Stanhope Street, and to improve the plete debtor and creditor account of the entrance to the Horseferry Road, which, liabilities of the Commission would be though a long and important thoroughfare, laid before the House before it was asked ending at present in a very narrow street. to give them the fresh powers asked for For those purposes compulsory powers which would amount to a prolongation of were necessary. The Commissioners had, their existence for some twenty years therefore, directed their solicitor to pre- longer. He saw no reason why there pare a Bill for Parliament, and thus had should be three or four different bodies in arisen the extensive scheduling to which the metropolis for carrying out these methe hon. Baronet had referred. Some re- tropolitan improvements, and it would be marks had been made upon the fact that far better that these powers should be the Bill was sent to the House of Lords, transferred to the Metropolitan Board of but that had been done by the Chairman Works. of Committees, and not by the wish of the Commissioners, or from any desire to smuggle it through. An opposition was raised upon Standing Orders by one parish, and the result was that with two small exceptions the powers granted were simply permissive, not compulsory. Terms had since been made with the opposing parish, which was now anxious to restore the Bill to its original shape. Land in the neighbourhood had doubled in value during the last four years, and he believed that if the Commission had power to retain it for seven years longer it would again be doubled in value. They had realized £135,000, which had been paid into the Court of Chancery, and the improvement that had taken place in the property within three years was patent to every With respect to the Return asked for, he should not object to it; on the contrary, he should wish every publicity to be given to the proceedings: but as the terms of the Motion were not very definite, he would suggest to the hon. Baronet to withdraw his Motion, and he (Mr. Tite) would arrange with the hon. Baronet to furnish any information that might be desirable.

one.

MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH said, he was glad that full information was to be given, as it appeared that Parliament was about to be called upon to grant further powers to the Commissioners. The Bill introduced by the Commission contemplated the destruction of 500 houses, a larger number than would be removed for the Courts of Justice. He hoped when the Bill came before the House that a clause would be inserted requiring the Commission to provide accommodation for the people whose dwellings they sought power to destroy. He believed that the Metropolitan Railway would also come into the neighbourhood and displace many other residents at the back of the Westminster Palace Hotel. He hoped also that a com

MR. JACKSON said, that they were discussing a Bill which was not before the House, and it would be time enough to discuss it when it was before them. They had nothing to do with the improvements made by the Marquess of Westminster or Mr. Gibbs. Speaking from his practical knowledge of the property, he could say that no property had so much improved during the last twenty years as that pro. perty had. The working of the Commission had been most beneficial to the property, and he felt bound to say that he thought all those interested in the property were greatly indebted to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Tite).

SIR MORTON PETO said, that he also could bear testimony to the change for the better which, owing to the labours of the hon. Member (Mr. Tite), had come over the property during the last four years. There would be plenty of opportunity for discussing the Bill when it came before them.

MR. TAVERNER MILLER said, there were several charities in Westminster which were highly indebted to the Commission, for the lands which they held there, from being waste and profitless, had by the operations of the Commission become saleable to the great advantage of their funds and powers of doing good. In all the transactions which he had had with the Commissioners he had always found them anxious to do what was most for the public good. He was sorry to see an attempt made to get up a prejudice against the Commissioners in reference to this Bill. When it came before the House, it would be found that, so far from pulling down 500 houses, it only took compulsory powers with reference to some twenty or thirty houses. As to the rest permissive powers only were asked for.

MR. KINNAIRD said, the hon. Member for Bath deserved great credit for having extricated the property from such con

fusion, and he was quite sure his hon. | extend to them the benefits of the system Friend would be the last man to propose which had been applied so satisfactorily to destroy the houses of the working to other Departments of the State. An classes without making some provision for observer, after a service of two years and them. The lodging-house built by Mr. one month, had 58. 9d. a day; another Gibbs was not a speculation. He went observer had also 5s. 9d. a day after a into the venture wholly and solely to service of seventeen years. A surveyor benefit the working classes, without caring had 4s. 3d. a day after a service of eight in the least whether it would repay him. years and nine months; another surveyor He certainly hoped that it would. had 48. 3d. a day after a service of twentyfive years and three months. An examiner of plans had 4s. 3d. a day after a service of nine years and one month; and another examiner of plans had 48. 6d. a day after five months' service. He called attention to the different course adopted in reference to the general valuation service in Ireland, and asked why this intelligent, educated, and well-conducted body of men should be denied the benefits of the system of classification which had been successfully applied to men discharging similar duties at the other side of the Channel.

MR. BROMLEY said, it was a mistake to suppose that these Westminster Improvements had been any benefit to the poorer classes, though they might have benefited another class. He knew of his own personal knowledge that that was not the case. The classes who had been displaced were not the classes which inhabited Mr. Gibbs's lodging-house. They had disappeared altogether. There certainly was no part of London where greater injustice had been done to the working classes by the removal and the destruction of their dwellings.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

CIVIL ASSISTANTS ON THE ORDNANCE

SURVEY.-OBSERVATIONS.

MR. ALDERMAN ROSE said, that civil servants were entitled to ask the House to remedy any grievance under which those assistants were an intelligent, eduthey suffered. No one could doubt that cated class of men or that they had been unjustly treated. It was said that they were at liberty to quit the service if not satisfied. Advertisements had been put into the newspapers for men to fill the places of these assistants, but only one applicant would undertake the duties, and he resigned after three months. The survey they made was a credit to the nation; the treatment they received was a re

doubt they would be told that this was a case brought forward in the interests of their constituents; but public servants had a right to come to that House when they had a grievance to complain of, and in this instance there was a substantial grievance. He hoped the Government would agree to this very moderate demand.

MR. DIGBY SEYMOUR said, he rose to call attention to the position of the Civil Assistants on the Ordnance Survey, and to ask the Under Secretary of State for War upon what grounds the principle of classification adopted in the Irish Valuation and other Government Offices is denied to this Department of the Public Service. Seeing the increase that had taken place in the cost of articles of con-proach to the Government. He had no sumption he thought that the Government would, before long, have to take into consideration the remuneration of the civil servants of the State with the view to increase it. But the grievance to which he wished at present to call attention was that the system of classification which existed in the War Office, Admiralty, and in other Departments, and by which promotion was regulated, did not extend to the civil assistants of the Ordnance survey. They complained that they were placed under the control of military officers who had the power of promoting them or not. A private sapper might be placed over several intelligent men in the civil service, and those persons depended upon an increase of pay on the caprice or whim of the mili-it and give him a higher salary. Such a tary officer placed over them. The best way to get rid of the grievance would be to adopt a regular scale of pay, and to Mr. Kinnaird

MR. BAILLIE COCHRANE said, he had some knowledge of the question which had been brought forward by the hon. and learned Member for Southampton, and could testify to the good conduct and harsh treatment of the public servants to whom it referred. The superior officer in this Department could promote any one in

power was too great for a superior officer of a department to possess, and the principle was objectionable, especially where

no classification existed. In this service there were highly educated gentlemen who had served twenty-one, twenty-two, and some twenty-four years, and who received only 68. 6d. a day with 9d. increase after ten years' service. Others received only 4s. a day, with 18. increase after the same period of service. That was not sufficient remuneration for an arduous service well performed, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to introduce a system of classification so that these gentlemen might be adequately paid.

them, aided by a body of 500 civilian assistants. The most intelligent of those assistants were selected, and, after receiving instruction, they became measurers and surveyors. There were also a number of boys employed at the office at Southampton, many of them sons of persons employed in the office, and in time those boys became tutors, or filled other offices in the Department. The only assistants it was necessary to look for outside the office were the engravers, who were paid the ordinary rate for their work. Was this system of training men for their duties, which had been found to work so admirably, to be changed for one by which men were to obtain appointments through political, personal, and local influences? In that case, instead of having an industrious and able set of men in the office, they would have to deal with persons who would deem themselves secure of their places for life provided they did not entirely neglect their work. Under such circumstances the House could scarcely expect that the efficiency of the Department would be preserved, while the additional cost of the classification system would be, at least £1,500 a year. In addition to this, unless the House was disposed to vote a larger sum for the service than it had, the result would be the post

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON said, there was no analogy whatever between the position of the civil assistants in the Ordnance Survey Office and the clerks in those other public offices to which the hon. and learned Member had referred. He quite admitted that those assistants were very meritorious persons; but many of them were artizans and workmen, and there was no reason why the principle of classification should be extended to them. He had no very accurate knowledge of the duties of the Irish Valuation Office, still he knew enough to show that they were of a very different character from those now under contemplation. In the first place, the Irish Office was not an office superintended by military authority; it was conducted entirely by civil employés, and the work devolving upon that Depart-ponement for a number of years of the ment was the valuation of every occupation and property in Ireland. It was evident, therefore, the duties were of a very responsible character, and that the valuators were more than ordinarily open to the exercise of corrupt influences. On that account it was essential that the employés should be persons of the most reliable character. At the same time, he was unable to say what had induced the Government to adopt the system of classification in that Department. Under the present system they were enabled to obtain exactly the amount and description of work they required in the Ordnance Survey Office, and there was no reason why Government should pay a higher rate for the work it required than a private person or a public company found it necessary to pay. If the principle of classification were admitted into that office, not only would they have to pay a larger sum of money for the work performed, but the efficiency of the office would be impaired. Under the present system the survey was conducted mainly by officers of the Engi

neers,

and the sappers working under

completion of the survey. The civil assistants in their memorial prayed for an increase of salary, on the ground that their present pay was not sufficient to enable them to support the respectability of an office under Government. In his opinion the persons complaining of their inadequate remuneration ought to be paid according to the value of their services, and not according to some imaginary rate to enable them to maintain what they called their respectability.

MR. MOFFATT said, he must express his surprise and regret at the response that had been given by the noble Lord to the appeal which had been so well and so ably put by the hon. and learned Member for Southampton. The noble Lord relied on the same argument that he had used when last called upon to defend this grievancehe declined to concede the benefit of classification upon the allegation that it would prove prejudicial to the public service. He admitted that classification worked admirably for the public service in the Customs, Inland Revenue, Treasury, and other public Departments, but declined

THE POOR LAW BOARD AND THE
HIGH WYCOMBE UNION.

MOTION FOR PAPERS.

extending it to the Ordnance Survey offi- | by his frank advocacy of the weak when cials, upon the ground of dissimilarity of pressed by the strong, and he trusted that occupation; but in regard to the officials in the re-consideration which this question of the Irish Valuation Survey Office, where would doubtless receive before Parliament the system of classification prevailed, the again met some redress of existing griev noble Lord appeared to feel that some ances would be granted. explanation was necessary. And what was the explanation ? Why, that the duties were essentially different. Upon this he joined issue with the noble Lord, and maintained that the duties were essentially similar. There were the same MR. DISRAELI : Sir, I hope the House officers employed-observers, computors, will not lend an indifferent ear to the draughtsmen, plotters, tracers, survey- short statement which I have to make toors, spirit levellers, computers of areas, night, under the impression that the sub&c.; and the processes and results were ject is one simply of local interest. I can essentially similar, the only difference assure the House it is one of general, being that the classification, which work- and so far as England is concerned one ed well in Ireland, was denied to England. of universal interest, for it concerns He would appeal to any Gentleman in the every Board of Guardians in the kingHonse acquainted with the respective dom. The House will agree with me Departments to confirm his statement as that it is important there should be a clear to their similarity. He recollected when understanding as to the relative duties of this subject was last before the House the the Central Board and the Boards of Guar noble Lord stated that the Ordnance Sur- dians throughout the country; for unless vey system was perfect, and that so pre- there is that clear understanding there is eminently satisfactory was its condition that necessarily a chance of great confusion foreigners visited England to admire and in the public business, and great negto imitate. A few days after hearing that lect occasionally of the public interests. statement he chanced to see the Return In the case I am about to bring before the obtained by the hon. Member for Dublin House there appears to have been conof the pay and the length of service of siderable and injurious neglect. I cannot these valuable and almost inimitable public pretend that I have not myself formed an officers. There, to his surprise, he found opinion as to what body that neglect is to that thirty-four surveyors, averaging a ser- be attributed; but I will say to those revice of fifteen years each, were in receipt presenting the Poor Law Board to-night of a salary equivalent to £60 per annum, that, so far as I am concerned, I bring and that eighteen spirit levellers and com- this question before them in a spirit of puters of areas averaged about eighteen candour, in order to give them an opporyears' service, and each the munificent tunity of entering into explanations which remuneration of about £65 per annum may remove a strong sense of discontent -£65 a year for 313 days' labour in the and indignation now existing in a conyear; no leave for holidays-all close and siderable district; and if the explanation unintermitting labour. The noble Lord ex- is satisfactory I shall not hesitate to cused this upon the ground that the service admit that it is so. The Wycombe Union could be done, and was done well for the consists of thirty parishes in the southern pay. Let the noble Lord extend that part of the county of Buckingham, and conprinciple, if he was satisfied of its sound- tains a population exceeding 35,000. The ness, to the War Office - cut down the union house, which is a new structure, salaries to the minimum at which the built within a few years from the design duties could be efficiently performed, and of Mr. Scott, is at Sanderton, and about then the present feeling of injustice to a six or seven miles from this union Department would be alleviated, and the house, at a place called Bledlow, there public burdens would be materially re- is the union school. Within two or duced. But the noble Lord would propose three years a person named Harold nothing of the kind. The poor might be Stallwood was appointed master, and his squeezed, but the influential and wealthy wife matron, of the union school at Bledwould not be incommoded. The noble low. He was apparently a man well Earl at the head of the Department had qualified for the post, of fair fame, very distinguished himself while in that House good talent, and considerable experience

Mr. Moffatt

in connection with the administration of there learned enough to induce her to claim the Poor Law, because he had been a re- an audience of the chairman and some of lieving officer in one of the districts of the the chief guardians; and the result was county before this appointment. Although that a general meeting of the guardians there was this distance between the union was called at the school at Bledlow. There house (the central point of the union) and in the course of forty-eight hours they the union schools, I am bound to say there were all assembled. The question of has been, as far as I can form an opinion, the punishment of this boy was ina satisfactory system of visiting and in-vestigated. The evidence also of sevespecting the schools. There was a system ral of his companions who had been of periodical and continuous visiting by treated with extraordinary cruelty was committees of the Board of Guardians; taken from their own mouths. It came and also, which is of importance, the out in the examination that these severe schools at Bledlow had been frequently punishments on the part of the master and constantly visited by the Poor Law were rather, it seemed, produced by a deCommissioner of the district. At Bledlow, sire to establish a system of terror than besides these union schools, there had been from any abstract practice of cruelty. It an industrial school, which rendered the appeared that the boys had heard rumours frequent attendance of the Commissioner of indecent conduct of the master with necessary. He was a man by education female pauper pupils in the institution, and position fitted for and active and who, of course, were mainly under the zealous in the discharge of his duties. I direction of the matron. The boys had mention this, because, as the House will heard of these things and talked of them see, under his inspection, which gave gene- among themselves; and the master had reral satisfaction to the community, occur- course to these severe punishments, which rences happened which were hardly to be were of an outrageous character-threatenexpected under a system of efficient in- ing even the lives of the boys by holding a spection; but, at the same time, I am knife to their throats and menaces of that bound to express my opinion that no blame kind-evidently for the purpose of by is to be imputed on the score of neglect terror suppressing the conversation of the either to the guardians or to the Poor boys, and not from any habitual cruelty Law Inspector. We all know that in much on his part. This led to a further exami. higher places than union schools, or in- nation. It was necessary to examine the stitutions of that kind, very often prac- girls. That was done on the 13th of tices come to light highly to be repro- February, when a great deal of evidence bated, but which have continued for a was taken showing that a system of prolong term of years under critical and fligacy of a very heartless and heinous conscientious administrations. We know description had been practised for a long also that crime in authority has great time by the master of the school. It is advantages for securing secresy. First not necessary to go into details because of all, a kind of terror is exercised over there is no controversy between the Board subordinates, and that, accompanied by of Guardians and the Poor Law Board as ingenuity, will baffle the otherwise disin- to the nature and character of this offence terested vigilance of those who, under or- of the master. It is agreed that his condinary circumstances, might discover the duct was most profligate and indefensible. offence. At the beginning of the year a The guardians passed that day in taking rumour reached the guardians of the evidence. The evidence taken cannot be Wycombe Union (who on the whole called ex-parte, because Stallwood was possess the general confidence of the dis- present, and he was permitted to make trict), that an act of great barbarity observations if he pleased; but generally had been practised at the school at Bled- speaking he kept a strict silence, and low-that a boy had been punished in a merely denied the whole affair, saying manner which no circumstances could that the boys were telling lies, so that justify. So strong was the feeling of the what fell from him threw no light on the mother of the boy who was herself an in- subject. The guardians were of opinion, mate of the union house at Sanderton after consultation, that the evidence should be forwarded immediately to the Central Board in London, who should be asked to send down some person to investigate the matter. I am perfectly willing to admit

she became so alarmed by this rumourthat she absolutely claimed her discharge from the union house, and went to Bledlow to ascertain the truth for herself. She