of a Select Committee, and he hoped that next year this course would be followed.

MR. ALDERMAN LUSK said, that it was a little disheartening to a Minister, who took an interest in the Government of India, to address empty Benches on this subject. [Sir STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Hear!] The dozen Members present constituted a sorry display of the interest felt in the welfare of 150,000,000 of human souls. He thought that the Indian Government should advertise for tenders whenever they wanted freight or stores. The chain cables and anchors sent out to India should be the subject of public competition. He noticed that estimates had been given at £37 5s., but those which had been taken were at £85 and £90. And so with provisions. He had been told that a gentleman recently offered to send out coals to Annesley Bay at 10s. a ton cheaper than the Government were being supplied, but that the offer was declined.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, in reply, said, he took the criticisms of the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Alderman Lusk) in good part. It was very useful for India as well as for England, that a check should be placed upon expenditure by such criticisms; but he believed that the principle upon which the Government went on supplying stores of a naval character to India was to go to the Admiralty contractors and adopt the Admiralty scale of prices, feeling that on this point the Admiralty were better judges than the India Office could be. In the case of the chain cables and anchors alluded to by the hon. Member, he believed that there was a special reason why a patented article was necessary, for serious losses had arisen from the drifting of vessels in a cyclone, and it was thought advisable to have a certain description of anchor which would hold more firmly than the ordinary description. With regard to provisions, he knew nothing, but he remembered a gentleman coming to him and offering to send coals to Annesley Bay at a lower rate than that at which the Government were being supplied. At that time, however, the arrangement had already been made with the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and he believed that the offer made applied only to a very limited quantity of coals-one or two ship-loads, which would have been insufficient for the purpose. He was sorry if he conveyed the impression that Mr. Massey had this year thrown the barrack charges upon loans. What

he meant was that Mr. Massey had put down barrack charges in the category of public works extraordinary, and that the principle recognized was that you might provide public works extraordinary by loan. It was not so on the present occa. sion. It happened that there had been no loan in India this year, for last year a larger loan than was required had been raised in anticipation of public works, and the balance was available for use in the present year. He would not follow the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Colonel Sykes) into all the points he had named, which, no doubt, required attention. With regard to trade Returns, it was rather discreditable that we did not get them of a later date. He was not cognizant of the deficiency until the other day, when, in preparing what he had to say, it occurred to him to make a comparison, and he found that the Returns did not come down later than April, 1867. He thereupon gave instructions that they should be sent within a much more reasonable time; and he did not see why we should not get them quarterly, if not monthly, so that we might know what was going on. The hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bazley) made a large call upon the Government of India when he asked for the remittance of the salt duty, which produce £6,000,000. A question had been raised as to the propriety of making any addition to the salt duties in Bombay and Madras. in order to bring them up to the Bengal standard; that, however, was prevented by remonstrances that were made, and he was glad that it was. The whole question of the salt duties was being considered with a view to an arrangement. He thanked the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing) for the kind way in which he had spoken of the financial statement. That of the hon, Member might be taken as a counterpoise to the insufficiently sanguine view which he had taken; but it was better for one in his position not to be too sanguine and not not to encourage expenditure and the increase of debt. He admitted that the hon. Member's picture of the finances of India was, upon the whole, a very fair one; and there was one point he was glad the hon. Member called attention to-namely, the importance of developing the railway system in the direction of the North-West. He already concurred in the importance of that policy. He regretted, as much as his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Grant Duff) did, that the hon. member for Frome (Sir

the status of the present members of the Council. The House should understand that the Act of 1858 merely enacted that in the event of any change being made the members of Council should not be entitled to compensation until they had completed ten years of service, and therefore when the matter was re-opened next year the only difference in the state of affairs would be that those members of Council who had completed their tenth year of service during the present year would be entitled to compensation. He thought that the best plan would be when the Bills were introduced next year that they should be referred to a Select Committee. Under these circumstances he begged to move that the Order of the Day for going into Committee upon the Bill should be read and discharged. Motion agreed to. Order discharged.

Bill withdrawn.

be there added."

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH said, he would suggest to the hon. Member to insert fourteen instead of twelve in his Amendment, in accordance with the age prescribed in the Industrial Schools Act.

MR. POWELL said, he was willing to insert "of fourteen," absolutely.

Amendment amended, by leaving out "twelve,' and inserting "fourteen.". (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.)

Question proposed,

"That the words 'unless such inmate, being

above the age of fourteen years, and after having been visited at least once by such minister, shall object to be instructed by him,' be there added."

MR. C. P. VILLIERS said, he considered it a farce to suppose that a child of twelve or fourteen years of age could form an opinion upon religion, unless it was influenced by some person who had the opportunity of speaking to it on the subject. He thought that some persons competent to examine the child should first say whether it was fit to decide for itself upon the point of religion.

[Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,]

LORD EDWARD HOWARD said, he wished to ask the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge (Mr. Powell) whether he would have any objection to the children being examined by the Poor Law Inspectors before requiring them to declare what particular religion they professed?

MR. POWELL said, that while he had no desire to proselytize, he was anxious to prevent any undue interference with the religion of the inmates of the work house.

MR. T. CHAMBERS said, he wanted the opinion of the House of Commons on this important question, but he could not hope to obtain it at that period of the Session, when the attendance of forty Members could scarcely he secured. This was not merely a question whether a young child should be the judge of his religion, but whether a person of any age, being an inmate of the workhouse, should be compelled to submit to the religious ministra tions of any clergyman who might be forced upon him. The Bill required, in the first place, a Creed Register to be kept of every inmate; secondly, that such register

might be inspected by the ministers of any

religious denominations connected with the churches and chapels in the neighbourhood; thirdly, any such clergyman might, in accordance with the regulations of the workhouse, visit and instruct any inmate, whether he were seven or seventy years of age, whose name appeared on the regis ter. And all this was done, forsooth, in the interests of religious liberty! He

organized system of proselytism had been brought to bear. He hoped the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge (Mr. Powell) would fix the age at fourteen, and allow somebody to examine the children.

Amendment proposed to the said proposed Amendment, as amended, to add, at the end thereof, the words

"And who shall be considered by the Poor Law Board to be competent to exercise a judgment upon the subject."(Mr. Villiers.)

MR. POWELL said, he would resist any such inquiry if the child's age was to be fixed at fourteen years. At the same time it would be for the Committee first to vote upon the age of fourteen, and after that to say whether or not they would have an inquiry.

SIR HENRY WINSTON-BARRON said, the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge (Mr. Powell) had given no reason whatever for objecting to an impartial inquiry by the Poor Law Board. Sic volo, sic jubeo was his tone. But were the Committee to be bound by it? MR. WHALLEY said, the Poor Law Board was not a competent or impartial tribunal. This was a Bill brought forward by the Poor Law Board in opposition to the wishes of every Board of Guardians in the country. Its object was to prevent as far as legislation could do it, the children of the poor from being brought up in what, at any rate, was a loyal religion, and to leave them by accident as it were, to become members of a religion which, as far as the teaching of its priesthood was concerned, was a religion of disloyalty and sedition, opposed to the historical spirit, and to every instinct of this country.

SIR HENRY WINSTON-BARRON: I call that an insult to my religion; and I call upon the hon. Member to apologize. THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) has made use of some terms which are not very common in this House, and which are certainly calculated to give offence to a body of Members in this House.

MR. WHALLEY said, he was always desirous of conforming to the opinion of the great majority of hon. Members, and although he felt that in doing so he was somewhat curtailing the liberty of speech to which private Members were entitled, he was willing to withdraw the statement, retaining, however, the opinion to which he had endeavoured to give expression. This Bill had been brought forward by the Poor Law

Board at a time when their views upon religious matters possibly differed in some respects from those which they now entertained. But, whatever the origin of the clause, its operation was plain. In large towns it was invariably found that the children of the working classes had been surreptitiously baptized into the Roman Catholic faith. Through the willing agency of the public Departments, therefore, this Bill would enable the Roman Catholic priesthood to kidnap the children of humble Protestants and enrol them in their own communion. The House of Lords had condemned the Poor Law Board by striking out the clause.

LORD EDWARD HOWARD said, he hoped that children would not be allowed to change their religion without being examined by the Poor Law Board.

MR. GATHORNE HARDY said, that the question of religion did not arise on the present clause, but on Clause 12. The present clause merely said that in the case of children who were, say, Baptists or Roman Catholics, the nearest minister of their faith should be allowed to go in and instruct them. If, as suggested by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Powell), a child, on being visited by a minister of religion, objected to being instructed by that particular individual, that was not a religious objection, but a personal objection, and it did not seem necessary that a child should have more liberty in choosing any particular person to instruct him in his own creed than in the selection of his schoolmaster.

MR. T. CHAMBERS said, he must repeat that the clause providing for the Creed Register related not merely to children, but to all inmates of workhouses, and a minister of religion, coming in and finding a person seventy years of age registered as belonging to his creed, would have the power of inflicting his visits on the pauper. He quite agreed that a child of immature years should not have the power of saying that he would not have a particular minister and would have another; but he objected in the strongest possible manner to the Poor Law Board arbitrating in such a matter. He remembered the Poor Law Board being very unpopular in this country, and he should see it so again on account, among many other reasons, of the passing of the present Bill.

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH said, he had hoped that they might have come to a compromise on this clause by means