If it be correct, as stated in the "Glasgow Herald" of the 7th instant, that the convicted criminals Potter and Stronach, of the City of Glasgow Bank, came from Perth prison to Glasgow in their ordinary dress on Tuesday the 6th instant; if it be common to treat witnesses who are criminals in this manner; if it be correct that he was applied to to allow them to appear in public in this form; and, if he granted them such a privilege, what were the circumstances which induced him to do so? MR. ASSHETON CROSS: Sir, I have granted no privilege, and the prison has granted no privilege, and no application has been made either to one or the other. This has always been the custom in the General Prison at Perth to take prisoners, if possible, in their own dress, and not in the prison dress. That has not been the practice in other prisons in Scotland, but it has always been so at the Perth Prison. MR. MACDONALD : Has it been the practice anywhere in England? MR. ASSHETON CROSS: No. The hon. Gentleman will remember that the General Prison at Perth has for a long time been in a peculiar position, and it has always been the practice there, and that practice has not hitherto been changed. It has not been the practice anywhere else that I am aware of. ARMY DISCIPLINE AND REGULATION BILL.-QUESTION. MAJOR NOLAN asked the Secretary of State for War, If, before those clauses or schedules in the Army Discipline and Regulation Bill which treat of billeting and carriage are reached, he will enable the House to discuss the scale of prices for billets, &c. by appointing a preliminary money committee with the recommendation of the Crown? COLONEL STANLEY: Sir, I have communicated with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I think before we reach Part III. of the Army Discipline Bill and the Schedule, which deals with prices, I shall be able to give the hon. and gallant Gentleman an answer to his Question, if he will be good enough to repeat it. There are certain clauses of the Bill as to billeting which we shall have to consider almost immediately; but they refer merely to the conduct of the soldiers, and I presume the Question does not refer to that. THE COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE.-QUESTIONS. MR. W. E. FORSTER: I wish to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a Question of which I have given him private Notice. It has been publicly stated in an influential French newspaper, and, I believe, it has been published in an English newspaper also, that the French Government have proposed to our Government a prolongation of the Commercial Treaty for six months. This is a matter of intense interest and importance, and I should be glad to know, Whether the hon. Gentleman can give the House any information on the subject? MR. BOURKE: Yes, Sir; the French Government have suggested that this Treaty should be prolonged for the period of six months, and Her Majesty's Government have acceded to that suggestion. Communications are passing between Her Majesty's Ambassador at Paris and the French Government as to the precise terms in which the agreement should be made. MR. O'DONNELL asked the Under Secretary of State for India, If it is true, as stated in the correspondence of the "Morning Post" from the camp of General Gough's brigade, April 5th, that after the action with the Afghans on the 2nd of April, in which the enemy are described as having behaved with extraordinary gallantry, "seven Moullahs were shot by order of a military commission the following day," on the charge of having instigated the resistance of the Afghans on that occasion; whether he can inform the House what Article of War, or custom of war, authorises the execution of the priesthood in any country on the charge of instigating their compatriots to resist invasion; and, whether, if the statement be confirmed, he will engage to have the parties brought to justice? MR. E. STANHOPE: Sir, I have received a diary of events which includes the date of the action of the 5th April, and that contains no intimation or suggestion that any such event as that to which the hon. Member refers had taken place. I am sure the House will see that I am, therefore, not in a position to give the hon. Member any further information upon the subject, or to express any opinion upon facts which are not before us. MR. O'DONNELL: May I ask if the hon. Gentleman will deem it his duty to inquire into this very grave matter? MR. E. STANHOPE: Of course, Sir, the India Office does not of its own motion inquire into every statement made by a newspaper correspondent; but as the hon. Member has called the attention of the House to this particular statement, I will cause an inquiry to be addressed to India without delay. MR. RYLANDS said, it would be convenient to know what would be the Business on Thursday next. THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER said, it was rather difficult to say beforehand exactly what would be the course of Business. The difficulty of naming any Business for any day was that disappointment was caused if it was found necessary to make a change. What he proposed was this-The Civil Service Estimates would be the first Order on Monday. With regard to the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, it was his intention to take that second. it was intended to raise any general important discussion on the second reading of the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, probably it ought not to be taken at an advanced hour on Monday. If there was no such intention, it ought to be taken on Monday. Suppose they If CUSTOMS AND INLAND REVENUE BILL. took the second reading of the Customs QUESTION. MR. THOMSON HANKEY asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, When the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill was to be taken? It was on the Paper for Monday, but it had not yet been printed, and so it would be very inconvenient to go on with it so soon. THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, he was disappointed to find that the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill was not in the hands of hon. Members to-day. He believed it was owing to some technical error in the title or some clause that the Bill had not been distributed among hon. Members to-day. It would be in their hands to-morrow. He had put it down for Monday with the hope of bringing it on then; but if it was not convenient to bring it on then, it would be postponed to some other day. PARLIAMENT BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.-QUESTIONS. In reply to the Marquess of HART INGTON, THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER said, the Civil Service Estimates would be taken on Monday. GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR asked the Secretary of State, When he intended to proceed with the Law of Hypothec Bill? and Inland Revenue Bill on Monday, Tuesday was open to private Members. On Thursday he wished to proceed with two important measures-the Army Discipline and Regulation Bill and the Public Works Loan Bill. ORDERS OF THE DAY. 1600 SUPPLY-COMMITTEE. Order for Committee read. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair." THE LAW OF DISTRESS. RESOLUTION. MR. BLENNERHASSETT, in rising to call attention to the Law of Distraint for the rent of Agricultural Holdings in England, Wales, and Ireland, and to move "That it is desirable that the power of Distraint for the rent of Agricultural Holdings in England, Wales, and Ireland should be abolished;" said: It generally happens that laws which are permitted to exist unchallenged in easy and prosperous times, when adverse seasons come have to submit to careful examination, and are called upon to justify their existence at the bar of public opinion. It is, unfortunately, too MR. ASSHETON CROSS: That sub-true that this is a time when the condiject is not in my Department, Sir. Mr. E. Stanhope tions affecting the agricultural interest in this country must necessarily be sub- those primitive institutions which are jected to scrutiny. I do not wish to take found in various systems of ancient law. a gloomy or exaggerated view of agri- In a primitive society, where the help of cultural prospects; but signs are visible a Court of Justice was not to be obtained, on every side that we are passing taking goods by distress was the simplest through a period of trial and difficulty and most effectual means of compelling of the most serious nature. Hundreds the person against whom it was employed of farms lying untenanted; farmers to make the satisfaction required of who continue in occupation keeping him. Sir Henry Maine points out their heads above water with the great- that— est effort, a necessity widely recognized for a return of a considerable percentage of rent; the competition of foreign producers great and ever increasing, the cereal and animal food imported costing considerably over £100,000,000, and forming nearly a third of all the agricultural produce consumed in this Kingdom; widespread anxiety amongst every class connected with the land. Surely these are indications which should lead us, in common prudence, to review carefully any portion of our legal system which there is reason to suspect may discourage the development, or hamper the growth, of that agricultural industry on which the national welfare so largely depends. A state of the law which in quiet old-world times, or in the full flush of the unexampled prosperity of recent years was not severely felt, may become a great and intolerable evil when we need the full and free control of all our energies to strive with less favourable circumstances. It is, therefore, I venture to think, not inopportune at the present time to ask the House to consider the expediency of dealing with a law intimately affecting the state of agriculture-a law which is peculiar, and exceptional in character, and, as I think I shall be able to show, unjust and mischievous in its operation. In proposing the abolition of distraint for rent of agricultural holdings in England and Ireland, I am encouraged by the fact that this House has lately affirmed, as regards another portion of the United Kingdom, the principle for which I contend. The effect of my Motion would substantially be to assimilate the law in the various portions of the United Kingdom. I have no intention of asking the House to listen to any minute account of the various theories which have been held as to the origin of the Law of Distress, or to any detailed narration of the stages by which it has arrived at its present state. Distress is one of "All forms of distress, the seizure of wife, child, or cattle, even when wholly unregu lated by law, were improvements on older custom. The primitive proceeding was unattack of the tribe or the man stung by injury doubtedly the unceremonious, unannounced on the tribe or the man who had inflicted it. Any expedient by which sudden plunder or slaughter was adjourned or prevented was an advantage even to barbarous society. Thus, it was a gain to mankind as a whole, when its priests and leaders began to encourage the seizure of property or family, not for the purpose of permanent appropriation, but with a view to what we should not now hesitate to call extortion." In England, distress is a remedy so ancient that it is probably coeval with the Common Law itself, or, rather, it may be considered one of those principles which collectively constitute that system which we denominate the Common Law. The earliest mention of it is in an enactment of Canute, when we find it already established in an advanced state of maturity. The successive stages by which this ancient right of personal redress became converted into a remedy for the exclusive benefit of a single class of creditors--namely, the owners of land, may be traced in a great number of Statutes from the time of William the Conqueror and the Great Charter to the present reign. first adoption of distress, as a means of recovering rent and enforcing the discharge of the other feudal liabilities, was a mitigation of the ancient rigour. For a long time, under the feudal system, the slightest failure on the part of the tenant was punished by an absolute forfeiture of the feud. At a later period, on each default on the part of the tenant, instead of forfeiture, the lord entered upon the feud and held possession till such time only as he had obtained satisfaction for his damages. This method, however, was found on trial to be scarcely less oppressive than the previous one, for it generally deprived the tenant of his only means of supplying the default, and thus amounted, in effect, to the very punish ment it was intended to extenuate. In | has not unfairly been described as "an process of time a still more gentle almost unique specimen of one-sided remedy was introduced by substituting legislation." I shall not attempt to go the seizure of the cattle and other through those Statutes with any minutemovables found on the land, the lord ness. The most important of them was being entitled to impound and detain the that passed in the reign of William and things taken as pledges to compel the Mary, which completely altered, in performance of the pledges required by favour of the landlord, the ancient chathe feudal contract. A distress in its racter of the remedy. This was, in the ancient form may, therefore, be defined words of Lord Chief Baron Gilbert as "To empower the lord by seizing the chattels "The taking without legal process of a per- to oblige the tenant to perform the feudal sersonal chattel from the possession of the wrong-vices, the chattels remaining in the lord's hands doer or defaulter into the hands of the party as pledges to compel the performance, and the grieved, to be held as a pledge for the redress, detention being no longer lawful than while the performance, or satisfaction required." tenant refused to do the services which were reThe modern relation of landlord and served by the feudal contract." tenant gradually came into existence. As Blackstone describes it "The feudatories being under frequent incapacities of cultivating and manuring their own lands, soon found it necessary to commit part of them to inferior tenants, obliging them to such returns in service, corn, cattle, or money as might enable the chief feudatories to attend their military duties without distraction -which returns were the original of rent." Various provisions were adopted as a remedy against unjust and excessive distresses. Yet a learned writer describes the effect of the system in these words"Notwithstanding these provisions, the unbridled independence and tyranny of the barons during the civil wars which endangered the throne of the immediate successors of the Con queror turned distress into an engine of private revenge and public violence. Unjust pretences of distress were falsely alleged, tenants and strangers alike outraged, suit and service wrongfully compelled, exorbitant reliefs demanded, illegal fines extorted, excessive distresses made, the regulations of replevin disregarded; in fine, every wrong practised for the oppression of the weak and the aggrandizement of the powerful." Legislation was for a long time directed towards protecting the tenant from the oppression of the lord; and by a long series of Statutes, and Magna Charta itself, it was sought to soften the severity of the remedy. The last of these mitigating Statutes was passed in the reign of Philip and Mary, enacting that a distress should not be impounded in several places so as to compel the party to sue several replevins. From the reign of Henry VIII. down to the present time, there has been a complete change in the spirit of legislation. We find a long series of Statutes, nearly every one of which has been passed with the object of improving the remedy in the hands of the landowner, the result being what Mr. Blennerhassett The Statute of William and Mary gave, for the first time, the distrainer power to sell the distress for satisfaction of the rent and charges. Among other rules of the Common Law relative to the subjects of a distress, one was that things belonging to the freehold were not distrainable; and another, that nothing should be distrained which could not be restored in as good condition as that in which it was when it was taken. By the former of these rules, landlords were prevented from distraining growing crops on the tenant's lands, and by the latter from taking corn, even after it had been cut. A subsequent section of the same Statute of William and Mary enabled the landlord to distrain corn in sheaves, or cocks, or loose, or in the straw, or hay in barns, ricks, or otherwise, as well as other chattels. A Statute of George II. further empowered him to distrain growing corn, grass, hops, fruits, roots, pulse, or other product of the land, and to cut and gather them when ripe to be disposed of in satisfaction of the rent. A Statute of Anne gave the power of distress to persons entitled to rent in arrear upon lease six months after the determination of the term, and the same Statute gave the right to follow and distrain goods clandestinely or fraudulently removed-a power which was subsequently enlarged by an Act of George II. In the reign of George II. the ancient rule of the Common Law, which caused the remedy to be attended with considerable risk, that if the party distraining were guilty of any irregularity in making or conducting the distress he thereby became a trespasser ab initio, was set aside, and it was provided "That, for any irregularity committed in making or conducting a distress for rent, the party guilty of it shall not be deemed a trespasser ab initio, but that damages shall be recovered by the person aggrieved by such act, in proportion to the injury sustained." only for one year's rent accrued due prior to the Two years later, another great innova- "The landlord, or other person to whom any rent is due from the bankrupt, may, at any time either before or after the commencement of the bankruptcy, distrain upon the goods or effects the bankrupt, with this limitation, that if such of the bankrupt for the rent due to him from distress or rent be levied after the commencement of the bankruptcy, it shall be available has been little affected by legislation, |