HC Deb 25 July 1872 vol 212 cc1760-1
MR. BOWRING

said, that he begged to call Mr. Speaker's attention for one moment to a question of Privilege, which affected himself personally. The hon. and gallant Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North)—whom he had requested to attend in his place that afternoon—had, in continuation of a violent and entirely unprovoked personal attack upon him (Mr. Bowring), which the House strongly resented at the time, on the occasion of the recent debate respecting the payment of the legal expenses of ex-Governor Eyre, felt it becoming, without giving any previous notice whatever to him—of the fairness of which he would leave the House to judge—to place upon the Paper a Notice of a Question to be addressed by him on Monday next to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which was equally un-Parliamentary in its wording, and, to those who understood its drift, improper in its insinuations. As he (Mr. Bowring) considered this Question—whatever gloss or interpretation the hon. and gallant Member might hereafter place upon it—to be distinctly intended by him to contain an imputation upon his personal honour and veracity, he (Mr. Bowring) had risen for the purpose of saying that he positively objected to the Question being under any circumstances withdrawn from the Notice of the House; and if the hon. and gallant Member were not present to ask the Question himself on Monday next, he (Mr. Bowring) should invite some hon. Gentleman to ask it in his place.