as may be prescribed by the said mayor, aldermen, and commons, and approved by one of Iler Majesty's Secretaries of State, to ascertain the amount of such drawback, and to prevent any abuse therein."-(Mr. Ayrton.)

LORD JOHN MANNERS regretted that he could not assent to that Amendment. The Committee having sanctioned the continuance of those dues for the limited period of seven years, on the assumption that they would be levied on all classes of consumers within the prescribed radius, it was now impossible to exempt large class of consumers from their operation. If such an exemption were allowed, it would be necessary to impose those dues for an additional number of years. If there was a class of persons who ought to contribute their fair share of the funds required for cleansing and embanking the Thames, improving the thoroughfares, and all the other great works to which the coal dues were applicable, it was the manufacturers, who by the nature of their business did so much to obstruct those thoroughfares and pollute the river.

MR. WATKIN supported the Amendment, and asked for statistics as to the proportion which the amount of coal tax collected from the manufacturers bore to the total proceeds of the impost.

MR. LOCKE said, that what the manufacturers complained of was that, while they paid as high rates and taxes as the rest of the community as ordinary householders, they were subjected to a heavy extra tax on the trade they carried on. The Thames iron shipbuilders naturally had to pay more for their coals than their rivals on the Clyde, and yet an additional impost of 13d. per ton was extracted from them for the fuel they consumed. He should support the Amendment if it were pressed to a division.

thought that some such Amendment as that proposed by the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets should be adopted.

COLONEL HOGG remarked, that as the evidence given before the Committee showed, in spite of the taxation complained of, the profits on the London shipbuilding trade at the time admitted of one of the witnesses making extensions which would cost £100,000-a fact which justly excited comment on the part of the Committee. He opposed the proviso on the ground that the tax was absolutely necessary to meet engagements entered into. The noble Lord had given every possible

care and attention to the affairs of the metropolis, and all persons connected with it ought to be grateful to him.

MR. GOSCHEN said, he should be reluctant to throw difficulties in the way of the manufacturers; and, if the case were perfectly free, he should be inclined to vote for the Amendment; but they were in reality discussing what was to happen sixteen years hence. He regretted that their taxation should have reached such a point that they were obliged to begin to pledge the revenues that would only accrue sixteen years hence. For his part he would rather say let them get rid of the matter as soon as they could. He thought it would be better to leave the tax as it was than to begin and establish differences which could not begin until sixteen years from the present day. The difficulty would arise of deciding what was a manufacture at the interval of sixteen years, and he therefore thought it would be best to allow the matter to stand as it is.

MR. AYRTON thought that his right hon. Friend was mistaken in supposing that the proviso would not take effect at once, and, in case he was not mistaken, he would alter his proviso to the extent that it should take effect from and after the day on which the Bill may pass.

Question put, "That those words be there added."

The Committee divided :-Ayes 30; Noes 146: Majority 116. Clause agreed to.

Remaining clauses agreed to.

that the Amendments were the result of the discussion which had taken place upon the Bill, and in reality did not alter the general character of the Bill at all. The Amendments were some days on the Paper, and no hon. Member offered any objection to them. The object of the new clauses had been to put church rates in parishes under local Acts as nearly as possible on the same footing with church rates elsewhere; to prevent the parishioners in new parishes from voting in respect of voluntary rates at vestries of the original or old parishes; and to allow owners the option of paying the rate instead of occupiers, giving them a vote in case they did so.

MR. NEWDEGATE said, it was his intention to move the adjournment of the House. ["Oh!"] The hon. and learned Gentleman who last addressed the House had not said a word as to the purport of the Bill as it now stood. He (Mr. Newdegate) could show that the Bill as it now stood virtually infringed the parochial system of the country. He begged to move the Adjournment of the House.

Whereupon Motion made, and Question, "That this House do now adjourn,"(Mr. Newdegate,)-put, and negatived.

Question again proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."

MR. SCHREIBER, remarking that it was not desirable that the House should adjourn until the Mutiny Bill had been introduced, moved the adjournment of the debate.

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned." - (Mr. Schreiber.)

The House divided:-Ayes 28; Noes 131 Majority 103.

MR. NEWDEGATE said, that as the Motion for the third reading had been made after one o'clock in the morning, and as great exertions had been made to collect the party opposite while there were but few on that (the Ministerial) side of the House, he would make no further opposition. He would only say that the Bill would destroy the parochial system of the Church of England.

Original Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read the third time, and passed.

close up the roads leading to as well as the Tower of Ardfert, it is not illegal for Mr. Crosbie to take any further steps in the matter, pending the final decision of the Court of Queen's Bench? He might, perhaps, be allowed to add that he has been informed that the proceedings of Mr. Crosbie have created great consternation amongst the people; and that he asked this Question in order, if possible, to prevent any rioting or breach of the peace in the neighbourhood.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WARREN) said, in reply, he was not aware that it was the province of an hon. Member to ask Questions of the Law Officers in reference to a civil case pending before a Court of Justice, and as this was a Question of that sort he could not enter into any explanation of it. In fact, the matter to which the hon. Member's Question referred was entirely one of a private dispute. It was one in which the Attorney General had no right or power to interfere, and, as he had told the hon. Member privately yesterday, if there were any legal remedy it could be sought in the ordinary

way.

GRAND JURY CESS (IRELAND) BILL.

(Mr. Stacpoole, Mr. Corbally, The O'Conor Don.) [BILL 14.] SECOND READING. Order for Second Reading read. MR. STACPOOLE, in rising to move the second reading of this Bill said, it was a measure which would be received in Ireland with a great deal of gratitude. Its object was to oblige Irish landlords to contribute directly to the county cess; to effect an equitable distribution of it between the landlord and the tenant; and to give the occupiers some control over the expenditure, by fuller representation of the cess payers at the presentment sessions. At present all the cess was paid by the occupiers, and the landlords paid none of it, or only paid the cess on any tenements they held in their own hands; though the improvements effected by the expenditure of the cess in the formation of roads increased the value of their property. As Grand Juries were at present constituted, the cesspayers had really no voice in the determination of the amount of cess to be levied.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."-(Mr. Stacpoole.)

THE EARL OF MAYO said, he hoped

the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stacpoole) would not press the second reading, as the whole question of the Grand Jury Laws, which involved the subject dealt with by the Bill, had been referred to a Select Committee at the instance of the hon. and gallant Member for Roscommon (Colonel French). The House, having taken that step, would not think it right to express any opinion upon the subject till the result of the labours of the Committee should be known. The county cess was not wholly paid by the occupier. The proprietors paid their proportion of it. It was, in fact, a charge upon the land, and it came eventually out of the landlord's pocket. It might be a subject for the Committee to inquire into whether, in reference to future lettings, the incidence of the county cess should not be assimilated to that of the poor rates; but existing contracts could not be disturbed without inflicting great injustice. He begged to move, as an Amendment, that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

word "now," and at the end of the QuesAmendment proposed, to leave out the tion to add the words " upon this day six months."-(The Earl of Mayo.)

noble Earl in thinking, that while the THE O'CONOR DON agreed with the Select Committee was sitting it would not be expedient to go on with the present Bill; but he suggested that the Bill might be read a second time on the understanding that it would not be pressed further on at present. If, as the noble Earl had stated, the landlord in reality paid the cess ultimately, that fact would constitute a strong argument in favour of the Bill, as the landlord could suffer no wrong in being required to pay directly what he at present paid indirectly.

SIR HERVEY BRUCE hoped the hon. Member in charge of the Bill would agree to the suggestion of the noble Earl, and He was not postpone the second reading. prepared altogether to oppose a measure of the kind; but he thought that the present time, when a Select Committee was taking into consideration the whole question of the Grand Jury laws, was inopportune for the discussion of the Bill.

MR. POLLARD-URQUHART joined the second reading at present. In Ireland in requesting his hon. Friend not to press there were many tenants-at-will who held their lands upon an understanding that their rents should not be increased; but if

the landlord had every inducement to heap as much cess on the tenant as he could. For if, by the contributions of the latter, better roads and bridges and other works of utility were constructed near his property, the latter would be enhanced in value, and the poor tenant, as often occurred, would find that the only result to him of paying heavy rates would be to en

MR. MURPHY said, it appeared to him that the principle of the Bill was not ob jected to, and he would therefore suggest that, after the second reading, it should be referred to the Select Committee of the hon. and gallant Member for Roscommon. MR. BLAKE expressed a hope that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would consent to the second reading, in order that the Bill might then be referred to the Select Committee on Grand Juries, lately appointed. The principle contained in the Bill was a very important one; and if the noble Earl would not yield to the appeal made to him by so many Members, he hoped his gallant Friend would go to a division, so that those who, like himself, considered the present system an unjust and impolitic one, would have an opportunity of recording their protest against it. Hon. Members opposite had stated that when a tenant took a farm, he knew he was to pay all the Grand Jury rate, and that he got his land for less in consequence. No doubt the tenant did know he was to pay all this rate, but he never could calculate what it would amount to; and then it was pretty certain that there was little abatement in the rent in consequence of the landlord not having to contribute a portion of the tax. The anomalies connected with the levying and expenditure of county cess were remarkable. One of the great principles of the Constitution, which says there shall be no taxation without representation, was flagrantly violated. The man who paid the tax, with few exceptions had no voice whatever in appointing those who were to expend it; and, practically, he had no control over that expenditure, no matter how extravagant it might be. To speak of the associated ratepayers was absurd-they were the nominees of the Grand Jury, and even if a few of them would venture to act independently, they could be overborne by the magistrates as

of his landlord, and then to have the alternative of paying an increased rent or suffer eviction. If the landlord paid half the rate, he would be more economical in the expenditure, and the tenant would be in less danger of suffering, as now, in consequence of improvements made with his money. A very striking injustice to the occupier was the obligation he was under for the entire support of pauper lunatics, whilst he only paid for half the maintenance of those who were sane. At the town be (Mr. Blake) represented the poorhouse and lunatic asylum were nearly opposite to each other. So long as a pauper retained his senses, the farmer contributed only a moiety to his support; but the moment he lost them, and was sent across the road to be locked up, the unfortunate farmer had not only to pay all the expenses, but the cost was doubled as well, owing to the larger expenses attendant on the care of the insane; so that the occupier was mulcted to four times the extent he paid before, and so continued to be unless the lunatic recovered or became an idiot, in which event he crossed the road again to the workhouse, was maintained at half the cost as before, and the landlord had to commence again to contribute his quota. Now, surely that state of things called for amendment. The hon. Baronet the Member for Coleraine had complained of the constitution of the Committee, and that some Members on it had never served on Grand Juries. Even if they had not, they might make very good judges of the reform required. But he never doubted if there was a single Gentleman on it who had not been at some time a grand juror. He (Mr. Blake) could not boast of being an important county man, or possessing much influence, but there were few who had given more attention to the question of Grand Jury reform. He had framed Bills to effect that object, and brought them forward for two years in succession; and though he did not pass them, he ventured to think be did something towards calling attention to