asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the attention of the Secretary of State has been directed to the Memorial of the East India Association praying for inquiry—

"Whether the delay, vexation, uncertainty, and expense of litigation might not be materially reduced by restoring the ancient and customary institution of village Pancháyets,"

or courts of arbitration; and, whether any practical measures have been adopted by the Government in reference to this Memorial?

, in reply, said, that the question referred to by the hon. Member had been carefully considered; and a Bill on the subject prepared by the Government of Bombay, based on the suggestion of the Home Government, was now before the Supreme Council of India.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, before any steps are taken to carry out the recommendations of the Report of the Committee on Parliamentary Reporting, he will undertake that an opportunity shall be previously given to this House of expressing an opinion thereon?

, in reply, said, that, as far as he knew, the Committee on Parliamentary Reporting had not yet laid their Report upon the Table—in fact, he believed they had not reported; and he could not, therefore, say what course might be taken with regard to their recommendations. He presumed, however, that any steps they might recommend would be such as would, of necessity, have to come before the House before anything could be done. But, as he had already indicated, he spoke entirely in the dark as to what their Report might be.

gave Notice that he would ask a Question on the subject when the Report was prepared.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is true that the transport service in Natal is paying for the hire of waggons at the rate of £80 each per month, besides engaging to pay drivers' wages and to make good any injury done either to the waggons or the bullocks; whether equally exorbitant prices are being paid for the requisites needed by the troops engaged in military operations in Zulu-land; and, whether, having regard to the great expenditure of English money involved in these transactions, it is not desirable that the Commander in Chief should be instructed to "requisition" the articles he needs, and to pay for them at a fair valuation?

Sir, I have reason to believe that the hire of waggons has, in certain cases, reached the amount stated in the first Question of the hon. Member; but it includes the wages of the drivers, who only draw commissariat. I should add that the waggons convey from two to three tons, and are drawn by from 14 to 16 oxen. With regard to the second Question, it is not the case that equally exorbitant prices are being paid for the requisites needed by the troops engaged in military operations in Zululand. The Departments made such shipments as they thought necessary to give us command of the market, and the prices of the main articles of supply are now very moderate in Natal, so much so that in some cases we are reducing the shipments. With regard to the third Question, the War Department in February last drew the attention of the Colonial Government to the exorbitant charges on account of transport, and requested that measures should be adopted, by requisition, or otherwise, of obtaining the necessary transport on paying reasonable rates. Instructions have been sent, and recently repeated, to Sir Henry Bulwer, that such steps should be taken as might be deemed necessary in order to secure proper provision for transport. It has not been found necessary to resort to requisition for other supplies.

asked, if it would he convenient to produce the Papers in connection with the whole Transport Service in Natal?

said, the House was already in possession of the substance of the Papers. He did not know that it would be convenient to produce all the Departmental Correspondence; but he would look through it to see if there was anything of public interest.

said, at the last sitting of the Committee this Amendment was moderately discussed; but its consideration had not terminated when Progress was reported. Hon. Members would see that the clause was divided into two sections. The first was a paraphrase of the 12th Article of War. It gave the officer who thought himself wronged by his commanding officer the right of appeal to the Commander-in-Chief, and to that he made no objection whatever. But the second part of the clause, which punished an officer who knowingly made any false statement affecting the character of any officer or soldier, was entirely new, and so was the sub-section in the next clause which punished any soldier for the same offence, except that the provision was complicated by further and still worse provisions. In every dispute between an officer and his commander there would certainly be something which would come under this head. To say anything about the temper of the commander, or his knowledge of his duties, or anything of that kind, would certainly be to make charges "affecting his character." What, he fancied, would happen under such circumstances, as the dispute would generally resolve iself into a contention regarding matters of fact, would be that the central authority would say—"The complainant stated one thing, and the commander another directly opposite to it. This must he on one side or the other a matter of wilful misstatement. As one side or the other must be making a false statement, we will decide who it is by trying the junior officer." If that were done, the officer would be placed in a very unpleasant position, and the effect would be very perceptibly to keep down complaints, for an officer would not at all care to be transformed from a complainant to a prisoner under arrest. Nine-tenths of the men would not like to be thus tried by court martial, and would prefer to put up with the injustice. He did not think this subsection was wanted, for there were plenty of other clauses in the Bill under which an officer could be tried if he made a false statement; and he especially thought it was undesirable to insert these words in that particular position, just following the words which gave an officer power to complain.

could not see anything objectionable in guarding this power of complaint, which might otherwise be very considerably abused, by this Proviso. It did not punish an officer for making a statement not strictly accurate; but punished the officer who wilfully made a false statement, or knowingly or wilfully suppressed any material fact. Whether he had done so or not would be a matter for the court martial to determine; and he felt certain that no court martial sworn to do justice would lightly find an officer guilty of this serious charge. Certainly, if there were any bias in the minds of the court martial, it would be to lean in favour of the officer, where there was any doubt at all in the case. He could not assent to the doctrine laid down, by implication, by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Major Nolan), that an officer was to be held blameless if he knowingly made any false statement, or wilfully suppressed any material facts.

thought the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Stanley) had missed the force of the objection to this clause. It was not for a moment maintained that an officer who made a false charge in this way was not to be punished; but there were one or two clauses in the Bill which, at present, were wide enough to punish this offence. What his hon. and gallant Friend (Major Nolan) objected to was not the punishment, but the placing of this punishment in juxtaposition to the clause giving the power of appeal. It seemed to say to the officer—"If you complain, and if in consequence of that complaint there is a court martial, then, if you have made any false statement in regard to your commanding officer, you shall be put on your trial for that also." The presence of those words would have a very deterrent effect on all complaints. They all knew from their own experience that two parties describing the same transaction would give very different accounts of it. Thus, it might very well happen that an officer, without any intention to deceive, might wilfully state that which afterwards turned out to be a falsehood. He also resisted the insertion of these words in the present place, because he was still more strongly opposed to their appearance in the next clause which dealt with the case of the soldier. It was most important that that sub-section should be resisted, and that a threat should not be held over a soldier in this way, preventing him from taking such steps as he might think right for the promotion of what he believed to be his interests. They ought certainly, if that clause was to be rejected, to put the officer and the soldier on the same basis.

said, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Rylands) seemed to have abandoned the position taken up by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Galway (Major Nolan). He did not himself think that the general words in other clauses, and notably in Clause 27, were sufficiently explicit to cover this clause; and, therefore, he did not think there was anything unreasonable in his desire that these words should remain.

very much regretted the decision of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, for he thought the position taken up by the Mover of the Amendment was a most reasonable one. They pretended by this clause to give the officer the power of appeal; but, at the same time, they accompanied that power by words which seemed to say—"We repent giving you this power of appeal, and, therefore, we will hold over you in terrorem the chance of this charge being made against you if you should resort to that power of appeal, which we affect to ask you to thank us for having granted to you." The mere fact that the one part of the clause was put in juxtaposition to the other was a matter of very serious signification. It was a warning held out to any officer not to appeal if he felt he was suffering from any serious wrong. They were all, of course, agreed that if an officer knowingly made any false statement he should be punished. That was not the question. The point he and his hon. Friends wished to urge was, that the placing of these words in their present position would raise a dread in the mind of a man having a fair right and ground of appeal that he might have some charge made against him. That might easily happen, resulting in the interchange of position between accused and accuser. Take, for instance, a case in which the whole question at issue might turn on the truth of one of two persons. The inferior officer might have very good ground of complaint; but he might have no evidence, except his own statement, and he would have against him the superior rank of his opponent, any services he might have rendered, a hundred things of that kind, which would weigh down, in a matter of this kind, even the truth. There would certainly be temper evolved in a matter of this kind; the charge might even be something in some degree disgraceful to the commander, and then, although there was good ground of appeal, the commander would be able to become the assailant, and to say—"You have knowingly made a false charge against me." The whole question would depend upon the sole word of the commander; and, again, his rank, his services, his position, and a hundred other things, might prevail to secure the conviction. He did venture to say that in any Civil Court of Appeal there was no such provision as that punishment should follow the making of the appeal. If there was false swearing, let it be punished as false swearing, and let the matter be tried independently of whether any appeal had been made or not. There was already power to punish false swearing, which included the wilful suppression of any material fact. He really thought that they had a right to complain of the way in which these words were inserted in the clause, offensively staring in the face of everyone who wished to appeal.

asked if hon. Members were contending that an officer or soldier who made a false statement was not to be punished? Surely, there was nothing more worthy of punishment than the offence of an officer or soldier who knowingly made a false statement accusing another. If made on oath, he would be liable to an indictment for perjury; but if not made on oath, still the false statement was a grave offence, and there certainly was nothing which was more deserving of punishment.

said, if there was any alteration made in the law which the Committee considered to be in favour of the soldier, it was the change made in this clause. Under the old practice, the soldier was sometimes punished for making statements which, though he himself believed them to be bonâ fide, yet broke down for want of evidence. It was that state of things which the Committee desired to obviate. The 13th Article of War, after allowing complaints to be made, enacted that if on appeal they should be pronounced groundless and vexatious, the soldier should be sentenced to such punishment as the court might direct. The words in the present clause were much more favourable to the soldier. Before, if a complaint were not proved, it was groundless, and from that it was a very short step to declare it also vexatious, and to punish it. But now the complaint was required to be one which the officer or soldier knew to be false, and which affected the character of some other officer or soldier. It was impossible to make a provision more entirely in favour of the officer. Their object was to give the officer or soldier the widest latitude, and yet to take care that these complaints should not be made for libellous or improper purposes. The great object of this clause was to remove the impression which might have existed in the minds of the soldiers that if they appealed they were likely to be punished, and the words had been chosen with the greatest care with that object.

could not help thinking it would be as well to make this offence punishable under a clause by itself. Why could not they have a fresh clause, with another number, making it an offence to make any false statement affecting the character of any officer or soldier. There would be a slight advantage in separating a penal clause from a clause giving the power of appeal, and he hoped the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would consent to make the alteration.

marvelled that his hon. and gallant Friend (Major Nolan) should not have seen that this clause was expressly framed by the Committee, at the greatest pains and trouble, for the express purpose of providing that there should be no restriction whatever on the right of appeal, except it was shown that the appellant had wilfully and knowingly made a false statement, or suppressed important facts. What was the effect of the proposal as compared with the present state of the law? A soldier conceived himself aggrieved, and might make a statement which was perfectly bonâ fide, and which he yet failed in entirely proving. On that, and in connection with it, the court martial had the power to declare, upon the evidence given to establish the appeal, that it was vexatious and groundless, and thereupon to sentence the appellant to two years' imprisonment. Now the law was so altered that the soldier might make any statement, and bring any charge he liked, so long as he did not bring himself within the provisions of this sub-section. There could not be any comparison between the one law and the other. He must say, however, that he did not think any advantage was gained by doing away with the intermediate Court of Appeal. Formerly, there was first an appeal to a regimental Court of Inquiry, and that very often, by doing substantial justice be- tween the two parties, prevented the appeal from going any further. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman would alter his Amendment so as to leave out the last words of the clause, which he could not at all see the use of, and return to the old form of procedure, he should be very glad to support him.

replied, that that Amendment properly belonged to Clause 43, and he should be happy to accept it, when they came to that. With reference to the suggestion of his hon. Friend (Sir William Cuninghame), that this punishment should be put in a clause by itself further on, he wanted to point out that this matter had been amply dealt with in Clause 27. It declared that—

"Every person subject to military law who … being an officer or soldier makes a false accusation against any other officer or soldier, knowing such accusation to be false," &c.

That seemed to him to cover every possible case, and it did not connect the right of complaint with the punishment, as was at present done by this clause. Anyone who committed this offence could also be tried under Clause 25, which provided that any officer who made any false statement, or made any fraudulent omission in any official document, should be subject to punishment. He believed it had also been the custom, where any officer brought a false charge against any other officer, to try him, under Clause 16, for character unbecoming the conduct of an officer and a gentleman. Again, he might be tried, under Clause 40, for conduct contrary to good order and discipline, though he admitted that these two last clauses did not deal so specifically with the offence as the first he mentioned. But Clause 27 did give the fullest power of punishment that it was possible for anyone to want; and he could only suppose that this sub-section was put in as a sort of sub-section to frighten officers from making complaints, which it would be certain to do very effectually. He should also wish to restore the old Court of Inquiry; for, under the old law, a soldier could not be punished for the first appeal, whereas now he could be so punished.

thought that Clause 25 would not cover this offence, for the words there were—

"In any report, return, muster roll, pay list, certificate, book, route, or other document made or signed by him, or of the contents of which it is his duty to ascertain the accuracy—(a.) knowingly makes or is privy to the making of any false or fradulent statement; or (b.) knowingly makes or is privy to the making of any omission with intent to defraud;"

while the words in the remaining subsection, "furnishing any false declaration," were clearly ejusdem generis. Clause 27 only covered the case of a false accusation, and did not deal with the case of a false statement, which was not an accusation; while, in Clause 42, the case of the wilful suppression of any material fact was provided for, which was not met by Clause 27.

would like to know the construction his hon. and learned Friend put upon the words "or knowingly and wilfully suppresses any material facts." There wore no guarding words following, as in the previous case, "affecting the character of any officer or soldier." Any man might have his own opinion, and it must, after all, be always matter of opinion what wore "material facts;" so that a man who did not mention a fact which he considered immaterial might be tried if that fact was considered by a higher authority to be material. It was a fair specimen of the way in which military offences were created in an Act like this.

replied, that his hon. and learned Friend would know the legal maxim, that suppressio veri might be the same thing as suggestio falsi. If this suppression did not amount to that, it would be no offence.

said, that it amounted to this—that in making a false statement would be included knowingly omitting anything which ought to have been stated. Without making a legal struggle about the matter, he wrould crave, in aid, therefore, the legal maxim which his hon. and learned Friend had quoted.

thought a fair instance would be, if a soldier said he saw the sergeant knock another soldier down, and suppressed the fact that he was at the time setting the barracks on fire. That was what he should call the suppression of a material fact, because, under those circumstances, the sergeant would be perfectly justified against using force, which otherwise would be wrong.

had no doubt that the Committee had been struck by the remark of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt) that the Select Committee carefully considered the wording of this paragraph. Under the circumstances, hon. Members would, no doubt, be surprised to hear that neither this paragraph, nor anything at all like it, was ever before the Committee. If hon. Members would turn to page 147 of the Report, they would see that Clause 44 contained only the first paragraph, and that no reference was made to the second paragraph now before the Committee.

begged to explain. What he said was that the Committee recommended the introduction of some such words.

was quite prepared for that explanation, and if hon. Members would turn to page 6 of the Report, they would be able to see what was the recommendation of the Committee. The words were—

"Care should be taken that complaints should not be visited with punishment under the general clause against conduct in breach of good order and military discipline."

That was the thing against which the Committee recommended that provision should be made. Perhaps the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Stanley) would consent to a change in the clause which would make a material difference, and, instead of the words "knowingly makes any false statement," would substitute the words "makes any statement knowing the same to be false." There was an important difference between these two forms of words, although it might not appear so. Complaints to Commanders-in-Chief were always the result of a long course of injustice, often springing from no overt act. An officer might be generally tyrannical; or he might take an objection to some one of his subordinates for some trifling thing, such as not taking his hat off to his wife, and this conduct might have gone on until the officer had to appeal for justice. It then became very difficult to say what was the truth, and what was not. An officer might knowingly make a false statement, believing it to be true; but if it was proved to be incorrect, then, under this clause, he might be tried for making the statement. The alteration he suggested would meet the case, although, at the same time, he Mould far rather see the whole clause struck out.

thought it would be very important if they could induce the Government to separate the threat of punishment from the clause giving the power of appeal. At present, it looked very much as if the Government were giving with one hand what they took away with the other. The evidence before the Select Committee went in the direction of showing how very necessary it was to guard this right of making-complaints from punishment. The Committee had evidence to show that soldiers wore undergoing imprisonment of 363 days, simply for making a complaint; and the recommendation of the Committee was not that care should be taken that a soldier should be punished for making a false statement, but it was, on the contrary, that care should be taken that a soldier should not be punished merely for making a complaint. This second clause had been introduced by the Government since the Bill was before the Select Committee, and never was before them at all. In fact, any part of their Report which dealt with the matter went directly against the introduction of the clause, for their intention was to guard the soldier against the fear of punishment in making appeals. It was absurd to say that an officer or soldier could not be punished under other clauses for making false statements, for there were many other clauses which provided for this offence. For instance, there was Clause 40, which provided that—

"Every person subject to military law who commits any of the following offences, that is to say, is guilty of any act, conduct, disorder, or neglect, to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, though not in this Act otherwise specified."

Certainly, an officer making a false statement affecting the character of any other officer or soldier could be tried under that clause if no other provision were made for the punishment of the offence. Besides, by inserting these words in the next clause, they did that which was very dangerous—they made it all important that the officers composing the court martial—though he believed they might have every desire to be fair—should believe the word of the officer against that of the soldier. This provision was a most dangerous one; it was never contemplated by the Select Committee; it was the scheme of the War Office, inserted since the Bill was discussed by the Select Committee, and he hoped the words would not be inserted now.

thought that they were wasting time in discussing this matter. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Parnell) did not give them very much of his assistance on the Committee, and it was hardly fair to say that this matter was not before them. It was precisely dealt with as explained by the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt). The question was discussed at great length, not with evidence, but with the assistance of all the military Members of the Committee. They heard the hon. and gallant General opposite (Sir Alexander Gordon), especially, a good many times on the subject; and it was finally agreed that the stringency of the words ought to be reduced, so that the soldier should no longer be able to think he was convicted for making a complaint when, really, he was convicted for making a false statement. The danger to be guarded against was that in making a statement the officer or soldier might take the opportunity of making false statements about other persons. After much discussion that conclusion was accepted, and, as he believed, the draftsman followed the very words suggested by the Chairman. Therefore, it was hardly fair, after several hours had been spent on this discussion, to say that these words were entirely new, and that they were put into the Bill by the War Office, when, in fact, they were put in as the result of the deliberations of the Committee.

pointed out that hon. Members generally could not be expected to know of that private discussion. They could only judge of what took place by what appeared in the Report of the Committee, and the evidence attached.

was very sorry to trouble the Committee again; but he could not allow the erroneous views of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Merewether) to go unchallenged. Before the Select Committee, it was pointed out by Sir Henry Thring that the right of the soldier to appeal under Article 13 was different to the right of the officer under Article 12. The soldier only had the right of appeal to the Commander-in-Chief in matters affecting his pay and clothing; while the officer had the right of appeal upon every subject under heaven. They were urged to put the soldier upon the same footing as the officer; and if hon. Members would look at the Report, they would see that was so. The Report said—["Oh, oh!"]—If hon. Members did not like to pay attention, they had better go out into the Lobby. The Report said, page 6—

"The matters dealt with by the 12th and 13th Articles of War under the head of 'Redress of Wrongs' appear to your Committee to require amendment. The 13th Article of War, which applies to non-commissioned officers and soldiers, is restricted to matters affecting their pay and clothing. Your Committee are of opinion that the opportunity to make complaints for the redress of wrongs should he afforded in as full a manner to non-commissioned officers and soldiers as to officers, and that whilst the act of preferring wilfully false charges should be constituted a specific, care should be taken that complaints should not be visited with punishment under the general clause against conduct in breach of good order and military discipline."

That showed the Committee merely wished the soldier to have as free liberty for making complaints as the officer had; but the Committee never thought of putting in the rider they were now considering, and it was the addition of some person after the Bill left the Committee.

simply rose to corroborate this statement, and to contradict the assertion that this matter received careful consideration. They only took the evidence of the Judge Advocate General, which was to the effect that he had only found one case in which wrong was done, and he examined 800 courts martial in a year.

doubted if the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) quite saw the effect of what he proposed? His objection to the introduction of this sub-section was that many other clauses would punish this offence, and they were referred to the 40th clause; but they heard a great deal about that clause when it was under discussion, and the objection to it was that it was so exceedingly vague in its nature that any offence might be tried under it. The result would be that, instead of trying the officer for making a false statement, knowing it to be false, as provided by this clause, they would, if these words were omitted, try the officer for making the false statement, without requiring the allegation that it was wilfully false. In fact, the charge could be as loose and vague as possible. Surely it would be better for the officer to be tried under this clause than under Clause 40, which put him at much greater disadvantage. It had been objected, again, that under this clause the court martial would unite two conflicting functions, and would settle at once the appeal and the punishment. That was the very thing the Committee desired to avoid. The case, cited to them by Mr. O'Dowd, of a soldier who, because he misconceived the functions of the court martial before which he was tried, and appealed, was sentenced for making a groundless and vexatious appeal, did seem very startling, and the Committee desired to avoid such a thing for the future. Yet some hon. Gentlemen were apparently so enamoured of the old law that they desired to retain it, although the Committee recommended the change.

begged to call the attention of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to an omission in the wording of the clause, which certainly required rectification. Under the clause, there were two offences provided for. The first was "knowingly making any false statement;" and then followed the governing words, "affecting the character of any officer or soldier." Then came the second offence—"or knowingly and wilfully suppresses any material facts." After those words, there surely ought to be inserted the same words as followed the enunciation of the first offence—"affecting the character of any officer or soldier," because, otherwise, the offence would not be limited, as the governing words at present only limited the first offence.

was sorry that the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Merewether) had commented on the absence from the meetings of the Select Committee of the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell), because he remembered at the time that hon. Member was appointed that he urged he was already upon another important Committee, and could devote very little time and atten- tion to this one. He was himself very anxious to see a full and thorough inquiry into the condition of their military law; but he was bound to say that, in his opinion, the Select Committee by no means carried out the clear intention of the House in appointing it. He fully admitted the great ability displayed by the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt) as Chairman of that Committee; but the very Report showed that they were hurried for time, and did not make the inquiry so full as it should have been. It was much to be regretted, also, that no changes were made in the Bill. It was no use bringing forward Amendments, for they were all rejected; and he was not quite sure that the discussion had not degenerated into a Party fight, which was much to be regretted for the sake of the Army. The Bill was by no means a good one, and it required great improvement. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members might grumble; but he should speak frankly, and he did say that he viewed with dissatisfaction and alarm the state of the Army. He did not blame the present Government alone for that; others must take their share of it. The two things which were essential in an Army were—first, that all officers and men should be convinced of the necessity for obedience; and, next, that they should all feel that their grievances would be listened to. He had never known any harm come of listening to the complaints of officers or soldiers, and, so far from preventing them, it would be a wise and prudent thing if a Court of Inquiry were ordered to meet once a month in every regiment to receive complaints. [Laughter.] Hon. Members might laugh; and, perhaps, at first they might have a great many complaints; but they would soon disappear, and then the officers and men would certainly be a great deal more contented. Had there not been cases in which officers had been told that their complaints were unfounded, and yet they had maintained their complaints in the face of the highest authorities? The House of Commons had almost unanimously resolved that the complaints of those officers were well founded. Yet, for five years, they had been trying to make themselves heard, while the authorities had been trying to put them down. If the authorities had had the power, would not some of those officers have been sent before a court martial, and was not one of them actually put upon half-pay? He was, of course, quite willing to punish the making of false statements; but that might be done by adding a few words to Clause 27, and then the Government would have got all they could possibly want.

said, the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir Henry Havelock) thought him very illogical for wanting this Proviso omitted; but he wished to point out to him that if that were done, the officer or soldier was not any more liable to the punishment. The intention of the Committee was to prevent the soldier from suffering any consequences from making a complaint, unless he knew it to be false; and it was perfectly useless to quote them in support of the additions which were never before them, and had been tacked on since. He did hope that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would re-consider his decision.

, as they were fighting about a thing of no importance, would venture to suggest that the views of the hon. and gallant Gentleman could be met consistently with the objects of the Bill. The second paragraphs of Clauses 42 and 43 might be omitted, subject to making provision a of Clause 27 apply, by the addition of a few words. If hon. Gentlemen really wished to have the clauses separated, he did not see why it should not be done, and he thought his suggestion would obviate their objections.

said, if the words—

"Knowingly makes any false statement affecting the character of any officer or soldier, or knowingly or "wilfully suppresses any material facts,"

were inserted in the first paragraph of Clause 27, after the words "knowing such accusation to be false," all that was desired would be obtained, because, of course, everybody wished false statements or wilful omissions of material facts to be punished.

thought anything coming from his hon. and learned Friend (Sir William Harcourt) was worthy of his attention, especially as he was Chairman of the Committee, and he would accept the suggestion, although he could not, technically, do at that moment what was advised. The matter could, however, be considered between that time and the Report, and be dealt with on the Report. The main point to be borne in mind was that the power of complaint was to be freely used, but not abused.

inquired what was the use of giving concessions with one hand, and taking them away with the other? He was sure some protection was required from unwarrantable complaints, and suggested the insertion of a Proviso which he thought would meet the case.

did not wish to divide the Committee unnecessarily, and was willing to agree to the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt). He did not wish to have connected the making of a false statement and the making of a complaint.

thought the Secretary of State for War had made a real concession, which obviated the necessity of any further delay.

, said he was perfectly willing to assent to what the hon. and learned Member for Oxford had proposed, provided the words in question were transferred to another place in the Bill.

was quite willing that everything should be transferred, except the word "complain," in Clause 27; but he did not want to connect the making of a complaint and punishment. He was quite willing that the making of a false complaint should come within the general principles of the Bill.

remarked, that if the words in question were left out the Committee could get on.

said, he had an Amendment on the Paper; but he did not intend to move it, in consequence of what the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt) had stated; but he would move that the last paragraph be omitted.

said, the hon. and gallant Member would be in Order in making that statement when his Amendment was reached; but there were others before it.

said, he did not intend to move his Amendment, on the understanding that the last portion of the clause was to be omitted. His Amendment related to frivolous complaints regarding the necessaries and provisions supplied to the soldier. That was a very common complaint in the Army, and was referred to in the Queen's Regulations, and he wished to call to it the attention of those who were in charge of the Bill.

said, he had an Amendment, in line 9, after "officer," to insert the words "or non-commissioned officer."

thought the hon. Member for Meath was not present during the earlier discussions, in which the same point arose, as to whether, in the Definition Clause, the word soldier included, for certain purposes, noncommissioned officer; and it was thought convenient to postpone the question until they came to the Definition Clause.

called attention to the words "every officer shall cause such complaint to be inquired into," and observed that the old Articles of War provided that there should be a Court of Inquiry, which he thought much bettor. An officer might inquire into the matter in many ways that would not be satisfactory to the soldier; and if the Secretary of State for War would restore in some way the old Courts of Inquiry, it would be a great advantage. He was quite content to move that the last paragraph be struck out.

said, he had an Amendment, in page 18, to leave out line 35. He had a very strong opinion that penal servitude was not a punishment that should be awardable by court martial. The nature of the court martial process was so summary, the number of offences against discipline was comparatively so limited, that he did not see any just or sufficient reason why the power of awarding penal servitude should be given to courts martial. He regretted that during the earlier stages of the Bill he was unable to be in his place. Otherwise, he should have raised the question at a time when he thought it would have been more properly raised—namely, upon any of the Clauses 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, and 17, where the power was given to courts martial to award penal servitude for certain offences; and he did not know how far the fact of the Committee having already given courts martial that power would prevent him from insisting upon the Amendment—from taking the opinion of the Committee upon the subject on the present occasion. In the clauses he had referred to, the power to award penal servitude was given for a variety of offences against discipline, and also for offences of a criminal character, such as embezzlement, and so forth. Again, in Clause 12, he found the power to award penal servitude as a punishment for desertion. He thought this was in excess of the old Army Regulations, and when formerly penal servitude could not be awarded for desertion. Then they found, in another clause, that penal servitude might be awarded for striking a superior officer; and there were a variety of offences and breaches of discipline, of a more or less serious character, for which the court martial was entitled to award penal servitude. He might mention that he had placed an Amendment on the Paper diminishing the term of penal servitude to be awarded from five to three years; but he found that he could not move that Amendment, because it would be contrary to some other Acts which regulated the power of all courts. He thought that, as a punishment for breaches of discipline, penal servitude ought really never to be insisted upon. He was of opinion that in every case a term of imprisonment for two years would be amply sufficient, and considered that all ordinary criminal offences were triable by ordinary courts, and not by courts martial. They had, by a preceding clause, excepted certain offences, such as high treason, murder, and manslaughter—altogether, five offences had been excepted by Clause 41 from the jurisdiction of courts martial—and he thought it would have been very much better if a soldier had been left, in a case of any other offence against the criminal law of the land, to the ordinary courts, where it was possible to bring him to trial before such courts. He would be in favour of giving courts martial the right of trying those offences in times of war; but he saw no sufficient reason why, in times of peace, soldiers should not in any case be brought before the ordinary court for such offences as theft, embezzlement of public money, and so forth; but, by the clause they had passed, these offences could be tried by courts martial. He was afraid it was rather late to raise the question then; but, in the view of raising it, he begged to move to omit line 35, which gave the courts martial power to award penal servitude. He did so on two grounds—firstly, that all offences against discipline might be sufficiently punished by sentence of imprisonment for two years; and, secondly, that offences against the ordinary law of the land should be tried by the ordinary courts, and not by courts martial.

said, that the hon. Gentleman summarized his objections to this part of the clause under two heads—first, he thought that those crimes would be sufficiently punished by two years' imprisonment; and, secondly, he thought that all ordinary crimes should be taken to the Civil Courts. Well, if the hon. Gentleman would look at the last sub-section of Clause 41, he would see that a person subject to military law, when in Her Majesty's Dominions, could be tried by any competent Civil Court for any offence for which he was not liable to military law; and in the majority of cases of theft, and so forth, the prisoners were tried by Civil Courts. "With regard to the latter proposal of the hon. Gentleman, he (Colonel Stanley) was afraid that he must join issue with him. The fact was this—if it had been possible to deal sufficiently with crimes by sentences of imprisonment only, there would have been no man more willing to have made that proposal than himself; but after careful examination, and the best information he could procure, and after consultation with his Colleagues, who helped him in framing this Bill, he came to the conclusion that it was impossible to leave out the sentence of penal servitude, and that, in certain cases and under certain circumstances, sentences of imprisonment would not suffice. He believed that was undoubtedly the case in India some years ago. Imprisonment seemed to produce no effect whatever in checking the gross cases—of insubordination, striking officers, and so forth; but when it was directed by General Napier that penal servitude should be more often enforced, that produced an almost entire cessation of these crimes. The Committee had considered this matter in connection with other things; and though they regretted to see penal servitude inflicted, in his opinion it was necessary to retain it in the clause.

could confirm what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had said as to what took place in India, and he earnestly urged the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) not to press his Amendment. There were many parts of the Bill to which he objected; but now they had got upon a clause in which he was very happy to say that he agreed with the Secretary of State for War. In his own regiment, two years ago, an officer was sentenced to penal servitude, and the same thing had occurred in many instances with regard to soldiers. Even the punishment of death had been resorted to in extreme cases.

objected to this clause on a different ground. Even assuming it was right to give to courts martial power to sentence to penal servitude in such cases, there was no sufficient reason for limiting the minimum term to five years. There might have been reasons for fixing that minimum at the time it was done, because he believed that at that time the cost of the prisons fell upon the counties, and the expense of keeping the men in penal servitude fell upon the Consolidated Fund; and the Government, in order to limit the amount payable out of the general taxes of the country, fixed that limit. But now that all prisons were supported by the State the reason failed.

called the hon. and learned Member to Order, stating that his observations related to a later Amendment.

said, that the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) expressed a doubt as to whether, under the Mutiny Act, a soldier who deserted, or attempted to desert, could be sentenced to penal servitude. He would rather refer him to the 15th clause of the Mutiny Act, which provided that any person who should desert, or attempt to desert, should suffer death, penal servitude, or not exceeding two years' imprisonment, as by court martial awarded. The general rule had been that when a soldier had been tried three or four times by a garrison court martial he was then tried by a general court martial, with the view of punishing with penal servitude; and he had seen a soldier sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment under the old Transportation Act for a case of desertion.

did not wish to take a Division, because he was sensible that the principle of the Amendment would not be favourably entertained at this stage of the Bill. He was sorry he was not able to raise the question at an earlier stage, when it would have been more properly raised. He begged to withdraw the Amendment.

said, he was not quite sure whether there could really be introduced into the Bill a provision limiting penal servitude to three years instead of five. The law governing the duration of sentence of penal servitude was very explicit upon this point; but he had heard that it was possible for an Act of Parliament to do anything, and it was quite possible that they might change the present law by means of the alteration which was suggested by his Amendment. He would be very glad if one of the hon. and learned Gentlemen on the front Opposition Bench could have been present on this occasion to give them the assistance which they had been so kind as to give all along in this matter, because he thought this was a question for the lawyer. If they could really do it, he should like to move an Amendment which stood in his name—namely, in page 18, line 35, to leave out the word "five," in order to insert the word "three."

hoped the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Parnell) would not press that Amendment, for this reason—they heard last night that the Penal Servitude Commissioners were going to report very shortly. It was one of the special things that he was always anxious that the Commissioners should ascertain as to the difference between the effect of penal servitude and the effect of imprisonment; and he had never been able to see why a court should not have the power to pass a sentence of penal servitude for loss than five years. That had always been a great mystery to him. Of course he said nothing, although he might know a great deal, as to the wishes or the feelings of the Penal Servitude Commissioners; but the offer he made to the hon. Member for Meath was this—if the Penal Servitude Commissioners reported in favour of the reduction of the term of penal servitude from five years to three years, he would immediately adopt it, and he thought he could undertake that the military and naval authorities would do the same. That being so, and the Bill being a very long one, he would suggest that they need not waste any time in discussing the point then.

said, it occurred to him, after the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, that they might leave out all reference to the term of penal servitude from this clause, because, manifestly, that term would be governed by the general Acts regulating the sentence which might be imposed. For instance, as the Acts at present stood, the courts martial could not award a less sentence than five years; therefore, it appeared to him to be entirely unnecessary to introduce the term into this Bill. Even supposing the Government decided to alter the term of penal servitude to three years, a general Act would have to be passed for the purpose.

said, that what he stated was this—that if the Commissioners reported that the minimum term of penal servitude should be less than five years, he would undertake, on behalf of his right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for War, that it should be put into the Bill before it became law.

was very glad to hear what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. He did not, however, see any objection to the proposal of the hon. Member for Meath—namely, to leave out the limit from this clause.

, in moving, as an Amendment, in page 18, line 36, to leave out "with or," explained that its object was to limit the term of imprisonment with hard labour to one year; and he hoped the Committee would agree with in thinking that a sentence of two years' hard labour was really too much for a man to undergo, unless he happened to be exceptionally strong. Hard labour in the military prisons was very different from that in the convict establishments, and was performed in the following manner:—A man stood in the middle of the house where the labour was done, turning a crank or winding up a weight; he was stripped, except as to his trousers; there was water running down the walls of the room in order to keep it cool, the labour being so intense; and this might go on for ten hours at a time. It would be seen that this was lab our of no ordinary character, and of a kind that no man ought to be called upon to perform for any considerable time; for, oven if he should happen to live through his sentence, he would be utterly broken down for life. He thought that, in view of the large amount of imprisonment which unfortunately appeared to be necessary in the Army, care should be taken to see that the constitutions of our soldiers wore not injured by sentences of imprisonment thoughtlessly inflicted by courts martial who did not fully understand the consequences of their acts, and that they should draw a distinction between the criminal classes and the soldiers of the Army. He, therefore, begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

said, the description of the hard labour in the prisons, as given by the hon. Member, was hardly correct. There was no doubt whatever that two years' imprisonment with hard labour was a very hard sentence; but, at the same time, it was one that was very seldom given. The amount of hard labour performed in military prisons became less and less, until the offender reached the highest class; and the Committee must not think that people were kept working at the crank for a period of two years. He hoped the Committee would allow the words to stand in the Bill.

said, he was not aware how the limitations and precautions referred to by the Secretary of State for the Home Department as having been made against the severity of hard labour could be brought to bear in the case of India. Many parts of the Act appeared at variance with the Indian system, and he was afraid that the new clause might have the effect of punishing soldiers in a hot climate more severely than they were punished in a cold one.

agreed with the hon. and gallant Member that there should be some security against this; and as the clause in that respect did not seem to be sufficiently clear, he would have the matter looked into.

pointed out to the Committee that the general labour in military prisons was very much harder than in the convict establishments, and that the diet was not nearly so good. He wished to bring to the notice of the Committee the fact that the scale of diet had been very considerably reduced since the Home Secretary came into Office. The scales of diet recommended by the Committee were considerably lower than those in force in many of the prisons throughout the country. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman would know that the scales in force throughout the country were not entirely uniform in their character, and that they varied very much according to locality in England, Ireland, and Scotland; at the same time, the scales recommended by the Committee appointed to consider this subject were very much lower than those adopted in other prisons. He had visited one of the prisons recently, and found that they had adopted a higher dietary scale than the one sanctioned by the right hon. Gentleman, which they evidently considered too low. He was not prepared at that moment to go into the scales, and, therefore, only mentioned the matter incidentally as one which might be open to correction; but his strong opinion was that the scales in question were very inferior to those in force in convict establishments. Under such circumstances, therefore, it was impossible that a man should undergo a period of two years' imprisonment with hard labour without suffering in health and being incapacitated from doing useful work when he came out of prison. Our soldiers should not be submitted to treatment of that kind; and if it was desired to get any good out of a man, he should not be subjected to punishment which would make him useless afterwards. Although he did not think himself justified in taking a Division, he should record a very strong protest against the system of giving soldiers in the Army long terms of hard labour, more especially for offences against discipline. There was evidence that soldiers had been sentenced to cumulative sentences amounting to five years; but that had been done away with. Still, practically, a soldier might be sentenced to cumulative sentences under this Act up to five years, and there was little doubt that courts martial would adopt that practice in future.

asked the Secretary of State for War, whether it was the intention of the military authorities to assimilate the diet and punishment in military prisons to those which existed in convict and other prisons throughout the country? He had heard it over and over again stated that a soldier going out from a term of hard labour was utterly unfitted to perform regimental duties for a length of time. It was well known that the dietary scale was very much lower in the military prisons than that in use in ordinary prisons, and the fact had been brought before the House several times during the last few years. The hon. Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin) had, three years ago, brought a case under the notice of the House which had excited a great deal of attention and horror.

said, when the Bill passed, it was the intention to take this very point into consideration; that was one reason why he had asked his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department to put his name on the back of the Bill.

said, the new scale of diet had proved to be all that could be desired, and that the standard of health continued to be highly satisfactory in the military prisons. He did not think that the power to sentence to hard labour should be withdrawn.

desired to know if the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just spoken wished the Committee to understand that the dietary in military prisons was equal to that in ordinary convict establishments, or that the hard labour imposed in them was the same as in the latter? because it was well known that such was not the case.

wished to point out that the present discussion should relate to the future and not to the past. As far as circumstances would admit, it was the intention to assimilate both the diet and hard labour in military and other prisons.

said, a matter had been pressed upon his attention by a military correspondent, about which he desired to ask the question, whether, in future, military delinquents would be kept separate from the civil criminal class?

said, it was absolutely impossible to allot a separate part of a prison to military prisoners; but, as far as possible, they would be kept distinct from ordinary prisoners.

suggested that the Bill might, perhaps, remain as it was, inasmuch as the clause spoke of imprisonment "with or without hard labour." He wished to point out that if the power of giving sentences of two years, with or without hard labour, was taken away, the courts martial might be found to incline to the infliction of terms of penal servitude. Everything, however, would depend upon the formation of the court martial, which, in his opinion, ought to be radically changed.

assured the Committee that officers of the Army were not predisposed to give long terms of imprisonment; quite the reverse. There was a strong objection to losing the services of soldiers from their regiments, which, in their absence, would have to be performed by other men. Long sentences were avoided, whenever it was possible, especially in Cavalry and Artillery, in which services the imprisonment of the bad entailed so much extra duty on the good soldiers, and it was most unusual to give more than one year's imprisonment. He wished that hon. Members opposite would not constantly imply that the officers of the Army were a set of military tyrants. The officers of the Army took the greatest interest in the welfare of the soldiers, and far more so in the English Service than in any Army in Europe.

assured the hon. and gallant Member for Brighton (General Shute) that he had the highest opinion of the officers of the Army generally, and believed many of them to be of high character, certainly not men disposed to act in an unjust or cruel manner; but he was bound to tell the hon. and gallant Member that that tribute was not universally paid to the consideration and kindness of military officers. Unfortunately, cases could be referred to of officers exercising their powers in a manner detrimental to the Service and unjust to individual soldiers. The Paper which he held in his hand, for instance, stated that a man had received 336 days' imprisonment in an Indian military prison, simply for making a complaint against his commanding officer to the Commander-in-Chief in a respectfully-worded letter. At the same time, he wished to say that he had not risen for the purpose of supporting the Amendment before the Committee; and, inasmuch as the Bill gave a discretionary power to courts martial, he thought the clause might be fairly allowed to remain in its present form. However, in granting great powers to officers, he thought that those powers should be surrounded by safeguards.

drew attention to the new punishment of imprisonment to be inflicted upon officers of the Army, to which he felt the strongest objection, inasmuch as he did not think it at all fitted to an officer who had misdemeaned himself. Imprisonment, he found, was a substitute for corporal punishment in the case of soldiers, and he, therefore, strongly objected to this application of it to the military offences of officers. If hon. Members would refer to the Defining Clause of the Bill, they would find that corporal punishment might be awarded to soldiers in lieu of imprisonment. He therefore appealed to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, with the hope that some modification might be introduced throughout the Bill to do away with the imprisonment of officers. He quite admitted that imprisonment must be awarded for many acts done by officers in India.

hoped that the Committee would accept him as the representative of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor), on whose behalf he begged to express regret that he should be absent from the House and the performance of his duty, in moving, as an Amendment, to leave out from line 5, page 19, the words "or corporal punishment, subject as in this Act mentioned." In doing this, he was aware that he would be repeating to the Committee an old story and an old complaint. But the complaint and the defence were equally old, and had begun many years ago. In moving the omission of the words "corporal punishment," he thought he might almost as well have asked to substitute the word "torture." A few years ago, an old punishment for almost every act was death, and in those days hon. Members, no doubt, held up to scorn any endeavour to alter that bloody and ferocious system; and it was thought, no doubt honestly and conscientiously, that to take away that violent sanction would be to upset the framework of society. But some of their Predecessors had seen the necessity of repealing and altering that state of things; they were persistent and successful, and he (Mr. Hopwood), and other hon. Members who entertained the same opinions upon this subject, hoped to be as persistent and as successful in the work of repealing the law which authorized the infliction of corporal punishment upon the soldiers in the Army. In 1811 the number of lashes which might be inflicted was unlimited, and it was sometimes measured by the extent to which the unhappy offender could hold out; but, at that time, some merciful person, in spite of terrible warnings as to the mischief that might ensue, proposed that it should not exceed 300. Shortly after this the number was limited to 200 lashes. Lastly, the hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. Otway) succeeded in inducing the House of Commons to carry the abolition of this punishment. But the Government of the day, and it happened to be the Representatives of the same Party now in power, clung to the old notion. It was not till the year 1868 that the clause was adopted as it now stood in the annual Mutiny Bill, and which was mainly incorporated in the Bill now before the House. Such was the history of the strenuous endeavours by which, in spite of the strongest official opposition, in spite of great prejudice, in spite of alarming appeals and endeavours to terrify nervous people, the salutary law was enacted by which at the present moment it was unlawful, in time of peace and on land, to inflict upon any soldier the punishment of the lash. But there was a modification of that law, and the punishment might still be inflicted in time of peace on active service and on board ships not commissioned by Her Majesty; and there was unfortunate evidence that the exceptions in the Act were being made use of most readily by some people wedded to the old state of things. The House had just learned that three troopers of Her Majesty's First Dragoon Guards on the way to the Cape had been subjected to this most severe punishment, which might, unhappily, be still inflicted on board ships not commissioned by Her Majesty; and the opportunity of time and place seemed to have suggested themselves to the officer in command, who accordingly had these men triced up and lashed. As the men were on board ship, they could not possibly desert. What on earth, then, could be the necessity for resorting to this abominable and degrading punishment? He understood that they were guilty of gross insubordination—and gross insubordination they might be guilty of on land, but they could not be flogged for it; therefore, he said that those who had chosen that punishment merely from the accident that gallant men were being carried from this country to serve Her Majesty in another place had made a gross mistake, which they would have done better to avoid. Hon. Members ought to endeavour to remove this blot and stigma from the British Army and Navy. He now turned to the evidence of some of the military men who spoke on the occasion of the debate, after which the House of Commons abolished for ever this punishment in time of peace and on land. Captain Vivian supplied an illustration in support of the hon. Member who moved the abolition of the punishment by saying that—

"Corporal punishment was not inflicted in the Household Cavalry regiments, but that was owing to the fact that it was considered the greatest disgrace that could happen to a man to be turned out of his regiment. They should, therefore, endeavour to teach the whole Army that it was a glory to belong to the Profession, and a disgrace to be driven from it."

Glory!—to belong to a profession in which every man might, under some circumstances, be subjected to this disgraceful punishment! It was made a crime to flog an ancient Roman, and he could not see why the Committee should not make a similar protection for the backs of Englishmen, and not allow them to be whipped as one would whip a dog. The other military testimony went to show that corporal punishment deterred persons from entering the Army who would otherwise have enlisted, and that it was clear that flogging could be done away with; because, in 1811, when the number of lashes was first restricted, the men were worse in point of character than at the present time. Again, it had been shown that its retention was not necessary to enforce the authority of the non-commissioned officers, who, in the case of one battalion, on being asked whether they thought that flogging was necessary to maintain their authority, had one and all replied that they "should be sorry to maintain it at that price." It would have been well if one of the infernal implements used for the infliction of this punishment could have been brought into the House for the inspection of all hon. Members, some of whom, he feared, through seeing them used, had to a certain extent come to look upon them as necessary. He wondered the right hon. and gallant Gentleman did not produce one—to show how soft it was, and speak of it as not conveying torture. He (Mr. Hopwood) doubted whether this implement had been properly described in legislative enactments. As far as he had learned, however, with one stroke it produced nine cuts; and, besides, its nine lashes were furnished with a number of knots, for the sake of producing the largest amount of human suffering that could be inflicted for the purposes of this Act of Parliament. The labours of some ingenious artist had clearly been expended in the production of this fearful instrument, the use of which, if they still claimed to be men of tenderness and generous feeling towards their fellow-creatures, should be at once abolished. He was not aware that medical men could estimate suffering better than others; but they could give better expression to it, and this was the description given by medical authority—

"As to the strokes, we can only describe them to be combined—bruising, cutting, and tearing of the most horrible description; and, familiar as we are with surgical operations before the days of chloroform, we are obliged to conclude that not the most serious and protracted operations, including amputation, tooth-drawing, or all put together, were ever so painful as flogging."

Again, the testimony of Mr. Abernethy was that—

"One of the severest operations of surgery is for stone, which, when skilfully performed, is not upon the average of more than a few minutes duration. In flogging every lash is, perhaps, equal to the incision through the skin in the operation for stone; and, further, no surgeon could answer for the ultimate or immediate consequences of this species of corporal punishment."

He had now proved, upon the highest authority, that he was correct in describing this punishment as torture. Supposing it was proposed to put into the Act the words, "or torture by raising the skin by pincers, or by raising weals or blisters by hot irons," would anyone fail to recoil from the proposal as one to be avoided with horror? Yet such was represented, in gentlemanly words, to be "corporal punishment." The punishment of the lash produced infinite and horrible torture; one skin might bear its effect, and one constitution endure it, but not another; the extremest pain must be felt by the sensitive patient; and yet the House was about to pass the enactment that corporal punishment was to be renewed, in the shape of torture by the lash, by tearing the skin, and by producing suffering-equal to that endured under the most terrible surgical operations before the use of anæsthetics. He contended that, under no circumstances, should the House be a party to such a thing, and he equally resisted the application of this punishment to all those cases and situations described in the present Act. Apologizing for the length at which he had spoken, but for which his own arguments and the desire to represent his absent Friend would be his excuse, he moved that the words, "or corporal punishment," down to the end of line 5, be omitted from the clause.

said, that the Committee had under its consideration one of the most serious punishments that could be inflicted under the Act; and he hoped that the Committee would endeavour, as far as possible, to clear away from their minds all matters except those strictly relevant to the Bill. What the Committee had to consider was whether, in the circumstances of the present day, this punishment should be retained. Had he, upon any evidence or otherwise, been able to conclude that the time had arrived when this punishment could be omitted, he should at once have thought it his duty to have framed the Bill accordingly, and to have submitted it in that form to Parliament. But having regard to the circumstances under which the Service had to be carried on, and to the nature of the crimes occasionally arising under the discipline of the Service, he had not found himself enabled to eliminate corporal punishment from the Bill. He trusted the Committee would, therefore, pause before adopting the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood). He could not question the feeling with which that hon. and learned Member had just addressed the Committee. No doubt, he entertained very strong opinions upon the subject; but when he spoke of the "careful contrivance of an instrument for producing the largest amount of personal suffering," he (Colonel Stanley) was bound to say that he differed entirely from the hon. and learned Member's conclusions. With regard to the medical opinions cited, he would like to have the date of those opinions, and to know whether they were expressed at a time when corporal punishment could be extended to 800 or 1,000 lashes? So far as he had heard, officers were always reluctant to inflict this punishment, except in the gravest instances, or when it was absolutely necessary to make an example and to save further crime. But, fenced about as it was with limitations which Parliament had imposed, he did not think that the discipline of the Army could be maintained by its removal, without leaving an hiatus in the punishment to be inflicted, which would oblige the authorities to resort to even more severe measures than corporal punishment. It would be observed that corporal punishment was now limited to circumstances under which it was difficult or impossible to inflict imprisonment. As to the infliction of corporal punishment on board ships, the Committee would understand that the limitation, in Sub-section 7, of ships not in commission by Her Majesty, was merely put in to cover the case of ships in the merchant service, for the reason that on board ships bearing the pennant the provision of the Mutiny Act was temporarily suspended, and discipline carried on under the Naval Discipline Act. He desired to add that his hon. Friends and the right hon. Gentleman who had considered this Bill had also carefully considered the subject of corporal punishment; and they had not considered it their duty to Parliament to recommend that it should be eliminated from the measure, because they felt that if this had been done, resort would be had, in many cases, especially on active service, to a more severe penalty, and because they felt that, wherever imprisonment could not be given, some punishment that could be promptly inflicted was absolutely necessary. They had endeavoured to fence round the punishment with every possible safeguard. He, therefore, hoped the Committee would not agree to the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport.

said, he had hoped that some hon. Member connected with the Military Profession, of whom he saw several in the House, would have risen at once to say that he believed the British soldier worthy of being placed on the same footing, as regarded punishment, with the soldiers of every other State in Europe, and that he should be freed from the disgrace and torture of the lash. Looking round him, he saw many officers who held, or who had held, high positions in the Army; and he would ask them whether they did not think that, as in the Armies of Prance, Germany, and Italy, discipline was admirably maintained without having recourse to flogging, it might not also be maintained in the Army of this country without so brutal and degrading a punishment? He was not sure whether he was libelling the Russian Army, when he said that he believed Russia only shared with England the use of the knout for the purpose of preserving discipline among her troops. For his own part, he begged to protest in the strongest terms against the continuance of flogging, and he did so the more especially, because his own countrymen contributed a large quota to the Army. To those who contended that the infliction of physical pain and torture was necessary to keep the men in order, he would reply that, if that was really the case, some more decent system of physical punishment than the lash ought to be adopted. The thumb-screw would be found quite as efficient for the purpose. Why, he would ask, was not it used, instead of the cat-o'-nine-tails? "Why should the Scavenger's Daughter be allowed to remain idle in the Tower of London, if hon. Members were so enamoured of a system of physical torture? Was it not a source of shame and indignation to them that it should be proclaimed to the world that England stood in need of the infamous lash to keep her soldiers out of trouble? The flag of France had been planted by the Armies of France on the ramparts of almost every city in Europe. It had been carried in triumph to Leipsic, and to Moscow, and to Berlin. [Laughter.] Hon. and gallant Gentlemen in that House might laugh at the record, and England, it must be admitted, had done great things in Ashantee and Abyssinia; but she had not, as France had, borne her arms victorious over the Continent of Europe, and that without inflicting the disgrace of the lash upon her soldiers. The British Army was composed, no one could deny it, of brave men. The personal courage of the British soldier had never been impugned. It had been proved upon many fields. Why, then, should the Committee hesitate to raise the British soldier to an equality with the soldiers of France? Let them give up this emblem of a barbaric age, when the soldier was scourged, not unfrequently, until lie reached the battle-field. In the name of the British soldier, in the name of common humanity, in the name of the country which was proud of its civilization, he begged of hon. and gallant Gentlemen, some of whom might to-morrow or the next day have to lead their men to the cannon's mouth, to wipe away the stain which the use of a brutal instrument of torture cast upon our Military Code.

said, he had seen the hon. and learned Member for Louth (Mr. Sullivan) get up on many occasions in that House, and had heard him denounce its Members in the same unmeasured language in which he had thought fit to indulge on the present occasion. He would, however, venture to remind the hon. and learned Gentleman of the desirability of taking a little more pains to know something of the business he was talking about than he seemed to have done with regard to the question of flogging in the Army. It was clear that the hon. and learned Gentleman knew nothing about the subject, and he ought to be aware that there was not a Member of the House who was not just as anxious that the punishment of flogging in the Army should be done away with, if that could possibly be done without injury to the Service. There was no man in that House who would desire to see a single soldier flogged; but it was necessary to look a great deal further than that. The hon. and learned Gentleman would make it appear that a soldier might absolutely be flogged in this country. He had drawn no distinction, and had not discriminated in any way as to the real state of the case. He ought, however, to have been aware, and must have been aware, of the fact that soldiers were not flogged in this country; and if he knew it, he ought not to have spoken as he had done. Sentimental speeches, such as that which the hon. and learned Gentleman had just delivered, scarcely did him any credit, he thought. He should not, however, have risen to reply to that speech, but that he did not like to remain silent when he heard the character of the officers of our Army being taken away in that sort of manner. No one, he was sure, felt more kindly disposed towards our soldiers than the officers by whom they were commanded; and it was only in cases of absolute necessity, on board ship, or in the field, that the lash was resorted to. He felt certain, he might add, that the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan), would not rise in his place and tell the Committee that there were, in his opinion, no occasions when flogging was necessary for the maintenance of discipline.

said, he had no doubt that when that House provided the means by which the Army might be made a more attractive profession to a higher class of men, and the condition of the soldier improved, flogging might be dispensed with without detriment to the Service. Even under the present system, he must admit that there were occasions when the lash was improperly applied, and he had seen the men in nearly three regiments disqualified for service in consequence. There were, however, some cases in which, he regretted to think, it was necessary to have recourse to corporal punishment; although, as he said, he believed it might be done away with under an improved system. He need not say that he would have great pleasure in supporting any measure which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War might bring forward calculated to have that object.

expressed his strong objection to the brutal manner in which the punishment of flogging was sometimes inflicted on board ship. He had himself witnessed cases, he might add, of flogging for petty theft, and half the number of lashes awarded had to be remitted, because the men could not endure the full number. He would support the Amendment, believing that the use of the lash might be dispensed with in the English, as it was in the French and German, and other Continental Armies.

said, he congratulated himself on having performed a miracle, for he had succeeded in making the dumb speak. It was very evident, from what had occurred in the course of the present discussion, that someone's withers were wrung, for the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had not found himself able to preserve silence any longer; and he (Mr. Sullivan) was glad that he had spoken, in order that the country might know what the opinions of military men were about the practice of the knout. The hon. and gallant Baronet, who, he believed, was a post colonel, was good enough to say that he (Mr. Sullivan) had denounced hon. Members of that House; but what he denounced was propositions made in that House, and hon. Members who hesitated to say what they thought on a subject upon which, in his opinion, they were called upon to speak, for he could not help regarding it as discreditable to the military Members of the House that they should allow the Vote to pass in silence. He (Mr. Sullivan) was as free to to speak as the hon. and gallant Baronet, and he would tell him that he was not a bit afraid to get up in his place and to give expression to that opinion. With no wish in the world to press the matter to greater length than fair argument would admit, he would venture to tell the hon. and gallant Member that the question which was raised by the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend beside him (Mr. Hopwood) was a more serious one than they seemed to suppose. There were some hon. Members, at all events, who felt most keenly and deeply upon the question of the preservation of the punishment of the knout. Why, he would ask, should a law be kept upon the Statute Book, by which it was proclaimed that the British soldier ceased to be a Briton because he did not happen to be staying within the limits of these Islands? Let the advocates of the lash come forward and answer the arguments which had been urged against it. He had succeeded in bringing one of them out, and he hoped a few more of them would favour the Committee with their views on the subject. Let there be no silent voting on their part. He ventured to say he knew more about the matter than the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) seemed to suppose. He also felt more about it than the hon. and gallant Gentleman appeared to do. He had, he might say, almost seen the horrors of the lash. It was barely a few years ago that reporters who had been in his own establishment in the City of Dublin returned with their faces spattered with the blood and flesh of those unfortunate soldiers who were the victims of this degrading punishment. ["Oh, oh!"] He rejoiced to find that the House of Commons shuddered at the fact, and that they were ashamed of it. That it was a fact there could be no doubt, because it was borne testimony to by the Press of Dublin at the time; and to the horror of it no greater tribute could be paid than the ebullition of feeling to which the mention of it had just given rise. If any hon. Member thought he exaggerated the story, let the Government, in whose presence he had stated that disgraceful fact, get up and contradict him. If his statement were true, as it most undoubtedly was, could the Committee wonder that he should feel deeply and keenly on the subject? He had no seat in the House when the circumstance occurred; but he had then made a vow that if ever he did succeed in obtaining a seat in it, he would tell the military men in it how disgraceful it was that they should seek to perpetuate this dreadful indignity inflicted on the British soldier.

said, that whatever might be the opinions which hon. Members entertained on the subject of flogging in the Army, he did not think those who advocated the abolition of corporal punishment would serve the cause which they professed to have at heart by the course which they had taken on the present occasion. For his own part, he hoped and believed he was as much influenced by feelings of humanity as any hon. Member who desired to have flogging done away with; but he also hoped that he had sense enough to see that, irrespective of the question of the expediency of maintaining it in the Army, the subject was not at all to be approached by the same arguments as it was years ago, when the brutal punishment of the lash was the normal punishment of our Criminal Code. He had never been able to go with his hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) in his desire to abolish flogging in the case of such offenders as wife-beaters and garotters. It was, in his opinion, nonsense, and nothing but nonsense, for hon. Members to indulge in such talk as he had heard about the effect of the cat-o'-nine-tails, in the infliction of some 25 or 50 lashes, which were every week inflicted in our prisons in all parts of England, in the same way as they were inflicted upon the soldier, and which were constantly witnessed and described by the reporters of the newspapers, who never stated that they had been spattered by the blood or flesh of any of the victims. Very brutal scenes had, no doubt, been enacted in past times; but his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Sullivan) seemed to be carried away by his feelings far beyond the extent which the real state of the case would justify, and to forget that the horrors of which he complained had long since been done away with. The truth of the matter was that the punishment of flogging in the Army had been abolished for years, except when a soldier was being conveyed on board a ship not belonging to the Fleet, and where there were no means of preserving discipline such as existed on board a man-of-war, or when troops were in the field. In those cases, an offender might be subjected to a limited number of lashes with a cat-o'-nine-tails. What hon. Member, he would ask, was not aware that some years ago it was actually unsafe to walk in the streets of London? Who did not recollect the case of an hon. and respected Gentleman who sat on his own side of the House, and who was seized by a garotter as he was walking through Pall Mall and very nearly strangled? It was in consequence of that offence that the punishment of flogging with a cat-o'-nine-tails to the extent of 25 or 50 lashes was adopted in regard to the perpetrators of such outrages, with the result that the streets of London shortly became safe to walk in again. He had never felt a greater sense of shame at the conduct of his fellow-countrymen than during the time of which he was speaking, when many persons thought it was necessary to carry arms in the streets for the purpose of protecting oneself against those assaults. He recollected very well a conversation which took place among hon. Members as to the best mode of protection, and that one very shrewd old gentleman had provided himself with a weapon in the shape of two knives, admirably adapted to the purpose of freeing himself from the grasp of a garotter, if he should happen to be attacked by one. The law was not then strong enough to protect peaceful citizens, and, as he had said, it was only by having recourse to flogging that garotting was put down. ["No, no!"] He at once admitted that any hon. Member had a right to form his own opinion as to the causes which had led to the disappearance of that offence; but his own belief was that it had been extinguished by the specific infliction of a particular form of punishment—and that was the use of the cat-o'-nine-tails. Everybody, he might add, was aware that in Russia the knout was the normal mode of punishing criminals, and he believed that even in the German Army the use of the cane was not unknown. There was, it was perfectly true, no flogging in France; but then there were other punishments inflicted there, which produced physical torture quite as much open to objection as that which was caused by the lash. In America, it had been seriously proposed to employ electricity as a means of producing physical torture; but if electricity were introduced for the purpose into this country, we should all start back with horror. He was opposed to the infliction of flogging under almost all circumstances; but he could not, in his conscience, believe that it was wrong to give to commanding officers the power of inflicting 50 lashes in the circumstances provided for in the Bill—namely, when the Army was in the field, or troops were being conveyed on board ship; and he could not, therefore, vote for the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stockport.

said, the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had stated so ably and so clearly the views which he himself entertained on the question under discussion, that he should not have thought it necessary to rise to address the Committee on the present occasion, were it not for the insinuation which had been thrown out in the course of the discussion, that the military Members of the House shrank from expressing their opinion as to the expediency of maintaining the punishment of flogging in the Army. Now, that was an insinuation which he, for one, begged entirely to repudiate. He advocated the retention of corporal punishment in the case of our soldiers to the limited extent to which it now existed, and he did so because he valued the life of the British soldier. If flogging were done away with when troops were in the field, it would be necessary to have recourse to shooting the men, because, in marching across an enemy's country and among a peaceful population, they would, in many instances, be guilty of offences which no fear of imprisonment would prevent them from committing. Shooting was the mode of punishment adopted in the French Army, and the punishment was frequently inflicted in time of peace; but he had no wish to see the lives of our soldiers sacrificed in that way; but he was satisfied that corporal punishment was necessary when troops were in the field, for it was when marching through an enemy's country that they were most liable to commit all sorts of crime.

said, the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had just executed one of the most extraordinary flank marches he had ever witnessed in the whole course of his expe- rience. It was only last year, when the Mutiny Bill was being discussed, that the hon. Gentleman, when inviting himself and some other hon. Members to desist from their opposition to the clause which imposed the punishment of flogging, said that if the Bill which the Government promised to introduce this year, based upon the recommendations of the Select Committee which sat upon the subject, did not provide for the abolition of that punishment, he would support them in dividing against every lash of the 50 lashes. That was the statement which was made by the hon. Gentleman, with a horror which was quite natural to him at the idea of any approach to cruelty. The hon. Gentleman had absolutely invited him, 12 months ago, to abstain from a course of obstruction, and that he would on a future occasion have his most strenuous support; and yet the hon. Member was now in favour of the continuance of what he admitted to be a most brutal and degrading punishment. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had asked what was the date at which the medical opinions which had been quoted by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) had been expressed, and seemed to have forgotten that the pain of flogging ceased after the first 40 or 50 lashes, when the nerves affected were destroyed by the punishment, and, therefore, the calculation was not really affected by any question as to the number of lashes. The severe effects which flogging produced on the constitutions of those who had, unfortunately, been subjected to it, were perfectly well known. The hon. Member for Galway, he might add, was, in his opinion, somewhat unhappy in the comparison which he kept drawing throughout his speech between the soldiers of the British Army and wife-beaters and garotters. The hon. Member, too, seemed to forget that at the time to which he had alluded, when he was compelled to walk about the streets of London with a revolver in his pocket, the people of Ireland were obliged to suffer under the operation of the Peace Preservation Act. He was quite prepared to admit that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would not like to see the punishment of flogging inflicted on a soldier, except under very exceptional circumstances; but many commanding officers were not so reluctant to avail themselves of the power which the Bill would give them, and it was absurd to contend that it was in any way necessary for the maintenance of discipline. Soldiers did not go into the Army to be flogged; they went into it to be shot; and he was sure that if the option were given them they would, at least in many instances, prefer to die a soldier's death rather than undergo the brutal torture and undignity of the lash.

thought those hon. Gentlemen who had made such impassioned appeals to the Committee against the punishment of flogging were bound to supply an answer to the question—what they would do with a soldier who had committed offences under circumstances such as those for which the clause was meant to provide? He certainly felt that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood), and the hon. and learned Member for Louth (Mr. Sullivan), as well as the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, ought to give the Committee some information on that point. It might be quite true, as the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) said, that there was no man worthy to be in the British Army who would not prefer to be shot to being flogged. Men went into the Army, he told the Committee, to be shot, and to be consistent with himself he ought to propose that that punishment should be substituted for flogging in the Bill. Shooting was, no doubt, a very simple and a very drastic mode of dealing with the difficulty, and it was the mode, he believed, which was adopted in several foreign Armies. He could not, however, subscribe to the doctrine of the hon. Member for Meath to its full extent, for although a soldier might enter ready and willing to be shot in the cause of his country, it did not follow that he would like to have the operation performed on him by his own officers and friends. He was still anxious to hear what form of punishment it was seriously proposed by the hon. Member and those who supported his view to substitute for flogging in case of outrageous offences committed in the field or on board ship.

hoped the Committee would give him their indulgence for a few moments, while he made a brief reply to the observations which had just fallen from the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell). His memory was, he thought, as good as that of the hon. Gentleman, while he hoped hon. Members would be as little likely to impugn his character for veracity. He would, then, positively assure the Committee that no such conversation as that which his hon. Friend had mentioned had ever taken place between them. He had never at any time expressed an opinion against such a clause as that under discussion. It was impossible, indeed, that he could have done so, because, as he had already informed the Committee, he had always felt himself unable to vote with the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor), believing that there were offences, such as garotting and wife-beating, for which flogging was the proper punishment. As to his having promised, then, the hon. Member for Meath that if he would desist from pursuing a certain course he would support him at a future time in his endeavour to do away with the lash altogether, it was a matter with regard to which his hon. Friend had drawn entirely on his own imagination. He felt bound to add that he did, last year, tell the hon. Gentleman that he was not, in his (Mr. Mitchell Henry's) opinion, justified by the Rules of the House, or by what he might call the rules of honour, in continuing his opposition to the Mutiny Bill, after the right hon. Gentleman the late Secretary of State for War had promised that it should be referred to a Select Committee. That promise was given on the distinct understanding that there should not be a persistent opposition to the passing of the Bill, which was necessary for the discipline of the Army; and he, therefore, did not feel that the extreme opposition to it which was being carried on was altogether justified. But to hope to induce his hon. Friend to desist from any course upon which he had once decided to enter was a thing which never entered into his mind, for it never occurred to him to imagine that any advice with that object which he might give would produce upon his line of action the slightest effect. He certainly had never held out to his hon. Friend any such inducement to abstain from opposition to the passing of the Mutiny Bill last year, as that he would divide against every lash out of the 50 mentioned in the flogging clause of the Bill. The true facts of the case were, he believed, understood by everyone who took any pains to consider the subject; and he must protest against the allegation being made with regard to hon. Members, who were as humane as his hon. Friend himself, that if they were in the Army they would take every opportunity of inflicting the punishment of flogging on the soldiers—as the hon. Gentleman had kindly insinuated some hon. and gallant Officers sitting on both sides of the House did or would be prepared to do. He should be very glad to see corporal punishment abolished altogether; but that was a millenium which would not, he was afraid, be speedily brought, notwithstanding the arguments of his hon. Friend.

congratulated the Government on having the support of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt), who had assumed a great responsibility for the Bill throughout the discussions upon it. But with all the regard which he entertained for his hon. and learned Friend, he felt obliged, from no want of good feeling towards him, to decline to act upon his advice. His hon. and learned Friend asked what punishment those who supported the Amendment would substitute for flogging; but he denied that they were in any way called upon to supply an answer to that question. It was not for them to furnish information to the military authorities as to how discipline might be best maintained among the troops who wore under their rule. His Amendment was directed against a particular mode of punishment which met a man face to face when he entered the Army, and which had a most blighting effect. There was not an Army in Europe, he believed, in which the system of flogging was now adopted—not even the Russian. Let English officers ponder on that fact, and say whether they could sit still and hear this punishment cracked up as necessary, and actually supported on the ground that, as it was useful in the case of the garotter and the wife-beater, so it was useful for the English soldier—a man who was charged with the defence of his country, whose courage and endurance were so constantly the theme of praise in that House. But, whatever might be the decision of the Committee on the present occasion, he felt sure that the time would come when, for very shame, so degrading a punishment would be given up in the English Army. It was said that in foreign Armies men were shot for such offences as those against which the clause was intended to provide. Who was the authority for that statement? Who was prepared to give the Committee chapter and verse for it, impugning, as it did, the honour of foreign nations? Something had been said about caning being resorted to in the German Army. The Germans would, he could not help thinking, be astonished when they learnt that such a statement had been made in the House of Commons in connection with their great and fine Army. He implored our military authorities to give up a punishment which was as useless as it was degrading, and to adopt some other means of maintaining discipline.

was sorry to be obliged to impugn the accuracy of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry); but he wished to remind him, in justice to himself, that it was not in conversation with him that the hon. Gentleman had made the statement to which he had referred, but in a speech which he had publicly delivered in that House some 12 months ago. The hon. Gentleman then told him that if he desisted from opposing the passing of the Mutiny Bill, he would be prepared, when the question again came before the House, to divide with him against every lash.

said, he never regretted until now that there was not a verbatim report of everything which was said in that House. He would only add that he was not one who changed his opinions easily, or who was in the habit of expressing opinions diametrically opposed to one another. He, as a matter of fact, never had entertained the opinion which his hon. Friend attributed to him; nor did he entertain it at the present moment. His hon. Friend must, he could not help thinking, have misunderstood what he said, or he must have expressed himself so unfortunately as not to have made his views clear to him.

said, he would move that Progress be reported, on the sufficient ground that he had an important Amendment to move upon the next Order on the Paper—namely, the Report of Supply. It was altogether out of the question to take the Report of Supply at the very end of a Morning Sitting. There were a number of Amendments to the clause of the Bill under discussion, and there was no chance of getting through them all at that time. It could not, therefore, interfere with the Business on hand, if the Government agreed to report Progress.

found it would be impossible to take the Report of Supply, if any discussion was to be raised as indicated by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands).

said, if the hon. Gentleman would give a promise that the Report should be taken at a convenient hour in the evening, he should be willing to withdraw his Motion.

said, he should propose to take the Report of Supply on Thursday.

pointed out that the punishment of reduction to the ranks of a non-commissioned officer was omitted from the clause; but that in Clause 173 it was mentioned as a punishment to be given by the commanding officer. It was his opinion that this power was likely to be greatly abused, and he was at a loss to understand from what source the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War obtained the information which induced him to omit this punishment from its proper place in the Bill, where it was subject to court martial. It certainly did not come from the Select Committee, who generally had to bear the burden of all the changes which had been made in the measure. He would move, after line 7, the insertion of the words, "reduction to the rank of private soldier."

could not see any advantage in the insertion of the words proposed at that stage of the Bill. If the words were added, he thought objections of the same kind would have to be taken to various other clauses of the Bill, where the punishments referred to under this section were included. He suggested that the point should be dealt with when they came to Clause 173; of course, with the understanding, if necessary, that these matters should be brought into closer harmony on Report.

thought that the proper place for the introduction of the words of the Amendment was in the present clause, and it appeared to him that if they were not inserted at that point, the opportunity of doing so would be lost. He thought that the reference to the punishment of reduction to the ranks by order of the commanding officer had been made in Clause 173 under a total misapprehension of certain views urged by the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan). He entirely concurred in the proposal of the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir Alexander Gordon) to introduce at this place a recognition of the principle that a non-commissioned officer should not be reduced to the ranks, except by court martial.

did not object to the insertion of the words in principle; but was not certain as to whether they must be considered in reference to other parts of the Bill.

could not understand why the great power given to the commanding officer to reduce non-commissioned officers to the ranks had been placed among the definitions in Clause 173. He should certainly divide the Committee upon his Amendment.

hoped the hon. and gallant Member (Sir Alexander Gordon) would persist in his Amendment. He considered Clause 173 a most objectionable one; and when it was reached, he hoped the Committee would look to the particular point in question, and oppose the clause as strongly as possible.

*, in rising to call attention to the Probate, Legacy, and Succession Duties, and to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, it is expedient that in lieu of Probate and Administration Duty, which is now payable according to unequal rates, upon the personal estate of deceased persons, and in lieu of Legacy Duty, which is now payable at various rates and various times in respect of each separate gift by will, and each separate share of an intestate's estate, one Duty only should be levied, at a uniform rate, upon the value of the personal estate of every deceased person,"

said: Mr. Speaker,—Sir, I have ventured to give Notice of the Resolution which it is my intention to move on the present occasion, because, during a somewhat lengthened professional experience, I have had constant opportunities of witnessing the absolute injustice in many cases, the great hardship, expense, and inconvenience in almost every case, occasioned by the present anomalous system of levying the probate, administration, and le- gacy duties upon the estates of deceased persons. During last Session, my hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. "W. Barclay) submitted a Motion to the House, to the effect that the present system of taxing succession to property is partial and unjust, and, in the opinion of this House, ought to be re-adjusted. Sir, in much of what was then advanced by my hon. Friend I entirely concur; but he dealt with the subject on more general grounds than I propose to do on the present occasion. My wish is to point out the anomalies, intricacies, and difficulties of the existing system of taxing personal property under the Probate and Legacy Duty Acts, and to show how these may be entirely averted by a simple combined duty, with advantage alike to the public Exchequer and to the taxpayer. In many respects, the arguments of the hon. Member last Session resembled those used in 1853, when the late Mr. Williams, then Member for Southwark, proposed that real property should be made to pay the same probate and legacy duties as are now payable in respect of personal property. The Amendment of which my right hon. Friend the Member for the Montrose Burghs (Mr. W. E. Baxter) has given Notice tonight—namely,

"That Probate, Legacy, and Succession Duties upon real estate should be placed on the same footing as real estate,"

proceeds very much in the same direction. Now, Sir, I do not propose to touch the great question raised by my right hon. Friend's Amendment. The question whether or not real and personal property should be placed upon the same footing is one of great importance; but it is also one upon which there is great diversity of opinion in this House, and I will merely at the present time say with reference to it, that the scheme I am about to propound will apply equally to any charge it may hereafter be determined to levy upon real estate as to the probate and legacy duties which are now charged only upon personal estate. Nor do I, Sir, propose to discuss on this occasion the succession duties, or to deal with them further than as they affect leasehold property; but, of course, any argument relative to the duties on legacies would be equally applicable to duties on succession, should Parliament at any future time determine to place them upon the same footing. And now, Sir, in the first place, I desire to call the attention of the House to the probate duty. The history of a tax is more or less important when the incidence of that tax is under consideration; and the history of the probate duty forms no exception to that rule; but, on the contrary, appears to afford an apt illustration of it. The stamp upon probates and letters of administration was first imposed in 1694 by an Act of 5 & 6 William and Mary, c. 21. By that Act a sum of 5s. was payable throughout England, Wales, and Berwick-on-Tweed upon every skin, or piece of vellum, or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper upon which any probate of will or letters of administration for any estate above the value of £20, should be engrossed. In 1698 this duty was increased to 10s., and was made perpetual by the Act of 9 & 10 Will. III. At that amount the tax remained until the year 1779—a period of 85 years from its first imposition. In this year the 19 Geo. III., c. 66, imposed throughout Great Britain an additional duty of 20s. for estates of or above the value of £100, and 40s. for estates of £300 and upwards, thus making the total duty in each case 30s. and 50s. respectively, and introducing for the first time an ascending scale. Further additional duties were imposed, and the limits of the ascending scale were extended by various subsequent Acts—one in 1783, by which the scale was increased to £1,000; another in 1789, whereby it was increased to £5,000; and a third in 1797, whereby it was increased to £10,000. In 1804, by the 44 Geo. III., an end was put to the existing system in England; the duties previously levied were repealed; and one uniform rate of duty, ascending by scale as high as to estates of £500,000, was imposed upon probates and letters of administration in England, and upon testament, testamentor, testament dative, or eik thereto, which I understand to mean probates or grants of administration respectively in Scotland. In 1774, a stamp duty of 5s. on any grant of probate or administration was imposed in Ireland by an Act of the Irish Parliament; and in 1844 the English rates of probate and administration duties were extended to Ireland, and were made permanent in that country in 1853. Up to 1815 no distinction was made in the duties payable in respect of grants of probate under will, or letters of administration of intestates' effects; but in that year the Act of 55 Geo. III., which may emphatically be termed the Probate and Legacy Duty Act, repealed all existing probate and administration duties as from the 31st August in that year, and imposed one complete scale of duty in respect of probates in England and inventories of testament testamentor in Scotland, and the duties were made to extend to estates of the value of £1,000,000 and upwards. It likewise imposed another scale of duty upon letters of administration, 50 per cent more in amount than upon probates, or in the proportion of three to two; and, in like manner, these additional duties were imposed upon confirmations of testament dative, practically grants of administration, in Scotland. These duties so imposed in 1815 still remain unchanged, except that, in cases where the whole value of the estate amounts to £1,000,000 or upwards, which was previously the limit of the ascending scale, an Act, passed in 1859, imposed for every additional £100,000, a further duty of £1,500 upon probates, and £2,250 letters of administration, and except, also, that in 1864 an Act was passed exempting altogether from these duties estates between £20—which was the previous limit—and £100. Now, Sir, it is not a little remarkable that when these duties were imposed in their present form, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Vansittart (afterwards Lord Bexley), proposed them as taxes which would soon undergo Parliamentary investigation with a view to their re-arrangement. The language then used was most remarkable, and with the permission of the House I should like to read the whole of Mr. Vansittart's observations, which, by the way, are very short. He said—

"The next subject was the duty on probates; and as it had been considered a hardship that it should operate on the whole of the effects of the deceased instead of on the balance after the debts were paid, he intended to propose a drawback to remedy this grievance for the present, although he felt that this subject was one which must soon undergo Parliamentary investigation with a view to a general arrangement of it."

Hansard's Debates gives us no further information of the views of the Chancellor of the Exchequer than those I have quoted. Now, Sir, it appears to me that the legacy duties imposed at the time, and under the circumstances I have mentioned, contain a great many very glaring anomalies; but there are three to which I desire especially to call the attention of the House. The first is that the duty is charged at a higher rate on small estates than on large estates; and, second, that it is levied on groups of estates between certain amounts, and not by an equal percentage; and the third is that intestate estates are charged at a higher rate by 50 per cent than testate estates. Now, as to the first of these anomalies, the fact is proved by a glance at the table of duties imposed by the Act of 1815. I will only trouble the House with one or two illustrations from that scale. An estate of £200, for instance, under a will, is charged with probate duty amounting to £5, and in the case of an intestacy, an administration duty of £8, being rates of 2½ per cent, and 4 per cent respectively. An estate of £1,000 under a will pays probate duty of £30, under an intestacy administration duty of £45, being respectively 3 per cent, and 4½ per cent, and these are the highest rates imposed by the scale. A testate estate of £2,000 pays £50, an intestate estate £75, or 2½ per cent and 3¾ per cent respectively; whilst an estate of £30,000 pays a probate duty of £450, or administration duty of £675, being 1½ per cent and 2½ per cent respectively, and all estates of a higher amount pay at these rates. The effect of this scale may be very briefly illustrated by reference to estates of the value of £1,000. Thirty estates of £1,000 each, making £30,000, pay, in the case of wills, probate duty amounting in the aggregate to £900; in the case of intestacies, administration duties amount to £1,350, or 3 and 4½per cent respectively; whilst a single estate of the same amount, £30,000, pays only £450 probate duty, or £675 administration duty, or 1½ per cent and 2¼ per cent respectively, or exactly half the rates which the smaller estates pay. Now, Sir, I submit that a principle which leads to such results is altogether radically wrong, and opposed to every principle of common justice and sound legislation. Inequality in either direction would be objectionable; but when it happens that the higher rate is charged on the smaller and poorer estate, and the lower on the larger and richer estate, instead of levying a uniform rate upon all, it becomes additionally objectionable. I come next, Sir, to the second anomaly—namely, that the tax is levied in groups, and not by an equal percentage. I will again illustrate the effect of this by a few references to the tables of duties attached to the Act of 1815. The first amount in that scale is charged upon estates of £100 and under £200. Go a little higher in the scale, and we find the step is from £2,000 to £3,000. Again ascending a little higher, it passes from £100,000 to £120,000, then from £400,000 to £500,000, and so on, the steps in each case on large estates being steps of £100,000. Now, what is the result of this? Why, simply that whilst an estate of £100, which, where there is a will, pays probate duty of £2, and where there is no will, administration duty of £3, very considerable portions of every large estate, it may be to nearly 1.000 times the amount of the small estate of £100, altogether escape taxation. Take, for instance, the various sums I have mentioned. Thus, an estate under £3,000 pays duty upon £2,000 only, and £990 may altogether escape; an estate under £35,000 pays duty upon £30,000 only, and £4,990 may possibly escape; an estate under £120,000 only pays duty on £100,000, and thus £19,990 may escape; whilst an estate under £500,000 in value only pays upon £400,000, and so £99,999 19s. lid. may entirely escape payment of duty; or, as I have already said, nearly 1,000 times more than the smallest estate upon which duty is payable. The same remark applies to every estate exceeding £400,000 in value. Can this system, Sir, I ask, be defended for a single moment? Will any hon. Gentleman in this House venture to stand up in his place and endeavour to justify it? Will the House desire that a system which produces such results as these should be perpetuated, especially when, as I hope to be able to show conclusively, it can be so easily avoided? I venture to think not. I now come, Sir, to the third anomaly to which I have referred—namely, that intestate estates are charged a higher duty by 50 per cent than testate estates. Now, Sir, for more than 120 years, from the first imposition of this tax in 1694—namely, down to 1815—no such distinction existed. It seems to have been drawn at that time without the least reason, so far as I have been able to discover, being assigned for the imposition of the increased tax by Mr. Vansittart. At all events, no record of any reason is to be found in the pages of Hansard. The distinction simply means that if a man makes no will his estate is subject to a tax of 50 per cent in excess of what it would have been subject to had he so made a will. Why, I venture to ask, is such a state of things allowed at the present time? Some persons entertain a very strong objection to making a will at all, and in my own experience it has often happened that persons have been induced to make a will solely on account of its being represented to them that if they did not do so their estates would be subjected to the payment of increased duty, and with no other object whatever. Very frequently no harm at all arises from the omission to make a will where the estate consists merely of personal property. The Statutes for the distribution of the estates of intestates effect a very reasonable and fair distribution, and one which I have seldom heard complained of; and if there were any just ground of complaint, the law might easily make any needful alterations. The mischief of intestacy arises where there is real property, and where, as not unfrequently happens, an infant succeeds to the entire property, to the exclusion of brothers and sisters, who, sharing only in the personalty, have to bear the increased taxation; whereas this penal tax, as I venture to designate the administration duty, does not touch real estate at all, inasmuch as the tax only applies to personal property. An eminent professional friend of mine, whose opinions I hope we shall hear before the close of this debate, said to me a few clays ago—"A man who neglects to make a will should be made to pay for it." Why, Sir, this is exactly what does not occur. The man who neglects to make a will has gone to heaven, and, so far from his being made to pay the additional tax, it not unfrequently falls upon innocent persons, and, worst of all, on those who suffer most by intestacy—namely, the younger children who by it have lost any real property, and have thus increased burthens cast upon the personal estate, in which alone they participate. Now, Sir, my contention is that the power to make a will is a privilege conferred by the laws of this country, wherein our laws differ from those of many foreign countries; and, in my opinion, if a higher duty is to be imposed in one case or the other, it would be more reasonable to charge the higher duty upon probates where the testator has exercised the power the law has given him than in the case of intestacy, where he has not so availed himself of the privilege. Another reason I have heard assigned for this increased duty is that the Court of Probate appoints the administrator, whilst the executor is appointed by the testator himself. But, Sir, this makes no practical difference whatever. The Court assumes no additional duty in the case of an intestacy, except that it requires the person who is entitled to and obtains the grant of administration to enter into an administration bond, with two sufficient sureties; besides which it is to be remarked that when executors die in the lifetime of the testator, or, as occasionally happens, when they refuse to act, and the Court is called upon to grant administration with the will annexed, probate duty only is imposed, and not the higher duty, which, according to some, is imposed in consequence of the appointment of an administrator being made by the Court. This reason, therefore, cannot for a moment be maintained. Now, Sir, another great objection to this tax is that the higher duty on letters of administration presses very heavily upon the poorer classes, for it is amongst these, for the most part, that intestacies occur. The statistics of Somerset House show that, in estates under £300, about one-third are cases of intestacies, and two-thirds of wills; whilst in estates of upwards of £1,000 only one-twelfth are intestacies. Now, Sir, neither in the Parliamentary History of the Records of this House, nor in Hansard, have I been able to find any single reason why this distinction was originally made, and I shall be very curious to hear whether any reason whatever can be advanced for a state of things which I consider is anomalous, and which, in my opinion, ought not to be longer continued. Now, on account of these great and, as I venture to think, indefensible anomalies, and for very many other reasons which I could adduce did time permit, I submit that the probate and administration duties demand and ought to be reformed. But, Sir, I am able to cite some very high authorities in support of the opinion I have thus ventured to express. I have already quoted the opinion of Lord Bexley, expressed when the Act of 1815 was passed, and I now beg to refer to an authority which I am sure will command the respect of hon. Members on the other side—that of the noble Lord the present Prime Minister. In December, 1852, when the noble Lord introduced his annual Financial Statement in this House, he is reported to have made the following observations:—

"The late Government had not neglected carefully to examine the question of the Stamp and Probate Duties, and they thought it not impossible to bring forward, on the right occasion, a duty that would reconcile contending interests, and terminate the system so much complained of."

I would also beg leave to refer to an authority which I venture to think is the highest authority in the land on financial matters, an authority which will be generally admitted, I think, on both sides of the House—I mean that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich. When he introduced his Budget in the month of April, 1853, he made the following remarks on this subject:—

"With respect to the probate duty, at the present moment we do not venture to deal with it. The probate duty itself, I grant you, calls for reform; and if the Government had the means of carrying into effect that reform in the present year, it would have been satisfactory to have done so. As it is, we are obliged at present to postpone it; but we hope that in a future and early year it will come under consideration."—[3 hansard, cxxv. 1395.]

Now, Sir, notwithstanding Lord Bexley's opinion in 1815, and notwithstanding these authoritative opinions expressed upwards of 25 years ago, not one single step has been taken in the direction of reforming this tax. It is true, I referred in a somewhat perfunctory way to the subject when the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced his Financial Statement last year, and again during the present year, and the subject was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire, as I have already mentioned, but nothing else has been done. I think my hon. Friend proved, on that occasion, the necessity for a reform of this tax. The hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury replied for the Government; and after referring to the question of the relative taxation upon real and personal estates, which, as I have already explained, I do not on the present occasion propose to touch, he said—"With respect to the duties on small estates compared with large ones, it was worthy of consideration how far they might be equalized. If any inducement could be wanted, it would be the bait thrown out that a re-adjustment would produce an increase of £4,000,000 to the Revenue. The question as to the difference made between properties of large amount and others of small amount really did require consideration. The subject ought not, however, to be dealt with hurriedly, or by a Resolution of that kind, which he could not support." Well, Sir, I do not wish the subject to be dealt with hurriedly; but if I am right in saying that the existing system is, as I contend and as I think I have shown it is, unequal and unjust; and if it exempts, as I think I have shown it does, large estates to a considerable extent, and taxes small ones much more heavily; and if this state of things now exists, as I have endeavoured to show it has since 1815, long before most hon. Gentlemen in this House were born; if the necessity for reform has been admitted by the Leaders on both sides of the House since the year 1853; then I think the time has arrived when reform should be no longer delayed, and I hope the House will, by adopting my Resolution to-night, emphatically assert this, and declare that for the purpose of remedying injustice no time can be more opportune than the present. I now pass to the other branch of my subject—namely, the question of legacy duties. Legacy duty was first imposed in 1780 by the the 20 Geo. III. c. 28. This was at first nothing more than a stamp duty upon a receipt given by a beneficiary in respect of personal estate under a will or intestacy. It had not been long in operation before it was discovered by one of the Judges that it was not a tax upon the legacy, but merely upon the receipt, and that where no receipt was given no duty was payable. In 1783 and in 1789 respectively, the amount of duty was increased; but the interest of a wife, children, and grandchildren was exempted from the additional duties imposed in these years, and the principle of taxation remained other wise unaltered. The rate of duty was regulated by the amount of legacy. For legacies not exceeding £20 two stamps of 2s. 6d. each were required; for legacies above £20 and under £100 two stamps of 5s. each; and so on. In 1796, however, the liability to duty was transferred from the receipts to the benefit itself. This Act is an important one, because it introduced, for the first time in the history of the tax, rates of duty varying according to the degree of consanguinity existing between the deceased and the legatee or next of kin. It does not contain any provision for taxing lineal ancestors or lineal descendants, and it expressly exempts the husband and wife of the deceased from payment of any duty. In the first Act—that of 1780—there were no exemptions on account of relationship. The second and third Acts of 1783 and 1789 exempted the wife, children, and grandchildren from the increased duty, but not from the duty originally imposed in 1780. In the Act of 1789 lineal ancestors and the husband wore added to the privileged classes, and they were exempted as well as the wife and the lineal descendants from duty. In 1805, children, or descendants of children, were again brought under the tax; and in 1815, by the Act to which I have already referred in connection with the probate duties, the duty was extended to the father or mother or any lineal ancestor, the wife or husband, as before, being exempted from the duty. When those various rates were first introduced they were upon a much smaller scale than at present. Brothers or sisters were charged 2 per cent, brothers or sisters of the father or mother of the deceased or their descendants 3 per cent, brothers or sisters of the grandfather or grandmother and their descendants 4 per cent, other relatives or strangers 6 per cent. In 1804, when lineal descendants were subjected to a tax of 1 per cent, the other rates were increased to 2½, 4, 5, and 8 per cent respectively; and in 1815, the tax upon lineal descendants and lineal ancestors being then fixed at 1 per cent, the other rates were increased to 3, 5, 6, and 10 per cent respectively, husband and wife remaining exempt. At these rates, and subject to the same exemptions, the duties have ever since been, and still are levied. I would here remark, Sir, that these were essentially war taxes, having been first imposed in 1796 by Mr. Pitt at a time when this country was engaged in that costly war with Prance which rendered it necessary for Mr. Pitt to treble the assessed taxes, and to increase the burdens of the people in various directions; but it is not a little remarkable that, whilst every other tax has since been repealed or reduced, and in many instances entirely abolished, these legacy duties, imposed in 1815, have remained unchanged. The incidence of this tax contains many anomalies. In the first place, the duty is payable when the benefit is paid to or retained for the legatee or beneficiary; it attaches to all personal estate of any deceased person domiciled here, where-over the property may be situate. Thus, personal property situate in Australia is subject to duty here; but, on the other hand, personal estate in this country, belonging to a foreigner domiciled abroad, entirely escapes the duty. Simple as this tax would appear to be from the description I have given of it, I hope by a very few remarks to show that it is in reality quite the contrary. In its present incidence I submit that it altogether falls short of what may be termed a good tax—that is, a tax levied upon sound principles, and principles that are generally accepted. I do not profess to be an authority upon the principles of taxation; but I venture to submit that there are a few general principles which ought to distinguish all taxes, and amongst these I may mention the following:—First, that they shall fall equally on all according to their means; second, that all taxes ought to be certain and not arbitrary; third, that they shall be levied in the most convenient way; and fourthly, and lastly, that they shall take out of the pockets of the people as little as possible beyond what they bring into the coffers of the State. I think, Sir, it will be generally admitted that that system of taxation is best which most nearly conforms to the principles I have mentioned. In its inception very little fault could be found with the legacy duty when tested by these principles—it was, as nearly as possible, a money payment over the counter, and nothing more; it was a stamp upon the receipt levied upon every subject without distinction according to his means. All this is now totally changed—the rates of duty regulated by consanguinity have destroyed the equality of the tax, and have imposed a grievous expense upon the taxpayer. To satisfy the tax as it now stands, the taxpayer has, in a great majority of cases, to resort to legal advice in the preparation of his accounts and receipts. Most hon. Members have probably received those printed instructions from Somerset House which are addressed to executors, and comprised in three closely-printed pages of minature type, and have, I dare say, very often endeavoured in vain to comprehend all the details of them. In scarcely any case can the duty be satisfied by one payment; in innumerable cases it becomes payable many years after the death of the testator, and has to be levied from the representatives of the persons who were originally responsible. There is no limit of time within which the duty need be claimed, and the liability exists whether application be made for payment or not. The variety of circumstances under which payments are to be made are almost infinite—there is a payment to be made on a determinable interest, such as an annuity; there is a payment to be paid, year by year, on an interest not capable of being accurately measured; payment on the capital of a fund now, and another payment on the same account hereafter. There may be bequests—and these are very common cases indeed—of furniture, more or less ancient in its character, to a young widow, say of 20, for her life. Legacy duty becomes payable upon these at her death, which may be when she has attained the venerable age of 90. In like manner, there may be a bequest of income, say upon £1,000, to the widow for life. It is exempt from duty during her life; then, possibly, the interest passes to a son of the testator for his life, duty is now to be assessed and paid at the rate of 1 per cent. At the son's death, the interest goes, probably, to a nephew for his life; the process of assessment and payment of duty, now at 3 per cent, is again to be gone through. Then, at the death of the nephew, the interest may again pass to a more distant relative, when the duty is again to be assessed, and paid, this time, at the rate of 6 per cent. Finally, the surplus of the fund, it may be 50 or 60 years afterwards, passes to a stranger, or more distant relative, when duty becomes payable upon it absolutely. Now, Sir, this lastmentioned case is a very common one, and I would point out to the House that there may be many such under one and the same will; indeed, I have known many such under one will in my own experience. Now, let the House consider the cost of all this. I have no hesitation whatever in saying that in small bequests of this kind the aggregate cost to the State of the clerks employed in recording these bequests, and in assessing and collecting the duty, and the cost incurred by the taxpayer in obtaining the assessment and paying the duty, amounts to a sum larger in the aggregate than the whole of the duty paid to the State. I am sure every gentleman of the legal Profession, and, indeed, probably almost every Gentleman in this House, must know from experience that there is an almost infinite variety of circumstances under which an infinite variety of assesments and payments of duty are to be made, and an almost endless variety of cases where a man avails himself of the power which the law confers upon him, of making a settlement by his will, and thereby escapes the higher administration duty, and does not leave the law to make his will for him. How few men are there who have not, at some time, been surprised to find, through an application from the Legacy Duty Department of the Inland Revenue Office, that they are liable for duties which ought to have been paid long years before. A claim may be now first brought under their notice which has been entered in the Inland Revenue Register so long ago as 1815; the duty claimed may have become due in 1855, and thus may be demanded 25 years after; the liable party may be the executor of some representative of the deceased, and not unfrequently it occurs that the unfortunate recipient of this notice, having no funds of the trust, has to pay the duty out of his own pocket. These cases are well known in my own professional experience, and were the risk the executors run in this respect generally known, few persons would be found willing to undertake the duties of a trustee. The legacy duty, I contend, as now levied, is a most costly one to the taxpayer, and it is equally costly to the State to collect. A large and increasing staff is kept in the Legacy Duty Department—it appears from the Civil Service Estimates for the present year, that there are nearly 150 officials in that Department, and that the cost to the nation is from £40,000 to £50,000 a-year. I was for some years in the habit of attending personally at Somerset House for the purpose of passing difficult and intricate accounts, and I am able to speak with experience of the character of the staff in the Legacy Duty Department; and I have no hesitation in saying that from Mr. Hanson, the intelligent, efficient, and courteous Controller downwards, and especially amongst the gentlemen immediately under him, there is an amount of intelligence, attention, and courtesy which justifies me in saying that the Crown does not possess a more trustworthy and valuable set of civil servants than those in the Legacy Duty Department. The examination of accounts of a most complicated and difficult character, the determining of intricate and important legal questions devolves upon them; and, besides, they have to cope with the constant attempts that are made to evade payment of the higher duties. Opportunities for this evasion frequently occur, and are only prevented by the intelligence of those to whom this duty is assigned. Then the unfortunate taxpayer has to render residuary accounts, frequently of very complicated character, as well as legacy and other receipts, which are, in fact, now almost accounts in themselves. Then this large and complicated system has to be controlled; and if hon. Gentlemen have ever been to Somerset House, they will be able to form some conception of the magnitude of the Department and complexity of the system. In my own case, in moving for a Return for the purposes of the present Motion, a communication was sent to me by the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury from the Chairman of Inland Revenue, wherein he stated that to supply the information for which I had asked would entail a search through every register from 1805 to 1879, and that there were 04 registers for every year—in short, there were something like 5,000 volumes to be searched. Now, let the House consider the fruitful source of complaint and vexation and annoyance to the taxpayer which must result from such state of things. These, as years roll on, must be ever increasing in volume and magnitude, and the difficulty of dealing with them must daily increase. Letters are constantly appearing in the newspapers complaining of the system, and, with the permission of the House, I should like to read a short extract from the Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, presented to the House in 1870—

"With respect to the reversionary and contingent legacies, it appeared to have teen the custom to send out notices to executors and other accountable persons at the end of 10 years, and it was suggested that this should be done in future at the end of five years after the first inquiry, and so on continuously every five years until the cases were exhausted."

The Report proceeds to say—

"But another very important work has been going on. Apart from the review of the books at periods of five years which has been adopted, a number of experienced clerks have been employed in reviewing the old books, commencing with 1812, for the purpose of clearing the registers. We may give, as an example of this work, the year 1814, which has been worked through. There were in the books of this year 242 open accounts; of these some have been cleared by payment of duty, others have been discharged as altogether irrecoverable, and the result is, that there remains 21 cases, and no more, which, being still reversionary, will require further operations. In all the other cases, the executors or their representatives will be set free from the often-repeated but fruitless applications with which they were being periodically disturbed under the old system, and it is hoped that all reasonable ground of complaint will be removed."

I think, Sir, I need not say more in condemnation of the system which necessitates such a state of things as that just described. Then, Sir, another great objection I have to the legacy duty as now levied is that it is inquisitorial in its character, and that in the very worst sense. It is absolutely necessary to make frequent inquiries, or the duty would be forgotten or altogether lost, as it nevertheless very often is. Is it a rational thing that a husband should be receiving letters continually, asking if his wife is alive, and if not, when she died? Is it a rational thing that a child should be inquired of in a similar manner about his father, or a father about his child? And yet all these are evils necessarily attendant upon the existing system, or the Revenue would be defrauded to a much greater extent than it is at present, and the question of duty overlooked. Is this a tax, I would ask the House, which ought to be maintained in its present form on any other ground than necessity, or unless that necessity cannot by some means be averted? Then, another objection to the legacy duty is that it is so nearly allied to the probate duty. Probate duty is barely paid before the taxpayer is reminded by the missives from Somerset House, to which I have already referred, that legacy duty is also to be paid. The taxpayer, in many cases, not unnaturally thinks that a double tax is being imposed upon him, and that, having paid probate duty, legacy duty should not be demanded. Both should, in my opinion, be reformed out of existence, and one simple amalgamated tax levied in substitution for them. There are two obstacles, and only two at present, in the way of this amalgamation, and these are the difference between the probate and administration duties, to which I have fully referred, and the consanguinity rates, to which I have also just called attention. Neither of these anomalies are indigenous to the respective taxes—in each case the tax was imposed without these anomalies. The varying rates were first imposed, as I have shown, at a recent period; and in the absence of any information as to the grounds upon which they were imposed, I think it may be fairly assumed that the necessities of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of that day—Mr. Pitt—influenced him. The tax seemed capable of increasing to meet the requirements of the times without offending anyone. The principle upon which it seems to have been imposed was that of expediency. No one objected probably then, and probably no one would object now, to receive a heavy legacy, perhaps unexpectedly, from a distant relative or from a stranger, merely saddled with the responsibility of paying 10 per cent duty on it. A close examination, I think, Sir, of the various changes that have been made in the legacy duties clearly shows the spirit in which these varying rates have been imposed; but I think the House will agree with me that an unsound principle cannot be rendered sound, or an unjust tax made a just one, because it was found expedient during the time of our Continental Wars to levy it. The consanguinity rates occasion many anomalies. The child of the millionaire pays 1 per cent—the orphan nephew of a struggling mechanic is called upon to pay 3 per cent; aunts and uncles are charged 10 per cent upon bequests from nephews and nieces—nephews and nieces pay 3 per cent upon what they receive from uncles. An adopted child, or aged dependent, pays 10 per cent, whilst a wealthy father succeeds to a son, or vice versâ, and pays 1 per cent. A man leaves property to his wife's relatives, and they pay 10 per cent—another man takes a bequest from his wife's relatives, and pays at the rate of 1 per cent. A man's wife's sister is his sister-in-law, and, as we know from frequent debates in this House, he cannot legally marry her. Notwithstanding this, we know that the law^ is frequently disregarded, and when the husband dies, the widow, his second wife is charged 10 per cent upon the property she acquires from him. On the other hand, the wife—the sister-in-law dies, and the husband pays duty on her property at 3 per cent only. A man gives to his father's widow—his stepmother—a legacy, and she is subjected to 1 per cent duty—a stepmother gives a legacy to her stepson, and he is subjected to a duty of 10 per cent. Two sisters may take legacies out of the same fund, and payable at the same time, and one becomes subjected to 3 per cent, and the other to 10 per cent legacy duty. Thus, a testator gives his personal estate to his widow for life, and, at her death, one-half to one of his nieces, and the other half as his widow may appoint. The widow appoints accordingly to the other niece of the testator, the sister of the legatee—the one sister pays 10 per cent, the other 3 per cent. Can any good reason be assigned for any one of these anomalies? Is it rational that such an anomalous system should be permitted to continue? And these, Sir, are but a few examples. I could multiply them almost indefinitely; but these are sufficient to illustrate the absurdities and vagaries of the existing law, and the desirability of its being radically reformed. There is another and more painful aspect in which the consanguinity rates of legacy duty must be noticed. I refer to that connected with illegitimacy. How many are there of both sexes, who have attained man- hood and womanhood, and probably would have descended to the grave in that happy ignorance which in such cases may surely be said to be bliss, but for this inquisitorial tax? Nearly everyone knows in his own experience of at least one such case. In my experience, I regret to say, I have known several. Many years ago, two ladies, who had attained womanhood, the daughters of a leading retired surgeon, were told by their professional adviser that they must pay 10 per cent legacy duty upon their father's estate. They were, in the first place, incredulous; afterwards, indignant. Of course, the duty was paid eventually, but they ceased to employ their old and trusted professonial adviser; and the knowledge that they had just acquired embittered their remaining days and hastened their deaths, which occurred soon afterwards. Another case, was that of a married woman, who was supposed to be the legitimate child of her father, but who, upon his death, had the unwelcome truth forced upon herself and her husband, and the result did not contribute to their future happiness. Since my Notice appeared upon the Order Book of the House, I have received a short communication from a sufferer, which I will take the liberty of reading. It is in these terms:—

"Sir,—I am glad to find from the newspapers that you are going to bring forward the legacy and probate duty question. I was, I consider, unjustly charged with 10 per cent duty, when my father died, whilst my brothers and sisters were charged 1 per cent only. I have been discarded and insulted by them ever since they became aware of my illegitimacy, which only became known to them since my father's death. I hope some good change will be done by you as to this unjust duty.—Yours, &c, A SUFFERER. P.S.—I hear the law of Scotland is different after the parents are married."

Now, Sir, I could multiply cases of this kind; but I will content myself with this general observation, that the unfortunate results to which I have referred are attributable, solely and entirely, to the consanguinity rates upon legacies, and that these cases afford, in my opinion, a strong additional reason for their total and entire abolition. One peculiar feature of the consanguinity rates is, that they exist only with respect to the legacy duties, and their sister rate, the tax upon successions. If the principle involved in these rates is right it ought to be extended. A man upon the marriage of two children—one legitimate and the other illegitimate—makes a settlement upon both. Each is subject to the same rate of stamp duty; if he dies, both are subject to the same rate of probate or administration duty; but when a stage further is reached, and the legacy duty is payable, then one pays 1 per cent, and the other 10 per cent. Conveyances are dealt with in the same way precisely. Everything, in short, that is subject to stamp duty is assessed upon equal rates, regardless of consanguinity, except the legacy and succession duties, and these, I submit, ought to follow the general rule, and ought to be charged upon all persons alike. One objection has been advanced to my proposal as to levying a combined duty, and that is, that widows would be brought into the tax; but I would point out to the House that widows are not now exempt as widows, but merely as the widows of donors, and I can see no reason why this exemption should exist even under such circumstances. A widow pays the same probate or administration duty as other persons; she pays the same income tax upon the income of any fund that maybe left to her by her husband or anyone else, and why should she not pay the same rate of legacy duty? Moreover, if my suggestion of a combined duty be adopted, it would really not impose any very substantial burden oven upon the widow. If the estate be a small one—say £ 100 in the case of an intestacy—the administration duty is 4½ per cent. The combined duty I propose should be levied is 4 per cent only, and in such a case the widow would be a gainer. In the case of a will she would pay a little additional tax. In the event of a life interest, the additional duty would be very inconsiderable, and the children who succeeded her would, in fact, be gainers. Legacies coming to a widow from any other source than from her own husband are now liable to the ordinary duty; and I would only say, in reference to the exemptions now extended to widows, that exemptions of every kind are, as a rule, bad and indefensible. Looking then, Sir, at all the circumstances of the case, I think the objection as to widows being taxed in future fails equally with the other objections to which I have referred, and I think the legacy duties should be reformed in this as in the other respects to which I have called attention. Well, Sir, if I have established my premises—namely, that in lieu of probate or administration duty, one uniform charge should be imposed upon the estate of every deceased person, and if the House agrees with me that the differential rates of duty upon benefits under wills or intestacies should be abolished, then I am brought to my third proposition—namely, that these duties should be amalgamated, and that there should be levied one duty only at one uniform rate upon the personal estate of every deceased person. Proposing, as I do, to abolish all the existing probate, administration, and legacy duties, it occurs to me that many modes of supplying their place are practicable and simple. I will, however, sketch one, in order to show how comparatively easy it is to supply the place of what I propose to abolish. In Scotland and in Ireland an inventory is now recorded at the time of taking out probate or administration. I would make such an inventory the basis for the new tax throughout the United Kingdom. Let the inventory be first tendered as an account, either at Somerset House or to an officer appointed by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue at each district registry of the Court of Probate, and let him examine it or compare it with the proper valuations of furniture and other like effects, and with the proper certificates of the value of shares, stocks, &c.; and having satisfied himself of the accuracy of the inventory, let him then certify the amount of duty. Such inventory should, in my opinion, form an integral portion of the probate or letters of administration, and any persons owing moneys to or holding moneys or effects of the deceased should only pay over or deliver the same upon ascertaining that it is included at its proper amount in the certified inventory. A precedent for this principle is to be found in the 47th section of the 48th Geo. III., and it would, in a slightly extended form, apply to a case of this kind. Then the situation of the property ought alone to regulate its liability to duty, and accordingly an estate should not be taxed, as it often is now, both in Australia, for instance, and in this country, upon the same item. In the event of any item being omitted, an eik, or additional inventory, might be recorded, and further stamp duty paid. A slight mistake in the original inven- tory might be corrected by a certificate of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue upon their being satisfied that the error arose from a mistake. I do not wish, Sir, that by my proposal the amount derived from the probate and legacy duties should either be increased or diminished. My Resolution does not contemplate any direct increase or remission of taxation; but I am satisfied that there would be a great individual gain by reducing the cost necessarily incurred, not merely by the taxpayer, but also by the Exchequer. The cost of collecting the duty would be very much diminished, and the official staff at Somerset House reduced. It appears, as I have already mentioned, that there are nearly 150 officials, at a cost of from £40,000 to £50,000, employed in the Legacy Duty Department at Somerset House. I have no accurate or precise information as to the number of those who are engaged upon the old accounts, and in assessing and collecting the old duties; but I have reason to believe that at least three-fourths of the whole is to be attributed to the old accounts, the whole of which would in time be got rid of. If the present system continues, the expense now being incurred must be perpetually increasing; but, on the other hand, if my system be adopted, the present staff would be required for a time to collect the old duties, and as the present officials retire upon their pensions or superannuated allowances, it would be unnecessary to fill up their vacancies. In this way a considerable saving would eventually be effected. One objection has been alleged to my proposal, and that is, that the change might throw all the duty upon the residuary legatee; but I contend this would not necessarily follow—the testator might either give his own directions, as he now gives directions whether the legacy is to be paid free from duty or not, or the law might itself enact that, as in cases of intestacy, there is a distribution of the intestate estate, so under wills each beneficiary should bear an aliquot share of the original stamp duty. With regard to the mode of collection, my hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire suggested that the tax should be collected as the legacy duty now is, but that, I submit, would only remove one of the present inconveniences, and would perpetuate delay in collection. Indeed, as regards the probate duty, it would in many cases cause that to be deferred which is now generally paid almost immediately after the testator's death. The objects I have in view are very plain and precise. In the first place, I desire to simplify the present complex system; secondly, to have one equal charge upon all personal property alike; thirdly, to make the payment fixed and certain; and, fourthly, to encourage the payment at an early date and in one sum by an equitable and liberal scale of discount or rebate. Facilities might be given to executors and administrators, who frequently experience difficulty in obtaining the means for paying probate or administration duty. Indeed, it not unfrequently is necessary for the solicitor to advance the amount himself for a time. Now, if the Legacy Duty Department wore empowered to issue, with a certificate of the amount of duty payable, an authority for payment of it, either by the Bank of England, where the deceased was possessed of Government Stock or Funds, or by any bank holding money belonging to deceased, or any insurance company, or to anyone in possession of the personal estate of the deceased, the payment would be very greatly facilitated, and an inconvenience now very frequently experienced in practice would be entirely removed. My proposal involves no change of the law other than the repeal of the existing probate and legacy duty rates except one or two trifling ones. First, an alteration of the Succession Duty Act as regards leaseholds, which are now in an anomalous position, being subject to probate duty in the first instance, and to succession duty afterwards. I think these should be made either one or the other, and I would let them revert to the position in which they stood before the Succession Duty Act of 1853, and treat them altogether as personalty and subject to my proposed combined duty. In the next place, it would be necessary to repeal so much of the Act 45 Geo. III. cap. 28, section 4, and thereupon real estate directed to be sold, and legacies charged upon real estate, would fall under the Succession Duty Acts. These two changes would simplify the existing system, and I believe in no other way would my Resolution affect the laws relating to real estate. I do not, as I have already said, advance any plea for remission of taxation. I propose, in fact, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should realize as much under my proposed system as he would do under the existing system. Now, the probate and legacy duties, taking 1877–8 as a basis—for I have not been able to procure precisely accurate returns for the last year—may, for 1878–9, be estimated at £4,789,724. The capital upon which probate or administration duty was paid in 1878–09 was, roundly, £138,000,000, and duty at 4 per cent upon this sum would produce £5,520,000, showing a surplus over the probate and legacy duties upon the last year of £720,000. "Under the existing system the legacy duty upon wills proved during the current year may become payable at any time over the next 50 or 60 years. Should my proposed system be adopted, every tax would be paid once for all; and hence there would be no doubt or suspense, as there is at the present time. I have been unable to procure details of payments of legacy duty during the last two years, distinguishing the amounts paid under old and under recent wills, owing to the cost and delay that would have been occasioned by making such a Return. During the first collection of the combined duty, large sums would still be coming in in respect of legacy duties under old wills, and at a low estimate, in the absence of precise data, I estimate that that would realize at least half the annual sum paid during the preceding year—namely, £1,500,000, and this would continue, although of a gradually diminishing amount, which would form no despicable item in the Budget of Ways and Means for many years to come. Now, Sir, a surplus of £750,000 from the proposed direct tax of 4 per cent, together with £1,500,000 for duties under old wills, would make £2,250,000—a sum which, I venture to think, ought to have some considerable attraction for the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, especially in these times. There would be no actual addition to the taxation upon the people, but merely a rearrangement of duties, and making immediate instead of deferred payments, for which the taxpayer would have an equivalent in an immense saving of cost and vexation and risk and loss. These 5,000 voluminous registers, of which we have heard as being at Somerset House, would not be increased, as they necessarily would under the existing system; the staff, also, instead of increasing, would be gradually diminished, and great saving would be effected, economy of collection would be combined with an increased Revenue; and all this would be attended by a certainty of assessment and saving of great expense by the sweeping away of vexatious regulations. There would be no very great increase in the taxation of any class, and even the class paying 1 per cent would not find the amount payable by them very much increased. At present the probate duty varies from 1½ to 3 per cent, and the average may be taken at 2 per cent. Administration duty varies from 2¼ to 4 per cent, and the average may be taken at about 3 per cent; so that even the most privileged class, who are now subject to legacy duty at 1 per cent only, pay, including probate duty, 3 per cent, and, including administration duty, about 4 per cent. All other payers of higher rates, as a rule, would gain by what I suggest; and, generally speaking, I cannot doubt that the change would be of the greatest possible advantage alike to the taxpayer and the nation. Another advantage, and it is the only other one I shall venture to mention, is the elasticity of the system I propose, as compared with the existing system. Since 1815 the probate and legacy duties have practically been incapable of expansion or contraction. Under my system they would be capable of increase to meet the exigencies of the State, and I can conceive no reason why, whilst the Income Tax is being increased, some increase should not be made upon the probate and legacy duties. On the other hand, should the good time coming ever arrive when we shall again witness a remission of taxation, then the probate and legacy duties could be diminished in their due proportion. On every ground, I feel that I may safely urge the adoption of my Resolution upon the House, satisfied as I am that it will be to the benefit of all parties. Before I sit down, Sir, I must refer to the Amendments that have been placed upon the Paper. The first is that of my hon. Friend the Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory), who proposes to re-consider and revise the progressive rates of probate and administration duty, and to give greater facilities for assessment and settlement of legacy and succession duties upon future or contingent events, and for the relief of executors, administrators, and trustees, in respect of the same. Now, Sir, I venture to think that my hon. Friend will find it impossible so to deal with future or contingent events; and if he goes into the matter fully, I believe he will arrive at the same conclusion that I have, and will find that his object cannot be better effected than by the adoption of the system suggested in my Resolution. Under these circumstances, I confidently hope that I may rely upon having my hon. Friend's support. There only remains the Amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter), which he proposes to make to my Resolution. This proposition involves a new principle, upon which, as I have already said, there would be a great diversity of opinion on both sides of the House. My proposition involves no new principle, and, therefore, I am reluctantly compelled to ask my right hon. Friend not to press the addition of which he has given Notice. I merely propose to combine certain existing duties, and I do not think this at all warrants the introduction of the larger question as to the taxation to be imposed upon real estate. I now beg to move, Sir, the Resolution of which I have given Notice.

Sir, my hon. Friend has dealt so exhaustively and so ably with the matter before the House in the speech which he has just delivered, that I shall not detain the House but for a few minutes in supporting the Resolution. I wish especially to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to how hardly these probate duties fall upon small estates, not only in respect of the large amount of duty charged on these estates, but in the form of legal expenses caused by this duty. A Return placed before this House at the beginning of last Session showed that the total number of estates dealt with during the year 1877–8 was 40,906. Of that number 13,749, or one-third, were estates under £300 each, and the total amount of duty levied on them was £48,831. Now, the average amount of duty paid by these small estates, I find, was almost 2 per cent on the whole. The same Return shows that estates of £30,000 each and upwards paid only something less than 1½ per cent. But to these per centages must be added the charge on the estates caused by the duty. I find that the average sum paid by the estates under £300 was no more than £3 10s. each; but anyone who has any experience of the expenses in such matters, will be of opinion that the legal expenses involved by the payment of this £3 10s. were very likely nearly twice that amount. Therefore, it will be seen that these small estates had to pay 2 per cent probate duty, and further legal expenses of between 2 and 4 per cent in making up the statements required with the payment of the duty. The hon. Member who has just addressed the House has referred to the large expenditure which might be saved at Somerset House if these duties were simplified. I venture to suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in dealing with this subject, that estates under £300 might be altogether exempted from duty. I venture to think that in so doing the Revenue would suffer very little loss, because, as I have already mentioned, one-third of the whole of the estates consists of the smaller estates under £300, and these must necessarily involve a very large proportion of the work at Somerset House. I think that estates of deceased persons of less than £300 per annum might fairly be considered to correspond with an income of £150 a-year, and ought to be exempted from probate duty, as the small incomes are exempted from Income Tax. For reasons of economy as well as of equality, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will consider the propriety of exempting estates under £300. I hope that the very able and lucid speech which my hon. Friend has addressed to the House will be productive of a very satisfactory division, should one be necessary, and that the House will, by a large majority, strengthen the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in dealing with this subject in his next year's Budget.

, in rising to move, as an Amendment, to leave out from the word "expedient" to the end of the Motion, in order to insert the words—

"To reconsider and revise the progressive rates of Probate and Administration Duty, and to afford greater facilities for the assessment and settlement of Legacy and Sucession Duties upon future or contingent events, and for the relief of executors, administrators, and trustees in respect of the same;"

said, he concurred with the hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds) so far as progressive rates were concerned; they were unequal in their operation, and objectionable in their assessment, large estates paying less in proportion than small ones; but his hon. Friend went further than this, and proposed to assimilate the duties on probates and administrations. He, on the other hand, thought there should be some difference between the two. The making of a will was an imperative duty; and if a man choose to leave his property to the disposition of the law, he did not see why those who benefited by the administration of the law should not pay something for it. With regard to legacies, the proposal of his hon. Friend amounted to this—he would equalize the duties on all legacies, and charge the whole duty on the general estate. All parties were to be assessed to the same duty in respect of the bounties they took under a will, but he thought it was a natural and just principle to regulate the duty according to the consanguinity of the beneficiary. His hon. Friend was driven to this dilemma, either to charge the whole duty on the residuary estate, or to apportion it among the legatees. As to the proposition that a testator himself should regulate the portion of duty to be paid by each legatee, it would impose a duty on a testator which would very seldom be performed; but he thought that further facilities should be afforded for the payment of legacy duties and for discharging executors and trustees in all eases in which one party was entitled for life and another in remainder. It might be said that in cases where the duties would be assessed at different rates, some hardship would accrue to the remainder man in the duty being levied on the whole legacy in the first instance, but he believed that this would be so small in effect as to be inappreciable. Again, he thought, executors or trustees should have the power of giving notice to the Inland Revenue Office that they were about to distribute the funds in their hands, and require the Office if they had any claim upon such funds, to make it within a limited time, and if the Office did not make such claim, that the trustees or executors should be discharged. Again, with regard to succession duties, a case had occurred in which the trustees had elected to pay the succession duties by instalments, but, unfortunately, one of them forgot to pay the last instalment. The thing was undiscovered for years; but when the owner came into succession, he was called upon to pay all the instalments with interest at 4 per cent for 14 years. In a case of that kind, he thought that the principal alone ought to be recoverable. If the changes he had suggested were made, he did not think any more was required. He begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

, in seconding the Amendment, said, he agreed with his hon. Friend that; on the whole, the present law worked very well, and was a just law. It was a law which prevailed in all civilized States, and was first adopted in this country under William III., when it was brought from Holland. In 1780, the tax was simply 1 per cent upon legacies above £100; in 1783, it was increased to 2 per cent; and in 1789, to 3 per cent. In 1796, a proposition was brought before the House to increase the duties; and a very long debate followed. On a division, as to whether real estate should be brought under the same rule as personal estate, the numbers were equal, and the Speaker gave his casting-vote against the proposition, so that there might be further time for consideration, and the subject dropped. In 1805, differential duties were introduced; and in 1815, it was established that children who had a natural claim should pay a smaller amount than those who had not the same natural claim. It was manifestly unjust, that those who had a natural right to be maintained should pay the same duty as those who had no such right. The argument in the case of the probate and succession duties were similar. Again, it might be argued, that if too large a duty were imposed on children, who were the immediate objects of the testator's bounty and care, parents would be induced to make provision for them be-fore death, and would thereby evade payment of the percentage to the State. As a matter of fact, that happened rather frequently, even with the existing low duties. He believed that the legacy duty could not be increased without detriment to the State, and that, as it stood, it was based on fair principles, of which the advantages outweighed those of the fixed duty which had been suggested. No doubt, the present system caused considerable expense; but he had never heard of any injustice done in the whole great establishment of Somerset House. He believed the differential duty was better for the public than a fixed duty would be, inasmuch as it did not offer any temptations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to levy those increases which the hon. Member seemed to think desirable. The total value of personal property had largely increased of late years, till it now amounted to 80 per cent of the whole. That was a circumstance which seemed to have escaped the attention of the hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds). It was surprising that only the remaining 20 per cent was liable to contribute to local taxation. That fact was an answer to many of the arguments they had heard; and, taking it together with other facts, he had no difficulty in giving his vote against the Resolution.

said, he wished to say a very few words with regard to the Notice which he had placed on the Paper, and which was as follows:—

"To move to add to Mr. Dodd's Motion—'and that with respect to the Probate, Legacy and Succession Duties real estate should be placed on the same footing as personal estate."

The first remark he would make was to to express his surprise at the total inconsistency between our practice in regard to these duties and our practice with regard to other taxation. With regard to other taxation there was a practice, which he very much regretted to see, of exempting the lower portion of the middle classes from taxation. This practice was, he considered, carried very much farther than the benefit of the State justified. The principle adopted in the case of the Income Tax was directly opposite to the principle which they were now discussing with regard to the duties touched upon in the Motion. There was another singularity with regard to the succession duties, and that was that no defence of any kind, good, bad, or indifferent, had ever been made from the Treasury Bench by any Chancellor of the Exchequer of the anomalies or inequalities so ably pointed out by his hon. Friend the Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds). There had been some defences made from time to time by some independent Gentlemen; but it was a remarkable thing that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking with authority, had never been able to defend these duties. It appeared to him that it was utterly impossible to justify the taxing of small successions at a higher rate than large ones, and the taxing of testate and intestate estates at different charges, and the taxing of real estate where it was used for the purposes of trade, whilst, where it was not used for the purposes of trade it got off scot free. These anomalies and inequalities in the present system had not only been frequently pointed out, but they had been proved to demonstration time and again in that House. To his mind, it was most surprising that no Chancellor of the Exchequer had ever had the courage to grapple with this matter; and the more especially so because it was perfectly evident that any-honest, logical attempt to remove these anomalies and put on a uniform duty, as proposed by his hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, would add, he believed, something like £1,000,000 sterling to the Revenue of the country. The present system appeared to him to be radically defective, and he thought it was no use attempting to patch it up in the manner proposed by the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory). He should, therefore, give his support to the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Stockton. But he was most desirous of saying that he did not think the House of Commons would be satisfied with stopping here. He claimed, in the interests of justice, that real heritable property should be placed on precisely the same footing, with regard to these duties, as property which was moveable. He was afraid that the country—the electors—were not sufficiently aware of the gross inequality of the law in this respect. He had an abstract of the Parliamentary Return, issued in February, 1878, for the year 1876–7, from which he found that on personal or moveable estates the probate or inventory duty was £2,260,176, and legacy duty £2,846,054, making together £5,107,130; whilst the succession duty on real or heritable estates was only £849,340, making a difference of £4,257,700. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich calculated, some years ago, that if the real property were taxed it would add £2,000,000 to the Exchequer; but the Conservative Party insisted that it would involve a tax of a much greater extent, and Lord Cairns said that the landed property of the country, if that alteration were made, would pay £8,000,000 a-year. He had gone into a calculation himself, but, at that late hour of the night, would not trouble the House with it. It would be sufficient for him to say that he thought any person who had studied this subject thoroughly must come to the conclusion that the exemption of landed property from these duties cost the country not less than £4,000,000 a-year. He had never been able to see why they should not be placed on the same footing, and every great financial authority, who had written and spoken on this subject, took the same view. Many years ago, Mr. Gwynne, the Comptroller of the Duties, addressing the Commissioners of Stamps and Taxes, said—

"It is a matter of surprise that the legacy and probate duties have not yet been extended to real as well as personal estate. Clearly, there is no distinction between them which on any sound principle of finance should exempt one description of property and not the other."

In Mr. M'Culloch's article on taxation in The Edinburgh Review for 1860, he read as follows:—

"We cannot but think that the mode of charging the duty (meaning the three duties before specified), as well as the duty itself, should be identical on all parts of property; and that if an individual succeed to an estate or other real property which would sell for a certain sum, the duty should be imposed on that amount. This would be a plain and, apparently, an equitable proceeding; for it is not easy to see why one variety of property should be dealt with in one way, and another in a different way.…. The result of the present system of assessing the tax on real property is such that it is not supposed to yield a third part of what it would yield were it assessed in the same way that it is assessed on money and other personal property. It would require very conclusive reasons to justify a distinction of this sort, and, as we have seen, none such really exist. The sooner, therefore, that this discrepancy is terminated, and the duty assessed in the same way on all descriptions of property, the better it will be for all parties. Anything like even the appearance of favouritism in taxation should be carefully guarded against. It is uniformly productive of the worst results, and is especially objectionable when, as in the present case, it is manifested on the side of the richer and more powerful classes."

Now, the only argument he had heard against the taxation of real and personal property was the old theory of peculiar burdens on the land of the country. As a landowner himself, he denied that theory, and he felt persuaded the time would come when the House would have to free itself from the charge that the landowners took very good care of themselves in the matter of the succession duties. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen cried "Oh, oh!" but he wished to remind them that the Land Tax was based on a valuation made some 200 years ago which now was merely nominal. He entirely agreed with his hon. Friend who had just sat down (Mr. Goldney) in what he said about Corporations. He could see no reason why Corporations should be exempted. This subject was occupying more attention than many hon. Gentlemen believed, and he himself had presented several Petitions, very much to his surprise, in favour of this Motion. He thought that the Government had now an excellent opportunity, before the Budget of next year, of allaying the feeling of discontent which existed, and, at the same time, adding a very considerable amount to the national Exchequer.

said, the Amendment, or rather rider, which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter) had placed upon the Paper was not before the House, and the few observations which the right hon. Gentleman had made showed that they were not to be called upon on that occasion to discuss that Amendment. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had exercised a wise discretion in not inviting them to enter upon so large and difficult a discussion as that which would have been raised if the House had been asked to consider the Amendment. He protested against some of the assumptions which the right hon. Gentleman had made, and he thought that if the question were argued out, it would be easy to adduce very good arguments against the doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman, that real estate should be taxed as regarded legacy duty upon the same footing as personal estate. The right hon. Gentleman had given an inadequate view of the difference between the burdens which fell upon real estate and upon personal estate. He thought that if the right hon. Gentleman would analyze his estimate of the value of real property, and correct it by deducting charges in the nature of mortgages and other charges, he would find that that value was not as large when compared with the wealth of the country as he would have the House believe. He, however, proposed to confine his observations to the question raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds), and to treat his Motion from a purely practical point of view. He understood that the object of his hon. Friend was to bring to the cognizance of the House the anomalies which undoubtedly existed in the present system under which probate and legacy duty upon personal property was levied. The charges which the hon. Gentleman brought against that system were three—namely, that the smaller estates were charged with the highest rate of duty, that the scale of assessment proceeded by jumps, instead of by regular percentage, and that an objectionable difference was made between the charges on testate and intestate estates. In the justice of the first of these complaints he entirely concurred, it being perfectly clear that the scale as it stood at present bore more heavily upon the smaller estates than upon the larger. This was a matter which called for attention, and, at the proper time, for remedy. As to his hon. Friend's second charge, he thought it would be far more convenient that the scale should be in the nature of a scale by steps, than in the nature of a percentage duty, because of the great difficulty that there would be in assessing the duty by percentage if stamps were to be used for the purpose. It would be extremely inconvenient to keep stamps of every variety necessary to meet the peculiar incidence of a strict and accurate percentage duty. The hon. Gentleman might say, "Why should you use stamps? Why should you not adopt my principle of having an uniform tax to take the place both of the probate duty, which is raised by stamps, and the legacy duty, which is raised by percentage? Why not substitute for these two an uniform percentage duty? "But if this suggestion were adopted, if the same amount of revenue was to be raised, and he assumed that that was intended, it would be necessary to substitute for a tax which was levied partially by stamp upon probate, and subsequently by percentage upon legacy duty, an uniform amount which would cover both those charges. This would be to place a very heavy charge upon successors to property, who probably in many cases would not find it very convenient to bear it. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the fact that it often happened that persons coming into property were unable to pay probate duty without inconvenience. How great, then, would be the inconvenience to which they would be subjected supposing they were compelled to find the full amount, as would be the case if the hon. Gentleman's suggestions were adopted. And for this reason, that it provided a self-acting machinery by which the amount of the property was ascertained by the probate stamp which the person who was entitled to the property was anxious to obtain, and who would, therefore, not attempt to evade the duty. He thought that it was more convenient and more secure for the Revenue, and certainly more convenient for the person who had to pay the duty, that the duty should be levied partly in the form of probate duty, and partly in the form of legacy duty. He fully admitted, however, that the scale on which the duty was levied should be re-considered. But, in re-adjusting the duty, he did not think that the proposal of the hon. Member would be advantageous, either to the Exchequer or to those who had to pay it. The third complaint which had been made was that a difference was made between the duty on intestate estates, and those which were bequeathed by will. Upon that subject, however, he should wish to reserve his opinion. He was by no means prepared to say that he should not admit the force of the argument which had been used in reference to it; but, at the same time, he did not wish to pledge himself to anything until he had given further consideration to the matter. In order to place the two classes of estates upon an equal footing, it would be necessary to raise the amount of the duty upon testate estates. He admitted that these were all matters that required consideration, and since last year he had given some attention to the subject. The hon. Member, however, must admit that this was a very difficult question, which had been for a number of years under consideration by the ablest financiers, who, down to the present time, had been unable to see their way to a solution of the problem. In these circumstances, he did not think he was open to any serious charge for not having as yet succeeded in satisfactorily settling the question. Dealing with the subject of consanguinity, he must remark that if too high a duty were exacted in respect of property bequeathed from father to son, or from husband to wife, the Revenue would lose largely by moans of inter vivos arrangements, while a good deal of ill-feeling might be roused by adopting that course. With regard to the subject of the descent of property to illegitimate issue, while he admitted that many hard cases might result from the operation of the present system, he doubted whether it would be wise to disturb an arrangement which had existed for so long. Though he admitted the justice of much that had been said by the hon. Gentleman, he should demur entirely to the acceptance of such a proposal as that lie had placed on the Paper. It would be altogether unwise to commit the House to such a proposition as that there should be an uniform rate of the value of personal estate. General questions of taxation were open to considerable doubt; but, with regard to this, it was a proposal of a different character. It asked the House to commit itself to a specific plan which he could not admit to be the right, or best plan even, to attain that which the hon. Member wished, and he, for one, would not agree to it. If the House were to pass any Resolution at all, he thought the Resolution as it would stand with the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Sussex (Mr. Gregory) would be harmless and, to a certain extent, beneficial. He should prefer that no Resolution should be passed at all, and that the House should be contented with the discussion, which had been of a very interesting and suggestive character; but, if a division were taken, he should be prepared to negative the Motion of the hon. Member for Stockton, and to support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Sussex.

said, he had no wish to detain the House, but he must beg leave to say a few words in reply. With reference to the remarks of his hon. Friend the Member for East Sussex(Mr.Gregory) as to the desirability of making a man pay for the administration of his estate by the law in the event of his dying intestate, he thought the hon. Member could scarcely be serious in putting such a proposal forward. The Act for the distribution of intestate estates imposed no duty on the State. The representatives of the man who died intestate were responsible for putting it in operation. He could not conceive the smallest reason for the differential duty being paid on that account. As to the suggestion about an estate with a life interest and remainder over to somebody else, the difficulty could be got over in the simplest possible way by taking the whole duty out of the corpus of the fund, by which arrangement everybody would pay equally from the commencement. The tenant for life would have £100 reduced by 4 per cent, and would receive the interest upon 96 per cent. Then it was said that the duty would be thrown entirely upon the residuary legatee, if the testator did not make a proper provision for the duty in his will. Rut the hon. Member must know very well that a solicitor, in drawing a will, always took the instructions as to whether duty was to be charged upon a particular legacy or not. It was the duty of the solicitor to see to that in drawing a will; while, in the case of an intestacy, the difficulty would not arise, because each would take Ms share out of the portion. Then it was suggested that it was very hard to charge interest upon the duty, where it had not been paid for a long time. He quite admitted that it did sometimes seem hard, and in one case recently, within his own experience, where the duty was £1,000, the interest was between 20 or 30 per cent of that amount. But he could see no hardship in the arrangement. The duty was due, and if it had been paid, the State would have had the benefit of it; while, on the other hand, the person having the money, had no doubt been making more of it than the 4 per cent the State charged him. He must beg pardon of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Goldney) for interrupting him. He thought the hon. Member was mixing up the probate and legacy duties. The probate duty certainly was brought in in 1694; but the legacy duty was not imposed till the year 1780, in the time of George III. With regard to the case of a man selling property, he must remind the hon. Gentleman that there was no difference whether a man sold to a relative or to a stranger. Therefore, he failed to see any answer to his proposal in that objection. It must be remembered that he was not suggesting for a moment that there should be any increase in these duties. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had clearly defined that; his proposal simply was that the same duty should be levied in a different form. He thanked the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the way in which he had accepted some of his propositions, and he hoped now that the question was clearly before the House, that the Government would take it up another year. He might acid, as to the difficulty of raising money, that if a certificate were granted at the Inland Revenue Office of the amount payable, and that certificate wore made a voucher to the insurance companies, or the bankers, anyone having any part of the estate could easily get money. If that was not done, then they might make a portion payable after a certain time. He had heard nothing during the debate to impair or weaken his case, and he must therefore ask the opinion of the House upon it, feeling quite sure that the time was not far distant when his proposition, or something very like it, would be agreed to by some Chancellor of the Exchequer.

said, that he should like to ask the attention of the House while he made a personal explanation on the matter, and he trusted no hon. Member would object to his doing so. He would refer to two matters—1st, to the debate that took place on the 2nd April last, on a Motion of his own, in which he called the attention of the House to the formation of the Select Committees on Public Business; and, secondly, to the debate raised by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie), on the question of the sugar industries. He was bound to revert to those two questions, for the purpose of showing that he had a reasonable, proper, and Constitutional right to oppose the nomination of this Committee of 17 Members, and that he did not raise his objections for the purpose of obstruction. It had been allowed that every hon. Member of the House was entitled of right to comment upon all matters of Public Business that came before it, and he might say that, although his name appeared in the Division List in support of this Committee, he went into that Lobby by mistake; but he did not think that it was of sufficient importance to go to the Table with the Tellers for the purpose of rectifying his error. In his own justification, he might say that he told the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets of his intention to raise an objection to the Committee, and that he called his atten- tion to the Standing Order of the 25th June, 1852, by which the number of Members to be nominated on any Committee was limited to 15, unless by special consent of the House. So far, he had done all that one hon. Member should do in giving Notice of his intention to object to the Committee. But the names did appear on the Paper after he intimated his intention to object to the nomination, and when the names appeared on the Paper, his objection was very much stronger, and in that objection he was joined by several hon. Members of the House, and a Notice of objection by another hon. Member appeared on the Papers of the House at the same time that his own did. His hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) put an objection on the Paper; but, for some reason of his own, he had withdrawn it. But that did not interfere with his (Mr. Isaac's) objection. He entertained a strong opinion with respect to the number of names submitted for nomination on these Committees, and he contended that he was within his Constitutional right in objecting to the Committee consisting of 17 Members. In answer to a Question that was put to him, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had appealed to him to withdraw his opposition. He could not answer the Chancellor of the Exchequer that evening, nor could he express his views upon the subject on the occasion without putting the House to great inconvenience; but he loft it in the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to arrange the matter, and had agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that if the number of the Committee were limited to 15, lie would no longer raise an objection. The only stipulation he made to that offer being that the two names last put on the Paper—namely, the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney), and the hon. and learned Member for Kildare (Mr. Meldon), should remain part of the 15. lie was bound to say that he had heard nothing of any kind from the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie) with respect to the matter, and in the absence of any communication from him asking his views, he did not consider that he had any right to take notice of the agitation made both inside and outside of this House; indeed, to so great an extent had the agitation been carried, that it was even threatened to send a deputation to Nottingham, and thus induce the working men there to unseat him. He was bound to say that he still objected to the number of the Committee being more than 15, and he thought that, in justice to himself and his case, the number should be reduced. He made those observations in order that hon. Members might know the reasons for his opposition, and in order that he might not be accused of obstruction. In the future, it was his intention during the rest of the Session to oppose the nomination of any Select Committee where the names exceeded 15 in number. He trusted that the explanation he had given would be satisfactory to the House. He might say that he should not oppose any further delay in the nomination of the Committee; but he hoped that the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets would meet his objection by reducing the number to 15.

said, he must place before the House his version of what had taken place, as it differed materially from that described by the hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. Isaac). No doubt, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Clackmannan (Mr. Adam) and his hon. Colleague (Sir William Hart Dyke) were very much obliged to the hon. Member for the interest he took in the nomination of Select Committees. He should not question the right of any hon. Member to oppose the names proposed to be nominated on a Committee. But the effect of the opposition of the hon. Gentleman had been to prevent this matter from coming on at all even for discussion. He ventured to think that opposition of that sort was unjustifiable, for the House, having resolved upon the Committee, there remained the further step to nominate the Members to serve on the Committee, and the effect of the opposition of the hon. Gentleman was to prevent the House from carrying out its own Resolution. The hon. Gentleman said that he had never asked him as to his views upon the matter, and that no Question on the subject had over been put to him. The House would, no doubt recollect that when he asked a Question of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject, the right hon. Gentleman expressed a hope that the hon. Member for Nottingham would withdraw his opposition to the appointment of the Committee. He then immediately asked the hon. Member whether, after what had been said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he would consent to do so? The hon. Member did not pay him even the ordinary courtesy of replying to his Question, although in the House. After that, he did not feel justified in again mentioning the matter to him. The hon. Gentleman had stated that he had originally told him of his intention to object to the Committee, on the ground, of the Standing Orders, unless he limited his Committee to 15; but after the Committee had been appointed, the hon. Gentleman stated to him that he had changed his mind and that unless he limited his Committee to 13, he should object to it. On further conversation with him, he (Mr. Ritchie) told the hon. Member that the Standing Orders permitted 15 Members to be nominated, and he (Mr. Ritchie) proceeded to obtain the names of hon. Members in the usual way. It was useless for the hon. Member to come forward now to say that he objected to 17 names; for what he really objected to at first was that 15 Members should be on the Committee, the other two were added after the hon. Member had put his Notice of objection on the Paper. In respect to the opposition of the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn), it was based upon a sound and intelligible principle—namely, that the Committee ought to be strengthened by the addition of the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney). He quite agreed that the hon. Member for Liskeard ought to be on the Committee, and he was sure that that hon. Member would acknowledge that he was one of the first he had applied to, but he was then unwilling to serve. It was his great anxiety that the Committee should be a strong Committee, and when he complied with the request of the hon. Member for Swansea, his opposition was immediately withdrawn. He hoped that he had now satisfied the House that the course he had taken was a usual one; but he ventured to think that the course taken by the hon. Member for Nottingham had been altogether unusual and unprecedented upon a question of the nomination of a Select Committee. If the hon. Member had objected in the first instance to the Committee being com- posed of more than 15 Members, he should have paid every attention to his representations; but as he had now obtained the names of hon. Members and placed them on the Committee, he did not see how he could ask any hon. Gentleman to have his name taken off. He, therefore, hoped that the House would support him in nominating 17 Members to serve upon the Committee.

observed, that he placed a Notice upon the Paper with reference to the number of this Committee, though he could not agree with the hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. Isaac) that the Committee should be limited to 15. He was opposed to the Committee in toto—he did not like it, and did not think it would lead to good results; but when he saw the names of the hon. Members whom it was proposed to nominate to serve on the Committee, he considered that there was an undue preponderance of Gentlemen likely to be biased—not improperly—but still biased on the subject, and, therefore, he objected to the nomination of the Committee. His hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie) very frankly and fairly met his views, and named two other Members—the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney), and the hon. and learned Member for Kildare (Mr. Meldon). He did not altogether like the Committee being raised from 15 to 17; but still, as his hon. Friend had met his views so fairly, he did not think he could do otherwise than withdraw his opposition, and he, therefore, felt bound now to support the nomination of the Committee as he proposed it. He did not like the Committee at all; still, as his hon. Friend had done his best to meet his views, he should accept what he proposed.