Sitting of 6 April 1808

OFFICES IN REVERSION BILL.
Mr. Bankes,if no objection existed to the proceeding, was anxious that the order for committing the Reversion bill, which was dropped yesterday in consequence of there having been no house, should be taken up to day, and that the bill should be committed.
Mr. Tierneysaid, he should be the last man to occasion any unnecessary delay in the discussion of a subject that had excited so much of the attention of the public, but he did think, that in proportion to its importance it should be entitled to a fair arid adequate consideration. There were several gentlemen now absent who had taken a particular interest in that measure, and who, had they known that the discussion would have conic on to-day, would have attended in their places; they did not, however, think that it would have come on, nor had they any right to expect it would, as it was the established usage of that house, whenever an order had dropped, not to revive it without a specific notice. If this was a general rule, it should hold particularly in a case of such importance as the present. The bill in question had deservedly excited a great portion of the public interest; and that interest had not been lessened by the rumours that had been so very prevalent, perhaps unfounded, but not altogether discredited, that the great principle of the bill would be compromised. He was anxious, therefore, that the public should be satisfied that every advantage of a full, fair, and adequate discussion, had been afforded to the measure. He hoped that on these grounds the hon. gent. would have the goodness to let the order for going into a committee stand for to-morrow, and he was sure that his hon. friend near him (Mr. Whitbread) would have no objection to give way, by postponing his motion that stood for to-morrow, to a future day.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, that he was very far from being disposed to give any obstruction to the motion of his hon. friend; and could not conceive why the right hon. gent. who had just sat down should think that there could not be as full and as ample a discussion of the measure, in so very full an attendance, as at a future day. However, he did not wish to press the motion at present, since the right hon. gent. seemed to think it would be attended with so much inconvenience to his friends. He did entirely agree with him, that the bill had excited a great portion of the public attention; for that rea-

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son he was most anxious that the least delay possible might occur, before the sentiments of that house upon the subject, in its present circumstances, should go forth to the country; and he was the more anxious on tins ground, because a very general misunderstanding had arisen without doors, both upon the measure itself, and the late proceeding thereupon. That misunderstanding had been most industriously excited; he would not say with what view, nor from what motives, but certainly it had been most actively disseminated. For himself, he was free to declare what, in his humble opinion, should be the main object of that house in its further proceedings on this measure; so to arrange and model the bill, that they might not send up to the other house the same bill which that other house had already rejected; and if they could so qualify the bill as to ensure the concurrence of the other house, without vitally affecting its principle, he did think that the house in that case would have accomplished its object. But if any bill which had been rejected by the other house should be again sent up to them, gentlemen must feel, that the lords would, in that case, jealously assert their own privileges, and consult their honour and dignity as one of the houses of parliament, in rejecting at once any attempt to force upon them a measure they had already negatived. He, for his part, should chearfully accede to the proposition of his hon. friend; but at the same time, if it would be so inconvenient to the right hon. gent. now to go into a committee, he should not resist any arrangement for mutual accommodation.
The Speakerthought it necessary to apprize the house, that no order being dropped was revived of course, unless a general understanding in any particular case dispensed with the general usage: it was otherwise competent for any hon. member to object to any motion grounded on such order.
Mr. Bankes said, that he should be governed by the opinion of the chair, and therefore should now merely move, that the house do to-morrow resolve itself into a committee on the said bill.
Mr. Tierney,before the question was put, wished to know from the right hon. gent. opposite, if it was his intention to propose in the committee any amendments, of a nature so important as to affect materially the principle and constitution of the bill? He wished, in short to know the
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object of the right hon. gent.'s amendments.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerreplied, that in any amendments he might feel it his duty to offer, his sole object would be, to prevail upon that house to let the bill so go out of it as to ensure, as far as could be done, the concurrence of the lords; to make the bill now before the house substantively different from that which had been already rejected by the upper house. He knew not that it would be necessary for him to suggest any amendment to the committee; nor was he at all anxious to engraft any amendment on the bill, but in the way and for the purpose he had already stated.
Mr. Calcraftreally felt for the embarrassment under which the right hon. the chancellor of the exchequer laboured. Having given notice of two precise amendments, he thought that in courtesy to the house, and in justice to his own consistency, the right hon. gent. ought to explain his intentions more specifically.
The Chancellor of the Exchequercould only repeat what he had already distinctly stated on the subject, with respect to the principle by which his conduct would be regulated. The manner in which it would be proposed to fill up the blanks in the committee, must unquestionably influence his determination. He thanked the hon. gent. for his kind sympathy, in what he was pleased to term his embarrassment. He was, however, conscious of no embarrassment; but on the contrary, believed, that the embarrassment was on the part of the hon. gent. and his friends, who were apprehensive that the measure, about which they professed to be so anxious, should go to the house of lords with less obstruction than they anticipated.
Mr. Calcraftdeclared it was his most anxious wish that the bill should go to the lords in such a shape, as to give it a chance of being passed by their lordships. It was on that account that he was glad to find the hon. mover intended to limit the operation of it to two years. He could not at all comprehend the right hon. gent.
Mr. Bankestrusted that his conduct in the whole of this transaction would be free from any suspicion that he would admit of a dishonourable compromise on the subject. He repeated his former statements, that he had never in the most remote degree abandoned the original principles in which he submitted this bill to the house; he hoped that the house would never abandon them;

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but he had considered himself obliged to give up for a time a part of those principles, in order to do as much as he could, since he could not do all that he wished.
Mr. Tierneydisclaimed all intention of imputing to the hon. gent. any improper motives.
Mr. Whitbreadthought the house had not been fairly treated by the right hon. the chancellor of the exchequer. He had formerly stated two specific amendments which it was his intention to propose; amendments which would certainly render the bill nugatory, but which had nothing on earth to do with the limitation of time in the operation of the bill; and now the right hon. gent. said, that he should be regulated by the filling up of the blanks in the committee, when in fact there was but one blank in the bill, and that blank related solely to the limitation of time. This bill had attracted great attention throughout the country. It was a bill of considerable public moment, and that had been much increased by the manner in which it had been opposed in the other house. As the house of commons could have no security that the bill, however modified, would be agreed to by the house of lords, he thought it most important that they should at least preserve their consistency, even at the hazard of giving offence to their lordships; it had always been his intention, therefore, and he now formally notified it, when the bill had passed through the committee, to move that the limitation of time should be left out altogether. For the purpose of allowing the bill to be committed to-morrow, he would cheerfully postpone his motion for papers respecting Russia to Friday.—The bill was then ordered to be committed to-morrow.

PAUPER LUNATICS.
Mr. C. Wynnemoved for leave to bring in a bill for the better care and maintenance of Pauper and Criminal Lunatics. The hon. gent expatiated with much feeling on the misery to which these unfortunate beings were at present exposed. It appeared by the returns on the table, that there were at the present moment, above 1800 pauper and criminal lunatics, confined in places where they were precluded from all possible chance of recovery. When it was known, that of the lunatics in Bedlam, St. Luke's, &c. about half were annually restored to a sane state of mind, the consideration that so many unhappy wretches as the criminal and pauper lunatics should be doomed to irremediable misery was a
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most melancholy one. He meant to propose in the bill, that they should be properly taken care of by the respective parishes to which they belonged. The propriety of extending the bill to Ireland and Scotland had been suggested to him; but as in those parts of the empire parochial relief was not afforded to the lower classes, some measure of a different description must be devised to meliorate the condition of these unhappy wretches in those countries.
Sir J. Newportperfectly agreed with his hon. friend that some measure was loudly called for in Ireland, to relieve the distress of the pauper and criminal lunatics, the imprisonment and treatment of whom, in that country, afforded a most disgraceful spectacle. He could never be reconciled to the grounds on which the bill that he had, himself, submitted to the house on this subject, had been rejected.—Leave was granted to bring in the bill.