the Government in making the proposi- | Amendment it is necessary that he should tion was that one day in the week they be so. That will make no real differmight be allowed to go into the Esti-ence as to facilitating Business, except mates without being obliged to take up so far as debate is interposed. But this the whole or the best part of the night in debate will be limited and governed by discussing matters entirely of a foreign the conditions which we shall prescribe. nature. But with regard to Votes on With this explanation, I move to add at Account, that argument did not apply, the end of the second line, after the word as it was admitted, under the present" Monday," "and a Motion be made system, Votes on Account must neces- that Mr. Speaker do leave the Chair." sarily be given after due Notice. He If I am successful, I shall move to add believed that they ought to be asked for at the end of the second Resolutionseldom; but they were always liable to a Vote being necessary. The hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) had spoken strongly against them; but the hon. Member, in visiting Dublin, perhaps,

would not wish to find the soldiers there
starving for want of their pay, in conse-
quence of delay in voting Supply in that
House. It might be said that Votes on
Account would be asked for for objec-
tionable purposes; but he would remind
hon. Members that they always had the
power to reduce it, and to raise those
questions in Committee in a form which
would render it more than ever difficult
to pass.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Original Question put.

The House divided:-Ayes 69; Noes 143: Majority 74.—(Div. List, No. 10.)

"Unless an Amendment be moved on the division for the Estimates to be moved on that day; and the Member of Her Majesty's Government who proposes to move such Estimate may Speaker do leave the Chair."" make his statement in moving That the

At this late hour of the night I will not detain the House further, but will simply move my Amendment.

Amendment proposed,

After the word "Monday," to insert the words " and the Motion being made, That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."-(Mr. Beresford Hope.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. JACOB BRIGHT moved the adjournment of the debate. He said it was apparent that a number of hon. Members on that side of the House were anxious to put Amendments on the Paper.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY, in seconding the Motion, said, that they had got through six words after an eight hours'

discussion. He considered the Government were too anxious to get on with their Business, regardless of the duties of private Members.

(Mr. Jacob Bright.)

MR. BERESFORD HOPE: I rise now to move an Amendment the drift of which is, I may say, to carry out, as far as may be, in the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the proposal he made in 1876, and which was then accepted as a satisfactory compromise namely, that one division, and that relative to the Estimates of the day, shall be brought forward. On the Monday Motion made, and Question proposed, question, too, I pressed in the Com-"That the Debate be now adjourned.' mittee the suggestion to which several hon. Members, as well as Mr. Speaker and the Chairman of Committees, were favourable, though it was not embodied in any Resolution-namely, that each Minister should make his statement in the House in moving the Speaker out of the Chair. This suggestion, also, I embody in my Amendment, and thereby I import a slight change into the method of procedure as proposed by the Resolution of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. By the latter, Mr. Speaker leaves the Chair without being moved out of it. By my

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER appealed to hon. Members to proceed. The House had been engaged the whole evening in discussing one proposition not of a very complex character. They were now pretty well familiar with the arguments urged on the one side and the other, and he felt that they were perfectly competent to deal with the question in a very short time. It was to be hoped that the hon. Gentleman would allow this Resolution to be passed.

MR. RYLANDS hoped that the right | be that sort of opposition, which he did hon. Gentleman would accept the Motion not wish in any way to oppose. He for adjournment. In addition to the would therefore consent to the adjournAmendment proposed, he did know that ment of the debate.

other hon. Members had intended to propose certain Amendments upon this Resolution, and he was quite sure the right hon. Gentleman would see that it was utterly impossible to go on advancing that question at that time of night. He must say that if they were asked to change the procedure of the House, it was at least reasonable that the House should proceed with very great deliberation, and that it should not be considered unreasonable that they should ask for more than one night for the consideration of the question.

MR. NEWDEGATE hoped the House would go on with the discussion.

Question put, and agreed to.

Debate adjourned till To-morrow.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

HABITUAL DRUNKARDS BILL.

(Dr. Cameron, Mr. Clare Read, Mr. Ashley, Sir

Henry Jackson, Mr. Edward Jenkins, Mr.
William Holms, Mr. O'Shaughnessy.)

[BILL 47.] SECOND READING. Order for Second Reading read. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second

MR. BIGGAR said, he was not gene-time"-(Dr. Cameron.) rally in favour of adjournments; but on this particular occasion, as regarded the Amendment then before the House, he could candidly say that he had no idea of what the Resolution was to be. If the hon. Member who proposed it had the opportunity to put it upon the Paper, they would know what it referred to; but really, as it then stood, the whole House was in the dark as to what its purport was. The Government were not acting as business men in asking them to sit there longer on that occasion, and he might say that he had had considerable experience of the right hon. Gentleman's endeavours to save time, the result being that he generally spent it. He did not believe that hon. Gentlemen would allow themselves to be forced into accepting the Resolution.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON said, he was inclined to agree with the Motion for the adjournment of the debate. He thought it would not be impossible to agree to the Resolution that night; but he could not help recognizing that there were a considerable number of hon. Gentlemen who would not, at that time of the night, apply themselves to the task; and he was therefore afraid it would be quite hopeless for them to expect to get through the Resolution that night. He therefore put it to his right hon. Friend whether the further discussion of the Resolution had not better be adjourned?

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER said, he agreed with the sugges

MR. DILLWYN moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. He thought that where persons were deprived of their liberty they should be in the custody of State officials. In this case his hon. Friend had said there was no analogy between the institutions suggested by the Bill and lunatic asylums, and that in the one case it was a compulsory act, and in the other a voluntary one. But they all knew that the habitual drunkard got into a decrepid state of mind and body, and that while he might go into such an institution readily enough he was practically very glad to get out again. In both cases the persons having custody of them had a direct pecuniary interest in retaining them in those places during the whole of the time specified. The object of such people only ought to be to discharge their patients as soon as possible; whereas in this case it would be exactly the opposite. He would not trespass on the House further, but would move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

MR. P. A. TAYLOR, in seconding the Motion, said, he did not for one moment wish by so doing to suggest that the intention of the promoters was not of the most charitable design. Though the persons intended to be benefited formed a very sad spectacle, it was at the same time quite impossible for him to give his support to the Bill, as he looked upon it as one of the waves of

cates.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words " upon this day six months."-(Mr. Dillwyn.) Question proposed, "That the word now 'stand part of the Question."

DR. CAMERON said, he was glad now to learn the exact grounds upon which this Bill was opposed. As to the objection that there existed an analogy between the institutions suggested by the Bill and private lunatic asylums, there was not the remotest resemblance. A private lunatic asylum was a place where a person was committed for an indefinite period against his own willperhaps by some unprincipled member of the Medical Profession. If he were ill-treated, his complaint was treated as that of a lunatic the only wit

ment, or rather grand-maternal govern- | away for 12 months would succeed in ment. He was of opinion that they doing so. Even more, the state of the could not enforce morality upon any law might tempt people to give way to class of the community, nor could they drink; and as they were aware there interfere with what they eat or what were unprincipled men in every profesthey drink, or wherewithal they should sion, there would not be much difficulty be clothed. The habit of gambling was in surmounting the medical certifione which frequently led to ruinous results, and it was impossible, perhaps, to break a person of it. He was sorry to say that the habit had been increasing of late of endeavouring to get the State to interfere with the liberty of the subject. His hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) was strongly endeavouring, amongst others, to make the people sober by shutting up the public-houses. He thought that was an impossibility, and that the people ought to be dealt with by more philosophical means, by the spread of education, the influence of friends, and such genuine influences. A right rev. Bishop had said that he would rather see a people free than sober. That might be rather extreme; but, at any rate, with regard to such legislation as was now proposed there was an element of truth; with freedom there was everything to be hoped for; but when they stopped an individual from some disas-nesses he could bring forward would trous vice by shutting him up, they did not cure him; they left him to exercise his brutal tastes in some other direction-perhaps in a more evil way. Beyond this, there was the much greater evil that they were dealing with the liberty of the subject; they were taking away the freedom of which every man was possessed. He believed that it was not a principle of law for a man to sell his freedom. A man had no right to sell his freedom, even for 12 months. There was no doubt at this time the Lunacy Laws had immensely improved; yet, nevertheless, at this time he believed that there were grave abuses of it, and that there were at that moment people confined in lunatic asylums who ought not to be there. The present proposition was a very serious one, and one could imagine many instances where a Justice of the Peace would sign a certificate to the best of his belief when a maudlin drunkard was signing his liberty away for 12 months. He did not believe that this was a safe condition of things, and he believed that there would be cases in which persons having an interest in putting people

be lunatics. Therefore, to compare such a man with an habitual drunkard under this Bill was unfair. The hon. Gentleman characterised this Bill as "grandmotherly legislation;" but, he asked, would they allow a man to permit himself to be held down and mutilated by a surgical operation in order to obtain a cure, and yet refuse to allow another man the permission to get cured, by a brief surrender of his liberty, which the Bill would give him? When he introduced the Bill last year, he adduced evidence to show that there were number of habitual drunkards incarcerated in lunatic asylums, and that there were a number of lunatics incarcerated in private institutions, called

a

Inebriates' Homes." As to the practical support he had received, it came from men who had no interest in the matter. He had a Petition in favour of the Bill from 80 medical superintendents of as many public asylums for the insane in all parts of the United Kingdom-men who thoroughly understood the whole subject, and who were fully alive to the evils complained of, in the case of private lunatic asylums.

Member for Glasgow carried this Bill certain facts had come out which his hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Sir Charles Legard) would tell the House; but to be asked to pass a Bill through Committee at that hour, it could hardly be expected that many Members would not oppose it in every way. He opposed the Bill last time, and was instrumental in stopping it. It was somewhat a long Bill, and at the present time he did not think they had had time to consider it properly, even though it was said to be the same Bill that did not pass last Session. He begged to move that the consideration of the Bill be taken that day six months. MR. STACPOOLE seconded the Motion.

EARL PERCY said, that the principal | should not go into Committee at this objection to the Bill appeared to be on hour. He believed that since the hon. the ground that it was proposed to punish vice by legislation. That was entirely a misapprehension of the intention of the Bill. It was not a Bill to prevent drunkenness, but to provide a means for those who wished to do so to reform. Those who supported the Bill believed that drunkenness after a time had such an influence-for practical purposes-as to cause the loss of that healthy control which sane people were supposed to possess. It was supposed that at the time of his signing away his liberty for 12 months, the habitual drunkard was in sufficient possession of his faculties to know what he was doing. The question was, which was the greater of the two evils-that he should perhaps be incarcerated in one of those houses for a limited space of time, or that he should be reduced to the state in which he was now?-and those who had studied the question knew which was the greater evil very well. There were hundreds in this country who would be glad to reform if they had the opportunity to do so. He had some experience on this subject, and the great difficulty met with was the absence of any power of restraint over those who were willing in the first instance to enter these retreats.

Question put, and agreed to.

Main Question put, and agreed to. Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

RACECOURSES (METROPOLIS) BILL. (Mr. Anderson, Sir Thomas Chambers, Sir James Lawrence.)

[BILL 48.] COMMITTEE. Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."-(Mr. Anderson.)

Mr. ONSLOW said, this was a very important Bill, and it affected most materially the liberties of the subject. He should oppose this Bill, and all such others, which had for their object putting a stop to the legitimate amusements of the people on the plea that they could by legislation improve the morals of the public. He hoped the

Amendment proposed,

end of the Question, in order to add the words,
"this House will, upon this day six months,
resolve itself into the said Committee,"-
(Mr. Onslow,)

To leave out from the word "That" to the

instead thereof.

proposed to be left out stand part of the Question proposed, "That the words. Question."

SIR CHARLES LEGARD said, notwithstanding the decision which the House arrived at on Saturday morning, he should again oppose the Bill. He stated, on the last occasion, that he which the Bill was to be applied; and had been present at the meetings to he had not seen anything which ought to cause the measure to become law. He had taken some little trouble to ascertain whether those few meetings were really of the description that it was necessary for the House of Commons to legislate for. He believed the House ought not to indulge in any mere sentimental legislation. He thought there never was a case in which there was greater reason to pause than there was now, before they legislated to do away with two small suburban meetings. He need not say he was not personally interested, directly or indirectly; but, as far as he understood it, the House was asked to legislate expressly to do away with the race-meetings at Kingsbury and Streatham, because he understood the Bill would not apply to the