MINUTES.] PUBLIC BILLS-First Reading-passed some years ago, which Minute had Telegraph Act Amendment [Lords]* [23]. Committee Cattle Plague (re-comm.) [7] [R.P.]; National Debt Reduction [4]; Savings Banks and Post Office Savings Banks [5].

cretary a Question upon a point of form, which was exciting considerable interest out of doors; whether, in point of fact, there was any illegality in the proceedings which took place on Sunday morning in the House of Lords; and, if so, if the Government were prepared to rectify it?

SIR GEORGE GREY: There was no illegality whatever in the matter. There is no law, Parliamentary or otherwise, to prevent the Houses of Parliament sitting on a Sunday when cases arise to render it necessary.

CATTLE PLAGUE BILL-[BILLS 7 & 24.] COMMITTEE (ON RE-COMMITMENT.) [The Bill having been Committed, Re-committed, and Considered as Amended, without having been re-printed, great difficulty has been experienced in following out the Motions for Amendments, particularly those of which no Notice had been given. When a Clause has been agreed to, with or with out Amendment, the small figures added refer to the No. of the corresponding Clause in the re-print of the Bill No. 24.]

Bill considered in Committee (on re-commitment.)

On the Preamble,

MR. NEWDEGATE asked, whether the attention of the Government had been called to the claims of insurance companies for compensation for the sums paid by them to persons whose cattle had been slaughtered; and, if their attention had been drawn to the matter, whether they intended to introduce a clause giving such compen

sation?

was whether the companies were to be compensated, not for the sums they had paid to persons whose cattle had died, but for the sums they had paid to persons whose cattle had been slaughtered by the cattle inspectors.

MR. HUNT rose to order. They were now on the Preamble, and there was nothing in the Bill before the Committee bearing on the subject introduced by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate). The matter was a very fitting one for discussion at the proper time.

MR. BARROW asked the hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt), whether he could in conscience proceed with his Bill on that night. When he (Mr. Barrow) entered the House, he found on the paper two pages of Amendments which were to be moved on the clauses of the Bill. There was scarcely a clause in the Bill on which an Amendment was not to be moved. The

printed Notices were only put into his hands at three o'clock that afternoon, and hon. Members had had no time to consider

the Amendments. He therefore asked the hon. Member for Northamptonshire not to proceed with the Bill on that evening.

MR. HUNT said, it would be very much against his conscience not to proceed with the Bill. The Amendments were delivered with the printed papers that morning. Several important clauses of the Government Bill which passed last week were not printed at all, and he had grave doubts at the time whether he ought to have accepted them; but so anxious was he that the Bill should be sent as early as possible to the other House, that he refused to delay the Bill by forcing on the consideration of THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHE- the Committee his own objections to them. QUER said, that as far as he was aware, The Committee was well aware of the the attention of the Government had not great difficulty which an independent Membeen drawn to the matter. He was bound ber had with regard to such a complicated to say, without giving a conclusive answer Bill; and he hoped, under the circumstanon a subject with which he might be im- ces, that the Committee would extend to perfectly acquainted, that he saw no him its indulgence, and would not arrest grounds for thinking that insurance com- the Bill on account of the objection raised panies were entitled to any compensation by his hon. Friend. for the sums paid by them to farmers whose cattle had died from the plague. The insurance companies paid for the cattle that had died, merely to make up the losses of the farmers, while the object of the Bill was not to compensate the persons who had suffered, but to check the gress of the disease.

pro

MR. NEWDEGATE thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer misunderstood the Question. What he wished to know Mr. Darby Griffith

MR. ACLAND expressed his thanks to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt) for the great labour and attention he had devoted to this subject, and asked him to state what was the general scope of his proposed Amendments.

MR. HUNT said, his intention was to have reserved that statement until he came to the 13th clause; but he was in the hands of the Committee, and would either

make his statement then, or delay it until | a satisfactory Bill, which, while laying down he came to the 13th clause. as a general rule that all movement of cattle should cease for a certain period, should point out the exceptional cases in which that rule might be safely dispensed with. That House contained Members representing not alone every part of the country, but almost every interest in the country. That these Members took an interest in the question was evinced by the fact that since he had introduced his Bill he had received communications from, he believed, half the Members of the House. The problem he had tried to solve was to lay down a code with regard to the removal of cattle sufficiently elastic for every county, and yet without a single exception beyond what was absolutely necessary for carrying on the business of breeding and rearing cattle. The principle he went upon was the total prohibition of the movement of stock for the longest time possible, and he came to the conclusion that the 25th of March was the furthest day up to which the absolute prohibition was practicable. He admitted, when he said "total prohibition of moving of cattle" that it would not be absolute prohibition, because there were certain exceptions. As the Bill was originally drawn, he provided that up to the 25th of March there should be no movement of live beasts upon any public highway, railway, river, canal, or any part of a river not navigated by sea-going vessels. The exceptions were, in the case of beasts moving from one part of any farm to another they might be moved along the highway for 200 yards only. Beasts landed from a sea-going steamer might travel 500 yards along the highway. Beasts travelling from the farm to the slaughterhouse might, provided there was a licence, traverse a distance along the highway not exceeding two miles. That was to be the state of things up to the 25th of March. Certain exceptions had, however, been suggested. The first was by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Berkshire (Colonel Loyd Lindsay), who said that there ought to be a power to remove calves from dairy farms on which they had been dropped to be reared on other farms. He proposed to meet this case by allowing newly dropped calves to be conveyed in carts from the farms where they were born. Although he thought it right to admit this exception, he doubted whether farmers would avail themselves of it to any large extent, because they would be shy of purchasing calves of the value of a few shillings that

MR. ACLAND said, that as the 5th clause raised a very important question with regard to the appointment of officers, he thought it would be better for the hon. Gentleman to make his statement at once. MR. HUNT said, that as it appeared to be the wish of the Committee he would proceed at once to state the general scope and object of his Bill. But first, he would take that opportunity of thanking hon. Gentlemen on both sides the House for the assistance they had given him, not only in the preparation of the Bill, but since its introduction. He had received suggestions on the subject of the Bill from Gentlemen of all parties, and representing every shade of opinion; and only the great difficulty of finding an opportunity for fully discussing the question with every Member who had communicated with him with reference to his Bill had prevented from giving every Gentleman that amount of time which the importance of the subject demanded. The principle of the Bill now under consideration was that adopted at the conference at St. James' Hall-namely, that for a certain space of time there should be no movement of cattle through Great Britain. That principle was also affirmed at that most important meeting recently held in the tea-room of the House, at which Members of both Houses were present, and at which both of the great political parties were about equally represented. Now, it was a very easy thing to assert as an abstract principle, that for a certain period all movement of cattle in Great Britain shall be stopped; but to carry that principle into action was very difficult indeed. He had introduced into his Bill and it would be necessary to introduce into any Bill on the subject-certain exceptions to the general rule forbidding all transfer of cattle from one place to another. The Home Secretary stated, a few nights since, that it would be impossible to lay down any code of rules regulating the transfer of cattle which would be applicable to the requirements of every part of the country. He believed that to the rule laid down by the right hon. Gentleman there was one important exception. He believed that if any one of them were to sit down in his own library to frame such a code, however great his knowledge of agricultural matters might be, he could not possibly succeed. In the House of Commons, and in the House of Commons alone, it was possible to frame

might convey the infection. A great deal the outgoing occupiers to

move their

of disease had been introduced upon farms stock. It had been represented to him by the practice of taking calves that people that sales might take place before the know nothing about. Two other excep- day of change of tenancy arose; but to tions had been suggested to him. The obviate that difficulty he thought it would first was as to working oxen, employed in be merely necessary for parties to insert the cultivation of the soil. It was thought in the conditions of sale that the beasts, that the working of farms where oxen though sold on other days, should not be were employed could not go on unless an movable till they could be legally moved exception were made in their favour. The under the provisions of the Bill. In diffedemand was reasonable; but he required rent parts of the country the grass began that the oxen should be either drawing or to grow during April and May, and it was in harness, and this would be some security absolutely necessary that the ox should be that they were in health. Another excep- brought to the grass; but it seemed to be tion would enable sea-going ships to get a impossible to lay down the period, if it milch cow on board. It was represented was to be a short period, when the moveto him as highly important that children ment of stock for eating such grass should and others in emigrant ships should be able be allowed. He therefore provided that to obtain milk, and those who asked for the local authorities-and this was about this exception were willing to convey the the only discretion he gave them-might, cows to the place of embarkation at their with reference to their districts, prescribe own expense in covered carriages. To the particular days on which such stock meet this case, he had inserted a clause should be moved. He did not give them a excepting from the operation of the Act very wide latitude, because he proposed milch cows placed on board sea-going that those days should not exceed fourteen vessels. These were the only exceptions in each quarter. His Bill, if passed, might to be allowed up to the 25th of March. It continue in force until the end of the Seshad been represented to him-and he con- sion of Parliament next following the precurred in the representation-that the sent one; but after the end of April the interval between the present period and Government would have the power to stop the 25th of March did not allow sufficient its operation on their responsibility if they time to operate on the disease-he did not thought fit. Supposing, however, that the say "to stamp it out" because, although if Bill should not be discontinued by Order in measures had been taken in time this might Council, then it would remain in force. have been done, there were now so many Then he provided that there should be centres of infection that all he could hope fourteen days of movement for the purpose was that they might be able within a few of stocking farms, the period to be fixed weeks to get the plague within manage- by the local authorities in each case. But able compass and in time to extirpate it. a question had only the other day turned From the 25th of March for a certain up which was familiar to Scotch, though period it would be necessary there should not, perhaps, to English Members-he be some further relaxation of the restric-meant as to grass-parks. The letting of tions of the Bill. On that day, in some grass-parks appeared to be much the same parts of the country, incoming tenants took as that which in his county was called possession of their farms; and in the 17th grass-keeping. At a certain period of the clause he proposed to allow upon certain days, at the usual time for change of tenancy in the Spring and Michaelmas quarters in England and Scotland, beasts, if sound, to be removed, with a magistrates' licence, along the highway. There were some tenancies which did not expire on the regular days; and therefore he had a proviso that that enactment should extend to any change of tenancy which was proved to the satisfaction of the justices granting a licence not to occur on the days aforesaid; and by an Amendment on the paper eleven days were allowed to the incoming and Mr. Hunt

year, for so many weeks, grass-keeping was let by the owners or occupiers of farms by auction or contract, and the person who hired it was allowed to turn any amount of stock into that pasture. It had been suggested to him that a man might want to shift his stock from a grass-park oftener than could be done in fourteen consecutive days. He therefore provided that the local authorities, instead of allowing movement for fourteen days consecutively in a quarter, might divide the fourteen days into two periods of seven days each to suit the grass-park owners. He put this restriction on the movement of cattle from one