was also a man's question. It dealt not only with the case of a wife deserted by her husband, but likewise with that of the husband deserted by a worthless wife, who, after leading a. profligate life when away from him, might return and force him to maintain the children to which she had given birth in the interval. MR. MALINS, while reserving any more lengthened observations till a future stage of this measure, yet wished it to be understood that he retained the objections he had previously stated to its provisions, so far as they sought to set up a separate interest between husband and wife while living together; but, so far as they related to the interests of husband and wife when voluntarily separated, that was another matter, and he should be prepared to give some part of the measure his support. Motion agreed to. Leave given. 66 a principle of confiscation." However, this is not a fitting opportunity to enter into the discussion of the principle of this Bill. The best time for doing that is when we are prepared to divide; for when leave is asked to introduce a measure, and the required permission is conceded by the Government, that is not a convenient opportunity for canvassing its merits. But there is one observation on a Bill of this kind which I cannot now refrain from making. The importance of its principle cannot be exaggerated. In fact, if sanctioned, it will strike at the very root of all church property. The Bill, it seems, is approved and will be supported by the Government. Under these circumstances, is it not much better, when a measure involving a principle of such gravity is to be brought in, that it should be introduced by the Government itself? And if Her Majesty's Ministers have deemed it consistent Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir ERSKINE with their duty to permit a private Mem PERRY and Mr. MONCKTON MILNES. Bill presented, and read 1°. MINISTERS' MONEY (IRELAND) BILL. MR. FAGAN, moved for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Act of 17th & 18th Vic. c. 11, with a view to the abolition of Ministers' Money in Ireland. As he understood no opposition would be offered by the Government to his present Motion, he thought he should best consult the pleasure of the House by deferring any observations he might have to make to another occasion. MR. STAFFORD, without resisting the introduction of the Bill, called upon the Government to declare their opinions upon it. VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, I took the opportunity of last Session, when my hon. Friend brought this subject before the House, to state that the Government, after full consideration of the matter, were prepared to concur with his Motion. Some of the details of the Bill may possibly require alterations, but its principle we are ready to support. MR. DISRAELI: I understand the "principle" of the Bill is the abolition of ministers' money, a principle which has always been opposed by every Government within my recollection. Lord John Russell's Government opposed it; the Aberdeen Ministry opposed it; as did also the noble Lord himself, who even called it ber to bring forward a Bill on a subject of this magnitude, they are bound in fairness to this House and the country to take care that, its principle having been approved by them as Ministers, this House should have an early opportunity of expressing its opinion upon it. If a measure of this kind be left to a private Member of this House, the chances, as we have been told by the hon. Member for Surrey, are greatly against its ever being brought before the House for a definitive decision. I think, therefore, after the frank acknowledgment of the noble Lord that he approves the principle of the measure of the hon. Member for Cork, and that his Government intends to support it, the noble Lord is bound to make such arrangements that it should be brought speedily to a second reading, in order that the House may have an opportunity of expressing itself upon its policy. I myself shall certainly give to it an earnest opposition. SIR GEORGE GREY: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it would be inconvenient to discuss this measure at present, and that it would be better to do so on the second reading. I will therefore not follow the right hon. Gentleman in the observation which he has made in opposition to the Bill. I will only say that we propose to do that which was stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland at the close of last Sessionnamely, to act in accordance with the recommendation of a Committee of this House which sat in 1847. That Com mittee reported that the collection of these funds from house to house in the towns in which it is levied is so difficult, that it would be prudent to discontinue it. favour of its abolition. It reported that a substitute should be provided when the funds of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners should have so increased as to produce a margin applicable for the liquidation of this demand. The whole question is of deep importance. It involves a deep principle. It affects the Church of Ireland, and, consequently, the United Church of England and Ireland; but I shall reserve my observations till the second reading, on which occasion I think I shall be able to show a sufficient case for its entire rejection. MR. HORSMAN: What I said was this-that the report of the statement which I made was correct in all its parts, but that if any one impugned the accuracy of what I said, and could show me in what respect I was inaccurate, I should be happy to receive his information, and to acknowledge my error in my place in Parliament. Considering, then, the difficulty which has existed in the collection of the money, and the fact that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were bound to pay it, while they were unable to obtain repayment, the Corporation of Ireland ought to be exonerated from the duty of collection-a duty which they are unable or unwilling to perform, and which they could not be compelled to perform without a long litigation. I will merely add with regard to the introduction of this Bill that it is a measure which has been frequently brought before the House, and it would have been somewhat ungracious to take it out of the hon. Member's hands after he had given notice of it. With respect to the delay which it is said is likely to occur through the measure being left to a private Member, I can only say that, looking at the character of the Government business which is, or which shortly will be, before the House, and the time which may be occupied with the consideration of the Estimates, I believe the House will be called upon much sooner to pronounce an opinion upon this Bill by its being fixed for a Wednesday-a day which is open for the progress of Bills brought in by private Members-than if it were post-nesday, poned to a Government day. MR. NAPIER: I think that Wednesday is the most inconvenient day that could have been fixed upon for the discussion of a measure of so much importance. I do not know whether the Secretary for Ireland made at the end of last Session the statement which is reported to have been made by him; but I believe that the accuracy of that reported statement has been admitted by the right hon. Gentleman himself. I am so informed from a communication which I have had with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who say they have been told that the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to admit in his place in the House of Commons the accuracy of that reported statement. At all events, when the discussion comes on, I shall be prepared to show that that statement is inaccurate in all its parts, as reported. The right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department upon two occasions, and while he held under Lord John Russell the office which he now holds, opposed the abolition of Ministers' Money. The Committee of 1848 did not report in MR. NAPIER: One of the inaccuracies of the right hon. Gentleman is this-that he stated the margin of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners' funds to be £22,000 more than it really is. MR. HENLEY having briefly urged upon Lord Palmerston the great inconvenience of a Bill involving such important principles being discussed on a Wed Leave given. Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. FAGAN and Mr. BEAMISH. Bill presented, and read 1o. REGISTRATION OF VOTERS (SCOTLAND) THE LORD ADVOCATE moved for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the law for the registration of persons entitled to vote in the election of Members to serve in Parliament for Counties in Scotland. MR. BLACKBURN had hoped that as Her Majesty's Government had promised to introduce a Parliamentary Reform Bill next Session, and had asserted that there was an understanding that all measures relating to the representation of the people should be deferred till that period, the Lord Advocate would not have asked the House to consider this Bill, which was considered by the last Parliament and was found to be in many respects very objectionable. MR. G. DUNDAS should feel it to be his duty to take the same course this as he did last year with regard to this Bill. | ever, that the Bill was not his own, but He greatly regretted that the Lord Advo- was one which had been referred to a cate should have attempted at so late a Select Committee in 1856, had been period, and so long after those meetings amended by that Committee, and by them which were held in Scotland for the dis- reported almost unanimously to the House. cussion of measures of public importance, He asked for leave to bring it in solely to urge on his measure, which had already that the House might judge between it caused so much dissatisfaction and expense and the Bill of the hon. and learned Memin those Scotch burghs to which its prin- ber for Newcastle (Mr. Headlam). ciple had been applied. Scotland was Leave given. already over-taxed, and this Bill would add unnecessarily to her burdens. He advised the Lord Advocate to withdraw his Motion until the noble Lord at the head of the Government introduced what the hon. Member for Surrey called the hodge-podge" of next Session. 66 MR. KINNAIRD rejoiced that the Lord Advocate intended to persevere with his Bill of last Session, because he believed that wherever its principle had been put into operation in the burghs of Scotland it had worked admirably. Bill ordered to be brought in by Lord ELCHO, Mr. CRAUFURD, and Mr. BRADY. Bill presented, and read 1o. House adjourned at a quarter before mmmmm. HOUSE OF LORDS, MINUTES.] Took the Oaths.-Several Lords; THE WORKS IN ST. JAMES'S PARK QUESTION. MR. CRAUFURD bore testimony to the satisfactory operation of the principle of the measure in the Scotch burghs, and said, he believed that the extension of the principle to Scotch counties would be a great boon. It ought to be recollected at this time, when all were anxious to see the franchise extended, that, before it was lowered, care should be taken to enable all those who were already entitled to the franchise to exercise it. The expense at present connected with placing a Scotch county voter on the registry was so great that many men were deterred from apply-Lordships who might have directed his ating for the enrolment of their names on the registry. He hoped, therefore, that the Lord Advocate would press forward this measure. THE LORD ADVOCATE, having promised to give on the occasion of the second reading a full explanation of the measure, and to defend it against the observations of Mr. Blackburn and Mr. Dundas, Leave given. Bill ordered to be brought in by The LORD ADVOCATE, Sir GEORGE GREY, and Viscount THE EARL OF MALMESBURY said, in pursuance of the notice he had given, he rose to call the attention of the Government to the works now being carried on in St. James's Park; and to ask what were the objects and what would be the probable expense of those works. Any one of their tention to the proceedings now going on there must have been convinced that considerable expense would be incurred before the works now in progress were completed. For himself, he had in vain attempted to discover how the benefits likely to result from those alterations could be at all in proportion to the money which they would cost. He ought to tell such of their Lordships as were not aware of the facts that the piece of ornamental water in St. James's Park, some twelve or thirteen acres in extent, had been completely drained off, that the bottom of the lake had been levelled and covered over with a strong concrete six inches thick, and that the result would be that in future the lake would be LORD ELCHO moved for leave to intro- rendered considerably more shallow, and duce a Bill to alter and amend the laws would contain an average depth of water of regulating the Medical Profession. After probably three or four feet. There were what had passed yesterday he would make other works going on besides; by which no remarks on the details of the measure. the water was to be pumped up into the He wished the House to understand, how-lake and carried over the whole of its sur DUNCAN. MEDICAL PROFESSION (No. 2) BILL. LEAVE. FIRST READING. The complaint on the subject; but then, on permanent charge of £1,500,000 as interest on the debt, besides something like £2,000,000 to be paid annually to a sinking fund for the purpose of extinguishing the debt. In the face of facts such as those, he submitted it was not beneath the consideration of Parliament to enforce the strictest economy in the public expenditure. Under a strong Government, as the present seemed to be, anything like extravagance was much more dangerous than it would be under a weak one, where the Opposition was as powerful as vigilant. He could easily conceive the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Department of Public Works desirous of distinguishing his tenure of office above that of all his predecessors. Nothing could well be more tempting than for a Member of a Government to stand in the middle of this metropolis, with the public purse in his hand, and say he would convert it into a city of palaces. It was the more natural to indulge aspirations so brilliant when that Member represented one of the great electoral divisions of the capital of England. He (the Earl of Malmesbury) could fancy such a man having before his eyes the glory of Florence and the Medicis, and wishing to become another Lorenzo, to go down to posterity as Benjamin the Magnificent; but he (the Earl of Malmesbury) thought the time had arrived when their Lordships ought to call upon the Government to impose some curb on the ambition of the right hon. Baronet, and some limit to the extravagant expenditure of the pub-impossible to clear out the lake unless arlic money to which he (the Earl of Malmesbury) had ventured to call the attention of the House. EARL GRANVILLE said, he should only so far detain their Lordships as to make a few observations on the small portion of the noble Earl's speech which related to the question before them. He was not surprised that the noble Earl should have thought it necessary to make the statement he had done, seeing he entertained the views he did upon the subject which he had brought under the consideration of their Lordships. The noble Earl alluded to the inconvenience to the Queen and the Royal Family likely to arise from the water of the lake; and he (Earl Granville) was sure the House and the public would willingly contribute to any public improvement demanded by Her Majesty's health. So far as he was aware, however, neither Her Majesty nor any member of the Royal family had made any tificially, the inequalities of course adding to the stagnancy of the water left. The noble Earl had said that the lining with concrete would make matters worse than before, and he had instanced the experiment made by a late Commissioner of Works for the purification of the water in the late reservoir in the Green Park. But the two cases were not similar. In the Green Park no concrete was used; bricks were there used without mortar, and the water used came from the Thames directly opposite a sewer, and brought up with it a smell that was anything but agreeable, and which was afterwards further improved by the dead cats, dead dogs, and he believed occasionally by a dead human being, which were found in that receptacle close to Piccadilly. The noble Earl had by no means proved that the measures now in progress would not succeed by citing an experiment of an opposite character. With regard to the noble Earl's regret at the the dignity of their Lordships to take such ters. He could only say, so far as his huma state of things into their consideration. ble opinion went, he should be sorry indeed He should, therefore, like to know whether ever to see the army and navy again rethe right hon. Baronet at the head of the duced to the state in which they were when Department of Public Works had received the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) took the permission of Parliament to incur the office in 1852. He looked back to that expense consequent upon the works in time with a keen recollection of the great question; whether, in fact, the money alarm that he and they with whom he had been regularly voted by the House of acted experienced lest an emergency should Commons for the purpose. He (the Earl arise in which those services, in the condiof Malmesbury) held in his hand the paper tion they then were, should be put to the to which he had just referred, showing the test, and the thankfulness they felt that no great increase which had taken place in such occasion arose at that period. He the Miscellaneous Estimates during the really believed that the Government, before last twenty years. A noble Earl not then entering upon such works as those in St. present said, on a former occasion, that he James's Park, could scarcely have counted did not like to alarm their Lordships by the cost, so recklessly did they seem to be comparing the expenditure of 1856 with proceeding; and with respect to other that of 1838. But in his (the Earl of items of expenditure incurred by the deMalmesbury's) opinion, it was better to partment over which the right hon. Barostate the truth at once. Comparing the net (Sir B. Hall) presided, he (the Earl of year 1838 with 1856, the increase in the Malmesbury) thought he could show that expenditure on Public Works had been the people did not get anything like their in round numbers not less than £463,000, money's worth. Their Lordships knew the increase in Salaries had been £824,000, that, on their private estates, the estimated the increase in the expenditure in Law charges on repairs of buildings of the simand upon Prisons, Convicts, &c., amounted plest kind were 10 per cent. ; but that to £1,600,000, the increase on Science would give them very little idea of the exand Education was £720,000, and the in- pense of keeping up a building in the style crease in Votes for what might be called of architecture of the Houses of Parliatemporary objects was £324,000. In other ment. He found a sum of £40,000 exwords, the total miscellaneous expenditure pended in 1855 for buildings in Downingin 1838 was £2,500,000, and in 1856 street. He could not understand how such £6,724,000, showing an increase in 1856, a sum could have been laid out, inasmuch as compared with 1838, of no less than as that part of the Government property £4,224,000 on Miscellaneous Estimates seemed to be in the same state of ruin in alone, or a sum very nearly equal to the which it had been for many years. Again, amount raised by the first property tax. what sum did their Lordships think had Even if the whole of the expenditure in been spent three years ago in cleaning the Law, Education, and Science were deduct- statue of Charles I. at Charing Cross? ed, the increase under this head would be Why, no less than £1,000. But an archiupwards of £2,000,000. Now, he wished tect who had watched the works had told to guard himself from being supposed to him he would gladly have done it for £120. advocate any unnecessary reduction in the Then he came to the monument at Scutari, estimates for the army and navy. He was on which £17,000 had been expended. surprised to find a suspicion existing in The removal of the Science and Art Desome quarters where he least expected it, partment last year cost £10,000; and that noble Lords on his side of the House £4,500 had been expended upon an enwere anxious to cut down the expenditure trance to St. James's Park, which had for the effective services of the country. only produced two yellow walls. He did He repeated he was astonished to find such not grudge the money, because he thought a suspicion entertained of men who were the entrance a great public convenience; the first to dare, since the battle of Water- but he had stated enough to show that loo, to increase the effective strength of Parliament would not be doing its duty the army and navy, as they had done if it did not he would not say oblige, when in office in 1852. Although he was but-assist the Government in carrying aware of the extent of political gratitude, out a system of strict economy at this and of the nature of political memory, he time. We had expended £76,000,000 he was astonished to hear on the war; we had increased the public such charges emanating from such quar- debt by £40,000,000; and we had a VOL. CXLV. [THIRD SERIES.] must say L |