HL Deb 28 August 1835 vol 30 cc1070-3
Viscount Melbourne

moved the third reading of the Municipal Corporations' Bill.

The Earl of Winchilsea

would not make any observations upon the Measure; but to record his opinion against any measure of this kind, he should take the sense of the House on the Motion that the Bill be read a third time that day six months.

The House divided on the original Motion: Contents 69; Not-Contents 5; Majority 64.

[It was stated that the Ministers and their supporters did not vote on either side, but retired to the foot of the Throne; and thus abstained from expressing any opinion on the Bill in its present state.]

Bill read a third time, and passed. To be sent to the Commons, and their concurrence requested in the Amendments.

List of the NOT-CONTENTS.
Winchilsea Roden
Boston Falmouth
Kenyon

On this stage of the Bill, the following Protests against the Bill were entered:—

Dissentient,—

1. Because we view with the deepest jealousy and alarm the unconstitutional power which, by the advice of the Ministers, has been claimed by the Crown (and which has never before been conceded to it) of issuing a commission of an inquisitorial character, such as that which stamps the commission on which this Bill has been founded.

2. Because, as the constitution of this country consists of King, Lords, and Commons, we will maintain inviolate that sound constitutional doctrine (regarding its maintenance as the best security for our national rights, privileges, and liberties), that no commission conveying such powers as are contained in that now referred to can properly proceed from any one power of the State, but should rest on no less authority than the concurrence and approbation of the other two remaining branches of the Legislature.

WINCHILSEA.

Dissentient—1. Because the Amendments to the Bill alter its whole structure, are altogether inconsistent with its principles, and while they impair its efficiency to any good purpose, present it to the view of the country in a light still more unfavourable than even the Measure thus altered may in itself deserve to be regarded.

2. Because the alleged preservation of the rights of freemen within the corporation is founded upon an entire misapprehension of the nature of corporations, and of the title by which they hold property—it being a principle wholly undeniable, that whatever property is held by any corporate body, it belongs to that body, under whatever form and with whatever modifications the Legislature may be pleased to impress upon it, and that all corporations, as well ecclesiastical as lay, only have a title to the property which they possess upon the ground of the corporation continuing identically the same after its formation has been changed by law.

3. Because the continuing of the Parliamentary franchise to the freemen, or those who would have been entitled to become freemen but for this Bill, is a perpetuation of the very worst evils of the representative system, the freemen being the class of voters among whom all the evils of bribery and corruption have been in all cases found most extensively to prevail.

4. Because the qualification adopted of the sixth part of the rate-payers—those who pay the largest amount of rates—is contrary to the whole principles of our free constitution; establishing for the first time as a rule, that the political rights and privileges of the state shall belong only to those who have more money than their fellow citizens, not affixing, as our order-laws have done, a certain amount of wealth as the test of the right to mingle in public affairs, but excluding all therefrom except the richest class; so that not merely rich persons, or persons in easy circumstances, are henceforth to be deemed eligible to office, but the richest; the persons who excel their fellow-citizens in wealth are declared to be alone capable of administering the municipal concerns,—a principle absurd in itself, and oppressive and fraught with the mischiefs of oligarchy in its worst and most offensive form—the oligarchy of mere property without any other qualification or modification whatever.

5. Because the introduction of this novel and pernicious principle is rendered still more absurd by the alternative which is added, allowing any person, in some boroughs, of 1,000l., in others of 500l. worth of property, to be eligible, inasmuch as this wholly defeats the only purpose for which the new principle objected to is adopted. So that the provision, taken altogether, is wholly inoperative to prevent fraudulent and fictitious qualifications, the sole ground of intruding the new principle, while it sanctions for the first time a doctrine altogether inconsistent with the spirit of all our institutions.

6. Because the election of aldermen for life is the fruitful source of manifold inconveniences and abuses, removing the persons chosen from all salutary control, forcing them into a class set apart from their fellow-citizens, to whom they are wholly unaccountable, sowing the seeds of constant dissension and jealousy between the different classes of councilmen, perpetuating the power of men whom unfitness not originally discovered, incapacity supervening old age, infirmity of any kind, may render wholly or partially unable to discharge the duties of their office.

7. Because the continuance of the existing aldermen or capital burgesses and town-clerks is the certain introduction into the new councils of the worst evils of the old close and self-elective system—making it inevitable that the same kind of influence should continue to prevail in the corporations affected to be reformed, and wholly preventing the change which this Measure professes to effect from producing any substantial benefit in purifying the administration of municipal concerns.

8. Because these alterations of the Bill, and more especially the last, have a direct tendency to exhibit this Measure to our countrymen as a mere mockery, or pretence of reform, as holding out in words the promise of improvement, which it at the same time breaks.

9. Because the converting an office granted during pleasure into an office for life, without the consent of the grantor, is contrary to all principle, without any precedent, and a much more glaring violation of the rights of parties than any which even the adversaries of the Bill have imputed to its provisions.

10. Because the amendments, and those especially relating to retaining persons in their office, proceed upon a supposition that the councils chosen by the people are less fit to be trusted with the administration of the corporate offices, and more likely to do acts of imprudence and of injustice, than the present bodies, which owe their existence and continuance to self-election.

11. Because the requiring that a councilman shall be a member of the Church of England before he can vote for the presentation to a living is utterly repugnant to the whole spirit, and even to the letter, of the law of England, sanctioning the principle of tests long after these had been abrogated, absurdly assuming that corporators are less fit or less likely honestly to exercise rights of church patronage than private individuals, who are by law subject to no such restrictions, and stigmatizing Dissenters with the hateful imputation of being disposed to violate trusts reposed in them, by appointing unfit persons to perform clerical functions, with the view of fraudulently undermining the Established Church—a conduct of which we in our consciences believe the Dissenters to be utterly incapable.

12. Because we believe that the character of these Amendments is to injure the Measure in all its essential principles, leaving only as much of it as could not have been altered without rejecting the Bill altogether; while we are firmly persuaded that the changes effected are calculated to produce in men's minds an opinion of this House being far more hostile to the fundamental principles of the Measure than it really is; and because we thus hold it to be inevitable that far more harm will be wrought by the changes made in the Bill than good can be gained, even according to the views of those who have propounded them.

BROUGHAM. DENMAN.
CHARLEMONT. TEYNHAM.
CLONCURRY. BREADALBANE.
(Except the 2nd Reason).