HC Deb 17 July 1856 vol 143 cc976-7
MR. HADFIELD

said, he must again advert to the large amount of public business on the paper at that late period of the Session, he would beg to ask the noble Lord at the head of the Government whether he could state which Bills would be proceeded with, and which abandoned. There were four Bills with regard to which he was particularly anxious to learn that information, they were the Vice President of Committee of Council on Education Bill, the new Appropriation of Trust Property Bill, the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Bill, and the Lords Amendments to the Cambridge University Bill.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

said, that the hon. Member appeared to wish for a catalogue of massacre, but execution had been done upon the innocents, one by one, so completely that little remained to be told. The intention of the Government with regard to each Bill would be stated as it came on. With regard to the Bills to which the hon. Member had particularly referred, he might state that the Vice President of the Council on Education Bill would certainly be proceeded with; as to the Criminal Appropriation of Trust Property Bill his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General would on the following day state his intentions; the Lords Amendments to the Cambridge University Bill would be considered to-morrow. The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Bill was a most important measure, involving questions of great magnitude, upon which very considerable difference of opinion might exist, and as many persons had left town he did not think it would be desirable to press the House to come to a decision upon it. It was the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill upon the subject into that House at the beginning of the next Session. It was unnecessary to say what changes might, upon consideration, be made in the measure; but the Government certainly would not include in their Bill the 24th clause of the present one, which prohibited marriage between the parties convicted of adultery. Doing full justice to the motives of those who introduced that clause, he was of opinion that that would be not only a cruel but an immoral provision.