Lords Sitting of 20 December 1847

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—la Audit of Railway Accounts.
Received the Royal Assent,—Public Works (Ireland); Crime and Outrage (Ireland); Railways.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. From the Parish of Middleton Stoney, against the Admission of Jews into Parliament.—From Tormoham, and other places, for the Imposition of

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Heavy Penalties on all Roman Catholic Priests who shall Denounce Persons from the Altar.—From Alnwick, for the Removal of Jewish Disabilities.

ROMAN CATHOLIC ABSOLUTION.
LORD BROUGHAMpresented some petitions. He took this opportunity of supplying a defect in the statement which he had made some nights before respecting the important subject of absolution by Roman Catholic priests. The course which he had recommended of forbidding all access of priests to persons under sentence, and which he had described as pursued by the Emperor Napoleon, and by another person of great administrative powers, though less distinguished, had been also followed by a third ruler. The second he had not named—it was General Maitland, when Governor of Malta. He had to deal with mutinous troops; and the refusal of access to their priests when convicts lay under sentence, was known to have produced the most immediate and general effect in preventing the offence. The third example he had through inadvertence omitted to mention—it was that of his illustrious, revered, and beloved Friend—unhappily now no more—the Marquess Wellesley. He, rising superior to all prejudices and all the influence of a false—a misplaced humanity, had, with the manly vigour which ever marked his government, both made it the rule to transfer convicts instantly from the place of judgment to the place of punishment—an invaluable method of increasing the effects of penal infliction by the swiftness of its pace after conviction; and also made it a peremptory provision that from the moment of conviction the prisoners should never see the absolving priest. He (Lord Brougham) entertained no doubt that the most salutary consequences would result at the present time from adopting the same bold and decisive course.

AUDIT OF RAILWAY ACCOUNTS BILL.
LORD MONTEAGLElaid on the table a Bill for providing a more effectual Audit of Railway Accounts. The existing system of audit by persons more or less connected with the governing body, must naturally be open to the suspicion that statements more favourable than the real facts would warrant, might be given out to the world, to induce the public to purchase shares; and, without attributing frauds to the railway companies generally, he could state that accounts had been periodically published, upon the faith of which invest-
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ments must hare taken place, but which proved, when tested before a Committee of that House, to be utterly fallacious, representing as capital subscribed money which had been borrowed from the banker. He (Lord Monteagle) proposed in the present measure, that upon the application of a given number of shareholders, representing a given amount of the stock or capital, the directors should be compelled to submit their accounts to an inspector appointed by the Railway Commissioners, who should report upon those accounts; such application for an independent audit to be made by persons who had been six calendar months in possession of their stock, unless it came to them by inheritance, or bequest, or by marriage. Ill-managed railway companies, if liable to such an inspection as this, in case of apprehensions being entertained by their shareholders, would probably amend their system, and thus the indirect effect of such a measure as this might be greater than the direct; and as for any objection about a supposed invasion of private right, Parliament, which created these companies, might be deemed to be trustees for the public to see that the functions bestowed were rightly exercised.
Bill read 1a.

POOR LAW (IRELAND).
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEhaving laid on the table Returns relating to Workhouses in Ireland,
LORD MONTEAGLEsaid, in the discussion on the poor law, last year, there was no question more discussed than whether the rates were to be levied by union or electoral divisions. Parliament ultimately decided for the rating by electoral divisions; but he understood the Poor Law Commissioners had treated the funds so raised as a common and united fund, and applied them indiscriminately for the purposes of the whole union, thereby in effect introducing that very system of rating which Parliament had refused to sanction. He wished to ask, therefore, if the Government were aware whether the funds so levied were applied to electoral or union divisions?
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEwas not aware that there had been any deviation from the course prescribed by the statutes, and trusted nothing had taken place in Ireland which was at all inconsistent with the intention of the Legislature, that the burden referred to should be thrown upon the electoral division.

REAL PROPERTY COMMISSION.
LORD BROUGHAM, in moving for a paper to be forthwith printed—a copy of the Real Property Commission issued last summer, and ordered on his Motion in June—said, that he must state to the House the objects of that Commission. It had been issued in compliance with a report of the Burthens on Lands Committee. That Committee had examined many witnesses upon a most important subject—the burthens to which the owners of land, and those who wished to become owners, were subjected by the defective state of the law regulating the transmission of property by conveyance. The whole labours of the Committee were highly important; but by far the most valuable result of those labours was the body of evidence which the Committee had collected upon the state of the law, and the injurious tendency of its defects. Grounded upon this evidence was the recommendation of the Committee; and it related to four separate heads: first, the improvement of the law of real property; secondly, the simplification of titles; thirdly, the shortening, and generally the improving the forms of deeds; fourthly, the establishment of a general registry. Now he (Lord Brougham) had not, of course, seen the Commission, a copy of which he had moved for, but which from some accident had not yet been presented; but he had occasion to know the substance of the Commission from those who had access to it; and its objects were, not the four which he had described as recommended by the Committee, but only the two last—the forms of deeds, and the registry. No one was more ready than himself to admit the great importance of these two heads. Indeed he had already carried an important Bill upon the first of these two—the shortening and simplifying town leases—and had introduced another more general measure, which stood over for the consideration of the Commission. But he believed he spoke the general sense of those who were anxious for the amendment of the law, and, he might add, of the Commissioners themselves, when he expressed his regret that the two first of the Committee's recommendations had not also been adopted, and that the inquiries of the Commission had been confined to the two last. Indeed, it would be found practically to be impossible that the Commission should satisfactorily execute its duties with respect to the forms of deeds and the establishment of a registry, without having the power of
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inquiring into the law of real property and the simplification of titles. He trusted that his noble Friends opposite would, during the recess, accede to this recommendation, with the invaluable assistance of his noble and learned Friend, unfortunately absent from illness, but whose improved health, he rejoiced to say, gave a prospect of his speedily attending to this important subject, and that the defect in the Commission would be supplied by an extension of its powers. Nor was this the only subject relating to the amendment of the law that called for their attention. He found it had in some quarters been supposed that, because in giving his late notice of again introducing the Bill for enacting a digest or code of the criminal law, he had given no notice of renewing other measures of legislative improvement—the mention of one excluded the rest—on the contrary, it was his intention to bring forward the other measures also; but he felt unwilling to crowd the book with general notices, because when he gave one it was always specific, and intended to be really followed up. He therefore abstained now from doing more than broaching two subjects which seemed not to admit of delay, because the Government could of itself act, and act efficaciously, respecting both; and, therefore, he wished to point their attention towards those subjects, in order that, during the approaching recess, some progress might be made in dealing with them. The first and, in his view, one of the most important that could occupy the attention of the community, was that which he had at the close of the last Session brought before their Lordships—he meant the bribery practised at elections. Complaining of this enormity after the election of 1841, he had ventured to foretell that at the last election it would be repeated, unless some check was applied. Some of his friends, he knew, differed with him as to the degree in which this had prevailed, his own inquiries having satisfied him that 1847 was worse than 1841. But all were agreed that the crime had been extensively committed, and no one pretended to extenuate its dreadful consequences to the morals of the whole people. Every one allowed that no means should be left untried to lessen, if we could not extirpate, this grievous enormity. But while he denied that the other House of Parliament had any exclusive right to commence proceedings for amending the law so as to reach such offence more certainly, and while he cited, as last Session he had

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done, the remarkable precedent of the most important provisions in the Bribery Act of George II., originating in their Lordships' House, and being agreed to by the Commons, he yet must admit that if the Commons were disposed to perform their duty, a Bill relating so nearly to the elections of their Members might appropriately originate in that House—and he felt that it would be fitter for their Lordships only to move in this important matter, in case it should be found that nothing, or nothing effectual, was done in the Commons. He had reason to believe that a Member of that House, a worthy Baronet, already known advantageously to their Lordships as the mover of a Bill which had been approved by the Criminal Law Committee, and had received their Lordships' sanction, and he trusted had produced beneficial effects, he meant Sir John Pakington, was to give notice of a Bill for preventing bribery at elections. And he (Lord Brougham) should therefore only now intimate that in case no such Bill was sent up within a reasonable time, he should feel it his duty to renew his former proposition. Nothing seemed to him more clear than that there was one effectual means of greatly lessening, if not of altogether preventing, the evil complained of. It was what he had stated on the eve of the last election—the compelling every Member returned to take an oath or make a solemn declaration before taking his seat, that he had not, in any manner of way, directly or indirectly, by himself or his agents, given any money, or other thing, of any promise, to any voter or any other person, for any vote; and that he had not paid any money, knowing, or believing that it was to be employed in obtaining any votes, nor had repaid any money which he believed had been paid in obtaining any votes; and solemnly promising that he would not afterwards at any time pay any such money. He was confident that such an oath or solemn declaration might be framed as no man durst take if he knew that he had bribed, or that any persons had bribed for him, or that he was to repay any sum so expended for him; because whoever should venture to do so must know that some half-dozen, or half-score, or possibly half hundred persons, and those not the most trustworthy, or the most likely to keep his secret, would be aware of his having made himself utterly and for ever, and past all forgiveness, infamous—independent of the risk
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he encountered of the penalties inflicted by the law. But to make this measure, or any such measure as might be resorted to, against offenders effectual by prosecution, one thing was plainly wanted—a party charged with the duty of bringing these offenders to trial. Here our law, not merely as to bribery, but our whole criminal law, was grievously defective—though there was, for obvious reasons, no one branch of that law in which the defect operated more injuriously. The compromises ever made between parties, sometimes because their guilt was common to both, almost always because the interest of the party was different from that of the public, rendered the want of a public prosecutor peculiarly fatal in preventing the detection and punishment of bribery at elections. He (Lord Brougham) had repeatedly directed the attention of Parliament to this defect in our law, become still more glaring since the Bill passed allowing the prisoner's counsel to address the jury in all cases of felony. His evidence in a Committee of the House of Commons was full to this effect. But an Act of Parliament was not in the first instance at least required to begin this great improvement in the law. His noble Friend opposite (the Marquess of Lansdowne) might recollect that in 1834 he (Lord Brougham) and the then Secretary for the Home Department were much occupied in laying the foundation of such a plan, by adopting for the Central Criminal Court, whoso jurisdiction extended over a population of nearly two millions, the plan which had long been adopted in Northumberland and the West Riding of Yorkshire—employing regularly a counsel to superintend the prosecution of offenders. The same course being pursued in the metropolis, with certain obvious additions, it would be found so advantageous that little difficulty would have been found in obtaining the legislative sanction to it, and having a public prosecutor with his deputies for the circuits, and his local representatives, as they had in Scotland, in France, and in other countries. He ventured to hope that the Government would turn their attention to this subject during the recess. They had every inducement to adopt salutary measures for amending our laws, when it was found that the rare advantage at present belonged to them of really acting uncontrolled by any opposition. For a time, at least, they seemed wholly free from any such obstruction. He hoped they

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would also turn their attention before Parliament again assembled, to another subject; and it was the last he should now mention. He meant the necessity of a department or board for the preparation of Bills to be submitted to Parliament—not, of course, to preclude any one who chose it from propounding his own draught—but to help the Government, and to help the Parliament, and to help individuals if they chose it—and to give us some chance of having our laws framed consistently, clearly, uniformly, and upon a system; instead of each department and each individual using his own language, and all leaving to the courts of law the labour of construing unconstruable Acts, and to the subject, of being governed by unintelligible laws. This was a subject of the greatest moment. As often as he had called their Lordships' attention to it, so often had he experienced the most unhesitating and universal acquiescence in his opinion. Yet nothing had been done by any Government to remedy the defect which all either complained of or acknowledged. The Law Amendment Society, of which he had, though unworthy, the honour to be president, had presented a report upon this important subject above two years ago, to Sir Robert Peel, then Minister, and Lord Lyndhurst, then Lord Chancellor—and by both the proposition had been, he believed, favourably received. He ventured now to renew the proposition because the time was favourable to its reception, not only from the circumstance he had already adverted to, but from the accident that the place of Government Counsel for drawing Bills was vacant. He trusted the opportunity would be immediately taken of appointing a Board for the important purpose in question—the functions being such as must of necessity be exercised by a Board, if there was any intention that they should be performed with any prospect of advantage to the Parliament or the country. He made no apology for having detained their Lordships with these suggestions. He had been governed in the selection he had made of the points to which he desired their attention, by the consideration, that while no immediate notice was required of other subjects, and on some no proceeding without Parliamentary sanction could be effectually had, the subjects to which he had referred, required immediate attention; and all of them could at least in part be proceeded in by the Government without legislative provisions.

STATE OF PUBLIC BUSINESS.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE moved that the House do now adjourn to Thursday, February 3, 1848.
The EARL of ELLENBOROUGHsaid, he wished to make a few observations on the Motion for adjournment now made by the noble Marquess. He could not agree in the expediency of Parliament separating at this moment. Since they were met together, it would be far better to go on and transact public business at a period of the year when Members really would attend, rather than be called upon to sit in July, when, in practice, few would, and measures would be shuffled through Parliament in a manner perfectly discreditable to the Legislature. When July came they would deeply regret that they did not put January to a better use. He did not make these remarks on general grounds only, for he thought it was most expedient that Parliament should continue sitting, with a view to the effective operation of the Act for the Prevention of Crime and Outrage in Ireland, which they had just passed. It had been observed invariably that the meeting of Parliament itself, without any act done by it, to a very considerable extent tended to allay disorders, and to check outrages in that country; and now, murder had not been so rife in Ireland since the meeting of Parliament as it was immediately before. The assassination committees had checked their hands; they had felt that the eye and the hand of Parliament were upon them; but if the new Act were put into operation without their still feeling that, and that Ministers were prepared and enabled at any day to press upon the consideration of Parliament, and with all their influence, the further measures which they had said they would propose if this Act should fail, then any man who anticipated great success from this measure would be disappointed. To him (the Earl of Ellenborough) it appeared an Act most inadequate to meet the difficulties of the crisis in Ireland. If the Act itself were sufficient, there was not the force there to carry it into effect. The carrying that Act into effect was not a civil—it was a military operation. To produce full effect, by means of that Act, there must be a winter campaign. It was only by bringing together masses of men, by sudden and secret marches, with a great extent of combination, that the Government could, with the limited means placed by Parliament in its hands, carry the Act into opera-

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tion; and he confessed he did not expect from the Irish Government, however he might respect his noble Friend at its head, that perfection of plan, that absolute secrecy in execution, and, above all, that extent of combination with the limited military means placed at its disposal, which would enable it to produce the effect desired by Parliament. Parliament, therefore, should have been kept together, in order that at any moment Ministers might come down to propose further measures, if this should not prove to be sufficient. For the cardinal point for their consideration was the effecting the tranquillity of Ireland; without that we must continue what we are, while that country remains distracted as it is, not a first-rate, but a second-rate power. But since Parliament was about to separate, it might be as well to consider what it had been doing, and for what purpose it had been assembled. His own belief was, that had it not been for the letter to the Directors of the Bank, recommending a step which would have required a Bill of Indemnity, but which was not, in fact, followed by any violation of the law, Parliament would not have been convened; but, being met, it was necessary for the Government to propose some measures for its consideration. What had those measures been? It was really curious to recount them. There was not one measure proposed which was not in reparation of previous and recent error committed by Parliament itself. The measure with respect to Public Works in Ireland was to repair the most inconsiderate, reckless legislation, which took place only eighteen months ago. The noble Earl at the head of the Colonial Department had been compelled to bring in a measure to suspend a constitution which, without sufficient, if any, knowledge of the state of the islands to which it was applied, he thoughtlessly proposed and carried through Parliament, for the establishment of a new Government at the antipodes. It was a measure of reparation of the laches of Parliament, which had been proposed with respect to that monster grievance—railway speculation. To a great extent the Crime and Outrage Bill, which was, in fact, an Arms Bill, was a measure in reparation of the error committed by Parliament a year before, when it rejected the Arms Bill then before it. There might be colourable Parliamentary excuses for the conduct then pursued by the House of Commons, in the manner in which that Bill had been conducted
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through the House; but there was no excuse in the state of Ireland—the state of Ireland demanded the passing of that measure, or a similar one. The first praise which a Parliament should desire to claim was that of doing what was right, and at least seeing that for some few years that which was deliberately adopted remained the law of the land; but that first high object of Parliamentary ambition seemed to be very much beyond the roach of the reformed Parliament, from which we were to expect absolute wisdom. That reformed Parliament, however, certainly did adopt the second line of wisdom, and did most painfully endeavour to acknowledge all its sins, and to undo most promptly what it had done, when it found the mischief it had occasioned. A year ago we had a letter of Mr. Labouchere's—for we were now governed as much by letters as by Acts of Parliament—extending the provisions of an Act passed only six weeks before; and this year we had a letter of two Members of the Government suspending the operation of an Act passed most deliberately three years ago. We were beginning to be governed, not by Acts of Parliament, but by Royal Ordinances. But he was wrong in saying that all the measures of the Session were in reparation of recent errors; there was one measure which some might say was a measure of reparation; but, if so, it was in reparation of a very ancient error—the error of considering it necessary that the Parliament of this country should remain exclusively Christian. A measure for the reparation of that error had been introduced—but measures of a remedial character, to remedy the total absence of all society in Ireland—measures to give security to this country in its defences against foreign States—these were postponed. It was not thought expedient to bring such measures forward in a sudden Session before Christmas. But one measure was brought forward. It was not for a national, not for a public object; it hardly rose to the elevation of a party measure; it was merely of a local and personal nature; it was a city measure, brought forward by a city Member, for the purpose of enabling a Jew millionnaire to sit in the House of Commons for the city. All other things could be postponed; but the Government could not postpone the making a sort of amende honorable to the Stock Exchange, by giving to a rich operator upon it the distinguished honour, if it were one, of being the first Jew Member of the House

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of Commons. Such measures were called bold measures; they were said to characterise a bold Ministry. There was another measure which had cast the brand of discord into the Church; and that, too, was "a bold measure." This was not the boldness which he wished to see in a Prime Minister of this country; he wished to see a Minister who would have the boldness to tell the truth to the people, and to propose only that which he believed to be right; who would unfold to Parliament the full extent of the extreme peril in which the interests of this country stood, and propose manfully the extreme measures by which alone those dangers could be averted, and stake his government upon their success. If instead of that we had mere measures of reparation of recent errors, and no original measures but one of a little, paltry, personal character, questionable in its principle, and abhorrent to the feelings of a large portion of the community, then the fear which he might entertain in regarding the real dangers of the country, increased to dismay when he contemplated the character of the Government, and the manner in which the affairs of the country were administered.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEcould assure the noble Earl that if Her Majesty's Government had thought that the constant sitting of Parliament would have tended to the repressing of disorder, of crime, and of outrage in Ireland, no consideration of habit or of convenience would have been allowed to prevent that course; but they did not believe that Parliament could with any useful effect legislate at this moment upon the subject beyond the step already taken. He, for one, believed—and such had been the opinion of both Houses of Parliament—that a measure very effectual for the repression of that disorder had been taken; not, undoubtedly, assuring their Lordships that no further measures would be necessary, but, anxious not to go beyond the necessity of the case, he felt that enough had been done for the purpose of enabling the Government of that country to try the experiment how far the measure proposed would succeed in restoring peace and tranquillity. He believed that six weeks must elapse before that could be ascertained; but even if within those six weeks circumstances should arise which should betray and manifest the insufficiency of this measure, though he prayed to God it might not be so, it was in the power of the Government by law to convene Parliament in a
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very short period, notwithstanding any adjournment, and enable them to adopt more efficient steps. But his own belief was, not only that six weeks must elapse before the efficacy of the measure could be ascertained, but also that it was highly expedient that Irish Members should be released from their attendance, for the purpose of their giving their support, not only to the general law, but to that extraordinary law which it had pleased Parliament to adopt. Should it prove insufficient, he had no hesitation in saying that the Government would have recourse to the power which was placed in their hands, of convening Parliament at an earlier period. With respect to the other topics on which their Lordships had just been addressed, it was not his intention then to follow the noble Earl. The noble Earl had stated various reasons why other measures should have been brought forward; but it had not been thought wise to bring forward what could not be effectually disposed of. The noble Earl had alluded to an exception made in behalf of one particular measure; but that was a measure necessary to complete the representation of the people in the other House of Parliament—a representation which remained imperfect until a decision should be come to upon that question.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he had received information from Ireland that meetings had been recently held, at which the speakers, amidst great applause, had expressed their determination to keep their arms, and had advised the people to do so likewise, in order, as they said, to protect themselves, not only against the assassin behind the hedge, but also against the assassin from the Castle. He wished to ask the noble Marquess whether he had received any information upon the subject?
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEsaid, he had received no official account of such meetings; but, of course, measures would be taken in Ireland to see that the law with regard to the possession of arms was not infringed.
House adjourned until Thursday, the 3rd of February.