placed upon the words "public ceremo- | some time with Her Majesty's Minister nies and manifestations," and therefore at Athens. Her Majesty's Government I cannot say whether or not the "posi- have now entered into communication tion of persons dissenting from the esta- with the other guaranteeing Powers with blished religion will be prejudicially respect to it. There will be no objection affected." But it is evident that under to lay the correspondence before Parliathe law a considerable discretion will be ment when it is concluded. left in the hands of the Executive, and I can assure my hon. Friend that Her Majesty's Government will not fail to use their exertions, in case they should be necessary, in favour of the cause of personal freedom.

INDIAN TARIFF ACT, 1875 - THE

DESPATCHES.-QUESTION.

MR. FAWCETT asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether he will have any objection to give, as an Unopposed Return, the Despatch in which Lord Northbrook replied to Lord Salisbury's Despatch of November 11th 1875 in reference to the Indian Tariff; and also the reply of Lord Salisbury to Lord Northbrook's Despatch, together with the opinions of any Members of the Council of the Secretary of State on that reply?

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON, in reply, said, the first Despatch referred to in the Question of the hon. Member had been distributed on Saturday morning. He should have no objection to lay on the Table the remaining Papers

asked for.

THE IONIAN ISLANDS-TREATY OF 1864, ARTICLE 7-THE PUBLIC

DEBT.-QUESTION.

MR. HANBURY asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Government have received from Her Majesty's Minister at Athens any intelligence as to the manner in which the Greek Government are carrying out the stipulations contained in Article 7 of the Treaty of the 29th day of March 1864 for the fulfilment by that Government of all Contracts entered into by the Ionian Islands when under British jurisdiction, and more especially with regard to the Public Debt of those Islands; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House any Correspondence with the Greek Government upon the subject?

MR. BOURKE: Sir, a correspondence upon this subject has been going on for Mr. Bourke

PARLIAMENT-ARRANGEMENT OF

PUBLIC BUSINESS.-QUESTIONS. MR. CHARLES LEWIS asked the First Lord of the Treasury, On what day he proposes to move the Sessional Order which stood upon the paper of business on the 13th instant, and was then dropped by the adjournment of the House?

MR. DISRAELI: I regret that the adjourned debate on the Sessional Order became a dropped Order, but my hon. Friend must feel that at this period of the Session, and in the present state of Public Business, it is extremely difficult to make an arrangement such as he intimates, but I will bear it in mind. Perhaps the House will permit me to state now what I consider the most convenient order of the Business for the present week. I propose if the Education debate is finished, and no doubt it will be finished to-night, to proceed with the Report of the Poor Law (England) Bill. On Tuesday morning I propose to take the Report on the Commons Bill, and then go on with the Irish Jurors Bill. On Thursday we will take, if the House permits us, the second reading of the Prisons Bill; on Friday morning the Irish Judicature Committee; and on Monday we will take the Navy Estimates. It was my hope, certainly it was my intention, that Monday might be devoted to Scotch Business; but through the interposition of the perfervidum ingenium of Scotch Members we lost our chance of the Navy Estimates the other night, and therefore all I can say is that, proceeding with the Navy Estimates on Monday, I shall take the earliest opportunity practicable of devoting the public time to Scotch Business.

MR. GOSCHEN said, the University Bills were omitted from the measures mentioned. When were they to be taken?

MR. SERJEANT SIMON wished to know when the Appellate Jurisdiction Bill would be proceeded with?

MR. DISRAELI: I confined my re-, anxious attention of Her Majesty's Gomarks, in the programme I laid before vernment. I mentioned the other day the House, to the Business of the coming week, and I will not venture to pursue the speculation further. As to the University Bills and the Appellate Jurisdiction Bill, they will, as soon as possible, occupy attention. Certainly they will not be neglected.

ARMY-CAPTAIN ROBERTS, 94TH REGI-been made to the Supreme Court by the

cumstances connected with the case of the

British Government is entitled to."

In these circumstances it appears to Her Majesty's Government that the continued detention of King, the mate, cannot be justified, and that it is their duty to request the Peruvian Government to give immediate orders for his release.

EGYPTIAN FINANCE-MR. CAVE'S

REPORT.-QUESTION.

“For these reasons, I doubt not for a moment | by a peculiar expedient, in appropriating that my Government will hasten to manifest its most of the Wednesdays-namely, by constant purpose to maintain friendly relations with your Excellency's Government, as there is putting down the names of several neither motive nor feeling for an alteration of Members for each Bill they wanted to them. And I even hope that when all the cir- introduce. The Speaker declared that was an irregularity which, if persisted Talisman are finally considered it will be seen in, would make it necessary for the that the Peruvian Government, far from having House to pass a Resolution on the subacted with any want of friendliness towards Her Majesty's Government, has done all that ject, to the effect that no Member was in its power to fulfil the obligations of should be allowed to ballot without first friendship as well as of consideration which the putting his Notice of Motion on the Paper. He (Mr. Anderson) supposed that that rule applied equally to balloting for places on Tuesdays and Fridays. The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Butler-Johnstone) and the hon. Member for West Cumberland (Mr. Percy Wyndham) were the two Members to whose conduct he wished to call attention. The hon. Member for Canterbury had had a Motion on the Paper for a long time on the subject of the MR. W. E. FORSTER asked, When Treaty of Paris; lately he balloted, and the Report would be laid on the Table? got the fourth place on the list for the The Question was asked some time ago, 7th of July, so that his Motion had and the Report was then promised, but very little chance of coming on. Wishnothing had since been heard of it. ing to improve his position, he put his THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHE-name on the ballot Paper on Friday, QUER, in reply, said, that when he made the statement referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, he was in hopes that the Papers would have been ready shortly after the Whitsun Recess. It appeared, however, that the translation of some of the Papers had required time. The right hon. Gentleman could under-man for the 7th July now stood in the stand that, under present circumstances, the Foreign Office was very much overworked, and that the Printers also were very much pressed, and this would account for the delay. He was every day expecting the Report; but his hon. Friend the Under Secretary would be better able to say when the Papers were likely be ready than he was.

PARLIAMENT-ORDER-BALLOTING
FOR MOTIONS.-OBSERVATIONS.

and balloted again. He was not successful, but the hon. Member for West Cumberland, who previously had no Notice whatever on the Papers of the House, was successful, and as a consequence the Resolution which formerly stood in the name of the former Gentle

name of the latter for the 4th. He did not wish to allege that anything absolutely unfair had been done, for certainly each Member had a right to put his name on the balloting paper, but by exercising their right in this peculiar manner clearly these hon. Members had two chances of success, while other Members had only one, and therefore he wished to ask if this was regular; and, if it was not, whether the hon. Member for West Cumberland ought to be asked to resign the place he had gained by that expedient?

MR. PERCY WYNDHAM submitted, with all deference to the Speaker, that there had been in the case in question no violation either of the Rules or the Forms of the House. The facts of it were that nine or ten Members of the

MR. ANDERSON said, he wished to call the attention of the Speaker to what he considered an irregularity on the part of two hon. Members in the proceedings on Friday, and in order to give hon. Members an opportunity of explaining their action, he would conclude with a Motion if necessary. Early in the Ses-House-he hoped a greater numbersion it would be remembered that the Speaker's attention was called to the fact that Irish Members had succeeded, Mr. Bourke

took an interest in the Declaration of Paris, and wished to bring the subject on for discussion. It was to them, he

MR. NEWDEGATE, as one who had been a victim of the pre-occupation of the Order Book, wished to offer a few remarks on the matter under discussion

might add, a matter of perfect indiffer- | part of the Session, he did not make ence who brought it forward so long as any special reference to the Irish Memit was brought on, although the hon. bers, he simply desired to prevent the Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) practice of which the hon. Member seemed to have some confused sort of complained. notion that he (Mr. Percy Wyndham) had inherited some advantage which properly belonged to his hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury. Such, however, was not the case; the only thing for which he was indebted to his hon. Friend being the drafting of the terms of the Resolution that was placed upon the Paper, the Motion itself being original.

MR. SPEAKER: I wish to point out that there is no Motion before the House. The hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) has addressed to me a question on a point of Order. The point is one which was brought under my notice at an early period of the Session, and I then stated my opinion upon it. It ap

now, that if two or more Members of the House, holding the same opinions on some specific Motion, combined together to ballot for precedency, with the view of giving undue precedence to that Motion, such a practice is an evasion of the Rules of the House. I think it right also to observe, as was stated by the hon. Gentleman who spoke last (Mr. Ritchie), that when this proceeding was brought under my notice at the early part of this Session no special reference was made to the conduct of hon. Members from Ireland, but the question was raised with respect to Members of the House generally. I then expressed a hope that, notice having been taken of the irregularity of the practice, it would be sufficient to prevent a repetition of it; but I regret to find from what has been stated that the practice has again been made use of.

MR. BUTLER-JOHNSTONE said, the fact was, that there was such a competition with respect to submitting to the House the question of the De-peared to me then, as it appears to me claration of Paris, that as soon as he had put down his name with that view five or six hon. Members came to him and said that they were anxious to bring it forward. His reply was, that he had been balloting unsuccessfully for some time, and that if they were willing to put down their names and come off better than he did, he should be only too glad. It was not right, he thought, that hon. Members should put down their names for a particular Motion, and then shift the onus of bringing it on on to somebody else's shoulders. But when, as in the present instance, several hon. Members were perfectly ready to get up a question, he could not see how the spirit of any of the Rules or Regulations of the House had been violated by what had been done. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Glasgow, he might add, seemed to know so little about the subject that he talked of the Treaty, instead of the Declaration of Paris. It was not at all that the Motion related to, but to the Declaration of Paris.

MR. NEWDEGATE, who rose amid cries of "Order," said he thought the subject ought to be considered by a Committee of the House, for while such a thing might be done inadvertently, he believed that it had also been done designedly, and that he and other hon. Members had in consequence suffered.

The re

MR. RITCHIE thought that if the spirit of the Regulations of the House had been violated in the case of the Irish Members, to which the hon. Mem-medy, in his opinion, was to require hon. ber for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) had Members when putting down their names alluded, it had also been broken in the to state the subject of their Notice. He present instance, and he contended that would conclude by moving the Adjournit would be highly detrimental to the due ment of the House. progress of Public Business if all those hon. Members who held similar views on any particular subject were to put down their names for the purpose of securing a better place for it on the list. When he raised the question in the early

MR. MITCHELL HENRY, in seconding the Motion, admitted that the practice to which reference had been made had undoubtedly originated with Irish Members, but contended that they had been driven to have recourse to it

as a matter of self-defence.

He was sure that there was no hon. Gentleman in the House who would not be unwilling to do anything against the spirit of the Rules; but the remedy proposed by the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Newdegate) would not meet the difficulties of the case, for nothing would be easier than to alter slightly the terms of any Motion which was about to be brought forward, and, unless greater facilities were given to private Members, expédients such as that under discussion must be resorted to, or the business of that part of the United Kingdom which he and those around him represented must come to a standstill. If it had not been for the course they had taken, subjects which were of vital importance to Irishmen would not have been brought under the notice of the House, as the systematic policy of the Government appeared to be to put off Irish business till as late an hour of the morning as possible. He, for one, was glad to find that there were some 59 Irish Members greatly interested in that business, who, instead of trying to deal with it as in former Sessions at 2 o'clock in the morning, had at last hit upon a mode of bringing it forward at a reasonable time, and he was not surprised that other hon. Members had taken a leaf out of their book.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."(Mr. Newdegate.)

MR. ANDERSON said, the second part of his question-whether the Motion ought not to be withdrawn from the position it now occupied-had not been answered.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION BILL. [BILL 155.] (Viscount Sandon, Mr. Chancellor of the chequer, Mr. Secretary Cross.) SECOND READING. ADJOURNED DEBATE.

"in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that the recommendations contained in the recent Report of the Factory and Workshops Acts Commission, relating to the enforcement of the attendance of children at school, should be introduced in any measure for improving the elementary education of the people,”—(Mr. Mundella,)

instead thereof.

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

MR. KAY - SHUTTLEWORTH: The first feeling of Members who supported my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. Forster) six years ago in passing the Education Act must be one of strong satisfaction at the advance in public opinion, and in the readiness of the country for general education, which the introduction of the present Bill and the manner in which it has been received by the House indicate. A new principle tentatively proposed in 1870 can now be more or less boldly carried forward; and the debate shows that the House with few exceptions does not shrink from the plain and simple duty of filling our schools and making national education a reality. The differences between us are only as to the precise mode in which that should be done; how, having schools, we can get the children to attend them; how, having teachers, we can provide them with scholars; how, having a law of education, we can enforce it. In 1870 our first anxiety was not with respect to the question of attendance. It had reference to the provision of adequate school accommodation, sufficient teachers, and an efficient quality of instruction. In the year 1870 school accommodation existed for only 1,878,584 children, whereas in 1875 there was accommodation for 3,146,424 children. The number of teachers was 12,467 in 1870, and 20,940 in 1875. In the same period the number of assistant teachers had in

Ex-creased from 1,262 to 2,713; and the number of pupil teachers from 14,304 to 29,667. With respect to the efficient quality of the education I rejoice to think that it has been improved by recent changes in the Code of the Education Department; but with regard to the standard attained by the children I fear I can say very little. Our main anxiety now is to secure the attendance of

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [15th June], "That the Bill be now read a second time;" and which Amendment was,

To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words

Mr. Mitchell Henry