THE ADMINISTRATION. (Hansard, 17 May 1832)

§ Mr. Phillips
presented a Petition from the Inhabitants of the Town and neighbourhood of Loughborough, praying the House to stop the Supplies until the Reform Bill should have passed into a law.

Mr. Paget
supported the petition. He assured the House that the great body of the people in the county of Leicester participated in the sentiments of that petition, and looked with the utmost anxiety to the return of the late Ministry to office. Indeed, he hoped that the House would hear 1036 that evening that the Gentlemen who composed the late Administration were the present Ministers. He hoped that the noble Lord (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), whom he then saw in his place, had come down prepared to inform the House and the country, that the present state of the negotiations between his Majesty and the colleagues of the noble Lord was such as to give satisfaction to the country.

§ Lord Althorp
I will answer, as far as I can, the question of the hon. Gentleman. On a former evening I stated to the House that my noble friend, Earl Grey, had received a communication from his Majesty, and it was on that ground I suggested that it would be a convenient course for the House to adjourn over to this day. I am not prepared at this moment to say that any arrangements consequent upon that communication have been completed; but I hope that I may go so far as to state, that there is a probability that a satisfactory arrangement will take place. In the meantime, I trust that the House and the country will place this much confidence in the late Administration—not to suppose that we would return to office unless we were perfectly assured that we should be able to carry the Reform Bill through without any alteration in its essential and main principles.

§ Lord Ebrington
trusted that he might congratulate the House and the country on the explanation which had been given by the noble Lord. After that explanation he could have little doubt that the arrangements which were in progress would be brought to a satisfactory, and, he hoped, to a speedy conclusion. He could not bring h is mind to contemplate the possibility of a disappointment to the hopes of the country on this subject. He was happy to hear what had fallen from the noble Lord, and he was sure that the House and the country had the fullest confidence that the noble Lord and his colleagues would be parties to no arrangement which should not secure the carrying of the Reform Bill, untouched in all its principles, and in all its essential provisions. He had the most anxious hopes that the noble Lord would speedily be able to inform the House; that the arrangements now in progress were brought to a satisfactory conclusion; for although the announcement of Earl Grey in the other House of Parliament had had the effect of calming, to a great extent, the dreadful excitement which, until yesterday, agitated the country; yet the country 1037 would not be restored to tranquillity until it should have received the assurance that an arrangement for the return of the late Ministers to office had been concluded. He did not mean to say, that it would be necessary that all the details of the arrangement should be made known; for he believed that it would be sufficient to tranquillise the public mind, if the noble Lord was able to say, generally, that the arrangement was concluded. The confidence of the country in the noble Lord and his colleagues was now greater than ever, in consequence of their conduct upon a late occasion. Still, he would again press upon the noble Lord how important it was, that the arrangement should have been brought to a conclusion, and that it would not only give the Ministers the power to pass the Bill, but the power to pass it without delay.

Mr. O'Connell
, in presenting a petition from a parish in the county of Limerick, for the immediate and total abolition of Tithes, stated, that he had petitions to present similar to that which had been presented by the hon. member for Ashburton, (Colonel Torrens), and amongst them one from Birmingham, which expressed the sentiments of 100,000 persons who were assembled at the meeting at which the petition was agreed to.

§ Sir John Wrottesley
said, that it was with mingled feelings of satisfaction and regret, he had heard the explanation of the noble Lord below him. He was much gratified to hear that there was a strong probability that the noble Lord and his colleagues would return to office; but his satisfaction was in a great degree checked by the statement that the arrangements were still uncompleted. He had received a petition from Wolverhampton, expressing, in very strong terms, the sentiments of the people respecting the course which their constituents wished that House to adopt in the present crisis. But in consequence of what had fallen from the noble Lord, he should postpone the presentation of that petition. At the same time he wished to call the attention of the House to a subject deeply interesting to humanity. The neighbourhood from which he had received the petition to which he had alluded was populous; and the greater part of the dense population depended upon their daily labour for their daily bread. In consequence of the situation of public affairs, a vast number of those people were thrown out of employment, and were 1038 in a state of the utmost destitution; and if measures were not taken to put an end to the stagnation of trade, and the want of confidence throughout the country, the people would be driven to acts which, without the excitement of the most galling distress, they would not be capable of committing.

§ Mr. Portman
had also a petition to present on the same subject, from the county which he represented; but he thought that it was better not to present it after what he had heard from the noble Lord, lest be should in any way interfere with the arrangements which were in progress.

§ Mr. Robinson
said, that he also had a petition to present, agreed to at a meeting of 10,000 persons, being the largest meeting that ever was held in the county of Worcester, but he would postpone the presentation, for the same reason as had been given by other hon. Members for adopting that course.

Mr. Warburton
had several petitions to present from places in the county of Dorset, but for the same reason he should postpone them.

Lord Ashley
said, that he had not heard of the meetings at which, as the hon. member for Bridport stated, those petitions had been agreed to.

§ Mr. Portman
took the earliest opportunity of informing the House and the noble Lord, that he had that morning received communications from several parts of the county of Dorset, where meetings had been held, and petitions agreed to, similar to those of which other Gentlemen had postponed the presentation. He was sorry that the noble Lord, as a county Member, was not better informed of what was going on in his own county.

§ Mr. Hunt
said, that Mr. Portman pledged himself upon the hustings, at the time of his election, to resign his seat in the event of Lord Ashley's being returned as his colleague. Now, he begged to ask the hon. Gentleman, whether he intended to redeem his pledge?

§ Mr. Portman
said, he was perfectly willing to give an answer to the question, if the House thought proper. It would give him pleasure to be allowed to do so. He had made no such declaration on the hustings as that alluded to by the hon. Member. He had, however, made a private communication to the noble Lord, in which he had expressed himself in language not proper to be used if the communication were intended to be made public, 1039 In that communication he had stated, that, if the noble Lord succeeded in making the county appear to be a weathercock county, he would give the freeholders an opportunity of choosing another Tory candidate. When the Committee of that House decided in favour of Lord Ashley, whatever some people might imagine, he thought he was called upon to keep the pledge contained in his private communication, and he accordingly tendered his resignation; but the county, by a requisition, begged of him not to hazard the peace of the county by resigning at such a time. The hon. Member did not know him as well as others, or the hon. Member would have been aware that he should have been pleased at being released from his parliamentary labours, in order that he might attend to duties which were to him far more agreeable. He begged, however, to say, that personally he had not any objection to act with the noble Lord as a colleague.

Lord Ashley
did not think it necessary to trouble the House with a full explanation of his conduct in the affair thus brought under discussion, as he had already submitted it to the fullest consideration of the gentlemen of the county which he had the honour to represent, and, by their sentence in his favour, he considered he was fully supported in the view he had taken and acted upon. He wished, however, to explain one thing. He had previously written to his hon. friend, who was an old college friend of his, upon the subject of the election. That letter was strictly of a private nature. He believed it began—"My dear Jack." At all events he had written in those familiar terms which his ancient college friendship dictated. He then got the answer of his hon. friend, in which he said—"I cannot consent to sit as Member for the county if you are returned." He got this letter very late, immediately before the commencement of the election, and he had no time to lose. His hon. friend spoke of giving the county "the pleasure of another election" if he should be returned. He saw no reason for considering it a private communication when he was saddled with the whole responsibility of exposing the county to a second election. He had no right to conceal this fact. He was determined to have it explained, and he, therefore, immediately placed it in the hands of his friends, and waited for their determination to choose his course.

§ Mr. Portman
rose in explanation. He had only declared that he would not sit as Representative for the county of Dorset with the noble Lord as his colleague, if it proved itself to be a weathercock county. This was not the guarded language of a public document; and, with regard to the noble Lord's assertion, that he did not consider the letter a private communication, he referred him to the first sentence of that letter, which would at once show that he considered the letter as private. In the first sentence of his letter he referred to a previous correspondence in the month of May. He was, at the time, only twenty-six miles distant from his noble friend, and thought he ought to have been consulted by his noble friend before he made his letter public.

Mr. Robert Gordon
begged leave to confirm the statement of the hon. member for Dorsetshire. It was only at the request of a large number of the freeholders that the hon. Gentleman retained his seat.

Mr. Hume
had expected that he should have been able to discharge the Order for the Call of the House on Friday, and that the expectations of the country would be realised by the recall of the Ministers to office, with power to carry the Reform Bill in a perfect state. He had been present the day before yesterday, at, perhaps, the most numerous meeting he had ever seen—certainly the most unanimous—and the universal desire was, that the entire measure of Reform should be carried. He was quite satisfied that, if Ministers allowed themselves to yield one jot of the Bill, instead of receiving credit for what they had done, they would severely disappoint the well-founded expectations of the people. Of course he did not refer to trifling alterations, but to essential points; and he should be most happy—as happy as any man in the House—if it could be carried with comparatively little opposition. It was, however, too much for the country to be kept in a state of suspense like that at present existing; and Ministers, in justice to the zeal and anxiety expressed by the people, ought to be as explanatory as possible upon the subject, in order that the people might act accordingly. If no additional and explicit assurance could be given—although he might be sorry to give hon. Gentlemen the trouble of attending to-morrow—he would not withdraw his notice for calling over the House; as every man ought to be at his post, prepared, if it must come, for disappointment. 1041 He would sit down, without saying more than to express his regret that such an impediment or hitch should have occurred in any quarter.

§ Mr. John Wood
should not have risen even to mention the petitions sent to him, but for the remark of the noble Lord (the member for Dorsetshire), who said that he could answer for it, that, in one county, at least, there was not by any means a unanimous feeling in favour of Reform. If such were the case in Dorsetshire, he believed that was the only province of the United Kingdom which still submitted to be ruled by a boroughmongering faction. He advised the noble Lord to make a tour into the north of England, in order that he might become acquainted with the spirit universally prevailing there. He had been intrusted with petitions from various parts of Lancashire, and especially from Manchester and Preston, and in those districts the anxious expectations of the people were raised to the highest possible point; and he could testify that it would be most dangerous to disappoint those expectations by deferring the Bill. The people would consider that their fondest hopes were destroyed, if, after the Ministers were restored, they did not, in a manner consistent with their lives and characters, carry the Reform Bill unmutilated.

§ Mr. Heywood
observed, that he also should abstain from presenting petitions transmitted to him. In no county of England was the feeling in favour of Reform more intense than in Lancashire; the inhabitants were most materially suffering from the delay, and disappointment might be attended with fatal consequences.

§ Colonel Lindsay
thought it would be better if hon. Gentlemen on the other side would pause and examine the precise circumstances of the case. The object of the Bill was, to destroy the influence of the Peers in the House of Commons; it had been passed in that House, and because, when it arrived in the House of Lords, one part was only postponed to another, although the principle of Reform was admitted, Ministers had thought proper to call upon the King to create sixty or seventy Peers, in order that the measure might be carried; not only the principle, but the whole of the details. The noble Earl at the head of the Ministry had already made thirty-one Peers, and yet, while he objected to nominee Members of the House of Commons, he wished to make sixty or seventy base, vassal nominees, 1042 to whom he was to issue his order that the Reform Bill should be carried. Was there justice, probity, or principle, in such a proceeding? He regretted the vote passed some nights ago, and he apprehended that posterity would stare with astonishment, when they found that by it the House of Commons had justified the creation of 101 nominee Peers, for the purpose of carrying the Reform Bill.

§ Lord Althorp
I undoubtedly thought that, by common consent, under the circumstances of which the House is apprised, it was agreed not to be desirable to enter into a discussion on the subject. I must, however, beg to state to the hon. Gentleman, if he does not see what every other Member must see, and what the whole country does see, that the question in the House of Lords was not, as he assumes, a mere question of detail, but a question which materially affected the principle of the Bill. After the late decision, Ministers could not attempt, consistently with their own pledged honour, to carry the Bill through the Committee of the other House. It is, therefore, vain to say, that it was only a trifling question of detail. How was it argued? Was it argued as a trifling question of detail? Certainly not. We always put the principle of the Bill upon this—that nomination boroughs were an evil that must be got rid of, and yet the clauses for their abolition were to be postponed to the enfranchising clauses. No person who knew the effect of the division, could doubt for a moment that it was not possible for Ministers, with honour, to carry the Bill further.

Mr. Baring
I hope that the observation of the hon. Member, under the circumstances, may be allowed to pass without further reply, in order that the discussion may stop here. Whatever may be the anxieties, and there are none greater than my own, hon. Members must be sensible that, in the course of the arrangements to which the noble Lord has referred, nothing can tend more to embarrass, and do injury, than the prolongation of this discussion. If it be continued, of course it will be impossible for me and other Members to remain silent, but I entreat the House to let the subject drop here. I only beg to be allowed to make a single observation, not likely to provoke controversy, but to remove an impression which has pervaded the country, and in some degree this House. I am not authorized to speak for any body, but I 1043 think it just to say, on the part of his Majesty—if on his Majesty's part I may be permitted to say it, and it is due to him that the country should know—that at no one period did I ever understand, as, indeed, I said on a former occasion, that it was the King's intention, in the slightest degree to vary from the pledge he had given to the country, or to form an Administration which would not carry the efficient principles of Reform. I state distinctly that to be the fact. It is competent to all to throw as much opprobrium as they please upon those who might be disposed to enter the King's Councils in the face of such a pledge. I have ventured very humbly to contend, that it might be done with honour and consistency; but, whatever slur is applicable to the advisers of the King, in no part of the negotiation can it be said that there was the slightest departure by his Majesty from the pledges he had given.

§ Sir Robert Price
observed, that, during the discussion, not a word had been said against his Majesty or the Queen. He should refrain from presenting a petition he had received, but he could assert, that, even in his quiet part of the country, the deepest interest prevailed.

§ Mr. Hunt
remarked, that, in some parts of the metropolis, people had talked of sending a certain family to Hanover. It was but justice to the King, that what had fallen from the hon. member for Thetford should be known.

§ Mr. Curteis
referred to a meeting on the Steyne, at Brighton, attended, as was asserted, by 10,000 persons. He had received a petition, signed by 2,000 names, the presentation of which he should delay until a more convenient time.