§ On the motion of lord Castlereagh, the clerk read the following passages from the Speech of his royal highness the Prince Regent, on the opening of the session:—
§ "I regret to have been under the necessity of calling you together at this period of the year; but the seditious practices so long prevalent in some or the manufacturing districts of the country, have been continued with increased acti- 379 vity since you were last assembled in parliament.
§ "They have led to proceedings incompatible with the public tranquillity, and with the peaceful habits of the industrious classes of the community; and a spirit is now fully manifested, utterly hostile to the constitution of this kingdom, and aiming not only at the change of these political institutions, which have hitherto constituted the pride and security of this country, but at the subversion of the rights of property, and of all order in society.
§ "I have given directions that the necessary information on this subject shall be laid before you, and I feel it to be my indispensable duty to press on your immediate attention the consideration of such measures as may be requisite for the counteraction and suppression of a system, which, if not effectually checked, must bring confusion and ruin on the nation."
Lord Castlereaghsaid, that in rising pursuant to his notice to call the attention of the House to the state of the country, as described in the passages which had just been read from his royal highness the Prince Regent's most gracious Speech, he confessed that he never felt a more awful impression of the painfulness and difficulty of any task that he had undertaken to execute. It was painful, for what could give greater pain to a minister of the crown than to be required by an imperative sense of duty to propose to parliament the adoption of measures of a restrictive and coercive nature? It was difficult—for while the House, the country, and every loyal British subject were entitled in the present serious crisis—a crisis, indeed, of imminent danger, unless parliament met the evil with manly firmness and vigour—to look to his majesty's ministers for the means of affording adequate security for life and property, and for the safety of the constitution, they were entitled to claim from his majesty's government that they should make any propositions which they might determine on bringing forward, as much as possible, in the spirit of the constitution under which we happily lived; and to expect, that while they recommended the measures which to them appeared calculated to meet the public exigency, they should not forget the sacred principles of right and liberty, which had made Great Britain a source of admiration and envy to all surrounding nations. He 380 could assure the House, that his majesty's government were most anxious to secure this double object; and while they directed their efforts against the abuses by which the public tranquillity was menaced, to protect as much as possible the best and dearest interests of the people. Having endeavoured to reconcile these conflicting principles, his majesty's ministers looked with confidence for the support in that House of a large portion of those who differed from them on questions of general policy, as they were most earnest in wishing to preserve the freedom of the subject, while they purged the land of the evils that the abuse of that freedom had generated.
As the House naturally looked to him for an intelligible detail of the circumstances which made the measures he intended to propose necessary, as well as of the nature of those measures, he felt he must occupy their attention for a considerable portion of time. He should now, without any further preface, even though some of the measures were to originate in the other house, offer all of them to their consideration, in order that no member might give an opinion upon them without seeing the full scope of each individual proposition, both as an isolated proposition, and as a proposition connected with others, and without being able to judge whether they would so fit in with each other as to make a perfect and consistent whole. He should, of course, support each and all of these measures, and the general principles upon which they were founded; but, in order to save the time of the House, he should not enter into any minute reasonings upon them at present, but state them broadly though distinctly. In order the more fully to direct the attention of the House to this point, he hoped he might for the present be allowed to assume as fact, the existence of the evils which the measures in question went to correct, not depriving the House of the right of discussing this part of the subject at any future stage of their proceedings. He would then assume for the present on the authority of the Speech from the throne, that great danger existed in the country; that there had been disclosed in the country a spirit which was incompatible with the constitution of the kingdom—that it threatened the destruction of all those rights which were most valuable—and that it aimed not only at the change of all those poli- 381 tical institutions which had hitherto constituted the pride and security of the country, but also at the subversion of property, and of course of all those rights on which society depended, which, if not speedily checked, was calculated to overthrow the principles upon which the property and happiness of society rested. These facts he had a right to consider as fortified by the speech of the right hon. member who moved the amendment to the address, as well as by the statements of several of the hon. members who supported it. That right hon. member had admitted, that there had gone abroad a wild and impracticable spirit of reform, which menaced not only the happiness of society generally, but more particularly the interests of the poor deluded persons who possessed it, and with several of his friends, had pledged himself to uphold the constitution against such doctrines to the utmost of his power. He was also confirmed in the statement which he had just made, by the opinions which had been formed by a set of gentlemen best calculated to judge of the situation of the country—he meant the magistracy and the grand juries of Cheshire and Lancashire, and of several other counties. If he wanted any farther authority on the subject, he had it in the statement of the noble lord who represented the county of Lancashire, a county containing a million of inhabitants, and possessing a large portion of the wealth and commerce of the country. In that county, according to that noble lord's statement, there existed a spirit of disaffection bordering on rebellion. The hon. member for Taunton also had mentioned the order of things in some of the manufacturing districts to be such as that either the House must put them down without delay, or else they would overpower the constitution, and further, that there were no interests more at stake than those of the poor deluded people by whom such opinions were entertained. From these statements he felt he had a right to assume the existence of that danger which induced his majesty's government to bring forward such measures as they in their consciences believed to be imperatively called for, and most effectual in rescuing the country from its perilous situation. In the statement he was about to make, he should be sorry to make any impression on the country that could be considered as imputing disaffection to the great mass 382 of the people. He had an individual pride (individual, he meant, as he was connected by birth and education with that part of the empire), in stating, that as far as Ireland was concerned, she had never experienced a greater degree of tranquillity, and he might add prosperity, than at this moment. There were, perhaps, one or two exceptions, but they were of a very trifling nature. Long might she continue in that state! Long might she continue to feel the value and importance of that constitutional position in which she had at last had the good sense to place herself, and which he doubted not would prove the source of numerous benefits to her, while it entitled her to the entire confidence of the sister country. In Great Britain, also, he was happy to state that the great body of the agricultural interests never enjoyed a greater state of repose than at this moment; and he hoped he might add, that it was fast recovering from that depression into which it had unhappily fallen. When he said this, he was not insensible to the difficulties with which the landed interest had still to contend; but, comparing its present situation with that in which, at no distant period, it had been, he thought he was warranted in expressing himself in the language which be had used. Considering nothing so important as that the subject should be stripped of all exaggeration, he was bound to state, that even in the manufacturing districts, he believed the loyal were sufficiently strong to put down, by themselves, the disaffected; but this could not be accomplished without risk of great devastation, ruin, and misery. It was not for the state therefore that he trembled, but it was for the inhabitants of certain districts, who had claims on the government for protection, and for the deluded reformers themselves; and on those grounds he called on parliament to support the law and to guard against the evils of a threatened rebellion. Into the causes of the discontent and dissatisfaction which prevailed, he did not feel inclined to enter at present; on a future occasion he should not shrink from discussing them; but all that he should now say was, that as far as his inquiries went (and they had not been scanty), he could not discover that the market for our industry had been narrowed either at home or abroad. At home it had certainly increased, and abroad there was no defalcation but in one instance, which was well 383 calculated to teach the deluded men who were ever complaining of the system of government established in this country, a salutary lesson. The American market was the only one that had tailed us. It was there—in a country which was represented as a perfect paradise—in a country governed under a system which many in England believed it was only necessary to adopt here to relieve us from all our burdens; it was in America that the greatest distress was found to exist, and there our commerce had experienced failures which were unknown in Europe. There had certainly been a depression felt in various branches of our trade from the termination of the war, but these were no more than were to be expected in the common course of things, and to these time alone could bring an effectual remedy. He was confident that no sober-minded rational man could for a moment believe that they were to be removed by any parliamentary interference.
He would now proceed to the most important object of the night, to the remedies which his majesty's ministers proposed to apply to the evils complained of. In enumerating them, he would name them in the order in which the state of the country seemed to call for them. They divided themselves into five heads. He would begin with that which was most pressing in point of time, and name that last which was most important with a view to tranquillising the country. The first subject was the tumultuous meetings which had become common, which were marked with a character wholly different from that of peaceful deliberation, which had never been known in this country till of late years, which were quite an innovation upon all its habits, customs, and prejudices, which were borrowed from the worst days of France, and which conduced most essentially to the progress of the. revolution in that country. The second subject was that part of the system of the disaffected, which, if not checked, would lead to results the most extensively mischievous;—he meant the training of large bodies of men for military, he might add, for rebellious purposes, without the authority of the Crown. The third was more of a local character, and went to give magistrates the extraordinary powers confided to them by an act passed in the year 1812, and enable them to search for and seize arms, where they had a right to believe they were secreted for improper 384 purposes. The fourth measure would go to ensure the more speedy administration of justice in certain cases, and particularly to expedite the trials of those charged with misdemeanors. The fifth went to affect that great and most important engine, the press, but only that part of it, which, in contradiction to the general press of the country, he might be allowed to call the treasonable, blasphemous, and seditious branch of the press. With regard to the first of these measures, he must desire the House to consider the abstract right on which the right of meeting to petition was founded. No man could value more highly than he did the right which the people unquestionably enjoyed to meet to consider on the grievances which they felt, either individually or collectively, and to carry to the foot of the throne or of parliament their petitions for redress of them. From the mode, however, in which this right had recently been laid down, and from the doctrines which had been founded upon it, it appeared to him, that unless common sense was applied to the law which had recently been promulgated on this subject (and law and common sense did not travel so far asunder as some people thought), the abuse of that right must inevitably lead to sanguinary rebellion in the first case; and that which was its never-failing concomitant, military despotism, in the second. He lamented most strongly, and he thought that several of those who had signed the requisitions for county meetings also lamented, that they had stated in such broad terms the right of the people to assemble. He had, however, never seen among the many resolutions which had been adopted any document officially signed, which carried this right to a higher point than the famous one signed by Thistlewood, who, no doubt, had good legal radical assistance. In that document it was stated, that he (Thistlewood) knew of no law that could prevent 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 of persons from assembling; and no magistrate, it went on to say, could touch them till they struck some blow; and that it made no difference whether they met with or without arms, with or without flags, or with or without all that novel paraphernalia which had lately rendered those meetings so conspicuous. Now, he would ask, if this ought, in common law, or in common sense, to be allowed. He would ask, whether it was consistent with common 385 law or with common sense, to assert that the people (and, for the sake of the argument, he was at liberty to assume the whole of the people), might meet at one place, and to say that the magistrates were to stand quiet after the meeting was assembled, until some positive damage was done? If such a principle existed, it proved that the law was, on the face of it, an absurdity, totally ineffectual for the purpose of preserving the lives or liberties of the people. If this were the case, the House must allow him to say, we were living in a country whose government was degraded and debased. If this were the case, then the magistrates must on all occasions have recourse to the aid of the military, of the exercise of whose power the country was so naturally jealous. Was it to be tolerated, that in a country whose constitution was so justly the envy and admiration of other nations, the whole of its industry was to be convulsed—the quiet part of the population were to be alarmed,—not with childish fears, but with just terror—that they were to be driven from their business—obliged to close their shops—that the public mind was to be kept in a state of continual ferment and agitation, by a set of itinerant orators, who marched large bodies of men 25 miles through the country, in military array? The minds of the lower orders in this country, were inflamed by artful tales about sinecures and pensions, and they were told that if these were done away, all their grievances would be at an end. He would take upon himself to say, that if the sinecures which had not yet been abolished, were done away—if the whole pension list were surrendered to their wishes, that the benefit derived would not in ten years give the Manchester cotton-spinner, who could earn 30s. a week, the 5s. which he wasted in one day of idleness to attend a reform meeting. This he could prove to demonstration, and with equal ease could he show, that if the reformers could succeed in their dishonest and destructive scheme of annihilating the national debt, that the withdrawing of the interest of 29,000,000l. of money from general circulation, though it might relieve some who now contributed largely to the taxes, would depress the markets of the country, augment the general distress, and carry ruin to the humble cottage as well as to the mansion of the great. The gentlemen who advocated the doctrine of Thistlewood, ought to re- 386 collect that the law provided against a bellum levatum, as well as a bellum percussion; that meetings even without arms were not allowed to assemble to the terror of his majesty's subjects; and that the magistracy were bound by their oaths to protect the lives and properties of the people, under such circumstances, as far as lay in their power. This fallacious doctrine, however, he was glad to say, was refuted by the late debates in that House, and if no other result had followed from the assembling of parliament, the late discussion was calculated to produce the most beneficial effects in the country. The house and the country were deeply indebted to a right hon. and learned gentleman opposite, for the able and eloquent manner in which he had stated that point on a former evening. Independently of his high legal authority (and higher there was none), there was something so clear and sound in the opinion he gave on the illegality of such meetings, that he must have removed all doubt on the subject. That right hon. and learned gentleman had well said, that although the rights of a British subject allowed him to do every thing which the law did not forbid, he was not permitted to contravene or to trench upon the rights of another. He did not wish to say any thing complimentary of the stream of eloquence which came from his own side of the House; but was there no inference to be drawn from the silence which had prevailed on this subject among the learned and hon. gentlemen opposite? There were occasions when silence was as eloquent, if not more eloquent, than words; and he conceived the present to be one of that nature. He certainly did suppose, that a gentleman of high legal talents on the other side (Mr. Scarlett), notwithstanding his explanations, had pronounced as decided an opinion as was possible, upon the illegality of that meeting, and that he had followed up his argument by making a complaint against his majesty's ministers for suffering several meetings like it (and he had instanced that of Smith-field) to take place subsequently. Another hon. and learned gentleman, who followed in the debate, seemed rather disturbed by the explicitness of this opinion, and therefore introduced into the discussion the swords of the cavalry, which he asserted to have been sharpened for the occasion. That, however, was now exploded. The noble lord opposite had 387 clearly proved, that those swords were sent to be sharpened several days before any intimation was given that a meeting was to be held. Another hon. and learned gentleman, who bore a high, and, he believed, a well-earned reputation in his profession, whom they were to hear tomorrow, had promised to prove the lawfulness of the meeting. With regard to his speech in expectancy, he (lord Castlereagh) had a right to take it on his side of the question; for if that hon. and learned gentleman had felt any difficulty on the subject, the recent decision of the House must, he should conceive, have removed it. This, however, he would maintain, that if any man could still doubt, whether or not meetings such as he had described were legal or illegal, it was high time for parliament to take care that this embarrassment should be felt no more, regarding what was and what was not the law upon the subject.
He would now call the attention of the House to the measures necessary to meet the evil. In framing the proposed remedies, the first object was, to suit the characteristics of the meetings against which they were to be directed. His first enactment would therefore be, the limitation of numbers. The second was intended to prevent persons residing in distant districts from attending meetings in districts where they did not reside. The third was, to prevent the existence of simultaneous meetings, for the House would recollect, that they had it in evidence, in the letter of general Byng, that this plan, though defeated by a schism among the leaders, had been seriously entertained, in order to divide the military power, and thus give the reformers a better opportunity of making a trial of their physical force. These were the three grand points on which he would stand, and for which he would now use a few short, but, as he thought, decisive arguments. Nobody would say, that any bill could effectually meet the evil which did not limit the numbers; and nobody would assert, that by limiting the numbers, they were trenching upon any substantial right of the people: for if deliberation were the object of their meetings, the great numbers in which they had recently assembled were not calculated to aid it. He had no wish to prevent them from assembling, when deliberation was really the object which they had in view; he had no wish to put an end to those meetings which were the peculiar boast of England, and which, till 388 modern times, had been productive of so much benefit and advantage. In latter times, however, these meetings had been of a different kind, and seemed, from the manner in which they were called, and in which they were conducted, to have been borrowed from another country. They had been held under the sanction of the laws to consider of the means best calculated to overturn, by physical force, the very laws under which they met. Far was it from him to call on the House to do any thing that would operate against the ancient and sacred right of the people to petition, under the protection and with the sanction of the magistrates, or the other constituted authorities of the land. He would, on the contrary, give increased facilities to this mode of petitioning. But meetings not called under such authorities, convened by men without character, rank, or fortune, were, in all probability called for improper objects, and therefore were a fit subject for the animadversion of the law, and it was but reasonable that they should assemble under circumstances that gave a sort of prima facie security against outrage; for the House might rely on it, that unless we could reconcile the exercise of our liberties with the preservation of the public peace, our liberties would inevitably perish, and society come to a speedy dissolution. With respect to the local and numerical modes of regulating the constitution of meetings, it was obvious, that when they came to the extent, in point of numbers, to which meetings ought to be allowed to go, it was impossible to fix any precise limit. An hon. gentleman on the other side had said, that meetings ought to be of such a description, as that the civil power would be sufficient to preserve peace, in order to prevent the indignity of calling in the military power. He could assure the hon. gentleman, however, that meetings could not be reduced to such an extent without chilling all deliberation. Besides, nothing could be more calculated to embarrass magistrates than such a limitation of meetings. Therefore he would propose what would effect the object, without encountering those difficulties or objections. From his proposition he would except county meetings, regularly convened, meetings called by corporate bodies, by grand juries, or by five magistrates. With these exceptions every meeting must be preceded by a notice, for a certain number of days to the magistrates of the intention to call such a meet- 389 ing, and must be within the parish of the persons assembling; the natural place for deliberation where they could meet with safety, and without loss of time. In reference to the impropriety and danger of allowing immense multitudes to assemble in the manner which had been recently witnessed, he would read the sentiments of a noble lord, who always looked with the greatest jealousy on every thing that might affect the liberty of the subject, and who could not be suspected of a disposition to curtail any popular right. Lord Erskine, in a publication lately given by him to the world (the Defence of the Whigs), applied the following observations to the public grievance of tumultuary meetings: —"— but holding sacred, as I do, the never-to-be-surrendered right of British subjects to assemble peaceably, to express to each other and to the government of the country their grievances and complaints, yet I feel no difficulty in saying, that nothing can be more obviously useless and mischievous than the assembling of immense multitudes, not in their own communities or neighbourhoods, but by moving upon other thronged and agitated districts. Such meetings, however legal they may be, cannot but be dangerous to the industrious poor, collected at a distance from their own homes, only to disturb the industry of others, aggravating the sufferings of poverty by the interruption of employment, by the hazard of fatal accidents, and the probable temptation to crime." He did not think it necessary to labour this part of the subject farther. In confining meetings to their respective parishes, it was proposed to make it a misdemeanor for any person, not resident in the parish, to attend a meeting in it. Two objects would be effected by this regulation. But before mentioning them he would remark, that some parishes consisted of more than one large township, under distinct overseers, and were so populous, as to require farther limitations as to public meetings. There were in the country about 30 parishes that were extraordinary populous, that was, they contained a population beyond 20,000 souls. No parish whose numbers were under that population was restricted from a meeting of the whole parish. But with respect to the parishes whose population exceeded that number, a power would be given to quarter sessions, who would not be apt to abuse such a power, to divide them into districts, of which each should contain a population 390 not exceeding 10,000. By this arrangement, it was manifest that there was no intention on the part of ministers to reduce meetings in such a manner as to destroy their popular character. They would, on the contrary, become better fitted for the purposes of discussion, at the same time that they would cease to be attended with danger. One hundred thousand persons would no longer assemble, and those individuals who reduced grievance-making into a trade, would no longer have it in their power to travel about the land and poison the minds of men who had not been aware but that they lived under the mildest government, and had not known that their greatest enemy was the House of Commons. The second object was, to prevent the distraction of the attention of magistrates by vast numbers of simultaneous meetings, not perhaps known to them till the very time of meeting, and then often corresponding with other public meetings, fairs, or markets. For that purpose, it would be required of the persons calling meetings to give notice of their intention six days beforehand to the magistrate, in order that he should have time to consider. The magistrate should also be invested with the power, within four days of that fixed for assembling, to change both the time and place, if he should find it proper, so as to defeat any plan which might have been formed to create confusion. The tumultuary character of meetings would thus be removed, and the system of itinerant orators destroyed. Another measure was one with respect to which, he apprehended, there could be but one sentiment in that House; it was, to put a stop to a practice which never had been British, but was borrowed from the worst times of the French revolution. None would be allowed to attend those meetings either armed or in martial array, nor with those symbols which threatened confusion and danger to the peaceable part of the community; and which presented the appearance of an assemblage demanding rather than petitioning for a redress of grievances. It was the law of this country, that a man might possess arms for the protection of his house; but he felt a persuasion that none would contend, that every person was intitled by law to go forth armed. The principle of laying on certain restrictions in this respect was not unknown to our law. That which he proposed was in fact nothing more than a declaratory law, but he 391 should certainly add a clause, which happily had never been called for before in this country, to prevent any kind of arms from being carried to a public meeting. This would extend to county meetings, as well as to meetings confined to the parish, because even a county meeting in this country had been disgraced by all the weapons and symbols of radicalism. All meetings were therefore comprehended in this measure. There was one point on which he should propose no law; it was the part which women had borne in the late transactions, for he trusted that it would be sufficient to restrain them from similar conduct in future, to let them know, that when the French republicans were carrying on their bloody orgies, they could find no female to join them except by ransacking the bagnios and public brothels. He was happy that no female had attended any public meeting in the metropolis. Such a drama would, he trusted, be put an end to by the innate decorum and the innate sense of modesty which the women of this country possessed, and which would purge the country of this disgrace. The bill which he should propose would, therefore, limit meetings (with the exceptions which he had mentioned) to the parish; would require six days notice to be given to the magistrate before a meeting; would invest the magistrate with the power of changing the day and place within four days of its being held; and would make it an illegal offence for non-residents to attend; or for persons to come with arms or revolutionary symbols, giving a French character to British transactions. The magistrates would of course be empowered to seize such persons, and take them away from the meeting; for, to render the measure effective, it was necessary to strengthen the hands of the magistracy, that they might resist the inroads of people not belonging to their parish. He did not mean that they should turn out any individual whom curiosity might have led to the spot; but if the influx of strangers-had a tendency to endanger the peace, or change the nature of the meeting, they should read a proclamation, ordering all strangers to withdraw. If this proclamation was not obeyed, they might then pronounce the meeting to be illegal, and dissolve it. A quarter of an hour would be allowed for the strangers to retire, and half an hour for the meeting to disperse. If after that time more than twelve individuals were found assembled, 392 he should propose to make it not felony with death, but a clergyable felony.—If the hon. and gallant general who had cheered his last statement, was acquainted with the principle of the Riot act, he must be aware that any person standing out against authority was guilty of felony. In 1817 (he did not know whether the gallant general was then a member of that House) a similar principle was acted upon. It would be, in the proposed measure, a clergyable felony; but as parish meetings could not require the usual time to disperse after proclamation, only a quarter of an hour would be allowed for strangers to withdraw, and in half an hour afterwards the meeting should become illegal.
The second subject to which he would call their attention was, the practice of training and drilling. He had omitted however to remark, that debating societies not regulated by a magistrate's licence, were, as by the bill of 1817, included in the restriction which he had detailed. The practice of training and drilling was foreign to every principle of our constitution, and must be reprobated by all who agreed in sustaining constitutional principles. Training, with or without arms, and all military manæuvres, would be prohibited. Meetings for those purposes would be rendered illegal, and magistrates might disperse them at their discretion. A distinction would be made between the drillers and the drilled, because the drillers must be supposed to be more intelligent than the drilled. It was most gratifying to him to be able to say, that, although it had been reported that old soldiers, forgetting their allegiance, had assisted in training others in military exercises, and that although in one or two cases it might be so, yet that the offence had been seldom imitated, and that in general nothing could be more exemplary than the conduct of those who having been the first to take up arms in the service of their country, had been the first at the return of peace to lay them down. For drillers, not only would fine and imprisonment be assigned as a punishment, but it was intended to vest in the court the power of transporting those convicted of that offence, if they thought proper. He now came to the third head. The state of the country, and the secret and seditious practices which prevailed in certain parts of it, called loudly upon parliament to enact some measure without delay for the 393 detection of arms provided for an illegal purpose. The measure he would propose would be drawn from a similar measure which he had proposed to the House in 1812 (the Disarming act for the midland counties). It would extend only to certain counties, but it might be extended to others at the desire of the lord-lieutenant of any county. There was no principle introduced by this measure which could be considered new, always connecting it with the actual state of certain parts of the country; and it would be liable like the measure of 1812 to be repealed if found unnecessary.
Another measure which he had to submit to them, respected the unbounded licence of delay which existed in certain cases of misdemeanor, and it would provide that such persons should go to trial immediately, unless they showed cause to the contrary. No principle could be more congenial to the spirit of the laws, and no measure more called for by the situation of the country, than one which would render the administration of justice in these cases more prompt. An individual charged with a crime which affected his life, was immediately put upon his trial: but in cases of misdemeanors, the accused had it in his power to postpone his trial, so as to defeat the ends of justice, perhaps for a year and a half. The object was, to make such a regulation as would bring misdemeanors more nearly, in that respect, to the state of graver and capital cases. He must observe, however, without stating technical reasons, there were instances in which some delay must take place, as in cases in which there were rights of removing by certiorari from inferior to superior courts. The object of the new law would be, to reduce the time as much as possible, without reducing those rights. On this point it was unnecessary for him to enter into any further explanations; but he should add, that the measure would be connected with another, which the state of the country, he trusted, justified his majesty's ministers in bringing forward, and which should consist in an attempt at realizing the intention which they had long entertained, of facilitating the administration of justice in the country by some regulation respecting the going judges. The long interval between the autumn and spring assizes afforded great opportunities for escaping due punishment, and presented difficulties in repressing dangerous and seditious practi- 394 ces. It would, therefore, be matter of consideration, whether a system could not be arranged that would give a third assize to those counties. His majesty's ministers would have been liable to the charge of having acted upon ex-post-facto principles, if they had proceeded against the individuals charged with a misdemeanor in the county of Lancaster, per saltum, and that was the reason why they had not appointed a special commission, as the accused would thereby have been deprived of the power of traversing.
He now came to what he had postponed to the last, as being, in every constitutional point of view, the most difficult and the most important—he meant the danger which arose from the abuses of the public press. He was very happy to say, that the measure which he had to propose to meet this danger, applied only to what he might call the treasonable and seditious press of the country—to that class of publications, which, unfortunately as the law now stood, were made vehicles for the dissemination not merely of treason and sedition, but also of blasphemy. It was in his opinion utterly impossible for the mind of man long to withstand the torrent of criminal and seductive reasoning which was now incessantly poured out to the lower orders; and unless some remedial principle could be hit upon, compatible with the genius of the constitution, not only all the other measures which he had proposed would be inadequate for the restoration of tranquillity, but the mind of the country could never settle down to industry and content. He was ready to admit that this country owed much of the intelligence and high character, for which it was so eminently distinguished, to its free press; and that we could not hope long to retain that envied pre-eminence without the possession of what every rational man would call a free press; but if a free press could not be made compatible with morality, peace and religion, then a free press might become a great evil, and produce effects by which a free press itself and every other right and advantage we possessed, would be swept away in one general ruin. No endeavour then could be more laudable than one to dispel that well-founded alarm which now existed with respect to the press. He conceived, that nothing which he had to propose would strike at, or touch, what might be considered the two great pillars of a free press. Every man would be at liberty to 395 publish his sentiments without any previous investigation into their nature, and without any thing in the shape of a censorship or restraint upon individual discretion. In the second place, nothing should be done to affect the trial by jury as applied to the question of libel in which the jury had the decision of both law and fact. There was no intention to affect the tribunals appointed by law for the trial of libels, or to prevent any man from publishing his sentiments in the first instance; but measures ought to be adopted to cut off the pestilent abuses of the press, because nothing could lower a free press more than such abuses. The first part of the measure he would propose, was one to which no serious opposition could be made, because, in his opinion, it involved no new principle, but left the law in the same situation as before. It went to protect that law, and to punish and destroy an abuse which had already been long in operation—he knew not precisely how long —but one from which he thought every mischief arose. This abuse had operated greatly to defraud the revenue, and greatly to the prejudice of the respectable persons who were engaged in the conducting of newspapers. If this evasion were to be tolerated, it would have the effect of throwing all the periodical press into the hands of men who had neither property nor the means of procuring security, and enable them to inundate the country with poison, at a price so humble, that no individual, however necessitous, would be unable to purchase it. The law, therefore, which he meant to propose, was, that the political publications, now published without a stamp duty, should be hereafter subjected to a duty like other newspapers. By the stamp laws all advertisements inserted in newspapers were liable to pay a certain tax, consequently the general stamp duty to which newspapers were subjected, had reference more to the other matter contained in them than to advertisements—namely, to the accounts of events and comments on these events, matter of a similar nature to that contained in the publications which, in point of duty, he now wished to assimilate to them. It was also to be taken into account, that as the political pamphlets now circulated were of a small size, they could be furnished at a much cheaper rate than newspapers. Indeed, the authors of some of those publications which had done the most mischief, so far from considering themselves 396 exempt from the law of newspapers, did for a great length of time continue to publish on stamped paper. The price of Cobbett's paper, for instance, had been ten-pence; but suddenly it was published without a stamp and sold for two-pence. What he now proposed was, to follow up the intentions of the Stamp act—to follow to its legitimate conclusion the law as it now stood with respect to newspapers, and while adopting a means to guard against offences of the press, to guard also against frauds committed not merely against the revenue but against the respectable newspaper press-to place the publications in question on the same footing with newspapers. Without now entering into any general definition he might state that it was proposed that any thing of the nature of pamphlets or newspapers, and not exceeding two sheets, containing either news, intelligence, or political discussion, or the description of political and religious subjects, in short, all subjects which might be considered as political, should be held as coming within the description of newspapers, and subjected to the same duty. Such a measure was necessary to prevent the respectable circulation of newspapers from being defeated, and to render the circulation of dangerous publications more expensive. Such was the first regulation which he had to propose. The second regulation was also a principle already established and recognised by law, particularly with regard to this class of publications. The law now declared that the names of publishers in general, not merely of publications of the description of newspapers, but of publications of all sizes, should be given, and that every publication should be considered unlawful which had not the name of the publisher on the face of it, for the purpose of making him amenable to justice. But that regulation was at present rendered completely nugatory by a practice which had been adopted, by which the individual who did the mischief was enabled to escape from the consequences of it. When it was wished to do any act which would draw down the animadversion of the law, the mode adopted for that purpose was to put forward some wretched hack, who for a small hire would run all risk of punishment. Now, if any man would run the risk of being lodged in gaol for a trifling sum, while the individual who was the real author of the offence ran no risk whatever, the object of the law was 397 entirely defeated. He had heard in the case of an individual who was convicted, while another individual for whom the illegal acts was done, could not be touched, that the latter had the impudence to say, "For half-a-crown a day I can always procure a man to stand in my situation, and I can carry on my trade in his name, while he runs all the risks." When it was recollected, too, what time elapsed before applying the penalty of the law after conviction, some remedy on this subject was imperiously called for. What he proposed, was, to check the practice of publication by individuals who had no property in their hands—the practice of individuals who had no visible means of paying the penalty to which they made themselves liable, making themselves responsible for others who derived nearly the whole of the benefit from the publication. In the case of these small publications, he proposed that all persons should be required to give a previous pecuniary security, to abide any judgment that a court of law might pronounce against them either for treasonable, blasphemous, or seditious libels. He did conceive that this would operate in every way for the protection of the respectable part of the press. It would have the effect of bringing forward the man at the bottom of the whole, who would not be allowed to put a faggot in his place. The judgment would attach to the security given, and this he trusted would have the effect of throwing the punishment on the proper person. The third regulation with regard to the press which he proposed was rendered absolutely necessary to give effect to the other two. It was to impose a moderate penalty on all persons publishing or hawking about publications not duly stamped, or not published by persons who had never given any security. If the persons engaged in these publications were not to find instruments for propagating their poison in this manner, they would fail in their object; and therefore it was he proposed to impose a moderate penalty on persons found hawking them, and that the penalty should be recoverable on conviction before a justice of peace or other magistrate. He knew that reproaches had been thrown out against ministers for not taking effectual means for putting a stop to these seditious and treasonable publications, but these reproaches came with a very bad grace from gentlemen who had complained against the late attorney-general for the 398 number of informations ex-officio which he had filed. He knew it might be asked by the other side, "Have you applied the existing laws?" In his conscience he believed, under the existing law, the mischief was beyond the reach of any public prosecutor; his learned friends felt that it could only be dealt with by the regulation proposed, which he had no doubt the House would accede to, as the whole country was interested in protecting the people against the pernicious poison.
He had nothing to state upon the subject of the regulation of the press, but these three measures,—1st, To apply the existing stamp duty applicable to newspapers, to all publications not exceeding two sheets, of the same character. 2nd, To require all publishers to give previous personal security, and two responsible securities in the same sum as himself. 3rd, To apply a penalty recoverable before all magistrates, for hawking about publications, with respect to which the provisions of the law had not been complied with. He was now to call the attention of the House to a subject connected with the last. It was a principle not unknown to our law in many offences, and which he thought ought to be applied to the specific offence now under consideration. The House would remember that in 1796 it was enacted, that upon a second conviction for sedition, a higher punishment might be imposed, and in addition to fine and imprisonment, transportation or banishment for seven years might be inflicted when a person had been convicted a second time. He did not mean a cumulative offence, but an offence committed after judgment being pronounced for a first offence, when the person so offending was liable to transportation, or banishment for seven years. He proposed that the court should be empowered, on a second conviction, for either treasonable, blasphemous, or seditious libels, to transport the person so convicted for seven years, or banish him for such shorter period as might be thought adviseable. If there were individuals among us who had such an abhorrence of our institutions, that they were determined to sin with their eyes open after they had once been punished, they could not be considered as visited with a punishment disproportionably rigorous, by being subject to transportation. With these measures and the other measures which his majesty's ministers had adopted, he trusted the evil would be arrested. 399 Having made these observations, he did not know any thing further which he had to state, excepting that it had been found necessary to augment the military force. This augmentation had been made in the manner, which was conceived to be the most effective, the least expensive, and the least connected with any motive of interest or partial views. It would be most gratifying to government to find that the state of the country rendered all farther augmentation unnecessary. Much depended on the spirit and energy with which parliament acted; and much on the readiness and determination of the sound part of the community to defend themselves against the dangers which surround them. He hoped they would feel it necessary to come forward in armed associations, and to show, that if any persons were disposed to make efforts against the constitution, the friends of the constitution were determined to make greater and more effectual efforts to defend and preserve it.
He did not think it was necessary for him to say any thing farther as to the proposed measures—he had opened to the House what in candour he was bound to state with respect to them. He was perfectly sensible that when any law was proposed of the nature of an infringement on the valuable rights for the protection and maintenance of which the constitution was established—when parliament were called on to abridge such rights, or only temporarily to suspend them—when it was necessary for any minister of the Crown to propose the suspension of the Habeas Corpus act (though it was a great gratification to ministers that at the present moment they were not under the necessity of proposing any such suspension), the only just ground for passing such measures, was the necessity of parting for a moment with some of our liberties for the permanent benefit of the whole. But he begged the House to take distinctly into their consideration that the measures now proposed were not directed against the rights of the people, but against the abuses of these rights, which abuses shook the security of the rights themselves. With respect to the bill which he was now proposing to introduce, similar to that in 1812, giving extraordinary power to the magistrates to search for arms, he had it not in contemplation to offer that bill on any other principle than as a local and temporary mea- 400 sure. But if he distinctly understood the nature of the rest of the proposed measures, and in particular of that intended to repress seditious meetings, it appeared to him that they should be made permanent. He was not aware that they infringed on any popular right. If it were objected that seditious meetings were now confined only to a part of the country, and that the measure applicable to them ought also to be partial, he would say that he did not conceive such a measure could be considered in the light of an infringement on the liberties of the country, being only a solitary protection against the danger from those meetings. The same observation would apply to the bill against training and drilling, to the traversing bill, and also to those regulations which could not be looked on in any degree as an infringement on the liberty of the press, fairly understood, but merely as a remedy against a crying evil. He should not propose, with respect to those bills, any limitation in point of time. He did not mean to say, but that on the country coming back to its former state—or on the game of the disaffected being rendered hopeless—he did not mean to say but that the hon. and learned gentleman opposite in some future review of the laws, when this measure would have ceased to apply to the state of the country, might question whether it should not undergo some alteration, or whether it ought to be allowed to remain on the Statute book. But if there was really nothing in these bills which narrowed the rights of the subject; if they were rather to be considered as protecting the subject in the exercise of those rights, and if a fatal influence had often already been produced on the minds of the wicked and evil-disposed from the indisposition of parliament, to apply temporary laws to-temporary evils, he thought the House ought to make them perpetual. They had already seen with what cunning, wicked and evil-disposed men often availed themselves of the expiration of a law or the circumstance of parliament not sitting, to resume all their old practices; and therefore if the House saw those laws in the light in which they were viewed by his majesty's ministers as a remedy against abuse, and not as an encroachment on rights, they would think that much greater benefit would be derived by the country from rendering them permanent. They were called on in political wisdom when they 401 looked to the scenes around them—when they saw what was passing both at home and abroad—when they considered what theories of government were afloat, not only here, but elsewhere, they were bound, he said, to create a fence around the constitution, and a bulwark to protect it against those spurious rights which were so foreign to its sober genius. How long were the prosperity and tranquillity of the country to be put in danger in this manner? He implored the House for God's sake to look their difficulties in the face. The evil was permanent; at least as permanent as an evil of such a character could be. Wicked and dangerous men ought to be deprived of the power of keeping the country in continual agitation. He therefore proposed the measures without any limitation as to time, leaving it to the wisdom and discretion of parliament to deal with them as it might think proper when the motives for adopting them were passed away; for he believed they were safeguards to the constitution, and not encroachments. He regretted he had been compelled to trouble the House at so much length. The bill giving magistrates a power to search for arms would be introduced first into the other House, as also the traversing bill. The other bills would be introduced in the House of Commons. With respect to one of them, it would be necessary they should go into a committee of the whole House on the subject of it, previous to bringing in the bill; and he should tomorrow or next day, propose such a committee. He should now move for leave to bring in a bill "for the more effectually preventing Seditious Meetings and Assemblies."
§ Mr. Tierneyobserved, that the awful denunciation by the noble lord, of many of the principles which he (Mr. Tierney) had been accustomed to hold most sacred, must of course occasion him to rise under considerable embarrassment; but that embarrassment would be greater if he imagined that after the statement of the noble lord, the House would expect him on the sudden to be prepared to go into a general argument upon the question. Great variety of matter had been introduced, the greater part of which, to him at least, was perfectly new. When he came down to the House he had not the most distant conception that the noble lord would advert to many of the points on which he had dwelt at large. He as- 402 sured the House, that he attended in his place, (and he hoped the noble lord would believe him), with a very sincere inclination to listen calmly and dispassionately to all that was to be advanced; he felt not the slightest prejudice on any of the points (on some it was impossible that he should feel any, as he was totally ignorant of them); but after what he had heard, he was conscious that he should not discharge his duty, if he did not trouble the House with a few, and a very few, observations. The noble lord had stated, that members on the opposition side of the House, on the first day of the session, had in substance agreed with all parts of the address relating to the seditious spirit pervading the manufacturing-districts. It was almost needless to remind the House that the noble lord had no authority for that statement; for his own part, he (Mr. Tierney) had expressly asserted his agreement with the allegations in the address, as far only as they should be established by evidence to be produced. It was really astonishing that the noble lord, who could be candid enough on the first day of the session, should now, for some purpose of his own, not only state that which went even beyond the address, but attempt to ratify that statement by a supposed confirmation derived from the other side of the House. He (Mr. Tierney) had said then, and he repeated it now, that the measures to be adopted must depend upon the necessity, and that necessity could only be ascertained by due inquiry. He did not say that a possible case might not arise where new laws might be required; that a House of Commons in the discharge of its duty might not entertain projects of this kind, but what he maintained was that they ought not to do so until the necessity had been clearly and unequivocally made out. He denied that necessity at starting: no such case had been made out that justified such measures as had been proposed, even supposing, upon examination, it should turn out that the safety of the country required them. All the House had before it was the notoriety of certain proceedings; but the grounds of those proceedings, their motives, and extent, was only to be gathered from the papers communicated by the Prince Regent. Without meaning to anticipate the debate of tomorrow, to be introduced by his noble friend, he would say, that a more garbled, mutilated account was never presented to 403 the House of Commons. The noble lord had stated what undoubtedly was very consolatory, but for the comment with which it was accompanied—that the main body of the nation was sound and loyal; that in principle it was attached to the law and the constitution. Even in the disaffected districts, it had been admitted to-night, that the great, mass of the population was untouched and untainted by disaffection, and that they were prepared to stand by the law and the constitution; nay, the noble lord went further; he had stated what would have astonished him, if any thing could astonish him from the present ministry on the subject of finance,—that the internal state of the country was perfectly prosperous; that in our foreign trade there was nothing to apprehend, but from the distress of America; that all our manufactures found their accustomed vent on the continent; and that it was the condition of America alone that restrained the commercial industry of the nation. Certainly, if the representations of the noble lord were to be believed in opposition to the evidence of our own senses, the country ought to be in a very happy condition; but how was it then that, as if the nature of the people had changed, as if they had become blind, obstinate, and perverse, it turned out that the nation was to be called upon to sacrifice its constitution on the altar of public security? The subjects of the realm were now told, that the old laws of England were not sufficient to guarantee protection to property; that what they had been accustomed to venerate as their safeguards were inadequate; that not only 10,000 additional soldiers were to be placed over them, but that those soldiers were to be backed by corps of yeomanry, and by statutes hitherto unknown; and after all this, they were to be assured that their condition was fortunate, and their finances flourishing! The noble lord had maintained, that by the amendment, he (Mr. Tierney) had marked his sense of the schemes by which the lower orders were misled. He admitted it; he meant to mark his opinion decisively, that those schemes were dangerous to the constitution, injurious to the public quiet, and most of all injurious to those who were deluded by them. If those unfortunate men could now look into the House, they would see the result of their endeavours; let them abuse the Whigs as violently, and stand by their 404 champion Hunt as firmly as they pleased, if they could now witness the proceedings of parliament, they would see to what a miserable pass their leaders had reduced them, bound hand and foot, and delivered into the hands of those who, by new laws, and new troops, were establishing an inquisition upon the ruins of the constitution. A right hon. gentleman had said on a former night, that the Whigs had been for 50 years excluded from power. It was true, and here was the fruit of that exclusion. After the lapse of 50 years of rule, what had the opponents of the Whigs done for the nation? They had brought it to such a condition of discontent and disaffection, that in a period of profound peace, the tranquillity of the country could not be maintained without new laws, not consistent with the spirit of the constitution. The noble lord had opened five bills to the House. The first was against Seditious and Tumultuous Assemblies—the second against Drilling—the third against the Possession of Arms—the fourth was against Traversing—the fifth branched out into two or three heads; and was aimed at the liberty of the press. With respect to the right of traverse, he freely confessed that his mind was open to information. He did not profess to be acquainted with all the grounds on which that right had originally been conceded to the subject; inconveniences might have arisen from it, and the remedies of the noble lord might be applied with out danger. Yet with fear and trembling he should undertake to change an established principle of the common law, founded upon almost immemorial usage; and though he did not undertake to pronounce peremptorily against it, he approached it with a degree of awe, and would not change it until the necessity should be sufficiently established. If by the power of searching for arms the noble lord meant to go the length of saying that an Englishman was not to be allowed to have weapons for self-defence in his possession, a most grave case indeed must be made out before he could consent to the proposition. Going about in armed bodies from place to place was already illegal but between that and the established constitutional principle that a man had a right to have arms for his own defence he took a wide and material distinction. He begged of the House to pause before it sanctioned a measure 405 which directly violated that privilege, in which twenty years ago men would have shuddered had it been even hinted that an alteration was intended. As a temporary measure it might under some circumstances be necessary; such as that large bodies of men were arming themselves in a way dangerous to the community. What was the fact? The papers upon the table merely proved, that certain persons had been making a limited number of pikes, that certain other persons had obtained some pistols and that a few more were in search of other fire-arms, if they could obtain them at a cheap rate. It was only pretended that Lancashire, Cheshire, a small part of Scotland, though thickly populated, and some districts of Yorkshire, were in a disturbed state: yet upon no better testimony than this the whole people of England were to be deprived of arms. [Lord Castlereagh said, across the table, that the Arms' bill was only to be local.] What then were the districts to which the law was to apply? [Lord Castlereagh replied, "Those included in the Watch and Ward act."] As he (Mr. Tierney) had not that measure precisely in his memory, he would not waste time by observations upon it. As to the law against drilling, he had heard with great astonishment, that such practices were not already against law; that no punishment could now be inflicted upon men who drilled and trained at night, and formed themselves into military array. If this were not so, he was, ready to submit to a new law on this subject. If it could be worded so as to meet the exigencies of the case, he honestly admitted that he had no objection to it; guarding himself with this observation, that it must be drawn so as not to go a single step beyond the necessity of the case, and that it was established that the men were drilling themselves evidently for the purpose of military operations. He next came to what in his mind was the great question of all—the new regulations against seditious and tumultuous meetings. Upon this subject the noble lord had asserted, that all the learned gentlemen on the other side of the House had very carefully abstained from giving any opinion whether assemblies of a particular description were or were not illegal. If he had understood his learned friends, their difficulty was this—that the question must depend upon particular circumstances; and until the facts of a case were laid be- 406 fore them, it was impossible to give an opinion upon it. No doubt a case might be shown in which it would be highly improper for the magistracy not to exert themselves by preventing a projected meeting, to preserve the public peace, a breach of which might threaten the safety of the country. Here the only question was, whether the particular circumstances under which the Manchester meeting was held were of such a description as that nothing but a military force could have put an end to its proceedings? To this he answered, that a meeting as large, or nearly as large, had taken place in Yorkshire; bodies of men had marched to Hunsletmoor of the same description as those that had attended at Manchester, with flags flying, and what had been termed an appearance of military array. What had become of it? The mayor of Leeds had felt no disposition to interfere; he had taken the proper precautions for the security of the peace, in the event of danger, though he did not think it right to make an ostentatious display of those precautions until a justifiable cause (which he did not apprehend) should be afforded for resorting to them. Such a cause did not occur. The persons assembled dispersed quietly; and from first to last, in Yorkshire, there had been no symptom of confusion. In Scotland, also, the magistrates had exercised a sound discretion; they had let the feeling of animosity waste itself; it did waste itself; and no such proceedings as those of Manchester had occurred there. And now the noble lord came forward, and assumed it as indisputable, that meetings must be confined within some other limitations, than those which at present existed, either numerical or local! The noble lord's plan appeared to be this—that no meeting should be allowed in any county, unless convened by the sheriff, the lord lieutenant, or by five magistrates: in certain towns, it must be called by the mayor; or if called by individuals, that no man could discuss and deliberate upon any public question out of his own parish. If such were the plan, there was at once an end of all the old wholesome spirit of the law upon this important subject. It would really seem from the cheers, as if the noble lord was restoring that old wholesome spirit, and that he (Mr. Tierney) was resisting it. Yet under that old wholesome spirit this country had flourished more than it would under the 407 sage administration of the noble lord if he were to live for a century. Whether in former times any meetings as numerically great as those of which the noble lord complained had been held, he did not know; but every page and every corner of every page of our history showed that assemblies had been convened, where men were allowed to harangue in any times of alarm. Mr. Burke had well called them the safety-valve of the constitution, by which all the foul air was permitted to escape. This safety-valve with all his fears, the noble lord would destroy, and while he exclaimed that his only purpose was to preserve the constitution, no man could fail to see that he was preventing the exercise of an accustomed constitutional right. This attempt was to be viewed with the utmost jealousy; it was to introduce an entirely new system, and that not merely temporarily, but permanently. When the bills came before the House, many opportunities would be afforded for objections in detail, and he was much mistaken if they would not be found in every corner of every measure: he was now objecting only to the principle, and it ought not to be forgotten, that these acts were not to be local; they were to extend to England, Scotland, and Ireland. When the noble lord mentioned that he should open a whole system, he had flattered himself that a part of that system would be conciliation. It was now seen, however, that nothing but rigour and coercion were to be resorted to: a blow was struck at the very vitals of fair and free discussion, and did the House really believe that in following the steps of the noble lord it would not be treading upon very dangerous ground? Did it believe that the danger arising from the state of the country was as great as it was represented, or that the refusal of what the noble lord demanded, and a reliance upon the venerable laws of the kingdom, would not be the least hazardous experiment? Would not the new bills rather exasperate than repress? If there were these large bodies of men in a state of dangerous effervescence, which he much doubted, would not the peril be doubled, when they wore told that they must expect nothing but coercion—that new Jaws should be invented to put them down, and that none of their grievances, whether real or imaginary, should receive a moment's attention? If parliamentary reform were mentioned in any shape, the immediate 408 answer was—"Now you are going to innovate." Yet ministers were to make what innovations they pleased; they were to invade the most dear and settled rights of the people; to infringe upon privileges that the practice of many centuries had confirmed; and if a charge of innovation were made against them, they met it with a look of astonishment and a cheer of surprise. What must be the event? Would not those who were now agitated be worked to a state of madness or desperation, instead of being quelled and subdued? He warned the House how it consented to steps that might be attended with the most baleful consequence, and neglected the voice of the people; not merely of those who were enthusiastic on parliamentary reform, but of sober thinking men, whose experience gave them this unanswerable demonstration—that something was wrong here, and that something must be altered. Ministers might fancy that they could control the distressed by overawing them with 10,000 men; but they would find it impossible. A dead silence in the country might for a season be produced by soldiers and penal laws, but nothing could reconcile the people to the loss of their rights, or compel them to submit quietly to that grievous deprivation. The number of armed men might, in time, be rendered greater than the unarmed, and then, instead of venting their feelings by becoming spouters at public meetings, the discontented would be converted from empty boasters in public places, into real conspirators in dark corners. These matters well merited the attention of the House, and especially of that portion of it who thought of nothing (and he did not blame them for it) but of the preservation of property. Property never could be exposed to greater danger ultimately than for a popular representation, as this House called itself, to pass nothing but acts of rigour, and omit all attempts at kindness and conciliation. The right of meeting was not only to be taken away, but what the noble lord had called the broad liberty of the press was to be invaded. As to the cheap publications as they were called, no one viewed with greater disgust than he did their effusions, as well on the subject of religion as in vilification of the best characters in the country; and his chief astonishment had arisen from observing, that for three or four years together no attempt had been 409 made to put a stop to them. The noble lord had observed that complaints had been made against the number of ex-officio informations, and it was true: they had been objected to as arbitrary and needless; but could any man read but the tenth part of the cheap publications, and not be persuaded that grand juries would have found true bills, and petty juries verdicts of guilty against their authors? Did ministers by this abstemiousness of prosecution mean to bring the matter to a crisis like the present? Did they contemplate a time when the vast accumulation of the evil would warrant them in this new infringement? If the libels had been brought before juries, ministers seemed to apprehend that the existing law would have been found sufficient, and they would thus have been deprived of one main ground on which their measure rested. As to the question of the liberty of the press, if he were to enter into it, a wide field indeed would be opened to him; but though he might lament the excess to which that liberty had in some instances been carried, he was persuaded that the old and recognized laws were adequate to restrain it. Upon this point the case was as defective as upon others; and as nothing was more valuable than the preservation of the liberty hitherto enjoyed, he hoped the nation would feel it, and that before the noble lord's bill passed into a law, depriving the people of their ancient privileges, they would assemble without fear, and pour in upon the House a tide of remonstrances which even the noble lord would not be able to resist. It was unnecessary for him on the present -occasion to say more. The liberty of the press was as yet in safe hands—in the hands of the press itself: which would no doubt speedily throw light enough on the subject to show what the real causes were of the licentiousness of the few, that was to be made the ground for encroaching on the liberty of all. He had come down to the House with a sincere inclination to listen impartially to what the noble lord might suggest, and disposed to concur in the measures proposed, rather than to oppose them; but he had then no notion of the extent to which the demand would be made. He might have been willing to concede something if a necessity had been shown, but nothing would satisfy the noble lord but an attack upon the very vital principles 410 of the British constitution. Were we to live in entirely new times? Were we now to hold up to the world, that the constitution which we had hitherto venerated for its antiquity, and loved for the blessings it has conferred, was of no value? Formerly, when foreigners asked in what way we became possessed of such and such institutions that attracted their admiration, we could reply, that we were indebted for them to the right which the people of England enjoyed of thinking and speaking freely. But now another lesson was taught by the noble lord, who would convince us, that what had been the salvation of our liberties was the destruction of our happiness—that what we and our forefathers had believed, was false and foolish; and that to preserve freedom and property, the constitution must undergo a change which, in his conscience he (Mr. Tierney) believed it could not survive. He said fairly and openly that suspecting as he did the administration from which these measures emanated, he considered them as only the advanced guard of the array of bills which they were to direct against the constitution. He saw on the part of the government an evident determination to resort to nothing but force; they thought of nothing else; they dreamt of nothing else; they would try no means of conciliation, they would make no attempt to pacify and reconcile; force—force—force, and nothing but force! that was their cry, and it had been the same for years: one measure of coercion had been, and would be, followed up by another, and the result would justify what he asserted, that 10,000 men would not answer their purpose; one measure of violence must succeed another, and what they gained by force they must retain by the same detestable means. The people would never rest until they were allowed to live under laws equally administered; until their honest industry could procure them the means of maintaining their families, and until they should again enjoy the blessings of that constitution which their ancestors intended they should partake. If not, discontent would increase to disaffection, and distress would produce discontent, notwithstanding the bold assertions of the noble lord, that the nation was prosperous, and had no wants but those which arose out of the present condition of America. If the noble lord had confined himself to the grant of 10,000 men, he should have deemed it a 411 strong measure in a time of profound peace. Was any evidence offered that a body of the military had been overpowered, or even that it had not always been sufficient to the dispersion of any meeting? But if the country gave him more troops to put down new meetings, surely it was somewhat hard that he should also ask it for new laws, that were to prevent the possibility of new meetings. If the noble lord thought that the new laws would be effectual, where was the occasion for the 10,000 men? It was clear that the noble lord felt that his new laws were more likely to exasperate than to conciliate, and the best comment upon all the noble lord had advanced in favour of his new projects, was his declaration, "I want 10,000 men into the bargain." His sincere belief was, that the noble lord would want many more than 10,000 men, and what a melancholy prospect did that hold out to the country! It might be said that he used violent language. He admitted it; and all he could say in answer was, that he did not utter a single syllable that he did not on his honour, believe. He was an alarmist, he felt alarm, because he was compelled to trust to men who would rely on nothing against the people but brute force. He was alarmed be-, cause an attempt was to be made, under false pretences, to destroy all that was valuable in the constitution, unless it were defended by the free spirit of a yet free nation. Therefore it was, that he indulged a hope, that while the right of meeting remained, the people would meet and express their opinions with such effect that the threats and measures of coercion might be abandoned. He had hoped that a more moderate course would have been pursued, because, with the exception of the disturbed districts, as they were called, there was no part of Great Britain where assemblies might not be held, even by the admission of ministers, without the slightest danger to the public peace. He trusted that the country would thoroughly understand the nature of these novel laws, that the real objects of government would be evident, and that those objects by the public voice would be for ever defeated. If the country abstained from that course, and if the House, without any evidence to warrant those innovations, should consent to follow the noble lord in his desperate and adventurous course, all he could say was that he should witness it with the deepest 412 and most sincere regret. He should then have lived long enough, and could no longer be of use to his country in that House. He saw an hon. gentleman on a bench below him smile. If that hon. gentleman expected him to secede, he should tell him that it was contrary to his principles to do so. He did not mean to retire from parliament—he would still attend, and by his vote oppose the progress of laws destructive of the nation's rights, but he should not feel bound, after the people had shown such apathy, to sacrifice for them as he had hitherto done, his time and his health. He hoped that all members would give the subject their most deliberate attention. The new laws were not such as the public exigency required; the extent, or even the existence of disaffection was not proved; and until it should be so, it was the duty of every honest man to pause. At least, attention ought to be paid to this point—whether some course of conciliation might not be adopted; whether steps ought not to be taken to satisfy the people, and to prove that, while the House was willing to repress sedition, it had a fixed determination to listen to their grievances, and, as far as possible, to apply a remedy.
Lord Castlereaghexplained. He had not asserted that the only distress arose from the diminution of the trade with America; but he stated it as a consoling circumstance, that amidst our distress, it did not appear that the consumption of our manufactures in foreign markets was diminished, except in America, where the diminution was to be attributed to temporary circumstances. He had admitted the distress, though that, too, he believed to be exaggerated; nor were those the most disaffected who were the most distressed. He held, too, that the distress depended upon causes to be removed by time alone, not by the hand of parliament, still less by the particular nostrum which had been brought forward for their cure. Any thing which might now be done by the House would not prevent them from taking that distress into consideration at some future period.
Lord Folkestonesaid, he was unwilling to offer himself to the attention of the House; but he felt it impossible, after the speech of the noble lord, to suffer them to separate, without expressing his detestation of the measures proposed. He conceived he should not be perform- 413 ing his duty, if he did not endeavour to impress upon the House the necessity of extreme caution and consideration, before they adopted any of those measures. He fully concurred in one part of the noble lord's speech—in the confident hope that the House would stand by the constitution. He conscientiously hoped that they would not suffer the proudest pillars of that constitution to be pulled down by the audacious hands of ministers. He would put it to every gentleman in the House—to those, even, who cheered the noble lord's speech—whether, on their conscience, they did not believe that the objects of the noble lord were, on the one hand, to put down the liberty of the press, and, on the other, to prevent all public meetings. County meetings were indeed left open; but, after the so prevailing fashion of the sheriffs refusing to convene them, could it be mistaken, that the noble lord's object was to prevent altogether those numerous meetings, in which Englishmen communicated to one another their sentiments of attachment to the laws and the constitution, and of opposition to the inroads of arbitrary power? Besides these measures, as if they were not considered sufficiently severe, there was what he conceived a most serious attack on the liberty of the press. On this subject he begged of the House to consider fully the nature of the course that had been already adopted. Scarcely had a statute been passed connected with this bulwark of our liberties for the last thirty years, which had not placed additional trammels upon it; and what was now the result? Why, that ministers felt themselves called upon to ask for new measures of severity. They had thus, on their own showing, only made the matter worse by continued restrictions. Now, he would ask, whether, having failed in so many trials of one course, it would not be prudent and politic to resort to another, and see what might be done by that? Upon one of the proposed measures he begged to offer a word; it was that which went to restrict the right of traverses under particular circumstances. The noble lord had said, that he did not see why, when a man accused of a capital offence could not put off his trial without stating strong grounds, such an indulgence should be given in cases of misdemeanor. One would think that the noble lord was wholly unacquainted with the forms of law upon this 414 subject. The cases were very different. In the case of felony, the person knew from the first the particular crime of which he was accused. It was stated in the warrant of commitment. But the man accused of misdemeanor very frequently was ignorant of the precise nature of the charge against him, until after the grand jury had found the bill. It could not, therefore, generally speaking, be expected, that he would be then ready to proceed to trial. Indeed, the cases, if he was not mistaken, to which allusion had been made (the cases of the commitment for a conspiracy at Lancaster), were in point upon this subject. There the parties had been detained in solitary confinement for 11 days, and it was then uncertain whether they were to be charged with conspiracy or treason. They were at length accused of a conspiracy, and they could not of necessity until that moment know the nature of the charge. Would it then be surprising, under such circumstances, that men should not be disposed to go to immediate trial? He would not now advert to the other topics embraced in the speech of the noble lord, but he could not help remarking on the tone and manner of the noble lord on the occasion. The noble lord would wish the House to think it an act of kindness on his part, that some of the measures were not most severe. In his kindness he had said, that it was not intended to make the stranger who should remain a quarter of an hour at one of these meetings after it was ordered to disperse, liable to the punishment of death. In his kindness he had mentioned, that it was not intended to put a general censorship on the press; in his kindness he had informed them, that it was not intended to take away the invaluable privilege of trial by jury. But, notwithstanding this apparent kindness, he trusted that the House would see and understand the real nature of the measures proposed; and if they did not resent the tone in which their dearest rights were treated of, they could not be possessed of the spirit which it was imagined belonged to every Englishman. He could not help connecting the words of the noble lord with what had fallen from his hon. and learned friend on a former night. Only one of the measures which were now proposed was to be local and temporary, all the others were to be perpetual, and to apply to the whole country. Mark the conduct of the ministers in this case. 415 They had brought down evidences of disturbances in a particular part of the country, which might pass away, as they had passed away before. They had brought down measures restrictive of liberty, general and for all time to come. His hon. and learned friend, in referring the other night to the seditious publications which had been allowed to go forth in different parts of the country during the last two or three years, had fairly asked, why they had not been prosecuted, and their authors punished? He had said at the same time, that although he did not think this neglect intentional, yet it would seem as if those publications had been permitted to accumulate, in order that a pretence might be found for striking a blow at the general liberty of the press. Would his hon. and learned friend now think, after what he had heard, that there had been no intention? If he did, he (lord Folkestone) for one, differed from him on that point. Again, he asked, why these publications and practices of a seditious nature had not been sooner checked? Why had not the law of the land been before applied? According to the opinion of the learned solicitor-general, the seditious practices complained of might have been checked by the existing law; for he had declared that they were contrary to the law. The magistrates of Manchester themselves had said the same thing, and in their letters, upon which all these proceedings were to be founded, had over and over again complained of these meetings and practices, and begged to be enabled to arrest their progress. They prayed ministers for some clue to direct their proceedings; but ministers would give none. From the account of the affray of the 16th, it appeared to him to be very evident that ministers wished not the event that took place, but that which arresting Hunt in the face of the meeting it was very probable would occur. They had let the mischief grow up, and the storm gather to its present height, in order to induce parliament to pass, and the people to sit by whilst they passed measures restrictive of the rights, and subversive of the liberties of the subject.
§ Mr. Broughamsaid, it was not his intention to trespass long on the attention of the House, but he felt it due to his hon. friends and himself to state why it was they did not wish to take the sense of the House in this stage of the proceedings. It was not because they did not object to 416 the proposed measures as a whole. It was not because they now concurred in any part of them: for against the spirit which pervaded the whole, he fully agreed with his noble friend who had just sat down, in entering his solemn and decided protest. But at this time, when they were so little aware of the detail of the noble lord's plans of restriction, when they knew so little of what was really meant, when the parts were so little before them, he thought it better to take the sense of the House at another stage. They were now but little aware of the precise shape of this momentous measure for putting down public meetings, by confining every man to his parish, and even by cutting and carving particular parishes, according to a standard of numerical propriety, so that every man called to a public meeting, must consult the population abstract, to know whether the population was 19,000, and he might go, or 20, that he must stay away. The noble lord had not said whether the new act was to apply to meetings within doors, to assemblies in taverns, or to associations purely literary. He had not told them whether it would be lawful to attend a Bible meeting, or assist in promoting a charity out of one's own parish. An hon. friend of his had lately attended a public meeting at Kendal, for a good purpose, but in a sort of itinerant manner: was it now to be understood that he should be no longer allowed to attend such meetings, unless he belonged to the parish in which they were held? The right hon. the president of the board of control, whom he regretted not to see in his place, and the more so as he understood his absence was caused by indisposition, must be in favour of the principle which he (Mr. B.) now urged, as his practice had been in accordance with it. The right hon. gentleman had attended meetings in this very county of Lancaster, out of his own parish too, above ground and below ground, in all sorts of places—at Liverpool before his election, and at Manchester, after it—at Manchester, of which he could not be member, and at Liverpool when he was not its member. Was it to be now said, that a repetition of such conduct would be illegal? Or did the noble lord mean not to extend this measure to canvasses for elections? Did the noble lord mean to say, that no person proposing himself as a candidate for a seat in parliament should be allowed to address a meeting in 417 his canvass, unless he belonged to the place for which he offered himself as a representative? What distinction did the noble lord make with respect to parishes having 20,000 inhabitants, and other less populous parishes? How was the act intended to operate in conterminous parishes, in one of which a meeting should exceed a certain number? Were strangers to be warned off, as soon as the excess in point of numbers was perceived? Or suppose some hapless orator were to stand exactly in the boundary, and address two parishes, one having a greater number than the act allowed, would it not then appear that one part of his frame might be committing an illegal act, because although on one side he addressed himself to 10,000, on the other his auditors exceeded that number? Another ground why he and his hon. friends did not wish to press this question to a division was, that they had no information as to the facts alleged. There were many assertions, but not one had yet been proved. He would not now give any farther opinion upon this subject, but he trusted that, unless the House should get security for the truth of all the facts now brought forward as the ground and justification of these measures, and for their absolute necessity, they would object to them in toto. Even should those facts be substantiated, he would not now pledge himself to the vote which he might feel it his duty to give on any part of these measures. As to the liberty of the press, and the proposed restrictions on it, he would only say, that, admitting a certain degree of mischief to exist, and allowing that something should be done, yet one of his great objections was, that while the proposed measures tended to submit that great blessing to a kind of arbitrary authority, they did not tend to provide a remedy for the actual evil complained of. What that remedy should be he would not then pretend to say; but he pledged himself to oppose every restriction which did not, in his opinion, provide one; and at some future period to put the House in possession of his views on the subject.
Lord Rancliffeobserved, that it had been his custom to express his sentiments merely by his vote; and he should not now have deviated from it, but that being convinced by the reasons of his hon. and learned friend, he would not press this matter to a division, and was therefore 418 desirous of declaring, that he regarded the whole of the proposed measures as highly unconstitutional.
§ Mr. George Lambthought the time was now arrived when the House should show that it meant to deal even-handed justice to the people. He viewed with perfect horror the measures which had been proposed; but he wished to know whether there was to be a scintilla of justice—something like a show of reparation—to the people for a right taken away? When the House was about to pass measures restrictive of their liberties, and to deprive them of some of their ancient privileges, it would be but fair to remove certain practices which they, on their part, had found to be oppressive. He would ask the attorney-general whether, when the right of traverse was under some circum-stances to be taken away, and the party accused put immediately on his trial, it would not be just that he, the law-officer of the Crown, should be deprived of the power of suspending ex officio informations for any length of time, over the heads of his majesty's subjects.
Strangers were again ordered to withdraw, and the gallery was cleared, as if for a division. None, however, took place: the bill was read a first time, and the second reading fixed for Thursday.