tioned by Parliament, the Estimates for such New Works or Erections should be submitted for the consideration of the House in a separate form, and at a separate time, from the Annual Estimates for Current Expenditure." SIR GEORGE LEWIS said, he hoped that the hon. Gentleman would not think he was treating him with any want of respect, when he stated that it was not his intention to follow him through the several topics of his speech. The hon. Gentleman's proposition was, that a new class of Estimates should be created by the executive Government and laid before the House. There were already four classes of Estimates, one for each branch of the War Service, one for the Revenue Departments, and one for the Civil Service. His hon. Friend proposed that a class should be constituted, to consist of "new works," which were now distributed among the other classes; but he had not gathered from his hon. Friend's Resolution or from his speech whether in the new class were to be included additions to existing works. Would an addition to a barrack be considered a new work? MR. DILLWYN: Yes; if it were a considerable addition. SIR GEORGE LEWIS: A considerable addition?-then a small addition would not, in his opinion, be a new work. The hon. Gentleman would see that a very nice question would at once arise as to the extent of the addition which was to constitute a new work. But the hon. Gentleman overlooked another inconvenience that would arise. The new works, according to his meaning of them, would be of a very limited extent. In the fourth class of the Army Estimates the Votes were set out in great detail, and, with few exceptions, the new works mentioned therein were works which had previously received the sanction of Parliament by a vote of money. Now, what information could the hon. Member ask for more than was furnished in those details? The only works really new in these Estimates were to be found under the head of Bermuda, the total estimate of which was £5,000. Supposing that Vote were put in a fifth class, what advantage would the House derive from such an arrangement? That Vote was connected with other Votes, for Gibraltar and other fortified places in our Colonies. Now, if that particular Vote for new works were relegated to a fifth class of Estimates, the House would be deprived of that informa with other Votes, and from the details referring to them all. There was every wish on the part of the Government to present those Estimates in a form most satisfactory to the House, with a view of furnishing the best information possible, and of facilitating discussion. Those Estimates were now set forth in much greater detail than they used formerly to be presented to the House. Their present bulk was occasioned by the frequent demands made on the Government for additional information, and the desire of the Government to furnish such information. It was most convenient, in the discussion of those Estimates, to be able to compare one year with another, and to see the total amount of the Estimates as a whole. [Another attempt was made to count out the House without success.] He would instance the case of a new barrack for which a total estimate of £50,000 would be required; but only a sum of £10,000 would be asked for the first year. Now, though that Vote would appear in the first instance in the proposed new class of Estimates, in the second year it would necessarily be transferred into the ordinary Army Estimates. But how would the Vote of the previous year be entered? Here it was obvious that the necessary information could not be communicated, and the advantage of comparison would be wholly destroyed. The same inconvenience and confusion would arise with respect to the Naval and Civil Service Estimates if the proposition of the hon. Gentleman were agreed to. The Army Estimates were, he thought, presented in such a form that hon. Members could easily see for themselves what was and what was not a new work. If they were not sufficiently clear, he should have no objection to indicate the new works by some typographical arrangement, so as to draw attention to them more forcibly. There was every disposition on the part of the Government to present the Estimates in the form most convenient and acceptable to the House, but he did not see that any good would arise from the adoption of this plan, and he was therefore unable to give his assent to it. MR. DILLWYN in reply said, that if the right hon Gentleman would separate the Vote for new works in each class of Estimates it would be a practical improvement upon the present system. Motion, by leave, withdrawn. INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. RESOLUTION. "I think the value of these industrial certified schools in Scotland can scarcely be exaggerated." COLONEL SYKES said, he rose to sub- And the Commissioners, in their Report mit the following Resolution : That, in any system of Education by Govern on the State of Popular Education in England, at page 402, used these words— "It appears to us that the object which In which should not be left to private individuals, but should be accomplished at the public expense and by public authority." ment aid, provision should be made for teaching industrial Schools are intended to promote is one Industrial Schools; and that, with a view to encourage evening study by adult operatives, provision, be made for supplying a Teacher in such Mechanics' Institutes as may apply for one." The results obtained from the system of Nevertheless, such serviceable schools were education in the schools assisted by the left without aid from the education grant ; Government grant were admitted to be though, with singular incongruity, if the very imperfect and unsatisfactory. Even children educated by philanthropic indithe elements of reading and writing tole-viduals at such schools had committed rably well were limited to a minority of the offences against the laws, and had been pupils, and it was not usual to find a child passed to a reformatory, an allowance of able to master the multiplication table. But five shillings per head per week would be In consequence of supposing these things learned, they no granted for them! more constituted education than plates this state of things, Dr. Guthrie addressed and knives and forks made a dinner; a memorial to the Committee of Privy they were merely means to an end. By Council on Education, asking for aid for Industrial Schools, and was refused. Ho far the greater number (at least 86 per cent) of children in Government schools, then called public attention to the subject who entered at or after six, were com- in a letter, dated Edinburgh, 17th May, pelled to leave the schools before or at ten 1862, from which he (Colonel Sykes) years of age, their parents needing the would quote a few wordsprofit of their labour. Those who remained beyond that age were not the children of the labouring poor, but of the middle class, who were able to pay for their education elsewhere. The returns indicated that the maximum attendance of children at school was at eight years of age, and that after that age the attendance rapidly declined. If Members compared the results of the system pursued in these schools with the benefits actually conferred on the poorer class of Although this language was strong, it was children by the training of the Industrial not too strong for the occasion; for social Schools supported by private efforts, they economists were quite aware that ignorance would agree with him in urging them on the and want of occupation in nine cases out of Government for assistance. The Indus- ten were the causes of juvenile crime; and trial Schools, by the combination of mental it must be patent to Members, that the and physical labours, reconciled children" Blacking Brigades" of poor boys in to the restraints of school. While, in addition to literary culture, the girls were taught washing, cooking, housework, and needlework, the boys learned trades, gardening, agriculture, household work, baking, &c. In Scotland these schools had been eminently successful. In Aberdeenshire, Sheriff Watson's Industrial Schools had greatly diminished juvenile offences. and vagrancy; and Dr. Guthrie, who had greatly interested himself in this class of schools, bore strong testimony to the ad. vantages society derived from them; and the Inspector of Reformatories reported "I pray you to observe that we do not ask one penny from the public funds to feed these hungry, to cloth these naked, or, when it is necessary, to house these homeless children; but we complain of it as a monstrous wrong, that the Committee of Council, to whom are intrusted the monies voted for education, should deny us all help to educate them! They refuse to aid us in educating those whose circumstances are so desperate, that unless we burthened ourselves to a greater or less extent with their maintenance, they must go altogether uneducated, having no choice but to beg, steal, or starve." London had done more to diminish juvenile offences than all the legislative Acts ever passed. He therefore trusted that in any grant for educational purposes regard should be had for that class of children to whose case he now called the attention of the House. Motion made, and Question proposed, That, in any system of Education by Government aid, provision should be made for teaching in Industrial Schools; and that, with a view to encourage evening study by adult operatives, provision be made for supplying a Teacher in such Mechanics' Institutes as may apply for one." fering with Industrial Schools they would be doing harm instead of good. The hon. and gallant Member might, nevertheless, have made out an excellent case for private charity. Dr. Guthrie, it was true, had applied to the Privy Council for £700 in aid of similar schools, and was refused. Dr. Guthrie then appealed to the benevo lence of the public, and the consequence was that he got £2,000; and that result Dr. Guthrie thought a great reflection on the Privy Council, but the matter ought to be regarded in quite a different light, not only as showing the extent of Dr. Guthrie's influence, but as pointing out a legitimate field for the exercise of private benevolence. He was perfectly convinced, that the duty of sustaining these Industrial Schools did not fall within his department, circumscribed within the limits in which it was restrained at present, and he was neither disposed to trench on the business of the Home Office with respect to the imprisonment of young criminals, nor upon that of the Poor Law Department in respect to feeding and supporting destitute MR. LOWE said, that the hon. and | ner the object of these Industrial Schools, gallant Gentleman had with much force which was not so much intellectual as pointed out the early age at which children moral. It had been said of the ragged left the schools under the system of the schools of London, presided over so adPrivy Council, and also that many of the mirably by the Earl of Shaftesbury, that children left the schools without having they would be seriously injured by interfeacquired the rudiments of education. rence of any Government department. In Agreeing with the hon. and gallant Mem-like manner he was convinced that by interber on these matters, he could not, however, join in the inference, that because children left the schools at an early age, without having acquired, in many instances, the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and of religion, therefore the remedy was to be sought in teaching them something else. He should have thought that the inference ought to be quite the opposite. It was unnecessary for him to go at any length into the subject, which had been thoroughly investigated by the Royal Commissioners, who reported against continuing the aid to the schools adverted to by the hon. and gallant Member. Last year a Committee of that House also investigated the subject, and reported against the grant of aid. The opinion of the Select Committee of the House of Commons was, that if the children in these schools were children who had committed offences of a minor description, there were reformatories in which they might be retained and reformed; and that if they were only poor and destitute, their case was then one for the intervention of the Poor Law by district workhouse schools. If, how-children. ever, they were of a nondescript class, not comprisable in either one or other of the categories just mentioned, then the recommendation of the Select Committee was, that they should be left to the voluntary attention and kindness of persons actuated by charitable feelings; and the Select Committee most expressly reported against the proposition of the hon. and gallant Member. Such were the views of the Select Committee of last year, and they appeared to be founded in justice and good sense. The House would understand how difficult, or, indeed, how impossible, it would be to devise conditions on which public money should be granted to these schools, the very essence of them being that they were missionary efforts, trying to pick up the waifs and strays of society not amenable to discipline. Were he to put them under the discipline of the Privy Council and exact from them something definite in the shape of intellectual progress in exchange for money given, he should be injuring in the most vital man Motion, by leave, withdrawn. BALLOT.-LEAVE. MR. SPEAKER: Mr. Henry Berkeley, MR. H. BERKELEY: Sir, I answer your summons, and rise to ask leave to bring in a Bill to cause the votes of Parliamentary electors to be taken by way of ballot. It strikes me very for cibly that the arguments I have hitherto used are entirely unanswered. shall, therefore, leave the question in your hands. LORD FERMOY seconded the Motion. Motion made, and Question put, 50: Majority 33. Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. BALLOT AT MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS. LEAVE. MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH said, the Motion which he had the honour to submit was one so very similar to that which had just been decided, as to make it unnecessary for him to take up the time of the House by advancing any arguments in its support. He would therefore content himself by simply moving for leave to bring in a Bill to allow the votes of municipal electors to be taken by way of ballot in all places where the town council should so think fit. MR. COX seconded the Motion. VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: After the agreeable surprise which we have had enacted this evening, and the hon. Member for Bristol having given us an example in his own person that silent voting is better than audible argument, of course this Bill will take its fate with the other, and therefore I will defer any remarks until another occasion. Motion made, and Question put, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to allow the Votes of Municipal Electors to be taken by way of Ballot, in all places where the Town Council shall so think fit." MR. HENNESSY said, the Committee were aware that the religious instruction of Roman Catholic prisoners in England and Wales was given under an Act of Parliament which was passed before the period of Roman Catholic Emancipation. It was, therefore, impossible that Roman Catholic prisoners could be legally assembled for religious worship within the walls of the prison. The visiting justices of some county prisons had dwelt on the injustice of the present state of things, and had expressed their regret that the law was so strong that Roman Catholic prison. ers could not be assembled in class to be instructed by priests of their own persuasion. In 1853 the noble Lord at the head of the Government said— "As far as Government prisons were concerned, he was quite prepared to state that he should feel it to be his duty to take steps for carrying into effect the views which had been expressed.—that in every Government prison there should be reDissenter, as well as to every member of the ligious instruction given to every Catholic and Church of England, and that the person who gave it should receive that treatment which was consistent with a due respect to his character, and such reward as might be adequate to the duties which he had to perform." [3 Hansard, cxxix., 1569-70.] The House divided:-Ayes 82; Noes And the noble Lord concluded48 Majority 34. Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. AUGUSTUS SMITH, Mr. Cox, and Mr. DILL WYN. ROMAN CATHOLIC PRISONERS' BILL. LEAVE. FIRST READING. MR. HENNESSY said, he rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the law relating to the religious instruction of Roman Catholic prisoners in England and Wales. In the present temper of the House, and as the principle of the Bill had been admitted in the fairest man ner by the noble Viscount, he would simply move for leave to bring in the Bill. MR. SPEAKER said, that looking to the character of the Bill, he thought it ought to be introduced in Committee of the Whole House. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair." Motion agreed to. House in Committee. MR. SERJEANT PIGOTT said, he thought that some explanation of the provisions of the Bill ought to be given. "It would be his duty early next Session to prepare and submit to Parliament a measure for the purpose of placing religious instruction in county gaols on the same footing as religious instruction in prisons more immediately under the control of the Government." [Ibid.] The Government, however, did not bring in a Bill. The law continued unchanged. The grievance remained, and he now proposed to apply a remedy. MR. SERJEANT PIGOTT said, he was much obliged to his hon. Friend for the explanation he had given. He would admit that full liberty ought to be given for the religious instruction of Roman Catholic involved a proposal for an additional grant prisoners. His only fear was that the Bill of money from the public funds. vise the hon. Member to postpone legisMR. WHALLEY said, he would adlation for the present. Thirty thousand pounds a year were already appropriated to Roman Catholic purposes; and though it was painful to him to have to make further efforts to inform the House on the subject, he thought they ought to ascertain what system, doctrines, discipline, and laws the grant of that money to Roman Catholics tended to disseminate. It was a mistake to regard it as a question of The religion. In the name of religion Roman | 6,000,000 of people, but particularly Catholicism was a political system, the against the priests in whom they repose operation of which, in the opinion of the confidence, and by whom they are taught ate Sir Robert Peel, was utterly at variance the principles of their religion. Surely, with the social interests of the country. if there be, as there unfortunately are, a The canon law, which was in force to the good many members of that Church who, full extent of the power of the priests, set being in poverty and ignorance, fall into at defiance every principle of social order, crime and are thrown into prison, what and sanctioned murder, theft, perjury, and can be more proper than that they should every violation of the common law. The there receive religious instruction? Commissioners in 1853 reported that they hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalcould not refer to books for the purpose of ley) acts on the assumption, that if any ascertaining what doctrines were taught of these persons are brought into contact in Maynooth. The system was one of with a priest, they are more likely than practice, and the result was seen in the they otherwise would be to commit a crime. renewal of assassinations and agrarian Therefore he would be glad to shut them outrages in Ireland. There were two so- out from the instruction which the hon. cieties in Ireland-St. Patrick's Brother- Gentleman proposes they should receive. hood, at the head of which was Father Now, you cannot exterminate the Catholics, Labelle; and the Catholic Young Men's nor can you convert them by any process of Society, at the head of which was Dr. which the hon. Member for Peterborough is O'Brien. He might quote the opinion of the apostle. I undertake to say, that if there Dr. O'Brien a leading authority in the be any man who is responsible more than Roman Catholic Church, to the effect that another for anything that may be deemed there were men who had taken oaths of disloyal or disaffected towards the Governconspiracy in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and ment on the part of the Roman Catholic elsewhere; and that the aim of the com- population or Roman Catholic priests of bination was the suppression of public opi- the United Kingdom, it is the man who nion. He also cited a statement of Father here and elsewhere takes every oppor Labelle to a similar effect. tunity of making it appear that there is in the conduct or belief of 6,000,000 of our countrymen something which makes them unworthy of being treated by Parliament with common generosity and justice. I do not think that the Committee sympathizes with the hon. Gentleman. obvious that it does not, for I have heard from both sides of the House exclamations which we all understand, and which should have led the hon. Gentleman to abbreviate his speech. I beg of him, for the sake of his own character, for the sake of that Protestantism of which he professes to be the champion, and for the sake of the House of Commons, to refrain from heaping unmeasured abuse upon the Catholic priests of Ireland and England, and to allow us to deal with such questions as the one before us with calmness and justice. MR. BRIGHT: I understand the hon. Gentleman has, in accordance with one of our rules, moved the House into Committee for the purpose of asking leave to introduce a Bill, which is supposed, in some degree, to refer to the subject of religion. I am not aware that the hon. Gentleman proposes to ask the House to vote any sum of money in addition to what may be already granted by Parliament for Catholic priests or Catholic instruction. The hon. Gentleman's object appears to me very proper, and one which need not create much alarm here or elsewhere. We know there are about six millions of persons in the United Kingdom who are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. They are called upon to pay taxes; they are subjected to the control of the laws; they form an important element in the population and power of the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman does not ask anything for them which Parliament does not constantly and willingly grant for the rest of the population. That being the case, I cannot understand the wisdom, patriotism, generosity, or Christianity of any Member of this House who seizes an opportunity like this to make a violent and abusive attack directed generally against It is MR. MAGUIRE said, he was sure that every hon. Member in the House would appreciate the kindness of the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright), but he would assure him that it was not worth while at any future time to take the trouble to rebuke the hon. Member for Peterborough. In common with many others, he hoped that hon. Member would persevere in his course, for he firmly believed he had turned the whole anti-Catholic cause |