MAJOR WALKER said, he presumed that the Secretary of State for War had adopted in the 6th clause the system of general rather than regimental service, from a feeling that, when men who had entered the Reserve were required to resume active service, there might be a difficulty in sending them back to the regiments in which they had served; but to embody the Reserves for active service would be the exception, not the rule; and, as the regimental system had such great advantages, he thought it would be well to make the general service system the exception, and the enlistment for regimental service the rule. There was one thing that never had broken down in our Army, and that was the regimental system. It had induced fathers to bring their sons into the Army, and elder brothers to bring their younger brothers in to serve along with them. The traditional predilection for jregiments had been most valuable in producing cohesion.

The

the moment at which the actual drilling opinion that a system of short service is was begun. at the root of Army reform. If a man be kept constantly in the Army from his youth to an advanced period of his life he must be deprived of many advantages which men of all classes are found to very much appreciate. hon. and gallant Gentleman is of opinion that the old soldier is the soldier we should look to. I hope the day will never come when this country will lose confidence in the old soldier. We have no intention of driving him from the British Army. We regard him as the centre and the pivot of the service; but we wish to have the young soldier combined with him. The object of the Bill is to have a Reserve Force; not, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman proposed, trained in the Militia, but trained in the Army, by the Army, and for the Army, and constituting in the moment of emergency a Reserve upon which the Army may rely. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has referred to the Crimean War, and said the young soldiers in that campaign were less successful than the old; but he might have referred to Waterloo, and found that in the Army which gained that great victory there was a large proportion of young soldiers. The objects of this Bill are to shorten the service in the Army for the benefit of the soldier, and to form a Reserve Force of men who, trained in the Army, will always be ready to aid the troops. on active service. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is very doubtful as to whether we shall get the same class of men as have hitherto served as old soldiers. But our object is to induce a new class to enter the Army. The hon. and gallant Gentleman says we shall not succeed. I am not saying whether we shall or shall not, because I am aware of the danger of prophesying in such matters; but I will say that this is an honest attempt to give young men an opportunity of entering the Army which was not offered to them before. We do not attempt to enlist them by bounty. I do not presume to say whether we shall succeed in inducing them to enter the Army without bounty; but the mischief of enlisting by bounty is so considerable, I think we are bound to do all in our power to put an end to it. We do not propose to deprive the soldier of the small advantage which the amount now given in bounty may be to him;

LORD GARLIES said, he hoped the Secretary of State for War would give some further explanation of the object of the Bill, which, so far as he could ascertain, seemed directed towards the establishment of a Reserve Force, without carrying out any system of shortening the period of service as indicated in the Preamble.

MR. CARDWELL: Sir, I think the hon. and gallant Member for Dover (Major Dickson) was most unjust, though he did not mean to be so, in his criticism of the Bill. With regard to the reform of the War Office, the hon. and gallant Gentleman says the Bill provides for two large additions to salaries. Now, the Bill will not enlarge salaries. If the hon. and gallant Member objects to the proposal to have a Parliamentary representative of important offices, he objects to a principle which is the very mainspring of our Government-one without which there cannot be any Parliamentary control, and without which this House never can be sure that the public service is properly conducted. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman objects to short service he must be opposed to this Bill, one of the principal objects of which is to promote a shorter service; but I believe may say that very many Gentlemen of great experience in Army matters are of Colonel North

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themselves out of debt. To men so cir- mons and petition in Bankruptcy-thus cumstanced the temptation to obtain giving the clergyman and his friends an goods on credit under the idea that the opportunity of meeting the emergency. creditors will be able out of their bene- It deals with existing as well as with fices to insure payment is a most cruel future sequestrations. As to the former, one to hold out. The result is, that if which my Bill does not touch, it proa man of this class once gets into a diffi- vides that the Bishop shall ascertain the culty he never gets right; and I have whole amount of the debts of the sebeen told by clergymen how deeply questered clergyman, throwing on him they regret that the law was not al- the responsibility of finding the right tered when they entered on the clerical amount - a task for which a Bishop life, that they might not have been sub- has no qualifications, and one which jected to this temptation, and might not ought not to be thrown on him. Then have incurred debts which have embit- he is to apply to the Queen Anne's tered their whole lives. The remedy Bounty Office for a sum sufficient to pay which I propose is no injustice or off the whole amount, and the life of the hardship. Beneficed clerks are by law incumbent is to be insured for the sum restrained from charging their bene- so borrowed, in order that it may be refices with any payment or pension, and paid at his death. Now, I am quite the abolition of sequestrations will sure the Queen Anne's Bounty Office therefore simply carry out the general would not grant money on such a seprinciple of the law. It will, more-curity, for many of these lives are not over, put the body of the clergy on the same footing with the rank to which I belong, for there is no power of sequestrating the income of a Bishop. I do not shut my eyes to the fact that the Bill may be open to difficulties and objections for there are difficulties and objections in the way of every mode of dealing with this matter; but, after much thought upon it, I am quite convinced that the abolition of sequestrations and forfeiture of the benefice are the only remedy. The Bill is, no doubt, susceptible of amendment, and it does not stand alone, for another measure has been introduced in your Lordships' House with which the honoured name of a noble Earl (the Earl of Harrowby) is connected. If your Lordships think proper to refer my Bill to a Select Committee, I shall offer no objection; but I hope you will not send both Bills to a Committee, for they proceed on directly opposite principles. It is for your Lordships to determine the principle on which you mean to legislate, leaving a Select Committee to work out the details and remove objections. The other Bill, it seems to me, would actually increase the evil of sequestrations, and no one of its chief provisions would be workable. It provides, for instance, that a clergyman who shall not within a certain time pay his debts shall be deemed to have committed an act of bankruptcy. Now, that is more severe than anything in my Bill, for I propose to go through the intermediate stages of a debtor sum

insurable at all in any office. The Bishop would first have to create an insurance company which would take the life. Suppose, moreover, the clergyman is guilty of some misconduct or of suicide, the insurance policy may be forfeited. Then, again, the 17th clause provides for the payment of arrears on the policy; whereas, if the payments are allowed to fall into arrear, the policy lapses. This is an illustration of the accuracy which pervades the Bill. It proposes, again, that the Bishop shall consider what claims are to be admitted and what rejected, what is the total amount, how the money is to be raised, and in what proportion and in what order the payments are to be made-in short, he is to be a kind of Bankruptcy Commissioner. These are matters quite alien to the education of a Bishop, and for which no Bishop would willingly become responsible, since he would have no hope of doing justice in the case. After all this cumbrous machinery, moreover, no benefit is secured to the parishioners, for the living is still liable to sequestration for the purpose of meeting the claims of creditors, insurance charges, and so on

so that we get back to the sequestration of the living after all. It proposes, too, that no living with a population of 1,000, and with an income not exceeding £500, shall be subject to sequestration. Now, in by far the largest number of sequestrations the livings are under £500, the population being frequently 1,000, and in these cases there will be

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fesses to be a Bill providing a more effectual remedy for securing the payment of the debts of beneficed clerks. But what is the principle of the Bill? The principle of the measure is, that for the future a freehold benefice is to be absolutely forfeited-absolutely forfeited

no power of recovering anything from | held answerable for the payment of the the indebted clergyman, who will con- incumbent's debts I protest against tinue to the end of his life in possession such a Bill being introduced, which of his £500 a year. Parliament surely fesses to do that which its provisions do could not assent to such a provision-not even attempt to do. The Bill prowhich is made, moreover, to apply to all livings of £300 a year and under, so that such clergymen would be able to incur any amount of debts and give their creditors no remedy. That would be most unfair to the creditors. It is proposed also that the Bishop, in the case of these sequestered livings, shall have subject to the discretion of the Bishop, power to appoint any number of curates he pleases, and to assign them what salaries he pleases; so that if there is a large population he might appoint five curates at £100 or £150 a year each, thus absorbing the whole income of the living, and rendering the sequestration nugatory. I will not go further into these remarks. I hope that if your Lordships determine to send my Bill to a Select Committee, you will not trouble it with the other Bill, which is exactly opposite to it in principle, and is encumbered with so many details that the Committee would find it difficult to dispose of the matter.

Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2."-(The Lord Bishop of Winchester.)

if the holder, from misfortune or any other cause, fall into bankruptcy. Now, even if that were the best possible rule for the future, but that Parliament will consent to apply the rule to those who at present hold benefices I greatly doubt. I cannot imagine that Parliament will ever sanction the principle that the present holders of a freehold benefice, who entered in their freeholds under certain perfectly known conditions, shall be made to forfeit it by a process that is at present utterly unknown to the law. I hope, therefore, that as a matter of course, the right rev. Prelate will be prepared to except from the operation of his Bill all existing holders of benefices. But more than that-I want your Lordships to consider whether it will be wise in Parliament to say for the future, that LORD CAIRNS: I am sure your Lord- wherever a freehold office is attached to ships will all agree in the eloquent de- the performance of certain duties-and scription of the right rev. Prelate, of the I believe there are no duties more imgreat misfortune which befalls any parish portant than the spiritual duties of a where the incumbent falls into pecuniary parish-if the holder of that office bedifficulties, and where, above all, under comes bankrupt, then the freehold is to the process of sequestration, its spiritual be abolished, and the benefice to be forduties are very imperfectly performed. feited. You cannot stop short in the To see an evil, however, is one thing-application of that principle to benefices. to say what is the best remedy to be ap-If it is to be applied to benefices it must plied is another; and I wish to state, in be applied to freehold offices of every a few words, the objections which I see kind which are connected with duties to to the right rev. Prelate's Bill. In the be performed. first place, its title is misleading. Its title is "An Act to abolish Sequestrations for debt, and to provide a more effectual remedy for securing payment of the debts of Beneficed Clerks"and the same object is expressed in the Preamble; yet the Bill, while abolishing sequestration altogether, not only makes no new provision for securing payment, but abolishes the only means by which, in nine cases out of 10, payment can be obtained. Whether that is right or not -whether it be right or wrong to say that benefices shall not for the future be

The Bishop of Winchester

You must lay down the rule-for if it be good for one description of office it is good for all-that wherever an office is held, the duties of which are not efficiently performed, it must be forfeited. I would also take exception to one postulate which was laid down by the right rev. Prelate. He said the endowment was not the property of the holder, but of the parish.

THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER : What I said was that the object for which the endowment was given was not the benefit of the parson, but of the parishioners.