Lords Sitting of 3 April 1840

MINUTES.
Bills. The Royal Assent was given by commission to the following Bills:—Consolidated Fund; Mutiny; Marine Mutiny; and a number of Private Bills.—Read a third time:—Metropolitan Police Courts.
Petitions presented. By the Dukes of Buccleugh, Newcastle, and Wellington, the Marquess of Londonderry, the Earls of Winchilsea, Yarborough, Fingal, Wicklow, St. Vincent, and Galloway, Lords Fitzgerald, and Ashburton, from a great number of places, against, and by the Marquesses of Westminster, and Normanby, the Earls of Clarendon, and Radnor, and Lord Holland, from a very great number of places, in favour of the Total and Immediate Repeal of the Corn-laws.—By the Duke of Argyle, the Marquesses of Bute, Londonderry, and Normanby, the Earls of Galloway, Aberdeen, Erroll, and Wicklow, and Lords Stafford, and Dacre, from a number of places, in favour of Non-Intrusion,—By Viscount Melbourne, from three places, for the Release of John Thorogood, and the Abolition of Church Rates By the Earls of Galloway, Delawar, and Winchilsea, and Lord Kenyon, from several places, for Church Extension.—By Lords Kenyon, and Redesdale, and Earl Delawar, from nineteen places, against the Grant to Maynooth College.—By the Duke pf Newcastle, the Earl of Winchilsea, and

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Lord Redesdale, from several places, against the Irish Corporations Bill.—By the Duke of Newcastle, from the Leeds Operatives, for Defining the Privileges of Parliament—By the Bishop of Norwich, from one place, against the Opium Trade.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS (IRELAND).
The Marquess of Westmeathpresented several petitions from various parishes in the city of Dublin against the Irish Municipal Corporations Bill, and in presenting them he would take the liberty of saying a few words on the subject. In his opinion, there never was a time in which Ministers were more called upon to look with caution on the probable effects of this measure than at the present moment. He was sure that this bill never had its origin in calm, dispassionate, discriminating, statesmanlike views of a necessity for some change on the question, but it had its origin in the expectations which factitious agitators had formed from the nature of the government which ruled, or pretended to rule, this country. Legislation for Ireland was carried on in an improper, and, he would say, a clumsy manner. Her Majesty's Administration proposing measures for that country acted on entirely wrong principles. They were desirous of treating Ireland in exactly the same manner as England, without any considerations of the education, habits, condition, or religious disposition of the people by the respective countries. The case of the two countries was not in any manner analogous. The same reforms which were desirable for England were not suited to Ireland, and the changes which were requisite for the relief of that poor and unhappy country would be entirely unnecessary in the comparatively happy condition of her wealthy sister. This was the spirit from which all the reforms of late years—the union between the two countries, the Catholic Emancipation Act, and similar important changes had arisen, and it was now being acted upon in the case of the municipal corporations. In the wealthy corporations of England many abuses had, in the course of years, naturally crept in, and these abuses required reform. But this was not the case with the corporations of Ireland, and to introduce the same changes into these very different institutions was, he would plainly tell the Government, a very clumsy attempt at legislation. If this bill were passed as it was presented to their Lordships, the connexion between the
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two countries would be fatally diminished, if not entirely destroyed.
Petitions laid upon the table.

CORN-LAWS.
The Earl of Gallowaypresented petitions from several places in the county of Wigtown, against the repeal of the Corn-laws. The parties who were agitating this question were seeking, the noble Earl said, to revolutionize the country. Every effort was made for this purpose. In the part of Scotland with which he was connected, lecturers had been sent from Manchester, and he could assure the House that they were busy enough in propagating their doctrines, and in arousing agitation against the Corn-laws, but he hoped their success would not be equal to their industry. To show the mad and absurd attempts which such persons made, he had received information that an association was about being formed which was to be called the Land Redemption Association. His informant had told him that they had published in some of their documents quotations from Genesis, to show that all land was originally given in common, and that therefore all were bound by laws both moral and divine to again resume the possession of that property to which each and all had an equal right. They also quoted some extracts from Blackstone and other authorities. The plan which they intended to pursue was, that all land being thus recovered from private persons should be vested by commissioners for national purposes. Such was the monstrous and wicked doctrines which these agitators propagated. To put down this growing evil, a firm and united government was wanted, and such a government this country at present had not. If the Government were united, and would boldly stand up and express their determination of maintaining the present system of Corn-laws, of settling the important and exciting question of non-intrusion, and use their best exertions to mitigate, if not entirely to prevent the evil of sabbath desecration, this would be doing more real good to the people than they could ever expect from all their truckling to agitating Radicals.
Lord Fitzgeraldsaid, that he had read with surprise a statement made on the subject of the Corn-laws in another place by a person filling a high station. The speaker had said that in his opinion the people of Ireland would not be affected

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by a change in the existing system. When that subject would come to be discussed in the House, he thought that he, among others, would be able to show, that there was no part of the United Kingdom which would be so seriously affected as Ireland by such a change, and that there was no portion of her Majesty's subjects who would so severely suffer from it as the population of Ireland as contradistinguished from the proprietors of the soil there. If in this country it had been stated, that it was a landlord's question, he thought that, so far as Ireland at least was concerned, it was not a landlord's question, but one which affected the great body of the people, whose interests, and, he might almost say, whose existence, would be endangered by the agrarian revolution which would necessarily occur from the protection being withdrawn from agriculture. He thought it right not to let a single day pass without stating his dissent from the opinion to which he had alluded, and he hoped that when it went forth that such an opinion had been stated in Parliament, and had been made the grounds for recommending a change in the existing law, that there would be soon such a manifestation of opinion in Ireland as would remove so erroneous an impression.