the country has in those gentlemen who | right hon. Friend was supported in that are the permanent heads of those De- view by Mr. Gladstone, who was himself partments; the great reliance which is so long Chancellor of the Exchequer, placed in their ability, their experience, although I rather think that Gentleman and their entire devotion to the public did not record his vote on the subject. service; and any opinion which falls from The question thus raised was certainly them must be entitled to the greatest one peculiarly for the House of Commons, weight both with your Lordships and the because the view taken by the heads of other House of Parliament. Now, when those Departments was that the consethe Reform Bill of last year was passing quence of this measure of enfranchisement through the House of Commons a proposi- might be dangerous to the collection of tion was there made to insert a clause the public Revenue. The Government having the effect of the present measure. thought that was a question which the That clause was opposed by my right hon. House of Commons, as the guardians Friend (Mr. Disraeli) on the ground to of the public Revenue, must take upon which I have referred-namely, that the themselves to decide. The result of the permanent heads of the Customs and In- discussion and division in the other House land Revenue really entertained a strong was that the Bill was carried by a conopinion that, however it might have origi- siderable majority. No doubt the House nally happened that the franchise was in which that division occurred was not a refused to the Civil Service, in its opera-large one at the time; but it has been tion the exclusion had been found so beneficial that it ought to be maintained, and that injury would accrue to the service if the exclusion were terminated. The same view was taken by the immediate predecessor of my right hon. Friend, Mr. Gladstone, who also opposed the clause, and on the same ground; and the result was that it was not pressed to a division. Since the Bill now before your Lordships was introduced into the other House, two Reports, made by the permanent heads of the Customs and Inland Revenue, were communicated to Parliament, and are now before your Lordships. Those Reports express a very strong disapproval of a measure for enfranchising the members of those branches of the Civil Service. Those Reports having been made, Her Majesty's Government in the House of Commons felt it their duty to place them and the substance of them in the strongest way before the other House of Parliament, and the Government were of opinion-whatever might otherwise have been their disposition to enlarge as much as they safely could do the basis of the franchise-that it was their duty, as representing in the House of Commons those who, as permanent heads of Departments, could not be heard there, not only to state their reasons, but to support them by their votes in that House. Consequently, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to whose Department the matter more properly belonged, urged with the utmost force he could use the reasons given by the permanent heads of the Customs and Inland Revenue against the measure. My said, I believe, with some accuracy, that "It is generally supposed that the principal, if not the only, reason for maintaining the existing law is a dread of the influence of the Government body of voters who hold their offices during pleaof the day being brought to bear upon a large bers of the different Departments who are By interests which are very strong in the affected by this proposal. We have no Commons great combinations might be reasons from the Post Office; and those formed for the benefit of those interests, which we have are from the Customs and and yet you do not disfranchise any body Inland Revenue. The total number of of men on this account. The railway inpersons in the three Departments of the terest is very influential; the publicans Civil Service is upwards of 36,216. Of are a very influential body; so, also, are these there are in the Post Office 25,652; the solicitors, who have combined to get in the Customs, 5,115; and Inland Re- the certificate duty removed. I might venue, 5,049. The reasons stated on the suggest half a score instances of that part of the Customs authorities are four. kind, but you do not lay down the posiThe first reason is that if the persons em- tion that because combinations might be ployed in this Department are to be al- formed that would be a reason for disfranlowed to vote it will be necessary to give chising those interests. The Inland Rethem leave of absence, and this would venue Department have stated their reacause inconvenience to the Service. I do sons against the Bill, and they are two not think this ought to influence your in number. These are expressed with so Lordships much. An election, after all, much point in their Report that I will rarely occurs, and as these persons will all read them to your Lordships; but before be occupation voters the polling places will I do so I will advert to an opinion they be near their residences. We know that give which goes a long way towards in some of the largest establishments in bringing us to the conclusion that we the country, where the men enjoy the may safely support this Bill. They state franchise, means are found to enable them thatto go to the polling-booths in the dinner hour, and there is not the slightest practical difficulty in the way of their obtaining the limited amount of time necessary to enable them to record their votes. The sure." Commissioners next state that the posses-This, the Commissioners state, they regard sion of the franchise might affect the promotion of inferior officers by their superiors, but as I understand the matter this difficulty could not arise. The superior officers have not the right of promotion. They may recommend officers for promotion, but it is the Board themselves who alone possess the power of promotion. The third reason is that it might subject the officers to solicitations for their votes which might place them in equivocal and difficult positions. I am at a loss to perceive the force of this objection. The fourth and last reason is the gravest one, if it has any foundation that these persons might form combinations to secure for themselves an increase of salary. This might be very well in theory, but there is not much weight in this suggestion. How far would your Lordships carry out this principle? It is scarcely possible, looking at the composition of the other House of Parliament, and the vast body of electors, to say that any such consideration as this should lead to the disfranchisement of any class of Her Majesty's subjects. It might be said that members of the military and naval services might combine to raise the pay of those services, but that is no reason for refusing them a vote. as a consideration of minor importance. We thus get rid of that apprehension which was the foundation of the legislation which we are now asked to repeal. Their objections apply to the out-door officers. They take an imaginary case of an officer of excise canvassing for A. B., while C. D., the opposing candidate-or even one of C. D.'s most prominent supporters-is a distiller or maltster. They say "If an excise officer so situated should find it his duty about the time of the election to procure course in the collection of the Revenue. But he can do that quite as well if he has not a vote as if he has. I go further than that, and say that there is an additional reason for using his power in an illegitimate manner if you deny him the proper outlet, and refuse him what everyone else has the opportunity of recording the expression of his political opinion. If you give him a vote he has then nothing to complain of; but if there is one thing that would tempt a man of strong political opinions to act in a sinister and improper manner, it is to refuse him a vote. But the Commisioners do not tell us that such a case has ever occurred. If these officers possess the power of injuring other people even without votes, when they have strong political opinions of their own, they will be more likely to use this power in order to favour one side or the other when they are denied the franchise than when they are able to exercise it. The Commissioners go on to say sary to deal with any officer mixed up in general politics in the same way as they have done hitherto with regard to local politics. As to Members of Parliament being subjected to solicitation, I think the Commissioners have already taken steps to prevent such a thing, for when myself a Member of the other House, being ignorant of what the rule of the Service was, I wrote to them with reference to a person who I thought had been dealt hardly with, and I received in reply a printed form stating that by the rules of the Service no Member of Parliament was allowed to communicate with the Commissioners with regard to any person in their employment, and that if a Member so communicated they would not stop to inquire whether he had been put in motion by the civil ser vant, but would assume that the civil servant had put him in motion, and would punish the civil servant accordingly. That, I dare say, is a very proper rule, and it quite disposes of the objection as to interference with Members of Parliament. These, my Lords, are the reasons why Her Majesty's Government, having taken the opinion of the House of Commons-the guardians of the public Revenue-do not think they ought to ask your Lordships to interfere with the progress of this Bill. I trust and believe that on its becoming law the large number of persons whom it will admit to the franchise will show by the way in which they exercise it that they are worthy the confidence reposed in them by Parliament. The Bill proposes to deal with the Acts 22 Geo. III., c. 41, 43 Geo. III., c. 25. I will only add, for the consideration of the noble Lord in charge of the Bill, that the 9th section of the Act 7 & 8 Geo. IV., which it also proposes to repeal, not only prohibits civil servants from voting, but imposes a penalty on any member of the Civil Service who directly or indirectly persuades any other person to vote. Now, I think it would be well to retain that proviso and forbid these persons from becoming solicitors of votes, which might raise a suspicion that they were using the influence of their position for political ends. The general scope of the Bill does not require the repeal of that part of the section. With this reservation I cheerfully assent to the second reading. "The power of removal is one of the most valuable parts of our disciplinary system. If an officer is believed to be on terms of too great intimacy with a trader under his survey-if he has fallen into the company of bad associates-if he appears to be deficient in the acuteness and energy requisite for dealing with some fraudulent trader -or if he has identified himself with any particular religious sect or parochial party, so as to be obnoxious to other sects and parties in the locality, his removal to another district is a ready and wise ensue. But when the officer becomes a voter, when he is perhaps one of the managers for a political party in a small borough, what will not be our difficulty in sending him away, perhaps on the eve of an election, and what will not be the suspicions of party motives to which the Board and the superior officers who recommend his removal effectual check to the mischief which would other will be subjected?" Now, that question deserved consideration and weight; but is it sufficient to justify the exclusion from the franchise of a class of persons otherwise well qualified for it? I think not, and for this reason-the Commissioners admit that, at present, if any one of their officers has become identified with some particular party in parochial or local politics, so as to prejudice the public service, they endeavour to cure the evil by removing him to another place. Now, I apprehend the same power would remain in their hands, and being a body wholly unconnected with the Government, against whom no suspicion has ever been suggested that they exercise their powers for any political purpose, public opinion would support them if they found it neces EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, your Lordships must be very grateful to the noble and learned Lord (the Lord Chancellor) for the agreeable and pleasing way reasons for their votes, but simply from soliciting the votes of other persons HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS OF WALES. HER MAJESTY'S ANSWER TO THE ADDRESS. The QUEEN'S Answer to the Address of Thursday last [July 9], reported, as follows: in which he has explained the change of opinion on the part of Her Majesty's Government with regard to this question. I LORD ABINGER said, that the object entirely agree with him as to the abstract of repealing the entire section was to claims of men of such position and cha- place excise officers, to whom alone it racter as these civil servants to the enjoy-applied, in the same position as other ment of the franchise. The only question services. That section made the penalty is whether in other ways such a measure with regard to the excise £500, whereas would be injurious to the public service. with regard to other services it was only I cannot help thinking that the course £100. The matter could be settled in taken by the Government in the other Committee. House was rather hard upon the civil servants, for, after laying on the table the Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordvery decided reports of the permanent ingly, and committed to a Committee of heads of Departments, the Chancellor of the Whole House To-morrow. the Exchequer, placing, as the noble and learned Lord tells us, his own opinion in abeyance in deference to those Reports, made one of the strongest speeches I ever remember reading against the claims of those gentlemen. I really think that some of the arguments which the noble and learned Lord has so forcibly advanced against the Reports, and with many of which I entirely agree, should have been weighed by the Members of the Government in the other House before they gave their opposition to the Bill. I came down to-night not feeling so strongly as many the objections to giving this class the franchise, but feeling that in a matter of such delicacy in connection with the public Revenue - a question in which the other House is not exclusively interested -I should give the benefit of any doubt which existed in my mind in favour of the opinion of three successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, who ought to be persons most competent to give an opinion on the matter. I now find that Her Majesty's Government, on further consideration, do not think harm will arise to the collection of Revenue from this Bill, and in the sanguine hope that the heads of Departments will prove mistaken, and with unmixed pleasure that so intelligent and respectable a class should be admitted to the franchise, I most cheerfully support the second reading. EARL FORTESCUE said, he objected to the retention of that part of the section referred to by the noble and learned Lord. He thought these officials should not be debarred from giving the reasons which influenced them. To retain the proviso would be a trap to catch the unwary, and would be a slur on a very deserving class. THE LORD CHANCELLOR explained that he had not suggested that civil servants should be debarred from giving VOL. CXCIII. [THIRD SERIES.] "I thank you sincerely for your loyal and dutiful Address on the Birth of a Princess, my Granddaughter, and I derive great Gratification from the renewed Assurance of the Interest you feel in the domestic Happiness of Myself and My Family." MARRIAGE LAWS COMMISSION. QUESTION. THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDE inquired, When the Report of the Marriage Laws Commission may be expected; and whether Her Majesty's Ministers intend to propose to Parliament any Legislation upon that Subject, so far as Ireland is concerned, in the next Session? LORD CHELMSFORD said, that as he had the honour of being the Chairman of the Commission, he might be permitted to answer part of the Question put by the noble Marquess. As there had been both Scotch and Irish Members on the Commission, it was almost impossible from time to time to collect a proper meeting; but he was happy to say that they had now agreed upon their Report, which in a day or two would be signed by the different Commissioners, and he hoped it would be presented to both Houses of Parliament before the Prorogation. to whether the Goverment would undertake to legislate next year on the question he could say nothing. As THE EARL OF MALMESBURY said, he could not undertake to give a promise on the subject. 2 N ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS BILL. (No. 221.) SECOND READING. Order of the Day for the Second Reading read. THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that it involved no new principle. The Bill proposed certain arrangements by which the estates of chapters would be transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for a certain time for the purpose of being restored to the chapters after various changes with respect to the leasehold tenure of their property had been effected. Many years ago, as their Lordships would remember, an Act of Parliament was passed which gave the Ecclesiastical Commissioners a considerable in terest in the estates both of deans and chapters and Bishops. The effect of that Act was to arrange the appointment to a certain number of canonries, and to vest the proceeds of those canonries in the hands of the Commissioners, thus forming funds comprised under the name of the Common Fund of the Ecclesiastical Com missioners. The mode in which payment was made with that fund was by making certain charges upon the funds of the chapters, the chapters having the administration of the whole of the estates, and paying a certain sum into the hands of the Commissioners. In the process of years that was found not to be the best way of carrying out the arrangements. There were many disadvantages in the Commissioners having merely a charge on the estates in the management of which they had little or no interest, and at the same time there were inconveniencies connected with the leasehold tenure of the property which it was very desirable to terminate. He believed the Church leasehold property was considered to be one of the worst kinds of property, or at least one of a very objectionable nature. The various interests of the lessees and the reversionaries were not identical, and consequently the property suffered. The consequence was that for a length of time it had been found convenient that arrangements should be made between chapters on the one side and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners on the other for transferring to the Commissioners the estates, in order that the Commissioners, by means of the funds at their disposal, might be able to arrange the leasehold in terest on a proper footing, to buy up reversionary interests, and at the same time to pay themselves the debt which the chapters owed them, guaranteeing to the chapters the income which Parliament had fixed as their future income, and, after the changes which it was thought desirable had been effected in the property, to hand back to the chapters estates freed from that objectionable leasehold tenure which it had been the intention and endeavour of Parliament for a long period of years, and by many Acts, to put an end to. In consequence of the convictions which the necessities of the case had brought to light those arrangements had for a series of years been in progress. He believed the first arrangement was made with the Chapter of York in 1852, and from that to the present time various surrenders of property, amounting to eighteen, had been made by different chapters for effecting those voluntary arrangements, and obtaining a subsequent transfer of their property to them in an improved condition. That principle had been thoroughly sanctioned by Parliament. In 1860 a Bill was passed rendering it obligatory that all the property of all the Bishops upon the avoidance of the sees should be transferred in the way he had described to the Ecclesiastical Commis sioners, the Commissioners at the same time undertaking to put the Bishops in re- possession of property sufficient to yield the income allowed by Parliament. Few, if any, doubts arose for some time to shake the belief that a competent authority existed for such arrangements; but in the course of last year doubts were raised as to the authority which the Acts in question conveyed, and in the case of the transference from the two chapters of Norwich and Westminster, which were under consideration by the Commissioners and the chapters, communications were received at the Privy Council Office which made him feel that it was his duty to submit the question in a formal shape to the Law Officers of the Crown. The Law Officers reported that they did not consider the authority of the Acts sufficient to enable the Commissioners to effect the transfers in the usual manner, and a decision of the Judicial Committee recorded to that effect stopped the transfers in contemplation. The effect of that was not only to prevent the transfers then under consideration, but to throw doubt upon the authority by which, in the case |