said, he had a very important Petition to present from a very important body in Scotland—namely, the Scottish Cham- ber of Agriculture at Edinburgh. It was signed by the President, Mr. Nicoll, on be-half of himself and the other Directors. He should very much like to have the Petition read at the Table; but he was anxious to save the time of the House, and therefore he would only ask that it might be printed as soon as possible, and put in the hands of Members before the Hypothec Abolition Bill was considered as amended. The Petition sot forth that the Bill contained a clause which, for the first time, recognized unconstitutional acts that were done by the Court of Session in the last century, in passing an Act of Sederunt in 1756 which contained enactments solely within the power of the Legislature to enforce, and prayed the House to prevent that recognition from passing into law. It also pointed to the inconvenience to Scotland from not allowing the Bill to pass into law at an earlier date than the end of 1880, showing that under the provisions of the Bill they might have agreements framed before the end of the year 1880 which would allow the Hypothec Act to remain out of operation for 19 years. It remarked that the course of policy hitherto followed by Parliament had been to bring all Acts which were passed into operation within a very short period; and that, although tenants were seriously injured by the Road Act, the School Act, and various other Acts, especially by the Act of 1853, the law in those cases was brought into operation in a few days. It also prayed that equality of rights should be granted to tenants; and that in any measure protecting the interests of landlords, the like consideration should be given to the interests of tenants, in respect to their outlay for manures and other unexhausted improvements. Other important matters were set forth in the Petition well worthy of attention. He would now present the Petition, in the hope that the Committee on Petitions would allow it to be printed and promptly circulated amongst hon. Members.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he can now state to the House the amount of Revenue derived from the Dog Licences as altered in the financial year 1878–9, and the amount derived from those Licences in the year 1877–8?

Yes, Sir. The amount received in the year 1877–8 was £372,700, and in the year 1878–9, £422,000. That is just £50,000 in advance of the year before. It is, however, £36,000 less than the estimate that was made for 1878–9, the exemption of shepherds' dogs having greatly exceeded our expectations. There appears also to have been a diminution in the number of dogs kept.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If, seeing he has agreed to lend India £2,000,000 without interest or term of payment, he will advance a similar sum on behalf of the City of Glasgow Bank Shareholders at a low rate of interest, conditional on his being satisfied that he will be paid both interest and principal in a reasonable time; conditional also on his being satisfied it could be administered in such a way as to be a substantial benefit to the ruined shareholders, without risk to the Exchequer?

Sir, I must own that I do not see the precise connection between the Indian Loan, which is a Governmental arrangement, and the advance suggested by the hon. Member for Glasgow; but I can quite understand the motive which has prompted the hon. Gentleman to ask the Question. I can assure him that there is a great feeling of sympathy on the part of Her Majesty's Government with those unfortunate persons who have suffered by the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank; but, at the same time, it would be quite impossible for the Government to enter into any arrangement of the kind referred to.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he has received the expected information from Egypt, and is therefore in a position to inform the House whether the statement is correct that Mr. Rivers Wilson declined to be dismissed by the Khedive until he had communicated with the British Government; and, if it is correct, what communication the Government had made or proposed to make in reply, and what authority Mr. Rivers Wilson had for this action on his part?

Sir, what I stated the other night was that, not having received letters, I could only say that we had received no telegraphic communication on the subject. We have since, of course, received letters by the mail. It is not correct to say that Mr. Rivers Wilson declined to be dismissed by the Khedive until he had communicated with the British Government, and therefore we have had no occasion to make any reply to such communication.

Has Mr. Rivers Wilson resigned?

No, Sir; he was dismissed.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Under what circumstances and with what object the factory workers employed by the Army Clothing Department have been discharged; whether it is true that an attempt is being made to reduce the wages of many hundreds of women, said to be in numbers of instances the widows and orphans of soldiers, to "slop-shop" prices; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a scale of the prices hitherto paid in the Clothing Department and the reduced list which it is proposed to pay?

Sir, before I reply to the hon. Member for Sheffield, it is but fair to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Westminster (Sir Charles Russell), to say that he had given Notice of a Question upon this subject before Easter, and had, at my solicitation, postponed it until to-morrow, in order that inquiry might be made into the facts. I must apologize also to the hon. and learned Member for the Denbigh Boroughs (Mr. Watkin Williams), who had addressed a Question upon this subject to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although not going into the same detail as the hon. Member for Sheffield, and who postponed it till further Notice. As regards the Question now put to me, I may say—1, Factory workers were discharged while the factory was closed for stocktaking, cleaning and overhauling machinery, &c., to prevent their claiming wages for the period; 2, prices of female labour, piece-work, have been re-arranged, and in some instances reduced, but not to "slop-shop" prices, and women are now receiving 15s. a-week on time-work, and can earn from 14s. to 22s. a-week on piece-work; 3, there will be no objection to produce the scale of past and present rates. It is right to add that, at the instance of the Director of Clothing, it is proposed to institute an inquiry by a small committee, consisting of gentlemen conversant with business, but in no way connected with the Department or with the Public Service.

In consequence of the answer which has just been given, and because I believe the noble Lord to be entirely misinformed as to the earnings of the workers, I beg to give Notice that on going into Committee of Supply I shall call attention to this subject.

Sir, I wish to ask the Secretary of State for War a Question of which I have given him private Notice, and which has a somewhat important bearing upon the conduct of military matters in South Africa. It is, Whether the attention of the Horse Guards or military authorities has been specially directed to the official Report of Lieutenant Harward of what occurred at the camp on the Intombi river on March 11? That officer states in his official Report that the camp was taken by surprise, the following being his words:—

"Being awake about 4 a.m., I heard a shot fired. Captain Moriarty ordered the men to remain under arms. About 5, I heard a sudden call to the guard to turn out, and saw an immense body of Zulus attempting to sur- round the waggons. I directed my fire upon their flanks, but without any avail. I next observed that the enemy had gained full possession of the camp. Our men were retiring on the river. I directed my fire entirely with a view to cover the retreat of our men. Finding the Zulus were assegaing the men in the water and crossing in large numbers, I ordered a retreat. I endeavoured to rally the men, who, however, gave way, and a hand-to-hand fight ensued. All formation being lost, I mounted my horse and galloped into Luneberg at utmost speed, and reported all that had occurred."

What I want to know is, Whether this poor officer—the sole surviving one, I believe, of those who were engaged in the business to which I refer—is to receive a message of condolence and confidence; or whether, as he appeared to have left his men when fighting hand-to-hand with the enemy and galloped off to Luneberg, any notice is to be taken of such an extraordinary desertion of his duties?

Sir, I received, through the courtesy of the right hon. Gentleman a few minutes ago, and since I came to the House, Notice that he would put to me a Question this afternoon, on the subject of the special Report of the Intombi disaster. [Sir ROBERT PEEL: Official Report.] Official Report. That did not give me a clue to enable me to obtain the necessary information required for a reply. Therefore, I shall be glad if the right hon. Gentleman will kindly repeat the Question to-morrow.

asked the Lord Advocate, Whether it is the intention of the Government to take any action on the Report of the committee appointed last year to inquire into the question of the Herring Fisheries?

, in reply, said, it was not intended to take any action on the Report, the results arrived at being that the Commissioners were generally against legislation, and those points on which legislation was suggested by them were either of themselves so unimportant, or involved so much of what was controversial—at least, in Scotland it was controversial—that it was not intended to take any action in the matter.

said, he wished to ask some explanation of this Vote, which included the Endowed Schools Commission. The Committee would observe that the Vote for that Department was reduced this year by one-fourth, and it was explained in a foot-note that the reduction was owing to the fact that the powers conferred by the Endowed Schools Acts would expire on the 31st of December this year. That would be satisfactory if the work to be done under the Acts were completed; but by the last Report which was laid on the Table a week or two ago, he found that that was very far from being the case. The total number of schemes that had been finally sanctioned either by the Endowed School Commissioners, or by the Charity Commissioners, who had now succeeded to their powers, was 515, dealing with endowments amounting to over £250,000. The schemes actually in progress at the end of the year were 170, dealing with endowments amounting to £177,000 annually; that was an average of about £1,000 a-year for each endowment. Supposing the Commissioners could have completed, by the end of the year, the whole of these 170 schemes, which would be more than they had done in any previous year, it seemed there would still remain no less than 690 cases of endowed schools, with an income amounting to £166,000. Of these cases 432 were grammar schools, having an income of £70,000. Under these circumstances, he wished to ask what was proposed to be done by Her Majesty's Government? The powers under the Acts, at the end of the year, if he understood aright, would not vest in the Charity Commissioners, or in any other authority, but would simply expire, which surely would not be satisfactory. If it were proposed by the Government to substitute any other mode of dealing with these endowments, then he supposed there should be some provision made in the Estimate. At all events, he hoped this was not an improper opportunity to seek explanation from the Secretary to the Treasury; or, perhaps, the noble Lord the Vice President of the Council for Education would inform him what were the intentions of the Government with respect to the remainder of this work? Excellent work had been done up to the present time by the Endowed School Commission, and afterwards by the Charity School Commission; and he wished to inquire how the work hitherto performed by them would be carried on in the future?

said, it was the intention of the Government to bring in a Bill renewing the powers of the Endowed Schools Commission. He need not dwell upon the subject, because he did not think that more effective or more economical machinery than that already in force could be found.

said, that this was one of the Estimates in the Civil Service Expenditure which had been enormously increased. In the year ending 31st March, 1873, the actual expenditure was £17,455, and for the year ending 31st March, 1880, it was estimated to be £26,882, the intermediate years showing a yearly constant increase. He made these observations not only to cheek the growing and enormous expenditure of the Civil Departments, but because he felt that this year the Military Expenditure would be very largely increased; and it behoved Her Majesty's Government, though they were civilians intrusted with the Expenditure of the country, to not only keep the Military and Naval Expenditure within reasonable limits, but the Civil Service Expenditure also, which showed far greater extravagance than those for the Forces.

wished to receive some information on the Civil Service Commission. He wanted to know if the rules were still in force by which, as he understood, the students who were successful competitors at the Civil Service examination were required to attend one of the Universities as a condition for the receipt of their salary? He might be mistaken, but he understood that at present every candidate who passed the Civil Service Examination, say, for India—in fact, especially for India—in order to entitle him to draw the £150 or £200 a-year towards his support in prosecuting further studies, must attend a recognized University. Some years ago, as soon as a candidate had passed his examination, or obtained his nomination, he received £150 or £200 a-year without further obligation than to pass the periodical examinations. He desired to know if the obligation was now in existence of attending a University, in addition to the obligation of passing the periodical examinations?

was afraid he could not give the hon. Member the answer he required at the present moment. He was not aware whether the obligation was still in force; but he believed that the examinations for the India Civil Service were open competitions, and that the only obligation at present was that a fee should be paid of £5. He would make all inquiry, and let the hon. Gentleman have a distinct reply to his question when the Report on Supply was brought forward.

said, he was not prepared to oppose this Vote, although he wished that someone who was better able would lay the matter regarding these examinations before the House. Now, he thought, as he had always thought, that the true principle of examination for the Civil Service, or Military, or any other Service, should be this—that a candidate should be examined in matters appertaining to the duties which they would have to perform, because the object of these examinations was to ascertain whether the candidate was fit for the post he sought to fill. It was desirable to know what knowledge they had of those subjects which those duties involved, and what capacity they had for those duties. If the Civil Service examinations were confined to that, he would have no objection to raise; but he knew perfectly well that the examinations were not conducted on any principle of that sort, and that students were examined on matters which were perfectly alien to the Service. They were and could be no test whatever of the candidate's capacity for the duties of the Service. For instance, to his certain knowledge a young man seeking a commission in the Cavalry was examined in Chaucer. Now, he wanted to ask, how was it possible for anyone to say that a young Cavalry officer was more qualified for his place because he was well read in Chaucer? The thing seemed to him preposterous. He could give other instances of the same kind showing the folly of these examinations. He thought many of the offices might be filled without any examination at all, because the persons who were the most qualified for the duties were the persons who would not submit to examination. He knew another instance particularly pertinent. A few years ago the Copyhold, Inclosure, and Tithe Commission wanted a land surveyor, and they secured the services of a very experienced man. They were congratulating themselves upon obtaining so eminent a member of the profession of land surveyors, when they got a letter from the Treasury informing them that they had done wrong in appointing this gentleman, because he must be appointed by competitive examination. When the gentleman heard this he immediately resigned his appointment, remarking—"I am more than 40 years of age, and have obtained considerable eminence. I am not going to submit to this examination." He vacated his position, and the consequence was that the Commissioners got a land surveyor who was very inferior to the man they had originally procured. He wished to impress upon the Government the desirability of taking this matter into consideration. He would give another instance which came to his knowledge not long ago. It was the case of a young man who wished to join the Cavalry. He was a first-rate horseman, and in every respect would have made a brilliant Cavalry officer. He was a man of some fortune, and wished to go into the Cavalry out of pure love for the Service. He went before the Commissioners, but he could not get his commission because he could not pass a sufficiently good examination in mathematics. He wanted to know why a young officer in the Cavalry should know mathematics, which was a knowledge perfectly useless to a man in such a position? He had given two or three instances showing that the examinations were entirely wide of the mark, and that many of the subjects entered into at these examinations were perfectly useless to the young men who sought to fill the various positions. He wished that some hon. Member, with more knowledge of the subject than himself, would bring this subject before the House, with the view of securing that the examinations should be of a more practical character. Again, there was a very foolish regulation as to the age at which persons must go into the Civil Service. He knew a young man who wished to go into the Civil Service, but he could not do so because he had attained the advanced age of 25 years. He believed the age was 19 years at which young men should enter the Civil Service. Such a regulation was unwise, and contributed very largely to the detriment of the Service, inasmuch as it excluded therefrom many very excellent men. His opinion was that the effect of this system of competitive examination, or of examination at all, was to bring into the Service a number of very inferior young men. He was sure there were many men of great talent and experience and of great knowledge who, if examined in these subjects, would not be equal to a duller man with a good memory. That was the result of the system, and, therefore, the sooner it was fully considered with the view to a change the better. He hoped some hon. Member who had taken the trouble to inquire into the matter would bring the matter before the House, to show how the present system conduced to the detriment of the Service, and how the system could be made useful.

said, he did not wish to continue the remarks which had just been made, but to call the attention of the Committee once again to what he thought was a scandalous item in this expenditure—he referred to the salary of the First Commissioner, £2,000. Now, the last time this question was discussed in the House, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe) declared that, so far from there being employment for three Commissioners, there was barely sufficient employment for one Commissioner in connection with this Commission. At a time like the present, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be very glad of any addition to his Revenue that could be found, and when they had just heard from the Treasury Bench that in the War Office they had found it necessary to reduce the scanty earnings of the women employed in that Department, he wanted to know how a Vote of this kind could possibly be maintained? It really was a question which he should be very glad indeed if he could pass over; but really no one who had any regard for the Public Service, or who had any respect for the proper administration of the finances of the country, could pass over an item like this without comment. Here was the case of three Commissioners being employed, one at £2,000 a-year, for whom the place was especially created; and two at £1,200 a-year each, who were more than able to do the work. One of these Commissioners, he found by a foot-note, did not obtain sufficient employment in his office; the duties in the office, for which he received £1,200 a-year, did not give him sufficient employment. The footnote was as follows:—

"One of these Commissioners, when employed by the Record Office in editing a collection of Sagas, receives remuneration at the rate of £8 8s. per sheet."

They were all aware that that Commissioner discharged this duty in an admirable manner; no one could do it better than he could. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not rise in his place and say that there was any employment for these gentlemen at all adequate for the remuneration they received. He had had the honour of a seat in this House for the last 11 years, and the appointment of this First Commissioner was the most flagrant job in his recollection, and it was really extraordinary that it should be allowed to remain on their Estimates. The noble Lord who held the appointment (Lord Hampton) was over 80 years of age, and he was, as it were, pitchforked into the place without any special fitness, without any vacancy having occurred; for, when Sir Edward Ryan died, naturally his assistant Commissioner should have taken his place. If he had done that, the two Commissioners would have been able to discharge the duties of the Commission several times over. To put an old placeman, 80 years of age, upon the country at a cost of £2,000 a-year, which he was to receive for the rest of his life, was a scandalous thing, especially at a time when the country was suffering, when everybody was complaining about taxes and rates, when the School Board rates were described as black mail levied upon the country, and when they were actually in a state of impecuniosity. He begged to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £2,000.

said, the Committee was aware that this question was not raised now by the hon. Member for Sheffield for the first time; yet, at the same time, he would point out that the Committee had accepted the statement that was made by Her Majesty's Government last year as a justification, at all events, of this appointment. ["No, no!"] The hon. Member said "No!" Did the hon. Member recollect the result of what took place last year, and that the Committee, at all events, did assent to or confirm this appointment? Now, the hon. Member for Sheffield had said that the appointment of the First Commissioner was a most flagrant job; but the hon. Member seemed to forgot to notice what an enormous increase there had been in the work of the Commission during the last two years. He completely concealed from the Committee that the reason for the additional appointment was the daily additional work that was thrown on that Commission. Since the first appointment of that Commission, enormous examinations had been intrusted to them; and the present action of the hon. Member really resolved itself into a personal attack upon the noble Lord the First Commissioner. The hon. Member for Sheffield himself stated that if, on Sir Edward Ryan's death, the First Assistant Commissioner had been appointed he would have been the proper person for his place; and then he (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) imagined that they would not have heard anything of this personal attack. The First Assistant was not appointed; but at that time, in consequence of the increase of work, a third Commissioner was appointed, and appointed as Chief Commissioner. The hon. Gentleman said that the noble Lord was appointed First Commissioner at a very advanced period of life. He challenged the hon. Gentleman, or any other Member of the Committee, to say that he could prove that the noble Lord doing the work of the Commission was not, even at his advanced period of life, quite as able and fit as any younger man to perform his duties. He ventured to say that no one who was accurately acquainted with the work of that Department would be able to state to the Committee that the noble Lord's work there was not as good, as sound, and as constant as the work of any member of that Commission. The hon. and learned Baronet the Member for Wexford (Sir George Bowyer) pointed out some objection he had to this Commission, and to its work. He understood the hon. and learned Baronet to say that he took objection to the way in which the examinations were conducted, and to the subjects which were made articles of examination. He was not prepared to say that there might not be instances, perhaps, in which the subjects might not be the best that could be selected for examination; but he thought that the hon. and learned Baronet would be ready to admit that this system, like other systems, might have faults, without being absolutely bad. He believed these examinations did fairly test the merits of the candidates for the various offices, and the results showed that they got a fair sample of good public servants. Another fault which the hon. and learned Baronet touched upon was the question of age; and there, although in certain cases the limitation might be as low as the hon. and learned Baronet said, he must say it did not apply to the whole of the Civil servants. There were many persons in the Civil Service who were subject to examination, and who were nominated for that examination at a far more advanced period of life; and a very large number of the competitors before the Commissioners were men who had already passed through the Universities, thus insuring that they must be at least more than 19 years of age. He thought the country was satisfied with the work which was done by this particular Commission, and with the results promised by the system generally. He must confess he was grieved to hear a second time during the period he had had the honour of occupying the Office he now held, an attack made upon the noble Lord (Lord Hampton) for accepting a place in the Civil Service; but he ventured to think that that was amply justified by the fact that the noble Lord performed the duties of his office to the satisfaction and good service of the country.

said, that the last thing which would occur to him would be to make an attack upon the noble Lord. His attack was not upon the First Commissioner, but upon the Government. What he maintained was this—that the Government in this case perpetrated the most flagrant job that was ever perpetrated by any Government; and he repeated that, as to the noble Lord, he said nothing. He know the noble Lord when he was a Member of this House, and entertained a high respect for him. As to Mr. Waddell, and why he was not appointed Chief Commissioner, he (Mr. Mundella) was not personally interested in that gentleman, and never spoke to him in his life. His objection to the appointment of Lord Hampton was entirely on public grounds. It was an entirely indefensible appointment, and he hoped he should never hold a seat in the House without de- nouncing such a scandalous job, and that he should speak as plainly whether it were committed by a Government which he supported or a Government which he opposed. He disclaimed, therefore, all personality, and all desire to detract from the merits of Lord Hampton; and he simply said this was a scandalous appointment, and one unworthy of Her Majesty's Government.

said, he thought the Committee were indebted to his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) for having taken the course he had taken under a sense of high public duty, although it was disagreeable when, in a discussion, the qualifications of any individual official were brought into question. Along with his hon. Friend, he (Mr. Rylands) disclaimed any personal attack on the noble Lord, who, in past years, had evinced great ability and filled important Offices of State, no doubt, with distinction; but it was impossible—he ventured to say it was utterly impossible—for Her Majesty's Government, in the face of any large number of people out-of-doors, to satisfy them that they were justified in paying £2,000 to a noble Lord at the age of between 80 and 90. ["No, no!"] He believed the noble Lord was above 80 years old. [An hon. MEMBER: No, he is not.] The hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury was able to correct him (Mr. Rylands), if he was wrong; certainly his Lordship might be a very hale active man, but he believed he was over 80; but whether that were so or not, there was no doubt whatever that the noble Lord was brought into the position he now occupied because it was convenient to the Conservative Party, when they formed the Government, to leave the noble Lord out of the Cabinet, or any Ministerial Office; and, therefore, it was made a matter of convenience to place him in the position of First Commissioner of the Civil Service Commission. A book had just been handed to him by the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury, from which it appeared that the noble Lord was born in 1799, so that he was just about 80 years old; but the point did not depend upon whether the noble Lord was a year older or a year longer. The fact was felt, as he (Mr. Rylands) asserted at the time, and did now, that the appointment was one of the nature of a job; and although the Secretary to the Treasury said the Government had sufficiently answered the complaint they made against the appointment by carrying it against them by a majority of votes, the fact was there was no answer at all to the complaint. It was stated on the authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe), and also by hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House, that at the time of the appointment of the noble Lord there was no necessity whatever for the appointment. It was stated that two Commissioners would be amply sufficient. The hon. Gentleman (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) said there was a sufficient argument in reply to the complaint, because the Government had a majority. The Government could always get a majority in Committee of Supply, and whatever case might be brought forward against them, it was, of course, defeated. He (Mr. Rylands) was aware that this Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield would be defeated; but, at all events, its supporters would have discharged a public duty in offering a protest against the continuance of an arrangement which they believed to be utterly indefensible. He would point out to the Secretary to the Treasury, who talked about the increasing work of the Commissioners, that since 1874 there had been an increased expense of £7,107, which would provide for a large number of officers, and he was quite sure there were enough of them without the First Commissioner. He should, therefore, support the Amendment.

said, the only explanation offered by the Secretary to the Treasury for the appointment of a third Commissioner was the great increase in the number of examinations before the Commission. Now, he would suggest to the hon. Gentleman that if he would inquire into the administration of the Civil Service Commission, he would find they might be relieved of many of the examinations which they now undertook. From his own experience in public offices, he found that messengers and message-boys were sent to be examined before the Commission, and the time was occupied in that way. He thought that was simply a farce, and that a school certificate was amply sufficient to show whether a boy-messenger was suited for his employment. As to the adult messengers, a case had occurred in the office with which he himself was connected, and a very worthy man who had satisfactorily served as messenger for several years had, on a change of office, to submit himself for examination. Therefore, he thought his hon. Friend should inquire what went on in these matters, and that the Civil Service Commission might be relieved of some of them without detriment to the Public Service. As to the criticism of the hon. and learned Member for Wexford (Sir George Bowyer) with regard to the examination of military officers, he did not agree that a knowledge of mathematics was unnecessary, but was of opinion that the scientific aspect of modern warfare and the nature of the implements used in it rendered a knowledge in mathematics essential before an officer was qualified to fill a high post in the Service.

wished to ask a question with regard to the payment which appeared to have been made to the senior clerk in the Department, who, in addition to his salary, received £83 10s. as examiner of book-keeping?

said, having had considerable experience of the working of the Civil Service Commission during the time he was the President of the Inquiry Commission, he should like to say one or two words on the question before the Committee. No doubt, the work which was carried on by the Civil Service Commission was large and important, and would amply occupy the time of two Commissioners, with benefit to the public. But the point was not a personal question at all, but whether a case was made out for the third Commissioner being appointed. As far as his experience went, he saw no amount of work to justify the appointment of a third Commissioner. He imagined that those who voted in favour of the reduction of the Vote would do so from that point of view only, and not on any personal question. As there were women and women, so there were old men and old men, and everyone knew that Lord Hampton was a very young old man, and quite equal to his work. His Lordship had largely attended to the subject of education, and was an effective and good Commissioner. If it were a question as to the fitness of Lord Hampton he should vote with the Government, believing that Nobleman to be fully worthy of the salary he received for the services he rendered; but that was not the question, and believing that no case had been made out for the appointment of a third Commissioner he should vote for the Amendment.

said, he was very pleased to hear what had just fallen from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lyon Playfair), and he could assure the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) that nothing but his desire to defend the noble Lord, who he thought had been attacked, led him to say what he did just now. He quite accepted the hon. Member's interpretation of what had previously been said; and, therefore, the question before the Committee was limited now to the question whether the number of the Commissioners was justified. He would merely point out to the Committee the great variety, and the necessary division, of the work of the Commission. They had the whole of the Army examinations, and during the last year or two they had had the preliminary examinations for the Army. There was open competition now for a variety of Services which were thrown open just before the Government came into Office, and the growth of the work of the Commission was such that it had certainly more than, doubled. In reply to the question of the hon. and learned Member for Beaumaris (Mr. Morgan Lloyd), the extra payment made to the chief clerk was for work done out of official hours by a gentleman who possessed peculiar qualifications and was most fitted for the work which was intrusted to him, and the reason for its being recorded here was that the Treasury had endeavoured in the Estimates to show every sum of money that was taken by every individual in the Public Service, either during his official hours or otherwise, if it came from official sources.

said, he disclaimed any idea of attacking the competency of Lord Hampton, who was well known to hon. Members of the House, and who efficiently discharged every public duty. But on the question whether three Commissioners were required, he ventured to take a different view from that of the Secretary to the Treasury. The additional work which had been pointed out had not been thrown upon the Chief Commissioner, who was the referee in all questions in dispute, and before whom all important questions doubtless came, but who was not engaged in the ordinary routine of examinations, and, therefore, the examining of all these people did not increase his work. Besides, as had been pointed out, many of these examinations, which went even down to the selection of a housemaid, were perfectly useless. Surely it was not necessary that people of that kind should go before the Commissioners for a certificate; the chief clerk of either of the Departments could equally well determine whether a person was fit to be a porter or a messenger. To throw such duties upon the Commissioners was a waste of time and money which ought to be inquired into, and which indicated the existence of a wrong-system.

said, he wished to add his protest to that of the hon. and learned Member for Wexford (Sir George Bowyer) against the system of competitive examination. A man who was wanted as a carpenter and joiner would not be examined by his intended employer in gilding and plastering. That would be absurd; but the examinations for clerkships in the Civil Service were on subjects as foreign to the duties as it was possible to imagine. As to the examination for a Cavalry officer, already adverted to, he thought that a man should be examined for every office that was worth an examination at all in the rudiments of English literature, the principles of Common Law, and the history of his own country; but when a man was able to read and write grammatically, when he understood something of the Constitution under which he lived, when he had, in fact, qualified himself as an ordinary citizen to go respectably through the affairs of life, the only thing he should be examined in should be his fitness for the duties he was to discharge in the Public Service. He could name many men who had been crammed in order to obtain a nomination, and he had been very much disappointed at the result of the cramming process. They were, no doubt, able to make out rapidly the answers to certain questions which they expected, and they knew something in a superficial way of the salient points of history; but they were frequently more ignorant than many men who would have been rejected in such an examination. Of course, this was only a desultory conversation which had sprung up, and this was probably not the most fitting occasion to deal with the subject; but he hoped it would impress itself upon the mind of the Government, because there was a feeling which was largely shared amongst men of experience that these examinations were not suitable tests of fitness for the positions that were designed to be filled, and that the system operated from time to time to prevent their getting the best men and youths into the Public Service.

said, he should support the Amendment. The great increase of work had been put forward as the excuse for the appointment of an extra Commissoner; but it had not been shown that the Commissioners did the work in question. He found there was a director of examinations at a salary of £1,000, an assistant examiner at £800, and another assistant examiner at £373, and there were also a secretary and a registrar. Those persons, he believed, did the bulk of the work, whilst as to the mere technicalities and copying and forms, there was a whole swarm of clerks; there were no fewer than 27 clerks on the establishment to register the results of the examinations. Therefore, he thought that the number of examinations could not be given as a reason for having a First Commissioner, and that no case whatever had been made out for his appointment.

wished to draw attention to the amended regulations with regard to the Civil Service examinations for India. A very important question arose with respect to them, for under the old system of the Indian Civil Service examinations there was great fairness, and every denomination that competed was on an equal footing; but under the regulations at present in existence there had been a change very much for the worse. Under the old system the successful candidate was entitled to £150 or £200 a-year for two years, and pursued his course of studies in any place of study he pleased, the only obligation upon him being that he should pass his periodical examinations. Under these circumstances, a student could complete his preparation for India either in the new Catholic University College at Kensington, or in the Catholic University in Ireland, so long as he was able to pass the periodical examinations, and the Government asked no more questions, but allowed him to receive his allowance of £150 or £200 a-year just as if he had been attending at some Protestant University. Under the recent regulations, the Catholic student who chose to complete his education—to complete his preparation for the Indian Civil Service—at one of the Catholic educational establishments, forfeited his right to the £150 or £200 a-year which, under the previous circumstances, he would have been equally entitled to with any of his Protestant colleagues. This was a question of the very first importance, for these regulations were directed against certain classes of candidates—namely, those who objected to certain class educational establishments in this country. The hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury had stated that he could give no information on the subject; but he submitted that the passing of this Vote was largely dependent upon the information supplied to the House, and if no information could be given to the House, there was no assurance that the class disabilities imposed upon the Catholic competitors for the Indian Civil Service had not been removed. The best thing, therefore, was to postpone the passing of this Vote until the necessary information had been given. There were some other points to which he should like to allude. He found that foes were levied upon the competitors in these examinations by means of stamps, and that the proceeds of those fees were appropriated to the Imperial Exchequer. He failed, at that moment, to see why that distinction should be drawn, why the fees paid by candidates for the Civil Service of India should not go over to the Indian Exchequer in the same manner in which the fees paid by candidates for the Civil Service at home went into the Home Exchequer. Further, he should like to know what regulations were in force, or whether any reforms were proposed, with regard to the admission of Native Indian-born competitors for the Civil Service of India? It was well known that with the advance of education in India a larger number of Indians were qualified to enter into ordinary and fair competition for the Public Service of the Crown in India. But if, as it was complained, the subjects chosen for the examination were not fair to the Indian competitors, it was quite evident that there must be a very great diminution of the Indian element in the Civil Service. The Duke of Argyll, and other Secretaries of State for India, had a strong opinion in favour of increasing the Native element in the Indian Civil Service. But there were two ways of increasing the numbers of Native Indians in the Civil Service. There was the system of fair and open competition, giving a fair chance to all; and the system of patronage, by picking and choosing at the hands of some officials. There had recently been some instances of Indians being appointed to the Indian Civil Service, not upon the system of fair competition, but by means of patronage, and that for reasons which the general public failed to see. Some time ago, a considerable scandal was caused in India by the appointment of a Native Indian gentleman, whose only qualifications seemed to be his high birth and influential connections. The Native Indian Press raised a loud and justifiable outcry against this specimen of the working of the system of patronage in the Indian Civil Service. If that House took any interest in the management of its Indian Empire, it ought to have some information as to the working of that system, which was the normal condition of the Government of India. If it were proper or expedient to exclude from the Administration of India all the Native-born Indians, then they had a principle to go upon, whatever might be the working of that principle. But if, on the other hand, it was worth while to admit into the Indian Service Native-born Indians, then surely it was worth while to see that a proper principle of admission was adopted. In his opinion, the proper principle of admission was not the principle of picking or choosing—call it by whatever grandiloquent name they might, and by this or that high authority. If the system of open competition had been justifiably substituted at home for the patronage principle, à fortiori, open competition ought to be substituted in India. If all speakers in this country, all the national Press, and all the Representatives of the nation in Parliament, were of opinion that for the Public Service at Home the system of patronage was a dangerous practice, and was a practice not calculated to enlist the best talents in the Service of the country, surely in India, where there were such slight safeguards, where there was no Parliamentary representation, the patronage system was surrounded by vastly greater danger than it could possibly be surrounded with at Home. When the Government brought forward Votes on this account, as they were bound to do, he thought they were equally hound to come provided with abundant information upon such all-important subjects as this. In asking the House to vote the necessary sums for conducting the work of the Civil Service Commission, it was right that they should inform the House what were the principles upon which that Civil Service Commission was itself conducted. They were asked to vote money in the dark, so long as they were not fully informed of the manner in which the sums voted were to be expended. He had pointed out, with regard even to the English and Irish competitors for the Civil Service, that recent regulations had imposed heavy conscientious disabilities upon Catholic students; they were no longer allowed to qualify themselves for the periodical examinations by studying in such places of education as might be recommended by their own convictions. With regard to the Indian Civil Service, there was the greatest possible cause for discontent. He should like to know whether there was any intention of raising the proportion of Native-born Indians in the Civil Service; and if the proportion was to be raised, upon what principles it was to be raised? Were the Natives selected for the Indian Service to be chosen by favour of some authority, or by fair and open competition? He should like the Government to inform them exactly and accurately what were the principles that had been adopted, and what means had been taken to carry the principle into practice?

said, he would endeavour to place before the Committee what had taken place with regard to the matters to which the hon. Member for Dungarvan had alluded. He would first state that the examinations of persons for the Civil Service of India were conducted under regulations framed by the Secretary of State for India. Those regulations were drawn up with the view of providing for a proper course of instruction to be obtained by the successful candidates, who had passed the competitive examinations, during the period that they were preparing themselves for the series of examinations which they were to undergo before the examiner. It was thought desirable, in the interest of the candidates themselves, that they should go to places where they were subjected to certain rules. The consequence was that the allowance was only made to them upon the condition that they should get their instruction at certain Universities to be approved of by the Secretary of State for India. He thought he was justified in saying that during the time the present noble Lord the Minister for Foreign Affairs was at the India Office he had before him many members of the Roman Catholic persuasion, and satisfied them completely that they could fulfil the conditions he required with regard to their Universities, and that they would be eligible to receive students. He pointed out to them that a certain moral control over these young men was necessary, instead of their being allowed to live by themselves, surrounded by temptations, in the early part of their career. He proved completely to those gentlemen that none of the conditions he required were impossible in any of the Roman Catholic Universities or Colleges. No difficulty need arise in the case, and if the conditions of those institutions were similar to those of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the hon. Member would have had no cause to complain of the students not being allowed to attend the Universities of their own denomination. Another question had been asked by the hon. Member with regard to the foes derived from the competitive examinations. He asked why the fees obtained from the candidates in the competitive examinations for the Civil Service of India were not paid into the Indian instead of the Imperial Exchequer? For his part, he (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) could understand that if the Examining Body were paid from the funds of India the fees ought to go into the Indian Exchequer; but as the Body conducting the examinations was paid by the English taxpayer, so the fees were gathered for the English taxpayer. With regard to the further question of the hon. Member, it seemed to him to affect the whole question of the Civil Service of India. He would remind the hon. Member, when he complained of the difficulty of Indians coming forward for the examination, that there was a mode by which they were placed in the Service without examination, and that was by allowing the Viceroy to select persons for the Civil Service. It was quite true that the form of the examination could be altered, in order to embrace the subjects of the Indian Empire; but the plan adopted had for its object the bringing into the Service men who were supposed to be thoroughly qualified.

observed, that this was a most inconvenient occasion on which to discuss these matters. But he entirely demurred to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell), in taking objection to the Governor General having the power to select, from time to time, Indian gentlemen of high birth and good position, who might be considered qualified for the Civil Service. If the hon. Member know as much of India as he did, he would readily admit that it was of great importance to popularize the Civil Administration in that country by admitting into its ranks gentlemen of large social influence. He did not intend further to discuss the question on that occasion, as he considered it would be more properly raised on another occasion.

said, that if the hon. Member knew as much about India as he did on that particular point, he would not have made the observations he had. The objection to the Viceroy enjoying the power of choosing gentlemen for the Indian Civil Service was supported by the most qualified and, in every respect, the most deserving of the Native Press of India. The British Indian Association, and similar Bodies, had also strongly expressed their opinion that this system of patronage, always dangerous even in highly-civilized countries, was still more dangerous in India. The newspapers had again and again directed their articles against the practice to which the hon. Member deposed of his own knowledge to be beneficial to India. It was plain that this power given to the Viceroy, and especially under the circumstances of the Viceregal Government, was particularly dangerous. When patronage was exercised by great Officers at Home there were special safeguards; but what was the case with regard to the Viceroy of India? He was generally so utterly raw and inexperienced—as in the case of the present Viceroy—that he knew nothing whatever about Native Indian affairs until he set foot in that country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham referred to the case of the Viceroy being detected in the act of making up India from Mills' India. It would be the highest compliment that could be paid to the present Viceroy, if they supposed he employed his time on the voyage to India in a similar occupation. The present Viceroy went to India totally ignorant of Native affairs; he had the power to select Natives, and, in practice, that power came to this—that some of the Government officials had the entire selection. The name of the Vicery was only brought in as a pure piece of grandiloquence; it was his right-hand man, or, perhaps, the right-hand man of the right-hand man, that really selected the individual. Moreover, there were influences other than masculine ones very potent in India. The present system was not in favour with the educated classes in India. While he ventured to give expression to the opinions of Native Indians, he trusted that hon. Members would not get up and say that he knew nothing about it.

wished for some information as to the increase in this Vote. Perhaps the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury could tell the reason why the staff of clerks in the Audit Office was increased from 68 to 80? Moreover, he did not see why 15 charwomen should be employed to take care of the Audit Office. The increase in the Vote seemed abnormal, and he thought required explanation.

explained that the increase was due to the establishment of the Army Test Audit. That Audit necessitated a considerable increase in the staff, amounting in the Estimate to about £3,000. With respect to the 15 charwomen, he did not think that the Treasury exercised any power over them. He would say, however, that the Treasury never sanctioned any addition to the Vote, unless it was proved to be absolutely necessary by the officers of the Department.

supposed that the expenses of this Department were increased by the augmented Expenditure of the Government. No doubt, the expenditure of the £6,000,000 last year, and of the Afghan War, occupied the attention of the Audit Office. For his part, he was rather surprised at the small number of charwomen required in cleaning up the mess from the policy of Her Majesty's Ministers.

said, that the increase of the Vote for the Audit Office was, no doubt, due to the Act passed in the last Parliament for removing the control of the funds in the Court of Chancery to that Department from the Accountant General. He ventured to express his opinion of this at the time; and he still maintained the opinion that expenditure had been unnecessarily increased.

said, that as an increase was continually going on in the Civil Public Expenditure, and as no one who looked into the Accounts could fail to see the yearly increasing amounts, they could only come to the conclusion that there would be no end to the Civil expenses, unless some check could be brought to bear. The cost of Audit had been discussed, but the amounts due for the several kinds of Audit were not known. If they could tell distinctly what the cost of each of the Audits was, they would be able to discuss the question with some degree of usefulness as to whether the benefit from the Audit was worth the money spent on it; but as no one knew what the cost of any particular Audit would be, it was useless to discuss the increase. His own impression was that the amount of the Army and Nary Audit increase had been a good deal more than £3,000. But what he wished strongly to complain of was the incomplete manner in which the Civil Expenditure of the country was audited by reason of the power possessed by the Treasury to regulate the forms of accounts and vouchers for outlays. There was no branch of the Expenditure of the country so badly audited as that under the Treasury. He held in his hand the Appropriation Account of the Civil Service; and he asserted that if the same kind of Audit had been made on the Treasury Accounts which were laid by that Department before the Auditor General, as was done in the Army and Navy, they would have many hon. Members rising up to draw attention to the Reports of the Auditor General. No more effectual means could be taken to encourage the vast increase in the Civil Expenditure than was done by the present mode of framing the Appropriation Account, which the Auditor General received from the Civil Departments. On looking at that Account they found that the expenditure was stated in a manner entirely at variance with the requirements of the Act of Parliament for the Army and Navy. With regard to the expenditure of the Army and Navy, though as yet far from complete, they had a most minute and detailed Audit on the several items shown in the Estimates of these Departments; but, in the case of the Civil Service, there was not a single item of expenditure that was brought under the proper head, as detailed in their Estimates, all the details therein being lumped up in totals very difficult, if not impossible, to trace out. With regard to the perfection of the mode in which the Army Expenditure was stated, he could speak from his own experience that that mode was far superior to what was done in the case of the Civil Service.

would appeal to the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury to boar him out in saying that the mode in which the Auditor General discharged his duties was of a most admirable nature; and he was sure that the same would be said by every hon. Member who had sat upon the Public Accounts Committee. When the hon. and gallant Member objected to the way in which the Auditor General discharged his duty, he hoped that that officer would be defended by the Secretary to the Treasury. He would venture to appeal to his hon. Friends opposite, and to every other hon. Member who had sat upon that Committee, to say that the charge made against the Auditor General was not a true one. For his part, he thought him only too minute, and considered that sometimes he paid too great attention to minutiæ to be repaid by the result. When the hon. and gallant Member said that the Army and Navy Accounts, which had only been recently brought under examination were audited in a perfect manner, and that the Civil Service Accounts were not done properly, he would affirm that the Secretary to the Treasury paid great attention to the matter, and checked every unwarrantable expenditure that occurred.

remarked that nothing was more undesirable than to make statements with regard to what hon. Members had said, which were utterly contrary to what they had actually said. He never imputed to the Auditor General any neglect or omission in any form or shape. Sir William Dunbar was well known to him, and he held him in the highest respect as an officer who had served the Government well, discharging his duties most thoroughly. It was not true to say that the Army and Navy Expenditure had only been audited for the last two or three years, for it had, in fact, been audited since 1846. What he had complained of was that the Civil Expenditure of the country, which was continually increasing, was not audited half so well as the Army and Navy Expenditure; and that the Appropriation Account for the Civil Service was not framed in the same way as it was in the cases of those Departments. His complaint was in no way against Sir William Dunbar; but he submitted that the mode of massing the various items of the Civil Expenditure of the country under a few heads was improper, and, he believed, inconsistent with the real intentions of the Act of Parliament. The manner of auditing the Civil Expenditure ought to be carried out so as to show the mode in which the expenditure entered in the Estimates was accounted for in actual and real accounts, and in the same manner as was done in the case of the Army. The Appropriation Accounts of the Civil Expenditure of the country was put forward in a form entirely different from that in which the Civil Service Expenditure was placed before the House in the Estimates. The House had a right to know whether the expenditure had been appropriated to the particular Offices, and particular persons engaged in the several branches, and whether the salaries had been appropriated to the proper persons named in the Estimates, or applied in a way different from the entries in the Estimates. That was by no means an unimportant matter, for there might be a kind of misappropriation going on between one Department and another, and even in the same branch, but for which Sir William Dunbar was in no way responsible. He trusted the Secretary to the Treasury would not defend Sir William Dunbar, for he had not attacked him. He was not in the habit of attacking anyone, and his only wish was that the Public Business of Audit should be properly conducted. There was a great difference between the way in which the civil and military officers performed their duty, and that duty which was imposed upon them should, as respected Audit, be uniform.

could assure hon. Members that Sir William Dunbar was a most able public servant. With regard to the Treasury, and the control it exercised over the Expenditure, if the hon. and gallant Member were to look for its records, he would find evidence of the work done which would thoroughly satisfy even his ardent mind. He would remind the hon. and gallant Member, also, that practically the Auditor General was not under the control of the Treasury. Although his Audit had to be submitted to the Treasury, and he was in communication with the Treasury, yet he was quite independent, and justly so, of the Treasury or any other Government Department. His duties were to prepare the Audits and every particular Account, not only of the Army and Navy, but of the Civil Service. He ventured to say that in whatever way the Audit was made it would make no difference, for the Auditor General exercised the most scrupulous care, and reduced, so far as possible, the Expenditure within its proper limits. There was ample evidence of the able way in which the Auditor General did his work, his attention being given even to the most minute and trifling accounts. He confessed that he did not think, that very much would be gained if the Accounts were audited in the way suggested by the hon. and gallant Member, although it would throw additional work on the Auditor General. If the Army Test Audit cost considerably more than what it was estimated, still there was no doubt of the benefits derived from it. With regard to the Navy Test Audit, it had not yet come into operation, and therefore did not appear in the Accounts.

could not permit this Vote to pass without making some observations upon it. With regard to his friend Sir William Dunbar, everyone knew that he discharged his duties in the most perfect way; but what was at fault was, not Sir William Dunbar, but simply the system. By an Act passed in the present Reign, the offices of the Comptroller and Auditor General were united together. Although an improvement was supposed to have been thereby made, yet he considered that an anomaly was thereby introduced into the Public Service. By the union of the office of Comptroller with that of Auditor General, the Comptroller was actually made the Auditor of his own accounts. If there was one thing more than another which was contrary to the principle of administration, he imagined that it was the system of making a public officer auditor of his own accounts. Supposing a gentleman had a receiver of his rents, and he also appointed that person auditor of his accounts, anyone would say, if he suffered a loss, that he deserved to do so. Formerly, no money was paid out of the Exchequer without the consent of the Comptroller, whose office was like that of the Judges on good behaviour, and irremovable. That that was a good system was affirmed by Lord Lyndhurst, in a famous speech in the House of Lords, in which he said that his wish was to carry out the principle to its completion, and that it was an essential part of the Administration of this country. That system had been found inconvenient to official persons, and it had been found easier to manage things without any control at all. In consequence of that, the Act was passed by which the Auditor and Comptroller Generals were made the same person. His complaint was not that the Auditor General's Department was not conducted properly. But if the Auditor General's Office was to be of any use at all, it must have sufficient authority for the business it was to transact. The whole complaint of the Auditor General was that he had no control over the Government. He could not require them to bring in their Accounts in the proper time; at onetime he was overwhelmed with work, at another he was entirely idle. Moreover, he could not examine officials, or compel them to produce documents; and prosecutions could only be undertaken by the Attorney General by information in the Exchequer. At the present moment the Audit Office was nothing better than a Department of the Treasury, and had no authority of its own. It was well known what occurred a short time back, when there was a considerable misappropriation of money in one Department. That went on to the amount of nearly £1,000,000 sterling. It was said, why did not the Audit Office see that this misappropriation of public money did not take place? It was asked, why did it not prevent the Postmaster General, now a noble Lord of the other House, from making use in the Telegraph Department of money not intended to be used in that Department? The answer was that Sir William Dunbar repeatedly reported to the Treasury that the account of the Postmaster General was overdrawn for a very large amount, and that the Treasury told him to mind his own business; and so the matter went on. And so it went on, until there was a very great row. When the disturbance occurred, it showed that the Auditor General had no authority. The Audit Department ought to have had the power of summoning the Postmaster General and the Secretary to the Post Office, and of stopping this misappropriation of public money. Instead of that, it only reported to the Treasury, which did nothing. The Audit Office had no power over a Secretary of State to compel him to account. The Audit Office could not interfere; in any way but by reporting to the Treasury. Moreover, every Department of the Audit Office was conducted by direction of the Treasury, and every regulation for the Audit Office was framed by the Treasury. If the Treasury, in fact, told the Audit Office to do a certain thing, it must do it. He thought he had said enough to show that it was a Department of the Treasury, and was bound hand-and-foot to it. At any rate, it had no authority of its own to compel the officers of any Department to produce accounts, vouchers, or other papers, and it could not make them account. For these reasons, he hoped that hon. Members would see that he was right in calling attention to these matters, he trusted that they would one day have in this country something similar to what Napoleon I. instituted—namely, a Chamber of Accounts. They ought to have a superior Court of Public Accounts. The Committee on Public Accounts would still continue its valuable functions, and it would be greatly assisted by the Audit Office, which ought to be the supreme authority of Accounts, with the obligation and power of making everyone who received money account for it, and having power over all accountants. There ought to be power of compelling the production of accounts and vouchers, instead of the present imperfect system. Now, all the Audit Office could do was to apply to the Treasury, which might, or might not, interfere; and, at any rate, the Treasury was in substance the Ministry of the day. He wished to see such an Audit of Accounts instituted as would be perfectly free of the Government and of all political officers whatever, and accountable only to that House.

said, that, so far as he understood the matter, the Auditor General was now an officer who was appointed, together with all his assistants, independently of the Treasury, which, was not formerly the case. All his staff formerly were clerks appointed and regulated by the Treasury. [General Sir GEORGE BALFOUR: So they are now.] He (Mr. Dillwyn) hoped that the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury would make it clear whether this was the case, or whether the staff of the Audit Office had still anything to do with the Treasury. There was no doubt that the Auditor General formerly re- ported to the Treasury, and, for his part, he thought this to have been objectionable. Now, however, the Auditor General reported directly to that House, and not to the Treasury; and he believed that that was a system properly adapted for the regulation of the Audit Office. His hon. and gallant Friend seemed to think that he had the control of the expenditure in some way. [General Sir GEORGE BALFOUR denied that that was his opinion.] He (Mr. Dillwyn) said, that there was an opinion that the Auditor General and the Committee on Public Accounts had something to do with the expenditure. They had nothing to do but to audit the Accounts brought before them. All that the Auditor General had to do was to see that the Appropriation Act was complied with. So far as he was able to judge, he did his duty exceedingly well, and was completely and absolutely independent of the Treasury. He should be glad to hear that confirmed from the Treasury Bench; for if the Treasury still retained any control over the Audit Department, the fact should be brought before the notice of the House.

denied having said that the Auditor General was an officer under the Treasury; but he was still under the impression that all the clerks of the Audit Office were under the Treasury, by reason of their claims for advancement and for increase of pay being subordinate to the Treasury. What he complained of was that if there was anything wrong in the Accounts of the Civil Expenditure as submitted to the Audit Office, it was owing to the control which the Treasury had and did exercise over the form of their Accounts, and over the vouchers; and he believed the Treasury was in the habit of sending for the Accountant of the Department, who was in subordination to the Treasury as regarded the Civil outlay. He had quoted the case of the Post Office to show that the Auditor General continually reported to the Treasury that the accounts of the Post Office were much overdrawn, and yet that nothing was done. The Treasury was to blame for not having stopped it; for it ought to have taken the trouble to send for the Postmaster General and the Secretary for the Post Office before the Audit Department to explain the matter to them.

said, that the real history of this case was that the Comptroller and Auditor General and his Assistant were officers holding office on good behaviour, and irremovable except by Parliament. By the 89th section of the Act, uniting the offices of Comptroller and Auditor General, the staff of those Offices was supposed to be appointed by the Treasury. They were now appointed by open competition, after examination by the Civil Service Examiners. All the regulations of the Audit Department, and all its internal administration, were within the complete control of the Comptroller and Auditor General, who was completely independent of the Treasury. It was true, as he was reminded, that those regulations must be approved by the Treasury. But, so far from the Treasury now appointing the clerks, they were all appointed by open competition. What the Treasury had to do, so far as regarded the Comptroller and Auditor General, was to enforce his regulations on all other Departments. To that extent the Treasury and the Auditor General were one Office; but, so far as control over the Auditor General went, the Treasury had none.

asked if the Auditor General had any interference with the promotion within his Office?

said, that his experience was that there were Auditors and Auditors, and it was no valid reason for not criticizing Accounts that they had been gone through by the Audit Office. The House should be able to criticize every Office. Sir William Dunbar was a good officer; but he was not a bit the worse for being looked after. He hoped that the discussion of this matter would have a salutary effect.

, in answer to the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn), said, that the officers of the Audit Department were removed under regulations made by the Comptroller and Auditor General. It was quite true that those regulations must be made subject to the approval of the Treasury; but without that check the Auditor General would be able to appoint any number of officers. So long as there was a Department like the Treasury controlling the finances of the country, he ventured to think that it must be invested with so much authority as to have a voice in the increase or otherwise of all the Public Departments. The arrangements of his Office were made by the Comptroller and Auditor General, subject only to the control of the Treasury. In all other respects, he was perfectly independent of the Treasury.

wished to remind the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury that the Auditor General had constantly complained that he could not obtain that information from the different Departments which he required. Any hon. Member who looked through his Reports would see that complaint continually occurred. He said that he had not been able to do his duty, owing to documents or information not being supplied. It should be borne in mind that for the purposes of audit the Treasury and the Auditor General were not co-ordinate, and that the former ought to have supplied him with any documents or information he required.

observed, that if the hon. and gallant Gentleman had been better acquainted with the facts he would not have made the speech he had made. He assumed that the Treasury was in the habit of refusing the requests of the Auditor General. It was true that the Report of the Auditor General showed that he had not on many occasions received from the Treasury the information he required; but anyone who was acquainted with the duties and the conduct of departmental work must be aware that many of the inquiries of the Auditor General were such as took a very long time before they could be answered. To take one point by way of example—that with regard to the audit and arrangement and payment of the charges connected with Indian affairs. The Auditor General constantly reported that the Treasury had not satisfied his requirements upon that point. The fact was that a long Correspondence had been going on with the Indian Government and the War Office, and the whole thing had been going on for years and was only on the eve of completion. Yet that was one of the points upon which the Auditor General continually reported that he had not been satisfied. It must not be thought that the Treasury had been refusing to satisfy hint; but that the necessary Correspondence and in- quiries had not yet enabled them to furnish the required information. In many cases, before the Treasury could give any definite answer to the inquiries of the Auditor General, it was necessary to make a careful examination into the matter, which often took a considerable time.

was anxious to explain the observations which he had previously made. Before the Act of 1866 the Audit with regard to the Naval and Military Expenditure was considered very defective, and yet the Act of 1866 actually established for the Civil Service outlay the power of the Treasury to regulate the Accounts in any form that Department pleased, for showing the Civil Expenditure. The Act also required the Audits to accept the vouchers for that outlay, provided they were duly initiated by the Accounting Officer, a practice far more independent than that followed in respect to the Military Expenditure. But the system now pursued in the Audit of the Military Expenditure was very much superior to anything done with regard to the Civil Expenditure, because the Auditor General was left entirely free as regarded the form of the Account and the character of the vouchers. In the case of the Civil Expenditure, the form in which the audit was to take place was laid down by the Treasury; whereas, in the case of the Army, the Auditor General was obliged to state the Accounts as they were stated in the Estimates, and compare the items with the Expenditure. But with regard to the Civil Expenditure, the Treasury did not adopt that rule. One great objection to the former system with regard to the Army Expenditure was that the Secretary of State was, in fact, his own auditor. But now, not a single sum was expended in the War Office without a voucher for is being forwarded to the Auditor General'-Office for detailed minute examination. In the case of the Civil Expenditure, the Treasury had power to do part ticularly what they thought fit, both as regarded the form of the Account and the examination of the voucher; and the objection as to the Audit being in their own hand was, therefore, the same with regard to them, though in a more objectionable form, as it was formerly in the case of the Army. He objected most strongly to the system under which the Treasury at present acted. No one could read the Act of Parliament regulating these matters without saying that the proper system for insuring a free and independent Audit by the Auditor General was not pursued as regarded the Civil Expenditure. The Treasury now had power to step in and say that they would have any form of Audit they pleased, because that Department regulated the form of the Account, and appointed the Accountant, whose initials on the voucher were accepted as proof. He submitted to the Secretary to the Treasury that the only safe way for auditing the Civil Expenditure was to allow the Auditor General to take as the basis of his audit a form of Account strictly drawn out to agree with the entries inserted in the Estimates passed by the House and follow the Expenditure out in vouchers to be carefully scrutinized by the Auditor General. Unless that were done, the objectionable imputation, so offensively designated by the phrase, which he (Sir George Balfour) did not use towards the Civil outlay of cooking Accounts, could not be avoided; and he thought he had shown that an amalgamation of items, as now done in the Civil Service Appropriation Account, was entirely opposite to a proper system of accountancy. He therefore submitted that there was not an independent Audit at present of the Civil Charges, and so long as the Auditor General was hampered with the rules and regulations for taking the audit laid down by the Treasury, so long would the Auditor General be unable to make any audit but such as would deceive the public with regard to the Civil Expenditure.

said, that, when the Auditor General complained of not getting proper documents and explanations, his objections did not apply only to the case of the Indian matters referred to by the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury. In many cases the Auditor General made the same complaint, and in some of those there must have been no difficulty in at once furnishing the information required.

remarked, that the Audit Office had no power to compel the production of documents.

observed, that the Friendly Societies' Act was a very important measure. Before the Vote was passed, he should like to know very much whether the Act had worked well, as he trusted it had?

could assure the hon. Baronet that, with the exception of a slight defect, which it was proposed to amend, the Act had been found satisfactory.

wished for some information on one point. It had come to his knowledge that societies could not be registered if their name imported any national distinction. He knew one instance of a society temporarily established in London for the especial purpose of forming a club for Irish working men. There was a good deal of prejudice very often between English and Irish working men, and it was of great importance to be able to give a start to Irish working men, which could only be done by a recognition of their national character as Irishmen. He had been informed that the formation of such a society was not countenanced by the existing law. He was told that there was an objection on the part of the Registrar to register an Irish working-men's club, although there was none if it were simply a working-men's club. That, he was informed, was a stretch of power on the part of the Registrar; and he should be happy to think that that was the case, for a great deal of good might be done by the establishment of such clubs in England. If the object proposed could not be effected, there was no hope for the establishment of such institutions; but he should like to hear from the Government whether that was the case or not?

promised to make inquiries on the point mentioned by the hon. Member. He was aware that English societies were not allowed to take some distinctive titles. For instance, they would not be allowed to take such names as the Royal Society, or anything of that kind; but he would make inquiries as to the point suggested by the hon. Member, and inform him upon Report as to the possibility of forming a club retaining a national distinction.

wished to ask the President of the Local Government Board a question with regard to the sum of £3,000 charged for public vaccinators. He should like to ask whether he could give the House any information as to the working of the vaccination system during the past year, and whether the opposition was increasing, and also what prosecutions had been undertaken at the instance of the Local Government Board for infringement of the Acts?

said, that the working of the Act generally had been satisfactory. Taking into account the number of births throughout the Kingdom, they had been vaccinated within 5 per emit. Perhaps the worst vaccinated district was the Metropolis, and that was, no doubt, on account of its enormous population. But the Report on vaccination mentioned that the attention of the authorities had been drawn to the subject, and that a better state of things might be anticipated. The nest Report with further details as to vaccination would be presented at an early date; and he anticipated that his hon. Friend would find that a much more satisfactory account would be rendered than heretofore. He might say that no prosecutions were instituted by the Local Government Board; but that the Boards of Guardians, acting as the vaccination authority, had the right and the duty to institute prosecutions. Sometimes those had had to be instituted; but, on the whole, the working of the Act was satisfactory to those intrusted with its superintendence and execution. He did not think the opposition to vaccination was on the increase, although there were still some persons who would probably never cease to rebel against the operation of the Act. But, taking into account that the population were vaccinated within 5 per cent of the total number of births throughout the Kingdom, he thought that the pro- gress of the Act was eminently satisfactory. Nor was he of opinion that the opposition fomented by the anti-vaccinators was on the increase, or that their efforts were really seriously interfering with the operation of the Act.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman was mistaken in supposing that those who opposed vaccination were decreasing in number. In his opinion they were on the increase. In the public mind he believed there was a strong prejudice against vaccination. There was no doubt whatever that many individuals looked on vaccination as an undue interference with the private right of judgment, and they naturally felt inclined to rebel against it. No doubt, many mis-statements were circulated as to the effect of vaccination; but there were some facts upon which there could be no doubt. In some cases it could not be denied that serious illnesses had followed vaccination, and sometimes diseases, which had, at any rate, looked very suspiciously as if they had been caused by vaccination, had ensued. It was in connection with the necessity for proper lymph being procured that he wished to ask whether the Report would contain any further information than they had at present? He did not hesitate to say that he was conversant with some cases of vaccination where he entertained no doubt whatever, and the medical evidence led to the conclusion that disease had been imparted to children through impure lymph. He wished to know whether the system of procuring lymph was exactly the same, or whether any alteration had been made in it. Further, he should like to be informed how much was brought from abroad, or whether any was brought from abroad, and what were the general instructions? He should be glad to know whether the Report would contain any information upon these points?

observed that, in his judgment, the cases of opposition to vaccination were, comparatively speaking, few and far between. The next Report of the Local Government Board would, no doubt, contain a great deal of information upon the subject of vaccination; and he would take care that some reference should take place as to the mode in which the lymph was collected. There would also be in the Report itself some statement, he had no doubt, of experiments which had been made with a view of satisfying the public mind that the vaccine matter was pure. There were numerous cases in which disease appeared to have been engendered by means of vaccination; from time to time complaints of that sort were made; and he was bound to say, since he entered upon the Office he now held, such complaints had always undergone most searching investigation. He had personally taken care to inform himself upon these points, and if the Report made on any case was against the person who had performed the vaccination, he had been removed. Many vaccinating officers had been removed on this account. On the other hand, as contrasted with the number of vaccinations that took place, the cases of disease occurring were few and far between. The cases that did occur were, for the most part, cases of erysipelas. When cases of that sort did occur, they were found, for the most part, to be cases in which skin disease would be developed by any operation whatever, by reason of the strumous habit or careless treatment of the infants affected; but sometimes inquiries had to be made whether the matter was of a proper quality or not. He might say that every means was taken to insure the lymph being of the proper quality. Many thousand tubes were constantly being supplied to headquarters from the different vaccinators. The lymph in them was subjected to the most strict microscopical examination, and everything not coming up to the test was unceremoniously excluded. For the most part, the lymph came from the persons vaccinated. Vaccinators were thus under orders to send stores of vaccine matter to headquarters, where it underwent the most careful microscopical examination, and was afterwards distributed as demand was made for it. In some cases it was sent to the Colonies, sometimes abroad, and sometimes to Ireland. He could not say that there was any absolute need for procuring matter from abroad. It was the opinion of many gentlemen in the Department that animal vaccine was of a less satisfactory character than that from the human subject. Still the question had been raised, and the decision was not yet come to upon it. He could only say, with respect to the remarks of the hon. Gentleman, that any cases occurring from time to time in which mischief was caused by vaccination were cases in which vaccination had taken place at a time when the subject was not in the state of health in which he ought to have been vaccinated. That was the result of his experience. Every pains was taken to render the operation of the Act as easy as possible, and to render it as little an encroachment upon individual liberty as might be.

condemned the system of centralization which had the Local Government Board for its head. Something like £400,000 was spent in connection with the management of the Local Government Board. Of that sum £60,000 was spent upon the Central Office, and a considerable amount of the work done by the Local Government Board might well be relegated to the local authorities. To take one instance, he found that £20,000 was charged for auditing the accounts of Boards of Guardians. What were the duties of auditors in connection with Boards of Guardians? The Boards of Guardians at the present time were unable to spend a single shilling in the way of outdoor relief without having that small amount audited by the Local Government Board, and the receipts from the Provinces sent to London for audit at the Central Office. He did not think that the new system was so much better than the old, and his impression was that the number of auditors—38—in connection with the Department was much too great, and that the accounts, instead of having to be sent up to London for the purpose of audit, should be audited by local auditors upon the spot. He had no doubt that the statement would be made that they could not trust local auditors, and in all probability it would also be said that they would make mistakes which the officers of the Central Office would be entirely free from. He held a different opinion; and he thought that they would find most efficient and able auditors connected with the Boards of Guardians in the Provinces. For these reasons, he thought the right hon. Gentleman should review the system of auditing the accounts connected with Provincial Poor Law Boards. He should like to ask a question with reference to the large staff in the Office of the President of the Local Government Board. Were his letters copied by hand or by machinery? Were they copied by clerks, or did the Central Office use letter-copying machines? There was another point to which he should like to call attention, and that was the system of making local inquiries. If half-a-dozen people objected to something, either the purchase of a piece of ground, or an expenditure on account of a free library, they made application to the Local Government Board, and persons were sent down from the Central Office to make what was called a local inquiry. The Central Board and local authorities were thus very often, at the instance of half-a-dozen factious ratepayers, or even non-ratepayers, put to unnecessary trouble and expense, and with no other object in view than opposing what the majority of the Town Council or other Local Board wished. He moved to reduce the Vote by £2,000.

wished to take objection to the item of £17,000 for auditing the Poor Law Accounts. There was no such allowance in Scotland for the audit of Poor Law Accounts, and there had never been any audit but that under the Local Boards themselves. There had been no Government interference in any shape. The Home Secretary and the Lord Advocate had just introduced a Bill to provide for the appointment of Poor Law Auditors in Scotland; but the new Bill proposed that Scotland should pay for its own auditing by means of stamps to be affixed by the auditors to each account. Why should Scotland pay its share of the £17,000 for auditing the Accounts of England, and yet pay the whole of its own Account? It came to this—that they would pay 20s. in the pound for auditing Scotch Accounts and 2s. 6d. in the pound for auditing English Accounts, so that in that way they paid 22s. 6d. in the pound, that England might pay in the proportion of 17s. 6d. Was this legal, or just, or equitable in any sense? Was it consistent with the Act of Union? It was known, from the Parliamentary Returns, that Scotland paid as nearly as possible one-seventh part of the whole National Revenue. As compared with England, then, why did Scotland not have the benefits of one-seventh part of all such allowances as were made for such purposes as the one under discussion? It might be said that the Revenue was not so good a test as that of population. Take that test, the population of Scotland was as nearly as possible one-seventh of the population of England. Therefore, taking either the taxation or the population, Scotland was entitled to one-seventh part of all the grants which were made to England. It was rather too much, then, to ask Scottish Members to vote that £17,000 should be paid for the Audit of the Poor Law Accounts of England, and the next day to ask them to pass a Bill by which the people of Scotland should also pay the whole of the expenses of auditing their own Accounts. It seemed to him monstrous, and he should like some Member of the Government to tell them upon what principle such unjust treatment was defended. This was not the only case in which injustice was done to Scotland—there were many others, including £34,000 for Poor Law teachers in England and nothing for Scotland. He would only mention one other—that of medical allowances. Many years ago, it was fixed that £10,000 should be paid to Scotland as part payment of the salaries of the medical officers of the Poor Law Board in Scotland. A corresponding proportional sum, at that time, was granted to England. Gradually the allowance for England had advanced, new branches being added, and now the grant that the House was asked to vote had become £134,000 for the salaries of medical officers, £12,650 for what was called the medical department, £64,000 for what was called the medical officers of health and inspectors of nuisances. These three sums amounted together to £210,650. Yet all that Scotland obtained for these purposes was £10,200. He asked again, if Scotland paid one-seventh of the Revenue which England paid, and if its population was also one-seventh of the population of England, why should it get only £10,200, and England get £210,650, for the same items? Taking a homely simile, it was making Scotland the milch cow to bring in revenue to England, as the ancient Romans did with some of their conquered provinces. The thing was so monstrous that he felt inclined to think it must be a mistake of some Officer of the Government; and he believed it was to be attributed in a great degree to the present absurd system of being practically governed by a Lord Advocate in place of a Secretary of State for Scotland. He did not mean to say a word against the present occupant of the Office, or against anyone in particular; but when they allowed a lawyer only to represent Scotland in the House of Commons, and to carry on his legal practice in the House of Lords and elsewhere, how was it to be expected that he should be able to give the time, or to consider how much England or Scotland got for Poor Law, or sanitary, or other kindred matters? There was now no other Official to look after the interests of Scotland. In the present case, either Scotland ought to get one-seventh of the £210,000—namely, £30,000, or these grants should not be allowed at all.

I must point out to the hon. Member for Edinburgh that it appears to me that this sum comes under Vote 23, and that would be the time when his remarks would be in Order.

admitted that he should be out of Order were he now formally proposing to increase the Vote for Scotland; but he was simply questioning the lavish way in which it was proposed to vote money for English purposes, as compared with, the economical way in which money was voted for Scotland. Had he been allowed to proceed, he should have moved that the Vote for the Auditors be disallowed altogether.

The hon. Member would be in Order in proposing to reduce the Vote in respect to the salary of the Auditors after the Amendment before the Committee had been disposed of. What he wished to point out was that discussion with regard to any Vote was only in place when that Vote was reached in Committee.

asked if the Vote for Medical Officers was not at present before the House?

The hon. Member was in Order in discussing any item of the present Vote, but not in moving any further reduction of the Vote until the present Amendment was disposed of.

said, the hon. Member for Edinburgh rather misapprehended the ruling of the Chair. He (Mr. Ramsay) thought that the intention of the hon. Member, in making reference to the item to which the Chairman particularly objected, was for the purpose of showing to the Committee reasons why objection should be taken to the various items embraced in the Vote. He understood it to be ruled that it was in Order to discuss any item in the Vote under consideration; and he thought the hon. Member had not done the subjects justice, because they had in that Vote not only the items to which he had specially referred, but other items which might be classed in the same category. There was an item of £34,800 which they were asked to vote for teachers in Poor Law schools; in fact, there were sums mentioned in this Estimate, without going into details, amounting to £272,500, granted for the relief of the ratepayers in England, while no corresponding amount for the same purposes was granted to Scotland. He (Mr. Ramsay) could not conceive that this distinction could be justified. It was the Government, and not the hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), who were blame able, and it was against the Government that the present complaint was made. He had had the honour of appearing before the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon the subject of these distinctions between England and Scotland a few years ago, and at that time a distinct promise was given that some redress should be granted for the grievance; but nothing had been heard of the matter since that time. Last week, he (Mr. Ramsay) referred to the way in which the grants from the Public Treasury were made to tell against Scotland. There was not one item in these Estimates in which Scotland was treated on an equal footing with England; and, indeed, in many cases the ratepayers of England were relieved without any reference to the mode in which the same cases were dealt with in Scotland. He complained that the Scotch people were not treated as an integral part of the population of the United Kingdom, but rather as a conquered Dependency, to be ruled over and taxed as England pleased without any reference to its poverty. He believed the common impression to be a correct one, that the people of Eng- land were richer than the Scotch people, and there ought, in his opinion, to be a difference made between the rich and the poor, and in favour of the latter; but, so far from that being the case, the Scotch people had to pay the whole items of the Poor Law Auditors and the Medical Department, the latter amounting to £30,000, after striking out the Auxiliary Scientific Investigation, from which the whole country might be supposed to benefit. Then there were the grants in aid for the teachers in the Poor Law Schools, £34,800; Poor Law Medical Officers, £134,000; other Medical Officers, £64,000; and Legislation, £9,700; which sums, collectively, amounted to £272,500, and that without taking into account what had been referred to by the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren). He (Mr. Ramsay) could not conceive it possible that the poor children in England should be educated at the expense of the State, while the poor children in Scotland were educated at the expense of the ratepayers. If there had been no other Motion before the Committee, he should have moved the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £272,500, that being the only course by which Scotch Members could protest against the system of carrying out a different treatment for England than was applied to Scotland. He trusted his hon. Friend would take those items into consideration, and move a still larger reduction than that contemplated.

hoped the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Gourley) would withdraw his Motion. The hon. Gentleman had possibly not noticed the reduction which had taken place on the previous Estimates of £1,000. This was a satisfactory reduction, and he hoped that the appreciation shown by the Committee would encourage the Department to further exertions in the direction of economy. The hon. Member had proposed to take the item of Public Auditor out of the Accounts. He (Mr. Whit-well) would have been very sorry if that were done, as the Public Auditor was a great improvement on the local auditor; and he was confident that a great many improper expenses had been struck out by that officer which would otherwise have become established charges on the public purse. He should, therefore, not be able to vote for the Amendment. Last year, power had been taken to call upon the Public Auditor to audit the Highway Accounts; but nothing appeared to have been added for that expense. He hoped that the Auditor would be paid for out of the rates of the localities by whom he was called in, and would be glad to know if that was the case.

said, that was not the case.

could not agree that the Scotch should pay so largely for the auditing of the English Accounts as they did at present.

thought the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Gourley) had moved his Amendment under a misapprenhension and in some confusion when he complained of the action of the Central Office. The hon. Member had stated that accounts were sent up to London to be audited; but nothing of that kind took place, as the Auditors were placed in different districts, and went their circuits twice a-year, auditing the various accounts as required by law. He thought that no one would advocate the appointment of these officers being taken out of the hands of a responsible Ministry, and relegated to those who made the appointments formerly. It was the case that the whole audit expenses were charged upon local authorities; but it had been the practice during the last 40 years to place in the Votes sums of money in aid of the local rates. During the last few years, sanitary expenditure, education, and Highway Accounts had all been placed under the Government Auditor, who had his districts assigned to him. He was surprised that the hon. Member (Mr. Whitwell), who was so conversant with the Forms of Business in the House, should not be aware of the fact that Parliament had recently passed into law a District Auditors' Bill. The whole charges for these Auditors would be defrayed by the local authorities, in accordance with the amount audited under each separate head. And that fact would afford an answer to the inquiry of the hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Whitwell). But the £17,000 was a subvention which, since the time of Sir Robert Peel, had been charged in the Votes in aid of the Audit of Poor Law Accounts, and it was the intention of the Government to retain, though not materially to increase, that amount. The whole charges would in future be upon the rates of the different districts whose accounts were audited. The Audit Establishment had grown considerably, and cost the large sum of £40,000 a-year, one-half of which would be provided by the State, and the other would be paid for by the rates, under the heads of highway, sanitary improvements, and Poor Law Accounts. It was the same in Scotland as in England—the whole of the charges came upon the rates; but it had been the practice for the sum in question to be placed as a subvention in the Estimates. Had there been a Poor Law Amendment Act for Scotland the same payments in aid would have been made for Scotland. He remembered perfectly well the interview which took place between the Scotch Members and the Chancellor of the Exchequer with himself, which resulted in a sort of bargain that a similar sum to that voted in the case of England should be provided for Scotland, for the purpose of paying a number of expenses which now came upon the ratepayers, as soon as they passed an Act making requirements on the local rates similar to those required in England by the Poor Law Amendment Act. Hon. Members were aware that there was a Bill in progress making that arrangement. The Poor Law Amendment Act placed upon the Unions and parishes of England many charges in respect of which it had always been felt that some compensation should be made out of the Votes of Parliament. He hoped that the hon. Member had noticed that the whole of the system with respect to the auditing of Accounts had been made with the approval of the House. The hon. Member had also asked whether the work of copying letters was performed by hand or by machine? The work of copying was not done by machine, but by writers; and he (Mr. Sclater-Booth) was not aware that any useful purpose or convenience would be gained by the former method of copying. The same remark which had been made with regard to the Auditors were applicable to the allowances in aid of workhouse schools. The children educated in the pauper schools in England were in the same position as the children in other schools. They received no direct subvention at the hands of the Government; and the Local Government Board stood, with relation to them, in the same way as the Education Department did with relation to other children in elementary schools. An immense number of children were educated in the manner referred to, and the institution, as far as it went, was a most beneficial one. He thought the hon. Member for Sunderland had really made out no case for his proposed reduction.

thanked the right hon. Gentleman for the explanation which he had given on the subject; but thought he had not considered the grounds of the objection taken by the Scotch Members, especially in reference to the education of pauper children. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had coupled his promise to the Scotch Members, in regard to the equal treatment of the two countries, with the condition that a Bill should first be introduced by the Government to amend the Poor Law; but that was four years ago, and no Bill containing any provision for a medical grant had been introduced.

said, these subventions were not made by Act of Parliament.

said, it made no difference to his objection, as far as the workhouse children were concerned, whether the grant was made by Act of Parliament or voted by the House. He complained that the system was in his opinion, unjust, as far as Scotland was concerned. By a Bill before the House, there was a provision that no child above five years of age should be kept in the workhouse, but that he should be boarded out; and the English Local Boards received something from the Department in respect of passing the child on. Of course, he had no desire to see that assistance withheld from the pauper children in England; but he objected that they should have a class of children maintained in pauper schools separated from all their fellows. The right hon. Gentleman had not explained the ground of difference made between Scotland and England. In the payment of officials performing like services in England and Scotland, distinctions were made much in favour of those in the former country. There was a Registrar for Scotland—no doubt, a person well qua- lified, or he would not have received the appointment—whose services were rewarded with a salary of £400 a-year, while the Assistant Registrar in England was paid £900 a-year. Such distinctions were wholly indefensible. If the Scotch Members were to obstruct the progress of Business, they would be doing nothing more than was justified by the facts of the case. He knew no difference in the cost of living in England and the cost of living in Scotland which would justify distinctions made in the remuneration of officers in these countries. He should certainly support the Motion of the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) if he moved it.

said, that, so far as his experience went, all expenditure made by the Board of Guardians, even to the amount of 1s., must be submitted to the Central Office. At all events, the account must go to the Central Office, and then be submitted to the Auditors. But after the discussion which had taken place, and in deference to the wishes which had been expressed, he was willing not to press his Amendment.

was glad to see the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary in his place, as he had a word or two to say bearing on his Poor Law Bill. Now that the Amendment had been withdrawn, he would take the hint that had been given, and not propose anything about Scotland, but only about England. He should move an Amendment in reference to the Medical Vote. The Medical Vote for England amounted to £210,000, and the Medical Vote for Scotland to £10,000. Now, as England only contributed seven times the amount of Revenue which Scotland did to the Imperial Exchequer, it should get no more than seven times what Scotland got. As Scotland got £10,000, England ought, therefore, to get £70,000; and he would move to reduce the Estimate by £140,000, in order that England might be as economically managed in reference to its medical arrangements as Scotland was; and that Scotland, besides paying for nearly the whole of its own medical relief, might not have to con- tribute 2s. 6d. in the pound towards that of England. He was glad that the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Sclater-Booth) remembered the conversation and the promises which passed four years ago at the meeting of the Scotch Members with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject of equalizing matters between the two countries. He had taken the opportunity, on Friday last, of privately reminding the Chancellor of the Exchequer of those circumstances, and he would on Tuesday put a Question as to whether the promises now made to Scotch Members were now to be fulfilled. The explanation of the President of the Local Government Board with respect to the Auditors had not removed the grievance complained of. It had been admitted by the right hon. Gentleman that the £17,000 a-year was to be continued, notwithstanding that stamps might be imposed for additional branches of audited Accounts. He (Mr. M'Laren) contended that whereas there existed a standing obligation for the relief of the English ratepayers with regard to the sum in question, a similar provision ought to exist for the relief of the Scotch ratepayers. And that principle should apply to all the three branches for which grants in aid were asked. He moved that the Vote be reduced by the sum of £140,000, in order that England and Scotland should be placed on an equal footing.

said, he might be permitted, perhaps, to say something on this question, although the discussion had wandered, in a great measure, to another Vote. He understood the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) to move a reduction of this Vote on the ground that Scotland did not receive an amount proportionate to that received by England. The question, ought, however, he thought, to be decided by the consideration whether the Vote was necessary for the work done in England, leaving till they came to the Vote for Scotland the consi- deration whether the sum then to be proposed was sufficient for the work to be done. He would ask the Committee to believe that every item mentioned in the Vote was required for work to be performed. He quite endorsed the promise made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on a former occasion, that when similar conditions were imposed on the medical relief in Scotland similar payments should be made by the Treasury. He hoped that ere long this would take place, and that Scotland would be put in a similar position with England. He was prepared to pledge the Office he represented to this—that when similar conditions existed similar payments would be made. He would ask the Committee to inquire, in dealing with this proposal, whether this money was not absolutely required for the work of the country; and if they found that it was necessary, then that they should not accede to the proposal to reduce it.

said, there was a charge in the Estimate under letter R of £2,000 for "Auxiliary Scientific Investigation," concerning the causes and processes of disease. He should like a little more explanation of that item.

said, the Members for Scotland did not dispute the statement of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) that all this money was wanted for England; but the point they did make was, that Scotland did not get her fair proportion of this grant according to what she paid to the Revenue. They were not able to discuss this point on the Scotch Vote, because they had no power to propose an increase of the Vote. Reference had been made to the Poor Law Bill; but he did not understand that the amount to be allotted to Scotland was fixed by the Bill. On the contrary, it rested with the Government to put down what they pleased. This question had been pressed on the attention of Parliament and the country for several years; and it was because nothing had been done, and as a protest against against the unfair way in which Scotland was treated, that he should vote with his hon. Friend if he went to a Division.

, in reply to the hon. and learned Member for Newark (Mr. Bristowe) said, at any rate, that the sum of £2,000 could not be said to be expended on investigations the results of which were restricted to the inhabitants of one portion of the United Kingdom. The results arrived at were, in fact, for the benefit of all mankind. This Vote for many years was administered by the Privy Council, and at their discretion it was for several years spent on inquiries into the origin of disease—namely, chemical and microscopical. That Vote was challenged in Committee several years ago, and as a result it was transferred to the Department under his (Mr. Sclater-Booth's) charge. Every year suggestions were made to him as to the subject-matter on which the sum should be spent. Those investigations resulted in some very interesting, if abstruse, Blue Books, which would be found in the Library, he might add that some portion of the money would be devoted during the next year to experiments with the view of getting vaccination made more perfect.

hoped the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) would not proceed with his Amendment, as it might place the House in a position of some confusion. No doubt the charge for medical officers for England was one which was required in the interests of the country. At the same time, he (Sir George Balfour) thought there could be no doubt that Scotland was unfairly treated in not granting a proportionate allowance, and there was no other means of challenging the injustice except by moving, as his hon. Friend had done, a reduction of the Vote to England. He was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary for Scotland should sit in his place and say nothing on this question; for although he was an Englishman, they did expect him to do justice to the country which he represented as Secretary of State as much as he did in respect to England and Wales. As it was, they were left to the mercy of a Cabinet composed entirely of Englishmen. The Postmaster General did reside for a part of the year among them, and so becoming in that manner acquainted with their wishes and ways, it followed that in all matters affecting the Post Office they were well treated. But he was the only Member of the Cabinet who understood Scotland. How could they, then, expect to get justice for Scotland. They could not move to raise the Scotch Vote to £30,000, which was what they thought they ought to get, and, therefore, they could only express their indignation by declaring that if Scotland could not have its fair proportion England should not get its present grant.

said, though he had not taken part in the debate, he had been listening to it. He could only say that the Bill now before the House, which had been prepared by the Lord Advocate, compelled every parish in Scotland to appoint medical officers; and if that Bill passed, the Treasury had undertaken to increase the grant, so as to place Scotland and England on an equality. He could not say more than that; but he thought he had said all on the subject that the hon. Members from Scotland could wish. He could assure thorn he was most anxious that Scotland should be treated in every respect and in every way as England was treated.

said, the present law enforced the appointment of a medical officer in every parish in Scotland. They were promised this additional grant some four years ago, and they ought to have it. Unfortunately, the Government invariably made the passage of some such Bill the consideration of their promise, and framed their measures in such terms that, for his part, he would rather not have the money if the passage of some of the clauses in the Bill were the price. They had every confidence that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Assheton Cross) would act rightly if he understood the subject; but he, unfortunately, was not so intimately acquainted with the wants of the people of Scotland as he was with those of England. Demonstrative evidence could be produced that Scotland was in all respects unfairly treated in respect to the grants from the Imperial Treasury. As, however, a Division would take some time and would do no good, he should advise his hon. Friend (Mr. M'Laren) not to press his Motion. If the Ministry did not succeed in passing the Bill to which the Home Secretary had alluded—and they might not be able to do so in its present form—he yet hoped that they would agree to have the claims of Scotland fairly treated, or, on the other hand, let the claims of England be modified, so as to have the amount given for any public service placed upon the same scale as existed in Scotland. He was at one time in favour of these grants in aid of local rates; but he had now come to the conclusion that they had sold their birthright for a very unsatisfactory mess of pottage.

thought it was a very natural inquiry of the hon. and learned Member for Newark (Mr. Bristowe). What was done with the money spent on these "Auxiliary Scientific Investigations," and what results came from it? No doubt the results, if any, were published in the departmental Blue Books; but still he could not help regarding the Vote as objectionable, and recording his protest whenever it was offered. He thought the system created an unfair bias in the public mind in favour of any doctor who might be employed by the Department to the disadvantage of his struggling brethren. It was a practice which many would condemn on principle, and, therefore, he thought they ought to get a little more information about the way in which the money was spent without having to go to the Blue Books in the Library for it. It might show, for instance, to whom the money was paid, and for what. Then, again, the Vote, under item S, included the sum for the National Vaccine Establishment. What was it? Did it consist merely of the Inspector, the vaccinator, and the second vaccinator mentioned in the Vote, or was it a place where vaccine was secured or stored, and could be obtained. The feeling on this question of compulsory vaccination was growing daily, and was not confined to the persons who were sneered at in that House as ignorant and foolish, but many men were inquiring into this question, and scrutinizing the results of vaccination with scientific eyes. Opinions now differed very considerably. One man would say that he could tell the quality of the lymph by examining the arm; while another would deny that he could tell anything of the kind. Another, again, would tell them to get the history of the child from whom the lymph was obtained. But what was history? Often a mere mass of information to a great extent incorrect, by which they might be deluded. Yet, notwithstanding these varying theories, they forced a number of people at the bayonet's point to do what they believed to be most disadvantageous to their children. The right hon. Gentleman must bear in mind several things which had been said of late on this question. Mr. Hutchinson, perhaps the greatest authority on this subject, admitted that he had known a number of cases of syphilis and indurated chancre result from vaccination, and he was also reported to have a doubt whether the present system could be maintained. The Government might well set Dr. Seaton and the rest of the Medical Staff to inquire whether, under these circumstances, the present system of compulsory vaccination could be maintained. Was the right hon. Gentleman aware, also, that Sir Thomas Watson had declared, in his article in The Nineteenth Century, that as these diseases could be communicated and derived from one set of babes to another, from the time of Jenner down to the present day, he would applaud the father who suffered fine and imprisonment rather than subject his child to these ghastly risks. He held the Department mainly responsible for this state of things. No doubt, the right hon. Gentleman's own liberal feelings had been expressed to the Boards of Guardians, in directions to them not to press these fines to the extent that some of them wished to do; but still, as a Member of a strong Government, he had the power to amend the law if he chose. He could tell the Government that they were endangering the success of vaccination by insisting on this compulsory law, which was as unfair and unjust as anything could be, in the face of such strong testimony from the highest medical authorities that there was no certainty against the transmission of most deadly and loathsome diseases. That being so, he felt it his duty to protest in a reasonable manner against this law whenever the subject came before the House. He did not express any opinion on the subject himself; but he maintained that the House had no right to shut its ears to the expression of well-founded fears, and to force the people to do that which could not be proved to be perfectly safe and advantageous.

said, that he did not want to go into this question of vaccination; for when people would not listen to the teaching of science, he did not know what to do with them. Science, after all, was knowledge only; and to those who did not believe in ascertained facts or knowledge it was difficult to find an answer. For himself, he had very great faith in science. He rose, however, to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question on another subject. He was told the other evening by a scientific gentleman that the water at the West End of London was full of disease, and everything that was evil, that sewage could not be removed by filtration, and yet that the sewage of 120,000 people was poured into the Thames above the intake of the Water Companies. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would tell them what they were to do. He, no doubt, sympathized with his Scotch Friends; but, after all, Loudon was more important than all Scotland put together. There could be no question but that many diseases were generated by this impure water; and, therefore, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Local Government Board would direct his attention to this matter, involving as it did most seriously the health of the Metropolis. They did not want to be left entirely in the hands of a commercial company. He therefore hoped the Government, as a paternal Government, would help them in this matter.

said, that while he hoped the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) would not press his Amendment to a Division, he very much sympathized with his hon. Friend in what he had said respecting the medical grant for Scotland. As he understood the Home Secretary, the right hon. Gentleman said that if they passed a Poor-Law Bill he would do what?—he would give them that which was their own, and that which ought to be their own. Some Scotch Members might be against that Bill, while others might be in favour of it; but they were united in declaring that this grant ought not to be made conditional upon the passing of the measure in question. The miserable pittance of £10,000—for that was all that it could be called—which Scotland received at present, ought to be increased at once without any further question.

said, that, after the appeal which had been made to him by several hon. Members who in the main supported his views, that he should withdraw his Amendment, relying on the promises of the Government, he would not divide the Committee. At the same time, they must have this money, whether the Poor Law Bill passed or not. It was simply a matter of justice and of right, and a matter of rigid; and of justice which they meant to insist upon. He said that all the more particularly, because the Bill contained some very exceptional clauses—clauses of such a nature that they would rather not have the money than have it with those clauses of the Bill tacked on to the grant.

, in answer to the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) said, he could only repeat what he had often said before, that the most extreme care was taken to keep the lymph pure, and that when it was sent out it would be in the most satisfactory condition. He must say also, so far as his experience went, that the people who agitated this question did not care much about lymph of this or that kind. They objected, he believed, to the whole system, on the quasi-religious ground that it was an interference between them and their children. The present Parliament had expressed an emphatic refusal to free those persons who had this quasi-religious objection to vaccination from penalties for non-compliance. The Reports of scientific investigations as to the question were published from year to year, and though not adapted for general circulation, were highly appreciated by the Medical Profession. As far as the Government was concerned, there was no favouritism in the choice of the gentlemen who were appointed to make the investigations. The particular subjects intrusted to them were often of such a character that a year was not sufficient for the completion of the inquiry, and, in such cases, the appointments were renewed or continued from time to time. An important question had been raised in the course of the discussion as to the water supply of London in connection with the health of the Metropolis. While he fully admitted the importance of the question, he must, as President of the Local Government Board, disclaim any responsibility as far as the health of London was concerned. The General Public Health Acts did not apply to the Metropolis, which was under the control, as far as this was concerned, of the Vestry and Local Boards under a different Act, with which the Local Government Board had nothing to do. The local authorities in London were extremely jealous of any Government interference—so jealous, indeed, that when he proposed to put together the local enactments referring to public health, all the Members of the House representing Metropolitan constituencies were entreated by those whom they represented to obstruct the proposal. He was not aware whether the hon. Baronet the Member for Fins-bury (Sir Andrew Lusk) was so entreated, or whether he took such a course; but it was indubitable that, in consequence of the pressure brought to bear, the proposal was not passed into law. As far, however, as the Metropolitan Water Companies were concerned, the only control which any Public Department had over them was that of the Local Government Board, by which Body, under the General Water Act, two officers were appointed, one as Auditor and Accountant, and the other as Water Examiner, whose duty it was to make periodical Reports as to their particular departments. There could be no doubt that the water supplied to consumers in London was more or less unsatisfactory; but he could not help thinking that the opinions on the subject which were frequently expressed were, to some extent, exaggerated. Taking it as a whole, London was not badly supplied with water, and he thought the stories about polluted water which were sometimes told were duo not so much to the quality of the water as to the filthy state of the cisterns fixed to the houses. Still, he admitted that the supply was not what it ought to be, and when complaints were made to him he brought pressure to bear upon the Companies concerned, and required them, as far as he could under the Statutes, to improve their reservoirs, and the general quality of their supplies; and that had been done by removing the "intake" from below Teddington Lock, where some of it was actually drawn a few years ago, to the Thames above the influx of the Mole at Hampton Court, thus doing away with the supplying of tidal water to London householders. The Thames Conservancy had also taken steps to purify the water supply by preventing the sewage of towns on the river, such as Windsor, Oxford, Eton, and Heading, being poured into the Thames. It must be said that the state of the Thames water was far less unsatisfactory now than it was 10 or 15 years ago. Prosecutions were being constantly instituted by the gradual but persistent efforts of the Thames Conservancy Commissioners, who were doing all in their power to improve the water of the river. On the whole, he thought the condition of London, as far as its water supply was concerned, was, by comparison, not so bad as many important towns in the country.

, while acknowledging the conciliatory manner in which the right hon. Gentleman had replied to the questions put to him, could not admit that he was right in saying that the opposition to vaccination came solely from persons who were actuated by a quasi-religious feeling. There could be no doubt that poisonous matter had been not unfrequently infused into the veins of children by means of vaccine lymph; and he had heard from friends of his, who were magistrates, that children who had been vaccinated were sometimes produced before them in such a state as to inspire feelings of horror. The objection to vaccination was not solely held by persons who based their views on quasi-religious grounds, but was shared by men eminent in surgical science. If a practice, which was nominally established for the good of the public, was found to be based upon a sham, the sooner it was put an end to the better; at any rate, there could be no reasonable ground for objection to inquiry. Medical science had in times past been disfigured by such monstrous practices as attempting to bring people back to health by administering to them decoctions made from dead men's skulls and many other absurd nostrums, amongst others innoculation; and, therefore, no one could pretend that simply because certain medical men held vaccination to be neces- sary, it was, therefore, a proper practice to be universally adopted. If the Government of a country chose to say that vaccination must be compulsory and universal, it ought also to provide and guarantee pure lymph; and that, he thought, was altogether impossible, judging from facts which were well authenticated. It was perfectly well known that, in several countries where vaccination had been rendered compulsory, there had been frightful epidemics of small-pox, so that there was much to be said on the opposite side of the question to those who held that vaccination was potent to save a people from small-pox.

said, he should not attempt to follow the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) in the observations he had made with reference to vaccination; but there were one or two remarks which he wished to make on the subject of the London water supply, which had been raised by the hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury (Sir Andrew Lusk), and in reference to which the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had said that the Department over which he presided was not responsible for the water supply as a question of health. The fact was that the control of the water supply of London being a question of health rather than of trade, this control was, on that very ground, removed from the Board of Trade to the Local Government Board by a clause which he (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttle worth) was successful in inserting into the Public Health Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld). In the Act of 1832, penalties were inflicted for imperfect filtration; but, as far as he (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttle worth) knew, those penalties had not been imposed upon the "Water Companies in a single instance. When he saw such Reports on the subject as had recently been made to the Local Government Board by their analyst, he thought the right hon. Gentleman had a good opportunity for enforcing those penalties. There could be no doubt that the water supply had been improved by taking the supply above the tidal waters; but it was equally clear that there was still very great need for improvement. He could not help thinking that a water supply for a City like London ought not to be taken from a river; and he hoped that the time would speedily arrive when the supply would be drawn, as in the case of Glasgow and Manchester, from pure sources, instead of from streams.

said, he intended to occupy the attention of the House for a very short time indeed on the present occasion, while he stated the objections which he entertained to the Poor Law system of the country. That system was designed to meet the enormous mass of pauperism existing therein. Where-ever they went, or whatever authority they consulted, they found that British pauperism was recognized as one of the disgraces of modern civilization. A million of paupers in a country with a population of 35,000,000, supported at the public expense from year to year; families divided; children brought up in workhouse schools with the instincts of pauperism and the seeds of vice and crime—a plentiful nursery for habitual criminals. That was what pauperism was. But the question was, what was to be done with the poor of the country? On the present occasion he would say no more than that, before continuing from year to year this system, which involved as one of its essential conditions the permanent degradation of an enormous mass of their fellow-subjects, Parliament was bound to consider how far the pauperism of the country was traceable to remediable and strictly removable causes. He would take some more suitable opportunity than the present for stating his views. But he held that until Parliament improved the conditions of public life in this country—until it afforded facilities to the population for gaining an honest and a secure livelihood in the country and in the town—unquestionably, pauperism would continue to be the disgrace of their society. But they could unquestionably diminish the amount of pauperism which existed. There was no such plague as British pauperism existing in France, or in any country in which the mass of the population were allowed to acquire an interest in the national soil. If the population were divided from the soil, unquestionably the workhouse was the especial alternative. Few voices would be raised under present circumstances; but the House, before long, would have to face the question. It did not become the civilization of this country, the progress of the century, that so obsolete and so degrading a system as Poor Law relief should continue, when they could diminish the mass of pauperism within limits that could be easily dealt with. They could diminish that mass of pauperism when they had reformed the Land Laws, which converted generations of the people of England, Ireland, and Scotland into paupers and inheritors of the workhouse. The Land Question in Ireland, England, and Scotland was the question of the future; and when that question was settled in conformity with the national welfare and the dictates of political economy, there would be less necessity for a pauper system. He did not intend to proceed to any Division on the subject; but he objected to any expenses for the Poor Law Department, because he was convinced that nine-tenths of the burdens thrown upon the shoulders of the ratepayers could be considered only as so much paid by this country for the luxury of supporting an anti-national and anti-economic, and a most unjust and unproductive, system through the nation.

asked, referring to the loss of £1,000 on gold coinage, whether the charges would not be reduced by reason of the fact that the cost of silver had decreased? It appeared that we coined ingots for the Colonies without charge. If we did coin for them, they ought to pay for it. There was a sum of £2,500 for wear and tear of machinery for next year. Why was so large a sum wanted? He was under the impression that something was gained in making shillings, florins, and half-crowns, owing to improved machinery.

said, he should like to have some information with regard to the item of £3,000 for the supply of silver and bronze coins to the Colonies. He observed there was no such charge last year. He thought they should know what Colonies it was that were supplied, and whether the coin was for the use of the Government or of the public?

referred to the item of £3,000 for the coinage of the silver and bronze coin to the Colonies. He wished to know who paid for that, and whether, if it was paid by the Government, the money was repaid in any other form?

said, the question with regard to the supply of silver and bronze to the Colonies was one which, he thought, was reconsidered in former years; and the principle on which the question was dealt with was laid down. A very large quantity of silver and bronze coin was coined in this country for the use of the Colonies, and the Imperial Government got the advantage of the Seignior age on the coinage. Having that advantage, they ought to bear the cost of making the coin. This was the principle which had always been hitherto acted upon.

said, that it was strange the amount should be greater this year than last, though silver appeared to be lower than it was then.

wished to say a word with regard to the new Mint. He wished to know how it stood with regard to this question? The site of the present was a most inconvenient one. There was a large piece of ground which might be utilized for a very different purpose. He did not know how far it was desirable that they should get sovereigns from Australia; but the time would come when they would have to tax sovereigns when they came from that country. If everything that they sent to Australia was taxed, they would have to return the compliment. In Australia they did not seem to understand that brethren should dwell in unity. We ought to get a new Mint in the best position possible. The present Mint was most inconvenient and antiquated.

did not think that they were then in a position to discuss a new Mint. The question before them was con-corning charges for the ensuing year. The loss on silver was one which they had always had in the Estimates. Unfortunately, they had not the Report of the Master of the Mint before them; but he hoped that would not be forgotten, as it would explain that the profit more than equalled the loss. There ought to be a large profit on the work of the Mint. The charge of £3,000 on the coin sent to the Colonies seemed a large amount, when they considered what was the value of the coin. He should like to have some explanation of this £3,000.

said, it would be convenient for the Committee to have some return of the Seignior age received in respect to those transactions with reference to which these various charges and costs had arisen. It was an unfortunate thing that they had only one side of the account—and that the debtor one—shown to the Committee; for, notwithstanding that the freight and insurance of the coin sent to the Colonies were borne by this country, he believed the Seignior age would cover them, and leave a profit.

said, before the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury replied to the observations which had been made, he wished to say it was rather inconvenient that the Committee should be called upon to discuss that item in the Estimates without their having in their hands the Report from the Deputy Master of the Mint. His hon. Friend (Mr. Muntz) had alluded to the fact that they were not in possession of that record of the transactions of the past year; and he (Mr. Rylands) remembered in the last Parliament there were complaints that the Committee were called upon to vote the Estimate for the Mint when they were not in possession of this information. He did not hesitate to say what he had said before—that he thought the business transactions of the Mint required careful investigation; and his hon. Friend (Mr. Muntz), who was an authority on the subject, would agree with him that, as a business, it was not so profitable to the State as it might be made. In point of fact, they ought to make larger sums out of the Mint than they did. As he had said, they ought to approach that discussion with full information, and be able, by looking back on the transactions of the past year, to see how those transactions were carried on, and whether to the benefit of the State or not. He would call the attention of the Committee to this fact. In the year ending March 31st, 1874, the Estimate for the Mint was £52,550, and the Estimate for last year, including the Supplementary Vote, was £81,035—tliatwas an increase in expenditure, as between 1873–4, and 1878–9, of £28,485. Well, that year they had the amount £63,665, a decrease of £17,350; but still an increase of £11,000 on the Estimate of 1874. Now, he was not at all satisfied that the increase in the charges of the Mint was justified by the circumstances of the past. He found, in the Account they had before them, there was a loss on worn silver withdrawn from circulation of £55,000 last year, and he dared say that might have been for the national benefit; and he knew that an extraordinary amount of silver was withdrawn; but he could not understand how, with the very low price of silver, the extra receipts for 1879–80 should be £60,000, as compared with £100,000 for the year 1878–9. Perhaps the Secretary to the Treasury would direct his attention to that point, and tell them how he accounted for the fact that, having the advantage of a low price of silver, the actual sum should be reduced by £40,000. He did hope that in future, before the Committee was called upon to vote the sum for the Mint, they would have before them the Report from the Deputy Master of the Mint, for with full information only could they approach the discussion of the Estimate with advantage.

expressed a hope that the hon. Gentleman, before he replied finally, would be able to give the Committee some particulars of this Vote of £3,000. What were the arrangements under which this silver and bronze coin was coined? Which were the Colonies with reference to which it was proposed to take this Vote? It must be observed that it was not a Vote for the past, it was a Vote for the year to come. What was the amount of Seignior age charged to the Colonies? He should like to know whether it was likely that the Colonies could get their coinage done more cheaply at home or not?

regretted that the Committee had not been put in possession of the Report of the Master of the Mint before discussing the Estimate; but he would make a note of the point in regard to the future. With reference to the remarks of certain hon. Members as to the loss on silver, he pointed out that it arose from this particular item. Last year there was an enormous amount of coin withdrawn from circulation; and the result of that was they had to ask for a Supplementary Estimate of £30,000, as shown in the Estimates last year. £55,000 altogether was withdrawn; therefore, it was thought advisable to prepare the Estimates with an eye to contingencies, although they did not expect so large a withdrawal this year, consequently they had only taken £10,000 on that account. The extra receipts were put down below their amount last year, because it was always the aim of the Treasury not to over-estimate the extra receipts. It was thought that the depression of trade would result in a smaller circulation of money and in less Seignior age. The Estimate was, therefore, a low one. He could, not give the exact amount of the Seigniorage; but the larger proportion of those extra receipts were derived from that source. It had been thought to be unfair towards the Colonies not to give them the small amount of package and freightage, seeing that they had to pay the Seigniorage. Up to the present year the Colonies had always paid those charges as well as the Seigniorage. The item of £3,000 for freightage and package now appeared in the Estimates for the first time. With regard to the progress made in changing the site of the Mint, the Treasury had been in continued communication for the purpose of acquiring a new site for that establishment; and he could only say that if the hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury (Sir Andrew Lusk) would use his influence to advance the negotiations now going on with that object, they would probably see the desired change sooner than it otherwise would be.

asked a question as to the Parting Establishment—for separating gold from silver?

expressed his regret that they had not the Report referred to before them. It seemed to him that the payment for the carriage of coin involved an entirely new thing. There could be no doubt but that there was a want of silver coinage. Half-crowns were difficult to obtain. He should have thought when silver was so cheap the Government would not have left the country with a deficiency of supply.

said, he had already explained that the Estimate had been prepared with an eye to the experience of last year. It had been reduced, and he hoped it would meet the approval of the Committee.

said, it was melancholy the Committee had not been supplied with the necessary information early, so that the time of the Committee might have been saved. If the Government, in the explanatory Memorandum circulated by the Treasury on the Civil Service Estimates, had given full information with regard to these items which were in dispute on the Mint charge, they could have got through their Business far more satisfactorily than was the case now; and, in the present instance, the Vote would have been passed in a very few minutes, if it had been explained. It was impossible for the Secretary to the Treasury to keep himself acquainted with all details on items open to challenge; but if each Department was made responsible for making notes for Parliament, clearing up all mysterious entries, then Members, being satisfied, would necessarily accept the items. After all the explanations, he was, even now, utterly at a loss what this Seigniorage was. He could not see why these things should be concealed.

said, there was one point upon which he desired to set himself right with the Committee. He had no objection to hon. Members turning their attention as closely as possible to the amount that was charged for freight and package in connection with silver, copper, or other coinage, for the Colonies; but he wished to point out to the Committee that it would be a positive injustice to the Colonies to charge them a Seigniorage, and, at the same time, to charge them for the transmission of the coin. If that were done, it would most likely give rise to a demand on the part of the Colonies for a local Mint.

remarked, that the explanation which had been given of this new Vote by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury was not altogether satisfactory to him. It was quite true that it was an explanation which had already appeared in the Paper that had been circulated among hon. Members, and it was to the effect that the Seigniorage upon the coinage left a very large profit to the Exchequer—too large a profit, apparently—and, therefore, the Treasury had consented to give up what would otherwise be an extremely fair and legitimate charge for the package and transmission of the coin, and a charge which any manufacturer would make in the ordinary course of business. If the Colonies came to the Mint at Birmingham, and coin was transmitted to them from there, they would have to pay the package, and also the profit of the manufacturer; and if the Government undertook the manufacture, he did not see why they should not have a profit too. There was another point. He was a little doubtful whether the Seigniorage really left the Exchequer with any considerable net profit. He supposed that the Seigniorage represented, the difference between the money value of the coins and their nominal value; but then from that, surely, had to be deducted all the expenses of manufacture, which, in the present Estimate, appeared to be something like £60,000 or £80,000. In fact, to put the matter shortly, if there were anything in the argument of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, they should consider the whole question of profit upon the coinage; and his argument would justify them in letting the Colonies have the coins at their cost, or nominal price. But he could not conceive why the Government should suddenly abandon what, as he had said, would appear at first sight to be an extremely legitimate charge—namely, the charge for package; and he should like to know from the hon. Gentleman, whether this reduction had been made in deference to some urgent request on the part of the Colonies; or, whether, at a time like the present, when he should have thought the Government would have been anxious to husband every penny, they had of their own accord made the Colonies a present of £3,000? He did not observe that the Colonies were in any hurry to make this country any present; and, therefore, he did not see why, for the first time in its history, it should make this present to the Colonies, unless, indeed, very serious objection on their part had been taken to this charge. Unless some satisfactory explanation was given, he hoped that his hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) would persevere in his intention to move an Amendment, and he should certainly vote with him.

pointed out that even deducting this charge the Birmingham manufacturers were able to supply the Colonies with coin at a cheaper rate than the Government. He thought that the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) might not, perhaps, be aware that the profit from their home coinage arose from silver when coined being worth a good deal more than it was as mere metal. If their Colonies would take the money from them, instead of taking it from Birmingham, as some foreign countries did, it was quite worth the while of the Government to pay the package, and get the profit, rather than allow the manufacture to fall into private hands, or to let the Colonies be their own coiners.

said, he was aware that his constituents could make coin much cheaper than Her Majesty's Government; and, in fact, they had supplied a good deal of the copper coinage to the Government as well as to many foreign countries. But if he understood the argument of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Baring) to be that this proposal of the Government should be supported because it was really an attempt on the part of the Treasury to undersell Birmingham, he must be excused if he did not see the force of that suggestion.

said, he had been misunderstood. What he said was, that he thought the Government had better undertake the coinage while they could get it, and pay this expense, rather than give it up altogether.

said, he was quite sure that even the hon. Member for South Essex (Mr. Baring), whose business experience probably exceeded that of most men in that House, would not dispute the figures which he was about to put before the Committee. He found that the total amount of the Estimate this year was £63,655, with an addition in respect of certain non-effective charges of £4,563, making a total on the debit side of the account of £68,218. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had told them what, in fact, was put down on the Paper which he held in his hand—namely, that the estimated extra receipts were £60,000. Consequently, that was the credit side of the account; and if the hon. Member for South Essex, with his great commercial experience and knowledge, could satisfy him that if he paid £68,000 and got in return £60,000 he was doing a profitable business, then he was a much cleverer commercial man than he (Mr. Rylands) had ever taken him to be. The fact was that this was a very partial account. He could tell the hon. Gentleman that if on the debit side he would put the capital employed in the Mint, and all the money which had been spent on that building and that machinery, and would then charge the account with a moderate interest upon the capital employed in the business, he would find that, so far from there being a profit, there was a loss of many thousands. And he could tell the hon. Gentleman, further, that if he were to carry on his business as the Government conducted theirs, even his great concern, with its enormous capital, would be soon in the Bankruptcy Court. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had not given the Committee a satisfactory explanation. He had not told them what was the amount of coinage that was coined for the Colonies, what was estimated to be the profit of the Seigniorage upon that coinage; and he had not told thorn what pressure had been put upon the Government to induce thorn to give up this charge to the advantage of the Colonies. It appeared to him that they were now coining for the Colonies without any profit at all. At all events, let the Committee be informed how much silver was sent out to the Colonies, how much copper, and how much gold; what were the profits; and how much the balance would be after the package and freight had been paid for? It seemed to be altogether a very unsatisfactory account. They had, no doubt, an advantage at the present moment owing to the low price of silver; but silver might go up again, and if they once adopted the system of paying freight and package, that system would continue when probably they would be supplying silver coin with a very much lower Seigniorage than that at present received. He objected to the Government placing a new charge upon this Vote.

begged to move, as an Amendment, that the Vote be reduced by the sum of £3,000.

said, he wished to ask a question with regard to the fact that no Vote was taken for the salary of Mr. Rivers Wilson as Comptroller General. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that afternoon that that gentleman had been dismissed from the service of the Khedive; and some weeks ago, when questioned on this subject, the right hon. Gentleman stated that Her Majesty's Government had relieved Mr. Rivers Wilson of his Office for a couple of years, to lend him to the Egyptian Government; and that it was a matter which did not involve the Government in any responsibility whatever. He (Mr. E. Jenkins) knew that that statement was received with some surprise in the country, for it must certainly be regarded as a very extraordinary, one might say an anomalous thing, that the Comptroller General, who was supposed to be an official of some consequence in this country, should be relieved from his services for a period of two years, that he should enter into the service of a foreign State, and that, in the meantime, his Office should be held open in this country, and, as they saw that day, actually no Vote whatever taken for another Comptroller General. What was the logical consequence of that position? As far as he could see, the logical consequence was that the Comptroller General was not necessary. If they could get along with the Assistant Comptroller for two years, he fancied they could get on with that official for ever. Perhaps it was not from that side of the House that one ought really to take objection that nothing was put down for Mr. Rivers Wilson's salary; but he rose, not with a needless inquisitiveness, he hoped, to ask whether, although Mr. Rivers Wilson's salary was not put down in the Vote, under the circumstances which had since arisen, Her Majesty's Government would propose to take a Vote by Supplementary Estimate, or otherwise, for his services when be returned, as apparently he would return, to this country?

replied that, undoubtedly, when Mr. Rivers Wilson returned to this country and resumed his position as Comptroller General, the acting allowances to the Assistant Comptroller and the Chief Clerk would cease, and Mr. Rivers Wilson would be entitled to his salary. It would, therefore, be necessary, if not otherwise provided by a Vote of the House, to submit a Supplementary Estimate for that purpose. There was no question about that. The arrangement was one which, as the House was well aware, was of a peculiar and exceptional character. It would not now be convenient to go into all the questions to which it gave rise; but it had been explained that it would be the subject of discussion on a future occasion when the matter was brought forward. But the position certainly was that the Government had made no provision for Mr. Rivers Wilson's salary. They had considered, in view of the arrangement that had been made, that with the present Assistant Comptroller and Chief Clerk, who were particularly competent persons to undertake the duties of the Office, it was possible to go on without inconvenience for a time, in Mr. Rivers Wilson's absence.

said, there was another reason, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not mentioned, why, apart from other matters, there was not much objection to giving Mr. Rivers Wilson this leave of absence, and that was that arrangements had been made by the Government not to reduce the National Debt during his absence; and, therefore, it did not signify very much whether the principal Comptroller was absent or not. But there was one point which he thought ought to be considered in connection with this matter. He had urged it before, and he ventured to urge it again; and that was that it was a had example which the Government was setting of giving to high officials, who had important duties to perform at home, a long leave of absence, in order that they might serve other Governments of a less creditable description than their own. That was a principle against which he ventured to protest at the time that Captain Tyler was lent to a private Company for the purpose of a speculative inquiry into an American railway; and he repeated his protest on a subsequent occasion when that same official was allowed to proceed to America on a similar mission. He thought that that principle, which he knew the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself objected to, had certainly not answered well in the case of Mr. Rivers Wilson; and why he had risen was to express a hope that, the Government having had two unsatisfactory trials of the principle, would now for the future abandon it, and would not again allow important officers of this country to go abroad to attend to duties which did not properly belong to them, and thus to neglect the work which fell to their share at home. He did trust that this principle would not be again acted upon by the Government, and that the case of Mr. Rivers Wilson would be the last precedent of the kind. That gentleman had not gained much by it, and he (Sir Julian Goldsmid) was sure that the country and the Government had gained still less.

observed, that he found that the maximum salary of an Assistant Comptroller was put down in the Vote as £1,000, while in the next column there was a sum of £1,500 which the Committee was asked to vote for the Assistant Comptroller. It was true that the £500 was spoken of as "acting allowances;" but he should like to know under what authority a salary was increased beyond its maximum amount? It was all very well to speak of acting allowances; but every officer was supposed to discharge his duty, and whenever a maximum salary was fixed, it was supposed to be a salary which was to be paid to him for devoting his whole time and attention during business hours to the duties of his Office. Was the £500 given to the Comptroller General for extra work, or was it simply an addition given to him for doing what he was already bound to do—namely, to devote the whole of his time within reasonable hours to the business of his Office? It did seem to him that it was a dangerous precedent. If by giving £1,500 to an Assistant Comptroller they could get all the work done satisfactorily, then it was quite clear that they could dispense with the services of a Comptroller altogether, and save the public purse to the extent of his salary. This arrangement was supposed to go on for two years. He thought the matter was one which required some explanation, and if no better reason could be given than that the Khedive wanted the assistance of a gentleman who held a high position in this country, and who, therefore, went to Egypt, not simply on account of his ability or business habits, but as representing the English Government, he certainly thought that it was time that the Committee should protest against this Vote, by proposing to reduce the salary of the Assistant Comptroller. He begged to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £700.

said, he saw very great force in the arguments which had been brought forward on this question. The Committee would remember that when a question of a similar character was brought before a Committee some time ago, a very strong opinion was expressed that men who were employed in Government Offices, and who received pay in this country, should not be allowed to go and serve foreign countries. This was a very peculiar case, and he would venture to say that the general public out-of-doors had not the slightest notion in the world that Mr. Rivers Wilson was continued as a Comptroller General, and to be named in the Estimates here, when he was the Finance Minister of Egypt. It was one of those questions which he ventured to think never ought to be entertained by any Government, he did not care to which side they belonged; and he thought this was a point upon which the Committee ought to say distinctly that it was a case of that kind which should not occur again. Mr. Rivers Wilson, he had no doubt, was a most excellent official, and being an excellent official, and having taken his choice whether he would serve England or Egypt, he chose to serve Egypt; and, therefore, he (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) thought, he ought not to have been retained as an official of this country. He might be wrong in his opinion; but he ventured to believe that the general opinion of the country went with what he had now said; and he ventured to hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would believe that the country did not like its officials to be lent, or allowed to go out and receive large salaries in another country, while they were retained upon the Official Register, if he might so call it, as officials of this country. He had little more to say; but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would consider the matter very seriously, because he believed the country totally disapproved of their officials being so employed.

agreed that the case was a most objectionable one, inasmuch as they had not only allowed Mr. Rivers Wilson to take a lucrative position under the Khedive, but they had taxed the country for the privileges which he enjoyed. He thought if the country understood that they were not only retaining Mr. Rivers Wilson in this position, but, at the same time, paying for his work—[Cries of "No!"]—well, they were not paying Mr. Rivers Wilson, but they were paying those who were doing his work; therefore, they were paying to have the work done which he would do if he were at home. He thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer would see that a course of that kind was exceedingly objectionable, and that if they allowed Mr. Rivers Wilson to serve the Khedive, they certainly ought not to be put to any expense in discharging the obligations which rested upon the Office he held.

observed, that he should not like the case which he had submitted to the Committee to rest upon an improperly slight foundation. The hon. Member who last spoke (Mr. Barran) had evidently not carefully studied the Estimates. Mr. Rivers Wilson's salary of £1,500 was not paid during his absence, and, instead of that, during his absence an allowance was made to two other gentlemen amounting to £700. Therefore, so far as having the work done was concerned, they now paid £800 less than when Mr. Rivers Wilson was at home; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer might retort upon the hon. Gentleman, and say that the country gained by lending Mr. Rivers Wilson to the Khedive of Egypt. However, they did not want that sort of gain. It was a petty economy, to which they objected; and he was very much obliged to the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) for having the courage—which was rare now-a-days—to get up behind the Government, and to support an objection such as he (Sir Julian Goldsmid) had raised. He thought if more hon. Members followed that hon. and gallant Member's independent example it would be of great advantage to this country.

thought it was not much use to be disputing how much they lost by the work in Mr. River Wilson's Department, because he thought there was very little work done in the National Debt Office at all at any time.

said, it appeared to him that when Mr. Rivers Wilson accepted his post in Egypt, he ought to have been told by the Home Government that he would necessarily lose his appointment at homo. That, he thought, would not at all have been an unfair thing. Mr. Rivers Wilson, he (Mr. Hankey) understood, was receiving £5,000 a-year from the Khedive, and, therefore, he could very well afford to pay for doing the work which now cost £700. With the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot), he entirely objected to the principle of allowing Government officials to take situations away from the country; but, at any rate, it ought to be arranged that Mr. Rivers Wilson should make some allowance, which he could very well afford. If it went to a Division, he certainly would vote for the reduction, and he was not terrified by the threat of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he would have to bring it forward as a second Supplementary Vote. If he did so, they would take their chance and vote according to their consciences; but, at the same time, it was rather a threat on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he understood it.

said, he made no threat at all. He was asked what would happen if Mr. Rivers Wilson returned to this country and no salary was voted to him; and he said, if no salary was voted, of course it would then be necessary to propose a second Supplementary Vote.

said, then he was wrong in supposing that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he would bring forward this Vote again if it were now refused by the House. He begged pardon; but he certainly understood that was the case. However, whether that was so or not, he did not think the House ought to sanction an expenditure of this kind when there were moans by which it might have been covered.

said it appeared to him that work must have been done, and the country seemed to have saved money by the absence of Mr. Rivers Wilson. The gentlemen who received the £700, no doubt, had extra work to do, and he did not think the Committee ought to grudge them extra pay for it; at the same time, he thought it would be a very wise tiling for the Government to consider the subject of the whole establishment at this Office, because, as far as he could see, they were not very likely to reduce the National Debt in a hurry under the present régime, and there was not likely to be an increase of work in the Office; and if the Government had found out that the work could be done with a little less staff and more pay, he did not grudge them their extra pay at all; but, under the circumstances, it would be well to consider that establishment altogether, with a view of seeing whether they could not make some reduction in it.

said, he could not for a moment admit that the absence of Mr. Rivers Wilson had in any way increased the expenses of the Department. However, he was glad to see that the hon. Baronet the Member for Rochester (Sir Julian Goldsmid) was at least able to read the figures sufficiently to see that this was not an additional charge; but that, on the contrary, it was a question of a charge for the time being. Now, what really was the position in regard to these two officers was this. It was absolutely necessary that certain functions that had been discharged by the Comptroller should be discharged either by him or by the Assistant Comptroller; and the Assistant Comptroller had undertaken, for a moderate addition to his allowance, to do the work which fairly ought to have fallen on the two. This involved the necessity of his giving more time to the work and denying himself holidays which he would have been entitled to take, because there were many things to be done to which it was necessary to have his signature, or that of the Comptroller. A considerable portion of the additional work was also thrown upon the Chief Clerk, who was a gentleman who had been in the Office a very considerable time, and was a man of superior ability and attainments; and, in fact, if it had not been the case that both the Assistant Comptroller and the Chief Clerk were persons of capacity, this arrangement could not have been made without the public being inconvenienced. As it was, the public inconvenience had been saved by the inconvenience of these gentlemen. Then, with regard to the comparison which had been made between the employment of Mr. Rivers Wilson and Captain Tyler on a former occasion, he begged to point out this very great distinction. In the case of Captain Tyler, he remained on the English establishment, drawing the full pay of his office; and, for reasons of his own, he elected to take employment with a foreign Government. That was thought to be objectionable, and was discountenanced. On the present occasion, the Government—whether for reasons which were sufficient or not he need not now discuss, that might be discussed at a proper time—thought it was a desirable thing that Mr. Rivers Wilson should accept an offer which was made to him to go and take service in Egypt; and Mr. Wilson, forseeing the difficulties of the position which he was going to undertake, would not undertake it if he was thereby to sever himself altogether from his official life in England; and it was on account of those difficulties, and the necessity of allowing him to go there in an independent position, free to take any course which his conscience dictated, and independent of any circumstances that might ensue from his taking a bold and honest course in Egypt, that he was allowed to retain his position in the English Service, suspending, of course, the receipt of any salary until he could resume his duties. Of course, the whole question of the arrangement for Egypt was one which at the proper time might be fairly discussed; but granting that, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) could not think for one moment that the Committee would deny that the arrangement which was made was made with a fair view to economy, and efficient conduct of the Service. He could not think that the suggestion of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Thomson Hankey) was one that met with the approval of the Committee. What the Government did was to make a provision during Mr. Rivers Wilson's absence for the discharge of his duties. That had been made at the cost of a sacrifice on the part of those two gentlemen of a portion of their time, which sacrifice they willingly made, and it produced no inconvenience. Whatever else was done, he did earnestly trust the Committee would not think it was at all consistent with their duty to cut off this £700, which was given to those two gentlemen for work they had done, and assistance they had rendered in an emergency.

said, the £700 was a very small matter indeed. The great question was, whether a gentleman should be nominally continued at the head of a Government Department, although he received no pay. He was glad to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer state that he considered this a very exceptional case. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman was going on to say that in a very few days or weeks Mr. Rivers Wilson would return to his Office, would be replaced in the very important position he so satisfactorily filled, and that they should forget that they had ever made a mistake. He entirely agreed with the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) that the whole thing had been a grievous error; and that if the Committee, by voting the money which they were now asked to vote, were to be supposed to be endorsing a system of sending a clever financier from their own official body to serve a foreign State, he thought they would make a very great error indeed. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give them still stronger assurances than they had yet had before this Vote was finally passed. He had said that if Mr. Rivers Wilson returned he then should come down to the House and ask for a Supplementary Vote. They quite admitted that was the only course the Government could adopt; but surely it was not a question of an "if." He had hoped the right hon. Gentleman would say the thing was un fait accompli, and that they should regard Mr. Rivers Wilson, although his pay was not on this Vote, as still attached to the National Debt Office.

said, his object in proposing the Amendment had been attained. It had been shown to be extremely irregular to lend an important officer to a foreign country, and to propose a grant to any officer of a larger salary than the maximum salary allowed to that officer; but having listened to the observations in reply which had been addressed to the Committee by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the explanations given by him, he now begged to withdraw his Amendment.

said, he wished to ask for a little explanation in connection with an item which appeared in several Votes, and a question upon which could, he thought, be as conveniently raised here as anywhere else. He referred to the charge which was made for the attendance of police in the Public Offices. On the present occasion the amount was £540; and he found that was distributed in £380 to the Patent Office and £160 to the Patent Museum. Now, he could understand the employment of police in the Patent Museum, because they might be said to be required there to keep order in case a considerable crowd should attend the Museum—which he believed was never the case— but he could not understand why the services of the Metropolitan Police should be called in to act as mere porters and messengers for Public Offices, and he could not help thinking this led to a confusion of duty which was not to the advantage of the police or of the Public Service. He should like to ask, at the same time, whether the police so employed in this and other Offices could be called upon to do ordinary police duties as well? In that case, the nation was paying a part for the services of the Metropolitan Police Force, to which, he thought, those who lived in the country had a right to object. He would call the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury to what appeared to be an arithmetical mistake. On page 120 there was a statement showing an estimate of the receipts and the expenditure of the Patent Office, and there the expenses of the police, &c, were set down at £900; but, on turning to another page, he found the police and incidental expenses set down at £1,040. The discrepancy was not one of a large amount; but it seemed to point to some inaccuracy in making up the statement.

inquired if the hon. Member for Birmingham proposed to move to reduce the Vote?

replied that he did not; he only asked for an explanation.

said, the only explanation he could give the hon. Gentleman was this—that he believed it was found in many of these Offices very advantageous to have the services of the police as custodians and protectors of the place. As to the inaccuracy which appeared to exist between the two items which the hon. Member had pointed out, he would look into it. It struck him also that there was an inaccuracy; but he had not noticed it before. If it was not an inaccuracy, he should be happy to explain it to the hon. Gentleman on the Report; but on the face of the Papers it appeared to be.

inquired whether the Secretary to the Treasury would say whether the police were employed on any general police duties, beside that of being custodians and guardians of these Public Offices?

, in reply, said, not when they were on duty at those Offices. Then they were not employed on the general street duty of police, any more than those were who were employed in the Houses of Parliament or the British Museum. Any police detained for this special duty were during that time employed only upon those duties.

begged to point out to the hon. Gentleman that he did not answer his point. He took it that the whole expense of the police so paid was taken out of the Consolidated Fund. Then he asked whether any public duty was performed, and the hon. Gentleman answered that they did not do any public duty while they were doing a semi-private duty; but he (Mr. Chamberlain) asked, at any other time, did they, as a fact, perform public duties?

replied, certainly. In the same way, anyone who asked for the service of a policeman and was willing to pay for the service, obtained it, and the policeman for the time belonged to the individual who paid him; but he did not cease to be under the discipline of the Force or to belong to the Force itself.

said, he thought he had obtained the answer he wanted, and he should have to move to reduce the Vote by £540, because it raised a point of considerable importance. It was quite true that private firms or persons were allowed to engage the services of a policeman on paying for them; but that was only where those services were strictly necessary for the protection of life and property. It would be extremely convenient at all times, he dared say, for all private firms in the Metropolis to have policemen of good character and experience employed as porters, messengers, and watch-keepers on their premises; but in such general cases the employment of the police was never allowed. Now, in the case of Public Offices where really there was no special claim upon the services of the Metropolitan Police Force, these men were paid by the nation, and, at the same time, they were at the call of the head of the Metropolitan Police for service on special occasions in the Metropolis. In other words, the national taxation was paying in this case, as in many others, for what he might call the special local burdens of the Metropolis. They in the Provinces bore the burdens of the Metropolis to a much larger extent than was fair, and he was quite sure the time was coming when the attention of the House of Commons ought to be called to the various items where it occurred. It occurred more especially when they came to the management of the Woods and Forests and the Public Parks. They found the whole expense of these institutions, which were chiefly for the enjoyment of the inhabitants of the Metropolis, was thrown upon the National Funds, while, at the same time, in the Provinces the inhabitants had to make a similar provision at their own charge. He really thought the time had come for making some alteration in this system, and he moved the reduction of the Vote by £540.

said, he wished to move a larger reduction by the sum of £3,000.

said, the hon. and gallant Member would not be in Order in doing so on this Amendment; but he would be able to do it on the Vote.

said, the other night he called attention to two items in the Account for Police—one, with reference to the employment of police in the House of Commons, and the other item of £10,446 was for the employment of the Metropolitan Police in the Public Parks. He thought the Committee would see that there was great force in the remarks which had been made by his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain). Undoubtedly the police who were paid by the country at large were being employed by the local Metropolitan institutions for purposes which were not strictly police purposes. They were employed in this House as messengers and for other purposes, for which they could procure messengers to do the work far more cheaply. If he was not misinformed, at 6 o'clock every night, there were turned into the House three sergeants and 16 policemen, in addition to those serving here during the day; and hon. Members might say what they liked, but it was not the business of policemen to do the duties that were performed by some of the police in this House. Now, with regard to these Accounts, he should like to ask the Secretary to the Treasury a question or two. If they looked at the Accounts of the Science and Art Department at South Kensington, they found there an enormous charge for police. The question he should have to ask by-and-bye was, how many of these policemen were employed off the premises at South Kensington? Were they occasionally employed at the Horticultural Gardens, although the State paid for their services in South Kensington? He also wanted to know how the charge was arrived at? The hon. Gentleman opposite stated that these policemen were supplied and paid in the ordinary way; but he did not explain under what arrangement it was that these sums were arrived at, and how many men were employed at each place. His (Mr. E. Jenkins') own impression was that when they went into the matter they would find a sort of hocus-pocus arrangement existing between South Kensington, the Science and Art Department, and the Patent Museum, under which the police were indriscriminately used for the whole place. He wanted to know whether the police, for whom £160 was charged, were used simply and solely for the Museum? Was there a special detachment applied for the purpose, or was a Vote taken in the gross, and assigned to the several Departments, with reference to the attendance of the police in each portion of the enormous pile of buildings called South Kensington?

said, the hon. Member who had raised the question had treated it as though it were a case of drawing so many men from police purposes for the purpose of watching these institutions; but, on the contrary, he took it that it was a contribution to the police. These institutions were national, and the police thus employed and paid were, in fact, an addition to the police of the country, and they were not chargeable to the ratepayers at all. They were charged to the institutions for special purposes, and were part of the establishment; and while they were valuable to those institutions they also I were available in cases of emergency for the general purposes of police, inasmuch as they might be called upon for the preservation of order, when their services were required.

remarked, that there was some danger of the real point at issue being lost sight of. What they complained of was that the ratepayers of the country generally had to pay for work for which the Metropolis had the entire advantage. The amount in dispute in this case was a very small one; but he was quite certain that the House of Commons would have to consider whether or not these Votes ought not to be altered in some way or another. Other great towns, like Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool, bore their own police charges, and he did not see why the Metropolis should not do the same. It was true the Metropolis paid for its police; but then the Government subsidized them with very large sums for doing work which properly belonged to the Metropolis.

reminded the House that the system of employing constables to protect public and private buildings was not confined to the Metropolis, but extended to the country, where any individual or firm might apply for the services of a constable. A policeman who was thus told off for special duty was always retained in the Police Force, although the cost of his maintenance ceased to be borne by the particular locality from which he came. Many of the Offices which constables were appointed to protect in London partook of a national character, and the presence of policemen was necessary to insure the safety of their contents. He held that the system acted economically, as it would be difficult to obtain persons who were not members of the Force to do the work required at an equally cheap rate. Another advantage of the system was that by its adoption a reserve of constables was created which could render most valuable service in case of any disturbance. The Metropolitan Police not only protected these buildings; but they were engaged in other ways—such as protecting the Docks—which were advantageous.

wished to point out to the Committee that the very instance which the hon. Gentleman (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) had given furnished the greatest objection to the Vote. There seemed to be some misconception of his hon. Friend's argument. It was not a question whether they could get this work done cheaper by other persons or not, but whether all the inhabitants of the country should be taxed to pay for men of whom one particular municipality enjoyed all the advantage. He very much objected to the employment of the Metropolitan Police in the Dockyards, for they interfered, in consequence, in a place where the local authority ought to be supreme. It was just one of those exceptional and objectionable features of the present system, which were the worst illustrations of the hon. Gentleman's argument.

, in rising to move—

"That the Chairman he directed to move the House that leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Law with respect to the liability of members of Banking and other Joint Stock Companies; and for other purposes,"

said: I am anxious, on all accounts, Mr. Raikes, to save the time of the Committee, and therefore I shall not preface what I have to say with regard to the Bill I am about to ask leave to introduce by any lengthened discussion of the reasons which make the Government think its introduction necessary. It is perfectly within the knowledge of all who hear me what the circumstances have been which within the last few months have called the particular attention of the country to the position of our joint-stock banks. Those who hear me are aware that, in consequence of some failures that took place in the course of last autumn, very great uneasiness and alarm has been created among shareholders in unlimited joint-stock banks; and, although I do not think that a panic or a great excitement is a reason for legislation upon a question of this kind, it cannot be denied that the alarm which has been excited and the considerations which have been brought forward in consequence of that alarm have opened our eyes to some defects and inconveniences in the law which at present affects joint-stock companies, and especially joint-stock banks. What I would wish to call especial attention to is, the two great inconveniences which have been discovered in our system. They are these. In the first place, as hon. Gentlemen are aware, we have under the present law two, or rather three, systems of the formation of these companies. They may be unlimited in their liability, or they may be limited to the amount of the shares held by each individual shareholder, or they may, thirdly, consist of what is called limited liability with a guarantee. The third form is, I believe, but little used. Practically, therefore, there are but two forms used, and all companies are either unlimited, in which case every shareholder is liable to the whole extent of his means for the debts of the corporation, or the company is limited, and the liability is limited to the amount of the shares held by the individual. According to the provisions of the Joint Stock Companies Act of 1862, it has been optional for any company to register itself either as limited or as unlimited; and many joint-stock banks have availed themselves of one or the other of these alternatives. It was perfectly competent for any joint-stock bank to register itself in the first instance with certain precautions as a limited company; and many banks used that power which was supposed until recently to be a continuing one—that is to say, that a bank which had been originally registered as an unlimited corporation could at any time be re-registered afresh, under the other provision, as a limited concern. When, however, the attention of some of the banks was directed to this matter in consequence of the alarm created by the failures to which I have referred, they found, upon taking legal advice, that that was not in their power, and that it was not possible for a bank which had once elected to be registered as an unlimited company to become limited. In consequence, a great deal of uneasiness, and I do not think I am going too far in saying a great deal of alarm, was created among the shareholders of these companies at the idea that they had put themselves into a position which rendered it impossible for them to extricate themselves from the very serious consequences which they saw might flow from this condition of unlimited liability. We must bear in mind that this question of unlimited liability is one in which the public have a very considerable interest. Amongst many persons it is supposed that the unlimited liability of the shareholders of a bank is a very great security to the public, however inconvenient it may be to the shareholders themselves. But there are considerations on the other side which must not be lost sight of. We see that where a bank which is conducted upon the unlimited liability principle fails—if the failure is for a very large amount—it involves the shareholders, or, at all events, a large proportion of them, in nothing short of absolute ruin. The consequences are, in the first place, that, when any such event occurs, those of the shareholders who have the means to escape from their liability are tempted to take measures for realizing their property and withdrawing themselves from the liability to which they are justly subjected; and thus a loss is entailed either upon the creditors, or on the other shareholders, or on both. That is, of course, only in exceptional cases, which may occur on particular occasions, on the failure of any great institution. But beside that exceptional and occasional inconvenience, there is also the probability that we may find ourselves subjected to a still greater inconvenience, a larger and more permanent one, and that is, that persons of undoubted means will be shy of joining associations in which they may be exposed to such serious consequences. The result of this will be, that gentlemen of large means, who are just those whom the public would desire to see occupying positions as shareholders in great institutions, will be unwilling to put themselves in that position, and will withdraw; and so this unlimited liability will lead to the substitution as shareholders of a very inferior class of persons whose liability, although unlimited in name, will not be worth nearly so much to the public and the creditors of the concern as might be the limited liability of a superior class of persons. Therefore, we have before us the inconvenience, to which I have adverted, of the law being in such a state that a company cannot now change itself from being unlimited to limited; and, in the second place, we have the inconvenience that the law practically gives an alternative between two conditions and classes of companies only. You must either have companies in which the liability is absolutely unlimited, or you must have companies in which the liability is limited to the amount of the share or shares. While also there are inconveniences, which I have just noticed, in the tendency of the superior class of shareholders to withdraw from connection with unlimited concerns, so, too, when the liability is strictly limited to the amount of the shares, and they have been largely or entirely called up, there may be very little or no reserve left for the creditors to fall back upon, in the event of the failure of the bank and the loss of its capital. This suggests the idea that it may be desirable to find some intermediate condition between that of wholly limited liability and the other of wholly unlimited liability; and such an intermediate position appears to be suggested by that which is occupied by a good many of our Colonial banks. In many cases of the Charters granted to the Colonial banks, the liability is not limited to the amount of the shares, neither is it entirely unlimited; but it is limited to the amount of the shares and some multiple of the amount of each share in addition. For instance, where the shares are £100 a-piece, the liability of the holders may be, in the whole, £200 or £800 per share. It appears to be very desirable to adopt some provision which, at all events, would render it competent to a banking company to adopt that constitution. In two words, then, I may say that the object—the main object—of the Bill which I am about to ask leave to introduce is, to enable banking companies to re-register themselves either as limited companies under the existing law, or to re-register themselves on a footing similar to that which I have just been describing, as being the footing adopted in many cases by the Colonial banks. I am anxious to propose as little as possible in the way of Government interference with the management of institutions of this kind. There is a natural tendency on the part of many persons, when any great catastrophe happens, to call at once for Government interference and assistance. I am very shy indeed of making proposals in that direction. I do not propose that there shall be anything in the way of legislation which shall be of a compulsory character. We propose simply to remove an obstacle which has now been found to exist, and which at present prevents a bank from taking into further consideration the form and constitution which might suit it best. I alluded just now to the various inconveniences which arise from the terror which unlimited liability has caused in the minds of certain classes; and I can hardly pass over this subject without saying one word upon a particular class of persons who have been very severe sufferers, I fear, from what has taken place, and from what now appears to be the state of the law. I allude to trustees. I suppose, with regard to them, there is but one feeling throughout the country, and that is one of sympathy with those who have found themselves in a position so serious as that in which many of these trustees appear to be. They are persons who, having undertaken a duty not at all remunerative, and not at all agreeable, but simply an irksome duty, for the benefit and convenience of their friends, have found themselves, quite unexpectedly in most cases, saddled with the most serious consequences. At the same time, such appears to be the law; and I fear it is quite impossible for us to propose anything, or to contemplate anything, which would in any way be a relief to these unfortunate persons. Of course, however, we have to consider what will be the state of matters for the future; and we cannot help seeing that the effect of the judgments which have been delivered, and of the misfortunes which have befallen trustees, will be to drive away trustees from making investments, or allowing trust funds to be invested, in banks of unlimited liability. Therefore, it seems that the only remedy which we can suggest is that of introducing and making easier the introduction of the limited liability principle, so as materially to diminish the effect of that great inconvenience. Having now stated what is the principle of our Bill—to give facilities for re-registration—it becomes a question what the method of procedure should be. According to the present Act, it is necessary that notice should be given by any bank desiring to change its provisions and become a bank of limited liability, to each individual who is in any way in the position of a creditor or customer of the bank. That is a matter of serious magnitude. It is very difficult for a bank to find the means of making individual communications to every customer; and, moreover, individual communications of that sort are apt to cause unnecessary alarm and misunderstanding amongst those to whom they are addressed. Therefore, my proposal will be, that we should only require certain advertisements of a character which will give general publicity to the change which is about to be made in the position of the bank. I propose that these advertisements should, be placed, for example, in the newspapers which circulate in the vicinity of the place in which the bank has its offices, and, of course, notices should be put up in the offices of the bank itself; and this we consider should be sufficient to admit of a bank in a certain time changing its position. I have spoken of the position as an intermediate one between limited and unlimited liability; and the question naturally arises, what title should be given to the banks which may take that position? There is a great deal of sensitiveness on that subject. It has been one of the great stumbling-blocks which the representatives of the banks have urged on the Government in the various representations which they have made to us. They have said not only is there a technical and legal difficulty in changing their position from an unlimited to a limited company, but they have a feeling of reluctance to making the change, and adopting the word "limited," because they fear it may lead to a good deal of misunderstanding, and may, perhaps, injure their credit. They are unwilling that any term should be adopted which should appear to be of a character which would shake public confidence in them. It is, however, rather difficult to know what sort of term we can adopt which shall at once express the real condition of the bank—that is to say, that the liability is, to a certain extent, limited, and, at the same time, not alarm the public generally by lead- ing them to suppose that the bank is more limited than it really is. I propose that the term which should be used in describing banks of this intermediate class should be "reserve liability," and that a bank in such a position shall be spoken of as a "Reserve Liability Bank." I admit the phrase is an awkward one, and I am not so wedded to it as not to be prepared to change it, provided the ingenuity of the House can suggest a better term. I should have no scruple in making such a change, if it can be done. Of course, it will not do to call these banks limited, and it will not do to call them chartered, and the phrase which I have mentioned appears to be the only one available at present. There must, naturally, be certain notices and proper proceedings, like the meeting of shareholders, &c. But all these are matters of detail with which it is not necessary I should now trouble the Committee. But the necessary conditions being complied with, I propose that these banks shall have the power of assuming the position of reserve liability banks. Now, that is a proposal which, so far as the great body of the non-issuing banks is concerned, is very simple, and it is one which, I think, will meet the necessities of the case; but then we come to the question of the banks of issue, and here there are some considerations which it is necessary to bear in mind. I have laid it down more than once in this House—and the principle has been repeatedly adopted by preceding Governments—that there is a broad distinction between the business of banking, and the business of issue; and while I have said, on the one hand, that it is our duty as regards banking to put as few restrictions as possible, and leave it as much as possible alone, when you come to the question of issue different matters arise; and the State has a right, at all events, if not the duty imposed upon it, of regulating the issue. There is considerable difference detween the position of the man who voluntarily deposits his money in a bank, or otherwise enters into relations with it, and the man who takes from another a bank note which, practically speaking, he can hardly refuse, and which yet he may find is worth nothing if the bank should fail. It has been suggested that the present system of issues in this country is one of a temporary, and therefore not of a very satis- factory, character, and that the time must come when some change must be made in it; and, no doubt, there is a great deal to be said in favour of taking up the whole of this question, and in endeavouring to deal with it. But I am not ashamed to say I think that it is a question which it would not be desirable for us to attempt to grapple with at present. It would lead to a great deal of difficulty, and I feel that this measure, which is one of somewhat pressing importance, might be jeopardized if we were to weight it with an attempt to work on the principles on which I should like to deal with the whole question of issue. If we do not attempt to deal with this question on a broad basis, we must, at all events, take care in what we are doing that we do not put fresh and further difficulties in the way of dealing with it whenever it may be considered the proper time to do so. Now, what is the position at the present moment of issue banks which become banks of limited liability? I believe there are only a few such, some four or five, which are now banks of limited liability which have the privilege of issue. Hon. Members who are acquainted with the Joint Stock Companies' Act of 1862 will be aware that there is a clause in that Act, I think the 182nd, sometimes known by the name of Lord Overstone's Clause, which provides that, where a bank of issue becomes a limited liability bank, the limitation of liability shall not extend to its issue of notes. The clause is one which is rather complicated, and it is a little difficult to make out from it what the precise operation would be, in the event of such bank becoming insolvent, in what order and in what manner the notes would be met. I propose to alter that section so as to make it somewhat clearer than it is at present, and to make it applicable to all banks which have the right of issue, which may become either limited banks, or banks of reserve liability. I propose to provide in substance that the assets of the bank shall go, in the first instance, pari passu, for notes and for general liabilities, and that the separate assets of the partners shall be responsible for the balance that may be due on account of the notes. The precise way in which it is done is best shown by the clause, which was rather a difficult one to draw, and I should prefer that the Committee would wait until they see the exact words. That would be a provision which would fairly well meet the case of the English banks, because that case, as the Committee is aware, is one of a comparatively simple character. In the case of an English bank which has the right of issue, the total amount of issue is limited by the terms of the law, and cannot be exceeded. In the case of the Scotch and Irish banks there is a difference, especially so in regard to the Scotch banks, where difficulties arise from the system upon which the issues of Scotland are conducted; because there, over and above the amount of the authorized issue, you have what is roughly described as an issue of notes upon gold. Now, there are some features of this system which are not altogether satisfactory. It is difficult to be quite sure that there really is gold held against all the notes which have been issued. I admit this is a thorny subject with which to deal, and I am rather unwilling to go into the controversy which we are naturally led to enter upon when we come to the question of Scotch issues. I propose, therefore, we should make this provision with regard to the right of banks to become limited, or to take position of reserve liability banks, common to all banks of the United Kingdom, and that we should make the clause which I propose as a substitute for the Overstone Clause applicable also to all parts of the United Kingdom; but, in order to keep within bounds the difficulties which arise under the Scotch system, I shall propose by that clause to make this condition—that a bank of issue shall not register itself as a reserve liability bank, or, after the passing of this Bill, as a limited liability company, if and so long as it has any house of business or establishment as a bank in any part of the United Kingdom other than that in which the principal offices are situate. The effect of that would be to confine a bank of Scotland to Scotland, a bank of England to England, and one of Ireland to Ireland. Upon the whole, though that falls short of the mode of dealing with the whole question of issue as I should like to deal with it if I had the means, yet, I think, it provides a convenient temporary arrangement. At all events, with regard to a difficult and important part of the question, these are the leading provisions of the Bill which I ask the leave of the Committee to introduce; but there are just one or two subsidiary points I must mention. First, there is no satisfactory provision at present for the publication of accounts, and I propose there should be a form given in the Schedule of the Act which should regulate the accounts, which, at all events, should be presented by banks once in every year. I am unwilling to make that account too complicated, or to go into so much detail as the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) has done in the Bill he has introduced. That is a Bill of a very interesting character, and the hon. Member has spent a good deal of trouble in framing the account contained in the Schedule of his Bill; but I think it more complicated than is desirable. Then there is another important matter, which is this—there is at present no proper provision for audit. With regard both to the publication of accounts and to audit, we desire to be distinctly understood as repudiating, in anyway, Government interference with the matter. We do not desire to have either the publication of accounts subject to the regulation of the Government, or through the Government in any way, nor do we desire that the audit should be conducted by a Government Department or under its direction. All that we propose is that in every bank there should be a provision made for the appointment of an auditor or auditors, independent of the directors, who shall audit the accounts and publish the report certifying whether the accounts are given correctly, and disclose a true and fair statement of the accounts of the bank as shown by the books. It is impossible for an auditor to go into the books and say from them whether this is a good bill, or that is a good security. That is not only impossible to effect, but to attempt it would be delusive and dangerous. We keep free from that. What we propose in the Bill is, that a proper examination shall take place of the books, and that the auditor shall declare, assuming their correctness, the statement of accounts is properly put together, and that it does give a full and fair description of the state of the bank. I have now gone through the provisions of the Bill, which I think it of some importance should be short and simple, and I hope the effect of the amendment of the law which I now propose may conduce partly to improve our joint-stock system of banking, and partly also to allay the uneasiness which I fear has existed as to the legislative measures that might be proposed owing to the failures which have occurred. I have now to move for leave to bring in the Bill.

Sir, I do not like to be too sanguine about the character of a Bill from the statement made in introducing it, because very often the provisions contained in the Bill itself are after wards found to be rather disappointing. I have, however, listened to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I think, on the whole, the Bill he has proposed is a fairly good one. There are certain parts that I do not at all like; but I rise, however, to support the principle of what he calls "reserve liability." I do not like the name, but the principle is, I think, good, although I do not think it will ever work well with such a name attached. He has not, however, named what particular principles of liability are to be the rule; he has not named what the particular extent of the proposed mutiple of liability is to be. The Bill does not seem to deal with this like the liability of the American national banks, which have one simple rule, which is, that whatever amount of stock a partner holds, he is liable for a similar amount in addition; and that extent of liability has been found to work well, and to be satisfactory both to the public and the partners. The right hon. Gentleman does not propose to adopt any such rule. If a bank chooses, it may make its partners liable for as much more capital as they have, or twice as much more, or three times as much more, or four times as much more. I do not see that that is a very good plan, because it will introduce a great amount of confusion. Different banks may, and probably will, adopt different modes. Much simpler would it be that the banks should have to adopt a particular reserve liability to the extent of as much more as their capital, or twice as much more, so that it should be a uniform principle applied to all the banks. Again, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not explained about the three chartered Scotch banks, which are supposed to be limited, but as to which limitation there is a great deal of doubt. Does the right hon. Gentleman declare them limited, or do they require to come under the new law? I think he is quite right, in regard to the banks of issue, that the partners should be liable for the notes, that there should be no reserved liability as to issues; but that should be a sufficient guarantee for the notes. I do not think any further guarantee should be adopted, such as kicking all the Scotch banks out of London, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has proposed to do, as if that would be an additional security for the notes. For that I do not see any ground; in fact, I do not see how the right hon. Gentleman can take from the banks their offices in London, and confine such banks to the Provinces, without giving them compensation. It would be simply a case of confiscation. The banks might have been stopped from coming to London by an Act of Parliament some years ago; but having been allowed to come under the law which existed, and having established business in London, I do not see how you can deprive them of that business without giving them compensation for it. Well, as regards trustees, we all feel deeply for the position in which they are placed. Whatever the situation of the law in England, the law in Scotland has generally been believed to be, that trustees who did not participate in the profits were not liable, and under that understanding people have become trustees for orphans, and in that way they have done a great deal of kind and loving work for orphans; but, under the declared condition of the law, that is all upset. I am very sorry indeed that the right hon. Gentleman does not see his way to make some change in that law, so as to allow the same kindly work to be done for widows and orphans in the future as has been done in the past, without this dreadful liability. The result will be that people will decline to act as trustees at all, and that work which would be done from kindness will have to be handed over to paid lawyers to do; and I do not think there will be any gain to the community in that. I regret exceedingly that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has declared he cannot touch that part of the law, and make some provision to avoid the difficulty. About controlling the banks, too, something else seems to be required which the right hon. Gentleman did not even name. For instance, as to the City of Glasgow Lank, we know it to have been kept up before the public by keeping up its shares, the directors continuing to traffic in the shares, and buy up all that were offered. Under an existing Act of Parliament, usually called Lee-man's Act, an Act passed to prevent the wrecking of banks, the banks have a great protection for their shares which no other share company has. A broker cannot offer a bank share on the Stock Exchange without giving the numbers of the shares that he is offering. In that way there is no over-speculation, and that was a very wholesome provision to prevent the wrecking of banks; but when banks have that protection the public ought to have a protection against bank directors. Therefore, if banks are to be protected by Leeman's Act, they should also be prevented from trafficking in their own shares; and there ought, therefore, to be a provision in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Bill making it penal for directors of banks to buy up with the bank's money the shares that are offered on the market. We see what the City of Glasgow Bank directors did. Whenever a share was on the market they went and bought it up, and the shares were held for the bank. By reason of the directors being able to buy up the shares, they kept their credit up in a way that could never have been done otherwise, and by so prolonging their career intensified the disaster. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, therefore, will do well to consider whether he cannot introduce some provision making it penal for banks to traffic in their shares; but how it is to be regulated may be a question. Of course, directors come into possession of shares, and that cannot be obviated; but there ought to be a limit of time as to the period they should be allowed to retain them. On the whole, I congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Bill he has introduced.

said, he thought, whatever might be the case in Scotland, the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so far as they had been shadowed forth, were such as would commend themselves to the banking community of England generally, and would be received by them with satisfaction. His right hon. Friend had certainly not exaggerated the alarm and uneasiness which prevailed amongst the numerous class of persons in this country who were interested in the shares of unlimited banks. Ever since they knew the weight which would fall upon them in case a failure of their bank occurred, there had been a feeling of great anxiety throughout the country upon the subject that could only be allayed by additional facilities being given for the adoption of the principle of limited liability. The only reason why that could not be sooner adopted was, as had been explained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, owing to an accidental and not an intended disability, which was connected with several of the banks that had adopted the principle of the Act of 1872, and registered under it for special purposes; and having once registered under it for those special purposes, it seemed it had been held by the law that they were in a position which rendered them unable to re-register. The removal of that disability was the one great object which was desired throughout the country; and as he was one of those who had been so bound his satisfaction was sincere, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman would be conferring a great benefit upon the country, and especially upon the banking community. He must also congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on having avoided the rocks upon which he might have come to difficulties if he had attempted a more ambitious policy, and had launched a new scheme of note issue. There was a hard task for any Government who would undertake that subject. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich found the hornet's nest he had to deal with when he attempted to deal with it in 1864. With regard to the trustees, he (Mr. Heygate) quite agreed that theirs was a position which all must commiserate, and he wished it could be dealt with in the Bill. At the same time, he thought a wise policy had been adopted in limiting the Bill as it had been limited. The position of trustees was one which required not only in Scotland, but in England, a further definition. Although it was supposed they all understood the position of a trustee, he was by no means certain that the law on the subject was altogether clear; and at all events, speaking for himself, he thought the law was by no means just. The facilities which were proposed for giving notices to customers as to the adoption of limited liability were exceedingly valuable. It would have been a matter of some difficulty to have given the notices, unless it had been clearly laid down that sufficient notice should be given, and the manner in which it was prescribed. The proposals for audit and the publication of the accounts in a certain form could not be objected to; and he endorsed all that had been said with reference to the improvement in the class of shareholders which was likely to follow from the facilities afforded by the Bill for the adoption of limited liability, and the prevention of the deterioration of the present class of shareholders which would have followed if the present state of things had been continued. He believed the directors would be also improved. Everyone connected with banking business knew there was no greater difficulty than that of finding a good set of men to undertake the management of a joint-stock bank; and if the principle of the Bill was adopted, so as to become general, he thought it would tend to the advantage of the public in securing both a better class of shareholders and a better class of directors. He would only add, that he thanked the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the Bill, and hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would make it one of the first moment, and push it forward with all the energy of the Government.

said, he thought it better that, as suggested by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, they should reserve any discussion of what was in the Bill until they had the Bill itself before them. But there was one point which the Chancellor of the Exchequer said was not in the Bill, which he would venture to ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider. The Chancellor of the Exchequer intimated that he would defer dealing with the whole question of the circulation of notes, and he spoke the opinion of the commercial community, when he said that question was not at all on a satisfactory footing. But he (Mr. Rathbone) would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider whether it was not desirable, without raising any very great difficulties, to give an inducement to put that system on a better footing than it was. At the present moment, the circulation of this country and of Scotland really rested upon no security at all. Now, would it not be well, in giving the privilege of limited liability which was proposed to be given to banks of issue, to give an option of depositing Consols at 80, or other sufficient security, for their extreme issue, which should still be confined to their original limits as an outside limit; and, where a bank accepted that option, the limitation of liability should extend to its note issue, as well as to its general liabilities. In that way, it being optional, he could not help thinking country bankers would find it a convenience and a security to them to so deposit Consols. The public he would then feel there was a public security, and such banks would be guarded against the chance of a run on that part of their liabilities; and they would get 3 per cent on that amount of their issue, which was a very fair remuneration. He thought, if that plan were adopted—as it was to a certain extent in Scotch banks with their limited issue—it would give them a chance of attaining a better security and a better system of issue than they had at present.

said, he joined most cordially with the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Heygate) and others in rejoicing that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had brought in a Bill to deal with this question. On the whole, the Bill was moderate in terms and not complicated. There was one point, however, on which he failed to see the benefit of the distinction created by the Bill between that and other forms of partnership. This proposed partnership with reserve liability might, it seemed to him, be equally well met by limited liability. What was the difference between a bank with £50 shares and £10 paid up and the reserve liability which was contemplated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's distinction? If he was right in that view, he thought it was a great pity to complicate the matter by a different form of partnership contract. There was also something said about the title. Now, he spoke from practical experience; and he believed that the term "limited" would injure no bank, provided that the subscribed capital was sufficiently large and the general management good. Therefore, he thought it would be a pity to adopt a third somewhat complicated and confusing title, when an existing title answered every possible purpose. One thing was to be noted in all these bank failures. He believed not a single bank had failed for years past which had had a good and thoroughly satisfactory audit. Neither the City of Glasgow Bank, nor any of the banks which had been subject to comment lately, ever was audited by auditors who were independent of the directors, and who were sufficiently remunerated to do their work thoroughly. If they gave their auditors £50 to audit the accounts of a bank with 20 branches, they might expect to have an audit which was worth nothing; but if they gave them 500 guineas, and encouraged them to make their auditing thorough, then he believed that an audit by public accountants was an effectual security against any public disaster, and the most effectual security that could be devised. As regarded Scotch banks in London, if he understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer rightly, a Scotch bank would be under the same disability as regarded trading in England as at present an English bank was with regard to trading in Scotland. If the right hon. Gentleman's remarks went so far as that, he could only say he thought the principle was a just one. As to what the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) had said, he should have thought the Scotch banks that had ventured into English waters had got a sufficiently sobering experience in connection with the City of Glasgow Bank not to wish to bank in London much more. Be that as it might, he thought it was perfectly just that the two countries should be placed on an equality as regarded local privileges, and that which was denied to English and Irish banks in Scotland should be denied to Scotch banks in England and Ireland; or else that all should be free in the three countries, and, perhaps, that would be the best notion of the two. He also thought the proposal about the balance-sheet was one that no well-managed bank would object to; but the public would be well aware that honest and well-managed banks did not require all these pre- cautions, and as to the dishonest, they would find means to deceive the public in any balance-sheet that might be devised. It was impossible, for instance, to tell from the balance-sheet what the bills were, and what were the securities, and so on; but still it was well to attempt it, because it satisfied a certain section of the public. The hon. Member for Glasgow had said something about directors trafficking in shares, and, of course, that was a most objectionable practice. It was his (Mr. Sampson Lloyd's) impression that there was a clause in the Articles of Association of most banks to prevent that; but if not, it was as well that it should be done. He could not help thinking that the remark with which he begun, as to the non-necessity of the new form of partnership, was worthy of consideration; but he was quite sure that hon. Members would all agree with him that they should be happy to support the Bill when it came into the House.

congratulated the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the simplicity of the scope of the Bill, which was cautiously limited, as far as possible, to facilitating the conversion of unlimited banks into limited ones. With respect to the term reserve liabilities, he (Mr. Courtney) thought, with the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson), that it would excite a good deal of alarm and be very generally misunderstood, and he did not at all share the idea which was represented to be entertained by the managers of existing banks that the addition of the word "limited" to their title would excite any feeling of insecurity whatever. On that point he thought the experience of the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Sampson Lloyd), who had actually tried it, was conclusive. With respect to the new form of liability, he took the meaning to be this—that, in the case of shares, with a small proportion of their nominal amount paid up, there would be no practical difference between the existing liability and the new form; for instance, in the case of £50 shares of which £10 was paid up, or £100 shares with £20 paid up, they must contemplate the possibility of the £50 or £100 shares with the whole sum paid up; and it was, he presumed, to apply to that that the right hon. Gentleman had framed his plan. Well, he ventured to suggest what he thought was worthy of consideration, and would avoid this question of introducing a third class of banks of unknown liability. It was—that any bank registering as a bank of limited liability should be liable to the extent of its shares, provided always that if the share were so called upon as to trench upon more than half of the nominal amount, the liability of the shareholders should ipso facto increase, so as never to be less than double the amount called up. So that with £100 shares, of which £60 was called up, the liabilility would be £120 per share; with £100 shares, £80 paid, the liability would be £160; but if there was less than half called up the liability would be, as at present, only to the full amount of the shares. He believed that few limited liability banks existed with half the amount of their shares called up; so that they would never have that proviso brought into operation at all, except, perhaps, in the case of some Scotch banks; but in the event of its being done, they would then have the guarantee brought into operation, which would be perfectly sufficient for the security of the creditors, and would remove the objection which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had in view, and would also avoid this "reserve liability." The right hon. Gentleman said he thought it would not be necessary to require that notice should be served on all the customers; but he (Mr. Courtney) disagreed with that, because in country districts many outlying customers, who came to the bank only once or twice a-year, would not be made aware of the change. He did not believe it would be so difficult as the right hon. Gentleman supposed to serve a notice upon all the customers of the bank; but if that were not done, the unlimited liability ought to continue for a considerable time. With respect to banks of issue, the right hon. Gentleman did not propose to alter the Overstone Clause, but only to expound it, so that it would be only made more clear. The case of the trustees was certainly very hard; but he (Mr. Courtney) did not see that it was possible for the right hon. Gentleman to do anything to relieve them of their liability. If trustees were recognized as a separate class of shareholders, a new and unfair kind of liability would be created, and creditors would be debarred of the rights to which they had a just claim. He agreed with the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) in the strong antagonism which that hon. Member had expressed to the proposition of putting a prohibition upon Scotch banks against coming into England. That he understood was a clause to be attached to them in the event of their becoming limited banks. Now, the object of the Bill was to induce banks to become limited. No case whatever had been made out for driving those banks out of London and out of this country; everybody except the London bankers was delighted at the increase of competition. He was sorry to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer say he was going to put forward a prescribed form of accounts. He did not believe much in that, especially when it was coupled with this declaration—that these returns were not to be sent into any Office whatever. He did not know, therefore, what kind of penalty there would be if the prescribed form was not adhered to. It was quite certain that no form of accounts could give any real guarantee to the creditors of the bank as to its solvency. They would have in the accounts "bills discounted," so much, "advances to customers," so much; but whether the bills bore good names, and whether the advances were made on good and satisfactory security, could not be found from any form of accounts whatever.

said, that, so far as the Bill would go in abolishing unlimited liability, he quite approved of it; but he agreed with the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Sampson Lloyd) in deprecating the introduction of a third form of liability. He thought the plan sketched out by the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney), if he understood it correctly, was an improvement. With regard to the audit, he should like to suggest that the depositors were a class who ought to be represented, as it might be possible for the directors, by manipulating the proxies, to secure the appointment of auditors favourable to themselves. It would be desirable, therefore, to secure that they should have an independent auditor representing them, as well as the auditors representing the shareholders. He did not agree with the hon. Member for Liskeard in disapproving of forms of accounts, because he thought it would be much more simple and useful to those who were shareholders in more than one bank, who might wish to know exactly where to look for any item in which they took an interest. He believed everyone but the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) had admitted that it was impossible to abolish the liability of trustees; it would, in fact, be a premium to speculators to do so. He did not see how their liability could well be abolished without opening the door to fraud. People would have themselves registered as trustees, in order to escape their just liability. He hoped, therefore, no attempt would be made to amend the Bill in that way; because it would only impede its progress, and probably cause it to fail altogether.

said, he quite agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the desirability of postponing the discussion of the Bill; but there were one or two questions on which he was very anxious to get an explanation from the right hon. Gentleman on a subject which excited great interest in Scotland, and on which a full understanding would be very valuable. There were a certain number of banks in Scotland which believed that by Charter and by Act of Parliament they were limited already—such as the Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank, the British Linen Bank, and others. Well, as he understood it, this Bill was a permissive Bill, and these banks, believing themselves to be limited by the powers they already possessed, would not require to re-register under the Act. Then, if that was so, those banks might have offices in London; but the other banks in Scotland—take such as the Clydesdale Bank, the Commercial Bank, and others, which were banks of unlimited liability—if they desired to take advantage of the Act, they must put the term "limited" or "reserve limited" upon their names, and then they were placed in a different position altogether from the other banks, and were not to be allowed to have offices in London. If that was to be the case, the Bill would certainly act injuriously upon some banks and very beneficially upon others. He wished to know whether he had given the right explanation, and whether that would be the effect upon these different banks? He admired the simplicity of the Bill; but he should like to reserve any discussion upon the sub- ject until he had seen the terms of the measure, and until he had seen exactly in what manner it would bear upon the different banks.

believed the discussion would be a great service to bank shareholders, and the result would be to relieve them of some of the extreme liability which they now possessed. He did not agree with the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Sampson Lloyd) when that hon. Member ventured to suggest that there was not much difference between the position of a shareholder in a bank with only £10 paid out of a subscription of £30 per share, and the kind of reserve liability which the Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested. Why, the marked difference was this—that in the first case the remaining £20 might be called up, and then there was no reserve; but the reserve liability contemplated by the right hon. Gentleman was not to be called up, except in case of winding-up. It was only intended as a protection to the depositors and customers of the bank, and not to be available for purposes of ordinary business; and, therefore, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would not be persuaded to give up this new form of "reserve liability." It had been said, with some force, that the large unlimited banks were very anxious not to have a ticket or label added to their names which might shake their credit. He thought they were not so much afraid of it because of its effects in this country; but these banks had enormous operations abroad, all over the world; and, therefore, the Committee could understand why they did not wish to have a word attached to them which might cause misapprehension or shake confidence. Now, the right hon. Gentleman had told them he could not see his way to use the word "charter;" but he was good enough to say he was not wedded to the term "reserve liability," and was quite ready to receive and consider any suggestions. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of Colonial banks, and it appeared he thought they were a very good model; they were of modern construction, and their constitution was, perhaps, rather a model for the Bill. Now, he (Sir Sydney Waterlow) thought he would ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the matter, and to see whether it was not possible to make all the banks char- tered. If he attached to the Bill a Schedule of a Charter, every bank registered under the Act would be chartered in the form set out in the Schedule; but the banks might be called anything they liked—for instance, "The Bank of London, chartered 1879." Anybody would know then that the Act of 1879 would give a copy of the Charter and constitution of the bank; there could never be any doubt as to what was the extent of the liability; and it would be a distinguishing mark which everyone would understand. He believed the word "chartered" would be much more acceptable to the unlimited banks than the word limited, which was unpalateable to them.

said, he was disappointed when he heard his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer speak of his intentions with respect to the Scotch banks. It seemed rather hard that they should have to give up their offices in London in order that they might become limited. The proper time to stop them coming to London would have been when the Royal Bank of Scotland got a Private Act to come here, or after the Report of the Select Committee on Banks of Issue, by bringing in a Bill at that time. But nothing was then done, and because of that many of the banks had since come to London and opened offices besides purchasing premises; and he did say it was very hard now, by means of a side-wind, to attempt to drive them out; and he therefore trusted the right hon. Gentleman would reconsider the matter before the second reading of the Bill.

believed it to be unworthy of the occasion, and of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statesmanlike proposal, if he were to complicate this measure with any limitation of the privileges of Scotch and Irish banks. On one other point he desired to remark. He did not think the creditors of the bank ought to be presumed to have received complete notice by publication in The Gazette or in newspapers. All creditors should have notice of change in the liability of a bank on a form that would be supposed to reach them personally, such as a postal circular; and they should not have their consent to the change assumed, if not given expressly.

said, he had no wish to continue the discussion; but could not omit saying that if the right hon. Gentleman expected that the measure he had explained would be satisfactory either to the Scotch banks or to the Scotch people, he was labouring under a misapprehension. It would be very prejudicial to Scotch bankers to restrict their trading in England. He would remind the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Sampson Lloyd) that English bankers were merely prevented from going to Scotland by their own interests. True, they had not the same rights of issue as the Scotch banks; but there was nothing to prevent their going to Scotland to carry on banking business, properly so-called. He had had the opportunity of hearing the views of public bodies in Scotland on this question of banking expressed on more than one occasion; and he believed that the only way in which the Government could give satisfaction to the people of Scotland, and, indeed, to the people of Great Britain, was to repeal the Act of 1845, and to restore the law of Scotland to the position in which it was before that Act was passed. Under such a state of things he believed there would be no occasion either to guarantee notes, or to interfere in any way with the business of banking. He could see no ground for any interference with the business of banking, any more than for interference with any other business; and the provisions the right hon. Gentleman made with regard to joint-stock banks should equally apply to any other joint-stock associations. There should be no exclusive monopoly conferred on them, any more than any other branch of business.

Sir, I must express my acknowledgments to the Members of the Committee for the kind manner in which they have received the proposal I have just made, and thank them also for several suggestions made by Gentlemen well qualified to give advice upon the subject. I have no doubt that in the course of discussion on this Bill, we shall get some valuable suggestions, and I shall be most ready to avail myself of any which I find it possible to make use of. At the present moment, I hope I may be excused from entering into the rather difficult and weighty question connected with the banks in Scotland. That is a question very much by itself; and as it is one which we shall be called to speak upon again, I will not say anything about it at the present moment. With regard to one or two other questions that have been raised, and especially that which is raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth (Mr. Sampson Lloyd), I may say one word. We are asked why we should have a third form of liability? I do not know that there is any absolute necessity for having nominally a third form. All might come under one designation, and all might not improperly be called "banks of limited liability," if it were absolute in one case, and in another limited to something more than the actual amount of shares. There can be no doubt that there are a large number of banks, the circumstances of which are such that the mere limitation of liability to the amount of their shares would not be a satisfactory arrangement. I remember hearing the manager of one bank say—"Limited liability would suit us exactly, because in our case not more than a fourth or a fifth of our shares are called up, and the remaining three-quarters or four-fifths are as good are serve as any we could provide in any other way." On the other hand, other bankers with whom I have had communication say—"Oh, that will not suit the case of our banks at all, because something like three-fourths or four-fifths have been called up; and if we, being now unlimited, were to turn ourselves into a limited company, and tell our customers that there is only one-fourth or one-fifth of the value of the shares to fall back upon, they would be greatly alarmed, and the bank would be greatly discredited." So that in such a case it is necessary to do something which would give a greater reserve for the customers to fall back upon. The hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney) seemed to me to take up the objection of the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Sampson Lloyd), and then to make a suggestion which really, as I understood it, set up my case as against that I of my hon. Friend, because he said—"Undoubtedly, if you do limit the liability to the amount of the shares, you may find they are in some cases nearly or entirely called up, and you might provide that there should be always an amount of liability beyond the amount of the share." That is exactly what I propose.

I suggested it as what the right hon. Gentleman proposed to do, but I suggested it a simpler way of doing it.

The objection which I have to that way of dealing with it is this, and it is the same as that which I would take to the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson)—that you should fix precisely by law a uniform amount of liability over the amount of the shares. The principle is to provide by law as little as may be, and to leave as much as may be to the managers and shareholders of the banks themselves—to allow the one to take a larger liability and the other a smaller, provided they give proper notice and make it clearly understood. These are matters, however, which will be better discussed when we have the Bill before us. I am afraid there will be considerable difference of opinion as to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Sampson Lloyd) that the use of the word "limited" would increase the credit of the bank. I believe it to be very reasonable that it should do so; but, as a matter of fact, I believe it is not the opinion of a large number of bankers that it would. But possibly one of the effects of the discussion we may anticipate on this Bill will be to remove some of the prejudices and false impressions with regard to liability, and to render it easier to make that change without producing a false impression. Probably I shall best consult the convenience of the Committee by not going further tonight, but waiting until the Bill is in the hands of hon. Members.

asked that some assurance might be given as to when the Bill would really be further proceeded with, as it had already been a considerable time under the notice of the House.

said, the Government were quite as anxious as the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) that the Bill should be proceeded with as quickly as possible. He had hoped that it might be taken on Friday next; but he was afraid there was not now much prospect of the hope being realized, and it might be advisable to endeavour to persuade the House to resume Progress in Committee at a Morning Sitting.

said, he had no objection to the Bill being read a second time. He merely wished to remark that the Bill had only been delivered that morning; and that there had consequently been no opportunity for submitting it to the Legal Advisers of the Irish Government. No doubt the hon. Gentleman in charge of the measure would be disposed to postpone the stage of Committee for a reasonable time. He desired it to be distinctly understood that, in assenting to the second reading, he in no way committed himself to the provisions of the Bill.

moved for leave to bring in a Bill to amend "The Dogs Regulation (Ireland) Act (1865)."

said, he did not want the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to make a speech; but he considered the right hon. Gentleman ought to give some explanation of the provisions of the Bill. The Bill would affect a largo proportion of his constituents—indeed, it would affect a very large number of persons in the whole of Ireland; and if its object was to increase taxation, it would assuredly give rise to a great deal of excitement.

found it difficult to explain the provisions of the Bill without making a speech. He would briefly state, however, that the object of the measure was to afford protection to the owners of flocks in Ireland, who had been making great complaints of late with reference to the ravages of dogs. The proposal was to afford Ireland equal laws by assimilating the tax on dogs to what it was in England.

inquired if it was proposed that the tax should go to the locality, or to the Government?

stated that it was not proposed to alter the source to which the tax should go. It would be a local tax, as it had hitherto been in Ireland.

considered the proposal a most serious one, and was convinced that it would occasion a great deal of excitement in Ireland. The Bill would affect the peasant population, and it seemed that it was not intended to establish the same exemption that existed in England with respect to cattle and sheep dogs. He was certain that the measure would create in Ireland a sensation which the Government would be unable to meet. He should put a Notice to oppose it upon the Paper, and he should be surprised if it passed into law.