The Sun. — London, England, 1859-03-11 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT . HOUSE OF LORDS-(YESTERDAY). The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the woolsack at five o'clock. The Earl of SHAFTESBURY presented a petition from Rugby against the opium traffic ; and also from Kingsheaton, Praying that Dissenters might not be excluded from the administration of trust funds of grammar schools. OCCASIONAL FORMS OF PRAYER BILL. This bill passed through committee without amendment MANOR COURTS (IRELAND) BILL. On the motion of the Earl of DONOUGHMORE this bill was read a second time. SINGAPORE. Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY presented a petition from the bankers, merchants, and other re-idents at Singa pore, in the Straits of Malacca, and asked her M a j es ty' s Ministers what their intentions were with regard to the future government of that settlement. The petitioners prayed that more efficient protection might be accorded them from the encroachments of the Dutch, and that some authorised governor should he established there who might have the power to enter into treaties with foreign states. The noble lord said the French were esta blishing themselves in Cochin-China, and several other Powers were obtaining territory in Indian waters, and it was therefore absolutely necessary that this country should have a competent agent at Singapore, to protect the extensive trade of the settlement. He trusted he should receive a favourable answer from the Government to the demands of the petitioners. The Earl of CARNARVON quite agreed with the noble lord as to the importance of these trade settlements. A de spatch had been sent to the Governor-General of India on the subject, and on the answer to that communication the conduct of her Majesty's Government would be guided in a great measure. The petitioners wished her Majesty's Government to undertake this fresh responsibility, but be fore they did so it was their duty to ascertain whether the new dependencies would entail additional ex penses on the revenues of this country. The Earl of ELLENBOROUGH thought the best authority under which the settlement of Singapore could be placed was the Secretary of State for India, and not of the Colonial-office. In the event of a military , force being required at Singapore, the troops would be drawn from India, so that communication would be constantly going on with that country. The noble lord opposite said that Singapore was of great importance as a naval station, but the Straits of Malacca were so shallow that it was next to an impossibility to take large ships there. Ha was glad the subject had been brought under the consideration of their lor&hips ; but, before any definite measures were adopted, he trusted the subject would be well considered. The Earl of DERBY said proposals had been made to the Government with respect to the settlement of Sarawak being placed under the protection of the Colonial-office, but he had himself great doubts as to whether Sir James Brooke had any right to make the' offer. It had been said that coal was plentiful at Sarawak, but it had been discovered in another quarter much better, and more easily procured. Earl GREY said he should be glad to see a proper native State in Borneo, but he did not think anyadvitiatage would accrue to that place or Sarawak by placing it under the protection of the Colonial-office. Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY said it was satisfac. tory to know that the Government would take into its con eideration the propriety of appointing a governor to Sin gapore CRIMINAL CHARGES. The LORD CHANCELLOR rose to call attention to the question of presenting indictments for criminal champs to grand juries in the metropolis. He said he had on the second reading of the bill of his noble and learned friend the Chief-Justice en the subject of vexatious indictments, expressed his entire concurrence in its principle, though he did not think it went sufficiently far. His noble and learned friend, acting on his experience with regard to a cer tain class of misdemeanours being made use of through grand juries for purposes of oppression and extortion, pro posed by his bill that in those particular instances the par ties should not be put upon their trial until they had under gone a preliminary examination before magistrates. He (the Lord Chancellor) could state there were various other cases which were constantly made use of by means of grand juries for purposes of extortion. He had expressed his opi nion the other night that there was no reason why any cri minal charges should be preferred in secret, and suggested that at least within the metropolitan police district a preli minary inquiry before a magistrate should be required in Ali cases. At the same time he entertained a doubt as to whether . any other preliminary inquiry was necessary in cases which had been investigated by a magistrate. He had accordingly prepared a bill which extended to all criminal charges within the metropolitan district. It was contrary to the spirit of our laws that charges should be made in secret, without the party accused having the means of knowing before his trial who were his accusers, who were the wit nesses, and what was the distinct charge against him. If the first part of the bill was accepted, then the next step was inevitable, for it would be monstrous to require that all criminal charges should be investigated before a magistrate, and that after he had decided there were grounds for a trial by a jury that there should be another preliminary inquiry by a grand jury. The police magistrates in London were a body of able, experienced gentlemen, who had received a legal education, who had the accused parties before them, heard the evidence in open court, drew up written deposi tions, which the' witnesses signed, and then determined whether there were grounds for sending the accused party for trial. It would naturally be expected that there was nothing to prevent that trial taking place at the proper time, but before that could happen the case had to be filtered through a grand jury, composed of persons probably inexperienced in legal matters, sitting in apnvate room, not having the accused before them ; examining the witnesses separately, and sworn to secrecy themselves upon all that passed within the jury room. It was not to be wondered at that, under such an arrangement, many bills should be ignored, to the astonish ment of the committing magistrates and of the parties them selves, because it afforded ample opportunites for tampering with the evidence. A witness might suppress or vary facts which he had sworn to before the magistrate; and there was no fear of an indictment for perjury, because the pro ceedings before the grand jury were secret. The late Mr. Clark, who was for many years Clerk of the Arraigns at the Old Bailey, used to call the grand jury the "hope of the London thief." He (the Lord Chancellor) had, on a for mer evening, instanced a case where, a bill having been ignored by the grand jury, a second bill was prepared, and found by the same jury. There was another case of which he had personal knowledge, which happened two or three years ago, which showed the operation of the system. In that case a patient in a lunatic asylum near London struck one of the medical officers, who ordered him to be placed in a shower bath for half-an-hour, and then to receive a dose of tartar emetic. The surgeon, having given those orders, left the asylum. The patient was placed in the shower bath, and kept there for 28 minutes, at the end of which time he was taken out shivering, and the prescribed dose of tartar emetic was ad ministered to him. Within ten minutes from the time of quitting the bath the man died. He (the Lord Chan cellor) was consulted by the Lunacy Commissioners, and expressed a strong opinion that they ought to institute an inquiry into the subject. An inquiry did take place before one of the ablest London magistrates, who, after a careful investigation, came to the conclusion that the case should be sent for trial. At the proper time all was pre pared for the trial, when, to the astonishment of all it was announced that the grand jury had thrown out the bill. No one could say that that was not a case which demanded inquiry and a trial; and if the surgeon were innocent, as he (the Lord Chancellor) was bound to believe, it would have been much more satisfactory to him if his innocence had been established in the face of day by a public trial. (Hear, hear.) Grand juries themselves in the metropolitan police district had from time to time been satisfied of their use lessness, and until recently they were in the habit of "pre senting" themselves as unnecessary and useless at the various sessions of the Central Criminal Court, hoping that some steps would be taken to put an end to the system. Their own time as well as that of a large body of witnesses and of other persons was, they said, most unprofitably occupied ; the searching investigation now afforded at the police-courts appeared to afford ample security for the impartial adminis tration of justice, and the duties of a grand jury might be safely dispensed with altogether. In one of his charges Mr. Stuart Wortley, then recorder of London, said he quite con curred in the o pi n i on th a t th e serv i ces of grandjuries were perfectly useless, that the expenses of criminal prosecutions were thus considerably enhanced, that they afforded an oPPortunity for defeating the ends of justice by tampering with witnesses, while in other cases great injustice was com mitted by allowing vindictive persons to prefer unfounded charges b e hi n d the backs of the accused. The late Lord Denman ' who w as not likely to give up anything which he thought necessary for the protection of the subject, also said it was difficult to' conjecture what in the present day was the use of grand juries; they could hardly clear a sus pected character, but might do irreparable injury to public justice. But there were other evils attending these grand juries within the limits of the metropolitan police district. At every session of the Central Criminal Court there were assembled a great number of witnesses , prosecutors, the friends of the accused and other parties, and it was calcu lated that on an average 1,000 persons of both sex es and of all ages were collected there a t each sitting. Now , for those persons there was no accommodation whatever ; they were un certain when their cases wer e t o b e taken andwere ob liged, therefore, to wait about from day to day ; and amost demoralising effect was produced by the congregation of so many persons of perhaps indifferent character, while to re spectable persons the inconvenience of attendwittongdwsaso very conseble. The expense to the country enor mous,and although this of itself would not be a reason for puttig an end to the system, the point was worthy of at tention. He proposed, then, by the second clause of the bill, that where a person had been committed, or was bound over in rec ognisances to take his trial, withi n the metropolitan police district, there should b e no necessity for an indictment, but that an information should be prepared by the proper officer 'of the Court, and that that information should - have all the effect of an indict ment found found by the grand jury, and should be attended wi th all its consequences. The result of this arrangement wou ld be that solicitors would know exactly the position of t h e i different cases in the list, and that all the parties concern e d would know on what day to attend. Various attempts ha d been made to effect a chiinge in the present system. In 18 46 7 being then Attorney-General, he presented a report to the Home-office on the subject of criminal law generally, in which he recommended the abolition of grand juries within the metropolitan police district. In 1849 a bill was intro duced by the Government of the day to effect the same object. This bill was referred to a select committee, before which six persons of great practical experience were examined—Mr. Clark, the late Clerk of Arraigns, Mr. 'Humphreys, a solici tor in large practice, the present Lord Mayer, the then Common Sergeant, the Chairman of the Surrey Sessions? and Mr. Bennoch, a merchant of the city of London — and these gentlemen all gave the strongest possible evidence in favour of abolishing grand juries. ' The bill, however, was dropped. I n 1 857 he had introduced a similar bill, but owing to the press of public business he had b een una bl e to p roceed with it. Under th ese circumstances he hoped their lordships would be of opinion that this bill had been maturely consi dered, and that it was a desira ble improvement in the law. In deference to the objections of son pro vided that whenever a magistrate i fiersons he had dismissed a charge the party who preferred it, notice to di ssatisfied, t might go before a grand jury, giving ir n h oti e two days of his intention, and of the co urt trlO:Aistrachtehetthinant to appeal. For this purpose it was se that the grand mjries should assemble three times in the y ear at the Cri inal Court and four times in th e year at t he Quarter Ses sions. These provisions would do away W i th all secret c harges, would abolish the anomaly of a second inquiry after a fa n esammation before a magistrate, and at the time wou ld give an appeal to any persons who migh s rb e e L isat i s fi e d with the deaden of the magistrate. Re hoped, therefore, that their lordships would give a second reading to the bill. The Earl of SHAF TESBURY said that on one occasion when he had been obliged to prosecute a pickpo et he had been kept dancing attendance at the Clerkenw3ll Sessions to give evidence before the grand juiry, and ter all the operation of finding a true bill did not last fve minutes. Had this happened to any person engaged in business the inconvenience must have been very great. Lord CRANWORTH expressed his concurrence in the general principles of the bill. Lord WENSLEYDALE said it was impossible to resist the case made out by his noble and learned friend, but he should be exceedingly sorry if the bill were made the ground for the total abolition of grand juries in the coun try. (Hear.) The bill was read a first time, and ordered to be read a second time on Tuesday next. Their lordships then adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS—(YESTERDAY. The SPEAE.EIt took the chair at four o'clock. NEW MEMBER. The Earl of MAncn took the oaths and his seat for Wes' Sussex. PETITIONS. Several petitions were presented against the Minis terial Reform Bill, as an insult to the common sense of the country, - in favour of vote by ballot ; for an inquiry into the Newfoundland Fisheries ; from Mr. Washington Wilks, for a repeal of the paper duty ; from different Dissenting bodies, for a removal of the disabilities under which theylabour with regard to endowed charities ; for an inquiry into the treatment of some Indian mutineers, &c. _ EAST INDIA ARTILLERY, &c. Sir DE LACY EVANS moved for an address for copies of correspondence between the late Court of Directors, the President of the late Board of Control, and the present Secre tary of State for India, respecting the artillery forces in India, from the commencement of the late mutiny to the present date : Also, address for copy of a despatch from Lord Canning, dated from Allahabad, vin dicating his Council in India, in respect to certain unfa vourable comments made on their conduct in this country. —Agreed to. THE MINISTERIAL BILL OF REFORM. Lord J. RUSSELL gave notice that, on the motion for the second reading of the Government bill to amend the representation, he would move the following reso lution :—" That, in the opinion of this house, it is neither just nor politic to interfere in the way proposed with the rights exercised by the possessors of the free hold franchise, and that no measure will satisfy this house or the country which does not provide for a greater extension of the suffrage in counties and boroughs in England and Wales than was contemplated by the present measure." (Cheers.) THE ELECTORS OF EAST RETFORD. Mr. FOLJAMBE—As it appeared that by Parliamentary paper, No. 108, of last session, the registered electors of the borough of East Retford entitled to vote for the northern division of the county of Nottingham were only 86 in number, whereas it appeared by the county re gister of voters that the number amounted to 1,466, he asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give an explanation of this difference, and whether the proposal to disfranchise the freeholders of the borough in respect of their county votes extended to the cases in which hundreds were in cluded within the limits of Parliamentary boroughs. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said that he had referred to the registry No. 108, and its contents were correctly stated by the hon. member. These returns were made by the county officer, and the Government had no control over them. With regard to the second part of the question, he did not propose to disfranchise county voters within the limits of Parliamentary boroughs, and he intended to introduce clauses to effect an identity of suffrage between borough and county voters. PIERS AND HARBOURS. In reply to Mr. FINLAY, Sir J. PABINGTON said that it was intended to intro duce a bill to facilitate the construction of piers and har bours, but it must be postponed until Government received a report on the subject. DISEMBODIMENT OF MILITIA. Mr. J. WESTHEAD asked the Secretary for War what regiments of militia were to be disembodied, and at what time, and whether, when the number of officers of any regiment much exceeded the relative proportion of non com missioned officers and privates, the Government would permit a limited number of officers to return to their homes ? General PEEL said it was contemplated to disembody some regiments of militia, and with reference to the latter part of the question, arrangements were being made by Government to carry out the object alluded to. dered as a whole, and the opinion of the house taken upon all the arrangements. The hon. gentleman had alluded to a doctrine enunciated by his right hon. friend the member for the University of Oxford, that you ought to levy as much money as you could by taxation • but it was equally true that if you borrowed money at all you ought to borrow as well as you could. This money was raised at an emergency during the Crimean war. More money was wanted to pro vide for the service of the year ; a loan was then out, and therefore the only means by which it could be raised with out breaking faith with the takers of that loan was by is suing Exchequer-bills. They were issued, an d had since beeniunded, and substantially the same thing had taken place as if the money had been borrowed by loan at that time. This power was one the possession of which enabled the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day to raise money in such form as was most economical, and therefore most advantageous to the public, whose interests alone he could desire to consult ; and therefore he hoped that this resolu tion would not receive the sanction of the house: Sir H. WILLOTJGHBY said that if you wanted to raise £7,600,000 with the Three per Cents. at 95, you would have to create £8,000,000 of stock. In this case, however, the amount of stock created had been £8,469,237 ; therefore at the first blush of the transaction the public appeared to have lost £469,237 by the transaction. In the year 1847 Mr. Goulburn was compelled to have reeourse to the same sys tem. He created L 7,627,000 of stock, and he (Sir H. Wil loughby) believed that during a series of years nearly £16,000,000 had been added to our funded debt. He hoped a measure would be introduced to limit the action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in creating funded debt to cases, where the interests of the savings-banks were alone concerned. It was never intended to make the money of the savings -banks an engine for creating new debt, except in some great emergency, and he trusted the practice now in vogue would be put an end to at once and for ever.s , Sir C. LEWIS--The hon. member for Peterboraiigli.has done good service to thehoiiiein calling its attention to the recent funding of Exchequer-bills. He has accompanied his statement with an abstract resolution that in future no fund ing of Exchequer-bills heldby the Commissioners of savings banks should take place without the special authority of an act of Parliament. That resolution he submits in conse quence of the recommendations of the committee on savings banks which sat last session, and which suggested that no sales, purchases, or exchanges of stock or securities held by the commissioners should be made, except as required for the purposes of the savings -banks themselves, and that no fundingof Exchequer-bills held by the commissioners should in future take place without the special :authority of an Act of Parliament. In consequence of successive issues of Exchequer-bills, some of which took place during the late war, all of which, let me observe, were made under the authority of an act of Parliament, and therefore received the attention of this house at the time, the Exchequer-bills on the hat of July last amounted to £20,889,000. The hon. member for Peterborough, in speaking of Exchequer-bills, and their conversion into funded debt, talked of increasing the national debt, and seemed to regard Exchequer-bills as of a different nature in respect of public obliga tion from funded debt. It is quite true that, according to the theory of Exchequer-bills, they are charged only upon votes in supply, and they may be paid Off at certain short periods ; but we know that practically the vote for the re newal of Exchequer-bills is taken annually as a matter of course, that Exchequer-bills are just as much a portion of the permanenent debt as Consols, that precisely the same obligation lies, and that, although there is a power of vary ing the interest, we should for all practical purposes regard Exchequer-bills as being as much a portion of the national debt as the Three per Cents. The amount of Exchequer bills on the Ist of July last was undoubtedly large, but it was not larger than the unfunded debt had been in previo us times, even with the addition of £4,000,000 of Exchequer bonds. Let the house bear in mind, however, that a large portion of the Exchequer-bill s , v i z ., £7,600,000, were held by the Commissioners of the Saving-banks. Practically, therefore, they were withdrawn from the market—they were in the hands of the Government, and they did not influence the market rate of Exchequer-bills. The Chan cellor of the Exchequer, in the exercise of a discretion which he possesses under an Act oPParliament, and which had been often exercised in previous times, but not, I think, until last January since 1853, funded £7,600,000 ; and the point which I was desirous of hearing explained by the Secretary for the Treasury was what was the motive of funding that amount, because I am not aware that any advantage accrued either to the Go verment or to the Commissioners of Savings-banks from that operation. (Hear, hear.) The commissioners held a large portion of stock ; they also held a large amount of Exchequer-bills ; they could have sold either the one or the other according to the state of the market ; and, there fore, although I do not dispute the legal power of the Chan cellor of the Exchequer, and although that po wer h a d b een exercised by many of his predecessors, including some of our best financiers, I do not clearly understand at present wherein the benefit to the Commissioners of Savings hanks or to the Government consisted in the operation which took place. The Exchequer •bills were at a premium of 375. per cent., and therefore the commissioners could, by going into the market, to a certain extent, have realised their bills at a premium. If Exchequer-bills had been at great discount there might have been a stronger prima facie case for the exercise of the power possessed by the Chan cellor of the Exchequer, but, seeing that the commissioners held a large amount of stock—muoh more than sufficient to meet any demand by depositors—which they could at any time realise, and seeing that Exchequer-bills were at a high premium in the market, I cannot understand, without further explanation, what was the motive, of the Chan cellor of the Exchequer in funding the entire amount of the Exchequer-bills held by the commissioners. The right hon. gentleman, when addressing the house on the previous occasion, seemed to think that he was following out a policy which I had seen commenced during the war. It is true that during the war, when money was raised by the issue of fresh Exchequer-bills, it was found advisable that some of them should be taken by the Commissioners of Savings-banks. That I believed at the time was an opera tion advantageous to the Government, to the public, and not less so to the commissioners; but I did not, while I held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, resort to any funding of Exchequer-bills in the hands of the commis sioners, and I am not aware that anything occurred until January last to render such an operation expedient. It is one thing that the power exists, and another that it should be exercised without any apparently sufficient reason. With respect to the motion of my hon. friend, that is a general question, going beyond the particular operation under our consideration. This power exists at present by Act of Parliament, and I apprehend that the fact of the house acceding to this resolution would not repeal the pro vision of the existing act. It would merely amount to the expression of an opinion on the part of the house,_ and the Government would then find itself armed with a legal power, which in point of law it was justified in exercising, but would scarcely know whether its discretion was fettered by the resolution of the house. On account of the form of the resolution, I shall not be able to support the motion. If the question were to be brought under the consideration of the house with a practical view, the proper course would be to bring in a bill to repeal the provision I have alluded to, and deprive the Government of the power it now pos sesses by statutory enactment. (Hear, hear.) But that raises the question as to the expediency of this power, and to decide that question we must look to the report of the committee of last session containing the recommen mendation. The main object of that commission was to investigate the administration of the savings banks, and incidentally the committee considered the financial questions involved in the management of the money of the savings banks, and the powers with which Government is invested. Though I fully admit the value of the opinions of this com mittee on the general question of the management of savings banks, I must, with great res p ec t f or the members who com posed it, express some doubt as to the consideration they gave to the financial questions involved in their report, and to show my reason for distinguishing between these two parts of the report I would call attention to one remark made by the committee, which seems decisive as to th e f ac t that they had not carefully considered the financial part of the question. In page 6 the report states that during the period from 1828 to 1844 there were large transactions in the purchase and sale of Exchequer-bills by the Commis sioners of the Savings-banks, and then it goes on to say that it appears that the money of the savings-banks was frequently employed in the purchase of Exchequer-bills, when they were at a discount, and that such purchases continued for a considerable period of time. I take it that the meaning of this part of the report is that the Savings bank Commissioners abused their trust, because they bought Exchequer-bills when they were at a discount. Now, it must be quite obvious that if the Savings-bank Commissioners bought Exchequer-bills when they . were at a premium, they might have made a bad bargain for the public ; but if they bought them at a discount, they bought them at a time when the pur :hose was most advantageous to the public. (Hear, hear.) There -, fore that very circumstance, which this committee point out as proving the disadvantageous nature of the transac tions of the commissioners and the abuse of their trust, is the clearest proof that they made an advantageous bar gain, and understood better than the committee the nature of their trust. (Hear, hear.) I therefore think that the committee did not very carefully consider the financial bearings of the question, and on that account am the less disposed to place any very great value upon their recom mendation in respect to this part of the subject. (Hear.) Just let us look at the two branches of the recommendation of the committee. They say that no sale or purchase of Exchequer-bills, stock, or securities, should be made ex cept as required for the purposes of the savings -banks Practically speaking, the Government is the banker for the savings-banks. The money paid over by the depositors in the savings -banks is employed by the Government as an independent banker. The Government is debtor to the sav ings-banks, and acting as a banker for them it is reasonable that it should have the power to vary its securities and to sell stock and buy Exchequer-bills, or sell Exchequer-bills and buy stock, accordingas the state of the market renders either operation advantageous. There is nothing out of the way of a banker in these two operations, and the recommenda tion of the committee would deprive the Commissioners of the Savings-banks of that power. It also proposed that with respect to the funding of Exchequer-bills the hands of the Government should be tied up. lam not prepared to say that there is any very great value to the Government in the possession of that power. It is possible that circumstances might arise in which the power of funding Exchequer-bills may be of importance. I confess it does not appear to me that it is a power liable to be- seriously abused. I cannot see any material difference between the funded debt and the unfunded debt. Gentlemen seem to think that there is something more easy to discharge or light in pressure in the unfunded debt than in the funded debt. I apprehend that any belief of that kind is a complete delusion, and that the unfunded debt is just as much national debt as the funded debt. Therefore this power, which sounds so alarming, of funding Exchequer-bills, does not very much frighten me in reference to its exercise : but whether that power is of any essential use to the Savings-banks Commissioners or not, I think it most essential that they should have the power of varying their securities, and a satisfactory reason ought to be alleged why the Government, being the banker for the savings-banks, should not possess the ordinary powers of a banker to vary its securities, to sell stcck and buy nd Exchequer-bills, ch e Means qbui e ll s r bills, or sell Exchequer-bills and buy stock. With respect to this ulterior power, I do.not believe it is nodoubt liable t o any serious abuse. With regard to funding Ways abuse , a oub an t d th l ci at ni in te th a a gr t respect eet hatmeans there to be t a k en for guarding against that misapplication of power. (Hear.) Practically the funding of Ways and would be a v ery ser i ous debt s l l e ean bt wibtilhlosiico tlejleunadnothuboritedtylyamun of Parliament a re m o en c t; a b ti n o t n t o h f e hm ho d n e se d must d early understand that when Exchequer-bills are whichili funded no d e b t i s created without the authority of Parlia ment.nhtehde debtto whichstich E xc hequer-bills are just as much debt as Consols, and whether th e form is transferred or not from unfunded to fund ed, I t o i nf on e a s l s ; l an e d nth as rta binding h on e th the ation d . ed i r any advantage accru es t o the public or to the Savings-banks the Commissioners fron t --- Power :of fanding Excheq_ _ner-bills. Possibly advantage may arise, aDA perhepe the quinoeuor VOTE BY BALLOT. Mr. WYLD gave notice that he would move, in addition to the resolution of the noble lord (the member for London) relative to the Ministerial Reform Bill, to the effect that votes for members of Parliament should be taken by ballot. EXCHEQUER BILLS. Mr. HANKEY called the attention of the house to the late funding of Exchequer-bills, and moved, " That in future no funding of Evhequer-bills held by the Commis sioners of Savings-bankoe made without the special autho rity of an Act of Parliament." The resolution wasidentical with the recommendation of the report of the Committee on Savings-banks. He had brought it forward without any intention of making an attack on the Chancellor of the Ex chequer. He would not lay much stress on the difference of the charge for interest on Exchequer-bills as compared with the charge on £3 per cent, stock, but he thought it was a matter of very grave importance that the house should well consider any question which involved an increase of the permanent debt of the country. He believed that the way in which deposits in savings -banks were dealt with was this : —All deposits in savings -banks were presumed to be in vested as soon as possible in Government securities. That was necessary in order to prevent any money lying idle at the Bank of England in the name of the Commissioners of Savings-banks. But when these deposits were invested in that manner there was not necessarily any increase in the total amount of the funded debt. Suppose these deposits were required to be repaid to the depositors, stock to provide for their repayment would be sold, and the f undedi debt would then stand precisely as it did before the Government trans action. But if, instead of purchasing stock in the open market, the deposits of savings-banks were invested in Ex chequer-bills, as they might be in accordance with the Act of Parliament, and in the course of time these Exchequer bills were converted into stock, these Exchequer-bills were cancelled, but the stock remained as a permanent charge. He was quite aware that the indebtedness of the country was not altered by that operation; but it did appear to him to make a great difference if, whenever repayment of these deposits was required, the money should be obtained by increasing the permanent charge upon the country, instead of by merely re-selling Exchequer-bills in the open market. He believed it was during the late war that this mode of funding was resorted to. Most probably the late Chancellor of the Exchequer saw a necessity for providing money in that way, as being the most free from difficulty. About £4,000,000 of Exchequer bills were, he believed, funded in 1853 or 1864. The effect of that operation was to take a certain amount of Exchequer bills out of the market, whereby the price of Exchequer bills was enhanced, they being, perhaps, at the moment at a discount. Now, that operation was in effect neither more nor less than a war loan. He was afraid that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer regarded that operation as a very convenient one, and would have resorted to it if he had been in office during the late war. About £16,000,000 of stock had been added to the funded debt within the last 20 years by means of the existing arrangements between the Government and savings -banks. That involved a perma nent charge of nearly £500,000 a-year. The house ought to watch these operations very jealously. He believed it had never been contemplated that the Savings-bank Act should be a means of permanently increasing the funded debt. He hoped to bear from the Government that they had no in tention to make use of this power. At the same time it was desirable that the Chancellors of the Exchequer should have no authority to fund except by making special application to Parliament for that purpose ; and if such an understand ing were come to the Government would very seldom put this power into execution. The hon. member concluded by moving his resolution. Sir S. NORTHCOTE complained that the hon. gentle man had employed terms in speaking of this question which were calculated to mislead hon. members not very familiar ' with it. He had described this operation as if it were one for increasing the national debt. The real state of the case, tracing it from its commencement, was this :—The savings banks were institutions in which individual depositors placed their money, which they received from the ma nagers a certain rate of interest. The managers of these banks held a part of this money to meet current demands, and invested the remainder with the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, from whom they received a larger interest than they paid to their depositors. There fore the managers of the savings-banks derived enough in the shape of interest from these commissioners to pay interest to their depositors, to defray the expenses of ma nagement, and to enable them to keep a balance out of which to meet current accounts. The Commissioners for the Re duction of the National Debt, having these moneys in their charge, must do in their turn for the savings-banksjare cisely what the savings-banks did for their depositors. That was to say, they must hold a balance in hand to meet cur rent demands from individual savings-banks, and also con trive to provide the interest for them. A priori they must make the best use they could of the balance they had in hand ; but the law stepped in and prevented them from doing so by compelling them to invest this balance in cer tain securities—viz., the public funds, which ordinarily yielded an interest rather below that which the Commis sioners of the National Debt were bound to give to the savings -banks. The transaction must naturally have been one occasioni ng some l oss i ns t ea d o f pro d uc i ng a prof i t to the commissioners; but the security of these funds was g u aranteed by the public, and any deficiency would conse quently fall up on the country. It should also be borne in mind that the Commissioners for the Reduction of the Na tional Debt ou twheerme to another source of loss. If demands sell stock to meet I t t la came up excess e of the money paid in, they must the price of stock . Those demands usually came when money usually c Therefore the money received amewastit low, and, on the other hand, the the price of stock was high. were high, and the e d was invested in the funds commissioners had to sell o w u h t e w n h t e h n ey the funds were low. U nder these circumstances it was clear that upon the whole transaction t the Govern ment of the country subjected itself s and, that being moderate extent to the certainty, of lots risk, and to a hardl p y o f s ai si r bl t e o wpreithveonutt itdaimntin:lsain such use of this so, it was if the Chancellor of the Exchequer yecausriwtyasof depositors or the profits of the any degree t m h o e ne s of savings-banks. The hon. gentleman had siCintliii:tgerB ac leem,to buy Exchequer-bills, he mightcer t c h o o rdin ugh g t to it th d i e s sin sys b t to-morrow sell £8,000,000 of Consols and invest the these securi ties for some time he might fun d thenl and s o add proceeds in such bills' ; and that after holdin g £8,000,000 to the permanent funded debt. That was hardly so, because, according to his understanding of the matter, the sale of Consols would reduce the funded debt, and the subsequent funding of Exchequer-bills would only amount to a replacement. The hon. gentleman had brought this subject forward in the terms of one of the recommendations of the select committee which sat last session upon the Savings' Banks Act ; but it was not fair to forget that that committee made other recommendations, the adoption of some of which would tend to mitigate the loss which the Government at present sustained. For instance, one of those recommendations was that the Government should be allowed to invest these deposits in securities other than the funds, which would give a better rate of interest. It was hardly fair to select a single recommendation of the min i/attic and place it alone. This matter ought to be cowl- Mig. THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 11, 1859. of the Exchequer will be able to state an adequate reason for the operation. Mr. T. BARING was a member of the committee re ferred to by the right hon. gentleman. That committee was appointed to inquire into the administration of the funds of the savings-banks, and to see whether due security was afforded to the depositors. The right hon. gentleman said the committee had no right to inquire how the money was disposed of. Sir G. C. LEWIS said he did not mean to question the powers of the committee, but had only said, judging from the report, that they had not inquired into one branch of the subject so carefully as into another. Mr. T. BARING said that the right hon. gentleman had stated that the Government was banker for the savings banks ; but one question for the committee to consider was to what extent the Government was a security to the de positor, and the result of the inquiry was, as he believed, that all these changes of securities were not made always for the benefit of the savings-banks, but sometimes to aid a i needy Chancellor of the Excheque r n his operations. (Hear.) That was the ground on which the committee ventured to recommend that some limit should be placed on the power of the Commissioners of the National Debt, or in other words, of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; for ev er y one knew that in reality they were the same. (Hear, hear.) The committee had presented their views. Their opinions might, as the right hon. gentleman had said, be utterly un worthy of the notice of the house, but they had only done their duty in recording their view as to the propriety of continuing the power at present vested in the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The motion before the house, however, was not of sufficient weight to be of much avail. It was a mere resolution which no Chancellor of the Exchequer would be compelled to act upon; and there could be no doubt that the proper mode of effecting the proposed object was by an Act of Parliament, in the debates upon which ,the whole matter might be fully discussed. It had always appeared to him to be most objectionable to vest in the Chancellor of the Exchequer the power of secretly, without the cognisance of the public, and without that notoriety which was essential for the credit of the country, trans ferring the unfunded debt into funded debt, thus throwing a mass of funded debt upon the market without previous notice. (Hear, hear.) Ile did not say that the transfer from Exchequer-bills into Consols was an increase of the debt of the country ; but it was an increase of one portion of the debt without notification to the public, and it was this which made it objectionable. Under the present sys tem the commissioners had authority whenever convenient to fund Exchequer-bills, so that there was as it were a kind of mill, into which Exchequer -bills being put came out funded debt, and this went on round and round as long as it suited the convenience of the Chancellor of the Exche quer. He had no doubt that the power was honestly and conscientiously exercised by Chancellors of the Exchequer. but he considered that it was one which could not exist with safety to the credit of the country. (Hear, hear.) Mr. GLADSTONE—The hon. gentleman opposite has proposed a resolution to limit, in a particular point, the powers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the guardian of a very large mass of public money placed in his hands, and to:provide that no funding of Exchequer-billsheld by the Commissioners of Savings-banks be made without the special authority of an Act of Parliament. The discussion which I have heard leaves upon my mind the impression that, whatever may be the merits of the particular transaction under review, the reasons for adopting which have not as yet been fully stated, the whole subject is one on which it would be inexpedient for the house to come to any practical conclusion, unless it were founded upon a more thorough investigation of the subject than has yet taken place. (Hear, hear.) It is quite plain that the powers of the Chan cellor of the Exchequer, as the keeper of the public money, are enormous. I don't hesitate to say that, in my opinion, they require review and reconsideration, and that in some important particulars they ought to be limited. Undoubt edly, however, if there be any one point of special danger to the public created by those powers, it is not that which is raised by the motion of the hon. gentleman ; but it is the power which the Finance Minister possesses of creating new public debt by the funding of deficiency bills, or, in other words, of meeting deficiencies in the revenue of the country from year to year by the creation of new debt, without the authority of Parliament. (Hear, hear.) That is an enormous power, and it is not merely speculative in its character ; but it is a power which has been used in a manner highly detrimental to the public interest ; and if the house is to go into the matter at all, it should direct its atttention to that, which is by far the more serious part of the subject. With regard to the more limited question opened by the hon. gentleman opposite, I agree that that also deserves the attention of Parliament, and that the state of things at present established by law is not alto gether satisfactory. For the most part I concur in the views and observations of the right hon. gentleman the member for Radnorshire. At the same time, I think that the house has not had sufficiently under its view the various questions thit are involved in these great monetary trans actions of the Chancellorof the Exchequer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the greatest banker in the country, and I believe, also, that he is the greatest operator on the Stock- Exchange in London. (Hear hear.) I don't enter upon the question of whether that should be so or not. I believe that it would be injurious to the public interest that you should altogether deprive him of his power in this respect; but undoubtedly he ought to act under rules and on prin ciples that have been maturely considered and deliberately adopted by the House of Commons. (Hear, hear.) Instead of that we have a system which has grown up from time time in great degree by haphazard. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is frequently in a difficulty to know how far he is justified in using the powers with which the law invests him, and it would be greatly for his advantage, as well as for the satisfaction of the public, that it should be deter mined by the house in what manner, and on what prin ciples he was to procceed. But the chief object which Ihave in rising is to notice what has been said by my hon. friend behind me on the subject of savings -banks funds, because we are at issue on a point which it ought not to be difficult to settle. My hon. friend the member for Huntingdon thinks tharthe funds in the hands of the Commissioners of the National Debt are the funds of the depositors in savings -banks. In my opinion there cannot be a more gross delusion. (Ifear.)lThey are not the funds of the Com missioners of Savings-bunks any more than £5O remaining in a banker's till belongs to me, if I happen to have depo • sited £5O with him. It does not belong to me, it is his money, to use it as he thinks fit, subject to its repayment to me. To say that the depositors in savings -banks were to place their money in the hands of ,a public body, and were to be responsible for the prudent use or gross misuse of their funds by that body, would be doing them anythi ng b u t a kindness. It would be impossible to lay down a rule that would be more ruinous to the depositors themselves. What do you do ? You take the money of these depositors and you give them the entire security of the public for their money. They cannot have a b e tt er security, and if y ou g i ve them that, they have no interest in the employment o f th e one tomisa te thethems treasury if yo fling theit t c o o te try bot sound, thedoesn' t t sea. So long sound, it does not matter one rush what the Chancellor of the Exchequer does with the money. If he invests it well they are no richer, and if he plays all the tricks of the mountebank, or disposes of it with the artifices of the swindler, they are none the poorer. The depositors in savings-banks have nothing to do with the question, and it is only weakening and impairing their . position to make them depend upon the prudence of the Minister instead of upon the credit of the British public. (Hear.) Ido not en tirely follow the member for Radnorshire when he says that there never can be an increase of the public debt from a transaction such as that which recently occurred. With regard to that transaction I give no opi nion. I know no more than he does the reasons which led the Chancellor of the Exchequer to adopt it ; and I only speak, therefore, of the general principle. It does not appear but that there might be an increase of the public debt under the exercise of this power by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If the Commissioners for the Reduction of the Public Debt are the holders of £1,000,000 in Exchequer-bills, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer finds that £1,000,000 at a rate that will ex punge the assets of the commissioners to that amount, replacing them by £1,100,000 of stock, the first impression of the transaction is that it is a mere matter of account, and that the public is neither more nor less indebted than before, because the £1,100,000 is a portion of certain assets, the property of the public themselves ; and if the public are, on one hand,creditors, they are, on th e o th er , d e bt ors to that amount. But contingently the transaction may add to the public debt ; for whereas before, by means of the £1,000,100, the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have gone into the market, and, by selling that amount, made the public really debtors to the buyers by £1,000,000, he has now the power of going into the market and selling £1,100,000; therefore, to the extent of the difference of £lOO,OOO, there might be a creation of new debt by a transaction of this kind. I would suggest whether it would not be useful, while leav ing the Chancellor of the Exchequer the powers he now possesses, with regard to this exchange of securities, to provide that all such transactions shall, as a matter of course, be brought under the review of a committee of this house. (Hear, hear.) Ido not pretend that this should stand in the place of a consideration of further and fuller measures on the subject ; but the house does entertain a certain amount of jealousy of these operations; in the city of London also the operations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer are regarded with considerable jealousy, because they interfere with the regular transactions in stock, and the house would be exercising its constitutional juris diction if, by some special organ, it assumed a periodic a l review of all operations of this kind. It is well worth the consideration of the house whether it should not make some provision that would prevent it depending on any indi vidual member inviting attention to the subject—whether there should not be some regular and fixed machinery by which operations of this kind could be brought under the consideration of Parliament and regulated beforehand. It would be dangerous to say that the Chancellor of the Ex chequer shall not exercise the power, because the advantage of an operation might be lost by the necessity of making an. application to Parliament; but it is quite another thing to provide the means of a more rapid submission of the opera tion to the audit of the House of Commons. Mr. W. WILLIAMS thought it was the duty of the house not to allow the existing act to remain any longer on the statute-book. He had never known a transaction of this kind in which the public had not sustained a loss. He hoped the hon. gentleman would withdraw his motion, and bring in a bill._ M. HENLEY could not at all agree with his right hon. friend that the savings bank depositors had nothing to do with what became of their money. What the right hon. gentleman said was quito true in so far as the principal was concerned ; but they must remember that there was such a thing as interest. The depositors complained that they did not receive quite so much as they ought ; and the answer was, that if the Government realised and paid them off, it would lose by the transaction. That might be so ' • but then the deposit ors h a d a r i g ht t o as k, " H ow much have you lost by jobbing ?" He (Mr. Henley) suspected that it was in this sense that the committee had complained of the commissioners buying Exchequer-bills at a discount. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER wished to recal the attention of the house to the motion that was really before it; and he would not therefore enter into collateral subjects, which were no doubt interesting, but which were not raised by the resolution. The notice being to call attention to the late funding of Exchequer bills, for which he (Mr. Disraeli) was responsible, and which had taken place by his advice, he could not but re gard it, notwithstanding the hon. gentleman's courteous expressions, as a vote of censure upon the operation ; for it was in consequence of that operation that the house was called upon to legislate, and of course to legislate in the way of censure. He (Mr. Disraeli) had been asked why ;the Government had taken the step of funding £7, 600 / 000 , and he would now tell the house the reason. In the course of the autumn his attention had been called to the subject by a complaint on the part of the Commissioners of Savings Banks, to the effect that the security they held was a losing one, and t hat they were I;iet receiving the interest that they ' would have done wider another form of investment. It might be said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Commissioners of the National Debt were but a single person, and that this was a fiction used in discussion. But in fact that was not so. There were two accounts ; there was the account of the savings -banks, and there was the general account of the country. Of course those who were responsible for that account did not wish to see a loss appa rently under their management regularly accruing upon the savings-banks, and therefore they naturally wished to put an end to what had a very ugly aspect, and for which they were responsible. Though that was one of the rea sons, he candidly admitted that that was not the reason which had induced him to sanction this operation. His attention was called to the large amount of Exchequer-bills then in existence, and to that of which nobody could be insensible, the very delicate state of the Exchequer-bill market, and he was asked to consider what might be the effect of having so large an amount of Exchequer Bills, not afloat, but in existence, and what consequences of great in convenience and injury might possibly accrue from those circumstances. He naturally inquired what was the reason why the Savings Bank Commissioners were in possession of so large an amount of Exchequer Bills as between seven and eight millions sterling. Perhaps the house would like to know that that was not a natural or usual state of things, and how very rapidly that amount had accrued. At the close of 1854, the commissioners had only £200,000 of Exchequer Bills. It was true they had £1,600,000 of Exchequer Bonds, making altogether of the unfunded debt in their possession, £1,800,000. On the sth July, 1855, between bills and bonds, the amount had reached £3,315,000. At the close of 1855, it was £4,886,000, and on the sth July, 1856, £6,875,000. He found the amount between seven and eight millions ; and it appeared to him that this was a very dangerous state to be placed in, the Exchequer Bill market being a very delicate market, and naturally so, from the very unsatis factory state of that security. Suppose these securities, which were periodically paid off, had become liable to be paid at a moment when there was a great scarcity of money ; suppose there had been such a state of affairs as suddenly occurred in 1857 for example—the minister insisted on going to the savings banks, and finding that they had a very large amount of capital in the funds to assist him, would have found that their resources were entirely absorbed and clogged up by themselves holding seven or eight millions of Ex chequer Bills. This was very unsatisfactory not only to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but to the Commissioners of Savings Banks themselves. It was thought necessary, and it was not done hastilyto sanction a change whichwould put an end to that system. Mr. Baring had talked of needy Chancel lors of the Exchequer availing themselves of these securities for their own benefit ; but in this instance the change mats made for the benefit of the savings banks themselves ; for they received, in lieu of a security which they viewed with distrust and suspicion, one with which everyb o dy was satis fied. That was the real reason which had prevailed upon him to sanction the funding of this large amount of Exchequer Bills held for the savings -banks ; and he believed that the course was one very much for the advantage of the savings banks, and one in which the government itself was really not at all interested. Because, so far as the prices of Exchequer Bills floating on the market was con cerned, this £7,800,000 could not at all affect them. They were in possession, practically, of the Government; and he had to ask himself how they came into the possession of the Government. He was obliged to look at the circumstances which had led to this rapid increase in the hands of the Savings Banks Commissioners ; and it appeared that those circumstances had arisen in a very legitimate and proper manner. They had arisen in consequence of a very excep tional and extraordinary event—the occurrence of a war, in which that house voted Exchequer-bills, in order that the minister of the day might raise money on them to carry on the war. He looked upon the funding of these Exche quer-bills as virtually the completion of that transaction. He had no hesitation in using the phrase of gentlemen op posite ; no doubt, it was virtually the completion of a loan which the country had incurred to carry on the war. But it was completed in a legal manner—in a manner perfectly satisfactory to the Commissioners of Savings • banks. And it was really of no advantage whatever to the Government beyond that advantage which must always accrue when funds of this kind were in a satisfactory and healthy con dition. That was the real reason why this funding had taken place ; and he believed that it was an operation ne cessary and advantageous, and strictly in consonance with the law of the country. He deprecated the motion being passed. The subject would not be dealt with at all satisfac torily by acceding to the motion ; but he was perfectly will ing to admit, as he had done before, that the state of our unfunded debt was not by any means satisfactory. He did not think that the instrument of security itself—the Exche quer-bill—was an instrument adapted as much as it ought to be to the times in which we lived. The shortness of its date, the possibility of its becoming due to a large amount when there was a great strain upon the money market, or even a panic in the public mind, were circumstances highly dis advantageous ; and it was quite possible that the wisdom the Administration and Parliament might some day or other substitute some instrument to represent our unfunded fdebt more effective than the form which at present existed. The whole subject of Exchequer-bills was and had been for some time under the consideration of the Government. With respect to the recommendations contained in the report of the committee on public monies, he regretted that cir cumstances had prevented him from bringing all the recom mendations of that committee fully before the house; but he hoped shortly to do so, and he should then be able to speak more definitely on the subject of Exchequer-bills than it was convenient for him now to do. He hoped that the house would not sanction the motion. He was convinced that the power entrusted to the Chancellor of the Exche quer had been exercised greatly to the public advantage, and he should not be afraid of failing to establish that if that were really the point at issue. The real point was the recent funding of Exchequer-bills, the cause of that fund ing, and whether, in consequence of that funding, the house ought to interfere by legislation to express its disapproba tion thereof. He had detailed the main reasons which in fluenced him in that course. He had not in the least con sidered the convenience of the Government, but solely what he thought was due to the condition of the savings banks themselves. He believed that it was a necessary operation; he know it was legal ; and he trusted that the house would not, by passing this resolution, express disapprobation of it. ration, formed of the incumbent and churchwardens, to hold and administer property appropriated to the Church ; and of transferring the powers of the present vestry with reference to the parish church to a new vestry, consisting of contributors to the Church funds, the churchwardens to be chosen therefrom. He stated reasons why, in his opinion, the abolition of church rates must form the main ingredient of any measure on this subject, and he proceeded to discuss the resolutions seriatim. Those who desired to see the set tlement of this painful question should, he said, provide some reasonable machinery that would enable Churchmen to bear the burden that would be cast upon them, and thereby secure the passage of the bill in another place. Mr. S. ESTCOURT suggested to Sir A. Elton that, in the existing circumstances of this question, having detailed his views, he would do better to withdraw the resolutions. Mr. COWPER concurred in this §uggestion, thinking that no useful object would be gained by the motion. After a few words from Mr. NEWDEGATE, the mo tion was withdrawn. NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES. LordBURY called attention to the Newfoundland fisheries, and moved an address to her Majesty for copies of any corres pondence between the English and French authorities in Newfoundland, or between the Governor of Newfoundland and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, or between the English and French Governments, which may show the construction placed by the French authorities upon the treaties which now regulate the Newfoundland Fisheries. He admitted that this was a delicate subject, involving questions of international law, in which we were at issue with an ally, and which should not be discussed in an angry spirit. His only object was, he said, to ventilate the sub ject in the house. France had made great demands, which had been met by great concessions, and he wished to know on what principle the negotiations were based. He gave an exposition of the treaties on the subject of fisheries, of the titles which the French derived from them, and of the claims they had put forward. Sir E. B. LYTTON said,—l can assure the noble lord that I highly appreciate the temper as well as the ability which he has shown on this subject ; and, so far from wish ing that he had not interfered in the matter, I am, on the contrary, glad to think that we may secure so able a do fender of the rights and interests of the colony of New foundland, of which I myself am, as it were, the profes sional advocate. The noble lord, I think, will see beforll sit down that I am positively precluded from entering in detail into this particular question. It is a subject to which I have devoted great attention. It is one on which I have formed a very decided opinion, but, as the noble lord has truly stated, it is one that involves very subtle points of argument and some serious ground of danger. I hope that the disputes may be settled and the danger may be pre vented by amicable negotiation. I will not follow the noble lord through his able historical disquisition, but will simply admit that it is perfectly true that for the last 30 years ne gotiations have been begun, have been dropped, and have been resumed with the French, with regard to their alleged right of fishery in Newfoundland. The late Government, believing that a mutual understanding between the French and the English Governments as to their respective rights could not be arrived at by negotiation, attempted a kind of compromise—viz., the convention of 1856, by which we ceded a portion of our claims, and gained in return an extension of our right of fishing on the coast of Labrador and also a right to take bait. I cannot concur in the noble lord's opinion that the right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Labouchere) neglected British interests in this matter. The Legislature of Newfoundland objected to that convention and it fell to the ground. The noble lord spoke of the tra ditionary policy on which he imagines every Secretary of State is to act ; but I must remind him that during the ascendancy of that political party with which he is con nected, there were no less than eight successive Secretaries for the Colonies in one single year. (Laughter.) If each of those Secretaries of State had followed out a policy of his own, you would have had eight traditionary policies for the British colonies • and I would then ask the noble lord whether he thinks that we should long have many colonies left to us. I think the noble lord asked me whether I ap prove of the convention of 1856. I will venture to say that, whether I approve or disapprove of what was done in that year, I may assume that, if the right hon. gentleman the member for Taunton were put now in office, he would not make in 1859 the same propositions as he made in 1856, partly because of the rejection of them by the Newfound land Legislature, and partly because further evidence on the subject has been furnished to the Government. Hav ing considered that evidence. I have come to the conclusion that the refusal of Newfoundland to concur in the conven tion was justified. When this convention was rejected by the Legislature of Newfoundland, the French Government expressed a determination to maintain its existing rights ; they were summed up very briefly by the French authori ties ; they demanded the fulfilment of the treaty—nothing more and nothing less. I can assure the noble lord I have carefully examined this question in all its bearings; and if the noble lord should himself be my successor in the office of Secretary of State, and wish to pursue a traditionary policy, he will have an opportunity of examining my minutes, and I think he will be startled by their extent. Her Majesty's Government in quired whether the Government of France was disposed to re-enter into a consideration of the convention, in order to ascertain what are the rights claimed by the French, and the manner in which those rights have been exercised. We have proposed the appointment of a mixed commission to investigate the facts on the spot, and to inquire into the manner in which the provisions of the treaty are observed by both parties. Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that restrictions have been imposed on French fishermen to which, it is alleged, they ought not to be exposed ; so, on the other hand, it believes there have been encroachments and deviations from the treaty on the part of the French fishermen, which the people of Newfoundland have ex pressed a determination to resist. Now, I must say the French Government have replied to this proposal in a most friendly spirit. The commission will be appointed, and proceed to make its inquiry in the beginning of May. I think I may venture to hope that all chance of a collision between the two parties arising out of the state of affairs in Newfoundland is over ; for it is understood on both sides, that during the ensuing fishing season, and while inquiry by the commission is in progress, the English and French commanders are to exercise all necessary forbearance with regard to any occurrence that may lead to a dispute ; and all measures of repression on the part of the French Go vernment will be suspended. The Government of France, in acceding to our proposal, at the same time expressed a hope that its having done so would be accepted as a fresh instance of the friendly and conciliatory spirit by which it is actuated. And at this stage of the proceedings I trust the noble lord will acknowledge that it is neither wise nor prudent to publish papers bearing on the very points in dis pute, which we hope are about to be examined in a spirit of friendly inquiry. There is no objection to publish the cor respondence, or extracts from the correspondence, that has passed between the two Governments on this question of the Newfoundland fisheries. But with regard to tke other papers, I think, as we shall have the report of the commis sioners themselves in a few months, that will be the natural time to produce them, without the intervention of Parlia ment. This commission will, I hope, pave the way to a final settlement of all the matters in dispute between both parties to the negotiations. Mr. LABOUCHERE said that as this question had been a source of irritation between France and England for some years, it was most desirable that there should be a satisfac tory arrangement. He did not understand from the right hon. gentleman's remarks whether or not the commissioners were to be empowered to conclude a convention, or whether they were merely to inquire. Sir E. B. LYTTON said the commissioners were merely to inquire how the treaty provisions had been carried out by both sides. Mr. LABOUCHERE—Carried out? Sir E. B. LYTTON—Or what breaches had been com mitted. Mr LABOUCHERE thought that all that was pretty well known already. Commissions had been appointed on several occasions. There was one in 1848, one in 1850, and one in 1851, and all these attempts to come to a settlement of the disputes had entirely failed. The commissioner, Mr. Merivale, was a man well able to deal with this subject. He endeavoured to settle the matter without reference to the colony, but that course was only taken on the condition that any convention should not come into force until it had been assented to by the Legislature of Newfoundland. What took place? A convention was framed, and when it went to Newfoundland the Legislature there did not assent to it. Well, the French Government made no complaint on that ground, and the Legislature of Newfoundland was equally satisfied on that occasion. To go further into detail on what then took place would be but wasting the time of the house, and he was the less willing to do so because ne gotiations were now pending in the matter. He trusted that his noble friend would be satisfied with the papers which the right hon. baronet was willing to give him. His noble friend had alluded to the system of bounties, which were given both by the French and United States Governments, He could not but think that his noble friend had much over estimated the effect of these bounties. Mr. WILSON wished to call attention to two points. So far from the market being in a perilous state at the time of this transaction, Exchequer-bills were at a premium of 34f to 371; so that there was nothing to justify any extraordinary course. That course had boon taken on the 31st of January; had the Government waited a few days they might have ob tained the sanction of Parliament. As the bills were vir tually in the hands of the Government where was the necessity of funding them ? It was said the funding had been made for the convenience of the Savings Bank Com missioners ; but the effect would be to increase the interest to be provided for from £163,000 to £250,000. As the de positors in savings banks received a uniform rate of interest, the sole question was whether this was a good bargain for the Exchequer. The great objection to the proceeding was that by converting unfunded into funded debt, it was taken out of the province of Parliament, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer lost the power of taking advantage of the varying rate of interest in renewing his Exchequer-bills. It was said that the amount of Exchequer-bills was very large—twenty millions—at the time of this operation; but the average amount of late years had been eighteen millions. Mr. HANKEY said that the house had had the advan tage of hearing different opinions from three Chancellors of the Exchequer. He would not press the motion. The motion was then withdrawn. MILITARY ORGANISATION. Captain VIVIAN moved fora select committee to in quire into the effects of the alterations in military organisa tion regarding the War-office and Board of Ordnance made in the year 1855, and also to inquire whether any changes are required to secure the utmost efficiency and economy in the administration of military affairs. Considering the amount of our military expenditure, it was important, he observed, to see that this large item was economically as well as efficiently expended. He would point out one or two defects. There was a central register for letters, which seriously impeded their delivery at the proper branch. About 1,200 letters a day reached the office. When referred to the proper branch, the junior clerk made his minute on a letter, and so on through half-a-dozen grades, until it came to the Secre tary of War ; one writing, " I approve"—another, " I agree," and so on. (Laughter.) This showed pretty clearly what “circumlocution" meant. Recently a requisition was made for some oats for the Cape ; one clerk thought they ought to go in sacks, another in tubs, another in barrels ; and ultimately the question was referred to Sir Benjamin Hawes, who decided in favour of sacks. (Laughter.) Meantime the requisition itself was forgotten, and the oats did not reach the Cape until after a delay of six months. (Hear, hear.) Looking at the danger which at present existed of peace being disturbed, he trusted that we should not again wit ness the humiliating spectacle of a splendid army being sacrificed by the neglect of ordinary precautions ; and the Minister who should succeed in placing our military organi sation on a satisfactory footing would entitle himself to the lasting gratitude of the country. (Hear, hear.) General PEEL said that he did not intend to oppose the motion which his hon. and gallant friend introduced with his usual moderation and temper. (Hear, hear.) There was nothing in the motion or the speech - of his hon. and gallant friend to lead him to suppose that there was any intention on his part to cast censure or to express want of confidence in the heads of the two departments to which the motion re ferred. (Hear, hear.) It was net brought forward in a party spirit—(hear, hear)--and, indeed, the organisation of the military departments of the country was too much a matter of importance to be made the subject of party dis cussion. (Hear, hear.) The object of the motion was to in quire, not whether the system was duly administered, but whether it admitted of any improvement. To that he had no objection, and could have no objection. Improvements might be made and ho was actually carrying some out himself at that moment. The motion of the present year was dif ferent from that of last year. He trusted that the object of the motion was what it purported to be on the face of it— that there was no intention of submitting the undoubted pre rogative of the Crown to a committee of the house, or of sub jecting the discipline and command of the army to any greater control than what the house now possessed in the presence of a responsible Minister, who was directly bound to account for every shilling that was expended, and indi rectly responsible for the manner in which the duties of the Commander-in-Chief were executed. As he wasnot going to object to the motion of his hon. and gallant friend, he would not enter into any of the details to which he alluded. In one part of the speech of his hon. and gallant friend ho could not agree. He could not agree in the opinion that the prestige of the British army had deteriorated, nor that the system at present existing was so defective as ho seemed to suppose. (Hear.) His hon. and gallant friend should recollect that the system which was in existence during the Crimean war had been changed, and whatever further improvements might be decided on by the committee he should be glad to carry them into effect. (Hear, hear.) Lord HOTHAM was glad that his right hon. and gallant friend granted this committee, for there existed in the public mind a wide-spread feeling that those advantages which it was expected would follow from the consolidation of the military departments had not yet been realised. Sir DE L. EVANS agreed in what had been said by the noble lord, that there was a feeling abroad which rendered necessary the appointment of a committee, and thought that the Government acted judiciously in granting it. The dis cipline and control of the army ought to rest with the mili tary Commander-in-Chief, but there was also a question of patronage which he believed lay at the bottom of many complaints, and which ought to be inquired into. (Hear.) If the responsible Minister had no control in this respect they could not well hold him responsible. He hoped the committee would remedy the evil, but if it was not well selected and competent evidence produced, it would end in moonshine Mr. M. GIBSON said the difficulty which defeated the last convention was, that the Newfoundland local LegislaL ture had not been previously consulted, and he censured such a course of proceeding on the part of the Imperial Go vernment. He hoped that, whatever treaty was come to, nothing would be conceded without a proper equivalent, and a full communication with all parties concerned, and that no rights of British subjects in Newfoundland would be ceded to any foreign Power whatever. Mr. WYLD thought that if a mixed commission were appointed, one member ought to be nominated on behalf of the Newfoundland Legislature. _ _ Lord BURY replied. He was anxious to know whether the persons having property along the shores of Newfound land, proposed to be ceded to France, were to be compen sated. He should also like to know what were to be the powers of the commissioners now proposed to be appointed. Mr. LABOUCHERE explained that the treaty which fell through did not propose to cede a single acre of the shore. It merely dealt with rights of fishing. Mr. S. FITZGERALD could assure the house that the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Labouchere) had shown no de sire whatever to sacrifice the interests or to interfere with the rights of the inhabitants of N - ewfoundland without the assent of the local Legislature. In answer to the noble lord's question he had to state that commissioners had been appointed on both sides to inquire, but with strict injunctions not to enter into any engagements for the future. They would also have the assistance of the Legislature of Newfoundland. Sir H. VERNEY thought that the house was much in debted to the noble lord who had brought the subject for ward. To causes similar to those to which the noble lord called attention we had to attribute the loss of 500 miles of coast known as Russian-America, of the Island of Java, and various other places, which might have been preserved but for the negligence of which the noble lord so justly com plained. Motion withdrawn. HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY. Mr. C. FORTESCUE rose to move for an address for copy of any correspondence between the Colonial-office and the Hudson's Bay Company with reference to the charter or to the licence of trade of that company since the 22nd of February, 1858, being the date of the last returns upon the subject. He thought it must be admitted that the time was approaching when the information he called for could be no longer withheld. Sir E. B. LYTTON was understood to say that all tho papers required were not as yet at the disposal of the Go vernment. When ready, there would be no objection to their production. Moiion withdrawn. JEWS ACT. On the motion of Mr. WALPOLE, the following Com mittee was nominated on the Jews Act :—Mr. T. Dun_ combo, Mr. Walpole, Lord J. Russell, Mr. Henley, Sir R. Bethell, the Solicitor-General Sir J. Graham, Lord J. Manners, Sir G. Grey, Lord Hotham, Mr. Byn g , M r. Newdegate, Mr. Dillwyn, Mr. Adams, and Colonel W. m tiotte e with Patten. MARKETS (IRELAND) BILL . This bill passed through committee. MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS BI LL. onthviesrbbal. amend. bill. Clauses l h a o n.s h e o s u n s o p tthoelnowwenctro agreed oc e o e m d ments. On clause 11, Dir e JAUNT proposed 434 axamhaeAt, to the effect that Captain VIVIAN offered a few words in explanation to the effect that his motion last year was intended to establish a clear and well-defined distinction between the two depart ments. Sir F. SMITH bore testimony to the advantage of having an inspector of engineers. The motion was then agreed to. CHURCH RATES. Sir A. ELTON moved a series of resolutions affirming the expediency of discontinuing church rates, confiding the maintenance of the fabric of the Church to the zeal and Liberality of the clergy aid laity; of empowering a =Po' " two justices of the county in which the ' borough is situate" shall decide upon the matter, inste; ad of two justices of .the borough. In many cases the justices in boroughs wet 'e political partisans. Mr. GILPLN did not think justices in boroughs were more subject to , Political influence than jut ;tires in counties. Mr. SALISBI.7tY trusted the house would not sanction an amendment the , effect of which would be to throw a re flection on the boron gh justices. Mr. S. ESTCOUI tT thought it would be most objec tionable to throw on one set of justices duties 3 which ought to be performed by it uother set. The amendment 'as withdrawn, and the, clause was agreed to, with an al nendment providing th sit the duty should be performed by the justices sitting in pe; tty sessions. Clause 12 was agreed to. On clause 13, fixing the penalty for bribery- .at elections at 405., Mr. DIVETT expresso,/ his opinion that ; the penalty was inadequate to the olleme, and he would move that the penalty be £5O. Mr. CROSS remarked that if the penalty s hould befixed at £5O the clause might as well be left out of Ihe bill. The present penalty was £5O, and was so high that nobody thought of putting it in force. The object of tb A 3 clause was to make the penalty small but certain. Besid Ali the pecu niary penalty, the party offending would be disfranchised for six years. The greater part of the persons .to whom the penalty would apply were poor, and to ther n 40s. was s serious sum. The rich would have to pay 40s. for every person whom they might bribe. Mr. S. ESTCOURT believed the smaller pcs laity would best effect the object contemplated by the bill. He trusted the committee would adhere to the penalty of 4 Os. The committee then divided, when there apps tared— For the amendment l3 Against it Majority - —248 The clause was then agreed to. Clauses 14 to 22 were agreed to, with some va rbal amend ments. Mr. HADFIELD proposed to add a. clause r educing the length of occupation before a burgess was enti tied to vote from three years to one year. Mr. CROSS opposed the clause proposed by the hon. member for Sheffield, and regretted that an attA)mpt should be made to insert provisions of that nature in a. bill which had been introduced for a totally different purpose, and the passing of which, in order to remedy a crying evil, should not thus be imperilled. ' After a few words from Sir G. PECIiELL and Mr. BERKELEY in support of the clause, the committee divided, when there were— For Mr. Hadfield's clause ... 97 Against it M ' Majority ..-----90 Mr. W. J. FOX proposed the insertion of a clause to repeal that provision of the existing act whicllt renders the possession of a certain amount of property in real estate, or being rated at a certain annual value, requisite qualifica tions for the office of mayor, alderman, or coun cillor of any borough. He remarked that the house had wisely repealed the property qualification for members of Parliament, and he ziow asked them to do the same thing for municipalities. It \yes desirable, no doubt, that persons of property should be amongst the members of municipal corporations, and should exert their due influence in local affairs ; but it was laso desirable that the corporations should include men of ability and character belonging to different classes of society. It did sometimes happen that the interests of private p.ro perty were at variance with the interests of the community. The wealthy alderman who resided in a suburban villamight perhaps feel indifferent to questions of sewerage and sanitary regulation, which would be matters of life and death to the poor inhabitants of the closer and more crowded districts of the town, and cases had even been known in which the inspectors and officers of health were afraid fa lay an infor mation against some wretched cottages or other dangerous nuisance, because the owners of those builds igs were mem bers of the corporation, and they were their st irvants. It was not, however, from the poorer classes themselves, nor wasit from any ambitious demagogues who wanted to get into municipal offices, that this demand for the repeal of the pro perty qualification now proceeded; but one co rporation after another had petitioned the House of Commons to that effect —the corporations of Rochdale, Oldham, and Sheffield had lately done so, alai if the corporation of Leicester had not actually petitioned, it had joined in expressing the same desire. These corporations wanted to be allowed to avail themselves of the talents and energy of men in every rank of society who might be found willing aad competent to serve the borough, and whom the electors might think fit to be chosen. _ _ Mr. CROSS said the bill had been drawn with a special object, that of preventing bribery and corruptic )n at munici pal elections, and he thought ii would be unwise to imperil the measure by the insertion of a clause the t might give rise to so much difference of opinion. The committee divided— - For the clause • • • . 108 Against it 181 [ Majority against ...---73 The clause was thus lost. Mr. HADFIELD brought up a clause relieving dissen ters from the necessity of taking the oath not to use their office to the prejudice of the Established Church. Mr. CROSS repeated the answer he had given to the previous proposal, and The clause was negatived. Mr. H. BERKELEY proposed a clause providing for elections being taken by ballot. (Hear, hear.) He con sidered that the arguments he had adduced on previous occasions remained unanswered, and when he contrasted the small talent of which he could boast with the great ability with which he was opposed, he could not but attri bute his success to the goodness of his cause. (Cheers, ironical and otherwise.) He could quote cases of intimida tion in municipal elections in every constituency in the kingdom. ("Divide," "agree.") There was a case of a man employed at a mill at Staleybridge--(Name, divide)—who was employed there 20 years, and one morning he was told he might go home, because he had voted for a candidate to whom his employer was opposed. (Laughter, and Divide.) That was the way the wrongs of the work ing classes were received by the house. (Oh, and Divide.) He had before him 13 cases of persons brought to ruin in that way. He would read them, if they liked. (Oh, and laughter.) He could bring cases of that sort from every corporate town in England. The only protection against this was secret voting, and as he should bring the subject of voting by ballot for members of Parliament be fore the house this session he should leave the matter now in the hands of the house. Mr. A. STEUART asked if the clause could be now en tertained. Mr. FITZROY said that the clause would be incon sistent with the 16th clause, which had been agreed to. Mr. BERKELEY would then move his clause on the report. The house then resnmed. LAW OF PROPERTY AND TRUSTEES RELIEF AMENDMENT BILL. This bill went throu g h committee pro forma. THE CHARLES ET GEORGES. The adjourned debate on this subject was postponed till Tuesday next. CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL. Sir J. TRELAWNY moved the second reading of this bill. Mr. B. HOPE appealed to the hon. gentleman not to press the bill at that late hour. (" Oh," and cheers.) If he did not accede to his request he must move the adjourn ment of the debate. Sir J. TRELAWNY said that he had given up his Wednesday to the bill of the Government. Two church rate plans had been discussed, one yesterday and the other that night ; and after the fate of the bill of the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Walpole), he thought all plans but his (Sir J. Trelawny's) were exhausted, and nothing better could be done than to pass his bill. The house then divided on the question of adjournment. For the adjournment lOB Against it - 173-65 On the question that the bill be read a second time , Mr. BENTINCK appealed to the courtesy of Sir j. Tre lawny not to press the bill to a division at that late hour, and concluded by moving that the house should adjourn. Sir J. PAKINGTON said it was unreasonable to expect that the bill would be agreed to without debate, and they could not debate at that hour. Sir J. TRELAWNY consented to postpone the bill to this day. (Cheers.) The house adjourned at one o'clock. DESTRUCTIVE FIRE.—On Wednesday night, a fire, which was not extinguished until an early hour yes terday morning, broke out in the premises belonging to Messrs. Smith and Co., rope- manufacturers, New Church street, Bermondsey. The buildings covered a large space of ground, and comprised the rope-walks, hemp-loft, wheel , sheds, tar-stores, and other erections. The fire com menced in one of the buildings which contained a great quantity of hemp, jute, and other equally inflammable articles. The firs was not extinguished until a great amount of property was destroyed, including one building 50 feet long by 45 feet wide, the wheel-sheds, the hemp and jute lofts, and the tar-sheds, The building and contents were insured in the Atlas Fire-office. [ADvEirrisEmENT.]—Holloway's Ointment and Pills. — Hereditary Diseases.—The tendency to particular diseases transmitted from parent to child exercises a wide influence in producing disease. Few are free from hereditary pre dispositions. Consumption, gout, and scrofulous disorders are from this cause ever present, and yearly rob us of our dearest treasures. Holloway's Ointment and Pills hays the power of removing from the blood the morbid qualities, in which lies the essence of all hereditary diseases, and not only do they cleanse the blood, but purify every living tissue throughout the frame, whether situated externally or internally. They are soothing, yet searching, and never can be wrongly used or do harm. Being free from noxious ingredients' the most delicate and timid may fearlessly employ them. BIRTHS. - - - BAKER.—On the Bth inst., at Cobham, Kent, the wife of T. H. Baker, Esq., of a daughter. BARLOW.—On the Bth inst., at 36, Rutland-gate, the wife of Edmund Barlow, Esq., of a son. CALISHER.—On the 10th inst., at 15, Tavistock-street, Bedford-street, the wife of Mr. Henry Calisher, of a son. GILL.---On the Bth inst., at Apps Court, Surrey, the lady of Robert Gill, Esq., of a son. MARRIAGES GRAHAM—D'OyLy.—On the Bth inst., at Guildford, Sur rey, George Wm. Graham, Esq., H.M.'s 10th Foot, only surviving son of tho late Colonel Graham, of Mieklewood, Stirlingshire, N. 8., to Hannah Jane, only daughter of the late John Francis D'Oyly, Esq., of Tyr hoot, Bengal. GREEN—TOPPLE.—On the 9th inst., at Bishopsgate Cha pel, Thomas Green, Esq., of Blackfriars, to Anne Maria, third daughter of the late George Topple, Esq., of the Bank of England. DEATHS. ASRTON.—On the 9th inst., at 13, Camden-street, Isling ton, Job Asht on, Esq., aged 67. AMSDEN.—On the 9th inst. ) Mr. Theophilus Heath Ams den, aged 38. CIIERRY.—On the 9th inst., at Beech House, Red-hill, J. P. Cherry, Esq., late of Pilstie, near Cuckfield, a Deputy Lieutenant for Sussex, aged 79. DIXON.—On the 9th inst., at Newcastle-on-Tyne, Dixon Dixon, Esq., of Unthank Hall, near Haltwhistle, J.P. and Dep.- Lieut. for Northumberland, aged 83. LENNOX.—On the 6th inst., suddenly, J. L. K. Lennox, Esq., of Lennox Castle, N. 8., aged 57. SPEIRS.—On the Bth inst., at Edinburgh, Archd. Speirs, Esq., late H.E.1.C.C.5., youngest son of the late Peter Speirs, Esq., of Culereuch. WALsrr.—On the 6th inst., at Woolwich, Lieut. Edward Walsh, ILE., aged 23. LONDON : Printed and Published by MURDO YOUNG, of No. 112, Strand, Printer, at The Sun Office, No. 1 1 ? , Strand, in the Precinct of the Savoy, in the county of Middlesex, Friday, Maroll 11, 1859, DA Mr. trat the Stol TI the: Ge n , Ti mien %eve II PAL En won hum' 18 so Silve S pi t, 110 1: e Gall: Tw t_ ~IC~ tubliE -Loan of i n iioll iraorc Pori The Govei from tion of sac three such from went. Th( Rs. 1( Put able t Wit Seer e • hOtiCA sOry to thi hereb Cl pa this c April T' R Du lieve Du Th tary Th Co Trea the ] Midi DI him hiR I Son plae( oro !Jul on 1 Diet thel and epri 100 1 on b u rr c l e ni"