question as to drawbacks, referred to by the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. Dunlop), was an essential one. Hitherto export drawbacks had been allowed to two qualities of sugar-highly refined sugar, or loaf sugar, and the common brown sugar, the residue of the refining. But a practice had risen up in the trade of manufacturing various qualities-crushing sugars -and selling them in their manufactured state. It was suggested that, although the demand for them was at present confined to this country, yet an export trade might spring up in those qualities of sugar. The subject had received considerable attention, and he should be glad if, in connection with those in the refining trade, he could devise a plan to take intermediate drawbacks. If that could not be done in the present Bill, perhaps power might be taken, by Order in Council, or by order of the Treasury, to allow intermediate drawbacks on the varieties of sugar in the market. He was free to admit that the whole value of the measure depended not on the words of the Act of Parliament, but on the actual standard fixed. He had taken the pains to put himself in connection with practical men, to ascertain what would be a proper standard. He did not mean to say he was now ready to fix the standard, but he was ready, with the assistance of the refiners and East and West India merchants who might make representations through Members of the House, to consider the question, so that they might fix a standard which would be fair to the various parties interested. MR. HANKEY said, the proposal of the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. Gregson) to make one uniform duty was an extremely unsatisfactory mode of levying the duty to importers of sugar from the West Indies. They felt that the duty ought to be levied on the gross quantity of sacharine matter which the sugar contained, and on that principle had contended for refining in bond. An approximation towards that principle was now offered by Her Majesty's Government; it would be received as a boon by the West India body; and he begged on their behalf to thank the Government for it. He hoped they would fix a standard which should give the benefit to which he alluded. MR. SANDARS said, he wished to know whether the extra malt duty would be levied on all stock on hand, and whether allowance would be made for screening? Mr. Wilson MR. WILSON said, the increased duty would be levied on all holders of malt of every description. An erroneous impression had got abroad that it would be levied on the large consumers, and not on the dealers. Such was not the case. As to the allowance, he believed three, four, or five per cent would be allowed for screening. MR. HENLEY said, he wished to know if it was to be understood that private persons were not dealers? MR. WILSON said, he should perhaps have said factors. He did not suppose the Excise Office would follow small dealers. He might mention that, as an additional security, there would be a clause in the Bill which would enable the officers to require the factors and dealers to state on oath what stocks of malt they had on the day the Resolution was passed. MR. DUNLOP said, he was not quite satisfied with regard to the point as to molasses. If it was the case that the Resolution carried the other night really did include molasses, no injury would be done by leaving out these retrospective words. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Wilson) said it was to prevent disputes, but disputes were more likely to be caused by putting in retrospective words, contrary to the usage of Parliament. He should be very unwilling to divide the Committee, but they ought to adhere to the ordinary form of these Resolutions. MR. ALEXANDER HASTIE said, as to molasses being sugar, it was all nonsense. Molasses were always scheduled separately and distinctly. If his hon. Friend divided the Committee, he should feel constrained to vote with him. He had no doubt but that the decision of the Government on Monday last had already been acted upon in Glasgow and Greenock. He considered that it would be very unfair to go out of their way to make alterations, and he thought that they ought to consider well how, for the sake of the war, they trespassed upon and broke through the established usages of the country. MR. HANKEY said, he hoped that the hon. Member would not divide the Committec. Nobody could possibly have been wronged. He would venture to say nobody had paid a different duty than they would have paid under this Resolution. He had not the smallest doubt the head of the Customs had taken care to inform every one what would be the proposed rate of duty, and that proposed rate was understood by every one to include molasses as part of the ordinary classes which were scheduled in all Acts relating to sugar. Instead of facilitating, the alteration of the Resolution would embarrass the Custom House, by raising a doubt as to the object and intention of the Resolution already passed. He was quite sure nobody in the trade had been deceived, and it would only be misleading the public connected with the trade if they implied any doubt as to what ought to be the course taken by the Custom-House officers. If there was any doubt, it must be settled by the law officers of the Crown; it could not be settled by a Resolution of that House. MR. HUME said, that invariably from the passing of the Resolution the Customs were warranted in levying the duties. It would be dangerous to admit the precedent that a Resolution of the 10th would justify their collecting duties on the 8th and 9th, and therefore he should propose to strike out the words "from and after the 8th of May." A retrospective vote was not consistent with the character of that House, and he would certainly divide the Committee upon the question. MR. WILSON said, in the present state of the House, if he opposed the alteration, probably on a division they would discover there was no House; he should have the Resolution thrown over to another supply day, and, therefore, lose two days' more duty. The most discreet plan, he supposed, was to substitute the 10th to the 8th. He was quite ready to trust to the state of the law for the two days' duty. EARL FITZWILLIAM presented a petition from justices of the peace of the West Riding of Yorkshire and from Swansea, praying that reformatory institutions may be established for the reformation of juvenile offenders. LORD BROUGHAM entirely agreed in the opinion that they should make every effort for the purpose of improving the system of secondary punishment, and, above all, of improving it by means of these reformatory schools. He had mentioned lately that he had deemed it his duty, during a late visit to a neighbouring nation, to repair to Tours for the express purpose of examining that most imMR. CRAUFURD said, he wished to portant institution, the reformatory estaknow if they were to understand that mo-blishment at Mettray. He had heard it lasses were not included in the two days? MR. HUME said, he understood that if the Customs were right in their interpretation of the law, molasses cleared on those two days would be liable. Resolved 1. "That, towards raising the Supply granted to Her Majesty, there shall be raised, levied, collected, and paid, on and after the 10th day of May, 1854, an additional Duty, after the rate of fifteen pounds per centum, upon the produce and amount of the duties on Molasses, which are now due and payable to Iler Majesty in the United Kingdom, under the management and direction of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Customs." Resolved 2. "That, towards raising the Supply granted to Her Majesty, there shall be raised, levied, collected, and paid for and upon all Sugar which, after the 10th day of May, 1854, shall be used by any Brewer of Beer for sale in the brewing or making of Beer, the Duty of Five Shillings and Twopence, for every hundred weight, and after stated in France that the establishment at Mettray was the original of these excellent institutions; but that was not so, because nineteen years before the establishment of the institution at Mettray in the year 1839, namely, in the year 1820, an establishment was formed at Stretton-on-Dunmore, in the county of Warwick. He would not say that it had succeeded so well as the Mettray system had succeeded, because Mettray was established after the experience of the English establishment, and its originators had benefited by that experience, as well as by the results of a similar experiment which had been made with more or less success in the neighbourhood of Hamburg; but it was impossible to deny that the amount of the relapses was less considerable there than they had been on an average of years at Strettonon-Dunmore. He never saw anything in such a state of order as the establishment at Mettray was, when he had an opportu nity of seeing it, and when he examined that school. The whole proceedings of every individual from the moment he enters until he leaves the establishment are registered. An accurate account is kept of his conduct and of his misdemeanors, more or less slight and most of them are very slight; of the rewards he has received, and the punishment, extremely slight and well contrived, to which he is subjected; and on his leaving the establishment a watch is continued to be kept on the place where he is hired (it is chiefly an agricultural establishment), with the farmers and gardeners in the neighbourhood; so that the returns year after year tell precisely the whole effect of the system of discipline, and not only of discipline, but of kindly and patriarchal management, by which these persons had been dealt with. The plan adopted was to divide the whole of the inmates into families, each being under a chief, who had in most instances been educated in the place, and the persons composing the staff of officers had been taught the system by years of experience on the spot. He regretted to hear that the Stretton-on-Dunmore establishment had, within the last six weeks, come to an end from the want of funds. It had been supported during the whole period of its successful existence of forty years entirely by voluntary contributions, no aid whatever having been given by Government, or by any public body, and it had now come to an end-he was sorry and ashamed to say-entirely from the want of funds. Funds for the Mettray establishment, and similar ones in France, no doubt were furnished by private individuals; but very large contributions were made to them without which they must have failed, as well as others-by the enlightened wisdom of the French Government. EARL FITZWILLIAM said, he took it for granted that if reformatory schools should be established, the expenses would be paid out of the public funds; and then came the very important question, whether they should be maintained out of the national funds or out of the funds of the county in which they should be established. He apprehended that they would not be complying with the wishes of the petitioners unless some public fund was appropriated for the maintenance of such estaLlishments. Petitions to lie on the table. THE WAR WITH RUSSIA-QUESTIONSTRANSPORT OF TROOPS-LAND CARRIAGE. THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, I gave notice some days ago to the noble Duke the Secretary of War that I should take an opportunity of putting to him some questions of considerable importance with regard to the army now employed in Turkey. The first of these questions relates to the transport of troops to Turkey. The House of Commons, a few days ago, voted a sum of not less than 3,096,000l. for that purpose. That appears to me, my Lords, a startling sum; and I must say that, at the commencement, as we now are, of a very expensive, a very difficult, and, I fear, a very long war, it appears to me to be our bounden duty to look most closely into all the details of the expenditure from the very commencement. If we early pay a bill, large as it is, without looking into its details, we shall soon come into difficulty, and there will be a general reluctance on the part of the people to prosecute a war that is so expensively and perhaps so recklessly conducted. I have seen that the expenditure for transport of troops is 3,096,000l.; and as far as I can gather from what has been stated in another place by a Minister of the Crown, we have already sent 25,000 troops, and I believe the total number to be sent is 27,000, and, as far as I can calculate, the number of horses for cavalry and artillery will be about 5,000. Now, my Lords, the expense for which any lady or gentleman can proceed to India, round the Cape of Good Hope, with every possible comfort, is about 1007.; so that, if every individual soldier had been sent to Turkey at the same rate of expenditure at which a lady or gentleman could proceed to India, the expense would have been 2,700,000l. I find, also, that the expense of sending a gentleman's horse to India, without any additional charge for attendance-which in this case would not be incurred, as there is a soldier to every horse is 50l.; so that, if all these horses had been sent to India round the Cape, the expense would have been 250,000l.; consequently, the whole expense of sending these horses and these ladies and gentlemen round the Cape to India would have been 2,950,000l.—that is, it would have been less by 146,000l. than the amount of cost of sending these 27,000 men and 5,000 horses to Turkey. My Lords, I thought, in considering this subject, that it was ad visable to look back to what had been the Lords, that this statement is not suggestive expenditure under the head of transport in of any blame to the Government, or to any former times, and I selected, as the most officer of the Government, but that it jusconvenient time to refer to, the year 1808, tifies me in asking for some explanation a year in which great expenditure occurred of the items of which that large sum is on account of the war in the Peninsula. composed. My Lords, I may mention In that year, when it must be remembered one circumstance which fell under my that there was a depreciation in the cur- own knowledge, and which induces me to rency of nearly 18 per cent, what was the think that the detention of transport ships expenditure? I find that in that year the may have some effect upon the great bulk whole charge for transport was 2,900,000l., of this charge. On the 8th of March but that included a sum of 800,000l. for I went on board two transport vessels, and the maintenance of prisoners of war; so on inquiring how long they had been enthat the whole sum, including the depre- gaged, I found that they had been engaged ciation to which I have referred, was from ten days to a fortnight, and that 2,100,000.-that is to say, very nearly they were ready to receive troops in three 1,000,000l. less than the sum asked for to days. This was on the 8th March, and pay the transport expenses of the present they sailed about the 8th of April; so year. Now, my Lords, we have been told that an additional expenditure had been inthat never had exertions so great been curred by the detention of those vessels-made as at the present moment, and I in the case of one of them of 1,800l., in thought it as well to look back to the the case of the other, of 1,350l. These year 1808 to see what took place then. were only two vessels; and there are a I find that in that year the troops which great number, for, as your Lordships are were sent from this country greatly ex- aware, the cavalry is only now on the point ceeded in number the force which has now of sailing, while the ships necessary for been put in motion for service in Turkey. their transport have been in the hands of I find that in that year, at an early period the Government for a considerable period. of the year, 10,000 men were transported There is another matter of a totally distinct to Sweden; at a later period 5,000 men nature about which I also wish to put a were despatched to Gibraltar, and by the question to my noble Friend—and that is, close of the year the number of men sent to I wish to ask him in what manner it is prothe Peninsula amounted to 49,000. In ad- posed by Government to pay the troops dition to that force there were also 6,696 now serving in Turkey? I have made horses; so that there were nearly 1,700 such inquiries as I could with regard to the horses and 22,000 men more sent to the currency in Turkey, and I have ascertained. Peninsula than we have now sent to Turkey; that that currency is depreciated 82 per and yet the expense of transport in that year cent, that the silver currency is only copper was nearly 1,000,000l. less than in the pre-washed with silver, and that the copper is sent year. My Lords, I must say that it is necessary to make some deduction from the charge for transports for the present year, because I think that there are charges under that head which were not paid by the transport department in the year 1808. I have selected a few items, amounting to 293,000l., which ought to be deducted on that account, including 160,000l. for coals for the engines, which of course could not occur in the year 1808; and after that deduction I find that the total charge for the present year is above 2,800,000l. I have already stated that the charge in 1808, after deducting the amount required for the maintenance of prisoners of war, was 2,100,000l.; so that the real difference is 700,0007.; and, if to this I add the sum of 468,0007. on account of the depreciation of the currency 18 per cent, the practical difference becomes 1,168,000l. I think, my VOL. CXXXIII. [THIRD SERIES.] visible at the edges of the coin and on the inscription. That currency is undergoing still greater depreciation, and the sovereign which in January was worth 125 piastres, is now, I understand, worth 150 piastres. It is, therefore, quite impossible that Government can pay the troops in the currency of the country. I understand that at Malta and at Corfu the troops are paid in the currency of England; but there is a difficulty in Turkey connected with our currency which does not exist at Malta or Corfu. The English soldier may have shillings, and the French soldier may have francs worth one-sixth less than our shillings; but the English coin meeting the French coin in the market will hardly obtain the value of this difference in exchange. It may be advisable to coin tenpenny pieces, nearly equivalent to the franc, to avoid this loss; but in Turkey the F I larger the coin with which the soldier goes know what measures have been adopted to into the market the larger will be the loss, afford the means of moving the army in from the demand for small coin which he Turkey? My Lords, I see by the public must have to make his purchases with. I press that it is a common error in this should propose enabling the soldiers to go country to suppose that the moment these into the market with a still smaller cur- troops are landed with their cavalry and rency more nearly resembling the silver artillery, the officer in command can move coin of twopence; and it would be desirable, them wherever he pleases, or wherever the I think, to strike a number of those coins exigencies of the service may require. and distribute them, because they would There cannot be a more grievous error. I nearly correspond with the current value of do not state this upon my own authority, the piastre. I will venture to mention to but I will take the liberty of reading to your Lordships that in the Indian army your Lordships an extract from a letter there is in almost every regiment a person which I received about twenty-five years whose duty it is to change rupees into pice ago from the late Duke of Wellington, and -the rupee contains sixty-four pice, and which referred particularly to the condition. he is permitted to give sixty-three pice. It of the Russian army in Turkey in the is found practically to be of great conveni- campaign then in course of progress. ence; and I apprehend that the Govern- had written to the Duke to ask him to be ment would do well to consider whether good enough to state his views as to the they cannot in some manner give the best mode of conducting any future war in English troops in Turkey the same advan- Burmah in which this country might be entage as that possessed by the troops in gaged. The Duke in his reply pointed out India from this arrangement. They need the cause of the vast expense of war beyond not employ natives in this matter; their sea as being the transport of animals, withwhole staff need not extend beyond the out which it was impossible to move an army, regimental paymaster; and I see no reason and he pointed out the great advantage the why arrangements could not be made Russians then bad in being able to transthrough the Commissariat, which would port troops by sea within a short distance place the paymaster in a position that of Constantinople; but that those troops would enable him to make the rate of ex- could not move for want of animals and change more favourable than the soldier were thus useless. Now, it is, of course, could otherwise obtain. If the paymaster impossible for me to judge what may be were enabled to pay the soldiers in small the amount of our force in Turkey which silver coin, they would at the same time may be employed in operations inland, and afford them an opportunity of changing what part may be required for garrison the small silver coin for the current coin of duty at Gallipoli or Constantinople, or for the country. This arrangement is sus- operations upon the shores of the Black tained by its uniformly satisfactory practice Sea. That, of course, rests entirely with in India. I am aware that what I am Her Majesty's Government to decide; but suggesting is not in accordance with the I will say, that even where our troops are rules of political economy, and that it interferes with individual enterprise and fair competition in the market; but I am satisfied that the individual enterprises of the Armenian shoof would be too strong for the individual ignorance of the troops. The provisions-everything they require for the soldiers would be cheated, and would become exceedingly angry, and the result of that anger might be, that blows would be introduced into the currency of the market, and exercise a considerable influence on the price of commodities, while the coin on the other side might be knives and stilettos. These are inconveniences which ought not to exist, and I recommend my noble Friend (the Duke of Newcastle) to take the matter into serious consideration. There is one other point to which I wish to call the attention of the noble Duke. I desire to The Earl of Ellenborough in garrison, as they may be considered to be at Gallipoli, even there some animals are required for the purpose of alleviating the labour of the troops, for the purpose of enabling them to bring stores, ammunition, service-from the shore, which is at a distance, I understand, of nearly seven miles from the camp. More than that; if troops are to be removed by sea to any point upon the shores of the Black Sea, even there animals will be required; for that force, when thrown on shore for the purpose, it may be, of besieging a fortress must land heavy guns-must bring up all its provisions from the beach-all its stores and matériel. In former times no provisionor, at all events, very inadequate provision was made for the purpose of enabling |
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