§ EARL RUSSELLhaving presented (by command) correspondence respecting Southern Italy,
THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBYcomplained, that the production of these papers should have been postponed to the last day before the recess. Three or four weeks had elapsed since he made the Motion for this correspondence, and yet the few pages that were laid upon the table were all the result. It hardly required three or four weeks to extract such a valuable contribution to their Lordships' information. It was not of the number only of the papers that he had to complain, but of this—that there was among them only one despatch of Sir James Hudson written this year, the rest all related to 1861. With respect to the only despatch which related to this year, Sir James Hudson said that the law which regulated prosecutions of the press was well defined. But the question was, was it acted upon? He understood that, among other prosecutions, one newspaper had been prosecuted merely for reprinting an article from a London newspaper. The despatch did not contain any allusion to the proceedings in the Turin Parliament, nor to the speeches of M. Ferrari and other members, which described the atrocities which had been perpetrated in Naples, and which completely refuted his noble Friend's favourite idea of Italian unity. Notwithstanding the statement of Mr. Bonham on the subject of Major Fumel's proclamation, there was no doubt that Major Fumel had offered a reward of 100f. to any brigand who would shoot his comrade. If Her Majesty's Government followed out their preconceived nations, they would receive the smallest possible amount of information from their agents. He wanted to know whether the noble Lord could explain why Sir James Hudson had taken no notice of the important discussions which had taken place in the Chamber at Turin this year. Was it because they were very much against his favourite doctrine of the unity of Italy? One despatch alone had been presented, giving a report of a speech of a deputy last year who had no particular claim to notice: why had none been forwarded this year?
§ EARL RUSSELLsaid, that search had, 749 of course, been made at the Foreign Office for such papers as might appear to answer the terms of the Address in which they had been moved for by the noble Marquess, and very few were found to answer the description. With respect to the press prosecutions, Sir James Hudson had said that there was no case of oppression which had been brought under his notice, and he did not consider it necessary to give an account of what passed in the law courts. He was sure their Lordships would not think it necessary that an account should be sent to the Foreign Office of all the debates which took place in foreign countries. Our Minister at the Court of Turin sent reports relating to the condition of Italy, just as our Ambassador at the Court of Russia gave the Foreign Office much information: about the case of Poland, and our Ambassador in Austria much information about the state of Hungary; but it was not the practice, and he did not think it would be desirable, to place all that information before Parliament.
THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBYwished to know whether he had rightly understood the noble Earl to say that there had been other reports of the late debates at Turin, which he had not thought it desirable to present?
§ EARL RUSSELLsaid, that the despatch to which he had alluded was the only one that answered the noble Marquess's description.