The Sun.
London, England, 1859-04-06 00:00:00

were proceeded with or not. Indeed, if he had followed his
own inclination, he would not, under the circumstanoes,
have asked the house to pass it. But very many gentlemen
had represented to him privately that great anxie was felt
that the bill should pass during the present s sion, and
yesterday he put it to a full house whether th till should
go on. An hon. gentleman opposite, who was a great autho-
rity on this subject, and who appeared to spe t with agreat
concurrence of sentiment on both sides of the 1 ouse—(hear,
hear)—thereuponurged him to proceed with the bill. From
what then took place, and from the tone of the house en the
division upon this bill, he was persuaded that it was the
wish of the house that he should proceed with the measure.
(Cheers.) With regard to the statement of the hon. mem-
ber for Lambeth, that an officer of the Government was
about to retire to make room for some one else, if the hon.
gentleman would favour him either publicly or privately,
with the names of the parties, he would make inquiry into
the facts. (A laugh.)
Mr. WILLIAMS stated that he would not vouch for
the truth of the rumour.
Sir F. T. BARING hoped that thecommittee would pro-
ceed with this bill and finish it. (Hear, hear.) A feeling
of great anxiety prevailed among public servants with regard
to the bill—(hear, hear)—and nothing would be more in-
convenient to the public service than that this class of per-
sons should be looking to members of Parliament, and not
to the Government.
Mr. J. D. FIT ZGERALD believed that if this compul-
sory retirement clause were abandoned, the bill might pass.
His objections to the clause had by no means been removed
by anything he had heard in the present discussion.
Sir G. C. LEWIS suggested that the clause should be
withdrawn, as it seemed difficult to make an exhaustive
enumeration of officers to whom compulsory retirement
should not apply.
Mr. WILSON, who had supported the clause throughout,
concurred in hoping the Government would withdraw it.
Sir S. NORTHCOTE said the Government had not the
slightest feeling with regard to the clause except to make
an arrangement which upon high authority they believed
would be to the advantage of the civil service. The clause
had been a good deal misunderstood, and therefore, under
the circumstances, he would withdraw it. (Hear, hear.)
The amendment was withdrawn and the clause negatived.
Sir S. NORTHCOTE moved the addition of thefollow-
ine clause :—" For the purposes of this Act no person here-
after to be appointed shall be deemed to have served in the
permament civil service of the State unless suchperson holds
his appointment directly from the Crown, or has been ad-
mitted into the civil service with a certificate from the Civil
Service Commissioners ' • nor shall any person already ap-
pointed to any office be held to have served in the perma-
nent civil service as aforesaid, unless such person belong to
a class which is already entitled to superannuation allow-
ance, or to a class inwhich, if he had been appointed thereto
subsequently to the passing of this Act, he would, by virtue
of the provision lastly hereinbefore contained, have become
entitled to such allowance ; and no person shall be entitled
to any superannuation allowance under this Act, unless his
salary or remuneration has been provided out of the Con-
solidated Fund of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, or out of moneys voted by Parliament."
Mr. WILSON said he was perfectly satisfied with the
clause, as he understood from the Secretary of the Treasury
that the Civil Service Commissioners would, as a matter of
form, countersign the appointments in the War-office, Ad-
miralty, and other departments, on the representation of
those departments that the requirements of the Civil Ser-
vice Commissioners were complied with.
After some conversation the clause was agreed to.
Mr. GROGAN moved a clause to extend the benefit of
the bill to the medical officers of the House of Industry
Hospitals and the Lock Hospital in Dublin.
Sir S. NORTHCOTE opposed the clause, as it applied to
one of that class of cases in which, he said, superannuation
was impossible.
Mr. VANCE supported, and Mr. WILLIAMS opposed the
clause ; and it was lost upon a division by 113 to 18.
On the question that the preamble be agreed to,
Sir S. NORTHCOTE said that he had endeavoured to
make some kind of estimate of the expense which this bill
was likely to entail upon the public. It was extremely dif-
ficult, however, to arrive at any calculation on the subject,
and, as he had stated before going into committee, really no
reliance could be placed on any estimate, because it could
only be based upon the average age and period of service at
which people were now in the habit of retiring, which was
on a much more advantageous scale than would hereafter
be adopted. Supposing that retirements should in future
take place at the same periods of service at which they now
occurred, the additional charge imposed by this bill might
amount to about £70,000, viz., £40,000 for the Post-office,
£lO,OOO for the dockyards, Customs, and so forth, and
£20,000 on account of the revision of? the scale; £70,000,
however, would be the outside, and he himself did not think
that the increase would be more than £50,000.
Mr. COWAN asked whether the clerks in the Registry-
office of Edinburgh, who were paid by piecework, would be
entitled to superannuation under this bill.
Sir S. NORTHCOTE replied in the negative.
Mr. CRAUFURD asked whether thq post carriers would
be entitled to superannuation.
Sir S. NORTHCOTE said that all persons who were re-
quired to give up all their time to the service of the Post-
office would be so entitled ; all other persons would not.
After a few words from Sir D. NORREYS in condemna-
tion of the measure,
The preamble was agreed to, and the bill was reported to
the house.
COUNTY PRISONS (IRELAND) BILL.
The order for the further proceeding with this bill was
discharged.
POOR LAW MEDICAL CHARITIES (IRELAND)
ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
The order for the further proceeding with this bill was
also discharged.
The Public Offices Extension Bill and the Indemnity Bill
were read a third time and passed.
The orders for going into committee on the Title to
Landed Estates Bill and the Registry of Landed Estates
Bill were discharged.
THE GALWAY LINE OF PACKETS.
Mr. HORSFALL rose to call attention to the subject of
the intended mail service between Galway and America,
and to move for a copy of all correspondence connected
therewith. He had no hostility, he said, to the proposed
communication between Galway and America, nor was he
influenced by any Liverpool feeling, because he knew that
influential memorials in favour of the Galway line had been
forwarded from the town which he had the honour to repre-
sent, and also from Manchester. But, as a general rule, he
objected to all subsidies, and thought the postal service of
the country might be effectually performed without them.
The fact that the contract with the Galway line had been
entered into privately had given great umbrage to many
persons, and, for his own part, he believed that the country
would have gained by an open competition. So far back as
October last, a rumour prevailed that it was the intention
of the Government to enter into a contract with the. Gal-
way line of steamers for carrying the mail between Galway
and America. A company in Liverpool immediately wrote
to the Treasury to inquire whether such was the case, and
he rested the whole of his complaintupon the answer which
they received. They were informed, in reply to their com-
munication, that when a new postal service was about to be
established by the Government it was the practice of the
Treasury to invite tenders bypublic advertisement, thereby
affording to all parties an opportunity of competing. Now,
he thought the parties in Liverpool had some reason to
complain that after such an assurance a contract should be
entered into privately with the Galway line ; and he hoped,
at all events, that the Government would be able to give
some satisfactory explanation upon the point. (Hear.)
Sir S. NORTH COTE said there could not, of course, be
the slightest objection to produce the correspondence for
which the hon. member had moved. A great deal of it had
already been published, and the Government were ready to
lay upon the table the further correspondence which had
taken place on the subject. The usual practice when any
new line of postal communication was intended to be esta-
blished was to advertise for tenders; but the Govern-
ment thought they were justified in treating the line bee
tween Galway and America as an exceptional case, inas-
much as it was proposed not purely for postal purposes, but
as a measure specially important to the interests of Ireland.
The circumstances which connected Ireland with America
were peculiar. A large amount of emigration took place
between the two countries, and it was most desirable that
every facility should be given to it, especially in the way
of affording direct means of communication. If poor per-
sons were obliged to travel from the south or west of
Ireland to England, and then to take their chance of find-
ing a passage to America from an English port, they would
obviously be exposed to considerable hardship, and he
believed that in many cases intending Irish emigrants
had become chargeable upon the Liverpool poor-rates
from their inability to proceed further. Moreover, a
large proportion of the postal ccmmunication between Great
Britain and America—he believed about a third—belonged
to Ireland. Under these circumstances a company
was formed to establish a lino of steamers between
Galway and America. It entered into an arrange-
ment with the Government of Newfoundland for the
performance of a postal service, and it asked for a sub-
sidy from the Imperial Government, with the view of
making that service more complete—converting it, in fact,
into a service between Ireland and North America gene-
rally. Its application was backed by an overwhelming
number of memorials from commercial bodies, not
in Ireland merely, but throughout the United Kingdom,
and the conclusion to which the Government came was
that those who had originated the idea should be the per-
sons authorised to carry it out. The same course was
adopted, if he was not mistaken, in the case of the Cunard
line, and the public interest required that the authors of
new and valuable schemes should be regarded in order that
others might be stimulated by their example. It was pos-
sible that further communications might be established
hereafter between England and North A merica ; in that
event the usual course of inviting tenders would be fol-
lowed ; but he hoped he had satisfied the house that the
Government were justified in treating the Galway line as
an exceptional case. (Hear, hear.)
Colonel FRENCH said it appeared to him that this mo-
tion was made in the old monopolising spirit, to crush the
rising interests of Irleand, as in former times acts of Par-
liament were passed to prohibit the making of cloth and
establishing other restrictions in respect to Ireland, though
he admitted that of late years that system had been changed.
This company was formed to establish a direct communica-
tion between Ireland and America, and made to the Go-
vernment an offer which the Secretary to the Treasury had
shown to be of public advantage, and he knew not with
what object the present motion was made by the hon.
member, unless it was brought forward in obedience to the
desires of his constituents.
Sir D. NORREYS conceived that the arrangement made
by the Government was a hasty ono, and he believed that it
would be found a most improvident one ; but he trusted
that the company had been bound to provide such vessels as
would insure the greatest celerity and public convenience
in the transit. If the Government had announced that it was
desired to establish a communication between some portion
of Ireland and America, the self-interest of the mercantile
community would have led them to make an arrangement
infinitely cheaper and more beneficial to the country than
that adopted by the Government.
Mr. VANCE thought that the conduct of the Government
in this matter was highly to be commended. There was a
general demand in Ireland for this subsidy, which had been
well earned by the ability and enterprise which had led to
the establishment of the line in question. (Hear.) The
communication with Newfoundland was now very different
from formerly. The Canard vessels went past Newfound-
land to Halifax, and the letters had to be brought back to
Newfoundland. By the Cunard steamers the communica-
tion with Canada was fortnightly, whereas this new line
would supply a weekly communication with that place, and
no act of the present Government had given more satisfac-
tion to the mercantile interests, not only in Ireland, but in
England, than the subsidy to the Galway line.
Mr. COWPER, as an English member, entered his pro-
test against the most reprehensible and improper course taken
by the Government in this matter. He understood the Secre-
tary to the Treasury to lay down the doctrine that the Go-
vernment were quite right in making this large contract for
£78,000 without competition among persons willing to ten-
der, and without givingy the House of Commons an oppor-
twut of expressing an opinion with respect to it. (Hear,
bear.) A fair opportunity rtgi Y ought. to have been allowed for
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