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The following Protest against the New Sessional Orders has been, entered by Lord Radnor upon the Journals of the House of Lords:—
DISSENTIENT.
- "1. Because I think it is unseemly, impolitic, and of bad example, that the House should, to meet the supposed emergency of a particular case, alter by ex post facto Resolutions its own established regulations, and thus enable certain parties to violate engagements which others had entered into with them on the faith of those regulations.
- "2. Because such a proceeding impairs (if it does not totally destroy) the confidence which should be reposed on the regulations of this House.
- "3. Because the real purport and ultimate effect of these Resolutions are not to bring about any public or national object, connected with the construction of the proposed railways, but gratuitously to relieve parties (whether companies or private individuals) from engagements which they have wantonly and heedlessly contracted.
- "4. Because if it were expedient to put an end to these engagements, the responsibility and onus of taking the necessary steps for that purpose should be left to the parties themselves, and not be undertaken by the House.
- "5. Because the House thus goes out of its way to interpose in, and intermeddle with, the affairs of private parties.
- "6. Because, in truth, the parties intended thus to be relieved have in many cases incurred their responsibilities without any view to the public good, but merely in the spirit of reckless gambling, for their own private gain, and have, therefore, no claim to so unusual an interposition on their behalf.
- "7. Because the House thus holds out an expectation that on future similar occasions it may be induced to afford similar relief; and thus, if it does not directly encourage such a spirit, it does not discourage it, or throw such a stigma on it as according to every principle of sound policy and good morals it is bound to do.
- "8. Because this unprecedented and mischievous proceeding appears to me the more uncalled for, even in the view of its supporters, as there is now before the House a Bill which will enable the persons to whom these Resolutions apply to effect the same object directly for themselves, and there is no reason to anticipate that it will not pass into a law."