The Earl of Liverpool, on moving the order of the day for the third reading of this bill, begged to state as shortly as possible, the reasons which induced ministers to propose a coninuance of this measure. He held it as a maxim, that a strong distinction should be drawn between those who owed a natural allegiance to the country, and those persons whose allegiance here was temporary, and who owed a natural and permanent allegiance elsewhere. He was aware that the great charter of our liberties provided for the protection of alien merchants trading to this country. But this was a protection granted, not for the benefit of such alien merchants, but for the benefit of this country. And why? Because this country derived great advantage from the trading of those alien merchants, and unless such special protection was granted to them, the king, by his prerogative, might send them out of the country. But if it was the right of an alien not to be sent out of the country against his will, what need of such a provision in the great charter? The exception in this case established, the principle upon which this bill was founded. It was a measure in perfect conformity with law and justice, and there was nothing in the Statute book against it. It might be said that this was a prerogative of the Crown, and that there were not many instances of its having been exercised. There was, however, an instance in the reign of queen Elizabeth. The case was that of a foreigner who had been accused of uttering defamatory language of the government. A doubt arose as whether the language had been used in this country or abroad; the matter was referred to the privy council, who decided, that if the language was used in this country, the party ought to be proceeded against according to law; but if the words were used abroad, then he should be sent out of this country. It 1852 might be asked, then, why any special measure was necessary? He answered, that it arose, out of the difficulty of exercising the common law right. The alien bill had not originated in time of war, though war was then thought highly probable in the end of 1792. It had originated in the state of France, and the number of foreigners who flocked to this country. The question was whether, in the present state of the world, it was fitting that this power should he withheld from the executive government? He thought that one of its strongest recommendations was, that it was likely to prevent disputes with foreign powers. It was a right to be vested generally in the Crown, and it was not directed against any particular state. Looking to the condition of the world in general, to the revolutions pending and completed, without at all considering which party was right or which was wrong, it was equally proper that a power should be enjoyed by the executive to prevent this kingdom from being the general receptacle of the discontented. Buonaparte had once claimed that the British government should send away the French princes. The demand was refused; but it was added, that though they would be entertained on the ground of hospitality, they would not be allowed to make this country the theatre of plots and machinations. His conviction was, that as far as the public securities were concerned, foreigners would be disposed to invest their property in our funds, in proportion to the means taken to promote the general tranquillity. The fair question was, whether for the sake of the internal and external peace of the country, this bill ought not to be adopted.
The Earl of Darnleyopposed the bill, which he characterized as a most disgraceful and useless measure.
Lord Hollandcould not retire from the House with satisfaction at the close of ant anxious session, if he did not do all in his power to resist a bill which, in all points of view, was objectionable: "monstrum nulla virtute redemptum." He had trusted that the new secretary of state for the home department, after he was once warm in his seat, would have felt himself and the country sufficiently secure to have allowed a law so odious to expire. The very terms of preceding alien bills showed that they were grounded solely upon peculiar circumstances, and the ministers who had brought them forward had rested 1853 them upon temporary expediency and necessity. The preambles of former bills represented that they were called for by the number of individuals daily arriving in this country; but, at this moment, every day produced a new moan, that the king's subjects were abandoning it in shoals. The noble earl had contended, that the measure was likely to promote peace; yet it was a singular fact that we had been at war during nearly the whole existence of alien bills. He had also noticed, in reference to the present reigning family of France, the use which he had made of the alien bill at the peace of Amiens; but if it had not been upon our Statute-book, the noble earl could have given a much better answer to the then first consul. Buonaparte had complained also of the libellous publications against him in this country; and the noble earl, in this instance, had been able to reply that the publishers only could be punished through the intervention of a jury. Until this inhospitable measure was first adopted in 1792, Great Britain had been able to assert that she was free, and that she opened her arms to all foreigners. Such had once been the reply of the states of Holland, when king William required that Bayle should be banished. Either the prerogative did or did not exist in the Crown: if it did, this bill was needless, and if it did not, it was not to be denied that until 1792 the country had thriven without it. He doubted the applicability of the case referred to by the noble earl in the reign of Elizabeth. If the king were to exercise this prerogative, the proceeding could not be so summary, as by the bill: an interval would be allowed for explanation: the person accused would enjoy the right of making his case known, and appealing to a jury consisting of half foreigners and half Englishmen. In the range of his acquaintance, he had known many who had refused to take up their abode in England, because they dreaded the exercise of the odious powers given by this measure. The case of M. Las Cases was one of foul abuse. Supposing the right to seize in St. Helena on the slightest suspicion, still the subsequent proceedings had been unjustifiable. Being sent 500 miles up the country at the Cape of Good Hope, he had been able, from memory, to write the history of his life, and to record much of what had been taken from him; and above all, the conversations of that great man whom 1854 he had long served, and whose conversations would live ages beyond the date when such arguments as those of the noble earl were utterly forgotten. When he reached our shores, not only was he not permitted to land, but his papers were seized in a manner that was little short of downright robbery. True, they had been afterwards restored to him; but in the first instance there existed no more right to take possession of them than to take possession of any British subject's private memoranda. He (lord H.) had not thought it for the advantage of M. Las Cases to have the subject mentioned in parliament at the time. To him it appeared wiser that Las Cases should wait to see whether government would restore to him his papers; which they had since done, and in the handsomest manner. On the last occasion upon which the necessity of such a measure had been insisted on, the ground taken was, that it was required by the then situation of the world. But that situation was acknowledged to have become entirely changed. The noble lord said that this was a measure of protection. If ours were an arbitrary government, there might be some use and some consistency in talking about protection. But he knew of no other protection which ministers ever could have contemplated, unless it were, that after that great and extraordinary man with whom they had so long contended, was sent over a vast expanse of ocean into solitary and unhealthy confinement, it was found necessary to guard against him, in exile and imprisonment, by a suspension of the British constitution—by assuming a power of this extraordinary nature as a security against that great man, of whom he (lord H.) had heard those who loved him least but knew him best, declare, that he was the most extraordinary character who had appeared in the world during the last thousand years. For his own part, he would not hesitate to say, that he participated in that general sentiment of grief and regret with which the intelligence of his death had been received by every admirer of fallen greatness all over Europe. But when he considered the lingering kind of death to which that mighty individual had been condemned (if not by his majesty's ministers, at least by those acting under them), that sentiment of sorrow and compassion was changed into one of a very different character. It was some consolation at least to recollect that 1855 they who, either by permission or by omissions, had contributed to cast this indelible stain upon the fair fame and honour of the country, would have a better foretaste in the general abhorrence and execration with which the treatment of that departed and extraordinary person had been viewed and remarked upon, as soon as the intelligence of his death had been made known—of the mariner in which their conduct would be transmitted to the latest posterity. This language might not be very philosophical; but on such an occasion it was impossible to repress his feelings. But, this distinguished individual was now gone: this "gunpowder Percy" was no more; and surely the noble earl would not contend that it was necessary to protect us against his ghost. Of what, then, were they apprehensive? The noble earl said, the adoption of the bill was the way to preserve peace. How? was it by exerting great activity in order to discover if any Frenchman, while he was walking the streets of London, was plotting to deprive France of the great blessing conferred upon her by placing Louis 18th on the throne? That could not be accomplished without previous communications with the French governments, to ascertain who were the individuals suspected—But, let their lordships look at the practical effect of the measure in another direction. Let them consider the present condition of the Greeks. Did the noble earl mean to say, that any Greek who fled to England from the misery inflicted by the Turks on his unhappy countrymen, and who was suspected of being active in the dissemination of principles calculated to rescue his native land from despotism, would be a fit object for the powers granted by this bill? If so, he would declare that such a principle was repugnant, not only to the principles of humanity and justice, but to the immediate interests of this country. He would not enter into the extensive field of discussion which the mention of this subject opened; but he would say, that however inclined he was to the maintenance of peace and neutrality, no man would exult more than himself, at the rescue of those beautiful provinces from the arbitrary power under which they had for 300 years groaned. It had been the uniform opinion of all our great statesmen, that no country was more interested than England in the expulsion of the Turks from Europe. 1856 One of the greatest writers which this country had ever produced, and who was a secretary of state also—he meant Mr. Addison—had said, that to conceive that the existence of the Turkish power in Europe was necessary, directly or indirectly, to our greatness, or that England was not absolutely interested in the downfal of that power, was the ne plus ultra of absurdity. One of the greatest objections which he had to the bill was, that it gave countenance to, if it did not actually aid and abet the objects of the holy alliance. He really had hoped that government would not again call upon a British parliament to pass this bill. Whether we viewed Europe as politicians or as philosophers, it was evident that a great contest was going on between the friends and the enemies of improvement. Through peace and war this contest had for some years been going on. The advocates for improvement had succeeded in one great division of Europe. Under such circumstances, it would have become British statesmen to adopt and pursue some settled plan of honourable policy, suited to so peculiar a state of things. But of all possible courses, that of giving assistance, or, indeed, mere countenance to those governments who set their faces determinately against every kind of improvement, was the most disastrous, the most foolish, and the most wicked. Such a line of conduct would, indeed, confirm the belief entertained by the people of the continent, that the British government was one of the links of that great chain which bound down the liberties of Europe from one end of it to the other. Whether that was so or not, if the effect of the present measure was to produce the belief in men's minds, it was deeply to be deplored, and parliament was called upon to counteract it. Much as he deprecated and detested the various oppressions to which this measure might lead, his greatest objection to it was, that it seemed to form a part of that system to which he had already alluded. He called upon their lordships not to give their, sanction, by passing such a measure, to the laying of one stone upon that guilty fabrick which foreign despots were attempting to erect upon the ruins of the rights and liberties of their subjects.
§ The question being then put, that the bill do pass, the House divided. Contents 22. Not-Contents 6. Majority 16.