CORPORATION REFORM.

HC Deb 20 July 1835 vol 29 cc737-75

Lord John Russell moved the Order of the Day for the third reading of the Corporation Bill.

Sir Richard Vyvyan

, in pursuance of the notice he had given, rose to present a Petition from the city of Bristol, and a petition from the city of Coventry on the subject of this Bill. The petition from Bristol was from the free burgesses, and had been signed by the Mayor and Aldermen, and it stated they were informed a Bill was then in progress through the House, having gone through its stages up to its recommittal, which went to deprive them of divers valuable rights and privileges and property which had been secured to them under royal charter, and they prayed the House not to sanction anything which should have a tendency, directly or indirectly, in any manner to deprive them of their property or their political rights. The petition from Coventry went altogether against the principle of the Bill, and complained of the course pursued as partial and unjust. In laying them upon the Table, he should take the opportunity of expressing the opinion of an independent Member of Parliament, hampered by no party considerations, and determined to speak without reserve, why the Municipal Corporations' Bill ought not to be read a third time. He had taken no part in the Committee, nor had he spoken upon the first or second readings, but considering the importance of the constituency he represented, he now felt called upon to declare that he was entirely averse to the principle of the measure, because it was opposed to the law, and subversive of the Constitution of the country. It annulled all charters heretofore granted by successive Kings of England, and the fact that it was brought in by the Ministers of the realm not only did not render the proceeding less objectionable, but made it more so, for its tendency would not have been so injurious if the Bill had been introduced by an individual Member of Parliament, and supported by the Cabinet. It abrogated rights sanctioned by charters and supported by precedents, and it established principles alike dangerous to freedom and the Constitution. He had presented petitions against it from the highest and from the lowest members of Corporations—from the Mayor and Aldermen of Coventry, and from the burgesses of Bristol, who, although convicted of no offence, and hitherto fostered and protected, were now at once to be deprived of what they so highly valued and so long enjoyed. The rights of Peers were considered inviolable by law, and why were they inviolable? Only because they were considered so. What was to prevent a bill from being brought in to-morrow by some hon. Gen- tleman of strong opinions, to take from Peers their right to sit in the other House of Parliament? What was there to render the robe of a Peer more sacred than the gown of an Alderman? As to the rights of freemen, the Bill was a measure of spoliation. Not content with extending the rights now enjoyed exclusively by freemen to other persons, the framers of the measure wholly abolished them to create new privileges for others. He, therefore, contended that freemen were open to bribery—to the insinuating address of persons who accompanied their persuasive arguments by a small sum of money. Was poverty, then, to be deemed a disqualification for municipal and political rights? If so, no rank was a guarantee; all Gentlemen were not honest—all Peers were not rich. Before hon. Members made up their minds that men because they were poor were to be suspected of dishonesty, let them reflect whether the same experiment might not soon be tried in another place. A Baron might be bribed by an Earl's coronet—a Marquess by a Duke's; for, after all, these were only abstract distinctions: they were honourable distinctions, indeed, but not necessary for the maintenance of the Constitution. When such things occurred, was it right to allege the poverty of the freemen and liability to be bribed as a sufficient cause to deprive them of their rights. Some admitted that the rights of existing freemen ought to be preserved—some said that they would preserve the rights of the children of freemen already born—and some said that they would preserve at least the municipal, if not the parliamentary rights of persons in this situation. In his estimation the freeman's child was in precisely the same situation as the heir apparent of a Peer of the realm. The Alderman with his rank might well be compared to a Peer of Parliament who had not an hereditary seat in the House of Lords, as the Scotch and Irish Peers. He would say also that the Alderman's position as a Magistrate elected for life was, in the eye of the law of England, similar to that of the Peer elected for life to sit in the House of Lords. Therefore, whether they considered the Peer's right or the Alderman's title—whether they looked at the right of the freeman's child in connexion with the right of the son of a Peer—in whatever way the subject was considered, in his opinion the rights of the Aldermen and freemen were as sacred in the eye of the law as the rights of the most elevated personages in the kingdom. It was the vice of the present Bill that at the expense of one principle it went to set up another. It was an attempt to set up generally the republican principle of representation, upon the ruin of the principle of vested right. It was against that principle of the Bill that he mainly protested, although he considered it vicious and dangerous in many other respects. And, let him ask, would the hereditary aristocracy support the principle of a Bill which was against all hereditary right? Would the Peers now declare that an old charter of incorporation was worth less than a patent of nobility on which the ink is scarcely dry? The Peers had now to fight their own battle. The first step that they took in this instance would be irrevocable. They would have to decide, when this Bill was sent up to them, whether their Lordships were to be maintained on the doctrine of temporary expediency, or to preserve their privileges upon the principle of vested right. Which ever way they decided, they might rest assured that they would not satisfy those who, sooner or later in the progress of the movement now going on in England, would make a decided attack upon their privileges, and upon that House of Parliament in which they hitherto had exercised their political functions; but they might, by giving their assent to this Bill, lend a fearful impulse to the movement that would destroy their own rights and dignity. The present system of the Corporations of England generally was said not to be in harmony with the times in which they were living. He should like to know what institutions of the country were in harmony with the principles and doctrines of many of those who for the last few years had become the advocates of general reform and proclaimed themselves the redressers of wrongs? They were not justified in proceeding with a Bill, unless they admitted all the principles contained in it. The House might be justified in extending benefits, they would not be justified in annulling charters. The House of Peers could not support the Bill, unless they were prepared to enter into a calm and deliberate consideration of all the great questions which were involved in it. He believed that the Corporations of the country were reasonable and useful institutions; he believed that, if they required amendment, they might be thoroughly amended without a breach of the Constitution. But the noble Lord had not taken that course. Most of the existing Corpo- rations would have been ready to have surrendered their charters, without the expectation of receiving fresh charters; and those who expected new charters would no doubt have been glad to have received them on modified conditions; they would have admitted the ten-pound franchise, and done away with the principle of self-election. This, however, not only was not suggested, but even was not hinted at by the noble Lord, and those by whom the present measure was brought forward. He was averse from Parliamentary interference when there was no precedent. He begged to call the attention of the House to the few precedents which existed for interfering with the charters of corporate towns. The first interference of Parliament was in the time of George the 1st. But it was expressly stipulated in that first Act affecting the boroughs of England, that the Act should not make void any charter, or interfere with the privileges of any Corporation which had chartered rights. Throughout the whole reign of George the 2nd. there was no Act which went so far to interfere with corporate rights as the Act of George the 1st. In the reign of George the 3rd. three or four general Acts were passed upon the subject, not one of which, however, invaded any of the pre-existing rights or privileges of any corporate town. All of those Acts, in fact, were of a protecting nature. So that up to the present moment, with the exception of the Scotch Corporation Reform Act, which was passed two or three sessions ago, there was no precedent whatever for Parliamentary interference with the existing charters of municipalities. In the history of England there was no instance of a general Parliamentary interference in the charters of corporate towns until the Ministry of his present Majesty thought it necessary to bring forward their comprehensive and sweeping measure. Nay, he would go further, and say that from 1646 to 1660, there was but one instance of Parliamentary interference in the affairs of the chartered towns of Great Britain, notwithstanding the various forms of Government which severally obtained during that unfortunate period. The case which formed the exception was the isolated and solitary case of the city of Chester. What, then, was the conclusion which the House ought to form? Why that the noble Lord opposite, and the present Ministry, were attempting to do that which no other Government—not even the revolutionary Governments which intervened between the years 1646 and 1660—had ever ventured to do. If the noble Lord thought it necessary to take measures to correct what he deemed to be great and serious abuses in the management and conduct of corporate affairs, would it not have been better—would it not have been more prudent—would it not have been far wiser—and, above all, would it not have been infinitely more just—instead of introducing one vast and sweeping measure—carrying the principle of change into every corporate town in the kingdom—to have brought forward separate measures, embodying separate and different details, calculated to apply a remedy where a remedy was necdedi—to correct abuses where abuses existed—but not to break down rights and privileges which were originally granted for the common good, which for ages had continued to be exercised for the common good, and which in the present day, the common good demanded should be preserved? The noble Lord might have brought in a Bill, if he thought it necessary, to increase or to limit the number of Town-Councillors, and to regulate their election; he could have done so without an invasion of the rights of the freemen; but, for reasons best known to the noble Lord himself, he brought in this sweeping measure, attacking at once the chartered rights of towns, the prerogative of the Crown, and the privileges of freemen. New aldermen might be created, or their courts or their mode of election might be altered, so as to suit the spirit of the times; but could not this improvement take place without abolishing the chartered rights of the Aldermen? He was well aware that there was a disposition prevalent of late—and he had observed some symptoms of it even since the commencement of this discussion—to sneer at the rank of Alderman, as if it were unworthy of the ambition of any respectable individual; but he would assert that the rank of an Alderman in the City of London was equal to that of a Peer when out of the House of Lords, and the same might be said of the Aldermen of Bristol and other large cities. The noble Lord now proposed the spoliation and degradation of those dignities, which were as much the property and inheritance of those municipal communities, as were their titles of honour the property and inheritance of the Members of the House of Peers. As every Member would, no doubt, refer to his own city or borough, he would refer to that city which he had the honour to represent, and would say, that the Mayor of Bristol, by chartered right, took precedence of all but the King himself. He took, while in Bristol, precedence of all the judges, of all the Peers of the land, and even of the Heir-apparent to the Throne, if he happened to be in Bristol, and what was the House going to do? They were going to deprive that magistrate who was hitherto named in the commission of the Judges of Assize for the city of Bristol of even the power of acting as a county magistrate at the Quarter Sessions. The Mayor of Bristol need not he an Alderman, he might be elected by the Common-council. This Bill would take away those chartered rights, and, as far as Bristol was concerned, it took away those privileges which were the link of connexion between the various grades of the people of England. The state kept up by the Lord Mayor of London, and the Chief Magistrates of other cities and towns was not intended merely for their own individual benefit—it was intended to stimulate the humble apprentice, who might hope one day to arrive at similar honours by sedulous perseverance in honest industry. Why were all those wholesome stimulants to industry and laudable ambition to be at once removed? He was not aware that the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) had stated any reasons, or given any authority, for taking away the Court of Aldermen: now, he would beg to ask the noble Lord why it was he had assigned no reasons for this sweeping alteration? Would it be said that this measure was called for in the country, or that any excitement prevailed on the subject? There were not less than 246 Municipal Corporations attacked by this Bill, but there had been only sixty-six petitions presented in favour of it, while there were seventy-seven petitions against it. Now, if the measure were of that popular character which its advocates contended for, there could be no doubt that the Table of the House would have been covered with petitions in support of it. There had been no measure like this since the Reform Bill. He would not put even the Irish Church Bill in competition with it; for, though he admitted that Church property should be applied to Church uses, whatever its distribution within the Church might be, yet as long as the principle of Protestant ascendancy was safe, the question of the distribution of property within the Church was not of so much importance. The chances, therefore, which would be made by this Bill would, in his opinion, be much more dangerous than those of the Irish Church Bill. If this Bill, which destroyed so many of the privileges of the members of Municipal Corporations, were once passed into a law, the next fight they might have to make would be in defence of the privileges of the Peers. Let him ask too what would be the probable consequences which might be expected to ensue from the passing of this measure, which he could look upon in no other light than as a piece of republican legislation. One principle of the Bill would lead to the election of Magistrates by the people, and in time, to that of the officers of the militia, now appointed by the Crown, at the recommendation of the Lords-Lieutenants of counties; and we should in time see Magistrates in the degraded situation of soliciting the suffrages of those to whom they had to dispense justice. Another effect of this Bill would be, that those who supported it could not with any consistency, refuse to vote in favour of the Irish Municipal Corporation Bill, which was yet to be introduced. On the precedent of this Bill they ought to pass the Irish Municipal Corporation Bill without discussion. Another effect of the Bill would be an invasion of the rights of the Universities to decide who should be admitted as members of their body. In what he said on this subject he begged to be understood as not being influenced by his connexion with the Corporation of Bristol. That body had no more patronage over one of the seats for Bristol, than any Peer in the four Western counties. A Member for Bristol was, as independent of the corporation as any Member for any city or borough in the kingdom. He would here beg to call the attention of the House to the Report of the Commissioners of corporation inquiry, as it related to the city of Bristol. The city of Bristol—at least the Chamber of Commerce of that city—complained of having been unfairly treated by the Report of the Commissioners. In order to put the House in possession of the facts, he would read the Report of the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce of Bristol:—"The Local Taxation Committee having examined the Report presented to Parliament by the Commissioners of Municipal inquiry appointed for Bristol, feel it right to lay before the board some observations on that part of it which refers to the trade and commerce of the city, with a view to refute the prejudicial conclusions to which on this head the Commissioners have arrived. The part to which the Committee would more particularly invite attention will be found in pages 1208 and 1209, under the heads of 'Chamber of Commerce,' 'Port Charges,' and 'Trade.' The Commissioners, speaking of Bristol, use this observation,—'Far below her former station as the second port in the empire, she has now to sustain a mortifying competition with second-rate ports in her own channel; and towns, whose commercial prosperity once depended on the subordinate relations they were able to maintain with this city, seem to be now outstripping her in enterprise and activity. The Committee cannot find in the Report any authentic matter which justifies an expression so unqualified and so prejudicial to the character and interests of the city; on the contrary, all those returns of its trade inserted in the Report, which emanate from sources of authority, and are worthy of reliance, prove the very reverse of the fact asserted in the quotation. As regards the former rank of the port, she has, for half a century, given place to Liverpool, whose connexion with the vast manufacturing districts of the north has enabled her to acquire the superiority; but as the third in rank, Bristol still retains her place, and this is proved by the following Parliamentary Return of Customs' Duty collected in the year 1833, at the several ports named—viz., London, 8,692,945l.; Liverpool, 3,555,955l.; Bristol, 1,016,873l.; Hull, 592,161l.; Newcastle, 273,686l.; Glocester, 102,875l. As regards the observation that Bristol experiences a mortifying competition with second-rate ports in her own channel, and this principally on account of the Bristol port charges, it is equally at variance with the fact. The competition alluded to can point only to Glocester. In the year 1827, a canal for sixteen miles inland, and navigable for vessels of large burthen, was completed and opened; by these means Glocester was enabled to procure a large portion of her supplies by direct import, instead of the former means of trans-shipment and conveyance in barges up the Severn. The construction of the canal was intended to produce this result, and consequently Glocester has acquired a considerable trade in timber and corn, part of which she previously drew through the medium of Bristol, her nearest port. Her contiguity to the districts of the north gave her also in bulky and low-priced articles an additional advantage, as lying nearer than Bristol to the sources of demand. This Glocester trade, which Bristol enjoyed previously to the opening of the canal, arose from the circumstance of Glocester not possessing the facilities for direct import, and it must be considered, that when the facilities were acquired, the trade so passing into its new channel was the original and legitimate property of Glocester, which Bristol had neither the right nor power to control." In consequence of this Report (Sir R. Vyvyan continued) the Secretary to the Chamber of Commerce addressed the following Letter to Mr. Drinkwater and Mr. Grambier, two of the Commissioners:— Bristol Chamber of Commerce. Gentlemen,— It having recently transpired, that since your public sittings in this city as Commissioners of Municipal Inquiry, a communication has been made to you by Mr. H. Visger, on the subject of his evidence, given as a member of a deputation from the Chamber of Commerce, and which evidence comprised statements of tolls on merchandise, payable at Bristol as compared with other ports, I am, as secretary of the Chamber, directed by its committee on local taxation, to request you will have the kindness to inform them whether any such communication has reached you, and if so, that you will favour them with either a copy of the document and of any letter accompanying it, or with such other information as may enable the committee to ascertain the precise nature and extent of such communication, which, it is understood, has produced some alteration or correction of the statements or tables he had previously delivered as part of his evidence. The application now made arises from the circumstances that Mr. Visger had not authority from the Chamber for supplying to the Commissioners any supplementary evidence, and that he has declined to furnish a copy of what he did transmit, or of his correspondence on the subject; the next resort, therefore, is the Commissioners themselves. I am also directed to inform the Commissioners, that since their sittings in Bristol very extensive reductions have been made in the dock and other local dues, and that these reductions will materially alter the bearing of the evidence which was then given by Mr. Visger, and that if the Commissioners are yet open to receive any additional matter, the Local Taxation Committee would desire an opportunity of supplying it, in order that in any Report the Commissioners may deem it proper to make on the state and prospects of this city and port, the amount or comparative degree of charges should not be treated as exceeding the scale existing at the date of the Report, or period of its publication, or any matter of an unfavourable nature be inserted, which was then in course of correction, and has since been extensively remedied. I remain, &c, L. O. BIGG. Secretary. March 11, 1835. To J. E. Drinkwater, Esq. 1, Garden-court, Inner Temple, London. Now let the House judge of the fairness of Mr. Drinkwater's answer:— George-street, Westminster, March 21. Sir;— I owe some apology to the Bristol Chamber of Commerce, and to yourself, for having so long delayed to answer your letter addressed to Mr. Gambier and myself on the 11th instant. I wished to refer to the manner in which Mr. Visger's communication to us was noticed in our Bristol Report before replying to you, and I had not the immediate means of doing this. You are aware, perhaps, that Mr. Gambier left England for Penang some months ago, which which will explain why I answer a letter addressed to both of us. I conceive that your inquiry is substantially answered by my informing you that we have not noticed Mr. Visger's tables as having been furnished by the Chamber of Commerce, but have particularly specified that they Were compiled by an individual member of it (meaning Mr. Visger). After we left Bristol, Mr. Visger informed me personally that he had caused the tables he had furnished to us to be re-examined, and that in this re-examination some inaccuracies had been discovered which he wished to be allowed to correct. Mr. Gambier concurred with me in the propriety of admitting these amendments. We have noticed this circumstance in the following note, inserted in the Report. 'After we left Bristol these tables were carefully re-examined, and some alterations were made in them, which, however, affect the general results very slightly. They have been forwarded to us, and are now printed in their amended form. A memorandum on the manner in which they were constructed was sent with them, from which the notes annexed to the first table have been extracted. The memorandum alluded to in this note appears to be the same which is printed in those tables in the reprint of the burgess-letters. I am speaking on this from memory, as I have not the burgess-letters by me. We extracted those parts only which serve to explain the construction of the tables, omitting every thing which appeared to be mere inference or comment. In making this communication through you to the Chamber of Commerce, I am breaking through a rule which we have adopted, of not making known any part of our Reports until they should be presented to the Crown. I hope, however, now that the interval which will elapse before the presentation is so short, that this letter will scarcely have reached you before it will have taken place. I should have had great pleasure in receiving the statements alluded, to in your letter, of the reduction of the dock and other local dues, if I could make use of them, but we found it necessary to limit our statements to the period of our inquiry in each place. If you should think it material, however, opportunities cannot fail to present themselves to the Chamber for publishing these reductions. I request that you will take an opportunity of mentioning to the Chamber of Commerce that I have entered into these explanations, not merely in deference to its important character, but also as wishing to embrace every opportunity of testifying my sense of the courtesy which my colleague and myself experienced at Bristol from the members of the Chamber, in common with all with whom we had to communicate in the discharge of our duty. I have the honour, &c, J. E. DRINKWATER. To L. O. Bigg, Esq. Secretary. He had felt it but an act of justice to the Chamber of Commerce of Bristol, and to that city generally, to state these facts. On the general question he would contend, that as Bristol stood free from any imputation as to the application of its funds, he had a right to expect that it should be exempted from the operation of this Bill. In the number and extent of its charitable institutions it was second only to the metropolis, and there never had been any imputation as to the misapplication of any of those funds. Having made that statement, he might follow the example set by his right hon. Friend (Sir Robert Peel) in the case of the borough of Tamworth, and express a hope that Bristol might be exempted from the operation of the Bill. He feared, however, that such a demand on his part would not be attended with the same consequences as a somewhat similar demand made by a gentleman in the olden time, as recorded by Dean Swift. "Some hundred years ago," said the Dean, "when the Peers were so great that the Commons were looked upon as little better than serfs, a Bill was brought in for making some new addition to the power and privilege of the Peers. After it had passed through some of its preliminary stages, one Mr. Drew stood up, and said he very much approved of the Bill, and would give his vote to have it passed. But, however, for some reason best known to himself, he desired that a Clause might be introduced excepting the family of the Drews. This opened the eyes of the rest, and consequently the Bill was thown out." He feared that his claiming an exemption for Bristol would not be attended by the same consequence. He would shortly sum up his reasons for protesting against the Bill. First, it attacked the prerogatives of the Crown in a way in which the prerogatives of the Crown had never been attacked before. Secondly, it attacked the privileges of persons in the highest and lowest positions in every municipality in the country, and thereby it would furnish a precedent for an alteration in the appointment of magistrates and of militia officers, and of the right of admission to the Universities. The preservation of these corporations was intimately interwoven with the security of the Constitution. They were respected by the Protector Cromwell. One of the charges against James 2nd was, that he had attempted to invade these privileges; and one of the first determinations of the Parliament of 1688 was, that the rights of all chartered boroughs should be restored and respected. He, therefore, once more put it to the House whether if this were the case, it would rashly sweep away the whole of those rights which at the time of the Revolution were deemed so sacred, and substitute in their place a perfectly new and perfectly theoretical system of municipal government? He strongly objected also to the motive of this measure. The King might, it was true, have the power to dispose of these charters if he pleased, but it would have been better if such a measure had emanated from Parliament than from a Prince of the House of Brunswick. It would have been better if his Ministers had placed him in a position with regard to his people, more like that of William the 3rd, who obtained the throne of these kingdoms by his attachment to the fundamental principles of the Constitution, which his predecessor had violated. It was dangerous to furnish precedents for paltering with the people's liberties, however specious might be the arguments advanced in their support. The time might come when such precedents might be carried out to an extent subversive of the monarchy itself; and the extreme of the most ultra principles established on its ruins. It would be well to look to the origin of the term ultra. It took its rise in the first French revolution, when the ultra-montane party attained the ascendancy. On the restoration, Louis gave the French a charter. That charter was objected to by the emigrants, and such perons as were blind to the signs pf the times, and who thought they could bring back France into the position in which she was before 1789. An experiment to effect this was tried in 1830 and failed, Charles the 10th became an exile, and those who made the experiment lost their power. But could any man compare the position of the present powers in France with that of those who espoused conservative principles in England? We have an hereditary monarchy, we have an hereditary aristocracy, and we have as yet these municipal institutions which the Government, indeed, were about to invade, but which we say are in accordance with the spirit of the British Constitution. If not, then so far as they were not, he and those who adhered to Conservative principles were willing to conform those institutions with that spirit. Having given the political franchise to persons in towns and boroughs possessing a 10l. a-year qualification, he admitted it would be only just that the municipal franchise should also be given to them. He agreed also that the system of self-election was one which was not in harmony with the feeling of the age; and provided the rights of the magistrates were respected, he was willing to assent to new charters being granted, which would take away the power of self-election from any small corporate bodies. But he would not agree to sacrifice the rights of his fellow citizens—rights which had been maintained through the many revolutions that had marked the history of this kingdom, and which he believed to be rights as sacred as those of any individual in the State, be his rank what it might. Having taken this opportunity (circumstances having prevented him from doing so at an earlier period) of explaining the reasons fully which induced him to vote against this measure, he begged to say it was not his intention to divide the House on the third reading. The hon. Baronet concluded by moving for leave to bring up the petition from Bristol.

Lord John Russell

said, that as the hon. Baronet had declared that it was not his intention to go to a division on the third reading, it was not necessary for him (Lord John Russell) to occupy the time of the House with an answer to the speech made by the hon. Baronet. Besides, he had already at such considerable length stated his opinion both on the general principle and the details of the Bill, that it was quite unnecessary for him to address the House any further on the subject. He would merely say, that he had no doubt the hon. Baronet did wisely in not dividing the House on the third reading. The reason why he had come to that determination, no doubt, was because he had found that the general sense of the House and of all parties in it, was in favour of the provisions of the Bill, and that if the hon. Baronet had proceeded to a division he would have had but little chance of mustering a very large number of supporters. He took it for granted, after the very strong statement, and after the severe denunciation which the hon. Baronet had made against this Bill—as being a measure of the most revolutionary tendency—as amounting in effect to spoliation of the rights of property—and as adopting the most republican principles—after all these invectives and strong protestations against the Bill, he had no doubt that the hon. Baronet would have thought it his duty to divide the House against it if it had not been tolerably certain that such a division would have shown that the principles and general provisions of the Bill did meet with the concurrence, and were in accordance with the sentiments of the great majority of the House: and that that majority were of opinion that the Bill was at this time called for by the general voice of the country, and that it was due to the spirit of the age, and even in justice towards these corporations themselves, that such a Bill should become the law of the land. He took, therefore, the protest of the hon. Baronet coupled with his declaration that he would not divide the House, as one of the strongest admissions of the goodness and the policy of this measure. If he wanted further proof of the soundness of this Bill he should find it in the fact that a petition had been presented from the city of Coventry, of an entirely opposite nature from the one now presented by the hon. Baronet from that city, and the petition he alluded to was signed by 2,600 householders and freemen, praying that, with the exception of one particular part of the Bill relating to apprenticeships, the House would pass the Bill. Therefore, whether they were guided by the general consent of this House, or whether by the expressed opinions of parties out of doors, or even by the opinions of persons mostly affected by the Bill, they had reason to concluder that this measure was in general accord- ance with what was required at this time for the reform of great defects in our present municipal institutions, and for the establishment of a system of good municipal government in the several towns of England and Wales. He recollected to have seen in print the advice of the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, given with his usual discretion, to that party to which he belonged, and in which he called upon them not to expect that any other place than this House could be, or even ought to be looked to as the scene where great public affairs were to be decided upon; and that the opinions of this House alone must be studied as the index to the opinions of the people of this country. In that statement, he entirely concurred. He was persuaded that in the approval of of any measure openly expressed either by a great majority of this House, and acquiesced in by the silent forbearance of those who in general differed from that majority, would be found the expression of an opinion in coincidence with the general opinion of a very great portion of the enlightened population of the empire.

Sir Robert Inglis

observed, that the noble Lord had mistaken the object of the hon. Baronet in not dividing the House. The reason why the hon. Baronet abstained from that, was, the little chance the hon. Baronet had of succeeding. He believed the noble Lord had likewise misapprehended what had fallen from the right hon. Member for Tamworth, in supposing him to have said that that House was the only place to which they could look for the full expression of public feeling on all great matters of national importance. He apprehended, that at the next registration throughout the country, the democratical party would not receive that support which they anticipated, but that the monarchical and aristocratical principles would gain an accession of strength throughout the country generally. He would say, without fear of contradiction, that if this Bill, instead of destroying all corporations, had only gone the length of destroying the Corporation of Bristol, which was so ably represented by his hon Friend near him, (Sir R. Vyvyan), the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Russell) would not himself have been satisfied with the evidence now upon the Table of the House, and upon which this measure was based as a sufficient justification of it, and yet upon that evidence were all Corporations to be de- stroyed. Nay, he believed no private Bill, affecting still less interests, would have passed a Committee to whom it might be referred, if supported by evidence such as that upon which this great and important measure, this Bill of Pains and Penalties against all Corporations, was based. It seemed therefore, that the evidence which in each separate case would be insufficient to justify the destruction of any one Corporation was proved sufficient when heaped together to justify the destruction of the whole. If the hon. Members opposite would be candid, they would admit, at least the majority of them would admit, that they had not read the evidence, even such as it was; with perfect candour he would himself admit that he had not read it; and he believed it to have been impossible for any man to have done so during the time that the Bill had been in progress. Therefore the House had legislated upon this subject he would not say against evidence, but without evidence. They had legislated against all Corporations en masse in a manner in which they would have refused to assault any single corporate body. This Bill would create a bad precedent; the mode of proceeding with it was contrary to every principle hitherto adopted, and the Bill itself was contrary to every principle of the measure introduced by a late colleague of the noble Lord—an individual not less gifted than those who now formed the Ministry (he meant Lord Brougham) two or three years ago. The Bill of that noble and learned Lord had recognized the principle of qualification, and had left it open to all towns to accept the measure if they should so think fit. How far he (Sir Robert Inglis) might think Corporation Reform ought to go, it was not necessary for him now to state, but on general principles he held that the safest and the best course to have pursued would have been to confer powers, leaving it to those most affected and interested in the matter—namely, the inhabitants of all cities and boroughs—to say what reforms they themselves required, and that, instead of compelling them to accept the general measure, suggested by third parties, to have left it to the choice of the majority. That go effects would have resulted from such a course might be predicted after the example afforded in the instance of all the Church reforms which had been effected during the last few years, which had not only been voluntary but efficient reforms. This measure was, however, to be forced upon every corporate town, even though its inhabitants had expressed neither a desire nor a want of alteration, or, as some might say, improvement; without any wish expressed by them upon the subject, every Corporation was to be fitted and fashioned to the pattern prepared by his Majesty's Government. Whether it might be the well-administered and governed Borough of Tamworth, or the worst regulated Borough complained of in the Commissioners' Reports—whether the election of its officers was popular, or whether such election was close, and the electors self-constituted,—whatever might be the circumstances, on a given day, at the tolling of a given bell, all existing Corporations were to die, and to be succeeded by new bodies. This course was inconsistent with all proceedings past, with the history of the country, and with reason. He repeated that which he had stated on the second reading of the Bill—namely, his entire and absolute objection to the principle of the Bill, but he should not press his opposition so far as to divide the House, merely because he was aware it would not practically be crowned with success, and therefore he should not be justified in such a course. In conclusion, he repeated, that he entertained entire, absolute, and unalterable objections to this Bill.

Mr. Stephen R. Lushington

It is amusing to see with what a small mite of approbation the noble Lord is satisfied; the able and eloquent denunciations of the hon. Baronet against the whole principle of this Bill, and the solitary petition in its favour from Coventry are regarded by the noble Lord with complacency, as indicative of a general approval of this measure I do assure the noble Lord, that the great majority of my constituents detest this whole Bill as much as I do, because it is grossly unjust in depriving the freemen of the rights and liberties derived from their forefathers, and will therefore never command the respect or conciliate the affections of any of the freemen of England. The right to elect their chief Magistrate, and to elect representatives in the great Council of the nation, has been enjoyed by the freemen as a chartered right ever since the reign of Athelstan, and has been confirmed by succeeding Kings for many centuries, and now stands upon the same foundation as the right of every Peer and Peer's son in this kingdom. What public benefit does the noble Lord promise to himself from this spoliation, this violation, this abandonment of his own Bill of Reform? He must repudiate, as the freemen do, the bitter insults which have been added to this meditated injustice. He must know, they have done nothing to justify this general punishment. The flagrant cases of Stafford and Liverpool may fairly call for some mark of national displeasure, but there are many other cities and boroughs where the elective franchise has not been abused, and amongst those that have deserved well I claim a prominent place for the City I have the honour to represent. I make this claim, not upon my own opinion only, but upon that of my late noble colleague, the Earl of Darnley, who constantly concurred with me in doing justice to the fidelity of the lower classes of our freemen whatever might be their political feelings. From a sincere conviction of the great injustice done to them in this Bill, I should feel it my duty to propose the Clause of which I have given notice in protection of their rights. I have, however, divided it into two parts; the one preserving the rights of all persons to vote for a Member of Parliament, who have been admitted as citizens, freemen, or burgesses before the passing of this Act; the other Clause continuing the same right to the sons and apprentices of freemen.

Mr. Fector

said, that he could not permit the Bill to go to a third reading without entering his protest against the injustice of the enactments. The Corporation of the town and port which he represented were free from charge or imputation; and it was only because they, in common with those of Liverpool, of Bristol, of Leicester, and others, had stood forward in defence of the institutions under which the nation had prospered and flourished, that they were now thus generally attacked. He must, however, content himself with protesting against the Bill, and thus recording his disapprobation of its provisions.

Mr. William E. Gladstone

had supported the second reading of the Bill, and felt bound by its principle, understanding, as he had done, that principle to be the abrogation of the system of self-election, and the substitution of an open and liberal system of election. Beyond this principle he was not bound, nor did he feel disposed to go. To but very few of the Clauses contained in the present Bill could he give his honest advocacy; at this time, however, he would not detain the House by an enumeration of the points to which he objected; but he thought the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Russell) need only look back to the various important divisions which had taken place in Committee on the Bill, in which strong opinions had been expressed against not less than eight or ten of its most material provisions (opinions which had been supported by large, and he trusted he might add, by respectable minorities), to be convinced in his own mind that he ought to make a large deduction from the estimate of the general approbation of this Bill, before he spoke of that approbation in those terms of confidence which the noble Lord had recently addressed to the House. He (Mr. Gladstone) could not approve of the frequency of elections which must occur under the Bill. He could not approve of the restriction which it imposed upon the prerogative of the Crown. He could not approve the extension of the power of licensing public-houses to individuals who were to be subjected to popular election. On all these grounds, with many others with which he would not trouble the House, he could not honestly give his support to the measure as it now stood.

Mr. Scarlett

said, that he had gone into the Committee on this Bill in the sincere hope that the rights of freemen would be respected, and that a distinction would be made in the extension of constituencies between towns of large and towns of small population; but that since none of these amendments had been adopted, and on the contrary that all had been most studiously rejected from the Measure, he felt himself compelled to revert to his original objection to the Measure, and to declare that the Bill was neither more nor less than an attempt to transfer the powers possessed by corporate bodies from the hands of one party to another, and not designed with a view to effect reform in the corporate bodies themselves. He would endeavour to comprise his objections to this Bill in a very few words. His first objection was, he thought, of itself sufficient to justify the rejection of the Bill—that objection was, that the provisions of the Bill were unjust. What, he begged to inquire, could be more unjust than by a general enactment to deprive all corporate officers of their franchise, and all freemen of the best part of those rights and privileges which had hitherto been held sacred by law—indeed so sacred that it required a particular process sanctioned by law to deprive them of those rights upon proof of misconduct? Even supposing the course now taken was correct, where, he begged to ask, was to be found this proof of general misconduct? This Bill would form a very bad precedent for future practice, and he thought its success would lead to the encouragement of all persons dissatisfied with, and disloyal to, the institutions of the country, to make further attacks upon bodies hitherto privileged, and whose rights rested upon nearly the same basis and foundation as those of the freemen thus destroyed. He held this Bill to be inconsistent with the true spirit of British liberty. Why did he say this? It had been remarked, that the principal cause of the superior degree of liberty which this country enjoyed over the continental states whose feudal system was originally nearly the same as those of England, might be traced to the fact, that the landed proprietors of this country had been awarded a considerable influence over the population of towns, from which it was considered more safe to increase the political influence of towns in which, for the most part, the landed proprietors were resident, and thus the landed interest maintained a considerable influence over the town populations. This Bill, however, altered this course of policy most entirely. By this Bill, the Legislature was about to establish in every town a pure and unmixed republican government, to abolish the aristocratic principle, and in short to interfere with monarchical authority. The Bill would afford a considerable increase to the democratic force already existing in this country, a force which he conceived every reasonable person would admit was already at least sufficient. There was further, another reason which seemed to him to press much against this Measure. In the course of the discussions which had been entered into upon it, it was somewhat singular that the Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into Corporations (reports collected with great labour) had been so little referred to, even in support of its principles, that the public scarcely knew at the present moment that they contained any informa- tion at all. In short, so little reference had been made to those Reports, that even without them the same rigorous and uniform rule might as justly be applied to all Corporations in the kingdom. No pains had been shown by the Legislature in examining into the constitutions of the numerous Corporations with which in this Bill they dealt—they had manifested no adoption of means for ascertaining their defects, and having ascertained them, in devising a separate remedy. If the Legislature and the Government had contemplated a real reform, they would have proceeded in a very different manner. The great Corporations should have been considered by themselves, and dealt with in a separate Bill. The smaller Corporations ought to have been classed according to the analogy of the circumstances under which they were placed. If this Bill had not been intended for political objects, why not have given to large towns a more aristocratic species of government, to have constituted the Magistrates for life,—why not have declared something like a guide as to the course of the proposed popular elections? He would further inquire on what grounds could be justified the placing of power in the hands of such persons as the mob which lately in the midst of a large Protestant population (not in a distant Irish county, but in the very heart, he would say, of this country), had on a day of popular excitement, broken prisons and destroyed the dwelling-houses of peaceable portions of the community of which themselves formed part? Was this the class of persons to form a constituency for the election of Officers and Justices? He believed, though he should rejoice to find himself mistaken, that the present Bill would be the means of introducing the greatest confusion into large towns, and that eventually the Legislature would have imposed upon it the difficult task of amending their corporate constitutions. For these and other reasons with which he would not trouble the House, he could not assent to this Bill. [Cheers.] Notwithstanding those cheers from hon. Members opposite, he felt that he owed no acknowledgment to them for having occupied their attention thus shortly, for when they had put out and extinguished completely the existing Corporations, it was only fair they should listen to the last lamentations of those bodies. He repeated, that this Measure was not designed as a Reform of Municipal Corporations, but as a means to answer a particular party purpose. To their credit be it spoken, the Corporations of England had generally returned Conservative Members, the Corporations had rallied round those who were attached to the institutions of the country, and hence it was that they were to be destroyed. He maintained (and he spoke it with all courteousness, and meant no offence when he said it) that a Government which contemplated ruling by law and justice, and honestly, by the King and the institutions of the country, would never have proposed such a Bill as that now under consideration. He intended nothing uncourteous to the Government, but he was willing to suppose that they were mistaken in the course they had adopted—that they saw no danger likely to ensue from that course. He trusted, that he was himself mistaken; but, at present, he saw from this measure danger to the Monarchy, danger to the Aristocracy, and danger to the peace and tranquillity of the country. If the Legislature desired prosperity to the people, honour secured to the Monarch, and safety to the institutions, it should cut this Bill into parts. If the Legislature was, on the other hand, determined to put all these interests at hazard they could not do better than at once pass this Bill.

Mr. Borthwick

declared himself opposed to the principle of a measure which, like the present, was, as it appeared to him, neither more nor less than naked and undisguised tyranny. He said thus much because this Bill deprived the people of England of rights which they had exercised from time immemorial, for no better reason than because this House had declared it had the power to take them away. No better reason than this had been advanced on the other side during all the discussions which had ensued in various stages of the Bill. On what was the measure founded, too? On the Reports of the Commissioners? Why the House was called upon to destroy those Corporations before the Reports, affecting many of them, were laid upon the Table. At the very moment at which he was speaking, the Report of the Commissioners relative to the Corporation of London, the most important city in the world, was not before the House. He had just heard it remarked, that the Bill did not touch the Corporation of London. He would ask the noble Lord and hon. Gentlemen opposite, why it did not? Was there no occult reason for its not being affected—was there nothing under ground? He had presented, on a former occasion, from the borough he had the honour to represent, a petition against the Bill. That petition, which was signed by the inhabitants of the borough, and not by members of the Corporation, prayed that it might pass into a law as soon as, and no sooner, than the majority of the inhabitants in the different boroughs which it proposed to interfere with, should petition the House to that effect. He would rest the issue on this result; he was content that the provisions of the Bill, un-mutilated and unimpaired, should extend to every single place where the majority of the inhabitants signed a petition to the House in favour of its being passed into a law. Not only were they called upon to pass the Bill without sufficient evidence—not only were they called upon to pass it without any such test of public opinion as that to which he had just adverted—but several measures of liberal policy, which were in the contemplation of the preceding Government, were postponed, in order that this all-important, but unsubstantiated, Bill might pass into a law. It was stated in the Report, that in the year 1826, when there was a general election, fifty freemen were made, and that in the year 1830, when there was also a general election, thirty-six freemen were made, whilst in the intermediate years, 1827, 1828, and 1829, there was but one freeman each year admitted. Now, this was stated in a tabular shape in the Report, in order to convey an impression that freemen admitted in the years 1826 and 1830 were created solely for political purposes. Now, what was the fact? All the freemen who were admitted in those two years had served a previous apprenticeship, and there was only one in each year admitted by election. Did not such a fact go a long way to create an impression the very contrary of that which the Commissioners, in their Report, had endeavoured to create in the minds of those who read it? He would have supported the Bill had it been likely to produce a better administration either of local charities or of local justice; but he could not support it as it stood at present, because he looked upon it as an unjust innovation, which could not lead to any practical good what- soever. The hon. Member addressed the House for some time longer, but amidst so much uproar as prevented us from hearing any but detached and unconnected sentences of his speech.

Lord John Russell

reminded the House, that they were now debating the principle of the Bill on the presentation of a petition. Perhaps the shorter way would be to present the petition, and then debate the principle of the Bill on his Motion, that it be now read a third time.

The petition was laid on the Table, and the Order of the Day was read "that the Bill be now read a third time."

Mr. Maclean

could not resist the opportunity thus offered him of troubling the House with a few observations. He was aware that it was too late to dispute the principle of the Bill, but he hoped the House would bear with him for a short time. If he could have conceived that the party with whom he had the honour of acting would have obtained nothing more by concession than the immaterial alterations which the Committee had made in the Bill during its progress, through the House, he for one would never have acceded to the second reading of it. For what had they obtained by giving way to the noble Lord on the second reading? Nothing, or next to nothing—for all the propositions which had been made on that side of the House, whether they emanated from the right hon. the Member for Tamworth, or from the noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire, had been regularly negatived. It was too late now, he was afraid, to dispute the principle of the Bill, but they might ask what it was. When the noble Lord, the Member for the West Riding of Yorkshire (Lord Morpeth) moved an Amendment upon the Address of the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, he did so on the ground that his Majesty's Ministers in that Address announced no intention of placing the Corporations under popular control. If the principle of the Bill was founded on the necessity of creating a vigilant popular control over all Municipal institutions, he would ask hon. Members to look at the Report, and see whether they could extract from its pages any reasons for making such a principle the basis of the present Measure? It was a singular circumstance that the only borough mentioned in the Report as being a borough in which the Corporation was prompted by popular feeling was the borough of Plymouth. That borough, which, in page 595, is quoted as an example of the utility of popular control over Local Corporations, is in the very next page condemned as affording an example of the most profligate expenditure of Corporate Funds. The Report says—"The constitution and character of the Corporation of Plymouth are very superior to those of other Municipal bodies in the west of England. It affords the only instance that occurred to us in the course of our inquiries of a Corporation framed and acting upon popula principles. Not only are the Mayor and Aldermen elected by the Commonalty, but the management of all the Corporate affairs has, in fact, since the year 1803, been in the hands of the freemen at large. This power has been exercised by them with much prudence and discretion, by the appointment of a Committee of twenty-one of their number, by whom all the business of the Corporation is conducted. This body, dividing itself into sub-Committees, appears to form an excellent Board of Management, and to conduct the affairs of the Corporation with diligence, zeal, and integrity." And yet, after all this, it is stated in the very same page, "that the Corporation was in considerable pecuniary difficulties, and that one consequence of the difficulties into which this unfortunate expenditure of their revenue plunged the Corporation was that it compelled them to make sale of the next presentation to two of their churches, and to apply the proceeds towards the reduction of the debt which they had incurred. No part of this money was expended upon the churches themselves, which required repairs, and it consequently became necessary to impose a Church-rate, a measure of course very unpopular amongst the inhabitants. It seems also to have been the opinion of many persons that the sale of the next presentation was in itself, and without reference to the application of the monies arising from it, an improper act on the part of the Corporation; that they stood in the situation of trustees for the public, charged with the duty of providing the churches with proper ministers, and that it was a breach of that duty in them to transfer the right to others." The Report concluded with this statement:—"We have not visited any Corporation in the west of England so well managed in all respects as the Corporation of Plymouth, which we attribute to the efficient control exercised by the public over the elections of Members of that body, and to the publicity which is given to all their proceedings." Such was the contradictory description of the borough of Plymouth given by the Commissioners. Another objection which he had to the Report of the Commissioners was, that it contained no digest of the evidence which they had taken, but that it amalgamated in one confused mass all that they had heard from every quarter. For instance, statements of the most extraordinary character were made respecting the freemen of the borough which he had the honour to represent. It was said, that "the respectable and instructed portion of the freemen of Oxford studiously absented themselves from the elections, and that, although there was a body of more than 1,400 resident freemen, the annual vacancies of Corporation Offices were generally filled up by the votes of less than 500 persons, the most indigent, illiterate, and worthless inhabitants of the city." Now, he thought that this extract proved, not that the majority of the freemen were worthless, but that the majority of them stood aloof from, and far above, the reach of corruption. Ought, then, the rights, the long established rights of these freemen, to be sacrificed on the mere Report of a Commission of which the legality had been questioned by some of the highest law authorities in the country? He confessed that he had heard with no less surprise than sorrow the abuse which his hon. and learned Friend, the Attorney-General, had recently poured forth against the freemen of England. He had no occasion to explain the reasons which had induced him to say that he had heard that abuse with sorrow; but the House would understand the reasons which had induced him to say that he had heard it with surprise when he reminded them, that during the discussions on the Reform Bill his hon. and learned Friend was so convinced of the excellence and incorruptibility of the freemen of Stafford, that he had proposed to introduce a special Clause into it for the purpose of preventing the disfranchisement of the non-resident freemen of that borough. He was of opinion that that proposition did his hon. and learned Friend credit, for as his hon. and learned Friend's constituents of Stafford were then supposed to be uncorrupted and incorruptible, as there was no document on the Table of the House to prove that they had been paid 2l. and 3l. each for their votes, he honoured his hon. and learned Friend for stating that it was not fitting that such honest and honourable men should have their franchises vitally affected by the Reform Bill. With that Clause fresh in his recollection, would his hon. and learned Friend, the Attorney-General, persist in calling them "the eye-sore of the constitution"—"the refuse of the constituency"—"men who passed their days in gaol," and other names of the same complimentary character? He would not detain the House any longer; he thanked it for the indulgence with which it had already listened to him, and perhaps it would permit him to add, that he should not have been so warm as he had been had he not seen in certain quarters a strong disinclination to treat vested rights with proper caution. He had the satisfaction of knowing that, acting as he then did, he was acting in common with the majority of the representatives of England, who respected the rights which were handed down to the present generation by their forefathers, and were willing to stand by the constitution without seeking those innovations which must lead it to a premature grave.

Mr. Horace Twiss

would not trouble the House with discussing the principle of the Bill; but he must take leave to regard it as a measure which enjoyed the remarkable and unenviable distinction of being the only measure which the present Administration had framed and hoped to carry through during this Session. The Ministry had postponed the Irish Tithe Bill to a late and impracticable period of the Session, and by bringing forward the Corporation Bill at the expense of more important measures had placed the country in a false position. The haste with which this Corporation Bill had been pressed forward was remarkable, whether they regarded the postponement of more important measures, or the different and more cautious procedure which would have been adopted had this been a mere local Bill, either for making some change in the administration of justice, or altering the constitution of a Paving and Lighting Board. In such a case the Bill would have been referred to a Committee—there would have been several sittings—the requisite evidence would have been de- manded, and the agents of parties interested in the Bill, together with Counsel, would have been in attendance. But in this important measure, which had reference to 191 Local Bills, no such steps were adopted, no such evidence was required, and the House proceeded to legislate without giving notice to the parties most nearly interested that such was their intention, or even giving time to hon. Members to consult with their constituents upon the measure as it respectively affected them. Let them suppose an Administration coming into office at Easter, 1835, having for their object, not at all the continuation of their own tenure of place, but, primarily and above all other things, the benefit of the country at large; and, on such a supposition, let hon. Members see what course they would have been likely to take on the subject of Corporation Reform. In the first place, prudent Ministers would have possessed themselves of all the attainable information, before they began to legislate at all. Then they would have waited, not only for all the opinions of the reporting Commissioners, but for all the evidence upon which those opinions were founded, before they proceeded to frame their Bill. Having framed the Bill—which, however useful in its general object, must needs be obnoxious, nevertheless, in many of its enactments—to the title of a Bill of Pains and Penalties—privilegium odiosum, as the Roman lawyers used to say—the just and cautious Ministers he had supposed would, perhaps, have thought it fair to print such a Bill for circulation among the corporators and other inhabitants of the towns; and, next, to avoid all danger of involving individual injustice in a measure alleged to be of so great and general utility, they would have allowed a reasonable time to the various parties who might have sought to be heard by petition, or otherwise, against their own disfranchisement, and to suggest reasons against particular enactments or modifications of them for the saving or compensating of particular rights. If, during all the time while this measure was in preparation, there had been other very urgent demands on the attention of Parliament—if a step had just before been taken, never mind by whom, alienating the property of the Church, diminishing the aggregate fund for Protestant instruction, and, thereby, also, unsettling the minds and rousing the apprehensions of all those who think there are higher considerations than the settlement of jealousies between Burgesses and townsmen, or even the procurement of radical majorities for the Cabinet of the hour—that Ministry whom my hypothesis has invested, for the argument's sake, with the attributes of political wisdom and integrity, would have seen, in this uneasy condition of the public mind, a further reason for caution, and for moderate, not protracted delay. If, in addition to all these arguments against hurry, the whole kingdom of Ireland were in such a state, that the Tithe Question had come to an issue of force—that the Clergy were for two or three years unpaid, and reduced to depend, for existence, on the alms of their Christian brethren—that the people of England were taxed a million sterling, to make good the deficiencies of Irish payments—that the Cabinet had no better security for the peace of Ireland during the ensuing winter, than the forbearance of the leaders, for whose coercion they but two years since required powers unknown to the British Constitution—in such a state of things a wise and honest Ministry would be anxious for nothing so much as the settlement of the question of Irish Tithe; that, whether connected or unconnected with its recent adjunct of Church spoliation, that great question of Irish Tithe would require and receive their earliest and their most active consideration, in preference to the reform of the hungriest corporation that ever bartered a vote for a dinner. Let the House, however, suppose a Ministry to have come in, actuated, beyond all other motives, by a desire to strengthen themselves in power. With such a feeling, how would such a Ministry have been likely to act upon the subject of Corporation Reform, in comparison and relation to the other great subjects of the time? The various great reforms which they may have said were in their desks, all drawn and drafted into Bills, and ready for legislation, they would, of course, lay by. Nobody would know better than themselves, how well all those matters could afford to wait; and being quite ready, not only cut but dried, they could be brought forward at any time on a moment's warning. Never mind those—never mind Ireland—all that may be passed by; something, however, must straightway be done to help such Ministers in the House of Commons. The infatuated people had returned an alarming proportion of Con- servatives, and, with other gentlemen of constitutional principles, make a minority so large, that it wants less than a score of recruits from the other side to make it a majority. This was an inconvenient state of things for a Government. The thing to be done for diverting the public mind was, to get up a good cry; and nothing, in that way, was more likely to succeed, than a cry for the Reform of Corporations—Corporations were, more or less, Conservative, and a cry against Corporations was, therefore, pro tanto, a cry against Conservatives. If that should prosper, when the Session was over it might be safe to venture a dissolution. Therefore, by all means, a Corporation Reform would be the earliest measure proposed by such a Ministry. The first two months, from the beginning of April to the beginning of June, might be tided over without doing anything. The Tories would be likely to stand by the Corporations; that would remit them to their old unpopularity among the multitude; and should such a Ministry, if composed of Whigs and supported by Radicals, manage tolerably well, the Corporation Reform Bill would bring them an addition of fifty-eight votes at the next election. Such were the reasons which might be urged by some crafty Member of such a Cabinet; such were the reasons which, with such a Ministry, I could conceive to prevail, for giving to a new Corporation Reform Bill, read for the first time on the 5th of June, priority over all the other commenced and uncompleted business of the country. But, whatever might be the reasons which would induce an unconscientious Government to hurry a mischievous and suspicious course, he was at a loss to discern the principle on which this policy of precipitation was adopted by the present Cabinet—to whom he was bound to ascribe the most upright, if not always the wisest, designs. They never before had evinced any symptoms of haste about Corporate Reform. They came into office in November, 1830, and they waited till July, 1833—two years and three quarters—before they even took their first step, by issuing their Commission for inquiry into the long-alleged abuses of the Corporations. After so long a period of delay, why did they now display such haste and anxiety? The late Ministry was obliged to quit office in consequence of the reception given to the Irish Tithe Bill, which was then considered the most urgent and pressing measure, notwithstanding which the settlement of that question had been postponed, and nothing was done in it till this late period of the Session. Did the urgency of this and other measures depend solely upon the circumstance of who were in or out of office? Would it be pretended that the tranquil state of Ireland rendered it unnecessary to press forward a settlement of the Tithe question? If so, why did not the noble Lord repeal the Coercion Bill? If, on the contrary, Ireland, though not actually in a blaze of rebellion, was much too unquiet to be left to the operation of the ordinary law, how happened it that a measure which was declared to present the only chance of pacifying that country, and affording permanent satisfaction—how happened it that such a measure was postponed? The Irish Tithe Bill was not postponed because Ministers were divided in opinion upon the subject, nor because they were unprepared to take it up, nor because they awaited the Report of the Commissioners of Public Instruction; but because, for some inscrutable reasons, the Government thought it better to destroy the Tories in the cities and boroughs of England, than to redress what their friends had so long proclaimed to be the greatest grievance of the Irish people. If there were not time for both measures in the present Session, it appeared to him that England could have better afforded to wait than Ireland, and all he would add was, that if in the ensuing winter there should be an outbreak of popular discontent in Ireland, on Ministers and their supporters be the responsibility.

Sir John Rae Reid

thought that as he represented a considerable body of freemen, as pure as any in the kingdom, it was his duty to come forward, and defend them from the unjust aspersions that had been cast upon them by the hon. Members on the opposite side of the House. If ever there was a time to express his indignation at such unfair aspersions it was the present. The attacks that had been made upon the freemen were the most unjust that had ever been levelled against any body of men. When he saw the numerical strength that the other side of the House possessed such attacks were, to say the least of them, highly disreputable.

Mr. Lechmere Charlton

said in opposing the Bill he was influenced only by a sense of duty, and he called upon the House to oppose an Act that was so unjust towards the freemen of England. It might not be allowed to pass into a law, as it contained principles at variance with those of the constitution of the country. It condemned a great number of persons unheard and without a fair trial, merely on the Report of a few Commissioners. It debased them from the situation they held, and it raised up other persons, who would believe that the measure was the triumph of one party over another. It was stated by a celebrated foreigner, in speaking of the High Court of Parliament, that the higher they were, the more cautious they should be in doing the slightest injustice to any one. He called upon that House then to be cautious how they sanctioned a measure that was an act of injustice to a very large body of men. It was notorious that the Corporation Commissioners, at least the greater part of them, were averse to the Corporations, and that no charges, notwithstanding, were brought by them against many Corporations. It was not fair on the part of the Government to legislate on the reports of such persons. He considered, and he had the authority of one of the first lawyers in the country for so doing, that there was an old law in existence which was strong enough to correct all the abuses that had crept into the Corporations. What was the necessity, then, for the present Bill? He would ask was it fair, that all the Corporations should be visited with the sins of the few? The Commission was an unfair one, and partially composed. The opinions of the hon. Member for Middlesex were well known respecting the clerical magistracy of the country, and that he would vote for having them all turned out of the commission of the peace. Now, supposing that there was a Committee of Inquiry instituted as to the clerical magistracy, would the hon. Member for Middlesex be allowed to be a member of it? Certainly not. Why, then should men, whose opinions were notoriously averse to Corporations be allowed to form a part of a Commission of Inquiry respecting them? One of the Commissioners, who was a Tory, was turned out of the Commission, and refused his pay solely on the ground that he was too much of a Tory. But would the Bill remedy the defects of the Corporations? It had been well said by the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, and he fully agreed with the right hon. Baronet's opinion, that those who concocted the Bill would be the first to feel its effects, to detest it, and to wish it had never been passed. The Bill, he contended, was at variance with every principle of the Constitution—at variance with all justice; it would not meet the evils it was proposed to remedy, and it would spread confusion throughout the country. The hon. Member concluded by emphatically objecting to the Bill, chiefly on the ground that it proceeded on a principle totally unknown to the Constitution of the country.

Mr. Grove Price

lamented, that with the exception of a few words from the noble Lord at the head of the Home Department, they had heard nothing from Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House on the present occasion. It was not a bare majority that would satisfy the country on this subject—people looked for argument. He had always felt, that on a great question, such as this, the mere fact of representing a large body of freemen was a narrow ground on which to found a speech—it was on the general principle of the measure that he wished to address the House. He objected to the course taken by the noble Lord, who, after having agreed to preserve the political rights of freemen, with a view to facilitate the passing of the Reform Bill, now came forward, and by a side blow destroyed those privileges. If the noble Lord had stated openly the right of freemen were to be abolished, however he might differ from the noble Lord as to the policy or practice of the proceeding, he would have admitted his manliness; but when he saw the freemen allowed to exercise their privileges temporarily for the purpose of smoothing down opposition, he felt obliged to say that he thought the noble Lord did not adhere to sound principles of policy or fair dealing. He always understood the Reform Bill to be a final arrangement—it was so represented by its advocates, and "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill," was a watchword that rang through the country. Now, however, they found the noble Lord, who had wrapped up, swaddled, and dandled the babe of reform, unnaturally conspiring against his nursling while it was yet of tender age, The noble Lord now brought in his hand, proh pudor! an instrument to destroy a considerable part of our second charter. After this, what security existed for the permanence of any settlement, for the integrity of any measure? He held it as a sacred principle that no right, privilege, or franchise, should be destroyed, except in cases of gross abuse, or where stern necessity, which overruled all law, dictated the act. Once establish a contrary rule, and where was the individual, or the body, whose rights would not be endangered? The principle affected rich and poor. Such a measure as the present, carried by mere majorities, not by moral weight and force of argument, involved a direct act of political tyranny. He objected to the Legislature suffering itself to be carried away by wilful caprice and humour to commit acts the most unjust and indefensible, simply on the ground of a supposed expediency. He had the strongest objections to the principle of perpetual political change—to constantly renewed elections, leading to angry feelings and breaches of social ties. Every free Government had been ultimately destroyed by frequency of elections, and what was true of Athens of old was equally true in the present day. Men might be changed by the influence of different states of society, and by other circumstances, but the leading passions and feelings of humanity were everywhere the same. If you brought election contests home to the door of every man day after day, what a degree of moral evil would be created I [Question], He hoped, as he was discussing the question temperately, that his observations would be received with candour. The result of the practice to which he had referred would be, to set every man against his neighbour, and to break asunder the ties of private life. Nobody would enjoy or profit by such a system but bustling, meddling, agitators, to the annoyance of all quiet, industrious, and sober men. As soon as these elections were introduced into a town, every man of capital who could would quit it. He had seen the sad effects of such contests in towns where, by means of them, the morals of the population were rendered a subject of reproach, instead of affording, as they did previously, a ground for admiration. He thought it enough to state to the house, distinctly and positively, that he had seen such effects produced, without naming the particular places to which he referred. Another ground of objection to the measure was, that it extended to towns which were not only free from all accusation, but which had received from the Commissioners the highest character as to the manner in which their corporate concerns were administered. Sandwich was one of those places the affairs of which were admitted to be admirably conducted, yet the noble Lord placed it upon the same Procrustean bed with Stafford. Having mentioned Stafford, he might observe, that his feelings were never more shocked than when he heard an hon. Member, who formerly represented that borough, and who had doubtless lauded his excellent friends the independent freemen, when courting them for their "most sweet voices," he was never more shocked than when he heard the hon. and learned Gentleman describe those very electors in such terms of reprobation as he had recently used. He believed that by the present measure an advance was made towards the establishment of the democratic principle, which would ultimately, he feared, destroy all the institutions of the country.

Colonel Sibthorpe

, on presenting a petition from the freemen of Lincoln, had expressed his sentiments on this Bill, and therefore it was unnecessary to trouble the House with a repetition of his arguments, but he felt himself bound to protest against this measure. He spoke his own sentiments as an independent Member of Parliament, and as such he could not help expressing his deep regret at the absence of the right hon. Member for Tamworth on that important occasion. If the noble Lord had not forgotten his duty to the country as a Minister of the Crown, he would never have consented to have brought forward a measure for the total disfranchisement of the freemen. He sincerely hoped that that was the last measure the noble Lord would be able to introduce into that House.

The Bill was read a third time.

Mr. Cayley

said, that there was an omission in Clause 91, which wanted supplying; and he rose to move an Amendment to that effect. That Clause was introduced for the purpose of providing a remedy against collusive purchases, sales and demises of Corporate property, since the 5th of June of this year, for undue consideration. But there were other modes of collusion; and it was in reference to one of these that his Amendment went. The object of the Bill was to get rid of self-elections in Municipal Government. Now, in some boroughs, the practice had been to let the corporate lands and other property only from year to year; but since the introduction of this Bill it was understood that a new practice had arisen, of letting leases for seven years or a longer term. The intent of this was obvious—namely, to continue certain lands and tenements in the possession of the partisans of the present Corporations, so as to prolong their influence in Corporate and Parliamentary elections. He (Mr. Cayley) contended that this was against the principle of the Bill, and the remedy for it came within the spirit of this Clause. The attempt, was one to frustrate, so far as the power of the parties went, the intentions of the Bill. His amendment would frustrate that attempt, and would be totally inoperative and harmless where no such attempt had been made. It would serve the ends of justice, and could commit no injustice. The principle of his amendment was similar, also, to one proposed on a late evening, by the late Solicitor General, which went to protect the practice of certain boroughs with respect to long leases, which, by some oversight or other, had not been actually secured by covenant. He was in favour of that Amendment, because it was just. His object now was, to protect the principle of short leases, which had been the practice in other boroughs. It might be retrospective in point of letter, but not in point of spirit: and, at all events, was no more retrospective than the Clause as it now stood. If these attempts at collusive sales and demises were not legal, then the common law would protect the new councils, without this or a similar Clause. But if they were, according to the letter of the present law, strictly legal, but in spirit unjustifiable, and with intent to defraud and defeat the purpose of this Bill, then the House would go along with him, that such attempts ought not to be sanctioned by it. The object of these leases evidently was to continue the influence of self-elected bodies longer than was contemplated by the Bill, and therefore was against the spirit and principle of the Bill. To prevent such an intent as this could injure no one, and would improve the Bill; he expected, therefore, the support of every independent Member of the House who advocated the principle of the Bill. His Amendment was to the effect, that if the jury, by their oaths, should find that any demise had been made for a longer term than was usual before the 5th of June, 1835, every such demise and conveyance should endure as against the said body corporate and their successors for such term only as the jury should find to be according to the said practice of the said borough.

Lord John Russell

said, that according to this Clause, whenever there was a case brought before a jury with respect to premises which were usually let for twenty years being let for sixty or for one hundred years, the question to be decided would be, whether an adequate consideration had been paid or not for the longer lease; if it had not been, then it would come within the meaning of the Clause to afford the party the option of either giving up the lease or paying full consideration for it, according- to the value of the premises. But in the case of a longer term than usual having been granted, and the parties having given for it an adequate consideration, he thought it would be too strong a measure for Parliament to interfere. Fearing, then, that in the endeavour of Parliament to enforce a remedy for one injustice, it might commit another, he felt it to be his duty to oppose the Clause.

Mr. Aglionby

supported the Amendment, because, without some such provisions, Corporations might grant leases for a period of 999 years.

The Attorney-General

opposed it, thinking that the provisions of the Bill as they now stood were sufficient to guard against any collusion on the part of Corporations. The granting of a lease for 999 years would be a complete alienation of the fee. He hoped that the hon. Member for Yorkshire would not divide the House upon his proposition.

Mr. Cayley

did not forego his opinion as to the necessity of the Amendment; but seeing the Government and the opposite side of the House against him, he felt that it would be useless to divide.

Amendment withdrawn.

Sir Eardley Wilmot

moved "That the Corporation of Sutton Coldfield be left out of Schedule B." It was not a political Corporation, and was possessed of considerable trust property, which was enjoyed equally by all the inhabitants. Without some such exception, the inhabitants of Birmingham, Walsall, and other districts, would acquire a right to a share in that, property, which would thus come to be divided among 200,000 persons.

Lord John Russell

opposed the Amend- ment, and said, that the inhabitants of Sutton Coldfield were not desirous of the exception.

The Amendment was withdrawn.

Several Clauses were added and Amendments made, and then the Bill was passed.