House is prepared to call upon the country | disposition to place in the military authoto incur it, and whether the feeling en- rities, the system of selection is impostertained on this subject is sufficiently sible. There is only one other point to strong to justify us in pledging the country to pay such a sum of money for such a purpose? I believe it is not; and that the first thing which is required-instead of asking the House to come to a decision on the system of purchase in the army-is to make ourselves much more acquainted than we are with what the real cost of interfering with that system would be. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Report of a Committee which I think he said sat in 1859. I know not if there would be any public inconvenience in laying the Report of that Committee on the table of this House; but if I might venture to give advice to my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Trevelyan), I would suggest that unless there be any reason against it he should move that a copy of that Report should be laid before us, and then the House would probably be able to form some opinion on what are the nature and amount of the expenditure involved in this proposed change. But there is another thing which the House must be prepared to do before it consents to this Motion-namely, not only to pay the sum of money, whatever it may be, which that change would involve, but to put an amount of trust in the highest military authority of this country, which I do not believe it is at present disposed to do. said that you will substitute for the existIt is always ing system a mixed system of selection and seniority; but does the House consider what is meant when you speak of a system of selection? What is meant is that the Horse Guards or the Commander-in-Chief, or the Secretary of State for War-I know not who, but the highest military authority, whoever he may be, in this countryis to have a certain power of selecting officers for promotion from the whole of any particular rank. Now, we know perfectly well that this House and the country are both-I will not say too ready, but very ready-to take exception to any act of the Commander-in-Chief; and does not the House think that when in the case of every promotion which is made there is a possibility that several very deserving officers may be passed over, complaints will not be rife, or that the Commander-inChief or the War Office will not be in daily and almost hourly dispute with this House? Unless this House is prepared to place greater confidence than it has shown any The Marquess of Hartington

which I shall advert, and that is what my hon. Friend said with regard to the scheme which was at one time adopted by Lord Herbert, but not carried out. hon. Friend could not have been acquainted I think my with all the circumstances of the case when he stated that that scheme was dropped entirely from the opposition of the Commander-in-Chief. in-Chief did what was perfectly right in The Commanderthe matter-namely, he stated frankly and openly before the Commission the objections which he had to the proposal; but when the Government overruled his objections, I believe he declared in his place in the House of Lords that, though he still retained those objections, he would not press them, but would do his best to carry out the plan; and from what I know of his Royal Highness I am satisfied he would have done so. dropped, I believe, not from the opposiBut that scheme was tion of the Commander-in-Chief so much as from the want of support in this House. It did not satisfy the advocates of the total abolition of purchase in the army; it was, of course, opposed by those who were in favour of the present system; it had not the good fortune to please any party in this House; and that, I believe, was the principal reason why it was not more have cost a considerable sum of money; vigorously pressed. The scheme would no doubt it would also have entailed some of the difficulties which I have mentioned as incidental to any system of selection; and I think the Government of the day, if they did not find that the scheme was satisfactory to any party, or would be properly supported, were perfectly right in not placing the Commander-in-Chief in a position of such difficulty as he would have occupied if it had, under those circumstances, been persevered with. I do not say that that scheme should not be revived; but, if it be revived, there ought to be some prospect of its being much more warmly supported than it was before.

wished to give one or two simple reasons MR. TREVELYAN, in reply, said, he why he intended to press his Motion to a division. The Secretary of State for War had made a speech that was very gratifying to him-first because of the very kind things he had said of himself, and next because of the way in which he had spoken of one whose reputation was far dearer

to him than his own. But the right hon. Gentleman had not answered any of the principal objections which he had stated to the purchase system. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman's one answer was the consideration of expense. But on that side of the House this matter was thought to be so important that it was worth while incurring any necessary expense rather than that the system of purchase should not be got rid of. The noble Lord who had just sat down (the Marquess of Hartington) said that the public mind was not yet ripe on that question, and that, therefore, a division ought not to be taken upon it. He (Mr. Trevelyan) maintained, on the contrary, that that was just the reason why they should have a division upon it, for that was the way to ripen public opinion. The principal vocation of this Parliament was to start questions which a Reformed Parliament may run down. He wished therefore to know how the question stood and who was for him, and who against him.

Question put.

It was a measure he had himself given notice of some years ago, but deferred for more considerate treatment. He was of opinion that the measure ought to be accompanied by considerable safeguards, for anything like a precipitate repeal of the Acts in question might lead to the production of great mischief, injustice to individuals, and injury to the Church, and even involve a breach of faith with our colonies in the West Indies. Moreover, anything like a precipitate repeal of the Acts would have a tendency to prevent the object which the hon. Member had in view. Not only the present but the last Government had had the subject under consideration, and had even taken steps in the direction of this measure, and both Governments had come to the conclusion that the Treasury ought to be relieved from the charge in question as opportunity occurred. He was of the opinion that this was desirable in the interests not only of the British taxpayer, but also of the Church itself in the West Indies; for both civil and religious institutions thrived best when

The House divided:-Ayes 75; Noes extraneous support of this description was 116 Majority 41.

WEST INDIA BISHOPS AND CLERGY

BILL.-LEAVE.-FIRST READING.
MR. REMINGTON MILLS moved

; as

He

withdrawn from them, and when they rested on resources on the spot. But it was necessary that a certain amount of discretion should be left in the Executive or Legislature of this country to prevent the confusion which might arise from a for leave to introduce a Bill to repeal sudden change. Not only must existing the several Acts granting and regulat-interests be saved, but a power of gradual ing the appropriation of £20,300 from reduction must somewhere be reserved the Consolidated Fund for the Ecclesi- also a power to anticipate vacancies, and astical Establishments in the West Indies, so facilitate the new arrangement. excepting so far as to continue their would go more fully into the question on allowances to the present recipients until a future occasion; but at present, while their promotion, resignation, or decease. he assented to the introduction of the Bill, As he understood that his Motion would the Government reserved to themselves the not be opposed by the Government, he power of dealing with it afterwards as they should confine himself on the present might think fit. occasion by stating that it was not his intention in making the Motion to interfere in any way with existing rights, as his Bill would only carry out, in the case of the West Indies, the same rule that had been applied to other colonies, and by which, in the case of the British North American Colonies, the annual amount had been reduced from £12,000 to £3,000 by the falling in of lives. He trusted that when the Bill came on for discussion it would receive the sanction of the House.

MR. ADDERLEY, on the part of the Government, said, he would not offer any opposition to the introduction of the Bill.

VOL. CLXXXVI. [THIRD SERIES.]

Motion agreed to.

Bill to relieve the Consolidated Fund from the

charge of the Salaries of future Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Dignitaries in the West Indies, ordered to be brought in by Mr. REMINGTON MILLS, Mr. BAZLEY, and Mr. LAMONT.

Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 126.]

SUPPLY-CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
SUPPLY-considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
£402,000, Advances for New Courts of
Justice and Offices.

3 N

"Yesterday a train took fire on the Midland Railway between Birmingham and Derby. It appears that the body of one of the carriages in the mid-day down train, either through being too heavily freighted or in consequence of defective set the wood on fire. One of the passengers springs, sank down on the wheels, and the friction shouted out of the window, and his cries being heard by the passengers in the adjoining carriages, at length the attention of the guard was attracted. The train was brought to a stand near Tamworth, and the carriage, in which a considerable hole had been burnt, was detached from it. Some luggage belonging to a lady was burning, but the damage done was immaterial." Another paper said

mental trip, and the experiments in the | From one of the morning papers he had way of passenger and guard communica- taken the following:tion had been quite successful. It was unnecessary to say that if some such means had been in operation on their lines of railway, some frightful accidents might have been averted, and minor casualties could be prevented by the same precautions. What were the objections to the Bill? One was that there existed no necessity for legislation on this subject, and another was that if a means of communication between passengers and guards were established they would have old women travelling by rail needlessly interfering with it. The points to be considered, in order to prove the question of necessity, were those in connection with that species of accident which perilled the safety of an entire train-such, for instance, as an accident caused by one of the advanced carriages of a train slipping off the rails, or a fire, which, after smould ering for some time, burst into a flame. In connection with this point, he should like to read a short extract from a letter written by Mr. William Holbrook, of Nottingham

On

"The Government Inspector's Report of Railways for five years, 1859-60-2-3-4, shows that 1,132 persons were killed, and 2,911 persons were injured during the same period. In one accident alone the company paid about £34,000. November 28, 1866, near Hitchin, a train was on fire, the passengers were whistling, shouting, and banging the carriage doors for nearly a quarter of an hour before they could make the guard hear. If my plans had been in operation at the time the train would have been stopped in half a minute from the time the passengers knew it was on fire. For the year 1865 thirteen railway companies paid compensation for injuries to persons, &c., to the amount of £304,376. Surely, sir it is time some action was taken to prevent this great loss of life and property, either by compulsion on the part of the Government or by the directors of the different lines of railway themselves. The public have a right to demand safety for life and property while travelling for business or plea

sure.

In a note at the end the writer said

"An accident happened to a passenger train on

The pas

Thursday evening, on the Cambridge and Hitchin
line. The train was travelling at the rate of
about twenty-five miles an hour, and, when near
Shepreth, one of the carriages got off the line.
After bumping along for some minutes it was
precipitated down an embankment, and the two
following carriages were turned over.
sengers were more or less seriously injured, but
we understand no lives were lost. The inhabitants
of the village, and especially a kind-hearted lady
named Mrs. Ellis, paid every attention to the
passengers; and the engine not having gone off
the rails, the remaining carriages were enabled to
proceed on the journey. It is stated by some of
the travellers that if there had been any means of
communicating with the driver the train might
have been stopped before the embankment was
reached."

With respect to accidents by fire he found
that His Royal Highness the Prince of
Wales had a narrow escape while travel-
ling by train from the Russian capital to
Berlin. The special correspondent of The
Daily Telegraph, writing to that journal
from Berlin on December 1st, 1866,
said-

"Just after it got dark there was an alarm of fire, and it turned out that the Royal carriage was burning. Happily the danger was discovered close to the station of Braunsberg, where the train stopped. Whether a wheel had caught fire, or the pipes with which the carriages were warmed had got overheated, nobody seemed exactly to know. Fortunately, there was no harm done to anybody, but the carriage was so much charred that it was thought unsafe to proceed in it. Some compartments in the ordinary cars were cleared for the Prince and his companions, and after a long hour's delay we got on again, leaving the saloon carriage still smoking as we passed out of the station."

"Two years and a half since I offered my plans to a railway company. I was told by one of the directors they had agreed not to countenance anything only what came from their own engineer. I told him then the thing was settled their engineer must have all the brains in the world; so I bid him good morning. Since I offered my Since the Select Committee was appointed plans, I should think, on the different lines of on this Bill last year, he had had a conrailway, the property destroyed and compensationversation with a Member of the House, paid for persons injured and killed would amount who had told him that on one occasion to above £100,000. That would have been prevented if my plans had been applied on the dif- when travelling by express train on the ferent lines of railway at the time." Brighton Railway he perceived a strong