:-:. f > i i mwt*. WAxAm ■' ■', :- ;.'■■ f -. t f>; vWX*K ■Mm «''.••«<■ .'••'#;■ '7' ®m , '. i '.. ; %"' r ." ■ ... "*;',v: :'.•::■ •:'■;" 'vvv*. , ;•< S-'^f^ ■ . , .'.'■„. v* «*< 0,s,<,(,s;( uwimmt • . .■:•••: ,."".,.:,..::'.: ;.0. *>;*:'«>' *■'<: " <»> CO,* , , ...'.•'. • ' ,■ -■ « • ■•■■ • -. " ■ • • »3<«5«>tf<> ■ .v.^: •:■:■:■.•:■:■ * f «:- I ,', , •. <; < f . f \ :.'.. V ', . . . .' . ..." ''.I'.' :<& . - t v'i ■« t <: ..- '•:«;■; ' ■•; ■..- - . ^tMdet , • '.'. • ■ '.■■:: /,:..,< /.v,;\ ::•.:: '. . . ,vV (Qarnell HnioMHttg Uihratg Jltliara, Mem Dork BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088004035 SPEECHES IN PAELIAMENT MISCELLANEOUS PAMPHLETS 03? THE LATE HENRY DRUMMOND, ESQ. EDITED BY LOED LOVAINE In Two Volumes VOL. I. LONDON BOSWOETH & HAEEISON, 215 EEGENT STEEET I860 LONDON PAINTED BY SPOITI3WOODE AHD CO. HEW-STEEBT SQUABS INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. As an introduction to this selection from the parlia- mentary speeches of the late Mr. Henry Drummond, to which are annexed some of his earlier pamphlets, little known to the present generation of readers, the Editor believes that the following short sketch of his political career will not be unacceptable. Henry Drummond was born in 1786; his father died before he was eight years old ; and his mother, a daughter of the first Lord Melville, subsequently remarried to Mr. Strange, accompanied her husband a few years later to India, leaving behind her in this country her eldest son, then aged sixteen, with the remainder of her family by the first marriage. He was then still at Harrow, whither he had been sent at the early age of seven ; during his stay there he was the cotemporary of Peel, Byron, and the other men of genius who, in the beginning of the present century, gave celebrity to the annals of the school. From thence he went to Oxford, where he remained two years ; and in 1807, on returning from a tour in Russia, he married, A 2 IV INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. before attaining his majority, Lady Henrietta Hay, eldest daughter of the ninth Earl of Kinnoull. In his boyhood he attracted much of the notice of Mr. Pitt, with whom he was brought in contact by his grandfather Lord Melville, who was much attached to him : — it was in familiar intercourse with those statesmen, that he imbibed the principles of loyalty to the crown, and veneration for the institutions under which this country has so long flourished, with the recognition of the natural rights and duties of the individual ; by which alone reverence for authority can be prevented from degenerating into slavish submission, and the love of freedom and independence reconciled with intelligent obedience to the ruling power. By inheritance he became one of the partners in the bank at Charing Cross, founded by the brother of the attainted Lord Strathallan, to whose' integrity the suf- ferers under the proscription consequent upon the insurrection of 1745, confided the relics of their fortunes and the management of their affairs. It is a curious in- stance of the mutability of human events that George III. selected as his private bankers the house whose for- tunes had been reared upon the reputation gained by their fidelity to those whom his grandfather's vengeance had driven into banishment. Although the occupation of banking was not one naturally congenial to so ardent and so expanded a mind as Mr. Drummond's, he applied himself, as was his wont, to the duties of the hour with unremitting diligence, and only abandoned the active pursuit of the profession when it became incompatible with his de- votion to higher and more important objects. In 1810 he entered Parliament for the Borough of INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. V Plympton Earle, but left it after three years, finding that his health did not permit him to encounter the fatigue of attendance on his public as well as his private duties. In the course of this period, however, he conferred upon the country a benefit of no small magnitude by carrying through the House a Bill*, which made the embezzle- ment by bankers of the securities entrusted to them, a misdemeanour punishable by fourteen years' transporta- tion, — a severity of which subsequent events have but too clearly shown the necessity. Convinced of the general ignorance prevalent with respect to the true principles of political economy, which produced in 1826 results of such tremendous import- ance to the nation, he founded in 1825 the professor- ship of political economy at Oxford, which boasts amongst other distinguished persons who have held it, the present Archbishpp of Dublin and Mr. Herman Merivale. The interval between this epoch and his return to Parliament in 1847, was occupied by labours and studies of a different nature, pursued with that energy and devotion to a deep sense of duty, which were the prominent features in his character. The fruit of these studies was manifested when he once more took his seat in the House, as member for the western division of Surrey, at the invitation of the conservative party in that county. Though he accepted their requisition, which was the more flattering that he had never soli- cited nor invited it, he at the same time proclaimed his intention of pursuing a line of conduct uninfluenced by party considerations and party pledges ; while he de- * 52nd George III. cap. 63. A 3 VI INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. scribed Toryism as dead, he defined his political views as those of a real old Tory, namely, unswerving fidelity to the crown and the constitution as by law established, (in contradistinction to the modern creed, which makes their existence depend on the fickle will of the majority of the moment), uniting the support and maintenance of the power of the executive with the boldest assertion of the rights and liberties of the meanest subject. Most faithfully did he adhere to this announcement ; no instance can be adduced in which he was led to give a factious vote, nor did he ever refuse his support to the administration as chosen by the sovereign, of whomso- ever composed, when it was possible to give it without being false to his convictions. But the natural result of this independent course was, that on many occasions he was misunderstood, and involved in frequent discus- sions even with some of those wh.o supported him most warmly, — yet he never allowed the fear of their dis- approbation to influence him in the honest discharge of the trust confided to him. The same spirit guided him in his conduct with regard to religious controversy, whether within or without the walls of parliament ; unsparing in the exposure of the iniquities of the Roman priestcraft, the terms he employed were as uncompromising as they were obnoxious to its advocates ; for he felt that to bring to light those abominations was a necessary task, though one from which most men shrank as a loathsome and even dangerous labour ; but with equal boldness he bore testimony to the debt Christianity owes to Rome for her assertion of Catholic truth, and for her preservation of the idea of the unity of the church in her Great Head, though under a false and vicious travesty of the fact. INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. Vll Keenly aware of the short-comings of the Church of England, he was always ready to defend the purity and catholicity of her doctrines, and to support her as the national symbol of the recognition by this country of the duty and service she owes to God, from Whom alone come counsel, and blessing, and power. So also it was no narrow bigotry which made him oppose to the utter- most the admission of Jews to Parliament — that people for whose temporal and spiritual welfare he had for many years been prodigal of money and exertion — but the conviction that their success in obtaining this step, was a practical negation on the part of the legislature, of the sole right of the Christian's God to its undivided homage and allegiance. Whenever injustice was to be prevented or wrong redressed, his voice was always raised in behalf of the right, irrespective of the worldly position, or of the creed, religious or political, of either party. His inde- fatigable exertions have procured for many that justice so difficult to be obtained from the reluctance of official apathy, or from the servility which echoes the popular cry of the moment. His lofty and generous expan- sion of heart, which refused to recognise any man as an enemy after the battle of debate was over, and rendered him so easy of access both to friend and opponent, disarmed all private rancour, and divested intercourse with him of all personal hostility. At Albury, men of every class of opinion, of every shade of politics, of every religious creed, found a welcome, and those with whom he was in the habit of exchanging the sharpest thrusts of parliamentary repartee, were received with the same genial hospitality, the same freedom from every taint of the remembrance of past A 4 VU1 IXTRODUCTOKY NOTICE. hostilities, as if such encounters had never been. In the House, or out of it, the bitterest invective, the most personal insult found his equanimity unruffled, and it was only in the refutation of falsehood, and the exposure of imposture, that he allowed himself to use those poAvers of sarcasm which the fiercest debater in Parliament hesitated to provoke. As from his earliest years his pursuit had been Truth, so in every proposi- tion he seemed to detect it by instinct, and his keen discrimination went at once and directly to the point at issue, with the brilliancy and precision of the electric flash. The reader must not expect to find in these Speeches the high-wrought eloquence of a Macaulay, or the brilliant oratory of a Canning. They are the prac- tical, powerful exposition in terse and cogent terms of the ideas of the speaker. They cannot, however, con- vey to the reader the effect they produced on the listeners, — the boldness which challenged opposition, the ready wit which confounded the interrupter, the cutting irony which pierced through every convention- ality and laid bare every hypocrisy, seem dull and lifeless on the printed page. — Many of the speeches which attracted the greatest attention at the moment have been omitted, their subject-matter being by this time forgotten, or requiring too long an explanation to allow their insertion without causing an inconvenient addition to the bulk of this work. This is not the place to speak of Mr. Drummond's varied acquirements, of the purity and sincerity of his private life, of his sacrifices in the cause of the Church of Christ, of his readiness to bear the reproach of Him Whose servant he so well approved himself, of his boundless INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. IX generosity and the prudence which guided it, nor of the affection approaching to adoration with which he was regarded by all dependent upon him. But, — in this age of narrow self-seeking, veiling itself under a pretended zeal for the general good, when men follow a course of public conduct which in private life would involve dishonour, when no promise is certain, no pledge sacred, when the creed of expediency, so signally exemplified by the wicked Roman ruler 1800 years ago, is acknowledged as the only guide of statesmen, — it may be permitted to one who has lived so long in Mr. Drummond's intimacy, to express his sense of the incalculable loss this country has suffered in the death of the one man of genius and principle, whose public life, like his private, was always guided by the consideration of what was due to truth, justice and religion, who had the courage to express his convictions, and the talent to make them respected. From his sole political object, — the assertion of the honour and dignity of his country and the maintenance of the institutions which secure them, — neither the indo- lence too often engendered by wealth, nor the tempta- tions of ambition, to gratify which many opportunities presented themselves, could turn him aside; incapable of selfish and personal motives, unwearied in labour, no ridicule could baffle, no opposition daunt him, and in the pursuit of justice and right he was never known to fear the face of man. LOVAINE. Albuiy Park, July 6, 1860. CONTENTS THE FIRST VOLUME. SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT. 1847—1859. Page Commercial Distress. — December 2nd, 1847 3 Roman Catholic Relief Bill. — December 8th, 1847 . . .12 Disabilities or the Jews. — December 17th, 1847 . . . .17 Poor Law in Ireland. — February 29th, 1848 21 „ „ March 9th, 1848 23 Punishment of Death. — March 14th, 1848 25 Supply. — Navy Estimates. — March 20th, 1848 28 Crown and Government Security Bill. — April 10th, 1848 . . 30 Removal of Aliens Bill. — May 1st, 1848 35 The Navigation Laws. — May 29th, 1848 38 National Representation. — June 20th, 1848 42 Sugar Duties.— July 3rd, 1848 52 Suspension oe the Habeas Corpus (Ireland). — July 22nd, 1848 . 56 Poor Law Union Charges (No. 2) Bill.— July 27th, 1848 . . 58 Registration oe Births and Marriages (Scotland) Bills. — August 7th, 1848 61 Diplomatic Relations with the Court oe Rome. — August 17th, 1848 62 Transfer of Real Property. — February 13th, 1849 , . .64 Second Reading of the Transfer of Real Property Bill. — March 7th, 1849 66 Xll CONTEXTS OF Page Navigation Laws. — February 14th, 1849 77 Navigation Laws (Adjourned Debate). — March 12th, 1849 . . 77 Clergy Relief Bill. — March 14th, 1849 82 Supply — Army Estimates. — March 19th, 1849 83 Offences (Ireland) Bill. — March 31st, 1849 87 Abolition oe the Punishment oe Death. — May 1st, 1849 . . 90 Taxation and Expenditure. — May 10th, 1849 92 Supply : Canada (Adjourned Debate). — June 15th, 1849 . . 100 Marriages Bill. — (Deceased Wife's Sister). — July 4th, 1849 , . 108 Taxation.— July 19th, 1849 110 Duration oe Parliaments Bill. — Oct. 13th, 1849 .... 118 Agricultural Distress. — February 19th, 1850 120 National Representation. — February 28th, 1850 .... 126 Taxation op the Country. — March 12th, 1850 .... 130 The Budget.— March 15th, 1850 139 Official Salaries. — April 12th, 1850 141 Public Salaries.— April 30th, 1850 143 Marriage Bill. — (Deceased "Wife's Sister). — May 16th, 1850 . 145 Education Bill. — June 5th, 1850 147 Affairs of Greece. — Foreign Policy. — June 27th, 1850 . . 149 Motion for the Repeal of the Malt Tax. — July 5th, 1850 . . 156 Extension of the Franchise. — July 9th, 1850 .... 160 English and Irish Universities. — July 18th, 1850 .... 163 Papal Aggression — Ecclesiastical Titles. — February 17th, 1851 . 168 Second Reading of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. — March 20th, 1851 . 176 Malt Tax.— May 8th, 1851 198 Disabilities of the Jews. — July 22nd, 1851 199 Church Building Acts Amendment Bill. — July 30th, 1851 . . 201 Elective Franchise, Parliamentary Reform. — March 25th, 1852 . 203 County Franchise.— April 27th, 1852 209 ' Militia Bill (Adjourned Debate). — May 21st, 1852 . . . 211 Maynooth College (Adjourned Debate). — May 25th, 1852 . . 215 Commercial Legislation — Free Trade. — (Adjourned Debate.) — November' 26th, 1852 ....... . .220 Supply — New National Gallery. — December 6th, 1852 . . . 225 Mr. Disraeli's Budget. — December 10th, 1852 ...... 227 THE FIRST VOLUME. X1H. Page Tenants' Compensation (Ireland) Bill. (Adjourned Debate). — December 15th, 1852 230 Sale and Purchase op Land Bill.— February 15th, 1853 . . 232 Maynooth College -(Adjourned Debate). — February 23rd, 1853 . 238 Jewish Disabilities Bill.— March 11th, 1853 240 Clergy Reserves (Canada) Bill.— April 11th, 1853 . . .243 Income-Tax.— April 25th, 1853 247 „ „ —May 9th, 1853 250 Chatham Election. — May 3rd, 1853 251 Inspection op Nunneries.— May 10th, 1853 256_ The Budget. — Wafs and Means. — Succession Duties. — May 13th, 1853 . 260 Ecclesiastical Revenues (Ireland). — May 31st, 1853 . . . 263 Judges' Exclusion Bill. — Jirne 1st, 1853 266 Recovery op Personal Liberty Bill.— July 20th, 1853 . . .269 Parliamentary Representation.— February 13th, 1854 . . . 274 Russia and the Porte.— February 20th, 1854 275 ft Financial Statement. — The Budget. — March 6th, 1854 . . . 286 Succession to Real Estate Bill. — March 8th, 1854 . . . 288 Greek Insurrection in Turkey. — March 13th, 1854 . . . 292 Payment op Wages Bill. — March 15th, 1854 295 Settlement and Removal Bill. — March 24, 1854 .... 298 Conventual and Monastic Institutions. — March 28th, 1854 . . 302 „ „ „ „ (Adjourned Debate). —May 18th, 1854 304 Appointment op Mr. Stonor. — April 6th, 1854 .... 306 Supply.— Supplemental Navy Estimates. — March 5th, 1854 . . 309 Excise Duties Bill.— May 15th, 1854 311 Episcopal and Capitular Estates Bill. (Adjourned Debate). — May 17th, 1854 .314 Church Rates Bill.— May 23rd, 1854 317 Enlistment op Foreignebs Bill. — December 21st, 1854 . . . 319 Condition op the Army before Sebastopol. — March 2nd, 1855 . 221 Marriage Law Amendment. — March 13th, 1855 .... 323 Opening oe the British Museum, &c. on Sunday. — March 20th, 1855 325 Newspaper Stamp Duties Bill. — March 26th, 1855 .... 327 „ „ „ „ April 23rd, 1855 . . . .332 XIV CONTENTS OF Page Newspaper Stamp Duties Bill. — April 30th, 1855 .... 333 Abolition of Church Kates. — March 29th, 1855 .... 335 Prosecution op the "War with Russia. — June 7th, 1855 . . 337 Sunday Trading in the Metropolis. — June 13th, 1855 . . . 342 Administrative Reform. — June 18th, 1855 343 Monetary System.— February 28th, 1856 350 Church Rates Abolition Bill. — March 5th, 1856 .... 353 Reformatory Schools (Scotland) Bill. — March 12th, 1856 . . 357 National Education. — April 11th, 1856 360 Maynooth College (Committee). — April 15th, 1856 . . . 363 Maynooth College Bill. — June 25th, 1856 366 Treaty of Peace.— May 6th, 1856 370 Punishment of Death. — June 10th, 1856 ^ 375 Bleaching, &c, Works (No. 2) Bill.— July 2nd, 1856 . . .379 Maynooth College.— February 19th, 1857 380 Transportation and Penal Servitude Bill. — May 11th, 1857 . 383 „ „ „ „ May 22nd, 1857. . 384 Observations on the Preston Union. — May 12th, 1857 . . . 386 Oaths Bill (In Committee). — June 15th, 1857 .... 387 „ „ — June 25th, 1857 . 388 Scientific and Literary Societies Bill. — June 25th, 1857 . . 392 Motion for a Select Committee of Inquiry on Metropolitan Workhouses. — June 25th, 1857 393 Mayo Writ.— July 28th, 1857 . .395 Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Bill. — July 30th, 1857. . 396 Vote of Thanks to the Army and Navy in India. — February 8th, 1858 • . 401 Joint-Stock Bank Companies. — February 11th, 1858 . . . 404 „ „ „ May 13th, 1858 . . . .405 Church-Rate Abolition Bill. — February 17th, 1858 . . . 406 Debate.— Oaths Bill.— March 22nd, 1857 408 Navy Estimates.— April 12th, 1858 411 Destitution in Donegal. — April 22nd, 1858 414 Agricultural Statistics Bill. — April 28th, 1858 .... 416 Marriage Bill (Deceased Wife's Sister). — May 5th, 1858 . . 418 Property Qualification Bill. — June 2nd, 1858 .... 420 Government of India (Committee). — June 7th, 1858 . . . 422 THE FIRST VOLUME. XV Page The Slave Tbade.— July 12th, 1858 428 Jews' Bui.-- July 16th, 1858 430 Chubch Kates Abolition. — February 8th, 1859 .... 433 Chtoch Kates.— March 9th. 1859 433 Chtjech Kates Abolition Bill. — July 13th, 1859 .... 435 Maeeiage Law Amendment Bm (Deceased Wipe's Sisteb.) — February 16th, 1859 437 Kepbesentation or the People. — February 28th, 1859 . . . 439 „ „ „ March 25th, 1859 . . .441 „ „ „ April 4th, 1859 . . . .447 On Foeeign Apeaies. — Pbttssia (Netttbality.)— July 28th, 1859 . 448 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE DAILY PAPERS. The Case oe the Faemees. — November 8th, 1849 . On the Malt and Income Taxes. — November 7th, 1850 . On the Loed Peimate's Chaege. — September 9th, 1853 Lettee to the Peace Society. — September 13th, 1853 . Lettee on the Doctelnes of the JEStOTS. — May 13th, 1856 . 455 . 459 . 462 . 464 . 468 SPEECHES IN PAELIAMENT, 1847-1859. TOL. I. * $ B SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT. 1847—1859. COMMERCIAL DISTRESS.— December 2nd, 1847. I AM surprised that it should be conceived possible that any one act, or the whole of the acts of any one man, could have produced that complication in which we now find ourselves.* Truly, the right honourable Baronet, the member for Tamworth, must be a most wonderful man, and his bill a most wonderful bill, if he or it could have done one twentieth part of the things which have been attributed to both. It is admitted on all hands that we are in the midst of a complication of misfortunes. I do not know what the meaning of the word " panie " is, if it does not mean that people are become alarmed at the consequences of their own folly. The right honourable gentleman, the member for Coventry, has shown, most clearly, that many things have contributed to produce this panic. Unquestionably the famine in Ireland has created a large demand for corn, and, so far as this exceeds the demand in former years, and is not paid for in manufactures, it is paid for in bullion. If that gold were lying in our coffers, then it would go away without affecting prices ; on the other hand, if it is not, but is in circulation, or has to be obtained, then, of course, the importation of corn contracts the currency, and causes prices to fall. With respect to the repeal * In allusion to a remark that it was in some measure owing to the Bank Act of 1844. ' B 2 4 COMMEECIAL DISTRESS. of the Corn Laws, I am as much a dissentient from that measure as anybody, but I would oppose it in a fair stand-up fight, and not take advantage of popular clamour, to raise a cry against it which it does not deserve. I do not, however, believe that it has anything whatever to do with our present circumstances. With regard to railways, I confess, I consider Government is much to blame, not the present Government only, but the last Government also ; because, when they were warned by their own Board, when Lord Dalhousie had made his report upon the subject, and called their attention to the magnitude of these undertakings, unquestionably they ought to have done some- thing to check the railway mania that is now raging in the country. But private gentlemen, as well as the Government, are to blame for sanctioning the speculations that come before them. It is evident that many of the schemes are got up by attorneys, surveyors, and engineers, merely as means of making money. They obtain the sanction of gentlemen to these schemes, who allow their names to be used as directors, without any inquiry into the merits of the plans proposed. This induces tradesmen and men of small capital, who put con- fidence in those names, to subscribe to undertakings they know nothing about. The way in which these men are injured is by their taking the money which they obtained out of the profits ■of their business, and which in ordinary times would be invested in such business, and purchasing shares in railways for the sake ,of a greater amount of interest. One great evil resulting from this has been the raising the interest on mortgages throughout the country, and I believe it will not end before you have wit- nessed a great sacrifice of landed property. Eailroads are a de- scription of work which ■cannot stop ; railroads must be finished. Suppose a manufacturer has a mill burnt down, and spends 100,000Z. in rebuilding the mill, but finds that it requires 20,000?. more to finish the work; this 20,000L he must have, for the 100,000?. he has already spent is useless until the mill is finished. The railroads are in the same condition: they must be finished, they cannot make any return for the capital already expended unless they are. The only difference be- tween the two cases is, that a mill belongs to a private indi- vidual, or to a few individuals ; whereas a railroad is the pro- perty equally of every interest in the country. With respect to COMMERCIAL DISTRESS, 5 the right honourable Baronet's (Sir R, Peel) bill of 1844, I re- member that, when it was first brought forward, I supposed it was to be the precursor of a measure for putting an end to the connection between the Government and the Bank, which I thought had existed already too long. One provision however of the bill, I have always considered exceedingly objectionable — I mean the weekly publication of the Bank balances. I am quite sure that no persons but the Bank Directors themselves, are judges whether these balances are favourable or not : but all who see the weekly publication think they are judges, and judge accordingly, and generally judge wrong. I may observe that, although I was for many years connected with a well-known banking establishment in London, yet for the last fifteen years I have ceased to have any direction of it ; therefore, such in- formation as I possess on this subject is no more than what any other gentleman may obtain. But it is obvious that the mode of conducting the business of the Bank now is quite dif- ferent from what it was some years ago. I come now to the question of over-trading ; and it is not for the sake of blaming any party, either those who have failed, or those who have stood, but it is for the sake of pointing out to the House the real basis of this boasted modern system of trading. In olden times, when the argosies went out from Venice and Genoa, they carried goods: to exchange for bullion ; or, vice versa, they carried out bullion to pay for goods. There was no such thing as trading by means, of paper, nor was that system adopted until this nation chose to discard its legitimate kings, and bring over a Dutchman. It was then that you entered upon the mischievous course which has brought you to your present pass. The individual the most judicious, most experienced, and most cautious in all matters connected with mercantile concerns, is reported to have lately made a statement which sets forth the nature of this paper system. I allude to Lord Ashburton. That noble Lord is re- ported to have said, that " Capital is a connection of capital and credit, and when some wise people talk of solid capital apart from credit, they have no knowledge of the commerce either of this country or of any other part of the. world. If a man has a capital of lO.OOOZ. or 20,000*., he may legiti- mately be doing business to three times that amount. All the manu- B 3 6 COMMERCIAL DISTRESS. factures, and the whole trade of the country from one end to the other; are carried on upon that plan." If this be a true exposition of the system, then all I have to say is, that two thirds of the trade of the country is perfectly rotten. I beg to ask what is credit ? Credit is belief. You believe somebody. What do you believe ? Do you believe that this merchant or that man has got 30,000?. ? No, you do not, because you know that he has only got 10,000?. Do you be- lieve that another merchant or another man has got 100,000?. ? No, you do not, because you know he has only got 30,000?. It appears to me that what you call panie or want of credit is only a symptom that men are coming to their senses, and that they have determined no longer to give a man credit for what they know he does not possess. Your system of credit is one that can never stand long. It is utterly impossible that it can be a sound principle, or one that is based on truth. This fallacious system of trade, which after all is nothing more than a man trying to make others believe him to be three times richer than be really is, runs through the whole framework of modern society. As in trade so in his private affairs, a man, to keep up a false reputation, lives at a rate three times beyond his means. It does not become me to read a homily to this House ; but 1 must say that the degree of respect the possession of money commands in this country is most discreditable to the age in which we live. It is perfectly disgraceful to see that a man is not esteemed so much for his moral worth as for the wealth which he possesses. So long as this morbid feeling shall exist in the country, so long will this system of false credit continue. But I will turn from that subject, and consider the case of the manufactures, and the manner in which they are affected by the great mechanical skill that pervades the country. Should any mill be burnt down to-day, it will be replaced by one so far superior that the manufactured article will become much cheaper. Now observe the consequence. Your whole system is to make things cheap ; the consequence is, that a piece of goods which is sold on the 1st of December 1847 at a certain price, will be sold on the 1st of December 1848 at a much lower price. Is it not quite obvious then, that any man who bought goods this year must sell them at a much lower price next year, and that he must be a loser unless he sells the goods COMMERCIAL DISTRESS. 7 instantly ? This process runs through every branch of manu- factures. I often see handbills placarded in shops stating that the goods are selling below prime cost. It is supposed that these bills are a mere trap to take in the unwary ; but I know them to be no such thing. I know the articles are selling under prime cost, for J have many times witnessed it. It has been said that there always have been seasons of depression fol- lowed by seasons of prosperity, that there has always been a succession of gloom and sunshine in the commercial world, — in short that it is in the nature of things that it should be so. But how comes it to pass that these seasons of gloom and depression increase both in frequency and intensity ? It is because you have changed the whole relative condition of society. In former times land was everything and manufactures nothing, or com- paratively so. A distinction is found in your common law between that property which is real and that which is personal, because your common law is common sense. That which is permanent has an advantage over and beyond that which is transitory and ephemeral. But what has been your system of late years ? To cry down the real and exalt the personal, to put down wool and elevate cotton, to depress the land-lord and raise up the cotton-lord. You have cheapened your goods, and taken from your customers the means of buying them. You have made the towns rule the land ; and at length you have found a man fitted for the purpose — a manufacturer of consummate eloquence, prudence, and judgment, who knows how to make his words tell, and how to act as well as to talk, and he has come forward and said the towns shall rule the country. The towns do rule the country, and much good may it do them ! No longer shall the Chancellor of the Exchequer be able to repose on a bed of roses. You have repealed the corn-laws, and now you shall witness alternations of glut and scarcity. Your new commercial system will lead to the amassing of colossal for- tunes amidst starving millions. You will have operatives lording it over you ; at one time burning mills, and at another sacking palaces. The enlightened constituencies in towns have found out that this House is precisely the place of all others in which ministers have no business to be. True, you may point to London and ask, " Have they not returned the First Lord of the Treasury ? " Yes ! but they have detracted somewhat from B 4 8 COMMERCIAL DISTRESS. the grace of the boon by coupling him to a Jew. And the con- stituency par excellence, — the citizens of enlightened modern Athens, — found out that their modern Demosthenes was not worthy of a seat in the House ; they discarded the man most fitted to adorn this assembly, and sent in his place a gentleman to teach us how to make paper. In the debate on the Nomination of the Committee on Commercial Distress, December 15th. I ENOW not if the selection of the committee will or will not please the members of the past, the present, and the future Government of the country, but supposing that it will, I cannot but recollect there is a fourth party whom it behoves to pay some attention to the subject. I mean the House of Commons. I think the House should first decide what are its objects in appointing the committee, and next, whether the committee so appointed is a fit instrument for carrying its intentions into effect. Before I go farther, I must allude to the observation that the appointment and result of this committee are looked to with considerable anxiety by a large body of suffering tradesmen throughout the country. I, with every other gentle- man in this House, feel exceeding regret that such should be the condition of so large a class of the community ; but at the same time I am sure that no one can render them a better service than to convince them that to look for any relief or alleviation of their sufferings to any committee, or to any report of a com- mittee, — is a perfect delusion, and that it is impossible for either relief or alleviation to come to them from such a source. I cannot understand the principle upon which it is proposed that this committee should be appointed. Sometimes it appears to be geographical, and that a certain number of members are to be selected from Scotland, a certain number from Ireland, and some from the north, south, west, and east of England. At another time it is proposed to represent interests; that there should be some for the great manufacturing interests, some to re- present those of agriculture, others banking, and so on. But I COMMERCIAL DISTRESS. 9 do not clearly see what advantage this will produce. If the great manufacturing interests are summoned, all that the gentlemen representing them can do is, to tell the House they are in great distress, that they have bought dear and must sell cheap, and that their money is gone. Everybody knows that already. I am quite at a loss to understand how the House can be much benefited by this. The question for the House to consider is, what they want to do in appointing this committee. Do you want to get rid of this dull uninteresting debate, by shutting into a room upstairs every gentleman who troubles you with his opinion on the subject? If that is the object, I think the House has not acted unwisely in the course that has been pursued. But if the representatives of various opinions are to be selected to serve upon it, I would just suggest that the larger the committee the more discordant it will be. If it be your object that any practical suggestion should be made, it appears to me the very essence of the committee that they should first all be agreed on the nature of the subject to which they are about to apply them- selves. Suppose the House in its wisdom decided on appointing a committee to ascertain the extent of railways at present in ex- istence throughout the country, and that half a dozen honourable members were, in obedience to its mandate, to start on the ex- pedition. What would be the result if some two or three of them, on coming to the first line of rails, were to take a foot-rule out of their pockets and proceed to measure with it, and all the other gentlemen exclaimed, " Oh ! that won't do, you are using the old foot-rule, with which you measured turnpike roads and footpaths under the old regime,: it won't answer now; you must have an expanding rule to measure railways." There might be gentlemen who would propose a measure of length (as Mr. Cobbett did once) to be determined by the vibrations of a pendulum of a certain length and weight, and at a certain tem- perature, according to the chord of the arc.it described: and this might excite much laughter and ridicule, and be called most visionary, as it was at the time. Their opponents would assert, " Everybody knows what a foot-rule is, it is twelve inches." But what is an inch ? " Oh ! it is three barley-corns." The House will perceive that until these gentlemen were agreed on what the rule should be, it would be impossible for them to make any report on the length of the railways in the country. Let us 10 COMMERCIAL DISTRESS. suppose again that the House appointed a committee to inquire into the quantity of corn imported into the country under the new law, and that they proceeded to calculate it according to the measures. What would be the result if they were met by the cry, " Oh ! these are the old measures ; you must have free trade in bushels as you have it in corn ; you cannot measure by the small bushels that sufficed when you only had a home trade." You must go back in fact to the old theory, and must proceed to take a fixed measure of quantity to measure corn and every- thing else capable of being measured with accuracy ; and unless the committee are decided on this point, it is quite evident that they cannot proceed to any report at all. We have all heard of the rise and fall in prices. Do not those very words refer to a fixed standard, not to one which is moveable, and which rises and falls with the thing to be estimated? As in the case of the pendulum, we have got to another measure, — a measure of a certain diameter and height, which filled with water at a fixed temperature is called a pound, and is the measure of all weights, the measure by which the mass of all the lead, iron, gold, copper, &c, in the empire is determined. And now we come to the last point. What the House wants is a fixed measure of values. We have already got the fixed measure, because all have agreed to trade by weight : in the fixed pound of gold we have that by which we can measure all our relations with other countries. The pound of gold is fixed, and gold is the metal by which alone all the nations of the world settle their different accounts, and which the State takes and stamps in pounds, or aliquot parts of pounds, so as to provide us with the standard by which everything else is measured. There is no meaning whatever in the words " high " or " low " " cheap " or " dear," save in reference to these stamped and fixed pieces of gold. I must before I sit down, warn the House against being led away by another delusion that exists respecting free trade in banking. Banking is free as air. The only thing which is not free is the privilege of making and issuing paper money. The whole demand made by Scotland is to have that power, and to be at liberty to coin as much paper money as is required. I do not think the opinions of what is called the Birmingham school are incompatible with what I have stated ; but the only advantage of the principle they advocate would be, that at the COMMERCIAL DISTRESS. 11 time, it would liberate a considerable quantity of capital. This would be the whole of the benefit to be expected from these principles, if carried into effect ; but it is a delusion to suppose that any alteration whatever of system or systems can perma- nently prevent commercial crises. The House must rest certain, and receive it as a fixed commercial law, that whenever and wherever the price of money is as low in trade as it is in the public funds, over-trading will go on, and commercial crises and difficulties will follow. I conclude, as I began, by asking the House, what do we want ? If it be to get rid of what, I confess, is an exceedingly dull subject, (which, like political economy, is very uninteresting, but at the same time very useful,) we could not have done better than in taking the course we have adopted ; but, if it be our intention that any practical result should follow from the appointment of the committee, let us see that the persons selected are agreed on those principles which are the A B C of the whole question. 12 KOMAJNT CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL. EOMAN CATHOLIC EELIEF BILL. — December 8th, 1847. I apprehend that it is the firm intention, not only of a con- siderable majority in this House, but of a predominating majority in the country, to give to the Eoman Catholics, as well 'as to every other denomination of Christians, the fullest and most ample toleration that words can give. I believe, also, that it is the intention of a very large majority not to be seduced, under the word "toleration," into giving supremacy, pre- eminence, or distinction of any sort or kind, either to that or any other denomination of Christians. If, then, I am right, as I believe I am, and in the faith of this I shall continue until I am corrected by a decision of this House — it is upon that principle that I venture to call your attention to the provisions of the bill now before you, and to ask whether those provisions do, indeed, give nothing more than ample toleration to those who, we are agreed, ought to enjoy it. I must confess that I do not concur with much that has fallen from the honourable Baronet who has just spoken (Sir Eobert Inglis). I cannot think that the decision of the Church of Borne, with respect to the colleges to which he has referred, is wrong. I do not think that the conduct of the Church of Eome, with respect to mixed marriages, is wrong. Consider what marriage is — that it is a contract between two parties to live together as man and wife ; and, certainly, those who do feel the burden they have so taken upon themselves will apply to some minister of God to give them His blessing on that new relation of life. But surely it rests with those who are ministers of Grod to define the condi- tion upon which that blessing shall be given, and I greatly re- joice that there is a church yet left upon the earth t^at has the faith to say " blessing is only with lis." The necessary consequence of that church believing herself to be the only Christian church, is the denunciation of all who ROMAN CATHOLIC BELIEF BILL. 13 differ from her, although it does sound strangely in loyal ears to hear our Queen denounced as a heretic. So far, indeed, from thinking the conduct of the Church of Eome, in respect to the cases of mixed marriages at Cologne, to which the honourable Baronet has referred, was wrong, I would recommend him to read the dignified correspondence between the Pope and M. Bunsen on that subject, and not to trust to the garbled version of the German newspapers. But does this bill relate to religious freedom only ? The preamble of the bill says : — " Whereas her Majesty's Karuan Catholic subjects do still continue to be liable, for or on account of their religious belief, practice, or pro- fession, to sundry punishments, pains, penalties, and disabilities," though I am not aware of any pains or penalties to which any man is subject touching his religious belief; then the first clause enacts, that " So much of an act passed in the 1st year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, entitled ' an Act to restore to the crown the ancient jurisdiction over the estate, ecclesiastical and spiritual, and abolishing all foreign powers repugnant to the same,' whereby it is enacted, ' that if any person or persons dwelling or inhabiting within this your realm, or in any other your Highness's realms or dominions, of what estate, dignity, or degree, soever he or they be, after the end of thirty days next after the determination of this session of this present Parlia- ment, shall, by writing, printing, teaching, preaxshing, express words, deed, or act, advisedly, maliciously, and directly affirm, hold, stand with, set-forth, maintain or defend the authority, pre-eminence, power, or jurisdiction, spiritual or ecclesiastical, of any foreign prince, prelate, person, state, or potentate, whatsover heretofore claimed, used, or usurped, within this realm, or any dominion or country being within or under the power, dominion, or allegiance of your Highness, or shall advisedly, maliciously, and directly put in use, or execute, any thing for the extolling, advancement, setting forth, maintenance, or defence of any such pretended or usurped jurisdiction, power, pre- eminence, and authority, or any part thereof, — that, then every such person and persons so doing and offending, their abettors, aiders, procurers, and counsellors, being thereof legally convicted and attainted according to the due order and course of the common laws of this realm, for his or their first offence, shall forfeit and lose unto your Highness, your heirs and successors, all his and their goods and chattels, as well real as personal,' and so on, so far as the same related to or in anywise concerned Koman Catholics ; " 14 ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL; and various other statutes, should be repealed. Unfortunately the Pope is not simply the head of the Church, but he claims to be the temporal head of this and all other countries ; and he is recognised by the Eoman Catholics here as having a right to interfere in the politics of this country. (" No ! ") I thank honourable members for that denial. But I hold in my hand an address, moved by Mr. John O'Connell, and addressed to his Holiness Pope Pius the Ninth, which contains these words : — "Most Holy Father, — We, the Catholics of Ireland, venture to approach the foot of your throne with sentiments of the deepest humility, the most profound veneration, and the most devoted gratitude and grateful affection towards your Holiness, recognising in you the true example of what the vicar of Christ should be upon earth, not only the faithful guardian and protector of His church, but the guardian, protector, promoter, and illustrious champion of the rights, the liberties, and the legitimate and well-ordered privileges, political and social, of the universal family of man. It has been fitly reserved for you, most Holy Father, to vindicate, as nobly as you are vindicating, the eternal cause of truth in the great argument now debating among the nations of the earth. It is your high mission to strip oligarchic tyranny and democratic anarchy of their false pretences, to establish in the face of day, and patent to the universe, the great fact, so redolent with happiness to man, and safe and peaceful progress to society, and with advantage to the sacred interests of morality and religion, that the increase of popular power, and the making of it an essential element in the governing of a country, is most entirely con- sistent with the maintenance of order and legitimate authority ; nay, more, is accessory, and eminently useful to that most desirable end." Will any honourable member say "No " to that ? The docu- ment continues : — " We claim, most Holy Father, we claim — under the guidings and teachings of one now gone from amongst us, to whose mortal remains you so generously vouchsafed to do honour — we, Catholic people of Ireland, do claim to have commenced that good and glorious work your Holiness is so splendidly carrying out. We have been labouring to show, and you have been appointed by Heaven to establish, that the advancement of popular liberty has no necessary connection with lawless and bloody revolution, or with any violflion whatever of the rights of property, or danger to the peace and welfare of society." And then, in reference to Ireland, it continues : — ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL. 15 " Alas, alas ! prayers are all poor Ireland has now to give. Impoverished, unjustly subjugated, trampled upon, famine-stricken, helpless, she cannot bear you the aid that willingly her sons would give you with their hearts' best blood. She can only look forward to hope for, and endeavour still to struggle for, that restoration of her natural and inalienable rights which shall enable her to resume her place among the nations, and to perform, well and boldly, her part in the glorious struggle now progressing under the illustrious guidance of your Holiness, for the social and political regeneration of mankind." But what I call upon this House to consider is nothing relating to the clergy of this or that establishment ; but remem- ber that the history of Europe has been one continued struggle of laymen against the usurped rights of priestcraft. The whole of our history, from the Constitutions of Clarendon down to the Eeformation, has been one continued struggle to keep the priests in their proper places. You thought you had got a great deal wben you passed the law forbidding Jesuits to come into England ; but they have always been in England and will come in just as often as they please. The Jesuits may in certain things have gone beyond others ; but many of their doctrines and principles are the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church Upon the doctrine of obedience I hold in my hand a proof out of " Les Constitutions des Jesuites." They say that every man is bound to be as a carcass in the hands of his superior. They say further that every one is obliged to receive the word of his superior as if it were the word of our blessed Lord ; and they take even this illustration, that a cook-boy is to receive the word of the cook as if it were the word of the Saviour. They say first : — " Tous doivent s'efforcer d'observer le mieux possible l'obeissance, et d'y exceller, non seulement dans ce qui est obligatoire, mais encore dans tout le reste, et cela sur un simple signe de la volont£ du superieur, sans aucun ordre expres." And then, — " Quand quelqu'un entrera pour le service de la cuisine, ou pour aider le cuisinier, il devra obeir a celui-ci en toute humilite, dans toutes les choses qui ont rapport a son office. Car s'il ne lui prStait pas une entiere obeissance, il y a lieu de croire qu'il n'obeirait non plus a aucun des superieures, puisque la veritable obeissance ne considere pas la personne a qui elle se soumet, mais celle pour qui elle se soumet ; 16 ROMAN CATHOLIC BELIEF BILL. et si c'est pour notre seul Createur et Seigneur qu'elle se soumet, elle doit voir notre Seigneur dans chacun indiffereniment. II ne faut done point regarder si c'est le cuisinier ou le superieur de la maison, si c'est celui-ci ou celui-la qui commande, puisqu'a penser sainement ce n'est a aucun d'eux qu'on obeit, mais a Dieu seul et pour Dieu seul, notre Createur et Seigneur. " C'est pourquoi il sera mieux que le cuisinier ne prie point celui qui le sert de faire ceci ou cela, mais qu'il le lui commande avec modestie, ou dise, ' Faites ceci, faites cela.' S'il le priait, en effet, il ressemblerait plutot a un homme qiii parle a un homme, or qu'un cuisinier laique priat un pretre de laver les marmites ou de faire toute autre chose semblable, c'est ce qui ne paraitrait ni convenable ni juste. Mais s'il commande, ou qu'il dise, ' Faites ceci, faites cela,' il donnera bien plus a entendre qu'il parle comme Christ a un homme, puisqu'il commande au nom mSme de Jesus Christ. Ainsi celui qui obeit doit considerer les paroles qui sortent de la bouche du cuisinier ou de l'un des supeneurs, comme si elles sortaient de la bouche meme de Jesus Christ notre Seigneur, afin de se rendre capable de plaire a la Divine Majeste." That is their doctrine of obedience, and every layman who dares to discuss with a priest any point of religion is silenced by that doctrine. They are commanded to obey — they are not permitted to reason. (Mr. Sheil : That applies to the lay brothers of the Jesuits.) It is the doctrine of obedience throughout the Church. There is no different doctrine for others. But, if the right honourable gentleman would like it, there is another authority, the Theologia Dogmatica of Liguori. For my own part I would act towards the Eoman Catholics as I would towards the laymen of any other communion ; but I say that the priests for their own aggrandisement have ever been, from the time of Constantine, when they first assumed temporal power, to this day, in a greater or less degree, the lords over God's heritage. I therefore earnestly pray the House to reject this bill in its present form. 17 DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS.— December 17th, 1847. On the motion of Lord John Russell that the House resolve itself into a Committee on the removal of Jewish Disabilities. I hope the House will excuse me if I venture to offer a few observations upon this occasion, although I am not presump- tuous enough to suppose that I can place the question in a new point of view. Before proceeding further, however, I must take the liberty of denying the motive — so far as any one can deny a motive — attributed to the opponents of the proposition before the House by the honourable Member for Buckinghamshire, (Mr. Disraeli) for I can sincerely disclaim being actuated by old unworthy prejudices against the Jews. Many persons who hear me, know that I am not saying what is untrue, though private reasons induce me not to state more ; but I may add that few Members of this House have taken more pains than I have to become acquainted with the Jews, not only in this country, nor in one condition, but in every country of the world : and I can declare that so far from being actuated by hostility towards them, I admire Sidonia almost as much as the eloquent Member for Buckinghamshire himself. But in considering this question it is necessary to take heed of the spirit which is abroad. When I remember the petition of Archdeacon Wilberforce — the petitions for the abolition of jprazmunire — when, too, I have heard a Cabinet Minister declare that he is prepared to go to the full length to which the principle involved in the proposed measure can be carried, I cannot help thinking that the honourable Baronet (Sir T. D. Acland) who closed the debate last night, hit the right nail on the head, when he said that the intense interest which the discussion of this question excites does not regard the Jews, but the Established Church. " This question," it is said, "must be carried." "No matter what the division may be to-night ; sooner or later the question must be carried." The honourable Member for Oldham (Mr. Fox) says truly enough, that if we refuse the Jews this measure, we shall vol. i. o 18 DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS. throw back Baron Rothschild on the Constituency of London, who will return him again, and thus the contest which occurred in Wilkes's case will be revived. This is undoubtedly true. The unhappy electors of London could not, a few months ago, find one Christian to represent them. Doubtless they are in that unfortunate position still, unless a vast influx of Christianity has poured in upon them since that period ; of which, however, I have not heard. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) told the House last night how very different is the treatment which the Jews now receive from the citizens of London, from that to which they were subjected many years back. Perhaps it is more in appearance than in reality. In former times they extracted gold from the Jews by means of the thumb-screw; now they extract it in a more tender but not less efficacious manner, by means of a con- tested election. I agree with the noble Lord that there is no law against the introduction of Jews into the Legislature; neither is there any law against the introduction of Turks, or women. We hear of many lectures about the rights of women ; and not a few persons maintain that they are equal to men in all capacities. Who knows but we may have a Mary Wollstonecraft to adorn the benches of this House ? The reason why there is no law to prevent the admission of Jews or other unbelievers into Parlia- ment, is because in ancient times the Church and State were one. Whenever any hostility was displayed towards the Church before the Reformation, the civil power crushed it at once. After the Reformation, King Henry VIII. knocked down Papists on one hand, and Nonconformists on the other ; but still the Parliament was of the faith of the Established Church. After that the Nonconformists were let in, and Parliament ceased to be a Church of England Legislature, but still it was Protestant. You then admitted the Roman Catholics, and the Legislature was no longer Protestant, but still it was Christian. I assert that this is not now a Church of England House of Com- mons. Honourable Members all have their own private opinions. The honourable Member for the University of Oxford has his private opinions, and other honourable Gentlemen have theirs ; but in this House all have one common mouth-piece and organ. As a private gentleman the Speaker has, of course, his own opinions ; but as Speaker he cannot have any. Indeed it ap- DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS. 19 pears to me that the Speaker is much in the same position as a lady who was asked by counsel what her age was, and who replied, " No particular age ; the same age as other people." I conceive that if the Queen were to summon the Speaker to the House of Lords, and to ask what was his religious creed, the right honourable gentleman must answer — not as a private individual, but as the mouth-piece of the House — " No parti- cular-creed; the same creed as the rest." It has been said that the adoption by this House of the noble lord's motion, will com- plete the triumph of Liberalism ; that it will remove the last remnant of bigotry from the Statute-Book. Yes, it will be the triumph of Liberalism ; but what is Liberalism ? The anta- gonist and the opponent of religion. (Oh, oh !) Well, but what is Eeligion ? Eeligion is id quod religat, the principle which binds man to God ; while Liberalism is id quod liberat, that which sets him free from all obligations to God. Liberalism leaves a man at liberty to make from his imagination his own God, and teaches him to despise the dogmata of the Church. Liberalism teaches a man to deny what the Church tells him — namely, that everything that is called God, except the God In- carnate, is a false god. Liberalism is mere egotism ; it leads every man to seek his own interest, and that of no other person. That is the religion of France. This country has gone a long way in the same direction. It has been made a matter of boast that there are no longer parties in this country. So much the worse. There is much that is ennobling in a party ; but you are now divided into little miserable factions, which can only pretend to a mockery of the noble party warfare of old. There is no man who dares take the lead, because no man knows where he is to lead to. The French Eevolution was the triumph of Liberalism. The Liberals, because they had been tyrannised over by their king, rose up and destroyed him ; and, because they had been duped by priestcraft, were not content till they had struck down the priesthood itself. I agree with the noble Lord (Lord John Eussell), that nothing is so contemptible as to pretend to take interpretation of prophecy as a guide in politics ; but there is such a thing as national apostasy mentioned in Scripture, and every man ought to consider how far his opinions and his conduce are calculated to lead to such a result. I also agree in opinion with the noble Lord that the fag end of an oath is not the means c 2 20 DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS. by which to secure religious principle. The only mode by which we can secure a really Christian Legislature, is by requiring certi- ficates from the clergy that the candidates are partakers of the Sacraments, and are in communion with the Church. I main- tain that the clergy alone are the competent judges of the Christianity of every member of their flocks. As yet this House is Christian ; but if this measure passes, and the Jews are admitted into Parliament, that can be said no longer. It would be gross hypocrisy on the part of the Jew to join in the prayers which are daily read in this House ; and if this measure be adopted, from that time forward no man should ever dare, in the British Parliament, to pronounce the name of Christ. 21 POOR LAW IN IRELAND.— February 29th, 1848. On the motion of Colonel Dunne, that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the working and efficiency of the Poor Law in Ireland. I believe that there is no more effectual mode of dealing with the poverty of Ireland than the carrying out bond fide the same institutions which exist for that purpose in this country ; and I consider that an attack made on the poor-law administration in Ireland is in fact an attack on the poor-law administered here. I must observe — what cannot fail to have been observed by all the English members — that there is exceeding difficulty in coming to an exact knowledge of the facts existing on the other side of the Channel. I find, for instance, in the Devon Report, no less than 340 distinct contradictions in matters of fact sworn to before the Devon Commission. The motion before the House is for a Committee to inquire whether the Poor-law is adapted to Ireland. — [Anhon. Member: Only into its efficiency.] Well, for an inquiry into the efficiency of the Poor-law. On this point I will observe that at present the cost per head of paupers in England is 31. 14s. a year; while the cost of sup- porting Irish paupers is 11. 13s. a head. Therefore the heavy burden of which the Irish members complain, is not half what it is in England. It appears, however, that several boards of guardians have been dismissed ; and the honourable gentleman who seconded the motion said they had been insulted by such dismissal and by the appointment of paid officers. I believe there is not a case in which they have been dismissed where it will not be found that the guardians neglected the administration of the law. I find, on looking into the first number of the Blue-Books published by the Poor-Law Commissioners, some very singular information bearing upon the manner in which the interests of the poor were attended to by particular boards of guardians. For example, the board of guardians in Skibbereen met for the purpose of considering the propriety of opening c 3 22 POOR-LAW IN IRELAND. soup-shops, and also the carrying out of the Drainage Act by the landed proprietors. But did they consider any such things as these ? No. They resolved to bring about relief by emigration. Upon this principle of transacting business we might expect, if there was an Irish Parliament, to see them enter upon an order of the day to consider the drainage of towns, then begin a debate on the arming of the country, and come to a conclusion about an income-tax. I find in the same Blue-Bpok a statement, that in the Castlebar Union they refused to strike a rate for the support of the poor, though at the time there was an immense amount of destitution before their eyes. It appears from the report of the Commissioners, that in the hospital of this Union, day after day the sick had not got the diet prescribed for them, and that generally the diseased inmates had not been properly attended to. This was under the very eyes of the guardians ; and yet a rate was not levied. In reference to the Ballyshannon Union, a letter was given in which the destitute condition of the poor was minutely described. The facts were laid before a meeting of the guardians, and indeed must have been well known to them; but the board adjourned without coming to any resolution whatever. I find it stated also, with reference to the Castlebar Union, that there were only 100 inmates in the workhouse, though it had accommodation for 600, and this when the severest distress existed among the population. No wonder that the Commissioners came to the conclusion that there could be no doubt the board of guardians had failed in discharging their duty. [Here Mr. Drummond read various details of improper management in the infirmary wards of the county of Mayo Union, showing that boys, women, and girls were mixed in a crowded manner, and without any attempt at classification, in the same dormitories — ^that the cases were improperly looked after — that forty-five women, boys, and girls had been in the house for five or six weeks — and that none of the board of guardians had ever visited the house. He then resumed.] It is a perfect farce to say that the Government could do anything but dismiss these boards of guardians. And yet it is styled an insult. [An hon. Member : Who said so ?] I certainly under- stood the honourable Gentleman who seconded the motion to say that the boards of guardians were insulted by the Irish POOR-LAW IN IRELAND. 23 Poor-Law Commissioners when they were dismissed: but I contend that the Commissioners would not have done their duty if they had not dismissed the guardians and appointed paid inspectors in their place. Of course, the consequence of such a course was that extraordinary charges were thereby laid upon the district. I believe that in carrying out a system of laws so unlike any that have ever existed in that country, extreme difficulty must be experienced, but I do not think that the guardians are entitled to consider themselves insulted because they have been dismissed for neglect of duty. As regards giving money for work, or food for work, there can be no objection, as the work goes to the credit of the Union; but certainly no money should be given where it may be collected by the priests, and sent up to Conciliation-hall. I think it will be a great misfortune if this Committee be granted, for it will lead to the notion that there is some doubt in this House as to the propriety of the Poor-Law. I have no doubt on the subject ; but a very slight glance at the reports of the Commission will show the great difficulties which the Government had in carrying the law into operation. POOR LAW (IRELAND).— March 9th, 1848. On a motion of Mr. Sharman Crawford, for leave to bring in a bill to modify the Quarter Acre Clause of the Eelief Act, under which a possessor of more than a quarter of an acre of land was not entitled to relief. In reference to a remark of Mr. Wakley, that the House was com- posed of rich men who had no sympathy for the poor. I would ask the honourable Gentleman whether he supposes that the evils of Ireland have originated since any one, now a member of this house, had first a seat in it. If he refers to Mr. Madden's History of Ireland, he may change the date from 1848 to 1648 — nay, he may go further back, to the description of the state of Ireland in the time of Henry II. — and' find the picture with respect to the evils of Ireland exactly suit the pre- c 4 24 TOOR-LAW IN IRELAND. sent day. I must say, when I hear gentlemen talking of their own humanity, that I am satisfied there is not a member of this House who is not striving to do everything in his power to benefit the people of Ireland. It is not fair then on the part of any honourable Gentleman to presume that all the humanity is on one side of the House, and all the cruelty on the other. Why, the Poor-Law was made by the Eadicals. When a semi- Eadical, semi-Whig. Government came into office, the then Chancellor [Lord Brougham] introduced that law. Under the previously existing law there were persons in every parish who were bound to see that the poor were relieved ; but the new, Eadical, politico-economical law appoints persons who "may" afford relief. There is only a difference in the sign of a tense — a difference between the potential and imperative mood ; but that is a most important difference to the poor man. If the House assents to the proposal of the honourable Member for Eochdale [Mr. Crawford], what limit will you impose as to the persons who are to be entitled to relief? Will you allow per- sons who possess half an acre, or two, three, four, or five acres of land to receive relief from the poor rates ? I know that many hardships must occur under the administration of the Poor-Law. I may mention that a tenant of my own in this country, who formerly rented a farm of 500 acres, had to apply for relief, but before he could obtain it he was compelled to sell the whole of his stock, and to part with all his property, and he eventually died in a workhouse. I think it is clear that some honourable Gentlemen are not very well informed as to the actual condition of Ireland. It is perfectly true that there are many persons who deserve the strong language which has been applied to the Irish landlords : but the word " landlord " has in Ireland two significations, and there are many landlords in that ' country, who are no more deserving of being stigmatised as they have been, than are the landlords of England and Scotland. 25 PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.— March 14th, 1848. On a motion of Mr. Ewart for leave to bring in a Bill to abolish the Punishment of Death. I AM induced to rise solely for the purpose of noticing some ex- traordinary assertions which have been made in the course of the discussion. With reference to what has fallen from the honourable member who spoke last [Mr. Thompson], it appears to me that in inflicting punishment upon a criminal, we have nothing whatever to do with the consideration of what might be his eternal state. Then, again, I must deny that men ought to be gifted with infallibility before undertaking to pronounce and execute judgment on individuals. The objection would apply equally to any other subject upon which men were called to pronounce an opinion. A conscientious man in every circum- stance of life ought to form an opinion to the best of his know- ledge and ability. He can do no more. When reference is made to the sanguinary code which existed in former years, it should be borne in mind that the punishment of death was at- tached to many offences in compliance with the urgent demands of merchants and traders, who were continually pressing their representatives in the House of Commons to afford them pro- tection for their property. It was in that way the code was formed. It is difficult to understand whence all the existing anxiety about the fate of criminals arises. Doubtless there is a charm in an honourable Member being able to boast, that year after year he has stood forward as the consistent advocate of the convict. Perhaps also, those who have distinguished themselves as the advocates of freedom of trade are desirous of emancipat- ing ill-doers from all restraints, and leaving them at liberty to exercise their skill in landlord-shooting. Such a result would not be inconsistent with the maudlin humanity of the present day. It will be remembered that Eobespierre, when young, was remarkable for the tenderness of his heart. He left his calling of commissary to the Bishop of Arras, because he could 26 PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. not bear the shedding of human blood ; but everyone knows what a proficient in that line he afterwards became. Whether it be possible to substitute any fear which would be as effectual as the fear of being hanged, I cannot undertake to determine, but my belief is that it is not possible. Those persons who call upon the House to take example by the French code, and to import " extenuating circumstances " into our judicial system, surely cannot be well read in the trials of that country at no very remote period. Take the case of Madam Laffarge, who was tried for poisining her husband. The lady pleaded, as one of the circonstances attenuantes of her case, that her husband had bad teeth. The French jury admitted the validity of the plea, and Madame Laffarge was not executed. The reduction of the amount of corporal punishment in the army and navy has been referred to as an argument in favour of the abolition of the punishment of death ; and the House has been reminded of the saying of the Duke of Wellington, that he hoped to live to see the day when no soldier would be flogged, by which his Grace meant that he hoped to live to see the day when no soldier would deserve flogging. Every military man knows that it is impossible to do without flogging. One honourable Member has referred to what he calls the introduction of a theological argument into the present discussion. It is not easy to under- stand how anything which has been said merits that description. I never knew anybody who could not find a text of scripture to support anything he pleased. That however is not theology ; but this I know, that if there is a clear expression to be found in the Scriptures, it is in the words, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Another clear declaration is, that the civil governor " beareth not the sword in vain." Now, certainly, he would bear it in vain if he were not allowed to use it. These references to scriptural texts remind me of what a Scotch clergyman once said to me — that if a man had not got common sense, it was of no use for him to read the Bible, for the Bible would not give him common sense, it pre-supposed he had it. It is said that the proposition submitted to the House is to be only an experiment. Then, of course, the honourable Member will not object to have it tried first in his own district. Let it be proclaimed, that in future no person shall be executed for murders committed in Manchester and Dumfries ; and, if PUNISHMENT OP DEATH. 27 the plan shall be found to work well in practice in those places, it may be extended to the whole of the empire. Those who are of opinion that the punishment of death may be abolished, ought, in common fairness, to wear some distinguishing mark, so that murderers might know them. My opinion is that the Queen's subjects have a right to her Majesty's protection. The anti-punishment-by-death-agitation has its origin in a false humanity. Influenced by that, juries, instead of doing their duty in the fear of Grod, and confining themselves to, the single question, " Is this man guilty according to the evidence ? " turn themselves into judges and do not keep their oaths. The fact is, that our sympathy is always enlisted on the side of rogues. The honest* labourer is not so well fed as the pauper in the union ; he, again, is not so well fed as the criminal in the gaol ; who, in his turn, is not so well fed as the condemned felon. 28 SUPPLY.— NAVY ESTIMATES. March 20th, 1848. In allusion to an observation of Mr. Bright, that when he remembered there were about 150 Members who were themselves directly engaged either in the Army or Navy, he was not surprised they should oppose his attempts to reduce the Navy Estimates. Honourable Members mayrest assured that I shall only occupy the time of the Committee for a few minutes, because I am perfectly aware of the indecency of any person rising after a Minister of the Crown has concluded the debate. Such at least never was the practice when I was a Member of the House before. When I hear a great number of gentlemen belonging to a profession, of which I myself am not a member, charged with selling the interest of their country, for their own personal aggrandisement, I must rise up to say that you are upon the verge of carrying into your military condition, and into the very existence of the country, the principles of the same school which has ruined you in every other way. Now, other occasions will arise, and I am determined to trace through their whole ramifications the doc- trines of the school. You have been taught to consider the interests of the master cotton-spinners as identical with the in- terests of England. For this you sacrificed the interests of the cotton-operative — for this you sacrificed every other interest in the country — for this you sacrificed the colonies — and those gentlemen, not content with all these sacrifices, now come forward with most inordinate presumption, and sneer at Minis- ters for holding the doctrine which every Minister of State has ever held, concerning every country in the world that a Minister was ever called upon to guide, and they require us to put away all those maxims and that policy which all former years and all countries have shown to be the maxims and the policy of com- mon sense. Why, according to those gentlemen, if Cain had only been a cotton-spinner, he would never have thought of NAVY ESTIMATES. 20 knocking his brother Abel on the head. But other opportuni- ties will occur for me to enter more at large into these subjects ; I shall therefore conclude by saying that I entirely agree, with the honourable member for Montrose in the distrust he enter- tains of all Ministries. I say with him, but in the language of a greater man than either of us, that " confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged breast." I confess I mistrust all Ministries — most of all do I mistrust a Government composed of poets and astronomers— a Grovernment which calls to its aid the very last counsellors I should ever consult — counsellors, nevertheless, which have been recommended by the honourable Member for the West Biding (Mr. Cobden) to my noble friend, consisting of a body of 900 illiterate paupers. I mistrust, not the men, but their power to rule. I mistrust the fact that they have any power at all. I certainly do not believe that you are in any danger of foreign invasion so long as you show that you have power and determination to resist it ; but you are not safe one minute longer. I certainly do anticipate many things which I will not speak of now; but I conjure this House not to believe for an instant that these naval and military establishments are kept up merely for the sake of the upper classes, as it has been said, but to mistrust all counsel of that kind, and coming from that quarter, for of this the House may rest well assured, that the Throne cannot stand upon cotton, nor can the Queen sit on a " spinning jenny." 30 CROWN AND GOVERNMENT SECURITY BILL. April 10th, 1848. I feel much disappointed, that there has been no inten- tion manifested or expressed on the part of Her Majesty's Ministers ever since the meeting of Parliament, to fulfil that ordinary maxim of prudence, venienti occurrere morbo. It appears to me that while they had sufficient penetration to perceive the coming of the great pathological influenza, they could not see the deeper and more mischievous signs of the time in the coming of that moral influenza which has broken out simultaneously throughout all Europe. I wish I could say that these matters turned on mere political evils ; but I look upon them as lying much deeper. I think that the mischief is this, — a total discontent among the masses of those countries with their social position.* This social position they are vainly attempting to remedy by a change of political influences and institutions. This is neither more nor less, whether they intend it or not, than a spirit of discontent with the Providence of Grod. It is as absurd to suppose that we can alter the constitution of society, as it is to suppose that we can alter our own con- stitutions, or that we can make every man six feet high or five feet high, or that we can give to every man what measure of talent, or what measure of folly we wish ; what measure of wealth, or what measure of advantageous circumstances. By vainly attempting these things, you have increased the moral irritability, which makes the disease incident to the lower classes more intolerable than it would otherwise be. You have stimulated them by that which you call education and by your schools, in which it has been said by one of the most striking writers of the day, that you teach them everything except the one thing needful. (Oh, oh !) I say — and I mean to prove it if you will hear me — for I am one of those vulgar people who believe that the correlative of a speaker is a hearer — I am of opinion then, that honourable gentlemen have hitherto turned the dis- CROWN AND GOVERNMENT SECURITY BILL. 31 cussion of this evening chiefly upon the words of this Rill, which words, I most humbly think, would better be considered in Committee, and that I should be more in order by departing from most of the observations I have yet heard, and confining myself to the question as to the necessity of enacting some such measure as that which is now proposed. I find too that there has been, involuntarily I believe, on the part of every speaker, yet certainly a most remarkable unanimity of sentiment, in connecting the disturbances in Ireland with the circumstances occurring in this country ; while my opinion is, that if there be any connection at all between them, it is of the most indirect character. It is perfectly true that all that we see here, and all that we see there, are but phases of the same malady which pervades all Europe ; and the honourable gentleman opposite, [Mr. Wakley], knows it to be the truth, when I say that the same disease puts on very different symptoms in different consti- tutions. It has been distinctly asserted at the meetings of the Chartists : — " That the time tad arrived when the world could do without royalty, and so get rid of kings and priests, whom our forefathers in their ignorance deemed it necessary to make governors. It was more than probable danger would overtake them very soon; he would have the convention resolve itself into a parliament, a struggle take place as to which of the two parliaments should submit. The moment was assuredly coming when the bravery, integrity, courage, and fidelity, of the new delegates would be put to the test, for their enemies were making preparation for the day of trial." I do humbly think, notwithstanding the references which have been made to the year 1798 and so forth, that there was nothing at that period so overt in the way of rebellion as this. I remember very much of the proceedings of those secret societies. I very well remember the case of Muir and others, and of the Corresponding Society ; but nothing occurred in those days which went to such a length as this. But what I am anxious to show is, that the question now at issue is not as to this or that institution, it is not a question of monarchy against republicanism. I know, and give full weight to all the arguments that may be urged in favour of the one against the other; but the question is not between republicanism and monarchy, it is whether the whole institutions of society shall 32 CROWN AND GOVERNMENT SECURITY BILL. become upset and perverted. It has also been said by one of the speakers at the meeting of delegates, " That the people would be sunk for ever unless some great change was effected in the institutions of the country. Free trade had been tried in the balance, and found wanting. It had signally failed. The trade, foreign, and domestic, was stopped, and the result was, that the people were brought to a starvation rate of wages, and were reduced to a most destitute and pitiable condition. The products of improved machinery went into the pockets of the free trade capitalists and mill- owners ; and yet the working classes, thus reduced, were called upon to bear an intolerable and increased burden of taxation, and the question had now come to this ; that either the working classes must perish, or a change must be made in the nation's institutions. The people would not quietly submit to such scenes as had been enacted in Ireland during the last eighteen months; they would no longer listen to the promises of John Bright and Company." Who John Bright and Company means, I neither know nor care. (Laughter.) I beg I may not be misunderstood. I trust I shall not be considered as intending the slightest disrespect to the honourable Grentleman of the same name opposite; but I beg to assure him that I have purposely refrained from inquiring whether he be the person meant or not, because I wish to be at perfect freedom to speak without any reference to any individual. I take the person here named to be a great master manufacturer. I take the essence of this to be, that the labouring classes think that they can better their condition by reducing the profits of the master manufacturer. Now I speak for the interests of the operatives and labourers and not of the master manufacturers, when I tell those labourers that their best chance of prosperity is by increasing the capital of their masters. It is perfectly true that the measure of free trade may have increased the capital of mill-owners and manufacturers, without improving the condition of the working classes ; but I say it is impossible for the men under any circumstances, ever to be in a prosperous condition, save as their masters are in a prosperous condition. The whole question resolves itself into this, How can the amount of money- wages be increased ? It is believed to be practicable to effect it by legislation ; and that is the ground of the opinions that are now afloat. I have already stated that it is the determination of the people, on both sides of the water, to alter the social condition GROWN AND GOVERNMENT SECUEITY BILL. 33 of this country ; and we all know — and here again I am sure of the support of the honourable gentleman opposite — that in all chronic cases, cases that are deemed all but desperate and in- curable — we are apt to have recourse to nostrums, to mesmerism, to St. John Longs, and other quacks. But the only chance for effecting a cure in such cases, is to judge from the past what is likely to come in the future ; and it is my conviction that any one who attempts to say that he can, by a new constitution of society, alter and amend the condition of the labouring classes, especially by bringing them, under pretence of a cry denouncing free trade, to battle against their employers, not only grossly deludes them, but is himself an abominable quack. I do not believe in any new revelation of the sort. I do not believe in what was said in a celebrated state paper the other day, that we are about to establish a new code of Christianity by which to regulate the world. And yet it is in consequence of all this poisonous trash, in which the men of Dublin take an espe- cial delight, that the people of this country, too, are now for a moment in a state of treasonable agitation. The honourable Member for Nottingham (Mr. F. O'Connor), as delegate for Leeds, at a recent meeting, held forth in this manner : — " If lie was not prepared with a new system to succeed the present one — a new system which would enable every industrious man to live honourably, independently, and happily — he would not give a snap of the fingers for the Charter. (Hear.) But he had studied the question of the rights of labour, both theoretically and practically, — he had devoted days and parts of nights to the consideration of the means of elevating the industrious classes, and he was ready, if he had the Charter granted to-morrow, to put every man willing to labour to work, and to obtain double and treble the wages he now earned." This same gentleman told us the other evening that he, in the midst of this disloyalty, was the only loyal man ; that " he amidst the faithless, was faithful only found." He described himself like one of the fabled virgins of the poet : — " Una de multis, face nuptiali." To be sure the poet adds, — " Splendide mendax et in omne virgo Nobilis sevum." Men who will trifle with the distresses of their fellow- vol. i. D 34 CROWN AND GOVERNMENT SECURITY BILL. creatures, may pretend to bring to them light from heaven; but they really only bring to them a glare from the bottomless pit. There seems to me not much courage nor much wisdom in thus acting. Here is avowedly a determination to form a National Convention, and to call upon the country to obey it; and not to obey the Qneen and the Government. Now, I go a great deal farther than most of the gentlemen with whom I act, in thinking that we have done nothing as we ought to have done towards reducing the expenses of the public establishments. I tbink we ought long ago to have extended the elective franchise, that we ought long ago to have shortened the duration of Par- liament; and I think many other things upon subjects which are not now before us; and I have only abstained from alluding to these circumstances before, because I did not like to thrust myself into labours, which I thought would be undertaken by others. But rather than suffer this charter to be passed by as a foolish thing leading to nothing, I myself will bring in the measure. I repeat, that should war ensue, it will no longer be a question as between republicanism and monarchy ; but I do fear it will be as foretold by Mr. Canning many years ago, when he said that the next war that would desolate Europe, would not be a national war, but a war of opinions, a war of country against town, of village against village, of man against man. This is the war that I am afraid of ; this is the war of which I see the elements gathering on every side. The maxim of "the divine right of kings " has been perverted in the hands of tyrants into a source of power to inflict oppres- sion on the people committed to their care, and a means in the hands of ministers of saddling their own friends on the public purse. But nevertheless there is reason in the maxim, when rightly understood. That all right of government proceeds from the people is a truth, if it be a truth, void of fruition, for it is practically an impossibility. You may talk indeed of government in which nobody governs, and nobody is governed ; but no other form of government than that which now exists can you have. The present danger is that you may be without any government at all ; and therefore I say, whether this measure be the best or not, whether it be rightly or wrongly worded, I will consent to give this power to the Government in order to pre- serve to them the power of governing at all. 35 EEMOVAL OF ALIENS BILL.— May 1st, 1848. I CAN fully subscribe to every word of the eloquent speech which the House has just heard with respect to the confidence to be reposed in the constitution. The noble lord (Lord D. Stuart) has said that the measure now before the House is contrary to Magna Charta, which provided for a settlement in this country of foreign merchants. I have read the bill several times. I perceive that it is directed against the residence of foreign traitors ; but I find not one word against foreign merchants. Honourable gentlemen have expressed surprise that the right honourable gentleman who introduced the bill (Sir George Grey) said nothing as to its ne- cessity. Do they know nothing of what is going on in Europe ? The honourable baronet (SirWm. Molesworth) has told the House that a similar measure was objected to in former times by many great authorities ; but perhaps he is not aware that sitting on the same benches with them in those times were members of a " Cor- responding Society," sworn to promulgate their doctrines all over Europe. How far these eminent persons were tainted by such opinions it were hard to say ; and certainly I am not now going to vindicate the sayings and doings of any Whigs on the subject since the beginning of the French Eevolution. A poet has given a description of this city as — " London, the needy villain's general home, The common sewer of Paris and of Rome, Condemned by fortune and resistless fate, Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state." The honourable baronet seems anxious that London should still exhibit this character. He says this is a new measure. The other day the Government was charged with bringing into ope- ration an old law of Charles II. If the plague were now to break out, physicians would not recur to Thucydides to see how it was treated in Athens, nor would they look at the old autho- rities which recorded how the disease was dealt with during its ravages in London. In the good old times an Earl of West- D 2 36 REMOVAL OF ALIENS BILL. moreland marched up to London, and made palpable open war ; but now there is peaceable agitation carried on till people are prepared to rise, till arms are procured, till people are trained in their use ; and then resistance is said to be a sacred duty. I am much surprised to hear it said by more than one honourable gen- tleman opposite that there is no reason to apprehend pro- pagandism. A remarkable circumstance attending the former French revolution was, that people began by propagandism before they began with reformation of abuses in the respective countries to which they belonged. So long back as in 1773 Voltaire settled himself on the borders of Switzerland, and pro- mulgated the doctrines which a few years afterwards he propa- gated in his own country. It is said there is no propagandism now. Only yesterday I read a letter sent by Count de Monta- lembert to the " Tablet," in which it was said to the Irish in so many words, " Don't make war with England ; but I will tell you what we will do — we will make war for Poland." What business has he to make war for Poland more than against this country ? It has been asked why should the country not rely now on its institutions as in the time of Queen Elizabeth, since she never applied for an Alien Act? If you gave her Majesty's ministers a Star Chamber they would not apply for an alien bill. If you distrust the opinions of modern British writers with respect to those who distinguished themselves by their advocacy of propagandism, I will take leave to refer to the opinions of a French minister, recorded so far back as 1839, who says : — " Yes, it is a sad and extraordinary spectacle that this hierarchy presents — organised for pillage and crime. The assassination of kings in general, and of him whom the Revolution of July placed on the throne in particular, is preached as the most holy of duties ; but this is not all — the revolution which they desire to effect is at once political and social. It is not only royalty that they wish to extirpate from the soil, but it is above all the aristocracy and aristocrats, and the list of aristocrats is long. The landed proprietor is chief aristocrat ; the capitalist, the manufacturer, and whoever is convicted of possessing an acre of land, or a hundred crowns of rent. They will carry the hatchet and the torch against these monstrous inequalities. They will level by the same blow, heads, ranks, and fortunes. The double reform which they wish to found on the ruin of the monarchy and of society is, in politics, the sovereignty of the people modified by the REMOVAL OF ALIENS BILL. 37 scaffold ; in the revenue, equality of fortunes and community of goods. Such is their end, and such are their means." Such was the light in which the proceedings of the revolu- tionist party in France were viewed by a French minister in 1839. I do not mean to express any wish one way or another with respect to the great events which have recently occurred in other countries ; but as one honourable member has expressed in this House his enthusiastic admiration of the revolutionary doctrines, and his anxious desire for their success, it is at least open for me to declare my determined detestation of them, and my conviction that they can end in nothing but universal civil war and slaughter (laughter). It may be all very well for honourable Members to laugh at these things ; but I should like to know what they would do with a people, to whom they had deliberately made promises which it was wholly out of their power to perform ? And I will take the liberty of hinting — for I have not time or opportunity to do more — that the greater part of the discontent at present prevailing in this country is to be attributed to the fact, that promises have been made to the people which can never be accomplished. D 3 38 THE NAVIGATION LAWS.— May 29th, 1848. Although unwilling at this late hour to prolong the debate, I desire to submit some observations to the consideration of the House, because I have the misfortune to differ in opinion, not only from Her Majesty's ministers who have brought forward this proposition, but also from many members on this side of the House. I am willing to concede that the course of policy which has been pursued by both parties has rendered neces- sary some such measure as that now under discussion ; that it is a step essentially requisite in the course which has been adopted for many years ; but as I object to that course in toto, I must necessarily object to each, step taken in the same direction : nevertheless, it is not my intention to offer an unavailing and therefore factious opposition, and I will leave ministers un- embarrassed by hostile votes hereafter from me. I confess I was exceedingly astonished at hearing Parliament called upon to adopt a measure of this magnitude upon such feeble grounds — a measure which has for one of its objects to turn British seamen out of our ships, and to man them with foreigners and Lascars — a measure by which it is proposed at one fell swoop to wipe out the whole of our maritime laws from the days of Eichard I. to the present time — a code of laws, observe, not enacted at once, but which has been developed year after year, or rather age after age, throughout that whole period. This mighty change is, however, to be made in order to work out more completely the principles of the thing called Free Trade. Gentlemen, doubtless, know what they mean when they make use of the terms free trade on the one side of the House, and of protection on the other ; but I am somewhat at a loss to understand them, for I find that the freetraders still leave many articles of commerce with duties upon them, whilst the protectionists make no objection to the unrestricted admission of others. Still there must be a principle in it if we* THE NAVIGATION LAWS. 39 could but get at it. Yorkshire has been heaving on one side, and Lancashire on the other : there has been a mighty moun- tain in labour, and something must be produced at last ; the statistical department of the Board of Trade lent its obstetric aid; the politico-economical club volunteered its assistance, but it is not easy to determine what part it took in the opera- tion — perhaps it only held the sponge with the chloroform to the nose tff the patient : at length a great dogma was enunciated, which was, that we ought to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market. This is the wonderful discovery of the age; this is the test by which we are to estimate the value of the military and naval defences of the country, and by which the whole course of government is to be regulated. Sages in all times have pronounced certain dogmata by which they have become celebrated; one has said, "Know thyself ;" another has said, " Pleasure is the greatest good ; " another has said, " Virtue is the greatest good." The great dogma of the Manchester school of the present day, when reduced to its lowest denomination is, " Buy for a penny, sell for twopence." This maxim has all the characteristics of a great philosophic truth ; it is simple and comprehensive, and yet. minute; it takes in the great Manchester manufacturer, and the merchant princes of London, and yet does not leave out the poor barrow-woman at her stall, nor even the dog and cat's-meat man. Such is the principle on which the Government of the country is conducted, and this is the only ground which has been offered by Her Majesty's ministers for the adoption of the measure under consideration, and we are urged to pass it merely as the means of procuring sugar and cochineal cheaper than we can at present. One honourable gentleman has referred to the relaxation of our commercial system which took place at the end of the last war. Doubtless, at the end of that war this country was in a very different position from that in which it was at the commencement, not only with reference to its own circumstances, but also with reference to its relative position as regarded other European states. Our nearest and most restless neighbour had increased its army tenfold ; other nations had done the same to nearly an equal extent; whilst our army had been little more than doubled : their territories had however become (with the ex- ception of Prussia) much more compact, whilst ours had been D 4 40 THE NAVIGATION LAWS. extended many thousand miles. Mr. Huskisson, Lord Wallace, and others, justly thought that many regulations which had been established when certain trades were in their infancy, might be discontinued; and be it remembered that many of these regulations were bound up in treaties for which political equivalents had been received by us, and were not the creation of our laws. The only way by which it ever was or is now possible for you to retain your colonies, is to make them inte- gral parts of the mother country ; to give them every privilege which we enjoy, and to make the trade between them and the mother country as free as it is between any two English counties. Instead of sending them out constitutions from your Colonial Office, which prove generally inapplicable to them, you should have given to the local authorities power to adopt any English laws which they pleased ; and in this way, although the founda- tions of their local laws are all various, some being Dutch, some French, some Portuguese, and some Spanish, they would gra- dually have grown into union with the laws of the mother country. Instead of doing this, you have sacrificed your colonies to your manufacturing system ; you have starved them for the sake of Manchester, and you are going on in the same course of class legislation. You know well that no trade can be car- ried on for any length of time between two parties unless it be eventually advantageous to both, and you intentionally prefer to give the benefit of trading with you to the French, or to any foreigner you can find, rather than to your own brethren the colonists ; you intentionally do this, you intentionally enrich the French and Germans, and impoverish the subjects of your own country. This was your intention during your whole agitation about the corn laws. You said it was for the sake of the poor. Bo you think the poor believe you ? Do you think that they do not see through the fallacy, when you talk about cheapening the poor man's loaf at the very time that you are taking away from his employer the power of giving him the means to pur- chase that loaf? You say that the poor are ungrateful, that there is an attempt made to set the working classes against the manufacturers ; there is no need to do that. The poor see through all this perfectly well. I never spoke to a working operative, as you call him, or country labourer, concerning free trade, who was not against it ; and when you charge them with ingratitude THE NAVIGATION LAWS. 41 to you for the benefit you say you have conferred by giving them cheap bread, they feel, though they may not know how to express it in the words of Lord Bacon, that " Ingratitude is some- times only a keen insight into the motives of • benevolence." When allusion was made on a recent occasion to the advantage and non-advantage of colonies, and to the possibility of our re- taining them, the noble lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government said, that he had been accustomed to contemplate with pride the greatness of this empire, and that if ever the time should arrive when they should be separated from the mother country, some other hand than his must be looked for to sign the deed. This sentiment is creditable to him as an Englishman, and worthy of the high reputation which he deservedly enjoys as a British statesman ; but there is in this country one greater than he is ; and if it would be a painful thing for him to present such a deed to his Sovereign, it would be doubly painful to her to receive it. Monarchy is fatherhood, and the Sovereign loves all her chil- dren alike. The noble lord must remember how painful it was to George III. to receive the ambassador from the United States ; and if the noble lord perseveres in the policy which he is now pursuing, it is impossible for him to preserve the colonies of this empire. I concede every word that has been said with respect to the commercial advantages which may accrue to this nation by the present policy. You may be rich, but you will be contemptible. The policy of your Edwards, long before the policy of Richard II. began, was to make the country great; knowing that when a country was great it would be rich, and caring nothing for its being rich unless it were also great. The object of your idolatry is wealth : wealthy you may be, and the Queen may have an European island like Corsica or Sicily ; but if you persevere in your present course, the Sovereign of the British Empire she never can be more. 42 NATIONAL EEPEESENTATION. — June 20th, 1848. On the motion of Mr. Hume, attributing the prevalent discontent to the existing state of the representation, and in favour of household suffrage, vote by ballot, triennial parliaments, and the more equal apportionment of members and population. I kegebt that the honourable member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) should have used expressions, in the course of his speech, calcu- lated to lead persons to imagine that there is any direct con- nection between a change in the constitution of this House, and relief from suffering of any kind which the people now endure ; for it is from language of this nature that the people are always disappointed at the result of the discussions of such measures as that now under our consideration, I am also sorry that he should have based the necessity for the measures which he has proposed, upon the threatened disturbances on the 10th of April, giving it as his opinion, that the agreeing to his plan would have been a better way of preserving the public peace than that which was adopted by her Majesty's ministers. It happens, however, that the preservation of the peace was entrusted to them and not to him, and they were in possession of the information necessary to enable them to judge which were the most efficient means, while he was not in possession of such information; and as to whether that peace was to be pre- served by the police, or by the military, it was a mere question of whether men preferred to have their heads broken with a staff, or be shot by a musket ; a question which is a pure matter of taste, that each may decide for himself, the essential point being that the peace should be preserved, and the mode by which it was done being a minor and very secondary matter. Fortunately for the country, the mode adopted by the responsible advisers of the Crown did prove effectual, and they are entitled to the gratitude of all peaceable people for the steps they took. With all possible deference to the honourable member, I find it ex- tremely difficult to arrive at an accurate idea of his meaning ; NATIONAL REPKESENTATION. 43 in one part of his speech he spoke of the elective franchise as a right, and in another as if he considered it in the light of a trust. Again, I am not able to satisfy myself as to what the honourable member considers a parliament to be ; for at one time he treated it as if it were a deliberative assembly, and at another he called it the executive. Again, he spoke of his motion having been drawn up and entrusted to him by a com- mittee ; now a committee is a small body of persons to whom something is committed by a larger body, but we have heard of no such body who has made such an appointment. (Mr. Hume: — The people.) The people ! well, but the word people is an abstraction ; the only legitimate organ through which the people collectively can speak, is the Queen, and I never heard that the honourable gentleman had been sent for by her Majesty. But leaving the reasonings of the honourable member, let us come to the substantive matter which he has brought forward. I might refer to some pamphlets of mine, written in the year 1829, in which an extension of the franchise is recommended, and also the shortening the duration of parliaments, to prove that the subject has been for a long time under my consideration. The subject possesses great intrinsic interest, and recent circum- stances, both abroad and in this country, have given the question a more than ordinary importance during the present year, and we must all be prepared to discuss it with our constituents at the next election. I will say further, in the words of the learned author of the " QEdipus Judaicus," " He who will not reason is a bigot, he who cannot is a fool ; " and we must give intel- ligible reasons for what we will grant, and for what we will withhold. We must consider from whom the petitions for this measure have proceeded, and I am sure the largest portion is from those who are suffering great distress. In all the black catalogue of human misery there is none equal to that of a parent, able and willing to labour for the support of his children, but from want of employment, compelled to see them perish from starvation before his eyes. You must all remember that famous passage in the first of modern poets where he takes, as the acme of human suffering, the case of Ugolino ; and very painful accounts of nearly equal horrors were published lately, where the intensity of suffering had destroyed the strongest feelings of human nature, and mothers were known to promote 44 NATIONAL REPRESENTATION. the death of some of their children, that they might have the means of supporting others a little longer. No wonder that persons in such extremities are willing to follow any desperado, or adopt any scheme, however wild, which pro- mises them a possibility of improving their condition ; no wonder they cry out for a change in the constitution, or anything else ; it is vain to talk to them of the destruction of property, or of the dependence of wages upon capital. These are the people upon whom cooler heads and fuller bellies find it easy to operate, and though it may be true that the leaders of these bodies are not themselves suffering, yet it is the mass of suffering they lead which makes them for- midable. Another class of men who call loudly in favour of reform are the intelligent operatives, men skilled in those arts in which some science is necessary, such as dyers, chemists, makers of machinery, workers in metals, miners, engine manu- facturers, &c. &c. These men are unrepresented, and though it is true that they earn high wages, it is also true that of all classes they are the most improvident. There are many who, though gaining five guineas a week, never have a farthing in their pockets on the Monday morning. They are clamorous for the elective franchise, but the cry means an improvement in their physical condition; as to theories of government, they neither know nor care anything about them ; but what they require is the greatest enjoyment for the wages they earn, and the greatest amount of reward for the work they do; Behind all these are the really dangerous agitators for reform, who only use the others as their tools ; they are found among men of a higher class of intelligent speculators — doctors without patients — lawyers without briefs — writers in public journals — clever dreamers of every kind — these are the men, who not only here, but throughout Europe, want to see the present social system reduced to one great chaos, in order that they may be able to fish up a new constitution of their own out of the abyss It is necessary to distinguish between these three separate classes, and not to confound them all in the common term " chartist," using it as a term of reproach. I remember when a " reformer " was considered a black sheep, who was to be expelled from the society of his neighbours ; next came the name " radical," and now " chartist " is the word ; and although the word "chartist" NATIONAL REPRESENTATION. 45 includes every worthless character in the country, there are doubtless many worthy men banded under the title. They all, however, seem to have strange notions with respect to the first principles of government. A meeting was lately held in Birmingham, the proceedings of which have been highly pane- gyrised in a respectable journal : I call the journal respectable, because it is exceedingly well written, and has a large circulation. I am aware that the term respectable is somewhat equivocal, and that when a witness on Thurtell's trial said that he was respectable, and was asked by the counsel what he meant by the word respectable, he replied that " Mr. Thurtell kept a gig." I conclude that these writers keep gigs, and are in short respec- table. Now, at this meeting an alderman, also, I suppose, respectable, made use of these words : — " But of all things let the people be true to themselves ; let there be no dispute about mere words ; for himself he had no hesitation in saying that he was a complete Chartist, nothing more nor less ; but was that to prevent him from joining hand and heart in such a move- ment as this, laying aside minor differences, for a public good ? He believed they were all loyal enough. England had flourished under the system of a King, Lords, and Commons ; and although, if he were going to frame a new constitution, he might be disposed to dispense with the King and the Lords, stiil he would rather endure such ills as those entailed, than fly to changes which might produce bloodshed, havock, desolation, and misery. Let, however, the rulers of this country — the powerful in this country — remember that there was a spirit of endurance implanted by God in the heart of man beyond which he would not go. "With a population on the verge of starvation, what safety and seciu-ity are to be expected ? What the limits of endurance are may not be spoken, even though they were known ; but when the period comes that they are outstretched beyond their natural limits, farewell to the love of order which knits men together — farewell to the ties of humanity. Let Lord John Russell beware of that hour. Great as are the evils we have to endure — great as are the wrongs of which we have to complain — let us all stand for ' peace, law, and order,' not bating one jot of our firmness of purpose to obtain our just demands. We will adopt as our motto the three words I have just uttered to you ; but if the time comes when the bonds which knit those together are rent asunder — if the Prime Minister and legislators hesitate too long, let it not be laid to our charge that we were the first to trample on social institutions and to raise the signal for anarchy.'' 46 NATIONAL REPRESENTATION. Such is the language held at a meeting, highly applauded in a respectable journal, and considered as a model of propriety. Now, I think it should be laid down by this House as a fixed principle, from which nothing shall induce us to depart, that we will uphold the institutions of the country. With regard to those institutions every one has his peculiar partialities, and I confess if there be one part of the constitution I should be willing to do without rather than another, it certainly is neither of these so lightly esteemed by the worthy alderman. The Crown and the Lords are not " evils to be endured." The next consideration is, what are the things asked for by the three classes of persons who unite in demanding reform. I have already mentioned the extension of the suffrage, that suffrage which you gave to the people by the reform bill ; I do not say " we," because I was no party to that bill. I hated it at the time, and I hate it still ; but I cannot help it ; I am living under it, and there is nothing left now but to carry it out. The old principle of suffrage is taken away, and a 101. franchise established. But there is no principle in 10Z. which is not equally to be found in 91. 19s. 6cl. That limit cannot stand. They who talked of the reform bill being a final measure, must have had an extraordinary want of foresight not to perceive that it was merely a first step to a vast number of measures. As to what should be the extent of the suffrage, I will not now enter into any details, but merely say that as far as you can define property, so far let it extend. There is an absurd cry against being ruled by the aristocracy, and it is said that this House will never do its duty to the people until all the labouring classes are represented. But does the honourable member mean that every separate department of industry must be separately represented ? The other day I said a word in favour of poachers ; and perhaps they may be in- cluded in the term industrial classes. We have had to-day presented to the House petitions from the brush-makers, and petitions from the bellows-makers ; and does he mean that the bellows-makers all over England are to be gathered together for the purpose of choosing a representative ? Gentlemen talk about representatives for classes ; but the moment such a measure is attempted to be worked out, its absurdity is manifested. Although the honourable member for Montrose says that there is great dissatisfaction with the reform bill, I doubt whether NATIONAL REPRESENTATION. 47 there ever was a time when the labouring classes were so much represented, as several of that class are now sitting in the present House. I am not going into a genealogical inquiry concerning the pedigree of honourable members, but there is a little book, published by Mr. Dod, from which I collect that in the present House there is a greater number of those who owe their origin to the lower orders than in any former House. The whole question turns upon what is the meaning of the word aristocracy. In uncivilised society it means the strongest, and in civilised society it means the wisest. In every case it must be the aristocracy which rules. Some persons may indeed think one man the wisest, and I may think another the wisest ; but how can you get wisdom defined by act of parliament? You cannot make equality. The cry for equality indicates something unsound in the mind and spirits of men. There is no equality throughout all nature. There is no equality in any one of the three kingdoms* animal, vegetable, or mineral; if men are to be discontented because others are their superiors, and that all are not equal, they must be discontented to all eternity. As to triennial parliaments, I certainly think it would be a great advantage if the duration of parliament were shortened, and members were oftener thrown back upon, and brought into contact with, their constituents. Whether this be done by triennial or annual parliaments does not much signify ; both are according to the ancient practice; but parliaments for five years, which the honourable member has mentioned, are a new experiment. I have no faith in anything new, and I dislike septennial parliaments, because they are of Whig invention; they might be, and probably were, necessary for that party at the time they were enacted, but they were made for a temporary purpose, and should have ceased when the occasion ceased which called them forth. With respect to the proposition for electoral divisions, universal suffrage, and no property qualifi- cations, they are merely means of obtaining an end, winch I think we should all most studiously resist. It must be admitted, and it is useless to deny, that it is the interest of the community, looking only to numbers, to make a fresh division of property every year, for the number of those who have got nothing is always greater than the number of those who have got some- thing. I know that political economists will say that the poor 48 NATIONAL KEPRESENTATION. labourer will suffer more than the capitalist ; but I fear starving people are always very bad political economists. I believe honourable gentlemen opposite were very much astonished at the bad political economy of the French populace during the late revolution — but it always must be so : and I therefore say confidently that we must not give power to those who have no property ; and I say so for this, among other reasons, that there never did exist in the world a society so constituted. If we refer to ancient republics, we find Athens with 100,000 freemen, and 400,000 slaves, who had no political or civil rights whatever ; so that four out of five of the entire population were excluded. In Rome all the work and most of the trades were carried on by slaves, who had no civil privileges ; — and, leaving ancient states, and coming to our own country, the Saxon peasant had no rights under the reign of the Edwards and the first Henries. Coming later down, the condition of the freeholder was different from what it was after the Reformation, and still more from what it was after the Revolution. If you give to those without property the same rights which you give to those with property, the power will be in the hands of the masses, who will be driven in times of distress to make a subversion of society. We have heard about property having duties as well as rights ; the expression is absurd, because an abstraction can have neither duties nor rights ; but proprietors have duties, and the first duty of every owner of property is to fight for it, and, as a nobleman lately said, " to die for his order ; " not to suffer it to be taken from him by any means directly or in- directly ; and to resist by moral force, if assailed by moral force — by physical force, if assailed by physical force. If any one doubts that a feeling and intention to make such a division of property is now being manifested, let him attend to the peti- tion which has been this day presented by the noble lord, the member for Bath. Can any one be so ignorant of the common literature which has appeared in this country within the last twelve months, as not to know that there does pervade through a large body of the most intellectual operatives the notion, that they have not a due share in the profits of the capitalist ? This feeling is gaining ground amongst them ; and another feeling also, which is, that every owner of property is a public robber, and that he or his progenitor has taken from the public that NATIONAL REPKESENTATIOX 49 which he has appropriated to himself. I cannot cite the exact words in any English work, but I remember them in French (cries of " Oh ! in French "). Do not imagine that there is any difference in theory on this subject between the operatives in France and the operatives in England. I did not expect to hear this statement denied, or I would have had with me the works to which I allude ; but it is the same as that declared in French by the expression Toute propriete est vol. No one can read an Irish newspaper which speaks of the tenant right, with- out meeting with the assertion that that right is prior to that of the landlord. All the points of the charter which I have enu- merated, tend more or less, directly or indirectly, to give power to those persons who, I maintain, never must have it. Political power must be confined to those who have property, and those who have no property must be entirely excluded from it. Another dangerous delusion encouraged in the speech of the honourable member for Montrose is, that there is any necessary connection between the alteration of the constitution of this House and a diminution of taxation. I am willing to go as far as the honourable member in censuring the present extravagance, and in endeavouring to curtail the expenditure as much as possible ; but I cannot admit that the necessary consequence of the old Eeform Bill was an immediate retrenchment and dimi- nution of the public burdens. The government of that day courted popularity at the expense of the best interests of the country, and sold off the capital of the country, its naval and military stores, which we had afterwards to replace at a great loss. Let retrenchment stand on its own footing ; and let the amendment of the constitution of this House stand on its own footing ; but if it shall be maintained that by any alteration of the constitution of this House the expenditure of the country will be necessarily curtailed, that can only take place by a return of such members as would be dead and insensible to the national interests, to the national honour, to the national power, and would be wholly influenced by their own paltry and local interests. There are already in this Hotise some who boast that they are the representatives of large populous town constituencies ; but they are not the representatives of the feelings and judgment of the people of England. Nay, I will say more ; the more they VOL. I. E 50 NATIONAL REPRESENTATION. are exclusively identified with the interests of those constituen- cies who return thein, the*more it becomes the Government to look with jealousy on any of their recommendations; it being the duty of the Crown to knit contending interests together, and not to allow one to be absorbed by, or sacrificed to, another. The populous town constituencies, of which honourable members opposite boast, do not for the most part send men to Parlia- ment fitted to take a large grasp of the general interests of the country ; and the consequence is, that whenever these gentlemen cannot get their own little whim or crotchet carried, they are out of humour and threaten the House, saying, " You do not know what the people out of doors are saying ; " meaning by the word " people," their own little class or party. "We have heard most extraordinary statements by members of this description ; we heard it declared lately, that, in the opinion of such members, the noble Lord at the head of the Government was influenced in his course of policy and in his measures by the conversation of drawing-rooms and clubs ; now, any person who made such re- marks showed that he was as ignorant of the habits of English society as he was of the customs of China. There is great discontent throughout the country, and there ever will be ; because this House is a great and expensive club, and a seat in it gratifies the vanity of many people, and, as long as there exists any one thing which one man wants to gain at the hands of large bodies of men, flattery and promises will be resorted to to obtain it : there will always be a quid pro quo. The candidate says to the popular constituency, " Oh, if you will send me to Parliament, you shall see what reforms I will make ; there shall be no more taxes, nor starvation ; the old story of Cockney-land shall be realised, and pigs shall run about ready roasted." But men find the House of Commons a different place from that which they imagined it to be ; they cannot have their own way ; there are others as wise who want to have theirs ; and the decision of the House is the aggregate wisdom of contending interests. Promises are made of things which no House of Commons could ever grant ; and the people are dis- contented because their demands are refused by the House, their representatives having held out to them expectations which no government could realise, just as the Government of France is now promising that it will be able to feed the people. You NATIONAL REPRESENTATION. 51 may constitute this House as you will, but no House can ever have the power to remove distress from the people. It is a gross delusion to tell them that anything but misery is the lot of the great mass of mankind, or that this misery can be eradicated by any legislation whatever. There is a sort of instinct, for I can call it by no better name, prevalent throughout Christendom at the present moment, leading men to suppose that the time is come for the regeneration of the human race, although no one can tell by what means it is to be effected. Yes, there shall indeed be a regeneration, but the world must first go through a baptism of blood, and it is for that baptism you are preparing it by inciting in the people desires which cannot be gratified. The regeneration never can take place, there never shall be universal peace, until He comes, — the Prince of Peace, — whose right alone it is to reign over the whole human race. E 2 52 SUGAR DUTIES. — July 3rd, 1848. If the result of this protracted debate is the final settlement of the question, we certainly shall not have spent so many weari- some evenings in vain. But I very much fear, indeed I am as certain as I can be of anything, that the question will not be settled by this night's decision, and that in the year 1854, or at any other period, we shall be as far from any final settlement as we are at the present hour, according to the course we are pur- suing. The right honourable baronet, the member for Eipon (Sir J. Graham), and the right honourable gentleman, the member for Oxford University (Mr. Gladstone) — two gentlemen to whose opinions the House naturally and deservedly pays the highest deference — declared at the outset of their observations that they were in considerable difficulty from the complex nature of the case, and the many interests that are involved in it. And their opinions are fully justified by the debate, for one honour- able gentleman has treated it as a free-trade question, another as a slave-trade question ; others have treated it solely with reference to the West Indian planters, but no one has as yet given us a single clue by which we can unravel its great per- plexities. The West Indian interests have a great advantage this time, for they have the benefit of the consummate abilities and the great exertions of the noble Lord, the member for Lynn (Lord George Bentinck) ; and certainly at no time have those in- terests in this House been so well or so ably advocated as upon the present occasion. But honourable members are in this perplexity, that on both sides of the House they are afraid to carry out their own principles. It is, indeed, a question of free trade ; but the only light we have got upon it — the only direction, the only hint almost we have received — is that contained in the recommenda- tion of the committee, which is not a very novel or generous ex- pedient, it being merely the taxing of one portion of the public to pay another — a system which rejoices under the name of pro- tection. By such a mode, indeed, Paul may be protected, but SUGAR DUTIES.. 53 how Peter is to be protected I do not know ; and any protection which is not a protection to all the subjects of the Queen equally is a project which this House ought not to sanction. They are afraid to carry out their free trade principles. They want to bring political economy into the general government, and they think- that a political economist must of necessity be a statesman. Now it is precisely in questions of trade that the maxims of political economists apply ; but whatever help trade may gene- rally derive from them, it is unquestionable that, in the pre s ant state of trade in this country, every attempt to give it a direction will be found detrimental to it. The same rule is applicable to taxation; and it is not more true with regard to the cotton manufacturer than to the corn grower ; for, after all, land is but a great machine for the production of corn. It is a perversion of taxation if you direct it away from its lawful employment, and if by its means, whether in the shape of bounties, or of drawbacks, or of anything else, you seek to direct or control trade in any way. Taxation is only justifiable when it is em- ployed as a means for affording you the peaceful enjoyment of yoiu' occupations ; but taxation becomes unjust when it is used for any other purpose. But the fact is, you are afraid of your free trade principles, for if you are not, how comes it that you have not free trade between Scotland and England ? How comes it the Scotch whiskey pays a different duty from English spirits ? How comes it that in different parts of the Queen's dominions dif- ferent rates of taxation are imposed ? If the Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks it necessary for purposes of revenue to lay a tax upon timber, then why does he lay a tax on the timber of Canada and lay no tax on the timber of Sussex ? Unless you make the system of taxation apply equally, it is impossible you can go on much longer as you are. It is not by taxation, it is not by any interference with the operations of trade, that you can ever put an end to slavery. A long time ago, when I was acting with Mr. Zachary Macaulay, this view of the question prevented me from ever going with the Anti-Slavery Society, because I believed that they did not take the proper course for effecting their object. There was a motion once made in this House by Mr. Secretary Dundas to abolish the slave trade gradually — that was in 1800, — it went on for several years, because the West Indies refused ; and the only effectual motion ever made was that E 3 54 SUGAK DUTIES. by Mr. Brougham, when he wanted to make the slave trade piracy. Hanging a few captains of slavers at the yardarm off the coast of Africa would have done far more than anything else to put an end to the slave trade ; but if you were in earnest in wishing to put an end to it, why did you not send ships to watch the shores of Cuba, and claim their afrancados ? Why were you afraid to tell the slaves they had a right to regain their freedom by every means in their power ; that whenever an attempt was made to enslave a man, that man so seized upon was justified in putting to death the person who seized him ? I know that this principle is perverted, and that many regard it as applicable to mere political troubles ; but it is not so, for per- sonal freedom is the inherent right of man : he claims it from nature's charter, whilst every political right is merely con- ventional. And now what is it that the West Indies demand of the House ? Let the House look at what its course has been. You first encouraged slavery, and then turned moral and put an end to it. But, although you were inclined to be moral, " you had a frugal mind," and so you thought you would indulge your morality at the expense of the planters. You paid the planter 20,000,000?. for that of which he said it was not half the value, and in doing so you prevented for ever the cultivation of his estate. To talk of free labour competing with slave labour ! Does the honourable gentleman consider what the question is ? It is not between ten men called slaves and ten men called free ; but it is ten men flogged to death in a certain period to get out of them double the labour that can be got out of ten free men ; and so long as flogging is cheaper than feeding, so long will it be impossible for free labour to compete with slave labour. A parallel case in this country would be taking away the horses of a farmer, or a piece of the machinery, or of the mill of a manu- facturer. You could not give an equivalent to the West Indies unless you took the whole' of their estates at the same time. Then you gave them apprentices, but you broke your bargain again ; then you promised the planters protection as an equiva- lent. But in the meantime you had taken a lesson in political economy, and you broke your promise. You have thus broken three distinct bargains with the planters consecutively. I am not going to discuss the question, whether the West Indian estates are well or ill managed ; I should say that this House SUGAR DUTIES. 55 is not the proper place in which to decide upon the mode of cultivation, and I should upon that point distrust the gentlemen of Manchester as much as the Colonial Office. But sugar culti- vation, which is partly a cultivation and partly a manufacture, can never be carried on well except under the eye of the master. What is it then that the West Indies have a right to demand from us ? It is the free admission into this country of every one of their productions without duty, and they ought to be content with nothing less than that. They have a right also to full power to import any labourers from any place they please. I grant that it may be necessary to watch over apprenticeship and vagrancy, or anything like a handle to the reintroduction of the slave trade. The only way in which you can pursue a safe and equal course is to carry out to the full extent perfect freedom of trade, perfect freedom of labour, and complete and equal pro- tection to every one of the Queen's subjects. E -t 5(3 SUSPENSION OF THE HABEAS COEPUS (IEELAND). July 22nd, 1848. I AM certainly somewhat surprised that the honourable Member for Cork should discriminate so accurately as he does between the mass of his own countrymen and those who are trying to mislead them, and that he should yet hesitate for a single moment to give to the Government that power which will enable them to seize the guilty while sparing the innocent. I am still more surprised that the honourable member should have the smallest doubt that this measure will be efficacious as far as it goes. If it be not efficacious, other measures must follow ; for it is right for him, and for every man, not only in this House, but in the country, to understand that civil war is no child's play. We are provoked to it ; war is proclaimed against us ; and there is no alternative but victory or death. It is " war to the knife ; " and the rebels must be put down. I am quite willing to enter upon the consideration of Irish grievances on a future and more fitting occasion ; but at the present time, the point in hand is the remedy proposed for a particular state of affairs in Ireland. It has been rightly said by the eloquent Member for Buckinghamshire, that Jacobinism and the discontent which certain persons felt with respect to their social position, are at the root of the evils we have now to deplore. The honourable Member for Nottingham (Mr. Feargus O'Connor) has spoken of a profligate press having done much to influence the public mind improperly. It is not for me to stand up in behalf of the press ; but I should like to know what meaning the honourable Member for Nottingham attaches to the word " profligate " in this instance. I suppose he means to describe a person, who, in his connection with the press, does some unworthy act for the sake of his private advantage or gratification. Now, I should like to know whether there is a person connected with any paper in the kingdom, but one, who will publish a long column of the names of blasphemous books, and recommend them to all SUSPENSION OF THE HABEAS CORPUS. 57 his readers. I will not pollute my lips nor disgust the ears of honourable members by reading the titles of these works ; but I wish to know whether the paper I have described is the " profligate press " referred to by the honourable Member for Nottingham? I give the honourable Member for Nottingham the choice of two alternatives : either he believes in and ap- proves of the doctrines of the books advertised ; or, knowing and believing them to be immoral, irreligious, and blasphemous works, he publishes their titles for the sake of the money he gets for so doing. I charge the honourable Member for Not- tingham with having, more perhaps than any one, tended to foment Jacobinical feelings. When I spoke on a former occa- sion of the doctrine promulgated by M. Proudhon's Toute jpro- •priete est vol, I was ignorant that the same doctrine had been broached by the honourable Member for Nottingham in his newspaper. Here it is : — " The land is yours, and one day or other you'll have your share of it, and the sooner you arrive at a knowledge of its value, the sooner will you be prepared to assert the great principle, that the land is the people's inheritance, and that kings, princes, peers, nobles, priests, and commoners, who have stolen it from them, hold it upon the title of popular ignorance rather than upon any right, human or divine. The national right is yours, the human usurpation is theirs." But this is not all — the honourable Member for Nottingham is not merely discontented with the tenure of property; he declares that the whole state of society must be subverted. This, then, is not, as the noble Lord has argued, a question as to the separation of Ireland — it is not a mere question of repeal - it is a question affecting the foundation of society itself. But the honourable Member for Nottingham shall speak for him- self: — " We frankly avow that we have no respect for society as at present constituted. Civilisation means ill-requited labour, starvation, gaols, bastiles for the masses. To the millions, civilisation is a large he, an organised hypocrisy. Perish such civilisation ! " Amongst the things which have stimulated and maddened the clever but too excitable people of Ireland, we may enumerate that curse, an " unruly tongue," which " setteth on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell." 58 POOE LAW UNION CHAEGES (No. 2) BILL. July 27th, 1848. I agree with the honourable member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) that this is a tinkering measure; but as that honourable gentleman has not given a definition of what a "tinkering" measure is, I will endeavour to do so. I mean by " tinkering," a bad mending of a bad thing ; and that, I think, is a natural and inseparable part of the new Poor Law system, and whether you get in the small end of the wedge or the large end of the wedge matters not. The measure itself is bad from the begin- ning. It is one you have never been able to work, and the whole practice of it is directly in the teeth of the professions and statements that were made on proposing it. But I have never been, nor will I be now, a party to any agitation upon this" or upon any other question. Say what you will of it, agitation is an appeal to men's passions when you cannot convince their reason. The repeal of the Corn Law was carried by agitation ; and this very measure of the Poor Law, which I very much disliked, was produced by agitation. In this country, however much a law is disapproved of, efforts are made to carry it out honestly ; but over the water, in the sister country, the rule is agitation, and no matter what law is passed, high and low, rich and poor, exert their utmost ingenuity to drive a coach and six through it. As to the clearance system, to which the right honour- able gentleman has alluded, I have only heard of one such case, which I will not now name, in which a proprietor, many years ago, pulled down the cottages on his estate. But what pro- prietors certainly do is to build cottages at a dead loss ; for it is perfectly impossible to build them in any way that will repay the outlay. There are well-managed parishes which have been stigmatised with the name of close parishes ; but the system in them may be very advantageously compared with that which prevails in other places called open parishes, where an indivi- dual or individuals run up a few cottages, let them at an enor- mous rent to the poor, then supply the inmates with goods — no POOR LAW UNION CHARGES BILL. 59 matter of what quality — from their own shops, and finally sell up every article of furniture the poor people possess. That is the open parish system ; and now the Government are going to make the so-called close parishes pay the rates of the parishes into which paupers are so recklessly introduced. That is the avowed intention. The private rates which the right honourable gentleman has stigmatised arise out of these circumstances. The great fault of the whole Somerset House system is that it treats men like abstractions. It supposes that all the poor are alike, and all labourers alike. Yes, that is what they do at Somerset House. In all cases they speak of the labourer as one fixed quantity. Now if there are 1 00 labourers in a parish, ten of them perhaps are first-rate, and the remainder bad, arising in some cases from infirmity, in others from age, or from other causes. What the honourable member for Oxfordshire says is true, although it has been denied by the honourable gentleman opposite, that on ten shillings a week a man can sup- port his wife and six children. If that man is thrown out of work, he goes into the workhouse. Yes ; but there he is sepa- rated from his wife and children. Now you come to abstrac- tions again. Does not the House think that a man will do any thing rather than submit to that ? You talk of the workhouse test ; but it is an act of mercy for the farmers and gentlemen of the county to meet in the autumn and apportion out the work among them so as to keep the labourers out of the workhouse. That is the reason for a private rate. Is it meant that it is of no advantage, if the owners of land and farmers meet together and say, " We will employ the poor, although at this time it is not profitable to us, and, to a certain extent, the labour is unpro- ductive ? " But in some cases it is not unproductive. If a man is employed at ten shillings a week, and he keeps his whole family upon these wages, but only gives the worth of five shil- lings a week in his work, it is surely a greater advantage than to send that man with his wife and six children to the work- house, where they cannot be supported for less than two shil- lings and sixpence a day. The truth is, that you have never been able to carry out the new poor law practically and con- sistently; for the returns show the great amount of out-door relief that is granted. By this new poor law you have dried up all the sources of private charity ; and this effect of the law you 60 POOR LAW UNION CHARGES BILL. are now going to increase. It is the interest of every gentleman to keep the poor around him, without exasperating them, with- out exacting from them rent they cannot pay ; and without putting them in the workhouse, which they abhor ; and so long as parishes can keep themselves clear, they will do so. But the moment they are joined to a neighbouring parish which is de- luging the country with paupers, it becomes a hopeless case. I have 200 cottages, and I would give them to any one who would keep them in repair. As to the scheme of union rating there is no intelligible principle in it. There is a principle in universal rating, but none in union rating ; and you cannot by talking substitute a no-principle for a principle, even if a bad one. There being a principle in universal rating, I would, hating it as I do, vote for it at once, rather than go on in this way by degrees towards it. The advantage of the old system was, that all the people meeting together every Sunday at their parish church knew one another, knew their mutual distresses and wants, and could assist the overseers in detecting imposture. Moreover, the clergymen are by law the overseers and guardians of the poor ; and they, I think, have shamefully abandoned their charge in never remonstrating against the new poor law as they ought. They have abandoned the poor, and now the poor are abandon- ing them. But, instead of the feelings and principles which were bound up with the old system, it is now made a mere matter of geography, and it matters not whether the compasses are stuck in one place or another. Under the new state of things, there is no person in the union whose heart is drawn out towards the poor ; and it is nothing but a vile system of money saving on one side, and of cheating on the other. I dislike this bill very much ; but if the right honourable gentle- man persists in pressing it, we must go into committee, and en- deavour to render the measure as good as it can be made. 61 REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS AND MARRIAGES (SCOTLAND) BILLS.— August 7th, 1848. The bill now before us is the same measure that has been before the people of Scotland since last April twelvemonth ; and although everybody agrees in the principle, yet honourable members seem to contend that there is not now time to consider the measure. They agree in the principle, but they do not like the machinery ; and that reasoning, if good for anything, goes to show that they ought ab once to go into committee on the bill. I feel considerable surprise that honourable members do not appear to be aware of the inconvenience which results from the present state of the law upon all occasions where it becomes necessary to inquire into cases of disputed succession. One case I may mention is that of a woman, who for some time was known in Glasgow by a particular name ; she afterwards went to America, and, in consequence of some legal measures which had been taken, as many as 300 persons of the same name came forward, which stopped the whole of the proceedings that had been instituted with regard to the property that had in the first instance occasioned the litigation. Marriage consists of two parts, the religious part, and the civil contract. With the latter alone has the state to do, in order that it may know to whom property should descend, leav- ing every person of right feeling, who desires also to receive the blessing of God in respect to the act of marriage, to decide where he will go for that blessing. I, therefore, think it will be necessary to leave out of the bill all the religious part ; but I trust that the learned Lord (the Lord Advocate) will press both bills through Parliament during the present session. 62 DIPLOMATIC BELATIONS WITH THE COUET OF EOME.— August 17th, 1848. An honourable and learned member has raised an objection to the bill, which is of grave importance ; and, if I could think that it was possible, as that learned gentleman has distinctly charged, that her Majesty's Government are intending to make it a ma- chinery and a means by which, directly or indirectly, the Queen shall make use of the Pope, or the Eoman Catholic clergy, to rule her subjects, I should decidedly oppose the measure as a thing derogatory to the dignity of» the crown of these realms. Her Majesty's duty is to rule her subjects herself, without refer- ence to any foreign sovereign ; but I do not believe that the Ministry has any such intention as the learned gentleman has stated. It has been alleged that this bill is to make a great change ; and the change is called a reconciliation with the Church of Eome. I will not quibble upon words ; but this I will say, that anything which is to be the means of producing reconciliation among all the sects of Christendom shall receive my warmest approbation. Much too long have men tried to distinguish themselves by fomenting acrimonious feelings among religious communities : and when I hear so much cheering at the sentiment that there shall be peace among the nations, and war shall be heard of no more, I conceive it but a vain delusion to suppose such a consummation possible while men regard it as a part of their religious duty to continue their sectarian animosity. I have passed many a Wednesday with worthy, respectable, and grown-up gentlemen, who were positively in a state of panic lest bulls should come into Ireland. Now, after all, what is a bull coming into Ireland ? An old gentleman in Eome puts a letter in the post directed to another old gentle- man in Dublin. If gentlemen will only look at it, they will not be so much frightened, after all. I perceive there is a clause in the bill to prevent the Pope from appointing an ecclesiastical person his representative. Honourable gentlemen are alarmed DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS. 63 lest a cardinal should find his way here ; but do they suppose that by any machinery in the world they can really prevent a cardinal from coming in ? They are only showing a peevish jealousy, and insulting the court with which they are seeking to establish relations. A petition against the bill has been pre- sented from the Dean of Westminster ; and the fear expressed is, that the Pope will appoint archbishops and bishops in this country. If the Church of Scotland chooses to establish an- other presbytery in London, we cannot stop it, it is no concern of ours ; and, as to Kornan Catholic archbishops and bishops, we are bound to acknowledge them ; the Church of England re- cognises the orders of the Church of Eome. It is easy to talk against the titles of "archbishop" and "bishop;" but they are not mere sound — they are facts — realities — persons holding high offices — and the Eoman Catholics alone are the fit judges how many they require, and where they shall be placed. Honour- able gentlemen seemed to have a great dislike to the Pope ; perhaps some of them have the same feeling as that entertained in Scotland, where there is a great horror of him ; first, be- cause he is antichrist ; next, because he is identified with the " scarlet lady ; " and, thirdly — which is the great offence of all — because he is a bishop. I look upon this bill as just enabling the Government to do openly and honestly what they have long been obliged to do clandestinely. 64 TRANSFER OF EEAL PROPERTY.— February 13th, 1849. When I asked for leave to introduce a bill for diminishing the labour and expense attendant upon the sale and transfer of real property, I thought I had stated sufficient to ensure the favour- able reception of the measure by the House. There is no reason why land should not be as perfectly free in the market as any other commodity. I might quote many authorities who have advocated this sentiment in times past ; but it would be a work of supererogation. Were it not for the feudal tenures which are still preserved, the disposal of land would be quite unshackled. I will not now enter into the nature of these tenures, or show how all their general evil has been maintained, although the burdens upon owners of land have been long since remitted ; and as I do not intend to dilate upon these subjects, I feel myself in this difficulty with respect to recommending my measure. I do not know upon what grounds the opposition to it can rest, and therefore I do not know what objection to answer. I can only reply at hazard to a few difficulties which I have heard started out of doors. First, I have been told that it is presumptuous in a person not called to the bar to introduce a bill upon a subject of this kind. Now being called to the bar means eating a cer- tain number of dinners and paying a certain amount of fees ; and I have certainly not been able to discover any necessary connection between these operations and the capability of draw- ing a bill. The question is not one in which a lawyer need bestir himself. Sydney Smith said long ago that the Court of Chancery was like a boa constrictor, which swallowed the estate of an English gentleman whole, and digested it at its leisure. Then why should lawyers bestir themselves in law reform ? They perform the office of masticators and digesters, and that is probably enough for them. No ; this is a question in which owners of land, and those who may become the owners of land, are the parties really interested. But then, it is said, that no- body but a lawyer can draw up a bill. That remains to, be TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY. 65 proved. A great many bills have been drawn up by many very eminent lawyers, which are found to be of very little use. Nay, no later than last session a bill for facilitating the sale of land in Ireland was most carefully prepared by the highest legal func- tionaries of the Government ; and that bill, I am informed by many Irish members, is little better than a caput mortuum. In fact it frequently proves that bills which one set of lawyers draw up puzzle another set of lawyers to interpret. Here, however, perhaps I shall be told that there is a Crown commission sitting on the subject, and I shall be asked whether I will not wait to see what that commission will do. Rusticus expectat — and I should be a very simple rustic indeed were I to expect any prac- tically advantageous results from a Crown commission. Again, I am told that I shall be opposed by the lawyers, because my bill will interfere with their interests. I repudiate such an idea. The study of the law is the study of a liberal profession, elevating men above sordid and interested motives ; and I would as soon believe that medical men would object to the reception of a remedy for malignant disease, or that military men would decry a general peace, as that lawyers would object to such a measure as I have to propose. I once indeed heard of the members of a medical college congratulating themselves on an unsatisfactory state of the public health, and drinking to the progress of slow fever with three times three. But I reject such scandals, and I can assure the House, that all the lawyers whom I have spoken to are favourable to my measure, and I count upon their kindness to supply my legal deficiencies. After the fullest examination* which I have been able to give to the subject, and with the fullest information which I have been able to collect, I have arrived at the firmest conviction that it is impossible to effect the object which I have in view in any other way than by the provisions of such a measure as I hold in my hand. I propose to establish a registry of deeds and lands, and that entries should be accompanied by full and ample maps of the estates referred to. In former tinges this was accomplished with some difficulty; but now that there exists a map of every parish in the kingdom, under the tithe commission, nothing more would be required than to copy out the necessary portion of that map. I also propose that there should be a public registration of all in- cumbrances, of any species, upon land ; but I do not propose vol. r. p 66 TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY. that this should be compulsory. I leave it to the discretion of individuals. Such are the main provisions of my Bill. I think that the only objection which will be made to it is, that it does not go far enough ; but in matters of this kind I prefer a measure which goes the least possible distance. SECOND BEADING OF THE TRANSFEE OF EEAL PEOPERTY BILL. — March 7, 1849. Mr. Speakee, — In the present stage of this measure it is not my intention to address any observations to lawyers. Up to this point it is purely a landowners' question ; the lawyers have no interest in it whatever ; if the landowners are content with things as they are, the lawyers have no cause to complain.* I * The Solicitor-General, in his answer to this speech, endeavoured to alarm the landowners by describing many instances of litigation which might arise if the bill before it went into committee, that is, before it was amended, were passed into a law. His ingenuity, however; might be defied to point out more eases than those which occur under the present system, of which the following is one example amongst many others that have been sent me : — " The late Mr. Day, who was a blacking manufacturer in Holborn, died in 1836, leaving property to the amount of about 380,000?., which consisted in part of free- hold estates, in East and West Surrey and Middlesex, with fee farm rents, copy- • holds, and, besides, the good- will of his extensive business, mortgages, &c. &e. Mr. Day left myself and two other friends (one since dead) his executors and trustees for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of his will. He charged his extensive property with the payment of annuities to his wife (since dead) and daughter, (his only child, ) his sisters and other relations, to the amount of above 65,000?. per annum, and also some legacies. He also, by a codicil, at the same time desired that his trustees should, in their own names, invest 100,000?. stock in the Three per cent, consols and Reduced Annuities, the annual interest thereof to be applied by them in granting annuities to poor blind men and women. Un- happily, under peculiar circumstances, he was induced to add a codicil to his will when in an unfit state of mind on his death-bed, by which he appointed an addi- tional executor, which led to a long suit promoted by Mrs. Day and her daughter, when at last the codicil was dismissed and the original will established. Subse- quently to this, Mrs. Day and her daughter were persuaded to file a friendly bill in Chancery ; the consequence of this has been the expenditure of above 80,000?. in law charges, and now the plaintiffs have not funds sufficient to pay the annuitants and further costs of the suit, and an application must be made to the Master of the Rolls to order the sale of the whole of the property, the charges and costs of TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY. 67 shall, therefore, address myself to the landowners alone, and endeavour to point out to them the real state of the position in which they stand, and then the method by which it is pro- posed to extricate them out of their difficulties. In order to effect this end it is necessary to consider by what means we have got into our present embarrassments, because the same causes which induced them at the first, continue to operate still. I am not stating this to you as my own opinion merely, for that would not be worth your receiving, but I am stating it as a fact, recognised by all who have considered this subject, and I will read as proof of this an extract from the work of an eminent lawyer, addressed to his brethren ; to men, there- wHch will cost 20,000/. more. Now, Sir, this will show in one instance what a blessing you will confer if you can get your bill passed — — " Take another example : — " I am much indebted to you, and so will every striving Englishman, if you carry your bill for Disposing of Property by Registration. Permit me to say, that I was brought up from an early age in Guernsey. I remained there till I was twenty-seven years of age. At twenty-five I bought a house, garden, orchard, with sundry outhouses, &c. &c. The vendor and his wife met me at the Registrar Office. We went before the chief magistrate, and declared that the vendor and his wife consented to the sale or transfer. I, on my part, declared that I wished to purchase. We all went down out of the court-room to the Greefe's office. The transfer was then registered in the Court books, with our names, dates, &c. &c. written on the back of the contract (deed). The vendor paid 5s., and all was complete. I kept the property some years, and sold it on the same easy terms and paid 5s. for registration, and all was well done. The property was freehold, and that sale will hold good for ever. Now see the baneful effect of English con- veyance. I am a builder ; have built nearly 400 houses in England. Half my profits have been eaten up in law charges ; and I am many hundreds worse off by the waste of law charges. To give you some idea, lately I built a small house at Kilburn, to let for 40/. per annum ; my deed from the freeholder was upwards of . . . . . £20 The conveyance to sell . . 17 The under-lease to occupier . . 20 District-surveyor's fees . . 4 15 61 15 In Guernsey the cost would have been 15s. In this country the poor man must remain poor. He has no chance of getting on, and, indeed, very few will try ; they at early age calculate on the poor-house or union more than a home of their own ; while in other countries, where t?is cruel fraud is not permitted, every man strives to get his home. I have lived long in France, United States, Canada, and all the Channel islands. In no place is such unnecessary waste of talent, time, and money, as in and about our law courts. In deeds, repetition after repetition, for endless botheration." f 2 C8 TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY. fore, who would immediately detect any misstatement in the matter, and to whom he woidd not venture to address as ad- mitted facts observations that he knew they could dispute. He " I must be permitted to consider land as a commodity, the value of which depends on the rules which govern the value of every Other commodity. In a former age we know that it was treated differently. It was considered as a means of affording a defence to the state. It was governed by a different policy. Every piece of land had an armed warrior to maintain its possession for his lord. You may smile at this, but the remnant of this system is in existence at the present moment as a legal fiction. This ideal seisin of land, as it is called, is ever present to the eye of the law, and must not be disturbed for one moment ; and many absurd consequences still arise from this state of the law. It is of no great practical consequence, but I mention it to show that we are in the habit of treating land as if it were essentially different from other commodities, when the reason for so considering it has entirely ceased. We make a mystery of it ; we blindfold our own eyes in all dealings with it ; before we can even talk respecting it correctly, we must learn a new language ; we have been hitherto taught to consider it as a distinct article to be dealt in by a few, under circumstances not existing in anything else." — Stewarts Lectures. In former times the possession of land was held by military service. At the time of the Conquest, the whole of the kingdom was divided into about 720 baronies (or honours, as they were sometimes called, amongst the largest of which were those of Clare and Richmond), the owners of which were bound to bring to the king's assistance, when called upon, a certain number of armed retainers. These barons, in their turn, leased out to others portions of the lands on terms similar to those on which they held their own from the crown. The king would not suffer any alienation of these lands without being assured that the person who was to receive them was also capable of ren- dering him efficient service : hence fines were levied by him for giving permission to an heir to succeed to his father's inhe- ritance ; and when the inheritance came to females, they were compelled to marry as the king pleased, in order that he might be sure that he did not lose by the marriage the services which the owner of the property was bound to render. Then as now, however, landowners would run in debt ; and TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY. 69 "when they did so they borrowed money of the Jews and such few merchants as inhabited the towns ; and then, as now, they disliked to pay their debts. The creditors could not seize the lands because the king would not permit them to be alienated ; they therefore applied to the judges, and although the creditor dared not go to the baron's castle and seize his person, the judge could order the sheriff to go with his civic guard and seize all the produce growing upon the land. The landowners, there- fore, kept the land without enjoying any advantage from it, and the creditor enjoyed all the produce under the name of the usufruct. In addition to this mode of running in debt, they devised another, by which, instead of giving a part of their lands to their children, as they did at the beginning, they fell into the habit of giving a right to their wives, younger children, and other relations, to receive annually certain sums from the produce of the land. Hence arose trustees, or persons to whom the whole property was made over in order to pay these charges first, and then to give to the owner the residue that remained. Hence, too, it frequently happened then, as it happens now, that the use and profit of the land was taken from the owner, and nothing was left to him but the empty title of owner and nominal possessor of that over which he had no control, and on which he could exercise no power except the equivocal ad- vantage of the right to kill the wild animals found upon it. Much of this died out by degrees, partly under the Tudors, finally under the Stuarts ; but those who became possessed of property when land owners were empowered to sell, began to ape the customs and manners of the barons, into a sort of fellow- ship with whom they had become associated ; and they, in at- tempting to establish names and descendants, vainly endeavoured to foresee every possible contingency that could occur to their children and grandchildren, and placed their lands in the hands of trustees in order to carry out their intention towards their descendants. But they neither did nor could foresee all these contingencies ; many arose in the development of time ; and consequently it was necessary to have a court and an officer, whose duty it should be to decide on what would have been the intention of the devisor if he had foreseen the contingency, and also upon the best means of carrying that intention into effect. f 3 70 TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY. The employment of lawyers, then, in real property transac- tions is in correcting the errors which the follies of landlords have occasioned ; and landowners complain most unjustly of the lawyers who are so occupied, whilst they have none but them- selves to blame for the whole. The expense of sales is immense, owing to these causes. Before making a sale it is necessary to prove that with respect to your father, your grandfather, your great-grandfather — and I know not how much farther back — all the settlements that have been made are exhausted, and that every single person who could by possibility become entitled to the property is either dead or disposed of somehow. I have before me a list showing the heavy costs which have arisen in nine cases of sale of small properties, but will trouble the House with reading only one or two of them. There is, first, the case of a property which sold for 12,000?., on which the costs of sale amounted to 2001., or about seventeen per cent. ; another, which sold for 500?., on which the costs amounted to 124?., or twenty- five per cent. ; a third, in which the property sold for 150?;, and the costs were 50?., or thirty-three per. cent. ; and a, fourth, in which the property sold for 620?., and the costs of sale amounted to 200?,, being about thirty-three per cent, also.* Every at- tempt which has been made to diminish the expense of sales under the present system has been futile. People talk of long recitals being the cause of the expense of preparing deeds ; but I should be glad to know how they were to predetermine the length of a recital without knowing the nature of the deed. The length of the recital must depend upon the matter to be recited. You cannot expect a boy to recite the whole of Homer's " Iliad " in twenty minutes. Under the present system, therefore, it was hopeless to expect to derive any benefit from shortening recitals. But that is not the worst of it. The owners * A respectable solicitor from Epsom has sent me a case where the purchase- money for a small property being SOL, the expenses were 461. A member of this House told me that he, being willing to accommodate a neighbour with a small piece of ground, let him have it at its fair valuation, and it- cost him more to make out his title than he received from his neighbour. Two gentleman in Surrey wanted to make a mutual exchange of lands in order to have a better boundary line to their respective estates. They therefore drew up an agreement, describing that such and such were the boundaries of their re- spective estates, and so evaded all law charges whatever. I doubt if such an arrangement could be maintained in a court of law. TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY. 71 of property are completely in the hands of solicitors. They know no more about their lands than they do about what is going on in China. They know that there is a box of parchments be- longing to them, and that some of those parchments have a bit of red wax tied to them ; but that is all they know. Their soli- citor brought them a paper to sign, and they signed it; and after putting a seal upon it they delivered it as their act and deed ; but what it contained they know no more than a blushing bride of the marriage settlement to which she was led forward, covered with a veil, to put her name. Now, I contend that unless you will cut up the whole system by the roots you will do nothing. What I want to make the country gentlemen understand is this — that it is their business to deliver them- selves out of the hands of the solicitors. You are a solicitor- ridden people. It is possible to have the expenses of a court of law taxed ; but how can you possibly tax any attorney's bill ? It is impossible. Everybody complains of them ; the more re- spectable part of the profession denounce them, but still the evil is unredressed. Complaints are also made of the cost and the length of legal instruments, of conveyances, &c, but these, too, cannot be curtailed to any great extent, so long as the present system is continued. The landowners must resolve to emanci- pate themselves ; no real and efficient help will ever come from the lawyers any more than has come from the reports of the committees of the two Houses of Parliament, the labours of crown commissioners, and all other machinery which has hitherto been put in operation. The landlords must not rest satisfied until they have obtained the means of transferring any portion of their lands which they please to sell in as easy and simple a manner as they could transfer stock in the books of the Bank of England.* * It is natural to suppose that the opinions which attorneys entertain of them- selves differ much from those entertained of them by others : specimens of both have been sent me since the reading of the bill, and are here subjoined. " I hardly know whether you wish to take 's place, and to be the Jack Pudding of the House of Commons ; but though it is not quite fair of you to waste the public time, though you may rise to divert the House of Commons, yet I must own I have laughed htartily at some of the absurdities in your speech, and have been put by it into good humour, and to smile and to forgive your gratuitously impertinent attack upon attorneys. As one of that body, I hurl back with contempt upon you, a country gentleman, your pitiful expression of pettifogging, a term F 4 72 TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY. The principle, then, upon which the House has now to decide is this, — first, that there shall be a registration of deeds and lands ; and secondly, that sales shall take place by transfer in the books of the registry just as stock is transferred and sale of it made at the Bank. Every other method but this is futile. Registration, except with the view of making transfers in the books, is merely making a catalogue of deeds, or appointing some building in which they shall be deposited. Many objections have been made to registries, but they seem all to be summed up by Sir Edward Sugden in his " Vendors and Purchasers," vol. iii. p. 373, 10th edit. This being decided, the question that next arises is, " Who is to register ? " The country gentleman in his simplicity answers, " I, the owner, am to register." Yes, but first you have to prove that you are the owner. An equity lawyer is very like a police- man in this respect ; the policeman, when he sees a man in a good coat, thinks that he ought to be " had up " before a magis- trate, and made- to give an account as to how he came by it ; and a chancery lawyer says to the country gentleman, " Ah ! it is very well for you to suppose that those broad acres belong to you, but has your title ever been examined ? " Here, then, is the difficulty : if you are to have an examination of all the titles that are to be registered, you may call it by what name you please, but it is, in fact, instituting quoad hoc another court of equity. On the other hand, if there be no examination of titles, which applies with quite as much truth to any other member of the community as to an attorney. " If we are an attorney-ridden people, it is because those of your way of thinking make laws which solicitors, and not the public at large, can interpret and set in motion ; and to the public at large law will continue to be a science hidden from vulgar comprehension, in the same way as chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, &c, must be to him who cannot read." The same post that brought the above brought also the following : " The only parties who would suffer by this (a registry) are the attorneys, a worthless class of men, who cause more misery than all other rogues in England put together." The writer encloses a diatribe of twenty-seven stanzas, of which the following is an example : — " Friends, Neighbours, Countrymen, I take The liberty to warn ye, Against that universal scourge, A rascally Attorney ! " &c. &c. TRANSFER OF REAL PROPERTY. 73 there is no security against a man entering lands as his which do not belong to him, and effecting a sale of them the next day.* There is great question amongst the lawyers as to the number of titles which are good, as also as to what constitutes a good or bad title. By the kindness of a friend I have been enabled to peruse a part of the evidence which is about to be published by the commission that is now sitting, which states the matter very clearly. One of the able commissioners puts this leading ques- tion to a witness, and it will be observed, that in the terms of it, he gives also his own opinion ; he " Knowing very well that there is not such a thing, to my belief, as a strictly marketable title in the kingdom, and knowing that a court of equity will not compel any man to take a title that is not free from doubt, either as to matter of fact or matter of law, we then submit, on the part of the vendor, this abstract of title to counsel, and request him to advise on that title with a view of stopping all loopholes (if I may use such a term), or any objection that may be taken on the part of the purchaser. Counsel give their opinion. Whatever can be supplied in accordance with that opinion is supplied. "What cannot be supplied is matter of consultation again with the counsel ; and then conditions of sale are made and approved by the counsel to meet rather than to obviate any such objection," &c. To this the witness answers, " I do not differ with a word of what you state," &c. &c. Again it is said, " The present law is evaded by conditions of sale. The holes in the title are stopped," &c. "I think the great bulk of the titles in this country are good holding titles, although they are not easily transferred being unmarketable." • " Sir Edward Sugden says, that out of fifty titles, the fiftieth only is bad, and that the examination of forty-nine is useless." I do not see how it is possible to compel all owners of land to expose their title-deeds to the view of every one, for there would be hundreds of attorneys who would find out the means of * It is very convenient to objectors to detail evils that may arise under this bill, and to leave unmentioned similar evils, under the present system. Nothing can at present prevent two attorneys pretending to be the agents for a mortgagee and for a landowner, going before a judge and declaring that a judgment is satisfied, and getting a certificate of the same, and so clearing the land from the effect of it. 74 TRANSFER OP REAL PROPERTY. stirring up dormant claims, which, whether valid or not, would create immense loss to the land-owners, and gain to the attorneys ; and unless some equivalent be afforded to landowners to induce them to make such disclosure, I would certainly advise them not to consent to this bill. This, therefore, is a great objection to making the registry compulsory; and another objection equally strong is the neces- sity of having previously in operation an immense machinery. The number of landowners is variously stated by statistical writers from 80,000 to 280,000 ; nor is it easy to point out whether copyholds of inheritance and on fine certain, long leaseholders, leaseholders on lives, and many others, are included in either enumeration. In this case the registrar, his office, clerks, and all attendants, books, and schedules, must be pre- pared and ready for instant operation on the same day when all these deeds shall be brought in to be registered. Now it is impossible to ascertain beforehand how many books, clerks, &c, shall be required. In Edinburgh there are sufficient entries to require four hundred folio- volumes to be annually filled. On the other hand, if the registration be voluntary, it gives the opportunity of feeling our way, of commencing with a few books and a small office, and a moderate establishment of clerks, all of which can be enlarged as business increases ; and as in Scotland they have both a general and provisional registry, so there may be here first a central registry office in London which may be expanded so as to have provincial registers in every county, under the superintendence, however, of the registrar- general in London. I have been compelled to draw this bill in such a way as that it may be contracted or expanded, because I had to consider not what was abstractedly right or wrong, nor what I, even with the assistance of others, judged to be best, but to consider to what extent this House was prepared to go, and also to consider my own position in it ; since not being backed by the Govern- ment, nor by any party in the House, it was not possible to force anything, and I could only embody so much as the House is already disposed to consent to. I am prepared, therefore, to limit for the present the operation of this bill to legal estates only, and to wait for others to be put upon the register when the trusts upon them shall expire. I am also willing that there TRANSFER OF HEAL PROPERTY. 75 shall be only one registry for the present, and wait till the land- owners demand others elsewhere. If, on the other hand, the House is prepared to go further, and not only require all incum- brances to be registered as well as estates, and to curtail for the future the power of devisors to lock up indefinitely their lands, it is easy to add clauses that will allow of this also. At the same time I ought in fairness to add, that I tliink the best plan would be to register only legal estates, and to refuse all conditional trusts whatever. I do not believe that any sub- stantial injustice would be done if you were to pass a declaratory act, enacting that all present holders of lands, in the profits and rents of which they have been in the undisturbed possession for a certain number of years, should not have their titles disputed from this time; you would do substantial justice in ninety-nine out of every hundred cases, although I admit that one out of every hundred might be defrauded. I think also that it would be a great advantage to curtail still farther the power of entail- ing, and not to suffer any person to tie up his lands for the benefit of more persons than those that are alive at the date of his making the devise. Some people, when they cannot find out an objection to a measure itself, which is plain before their eyes, think that they have sagacity sufficient to see into indiscernible things, and to divine the motives which have actuated the authors. For the benefit of such persons it may be as well to observe that I can have no personal motive in the success of this measure, because I cannot be benefited or injured by its becoming law, since all the property I have is in settlement, and I have only a life interest in it. My object in bringing forward this measure is to endeavour; to enhance the value of landed property, and to enable landed proprietors more easily to effect sales of small portions of the same, in order to liberate them out of their difficulties, and to give them facilities for investing more capital in the cultivation of their lands. In uncivilised countries land is the only possible property, for all other is insecure ; in civilised countries it must always possess more value than any other. Landowners have an influence in the neighbour- hoods where they reside, especially where their possessions are hereditary, which no other capitalists possess ; and thence the* jealousy of them by upstarts of every degree : but land ought fC TRANSFER OP REAL PROPERTY. to have no legal immunities superadded to its intrinsic advan- tages, and its sale ought to be as free, and its transfer as easy, as that of any other commodity. [In reply to this statement, the Solicitor -General pointed out several defects in the bill, and was replied to by Mr. J. P. Wood. Sir G. Grey said, as he supposed the object of the honourable gentleman was only to obtain an expression of opinion on the part of the House, he ought to be satisfied with its being so universally favourable to the subject of a registry, and follow the suggestion of the Solicitor-General to withdraw the bill, as any bill, to be practical, must be drawn by lawyers ; and no doubt the committee now sitting would soon make its report, and the learned persons composing it would make some sug- gestion which would accomplish the object so much desired. To that Mr. Drummond replied : — ] I think that to bring forward any subject merely for the sake of obtaining an expression of opinion is complete waste of time. To obtain an opinion is very well as a means to an end, and I will certainly not withdraw the bill without a pledge on the part of the right honourable baronet, that he will take up the measure. As to placing reliance on the exertions of lawyers in that direction, I cannot do better than adopt the sentiments and language of my right honourable friend himself, in his speech a few nights ago, which are as follows: — " He had alluded to the act passed last session for facilitating the transfer of land ; and he must say that it was only by slow experience that a conviction was forced upon gentlemen accustomed to the forms of law and equity, of the necessity of dispensing with some of those forms which in their notions, derived from education andlong-cherished habits, were essential for the protection of the rights of property. No doubt those gentlemen thought it necessary to lay down these rules for the protection of property, and they would be slow in receiving the conviction that they were unnecessary ; it was no less true that the Court of Chancery was not a court likely to assist in the removal of the obstacles which prevented the transfer of property. At the same time, it was no doubt very desirable to accelerate the process of transfer." The House divided, and the second reading was carried. 77 NAVIGATION LAWS. — February 14th, 1849. As I have found there exists throughout the country great mis- apprehension as to the real nature of this measure, and as it is just possible that some honourable members in the House may labour under the same misapprehension, I think it right to state that this question, divesting it of official jargon, in plain honest English, is simply this, — that it is the latest of a series of measures inculcated by the Manchester School, the end and object of which is to discharge all British labourers, and to employ for the future foreign labourers. Ne"ed I go through the details ? It is unnecessary. You have said you will admit foreign timber instead of English timber ; you have said you will admit foreign sawyers instead of English sawyers; you have said you will admit foreign shipwrights instead of English shipwrights ; indeed I may go through the whole catalogue of labour, and your policy will apply to all. But for whose advantage are we to make all these changes? Why, for the advantage of certain mercantile men and Manchester cotton- spinners. It will not be my fault if the country does not understand the true meaning of this question from one end to the other. It is considered to be a question merely of trade and commerce, and only connected with your mercantile marine, with which the inhabitants of the interior have little to do ; but it, in fact, affects essentially the whole class of labourers, and that much more deeply than any other question that can be brought before the House. NAVIGATION LAWS (ADJOUKNED DEBATE). March 12th, 1849. I promise the honourable gentleman, the member for Stoke (Mr. Eicardo), that I will not use any of those arguments which he describes as having been long interred in past debates. I would 78 NAVIGATION LAWS. rather take the liberty of examining into the truth of the position, whether the naval and military officers of this country are men whose opinions are not to be attended to, on points where the honour and safety of the empire are at stake. Before I proceed, however^ to that part of the subject, I must say that when the right honourable gentleman, the member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone), taunted the noble lord opposite (Lord J. Russell), and his colleagues, with entertaining a difference of opinion on this question, it would have been as well for him to have remembered that he himself has this night argued on one side, and intends to vote on the other. I believe, also, with the honourable gentleman the member for Stoke, without meaning to cast blame where none ought to be cast, that much of the discussion has turned, not upon the principle, but upon the details of the measure. But I must further say, there is a reasonable excuse for this, inasmuch as the principle s nowhere to be found in it. In the very first words it professes to be a bill to amend a certain thing ; and the way in which you propose the emendation is, in the language of the right honourable gentlemen the member for the University of Oxford, by abroga- tion. Now, really, abrogation is one of the most extraordinary means of amelioration that I ever heard of. This measure proceeds, at one sweep, to get rid of no less than eighteen statutes. These statutes may be right or wrong ; but, without entering into this question, I must say, that this wholesale way of proceeding is no way to treat them. In all past times the object of every statesman, whatever opinions he may have held, has been to prevent capital from going out of the country, on the ground that if the capital goes out of the country, the labour of the country will not be employed. Now the object of this bill — and most ingeniously contrived it has been — is to keep capital in the country; yet still not to employ our labourers, but to employ foreign labourers. I have heard of a Satanic school of poetry, but if ever there was a satanic school of politics, it is that which is now in vogue. It is a remarkable phenomenon in these days, that it is the fate of every statesman, no matter to what party he belongs, or from what side of the House he may come, to be doomed, whatever be the question brought forward, to go against every principle he has previously defended, and to take the opposite side of every view from that which he has before main- NAVIGATION LAWS. 79 tained. So that those who wish to meet the arguments of the Government and its supporters have only to go back to the speeches of those very gentlemen, and to appeal from the drunken Philip of to-day, to the sober Philip of ten years ago. In fact, the best speech against the measure of Earl Grey was that delivered not long ago by Lord Howick. For years past the country has been under an evil genius. It has been well des- cribed by the honourable Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) as a fate from which no minister can liberate himself. It seems, as it were, a sort of mythic force which binds us down passive and helpless, while Chancellors of the Exchequer peck at our livers ad libitum. The alterations made by ministers in our system in former days were not carried to any danger- ous extent. The changes introduced by Lord Wallace and Mr. Huskisson were wise and prudent. Not so, the conduct of ministers now. I speak not of any particular government, but of all those who have sat on the Treasury bench for many years back. One observation made by the right honourable member (Mr. Gladstone) is well worth attending to, that the evil of our time is that we do not learn from lessons of experience, but dash boldly into ways unknown on the faith of theories untried. I am not going to quote many authorities, which I might do, but I will refer to the authority of the most cele- brated statesman of antiquity, who said — " There is in maritime states a corruption and instability of morals, for they import not only merchandise, but morals, so that nothing can remain entire in the institutions of their country ; for they who inhabit those states do not remain quiet in their places, biit are hurried away from their homes by an ever winged hope of thought, and even if they remain bodily they still run about and wander in spirit ; nor did any thing tend more to the destruction of Corinth and Carthage, long in a declining state, than the vagrancy and dissipation of their citizens, who through greediness of trade and navigation, relinquished the cultivation of their lands and their training to arms." I might quote the opinions of Lord Chatham and of Mr. Canning to a similar effect ; and of late days we have an eminent writer, who, in his work on Germany, speaking of Frankfort, says, that — 80 NAVIGATION LAWS. " In consequence of her commercial relations, she is so thoroughly under foreign influence, and so polluted by a mixture of all foreign manners, that her population can be hardly said to have a character of their own." What has fitted us to be citizens of the world has unfitted us to be citizens of the country to which we belong, for "we judge of the happiness of mankind by the rate of exchange." Now all this is applicable to the Manchester school. The grand fault of these gentlemen is, that they cannot form a conception how anything which is not good for cotton spinning can be good for anything else. " But " (says the same writer) " let no one blame them for forgetting, in the pursuits of the money speculator and merchant, the interest of their country, or, at least, before doing so, let him visit the ports of London, Liverpool, or Bristol, and discover, if he can, a purer foun- dation for English patriotism." But I have one more authority for honourable gentlemen opposite, their darling Adam Smith. The only quarrel I have had with honourable gentlemen with respect to Adam Smith is, that they never will read beyond one page of him. Let them attend to this : — "As their (the manufacturers') thoughts, however, are commonly exercised rather about the interests of their particular branch of business than about those of society, their judgment, even when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been on every occasion), is much more to be depended upon on the former than on the latter. The interests of the dealers in any particular branch of trade or manufacture are always in some respects different from, or even opposite to, those of the public." And yet it is by men who are actuated by such interested motives that the House is now guided. The manufacturer sends out to Africa for cotton, he employs African labourers in its cultivation, he brings it home in an American ship, he spins it into yarn by his machinery, and then sends it in a French vessel to be exchanged for French cloth, or silks, or other articles of French manufacture. So that the whole process is gone through without the employment of perhaps a single NAVIGATION LAWS. 81 English labourer. The poet, in the wildness of his enthusiasm asked, " Breathes there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land ? " Yes, at Manchester there are thousands of them. Not content with bringing accusations against the English sailors, not content with slighting the opinions of their officers, they now say that this country has a superstitious reverence for the navy. I will not deny but that we may have had such a feeling, for there was a time when we had a national faith — there was a time when we venerated, worshipped, if you will, for I am not ashamed of the word — the statesmen who guided safely the destinies of the country, when we reverenced the magistrates who presided over the administration of our laws, when we gloried in the soldiers and the sailors who maintained the greatness of the nation throughout the world, when the noblest credo that we had was " Rule Britannia ! " and the finest anthem in our ritual was " God save the Queen ! " TOL. I. 82 CLEEGrY EELIEF BILL. —March 14th, 1849. For permitting the secession of Clergy from the Church of England on their signing a declaration to that effect. In answer to Mr. Warren, who said he wished the Clergy who might join any dissenting body, to be placed in the same position as those who might join the Roman Catholic Church. Can you carry on the army and navy effectually if you repeal the Mutiny Act ? I think not. It is the principle of an es- tablished church that the ecclesiastical authority should have, in the same way, a right to use the civil sword to enforce ecclesiastical censures. I do not, however, think it proper. But that is not the question ; so long as this is the law no bishop does his duty who neglects to enforce it. The honour- able gentleman (Mr. Warren) who has just sat down does not seem to understand the question in the least, as it applies to Eoman Catholics and to Dissenters. In one case the man is in holy orders, and in the other he is not. The honourable member may sneer as much as he pleases. He believes, doubtless, that he may, if he thinks proper, throw off his Christianity and become a Jew — but he cannot. Let the House bear in mind that, in fact, by this act, we are about to separate the Church from the State. I do not say it is wrong to do so ; but this I will say, let us know what we are about, and let us re- collect that the Church is not the gainer, but the State, by the connection that at present exists. The State is the gainer by this union, and if the bishops and clergy wish to do their duty, they must shake off the incubus, I was going to call it, of this House and the State entirely. 83 SUPPLY— AEMY ESTIMATES.— March 19th, 1849. I think, as there are no ministers in the House — no doubt they are discussing these subjects over a cool bottle — we may as well have a little quiet conversation amongst ourselves. The honourable Member for Montrose, has complained loudly of the augmentation of our defensive forces that has taken place within the last twenty years, but he has said little as to the reasons which necessitated that augmentation. I must confess, that in my opinion, the more you increase in manufacturing population, the more you must increase your force of some kind; I do not care whether blue coats or red coats, but a force you must have. It is not the country magistrates, it is the mayors of the manufacturing towns, who call meetings on one hand, and apply for the military on the other ; and just in proportion as those merchants and manufacturers who clamour most loudly on this subject are cowards at one moment, so are they bullies at another. They are the very people who led you into the war with South America. (Mr. Gibson Craig : " No, no ! ") Yes, but they did ; and they are the very people who turned pale at the expense of which they were the cause. If you enter into war, you must not come out till you have conquered. Either do not begin to fight at all, or fight till you are dead. Make what apologies you like before you come to the ground, but I beseech you, when you are once on the ground, stand to it. I say to those manufacturing gentlemen, " Do not enter into these quar- rels, or, if you do, do not grudge the expense to the Govern- ment." It is said, we have a great many more artillery-men now than during the war, but it is notorious that we had then far too few artillery. There is not a man who has any knowledge of military matters, but must confess that the arm in which the English army was inferior during the last war, was the artillery ; and every one must know that no proficiency is to be attained in such an arm but by long training. It is a favourite doctrine of the honourable Member for .the West Biding (Mr. Cobden), G 2 84 SUPPLY. — ARMY ESTIMATES. and some other members opposite, that military men are not the best judges of how the country is to be defended, but that civilians are the best judges. This assertion lies at the basis of their whole system, and must be examined ; it was made last year, at Manchester meetings, and has been repeated in this House. Now, it appears to me, that however stoutly you may contend for this position, when reduced to its true value, it comes to neither more nor less than the burden of the old verse : — " Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat." So, who pays generals must himself be a general. " I charge you to remember," said the honourable Member for the West Eiding, " that this is a question for tax-payers to decide, not for military men. They are to decide what is the proportion of men necessary for the defence of the country." If you do not see the absurdity of this, I cannot help it. Those who speak thus are not competent judges. If a board of general officers were to set about instructing them how to make cotton twist, the manufacturers would say they were a parcel of meddling fools ; and when the manufacturers say they are the best judges of the manner in which the country is to be defended, and the number of men requisite for that purpose, they are going beyond their border ; they are presuming to go into matters of which they are necessarily and essentially ignorant. But I have not done yet. The honourable gentleman, the Member for the West Eiding, the other day taunted the House by saying, " You are the best judges ; take care how you perform your duty ; you are sent here for no other earthly purpose than to deter- mine upon those economical questions." But I scarcely think that those whose judgment upon this delicate question is most to be trusted, would pretend to be better able to deal with it than those who are called to the situation of responsible advisers of the Crown. All the various governments of Europe have agents residing here, through whom they are well enabled to know the condition of England, Ministers tell the House that they Tequire a certain number of men to provide for the defence of the country; and surely they have the best means of knowing the truth on this point. But gentlemen who have no means whatever of knowing or judging beyond what the news- papers afford, say they can tell perfectly well that the views of SUPPLY. — ARMY ESTIMATES. 85 - ministers are quite erroneous ; they say to the House, " We are like the judges appointed to try a cause, we have nothing to do but to hear the case before us, and decide." Now, the common sense of the matter, supposing we are all equally stupid, is to put our confidence in those persons who must of necessity be better informed than certain honourable gentlemen on the other side, who pride themselves so much on their knowledge and judgment. One honourable gentleman said, that my noble friend, the late First Lord of the Admiralty, was very vague in his evidence when examined before the Committee on the navy estimates — that he did not come to the point at all — because he said, " the reason for fixing upon a certain number of soldiers and sailors now was not referable to the establishments of the year 1835, but to the general state of Europe;" and this phrase he called a vague generality. Now I maintain that this is the only reason of a statesman, and the only reason of common sense. Of all persons in the world, those Manchester gentlemen have given the most satisfactory proofs of their incompetence to form an opinion on the question. I believe there is not a more upright man, nor one more disposed to give evidence as to what he believes to be the truth, than the honourable Member for the West Eiding ; and yet there is not in this House, nor in the country, a man who stands so completely convicted of his utter incompetency to give an opinion as to the general feeling of Europe, and the general state of every part of Her Majesty's dominions, as that very gentleman, whose prophecies as to the future have been so glaringly and so thoroughly re- futed by the events. Like a peaceable man as he is, I suppose the honourable member walks into the Zoological Gardens, and sees tigers and baboons lying quietly in their dens, and there- fore fancies they have forgotten their natural ferocity. So the honourable member concludes that the human race have for- gotten their martial propensities and habits, because they have been for a time disused, and this, he says, is above all the case of our nearest and most powerful neighbours, the French. But, unfortunately, since that time there has been universal suffrage established in France ; the whole nation to a man have been able to express their opinion, and what has been the result? Why they have just run mad after the ghost of a grey great coat and a little cocked hat. They have given us an intimation that the G 3 86 SUPPLY. AEMY ESTIMATES. time when they were the happiest was not a time of free trade : but when they lived under the regimen of the Berlin decrees ; that the time they are looking back to with the greatest delight is, when they were under an absolute military govern- ment, and that to which they are looking forward with the highest hopes and exultation is another thirty years' war. 67 OFFENCES (IRELAND) BILL.— March 31st, 1849. Sir H. W. Barron, in moving the second reading of the Bill, stated that it was founded on the Dublin Police Act, and was for extend- ing the powers of the police magistrates to magistrates sitting in Petty Sessions. I am not aware of the character of the Dublin Police Act, but if it resembles this Bill, and were before the House, I should treat it as I shall this, and use my utmost exertions to get it rejected. I am sure there is nothing so funny in' all the statutes that have ever passed, from the earliest period to the present time — although many of them contain very ridiculous things — as there is in the Bill before the House. It appears by the preamble that the object of the Bill is, in the first place, to ensure the punishment of offences ; and, secondly, to ensure the more speedy trial of offenders ; and the means by which it is proposed in the preamble itself to effect that object, is to inflict a penalty of forty shillings upon any publican who may sell a glass of gin or other spirits to any boy or girl apparently under the age of sixteen years. The third clause imposes a penalty of forty shillings for a vast variety of offences ; and, amongst other strange things, it declares that such fine shall be inflicted on any person having the care of, or driving, any cart, car, or carriage, upon any public highway or thoroughfare, who shall ride upon such cart, car, or carriage, without having or holding the reins, and not having some person on foot to guard the same. By another part of the clause the penalty is imposed " on any person who shall break, destroy, or damage any tree or shrub in any public or private walk or garden, or any part thereof; " so that any poor labouring man who might pluck a bit of sweet briar out of a hedge, might be taken up and im- prisoned if he could not pay this fine. By another clause this punishment is extended to any person who shall steal the whole or any part of any tree, sapling, or shrub, or any underwood, or any root or plant being raised from the soil Then, again, the o 4 88 OFFENCES (iEELAND) BILL. sheriffs are bound to obey the orders made by the magistrates at petty sessions, under this bill. It appears, also, that con- stables are to be allowed to act without any warrant or infor- mation. According to the 17th clause it is enacted " That it shall and may be lawful for any constable to stop and detain, until due inquiry can be made, all persons ■with horses, carts, and carriages, which he shall find employed in removing furniture, corn, hay, potatoes, or any other goods, between the hours of eight in the evening and six in the morning, whenever the constable shall have reasonable ground for believing that such removal is fraudulently made for the purpose of evading the payment of rent ; " so that any constable, at his own whim and pleasure, may take up and detain any person whom he chooses to suppose that he has reasonable ground for believing is fraudulently moving his property ; and this can be done without the party so detained or imprisoned being able to obtain the slightest redress. The next clause is of a still more extraordinary character, for it enacts — " That if any person shall be found by night on any land, or con- cealed in any house without excuse, such person shall be liable to a penalty of not more than 40s." The next clause also enacts — " That it shall and may be lawful for any constable, and for all persons whom he shall call to his assistance, to take into custody, without a warrant, any persons who, within view of such constable, shall offend in any manner against this Act, and if any person so called upon shall refuse to aid such constable, he shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding 5Z." The next clause enacts — " That any person found committing any offence punishable upon indictment, or by summary conviction, may be taken into custody without a warrant by the owner of the property, in or with respect to which the offence was committed, or by his servant, or any person and may be detained until he can be delivered into the custody of a constable to be dealt with according to law." How can any man put any rational interpretation upon such a clause as that? The 21st clause declares — " That for every offence against this Act, for which no special penalty is appointed, the offender shall, at the discretion of the justices OFFENCES (IRELAND) BILL. 89 before whom the conviction shall take place, be liable to a penalty of not more than 21." By the 23rd clause any justice may, without issuing any summons, forthwith issue his warrant for the apprehension of any person charged with any offence cognisable before him, whether or not good grounds for so doing shall be laid before him. It is clear from this and other enactments, that it is in- tended to permit any Irishman to arrest any other Irishman whenever he pleases. The 31st clause provides — " That all offences committed, which, under this or any other Act, are punishable on summary conviction before a justice or justices of the peace, may be heard and determined by one or more justices setting at Petty Sessions in a summary way, whether or not any information or writing shall previously have been exhibited or taken by or before a justice." The object of this evidently is to prevent any person who may have been wrongfully arrested obtaining any redress in the higher courts. It is enacted that no informations in writing are neces- sary so as to prevent justices issuing warrants without due grounds. Then comes the interpretation clause, which is still more extraordinary, for it declares, after having enacted that male persons, in certain cases, shall be publicly whipped, " that the masculine gender shall be extended to a female as well as a male." There is, however, one redeeming clause in this bill, namely : — " That this act shall extend to Ireland alone," for it is in Ireland alone that such a law could be framed. 90 ABOLITION OF THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. March 1st, 1849. The honourable gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. Bright), has argued the question with his usual ability ; but I think I have had the happiness of hearing the same speech before. ("No, no!") Yes, I remember precisely the same appeal to the right honourable Baronet (Sir George Grey). I remember the same remarkable cases from Durham ; and I remember, too, the answer which was given to those cases at the time. The honourable gentleman, the Member for Dumfries, who began the debate, anticipates that in a short time the law enforcing capital punishments will be repealed. I confess, I for one, should not be surprised at it ; for I see every day increasing morbid sentimentality, increasing false humanity, and increasing sympathy with murderers on every side. I see the petitions which come to the Secretary of State for the pardon of murderers with unbounded disgust ; for I see that, so far from any rever- ence for human life being manifested, it is just the reverse ; there is a total indifference to the crime of murder, and a sympathy with murderers. It is unfair in the honourable gentleman the member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) to say that the right honourable Baronet the Home Secretary anti- cipates the time when this law will be altered. I understand him to say nothing of the sort. That murders have increased, there can be no _ doubt. They have increased not only in fre- quency, but in intensity; and I believe that they have done so, mainly because murderers are made heroes in this House, and because these debates, which go abroad, instill into people's minds the idea that, after all, murder is not such a detestable crime as in the dark ages people were accustomed to think it. One argument used is, that murderers say they do not care for being hanged. I wonder if the people who used this argument were ever at school. At school it is common enough to hear boys say they do not care for being flogged, but at the same ABOLITION OF THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 91 time you all know very well that boys do care for being flogged, and tbat their fear of a flogging does prevent many offences from being committed. With respect to secondary punish- ments, which people are so anxious to substitute for the punish- ment of death, nothing can be so fatal as to look to public opinions, expressed at public meetings, as the ground of action. If you adopt secondary punishments, of course you must have places where secondary punishments can be inflicted. I have lately presented a petition to the House on this subject, and I wish the House to hear what people say on the other side. The petitioners complain that, judging from the splendid buildings which are erected to carry out the cellular system, it is, and must be, a mqst costly outlay. Separate apartments are required which should be lofty and spacious, well warmed and ventilated, with conveniences and even luxuries which are known only to the opulent ; the diet, also, is required to be generous, in order to sustain the mind and body, and prevent them from wasting away in idleness and ennui. Now, no sooner will such establish- ments be built, than a mass of petitions against such expense will be poured into the House, as numerous as those that are now directed against the punishment of death. We are told that this is not a theological question, and undoubtedly I am not going to talk theologically. But there is one plain sentence in Holy Scripture, to which I cannot but advert. " He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." An honourable gentleman has said, that we are not bound by the Christian religion so to act. Certainly you may act in defiance of that injunction if you please ; but if you do, you must take the consequences, and these consequences, I believe, will be, that not only murders will be increased, but also other deeds of violence. 92 TAXATION AND EXPENDITUKE. — May 10th, 1849. On motion " that this house do resolve itself into a committee of the whole house to consider the public expenditure and the existing system of taxation, and how far both may be revised with a view to relieve the pressure upon the industry of the country." It is a great aggravation of the embarrassment which oppresses every one who rises to address this assembly, when there is reason to apprehend that the minds of honourable members are pre-occupied with another subject different from that which he is about to discuss. Having read the Memoirs of P. P., showing the importance of a man to himself, it may be that I exaggerate the importance of my own motion in pressing it on the consideration of the House, and that it would be more accordant with the duty and respect which I owe to this assembly, to give way, as other members have done, in favour of the bill (the Marriage Bill) which is to follow. But after the best consideration that I can give to this point, I am con- vinced that whatever may be the case in this house, there is a far larger number of persons throughout the country, who are anxious to be relieved from the pressure of taxation, than to obtain a sanction to marry their wives' sisters ; and I believe, moreover, that upon this and similar questions have turned no mere matters of ephemeral politics, but the stability or over- throw of every throne in Europe, and that upon this stands also the fate of our own. At the commencement of last session, I ventured to express my surprise that her Majesty's ministers had not taken upon themselves the duty of bringing forward some plan of finance, and of relief to the public burdens adequate to the emergency ; or that, if unable to devise such a scheme themselves, they should not have sought the assistance of a select committee, in order to aid them to frame such a plan. This surprise was partly owing to the demand which was universal for relief from taxation, and which required some notice to be taken of it ; TAXATION AND EXPENDITURE. 93 partly owing to the peculiar circumstances under which the pre- sent ministers came into office, and partly owing to the strong expectations that their speeches out of office had excited, and were intended to excite. At the close of the session, finding that no such step had been taken, nor was intimated as about to be taken, I observed that if her Majesty's ministers, still forgetful of their former professions, should pertinaciously insist upon taking no such step, it would be the duty of some independent member of the House to take the matter up, not for the end of making it the occasion for an ephemeral speech, but with the determination to draw forth a formal and distinct declaration of what the country was to expect from this House, and a declaration also of the principles upon which alone this and every succeeding body of ministers should be allowed to administer the affairs of the empire. I beg pardon for this little egotistical reminiscence, but it is necessary to remind the House of these things, in order to show that I have not brought this subject under its notice, without any previous consideration ; and that I have not done it now until I found that there was no probability of its being undertaken by abler heads, and by more skilful hands. I set out from the principle, and I do not think that I can be contradicted from history, that there never was a systematic and successful rebellion, against the ruling class of any nation, except from the pressure of the higher. I have used the words " higher class " advisedly, because it never had mattered any- thing whether the ruling class took the form of an absolute, or of a limited monarchy, of a republic, or anything else. As feudal violence died out, fiscal exaction grew up. Louis XIV. wasted the wealth of his people on expensive wars, and on the puerile toys of Versailles. Distress, grown past farther endur- ance, broke out in the reign of his great-grandson, and swept away everything before it. At the same period began the wars waged by the house of Hanover, which have continued ever since its accession, and caused the accumulation of our debt to such an amount, as would have appeared fabulous had it been foretold to those who created it ; and the pressure of that debt now upon us, aided by other circumstances, has produced a clamour for the reduction of expenditure, which, if we have not the manliness to look our position in the face, if we dare not 94 TAXATION AND EXPENDITURE. grapple with it, and if not taken up wisely, and in a time of comparative tranquillity, will assuredly be forced upon us in times of confusion and disorder, and carried out with that inconsiderate violence which invariably marks the proceedings of infuriated mobs. I am much tempted to dwell longer upon this part of the subject, although I shall forbear from doing so, because it is only as you are alive to your danger from this quarter, that it is possible to lead you to take adequate steps to avert it. If you will turn a deaf ear to the voice of history ; if you will shut your eyes to the events that are passing around you; if you will imagine that you have a privileged charter from heaven, which shall spare you from the fate that has attended other nations, although you walk in their foosteps ; if you will defer taking those measures that are necessary, from the selfish idle- ness which flatters you that things will last as they are at least your time, then there is no hope for the country, and the only conduct for men boasting in the name of British statesmen, is to sit still in official listlessness, their faculties absorbed in anti- quated routine, and their hands and feet bound in red tape and green ferret, until they are overtaken by another wave of that great deluge of democracy which has set in upon all the governments and institutions of Europe, and which has already, more than we are inclined to admit, come up upon ourselves. I do not say that the measures I shall propose to you, or any other shall ultimately save you; but I say that if you will renounce the selfishness of luxury ; if you will feel so as to resolve to mitigate the distresses of the poor ; if you will do justice and love mercy, it may perhaps, by God's mercy, be the means of lengthening your tranquillity. If you resolve to grapple with difficulties, you must do so honestly ; the measures to be adopted must not be deceitful ; you must not take them up merely for the purpose of calming the complaints of to-day, and amusing the people with delusive hopes, leaving them afterwards to writhe with aggravated mortification at the delusion which has been practised upon them ; your measures must be efficacious ; they must extend to every portion of our taxable system, and every one of us must be prepared to part with many favourite associations, with many prejudices, and to adopt others that are by no means agreeable to the tastes and TAXATION AND EXPENDITURE. 96 habits in which we have been educated. Upon this subject the language of some of the petitions on the table expresses my views. — " That all classes of productive industry labour under serious depression, arising from the great reductions in the profits of capital and labour, and from the diminished con- sumption caused by the excessive pressure of local and national taxation." I do not pledge myself to those words, but this is the substance of my views. In the first place, I hold it to be a just and righteous prin- ciple that men should pay for protection in proportion both, to the value of their property, and to the elevation of the social position which they fill. I stated in a former debate, that taking the population of the empire in round numbers to be thirty millions, or five millions of families, there was one million which consumed five times as much as all the rest ; one which consumed four times as much as all the rest : one which consumed three times as much as the rest ; one which consumed twice as much as the rest, and one which had not enough to eat. Now I contend that all your taxation should proceed upon the same principle as that which you have adopted for the assessed taxes, and increase upwards, according to its amount : that the last million of families ought as much as possible to be relieved from taxation ; that whatever amount the second million pays, the third should pay at a higher rate, and so on. I am told, however, that Lord Althorpe declared that such a system was confiscation ; if it be confiscation, it is that which you have been doing ever since Mr. Pitt laid on the assessed taxes, and although I might be disposed to pay great deference to Lord Althorpe's opinion on a question of fattening short-horns, I cannot pay the smallest to a mere dictum of his upon any other subject. It is obviously of very little import- ance to the day-labourer who sits in the House of Lords. In an article which appeared some time ago in the Edinburgh Revieiv, the eloquent writer said, " It is a very poor consolation to the man who has had no dinner and will not have any supper, that the Queen cannot make war without the consent of Parliament." The privileges of the constitution are doubtless exceedingly valuable to those who profit by them ; but to the vast mass of mankind they are wholly inoperative. Gentlemen must bear with me when I say that I do not agree in the asser- 96 TAXATION AND EXPENDITURE.' tion often made on the other side of the house, that taxes are made by the landed interest who command the majority of votes there, intentionally to press on the humbler classes. The reverse has most clearly been proved to be the fact by the honourable Member for Buckinghamshire, and no one has attempted to answer his statement. But I contend in the same way, that, as unintentionally there is an indirect tendency in masters always to combine against their labourers, so there is unconsciously to themselves an indirect tendency in this House not to make taxation equal ; that is, to make it equal in a certain sense, but unequal in another sense — equal in the sense of a poll-tax, which is the most unequal of all taxes, for it cannot be denied that to take 11. from the man who has only 10/. is to take more from him than it would be to take 10/. from one who has 100?, or to take 100/. from one who has 1000/, or to take 1000/. from one who has 10,000/. It ought, then, constantly to be the intention of the House in all their modes of taxation to relieve the very lowest, and to press on the very highest ; for, if that intention is not cherished, the involuntary effect will be, that taxation will press more on the lower classes than on members of the House. And this is the meaning of what has constantly been repeated by Mr. "Wakley, a gentleman whose protracted absence I regret, that the poor will never have justice done them in this House till they send day-labourers to Parliament. I shall also propose a resolution in committee, that in order to alle- viate the weight of those burdens which press on the people, it is necessary to levy all taxes, stamps, and other duties on the same principle as the assessed taxes. Your object for some time past has been to reduce the prices of all commodities to the level of those on the Continent; or rather to that which they bore before the war. I do not blame you for this ; it would have been impossible during a continuance of peace to have maintained them at a higher level, without any endeavour on your part to effect their equalisation. You however claim credit for the success of your endeavours. I now demand on the part of all tax-payers, especially on the part of all producers of raw produce, on the part of the land- owners and farmers, that the whole expenses of the govern- ment come down to the level at which they stood before the TAXATION AND EXPENDITURE. 97 war. It cannot be said of this, as it has- been said of the reductions proposed by the honourable member for the West Biding of Yorkshire, that this is a mere arbitrary fixing of the amount of our defences without reference to wars and other exi- gencies. On the contrary, the whole of the salaries were raised during the war, upon the express plea, that the prices of all commodities had risen : contracts have been made in some unions in Hampshire for mutton at threepence halfpenny a pound, and we must have salaries at threepence halfpenny too. We will have free trade carried out in everything. There is oftentimes a manner of speaking of reducing salaries, especially out of the House, which I entirely repudiate: it is mentioned as if it were a way of punishing public servants for some imputed delinquencies, or as if there was something po- litically or morally wrong in receiving the emoluments attached to office. To me it gives the greatest pain to be compelled to do anything that might interfere with the habits and comforts of any one. Somebody lately spoke of an Act of Parliament for giving confidence to Ireland : such would be indeed a blessed act, and if I could in the same way propose an Act of Parliament which should ensure to everybody ten thousand a year, with nothing to do for the rest of their lives, it would be far more agreeable to me. But the question is one of ne- cessity. Distress may become past endurance, and I implore you to relieve those who are suffering, that they may not take the matter into their own hands, and try to relieve themselves. I grant that the reductions to be made under this head are not great; neither are any that I shall enumerate great; but the aggregate will be considerable, and it is rather from the moral effect that is to be produced by proving to the country that we are honestly calling for sacrifices from all, that we are to expect advantage, than from the mere amount of money saved. I would not reduce the salaries of some, but there are others that should be reduced, and expenses which ought instantly to be stopped; such as the whole establishment for building ships, particularly the extraordinary sums thrown away upon steam-vessels, for which now they find no use ; and the men are employed in building more ships than are required, merely to let them have something to do besides twirling their thumbs. I tell gentlemen who have never been members of vol. I. H 98 TAXATION AND EXPENDITURE. government themselves, that the noble Lord himself who now presides over it, and who is pretty determined when he takes a thing into his head, could not reduce the salaries of the officials under him unless he were armed with, and had to plead, and were compelled by, a resolution of this House. There have been many debates lately on the colonies, and I shall refer to them no farther than to point out how money may be saved by their means, which is all that is within the scope of my present motion. There never was an abler man at the Colonial Office than Lord Grey, nor one who laboured more assiduously in the discharge of his duty, but still the colonies are just in the same state that I ever remember them to have been. There is a report on the table of the House which was presented by Sir Oh Murray when he presided over the office, backed by his two under-secretaries, Sir E. Horton and Mr. Hay, recommending that the colonies should be governed by a board, but still nothing has been done upon the subject. Adam Smith declares that colonies are always an expense to the mother-country, and that nothing but pride has prevented her from giving them up long ago. I think that as in a private, so in a political family, that which is most dignified is also the most advantageous. If the children, arrived at mature age, have by success in adventures or in any other way become able to be independent of parental superintendence, then let not their independence be reproached to them as alienation from the home of their youth, nor let the parents strive to keep them still in a state of pupilage. If, on the other hand, there are some who from weakness are not able to defend themselves, let them remain under the maternal wing. But you may gain a direct advantage from your colonies if you will give free passages in your idle ships to all poor emigrants, and make them grants of land there; you would thus free your rates both in England and Ireland, by sending out all the able-bodied, and all the grown-up children from your workhouses. The private emigration societies, one of which is presided over by my honourable friend the member for Berwickshire, Mr. Scott, exact conditions which are too hard for a poor man, and insist upon his providing himself with many articles which he has no means to procure. The very con- ditions which make a poor man an emigrant are, that he has an TAXATION AND EXPENDITURE. 99 empty mouth, and an empty stomach, without the means of filling either here. The colonies would he indirectly more profit- able to the mother country, by becoming better customers for your manufactured goods. But let not the sugar colonists lay the flattering unction to their souls, that, in the majority of instances, they can ever again become the sugar manufac- turers for England. The cane is indigenous in very few spots, in those it is perennial ; by forced prices of monopoly, growers have been enabled to cultivate it on soils where it lasts only one year ; consequently on all the soils of inferior fertility to the first the cultivation has been upheld by artificial causes alone ; but they may rest assured that monopolies of every kind are gone for ever. If they will cultivate provisions, however, they will supply this country with all the corn it requires; for it is impossible to restore the bread tax again. I have no patience with those cruel impostors* who, taking advantage of the distress now prevailing amongst the tenant farmers in the south of England, run about the country trying to persuade them that they can ever get back a duty of five shillings a quarter on corn. I never took any part in the agitation for or against the repeal of the bread tax, because I saw nothing in it but a war between two egoisms, the selfishness of cotton lords on one side and the selfishness of landlords on the othjgr, and with neither of these had I the smallest sympathy. I do not how^ ever mean to say that all egoisms are equally bad : for example, a man who has got the gout in his stomach may fairly wish it were in his foot ; the foot may complain 'of the selfishness of the stomach in wishing to shift the burden from himself to his neighbour; and so it may be, but still it is obvious that the selfishness of the one is conservative and the selfishness of the other is destructive ; and it is much better to have the gout in * Sir John Tyrrell, -without any reason that I could discover, thought that I alluded to him and other country gentlemen who had attended public meetings in their own counties with the -view of considering the state of the agricultural dis- tress. I had no such intention ; neither he, nor any such persons were in my mind ; but those who run about counties in which they have no property, and with which they have no connection, trying to set the tenants against the landlords, and per- suading them that if they will return these itinerant agitators to Parliament, they will be enabled to get a bread tax re-enacted, which is as impossible as to get the Reform Bill repealed. H 2 100 TAXATION AND EXPENDITURE. the toe than in the stomach. After the last peace, Baron Louis, the Minister of Finance in France, proposed to this government to establish a trade of reciprocity between the two countries at an ad valorem duty of ten or fifteen per cent. Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Canning wished to accede to this pro- posal, but the government foolishly declined to do so. So long as you require a revenue, so long should you raise it by duties on foreign produce, and not by duties from your colonies, nor by an Excise at home. The true ground of this policy is not the protection of one class of capitalists, d either landowners nor manufacturers ; protection of either of these is nothing but taking from the pockets of all the inhabitants to put into the pockets of the persons who are protected. The ground of this policy is the protection of the labourer against both description of capitalists, against both landlords and manufac- turers ; for there is a constant tendency in all masters to com- bine against their workmen, and the labourer is no match for the capitalist. The capitalist can command any market he pleases, but the labourer can command no market but his next door neighbour, he is adscriptus glebce; he can only exchange his property, which is his labour, against some British capital or produce ; and therefore it is the duty of the crown to afford to him that protection which his helplessness requires. When the capitalist disposes of his produce to another he puts in action another mass of capital. If the other mass of capital against which he exchanges it is in the home market, it em- ploys another mass of capital in the home market; in other words, it secures employment to the home labourer instead of the foreign labourer. People are ever ready to blame their governments, whilst they generally have the same faults themselves as those they censure, although developed in another form. They blame parlia- ments and ministers for wanton prodigality in one way whilst they themselves are quite as wasteful of the public resources in some other. In order to flatter mobs you have made the foolish sacrifice of the revenue of the Post Office; you throw away money every year in grants of various kinds, palaces for jails, hoping to reclaim thieves by giving them lessons of spelling instead of flogging them; indulging in fancies about setting murderers in masks to learn by heart the Whole Duty of Man TAXATION AND EXPENDITURE. 101 instead of hanging them. Again you throw away money in schools of design, national galleries, buildings and other things, antiquities, Egyptian and Grecian, flattering the people into a fancy that they have a taste for the fine arts about which they know nothing and care as little, and of which they have not the smallest appreciation. The public, Like private individuals in distress, cannot afford such follies now ; they must abandon the luxuries of building, collecting pictures, and encouraging arts until they are richer: for the question at stake is the public peace, hazarded by the pressure of taxation. I must say that such grants are not only improper but immoral also. I fear to mention the word Ireland, lest I should evoke a hundred speeches upon everything physical, intellectual, and spiritual which that island contains, but yet I cannot pass it by unheeded, because it is by an altered course of government in that country that the largest amount of immediate saving may be made. Now do one of two things, either treat it like a civilised country, or like a barbarous one; if you mean to govern it by military possession, then proclaim martial law, get rid of your courts and judges, and let every offence be tried by drum-head court-martial; if on the other hand you will treat it like a civilised country, then disband the army which you have there, make the Lord-Lieutenants for each county responsible for the peace of their county, give them a carte blanche to dismiss every improper magistrate now on the roll and to appoint whom they please, re-enact the old Saxon law of making every barony responsible by a heavy fine for every outrage committed within it, and let that law be ex- tended to the case of every man who is starved to death in it. If these means were taken, a portion of the army there might be disbanded, and the country would obtain immediate relief to that extent. I shall not, however, propose any resolution upon this subject, because as it is connected with the preserva- tion of the public peace, it ^ould not be right for this House to fetter the hands of the executive. Hitherto we have been considering only the smallest portion of that burden which weighs upon the springs of industry, and so long as we leave the greater portion untouched, we are only deluding ourselves if we suppose that we have obtained any real benefit. To shift the burden of taxation from one class B 3 102 TAXATION AND EXPBNDITUKE. to another, and to make a reduction of salaries, are benefits' more moral than material ; their adoption would show the people that there is a determination on the part of the higher classes to make sacrifices for their benefit ; but it is not possible that any who hear me can believe that the national debt will remain for ever. Your debt has been increasing ever since you discarded your lawful kings, perhaps as a public punish- ment for your successful treason, until at length it has reached an amount that imposes a burden upon this country greater than any people ever sustained before. We must do every successive statesman who added to the debt, the justice to acknowledge that he not only deplored the supposed necessity of his act, but admitted that it was a serious evil which must ultimately ruin the country unless something were done to lighten its pressure, for which he proposed various remedies. Mr. Pitt always endeavoured to diminish it, and promised that whenever peace came, effective measures should be taken for that end. Whoever will give himself the trouble of referring to the parliamentary history, and the various me- moirs which relate to the reigns of the three first Georges, will see with what alarm all the statesmen of those days have spoken of the inevitable effects of the debt, most of which opi- nions are collected in Sir John Sinclair's History of the Public Eevenue. But in point of fact nothing has been done ever since the peace to diminish it. It is contended indeed that the wealth of the country has increased and the population also, and that its amount is spread over a larger surface and consequently the pressure upon each individual is diminished ; but this argu- ment is fallacious, because it assumes that the worth of pro- perty and the amount of the tax has been always of corre- sponding values. It happens, however, that the property has fallen whilst the tax has increased. Take, for example, the case of manufacturers two years even in the lowest depths of their seeming depression, and which they have plainly told the people of England that they are determined again to establish in this country : it is this that makes me resolved to expose everywhere — in this House and out of it — the object which those men aim at, and the means by which they propose to carry that object into effect. I will not make use of any abusive expressions. I shall never quote or acknowledge the authority of any Protestant writer upon the subject, but I shall take my opinion of the Koman Catholic priests from the acts and writings of those priests them- selves. Nobody can find fault with me if I endeavour to under- stand plain English and bad Latin as well as they. I confess that this motion appears to me to be a very injudicious one for the attainment of the object for which it is framed. I entirely agree with what has fallen from the honourable member for Cambridgeshire with respect to the immense charitable labours of Koman Catholics. I have said before in this House, and I have also stated in print, that the religious works of Eoman Catholics put those of Protestants to shame. On no account, therefore, should I wish to weaken either directly or indirectly the effect of the speech of the honourable gentleman, even though it might tend to strengthen the side of the question opposed to that which I am espousing. I will take no unfair advantage in this argument. I will grapple fairly with the question as put forward by the Pope's nuncio and the priests themselves. I do not mean to impute any other feelings to Eoman Catholics than those which are common to all mankind when I ask, whether it does not come within the experience of every one of us that there often exists a temptation to parents to be cruel to their children ? What is the object of the Factory Act and of the Ten-Hours Bill at present before the other House, for the improvement of the condition of the most helpless class in the community? Is it not to protect children from the cruelty and neglect of their parents ? And do not these bad passions, or rather neglect of good and proper feelings, take different forms in different classes of society ? It is notorious, — and no one can have given the same attention to lunatic asylums that I have without being compelled to admit — that in private lunatic asylums the care of relatives over the unhappy inmates is not what it ought to be. In some cases, I will not say in RECOVERY OF PERSONAL LIBERTY BILL. 271 how many, their families seem ashamed of them, and appear to be desirous of keeping them for ever in those establishments. There can be no doubt that great cruelty has been practised in conventual institutions. I do not, however, allude to cases in this country, but I should add that I do not admit that what has been done in Great Britain is a fair sample of priestly power. There are Bible distributors and tract writers here; but I refer to countries where none of these wicked people are to be found, and where the whole populati on is exclusively under the control of the priests. Does not the state of Europe at present justify every word that has fallen from the honourable and learned gentleman who has just addressed the House, though his remarks have been received with sneers by many persons near me ? Where do you hear in France of a liberal and en- lightened priesthood or a revered hierarchy ? Where, but for the standing army, would those priests be at the present moment ? Would honourable gentlemen of the Eoman Catholic Church vote for the withdrawal of the 10,000 French troops from Bome ? I recommend them not to do so, if they have any mercy for the Pope. But if abuses take place in convents, I do not think you have devised the proper remedy for such an evil. As for calling in abbesses to give evidence, I assure you you may as well let that alone. Read the history of the Council of Trent, and there you will find it stated that the bishops were obliged to give up all control over nuns and monks, who, they said, always beat them; and such being the case, I do not think the honourable member for Cambridge- shire has much chance with them. There was always raised on this question a great cant of liberty. Liberty ! Why, I have produced in this House a work sanctioned by Cardinal Wiseman*, in which it is stated that the very perfection of Christianity is to believe that black is white and that white is black whenever Holy Church desires it. Liberty ! It was perfectly right on the part of the heads of the Boman Catholic Church in Ireland to discard that book on the Evidences of Christianity. What business have laymen with evidences ? Those men were per- fectly right in their own way. What did Montesquieu say of them ? He said that they always put him in mind of the people * The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, with a preface by Cardinal Wiseman. 272 RECOVERY OF PERSONAL LIBERTY BILL. of whom Herodotus spoke, who put out the eyes of their Scythian slaves that nothing might divert them from churning butter. They teach the doctrine of the propriety of children entering convents without the consent of their parents. I could mention instances within my own knowledge in which young persons have actually been stolen for the purpose of being immured in such establishments. It may be said that these are exceptions ; but I will go to the doctrine of the Church, and I find it laid down by Eoman Catholic writers that a child sins if it confesses to its parent that it has any inclination to go into a convent, for fear the parent should persuade it out of the idea. (Mr. Bowyer : "Where is that taught ? ") In Liguori ; you don't half know him yet. I have received a great many letters on this subject. Only the other day I received a letter from a lady in Anglesea whose niece had been positively stolen away from her, and I know of a similar case in Ireland. The young lady tbere was the daughter of the editor of a newspaper. The priests discovered that she was entitled to some property from her mother, and they immediately kidnapped her. Her friends made an appeal to Cardinal Wiseman, but before his Eminence's reply came back, the young woman had changed her name, and was known as Sister Theresa in some other place. How can a parent or guardian find a remedy for such an abuse ? I believe that if the motion now before the House is carried, its object will certainly be defeated. The electric telegraph would be put in motion, and any lady into whose case it might be thought proper to institute an inquiry, would cease to be known by her name, and it would be impossible to catch her. I do not wish to say one word against the schools conducted by nuns in England — it is a gross libel on me to state that I ever said a word against the morality of the inmates of English convents, and upon that point I wish to offer a few words of explanation. While the clamour raised against me in this House was going on, I did not condescend to answer it, but I will take this opportunity of stating that what I said on a former occasion was, that these establishments have been made throughout Europe into a kind of prison, or have been turned to infamous purposes, not by the inmates themselves, but by the priests. The same thing is asserted in the writings of popes, bishops, and other ecclesiastics of the Church of Rome during a period of ten centuries. I will RECOVERY OF PERSONAL LIBERTY BILL. 213 not state the last cases of the kind which I have met with, for they are too gross for recital; but I will quote a passage from the journal of G-eneral Dumouriez during his travels in Portugal just before the French revolution. General Dumouriez said that out of 2,000,000 of inhabitants in that country, there were 400,000 persons in conventual establishments, which he justly considered to be a much greater number than the wealth of the country could bear. He then named one of the convents, which he said was a seraglio of the king, and he went on to describe those establishments generally in Portugal, as being of the most infamous character. General Dumouriez was not writing against Eoman Catholic institutions of any kind, but simply stated that as a fact which had come under his observa- tion in the course of his travels. But why do the heads of the Eoman Catholic Church want these institutions ? They want them on two grounds. They want them first, I readily admit, because the inmates practise great benevolence, and because they form extremely good schools for young ladies. But they want them, also, because they afford the best possible machinery for collecting money, and for becoming the pioneers of the Eoman Catholic Church. The Pope's nuncio in Paris has very clearly acknowledged that one great object of his party is to deliver this country from that slavery into which Protestantism has ground the souls of Englishmen. Now, let there be no mistake. I am not quarrelling with the Pope, nor with his nuncio, nor with Cardinal "Wiseman, nor with anybody else ; but I am as determined to fight out to the death the great principle at issue as they are. I am determined to expose the doctrines of the priests, because I know them to* be subversive of morals, and because it is impossible for a priest to be loyal to a Protestant sovereign. I have petitioned this House over and over again against the Eoman Catholic Belief Bill. I have been called a bigot for my pains ; but I have lived to see the truth of my assertions proved by the event. I have lived to find that which has been said by the Duke of Wellington to be a prediction of which the fulfilment has only been deferred; for from the acts of the Eoman Catholics themselves, and not merely from the charges of their enemies, it is apparent that it is utterly impossible for the slaves of a priesthood to be sharers with Protestant freemen in conducting a constitutional government. vol. r. T 274 PAELIAMENTAEY EEPEESENTATION. February 13th, 1854. On a motion for leave to bring in a Bill for the Amendment of the Representation of the People, by Lord John Russell. It is not likely that I, who so much disliked the first Eeform Bill, should look upon the present with very favourable eyes. That measure was hailed as a revolutionary measure by every man in the country who wished for revolutions, and it was re- pelled by every man who disliked revolutions, both of them alike calling it honestly by that name. I find no fault with the noble Lord (Lord John Eussell) for pursuing the course on which he then entered. But I confess I am again somewhat perplexed, as I was last year, to know how to interpret our common language, when I hear such a policy characterised by the noble Lord at the head of the Government (Lord Aberdeen) as " Conservative progress." It is progress undoubtedly, progress in that revolutionary policy which I stigmatised by that name twenty-three years ago, and which I still think entitled to that character. Not to use hard names without stating clearly what I mean, I mean this : that you are now trying, as you were then trying, to sever property from power. And, no matter by what means you do it, or what words you use, that severance is socialism. "Whether it be wise in the noble Lord (Lord John Eussell) to bring in such a bill at this time, I care not ; perhaps it is immaterial. I do not think it matters much whether we are to discuss it in a state of war or peace, in this point of view, for the measure itself contains within it that which sooner or later must be destructive. It is of no use to speak of it in other language. There is no reason for stopping where you propose to do now. This measure is incense offered to that party whom for a quarter of a century the noble Lord has idolised ; a party who honestly declare, without any disguise, that their intention and their hope is shortly to establish democracy in this country. 275 EUSSIA AND THE POKTE. — February 20th, 1854. On statement of Mr. Layard. I AM willing to concur in that portion of the honourable gentle- man's (Mr. Horsman) speech which conveys a deserved panegyric upon the state papers lately laid upon the table of the House, but at the same time I think the concluding portion of the honourable gentleman's observations are exceedingly dangerous. When I consider that the first despatch in those blue-books is dated May, 1850, and that we are now in the month of February, 1854, and that this is the first time any information has been given, either by the present or by any former Government, on the subject, and that the people of this country have had no opportunity of knowing what is going on in a matter deeply involving their own interests, I am, I must confess, greatly surprised. I believe that such a proceeding is unparalleled in the records of parliament, and it is the more important, as I believe that the country stands in great need of information. The honourable gentleman who opened this debate (Mr. Layard) attempted several times last session to bring this matter forward, and her Majesty's ministers then felt the discussion so inop- portune, that they besought him, almost as a personal favour, to postpone it. When, at last, the honourable gentleman seized the present opportunity to bring the question before us, he was met by the ministers with taunts and reproaches for employing his time in " pottering over blue-books," instead of lauding him for his efforts to bring the subject before the House. As far as I understand the case, the Sovereign of this country and her confidential advisers are going to enter into a war; but is it not as well, before commencing, to find out who will support them ? They say, the country will. Well, but the country is an abstract term. We will come to the concrete. Now, the House has heard this evening the honourable member for the West Eiding (Mr. Cobden) say that there are certain persons who are exceedingly ill-disposed to go to war, because they will T 2 276 RUSSIA AND THE PORTE. be interrupted in their manufacture of munitions of war for the enemy, and they consider that such an interruption is an interference with the freedom of trade. If this is their feeling, you may depend upon it, that, although it may be forbidden to take munitions of war directly to Eussia, means will yet be found — aye, and by English merchants — to supply Eussia with warlike stores ; and English manufacturers will supply the enemy with the means of destroying our fleets and our armies. Do the ministers, then, expect these manufacturers to support them in the war? You may, perhaps, flatter yourselves you can make the poor favourable to the war, by saying " we will only levy a tax upon the rich and take 1 per cent, from them in the way of income tax ; we will place a tax upon capital, but will not tax anything required by the poorer classes/' But will not the taxes upon the rich ultimately fall upon the poor ? Besides, has one single reason been shown why this country should go to war at all ? I will admit all that has been said about the aggression and misconduct of Eussia, and the noble conduct of Turkey. I quite admit that, when a weak and an honest man is oppressed, he ought to be protected, irrespective of all treaties ; but I do not in this fact see any reason why this country should go to war. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House say they are willing to vote all the supplies asked for ; no doubt of it. They will vote anything to get the ministers into a mess. The question is, how they will act when they have got them into the mess ? They will do precisely what the Whigs did during the last war, raise question after question, and torment the ministers until they succeed in turning them out. Ministers are not immortal, — nay, their official life is not always very lasting or secure. How can you secure that the noble Lord (Lord John Eussell) will continue in office to carry on the war ? Suppose that he were in opposition, what would he do ? Just what the gentlemen opposite are now doing. He will assuredly lend no strength whatever to those who may be in office, to assist them in carrying on the war. I therefore heartily pray for the noble Lord, both personally and officially, in eastern phrase, " may his shadow never be less ; " how otherwise can he answer for the conduct of the war ? and how can we be sure that there may not appear some morning a letter to the electors of London, or perhaps to a bishop, blowing up the whole RUSSIA AND THE PORTE, 277 government? Who knows indeed that the noble lord may not play " Gruy Fawkes " to his own party ? Now we are entering into war, it Is only right that we should be told what we are going to war for ; for I confess that, though I have read the whole of these blue books, I have not found one word upon that subject. But I believe, and I think I can prove it, that we are about to enter upon a religious war ; we are about to enter into a crusade for the tomb of Godfrey de Bouillon, which is already so broken that it is scarcely discernible. It appears that the author of the mischief from the very beginning has been the Pope. I wish, however to let the House know what the country expects in the present emergency. I mean, of course, what the newspapers expect. The right honourable gentleman (Sir James Graham) has told us what he expects ; in the favourite phrase of Mr. Pitt he evidently wants " an indemnity for the past, and security for the future." A document has appeared from Prince Metternich, in a foreign journal, in which he shows that of all the nations upon earth, England has the least interest in this question, and that the only end of going to war is to inflict such a wound upon the enemy as shall disable him, in order to make him sue for peace, but it is impossible for Russia and England to inflict such a wound on each other. Listen now to what the country says. I will read an extract from a journal of great talent, and one that is more found than any other in public houses, and consequently read by a greater num- ber of persons than many other papers : — "It is high time they should be finally assured that every penny taken out of every Englishman's pocket to pay the charges of this contest, we are determined to get back again. No rascal autocrat must be permitted to disturb the peace of Europe ' on tick.' It is not enough that he should be beaten, humiliated, quashed. He must and shall be made to ' pay the piper.' We are a nation of shopkeepers. We post our day-book and keep up our ledger. We shall have a heavy account to balance with Russia for this ' vexatious defence,' or ' malicious prosecution ; ' and by Him that made Englishmen with a hatred of oppression and a love of justice, that headstrong autocrat who has presumed to trifle with the peace of Europe and the progress of mankind, shall be made to pay 20s. in the pound, or to have an execution put into his house, and a broker's man placed in possession. We would arouse the attention of every good subject to this considera- tion, so that a sound basis of public opinion may be laid at the outset, T 3 278 RUSSIA AND THE PORTE. and so that ministers may be set right and kept right by the people", should they be inclined to go wrong. We deliberately reiterate our conviction that henceforth no war on our part can be justified, either to the conscience or to the understanding, which does not also bear out, not merely the right, but the soundness of the policy of making it bear its own charges. Indemnity for the past and security for the future, are the right of every state that is ' sinned against, not sinning.' " Now, will you tell me, is that really and truly the support the Government expects from the country in prosecuting this war ? Is it only to he a support so long as it turns out profitable ? Eecollect, that the circumstances of the present war differ materially from those of the last war : in the last war every six months brought some benefit, some rich galleon, some valuable colony — the trade of the world was absorbed by this country, and, notwithstanding the war, the national wealth went on increasing : but in the present war, we shall have nothing to take, we shall only have hard blows to give, and heavy bills to pay. This is the popular war into which the whole country is anxious to plunge. The country is, no doubt, angry with Eussia ; and the honourable gentleman the member for the West Eiding (Mr. Cobden) has taken more pains than any other man to increase the excitement. The honourable gentleman some time ago offered to " crumple up Eussia like a sheet of paper.". If he would put that threat into execution now, it would save the world a great deal of trouble, and the House a good deal of debate. Eussia, however, is not crumpled up, but laid over an enormous tract of country. I believe the noble Lord (Lord J. Eussell) has said, that the original cause of this trouble was the Holy Places ; but that the whole of that question is now given up. All given up ! Why, the superscription and title of those very blue books is the correspondence respecting the rights and privileges of the Latin and Greek churches in Turkey. That is the whole subject of these blue books ; and I maintain that from the very first to the present moment this has been the whole subject in dispute. I want the country to understand that it is not the balance of power, but the Latin and Greek churches that we are going to fight about, and we are to all intents and purposes, entering into a religious war. The balance of power I shall come to before I sit down ; but meanwhile, I will assert, that EUSSIA AND THE PORTE. 279 the sole question is a religious question. Sir Stratford Canning, for example, said in a despatch to the noble lord the member for Tiverton, then Foreign Secretary : — " A question likely to be attended with much discussion and excite- ment is on the point of being raised between the conflicting interests of the Latin and Greek churches in this country. The immediate point of difference is, the right of possession to certain portions of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. The Greeks are accused of having usurped property which belongs of right to the Roman Catholics, and of having purposely allowed the chapels, and particularly the monuments of Godefroi de Bouillon and Guy de Lusignan, to go into decay. The French legation at this court considers itself entitled by the treaty of 1740, to take the lead in vindicating the alleged rights of the Latin church (i. e. Greek Papists, subjects of the Porte). The Pope has been moved to exert his influence in furtherance of the views adopted by France ; and all the Catholic powers will be engaged by his Holiness to co-operate for the same purpose. The Spanish, Sardinian, and Neapolitan representatives have severally given in notes to the Porte, seconding the French demands. The Austrian charge 1 d'affaires has recently received instructions to support the Latin view of the question. The Sultan proposes mixed commissions to examine into the claims of all the Christian sects." What object his Holiness may have in starting this question, I neither know nor care ; all I have to do with is the correspon- dence, from which I find that the same thing continues to go on. And in another despatch from our ambassador at Constantinople, he says : — " I am informed that the Spanish, Sardinian, and Neapolitan repre- sentatives have severally given in notes to the Porte, seconding the French demand, and stating that they act by the express command of their respective Governments. " The Greeks, as on former occasions, are understood to be preparing for a vigorous resistance ; and, judging from expressions which M. de Titoff has let fall in conversation, I have little doubt that they will be strongly, if not ostensibly, supported by Eussian influence. " The Porte is fully aware of the important political considerations involved, and the strong conflicting passions likely to be engaged in the pending controversy. It will probably be slow to commit itself to a conclusive answer ; and its reception of General Aupick's application appears, though courteous, to have been reserved. Aali Pasha is evidently inclined to doubt whether the terms of the treaty referred to t 4 280 RUSSIA AND THE POKTE. by that minister are calculated to bear him out in his view of the subject" In the following year, namely 1851, Sir Stratford Canning, in writing on the 4th of November, to Lord Palmerston, said : — " M. de Lavalette, instead of pushing his right to an extreme, took upon himself the responsibility of declaring his readiness to extend the principle of joint possession to the whole number. In so doing he would have anticipated the instructions of his government, and exposed himself to the animadversion of Rome and of certain parties in France." Meaning that party represented by Count de Montalembert. In another despatch it was stated that M. de Lavalette had more than once talked of the probability of a French fleet appearing before Jaffa, unless the demands of France, in respect to the Holy Places, were conceded. The noble lord (Lord J. Eussell) in a despatch to our ambassador at St. Petersburg, complained as follows : — " Her Majesty's Government cannot avoid perceiving that the ambassador of France was the first to disturb the status quo in which the matter rested. Not that the disputes of the Latin and Greek churches are not very active, but that without some political action on the part of France those quarrels would never have troubled the relations of friendly powers. In the next place, if report is to be believed, the French ambassador was the first to speak of having recourse to force." That is to say, these things were begun under the pretence of religion ; but secretly with a political end. In all this the Turks behaved uncommonly well. They did not care one farthing whether the dog eat the hog or the hog the dog, so that the matter was settled; and they said, "we will send a commissioner to Jerusalem, who will put you both to rights." Accordingly Azif Bey went to Jerusalem; and here is an acccount of what took place : — " Azif Bey invited all the parties concerned to meet him in the church of the Virgin, near Gethsemane. There he read an order of the Sultan for permitting the Latins to celebrate mass once a year, but requiring the altar and its ornaments to rest undisturbed. No sooner were those words uttered, than the Latins who had come to receive their triumph over the Orientals, broke out into loud exclama- EUSSIA AND THE POETE. 281 tions of the impossibility of celebrating mass upon a schismatic slab of marble, with a covering of silk and gold, instead of plain linen, among schismatic vases, and before a crucifix which has the feet separated, instead of one nailed over the other." What an example was here set to all the world ! But this was not all. The cupola of the Holy Sepulchre wanted repair, and there was a dispute who was to repair it. The Sultan again interfered and undertook to repair it. Colonel Eose said : — " It has now been decided that the Sultan is to repair it, and M. de Lavalette apprehends no dissension on this score. But Fuad Effendi foresees that embarrassment will arise from the pretensions of the rival sects, as to whether the inscriptions round the cupola are to be in Greek or Latin, whether the sacred images in it are to be made and habited according to Greek or Latin fashions." So that, in fact, this is a dispute whether the milliner shall come from Paris or from St. Petersburg, to dress up these idols. (Laughter.) Yes, the matter would appear very funny if there were not a war pending about it. I do not like troubling the House with extracts, and will only read one more, for I am anxious to prove the assertion with which I set out — that this is a holy war, and that the question of the balance of power was altogether an afterthought, which has nothing to do with the real cause of quai'rel. The noble Lord (Lord J. Eussell) said : — " We should deeply regret any dispute that might lead to conflict between two of the great powers of Europe ; but when we reflect that the quarrel is for exclusive privileges, on a spot near which the heavenly host proclaimed, ' peace on earth and good-will towards men ; ' when we see rival churches contending for mastery in the very place where Christ died for mankind, the thought of such a spectacle is melancholy indeed. Your excellency will understand, therefore, first, that into the merits of this dispute Her Majesty's Government will not enter. 2nd. That Her Majesty's Government disapprove of every threat, and still more of the actual employment of force. 3rd. That both parties should be told that if they are sincere in their professions of a desire to maintain the independence of the Porte, they ought to abstain from the employment of any means calculated to display the weakness of the Ottoman empire. Above all, they ought to refrain from putting armies and fleets in motion for the purpose of making the tomb of Christ a cause of quarrel among Christians." I have read this passage because I think it exceedingly credi- 282 RUSSIA AND THE POETE. table to the person who indicted it — exceedingly creditable to the Sovereign of whom he is a servant — and exceedingly cre- ditable to the administration of which he forms a part. But still I must come back to the plain point, and ask why were we not told all this a year ago ? I believe that if we had been, such a storm of indignation and also of laughter would have been raised as to the whole subject that we should have heard no more of it at all. Sir Hamilton Seymour said that the difficulty which had arisen had been caused by secresy and double-dealing, and I now ask Her Majesty's ministers why all these things were not told us before ? The head of the Government (Earl of Aberdeen) prides himself I remember on his powers of conceal- ment ; and he stated in another place that he should like to see any one extract information from him which he was not inclined to afford. This puts me in mind of a story I heard a long time ago. A Highlander had gone to India, and on his return to England brought home for his wife a parrot which spoke exceedingly well. Another Highlander, determined not to be outdone, went to Edinburgh and brought home to his wife a large owl. On its being remarked to him that the owl could never be taught to speak, " Very true," he replied, " but consider the power of thought he has in him." So I suppose it is pretty much the same with the Government. It has been contended, and especially on this side of the House, that we have interfered a great deal too much in continental matters. I think so too, though not upon pre- cisely the same grounds. It is, in my opinion, not befitting this country to be taking part, whether justly or unjustly, with those imperial and royal tyrants who have trampled upon the rights of the people from Archangel to Naples ; nor is it decent in us to be showing sympathy with those who say they will establish the liberties of Europe by the indiscriminate slaughter of every official person. There never was a time when we could have so well escaped from continental meddling as the present. The Emperor of Eussia has broken a treaty; Austria and Prussia, though parties to that treaty, and therefore bound to enforce its fulfilment, have declined to do so ; and the consequence is, that you have utter diplomatic chaos in Europe — there is no treaty binding on anybody, and you have a complete carte blanche to act as you choose. If then you had taken advantage of this state RUSSIA AND THE PORTE. 283 of things and stood aloof, you would have been enabled to me- diate with better success between the sovereigns and the people than you can by any force which you may put in motion. But now I come to what is called the balance of power. My noble friend (Lord John Eussell) the other night, and last year also, said that he was surprised that any one should speak slightingly of the balance of power, for it is a subject that has occupied the attention of every statesman in Europe at all times. It would, no doubt, ill become me to speak with disrespect of anything which is deemed so important ; but without venturing my opinion against the opinions of greater and wiser men, I will take the liberty of mentioning certain facts. You all know the time when consternation seized every minister of foreign affairs in Europe because Bourbons were going to mount the thrones of Spain and Naples. Now, was France one whit more powerful after that event than before ? It is notorious that she was not ; nor do I believe that, if the intention of Catherine — an inten- tion shown by the fact of her christening her second son Con- stantine — of placing him on the throne of Constantinople was fulfilled, Eussia would be one whit more powerful than at present ; nor do I believe that if the Emperor of Bussia suc- ceeded just now in placing his brother on that throne, we should be one whit the worse off. But how can you possibly uphold Turkey ? You have found out that Turkey is your ancient ally, and that her existence as an independent state is necessary to the balance of power in Europe. How in the world happens it that you never found that out before you took the whole king- dom of Greece from her, and before you fought the battle of Navarino, which I remember hearing Lord St. Helen's say was a capital battle, only you knocked down the wrong man ? How came you not to think of this when the Bussians passed the Balkan, and when you might have given Turkey effectual aid by sending your fleet to Varna ? It is certainly singular tbat now, when the Ottoman empire is reduced to the lowest condition, we should come forward to support this tottering state, and do so under pretence of upholding the balance of power. I will here quote a remarkable passage spoken by Mr. Burke, in a debate in this House in 1791, when he attacked some one who spoke about the importance of this balance of power. He said : — " The second point is extremely new, and contrary to all the politics with which I am acquainted,- either ancient or modern, to bring the 284 EUSSIA AND THE POETB. Turkish empire into the consideration of the balance of power in Europe. (Mr. Burke proceeded to show the impolicy and danger of this country espousing the cause of the Ottomans.) What is the real state of the question ? Merely to plunge ourselves into an immoderate expense to reduce the Christian nations to the yoke of the infidels, and make them the miserable victims to these inhuman savages."— (Pari. Deb., March 29, 1791.) Such was Mr. Burke's opinion as to the advantages of uphold- ing Turkey. But, supposing the maintenance of Turkey is necessary for the balance of power in Europe, do what you will you cannot prevent the war from being a religious war. On this point I will quote from a state paper of Prince Metternich : — " If the fury of war be now let loose — if, what in modern times has never been witnessed, England and France unitedly array themselves against an opponent, the latter will certainly not be able to keep within the narrow limits of a promise. The stake is too enormous to be risked without the prospect of some gain or other. Such a war Eussia cannot terminate with the exclusive aid of mere military auxiliaries. She will have to impart to the war a religious character, in order that it may ignite and inflame without her own boundaries, and place arms in the hands of the subjects of the Sultan against their own master. Turko-Christian insurgents are the auxiliary troops which Eussia will then press into her service, and it remains to be seen whether a mere geographical and national boundary can oppose an effective barrier against the stream of awakened fanaticism." So that, turn which way you will, you cannot prevent that result. But now, I will ask, where is it you are going to make war ? Hitherto, I admit, the business has been managed with a great deal of wisdom and discretion on the part of Her Majesty's Government; but it was not very long ago that, with very great difficulty, you persuaded the people of this country to look to the really defenceless state of their own shores, and to allow you to put them in a better, though by no means in a complete state of defence. It was then the fashion to cry " Up with the Em- peror Nicholas ! " and " Down with the Emperor Napoleon ! " but this year you turn round, and the Emperor Napoleon is your faithful ally, and you join with him to make war on the other emperor. And what are you doing ? You are sending the elite of your own army to the utmost limits of Europe, or rather into Asia, leaving the Emperor Napoleon to send, as his contingent, those reprobate troops, the condemned regiments from Algeria ; RUSSIA AND THE PORTE. 285 and when the noble lord talks of the massacre of Sinope, does he not recollect anything about the smoking to death of Arabs in a cavern by the French general ? Those are the troops with which you are sending the Slite of your army and leaving your- selves defenceless at home. Why, it was said by a late speaker that we are sending 40,000 troops. (An honourable member : We have not 40,000 to send.) Then that is a good reason for not sending them. We are, however, sending out 20,000 ; that is not denied. We are then going to war ; and, going to war under such circumstances, I shall certainly be no party to any factious vote which may tend to weaken the hands of the Go- vernment. At the same time I should like to know who is to be the minister of war. Mr. Canning, in his day, thought this a question of sufficient importance to insist that Lord Castlereagh should not hold that office, or he would resign. I ask this question, because all see enough to know that at the present moment there is a feeble hand at the helm. The sails are all shivering, and there is an unsteadiness in the vessel's course which indicates that the steersman is without chart or compass, and knows not how to avoid the breakers ahead, while the crew appear not to be particularly united. This is shown in their instructions ; and I must say I do not believe the character of any general or admiral is safe in their hands, for I believe they are capable of sacrificing either to please any faction in this House. Have they not done so in the case of Sir James Brooke ? But if you are determined to go to war — if it be true that it is to establish the balance of power — if it be true that you are determined to humble Eussia and support the infidel Turk — if you will compel Austria and Prussia to stand true to their engagements, or abide the consequences — then I say, " Gro where glory waits you ! " Enter on that path on which France has already entered; enter on the course to which the first Napoleon was pledged, and all of whose engagements the second Napoleon holds himself bound to fulfil — strike your blow at the heart of Eussia, and don't go wasting your shots in the Black Sea. Do at least one act which will accomplish all these ends — an act which after all is but tardy retributive jus- tice — proclaim the re-establishment of the kingdom of Poland. By such an act you will do more to bring continental sovereigns to their senses than by any other yet suggested. 286 FINANCIAL STATEMENT.— THE BUDGET. March 6th, 1854. I trust that, among all " the ways and means " to which the Government may look for the purpose of carrying on the war, this House will firmly set itself against that of which they have had some hints this night, somewhat ambiguous and dark, no doubt, but yet to those who look backward to former times, full of most dangerous promise. I refer to the allusions which have been made to a paper currency — to tampering with the currency as a means of supplying the resources of the country. When you find honourable members connected with banking interests speaking about the extension of the currency and the tightness of the money market, you may depend upon it, it means nothing more nor less than resorting to "the little shilling." Your paper currency is neither more nor less than a fraud committed upon the public for the sake of the Government. It has been said that Russia has greatly increased her paper currency ; all I hope is that the example of Eussia will not be followed by this country. Honourable members are frequently in the habit of talking of journeymen and labourers being led away in con- sequence of not being sufficiently versed in political economy, and entering upon strikes for the purpose of raising the value of their labour, or sharing in the profits of the capitalists : but after what I have heard to-night I think such remarks on ignorance are not applicable to the working classes alone, and if the ap- pointment of a professor of political economy to this House were made, it would not, in my opinion, be altogether useless. Honourable gentlemen allude to the amount of money in cir- culation, as if it were really natural wealth, whereas they have yet to be made sensible of this, that the taxes which they have been voting to-night are nothing more than a transfer of a certain amount of corn, or beef, or mutton, from the pockets of the tax- payers into the coffers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and FINANCIAL STATEMENT. — THE BUDGET. 287 money, be it plentiful or scarce, is nothing more than the agent by which this operation takes place ; and if money is scarce, the issue of a paper currency will not lighten the burdens of the people one iota, although it may enable the Government of the country to cheat the country for a time until their object is achieved. 288 SUCCESSION TO REAL ESTATE BILL. March 8th, 1854. For providing for the distribution, in cases of intestacy, of real property in the same manner as personal property. I apprehend that my honourable friend (Mr. Locke King) who has brought forward this motion, is not quite aware of its full scope and probable effect. Now, my honourable friend knows, and the House will remember, that I have troubled it with various propositions, having for their object to encourage and facilitate the sale and transfer of land ; and I am happy to say that Her Majesty's ministers have been induced to take this subject up, and have issued a commission, which is under the direction of my right honourable friend opposite (Mr. Walpole), and whose efforts I have no doubt will terminate in the public being afforded very much greater facilities for the purchase of land than they possess at present. I 'am opposed to this bill, believing that it will tend, indirectly if not directly, to the compulsory distribution of landed property. It would be a very great hardship to compel a man to become a millowner whether he liked it or not, and it would be equally a grievance to oblige persons who have no taste for agriculture, and who do not possess the knowledge necessary for conducting agricultural operations, to become owners of land. It is, as honourable gentlemen will allow, no great secret that the knowledge neces- rary for conducting agricultural operations is not one commu- nicated equally to all; just in the same manner everyone is not so placed as to have attained that particular sort of knowledge that would fit him to be placed at the head of mill operatives. Would it not then be a very great hardship if every honest, industrious man were obliged to become a millowner if he did not wish to be one ? And, perhaps, it might be no lesser hard- ship if every worthy manufacturer were compelled to enter on the possession of land. But honourable gentlemen are not left SUCCESSION TO REAL ESTATE BILL. 289 altogether to speculation vipon this matter. We have only to observe calmly what has been done in a neighbouring country, towards which, when it suits their purpose, some honourable members are very fond of directing our eyes, and what has been brought about there — not during one of the revolutionary paroxysms so often experienced in that country, but during the slow process of a long and systematic course of operations. More than two centuries ago it was the policy of the sovereigns of France to break down landed property, because they feared its power against themselves. That end was completely effected during the reign of the Emperor Napoleon. I remember visiting France immediately after the restoration of Louis XVIIL, and all these with whom I entered into conversation on the social and political condition of the country, assured me that the com- pulsory subdivision of the land prevailed to a disastrous extent throughout the country, and that it would be difficult now to get rid of it, because all the mothers were in favour of it. The last time, however, that I saw M. Lafitte — and I remember the occasion particularly well, because my honourable friend the member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) was present, and had been endeavouring, though with indifferent success, to reveal to him the manifold mysteries of the malt tax — he gave it as his opinion that the subdivision of land was the cause of the ruin of France. I am in the habit of going frequently to France, and into the country districts, and have ob- served with accuracy what takes place in the farms there. I often reside with French farmers and know their position perfectly; I have seen a farmer with 300 acres of land, parts of it his own, parts belonging to others, but not three of them joined together at any one place. And in consequence of the law being such as it is, a farmer who has four sons and two daughters, knowing very well that at his death his property must be divided, never builds, and there is no such thing as a homestead or a farm-house on the land — a homestead would be too large for the owner of one sixth portion of the land ; and therefore it happens, that throughout the north of France homesteads and farm-houses of all kinds have completely dis- appeared except, indeed, in cases where the lands, having belonged to hospitals, were excepted from confiscation at the time of the revolution. In such cases the lands are still held vol. i. u 290 SUCCESSION TO EEAL ESTATE BILL. in large allotments, there may still be found good and sufficient homesteads, but nowhere else. I have known this principle of subdivision carried to such an extravagant extent, that a man found himself the possessor of not more than a sillon or single furrow. Now the result of the system will be that foretold by Burke — that all the land in the country will fall into the hands of the Crown, because the owners will be obliged to abandon these small holdings, rather than continue to pay the burdensome taxes. At the present moment the Government cannot trust the landed proprietors in France for more than one month's taxes, and the taxes have to be gathered twelve times in the course of the year. But a still stronger argument against the French system came to light during the reign of Louis Philippe. At that time a great complaint was made by a certain commune that the conscription fell more heavily upon them than upon any other place : the fact was, I believe, that upwards of forty per cent, of the population of the district were returned as unfit for service. Now, it is very well known that during the last war the proportion of our population returned as unfit for service was very much less than that of France, the numbers being as about five to eight ; and that unfitness was generally ascribable in this country to those accidents to which young men are liable during early life, or while at school. The French government issued a commission to investigate the cause of the extraordinary disproportion, and it then appeared that the people had become rickety, in consequence of the badness of their diet — that they had wholly ceased from living upon animal food, that they did not even eat cereals, but lived almost entirely upon roots. I may mention- another startling fact. Before the revolution, France not only supplied the horses for her own army, but reared large numbers for exportation ; but she has now to purchase them from other countries, at the rate of 30,000 or 40,000 horses a year, for there is no possibility of raising them at home. We have another remarkable proof of the dearth produced in the agricultural districts of France by her legal system, in the total want of stock. There is scarcely any stock kept in any quarter of the country ; and though the land is usually more fertile than in England, I do not believe that an acre of land there produces more than one half of what it does in England ; so that it is utterly impossible to maintain SUCCESSION TO REAL ESTATE BILL. 291 stock upon it. (Mr. Bright : No, no.) I will give the honourable gentleman the necessary references, and he may go and ascertain the fact for himself. Well, in addition to all this, our new ally, ■who is certainly a very clever man — although we chose to laugh at him some time ago, we do not laugh at him now, for he has turned out to be one of the cleverest men in Europe — has drawn a remarkable parallel on the subject of the division of land between the Frank and Germanic regions of Europe. He has shown that, with the Franks, territorial transmission is hereditary, whereas in the Germanic states, the soil is distributed in small divisions ; and he says that there is no such thing as a Germanic nation or body, but that until very lately, there had been a French one to some purpose, though it is now being broken up by that subdivision of soil. It is my firm belief, that a community in land means a community in pauperism and nothing else. u 2 2!)2 GREEK INSURRECTION IN TURKEY. March 13th, 1854. I ha ye not risen until this late hour, in the hope that some honourable gentleman would have saved me the trouble of alluding to a subject which I think the House ought not to overlook, and to which I wish briefly to call your attention. It is with great regret that I have read that an attempt has been made, I must not say more, to engage the religious enthusiasm of the country on the side of this war, and to involve her Majesty's ministers, as far as very indiscreet counsel could in- volve them, in questions which I think they would do much better to avoid, not only because these are in themselves im- proper, but because if they attempt negociations on such a subject, their negociations must utterly fail. I allude to the expression which has been used, that this is not only a religious war, but that we are to enter into treaties to insure the religious toleration of the Christians in Turkey ; and I beg the House to call to mind what it is that one of her Majesty's ministers will have to do. He is to enter into negociations, and to conclude a treaty with the Turks ; but how is he to enforce it ? Every nation which signs a treaty is bound in honour to enforce its provisions, by proclaiming war against the power which shall break it ; but has any minister been able to make Austria and Prussia enforce the treaties which Russia has violated ? Cer- tainly not. And can we suppose then that the Greeks will believe in, or act in consequence of, any treaty which we may enter into with Turkey ? The Greeks would have a just claim to say, " We do not trust your treaties ; we cannot believe in them." And then, again, if we are to enter into a treaty with the Greeks, with whom amongst them will it be ? The Greeks possess no head, and there is no responsible body with whom we can treat, and it will, therefore, be impossible to do so. But still more, have you forgotten that we are going hand-in-hand GREEK INSURRECTION IN TURKEY. 293 with the French ? The Emperor of France has drawn us into this quarrel, in order to support his own claim of domination, and that of the Latin Church over the Greek, and other churches in the East. Is it hand-in -hand with him that we are going to enter into a treaty of toleration ? Does he understand toleration in the sense in which we use the word ? Is it possible that he and we can agree what toleration is ? Or that the Pope, who instigates him, can have toleration at all ? If we instigate him to toleration, would not the end of his toleration be that he would be obliged to fly at the end of a week ? and the only place in Europe that would tolerate him woiild be Great Britain. But we have been told in the course of this extraordi- nary debate that we are going to Turkey to establish Protes- tantism. Now I should very much like to have a definition of Protestantism ; and it is a pity that some of those politico-theo- logians who addressed us did not favour us with one. Do they mean by Protestantism the Established Church of England ? I suppose they do, because we have sent a bishop to the East, why or wherefore nobody seems to know. But Protestantism in other countries does not agree with that of the Church of England. And even in England one half of the Protestant population does not agree with the Church of England. How, then, is the minister to enter into a war, or to make treaties to set up a church that is only supported by half of our popula- tion ? Nor is this all. If we get the consent of those nations, we must recollect that a great part of the cruelties in Turkey have been instigated by one Christian sect against another ; that a pasha might, for instance, be instigated by a member of the Greek Church against a member of the Latin, and another pasha might be instigated by the Latin against the Greek. I should like to know how it is possible to compose or to deal with these differences. But then it was said we should have established Protestantism. But do the French join us in our notion upon " established Protestantism ? " May not the Greek and Latin Churches ask us what we mean by Pro- testantism ? And may not the Sultan fairly say, " Show me an example of what you mean by Protestantism?" Of course it would be easy to answer, "It is the religion of civilisation; see what a harmonious people we are here — what a delightful spectacle our civilisation presents ! " But u 3 294 GREEK INSURRECTION IN TURKEY. there are other Protestant countries as well as England to which he may look. There is, for instance, Prussia, that faith- less country, that has ever deserted us in our hour of need, and which, ever since it was a kingdom, has deserted every power that trusted it ; that has always gone over to the strongest, and taken advantage of the weak in their hour of greatest weakness — a country that has been ever ruled by philosophers and school- masters ; whose religion is a sort of neology, that turns every- thing sacred into a myth, and which carries its immorality even to the despising of the institution of marriage — for I lately read of a man playing a rubber of whist at Berlin with three ladies, each of whom had once the happiness of being his wife. We may indeed fairly point to Prussia as an instance of the civilisation produced by the kind of nothingarianism called Protestantism. My counsel to ministers is to avoid all questions of that sort, and not to encourage one sect to cry down another, but to rest assured that, if they attempt to meddle with this dispute, they will be more likely by so doing to kindle a religious civil war throughout all Europe, than by any other measure they can take. 295 PAYMENT OF WAGES BILL. — March 15th, 1854. For the abolition of the Truck System. Second Reading. — Debate on amendment to refer the subject of Pay- ment of Wages to a Select Committee to be appointed to inquire into the operation of the laws affecting the relations of masters and workmen. Slit, the honourable member who has just sat down has treated the question as one of determining the rate of wages. That is not the object of the bill, nor has it any connection, direct or indirect, with such an object. And either the honourable and learned member who proposed the amendment is totally ignorant of the nature of the bill, or he has intentionally diverted the mind of the House to an entirely different subject. The question is this : — A mass of helpless labourers (an honourable member, " Not helpless.") The honourable member says " not helpless." Sir, I repeat, a mass of helpless labourers in the manufacturing districts declare that they are defrauded by their masters. (No, no ! ) I repeat, they declare they are defrauded by their masters, and they come to this House to ask for redress. The honourable member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) says that the subject has been for centuries on our statute-book, and the necessity of pro- tecting the labourer from the fraud and injustice of his master has always been recognised by the Legislature. Now, Sir, I do not know of what use law is but to protect the weak. Nobody wants laws to protect the strong. But honourable gentlemen representing the manufacturers in this House, say, " The men are not weak, and are not oppressed ; but they are bad political economists, and they do not understand the rate of wages." This truck system is a means of fraud, defrauding the men of a portion of their fair earnings. It is said that this is a bad time for such a measure, because the men are in rebellion against their masters. This may be a good reason for abstaining from lantniage calculated to excite one class against another ; but it 296 PAYMENT OF WAGES BILL. is also a reason why we should let the men understand that this House will resist the masters when the masters are the oppressors ; and is prepared to step in and protect the men in cases where it is proved they are oppressed. I should like to ask some of the honourable members who oppose this bill, if they know of any case where a country gentleman sets, up a shop in his own village, and refuses to employ any labourer on his estate who does not buy at his shop. Now, if that were done, what an outcry would be raised by the defenders of the truck system ! It is said that the men now on strike have been excited. Yes, they have been excited, and by no persons more than by gentlemen of the manufacturing interest. The honour- able member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) has declared, speak- ing of the manufacturers, " We are an industrial people, and as an industrious people we carry the aristocracy on our backs." That is all very well in a Manchester Committee-room, but how is it translated at Preston ? The men say there, that they have had to carry the manufacturers upon their backs, and that they will carry them no longer. The men apply the doctrine to their own purposes, and honourable members of the Manchester school have no right to blame them for doing so. Then another gentleman, the honourable member for Leicester (Sir J. Walmsley), when presiding at the meeting of some financial society at Aberdeen, spoke thus : — " The time lias come when every man shall stand or fall by his own will. If the working classes will aid the middle classes in earnest, the upper classes shall be soon made to tremble ; fall they must, for they are rotten at the core." Who are regarded as the aristocracy by the labourers ? The labourers say that the " aristocracy " to them are the rich manufacturers, and that it is they who are " rotten at the core." These gentlemen it is who have excited the working people against the higher classes, and intending to shoot the pigeon, they have hit the crow. It is said that we have started on a free-trade policy, and that it is contrary to the policy of free- trade to interfere with the truck system. Is that your free- trade ? What is. the truck system ? It is the free-trade of the masters for the robbery of the men. The honourable member for Montrose has said that we have been legislating on this PAYMENT OF WAGES BILL. 207 subject since the reign of Edward III., but to no purpose, as men will always continue to cheat each other. But the question for the House to consider is, whether it or the rogues shall be the strongest ? It might as well be said, why. pass laws against stealing ? men will continue to steal. I do not doubt that the manufacturers will evade the law, which is the very reason for increasing the penalty ; I would impose a higher penalty on the manufacturer until he shall find breaking the law a losing trade. An honourable member says the remedy for the evil is to be found in the independence of the working men, and that if they are asked to deal at a truck shop they may refuse ; yes, and be discharged. Surely it cannot be possible that any gentleman in this House can be so ignorant as not to know that the lower classes are wholly dependent on their masters. I appeal to facts, whether the labouring classes do not depend solely from day to day upon the will of their employers, and whether for one independent labourer who can go and work where he pleases, there are not one thousand who can do no such thing. If the committee which has been proposed as an amendment were honestly designed to promote the end we have in view, I would not object to it ; but my belief is, that it is proposed for no such purpose, but to defeat and bafHe the men. It was a master- manufacturer's amendment, and I shall therefore vote against it ; but I will vote for this or any other measure which will give to the men the redress of which they say, and they are the best judges on that point, they stand in need. 298 SETTLEMENT AND EEMOVAL BILL. March 24ih, 1854. The difficulty I feel in speaking of this bill arises from its being only a fragment of a great measure, or, rather, one of several measures, the co-operation of all of which is necessary to produce ' the end which the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Baines) proposes to attain. I have every disposition to receive with respect any proposition coming from the right honourable gentleman, the president of the Poor-law Board ; but (perhaps from the power of association, which we all know is very strong) I cannot detach this measure from the first dread which I felt at that great alteration of the Poor-law which took place in 1834 or 1835, when, among the arguments used by the govern- ment of the day, it was gravely contended that every institution whatever, which tended to the relief of the poor, including even almshouses, hospitals, and infirmaries, was a positive evil. And I cannot help remembering that all the promises made by the government at the passing of the new Poor-law Bill have been grossly violated. When the Poor-law Commissioner visited my neighbourhood, I put this question to him pointedly, " "What, after pulling down the workhouses, almshouses, &c, and estab- lishing one great union, are you going to do with persons of reduced circumstances, who have, perhaps, formerly lived in affluence ? " and the answer distinctly given was, that provision should be made by which those persons would not have to associate with their inferiors, — not inferiors in point of wealth, but in point of education, habits, and so forth. Now, I need not remind the House that nothing of the kind has taken place ; and I know at this moment the widow of a lieutenant-colonel of marines, who was an applicant for admission to a London union workhouse, and who was only deterred from entering it by the dread she felt of being obliged to hear the language of those unhappy persons with whom she would have to associate. The contents of all the petitions that have been presented on this SETTLEMENT AND REMOVAL BILL. 299 subject manifest an ardent desire for the relief of the rate- payers ; but the way in which I look at the measure is altogether as to how it will affect the poor, and whether it will benefit them, or the contrary. I hold in my hand a copy of a petition which I presented in 1834, and to every word of which I still subscribe. I can say now, as I said then, that the poor have a right to relief, which is prior to the right of the rate-payer to the property for which he is assessed. The honourable gentleman who spoke last (Mr. Ker Seymer) must be aware thai the parochial system of this country is intimately bound up with the relief of the poor. He must know that it is to the care of the parish, as a religious segment, that the poor are specially com- mitted. Some suppose that the right of the poor to relief arose in the time of Elizabeth, but the fact is it arose from the common law long before a statute was in existence ; the common law referred us precisely to the parishes, and there is no true reform which does not revert to first principles instead of overthrowing and destroying them, and inventing a new system. By the common law, according to the Mirror, it was ordained " that the poor should be sustained by parsons, rectors of the church, and by the parishioners, so that none of them die for want of sustenance ; " and it also says, " Judgment is stayed in various cases, one of which is in poverty, in which case you are to distinguish the poverty of the offender, or of things ; for if poor people, to avoid famine, take victuals to sustain their lives, or clothes that they die not of cold, they are not to be adjudged to punishment if it were not in their power to have bought their victuals or clothes, for so much as they are warranted to do so by the law of nature." Blackstone said that the only reason why this was not in force in his time, was because the statute law provided a sufficient means for the sustenance of the poor. Now, the old system has been nearly put an end to, and I believe that this bill will have the effect of cutting away the still remaining connection between the poor and the parson of the parish ; I therefore suspect that the bill will effect much more than is now foreseen. The plan to make all labourers casual poor, will drive them all to the towns, because there is continually increasing work in the towns, but there is not in the rural villages. I remember that the cry about close parishes originated in the Edinburgh Review, which was commenced by a parcel of 300 SETTLEMENT AXD REMOVAL BILL. impudent young Scotch lawyers. Than this cry, nothing was more inconsistent with the facts as they then existed. In my own neighbourhood I know of gentlemen who are continually building cottages for which they can get no rent. The thing is very charitable and benevolent, but, politically speaking, ex- ceedingly absurd. The case in the clo'se parishes that I have seen was always this ; the land had already been all cultivated, and there were no means, by further cultivation, of employing more people, so that the new cottages were completely surplusage, and no wonder their owners could obtain no rent. Notwith- standing this, it is said that close parishes are kept Tip by pulling down the labourers' houses, and forcing the men into the adjoining parishes, where they would become chargeable. It is now said that the labourers should have residences provided for them near to their work. Well, is the House going to adopt the Scotch system ? Any honourable gentleman who has read the last number of the Proceedings of the Royal Agricultural Society, will find that there is annexed to every farm-house in the Lothians of Scotland a range of cottages. But pray what does the word " cottage " there mean ? Is it a scene of Arcadian virtue and felicity ? There is a single room, in which all the members of the family — father, mother, brothers, and sisters, are obliged to herd together like so many pigs. Sometimes, indeed, in the towns, there are a " but " and a " ben," or two rooms ; but in most cases, I am sorry to say, there is only a ' : but," and no " ben." In addition to this, there are certain miserable hovels called " bothies." In these Scotch bothies the labourers employed in agriculture all the year round are housed, and into them also come the extra labourers who have left the mining districts, and also the Irish, and there they are all put, the Scotch into one " bothy," and the Irish into another, crowded together in a manner which could not properly be described without the use of language unfit for this House. Yet this is the way in which you talk of " freeing " the labourer. Again, it is absolutely necessary that we should look at the manner in which the Poor-law in Scotland is carried out, a very different law from that which prevails in either England or Ireland: otherwise if care is not taken, we shall have the pauper popu- lation of Scotland flocking to this country, and casting themselves upon it for support. A favourite phrase with those who call SETTLEMENT AND REMOVAL BILL. 301 themselves political economists is, that if settlements were done away with, the inequalities of the lahouring population in dif- ferent districts " would find their own level." People who talk thus are generally wrong in their major premise, or they beg the question. The very illustration they use is a fallacy, because they talk of labour finding its level like water. In the first place it is not true that water finds its level, or how comes it that the great Pacific Ocean is several feet higher than the Atlantic ? A poor man in the south of England, hearing of work in Hull, for instance, could no more remove his wife and family there than he could take them to Australia. Again, there is such a thing as labour being congealed as well as water, and then it would not find its level. Congealed labour, ex necessitate rei, cannot possibly, from circumstances, free itself, do what it will. There is another great fallacy with the political economists relating to machinery and the division of labour. The division of labour is an admirable thing certainly, but admirable for the consumer and not for the labourer. Is it a good thing for the poor man that he should know nothing in the world but how to point a pin ? Is it a good thing for another man that he should know nothing but how to head a pin? or for a third, that he should only know how to silver a pin ? Just as labour is subdivided, so articles are cheapened, but the working man is worse off. I might illustrate this by an anecdote. A gentleman told me that when distress prevailed in Lancashire some time ago, a number of weavers came to him for employment in agriculture, and to keep them from begging he set them to digging ; but his bailiff said that he had better give them Is. a day to keep them out of the way, for they would do more mischief than they were able to do good. Now the Poor-laws are the Magna Charta of the poor. It is those laws alone which to them form the constitution of this country. The Queen, the Legislature, and the Government are to them embodied in the magistrate, the constable, and the union ; and beyond these they know nothing. If, on the ex- amination of this bill, and several other bills which the right honourable gentleman must introduce, I find that the labourers are to be benefited, I shall give the right honourable gentleman my support ; but if this is to be a question of mere saving to the rate-payers, I shall vote against this species of legislation. 302 CONVENTUAL AND MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS. March 28th, 1854. Select Committee to inquire into the number and rate of increase of Conventual and Monastic Institutions in the United Kingdom, and the relation in which they stand to existing laws, and to consider whether any, or if any, what legislation is required on the subject. (Moved for by Mr. Chambers.) I did not trouble the House when this question was before it on a former occasion, because, in the first place, I did not like the terms of the motion — and I do not like them now — neither do I like the arguments which have been used in support of the appointment of a committee, and still less do I like the speeches which have been made against it, because I perceive that in the latter speeches there is either a great misunderstanding of the object intended, or else a gross and wilful perversion of its mean- ing, in order to turn the minds of the public to a totally different subject. I do not believe that there is the slightest intention on the part of the honourable and learned gentleman (Mr. T. Chambers) who has brought forward the question, to interfere with, — I do not know what to call it, — the internal management of any of these houses, nor do I believe that any member of this House would consent to be put upon a committee nominated for the purpose of summoning those religious bodies before it, or would lay himself open to the charge of wishing to insult them. Nor do I concur in the speech of the noble lord, the member for London (Lord John Eussell), because the same reasons exist now that existed with reference to this question, when the noble lord called upon me and others to support him in his Ecclesias- tical Titles Bill. When honourable gentlemen opposite say that the feelings of the Roman Catholics will be excited on this subject, and that this is not a time to excite their feelings, and talk about this being an attack on the Roman Catholic re- ligion, they act like the Emperor of Russia, who said that our turning him out of the Danubian provinces was an attack upon him. (" No.") Not an attack ! Have you ever retracted one word CONVENTUAL AND MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS. 303 you said when you made that papal aggression in this country ? (" Hear, hear ! ") The honourable member for Cork (Mr. Fagan) who said " hear, hear ! " knows that you have not, and do not mean to do so. (Cheers from the Irish members. ) I really can get to the truth of the question with the honourable mem- bers who are cheering me, but I cannot get at it with all the other quibblers and disputers. The question is simply whether there is a determination on the part of the Pope (laughter) — at Rome you dare not laugh at him. Oh, you do many things under the protection of heretics, and in heretical countries, that you dare not do in Roman Catholic countries. You have said plainly that you are determined to bring England under the dominion, spiritual and temporal, of the Pope. (An honourable member : " Oh, no ! ") I have said this before, and I have docu- ments with me to prove it. I have extracts from pamphlets and speeches, where honourable gentlemen opposite have said that they hold allegiance to the Queen as a thing vastly inferior to that which they owe to the Pope ; where they have said over and over again that it is the Pope's rights they are sent here by the priests to maintain and carry out, and it is useless supposing that this question will be set at rest by this or by any other vote, till you, the friends of the Pope, have repassed the Pruth — till you have retracted the terms of the Popish aggression. The honourable and learned member (Mr. Macguire) has said that all the picturesque descriptions we have heard about these con- vents are tales like Mrs. Ratcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho. "We do not rely upon these tales ; nor, on the other hand, upon the equally picturesque accounts we hear about ladies and princesses living in the lowest parts of populous cities, devoting their lives to teaching and charity, and living upon broken fragments. This has nothing to do with the real question. Honourable gentlemen know perfectly well what is the real object of these establishments. Is not all the teaching that is put forward a sham ? No doubt there is a large amount of teaching, and the more there is the better; but that is not the point. The object is to inveigle into the convents girls who have got money, and when they have got them there, to force them to leave their property, away from their friends, to these establishments. (Cries of " Oh ! ") I have quoted these instances more than once, and it is very easy for honourable gentlemen to cry out 304 CONVENTUAL AND MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS. " Oh ! " but I will give them an opportunity of refuting me. I pledge myself to bring before this committee the evidence on which my statement rests. I do not want to interfere, whether I think it right or wrong, with any exercise of spiritual power. But I come to the question of depriving these unfortunate girls, when in a prison, of their property. I offer to prove cases of this kind before the committee ; and this is the reason why I shall vote for a committee. The honourable and learned gentleman said that any one might go out of a convent. Does he not know that it is only because he is in a heretic country that he dares say so ? Does he not know that the council of Trent, of which he has sworn that he believes every word, calls upon all secular powers to enforce these vows, and to shut up every one who tries to break them ? Let the Popish priesthood have the power they all want, and where will our liberty be ? It is idle to talk about these establishments as they exist in this country ; but they have been perverted to the most infamous purposes in other countries, just in proportion as the priests' power has been unrestrained. They are the worst in the Spanish colonies, they are the next worst in Spain, the next worst in Italy, the next worst in France and Germany, and the least bad in England and Ireland. I will say nothing about the exercise of the spiritual power of the Eoman Catholic priests ; but the pounds, shillings, and pence they shall not have, because we, the Protestants, think that their intention to increase their secular, not their spiritual power, will be detrimental to our liberties. CONVENTUAL AND MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS. (ADJOURNED DEBATE.)— May 18th, 1854. The motion for the Select Committee was withdrawn in consequence of the Roman Catholic Members persisting in dividing the House upon motions of adjournment. Befoee the motion is withdrawn, I wish to say, as one of the defeated party, that I consider myself defeated purely by factious opposition. There is no resignation, there is no possible dignity CONVENTUAL AND MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS. 305 in our death ; it is mere absolute murder, without any qualification whatever. I do not wonder at the noble lord (Lord John Rus- sell) finding for the first time that a minority, exerting that power which a minority can exert, may get the country into a very serious scrape. It has at all times, ever since the House of Commons existed, for some 800 years, been in the power of any obstinate strong-headed man to sit down, cry " No, no," move the adjournment of the House, and put an end to the progress of business. I had the misfortune, about thirty years ago, to address a petition to this House — it was against Catholic emancipation — in which I stated that it was utterly impossible, if the Roman Catholics were admitted into this House, that the priests would ever suffer them to unite with the Protestants in carrying out any form of government. Of course nobody believed me; I was called a bigot and a visionary. They were hard words, but they broke no bones, and so I bore them. Of course the country won't believe me now; but surely the country will believe these gentlemen ; and surely I, of all others, ought to be most grateful to them for having now fulfilled, for the conviction of the country, that which I stated thirty years ago. I think it is decidedly best that this motion should be with- drawn — simply because there is no possibility of carrying it ; but I certainly shall put on the book a notice of motion for an address to the Crown, to appoint a commission to inquire into this subject. There can be no question then about opposition to this name and the other name, and all these personal animo- sities will be avoided. But I would have you mark that, in this matter, the aggressor has not ceased. The only plain-speaking honest man in the transaction is the Pope. " Have this realm of England," says he, " I will ; " and every convent he establishes is a little inclosure won from England, and attached to Rome. He shall have no more inches if I can stop him. VOL. I. 300 APPOINTMENT OF ME. STONOR. April 6th, 1854. Motion by Mr. Moore for the appointment of a Select Committee to take into consideration the case of the nomination of Henry Stonor to the office of a judge in the colony of Victoria, he haying been declared guilty of bribery by an election committee. I rise with the hope of persuading the House to reject both the motion of the honourable gentleman the member for Mayo (Mr. Moore) and the advice given by the Government that the House should concur in it. This is neither more nor less than an attempt to bring down into the body of the House scenes like those which occurred in the committee on corruption upstairs. It is more than that, it is an attempt to engage the whole power of the House against a helpless individual. If the honourable gentleman meant to say that he made his motion in the interest and out of regard to Mr. Stonor, all I can say is, I should hope long to enjoy his enmity. It is impossible, with all the richness of eloquence which always comes from the other side of the channel, to overlay any character with more opprobrious terms than the honourable gentleman has that of Mr. Stonor. The course I shall follow on the present occasion was marked out, I am proud to say, by an Irishman, in the days when, as the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) a short time ago said, eloquence, patriotism, honesty, and common sense were associated with the name of Henry Grattan. I remember Mr. Grattan advising the House not to interfere in similar cases, and enforcing his argu- ment by the simile of a little impudent dwarf who insulted a giant ; when the giant boxed his ears, the dwarf kicked his shins, and the generous bystanders said, "Well done, little fellow!" And I think every gentleman who has heard the speech of the honourable member will be inclined to take the part of Mr. Stonor, and not the part of the honourable member for Mayo in this transaction. Why, the House is in the habit of hearing every government that is formed abused by the Irish members APPOINTMENT OP MR. STONOK. 307 because Irishmen are not sufficiently employed ; and when an Irishman is appointed, the Irish members do nothing but vilify his character. I remember when an artist went to see the cele- brated Mr. Turner begin a picture, he saw him take a patch of yellow, and putting it on the canvass, say, " Stay there until I make you white." The obvious meaning was, that he was going to fill the rest of the canvass with such brilliant colouring and deep shadows, that this bit of yellow paint, in its nature not white, would appear white. The honourable gentleman says he has been giving us a sketch ; it seems he also is an artist, for the arts always go hand in hand, and where there are poetry, imagination, and eloquence, there is sure to be found painting ; and it appears there are great painters on the other side of the channel, who give us a picture in which they appear pre-eminent, and they say, " No matter how black I am, stand you there till I have made everybody else blacker." There is no end to the idle stories which may be picked up, and no one can walk along the streets without hearing scandalous tales ; but what sensible man does not let them in at one ear and out at the other ? Since I have sat for the last few years in the House, I have heard stories of one Irish member being bought by a baronetcy, of another being bought by the reversion to an Irish peerage, and of another being bought by a ticket to a court ball. It is odd, the price at which purchases may be effected. I think an Irish peerage a positive nuisance, the baronetcy little better, and by far the best price was the ticket for the court ball. But it is very difficult to form an estimate of the real amount of dread which Irish members have of corruption. For what did we hear last year, when the question of the income-tax was before us ? They told us they were perfectly willing to support Lord Derby's government, or to vote against it ; to support Lord John Eussell's government, or to vote against it, according as they could save themselves the income-tax, which income-tax was 7c?. in the pound. By their own confession, any Chancellor of the Excheqiier could have them for Id. in the pound ; that is their price. I think it very awkward when large bodies like this take fits of caprice. I do not like gentlemen to be exceed- ingly moral one year, and very immoral the next. I said when I began, I did not rise as the friend of Mr. Stonor. I do not remember having ever heard his name. I know nothing about x 2 308 APPOINTMENT OF MR. STONOR. him. I rose to vote against both propositions. I recollect on one occasion the sitting members for a certain place being peti- tioned against ; their opposition to the petition was declared to be frivolous and vexatious, and they were reported to have been guilty of bribery and corruption ; and yet one was imme- diately made solicitor- general, and the other lord chancellor. And yet forsooth, in the present case, a poor man, who I under- stand is only a briefless barrister, is to be compelled to abandon his appointment on account of what is called "unheard-of corruption in this empire." This is pure affectation, and excessively disgusting. I so far agree with the honourable gentleman, that the conduct of the colonial department was exceedingly mean and shabby. Having made the appointment, they ought to have stood by it manfully ; instead of which, they acted like " Sneaky Peaky " in the Hunchback, who tried to get rid of the hunchback by throwing him on somebody else. I hope the House will reject the motion altogether. 309 SUPPLY.— SUPPLEMENTAL NAVY ESTIMATES. March 5th, 1854. I said on a former occasion, that the most arduous task of the Government during the present war would be to vindicate the character of the officers employed. The Duke of Wellington used to say that nothing contents this country so much, or makes the people so happy, as a good butcher's bill — that they think, unless their generals or admirals gain a battle by a mass of slaughter, nothing has been done, and that they have not money's worth for their money. The country ought to give ite naval and military commanders more of its confidence. I dislike the interference of diplomatic men. I think that as soon as the first cannon is loaded, diplomacy should cease. I remember the mischief done in the Peninsular war from this cause. I re- member the intermeddling of Mr. Frere, and the sacrifice of Sir John Moore. If Sir John Moore was lost from any cause, he was lost by the gossip of the London press. Those men were continually irritating that sensitive and high-minded man, who was always thinking more of what the press would say about him than of the fate of the troops committed to his care. I hope that the House has read the correspondence of General Godwin, who was another victim of the press. From the first moment General Godwin took the command in Pegu to the day he left it, he was attacked and run down by the Indian journals. Lord Dalhousie (the Governor-General) certainly did his best to support him. General Godwin proved that he alone was fitted to command, for he alone was master of the country, and knew it well, because he had served there before ; yet he was made the victim of the most unmitigated slander of the Indian press, from the moment he assumed the command until he left it ; and no sooner was he relieved than he died. This should be a lesson now to our admirals and generals, and an encouragement to them to pursue their course, sustained by the consciousness of doing their duty in obeying their orders, without any reference x 3 310 SUPPLY — SUPPLEMENTAL NAVY ESTIMATES. to " our own correspondent," and all such gabbling purveyors of slander for the London press. The principal thing is to look to the Government. It is not because an Admiral is absent that I object to these attacks, but because he is an officer acting under orders, and because these attacks are made upon him by- persons utterly incompetent to form an opinion on the question, and ignorant what the orders of the Government are. It is not because a man happens to have a seat in this House, that he is consequently a master in military and naval matters, and an authority on every subject on which he fancies himself competent to speak. If any objections are taken to the course pursued by the commanders, it is the Government who ought to be attacked, and not the commanders, present or absent. 311 EXCISE DUTIES BILL. May 15th, 1854. I desire to call the House from the regions of fancy to the consideration of the sober realities of the case. From much that has been said this evening, it appears to me tliat you are not grappling with the awful condition into which the country is at present brought. I need not, for the tenth time, repeat in this House all I have said concerning the malt-tax. It is not because I am personally interested in this thing, or because the farmers and all my constituents are interested in it, that I have ever opposed the malt-tax, whoever might be the minister, but because it is my firm conviction that the depriving the labourer of his drink, beer, is productive of more immorality than all your reformatory schools can ever prevent. I agree in every- thing the honourable gentleman who opened the debate (Mr. Wilson) has said respecting this tax. It is one of the worst that could possibly be imposed ; and I entirely approved of the budget of the right honourable gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the late administration (Mr. Disraeli). That was a bold and manly budget ; and it was to carry out prin- ciples which you (the ministerialists) have falsely inculcated, but which you never had the courage to carry out in the face of your own supporters. There is no expression condemnatory of this tax in which I would not join. I repeat my belief that it is the very worst possible tax ; but this is not all. You have on all sides of the House cheered on the war ; you have said to others, "Gro and bleed on the battle-field, and sacrifice your lives while we sit at home at ease ; " and now, when for the first time you are brought to grapple with the realities of war, you begin to shrink from them. I have told the ministers before, that the opposition would lead them into a mess, but would never assist to get them out of it. It would be impos- sible to propose any single tax against which the stupidest man in the House could not find some valid objection. The right honourable gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) proposed the very 312 EXCISE DUTIES BILL. best tax that could be proposed ; the most just, and the most fair, namely, the house tax ; but you have given power in this country into the hands of the householders; and the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) if he had his own way, would give ten times more power still. Well, then, the question is, are you going to raise money or not, and whose pocket do you mean to pick ? The householders have told the right honourable gen- tleman opposite that he shall not pick theirs, and I say that you ought not to pick the pockets of the agriculturists. But the latter are in a minority, and cannot help themselves ; and so their pockets will be picked. The right honourable the Chancellor of the Exchequer was perfectly right when he spoke of delusions practised on this subject ; and I believe the right honourable gentleman spoke of the difficulties which a Chan- cellor of the Exchequer experienced in the City. But he ought to know by this time that a popular Chancellor of the Ex- chequer is a man who lets the contractor rob the public. Let us beware of a popular Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right honourable gentleman opposite (Mr.* Disraeli) is not a popular Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that is one great reason why I support the right honourable gentleman. If the manufacturer by his labour turns useless cotton into something that can be worn, and if the farmer takes a few grains of corn, and turns them into many quarters, or converts a lean beast into a fat one, he does his country some service. But what does a loan contractor do ? He merely takes our money out of our pockets and puts it into his own. The loan contractor adds nothing to the public wealth. And then some gentleman says, " Oh ! give us paper ; carry on the war by a paper currency." That would be doubly cheating posterity. I thought the manner in which the present Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of Mr. Pitt, amounted to a most indecent sneer. If the right honourable gentleman expects to be minister at the close of the present war, he certainly must calculate on living to the age of Methuselah. But let him be tender of the reputation of Mr. Pitt; let not one who is just beginning to buckle on his armour, sneer at the man who has taken his armour off. I am sorry to say that we have made this House such, that, except for the purposes of destruction and opposition to everything that is right, I know not for what it is effective. How on earth you are EXCISE DUTIES BILL. 313 going to carry on this war, passes my comprehension. In all things unity is essential for every practical purpose. Where is the unity in the cabinet ? And where is the unity in this House ? " Oh," you say, " we are all for war, and we will give money for the support of the war ; " and yet you do not like tax A, or tax B, or tax C ; and so I might go through all the letters of the alphabet. But you have entered into a partnership. I have heard of a partnership where one man found the money and another the brains. Now, I do not know, in this partnership between the Emperor of the French and the ministers of England who finds the money, but I am sure it is the Emperor who finds the brains. The ministers most certainly have gone on in his wake ; he is the head, and they are the tail. He has led them from first to last. I do not wish to make comparisons, for com- parisons, as Dogberry says, are " odorous ; " but all I wish is, that this country had a foreign minister who could write a despatch so well as M. Drouyn de Lhuys. I suspect that our new ally sees into us quite as keenly as we see into ourselves. I strongly suspect that he sees, what I took the liberty of stating at the beginning of this question, that this house and the country will not support the war; for I hear accounts of a camp of 100,000 about to be formed at Boulogne. We are told that this is for the purpose of watching Prussia. Let them tell that to the marines. It is, however, satisfactory to know that there is a select set, a pleasant club, meeting in Downing Street, and dining together every Wednesday, that is firmly persuaded that the camp at Boulogne is for the purpose of watching Prussia. I do not believe it ; and my advice is, that you should embody the militia, and have three good permanent camps, one in the north of England, another in the midland counties, and a third in the south, of 30,000 men each ; and as to your getting rid of the malt-tax, you may think yourselves lucky, if you escape a double malt-tax and a double income-tax, with the addition of the house-tax. After all, I say, you may be well content if, by such means, you can save England from becoming the battle-field of Europe. 314 EPISCOPAL AND CAPITULAE ESTATES BILL. (ADJOUENED DEBATE).— May 17th, 1854. I cannot see much difference between those who declare their intention of utterly destroying the Church, root and branch, and those who, by what they call "reform," endeavour totally to pervert its original institutions, by destroying that which is the very essential of our Episcopal Church. The intention of the supporters of this measure seems to be, instead of amending an institution, which has been ill-administered, and devising new machinery to prevent the same abuses from occurring again, to destroy the institution itself. There is no doubt that the bishops, canons, and prebends of the cathedrals do not, and have not done for many years, the duty for which they were instituted ; and the noble Lord's (Lord Adolphus Vane) remedy is by this bill utterly to destroy the cathedral establishments, and to turn every cathedral into a parish church. Now, the cathedral is an essential part of an Episcopal Church, — nbi episcopus, ibi ecclesia ; parish churches are nothing but chapels of ease for the accommodation of those who live too far from the cathedrals. The true reform would be to increase gradually, as the popula- tion increases, the number of bishops; every town containing 10,000 inhabitants ought to have a bishop. Of course honour- able gentlemen who are not Episcopalians will be of a different opinion. I am not speaking to them, but to Episcopalians. The Church of England is being destroyed, not by the opponents of episcopacy, not by dissenters, not by Eoman Catholics, but by its own members. A mass of secular employment has now been laid upon the bishops. The bishop of London, for instance, if he were not of a Herculean body as well as Herculean mind, must long ago have been killed by the labours he has to undergo. In this town alone there ought to be at least seven bishops; and because you will not do what you ought to do, I rejoice that another bishop has been appointed by another church. It is your own fault ; and will you be like the dog in the manger, — EPISCOPAL AND CAPITULAR ESTATES BILL. 315 neither do your duty yourselves, nor let any one else do it ? Your reform ought to compel the bishops and clergy to do the duty for which they were appointed. When they were first appointed, service was going on in their cathedrals from morning till evening, and they ought to be compelled to perform it now, instead of permitting what is called the " month's residence." If they had always resided as they ought to have done, we need not have thrown away the sums of money we have spent in building churches, and the clergy would not have been allowed, for their own convenience, to lump four services together ; the morning service, the Litany, the Holy Communion, and the Sermon. This is what you have done, and this is what you call " Church Eeform." I wonder that some honourable gentlemen, particularly many whom I see opposite, whose names are ap- pended to an extraordinary document that I hold in my hand, have not told us whether they really and truly have got a church or not ? What is it that they mean by the Church of England ? I will tell them what I mean by a church. I mean an institution ordained by God for the due administration of the sacraments. You have had a declaration from one of the heads of the Church, that it does not signify one straw whether a priest of that Church believes in the sacraments or not, and that in either case he is equally a good priest. One feels naturally a good deal of surprise at such a declaration, and one therefore applies to the spiritual head of the Church ; but he says, " I know nothing about the matter; go and read your Bible." 1 should like to know if, on any dispute arising between myself and another person, we were to go before a judge to have it settled, what would be thought of a judge who said to us, " You are as intelligent men as I am ; you can read the statute-book as well as I can, and therefore I shall not interfere." But, as if this was not enough, not long ago there was an ordination of priests, and it is part of that ceremony for the bishop to put into the hands of the person ordained, the prayer-book in which he is directed to give absolution ; but immediately after this had been done, up jumped the same bishop, and declared that there was no such thing in the Church of England as the power of granting absolution or the remission of sins. Not many years ago, a young relation of mine went to be ordained, and I asked him on his return how he got on, — what the bishop had said to him ? 316 EPISCOPAL AND CAPITULAR ESTATES BILL. The reply was, that after he had been ordained he was told there was nothing in ordination ; and he added, it was a pity he had not been told so before, as he might then have saved himself the trouble of going the distance he had gone. The document to which I have referred as containing the names of several members of this House, is a petition which has been presented to the Queen, begging her to take measures that the sacramental system, as it is called, in the Church of England, should be done away with. The petitioners say that one place is not to be considered more holy than another place, nor one person more holy than another ; that is to say, that the parish clerk or any old woman might read the Litany and administer the sacrament just as well as the minister. Yet this document has been signed by fifty members of this House, and by forty Peers. What, then, is the Church of England ? Is there any meaning at all in this document ? Such a document does exist. (Mr. Spooner, " Hear, hear.") It is not a joke, as the honourable gentleman opposite (Mr. Spooner) seems to imagine. This bill, is a bill to destroy the whole temporalities of the cathedrals, so far as diverting them from the intention of their original donors is a destruction of them ; and when they have once been so diverted, I do not see how we can stop. In the present case I object that any portion of the temporalities of the Church should go to the landlords who pay tithes. If one-tenth is to be taken, let the state take it. I will not sanction the appropriation by the landlords. But if you go on acting in this way towards the only church you recognise, you must not be surprised if men, who attend to more important things than questions as to the pay- ment of money, should become Eoman Catholics, for there would be no other church in this country to which they could belong. 317 CHUECH EATES BILL.— May 23rd, 1854. I think it is of great importance that we should really under- stand the bearings of the question on which we are going to vote; for after what we have heard to-night, and especially after the speech of the noble lord opposite (Lord Stanley), no one can fail to see that this question is far more extensive than the mere payment of a few pounds from which you propose to exempt dissenters. It is perfectly plain, from the language that has been held to-night on this subject, that every argument which has been used against Church rates would be equally valid against the support of the Church establishment. It is very easy to talk of how delightful it is for brethren to dwell in unity and peace. Mr. Edward G-ibbon Wakefield, when he was in Newgate, found that the thieves there were unanimously of opinion that the only causes of trouble in towns were the judges, magistrates, and police- officers. So those gentlemen who object to Church rates affect to think that the question would be ami- cably settled, if we would only allow them to rob the Church with impunity. Honourable gentlemen talk of the thing being settled, but there is not one of them who talks of any mode of settlement whatever, but the single one of refusing payment. If that is not a way of robbing the Church with impunity, I do not know what is. We will consider the application of the rob- bery afterwards. People are very fond of talking about con- science, and I, for my part, have no objection that any one should talk about his conscience. But it is too often found that the secret insinuation of those who talk about their own con- science is that nobody else has any. In all countries in the world of which we have any record, we find that the sovereign of the country does establish, for the benefit of his subjects, a national religion ; that national religion is of necessity the re- ligion of the sovereign. It is his conscientious duty to do this ; and the conscientious duty of the subjects of that sovereign is to assist him in upholding all that is necessary for the religions 318 CHURCH KATES BILL. instruction of his subjects. You say, " Yes, but we have now that blessed thing called dissent." Well, that is a luxury no doubt, but then people must pay for their luxuries. You cannot keep a pack of hounds, or a box at the opera, without paying for it ; why then should you have the luxury of abusing the bishops — why should you have the luxury of attacking Church establish- ments, and not pay the miserable pittance of Church rates for it? But this is not all. I say it is, with regard to Church rates, as it is with regard to tithes. There has been a great cry with regard to the abolition of tithes ; but the result of such a mea- sure would be that every landholder would put ten per cent, more into his pocket than he was entitled to. Now to that course I object. I say, if you abolish tithe, let the state take it. I say the same thing with regard to the Church rates. You bought your houses subject to that rent charge ; you have no right now to put that money into your own pockets. Let the Church lose possession to-morrow ; the money then belongs to the State. You have no right to it. If your conscience will not allow you to pay it to the State, then you will give us reason to suspect that this is not a question of conscience, but a question of money after all. 319 ENLISTMENT OF FOKEIGNERS BILL. December 21st, 1854. If there is one thing that is definite in the intentions of the secretary at war, it seems to be this — that he is going to set "gins" in the "runs," or, to use a somewhat more elegant phrase, intercept the foreigner in transitu, just exactly as they catch rabbits. Now, according as they set the gin, sometimes they get a pheasant, and sometimes a polecat ; and so it may turn out in this instance that the right honourable gentleman's trap may catch Germans or anything else. But the question mooted by the right honourable member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) is much more serious — he asks what is to be done with the wives and children of these persons ? The secretary at war has said he will endeavour to obtain, as far as possible, unmarried men ; but there will be great difficulty in doing this. In Bavaria there exists a most cruel and wicked law, which is adopted by all the petty states, and which prohibits marriage between any persons unless they can give the government a security that they are able to support the children of the marriage. The consequence is, that throughout the labouring population of these states, not one couple in eight are legitimately married. And to such an extent of severity do they carry this law, that parties are prohibited from going into a neighbouring state, or into a canton of Switzerland to be married ; and if they violate this prohibition they are punished on their return. What, then, will be the result on these persons reaching England ? Why, that a great portion of them will not have been married at all when they left their own country ; and if they have been we cannot have proof of the fact. Not to allow these men to receive half pay would, I think, be exceedingly objectionable. You ought not to accept the services of these men, who have been truly described as a sort of national assassins? (" Oh ! ") What is an assassin ? You have a quarrel with a man, for a good or a bad cause — no matter which. You will not 320 ENLISTMENT OF FOREIGNERS BILL. wreak vengeance upon him yourself; but you go and hire another man to do it for you. The man you hire is an assassin. It appears also that these persons are not to have any retiring allowance. Is not this neither more nor less than offering an enormous premium for plundering ? How are the men to provide the means of subsistence for themselves when peace shall be restored? They must obtain it in some way or other. Do the government contemplate giving them so much pay as that they shall be able to save money, or insure their lives for the benefit of their families and friends ? Clearly not. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary that some provision be made for them, and it is not just to place men in positions in which they can only by plunder obtain means for their future support. They ought to be treated like our own soldiers, and to receive half-pay. 3:21 CONDITION OF THE ARMY BEFORE SEBASTOPOL. March 2nd, 1855. On the proposition of Mr. Koebuck to "make the select committee appointed to inquire into the condition of the army before Sevastopol a secret committee : " — I AM not one of those who plead guilty to having given a factious vote with regard to the appointment of this committee. I did not vote for one thing and mean another, for if it had been a plain and simple question of overthrowing the government, I should have voted for the government. There was one con- sideration alone which possessed my mind — and after due deli- beration I hope I shall not be accused of too great obstinacy in holding to it still — and that was — what would have been the effect upon the minds of our soldiers in the Crimea when they were told, that an inquiry into the causes of their sufferings being asked for, this House had refused to make it ? The instruction to the committee, which I have placed on the paper, shows the objects to which I consider this inquiry ought to be confined ; but I see plainly there are heads quite as wise as mine on the committee, and I see, likewise, I cannot have everything my own way. There is no danger that I can perceive in making this simple inquiry, " Why, at this day, have we voted 4000 horses to go to the Crimea when there is not a morsel of hay for them to eat when they arrive ? " Here you go on night after night voting supplies for the Crimea, while every newspaper tells you that your men are starving as soon as ever they get there. I am very suspicious of the words now so often used, " a full and searching inquiry ; " and I observe that every person who uses them connects them with a fear of danger to our alliance. I am not particularly enamoured of that alliance, and I very much doubt whether the people of England know what it is. Indeed, I doubt very much whether it is an -alliance. I have heard, certainly, of a live man being chained to a dead one ; but 1 do not know whether that was called vol. i. Y 322 CONDITION OF THE AKMY BEFOEE SEBASTOPOL. an alliance or not. When the time comes — perhaps before this session is over — I may think it my duty to state plainly to the House and the country what I suspect the nature of our alliance to be. I do think it is very necessary that some measure should be taken to prevent this committee meddling with, what honour- able gentlemen have to night talked of inquiring into, the whole policy of the war, and our naval and military proceedings. I would have all these subjects excluded. The right honourable baronet behind me (Sir J. Graham) has detailed to us the advantages of an open committee, and he has talked at the same time of that awful thing, the press. It is just because of this cowardly cringing to the press that I fear this open committee. I know that men thus placed as it were in the presence of the public, will be pushed to ask questions which otherwise they would never have thought of. These are not the men who in old times would have wielded " that bauble " (pointing to the mace) against the House of Stuart, from whom there was real danger. Now-a-days, sir, the danger is exactly from the opposite side, and no man dares to do his duty and rise up against it. But of all the cringing baseness which has ever appeared in English history, commend me to the conduct of the Liberals towards the daily press. 3:23 MARRIAGE LAW AMENDMENT.— March 13th, 1855. On the question " that leave be given to bring in a bill to amend the law as to marriage with a deceased wife's sister or a deceased wife's niece : " — The object of the honourable member who has just sat down (Mr. Spooner) was, as I heard him, to inculcate and promote private morality ; but he began his task by advising the House to set the law of Grod at defiance. The honourable gentleman went on to say that there was a vast majority of the people in favour of his views. So that the question of settling an important principle is to be decided by counting noses. This is not an argument usually employed, for every single sect, however small, is in the habit of saying to itself, " Fear not, little flock ; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom ; " and except from the honourable gentleman, I have never heard that the multitude of those who agree to it is to be taken as the test of a theological proposition. But it is not to answer the arguments of the honourable member for Warwickshire that I rose. The honour- able member who opened the discussion stated the true history of this question. There never was a doubt on the mind of the church as to the true meaning of those passages upon the subject which have been quoted from scripture. It is very true that from the third to the fifth century for the first time the question of dispensations began to be raised, and the Pope prohibited as much as he could. In so doing the Pope acted most wisely, for the more he prohibited the more grist was brought to his mill in the shape of money for dispensations. " But," said an honourable and learned gentleman (Mr. Bowyer), who ought to know better, " the church," by which he meant the papacy, " never dared to say a word against that which it believed to be the Word of Grod." The honourable and learned gentleman must, however, know that the law of his church, as described by a great authority, was Papa potest legem Dei mutate. The honourable and learned gentleman should also recollect that there is another T2 324 MARRIAGE LAW AMENDMENT: passage from the same authority, in which it is clearly stated that the Pope can make vitia those things which other people suppose to be virtutes, and virtutes what other people suppose to be vitia. It is notorious that the prohibition against these marriages has been set aside in every direction. Have you never read the history of Spain ? Have you never read of kings of Spain marrying their own nieces ? Why, almost the whole of their history, especially after the arrival of the Bourbons in the country, has been one continued history of incest, for which they have paid enormous sums to obtain dispensations. The reason the permission was given to the Jew to marry his brother's wife was, that under the Mosaic economy the land was divided into twelve portions, and no person who belonged to one tribe could acquire land that belonged to another tribe. They were obliged to keep the land in the possession of the tribe to which it pertained ; and it was to preserve the succession in that tribe that a man was bound to marry his deceased brother's wife. The honourable member who last addressed the House, instead of arguing as he did, had better get rid of the pro- hibited degrees altogether and marry his grandmother like a man — or his niece, for perhaps his niece would be much better worth marrying than his grandmother; that is, if you mean to set aside the Word of Grod as a thing that is utterly un- worthy and contemptible in your new code of morality. Then let him act like a man, and not stand snivelling there between the canting Methodist on the one hand and the honest old infidel on the other. [Mr. J. Ball begged to remind Mr. Drummond that the quotation he had made in support of the power of the Pope came from that eminent writer Cardinal Bellarmine, and that when it was sought to canonise that individual the very text which the honourable member quoted was produced against him as erroneous doctrine, and on the ground of that text the canonisation was refused.] Mr. Drummond answered ; That is all perfectly true, and the very next year it was altered in this way — Papa non potest legem Dei mutate nisi cum causa. 325 OPENING THE BRITISH MUSEUM, &c. ON SUNDAY. March 20th, 1855. On the proposition by Sir Joshua Walmsley that the British Museum and the National Gallery should be open to the public after morning service on Sunday : — An expression fell from an honourable gentleman — I do not know whether accidentally or by design — which marked the spirit in which this question is brought forward. For the first time in my life did I hear that which has been by universal consent of all Christians up to this hour called the Lord's day, designated, in the most extraordinary way, the " people's day." Now, I am going to speak of it entirely as a question of the Lord's day. I have always been as much convinced as any man of the impropriety of the puritanical way in which the Lord's day has been observed in some Protestant countries, that is to say, that whereas it was held in the universal Christian Church as a festival, since the Eeformation it has been considered as a fast. Of course, it was not called the Sabbath, because the Sabbath was the seventh day ; and it would have been a mere misnomer to call the first day of the week the seventh. The principle, however, remains the same. It is of no use hunting for texts about it. Texts are very much like precedents, and precedents are very much like quotations, of which Payne Knight said, that they are " the remembrancer of the scholar and the oracle of the dunce." Whatever texts may be cited, the principle is that the seventh part of every man's time and the tenth part of his substance, are due to God. (Suppressed laughter.) Oh, I have not the least doubt that the derisive smile — suppressed out of good breeding rather than from any sense of truth — is con- nected with the question of the " people's day." There is a thorough contempt for tithes as an institution of God. The religious aspect of the question is rejected altogether. I have great difficulty on this question — not as to what I myself think rio-ht, but in saying what ought to be the determination Y 3 326 OPENING THE BRITISH MUSEUM, ETC., ON SUNDAY. of the House, for when I see them constantly entertaining questions for refusing support to the national churches, those churches which are for the benefit, almost exclusively, of the poor, and then substituting for the churches, which they will not keep in repair, the going to the British Museum to see the gentlemen just arrived from Nineveh — those red men with green beards : when I see the House, by way of improving the morality of the nation, encouraging incestuous marriages ; when I see them night after night and year after year, bringing in bills to rob the Church of her property ; — and, I am ashamed to say, that those who are the trustees of that property defend it not on the ground that it belongs to the Church, but as if it were their own private property ; — I am at a loss to know what an assembly, which re- cognises such principles, ought to do on this occasion. But still I think there is a very great distinction between what an indi- vidual feels in his conscience it may be right to do on the Sunday, what he may consider to be a desecration, and what not ; there is a distinction, I say, between that, and his uniting as a member of a national assembly in a measure for opening public institutions on the Lord's day, and thus aiding in its public desecration. 327 NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTIES BILL. March 26th, 1855. On the motion for the second reading of the Newspaper Stamp Duties Bill, Mr. Drummond said : — I rise under the painful sensation of holding opinions very different to those I have heard expressed on both sides of the House. I am perfectly conscious of addressing a body of the most devout idolaters, and I am conscious, also, that they would not like to have their idol examined, for, to use the figure of the honourable baronet opposite (Sir B. Lytton) in the course of his eloquent speech, their idol is a ghost which they would not like to have looked at. It is my firm opinion that the press, in its present state, instead of being the greatest glory and advantage to the country, is one of our greatest curses. These speeches, these panegyrics of a free press, would have been very valiant in the days of the Tudors, or even of the Stuarts ; but everybody knows that the majority of them are base adulation of a power which the speakers are afraid of and dare not resist ; and the writers in the press, who are the best judges themselves, boast and say plainly that they are the true directors of the policy of the country, for that the gentlemen who condescend to sit on the ministerial bench and receive salaries have only been recorders of the decisions of the press. Well, the press ought to know their own business best, and for that reason I believe the Times, and three or four other newspapers of that kind, when they say that this bill is a personal attack upon them, and that the standard of the press, such as it is, if this measure is allowed to pass, will be materially lowered. Now, I must con- fess that I am of that opinion too. People talk of this press as being the means by which the country is instructed. No wonder, then, the country is so ill-instructed. Then it is said that it is from the press we should study history, and I have been told not long ago by honourable members sitting above me that it is more worth while to read a page of the Times than to Y 4 328 NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTIES BILL. read the whole of Thucydides. The truth of the matter is, that this is all cant and nonsense ; the press is a mercantile specula- tion, and nothing else. I want to know why it should not be so. I want to know why Messrs. Walter and their families should not set up a manufactory of gossip just as well as the honourable gentleman next him should set up a manufactory of calico ? You must suit your manufactures, in different countries, according to the tastes of the public. In Eome, for instance, people occupy themselves in manufacturing antiquities. Well, nobody cares much for antiquities in this country. In Munich, again, they used to carry on a great manufacture of old medals. That would not do here either, though, if somebody were to set up a manufactory of old china, that might turn out a good spe- culation just now. Upon the whole, however, the taste of the English people is for gossip — political gossip — and political gossip of one sort or another they must have, cost what it may. The Times seems to me to carry on its business in this way better than any other paper, and that is the reason, perhaps, why it is now attacked. It is not a very long time since this newspaper was set up. The first person belonging to it, whom I remember, was a Mr. Tucker; after him came a great number of very clever men, because, of course, the Walter family could not carry on the whole thing themselves, but there was always a man of that accommodating class, a seven years' barrister, or some one of that stamp, who was ready to take up anything. These people, these barristers, remind me a good deal of what they call on board ship a " handy Billy " — a tackle that comes in upon all occasions when ever it is wanted. There have been since then Barnes, Alsager, Stirling, Delane, Mozley, Lowe, Dasent, and others. Well, why should they not write ? Why is it that when you hear these gentlemen speak (and there is one of them in this House whom I am always delighted to hear), they then never frighten or alarm you, but on the con- trary you are always excessively amused and instructed ; whereas, when they use that dreadful " we " everybody is terrified, and looks upon them as most awful men. The press, in fact, frightens lis with its editorial "we." Observe the art of this. These gentlemen are all of different opinions. Now the foolish papers who do not understand the matter, like the Morning Chronicle, for instance, take up with some particular party. One is a NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTIES BILL. 329 Peelite, another something else. When the Peelite party is thriving the paper thrives too ; but when the Peelites go down, down goes the paper. It is quite clear these are not men of business. The thing is to get a set of gentlemen of different opinions, and to set them writing. Of course you could accuse no man of inconsistency, he might always have held the same opinions ; and so individually these writers are most consistent, while collectively nothing in the world can be more inconsistent. It seems to me that the very perfection of journalism is — indi- vidual honesty and collective profligacy, political and literary. There is nevertheless a great advantage in this, and the Times newspaper always puts me in mind of a bit of bog I have near a farm of mine. I once thought of draining it, and asked the opinion of the farmer, who replied, " No, no, don't drain it. In wet weather there's something for the cow, and if there's nothing for the cow there's something for the pig, and if there's nothing for the pig there's something for the goose." So it is with the Times, if there is nothing in it for one man there is sure to be something for another. There is, however, one very great evil, which I do think the House ought to have the manliness to con- tend with, and that is the present lawless system of libelling. This is carried on to a most outrageous extent, and, so far from thinking the press better than it was, I believe, as far as my experience goes, it is much worse. I never had any acquain- tance that I know of with the editor of a newspaper ; but I was once obliged to go to the late Mr. Perry, who had it in his power utterly to ruin a friend of mine. Mr. Perry had a letter in his hand which he was to have published the next day, and the publication of which would have been most detrimental to my friend; but upon requesting him not to make it known, Mr. Perry, in the most liberal and gentlemanly way, promised not to publish a single word of it. I therefore always have pleasure in bearing testimony to the kindness of Mr. Perry, and to his behaviour on that occasion. But instances of the libelling to which I refer are without end ; they are of daily occurrence, although people do not know all the cases. For example, my honourable friend the member for Launceston (Mr. Percy) brought before the notice of the House the other day a most gross and most circumstantial libel upon a Dr. Meyer, who had been described as a worthless ignorant German, who knew nothing at all, and who was merely put into office because he 330 NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTIES BILL. flattered Prince Albert. This turned out to be a lie from beginning to end. Dr. Meyer was an Englishman, had received a good English education, and had never seen Prince Albert in his life. A circumstance happened with regard to a relation of my own the other day. In the course of Lord Lucan's evidence before the Sebastopol Committee of the House of Commons, he said that the commissariat sent out a parcel of ignorant boys, and on being pressed to give the names, he mentioned the name of Mr. Murray, the son of the Bishop of Eochester. At the end of his evidence he spoke of this same young man, and said how well he behaved and how well he had fulfilled his duties. Well, the first part of this evidence was inserted next day, but the second never was ; and when I sent by Mr. Mac- donald a message to the Times, saying how unfair it was, they never published a single word of explanation, nor did they give any contradiction until Lord Lucan himself wrote to the news- papers to do so. A letter in my possession speaks of the admi- rable manner in which this young man had behaved ; how, in some cases, he had personally distributed the provisions in order that the men might not be kept waiting ; and when remonstrated with for undertaking so menial an office, he replied, that the only way to receive or to impart instruction in the duties of his office was first to perform them himself, and that he was not afraid of degrading himself by showing how the subordinate duties of the office ought to be discharged. The same thing happened with regard to Lord Balgonie, against whom some aspersion was directed, and the remark was revived that our soldiers were fighting under the " cold shade of the aristocracy," whereas his general said he was one of the best officers he ever had. Then there was the case of a friend of mine, whose trial I attended last year. The Times attacked him most shamefully for a long time, and upon the trial his justification came out ; but while they published the whole of the first day's proceedings, which aggravated his offence, they never published his justifica- tion. These cases are occurring every day. The newspapers are accused of being bribed, but that seems to me one of the most absurd charges that ever was made. Why do they set up shops except to sell their goods? Of course they take that which, happens to be the popular side of the day. They do not want to guide public opinion, they want to follow it ; and what- ever the cry of the day is they repeat it. They did this on the NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTIES BILL. 331 trial of Queen Caroline. The Times first advocated one side, and then finding that the mob, who were not inclined to argue the merits of the case, took the woman's side, round went the Times and took the woman's side also. Well, there was no harm in that. The only harm in it is that people are apt to fancy- that this paper is the guide and teacher of the public. At the same time they hate it, and they hate it the more because it is the very best of its kind. As to the bribery of newspapers there is positive proof respecting the Times, of which Napoleon said, " You have sent me the Times, that infamous Times, the journal of the Bourbons ; " and it was stated in a work by Mr. O'Meara that 6000 francs had been paid for the supply of 100 copies a month. He had found the receipt for the money signed by the editor. Mr. O'Meara also stated that several offers had been received from the editors of newspapers, and among others from the Times, to write for Napoleon before he went to Elba. Napoleon declined to accept the offers made to him, but after- wards regretted the course he took, observing that he would not have been so hated by the English people had he accepted them, for in England the newspapers forced public opinion. The real evil of these newspapers is their insolence of language. They use language which they would never thing of using if it did not suit their purpose — if they did not find ministers tremble before them — and if they did not find ministers not ruling the country and governing the country, but suffering themselves to be driven into war by the language of the Times. The Times the other day remarked, in reference to an observation of the honourable member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) : — " If he means to intimate that, notwithstanding injustice, we are successful, he is certainly right. We are so, and as long as we dis- charge the duties which the empire and the world expect at our hands, we trust to continue so." That is all very fine ; but they have no " duty " to discharge but to sell their paper, and the empire and the world expect none other at their hands. Then comes another passage, in which the Times offers an opinion upon the present state of affairs in the Crimea : — " The position of the allied army is precisely one of which a bold and original military genius might take advantage to retrieve the fortunes of the campaign." 332 NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTIES BILL. Such an opinion would scarcely be given by any number of lawyers in Lincoln's Inn ; but nevertheless it was volunteered by the lawyers of Printing House Square. The whole thing is absurd. In short the Times says, with the old sign of the public-house on the road to Acton : — " We are the old magpie on the right, The other has set up in spite." " We may chatter black one day and white another. We have the only right to chatter, and we are the only teachers of the world and the empire." April 23rd, 1855. Upon a proposal by Mr. Whiteside to compel the registration of every newspaper and periodical publication : — It is said that the amendment of the honourable and learned member for Enniskillen will catch some newspapers that do not want to be caught, and others it is not wanted to catch. I never heard of a newspaper which wanted to be caught. The right honourable gentleman who has just resumed his seat has spoken of the " liberty of the press." That has been long spoken of. It has been said that it must be " free as the air we breathe ; " take it away, we die. But what is " the liberty of the press ? " It is the liberty of a certain number of persons to slander anonymously whomsoever they please, against which persons you have no redress. It is freedom to the anonymous libeller, and slavery to all the rest. The only way to meet this is to prohibit any person from publishing anything anony- mously, periodically or otherwise. No honest man is ashamed of the sentiments he expresses. You talk in this country, more than in any other, of your " love of fair play," meeting a man face to face, and a good stand-up fight, &c. Why, where is the fair play of these anonymous libellers ? You have, you know it well, a fear of moral assassination. You long to punish the evil-doers, and you are afraid to do so. You know that the only way to do it effectually is to force them to give their names as they do in France. Two years ago it was very much the fashion of gentlemen on this side to speak of France as a great NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTIES BILL. 333 model. Well, let us imitate France, at all events, in this respect. They have found out a way in France to prevent persons from publishing without putting their names to what they publish. And the law advisers of the crown could, with a very little exercise of ingenuity, I apprehend, devise a way of securing the same object in this country. As it is, it is a mere moral Thuggee, and I hope means will be found for suppressing this great moral nuisance. April 30th, 1855. Mr. Monckton Milnes having proposed as an amendment a clause to the effect, that the largest newspapers should be transmitted and re- transmitted through the post if stamped with the die of one penny, equally with the newspapers of smaller size, Mr. Dmmmond, follow- ing the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said : — The right honourable gentleman has told us we are about to try an experiment, but I think it is an experiment which will be tried at the expense of a single establishment. 1 objected the other day to the whole conduct of the press, because it is a system of stabbing in the dark, but I object equally to this House stabbing that establishment in the dark ; for there can be no question, after the debate which has taken place, that this is an attack upon a single establishment. If you passed a law burdening one cotton manufactory which produces a greater quantity of cotton than another, you would make a direct attack upon that individual manufactory ; and this is a precisely similar case. You are going upon a very dangerous principle. You are beginning to indulge private pique under pretence of public virtue. You attack the Times ; you are afraid of it : go where you may, upon what railway you please, every man is reading and abusing the Times ; but, instead of standing up boldly against it, you give it this dirty stab in the dark. You pretend that it is of immense importance to preserve the good and able writing which appears in the Times ; how is it preserved ? It is preserved simply by that newspaper being a very profitable concern ; but if 334 NEWSPAPER STAMP DUTIES BILL. you lower the profit of the concern, it cannot employ able men to write in it, and it will dwindle down to the same twaddle as the Morning Herald. I would endeavour to do justice even to an enemy, and I shall therefore vote against what I think is a private attack, under pretence of public virtue, against a single establishment. 335 ABOLITION OF CHUKCH EATES. —March 29th, 1855. Mr. Driunmond, following Lord Stanley, said : — It is just because I agree in the " major premise " of the noble Lord's proposition, that I have arrived at an exactly opposite conclusion. It is because the measure differs in no respect from other similar measures, and that there can be no reason why we should not state our opinions upon it at this stage, that I oppose its introduction. This whole question is another instance of the many which we have seen since the Eeform Bill, of an error persisted in by our rulers till it becomes intolerable, and forces the people to adopt something which they think is an amendment ; but which always is, and never can be other than, a complete revolution. The evil persisted in for years is the partition of churches into pews. Nothing I have ever heard has justified — nothing can ever justify — this, which has now become a most intolerable nuisance. Next, there is the gross injustice of applying rates to rites of worship which they were never intended to support. When you admitted the principle of toleration to dissenters, they had a right to object to have anything raised from them for the rites and worship of the Established Church. But the Churches of England are national property. And you cannot separate this question from another. The only way in which you can deal with the Church here (how- ever you may dispute elsewhere as to the meaning of the word) is by looking to the buildings in which the members of the Church assemble for worship, and the salaries of the ministers who preside over them. With every other meaning of the word we have nothing to do. And the moment you admit that it is not a national obligation to uphold those buildings and pay those ministers, you had better do the bold and honest thing, which nine-tenths of the supporters of this measure mean and desire to do, that is to pull down the Established Church. (Loud cries of "Hear, hear," and "No, no.") I say that is what you mean. And why are you not manly enough to bring it forward, instead 336 ABOLITION OF CIIUKCH RATES. of tinkering and haggling about it in this way ; trying to under- mine the material fabric of the Church. When that comes down, then the whole establishment falls. This is a middle class movement ; that middle class who have bought houses with this burden upon them, and who now want to get rid of it ; robbing the Church on one hand, and cheating the poor on the other : robbing the Church of the rate to which she now has a right, and cheating the poor by parcelling Churches out into pews, and letting them to the highest bidders, to make the most money out of them. If the Churches are not national, and to be supported by the people at large, let the Government take them ; and let the houses be valued, and the fair amount of their liability to church rate estimated and paid into the Exchequer, as a fund out of which to maintain them. Whenever any revo- lutionary measure is proposed, it is professed to be in order to " uphold our institutions," and now you are wanting to pull down the Churches by way of upholding the Church. Why repair the royal palaces ? Why uphold the civil list ? These stand on the same footing as church rates. And if you declined to maintain them longer, what would become of royalty in this country ! Put down church rates, you put down the Church : and, depend upon it, you can never uphold it by withholding support from its buildings. 337 PROSECUTION OF THE WAR WITH RUSSIA. June 7th, 1855. The right honourable gentleman who has just sat down, (Mr. Sidney Herbert) has stated, that at the commencement of the war he was in favour of it, but that now matters have arrived at such a point that he is in favour of peace. Now my opinion is exactly the reverse of that of the right honourable gentleman, for I originally deprecated the war, and I now conclude that there is nothing left but to go on with it. There was one senti- ment, however, expressed by the right honourable gentleman, ■ which I was sorry to hear, because I thought it was unworthy of him. The right honourable gentleman alluded to his character in this House, and so did the right honourable Baronet (Sir J. Graham), who seemed to have caught the same soft infection. Now, when Sir Francis Burdett first entered the House of Commons, Jeremy Bentham said to him, " When you hear a man appeal to his character in the House of Commons, put both your hands in your pockets." The right honourable gentleman needed not to fear that any one would apply the anecdote to him ; and it was therefore quite unnecessary for him to make the observation he did about his character. I am glad that the noble lord the member for Totnes (Lord Seymour) objected to the practice of reading despatches which were not fairly laid on the table of the House; and in reference to this matter, the House should bear in mind the extraordinary doctrine broached by the right honourable Baronet (Sir J. Graham), that he might make use of the private letters of commanders (treating them either as public or private as he pleased), and that he might use them in his own defence and justification, and as matters of charge against those commanders, though they had not the riant to use similar documents in a similar way. We have heard much about stimulating the country, and I believe that the country has been brought into a false position by this vol. I. z 338 PROSECUTION OF THE WAR WITH RUSSIA. over stimulus. The origin of the present war is not so recent as most gentlemen seem to suppose. There has been a hatred of Eussia inculcated for many years. The noble lord at the head of the Government cannot have a stronger opinion than I as to the policy of Eussia, but as to its aggressive power the noble lord has, in my judgment, for many years overrated that. It was this overrating of the power of Eussia that was the great cause of the war. If ever there was a man, next to the noble lord at the head of the Government, who has-been active in deluding the people on the subject of Eussia, that man is the honourable member for the West Eiding (Mr. Cobden), and it is of no use now for him to say that when he talked of " crumpling up" Eussia, he meant something else. The honourable gentle- man certainly meant to hold Eussia cheap. Moreover, everything has been done to make Eussia odious in the eyes of the people. We went on coquetting with and encouraging the oppressed nationalities: we flirted with the Hungarian, and sent Lord Minto to flirt with the Italian ; and, not content with that, we ■ continually urged that which we now deprecate, the calling forth of these nationalities and working a ferment in Europe. Eussia stands forward as the head of Conservatism, or Toryism, for I do not know what Conservatism means. Eussia stands forward as the champion of legitimate monarchy, while every one of the gentlemen near me stands forward as the champion of rebellion. Having stimulated this hatred against Eussia, and having effectually poisoned the public mind on the subject, we went to war for two objects, as was said, one object being civilisation, and the other the integrity of the Turkish empire. Now, to begin with the integrity of the Turkish empire, I utterly deny that, at any time, any European power ever admitted its integrity. I cannot repeat all Gibbon in the course of half an hour, but I think a very few chapters would convince you that the holy places built by Constantine immediately became the subject of battles between the Greek and Latin bishops. In the time of Francis I., and of Louis XIV. of France, there were treaties with the Sultan with respect to them. That certainly was no proof of the integrity of the Turkish empire. We are going now to protect the Greek religionists ; but it is necessary that there should be a clear understanding on this point, or we shall only be deceiving those people. My belief is, that in their hearts those people are PROSECUTION OF THE WAE WITH RUSSIA. 339 against their professed defenders, and cordially with Eussia, and do not believe that the allies will effectually protect them. Indeed, the allies cannot protect them, and preserve intact the sovereignty of the Sultan. Well ! is geographical integrity meant? That will be at an end before the war is finished. Then, with regard to civilisation, I ask, looking at the social condition of Turkey, did ever such an abomination exist? I will go into no theological question, but would appeal to the social condition of the country, and would ask whether such an abomination ever has existed ? There the whole female sex are held, politically, legally, socially, and practically, as beasts — they are treated as such — they are murdered when old, while their children are murdered when young. Every one who knows anything about the matter is aware, that there is no woman in existence there above fifty years of age, that infanticide is a universal system, and that marriage is impossible with all but the rich. I will not alhide to the moral condition of the great mass of the people, but what a civilisation it is for which we are told that we are at war ! Never was there such an abuse of terms as that by which the people of this country are deceived. The honourable gentleman, the member for the West Eiding, said the other night that the people would soon rise in disgust, and then, as is his wont (for in my time I have heard the honourable member do it three times, once to Sir Eobert Peel, in the case of the corn-laws), he went on to threaten the ministers with personal violence. I would remind the honourable gentleman that it requires much less ability than he possesses to rouse the bad passions of the mob, but a great deal more talent than he is gifted with to calm them when once roused. The honourable gentleman must also remember that it is very frequently the tribunes of the people who fall the first victims to the excited passions of the multitude. Eobespierre. and Danton were as popular in their day as any demagogue could wish to be now. No doubt, the people will get disgusted; the way in which this debate has drawled on its wearisome length for three nights shows that there is a pressure from without acting on honourable members, of which they scarcely know how to get rid. Never- theless, this is a people's war. Boused as the people have been by the false character given of Eussia ; roused as they have been by various other unworthy means, the Government had not the 340 PROSECUTION OF THE WAR WITH RUSSIA. manliness to stand up and say to them that we would not go to war until we were prepared ; and when the war was begun, the Government had still less the manliness to say, that we would not send a weak force to undertake that which a weak force could not accomplish. The Government were afraid of the pressure from without, and they yielded to it. It is therefore as I have just asserted, a people's war, and the people must bear its consequences. The great danger is lest the people, through this House, should make themselves the executive, and should be unjust to our commanders, naval and military. Even now they are asking for a victim somewhere ; at present they may be contented with an admiral or a general, but if they get that, they will not be long content without a Cabinet minister. The malaise into which they have got, shows itself by the ridiculous terms in which their demands are made. They are attacking the aristocracy, though no one in this country knows what the aristocracy is. They are clamouring for administrative reform, though no one can tell what that means. Then, said the honourable member for the West Eiding, the danger to the country is, that there is no confidence in public men. How can it be otherwise? Every Opposition by trade blackens the Government of the day; the people believe in the blackness, and the Opposition of the day fancy, because they blacken the other side, that they whiten themselves. Most miserable mistake ! The people believe both to be black alike. But never, so long as the generation lives which recollects the name of Sir Robert Peel, will any confidence be again placed in public men. The more those who affect an intimate alliance with his principles, profess themselves his followers, the less they will be trusted- Though I can perfectly well understand the delicacy of the friendship, which would never hear him coarsely assailed without defending him, still the public evil which was done by the conduct of that great statesman was one under which we are still suffering, and out of which I see no means of escape. So far from thinking that the Government is to be blamed for its ambiguous language, I think its language has been a great deal too little ambiguous. Talk of " humbling Eussia," and " material guarantee ; " surely we had better measure our material strength with a little more judgment before using such language as that. But, however, that may be, the Emperor of Russia was quite PROSECUTION OF THE WAE WITH RUSSIA. 341 right when he wrote to the noble Lord the member for the city of London, that when the sick man died would be the time when the difficulty would come as to his inheritance. At all events, two good things will result from this war, first, that it will see the end of the Mahomedan power; and secondly, that the French, whatever may happen, will assuredly remain masters of Constantinople. z 3 342 SUNDAY TRADING- IN THE METROPOLIS. June 13th, 1855. I dislike the insinuation contained in the title of the bill, that its object is to prevent unnecessary trading on the Sunday. In point of fact, unnecessary trading on the Sunday would only be trading by the rich. But there is a positive necessity for many of the poor to trade on the Sunday. In addition to the reason stated by the honourable member who has just sat down (Mr. T. Duncombe), let the House remember that there are no less than 150,000 families in London who inhabit only single rooms. Those people cannot buy anything that is liable to become corrupt in the course of the Saturday night. If you were to bring in an honest bill to shut up the clubs on Sundays I would not oppose it ; but I will not support this bill, which appears to me unjust in every way. 343 ADMINISTRATIVE KEFORM. — June 18th, 1855. Mr. Layard moved the following resolution : — " That this House views with deep and increasing concern the state of the nation, and is of opinion that the manner in which merit and efficiency have been sacrificed in public appointments to party and family influences, and to a blind adherence to routine, has given rise to great misfortunes, and threatens to bring discredit upon the national character, and to involve the country in great disasters." The noble lord (Viscount Groderich) has dwelt upon the inefficiency of the present Ministry ; but that is not the matter now under discussion : the meetings which have been held, the speech of the honourable Member for Aylesbury, and the whole argument of the noble lord deny the sufficiency of any person on either side of the House, who has ever been employed in the administration of public affairs. The noble Lord is evidently looking forward to the establishment of an Utopia ; for he has declared that what he desires can only be attained by a total sacrifice of selfish or party wishes or consideration ; the sacrifice of every individual, of every party, and of every class, both within and without the walls of Parliament. At the elections, after the repeal of the corn-laws, the universal cry throughout the country was, that we had now got rid of class interests ; that henceforward, all laws would be equal for all classes, and none would have any preference over another ; yet the very persons, who arrogate to themselves exclusively the name of Liberals, are now agitating in every corner to get up a cry to exalt the middle classes and to lower the upper classes. They began with a clamour against the aristocracy, but they seem now to be con- scious that they were talking nonsense, for that, in this country, it is impossible to define what is meant by the term ; so now they have shifted their ground, and raise a cry for what they call administrative reform, a term as senseless as the other. The honourable Member for Aylesbury piqued himself the other Z 4 344 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. night upon being the only man in this House who dare stand up and speak the truth, and defined what he meant by speaking the truth, which was, the abuse of the Government. So far, however, from this requiring any courage, it is the meanest and lowest road to fame ; and if he wants to show courage in these days against real danger, he had better stand up against the civium ardor prava jubentium, and not against those from whom there is no cause of fear. The most judicious writer in the English language has said : — " He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favourable hearers ; because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regiment is subject ; but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have 'not ordinarily the judgment to consider." Under the pretext of administrative reform, these people are attacking every kind of rule and order. But " order is Heaven's first law," and not to be violated without paramount necessity. Their arguments are equally valid against the planetary system, and, according to them, it is a mere piece of red-tapism that the sun does not come down out of its place and warm us in this cold summer and ripen our corn. The motion of the honourable member contains certain assertions, not one of which is true, and not one of which has he attempted to prove. Taking all these assertions for granted, however, and that the whole body of statesmen who have held office on either .side of the House are incompetent, a body of persons have come forward and volunteered to govern us for the future. Let us, therefore, examine a few of the most prominent of these gentle- men. Mr. Wyndham, in his speech against volunteers during the last war, said that volunteers were like soldiers, but were not soldiers ; just as a picture was like a man, but was not a man ; and so I suspect we shall find these volunteer statesmen ; however like statesmen they may be, yet, after all, they are no more real statesmen than pictures are real men. One of the principal of these volunteers is the honourable member for Tynemouth, and he comes forward to drive out all the upper classes as bad administrators, and to put in himself as a good one. I find, however, in the records of the police office, that ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 345 about two years ago that gentleman was, to use a Bow-street expression, " had up " for not fulfilling a contract he had entered into to convey some poor emigrants, in the ship Swarthmore, to Australia. Now, I do not mean in the least to insinuate that the honourable member acted in the smallest degree dishonestly by them, nor cruelly, nor unkindly ; but the better his intentions were, the more honest and the more kind, the more did he show himself a most incompetent administrator, even in matters of his own business and of daily occurrence. This, however, is not all : it appears from a correspondence, which was published also in the newspapers, that the same honourable member for Tynemouth entered into a contract with a ship-builder to build him a ship, which he named by the euphonious appellation of William Schaw Lindsay ; he, however, subsequently spoilt it by additions which he made to it, and then abused the builders for building a bad ship ; the builders replied that they had adhered to their contract, but that Mr. Lindsay, being a ship-broker, and not a ship-builder, had interfered in a business which he did not understand, and had, therefore, spoiled a good ship which they had delivered into his hands. Here, then, is another proof that this gentleman meddles with matters which he does not under- stand, and is a very bad administrator. Another of these volunteer statesmen is the honourable member for Pontefract (Mr. Oliveira). This gentleman has avowed himself, by many motions made in this House, extremely concerned in the sale, and perhaps in the manufacture, of wine. Any gentleman so employed, might find sufficient on his hands in reforming the wine-trade, without extending his exertions over other matters. I suppose all members have read the report and evidence on the state of the wine-trade, which was presented by a committee of this House a few years ago ; but lest they should not, I beg to remind them of a re- markable fact which came out in evidence, and which was this. The King, Greorge IV. asked one day at dinner for a particularly fine kind of wine, for which he had not called for a very long period ; liking the wine, he desired the same to be served at another dinner His Majesty was about to give a few days after- wards. The butler next day ran in dismay to a wine merchant in the city, stating that he had drunk all the wine himself, and concluded that when they found out what had occurred, His Majesty would dismiss him and ruin him. The wine-merchant 346 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. told him to be under no alarm, to send him a bottle as a sample, and he undertook to send a mixture so exactly resembling it that the king should not discover the fraud. This was done ; the king praised the fabricated wine, and the butler saved his place. The fraud in wine is so extensive that there are many fewer pipes of port wine imported into England now than there were in 1812, although the population has been greatly increased between those periods. That same report also stated the great extent of plantations of elder made in Portugal by the English wine manufacturers there, to say nothing of jeripiga, sloe berries, &c. Dr. Hassall has also just published an account of all the analyses made by the commission which Mr. Wakley organised for the examination of various articles used as human food, and the German papers, in reviewing this work, have said that as Napoleon called the English a nation of shopkeepers, now they must be called a nation of the greatest rogues in Europe. These volunteer middle class statesmen, stated moreover, in their meeting at the London Tavern, that the honourable member for Aylesbury was " hounded down " (as they called it) for only expressing an opinion contrary to that of the majority of this House. This assertion is entirely false ; and I am an impartial witness in the matter, for I not only took no part in the discussion, but I agreed in much that that honour- able member said. I regretted that he made several misstate- ments, and it was natural that the friends of the officers re- ferred to should be indignant ; but I was sorry to see a gentle- man who possesses great energy and singleness of purpose get into any difficulty. When I see a person attacked by a majority, I instinctively take the side of the weaker party, and I do not. think that we have too many men of intelli- gence in the House to enable us to afford to lose any one. The thing, however, which they falsely accused the house of Com- mons of having done, they did actually themselves ; for when a poor Mr. Walker got up only to state his opinion, they positively silenced and refused to hear him. But let us take another example of the capacity of the middle classes to govern us, and let us try them by their acts. They clamoured for what they call local self-government, and they got it : and the consequence is, that Newcastle-on-Tyne has been ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 347 victimised by cholera lately, more than it ever was before. • Newcastle has at its head philosophers, scientific men, merchants, shipbuilders, &c, the very elect of the middle classes ; they are all reformers, liberal, and intelligent, and yet they have not sufficient administrative talent to clean and drain their own town: they have quarrelled together for ten years, and done nothing; yet of all places, it is one of the least difficult to cleanse, for it stands on the side of a river with high banks, and nothing could be wanted but to cut ditches from the top to the bottom of a rapid descent. Croydon is another place in which the middle classes boast that they are competent to self-govern- ment, and the end of their administrative faculties was, that they produced a virulent fever which destroyed hundreds of human lives, owing to their bungling and incompetence. As to London, we know what a mess that is in, and has been ever since the shopkeepers had the management of their lighting, and drainage, and supply of water. It has been in such a state of confusion and mismanagement, owing to nothing whatever but the incompetence of the shopkeepers to manage such affairs, that at length the government has been urged to take the matter into its hands, and a government officer has been appointed, and the right honourable baronet has introduced his bill accord- ingly. But look at a stronger case than either Newcastle or Lon- don ; look at India, a place wholly governed by merchants, and see whether their civil departments are better managed than they are in this country. The commissariat is decidedly worse; the accounts more in arrear, although there is no titled First Lord of the Treasury over it. As to injustice with respect to pro- motion in their army owing to red-tapism, I know an instance of an officer who has been employed in every branch of the service, and received approbation for his conduct in each ; he has also served with distinction in the field under fire ; he has been de- clared by the Duke of Wellington, by Lord Eaglan, by Lord Hardinge, by Lord (rough, by Lord Broughton, to be deserving of his promotion ; but this has been refused him, owing to some form not having been gone through, the court throwing the blame on Lord Dalhousie, and he is now about to return to India with all the juniors promoted over him : a grosser act of cruelty, injustice and wrong, was never heard of; and this by a government administered by merchants. See again the cost of 348 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. railroads, which are all projected and carried on by the middle classes; look at the immense amount of capital which has been, expended ; and the average return upon it is said to be under two per cent. When the proprietors get into such difficulties that they cannot extricate themselves, they are frequently obliged to have recourse to some noblemen or gentlemen to re- lieve them. In one case they appointed the Marquis of Chandos, in another General Anson, in another, Mr. Francis Scott, and they turn this last gentleman out of the South Western, because, being a gentleman, he was determined to stand by the engage- ments which the company of middle classes had entered into, and which engagements these middle classes repudiated, when they found it to their pecuniary interest to do so. The honour- able Member for Aylesbury said, that in all literary and scien- tific societies which he frequented, he found everybody agree- ing with him in his opinion of administrative reform. I think this is very probable, for of all classes of human society, literary and scientific men are the least competent to manage men and things belonging to this sublunary world. All statesmen agree in this opinion ; and Napoleon, who was truly a statesman, writes to his brother Joseph, " Mistrust all literary and scientific men ; treat them like coquettes ; amuse yourself with them ; but do not try to make wives of one, or statesmen of the other." Swift, another true statesman, had an equal contempt for lite- rary and scientific men as statesmen, and he refers to a species of them, which is perfectly applicable to our present subject. In his imaginary travels, he says, " In the school of political projectors I was but ill-entertained, the professors appearing in my judgment wholly out of their senses, which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue ; of teaching ministers to consult the public good ; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services ; of choosing for employments persons qualified to exercise them ; with many other wild and impossible chimeras that never before entered into the heart of man to conceive, and confirmed in me the old observation that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not main- tained for truth." The noble lord, the Member for Huddersfield, said that consti- ADMINISTRATIVE REFOKM. 349 tutional government was now on its trial, and that it was on the verge of being brought into contempt. In my opinion consti- tutional government has been tried, has run to seed, and is now worn out. Its natural tendency was towards republicanism, and the Whigs have fanned this tendency, and have now accomplished by law that substitution of the power of this House for that of the Crown, which they effected by blood in former times. This House has thrust itself into the executive, instead of confining itself to purely legislative functions. Committees on things may be useful ; but committees sitting on the conduct of individuals will prove as tyrannical as they ever have proved, as bad as the Star Chamber itself. The honourable Member for Aylesbury thinks that the army will thank him for the exertions which he supposes to be in its favour ; but he will only effect distrust and discord between superior and inferior authorities : the army on the whole will feel itself insulted by his interference, and will sooner or later avenge itself by again putting us out of this building, and by taking the administration of all affairs into its own hands; but whether this is the administrative reform after which he is longing, I leave him to determine. 350 MONETARY SYSTEM.— February 28th, 1856. Motion by Mr. Muntz for a Select Committee to inquire how far the present monetary system is in accordance with the requirements of the country, and to consider whether it cannot be improved and amended. It seems to be the fashion, both in this House and out of it, to recommend examinations to ascertain whether men are com- petent for the situations to which they aspire. If this House, in an evil hour, consents to this motion, I should strongly recommend it to direct an examination of the members of the committee to be made to ascertain whether at least they under- stand the Bullion Eeport. — I ask no more. This question is, perhaps, the most difficult for the House to discuss, because it is as nearly as any political matter can be, a question of pure science. It is easy to bring forward an army of isolated facts and tables, showing so much export here, and so much want of currency there, which can only serve further to puzzle and perplex a question already most abstruse. Unless you bear in mind that in speaking of values you must always hold the precious metals at a fixed standard, you will be beset on every side with confusion. The honourable gentleman (Mr. Muntz) began, apparently much to the astonishment of the House, by going back to the time of William the Conqueror ; but he might have reverted to a yet earlier period, and told you that the first transaction on record was that entered into by Abraham for the purchase of a field for the weight of 400 shekels of silver. Let us call our coin by what name we please — be it sovereigns or any other denomination — that coin must be the regulator of all our property, whether floating capital or landed estate. The precious metals must be our sole standard and measure of value. Is it said that it is not so fixed a measure as a foot rule ? That is very true, and I will tell you why. Fresh discoveries of gold have of late years been made. Those which were made in South America many years ago did not exercise the smallest MONETARY SYSTEM. 351 influence on Europe until the lapse of more than half a century afterwards. Now, however, that intercourse between remote countries is so much easier than it used to be, the effect of such discoveries is much more speedily felt. It is perfectly true that the recent gold discoveries in Australia and elsewhere have acted in the same way as though the Bank of England had issued an enormous mass of paper money. And what has been the consequence ? " Increased prosperity," it will be answered. Those who say this forget that the reaction has yet to come, and that your high prices and this prosperity, as it is termed, only encourage an enormous production of our manufactures beyond any possible demand which the existing population of the world can create ; the necessary effect of which is that gold goes out of the country in order to pay our debts. And in what does all this result ? Why, unless the bank raises the rate of discount, a general bankruptcy must be the consequence ; and whenever the bank does raise the rate of discount, people complain of distress. The honourable Member for Birmingham said that phi- losophers are at fault in dealing with this question, which should be left to practical men ; but there are some philosophers who have givep practical opinions concerning it. I have no doubt there are many people in this House who have read a very amusing romance, called the History of England, by Mr. Macaulay, and they will probably remember the difficulty that was felt at the period of which he writes, upon this very question. There were then living, two philosophers, who were supposed to be men of some sense — a certain Sir Isaac Newton and a gentleman named Locke ; and they then inculcated the principle which I am endeavouring to impress upon the House — that to talk of the rise and fall of the precious metals is downright nonsense. At the time of the Bullion Eeport — which I am old enough to remember — there was certainly not one banker or one merchant in the House who did not oppose the doctrines which the report laid down. Sir Eobert Peel was placed upon the committee by Lord Hawkesbury in order that he might convert the committee, but he was converted himself. I remember a very eminent banker wrote a book to show that there is no such thing as a pound, but that the currency is founded upon an ideal unit. I will venture to give one recommendation to the House. You cannot, by any laws you may pass, prevent the precious metals 352 MONETARY SYSTEM. from being the sole measure of value. You may certainly by Act of Parliament greatly increase the distress ; you may throw it upon one portion of the community and relieve another ; you may aggravate that distress in every way ; but I believe the soundest advice I can give the House is. that which Mr. Arthur Young gave to the French Convention in Paris, when he was asked what laws they should pass with reference to the price of corn. Mr. Young's reply was, " The best advice I can give you is, that you should order your clerk to thrust his inkstand down the throat of the first man who talks about corn." I believe that if the same thing were done now, and an inkstand thrust down the throat of every man who talks about the currency, it would be the very best arrangement you could come to, and you would confer a great benefit upon the country. 353 CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL.— March 5th, 1856. I think the amendments which the right honourable Baronet, the Home Secretary (Sir George Grey), has indicated, are so exceedingly unlike the Bill before the House, that it will be only fair for the Government to reject this measure altogether, and bring in a new one of their own in its place. Several bills on the same subject have been this day alluded to, and it is some gratification to me, obliged as I am to differ from a great deal that has been spoken in this debate, to be able to agree, at least in this much — that I equally disapprove them all, whether it be the measure of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, or those proposed by honourable members on either side of the House. Only observe what happened in this House but the other day. The right honourable gentleman (Sir George Grey) introduced a most admirable measure to extend the provisions of the police law throughout all the towns and districts in England; and what then occurred? Why, immediately up rose those populous cities of which we a moment ago heard so much, and raking up an array of musty old charters, they straightway put in a claim for prescription — they pleaded royal grants, and brought forward their receipts for moneys paid — for valuable consideration given! But I defy any one of the whole mass of those corporations to produce the least evidence of . such undoubted prescription as the Church can assert in support of its rates. Why, these rates are as ancient in this country as the establishment of Christianity itself. Our churchwardens, whom the honourable Baronet (Sir W. Clay) means kindly to continue, after he has relieved them of all their functions, date from as remote a period as the year 1147. But then the honourable Baronet asks the extraordinary question, " What is a National Church ? " In every nation in the world the Sovereign of the country has found it to be his absolute duty to provide the means of public worship for his people. These means necessarily are public buildings, but the vol. i. A A 35-1 CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL. honourable gentleman seems to think it a perfect answer to the asserted existence of a National Church that there are some persons in these kingdoms who dissent from her communion. Was there ever a nation on earth in which there were no dis- senters ? The Greek Church has its heterodox sects who dissent from the orthodox creed, by having their ritual translated into the Slavonic tongue instead of being confined to the Greek ; and even among the Mahomedan Turks and the people of Persia, conflicting religious opinions prevail. The National Church of a country, however, is that Church whose faith the Sovereign professes. (Murmurs.) Will honourable gentlemen who demur to this assertion adduce an instance in which the fact is otherwise ? The first obligation of a State is to provide the means of worship for the people ; but this country is not possessed of these means ; and why ? Because of a dereliction of duty on the part of our bishops. Why are our churches not filled with worshippers ? Because we have allowed them to be monopolised by being shut off into pews. It is the bishops themselves who have forced the people into the ranks of Dissent by shutting them out of their parish churches. Moreover, it is an error to suppose that the Dissenters have ever been the enemies of the Established Church. Its real enemies are the bishops, its own spiritual heads. It is very strange that the honourable. Baronet who has brought forward this question for the third time, has invariably omitted to mention this one little circumstance, that in every single instance in which money is collected by a rate, no option is given to the ratepayer to pay or to decline to pay. It is left to no man's will, whether or not he shall contribute towards a lighting rate, a paving rate, or a poor rate. The case may be different, in regard to the fixing of the amount of any impost that shall be payable: but no power was ever granted to any one to refuse to contribute at all. This very thing has been often attempted by the right honourable member for Man- chester (Mr. M. Gibson), but the Government have always found that it will not work — that it is utterly impossible to support our county gaols, our police, and other institutions, if such a discretion is vested in the ratepayers. Why, then, are church rates to form an exception to an otherwise inflexible rule ? The right honourable Baronet (Sir G. Grey) says, that church rates CHURCH KATES ABOLITION BILL. 355 are an uncertain and imperfect provision as the law now stands ; but why can you not reckon up what is wanted, and then take the amount whatever it is ? " Oh ! " it is replied, " the Braintree case has settled the question." Well, so it has — there can be no doubt of that. The Lords came down, as the Earl of Derby described in his speech only a few nights since, and upset the decisions of all our courts of law, going also directly in the teeth of the judgment of the law Lords on this matter. The Peers will not allow (rod's house to be repaired, and now their own house is on the eve of being pulled down about their ears. But honourable gentlemen in the assembly I am addressing are constantly proclaiming their object to be the moral and religious elevation of the people. They wish to imbue them with a taste for the Fine Arts. They have their schools of design, their public lecture-rooms, their circulating libraries, and all sorts of appliances of that description. They also want the working-classes to go on Sunday to inspect the fragments of religious temples which have been brought home from Egypt, from Babylon, and from Greece ; and yet at the same time they call upon them to let their own religious edifices crumble to ruins. Their religious buildings are, par excellence, the true monuments of the Fine Arts. ' Really, some gentlemen do not seem to know what the Fine Arts mean. Painting, sculpture, and architecture, are but different modes of representing by material forms sentiments that . cannot be expressed by words. If we fancy that we can inspire true feelings of devotion in any other places so well as it can be done in our venerable parochial churches, we make a sad mistake. But we have gone on re- ducing the whole of our ancient ritual, until we have left a mere residuum of intellectual philosophy ; and yet some innocent people are astonished at the spread of schism, and even of infidelity. Every householder in England has taken his house subject to the charge of church-rates, and is this rate to be allowed to go into the pockets of the landlords? The Arch- bishop's Court — a great authority in theological matters — has just decided ^hat there is no such thing as an altar in the Church of England. If that Church has no altar, she has no priesthood, for priests are a portion of the clergy set apart to worship at an altar. If the Church has no priests, she has no bishops, who are a portion of the clergy set apart to consecrate A A 2 356 CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL. priests, and if the Church of England has neither bishops nor priests, what right has she to tithes ? Tithes are paid, not to deacons, but to priests, and if the Church of England has no altar she has no right to tithes. I strongly recommend this subject to the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, as the Exchequer is not at present very rich, may be able to turn the intimation which I have given him to some account. My noble friend (Lord Palmerston) has been recommended to take the matter into his hands, and I have no doubt that if the noble Lord acts upon the suggestion, he will deal with the subject in his usual bold and dashing manner. The noble Lord does not often meddle with ecclesiastical affairs, but when he does, I have no fear on the score of his bashfulness. Some time since, a certain old gentleman in Eome bothered himself about the immaculate conception of a woman who has been dead for centuries ; but since my noble friend has answered for the immaculate conception of all the babies in Eomsey *, he will no doubt settle the church-rate question also. In my opinion, if the views of the Government are carried out, we shall see a sweeping measure of Church spoliation, and a total separation will be effected between Church and State. * In allusion to a remark of Lord Palmerston's at an agricultural meeting, that all children were born good. 3C7 REFORMATORY SCHOOLS (SCOTLAND) BILL. March 12th, 1856. I AM sure the House has heard with satisfaction the remarks which have fallen from the honourable member for Dungarvon (Mr. Maguire), and I hope it will re-echo all those fervent aspira- tions for religious toleration to which he has given utterance. I only regret that these aspirations did not find expression in the legislative assemblies of Naples, of Austria, and of France, rather than in the parliament of this country. I was not a little surprised to hear the honourable member speak with so much zeal against proselytism, and assert that it was the greatest curse that could befall a state ; because there is not a single gaol, or school, or other public institution, with which I am acquainted, into which it is possible for a Roman Catholic priest to poke his nose, that he does not thrust it, for the mere pleasure, it would seem, of making mischief. I entirely agree with the honourable gentleman that there is a great deal more harm than good done, upon all sides, by a recourse to proselytism ; and I further think that it would be no advantage whatsoever to a Roman Catholic child to be placed under the care of a Presby- terian clergyman, and thus, as has been observed, taught to hate the religion of his father. But the difficulty does not stop here ; and while speaking upon this point I will call the attention of honourable members to a letter which was written by Bishop Gillis, of Edinburgh — who must be considered as an authority upon the subject — to the right honourable and learned Lord Advocate, with reference to the Education Bill which he intro- duced last year. Bishop Grillis observes in that letter, "I shall not support your bill ; nay, more, I shall oppose it in every direction ; and though you should leave out the religious ques- tion altogether, I shall oppose it just the same." You may say, " Surely we may learn science and geography, and the various other branches of secular information, together, at all events. There cannot be much Popery or Presbyterianism mixed up a a .1 358 REFORMATORY SCHOOLS (SCOTLAND) BILL. with geography." " No," writes the Bishop, "we cannot learn geography together, for I find that into your books upon the subject you introduce little pictures, some parts of which are drawn in light colours and some in dark, and I find that you invariably use the dark colours to represent Popish and the light Protestant countries." Now it is stated, not alone by Protestant, but by Eoman Catholic writers, that in proportion as the priests have domination over schools, in the same pro- portion does ignorance prevail among the people. This state- ment bears upon clergymen of all denominations, but it tells more strongly against those of the Eoman Catholic Church, because they have been so long in possession of the privilege of domination in their schools that it is almost impossible to oust them. But the Bishop goes on to say — and I think the statement must puzzle those who have not had ocular demonstration of its justice — "Not only would I not suffer Protestant and Roman Catholic children to learn geography together, but I would not allow them to play together, because they would be likely to learn bad habits from one another, inas- much as the principles in which they are instructed are entirely different." Now, I recollect having passed some time with the family of a very intimate Eoman Catholic friend of mine. There were in the family two young boys, and having missed them one day at dinner, I inquired where they were, and ex- pressed a hope that they were not ill ? The answer was, " No, but they have been behaving badly." " How ? " I inquired. " Why one of them went into the drawing-room yesterday, and took a lump of sugar, and the other did not tell of him." " A fine little fellow," said I. " Fine little fellow ! " replied the parents ; " he is now being punished for not telling." The other who took the sugar was not punished at all. (A laugh.) It may be a very good joke in this House, but it is none to have such a thing in a family ; it is no joke to have every member of a family, husband, wife, child, and servant, taught to be a spy upon the others. It is no laughing matter in France or in Italy. If such a system as this, of which I have given an instance, prevails generally among Roman Catholics, I think that it is absolutely necessary that Roman Catholic and Protestant children should be separated. It is the very system that drives men to have recourse to " Rougeisin" and all those other desperate means which men adopt in order KEFORMATORY SCHOOLS (SCOTLAND) BILL. 359 to free themselves from a tyranny so intolerable. My opinion with respect to reformatory schools is, that you have only one plan to adopt, and that is, to establish, as was formerly the case, large hulks in all the great seaport towns of the kingdom, in which you will be best enabled to wean young criminals from the bad habits which they have acquired, and from which you can supply your army and navy with very valuable recruits. If you do that, you may in all probability save a great number of boys ; but in the system of religious instruction of which some honourable members are the advocates, I have no faith what- soever. A A 4 360 NATIONAL EDUCATION.— April 11th, 1856. Debate on motion that it is expedient to extend, revise, and consolidate the Minutes of the Committee of Privy Council on Education. The right honourable gentleman, the member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), towards the close of his able speech drew the attention of the committee to the essential difference between education and instruction. The honourable gentleman who preceded me (Sir Stafford Northcote) made a passing allusion to the same point ; but within one minute afterwards he used the word " education " as a convertible term with skilled labour. (Sir Stafford Northcote : " I did not mean to do so.") I have not the least doubt that neither the honourable member, nor any other speaker who has addressed us, meant to do so. Yet, from the noble lord who introduced this subject of debate down to the honourable gentleman who spoke last, there is not one who has taken part in this discussion who, from the beginning to the end of his speech, has not confounded the terms " instruction " and " education." The noble lord (Lord John Eussell), in- deed, throughout the whole of his resolutions, adopts the phrase " education ; " but with education itself not one of his whole series of propositions really has anything to do. They have to do only with modes of instruction. Now I maintain that instruction is as distinct from education as it is possible for any two things to be. You may be exceedingly well instructed and exceedingly ill educated ; and you may be ex- tremely well educated and extremely ill instructed. Instruction you may buy — instruction you may cause to be given by Acts of Parliament ; but you have never yet educated your people by its means. Let us take the two most recent cases of magnificent rogues — scoundrels on a great scale — take William Palmer and John Sadleir. Do you think that either of them wanted in- struction ? Or do you suppose that any amount of it will con- vert a dishonest man into an honest man ? You say you are going to give your people instruction ; you are about to compel NATIONAL EDUCATION. 361 them to pay money for sending their offspring to schools, not of their own selection, and to masters, not of their choosing, but of yours. Your teachers are, moreover, to insist on children of nine years old being required to learn foreign languages, mathematics, and the notation of music. Any parent who un- derstands what a child is, or what is his own duty, never will send his boy to the merciless, care of such pedagogues. I know for myself that I would rather die than entrust a child of mine to them ; and I do believe that there are many parents in this country who are too sensible of their obligations to their offspring ever to submit to hand them over to the caprice of a set of doctrinaires and abstract theorists. And pray what do you propose to rear your youth for ? Are you going to train them for statesmen ? No ! (A laugh.) The honourable gentle- man laughs at the notion, and so would I. But you are going to fit them to be — what? Why, cotton-spinners and pin- makers, or, if you like, blacksmiths, — mere day-labourers. These are the men whom you are to teach foreign languages, mathe- matics, and the notation of music. Was there ever anything more absurd ? It really seems as if God had withdrawn common sense from this House. What is education ? It is that which is imbibed from the moral atmosphere which a child breathes. It is the involuntary and unconscious language of its parents and of all those by whom it is surrounded ; and not their set speeches and set lectures. It is the words which the young hear fall from their seniors when the speakers are off their guard ; and it is by these unconscious expressions that the child inter- prets the hearts of its parents. That is education; and it, I grant you, is the thing that you are darkly aiming at, because more than one honourable gentleman has connected what you call education with a reformatory system. You can't reclaim the uneducated — you can't repair that which never existed. It is the Church alone, after their parents, which God ordained to educate the youth of a nation. You will say " Oh, but the parsons have neglected their duty." But have your school- masters done any better ? And what assurance can you place in the pedagogues of your own invention, when the work has failed in the hands of the priests of God's selection ? If I deny your right in this way to attempt the education of the people, I don't deny your right to attempt the reformation of offenders. But 3C2 NATIONAL EDUCATION. the man who wants education wants that which you can never supply. Give him instruction, if you will, and thereby you will only make him ten times worse than before. When your people become offenders against the community you have really only two ways of dealing with them, — namely, to send those who have offended the least out of the country, and those who have offended the most out of the world. 363 MAYNOOTH COLLEGE— COMMITTEE. April 15th, 1856. The House is indebted to the honourable member (Mr. Spooner) for bringing forward this subject, whatever may become of his motion ; and it does not matter much whether it fails or whether it succeeds. It is of importance that the subject should be discussed. I am afraid, however, that the honourable member will not consider that I am serving his cause, when I say that on the religious part of the question I quite differ from the views he has enunciated. It would be a great grief to me if I thought that would ever take place which some persons seem to consider a consummation most devoutly to be wished, — namely, that the Irish people should, by giving up their reli- gion, come to be of no religion at all, as they are in America. I do not think that the Irish when they emigrate to England are improved by it, simply because they lose their religion, and in America they are certainly the worse for it. But the theological part of the question is not that with which the House is competent to deal. The only part of it which is worth their consideration is the moral teaching of a set of gen- tlemen whom, for the sake of brevity, I will call Popish priests. If their teaching is immoral, it is a question whether it is worth our while to pay men for teaching it. The honourable member who has just sat down, says that if the Irish clergy are not educated here they will go abroad. No doubt ; but then we shall not pay for it, and that will make all the difference. Now, it is not what my opinion is, nor what is the opinion of any Protestant, of the doctrines which the Church of Eome has now adopted. What has been the opinion of Catholic states — nay, what have been the opinions of the Popes upon this teach- ing? For I suppose that no gentleman in this House — what- ever the Priests may say out of it — fancies for a moment that the Popes never alter their opinion. Why, it has been the universal judgment of Europe, that these doctrines were incom- patible with the well-being of states ; and hence the teachers of 3G4 MAYNOOTH COLLEGE. such doctrines have been -turned out of every country on the continent. And now, I am not going to quote Liguori, I have quoted him often enough before ; but I will say, I wish that every Eoman Catholic gentleman would carefully read Liguori — and perhaps, indeed, as there is at the present day a great rage for ex- aminations, it would be as well to make a rule that every Eoman Catholic member should be examined in his writings. He is the only writer of whom the Eoman Catholic Church has declared, ex cathedra, that he never wrote a word of error. What a blessed thing it must be to read six volumes of bad Latin in which there is not a word of error. Now, I am not going to read a word of Latin, good or bad : but I have got an English book here — a book published a few days ago for one penny — contain- ing some choice morceaux. It is entitled " What every Christian should know." Fancy that for a penny. Now, this is one of the things, which " every Christian should know ; " " It is a sin to mix something with what you sell." So I should think. The honourable Member for Birmingham (Mr. Scholefield),and others who are members of the Adulteration Committee, will agree in that. But what follows ? " Except there is a common custom, and it is necessary for giving a reasonable profit." Why, we have heard of roguish grocers who mixed sand with their sugar ; but I never heard that they did it from an abstract love of sand, but only to get a reasonable profit. But again, there is some- thing in this little book about stealing — " It is a venial sin to steal a little " a pocket handkerchief, perhaps, might be considered "little," " but it is a mortal sin to steal much. For example, a day's wages from a poor man. Far less will be mortal sin if taken from a poor man than from a rich man. If you steal from different persons and at different times it also makes a great difference. And to steal a little a great many times may be a mortal sin." Then there is something as to oaths : — " If you call God to witness that what you say is true, it is an oath ; but if you do not know what you say is an oath, or do not mean tc take an oath, it is not so." So that the witness may draw the distinction in his own mind as to his intention. (Several members : " No, no ! it does not mean that.") It does not mean that ! Well, what does it mean, MAYNOOTII COLLEGE. 365 then ? I have read the words. And will any one deny that this is what Liguori teaches — any one who has read him ? I am sorry we have lost Mr. Lucas. He was a Roman Catholic who knew what his Church taught, and was not ashamed of it. (Mr. Bowyer : " Hear, hear ! ") Hear, hear ! Does the honourable gentleman mean to say that such are not the doctrines of Liguori? Does he mean that I impose on the ignorance of the House ? He knows how disagreeable it is to read bad Latin to the House, and I will not do it. These are the doctrines of the priests, and if they were acted upon, it would be impossible to carry on the government of states, and the ultimate result must be that all human society must come to an end. But they are not acted on ; for there is a principle of truth in all men, in Roman Catholics as well as in Protestants, which tells them that they are not to act on these to please the priests. And it is upon that I rely — not upon what you call your "Protestant principles ; " as if any one on earth knew what they were ! They merely amount to this — men choosing their own opinions ; which simply comes to men having their own way. If that is not a " Protestant principle " I do not know what is. And there is nothing in that Protestant principle that can stand against the Papacy, simply because in the Papacy there is one fixed prin- ciple — its one aim and end is to bring all other religions under subjection, and it is not any of your Protestant sects that can stand against it. You have nothing to look to but the increase of civilisation, education, and the honourable feelings com- mon to all men. It is to this you have to look, and there is no danger from all the colleges together. These are what they have ever been. But the priests are not what they have been. Look at the oaths taken before the House of Lords at the time of Catholic emancipation. Did they not all say that if the Pope presumed to select a bishop not recommended by them they would not obey him ! Well what have we seen lately ? Why, the Pope appoints whomsoever he pleases. It is a pity the Government will not do what I long ago called upon them to do — that is, to do in office what they talked about when out of office. I know well that it is hopeless to expect public men so to act. But the whole question of the two churches in Ireland must be settled in some way or other ere long. I know not whether it will be by carrying this vote or by some other way. 366 MAYNOOTH COLLEGE. But I believe that though it may be a triumph to carry it, and do away with the Maynooth grant, with that grant will go some- thing else you do not want to go. MAYNOOTH COLLEGE BILL. June 25th, 1856. Bill for the repeal of the grant to Maynooth. The honourable gentleman who spoke last (Mr. Maguire) has connected the maintenance of Maynooth with the existence of the Irish Establishment, and declares that they must both stand or fall together. I entirely concur in this opinion, but I wish to make an observation which honourable gentlemen, and particularly those who are opposed to both of these institutions, are very apt to overlook. You fancy that the Church is an enormous gainer by the temporal support it receives from the State ; but the fact is, that in the union between the two, the State alone gains, and the Church is an incalculable loser. I have said before and I now repeat, that the honourable member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) deserves the thanks of the House for bringing forward this question, which is one that can fitly be considered in this assembly at least once a year. If this be done there is some hope that in the course of time honourable members on both sides of the House will be able to discriminate between the Church and the abuses of a usurping priesthood. I cannot, however, agree in the terms applied by the honourable gentleman to the Church of Rome : first, because I believe that of all the sects we tolerate in this country it is the only one which contains the whole truth ; and next, because it is my firm conviction that advantage is taken of the abuses in the Church of Eome, merely to carry on an attack upon the vital part of every church. The honourable gentleman and the party to which he belongs are doing their best to decry the priesthood. " The sacrifice of the mass " is stigmatised as idolatry, but the reality which those words express is of the very essence of MAYNOOTH COLLEGE. 367 religion; and I will tell the honourable gentleman, moreover, that if he looks for religion anywhere but in a priesthood and in sacraments, he will look in vain for God upon this earth. He may indeed have some vague notion of " A great First Cause, least understood," but he can discern nothing of a tangible religion, or of God in the flesh. On this great truth of a visible priesthood religion has in all ages been based. But the dominion of the priesthood is a usurpation over the common rights of mankind; therefore, I urge the discussion of this question in this House, not for the interSsts of Protestantism, but for the common rights of mankind assailed by priestly usurpation. It is not a question between Protestants and Eoman Catholics in any sense. Wherever the priesthood possess the ascendency mankind are sure to be degraded. It is all very well for honourable gentlemen to talk of their orderly and peaceable conduct in Ireland. Viewing the present condition of Europe, who are at this very moment practising the most outrageous cruelty and persecution ? The Roman Catholic priests everywhere. Who are the abettors of the present political tyranny in Naples ? The Eoman Catholic priesthood. (" No, no ! ") Let the honourable member who says " No " go there and see. How came it that that priesthood got hold of the weak-minded Emperor of Austria, as he lay on his sick-bed, and made him vow to restore to the Church all the power which his wiser father had withheld ? How is it that similar things are going on in Bavaria and in other continental states ? How is it that they have succeeded in putting down liberty of all kinds in Baden ? In our own country also they are insinuating themselves into every union and every gaol, for the sole purpose of creating disorder. At the same time I am unable to go the whole length with either party in this matter. If we are determined to legislate for Great Britain and Ireland on sectarian principles, we are not fit, and never can be fit for our office. We must rise above our sectarian jealousies; we must look at the existing state of things, and remember that we are ruling a mixed people. Honest men are as much bound to respect the prejudices of one sect as of another. But I go further. There is a text in the Bible which teaches Christians that he only is a just and honest man who keeps his promise to 308 MAYNOOTH COLLEGE. his own injury. Well, this country pledged itself to the Irish people at the time of the Union that this grant should be maintained, and as honest men we cannot now depart from our word. I will go as fair as any one in exposing the immorality taught by the Eomish priesthood. I appeal to every Catholic state whether it was Protestants who invented the word "Jesuitical." Was it among Protestants that the sneer against persons who are accused of being Jesuitical had its origin? No such thing. Every Eoman Catholic state in Europe, and every Eoman Catholic statesman has declared that it is impossible to keep the people in subjection if the doctrines of the Jesuits are permitted ; and the followers of Loyola have been everywhere expelled as the common nuisances of society. It is not true that they have been the promoters of religion ; they are organised ■ and banded together in a common rebellion against the Word of Grod. They keep the Scriptures as far as they can from every- body. I want Eoman Catholic gentlemen, not because they are Eoman Catholics, but as men — to tell their priests that, as men, they are superior to the priesthood ; and that since God has given His Word to man, as men they have a right to possess it. But of a certainty the Protestant members are taking up wrong ground. They are trying to fight out the battle in the schools, as they did the other day, and they make these poor wretched children, the catspaw of their antagonism. They insist on the reading of the Bible in the schools — a practice to which it is a point of conscience with the Eoman Catholic parent to object. The reading' of a chapter in the Bible is not teaching religion, especially as it is admitted that no attempt must be made to explain its contents ; and as a mere reading-lesson is all that is intended, it is obvious that the History of Tom, Thumb or of Jack the Giant Killer would do equally as well. But they insist upon the Bible being read. Why ? For no other reason than because they know that, as a point of conscience," the Eoman Catholics object to it. It is not because they wish to teach anything from it. For what do they do now ? The clergyman goes to the school every Sunday morning, and hears the children repeat a few verses out of the New Testament. There is no attempt to explain it ; and they call that teaching religion. Now, this is the way they try to oppose the doctrines of the Eoman Catholic priests. The proper way to combat them would be, not MAYNOOTH COLLEGE. 369 by repealing the Maynooth grant, but by doubling it, so as to improve the system of instruction pursued in the college. It is to the shame of this country that our means of instruction are so poor and feeble. I must confess that I think it would be better, now that the reason for transferring the priests from Douay to this country has ceased, to revert to the former plan. It would be preferable to give a much larger sum to the Roman Catholics, and let them send their priests to Eome or some place out of Ireland, where they would get a far better and more Christian education than that which they now receive. The only useful education consists in teaching men to think and reason for themselves. This, however, the Roman Catholic priests never inculcate. On the contrary, the thing set before them, on Dr. Wiseman's recommendation, as the perfection of the human mind is, that a man should swear that black is white, and white black, if his priest order it. This is no calumny of mine, but the distinct declaration of the recognised leader of the Roman Catholic clergy in this country. The legitimate mode of putting an end to such a system is to increase the means of education. I have the pleasure of knowing many Roman Catholic priests who regard the doctrines of Liguori very much as I do ; but it is perfectly fair to charge those doctrines on the Church of Rome, because Liguori's work has been sanctioned by that Church, which has declared that the author never wrote a word deserving of censure. As to the opinions of Luther, to which reference has been made by the honourable and learned Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Maguire), they carry no authority over Protestants. The House has been warned that the repeal of this grant will rouse the indignation of 6,000,000 of Irishmen. We may not say, that because there is danger in any given course, that danger is under no circumstances to be faced. But it is foolhardiness to shut our eyes and declare that there is none. There is danger in the present proposal ; and those honourable gentlemen who are now candidates for the succession to the treasury benches should remember, that after their vote this day they will stand pledged to the repeal of this grant. VOL. I. b B 370 TEEATY OF PEACE.— May 6th, 1856. On the motion for an address to Her Majesty on the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace. The speech of the right honourable gentleman who last addressed us (Mr. Sidney Herbert) has confirmed the opinion which I entertained even before I heard the debate last night, namely, that it is a great misfortune to have so many im- portant questions mixed up together in a discussion upon the treaty of peace, because we run the risk of slurring over most interesting subjects, and neglecting to give them their due weight and consideration. I must confess that this treaty of peace and its protocols remind me very much of the French Palais d'Industrie. The building in the Champs Elysees was very large, very ornamental, and very useful; but there was attached to it a thing called an " Annexe," which was infinitely larger and contained articles of much greater real value. We have, however, before us two questions, which it is impossible to pass over in silence, because for the first time they bind up English interests with those of the continent, upon more than one point. I shall take, in the first place, the liberty of the press. Immediately after the peace of Amiens, the French Government made an attack upon the liberty of the press in England. We have always considered that the regulation of the press is a matter which concerns ourselves alone, and that no other nation has any business to meddle with it. But according to the words of Count Walewski, it has become, as he says, a European question. Not only does he state the necessity of controlling the liberty of the press in Belgium, but he seems to forget — for he does not mention the fact — that we are bound by treaty to uphold Belgium against all attacks, and therefore we must look with exceeding jealousy on any intended or threatened attack on the liberty of the press of that country. I am not going to enter upon the question of the liberty of the press generally. I do not believe there is a single man in this TREATY OF PEACE. 371 country who would consent to the curtailment by one iota of that liberty. The subject to which I would particularly call your attention is of a different character, and my right honourable friend (Mr. S. Herbert) has just alluded to it ; at least I suppose so, for he expressed himself somewhat darkly when he spoke of " the internal arrangements " of other countries. It is confessed in these protocols that " The tranquillity of the Roman States, and that of the whole of Italy, affects too closely the maintenance of social order in Europe for France not to have an overbearing interest in securing it by all the means in her power. But, on the other hand, it is impossible to over- look the abnormal condition of a power which, in order to maintain itself, requires to be supported by foreign troops." Now, I think, before we talk of teaching the Turk to be tolerant, we may consider the words, " Physician, heal thyself." I think the Turkish papers have challenged us to look back some 500 or 600 years, and see whether the conquered party in Turkey has had reason to complain of the dominant party. It is absolutely necessary for us to enter upon this question, and when my right honourable friend says, " You are too much inclined to interfere," I refer him to the words of the pro- tocol, which affirms that the state of foreign countries is no longer a question the interest of which is confined to them- selves, but is a social question affecting the whole of Europe. It therefore has become a matter to be considered by this House as much as any other social question. I believe that this House is very much in the dark upon what is going on in foreign countries. No doubt, as the honourable and learned member for Tavistock (Mr. E. Phillimore) very truly said of maritime law, the subject is not one to attract much public attention. Most persons, however, are aware that the Emperor of Austria has bound himself and all his people, body and soul, under the power of the Bishop of Eome. (Laughter.) Oh, you think it a joking matter? You had better go and live there. If it is so funny, it is a pity you should not have the benefit of it. I will tell you how it operates. I am about to quote from journals published in Austria, and everybody knows that no journal can publish anything but what is true respecting the priesthood in that country. " At the present moment the bishops are refusing B B 2 372 TREATY OF PEACE. to allow Protestants to be buried in their own private family vaults." As an instance, suppose there was a Bishop of West- minster who should refuse to permit noblemen and gentle- men having vaults in "Westminster Abbey to be buried in them. That is amusing very likely. They are also refusing to bury them anywhere else. They say they shall, like Jews and dogs and cats, be buried at the end of their gardens, or anywhere they please, but in their own consecrated ground they shall not lie. In Bavaria there are many natives of other states, whom the practice of requiring workmen to travel after completing their apprenticeship has induced to settle there. Many of these persons have lately received, through the means of two priests particularly, whose names I will not mention, copies of the scriptures, not given to them by Protestant missionaries, but by Eoman Catholic priests, and according to the Roman Catholic version. These men are all ordered to leave the country on that account. Now as to the Tyrol. From the Augsburg Gazette I find that the Bishops of Trent and Brixen have sent remonstrances to the government against two Protestants being allowed to purchase land in their dioceses, and demanding its forfeiture to the state if they do purchase any. In Tuscany, you must be aware that new laws have lately been decreed for the punishment of crimes against religion. I am not going to enter into the Madiai case ; we all know that— it is a good joke for those who are not in their position. But what was done the other day ? Why, they positively refused to give a man, Lambruschini, because he was a Protestant, a medal awarded to him at the Paris Exhibition. Then we come to France, the head of this movement for toleration. Not long ago the Eoman Catholics of a district in that country demanded a place in the Protestant church in order to erect there a statue of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. The prefect said, " I cannot do that ; there are almost as many Protestants as Eoman Catholics in this place ; it is with difficulty I can keep the peace between them ; if I grant your request it will lead to disturbances with- out end, and moreover, you have ground of your own close by." They remonstrated, he remained firm, but within a week the prefect was deposed. I am not intending to speak of the Maynooth question or of any sectarian quarrels. Now, I ask, how do you propose to remedy this state of things ? Are the TREATY OF FEACE. 373 protocols of which we have heard so much to be mere waste paper ? Are we still to do nothing ? I say our remedy is to retrace our steps. I have always opposed, not reforms, but reforms in the mouths of Whigs and Eadicals, because they never mean reform, which goes back to first principles, but they seek the destruction of every thing that has gone before, and the construction of new and unheard of things. These things I oppose ; but as to reform — the going back to first principles — • that is what I have ever contended for, and I believe that has been utterly inexplicable to most people, who cannot tell what I am at. I will give you an example of what I mean. Make the whole Church go back to first prin- ciples, and put the priesthood under the civil law. The special command to the Eomans was, " Obey the powers that be." I know not when it was that the priesthood first began to usurp the rights of the laity in the election of deacons, but I know that from that moment till this, the cause of nearly every per- secution, every religious war, has been the usurpation of the clergy. I do not confine that remark to any one particular country, but I say that wherever I see that class, there the sprouting out of the same thing is to be found. The soil of Italy is luxu- riant, and there it appears in greater profusion. In Scotland it is more restrained, but it exists there also. Several hundred years ago that soil was very prolific in this respect, and it bore abundant fruit. I confess that, barring climate and some other circumstances qualifying the matter in some degree, I do not see anything much better in what is called the synodical move- ment. I see everywhere the laity treated as ecclesiastical non- entities. It is a fundamental principle of Canon law that no ecclesiastic can be tried by the civil law. That is at the root of all our troubles in Ireland ; it is the secret of all ecclesiastical power ; priests will never submit to the civil power ; they think they are doing a religious act in denying the right to bring them before the courts of law. That is the single point on which I think it necessary to dwell, and will not occupy the time of the House with other parts of the subject now. As to the treaty, that is done, and I never hunt a dead hare. I confine myself, therefore, to what is practicable — the present and the future ; and I do trust that her Majesty's ministers will not think that their work is done, because a paper is printed and laid on the E B 3 374 TREATY OP PEACE. table. I am glad my noble friend at the head of the govern- ment has no place for deer-stalking or grouse-shooting, and therefore, as soon as the House is up, he will be able to give his attention to these matters; and I hope he will insist, in con- junction with the powers with which this country is now united, on putting down ecclesiastical usurpation throughout Europe. You may rely upon it that that usurpation has been the secret of all the corruption in Christendom from the earliest period to the present day. Everything has been thrown upside down ; it has been laity under clergy instead of clergy under laity. You will find it is the principle of the canon law administered in the spirit of the Eoman Catholic Church, as it is the principle of the Koran, to persecute everyone who differs from the ecclesiastics. No government can take from them the conviction that this is their right — it is with them a matter of conscience. All I ask is that you take from them the power of exercising it. 375 PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.— June 10th, 1856. I hate not the presumption to imagine that I can correct public opinion, or to suppose, with the advocates of this motion, that, until the year 1856, men never knew how to govern mankind; but, seeing that in all past ages, and in all countries, the punish- ment of death has prevailed for great offences, it does appear to me to be monstrous presumption in any man, or any body of men, tww to stand up and condemn all who have gone before them. The proposition is for a select committee to inquire into the " operation " of the law imposing the punishment of death. Now, I should have thought the operation of that law was simple enough. What could be its operation, if carried out, but simply death ? That would be its operation, if allowed to operate ; but if people choose to interfere, then it will not act at all. The honourable gentleman (Mr. W. Ewart) has objected to the introduction of the theological argument ; but, neverthe- less, has the hardihood to declare that the punishment of death is contrary to the precepts and practice and spirit of the Grospel. Taken on the religious ground, the sentence is as plain as words can make it : " He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." It is absurd to say that the Eible is the religion of Protestants, when they attempt to set aside plain words that cannot be controverted, and upon which their law should be founded. It may be said that this is a Jewish text — that it is not Christian : but I remember reading of one, eminent in the Christian Church, who struck a man with death for merely telling a lie ; and, so far from repenting of the act, soon after administered the same punishment to that man's wife for a similar offence. What would Exeter Hall say now, if a bishop of the Church were to strike a man dead for such a crime ? But the honourable gentleman calls upon us to abolish the punishment of death on the ground of its uncertainty. Now, what pimishment can be more certain than that of death, I cannot conceive. But I suppose the honourable gentleman means that it is not always with certainty carried into effect, B B 4 376 PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. and, therefore, he proposes to substitute for this punishment of death perpetual imprisonment. But is there any reason for supposing that this will be carried into effect with more cer- tainty than the other ? Those who advocate the abolition of the extreme penalty allege that public opinion is against it — that juries will not convict for murder because the punishment of death will follow. What is this but to encourage juries to perjure themselves ? This is the effect of your glorious teach- ing. The honourable gentleman promises us increased civilisa- tion, and increased intelligence, if we put an end to punishment by death. He says that the science of poison has made such rapid strides that it is now impossible to detect the presence of poison. Is this a reason for giving increased facilities to poisoners ? The honourable gentleman, the member for Shef- field (Mr. Hadfield), has told us that judges sometimes weep while pronouncing sentence of death, and both that honourable gentleman, and the honourable member for Dumfries (Mr. Ewart), call on the House not to subject judges to so disagreeable a task. However, both these honourable members have been supporters of the late war. "Where were their horrors at the duty which the generals engaged in that war had to fulfil? Were they desirous of putting an end to war ? Did they think that our generals and colonels had no feeling when giving orders that doom men to destruction ? Pictures more horrible than anything that can be drawn of public executions may be painted of scenes in every war. I have thought it right, in answer to the motion of the honourable member for Dumfries, to put on the paper a notice of my intention to suggest, that some means should be taken to relieve the Secretary of State from the importunities to which he is subjected from persons, who seek to get reprieves for criminals sentenced to capital punish- ment. Many years ago, when Sir F. Buxton lived, I remember that I scarcely ever met him but he had some scheme in his head to get off some scoundrel or other who had been con- demned to be hanged. In one case, I remember, I asked him, when about to importune the late Sir E. Peel (then Secretary of State) to respite a condemned prisoner, whether he had any doubt of the man's guilt. " Oh, not in the least," was the reply. " Then why interfere ? " I asked. The answer was, " I feel it my duty to endeavour to save the man's life." Now, PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 377 how it could be any man's duty to save a criminal from the punishment due to his crimes, I do not understand. Some time after, I met Sir F. Buxton at Eome, trying to do the same thing with the Pope ; but I doubt whether his efforts with the head of the Eoman Catholic Church, to persuade him that the punish- ment of death was Antichristian, were very successful, and he was probably told to mind his own affairs. When the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Walpole) was Secretary of State for the Home Department, a man committed a murder in my park ; and was convicted and sentenced to death. A number of gentlemen and clergymen got up a memorial to save the man, and asked me to present it to the Home Secretary. I inquired if the judge who had tried the case had been consulted ; the answer was, " Yes, but he approved of the verdict of the jury." I consequently refused, and afterwards my right honourable friend thanked me for having been the means of saving him from most annoying importunities. We may judge of the nature of the importunities to which Home Secretaries are sub- jected. There is at present a petition to which signatures are being obtained, and which is to be presented to my right honourable friend (Sir George Grey). In that petition, those who signed it state that they are not satisfied with a certain trial. How can they be ? They were not the jurors — they were not the judge. How then can they know anything about the matter ? This petition is accompanied by a letter from Mr. Herapath, the chemist, to which I do not attach much impor- tance, for, unless I am greatly misinformed, that gentleman, in one particular case, went to my right honourable friend (Mr. Walpole), when he was Secretary of State, importuning him to stay an execution, assuring him that a certain poison had not been administered, while at that very hour the criminal was confessing that he had used it. I am anxious to relieve the Secretary of State from being subjected to such a pressure. Formerly executions were left in the hands of the sheriffs in the country ; but in London the custom was for the Eecorder to report to the Sovereign the case of every criminal condemned to execution, and take the royal pleasure upon it. That system has since been altered, but I would suggest that some such course should be again adopted ; that the Eecorder should make his report ; that the judge who tried the case, and the Chief 378 PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. Justices of the Queen's Bench and Common Pleas, together with the Lord Chancellor, should be a commission to which the Crown could refer cases in which re-consideration might be deemed necessary, and that they should decide whether there were any grounds for extending the royal mercy. Of course, I do not wish to fetter the prerogative of the Crown. The Crown may make a whole regiment of horse-guards dukes, if it pleases ; it may pardon whom it pleases ; but I do not wish the matter left where it is, without some more effective and better organised machinery, which shall insure the revision of the sentences, if necessary ; and if no sufficient reason for staying the execution of the sentence be shown, then it should be carried into effect. 379 BLEACHING, &c, WOEKS (No. 2) BILL. July 2nd, 1856. A proposed measure for shortening the hours of labour. I think the honourable and learned gentleman (Mr. T. Butt) has had sufficient experience as to following the advice of pretended friends. He never will find anything in this House, unless he forces his bill, except a predominant desire that capital shall succeed at the expense of human life. I will re- mind the honourable and learned gentleman of this, that when the bill was before the House on a previous occasion, I told them it was evident to me that there' was a desire on the part of many members of the House to revert to the slave trade, in order to add to capital. The right honourable baronet (Sir J. Graham) has said that the maximum of wisdom is the minimum of interference. No doubt such is the case as far as money- getting goes, but as far as human life goes, it is exactly the reverse. By the manufacturing system, as at present carried on, the sense of parental affection is almost annihilated, and all for the purpose of getting money. Children are expended as cattle are expended upon a farm. Why, on a recent occasion, did we eat so much American dirt? Simply because a fourth of our exports go to America. In order to keep up this trade we submit to be tricked ; and to keep up the advantages of the bleaching trade, we sacrifice poor children's lives. I would strongly advise the honourable and learned gentleman to per- severe with his bill. Committees and commissions will beat him if he relies on them ; and I will therefore say to him, " Go to a division." I believe that the majority of the members of this House know nothing of the evils that result from the bleaching trade. 380 MAYNOOTH COLLEGE. —February 19th, 1857. The question now under the consideration of the House divides itself into two very distinct aspects. The first is the political aspect. This was a bargain between the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Ireland, and you cannot honestly break it. You may alter it, and may plead in so doing the change of time and circumstances ; but if you do that, the result will be to make the change more advantageous to the other party than to yourselves. I said last year I should certainly prefer this grant being given to the Eoman Catholics that they might send their ministers to be educated abroad, because I believe that would give us a better class of men as priests, and that they would get a better education at Kome than they do in Ireland. That, however, is a question for them to settle, and not for me. But there is another point which it becomes the House to take into consideration. The honourable gentleman (Mr. Spooner) can scarcely conceive that this is a little isolated filching of another man's property. Is he not aware that he is asking the House to begin a new course of policy towards the Irish people, such as we have not pursued for the last sixty years ? Is it possible he can conceive that if he carried this question of the repeal of the grant to Maynooth the thing would be at an end ? If he does not think that, surely he ought to have informed us what are the other results that must inevitably follow, and how he means to meet them. But it seems to me as if the honour- able gentleman were merely a sort of Pennsylvanian adopting a little policy of repudiation. Because he does not like his bar- gain he wants to be off. Why, such conduct as that is only worthy of a ticket-of-leave man. He may remember, for he is fond of quoting texts of Scripture, that there is one which refers to the man who " sweareth to his neighbour and disappointeth him not, though it be to his own hurt." The honourable gen- tleman seems to think that it is his duty to destroy popery in every possible way. Now, popery is like the shield of old, of which we have heard, which had one colour on one side and MAYNOOTH COLLEGE. 381 another on the reverse ; and is, therefore, black or white, as it is looked at from one side or the other. I quite agree with him as to the report which resulted from the recent commission to inqrure into the College of Maynooth ; for certainly the worthy nobleman at the head of that commission proved himself utterly incapable, and utterly ignorant of everything he was com- missioned to inquire into ; and therefore, no sooner had he failed in the first piece of public business he ever had to per- form than they immediately made him a cabinet minister. That was an example of finding out the right man for the right place. Now the honourable gentleman says that the doctrines of the Eomish priests are such as to render it unsafe to tolerate their teaching in this country. I grant everything he says on that subject, and I am not going to recant one word which I have ever said in reference to it. But it is rather cool for Irish members to talk of the persecution of Eoman Catholics in Ireland. In Spain they put to death any man who may presume to differ from them ; and what have we lately read in the papers in reference to what has been done in France ? The Eoman Catholics would persecute again if they could ; and so they will ever do. Do not suppose I am abandoning any of the opinions I have ever held on these points. No such thing. I would not have the people of England imagine either, that there is the smallest change in any of the most abominable claims put for- ward by the Eomish Church. I must say, though, that I was surprised to hear- the honourable gentleman opposite (Mr. Spooner) talk about the difference between ultra-montane and cis-montane opinions. There never was such a thing (" Oh ! ") ; there never was such a difference (a laugh). Gen- tlemen may laugh, but I again repeat that there never was such a thing. It is perfectly true that two or three French bishops did set up for a certain time a claim to what they called an independent Grallican Church, but Eome never tolerated it for a single moment. Then again, the honourable gentleman talked of Jesuits ; but it is perfectly true, as observed by the honour- able and learned member for Dundalk (Mr. Bowyer), that a Jesuit is only a cleverer man than another Papist — there is not a sino-le doctrine advanced by the Jesuits which is not also a doctrine of the Eomish Church. All the harm I wish the honour- able gentleman is, that he may read and study the books of his 382 MAYNOOTH COLLEGE. own Church ; I never met with a Roman Catholic gentleman who, when shown these works, was not horrified at the doctrines they contain. An honourable gentleman talks about superstition. Is it possible that he knows so little of what is going on through- out the world as to believe that the tendency of men's minds at the present moment is towards superstition ? The thing which is carrying away the Church and Protestantism and everything else is your German rationalistic neology. Do you attempt to raise a cry against those foolish Puseyites ? Why it is you yourselves who are emasculating the Church of England. You have deprived her of every essential characteristic of a Church, and those essential characteristics are now found in this country in the Church of Eome alone. Yes, I say, you have denied, and are denying more strongly every day, the essential characteristic of a Church, which is the presence of Grod in its priesthood and in its sacraments. I know no Church recognised by you but the Eomish Church, which does stand as a witness, a faithful witness, before Grod as to these truths ; and I would do anything rather than let that Church go down. 383 TEANSPOKTATION AND PENAL SEEVITUDE BILL. May 11th, 1857. On the motion for the second reading of the Bill. When I consider how many of the members of this House belong to clubs where they can have access to some map of the world — that on Mercator's projection will probably be the best for the purpose— I cannot conceive the difficulty of their finding at least a hundred places to which convicts might be sent. The ticket-of-leave system has done some good ; it has frightened a few old ladies, but it has startled a number of gentlemen into em- ploying their common sense to consider what has been going on year after year with regard to the treatment of criminals. My honourable and learned friend beside me (Mr. Boebuck) has truly said that the number of these bills which have been brought in year after year by right honourable gentlemen is a satire upon the philosophy of each preceding bill, and of those who have produced them. We have a settlement to which we used to send our convicts, but it was grossly mismanaged ; in- stead, however, of amending that management, we have come to the absurd conclusion of giving up the system altogether. From that day to the present we have been going on with all sorts of schemes, confounding things totally dissimilar, talking about the reformation of criminals, when our object ought to have been the protection of society. The House of Commons has nothing whatever to do with the reformation of criminals, which, like many other secondary matters, should be regarded as of a nature entirely collateral and subsidiary ; as one of those social improvements in short which, if it takes place, so much the better, but whether it does or not, is a point with which it is not the business of statesmen to deal. The Government of a country transports people because it must protect society at home. It hangs people for the same reason, save when our pity is so great that it teaches jurymen to perjure themselves by declaring men to be innocent whom they know to be guilty. 384 TRANSPORTATION AND PENAL SERVITUDE BILL. All that now remains to us is to carry out the system of trans- portation to a greater extent than has been the case for some years past. There is no difficulty about finding a place to which to send our convicts. As to the question whether they are to have more or less punishment in one place than in another, that is a matter of detail which it is unnecessary to discuss on the second reading of the bill, as it may be considered in committee. In conclusion I must express my surprise that any practical man can suppose that profitable labour can result from the employment of convicts in this country, and my hope that the bill will be allowed to pass through its present stages. May 22nd, 1857. On the motion for the third reading of this Bill. There is one subject in connection with this bill which has not yet been brought under the notice of the House, although it is of some importance. No doubt many honourable members are aware that the rules and regulations in the different county gaols are all different one from the other, although they have received the approbation of the Judges of Assize. The effect of this is to leave with the judges the power of apportioning the punishment of offenders, and of sentencing them to confinement in one gaol or another, according as they think fit. But then your humanitarians come in : they say this is "an anomaly," and insist that all gaols shall be conducted on precisely the same footing, and that all the regulations shall be the same. Now by this bill you are giving the judges no discretion to send prisoners to a place where the punishment will be peculiarly severe or otherwise ; the judges have simply power to sentence, not to what in the second clause is called trans- portation, but to what in the third clause is described as con- veyance beyond the seas. No doubt there is a difference between these two expressions which I cannot discern. See, then, where the burden lies. It is thrown back upon the Home TRANSPORTATION AND PENAL SERVITUDE BILL. 885 Department. If the power of determining the kind of punish- ment is to be vested in any individual in the world, there is no one to whom I should make so few objections as to my right honourable friend (Sir Greo. Grrey). But Secretaries of State resemble ordinary men ; they must eat, drink, and sleep like other people ; and how is it possible they should rightly appor- tion the punishment of criminals ? They can but go through, most inefficiently with the help of written documents, the facts which have been elicited far more satisfactorily before the judges by oral evidence. What is the necessary consequence? The right honourable gentleman cannot discharge such a labour. It will devolve then upon an official under him, upon whom will rest the apportionment of all those gradations of punishment, which under the present system are left to the judges. You are now about to re-enact in a most clumsy and inefficient manner the system which existed prior to this, and which was abolished forty years ago. Such a measure is a very unsatisfactory one. Still I shall not oppose the government. If they like to pass a bad bill, it is their business. vol. i. c c 386 OBSERVATIONS ON THE PEESTON UNION. May 12, 1857. I trust that the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Bouverie, President of the Poor Law Board)! will not be intimidated by the cry raised against him throughout the country by these boards of guardians. If the law requires amendment at all, it is in order to put more power into the hands of the Poor Law Board. As to the ex officio guardians, it is perfectly right that they should not attend at the transaction of the ordinary business, which is far better left in the hands of the elective guardians. But on special occasions it is the duty of the ex officio guardians to see that something else is thought of besides the interest of the ratepayers. That interest alone is too generally considered, just as in the case of the Scotch lunatics : it is what will save most money to the ratepayers, and what is most economical, that guides the guardians, not what is most beneficial to the poor. The same principle regulates the allowances made to the doctors, which are reduced to so low a sum, that it is utterly impossible for those gentlemen to attend properly to the duties of their position upon such terms : and everybody accustomed to attend these boards must have noticed that when physic is prescribed for a sick man in the workhouse, the guardians have no objection to it, but when wine or other nourishment is ordered they usually oppose it. The conduct of the Poor Law guardians is in many instances abominable. What would have been the condition of the poor in Marylebone and other parishes if it had not been for the exertions of the Poor Law Board ? I trust that if the right honourable gentleman thinks he has not sufficient power he will appeal to the House for more. Honour- able members behind me are fond of reform : they are fond of universal suffrage. Well then let them take it now. Let the poor in future elect the guardians, and not the ratepayers. 387 OATHS BILL (IN COMMITTEE).— June 15, 1857. In committee on the Oaths Bill, Mr. Deasy moved, as an amendment, that the Bill should enable Eoman Catholics to take the same oath as the Protestants, omitting the words peculiarly applicable to the former. I am disposed to pay more deference to the sentiments of the noble lord who has just sat down (Lord Palmerston) than to those of any other honourable member in the House ; but I must confess that I am somewhat astonished that the noble lord should reproach the Eoman Catholic members, by saying that this is not the fit time for bringing forward the question to which the honourable and learned gentleman (Mr. Deasy) has called the attention of the House. When the noble lord is stirring up the whole question of oaths, and authoritatively declaring that the great object is to have one oath for all, I cannot understand why he should think that this is not the time for the good sense or sound judgment of the Eoman Catholic members to display itself in bringing forward this question. Does the noble lord mean to say that it would be possible for them to bring forward the question at all, unless he had stirred up the subject of oaths himself? It seems to me that if they let this opportunity slip they will lose the only one they are likely to have. I shall endeavour to imitate the admirable judgment of the honourable and learned member (Mr. Deasy) as well as the tone and manner in which he has brought forward the question. Still I hope honourable members will allow me to tell them a few truths. I am addressing myself especially to those honourable gentlemen from the north who feel more warmly than wisely, I think, on this subject. I believe that there is no person in this House who does not put faith in the word and promise of any Eoman Catholic gentleman just as freely as in the word of any Protestant ; but the members of this House are not making an oath merely for honourable gentlemen whom they know and like. They are making an c c 2 388 OATHS BILL. oath for a class which may come hereafter, and the real difficulty of the question is here ; for " another king may arise who knows not Joseph," and under him may occur the necessity for very different oaths and opinions. But what does the present oath amount to if the Eoman Catholic entertains a mental reservation when he takes it ? If it were contended that in consequence of this mental reservation Eoman Catholics are not to be trusted, then we should in consistency get rid of all oaths imposed on the Eoman Catholics ; but we know in point of fact, that, not- withstanding the teaching of priests throughout Europe, there is a moral force somewhere or other which sets that teaching of the priests at defiance, and that the Eoman Catholic members are as much to be trusted as the Protestant. Then why not, as Sir Eobert Peel said, try the effects of confidence? There is a part of the oath to which I have as strong objections as thehonour- able and learned member. I have strong objections to the House presuming to limit anything under the name of "spiritual." You have power over what is " temporal and civil," but over what is " spiritual " you have no control. What the House has to do with is the assumption of spiritual power by the priests : and I believe the Eoman Catholic gentlemen of England and Ireland will be as strongly opposed to that assumption of power as the Protestants, and that none of them will submit to such assump- tion. The Eoman Catholic laity must stand up and teach these priests their true place, — teach them that they have no rights whatever beyond those which the laity possess, whatever may be their privileges. I think the proposed amendment ought to be agreed to, and I think the time has come when an end should be put to the distinction of oaths now existing, the first minister of the Crown having himself forced the question upon the attention of the House. OATHS BILL.— June 25th, 1857. 4 Third Reading. I AM so sensible of the deference that ought to be paid to the decided opinion of this assembly, that I feel an apology to be due for offering, at the last stage of this extraordinary Bill, my OATHS BILL. 380 utmost opposition to it. I do not think there ever was a Bill attended by more extraordinary circumstances ; for whilst it is a Bill which has no other object than that of admitting Baron Rothschild to a seat in this House, it contains not a single word respecting, nor the most distant allusion to, the Jews. I do not know what meaning the House may extract from the Bill, but in itself there is no proposition of the sort. Two collateral issues have been raised in the course of the discussion on the Bill, one of which is the respect due to the expression of opinion by the citizens of London, to which, however, I confess that I pay no respect at all ; because, in the first instance, this Jew was re- turned as an intentional insult to this House and to Christianity. Whether I am right or wrong in this opinion, I assert that it is not a motive which should influence the decision of the House. The other collateral issue which has been raised is the personal character of the individual concerned. I have not the honour of his acquaintance, but I have received many acts of kindness from members of his family in various parts of Europe, and should be most happy to requite the favours received, by doing any service in my power to him. I do not think, however, that this is a reason why I should give my vote for the present Bill. I differ, also, from those who oppose the third reading of the Bill on the ground that it will unchristianise this House, because I do not think that any such Bill would have been brought in or entertained had not the House been unchris- tianised already. This expression, no doubt, requires explana- tion. I oppose the Bill as an effect and not a cause. You have by your liberalism completely obliterated all the essential prin- ciples which have hitherto guided this country in ecclesiastical and political matters. I will only take the case referred to by the honourable gentleman behind me (Mr. Kinglake). When the amendment was introduced by the honourable and learned gentleman opposite, he very properly said, " If you want a re- ligious test, why not appeal to your bishops in the other House ? What is the use of having bishops in the legislature, if it be not to give you right directions on Christian principles ? Why do you not appeal to them ? " The answer to that is, that if they were appealed to they would be sure to have six on one side and six on the other. The whole system of ecclesiastical authority is come to an end ; so much so, indeed, that there are even dif- c c 3 390 OATHS BILL. ferences of episcopal opinion with regard to the validity of the sacraments upon which the Church rests. What else do we see ? Whilst the enormous Cathedral of St. Paul's is empty, and the Abbey at Westminster is empty, some bishops are conducting worship in an unconsecrated concert-room, who afterwards have the impudence to go down to the country and fight with dis- senters about consecrated and unconsecrated burial grounds. Why, this very night, a notice of motion has been given for the issue of a commission to inquire respecting the adaptation of the Liturgy to present circumstances — as if the rites of God's worship changed with every variation of man's fancies. I know nothing equal to that, except what was put into my hand yesterday by a gentleman, and that was a prayer in verse, addressed to our Lord, begging Him to intercede for the Devil. Can liberalism go beyond that ? That I suppose is tearing off the last rag of intolerance. Would to God that we were as true to our faith as the Jews are to theirs ; but we have ceased to know, and ceased to believe that " there is but one Name given under heaven whereby any man can be saved." With respect to the present bill I would do by the Jews pre- cisely what they would do by me ; and again I say I wish that we who " profess and call ourselves Christians," were as true to our faith as the Jews are to theirs. They have faith in the destiny of their nation. They believe that they shall yet have the fulfilment of all the promises that have been made to them. They believe that they shall yet trample the nations like ashes under their feet, and that not one jot or tittle of all that has been pro- mised to them shall fail till all be fulfilled. They know full well that the circumcised cannot mingle with the baptized. They would not admit one of the baptized into their Sanhedrim. Neither ought we, in my opinion, to admit one of the circum- cised into our Sanhedrim. The baptized could not rise till the circumcised fell. And now, mark ! mark the historical fact ! The Founder of our religion was a Jew, a circumcised Jew. He had the same attachment to His land and to His people that we have to our country. He " lived by faith," it is said, and He watched the " signs of the times," in order to be instructed by them. There came one day to a follower of His, a certain heathen, who said he wanted to speak to his Master. The follower, astonished, went and told another follower, and they two went OATHS BILL. 391 to the Saviour. What did He say ? Did He say, as on every other occasion, What does this man want? How can I serve him ? Is he sick ? I will heal him ! Is he hungry ? I will feed him ! Send him to me and in some way I will bless him ! No ! He took no notice of them. But He said, " Father, the hour is come ! " What was that hour ? The hour when the circumcised were to be cast off — nation, temple, worship, and all : and when He Himself as a Jew was also to be put to death. If, then, the circumcised are to be admitted into that Government which is the purest - — and by purest I mean the most in accordance with the mind and purpose, and rule of God — which has ever been established on the earth, then I would say, Take heed ; look about you ; for the Jews are going to arise, and I will not venture to prophesy what is about to happen to us. c c 4 392 SCIENTIFIC AND LITER AEY SOCIETIES BILL. June 25th, 1857. I AM Surprised to hear the E&aeurable Member for Dumfries (Mr. W. Ewart) repeat the fallacy, lorJg ago exploded, that there is any necessary connection between pauperism and the want of education. Why, did any one ever hear that a man's stomach was filled by reading a page of Homer or of Virgil ? Education has nothing whatever to do with pauperism. A man does not starve because he is uneducated, but because he has nothing to eat. Let the committee observe the extent to which they are going. There is not a single parish in the country that has not at least one, if not four or five places of education, and by this bill all those parish schools are to be exempt from the payment of rates. Then, again, the house of the schoolmaster is to be exempt. If his house is not to be exempt you must increase his pay. I contend that this is a most foolish measure, and that the insti- tutions which have produced the greatest amount of public benefit, such, for example, as the Royal Agricultural Society, the British Institution, the Society of Arts, and the Society of Painters in Water-colours, are precisely those which have never received one farthing of the public money. I believe that in this, as in many other cases, the more there is paid, the less is there obtained. 393, MOTION FOE A SELECT COMMITTEE OF INQUIEY ON METKOPOLITAN WOEKHOUSES. — June 25th, 1857. I think the statement made to the House by the President of the Poor Law Board (Mr. Bouverie) makes the case for inquiry much stronger than it was before. The right honourable gen- tleman states that he is empowered by Parliament to investi- gate alleged abuses. If he has that abundant power, why does he not exercise it ? I agree with the honourable gentleman who has just sat down, that the poor in the metropolis, in con- sequence of their isolation, are much worse treated than those in the country. There is one question I should like to ask ; how, if the right honourable gentleman has such full power in his hands, came he to suffer the flogging of women in the Maryle- bone Workhouse ? Not many years ago Barclay and Perkins's draymen took it into their heads to insult and maltreat General Haynau, when he came to London, for flogging women — a thing by the way which he never did. No one, however, could expect fhe draymen of Barclay and Perkins to be very conver- sant with foreign politics. But there, in the Marylebone work- house, women were flogged. Besides, when the Poor Law Board proposed to institute inquiry into the matter, that inquiry was resisted by most of the Poor Law guardians in the parish, and they were backed by the clergyman of the parish, who has since been made a Bishop. Now it is perfectly clear that the poor in these London Unions are most shamefully treated. I do not choose to go into any details — I am, however, conversant with the treatment of pauper lunatics. In the rural districts the country gentlemen try to get these poor lunatics into proper asylums, because they know that there the unfortunate creatures will be kindly and skilfully treated by persons who really devote themselves to the care of such people. In the country asylums, too, the condition of the lunatics is inquired into by the county magistrates periodically ; but here, in the metropolis, there is no one who knows anything about such matters, and the result is 394 METROPOLITAN WORKHOUSES. that the poor lunatics are most cruelly treated; they are huddled together in the most wretched manner, and have no one to look after them who understands the nature of their ailments. Is this state of things, I ask, to be allowed to go on under our very noses, and are we not to interfere ? I do not know how the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Bouverie) exercises his power. The right honourable gentleman, it may be frOm modesty on his part, has not enlightened the House on this point : but I do not care in whom the power is vested ; what I want is, to see these poor people protected, and if I cannot get that done through the intervention of the Poor Law Board, I will support the motion for a committee of inquiry. 395 MAYO WRIT. — July 28th, 1857. The last election for the County of Mayo having been declared void, motion was made for the issue of a new writ. An amendment was thereupon proposed for the prosecution of two priests, against whom evidence had been brought that they had unduly interfered in the late election. I mean to vote for the issue of the writ for the county of Mayo, but I shall be sorry to do so for the reasons whicji have been submitted to the House by the honourable member for Dungar- van (Mr. Maguire). That honourable member indeed, appears to be so strongly imbued with the spirit of the evidence which has been laid before the committee by Dr. M'Hale, that he is evidently quite as ready to evade the real question at issue as that right reverend prelate has been to shuffle out of the questions which have been put to him. The honourable gentle- man has read an extract from a manifesto of Dr. M'Hale, which is not that which is most material as evidence against him, and has observed that the denunciations of the priests have been directed, not against persons who might vote for Colonel Higgins, but against those who in consequence of not attending mass on Sundays, are deemed to have committed a mortal sin. (Mr. Maguire, " Hear, hear ! ") The honourable gentleman may cry " hear, hear," but he has cleverly evaded all reference to the evidence of those parties who have themselves stated that they have been denounced for reasons connected with the election. The blue book, which few honourable gentlemen, probably have perused, but which, unfortunately, I have read, shows that the priests have systematically denounced, in the most solemn and awful terms, all persons who did not vote for their candidate. There is no question about this, and I should like to see the form of indictment for spiritual intimidation. I told the House thirty years ago what would occur ; and you are now reaping the fruits of your legislation. Just as is the case in Austria and in Spain, the priests are dominant, and the poor degraded people suffer. There you have it — make the best of it. 396 DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL. July 30th, 1857. I so far agree with my honourable friend who has just sat down (Sir William Heathcote), that I think there is one consolatory phase to this subject. It is that we can approach it without reference to any party feelings— that it is a question which equally interests every class and every denomination, and which is exclusively*social and domestic in its bearings and relations. But this bill seems to me to do badly, or rather not at all, what it professes to do ; and attempts to do what it cannot, and has no right to do. In the first place, it pretends to give relief to the poorer classes. It is said that divorce, under the present system, is a luxury attainable only by the rich ; and, therefore, to re- lieve the poor, the bill goes on to provide you with another Court of Chancery. I have yet to learn how one Court of Chancery will be very much cheaper than another ; and I am not to be led away by the name which your new tribunal is to assume. In the next place, I do not see a provision for that upon which I hope we shall take care to insist — I mean a per- fect equality between the man and the woman in this matter. No, you are to continue the same tyranny of the male over the helpless female which now exists. There is no mitigation of it, as respects the weaker and more dependent sex, in this piece of legislation. I would draw attention to what the honourable and learned Attorney- General called "the historical deduction of marriage." But the honourable and learned gentleman's his- torical deduction went back no _ farther than the time of the Reformation. Now, I humbly opine there were many men and women married in this world before the Reformation. To trace marriage from its root, we must revert to its first principle. When the honourable and learned Attorney-General quoted the passage of scripture, which declares that at the beginning no divorce was contemplated, he made a very remarkable omission, I know not why, though no doubt he had his reason for it. He DIVOECE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL. 397 left out the words — "therefore, what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." That was the original idea, of mar- riage. That is God's law — God's way of regarding this relation- ship. It is very true, that at the time when our Lord was upon earth, divorces and separations had become very common. There is no doubt that in this, as in every other instance, man had departed from the rule laid down by his Creator. But God does not change, although man does. I am sure", every man who has read the Old Testament will confirm what I say, when I state that, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Malachi, marriage is assumed to be indissoluble. The whole ground-work of the expostulations of the prophets to the rebellious nation rests on this foundation. The day of the choosing of the Jews to be a separate people from the rest of mankind is called "the day of their espousals." When the first of the prophets expostulates with the favoured nation, for having totally abandoned the worship of the true God, he says, " Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away ? " Going on through the whole line of the prophets, the same principle is continually recurring ; and when you come to the last, it is said again, " Let none deal trea- cherously against the wife of his youth, for the Lord God, the God of Israel, hateth putting away." I say that you cannot understand the exhortations of the prophets, from one end of their writings to the other, unless you bear that argument in mind. I now come to the period of the introduction of Christianity. I am aware that you view with distrust the notion of tradition, and I think you are right, because you know What monstrous things have been built on that very pre- carious foundation. Nevertheless, wise men can separate the precious from the vile in everything, and tradition is in eccle- siastical what the common law is in civil matters. It is from the lex non scrvpta that you learn the real habits, prac- tices, and sentiments of a people long before these were ever embodied in their statute law. Christianity was first established in the east, and the Greek Church is the only church recognised in the Scriptures. The Church is ad- dressed in Scripture in Greek. The Greek Church held, from its earliest foundation, what it called seven Mvarrjpia, and it was followed by the Roman Church, which, separating from 398 DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL. the Greek Church, called these Mvarypia, sacramenta. I am not going to enter into any theological or metaphysical discussion as to what these Mvarrjpia, or sacramenta were. I am content to take the very lowest explanation, which will be sufficient for my argument; but I may observe that two Greek fathers, defining the word Mvffrrjpiov in their Writings, give the precise definition of a sacrament which is found in the Catechism — an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual reality. Now, I take it, that whoever comes under one of these Mvarrjpia has an indelible character conferred upon him. Take the case of baptism. A baptized man may, very possibly, in after life, be rather alarmed at the great responsibility which that rite involves, and may be tempted to say, " I wish I were a Jew ; I wish I had not incurred this responsibility ; " but he must be judged as a baptized man. Again, take the case of orders. I know a clergyman who in after life became very rich. He wrote to his bishop and said, " I don't mean to be a clergyman any longer ; I am not a clergyman ; I mean to be called ' squire.' " The answer was, " You cannot rescind your consecration ; as a priest you must stand or fall." Tbe same is the case with regard to marriage. You cannot be judged as a bachelor having once been married. You are judged as one responsible for the care of her to whom you have been united. Eemembering these difficulties, the disciples said to our Lord, " If such be the case, it is better not to marry." He replied, that there were many persons to whom this was not applicable, but if any chose to incur the responsibility, they could not shake it off. When our Lord sent away the woman taken in adultery, what did He say? " Neither do I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more." Eemember that the oath taken in marriage is the most solemn that can be taken, except that in the consecration of a sovereign or in the ordination of a priest. It is taken at the altar, as scarcely any other oath is. Do you think, after taking such an oath, whereby you swear to protect a woman until death does you part, that you can qualify that oath by saying, " until the House of Lords shall us part," or " until an act of parliament shall us part ? " I object to the language of the clergy on this point, that they must obey an act of parliament, even though it were against their consciences. Are their consciences so easy that if you put a clause into an act of parliament they will do what their consciences tell them is DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL. 399 wrong ? If so, give them no redress whatever. We have heard reasons urged against pardoning a woman who has committed adultery ; but in the good old times that was not the feeling. You have still on the statute book a remarkable Act of the 13th of Edward I., from which I will read a few lines. (Mr. Drummond read an extract from the statute, to the effect that if a wife willingly left her husband, and went away, and continued with her lover, she should be barred of action to demand her dower ; but that if her husband willingly, and with- out coercion of the Church, was reconciled to her and suffered her to dwell with him, in such case she should be restored to her action.) Here is a view you have never contemplated; and the evil of the bill before us is, that you are going to establish, as a normal condition of the land, what has hitherto been effected only by exceptional legislation, procured at times — and I speak in the presence of those who know the truth of what I say — by wealth, and power, and rank, when the same remedy would have been refused to poorer men. How came such a state of things to exist ? As many other evils have arisen : from the avarice of the priests. When they were asked whether marriages could not be set aside, they invented the doctrine of dispensations, and so you have incestuous marriages all over Europe. I have shown you that marriage is a sacrament, not by virtue of the Christian Church, but because it was prior to the existence of the Church. No ceremony for marriage existed in the Church until the time of Charlemagne, who, in 780, ordained that no marriage should be valid in the empire unless it was performed in the presence of a priest ; and there was no marriage service in the Christian Church until the days of Hildebrand, 300 years subsequently. It is remarkable how in all times — by the He- brews, the Latins, and the Greeks — the same form was kept up. The man went to the house of the woman, and demanded her in marriage. He took her away. Hence he was said ducere uxorem; whereas she was said nubere, and was described as nwpta — a term never applied to the man ; and to this day there is in the Catholic Church a ceremony termed the nuptial bene- diction, that is, the bestowal of a blessing upon a thing already existing. The abuses of the clergy with regard to this matter at length became so great that they could no longer be borne. The kings rose, the nobles rose, the people rose. The priests 400 DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL. party murdered all who opposed them in Spain and Italy, but in France, in Germany, and in this country the remonstrants succeeded ; and what did they do ? No sooner had they put down the usurpation of the priests, than they themselves usurped that ecclesiastical authority which the priests had exercised, and then came in what you call your Protestant doctrine of divorce. Yes, it is a Protestant doctrine ! Do you think that by an act of parliament you can do what you like ? Everyone, in the insolence of absolute authority, has thought he could do so. His Holiness of Eome, who thinks himself infallible, declared that the earth does not move round the sun. (Mr. Bowyer : " No, no ! ") Well, if the honourable gentleman will only read the preface to the Jesuits' Newton, and see how the editors apolo- gised to the Pope for the doctrines of the " Principia," he will find reason to retract his denial. Why it is notorious. There was another great authority — a popular assembly — which, when the people had their way, decreed that death was an eternal sleep ; but, nevertheless, in spite of that decree, every man shall rise again, and receive in the body according to the things done in the body, whether they be good or bad. You may, in your pride, decree the dissolution of marriage, but woe to those who put confidence in your decision and reject the universal testi- mony of Scripture, from the first chapter of Genesis down to the, last in Eevelations. 401 VOTE OF THANKS TO THE AEMY AND NAVY IN INDIA.— February 8th, 1858. The noble lord (Lord C. Hamilton) professes to be actuated by a great desire to do justice to Lord Canning, and the mode by which he shows that such really is his wish, is by asking us, when about to pass a vote of thanks to the Indian Government and its agents, civil, military, and naval, for great, Unexpected, and extraordinary successes, to leave out the name of Lord Canning, and to give thanks to everybody else but him. Such is the justice to Lord Canning which the noble lord recommends. Now, if it were indeed true, as the right honourable gentleman opposite, the member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), said, that we were asked to give a vote of approbation of all Lord Canning's conduct from the time when he became Governor- General of India, I confess the right honourable gentleman's deduction could not be easily denied, — namely, that we have been entrapped into that vote. But no such thing is intended ; nor is it in the words of the motion. The motion is simply confined to the question in hand, — the conduct of the naval and military commanders, guided as they have been by the civil administration, in suppressing the most formidable mutiny which ever broke out in any country in the world. Now, the right honourable gentleman says, that among the things for which Lord Canning is to be blamed is that he did not foresee this mutiny. Why, if he had, he certainly would have been the most extraordinary man in the world. How was it possible for Lord Canning to know anything of a country of which previous to entering it he was ignorant, except by the information which he could obtain from persons who had lived there for years ? If he had asked the Indian Directors in this country, who had lived in India, whether they expected a mutiny in India, they would have laughed in his face. Have we not been reminded VOL. i. d d 402 VOTK OP THANKS TO ARMY AND NAYT IN INDIA. to-night of the melancholy truth, that so completely did the European officers repose on the fidelity of their regiments, that they answered for that fidelity with their lives ? How could Lord Canning possibly anticipate in any way this mutiny? It is somewhat curious to observe the difference in the countenances of people in this House before and after dinner. You may sometimes judge by their little mild cheer and their little mild sneer what is passing in their minds. When the noble lord at the head of the Government spoke with approbation of Lord Elgin sending his troops from China, of Sir George Grey sending troops from the Cape of Good Hope, and Sir Henry Ward sending troops from Ceylon, there was great cheering for those acts, but not a single cheer for the man who sent for these troops, for the man who induced all these gentlemen to take these bold steps. Why, it was Lord Canning solely that did so. The noble lord opposite (Lord C. Hamilton) thinks it very unfair to speak with disrespect of Calcutta information. Now I am one of those who never will believe anything I see in the Indian press. I believe that when you go to the bottom of the question you will find that the press, which Lord William Bentinck so foolishly gave to the Indian people, has been the main cause of this mutiny. Charges are made in the Calcutta newspapers ; and it is to the English newspapers, to whose columns these falsehoods are transferred, that the honourable gentlemen in this House, who have to-night attacked Lord Canning's character, have looked for information about Indian affairs. An attack was made in one of the Calcutta papers upon Lord Canning for not having performed some act of severity which they recom- mended. In a few days, or a week afterwards, another paragraph appeared in that same paper, praising Lord Canning for having done some act of severity which they had recommended, and we were told that the three men, whom they had pointed out to the Governor-General as deserving of punishment, had just been executed in such and such a square. — All a lie ! Pure falsehood from beginning to end ! I at least shall never believe a Calcutta paper. This debate has been entirely confined to Lord Canning's conduct with regard to the mutiny. Lord Canning has also been the victim of anonymous writers in English newspapers. It is frpm these that honourable gentle- VOTE OF THANKS TO ARMY AND NAVY IN INDIA. 403 men have taken their information. I have spoken of those English papers before, and I will speak of them again, but not anonymously. You shall hear of them with the names of the writers, and if you, who talk about superstition in India, will put your heads underneath a Juggernaut car in England, you must abide by the consequences. D D 2 404 JOINT-STOCK BANK COMPANIES. February 11th, 1858. On the motion for leave to bring in a Bill to enable Joint-Stock Banking Companies to be formed on the principle of limited liability. I will not now enter into the merits or demerits of this measure, but as I generally hear expressions far more loose upon the subject of currency than upon any other question, I wish to put the House on its guard against several propositions which have been advanced during the debate. The honourable and learned member for Newcastle (Mr. Headlam) has reminded the House, that for a long period panics have occurred every nine or ten years. Now, I recollect the first of those great dis- cussions which took place in the year 1810, and I cannot forget that at that time it was distinctly proved that the distress had been brought about by the over-issue of paper by the Bank of England. The Bank of England has not over-issued since that time. The recent distress. has been produced by the over-issue of bills, which is as completely an over-issue of paper, and tends as completely to produce speculation, as any other issue. The joint-stock bank, with limited liability, is simply this : — A hundred gentlemen put in so much money, and then begin to issue bills, having no basis whatever, having no business what- ever. They do not manufacture anything; nor are they merchants employed in transferring a manufacture from one place to another. They are manufacturers of paper money; they are the flyers of kites on a large scale ; and that is the whole of their business. They set up to obtain credit upon this new principle ; to find out a great number of persons who are gudgeons enough to trust them. Honourable gentlemen are not perhaps aware that an increase of paper-money defrauds all the labourers in the country ; the only thing thought of at such times is, what effect will be produced in the city, and how many merchants and manufacturers will break. The other day when JOINT-STOCK BANKING COMPANIES. 405 the Bank was authorised to issue paper money for the relief of certain gentlemen in the city, the effect was to raise taxes without the consent of Parliament, and make the labouring classes pay for that with which they have nothing to do. So far from thinking it a righteous thing for gentlemen to lend their names to banking establishments, without making themselves respon- sible, I hold it to be a most dishonest fraud. What was the case with respect to the Glasgow Bank ? The Glasgow merchants got out of it, and at whose expense ? Why, at the expense of the labourers of Scotland. I only throw out these matters for consideration, and I rejoice that as, in 1810, there was a Eicardo to instil sound principles into the minds of the people, there is now an Overstone who will inculcate the same principles with equal, if not greater, clearness. May 13th, 1858. On the motion for the second reading of the same Bill. I fully concur in the observations of the honourable gentleman (Mr. Finlay) who has just sat down, and I will illustrate them by saying that, if my honourable friend opposite and myself individually ran into debt, we should be obliged to pay our debts ; but the effect of this bill will be, that if we were to go into partnership, we should not in that case be obliged to pay our joint debts. I wish to call the attention of the House to the deception which is practised by a class of banks called banks of deposit. I hold in my hand several advertisements emanating from those establishments, promising to pay a high rate of interest on deposits, 6 or 7 per cent, at the same time giving ample security. Now, the effect of this must be enor- mously to increase the trade in paper. We used to have panics every ten years ; now we have them every six or seven. There is no way in which the high interest on deposits, to which I have referred, can be paid, but by " flying kites." And this bill is nothing but a measure for establishing unlimited paper circu- lation. D D 3 406 CHURCH-RATE ABOLITION BILL.— February 17th 1858. The honourable gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. Ball) has talked of those who are attached to ecclesiastical establish- ments uniting with those who are in favour of the voluntary system ; but how is it possible for men, influenced by two such antagonistic principles, to unite ? You must have either the one or the other. An attempt to combine them would be like trying to make a good fire by heaping on logs of ice. The honourable gentleman behind me (Sir A. Elton) said he would very gladly support the second reading of the bill, because, although he does not entirely approve of it, it is in such a shape as to permit of its being amended in committee to his taste ; but, unfortunately there is no room for amendment in committee. The bill consists simply of one little clause of a line and a half, which says that church rates shall be abolished. (Sir J. Trelawny : " No, no ! read the bill.") I will read it. First, there is clause 1, which is in these words ; " From and after the passing of this Act, no church rate shall be made. or levied in any parish in England or Wales." (Sir J. Trelawny : " Go on ! ") Go on ! Why, the second clause has nothing at all to do with the matter. It merely provides that, where church rates have been already mortgaged, the mortgagees shall not be cheated; that is all. The House should remember that this is the only rate levied in this country to which people are permitted to make any objection. With respect to poor rates, police rates, paving rates, lighting rates, gaol rates, lunatic asylum rates, the ratepayers have nothing to do but pay them. They have no choice in the matter. If the magistrates, or others charged with making these rates, do not make them, they can be compelled to do so. That is the way in which every other rate in the country is levied ; and it is incumbent on those who oppose church rates, to show in what way the church rate differs from every other. I suppose you will tell me that the decision of the House of Lords in the Braintree case determines that they are different. I do not CHURCH-RATE ABOLITION BILL. 407 believe that the history of England can produce a decision more scandalous, more contrary to all law and equity, than the decision in that case. That case, I regret to say, will accomplish the ruin of the Established Church. It would have been some- what more manly in the opponents of the Church to bring forward a proposition to do away with her at once, to remove the bishops from the House of Lords, and to get rid of tithes and all the rest of the things belonging to her, than to come in this petty-larcenous, sneaking way to work her ruin. Talk about conscience in the matter ! Conscience, indeed I If we have an Established Church at all, we must support the buildings as national property, exactly upon the same ground as that on which we support the Houses of Parliament, the Eoyal Palaces, the British Museum, and all other similar buildings. If we withdraw support from these buildings, then we may talk of bringing in the voluntary principle with regard to the Church. Every country in the world that has an Established Church gives national support to the fabric thereof. How inconsistent it is in those gentlemen who profess to encourage, and even to have created a love of, the fine arts among the population of this country, to give their support to this bill, which will cause the destruction of those magnificent architectural edifices for which England is preeminently distinguished. The arguments of the supporters of this bill will tell as much against the monarchy as against church rates. By and by we shall hear of honourable gentlemen getting up in this House to relieve " a conscientious minority" from the burden of supporting the throne and the other institutions of the country. All these "conscientious objections " are always connected with the pocket somehow or other. You never hear anything about them, except when there is something tangible — quelque chose de positif — something more than a mere principle or a theory, but which the objectors try to keep in the background. The bill tends to destroy the Church of England ; and on that ground I oppose it. D D 4 408 DEBATE. — OATHS BILL. — March 22nd, 1858. I agree with the honourable gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. Gilpin), in thinking that we must go into this matter more deeply than has hitherto been thought necessary ; and perhaps before I sit down I may startle many honourable gentlemen by the suggestion which I shall offer for its settlement. Before proceeding further, I wish to say that I have heard with exceeding disgust the repeated insinuations which have been made against the noble lord the member for London (Lord J. Eussell), with respect to his conduct in bringing forward this measure. The accusation, that the noble lord expects to gain political capital by bringing this question forward, is undeserved and insulting. With regard to the bill itself, every person pre- sent I have no doubt feels a strong repugnance to this whole class of questions ; but nevertheless, in the present condition of public opinion, they are forced upon Parliament. This question is a purely religious one, it has nothing whatever to do with politics. It was introduced in committee in accordance with the rule of the House on matters relating to religion ; the terms used were " Christian and Jew," and these do not mean political distinctions, but distinctions of religion. So far as the political part of the question is concerned, the opponents of the measure have not a leg to stand on ; unless their opposition is founded on religious grounds, they really can have no valid objections to the measure. In considering these religious objections it must not be forgotten that there is in this country a union of Church and State. Honourable gentlemen who do not share in such objections have a very summary way of disposing of them, entirely satisfactory to themselves. Each man calls his neigh- bour a bigot ; very intelligent gentlemen in the Lower House describe the House of Lords as a set of bigots ; and the bigots of all bigots are said to be the bishops. But let the liberal gentle- men who talk in this way step up into the House of Peers and see what they would do if they were Peers. (" Hear, hear.") OATHS BILL. 409 The honourable gentleman who cheers, if he were a bishop — and his appointment would, perhaps, be as good as many which have been made lately — would no doubt hold the same opinions on this point as the other bishops. Let him observe what it is that the bishops, and every other member of the legislature who is a member of the Church of England, are bound to. No doubt it is an argumentum ad hominem, and addressed to the members of the Church of England, but it will not be denied on that ground. In the liturgy of the Church of England, there is a form of catechism to enable parents to instruct their children in the doctrines of Christianity. In this catechism there occurs this passage : — " My good child, know this, that thou art not able to do these things of thyself, nor to walk in the commandments of God, and to serve Him, without His special grace." The child is here told expressly that without the Holy Spirit it is impossible for him to do that which he is taught it is his duty to do. The same thing is repeated in the Church Service the whole year round. In the collect for Christmas Day the Church prays, " That we may be daily renewed by Thy Holy Spirit ; " on the fifth Sunday after Easter, " That by Thy Holy Inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by Thy merciful guiding may perform the same ; " and on the nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, " God, forasmuch as without Thee we are not able to please Thee, mercifully grant that Thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts." And yet gentlemen of the Church of England, who pray thus at church, come down to the House of Commons and argue that the Holy Spirit is of no use whatever. I will not ask whether there is any religion in this, but is there any honesty in it ? Matters cannot go on in this way. Here is a case where the Church of England stands directly in the way of a change which is thought — and I do not deny it — to be politically right. If ever there was an instance of incompatibilite d'humeur justify- ing a separation, this is it. The first thing which the noble lord, the member for London, ought to do is, to go into the 410 OATHS BILL. new Court of Divorce and get a dissolution of the marriage of Church and State. I do not see how it is possible to get out of the difficulty in any other way. It is no fault of the present generation ; the thing has been going on for years, and at last we have arrived at a state of affairs, which is most discreditable. The evil must be got rid of somehow or other, and I see no other way of getting rid of it than by separating Church from State. 411 NAVY ESTIMATES. — April 12th, 1857. The right honourable gentleman who has just sat down (Sir Charles Wood) has spoken of the folly of keeping up an extensive war establishment during a time of peace. As a general pro- position there is no denying that. But what is the difference between " keeping up a war establishment during peace " and maintaining the superiority of your navy over that of other nations ? It is not necessary to have a declaration of war. Everybody knows that in the country a gentleman is much more likely to quarrel with his neighbour, whose estate borders his own, than he is with a gentleman in another county. Naturally, therefore, as a nation, we are most likely to quarrel with our nearest neighbour. What sort of a person is our nearest neigh- bour ? Is he a dull, slow, heavy, matter-of-fact, circumlocution- loving, red-tape fellow like ourselves ? Not at all, but quite otherwise. The Germans are of that nature. One cannot ex- pect any very sudden attack from the Germans ; but this is a very lively gentleman. We can judge how a man is likely to act in the future by the way in which he has acted in time past ; and has not our neighbour always acted by coups de main ? Do you suppose that we shall receive from him a declaration of war, and that he will give us a. month's notice to get our coast- guard men into our ships ? No, never. He is much too wise a man for that. He understands his own business a vast deal better. When the people of this country speak of their own position with regard to maritime force, they should observe that a maritime force is not essential to the existence of any other country than Great Britain. Any other country can afford to lose a naval battle without the slightest detriment to her. France was not a whit the weaker when she lost the battle of Trafalgar ; but whenever Great Britain loses the mastery of the sea, there is an end of her. It is not merely a matter of a channel fleet, but if at any time a hostile force prevents our 412 NAVY ESTIMATES. ships of war sailing from Plymouth to the Thames, there is an end of us. We ought to have a channel fleet at all times, and always ready for action. It is most extraordinary that the Government of this country will never believe outspeaking and honest people. I am of opinion that the Emperor of the French has always been perfectly open and above board with this country. Since he has come to the throne, he has acted honourably and straightforwardly. He has told us what he wanted us to do, and has acted up to his word. The Eussians have done the same. For the last hundred years Russia has been telling us that she wants Constantinople. In the time of Catherine II., she christened one of her sons Constantine, avow- ing that she intended for him the throne of Constantinople. The late Czar told our ambassador at Vienna that he wanted Constantinople, and made a similar statement to Prince Metter- nich ; but not one word of that would any one in the Earl of Aberdeen's government, from the smallest official up to the premier himself, believe ; and even after the army of the Czar had set out and crossed the Pruth, they would not believe it. There is no secret on the part of the Emperor of the French that it is his interest to keep on good terms with this country. His majesty is quite aware of it : but he has always said that the time may come when the people of this country may have irritated and provoked his people and army to such an extent that he may not be capable of restraining them. You have only to look to the intelligence contained in every French paper, to see that the Emperor has called his power of conscription into exercise, and obtained 40,000 or 50,000 additional seamen. I should like to know what can be the object of that. Is not the existence of Cherbourg, with all its warlike stores, just like a man who holds his fist to one's face, saying, " I have not touched you ; you have no right to be angry, for have I not a right to hold my arm as I like ? " Is there any chance of the Emperor of the French having a naval war with any nation except the English ? Has he a large number of colonies to protect ? Surely we are not to shut our eyes and refrain from using our common sense. It may not be a proper question to ask, but I should like to know whether we are really secure from a coup de main which would take from us Malta or Gibraltar before NAVY ESTIMATES. 413 we could know anything of the matter ? Then we should re- ceive two days afterwards a telegram to say we had lost them. I should advise you to reduce neither the number of men nor the means of keeping up a full establishment in every way ; for to do so would be a very unwise economy. 414 DESTITUTION IN DONEGAL. — April 22nd, 1858. On the motion for a Select Committee to inquire into the destitution existing in the Guadore and Cloughanelby districts, county of Donegal : it had been alleged that the distress had been in part occasioned by the introduction of sheep pastures. The honourable and learned gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. M'Mahon) seems to deny the destruction of the sheep. (" No ! ") Then he admits it. Any way the honourable and learned gentleman likes. Whichever assertion is true equally contradicts the statement of the ten priests, for they declare that these Scotch sheep are so averse to Irish grass that they will not live there. Now, I believe Irish grass to be the richest in Europe, and Scotch sheep to be as wise as any other kind of sheep. No doubt a statement has been made by ten most holy and most reverend priests. Now it happened in the case of Mr. Pollock, that a most awful story was made out by honourable members opposite ; but when I got the petition into my hand, I found it signed by only two priests. There was a long paper, not affixed to the petition, which contained the names of a great number of people, who it was said could not write ; but, on inquiry, almost all of these turned out to be mythical persons. The experience you gained in this case ought to make the House a little shy in believing any assertion upon the faith of these reverend gentlemen. It is curious that we are told that several sheep were taken to market and sold ; so that sheep will live and will fatten, notwithstanding all the priests, and they do live and fatten, and, moreover, are stolen and are sold. In this awful bill of indictment there is not a single fact which is not contradicted, totidem verbis, by respectable people on their oaths. But then it is sought to impeach the veracity of these persons, on the ground of their being officials ; that is to say, because people, whose duty it is to inquire, do their duty and do inquire, they are to be held up as persons wholly unworthy of credit. Let the House observe how this petition is worded. It DESTITUTION IN DONEGAL. 415 is said that " the inhabitants of these wilds are Celts of the pure old race, with the pure old faith." If they are of the pure old faith, it is not the Roman. Every theological term came from the Greek, and the pure old faith is Greek. It complains of Englishmen and Scotchmen grazing their sheep in Ireland. Surely we 'have as much right to graze our sheep in Ireland, as the Irish have to come over to graze in England ? That is part of the offence. Then it is said that there is a great deal more behind. I believe that this exaggerated inflammatory petition is nothing more than a mask, under which it is endeavoured to foment discord between Irish landlords and their tenants. The honourable gentleman is equally wrong in his law. The law of England is, that a man shall not receive relief out of the workhouse. The honourable gentleman says, "But he does receive relief out' of the house." When a man with a large family applies for relief, it is a question whether the rates will be more saved by giving him a small pittance to keep him out of the house, than by taking him in ; but this does not alter the law of the land. Then it ought to be remembered that those who are pressing for this Poor Law, and complaining that relief is not given, are the very same persons who denounced the Poor Law from one end of Ireland to the other ; Dr. M'Hale declar- ing that the intention was not to relieve the poor, but to make the lands of Ireland pass into the hands of foreigners. An honourable gentlemen, not now in his place, is the leader of the opposition to the Irish Poor Law ; and it is only carried by a majority of English and Scotch members. Every charge in the petition has been answered verbatim upon oath. You are going to examine people not upon oath, and I, for one, will not believe one word they say. 416 AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS BILL.— April 28th, 1858. On the motion for the second reading. I opposed this system on a former occasion'; and, as I have heard nothing to bring me to a conclusion different from the one I then entertained, I must continue my opposition. I agree, however, with the right honourable gentleman (Sir George Lewis), that there does not exist in the minds of the farmers the same antipathy to the present bill that they have felt towards former propositions on the same subject, and the reason is, that those former bills were much more objectionable in their character. Although it may appear somewhat harsh to refuse to pass this bill, which we are told is one intended to procure information affecting the price of the first necessary of life, and therefore likely to benefit the poor man, — yet the truth is, as affirmed by the right honourable baronet, that the collection of such information would not, and could not, by any possibility, make the slightest difference in a practical point of view. I think statistics is a subject upon which there is a monstrous deal of pedantry. Some day we may have an ethnological en- thusiast who will want to know how many yellow-haired Saxons there are left, or how many black-haired Normans ; and there is no end of subjects upon which such questions can be raised, if the consideration of utility is to be quite given up. The only argument adduced by the honourable member for Dartmouth (Mr. Caird) in support of his bill, is the advantage which a possession of statistical facts will give to the farmer and the consumer ; but the honourable gentleman does not appear to draw any distinction between the farmer and the speculator in corn. The very worst thing that can be done for the agricultural interest is to convert the farmer into a speculator. Let the corn-dealer obtain the information he requires — it is purely a corn-dealer's question, — but do not let us encourage the farmer to hold back or sell his corn ; but leave him to dispose of his produce as his necessities require. How is it AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS BILL. 417 possible to ascertain the quantities of corn that will be produced ? I am surprised that any gentleman who has a field of corn of his own can imagine that it is possible at any time to form a true estimate of the future produce. Every farmer has been deceived in his calculations, notwithstanding the best skill and the aid of his neighbour's judgment. Last year was a remark- able instance of this difficulty. As far as utility is concerned, the statistics would be utterly valueless. The honourable gentleman has referred to the consumers, and said, that the position of the agricultural labourer would be materially im- proved if this bill were passed. No doubt the labourer's wages are affected by the price of corn, but how will the collection of statistics help him ? When a labourer is earning 12s. a week, and knows that bread for his family is to be obtained for 8s., he knows he can make ends meet. But when bread for his family rises to 10s. or lis. 6d. per week, what on earth is the use of a statistical paper telling him that such is the fact? Indeed the best that can be said of this bill is that it is useless. Then the honourable gentleman refers to the merchants, and uses a most extraordinary argument for a Free Trader and a Liberal, a gentleman who prides himself, no doubt, upon being rather " advanced." He states that bullion is sent out of the Country, in return for the corn brought in, which, no doubt, aids in producing the financial crisis. What proof is there that bullion has gone out of the country? Is it not just as likely that manufactures have been sent out in return, and, if so, that would have relieved rather than added to the financial crisis. The honourable gentleman also tell us, that a great quantity of rice is imported from India, but that appears to be the oddest argument of all ; for surely it must be an advantage to procure our supplies from our own dependencies. The honourable gentleman says, the average return would be the most valuable part of the returns. I thought the most important point was the price of food, and the average return was merely a means to an end, but the bill does not touch that end. Even with the means provided in the bill the end would not be attained. The bill would be useful to the corn merchants alone, but as far as the agriculturalists are concerned it will be thoroughly useless and exceedingly vexatious. vol. I. e E 418 MAKRIAGE BILL.— DECEASED WIFE'S SISTEE. May 5th, 1858. I WONDEE that the right honourable gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. Baines) has not distinguished between what is the present state of things, and that which existed before Lord Lyndhurst's act. Though I shall vote against the bill, be the consequences what they may, I allow that the existing state of things is such, that it is impossible for it to continue much longer. I admit that individual experience is poor ground for influencing the decisions of a deliberative assembly; but from my experience I should say that it is not the lower but the middle classes who are demanding a change in the law. If we want to know what is the meaning of words or customs used in past times, we must resort to the opinions of the people who lived nearest to those times. Now, there can be no doubt that up to the time of that singularly wicked man, Pope Alex- ander VL, it was the doctrine of the Church that these marriages were contrary to the law of Grod. The right honourable gentle- man (Mr. Baines) says it is of no use attempting to prevent a practice which is supported by public opinion ; and that as the statute has not put down this practice, we ought to repeal it. Now that seems rather a dangerous doctrine. You have Acts of Parliament against all sorts of things which these Acts have not yet put down ; but would you repeal the Act against murder or poison, because murder is committed and poison administered ? Indeed, if this principle were reduced to practice, what would become of the greater part of the statutes ? The Church of Eome grants dispensations for these marriages ; but it does so for a very good consideration. It drives a very profitable trade in them ; but the fact of its holding that a dispensation is neces- sary, shows that it knows these marriages to be unlawful; though it blasphemously takes upon itself to set the law of Grod aside. These marriages are incestuous. Of that I think there can be no doubt ; and it is a strong fact that, from the returns MARRIAGE LAW AMENDMENT BILL. 419 of the number of idiots, it appears that more idiots are the fruit of incestuous than of any other description of marriages. And in Spain, where the grandees have addicted themselves to inces- tuous crime more than perhaps any class in any other country, that class has degenerated, not only morally, but physically. In my opinion, these marriages are unlawful and incestuous, and forbidden by the interpretation of the Church. That inter- pretation it is in the power of an Act of Parliament to set aside, but it cannot alter it. I shall therefore vote against the second reading of the bill. 420 PEOPEETY QUALIFICATION BILL. — June 2nd, 1858. I still sit in the same part of the House as formerly, and this I suppose is the reason I am still of the same opinion. I want to know what is the object to be gained by this measure ? Suppose you had no qualifications, suppose you were even all paupers, what would you get by that ? If you divorce property from political power, it will be impossible to preserve the framework of society. You have heard some little hints as to what those gentlemen who desire reform mean to do when they get it. It is to throw the whole burden of taxation upon that Utopian society called " the rich," and then they will soon have the happiness of being reduced to a uniform level of pauperism. The honourable gentleman (Mr. Ker Seymour) talked of Scotland. That argument is worth nothing. Scotland is a most aristocratic country. All the voters are tenants in capite of the Crown, and they never presume to think it possible that one not of that class can be a Member of Parliament. The case is just the same as it is with Jews. There is no law for keeping Jews out of Parliament, because no one in his senses would ever dream of a Jew getting in. The measure now before the House ought not to stop where it does. If you are really going to amend the Legislature, no measure will be complete which does not deal with the House of Lords. There are two points with regard to which it is necessary to meddle with that House. On the first, you ought to follow the advice of Sir William Temple, and suffer no pauper peers ; you ought to suffer no one who is not possessed of considerable property to sit in the upper House. In the next place, you must insist on doing away with voting by proxy. I consider that the people of this country have been ill- used with regard to the question of reform. We are told that it depends on which benches honourable gentlemen sit, whether they are or are not its advocates. The only persons who are really in favour of reform, are the Socialists. (Laughter.) Honour- able gentlemen seem to be very much amused at this ; but I do PROPERTY QUALIFICATION BILL. 421 not think you are any better informed as to what is going on, than were the upper classes of France before the revolution. Depend upon it there is an under-current of radicalism and socialism in society which honourable gentlemen little dream of. The question is only brought forward by you in order that you may create out of it a little political capital. But the present is a grave matter. It is the first time you have begun to sepa- rate political power from wealth ; and I cannot conceive any- thing more calculated to lead to a general disruption of the social fabric. E E 3 422 GOVEKNMENT OF Tttt)IA (COMMITTEE). June 7th, 1858. Mr right honourable friend, who commenced the discussion in which the committee is engaged, stated this as one of the reasons why he wished legislation in regard to an Indian Government to be postponed for the present, namely, that he did not think the country was sufficiently prepared to deal with the question ; by which expression of opinion he no doubt meant to imply, that the members of this House do -not possess a sufficient amount of accurate information to enable them to arrive at a just conclu- sion upon the subject. Now, I feel assured, that if my right honourable friend had been in his place, and heard the speech to which the committee has just listened (Mr. Liddell's), he would have been furnished with a still stronger argument than any that he urged in favour of the proposition he advanced. For my own part, my objection to the bills which are, or rather, which have been, before the House, is that they do not really touch the Government of India at all. The measure of the noble Lord, the member for Tiverton (Lord Palmerston), is, it is true, entitled " a Bill to provide for the better Government of India ; " but the right honourable gentleman, the late Chan- cellor of the Exchequer (Sir Cornewall Lewis), has made the very distinct admission that there is no question of the Govern- ment of India, in either the bills or the resolutions, and that the whole question involved is, in fact, nothing more than some hocus pocus about what is termed the Home Government. Now, in order to avoid all equivoque upon the subject, I desire, once for all, to state that what I call the Government of India, is a government for India, and carried on by Indians for the happiness of the people of that country. If that is not the scheme which Parliament has in view, it certainly does not deserve to succeed in its attempts at legislation, and you as cer- tainly will, as I hope you will, lose your Government of India altogether. With respect to the question of Council, I can GOVERNMENT OF INDIA. 423 only say that, in my opinion, the right steps to secure the services of an efficient Council have not been taken. The point, indeed, is one upon which I may be permitted to ob- serve en passant — for I shall not enter at length into the merits of the question — that great confusion seems to prevail. Some honourable members, for instance, talk of a Council, as if it ought to be a body which should exercise control over the minister to whom it is constituted to give advice. This, however, is not the object of the Privy Council, nor of any other similar body of which I have ever heard. The result of placing the council in a position to control the minister would, in fact, be to .create a double government ; and rather than do that, it would be better, I contend, to drop the subject altogether. But to revert to the remark of my right honourable friend, who opened the discus- sion, I may be permitted to express my belief, that neither the House of Commons, nor the country, is well informed with re- ference to what has hitherto taken place in connection with our Indian administration ; and to state that those who are mentioned in the bills and the resolutions before the House, are a class of persons- who have been designated by all our (xovernors- Greneral as men profoundly ignorant of the country in which they have resided. Now, I am perfectly ready to admit that it is not right an assertion so grave as this should be made upon my own individual authority ; and, although I am aware that it is very irksome for honourable members to hear extracts from documents read at any length, yet I trust I may be allowed to lay before them the evidence upon which I rest the charge against old Indians, to which I have just adverted. The first person whose testimony I shall quote in support of my state- ment is Sir F. Shore, son of Lord Teignmouth, who says, that the insolent behaviour which English people resident in India think it necessary to pursue towards the natives, by way of keeping up their own dignity, is carried to such a pitch, as to lead the latter to avoid as much as possible all intercourse with them, inasmuch as they are far more likely to meet with slights and neglect than with sympathy. The same gentleman adds, that it is not at all uncommon to hear young men, who have been only a year or two in India, and who are wholly unac- quainted with the language of the country, except, perhaps, that they can mutter a little Hindostanee jargon, speak of the natives E E 4 424 GOVEKNMENT OF INDIA. with the utmost contempt, looking upon them as a degraded race, and not allowing that they possess a single good quality. The language of Billingsgate, he goes on to observe, is con- stantly used towards respectable servants, simply because they do not happen to understand what their masters say, a cir- cumstance which is very often owing to the fact that these do not speak intelligibly. I may also mention the story of a cer- tain magistrate, who insisted, that whenever a native on horse- back met him, he should at once dismount and make him a salute; while I may adduce the authority of Mr. Norton to prove that we seem disposed to regard the natives now with even less kindness and sympathy than at the period when our relations with them were first established. Mr. Eees states, in his Narrative, that the conduct of many of our young officers towards the natives is cruel and tyrannical ; while the London Quarterly declares that the behaviour of Europeans is marked by a high degree of pride and insolence. Lord William Bentinck said, that the result of his observation was, that the Europeans generally knew little or nothing of the customs and manners of the people ; and Mr. Fraser Tytler asserts, that the servants of the Company are the least able to supply correct information upon these subjects. Now, if we are proud of our aristocracy, and mindful of their dignity, how can we think that these things do not rankle in the breasts of men, who can trace up their hereditary rank and their possessions to a period anterior to the commencement of our history, in some cases, indeed, up to the time of Alexander the Great ? Are we so foolish as to imagine that, because they do not retort an insult upon the moment, they do not feel it ? We may depend upon it, that the Italian proverb is true, in India as everywhere else — " Vengeance sleeps long, but never dies." I find the following in one of the last journals from Calcutta : — f: What with all this thieving and insolence, I am determined, for once, to take the law into my own hands, and thrash within an inch of his life the first man I have tangible proof against ; be he a Pandy, so much the better. And as for the thieves I shall try and shoot some- body ; whether it is the right or wrong will not much matter. I have been bullied and hunted about by the Pandies quite enough, and have no idea of going through any more such fun. If the natives are to be allowed to ride roughshod over us and insult us, we must just follow GOVERNMENT OF INDIA. 425 the example of the 10th at Dinapore. The papers are full of this. From Agra, Delhi, everywhere, coi respondents remark on the growing insolence of the natives. The Government, for the last fifty years, have been doing their best to keep Europeans down and natives up, and this was the cause of the mutiny, — at any rate, of the indignities heaped on the victims of the mutiny. I do not want to see men servile or cringing, but I do want to see them civil and respectful, especially the Pandies, who know that if they got their deserts it would be the gallows. But that they should be allowed to swagger about in the way they do is preposterous." These matters may seem unimportant, but I would ask whether it was possible, if we had endeavoured to goad the people into a revolt, we could have pursued a more certain course from that which has been adopted? The provoking part of the matter is, that the " old Indians " assume to be the only persons who know anything of India, although all the prophecies uttered by them at every renewal of the Charter, about the ruin of our trade with China and elsewhere, and the impossibility of the country being governed, have been completely falsified by events. Supposing there were a question in this House as to an insurrection in Poland or Hungary, what weight would be at- tached to the opinions and statements of a man who professed to know all about the matter, because he had resided in Naples ? The late Duke of Clarence was showing a portrait of Columbus to two ladies, of whom Mrs. Jordan was one. " Here," he said " is a very fine picture of Columbus, a clever fellow, who dis- covered America 500 years ago." " Oh," cried Mrs. Jordan, " it was not so long ago as that." " What do you know about it ? " asked the Duke. " I have been lately reading Robertson's History of America," replied Mrs. Jordan. " Eobertson ! " ex- claimed the Duke, "how should he know anything about the matter ? He was never in America ! — I have been ; and, there- fore, I ought to know better than he." That may suggest what the testimony of " old Indians " is worth. The people of India having been subjected to such treatment, is it surprising that they should hate us ? Mr. Fisher, a gentleman quoted by Mr. Norton, states that the people generally are dissatisfied, and that they have too much cause to be so. He adds, that there is disaffection enough for half a dozen rebellions. Mr. Norton himself says, that various large sections of the natives hate us 426 GOVERNMENT OF INDIA. cordially; while Sir Charles Metcalfe declares, that dissatis- faction exists because the dominion of foreigners must be odious. It has been proved in evidence, that torture, in one shape or other, has been practised to a large extent by the lower subordinates in the Indian revenue service ; and yet, not long ago, Sir James Hogg, Mr. Mangles, and Mr. Elliot, stated in their places in Parliament, " that they had never heard, during their residence in India, of a single case of torture." Such are the men who are to give good counsel to the new President of the Board of Control. We ought to remember, that the laws of the people of India are mixed up with their religion — that their land tenure and their theology are bound up together. But what have we done ? We sent out a parcel of English lawyers, who tried to introduce English courts and English law into that unfortunate country. At home there ' is nothing to which we stick with more tenacity than our legal forms. Every English gentleman must think the constitution of the Court of Session in Scotland absurd ; but mention the name of that Court, and see how Scotchmen will start up to defend it. One of the worst grievances complained of by the Italians in Lombardy and Venetia is that they are obliged, in the ultimate resort, to send their cases to Vienna, to be de- cided by a law, and in a language, which they do not understand. This is the very evil we have inflicted upon India by means of our lawyers. Colonel Sleeman says, that the people feel they are exposed to great injustice from the uncertainties of our law, the multiplicity and formalities of our courts, the pride and in- solence of our judges, and the corruption and ignorance of those who practise before them. The natives, he says, cannot under- stand our rules of law ; our courts of justice, they declare, are the things they most dread, and they are glad to escape from them as soon as they can. Other writers give evidence to the same effect. Yet the nostrum of all the lawyers is the intro- duction of English law, and the sending out more lawyers from this eountry their universal panacea. That is their plan of government. Now, the root of the whole evil is the doctrine that India is a country to be exploits for the benefit of the civil service. If we are going to look upon India as we have looked upon it hitherto, as a mere place of plunder for English officials, we shall surely lose it, and shall deserve to lose it. The GOVERNMENT OE INDIA. 427 natural tendency, it has been said, of the principles inaugurated upwards of a century ago, is to place the patronage in the hands of a class who have no stake in the prosperity of India beyond the salary they draw from it. Another result is, according to Sir Charles Metcalfe, that the army is in a constant state of dis- content with the large salaries given to the members of the civil service ; and I might quote much more to the same effect. At some future time I should like to make some observations re- specting our interference with the religion of the natives. But, in my opinion, it is of paramount importance to issue a procla- mation in the Queen's name, and let her take possession of the country. Talk of the respect the natives bear to the Company ! Why, they look upon it with the most perfect indifference. Now, the Queen's name would be hailed with respect, and in that same proclamation we ought to declare, that we will govern India for the happiness of the whole population ; and that the instruments of our Government shall be, not exclusively Euro- peans, but also native princes and landowners of India. 428 THE SLAVE TRADE.— July 12th, 1858. On the motion for going into Committee of Supply, an amendment was proposed, condemnatory of the system of seeking to suppress the Slave Trade by means of an armed naval force. I was glad to hear the voice of the honourable and gallant gentleman (General Thompson) who has just sat down, exerted in the same cause in which both he and I have been labourers for fifty years. Although the honourable member for Northamp- ton (Mr. Gilpin) may whitewash himself, he cannot whitewash the honourable gentleman (Mr. Hutt) who brought forward the motion before the House. That honourable gentletnan distinctly laid down the grand idea, that the way to govern this country is by the commercial principle of getting whatever we can, no matter by what means. The great principle of commercial in- tercourse, said the honourable gentleman, the principle of supply and demand, must override everything. The honourable gentle- man and some who support him dwell on the horrors of the middle passage, and impute them to the policy pursued by the government ; but the horrors of the middle passage at present are nothing compared with what they were before the Government entered on its present course. The honourable gentleman also said, that it would be a dreadful thing to incur the risk of a war on the subject ; but I maintain, that the bloodiest war ever waged — the capture of Ismail by Suwarrow, or the storming of Magdeburg by Tilly — was nothing in comparison with the daily miseries of this slave traffic, and the sufferings of the negroes, when they arrive in that country which is often held up as a model of advanced civilisation and the great pioneer of human liberty and progress. I happened to be present at the great meeting to which the honourable gentleman has alluded, and he there maintained the argument he now maintains. He there said, that if a man steal another's watch or horse, and sell it to A., and A. afterwards sell it to B., does not the owner try to follow his property and get it back ? The same principle holds good THE SLAVE TRADE. 429 with regard to a matter far more important than a watch or a horse. Personal liberty is the first right of man ; and if any- one attempts to make him a slave, he has a right to kill that person, and kill him he will if he can. My firm conviction is, as I stated at the meeting referred to, that this thing will never be got rid of, except by a rising on the part of the blacks them- selves ; and I shall heartily rejoice when I hear that they have risen and inflicted some poor measure of short justice on the people who now hold them in slavery. The honourable gentle- man said, that the English boast exceedingly of their morals and humanity ; now, I think that if there is any part of the com- munity which likes to be nattered more than another, it is the honest old English merchant, and the honest old English manu- facturer or trader, who are willing for profit to trade with the Devil himself. It is my firm conviction that the love of money and trade, carried on under the name of free-trade, really eats out of the country everything like moral and religious feeling ; and the arguments of the honourable gentleman are chiefly addressed to that point, which I hold in utter detestation. 430 JEWS' BILL.— July 16th, 1858. The question is, whether the matter in dispute shall be settled in this shape, or in that desperate manner to which some of the advocates of the admission of Jews have alluded, namely, by a Eesolution of the House, which Eesolution is to be taken as equivalent to an Act of Parliament. A more revolutionary doctrine than this I have never heard broached. We have lately been told by a high authority, that this House is supreme in the State ; but I have always humbly thought, in my ignorance, that we were living under a constitutional monarchy. It seems, however, that such is not the prevailing opinion. Tories and Conservatives by profession have heard that statement without a murmur, and I certainly think their squeezability must be of a most extraordinary character. But this is not all. It is said, besides, that if this House by its own authority passes a Eesolution admitting the Jew, and if Lord Campbell, in inter- preting the law, shall punish and fine the Jew for sitting and voting in the House, without taking the oaths, the House will be bound to protect the Jew from the consequences of the breach of the law. It really is high time that we should have a dissolution, in order that the constituencies should speak their minds upon this matter. I should like to know, moreover, how this House can set about such a proceeding. It is said, that if the House does pass such a Eesolution, the judges will be squeezable, and will be, no doubt, disposed to interpret the law according to the decision of the House of Commons. Now, I do not believe that Lord Campbell or any judge on the bench at present would dishonour himself by such conduct. But even this is not all ; the House has been told that it can, by Eesolution, take the government and direction of the army and navy off the hands of the Crown, totally irrespective of the laws. Now, all the mischief done in the beginning of the French Eevolution was done by Eesolutions. By Eesolutions they abolished primo- geniture ; they abolished nobility ; and they abolished tithe. JEWS' BILL. 431 (" Hear ! ") I think from that cry of " Hear," that there is at least one honourable gentleman willing to walk in the footsteps of those revolutionists. It is also said, that if the Jews are not admitted, the House of Commons can stop the supplies. That is rather a strong measure. It is said, " We will stop the supplies and refuse the Mutiny Bill." Well, what would be the effect of such a proceeding ? Why, I suppose, the army, the navy, and the police must help themselves. They would live at free quarters until Parliament passed the Mutiny Bill and paid their wages. But these are mere idle threats, which were never meant to be carried into execution. I agree with those who think that the legislation we are now asked to sanction is the beginning of a new system. It is no answer to say, that this is only the climax — the necessary consequence — of the repeal of the Test Acts, the Emancipation of the Catholics, and other similar measures. It is a perfect farce for honourable gentlemen to talk about a conciliatory measure with reference to church rates. As far as I am concerned, I would have no Conciliatory Bill ; I would have church rates or nothing. The dissenters act honestly on this subject. Mr. Miall of The Nonconfoi°mist has argued the question with great fairness and ability and avows that the dissenters only seek, by means of the abolition of church rates, to insert the small point of the wedge, and that what they are really fighting against is tithe. I believe that this is the necessary consequence of previous legislation on such questions. With regard to the Test Acts, I remember that several persons of notoriously immoral character, who blazoned forth their opinions to the offence of all honest and decent people in the city, received places under the Crown, and they went to St. Martin's Church to receive the sacrament ; the clergyman, although very much disgusted at being required to administer it to them, instead of doing his duty by refusing to administer it, came to this House, and prayed for the repeal of the Test Acts. The legislation adopted at that time and since must go on, and it is impossible now to maintain, as was formerly the case, that the Church of England and the State are one. I am not referring to these things to frighten the House ; I am only anxious to point out to you the course upon which we have entered; and I know its consequences are evident to many honourable gentlemen. The ablest man among those I call 432 JEWS BILL. advanced liberals, the honourable member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright), has foreseen them. There is no necessity for honourable gentlemen to go into Committee-room No 11, or elsewhere, to find a head; for the honourable member for Birmingham is the only man among them who has, from the first, foreseen the end of these measures, and who has honestly and plainly expressed his opinions ; and if that honourable gentleman lives as long as I wish he may do, he will see his anticipations realised. We are now merely considering in what manner Jews should be admitted to Parliament, for yo'u have settled, be it right or wrong, religious or irreligious, that whether the House becomes infidel, or not, have the Jews you will. Of all the measures I have seen on this subject, the one now under consideration is, in my opinion, the least likely to lead to public disturbance. The simple question for the House to determine is, What is the best and least mischievous mode of admitting Jews to Parliament ? and as this bill seems to provide the least mischievous means of effecting that object, I will give it my support. 433 CHURCH RATES ABOLITION. — February 8th, 1859. On Sir John Trelawny's Bill for the Abolition of Church Eates. If the title of this measure were "A bill to amend the law relating to church rates," no objection could be raised to its introduction, because there can be no doubt that the application of the machinery of the ecclesiastical courts to the raising of these rates ought to be done away with. At the same time, we must remember what occurred last year, that a periodical of great circulation and conducted with some talent, said, " Gentle- men, do not be cheated by sounds; we do not care a farthing about church rates themselves, we want to get rid of tithes." Honourable gentlemen opposite want the abolition of both chureh rates and tithes. I do not know whether they mean to put tithes into the landlord's pocket, but they certainly intend to put the church rates into their own. As this bill received the sanction of the House last year, some deference ought to be paid to that decision, and as there has been an understanding between the honourable baronet (Sir John Trelawny) and the Government, I will not, although most determinedly hostile to its principle^ oppose the introduction of the bill. Members, however, who are opposed to the object of it, have a right to stipulate that no advantage shall hereafter be taken of the title. CHURCH RATES.— March 9th, 1859. On the second reading of Mr. Walpole's Bill for facilitating voluntary provision for the purposes to which Church Bates are applicable, and for the extinction of Church Bates where . such provision is made. It is with very great pain that I feel myself compelled to vote against the second reading of the bill brought in by my right vol. I. F F 434 CHUECH KATES ABOLITION BILL. honourable friend (Mr. Walpole), because there is no one in the House with whom I feel so much sorrow in differing ; and I am equally astonished to find myself in perfect unison with the learned gentleman (Sir Eichard Bethell) who has just criticised the right honourable baronet (Sir John Pakington) for his ignorance respecting the antiquity of the impost — he came down upon him like another Coke upon another Littleton. The learned gentleman informs us that he objects to the impost because it had grown, 1400 years ago, out of the strange and absurd notion that all the country was of one mind in religious matters. I will take it to a much earlier time, when there was " one body and one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all." It was at that time, when all worshipped in one church, that all were bound to contribute to its maintenance. The honourable and learned gentleman is quite right — it is a question of abolition or non-abolition ; and I will never consent .to have the church rate tampered with or modified. We have now arrived at that point when the question is involved whether as a nation we will worship Grod or not. The thing you call " a conscientious objection " has no more right to be entertained than the conscientious objection of a republican to a monarchy, or of a democrat to the machinery of King, Lords, and Commons. If you admit a conscientious objection in one case, you are bound to admit it in all —if you once begin to give way to the plea of " conscientious scruples " you will not know where to stop. Point out a single rate, whether poor rate or county rate, water rate, or lighting rate, in which the rate- payer has choice of payment or non-payment. (An honourable member, " Church rates "). That is the very thing with respect to which I am denying the right of the ratepayer to be consulted. Take the poor rate, the county rate, or the water rate — in no single instance has the ratepayer any alternative or choice. If you abolish the church rate, it is quite clear that you abolish the Church of England as far as outward machinery is concerned ; and this is the object of the dissenters. It is only by the priests getting this question into their own hands and bringing it into their ecclesiastical courts, which have properly nothing whatever to do with it, that the ratepayer obtains the means of eluding his liability. The Church itself has abolished the Church, in denying the essentials of a church. St. Paul said, " we have an CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL. 435 altar ; " the Church of England says, " we have not an altar," and thus it shows that it is no longer the same as the Church of St. Paul. Churchmen themselves, I repeat, have destroyed the very essence of the Church ; and now they complain that the Dissenters want to throw down the walls which they have rendered useless. I warn the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Walpole) that this attempt to make these rates palatable will not succeed. This is a question of principle. I hold in my hand some extracts from Mr. Miall's publications, in which it is maintained that the dissenters do not care about church rates, but consider their abolition the first step towards the abolition of the connexion between the Church and the State, and towards getting tithes out of her possession. Do not let us hear anything more about conscientious scruples. It is the wish of a large party to pull down the Established Church. Upon this point I stand, and I will not consent to the bill of the right honourable gentleman or to any other bill of the kind. CHUKCH EATES ABOLITION BILL. — July 13th, 1859. The result of this debate has so narrowed the question which has been discussed in this House for some years past, that I am anxious not to repeat things that have been said either by my- self or by others ; but I wish to indicate to the House the exact point at which we have now arrived. The right honourable gentleman the Home Secretary dates this question truly from the decision of the House of Lords in the Braintree case. The natural way of getting rid of the evil then introduced was by bringing in a law to put church rates on the same ground as all other rates. This was the business of the bishops, but they did not do it; and they having neglected their duty, there is cer- tainly a grievance in the great towns where additional churches have been built, and where the whole produce of the rates goes to the original parish church, leaving none at all for the new churches. Upon this the dissenters have founded two grievances, one of them true and the other false. The true grievance I have already mentioned ; the false one is the plea of conscience. F F 2 436 CHURCH BATES ABOLITION BILL. An honourable gentleman (Mr. Baines) has told us how matters stood at the origin of Christianity, Why, in those early days a conscience was a troublesome thing, and cost people a good deal. The modern consciences of dissenters gain them a good deal. For such consciences I have neither respect nor tenderness. You have, I think, been very much shooting in ambush, skir- mishing something after the fashion of the rifle corps. You have been discussing various collateral issues, being afraid to touch the main point. The dissenters have, as I have said before, honestly told you, in this House and out of it, that the question is a contest a I'outrance, Established Church or no Established Church. There is no disguising it. The noble lord who spoke last (Lord Fermoy) has told us we have had two retrograde speeches to-day. Of course, to get rid of the Established Church is an exemplification of progress. But which way are you progressing ? Did the Romans or the Greeks, do the Sepoys or the Chinese, or any other people in the world, ever think of such a thing as a nation without an Established Church ? On this ground I oppose the bill of the honourable gentleman, as I opposed the bill of my right honourable friend the Member for the University of Cambridge, and as I will oppose every bill that enters into a compromise on these matters. For there are questions on which you had better stand out to the last and be ruined than give way. It is stated of Prince Met- ternich that a very short time before his death he wrote a letter to the Emperor of Austria, in which he said : " Make no peace. Fight for what is your own ; and rather give up Vienna to be sacked than compromise one tittle of your right." I say that is the counsel of duty, the counsel of principle ; but it is not the counsel of expediency nor of liberalism. 437 MAEEIAGE LAW AMENDMENT BILL. — DECEASED WIFE'S SISTEE.— February 16th, 1859. I think that since the commencement of this session the House has been acting in a manner very characteristic of what is called the " Progress of Liberalism " : in one week a bill is introduced to sanctify sacrilege (Church Eate Abolition Bill), in the next another to sanctify incest. The two honourable gentlemen who have preceded me (Mr. E. Ball and Mr. Buxton) avow, that in their minds the prominent argument in favour of this Bill is the religious argument, yet both of them seem to doubt what it is that the Word of God really says on the point, and both of them go to very queer quarters for its orthodox interpretation — one to the religious societies which meet in Exeter Hall, and the other to the Jews. The unanimous voice of the Church, so long as it could be heard freely, was against these marriages ; but when the Church is split into fragments of schism, and no clear light from it can be obtained, as it has to pass through different media — red, green, and blue — then comes in what is called the right of private judgment, and every gentleman, by the help of a little ingenuity, can find a text to sanction anything he wishes to prove. The prohibited degrees are not the offspring of the Church of England ; they came down from the earliest ages of the Church, and never were disputed. From the time of Borgia the popes began to permit incest; but it was for a valuable consideration. And now the House of Commons is asked to permit incest without any consideration at all. Both Eoman Catholics and Protestants are agreed that the thing is wrong ; but this right of private judgment puts an end to all questions of right or wrong. Every man assumes to judge for himself. A great deal is made of the argument that the House of Commons has often sanctioned this measure ; but I deny the competency of the House of Commons to decide questions of this nature. Incest is incest, pass what laws you choose, and no man will commit it who has any value for what Grod's opinion if3 438 MARRIAGE LAW AMENDMENT BILL. of it is. There is nothing new in this — it was so from the beginning. Grod said, "You shall not eat this apple." Man said, " I will." Grod said, " You shall not commit incest." Man says, " I will." The argument, therefore, that this law has been broken is of no weight whatever ; I will not enter into the social question, but as it has been contended, also, that by pass- ing this bill we shall be giving relief to a large number of people throughout the country, I may observe that there are certain families within my own knowledge, to whose happiness the passing of this bill would be certain ruin. 439 REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE.— February 28th, 1859. I entirely agree with the honourable gentleman (Mr. Bright) who has just sat down, that it is a most unfortunate thing that Her Majesty's Government has engaged in a question of this nature (Lord John Russell : " Hear, hear ! ") The noble lord says " Hear ! " but he is one of their chief instigators. On a former occasion the noble lord stated that the present Government was not accustomed to play his tune ; yet he urges them to begin. I think it rather hard on the House that we should be forced to listen to a concert by professed non-performers, who are hardly competent to lead a decent melody. But why does not the noble lord " Take the good the Gods provide him ; Lovely Thais sits beside him ! " (Mr. Bright was sitting next to Lord John Russell.) The honourable gentleman is quite ready " to light him to his prey, and, like another Helen, fire another Troy." I agree with the honourable gentleman that the bill does not go to the point. The noble lord speaks of 40s. freeholders, who hold a franchise which has existed for 400 years. There may be some such freeholds as he describes, but in many parts of the country they are in the hands of men who work on them — generally of small farmers. The 40s. freehold of the reign of Henry VI. is now worth 501. ; and if the Reform Bill of 1832 had done anything in a really Conservative spirit, it would have raised the 40s. freehold to 50l. I do not understand what the present Reform Bill is to do. I cannot understand what is its object, or in what manner this unknown object is to be attained. I perfectly understand the object of the last bill. The last* bill was an Act of vengeance by the Whigs on the party that had kept them so long and so deservedly out of power. To attain this end, they deceived their Master, they undermined the Throne, they coerced F F 4 440 REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE. the House of Lords, and threatened that if they could not carry their bill by any other means, they would head an insurrection and carry it by bludgeon and brickbat. They succeeded, and there is some merit in success. All that I understand ; but I confess I do not understand why we are to have this new Eeform Bill from the Government. I quite understand the honourable gentleman opposite (Mr. Bright). He is perfectly honest and fair in what he is doing ; I know what he is about, and what he aims at ; but, I repeat, I cannot understand this bill, or how to meet it. It is said everybody wants Beform ; but then comes the question, what is meant by Eeform ? In reality, Beform means, to take taxation off yourself and put it on somebody else. That is, no doubt, the meaning of the bill of the honourable gentleman opposite, though I will not enter into a discussion, of that measure till he introduces it. The Ultra-Liberals, the gentlemen who are farther advanced than other people in the way of progress — how far down I do not know — thought fit to meet together in Committee-room No. 1 7, and took it into their heads that there should be Beform ; then they agreed to ask the honourable member opposite (Mr. Bright) to bring forward a bill, as, indeed, he is the only man who has honesty to state his object, and ability enough to carry out such a measure. But everybody knows well enough what it all means. It matters little what is the extension of the franchise that may be proposed. After the first Eeform Bill was announced, I said there is no principle in 101., any more than in 71. or 81., for the truth is, that, once begin, you cannot stop short of universal suffrage. How will you stop short ? It does not at all follow that such a plan is revolutionary. That which is really revolutionary is to put political power into the hands of men who have no property themselves, but who will take upon them to dispose of the property of those who have. The settlement of this point is the great problem to be solved ; but it is not solved by the honourable gentleman opposite, nor is it solved by the bill which has been brought before us to-night. If you preserve political power in the hands of those who have property, then you may extend the franchise as far as you please. 441 EEPEESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL. March 25th, 1859. Second Beading. — Amendment proposed by Lord J. Eussell to the effect, that it is unjust to interfere with the freehold franchise, and that a greater extension of the suffrage is necessary. It is a great misfortune for ourselves, and for the measure we are discussing, that we all seem to be mystified and at cross purposes, scarcely any one knowing whether he is speaking upon a principle or a detail, or knowing whether there is a. principle or a detail in the bill. The right honourable gentle- man who has just sat down (Mr. Cardwell), asks why this bill was introduced ? Because it was forced upon the Government, and the Government brought in the bill to keep themselves in office. And now what is the opposition on the other side ? It is a triangular duel, and the question is, whether Lord Derby or one of these noble lords is to be the head of her Majesty's Government, pledged to the consideration of this subject of Beform. There are many honourable gentlemen in this House who take to themselves, upon all occasions, the character of in- dependent members ; but somehow I never see that these in- dependent members act in any way differently from the dependent members. I do not understand why, upon this occasion, they are obliged to range themselves on the side of one or other of these combatants, instead of taking an independent line. With every word that has fallen from the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Cardwell), I entirely agree ; but I will not vote in favour of a resolution when the intention is that I shall do something else. When the bill gets into committee I shall certainly support the noble lord (Lord John Eussell); but that is not now the question. The question is, the second reading of a Eeform Bill ; and I cannot understand how the minds of acute men can be puzzled, as they confess they are, to find out the principle of the bill. It seems to me that there can be but one principle involved in any Eeform Bill. Such a measure can only 442 REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE. consist of three parts — first, an extension of the franchise; secondly, the disfranchisement of some places that have mem- bers ; and thirdly, the giving members to towns which now have none. That is the whole story. Whether you extend the fran- chise to 101. householders, or create universal suffrage ; whether you disfranchise thirteen or thirty boroughs ; whether you give ten or twenty members to places before unrepresented — all these are mere questions of degree. They are points to be con- sidered in committee, and have nothing to do with the principle of the bill. Many years ago, as soon as ever the last Eeform Bill passed, of which I never was an idolater, I said that you could not put any limit to the franchise. I have read all the speeches which have been made on the subject, and I cannot see where you are to stop. I do not care about slang words on •the hustings about household suffrage, rating suffrage, manhood suffrage, universal suffrage, and all the rest of it. I suppose they are all intended in some way or other to insure the identity of the voter, and that is the point to be attended to. As to the ballot, nothing shall ever induce me to vote in secret ; but I do believe that if you extend the suffrage so as to admit the working classes, as you call them, the ballot will be necessary for their own sakes — not to protect them against their masters, still less to guard against that absurd chimera of landlords driving their tenants like so many sheep to the poll — but to protect them against their unions, and men of their own body. I confess I think that in itself there is nothing necessarily revo- lutionary in any extension of the suffrage, and I do not see much difference, except in degree, between the Grovernment bill and that which has been published by the honourable member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright). One is a little shilling, the other a big sixpence, that is all. One great fallacy which has been often alluded to in debate pervades them both ; you think you secure a great thing if you can combine numbers and property. But do you combine them ? Take 50,000 voters paying a certain amount of taxes per annum. Do you call that a union of pro- perty and population ? You know very well that the " upper ten thousand " will pay the whole of this taxation, while the rest will not contribute a single sou. Yet the labourers whom you enfranchise will have the whole political power of the country in their hands. I find no fault with the honourable REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE. 443 member (Mr. Bright) for this. He intends that they should have this power. But how can honourable gentlemen, who see what his object is, do the very things which he wants them to do ? As far as this debate has gone, it has been the making of the honourable member for Birmingham. He has nothing to do now but to sit still, and in five years you will all of you have swallowed his bill. You will make a great many wry faces, perhaps ; but I say, if you do not take means to prevent it, you will eat your leek. It may be bad for your digestion, but you will eat it. This equality of franchise in the boroughs and towns I look upon as a most evil measure. It is, in fact, elec- toral districts ; it does not lead to them, but it is really they ; and the only difference between those which the honourable member would establish, and those set up in the bill, is that in the one case they would be equal, and in the other unequal in size. The honourable member last night taunted the country gentlemen with being afraid of the people, and, pointing to Mr. Crossley and another gentleman, he said, " These men know more of the working classes than you do." Well, I am no more afraid of one man than of another ; but, in point of fact, are we not all afraid of one another ? When a manufacturer ap- points one of his workmen as overseer, does he not take security ? (" No.") But he does though, if there is any possibility that the man may rob him. Then suppose he has got a house to let. Does he let it to any one who may offer to take it, without inquiring whether his rent is likely to be safe ? What is the whole of our social system founded upon ? What is the design of all our laws, but to protect us from each other ? I do not dis- trust working men more than any other men, but if one class gets power over all the property in the country, and is able to transfer taxes from its own shoulders to other people's, do you suppose it will not use that power ? Of course it will. So should I. So would every one of you, however shocked you may now be at the notion. Suppose half-a-dozen of you were travelling through a desert, and one only of the number had got a good camel-load of provisions, do you think the remaining five would not soon get a share ? Of course they would. Now, to talk of trans- ferring taxes from one class to another sounds vastly well. To ignorant benevolence it seems a great thing to make the rich only pay taxes, and the poor pay nothing. But this is a fallacy 444 REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE. disgraceful to those who use it. They ought to know very well that there can be no employment for labour, save from the acquisition of capital, and that the thing to encourage for the benefit of the poor themselves is this very accumulation of capital. The honourable member (Mr. Bright). said that when there was a proposal for the repeal of the malt tax, we on this (the Ministerial) side of the House would not allow it. Why the fact was just the reverse. It was honourable gentlemen opposite, and the householders, who refused to let the tax be abolished. So much for that subject. Then he declared that the great strength, and power, and glory of this country lay in the intelligence of the manufacturing population, as contrasted with our Boeotian stupidity in the country. " See," he said, " how we beat all the other manufacturers in the world ! " Well, this is not true — there is not a single manufacture which is not better in foreign countries than in England. (Oh, oh !) Oh, of course such a sound was never heard in Manchester or Birmingham. In spite of all your Arkwrights, all your spinning- jennies and looms, you cannot turn out such muslin as is made by the native Hindoos. Then your linen is worse in England than in Scotland, worse in Scotland than in Ireland ; but the best of all comes from Holland and Silesia. Your cloth is in- ferior to that of France and Belgium. Your ships are inferior to the French and American vessels. (" No.") Where do you get your ships from, then ? Why, the best you have had were taken during the last war, and when you tried to lay down others on the same lines in this country, you could not do it. In glass you were beaten at the Exhibition of 1851 by America, Venice, Spain, and Bohemia. Your swords are not equal to those made at Valenciennes. Your best printing machines, we are told by the honourable member (Mr. Bright), all come from America. Your railways are worse constructed and worse managed than those in France, Belgium, or Switzerland. Neither your china nor your pottery is to be compared with that of Dresden, Berlin, or Sevres. Let me now speak to you of the agriculturists of this country, whom you seem to suppose you have left so far behind. We know more of the country gentle- men than you do. Let me tell you, then, what they have done for you. There are in England 20,000,000 of inhabitants ; in France 35,000,000. Now, the agriculturists of England raise REPRESENTATION OP THE PEOPLE. 445 18,000,000 of cattle per annum, while the French raise only 10,000,000. I do not take those figures from an English source. I am quoting from the Rgforme Agricole. We raise 60,000,000 of sheep per annum ; France only 32,000,000. The produce of England is at the rate of 20 hectolitres, that of France at the rate of 1 1 hectolitres, per acre. What is the result ? That while each person in England consumes on an average half a two-year old ox and three sheep per annum, only one-third of an ox per head is consumed in France, and not one sheep. England is superior to every other nation in the world in this respect, and to what is that circumstance to be attributed? To the skill, the science, and the energy of the country gentlemen and the farmers. But to return to the bill. The honourable gentle- man, the member for Birmingham, last night made the most extraordinary statement, that the manufacturers were Conserva- tive, and that he himself was a very great Conservative ; but no one seemed to agree with him. The noble lord the member for the City of London did not agree with him. The honour- able and learned member for Sheffield did not agree with him. In fact, he had but one follower upon those benches. It is very true, as has been stated by an honourable member, that the last Beform Bill involved a struggle for power. This bill ajso is a struggle for power. There is a sort of triangular duel being carried on. The honourable member for Birmingham tells you plainly what the class is to which he will give power, if only you will play into his hands. The honourable gentleman has no doubt been a visitor at the sea-side, and has seen wave after wave making for the shore. First one wave rolls along, then another, but has he, let me ask him,- ever seen the first continue foremost till it reaches it ? No ! one takes the place of the other, and gets beyond it. So it is in the sea of political life, and unless you take care what you do with this bill, you may have cause to regret the consequences. For my own part, I think her Majesty's Govern- ment displayed a great want of judgment and firmness in allow- ing themselves to be provoked by anybody into introducing it into this House. The noble lord the member for London is a great authority on this subject. It is, however, impossible for him, or for a member of any party, to bring in a measure with respect to Beform which will not be distasteful to the others. 446 REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE. Every man and every party must be content, therefore, to take the bitters as well as the sweets of their position. We are asked to give those who propose a scheme of this sort a fair and de- liberate hearing ; but you know perfectly well you will do neither the one nor the other. There is but one way of dealing with this question satisfactorily, and that is by Eesolution. You might by that means succeed in ascertaining what kind of pro- posal the House would be likely to sanction. That would be a step in advance ; but after all this discussion, I, for one, am at a loss to know which two honourable members are of the same mind upon the question of Eeform. 447 EEPKESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE. April 4th, 1859. Ministerial Statement in reference to the Adverse vote on the Reform Bill, on the preceding Thursday, March 31. I attribute the majority of Friday morning last to the combi- nation of three factions, not only discordant with each other, but the members of each of which are discordant among themselves, and not one of which has dared to produce to the House a bill of its own. There are three heads to the Opposition. Nobody knows where the tail is, but wherever it is, it is always at vari- ance with the heads. The honourable member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) seems very much alarmed at the possibility of his measure being characterised as a revolutionary one. But if such is not the case, there is no meaning in the English language, for there is not an institution in the country — the Crown, the House of Lords, the whole structure of Parliament — which he will not do his best to destroy. Whenever that bill is brought forward, I, for one, will lose no opportunity of exposing its revo- lutionary character. It is worthy of remark how very different the language of the honourable member is in this House, where he can be met, from what it is when he is addressing large masses in the country ; but that is not all. There is an associa- tion which hires people to go about the country preaching untruth. In common with those persons, the honourable mem- ber advocates the throwing of all the direct taxation on land. Is not this revolutionary ? He says, if ever there was a contrivance for preventing the passing of good laws, it is the contrivance of King, Lords, and Commons. I am sorry I have not now got the honourable member's speeches in my pocket — I generally have them with me ; but it is in such terms that the honourable gen- tleman speaks of a form of government which is the admiration of surrounding nations. It is important that fallacies like these should be exposed, and I hope that no opportunity will be lost of letting the country know how destitute of foundation they are. 448 ON FOEEIGN AFFAIES. —PRUSSIA (NEUTEALITY.) July 28th, 1859. I do not rise to prolong this debate by stating any opinions of my own, or by reinforcing the arguments which have been used by others. But I think that scrimp justice has been done to the kingdom of Sardinia, and that this debate has not gone to the root of the question. I will, therefore, refer to a few facts to enable this House to come to a right conclusion. It is very well known that Sardinia is the only country which has attained constitutional government without either revolution or carnage. Towards such a nation, in this House, where we profess to be great admirers of constitutional government, and where we know something of the failures which have attended the attempts to attain it in France and Hungary and other places, we ought to have some leanings, and not show so much anxiety to find fault with the conduct of statesmen who are unused to the difficulties of the position they hold. It is essential to the esta- blishment of freedom that the ecclesiastical should be subjected to the civil power. Without that it is delusion to talk of liberty — liberty is a sham. You can have no liberty while you are the slaves of the priest. There are those in this House who re- member, as I do, the return of Louis XVIII. to France, where he found a priest who had been convicted of the crime of cutting his mistress into twenty pieces. (A laugh.) Oh, yes ! I dare- say it is a very good joke. But I know this, that with all the power the king possessed, he was prevented for several years — seven or eight, I think it was ■ — before he dared to execute righteous judgment on that priest. Now, no sooner had the Government of Sardinia put the priestly under the civil power — ■ that is to say, made the priests amenable to the laws in the same way as civilians — than every member of the assembly who voted for the Siccardi Law was excommunicated and remains excom- municated to the present day in consequence, and Eossi, the promoter of that law, died without having received the sacra- OJST FOREIGN AFFAIRS. — PRUSSIA (NEUTRALITY). 449 ments of the Church ; and, however lightly the members of a Protestant Church may treat these things, they alone who are Roman Catholics, or who have lived long in Eoman Catholic countries, can be aware of the enormous importance attached to them. Not long after, "the Jesuit confessor of the mother of the present Emperor of Austria got about him at a time when he was slightly wounded, and made him vow that if he recovered he would restore to the Church her rights in Austria, by a Con- cordat. Mark the words. They were false words used inten- tionally — false words conveying a lie. A Concordat was con- cluded — a Concordat ^which gave to the Church in Austria powers which in no part of Germany had she ever possessed before, and put Austria in complete subjection to the decrees of the Council of Trent. By this Concordat the whole youth of the kingdom are placed exclusively under the control of the Jesuit schools. No Protestant of Bohemia or Hungary, or any of the Danubian provinces, can be received into the civil or military service of the empire without a certificate from one of the Jesuit schools ; and of course, as the Protestants refuse to send their children to be taught there, they are practically excluded from those services. The Jesuit priests in Lombardy fomented the rebellion of the priests in Sardinia ; the Pope backed them both ; and it would have been utterly impossible for the country to remain free unless some steps had been taken to control their power. The king therefore asked the succour of France, and it was granted. But it was no mere question of territorial aggrandizement. In 1 848 and since that time, the Pope — that is to say, the ecclesiastical power — has put forth its influence throughout Europe in a way that it had not dared to do since the French Eevolution. There is not, I believe, a single State in Europe where it has not done so. Do not suppose I find fault with the Pope for his conduct in this matter. I say that the declaration he made the other day was an honourable and a manly declaration, that he would rather die than forego the rights of his Church. But I say that those rights are incompatible with the freedom of mankind. At the time the Bishop of Mayence was exciting all the priests in Baden to revolt, the Grand-Duke was placed in a most embarrassing position, for he was governing for his elder brother, who was imbecile. In fact, so difficult was it that he had been vol. I. G G 450 ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS. — PRUSSIA (NEUTRALITY). obliged to ask the Pope himself to interfere. And there the matter rests. In Prussia the priests claim the right of search- ing every house in the Ehenish provinces, to see if any books are there which have been put into the " Index," and to ascertain what newspapers are read ; in fact, the priests exercise there a self-originated police authority. I might quote many similar examples, but I know that such details are necessarily tedious. What have they done in France ? Mark you ! You talk here of the freedom of the press. Whatever a newspaper says here the editor alone is responsible for ; but when the Emperor pro- secuted Montalembert the other day for pronouncing a panegyric on England, he took care to let all the newspaper writers who continually abuse England go free. Does not that show, that, while he represses the one, he wishes to encourage the other? The Univers has declared over and over again, that the exist- ence of Protestant England is incompatible with the happiness of the human race ; and points it out as a glorious act, and as the destiny of France, to blot England out of existence, as Carthage was blotted out before. But while this is allowed to the Catholics, M. Coquerel, a Protestant clergyman very well known at Paris, and formerly a member of the Legislative Chamber, has been warned, and forbidden to say anything in his sermons that is offensive to Popery. At La Sarre and other places the sale of the Scriptures has been forbidden, and the persons selling them have been put in prison, and why? Because it is said that Holy Scripture is opposed to the religion of the majority. (Mr. Bowyer: "No, no.") Now, you had better be cautious. Does the honourable member forget how many bulls have been put forth prohibiting the circulation of the Scriptures ? He had better be on his guard, for I have got the documents here. Did the honourable member never read the encyclical letter of the Pope to the Bishops of Poland, in which this is said ? It is well known that at all times Holy Church has held it to be infinitely perilous for laymen to read the Holy Scriptures. (Mr. Bowyer: "No, no.") I do request the favour of the House to allow me to read the passage ; for, as the matter is now put, either I have been telling you a falsehood or somebody else has. The Pope's letter to the Bishops runs thus : — ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS. -— PRUSSIA (NEUTRALITY). 451 " It is unnecessary to remind you Low repeatedly the Church, by the mouth of the Koman pontiffs, has forbidden her children to read the Bible in any vulgar tongue." (Mr. Bowyer: "There is something else.") Yes — there is something else ! " Pope Clement VIII. has moreover declared that no bishop what- ever is at liberty to permit Bibles of the above description to be kept or read." (Mr. Bowyer : " Of the above description.") That is, " in any vulgar tongue," — in English, for instance. Why, the fact is notorious. Outside this House there is scarcely a man who will be found to contradict it. Then there is child stealing. We have all heard of the Mortara case. Child stealing is going on everywhere. It is practised a little even among our- selves in Ireland. The other day in Maubeuge (France) the Protestant Church was suppressed, and there has been a great deal more of the same sort of thing that I might cite. What I have attempted to show you is, that the power of the Pope is advancing at a greater rate than ever it did, and it is incompatible with freedom. Do not talk of wishing for liberty in Italy, while you continue the power of the Pope. It is down- right nonsense ; you cannot have any such thing. But then I say to you that England, as a Protestant country, cannot meddle to any good purpose. If the Eoman Catholic laity are to be eman- cipated from ecclesiastical tyranny, they must do it for them- selves. Whatever we say or do will be viewed with so k much prejudice, that it will be rejected, though they were the maxims of Wisdom herself. Now, taking a broad and general view of the question, I say that this Protestant country ought, as an essential consideration, to keep out of this Congress. It can do no possible good. I know that there are fidgets on all subjects — private fidgets and public fidgets, family fidgets and political fidgets; and there is a great tendency, on the part of many people, to do what the sailors call " shoving in their oar where there is no rowlock." I think it would be a dangerous thing for this country to meddle in the settlement of a question essentially religious, with which we can have no legitimate concern, which must pro- G G 2 452 ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS. — PRUSSIA (NEUTRALITY). duce irritation, and one in which our opinions or advice can never be fairly listened to. And this furnishes an additional reason — - not that I would argue that the Government of the country should have its hands tied by any Eesolution of this House — why it would not be a wise or a prudent policy for us to interfere in any way in this Congress. MISCELLANEOUS LETTEES OBIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE DAILY PAPERS fi C 3 THE CASE OF THE FARMERS. (Written shortly after the abolition of the Corn Laws.) To the Right Honourable Lord Kinnaird. Deab Loed Kinnaibd, It is very kind in your Lordship, from the centre of the Carse of Gowrie, a locality famed no less for the fecundity of its allu- vial soil than for the slovenly husbandry of its farmers, to enlighten " the agricultural croakers of West Surrey," a district for the most part of pure siliceous sand mixed with ironstone, and answering to the description of Liebig, as containing every sign of incorrigible barrenness. It may be some consolation to our farmers to know that since they are deprived of all other protection, they have found that of your Lordship, alike unex- pected and unsolicited. There is truly " a conviction in the minds of all sensible men" that it is impossible to reenact a bread-tax ; but there is also a conviction in the minds of sensible men, and in the minds of men without any sense at all, that it is impossible for them to make money-payments of a fixed amount, when the value of that produce is lowered by which they were to make those payments. Your Lordship says that the farmer should " exert himself to increase the produce of the soil," and that he " grudges a necessary outlay," that he " should make trial of a little extra exertion ; " but, my Lord, forgive me for saying that these are words without meaning. When the farmer puts his hand into his pocket on Saturday night he does not expect to find " extra exertion " there, but some money with which to pay wages ; he wants to find coin with the Queen's effigy (God bless her !) and Dei gratia round it, and without this his search for extra exer- C G 4 456 THE CASE OF THE FARMERS. tion will be fruitless ; and he does not find the coin, because neither his corn, nor his sheep, nor his oxen, nor anything that he produces, has sold for so much as it did when he took his farm ; and this defalcation of price has not arisen from any want of " exertion " on his part, nor by the hand of God in sending blight and mildew, but from the intentional acts of the Govern- ment to lower the prices of British-grown articles, and to intro- duce cheaper foreign-grown produce in its stead. The farmers, therefore, say that since you have intentionally deprived them of the means of paying their rent and their taxes and their poor-rates, you should, in common justice and common honesty, diminish to the same amount those taxes and those poor-rates. A gentleman has lately addressed a letter to the West Surrey farmers, in which he tells them that they are too fine gentlemen, and ought to descend in their scale of comforts. Very well, be it so ; but you cannot wonder that the farmers of West Surrey say to the Ministers, and to your Lordship, and to me, " You shall descend also from your high estate ; you Ministers shall receive smaller salaries, and you rich men shall pay a greater share of taxes." I perceive, my Lord, from your Letter, that you are not well informed of the way in which distress operates upon farmers ; and this want of information is shared by many, as is evident from the expression of payment out of capital, &c. Farmers, when times go well with them, do not put money in the Funds ; then is the time they buy guano, which you now recommend them to do when they have nothing with which to pay for it ; they then increase their quantity of stock ; they sell an old worn- out horse, and buy a young one ; they buy an improved machine ; they hoe their corn and their turnips and their beans oftener. When times are bad, they buy no guano, the crops are unweeded, the stock is sold and not replaced. This operates upon the labouring class, not by lowering the wages of those who are employed, but by throwing more labourers altogether out of work. Individual labourers receive as much, but the aggregate body of labourers receives less ; and hence all labourers with whom I have ever conversed have been unanimous in declaring that the times were most prosperous with them when corn was the dearest, i. e. because then there was the greatest demand or labourers. THE CASE OF THE FARMERS. 457 There is still another point on which the "West Surrey farmers croak, and croak justly. There are very few landlords in this county whose prosperity is wholly dependent on the land. The landlords have all, more or less, some property in the Funds, in in- surance companies, in India stock, or in mortgages, whereby it is their interest to keep down the prices of raw produce as low as possible, although it is their interest as landlords to keep them up. Thus the landlords here have not a common interest with the farmers and the labourers. It is the interest of all those who derive their income exclusively from land, that the prices of raw produce should be high ; but it is the interest of all capitalists, of all fixed annuitants, that the prices of raw produce should be low. Hence there is a war to the knife preparing between every man who has realised something, that is, who is possessed of some capital, and every man who has realised nothing, i. e. who is possessed of no capital ; and the semi-Eadical Whigs (that is Whigs who would be Eadicals, or anything else that is abominable, if the heads of their faction were not now muzzled by place) are uniting themselves with the Financial and Political Eeform League, the professed objects of which are to take from the farmers all political power what- ever, and place them under the domination of the towns ; to make foreigners be employed to grow the corn and to fatten the cattle we eat, whereby a large portion of the English labourers would become immured in unions, at the expense of the im- poverished farmers ; to abolish all duties whatever on the productions of foreign countries, and to levy all our immense taxes directly on the productions of British labour. Against this our farmers " croak," and I trust will continue to " croak," and to strive by every means in their power. The manufacturer's interpretation of free trade is to make free with the property of the British growers of raw produce, and they who are the most loud in its advocacy are those who have everything to buy and nothing to sell, viz. Jews, foreigners, and British annuitants of every description. The weavers know, and the labourers are beginning to discover, this truth ; and, when they have learned it, woe to the cotton-mills as well as to the cathedrals ! Your Lordship recommends a little extra taxation on land- lords of 7 per cent, in order to enable them to drain their lands. It is certainly well to get more capital employed in agriculture, 458 THE CASE OF THE FARMERS. but the only way to do this is to make the capital now locked up in the National Debt productive, instead of being unproductive; to reduce all annuitants, both public and private ; to bring down the interest from 3 per cent to 1, when the annuitants will be glad to lend it to the agriculturist for 3, instead of 7 per cent, as your Lordship recommends. It is the capitalist who is now become the enemy of the labourer. He was not so before it was avowed that foreign labourers were to be preferred to British labourers ; but now the question is, Shall or shall not the manu- facturer and the idle capitalist, the Manchester cotton man, the salaried servant, and the public annuitant, increase his luxuries, not by the employment of, but at the expense of, the English labourer ? I trust that I have now convinced your Lordship that the agri- culturists of West Surrey are quite as alive as yourself to the advantage of " renewed exertions " and of portable manures. There are farms in this neighbourhood under a management immensely superior to anything the Carse of Growrie can boast ; and their occupants are so fully aware of the merits of guano, that they will gladly receive any boon of that description which your agricultural liberality may please to bestow. I myself will be happy to take ten tons ; and with grateful thanks for your kind commiseration of us in our low estate, I am always, My dear lord, Yours very faithfully, HENEY DEUMMOND. Albury Park, Not. 8th, 1849. 459 ON THE MALT AND INCOME TAXES. — Nov. 7th, 1850. To the Editor of the Surrey Times. Sir, — I rely upon your well-known anxiety to promote the interests of the cultivators of the soil, to afford space in your valuable paper for a few lines upon a subject which I consider to be of great importance to them. Whether the country is now in a more thriving condition than it has been for many years past, or not, I still retain the opinion that it is not wise for any Government of any country at any time to admit the pro- ductions of foreign labour without paying duty, whilst it levies taxes on those of its own people. Considered abstractedly, it must be advantageous for a nation to have corn cheap ; but the price which is cheap one year becomes dear so soon as an increased number of mouths have made an increased demand for it, and an increased number of hands have reduced the price of labour which is to purchase it." The true effect of legislative measures cannot be felt immediately in any country, because the interests are so various and complicated that it requires time for them to adjust themselves to the change, and the soundness of a measure must be judged of by its consequences during a course of many years. I doubt whether the price of grain will fluctuate so little (i. e. whether the supply of food will be so regular) without any duty as it did with a duty, because it has ever fluctuated more in Dantzic and Hamburgh than it has in London. The practical point, however, to which I wish now to direct attention, is this : the income tax expires next year ; Ministers must ask for its continuance, and possibly, if they are wise, they will take the opportunity to remove some discrepancies in the present system of taxation. The price of British-grown produce has been reduced, and will be still farther reduced, by cheaper methods of conveyance from foreign countries. We have a right to demand that the cost of our productions be diminished, and that we be permitted to use our own produce in any way we please. If malt is to be taxed, let cotton piece goods be taxed ; 460 THE MALT AND INCOME TAXES. if cotton manufacturers are to be free from duties, let barley manufacturers be also free from duty. Even if beer be taxed, let every man malt bis own barley as be pleases. It is true tbat tbe repeal of tbe malt tax will affect immediately only tbe best barley ; but it will benefit indirectly inferior barley also. Its effect, bowever, upon tbe price of barley is not tbe point upon wbicb I care anything ; I care not comparatively for landlords' rents nor for farmers' profits, but I do care for tbe necessary food of tbe labourer ; and the best way in wbicb landlords and farmers can benefit themselves, is by compelling such measures as shall enable the labourer to live as well for five shillings a week as he has done hitherto for ten. His beer is taxed nearly 100 per cent. I have received many statements from maltsters and farmers showing this in tbe clearest manner. The rich never drink beer, and care nothing about it. The middling classes drink wine, or beer only from large and respectable brewers. But the poor labourer is driven by necessity to the beer shop, and the evidence given by the keepers of these shops before tbe House of Lords last session proves that the beverage there pro- duced is of the worst possible description. Mr. Childs, himself a practical brewer, has published a book in which he states the ingredients mixed with beer, and declares that no malt and hops could ever produce the stuff that passes by that name. Beer is as necessary an article as bread to a labourer who is to be as often wet as dry, with no change of clothes, and little fire to warm himself. Tea may do well enough for persons under cover, for workmen in an overheated mill, or even in mines ; but for hard work in the open fields beer is a necessary of life. If tbe cry for cheap bread were an honest cry for the poor man's good, that for cheap beer would be as loud ; but corn must be imported, and therefore cotton goods must be exported in ex- change for it : beer, on the contrary, cannot be imported ; it is essentially a British manufacture, and no cotton goods are wanted in exchange for it, therefore the League sets up a hypocritical cry for tbe poor in the article of bread, but is as silent as the grave on the article of beer. I invite all who see the importance of this matter, as every practical man must who has to deal with field labourers, to join with me in urging the claims of tbe English labourer not to have his labour taxed when the product of foreign labour in this country is untaxed ; in demanding his THE MALT AND INCOME TAXES. 461 right to brew his own beer from his own barley and hops grown by his own labour on his own land ; and if the stockholder wants the money, let the Government lay on a property tax of 10 per cent and equalise the land tax, but let the labourer's food be free. I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant, HENBY DEUMMOND. 462 THE LOED PEIMATE'S CHAEGE. To His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. My Lord Archbishop, — As, in my opinion, your Grace's remarks on the secession of Lord Charles Thynne are more calculated to drive others also to the Eomish sect than to prevent them from going there, I venture to address to you a few observations upon them. It is true that the sacrament of penance is grossly abused by the Eomish priests. The abuse does not consist in the fact that persons who feel peculiar and grievous sins pressing heavily upon them seek to a pastor for counsel and relief, but in the priests exacting and exercising the right of examining into the secret thoughts of every lay man or woman. I fear your Grace has very little experience of the inner details of private houses of all ranks, of the conduct in secret of some who exhibit the fairest outward appearance, of the real heart-anguish that lurks behind many a smile, if you do not know the value of that part of a minister's duty which consists in hearing the tidings of suf- ferings that cannot be poured into any ear but his. Your Grace says that, if a minister pronounces the word of absolution upon another Mary Magdalene, or repented felon, he usurps God's place. This is a strange assertion from the head of a Church that has a service for the visitation of the sick such as that of the Church of England. But let me ask your Grace why you baptize a child. Do you confer the Holy Ghost in that act, and regenerate the child, or does God do it through that outward sign and act ? I know your Grace's answer, but I am utterly at a loss to conceive the difference between the non-usurpation of God's place in the baptism, and the usurpation in the absolution. Again, does not your Grace say, in delivering the sacred elements at the Communion, that you deliver the body and blood of Jesus Christ to the recipient? Have you, by your power, changed the bread ; or has the Holy Ghost made it, after THE LORD PRIMATES CHARGE. 463 consecration, not mere bread, but something which qualifies it to feed the souls of the faithful ? If your Grace is not prepared to deny the propriety of these two external rites in order to con- vey a spiritual grace, you cannot by fair logic deny to the proper- use of absolution the same powers. No one asserts that the minister, either in the Church of Eome or in the Church of England, is more than ministerial ; no one asserts that he pos- sesses any inherent power in himself; neither did the Apos- tles assert it of themselves ; they distinctly repudiated the idea that they had healed a man by their own power, but asserted that they were merely the instruments of conveying the grace of the Lord Jesus. Your Grace's arguments would go to abolish the sacrament of Baptism and of the Supper, to deny the validity of Orders, and to lodge us in pure Quakerism, whence we should not be slack in finding that there were no texts to prove the scriptural authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury. I have the honour to be, Your Grace's obedient servant, A WELL-WISHEK TO THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND. Sept. 9, 1853. 464 LETTER TO THE PEACE SOCIETY. September 30th, 1853. The following letter was addressed by Mr. Drammond to the Secretary of the Peace Society, in reply to an invitation sent him to attend its meetings about to be held in Edinburgh : — . Sir, — You have invited me to go down to Edinburgh to assist at a conference of persons calling themselves " The Friends of Peace;" and you have desired me, if I cannot be present, to send you my written adhesion to the objects of the conference. All people want peace. If the Emperor of Russia be allowed to keep possession of Wallachia and Moldavia, and to detach the subjects of the Porte from their duty to their own sovereign, no man will be more peaceable than Nicholas. The title, therefore, of the body is not very appropriate nor distinctive. In your address there are many trite truisms describing the evils of war, against which commonplaces nothing can be said. You consider it as a " Utopian dream to bring about suddenly a mira- culous transformation of human nature," the indulgence of which you disclaim ; but your whole address proves that the only part of ' the dream you differ from is the suddenness of the " miraculous transformation," and that you do propose to yourselves to be the means of ushering in a universal reign of peace by means of conferences. Of the first two men born into the world, one killed the other ; and in this way " human nature " has mani- fested itself ever since that period, and ever will, unless it under- goes a " miraculous transformation." You endeavour to cast obloquy on the profession of arms, and are indignant at " successful warriors occupying posts of distinc- tion in courts and cabinets." Take the army and the navy as a class, and take any other class of men in this country, merchants, tradesmen, manufacturers, savants, lawyers ; compare them to- gether for talents, patriotism, honour, virtue, disinterestedness, kindness, self-devotion, for, in short, every quality that ennobles man; and I assert that the military class is, beyond measure, supe- LETTER TO THE PEACE SOCIETY. 465 rior to any other. You would prefer statues erected to those who have been most eminent in the money-making arts of peace ; and instead of statues to Marlborough, Wellington, Duncan, and Nelson, you would prefer to see statues to the inventors of spinning-jennies and railroads, or to Kant and Jeremy Bentham. You think a broad brim in bronze more picturesque than a cocked hat. You are severe upon Mars and Moloch, and prefer Mammon to both. Idolatry, like statuary, is an affair of taste : but Milton, who seems to know as much about devils as you do, tells us that Mammon was the basest and meanest of all. You quote the opinion of Lord John Eussell, that the last war was unnecessary. It was not undertaken until the French Govern- ment had proclaimed war upon every crowned head in Europe ; and they who were loyal urged their sovereigns to reply to those manifestoes with grape-shot— the only arguments with which revolutionists should be treated. The Whigs said it was not necessary ; merely as every faction not in power takes the oppo- site side of every question from the one that is ; but when they came into office, although they had coquetted with treason and palliated sedition (as they have ever since continued to do, whenever by so doing they could strengthen themselves), they were not one whit less alive to the true safety and honour of the country, under Mr. Fox and Lord Crrey, than their prede- cessors had been under Mr. Pitt. It requires matchless impudence to speak of the defenceless state of this cotintry, and the sense of its danger, to which the people were with difficulty awakened, as " absurd and fabulous tales for which there was not even the shadow of a foundation." The President of the French Eepublic had reiterated assertions, with oaths, that he would preserve the Eepublic entire : it has been since manifested, that, at the very moment he was making these assertions, he was plotting to seize upon the government and make himself Emperor. Yet on this man's truth and profes- sions of peace you advise us to rely in lamb-like security ! He makes no secret of saying that he will, at a proper time, invade this country. A plan for its invasion was given in to him while he was President of the Eepublic, which he would not look at then, be- cause he had other business in hand. After he was Emperor he referred that plan of invasion to his ministers, who replied that the plan was good, if it had been carried into effect at the time, but VOL. I. H H 466 LETTER TO THE PEACE SOCIETY. now that the English were roused, and their military spirit awak- ened, as had been proved by the calling out of their militia; the time had gone by. He himself proposed a plan for the repartition of Europe, which was put an end to solely by the Emperor of Eussia. Louis Napoleon has raised the largest number of screw war-ships that France ever possessed, which cannot be to protect its colonies and commerce, because it has none. He has been long practising his troops in embarking and disembarking by night, which cannot be for going to Vienna, Eome, or St. Petersburg, and which can only be for a descent upon oiu- shores. The French people prefer glory to gain; hate the English with a perfect hatred ; and long to revenge their defeat at Waterloo. " While such facts as these stare us in the face, who shall say there is no need" of common sense to hold up to scorn and derision that party in this country which " ex- cites public opinion " to meet such dangers by a conference for peace ? You state that " the flower and strength of European manhood is living in coerced idleness at the expense of the rest of the community, in order that they may be ready to fight." It would be more true if you had said, in order that the rest of the community may be able to spin cotton and grow corn in quiet. Agreeably to the cant of the age, you try to mix up some fragments of holy writ to sanctify your folly; and, imagining* that you are to be the means of introducing the millennium, you ask " if there is nothing which Christian men can do " towards that end. You want a universal peace without the Prince of Peace ; you want the world more quiet, that men may be left more undisturbed in the enjoyment of selfish gratification; and you think that no one can penetrate the darkness in which you have enveloped' history, both sacred and profane. Yes; you can do something to bring in universal peace. Join together to beseech the Prince of Peace to come again, as He has promised to do, in the same way as that in which He was seen to go, and He will come and bring peace with Him, but without Him ye shall do nothing. At this moment every sovereign in continental Europe has usurped the rights of their nobles and of their people ; the Emperors of Eussia and Austria, the Pope and his priests, the LETTER TO THE PEACE SOCIETY. 4G7 King of Naples, and all the minor absolute German princes. For this usurpation the people are vowing vengeance ; and from England their leaders have issued proclamations callirjg on all subjects not to war with each other, but to unite in warring on all the reigning families, and put them to death. If you have any honesty and sincerity among you, transfer your con- ference to Moscow, Vienna, or Constantinople, in all of which I can venture, though unauthorised, to promise you a reception much more consonant with your deserts than the urbanity of the Scotch is likely to give you in Edinburgh ; and when the in- habitants of that city, and of Manchester, have been brought to dismiss their magistrates and police, and to rely upon the pacific disposition of the rabble in those towns, it will be time enough to begin to think about what may be done with the rest of Europe. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, HENRY DRUMMOND. Rev. H. Richard, 19 New Broad St. a h 2 4C8 LETTEE ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE JESUITS. May 13th, 1856. To ike Editor of the Times. Sik, — Since the present vacation may, without inconvenience, afford more space in your columns than it would be justifiable in me to occupy otherwise, I venture to send you a few remarks for the edification of those who may be led away by the so- phistry of Mr. Bowyer's instructors. The difference between Liguori and Busenbaum the Jesuit consists in this : the Bishop, who adopted his doctrines, only allows the Pope to declare that the law of nature (i. e. any law absolutely and solely of God) does not bind ; while Busenbaum says boldly the Pope can dispense with the laws of Grod, just as a bishop, whom the Pope delegates, can with the laws of the Church. Busenbaum says there must be a just cause, or at least the Pope must bona fide think there is. Liguori makes the whole turn on expediency, and says, in so many words, that he might give a man (a cardinal, for example) a non obligatur for keeping a mistress, but for its involving all sorts, omni- ' modum, of impropriety and inexpediency. So the Pope could not give a general delivery from keeping oaths to the Eoman Catholic peers ; but he, or any pars ipsius corporis, can de- clare that propter varietatem humanarum rerum, the law of truth does not bind a Eoman Catholic M.P. in the present state of affairs, provided his lying does not involve imdecentiam, detection, and observantia prcecepti non expediat. The Papal dispensing power is of two sorts, ordinary and dele- gate. Potestas dispensandi, alia est ordinaria, alia est delegata. (Lig. lib. i., Tract. DeLegibus, c. 4,§ 188.) All dispensations made without just cause are invalid, even in the case of oaths and vows, unless made in mistake. Busenbaum says: "Pontifex, sine justa causa, non potest dispensare in lege Dei, nee episcopus in lege ecclesise. Dispensatio in voto vel juramento sine justa causa, etiam a papa facta, est invalida ; valida autem est si su- ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE JESUITS. 469 perior per errorem justam causam arbitretur." (lb. § 180.) This sentence Liguori makes his own by taking it for a sequitwr to what he had been saying. The Pope, by the ordinary power, can only dispense with the laws of the Church, and not with those of God or of our Lord Himself. " Summus Pontifex potestate ordinaria, non potest dispensare in legibus traditis ab apostolis quas illi acceperunt a Christo Domino tanquam auctore principali." (lb. § 188.) The Pope, however, by special concession — that is, by the power delegated to him as Vicar of God, and having power similar to that of God Himself legislative, cannot dispense from the observance of a divine law universally — in universum, but only in particular cases where the permitted transgression of the divine law would involve no scandal, and the indecency of the dispensation (e. g. to do an immoral act) would not pre- ponderate over expediency or any reason. This point is brought out in Liguori in the question of unlawful marriages. "An Papa potest dispensare in jure divino, quod ex solo arbitrio divino derivat ? Triplex est sententia." The first, which " af- firmat generice," and gives the Pope power to excuse from sin in every species of transgression, is rejected. The second, which is held by Sanchez the great Jesuit, by Melchior Cano the great Dominican, and by many others, and for which Liguori has not one word of reprobation, is, " Papam non posse dis- pensare in universum jus divinum, sed tantum in aliquo casu particulari in quo non expediat observantia prsecepti." (Lib. vi., Tract. 6, cap. 3, § 119.) For which reason a dispensation for keeping a mistress is beyond the Papal power, because it would never be expedient. " Unde infertur papam nullo casu posse dispensare in prsecepto non fornicandi, quia transgressio in hoc continet omnimodum indecentiam, quae preponderat cuicum- que causae." The third sententia, more general and more pro- bable than either of the others, is, that the Pope can never dispense with the laws of nature, or others absoluto jure divino, but can only declare that in 'such or such a case the said laws are not binding : — " Posse pontificem in aliquo casu non dis- pensare, sed declarare quod jus divinum non obligat" (v. 6, 3, ib.) ; and this Liguori holds to be a highly probable, and consequently more than safe opinion ; and he declares such a power of nullifying the obligation of all divine laws, " necessaria 470 ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE JESUITS. propter humanarum rerum varietatem," and that God would not have done His duty if the Pope had been left such a trum- pery Vicar as he would have been without it ; " alias Deus bono regimini ecclesise non satis providisset." Verily, blasphemy is written on his forehead ! I am Sir, your obedient servant, HENEY DEUMMOND. Albury Park, May 12th. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. LONDON PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. 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