qualified assent to the proposition of his hon. and learned Friend until the whole plan should be laid before the House. SIR GEORGE STRICKLAND said, the resolution of the hon. and learned Member (Mr. J. Stuart) appeared to him to mean this-that a railroad to the extent of eighty miles was to be made from Oban to Glasgow, but that it would cost so much money that it would not pay any private undertakers to do it, therefore it ought to be paid for out of the public purse. It was to protest against that pinciple that he rose. They might tell him that private property in the Highlands of Scotland would be greatly improved by the expenditure, but they must show him how it was justifiable so to apply the public money. The hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that in a short time not less than 10,000,000l. had been paid out of the public purse to advance private interests. [Mr. J. STUART: No!] He (Sir G. Strickland) supposed the advance was for railroads or draining. Now, to that system he objected. He possessed private property, and he should think it was to tally unjustifiable to ask for an advance of public money for such a purpose. It might be said that the money was secured by mortgage, to be repaid in a certain number of years; but what was that to him? IIe might live only ten years, and the money might not be repaid for thirty or forty years. Lord George Bentinck had asked for a large sum of money for railroads in Ireland, and if ever a country deserved a grant of public money to advance the na tional interests, it was Ireland; but the House had had the honesty to resist so false a principle, and he hoped the House would do the same in this instance. The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, I can assure the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Newark that he has not mistaken the feeling of the House and of the country, when he says there is considerable sympathy with the people of the Western Highlands of Scotland; and, if I saw that there was any means by which advantages could be secured to that part of Her Majesty's dominions, I would be the last to throw any obstacle in the way of such a proposition. But when we consider the question upon which my hon. and learned Friend has spoken-a question raised by a gentleman connected with that part of the United Kingdom, and who, from that circumstance, as well as from the position he holds in this House, is entitled to the highest consideration-and compare that question with the facts adduced, I am bound to say he has not established that position which, in setting out, he promised he would do. I do not approach the subject with any prejudice. I do not acknowledge the principle that the State should never assist private persons for the promotion of great and useful works; nor, notwithstanding what has been said, can I think the country has suffered by these advances. I cannot agree with what has fallen from the hon. Baronet (Sir G. Strickland). That hon. Member seemed to have forgotten that the repayment of the money advanced under the Drainage Act was secured by a charge upon the land, and that the country received ample interest for the advance. I could go a step further, and point out instances where loans similar to that proposed might be attended with great advantage. I am perfectly aware of that; but, at the same time, great caution must be used in making such advances, and they must never be applied unless under certain conditions. With such precautions, I repeat, there may be instances in which such advances would not only be expedient, but may be justified upon principles of science. I will not now stop to enter at any length into the discussion of the celebrated proposition once made in this House-made by one whose loss I shall always deplore. But that was not to be looked upon as a mere statistical proposition; it was a proposal, brought forward in a moment of great emergency, by Lord George Bentinck, to relieve a country under circumstances entirely exceptional. But, even if we take that celebrated measure, to which, right or wrong, I gave my warm and sincere support to my lamented Friend, that scheme was different, in many important features, from that of my hon. and learned Friend on the present occasion. In the case of the Irish railway scheme, put forward by Lord George Bentinck, a large advance of public money was, it is true, proposed; but there was this important condition annexed, that, in all such advances by the Government, there should be previsiously a considerable outlay of private capital. One third of the capital, if I remewber rightly, was to be laid out before the State made any loan. I cannot ascertain that in the case now put before the House, either from the speech of my hon. and learned Friend, or from the me morial that has been officially presented to me in the course of the day, that there has been any previous outlay whatever, nor any existing guarantee that the public money should be repaid. The House is now really asked to make a grant of the public money for the purpose of constructing a railway MR. JOHN STUART: The proposition made as to this railway was, that there should be an outlay of two-fifths before one farthing was asked from the Government. The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHE QUER: When the proprietary have laid out two-fifths of the capital, they will be in a position to come to this House and state their case. I cannot say that I can recommend the grant sought for upon an hypothetical investment of money by certain persons in certain parts of the kingdom. If there had been a considerable outlay of capital-if the work had been one of great magnitude-and if a fair prospect of remuneration offered-these are circumstances under which it is possible the Government would be justified in coming forward; but in this case no money has been expended. It is avowed that nothing has been done, and I believe that even a survey has not been made. The hon. Member for Glasgow said that there were no maps or plans MR. MACGREGOR begged to say that he had not stated any such thing, for an actual survey had been made, and what he wished the Government to do was to complete the survey of that part of the line of railway not contemplated at the time of the former survey. annual Vote by Parliament legitimately applicable to undertakings of this charaeter. The Loan Commissioners under the Public Works have a fund which may be thus applied if the security is legitimate, and the object a proper one. If the scheme for making the railroad from Glasgow to Oban be as important as the hon. Member states-if it be of the character which my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. J. Stuart) states-if that be so, and if they put themselves in a legitimate position, and apply to the Loan Commissioners of Public Works, I have no doubt but that they will receive that very assistance which they now ask by means of a grant of the House of Commons. I have no doubt but the construction of a railway in this district would be useful, but the House of Commons must have regard to general principles, which must not be lightly departed from. It gives me pain to oppose any proposal emanating from my hon. and learned Friend. I can only say that I will receive any memorial from the projectors of this railway, and give it every consideration in my power. I believe if be productive of beneficial results, and the project be carried into effect it would whatever machinery may be at the command of the Government will be cheerfully placed at their disposal. MR. ELLIS said, he was not connected with any railroad in that part of the United Kingdom to which this proposition re ferred, but he conceived it was the duty of the Government to assist such a district as he believed that to be through which this railroad would run, in order to develop the resources of the country, and he thought that in no way could those resources be so effectually developed as by the construetion of railways. The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I always listen with pleasure to the statements of the hon. Member for SIR ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL Glagow, and it is possible it may have thought the grant asked for was not to benebeen his intention so to represent himself, fit private proprietors. Some proprietors but, at all events, it is usual in these would undoubtedly benefit by it, if made; cases that there should be a complete sur- but the greatest benefit would accrue, not vey of the whole line along which the only to the particular district through which railway was to pass before any advance of the railway was to pass, but to all the public money is made by Parliament. contiguous districts. He thought the ob I must repeat, that if I saw any proposi-jections, therefore, fell to the ground. tion which I could fairly believe would MR. HUME said. that this was one of advance the interests of the suffering community, I would receive it with the greatest consideration; but I cannot look upon the present proposal as having any such tendency. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Macgregor), from his official experience, must be aware of the fact that there is an those cases which were so often brought before Parliament, but which were extremely difficult for a Government to deal with. It was easy to ask for public money, and difficult to resist the application when a case of distress was made out. Some years ago there was a very great amount SIR DENHAM NORREYS said, it was plain from the blue books on this sub of distress in the Highlands of Scotland, | much talked of subject of the defences of and he had hoped that it would have been the country. alleviated, if not entirely removed, by this time. As regarded the islands, nothing but emigration could afford permanent re-ject, that the people of the Western Highlief. He, at one time, felt inclined to ad- lands and Islands of Scotland were sufvocate the grant of a sum of public money fering under great distress, and that it in order to assist in removing them, their was impossible for unaided private enterdistress having in a great measure been prise to afford them effectual relief. The occasioned by the change in our fiscal ar- proprietors of the district had already made rangements. He did not think a fixed the most laudable efforts to support the rule should be laid down that public money population, and, therefore, without inquiought never to be advanced, but at the ring whether the particular scheme of railsame time he did not think the present way now proposed was the best that could case was one calling for assistance from be devised for the district, he was ready to the public funds. He did see how the advocate the advance of money suggested proposed railway could benefit the islands; by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. and, with regard to the prospects of its Stuart) from the public funds. being a paying concern, he had the greatest possible doubts. The canal, which was made some years ago, from Oban to Glasgow, had been undertaken by the Government because its original promoters the country gentlemen of the district-had failed to complete it, and because the Government wished to relieve the district from great distress. The canal was not profitable, and he could not discover what advantage would be derived from a railway. There was no traffic to support it. He should certainly advise the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exche-tled to the best thanks of the House for quer to make further inquiry, before recommending the grant of any sum by the Exchequer Loan Commissioners. The rules did not allow any sum to be advanced, except where the sum so advanced was likely to prove productive. MR. BOOKER said, it appeared to him that the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer had overlooked one very important consideration-namely, that there was extreme distress existing in the Western Highlands and Islands of Scotland. He did think that it was an object of the first consideration with a parental Government to afford profitable industrial employment to the people, without the necessity of their transporting themselves from the shores of their native country. He thought the hon. and learned Member for Newark was enti the able and lucid statement he had put before them. As to the want of traffic on the contemplated line, experience showed that a railway, once constructed, created traffic. He himself knew an instance of a line which had been formed in a mountainous district, where previously the passenger traffic had scarcely employed a single coach, yet, since the formation of the railway, the passenger traffic had risen in amount to 15,000l. per annum. He should ment that they would be prepared to consider the matter in the event of the parties themselves raising a portion of the capital. He understood the inhabitants had offered to defray two-fifths of the expenses of the preliminary survey. MR. TRELAWNY was totally opposed to all grants of this nature from the public funds; and he could not understand how any free-trader could support them, for they involved the worst features of a system of protection, which consisted in af-like to have the assurance of the Governfording artificial encouragement to enterprises that ought to be left to depend on self-support. If, however, the principle was not objectionable, and the Government had plenty of loose cash at its disposal, he thought there were many public works more deserving of the assistance of the State than any railway scheme for the Highlands of Scotland. He did not recommend the outlay of public money in such undertakings, but he might cite as an example that a railway along the south coast of England, from Portsmouth to Plymouth, had a stronger claim on the attention of the House than the present proposition, from its connection with the now MR. F. SCOTT said, he had also hoped that the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer would have afforded more countenance than he had done to this scheme, because he thought the case brought forward by the hon. and learned Member for Newark a very peculiar one, not only with regard to the extent of the distress which prevailed among the Highland population, but also with regard to the extent of the MR. BOOKER seconded the Amend ment. MR. P. HOWARD regarded the establishment of lines of communication between the extreme points of a country as of great importance, both in a military and commercial point of view. Every one must feel anxious that this interesting population should not be compelled to fly their native shores; but he suggested whether the hon. and learned Gentlemen (Mr. J. Stuart) would not best advance his case by laying a more matured plan before the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer. He believed that it would be quite impossible to raise local subscriptions without there was a promise of ulterior assistance from the Government; but with that he thought that an advance of public money might prove of national as well as local benefit. country whose resources would be develop- | labours, he (Mr. Napier) gave notice for the ed by the projected railway. He thought appointment of a Committee to inquire into the case had not been properly considered the causes of the insecurity of life and by the right hon. Gentleman the Chan- property in Ireland; but the right hon cellor of the Exchequer, who had himself Gentleman the then Secretary of State thrown out some suggestions showing that for the Home Department put upon the the subject required further elucidation; paper an Amendment in the terms which and for that reason he would now move he had now adopted in his present Motion, that the debate be adjourned till that day finding, on looking at that Amendment, fortnight. that there was no real difference between them. The right hon. Gentleman agreed with him about its propriety, and as there was nothing but a verbal difference in the terms of the Motion, the right hon. Gentleman, with that courtesy for which he was distinguished, left the matter in his (Mr. Napier's) hands, stating that he would offer no opposition to it. The question was one of very deep interest to all parts of Ireland, and he thought it was one that might well claim the attention of that House, because nothing was of greater importance to the social prosperity and advancement of Ireland than the security of life and property, which, however they might differ on matters of particular policy, must be at the basis and form the substratum of all good government and civilisation; and nothing was of more importance than to make the administration of the law good and efficient, and to uphold the security of life and property. The Speech from the Throne had adverted to the state of those districts, and he thought he should be enabled to lay before the House such clear and MR. NAPIER begged to move the ap- unambiguous evidence as to the startling pointment of a Select Committee to inquire state of certain portions of the country, into the state of those parts of the counties that it would lead the House to pause of Armagh, Monaghan, and Louth, which and consider in what way they might, were referred to in Her Majesty's Speech; in a fair and constitutional manner, reinto the immediate cause of crime and out-move those causes, and remedy a state rage in those districts; and into the effici- of things which was at variance with their ciency of the laws, and of their admini-prosperity-at variance with the introducstration, for the suppression of such crime tion of capital-at variance with industrial and outrage. The Motion he was about employment, and with everything that could to submit to the House was substantially be of value to either the owners or occu the same as that he had attempted to move before the recent change in the Government of the country. On the first night of the Session he had drawn attention to the state of a portion of the north of Ireland as referred to in Her Majesty's Speech; but the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) intimated to him that inasmuch as the Special Commission was then proceeding, and had not concluded its labours, it was premature to bring forward any Motion on the subject. The noble Lord was quite right, and he did not, therefore, press any Motion. After the Special Commission had terminated its Debate adjourned till Tuesday, 30th March. OUTRAGES (IRELAND). piers of land in that part of the country. In the course of the last year the grand jury of the county of Louth, through the noble Lord, their foreman, addressed a memorial to the Earl of Clarendon, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, calling attention to the system of organised crime which it was alleged demanded some earnest and searching system of investigation. The memorial suggested the sending down of experienced police officers to obtain a knowledge of the Ribband system; and various other suggestions were also made. He had afterwards got a return of the state of crime in the county of Louth alone, during a period of two years, selecting only those cases which were connected with the Ribband system. It was to that return he wished to call the particular attention of the House. They were the acts of a great confederation, which, if not put down by the law, would put the law down, and therefore this was a conflict with an organised conspiracy against life and property of the most startling description. The return for the county of Louth embraced from the 20th April, 1849, to the 29th December 1851, and contained twenty-three cases: they were all separate crimes of Ribband conspiracy, and included murder, shooting with intent to murder, waylaying, threatening notices, acting as members of the Ribband system, administering unlawful oaths, arson, the prevention of prosecutions for crime. Of these twenty-three cases there had only been in five instances convictions, and in all the others, the law as yet had not been able to overtake the criminals. Shortly before the meeting of the present Parliament a Special Commission was sent to Monaghan, and that Special Commission was pending at the time the present Session commenced. That Special Commission had been issued on the part of the Government, and showed clearly its consciousness of the peculiar state of eriminality that prevailed in the district, and its readiness at that time to lend the powers of the law for the suppression of crime and outrage. That Commission was conducted with the greatest impartiality and ability. It would be improper to refer to anything which had occurred on that Commission, lest it might prejudice parties whose cases had still to be tried. right hon. and learned Friend the late Attorney General, with the Solicitor General, for Ireland, attended upon that Commission, and he was bound to say that they had conducted the case with great ability; but the fact was, that no convictions were obtained, no attempt was made to try the parties since, and the cases which were left untried had been removed by certiorari to the Court of Queen's Bench, where they remained until sent down to be tried on the record side of the Court, where, by the present state of the law, there was the power of obtaining a better class of jurors. And here he begged to say, that he did not mean to suggest any imputation against the jurors on the Special Commission, but merely to mention the facts as they stood. Upon the occa His sion of that Special Commission the eminent Judge who then presided, and who was now Lord Chancellor of Ireland (with whose concurrence he begged to say he now brought forward this Motion), in his charge to the jury said 'It is but too true that a large portion of this, and of the adjoining counties of Louth and Armagh, are prevaded by a mischievous, most mischievous association; that Ribbandism, which is vails in all its horror and all its terror within that the name under which this association exists, prefated district.' He then referred, in connexion with Mr. Bateson's murder, to the assurance of protection and connivance which is secured for the murderer by the power of the Ribband confedethe sacrifice of life and injury to property; racy, the severest scourge of the land.' Firstly, secondly, obstructing all improvement, repelling capital, and cutting of the sources of employment and industry. He then referred to the responsibility of those who extenuate the crime by speeches and publications." He had a highly important document in his possession, which was submitted to the right hon. Baronet the late Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir G. Grey), namely, a memorial which was signed by 126 magistrates of the three counties, including three lords lieutenants, the county Members, and twenty four deputy lieutenants. The memorialists, in fact, comprised nearly the entire body of the magistrates of the three counties, whose description of the state of matters there, founded upon an intimate local knowledge of those counties, corresponded with the accurate judicial statement of the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The memorial was as follows: "TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR GEORGE GREY, ETC. "The Memorial of the undersigned Magistrates of the Counties of Armagh, Louth, and Monaghan, "Showeth-That a district containing portions of the abovementioned counties has for some time past been in a disturbed and lawless state. "That a succession of murders, attempts to murder, assaults, burning of houses, acts of inti midation, &c., have taken place within it, all marked with the same agrarian character, and evidently proceeding from the same secret con spiracy. "That this secret association possesses the sympathy of many, and has overawed the whole of the population to such an extent that evidence of the most atrocious murders perpetrated in open whatever class empanelled, are too often either day can hardly be obtained, and that jurors, from disaffected or intimidated. That the audacity of the conspirators has fearfully increased with their impunity, and that the conspiracy is rapidly extending into the neighbouring districts. "That the sympathy, and, yet more, the terror of the population is proved by facts which come under our notice daily, and are well known to the |