On the 4th of March, Mr. Gladstone moved the committal of the bill. Mr. Turner, Mr. Powell, Mr. T. Hankey, Sir Minto Farquhar, and several other members, protested against going on with the bill without an opportunity for full discussion, and most of them expressing great dissatisfaction with the Government proposals relating to Life Insurance, the Chancellor endeavoured to separate the bill into two parts, to pass that having reference to Annuities, and to defer the consideration of the clauses relating to Insurances to a subsequent period. The debate was adjourned. Three days afterwards Mr. Gladstone made a long and elaborate speech in defence of his proposals, and addressed himself with great earnestness and power to the task of disabusing the public mind of the many erroneous impressions which within a very short time had taken possession of it. The history of his proposals was a short and simple one. In the autumn of the previous year the Registrar of Friendly Societies, in his Report for 1862, had recorded an unusual number of very gross abuses and violations of trust on the part of those Societies. The Report was in fact full of a multitude of complaints from persons in all parts of the country, who called for redress. So important had the facts been regarded that at least two important journals[198] had published several articles calling attention to the scandalous condition of these institutions. It had been suggested to him (Mr. Gladstone) that the subject of small life assurances, having already received in principle the sanction of Parliament, ought, under these circumstances, and the fact of an excellent machinery in connexion with the Post Office being ready for use, to be again considered by the Government. He agreed with this view of the case, and had now proposed to take action upon it. It is almost impossible to give an account in detail of the speech which followed; next to the Budget speech, it was the longest which Mr. Gladstone made in the session of 1864. We can, however, and ought to describe its principal points. Mr. Gladstone observed that no one considered Savings Banks, Annuities, or Insurances to be, abstractedly, matters desirable for the Government to deal with. But the Post Office Savings Banks which that House had legalized, though interfering distinctly with other interests, had produced great and lasting results; so likewise had the Factory Acts, though they likewise had greatly interfered with the liberty of private action. This bill, however, prohibited nothing whatever. "I do not deny that it is Government interference, or that it requires justification or apology; but I do deny that we are to be frightened and terrified by clamours respecting centralization, or respecting undue assumptions of power by the Executive." "All that is requisite in such a case is to show that what the Government proposes it can do safely, and likewise that what it proposes it can do