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Against agreeing to the Report of the Committee for Privileges on the Wensleydale Peerage.
DISSENTIENT—1. Because by the law and usage of Parliament, as well as by the principles of reason and justice, a Committee is authorised to consider such questions only as shall have been committed to them by vote of the House.
2. Because in cases where the original order of reference is found to have been unduly limited, and where it becomes expedient that new and additional matters should be considered and reported on, the undoubted law and usage of Parliament demand that a further order of reference, or instruction, should first be obtained from the House, in order to justify the Committee in exceeding the limits specified in the original Resolution by which its authority is created and defined.
3. Because any Report from a Committee, so far as it exceeds the authority granted by the House, must be considered as ultra vires, and therefore as wanting in Parliamentary validity.
4. Because the only authority conferred on the Committee for Privileges on the Wensleydale Peerage was 'to examine and consider the letters patent presented to the House, and to report thereon.'
5. Because the Committee for Privileges have reported that 'neither the said letters patent, nor the said letters patent with the 'usual writ of summons' issued in pursuance thereof, can enable the grantee to sit and vote in Parliament.'
6. Because in thus deciding not only on the legal force and meaning of the letters patent, a copy of which had been produced to the House and referred to the Committee, but in deciding also on the meaning and import of a writ of summons which had never been presented to the House or noticed in the order of reference, the
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Committee for Privileges has exceeded its just powers, and its report, so far as relating to the writ of summons, is contrary to the law and usage of Parliament, and is therefore of no force and validity, and ought not to be drawn into precedent hereafter.
7. Because, independently of all Parliamentary usage, it appears contrary to the first principles on which adjudications on contested rights should rest, to decide on the legal import of a written instrument which has not been examined, produced, or even called for.
8. Because a report thus purporting to limit the effect of Her Majesty's writ of summons in anticipation of its production at some future time, not resting on any Parliamentary precedent referred to, is an unauthorised extension of the privileges of this House, and is derogatory to the just prerogative of the Sovereign.
9. Because exception has been taken in debate by high legal authority to the extracts made from the journals, and laid before the House, on the grounds of their insufficiency and incompleteness, and yet the supposed authority of these extracts has been relied on in support of the decision which the Committee for Privileges and this House have been called on to pronounce.
10. Because the adoption of this Report, as touching the patent granted and the writ of summons issued to James Lord Wensleydale, appears the more dangerous as a precedent, and the more unjust in principle when it is considered that a Motion has been made and rejected requiring the attendance of the learned Judges with a view of obtaining their opinion on the legal import and just construction of the letters patent of the Crown laid before this House and referred to the Committee for Privileges.
MONTEAGLE OF BRANDON.
GLENELG.
DEVON.
§ House adjourned till to-morrow.