§ LORD MONTEAGLEsaid, he observed that Her Majesty's Government had laid upon the table of the House of Commons 1351 last night a series of Resolutions with respect to the reconstruction of the East India Government; and as it was obvious that whether those Resolutions were agreed to by that House or not their Lordships would hereafter have to take cognisance of the question, at any rate in the shape of a Bill, it was a matter of no small interest to their Lordships that they should know what were the intentions of Government with respect to the mode of bringing this important question before the House. He had looked into the precedents in two or three cases in which Parliament had proceeded by Resolutions in the first instance —one being the Union with Ireland, and another the renewal of the East India Company's charter in 1813, and he found that the action of the two Houses was as nearly as possible simultaneous in both cases. He would, therefore, take the liberty of asking the noble Earl the President of the Board of Control, whether it was the intention of her Majesty's Government to bring into this House Resolutions similar to those which had been brought into the House of Commons; whether they proposed to do so without delay; and whether they intended to adopt a simultaneous action in both Houses upon the question?
§ THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, he had to inform his noble Friend that it was not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to invite their Lordships to give any opinion at the present moment upon the Resolutions which had been laid before the House of Commons. He trusted, however, that at no very distant period those Resolutions, with no very material alteration, would be sent up from the House of Commons to their Lordships, when his noble Friend would have an opportunity of expressing an opinion respecting them.