Friend, and other persons believing its and intention to be more scope restricted. All I can say is, that I hope the larger interpretation is the just one. It is impos

sible but that the Russian Government must be sensible that their troops in Poland have, unfortunately, committed so many acts of ferocious violence that there is a great arrear of mercy and indulgence due by that Government to set them right in the public opinion of Europe.

THE SECRETARIES OF STATE.

QUESTION.

MR. DARBY GRIFFITII said, he would beg to ask the noble Lord, Whether it is desirable for the public service, or, in fact, respectful to that House, that the chiefs of three Departments so important as the War Office, the Foreign Office, and the Admiralty should be concentrated in the House of Lords, and that the House of Commons should be left with only Under Secretaries to represent those Departments?

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: All I can say, Sir, is that it has been my endeavour to make the best arrangement for the public service, and one which appeared to me to combine as many advantages and as few objections as possible. I am quite aware that it would possibly be desirable that the distribution of the Secretaries of State between the two Houses should be different; but I am persuaded that this House will feel no inconvenience from the arrangement made, in regard to those proper and full explanations which are always due to it on all matters connected with the public service.

UNITED STATES-CONDUCT OF ADMIRAL WILKES.

QUESTION.

MR. ROEBUCK: I wish, Sir, to ask the noble Lord a Question of which I have given him no notice, but which, if he is unable off-hand to answer it now, I shall repeat to him on Thursday next. I wish to ask him, Whether Her Majesty's Government have determined on any line of conduct to be pursued with respect to the proceedings of Admiral Wilkes, and whether he can state to the House what that line of conduct is?

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON Perhaps the hon. and learned Member will allow me to take this as his notice.

WOODS, FORESTS, AND LAND REVENUES OFFICE, &c.

SELECT COMMITTEE MOVED FOR. MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH rose to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the Office of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, and the Office of Public Works. The hon. Member said, that the attention of the House and the public had for some years past been directed to the increased and increasing Estimates for the different Departments of the Civil Service. He regretted, that in those Estimates for the present year, there were no sensible reductions. It might have been expected, that when they saw a million saved in the Army Department, and another million on the Navy Department, some considerable reduction would also have been proposed in the Civil Service Estimates, the complaints of the growing increase of which had always been stronger than against any other Department of the State. That increase existed more particularly in the expenses connected with the public offices; and in no Departments was it more remarkable than in the two to which he was about to call attention-namely, the Office of the Woods and Forests, and the Office of the Board of Works. It appeared to him that this was a favourable time for entering into an examination, before a Committee of that House, of the effects of the Bill passed ten years ago for the separation of those Departments. In his last Report, Mr. Gore gave an account of the Woods and Forests up to March, 1862, and, alluding to the change which took place ten years ago, said

that the best criterion of the success of any system of management of property was the permanent pecuniary result. That was quite true; but the result should be tested, not as regarded the receipts only, but as regarded the expenditure also. Mr. Gore then drew a comparison. He took the gross receipts for three years previous to the passing of the Act of the 14 & 15 Vict., and then also took those of the last three years under his own administration— namely, 1860, 1861, and 1862. Mr. Gore did not draw a very fair comparison. He took the years 1849, 1850, and 1851, and showed that the receipts were on the annual average, under the old system, £339,000, and under the new, £414,000, showing an increase of £75,000 a year, or 22 per cent. But, instead of there being an increase of £75,000, it amounted, in reality, only to £67,000, as the year 1852,

transferred from the Woods and Forests to the Consolidated Fund; but large sums by Votes of this House were given in aid of the actual expenditure, which therefore ought to be set against the receipts. Those charges in the last year of which they had any account amounted to upwards of £43,000. The proper comparison to make was to take the whole sums paid during the ten years, and to set off the expenses. The total receipts during the ten years had been £4,090,000. There had been paid to the Consolidated Fund £2.777,000 leaving a balance of £1,313,000, which the Commissioners had laid out without any Vote of Parliament and entirely upon their own responsibility. On the other

hand, there had been laid out about £1,300,000 in addition to the sums an nually voted by Parliament for the expenses of the office, making the total expenditure £1,707,500, which sum, deducted from the total receipts, left a balance of £2,383.000. The net income for the last year was only a few hundred pounds more than the net average income of the last ten years; so that there had not been that improvement in the management of the office for which Mr. Gore claimed credit. Since the appointment of a President of the Board of Works, and the substitution of that more high-sounding title for the title of Commissioner, there had been a great increase of expenditure both for the office expenses and for the maintenance of Parks and Gardens. The comparison of the office expenditure was most instructive and suggestive. The united offices of Woods, Forests, and Works, for ten years, from 1842-3 to 1852, cost £259,627; the Office of Woods and Forests for ten years, 1853 to 1863, £236,978; Office of Works, for the same period, £256,980; making together £493,958, and showing an increased office expenditure of £234,331. But if to this sum were added the various sums that properly belonged to these two Depart

ments, as

they were found scattered through the various Estimates for superannuations, stationery, postages, and similar charges, the actual increase in consequence of our having two offices instead of one amounted to the large sum of £321,830. While the charge for official management had thus nearly doubled, the expenditure on the Parks and Gardens themselves, which in the ten years previous to the appointment of a President of Works amounted to £640,000,

was during the last ten years £1,050,000. The Parks themselves were under the Board of Works, but the fringe of the Parks was reserved to the Office of Woods; and he submitted that it was unreasonable that there should be this joint exercise of power. The principle seemed to be this— that if there was anything to receive, it went to the Woods; but if there was anything to pay, the Board of Works took charge of it, and saddled it on the public. This principle pervaded all the Crown properties. Thus the expense of keeping up Victoria Park was defrayed by a public grant; but the Office of Woods preserved all the building ground, though it was the Park which made the building ground valuable. Again, the tithes annexed to Glasgow Cathedral were received by the Office of Woods, but the painted windows were put in by the Board of Works at the public cost. The Report of the Committee on Public Monies expressed the opinion that all these matters should be brought within the control of Parliament; but a Treasury Minute said that " 'my Lords were of opinion, that considering the peculiar nature of this revenue, it was advisable to postpone any further consideration of the point until a further investigation took place, preparatory to a new surrender of the Crown Lands to the public, and the grant of a new Civil List. Considering the enormous grants of public money which were made in connection with this Department, he thought that the House ought to have an explanation of the peculiar circumstances alluded to in this Minute. These Commissioners seemed to suppose that they were trustees of the Crown, whereas they were nothing but stewards or clerks under the control of the Treasury. Up to this time this recommendation of the Public Monies Committee had been resisted and set at nought on no valid grounds. Originally, the Royal forests were kept for the purposes of the chase, and afterwards they were retained as nurseries for the naval yards. But it appeared, that for many years past, the Admiralty had refused to receive the timber grown in these forests, because it cost £8 10s. per ton, while they were able to procure timber from contractors at about £6 3s. Therefore, as affording supplies for naval purposes, the forests were useless; but a great deal of expense had been incurred in growing the timber, and he wanted to know whether the country should not have the money that was received for it when cut down. From

1853 to 1862, the total receipts from the forests were £578,600, of which £496,000 was for timber, which the Commissioners of Woods coolly pocketed as profits of Crown Lands, though the result of outlays taken from the public purse. During the ten years preceding 1853, the Commissioners only cut £330,000 worth of timber, so that £166,000 worth more had been cut within the last ten years than in the ten years preceding. The expenses of the various officers and departments for the management of these forests were very large. Indeed, the payments were so great that the net income was actually mil. This gave rise to the question whether it would not be better to ascertain the nature and extent of the Crown interests and of the interests of the public, and to dispose of the forests to the best advantage. He put it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, by the sale of portions of these forests, funds might not be procured for the purchase of sites for public offices. It was full time it should be ascertained whether, according to language now so frequently used, the Sovereign really had an interest in what are called the Crown Lands antagonistic to the interests of the public, and whether Crown property and public pro perty were not one and the same thing. Lord Ellenborough once very correctly described it in a debate in the Lords on the

King's Property Bill, in 1823, when he said, "Crown property belonged to the kingdom, not to the King." It appeared to him that the severance of the two offices, instead of leading to efficiency and economy, had led only to confusion and expense. On these grounds he asked the House to grant him a Select Committee; but in asking this he was, in fact, only asking for a re-Vote, for a Select Committee had been granted in a former Session, and he would therefore ask those hon. Members who supported him on that occasion to give him the same assistance on this.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a Select Committee be appointed, to inquire into the Office of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, and the Office of Works and Public Buildings, and the operation of the Act 14 and 15 Vic. c. 42, by which these were constituted as two separate departments."

MR. PEEL said, he was quite ready to admit that the condition of the Crown Lands was a fair subject to be brought under the consideration of the House, both on account of the large revenue derived

from them and the considerable number of persons interested in the just and prudent management of them. They formed the subject of a compact between the Crown and the country, by which, in return for the Civil List, the Crown made over to the public the net revenue derived from the Crown Lands, after paying the expenses of management. The system under which these lands were managed, all the proceedings connected with the outlay of capital and the application of income, were strictly regulated and defined by law. They had always been administered by Commissioners expressly and exclusively appointed for the purpose, except between the years 1830 and 1850, during which period the management of them was combined with the management of the Public Works and Metropolitan Improvements. That experiment having proved a failure, the Offices of Commissioner of Woods and Forests and Commissioner of Works were separated by the Act to which the hon. Gentleman had referred in his notice of Motion. To decide whether that Act had worked successfully it would be necessary first to consider what were the objects with which it was passed; and the Prime Minister in 1850, in first introducing the Bill to Parliament, thus defined its intention—

"By the proposed separation we get rid of what has frequently happened-namely, that when large expenses have been incurred for certain public works, the sums were raised by making them a charge on the Land Revenues of the Crown. This was calculated to keep from the public view the large expenses incurred in those cases. According to the statement I have now made, the Land Revenues will be in future managed as a Department of the Revenue. The consider how best to manage the rents they repersons employed in that office will have only to ceive from that property which is leasehold, and also what is the best mode of managing the Woods and Forests; and they will have nothing to do with the consideration of any expenses, except such as every owner of property would think it necessary to incur for the preservation and improvement of his property." [3 Hansard, cviii. 1319.]

The first object of the Act, therefore, was to remedy an evil which had arisen from the union of the two offices-that when large public works had been undertaken, the cost of which it was not thought expedient to lay before Parliament altogether, money was provided for by drawing on the land revenues. In this way these revenues appeared smaller than they really were, and expenditure was kept from Parliament which ought to have been sub