[BILL 233.] THIRD READING. (Hansard, 24 July 1863)

§ MR. HENNESSY
said, that the measure could have no practical effect, for, since it came down from the Lords, it had received an important Amendment. The result was, that while the schedule abolished certain rights and privileges, they were preserved by the first clause. The strong objection to the Bill was that it repealed some statutes relating to Ireland, which were not in the Irish Statute Book, and would now be removed from that of England, and one statute to which the Irish courts of law must appeal. He also objected to the Bill because it repealed Magna Charta and other statutes, which were the landmarks of the Constitution, and which ought to be preserved. A Bill of that manitude—comprising 198 pages of important matter, referring to four and a half centuries of our constitutional history—ought not to have been pressed through the House by the Government at that late period of the Session. He would therefore move that it be read a third time that day week.

MR. LYGON
seconded the Amendment.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL
said, it was a matter of utter astonishment to him to imagine what useful purpose either to his own reputation or to the public interest the hon. Member for the King's County supposed he was promoting in obstructing the progress of a Bill of this kind. Every one of the objections he had taken was utterly baseless. The hon. Gentleman had dipped here and there into Stephen's Blackstone, had taken down a volume or two of the statutes in his leisure moments, and had acquired just the smattering of information which a person might obtain without any real trouble and without attempting to make himself master of a Bill which almost every one else regarded as useful and necessary. The hon. Member had a little knowledge; and a little knowledge, as they knew, was often a very dangerous thing, for the hon. Member asked the House to withdraw its confidence from gentlemen who knew what the hon. Member apparently did not know—namely, that 1358 since Stephens' Blackstone was published, several changes had been made in the law. For himself—and he believed he could also answer for the House—he had confidence in the capacity and learning of the gentlemen who had in this measure revised the statute law. He had therefore only to protest against the indiscreet use the hon. Gentleman had made of his undoubted abilities on this occasion.

§ MR. HENNESSY
said, that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General had delivered to him a severe lecture, but he would remind him that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) and the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) concurred in some of the objections which he had taken to the Bill, and they were no mean authorities. He should also mention that some of the objections made by him to the Bill had been suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. E. P. Bouverie).