere in any way. That was the only trace he could find of any instruction in the Circular. Whilst he felt thankful that duly qualified officers were authorized to go on board ships, they were indebted for that to the Foreign Office, for the Board of Trade gave him a curt refusal to make any such arrangement, and it was only when Lord Derby was referred to that the thing was granted. With regard to deck cargoes, the right hon. Gentleman had said that the legislation that existed before 1862 prohibiting deck cargoes had been absolutely nugatory He (Mr. Plimsoll) was astonished to hear that statement, because one expected a Minister of the Crown to inform himself on these points. A Circular was issued by the Board of Trade itself to Lloyd's in 1874, asking for information on this very subject. Lloyd's employed two gentlemen of great ability—namely, Messrs. Jansen and Wakefield—who examined the records of over 6,800 voyages of timber-loaded ships for 10 years during which deck-loading was prohibited, and for the 10 years after the prohibition was removed in 1862, and they reported to Lloyds, who, he presumed, reported to the Board of Trade, that the loss of life since 1862 was vastly greater than when the deckloading was prohibited. The evidence was most conclusive on the point, though at the moment he forgot the figures. The right hon. Gentleman made himself a little merry at his (Mr. Plimsoll's) expense, because he desired to prevent deck-loaded timber ships from entering British ports, and had asked whether such ships were to be sent out to sea again to be lost. He, however, was not to be deterred from carrying out his object by ridicule of that character. Of course such ships were not to be sent out to sea again to be lost; but heavy penalties might be imposed upon all such ships which entered our ports, and the effect in time would be to prevent them being sent here. That legislation of that kind if properly enforced would be successful, had been proved by the Indian Government, who had imposed heavy penalties on all over-crowded and ill-found vessels which brought home the pilgrims return- ing from Jaffa, and had thus put an end to the evils sought to be repressed. The right hon. Gentleman had expressed himself satisfied with the legislation of last year as to the load-line; but upon that point he should be prepared to join issue with him in Committee; because one of the right hon. Gentleman's own supporters had said, with regard to many of the ships sailing from the port he belonged to, that the load-line might just as well be put upon the funnel as where it was placed under last year's statute. Shipowners who placed a very fair load-line on their ships in our ports buried that line completely when they got into the Black Sea, and thus it became utterly valueless. In the present Act there was no penalty for submerging the load-line, such as it was. The right hon. Gentleman also described how he had got 12 representative gentlemen to try to devise some general scheme by which it might be decided when a ship was overloaded, and they had failed. No doubt they would fail, because the problem he set them was the wrong problem. The question was not how to get a general ruling, for such a thing could not be devised, but—"Can you, or any two of you, on any ship submitted to you, find a safe load-line for that ship?" The Bristol Chamber of Commerce had recently passed a sensible resolution on this point; but the only method of determining what was a fair load-line was by considering each individual case. No general principle could be applied to these matters. But there would be no difficulty whatever in experts dealing with each case, and the load-line already in operation would greatly facilitate their labours if such a commission of experts should be appointed. The Board of Customs were already in possession of the lines of each ship; and if the Government were desirous of arriving at a satisfactory conclusion he should recommend them to get the 12 gentlemen to go through the returns made by the shipowners, and where they found that an ample free board had been allowed put those ships aside and deal with the remainder one by one. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the inquiries with regard to lost ships generally became inquiries, not into the seaworthiness of the ship, but into the guilt or innocence of the captain. That was precisely what he (Mr. Plimsoll) said-last Session, for which he got into dreadful hot water at the hands of the right hon. Gentleman. What he said would be found in the debates as well as the manner in which his remarks were received. Undoubtedly it was the case that these inquiries resolved themselves into the guilt or innocence of the captain and not the seaworthiness or otherwise of the ship. It was unnecessary that he should disclaim all intention of libelling all shipowners; but the right hon. Gentleman had given an illustration of the abnormal position into which this great and important question had drifted when he informed the House that ships were frequently taken down the river by foreign crews until the drunken and diseased English sailors were put on board of them. Why, he asked, were shipowners treated entirely different from other employers? Suppose the railway company had said in respect to the Abbots Ripton collision—"Oh, the engine-driver was drunk and the stoker was drunk," and had urged that as an excuse, would not the public say—"It is your business to provide sober men?" Why should the shipowner be relieved from responsibility for the acts of their servants? Why should shipowners not inquire into the character of their servants, and see the sort of people they were engaging? If a drunken crew were put on board at the last moment, who was to blame—the men, who were helpless, or the sober men who sent them to sea in that condition? He did not see why shipowners should not be held responsible, like any other class of employers, for the people they employed. He must now repeat what he said at the outset, that when he found, although the clauses of the Bill were apparently unsatisfactory, that there were clauses dealing with survey, deck cargoes, load-line, and grain cargoes, he thought that even if the Bill might not be such as the House and the country would accept as it stood, yet it would afford a framework which the House in Committee might fill up with some very good and useful legislation. While reciprocating the kind expressions used towards himself, he hoped the Government would approach the subject with a disposition to accept the opinion of the House in the matter. He trusted the decision on each separate issue as it arose in the hands of the House, confident that so far as the House could ac- complish it, they would have good and useful legislation on the subject.

said, the failure of last Session was to be attributed mainly to the fact that the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman had not precedence over the Bills of his Colleagues; it was postponed to almost every Bill of his Colleagues. But even when the House finally got into Committee upon it the House would recollect that the measure had hardly been properly considered by the Cabinet itself, and the right hon. Gentleman did not receive from the Prime Minister the support which might have been expected. The House might hope that these mistakes would not be repeated this year, that this Bill would be properly considered, and that full opportunity would be given for the discussion, not only of its clauses, but also of the very important Amendments which would probably be proposed by the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Plimsoll). He regretted to hear what the President of the Board of Trade had said with respect to the question of consolidation. He (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) thought a Consolidation Bill ought to follow this Bill immediately. The President of the Board of Trade seemed to think that there could be no consolidation, because there was too much excitement in the mind of the public on the subject; but without some interest in the public mind it would be impossible at any time to carry a Consolidation Bill. Therefore, he could not but think that, considering the somewhat meagre programme which the Cabinet had laid before Parliament, it would be possible to carry not only this Bill, but also a Consolidation Bill which would reduce to something like order the great chaos in which all shipping questions were now. He must admit that from all the information he had received with respect to the appointments made during the Recess under the measure of last Session, they were judicious and good ones. He was quite certain that one appointment made by the right hon. Gentleman, or rather by the Prime Minister—namely, that of the hon. Member for Lincolnshire (Mr. Stanhope) to the Board of Trade—had been received with great satisfaction by the House, and he might say by the country. He did not propose on the present occasion to go through the many details stated by the right hon. Gentleman; but there was one point on which he must say a few words. The House would recollect that last Session the right hon. Gentleman proposed in his Bill that a sum out of the Mercantile Marine Fund should be applied to the training of boys for the Merchant Service. He wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman would lay on the Table any scheme under which that money would be laid out in the training of boys for ships. Last Session the right hon. Gentleman, he believed, was unable to give the House any scheme, for the best of reasons—because he had no scheme at all. [Sir CHARLES ADDERLEY dissented.] At all events, the right hon. Gentleman was not able to give it to the House. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would tell the House what sum of money he would contribute towards the training of boys, and subject to what conditions. The right hon. Gentleman's proposal involved, directly or indirectly, the taxation of shipowners, and they were entitled, he thought, to know on what conditions this money would be spent. As to the other details of the Bill, they would be better discussed on the second reading.

admitted that the Bill went further than he had anticipated, and he was glad that it did so. It proposed to legislate on three out of the four important points which had been under deliberation last year. It did not deal with the question of load-line as the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Plimsoll) would wish; but he (Mr. E. J. Reed) apprehended that the object of legislation was not to embody the views simply of one particular individual, but to legislate for the general satisfaction. What was wanted was that the Government should show they were disposed to go as far as the country desired them to go, and that had certainly been done in this instance. But though it did that, he himself was of opinion it might have been better had the Government gone further. For himself, he believed that a survey of ships by the Government was perfectly practicable. He did not agree with the hen. Member for Derby that the load-line proposals were unsatisfactory. That subject, it ought to be borne in mind, was full of difficulty, and the right hon. Gentleman had shown that the owner's load-line had many bene- ficial indirect effects. With regard to the question of deck cargo, as with regard to the question of a load-line, he thought that the proposal of the Government was an extremely well-considered one; but he doubted if it would be found to be a final one; or that it was all that the Government could fairly be asked to prescribe. He believed that the Bill was a very fair proposal as a whole, and that, both in what it did and what it admitted of being done in Committee, it put before the House a measure which they might well receive with satisfaction and thankfulness.

moved—

"That, except for a Money Bill, no Order of the Day or Notice of Motion be taken after half-past Twelve of the clock at night with respect to which Order or Notice of Motion a Notice of Opposition or Amendment shall have been printed on the Notice Paper, or if such Notice of Motion shall only have been given the next previous day of sitting, and objection shall be taken when such Notice is called."

wished to enter his protest against the Resolution, on the ground that he had often seen the Order which it involved used to impede important Motions of independent Members of the House. If it were only a question as to no new Business being introduced after half-past 12 o'clock, for which the late Mr. Brotherton so long contended, he should heartily support the Resolution.

, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill for facilitating the Regulation and Improvement of Commons, and for the amendment of the Inclosure Acts, said, that no one could have read or looked at the Report of the Inclosure Commissioners for the last year without being struck with the very great number of inclosure schemes, passed by the Commissioners, which had been silently waiting for their confirmation by Parliament. For years past Parliament had practically come to the conclusion, without an absolute vote, that it would not confirm any further schemes of that kind until the law regulating the inclosure of commons had been, to some extent, revised; and also that it would not undertake the revision of the law on that subject until it had had laid before it as accurate an account as could be obtained of the quantity of land which yet remained uninclosed, pointing out how much of it could be cultivated and how much could not, together with certain other particulars respecting those lands. All those particulars were now before the House, and he thought it was quite time that an end should be put to that which had become a disgrace to the legislation of this country—namely, that there should be a law passed for the inclosure of commons, and that people should go to a certain expense to have their lands inclosed, and should then find it practically impossible to get their schemes confirmed. Therefore, he thought that the House would probably be of the same opinion as the Government—namely, that the period had arrived when that question should be undertaken, and in a somewhat broad and comprehensive spirit, so as once for all to put the matter on such a foundation as it might rest upon, they hoped, for a long term of years. The Report they had had placed before them as to the extent of land which still remained uninclosed, and otherwise was most interesting. He found that the total amount of that land was about 2,632,000 acres, of which about 883,000 acres were apparently capable of being brought into cultivation; while nearly 1,500,000 acres were unsuited for cultivation, and about 250,000 acres might be called common field land. Now, what had really been the reason why Parliament had held its hand in confirming inclosure schemes of late years? It was briefly this. They had not been satisfied that sufficient compensation had been given to those who had admittedly no proprietory rights over the commons, but who, nevertheless, practically incurred a loss by the fact of the commons being inclosed. Out of 587,000 acres inclosed since the passing of the Inclosure Acts, only something like 4,000 acres had been made into allotments for gardens, recreation grounds, &c., although about 414,000 were available for that purpose; and this he believed was one of the main causes which had brought the operation of the Inclosure Acts into some disfavour, and had led to public opinion demanding the revision of those Acts. He was not going to trouble the House with a discussion of the ancient laws relating to commons; but he thought it right to call attention to the origin of some of the first Inclosure Acts which had been passed. Up to 1845 no in-closures occurred without the sanction of Parliament, except by private Acts; but towards the end of last century Select Committees were appointed to consider the inclosure question. In 1801 the Inclosure Clauses Consolidation Act was passed, the object of which was in the first place to increase the supply of food for the people, the extent of uncultivated land being very great compared with the population; and, secondly, to furnish employment for the soldiers returning from the war of that time. So matters went on until 1845, when, after considerable inquiry, a general Inclosure Act came into law. This Act was intended to facilitate the inclosure of lands by the great saving of expense effected by public instead of private Acts, and by having inquiries conducted locally instead of by Committees of the House, which was more convenient for those whose interests were concerned. Still, there was no doubt the object of the Act of 1845 was, in the main, the increase of the food of the people; and the Commissioners, he believed, had done their duty most faithfully and honestly according to the intentions of the Parliament of that day. The Act of 1845, however, did not recognize any right of the public at large to the commons, which were practically the property of private persons, and no legal decision had ever been given to that effect. But the Act contained certain provisions in order to secure for the public some compensation for the loss of the enjoyment which they individually suffered by the commons being inclosed. Provision was also made for the allotment of gardens, recreation grounds, &c. Under this Act, inclosures went on to a large extent; but, as he had said, out of 414,000 acres subject to allotment, rather less than 4,000 acres had been allotted. Circumstances had, no doubt, greatly altered since the passing of the Inclosure Act of 1801, and even that of 1845. The feeling of the country had changed on the subject, and the reason for it was not difficult to find. In the first place, the necessity for increasing the food supply of the people by the cultivation of commons was not by any means so pressing as formerly. Indeed, the amount of food that could be supplied by the commons if put under cultivation would be but as a drop in the ocean compared with the supplies that now came from abroad. Then the general increase of the population was so large that in discussing the expediency of inclosing lands they had to consider, not merely how to increase the food supply, but what was really best calculated to promote the health and material prosperity of the people of this country. Whatever could be done in this way without interfering with private rights, it was their duty to do; and the question of commons, viewed in this light, was perhaps of even greater importance now than it was in 1801 and 1845. But it was worth while to consider whether there was no other reason than that he had mentioned for the disfavour into which the Acts had fallen. One point was that under the Inclosure Act there was no security that land which was inclosed would be applied to the purpose to which it was intended—namely, cultivation. It might be employed for building or planting. Again, the provision of the Inclosure Acts for the protection of the community had become practically inoperative. Until recently it was undoubtedly the acknowledged practice of the Commissioners to look upon inclosures as private improvements, and he believed those gentlemen had acted from a sense of public duty. Latterly, however, inclosure schemes had come to be regarded as affecting the material interests of the public, and great strides had been taken in that direction by Parliament. In 1865 a Committee was appointed to "inquire into the best means of preserving for the public use the Forests, Commons, and Open Spaces in and around the Metropolis," and in the following year an Act was passed, and was now law, regulating those commons and dealing with them in quite a different way from the manner in which they had been dealt with before. In 1869 a further inquiry was made, and the Committee on this occasion made certain recommendations which had never before been put in force. In the inquiry care should be taken that public objects as well as private objects should be considered by the Commissioners, and that some information should be laid before Parliament not connected with any particular inclosure, but with the general question, in case an Inclosure Bill were passed. He would not detain the House for a moment in discussing those plans in 1870 and 1872 dealing with the proposals of the Commissioners. The history, if he might so call it, of the legislation down to this point would lead many of the Members of that House to some of the following conclusions:—In the first place, it was absolutely necessary that a Bill should not be brought in having the effect of preventing the further inclosure of commons; in the next place, that any Bill brought in should secure to landowners and those interested in commons the same facilities that they hitherto possessed to make inclosures by a comparatively inexpensive process; and although it should not, any more than any of the previous Acts, recognize in any way proprietory rights, unless where they really existed, it should maintain strictly all the private rights of those interested in the commons. When those persons came before Parliament the effect of each inclosure should be carefully ascertained by the Commissioners and brought before the cognizance of Parliament before Parliament was asked to deal with it. There was one more conclusion to which he thought they ought to come—that it was no longer the interest of the State—at least, to nothing like the extent it was some years ago—to interest itself in the multiplication of inclosures. They must now rather consider inclosures as schemes for private improvement, the State seeing that the public interest did not suffer by the inclosures. If the Act of 1845 had been brought forward in the present day, probably greater effect would have been given to it, considering the temper of the country. He did not believe, how- ever, that the full effect of the Act of 1845 was generally known throughout the country. There was no doubt that in that Act there were very strong provisions, and he pointed to one of the sections which required full information from the applicants as to the effects of the inclosure, &c.—its advantages and its results, so far as the poor were concerned. A Report had to be made by the Assistant Commissioner as to whether he considered the inclosure expedient on private and public grounds. He could not forget that when they came to deal with this question, to settle it they must go upon the lines of the Act of 1845, taking care that the provisions to which he referred should be fully carried into effect. If the House would permit him, he would explain what was the intention of the Government in regard to this point. They started in the Preamble by setting out the provisions of the Act to which he had referred, and by stating that which he believed to be emphatically the truth—that it was expedient to give further effect to the provisions set out in the Preamble. They must take into consideration that which the people of this country wanted almost as much as food—the air which they breathed and the health which they enjoyed. It might be that a great deal should be done with these waste lands; but in a very great many cases it was no doubt necessary for the people of the country that inclosures should still be made, but he believed it would be still more necessary that these commons, in a great number of cases, should not be inclosed. He, therefore, provided that they should be dealt with not only under the old Inclosure Acts, by inclosing them separately, but by keeping them as commons, and giving the greatest facility for their regulation and improvement. The Bill provided that the Commissioners might entertain an application for a Provisional Order—first, for the regulation of a common; and, secondly, for the inclosure of the common; and he sincerely hoped, if that Act became law, as he trusted it would, that more applications would be made for the regulation of the commons than for their inclosure. As to the regulation, he divided it into two heads. In the first place, all that might be wanted was simply the practical adjustment of the rights of those interested in the commons. There were, no doubt, many cases where the rights were undefined, and where disputes led to great misunderstanding. He would take the case of commoners' rights. In the matter of pasture he would not deprive any man of his rights; but there were rights of trover and estrover which might be detrimental to the common, and then he would give power to compensate those with whose rights they would interfere. He would give compensation in kind or in money. As to improvement, it was clear that there were a great number, such as the commons of Surrey, which no one would think of inclosing, but which were in a lamentable state for want of all sorts of things being done, which there was nobody to do, and for which no funds could be found. He would give all those interested power to apply to the Inclosure Commissioners for a scheme by which a common might be improved, or by which some portions of it might be sold and some sort of rate levied on the holders for the purpose of having the necessary improvements effected. When an application was made under the Provisional Order in considering the expediency of that application, he wished to tie down the Commissioners more closely than had hitherto been the case to the desirability of seeing whether the proposed improvements would be really for the benefit of the neighbourhood as well as for the advantage of private rights. By the benefit of the neighbourhood he meant whether they would tend to the health and comfort of the inhabitants of any city or populous place in or near any parish in which the land proposed to be inclosed was situated. That was merely practically re-enacting the words which were to be found in the Act of 1845, and enabling the Commissioners to put in any scheme for inclosure any of those conditions which they might deem to be suitable: such as that free access should be secured to any particular path; that particular trees should be preserved or destroyed; and where no ground for the purposes of recreation was reserved the privilege of playing games at such times and on such parts of the inclosure as might be thought expedient should be secured, so that due care would be taken that injury was not caused to the commoner. He must make some reference to the question of suburban commons. A Bill had been laid before the House with the view of applying the Metropolitan Act to all the great towns throughout the country. That was an Act, however, which it was very difficult to work, and what he wished to see done was that in dealing with inclosures in the neighbourhood of populous places ample security should be taken that a full statement of the facts in each case should be brought before Parliament, and that those who were locally interested in opposing any inclosure should have the opportunity of putting forward their claims and objections. He therefore proposed that notice of any application in the case of a suburban common situated within six miles of a populous place should be served on the urban sanitary authority, and that he should have a right to go before the Assistant Commissioner and ascertain the views of the Board on the question. It was further provided that the urban sanitary authority might acquire by gift or in any other legitimate way a common or any part of it, and the number of persons who would, as he already stated, be required to make an application to the Inclosure Commissioners in the case of an inclosure in severalty might do so in the case to which he was now referring. He did not know whether he need enter further into the details of the Bill; but anyone who had looked into the procedure clauses of the Act of 1845 would see that the question of private rights and public interests was mixed up in a way which was not very clear, and it was, he thought, very much better that they should be practically separated. He had found it very difficult to embody in the clauses, as they stood, of the Act of 1845 all the recommendations of the Committee which sat in 1869; but he had adopted all the recommendations of that Committee, and had inserted the whole of the procedure in the present Bill, repealing, for the purpose, the few sections of the Act of 1845 to which he had just alluded. Hon. Members would, when they saw the Bill, at once find the difference which was established between the evidence relating to questions affecting the benefit of the neighbourhood, and that having reference to private rights. The Government were desirous that on any application for a scheme there should be produced before the Assistant Commissioner all the evidence in favour of the advantages which would be conferred upon the inhabitants of towns as well as that in which private rights were concerned. Then provision was made, not that the Inclosure Commissioners should once a year make any general Report to that House, but that every scheme which came before them, should be separately reported, and, together with the scheme, all the information which they had received in respect to it. It was further proposed for protection of village greens, which were so essential in many parts of the country, that the provisions against encroaching upon them should be strengthened. In a number of old Acts proceedings in such a case could only be taken by certain recognized officers, and the Government had thought it right to make every encroachment on a village green a public nuisance, and to enable any one to proceed against the persons so offending. There was only one further point which remained to be noticed, and that was when the schemes were passed by the Inclosure Commissioners how they were to be dealt with. Now, that was a question of procedure in that House. Originally when the Secretary of State brought in the schemes of the Inclosure Commissioners, his function was one which was purely ministerial in regard to it. Of late years, however, greater interest was taken in the subject, and the Secretary of State for the time being not only brought in those schemes, but had sometimes to force them through the House, although he might never have had an opportunity of pronouncing a judgment as to whether he deemed them to be wise or not. Now, he thought some better plan might be devised, by means of which those schemes might be more carefully watched. He did not regard it as right that the Government should be mixed up with them in the way he had just mentioned, and what he should propose was that some such plan as that which had hitherto existed, in the case of the expiring Turnpike Acts, should be adopted. Those Acts were scheduled, and when the next Session commenced they were referred to a Standing Committee of the House, who reported upon them, and then it was that the Government stepped in, and the recommendation, he might add, of the Committee of 1871 was, that all such schemes as those with which he was now dealing should he laid before a Committee of the House of Commons. Such, then, was the way in which the Government proposed to deal with the question of the inclosure of commons. He believed it was not expedient that an inclosure should take place without full information, and without all objections being heard. It was much more expedient that a large number of commons should be regulated without inclosures; and he hoped when the Bill was considered it would be found that all vested interests had been most carefully guarded, and that people would also see what was equally essential—that we should make greater provision to ensure that the other part of the case would be looked to—namely, the health, comfort, and convenience of those who lived in the neighbourhood of commons, the welfare of small commoners, and the comfort of the labouring poor who were in the habit of frequenting them for the purpose of recreation. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in the Bill.

said, that the inclosure of commons was certainly an important subject; but it had not been hitherto regarded as one of such overwhelming interest as to entitle it to a place in the Queen's Speech. If any public interest was felt in the subject, it was in the direction of keeping the commons open rather than inclosing them. The Bill of the right hon. Gentleman, however, was rather taken from the point of view of lords of manors. The right hon. Gentleman had given an interesting account of the question, but had stopped short at the year 1869. In that year a Committee sat on the question, and came to the conclusion that under the inclosures which had taken place for many years the interests of the public had been gravely neglected; and they drew up a Report recommending that in any future inclosures the interest of the public and neighbouring poor should be carefully guarded. In 1871 he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) brought in a Bill founded on that Report. That Bill was, to a certain extent, a compromise, and was the cause of something like a rupture between himself and hon. Members sitting below the Gangway on his own side of the House. The measure was referred to a Select Committee; which reported in its favour; but it was so vehemently opposed by hon. Members sitting on the other side of the House that it was impossible to proceed with it. In the Session following the Earl of Morley brought in an Inclosure Bill with similar provisions, which was more discussed in the House of Lords than almost any measure of the Session. It had reached a third reading, when it was opposed, and on the Motion of the Duke of Northumberland rejected, on the ground that it interfered with the rights of property. As he understood the Bill now before the House, it was very much the same measure as that brought into the House of Lords. Why, therefore, was not this Bill introduced in the other House? Why should they waste their time in discussing a measure of this kind with the almost certainty that when it went to the House of Lords it would be rejected? [Mr. ASSHETON CROSS: No.] The Bill certainly did not embrace the clauses relative to suburban commons; but otherwise it was substantially the same. [Mr. ASSHETON CROSS: It is a very different Bill.] He (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) must remind the right hon. Gentleman that great strides had been made by public opinion on this subject since 1870, and that he, for one, should not be satisfied with the compromise which he was ready to accept in 1870. Various law suits relating to the commons in the neighbourhood of London, especially that of Epping Forest, had since been brought to a conclusion, and the decisions of the Law Courts in regard to the commons at Hampstead, Berkhampstead, and Tooting, had thrown a flood of light on the subject. Moreover, during the last three years a very important movement had been going on among the agricultural labourers, who at all their meetings laid great stress upon their grievances arising out of the inclosure of commons, and no measure would satisfy either them or the public which did not deal with the question in a broader, wider, and more comprehensive spirit than the Bill of 1871. What had to a great extent preserved the commons hitherto had been the uncertainty as to the rights of the various parties. He did not know whether the Bill provided for the regulation as well the inclosure of commons.

said, that if any application were made for the regulation of commons under this Bill, any scheme of improvement would come under the notice of Parliament.

said, he believed that very few applications for the regulation of commons would be made under the Bill, and that they would be principally made for inclosures. He should look through the details of the Bill with interest; and if they were really framed on a wide basis, he should give it his cordial support.

wished to know whether he had understood the Home Secretary to state that the recommendation of the Commission of 1869—that an increased proportion of the land should be reserved—would be followed?

said, he had removed all limit.

feared that this left the matter at the discretion of the Commissioners and took away the security from the public.

remarked that the removal of the limit gave the greatest possible security, because that particular fact of the proportion of land reserved must be brought before the notice of Parliament.

said, this would be one of the points to which the House would direct its attention when the Bill came before it for consideration.

said, he hoped the country would have time to fully consider the Bill before it was further proceeded with.

thanked the right hon. Gentleman for the manner in which he had introduced the Bill, and ventured to think that the measure was one which would give great satisfaction to the country. He had no hesitation in stating that much good for the general public was foreshadowed in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and he believed that all rights would be protected and preserved. The Government were entitled to thanks for taking up a question which had been hung up so long a time, and, in particular, for attempting to provide regulations for large suburban commons, the magnitude of which was out of all proportion to the number of the surrounding population who could make use of them, and the result was they were neglected, to the detriment equally of lords of the manor and of those who had quasi rights over them. If the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) could see no difference between the Government Bill and that which he introduced in 1871, in the name of reason why did he now oppose the Government Bill? If his propositions were right then, they were right now. The mode of dealing with the commons in the neighbourhood of London could have no influence on the legislation required for commons in the remote districts of the country. He hoped the Home Secretary would proceed with all despatch with a Bill which seemed to contain the elements of good for all concerned.

said, he had listened with some little astonishment to the remarks of the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken; because, if there was a Member of the House who had done much for the preservation of commons, it was the hon. Member for Reading, and it was not his fault, nor that of the late Government, that they could not carry all their measures. No one he was sure would be more anxious than the hon. Member for Reading to give fair consideration to a Bill aiming at the objects which he had so long laboured to promote.

, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Law relating to Legislation in India with a view to the consolidation thereof, said, it was the same as that which received unanimous support last Session in the House of Lords, but which had to be abandoned through the want of time to pass it. The Bill would consolidate into one Act certain powers conferred on the Governor General contained in three different Acts of Parliament. At present the Governor General could not pass any law which might in any way affect any part of the unwritten law or Constitution of the United Kingdom wherein might depend in any de- gree the allegiance of any person of the United Kingdom. These words were so vague and so unmeaning that they were very mischievous, and it was proposed to omit them. The Bill would define more accurately the limits within which the Governor General might legislate, and it would alter the machinery by which these limits were at present tested, which was by a multitude of appeals from the local Courts to Courts of Appeal, and terminating in the High Courts of the Presidency. A practice had lately sprung up, where any act of the Governor General was involved in any suit, for counsel to contend that the law was ultra vires, on the ground that the Governor General had exceeded his powers in passing it, and if the Governor General was no party to the suit he had no power to appeal. This Bill proposed to remedy it by declaring that no Court except the High Court of Appeal of any of the Presidencies should have power to declare the law to be ultra vires, and if the Court decided that it was so, the Secretary of State for India would have an ultimate appeal to the Privy Council. The provisions of the Bill had been sanctioned by every Secretary of State for India, and by everyone who had occupied an administrative position in India, and unless some such Bill were passed serious political dangers might arise in India. The Bill gave a clear, distinct, and indisputable title to the Governor General in India to exercise those powers with which he had been invested.

moved that the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Licensing Laws.

What Licensing Laws?

said, those affecting publicans and grocers. His Bill, which was a very modest one, consisted of three clauses only, and if it received the support of the Government he looked with confidence to its becoming law. This object of the measure was to suspend the issue of all fresh publicans' licences within certain limits of population, from 500 in towns and populous places, to 300 in rural parishes, and to suspend the issue of 'grocers' licences altogether from the present time. If, as already stated, he received assistance from Her Majesty's Government there would not be much difficulty in carrying the Bill.