the sergent de ville that he would arrest the LORD STANLEY: In consequence of Consul himself on suspicion, unless he were the notice of the hon. Member, I called specially protected by a passport. The on the Vice Consul at Calais for a Report. noble Lord the Foreign Secretary would, It appears that Mr. Coventry was seen and perhaps, concur in the view that it was un- heard speaking in Italian to an Italian desirable an officer with so little discretion fellow-passenger. This was an individual should be stationed at such an important whom, for some reason or other, the place as Calais. He trusted that the French police considered they had cause noble Lord would not allow a case of this to suspect. Mr. Coventry, who had been sort to pass without a thorough apology seen in company with him, was asked being rendered, and sergens de ville taught for his passport. He answered that he that they were not in this way to insult was an Englishman, and was entitled to Englishmen. This case, however, was by travel without a passport. He was then no means the only recent one in which asked whether he could produce any papers Englishmen had suffered annoyance, de- which could prove his nationality. I tention, and loss. His attention had ought to mention that the privilege of been called to several occurrences of dispensing with passports is confined to a more outrageous nature. A few British subjects, and is often claimed by weeks ago the secretary of an English persons not entitled to it. It is not thereBishop went to Paris to make inquiries fore unreasonable or improper that when as to the conduct and operations of any difficulty arises British subjects should the small markets. He soon perceived be called upon to give some evidence of that wherever he went he was followed their nationality. Mr. Coventry appears about by a well-dressed man; and on to have given an answer-whether a sharp the second morning, on getting out of one or not I do not know-which proan omnibus at the door of his hotel, voked the police agent, and something in he was seized, accused of stealing cigars, the nature of a dispute ensued. The and taken to a police - station. The Vice Consul interfered, and then the secretary wrote to the Embassy, but his police-officer, having somewhat lost his letter was not delivered until the following temper, did use towards the Vice Consul morning, when two Attachés went to the an expression which was certainly not station and liberated him. The next case courteous or consistent with the respect he would mention was one of a still more due to his official position. It does not despotic character. A clergyman con- appear that Mr. Coventry was detained, nected with a parish in the North of Eng- and therefore the person most aggrieved land, while taking some refreshment on in the matter is the Vice Consul. That the premises of a marchand de vins, was gentleman, however, has written to me seized, and, although he gave his name that the objectionable words were used by and address, was conveyed to a police- the police-officer in the heat of a dispute station. He wrote to the Embassy, but which had arisen with another person; his letter was not delivered for three days. that the police-officer is in general reAn Attaché then called upon the clergy-markably civil in his language and conman, but could do nothing for him, be- duct; and that, though large numbers of cause the rev. gentleman was not known English people have passed through Calais personally to any one at the Embassy lately, he is not aware of any complaint which was not at all surprising. Ten having been made before against this perdays were taken to correspond with the son. Under these circumstances, an exreferences which the rev. gentleman gave planation and apologies having been offered in his own parish. All that time he was to him, the Vice Consul does not desire to kept in the lock-up and treated as a take any further notice of the matter. prisoner awaiting his trial, so that he was That is a very reasonable and proper conthirteen days a prisoner for no fault ex-clusion, and I do not therefore mean to cept that of being personally unknown to any one at the Embassy. There was also the case of another Englishman, who signed his name "Hd," who was detained twenty-four hours, and then liberated with an apology. He hoped to hear the course taken by the noble Lord in all these cases. make any representation on the subject. With regard to the other cases mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, as he gave no notice respecting them, I must ask him to give me the names and particulars, so that I may make inquiry. Motion agreed to. LIBEL BILL. On Motion of Sir COLMAN O'LOGHLEN, Bill to amend the Law of Libel, ordered to be brought in by Sir COLMAN O'LOGHLEN and Mr. BAINES. Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 3.] DRAINAGE AND IMPROVEMENT OF LANDS (IRELAND) SUPPLEMENTAL BILL. On Motion of Mr. HUNT, Bill to confirm a Pro visional Order under "The Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Act, 1863," and the Acts amending the same, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HUNT and The Earl of MAYO. Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 4.] PUBLIC PETITIONS. Select Committee appointed, "to whom shall be referred all Petitions presented to the House, with the exception of such as complain of undue Returns, or relate to Private Bills; and that such Committee do classify and prepare abstracts of the same, in such form and manner as shall appear to them best suited to convey to the House all requisite information respecting their contents, and do report the same from time to time to the House; and that such Reports do in all cases set forth the number of signatures to each Petition: -And that such Committee have power to direct the printing in extenso of such Petitions, or of such parts of Petitions, as shall appear to require it:-And that such Committee have power to report their opinion and observations thereupon to the House:"-Mr. CHARLES FORSTER, Mr. BONHAM - CARTER, Major GAVIN, Sir COLMAN O'LOGHLEN, Mr. HASTINGS RUSSELL, Mr. Alderman SALOMONS, Mr. OWEN STANLEY, Mr. KINNAIRD, Mr. REGINALD YORKE, Mr. ROBERT TORRENS, Mr. M'LAGAN, Mr. SANDFORD, Sir CHARLES RUSSELL, Mr. DE GREY, and Mr. HENRY EDWARD SURTEES: Three to be the quorum. House adjourned at half past Five HOUSE OF LORDS, ABYSSINIA.-QUESTION. as to the reasons-apart from the cele- India Office. I think it is even doubtful EARL GRANVILLE: I am extremely glad to see my noble Friend (the Earl of Derby) in his place again, and particularly as his presence induces me to preface, perhaps, a little more fully than I should do to any other person, the Question I am about to ask him. I hope I am not transgressing the recommendation made by the Committee of last year, that no Question should be put without public notice having previously been given upon the Paper. Idition. I do not suspect them of having have no wish whatever, in asking for explanations concerning the Abyssinian Papers, to raise any debate upon the important question to which those papers relate, or even upon the preliminary question acted on the maxim of the old Parliamentary tactician-"The greater the blue book, the less likely it is to be read," nor do I complain of their giving us any information which may appear superfluous; but I wish to get that which is necessary | lutely necessary as to the physical and and of the greatest importance. Your moral state of Abyssinia and its inhabitants. Lordships will remember that on Tuesday last the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) answered a Question which, however, had not been put in this House, as to the incongruity of the declarations made by Lord Stanley on the 26th of July, and the announcement made in the Queen's Speech on the prorogation of Parliament on the 21st of August. The noble Earl recapitulated a portion of the speech of Lord Stanley, who, among other things, spoke of the difficulties of the expedition, and said "An expedition to rescue the captives must in any case be expensive; that it must inevitably be attended with heavy loss of life, by climate if not by military operations; that it was possible that it might even lead to a massacre of the prisoners, and that, for aught we knew, it might be wholly unnecessary, since their detention being apparently a pure act of caprice, the same caprice might at any moment lead to their being again released, without effort on our part.”—[3 Hansard, clxxxix. 250.] I see the same complaint is urged in The Times newspaper of this morning, and a suggestion is made of the bare possibility of the information referred to by the noble Earl being Sir Henry Durand's Memorandum. This, however, cannot be, as the document referred to was not received until September. The only information which can by any possibility be regarded as that to which the noble Earl referred, unless we have been entirely kept in the dark, is contained in some correspondence between the War Office and the Foreign Office set forth in pages 29 and 58 of the blue book. The Under Secretary for War writes to the Secretary of State for India as follows: "I am directed by Sir John Pakington to forward herewith a copy of a description of different routes in Abyssinia which has been compiled in the Topographical and Statistical Department of this office. These descriptions have been taken from the journies of travellers, and have been confined, in the first instance, to such as would give a general idea of the different lines of approach into the country which have been advocated." The letter concludes with suggestions reIt would be mad-garding other information which might be obtained if desired. On page 58 we have the reply from the War Office as follows: Later on the Foreign Secretary said "To obtain the release of these men by force is not an easy matter. ness to throw a British army into an unknown ... The noble Earl explained with reference to this, that such having been the doubts of Her Majesty's Government on the 26th of July, on the 13th of August information arrived which resolved those doubts, which opened to Ministers a reasonable prospect of success, and which induced them on the 19th to decide upon warlike measures, and to announce them on the 21st to a prorogued Parliament. Now, my Lords, I have carefully read the blue book, and I find no trace of such information. I find that on the 13th Her Majesty's Government received telegrams announcing what must have been pretty well anticipated, that the Indian Government could, if required, furnish in four months a well-equipped force of 12,000 men; but I find absolutely nothing which could have given the Govern ment on the 13th of August that information which Lord Stanley so clearly stated only three or four weeks before was abso "I am directed by Sir John Pakington to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 20th instant, and, with reference to the suggestion contained in it, that copies of the 'Pamphlet on Routes in Abyssinia' may be of great use to the India Office at this moment, I am to state, for Lord Stanley's information, that copies have been already forwarded to that office." I can hardly believe that this is the information referred to; but it is clear that the Memorandum or pamphlet, whether we have looked for it in vain or not, is evidently highly thought of at the War Office and the Foreign Office. It would be read with avidity by Members of both Houses, as it probably bears exactly upon the points upon which we are most anxious to be informed. If satisfactory, nothing would give Parliament more readiness to acquiesce cheerfully in the demands of Her Majesty's Government. It is clear that if omitted it must have been from mere inadvertence on the part of those compiling the papers. have therefore only to ask the noble Earl whether there is any objection to have this valuable Memorandum distributed to the Members of your Lordships' House? I THE EARL OF DERBY: I think the noble Earl who has just sat down (Earl Granville) was a Member of the Committee of last year which recommended that Questions likely to give rise to discussion | Postmaster General with reference to the should not be raised in this House without Contract between the Post Office and the notice; and the only notice the noble Earl Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company. has given is contained in a note to the As the correspondence on the subject had Earl of Malmesbury, who, however, is un- not been placed on the table, his remarks able to attend here this evening. For my would be brief. He noticed, however, that own part, reading the notice given by the the expense of the service to and from noble Earl to my noble Friend, I do not India had been largely increased, and he think it was one indicating an intention to feared the Government had not given enter into the merits of the Abyssinian everybody likely to be interested in such Expedition, or the discrepancies which the a contract full and timely notice to enable noble Earl thinks he has found between them to make tenders. The 20th of Septhe statement made by my noble Relative tember was hardly early enough to publish on the 26th July and the subsequent de- particulars of such a contract as the postal termination of the Government. The noble service to India to be carried out on the 1st Earl, in his note to Lord Malmesbury, of February. He wished to raise two points merely asked him to be present this even- with respect to the new contract made ing in the House, in order that he might with the Peninsular and Oriental Company have an opportunity of asking him to lay-first, the duration of the contract; and on the table the pamphlet containing a description of the routes in Abyssinia. Lord Malmesbury sent the note to me, and I have not the slightest hesitation in say ing that there will be no difficulty as to the production of the document referred to, and that it will be laid on the table at the earliest possible moment. The noble Earl will excuse me if I now decline to enter into any discussion, when I asssure him that we shall be able to give full explanation at a proper time, and that the paper he asks for shall be laid on the table at the earliest possible moment. EARL GRANVILLE: The recommendation of the Committee of last year was that Questions should not be put without notice, which were likely to lead to debate. It is clear that the Question I have put has not led to debate; I do not think it is likely to lead to debate; I think the information asked for is worth having, and the sooner we can have it the better. THE EARL OF DERBY: The noble Earl will forgive me for reminding him that he opened his observations with the remark that my presence induced him to enter into a fuller explanation of the Question he proposed to raise than he had intended; and it is evident that he came down fully prepared with a number of papers to back his case. Seeing me here, in fact, he could not resist the temptation of putting forward a charge against the Government. POSTAL COMMUNICATION WITH THE LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY rose to ask a Question of the noble Duke the secondly, the absence of any preparations for conducting the service by the Brindisi route. Was not twelve years a very much longer period than had ever yet been contracted for, without a break, and was not it an objectionable period? During those twelve years the hands of the Post Office authorities would be tied; and the arrangement was doubly objectionable when, as he understood it, the Company had contracted to carry the mails between Marseilles and Alexandria, and by no other route, while it was well known that the Brindisi route was thirty-six hours shorter than the Marseilles. He wished to know, first, whether any arrangement had been made with regard to the service, in conformity with the declaration made to Parliament; and secondly, whether the contract was to be made for the whole term of twelve years, and with a practical guarantee of 6 per cent for the whole of that period? THE DUKE OF MONTROSE said, that although the Papers on the subject had not been laid on the table of their Lordships' House, they had been presented to the other House of Parliament, and that they contained a copy of the contract and of the correspondence between the Post Office and the Treasury. The noble Lord had said that sufficient time had not been given in the notices issued by the Government. It was possible that it might have been better had more time been given; but he was not aware that any objection had been offered on that account by any of those who were likely to have tendered for the performance of the service. Sufficient time had been given to allow the notices being sent to India, to allow of tenders being sent by any Companies who might have been de money, and if the contract were entered into for that period it was very doubtful whether, at the end of that time, the Peninsular and Oriental Company would renew their contract at a lower rate; but £400,000 for twelve years was £4,800,000. By contracting for the longer term they would effect a saving in the twelve years of £1,200,000. Of course, it would remain for the House of Commons to say whether they preferred to pay a very large sum for a short contract, or whether they would pay a smaller sum and extend the time; but he could not himself see the probability of meeting at the end of six years with any more advantageous offer. The Peninsular and Oriental Company would not undertake the service again at anything like the rate at which it had hitherto been performed. The Com sirous of doing so. At one time it was even thought that it would be better to postpone the matter; but it was found that the Peninsular and Oriental Company demanded so high a price for the extension of their contract for six months, that it was thought better to issue the notices for tenders as they stood. The history of the private negotiation referred to by the noble Lord was this:-Although notice was given that tenders would be received for the performance of any portion or portions of the service, not a single Company tendered for such performance; and the Peninsular and Oriental Company, though they offered to do the whole, stated that they would not undertake any individual portion of the service apart from the remainder. The noble Lord regarded the sum which it was proposed to pay as immensely high, and he (the Duke of Mont-pany had to incur a largely increased exrose) therefore felt bound to allude to a few of the peculiarities from which that circumstance arose. In the first place, he might state-what was well known-that if the Government had not determined the contract, notice of its determination would have been given on the part of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and therefore the Government thought fit to give that notice themselves, thinking the terms asked to be such that they could not continue the contract. The first tender of the Company -and at the same time no other tender was made-was for six years, at the rate of £500,000 per annum. He (the Duke of Montrose) thereon told the Directors that the offer was so high that he could not take it upon himself to recommend it to the Treasury, and it was very probable that the Treasury would not recommend its adoption to the House of Commons. He advised them, therefore, to re-consider their offer, and see if they could not make some reduction. He suggested also that possibly an extension of time might be an inducement; because there could be no doubt that if they were to have an extended service, and to increase the number of their vessels, they would naturally be anxious to have sufficient time to regain their extra expense. It resulted in this, that the Directors said that if the contract were given them for twelve years instead of six, they would undertake the service for £400,000 instead of £500,000. He thought their Lordships would see that this arrangement was, in reality, a very advantageous one. £500,000 for six years would amount to £3,000,000 of penditure for coals, which they stated had of late been £70,000 a year, and they had not only been deprived to a great extent of one source of revenue arising from the carriage of specie, but had lost a great deal through competition with the French boats. So much, indeed, had they been affected by these and other causes that they had not been able to declare a dividend during the last year. With great fairness they stated that their books were open to inspection, and he (the Duke of Montrose) had accordingly requested Mr. Scudamore, the Assistant Secretary of the Post Office, to examine them. The result of the inspection showed that the Company could not continue the service at the rate hitherto paid. The service, as it would in future be performed, was a greatly improved one. For instance, instead of a service to Calcutta four times a month the service would be in future every week, so that there would be fifty-two instead of fortyeight services yearly. The Bombay fortnightly service would be converted into a weekly one, so that the increase would be from twenty-four to fifty-two. They would also have an additional service to China. Moreover, by having the weekly service to Bombay they would obtain an accelerated service to Calcutta, for the railway though not available for passenger traffic might be made use of for the carriage of letters. The merchants and the public of this country had always expressed a strong desire for additional postal service to India; but still, if these improvements were not desired the Peninsular and Oriental Company had engaged to make a proportionate |