The Deputy-Sergeant-at-Armsstated that a messenger from the House was at Mr. Burton Howard's, but he could not be found, and his wife said, that he was in the country.
§ Mr. Humewished to know whether Mr. B. Howard's son had been directed to attend? He understood from his hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury that some further evidence would be laid before the House on that day, and it appeared to him to be trifling with the House.
§ Lord John Russellsaid, that after the report that had just been made by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and the fact that when the messenger went to the house of Mr. Howard he was informed that he was gone to Hull, he thought it hardly possible that, if Mr. Howard had been willing to obey the order of the House, he being an attorney and having an office in London, should not by this time have heard of it. The right hon. Member for Montgomeryshire, whom he did not then see in his place, had stated most correctly the constitutional doctrine as to the orders of the House, namely, that all persons were bound to be aware of them and to obey them. But one would not wish to press that doctrine in any case, where with no intention to evade it, the party might not be aware of the order having been given. He thought, however, that there was in this case sufficient to show that Mr. Howard wished to evade the order of the House, and therefore that there was sufficient to entitle him to move the House to order that Mr. Howard do attend at the bar of this House, and that the Sergeant-at-Arms do take him into custody for that purpose.
§ Sir E. Sugdensuggested, as a milder course, that the House should come to a resolution that service of the order of the House at the house of Mr. Howard should be considered as good service on Mr. Howard. That was a mode of service sometimes adopted in the Courts of Law under similar circumstances. Allowing that to be a good service of the order of the House, in case Mr. Howard did not obey it, the Speaker would, of course, issue a general warrant against him.
Mr. O'Connellconsidered, that, it would be extremely inconvenient to adopt the suggestion of the right hon. and learned Member for Ripon, because, if it were held to be technically necessary to serve these documents at the house of Mr. Howard, it would, in point of fact, be overthrowing the doctrine laid down by the right hon. Member for Montgomeryshire, that every person was bound to be aware of the votes of that House.
§ Sir B. Inglisprotested against the doctrine laid down by his right hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire, on this subject. The noble Lord, taking up that line of argument, had stated, that every subject was bound to know the votes of the House of Commons. Why, within the last five-and-twenty years, the votes of the House were not delivered even to Members, till four or five days after they were passed? and yet, if every subject were bound to be cognizant of, nay, pay obedience to those notes, it mattered not when those votes were printed, or whether they were printed or not. The law required that every person should be cognizant of and pay obedience to the statutes of the realm, and why?—because in early times the statutes were proclaimed and published by the sheriffs at the market-cross on county days; and, in later times, have been printed by the King's Printer, and circulated through every court and session in the country, independently of the indirect publicity which all legislation necesssarily involves. No such publicity, however, had ever been given, neither was it yet given, to the votes and proceedings of the House. And therefore it was, that he held it to be an act of the grossest tyranny that the House should come to a vote at one o'clock on a Tuesday morning, and should hold that at nine o'clock of the same day, that vote was as well known to and as firmly binding upon, all her Majesty's subjects, as if it were an act of Parliament. [" Cheers."] Why, the House was demanding a physical impossibility in this. If there were any truth in the doctrine that all the people of England were bound to know the votes of the House of Commons, they were as much bound to know those which passed on Monday at nine o'clock on the Tuesday, as at the same hour on the Saturday following, or at any other later period.
§ Lord John Russellthought the best method of wording the motion would be, "That Thomas Burton Howard be taken 1220 into the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms and brought to the bar of the House, and Mr. Speaker do issue his warrant for the apprehension of Thomas Burton Howard accordingly."
§ The Attorney-Generalsaid, that it was unnecessary to enter into the speculative question whether the votes of the House ought to be considered as known by every subject in this land. It appeared by the evidence of their own messenger, that on Monday last a demand was made for Mr. Howard at his own house—that his wife stated that he had gone to Hull—that the messenger went to Hull—and that no tidings of Mr. Howard were to be collected at that place. Now, Mr. Howard was a London attorney; he had an office in London; he had clerks in London; he had a house in Norfolk-street; and considering the parties among whom he lived, it was impossible to pretend that he had not had ample notice of the order of the House, and if he had had such notice it was equally impossible to deny, that he was at this moment setting the order of the House at defiance. The order had been already left at Mr. Howard's dwelling-house. Could any man rise up and say that he believed Mr. Howard had not received notice of it? It was only requisite that the party should have due notice of the order. If he had that, and did not attend to it, surely it became the House, to take due notice of the contempt with which Mr. Howard treats it.
§ Mr. Sergeant Jacksoncould have wished that the House had before refrained from those speculative assertions of right which had led the House into its present embarrassment. He entered his humble, yet decided protest against the doctrine that this House was to place its resolutions on a level with the statutes of the realm, and that its votes were to have in point of law the same publicity as the statutes of the land, which were not complete until they had received the assent of the three estates of Parliament.
§ Sir R. Peelsaid, that he should not give his vote in favour of this motion on the ground that the votes and proceedings of the House of Commons were presumed to be known by all the subjects of this realm. He did not think that there was any necessity for him to give an opinion on that question at present. If he had a conviction in his own mind that a person was throwing obstructions in the way of public 1221 justice, and was thereby obstructing the purposes of the House, he should feel himself at liberty and quite justified in adopting a more summary process to compel his attendance. He could not help recollecting that they had had Mr. Howard at their bar ten days ago on this very question of privilege. Mr. Howard then offered an explanation—nay, more, made an apology—for his conduct in bringing this action. On that apology he was discharged. Immediately afterwards another notice of action at the suit of the same plaintiff was served on the printer of the House by this self-same Mr. Howard. Yesterday week, nine days since, the messenger of the House waited on Mr. Howard with a summons from the Speaker to attend at bar. That summons must have been communicated, must be known to Mr. Howard, who is himself an attorney, and who has clerks, who know the necessity of marking when process of any sort is delivered to them. He contended that these facts bore upon the face of them the presumption that there was an intention on the part of Mr. Howard to defeat the justice of the House by keeping out of the way of its summons. The next step, therefore, which he (Sir R. Peel) would take, would not be to commit Mr. Howard, but to compel him to attend at the bar of the House to give evidence. He contended that the Speaker issuing his warrant to compel such attendance on the part of Mr. Howard did not deserve the title of an act of injustice.
§ Sir R. Inglisadmitted that if to defeat the House of Commons were to defeat justice, Mr. Howard unquestionably was guilty of that offence. Unfortunately, however, the two things were not identical; and he thought that Mr. Howard was perfectly justified in removing himself to a distance from the tender mercies of the tyrannical majorities of the House of Commons. Mr. Howard was not a witness, but a party; he was not summoned as a witness; and he had a right to judge whether he ought to be summoned for such a purpose as that for which he was wanted.
§ Mr. Goulburncontended that if the House should acquiesce in the doctrines of his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford, it would be prevented from exercising some of its most important functions in future. His hon. Friend the Member for Oxford had said that Mr. Howard had a right to judge for himself 1222 whether the House were justified in examining him on this matter. Once admit that doctrine, and every witness would have a right to argue with the House as to its right to examine him. If such a principle were admitted, how would the House ever get through the business which came before it? He certainly should vote in favour of the motion that the Speaker be directed to issue his warrant to bring Mr. Howard to their bar.
§ Mr. Shawdeclared his intention of voting for the motion of the noble Lord, on the grounds stated by the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge. He held that every one was bound to attend the summons of the House, to be examined at its bar. He had no doubt that Howard knew of their summons, and was purposely evading it.
§ The Speakersaid there was a precedent for the course now proposed, to be found in the journals for the 30th of March, 1831.
The clerk read an extract from the journals, from which it appeared that one Satchell, having attempted to evade the order of the House by absconding from his home, was apprehended at length by the Sergeant-at-Arms under the warrant of the Speaker.
§ Motion carried.