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of the noble Lord on being told that that day

That is the speech of the present Secretary for Ireland, who says that this is an ignorant assumption of the noble Lord. But the noble Lord has always said, and he repeated it to-night, that it would be possible for a French force to run over and land twenty thousand men here and twenty thousand men there in England. In the year 1852 he made the same statement, that it would be possible for the French to run over in one night. Let us hear a most important answer to that. Here is another ignorant person. This is Lord John Russell, the present Foreign Secretary-what he thinks of an invasion by fifty thousand men in one night—

"I wish to state what I think is the danger to be encountered, because I do not wish to be mixed up with those who entertain apprehen

sions-"

He does not wish to be mixed up with them, you will remark. Well, he did not wish to be mixed up with them.

the threads of European diplomacy, concentrated, give his vote for the second reading of like so many electric wires, in his Cabinet, and the Bill. His speech pointed against the let the House then figure to itself the surprise whole plan as we have it before the House. fortnight 150,000 men were to be landed on The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary the shores of Britain. Do you think the noble of State for War said that this scheme Lord believes this to be possible? Not at all." was solemnly sanctioned by the House [3 Hansard, cxx., 1075, 1078.] in the year 1860, and that has been reaffirmed by the noble Lord. Solemnly sanctioned and about to be " cheerfully' voted. With what cheerfulness I leave the House to judge. But has the House, or have the noble Lord and the right hon. Gentleman, considered what has happened since 1860? Are we not in different circumstances? Is not that minority of thirty-nine likely to be increased by the alteration which has taken place in the circumstances? Has not the whole system of the navy undergone a change since 1860? Have we not got a different description of vessel; and more, are we not about to get a different description of gun? And that brings me to the questionwhile we are fiddling about fortifications, and frightened with stories of fifty thousand Frenchmen coming in one night, what are we doing with regard to our artillery? Are we not so bound up with that contract with Sir William Armstrong, that at this moment we have nothing but 100-pounders, which he is continuing to make, and have not a naval gun to put into our ships fit to contend with any enemy who may come across the Channel? If that be the case-if you neglect your ordnance in this, I do not like to say disgraceful, but unpardonable way-I think that an enemy may come across the Channel. From the beginning of these debates, That is the speech of the noble Lord the as in 1860, I have never been averse to present Foreign Minister of this country the proper defence of this country-I say attacking the noble Lord's assumption the proper defence of this country-but I that we were to be invaded in a single do hold that the proper defence of this night. The noble Lord talked of this country depends upon the navy. The nocountry been weaker in consequence of ble Lord is in the habit of making speeches the introduction of steam. I will leave about the navy, and telling us that the that matter on the unanswerable speech French exceed us in the number of ironof the hon. and gallant Member for Devon-plated ships. If that be true, the noble port, who told us clearly that steam had increased our facilities for defence. Therefore, if this is to be a matter of authority, as it has been put by the hon. Member for Bridgwater, who I am sorry did not hear that speech, I rely upon the opinion of the gallant Admiral, who tells us that steam has increased the power of defence of this country. The gallant Admiral came to rather an inconsistent conclusion, because, after attacking the whole scheme of fortifications, he said that he should

"I do not wish to be mixed up with those who entertain apprehensions of the sudden arrival in this country of 50,000 hostile troops in a single night, without notice of any kind being received in this country; or that we shall hear of an army marching up to London without our having had any previous symptoms of hostility. These are notions which are founded upon panic, rather than on reasonable calculation." [3 Hansard, cxx., 1090.]

Lord is not justified in allowing that matter to remain where it is. If it be true that the French exceed us in naval force, instead of talking of fortifications on Portsdown Hill, he is bound to call upon us for a vote to put the navy in a proper condition. Do not let the energies of the country be wasted on bricks and mortar when we ought to be looking to the real defence of the country-to its iron navy. I was sorry to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen (Colonel Sykes) recom

mend to the Government a plan for the fications at Portsdown Hill, the House defence of the country by Maximilian would pause; but the expenses are alforts. ["Hear," and "No!"] I think ways cheerfully paid when they are that my hon. and gallant Friend said that thrown on posterity. At any rate, I the proper mode of defending Portsmouth hope to have the support of, at all events, would be by Maximilian forts. a respectable minority in resisting this enormous expenditure.

COLONEL SYKES explained that he had said that independent forts would be better GENERAL PEEL: I am quite prepared than a continuous fortification, and might to take my share of any responsibility this be constructed at one-twentieth the ex- House may have incurred by agreeing to pense. the proposals of the Government in 1860, MR. BERNAL OSBORNE: Never hav-respecting the national defences. What ing seen, and knowing nothing of Maximi- others are now said to have done in haste, ilian forts, I cannot recommend them. But I did deliberately. If it be true that the I hope that the House will seriously turn House, under the influence of a panic their attention to this fact. It has been af--created, it is said, by an exaggerated firmed by the noble Lord, who is in a position to have the best information on this point, that the English navy is below that of France. If that be the case, I for one will support the noble Lord in putting that navy in such a position that it shall be not only on a par with but double the French navy. That is the position which every one who is mindful of his duty to his country would take; but when you come down to this House with false estimates-merely approximate estimates calling upon the people to provide money for fortifications which are questionable at the best, and when at the same time you are neglecting your right arm, the navy, I say that the House is not doing its duty, nor is the noble Lord doing his duty to the country if such a state of things is allowed to continue. With reference to the Amendment before the House, moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham (Sir F. Smith), I have only to say that I should have been much better pleased if he had moved the rejection of the Bill at its present stage. If I do not take that course, it is because I was not supported when I moved an Amendment on the introduction of the Bill, and because some of those works are in a state in which it might be desirable to finish them even on the ground of economy. But although I do not mean to move the rejection of the Bill, I beg leave to give notice, that when it goes into Committee, I shall object to the construction of the fortifications at Portsdown Hill so far as they are uninitiated at the present moment. I may say that I am also opposed to the House and the country being led away by a false system of finance-I mean the system of annuities; because, if we were called upon to vote out of the annual taxes the sum required for these forti

statement on the part of the noble Lord at the head of the Government, of some immediate and pressing danger-sanctioned an expenditure which they now consider extravagant, I can only say that the House acted very foolishly; because it must have been obvious to everybody that the means of defence then proposed could not be completed, or even begun, in time to avert any impending danger. It has been stated by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chatham, that on that occasion we all, like sheep, were led astray; but, for my own part, I deny being influenced either by panic or the speech of the noble Lord in giving the vote I did; and the noble Lord must excuse me for saying, that I thought then, and think now, that that portion of his speech which referred to France was very unwise and very likely to create the danger which he called upon us to avert. I think it very unfortunate, that in the discussions which have taken place on the subject of our national defences, reference is always made to France, and suspicion and distrust expressed, without, in my opinion, any just cause for it. I do not think it at all necessary to entertain such suspicions in order to justify placing your arsenals and dockyards in a state of permanent security. From the moment it was ascertained that guns could be manufactured possessing the power of throwing projectiles a distance which had never be fore been contemplated, it is quite obvious that all preconceived opinions of security must be abandoned, and that you must set yourselves seriously to work to devise new means of defence against an increased power of attack. The first thing I did on the adoption of the Armstrong gun into the service in 1858, was to appoint a Committee to ascertain what the effect of those

present hour; and that was, to meet the invader on the sea, and to prevent him from setting a foot on our shores. It was a remarkable fact, that although Mr. Pitt held that the safety of the country depended on the construction of fortifications, yet when a war broke out a few years afterwards, which lasted for ten years, none of our dockyards were attacked or even menaced by the enemy during the whole of that period. It was a mistake to suppose that the sea fortifications were not now before them. An expenditure of many hundred thousand pounds was now proposed to them for such works; but he held that they were in the same category as those at Spithead, and that if the one was abandoned, the other ought to be abandoned too. As to our ordnance, the fact was, that after spending some £3,000,000 in improvements, we had not got a gun which could pierce an iron plate at 500 yards. He, and those who agreed with him, regretted to see the ancient policy of the country to depend on its naval supremacy abandoned, and they would take every opportunity of dividing the House to prevent the taxpayers of the country being exposed to enormous expenditure which could produce no real benefit.

SIR JAMES DUKE said, he should not have risen if the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had not stated that Toulon could easily be attacked. If the hon. Gentleman were outside Toulon, as he was some years ago, he would be very glad to turn tail, and not risk the loss of his ship from the guns on the Cape. As an old sailor, he thought they ought to feel deeply indebted to the noble Lord for the efforts he was making to provide efficient defences; and he was sure the country would, for that reason alone, be ready to rally round the noble Lord's Government. He never doubted that the navy would, as in past times, maintain its honour and renown, but these were not days when they could bid defiance to any country by seamanship alone. The introduction of steam had produced a change of circumstances which no one could ignore. The gallant General the late Secretary of State for War had nobly supported the proposals of the Government, and a majority of the House of Commons would support any Administration which evinced the same spirit as the noble Lord in seeking to put the country in a proper state of defence.

SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE said, he

did not intend to repudiate the Resolution to which the House came in 1860, to support Her Majesty's Government in the proposals which, upon their responsibility, were stated to be necessary for the defence of the country; and he was prepared to support them now, though he was ready to admit that the fortifications proposed to be erected were not likely to be so effectual as at the time they were proposed. They were now in a state of transition, the most serious of the navy transitions within his memory. The system of naval defence was entirely altered, and a different sort of ship was required to defend our shores and to maintain our naval superiority in distant parts of the world. He believed that there were not less than seven classes of iron ships now in course of construction by the Admiralty, but unfortunately none of them had been adequately tested; and he also desired to know what provision was being made for the dock and harbour accommodation of these vessels. He should support the Government in the vote to-night, but he trusted they would give speedy consideration to the momentous questions which recent experience involved.

CAPTAIN WILLES JOHNSON said, he held in his hand the accumulated wisdom of the Defence Commission-that wisdom which had produced a Report quite antagonistic to the evidence before them. When he first entered the service, the word "defence" was not to be found in our naval vocabulary. But now the word "attack" was never mentioned. If it ever escaped any one's lips, it was "with bated breath and whispering humbleness" lest it should give umbrage to gallant men on the other side of the Channel. It never seemed to have entered the heads of the Commissioners that our naval forces could attack as well as defend. He was sure, that if the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty were at the head of a fleet, and were asked which he would rather attack, Cherbourg or Spithead, supposing both to be a possession of an enemy, he would say Cherbourg. Cherbourg had been a bugbear to the old women of the country, and to the old men and young men also. He had conversed with many hon. Members who had gone to visit that harbour and arsenal, and they came away with the idea that it was a second Gibraltar, and that it was not only impregnable but invulnerable. Toulon, Brest, and L'Orient, being cul-de-sac harbours,

monument of our weakness, of our follý, and of the decline of the greatest naval Power which ever existed in the world.

SIR FREDERIC SMITH said, he would withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question put.

The House divided:-Ayes 158; Noes

Bill read 2o, and committed for Thursday.

FORTIFICATIONS (PROVISION FOR EX-
PENSES) (PAYMENT TO BANK OF
ENGLAND).-COMMITTEE.
Order for Committee read.

were difficult to attack, but Cherbourg
was easily assailable. Cherbourg had a
broad roadstead, without rocks or shoals,
and all the British fleet might be car-
ried through that roadstead with perfect
impunity. What was France arming for?
She could not fear a descent on her coast,
with her army of 700,000 or 800,000
men, and with a population of 40,000,000 56: Majority 102.
in a ring fence. What, on the other
hand, had England to fear, with a sea-
faring population of 350,000 men, the
best and hardiest seamen in the universe;
with a small but incomparable army,
unequalled in gallantry and discipline?
with a well-organized militia and a band
of Rifle Volunteers, who were not only
the glory of this country but the admira-
tion of the world; with a naval reserve of
15,000 men, who could be increased at
any moment to three times the number,
and who recently showed their patriotic
spirit by coming forward as one man to
resent an insult offered to the British flag;
and with the best engineers and artificers
in the world, and an inexhaustible supply
of coal and iron? We had really nothing
to fear except an inglorious ultra-defensive
policy, that gave courage and confidence to
our enemies, while degrading and humili-
ating the British navy. The place to de-
fend our own shores was on the coast of the

enemy, as in the olden time. He had sup-
ported the noble Lord at the head of the
Government on the Alderney Vote, but he
was sorry to say he could not follow him
into the lobby on the present occasion,
believing that whenever fixed fortifications
became our chief defence, the sun of our
naval glory would have passed its zenith,
and nothing would remain for us but to
throw up the sponge and declare ourselves
beaten. No man in that House, not even
the hon. Member for Birmingham, looked
upon war with greater detestation and
horror than himself; but he was persuaded
that until all the potentates of the earth
became converts to that beautiful religion
which the hon. Gentleman professed, war
would never cease, nor would the lion lie
down with the lamb. If, notwithstanding
our endeavours to preserve peace, we
were dragged into war, we had but one
course to pursue-to prosecute hostilities
with all the vigour and energy of which

we

were capable, carrying fire and destruction into every port of the enemy. These were his sentiments, and he believed, that if these fortifications were crected, they would prove an imperishable VOL. CLXVII. [THIRD SERIES.]

Resolved,

(In the Committee.)

That the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury be authorized to direct the payment to the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, of the sum of £600, as an allowance for the expenso of management of the contributions to be received by the said Governor and Company under any Act of the present Session for providing a constructing Fortifications for the protection of further sum towards defraying the Expenses of the Royal Arsenals and Dockyards and the Ports of Dover and Portland, and of creating a Central Arsenal.

House resumed.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

TRANSFER OF LAND BILL.
COMMITTEE.

[BILL NO. 101.]
Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.

On the Motion of the SOLICITOR
GENERAL,

Clauses 39 to 45 were struck out.
Remaining Clauses agreed to.
Clause D (Retiring Pension of Regis-
trar).

to grant a superannuation allowance to the
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL proposed
registrar on his attainment to the age of
sixty years, or on his being in the service
of the Government for a period of twenty
years.

Amendment proposed,

In line 27, after the words "years or," to in

sert the words "if he shall have then attained the age of sixty."

MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH proposed to amend the clause by the insertion of the words "sixty-five instead of "sixty " years.

2 T

[blocks in formation]

Order for Committee read.

THE LORD ADVOCATE moved "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair."

MR. CRAUFURD said, he should oppose the Motion, unless an assurance were given that a clause should be introduced into the Bill giving the power of appeal.

THE LORD ADVOCATE hoped that his hon. Friend would not object to the House going into Committee on the ground he had mentioned. The object of the Bill was to assimilate the law affecting the removal of the poor from England to Scotland, and from Scotland to Ireland, to the existing state of the law with respect to poor removal from England to Ireland. If an appeal was thought right in one case, it ought to exist in the other also.

SIR JOHN OGILVY hoped the Committee would be postponed

COLONEL DUNNE supported the proposition for introducing an appeal from the decision of magistrates in these cases.

Question put, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

The House divided:-Ayes 66; Noes 13: Majority 53.

House in Committee.

Clause 1 (Warrant of Removal to Scotland to be signed by Two Justices or a Magistrate, and to England or Ireland by the Sheriff or Two Justices).

SIR FREDERICK HEYGATE moved an Amendment to the effect that no child who had arrived at five years of age, and should remain in the country ten years, should be liable to removal.

THE LORD ADVOCATE objected to the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

SIR HERVEY BRUCE moved the introduction of words providing that a residence of five years in one parish or of ten

years in several parishes shall render a person irremovable.

Clause agreed to; as were also Clauses 2 to 7 inclusive.

House resumed.

Committee report Progress; to sit again on Thursday.

SHEEP (IRELAND) BILL-[BILL No. 161.]

COMMITTEE.

Order for Committee read.
Bill considered in Committee.

MR. HENNESSY moved a clause giving power to destroy unmuzzled dogs found at large within fifty yards of a public road, or to fine the owners. Clause withdrawn. House resumed.

sidered on Wednesday. Bill reported; as amended, to be con

JURIES BILL-[BILL No. 172.]

CONSIDERATION.

Order for Consideration read. MR. DEEDES moved the following clause, to follow the first clause :

"All managing clerks to attorneys, solicitors, and proctors actually practising, all subordinate constables, shall be and are hereby absolutely freed officers in gaols and houses of correction, and all and exempted from being returned and from serving upon any juries or inquests whatsoever, and shall not be inserted in the lists to be prepared by

virtue of the principal Act or of this Act. And to amend Schedule accordingly."

Clause brought up, and read 1°; 2°; amended, and added.

Bill to be read 3° on Wednesday.
House adjourned at half after
One o'clock.

HOUSE OF LORDS,
Tuesday, July 1, 1862.

MINUTES. PUBLIC BILLS.-1a Game Law Amend-
ment; Bishops in Heathen Countries.
2a Naval and Victualling Stores; Salmon Fish-
eries (Scotland); Lunacy (Scotland); Consoli-
dated Fund (£10,000,000).

3 Bleaching and Dyeing Works Act Amend.

ment.

UNITED STATES-THE CIVIL WAR,

LORD BROUGHAM said, he was sorry to find that he had been somewhat misunderstood in what he had stated the previous evening with regard to the unhappy civil war that was raging in America—a civil war that had already lasted longer than

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