MR. W. E. FORSTER reminded the The hon. Member for South Leicesternoble Lord that the Amendment applied shire (Mr. Pell) had a provision which only to school boards which had put the he intended to move at a subsequent bye-laws into force. He believed the stage of much the same character as Amendment would fully carry out the that of the hon. Member for Reading; object which the hon. Member for Hack- and what he would suggest was, that ney had in view. the Amendment should be withdrawn for the present, in order that both might be considered together. The Amendment of the hon. Member for South Leicestershire was to prevent agitation for the removal of school boards within the three years for which they were elected.

MR. RYLANDS supported the Amend

.ment.

MR. FAWCETT said, his object was to insure that in case a school board was abolished, the body, whatever it was, which was substituted, should be compelled to pass bye-laws for compulsory attendance or to enforce it if passed. At present school boards did both, while there was no security that either Boards of Guardians or Corporations would insist upon it. He proposed, therefore, that no school board should be abolished unless the body substituted should be compelled to pass bye-laws which would secure the objects intended by the establishment of school boards.

LORD ROBERT MONTAGU said, the effect of the Amendment would be that one person on a school board which passed compulsory bye-laws could prevent that board being dissolved notwithstanding the wishes of all his colleagues and of the entire district.

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

MR. LYON PLAYFAIR asked whether the Government accepted the principle of the Amendment?

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Yes, so far as it involves the objection to repeated contests.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH thought the Committee might very well decide the small point raised by his hon. Friend's Amendment without leaving it over for subsequent discussion, especially as the Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted the necessity for some such provision.

MR. W. E. FORSTER hoped that the question would be decided upon its merits, and that in any vote that should be given the Committee would not be taken to express an opinion on the proposal of the hon. Member for South

The Committee divided:-Ayes 110; Leicestershire, to which he had very Noes 188 Majority 78.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE moved, as an Amendment to Mr. Pell's proposed new Clause, line 9, at end of first paragraph, add

"Provided always, That no application shall be made for the dissolution of a School Board except within three months of the expiration of the period for which the School Board has been elected; and no order for the dissolution of such School Board shall take effect until after the expiration of such period."

Boards were usually elected for three years, and he contended that no application for the abolition of one should be entertained until three months before the end of the period for which its members were elected. This would prevent ceaseless agitation being carried on year after year against any board.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER said, he should be glad if they could come to some arrangement by which repeated agitation for the dissolution of school boards would be prevented.

great objection.

MR. JOHN BRIGHT said, the proposition of the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) was so simple, and recommended itself so much to every one, as well on that (the Conservative) as on the Opposition side of the House, that he could not believe, if hon. Members fully understood the Amendment, that any one would object to its adoption. that when a board was appointed for It was simply thisa specific period, its death was not to take place until that period expired. If school boards were liable to be dissolved after three months of existence, surely no man who had any regard for his own character would take office under them. The Amendment next provided that no order for the dissolution of a school board should take effect until the time

when the school board would naturally expire. This Amendment did not affect the clause intended to be proposed by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire, and did not alter the principle of the

MR. M'LAGAN said, there was a Bill of which he had charge, the Game Laws (Scotland) Bill, and he had waited day after day and night after night in the hope of getting it into Committee, but had hitherto failed to do so. He was one of the last men to throw any obstacle in the way of the progress of Business; but considering the importance of this question, and the great interest which the Scotch people took in it, he should feel bound to take every opportunity of bringing it forward.

CAPTAIN NOLAN observed, that the hon. and learned Member for Limerick was anxious to pass the Municipal Privileges (Ireland) Bill, which had already

been read a second time.

any

MR. DISRAELI: Of course I am not resisting any Gentleman who has particular interest in bringing any question forward. I will therefore put the

Bill down for to-morrow.

MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN said, he rose on a point of Order. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had made MR. RYLANDS wished to know whe- a rather unprecedented request without ther it would take precedence of the any previous Notice. The Prime MinisOrders in which private Members had an ter had a Notice on the Paper a day or interest, as in that case it would be a two since asking for Tuesdays and Wedviolation of the promise made by the Go-nesdays for the Government, but the vernment that the proposal to take the Wednesdays would not be pressed.

MR. DISRAELI replied that he had no intention of placing it before the other Orders.

right hon. Gentleman forbore to make the Motion. Every hon. Member had a right to believe that the ordinary course would be adopted that day; and if the Elementary Education Bill was proceeded with, the House would be placed at a great disadvantage by this sudden change at the last moment, when many The House suspended its Sitting at Gentlemen, including his right hon. Seven of the clock.

Committee report Progress; to

again To-morrow.

sit

Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), were absent in the full The House resumed its Sitting at Nine conviction that the Education Bill was of the clock.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,

House adjourned at five minutes
after Nine o'clock.

Mr. John Bright

not coming on.

MR. SPEAKER said, there was nothing out of Order in the course proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. He had only put a Question to hon. Gentlemen in charge of Bills as to the course they intended to pursue.

MR. J. G. TALBOT, who had charge | lieved that the public would be shocked of the Burial Grounds Bill, which stood at the scandalous condition of many as the First Order of the Day, said, he burial grounds in the country districts, was willing to assist the Government. as well as some of the cemeteries of our He had some days ago suggested to the large towns, and he hoped that one Prime Minister that he should ask for result of the discussion, by calling attenprecedence on Wednesdays, and he was tion to the subject, would be an inquiry sorry that the right hon. Gentleman had into their condition by the Government. not taken that course. The request now So far as the Bill now before the House made placed him in a difficult position, was concerned no further provision for because he had assured the hon. and burials was required in the metropolis learned Member opposite (Mr. Osborne or large towns, except in the sanitary Morgan) and others that his Bill would direction he had indicated. But as to come on that day, and it was hardly burial in the country generally, he befair that he should deprive them of the lieved he was correct in saying that the opportunity of discussing it. At the State had made no provision for it, but same time, he was willing to do all he that it was a matter left at present to could to expedite Public Business, and the charity of the Church. Then as to the if other hon. Members would adopt the wish of Dissenters, that they should be course suggested by the Chancellor of buried according to their rites, the way the Exchequer, he would waive his right to remove one conscientious objection to proceed with the Bill which stood in was not by transferring it from one set of his name. shoulders to another-from Nonconformists to Churchmen, but rather by legislating in the direction of this Bill, which would relieve Nonconformists from the grievance under which they now laboured, as it would allow them to have a burial ground of their own. Would it not be better to treat the question from the sanitary point of view? His Bill proceeded upon that basis. It provided

MR. EVELYN ASHLEY, who had charge of the Criminal Law Evidence Amendment Bill, which stood as the Second Order of the Day, said, he also was placed in a peculiar position; but after what had taken place he must decline to accede to the request which had been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Hon. Members had asked him whether his Bill would come on that day, and he had told them that he thought it would, and consequently those who were interested in other Bills were absent. Moreover, he objected to the Education Bill being taken in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford, and others who took great interest in the subject of education. He might also state that he had been waiting the whole Session hoping to bring on his Bill, and that day he expected having the opportunity of doing so.

BURIAL GROUNDS BILL.-[BILL 67.] (Mr. John Talbot, Mr. Cubitt, Mr. Wilbraham Egerton.)

SECOND READING. WITHDRAWAL OF BILL.

Order for Second Reading read. MR. J. G. TALBOT, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, the question had been before the public for something like 20 years, and the failure to provide any solution hitherto was not creditable to Parliament. The sanitary difficulty was one to which public attention should be directed. He be

both in urban and rural districts for the establishment of unconsecrated burial grounds, creating no new local authority for this purpose, but calling upon rural and urban sanitary authorities 'to put the provisions of the Bill into operation, because the burial of the dead was a sanitary matter, which the State ought to take into its consideration and provide for. It also enabled several small parishes to combine for the purposes of the Bill. The chief peculiarity of the measure was the power it would give to minorities to put it into operation. Twenty ratepayers might call a meeting in any parish; if no poll was demanded, the votes of one-fourth of the ratepayers present would put in force the provisions of the Bill; and upon a poll the same proportion of votes would have the same effect. He admitted that there was no precedent for such a proposal, but it must be remembered that the Bill was one for the protection of minorities. With a view to limit the expense to the rates, the Bill contained what he might call a statutable suggestion to every Burial Committee appointed by a rural sanitary authority that a site for the

new burial ground might probably be utterly inadequate to remedy the grievgiven by one of the chief landowners; ance they sought to remedy. If it had but if not, provision was made for the been brought forward as a sanitary purchase of the site, spreading the re- measure, he should have had little to payment over a period not exceeding 50 say about it, except that it was rather years. The Bill provided for the ap- late to bring forward so important a pointment of a Burial Committee, and if measure on the 26th July. But the they did not do their work it gave power scandals to which the hon. Member had to the Secretary for the Home Depart- referred had not come home to his exment to take measures that the work perience. Whatever necessity existed should be done. There was also a provi- for increased burial accommodation in sion to enable chapels to be erected where the crowded districts of Lancashire and they might be desired, but only, let it be Yorkshire, no such necessity existed in observed, where they were desired, and the district in which he lived. If they power was given to enable persons now were to tell the Denbighshire peasant that disqualified from doing so to grant sites for the churchyard on the hillside in which burial grounds in the same way as sites the bones of his fathers were laid, and for schools might be granted. He hoped in which he expected to lay his bones, the debate would not close before the would shortly be closed for sanitary House heard from the Home Secretary reasons, he would laugh in their faces. that the Government were prepared to This was not a sanitary measure at all, for take up and settle the matter on sanitary it did not contain a single provision for grounds. If they were prepared to do closing a churchyard, so that, unless its so, the best way in which they could promoters were prepared to say that the deal with it was by the appointment of a interment of Dissenters was more inCommission, the result of whose inquiries jurious to public health than the burial might form the basis of legislation. If of Churchmen-on account of the odour the Bill of the hon. and learned Member of sanctity in which the latter died, for Denbighshire (Mr. Osborne Morgan) or something of that kind - the Bill were carried, it would only introduce left the question of sanitary reform into the churchyard alien ministrations without settling the sanitary question. For his own part, he was prepared to say that no churchyard should be extended without making provision in it for some portion of unconsecrated ground. He hoped he had shown, by the introduction of this measure, a bona fide desire to assist the solution of the question. In conclusion, he begged to move the second reading of the Bill, and he hoped, at all events, that if nothing else came of the measure this Session, the House would affirm its principle, which was neither controversial nor theological, but, on the contrary, social and sanitary.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."-(Mr. J. G. Talbot.)

MR. OSBORNE MORGAN, in moving that the Bill be read a second time upon that day two months, said, that notwithstanding the latenessof the Session he was glad that the hon. Member had had an opportunity of moving the second reading of the Bill, because he felt that the more such proposals as this were discussed, the more would it be seen that they were Mr, J. G. Talbot

where it was at present. The hon. Gentleman had said that the object of the Bill was to relieve Nonconformists from the grievance of being compelled to bury their dead without the forms and ceremonies which they approved. How did the Bill attempt to accomplish that object? In the first place, it enabled a mere handful of ratepayers to call a meeting together, and if they obtained a vote in their favour, they were to put into operation the cumbrous machinery of the Bill. Why, this Bill was ten times more vicious in principle than the Permissive Bill of the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle, because while that Bill would enable a majority to oppress the minority, this one would give a power to a minority to oppress the majority. He could not conceive a more invidious task thrown upon the rural sanitary authority than that of requiring them to elect the Burials Committee every three years. In Wales, if not in England, almost every parish would be the hot-bed of discord whenever such an election took place. The question of expenses the hon. Member had treated as a mere bagatelle, and he proposed to allow the Burial Committee to purchase land as sites for burial grounds, though he hoped that

MR. BERESFORD HOPE acknow

ledged the conciliatory tone both of the introducer of the Bill and the mover of the Amendment, but deprecated discussion as likely to be unfruitful at that period of the Session. Some hon. Members were prepared, if necessary, to

persons sufficiently munificent would be Question proposed, "That the word found to make a free gift of the sites. 'now' stand part of the Question." He (Mr. Osborne Morgan) doubted whether under the present law there were more than a dozen such free gifts; and the ratepayers, therefore, would have to bear the expense, which would be extremely heavy. A short time ago an advertisement appeared in The Times from Bromley, a parish in Kent, a divi-vote for the Bill as a declaration of sion of which county his hon. Friend so principle in which they concurred, while ably represented and according to that others were desirous to study the details advertisement £12,500 would be required of the measure; and probably, in regard to provide a burial ground. There were to a question so complicated as this, no 9,000 parishes in England in which there two hon. Members could be found to were no cemeteries, and in which the come to an identical opinion upon all ratepayers would be entitled to invoke the points. Under these circumstances he assistance of this Bill. If a third only would suggest to his hon. Friend that, of those parishes availed themselves of having held out the olive branch, he its provisions, at a tenth of the money should now withdraw the Bill, and not which the parish of Bromley required, put the House to the trouble of dividing the cost to the taxpayers would be over on the second reading. At the same time, £3,000,000. The Bill would therefore he hoped the Government would tell be far too expensive, and such a pro- them something of their views about a posal, emanating from a party that had question which it was now impossible for always prided itself upon a stubborn re- private Members to bring to a solution. sistance to increasing the burdens on MR. BUTT said, before the Order was local rates, seemed to him absolutely discharged, he would like to have an opmonstrous. The Dissenters did not want portunity, as a member of the Disestabthe Bill. They said "We are entitled lished Church in Ireland, to say a few to be buried in the parish churchyards words upon the Bill. The real queswith such rites and ceremonies as we tion, as he understood it, really was— think proper; but you say-We will not whether Dissenters should have separate grant you that right; we give you the burial grounds, or whether they should right of obtaining cemeteries for your-be permitted to perform their rites and selves, with the privileges of putting ceremonies in the old churchyards. Let your hands in your pockets and pay-him briefly tell the House what had ing for them." What was that, but to been done in Ireland. In 1824 a Bill give them a stone when they were ask-was passed by the Imperial Parliament ing for bread. If he and those who acted with him differed with the promoter only as to the machinery of the Bill, that matter might be arranged in Committee, and some agreement might be come to, but they differed as to the principle of the Bill. Neither did he think any good would come of referring the Bill to a Select Committee. That had been done before, and the whole question had to be fought over again. He objected to the Bill because it was a crude measure, because it was an utterly unpractical one, and because it would entirely fail to remedy the grievance which it professed to remedy. For those reasons he would conclude by moving its rejection.

Amendment proposed, to leave out "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "" upon this day two months,"-(Mr. Osborne Morgan.)

giving Dissenters the right of burial, with their own rights, in the Irish churchyards. Up to that period the law as to burial in Ireland and England was exactly the same. That law was introduced to the House by a great lawyer, Mr. Plunket. Mr. Plunket, in introducing the 'Bill, which afterwards passed, made a remarkable statement as to the law. He declared that the Protestant parson had a freehold in the churchyard, and no one could enter without his leave without committing a trespass. But besides his rights as a possessor of the soil, he was appointed to superintend Christian burial, and he could grant permission for interment. By the Act of Uniformity he was to read the Burial Service of the Church of England over every person, and therefore, if the Protestant clergy insisted upon their rights, the Act virtually deprived