asked the First Lord of the Treasury, If he will lay upon the Table of the House a Copy of the instructions sent to Sir Bartle Frere by Her Majesty's Government?

In answer to the Question of my hon. Friend, I have to state that all the despatches which have been addressed to Sir Bartle Frere have been already laid on the Table of the House. I believe they are not in the hands of Members; but they have passed from the hands of the Government, and I trust they will very shortly be in the possession of Members.

asked the Secretary of State for War, What number of Lieutenants' and Sub-Lieutenants' Commissions (excluding Quartermasters and Riding-masters) have been granted to Non-commissioned Officers, between the 1st January 1875 and the 31st December 1879?

in reply, said, that excluding quartermasters and riding masters, the total number of lieutenants' commissions granted between January 1, 1875, and December 31, 1879, to noncommissioned officers was 17, and the number of sub-lieutenants' commissions so granted 32.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If he is aware that the people of Limerick County, and other parts of Ireland, suffer serious inconvenience on account of the non-attendance of magistrates at Petty Sessions Courts in Ireland; and, if it is a fact that cases which require two magistrates have been adjourned on more than one occasion for want of a second magistrate; if so, whether he will take steps to induce those magistrates who can attend to discharge the duties they have undertaken, or call on them to resign their position?

I understand that it is the fact that considerable inconvenience has arisen from the non-attendance of magistrates at Petty Sessions Courts in Ireland, and that in the County of Limerick on more than one occasion cases which require the attendance of two magistrates have had to be adjourned for want of a second magistrate. I find that the attention of the Irish Executive was directed to this matter during the year 1879, upon perusal of the Statistics of 1878, and that Circulars were then issued to the Lieutenants of counties in Ireland and also to the resident magistrates, with a view to securing the more frequent attendance of magistrates and insuring the more regular holding of Petty Sessions. I am informed that these Circulars have been so far successful that the Returns for the year 1879 will show a better attendance. I have not yet received these Returns, but I hope soon to do so; and if I find occasion I will again call upon the Lieutenants to use their best efforts to remedy, as far as possible, the inconvenience complained of.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he is aware of the intention of the French Government to impose a Duty of 70 francs per 100 kilogrammes on fishing nets; and, if so, what course, if any, he purposes taking?

The French Chamber of Deputies has voted a duty of 70 francs per 100 kilogrammes on cotton fishing nets in the proposed new general tariff now before the Chambers; but it is to be remembered that the general tariff is distinct from the Treaty tariff to which English goods are subject on importation into France. This item of the tariff shall, however, receive attention in the course of any commercial negotiation with France.

asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, seeing that there is now no war between England and the Zulus, and no Act had been passed authorizing his detention, By what legal authority Cetewayo is still detained a prisoner in Cape Town?

Since the conclusion of the war with the Zulus, Cety-wayo has been detained by the military authorities under the orders of the Home Government, his detention being a necessary part of the arrangement made for the settlement of Zululand.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies if that is a legal authority?

Yes, certainly it is a legal authority; but it will require to be legalized, and that act of State will be legalized in the usual way by a clause of indemnity in the Bill before the Colonial Parliament.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Mr. Michell, Her Majesty's Consul at Philippopolis, applied for leave to come home at this time; whether, considering his intimate acquaintance with Eastern Roumelia, and that he has been mainly instrumental in making known the oppression of the Mahometan population, Her Majesty's Government has considered the best means to pursue the proposed Inquiry in Mr. Michell's absence; and, whether they will add to their Commission of Inquiry a European to be nominated by Sir A. H. Layard?

also had a Question on the Paper asking the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, For how long a period leave of absence has been granted to Mr. Michell, Her Majesty's Consul at Philippopolis; if he will state the name of the gentleman who is discharging the duties of that consulate; and, if it is the present intention of Her Majesty's Government that Mr. Michell, shall resume his consular duties at Philippopolis on the expiration of his current term of leave?

I fear I cannot add much to what I stated to the House last night. Mr. Michell was himself anxious to come away from Philippopolis, and as, in the opinion both of himself and Her Majesty's Government, his presence there at the moment was not required, leave was given him to-come home; but no definite period was fixed for its duration, nor can I say at present whether he will return to his post or not. During his absence his place will be supplied by Mr. Stephen, one of the Secretaries in Her Majesty's Embassy at Constantinople, who has been appointed on the recommendation both of Sir Henry Layard and Mr. Goschen, and who is acquainted with the Bulgarian language.

said, the hon. Baronet had not answered the second and third parts of his Questions.

replied, that he thought he had sufficiently answered those parts when he had stated that Mr. Stephen had been selected as a person competent to conduct the inquiry, and that on the recommendation of Sir Henry Layard.

Do I understand that the Commission of Inquiry consists only of Mr. Stephen?

I am not aware that there is any question of a Commission of Inquiry in the case.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, If with a view of saving time in the discussion of the Vote in aid of Medical Belief in Scotland, he would state whether the Government contemplate a speedy alteration of the system on which these Grants in Aid are allocated; and, if so, whether he can assure the House that in whatever arrangement may be determined on, Scotland will be dealt with on an equally favourable footing with the other portions of the United Kingdom?

Her Majesty's Government are considering the subject of grants in aid at large, with the view of devising, if possible, some better method of regulating the appropriation of public money for local purposes. The subject is one of very great extent and importance, and connects itself with the general question of local government in a considerable degree. Her Majesty's Government are very anxious to approach the subject as soon as they may be able; and I have no difficulty whatever in giving my hon. Friend the assurance which he asks for in his Question—that is to say, that in whatever arrangement that may be contemplated by the Government, Scotland will be dealt with on an equally favourable footing with the other portions of the United Kingdom, and I may add with England in particular.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the provisions of the Belief of Distress (Ireland) Act are intended to extend the powers of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland to grant loans to the trustees of legally constituted drainage districts in the same manner and upon the same terms, as loans are now granted to boards of guardians, grand juries of counties, and other local authorities; and, if it is not so intended in the Bill, as now printed, whether he will introduce a provision giving such powers when the House is in Committee on the Bill.

The Relief Bill contains no provisions with regard to loans to the trustees of drainage districts. I cannot now anticipate the discussion on the Bill; but at present I have no intention of proposing any provisions with regard to drainage districts.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether, before the Belief of Distress (Ireland) Act Amendment Bill reaches the Committee stage, he can lay upon the Table of the House a Statement showing the Railway Companies which it is intended to make loans to under the provisions of the Bill; also the mileage proposed to be constructed by each of such Companies, and the amount of the proposed loan to each Company.

There is a clause in the Belief Bill enabling the baronies through which a railway passes—that is, the persons locally interested—to give collateral security to railways having borrowing powers and wishing to borrow. No baronial presentment sessions for the purpose of guarantee can be held till the Bill is passed. It must, therefore, be evident that it is impossible for me to lay on the Table of the House the statement for which the hon. Member asks.

Sir, in consequence of the reply I have received from the Chief Secretary for Ireland, I beg to give Notice that on Thursday I will ask him, Whether the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, the authority consti- tuted by the Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act Amendment Bill to make loans to railway or other Companies having borrowing powers, have given the right hon. Gentleman any information as to the railway or other public Companies to whom it is desirable, or would be desirable, to make such loans; and, if so, whether he will communicate the information to the House?

said, he would, in Committee on the Relief of Distress Bill, move the insertion of a clause extending the power to issue relief to able-bodied persons to June, 1881.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, When the Reports of the Inspectors of Mines for 1879 will be printed and circulated among the Members?

in reply, said, a Report had been laid on the Table, and would be presented on Thursday.

asked the Secretary of State for War, If he can inform the House whether any arrangements have been made for the proposed Volunteer Review, and, if any decision has been arrived at as to the locality where it is to be held?

In reply to my right hon. Friend, I have to inform him that I lately received an application from a Committee of Metropolitan Colonels of Volunteers requesting that a Royal Review of the Volunteers might be held this year either in Hyde Park, or in such other locality as might be approved by the authorities, to celebrate the 21st year of the existence of the Volunteer Service. The Commander-in-Chief and I were most anxious to meet the views of the Volunteers, to which Force we attach the greatest value, and should encourage in every way in our power. This application was accordingly referred to the Home Office, and then to the Office of Works, as having charge of the Parks, and a general statement of the objections of those Departments to the use of Hyde Park was sent to the Metropolitan Colonels on the 2nd in- stant, with a request that they would favour Her Majesty's Government with any remarks that they might wish to offer. After carefully considering these observations, and the Reports of the two Departments, Her Majesty's Government decided that it was not expedient to hold the Review in Hyde Park. I have, therefore, to-day written to the Committee of commanding officers, informing them of this decision, and requesting them, as indicated in their original application, to suggest some other available locality. If my right hon. Friend wishes, the Correspondence shall be laid on the Table immediately.

asked the right hon. Member for Rutlandshire, Whether he intended to move for the Correspondence as to Hyde Park?

said, he had no such intention.

I may say at once that I will lay the Correspondence on the Table.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies a Question of which I have given him private Notice. It is with regard to a paragraph which appeared in this morning's Daily News. I will read the paragraph, and then I shall ask him if it is true. It is—

"We hear that it is not the intention of the Government to ask the House of Commons to make any Vote to Sir Bartle Frere as High Commissioner. It appears that a Vote of £500 on account was taken by the late Government, but that it is now intended to drop the remainder from the Estimates. In this event Sir David Wedder burn's and Sir Wilfrid Lawson's proposed opposition to the Vote will necessarily fall to the ground."

Will my right hon. Friend kindly tell me if there is any truth in the paragraph?

The paragraph is quite true, so far as the Government are concerned. The functions of the High Commissioner having been transferred to Sir George Pomeroy Colley, and he having received a large salary for the discharge of those functions, the Government does not think it would be right to ask the House to vote the salary twice over.

Then there will be no opportunity of discuss- ing, on the Estimates, the policy of recalling Sir Bartle Frere?

I will answer that Question on Thursday.

I wish to ask, Whether it is not true that, before the Estimates were laid on the Table by the late Government, Sir Bartle Frere was entirely relieved of the duties now assigned to Sir George Pomeroy Colley; and whether he is not, in fact, in precisely the same position with respect to South Africa as he was when the Estimates were laid on the Table?

I apprehend that that is so.

asked what would be the Business for Thursday?

in reply, said, the Committee of Ways and Means would be the first Order, and in Committee he intended to move certain financial Resolutions. The Hares and Rabbits Bill would follow the Committee of Ways and Means.

rose to call attention to the hardship experienced by those officers who were obliged by the Regulations of the Army to pay certain named sums for the purchase of their commissions, and who, while they are now forced, or liable to be forced into retirement under the Warrant of the 13th August 1877, are not permitted to bequeath to their widow, children, or others, the amount which in strict accordance with the Queen's Regulations they have actually so expended; and to move—

"That it is expedient that the Secretary of State for War should consider whether the amount of the regulation value of an Officer's Commission might not be paid by the Treasury within six months of his decease, to his executors, or, in case of his dying intestate, to his administrators."

The noble Earl apologized to hon. Members who were directly connected with the Army, and who were better qualified to speak on the subject than he, for initiating the discussion; but he felt bound to ventilate this grievance from a strong sense of the necessity for some alteration in the existing state of things. He approached the present Government on the subject with a considerable degree of confidence; because, in addressing themselves to the evil of which he complained, they would not be suspected of favouring a retrogade policy or of desiring to reverse Lord Cardwell's system, which, for his own part, he might say he had always regarded as unfortunate. That system led to hardships such as he had mentioned in the Notice of his Motion, and also to stagnation in promotion, which was a discouragement to officers; and these results had no compensatory advantage, so far as he could ascertain. He disclaimed, however, any intention of bringing forward a general indictment against the abolition of purchase, for that abolition had long been accepted by Parliament as an accomplished fact. What he wished to call attention to was merely a point of detail, the hardship connected with which he did not apprehend anyone would deny. Under the existing Regulations a commissioned officer who had entered the Army under the old purchase system received on his retirement the value of his commission; but if such officer happened to be killed in action, or to succumb to disease while on active service, his widow, children, or other relatives were unable to reap any benefit from his commission at all. In illustration of this hardship, the noble Earl cited three cases which had arisen out of the recent African campaign, in which the wives or mothers of the unfortunate officers were the sufferers. A Return issued this morning, which had been laid on the Table of the House, gave the estimated value of the commissions of officers who had been killed in action in South Africa and Afghanistan, and the sums they would have received from the Army Purchase Commissioners in case they had sold their commissions. If the proposal he was now submitting to the consideration of the House were adopted, the representatives of the first officer whom he had referred to would receive £1,800, those of the second officer £885, and those of the third officer £700. The total amount lost to the country had the Government been willing to return to the relatives of officers killed in these two campaigns would have been £31,587. He could not think that the House would grudge such a sum for the relief of the relatives of deserving officers. He regretted that the question could not be brought forward as it had been last year, by General Shute, who would so well have done it justice, owing to his having no longer a seat in the House. He trusted the Government would accede to the proposal he was about to make; but, in the event of their not doing so, he intended, if the House should give him any support, to take the test of a division. The noble Earl concluded by moving his Resolution.

in seconding the Motion, said, the grievance they had to complain of was a remnant of the old system of purchase, and one of the side issues which arose out of its abolition. They had a special claim on the present Government in this matter because they were the Government who abolished Army purchase. Although the question was in some respects a very small one, yet its effects on the feelings of those concerned, and through them on the sympathies of a large section of the community, would be very considerable. The stereotyped answer always given to those who urged the case of the officers which was brought forward in the last Parliament by General Shute was that the late Government had nothing to do with the matter, as it was a legacy bequeathed to them by their Predecessors. As, however, a change in the administration of affairs had recently occurred, there would be an appropriateness in the present Government dealing with the subject in the way indicated by the noble Earl opposite. He could not go the full length of the Motion, because he did not think it right to allow the representatives of a deceased officer to get the full regulation price of his commission in every case. He would restrict the claim, as he believed General Shute proposed to do, to cases where an officer had lost his life in the field, or through sickness arising out of exposure in the field. It had always been urged that a purchase officer had no real grievance, because his present position was, in all respects, the same as it was before the abolition of purchase. In one sense this statement might be true; but, at the same time, it contained a grievous fallacy. The abolition of purchase was, in his opinion, wisely decreed for purposes connected with the benefit of the State; but it could not be said that the surviving officers of the old system now occupied, either actually or relatively, the position they held before the abolition of purchase. In the days when officers, by the investment of large sums of money, reached the higher ranks of the Army more rapidly than their poorer comrades, there was no hardship in their losing, by their death in the field, the whole of the money they had so invested; but the case was now altered, inasmuch as they had to serve side by side with non-purchase officers, who were free from the disabilities occasioned by the old regulations. A Return issued only that morning illustrated most fully the hardship that officers suffered under. That document referred to the campaigns in Afghanistan and Zululand, and they found that the 10 officers who were slain in Afghanistan forfeited by their deaths £7,475 to the State, and the 19 officers who fell in Zululand, after displaying instances of gallantry and devotion to their Queen and country which had not been surpassed in the military history of Great Britain, had been fined in the persons of their representatives £24,000. He was sure that if the facts of the case were put into the possession of the Members of this House the Resolution of his noble Friend opposite would be carried by their almost unanimous vote. It had been said that no foreign nation would have believed it possible that such an anomaly could have existed as our system of purchase; but, at any rate, no one connected with a Continental Army could fail to be surprised to learn that this rich country still remained in the invidious position of being a gainer by the deaths of its officers in the field. It was an unworthy and degrading position for a rich and powerful country to be in. He looked forward with satisfaction to the reforms to be initiated by the new Secretary of State for War; and hoped that, amongst those the right hon. Gentleman might make, he would concede the boon for which the noble Earl had asked.

compared the recent Warrant overriding pensions with that in force before the abolition of purchase, and remarked that, on the whole, the pensions now given were greater than was the case formerly. In old days an ordinary widow's pension was £50 a-year, and the widow of an officer killed in action received £70; but now the latter pension had been increased by £ 10, and was receivable by the widows not only of officers actually killed in action, but also of those who died of their wounds within six months; while the widows of those who contracted a fatal illness in the field received £65 annually. Then there was an allowance to officers' children, and that still remained the same. Therefore it would be seen that there was a slight improvement. There was a form which every widow was required to fill up, showing her means, in order to enable the Commander-in-Chief to determine whether he could recommend her to the Queen as a fit object to receive a pension. It seemed that a General's widow could not claim if she had over £700 a-year, nor a Lieutenant's if she had over £300 a-year. However, although officers were treated more liberally in the matter of pensions, it was clear that their general position had become less satisfactory since the abolition of purchase. He hoped the question would not be looked at from a purely financial point of view, but rather from the point of view as to whether it was within or beneath the dignity of a country like England to have an interest in the blood of her gallant officers. The time had now come when the Secretary of State for War would be able to recommend that the money value of the officers' commissions should be returned to their widows, their mothers, their sisters, or their children.

observed, that, though the abolition of purchase had undoubtedly proved beneficial, the mode in which effect had been given to the measure seemed most unjust. It came to this—that half the officers of the Army, instead of receiving the full price for their commissions, were allowed to serve longer than others without any equivalent for their outlay. Some officers who went into action had paid £6,000 for their commissions, and others had paid nothing. It was unfair that the first class of officers should feel that if they fell the whole of the money would be lost to their families.

maintained that the purchase officer ought to have more consideration than the non-purchase officer, because he had money invested in his profession. It was very hard on a family who might have scraped together a considerable sum for a young scion of their house to find that in a short time, perhaps when he was under 40 years of age, he was forced to retire because he had not had the luck to obtain higher rank in the Service. In such a case the Government ought to return the money to his family. He could recall the time of the Crimean War, when more consideration was paid to the families of officers. It was true pensions were given on a limited scale; but there was not the slightest allowance made for the money that had been sunk in the profession, and he believed it was the feeling of the House that such allowance ought to be made. When purchase was abolished all the officers in the Army ought relatively to have been put on an equal footing; but the Government of that day had proceeded in a hasty manner, owing to their hurry to abolish the purchase system. He should support the Motion of the noble Earl.

congratulated the House on the temperate manner in which the debate had been conducted, and would endeavour to follow the example which hon. Members had set in that respect. The Motion was to the effect that it was expedient he should consider whether in certain cases the value of their commissions might be paid to the executors or administrators of certain deceased officers. Now, when Notices of this Motion was given he had had the the honour of holding the seals of the Secretary of State for War for only a few days; and his first duty had been to ascertain what questions were pending in the War Office to which, in the words of this Motion, it was expedient that he should devote his attention. Well, speaking very much within the mark, and referring only to questions of some importance, he found there were between 80 and 100—say, 90 pending questions of importance to the organization or welfare of the Army which had been subjects of discussion either in that House or out of the House, and to which it was his bounden duty to give the best attention he could during the next few months, and upon many of which it would also be his duty to make some statements to the House next Session. Therefore, when the noble Lord asked him to consider this question he only asked him to do a very small amount indeed of the very heavy duties which he found imposed upon him, not through any fault of his Predecessor, but as the result of the last few years' controversies about military questions. If, therefore, the noble Lord and the House would be satisfied with his assurance that he would give his best attention to this as well as many other subjects, he should have no fault to find because the question had been brought forward so soon after he had taken Office. If, however, the House insisted upon the principle of making these payments to the widows of some deceased officers—and the Mover and Seconder of the Motion did not agree as to what classes should have this boon, and whether it should go to the widows only, or to the estate of the officers generally—if it was proposed to commit the House to such a Resolution, he must deprecate that decision, and ask the House to give those who were responsible a reasonable and sufficient time to go properly into these matters. He thought he would be confirmed by all persons conversant with the questions arising out of the abolition of purchase that nearly all hung upon one another; and if the House were to decide on dealing in a particular way with one of these nothing but difficulty would occur. Practically, nearly all must be dealt with together. Therefore, he would suggest to the noble Lord not to press his Motion to a division, because it was quite impossible for him, after a few days charge of the War Department, to advise the House conclusively what would be the consequences of such a decision; and, on the other hand, if it were negatived, his resolution would only do harm to those in whose favour the noble Lord acted. As to the question itself, he said distinctly he did not wish to dogmatize. The case of the widows of officers, one part of which had been dealt with at some length by the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Burnaby), while other parts had been entirely passed by, might be said to be this: Under the old purchase system, the pensions of widows of officers dying under ordinary circumstances were according to a scale which was somewhat less than the scale of the widows of officers dying either in action or as the result of the wounds or injuries sustained in war. That scale still continued up to the present time with a very slight modification, as referred to by the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite. Again, the widow of an officer who died as the result of wounds was, under the former system, just as under the present, entitled under certain circumstances to receive the regulation value of the officer's commission in lieu of pension and compassionate allowances. In that respect there had been virtually no change. But the widows of officers dying under ordinary circumstances under the former system were not entitled to receive the value of their husbands' commissions. The widows of officers so dying since the abolition of the purchase system were in precisely the same position; they were not entitled to receive the value of their husbands' commissions. If, therefore, the Motion meant what the speech of the noble Lord indicated it, the result would be to place the widow of an officer dying under ordinary circumstances, not as the result of wounds, in a very much better position than she would have been had the purchase, system not been abolished. It had been suggested that retired officers were, since the Warrant of 1877, in a worse position than before, when they were not compelled to retire upon a pension. That consideration had been imported into the Motion because its preamble said—"who, while they are now forced or liable to be forced into retirement," &c. But this had really no relation to the Motion. Officers who were compelled to retire were, of course, out of the Army, and at their deaths their widows could claim nothing, whether pension or value of commission. The Motion referred solely to the pensions of widows of officers who did not retire, and to their claim in lieu of pension a lump sum down. Therefore, the only question was whether the widow of an officer dying in the Service, not as the result of wounds, who was not previously entitled to the value of her husband's commission, should now, after the abolition of purchase, be entitled to that value? The question had been treated as one of feeling as well as of finance. No doubt all were, to a considerable extent, actuated by feeling; but he did not think that financial considerations should be altogether excluded. The House would see the bearing of that subject on the abolition of purchase. When it was proposed to abolish purchase, the estimate of the gross cost of all the commissions of officers in the Army was taken at £8,000,000. From that had to be deducted the value of the commissions of officers who might be expected to die in the Service. That value was estimated at £1,100,000, so that the net cost of the abolition of purchase was taken to be £6,900,000. He would ask what would be the financial result if the proposal were adopted which underlay the Resolution before the House. Of course it would be urged that if the value of the commissions were given to the widows of officers who should die in future, it should also be given to the widows of officers who had died since the abolition of purchase. The total value of the commissions of those who might be expected to die in the Service he had stated at £1,100,000. From that sum had to be deducted the capitalized value of the pensions and compassionate allowances granted to their widows and children which would have to be surrendered if the widows received the value of the commission. This amount was taken at £350,000. The result, therefore, would be, if that proposal were carried out, that a sum of £750,000 would have to be added to the charge for the abolition of purchase. But that was not all. Several hon. and gallant Members had spoken of the feelings of officers going on active service, who were risking the value of their commissions, while the minds of their brother officers who came in under the present system were not so burdened; and the House was asked, as a matter of charity, not of regret, to relieve officers from these anxious feelings. But charity might compel them to do more. If the purchase officer was in future to feel that this boon, for which he had not bargained when he entered the Army, was at his death to be granted his family, and that purely as a matter of charity, would not the non-purchase officer ask for the same charity? There would be no regret in either case; there would be the same claim for kind and charitable treatment. He would ask the House to consider, if the one charity cost £750,000, how much the other would cost. He would further say that that inequality as between two officers, one of whom went into action risking a large sum of money, and the other not, had always existed. There were departments of the Army in which purchase had never existed—the Artillery and the Engineers. He pointed out these matters, not as being conclusive on this or any other branch of the subject, but merely as showing what difficulties he had to contend against in dealing with the question, and, as he had already said, it would be impossible to deal with it without considering other similar questions which had arisen out of the abolition of purchase. He approached the subject with perfect impartiality. He had not committed himself to any conclusion whether and what further adjustments would have to be made in consequence of the abolition of purchase. He would ask the House not to fetter him by the present Motion, but to accept his assurances that he would study this and similar questions without unnecessary delay, so that any further provisions required by the abolition of purchase might be dealt with as a whole and after mature inquiries.

said, that it would have been more agreeable to him personally not to have joined in the debate; but he did not think it right that he should be in the House and hold any different language from that which he had expressed on former occasions when he sat on the other side of the House. He quite agreed with the Secretary of State for War that the House ought not to be ruled entirely by sentiment, though, at the same time, it was natural that sentimental considerations should be present to their minds. But sentiment ought not to interfere with a matter of business. He must say, in the first place, that he had listened to the greater part of the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member for Leicestershire (Colonel Burnaby); but, still, he thought there was a distinction between the question of retirement and the amount which could be bequeathed or left to officers' widows. He had always been obliged to tell the House that he did not think it right to assent to abstract propositions, if hon. Gentlemen had no clear proposals to place before him. He would not then go into the general question of the abolition of purchase, except to say that it was understood that the State was to come into the position of the purchasing officers, so that the officer was not to be entitled to anything from the State to which he would not have been entitled if the purchase system had continued. Some hon. Members who had spoken had clearly pointed out that the question was not only one of the future, but retrospective. It was a question involving an enormous of money, and it was hardly practicable for the House to come to a hasty decision upon it. They had had the advantage of hearing the statement of his noble Friend, who stated his views in the Motion before the House. His noble Friend had brought the question before the House in that temperate and considerate manner in which such questions ought alone to be brought before the House. Cases of great hardship had been referred to, and his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Berkshire (Colonel Loyd Lindsay) had gone carefully into them, and brought the question before the House. In the case of the officers of the 24th Regiment who fell at Isandula, certain cases of what were considered hardship were brought under his notice, and he looked into the matter with the view of ascertaining if there were any proposals he could lay before the House; but in the end he was forced frankly to confess that there was no proposition to be made that would be at once logical and satisfactory. The difficulties of the question, he found, were considerably interwoven with other questions, and if they had touched them at all it would have to have been in a much wider character. He hoped his noble Friend would be satisfied with the assurance he had received, and would leave the right hon. Gentleman opposite to deal with the question. Another point involved had reference to the class of officers who in time of war would be called to the Colours; and this also tended to show the difficulty which a Government would have to encounter when dealing with the matter if its hands were fettered by an abstract Resolution of the House. In conclusion, he might say that if the question were viewed sympathetically there could be only one answer to it. If the right hon. Gentleman opposite managed to work the question out satisfactorily, thereby adding one more success to the list of his financial successes, he would give the greatest satisfaction to the officers, and be acting in accordance with the sympathies of a large majority of the people. He hoped his noble Friend who had brought forward the Motion would abstain from pressing it to a division.

thought that, after the statement which had been made by the Secretary of State for War, it would be to the interest of the Army if the question were left in the hands of Her Majesty's Government.

said, that no question commanded more sympathy than the one before the House, and he felt sure the right hon. Gentleman would give it every consideration, and would deal with it in a sense of justice to the purchase officers. Were the purchase officers of the Army, he asked, in the same position as that which they enjoyed before the abolition of purchase? No one would pretend for one moment that they were. The Warrant of August 13, 1877, had taken from them privileges which they possessed up to that date, and another Warrant just issued effected another very material change in the position of officers commanding regiments. The' proper way of dealing with the grievance of purchase officers was that pointed out by the senior Member for Birmingham, who recommended that the regulation money should be returned to them. Had that course been adopted, the present difficulty would never have been heard of. The money wanted for removing the difficulty might amount to a large sum; but if justice required its payment it ought to be paid, especially when the men whom it would benefit were serving their country and doing their best to maintain its dignity and honour.

remarked that it certainly seemed a hardship and an injustice that the State should profit, in a pecuniary point of view, by the death of those who had been serving their country. The solution of the difficulty mentioned by the last speaker would have been a simple one—namely, that of returning to purchase officers the money invested by them in the purchase of their commissions. Between that solution, however, and a state of absolute quiescence there was a via media which might be followed. It was contended at the time of the abolition of purchase that officers who had bought their commissions should not have their money returned to them, because its expenditure had gained for them certain advantages of priority. But there was a class to whom this argument could not apply—namely, those who had purchased their first commission only. They had obtained no priority; and surely, therefore, it was just that they should not forfeit their money to the State when they fell in the discharge of their duty. He thought, however, that the declaration of the Secretary of State for War was all that could reasonably be expected from him at the commencement of his tenure of Office; and, therefore, he hoped the noble Lord opposite would not press the subject further.

said, that as the right hon. Gentleman had promised to consider the question in all its bearings, he should take it for granted that the noble Lord (Earl Percy) would withdraw his Motion. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman, however, that the whole question which had been raised by this new Warrant of 1877, against which there was so much objection in the Army, was accepted by the House as a temporary measure. It was brought forward for the consideration of the House on the 8th of August, 1877; and the noble Marquess who then led the Opposition (the Marquess of Hartington) protested against such an important measure being brought before the House at that period of the Session. His words were—

"That he should vote against the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan), as a protest against the manner in which Parliament was being treated on the subject,"

And he added—

"That he hoped the Government would consider the whole scheme as a temporary expedient."

He trusted, then, that the right hon. Gentleman, when he considered the question, would feel that it was open to him to deal with the subject in any way he pleased, and that it had not at all been settled by the Warrant in question. In the other House of Parliament the same language had been used, and Lord Lansdowne had said he

"Thought the Government would do well to consider carefully before drawing the scabbard off so extreme a weapon as compulsory retirement."

Other noble Lords in the same House held the same language as to compulsory retirement, which, in their view, ought only to be resorted to when actually necessary. He was sorry to say that since then it had been resorted to on many occasions, to the great disadvantage and injustice of many officers. He therefore hoped on this question that the subject would receive the careful attention of the right hon. Gentleman, and he might remind him that compulsory retirement was a system absolutely unknown in any other Army in Europe. No country had adopted such a scheme, which appeared to him so fatal to good service, and getting efficient officers when they were wanted, because it sent a man out of his profession when he was in the very prime of life. It worked badly with those regiments which were in good order and contented. Where the officers worked well together the officers had slow promotion, and it was in those regiments that the officers were compulsorily retired; whereas as in regiments that were bad the officers left them early, and then the other officers got promotion rapidly.

thought it impossible to refuse compliance with the appeals that had been made to him not to divide the House. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had met the question very fairly.

in rising to move—

"That the care of the insane is a subject of Imperial obligation; that the placing of insane persons, not of the class of paupers, in the category of paupers on account of their insanity, is inexpedient; and that the cost of maintaining Lunatic Asylums is an unfair burden upon the ratepayers,"

said, that there were 70,000 prisoners in England, 18,000 in Ireland, and 6,000 in Scotland, and all these persons were detained by the authority of the State and for reasons of public safety. Each one of these prisoners was suffering under a feeling of intense wrong, whe- ther in reason or not. Their sad case was at least worth considering. Pew would deny the axiom of J. S. Mill, that to the State legitimately belonged the care of the insane; or the legal doctrine of Blackstone, that to the Sovereign, as parens patria, belonged the guardianship of lunatics. He should show that the State had failed in its duty—that it had delegated its functions to others, and thus had sprung up a system under which money was wasted and abuses existed. He should contend that the remedy for this was the acceptance of the doctrine that the care of the insane was a subject of Imperial obligation. They had divided the insane into two great classes—the rich and the poor. Rich lunatics were sent to private licensed houses, where private persons made profit out of their maintenance. The middle-class and poorer lunatics were handed over to the Poor Law and the ratepayers, and were degraded into paupers. They were not paupers in the ordinary sense of the term, nor were the rules of the Poor Law applicable to them. Many of them were clergymen, men of letters, artists—some even had held Her Majesty's commission. Others were farmers, tradesmen, and skilled artizans, everyone, in fact, whose family could not afford to pay £75 a-year to the owner of a licensed house. There were 1,000 Chancery patients, who were highly favoured. For these there were provided three Visitors; but for the whole 69,000 other lunatics, whether in licensed houses or in pauper asylums, there were only six Visitors. But the duty of the State could not end with that sort of visitation—the guardianship over the insane ought to be something more. It was inexpedient for the State to allow private persons to obtain money and advantage from the maintenance of those who wore incarcerated under the authority of the State. If a profit was to be made, it ought to go to the public, and be spent on the whole body of lunatics, and in that way a self-supporting system might, to a certain extent, be established. He did not wish to press too strongly the argument that there was a temptation—as undoubtedly there was—to retain profitable patients longer in such places than was necessary; nor did he seek to bring any general accusation against the keepers of private asylums. They had put into their hands exceptional powers and privileges, which he did not desire to charge them with using more for their own than for their patients' benefit. But he said that the law ought not to have parted with the powers which had been given to those men. In their last Report, the Lunacy Commissioners—gentlemen who did not make the worst of things as they were—said that the system of placing the insane in the charge of persons who made a profit by them was, no doubt, objectionable in theory, and its practice, like many other things, might be open to abuse. That Report itself gave a number of instances of such abuse, among them the following—a suicide from inadequate attendance, for which the proprietor of the house was to blame; another a suicide from neglect of precaution; another a suicide owing to sufficient care not having been taken; another in which the proprietor was described as a person entirely unfit to be intrusted with the care of the insane. These were only some of the cases of abuse mentioned in the Report. A little further on the Commissioners objected to licence a house, in an excellent situation, which was adapted for four patients, and which had 100 acres of ground. He need hardly remind hon. Members that where there was a small number of patients the chance of cure was greater than where there was a largo number. The Commissioners, however, objected on the principle that such places caused a waste of public time in the constant visitation they entailed on themselves. Thus the Visitors, true to the weakness of poor human nature, thought rather of themselves than of the unfortunate people under their charge, and they were too ingenuous to veil the fact in their Report. But he found an unintentional, and, therefore, much stronger, support to his argument in the statement which the Commissioners made as to those few institutions called hospitals for the insane, which were neither licensed houses where a profit was made nor pauper asylums, but were supported by charitable endowment. As to those places, the Commissioners made this admirable suggestion—that no person, either directly or indirectly, concerned in supplying such hospitals, and no medical officer thereof, should be a member of the Governing Body. Who could deny the justice and propriety of that re- mark? And yet every owner of a licensed house was the sole purveyor, medical officer, and governor of the establishment. How could there be a stronger condemnation of the system than was implied in that single fact? He next turned to the class of lunatics confined in pauper asylums. When an unfortunate person belonging to the middle class was afflicted with insanity his family had to consider whether they would send him to one of those expensive private houses or to the pauper asylum. He had received a number of letters from families so placed, all expressing the bitter humiliation they felt at being obliged to make themselves paupers in order to place their relative in such asylums. Why should those people be forced by the action of the law to become pauperized? In the present combination between the Poor Law and insanity the Poor Law element was paramount. The result was that gigantic houses were being built all over the country in which enormous numbers of the insane were herded together under one medical superintendent, who, being physically unable personally to attend to all the inmates, was obliged to look on them in broad classes in order to carry on the business of the house, and had to trust, in a large measure, to his assistants. The cures in the pauper asylums were fewer than in the private houses. A more dreadful effect of the present system could hardly be imagined. The conflicting authorities who governed the pauper lunatics were the Home Secretary, the President of the Local Government Board, the Visiting Commissioners, the Courts of Quarter Sessions, the Visitors of the Asylums, the Boards of Guardians—a congeries of authorities which often produced a deadlock. The other day, in his own county (Shropshire), the President of the Local Government Board suggested one thing, which was accepted by the Court of Quarter Sessions, and no sooner was it so accepted than the Home Secretary refused to sanction it, and the whole thing came to a stand. A somewhat similar case occurred in the counties of Carmarthen, Cardigan, and Pembroke. The Home Secretary altogether overruled the local authority. The very principle by which local taxation was justified, was absent—namely, the power of local control and management. Heavy burdens were thrown on the ratepayers by the arbitrary mandate of the Central Government. He did not want to disparage the reforms which had been carried out of late years in regard to lunacy, and he readily acknowledged the great work in that direction which had been done by Lord Shaftesbury and his coadjutors. But the taxation was put on the wrong shoulders, and the effect of beginning on wrong lines was that they ended by impeding improvement. Certain remedies had been shadowed out for the evils of the present system. One of these remedies was that licensed houses should be bought out of the rates. Licensed houses were not worth buying. If such a provision were made compulsory it would be a hardship on the ratepayers, if it were made permissive it would be inoperative. Another suggestion was that the State should build hospitals. The objection to that was that the remedy would be too slow, and would leave unabated the eveils of the present pauper asylums. There was another suggestion which seemed to be far-reaching and to be capable of being put into practice—namely, that the Government should take over at once all the pauper lunatic asylums of the country. It would then separate once and for ever pauperism from insanity, and insanity from pauperism. Accommodation might be afforded according to the means of the patient. The rich would be able to take advantage of these houses, and only the best licensed houses would be able to stand. Most of the licensed houses would die a natural death. To sum up his argument, he would say that, in the first place, it was the duty of the State to take charge of the insane; in the second place, the abuses of the present system demanded reform; in the third place, there was a great hardship on the families of the middle class by the association of insanity with pauperism; and, lastly, the whole system was an outrageous grievance to ratepayers. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Resolution.

in seconding the Resolution, said, he should trouble the House at very little length in reference to the country from which he came—Scotland—and he believed that there they could share the views already expressed by the hon. Member in favour of transferring to the nation the expense at present borne by the local rates, especially when they found the disease of lunacy was on the increase to a very marked extent, more particularly in pauper lunatic asylums. In Scotland they had 9,386 lunatics, and out of that number no less than 7,751 were pauper lunatics, supported by the parochial rates of the different parishes. The increase was noticeable in almost all the institutions fostered for the express purpose of taking care of those unhappy persons; also in the public asylums, and even among the criminals in Perth prison. True, the increase for the year 1878 was not very large, being 272 on the whole; but still, out of that number, again, 265 were paupers. He believed it would be found, on searching the records of the Lunacy Commissioners, that there was no evidence of a tendency to increase in the number of private lunatics. Since January, 1858, when the Board of Lunacy was first appointed in Scotland, there had been an increase up to the 1st of January, 1879, of from 5,823 to 9,386 lunatics, or 61 per cent, while the population had only increased about 19 per cent. Then, in regard to pauper lunatics, the rise had been from 63 per 1,000 in 1861 to 126 per 1,000 in 1879. Many hon. Members might be disposed to attribute that to the grants in aid made by the late Government, and to the fact that before these grants were made the local boards were more in the habit of sending their pauper lunatics to large asylums, instead of keeping them at home, or sending them to the wards in the combination poorhouses. But one thing was quite certain, and that was that since the State had in this sense taken in charge these unhappy persons they had been much better cared for. Before the Government grant was made for lunatics, it was the habit of many Parochial Boards, in order, no doubt, to save the rates, to maintain that many of these persons could not be charged as lunatics, but rather must be looked upon in the light of paupers. But since the new law came into operation, granting an aid of 4s. per head, they had been much more disposed to transfer them to proper keeping, and the Government inspections had also, undoubtedly, been very useful. There was one point especially which he wished to urge in considering this matter. Many of their combination poor-houses in Scotland were not well filled. They were built a good many years ago, and, generally speaking, were far in excess of the requirements of the population. They were held up as a kind of terror over the heads of persons claiming relief of the Parochial Boards, and who, if they did not take the amount offered them, would be sent to the combination poorhouse. Those poorhouses possessed sufficient spare space to accommodate many incurable but harmless imbeciles; and it was very important, he thought, that this point should attract more public attention than it at present did. In his own district they had one of those combination poorhouses, and in it they had some 10 or 12 imbeciles, persons who were kept at very small cost in comparison with the much larger sum that would have to be paid for them if they were sent to the county asylums. There could be no doubt that many of those county asylums would very soon have to be overhauled, owing to the marvellous increase of pauper lunatics, and the scant accommodation within their walls. In regard to cheapness, they could keep an imbecile in one of the combination poorhouses for 10½d. a-day, as against 15d. or l8d. a-day in the county asylums. This applied only to harmless cases; yet he thought that in those combination poorhouses they had opportunities, not at present much used, and which might assist them in settling this question, although, of course, they could not obtain in such institutions the best medical advice always at hand, or the best means of providing the imbecile with suitable entertainment or occupation. There was a growing feeling that the charges in connection with this question should be removed entirely from local to Imperial funds, and the feeling was natural. They found in many parts of the country a most marked increase, for which they could assign no cause, of pauper lunacy; while, in other parts, if there was no diminution, there was, at all events, no increase. It was very hard that one portion of the country should bear all the expense, which, if fairly dispensed, would not be so burdensome. In seconding the Motion of his hon. Friend, he hoped it would receive the sanction of the House; and he trusted that the Government, before the debate concluded, would give some assurance, not only that the present system would be fairly carried out in relieving the local rate, but that some further extension of the principle on which the late Government acted would be brought into operation.

wished it to be understood that he intended to proceed with the Motion on this subject which stood upon the Paper in his name, inasmuch as it in no way clashed with the present Motion.

desired to correct an error into which the hon. Mover of this Motion had fallen, when he stated that in consequence of a dispute which had arisen between the counties of Cardigan and Carmarthen the latter had been taxed for the joint support of the lunatics of the two counties by order of the Home Secretary. The fact was that for the purpose of the maintenance of lunatics the three counties of Pembroke, Cardigan, and Carmarthen had been united for some years; and it having been agreed that the existing joint asylum should be enlarged, the authorities of the county of Cardigan declined to pay their quota towards the cost of such enlargement, whereupon, an appeal being made to the Home Secretary, he, having heard what was to be said upon both sides, fixed the sum that each county was to pay. The result, therefore, of this convenient practice of referring the question to the Home Secretary was that the matter was amicably and speedily settled.

said, he had some difficulty in replying to the speeches in support of this Motion, because the views of its Mover and of its Seconder differed considerably. The hon. Mover explained that he wanted the central authority to take over all the pauper asylums in the counties and boroughs; to improve them, and thereby to destroy the private asylums, and to convert gradually the whole system of asylums into a State-managed concern. The Seconder only asked that the present system should be a little more supplemented by State aid, but that the existing system of administration should be continued. The first hon. Member criticized somewhat severely the present system of private lunatic asylums, complaining that one and the same person was the owner, the purveyor, and the doctor of such an asylum. It was, however, difficult to see how or why the private owner should not also be the purveyor, and, if he were a medical man, the doctor also of the establishment. The hon. Member then proceeded, somewhat inconsistently, to complain of the large number of Inspectors who were employed to inspect these private lunatic establishments; because if such institutions were too much in the hands of single individuals the evil was, to a large extent, counteracted by the number of Inspectors who visited them. The reason why the number of the Inspectors was so large was because the majority of the unfortunate persons confined in private asylums were possessed of property. With regard to the county and borough lunatic asylums, the hon. Member complained, first, of the paucity of Inspectors, and then of the multiplicity of persons who were engaged in their management and supervision; but these complaints answered each other. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion, while asking for State aid, admitted that the effect of such aid, if unduly given, would be to draw into the county and borough asylums those who were now maintained either in the workhouses or in their own homes; and this, no doubt, would be the effect of State aid. He thought, however, that the hon. Member had somewhat overrated the permanent effect of grants in aid in attracting numbers of lunatics to the public asylums. It was probable that when the system of grants in aid was first established its effect was to draw into the asylums a large number of lunatics who up to that time had been maintained elsewhere; but when once ail these outlying lunatics had been brought in, the accumulation of past years would be removed, and the stream would flow in more regularly and in diminished volume. The hon. Mover, having pointed to the various remedies which had been proposed to meet the evil complained of merely to dismiss them, suggested his own remedy. This was that the Government should take over all the lunatics in the Kingdom, and should maintain them out of the Imperial funds. The hon. Member urged that this would not increase the burden upon the taxpayers, because they would be merely paying for the maintenance of the lunatics by taxes instead of by rates. He was afraid, however, that the hon. Member would find after a few years that much more would be taken out of the second pocket than was now taken out of the first; because the cost of these institutions, when managed by the central authority and paid for out of the State funds, would be far larger than when they were under local management and supervision. The hon. Member started with the assumption that the care of lunatics was naturally and properly an Imperial function, and that, therefore, lunatics ought to be maintained out of Imperial funds. As far as he could see, the duty of the Imperial authorities in regard to lunatics ceased with the making of regulations to provide that such unfortunate persons should be properly cared for by local authorities, and should not be allowed to become dangerous to others. He could not admit that insane persons were on account of their insanity reduced to the condition of paupers, though there were pirobably many cases in which the friends of insane persons would have been able to maintain them if they were in any other than an insane state. But the friends of such persons were called upon to contribute towards, if they could not wholly provide, the funds for such treatment and maintenance; that was done to a considerable extent, the contributions from that source last year amounting to £67,000. Another argument against the proposal of his hon. Friend was that if asylums were taken over by the State the local interest maintained in them would cease, and it did not follow that the position of the lunatics would be improved. It was certain that the contributions from the friends would not be so perfectly looked after by the State as by the local authorities, and a larger burden would therefore be thrown on the taxes than was now imposed on the rates. He saw in principle no more reason for calling upon the State authorities to take over the lunatic asylums than for asking them to assume the management of the workhouses. If the asylums were to be maintained out of Imperial funds, Imperial management must follow, and this meant more centralization and a reduction of the duties now placed upon local authorities, magistrates, guardians of the poor, and persons who voluntarily undertook local functions. It meant, in fact, handing over the management of the asylums to State-paid officials quartered in a central office in London. He did not think the transfer of the prisons to the State furnished a very encouraging precedent in this direction. Such transfer had greatly increased centralization, had removed much influence and authority from the local authorities, and was, moreover, in the position of an experiment which bad not yet been fully tried. The main ground for making the transfer of the prisons was that it would effect an actual saving on the total cost of the prisons by substituting taxes for rates as the source of maintenance, such rates being supplemented by certain amounts paid out of the Imperial funds. It remained to be seen whether success would attend the experiment, and whatever might have been the result up to the present he was not sanguine that as years rolled on the transfer would prove to have been an economical step. If it should so turn out the result would be contrary to all precedent and experience; because the natural tendency of transferring the management of local institutions to central bodies was to increase the expense by reason of the fact that officials of State had not the interest in economy possessed by local bodies. He could not, therefore, in the circumstances, assent to the Motion of his hon. Friend, nor could he concur in the conclusions which had been drawn from that Motion.

said, he should feel difficulty in assenting to the proposal of his hon. Friend (Mr. S. Leighton) in the form in which it had been moved, for the reason that it mixed up two very different, though important, questions. Whether the State should, or should not, take charge of all pauper lunatic asylums to a greater extent than it did now was one matter; it was an altogether different question to suggest in the same Resolution that the State should exercise a similar function in regard to private licensed asylums. The latter had occupied the attention of the last Parliament, and had been considered by a Select Committee, which sat for two or three Sessions; and, as far as they were concerned, he was prepared to admit the importance of taking steps to give the public the same assurance which they had in the case of pauper lunatic asylums, by providing that persons once lunatic should not be detained indefinitely for the mere purpose either of giving profit to the asylum keeper, or serving the private purposes of the relatives of lunatics. It did not follow, however, that to solve that question it was necessary that all asylums should be merged into one class. It was, without doubt, a grievous hardship that from want of means persons of the lower and middle classes were compelled to place their relatives and friends in pauper asylums; but in the great majority of these cases the hardship was accompanied by the comfort of feeling that their relatives were taken care of in the very best possible manner, and would not be detained when the necessity ceased. That was an assurance which the wealthier portion of the community had not yet got, but which he hoped they would soon obtain. He could not entirely agree with his right hon. Friend at the head of the Local Government Board (Mr. Dodson) in the view he took of the question as to whether the custody of pauper lunatics was naturally an obligation upon the ratepayers, or whether it was not an obligation which ought to be borne by the State. His right hon. Friend, if he looked into the history of the question, would find that the charge for pauper lunatics was, so to say, a new charge upon the rates. It was, in fact, a charge upon the rates within 30 years; and he thought that Parliament in 1850 and 1857, or 1859, when the Acts were passed, should at the time have required that the Government should undertake the charge out of Imperial resources. Parliament first threw upon the ratepayers the duty of erecting the asylums, which they did at enormous cost, and also the obligation of maintaining them. The Guardians and managers of the workhouses were obliged to place their pauper lunatics in the asylums, where their maintenance cost 9s., 10s., or 12s. each per week instead of 3s. or 4s. That was a serious new charge, and it was that which the late Government attempted to mitigate. For his part, he valued the system of local government so much that he was disposed to agree with his right hon. Friend in saying he should be sorry to see the management of the asylums taken away from the visiting justices; unless, indeed, some more representative body could be suggested to succeed them; but he should point out that the Guardians, who had to pay the money for the maintenance of the patients in the asylums, had no voice in the management of those institutions. Practically, the visiting justices had the sole control of them. With respect to the statement that the subvention had caused an undue flow of pauper lunatics into the asylums, he must say he very much doubted whether such was the case. It was true that the number of patients in the asylums had increased within the last five or six years; but it was equally true that the increase in the number of patients in the workhouses within those years was still larger. He entirely disputed the proposition of his right hon. Friend that the influx which he said had taken place in the asylums was of chronic patients. All his experience showed that the proportion of chronic patients soon after the passing of the Acts was as large as it is now, and the Commissioners in lunacy were then of opinion that chronic patients ought to have skilled supervision, which they would obtain in the asylums. He would also point out that 10 years ago there was a prevalent desire to clear out lunatics from workhouses into the asylums. Now that the asylums were full, it was worthy of consideration whether Guardians should not be prevented in some way from sending chroniccases to the asylums. It was quite new to him to hear that the subvention had had the effect which his hon. Friend the Member for Wigton (Mr. Mark Stewart) mentioned. He had watched narrowly the application of the grant for this purpose, and he did not believe that the sum granted could have been applied with more advantage to the ratepayers. In Scotland, unless his memory deceived him, the subvention was given in one lump sum to the Board of Supervision, who distributed it among asylums or the friends of patients in whatever proportions they thought reasonable. With regard to this country, in spite of all the objec- tions which might be urged against large subventions of this kind, he had never heard that a similar amount of relief could be given to the ratepayers without an interference with existing modes of conducting local business of which he was sure Parliament could not be induced to approve. In his judgment, therefore, the subvention, of 4s. per week was a just one, and had been a legitimate success. He did not, however, say it ought to be extended, although some arguments might be urged in favour of such a step. If it were determined to extend it, an additional grant of £200,000 would be needed to assist in like proportion the cost of lunatics in workhouses and boarding with friends. In conclusion, he would say that of all the new charges which had been thrown upon the rates this was the most unjustifiable, and the ratepayers should have insisted at the time that it should not have been thrown upon real property. However, as he had remarked, he was not prepared to say that the asylums ought to be taken out of the control of the local authorities; but he agreed that the incidence of the charge was still to a great extent unjustifiable.

said, the hon. Gentleman who introduced the subject (Mr. S. Leighton) had divided it into two heads—one, as to the incidences of the charge; the other, as to the management and administration of the asylums. The hon. Gentleman spoke of the incidences of the charge as a matter of Imperial obligation; and in that view he (Mr. Floyer) was, to some extent, inclined to agree. There was nothing in the nature of the charge which would make it proper to call upon any particular class of persons in the country more than another to bear it. By the 43rd of Elizabeth every person who had ability to assist his unfortunate fellow-subjects was bound, out of that ability, to assist them. Lunatics were no exception to the rule; and, if it could be arranged, all persons ought to contribute in some way to the relief of all the poor, and especially of the lunatic poor. So far he agreed it was a universal obligation; and then came the question, How could it be enforced? The Mover said that the whole charge ought to be removed to the taxation of the country; and, if it were, the head of the Local Government Board said the administration must be transferred to the Imperial Government, and the local authorities must be superseded. For one, he was not prepared to say that he could give up all local administration; he would rather relieve local taxation by further assistance from the Imperial funds; and he thought that would be a safer mode of meeting any claim which the ratepayer had. There could be no doubt that the claims of ratepayers, and especially of agricultural ratepayers, were very urgent at this moment, and could not be overlooked. The agricultural part of the community had to carry on their business under the most trying circumstances. They were in competition with the whole world, and in many parts from which produce was brought competitors were free from the burdens and difficulties our own agriculturists had to contend with. Therefore they had a strong claim for any relief that could possibly be given; but he was not prepared on that account to give up the system of local management, which he believed was, in many respects, the best for these institutions. It was best to preserve the local management, and to relieve the local rates by grants from Imperial sources. As to the people a little above the labouring class, who, for lack of means, could not be sent to private asylums, no doubt the admission of such persons into county pauper asylums was in itself an evil: but, as had been pointed out, there were advantages in county asylums which were not enjoyed by the inmates of private asylums. The authorities of county asylums had no inducement to keep patients longer than was necessary; but the owner of a private licensed house had a strong inducement to keep patients in his house as long as he could do so with propriety. In the case of the superintendent of the public asylums his credit depended upon the number of patients who were discharged as cured. In the licensed house the inspection was necessarily rather limited; but the county asylum was inspected by the Commissioners of Lunacy and by the Visitors appointed by the Court of Quarter Sessions. But the admission of persons above the pauper class into the county asylums was an evil, if they were paid for out of the rates, because that pauperized them; and the object aimed at was to remove that evil. In his county they had endeavoured to meet that difficulty. When the new asylum was built £2,000 was subscribed to meet the cost of 20 beds, to be occupied by patients of this class. In the course of a few years the county population of 200,000 had produced 23 or 24 patients of the class of small farmers and shopkeepers, who were unable to pay the charges of the private asylums. The provision thus made had been found to be a very great boon; and the number of patients of that class had fluctuated but little, so that the accommodation had proved to be sufficient. In this way the difficulty had been surmounted with beneficial effects; and he would, therefore, recommend an extension of the system. It might be apprehended that the large number of applications on behalf of persons above the pauper class might trench on the accommodation for the pauper class, for whom the asylums were originally built; but as they would be kept with the pauper patients, and no great difference would be made in their favour, except, perhaps, in being allowed to wear their own clothes, and having some variety of diet, the friends of such persons would not send them there if they could possibly provide funds to send them to a licensed house. Upon the whole question, he certainly was not prepared to support the proposition of the hon. Gentleman who made the Motion. The question had very justly occupied the attention of the House; but he did not know whether the hon. Member would think it necessary to press it to a division. He thought the ratepayers had a claim to some relief, though he should be sorry to see it accompanied by so large an alteration in the system of local administration, which, with respect to lunatics, prisons, and other matters, was less expensive and more efficient than a system carried on under the immediate direction of Government.

felt that the agricultural ratepayers of England had a right to complain of the increased bur-dons which had been thrown upon them for education, highway, sanitary purposes, vaccination, and other objects, many of which were national in their importance; and he thought the time had come when a searching inquiry, by means of a Select Committee, should be made into the whole question of local taxation, with a view of placing it on a more extended and equitable basis.

thought it was a great mistake to suppose that the grant of 4s. a week had increased insanity. No doubt it had increased, and that it formed an important phase of the great subject of local taxation; but it was rather from intemperance, or from some of the conditions in which the poor lived, especially in the towns. The effect, however, had been greatly to increase the rates. Notwithstanding all that had been said by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Dodson), he hoped they would yet be told by some occupant of the Treasury Bench that the Government did propose to give this question their consideration with reference to the large question of local taxation at an early date. There was injustice in making paupers of lunatics, and there was difficulty in putting the county asylums under Imperial management. The ratepayers of different districts were unfairly taxed, since the Union Chargeability Act, the agricultural communities, which produced scarcely any lunatics, having to contribute towards the support of those produced, apparently, by the conditions of town life.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot but think that the subject which the hon. Member for Shropshire (Mr. S. Leighton) has brought before the House is eminently important, and I venture to urge upon the House, if an attempt is to be made to give relief to the agricultural interest by the remission of local taxation, that assistance from the funds of the State for the purpose of maintaining these lunatic asylums would be much better applied than it has been to the administration of the county and borough prisons. I hold that, if any local establishments are to be maintained entirely at the charge of the general taxation of the country, it is necessary that the central Government should have the control over such establishments. In my opinion it was a great mistake to centralize prison administration. So long as the administration of justice is local, so ought to be the administration and supervision of the prisons; for those who are charged with the punishment of crime ought to be responsible for the manner in which that punishment is administered. And I believe it will be found that nothing lies closer to the foundation of the freedom which this country has so long enjoyed, and which has contributed so largely to the efficiency of the upper classes, and, therefore, to the capacity of the whole country for free institutions, than the local administration of justice. More than that, the local administration of justice, and the local responsibility for prisons, gave publicity, which is the best guarantee against abuse. The case of the lunatic asylums is different. Two noble Friends of mine, one still living, and the other departed, applied their talents and their industry to the providing due administration in the care of lunatics—Lord Shaftesbury, who is happily alive, in the case of England, and the late Lord St. Leonards, in the case of Ireland. I had communication with both those noble persons, and, from the circumstances of the case, my impression is, that the supervision of lunatics would suffer less from centralization by far than the administration of justice. A certain degree of privacy is inseparable from the due administration of lunatic asylums. The unhappy inmates are afflicted for various, sometimes for considerable periods, and it is often desirable for their future welfare, that their admission, their treatment, and the reasons for their being liberated after treatment should not be altogether public. Central administration would, therefore, meet the case of the lunatic far better than it can meet the case of the criminal. Not only when the Prisons Bill was under consideration in this House, but at other periods, I have always urged that if there is one object to which the general taxation and a central administration were applicable more than to another, it was to the maintenance of the lunatic asylums. I admit that it might be expedient to have a combination of local with central supervision and administration; but, as I have said before, I do feel that it was a gross mistake to place the local prisons under a central administration, and to have omitted the lunatic asylums. This Motion is urged on the score of relief to agriculture, and I admit the necessity which exists for that relief. It is not accurate to say that when the measures of Free Trade were passed the whole of the consequences of that great change were foreseen, were contemplated. The extent of these conse- quences, Sir, was not then understood. The late Sir Robert Peel never contemplated the extent of the competition to which the agriculture of this country has been since subjected. ["Oh!" from the Ministerial Benches.] I speak as one of those who were engaged in the debates of 1846, and I broadly state here in my place that the competition which has arisen with the United States of America, and the extent to which it has reached, were not contemplated in 1846, and if hon. Members opposite doubt what I say, I would refer them to Hansard's record of our debates, where they will find little allusion to the possibility of such a competition on the part of the United States as has now arisen. ["Hear, hear!"] An hon. Member seems to rejoice in that competition. Well, if the increase in the population of this country were unlimited, I could understand the reasons for an unlimited foreign supply; but it appears to me that while we have excess on one side—that of supply—we have limitation on the other, that of population and consumption. But this opens a wide sphere of discussion into which I will not now enter. I merely assert from my own experience, and it may be tested by the pages of Hansard, that the competition which has arisen from the United States of America, owing to the wide cultivation of the prairies, was not contemplated in 1846. Nay, I was myself in America not long before that time, and I venture to say that there it was not contemplated that the prairies would so rapidly be brought under cultivation, and yield such abundant crops as they now do. From my own knowledge, and from communications that I have had with Americans in their own country, I can assert that what has now happened was not in 1846 fully unforeseen. This circumstance gives occasion to the present Motion; but I trust the hon. Member for Shropshire will not press his Motion to a division now, and for this reason. At present we are awaiting the Report of the Royal Commission on the state of Agriculture, which was promoted in this House by the hon. Member for Mid-Lincolnshire, (Mr. Chaplin), and which I anxiously supported. Until we have that report, I do not think that the House will consider this proposal upon any grounds that will be admitted as authoritative by the whole House. I have ventured to state what I gathered in the United States, and from long experience in this House; and naturally, perhaps, hon. Members opposite may not be disposed to agree with me, but may be inclined to dispute my statements. Well, let us have the authoritative Report of the Royal Commission before us, and then, I think, it will be found that the capital of the landlord and the capital of the farmer are more exposed to taxation than the capital of any other class of the community. And for this reason, that the capital employed in agriculture turns more slowly than that otherwise employed does in many cases, and is therefore less profitable, and when subjected to the same percentage of taxation is burdened more heavily than the capital of any other class. ["No!"] That is an economical proposition which an hon. Member opposite, whom I have not the pleasure of knowing, seems to dispute; but, among statisticians and political economists, it is a proposition which is not at all disputed. If you tax capital which turns slowly, at the same rate as capital that turns more quickly, you tax the income derived from the capital which turns slowly more heavily than the income from capital which makes its returns more quickly; and I never yet knew a political economist who disputed that. If the capital which yields three profits a year is taxed at the same annual rate as the capital which produces only one profit in the year, it stands to reason that the capital which makes its returns slowly is more heavily taxed than the other. Hence the complaint of county Members in this House. I hope, however, that the hon. Member for Shropshire will be satisfied with having done his duty in submitting this question to the House, and that he will wait until we have the Report of the Royal Commission on Agricultural Distress before us. Then, I trust, the House will retrieve the mistake which, in my humble opinion, it committed, when it centralized the administration of the local prisons—an administration which is intimately connected with the administration of justice—and that Her Majesty's Advisers and this House will consider that the management of lunatic asylums is a subject much more adapted for centralized administration than the administration of justice or the management of prisons.

said, that several references had been made to the Scotch lunacy affairs; and he thought, so far from favouring the Motion that was before the House, when properly understood, they went in an opposite direction. He could not agree with the two leading propositions before the House. The first was that the care of the insane was a subject of Imperial obligation. He altogether disbelieved in that proposition. The second was that the cost of maintaining lunatics in asylums was an unfair burden upon the rates. He likewise strongly demurred to that. What he rose particularly to say was this—that he thought all these subventions were mischievous, whether for prisons, for the maintenance of lunatics, or any other of the purposes to which they were now applied; and he agreed with the last speaker that the worst of all these subventions was that for prisons, and that was the opinion of many intelligent persons with whom he had spoken on the subject. Keeping to the case in hand, that of lunatics, the fact of a Government subvention being given on their behalf had apparently been to greatly increase the number of insane paupers in Scotland. One could hardly conceive how such a thing could happen; but it was true. There had been a gradual drain of the poor insane people who were previously kept in private houses into the asylums. Their friends had relieved themselves of the cost of their maintenance, and they had been put into the established asylums; and although the Government subvention had reached a considerable amount, the local expenditure had, notwithstanding, greatly increased in every locality. The last Report of the Lunacy Commissioners in Scotland showed that there would not be any increase naturally of pauper lunatics if it were not for some artificial cause of that kind, for during each period of five years, taking the last 20 years, the number of insane persons admitted into private asylums had remained nearly the same—that was, about 13 in every 100,000 of the population. During the 20 years they had only increased to 14 in the 100,000, and in the following year they came down to 13, so that the private asylums showed no increase in lunacy patients. During the first five years of this 20 years the number of pauper lunatics increased from 34 per 100,000 of the population to 37; in the following five to 44; in the next to 50; and in the last to 53. There had, the Commissioners said, been an increase of 50 per cent in the number of paupers in lunatic asylums during the last 20 years. That applied to the admissions, but as to the total numbers, here were the facts from the same authority. In 1859 there were 3,103 pauper lunatics in the registered asylums; in 1879 there were 6,292, being just as nearly as possible a doubling of the number in 20 years. Concurrently with that there was this remarkable fact, that a decrease had taken place in those that were maintained in private houses. Twenty years ago there were 1,877 registered lunatics in private houses, and last year the number tad been reduced to 1,319, showing a considerable diminution, though not to the extent of the other increase. Then, as to the expenditure, in 1859 it was £80,600; in 1878 it was £183,000, showing that it had much more than doubled. The steps of increase were remarkable, and to that point he particularly wished to call the attention of the House. The period of 20 years was divided into four portions by the Commissioners. The average increase during the first three periods of five years was at the rate of £4,500 yearly. But now, looking at the last four years when the Government subventions came into operation, they found the average yearly increase was £8,600, just about double the amount of the Government subvention that formerly existed. If they took the Government grant, they showed the same results. In 1875 the Government subvention was £59,500; but in 1878 it amounted to £68,500, so the more the Government gave the more the expense increased. It was quite inevitable, in his opinion, that such should be the case. Parties that got Government money seemed to regard it much as they looked on sand picked up off the sea-shore, and as if they were not bound to be economical. There were sometimes great discussions in Town Councils as to police grants, and he had heard it urged regarding proposals to increase the salaries of officers, and to increase the number of police, and to make extra payments, that they should be adopted, and the argument was—"Why, we need not grudge the increase because the Government will pay half of it." In many of these cases if the Government had not intervened the arguments of the economists would have prevailed, and these additional payments would not have been made. Holding that Government grants such as they were had been mischievous in their results, he was strongly opposed to the Motion, which contemplated an increase of these grants, or, rather, the taking over of the whole lunacy affairs into the hands of the Government. That would be certainly mischievous, and should be opposed by all who wished to promote economy.

said, he did not think, after the discussion that had taken place, that it was necessary to go much into the subject, although he did not at all agree with the hon. Gentleman's (Mr. S. Leighton's) proposal. He thought the discussion bad been of service, because in various English and Scotch counties much difficulty was felt in dealing with lunatics. It must be admitted that there had been a very great increase of charge, and of the numbers to be provided for during the last 10 or 20 years. He agreed almost entirely with the hon. Member for Edinburgh's (Mr. M'Laren's) remarks as to the general result of payments in aid of local taxation. Generally speaking, such payments certainly tended to increase expenditure. He also agreed with what the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) had said in respect to prisons. He thought the measure relating to them was a most unfortunate one; and the country would, he believed, ultimately come to that conclusion. From what he had seen of the carrying out of the transfer of the prisons to the State he should strongly oppose the Motion now under consideration. At the same time, he could not but admit that the payments in aid of the lunatics that were undertaken two years ago by the late Government were worth re-consideration. He agreed that the grant of 4s. for each lunatic in an asylum had had the effect of inducing the Guardians to get rid of harmless and incurable lunatics, and the Lunacy Commissioners stated that something like 40 per cent of the lunatics of the country were harmless and incurable. He did not object to the transfer of such lunatics as were curable or dangerous; but he thought harmless and incurable lunatics need not be removed from the workhouses to the asylums. He thought that in the case of the latter, if many such persons had been transferred, a great deal of harm had been done. It was not necessary to have expensive establishments like the county asylums for the treatment of harmless and incurable lunatics, who might equally well be kept in workhouses. He should be glad, therefore, to see a re-consideration of the grant—as to whether some grant could not be made for that class of lunatics in the workhouses as well as that in the asylums. It would, indeed, be almost better to reduce the payment of 4s. for lunatics in the asylum to a smaller sum, and to apportion it between the asylums and the workhouses. In the North of England most of the Boards of Guardians had expressed that opinion strongly, and in many of the Lancashire workhouses preparations had been made at a great expense for the treatment of lunatics. In nearly every county increased accommodation was required for lunatics, and the money that was now being devoted by the magistrates to the enlargement of the asylums need not have been spent if the harmless lunatics could be kept in workhouses. The hon. Member for Shropshire (Mr. S. Leighton) had said that the payments made had not, in his belief, any effect in filling the asylums. He (Mr. Hibbert) found, however, that the Commissioners had said that their experience of another year had confirmed the opinion already expressed by them, that the Parliamentary grant made to the Guardians had in many districts tended to the removal of cases from workhouses into asylums, and in some counties had rendered necessary a considerable extension of asylum accommodation. It had been said in the course of the debate that the number of lunatics in workhouses was not now the same as formerly. The great increase, however, as was abundantly proved by statistics, was in the county and borough asylums, in which, in 1874, there were 29,000 patients, in 1878, 35,000, and in 1879, 38,000; while the workhouses contained 15,000 patients in 1874, and only 15,900 in 1879. As to the non-pauper class, he would be glad if some plan were suggested by which that class of cases could be received into asylums, where they would be much better cared for than in licensed houses, and he did not think there should be any great objection to their being received into county asylums, simply because these were called pauper asylums. Those who were on the borderland of pauperism might if received into asylums, obtain their maintenance by, as it were, a loan, the Government to be repaid as circumstances would permit. If such a system could be established, he felt that very serious difficulties would be avoided. As to the class of chronic imbeciles and harmless idiots, it would be a great advantage if, in the larger counties, special provision could be made for them, because he thought it very undesirable that they should be placed in asylums, or even in workhouses. The whole question of the advance in aid of lunatics and idiots would most probably be considered by the Government before next year; and, therefore, he thought the question in its broadest sense should not be entered into until the result of this consideration was known. The present time was, therefore, unsuitable to the discussion of the proposal before the House. Still, he hoped that the hon. Member would be satisfied with what had been said on the subject, and not press his Motion to a division.

in reply, said, that not one of his arguments had been answered. He had never intended to limit the question to one of local taxation, but had put it on a far broader basis. His object had been to raise the entire subject of the reform of the Lunacy Law by pointing out defects that ran through the whole of the present system. He was even more satisfied with what had been said by the Government than he should have been at being in a majority on a division, because, reforming though they might be, they had distinctly said that they would not reform the Lunacy Laws, and did not think that the treatment of pauper lunatics inflicted any injury upon the middle and professional classes. Such a non possumus position it was impossible for them to retain. Their answer would make reformers work harder for reform. As for the few words which the late President of the Local Government Board said, the compromising support given to the Government by the right hon. Gentleman was even more in his favour than their antagonism.

in rising to draw attention to the inconvenience of sending Criminal Lunatics to County Asylums; to the necessity for making separate accommodation for Idiots and for Chronic Lunatics now in County Asylums; and to move—

"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the Laws relating to the custody and maintenance of Criminal Lunatics, of Idiots, and of Chronic Lunatics;"

said, he would acknowledge that there was some inconvenience in asking the House to proceed with a debate on a subject so nearly analogous to that in which they had been just engaged; but the point which he wished particularly to raise could not be dealt with as it deserved in the late discussion. The time was past for the treatment of the insane by the seclusion of the dark cell, the restraint of the strait waistcoat and iron fetters, by severity of discipline, and a diet of bread and water. Science had stepped in and told us that insanity was nothing more nor less than a disease. He desired particularly to draw attention to that fact, because it was upon it that he largely based the argument which he was about to present to the House. Our great lunatic asylums were no longer what they were considered in other days; they were no longer prisons or houses of detention for the safe-guarding of lunatics, but hospitals for the care and the cure of those who were afflicted with a particular disease. Looking at the matter in that way, he had good reason to complain that persons were sent to county lunatic asylums in which there was no special accommodation for them, and who were not fit to be there. The class to whom he alluded were the criminal lunatics. Persons in any way tainted with crime ought not to be sent to our county asylums; their example was bad, their whole tone had a disturbing and deteriorating effect upon those with whom they were associated, and, in fact, they were the worst of all possible people who should be sent there. This question had been forced upon the attention of the people in the county of Somerset in a very remarkable way. Very recently a military prisoner of a specially dangerous character had been sent from the State prison to the county asylum in charge of three warders, and the man rejoiced in saying that if there had not been three warders he would have brained those who brought him part of the way. The man escaped and he had to be captured. It afterwards turned out that he and another military prisoner were both malingerers, having shammed insanity, and had no business to be there at all. There was every inducement for malingerers to sham insanity in order to receive better diet and more lenient treatment than they would in prison. His contention was that all who became insane during the period of their sentence, whether in a State prison or undergoing penal servitude in a convict prison, should be maintained in separate prison asylums. Prisons were now State prisons, and no longer subject to the jurisdiction of the counties. So long as prisoners were under the control of the Visiting Justices they never would have sent to them prisoners of this class. He objected even to sending prisoners to county asylums after the expiration of their sentences. He would have a prison asylum to which all prisoners should be sent before the expiration of their sentence, and also a special asylum where such lunatics subsequently might be cared for after completion of their sentences. Criminal lunatics, just as lunatics after completion of sentence, could better be looked after in separate institutions, and from this point of view the interests of society should be considered. There was a careful precaution taken in the case of pauper lunatics which was neglected in the case of criminal lunatics. Whenever a pauper lunatic was sent to an asylum, the law required that the medical man who certified should specify the acts of insanity which he had himself observed. The criminal lunatics were sent by the warrant of the Secretary of State, and the Visitors of the county asylums had nothing to do but to accept his fiat. Those lunatics ought clearly to be a charge on the State. Whenever a prisoner, undergoing a sentence, was found to be insane, an endeavour was made to ascertain his settlement. He was sent to the Union in which the charge was, and if the settlement could not be found, he was then sent at the charge of the county in which he happened to be confined as a prisoner. He thought this was entirely indefensible. There were other classes of the insane known to the law; there were those, for instance, who were found to be, by the verdict of a jury, insane at the moment of their offence. He suggested Amendments in the Broadmoor Act. He was aware that, in now asking for a Select Committee, he might be told that recently a Select Committee had inquired into the subject of the Lunacy Law, and that it had reported only a very short time since. That Committee, he might observe, was presided over by a right hon. Gentleman a Member of that House who had been long and much respected, and whose loss he was sure they all deeply deplored. He alluded to the late Sir Stephen Cave, a man of unusual zeal, earnestness, and ability, and one who had performed valuable services to his country. That Committee, however, was appointed for a different purpose from the one to which the Committee he was now proposing would address itself. The former Committee had referred to it the special branch of the Lunacy Law which had regard to the securities afforded against the violation of personal liberty, and it certainly reported strongly in favour of a consolidation of the law. But another Committee, to investigate the points to which he had himself now alluded, would, he believed, render useful service. With respect to adult idiots, they could, he thought, be better treated in an asylum by themselves. That remark applied still more strongly to the case of idiot children, who, if taken by the hand in their earlier days and carefully trained, might have their dim and latent intelligence so improved as to make them happier members of society, and in a great degree self-sustaining. That was shown by the experience of the excellent institution at Earlswood. It was highly desirable that power should be given to counties to combine for the purpose of setting up special and separate asylums for idiots. Unions now possessed such a power, but counties did not. With regard to chronic lunatics, at present they were entering the asylums faster than they were going out; but that fact was greatly owing to the circumstance that the science and skill and care of the present day helped to prolong the lives of those poor creatures far more than was the case 50 years ago. In many instances now, those patients had been in the asylums for 20 and even 30 years. There should be auxiliary asylums for the care of chronic patients. He would only make one other remark, which he thought was well worthy of the attention of Her Majesty's Government. He would ask them whether the time had not arrived when the whole management of our county asylums might be placed under the control of a responsible Department of the State? He did not desire to cast any reflection upon the Commissioners of Lunacy. They performed their difficult task with considerable ability. But the county magistrates would rather deal with a Department of the State than with the Commissioners of Lunacy. It was a noble work to

"Minister to a mind diseas'd;

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;

Raze out the written troubles of the brain."

England had been foremost in that work, and we were proud that she had set an example to all Europe and to the world. But her work was incomplete. There were amendments to be made; there were reforms to be carried out. The law required consolidation. It was to complete those reforms that he asked Her Majesty's Government to facilitate the measures which he wished to see carried out by assenting to the Motion which he had the honour to propose.

said, his hon. Friend (Mr. E. Paget) had stated his subject in a manner which might have been expected from his knowledge of it, and with great feeling and great consideration for the class of people to whom he had referred. In the earlier part of the evening they dealt with lunatics; but they were dealing now with a class which to lunacy superadded crime. Broadly stated, there were four classes of criminal lunatics. There were those who were called "Queen's-pleasure" lunatics, who had been either found to be insane, or who had been acquitted as insane. There were those lunatics who were under sentence of penal servitude. The third class were those who were under sentence of imprisonment merely. And lastly, there were those lunatics who were waiting for trial. These four classes of criminal lunatics were sent into dif- ferent localities. They were sent to Broadmoor in certain cases. They were sent in other cases to the lunatic wards at Woking. They were sent to pauper asylums of the jurisdiction where the prison was situate, and they were sent to lunatic asylums where the crime was committed. Roughly speaking, they might be said to be sent to one of these four destinations. The hon. Gentleman had complained of this way of dealing with criminal lunatics. There was, first of all, complaint that after their sentences had expired they were treated as paupers and taken to the nearest workhouse, and there became chargeable, when it was for the convenience of the Government and by the action of the Government that they were introduced into the locality at all. He believed that soldiers and sailors, if their settlement could not be ascertained, or if they came from Scotland or Ireland, were either kept at Broadmoor after the expiration of their sentences, or taken to the nearest workhouse and there handed over as wandering pauper lunatics; and that had given rise to most frequent and very angry remonstrances. Then there was another complaint in reference to the maintenance of these criminal lunatics in the asylums. First, as to the maintenance during the currency of their sentences. That expense of maintenance had been by several Acts of Parliament thrown on the place of settlement, where that could be ascertained; and where it could not be ascertained, then on the jurisdiction where the prison was situate or the jurisdiction in which the crime was committed. A person convicted and sentenced to penal servitude was distinguished from an ordinary misdemeanant. He believed that that convict, as long as his sentence was unexpired, was maintained at the expense of the State. But it was a great grievance that when the Government, for its own convenience, introduced a criminal prisoner into a particular locality, with which he had nothing to do, the locality should be responsible for the cost of his maintenance. At Woking there were wards appropriated to criminal lunatics, and he thought it was a fair question whether that practice could not be extended, and these criminal lunatics be sent to special prisons or quarters where provision was specially made for their reception. The hon. Gentleman had said that criminals had contracted dangerous habits, and that alone was a reason why they should not be sent to county asylums. Now he (Mr. Arthur Peel) thought that was an obvious proposition. But he would also observe that it was insufficient to say they would only exclude criminals of criminal habits, because, as far as his own observation went, and as far as he had been informed by a much higher authority, there was a class of lunatics who were admitted into lunatic asylums, and who, though they had not been convicted formally of criminal habits, yet had all criminal characteristics about them, and were as dangerous as the most confirmed convict could be. It was a question whether it would not be an amelioration of the present state of things if the asylum at Broadmoor could be used exclusively for the very worst classes of dangerous criminal lunatics, and the other asylums thereby freed from that most dangerous, deadly, and contaminating type of criminal lunacy. The hon. Member had divided his Motion into two portions, the first dealing with criminal lunatics, and the second part dealing with the laws relating to the custody of idiots and chronic lunatics. He (Mr. Arthur Peel) assumed that the latter expression referred to chronic harmless lunatics, and that it was intended by the hon. Member that these poor creatures should not be put into the county lunatic asylums, but should be separated from the other lunatics and relegated to some place specially adapted for the reception of their particular class. He understood that there was some doubt whether counties could legally combine for the purpose of dealing with this special class of idiots and chronic harmless lunatics. The hon. Member was of opinion that they could not do so; but it certainly would be a great advantage if counties had such a power, so as to enable these poor creatures to be dealt with as a special and distinct class of lunatics. The advantage of classifying lunatics had been already shown in several instances. Within the last few days an application had come from Stowmarket for permission to appropriate a disused workhouse for the reception of idiots and harmless lunatics, and a similar application had been made from With am, in Essex. He had been informed, however, that these dis- used workhouses, these old bastiles, as they were called, being in some instances more than 100 years old, were utterly unfit to be appropriated to such a purpose. In reference to the possible removal of these chronic harmless lunatics to some such place as he had indicated, he should wish to allude specially to the case of those who were suffering from the peculiar form of disease technically known as senile dementia. Taking the numbers of such cases at present in the three great lunatic asylums, he found that at Hanwell, out of a total of 1,840 lunatics, only 50 females and 15 males who were suffering from this peculiar form of lunacy could be removed; at Colney Hatch, out of a total of 2,178 lunatics, 20 males and 48 females were said to be fit to be removed; and at Ban-stead, out of a total of 1,600 lunatics, some 40 males and females were said to be capable of being removed to the Metropolitan workhouses. These were cases, however, with regard to which the medical superintendent certified that great risk would be run in the removal of the lunatics, unless the greatest care were taken, and unless the workhouses to which they were removed were fitted with all the most approved appliances that scientific knowledge indicated as being necessary for their treatment. He quite agreed with the hon. Member that the mass of statutes connected with this subject required both consideration and amendment. In March of last year the late Home Secretary appointed a Committee, in the nature of, but not exclusively, a Departmental Committee, consisting of Gentlemen specially qualified by their intimate knowledge of the question to deal with it, and the subjects referred to that Committee were whether it was desirable that criminal lunatics should be separated from pauper lunatics, what special provisions should be made for the care and custody of imbecile lunatics, and whether Broadmoor had answered its purpose, or whether it was necessary to alter its constitution? It met in August, and again on the day upon which Parliament was dissolved, so that it did not arrive at any practical conclusion, and, therefore, he now proposed to re-appoint it, and to submit to it the same subjects of inquiry as before. No time would be lost in doing so, and he therefore hoped the hon. Member would be content with this proposal on his part, and would not press the Government further on the matter at a time when they had only recently come into Office, and were giving their best consideration to this large and important subject.

did not see why aged lunatics in a state of second infancy should be removed from the workhouses into the large asylums. They did not require any more attention than children who were noisy and dirty. He therefore hoped that, in the terms of Reference to the Committee, they would be empowered to inquire into and report upon the best mode of dealing with persons suffering from senile dementia.

said, he would consider the suggestion in conjunction with his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, in order, if possible, to enlarge the terms of Reference.

suggested that the Committee should not be a Departmental Committee, as proposed by the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Arthur Peel). What had been done heretofore had been unsatisfactory to the House in determining the question what should be done either with Broadmoor or criminal lunatics generally. A great deal of investigation had been made, and the result was that a Report had been presented, and the House had got the Report. [Mr. ARTHUR PEEL said, the Committee had not presented the Report.] The hon. Gentleman was quite correct as to the Committee he referred to, but not as to the Committee referred to by himself (Mr. Ramsay), the Report of which the hon. Gentleman would obtain in the Library. The Committee he referred to was a Departmental Committee, and the hon. Gentleman would be able to read and consider the Report of that Committee. He deprecated the appointment of a Departmental Committee as not being likely to give information which might be instructive to the House, or to afford reliable information regarding the mode of dealing with pauper criminals in general. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department would take into consideration what had been already done on this subject, and consider the pro- priety of extending the scope of the inquiry and having it conducted not only by officers of the various Departments, but also by hon. Members in whom the House might have confidence, and whose Report would be of value in guiding them to proper legislation on the subject when it came before the House.

said, that after the statements he had heard from the Treasury Bench he should not press his Motion to a division, as he could see he should do no good in doing so; but, at the same time, he must express a hope that the terms of Reference would be so enlarged as to include an inquiry which should cover the question of the best mode of dealing with cases of senile dementia.

said, he could say no more than that he would consult with his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, to see if the terms of Reference to the Committee could be enlarged so as to embrace the subjects mentioned.

said, that, without desiring unduly to press the Government as to the nature of the Order of Reference to the Committee, he thought it would be satisfactory to the House to learn what kind of Committee was proposed to be appointed. Was it to be an ordinary Committee, such as that moved for by his hon. Friend (Mr. Paget), or a Departmental Committee?

replied, that the Committee would be composed partly of Members of the Department of the Home Office, and partly of Members of the House who were not connected with that Department.

said, he gathered that the Committee was to be half Departmental, half Parliamentary, and he would suggest that it should include Gentlemen selected not only from the Home Office, but also from the Local Government Board. He did not wish the Government to declare themselves on the subject immediately; but if the Government thought this Hybrid Committee was the proper one to consider the matter, then let it be done; only let the Reference be of such a nature as to embrace all the subjects. If the Reference was largo, the House would be satisfied that the matter had been fully and fairly considered. The question was one of great and growing importance, and he believed the House would be very un- willing to shake the confidence of the public in the Act of 1867, or to lessen the beneficial results which had ensued from its operation. That, he feared, might be done if there was not great care exercised in sending persons to these asylums, so that this expensive machinery should not be used for cases for which it was never intended.

in rising to call attention to the multiplicity of duties in respect of different Departments that are imposed on the Ministers holding from time to time the Office of Chief Secretary for Ireland; and to move—

"That it is desirable that the Irish Law Officers, or one of them, having seats in this House, should represent in this House one or more of the numerous Departments now represented by the Chief Secretary,"

said, he wished to preface the remarks he had to make with the statement that he and those who sat with him regarded as imperfect any attempt at solving Irish difficulties which did not provide for the management of Irish affairs in Ireland; but after laying down that proposition, by way of protest, he would pass to the subject to which he desired to specially call attention. That House had certain duties, two in number, to perform. It had first to make laws and arrange institutions to administer the country, and then it had to see that the laws were properly administered, and that the institutions were carried out in such a way as to administer the laws of the country well and judiciously. He considered the second duty of the House, perhaps, to all practical intents and purposes, more important than its legislative powers. He wished to draw attention to the contrast which existed between the manner in which the discharge of the latter duty was insured in the House of Commons for England and the official manner in which Irish Business was transacted. In that House for English Business they had the Representative of the English Local Government Board; a Representative of the matters connected with English education in the person of the Vice President of the Council; they had the Home Secretary to discharge the enormous duties pertaining to his Office; and then they had the Office presided over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Clackmannan (Mr. Adam), who also undertook largo and important duties. Now, when an Englishman undertook the duties of one of those Offices, he went down and took care to learn, or at least endeavoured to, the merits of all questions likely to arise in it; he endeavoured to become acquainted with the policy of his Predecessors; if reforms were proposed, he gave his opinion as to them, arrived at after deliberation; and if reforms in his Department were necessary, he proposed them. In these English cases there was perfect Parliamentary representation, and the Minister came down to the House, not to reply to Questions by reading answers which he had received from a clerk, but to speak directly from his own knowledge derived from actual interference in the affairs of the Office. The Gentlemen who represented the English Departments had all qualified by serving as Under Secretaries, and some of them had gained their experience by holding the Office of Irish Secretary. Perhaps there was no Office that would furnish better general training; but it was rather hard upon Ireland and the Irish people that the Irish Secretary ship should be treated as a kind of apprenticeship for English statesmen, and that the one man lacking experience should generally be the Chief Secretary. Each English Department was represented, not merely by a tried Leader, but also by an Under Secretary who undertook a great portion of the work. Another important fact was that there were certain branches of English administration which were largely under the control of local authorities. That was not so to the same extent in Ireland. In England the local authorities to a large extent managed the Police Force, and they also managed educational affairs through the School Boards; but in Ireland all these matters were under the hand of the Central Government, and that Central Government, so far as administration and representation in that House were concerned, consisted of one person who had to bear the burden of all the local authorities who existed in England. Having pointed out how things stood in England, he wished to say a few words about the traditional character and capacity of the Gentlemen who were generally appointed to the Office of Chief Secretary in Ireland. He was generally an inexperienced man, and the late Mr. O'Connell had used language respecting him which he (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) would not now like to repeat. As he had said, he was generally an inexperienced man, who had never before held Office. At this moment, it was true, he was far from being an inexperienced man; but nothing showed so well the inexperience of the general run of the holders of that Office as the utter astonishment of the people of Ireland when it was announced that the Office of Chief Secretary was to be assumed by the experienced and responsible statesman who now held the position. It would be hard to say what had hitherto, in past times, been considered the qualifications for this Office. Sometimes there was no apparent qualification whatever, and sometimes one was driven to suppose that a certain hilarity of manner, or the being addicted to certain sports and pastimes which were supposed to be in accordance with Irish tastes, were the qualifications. But whatever the qualification, or absence of qualification, one person's shoulders had hitherto borne the management in that House of all Irish matters. He would now call attention to the number of those Departments, the various duties they had to perform, and the difficulties they had to contend with. The Irish Chief Secretary had, in the first place, to discharge for Ireland all the numerous and multifarious duties that fell upon a Home Secretary in regard to England. The very mention of the Home Office would call to mind very numerous and various duties; but in Ireland the duties of the Chief Secretary, acting as Home Secretary, were rendered more difficult by the fact that there were Party difficulties and agitations there which were sometimes deemed sufficiently formidable to call for the interference of the Executive. There was a multitude of peculiar circumstances that required to be watched carefully and grappled with by the Minister who had to deal with them. Take, for example, the question of education. There was a Board of National Education. It administered primary education all through Ireland, and administered it, not as the Central Board in England, with the aid of the local boards, but to all intents and purposes autocratically, and without any assistance from the various localities. They had the Local Government Board of Ireland, of which the Chief Secretary was nominally President, and to which the Chief Secretaries, no doubt, had always paid great attention, and which it would be hard to remove from their immediate sway. The duties of the Local Government Board embraced all sanitary questions; and at this moment, and for some time to come, its duties would be increased and rendered more difficult, in consequence of the carrying out of the measures for the relief of the distress. There was another Department to which he wished to draw particular attention. They had a Police Force in Ireland which in numbers, constitution, and in every other respect, was in reality an army. If they wanted to have the Force properly represented in that House, and made responsible to the House, they would want something little short of a Secretary for War for Ireland. This Department, too, was largely under the control of the Chief Secretary, and was represented by him in that House. Yet it was a Force that ought to be as thoroughly responsible to the House as the English Police Force was; but if they demanded anything like a reform of that Force, an inquiry into its internal constitution—if they laid a finger on it, they were met by a refusal to inquire into its organization. The Force had fallen into the hands of two or three officials of Dublin, probably military men, who administered it according to military traditions, and the Department was quite as free from representation in that House, and the Irish people were as devoid of any control over it, as they were over the internal management of any regiment in Her Majesty's Service. There was another matter which the Chief Secretary had to administer, and he (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) trembled when he thought of the amount of work he had to do, and the careful judgment he must tiring to bear on it, and the long, weary nights he must pass in consequence of the number of applications he must have received with regard to it. He had to manage the entire patronage of Ireland, although offices were in the gift of the Lord Lieutenant. He could only say that if there were any ratio between the duties which fell on the Irish Chief Secretary as to patronage, and the duties which fell on a popular Irish Member, as a supposed dispenser of patronage, his duties must be great indeed. Then, again, the New Royal University was constantly brought before this House, and for that institution, too, the Chief Secretary was responsible. He had also to answer for the Intermediate Education Board. There was another Board which he observed did not fall under the eyes of the Chief Secretary, and he believed the Board was utterly unrepresented in Parliament. He referred to the Irish Board of Works. The freedom of that Board from representation and responsibility in that House might be best stated by saying that it had, to use a common expression, "run to seed." The Board was out of harmony on the most critical matters with the Irish Local Government Board, and the result was that the two Boards had got quite beyond Parliamentary authority. They had answers respecting it in that House, it was true; but they were stereotyped and sent over by telegraph to the Chief Secretary. The House should have regard to the opinion of these Boards entertained by the people of Ireland. It was well known that the great body of those Boards utterly disregarded public opinion. There was another feature connected with the subject to which he would call attention. Lately, in order to get over the incapacity of the Irish Secretary with regard to Irish legislation, it had become the practice to hand over the legislative functions to the Privy Council of Ireland, which consisted largely of the Judges and some superannuated Generals. Why was the Irish Privy Council to say whether a particular law should be applied to Ireland, and keep the matter in their own hands? Chiefly because the Irish Secretary had not time or capacity to understand the questions which he was forced by his Office to take in hand. Where they had got a good Irish Secretary—which, he wished to state, with great respect to the Gentlemen who had held the Office, was not a frequent occurrence—he was soon promoted, and his place was generally taken by a Gentleman who went to Ireland to learn statesmanship. Again, the Irish Chief Secretary spent the greater part of his time over here; and they sometimes saw extraordinary results, one of which was that many times in that House during the short period in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. Forster) had held Office he had heard him say, in accordance with his well-known candour and integrity of purpose, that when he went to Ireland next he would make inquiry into the matter. He (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) knew perfectly well that that inquiry would be judiciously conducted, and that he would be as free from subordinate official influence as any person who could hold the Office; but it was not satisfactory to those who represented Ireland to find that even a man of such capacity and experience as the right hon. Gentleman was obliged to give such a reply to pressing Irish questions. A candid answer like that must be taken as an admission of the necessity of reform. It was very different from, and contrasted most favourably, to the people of Ireland with the answers which were given formerly by the late Government, which were generally to the effect that everything was in a satisfactory state in Ireland, and that it would be a pity to disturb it. He would say nothing of the jobs perpetrated in consequence of the want of responsibility. The other day, when it was urged to be necessary to increase the staff in certain Public Departments in consequence of the growth of the distress in Ireland, there was a selection of gentlemen made; and though he would not say his remark applied to all those appointed, yet he must say that some of these gentlemen could only have been appointed for their incapacity. The worst feature in the matter was that when any great and grave question came on it was impossible for the Chief Secretary, however experienced and able he might be, to give the attention and consideration which he ought to do to such questions to master them. The right hon. Gentleman who now had charge of the Office must receive scores of letters every day on all sorts of subjects. Perhaps he might hand them to the Under Secretary. At any rate, he had no doubt he gave everything his best attention; but, if he did so, how was it possible for him to cope with such great questions involving intimate and largo interests, such as the question now before him—the Irish Land Bill? It must be the case that great Imperial questions like that would suffer when associated with all the Departmental matters to which he had referred. The subject was not one of his (Mr. O'Sbaughnessy's) initiation; it was brought before the House of Commons originally by his lamented Colleague, the late Mr. Butt. He had a great belief in Parliamentary institutions; but he believed that Parliamentary institutions, whether carried out here or in Ireland, could not be really beneficial to the people unless they were made real, and the people of Ireland had yet to learn that Irish matters were subject to that House, and were not perfectly independent of it. The late Government proposed to appoint an Irish Lord of the Treasury to manage the Board of Works. There was no Irish Lord of the Treasury now, and, as far as he knew, there was no prospect of there being one, because the number of persons from whom the Ministers had to recruit their ranks was small, and was daily growing beautifully less. He had no desire that there should be any increase of officers in consequence of any reform on that question. He did not think it was desirable either that there should be any increase of offices; but, at the present time, when they had a right hon. and learned Gentleman in the House who understood legal affairs, why could he not take charge of some of the Irish Departments? He knew perfectly well from his knowledge of legal affairs that the legal transactions of the Irish Attorney General and of the Solicitor General, although, no doubt, they required some amount of attention, yet he knew that they were not of that engrossing character that those hon. and learned Gentlemen might relieve the already overburdened Chief Secretary, who had very great duties to discharge. He thought that to them might be referred the burdens of the Local Government Board. He did not know whether his suggestion would be approved of; but he knew that something of the kind must and ought to be done without further delay, if the Irish Department was really to be responsible to that House. The object of his Motion had not been so much to suggest what he moved, but really to call public attention to the matter, as he hoped he had said nothing derogatory or unbecoming to the present occupant of the Office of Chief Secretary. He believed everyone in the House would recognize to the full his capability and goodwill, and his endeavour to do what was right for Ireland. There was one feature about his appointment that was peculiarly gratifying to the people of Ireland, and that was the fact that a man of experience and tried capacity was appointed to that important Office, which was looked upon as a tardy recognition of the fact that Irish affairs were of importance to the country. But they were all the more anxious, now that a Gentleman of such distinction had been appointed to the Office, that he should be placed in a position in which he could thoroughly discharge his duties and be able to turn his attention from the thousand and one minutice which at present occupied his attention to the more grave and important matters which must come under him at the Irish Office. He begged to move the Motion which was down on the Paper in his name.

said, that, as a Representative of the Irish Conservative Party, he did not often agree with hon. Members of the Home Rule Party; but on this occasion he cordially endorsed all that had been said by the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy), as to the onerous duties which the Irish Secretary had to perform. At the same time, he could not agree that the Departments at present represented by the Chief Secretary should be represented by the Law Officers of the Crown. It would be more satisfactory to have, as was the case in England, a Secretary of State for Ireland, with an Under Secretary, as was the case in the other Departments of State. Such an arrangement would not only meet the requirements of the Irish people, but it would do away with the necessity of incurring any very great additional expense, and, at the same time, secure that the work of the Department would be efficiently performed. Nor did he think that a lawyer was the best person to discharge the duties which would devolve on a subordinate to the Chief Secretary, as, unless he had very little practice, he would not have the time at his disposal necessary for the discharge of duties. It might also happen that in some of the Departments the Law Officers representing them might have to prosecute their subordinates. That would be an objection. Another objection was that while a lawyer might be transferred from his profession to that of politics, Gentlemen who had been in that House for three or four months, and were then transferred to a Judgeship in Ireland, or some equally advantageous position, were not likely to give as much satisfaction as those who were trained for the duties of the Department, and thoroughly acquainted with the subjects they had to deal with. He rejoiced at the fact that the present occupant of the post in question was in the Cabinet. It was most important that he should be, for it would be detrimental to the best interests of Ireland if the Chief Secretary were not always a Member of the Cabinet.

Sir, with regard to the duties of the Office which I have the honour to hold, it is quite true that the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland may be considered the Home Secretary for Ireland. He is also the President of the Poor Law Board for Ireland; he is President of the Local Government Board; he must be responsible to this House for the management of the police; and he has—I wish he had not—a great deal of patronage at his disposal. He is a good deal responsible for Education, and although there are Boards of Education, so far as I know very capable Boards, and capable gentlemen on them, yet the Chief Secretary is responsible to this House for the Education of Ireland; and, for the matter of that, no Secretary would wish, nor do I think any hon. Gentleman would desire, that he should get rid of that responsibility. Responsibility must be accompanied with power to some extent; and therefore I may state that as I am responsible for the Education of Ireland, I also feel that I ought to have, as I have, some power over its management. My hon. and learned Friend (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) says there is one important Board about which he is in doubt as to whether the Irish Secretary is responsible for. I wish to limit my responsibility, and I desire to say that I am not responsible for the Board of Works, but that the Treasury is responsible for it. The Chief Secretary in London, it is perfectly true, has the assistance of the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland just as the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland has the assistance of the Chief Secretary in London; and although in Ireland it is right that we should be able to confer together, and be of great assistance to each other, yet as regards the Business of this House, in the Parliamentary Business, the great weight, of necessity, falls on the Irish Secretary, because he is in London and in Parliament during the greater part of the year. It is quite true that all these things bring very great administrative labour upon the Irish Secretary. The hon. and learned Member says it is difficult to find time for me to attend to the great questions which ought to be decided with regard to Ireland. Well, somehow or other time must be found for all those questions, for they are too pressing and too important to be neglected. We have heard a great deal as to the position of the Chief Secretary; but when I come to the remedy I do not find it exactly in the suggestion of my hon. and learned Friend. I do not for a moment wish him to suppose that the Chief Secretary does not receive great assistance from the Attorney General and the Solicitor General for Ireland. We are not making this a personal debate. If I was making it a personal debate, I should state the very great assistance I have received from my right hon. and learned Friend, and I fully expect to receive the same from the Solicitor General. But it is assistance which is useful by those two hon. and learned Gentlemen aiding the Chief Secretary to conduct all the serious business that falls upon him, and I do not think Ireland would gain by a division of the Department between the Chief Secretary and the Law Officers. The fact is we must take things as we find them, and not justify their position. I can only speak of the condition of the Office as I come into it. There is a very centralized Government in Ireland. I do not say it should be continued; but there it is, and, indeed, I do not know whether I could change it. The different offices are intertwined and united one with the other, and I do not think it would be possible for the Chief Secre- tary to hand the responsibility as to any one of those offices to either of the Law Officers. As regards the Board of Works I do not know whether I should not have less responsibility, if I was responsible to the House for it, than if I was responsible for communications to the Treasury with regard to it. The position is this—we might take these different offices, and we might so far unite Ireland with England as to say that they fell into the English or Imperial offices. We might say, for instance, that the President of the Local Government Board should be President for the two countries. We might say the same of the Home Secretary. I do not say that the Irish Members would like that; at any rate it would involve considerable change. But that state of things does not exist. The Irish Departments are so entwined, one with the other, that I do not see how a man in my position is to get rid of the responsibility of being concerned, more or less, with them all. I confess there is a good deal in the suggestion of the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Macartney), and I should be exceedingly glad if I had the assistance of Under Secretaries in this House. I think the Irish Department has so much work and so much business to do that it would be quite fair that there should be two men in the House responsible for it, to work together during the Sittings of Parliament in the management of Irish matters. If the hon. and learned Member (Mr. O'Shaughnessy), however, were to carry his Motion, I am afraid, instead of making this work easier, he would make it more difficult, by imposing on me and the Government the additional labour of finding out new machinery. We have got so much to do that we cannot change the machinery. Very much, however, of what the hon. and learned Gentleman said ought to be borne in mind both by this Government and all succeeding Governments; and if I remain in this Office any length of time, I hope I shall arrive at some sort of opinion by which things may be made easier both for the occupants of the Office and also for the Public Service. I do not like to sit down without making a few remarks about what fell from the hon. and learned Member respecting the position of an Irish Secretary generally, and in doing so I beg to acknowledge the very kind terms in which he spoke of myself as occupant of the Office. With regard to it, he alluded to the stereotyped replies from the Chief Secretary for Ireland. I think however, that, speaking for myself, hon. Members will say that I have taken some care in my replies. I have in some instances read the answers, because I thought the importance of the subjects demanded it, and because I wished to make the answer as short as possible, and wished to answer the inquiries of hon. Members to the best of my ability; but I do not mean to make a single reply in this House unless it is what I think ought to be said in reference to the subject inquired about. I think it only justice to state that I believe there is a good deal of very honest, sincere, and hard work done to the public service in Dublin itself. I have been very much struck with the industry of the Dublin Offices, the Under Secretary's, the Vice President of the Government Board, and other offices; but I only say what any other man in my position would say, being responsible to the House, that be it for good or be it for ill, I shall feel it right to take my own opinion rather than that of any subordinate, although I dare say, as between me and him, his opinion is just as likely to be good, perhaps better than mine. The hon. and learned Member said that when I went to Ireland I said I would try and find out information with respect to several matters of importance. That is quite true. I made that statement just as any one of my Colleagues might have done in the hurry and the rush of Public Business, with the full intention of making such inquiries during the Recess. I think the House will agree with me that it would show presumption and unfitness for discharging the duties of an office of importance if I were to say that I was fully familiar with all matters connected with it within a few days of taking Office. I hope that the hon. and learned Member will not proceed with his Motion. I think that as work goes I have rather more as Irish Secretary than I ought to have; but it would only be now unnecessarily adding to that work if I were to set about to see how it could be changed, and I can only say, as other Chief Secretaries have said, that I will do the best in my power while I hold the Office to serve the interests of Ireland.

said, that while he was perfectly satisfied of the thorough patriotism and devotion to the interest of Ireland of the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy), he yet must confess that he had no feeling with regard to his Motion except one of the most thorough-going opposition. The hon. and learned Member suggested that the difficulty—the almost impossible task—of the Chief Secretary for Ireland might be considerably lightened by the participation of the Law Advisers of the Crown with seats in that House. His (Mr. Donnell's) objection to thus assisting the Chief Secretary was that he should do all in his power to prevent any Attorney General or Solicitor General for Ireland from obtaining a seat in the House, inasmuch as the whole object of the Home Rule Party in Parliament was to render the functions of the Chief Secretary and of all subordinates the very reverse of permanent and enduring. It was hardly worth while to consider any change in the system short of that radical change which it was their whole object and purpose to bring about. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had fairly and practically confessed that the management of Ireland was such that the thing could not be reformed. They had got an over-centralized system, an intertwining of offices, a practically irresponsible bureaucracy. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: I did not admit that.] It would be impossible for a Chief Secretary for Ireland with the high character of the right hon. Gentleman to admit half the evils of the System which he represented. But, practically, the system was a perfectly mechanical arrangement, worked by hand in London, and it depended entirely on the good pleasure of a majority more or less ignorant of Ireland, and generally more rather than less. He did not believe it was worth while to think of improving the system of British government in Ireland. They must get rid of British government in Ireland root and branch. He stood there as a Constitutionalist. He was in favour of the unity of the Empire; but he was not in favour of the provincialization of Ireland. As one of the Irish statesmen had said at the time of the passing of the Act of Union—

"Almighty God has stamped on this country the form, the dimensions, and the proportions of an independent Kingdom, and an independent Kingdom in all essentials we are resolved Ireland shall be."

They were prepared to work with their English and Scotch co-citizens in the common defence of the common Empire; but, as far as British interference with Irish affairs was concerned, he could only say, using the famous words used by the present Prime Minister in one of his Mid Lothian speeches, when referring to another country, "Hands off." He hoped there would be an end to that system of Jacks in office in Dublin Castle telegraphing instructions to ignorant superior officers in England. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would not take it unkindly from him if he assured him that with all their appreciation of the improvement which he had introduced, they were by no means satisfied with the character of a good many of the answers which he had given. It would not, however, be fair for him to deal with that subject at present. They were in expectation of a great deal from Her Majesty's Government; and he did not think it would be prudent on their part unnecessarily to exasperate them.

said, he did not intend to make more than a few observations on this question. It was, he believed, a very important subject as regarded the means of allaying one of the mischiefs attendant on the present connection between the two countries rather than as indicating any new remedies for the evils which undoubtedly existed. The hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) had rather misunderstood a suggestion made by his hon. and learned Friend when he said that he advocated the presence of the Law Officers of the Crownin that House. He did not go so far with his hon. and learned Friend as to advocate their presence there; but merely to say that as they were there, and as they did not seem to have any ostensible employment, it might be just as well to give them something to do by handing over to them one or more of the Irish offices. He recollected that two or three years ago the Chief Secretary made a very able speech, which produced a very great impression in that House, utterly demolishing a Motion moved by the hon. Member for County Cork (Mr. Shaw), calling attention to the desirability of the restoration of the Irish Parliament, and asking for an inquiry into that subject. At that time the right hon. Gentleman did not probably know as much about Irish affairs as he now knew; but he effectually disposed of that Motion very much to his own satisfaction, at any rate, by pointing out that the consequence of that Motion would involve a change in the Constitution of this country. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman would find that a persistence in the present attempt to govern Ireland by a centralization system through Dublin Castle would involve a very much greater change in the Constitution of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland than the proposition then made by the hon. Member for Cork; and he would find also that it would be impossible, even with all the attempts at patchwork from time to time for the purpose of propping up this system of government, to persist in it for many years to come. Now they had at last a statesman as Chief Secretary for Ireland; and he was sure that the conviction would force itself upon him more and more every day that the task which he had undertaken was an impossible one, and that he would have a greater satisfaction than he had ever obtained from the administration of his Office when he handed it over to some Secretary of State chosen by the people who should sit in their own Parliament in Dublin.

explained that he did not intend to divide, for the reason that the remedy proposed was by no means perfect. His hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) had not represented him quite accurately, because the House would remember that he prefaced his remarks by saying that he was just as strongly in favour of the administration of Irish affairs by an Irish Parliament as any Member of his Party. He had been misunderstood also in regard to what he had said of the Law Officers. He had merely suggested that they should relieve this Irish Secretary while they were in the House, their experience of Law Officers proving to them that their stay in the House of Commons was not usually of a permanent character.

said, this discussion had raised a very important point; and perhaps the House, therefore, as he had had some unofficial experience in this matter, would bear with him whilst he said a word or two in order to point out what he ventured to think the position really was. It appeared to him that there was occasionally some slight misapprehension in the minds of hon. Members as to what were the Constitutional duties of the Irish Secretary, and this was constantly shown by the title which hon. Members gave him. He had noticed continually that hon. Members in putting their Questions addressed them to the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He ventured to say, with all respect, that the right hon. Gentleman was not the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He was the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The fact of the matter was that the real government of Ireland stood in this way: That the Lord Lieutenant, by the terms of his warrant, was the head of the Executive, and responsible for all the acts of the Executive Government—directly responsible for them. The Lord Lieutenant, to assist him in his work, had four Secretaries, the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, the Permanent Under Secretary, the Assistant Under Secretary, and the Lord Lieutenant's Private Secretary. These officers, with the Chancellor and the Privy Councillors, conducted the government of Ireland. The Irish Secretary, as he took it—and he offered the suggestion with great respect to the right hon. Gentleman opposite—was really the Parliamentary agent of the Irish Government; and his duty was the preparation of Bills, and the consideration of all the great subjects of Irish legislation, the presentation of those Bills to the House, and the superintendence of them while passing through the House. If the Irish Secretary was to bear the whole burden of the Irish Executive, it was a matter of course that he could not give that time and consideration to Irish legislation which he would otherwise be able to do; but the details of the Irish Executive were really left in their proper hands. The hon. and learned Member for Limerick had made a very natural complaint, that great questions connected with the real prosperity of Ireland were apt to be neglected. He could say from experience that the greatest possible inconvenience and delay arose to the Irish Government in Ireland from their having to send over to London Papers on every subject, though many might be perfectly set- tled in Dublin, and need not come over to this country at all. Of course, the result of appointing so distinguished a statesman as the right hon. Gentleman to the post of Irish Secretary was that he looked upon himself as the person solely responsible for the entire government of Ireland in every part, and the Lord Lieutenant was merely a dummy. It would be very desirable indeed if the present Government would give them any information as to what was the precise position of the Lord Lieutenant. The high position of the right hon. Gentleman, as one of the foremost men of the Liberal Party, naturally was calculated to give rise to the suspicion, particularly when the right hon. Gentleman was in the Cabinet, that the Government intended to allow the Lord Lieutenant to be let down, and ultimately, perhaps, to do away with him altogether. He had heard these suspicions mentioned in various quarters, and he thought it would be a great advantage if the Government could give them any information as to whether they were correct or not. The condition of the present Lord Lieutenant was certainly likely to be a curious one, because, though a nobleman of great rank and name, and what, was still more important, perhaps a man of great wealth, he was not a gentleman who had taken any very prominent part in public affairs. He also put this question because of a remark which had dropped from the right hon. Gentleman. He talked, if he understood him rightly, of having the responsibility of the Education Department on his hands, and having full power over that Department. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: I did not say that.] He had understood the right hon. Gentleman to make use of that expression, and that naturally led him to put his question as to what was the exact position of the present Lord Lieutenant; whether, by the terms of his warrant, as he ought to be, he was the actual responsible head of the Executive, or whether the real Executive control of Ireland was in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman?

observed, that he might very shortly say, in reply to the noble Lord, that the present position of the Lord Lieutenant was precisely the same as that which was occupied by his Predecessor, the Duke of Marlborough. The noble Lord had claimed to have an accurate knowledge of the interior mechanism of that Office; and, therefore, he could now have no difficulty in ascertaining what the exact position of the present Lord Lieutenant was. As to the argument of the noble Lord, it was obvious that if the Lord Lieutenant alone was to be directly responsible for the conduct of affairs in Ireland, and was to carry on the Government in all its various Departments, with the assistance of his four Secretaries, the great object which his hon. and learned Friend had in view, of securing increased Parliamentary responsibility, would entirely disappear. Indeed, all such responsibility would be gone; and they would then merely have a bureaucracy pure and simple. Now, whatever they might think of the particular means suggested for increasing the Parliamentary responsibility of the Irish Government, he would assure hon. Members that the Government had not the least desire to exclude Parliamentary scrutiny or responsibility from any part of their proceedings. He did not think he need carry the discussion further, except to remark that the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) hardly gave the Law Officers credit for the amount of work they had to do. If the hon. Gentleman had any spare time on his hands, and desired to occupy himself for a few hours each day, he (Mr. Law) would be exceedingly glad to avail himself of the hon. Gentleman's assistance, and would undertake to provide quite as much work for him as he would find agreeable.

merely with the desire to supplement, and not to correct, the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, wished to observe that, although in practice all matters connected with Ireland were always left in the hands of the Chief Secretary for many years past, yet the whole of the Irish Government was under the Secretary of State for the Home Department. He saw his right hon. Friend smiling; but he was arguing upon principle, not upon practice. There could be no doubt that the Home Secretary was the responsible Minister. Of course, as a matter of practice, the Government of Ireland was left in the hands of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, because he was acquainted with all the Irish questions.

said, he rose merely to express his entire concurrence in the spirit of the observations made by the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell). He was quite sure his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Limerick would not unintentionally do or say anything unpatriotic or unworthy of his position as a Member of the Irish Home Rule Party. He, for one, had no sympathy whatever with propositions for improving the machinery by which Ireland was ruled from that House. The Irish people did not desire to be ruled either well or ill by that House—they desired to be ruled by their own House, and by their own Parliament, of which they had been fraudulently deprived. At the present moment there were Petitions being tried in which allegations were brought against certain Members who had been returned to that House that they had obtained their seats by various fraudulent and false devices; but none of those devices could compare for a single moment with the infamy of the means by which the Parliament of Ireland was destroyed. Therefore, he must point out—["Order! order!"]

I must point out to the hon. Member and the House that the discussion is now travelling very wide of the Motion before the House. The Motion before the House simply relates to the functions of the Irish Law Officers. The House has since been discussing the functions of the Lord Lieutenant and the Secretary of State, while the observations of the hon. Member have now no reference whatever to the Motion.

said, he would merely observe, in conclusion, that if there was to be any division of the duties of the Chief Secretary, he would greatly prefer that the extra work should be put into other hands than those of the Irish Law Officers. For his part, he felt that the business of the Irish Members and of the Home Rule Party was not to facilitate the government of Ireland by that House.

said, he felt some difficulty in referring to the Chief Secretary after the debate which had taken place, because, while there was a difference as to his name, even his functions also seemed to be called in question, and those functions appeared to be so multifarious that the Chief Secretary himself did not seem to under stand them or to com- prehend the nature of his responsibilities. The right hon. Gentleman, admitting the important amount of responsibility on his hands, and that he was overburdened by work, used that as an argument why the work should not be taken off his hand. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: I did not say so.] He did not pretend to give the right hon. Gentleman's words, he was simply trying to present the force of his argument. That argument was simply this—"I admit all the objections made to the present condition of affairs; I admit I am overburdened; I admit that I have so much to do that it is almost impossible for one person to do it; but that is a justification for my not undertaking to reform the confusion, and to place it in different hands who might conduct it better." He thought no stronger argument could be adduced for placing some portion of those multifarious duties in other hands. He knew something of the duties of the Law Officers in England; but in Ireland the Law Officers had other mysterious duties to perform, in which they were assisted by a mysterious official called the Law Adviser to the Castle. He should like to know how those duties were distributed. He thought the Attorney General, the Solicitor General, and the Law Adviser to the Castle might so divide their work as to leave some of them time to perform a portion of the duties of the overburdened Secretary. He was quite as strongly as any of his learned Friends of opinion that Irish affairs should be placed in Irish hands; but, at the same time, he must differ from his hon. Friend the Member for Westmeath (Mr. T. D. Sullivan), and must think that as long as the responsibility of the Government of Ireland rested with that House, and as long as there were Secretaries or other functionaries who had the government in their hands, that they should perfect the machinery so as to get as much good out of it as possible. At present those who were responsible made their overwork an excuse for not doing it, and not doing more of it. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: I never said that.] Again, he must say he did not pretend to give the words used by the Chief Secretary; but he did think he apprehended his argument, and those who had listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman would be able to say whether he had misrepresented him in any way. He did not undervalue the honesty or the capacity of the present Chief Secretary; but he did agree with his hon. Friend that his duties were too multifarious for one officer, and he should be very glad indeed if they could be divided amongst other gentlemen who would be responsible for their immediate work, and able to answer for the Department which they undertook, instead of making the Chief Secretary dependent upon functionaries in Ireland, over whom the House had no control, even for the answers which they gave.

said, he had no desire to prolong the discussion, and he should have sat silent but for some remarks from the opposite side. He had not been for years connected with the Bar in Ireland, and, therefore, any observations he might make could not be imputed to him as of a personal character; but as one branch of the Irish Executive had been spoken of as occupying a sinecure office, he, as having had an opportunity of seeing men of all Parties occupying the position of Law Officers, would not allow that comment to pass by without bearing his humble testimony to the ability with which the duties were discharged, not of a sinecure office, but of one of the most important offices in the Irish Government. He maintained that those duties had been discharged with a power and eloquence and a knowledge unsurpassed by those shown by any other Members of the House; and he would say further with regard to the Law Adviser to the Castle that his duties were very different indeed from that of the Attorney and Solicitor General, and were of the greatest importance to the poorest classes in Ireland. They had in Ireland a magistracy not too well versed in law, and it was often necessary to correct their decisions and to keep them straight in their actions. Among not the least important of the duties of that officer were the duties of controlling the magistracy of Ireland in the performance of their duties.

said, he had listened with attention to the observations which had fallen from the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock, who, from his position and tenure in Ireland, might have been supposed to have a much more definite idea of the manner in which that country was governed. But the noble Lord, if his views had been fairly conveyed to him, had described a form of Government as existing in Ireland which was a complete bureaucracy. Another feature which had struck him in the course of the debate was that he, and many hon. Members near him, having listened to the utterances of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, believed that he was, to a very great extent, the person responsible to that House for the government of Ireland. But the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) had introduced to the Irish public a mysterious personage in the shape of the Home Secretary as responsible for Irish administration. He could but think that no greater revelation of English misrule had been made in recent times than was conveyed by the observations of the late Home Secretary. He (Mr. Daly) had, in common with other Irish Members, listened to the utterances of the Chief Secretary for Ireland when Irish questions were introduced in the House, and had heard him in some cases plead ignorance of facts, and in others ask time for consideration. The explanation of the late Secretary of State for the Home Department had shed a great flood of light upon the want of knowledge which existed in this country with respect to Ireland, and the question which it raised was of great importance. Did the Chief Secretary himself believe in the utterances made, or did he refer all Irish questions to that mysterious person alluded to by the late Home Secretary?

said, the hon. Member had entirely misunderstood the observations he had made. He had stated clearly that there was a Secretary of State directly responsible to the House, and that no bureaucracy could for that reason exist; but that, as a matter of practice, the Secretary of State for the Home Department never interfered in Irish Business, which was carried on by the Chief Secretary.

said, he rose to a point of Order. On the appointment of a Committee the other day, the Prime Minister informed the House that a Gentleman who made application to be heard by counsel might obtain permission from the Chairman of the Committee. He desired to know why another course had been taken on that occasion. It had seemed to him that other parties than those named might desire to. be heard by counsel before the Select Committee—the vestries, for instance, who were largely interested in the question of water supply. But the Motion of the right hon. and learned Gentleman limited the hearing by counsel to certain parties whom he had selected. He could not but think that there must be some order upon this point.

said, his desire had been to pursue the course indicated by the hon. Member. But his Predecessor in Office, the right hon. Gentleman opposite, had desired and pressed upon him that the course proposed in the Motion should be taken. The right hon. Gentleman had pressed the latter course upon him, as being the right one, so strongly that he had had no alternative but to accept it.

said, he had stated on a former occasion that the Water Companies and the Corporation of the City of London had urged that it ought to be assured to them that, if they thought fit, they should be heard by counsel, and it was upon the distinct understanding that they should be so heard that they consented to attend. But he had also pointed out to the House that there were other parties who had a right to be heard, and had named first the vestries, and, secondly, the large number of persons who were water consumers outside the area of the Metropolitan district. His opinion was that everybody who had a direct interest in the settlement of the question ought to be heard.

said, if he had rightly apprehended the complaint of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, it was, not that the parties indicated in the Motion were about to be heard by counsel, but that they were not to obtain the sanction of the Chairman of the Committee to that course. In other words, whereas in another case permission was only to be obtained by application of the Chairman of the Committee, it was in the present case moved for by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. It would seem, therefore, that the reply of the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not meet this objection of the hon. Member. He understood that it had been ruled that it was undesirable that persons having great interests at stake should be allowed to serve on Committees. If that was the case it was sufficient for him; but the necessity arose that where those interests were at stake the parties interested must be heard either by themselves or by their agents. In the present case, property worth millions of money was at stake, and was threatened by the irresponsible proceedings of the Select Committee. Under those circumstances, the parties interested were clearly entitled to an opportunity of stating their case, although the procedure might, in the present instance, have differed from that which had taken taken place with respect to another Committee. That being so, he did not think it was of very great importance whether the sanction came from the Chairman of the Committee or from the Motion of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

said, that both the Corporation of the City of London and the Water Companies had told him that unless it was understood that permission would be given to appear by counsel they would not appear at all.

said, he had been of opinion that he had no right to determine the parties to be heard; that, he thought, should be left to the Committee when they met. He had certainly desired to reserve that question; but a strong feeling had been expressed on the subject the other day, and when the right hon. Gentleman opposite told him that it was the proper course to take he accepted that view of the matter.