MR. MUNDELLA thought that the Paris Exhibition could not be put upon the same footing as those at Vienna and Philadelphia. It was necessary for England to make a better appearance at Paris than at either of the other places.

what the Prince of Wales had done, in | had been voted in the cases of the regard to the Paris Exhibition, than they Vienna and Philadelphia Exhibitions. would have been by years of diplomatic negotiation. His general conduct of the business was excellent, and his affability and courtesy to everyone had given the greatest satisfaction. With regard to this miserable £100, it had been voted by the Commissioners out of the paltry sum granted them. He would explain the matter to the Committee; and he would say, in passing, that he knew some gentlemen on the Commission, though without seats in that House, who had been ashamed at the expenses which had been thrown on the Prince of Wales. If a reception were given to the French Commissioners, the Prince of Wales had had to pay for it out of his own pocket. But out of the paltry sum allowed them, the Commissioners had granted this £100 towards the expenses of artizans. They had asked the great towns in England to subscribe, and many towns had subscribed, and sent 20 persons each to Paris at their own expense; but what had Dublin done? No money had been raised from her for the purpose of sending artizans to the Exhibition. The money voted by the Commissioners had been spent in making arrangements for the artizans when they reached Paris. The Commission had arranged that for 208. they should be carried to Paris and back, and £100 was all that was available towards paying the extra expenses. Any sum that the city of Dublin might subscribe would go towards the expenses of the Dublin artizans, and they would receive the benefit of the £100 subscribed by the Royal Commission in the facilities which had been provided for them in Paris. Not one shilling of the money had gone especially for English artizans as distinguished from Scotch or Irish; and Ireland would obtain its full share, not only of the £100, but of the English subscriptions.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON hoped that the Motion would not be pressed. The £100 had been added by the Commissioners to sums they had received from subscriptions towards sending artizans from England, Scotland, and Ireland to the Exhibition. With regard to what had been said as to the amount of the sum allowed to the English Commissioners at the Paris Exhibition, he would observe that it was equal to what

MR. MELDON could not admit that the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) had in any way given a satisfactory explanation. His statement was that subscriptions were raised in England for the purpose of sending English artizans to the Paris Exhibition, and that the Commissioners gave £100 to the fund. It was said that the Commissioners had provided certain facilities for artizans, and that they were intended for Irish and Scotch, as well as English, workmen. That was scarcely an accurate statement, after what had taken place, for the managers of the Irish subscriptions made a communication to the Commissioners with reference to sending Irish artizans. They were willing to accept aid in any shape or way; but they were told that unless the Irish Committee was prepared to guarantee £10 for each artizan sent from Ireland to Paris, they would receive no aid from the Royal Commission. Considering that the amount necessary for sending Irish artizans to Paris was £7, it was hard to ask the Irish Committee to spend £3 more before it could receive any benefit from the sums voted for the express purpose of sending artizans to Paris. It was unfair to limit the money for the benefit of the British artizan, for Irish artizans had the same right to the fund. He should take the opinion of the HousŊ upon his Motion.

MR. BELL would be sorry if a division were taken upon this Motion. He had the honour to be one of the Royal Commissioners, and could say that no distinction was made between English, Scotch, or Irish artizans. With regard to the sum voted by Parliament towards the expenses of the Commission, it would fall short by £10,000 of what was required.

MR. MUNDELLA said, that if the hon. and learned Member for Kildare (Mr. Meldon) would write to him, he would communicate with Lord Spencer, the Chairman of the sub-Committee, and care should be taken that Irish arti

zans should have the same advantages very badly paid, and their case was as the English and Scotch; and the hon. the stronger from the fact that, while Member should be satisfied that the the expenditure in the Department of Committee made no distinction between the Lord Clerk Register and Sasine one nationality and another. He could Office was £36,000, the fees from regisassure him that there was no intention tration amounted to £44,000. There to show partiality to any branch of the was, therefore, no ground for saying United Kingdom. that the clerks in the Office were asking for money which was not gained on their establishment. Now that the Bill in reference to these matters had been stopped, he wished to know whether the arrangement formerly entered into would be carried into effect. A number of these clerks had been in the Office many years, at salaries of £90 a-year; and one, who had been 50 years in the Office, was recently dismissed without any pension or allowance whatever. Altogether, the matter required a good deal of investigation.

MR. MELDON said, that, perhaps, the hon. Member would state what facilities would be given to Irish artizans visiting the Paris Exhibition. He should also like to know what conditions they must comply with to get the same facilities as English artizans?

MR. M. BROOKS was under the impression that funds were subscribed specially for English workmen. He understood now that, although subscriptions had been given towards artizans from any particular place, yet that artizans from any town would be sent to Paris by means of subscriptions of the towns generally.

MR. MUNDELLA stated that the facilities given to artizans consisted of cheap travelling, guides, and catalogues. The journey cost them £1; and, in this respect, Dublin enjoyed the same facilities as Sheffield.

MR. MELDON said, that, after that explanation, he would withdraw his Motion. The fact was that in Dublin they could send their artizans to Paris for £7; but in England they had to pay £10 before they could be sent.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question put, and agreed to. (12.) £14,074, to complete the sum for the Universities, &c. in Scotland.

(13.) £1,580, to complete the sum for the National Gallery, &c. Scotland.

CLASS III.-LAW AND JUSTICE. (14.) £50,788, to complete the sum for the Lord Advocate and Criminal Proceedings, Scotland.

(15.) £46,223, to complete the sum for Courts of Law and Justice, Scot

land.

MR. M'LAREN wished, before this Vote was taken, to draw the attention of the Lord Advocate and the Government to the grievance under which the clerks in the Sasine Office and the Department of the Lord Clerk Register in Edinburgh suffered. These clerks were

THE LORD ADVOČATE very much feared that the object which the hon. Member for Edinburgh was anxious to obtain could not be effected without the authority of Parliament. There were now a number of clerks in the Office of the Lord Clerk Register in Edinburgh who were not Civil servants, and that was the position in which they had been placed by the Act of Parliament passed in 1868. Under that Statute, a public officer in a Department receiving about £30,000 a-year was made personally responsible for all mistakes made by his clerks. The head of the Department could hardly be held. responsible if he were placed in the position of having Civil servants under him. It was a question very much debated before the Act was passed, whether such responsibility should attach to his office, and it was obvious that so long as a man was placed in that position, he must be allowed facilities in the appointment and management of those he employed. So long as clerks were placed in that subordinate position, they could not be looked upon as Civil servants. It was not in contemplation by the Government to make any alteration in that respect, nor was it in the power of the Government to make it of their own accord, for it could only be done by the sanction of the Legislature.

MR. M'LAREN observed, that the Lord Advocate had made it clear that the Government could not make these men into Civil servants without an Act of Parliament. But what the Government

might do was to raise their salaries. I recoup the expenses of the Court. He These gentlemen were doing the work hoped the right hon. and learned Gentlerequired at very miserable salaries, and man the Attorney General for Ireland he could see no reason why their salaries would be able to hold out a hope that should not be increased by the Treasury this would soon be the case. in the same manner as would have been done if the Bill had passed.

THE LORD ADVOCATE thought the hon. Member was somewhat under a misapprehension. He believed the whole of the salaries paid in that Office were quite sufficient for the services performed. On the other hand, no doubt, grievances existed which had come under the notice of the Government, more particularly that promotion did not go on in that Office in the usual way. The clerks in the Office in question alleged that they did not get promoted, and the reason was that, as the head of the Department appointed the clerks, and was alone responsible, he might bring in any outsider, and put him over the heads of those already in the Office. The grievance complained of was not that the salaries paid to the officials were insufficient, but that the clerks in the Office earning a certain salary had no certainty, such as Civil servants possessed, of rising into a higher class.

MR. MELDON said, he might state to the hon. Member who had just sat down that the Landed Estates Court in Ireland was a great convenience, and likely to be more so; because, under the Irish Judicature Act, the work of the Receiver Master of Chancery was also done by that Court. Therefore, it was not fair to set off the cost of the Court as against the receipts for fees and stamps. Besides, it must be borne in mind that the Court had produced large sums for the Exchequer in times past, when the work was vastly in excess of what it was now. The work varied from year to year, one being very light, and the other very heavy. There was one question to which he wished to call the attention of the Attorney General for Ireland. By the Judicature (Ireland) Act, one of the Judges of the Landed Estates Court was liable to go circuit, and at the recent Assizes one of the Judges did go circuit, the result being to create enormous inconvenience in the Court. True, one Judge remained constantly at the Court, and it ought to be provided that he should discharge any pressing duties which the other Judge would be called upon to perform. He said this with all the more reason, because, previous to the appointment of Judge Ormsby, Judge Flanagan intimated over and over again that he was quite able to discharge the entire duties of the Court. Under those circumstances, it was only fair and reasonable that when one of the Judges was called away to do Common Law business in his absence, the business of the Landed Estates Court should be discharged by the remaining Judge. Great inconvenience had now been caused by Judge Ormsby going circuit, and as his work had not been discharged in his (21.) £8,662, to complete the sum for absence, the Judge, at great inconve Land Judges' Offices, Ireland.

Vote agreed to.

(16.) £27,380, to complete the sum for the Register House Departments, Edinburgh.

(17.) £61,160, to complete the sum for Prisons, Scotland.

(18.) £65,678, to complete the sum for Law Charges and Criminal Prosecutions, Ireland.

(19.) £29,867, to complete the sum for the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice, &c. Ireland.

(20.) £21,169, to complete the sum for the Queen's Bench, &c. Divisions, Ireland.

MR. WHITWELL asked, in what position the House was likely to be in regard to this Court? Although so large a sum was asked in the House, the income received by fees and stamps was only £5,650. As this Court was established for the convenience of the owners of land in Ireland, he hoped, as soon as possible, the fees would be sufficient to

nience, had had to go to Dublin to hear the cases which would otherwise have to stand over until after the Vacation. He hoped this would not again arise, and it need not if Judge Flanagan were ordered to do the whole of the work when Judge Ormsby was away.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON) thought the Landed Estates Court worked very well,

(25.) Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £14,672, bequire into some new plan for the regis

He had no objection if a gentleman dis- | so to delay the time of the Committee; charged duties worth £300 a-year that but it appeared to him that there was no he should be paid that sum; but he did other mode of altering the present state object that he should appear as one of of things in the Department. Rememthe clerks in the Office, and yet do no bering that at present there was a great work. delay in the work of the Department, he would, to protest against the action of the Government, move to reduce the Vote by £630.