Lords Sitting of 30 March 1847

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Marine Mutiny.
2a General Register House (Edinburgh).
3a and passed: Markets and Fairs Clauses; Gas Works Clauses; Commissioners Clauses; Water Works Clauses.
Received the Royal Assent.—Drainnge of Land.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Lord Brougham, from Bridport and several other places, against the proposed Government Plan of Education.—From the Parish of Kilgerran, for Alteration of the Law of Settlement and for a National Rate.—From Shepton Mallett, for Repeal of the Poor Removal Act.—By Lord Brougham, from the Presbytery of Forres, against the proposed Measures of Registration of Births and Marriages (Scotland).—From Bath and several other places, for Legalizing Marriages with the Sister or other more Remote Relation of the Deceased Wife.

THE LAW OF BANKRUPTCY AND INSOLVENCY.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that he had received a great number of letters on the subject of imprisonment for debt, and they all originated in a complete misapprehension of what had fallen from him. He had stated distinctly more than once last week, that persons who were in debt from misfortune had not the slightest ground to be alarmed by the statement which had appeared in a Sunday paper, which alleged that he had altered his opinion on the subject of imprisonment for debt, and that he had brought forward a measure for the restoration of the old law on the subject. Nothing was more groundless than such an assertion, and he had never said one word about the matter in connexion with the Bill. His noble Friend on the woolsack knew as well as himself that it was utterly impossible for the Legislature ever to retrace its steps on the subject of imprisonment for debt. A most respectable witness had that day been examined before the Committee on the Execution of the Criminal Law—he meant the governor of Lancaster Castle—who said that there
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were between seventy and eighty prisoners at present confined there for debt. Now there was no reason why the far greater portion of them should be there, for it appeared that they had been imprisoned in consequence of a bad and mistaken construction put on the Act of 1844: several persons also, it appeared, were imprisoned by order of the courts of request at Lancaster, for alleged contempt. He repeated that nothing could be more entirely wrong than the change of opinion on the subject which had been attributed to him.

ELECTION OF REPRESENTATIVE PEERS (SCOTLAND).
LORD COLVILLEmoved—
"That there be laid before this House, A Copy of the Minutes of Proceedings which took place at Holyrood House, on the 17th Day of the present Month of March, at the Election of a Representative Peer of Scotland, to sit and vote in the House of Lords; together with the Titles under which the Peers respectively voted."
He did not believe that there would be any objection to his Motion, and therefore it would be unnecessary for him to detain the House on it; and from what had fallen on a former occasion from various noble Lords, he was satisfied that this subject would ere long be taken up by abler hands than his. He did not mean by the present Motion to throw discredit upon the body to whom the matter related; but he begged to observe that, while due care was taken both in England and Ireland that no person should exercise the privileges of a Peer without producing sufficient proof that he was entitled so to do, in Scotland there was no such precaution. All that was necessary on occasions of the kind to which his Motion had reference was, that a man should assert himself to be a Representative Peer, and take the oaths of supremacy and abjuration. This was a state of matters that ought to be remedied; and he trusted that in what he was now doing he was only the pioneer to clear the way for others who would, after Easter, take the subject into their more able hands. He saw in a Scotch paper that morning an allusion to the proceedings which had taken place in that House on Friday last, and in which it was stated that "some conversation arose on a statement made by Lord Colville, of Culross, that a fradulent assumption of his title had been made by an individual who had voted as Lord Colville, of Ochiltree, at the last election." Now, it would be in the recollection of the House, that he had

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stated that he was no more personally connected with the matter than any other Peer of Scotland. That the person who voted on the late occasion called himself by the title of Lord Colville, of Ochiltree, whereas his (the noble Lord's) title was Lord Colville, of Culross. He never said that it was an assumption of his own title; but he complained of it on public grounds, and as a matter in which not merely the Peerage of Scotland, but that House and the whole country, were interested.
LORD CAMPBELLwas glad the noble Lord had brought the matter under the notice of the House; and he trusted that the subject would be pressed on the attention of their Lordships until the whole question was set at rest. It was a question not merely affecting the Scotch Peers, but it was a matter deeply affecting the public generally, for many persons were often defrauded by the improper and illegal assumption of the title of Scotch Peers by those who had not the slightest right to them. He hoped when the returns were laid on the Table, that the noble Lord would follow the Motion up by moving for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the whole subject.
LORD BROUGHAMagreed that that was the proper course to pursue. As the custom at present stood, a mere mendicant might go into Holyrood House, and on the same claim could vote at the election of a Scotch Peer, and thus the result of most important questions might be influenced in that House.
The EARL of ROSEBERYagreed that the law was defective on this subject, but he thought that it would be better not to go into the question until the returns were before the House.
Motion agreed to.

ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE—THE NEW HOUSE OF LORDS.
EARL GREYrose to move the adjournment of the House until after Easter, and said that, in consequence of a suggestion which had been made on a former evening by a noble Lord (the Earl of Wicklow), that their Lordships should adjourn to Thursday, the 15th of April, instead of to Tuesday, the 13th of April, the day originally named, he (Earl Grey) had made inquiries on the subject. He found that no public inconvenience could result from adjourning to Thursday, the 15th, while it would be more convenient to many noble Lords to adjourn to that day. He, therefore,
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proposed that their Lordships, at rising, should adjourn to Thursday, the 15th of April next. He begged at the same time to give notice, that after the recess their Lordships would sit in their new House, Her Majesty being pleased to assign that portion of the new building of the Palace of Westminster to the use of their Lordships.
House adjourned to Thursday, the 15th of April.