§ MR. C. BULLERsaid, that he wished to ask a question of the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department. He had learned with great regret that the Government persisted in taking the first reading of the Irish Coercion Bill, or whatever else it might be called, on Monday next, as the Motion must lead to a warm and lengthy debate. He had moved for Returns of the outrages which had been committed in Ireland during a certain period, but they had not been presented; and he thought it rather hard that the House should be called on to enter upon a discussion of that measure without knowing the real grounds on which they ought to proceed. He wanted to know, therefore, whether the right hon. Baronet 272 would undertake to place the information for which he had asked in the hands of Members by Monday, or whether his inability to furnish it would not be a sufficient reason for not entering into a discussion for which the House would not be prepared.
§ SIR J. GRAHAMregretted very much that anything should interrupt the progress of the Corn Law; but the Government had already declared their intention to proceed on Monday with the first reading of the Bill for the Protection of Life in Ireland. He believed that in the House of Lords no Papers were produced; but that the Members of that House agreed to the measure upon the statement of the noble Earl by whom it was brought forward. The Returns for which the hon. Member had moved could not yet be produced in a perfect form; but he should have hoped that the Bill might have been read a first time without opposition, as was usually done, as a matter of courtesy, with a Bill which came down from the other House of Parliament. With the single exception of the Coercion Bill of 1833, he believed that every Bill which came down from the other House was read a first time as a matter of course. A resistance to the first reading would be, to say the least, very unusual; and he only regretted that it would be his duty, on Monday next, at five o'clock, to move that the Protection of Life (Ireland) Bill be read a first time.
§ House adjourned at five minutes to Three o'clock.