§ MR. NEWDEGATErose to call attention to a patter personal to himself, and likewise touching the privileges of the House. During the Recess a great number of comments upon his conduct, and upon the observations he made in moving for the Select Committee of Inquiry respecting Monastic and Conventual Institutions had appeared in letters and articles, and it was surprising that writers in newspapers should venture to assail a Member of the House in a manner of which he should now proceed to give one instance. On Saturday last The Tablet contained the following statement:—
We hear that in the clubs people are beginning to ask how it is that Mr. Newdegate can suffer 'the lie to be given' him, as he has by Sir Charles Clifford, Father Gordon, Mr. Langdale, and others, and not come forward like a man and attempt to substantiate his charges or to retract them.The House would observe that this was not only a libel itself, it was a compendium of libels, and that, therefore, it constituted a gross breach of the privileges of that House. He now begged to state that nothing should induce him to take 1729 any action out of the House, either in Courts of Law or elsewhere, in reference to statements based on observations of his own made in that House, and bearing on a matter which the House had appointed a Select Committee to consider. He felt it due to himself to state that, in deference to the privileges of the House, he would be tempted by no insult to submit this matter either directly or indirectly to the Courts of Law, or to any other tribunal than that the appointment of which the House had been pleased to order. He was convinced that these imputations were deliberately made. He made this statement, because in 1865, after he had proposed the appointment of a Committee of a somewhat similar character, which was not agreed to by the House, he was pursued by the same person in the most insulting manner, with a view, he was convinced., to deter him from the performance of his duty in that House, by endeavouring to force him to seek some other tribunal nut appointed by the House for the solution of questions as to his veracity raised by similar imputations, and thereby to induce him to waive his privilege as a Member of the House. This deterring system was not only attempted against himself, but also, he understood, against witnesses, whoso testimony might be needed for the inquiry, and this seemed to him to constitute a direct and deliberate breach of the privileges of the House. He was prepared to uphold the truth of the statements which he had made in the House; but when speaking on the 29th of March he committed one error which he now desired to correct. He stated, on moving for the Select Committee, that the daughter of a respectable person in this town was persuaded to enter a convent at Hammersmith before she was 16 years old. That was an error, for the convent referred to was at Finchley. He would not now go into the reasons which led to this confusion; but he hoped the House would excuse his explaining that it was in deference to the decision of the House to appoint a Select Committee, before which the truth of his statements might be tested, and in deference to the privileges of the House, that he refrained from taking any further steps in reference to the gross libel to which he had called attention.