§ Mr. Shawrose, pursuant to notice, to move that the Petition of Mr. Thomas Baker (presented on the 20th of March) be referred to a Select Committee. He said that the facts to which he had to advert lay within a small compass, and might be briefly stated to the House. The hon. and learned Member for the city of Dublin, in consequence of stating that he had been misled by the agent for the petitioners in the case of the Dublin city election, obtained a postponement of the ballot. After this, the agent, Mr. Baker, of 29, Spring-gardens, made an affidavit, and presented a petition to the House embodying that affidavit in which he positively denied the statement of the 1066 hon. and learned Gentleman. Mr. Baker, it would be perceived, considered himself bound to pursue this course, not only from motives purely personal, but from the very awkward position in which he was put as an agent. The hon. and learned Member had gained his object in the postponement; and this he had done by means of the statement he had made in the House; and he (Mr. Shaw) believed that the House would think, that if a statement effecting the purpose which he who made it had in view, went still further and affected the character and the interests of a third party, and if the individual so injured anxiously sought and prayed for an investigation of the facts and circumstances, it would be but justice to grant it to him. Mr. Baker had, in the strongest manner, contradicted the statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman, which cast the severest imputations upon him. Mr. Baker had verified that contradiction by affidavit. The hon. and learned Gentleman had, in consequence of this, thought fit to charge Mr. Baker in that House with perjury; and therefore it was that Mr. Baker came before them to ask only that the affair might be investigated by a Select Committee, or that the facts might be examined into, and witnesses heard at the Bar of the House. It was his wish to shun all party and personal feelings in this matter; he should, therefore, propose, to guard against all tinge of party spirit, that the Committee should consist of impartial Gentlemen, taken from amongst the Scotch and English Members, and that nobody connected with Ireland should be permitted to sit upon it. He would not sit upon it himself. He was happy to recollect that the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer had expressed himself in terms favourable to this view of the case. That right hon. Gentleman had said, that the statement of a Member of that House was, so far as it affected his own interests, entitled to all possible attention; and that if an agent, or any professional man connected with the proceedings of the House, were, indeed, guilty of such conduct as that laid to his charge by the hon. and learned Gentleman, the House would be justified in interfering, and visiting the offending individual with the consequences of its displeasure. He was anxious to put the matter into the hands of the house. Mr. Baker would be delighted to have the 1067 question fully investigated by a Select Committee, or he was ready to be examined, with other witnesses, at the bar of the House. He had only to add, that he was actuated by no party motives in the course he took. Mr. Baker was a professional gentleman of high character and great ability. In presenting his petition, and making the present Motion, he was only doing his duty towards him, as any other Member of Parliament with whom he was acquainted would have done. He was happy to believe that the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Cumberland, and the Member for Northumberland took the same view of the question as he took. He had prepared a list of a Committee, to which he did not apprehend any objection would be raised. He concluded by moving, that the petition be referred to a Select Committee.
§ The petition was read at length.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, that, as particular reference had been made by the right hon. Gentleman to the part he had taken on this question, he felt it necessary to say a word or two. A statement had been made in that House by one hon. Member, and confirmed by another, that they had been, in the case of an election petition, thrown off their guard by a declaration of Mr. Baker, to the effect that it was not his intention to proceed with a petition with which he did subsequently proceed. He then took the liberty of expressing an opinion, that if these facts were proved against the agent, Mr. Baker, he was guilty of conduct as to the proceedings of the House, which would authorize it to interpose; for if such conduct were suffered, there would be no security for any sitting Member who was attacked. He had said, that the conduct of Mr. Baker was a fit subject for inquiry, and from that he would not recede. He saw nothing which should induce him to change his opinion. But the question should be, in his mind, treated strictly as a judicial one, and as one affecting the integrity and justice of their proceedings. The right hon. Gentleman had very properly declined sitting himself, and proposed to exclude all Members against whom there could be any reasonable objection. He would, moreover, suggest, that the Committee should be confined to a few impartial men; and to a Committee of this description he saw no objection.
Mr. O'Connellsaid, that, on his part, there could, be no objection. The thing 1068 was quite plain. Four persons stated the matter in one way; one man stated it another way. One of the newspapers had erred in stating that Mahon was the fourth person present. Mahon came in with Baker, and they went out together, and then Baker came back and disclaimed both the petitions. The four persons present were the agent, Sir Robert Sydney, his clerk, Mr. Ruthven, and himself (Mr. O'Connell). The matter, indeed, was too plain to require any Committee.
§ Mr. Humedeprecated a departure on the present occasion from the strict principle on which the proceedings of the House were conducted. If they granted this Committee, they would make a bad precedent—one which would justify any attorney a hundred miles off, who was engaged in getting up a plan, and against whom anything had been said in that house, to ask for a Select Committee. Besides, after the declaration they had heard from his hon. and learned Friend, what could the petitioner, with four witnesses against him, expect from a Committee? He protested against a departure from the usual course and ordinary exercise of the powers of the House. It would be, in his opinion, most unwise for the House to agree to the appointment of this Committee; and certainly, unless he heard something more convincing as to the propriety of such a course, he should demur and call upon the House not to admit such an innovation of its ordinary regulations.
§ Mr. Robinsonsaid, that when this matter was last before the House, he had observed that the appointment of a Committee would only lead to recrimination between the parties, and would end in no satisfactory result. He still entertained the same opinion, and he entirely concurred with the hon. Member for Middlesex in thinking it would be extremely inconvenient for the House to establish any such precedent. It was not enough that the hon. and learned Member for Dublin should desire the investigation on Mr. Baker's account—it was not enough that he should be anxious for the investigation on his own account, or that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was willing, on the part of the Government, to consent to it; but the House was, in his opinion, bound to ask itself whether any public object could arise from the inquiry, and if not, to quash the proceeding at once, 1069 Personally he had no feeling on the subject. He did not know any of the parties; but he wished to deprecate the beginning of a practice by which the House might by any individual be called upon to interfere in matters with which the public had nothing to do. He therefore called upon the House to concur with him in the expression of an opinion adverse to the proposition, and not to allow its time and that of the public (for their time was public property) to be thrown away by the discussion of motions like the present.
§ Mr. Humesaid, that he should be extremely sorry to be compelled to go to a division on this Question; and, after what had occurred, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin would prevent it by consenting to withdraw his motion.
§ Sir Robert Peelconcurred in thinking that the House ought to look at the consequences which, by possibility, might result from the adoption of the present Motion. It appeared to him that the petitioner had done every thing that a gentleman and a man of integrity would do under similar circumstances; but he could not see why the House should institute a judicial inquiry into those circumstances. For his own part, he thought every principle would dictate to the House to decline the appointment of a Committee on the subject. If such a Committee were appointed, there would be conflicting testimony, and after all, probably, even if the Committee sat as a court of honour, no result would be arrived at. Mr. Baker had taken a proper course to vindicate his own character, and there might have been misapprehensions on both sides; it would only increase difficulties by consenting to this Motion. He (Sir R. Peel) had but a very imperfect recollection of what had occurred when the subject was last under discussion, but upon the whole, he confessed that he thought it would be better that his right hon. Friend should withdraw his Motion.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerhoped the House would think that in the part he had taken on the present occasion he had only acted in consonance with the course he had adopted on the former discussion. Whatever the feeling of the House might be on the Question, he was sure it would be well not to adopt any precedent from which inconvenience might arise.
§ Mr. Shawsaid, that in a case in which 1070 personal character was involved, he felt some difficulty in consenting to withdraw the Motion. Mr. Baker had laboured for a considerable time under a serious imputation, and in withdrawing the Motion, he could not admit that any imputation rested upon that individual. If he thought the charge was supposed by the House to be well founded, he should feel it his duty to persevere in the course he had followed, and it was with great reluctance that he yielded to the general feeling of the House.
§ The Motion was withdrawn.