§ Order for Committee read.
§ Account of Moneys in the Exchequer [presented 12th July], and Estimate of Monument to Sir Robert Peel [presented 25th July], referred.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair."
§ COLONEL SIBTHORPbegged to move the Amendment of which he had given notice. He had no personal motive in moving as he did in this matter, but stood forward simply to speak for those who could not individually stand forward for themselves. He knew Well he would have the sense of the House against him on this matter. He could not command success, but he would nevertheless do his duty. It was a crying shame that a set of begging-boxes of all descriptions should have been sent about in behalf of this Exhibition, and that the highest in the land, the highest in rank, except the Sovereign, should be going about to extort money by threats, for the purpose of carrying on a measure so injurious to the interests of this country. No less than 1,500 foreigners had been disembarked in this country yesterday, many of whom, no doubt, had been surveying the ground where this Exhibition was to take place, and looking after matters with a view to their own interests.
§
Amendment proposed—
To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to direct the Attorney General to give his sanction to the filing of the proposed Information for an Injunction to restrain the erection of any buildings in any part of Hyde Park for the intended Exhibition of 1851,' instead thereof.
The ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he had already entered fully into the grounds on which he had thought it his duty to refuse his signature to the information which had been laid before him, and he did not propose to repeat that statement. The hon. and gallant Gentleman now proposed an address to the Queen to direct the Attorney General to give his sanction to the filing of an information for an injunction to restrain the erection of certain buildings in Hyde Park. Now, he was satisfied that no lawyer would say the Attorney General had not a discretionary power in this matter. But what was it the hon. Gentleman proposed? He asked the House to call upon the Crown to interfere with the first law officer of the Crown upon a question with which the House was not at all conversant, a proposal which he was satisfied would never receive their sanction.
§ Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.