more-let them endeavour to elevate the (the Royal Commission; and, after consultsoldier rather than degrade him; let them ing the other Members of it, he felt it was make him feel that he was the armed a delicate matter to give a vote upon a citizen of a free country. In conclusion, question which that Commission had to try. he moved to omit part of the clause, and to Therefore he trusted that the question insertwould not be pressed to a division. "No court martial shall for any offence whatever committed under this Act during the time of peace, within the Queen's Dominions, have power to sentence any soldier to corporal punishment." Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "any," in line 36, to the word "shall," inclusive, in line 40, in order to insert the words "no court martial shall for any offence whatever committed under this Act during the time of peace, within the Queen's Dominions, have power to sentence any soldier to corporal punishment," (Mr. Otway,) -instead thereof. SIR JOHN PAKINGTON said, that considering the present position of the question, he should not think it necessary to follow the hon. Member at any length. He would merely remind the Committee that very great concessions were made upon this subject last Session. Corporal punishment was now in a very different position from that in which it had ever been before. The Government had recommended the appointment of a Royal Commission, which was to inquire not only into the constitution of Courts martial, but into the whole system of military punishments. Under these circumstances, he hoped the hon. Member would not press his Motion. MR. HEADLAM said, he rose to correct two inaccuracies of the hon. Member for Chatham. Before last Session men might be flogged for mutiny and insubordination, whether they were in the first or second class, and that rule was continued; and besides the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread), there was another unpledged Member of the Royal Commission, and that was himself. Last year he expressly guarded himself against giving any opinion as to whether corporal punishment ought to be done away with or not. As the subject was now before a Commission, of which he was a Member, he must abstain from taking part in any division upon it. CAPTAIN VIVIAN said, last year he voted against the continuance of corporal punishment, and he held the same opinion still; for he believed it would be a good thing if the right hon. Gentleman would state that it should be abolished that would, he thought, tend to increase the morale of the army more than anything else; but the House had been informed that he had been appointed a Member of COLONEL WILSON-PATTEN said, that having the honour of being Chairman of the Commission which had been alluded to, he also should refrain from voting on the present occasion. SIR CHARLES RUSSELL observed, that last year it was said by the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway) that men were deterred from entering the army by the existence of corporal punishments. Now, the fact was that, during the last year, 26,000 men had re-enlisted; and this was a larger number than those for the whole seven years before amounted to, and recruiting had during the year enor mously increased. The cases of corporal punishment had also during the year amounted in number to only seventeen for the whole army. They, at this time of day, were rather in favour of jumping to Much imconclusions all of a sudden. provement had taken place in the army, and this was caused to a great extent by the measure of the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (General Peel), who increased the pay of the soldier 2d. a day, and the consequence was that they were getting better and more contented men. As a proof of this, he might mention that out of the 812 men who composed his own battalion, there were only two who could not sign the pay-book. He hoped that corporal punishment would grow less yearly; but his own opinion was that, for the ruffians who were in the army for there were some such-there ought be retained the power of inflicting corporal punishment, which power should be exercised with dis cretion and with great reluctance. MR. TREVELYAN said, that the strongest statement in favour of the Amendment was that there had, in the year, been only seventeen cases of corporal punishment, whilst enlistments were largely increased by the extra 2d. a day. This being so, there was no reason why they should not send the seventeen bad bargains packing, and do away with this degrading punishment. Clauses 23 to 31, inclusive, agreed to. Clause 32 (Expenses of confining military prisoners in county gaols). of the power of billeting soldiers in Scot- Amendment agreed to. Clause agreed to. Remaining clauses agreed to. MR. DARBY GRIFFITH moved an Amendment. The hon. Member explained that, according to the present regulations, Government only allowed 1s. a day for the maintenance of military prisoners in county gaols, which, in many cases, was not sufficient to cover the expenses. He moved that words be added to the clause enacting MR. OTWAY said, that words were that a sum equal to the expense which inserted in the Preamble which were not each prisoner might occasion for mainten-true-namely, that the British army was ance and establishment charges in such prison should be allowed by the Government. SIR JOHN PAKINGTON resisted the Amendment, on the ground that 1s. a day covered all expenses in the case of military prisoners. Amendment negatived. Clauses 33 to 66, inclusive, agreed to. LORD OTHO FITZGERALD moved an Amendment, with the view of placing Ireland in the same position as England and Scotland with respect to the billeting of soldiers. In the latter two countries private individuals were exempted from having soldiers on the march billeted upon them, and what he wanted was that Ireland also should be included in the exemption, which could be effected by leaving out of the clause the words "in Great Britain." The noble Lord moved accordingly. THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WARREN) opposed the Amendment. The grievance complained of was seldom experienced, and limited to a few persons. The fact was that the scarcity of public-houses in certain parts of the country in Ireland rendered it necessary to billet soldiers upon some private houses. CAPTAIN VIVIAN said, that having exempted England and Scotland from this grievance, the Government sought to impose it upon Ireland. This, then, might be considered one of the causes of Irish discontent. kept up for the purpose of "maintaining the balance of power in Europe." If he wanted an authority upon this point, he need only refer to the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who stated that the British army, which consisted of only 40,000 or 50,000 men, could have no effect upon the balance of European power. He therefore proposed in lines 7 and 8 to omit the words for the preservation of the balance of power in Europe. SIR JOHN PAKINGTON, though not concurring in the reason urged by the hon. Gentleman for the omission of the words, nevertheless did not consider them of sufficient importance to contest the point. Preamble, as amended, agreed to. Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next. LONDON COAL AND WINE DUTIES CON- CONSIDERATION. Order for consideration of the Bill as amended read. MR. AYRTON moved the following clause : "The accounts of the Coal and Wine Duties shall be audited by the auditor appointed by the Secretary of State under the Act of the eighteenth and nineteenth of Victoria, chapter one hundred and twenty, in the same manner as the accounts of the Metropolitan Board are directed to be audited under that Act, and the mayor, alderSIR JOHN PAKINGTON said, that men, and commons of the city of London shall having made inquiries upon the subject, he lay before the auditor all the accounts and found that, from the scarcity of public-vouchers relating to the said Coal and Wine Duhouses on certain roads in Ireland, it became necessary sometimes to billet soldiers on private houses. MR. CHILDERS believed that the same reasons precisely had been urged in favour ties, and the auditor shall have and exercise in regard to such accounts all the powers that he has in regard to the accounts of the Metropolitan Board." Clause brought up, and read the first time. MR. CRAWFORD objected to the clause. MR. AYRTON said, that he should persist in moving the clause. It was one that ought really to be adopted. There should be an independent and efficient audit. MR. GOSCHEN did not see why in a Continuance Bill a different audit should be established from that already provided. LORD JOHN MANNERS said, that when the matter was first mentioned to him he saw no particular objection to the appointment of an independent auditor; but he had not then heard the objections of the City authorities. As no charge was made against the mode in which the accounts had hitherto been audited, he hoped the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets would withdraw his clause. ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS ORDERS IN COUNCIL BILL (Lords). [BILL 69.] SECOND READING. Order for Second Reading read. MR. MONK asked for some explanation of the legal difficulties which had rendered such a measure necessary. MR. GATHORNE HARDY said, the Bill was essential in order to establish the validity of certain sales of capitular property under Orders in Council, on the legality of which some doubt had been thrown by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. MR. BOUVERIE expressed a hope MR. BOUVERIE expressed a hope that the measure would not only establish the validity of what had already been done; but would provide for the commutation of other ecclesiastical estates not already commuted. MR. BENTINCK intimated his intention to oppose the Bill on its next stage. Bill read a second time, and committed for Wednesday next. LOCAL GOVERNMENT SUPPLEMENTAL BILL. On Motion of Mr. Secretary GATHORNE HARDY, Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders under "The Local Government Act, 1858," relating to the districts of Workington, Walton on the Hill, West Derby, Eton, Llanelly, Oxenhope and Stanbury, and Keighley; and for other purposes ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary GArelating to certain districts under the said Act, THORNE HARDY and Sir JAMES FERGUSSON. Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 77.] House adjourned at a quarter before Two o'clock. HOUSE OF LORDS, Friday, March 27, 1868. MINUTES.]-PUBLIC BILLS-First Reading- Third Reading - Fairs (Ireland) * (47), and passed. SCOTLAND-POOR ASSESSMENT. MOTION FOR RETURNS. THE EARL OF AIRLIE said: I think that the Returns which I propose to move for will throw some light on a measure that is likely to come before the House this Session I mean the Bill to Amend the Representation of the People in Scotland. As that Bill is not now before your Lordships, of course I do not mean to discuss its provisions; and I shall not refer to it further than to say that I understand it is for Scotland the same occupation franchise the intention of the Government to propose in counties that was embodied in the Reform Act of last year-a franchise based on rateable value. As a general rule, I am strongly in favour of placing England and Scotland as nearly as possible on the same footing; but I think if we can show that land which make it inexpedient to adopt there are circumstances in the case of Scot a franchise founded on rateable value, that we are fairly entitled to press that consideration upon upon the Government. Perhaps, for the sake of strengthening my case, I may be allowed to refer to what has lately taken place. A very short time ago, the Prime Minister addressed a letter to the newspapers in which he laid down the prinshould be founded. One of those cardinal ciples on which a Conservative Reform Bill points was that no place should be wholly disfranchised. But I understand that in the case of Ireland the Government pro- | now exist. I cannot imagine that the Gopose wholly to disfranchise five or six bo- vernment will bring forward so mischievous roughs. I understand also that the much- a proposal. Why are there no poor rates abused "hard and fast line," which the right in the parishes I have referred to? Behon. Gentleman denounced last year as cause there is full employment for the ablewholly inadmissible, is to be adopted in the bodied men, and the sick and infirm are Irish Reform Bill. I refer to these cir- supported mainly by their relatives, who, cumstances not for the sake of taunting from a feeling of honourable pride, are not the Government with having abandoned willing that they should be dependent upon some of those Conservative principles which strangers. Any small deficiency there may the Leader of the Party invented for them be is made up by collections in church, suplast year, and which he affirmed again this plemented by voluntary contributions from year, some ten days before he threw them the proprietors. To force an assessment over, but because I wish to point out that on these parishes would go far to demoralize the Government are not exactly in a posi- and pauperize them. The only course, tion to require us to accept any provisions then, open to you with regard to these which they may choose to put into the parishes is, that the assessor should be Scotch Reform Bill, merely because they called upon to make deductions from the happen to have been inserted in the Reform rents paid by the occupiers, for the sake of Act of last year. In the few observations establishing what you may call a rateable I am about to make, I shall confine myself value, but which really is not a rateable entirely to the county occupation franchise, value because no rates are assessed on it; because I take it for granted that the there are no poor rates, and all the other burgh franchise in Scotland will be the same rates are levied on the gross rental. You as the English borough franchise-that is, are going to establish a fictitious valuation, that it will be simple household suffrage. not for the purpose of rating, but merely We have in Scotland that which you have to ascertain the occupier's qualification to not in England, a valuation of the whole vote, when you might arrive at the same property of the country, founded upon that result by much simpler means. I come which, after all, is the true measure of now to those parishes-the great majority value, the rent actually paid by the oc-in which the occupiers are rated for the cupier. On that valuation all rates are as-relief of the poor. In these parishes, the sessed with the exception of the poor rates, and, in some counties, of the rates levied for keeping up the roads. Nothing would be simpler than to make the valuation roll the register, as practically it is now. The figure to which you should reduce the franchise so as to make it equivalent to a £12 rating in England would be a fair subject for discussion. But when you come to deal with the rateable value on which the poor rates are assessed, and seek to found a franchise on it, you get into all sorts of difficulties. In the first place, there are about a hundred parishes in Scotland where the occupiers are not rated for the relief of the poor. If you say that rateable value is to be the basis of the franchise, you cannot leave the state of things in those parishes exactly as it is at present, because the result would be not only that there would be no enfranchisement in those parishes, but that the occupiers who now have votes would actually be disfranchised; and, of course, that is too absurd a conclusion to be contemplated. There remains, then, only one alternative-you may force an assessment for the relief of the poor on those parishes where it does not valuations are made by the parochial boards, who are authorized to make deductions, and those deductions are not made on any uniform principle. They vary greatly, not only as between different kinds of property, but as between property of the same kind in different parishes. I have had occasion to look into this matter of parochial assessments, and I find that in the county of Forfar the deductions vary from nothing at all to about 40 per centthat is to say, in one parish an occupier who pays £12 is rated at £12, while in other parishes a £12 rating is equivalent to a rent of about £20. I believe that as great discrepancies exist in the other counties which are included in the Return moved for. I have here a Return made up by those persons whose duty it is to collect the poor rates in the county of Renfrew. I find that the deductions allowed to occupiers of the same description of property vary in different parishes from nothing at all up to 75 per cent. As to dwelling-houses, in five parishes there is no deduction made, and in them a £12 rental and a £12 rating are synonymous; in one parish a deduction is made of 33 expect that the Government will show more respect and consideration for your Lordships' House this year than they did last year. I have moved for these Returns, because I wish that this particular point, as well as the Bill itself, may be fully discussed, and discussed in good time, both here and elsewhere; and I am not without hopes, when the matter is placed in its true light, that Parliament will adopt a county franchise founded on the real rent, and will reject this fanciful scheme of a franchise founded on what is called rateable value, but which is not rateable value at all, because no rates are to be assessed on it. per cent, and there a £12 rating is equiva- | permanence. How were those proposals lent to a rental of £18; in other parishes met? The Government not only opposed the deductions vary from 10 to 25 per cent, the Amendments; they refused even to and the amount of gross rent required to discuss them. They said, in effect-Your give a £12 rating varies from £13 to proposals may be good or bad, but we can£16. But in the case of lands, the dis- not consider them, it is too late; the subcrepancies are much greater. In three ject has been fully discussed in the House parishes no deductions are made; in two of Commons; if you introduce any maparishes a deduction is given of 75 per terial alterations, we throw upon you the cent, and in those, to get a £12 rating responsibility for the loss of the Bill. That an occupier must pay a rent of £48. Be- was the manner in which this great meatween these limits there is almost every sure was dealt with here-that was the conceivable variety in the amount of de- manner in which this House was treated ductions allowed. If, then, you found the by a Government which calls itself Concounty occupation franchise on the rateable servative. I cannot expect that the Scotch value on which the poor rates are assessed, Reform Bill will be treated with more and if you fix the figure at £12, the re-ceremony than the English Bill-I cannot sult will be this, that in one parish an Occupier who pays a rent of £12 will have a vote, while his neighbour, perhaps in the next parish, will not be qualified to vote for the same county unless he pays a rent of £48. This is an inequality too monstrous to be endured; the county franchise must be established on a basis which shall approximate at least to justice and equality. But I do not understand that it is the intention of the Government to alter in any way the laws relating to the assessments for the relief of the poor in Scotland. We come, then, to this point, that while the valuation for purposes of assessment is to be continued on the old footing, another valuation is to be made, not for purposes of assessment, but in order to ascertain the qualification of occupiers to vote. To make this valuation, we must set in motion a machinery of some kind-we must have a staff of clerks, and this needless expense and trouble is to be incurred merely for the sake of enabling the Government to preserve what they are pleased to call their consistency. It may be said that I have anticipated, in some degree, a discussion that might more conveniently have taken place when the Scotch Reform Bill came before this House. I will endeavour to meet that objection. I cannot forget what took place last year when a far greater measure-the English Reform Bill-came before your Lordships. On that occasion very important Amendments were proposed by two eminent Members of this House. Nobody can pretend that those Amendments were in any degree factious, or that any exception could be taken, on that ground, to the speeches by which they were supported. Those Amendments were honestly intended to assist the Government in framing a measure which might have some elements of Motion for, Return from each Parish in the several Coun ties of East Lothian, Mid Lothian, Lanark, Renfrew, Ayr, Aberdeen, Fife, and Forfar, showing in a tabular Form the Deductions allowed by Parochial Boards to the several Classes of Occupiers of Lands, Minerals, Dwelling Houses, Public Works, and Railways; and showing the Gross Rent which, subject to such Deductions, is required in order to give to each Class of Occupiers a clear Rent of £12 rated for Poor Assessment: which the Occupiers are not rated for the Relief Also, for a Return of the Parishes in Scotland in of the Poor.-(The Earl of Airlie.) THE EARL OF DEVON thought it more details of a measure which was not yet convenient to abstain from discussing the before their Lordships; and he would therefore merely state that the Government had no objection to the production of the Return. Motion agreed to. |