§ SIR BENJAMIN HALLsaid, he wished to put a question to the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Act of 1851, for the removal of Smithfield Market, and the establishment of another market for the metropolis. Great opposition was given to the progress of that Bill by the Corporation of the City of London. They declined to have anything to do with it; but nevertheless a clause was inserted allowing them, within a certain number of months, to give notice of their intention to undertake the management of the new market. A tew hours previous to the expiration of the limited time, they made their election to shut up Smithfield and establish a new market. A plan was submitted, he understood, by the Corporation to the right hon. Member for Midhurst (Mr. Walpole), the then Secretary of State, and he approved of the site proposed, with the exception that the area was not sufficiently extensive. As far as he recollected, the 1376 area was fifty acres, and in consequence of the representations of the right hon. Gentleman it was extended to seventy: acres. There was a plan now to let out a large portion of ground on building, leases, for buildings having no connexion with the market; and he wished to know whether there had been any communication with his noble Friend by the Corporation since he had been in office in relation to this market, and whether any plan of the buildings or any views of the Corporation had been made known to him with reference to the amount of area which they proposed to adopt and use for the purposes of the market?
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, no communication on the subject had been made to him since he had held his present office. The Act to which his hon. Friend referred gave but one power to the Secretary of State—the power to sanction or refuse his sanction to the site proposed for the new market; but having once sanctioned that site, no further power of interference was reserved in the hands of the Secretary of State; and the Act moreover did give to the Corporation of London a power that if the land purchase should appear to he greater than the amount required for their purpose, they might dispose of a portion of that land. His functions of Secretary of State did not extend to the length of regulating the arrangements which the Corporation had power to make.