be endorsed by an hon, Member in this House, and circulated, as all statements made in this House are, through the press all over the country. I must express my disappointment that the hon. Member for Lincoln has not thought fit to make reparation to Mr. Christie's wounded feelings by expressing his regret for having circulated such a statement; but I do think that Mr. Christie ought to be perfectly satisfied with what has been stated by my noble Friend at the head of the Government. I think the statement of the noble Lord will more than weigh against General Webb's calumnies, and the circulation given to them by the hon. Member for Lincoln. MR. NEWDEGATE: Sir, I have had the honour of many years' acquaintance with Mr. Christie, and I can bear my testimony to what has been stated by the right hon. Gentleman who has just addressed the House. I endeavoured by every means in my power to induce the hon. Member for Lincoln to retract the statement he had made. I spoke to hon. Members who had heard the statement, because, had I been present, I should have felt bound to appeal to you, Sir, in consequence of the use of language not customary in this House. I regret that statement the more because it referred to a private transaction of which the hon. Member for Lincoln knew nothing; and so far from that statement being supported by the Ministers of the other Powers at Brazil, the Russian Minister and the Prussian Minister had reported that they did not remember the slightest ground for it. I cannot but regret that there should have appeared in the newspapers so gross an imputation on an honourable man as has been repeated in this House. I regret it the more because these statements are retailed in foreign countries, where there is no means of reply. I think it the more ungenerous on the part of the hon. Member for Lincoln not to retract such an assertion, when it had nothing to do with the policy of Her Majesty's Government in Brazil. LORD ROBERT CECIL: Sir, I have heard with some regret the attempt which has been made to limit the freedom with which Members of this House have been ac customed to discuss the conduct of public functionaries throughout the world. It could be to serve no purposes of private malice that the hon. Member for Lincoln read the statement referred to. The point is simply this :-The Government are charged with having employed in the delicate relations which existed between this country and Brazil an agent who was manifestly unfit for his post, and I apprehend that is a charge which it is competent for any hon. Member of this House to make. You may make what charge you please against the other Ministers at Rio, you may apply to them all the depreciatory remarks which the noble Lord applied to the American Minister; but the fact is that Mr. Christie had managed to quarrel with them all. It is not for the honour of this House, nor does it show a due regard for the privileges of this House, to attempt to limit the freedom with which every Member of this House ought to be able to discuss the conduct of those to whom the Government intrust the representation of this country in foreign parts. MR. C. W. HOWARD: Sir, I have no wish to go into another Brazilian debate, but I simply rise to defend a gentleman whom I have had the pleasure of knowing for a great many years, and whose conduct is not liable to the charge which has been brought against it. I was in the House at the time of the Brazilian debate, and, as far as my memory goes, the words actually used by the hon. Member for Lincoln were, I would not say that Mr. Christie has wilfully exaggerated or misrepresented what had occurred, but his behaviour certainly gave some colour to General Webb's charges against him." That was the hon. Gentleman's language, and the passage in General Webb's letter, which obtained circulation in the newspapers was this: 64 All the circumstances go to prove a reckless disregard of truth on the part of Mr. Christie, which is not characteristic of a gentleman, and certainly not commendable in a representative of the British nation." As a friend of Mr. Christie, I wish to give a most emphatic denial to that character of him which is given by General Webb, and I am very sorry that the hon. Member for Lincoln, so far from having taken the opportunity offered him of a disavowal, has adopted words which he did not himself actually use at the time. If he had used those words, there were friends of Mr. Christie in the House who would have been glad at once to give their impression of his character. After what the noble Lord has said, it is unnecessary to say anything more in Mr. Christie's defence. It must be obvious that the representative of the English Government may often have occasion to thwart the views of the merchants. | Government pursued in what I must call Mr. Christie may have done that, but his this most unhappy affair. conduct, I believe, has not only been able, but it has been such as to deserve the high approbation which the noble Lord has passed on it. MR. COBDEN: Sir, it is not my intention to enter into the personal question which has been raised, still less to make any observations reflecting on the character of an hon. Gentleman once a Member of this House, and with whom I have the pleasure of a personal acquaintance. I wish simply to make one remark on what has fallen from the noble Lord at the head of the Government. When this Brazilian question was discussed before, I spoke in the debate, and I mentioned that I had heard on good authority that the merchants in Brazil were opposed to the proceedings of Her Majesty's Government. Since then a document has been published purporting to be signed by a number of British mer chants, now admitted to be a minority, and an attempt has been made to show that this document was an approval of the conduct of Her Majesty's Government. I read that paper over with the most minute attention, and I am sorry I have not got it with me, but I had not the least idea that this discussion would have arisen. In it those merchants carefully abstain-they state that they abstain from offering any opinion upon the origin of the dispute between Her Majesty's Government and the Brazilian empire, and they go on to say, that as they are anxious that the national feeling in Brazil should not be needlessly offended, they are gratified that Mr. Chris tie so far departed from the instructions which he had received from his Government as to make a proposal more conciliatory to the Brazilian Government than the terms which he had been instructed to offer, and by this means avoided what would otherwise have been a great affront to the national sentiment, and secured a mode of settlement. How this can be construed into an endorsement and approval of the conduct of the Government I cannot see. It certainly offers a tribute of approbation to Mr. Christie, but it is at the expense of the Foreign Office; for it compliments him on having departed from the instructions which he had received. I have the meaning of the document so clearly in my mind that I cannot be mistaken, and I very much regret that I did not bring it down with me. It is totally impossible to build on it anything like a justification for the course the VOL. CLXX. [THIRD SERIES.] SIR FRANCIS GOLDSMID said, that as a Friend of Mr. Christie, he felt desirous of adding his testimony in defence of his character from the unjust imputation thrown on it, and which could only have originated in some strange mistake. MR. LAYARD: Sir, when this question was before the House on a former occasion, Mr. Christie felt somewhat hurt that I took no notice of the words which fell from the hon. Member opposite. The fact is, as those who were in the House at the time are aware, the hon. Member for Lincoln spoke so low that it was with great difficulty he was heard in any part of the House. I did catch the name of General Webb, and presumed that he was alluding to the letter. But that was a document of so improper a description that I did not think it worthy of the character of Mr. Christie or of this House to refer to it. I only wish further to add that the state. ment made by the noble Lord opposite, that Mr. Christie has quarrelled with every foreign Minister at Rio, is totally unfounded. [Lord ROBERT CECIL: With most of them.] At the time of his last visit here Mr. Christie had had a difference with two of the Ministers, but it was arranged; and at the time of his return there he was on the best terms with all his colleagues, who have borne their testimony to his high character and to the manner in which he conducted himself in a most trying crisis. MR. DISRAELI: Sir, I wish to point out to the House the great inconvenience to public business which arises from irregular and personal discussions of this character. If we are to have Motions of adjournment on every occasion like the present, I do not see how the public business of the country is to be carried forward. At the same time, I perfectly feel that my hou. Friend the Member for Lincoln must be exonerated in the present instance, from the nature of the subject. I imagine that the great inconvenience we have experienced on the present occasion arises from the hon. Member for Pontefract having put into the shape of an ordinary question a matter of importance from its personal character, and which ought to have been brought forward in a much more formal manner. The question, too, is one of which some notice ought to have been given. We have got now into another Brazilian debate; nor, unless the sense of the House is very strongly expressed as to 2 U these desultory discussions, do I see how this present question is to end. The speech which the noble Lord has made is really rife with elements for future discussion, future vindication, and future explanation. In the course of his observations the noble Lord attacked, first, the Brazilian Government, then the Brazilian nation and their state of civilization; then he attacked the American Minister at Rio; and finally, he attacked the British merchants in Brazil. I have no doubt all these various interests have friends and acquaintances in the House of Commons who will take the very first day in their power-perhaps when we are going into an important debate-to insist on vindicating their character, and calling for some explanation from the noble Lord. I have no doubt that even General Webb has some friends here who may take up his cause, and then we shall have the noble Lord indulging again in these instructive and inspiriting attacks on foreign countries and foreign Minis. ters, which, though they may be very amusing, certainly do not tend to a conciliatory course of diplomacy. Though no positive rule can be laid down, I trust there will be an expression of feeling on both sides of the House, that when a question of this nature has to be brought forward, it shall be done in a formal and regular manner, and not in the shape of a question and a declaration arranged beforehand to be made by the Minister, which must lead to great discussion and frequent appeals for explanation. Question put, and negatived. PRISON MINISTERS BILL-[BILL 24.] COMMITTEE. Order for Committee read. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair." (Sir George Grey.) MR. R. LONG, who was imperfectly heard, was understood to say that he rose, pursuant to notice, to move that "the House will, upon this day six months, resolve itself into the said Committee." It was hardly necessary for him to assure the House that he felt the greatest reluctance in addressing them on that occasion-a reluctance proceeding from an apprehension of his motives being misunderstood or misconstrued. He hoped that in any observations he should find it necessary to make he should avoid everything that could in the slightest degree give offence or occasion pain to the members of the Roman Catholic persuasion, or of any other religious denomination, either inside or outside of that House. He was only induced to take the course he proposed to take from a sense of duty which impelled him to resist to the utmost of his power the further progress of the measure. He contended that the Bill openly attacked those principles which had ever been jealously and strongly held, not only by the great majority of that House, but by the great mass of the population of this kingdom. In proof of that fact, he need only point to the 500 Petitions, which without any organized attempt to obtain an expression of public opinion, were presented to the House in the course of the last week, and which had been signed by upwards of 50,000 persons. Amongst those Petitions was one from the Corporation of the City of London, another from the City of Edinburgh, and another from the Wesleyan body, signed on their behalf by the president. Now, he thought that it was impossible to deny the importance of the Petitions emanating from such respectable corporations and religious bodies. He wished, in the next place, to refer to the arguments by which the measure was supported. He would first ask what really was the grievance which the measure was intended to correct. The grievance as regarded Roman Catholic prisoners, as he understood it, was thus illustrated by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department. What, said he, would be thought by the members of the Church of England, if they happened to be living in a Catholic country and that some of their unfortunate brethren had been put into gaol, if the Government of that country refused to appoint a Protestant chaplain to visit their prisoners? But he (Mr. Long) denied that the Roman Catholic prisoners suffered such a grievance. It was true that the State did not appoint a Catholic chaplain and pay for such a functionary to visit Roman Catholic prisoners in gaol, but that was a necessary consequence of the constitution under which they lived. He did not wish to touch the question whether the doctrines of the Church of England were right or wrong, but so long as they bound themselves to the principles of a State Church, and recognised that Church as the great exponent and teacher of morality, he did not see how any remedy could be applied to the supposed grievance complained of. If they followed out the struction. Roman Catholic prisoners equally with Protestants, subject only to one modification, are This is altogether a mistake; the law on the subcommitted to the care of the Protestant chaplain.' ject is as follows:-' He [the chaplain] shall superintend the distribution of books to be read by the prisoners belonging to the Established Church, and inspect all books proposed for the use of prisoners may deem improper. Surely these rules and reof the Established Church, and reject such as he gulations must have escaped the recollection of Sir George Grey when he made the statement above alluded to.' " principle of the Bill, it seemed to him that the remedy proposed for the relief of Roman Catholic prisoners was equally applicable to all cases where prisoners other than those of the Church of England were concerned. The members of every religious sect had an equal right to a chaplain of their own particular persuasion appointed and paid by the State. According to the language of the measure such a principle would be correct and logical, but to what extent would such a principle lead them? He (Mr. Long) could not allow that the It was certainly compatible with the prin- Roman Catholic prisoners suffered any ciple observed in France, where the Go- grievance so long as the law permitted vernment paid and endowed the ministers them to see any of their chaplains when of all religious persuasions. But that prin- they expressed a desire to see them. Where, ciple he hardly thought would be accep- then, was the grievance? If it were a table to the Government or people of this grievance that those Roman Catholics whe country. Let them see how such a princi- had committed mal-practices, and wer ple would work. In Wales there were suffering the penalty of their crimes in large bodies of Dissenters. The greatest prison, were to be left without the visits portion of the population belonged to other of a chaplain forced upon them and pai religious denominations than that of the by the state, surely those of the same Church of England. Was, then, the Go- persuasion who had committed no such vernment prepared to appoint and pay, in wrongs to society, but who were struggling addition to the ministers of the Established hard for a bare subsistence outside the Church, the chaplains belonging to the prison walls, had a much greater griev various religious sects to be found amongst ance to complain of. If the Legislature the population of Wales? Were they adopted the principle involved in the Bill, prepared, for example, to pay the ministers he did not know where they could stop. of the Socinian and the Mormon sects, and He would mention a single fact, to show those that preached every other doctrine the position taken up by Roman Catholic however absurd, if they found any mem-chaplains in Ireland, and he wished to ask bers of those bodies in any of the prisons? Why, such a principle was utterly abhorrent to that of the constitution under which they lived. But there was another alleged grievance. It was alleged that it was the duty of the chaplains of the Established Church to select and distribute amongst the prisoners of the gaols such books only as they thought fit. He ventured to deny that assertion. That was not the law. The power of distributing books amongst the prisoners did not lie with the Protestant chaplains, but with the visiting justices. And he would prove that statement by reading a brief extract from a letter of the Rev. G. Maclear, chaplain of the county prison in Bedford, addressed to the editor of The Record on the 28th of April. The rev. gentleman wrote thus "In the late debate on the Romish Chaplains in Prisons Bill Sir George Grey seems to have fallen into a very great mistake. He is reported to have said, To him [the chaplain] is committed the responsibility, or right, or duty, whatever it may be called, of prescribing the lessons which are to be taught, and the books which are to be read, by the prisoners for their moral and religious in the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary Long) acted felt strongly upon the proposed measure. Again, had the Government well considered the effect of the Bill upon the ratepayers? It was impossible for them to concede the point of giving the Roman Catholic prisoners paid chaplains, without going much further. They must give them separate rooms for the performance of their religious rites, and all the para phernalia necessary for the celebration of mass, and the other ceremonies of their Church. They must also give them schools. Well, he asked whether the Government were prepared to throw all that additional expense upon the ratepayers? It was impossible, he might add, not to perceive, that in assenting to the Bill, the House would be dealing a heavy blow at the Church of these realms, in which the vast majority of the English people recognised the organ of order, morality, and reformation, and which Parliament would, as it were, be declaring to have failed in its mission if it were to agree to the proposed change. What were the facts upon which they founded this measure? Was there any case shown in which the chaplains of the Church of England had abused their position by attempting to proselytize members of the Roman Catholic Church? He denied that there was the slightest evidence of any such conduct on the part of a minister of the Church. But were there not, he would ask, a number of well-ascertained cases in which the influence of the Church of England had hitherto been used -not to proselytize within the prison walls, but to appeal to those principles which were found in all hearts, in order that the unhappy prisoner might go forth from confinement so instructed as to be prepared to occupy an improved position in society? Considering the mass of ignorant Irish people who come over to this country utterly uninstructed by the clergy of their own Church, he could never believe that by forcing upon them the visits of their own priests, when suffering the penalties of their crimes, they would change their character. He would next meet the argument advanced from another corner of the House in favour of the Bill; and, in doing so, he was desirous of speaking with all deference of the opinions of that eminent man to whom he was alluding. They were told by the authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) that the privileges of the Church of England were based upon popular rights, and that those popular rights were the sources of her strength. The right hon. Gentleman, however, failed to inform the House how or in what shape those privileges or popular rights were assailed by refusing to allow the State to appoint a paid Romish priest to enter the prisons for the instruction and enlightenment of the Romish Catholic inmates who asked not for their ministration. The right hon. Gentleman, however, seemed by his language to make this charge against the Church of England. He (Mr. Long) heard the words of the right hon. Gentleman with great astonishment. It was a grave charge to make against the Church, and he expected that the right hon. Gentleman would have stated some facts in support of it. But there was no evidence whatever adduced by the right hon. Gentleman to sustain his allegation. He (Mr. Long) was not aware that the Church of England had ever claimed or exercised the right to deprive prisoners of the Roman Catholic persuasion of the consolations or instructions of their priests. A prisoner, whatever religious denomination he belonged to, had the fullest and fairest rights to obtain the spiritual consolations of his minister, should he so desire it. But when the right hon. Gentleman spoke of popular rights, which, he very truly said, were embodied in the Church of England, and were the sources of her strength, he (Mr. Long) would ask him, did he forget the character of some of those popular rights? The right hon. Gentleman doubtless considered that one of the most important of them was the right to meet in public vestry, and to propose measures for the management of matters connected with the Church? Popular rights! No, Sir, the Church could take her stand on a wider foundation, or she would not have been able to stand so well-could not have withstood the assaults of that creed from which she separated herself three centuries ago, nor the arguments of that new system of popular German theology-had she not a better basis to stand upon. The great principle of the Church of England was that every man had the inalienable right of opening the Bible. That was the principle upon which the Church of England took her stand. That was the principle of which they would deprive her, if they said that the Roman Catholic priest should alone have access to the Roman Catholic prisoner. It was that which they |