at the same time he wished the House | annual payment was to be commuted by to understand that the Government had the payment of a lump sum. It was unnot taken steps against the Government desirable, however, for the subject to of Peru which they would not have pass out of consideration without some taken under the same circumstances in remark. Hon. Members might not be the case of a stronger Power. That was aware of the circumstances under which one of the principles upon which they this large pension was granted. The acted, and they were doubly cautious facts were these-The pension was conwhen the Power they had to deal with ferred on the family of the Duke of was a weak instead of a strong one. As Schomberg in 1690. This nobleman to what ulterior measures might be taken was one of the Dutch followers and fathat was not a question for diplomacy. vourites who were imported into this Diplomacy was carried on up to a cer- country by the Prince of Orange. He tain extent, and then it could go no was made Commander of the Army, and further, and what might be the ulterior sent to Ireland to suppress the rising of result it was not for him to say. the partizans of King James. He was general of the English Forces that fought the famous battle of the Boyne, and when directing his troops, was killed by an accidental shot from one of his own soldiers. His patron, King William, conferred upon his family a pension of £4,000 a-year. This was paid them for some time, but in 1702 the amount was reduced from £4,000 to £2,600 a-year, which was settled on his family for ever. The grant had been partly commuted since that time, and now the sum paid was, he believed, something like £1,100 per annum. The present holder of the pension had received it for 20 years, and had got from the Exchequer of this country no less a sum than £42,000. Indeed, the full amount that had been paid to the heirs of the Duke of Schomberg since the battle of the Boyne had been little short of half-a-million of money. He did not wish to comment adversely either on the military or personal character of the Duke. No doubt he was an able soldier, and as far as he (Mr. Cowen) knew, a worthy man. But one or two facts should be recollected. At the time he was killed he was 82

MR. M'LAREN said, he had read the Papers very carefully, and he must say that he had come to the conclusion that the conduct of our Minister at Peru, long after the case occurred, was anything but energetic. He did not blame the present Government, because the period to which he referred was before the Government knew anything about the case; but he could not help thinking that if the vessel had been an American vessel, and our Minister an American Minister, with their mode of dealing with such questions, our sailors would have been liberated from prison long ago. Under these circumstances, he did think that our Minister had been very much indeed to blame, and that the Motion made by his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) was a very fitting one.

to.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question put, and agreed to.
Subsequent Nine Resolutions agreed

The Eighteenth Resolution read a years of age. He was not an English

second time.

THE DUKE OF SCHOMBERG'S PEN

SION-COMMUTATION.

RESOLUTION.

MR. J. COWEN said, before the Resolution was passed, he desired to make a few observations. To put himself in Order he begged to move that the amount be not allowed. He did that, not because he disapproved of the course the Government had adopted in commuting this Pension. On the contrary, he approved of the arrangement by which the

general, but a soldier of fortune. He
had served in the Dutch, French, Portu-
guese, and Brandenburg Armies before
he came to England. Indeed, he placed
his sword and his services at the disposal
of
any Government in Europe that would
pay for them. He was a Marshal of
France, a Generalissimo of Prussia, a
Grandee of Portugal, and a Duke of
England. The heirs of the man who
had so many claims upon the considera-
tion of other nations ought not to have
entailed upon the heavily-taxed people
of this country such a large sum as that
he had just mentioned. He did not dis-

LORD ELCHO was of opinion that the proposition of the hon. Member for Newcastle would amount not only to confiscation, but to repudiation.

approve of the principle of pensioning | calling attention to the matter was more successful military or naval commanders, to protest against such grants in the men who had served their country, future than as an attempt to evade any either in the field or on the sea, they were responsibility the nation was now under. entitled not only to recompense, but to handsome recompense. He would treat such men not only liberally, but generously. He could conceive instances when these pensions ought to descend to their wives and families for the first, and possibly the second generation; but surely there was neither justice nor fair play in saddling the revenues of this country with a payment of £500,000 during the last 200 years for the services that this Dutch partizan of our Whig King had rendered. He knew that he could not carry the House in a division against the pension, but it was incumbent on someone to make this protest before payment was actually agreed to.

Amendment proposed, "That the said Resolution be not agreed to." - Mr. Joseph Cowen.)

MR. W. H. SMITH said, he could not discuss the justice of the payment. All he could say was, that the amount they now wished to vote was simply the commutation of an annual sum that had been paid for nearly two centuries. Some 200 years ago a sum was charged on the Post Office revenues for the heirs of the Duke of Schomberg, and the only effect of the hon. Member's Motion, if carried, would be that this pension would continue to be charged on the fund. It was a charge effected by Act of Parliament, and could only be repealed by Act of Parliament. He hardly thought Parliament would repeal an Act which gave certain persons an actual property in an income amounting to £1,080 a-year. It would be an act of confiscation, and a precedent which he believed the hon. Gentleman himself would be slow to set. The question for the House to consider was whether they should pay a round sum and be done with the pension, or they would keep on paying the annuity as heretofere.

DR. LUSH quite approved of the course the hon. Member for Newcastle had taken in calling the attention of the House to the payment. He thought it a most objectionable one, and the practice of granting hereditary pensions ought to be discontinued. He understood that his hon. Friend's object in

MR. J. COWEN, in reply, said, he would not put the House to the trouble of dividing. As he had had an opportunity of calling attention to the subject he would withdraw his Resolution, and the payment, which they could not evade, would have to be agreed to. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Resolution agreed to.

Remaining Resolutions agreed to.

WAYS AND MEANS-REPORT.

Resolution [August 5] reported.

LORD ELCHO wished to know why no sum had been taken in the Estimates, as had been proposed some time since, for the erection of a new War Office, the present building being wholly unfit for habitation? He hoped that next year some steps would be taken either to improve the old office, or to erect a new one. It by no means followed that a new building would necessarily be a healthy one, for he understood that there were three inches of sewage flowing in the basement of the new Foreign and India Offices.

SIR CHARLES W. DILKE took that opportunity of asking some explanation with reference to the Vote of £40,000 in aid of the revenues of Fiji, and said, that last year the noble Earl the Secretary of State for the Colonies stated it had been proposed to advance £100,000 to the colony; but when the Papers came in he (Sir Charles W. Dilke) could only find that they had voted £40,000. It seemed that the noble Earl, the Colonial Secretary, had engaged to make a distinct advance of £100,000, rather than grant a loan of the same amount, but he promised only £40,000 for last year and the balance £60,000, this year. What he (Sir Charles W. Dilke) complained of was, that when the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies moved the Vote of £40,000 last year, he did not say a word about the further Vote of £60,000 which was to be asked for

of Lords, or he might court Government | Parliament, and if he resigned his office favour by political subserviency in order he would, like a Bishop who resigned, that he might be made a hereditary be no longer a Member of the House of Peer; while the man of high spirit and Lords, and would no longer be sumindependence, whose talents might be moned to sit there. There were Constimade available to the country, even tutional objections to the creation of life though he had ceased to be a Lord of Peerages, as it would tend to degrade Appeal, would be relegated to private the House of Lords to the level of those life and obscurity, because he had failed miserable Senates which existed in Conto court or to conciliate Party favour. tinental countries, and this was probably On all these grounds, and on many the reason why the Bill did not propose others which the lateness of the hour to make life Peers. prevented him going into, he had the most decided objection to the clause as it stood in the Bill, and he hoped that the Committee would agree to his Amendment.

SIR GEORGE BOWYER expressed a hope that the Government would not allow the clause to be altered, as it was in strict accordance with the ancient Constitution of the country, the House of Lords having enjoyed its judicial character long anterior to the time when it became a legislative Body. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon) argued that these Judges were to be made Peers, but the fact was they would only be Lords of Parliament; they would only have to aid the House of Lords in determining appeals. It was true they were to sit and vote, but they would not be Peers; their position would resemble that of the Bishops, who also were Lords of Parliament, not Peers. The hereditary character of the House of Lords was the real essence of the Peerage, and where there was not a hereditary right there was no Peerage. To show that the Bishops were not Peers, he would just state that if a Bishop were charged with felony, he would not, as a Peer would be under similar circumstances, be tried by the Court of the High Steward in the House of Lords, but by an ordinary jury, like any other commoner. These would not be "Peers made by statute," for the Act would simply empower the Queen to make a Lord of

MR. GREGORY supported the Amendment. He thought it would be a degradation of men of high legal training, having made them Barons with the right of taking part in all the discussions in the House of Lords, whether judicial or legislative, to turn round upon them when they had given their best services to the country, and tell them they should no longer enjoy those privileges. There would, he believed, be a difficulty in finding men to take the office under such conditions. It would, too, when men had grown old, prevent them from resigning, and thus they might have a number of effete Judges exercising the function of Judges of Appeal.

SIR HENRY JAMES said, that the House of Lords had already determined that there should be no judicial Peers for life, and appealed to the House whether, in these circumstances, it was worth while to discuss the question. Hitherto the elevation of a man to a Judgeship placed him beyond political partizanship; but this Bill placed four Judges in a political arena, and the Amendment would give the Government an unlimited power of increasing the number of political partizans in the other House by appointing Judges who might resign soon after their appointment. As to the statement that the condition attached to the acceptance of these high offices would be considered by eminent men as an insult, he would ask whether a clergyman considered it an insult to be asked to become a Bishop upon a precisely similar footing with regard to the House of Lords. He hoped the Government would not accept the Amendment.

MR. W. M. TORRENS maintained that the decision of the House of Lords against Peerages for life ought not to be any difficulty in the way of the House of Commons doing what was right in the matter. In the passage of the Bill through their Lordships' House Lord