in moving a series of Standing Orders for the suspension until the new Parliament of Private Bills or Bills to confirm any Provisional Order or Certificate, stated that similar Standing Orders were passed in 1859, when the General Election occurred in the middle of the Session. The object was to suspend the progress of Private Bills now before the House, so that they might be taken up in the new House of Commons. He had, in framing the Resolution, carefully followed the Standing Order passed in 1859, except in regard to Provisional Orders. As such Orders were now treated as Private Bills he had included them, and also the Certificates relating to Provisional Orders for the inclosure of Commons, which had certain preliminaries to go through before they could be brought before the House.

asked the Comptroller General of the Ordnance, Whether it is the case that, in the recent destructive trial of the "Thunderer" gun, crusher gauges incapable of registering pressures below thirty-six tons to the square inch were used, in consequence of which the actual pressure which burst the gun has not been ascertained; and, if so, why that course was adopted?

Yes, Sir; it is perfectly true that crusher gauges were set to mark a pressure of not less than 36 tons. There is every reason to believe from the careful examination of one of the crusher gauges after the explosion, which, although broken, registered a pressure of 40 tons, that the point of greatest pressure exceeded 36 tons. It is doubtful whether, in any circumstances, the actual pressure which burst the gun could have been accurately ascertained.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether his attention has been directed to the different position as respects payment in which the out-door Officers of Customs at the out ports are placed, in comparison with the same Officers at London and Liverpool; whether the qualification test is the same; whether the duties and responsibilities are identical; and, whether he can hold out any prospect that the present inequality will be redressed?

in reply, said, the question had been on several occasions under the consideration of the Treasury. The duties of these officers in the two places were generally similar in kind; but in London there was a larger area, and the officer was put to greater expense in consequence of the higher rates, and the distance he had to travel. He could not, therefore, hold out any prospect of an alteration being made.

asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether he can inform the House what was the extent of the loss of baggage animals on the North West frontier of India between the opening of the Afghan campaign in November 1878 and the month of April 1879; and, whether he will state to the House, whether any, and, if so, what arrangements have been made to compensate the owners in Scinde and the Punjab of such animals as were requisitioned and died when taken away for military purposes from agricultural and other labours?

Sir, I believe that the number of camels which died or disappeared in the winter of 1878–9 was 31,000. We have not yet very complete information on the subject; but we know that full compensation was ordered to be paid on the spot for animals actually certified to have been killed by the enemy. As regards all others the fullest inquiry possible under the circumstances was ordered to be made before the claim was submitted, the Superintendent of Transport and the Commissariat Officer noting on each claim, and giving an opinion as to the amount to be allowed.

asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether there is any truth in the telegraphic information from the correspondent of the "Times" to the effect that "the Government has presented a battery of six-pounder guns, with harness, and 2,000 smooth-bore Enfields to Sirdar Shere Ali, the Governor of Candahar;" whether His Excellency the Viceroy has any intention of presenting to other Sirdars in Afghanistan, supposed for the time being to be friendly to us, guns and rifles, and to what extent; and, whether Her Majesty's Government has considered the advisability of allowing His Excellency the Viceroy the power of giving arms to temporary native rulers without the previous sanction of the Secretary of State in Council of Her Majesty's Government?

Sir, I am afraid that we have no information on this subject, and do not, therefore, know whether it is true. No communication has been made to us about it. But I may add that the whole policy to be adopted towards Afghanistan is the subject of constant communication between the Viceroy and the Secretary of State.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it is intended to grant to chief officers of coast guard the same privileges as regards pay and pension as that granted to warrant officers in the Navy, with whom they hold similar rank in the service?

in reply, said, the whole subject had been under the careful consideration of the Admiralty, and that the conclusion which had been arrived at was that it was not desirable to make any alteration in the existing regulations.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If, having regard to the evidence and conduct of the police and the Crown witnesses on the trial of Michael Kelly, Luke Brown, and Simon Brown at the last Mullingar Assizes, and the acquittal of the prisoners, it is his intention to direct a prosecution for perjury against certain of the Crown witnesses referred to?

in reply, said, he could not reply to the Question as he should like, because he had not the complete documents before him. If the hon. and learned Gentleman would kindly postpone the Question, he might be able to give him an answer on the following day. He would also ask that the Question of the hon. and learned Gentleman which followed next on the Paper should also be postponed.

begged to postpone his Question at the request of the right hon. Gentleman.

asked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether he is now in a position to order a prosecution of the owners of the "Louisa Fletcher" for attempting to send that vessel to sea in an unseaworthy state; and, whether he ordered a proper survey of the "Maha-Buleshwar" at Falmouth with a view to the prosecution of the owner of that vessel, if deemed to be liable for a similar offence against the Law?

Sir, I have consulted my legal adviser as I announced, and I am advised that the owners of the Louisa Fletcher cannot be prosecuted in this case, information having been received that before she left London she had just been surveyed by Lloyd's, and continued in her class, and that before she left Plymouth the defect in the rudder, which had arisen at sea, was put right, to the satisfaction of the local surveyors. The matters connected with the state of the forecastle do not come within the category of unseaworthiness, so that it is at once apparent that there is no case for a prosecution. With regard to the case of the Maha-Buleshwar, at Falmouth, I had no opportunity of ordering any survey, as the ship was towed off to sea before the facts were brought to my notice. I am advised, therefore, that I could not prosecute in this case. I think it only due to all concerned that the Papers in these two cases should be laid upon the Table.

asked the Right Honourable Member for Cambridge Uni- versity, If it is true, as stated in the "Standard" of 9th March, that the Trustees of the British Museum propose to sell by auction in the month of April a large and valuable collection of duplicate prints, many of them original works of the great engravers; and, if so, why it is that the Trustees do not avail themselves of the powers conferred upon them two years ago to distribute such duplicates amongst the museums of the great provincial towns, which contribute so largely by taxation to the maintenance of the British Museum?

in reply, said, there were old Acts of Parliament of the 7th Geo. III., in which express power was given to the Trustees of the British Museum to sell duplicates in the collection for the purpose of purchasing other prints. That power had very rarely been exercised—never, he believed, or, at least, hardly ever, except for special purposes with the concurrence of the Treasury; but the occasion which had arisen for resorting to that power was a somewhat peculiar one. A few weeks ago an offer was made to the Trustees of a very important collection of drawings and illustrations of Old London, showing the character and growth of the Metropolis. That offer was made at a very much larger sum than the amount which was granted annually for prints; and there were, therefore, only two other ways in which the purchase could be effected. There might have been an application for a special grant; but it could not have been obtained in the present year owing to the requirements of the Treasury; and, consequently, the only other alternative was either to forego the purchase of this very valuable and interesting collection, or to make it by the sale of such duplicates as they had in the Museum, which the Trustees resolved to do rather than let the proffered prize slip from their hands.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, "Whether it is the intention of the Government to propose a small Vote in Supply, in order to give effect to the urgent recommendations of the Committee on Parliamentary Reporting, as to the desirableness of providing increased accommodation in the Reporters' Gallery of the House of Commons for the representatives of provincial newspapers?

in reply, said, that the Government thought it would be the better course to leave this question to the consideration of the new Parliament. It was not the intention of the Government to propose any Vote in relation to the subject this Session.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury, with reference to his reply to the late Member for Elginshire in the year 1878, Whether Her Majesty's Government has now been able to come to any conclusions as to the Recommendations made in the Supplementary Report of the Scottish Fisheries Commission regarding the improvement of Harbours upon the East Coast; whether they are able to agree with the Recommendations of the Commission or with any of them, and, if so, with which; and, further, whether they see their way to encouraging local effort for harbour improvement in any way not suggested by the Commission; and, if so, how?

Sir, the Scotch Fisheries Commissioners recommended—1, That the conditions on which the existing grant for the improvement of harbours on the East Coast was given should be made more stringent. 2. That Government should confine its action to granting loans to the local authorities through the Public Works Loan Commissioners. They recommended increased stringency in raising the local contributions from one-third to two-thirds of the cost; and that dues should be charged and applied for the improvement of the harbour. I myself agree in the recommendations that the loans should be through the Public Works Loan Commissioners, and that dues should be levied. And I think that evidence of the co-operation of the locality should be shown by a fair local contribution. When such effort is shown I shall be prepared to recommend the loan in aid should be granted.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If the Local Go- vernment Board have received information as to the amount of seed which the guardians of the scheduled unions propose to sell to each occupier of land; if the Local Government Board are satisfied that all the scheduled unions are prepared to grant a sufficient supply of seed to fulfil the purpose of the Seed Act and to enable all occupiers under £15 a-year to sow a sufficient breadth of land; and, if the Local Government Board are not satisfied with the maximum limits which the guardians have in some unions placed on the issue of seed, do the Local Government Board intend to take steps to extend those limits?

Sir, the Local Government Board has no desire to needlessly interfere with the Guardians in the exercise of their duties. In some cases, however, complaints have been made to the Board that the supply of seed was not adequate, and in those instances inquiry will be made. The general principle, however, acted upon is that on the Guardians will fall the responsibility of carrying out the Act. I understand that 140 Unions have expressed their willingness to put the Act into operation.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Why a Return, ordered by the House on the 27th of March last, as to the cost of bringing the Indian Troops to Europe in 1878, has not yet been furnished to this House; and, whether he will cause such Return to be forthwith laid upon the Table and printed and circulated?

in reply, said, that as his name was attached to the Return, perhaps he might be allowed to answer the Question. The figures ordered by the House in the Return referred to reached this country, he thought, in June last year; but doubts were expressed as to their correctness, and it was, therefore, necessary to make communications to the Indian Government on the subject. The figures were about to be presented to the House the other day, but appeared to require still further correction, and a telegram had been despatched to India asking that the figures might be verified as soon as possible. That was the reason why the Return had not been presented. With regard to the second part of the hon. Member's Question, it would be obviously inconvenient to present a Return the figures of which they did not know to.

said, he felt bound to press for a further explanation of this matter; and, in case of need, he must do what he had never done since he had been a Member of the House, and move the adjournment of the House. The Question affected somewhat the Privileges of the House, and it was only fair to state that he asked three Questions respecting this Return in the last Session of Parliament, and on the last day but one in that Session the Under Secretary of State for India informed him that he had laid the Return upon the Table. That announcement was received with a good deal of mirth from hon. Gentlemen behind the Under Secretary of State for India; and when he (Mr. Mundella) went into the Library next day he found a blank sheet of paper. He had been to the Library again and again; but no Return had been furnished. He had applied to the Under Secretary of State for India again, and had been referred to the Secretary of State for War. They were told that a Return, which was professedly laid on the Table on the 13th August last, could not be produced, and they were going to discuss this question in the country without the figures before them. Now, seeing that the Return referred to what took place two years ago—it was two years since the Indian troops were brought to Europe—he asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why it was they could not have the figures, and how on earth the accounts were made up without them? He begged to move the adjournment of the House.

seconded the Motion.

said, he would take upon himself whatever blame there might be for the delay which had arisen. As the House would see, however, he had been actuated in what he had done by a desire to procure information of a perfectly accurate character. He was speaking without notes before him, as he did not know till a few minutes ago that he would be called on to answer the Question; but he believed the figures were ordered on March 27 last year. They were received in June, and it was then found that in some particulars they were not correct. Reference was accordingly made to India—he could not say at what date, but he believed immediately—and on the last day of the Session, no further information having been received, a blank form well known to hon. Members was laid upon the Table, in order that the Return, when it did come, might be issued without delay. He understood that the figures were presented again, but that it was necessary that there should be a still further correction; and he was in possession of a note saying that up to the 5th of March last communication was going on with the Government of India respecting the figures, and the last communication was by telegram.

said, this was really a very grave question, which absolutely demanded an explanation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. A Committee was appointed the Session before last to inquire into the cost of the Indian troops going abroad, and the appointment of the Committee was concurred in by the Government. He had the honour, together with others, of representing that side of the House on the Committee. They were informed that the figures had not yet arrived from India, but that, if possible, they should be presented in the next Session. On the receipt of that assurance from the Government, he consented, in spite of opposition from some of his Friends, to the adjournment of the inquiry till the following year. But that adjournment was assented, to with the distinct understanding that the Government would reappoint the Committee, and that the figures would be presented early last Session; whereas now, in the middle of another Session, the Government had so contrived as not to give any information whatever. A clear and categorical explanation ought to be given by Her Majesty's Government on the subject. He regarded this as one of the gravest cases of apparently withholding information for the purpose of avoiding inquiry.

The hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) have appealed to me specially in this matter. I must frankly own that when I saw the Question on the Paper I was not able to give any answer to it of my own knowledge. All I could do was to send an inquiry to the War Office and to the India Office on the subject; and my right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for War undertook to answer the Question, so far as he was able to do so. There can be no doubt that the facts as mentioned in this discussion do show that there has been considerable delay in forwarding these Returns. I am unable to say how that delay has occurred; but communications from India to this country with regard to matters of expenditure generally take a much longer time than appears reasonable to many people at home. If information came in a form which did not appear to be correct, it was only natural and right that inquiry should be made, in order to render the figures accurate. I am informed that the position of matters is this—there is a small difference between the figures which have been sent from India and those which are believed here at the India Office to be correct; and although it might not be possible or proper to lay a formal Return upon the Table until the actual figures have been agreed upon, I believe my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India will be quite prepared to state the approximate figures, as sent from India, so far as he is able to do so.

said, the Return could not be presented until it was absolutely correct, and the accounts between the War Office and the India Office were not finally settled. The approximate amount, he was told, was £470,000.

said, he was the Member who moved for the Committee, and he had been repeatedly assured that it would be re-appointed. He did not consider the answer from the Ministerial Bench satisfactory.

said, the gravest part of the charge was that at the end of last Session, not only was a dummy Report laid on the Table, thereby deliberately misleading the House, but for the purpose of catching a cheer and stifling a Question put regarding the Return, the Under Secretary of State for India declared it had been laid on the Table when it had not been. He ought to have explained at the time that it was only a dummy, and told when the real one would be produced.

hoped the House would allow him to make a personal explanation, after the attack made upon him by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson). The facts were simply these: When the Question was put to him he understood that his right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for War had, the day before, laid the Report on the Table, in the way commonly adopted—namely, in dummy. It turned out afterwards that the information received was not altogether accurate; and for that reason, and for that reason alone, the delivery of the Return was delayed. The object of giving a dummy Return was that hon. Members might, at the earliest possible moment, be in possession of the information required. In this case, if a dummy Return had not been presented, and if it had turned out that the information in the hands of the Government was correct, the House would never have had it at all until the beginning of the next Session.

said, the hon. Gentleman had told the House that the approximate cost of bringing the troops to Malta was £470,000; but he understood the cost of freight alone was something like £750,000. He wanted to know the total cost of bringing the troops to Malta, and under what heads of expenditure the amount was to be distributed? With the telegraph at work, the accounts ought to have been obtained from India in less than 12 months. He asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to let the House have full and explicit information on all the points which had been brought under notice. They were not particular as to a thousand or two; but the statement for which he contended was one which would show the expenditure as estimated by the Government, showing the whole amount distributed under different heads.

was of opinion that this discussion had been got up altogether for electioneering purposes. The difficulty of reconciling questions of account between the Home and Indian Governments was very great, as might be seen from the fact that a sum had just been voted by Parliament towards the cost of the Abyssinian Expedition, which took place 12 years ago.

thanked the hon. Member for reminding the House of what took place in regard to the expenditure on the Abyssinian War. Possibly there might be the same differences and discrepancies as to the cost of the Afghan War. He wished to ask whether the £470,000 which had been mentioned was only for the journey one way, or whether it included the cost of taking the troops back? and he suggested to the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) that he should bring forward a Motion for the production of the Correspondence between the authorities in India and the Home Government, which Correspondence would show what was the amount claimed on either side, and what was the maximum of the figures in dispute between the two Governments.

thought this debate should not terminate without a distinct statement whether that £470,000 included the whole cost, or was merely the adjustment between the War Office and the India Office for extra pay to the Forces, and did not include the cost of the transport. If the cost of transport, which was understood to be £750,000, was in addition to this, it would be most unfair at any time, and especially on the eve of a General Election, when a great question of policy was coming on, not to state it.

observed, that he had been called upon suddenly to make a statement on a question of facts. He had no idea that he should be called upon to make such a statement that night, and he had not been able to refresh his memory by reference to documents. If hon. Members desired to act fairly, they should give Notice of a Question on this subject. He would then give them, without a moment's hesitation, such figures as he was able to produce. He had told the House already that he had given almost the exact figures.

said the Under Secretary of State for India must be aware of previous answers which had been given to him on the question. The hon. Gentleman also knew that he had spoken to him in the Lobby about it. What he desired was a detailed account, and he now gave Notice that to-morrow he would ask the Chancellor of the Exche- quer to order the complete Return to be laid on the Table of the House as soon as possible.

wished to ask the Government a Question with regard to the Belief of Distress (Ireland) Bill. That important measure was put on the Paper on Tuesday evening last, and many of the Irish Members remained in town at very serious inconvenience, in order to transact that business. They listened to a most interesting debate, or rather to an able and interesting speech from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Chester (Mr. Raikes); and immediately he had sat down the word went round that the House was to be counted out, although the Irish Relief Bill—the Bill which was to relieve the starving people of Ireland—was on the Orders. He had expressed his incredulity; but he was told that before another right hon. Gentleman from the front Opposition Bench could speak the House was to be counted out, in order that the railway employés might know that "Codlin was the friend, and not Short." From the Government side of the House two attempts were made to count out the House and the Irish Relief Bill; and, despite their efforts to keep the House, the non-action of the Government Whips was too clever for them, and the Irish Relief Bill was shunted. He now appealed to the Government to say when they were to have an opportunity of discussing the Lords' Amendments to the Bill, for many hon. Gentlemen were anxious to get away to their constituencies as soon as possible, and he asked the Government to let them discuss the question that evening.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in reference to the pending arbitration of the Emperor of Austria between Great Britain and Nicaragua, Whether the "case" of this Country is completed; and, whether he will place upon the Table of the House, as an unopposed Return, the Correspondence in respect to the matters in dispute between Great Britain and Nicaragua, together with the "case" of Nicaragua; and, if completed, that of Great Britain?

Yes, Sir; both the case of Great Britain and the case of Nicaragua are complete, and will shortly be exchanged; but Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that it would be prejudicial to the public interest, pending an inquiry on the subject, that any of the proceedings should be laid before Parliament.

asked the Under Secretary of State for India, If, in consequence of the recent order of Government which abolishes the grade of surgeon general and reduces the number of deputy surgeons general in the Indian Medical Service in all three Presidencies, and which upsets the actuary's calculations for medical retiring annuities, whether it is the intention of Government to issue instructions to the Indian Government to grant to medical officers on retirement the annuities after the average period of service which prevailed in each Presidency prior to the publication of the order referred to, and thereby to secure to medical officers of the late Honourable East India Company's Service the rights and privileges guaranteed by Parliament?

Sir, my noble Friend the Secretary of State for India has received several Memorials asking for a modification of the recent Order which abolishes the grade of surgeon general and reduces the number of deputy surgeons general. They are now under the consideration of the Secretary of State in Council.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the scheme for the reorganization of the Out-port Customs Clerical Staff, which it is understood was submitted to the Treasury in September last, has received final consideration; if not, when may the decision be expected to be arrived at?

asked the Secretary to the Treasury, If the exceptions taken by the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Customs to the scheme issued by the Lords of the Treasury for the reorganization of the Clerical Branch of the Customs Out-ports, referred to in the Secretary to the Treasury's answer to the honourable Member for West Cheshire of date 11th February, have yet been considered by their Lordships; I and, whether the scheme will be issued before the dissolution of Parliament.

Sir, a letter was written from the Treasury to the Board of Customs on the 6th instant, which finally disposes of all points of difference between the two Boards in regard to the scheme for reorganization of the Out-port Customs Clerical Staff. The scheme will be brought into operation forthwith.

asked the Secretary of State for India, If he has any objection to lay before Parliament, and to have printed and circulated for the use of Members, before the Dissolution, Mr. William Taylor's Reply to the Minute of Sir Frederick Halliday, presented to the House of Commons at the close of last Session?

Sir, if any hon. Member likes to move for Mr. Tayler's reply, we shall offer no opposition and will lay it upon the Table. The date when it will be placed in the hands of Members depends on the printers; but, looking to its length, I should very much doubt its being completed before the Dissolution.

I wish to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he has considered the possibility of taking steps, by a Bill or otherwise, to prevent the Water Companies in the Metropolis from further raising their rates to the consumers on the strength of existing Acts of Parliament, pending further legislation on the subject? Perhaps the House will allow me to explain that when I used the words on the strength of existing Acts of Parliament, I am thinking of the Metropolis Valuation Act of 1869, under which the Companies have raised their rates when it was not intended by the framers of that Act or by Parliament that they should do so.

Sir, I could not quite understand, until the right hon. Gentleman gave his explanation, whether he was referring to the Metropolis Valuation Act, or the Local Acts which regulate the Companies. There is no doubt that the Metropolis Valuation Act was passed for the purpose of getting a proper valuation in the Metropolis for the special purpose named in the Act. There can be equally no doubt that, considering what the annual value of property was, the Water Companies did take advantage of that Valuation Act, and raised their rents considerably. Parliament took no notice of the matter, and it has gone on to the present time. Rents, however, are not determined by the Statute, but by the Companies' own Acts, and the only thing in dispute is as to what is annual value. But in regard to this the consumer has precisely the same remedy as he had before the passing of the Act; and he may, if he thinks himself aggrieved, go before two Justices. In the case of a Company having a fixed price, either in the case of railway fares, or gas, or waterworks, Parliament never alters that price so fixed unless the Company applies to Parliament for further powers. In one particular case—that of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company—who are at present applying for further powers, the House may depend upon it that I shall take care that ample precaution is taken against any additional rates being imposed; and I am prepared to state that if I find, on the part of the Companies, any intention of raising rents for the purpose of enhancing the price to be paid for compensation, I should recommend Parliament to pay no attention whatever to such augmentation.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether, in consideration of the great distance of Shoeburyness as an Artillery Volunteer Camp and place of competition for heavy ordnance, the Government propose to form a camp of instruction in Scotland or north of England?

in reply, said, that inquiries had been made as to the establishment of a camp of instruction in the North, and the authorities had reported on the suitability of a particular place, which he need not specify, but which was, unfortunately, not regarded as convenient for the purposes of the Volunteer Force. The question required, and was receiving, much consideration.

asked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether Her Majesty's Government will consent to postpone the enforcement of the now regulations for lights for fishing vessels till the 1st of September, 1881, so that, on the re-assembling of Parliament, a Select Committee might be appointed to inquire into the history of the proposed regulations and the objections urged against them by the fishing interest?

Sir, it is necessary that I should remind my hon. Friend of the origin of the new regulations to which his Question refers, and which excite considerable interest in many parts of the United Kingdom. In 1874 a Commission was appointed by the Admiralty, Board of Trade, and Trinity House to revise the regulations with Respect to the rule of the road at sea, lights, signals, &c, with a view of making the regulations still more effectual for preventing the collisions which have been so fatal to large ships as well as to fishing vessels. I may add that the inconsistency of the laws as to the present lights of fishing vessels has been a great subject of complaint. That Committee reported after two years, and, during three years, communications went on with all the foreign Powers to induce them to come to an international agreement on this important subject. Many suggestions were received from them, and many of them were adopted. A general agreement was come to at the end of last year, and the result was that the regulations were passed by an Order in Council, which provided that they should come in force on the 1st of September, 1880. I need hardly say that the arrangements as to lights with respect to fishing boats, to which my hon. Friend alludes, were drawn up solely with the view of protecting the lives and property of those at sea, whether in fishing boats or ships. Had the Session been prolonged, no Government would have thought for one moment of resisting the very reasonable request which is made by the men connected with the great fishing industry of the country to be allowed to make their views heard by a Committee of the House of Commons on a subject which so largely affects their daily habits; and I need hardly say that it is my wish, as representing the Board of Trade, to interfere as little as possible with the usages and practices of the fishermen consistently with the safety of their own lives and of those who navigate the seas. As I cannot grant the Committee now, I think the best course will be that I should engage, if I am in my present official position when the new Parliament assembles, to propose that a Select Committee be appointed on this subject, so that the men may have every opportunity of making known their views. With the object, however, that ample time should be provided for this inquiry, I have consulted with my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty; and we have agreed that it would be expedient, as we find we have the power, to propose that another Order in Council should be passed with regard to Article 10 of these regulations—that is to say, the one which affects the lights of fishing boats, providing that, as my hon. Friend suggests, that that part of the regulations should not come into effect till the 1st of September, 1881; and we shall, of course, make the necessary communications with foreign Governments on the subject. In this way, ample time will be secured for the full and further investigation of this subject, which I am very glad to be able to forward.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the Parliamentary Elections and Corrupt Practices (No. 2) Bill would be proceeded with to-night?

in reply, said, it was intended to go on with the Bill to-night. There were several Orders before it, no doubt; but he presumed the House would wish to proceed with it. He could not say after what hour it would not be brought on.

Mr. Raikes, I am very sensible of the great inconvenience which attends the bringing forward of the Financial Statement before the close of the financial year. It is necessary to complete the Estimates for the year that is expiring by a certain amount of conjecture; and my experience of Budgets has taught me that the last week or two of the financial year are frequently productive of modifications, and sometimes important modifications, in the statements which appeared likely to have been made two or three weeks beforehand. I must, therefore, in the statement I have now to make to the Committee, apologize beforehand for any errors that may eventually prove to be made in the statement; but I can assure the Committee that I have myself taken pains, and the Heads of Departments who are more specially concerned in the framing of the Estimates have taken very great pains, to make the Estimates as cautious and as little likely to mislead the House by too sanguine anticipations as it is possible for them to do. Now, Sir, in the Budget which I brought forward last year I estimated for a Revenue in 1879–80 of £83,055,000, and an Expenditure of £81,153,000, showing a surplus of £ 1,900,000, leaving out of the account the charge which we knew would have ultimately to be made on account of services in South Africa. Later in the year, when we had obtained some fuller information with regard to the progress of affairs in South Africa, I took a Vote of Credit for the sum of £3,000,000, which, with some small additions for other purposes, raised the Estimate of Expenditure to £84,216,000. Thus I loft an estimated deficit of £1,161,000. Well, Sir, I am sorry to say that the Estimate I then formed, of Revenue has been very largely disappointed. The Revenue was estimated at £83,055,000; but we can only take it as likely to yield some £80,860,000, showing a loss of £2,195,000 upon the Estimate of Revenue. As I had already estimated for a deficit of £1,161,000, that leaves a deficit of £3,356,000 upon these Estimates. That is assuming, of course, that the Expenditure would be what I reckoned it in the month of August last. I will abstain for a moment from entering into the particulars of the disappointment in the Revenue. I wish, first of all, to say a few words more on the subject of the Expenditure. Now, Sir, at the first blush, undoubtedly, the appearance of the Supplementary Estimates that have been presented in the course of the year is somewhat discouraging. We have had Supplementary Estimates presented this Session to the amount of £1,783,000, and if these Estimates represented a real addition to our Expenditure of that amount it is clear that the deficit would stand at something more than £5,000,000—that is to say, that is the amount at which it would stand if we had really spent all the money Parliament has empowered us to spend. However, it is a consolation to think that we have not spent all that money. Hon. Gentlemen are naturally, and very properly, sensitive upon the subject of Supplementary Estimates; but, at the same time, I must remind the Committee that Supplementary Estimates are the price that we pay for a scientific financial system. In olden times there was a much more rough and ready way of making Estimates and taking Votes than at the present time. You took Votes for certain Services, and if those Votes were not exhausted in one year the balance was carried on to another year; and, therefore, there was not any occasion for Supplementary Estimates as there is at present. We are now very precise; money is voted for one item in the Service, and it cannot be transferred to another; and, of course, it is always necessary to take your Estimates at a moderate rate, otherwise there would be a general tendency to extravagance. The consequence is that Supplementary Estimates area matter of necessity; but, on the other hand, they are commonly balanced by the savings on other Votes. The Supplementary Estimates of this Session are of two classes. There are those which belong to the ordinary Services of the year, which amount to £557,800, which have been entirely covered, and more than covered, by the saving on other Votes; and, secondly, there are those which belong to the expenditure on the South African Services, which the previous Committee has just voted, and which amounts to £1,225,200. Now, it is with regard to that second Estimate that I wish to engage the attention of the Committee for a few minutes. We have every reason now to hope and believe not only that we have seen the last of our troubles in South Africa, but that we have arrived at a correct knowledge of their cost. Reference was made a few minutes ago to the length of time which occurred in obtaining correct information as to the expenditure of the Abyssinian Expedition; and I know that gloomy parallels have been drawn between the expenditure in connection with that expedition and the probable expenditure upon the South African Services. But the cases are really not at all parallel. In the case of Abyssinia, the war services were conducted by the Indian Government, and the charges were made up by the Indian Government and sent home to the Imperial Government to be paid; and we know, unhappily, that that is a process which always involves a very considerable loss of time. On the present occasion, everything has been paid through our own officers; and not only so, but, as the Committee is aware, last Session we took the precaution of despatching three officers of the Government—Mr. White, the Accountant General to the War Office; Mr. Gurdon, one of the principal officers of the Treasury; and Mr. Lawson, of the War Office—for the purpose of inquiring on the spot into the expenditure which had taken place, and apportioning it properly under different heads. Well, these three gentlemen have completed their task; and I must say they have completed it in a manner which reflects the very highest credit upon them. They are gentlemen whose names are well known to Members of this House, and they have fully maintained the high reputation they had previously achieved in the Civil Service. They have produced a very interesting Report, which I propose shortly to lay upon the Table. In the meantime, through their exertions, and by the information we have collected in our hands, we are able to give with, I think, an accuracy that may be depended upon, the total cost of the Zulu War and other Services in South Africa. Now, the cost of the Zulu War to the Imperial Government, from first to last, has been £5,138,000. I believe that almost the whole of the cost has really been defrayed, so far, by the Imperial Government. There have been some charges which have been borne by the Colonial Governments. But at present the great bulk has fallen upon the Imperial Government; and the question how we are to regulate the repayment, which, no doubt, the Colonies ought to make of a certain proportion of that Expenditure, is a somewhat intricate matter, and one in which we are engaged in a correspondence that is not yet completed. But I will state the amount which has been paid for the Zulu War, independent of the other Services—the expedition against Secocoeni and the occupation of the Transvaal. The amount was £5,138,000, of which £4,396,000 belonged to the Army, £692,000 to the Navy, and £50,000 to contingencies. How has provision been made for that purpose? It has been partly made in the ordinary Army and Navy Estimates of 1878–79 and 1879–80, but chiefly by the two great Votes of Credit taken in these two years—one for £1,500,000, and the second for £3,000,000. Well, now, hon. Gentlemen will observe that Votes of Credit are in the nature of Supplementary Votes, to make up a deficiency in the ordinary Votes for the Army and Navy; and when any expenditure, or war, or special service has to be paid for, and a Vote of Credit is asked for, the charge, in the first instance, falls, not upon the Vote of Credit, but upon the Army and Navy Votes, as far as they will go. It is only when they have been exhausted that recourse is had to the Vote of Credit. In this case, the ordinary Army Votes have borne £623,000 of that expenditure, and the Navy Votes £192,000 in the two years, so that £815,000 have been provided out of the ordinary Votes; and the expenditure out of the Vote of Credit has been £4,323,000. That, of course, has not exhausted the Vote of Credit; and the result is that the amount which Parliament has already provided for the Zulu War has paid the whole of the expenses of that War, and leaves a balance of £177,000 more than was necessary. That, I think, is a very satisfactory statement, because there has been great uneasiness as to the total cost which the War would impose upon the country. There has been great alarm lest a large addition should be asked for to complete the Expenditure, and it is certainly gratifying to find that we have already provided and already voted all, and more than all, that is necessary. Well, Sir, the Committee will naturally ask, if that is so, what is the meaning of the large Supplementary Estimates which we have just been asked to vote? With regard to the greater portion of that Vote, it is not a new Vote at all; but it is simply a re-Vote of £880,000 which was voted in the year 1878–9, but which could not be applied in that year from want of time. That, again, is one of the results of our scientific financial system, because, if a Vote of Credit is granted now, it is not granted as it was in olden times—to be used until it is exhausted; but it can only be made use of until the end of the financial year—the 31st of March. And although there was a great deal of Expenditure incurred in that year—1878–9—to which this was probably applicable, it could not be brought to the charge of the year, and it had to be surrendered and re-voted. With regard to the remainder of the sum, it is explained in this way—The disturbances in Griqualand West arose, not, perhaps, as the direct consequence, but probably as a consequence, of the hostilities in Zululand. Lord Chelmsford was unable, at the time, to spare any troops to suppress the rising that took place in Griqualand, and Colonel Lanyon, the Administrator, was obliged to take steps at once to put down the rising by the aid of Colonial levies; and in order to do that he was forced to apply to the Treasury Chest for an advance of more than £220,000. That sum was advanced; and we understand from Mr. White and Mr. Gurdon, who have reported on the subject, that no doubt the whole of that expenditure, and more than the whole of it, was incurred by the Colony, and the Colony could not at the moment have provided the money in any other way. The question as to how the repayment is to be made is one of the principal points we are at present engaged in discussing with the Colonial Government. Well, then, in addition to that came the Expenditure of the expedition against Secocoeni; but that is a matter on which we have not yet had as complete information as we have on other points, because the expedition had hardly come to an end at the time these gentlemen left South Africa. There is, therefore, something of guess-work in the Estimate, and some allowance must be made for the troops which have been kept in the Transvaal. I think we are taking a full Estimate—in fact, rather more than is necessary—in putting that sum at £300,000. I do not wish to delay the Committee by going into these details more than I can help, and I will state the general result of all these figures. It comes to this—that the total amount of the Supplementary Estimates of this year has been £1,783,000; but the total amount of savings is calculated at £1,800,000, so that the savings have more than covered the Supplementary Estimates. The result, therefore, although it is bad enough, is not so bad as at first sight might be thought. The result is that there is a deficit of £3,345,000 upon balance of Revenue and Expenditure for the year just closing; and this is due, not to any failure or incorrectness in our Estimates of Expenditure, but, with the exception of £ 1,160,000 included in the arrangements of last year, to the disappointment of Revenue to the extent of over£2,000,000. The details of that disappointment are as follows:—Customs are estimated to show a decrease of £700,000 below the Estimate. This loss arises almost entirely on spirits; £670,000 represents the falling-off on that head. There is also a small falling-off of £25,000 upon wine. Excise will probably show a decrease of £1,960,000, made up of £160,000 on licences, £940,000 on malt, £60,000 on railways, and about£800,000 upon spirits, so that the total failure in spirits during the year from the two great branches of Revenue, Customs and Excise, amounts very nearly to £1,500,000—£800,000 and £670,000. Of course, so far as the decline in the consumption of spirits is concerned, we must attribute it mainly, I suppose, to the failure of consuming power amongst the working classes and others who are in the habit of consuming spirits; but it is to be hoped that, to some extent, it may be an indication of an improvement in the habits of the people, and a movement in the direction of temperance. It is, at least, satisfactory to notice that, while the consumption of spirits has fallen off so largely, the consumption of tea and coffee and other articles, though it has not increased, has not fallen off at all. There is a large falling-off upon malt—£940,000. That, to some extent, I suppose, may be explained in the same way by the diminution of the consuming power of those classes who drink beer; but, on the other hand, it is also partly to be attributed to the very great failure and the great lateness of the barley harvest of last year; and I presume that this failure in malt is, therefore, to be looked upon, to some extent at all events, as one of an exceptional character. With regard to the other heads of Revenue, there is an increase in the probate stamps and legacies of £460,000. There is a slight falling-off in deed stamps and others; but latterly these have improved. Customs are £700,000 less than the Estimate, and Excise £1,970,000 less; stamps are £320,000 more; Income Tax, £50,000 less; the Post Office is £50,000 more, and the Telegraph Service £80,000 more; Crown Lands are the same as the Estimate; Interest on Advances is £75,000 more, and the Miscellaneous Services are taken at the sum that they were estimated at. With regard to the Income Tax, I may state that the assessments are fully up to the amount that was anticipated; but in consequence of this being one of the triennial years of the new assessment there has been some delay in the collection of the tax, and therefore there will be for the year, probably, a falling-off of about £50,000. Let me now turn to the Estimate for the Expenditure of the year which we are about to enter upon. The estimated Expenditure for 1880–1 is as follows:—We take the permanent charge of the Debt at £28,000,000; the interest on Local Loans at £500,000; Loan to India, £61,478; charge of the Suez Loan, £200,000; interest on Supply Exchequer Bonds, £284,000; other Consolidated Fund Charges, £1,712,000, making for Debt and Consolidated Fund Charges £30,757,478, or about £388,000 more than the issues in the current year. The charge for the Army is £15,541,000. The Exchequer issues in the year now closing are taken at £15,645,000, showing a decrease in the coming year of £104,000. The Home Charges for the Forces in India are £1,100,000, being nearly the same sum they were estimated at for the closing year. The Navy is £10,492,000, against the Estimate of the current year of £10,586,000, showing that upon the Navy the Estimate is £94,000 less than that for the closing year. The Vote of Credit for the South African War does not re-appear. The Civil Service Expenditure is £15,436,000; the Budget Estimate last year was £l5,084,000, showing an increase of £352,000. Customs and Inland Revenue are £2,816,000. Post Office, £3,420,000; Telegraph Service, £1,210,000; and Packet Service, £710,468. That makes the charge for Expenditure £81,486,000, as against £81,153,000, which was the Budget Estimate last year. This shows an excess of £333,000 upon the Estimates for this year. Well, then, Sir, we have to consider what is the Revenue that we shall have to meet that Expenditure. In taking the Estimates for the Revenue, I have, as I have already stated to the Committee, endeavoured to impress upon the heads of the great Offices to be as careful and as moderate as possible in the Estimates that they might frame; and they have, I think, fulfilled their duty in a spirit of very great caution and moderation. The Customs, which will produce £19,300,000 in the present year, are taken at the same amount for next year—namely, £19,300,000. The Excise, which will this year produce £25,300,000, is taken for the next year at £26,140,000. That shows an increase upon the Estimate for the Excise of £840,000. That, of course, is taken on the assumption that we shall receive the ordinary amount of Malt Revenue, or something nearer the ordinary amount of Malt Revenue, than that of last year, which fell about £900,000 below the usual amount. The average of seven years shows a lower figure than that which we have taken. But this sum has been arrived at after very great care has been taken, and it is certainly adopted with confidence by the Board of Inland Revenue. Then, for Stamps, the Exchequer receipts for this year are taken at £11,100,000, and the Estimate for next year is put at the same amount. If, however, we are fortunate enough to see a continuation of the present improvement in trade and business, we may hope for an increase in the Revenue from Stamps, though we have not calculated on any increase in receipts from this source, but have taken the figures at the same amount as this year. With regard to the Land Tax and House Duty, it will be this year £2,700,000, and for next year we take them at £2,760,000, making an increase of £60,000. The Income Tax is expected to yield this year £9,200,000, and the Estimate for next year is £9,000,000, or a smaller sum by £200,000. This is a cautious Estimate which it is thought wise to take in consideration of the depression which has existed so long, and the fact that as the Income Tax is taken on an average of three years it will probably make a bad return for next year. The Post Office Revenue for this year will be £6,300,000, and we estimate it for next year at £6,400,000, making an increase of £100,000. The Telegraph Service will yield this year £1,420,000, and we take it at the same for next year. The Crown Lands yield this year £390,000, and that item is taken at the same figure for next year. The interest for advances on Local Works and on Purchase Money of the Suez Canal Shares is £1,250,000, which I take also at the same amount for next year. There are also Miscellaneous Receipts, which are £3,900,000, and which I take for the ensuing year at £3,800,000, or £100,000 less. The total result is that as against the income of the present year of £80,860,000 we estimate for the year to come an income of £81,560,000, showing an advance of £700,000 on the whole estimated Revenue of this year, as compared with the Revenue of last year. That Estimate is, as I have said, a very cautious and practical one. It amounts to a Revenue of £81,560,000, as against an Expenditure of £81,486,000, showing a surplus of £74,000, or what we may call, practically, an equilibrium between Revenue and Expenditure. So far for the Revenue, as we have it at present; but I must remind the Committee that there is a Bill before the House, which, although not introduced as part of the Budget arrangement itself, of course forms a material feature, if it is passed, in the finances of the year. I mean the Probate and Administration Duties Bill. I understand, Mr. Raikes, that some remarks have been made upon the fact that that Bill has been introduced separately and independently of the Budget. Undoubtedly, if at the time when I contemplated it I had foreseen that I should bring in the Budget quite so early, it might have been better to put the two together. But it was important that if that Bill was passed it should be passed before the close of the present financial year, so as to produce its full effect in another year, and it will be in the recollection of the Committee that that Bill was introduced not primarily with a financial object, but primarily on account of a Resolution which was carried, or rather which was accepted, nearly unanimously in the House last Session with regard to the scale of charges for probate and administration duties. What I should now propose to do with regard to that Bill would be to read it a second time concurrently with the Budget Bill, and then, when they come to Committee, that there should be an instruction given to amalgamate the two Bills in one, so that the practice, and the very proper practice, of this House of having all its financial arrangements in one Bill, and sending them up to the other House in that form, may be observed. It has not always been observed, for there was a case in 1870, when the stamp duties were consolidated and raised, and when that was done by a separate Bill, affecting the Revenue to a considerable sum; but I quite admit that it would be a proper thing to put the two Bills together when we go into Committee. The effect of that measure will be naturally to increase the Revenue by at least £700,000, and adding that amount to the £74,000 which I have found to be the surplus upon my Estimate for the coming financial year the total may be taken at £774,000. There, of course, remains one very important question into which I must go rather in detail. Before I do so, however, I wish to mention a matter in passing, and to allude to a small alteration of the law which it is proposed to introduce into this Bill upon a matter which has caused some little interest. A great many questions have been raised with regard to the co-operative stores, and great complaints have been made by some persons that the stores are unfairly excepted from the Income Tax. Of course, whatever our opinions may be upon that general subject, it is wrong that that advantage should be given to the stores. The matter has been inquired into, and it is found at the Inland Revenue that the state of the case is something of this kind. Of the great co-operative stores one only, the Civil Service Supply Association, has escaped the payment of Income Tax. It has done that by enrolling itself as an industrial and provident society. Believing that the exemption granted to industrial and provident societies was never intended to apply to a wealthy corporation like this, the Board of Inland Revenue have considered how best to repeal the exemption enjoyed by the stores in question, without injuring those bonâ fide industrial societies whom it was intended by Parliament to exempt. The Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue has consulted the Registrar of Friendly Societies and other gentlemen, who are well acquainted with the working of co-operative societies; and they have agreed upon a clause which, it is understood, will accomplish the object that is desired, without doing any injury to the industrial and provident societies. This clause will be inserted in the Budget Bill, and it is as follows:—

"Notwithstanding the provision contained in Sub-section 4 of Section 11 of the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1876, a society registered under that Act shall be chargeable under Schedule C and Schedule D of the Income Tax Acts in case the society sells to persons who are not members thereof, and the number of the shares of the society is limited either by its rules or practice."

I do not profess to be an authority on the subject of co-operative societies; but I have high authority for stating that that clause will effect the object desired without interfering with the proper exemption of industrial societies. Now, Sir, there remains only one matter with which I have to deal—a matter which, of course, has in it much interest for the country. I have given the result of last year's finance, and shown that a large deficit has to be met. I have also shown what will be the Estimates of the Revenue and Expenditure for the coming year, and that there will be a surplus of nearly £800,000. We have now to consider what ought to be done with regard to the deficit of last year, and in connection therewith the accumulated deficits of former years which have thus far been represented by Exchequer Bonds renewed from year to year. These are those which we distinguish from the other portion of the Unfunded Debt by the title of Supply Exchequer Bonds. The Committee will see that, as we have gone on with various obligations, we have adopted a good many headings. "Interest for Bonds for Suez Canal Shares," "Interest for Bonds for Local Loans," and so forth; while those which have been created for the purpose of meeting the extraordinary Expenditure of the last year or two go by the name of Supply Exchequer Bonds. Supposing that the Bonds which are now just falling due are renewed, and supposing that the deficit of the year 1879–80 is to be met by the issue of more Exchequer Bonds, we find that that will amount to a sum which will require an interest of £284,000, the capital being something over £8,000,000. Now, before I proceed to say how we are to deal with this amount, I should like to say a few words with regard to the position of the Debt of the present year. In the first place, comparing the state of the Debt, as it will be on the 21st of this month with what it was at the beginning of the year, it is estimated that on the 31st of March the Funded Debt will amount to £710,490,000 Stock. The estimated value of the Terminable Annuities, commuted on the old principle and not upon that of my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard), which may be more accurate, but which we could not introduce without disturbing comparisons with past years, is £38,206,000. The Unfunded Debt is £30,855,000, making a total of Funded and Unfunded Debt £779,551,000. The Funded Debt, of course, includes £2,049,000 of Stock created for the purpose of the loan of £2,000,000 to India. Comparing these figures with those for 31st March, 1879, I find that there is an increase in the Funded Debt of £1,059,000, and in the Unfunded £4,985,000, giving a total increase of £6,044,000; while Terminable Annuities show a decrease of £4,572,000, or, in other words, a net increase on the whole of £1,472,000. But this increase must be analyzed. In the first place, the debt caused by the war, which is not recoverable, will amount to £2,750,000. Then there is the loan to India of £2,049,000; the monies borrowed in the year for Local Works £2,300,000, making £4,349,000 of Debt which will be repaid; and making again a total of £7,099,000increase, against £1,055,000, which has been paid off by other means, leaving the net increase of £6,044,000. But after the re-payable Debt is deducted, as I think it ought to be, to get at the real increase in the Debt, we come to a very different result. By re-payable Debt I mean money that has been advanced upon the security of the different Local Bodies to whom it is lent; secondly, money borrowed for the purpose of paying the interest on the Suez Canal Shares, against which we receive a payment from the Khedive of Egypt; and, thirdly, there is the sum of £2,000,000, which has been borrowed for the purpose of being lent to, and being repaid by, India. Taking these amounts into account, then, we should find that the Funded Debt stands at £708,441,000, the Terminable Annuities at £32,206,000, and the Unfunded Debt at £18,555,000, making a total of £775,202,000, and showing a diminution since the 31st March, 1879, in spite of war expenses, of £2,877,000. Now, that is a statement which ought to be borne in mind by the House, because the incurring of Debt re-payable is not an increase of Debt in the ordinary sense; and next, because the House must remember that some portion of the increase which we have been obliged to make has been due, not to action of our own, but to measures undertaken by our Predecessors. [Mr. GLADSTONE: What is the diminution in Terminable Annuities?] The diminution in Terminable Annuities is £4,572,000. I may point out next that since the present Government came in in 1874 the movement of Debt has been as follows. The Funded Debt has decreased from £723,514,000 to £710,490,000, being a decrease of £13,024,000. The Terminable Annuities have decreased from £51,290,000 to £38,206,000, or a decrease of £13,084,000, making upon these two heads a total decrease of £26,108,000. On the other hand, Unfunded Debt has increased from £4,479,000 to £30,855,000, showing an increase of £26,376,000; so that upon the balance of Funded and Unfunded Debt, and including re-payable Debt with the non-payable, there is a total increase in Debt of £268,000. Of course, as I have said before, if you deduct the re-payable Debt, the result is very different. Now, during this period there have been heavy war expenses. We reckon the cost of the preparations in connection with the War in Turkey at £6,125,000. I have said that the cost of the War and the other Service in South Africa was £6,160,000, making a total for these two Services of £12,285,000. Of this we meet £8,100,000 by Bonds. I need not point out that these have been paid yearly, and that if our Estimates of Revenue had been more closely accurate and successful than they have been, the deficiency would be very much smaller than it actually is. I would also point out that in reckoning this amount of £8,100,000 we are reckoning without taking into account what we may recover—and we undoubtedly shall recover some substantial amount from the Colonies. ["Oh!" and laughter.] Well, but there is no doubt about it. There can be no doubt that, to a certain extent, the Colonies acknowledge their liability, though whether they take the same measure of it that we do is another matter. I leave that part of the question aside for the present, because I think I should be rather prejudicing the matter by going into details at present, further than to express what I am sure is the sense of the whole of the country—that in these matters the interests of the Colonies have been of such a character that it is right and proper that they should bear a fair proportion of the costs. That being so, I also wish to point out to the Committee that in the Estimates we have from time to time submitted to Parliament with regard to the expenses of these operations we have not been so very much beside the mark. In the first instance, when we took the Vote of Credit at the time when it was thought necessary to make preparations, we named £6,000,000 as the possible cost, and the result was that the expenditure which we incurred was £6,125,000. Then, with regard to another war, that on the Eastern Frontier at the Cape, we reckoned it at £600,000, and the result shows that the cost of it amounted to £500,000. We asked last year and the year before for £4,500,000 for the Zulu War, in addition to the sum provided out of the ordinary grants; and, as I showed a little while ago, our demand was fully adequate, and more than adequate, to meet the expenditure, and sufficient even to provide for other Services which were not then contemplated. That being so, I think that the forecasts that have been made by men of experience in these matters have not been altogether unsatisfactory. With regard to the question of the Public Debt, I say, if we were to exclude from the Debt that portion of it which is re-payable, the net result of our six years of office would not be the same as it appears to be on the figures I have named. According to that, the Funded Debt, which stood at £723,514,000 on 31st March, 1874, would have been reduced to £708,441,000; because, in reckoning it at £710,490,000, I included the £2,000,000 that had been lent to India. The Terminable Annuities would be diminished by £13,084,000, while the Unfunded Debt for Supply Services would only be £7,815,000 more than it was then. That would show a net decrease, during these six years, of £20,342,000, excluding the £2,000,000 for India, and the Debt incurred for the purchase of the Suez Canal Shares, and also for the purpose of providing funds to be advanced on loan to local authorities. Hon. Members are very well aware that there is a great deal of anxiety expressed, and I dare say felt, in some portions of the country with regard to the size of what I may call the Floating Debt. Of course, it is unsatisfactory that we should owe any money at all upon the Services of the last two or three years, and it would have been much more satisfactory if we had been able to clear that all off out of Revenue. But if we are to owe it at all, there seems to be, in some minds, an additional evil in the idea that it is in the shape of a Floating Debt. On the other hand, an impression seems to prevail that this is a very dangerous thing, which might, at any unexpected moment, produce very disastrous consequences. Undoubtedly, if you have a very large Floating Debt all in the hands of the public, which can be thrown upon you in a moment without warning, that would produce, in certain contingencies, inconveniences. But that is by no means the case with regard to the Floating or Unfunded Debt which now exists. It is made up, in the first place, of £5,163,000 Exchequer Bills, £5,431,000 Treasury Bills, £3,801,000 Suez Canal Bonds, £8,360,000 Local Loan Bonds, and £8,100,000 Supply Bonds, making a total of £30,855,000. Now, the greater part of this is not in the hands of the public. The amounts which are in the hands of the public are, in the first place, the Exchequer Bills—£5,163,000, and the Treasury Bills—£5,431,000. These are not very extravagant amounts to have on the market. There is no doubt that it is very convenient to the money world to have this form of investment; and certainly we find that the Treasury Bills, as offered month by month, are very much inquired after, are always sold with great readiness, and command very good prices. They are so arranged that about £1,500,000 are offered every month; and if, by any strange accident, we were unable to sell them at any particular month, there would be no difficulty in providing the sum which might be required. With regard to the great bulk of the rest of the Floating Debt, it is not in the hands of the public, but of the National Debt Commissioners, and £4,000,000 of it is at the Bank of England. This, of course, we may say, is in the hands of the public; because at any time that amount might be sold or invested; but with regard to the great mass of the Unfunded Debt, it is, to the extent of some £15,000,000 or £16,000,000, in the hands of the National Debt Commissioners. They are bound to find an investment for the very large amount of Savings Bank money which they hold, amounting to about £70,000,000. Amongst other things, they invest in these Exchequer Bonds; and there is no fear whatever that the National Debt Commissioners will throw these Bonds upon the public at a time that would be publicly inconvenient. They would never attempt to do so at ordinary times, because the fund of the Savings Banks is of such a character as to render it unnecessary to sell large amounts of Stock; and I apprehend if any unprecedented run were to take place on the part of the depositors, making it necessary for the National Debt Commissioners to provide very large sums, recourse must be had to Parliament, even though the deposits were invested in Consols alone. We know perfectly well it has always been the practice of all Governments to allow considerable sums to be invested by the National Debt Commissioners in Terminable Annuities with the Irish Church Commissioners, or, as now, in Exchequer Bonds. Therefore, I am anxious to impress this upon the Committee, in order through the Committee to impress upon the public that we are not in the least degree anxious with regard to the existence of this amount of Floating Debt; and I say that all the more because I am ready, on the other hand, to admit that it is not desirable that so large an amount should be kept in the form in which it now exists. I admit that it is not convenient, with regard to the regularity of our financial transactions, that we should have a large amount of Exchequer Bonds falling due year by year, and annually renewed. I think that that is open to objection, and I am going to make a proposition to the Committee, in order to institute a more regular way of dealing with the considerable amount of debt arising out of the recent war expenditure. I do not propose to deal with the whole £8,000,000. I think with regard to some portions of it that it would be better that we should renew our Exchequer Bonds for a short time, and that we should look to extinguish them by the ordinary processes of finance. I propose to take a sum of £6,000,000—three-fourths of the amount—and to provide for its immediate extinction by the creation of a Terminable Annuity, to last until the year 1885. The year 1885, as the Committee are aware, is the year long looked forward to when there will be a very great alteration indeed occasioned by the termination of the Annuities. I think it has always been desired since that date was first fixed upon by successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, when they have been creating Terminable Annuities, to bring them, as far as possible, to terminate at the same date, and I propose to set up a fresh series of Terminable Annuities which, shall last till 1885, and shall extinguish this £6,000,000 of Debt. I wish to remind the Committee that, under the pre- sent arrangement with regard to the Debt, a fixed sum of £28,000,000 is applied year by year to pay the interest of the Debt, and to go as far as it will towards the termination of that Debt. The difference between the amount that is required to pay the interest of the Debt and the £28,000,000 goes by the name of the New Sinking Fund, and that amounts at present to something more than £600,000. It is, in fact, something like £650,000 this year. An annuity of about £1,300,000 a-year, or rather more, will be sufficient for the purpose of cancelling this £6,000,000 of Debt by the year 1885. Of course, if you cancel a considerable proportion of the Debt, you diminish proportionately the amount you have to pay for the interest. I propose, therefore, to appropriate the New Sinking Fund of about £600,000 to this Annuity, and to add a sum of £800,000 outside the £28,000,000—that is to say, to raise the fixed amount of £28,000,000 for the next five years to £28,800,000, and to apply that £800,000 with the £600,000 from the new Sinking Fund to the discharge of these Annuities. So in five years, by 10 half-yearly payments, we shall cancel this £6,000,000 of Debt. That operation will affect the Balance Sheet in this way. The Balance Sheet, if that operation is agreed to, will stand thus:—On the Expenditure side there will be—Permanent charge of Debt, £28,800,000; interest on Local Loans, £500,000; interest on Loan to India, £61,478; charge of Suez Loans, £200,000; interest on Supply Exchequer Bonds, which will then be left at £2,100,000, £73,500; other Consolidated Fund Charges, £1,712,000. That would make the charge of the Debt £31,346,978. The other items of Expenditure would be the same as I have already stated, making the whole Expenditure £82,075,972. The income, including the estimated addition of £700,000 for Probate Duties, would amount to £82,260,000, leaving as the surplus of Income over Expenditure the sum of £184,028. I feel these are complicated calculations. I have endeavoured to make them as clear as possible, and I can only sum them up by saying that the nature of the proposal is as follows:—That we add to our Revenue £700,000, which I expect to get from an alteration in the Probate Duties; I propose to can cel £6,000,000 of the Exchequer Bonds which have accumulated in the past year by setting up a Terminable Annuity to the amount requisite for the purpose, and having completed that arrangement, I leave the Budget with a Surplus of £184,000. I hope and trust that we have before us a prospect of better times than those we have experienced. I have felt it my duty, and the Government have always felt it their duty, to do nothing that could in any way unnecessarily impede the revival of trade and commerce. If we should be happy enough to be blessed with a good harvest and a continued revival of trade, we may look for far better results than at present. The Estimates I have made have been made with a cautious spirit, and I present them to the Committee with great confidence.

Mr. Raikes, I do not propose, under the peculiar circumstances of the present year, to depart from what I think the very salutary and almost necessary practice of avoiding anything in the nature of discussion on the night that the Financial Statement is made, and particularly because the Statement of this evening is, as was very fairly stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, complex, from the necessity of the case, of course, and not from any defect of clearness or accuracy on the part of the right hon. Gentleman. I, therefore, would ask him to fix the time when he would consider it convenient for the Public Service that such remarks as may be necessary may be made, or such stops may be taken, if any Gentleman should think it necessary or expedient to take any steps of a substantive character. I do not anticipate the smallest difference of opinion on the question whether a day should be fixed for such discussion. I think that, evidently, in the position in which we stand, with a Dissolution immediately hanging over us, that discus- sion ought to take place as early as possible; and, for my own part, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer is of opinion that Monday is not too distant. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: That would do.] If the right hon. Gentleman thinks Monday the best, that had better be the arrangement; but, with every disposition on our part to accommodate him in case he should think greater expedition necessary, as far as I understand the facts of the case, for though the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure have, no doubt, been carefully and accurately laid before us, this is not the time for discussing them, and I will only just say one word upon them. I give the fullest concurrence to what has been said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the care and attention with which these Estimates have been framed, both with regard to the small unexpired residue of the present year and the coming year. The Estimates of Revenue are difficult; but I have not the least doubt that they have been made with every care that prudence and sagacity could supply towards meeting them, and towards laying before Parliament the best and most trustworthy information. The point that will attract most attention in the Financial Statement naturally will be the amount to which the accumulated deficit of the successive years have now risen, and the mode of providing for it. As far as I understand, the total of this deficit is now £8,100,000, or, in round numbers, £8,000,000. With respect to that, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not state what he meant to do with it, whether he would take Bonds over a lengthened period or not. I do not speak of this now as a serious omission; but, perhaps, it will be convenient for him presently to state what he means to do about it. With respect to the £6,000,000, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to quote a favourite phrase of his own, spreads them over five years; but spreads them now in a totally different manner from the spreading to which we have been more or less accustomed on former occasions, because now the payments must be met. They will fall due, and they will now be met, and will become part of our regular Terminable Annuity system. That constitutes an annual charge of somewhere about £1,400,000, which is thus to be made up. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is called upon finally to offer up a victim upon the altar of—I know not what—evil fortune, or political justice—be it what it may, upon some altar or other he is called upon to immolate his own offspring of the New Sinking Fund, which, some four or five years ago, the House adopted on his recommendation, and, if I recollect right, by very considerable majorities. The rest of the charge, or rather more than half, is to be found by what has been referred to by the Chancellor of the Exchequer under the name of an alteration of the probate duty. The Budgets of the Chancellor of the Exchequer are always by way of being too brief rather than too long, and I am sorry he did not give us a fuller explanation of the nature of this new tax which he proposes to levy. It is a re-adjustment and re-construction of the scale in regard to which it will be very interesting to know the particulars, for it is, undoubtedly, a measure of very considerable importance. If I understand rightly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a charge of £1,400,000 to meet; and he meets it partly by means of the New Sinking Fund, which will now cease to exist, and partly by the new tax, which is brought in under the name of a readjustment of the probate duties, and which is to yield £700,000. I have no doubt he has taken the Estimate accurately, so that the two together will bring in the whole sum he wants. If I have not accurately stated the case the Chancellor of the Exchequer will correct me. I shall be very well content, Sir, to reflect on these matters till Monday; and when we do meet on that day, Sir, I have no doubt we shall be able to allow his Bill to proceed. In fact, there is not much choice left to us.

said, that he proposed to pass the Resolutions that night. On the Report next day, the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) could raise the question relating to India. The second reading of the Bill would then be taken on a Monday. The occasion of the second reading would afford a convenient opportunity for discussion. If that were so, he thought that it might be very properly taken on Monday. With regard to other arrangements, he could only say that his right hon. Friend had accurately interpreted the statement he had made with regard to the £1,300,000 or £1,500,000 Annuity.

said, that he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give an opportunity for discussing his proposals with respect to the probate and administration duties.

said, that he rose for the purpose of asking the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether it would not be convenient for him to lay before the House a Paper, similar to what had been issued for the last two Sessions, containing an Estimate of the Consolidated Fund charges? He also wanted to know whether, in the accounts of Expenditure given the Committee, anything whatever had been taken; and if so, how much in respect of the charges to arise from the Afghan War?

Nothing.

said, that, in that case, those large accounts would still remain to be dealt with. Then there was another set of figures that he thought it would be desirable they should have laid before them on paper. He referred to the loans granted to local bodies. A Return should be made showing the amount expended by local bodies, and affording other information with respect to them. It would be convenient if those Papers were put before the House when they dealt with the matter on Monday.

said, it would be necessary that they should give a very careful consideration to the measure. He should like to know whether they were to understand that the second reading of the Bill was to be taken pro formâ, and then that the discussion was to be reserved? The details certainly required very careful consideration.

said, he had certainly understood that at the commencement of the Session the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have made some statement with reference to the expenses of the Afghan War. So far as he could gather from his present statement, he had made no reference whatever to that subject. When he brought forward the matter on Report he withdrew his Amendment on the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman; and he certainly understood that the House would have, probably on the Budget Speech, and certainly at no later period, a distinct declaration of the policy of the Government with regard to the apportionment of the cost of the Afghan War. In saying that, he thought he was expressing not only his own opinion, but that of every hon. Member on that side of the House; and it certainly was a matter of great surprise to them that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have made his Budget Speech without having condescended to make the slightest reference to that subject. They were certainly placed in a very extraordinary position, and he thought they ought to have an opportunity of raising the question to-morrow. It was very much to be regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had not made some statement; but if he did not do so it would not prevent him from raising the question. Therefore, he wished to ask whether they were to understand that the Report of the Budget Resolutions would be the first Business of the House tomorrow? If so, he begged to give Notice that upon that occasion he should bring forward a Motion upon which, if nothing should interfere to prevent him, he should take sense of the House. The Motion he should bring forward would be to the following effect:—That, in view of the repeated declarations made by the Prime Minister, and by the Viceroy of India, and by others of Her Majesty's Ministers, that the Afghan War had been undertaken for Imperial purposes, that House was of opinion that it was unjust to make the entire cost which it had involved fall upon the people of India.

said, that before the right hon. Gentleman replied to the observations that had been made, he would wish to ask him when he proposed to make the statement promised by him with reference to the jumps which he had alluded to in the scale of the administration duties? The right hon. Gentleman had distinctly promised to lay upon the Table of the House a Paper showing those jumps, and also the details of his proposed new scheme. He would also desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he was in a position to lay upon the Table of the House any figures showing how he arrived at the conclusion that the alteration in those duties would increase the Revenue by £700,000? That information was important, because he had satisfied himself, from a very careful examination of figures before the House, and from Reports of various Commissions, and especially of the Commission of the 18th of May, that instead of the increase of the Revenue being £700,000 it would amount to, if it did not exceed, the sum of £1,500,000. He did not propose to go into the question upon that occasion, as he wished to have an opportunity of discussing it fully hereafter. He thought that he should be able to satisfy the House that what he had stated was correct.

said, that it had been customary for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to place in the hands of hon. Members a Financial Statement at the same time that he introduced the Budget. That was a very convenient course to adopt, and he trusted that on that occasion it would not be departed from.

said, that at present he had only two copies of the Statement in question in the House; but on Monday, when the matter came on for discussion, the Paper should be in the hands of hon. Members.

said, he was glad to hear that this country would not be liable for any further questions in respect of the South African War.

said, it must be some time before the new scale of probate duty could come into operation. He would wish to know when the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer contemplated that the new scale would become operative? There were two periods at which the scale might come into operation—namely, with regard to persons dying after a certain date, or in respect of persons whose wills were proved after the date in question. He should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman could state which plan he proposed to adopt?

said, that the new rule would come into operation on the 1st of April.

said, that he should like to know whether it would come into operation in respect of persons dying after the 1st of April? for it would make a considerable difference if it were made to apply only to wills proved after that date. In the latter case, injustice was involved in the case of delay after proving wills.

said, that he was in the House during the whole of the discussion on the Afghan Motion. So far as his recollection went, his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he would give an opportunity to discuss the subject; but he did not promise to make any statement whatever. He left it open to the Government as to whether they should add to the burdens of this country a certain amount for the Afghan War, or whether they should not do so. As he now understood, Her Majesty's Government had come to the conclusion not to add the expenditure of the Afghan War to the burdens of this country. The Motion which the hon. Member for Hackney wished to bring forward had for its object the taxing of this country in order to relieve India; and he hoped that in the discussion that would take place the next day it would be most fully considered. He could not help thinking that when the country at large came to consider this question it would not agree with the view adopted by the hon. Member for Hackney; and he must further tell the hon. Gentleman, that if the result he desired were carried out it would add enormously to the Expenditure of this country.

said, that there seemed to be some misunderstanding on the subject, for he most distinctly heard the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer make the promise to which reference had been made. For his part, he was very much surprised to hear his right hon. Friend finish his speech without alluding to the cost of the Afghan War, for the hon. Member for Hackney would be at considerable disadvantage in having to bring forward his Motion in ignorance of the reason for the policy of the Government. It would have been only right that his hon. Friend should have had the advantage of hearing a clear statement of the views of the Government on the subject. There was another matter to which, he should like to allude. Between 1 and 2, or 2 and 3 o'clock, the other morning, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer formally introduced in Committee a most important change with respect to the probate duties, and went into some details, and gave a Schedule of his proposed plan; but he never hinted to the Committee that the result of his plan would be to raise an additional amount of taxation until the conclusion of his observations, when he casually mentioned that it might add £700,000 a-year to the Revenue. This was a very inadequate and insufficient treatment of a most important matter. There was no more difficult question than that of the probate, succession, and legacy duties. Any change in the probate, succession, and legacy duties involved the whole question of the relative charge upon real and personal property—a question of the highest importance, which, he thought, ought to be dealt with in a most fair and open manner. Whether the change proposed by the Government would increase the Revenue by £1,500,000 or by £700,000 he did not know; but, at any rate, the Government proposed to make a serious change in the taxation, and he did not think that a debate on so important a matter should have been initiated at so late an hour, and at the last moment only of his speech. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have said—"By-the-bye, this scheme will increase the Revenue by £700,000 a-year." The subject should have been alluded to in the Budget Statement, and the House should have heard all the reasons which made it desirable to charge personal property so much more than it had hitherto paid. A proposal to lay an extra charge upon personal property, to the exemption of landed property, ought to have been made in a distinct statement to the House; and he was sure that, on reflection, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would admit the force of that observation. And now, when he was explaining in detail the finance of the past and future years, he thought the right hon. Gentleman might have condescended to have given them some sort of reason for proposing the alteration. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would now give them some distinct reasons for the very considerable addition which he proposed to make in the "death tax," on personal, to the exclusion of real, property.

said, that before the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer replied he should like to make a few observations. The hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds) and the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory) would be able to inform the Committee that the result of the scheme by which the Government proposed to deal with the probate and administration duties would have a very serious effect. He rose for the purpose of saying that he thought it would be a most unfortunate circumstance that, in the last days of an expiring Parliament, they should be called upon to pass, without sufficient discussion, a Bill which would impose an additional amount of taxation upon a particular class of property, and, at the same time, exempt the highest class of property in the Kingdom. Whether the additional amount to be charged upon personal property was £700,000 a-year or £1,500,000, it would be a tax upon the earnings of industry, and upon the personal savings of trade. Trading and other classes of the community were to be burdened with an additional tax, while the great landowners of the Kingdom were not to pay a penny of that additional taxation. He would remind the Committee that personal property represented the savings of the people—the earnings acquired by individuals—and that it already paid a very much larger legacy duty in proportion to land than land paid in the form of succession duty. In addition to that, personal property already had to pay a very large sum for probate duty, from which land was entirely free. He thought he was accurate in saying that in probate and legacy duties this particular class of property, chiefly possessed by the trading and industrial classes, paid four times as much as land at the present time. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer now, in order to get out of his financial difficulties, placed another £1,000,000, or, as he himself said, £700,000 or £800,000, upon a class of property already overburdened to a much larger extent than land. In his opinion, the proposal was a monstrously unjust one; and if the right hon. Gentleman had proposed, in order to increase his Revenue, to place succession duty, in respect of land, on the same footing as legacy duty upon personal property, and had also proposed to place upon land an equivalent probate duty, then he should have said he was taking a course that was entirely in accordance with justice, and which would have produced him a considerable amount of Revenue. Instead of doing that, he proposed now to free the great landowners from additional taxation, and to place additional burdens upon the owners of personal property. He protested most earnestly against such an entirely unjust proposition.

said, that the objection he took to this particular part of the Budget was that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had sprung a mine upon the country, which really knew nothing of the nature of the change and the extra taxation which would fall upon them. He thought few hon. Members were aware of the large increase which would be made, not only in the case of wills, but also in the case of intestacies. It was true that the double scale was to be abolished; and that, no doubt, was a move in the right direction. When the amount which might be left by a deceased person reached the sum of £10,000, the amount payable, not only on wills, but in the case of intestacies, would be much larger than at present. But in the case of large sums, say of from £100,000 to £500,000, the charge would be enormous. He wished to ask whether it was proposed to take the second reading that evening, or whether the right hon. Gentleman intended to postpone the discussion until Monday night when the Budget would be before the House? The Committee, in his opinion, was not in a position to express any opinion upon the subject at that moment.

said, that while listening to the Budger Statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer he could not help thinking that if one thing was more apparent than another it was that it avoided putting one farthing in any shape or form by way of additional taxation on the industrial classes of the Kingdom.

I feel that I am open to the charge made just now by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich of making my Budget Statements rather too short than too long. Perhaps I have been unduly anxious not to trespass on the patience of the Committee, and I feel I may have omitted matters which ought properly to have been brought into the Budget Statement. I particularly regret that I have omitted to say anything with regard to the Afghan War upon this occasion, because I know what is due to the hon. Member for Hack- ney (Mr. Fawcett), and still more so to the Committee. But the fact is, as I had no intention of submitting a Vote for any contribution, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, towards the expenses of that war, it did not occur to me that it was necessary to say anything upon the subject. I will merely repeat now what I have said on behalf of the Government on former occasions. This question is not a new one as regards this particular campaign. In point of fact, the whole question was before the House at a former time, as to whether the Government of India ought or ought not to bear the expense of military operations in Afghanistan; and I then expressed the views of the Government, to this effect—that it was important that India should be a self-supporting and self-protecting Power; that as protection involved the necessity of maintaining a secure Frontier—a Frontier which would not only be secure against an advancing enemy, but which would also secure the confidence of those who lived within it—it was also important that proper relations should exist between the Government of India and its neighbours beyond the Frontier; and that, in consequence of certain proceedings which had taken place of late years, it had been thought necessary for the purpose of protecting—at least, what were supposed to be—Indian interests, to undertake an expedition which has involved a certain amount of cost. I said then, and I repeat it now—and that is the line of argument which I should adopt if the question is again raised—that it would be a bad example if England were to allow the doctrine that the Indian Government might go to war, and England be called upon to bear the expense of that war. With reference to another question asked me by the right hon. Members for Greenwich and Pontefract, I suppose I spoke upon this subject too briefly; but I did say what I contemplated with regard to this sum of £2,000,000—that I did not intend to include them in the amount for which I made provision by Terminable Annuities, because I thought it desirable that they should be kept out until we could see what arrangements could be made with the Colonies. We propose to continue them by Exchequer Bonds for the present, trusting that we shall have the opportunity of being able to extinguish them altogether. I shall ask, at the proper time, for the renewal of the £2,000,000. [Mr. CHILDERS: For how long?] For one year. With regard to the question as to the Probate Bill, I do not propose to take it this evening. The second reading will be taken on Monday, and I shall then endeavour to proceed with the Budget Bill. With regard to the Return which has been referred to, I put this in hand at once, and it was immediately put in type; but it contains a very large number of figures, and I believe that some errors have been found in it, so that it has been found necessary to take some little time for corrections. The Return, however, is now correct, and I hope it will be in the hands of hon. Members to-morrow. I trust that, when it is studied, it will give full information as to the real character of the change proposed to be made. The hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney) has asked me when the section would take effect, whether from the date of death or from the date of probate? It would take effect from the date of proving the will, not from the date of death. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) has also asked me whether we make any provision for South Africa? To this I reply, No; we hope there will be no occasion to make any such provision. The ordinary Army and Navy Estimates are all framed with a view to the necessities of the Empire, and I do not think it necessary to make any express provision for South Africa. With regard to local loans, I shall be very glad to make such a statement as the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Waddy) suggests.

in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he would appeal to the hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. Otway) to withdraw his opposition to the progress of the measure at this stage. He would suggest that the sense of the House should be taken upon the subject of the hon. Member's Motion when the Bill went into Committee. The reason why he made this appeal was because he understood that considerable pressure had been put on his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to finish the Relief of Distress (Ireland) Bill, which was one of the primary objects of the meeting of Parliament.

regretted very much that he could not comply with the request of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. He had a duty to perform; but he would endeavour to discharge it as expeditiously as the circumstances of the case would admit. He therefore begged to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, it is not desirable that a Bill relating to the discipline of the Army should be continued which does not contain a provision relieving British soldiers from the degradation of flogging to which they are at present subjected."

Some 70 years ago the most celebrated military commander, and, perhaps, the most astute statesman of modern times, having made his brother Jerome King of Westphalia, advised him to do something to conciliate his new subjects. Accordingly King Jerome issued a proclamation, in which he said—

"Considering that honour is the great incentive to a soldier, and that it is desirable to banish for ever such disciplinary punishments as recall feudal times and degrade the dignity of man, on the report of our Minister of War, we decree that flogging is henceforth abolished in our Army."

The Armies of Westphalia and France were at that time the only ones in which flogging did not exist; but Scharnhorst in Prussia and the Archduke Charles took steps in that direction, and in the Prussian and Austrian Armies flogging had long been abolished. Efforts had been made by his relative, Sir Francis Burdett, and others to put an end to this punishment in the British Army. Not many years ago, on a Motion which he (Mr. Otway) had the honour to submit, flogging was entirely done away with in time of peace, and, in consequence of the discussions in the House last year, the punishment was reduced to 25 lashes, which could be inflicted only in time of war. He understood that more than 1,000 men had been flogged in South Africa; but if only half that number had been punished it must be admitted that the lash had utterly failed as a deterrent. The only way in which it acted as a deterrent was in preventing good men from entering the Army. Some of the most distinguished military authorities—such men as Generals Stewart, Sir Robert Wilson, Colborne, De Lacy Evans, and Sir William Napier—had condemned flogging because of its degrading character. General Napier had become an opponent of flogging because in the Peninsular War his life had been saved by a soldier who gave as his reason for imperilling his own life the fact that the General had once saved him from a flogging. He did not think it was incumbent upon opponents of flogging to find an alternative punishment. There were many punishments, such as fatigue duties of a certain nature, that might be given to soldiers which would not destroy their efficiency, and yet would save them from a degrading infliction. Discipline was maintained without flogging in the Army of every civilized country in the world except the English Army. Would the Secretary of State for War say the Englishman, the Scotchman, or the Irishman was such a brute, so different from the Frenchman, the German, the Russian, and the American, that he must be flogged to keep him up to his duty? Such a declaration was an offence against the nation, which one would not expect to come from a Government that assumed to be pre-eminently patriotic. He asked the House, therefore, to accede to the Resolution he proposed. This question could only be settled in one way, and it would very soon be settled in that way. He implored the Government to settle it, and so deprive the Liberal Party of the credit of doing so. The punishment had already been reduced to a minimum, and the right hon. Gentleman had shown that his heart was not in the cause which he had to defend. That Parliament was about to expire, and he did not know that it would occupy many brilliant pages in the history of the time; nor did he know whether the Speaker would preside in the next Parliament, as he had presided so ably over that and other Parliaments. But he ventured to hope that, before the present Parliament was dissolved, the Speaker would be able to declare the affirmation of the Resolution which he now placed before the House.

begged to second the Resolution. He said that the punishment of flogging was confined exclusively to the British Army. Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen were the only people in all the great Armies of Europe who were now subject to this degrading punishment. Some concession had been already made in regard to flogging. He hoped that the Government would make a complete concession, now that we were free from war, and that the punishment might be absolutely expunged from the Statute Book.

said, that the question was now being discussed in a state of quiescence as compared with the animated scene which had presented itself on former occasions. It certainly was not difficult for the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution to speak of the unanimity which prevailed on their side of the House. The discussion, indeed, was carried on in an Assembly represented rather by the absence than the presence of its Members. He could only state what he thought was the opinion of all present—namely, that that which was passing on that occasion was not a discussion of such a character as unavoidably to oblige the Government to pursue another course of action than the one which they had adopted. There was nothing to take exception to in the statements of the hon. Member. He was glad to find that no elements of passion or false sentiment, such as had characterized the debate of last year, had been introduced into the discussion, but that the Motion had been brought forward in a business-like manner, so as to gain the approbation of both sides of the House. He would endeavour to meet the arguments which had been brought forward in a fair and candid spirit. The hon. Member who moved the Resolution had spoken of the deterrent effect which flogging in the Army exercised on recruiting. In matters of opinion it was always difficult to ascertain the exact fact. As far as he had been able to got at the truth, he had not been able to learn from those who were most conversant with the different classes of which our Army was composed that flogging exercised any such influence. It was overstraining the case to imagine that the men who entered the Service had any conception that they would incur that punishment, which was only inflicted in cases of the gravest crimes. As to the statement that British soldiers alone were subjected to this punishment, he was not prepared to commit himself to positive statements about the discipline of foreign Armies; but if it was meant that in other countries discipline in the the Army was maintained merely by moral suasion he did not believe that it was so. Either at the Cape or in Afghanistan those offences were committed for which they were obliged to deal summarily with the men. They could not send back the offenders under an escort to other places where imprisonment could be carried out. The hon. Gentleman said there were cases in which he could understand a soldier preferring death to corporal punishment. He thought the hon. Gentleman must have looked at the matter in the light of his own wishes rather than in the light in which it was likely to present itself to the person most concerned. He did not believe that, as a rule, in cases of offence while upon guard or upon duty, the offenders, if given the option of being put to death or of being flogged, would hesitate to accept the latter alternative. He did not suppose the hon. Gentleman, or those who supported his views on the question of flogging, wished to see the discipline of the Army one whit less than it was at the present time. But they must remember that the point on which the British soldier was most likely to fail was in respect of his duty towards the inhabitants of the district through which he might be passing. The hon. Gentleman said that corporal punishment by flogging had been done away with in the Army of the United States. At that moment he (Colonel Stanley) spoke under correction; but he thought it was matter of notoriety that in the American Service practices had prevailed which were foreign to our own Service, and which, undoubtedly, were almost as severe, if not more so, than punishment as existing in our Service. The hon. Gentleman spoke as to the general question. Let him (Colonel Stanley) go back as far as he might reasonably in order to know what happened during last year. The debates on this question were full, exhaustive, and protracted. He was free to admit there were in the minds of those whose duty it was to oppose the Government feelings as conscientious as those to which the Government might lay claim. He thought they finally agreed that this was no question of Party before the House. There was this broad distinction—that those who at the time were responsible for the discipline of the Service, and those who, in the ordinary course of their duty, were acting with them, did not find it possible, in the present condition of the Service, to do away with the means of corporal punishment which, apparently, in some circumstances, was the only manner in which discipline could be preserved. He did not wish to enter into a controversy as to that, to which he referred very briefly a short time ago, on the question of discipline or indiscipline in the Army of South Africa. He would prefer to postpone any remarks upon that subject till the time when the facts were more fully and more satisfactorily before him. With all deference to the opinions the hon. Gentleman had stated, he (Colonel Stanley) said the responsibility rested upon those who, like the hon. Gentleman, brought this question before the House with a wish to abolish corporal punishment as it now existed; but a due responsibility rested upon them, in common with the other Members of the House, that those who were responsible for discipline should have the means of maintaining discipline. Where there were rough characters in the Service—he was sorry to say there were such, and might be such at any time—where they had rough men, in many respects enterprizing and soldierlike characters, it was necessary that proper means of maintaining discipline should be placed in the hands of those who had charge of them. In this matter Her Majesty's Government felt that they must not shrink from performing what they believed to be their duty, however unpleasant it might be. It had been his anxiety, in the peculiar circumstances of the present year, to bring in a Bill simply to continue for a twelvemonth the provisions of the Army Discipline and Regulation Bill, because he, and those who acted with him, felt that the discussion which had occurred last year upon this subject was ample for the time, and that the Government had gone as far as they had any right to do in the direction of mitigating the punishment of flogging by making it a substitute for that of death. By taking that course, the Government believed that they had met the evident and natural desire of every man of humane disposition, by mitigating severe punishment, as far as was consistent with the preservation of discipline. He was afraid that, whether they looked to civil or to military life, it would be found impossible to govern men entirely by mere moral suasion. While fully admitting that it would be possible to amend the Army Discipline and Regulation Act in many respects, he must say that those whose duty it was to administer it had informed him that it worked, as a whole, satisfactorily, and that there was no pressing necessity for altering its provisions at the present moment. On these grounds he ventured to oppose the Motion of the hon. Member; and he only regretted that the question should have come on for discussion in so thin a House, which could scarcely be taken as fairly representing the general feeling on the subject.

observed, that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman appeared to have discussed this question at great length with the air of a man who felt that corporal punishment was doomed, but must be retained for the present, in obedience to the wishes of those who were outside that House. He predicted that those who defended this punishment would shortly find themselves placed in a very ridiculous position. He thought that the opponents of corporal punishment had every reason to be satisfied with the progress made on this question, the great Tory Party now being the only advocates of the lash. Until this last shred of authority, supported by brutish violence, was done away with, he and those who held the same opinions as himself would never cease from troubling those in authority.

said, he felt very strongly indeed that the lash ought not to be entirely abolished or banished from the country, as its retention was necessary in some cases; but he objected most strongly indeed to our soldiers being placed in the same category with garrotters. He believed that there were certain persons who could only be influenced by the kind of violence the lash inflicted, and he was prepared to maintain that there were circumstances and crimes which called for the use of the lash. What he did object to was that while the House was told, on the one hand, all that was grand and beautiful with regard to the Army, it was, at the same time, told that it was necessary to use the lash, which was so bad that everybody but the soldier and the garrotter were exempted from it. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War really gave the go-bye to the arguments that had been put forward by the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood). What he complained of was that the House was not drawing a distinction between the British Army and a foreign Army, but between the British Army at home and the British Army abroad. For some reason, however, the cat was retained, and he would like to know the cause of it. Was it the pain it caused? The House had been over and over again told that it was not the pain. Then what was it? Was it the shame it caused? There were two or three ways of inflicting shame upon a man, and what he complained of was that punishment debased the man and made him feel not ashamed of what he had done, but of himself, and made him all the more liable to commit the same crime again. He trusted to see flogging and the Sinking Fund go together with a dying Parliament. It was strange to say that a punishment that could not be inflicted upon the Army at home could be inflicted upon them when on service out of the country. He was sure the hon. Members of the House would most strongly object to see the lash used upon their farm labourers and their tenants; but it was strange that, directly those farm labourers or tenants enlisted to serve their Queen and their country, they immediately became so bad that a proper control could only be maintained over thorn by the use of the cat. The subject had so thoroughly been thrashed out that it was not necessary for him to make any further observations upon it; but he ventured to hope, even now, that if the exigencies of the Service would not allow flogging to be entirely abolished, that its existence would in a short time be put an end to.

said, the punishment of flogging had been restricted to the smallest possible compass, and was inflicted only in cases of the most desperate character, and where the offender deserved to be in the same category with the garrotter, and the House must remember flogging could only be inflicted on board ship, or in face of the enemy. It was very ingenious to get up this as an Election cry; but it should not be forgotten that this punishment was declared to be necessary by the last Liberal Government, of which the hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. Otway) was a Member. He saw the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) in his place, and would remind him that his voice was not raised against flogging when the Leader of the Opposition was at the War Office, and stated distinctly that it was essential, in the interests of the Army, that the punishment of flogging should be maintained. There was no one on either side of the House who would not wish that the punishment of flogging could be abolished; but it should be remembered that our Army was not an Army of conscription. It was raised from different classes from those of which Continental Armies were composed. There were in our Army numbers of honourable and gallant men, but there were others of a different character; but even in their case flogging was only resorted to in the most extreme cases, and for the very worst offences. For all others it was abolished. He had, since the question was discussed, consulted many authorities on the subject; and they were all of opinion, with one exception, that flogging could not be safely abolished, and the exception he referred to was to the effect that it could only be abolished in the event of some other suitable and very summary punishment being substituted for it. He felt himself compelled to support the Government, believing that they were right in maintaining a punishment which had been absolutely abolished except in the case of extraordinary offences.

thought that if the Government opened a more generous career for merit in the Army there would be no occasion to resort to the brutalizing lash. They had evidence that the punishment did not fulfil its object, for there never was a better flogged Army than that which overcame the Zulus. Enough had come out in the controversy between Sir Garnet Wolseley and Dr. Russell to show that abundant flogging did not keep British soldiers from being a disgrace to their country. Last year they were afforded a specimen of the way in which Tory Members reconciled themselves to the use of the lash. The hon. and gallant Member for Westminster (Sir Charles Russell) rose in his place, and, with tears in his voice, produced a letter from an old soldier, who he said was in the Lobby, stating that he had been flogged, and had ever since felt himself regenerated and dignified by the punishment. Some of those who heard the statement sought the man in the Lobby, and they found a broken-down man who said that since he was flogged he had led a life of physical pain and felt he was a degraded man, and, he added, that he had come down to say so on behalf of his comrades who were still in the Army. The versatile Premier had not thought fit to make an appeal to the country on the question of flogging in the Army; and, although the accents of the living cat had been imitated in that House by distinguished Obstructionists on the other side, he did not suppose that Ministerial orators, in their addresses to their constituents, would lay much stress on their devotion to the flogging of the soldier as a means of preserving the efficiency of the Imperial Forces.

said, there were few things more humiliating than the frequent discussion of the question in that House. He was old enough to remember the time when the public were shocked by floggings that were followed by death. From first to last the tyrant plea of necessity had been used; but various mitigations had been made in the brutal punishment—which was now reduced to a comparative tickling, as it was called, of 25 lashes. The infatuation with which hon. Members on the other side of the House clung to the barbarous infliction was astounding; and if they would only go to the country pledging themselves to vote for its abolition the advantage that they would thereby gain would not be grudged to them for the sake of getting rid of this infamous punishment. If officers could not govern their men without subjecting them to the brutal infliction of the lash, which was used in no other Army in the world, they ought to retire from a position, for which they were unfit.

who was prevented by the Forms of the House from moving the following Amendment:—

"That, in the opinion of this House, no Act relating to the discipline of the Army ought to be passed which gives to the military authorities power to flog Volunteers on active service,"

said, they were told that it was necessary to flog men on active service in foreign countries, because there was no other way of dealing with offenders, and because one-half of the Army could not be spared to look after the other half; but, however good that argument might be in South Africa, it surely could not be sustained as against Volunteers serving in this country. The clause conferring power to flog Volunteers off active service was absolutely unnecessary, and was a great blot on the Bill. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had told them distinctly that he wished the time had arrived when it was possible to do away with this punishment in the Army, but that with the sort of men still enlisted for the Army it was absolutely necessary to retain it. But that opinion did not apply in the least to the Volunteer Force, which consisted of men of a totally different class. It would be very easy to provide, by an Amendment, that Volunteers should not be liable to be sentenced by court martial to corporal punishment. It had often been said, that Volunteers would never deserve the punishment, and, therefore, would never get it. Well, then, if that were so, it was perfectly useless to retain the power to inflict it. Officers were not allowed to be flogged, and that led to the anomaly that a gentleman who was a private in a Volunteer corps, but who might be of exactly the same standing as the officer holding Her Majesty's commission, would be liable to this degrading punishment for an offence for which the officer would remain untouched by it. Volunteers who sacrificed their time and money for the service of their country ought not to be placed on the same footing with, gaol-birds and ruffians. Such was the character of the Volunteer Force that mere expulsion from a corps was punishment sufficient for any offence of which a Volunteer might be guilty. Were our Volunteer soldiers less worthy of respect than American, French, German, Italian, or Russian troops? They were told there must be uniformity in military punishments; but there was no uniformity in the conditions of service. They were totally different. Volunteers proved, by making themselves efficient at their own cost, that they were men to be relied on. It was said this subject was being made a hustings cry and a Party question; but there could be no doubt that the public would demand pledges at the hustings that this meaningless and useless stigma should not remain on the Volunteer Force.

begged to call attention to the insufficiency of the payments to licensed victuallers for billeting soldiers. Those payments were based on old values, which were altogether too low at the present day to recompense keepers of public-houses and licensed victuallers for the accommodation they were obliged by Statute to afford to troops on the march. Licensed victuallers objected very much to the scale of payment, and accordingly disliked to see soldiers marching through their towns. They objected to having soldiers constantly billeted upon them, not because the soldiers behaved badly, but simply from the insufficiency of the rates of payment. Her Majesty's Government ought to do something to re-model the scale. Last year they did make some slight improvement by making allowances for officers' lodging; but even yet licensed victuallers were subject to a great amount of hardship from the low scale of payment. As a private Member of the House he could not move an Amendment on the clause unless Her Majesty's Government would take the initiative; and he would, therefore, content himself by simply pointing out further that 2½d. did not pay a licensed victualler for the trouble he was put to in lodging a soldier, nor was 1s. 1½d. sufficient for his board. Again, the payment of 1s. 9d. for stabling a horse was also insufficient, as the publican might have to give more for the forage; at all events, that small amount could not recoup a licensed victualler for the trouble he was put to in stabling a horse.

strongly urged the consideration by the Government of the views expressed by the hon. Member for Frome (Mr. H. Samuelson). He (Mr. Anderson) was against flogging altogether; but he thought even those who considered that it should be retained in the Army would not go the length of saying that it should be extended to Volunteers. He could only believe that Volunteers had been placed under this stigma through some inadvertence in the drafting of the Bill. If that was so, he hoped the Secretary of State for War would make some promise that it would be expunged. The alteration might very well be made in Committee next day.

said, the question raised by the hon. Member for Frome (Mr. H. Samuelson) was fully discussed last year, when the House, by a substantial majority, agreed to take the Bill as it was drawn. Part of the principle of the Bill of last year was to place soldiers of the Regular Service and members of the Auxiliary Forces on exactly the same footing in case of active service. It would be almost pedantic to introduce words into the Bill to guard against Volunteers being subjected to corporal punishment, the contingency of their being so treated being so very remote. The general feeling of all Volunteers was in favour of their being subjected to the same conditions as governed the Regular Forces, should they ever be called upon to serve side by side with those Forces. Coming to the objection of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan), he could only repeat what he felt it his duty to say last year—that, so far as the hardship of billeting was concerned, no doubt there would be some inconvenience in having to receive soldiers suddenly, and in addition to persons who might be staying in the house; but that was one of the incidents attaching to the monopoly given to licensed victuallers. He understood that the principal objection applied not to the billeting of soldiers on the march, but to the billeting for a month of the Militia. Efforts to remove this grievance had been made by placing the Militia under canvas, and in some instances in barracks. As regarded the prices for troops on the march, the Schedule was drawn up in 1873, when the prices of provisions were much higher than now. A deputation of licensed victuallers, representing one of the associations, waited upon him in regard to this matter last year; but on a comparison of figures they admitted the fallacy of many of the figures; and although he offered to see the deputation again after they had had an opportunity of correcting their figures he had not since seen nor heard from them.

as a Volunteer, was of opinion that Volunteers would consider being equally liable with the Regular Army to corporal punishment anything but an honour.

hoped some adequate opportunity would be given to hon. Members to consider the measure before going into Committee, and trusted the Attorney General would promise that a reasonable time should be allowed for that purpose.

said, he also wished to make an appeal to the Attorney General on the subject of this measure. Yesterday he (Mr. Anderson) had brought forward a measure; but the hon. and learned Gentleman had objected to its being proceeded with, on the ground that they had arrived at the last day or two of an expiring Parliament, and because there was a very thin attendance in the House. The At- torney General had said that the Bill was too important to be taken then; but the hon. and learned Member that same morning introduced a measure, circulated it on the following day, and in the evening expected to have it read a second time. He expected Parliament to allow it to become law before anyone in the country had seen it. He thought such conduct most unfair. It was quite unprecedented that a Bill should be brought in one night, affecting every borough in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and read a second time next night, before it was possible for any borough in the country to express an opinion on it. The Bill of the Attorney General contained a most important provision. If it had been a mere Continuance Bill he should not have raised any objection to it; but it was not. There was no need for such a Bill, for the existing measure did not expire until the end of the year, and there was thus plenty of time for the new Parliament to deal with the question of Parliamentary elections and corrupt practices in a proper and efficient manner. But why did the Bill deal with one subject, and leave everything else untouched? The 2nd clause was a very innocent looking one, and hon. Members might have looked at it without imagining that there was anything bad in it at all. He had examined into it carefully, however, and he found that it meant that for the future the conveyance of voters to the poll, and paying for that conveyance, was to be legalized all over the country. This applied to every borough in the Kingdom, and yet the Attorney General now asked them to have the Bill read a second time. Evidently the Government wished to rush it through Parliament before they could say one word about it. Such conduct was unprecedented, even in the history of the present Administration, and that was saying a good deal. There were, he felt bound to say, a great many corrupt practices besides the conveyance of voters to the poll. There was, for instance, the employing of paid canvassers. He maintained that the payment of canvassers led to an immense amount of corruption, and it was one of the practices that the House ought to do away with. Another mode of corruption was that of the faggot vote. He considered faggot voting a very corrupt practice indeed. The sys- tem of bringing strangers from an immense distance, and locating them upon a county for the purpose of swamping the opinion of the locality, was about as corrupt a practice as he knew of. There might be faggot votes that were of a perfectly innocent description, provided the people who enjoyed them really resided in the locality; but when such a person came from a distance, in order to swamp legitimate opinion, the whole affair was highly corrupt, and ought to be put an end to. There were three great questions that had to be dealt with by whatever Parliament took up the question of corrupt practices; but to attempt to deal with one of them in this offhand manner was, in his opinion, most improper. He was told that all that was done was simply to make legal a practice that was universal. Well, he denied that it was a universal practice, and what the Attorney General was doing was making an illegal practice legal. That was to say, the hon. and learned Gentleman was more than condoning breaches of the law. He was told that in a great many boroughs in England it was the practice to pay for the conveyance of voters; and he understood that in Birmingham all the cabs had been already secured for the ensuing election. That was all done in direct contravention of the law, and why should it be made legal? He could not see any reason. He thought the more sensible course for the Attorney General to have pursued would have been to specify a punishment that should attach to the offence. That would have been a change which would only have been carrying out the present law. He was glad to know, however, that this practice of conveying voters to the poll was not universal. He never heard of the practice in Scotland. The Scotch were a law-abiding people, not like the people in England, who would drive a coach and six through any Act of Parliament. In Scotland the people were law-abiding, because they objected to see a practice which they considered to be corrupt, and which they knew to be illegal, legalized in this off-hand manner. He was told that in Ireland the people also abided by the law in this respect, and he made bold to say that the law was not universally broken even in England. He could only say that, so far as he was able, and with the assistance of Scotch Members, he would endeavour to get this clause expunged from the Bill.

hoped the Government would persevere with the Bill. It would be a great boon to Wales. He thought it was right that the expenses of a poor voter should be paid, and that he should be brought to the poll. The rich candidate, who had carriages of his own, could drive voters to the poll; and it was unfair that the candidate who had no carriages should not be allowed to place himself on an equality with his richer neighbours if he were prepared to pay for conveyances. At present the law was evaded; but the candidate should do what was "straight."

said, that the effect of this clause would be the possibility of placing the rich candidate in a position unfair to the poor one. He had served on the Committee which had sat to consider the question of the extension of the hours of polling, and a great number of cases came before them, in which it was said that the law was evaded, especially in the matter of the conveyance of voters to the poll. Though it was illegal, they were told that conveyances were often hired at the expense of the candidate. Hon. Members sitting in all parts of the House were on the Committee, and there appeared to be only one opinion amongst them—namely, that the law should be amended in the sense of more properly enforcing it as it then stood. It was with great surprise, therefore, that he saw that the Bill of the Attorney General went entirely in an opposite direction. The penalties attached to an infraction of the law in this matter were not large enough. If it was possible to put down undue treating, bribery, and other forms of corruption, this particular phase could equally well have been dealt with. What his hon. Friend (Mr. Anderson) had said of Scotland was strictly true. He confessed, however, that in one burgh in Scotland recently this practice had been reported to exist; but, with that one exception, he had never heard of the practice during his whole experience. Supposing that the law were obeyed in Scotland, and conveyances not used, he did not believe the people there were sufficiently wide-awake to know that the law could be evaded. At all events, however, the law was obeyed in Scotland—whether from a regard to economy he would not say. At all events, he thought it preposterous that in an expiring Parliament they should be asked to let loose on Scotland, hitherto free from reproach, a system of extravagance and corruption, the end of which no one could see. As for the hiring of cabs, say in Edinburgh, Dundee, or Aberdeen, there could be no doubt that an immense amount of treating and improper expenditure might take place under the guise of such a practice. If the Attorney General could not devise any other means of meeting the difficulty, why did he not leave it alone? There would be plenty of time next Parliament to deal with the subject. At this moment, however, when the Scotch Members were absent—and he was certain they would oppose the Bill to a man—it was unfair to steal a march upon them. So far as he could influence other Members, he would do all in his power to obstruct the passage of the Bill. He begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

thought the question might well have been left to the consideration of the new Parliament. There was hardly a borough in England in which the law was not evaded, not by candidates, but by their friends; and the only provision that could obviate the evil would be to make it illegal for any person to receive money in consideration of the hire of any vehicle on an election day. Neither the Bill nor the Amendment was satisfactory; and as the subject, in his opinion, had not received sufficient consideration, he begged to move the adjournment of the debate.

expressed his surprise at the speech of the hon. Member for Frome (Mr. H. Samuelson), because he certainly understood him the other day to speak in favour of the proposition of the Government. [Mr. H. SAMUELSON said, the hon. and learned Gentleman was mistaken.] His arguments, at all events, seemed susceptible of that construction. Now, what was the proposition of the Government? It was declared by the Representation of the People Act that it was illegal to pay for the conveyance of voters to the poll in boroughs, except in certain boroughs. But, although the offence was declared, there did not seem to be any specific penalty attached to it; and as it was undesirable that a law should be made only to be broken, it was clear that some change should be made, either in the direction of making the payment by a candidate or his agent for a cab a corrupt practice, or by repealing the provision altogether. Now, to render a candidate liable to be unseated for so innocent an act as the payment for a cab seemed to him a monstrous thing, while the legalizing of such an act, on the contrary, could do nobody any harm. The hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) would be under no obligation to hire a cab if he did not choose to do so. It was true that polling booths were placed at short distances; but it might happen that a workman at his dinner hour—the only time, perhaps, at which he could vote—would find himself unable to go to his own polling booth except in a conveyance, and if the employment of cabs was rendered absolutely impossible that voter would practically be disfranchised. By an error in drafting, the Bill applied only to England; but in Committee he would propose a clause extending it to Scotland and Ireland.

said, that few Members of the House but would agree that the expenses connected with elections were one of the crying evils of the day. He was quite certain that in Scotland the Amendment would be approved unanimously. Much more in the direction of doing away with conveyances not only in boroughs, but in counties, would be desirable. If that were done, they would get rid of the faggot-voting to a great extent, if not entirely. The Bill was a thoroughly retrograde one, and might, he thought, be characterized as one to legalize bribery. It would be condemned, at all events, in Scotland, by the unanimous feeling of the people. There was not a question that, if they adopted the provisions proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman, they would inculcate bribery in all these boroughs, and would put an obstacle in the way of constituencies being open to any except the plutocracy of the land.

said, that the hon. and learned Member, in introducing the Bill, had said that the present law was inoperative because no penalty was attached. Why, then, did he not attach a penalty? He thought the Government ought to have provided a simple and speedy remedy for the evil. As matters stood at present, that House was in one respect the direct opposite of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was especially open to the poor. To every one who had thought on the subject it must have occurred that that House was practically closed to all but the rich. If they made the use of vehicles by candidates legal, it became absolutely necessary for all who would obtain a seat in that House to have cabs and carriages at command. He thought it was wrong to attach such overwhelming influence to the possession of money. By this alteration in the law, Members would do openly and lavishly that which they now did only to a restricted extent. The expenses of Members was already quite large enough, and the proposed change would make a large addition to them inevitable. He thought it was the duty of the Government to bring about purity, simplicity, and directness into elections, and that the alteration which they proposed was in the wrong direction; and he hoped that his hon. Friends on that side of the House would oppose the Bill.

said, that he should offer a strenuous opposition to the Bill. While the property qualification had been lowered by the introduction of household suffrage, it was especially inadvisable to appeal to the voters by offering them the unusual luxury of conveyance to the polling-booth in the hired vehicles of candidates as an inducement to vote. While, however, they had lowered the property qualification of the voters, they had raised the property qualification in Members by making it only possible for rich men to sit in that House. He had hoped the sense of the House and of the country was against such a proposal, and that they should rather have had measures to diminish the extent to which a seat in that House was the rich man's privilege and perquisite. It had pained him to see that the Government, in the last few days of an expiring Parliament, had thought fit to bring in a Bill which would largely add to the expenses of election. It was a Bill which, as had been said, was not only permissive, but obligatory, and it would be more and more necessary and incumbent on Members to pay the expense of conveyances to bring voters to the poll. He would in every way he could oppose the Bill.

thought that the prohibition of the use of carriages would necessitate a very great increase in the number of polling-places. Besides, all hon. Members who wished to give every voter an opportunity of polling would desire to facilitate the conveyance of the old and infirm.

said, the object of the Legislature should be to render access to the House easier and less expensive than it was at present, and there was no doubt that the conveyance of voters added very materially to the expense of an election. On one point he concurred with the hon. and learned Attorney General—the law that was systematically broken was a bad one to maintain, and. gave a great advantage to the wrong-doer. A man who merely wished to do right would, in such a case, be inevitably worsted by one who desired only to serve himself. The existing law was most unsatisfactory, and he should prefer either to legalize the custom or to prohibit it altogether by means of a real penalty. The former alternative would be much to the disadvantage of poor candidates, and the latter was difficult of adoption, seeing that the conveyance of voters, though illegal, was not intrinsically immoral. The offence, which, by the way, was no offence at all in counties, would not be adequately punished by a fine; and he presumed that the House would not wish it to be visited by imprisonment. It would be necessary, therefore, either to adopt the proposal of the Government, or to make the employment of vehicles a corrupt practice. In his opinion, the latter course was preferable, for, after all, the conveyance of voters partook of the nature of an act of bribery. The House ought to be in earnest, and to deal with the question in a drastic manner. He would, however, suggest that the Bill should be read a second time, and they could deal with the matter in Committee.

said, as he had appealed to the Attorney General to give two or three days for consideration, and the hon. and learned Gentleman made no answer to his appeal, there was no alternative but to oppose the second reading. He had an Amendment to propose which would raise the whole question; and if full opportunity were not given to discuss it, the Bill ought to be opposed at every stage. At the close of the Session the Government had brought in a Bill which was not called for except for the purpose of repealing the clause now in question. There would be time enough to deal with the question in the new Parliament. The Government could have no object in bringing in the Bill except to steal a march on Members who were absent.

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken appeared to ignore the general feeling of the country that a Bill should be brought in on this question. There was a universal wish expressed last Session that a Bill should be brought in and become law, and the Government were now acceding to that request, although they had little time. He was one of the Select Committee that considered this question, and he had brought in a proposal of this kind. The division against him was only lost by 1 vote. He had, therefore, some right to speak on this question. It struck him, as it had struck many hon. Members of that Committee, that this was a common-sense and practical view to take. There could be no doubt that the hiring of vehicles was so general in borough constituencies that it was not reckoned an offence against the law. Very often there was an understood agreement entered into between the agents of the different parties. As to what had fallen from hon. Members opposite about the difficulties which poor men would have in this matter compared with rich men, the House knew that if a poor man could not afford it, he had plenty of backers ready to pay for conveyances. Though a candidate might not actually put his hand in his pocket, it was known that both voters and conveyances were often brought from a great distance, and at great expense, to be used at an election. The country was not governed by logic, but by Parliament; but if Parliament laid down a rule that they should have a penalty and not free trade in this matter, the country would not be with it. They could not legislate against the feeling of the country. He was against increasing the expenses of elections in any way; but, when the law was universally broken, the Government had taken the only practical course. They did not wish to increase the expense of elections, but to satisfy the public by laying down a general rule and principle. To say that they might bring county voters to the poll in the country, but must not convey the same voters who resided seven miles from a borough into it, when they had a right to vote there, was preposterous and unfair. He hoped the Government would press the Bill.

said, he did not think the Government had acted rightly in bringing forward this proposal at so late a period. The Bill of last Session had not this clause, and therefore the House would be justified in opposing a measure with such a clause brought in at the fag-end of the Session. He knew that in many boroughs the law was kept, and on that ground alone they ought to be very slow in altering a state of things which had been 12 years in existence. While admitting that the existing law was broken in many places, he thought it unfair to propose a change at such a period of the Session and on such short notice. The new law would not be known in many places by the time the approaching Election was held. He thought, therefore, that the matter had better be left to the new Parliament. Moreover, the indiscriminate employment of cabs throughout the country would, in his opinion, be an objectionable feature of our elections, and a source of great and unnecessary expense to candidates. For those reasons, he opposed the Bill.

said, he should give a very strong opposition to the proposed change of the law. He thought they should do nothing but pass a Continuance Bill. He did not wish to interfere with the general harmony at the close of the Session; but if the Government persisted with the measure, he should feel bound—he did not mean to threaten obstruction, because now-a-days they had to be particular—to give the portion referred to all the opposition in his power. The measure, if applied to Ireland, would handicap impecunious candidates who might not, like himself when he contested Galway, enjoy the advantage of having his voters conveyed to the poll in the cars of the rival candidate.

said, he would follow in the footsteps of the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell), and oppose the Bill, which would give wealth an undue advantage in electoral interests. The existing law was bad, but the alteration would be worse.

said, that the notion was far too much encouraged already that the vote was a favour conferred upon candidates; and everything that limited the choice of the election to wealthy candidates was a violation of the representative principle. The exception of counties from the operation of the clause had been treated as the principle of the law. But, at present, conveyance of voters at the candidate's expense was illegal in boroughs, and he would maintain the principle, although he could not get it applied outside boroughs. As to boroughs, the main difficulty was the limited time given for polling, and it was said that men could not be got to go to the poll and record their votes within those hours. Well, the true remedy for that was the extension of the hours of polling. A case had been mentioned by an hon. Member of a voter living a great many miles from where the election was taking place, asking if the candidate was prepared to pay his expenses of coming to the borough election; and he wanted to know whether that was to be allowed under this Bill with regard to boroughs and voters residing at some distance from the place where they were registered? They had better leave the law as it was, because it asserted a principle which should not be altered at the present time; and he would, therefore, oppose the second reading, believing that the Bill was utterly unnecessary.

pointed out that the extension of the hours of polling would not be sufficient remedy, for at the recent election for Southwark, where the hours of polling were extended, nearly all the cabs in the borough were, according to a newspaper statement, engaged to convey electors to vote for the Liberal candidate. It seemed to him to be a bad thing to keep on the Statute Book a law which was systematically evaded. The whole subject might be fully considered in the next Parliament; but it would be impossible in the last days of the present one to alter the law in the way proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James). It had been said that it was better the old law should be kept as it was for the present, as, although there was no penalty imposed, yet conscientious persons observed the law as it stood, and that that was to a certain extent a preventative of expense at elections. But it was most unfair that conscientious persons should alone be put to a disadvantage in an election contest, and for that reason he cordially supported the proposal of the Government.

referring to a statement he had made that he would oppose this Bill at every stage, said, he found a sufficiently resolute declaration had been made previously in the debate, and as the views of the Scotch Members on this Bill were in accord with his own, he would be very happy to follow their lead.

said, as he felt it was most important that this Bill should pass, he should be very sorry to intervene in the discussion for any time, and so delay the passing of this measure. He assured the House that he should not have made any remark if he had not felt it to be his duty to do so; but he confessed that since the Bill had been introduced he had had reason to fear that the distress and danger of famine in Ireland was greater than had been supposed. The House would probably recollect that when the Bill was brought in, he had stated that he thought that the Government had done all that was necessary and could be expected to be done to ward off the famine, and he did not wish at that moment to retract that statement, nor did he, in any of the remarks which he was about to make, wish to blame the Government; he only desired to point out to the House that the danger of great and terrible distress in Ireland, particularly in the West of Ireland, and the prospect of real famine next year was greater than he had supposed, and as he thought hon. Members generally had supposed, when the Bill was brought in. If the House would allow him, he would give his reasons for that view. He was speaking upon the information only which he had received from one or two persons, but who were deserving of credit. He happened to have had something to do with the Famine of 1846–7, and a friend of his, who had been very efficient in relieving distress at that time, had gone over to Donegal. He had not gone over there with any prepossession at all; but, certainly, the letters received from him spoke of most tremendous and alarming distress. What he heard was, that in the county of Donegal—and the matter was all the worse, because it applied to only about one half the county—there were more than 70,000 people now saved from starvation by the relief which they obtained from the Duchess of Marlborough's and the Lord Mayor's Funds. That distress must press most heavily, unless there were ample provision made for its further relief, and it must also continue until the following September and October. His friend feared that throughout the West of Ireland the distress was as bad as in Donegal. On that point, however, he hoped he would find himself mistaken, and that Donegal was, owing to peculiar circumstances, worse than other districts. There existed, however, great distress in other parts—namely, in the islands off the West Coast, which were in a terrible state, as also some districts in Kerry and Galway, and alto- gether, he felt they were in face of a much greater danger than they had expected. He hoped the Government would not think he made these observations in a hostile spirit; he would be sorry to say anything which might have the effect of checking the charitable funds; he was glad that there had been subscriptions in England, and by the English-speaking races in the Colonies and in America, But no Government could rely upon charity alone to keep the people alive; it was not exactly the business of charity to do that; it was the business of the State, either through local funds or from Imperial funds, to keep the people from positive famine. He wanted to impress upon the Government that they had to contemplate a dangerous state of things. Supposing that the funds from charitable sources should fall off, if the Government were not ready at once to afford help from the Unions, there might arise a most terrible calamity. He pointed out that in his view there could be no danger so great as real famine and actual death from starvation, which had occurred in many cases in Ireland. It was, however, possible that Her Majesty's Government might be more aware of the danger than they were supposed to be; but he would, nevertheless, suggest that there ought to be sent down from Dublin one or two of the ablest men that could be found, to discover what the Guardians in the districts to which he had referred were doing, and what was actually being done to reduce the distress there existing; to try to get as much more done as possible; and if it were found that the Unions had not the power to deal with the distress, then, he thought, it was their duty to step forward, and that the famine must be met by the Central Government. He had been told that in those Unions where there was the greatest distress, the rates were no higher than they had been last year, and that in one particular Union they amounted to 1s. 8d. in the pound last year, and stood at that amount now. There were no more people in the workhouse, and there were very few more than last year in receipt of out-door relief; but, until the present Bill was passed, he was aware there was no power to force the Unions to act. It was with some reluctance that he had made this statement, because he felt that at that particular moment it might be sup- posed to be made from Party motives. But he knew too much of Irish famine to regard it for one moment in the light of a Party question. His object was to help the Government in a matter which he could not but consider to be one of great danger.

said, as that was the last opportunity which he should have of seconding what had been said by the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, he begged, in the most solemn manner, to say that the Government had given no evidence that they were alive to the magnitude of the disaster which was at that moment hanging over Ireland. He had, two days ago, received a letter from a parish priest in his own district, which naturally might be supposed to be not the most distressed district in the country, stating that there were 600 families applying for relief, and that he had nothing to give them. What was it, he asked, in the way of relief to a starving population of that kind to receive amounts of £50, £150, and £200 from the charitable funds of the two associations which had been formed in Ireland? One of those associations, the charity inaugurated by the Duchess of Marlborough, had spent £30,000 of the funds sent from this country in providing seed potatoes. He maintained that such was not the object for which those funds had been subscribed. They had been given to keep the people alive—to prevent their perishing from hunger. The purchase of seed potatoes was a worthy, desirable, and necessary thing; but the administrators of the fund were replying now, when they were asked to give food, that they had spent their money in seed potatoes. The outlay of £30,000 out of £80,000 was, in his opinion, an enormous disproportion, looking at what was absolutely necessary for the present and what would be necessary for the future. There were two districts in Connemara, in which the people had literally nothing to eat, and nothing wherewith to clothe themselves, and the consequence of this mode of distributing the charity had been that the people, who were generally very saving of their seed potatoes and seeds of all kinds, had been led to consume the whole of their stock. Again, that distribution of charity which required nothing to be done in return was demoralizing to the whole of the district, and aggravated, to an enormous extent, the dangers, of the situation. It was useless to protest against the action of the Government. They were not alive to what was passing in Ireland; and if he were to say that they were indifferent to the situation, and left it to the mere chance of what might turn up, he thought he should be doing no more than correctly describing the position. There was another point in connection with those seed potatoes to which he would refer. The kind which was generally grown in Ireland, and which formed a great portion of the food of the people, ripened in the month of August; but the particular kind which had been chosen for distribution was the so-called "Champion" potato, which was late in ripening, and that fact could not but prolong the distress for another month at least. Again, the suggestion which he had made, that some manure should also be given, had, on several occasions, been scoffed at by the Government. But the point had been subsequently raised and insisted upon most particularly by the Agricultural Society of Ireland; and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland must be very well aware of the necessity of supplying manure. What was the use, he asked, of going to the expense of purchasing potatoes of a high class, the cost of which had been run up immensely by the demand made for them, and then giving the people nothing wherewith to fertilize the land on which they would be sown? How could a crop be expected next year to be yielded by an exhausted soil? All he had proposed was, that, seeing the Government had allowed £5 to be expended in providing seeds sufficient for particular cases, the Boards of Guardians who administered that fund should be allowed to use a few shillings of the £5 in providing manure. That suggestion, which, he believed, would have appealed to the common sense of anybody who knew anything about agriculture, had been simply pooh-poohed and scoffed at by the Government; but it would rise against them like a spectre, which they would have difficulty in allaying. He well knew what impended over Ireland. It was not merely present famine, but pestilence, which would afterwards sweep off great numbers of the population, growing weaker and weaker from having nothing to eat, except that provided in scanty quantities by the means supplied from charitable organizations. He cared not whether the Government of the country were despotic, or whether it were called Liberal or Conservative; its duty was to keep alive the subjects of the Queen. [Laughter.] He regretted to see smiles on the countenances of some hon. Members who were ever ready to laugh when the question was raised of the destruction of the Irish people by famine. ["No, no!"] He repeated that many of the observations which he had made on former occasions, and on that evening, upon the subject of Irish distress, had been met with nothing else but smiles and scoffs from hon. Members opposite. In conclusion, he entered his protest against the manner in which the subject of distress in Ireland had been dealt with, and declared that that Parliament would hereafter be included in the list of those which had never risen, or cared to rise, to the danger hanging over a portion of Her Majesty's Kingdom.

said, that the matter which had been pressed upon the attention of the Government that evening by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford was one of the greatest consequence to Ireland. The whole matter would probably slip out of the minds of some hon. Members to a great extent in a few days, and it was, therefore, of the greatest importance that, just before Parliament broke up, a Gentleman of the position and experience of the right hon. Member for Bradford should have drawn attention to the distress existing in a portion of the country. Now, the Bill before the Committee was very peculiar in this way. It had actually come into operation, and they were, to some extent, able to judge of its effects before it had been passed by Parliament. The Bill provided three ways of meeting the distress—one was that of out-door relief; but he pointed out that in that respect the Bill was really doing nothing, because, as the right hon. Gentleman had shown, there had been no increase in the amount of out-door relief afforded last year. The second point in the Bill was that money should be lent to the baronial sessions to carry on works for the employment of the people. But he had received several letters to say that the baronial sessions had proved, in a great many cases, to be a complete failure. Very little work was passed by thorn, and that which had been passed had been described by one correspondent as "but a drop in a lake." That portion of the Government scheme was, therefore, at that moment, also a failure. The third means for meeting the distress which the Bill provided was the lending of money to landlords. With regard to that, he believed in some districts a certain amount of good was being done; but it was nothing like the amount necessary to relieve the distress existing in the districts where the principle was being applied; while in other districts, nothing at all was being done in that way. The Prime Minister had, in his Address to the country, taken his stand, in a great measure, upon the Bill, and he, therefore, thought the Government were bound to see that some good came from the measure. It had been shown that the provisions of the Act which were really in operation had done very little good up to the present, and were likely to do little good in the future. He thought it would do good to Ireland if the Government would undertake such large works as railways, with a guarantee of 3 per cent. That, he believed, would provide a large amount of labour, as had been the case in his own county. On the whole, he believed that, under the Bill, very little would be done to save the Irish people. He acknowledged that a great deal had been effected by private charity, and felt that everyone coming from the West of Ireland must be grateful to the people of England, America, and Australia for their contributions in aid of the people; but seeing that the Government had made a point of the Bill in their electioneering Addresses, they were bound to admit that the good which had been done was not enough.

said, that the Government had, in the course which they were pursuing, put relief from public works out of the question. Had they properly organized a system of public works they would have done their duty and saved the people; but he feared they must come to the conclusion that the works had been very badly organized, and could not, in consequence, be expected to relieve the distress. He urged upon the Government that they must come to extraordinary out-door relief as the almost only measure which could deal with the existing distress—almost the only measure outside relief from private sources. Outdoor relief was the only chance, and a very heavy burden it would prove to be, inasmuch at it would reduce the people to want long after the distress had passed away. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford had justly said that the Government ought to see that the local authorities did their duty, and that that matter rested entirely upon the Government. What was the scheme supposed to be in operation with regard to out-door relief? The Government had authorized the Boards of Guardians to give out-door relief. They had also given power to the Board of Works to lend to them money for that purpose, re-payable in 10 years, at 3 per cent interest. But if they attempted in any district where want really existed to compel the local authorites to expend large sums of money immediately, who was to be responsible for the money? Undoubtedly, they would bring about poverty where it was not now felt, and perpetuate want and famine in the land. The Government plan was to authorize the giving of out-door relief, and to order it, and then to hold out some hope to the local authorities when it was spent. They would tell them they had spent so many thousand pounds, and that they would be allowed to borrow so much money. That was not the right way to deal with the matter. They should go to the local authorities, honestly, in the first instance, and say—"You are in want; we will enable you to borrow in such a way as will save the people and save the ratepayers." But the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had procrastinated in this matter as he always did, and if he, in consequence, drove them to spare the ratepayer at the expense of the poor man, on his head would be the result of his policy. He saw upon the Front Bench opposite another right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies, who had been over to Ireland, and who he believed that many regretted did not hold the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland. Had that been so, it was believed a plan of relief would have been organized and carried out which would not have robbed the country, which would have been productive, and which would not, as had been the case with the baronial sessions, have proved barren. He thought the Chief Secretary for Ireland should take care of the question of out-door relief. Let him approach the local authorities, and assure them that they would be allowed to borrow money on easy terms and in such a way as would not impoverish the ratepayers, and then the scheme of out-door relief would be of some use. It that was not done, it would prove as great a failure as the baronial sessions.

said, that the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy), had brought charges against the Government; but if he had referred to the Act of Parliament, he would have seen that Her Majesty's Government were precluded from doing other than they had done by the terms of the Act.

said, he had referred to what the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had said and done during the Recess.

said, that that was still more indefinite. He thought it would be more pertinent to the discussion to refer to the 4th clause of the Act, in which powers were given to the Local Government Board to borrow money. It was obvious that that Board would not suggest to the Boards of Guardians that they should borrow money for purposes which they would be able to carry into effect without any additional charge on the rates. Whenever satisfactory reasons had been shown by the Boards of Guardians, permission had been given to them to raise the money required. If the hon. and learned Member would take steps to find out what had been done, he would learn that that was so. He was a little astonished to find that the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry), should have referred to the question of supplying manure. He would remind him, that that question had been carefully considered, when the Bill was before the House, and that it had not been considered advisable to include that provision in the draft of the Bill introduced by his (Mr. Mitchell Henry's) hon. and gallant Colleague; nor had it been subsequently added. The hon. Member for Galway had also charged Her Majesty's Government with a want of care and sympathy. He would say, in reply to that charge, that the Government had adopted measures which, in their opinion, were adequate, and which they believed had proved so. They had availed themselves of the earliest opportunity of obtaining from Parliament a ratification of what they had clone, and up to that time they had taken the whole of the responsibility. These measures had been referred to by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) in, what he thought, an unfair manner. Although these measures had received cordial support from both sides during the discussions, the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that they had failed in their object, for he said it was proved that a considerable number of persons would have died had it not been for the action of private charity. The right hon. Gentleman quoted an authority, which he readily admitted was a valuable one, and one that deserved attention. He was glad to say that he had indirectly placed himself in communication with that authority, and he had been able to obtain an investigation on the spot with reference to that to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred. He was surprised to hear him say—although he should not have been surprised had it come from a Member sitting in another part of the House—that the rates in the Unions were low and the workhouses empty, in a tone which he thought was calculated to cast a reflection on Her Majesty's Government.

said, he was quite sure the right hon. Gentleman did not wish to misrepresent what he had stated. He had no wish to cast any reflection on the Government; but only stated that he thought it an alarming state of things, that 70,000 people were kept alive in one county by charitable funds, at the same time that the rates were not increased, and that if those funds were to cease the Government and country would find themselves face to face with a position of great peril.

said, that the Government had already done all they had power to do. They had accorded to the Boards of Guardians permission to grant out-door relief, according to the terms of the Bill, and further powers had been placed in the hands of the local authorities—those very authorities who had been constantly, in season and out of season, urging the Government to grant assistance, and who were the persons to whom to apply in cases of need. The workhouses were not full, according to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford; but he thought his figures were incorrect. No doubt, they were not full; but out-door relief had been granted in very many instances, so that distress was alleviated in another form. The right hon. Gentleman further said, that the Guardians had the power to grant out-door relief, and yet thousands were dependent for support on private charitable funds, and he considered that a reproach to Her Majesty's Government.

said, he must again ask the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowther) not to misrepresent what he had stated. He wished particularly that his remarks should not go forth in the form of a reproach upon the Government. He had not reproached the Government, but had simply stated that the position appeared a dangerous one.

said, he was glad the right hon. Gentleman did not attach any blame to Her Majesty's Government. But the position being characterized as dangerous, appeared to cast somewhat of a slur on the Government; and, further, they had been charged, in the course of the debate by some speakers, with having failed in their duty, with being dilatory, and with showing a want of care and sympathy with the people of Ireland in the crisis. At any rate, the right hon. Gentleman had said that if the charitable organizations should fail in funds, there would probably be a good deal of starvation. He must remind the right hon. Gentleman of the fact, that those who administered the charity and those who were able to obtain powers to borrow from the Government were, in the majority of cases, the same people. The local agents of these charitable organizations were, to a very considerable extent, the members of the Boards of Guardians; and, therefore, if there were such a thing as the stopping of the charitable funds, the members of the Boards of Guardians would be the first persons to be aware of the fact. Should such a circumstance arise, it would only be necessary for them to apply to the Local Government Board in order to obtain powers of borrowing money by a loan to be levied on the rates. If the Boards of Guardians were unable to avail themselves of those powers, he need hardly say that the powers of the Local Government Board itself would be speedily exercised. He had dwelt upon that subject somewhat because an explanation of the position was, he thought, required, and because the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) had urged that the Government should keep these circumstances well in view. He thought that all present would agree that nothing should be done by the Government to take out of the hands of the Boards of Guardians the responsibility which naturally devolved on them in the present crisis. The Government had been charged upon various occasions with centralizing tendencies, and not recognizing local self-government in Ireland. He had frequently ventured to deny that, for the Government had made it one of their first rules in this matter that they would not interfere with the natural responsibility of the Boards of Guardians, so long as they proved equal to the discharge of their duty. Any other course he (Mr. J. Lowther) considered would be very dangerous and unwise.

said, that the tone of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was not one calculated to re-assure the House with regard to the anxiety which so many felt upon the matter. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Lowther) must have noticed the frank tone in which his right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster) had spoken, and how he carefully abstained from making any charge whatever against the Government in connection with the relief. He had also carefully avoided making the matter a controversial one; but only wished to raise a warning voice, having received certain information from a distressed district. He had, no doubt, considered it his duty to mention the facts he had stated to the House, and to call attention to the matter. He desired to disclaim altogether any charge upon the Government. He thought the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. J. Lowther) had failed to apprehend the point of the remarks of his right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster). That right hon. Gentleman had pointed to the lowness of the rates and the empty state of the workhouses, and said that, with the exception of the action taken by the Charitable Funds Committees, no action seemed to have been taken in any way in order to raise funds, or any portion of a fund. The fact of destitution was admitted; but the Guardians seemed to rely exclusively on the charitable funds; and the question to consider was, whether it was right to rely exclusively on such funds? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland stated that the same persons that had the administration of the charities were members of the Boards of Guardians, and that, therefore, in all districts the same men were acting in a two-fold capacity. For his own part, he considered that rather a misfortune than otherwise.

said, that he had stated, not that all the agents of the charitable funds were acting in a twofold capacity, but only a portion of them.

said, that if the representatives of the farmers were on these Boards of Guardians, it would be a matter for regret, for the fact of the funds which at present were at their disposal coming to an end would in no way induce them necessarily to assist in their capacities as members of the Boards of Guardians. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland said that the powers under the Act of Parliament were compulsory, and that the Guardians would be bound to provide relief in certain cases. That might be; but he would beg to remind them that time would very likely be lost, for it was impossible that the relief works could be instituted to supplement the charitable funds at a moment's notice. He thought it would give much greater satisfaction, considering the liability that attached to the Government to relieve in the most distressed districts, that they should be prepared to grant relief in addition to that of the charitable funds, and supplementary to it. That was what his right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster) had, he believed, pointed out in his argument. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, instead of thanking him for his assistance in dealing with the emergency, endeavoured to make this discussion a somewhat personal one, and had charged his right hon. Friend with attaching blame to the Government. He trusted, now that Parliament was dispersing, that the Government would deal with that matter in a better spirit than that which had been shown that night by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland.

said, he had not had the advan- tage of hearing the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster). He must say that everyone felt that, interested as the right hon. Gentleman had been in former times, as well as at the present, in the question of the relief of Irish distress, and anxious, as he was, to bring forward a subject of this nature in a spirit well worthy of his position, he would be almost the last to make a Party question of it. He had, no doubt, called attention to what he had considered to be a matter of serious importance. As far as he understood the observations of the right hon. Gentleman, they were something to this effect—that he had received information which led him to conclude that in certain parts of Ireland there was a great deal of distress co-existent with a low state of the rates and empty workhouses, and that, inasmuch as the Guardians did not appear to have made any great exertions in those districts, the people were kept from starvation by private charity. And further, that he considered that a dangerous state of affairs, because, if the resources of private charity came to an end, there was no security against starvation coming upon these people. He understood, also, that the right hon. Gentleman had said, that, if the Government were not careful, they would find themselves face to face with a serious emergency. Altogether, apart from any question of personal or Party attacks, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) would wish to remind them that the statement assumed that the Government should be responsible for the Guardians doing their duty. What, he thought ought to be especially aimed at was, that facilities should be given to the Guardians in order that they might do their duty, and not that the whole of the responsibility of administering outdoor relief and obtaining works should be taken out of their hands. It would, he considered, be the greatest misfortune that could befall them during the distress, if the Government were to assume the whole of the responsibility. For, in the first place, the Guardians were now able to act in the useful capacity of agents for the distribution of the charitable funds; and, in the second place, as they were on the spot, they were aware of what was required more than anyone could be who was at a distance. He would beg to remind them that the law had placed upon the Guardians the duty of making provision for any distress which might arise, and they ought to be held responsible for performing those functions. In such circumstances as at present, it was their duty to do their utmost to relieve the distress, and, owing to the pressure of circumstances, the Government were willing to come forward and assist them. That was what had been done hitherto, and what would be done in future, and he hoped and believed that the Local Government Board in Ireland would keep a proper watch upon what was transpiring, and that the Boards of Guardians would perform the duty which devolved upon them. He would not have it supposed for a moment that the Boards of Guardians were to be relieved of their responsibility.

said, he was sorry to say that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, like that of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, was, by some unfortunate habitude of the Treasury Bench, a complete evasion of the complaint of the Irish Members. The Government rung the changes on these two points—that the responsibility of administering relief should not be taken out of the hands of the Boards of Guardians, and that they were acting in the capacity of local agents for the private charitable funds, and were, therefore, well acquainted with the needs of the district. Both the right hon. Gentlemen evaded the question at issue with regard to the powers of the Boards of Guardians. Would the Government say that the Guardians were fully armed with the powers necessary to obtain the loans which might be required? The Boards of Guardians were in the extremity of uncertainty with regard to any funds they might require; and when any hon. Gentleman rose in that House to make inquiries respecting them, they were only met by long and involved explanations. Listening to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, he was reminded of a certain definition of metaphysics. "What is metaphysics? One man saying to another man what the other man doesn't understand, and the first man doesn't understand himself." It seemed to him, with regard to a large portion of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that it was abso- lutely impossible to say what he was talking about. He had listened with the greatest attention, and he ventured to express the opinion that there was not a single Irish Member who was able to follow the statements of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he believed he was unable to follow them himself. Whole statements were brought forward bristling with the most astounding inaccuracies. For instance, it was said that the Boards of Guardians were identical with the relief committees; but anyone who understood the subject knew that the relief committees were the clergy and priests, and no priests were on the Boards of Guardians. And, farther, it was well known that Boards of Guardians were liable to pressure from the landlords and the justices of the peace. Both the latter were selfishly interested in preventing any increase in the rates. Hon. Members on the Government side had told them that recourse could be had to the baronial presentment sessions; but he contended that these relief measures were practically of no use whatever, in consequence of the discouragement given to them by the Government. Of course, they could be treated with indifference; they could be treated with indifference approaching to insolence when they had opposite to them a Government with such a majority, a Government, as the Leader of the Home Rule Party said, who would go to the country with a lie in its right hand. The Irish Members were the victims of a system of a systematic misrepresentation, and of a majority that voted blindly. They were told that it was absurd to talk of the distress bordering on starvation, and whole districts in the extremity of misery; and they were presented with a series of statements of the kind they had heard that night. He never could regard this matter and consider the action of the Government without the utmost indignation; but he begged to say that he felt sure that the future would not be always like the present, and that starvation, need, misery, and wretchedness would, unless he was much mistaken, bring their own rewards, and that Providence would place in their hands the means of exacting a just and complete retribution. He felt bound to protest against the reception which the remarks falling from Irish Members invariably met with from the Opposition Benches. He hoped the expressions he had used would show the indignation which was felt on account of the action of Her Majesty's Government, and he felt sure that the hon. Members, his Irish Colleagues, would bear him out in those expressions. He was sorry that the Ministers and the Supporters of the Party of Lord Beaconsfield had placed such an ornament in the position of Chief Secretary for Ireland, whose characteristic was a monumental incapacity. The government of Ireland, from the hands in which it was placed, appeared to be now a mere farce. He would say nothing with regard to individuals standing in a private character, but only of that admirable humorous personage whose striking incapacity was but too well proven, who regarded the gravest of questions like a horse boy at the corner of a stable yard, with a wisp of straw in his mouth, did a passer by. That would be a correct picture of their present Chief Secretary for Ireland.

said, that he thought that the hon. Member was making use of language which was not customary towards other hon. Members of the House.

said, that he was under the impression that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had not informed himself upon the grave questions raised by the present state of Ireland, from the manner in which he had discussed the Business before the House; but, as he had said before, all arguments, statements of fact, and indignation, were utterly thrown away upon Her Majesty's Government. They were told that there was no distress in Ireland, and he presumed that it would be contrary to the Rules of the House that he should characterize those statements by the name which they deserved. A stipendiary magistrate in Tipperary had sent in a report, showing the distress existing amongst the families in his district. The attention of the Government was called to it, and they could not deny the statement; but, in spite of that, they came forward, evening after evening, and assured the House that there was no distress calling for urgent measures on the part of Her Majesty's Government. The present Bill only gave facilities of which the Government were taking no advantage. In their opinion, the presentment sessions had been stopped and hampered by the action of the Government; they knew also that the action of the Boards of Guardians had been stopped and hindered by the uncertainty in which the Government had loft them in respect to the matter of loans. Yet the Government made statements to the House to the effect that the Boards of Guardians could relieve the distress existing. The Boards of Guardians were practically the same bodies which had already displayed an ignorance which filled them with grave doubt of their ability to deal with the distress. The Government did not seem to take any interest in the state of affairs in Ireland. It was impossible for the Irish Members to bring any pressure to bear upon the Government, because so long as the Government retained the confidence of the English constituencies, they did not care at all for the opinion of the Irish people.

said, that after what had fallen from some of the hon. Members opposite, and especially the hon. Member for Dungarvan, he could not fail to express his hope that the experience dearly bought during the Irish Famine of 1847 and 1848 would not be lost sight of. He was, indeed, confident that that experience had not been wasted upon Her Majesty's Ministers. He had never opposed any measure which appeared to him reasonable for the relief of Irish distress. He rejoiced at the manifestations of benevolence which the various subscriptions for Irish relief afforded, and especially that the benevolence of Her Majesty was so admirably exemplified in Ireland by the exertions of the Duchess of Marlborough. Some hon. Members opposite appeared jealous of the manner in which these proofs of benevolence had been collected and were being applied; but such kindness as that of Her Majesty and of the Duchess of Marlborough would so find its way to the heart of Ireland as no jealousy could prevent. But, after all, this was eleemosynary assistance, and could only be considered as supplemental to the provision against famine out of the rates, and, perhaps, out of the public Revenue, which the Irish people had a right to expect. The question now before the House was the order in which these resources ought to be applied, and they must be chiefly applied through the Poor Law organization—through the Guardians. In his opinion, these eleemosynary funds ought to be first expended before recourse was had to extraordinary demands upon the ratepayers or upon the public Revenue. He (Mr. Newdegate) remembered now millions had been wasted upon public works in the disastrous years 1847–8–9, and yet thousands perished, and 2,500,000 of the Irish people were forced to emigrate. He (Mr. Newdegate) admitted to the Irish Members opposite that their constituents had been injured—agricultural Ireland had been, and was, injured by the commercial policy of this country. In 1846, he had been deputed to wait upon the late Mr. O'Connell to ascertain the course he intended to adopt with respect to the commercial proposals then submitted to Parliament. Mr. O'Connell kept him waiting nearly three weeks for his answer, and then threw the whole of his influence, and the Irish votes he could command in that House, in favour of the then new commercial policy. Who, then, was responsible for the forced emigration of 2,500,000 of Her Majesty's Irish subjects? Clearly not the side of the House from which he then spoke, who opposed the commercial policy of 1846. He (Mr. Newdegate) did not see what other course Her Majesty's Government could pursue, in prudence, with respect to Irish distress, than that which they had adopted, by relying first upon the discretion of the Boards of Guardians, and upon their own discretion, which seemed to dictate that the eleemosynary assistance, which benevolence had supplied, should be first expended before heavy drafts were made upon the rates or upon the public Revenue. If this were not done, the relief funds which benevolence had provided might be lost or wasted, and not improbably the resources from the rates and public Revenue might also be wasted. The hon. Member for Dungarvan, in his speech, had made an admission which, to his (Mr. Newdegate's) mind, afforded a clue to the opposition of the relief measures now before the House, which might otherwise seem unaccountable. The hon. Member for Dungarvan objected to the employment of the Guardians in the distribution of these relief funds, because the Irish priests were not generally members of the Boards of Guardians. It was idle to expect that the Irish priests would be employed as the sole or the principal distributors of these relief funds. The Irish priesthood sought to arrogate to themselves the exclusive function of distributing relief. That was a pretension which could never be admitted. He (Mr. Newdegate) did not see what other course Her Majesty's Ministers could in prudence adopt for the relief of this Irish distress than that which they were pursuing.

said, that he regretted that the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) should have raised the theological suspicions of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. In the opinion of the hon. Member, whom he believed to be most thoroughly honest, there was always something mystical in Irish politics. He begged to assure the hon. Member for North Warwickshire that they, in common with him, were very anxious that the priests of Ireland should be kept out of all positions such as Boards of Guardians. They wished, as much as the hon. Member for North Warwickshire did, that the Irish people should be kept free from any of the machinery of ecclesiasticism. He must point out that in this exceptional time in Ireland there was a very extraordinary distress throughout the whole country, and he considered that the Government ought to inform the Boards of Guardians how far they ought to be assisted with loans when private charity should cease. It had already been pointed out in various newspapers throughout England, that the time was now come when it was thought advisable that the private charity should cease, and he should be very glad indeed if his country were not dependent upon private charity. At the same time, he must recognize the painful fact that Ireland was dependent upon the aid which it received from Government, and from the benevolent people of this country and of the whole world. He must also express his opinion that the benevolence of individuals did not take the onus from the Government of informing Irish Boards of Guardians that when eleemosynary aid should cease, the Government would stop in and give aid. It was to his mind a very sorry thing that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland should publicly state that the Government in Ireland was watching how matters were going with regard to the distress, while the Government was not prepared to assure the Boards of Guardians as to some definite financial policy when private assistance should cease. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland could not justify the dilatory conduct of the Government by alleging that it had not been forewarned. So early as last Easter the Government was warned of what was impending, and it was only by the force of public opinion that, at the end of last year, the Government was compelled to take some action, and they brought in this very indifferent Bill. At the last moment they had come down, intending to defeat the action which both sides of that House had taken with regard to this measure. It had been laid down and accepted by that House that whatever aid the Government should give to Irish landlords and tenants, it should not, at all events, give an undue advantage to the landlord over his tenant. But, in looking at the Lords' Amendments, he found that one of the Amendments proposed by the noble Lords enabled a landlord to improve his property at the expense of his tenant. After having received the money by which he could improve his property at the expense of the Irish nation and the Empire generally, he was to be at liberty to throw the expense upon his tenants. He protested against that principle, because it was unjust and unfair to the tenant; for it placed him in the hands of his landlord, and formed a very serious and a very dangerous instrument. He hoped that the Government would, before the Bill was passed, offer some just and reasonable solution of this difficulty. He looked to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to prevent the Bill passing that House in a form which would make it not a Bill for the relief of distress, but a Bill enabling landlords to improve their holdings at the expense of the country generally and of the tenants in particular.

said, that he begged to move, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment." This was an Amendment brought in by an hon. Member below the Gangway after consultation with the Law Adviser of the Crown. It seemed to him to be a very moderate Amendment, and it was agreed to by the Government, but had now been struck out by the Lords. The sum of £750,000 was placed in the hands of the landlords at a very low rate of interest, and with that provision he had no intention to quarrel. But it was necessary to prevent a landlord, who had obtained money at a low rate of interest from the State, raising the rent of his tenants on account of improvements effected by the money obtained from the State. Accordingly, the right hon. and learned Member for Londonderry County (Mr. Law) had proposed the Amendment in question. When a landlord had raised money in this way, and had afterwards evicted his tenants, the Amendment provided that he should not be allowed to charge the money so obtained against his tenant, and thus make him lose his claim for improvements. The only object of the Amendment was to prevent the money being used as an engine in certain cases to evict a tenant without compensation. No doubt, very few landlords would take that course; but it was necessary to protect the tenant in all cases. As the House of Lords had disagreed with the Amendment, he thought that that House should disagree with their Amendment. There was plenty of time to set the Bill up again, and, at the same time, to pass it during the present Session.

said, that he rose for the purpose of supporting the Motion of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan). He thought that this was an alteration to which the attention of the Government should be closely directed. When the matter came on for discussion in Committee of the Bill, the hon. Member for Limerick County (Mr. Synan) proposed an Amendment; and, it being doubted whether his Amendment would cover the case, another was prepared by the right hon. and learned Member for Londonderry County (Mr. Law). After some conference with the Attorney General for Ireland, the next day the right hon. and learned Member for Londonderry County proposed a Proviso which was inserted in the Bill, but which the Lords had now struck out. That proposal by the right hon. and learned Member for Londonderry County was distinctly assented to by the Attorney General for Ireland. The justice and reason of the matter were so manifest that he (Mr. Courtney) did not understand on what ground the provision had been eliminated from the measure. He had no wish to go unnecessarily into the matter; but it was clear that the money was provided by the State, and lent at a low rate of interest to the landlord for the purpose of improvements; but the whole cost of the interest of those improvements was thrown on the tenant. Thus the whole burden of the advances was thrown on the tenant, and the landlord was simply an intermediary between the State and the tenant. The Amendment of the right hon. and learned Member for Londonderry County, assented to by the Attorney General for Ireland, protected a tenant in case of eviction under the 11th and 4th sections of the Landlord and Tenant Act. The justice of the Amendment was so obvious that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland assented to it immediately. As it had now been struck out for some reason or other, he thought it devolved upon Her Majesty's Government to show what objection they had to its being re-introduced.

said, that the hon. Member had scarcely given the House a fair description of what occurred with regard to this Amendment. The hon. Member for Limerick County (Mr. Synan) proposed an Amendment which had been adopted and which still stood in the Bill, with the object of preventing a higher rate of interest being charged, in cases where the money had been advanced at a low rate of interest. The right hon. and learned Member for Londonderry County (Mr. Law) then moved an Amendment which was not on the Paper, though it had formed the subject of a conversation with his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland. The attention of his right hon. and learned Friend was suddenly called to the matter, and he did not have any opportunity of studying it closely, and he informed the right hon. and learned Member that he did not see any harm in it, as he understood that it was only an amplification of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Limerick County. When the right hon. and learned Member for Londonderry County proposed the Amendment, he (Mr. J. Lowther) confessed, at the time, that he did not like the words, and suggested that it should be disposed of on Report. The Amendment was, however, pressed; and, the House being in a hurry to get the Bill through Committee, it was adopted without discussion; and when the Bill came on upon Report, the right hon. and learned Member for Londonderry County was not in his place; and he (Mr. J. Lowther) again stated that he saw serious objections to the Amendment. It appeared to him that the Amendment was, in fact, a breach of faith towards those who had already obtained loans; and he saw very great difficulties in the way of its adoption. He, thereupon, intimated to the right hon. and learned Member proposing the Amendment that before the Bill obtained the Royal Assent, he should like to consider the question with him, and make some alterations. In the result, the Lords had now rejected that Amendment; and it seemed to him that the objections to it were very serious. A notice was issued by the Board of Works some time ago stating the terms upon which loans could be applied for. They were advertised to be granted in accordance with the provisions of the Land Improvement Act. Various landowners had applied for a large sum of money on the faith of the terms so offered, and he had no hesitation in saying that, in a great number of cases, if they had had any idea that an application for a loan would place them in the position in which that Amendment would place them, the number of the loans applied for would have been very seriously diminished. The Amendment established the presumption that the improvement made was that of the tenant. It was already provided by the Bill, that a landlord should not charge a tenant a greater rate for the improvements than he himself paid; and he did not think that the full scope of the Amendment was realized by the House. The Bill provided that the tenant should not pay an increase of rent exceeding the yearly rent-charge payable for the loan; that was to say, that the land- owner was to be prevented from charging the tenant a greater rent for the improvements made than the rate of interest he himself paid. This was only a measure for the relief of distress in Ireland, and it adopted the principle of the Land Improvement Act, whether good or bad, with regard to these loans.

said, that he thought the right hon. Gentleman was forgetting that at the end of 35 years the tenant would have paid back capital and interest.

said, that the Bill followed the principles of the Land Improvement Act. The tenant was only to pay an increased rent during the time that the improvement would last, and then only such an increase as would meet the rate of interest for the advance, together with the annual proportion of re-payment of principal by way of sinking fund. That was the general principle on which he maintained that these loans were granted. The tenant, during every year that he held his farm, obtained his fair share of the benefit derivable from the improvements. While the landlord was not to charge his tenant any more than he himself paid in respect of the improvements, he received an equivalent in the shape of permanent improvement to his land. The Amendment had been adopted without due consideration, and he thought that, as he had expressed doubts at the time it was adopted, and still more so on Report, he could not be considered as having in any way failed to guard the Government against the slightest charge of breach of faith in assenting to its unanimous rejection in "another place," and that, considering the very serious objections which he felt to it, he must resist the Motion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman.

said, he thought they were debating the matter at a great disadvantage in the absence of the Attorney General for Ireland and the right hon. and learned Member for Londonderry County (Mr. Law). He did not think it probable that those two right hon. and learned Gentlemen would agree with the interpretation of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. If, however, the right hon. Gentleman was right in his interpetation of the previous words, there would be no great difficulty in the matter. In ignorance, however, of the legal interpretation, he could not help thinking that he was wrong. If the words covered all cases, or anything like the majority of cases, in which improvements were made by money borrowed by the landlords, he did not think they need debate the matter farther; but he imagined they would cover but few cases, and that the majority would be covered by the words, "or otherwise." He believed the number of cases in which awards had been made by the Commissioners of Public Works was very small. No doubt, what happened under the present working of the loans to landlords was, that money was borrowed by the landlords generally at 3½ per cent interest, and the increase of rent charged to the tenant amounted to 5 per cent. That he believed to be the general working of the law, and it meant that the landlord received 1½ per cent for the risk and trouble he had undertaken, an amount which he considered to be fair. Now, however, in order to afford employment for the people, they had, as it were, to tempt work, and they got the landlord to employ people, and effect improvements by means of loans at 1 per cent, for which he would charge 5 per cent—which made a profit to him of 4 per cent. That, in his opinion, was too much. He did not mean to say that it was a sufficient reason for delaying a Bill so necessary to be passed as that before the House; but he thought it would be an advantage, if the measure could be turned out a fair one as between landlord and tenant. A compromise had been suggested by a noble Lord, in "another place," which appeared to him not to be unreasonable—namely—

"That if the increase of rent be above 2½ per cent, then it should be within the meaning of the 4th section of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act."

He did not imagine that in the present case a compromise would be acceptable to both sides; but he could not help thinking that the words, "above 2½ per cent should be paid by such tenants," should be inserted, and that, he thought, would meet the difficulty of the case.

I cannot help thinking that we should get into difficulty with the Bill were we to take the step recommended. This matter was decided without very much discussion in the House. It was done very quickly, and seems to have gone up to the other House, and to have been very carefully considered and altered; and certainly, as far as I can see, the alterations made by the Lords were made on grounds which, as stated by my right hon. Friend near me, are strong; and considerable objection to these words existed. The objection, to my mind, which is open to consideration, is that it would be ex post facto legislation, if, after landlords had been induced, in order to effect a great object, to come forward and charge themselves with the re-payment of certain loans, then the terms on which those loans were made should be materially altered by this clause, which could not have been in contemplation by the persons who came forward to borrow the money. Again, it is not the tenants who make the improvements, it is the landlord who borrows the money from the Commissioners of Public Works at the rate of interest of £3 8s. 6d. per cent, which is not considered as a rate of interest only, but as interest and sinking fund. I think that the objection I have mentioned must be a great objection, and that it would be unfair to those who have come forward and taken the risk of charging themselves with the working of the loans, to hear afterwards that the effect of their coming forward was to raise a claim against themselves on the part of the tenants. The landlord may find it impossible to get any return for the money so laid out, and which is laid out not directly for benefiting the land, but for the purpose of giving employment to labour in time of distress. I think, when a landlord has had an opportunity of coming forward to borrow money on easy terms for these purposes, the value of which he may never afterwards see, it is rather hard that it should be held that the improvement was an improvement by the tenant, and that the tenant should have the advantage as against the landlord.

said, with the indulgence of the House, he wished to point out that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's argument of ex post facto applied to the whole of the Bill.

said, he wished to state that, in the opinion of those who took an interest in the Bill, unless powers were inserted to enforce secrecy, it would prove totally inadequate. He would, therefore, suggest to the hon. Baronet that he might be enabled to introduce an Amendment in "another place," which would, at all events, make the Bill much more workable. The Bill was really to secure secrecy on the part of assessment committees with regard to the value of house property; but, as it now stood, there was no penalty and no means of enforcing this. The large number of members on these assessment committees, also, made it exceedingly difficult to prevent the leaking out of information which ought to be kept confidentially. If the hon. Baronet was unable to introduce an Amendment of the kind suggested, in "another place," he did not think the Bill would give the satisfaction which it was intended to give.

said, the object of the Government was to insure the secrecy which the right hon. Gentleman had pointed to as necessary in the Returns. If the House would read the Bill a third time, then he would inquire into the matter, and would endeavour, supposing he found that the existing Act did not contain the power which the right hon. Gentleman desired for enforcing secrecy upon the members of assessment committees, to insert those powers in "another place."

said, he could not find that there was any such Bill in the Vote Office; and it was, therefore, impossible that it should be read a second time. He looked for an explanation as to what the Bill was.

said, he must point out to the hon. Member for Gloucester that he was under a wrong impression. There was a Private Bill before the House authorizing the Corporation of Liverpool to raise a loan, with the consent of the Treasury. The Committee on that Bill would sit to-morrow; but it was necessary before that Committee sat that a Resolution should be passed enabling the Committee to sit.