, in rising to move—

"That the Taxes on Carriages are exceptional in character, and injurious to trade, and should therefore be abolished,"

said, he would only detain the House for a short while, as that period of the Session was not favourable to a detailed consideration of the question. Great misapprehension prevailed as to the character of the Carriage Tax. It was commonly believed that it was a tax upon luxury, and that it was only paid by those who could well afford to do so. It was also argued that it was too small an amount to seriously affect any trade. He contested all these positions. The real fact was that the tax was not levied upon luxury, but was a tax upon the product of industry. It was the last special trade tax remaining, and was injurious to that trade, and thus affected many artizans and working men—over 26,252 being employed in that trade alone—and there were, at least, 116 collateral trades concerned by the imposition of the tax in coach-building, all of which suffered. The tax had to be paid by many to whom a carriage was not a luxury, but just as much an article of necessity as a chisel or a hammer was an article of necessity to a workman. A carriage was not a luxury to a doctor, a surveyor, or a commercial traveller. It was just as much a necessity to the members of these professions as carts were to farmers, and tools to workmen. The carriage manufacturers had no right to ask for special legislation; but they had a just claim to be put on the same footing as other trades. They had a right to demand fair play; and this they did not obtain as long as their industry was singled out for taxation, and it should be remembered that this tax was an annual tax, such as was imposed on no other trade. The Carriage Tax was the last special trade tax, the Silver Duty being the only other tax of the same kind; but that tax was only paid once, whereas this was an annual tax. All other trade taxes had been repealed. As a matter of justice, it was impossible to defend the maintenance of a tax which pressed injuriously upon a highly skilled and a most important trade. He had said that the Carriage Tax was not a tax upon a luxury. Whatever might have been the case when most travelling was done on horseback, it was evident that even to the rich the carriage was not to the same extent a luxury as formerly. Carriages were now used by medical men, clergymen, hotel-keepers, jobmasters, and others; and it was just as necessary that they should use them in the duties of their calling as the farmer should use the carts on which he did not pay duty. Even if a tax were a tax upon luxury, the House would be cautious about imposing it if it hampered or injured an important trade which if free would give employment to many additional skilled artizans; indeed, the trade taxes had been repealed for that very reason. Even if the carriage were a luxury there was no good ground for a carriage being singled out as a special article of luxury for taxation. Yachts were built with the greatest care, and fitted up with the greatest luxury, yet a yachtsman might travel all round the world without paying any taxation, while the country doctor could not go his round of two miles without having to pay a heavy tax on his carriage, very much disproportioned to its value. Billiard tables, pictures, and musical instruments were certainly articles of luxury quite as much as carriages, but these articles were rightly not taxed. Why should a carriage be especially singled out as an object for taxation? If the supporters of the tax defended it on the ground of luxury at least they should be consistent, and subject other luxuries to taxation. But they did not do this, and those interested in the carriage trade had good ground for complaining that they were not treated impartially. The tax, to a certain degree, was a tax on locomotion Steamers were not taxed; and although there was a Passenger Duty on railway it did not press with anything like the severity that the tax on carriages did Bicycles, tricycles, and train carriages were not taxed and more or less competed with the carriage building trade, and thus the tax rendered it more difficult for the coachbuilding trade to meet this competition. The tax itself was very unfairly apportioned; it was levied with total disregard either to the value of the article or to the period during which it was employed. For instance, a pony carriage of a certain size and weight paid the same tax as the State coach of the Lord Mayor, the tax often amounting to 5 per cent on the value of the carriage, and in a number of years to half, and more the half, its original cost. A carriage costing £40, supposing it to last for 10 years, during that time would have paid in taxation more than half its cost. The amount paid in tax frequently came to more than the cost of keeping the carriage in repair. A coach-builder had informed him that a brougham taken out of his yard 11 years ago cost £9 to keep it in repair, and the taxation during that time amounted to 22 guineas. Then, again, an old and ricketty carriage paid exactly the same as a new one; and if a carriage was only used for one week, it had to pay the tax for a year. If a man borrowed a carriage from the coachmaker while his own was being repaired, I had to pay duty on the borrowed carriage, thus mulcting him in double duty for what was practically the use of only one vehicle. With regard to the objection that the tax was so small that it could not affect the trade, he might say that; the annual turnover of the carriage-building trade was £2,500,000, while the amount raised by the tax was over £550,000, so that the trade was practically taxed to the amount of 20 per cent. It was evident, he thought, that no trade could really prosper under such circumstances. However surprising it might seem, there could be no doubt the existence of the tax prevented many, people from purchasing carriages. Some hon. Members had told him that but for the tax they would buy one or two more carriages than they now possessed The first economy made in an establishment was the discontinuance of the use of a carriage, and the real fact was the that tax did not fall on the rich, but the rich suited their establishment. I Ireland, where there was no Carriage Tax, many more carriages were in the hands of owners than was the case in England. In Ireland there was no inducement for a man to limit the number of his carriages, and when a carriage was partly damaged, there was no necessity to part with it. In England, how ever, when a carriage was much worn the owner did not retain it, as he was called upon still to pay duty for it, although the vehicle was unusable. This led to system of barter in the trade. The carriage dealers, when they got an order for a new carriage, always had to take an old of one in part payment. The result was that their premises were crowded with surplus stock. He had received letter from coachbuilders, one of whom said he had 150, and another 500, second-hand carriages on hand. An ordinary carriage occupied something like 60 superficial feet, and anyone could easily estimate how much ground a stock, varying from 150 to 500 carriages, would cover. Rent and rates for these premises had to b paid. The same cause that returned carriages to the coachbuilders' yard tended to keep them there, and often carriages were kept until they largely depreciated in value. This was a very serious inconvenience and loss; which would not arise if the duty were abolished. The whole system therefore, hampered and harassed most important industry. If there wet no tax, the carriage dealers would b enabled either to let these old carriage at low rates or sell them at small prices Old carriages might thus be brought into use at country railway stations and other places to the great benefit of the people If the tax were removed, there was ever reason to believe that there would be great impetus given to the trade. When ever a tax had been taken off an industry that had always been the result, and there was every reason to believe that in this instance it would be equally as great; if not greater, than in the case of other trades that had been freed from taxation. In Hungary this tax was removed a short time ago, and the carriage-building trade had revived, in consequence, to an enormous extent. One firm alone had received an order for over 400 carriages. Like results had accrued in other trades in this country. When the duties had been taken off soap, paper, and bricks, vitality had been given to each business; and there had been an immense development in all these trades after they had been freed. The parties directly interested in them had not alone been served, but the entire population had been benefited. He felt sure a like result would spring from the removal of the tax on carriages. He knew it was contended by some that as carriages wore away the roads they should contribute to the highway rates. But it was not the carriages that cut up the roads. It was the farmers' carts, waggons, traction engines, and other heavy vehicles. They did infinitely more damage to the highways than carriages did, and were not taxed as being necessary to their owners for the proper carrying on of their business; he had shown that carriages were employed by many to whom their use was a necessity. He was neither advocating nor condemning the principle of taxing vehicles generally; but if they were to be taxed at all, the most destructive should be taxed as well, and the tax should not be levied in the way it was now. The trade thankfully acknowledged the small relief the Chancellor of the Exchequer had accorded it in his Budget. But it did not affect them much. It was, however, a tacit acknowledgment that the tax was false in principle. The trade had been unusually depressed in recent years, as an illustration of which he might mention that over 14,000 carriages had been returned on the builders' hands within the last three years. That might be owing, in part, to the general depression of the times; but it was also due largely to the great increase of tramways and railways, and they were placed besides in a peculiarly disadvantageous position in comparison with other trades in consequence of special taxation. He had good authority in favour of the cause he was advocating. The tax, according to the Prime Minister, was a remnant of the stupidity of past legislation. In 1879 the right hon. Gentleman told the farmers of Mid Lothian that, in his opinion, "they should be relieved of every unjust and unnecessary restraint," and that "they were entitled to the free sale of all their produce." "And his whole argument applied to all trades they pleased to name." The senior Member for Birmingham had also expressed himself in favour of the abolition of the tax, and had stated that it was totally indefensible. The Chambers of Commerce of London, Newcastle, Bristol, Derby, Worcester, Leicester, and other places had passed resolutions in favour of the abolition of the tax. The combined Chambers, at a meeting held in London, had also passed a similar resolution. There had been upwards of 80 Petitions in favour of this Resolution. The Petitioners felt that in asking this relief from taxation they only asked for justice and fair-play, and he trusted they would not long have to ask in vain. He would only add that he pleaded for the abolition of the duty; first, because it was based on bad principles—principles that did not apply to any other trade; second, because it was a direct hindrance and injury to a skilled and highly-important industry; third, because the incidence of its imposition was inequitable and unjust in operation; and, lastly, because he believed that if it was removed it would give an impetus to trade, and be of great service to a large number of skilled artizans and working men. On these grounds, he commended the proposal to the favourable consideration of the House, and asked for it the support of the Government. The noble Lord concluded by moving the Motion which stood in his name.

said, he had much pleasure in seconding the Resolution of the noble Lord; but he was not able to add much to what the noble Lord had already said, and so well said. The case was covered by very few facts, and these facts had been so clearly put before the House, that all there was left for him to do was to compress the salient points into a few sentences, and urge the Government to give favourable consideration to the subject. The carriage trade was a highly important one. There were between 25,000 and 26,000 workmen directly employed in it, and there was a large number of others indirectly inte- rested. The annual turnover of the trade was calculated at £2,250,000, and the Carriage Tax amounted to £250,000. The amount of revenue, therefore, that the carriage business yearly contributed to the Exchequer was something like one-fifth of the turnover. This was very large, and it seriously hampered the trade, which, for several years past, had been in a very languishing condition. The depression was something more, he feared, than temporary. There were upwards of 14,000 less carriages in use now than there was a few years ago, and the trade with the Colonies and other countries was declining. He did not mean to contend that this decrease was entirely attributable to the duty; but certainly the duty was principally the cause of it. The tax itself was unsound in principle and inequitable in operation. The noble Lord had quoted the testimony of the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham against the tax. But he might have gone further, and quoted the testimony of every Chancellor of the Exchequer since the Reform Bill. All condemned taxes upon industry, and nearly all condemned taxes upon locomotion. The Carriage Duty was a tax on both. It was argued that it was too small an impost to injure the trade; but they all knew that the injury inflicted by a duty was not in proportion to its amount. Sometimes an insignificant tax inflicted considerable injury upon a trade. And that was the case in this instance. It was levied in a very offensive manner. The coachbuilders were required to keep books always open to the Revenue officers, in a way that was both annoying and troublesome. And they had to do this under a penalty of £20. When a carriage left the builder, it continued to pay the tax until it was destroyed; and the result was that when the owner of a carriage wanted a new one, he always gave the old one in part payment for the new one. As a consequence, the carriage-builders' yards were crowded with carriages which they could not dispose of. The rent and rates they were called upon to pay for the extensive premises necessary was a very heavy drain on a depressed trade. Old carriages were often kept for years, and the amount paid in shape of duty equalled the price of the article. It was incorrect to say that this was a tax upon luxury. It was a tax upon industry. It was quite true that the more sumptuous carriages were used only by the most wealthy section of the community; but there was a very large section to whom carriages were a necessary part of their stock and trade. But whether it was a tax upon luxury or upon industry, the fact was that they had abolished nearly every tax on industry except this, and it ought to go also. He knew the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not unfavourable to the proposal in principle; but, of course, it was necessary for him to raise the Revenue. All taxes were objectionable, and he recognized that it was difficult to choose whether this or some other tax should be removed; but, as far as he knew, there was no other tax that for its amount did so large a measure of injury as this one, and he claimed that it should have the first attention of the Government. But even if the tax were not abolished, it certainly might be more equitably levied. A tax upon a carriage when it was made would be better than an annual duty levied in the way this was. He appealed for the liberal and favourable consideration by the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the very reasonable request the noble Lord had made in such very felicitous terms, and in so temperate a spirit.

Amendment proposed,

To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the Taxes on Carriages are exceptional in their character, and injurious to trade, and should therefore be abolished,"—( Lord Algernon Percy, )

—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

, said, that the noble Lord and his hon. Friend had put forward clear and able arguments in very few words, and he must congratulate them on having done so. His hon. Friend had mentioned, frankly enough, the first argument which any Chancellor of the Exchequer would have to use in meeting a proposal to condemn a tax. His hon. Friend said that almost all taxes were objectionable. That was so, though in one or two cases taxes had their good side and were in themselves advantageous. But as to the great mass of taxes, whether direct or indirect, he admitted that they were in themselves, to a very large extent, evils, and it would be much better if they could do without them. There was a series of taxes—he would enumerate some of them—which had been the subject of Parliamentary debate, of a good deal of discussion outside the House, and of deputations to himself and his Predecessors, and which it was acknowledged were open to grave objections. But if the House of Commons passed a Resolution of that character as to a particular tax, it would be held to mean that that tax was to be taken first among those which were to be altered, reduced, or abolished. Now, he could not admit, so far as he was concerned, the doctrine that the Carriage Tax was so bad that it should be repealed before other taxes. He would give instances of one or two taxes which had been the subject of discussion, and which it was said ought to be repealed. They had had an interesting debate on the subject of tobacco not long since; and the argument had been put forward, not without effect, that the time had come when the 4 d. per pound imposed a few years ago might safely be taken off. It was imposed, the House was told, only as a temporary measure; and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon said, the other day, that he hoped the time would soon come when it would be possible to take it off. If the Motion of the noble Lord were carried, the tax on carriages would be taken off first. There had been no little discussion lately in the Press about the Railway Duty, and his hon. Friend behind him had a Motion to take off the rest of the duty. On that he expressed no opinion; but certainly, if the Motion of the noble Lord was carried, the Carriage Tax would have precedence of the Railway Duty. There were other taxes which had been the subject of discussion, and as to which strong representations had been made. Take, for instance, the Death Duties. He admitted there were some who thought the Death Duties might be increased; but there were others who thought that a considerable remission in the aggregate amount received ought to be conceded by the Treasury. That remission must give precedence to the Carriage Duty if the Motion of the noble Lord were carried. Then there was a strong feeling on the subject of the Marine Insurance Duty. But the repeal of the Marine Insurance Duty would have to give way, if the Motion of the noble Lord were carried; but there was a more important duty. His hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Alderman W. Lawrence) had brought several times before the House the question of the House Tax, and his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury and others had admitted that there were great anomalies in the tax, and it had been urged that in redressing them it might be necessary to sacrifice a certain amount of Revenue. But here, again, they would be unable to deal with the House Tax if this Resolution should be adopted. There was a much more important class of duties still—the duties on tea, coffee, and dried fruits, which a very large section of the House, with which he sympathized, wished to reduce or abolish. Were they to give precedence to the tax on carriages before carrying further the proposals for a free breakfast table? The tax on gold and silver plate was small, and might be expected not to stand in the way. Still, the supporters of its repeal, like those who would deal with patent medicines and the like, must be taken into account. There was another great demand affecting the power of the House to reduce taxes—namely, for aid in relief of local burdens, the charge for which must, to a large extent, whether it was direct or indirect, fall on the Exchequer. Now, was the noble Lord prepared to say that the repeal of this particular tax should take precedence of the measures for giving relief to local burdens, which, whatever form they took, must heavily burden the Exchequer? On these grounds alone, it would be impolitic in Parliament to take one particular tax for remission out of the dozen to which grave objection might be urged, and virtually call on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to deal with that particular tax before adopting any measure of relief. And now a word or two on the tax itself. Nobody would deny that, in the main, the tax fell upon the rich. There were some, no doubt, who could not avoid using carriages—professional people, for example—who might not belong to the rich or the well-to-do classes; but they bore a very small proportion of the tax. If he were to hazard a guess, he should say that about three-fourths at least of the duty was paid by the wealthy. Therefore, by that Resolution they singled out a tax, not like taxes on tea, coffee, and tobacco, which were mainly paid by the poor, but a tax which was mainly paid by the rich; and the House would declare, if it adopted the Resolution, that the first taxpayer to be relieved should be mainly the rich people in Great Britain, for in Ireland, he might remark, no Carriage Tax was paid. On that ground alone, he confessed that he should see grave objection to that Resolution. But the noble Lord said it might be true that the rich in the main paid that duty; but incidentally it fell on those who built carriages. That was true. Every tax on articles of manufacture, although it fell directly on those who had the advantage of the article produced, incidentally fell on the manufacturer, whoever he might be. But that afforded no reason why they should single out a tax that was paid mainly by the rich, merely because it incidentally touched those who were engaged in the trade of making the taxed article. The noble Lord had alluded to some incidents of the tax, and had repeated the figures given by a deputation which waited upon him some months ago. Many of these were doubtless not far wrong; but he must except those of the numbers in the trade and the annual turnover, which, he was satisfied, had not been sufficiently worked out. The turnover, he felt satisfied, was much larger than the amount that was estimated by the deputation to which he had referred, and from the report of which the noble Lord had quoted. Then the noble Lord said—"You select a particular form of locomotion for taxation; but you leave other forms of locomotion untaxed;" and he particularly mentioned railways. The railways, the noble Lord said, paid only a small tax as compared with the owners of carriages. Now, he had read that morning the report of a speech made by a great Railway Chairman, in which he alluded to the incidence of the Railway Duty, and certainly his idea of its incidence was very different from that of the noble Lord. He described it in strong language as very heavy. The produce of the Railway Passenger Duty was something over £400,000 a-year, and that of the Carriage Duty something over £550,000; so that there was no great excess in the Carriage Duty over the Railway Duty. Then the noble Lord said—"Look what a number of second-hand carriages are to be found in all the carriage-builders' shops. That is because persons who want a new carriage before their old one is worn out are driven by the tax to send the latter to the coachmaker, who has to make them an allowance for it in the price of the new carriage." Now, judging from his own experience, the price given for an old carriage was very small indeed; and he did not think the transaction was a very lucrative one for those who kept carriages. The argument was exactly the other way. But the noble Lord had referred to the state of things abroad in connection with that question. On that subject he had a good deal of conversation with the intelligent deputation which waited upon him; and he had since made inquiries as to Carriage Taxes abroad—particularly in France, the country to be compared most properly with our own. Hungary or Austria could bear no comparison with England as to the use of carriages; but in France, especially in Paris, the use of carriages almost approached that of England. Through the kindness of Lord Granville, he had obtained very full information from the French Government as to the Carriage Duties there. He was not speaking now of the municipal charges paid in Paris and other French towns for cabs and other vehicles plying for hire, which were very heavy, but of the Government tax on carriages. That tax was far larger than it was in England. In Paris the Government tax on a four-wheeled carriage was 60 francs per annum, on a two-wheeled carriage 40 francs, and on every horse 25 francs. These were the duties paid in Paris by the owners of carriages as part of the Inland Revenue. In other places in France there was a sort of sliding scale; but in Paris and in France generally the Carriage Tax was far higher than in this country. The state of things in France was far more burdensome on carriage owners than it was here; and yet in France he had heard of no complaint of the large number of second-hand carriages accumulated in the hands of the coachmakers. The fact was, carriages were not the only second-hand articles that accumulated in the hands of the makers. The owners of pianofortes often preferred, after using them a certain time, to send them back into the hands of the maker, and get new instruments; but there was no tax on pianos. That practice in regard to carriages was not the consequence of the tax at all, but the consequence of the habits of the country. He did not think that the smallness of the increase in the number of carriages kept from year to year, as the noble Lord supposed, had practically anything to do with the duty. In point of fact, those who kept carriages had largely benefited by recent legislation. The repeal of the Horse Duty and the abolition of turnpikes had been a great relief to them; but those measures had not led to more carriages and horses being used. Therefore, he could not see that the Carriage Duty had the effect which the noble Lord supposed. The tax constituted a very trifling percentage in the cost of keeping a carriage, and could not be called burdensome to those who had to pay it; and for these reasons he trusted that the House would not adopt the Resolution of the noble Lord.

said, he thought that the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer raised an issue altogether foreign to the point raised by the noble Lord. The Motion said that that tax was exceptional in its character and injurious to the interests of a particular trade. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told them that there was a series of taxes open to grave objection, among them being the duty on tobacco, the Tea Duty, the Railway Duty, the Marine Insurance Duty; and he asked whether the Carriage Duty ought to have the precedence over those taxes? Now he would point out that that was the only annual tax on a useful manufactured article in this country. Moreover, there were not only some 26,000 skilled artizans directly interested in that trade; but a vast number of collateral trades depended on the success and the excellence of the work which those 26,000 skilled artizans were employed in perfecting; and he maintained that that tax being very injurious to trade ought to be abolished. A deputation had waited on the right hon. Gentleman a short time ago in connection with this subject. He had given that deputation, he believed, encouragement; but it was a remark- able fact that in addition to that deputation the Chambers of Commerce throughout the country had dealt with the question. He found on inquiry that the Chambers of Commerce of London, Bristol, Derby, Newcastle, Worcester, and Leicester had all passed resolutions in favour of the remission of this tax. Besides these Bodies very important meetings at Bath and Manchester had dealt with the question; and, as had been pointed out, even the Prime Minister himself had advocated some years ago the remission of this tax. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had acknowledged that the complaint of the deputation was well founded. The trade said that the overturn of their business in the year was £2,500,000; the amount of tax it had to pay to the Chancellor of the Exchequer was about £545,000 a-year. He asked the House, therefore, whether the subject was not worthy of consideration? The right hon. Gentleman had said that the tax was one which fell mostly upon the rich. This was a great mistake. Everyone knew that in commercial and industrial districts, where there was hardly any resident gentry, the carriage became almost an article of livelihood to the neighbourhood. He thought there was great force in the Motion of the noble Lord, and, he hoped the House would not put it aside merely upon the assertion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that there were so many other taxes which ought to be considered, and that this tax on carriages ought not to have the preference.

said, he did not agree with the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken that the manufacturers of carriages paid this tax. He recognized that the tax fell mainly on the rich; but the manner in which it operated against the manufacturers of carriages was to cause the rich people to keep a smaller number of carriages in consequence of the tax. If they freed the trade of this tax, therefore, they would give an impetus to it, and create a larger demand for carriages. There were two ways of looking at the question—first, as a tax upon a luxury, and next as a tax upon industry. So far as the tax was a tax upon luxury paid for by the rich, he approved of it. It was a good tax. So far as it acted as a restraint upon an important manufac- ture he disapproved of it; it was a bad tax. What the House had to consider was whether it did more good in the one direction or more harm in the other. After fully considering the matter for some years, he confessed his opinion was that the tax did more harm in restraining a trade than it did good as a tax upon luxury; and he thought, therefore, the tax ought as soon as possible to be abolished. The Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted that it was not a good tax—at least, he mildly condemned it; and his answer was practically that he could not afford to take it off, because there were a number of other taxes which competed for his attention when he had any surplus to dispose of. There were, for example, the Tobacco Duty, the Railway Duty, the Death Duties, local burdens, marine insurance, and the duty on gold and silver plate. He (Mr. Anderson) had on previous occasions advocated the taking off of the Marine Insurance Duty and the duty on gold and silver plate, because he thought those duties were in restraint of a manufacturing industry. He maintained, therefore, that the taxes on gold and silver plate, marine insurance, and on carriages were directly in restraint of manufacturing industry, and ought to be taken off. The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the Tea and Coffee Duties. He had before now advocated the reduction of those duties; and what he complained of was that while the right hon. Gentleman condemned a great many taxes and said they were bad and ought to be taken off, he did not avail himself of his opportunities to take them off when he could. The right hon. Gentleman had this year no less a sum than £5,000,000 dropping into his hands by the expiry of Terminable Annuities. Why could not the right hon. Gentleman have used some part of that surplus in removing these most objectionable taxes. That could have been done, and a large part of the sum used for the reduction of the Debt. Instead of doing that the right hon. Gentleman kept on all these objectionable taxes, however bad they might be, in order that he might use the whole amount of the expired Terminable Annuities to make a great flourish about the reduction of the Debt, Instead of relieving the present generation of manufacturers and taxpayers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer threw the relief on to some future generation, about which they knew nothing at all. There was another way in which the right hon. Gentleman might make a very considerable amount of money that would help him a good deal. He was glad the proposal to issue bogus half-sovereigns had been dropped. If the right hon. Gentleman, instead of issuing bogus half-sovereigns, would issue a reasonable quantity of paper money—both £1 notes and 10 s. notes—the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the country also would obtain great benefit. The right hon. Gentleman had missed one golden opportunity for removing these taxes, and it was impossible to say when he would find another.

said, he did not think the tax affected the coachbuilder to anything like the extent which had been stated. He looked upon the tax as strictly a rich man's tax, and therefore it was one of the best taxes in use. He believed that no man who could afford to keep a carriage was deterred from doing so by this impost. A reference had been made to the Tea and Coffee Duties; but what, he asked, was the actual comparison between the old woman who drank tea and the old gentleman who rode in his carriage? The old woman paid 100 per cent on every pound of tea she drank, while the Carriage Tax only amounted to 2 or 3 per cent. The working man, too, paid a duty of 600 to 700 per cent on his tobacco. If the question were pressed to a Division he would vote against the Motion.

expressed a hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would see his way to abolishing the Passenger Duty, which affected far more people than the Carriage Tax. He (Mr. F. Buxton) was in favour of the abolition of all duties on locomotion; but if the effect of passing this Resolution were to be to abolish the Carriage Duty rather than the Railway Passenger Duty, he must vote against the Motion of the noble Lord.

said, he thought the grievance of the carriage makers was more fancied than real. He did not believe that it affected the carriage industry. No doubt there was stagnation in the trade, but there was depression all over the country, and carriages being a luxury were naturally one of the first things that people gave up. There were many taxes that the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to have taken the opportunity before now of abolishing or reducing, instead of indulging in an heroic plan for the reduction of the National Debt. He agreed with the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was doing rather too much for posterity in his endeavours to reduce the interest on the National Debt. He thought there was no case to be urged for the abolition of the Carriage Taxes in comparison with the claims of tea and tobacco. Tea was consumed to an enormous extent, and the duty on it was disproportionately large. He would urge that it was to the advantage of the country, consumers, producers, and taxpayers, that we should lessen the proportion of indirect taxation, and go to the more scientific principle of direct taxation. That system would be far preferable to the present crude and unjust system of levying taxes not in proportion to the ability to pay, but on the amount of the article actually consumed.

said, he did not consider that the Carriage Tax seriously affected an important industry. It was a tax paid by those who used the vehicles, and its effect upon the manufacturers, he thought, must be very infinitesimal. As a Local Taxation Reformer, he considered it to be a tax that should be transferred from Imperial to Local Authority. Upon the removal of the turnpike gates the Chambers of Agriculture strongly urged that the horse and vehicle tax should be so transferred; but, unfortunately, one of the first acts done by the late Government was to repeal the Horse Tax, although that repeal was comparatively unasked for; and the overburdened ratepayers had their burden most seriously increased, the gates being removed without any equitable provision being made for the future maintenance of the roads. And now an attempt was made to obtain a further repeal, and that of a tax yielding upwards of £500,000 annually, and that, too, a tax borne principally by the wealthy. He (Mr. Duckham) hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would consider the cry of the heavily taxed urban and rural ratepayers. They had been promised substantial relief. The transference of Imperial taxes had been shadowed forth by the Government as the source from whence to expect that relief; but he failed to see how that promise could be carried into effect if such taxes were frittered away.

said, he did not think the Chancellor of the Exchequer had met the real question—namely, that that tax was the only existing tax upon industry. The interests of this country were suffering in every direction; and though hon. Members had spoken of the other classes who were suffering from an excess of taxation, it had been forgotten that those taxes affected the whole section of citizens, whereas the Carriage Tax was put upon a class who were also subject to other taxes. He had never heard that the rich scrupled to pay the tax; but there was a very strong feeling on the part of those engaged in the trade, on the part of a large number of workmen who were struggling for their living, that the tax being the only one which pressed on industry and labour was one which ought to be repealed at the earliest possible moment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had avoided that question, and had never alluded to the exceptional nature of the tax, that it was one dealing entirely with labour, and therefore essentially different from other taxes. On those grounds he should support the Motion of his noble Friend.

Question put.

The House divided: —Ayes 93; Noes 38: Majority 55.—(Div. List, No. 183.)

Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

, in whose name the following Notice stood upon the Paper:—

"To call attention to the procedure in this House with respect to Bills brought from the House of Peers; and to move the following Resolution;—'That all Bills brought from the House of Peers be read the first time by announcement from the Chair, and that one clear day at the least intervene between the first and second readings of such Bills. That this Resolution be a Standing Order of this House,'"

said, there was, in the procedure of the House, an evil with regard to Bills brought from the Lords, and that was that they were read a first time as a matter of course. A Bill might be brought down one evening, read a first time, and the very next morning might be down for second reading. With regard to the first part of his Resolution, an improvement had been made in the practice, because Mr. Speaker had been careful to announce from the Chair Bills coming from the Lords; and, therefore, the first evil seemed to have been remedied. What he would ask, however, was that, when a Bill came down from the Lords, Notice of that fact might be put upon the Papers distributed to Members in the morning. The Prime Minister, who always spoke of the majority in that House as a thing to be regarded as sacred, was in the habit of characterizing a majority of the House of Lords as a mere majority or a sheer majority. Although the Forms of the House would prevent him from moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice, he trusted that, as he had on a former occasion withdrawn his Notice on this subject to facilitate progress being made with the Franchise Bill, the Prime Minister would give him an assurance that he would give the matter his favourable consideration.

I beg to assure the hon. and learned Member that I retain a full recollection of his courtesy on a former occasion in allowing us to proceed with other matters, and I hope that a recollection of such Parliamentary goodwill will not easily be effaced from my mind. I am afraid, however, that I should fail in my duty if I were to permit a grateful recollection of that courtesy and of my obligation to the hon. and learned Member to give a bias to my view of the merits of any particular question; and, therefore, I feel bound to look at his proposition in a spirit of rigid impartiality, and in the result I cannot say that I regard it altogether with favour. In dealing with this question we must fall back upon the principle which men necessarily apply to a great portion of the transactions of this life, which is not to make an alteration in an established Rule without good cause being shown. The hon. and learned Member seeks to introduce an exception into the established proceed- ings of this House, and I must presume that in practice the Rule which he seeks to alter has been found convenient; and neither my Colleagues nor myself have ever heard that any inconvenience has arisen from the mode of procedure adopted by this House in reference to Bills coming down to us from the House of Lords. That mode of procedure simply implies the existence of a certain amount of courtesy between the two Houses of Parliament, and that the fact that a measure has passed through one of the Houses of the Legislature affords a presumption favourable to a Bill, not as regards its merits, but merely that it should receive an early introduction into the other. That is a principle which I regard as being reasonable in itself; and if we were to depart from it, it might possibly follow that counter projects "elsewhere" might diminish the facilities which Bills coming from this House receive "elsewhere." The difference between the practice as regards a Bill originally introduced into this House and a Bill coming down from the House of Lords is that the latter Bill gains a single day, in consequence of its having passed through the House of Lords by reason of no Notice of the intention to move for leave to introduce it being required. I do not see how any more limited privilege can be accorded to a measure coming down to us from the House of Lords if there is to be any privilege at all in the matter. But then the hon. and learned Gentleman puts forward another argument derived from the half-past 12 o'clock Rule. He says that the indulgence accorded to Bills coming from the House of Lords prevents the sweeping application of that Rule. Perhaps I do not take so high a view of that Rule as the hon. and learned Gentleman does. I am not a decided opponent of it by any means; but the hon. and learned Gentleman seems to idealize and to worship it, and to be desirous of elevating it into the Magna Charta of Parliament. He appears to think that it is a principle of such wide scope and so consecrated in its character that on no account must anything be allowed to limit its application to any measure to which it is capable of being applied. I must say that I am not able to accompany the hon. and learned Member in his view of the matter. The amount of the hon. and learned Gen- tleman's grievance is that, in consequence of the system adopted in regard to Bills coming from the House of Lords, the blocking of such Bills cannot be made applicable to the second reading if the Bill goes forward de die in diem, except in the single case where the Member has not happened to perceive the announcement of the introduction of the Bill. I admit that very often a Member may not be present, or the announcement of the Bill may take place, as it does sometimes, at the close of the proceedings, in which case he loses the opportunity of blocking Bills on the second reading. But what does that amount to? The hon. Member may, if he thinks fit, block the Bills at their Committee stage——

That is not enough.

That exactly illustrates what I was just saying. The hon. and learned Gentleman's enthusiasm on this subject is well calculated to inspire sympathy; but we must be upon our guard against the too great indulgence of that kind of sympathy; and, on the whole, I think that the hon. and learned Member ought to rest content with his power of blocking these Bills at their Committee stage, if by chance the fact of the announcement of their introduction has escaped his vigilance. Upon these grounds I feel bound to say that I cannot concur in the proposal of the hon. and learned Member.

, who had given Notice of his intention to call attention to the advance of Russia in Central Asia, with the view of moving a Resolution to the effect that the advance of Russia to Merv and Sarakhs endangers the safety of Herat, threatens the independence and integrity of Afghanistan, and is deserving of the most serious consideration of Her Majesty's Government, said, that there were many reasons why he should not proceed with his Resolution. In the first place, the House being occupied with things near at hand would pay no attention to matters which were occurring at a distance. He was not one of those who held that the British lion should go growling about the world, wagging its tail, and seeking matters of quarrel on every side; but, at the same time, he conceived that where this coun- try really possessed interests, the British lion should let it be generally known that he was prepared to defend them. In the next place, he believed that at length the Indian Government had become alive to the importance of this question, and that the policy of masterly inactivity, or, as he should rather say, of dastardly inactivity, which they had followed with regard to it had come to an end. As he believed that the Government of India were now alive to the importance of this question, he should be content to leave it in their hands until next Session.

said, that he could assure the hon. Gentleman that he was not wrong in supposing that the Government of India were fully alive to the importance of the matter referred to; and after that assurance he hoped the hon. Gentleman would not further press it upon the attention of the House.

, who had a Motion on the Paper in the following terms:—

"That, in the opinion of this House, the action of the Local Government Board in Ireland in neglecting to hold an inquiry into the charges made against the Returning Officer of Newry Union is most unsatisfactory,"

rose to call attention to the subject. He complained that he and his colleague were not allowed to inspect the voting papers, which were inspected at an advanced hour. The Returning Officer did not show the smallest favour to himself (Mr. Small) or his colleagues at the late election; but, on the contrary, showed the most unfair partizanship towards their opponents. They applied, on the 31st March last, to the Local Government Board for an inquiry into the charges which they had preferred; but notwithstanding all their efforts that inquiry had never yet been held, although the result of it had been to deprive them of their seats. They had not obtained the smallest satisfaction. The entire majority of the Board of the Newry Union had been changed at the election; and, although they had made charges against the Returning Officer, not the smallest notice had been taken of it. They had repeatedly specified these charges; but all their complaints had been of no avail. The Returning Officer had, on the occasion of the scrutiny of the votes in the Division, showed the most marked animus against himself and his colleagues, and said three days before that he knew what the result of the election would be. He and his colleagues had been told that at the scrutiny of the votes there had occurred what was very seldom done in the country—namely, the counting in of the votes of political friends and the rejection of the votes of those who did not happen to be political friends. It was, considering all these allegations, a most extraordinary thing that the Local Government Board would not grant an inquiry, or even send down an Inspector in order to investigate the matter. He would not ask the Chief Secretary to prejudge the matter; but he would ask him, as President of the Local Government Board in Ireland, to have an inquiry granted into these charges.

said, he had read the very voluminous Papers in this case, and he should say that they appeared to him to bear in a very marked manner on the events of the past few days. He was impressed by the reading of the documents with the enormous advantage to the public at large of the proposals contained in the Poor Law Guardians (Ireland) Bill, which was unfortunately rejected in "another place" last night. He was quite satisfied that the great abuses, the enormous waste of time of the Local Government Board, and the extreme uncertainty of the law relating to claims to vote at Poor Law elections would be obviated, and thoroughly obviated, by that Bill. The whole process of election was in an unsatisfactory state. When the election approached, instead of having a register of electors, it was left to a clerk to settle who should vote. Then voting papers were left at houses to be filled up in circumstances which lent themselves, in a most remarkable degree, to fraud. It was impossible that an election could be quite fairly conducted on such methods as those. Then it was not satisfactory that the inquiring into questions arising out of elections should rest with an Inspector of the Local Government Board, which was not a judicial, but an administrative body. He regretted very much indeed, therefore, that a Bill which proposed to establish an excellent tribunal—namely, the County Court, to hear disputes arising out of these elections—a tribunal to which no objection had been raised there or in "another place"—had been so summarily rejected; and he foresaw that, as a result of that rejection, they would have to again enter into a wilderness of mutual recrimination and mutual distrust, and go on with labours that were simply Herculean when every election of Guardians arose. But, in the present case, he did not think, on such an examination of the Papers as he had been able to make, that the charge of personal animus against the Returning Officer had been made out. That officer, so far as he could judge, was a painstaking man, who had done his best in the circumstances. He was not, however, satisfied that the question of the return of the Guardians had been satisfactorily ascertained. He was much struck by the magnitude of the contest, and the narrow margin of majority by which it was decided. On the whole, he had come to the conclusion that an inquiry from head-quarters ought to be instituted into the conduct of the election, although he could not then specify what would be the exact character of the inquiry. He trusted, however, that no personal charges would be brought forward, unless really substantial grounds for such charges could be furnished. The personal charges, in this instance, appeared to him to be somewhat frivolous in their nature. ["Oh!"] He was of that opinion after having carefully read the Papers. He should communicate with the Local Government Board in order to see what course should be taken. Poor Law inquiries were not so easy as the hon. Member seemed to think, and the Inspectors at present had their time fully occupied.

said, he was unacquainted with the particular case in question; but so many complaints were made of a similar character, that it seemed evident that the present system required amendment. The election of Mr. Farrell, of Edenderry Union, had been conducted in an equally unsatisfactory manner. Votes had been received from persons on a property qualification who had really possessed no property in the neighbourhood. If the Chief Secretary admitted that injustice existed, it was his duty to see that justice was done. Was he prepared to use the powers invested in him?

said, he hoped that some Inspector of experience would be sent down to Newry to hold the inquiry, as questions of great difficulty would arise, and that there would be no delay in dealing with the matter.

said, that many ratepayers were deprived of the right of voting at Poor Law elections simply because they were not at home at the time the policeman called with the papers. He had received a letter on this matter from the County Carlow, where it appeared that persons, who had not received voting papers on the days appointed for distributing them, applied to the Clerk of the Union for them, but were told that the police of the district had already sent papers to all voters. It afterwards turned out that the police had called at the houses, but that, not finding anyone there, they brought back the papers, so that some of these persons had no opportunity of voting.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

, who had given Notice that he would call attention to the course pursued by the Crown in the case of the Tubbercurry prisoners; and to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, the practices growing in Ireland, of delaying magisterial action in criminal cases by repeated remands, and of postponing, by adjournment of trials, the right of the accused to have his case decided by a jury, are unconstitutional, and prejudicial to the interests of justice, and therefore ought to be discontinued,"

said, he had grievous ground of complaint against the Legal Officers of the Crown. Several months had passed away since these 11 men, who were connected with the county he had the honour to represent, were arrested by the police and thrown into prison. They were all persons of respectability. The gravity of the charges against them—treasonfelony and conspiracy to murder—made it the more important that they should be speedily brought to trial, What course did the police pursue? They began, and continued from week to week, an unconstitutional system of private remands in gaol; and when attention was called by him in that House to that proceeding, they resorted to a system of eight-day remands in public, doling out the evidence on each occasion in driblets. It appeared quite plain that the Crown was acting not so much from a sense that they had evidence in their possession to entitle them to get a committal, as from a hope that chance circumstances would enable them to eke out their case. A promise was at length made on behalf of the Crown that these men should be tried at the next ensuing Sligo Assizes. That promise was not fulfilled, and he was informed the other day by the Solicitor General that an application was made by the Crown to postpone the trial, and that it was granted. In the report of what took place, he found it stated that a circular, appealing for funds in aid of the defence of the prisoners, had been distributed in the County of Sligo, and that the document was calculated to interfere with the fairness of the trial. He quite admitted that the circular indicated a strong feeling on the part of those who sent it out; but he desired to point out that it was dated the 16th of June, and that the Attorney General for Ireland might have used the power he had of changing the venue some weeks before the date fixed for the Sligo Assizes. The application to postpone the trial was not made until the last moment, and the result was that some of the men had to be detained in prison for a further period. He had to-day received a letter from one of these unfortunate men, who was a Poor Law Guardian, and occupied a respectable position in Tubbercurry. He had now been in prison four months, separated from his family, his business ruined, his health impaired. Writing from prison on the 23rd instant, he said—

"I have seen the Solicitor General's reply to your question. The appeal he referred to appeared immediately after we were sent for trial seven weeks ago, and we never heard a word about it interfering with our trial until we were put into the dock last Saturday. Was there not time enough during these seven weeks to have the venue changed? But was it not one of those flimsy excuses the Crown resort to in cases like this? I believe they are ashamed to bring us to trial on the evidence."

Three of the prisoners were charged with treason—felony and conspiracy to murder; but, notwithstanding that serious charge, they were admitted to bail in the sum of £25 each. That fact, in his opinion, showed the real character of the case, and indicated that the Crown had no hope of obtaining a conviction. The men were anxious to be brought to trial, and they were confident that they would be able to prove their innocence. The general opinion in Sligo was that the informer in this case was a person of such a character that it would be an injustice to keep a dog one hour in a kennel upon his oath. It was neither reasonable nor constitutional to arrest men, and then find a reason for keeping them in prison. No man ought to be arrested without reasonable evidence having been obtained beforehand against him. He protested against the system under which these men were kept in prison for months together without being brought to trial. This whole system was a scandal. There was nothing in the present condition of Ireland to justify it. The country was now peaceable and law-abiding, and this sinister and vindictive method of prosecution ought to be abandoned by the Government. As Representative of the county to which these prisoners belonged, he deemed it his duty solemnly to call upon the Solicitor General to place these men in the dock without delay, and to produce his evidence against them.

said, he extremely regretted that the Tubbercurry prisoners were not tried at the last Sligo Assizes. When they were first brought before the magistrates, he himself gave directions that there should be as few remands as possible. In a case of this kind, however, it was obvious that there should be remands from time to time, and it was considered desirable that the whole of the evidence should be produced before the prisoners were committed for trial. The men were charged with conspiring to murder an official of Tubbercurry Workhouse, and also with treason-felony. He would not comment upon the case beyond saying that the charge was a very serious one, and that there was primâ facie evidence against the 12 men in question. It was the desire of the Crown that the prisoners should be tried at the Sligo Assizes, and the Attorney General for Ireland went down for the purpose of conducting the prosecution. A document, however, had been circulated, dated the 16th of June, among the special jurors who were to try the men, and he was of opinion that the Attorney General was right in the conclusion at which he arrived—namely, that that document would affect the fairness of the trial. The document said that the only crime of the accused men was undying attachment to their country, that their liberty had been bartered away for lucre; and it contained the strongest reflections upon their accusers. The District Inspector made an affidavit that that document had been widely circulated among the class of special jurors, some of whom would have to try the case, and that a widespread feeling existed among them that their lives would not be safe if they were to convict. Therefore, an application was made, but with the greatest reluctance, for the postponement of the trial, and the learned Judge consented to post-pone it. The hon. Member said that three of the prisoners had been admitted to bail. That was because the Attorney General, as the trial was to be postponed, out of a kindly feeling, consented that they should be allowed out on bail. [Mr. SEXTON: £25 bail.] Surely the hon. Gentleman could not complain that the bail was so small. He was informed that the Attorney General would consider whether he could not let out more. It was never intended that the prisoners should remain in gaol until the March Assizes. The trial would take place about the 1st of October, so that they would be left in gaol only for two months more.

said, that he had read the proceedings, and he was surprised that the learned Judge should have agreed to the postponement of the trial on so flimsy a pretext. The circular was not issued by the prisoners; it was an appeal to raise a fair trial fund; and it furnished no grounds whatever for depriving the men of their right to be tried in their own district by people among whom they had spent their lives, and by whom the informers also were well known—probably too well known in the opinion of the Crown officials. The issue of the circular was no reason why the men should be taken off to Dublin, far from their own residences, to be tried by jurors prejudiced by appeals daily made to them by the English Press to convict and hang those who came before them. If there was intimidation involved in the issue of the circular it was not within the control of the prisoners in any respect whatever. Why was not Mr. Devine, who put his name to it, proceeded against under the Intimidation Clauses of the Prevention of Crime Act, or why was he not punished by the Judge, with the enormous powers he possessed, for contempt of Court? Instead of that the cause of the prisoners was prejudiced and their prospects imperilled. He had taken a special interest in this case from the beginning, particularly in connection with the arrest of one of his constituents—Mr. Fitzgerald—whom he had known for years. He (Mr. Parnell) had come to the conclusion that it was a "fishing" prosecution. All the proceedings had been dictated by a desire to get further evidence, which, in all probability, did not exist in a case which was bound to break down in present circumstances. The Prime Minister, when the Prevention of Crime Act was passing, promised that no proceedings should be taken against persons on stale charges of treason-felony, and it was upon that condition that the Irish Members modified their opposition to the clauses. But after the Irish Members had been forcibly driven from the House, other and different clauses were brought forward. Mr. Fitzgerald had been arrested, and would be tried upon as stale a charge of treason-felony as ever entered the head of an Attorney or a Solicitor General. He protested against the action of the Government in this case, which was bringing law and order into contempt. In the district of Tubbercurry crime had ceased; it had ceased in Sligo, and nearly all through the country. He would ask the Chief Secretary whether it was desirable to go on in such circumstances with a case against respectable men on the testimony of the most abandoned informers that could be collected throughout the country? The district was now, and had been for some time past, perfectly safe; but these people were bandied about from place to place and from week to week, and their trial delayed. Nothing could be more injudicious and foolish on the part of the Government than the venomous way in which prisoners were persecuted, and he hoped they might hear that the Chief Secretary would consider the whole question of bail. Persons having a stake in the country ought clearly to be allowed out on bail, so that they might return to their avocations and to that breadwinning which their families stood so much in need of.

called attention to the conviction of the policeman Muldowney, and pointed out the fact that the policemen present in Court all declared him innocent. Equally, in his opinion, had other innocent people been convicted and hanged in Ireland. In no other country in the world, he believed, would a case be trumped up on the evidence of a man who had, first of all, got seven years' penal servitude for highway robbery, then 12 years' penal servitude for an attempt upon the life of Mr. Justice Lawson in the streets of Dublin, and then penal servitude for life for complicity in the Phœnix Park murders. Great injustice was also done by the Irish authorities by delaying the trial of prisoners. They were thus prevented from proving their innocence, because their witnesses often left the country and could not be called when their trial at length was called on.

said, he was astonished at the action of the Government in these trials. It had been stated in the House that they had no intention of postponing them to any subsequent Assizes; and what reliance could be placed upon any assurance of the Government or Ministers of the Crown after this pledge had been broken? They were to be kept in gaol seven months longer. He thought that no better training could be had for a Solicitor General or a Chief Secretary for Ireland than a few months in gaol, and a little oakum picking, in order that they might realize what unfortunate prisoners had to endure through their neglect. He wondered how the Chief Secretary would like having to spend the next three months in a cell 8 feet by 5 feet in extent. He ventured to think that if he had a little experience of that kind he would have more commiseration for unfortunate prisoners remanded from week to week and month to month at the quibble of some lawyer, and in spite of Constitutional practice. Now, they were to be transferred to Dublin, in order to be tried by grand jurors of the class of the gentlemen now in Kilmain- ham awaiting trial for unnatural offences. The Crown would have no difficulty in a county where there were at least 100 magistrates like Sligo in packing a jury of 12 men and true, excluding every Catholic, or even fair-minded Protestant. No Catholic prisoner against whom the Crown had any animus had a chance of getting off. What was the pretence for postponing the trial until October? Plenty of other Assizes were going on in the country. Why must Government rely upon the tainted jurors of the City of Dublin? Were they to be told that there was no body of men to be trusted except the corrupt jurors of Dublin, against some of whom the Government had been obliged to bring most frightful charges? This continual reliance upon the City of Dublin bore, to his (Mr. Healy's) mind, a very extraordinary complexion. The Freemasons met in their offices in Dublin, and decided who should be acquitted and who should be hanged. James Ellis French had been made Prime Mason on the very day that the charge was brought against him by the hon. Member for Mallow. It should be remembered that the organization of Freemasonry, as it existed in Ireland, was imbued with political virus, and was not to be compared with the order of English Freemasonry. Were Irishmen to be subjected to indictments sworn, for anything they knew, in these secret Lodges on the night before a trial? That secret body controlled verdicts. Delaney had been arraigned for attacking Judge Lawson and for other serious offences, and yet there was no objection to his being brought forward as a Government witness; and one would have thought that a living Chief Secretary would have hesitated before making use of man as a witness on behalf of the Crown who had been convicted of the murder of the right hon. Gentleman's Predecessor. In no other country in the world had there been an instance in which a Government had availed themselves of such testimony. By a careful process of picking and choosing the Government might succeed in getting 12 men of a class who would believe any story which the Crown might choose to tell them. But the children and friends of the men whom the Government unjustly hanged and imprisoned would yet constitute a form of danger to the Government of Ireland and to the peace and order of the country. He (Mr. Healy) did not say he approved of it; but retaliation would assuredly come, and would throw the country into turmoil and disorder. The Government were doing their best to bring about that state of things. A trial was to take place in Belfast on Monday. The plaintiff was Mr. George Bolton. Evidence was requisite, and that very day he understood the Government had again placed themselves in partizanship with men of Bolton's class. He had here a telegram detailing how the solicitor and detective of his hon. Friend the Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) had been to-day arrested in Dublin. He should read the telegram to the House, and ask why the Government lent their policemen to Bolton any more than to French? ["Question!"] If that ignorant Gentleman on the Ministerial side understood his business he would perceive that the Question was that the Speaker do leave the Chair. He trusted he should be free from interruptions for the remainder of his address. He had here a telegram from Mr. Chance with regard to his arrest, and if the Government spared him from the interruptions of their ardent supporters he would read it—

"Meiklejohn and I went to see Alice Carroll, a witness re Bolton, to-day. While talking to her mother, Constables 79 D and 149 D entered, and requested us to go to the station (a polite way of saying 'We arrest you'). I asked upon what charge. Constable 79 D replied being there for unlawful purposes (exactly the charge made by Head Constables Cottingham and Irwin against Meiklejohn in regard to French). The constable said, 'I must take you into custody' This they did. Both constables refused to make any charge. Alice Carroll and her mother were asked by the police to make a charge. They refused. We were brought to the North Circular Road Station, and interrogated. I required the charge to be be entered. Both constables refused to make any. No warrant was shown or produced. This deprives us of important evidence against Bolton."

Now, when the Government, which had not hesitated to enlist its detectives on behalf of French, were likewise throwing its ægis over Bolton, the chaste and virtuous, he wanted to know what guarantee was there for fair play or law and order in Ireland? They had got two of their police constables to obstruct the solicitor for Mr. William O'Brien, and to prevent him getting evidence against one of the Crown prosecutors. Was such a thing ever heard of before? What did English Members say to that? They were told there was trumped-up evidence in the case of French. The Government were now relying upon that "trumped-up evidence." It was upon "trumped-up evidence" that the re-porters were being excluded from the Police Court in Dublin, because, he presumed, French wanted to "round" upon Colonel Hillier and other high officials; yet the Government to-day had sent two constables to arrest Mr. Chance and Mr. Meiklejohn because they were getting up evidence against Bolton. Matters were coming to a serious pass in Ireland. They had the Government, on one hand, changing venues and arresting innocent men, delaying trials for months, and visiting prisoners in their cells; and, upon the other hand, using the same machinery to shield Bolton, the swindler and forger, whom they persisted in keeping in their employment. What were they to think of such a Government? They said they were anxious to convict criminals. If so, why would they not put Bolton on his trial? And, above all, why did they use Government machinery to obstruct the obtaining of evidence against them? There never was a more flagrant instance of the use of the machinery of Dublin Castle than these arrests to-day for the purpose of preventing justice being done in the Bolton case. Whatever the verdict in this case now, it would go forth to the world that the Constabulary of Dublin, under the advice of the Chief Secretary, had been employed to prevent witnesses being brought forward. When they found the circumstances he had mentioned, they were entitled to say that this thing in Ireland which was called the Government was simply a prostitution, which was not entitled to any respect from any honest man, but which ought to be covered with scorn and shame by every man who had the interest of his country and his race at heart.

I can only speak now by the indulgence of the House. I rise simply for the purpose of saying that the hon. Gentleman, before stating that what has been done in Dublin to-day was done at the instigation of the Chief Secretary, ought to have asked me whether that was so?

What I said was this. After what occurred in French's case, after Cottingham and Irwin had been used by the Government on behalf of French to prevent the witnesses of Mr. O'Brien coming forward, I did not believe that these constables would have acted except at the direct instigation of high officials of whom the Chief Secretary is the Head.

I will not dispute the words of the hon. Member. The hon. Member has left the impression upon the House that he believed this was done by my orders. I know nothing about it. I was not aware whether Mr. Chance and Mr. Meiklejohn were in Dublin or Belfast, or where they were, or what connection with this case they had. I do not enter into these minute points in legal cases. I do not think it is the business of the Chief Secretary of Ireland to do so, as it is not of the Home Secretary in this country. If the police have exceeded their duty, I will ascertain that after due inquiry, and I will see that proper means are taken that they shall not do so again. I will look into the case, and do what is just and right in the matter. If the story turns out to be incorrect, of course, there will be an end of the case. I have no further observation to make, except this—that I agree generally with the views put forward by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland; and I would remind the hon. Member who introduced this discussion of his assurance that the Attorney General was considering at this moment whether two more of the Tubbercurry prisoners could not be let out on bail.

remarked, that when the Government arrested these men they had no idea of the charge they were about to bring against them, but trusted entirely to chance. The witnesses against them were of the lowest class; and no credence ought to be given to their evidence as against that of respectable persons. He hoped these men would either be unconditionally released, or be brought to trial at once. Mr. Fitzgerald, one of the men charged, happened to be one of his constituents; and he was convinced that the Government only arrested him because he was a troublesome person whom they were determined to get rid of at any cost.

Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

said, the law as it now stood provided that no child should be sent to a reformatory school unless it had been previously convicted by magistrates. He believed he was correct in saying or supposing that there was some disposition on the part of the Government in favour of a change of the law in this respect. He (Mr. Warton) believed there was a general feeling that there ought to be some change in the law; that there ought to be some reformatory or other to which children could be sent who had not proper homes, and who had not become criminals in the strict sense of the word.

said, he quite agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) that it was very desirable that a child could be sent to a reformatory without first of all being sent to prison. He was, however, not aware that there was any proposal now before the House to obviate that, though it was very desirable such a proposal should be made. He had no doubt that when the Report of the Commissioners who sat upon industrial and reformatory schools was being considered, this question would be considered along with others.

asked whether, under the Industrial Schools Act, it would be possible to make grants to those schools which had been formed for the sake of taking in children of the same class and character which supplied the present industrial schools, but destined to train children for emigration to the Colonies? He thought that the making of grants to those schools would be one of the most useful ways in which money could be spent; and, on the whole, it would be a most economical way. He knew that what he suggested would meet with the approval of the Colonial agents and other persons connected with the Colonies. He would be glad to know whether, if the Government thought it was not possible to make the grants under the present Act, they would consider the advisability of making some alteration in the law by which grants could be made?

said, that under the present law it was not possible to make grants to the schools established for the purpose the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Rankin) had indicated. It was no doubt a very desirable object, and might be considered when a reconsideration of the subject took place. He would take care the matter was considered by the Home Office during the Recess.

said, he did not know whether the same system with regard to industrial schools prevailed in England as they had to complain of in Ireland. The system was practically this—that before a child could go to an industrial school he must place himself in the position of a criminal; before a child could be got into an industrial school in Ireland it must first be proved before a magistrate that he had been seen begging, for instance. The system was abused to such an extent that a child was very often sent into the streets to beg by those who were interested in his removal to an industrial school.

called the attention of the hon. Gentleman to the fact that Ireland was not included in this Vote.

said, he had no desire to discuss the custom in Ireland; but simply wished to ask the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hibbert) if the system in this country was the same as that in Ireland? If it was he intended to move for its abolition.

said, the system was very much the same in England as in Ireland. It was not necessary that in all cases a child should be sent on the streets to beg before it could be sent to an industrial school. There were many reasons why a child should be sent to an industrial school, and no doubt one of the reasons was that it should be found begging in the streets. That was one way of getting a child out of the hands of parents who did not behave properly to it. There were many instances in which, in consequence of the neglect of the parents, it was to the interest of children that they should be sent to some industrial school.

said, he was not referring to the case of children whom it was necessary to take away from the charge of negligent parents; but he was referring to cases of frequent occurrence where children had no parents or guardians able to provide for them. He had known the magistrates refuse to admit orphan children to industrial schools until they had been found begging in the streets. He regarded that as a great grievance, and one which required a remedy. Possibly the law was a desirable one where it became necessary to take children out of the charge of negligent parents; but, in the case of orphans, it was really leading children into hypocrisy at the very commencement of life, to send them into the streets to beg in order that they might, therefore, be sent to an industrial school. Surely such children might be admitted without their first of all committing some criminal act.

assured the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Harrington) the subject should be fully considered.

Vote agreed to.

(2.) £19,772, to complete the sum for the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.

said, he had a question to ask which seemed to him to be one of considerable importance. There was a large increase in the number of patients provided for this year—namely, 550 against 515 last year. The increase was thus very nearly 7 per cent. He would like to know to what cause the increase was to be attributed? They were told that, upon the whole, crime was on the decrease; and, therefore, it was well they should be told whether the increase in the number of criminal lunatics arose from any increasing tendency on the part of the Judges and others to agree with what might be called the medical, rather than the legal, theory of insanity. There was no disguising the fact that lawyers and doctors had been at variance with regard to the theory of insanity. It was quite possible that a man might know that what he did was wrong, and yet not be morally responsible for his actions. The only other question he had to ask was, whether it was expected that any difference would be made in the expenses of the Broadmoor Asylum owing to the operation of any Bill which might now be before the House, and which had been introduced in consequence of the recommendation of the Committee that investigated this subject?

said, the increase in the number of patients at Broadmoor arose very much from the fact that no criminal lunatics were now sent to licensed houses; and he thought the Committee would agree that it was very desirable no more criminal lunatics should be sent to houses of that character. Another reason of the increase was that strong representations were made by the Local Authorities against the practice of sending dangerous criminal lunatics to county and borough asylums. More criminals of that class, therefore, were now confined at Broadmoor. With regard to the second question of the hon. and learned Gentleman, he was bound to say that if the Criminal Lunatics Bill became law, there would be a considerable increase of the Vote, because the Bill relieved the Local Authorities of very considerable burdens they had at the present time. The matter had been very fully considered by a Departmental Committee. They went fully into the question, and recommended a change to meet the views of the Local Authorities. Of course, the alteration would not come into operation just yet, so it was not necessary to make any provision for it in the present Estimates. Perhaps it might be necessary to provide for the additional expense by a Supplementary Estimate, which would be submitted, not in the present Session, but later on in the year.

Vote agreed to.

(3.) Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £38,801, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Lord Advocate's Department, and others, connected with Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, including certain Allowances under the Act 15 and 16 Vic. c. 83:"

said, that this Vote included the salaries of the Procurators Fiscal. He had some time ago brought forward the anomalies, and worse than anomalies, of the existing system with regard to Public Prosecutors in Scotland. Since then a number of new cases had come into his hands. For instance, the Chief Constable of an important burgh complained that the Procurator Fiscal of that burgh refused, in a case which the Chief Constable considered most clear, to prosecute a man who was his private client. He (Dr. Cameron) was not going to enter into cases of this kind; but since he brought his Motion before the House, the Crofters' Commission had reported in favour of the proposition he then made; and he would now ask the Government whether they would be prepared to carry out the recommendations of that Commission, and forbid Procurators Fiscal in Scotland to act as agents in private cases, or as land agents? Unless he got a satisfactory answer with regard to the case of the Procurator Fiscal of Dumfries, he should move to reduce the Vote by £670, which was the amount of his salary. Some time ago a young man in Dumfries applied for a licence, but the licence was refused by the magistrates on the ground that he was under 21 years of age; but they told him that if he overcame that difficulty by living for another six months they would probably grant him a certificate. In the meantime, he went to the Excise, and got permission to carry on a public-house without a certificate or licence. The law provided that a penalty of £500 should be imposed on any official of the Crown who permitted liquor to be sold without a licence; but when he mentioned this matter in the House, the Secretary to the Treasury lightly suggested that he (Dr. Cameron) might enrich himself by recovering that amount. He had no ambition to figure as a common informer; and he thought the best course was to move a reduction of the Vote, and allow the country to profit, not by £500, but by £670, which was the amount of the salary of the Public Prosecutor, whose business it was to enforce the law, and who had not enforced it in this case. The law distinctly laid down that any person shebeening in Scotland should be prosecuted. Recently, in Glasgow, some extraordinary arrests for shebeening were made; but at the very time these arrests were being made in Glasgow the Lord Advocate was allowing shebeening to take place in Dumfries with perfect equanimity. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate had perfect confidence in the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney), and said that if the Excise Authorities had not seen fit to interfere he did not see how he was called upon to do so. However great might be the iniquity of the Excise Authorities, who seemed to do almost anything for money, he held that the Lord Advocate, as the Head of the Department which had to administer justice, was bound to obey and to administer the law; and it was no excuse for him to appeal to the Secretary to the Treasury. What he (Dr. Cameron) and others wanted was to see the law properly administered in these matters by the Lord Advocate and the Procurators Fiscal. Numerous instances had come under his notice in which the law had not been enforced by these officials. He had taken one case, in which there was no room for quibbling, and he asked the Lord Advocate why he had failed to put the law in operation in that case, and why he allowed shebeening to go on for six months even? For the purpose of bringing the matter to an issue, he moved to reduce the Vote by £670, being the amount of the salary of the Procurator Fiscal of Dumfries.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £38,131, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Lord Advocate's Department, and others, connected with Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, including certain Allowances under the Act 15 and 16 Vic. c. 83."—( Dr. Cameron. )

said, he understood that the case to which the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) referred, was one which he brought under the notice of the House on two previous occasions by way of Question. If he (the Lord Advocate) recollected aright, it related to a hotel or inn called the "Ship" Hotel, at Dumfries. The facts, as far as they were present to his mind, were that the application for licence had been made in the usual way, when it appeared that, on the ground of minority, or some similar ground, the Licensing Magistrates did not feel that at that moment they should grant the licence to the applicant, but they unanimously recommended that the matter should be kept in a state of suspense, and, he thought, indicated that when the next licensing period came round they would grant the licence, they were so well satisfied of all the qualifications being possessed by the applicant. The point then came to be what course the Revenue authorities should follow—whether they should treat this as a case of what his hon. Friend (Dr. Cameron) had called "shebeening," which he (the Lord Advocate) did not at all admit to be a correct description; or whether they had not the power to consider that, in the circumstances of a particular case it was intended to meet, it would not be an act of oppression to apply a stringent law? The Revenue authorities came to the conclusion that it would be stretching the law to put in force the power of suing for penalties in such a case. In that state of matters, he apprehended that the Procurator Fiscal was guilty of no neglect of duty—on the contrary, that he would have been guilty of something like improper meddlesomeness in a Revenue matter if, when the authorities who were more directly charged with the conduct of the Department said they considered this was not a proper case for a prosecution, it not being one, in their opinion, in which a statutory offence against the Inland Revenue had been committed, he had presumed to override the Department, and, against their directions and wish, instituted a prosecution. He (the Lord Advocate) was perfectly willing to leave it to the judgment of the House whether the Procurator Fiscal so acting was guilty of any wrong; or whether, where the Licensing Magistrates and the Department charged with the matter considered that it would not have been a right use of the statutory powers to apply them in such a case, there was anything blameworthy on the part of the Procurator Fiscal? As regarded the more general request which his hon. Friend (Dr. Cameron) had raised, and which he brought under the notice of the House on a previous occasion, he (the Lord Advocate) had nothing to add to what he then said. He then explained the plan on which the present Government, at all events, had been acting with regard to the appointment of Procurator Fiscals. His hon. Friend, he was afraid, forgot that this was a matter that stood on the Statute Law of the country. Pro- curators Fiscal were not appointed by the Government, but under an Act of Parliament only six or seven years old, by the Sheriff, and all the Home Secretary had to do was to give his assent or withhold it; in fact, he had a power of veto, but not a power of appointment. It was not an element in the qualification for a Procurator Fiscalship that the person should not engage in private practice. He knew that was a point as to which there was great difference of opinion. He was perfectly familiar with the recommendations, by no means unanimous, of the Crofters' Commission on the point. Anyone who had read and studied the Report must have been struck with certain weighty observations made by a very respectable and eminent Member of the House on that point. That hon. Gentleman called attention to the fact that it was only by some large interpretation of the Reference to the Commission that the Committee took cognizance of such matters as law and justice at all. He (the Lord Advocate) welcomed anything that came from that Commission; but, at the same time, he was not aware that the Commission took evidence on the point that they called before them those who were best qualified to give an opinion upon it; and it was impossible for anyone ho was familiar with the course of inquiry into this branch of the administration of law to forget that a very influential Commission, composed of distinguished lawyers of the two countries, of chief magistrates of various burghs, of conveners of a number of counties, and of many of the most eminent and best informed laymen, reported so lately as 1871 against the restriction of Procurators Fiscal from private practice. That matter was now under the consideration of the Government, like all the other points in the Report of the Crofters' Commission; but he was not prepared, until the matter had been fully matured, to say that the Government would legislate against the recommendations of a Commission appointed to inquire into Law and Justice in Scotland because of the recommendations of another Commission, before which the matter had come only incidentally. The Government had always gone on the principle of seeing that the private duties of an official should never be allowed to come in collision with his public duties.

said, he did not consider the answer of the Lord Advocate was at all satisfactory. He should like to know whether the man to whom his hon. Friend (Dr. Cameron) referred was selling drink illegally or not? If the man was selling drink illegally, who ought to see he did not continue to do so? He (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) asked this question, because whenever anybody in the House got up and tried to amend the law relating to the sale of drink, it was said—"Oh, the great thing is to carry out efficiently the laws that you have."

said, that, as put by his hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), there was a charming simplicity about the question, and he supposed the hon. Baronet wished a "Yes" or a "No" to it. This person was selling drink without a licence; but the licensing authority recommended that he should not be interfered with, and practically promised he should have a licence; and the Department of the Government charged with the administration of the matter said that the circumstances were not such as to warrant a prosecution. As to who was responsible, he should perhaps say that the Department was responsible. Whether they were right or wrong, he left the House to judge. It rather seemed to him that the suggestion involved in the question was, that if anybody was to be prosecuted it should not be the man, but somebody connected with the Department.

said, he was rather disappointed at the answer of the Lord Advocate with regard to Procurators Fiscal. The right hon. and learned Gentleman always showed a disposition to throw in their faces the fact that several years ago a Commission upon Law and Justice reported that the position of Procurators Fiscal should remain as it was; but the Lord Advocate must recollect that there was a very considerable minority in that Commission in favour of the change. In the recent Commission on the Highlands and Islands, five out of six Commissioners were perfectly unanimous for the change. Some years ago this question was brought to a Division in the House; and among those who voted for limiting the duties of Procurators Fiscal, were five Members of the present Administration, including the Secretary to the Treasury, the Home Secretary, and the Judge Advocate General. That Division took place years after the Commission, to which the Lord Advocate referred, reported. The Vote under consideration included the expenses of the whole of the administration of justice in Scotland, both civil and criminal; and, as he understood that the Lord Advocate was responsible for that administration, he wished to bring before the Committee two points—one affecting criminal and the other affecting civil law in Scotland. With reference to criminal administration, the Lord Advocate was assisted in his duties by four Advocates-Depute, appointed mainly, as commonly reported, for political services. Be that as it might, he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman for an explanation of a very extraordinary case which recently occurred in the High Court of Justiciary. The parties accused of serious offences, from the counties of Orkney and Shetland, were obliged to appear in Edinburgh.

I must point out to the hon. Member, that although he is in Order in discussing any part of the present Vote at the present moment, he is not in Order in anticipating the next Vote, which includes the Court of Justiciary.

said, he was about to refer to the action of one of the Advocates-Depute whose salary was included in the present Vote. He was informed that in a recent case a great number of witnesses came up from the remote Islands of Orkney and Shetland—some for the Crown, and some for the prisoner. When the case was called, an objection was stated on behalf of the prisoner to the relevancy of the indictment. The Judges threw out the libel very summarily, indulging in some plain observations on its construction; and the consequence was that the whole matter fell to the ground, and that a great deal of expense fell upon the Crown and inconvenience upon the prisoner. He also understood that it was not an uncommon occurrence for criminal indictments framed by this Advocate to be cast; and, therefore, he should like to receive some explanation of the matter from the Lord Advocate. The next point to which he wished to refer was connected with Sheriff Courts. The Lord Advocate was aware, no doubt, that the question of double Sheriffships had been frequently brought before Parliament. It was complained by many persons that there was great expense and delay, and he was obliged, with great hesitation, to bring his own county (Inverness) before the attention of the Lord Advocate. He held in his hand a letter just received, with regard to his own county, in which the writer said—

"The state of our local Sheriff Court has become intolerable, and calls for immediate attention on the part of those at head-quarters. The Sheriff cannot be got to decide the cases before him, and most of the cases in Court are lying at avisandum —some of them for one year. This causes a great loss to the parties."

Some years ago there used to be complaints that in the Supreme Courts of Scotland there were considerable delays but of late years the despatch of the business in those Courts had been satisfactory. But with regard to the other Courts, where double Sheriffships prevailed, delays were becoming greater and greater.

said, there could be no doubt that the selling of beer without a licence was clearly an illegal act. It was an illegal act under the Statute, and if an act were illegal, it could not be made legal by the Department condoning it. He would like a further explanation of this matter, because he understood it was one of the functions of a Procurator Fiscal to prosecute whenever an illegal act was committed. With regard to the complaint made by his hon. Friend (Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh) of dilatoriness on the part of the Sheriff of Inverness, he was bound to say that if there had been any dilatoriness, it, no doubt, arose from the circumstance, which was within his own knowledge, that the gentleman in question had been for several months in an indifferent state of health.

said, one point struck him as being rather peculiar in connection with this Vote. The Committee would observe a discrepancy in line 3 of Page 253, which, he thought, ought to be explained or removed from the Estimate. He perceived that the First Clerk to the Crown Agent had a minimum salary of £500 a-year, and a maximum salary of £650, rising to that amount by an annual increment of £25. Now, the amount voted for this official last year was the minimum salary of £500, whereas the amount asked for this year was the maximum sum of £650. He should like to know how the amount of £125 paid in excess was accounted for?

said, if there were no other reasons for the amount of salary asked for in this case than appeared on the face of the Estimate, the charge would, of course, be open to objection but the gentleman who now occupied the position of First Clerk to the Crown Agent, did so with very great advantage to the public, and when, about six months ago, there was a re-arrangement in the Office, it was deemed right to make this addition to his salary.

said the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not accounted for the excess.

said, with respect to the points raised by the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh), he did not know on what authority or evidence he had arrived at the conclusion that the Advocates-Depute were appointed for political reasons, and not because of their fitness for the office. His experience of these gentlemen was that they were exceedingly well qualified for their office and during the time he had held his present position, he had uniformly received from them the most devoted and valuable assistance in the duties of the Office. He hoped the hon. Member for Inverness did not want to cast any imputation upon them in respect of the manner in which they discharged their duties. The hon. Member had not indicated the particular Advocate-Depute to whom he referred but he seemed to be under the impression that it was ground for complaint against a public official, that an indictment which he had framed or supported was found to be irrelevant—a thing which happened when the matter set out did not sustain a valid criminal charge. It must be evident to all concerned in the administration of the law in this country and in Scotland that there were very many acts which it was difficult to bring under the category of any particular crime. There was, consequently, great difficulty and nicety in framing an indictment, and indictments were often found irrelevant upon strictly technical rules of construc- tion; acts had been committed which it would be a misfortune not to make the subjects of criminal charges, but with respect to which it was found on strict examination that an indictment would not hold. That was what hon. Members would see in the public Press every day, and he was satisfied that the mere fact of a particular charge having failed, was by no means evidence of any incompetence or carelessness on the part of those who were concerned in its preparation. He did not think his hon. Friend alleged that there was anything of that nature involved in this question; but he clearly appeared to think that the fact of the indictment having failed, constituted ground of complaint. However, he felt sure that, on reflection, his hon. Friend would feel that it was not so, and that it would appear to him that there was no ground for the suggestion which it seemed to him (the Lord Advocate) he was ready to make. With regard to the Sheriff Courts, the hon. Member had raised a question which everyone acquainted with the administration of the law in Scotland knew to be a very vexed and difficult one—that was to say, the question of double Sheriffship, and with regard to it he was compelled to differ from the view taken by his hon. Friend. But his hon. Friend must see that it was a very large question, and one involving many considerations, and with which Her Majesty's Government had no power to deal without an Act of Parliament. He quite agreed that there were many matters connected with the administration and with the framework of the judicial system which did admit of remedy, and if there were more Parliamentary time, he thought such remedial legislation would be a very fitting subject to take up. But at the present time the double Sheriffship did exist; and although he could not say he was particularly favourable to it himself, still it was a point on which there was considerable divergence of opinion. But he did not see, looking at the present state of Public Business, that Her Majesty's Government had any means of making immediate proposals to Parliament on the subject. Again, his hon. Friend had read a letter which seemed to reflect on the Sheriff-Principal of the county of Inverness. He could only say that he had known that gentleman for many years—since the time he (the Lord Ad- vocate) came to the Bar, and previously—and he had never, until that time, heard any suggestion made against him of the nature which he understood to be implied by the statement of his hon. Friend. The delay alleged in this case was perfectly new to him; he had never heard of it before; and having known the gentleman in question for so many years, it was not what he should have expected, nor was he prepared to accept it on a mere passage from a letter which, in his judgment, was insufficient to sustain a complaint of this kind. If there existed any ground for the complaint made, and if the allegation was made in a formal manner, the matter would be investigated. For his own part, he had no doubt that an explanation would be forthcoming of the delay which might have occurred. He was bound to add his belief that the Committee would not expect him to say more than this, having, as he had already pointed out, full knowledge of the personal character of this gentleman, as well as the devotion with which he had discharged his duties. There was no doubt that the Sheriff Courts in Scotland had been generally very efficiently administered, and he did not think there had been much delay in the transaction of their business, although there might, of course, have been some in special cases. He believed that they had shared in the spirit of despatch which his hon. Friend admitted to have very largely pervaded the Supreme Courts during recent years.

said, the Lord Advocate had told the Committee that the proposal of the Crofters' Commission, with regard to the form of appointment of Procurators Fiscal, was under consideration by Her Majesty's Government, upon which he would remark that the proposal had been under consideration for a long time, and that it would be, in his opinion, considerably longer before anything was done to give effect to it. When the Conservatives came into Office, the Lord Advocate would, probably, be ready to deal with the matter, and he would be found, no doubt, supported by the Secretary to the Treasury, the Home Secretary, the Judge Advocate General and others, who would have nothing to say to it when they sat on that side of the House. With regard to the licensing question which had been raised, it appeared to him that the Government acted on the principle on which "Messrs. Spenlow and Jorkins" conducted their business. Deputations innumerable came up to London to see the Lord Advocate. They were received with the utmost politeness; they were assured that nothing was more at the heart of the Government than the carrying out of the legislation thought to be necessary; that none more bitterly deplored the present state of things; and that none were more anxious to give effect to the heart-felt desires of those persons who wished to free themselves from this curse of drink. Thus, the deputation afterwards went a way satisfied for the time being. But, to return to his illustration, it was found that "Mr. Spenlow was perfectly willing that the law should be given effect to, but—there is Mr. Jorkins!" And Mr. Jorkins, in this instance, was personified by the Secretary to the Treasury. Of course, he and his hon. Friends could not carry out the law; it was the business of Parliament to make laws and when a law was made with the most deliberate intention by Parliament, it was the business of the Government to administer that law. The Government were very ready in making promises to the supporters of the Permissive Bill; but it appeared to him that, in this instance, they had been a Permissive Bill unto themselves, having granted this licence in spite of all they could have done to prevent it. On that account, he should take a Division on his Amendment for the reduction of the Vote.

said, he did not agree with hon. Gentlemen from Scotland opposite, because he believed there was a very wide difference between the case of the individual in question and that of the shebeen man. The difference was that whereas the shebeen man sold liquor without any licence whatever, this individual had received permission to sell liquor. Under those circumstances he did not think he ought to be prosecuted. He was a man who went to the authorities and asked for a licence, and it was said they refused to give him the licence—if so, it was a great shame—but the Excise Department took no steps to interfere with his selling liquor. Therefore, he could not support the Motion of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) for the reduction of the Vote by the amount of the salary of the Procurator Fiscal of Dum- fries. He observed on Page 254 of the Estimates a charge of £1,100 for the Sheriff of Lanarkshire for salaries of criminal officers in Glasgow. He also observed that there was no Vote under this head last year, and, therefore, he would like to know what this new charge was for, and what were the functions of the so-called criminal officers in Glasgow?

said, the question of the hon. Member for Ennis (Mr. Kenny) was very fairly raised on this Vote, and the explanation was simply this—that formerly these officers were paid by fees, but latterly every opportunity which presented itself for commuting those fees for fixed salaries had been availed of, and the consequence was the present charge for the salaries of criminal officers at Glasgow. The alteration was one which he believed the Committee would approve.

said, as the Committee could get no satisfaction out of the Lord Advocate, they might, perhaps, get something out of the Secretary to the Treasury. He would be glad to hear whether that hon. Gentleman approved this breaking of the Law of Excise at Dumfries? His hon. Friends and himself did not want to divide on the Motion of the hon. Member for Glasgow, if they could get an assurance that the law would be carried out. His hon. Friend had told the Committee that this sort of thing was perpetually coming up in Scotland. [The LORD ADVOCATE dissented.] The Lord Advocate shook his head, which showed that he had a bad case. The way the authorities had dealt with the licence in this case reminded him of the old barrel that used to be kept until the heir came of age. The Lord Advocate would only allow the licence to be used when this individual had reached the age of 21. However, he relied much on the Secretary to the Treasury to clear up the difficulty. He desired to put two questions. Was it legal for this young man to be selling drink at the present time? If not, who was responsible for his not being prosecuted?

said, the position taken up by the Government seemed to be that when a young man came of age he should have a licence to sell liquor, and that before he came of age he should have every opportunity of breaking the law. [The LORD ADVOCATE dissented.] The Lord Advocate shook his head, as much as to say that the matter was a very simple one. But a principle of importance was involved, and he should have thought that the state of affairs which had been disclosed would be insupportable in Scotland after the statement of the Lord Advocate. For his own part, he could not see why his hon. Friends on those Benches should be called upon to lower their flag at all; he thought they were bound to go to a Division, otherwise they would be parties to this lax administration of the law. If this young man were to be allowed to sell liquor for profit without a licence, he would like to know where the matter would end. He was bound to say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had, by his statement on this question, laid himself open to considerable comment. It was of such a character that he hoped his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) would divide the Committee on his Motion.

said, with regard to the payment of the Procurators Fiscal by fees, that he should have expected the Estimate would show exactly the amount of fees in excess of the amounts asked for last year.

pointed out that, in consequence of the present arrangement, the salaries appeared as diminishing, and the fees as increasing.

said, that if the case at Dumfries were exceptional, he thought it might be passed over; but if it were not, the matter assumed a very different form, and it was most important that some steps should be taken.

said, it was only right to say that his information about this case had come to him exclusively in reply to his inquiries. The case had never been reported to his Department, and he knew nothing about it until, in consequence of Questions in that House, he caused inquiries to be made, with the result stated. That information he had laid before the Committee. He never knew another case like it. He had nothing whatever to do with licences, or the supervision of publicans, or anybody else.

said, he was not at all aware that this was a customary case; he looked upon it, on the contrary, as distinctly abnormal. With respect to the observations of the hon. Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), the hon. Baronet knew perfectly well that he was not responsible for the administration of the Law of Licence. He was responsible, to a certain extent, for the collection of the money paid for licences.

said, he could assure the Committee that this was not an exceptional case; he should, therefore, go to a Division on his Amendment as a protest against the acquiescence of the legal authorities in the infraction of the law. Last year he had asked Questions with regard to three similar cases in Fraserburgh; and this year, also, he had asked a Question with regard to a case of the kind at Bellshill. Nor were these all the cases that had been brought to his attention, although he had not thought it necessary to make every one of them the subject of a Question in that House. They were of far more frequent occurrence than might be supposed, in spite of the elaborate system of Rules laid down to prevent the sale of liquor without licence; and he felt bound to express his regret and surprise that the Questions he had put in that House had made so little impression upon the Members of the Government to whom they were addressed.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 19; Noes 58: Majority 39.—(Div. List, No. 184.)

Original Question put, and agreed to.

(4.) Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £42,657, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Courts of Law and Justice in Scotland, and other Legal Charges."

said, he desired to have an explanation from the Lord Advocate of one item in this Vote—namely, £350 for the Deputy Keeper of the Signet. Some 20 years ago, a professional man in Edinburgh of great practice was appointed Keeper of the Register of Sasines. This appointment was considered so objectionable, in view of the great private practice of the person appointed, that in the year 1868 an Act of Parliament was passed regulating the registration of writs in Scotland, and by Section 20 of the 30 & 31 Vict. c. 64, it was declared that when the office of Keeper of the Register of Sasines became vacant, the next person appointed should hold no other place, either by himself or by deputy. Now, a few years ago, on the death of the holder of the office of the Deputy Keeper of the Signet, a new appointment was made; and who was the person appointed? The House would be surprised to hear that the very individual was appointed who, by the Act of 1868, was declared, inferentially, not to be a suitable person. He understood the patronage of the office rested with the Lord Clerk Register, and not with the Crown; but he wished to know whether, seeing that the Act of 1868 showed that the person who held the office of Keeper of the Register of Sasines had occupation enough to do to keep that office alone, and that some years afterwards he was selected for a second post—he wished to know whether the Lord Advocate or the Crown did, or did not, make any objection to the appointment of this official, and whether or not it was competent now for them to refuse to pay any salary for the service?

said, he was not aware that the Crown either did or could make any objection to this appointment; and he could only say that, even if it had been in the power of the Crown to make any such objection, if the case had been represented to him he should have advised the Crown not to make it, because the Act referred to did not relate to this matter, but pointed to cases where difference of opinion existed, and provided that, in future, holders of the office of Keeper of the Register of Sasines should not be engaged in private practice. That Act did not, however, make any provision with respect to the present holder. As his hon. Friend (Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh) had made reference to that gentleman, he (the Lord Advocate) could only say that, in the opinion of everyone acquainted with the services he had rendered to the important Department with which he was connected, those services had been most valuable to the Office. A great many changes which had been made in the system of register- ing and for giving additional security to the Scotch system of land rights and additional facilities for the searching of those rights, were due to this gentleman. He (the Lord Advocate) did not know whether it was suggested that this gentlemen holding the office of Deputy Keeper of the Signet interfered with his proper discharge of the duties of Keeper of the Register of Sasines; but it was certain that such was not the case.

May I ask the Lord Advocate if this gentleman discharges the duties of this office in person? Does he ever go near the Office?

This gentleman does discharge his duties in person most certainly.

I mean the duties of Deputy Keeper of the Signet?

I am not aware of that—I am not so well acquainted with the duties of the Deputy Keeper of the Signet. I should not, however, think them particularly onerous. These duties the present holder of the office, I understand, has discharged with efficiency and great success.

said, he thought it would, perhaps, be worth the while of the Secretary to the Treasury to look into the matter, and see whether there was any necessity to pay a salary of £350 a-year for a Deputy Keeper of the Signet. Probably that £350 a-year might be saved to the State. The point, however, he (Dr. Cameron) wished more particularly to call attention to was in connection with the office of Extractor. There had been numerous complaints in this matter. The duty of the Extractor was to extract judgments.

I rather think my hon. Friend is about to refer to another Extractor—not to the one affected by this Vote.

I rather think the salary of the one I wish to refer to comes under this Vote.

No; it comes under another Vote.

said, he thought he was right in the matter. He wished to refer to the Extractor of the Court of Session. The Extractor to whom he was referring was complained of very seriously by solicitors and litigants, who complained that they could not get their extracts out of him. Having got their judgments, they were kept a long time, under one plea or another, waiting for what they wanted. There was another complaint. A gentleman who, at one time, was in the Office, had gone very minutely into the whole working of the Extractor's Office, and had compiled a specific list of many hundreds of cases, showing that, in the case of a large percentage of the extracts procured by the public, a charge was made more than the statutory charge. In cases where a number of extracts were taken, the over-charge was considerable. Well, the law provided that if any circumstances of that kind 'were brought under the notice of the Lord Advocate, there should be a clean sweep made; but specific cases of these over-charges had been brought under the notice of the Lord Advocate by himself (Dr. Cameron), who had told him that the man who had given him his information had been dismissed from the Office under circumstances which were not creditable. He (Dr. Cameron) knew nothing about this man who had drawn up the list of cases. The statement of the Lord Advocate was altogether disputed by him; but, however accurate the right hon. and learned Gentleman might be, it had nothing whatever to do with the question. In the list there were a large number of cases—hundreds of cases given, chapter and verse. Either these allegations were true, or they were not true, and a reference to the books of the Department ought to enable a calculation to be made to show whether there had been over-charges made or not. He (Dr. Cameron) contended that it was in the public interest, and their duty to the public, for those in authority to see whether over-charges were made in connection with any Public Office, and where they were found to exist to put an end to them at once. In addition to this matter of over-charging, he was told that this office of Extractor was one which could well be dispensed with. Unless he had been misinformed, nothing analogous to it existed in England. It was a drawback against litigants enforcing their rights. He was not aware of the precise method adopted in England, but he was assured that it was quite as satisfactory as the Scotch. Before moving a reduction in the Vote, he should like to hear what explanation the right hen, and learned Gentleman might have to offer on the three points he had mentioned—namely, the over-charges, the delays, and the absence of necessity for the office?

The hon. Member has not moved the reduction of the Vote.

said, that, no doubt, various questions had been raised as to the office of Extractor, whose duty was to draw up copies of the decrees of justice. No doubt, there had been various complaints and questions raised as to the administration of the Office, and, so far from these complaints not having been effective, they were made the subject of careful examination by the officials of the Treasury and the Crown Agent acting under his direction, so that the matter had been fully gone into. There did appear to have been some irregularities but he did not think there had been any clear defalcations except on the part of the person whom his hon. Friend (Dr. Cameron) spoke of as his informant in the matter.

No; not my informant.

said, that, at any rate, this person had been proved to have been guilty of very grave defalcations—defalcations which the Extractor, with great kindness, perhaps, with too great kindness, had overlooked at the time. Then followed the charges to which the hon. Gentleman had referred; but, so far from this person having any cause of complaint, if the Extractor was to blame at all, it was for having treated him with undue leniency. This person had commenced an action in the Courts against the Extractor, but, seemingly, had not gone on with it. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury would bear him (Dr. Cameron) out when he said that, both on the part of the Treasury and his own part, full inquiry had been made into the Extractor's Office, and they had come to the conclusion that the public had no reason to complain in regard to defalcations.

said, the Lord Advocate told them there were defalcations in the Extractor's Office in consequence of which the gentleman whom the right hon. and learned Gentleman designate as his (Dr. Cameron's) informant was dismissed. Now, in the first place, the gentleman in question altogether denied the Lord Advocate's statement; and, in the second place, he was not his (Dr Cameron's) informant. This gentleman had published a volume giving instances in which these over-charges occurred The Lord Advocate had been questioned about the over-charges, and he said they rested on the statement of the dismissed official. It did not matter whom the charges were made by—whether by Ananias and Sapphira, or anyone else. Chapter and verse of the defalcations were given. The amounts the Office was entitled to charge under the Statute were given and the amounts actually charged were set forth. The Lord Advocate had not promised to make any investigation into the matter at the time the disclosure was made, and he had not told them whether he had since made any investigation into the specific charges. These were not the matters in regard to which the person who had given the information had been dismissed. If this man had had anything to do with these things it was not likely that he would have published his defalcations to the world. At any rate, if he had done so, he shout have been punished. The dismissal was owing to a dispute between the person dismissed and the Extractor. Personally, he (Dr. Cameron) had not investigated the matter. That duty devolved upon the Lord Advocate. He was bound by Statute to look into the charges, and yet he had not said that he had looked into them. He (Dr. Cameron) did not wish to go into the dispute between this man and the Extractor; but desired) simply to know whether the list of alleged over-charges had been investigated, and whether anything had been done to punish the individuals who made them, and to prevent over-charge in future?

said, he was not in a position to say whether all the particular instances alleged in the pamphlet which this gentleman had published had been gone into individually; but he knew that, with this document and other documents before them, the Treasury officials and the Crown Agent had made the best investigation into the matter they could There did seem, so far as supervision was concerned, that there had been a certain amount of laxity in looking after the work of subordinate clerks. There had, however, been nothing discovered reflecting on the integrity and honour of the Extractor. So far as he (the Lord Advocate) knew, the only person against whom defalcations appeared to be established was the gentleman the hon. Member referred to. He (the Lord Advocate) had not gone fully into the question of the dismissal. The man denied that he was dismissed on account of the alleged defalcations about which he had given information, and he (the Lord Advocate) did not say he was; but it was, nevertheless, the fact that this person had been guilty of defalcations to a very considerable extent.

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had again entirely evaded the point. As the volume of over-charges referred to had not been published until after the man was dismissed, it was impossible that be could have been discharged in consequence of an investigation into the over-charges. Every question he (Dr. Cameron) had put had been evaded. It appeared to him that, in the interests of justice, the Lord Advocate, on whom the statutory duty devolved, should look into the matter. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that, if anyone had been wronged, he should have proceeded against the Extractor. Imagine a man who had been over-charged to the extent of 10 s. bringing an action to recover the amount. Winking at these over-charges, and permitting them, was a scandal, and he should therefore, move to reduce the Vote by the sum of £500, being the salary of the principal Extractor.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £42,157, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Courts of Law and Justice in Scotland, and other Legal Charges."—( Dr. Cameron. )

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 23; Noes 59: Majority 36.—(Div. List, No. 185.)

Original Question again proposed.

asked for an Explanation of the item of £1,000 for "Ex- penses of agents attending to the interests of the Crown." It appeared from this Vote that the Crown appointed the agents, and paid them out of the Consolidated Fund. Further on there was a sum of £450 for "Costs and expenses recovered from the Office of Woods in actions to which the Crown is a party;" and, again, under the heading "Law Agents' bills of charges," £1,000 for the Office of Woods. Perhaps, the Lord Advocate would explain these items?

said, the £1,000 was the solicitor's charges in certain civil actions. The Agents for Woods and Forests were charged for separately.

said, he voted in the minority in the recent Division with considerable reluctance, because he had hitherto believed that the administration of justice in Scotland was free from the shadow of suspicion. He felt that when charges were made against individuals or Departments employed in the administration of justice, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate should, whether he was bound by statutory obligations resting upon him or not, in the interest of the public, make such investigations as to whether the individuals or Departments charged were free from the suspicion of defalcations of any kind. It did not appear to him that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had given a satisfactory explanation of the various delays which had taken place in the various Departments connected with the Supreme Court. He felt that any undue delay in any one Department should, in the public interest, be satisfactorily explained. He felt that when any aspersions were cast upon the administration of justice, the Lord Advocate should not rest satisfied until he had obtained full satisfaction in his own mind that the whole administration was perfectly pure, and, as he (Mr. Ramsay) said, free from the shadow of suspicion. He did not regret having voted, apparently, against the right hon. Gentleman, because he failed to see that the right hon. Gentleman gave a satisfactory, explanation either as to the delays he (Mr. Ramsay) had referred to, or as to the defalcations which the right hon. Gentleman himself admitted had occurred, and which were a disgrace to the administration of justice in their country.

said, he fully accepted the responsibility for the duty of making an investigation into such a matter as that alleged; and he thought he stated that he did make an investigation, and that the Treasury, for their own purposes, also made an investigation at the same time. The result of his investigation was, that there did appear to have been some delay in the extracting of judgments on the part of subordinate clerks; but certainly nothing derogatory attached to the integrity or the honour of the gentleman who held the office of Extractor. There had been a certain amount of complaint with regard to the delay, and that was one of the matters investigated. Complaint was also made of delay in the extracting of deeds. The extracting of deeds, however, belonged to the Lord Clerk Register's Department, a Department for which he was in no sense responsible.

asked what was the meaning of the item for investigating Peerages? Was it not the fact that gentlemen who claimed Peerages had to make their own investigations, and pay the cost of such investigations?

said, that since he had held the Office he had now the honour to hold, there had not been any charge under this head that had actually come against the Crown, because there had not been any Scotch Peerage cases during the last two or three years; but it had always been the practice, both in England and Scotland, for those who represented the Crown, which was the fountain of honour, to see that any claims which were made to Peerages in either country were not allowed to pass unless they were satisfied that the claims had been made out. Accordingly, it had always been the custom that, in Peerage cases in the House of Lords, the Attorney General in the case of England, and the Lord Advocate in the case of Scotland, had appeared in fulfilment of their duty as representing the Crown, from which all honours flowed. He had never had the honour of appearing in such a case; but if a claim to a Scotch Peerage came to be made, it would be the duty of the Crown Solicitors to make certain investigations, so that the Crown might be advised whether the claim was well-founded or not; and the Committee of Privileges, when they came to hear a Peerage case, always expected that counsel representing the Crown should sum up the case, and indicate whether the Committee ought or ought not to grant the title.

said, he should like the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate to say who was responsible for the provision of such an adequate staff as would secure that there, should be no delay in any Department with regard to deeds or extracts of deeds? Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman might tell him that it was the Treasury, and not himself personally who was responsible for the appointment of such a staff as would guard against undue delay. If the Treasury was responsible, the injustice was more aggravated, because the people of Scotland paid fees adequate to secure despatch.

said, the last question of his hon. Friend (Mr. Ramsay) related not to the Vote applicable to Law and Justice, but to the Vote relative to the Register House. As a matter of fact, it was the Treasury and the Registrar General's Department who were responsible. He did not feel competent to go fully into the subject; but he might point out that it would not be quite just to assume that wherever there was delay there was necessarily blame, because there were certain functions requiring to be performed both in the writing up of registers and in the making of extracts, which, from their very nature, prevented more than a certain number of persons being employed on the work simultaneously. The work would be done, he was sure, with all due despatch, and whatever staff was necessary would be employed.

wished to ask a question with reference to a Department in which he had taken considerable interest—namely, that of Wood and Forests. He noticed that in this Vote there was a charge of £1,000 for "Law Agents' bills of charges for the Office of Woods and Forests." He was speaking from memory; but he thought he was quite correct in saying that the Crown Woods and Forests in Scotland were confined to six farms in Caithness. Was it possible that, under such circumstances, there should be a charge of £1,000 for law agents' charges?

said, that all the Crown fishe- ries and teinds, and such things, in Scotland came under this head. It would be satisfactory to the hon. Member (Mr. Arthur Arnold) to know that the law charges of the Department had very largely diminished of late years. There was less litigation than formerly.

said, that fisheries could not come under the head of Woods and Forests.

said, the public fisheries did not, but the Crown salmon fisheries certainly did; and many of the greatest questions that had arisen in the Department had related to salmon fisheries, and also to foreshores.

said, the Lord Advocate had not explained how the £1,000 for expenses of agents attending to the interests of the Crown was distributed. All he had given the Committee to understand was, although some years ago a good portion of the money went for investigating Peerage claims, of late years no such work had been done. If that was the case, the Government could not want all the money, and it would be fair to move a reduction of the Vote for that reason alone. But with regard to the Office of Woods, the explanation of the Lord Advocate did not appear to explain anything. They found that £450 was set down for office work in the Office of Woods; but three lines above that £1,000 was charged for the Office of Woods. It would occur to anybody that if £1,000 was charged for the Office of Woods, and if costs and expenses were recovered to the amount of £450, that £450 might well come out of the £1,000; but, instead of that, it was added to it. There must be an error there. If there was not, then an explanation was wanted. Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman could give the Committee further information?

said, the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) would see that the £1,000 was followed by £500 for "other departments." Then there was an estimated reduction for probable amount to be recovered within the year of £300, and that brought the estimate down to £1,200. The estimate did not seem to him to suggest the difficulty which occurred to the hon. Gentleman.

said, that if the £300 was deducted and the £450 was charged on the very same account, there must be, according to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's own showing, an error of £150.

said, the hon. Member must see that the £300 was set down as the probable amount to be recovered during the year, while the £400 was an absolute charge.

said, these were estimates, and not actual sums at all, they were dealing with, and the Lord Advocate had not said how it was he asked for £1,000 for agents, the need for whose services he himself admitted no longer existed.

said, this was a case which the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney) would, no doubt, understand. Perhaps he would explain it to the Committee?

pointed out that the amounts recovered were put down in diminution of the sums charged. As to the "expenses of agents attending to the interests of the Crown," the item varied from year to year; it varied to a large extent from the want of regular recurrence of Peerage claims. For instance, the item charged under this head in 1868 was £2,337; in 1879, £648; in 1880, £1,212; and in 1882, £2,609. In that year there were two Peerage claims, including the Annandale case. It was hoped that £1,000 would cover the expenses during the next year. If any expenses were not incurred, of course, the money would not be paid.

said, he did not think the hon. Gentleman's (Mr. Courtney's) answer was quite clear. £300 was set down as the probable amount which would be recovered, and it was deducted; but £450 was the amount actually recovered, and that was charged.

said, that the true explanation of the matter was that in the one case the recovery was from the Crown, and in the other case against the Crown.

said, he had always understood that those who inherited Peerages were made to pay certain sums for the honours they acquired. Why should they not pay this £1,000? He did not see any reason why the expenses connected with the investigation of Peerage claims should fall as a charge on the public. The public took no interest in the Peerages, and, therefore, they should not be required to pay any expenses connected with their investigation.

said, he believed that if a debit and credit account were made out, it would be found that the fees paid by the persons claiming Peerages would very much exceed the fees which were paid to the Law Officers for conducting the investigations. It must be obvious to his hon. Friend (Mr. Ramsay) that when a person made a claim to a Peerage which had been in abeyance, it was necessary that some public officer should attend and watch the case on behalf of the Crown. It could not be expected that the applicant should pay the expenses of his enemy as well as his own.

Question put, and agreed to.

(5.) Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £24,603, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices in Her Majesty's General Register House, Edinburgh."

said, the administration of the Register House excited a great deal of interest in Edinburgh. There were several grievances in connection with that administration which he would endeavour to explain as briefly as possible. A few years ago, the clerks and other officials in the Register House, Edinburgh, were made Civil servants, and the charge for them put upon the Treasury. Amongst the arrangements that were made, first, second and third class clerks were created. As to the first class clerks, he had no observation to make; but in respect to the second and third class clerks, the complaint of the third class clerks was, that while their rate of remuneration was very much below that of second class clerks, their duties were decidedly the same. In answer to a Question he (Mr. Mackintosh) put some time ago, the Lord Advocate stated that the duties of the two classes were analogous, but that the quality of the work was much better in the one case than in the other. While the second class clerks began at £170 and rose to £240, the third class clerks commenced at £90 and increased to £160. The second class clerks were 12 in number, and the third class 63. The latter thought that, as they had to perform exactly the same duties as the second class clerks, they were very improperly and unfairly treated. He thought it was a matter which ought to be dealt with by the Treasury. The engrossing clerks, also, had a grievance. Those clerks were only paid for the work they did, and he believed that in the aggregate something like £8,000 was paid them. They did important work, because accuracy in the engrossment of the public records was most essential. Some time ago, these clerks sent a Memorial to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury in which they set forth the most depressing effect which certain recent regulations had had upon them. Amongst others, it was stated that an errors' book was kept, and the result of the audit had been that since the beginning of the year every engrossing clerk had been fined from one month's to 10 weeks' salary. Recently an order had been issued threatening even a more severe punishment; and the Memorialists complained that the suspicions and threatening had a very demoralizing influence upon them, and made them work in daily fear. Now, this was a lamentable state of matters to have in any Public Office. Some of the clerks were obliged to work sometimes 70 hours a-week, and yet their payment was not greater than that made to similar clerks 60 or 70 years ago. He held it was the duty of the Treasury to look into the grievances of these clerks without delay. Another point he had to bring under the notice of the Committee was that the fees for searches charged in the Register House were much larger than necessary, and outsiders took up the business and undersold the Government. It was of importance that the Treasury should look into this matter, and consider whether or not they should any longer permit these high charges to be made, or, on the other hand, should permit outside people to make use of the public records at a very small charge. A further point was that for a great number of years the receipts in this Office had far exceeded the expenses. In the last 10 years, nearly £40,000 had been taken from the pockets of the proprietors of land and houses in Scotland, while the expenses had not reached nearly that amount. Complaints had been made to the Treasury upon this subject, and a Departmental inquiry had been made, but the result had not been satisfactory; and he thought that an inquiry by a Select Committee of that House was the only way of properly dealing with the matter, and no other would be satisfactory to the public, or those more immediately concerned.

said, that he had much pleasure in supporting the complaint put forward by his hon. Friend opposite. The grievances of the clerks of the Sasines Office had been frequently brought before the public in recent years, and always in a quiet and temperate manner. He (Mr. J. A. Campbell) thought that the patience and moderation which the clerks of this Office had shown in prosecuting their complaints entitled them to favourable consideration. It was impossible to exaggerate the importance of the Sasines Office to the public; and it was certainly a serious matter that so large a proportion of the staff should be discontented and feel that they had serious grounds for complaint against the Government. The hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh) had referred to the number of the third class clerks. These clerks numbered no less than 63, while there were only 12 second class clerks; so that the 63 third class clerks saw little prospect of promotion into the second class. While their remuneration was very much less than that given to the second class clerks, their work was of equal importance. In a Memorial which they presented they stated that the work of the two classes was absolutely the same. It would be seen by reference to the Estimates that the third class clerks began at £90 a-year, and reached no higher salary than £160 a-year, which was £10 less than the minimum salary of second class clerks. In the Treasury Minute, dated March 8th, something like a promise had been made to these third class clerks that their case should be considered, it being stated that the number of the second class clerks would be subjected to revision hereafter when experience had shown to what proportion of the staff it would be necessary to intrust work which they at present performed. These clerks looked upon that as indicating a probability, although it was not an absolute promise, that their case would be reconsidered before much time had elapsed. They felt that now sufficient experience had been obtained of the working of the Office to enable the Treasury to come to a decision upon their Memorial, and what they asked for was a public inquiry such as was held some years ago with regard to the Deeds Office in Ireland. The hon. Member opposite had also referred to clerks who were described in the Estimates as copyists. Their grievance was that, owing to changes adopted by the Keeper of the Register of Sasines, their power of obtaining emoluments had been reduced, new duties having been imposed upon them which interfered with their opportunities of earning money. Their present rate of pay was the same as it was 70 years ago, but owing to the changes made in the Department they could now only earn 4 d. for an amount of work for which they formerly received sixpence. The consequence was, that in order to earn a decent livelihood they had to work from 60 to 70 hours a-week. Some time ago there were serious frauds committed in this Office, which were traced to some of the engrossing clerks. It was impossible, of course, to excuse fraud; but, at the same time, when a fraud was committed by an under-paid servant, there was some ground for reflection on the employer as well. The public confidence in this Office had been considerably shaken by the frauds he had referred to, and a very serious reflection was cast upon the general management of the Office. He had no intention of throwing blame on the highly respectable and able gentleman who was Keeper of this Office. He was a man of first-rate position, and great ability, and had introduced many improvements in the administration of the Office. But there was this serious defect, that, being a gentleman in large private practice, he could not devote very much time to the Keepership. He would not say that it might not be the right thing to have a man of his position at the head of the Office, but he would say that if it was, there ought to be a Deputy Keeper also, a professional man of high standing, who could give the whole of his time to the duties of the Office. In answer to the possible objection that this would involve an additional charge, he would repeat what the hon. Member for Inverness had stated, that the Office yielded to Government a large profit—he believed of from £8,000 to £10,000 a-year. There was, therefore, no reason whatever for sparing expense in order to have the work of the Office thoroughly and efficiently done. But in urging on the Government that the Memorial of these clerks should receive favourable consideration, and that a public inquiry into the whole condition and management of this Office should be held, he desired to say that that would be the shortest and the best way of restoring public confidence.

said, that, in supporting what the hon. Member for Inverness had stated, he would like to add that these engrossing clerks had not only complained of the time their duties occupied, but that they were not in any way on the permanent staff. They might go on year after year, but they had no hope of being taken on to the permanent staff. In former years, the permanent staff was open to them; but they were now absolutely debarred from being taken into the third class of clerks, and so from being placed on the permanent staff. That was a great hardship upon them. There was nothing to distinguish them from the other clerks, and there was no reason why they should not have these means of promotion open to them if they were able to pass a Civil; Service examination. Some of them, possibly, would not be able to do that but at least they ought to have the opportunity; and he thought that when vacancies occurred in the third class; preference should be given to these engrossing clerks.

reminded the Committee that, two years ago, he brought the grievances of these clerks; before the House. The grievances of the third class clerks had been well stated by the hon. Member for Inverness but they had not been stated so fully as they should be. Their chief grievance was not so much that their salaries were inadequate when compared with those of the second class clerks, as that they were inadequate when compared with those of clerks in all other branches of the Civil Service. In this connection it might be well to compare the Register House in Edinburgh with the Registry of Deeds in Ireland. The latter Office contained only 45 first, second, and third class clerks, whose salaries amounted to £12,585; while in the Sasine Department of the Register House in Edinburgh there were 83 clerks, whose salaries amounted to £13,115. If the clerks it Edinburgh were paid at the same rate as the Irish clerks, their salaries should amount to £22,672. The work in the Edinburgh Office was of a very superior kind compared with that in the Dublin Office. In the Edinburgh Office the clerks registered in the public records a great variety of writs affecting land in Scotland, and on the accuracy of those records depended the validity of all titles to land in that country. They were not only required to pass Civil Service examinations, but had to go through a good deal of legal training, and many of them had attended the legal course in the University. In Ireland no such qualification was required. The only qualification there was the passing the Civil Service examination. But the Scotch clerks, doing much more onerous work than those in Ireland, were paid less than two-thirds of the amount paid for inferior work in the Irish Office. In the Sasine Office it was the duty of the third class clerks to prepare minutes of all the deeds presented for registration. In Ireland these minutes were prepared by the solicitors of the persons whose deeds were presented, and thus a large expense fell on the clients of these solicitors from which persons presenting deeds for registration in Scotland were exempt. While all classes of clerks in the Register House in Edinburgh were paid on a much lower scale than that on which the clerks in the Irish Registry of Deeds were paid, the third class clerks in Edinburgh had a special ground for complaint. Not only was the scale of their pay very low, but their chances of promotion were very small. In the Irish Office the third class clerks had a salary beginning at £90 and rising by annual increments of £10 to £170. In the Scottish Office the salary also began at £90, but it rose by annual increments of only £5 to £160. But in Ireland the second and third class clerks were nearly equal in numbers, while in Scotland the second class clerks were 12 in number, and the third class clerks 60. The result was that in Scotland the third class clerks, doing exactly the same work as the second class, had but little chance of promotion, and could hardly look to get into the second class until after 25 to 30 years of service. It might be said that the Irish clerks were overpaid, and that their being so was no reason for overpaying the Scotch clerks; but he did not think the Irish clerks were overpaid, and the Financial Secretary had not, when the Vote was discussed, two years ago, ventured to say that they were. He (Mr. Dick-Peddie) believed that they were nnderpaid. When he brought this matter forward, two years ago, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury stated, as a justification for this low rate of pay, that the Government could easily find other persons able and willing to do this work at the same rate. If they were to act upon that test, they might, perhaps, be able to effect a large saving in many Departments of the Public Service, and might begin with advantage by applying it to some of the occupants of the Treasury Bench. He cordially supported the suggestion that a Select Committee should be appointed to inquire into this case, as was done in the case of the Irish Deeds Office some years ago.

said, that this was a question which in former years he had considered, and the first conclusion he came to was that these clerks had always put forward their grievances in the best spirit of moderation. He was certain it would be for the public advantage that, if the alleged grievances did exist, the clerks should at least feel that their case had been fully inquired into before a resolution was come to upon the subject. They had sent Memorials to the Treasury; but they felt that those Memorials had never been properly attended to, as similar Memorials from the Irish Office had been some years ago. An Office of such importance as this to the country should be above all suspicion of error in any way, and the clerks should, at all events, be satisfied that there had been a full inquiry into their grievances. They were not satisfied at present, and he thought it rested with the Government to accede to their extremely just claim. This was an Office which returned a large sum of money to the Treasury, and these clerks were not asking for a single farthing beyond what was fair. They were putting a large sum of money into the Treasury; and, while he agreed that the Treasury should see that a proper margin of profit was obtained from this Department, they ought to give the clerks, who earned the money, proper remuneration. But there was no chance of the Treasury suffering, and he believed that before long it would become a fair question whether the fees charged at this Office should not be diminished. That was a matter which would have to be thoroughly discussed; and he hoped that the whole subject would receive the earnest consideration of the Government. He wished to put one question to the Lord Advocate upon another point affecting the Registry of Deeds. There were two systems of working up the arrears, and it was decided that both systems should be kept up, in order that there should not be any arrears. But he could not imagine why the official staff had not been employed in this work? He was perfectly aware of the great services rendered in this Office by Mr. Brodie; but he thought Mr. Brodie's time was so much occupied with other matters that he had not sufficient leisure for the duties of this Office; and he urged that whenever a vacancy occurred in the post which Mr. Brodie held, some person should be appointed to it who would be able to devote very much more time to its duties.

stated that the amount of salary of clerks and payment of copyists came to £25,550 a-year; but there must be added to that amount two items, before it was possible to obtain a just account of profit and loss—namely, the amount for pensions, which was, in fact, deferred pay, and the amount for stationery. The Non-Effective Vote for the whole Office was £4,800. As a matter of fact, this Office only just paid its way. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Assheton Cross) had expressed the opinion that the application of these clerks was a just one. [Sir R. ASSHETON CROSS: A just application for inquiry.] Well, did the right hon. Gentleman know whether there had been an inquiry? This Office was the subject of an inquiry in 1881, upon an application of the Departmental clerks. With regard to the different classes of clerks in this Office, the grievance was that the copyists did not become third class clerks, and the third class clerks did not become second class clerks. The third class clerks were in an enviable position when copyists were talked of, and in a deplorable position when their own claims were urged. He wished to put it to the Scotch Members, whether they were going to pay for what was, to a large extent, only routine work the same rates which prevailed in mercantile offices, or whether they were going to pay some fancy rates fixed by the judgment of the clerks themselves? The appeals made by the Scotch Members were appeals to the benevolence of that House, at the cost of the taxpayers of the United Kingdom. There was nothing that he was aware of to render it necessary to deal with this Office on principles different from those which were applied in the case of other branches of the Civil Service. The claim of these clerks, which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir R. Assheton Cross) said was a just one, had been duly examined at the time when the Office was re-arranged in 1881. Since then, he believed that two Memorials had been received, and in each case the position of the clerks had been reconsidered. The Petition of the clerks, referred to particularly by the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh) and by the hon. Member for the Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities (Mr. J. A. Campbell), had been fully considered two months ago. Application had been made to Edinburgh for further light upon the matter; but in view of the Report received, and of the Memorials themselves, the Treasury had not seen any ground for acceding to the application for an improvement of terms. He very much regretted that the rate of remuneration of writers should be so low; the Treasury would be glad to see an improvement in that respect; but they could not increase the salaries of these individuals at the expense of the taxpayers of the country. Very proper rules had been laid down in the Office to insure the correctness of the copying work, one of which was that the copyists should be fined for errors. It was, in his opinion, perfectly just that the consequences of these errors should, to some extent, be visited on those who made them; the Memorialists, however, asked to to relieved from the consequences of their own carelessness. That application had been fairly considered; it had been judged on its merits; it had been referred and reported upon; and the Government were obliged to say, reluctantly, that it was impossible to accede to the principles set forth in the Memorial. In replying to the appeals of the hon. Member for Inverness, and other hon. and right hon. Gentlemen, he addressed himself to a general principle, and upon that general principle he felt that the common sense of the House, as well as public opinion, should resist these appplications for increased pay at the expense of the taxpayer.

said, that there were no less than 12 men in the Registry of Deeds Office, Edinburgh, who got £500 a-year, as compared with four persons in the Irish Office. Then, with regard to the whole number of Curators and Assistant Keepers, with salaries rising to £550 a-year, there was nothing like a corresponding arrangement in the Dublin Office. He thought the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had not gone with sufficient fulness into the case, and that hon. Members on those Benches would require some further particulars. Their contention was that the Civil Service system, as between the two countries, should be the same, and if a Committee were moved for to consider whether the employés should be dealt with in the same way he should support the Motion.

said, he thought that a great deal more might be done with regard to this Office in the interest of the taxpayer than had been done. He was amused at the facility with which that rigid political economist the Secretary to the Treasury denounced appeals to the benevolence of the House of Commons, and also at his remark that men must be justly punished if they made mistakes. Why, the Keeper of the Registry of Sasines received £1,000 a-year as salary, and Parliament had decreed that he should devote the whole of his time to that important Office. But he and his hon. Friends had heard that he had another Office, and that his present business left him no time to attend to the important duties of the Register House. He asked where was this severe application of the principles of political economy to begin and to end? All they asked was that there should be an inquiry into the condition of affairs at the Register House. He reminded the Committee that in the course of the trial of certain clerks of the Office, one of the counsel declared that the Register House was rotten from top to bottom. Departmental inquiries, under such circumstances, were of no use, because the only desire would be to hush up the bulk of the jobs that were perpetrated. The appointment of a Committee of Inquiry, composed of Members of that House, would, he was convinced, be attended with very different results; and although the conduct of some overpaid officials in connection with the Department might be gone into, the result, in his opinion, could not fail to be of benefit to the public interest. The Secretary to the Treasury had stated that the surplus of the Department derived from the fees was not great; but that was not due to the amount paid for the labour of copyists and clerks. With regard to the alteration in the arrangements to which the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had referred, he reminded the Committee that it was only when the state of things at the Register House became a public scandal, and a lively interest was taken in it by the people, that any reform was introduced, and then all that was done was to adopt the Glasgow system which had been for years in operation with regard to the registration of titles. But there was another point. His hon. Friend the Member for the Inverness Burghs (Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh) had referred to the great difference between the charges made by private and official searchers, and the result this difference had in throwing business into the hands of private searchers. He would ask whether the interest of the taxpayer might not be served by reducing the large official charges? Finally, he thought every reason pointed to the desirability of instituting a public inquiry in order to see whether the working of the Department might be improved, and whether they could cut down the salaries of men who, although highly paid, did not attend to their work. For these reasons, if his hon. Friend divided the Committee on his Amendment, he should certainly support him.

said, there was one point in the statement of the hon. Member for Glasgow which he could not pass over without reply. His hon. Friend had quoted the observation of counsel in a trial which had taken place, and which observation he was afraid was used with forensic licence, to the effect that the Register House was rotten from top to bottom. That was a statement well known to all acquainted with the Office to be entirely unfounded. It was made in the course of the trial of certain clerks who had been guilty of certain frauds in connection with the charges they made for copying. It appeared, in the course of the inquiry, that in the lower department there was a deficiency of check with regard to the counting of the number of words in each page of work, and the result was that safeguards were introduced for checking the amount of work done. The suggestion that the head of the Department, or the large number of clerks in the Office who had their responsible duties to discharge, should count the words in the copy, was really too extravagant to be seriously treated in the House of Commons. Everyone in the Office was responsible, according to his degree, for the work which he had to do, and for seeing that those below him did their duty.

said, he had been in expectation that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate would have been able to favour the Committee with some proofs that the Department was in all respects efficient. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had simply referred to some complaint that had been made with regard to the condition of the work in one of the Departments of the Office; but he had not shown that the Office was in a state of efficiency. It was to have been expected that the Government would take into their consideration the complaints which had been made, and not alone the complaints with regard to the position of the clerks; because his hon. Friend had, in bringing that matter forward, other objects in view than the mere raising of salaries. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury that for a number of men to enter an office upon well-understood conditions, and then to make complaints with regard to the salaries they received, was not just. He thought that the fair market value of their services, which the taxpayers of the country were willing to pay, was the proper pay of persons employed in the Public Service; and that, he believed, was the rule which should guide the Treasury when they were dealing with questions of this kind. But he was not satisfied that this establishment was as efficient as it might be made; and, therefore, he agreed that a thorough investigation should take place at no distant period. He considered, also, that there should be no undue distinction with regard to the clerks—that their case should be considered and justice done. He trusted, therefore, that there would be an official investigation which would satisfy those in the Public Service that they were being cared for, and that they were receiving what was a proper return for their services.

thought that, as a general rule, Government employés in Edinburgh or Dublin were not entitled to as much remuneration as if they were employed in London. It was well known that rents were higher in London than in Dublin or in Edinburgh. ["No!"] An hon. Member said "No!" but he had seen houses in London let at much higher rents than those of the same quality and size in Dublin and Edinburgh. There was not the least doubt about that point; and, besides, many things were sold at a higher rate of profit in London than in other cities. Therefore, he said, no argument could be established on that ground for reconsidering these salaries. Again, no account seemed to be taken by hon. Members of the difference of cost of land and building so far as concerned the premises in which the work of these Departments was carried on.

I would point out to the hon. Member that the Question now before the Committee is that of the expenses of the Register House, Edinburgh.

said, he merely wished to point out that the value of the premises in which these Departments were placed was an important factor in the calculation. It was argued that the fees exceeded in amount the outlay in payment of officials; and he was drawing attention to the fact that the hon. Gentleman who used that argument lost sight of the value of the houses in which the business was carried on.

said, as the Government had held out no hope that an inquiry would be held, he felt it his duty to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £500.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"Thata sum, not exceeding £24,103,begranted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices in Her Majesty's General Register House, Edinburgh."—( Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh. )

contended that the only true principle to apply in matters of this kind was that the Civil Service employés should be paid the same in the Three Kingdoms. His hon. Friend the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was, of course, entitled to his opinion on the subject of the relative cost of living in Dublin and London; but he (Colonel Nolan) was also able to form some opinion on that matter, and the conclusion he had arrived at was that there was no difference. It was true that owing to the fact of the Union a large number of old houses in Dublin were let at low rents.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 19; Noes 64: Majority 45.—(Div. List, No. 186.)

Original Question put, and agreed to.

(6.) £79,897, to complete the sum for Prisons (Scotland).

said, there was one item in this Vote to which he wished to call attention—attention, he believed, never having been called to it before. He would ask his right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate and the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to look into the matter. In the list of prisons there was the prison of Jedburgh, which was almost entirely useless—that was to say, it would be useless were it not for the number of persons imprisoned in it under the Tweed Fisheries Acts. These were most iniquitous Acts, which enabled persons to be imprisoned on the evidence of a single witness. There was nothing analogous to them in Scotland. Only the other day several persons had been imprisoned on perjured evidence. It was true that when the circumstances were represented to the Home Secretary he instantly had the men released. He need not say, however, that no action had been taken against the perjurers. It was preposterous that this prison should be retained and kept up at the public expense merely for the benefit of the proprietors of the Tweed fisheries, and the maintenance of an iniquitous law. He hoped the matter would be remedied, or, at any rate, that the fishery proprietors would not be allowed to conduct these prosecutions under an entirely exceptional system of law. He trusted the right hon. and learned Gentleman would look into the subject, at least, to the extent of seeing that persons confined in Jedburgh Gaol were confined on the same evidence as was required in the case of any other criminals.

promised to look into the matter.

asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman to give instructions to the Commissioners to separate the Criminal Lunacy Department from the other Departments. They had had separate accounts prepared for some years, but had not this year; and that he felt to be a defect. The system of separate accounts had enabled them to contrast the expenditure on criminal lunatics at Perth with the charge made for persons of the same class at Broadmoor, and other Criminal Lunatic Asylums. He did not wish to delay the Committee by proposing any reduction of the Vote; but he thought it would be satisfactory to have these separate accounts, and regretted that they were not shown in the present Estimate.

said, he quite agreed that it was better to have the accounts separated; but there was some difficulty in the way of the arrangement. He would see what could be done in the matter in the future.

said, he saw an item of £648 for the maintenance of prisoners in police cells. He would like to ask the hon. Gentleman for what time, on an average, were prisoners kept in police cells? They saw no such charge in the Irish Prison Estimates. He mentioned this matter, as he wished to ascertain whether prisoners were detained in prison a very long time before being brought to trial. £648 seemed a very large item, and it must either represent a very large number of prisoners detained for a short time in police cells, or a small number detained for a long time.

said, the charge covered the entire country. There were some places where there were no gaols, but only a certain number of police cells, licensed for giving short terms of imprisonment—terms of 14 days. Licences were given to these places for the detention of prisoners for short periods, so as to avoid the trouble and expense of having to remove them to the more important places of detention, which might be some distance away.

asked whether he was to understand that these so-called "police cells" included not only ordinary barrack cells, but also special places of confinement?

We have no "barrack cells" in Scotland. I cannot say whether the Scotch prison system is in any way similar to the Irish.

said, he desired to put a question on another subject—namely, the grants to the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society. The item was a very small one, and it would seem that it had reference to some one particular prisoner—it would seem that some one prisoner had been aided in a particular town. If the item covered aid to more than one prisoner the amount given in each case must be very small. He (Mr. Harrington) did not wish to be understood as taking exception to the Vote. To his mind it was a Vote for a most laudable purpose, and his desire would be rather to extend the assistance under such a Vote than anything else. Could the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate tell him how the Vote was disposed of—whether it was given to one prisoner or more, and where it was given?

said, the item covered several grants, no one of them exceeding £2 in amount. He had the details with him if the hon. Member desired to have them. The grants were distributed very widely. With regard to the other subject mentioned just now by the hon. Member, he found, from the details as to the detention of prisoners in Scotland, that the detentions in the police cells varied from one to seven days. In some places the average was four days, in others only one; but nowhere was there a longer detention than seven days.

Vote agreed to.

(7.) £60,066, to complete the sum for the Supreme Court of Judicature in Ireland.

(8.) £785, to complete the sum for the Admiralty Court Registry, Ireland.

(9.) £1,513, to complete the sum for the Registry of Judgments, Ireland.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £99,980, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Expenses of the General Prisons Board in Ireland, and of the Prisons under their control; and of the Registration of Habitual Criminals."

No, no!

I must ask the Government to postpone this Vote, as several matters which will have to be discussed arise upon it.

I move that the Chairman do report Progress.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—( Mr. Healy. )