Sitting of 25 May 1835

MINUTES.
Bills. Read a second time:—Foreign Enlistment.
Petitions presented. By Lord JAMES STUART, from Irvine, for a Board of Trade, against the Seamen's Enlistment Bill, and also for the Repeal of the Reciprocity of Duties' Act; from several Places, for Protection to the Church of Scotland; from Irvine, and two other Places, against any Grant for Building Churches in Scotland.

CHURCH RATES.—MR. CHILD'S CASE.
Sir W. Foulkespresented Petitions from Lynn, Wells, and other places, complaining of the conduct observed towards Mr. Child, of Bungay, by the Ecclesiastical Court, on the subject of demand for Church-rates. He considered the case to be a very hard one—though he believed that Mr. Child had voluntarily submitted.
Mr. Humepresented similar petitions from Needham, Diss, and Bungay; they also praying for an alteration of the laws on this subject, and under which Mr. Child had been proceeded against. The last petition was from Bungay, the place of Mr. Child's residence. In that place there were 910 householders. He believed that there were not above 30 householders who had not signed this petition.
Lord Hennikersaid, that he rose for the purpose, not of making any observations on Church-rates, but in order to vindicate the character of two individuals, namely, the Churchwardens of Bungay, who had been unfairly dealt with, respectting this affair. When he made his statement he was sure that it would appear to the House that the Churchwardens of Bungay were guilty of no harshness towards Mr. Child, and all that they had done was justified by the letter of the law. In saying this, he meant no offence towards Mr. Child, or towards any Gentleman,
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who, from conscientious motives, should think fit to demur to the payment of Church-rates. He agreed with the hon. Member for West Norfolk as to the good character and respectability of Mr. Child. With the permission of the House, he would then enter on the statement which he had received touching the allegations of the petitions. Until the year 1833 no opposition was made at Bungay to the payment of Church-rates. At that time a payment of Church-rates was objected to by one or two Gentlemen, one of whom was a relation of Mr. Child. Their goods were distrained, but they were brought up and returned to them under circumstances of considerable excitement in the town of Bungay. He was aware that his statement would be denied by Gentlemen who took the opposite side of the Question; such denial, however, would not make it the less true. In 1834, another Church-rate was made; there was no objection made at the time of making it, except as to the period of its being levied. The reasons why the Churchwardens thought proper to take the case to be decided by the Diocesan Court of Norwich were the following:—One of the Magistrates of Bungay was a clergyman, and they desired, to prevent the recurrence of the excitement which prevailed in 1833 in consequence of goods being distrained for Church-rates. The Churchwardens also deemed the Consistory Court of Norwich the best place to have the Question decided, and that its being decided there would finally settle the Question Mr. Child had raised. The Churchwardens had given Mr. Child many opportunities of paying the rates in Question, without subjecting him to any costs. The other Gentlemen, when called upon, consented to pay their rates, but Mr. Child alone, after many solicitations, refused to pay his rates; and, besides, he said that he would hold no further communication on the subject with the Churchwardens of Bungay. The consequence of his repeated refusals was, that a citation from the Ecclesiastical Court was issued to him, yet even after this proceeding one or two opportunities were given to Mr. Child to enable him to pay the rates without subjecting him to costs. He still refused, and the proceedings before the Ecclesiastical Court were carried on, the necessity for which no one more than he regretted. He was glad to congratulate the hon.

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member for Middlesex on the fact of his having learned that morning that Mr. Child had been released from confinement. He repeated, that no one more than he regretted what had occurred to Mr. Child, and he felt confident that the facts which he had now stated would be borne out by the returns moved for, relative to this affair, by an hon. Member opposite.
Mr. Humewas happy to hear from the noble Lord a full admission of the respectability of Mr. Child, an admission, however, which was totally unnecessary for those who knew as he did, that Mr. Child had resided in Bungay for the last thirty years, and that he kept forty individuals in constant employment. It was important, however, that the House should look, not so much to the character of the individual as to the operation of the law of which that individual complained. In the petition of Mr. Child, which had just been placed on the Table of the House, he prayed that the House would alter the law respecting Church-rates. Now, let the House see what the circumstances were which had induced him to come to that conclusion. Mr. Child is a Dissenter. He was rated to the Church-rates, and having conscientious scruples, which induced him to think that he ought not to contribute to the support of a Church in whose doctrines he did not and could not believe, he had refused to pay his quota of those rates. Such was the course regularly pursued by every Quaker in the country. What, then, was the course adopted towards Mr. Child? When Mr. Child refused to pay the 17 s. 6d. which was charged against him as his share of the rates, some of his friends, and among them he (Mr. Hume) believed were the Churchwardens, of whom Mr. Child did not complain as men, but as the public functionaries of an oppressive law, offered to pay the money for him, but Mr. Child would not consent to any such sacrifice of principle. He refused to pay at all, and said, "I do not oppose your seizing my goods—seize them, and sell them if you like." The clergyman had also written a letter to Mr. Child, in which he asked, "Do you dispute the validity of the rate?" and the answer of Mr. Child was, "I do not dispute its validity." By so doing Mr. Child admitted the validity of the claim, and left the officers of the Church to do their duty, What then was it that Mr.
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Child, and that he in Mr. Child's name, complained of? He would briefly inform the House. The 53rd of George 4th, chap. 127, was passed for the purpose of giving the Churchwardens an easy mode of getting in the Church-rates, and in all cases where parties refused to pay an assessment of less than 10 l., it gave power to two Magistrates to issue, under their hands, a warrant of distress against the goods and chattels of the parties so refusing. He had no pretensions to be a learned personage—he spoke as one of the unlearned; but to him it appeared that, although the right of bringing parties into the Ecclesiastical Courts for an amount of Church-rates less than 10 l. was not taken away by that Statute in express words, it was evidently intended to repeal that right, except in cases where the sum to be recovered was above 10 l., by giving this summary process before two Magistrates, against the goods where the sum to be recovered was under 10 l. With a full knowledge of the powers given to them by the 53rd George 4th, the Churchwardens cited Mr. Child to appear before the Consistorial Court of Norwich. What then said Mr. Child? "I have refused to pay you this money, because it goes to the support of a Church in which I do not believe. I must also refuse obedience to your Ecclesiastical jurisdiction, because it proceeds from the same Church." Well—this language was called a contempt of court—and for acting upon it Mr. Child was lodged in Ipswich gaol; and there he might have lain till the end of the present year, and indeed till the end of ten years to come, had not some person purged the contempt for him by entering an appearance to the citation. Mr. Child said, and he said so too,—that it was an act of oppression on the part of the parish authorities to have adopted this mode of getting their money, when they could have got it by a much easier process pointed out by the Statute. It was a stretch of authority tyrannical in its kind, and likely to bring the Church itself into disrepute. What, he would ask, had brought the Irish Church into disrepute save its tyrannical exercise of power in the collection of tithes? A vexatious levy of any impost contrary to the common feelings, of the country must of necessity be followed by such a result. The hon. Member then proceeded to mention, that m a recent discussion upon

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Church-rates, a Minister of the Crown in his place in Parliament had said, that they were unwarrantable, and ought not to be levied. Now, he had a minute of the proceedings at the last vestry held in this parish, and from that minute he found, that many of the expenses for which this Church-rate was to be levied were expenses which, according to the declaration of Lord Althorp, ought not to be levied under the shape of Church-rates. He contended, that the time and mode of levying this Church-rate from Mr. Child were equally ill-chosen, and therefore he designated the whole of the proceedings against that individual as a series of oppressions. The noble Lord had stated an excuse for the Churchwardens, which had appeared already in one of the country newspapers. In the Ipswich Journal it was said, that "recourse had been had to the Ecclesiastical Court at Norwich, because the Churchwardens had not been able to recover the Church-rates from another individual in the preceding year, under the 53rd of George 4th." Now, he had from that very individual, Mr. John Morris, a letter, of which he would read a short extract to the House:—"Having seen a paragraph in the Ipswich Journal, in which it is stated, that a process in the Ecclesiastical Court was instituted against Mr. Child, because a process under the Statute could not be carried into effect last year in my own person, I have only to say, that a more infamous falsehood cannot be propagated. So far was there from being any tumult when the Churchwardens sold my property in 1833, under a distress warrant, that I entertained doubts whether the whole measure was not illegal from the clandestine nature of the sale. I published a handbill at the time, stating the mode in which the sale was conducted." In another part of the same letter the writer said—"Great excitement existed afterwards because the goods, which by law ought to have been sold publicly, had been sold clandestinely." Now, supposing, that there had been excitement occasioned by that transaction, still that excitement was no excuse for this oppressive and tyrannical mode of proceeding against Mr. Child. To show that the Churchwardens had no grounds for charging Mr. Child with any intention of resisting the Church-rate, he read a letter which that individual had written to the Church-
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wardens, informing them that he should make no resistance to it; that they might take his goods and sell them, and that out of the proceeds of the sale, they could pay the rate. He again denounced the conduct of the authorities towards Mr. Child as most vexatious. He hoped that he should have the pleasure of hearing from the noble Lord opposite, or from some of his colleagues, that they were prepared to bring forward some measure which would prevent such insults as these from being again inflicted on any respectable householder like Mr. Child. If the partisans of the Established Church wished for its maintenance in a state of utility for their own purposes, they must put a stop to all such abuses of authority as this. It was impossible that the people of England should long continue to pay Church-rates, now that they saw all such rates abolished in Ireland.
Mr. Fitzroy Kellysaid, that if the petitioners had contented themselves with stating facts in their petitions, or if they had confined themselves to animadversions on the state of the law to which their petitions referred, he should not have felt it necessary to trouble the House with any observations on this occasion. He concurred with all the hon. Gentlemen who had stated, that the Church-rates formed a subject which required the early and deep consideration of Parliament. That was not, however, the question, at that moment. The Question was, whether this Petition, stating such facts as it did, and coming to such a conclusion as it did, ought to be laid on the Table of the House. He hoped that the House would not allow petitions to be made a channel for base, cowardly, and malignant calumnies against private individuals. To prove that he was not using language unsuitable to the occasion, he would call the attention of the House to the few but strong words with which the petition concluded:—"Your petitioners, therefore, pray your hon. House to pass some measure for the immediate abolition of the barbarous and anomalous powers of the Ecclesiastical Courts." [Cheers.] He heard those cheers without regret, for he complained of no man who confined his complaints to the existing state of the law: but the petition went on—"powers inconsistent with all the principles of the British law, and capable of

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being employed, as in this instance, to indulge feelings of private malice, and to gratify the rancour of religious intolerance." Now, he asked the House, whether a petition containing such language—a petition charging some members of the Church of England with converting the law into an engine for gratifying the rancour of religious animosity, ought to be received by that House? When the facts connected with this case were stated to the House, and he hoped that he should be able to state them very briefly, it would be found at least, that it was a gross abuse of the power of petitioning to charge any individual with rancour. The reverend individual against whom this petition was presented conferred honour upon the order to which he belonged. That assertion rested not on his unsupported authority, but on the universal testimony of all who knew him; and when he mentioned the name of Archdeacon Glover, he was sure that no man would dispute his piety, his humanity, or his amiability of temper. In the year 1833, certain Church-rates were to be collected in the parish of Bungay. All the inhabitants of the parish who were liable to the rates paid them, with the exception of two. Those two persons having refused to pay them—having assigned no satisfactory reason for not paying them—having been applied to for the reasons why they refused to pay them—having refused on that application to assign any reasons—having been asked whether they wanted any indulgence as to time from the parish on the score of poverty, or on any other ground—and having still declined all reply, a complaint was made against them before two Magistrates, and a warrant of distraint was issued against their goods and chattels. Without making any complaint of poverty, they allowed their goods to be seized under the Act. They were seized, and notwithstanding what had been stated that evening, a tumult took place in the town upon the seizure. He had this fact npon the authority of the three individuals, two of whom he knew personally, and all of whom were known to several Members of that House. The hon. Member for Middlesex, who could hardly deny the tumult, ascribed it, not to the circumstance of the goods being seized, but to the fact of their having been sold privately instead of publicly. Now there was nothing in
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the Statute which required the goods to be publicly sold; and he affirmed as a lawyer, and he appealed to those Members of the profession whom he saw around him in the House, whether, when they heard of proceedings in the courts of law respecting the vexatious sale of goods, the publicity of the sale was not generally charged against the parties as a proof of their cruelty and oppression, and of their wish to expose the distressed circumstances of the parties to the knowledge of their neighbours. He felt assured that it would turn out that some false colouring had been given to the statement which the hon. Member for Middlesex had that evening laid before the House, for if the goods were not sold legally, or if they were sold privately, when they ought to have been sold publicly, he was sure that some measures would have been taken to obtain public redress for that illegality. He repeated, that he had it upon excellent authority, that these proceedings had occasioned a tumult in Bungay. Ultimately, the goods were either sold or restored; he had been told, they were restored. This year the Church-rates were again to be collected. All the inhabitants of the parish paid them without a murmur, except three individuals; two of them were the recusants of the former year, and the third was the present petitioner, Mr. Child. On their refusing to pay these Church-rates, applications were made to them requesting them to obey the law, or to state the reasons why they would not. An intimation was also made to them, that if they could not pay them from poverty, indulgence would be afforded them in point of time. The two individuals against whom proceedings had been taken last year, paid their rates without complaining. Mr. Child alone refused to pay. He is a printer, in a respectable way of business; but he chose to disobey and defy the law, assigning no reason, and complaining of no want of indulgence. What course was then open to the Churchwardens to adopt? It was said, that there were two modes of recovering these rates—the one by process issued by the Ecclesiastical Courts, and the other by the Statute to which the hon. Member for Middlesex had referred. Now, if it were to be said, that the Statute repealed the authority of the Ecclesiastical Courts in all cases under 10 l., then were all the proceedings against Mr. Child

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void, and he had his remedy at law. If it should appear that this was a doubtful Question on the construction of the Act, and that the Churchwardens had taken a wrong course, they had exposed themselves to an action at law at the suit of Mr. Child, in which full damages for any wrong he had sustained, could be recovered against them. If so, that House was not a fitting place to discuss a question which could be better discussed in a Court of Law. The House, he was sure, would not prejudge the question, whether it were a question of construction as to the law, or a question of fact as to the damages. With regard to the motives of the parties who had originated these proceedings, the question was very different. They were obliged by law to collect the rates, and they could only do so by seizing, distraining, and selling the recusant's goods under the Statute—a measure which had created so much tumult last year, or by instituting a process in the Ecclesiastical Courts. Believing both these remedies to be open to them, they had resorted to the Ecclesiastical Court, and they had done so from a fear lest they should have the recurrence of riot similar to that which had taken place last year, or even proceedings of a more violent nature. Being connected, then, with a religion of peace, they had recourse to the Ecclesiastical Courts. There was also a stronger reason for their doing so. As long as the law imposed Church-rates, it was better that all personal interference by ministers of the Church for their payment should be avoided. Now, in the Bungay district there were only two Magistrates, and a warrant of distraint against the goods and chattels of any person for the non-payment of Church-rates, required the signature of two Magistrates. Of the two Magistrates residing in the Bungay district, one was a clergyman of the Church of England; and it was thought prudent not only by the two Churchwardens, but also by Archdeacon Glover, who was acquainted with the whole course of these proceedings, that if the law were resorted to, it should be resorted to without any interference on the part of any member of the Church. The remedy by Statute could not, as he had now shown, be enforced at Bungay without the interference of a clergyman, and therefore application was made to the Ecclesiastical Court. There was also another reason. They
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knew that if this question were to be decided before two Magistrates residing in the neighbourhood, they would be open to the charge of having called in Magistrates of their own to decide a question in which they took an interest as parties, whereas, if it were sent to the Ecclesiastical Court at a distance, it would be known that they had sent it to the decision of a party to whom they were perfect strangers. When the case was once in the Ecclesiastical Courts they had no choice, but must needs adopt the course which they had done, and arrest the person of the individual, who had been guilty of contempt. The writ on which he was captured, was endorsed "No bail;" but that was only a caution to the officer, that he was not entitled to take bail. The hon. Member for Middlesex had charged the Churchwardens with cruelty and oppression. Now, the Churchwardens did not deserve such a character. They had a public duty to perform, and they would have neglected that duty if they had not exacted the dues to which they were entitled by law. They had repeatedly made friendly applications to Mr. Child to do what he could to obey the law: but he stood on what he deemed conscientious scruples, and refused all compliance with their requests. Had he then a right, when every indulgence had been shown him, to come to that House and complain not only of the state of the law, but also of the conduct of individuals? He had only one fact more with which to trouble the House—and that was, that when the costs amounted to treble the sum to be raised, an offer was made to Mr. Child, that if he would pay the original sum of 17 s. 6d., the clergyman of the parish would pay the costs. If an individual was determined to place himself above the law, the question which the House had to decide, when he came before it for redress of grievances, which he brought down by such conduct on his own head, was whether they would aid him in putting the law under his feet? He had only to state in conclusion, that he felt it due to the character of the individuals in question, who were most respectable persons, to vindicate their conduct, which he trusted he had done sufficiently by laying the plain facts of the case before the House.
Lord John Russellwas willing to believe from all he had heard, and from the account which had been transmitted

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to him, under the hands of the Churchwardens, and by the Archdeacon of Bungay, whose name was, unquestionably, entitled to that respect which the hon. and learned Gentleman had ascribed to it—he was inclined, he said, to believe, from that account, that the irritation which had been produced by this case—that the hardship which had been suffered by Mr. Child—that the oppression which, in the eyes not only of Mr. Child, but of the great body of the Dissenters, and, he might say, of a great portion of the people of this country, had been exercised in this case—was not intended by the Churchwardens, and the other parochial authorities of Bungay. The statement made on their behalf was, that during the last year some individuals in the parish of Bungay had refused to pay a certain rate, upon which their goods were distrained, but had been afterwards restored to them under circumstances of considerable tumult and excitement. In consequence of this occurrence the Churchwardens thought it better to adopt another course in enforcing the rate, by which means a recurrence of the same scenes of disturbance might be avoided, and they therefore took the case of Mr. Child to another court, and before a jurisdiction different from that of the Magistrates in the neighbourhood of Bungay. The motives which operated on the minds of the Churchwardens, and induced them to act thus, were apparent; but he thought their decision most unfortunate, and could not consider them as being justified in taking the course they had adopted on this occasion. By the adoption of this course they were obliged to imprison the person of Mr. Child, a man of the highest respectability, who acted on conscientious motives in refusing to pay the rate; and this imprisonment could not fail to excite sympathy and indignation in the minds of a great body of persons: whereas if the Churchwardens had proceeded against the party's goods, as was generally done in the case of Quakers, they might have distrained for the recovery of the Church-rate, and the greater part, if not the whole, of the irritation would probably have been avoided. But there was another reason why the Churchwardens should not have proceeded in the manner they had adopted. He was inclined to believe, looking at the meaning of the act of the 53rd of George 3rd., that the Legislature intended that in claims
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for sums under 10 l. a remedy should not be sought in the Ecclesiastical Courts. A proviso in the act referred to by the hon. Member for Middlesex showed that such was the intention. The proviso was this—Provided always that nothing herein contained shall be construed to alter or abolish the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts to hear and determine causes with respect to church-rates, and proceeding to enforce payment for the same in cases in which the sums due exceed the sum of 10 l. It was clear from this proviso that if the rate did not exceed 10 l. the Ecclesiastical Court was debarred from interfering. Such being the case, he thought that the Churchwardens had much better have adopted the remedy which they resorted to last year, and that they ought not to have proceeded to the imprisonment of the person of Mr. Child. But if any doubt existed as to whether or not it was now in conformity with the law that claims for sums not exceeding 10 l should not be carried into the Ecclesiastical Court, the Legislature would do well to settle the point and explicitly declare what was to be the practice in future. Having said so much in reference to the case of Mr. Child, he wished to add a word in consequence of what had fallen from the hon. Member for Middlesex, who had expressed a hope that Ministers were prepared to undertake a speedy settlement of the Question of Church-rates. After what was stated by his noble Friend (Earl Spencer) in the House of Commons last year, in bringing in the Church-rate Bill, and after the settled resolution of Earl Grey's Government upon this Question, he did not feel the slightest hesitation in declaring that he thought it most desirable the Question should be settled and Church-rates abolished. But there was a difference of opinion between the Ministers and many of those who called for the abolition of the rates in consequence of the principle laid down by his noble Friend (Earl Spencer). That principle was, that "while the Dissenters had a right to call upon the Legislature not to require them to pay money for a Church which was contrary to their principles, the Members of the Establishment had a right also to say that their interests should receive all due attention, and that their principles should be respected. One of these principles certainly was, one of the consequences of having an established Church

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was, that means should be provided by the Legislature for the support of the fabric of the Church." Some of the advocates of the abolition of the rate objected to this principle, but he (Lord John Russell) was decidedly of the opinion declared by his noble Friend on that occasion. He thought it the duty of a Legislature wishing to maintain an established Church to provide that the Churches of the Establishment should be kept in proper repair; therefore any measure to which he might be a party he did not hesitate to state should provide for the accomplishment of that object. This was his opinion when his noble Friend brought the subject of Church-rates before the House last year; it was also his opinion at present. In this state of the Question it was important to consider the subject most deliberately, and with the utmost caution, and it was therefore necessary to have before them all the facts likely to come before Parliament and the public, not only through the labours of the Church Commission, appointed by Earl Grey's Government, but by means of the Ecclesiastical Commission nominated by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, which he hoped to see renewed. With respect to bringing forward the Question of Church-rates in the present session, Ministers had resolved to undertake to propose to Parliament during this session a question of great magnitude, importance, extent, and detail, with respect to the Municipal Corporations of England and Wales. They had also resolved to bring forward in no long time a measure not only regulating the question of tithes in Ireland, but calculated to carry into effect the resolution which he had the honour to move with respect to the application of the surplus funds of the Established Church in that country. If he had gained anything by the experience of the last three years, in which he had been a Member of the Government, it was a knowledge of the impropriety of undertaking too much at one time. The Cabinet of Earl Grey had frequently fallen into difficulties by undertaking too great a multiplicity of measures. Within the last four years,—measures exceeding in importance and magnitude any that, during a similar period, had ever been proposed and carried by any Government, had been completed; at the same time it must be admitted that there were various other questions brought before Parliament,
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which at the end of the Session, in the month of August, the Ministers found themselves unable to carry forward, through want of sufficient time for due consideration. Therefore, ready, as he felt, to consider any questions that had been brought before the House by the late Government, willing as he was to pay attention to measures proposed by individual members, he would not undertake, on the part of the Government to go further than those two Questions of Municipal Reform in England and Wales, and the regulation of tithes in Ireland. He would not undertake in the present session to bring forward a measure on the subject of Church-rates; it was a question, however, on which his opinions were well known, and he should be always happy to communicate with Protestant Dissenters upon any subject which they might consider a grievance, with a view to their relief in all cases of well-founded complaint.
Sir Robert Peelhad nothing to find fault with in respect to the principle which the noble Lord had announced on the subject of Church-rates, since the noble Lord had plainly said, that it was an essential condition of the existence of an Established Church that the state should provide for the maintenance and repair of the fabric of the Church. [Mr. Hume: "No, no." Lord John Russell: "Yes."] He hoped that the noble Lord might be allowed to be the interpreter of his own opinions: he certainly so understood the noble Lord, and at the moment when the noble Lord was assenting to his construction of the noble Lord's own words, he thought he might take that assent, to be the correct indication of the noble Lord's opinion, notwithstanding the peremptory contradiction which some one behind him gave to the representation. The noble Lord, in the conclusion of his speech, as if to remove all doubt on the matter, had explicitly declared that "his opinions on the subject of Church-rates were well known; and from that he inferred, that the noble Lord still maintained the opinions which he had publicly announced on the occasion when the present Earl Spencer brought forward the Question of Church-rates. Even if the noble Lord had not made the declaration that his opinions continued unchanged, he felt no disposition, as he had no reason or motive, to impute any change of sentiment to the

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noble Lord. In regard to the principle that the State was bound to maintain and repair the fabric of the Church,—it is the same with that maintained by Lord Althorp when he announced his intention to relieve Dissenters from as much as possible of the burden complained of Lord Althorp stated that he found the total amount annually expended on the repairs, and for the service of churches and chapels in England and Wales, and raised by Church-rates, to have been between 500,000 l. and 600,000 l. The noble Lord said, that with respect to a large portion of this sum he made no provision, throwing the necessity of providing for the expenses incidental to the performance of divine service and other similar matters upon members of the Church itself; the noble Lord's observation were to this effect "The members of the Establishment had a right also to say, that their interests should receive all due attention, and that their principles should be respected; one of those principles certainly was, that means should be provided by the Legislature, for the support of the fabric of the church:"—the noble Lord added. "Another point, not immediately relevant to the Question, but which the Committee would not fail to take in view, was that the effect of the new plan would be not only to relieve Dissenters from their scruples, but the people of England from a considerable amount of taxation. It was proposed to apply 250,000 l. from the land-tax, but the sum hitherto annually expended upon churches and chapels in England and Wales and raised by Church-rate, was between 500,000 l. and 600,000 l. by the latest return upon the Table. The relief from taxation, pressing upon the body of the people, would thus be important and would amount to the difference or nearly so, between 250,000 l. and 560,000 l. The expenditure had no doubt been extravagant in many instances, for sometimes the Churchwardens and vestry who ought to have guarded the interests of the parish, were benefited by the expenditure."* Such were the principles on which the then Chancellor of the Exchequer made his proposition, a principle to which the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) and the rest of his colleagues gave their full assent. The noble Lord opposite supported the plan
* Hansard, (third series) vol. xxii. pp. 10—14 and 10—18.
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of Lord Althorp, in a speech to the sentiments of which, no doubt, the noble Lord still adhered. The resolution moved by Lord Althorp, abolishing Church-rates, and granting 250,000 l. for the repair of churches, was met by a counter-proposition from the hon. Member for Middlesex, providing that after a time to be fixed, the payment of Church-rates in England and Wales should cease and determine. This proposition was declared by Lord Althorp to differ in principle from his, and on that ground the noble Lord and his colleagues resisted it. Church-rates were to be absolutely abolished, and no substitute provided. Upon this Question the House divided. He had the satisfaction of dividing in company with the noble Lord opposite, and with the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, when, by a majority of 256 against 140, they negatived the proposition of the hon. Member for Middlesex, that the repair of the fabric of the Church was a public charge, and maintained the grant of 250,000 l. from the public funds for that express purpose. He had thus shown that the noble Lord's principle differed from that opposed to it by the hon. Member for Middlesex, and he now heard with great satisfaction that the noble Lord still adhered to that opinion, which he had maintained with great ability on the occasion in question; and although he now proposed delay in the settlement of the great Question of Church-rates, on the principle on which the settlement should be made, the noble Lord had not changed his mind. He would not attempt to gain popularity, at the expense of the noble Lord, by concealing what he had himself intended to do, and therefore he now declared, that although in the course of the present Session he should have attempted had he remained in office, to effect an immediate settlement of Church-rates, yet it was his intention to adopt the principle of the noble Lord—to extinguish all equivocal and objectional charges, but to provide for the repair of the fabric of the Church out of the general revenue of the country, by an annual provision, to the extent and for the objects contemplated by the noble Lord. It was right that the noble Lord should have the benefit of this declaration. He must add, however, that he should not have proposed to impose the charge substituted for Church-rate especially upon the Land-tax. In fact, that was a mere

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delusion, which meant neither more nor less than a contribution from the general revenues of the State, although it sounded plausibly at first. His proposition would not have been to take the necessary Funds for the maintenance and repair of Churches in England and Wales directly out of the revenues of the State. It would have been connected with propositions for the relief of the occupying- tenant in Ireland from arrears of tithes, and for the grant of money to Scotland, for the purpose of providing permanent endowments in certain cases in that country, for the ministers of the Established Church, these being the equivalent advantages intended for other parts of the empire, in order to compensate for the relief given to England in the shape of an abolition of Church-rates. The satisfaction with which he had heard the expression of the noble Lord's unchanged opinion was greatly qualified by the noble Lord's declaration that he intended to leave this question of Church-rates in its present state during the course of another year. This was a great practical Question requiring adjustment, and he must say, that the noble Lord was under peculiar obligations to settle it as speedily as possible. The noble Lord had referred to the conduct of Churchwardens in compelling individuals to pay Church-rates by harsh methods, but the Churchwardens might, and would refer the noble Lord to his own Act of 1834, in which he and his then colleagues had asserted the principle of abolishing Church-rates, and providing a substitute for their payment out of the revenues of the State. And could the noble Lord be surprised at difficulty arising in the collection of the rate, and at the manifestation of an indisposition to pay it, when Government brought in a measure for the abolition of Church-rates in April, 1834, and when in June, 1835, the noble Lord said although his opinions and principles remained unchanged, yet he was not now prepared to bring his principles to a practical conclusion? He could see no grounds on which, since the noble Lord did still adhere to his principles, he could decline to bring forward without delay the subject of Church-rates with a view to its immediate settlement. He had on more than one occasion remarked, that it was unfortunate that the late Government brought measures under discussion, without that full previous consideration which
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was essential to their satisfactory adjustment, that they agitated the public mind by renouncing certain principles, and did not afterwards calm the disquiet they had caued, by any practical settlement of the Question at issue. The noble Lord now confirmed the general correctness of such a statement, for the noble Lord now admitted that attempts had been made at legislation by himself and his Friends, in this case and in others, which has proved very unsuccessful. He was always pleased when he could offer a practical proof in the support of the statement of a Minister of the Crown, and he undertook to say that never was a truer statement made by man than that the noble Lord and his colleagues had some times proposed measures with an inconsiderate zeal, and precipitation which left matters worse than they found them. The attempt at legislation, with regard to Church-rates, was a signal proof of the justice of the noble Lord's remark. Lord Althorp, in proposing a grant in lieu of Church-rates, had said, that in addition to the 250,000 l. annually to be provided for, he believed there was a debt of about 80,000 l. (the Church-rates having been mortgaged in certain instances), and some other small sums, but that those incumbrances could be easily provided for. Haying heard this statement from the noble Lord, he determined to ascertain what those small sums were, and he therefore called for returns as to the amount of Church-rates mortgaged, outstanding debts for building churches, &c, and he found that instead of an incumbrance on the rates of 80,000 l., as stated by Lord Althorp, 827,000 l. was the actual amount of debt due, and concurring with the noble Lord on the principle of Church-rates, and being desirous of carrying that principle into effect, he had to inform the noble Lord that all the information which he had collected, in respect to Church-rates, and the amount of existing debts for which those rates were a security, was entirely at the service of the noble Lord. With respect to Municipal Corporations, he was not about to say a word on that Question; but without undervaluing its importance, he must observe that the subject of Church-rates did not yield to it in urgency So far as any question could be important to the maintenance of social harmony, to the promotion of satisfaction among the great body of the Dissenters, there was not a single Question excepting that of the

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Irish Church, which so much pressed for an immediate practical settlement as this of Church-rates. He had understood that one of the main grounds on which he had been dispossessed of office, was, because Gentlemen opposite thought, that his accession to office had a tendency to interrupt several practical measures of improvement, which had been under mature consideration in the preceding Cabinet, and which had been only nipped in the bud by the untimely frost that set in about the 15th of November last. Was not the following proposed and carried as part of an Amendment on the Address to the Crown at the opening of Parliament? "To represent to his Majesty, that his Majesty's faithful Commons beg leave submissively to add, that they cannot but lament that the progress of these and other Reforms should have been endangered by the unnecessary dissolution of a Parliament, earnestly intent upon the vigorous prosecution of measures to which the wishes of the people were most anxiously and justly directed." If any one had asked him, what were the particular measures in addition to Corporation Reform, to which this Amendment referred as having been interrupted and endangered, by his accession to office, he should at once have answered, "A settlement of the Tithe Question in England, as well as in Ireland, the abolition of Church-rates, and relief to Dissenters in respect to the ceremony of marriage." These were the three measures which the late Parliament had under consideration, they had indeed done little towards the settlement of them, but they appeared 'earnestly intent upon them.' What might happen with respect to tithes in this country, he could not tell; the House had heard the noble Lord say, that he contemplated no other measures than Corporation Reform, and an Irish Church Bill, and all hope of commutation of tithes in England, he apprehended, was over for the present, and in like manner the Dissenters' Marriage Bill and a substitution for Church-rates, were to be postponed also. We had heard a novel reason for delay from a high authority on such subjects, one on which the noble Lord exceedingly relied—namely, the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets. His opinion now was that you must not touch any single subject, that you must not indulge in partial views, or take up individual ques-
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tions, but must consider the bearings of the Questions of Marriage, Church-rates, Tithes, Registrations, and Church Reform, connectedly, and as parts of a great and entire whole; and having done so, you must bring in large and philosophical measures, harmoniously combined, and calculated to ensure universal content and satisfaction. Now, if he had said to the House, "Don't legislate on single subjects, do nothing till you can provide for the complete arrangement of everything, and settle all Questions together, including Tithes, Church-rates, Marriage, Registration, and Church Reform—don't venture to touch one Question till you are prepared to deal with all,"—then, indeed, they might have justly inferred, that the dissolution of the last Parliament had interrupted and endangered the progress of Reform, there indeed then would have been some foundation for their alarm, some justification for their amendment to the address. If the Government of Lord Melbourne had, as far back as November last, directed their attention to the subject of tithes and Church-rates, and had made up their minds on those Questions, they must be now prepared to bring them forward. They probably had done nothing more in these matters than they had done in many others, they were prepared to condemn what they found established, to declare that the existing law ought to be abolished, to make it, by virtue of such a declaration proceeding from such an authority, very difficult of execution, and to trust to chance for the future discovery of a substitute.
A Government had other duties to perform, than that of merely joining in an outcry against an unpopular law. They ought, at least, to follow up the condemnation of that which existed, with the immediate proposal of a substitute. To take any other course was to weaken the authority of all law, to habituate the public mind, to the absence of salutary restraint, and to diminish the hope of a satisfactory adjustment of that which might require reformation. And on this subject of Church-rates, surely the noble Lord, adhering as he professed, to his former principle, and being in possession of all the facts of the case, surely the noble Lord himself, one of the parties to the Bill of Lord Althorp, and being now perfectly able to accomplish his object, surely he

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was bound to proceed, and not to leave unsettled for another year, a subject so pregnant with the seeds of discord and collision. In consideration of the interests of the Church Establishment, for the satisfaction of a large body of the people,—for the accomplishment of their own pledges—to promote subordination and obedience to the law—to suppress individual complaints of grievance—surely to accomplish all these objects, a Government fit to be intrusted with the management of public affairs would, without delay, take this matter into their own hands, and not suffer the law respecting Church-rates to be made a theme of discussion in public meetings, and a subject of resistance by parochial martyrs for another twelvemonth.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, the right hon. Baronet certainly has made a very able speech, but he has not made quite a candid one. Let us consider as shortly as possible what is the argument of the right hon. Gentleman. He has argued altogether as if (and I put it to the House whether the two cases are at all similar)—as if the present Government stood now in the position in which it would have stood, if that change of Government, which took place in November last, had not occurred, and if that change had not been succeeded by a general election. There is not one single word contained in the amended Address to the Throne which I do not now re-avow, as strongly as I voted for it before. If, indeed, the events which took place in November, and which were in February brought under the consideration of the House, had not produced delay, if they had not impeded the course of Reform, then I admit that that Address would have been false, and that the House ought not to have passed it. But if, on the other hand, the occurrences of November have had the effect of impeding the course of safe and useful Reform, then the position in which the House is now placed is not a position which the majority who voted for that Address is at liberty to impute to us. It is to those causes that we have a right to refer that position. The right hon. Baronet well knows that the interval between the month of November and the meeting of Parliament in the month of February, is of all intervals, that which enables the Government to meet Parliament with the best effect. Of that advantage Lord Melbourne's Government
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was deprived. For some time after the dissolution of Lord Melbourne's Administration, an anomalous state of things existed, during which it was doubtful whether the country possessed any Government at all. When the right hon. Baronet returned from the Continent, he assumed the reins of Government, and he had the advantage of the interval before the meeting of Parliament to prepare his measures. Sir, the right hon. Baronet has profited by an admission made by my noble Friend who sits near me—a concession applicable to a particular state of things which then existed, but one which the right hon. Baronet very ingeniously seemed to consider an admission on his part that the late Government—that Lord Grey's Government—did nothing but bring forward incomplete and ill-digested measures. Why, Sir, any one who heard the right hon. Baronet, without a previous knowledge of the fact, would have been induced to imagine that Lord Grey's Government had never settled the Question of the Bank Charter—that Lord Grey's Government had never settled the Question of the East-India Charter—that Lord Grey's Government had not, through the agency of my noble Friend who sits below the gangway (Lord Stanley), settled the West-India Question—no inconsiderable one in itself. The right hon. Baronet himself will not deny—though there are persons not very far from him who will—that the settlement of the Poor-law Question was no inconsiderable item among the great and burdensome measures which that Administration undertook; and hon. Gentlemen who sit on this side of the House will at least think that the settlement of the Question of Parliamentary Reform was not so unimportant as to be altogether excluded from notice or observation. Well, Sir, in what position do we now find ourselves with respect to the proceedings of the present Session? In the month of May—towards the close of that month—the Government are called upon to propose measures to Parliament. Is it wise or is it just that they should undertake, or would it be wise or just for the House to wish them to undertake more than they can reasonably hope to fulfil within the Session? If we did so, we certainly should disappoint the just and reasonable expectations of the country; if we did so, then indeed the taunts of the right hon. Baronet would become

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applicable to the course which rightly or wrongly, he imputes to us, of bringing forward a greater number of measures than could be brought to maturity within the Session. If this be blameable in a Government, does he not know that if in the month of May we were to pledge ourselves to the variety of questions on which he has argued, he would then have us in his power, and that we could not complete any one of those measures; and does he not know that by adopting the course we have taken of selecting two great measures, and proposing them for the consideration of Parliament, we have pursued the safest, the justest, and the most satisfactory course. The right hon. Baronet himself can hardly, I think, deny this proposition, because those who introduced the subject on his behalf distinctly stated the principle that no one question could be more pressing than the settlement of the Question of the Irish Church. It was the first Question which the Government of the right hon. Baronet introduced; it is the Question which we are now pledged to bring forward; and I am somewhat surprised that in the great and new-born zeal which now manifests itself in favour of the Dissenters, we should be called upon by the right hon. Baronet and his Friends, in their defence, to postpone all other claims to theirs. Sir, why were not the Dissenters, grievances settled long since? Why did not the right hon. Baronet, and those concerned with him in the Government of this country, settle them once and for ever? How long were they responsible? If they object to us that we have postponed for the present Session the bringing these different matters to issue, how will they answer to the Dissenters for their having postponed during so many years the settlement of this question, the adjustment of their claims, and the removal of their grievances? Sir, do the right hon. Baronet, and those who act with him, think that by taking this course they will persuade the Dissenters of England that we have not been earnest in our sincere wish to carry into effect, and work out to the utmost, the principles of that relief which we—not for the first time in the year 1835, but during the whole period of the organization of the Whig party—have felt that the Dissenters of England were entitled to? Do they think that the Dissenters of England will be misled or dazzled by this new-born zeal? If it
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be calculated to produce any impression on their minds for one moment, I only wish the Dissenters to look back to those debates of which we hear so much—I mean the records of our Parliamentary decisions. I say let them do this, and then ask where this zeal in their behalf was slumbering at the time that the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts was proposed? That point upon which we are now all agreed—that point upon which there is now such perfect unanimity of opinion—was then opposed by the very individuals who now come forward and tell us, in their zeal for the Dissenters, that we are paltering with their interests when we postpone the consideration of their claims for one moment longer. Sir, there should be no postponement of the subject if we believed that during the interval that remains of the present session we could do more than accomplish the two great objects that are before us. It is not because we shrink from the Question, it is not because we are indifferent to the rights of the Dissenters, that we postpone the consideration of their claims—it is because we are resolved to select, with due respect for the right hon. Baronet, our own ground of battle. We will not accord to him the advantage of driving us from our lines, if we feel it more in furtherance of our principle, and more conducive to the public interest, that we should tight on our own ground. Sir, we take our stand upon these two great measures. The right hon. Baronet knows, I believe, as well as I do, that we could not accomplish more. Perhaps he thinks we might substitute the measure upon which he has laid so much stress for one of the measures we have announced—Corporation Reform, Sir—the Question of Corporation Reform—there is our point of contest with the right hon. Baronet—there shall be our field of battle—and there we will meet him upon an issue which will be intelligible to the people. Does not that Question press, or does the right hon. Baronet think it might be advantageously postponed? It does press, Sir, upon certain parties in this country—it presses hard upon them at the present moment in the shape of inflictions, from which, I trust, our measure will relieve them; the alarm presses hard upon others, who would gladly—most gladly—postpone the discussion, and who, for the purpose of advantageously acquiring the means of postpone-

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ment, urge the Dissenters to the settlement of their claims, and abjure Municipal Reforms. The right hon. Baronet and those around him are so perfectly friendly to the claims of the Dissenters, that really whether it comes a little sooner or a little later, the Dissenters need not be alarmed, because on that subject all parties are quite agreed. I hear, however, that on the Question of our Municipal Corporations we cannot look for quite so much coincidence of opinion. The right hon. Baronet has stated, I believe upon some authority, that in anticipation of the measure of Municipal Reform, certain corporations in the land are already taking measures to distribute and divide among themselves that which constitutes the common good of the corporations in question, and to divide their lands, in order to prevent this remedial measure, when it does come into operation, from having any practical effect—I say, then, to the Dissenters—and I believe they will take the advice of Gentlemen on this side of the House quite as soon as they will accept that of Gentlemen connected with the late Government—that it becomes more important for them, that it is the more important for the maintenance of their interests, that the Question of Municipal Reform should be, in the first instance, and without delay, settled. I believe it is a point upon which the feelings of the people of England are most deeply set; and that if you were to poll the people of this country, man by man, they would say that the reform of the Municipal Corporations was second only—if indeed it be second to anything—to the other great measure of Reform which has been introduced and passed into a law. Well, then, Sir, it is upon these grounds; it is with a view to the practical execution of two important measures, rather than to an ineffectual attempt at the settlement of any other—it is with that view that the two measures to which we wish to direct the special attention of Parliament, are the settlement of the Irish Church, including the Question of the Appropriation of its Revenues, and the settlement of the Municipal Corporations. Sir, the right hon. Baronet may, and very possibly will, taunt us with having taken this resolution—a course which may be adopted by others, though, not with his ability or his power. We appeal to the people of England; we tell them that in the month of May we
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cannot hope to accomplish more than those two great measures. We ask you, do you wish to see the Irish Church Question settled? We ask you, do you wish to see the Municipal Institutions of the country modified? If you do, we think that by the support of Parliament we may be enabled to accomplish these two measures: if we try to effect more in the time which is before us, we fear we shall fail not only in those two, but in the other subjects to which our attention is directed—not by the old friends of Reform—not by the Dissenters themselves, but by Gentlemen who know full well that a Government restored to Office in the month of April, and commencing their proceedings at the end of May, is not to be stigmatized because it does not happen to be in the same situation as it would have been if no change had taken place in the month of November. It may be a fair Parliamentary taunt, but it is no moral reproach that the right hon. Baronet has thrown out, if one seeks to affirm the proposition that we stand in the middle of a session in the same position as if no change had taken place. We shall take our position as I have already stated; we shall bring forward the two great measures to which I have referred. It will be for the country to decide whether we have done wisely in directing their attention to those great and important objects, or whether we should have acted more wisely and more beneficially in adopting the course recommended by those who are opposed to us.
Mr. Wilksconsidered the two measures which Government had announced their intention of bringing forward most pressing and important; the one would give peace to Ireland; the other was a measure of reform without which the Reform Bill itself would be paralyzed. He could have wished that the Dissenters' claims had not been postponed, he still thought Ministers might take those claims into consideration during the present Session, and hoped that they would re-consider their determination on the subject. If, however, they should upon reflection remain of opinion that it was wise to postpone that question, he had no doubt that the Dissenters would wait patiently. For his own part, deeply impressed with the importance of the measures to be brought forward by the Ministers, he should be ready to give them his most cordial support.
Mr. Arthur Trevorbegged leave to doubt whether the hon. Member who spoke last expressed the sentiments of the Dissenters. At all events he believed that the Dissenting portion of his constituents would be any thing but satisfied with the conduct of Ministers. The people of England would contrast the course which Ministers were about to pursue with that which the right hon. Baronet was pursuing with so much advantage to the country and his own character, when he was compelled to relinquish office upon pretences which he need not refer to.
Dr. Bowringsaid, that the Dissenters knew who were their real friends; and expressed his conviction that they would not press their claims, when their so doing might retard the progress of the important measures that had been adverted to.
Mr. Potteralso bore testimony to the willingness of the Dissenters to postpone urging their claims until they could be more advantageously conceded.
Mr. Ewartwas convinced of the necessity of Municipal Reform, and thought nothing was more pressing. Since the passing of the Test and Corporation Acts not one Dissenter had been admitted into the Corporation of Liverpool. The measure announced by Government would at once unlock the barred-up Corporations, and liberate them from the thraldom in which they had been so long held.
Mr. Mark Philipswas desirous to see the Church of England and the Dissenters united in the bond of peace and concord. He feared, however, that the adoption of such proceedings as had given rise to the present discussion would only foment and perpetuate differences which they all deplored. He hoped that hon. Gentlemen opposite, who expressed so much anxiety for the settlement of this Question, would, when it again came forward, meet it in that fair and candid spirit which was so well calculated to promote the end they all professed to desire.
Mr. Peasesaid, that the Dissenters would confide in their old friends, and wait until they obtained a well-digested measure of relief from them. The Society of Friends did feel it to be a hardship that they were called on to contribute towards the repair of the edifices appertaining to the Established Church, believing, as they did, that the Church was itself in possession of ample funds for that purpose.
The Attorney-Generalthought that a
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very unjust attack had been made upon the law and the legal tribunals of the country. In his opinion the Churchwardens referred to in the petition had grossly misconducted themselves, and their proceedings had been illegal as well as oppressive. The law applicable to the case noticed in the petition was very vexatious as it stood previous to the passing of the Act of 53rd George 3rd. Before that time the only remedy for the recovery of Church-rates was by a proceeding in the Ecclesiastical Court, which could only be enforced by excommunication. The 53rd of George 3rd, however, em-powered parties to proceed for the recovery of sums due for Church-rates, the amount of which was under 10 l. by distress, while the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Court was preserved with respect to sums above that amount. It was, therefore, the meaning of the Legislature, and that meaning was clearly expressed in the statute, that for sums under 10 l. the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Court, should be entirely taken away. In spite of this, these Churchwardens betook themselves to the Ecclesiastical Court, and, not content with that, took out a writ de contumace capiendo (excommunication being now very properly abolished for such a purpose). All these were voluntary and premeditated acts on the part of the Churchwardens, in consequence of which Child had been deprived of his liberty, Hon. Members declaimed about the hardship of seizing the goods of that individual, but, in his opinion, the casting him into gaol was a much greater hardship. For that illegal act the Churchwardens had rendered themselves liable to an action.
Mr. Lawsaid, that after the discussion which had taken place, it was not his intention to trouble the House with many observations, though he had originally intended to call their attention to some of the real facts of the case, which had been communicated to him. However, the observations made by the hon. and learned Attorney-General induced him to state one important fact, which entirely negatived the imputation cast on the Churchwardens, that they had from first to last been actuated by a desire to oppress Child. From the communication made to him, of the truth of which he had no doubt, it appeared that the Churchwardens informed Child, even when the costs of the suit had been incurred, but before any

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step was taken to arrest him and put him in prison, that they would still accept the sum of 17 s. 6d. and would bear all the costs themselves. This circumstance was sufficient to rebut the conclusion, not very charitably drawn by the hon. and learned Attorney-General, that these Churchwardens had been actuated by any other but proper motives. He concurred entirely in all that the hon. and learned gentleman had said with respect to the law of the case. He was free to admit that the proper course to pursue was to have summoned Child before two magistrates, but the Churchwardens believing that they had to choose between two remedies were influenced in their decision by a desire to avoid all appearance of partiality; and they therefore refrained from bringing the matter before the two magistrates of their district, because one of them happened to be a minister of the Established Church. They had also the experience of the past to deter them from that course, for, in the previous year, after property which had been seized was restored to the owner, it was paraded about the place in a manner calculated to excite the people to acts of misdemeanour. He denied that the object of the Churchwardens was oppressive. They had, perhaps, exposed themselves to an action at law, but that very circumstance afforded a strong reason why that House should not prejudice a question which might be submitted to the ordinary tribunals of the land.
Mr. Cobbettobserved, that it was the duty of the Judges of the Ecclesiastical Court to have been cognizant of the statute to which the hon. and learned Attorney-General had referred.
Dr. Lushingtonsaid he had never known an instance, since the passing of the 53rd George 3rd, where parties had had recourse to the Ecclesiastical Court for the recovery of Church-rates, where the sum was under 10 l., without having previously gone before two justices of the peace, and having had objections taken to the validity of the rate. This latter circumstance alone gave the Ecclesiastical Court the right of jurisdiction in such a case. How, then, could the hon. and learned Recorder, who knew the great and grievous expense of an Ecclesiastical proceeding, assert that these Churchwardens, by whom the terms of the statute as well as the universal practice had been disregarded, were actuated by
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good motives? The hon. and learned Recorder founded his favourable opinion of the motives of the Churchwardens on the fact that after legal proceedings had commenced they offered to accept the payment of the Church-rate from Child, and pay the costs themselves. Now, if they had been acting honestly and fairly—if they had not been afraid of the consequences of their own proceedings—if they had not been aware that they were guilty of an act of oppression, would they have made that offer? Would they not rather have insisted on the payment of the whole amount to which they conceived themselves entitled? In his opinion, the Churchwardens were, in the first place, principally to blame. In the next place, the Judge of the Ecclesiastical Court was to blame, for, as the hon. Member for Old-ham had observed, it was his duty and business to have read the Act of Parliament, and he was responsible for having sent a man to gaol in consequence of his ignorance of the statute law of the land. But it was asked, how long were the Dissenters to labour under these grievances? He concurred in opinion with those who were anxious for their removal, and not one syllable should ever escape from his lips tending to depreciate the justice of the Dissenters' claims, or the urgent necessity of a fit and proper remedy for the grievances they suffered. Still he never would be a party to the holding out of false hopes to the Dissenters. He would not on the 25th of May deceive them by declaring, that in the course of the Session there would be found time and opportunity to pass some legislative measure, for the purpose of placing them in the situation in which they were entitled to stand. He represented in that House a large body of Dissenters, and he was confident that they would believe him when he declared, that if he were to find that the present Ministers, having when in opposition urged the propriety of conciliating the Dissenters and conceding their claims, were, now that they possessed power, to state that they could not carry their principles into complete effect and execution, he would be the first to expose to disgrace and reprobation those men, who had crept into power by the support, aid, and assistance of the Dissenters, and were then base enough to turn round and desert their friends and supporters. If he thought the Government were inclined to

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act in that way, his (Dr. Lushington's) proper place would not be on that (the Ministerial) but on the other side of the House, and there was no species of opposition, however bitter—no sarcasm, however severe, which he should refrain from using against them. But though he held these sentiments, ought he to doubt the sincerity of the present Ministers, because they did not attempt to do that which it was impossible for them to do satisfactorily at the present period of the Session—because they did not throw on the Table of the House, ill-concocted and ill-digested measures, in nowise calculated to give satisfaction to the Dissenters, or to do justice to those who belonged to the Established Church? The other night he declared that there must be delay. He now repeated the declaration. If the Members of that House meant to legislate like senators and men of wisdom, they must take the whole of this great and important subject, with all its bearings, into their most deliberate and comprehensive consideration. It behoved those who were desirous of altering a system which had now subsisted for ages, to cast their eyes on every side, and to be quite certain, when they made a reform, that that reform would be satisfactory to all the parties whose interests were at stake. To throw on the Table, a Bill which had no chance of being read a third time, might be a means of obtaining an ephemeral sort of popularity among the Dissenters, but that was not the way to do either them or the country substantial justice. He had last session told Lord Althorp that he was attempting to do more than he had time to carry into effect; he told the noble Lord that he would not be able to carry his English Tithe Bill, together with his other measures, and the prediction proved correct. He now declared, that that House could not, during the present Session, discuss, with becoming deliberation, the various measures relative to Dissenters' marriages, Church-rates, and Registration which were all intimately connected together. Nevertheless they could pass a resolution, binding themselves early in the ensuing Session to proceed to the consideration of all those great and important questions, with a view to grant the Dissenters a complete and ample redress of all their grievances. If they did that they might rest assured that the Dissenters would care little for the opinion of the
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hon. Member for Durham; the Dissenters would trust to their old friends, for they were not so ignorant of the world, or so overconfident, as to place reliance in those who had always been their bitterest enemies. The Dissenters had too much forbearance—too much love and affection for their country—they were too sincere patriots, to urge the Government now to abandon those all - important measures which related to Ireland, and the Reform of the Corporations in this country. They would wait patiently until those measures were accomplished, provided they were assured that a comprehensive measure for their relief, to which they were justly entitled, would, without regard to obstacles, be placed on the Table of the House at the commencement of next Session.
Mr. Cressett Pelhamsaid, that as the matter contained in the petition before the House might possibly come before another court, he suggested whether it were fair to anticipate the merits of the case, by prolonging a discussion like that which had been going on? The object of the petition, he thought, was one of a vague character, without specifying any particular mode of redress. It was apparently designed to produce a general sort of discussion, and certainly the discussion had taken that turn. He agreed with the noble Secretary for the Home Department, that questions of such general importance should not be taken up hastily by the House, and would express his concern that any body of men, holding authority from the Crown, should show a disposition to sanction or adopt the line of proceeding that was taken up on the opposite side of the House.
Mr. Winthrop Praedtook it for granted that the Representatives of the Dissenters in that House, who expressed such satisfaction at the declaration of the noble Lord (Lord John Russell), were also ready to adopt the noble Lord's principle, that the nation at large ought to contribute to the repair of the fabric of the Established Church. With respect to the case mentioned in the petition, the hon. and learned Member had attempted to cast an imputation on the motives of the two Churchwardens. This he surely would not have done if he had heard the plain and simple statement of the hon. Member for Ipswich. The hon. and learned Member (Dr. Lushington) said that the offer made by the Churchwardens to pay the cost of the legal

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proceedings they had adopted was a proof that they were conscious of having violated the law. Now, what were the facts of the case? At the time this offer was made, a citation only had been served, and no action for damages would then have laid. When their offer was refused, how did they act? Like men who knew that they had violated the law? On the contrary, they continued their proceedings and procured the arrest of Child. The hon. and learned Member, then, appeared to have cast imputation on the motives of the Churchwardens, in ignorance of the facts of the case, and he (Mr. Praed) therefore trusted that the hon. and learned Member would not, until he had learned to judge more impartially, bring over to that (the Opposition) side of the House, either the severity of his censure or the bitterness of his sarcasm.
Mr. Prymeridiculed the idea of the Churchwardens having, on the plea of fairness and humanity, pat the unfortunate Mr. Child into prison rather than bring him before a magistrate, who happened to be a clergyman. By such an excuse they added hypocrisy to cruelty. Their whole conduct well deserved the epithets applied to it in the petition. They really appeared to have been actuated by the rancour of religious hostility.
Mr. Bainessaid, that the hon. Member for Yarmouth had not correctly stated the views of the Dissenters, when he informed the House that they were disposed to acquiesce in an arrangement for raising a Church-rate by a general tax, instead of a specific rate. No such concession had been made; and he protested against the Dissenters being committed to that admission. They wished, indeed, the edifices of the Church to be upheld; but they thought that when the revenues of the Church came to be investigated, it would be found that the sinecures of the Church were sufficient to pay for the keeping in repair the churches, or if they should prove deficient, that there were other sinecures and pensions that might be resorted to for that purpose without imposing fresh burdens upon the people. As to the proposed delay, the Dissenters wished to have their grievances redressed as soon as was compatible with their satisfactory adjustment; but they were more anxious that the legislation upon them should be sound and permanently satisfactory, than that the measures haying that object should be
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hurried through Parliament without due deliberation. He thought the country was much indebted to Mr. Child, for the firmness and decision that he had displayed in support of his principles at a critical juncture, while the petition before the House, had been of essential service, for it had elicited the information which had been given, as to the intentions of the Government, by the noble Lord, the Secretary of State for the Home Department.
Mr. Hardywas not acquainted with either of the two Gentlemen who had adopted the proceedings against Mr. Child, but he thought that a most unfair attack had been made on them. They had given notice of all the proceedings in his case, and had manifested every anxiety to settle the matter amicably. There appeared to him to be nothing either of injustice or oppression in their conduct.
Mr. Charles Bullernever recollected any case of injustice or oppression brought before the House, in which some Gentleman did not come forward and assert that the persons against whom that complaint was brought were most humane characters, and were actuated by the purest motives. The Churchwardens, now complained of, had adopted a most extraordinary mode of showing their humanity towards Mr. Child. From the individual question respecting Mr. Child, the attention of the House had been called to the general Question of the injustice of continuing the present law respecting Church-rates. His attention, however, had also been directed to another great Question, namely—the constitution of the tribunal by which Mr. Child was subjected to these iniquitous proceedings It appeared that Mr. Child had been illegally brought before this Ecclesiastical Court, for the paltry sum of 17 s. 6d.; and according to the learned civilian (Dr. Lushington) than whom there could not be a better authority on the subject, the expenses would amount to at least 16 l. He asked how long his Majesty's Ministers intended to allow the present system in the Ecclesiastical Courts to be continued? The Government he trusted would at once give some information on this point. He was satisfied that if they did not bring forward some effectual measure of Reform with respect to these Courts, they would lose the confidence of the country. The late Government had promised Reform on this point which might probably hare been

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effectual if the matter had been taken up in the way which he understood the right hon. Baronet then at the head of the Administration intended that it should be. He was the more anxious upon the point, as some of his constituents had been injured by the oppressive conduct of the Ecclesiastical Court—indeed the oppression on this point was very great in the West of England. He had intimated at the early period of the Session that it was his intention to move for leave to bring in a Bill to take away from the Ecclesiastical Courts all jurisdiction in Tithes or Church-rates, but he did not persist in his intention, as he had been told that that would form part of the measures to be brought forward by the late Government. That Administration lasted six weeks after this intimation, and yet they manifested no signs of bringing forward such a Bill. He wished to know whether his Majesty's Ministers intended to introduce some measure, for if they did not he should certainly proceed with his Bill?
Lord John Russellwas understood to to say, that the Government wished to do what the hon. Member had adverted to, but he could not then give a more specific promise.

LEGAL APPOINTMENTS IN IRELAND.
Mr. Arthur Trevorsaid, that he wished to put a question to the noble Lord the Secretary for the Home Department, which he considered of paramount importance at the present moment, and which the public looked to with great interest. He would not allude to the various reports in circulation beyond ["Question!"]. Reports, however, were in general circulation respecting certain appointments connected with the Government, and these had been strengthened, and partly confirmed, by an expression used the other night by the hon. and learned Member for Dublin. He wished to know whether the legal appointments connected with the Irish Government had, previously to their being confirmed, been submitted, either directly or indirectly, to the hon. and learned Member for Dublin for his approbation.
No answer was given to the question.

AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS.
The Marquess of Chandosrose to bring forward his Motion. As that was the third time he had brought the subject of the Distress
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of the Agricultural Classes under the notice of that House, he should not think it necessary to enter into the subject at great length. He deeply lamented the failure of his former Motion, as it was one calculated to afford considerable relief. But though he bowed, as he was bound to do, to the opinion of the House, yet he still entertained the same opinion. It was impossible to conceal the desperate condition of the farmer at present, as contrasted with his former position, and as impossible that relief could be longer withheld from him without sacrificing the whole agricultural interest of the country. All must be of the same opinion on this point. He would, then, the distress of the tenants being known to every Gentlemen, call on the House to afford relief. The measure which he meant to propose to the House for its adoption would not be final, but only temporary, and suited to the existing exigency. Ever since the commencement of the reign of George 3rd, the Poor-rates and the County-rates had been increasing, and all falling with cumulative weight on the farmer. It was thought by the former Government that the reduction of the County-rates, and the expenditure of money in building bridges, and striking out new lines of communication, would tend to relieve the distress of the agriculturists; but those plans were not attended with the desired effect. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed another measure, the Commutation of Tithes in England and Wales. That measure, however, had not been brought forward as it was generally expected it would ere this have been, and he had been extremely pained to hear the noble Lord that evening state that it was not the intention of his Majesty's present Administration to proceed during the present Session with more than two measures, of which a Bill for the Commutation of Tithes was not to be one. He was of opinion that a Commutation of Tithes would be a measure of very great practical utility to the landed interest, and rejoiced indeed should he be if the appeal which he was then making on their behalf should have the effect of inducing the noble Lord and his colleagues in the Government to reconsider their determination, and within a few days to announce to the House that they would not allow the present Session to pass without introducing a Bill embodying the propositions which Earl Spencer in the first

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instance, and the right hon. Baronet, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, had announced from the Treasury Benches. In submitting to the House his present appeal it was his (Lord Chandos's) intention to embrace the relief likely to result from the repeal or reduction of local as well as general taxation. With regard to local taxation, his opinion was, that much might and ought to be done for the farmer. That it might be done the declarations of the Government were sufficient guarantee, and that it ought to be done, if practicable, required but little, if any, ingenuity to prove. When they considered the present prices of landed produce—when they found that in every, no matter how trifling, article of that produce, foreign markets competed, and competed with success with those of Great Britain—when they recollected that at the present moment wheat, which last year fetched 6s. the bushel now brought only 4s. he did confidently expect the House would concur with him in thinking the time was come when it was incumbent on them to look out for some means of relief for the farmer, and devise some measure, which, if it should not have the effect of bringing back to him all that prosperity he in past times enjoyed, should at least take from him those burthens which nothing but a continuance of that prosperity could enable him to endure. They might not—it would be idle in him to contend they could—give relief to the extent the fanning population required, but at all events it was in their power to effect such a reduction in local as well as general taxation as would give to their exertions that energy which their present depressed condition altogether kept down. Was the House in possession of the tremendous fluctuations in prices which had attended the sale of British farming produce? He held in his hand a paper from the pen of an able writer, he meant Sir John Sinclair, in which the average prices of wheat from the year 1800 to the year 1835 were given, which was in itself quite sufficient to present a lamentable picture of the depression at present endured by the landed interests. From that document it appeared that in 1800, the price of wheat was 110 s. per quarter; in 1812, 122 s.; in 1833, 53 s.; in 1834, 44 s.; and in 1835, 38 s. showing a continually descending scale of prices. Might he not, when looking at this table, safely gay that the time had arrived when
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something must be done by legislative interference to check this fall of prices, to relieve the farming population of some of their burthens, and, above all, that measures should be taken to give them that protection which could alone secure a market, even though an indifferent one, for the produce of their land? Upon looking into the last Mark-lane Express he found there had been introduced of foreign grain into the British market during the week,—bailey 515 quarters, and of Irish oats, 33,496 quarters. That quantity within the short space of six days, had been brought into competition with British produce; and, at the same time, of bonded corn and of flour there was a considerable quantity disposed of. Was it possible to expect that the British farmers labouring under this disadvantage, together with au amount of taxation totally unproportioned to the income they derived from their labour, could find the means even of sustenance for themselves and their families? If the Government were bent on ameliorating their condition there were many practicable improvements which, though in themselves they might be insufficient in affording that immediate relief which was so loudly called for, would, if adopted, prove of great ultimate benefit and assistance. If, for instance, among other improvements, the Government were to advance money and buy up the corn of English growth, according as the market became overstocked, and bond it for future use when the supply was less extensive, it struck him they would be doing that which might be the means of great relief and benefit. This project did not form a part of the plan he had to submit to the House, but he threw it out in the hope the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer might be induced to consider its practicability. The relief he at present sought was, in a great measure, that which would arise from the reduction of local taxation. Every country Gentleman must be well aware that the county-rates came upon the farmer with a heavy pressure. It was the land which was obliged to pay for the prosecution of felons at Sessions and assizes; it was the land which was called upon to maintain and support prisoners; it was the land which had to defray the expenses attending the building and repairing of bridges; and it was the land which had to bear the cost of making and keeping in order the

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highways of the country. These constituted some of the heaviest burthens which the suffering farmer had to endure, and it was with a view to relieve him, if not of all, at least of some portion of their pressure, that his present Motion was introduced. What he had to propose to the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was, that the recommendations contained in the report of the last Select Committee on County-rates should be acted upon, and that, without further loss of time, measures should be introduced to carry them into execution. His anxious desire was, that Parliament should relieve the land in the way that Report proposed—namely, by exempting the farmers from the heavy payments, under the head of County-rates, they were now called upon to make, and by throwing them amongst the general charges on the country. On what principle of justice was it that the public, who enjoyed the chief benefits of the bridges of the country, many of them completed at an immense cost—indeed, he might mention that one lately erected in the county to which he belonged, had cost the land no less than 22.000 l.—were not called upon to contribute one fraction towards their expense? Was it fair, that the poor farmer should have to pay for a bridge situated, as was often the case, some fifty or sixty miles from his home, which, in all probability, he would never see or use? It was from such an unjustifiable imposition he sought relief, and certain he was, if the country Gentlemen, whom he had the honour to address, were sincere in their professions of anxiety to assist their suffering constituents, they could not avoid giving him their support. The prosecution of felons, and the support of prisoners in gaols, he would likewise make a national charge. As to the expenses consequent upon the repair and maintenance of the highways, he thought they might, with the greatest propriety, be charged to the national purse; and when he recollected the great inconvenience and loss sustained by the farmers in being obliged to perform statute labour on the roads, he was more than ever anxious to see such a proposal acceded to. When, indeed, he found the toll owners of the country rolling in affluence, and discharging their duties by deputy, and at the same time saw the poor farmer obliged to contribute the labour of his men and cattle—labour which would be of the
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utmost use to his land—he could not avoid expressing his surprise they should have so long patiently endured the exaction. With respect to general taxation, although much could not be done, yet something in the shape of relief, was practicable. The noble Lord, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer during the last Session, told the House, when making his financial statement, that very little could then be done for the agricultural interest, but that the little which could be done, would be of the greatest use to the farmer. In fulfilment of this promise, the noble Lord reduced the Window-tax on houses rated under 20 s. per annum, affording a relief to the agriculturalists of 35,000 l. a-year—reduced the duty on carriages employed in husbandry, to the amount of 10,000 l. a-year—reduced the tax on horses and cattle employed in husbandry, which gave a saving of 3,000 l. a-year—and, lastly, reduced the taxes on male servants under eighteen years of age, which benefitted the farmer to the extent of 20,000 l. a-year. This was, indeed, a trifling degree of relief to a distressed interest, but, trifling as it was, it was sufficient at the moment to raise the spirit of the farmer, and to engender the hope that at an early period each of the taxes so reduced by the noble Lord, might be totally repealed. The duty on tax carts ought, he thought, at all events, to be repealed; and if so much could not be done with the other taxes he had particularized, at least some further reduction might be effected. He felt that in making this proposition, he might be told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the surplus revenue would not admit of making the required concessions, and that, at all events, he ought not to have mooted the subject, untill the Budget was before the House. With such excuses and comments he had been put off, he was sorry to say, by more than one former Administration, but he trusted that they would not be had recourse to upon the present occasion. He asked but for little; and he did hope, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, that the little he asked, would be conceded to him. His opinion, that the Repeal of the Malt-tax would be the most beneficial concession to the agricultural interest, the Government could make, remained still unchanged: but, as a large majority of the House had decided against such a mea-

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sure, he felt it would be a useless intrusion on their time and patience, again to moot that question. Such being the case, he was reduced to the necessity of asking but an instalment of relief, if it were only to give hope that, when circumstances permitted, further concessions would be made, he entreated the Government to grant to the farmer the trifling boon he now, on their behalf, solicited. He had but one object in making the application. It was not a party object—it arose in an anxious desire to give hope and consolation to the English farmer, and of use to the best interests of the country at large. He meant to take the sense of the House on his proposition, and anxiously he trusted to see the country Gentlemen to a man marshalled in its support—in the support of the most important interest of their constituents. The case which he laid before them, was one of the deepest distress—a distress which they all knew was not feigned—which they all must acknowledge was entitled to relief. Twice had his Majesty, in his Address from the Throne, alluded to the distress of the agricultural interest, but as yet no substantial remedy had been devised. How long was this to continue—how long could it be continued without danger? When the whole of the agricultural part of the country was pressing forward for relief, when the pauper population was disturbed, when the Poor-laws were failing in many instances to prove so successful as had been expected. ["No, no,"] He would repeat that in many instances the Poor-laws were not proving so successful as had been expected—it was certainly necessary for Government to introduce some measure of relief. Some hon. Members seemed to think the Poor Law Bill had succeeded in effecting the object of its framers. In the county which he had the honour to represent there was to be found sufficient proof that it had not, and he believed that county did not stand forth as an isolated example of its ill effects. He should not have another opportunity during the present Session of bringing on this question, and he had now brought it forward in a modified way. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had ample means of protecting the farmer to the extent now sought: and when large quantities of foreign butter, cheese, and other articles of consumption, were daily poured into this market, some
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steps ought to be taken to secure a proper remunerating price to the farmers of this country, who also brought those articles into the market for home consumption. There were besides other articles requiring to be protected, in which the Scotch farmers were more particularly interested, and those were clover and other seeds, of which large importations annually took place. He would again repeat, Government was in a position to give the trifling relief he now asked on behalf of the farmers, and he trusted there would be no objection to it. He, however, would tell the House candidly that he intended on some future occasion to ask for more extensive relief, but he would not do so until he saw a possibility of its being conceded without in any way unfairly prejudicing the other interests of the country. The noble Marquess concluded by moving, "That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, expressing the deep regret this House feels at the continuation of the distressed state of the agricultural interest, to which the attention of Parliament had been called in his Majesty's most gracious Speech from the Throne in this and the preceding Session, and humbly to represent to his Majesty the anxious desire of this House that the attention of his Majesty's Government should be directed to the subject, with a view to the immediate removal of some parts of those burthens arising from the pressure of General and Local Taxation."
The Earl of Darlingtonrose with great pleasure to second the Motion of the noble Marquess, who, upon this occasion, as on every other since his entry into public life, had showed himself well deserving of the proud title which he generally received—that of "the farmer's friend." The picture which had been drawn of the distress endured by the agricultural population was not, unfortunately, an exaggerated one; it was impossible to give it that character, even if it were desired; and, as the proposition of the noble Marquess was as moderate a one as could be conceived under the circumstances—in fact, if he had any fault to find with it, it was that of being too moderate—he earnestly and sincerely trusted that the Government would see the absolute necessity of acceding to it. In their consideration of the subject, they ought not to forget that in two successive speeches from the Throne, agricultural distress had formed

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the theme of regret and commiseration, and unless King's Speeches were to be regarded as mere nothings, or as so many words of delusion and deception, they could not shrink from realizing those hopes which his Majesty's recognition of their claims were so calculated to excite. It was true that, in the speech of 1834, no actual promise of relief was held forth; but why have alluded at all to the distress, if not with an intention of recommending some alleviation? As to the capability of Parliament to afford relief, he thought little need be said. The means could easily be found if the inclination were not wanting. In regard to general taxation he admitted little could be done, Parliament having, during the present Session, decided that the only general tax which could affect them, he meant the Malt-tax, should not be removed; but as respected local taxation, the taxation from which the farmers principally suffered, and of the burthen of which they chiefly complained, it was possible that great and important concessions might be made. When the last Budget was produced, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a surplus of 1,800,000 l.; and it was naturally expected that something would have been done for the distressed landowners; but in the result, the surplus, with the exception of some few thousand pounds, was devoted to interests which did not require relief one-half as much as did the agriculturists. Among others the House-tax was repealed; and by its repeal a boon was given to the nobility, who did not need it, while none whatever was bestowed upon the farmer, who really required it. From what had been stated by the right hon. Baronet who had lately held the office of Prime Minister, and who was not one who was likely to raise hopes that might be disappointed, he was sure that if that right hon. Baronet had remained in office, something by this time would have been done for the effectual relief of the farmers of this country. He would now shortly allude to the means which struck him as most calculated to give a salutary assistance to the interest which he advocated. Upon the subject of county and highway rates he had no observations to make, farther than that he entirely concurred in the view taken of them by the noble Marquess. As regarded tithes, while he admitted they were a great burthen on the farmer, and while he confessed that a
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measure of commutation struck him as most desirable, and should always have his advocacy, he felt bound to say, he was utterly at a loss to conceive in what way the farmer would derive any pecuniary benefit from it. Neither could he see how he had been benefited with respect to Poor-rales, although the supporters of the Poor-law Bill insisted so strenuously that such would be the case. He was not so much opposed to that Bill as many with whom he generally acted; on the contrary, he thought many of its enactments were good, and that hereafter it would be found of great practical utility; but he utterly denied the assertion that its enactment, gave the smallest relief to the farmer. It would require a great deal of money to bring the Bill into full operation, and the consequence would be that for some years, so far from being diminished, the Poor-rates would be considerably increased. If the Legislature proposed giving relief through the medium of a Poor-law Bill, they could only do it by making the Poor-rates a state tax instead of a parochial one. So desperate was the condition of the agriculturists, that it was, in his opinion, the duty of the House to brave all difficulties, and go to the root of the evil. It would be found that the contraction of the currency was the root of the evil. Agriculture suffered, and the system began to be felt the year preceding that when preparation was made by the Bank for the resumption of cash payments, and that system, in spite of every resistance, would have to be altered, or some measure, of some sort or other, brought forward to counteract its evil effects. Although for the last three years there had been successive good harvests, yet, considering the burden of taxation, and other disadvantages under which the farmer laboured, it was impossible for him to pay his rents.
Lord John Russellsaid, in rising to make some observations on the Motion of the noble Lord opposite, he must acquit him of having brought it forward from any party or factious motive; on the contrary, the noble Lord, in bringing forward his motions relating to the distress of the agriculturists, whoever were the Ministers in power, desired no doubt to draw from them and from the House some opinion with respect to that distress, and with respect to the burdens under which the agricultural interest laboured. Whatever

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else, then, he might say of the Motion of the noble Lord, or of the speech with which be prefaced it, he certainly should not impute to the noble Lord any other motive than an anxious desire to promote that cause of which he was the zealous advocate. He felt himself called on to remark that the proposition of the noble Lord avowedly fell very far short of a remedy for the distress which it was his purpose to remove. The noble Lord stated—and he would not dispute the point—that the farmers of this country were labouring under great distress, and he proposed to relieve them by the removal of local taxes; but the noble Lord did not propose, as he understood him, to carry his relief beyond the amount of the present surplus—beyond that amount which the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Robert Peel) and his right hon. Friend (Mr. S. Rice) were prepared to state was the present surplus of revenue.—[The Marquess of Chandos did not bind himself to that.]—As the noble Lord who made the motion, and the noble Lord who followed him, and who did not submit any distinct proposition—as neither of those noble Lords entered upon either of the two great questions, an entire commutation of taxes, or a complete alteration of the currency—he considered himself at liberty to evade those questions entirely, and to hold the discussion to be limited within the bounds of the surplus revenue, whatever the amount might be. He would, then, take into consideration the noble Lord's proposition, in connexion with the Government of Earl Grey and that which followed till the end of last Session. It would be remembered, that during Earl Grey's Administration a Committee was proposed to inquire into the distress of the agricultural interest. That Committee was very fully attended by Gentlemen connected with the landed interest of the country: his right hon. Friend the Member for Cumberland was in the Chair, and no one better adapted for that situation could be found. After several days of laborious investigation, the Committee drew up a Report, and that Report ended by declaring, that it was more to forbearance than to the active interposition of Parliament that they must look for relief of agricultural distress. The Report made another assertion, the accuracy of which no person could doubt, and which went to the very foundation of agricultural dis-
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tress, namely, that while the outgoings of the farmer were considerable, and the price of his produce much diminished, the burdens, consisting of county-rates and so on, had very much increased. This undoubtedly was the case. In 1791 the general average of wheat was about 47 s.; in the beginning of 1793 it was 41 s. In 1833 and 1834 the prices had not been very different; and he had been informed that the present average price was below 40 s. While the prices had come back to what they were in 1792 or 1793, the present burdens were very much more heavy and oppressive. [Instances of this were given in the Report of the Committee appointed on this subject last year, some of which the noble Lord detailed.] He would observe, with respect to the Report of the Sub-committee that was also appointed, that Report stated that the expense of the prosecutions which took place—the prosecutions being of a public nature—ought to be defrayed, at all events in part, by the public, and recommended that the expense should be the expense of the assizes, and not of the quarter sessions. To that proposition there was the objection, that such a system would hold out a direct inducement to commit prisoners to the assizes and not to the quarter sessions, although perhaps an answer to that might be, that it would be necessary and requisite to distinguish between offences. There was another question in relation to this subject of the very highest importance, upon which the recommendation of the Committee could not be adopted without the very fullest consideration—he meant the expediency of introducing a public prosecutor into all our trials. From all he himself had heard, he was inclined to think that it would much improve the practice of the law, if they adopted in some respect that practice. But still it ought not to be adopted generally and at once; it should rather be introduced gradually and partially, by way of experiment at first. But there was another reason for not adopting the conclusion of the Select Committee. In considering the proposition made by that Committee, it appeared that they might in another way give a relief greater than that which they had contemplated. For instance, that Committee proposed to relieve counties from the expenses incidental to assize prosecutions, to the amount of 67,000 l.; from the expenses of convicts,

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to the amount of 15,000 l.; and with respect to County-rates and expenses at quarter sessions, to the extent of 64,000 l., making in all 146,000., Now the proposal which he had to make, was, to take the half of that whole sum, including the expenses of assizes and quarter-sessions, and pay one half of it out of the general revenues of the State. With regard to Gaols, that question was already before a Committee in the other House of Parliament, and would probably be made the subject of a separate bill. It was the intention of Government to propose such a Measure as would insure uniformity of discipline, and when that great object had been secured, it would be time to consider whether the expense should in part be borne by the public. Before he left the subject of County-rates and the recommendations of that Committee, of which he had the honour of being a Member, he might be permitted to mention that very great and important economical improvement which would result from the appointment of a Finance Commmittee of Magistrates in every county, by insuring a regular audit and examination of accounts, and by taking, when it is necessary, a new valuation. Of this he would only mention a single instance which had happened within his own personal knowledge, that in the county of Devon the expenses of felons and prisoners had been actually reduced three-fourths by the efficient superintendance of such a local finance Committee—a Measure which could in all cases be carried into effect by counties themselves without aid or intervention of Parliament. He had now explained the views he entertained with respect to County-rates. The local burdens which pressed peculiarly upon agriculture were divided into County-rates, Tithes, and Poor-rates. The next subject, therefore, which he should revert to was Tithe. With respect to the commutation of Tithes, it had been undoubtedly under the consideration of Government, and it had, indeed, been agreed to bring forward some measure on the subject; but great difficulty was found in making a compulsory settlement of the question, dependent as it must be upon the ratio of payment for a certain number of bygone years. The right hon. Baronet, for the purpose of avoiding all the difficulties which enveloped the subject, proposed to introduce a Bill for the volun-
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tary Commutation of Tithes. He had stated, when the right hon. Baronet introduced the measure, and he still was of the same opinion, that such a measure could be generally carried into effect, and especially in those places where the greatest irritation prevailed. Of the justness of that opinion, he was still firmly convinced; but, at the same time, he was perfectly satisfied to allow full opportunity for the exercise of every effort which could be made to set at rest this intricate and difficult question. If the right hon. Gentleman still wished to carry forward his plan, he should certainly give him his vote—on the principle that the measure would deserve a trial; but if he did not press forward that measure, he should propose that a Select Committee should be appointed, embracing various Members from different parts of the country, representing the various interests of those who were liable in particular districts, to the payment of tithes, for no compulsory measure could be properly and finally settled, unless it were examined by some body of men before whom the various claims and interests of the different tithe-payers were fairly heard. There was another topic to which the noble Lord adverted—Poor-rates, from the law in reference to which, that had been passed last Session, he did not seem to think much relief had been given. Now, upon that subject, he very widely differed from the noble Lord. All the information which he had received, was of precisely an opposite character and tendency. Although the Poor-law Amendment Bill was only partially in operation, and would not come into complete and general operation for some time, yet, so far as averages could be taken, there was a considerable diminution of the burden of Poor-rates, and the relief which had been afforded, was of a kind which he thought must be considered most satisfactory. He had some statements upon this subject, which had been drawn up with great attention and care, and with all the experience which the Commissioners were possessed of, which tended to show practically the working of the new Poor-law Bill. For instance, there was an average taken of 165 parishes in Berks and Sussex, in which the expense of maintaining the poor, for the year ending March, 1834, was 79,498 l. and, during the same period, till March, 1835,

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the charge was only 69,433 l., showing a diminution of no less than one-eighth. If this great diminution could be reckoned on generally, which he thought, when the Bill, was in complete operation, might be fairly expected, there would be a saving of not less than 1,000,000 l. to the country. His expectation was, that before long he should be able to state there had been a diminution to that amount, and in that particular direction no one could doubt it would be of the very highest value. But what was of more importance than even the amount of money saved, was the moral effect which the operation of the Bill had on the character, particularly, of the agricultural labourer. The great evil which had been fully acknowledged by all who had practically studied the question, was the vast quantity of what had been called surplus labour, which compelled the farmers to give employment to those half who were supported by the parishes, and whom they would not otherwise have employed. It had been found in many parishes, that no sooner was it proposed that those labourers should, in place of being supported by the parish, go to the workhouse, than the greater part of them immediately found employment. They had not become vagrants or lawless persons infesting the country, but were employed by the farmers, conducted themselves properly, and received increased wages. Such were the effects he had expected from the change effected in the Poor-laws; those who formerly received money for work, which to the farmers was worth absolutely nothing, many of them being men whom the farmers could not employ, were now usefully employed, the farmers finding, from the change in their character, that their labour was highly beneficial. He would give only one more instance of a parish (Bledlow, as we understood,) in the county of Bucks, with which the noble Marquess was acquainted, where by order of the Commissioners, it had been proposed that a number of paupers, then unemployed, should go to Manchester, whither they had, in fact, migrated, and were now receiving double their former wages. Twenty more were now anxious to follow their example, and the burdens of the parish had actually been reduced more than one-half. Such was the information which he had received, and which he thought the House would be
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glad to hear, of the working of the Poor-law Act, in its yet early stages, from which the noble Marquess seemed to expect but little relief. For his own part, he had felt that the Government of the day in introducing such a measure, were not certainly adopting so popular a course, as if they had taken off 2,000,000 l. or 3,000,000 l. of taxes; but ultimately, he felt persuaded, a more beneficial effect would be produced by it, than by any such reduction, while the value of labour would be materially augmented, and the condition of the peasant most extensively improved. When the hon. Member for Oldham brought forward his Motion on the subject, he should be prepared with materials to lay before the House, by which, on the evidence of the Commissioners, he should be able to show what the actual operation of the measure had been; and he believed he should then be able to establish that, so far from its being a measure, as that hon. Member chose to represent it, tending to make the independent labourer live on worse and coarser food, it was calculated, on the contrary, to raise the character and improve the wages of the labourer, making him feel the true value and importance of that independence which he had formerly, in a great degree lost, when even by the sacrifice of his independence, he obtained only the most wretched food in those pauperized districts, where he could get little or no work to perform. He believed that the consequence of the new law would be, to proportion employment to the demand for it, and make both the employed and the employers more independent, and give them a greater respect for each other. He would not go further at present into this subject, but would content himself with alluding to that other point which had been touched on by the noble Lord—the reduction of public and general taxation. It had always been his opinion, that on those local burdens, of which he had spoken, the Poor-rate, and the County-rate, the greatest impression could be made by local economical management, by wise and prudent measures introduced into Parliament. But in the present state of the country, no such reduction of general taxation could be effected, as would give the required relief to agriculture. It must be admitted, he thought, that substantial relief could not, as regarded general taxation, be afforded to agriculture;

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and that being admitted, the Malt-tax not being to be repealed, and there being scarcely any other tax that could be said peculiarly to affect agriculture, he thought they would be holding out a most fallacious and delusive hope, if they pledged themselves to give their immediate attention to general taxation, as it affected agriculture, with the view to the removal of taxes from the agricultural interest. The noble Lord had proposed one or two things which certainly could not afford much substantial relief, the noble Lord's intention being rather to convince the fanner that his distress was really felt, and sympathised in, by the Legislature, encouraging him to hope and exertion, than to lighten their burdens. Now, he sympathized with the farmer most sincerely, and he could not but think that a reduction of rent would be the most effectual of all relief which could be administered to him. He very well remembered the ridicule with which the noble Marquess had assailed his noble Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, (now Earl Spencer,) when proposing to repeal the tax on shepherds' dogs, and he wag rather surprised at finding the noble Marquess, in his temporary character of Chancellor of the Exchequer, following the steps of his noble Friend so very closely on the present occasion, as to dwell pathetically on the grievance of a farmer's being obliged to go to market in a cart without springs, lest it should be subjected to duty, as a thing which, in its alteration, would afford any very substantial relief to agriculture. The fact was, no such custom prevailed as farmers going to market in such vehicles, and he was quite surprised at the statement of the noble Marquess. Upon a whole view of the subject, he should beg leave to move, by way of Amendment to the noble Lord's proposition, that all the words be left out after the word "that," for the purpose of inserting the following—"That this House will direct its early attention to the recommendation of the Committee which sat last Session of Parliament upon the subject of County-rates, with a view to the utmost practicable alleviation of those burdens to which the land is subject, through the pressure of Local Taxation."
Mr. Cobbettrose for the purpose of making some observations in consequence of what had fallen from the noble Lord (Russell) who had just addressed the
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House. The noble Lord had referred to the Motion of which he (Mr. Cobbett) had given notice with respect to the Poor-law Amendment Bill, with the view, no doubt, by anticipating, to prejudice that Motion and render it, if possible, abortive. And what was the information which he had submitted to the House to illustrate the operation of that measure? From whom had it been derived? Why, from the Commissioners themselves. How often had that House been deluded by the statements of Commissioners? Nothing was so absolutely monstrous as the credulity of those who always believe the Commissioners' statements, and believe nothing else. The Commissioners, he dared say, would tell them them they were doing a great deal—no doubt. What had they their salaries for? They were, in fact, pleading for their salaries, they were writing for their salaries, and they gave their evidence for the purpose of making the House and the country believe that they had earned something. He maintained that in respect of savings, never would there be so much saved except by acts of sheer cruelty as the amount of the salaries paid to the Commissioners. The report of those Commissioners in which the Bill had been introduced, was full of falsehoods from beginning to end; it had been contradicted by Magistrates, by country Gentlemen, in pamphlets and in paragraphs innumerable. No doubt the noble Lord believed in the information he had received; but with respect, for example, to the case of Sussex and Berks, where it was alleged so great a diminution had taken place, it had occurred before the Bill had been introduced at all. Why, naturally there must be a diminution in consequence of the low price of wheat; but they might depend upon it, the evidence of the Commissioners was all the way through fallacious; substantially there was not a word of truth in the Reports they made to the Government. But supposing there could be savings, would the House not listen to the means by which it had been brought about? Would they not ask how it had been effected? He would tell them. There was a union in Sussex of 36 parishes, of which the Duke of Richmond was the chairman. He held in his hand their printed bill of fare; let any Gentleman read that document. [Cries of "Read, Read."] Let them read it themselves [loud laughter], and they would see how the

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savings were effected. This was the Duke of Richmond's bill of fare. [Renewed cries of "Read, Read."] Why were they so impatient? Here was an account of the food of a boy, and Gentlemen who had boys of their own, would recollect that a boy of ten years of age, would eat as much as a man.—Now in the dietary of the Duke of Richmond, a boy of ten years of age, had on Sunday 12 ounces of bread made of flour which cost 5s. a-bushel, half-a-pint of milk gruel, 7 ounces of rice, and another half-pint of milk gruel for supper. What was the Bill of fare for a man? [Cries of "Read, Read."] He had seven men at his farmhouse, and there was not one of them who did not eat more substantial food for his breakfast or dinner one day than the Duke of Richmond's bill of fare allowed a man for a whole week. The noble Lord had only to submit for one week to the treatment and diet prescribed by the Duke of Richmond's bill of fare to be for ever convinced of the severity and cruelty of the Poor-law Amendment Bill. The noble Lord had stated that he (Mr. Cobbett) had represented the Poor-law Bill as tending to make the poor live on a coarser sort of food; he had never so represented it; all he had said, was, that such had been intended by those who invented it, and the Barrister who drew it up, had in his printed instructions, this passage:—"It is desirable so to frame the law as to cause the working people to live on a coarser sort of food." The noble Lord, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, denied it, but he (Mr. Cobbett) had himself seen the document; he had moved for it in the regular way; let it be produced, and the document would speak for itself. A spaniel dog should be allowed more than was by the system assigned to a man; the system was monstrous, and it ill became a noble Duke, drawing 12,000 l a-year from the land of the country, to sanction it. Upon the other topics which had been alluded to, he should not long detain the House. He saw no prospect of relief to the farmer even from the proposition of the noble Lord. He knew too well the depth of their distress—how great, how universal it was—to entertain the hope of its being relieved by any such measures. The noble Lord was deceived as to the relative amount of what was complained of. In his own case, he paid 160 l. rent, 28 l. tithes, 31 l. poor-rates, 4l. county-rates,
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3l. 10 s. road-rates, and 270 l. wages; but a small portion of the outgoings of a farmer consisted of road and county rates, and making the farmers a present of those rates altogether, would not effectually relieve them. He acknowledged that he could not help feeling much surprise that any hon. Member should treat tithes as a burden deeply affecting the landed interest; it might be expedient to reform the Church, and to make an extensive change in the nature and administration of her revenues, but he desired to learn wherein did the burden of tithes consist? Agriculture had flourished at many periods since the general collection of tithes came to be established in this country, and if tithes were really such a burden as had been represented, that could hardly have been the case. One thing was clear,—that if they made a material change in the law as it related to tithes, the effect of it must be to place the parson in a worse or in a better condition than he was in before; the tithe-payer would either pay less to the parson or he would not; if less, the difference must be handed over to the landlord. Now, it did appear to him much better for the tithe-payer to deal with the parson than with the landlord. Something had been said about the necessity of relieving the agriculturists from the expense of maintaining the roads in a state of good and sufficient repair, and of relieving them by making the country at large defray the expense. If such a principle were adopted, the rest of the community might very well exclaim, "What! make us pay for maintaining your roads in good condition, for your profit and convenience?" In his opinion, the House might go on for ever discussing topics of this nature without arriving at any sound or practical conclusion; they might go about here and there searching for hidden causes, but he could tell the country that they overlooked, or seemed to overlook, which in effect amounted to the same thing, the real cause of all the agricultural difficulties of England,—it was neither more nor less than the change which had taken place in the value of money. Therein lay the true source of the national misfortunes. He called upon the House sincerely and earnestly to apply its mind and attention to the real remedies of which that evil admitted, and not waste its own energies and disappoint the public expectation with futile attempts to admi-

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nister to a disease that admitted of only one cure. As to the Corn-law, respecting which a good deal had been said, he hesitated not to affirm that it afforded no protection whatever to the agriculturist. It was perfectly true that the effect of the Corn-law was to exclude foreign corn, but the price of corn had been sinking in England for many years past. Notwithstanding all their protections, they had not been able to keep up the price of wheat, and wide-spread distress had been the consequence. The original moving power by which that distress had been occasioned was, he contended, the well-known Currency Measure of the right hon. Baronet near him. The subject, however of the Currency was to come on next week, and considering that the proper course for him would be to reserve himself until then, he should not, on the present occasion, take up more of the time of the House in arguing the question, as to the degree in which the state of the Currency affected agricultural distress; he should merely content himself with saying that the universal cry of the farmers was, "Give us more money; we want a little more money, for there is a surplus of labour to which we cannot give employment for lack of a sufficient circulating medium." In endeavouring thus to stale what were not the causes of agricultural suffering, he hoped it would never be supposed that he meant to convey that those causes were beyond the power of the House; on the contrary, he felt assured that the House ought to feel itself under a most binding obligation to take the matter in hand, for until something was done by Parliament, the condition of the farmer would remain unimproved.
Lord George Lennoxsaid, that, after the unfounded attacks which had been made upon his noble relative (the Duke of Richmond) by the hon. Member for Oldham, he felt himself called on to address a few words of explanation to the House, which, he trusted, would be heard for that reason. That hon. Member had thought proper a few days back to bring forward in that House charges against his noble brother; but he (Lord George Lennox) had treated them with the contempt due to all misrepresentations and mis-statements of the kind. No sooner, howevever, did the report of the hon. Member's speech reach the county of Sussex than a meeting of the Magistrates
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of the union was convened, and an unanimous vote of denial of these charges was come to at once. That was the strongest refutation which they could have, while the Magistrates unanimously expressed their disgust at the allegations. But the hon. Member, notwithstanding, appeared still determined to continue his misrepresentations. With respect to the hon. Member's statement, that the Duke of Richmond was making any income out of the poor of the union of Westhampstead he most unqualifiedly denied and contradicted it. If the hon. Member chose to bring any tangible charge he (Lord George Lennox) was prepared to refute it at once; but he disbelieved everything which the hon. Member had said on the subject of his noble relative. He would put the character of his noble Brother and that of the hon. Member for Oldham in competition—no, he would not do that. But if any hon. Gentleman chose to do so, he was confident of the result; it would be soon seen which came out of the scrape best. As to what the hon. Member had called "the Duke of Richmond's bill of fare for the poor," he could only say that the sneer was not merited, as the regulations contained in that document were framed with a view to the interests of the pauper as well as the rate-payer. He had nothing further to add to what he had so imperfectly said in defence of his noble relative, except to implore the House not to take for granted anything whatever which fell from the hon. Member when the character of his noble Brother or that of other individuals of rank and station was involved.
Mr. Cobbettcould assure the noble Lord and the House, that he did not know that any one in the House could possibly be offended by his observations. But he was perfectly ready to re-state and prove every word which he had uttered on the subject.
Lord W. Lennox and Mr. Clayrose together. The former was loudly called on by the House, even after the Speaker had decided in favour of the latter.
Mr. Claysaid, that the hon. Member for Oldham had treated with the utmost disdain all those modes of relieving agricultural distress which had been suggested in the course of the Debate; and ascribed its cause to the passing, and its only remedy to the repeal, of the Bill of the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tam-

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worth, for the regulation of the Currency, How far he was justified in that sweeping denunciation and broad assertion he should proceed to examine. If the hon. Member's position were the true one, it was very singular that wheat only should be affected by the change in the monetary system of the country. There were other commodities equally the produce of agriculture, the price of which was not in the slightest degree affected, except for the better. He should, however, upon a future occasion, have another opportunity of stating the causes of the distress, and the mode of relieving it. On that occasion he trusted that he should have the noble Lord upon his side, although he was willing to allow that those who differed from the noble Lord could not have a more courteous, a more kind, a more candid, or a more honourable adversary. He would now wish to briefly confine himself strictly to the relief to which the agriculturists laid claim as a matter of right. The noble Marquess had attributed the distresses of the agriculturists in the last year to the large importation of foreign corn, when, in fact, there had been no importations of wheat into England, except from Ireland, and he did not imagine that the noble Marquess would call that a foreign importation. The noble Marquess had next alluded to the importation of foreign barley, but how could the noble Marquess reconcile to his theory the fact, that while the price of wheat was low, that of barley was high? The noble Marquess had suggested, that Government should be prepared to buy up the corn of the British corn-growers, and to keep it from, or to pour it into the market, according to the current prices; but the noble Marquess did not perceive that this would put a stop to that spirit of speculation and of competition upon which the interests of all markets, and of the public at large, were known to depend. He was of opinion that the agriculturists were entitled to relief only where they were taxed beyond a fair proportion as part of the community. The agriculturists, however, possessed the advantages of a monopoly for their produce, and he trusted that if the noble Marquess did obtain for them the relief he sought, he would be prepared to give up the monopoly of the Corn-laws; for to retain both, would be manifestly unjust, He felt as much as any man
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for the distress of the agriculturists, but, as he saw no way of relieving them, he should give his vote for the Amendment.
Mr. Benettwished only to correct the errors of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets with respect to the relative prices of wheat and barley. He believed that no person in England was ignorant of the causes of the difference except the hon. Member himself. The difference in the price of wheat or barley arose entirely from the badness of the crop of barley; and if the hon. Member would only look back to the market prices, he would find that barley, two years ago, had been as low as it had been for twenty years. Another cause of the high price of the barley was the Repeal of the Beer-tax, and in the next year, the price of barley would again bear its price proportionate to that of wheat. For his part, he thought it of very little importance whether the House adopted the original Motion or the Amendment. The only difference between them was, that the original Motion alluded to relief to be derived from a reduction of general taxation, and the Amendment related to local taxation. If the Amendment precluded any man from hereafter voting for any repeal of general taxation, he would not vote for it; but it would not have such an effect. He agreed with Lord Western, who had laid it down that the causes of agricultural distress, and the sources of relief must be sought for in the Currency Question. He would not at present enter into any question relative to a silver standard or a gold standard, but convinced he was, that relief to the agriculturists in one way or the other, was to be sought for only in an alteration of the currency laws. He thought that the Poor-laws ought to be under the control of the Government, with a view to their being ultimately thrown upon the general resources of the country. Formerly, when land was the sole support of the labourers, land bore the sole weight of the Poor-laws, but now that there existed such mercantile and manufacturing property, this ought to bear its share of Poor-rates.
Lord Arthur Lennoxaddressed the House. He begged the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel who had risen to speak) pardon for standing even for a moment between him and the House; but a necessity had been imposed upon him

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of saying one word in reply to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Oldham, and he only rejoiced that the precedence which had been given to other hon. Members, had prevented his addressing the House at the first moment, when his feelings had been under considerable excitement. He owed no such apology to the hon. Member for Oldham; but he did owe a great deal of deference to the decency that ought to be observed by every hon. Member to the Chair, and to the House itself. He had only risen to say, that the hon. Member for Oldham had totally misunderstood all that had fallen from his hon. relative, the Member for Sussex. The hon. Member for Sussex had said, that the charges which had been brought against his noble brother (the Duke of Richmond) had been totally disproved; and he (Lord Arthur Lennox) would give the most positive, unequivocal, and unqualified contradiction to the charges, and, as strongly as Parliamentary language would permit, to the hon. Member for Oldham. The son of the hon. Member for Oldham had been a candidate to represent the city of Chichester, and whether his defeat was the source of the calumnies vented by the hon. Member for Oldham against his noble brother, the Duke of Richmond, he would not pretend to say; but he would say, that when he recollected the late contest, and reflected upon the perfect and gentlemanly manners which the son had evinced throughout the whole of it, it was scarcely possible for him to believe that he was any relation to the father.
Mr. Cobbetthad derived his information from Mr. James Gray, of Chichester, who had said that he was able and willing to substantiate every word of it against the Duke of Richmond.
Sir Robert Peelcould not regret that he had given the noble Lord an opportunity of venting his feelings, which were very natural, and reflected honour upon him. He was perfectly convinced that the hon. Member for Oldham must have laboured under some misapprehension of what he had heard with respect to the noble Duke alluded to, and the motives by which he was actuated; for he (Sir R. Peel) felt himself bound to say that the extensive experience which he had had of the noble Duke in his Parliamentary career had completely satisfied him that his character was of that nature that the
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imputation which had been cast upon it must be totally unfounded. The noble Duke might differ from the hon. Member for Oldham with respect to the policy of the Poor-laws, but as to the motives of the difference the noble Duke was above all suspicion. He would, however, proceed to the question that was before the House, and he was sorry to say that many subjects had been introduced into it which, although bearing on the condition of the poor (and, if the question was upon the general state of the agriculturists, proper to be introduced) yet could not, when their importance was considered, with any advantage to the Question under debate, be introduced into a desultory discussion. The most prominent of these irrelative topics was the operation of the Poor-laws and the probable effects of the Poor-law Amendment Act of last Session. Another of the topics that had been introduced was the state of the currency, another was the Commutation of Tithes; each had been interwoven with the state of agricultural distress—each was a subject in itself of immense importance, and requiring a separate discussion, and no advantage could arise to any one of them in having it mixed up with the Question now before the House. With reference to the Currency Question, it was admitted on all sides that the subject was one of immense importance, and that it ought to be the object of a separate discussion, and accordingly notice had been given of a distinct and regular Motion upon the question of the currency. He hoped that whatever hon. Member brought the subject forward for discussion would at the same time bring forward his plan for relieving the country from the evils that were said to arise from the law as it then stood. That House had heard many declamations on the evil state of the currency. One hon. Member had said, "something must be done on the subject." Then came some other hon. Member, and said, "the matter never can be allowed to rest where it was." Now he hoped that all such Gentlemen would in future go one step further, and at once tell the House what specific alterations they would wish to have introduced. Would these hon. Members propose to introduce a paper currency, an unlimitted paper currency, not convertible into gold? Would they, on the other hand, wish to introduce a debasement of the standard? Would they

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wish to propose a re-adjustment of contracts? And if they did, then would he ask, of what contracts? Of contracts made within what periods? These were the matters which hon. Members ought fairly to bring forward, nor ought they to discuss the evils arising from the alteration of the currency without, at the same time, discussing the different measures of relief. The hon. Member for Oldham had that night stood forward as the advocate of the agricultural interests. In that, at least, the hon. Member was consistent, for, throughout all his life he had supported the same cause. But how did he purpose to benefit the cause? He had looked back into the paper of notices of motions, and he there found that the hon. Member for Oldham had a Motion on the books no longer ago than last July, the principle of which was that they do what they like with the currency, but the whole charge of the national debt ought to be transferred to the land. Yes, the hon. Member for Oldham had said, that personal property was subject to very unfair burthens in being subject to the interest of the national debt; and his relief from this evil was, to subject land to the exclusive burthen. With respect to the Poor-laws Amendment Act, he had gone into that, question when the Bill was before the House, and he had voted for the Bill. He had never expected that the new system would be carried into effect without exciting local dissatisfaction, but he was bound to say that the dissatisfaction which had been excited had been much less than he had anticipated, and at all events it had not been sufficient to convince him of the impolicy of that important measure. Another question was the Commutation of Tithes. He trusted the noble Lord would not persevere in his intention to transfer the question to a Committee. He would most undoubtedly prefer that the noble Lord should take time, and let the Executive Government consider it. Whether any of the three plans that had been proposed were to be pursued; whether the principles of the Bill introduced in 1833; whether Lord Althorp's plan of having the tithes converted into rents applicable to certain districts; or whether the House were to proceed upon the principle of a voluntary commutation, the plan which he had proposed, he would rather that the noble Lord opposite should say that the
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Executive Government was determined to apply its mind to the measure than that it should be transferred to a Select Committee. He hoped that the noble Lord would think the subject deserved to occupy the attention of Government, for Government had more means of inquiry into it than a Committee, and he was convinced whatever measure might be proposed, that ought to be proposed on the responsibility of Government. He would now come to the object of his noble Friend's Motion. His noble Friend proposed that the House should agree to address the Crown to direct his Majesty's Ministers to consider the state of the agricultural interests, with reference to a view to its relief from general and from local taxation. With respect to general taxation, he could not but observe that the House was discussing the question at a time at which, if no change had been effected in the financial prospects of the country, they had a surplus revenue so very small that no reduction of taxation could be ventured upon without causing more injury than benefit, and in the situation in which he stood he could not excite hopes in the agricultural interests which, as a Minister of the Crown, he should never have thought of realizing. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he had anticipated that what was called the Budget of the year would have to be proposed to the House by himself, he had assumed that the net available surplus, after providing for all that was chargeable for the debt and for the public services, which the general interests of the country compelled a Minister to attend to, would be only 250,000 l. Under such circumstances, then, he could not now be a party to a resolution which would lead the agriculturists to believe that he contemplated any great reduction in the burthens of the country. He should always hold the opinions which he ever had held as to the great advantages of strictly maintaining public credit. A greater ultimate chance of relief would exist from the maintenance of public credit by looking to a legitimate means of reducing the interest of the public debt than by acting precipitately, and by relieving public burthens at the expense of endangering public credit. He believed that it would not be easy for any man to point out any one particular tax that fell exclusively upon the agriculturists. If the exception

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were the Malt-tax he must say that in the course of that Session he had thought it his duty to dissent from the proposition to reduce that tax. He would for a moment suppose that there existed a greater surplus of revenue over expenditure than was contemplated, then, he asked, what tax ought he to remove? He need not discuss the amount of the surplus; but, supposing it to be of an amount that would authorize Government to contemplate a greater reduction of taxes than was intended—supposing that Government intended to make a greater reduction of taxes than the existing surplus of 250,000 l., and trust to a chance improvement of the revenue to fill up any deficiency—still should he find it difficult to select a tax to reduce or take off which fell exclusively on the landed interests. If it were conceded that a certain tax fell exclusively on the landed interests, still he should require time to consider whether he should benefit the landed interest more by taking off that direct tax than by removing some other that pressed injuriously, though indirectly, upon productive industry. He was not prepared to say, that there was not a tax or taxes in the whole system of taxation the diminution of which might not benefit the landed interests, and he should lake an opportunity of throwing this out for the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (the Chancellor of the Exchequer). He would advise the right hon. Gentleman to consider the operation of the auction duty. Whether there would be a surplus revenue sufficient to enable the right hon. Gentleman to make any reduction of that duty he could not say, but he was sure that the landed interests would derive great benefit from such a measure, nor could the revenue suffer much, for little of the auction duty was derived from the sale of landed estates, as it was the practice, in order to avoid the duty, to put up lands to sale by auction merely in order to ascertain their value, and afterwards to dispose of them by private contract. He would likewise advise the right hon. Gentleman to take into consideration the state of the Land-tax, with a view to making changes in the collecting of it. Then would come the question on the increase of the duty on spirit licences. He believed that the effect of the duty had been unjust in the extreme. This duty, as it then stood, had been imposed very late in the
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last session, when the parties interested in it had not had an opportunity of presenting their remonstrances against it. The tax upon the manufacture of glass he considered as peculiarly deserving of a favourable consideration; and there were many other taxes which he thought were also worthy of the attention of the Government, with a view to reduce them with as little delay as the state of the finances of the country would permit. He entertained very strong doubts if a substantial relief afforded to those interests would not aid the landed interests more than any direct removal of agricultural duties. Under all the considerations in which he viewed this question, he confessed he did not feel justified in exciting expectations in the agricultural body, which he feared it would not be possible safely to realize. The last part of the subject to which he should refer was the local taxation. This, certainly, did bear heavily on the landed interests. At the same time that he was willing to afford every practical relief, he did not consider it fair to excite in the minds of the landed interest any expectation that there was likely to be any material alleviation of their burdens. He looked upon it that a greater relief would be derived from a new valuation than from any transfer of taxation. The chief objection to a new valuation was the expense that it was supposed would attend it, which had been stated as high as forty or fifty thousand pounds for some counties; but in the county of Lancaster, where the expense was likely to be greater than in other counties, on account of the number of large towns, the valuation had been conducted with perfect satisfaction to all interests, and at a comparative small expense. The operation was simple and appeared to have been conducted without exciting any great dissatisfaction, or leading to many appeals; so that in two counties,—one, most important for its manufactures—the other, for its agricultural produce—a new apportionment of the public burdens, in this particular, was made without dissatisfaction. He would, therefore, advise those interested in the county expenditure, to weigh maturely the evidence which had been given upon this subject—to ascertain whether such new valuation could be made through local means—and, if not, if it should be necessary to obtain an Act of Parliament for such a purpose, whether it might not

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be expedient to take that course, the object being to provide a new valuation of lands, with a view to ensure a more equal apportionment of the rates levied upon them, than was now made. The relief he should have proposed to extend to agriculture, in the course of the present Session, had he remained in office, would have been of very material benefit to it. He should have proposed to exempt the land altogether from the burden of the Church-rates; for it appeared to him that, though land might be a proper subject of contribution, yet that the same circumstance which, as he apprehended, made the County-rate and the Poor-rate fall with greater severity on the land than applied to the case of Church-rates, also—namely, that personal property did not contribute its fair proportion to this tax. The amount of the Church-rate, as calculated by Lord Althorp, was 550,000 l. Now, if the land were relieved of 300,000 l. of this amount, by doing away with charges which ought never to have been borne by the Church-rate, and if the remaining 250,000 l. were transferred to the revenue of the country, there would be a relief to agriculture of not less than 550,000 l. on account of the Church-rate; a relief, however, not exclusively to the land, but shared by all property now subject to the Church-rate; because some proportion of the 550,000 l. was raised upon houses and other property, as well as the land. The noble Lord had alluded to the recommendation of the Committee as respected local taxation for bridges, roads, and other local improvements. There was a difficulty, he apprehended, in transferring from the County-rates any charges connected with the ordinary public local interests. He would not advise, for example, that charges for bridges, for roads, for the maintenance of the poor, or for any of those objects which might be better administered under local supervision, should be paid out of any other funds; for he thought, even apart from any considerations of public economy, that it would be wrong to transfer such supervision from the hands of county magistrates and gentlemen, who, being directly interested in these services, were more likely than other officers to carry them into complete effect. There ought to be limits assigned to the system of centralization. It was very well to say that Government would employ men of
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high reputation, who would do the several descriptions of work at a less expense; but he believed that the ultimate effect of these central boards would be to withdraw the local expenditure from the honest supervision of the local authorities, to the great disadvantage of the public; and that the country would be thus involved in great additional expense for the management of local affairs. But there was one purpose to which local taxation was now applied which stood distinct from all the rest, and one which might be undertaken by the Government to the profit of the whole community—he meant the administration of the criminal justice of the country. The noble Lord truly stated, that it was proposed by the Committee of last year, to relieve the County-rates from the charges on account of criminal trials at the assizes; and to leave them subject only to the charges for criminal trials at the quarter sessions. But the noble Lord added—and justly—that there would be great caution required in the adoption of such a measure, in order to prevent the county magistrates (who, of course, would be interested in diminishing the local expenditure) from transferring a more than due share of this expense from the county funds, by making committals for trial at the assizes, which ought properly to take place at the quarter-sessions. In order to remedy this the noble Lord proposed to take the aggregate of the expense of the two descriptions of trial and make a division of it so that one moiety shall be borne by the county and the other by the public. But, considering that the whole cost of trials at the quarter sessions did not amount to more than 78,000 l. he trusted that the noble Lord would conclude with him, that it was better to make no distinction between the two items, but to transfer the whole expense of the administration of criminal justice to the public. That expense would amount to not more than 150,000 l. in the aggregate a-year; and this expense should be kept down by introducing every economical arrangement possible, consistently with the exigencies of justice, such as in the allowance to witnesses, and the number of counsel to be employed; and by placing the whole system upon one intelligible plan. It was extremely difficult to draw a line between cases which properly belonged to the assizes, or properly belonging to quarter-sessions, The prin-

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ciple was the same, however, as to such arrangements, with regard to both; and he believed there would be a greater inducement to economy by taking the whole of the charge upon the state, than if they left one part of it to be defrayed by the state, and another by the county. The removal of offenders, after conviction, certainly could be conducted at a less expense by these means, and thus the county would be relieved of a considerable burden, without subjecting the public to an equivalent charge. Government would act, in short, as to these matters, upon a combined plan; whereas each county adopted a different course—one conveying them by boats, and another by public carriages, to the annoyance of all other passengers. He was sure that any one who had happened to share a coach with convicts under sentence would be ready to agree with him, that this practice ought to be done away with. By contracting, upon a large scale, this business of conveyance would not only be conducted at a less expense, but such a scandal as that would be altogether avoided. The motives of economy and discipline, as well as the proper enforcement of the law should operate with the Government to induce them to adopt this course of proceeding. He was inclined strongly to advise that the whole of the charges connected with the Administration of criminal justice, should be undertaken by the Government, not merely with a view to relieve the county of its local expenditure on that account, but with a view of giving Government the whole control of it. There was, at present, no part of our judicial system over which the Government had so little, and ought to have so strict a control. It would be better to make a gradual trial of this plan, in order that the Government might feel its way before finally embarking upon it. There were more powerful reasons for its adoption than the prospect of relieving the country from the charge. It would have on a tendency to prevent compromises the part of the prosecutors, as well as frivolous and vexatious prosecutions. This, therefore, was the extent of the remission of taxation he was disposed to advise. It was one which, he must admit, if carried into effect, would have exceeded the amount of the surplus of the year's revenue; but he considered that some of the other taxes might have been increased, without
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at all endangering the public confidence, if this experiment had been carried into effect. These were the general views on which he was disposed to act. The Resolution of the noble Lord did not, he observed, point to any particular amount of reduction. It left that matter still open for consideration; but it distinctly encouraged the hope that it was the intention of the House, when called on to discuss the subject of local taxation, to give every practical relief that could be afforded to the landed interest consistent with the maintenance of public credit. If his noble Friend would take his advice, he should be satisfied to obtain, on the part of his Majesty's Ministers, an admission of the general principle—without pressing the matter of his Resolution to a division. His noble Friend had better let the Chancellor of the Exchequer state, officially, what the amount of the available surplus was, and what proposition he had to make unconnected with general taxation, and then submit a specific motion with respect to local expenditure, reserving to himself the right of afterwards pressing the remission of any particular tax. If his noble Friend did not take that course—he, for one, was bound to say that he could not acquiesce in the Motion,—thinking it open to the objection of exciting too great hopes on the part of the agricultural interests. He sympathized with their distresses as deeply as any man, but he was not willing to aggravate them—as they would be aggravated—by the excitement of hopes which could not be realized consistently with the maintenance of the public credit.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerrejected altogether, the prophecies of the hon. Member for Oldham, because, although in some respects that hon. Member might have proved himself to be a true prophet, in others he had demonstrated himself to be one of the most delusive seers that ever ventured to utter a prediction. He could not forget a threat which was held out, some years ago, by a certain great public writer—that, upon the coming to pass of a certain contingency, which he specifically described, the Ministers of the day were to be sacrificed upon the gridiron—that elegant culinary utensil with which the hon. Member appeared to be so pleased, that in the failure of his own prediction, he selected it for the instrument of his own voluntary martyrdom. Know-

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ing as he did, that the contingency had happened which the hypothesis anticipated, and that the sacrifice which was to follow had not taken place, he could not help rejecting all the other prophecies of the hon. Member as equally vain and false. But, to proceed to the immediate Question before the House, he wished, in the first instance, to assure the noble Marquess (Chandos) that the present motion was not necessary to induce his Majesty's Government to come forward with some measure for the relief of the agricultural body. The Committee on whose Report the House was called upon to proceed, was appointed, he believed, by his noble Friend, (Earl Spencer) and the Members of his Majesty's present Government. He gave his entire assent to the Report, and he begged leave to assure the noble Marquess Chandos, that whether the present Motion had been made or not, his Majesty's present Government was fully prepared to have introduced some measure of agricultural relief to the consideration of Parliament. The right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) had spoken of an existing surplus revenue; but the right hon. Baronet had assumed this, surplus without anticipating the possible course of future debates. He must be aware that there was a large Question now pending with regard to Danish claims; and one, also, involving the interests of many merchants of the city of Dublin, who claimed to be remunerated for losses they had sustained through the fire of the Custom-House of that city. He received with great respect and thankfulness, the suggestions which the right hon. Gentleman had thrown out; and certainly, in principle, he entirely agreed with the right hon. Gentleman. He agreed—that if it were possible, to dispense with those portions of the auction-duty which pressed heavily upon the sale of land, it would be a considerable relief to the landed interests; and he agreed with him, perhaps still more cordially, that if some modification or alteration were to take place in the duty upon glass, there was scarcely any matter connected with fiscal considerations, to which the attention of Governnent could be directed, with more beneficial and practical results. But, in approaching this subject, he could not think that the agriculturists were entitled to say, that justice had not hitherto been fully done to them, in what had already been
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effected with reference to their claims. The noble Lord and the right hon. Gentleman had both stated that there was a difficulty, perhaps, in determining what it was in the way of relief, which should next be done. The hon. Member for Old-ham said, that neither the removal of the tithe, nor the reduction of the Poor-rate, would be any substantial relief; and he believed it would be heard with feelings of great despondency by the agricultural interests, that the removal of the Corn Bill, and the alteration of the Currency were the only expedients which in his opinion, could be suggested. Those persons he must remark, did not do justice to Parliament who said that no relief had hitherto been given to the agricultural interests. It was difficult to obtain the attention of the House to a mere recital of facts, especially after the excitement of such speeches as they had heard; but if the House would indulge him, he would remind them of a few of the measures which had been of late years passed for the benefit of agriculture. Taking alt the taxes which had been reduced since the war, he believed the balance of reduction would be found to have been in favour of the agriculturists. The total relief, granted to them since that period, amounted to 8,356,000 l. If any one would take the trouble to analyze the financial Return which had been made during the last five years, he would find agriculture had obtained its full portion of relief during that interval. Since the termination of the war the actual amount of relief to the agriculturists in matters of excise alone amounted to 7,384,000 l. The amount of relief given in customs was undoubtedly small, not exceeding 6,000 l. or 7,000 l.; but the relief in the assessed taxes amounted to 935,000 l., and in stamp-duties to 29,000 l., making a total relief of 8,356,000 l. of taxes bearing upon agriculture since the commencement of the peace in 1815. It had been said in the course of the debate, that the proposition brought forward by his noble Friend was not calculated to satisfy the agriculturists themselves. To what extent then were taxes to be reduced? would they reduce the duties on tax-carts, the grievance which had so long existed? were they to discuss whether the farmer shall travel with or without springs to his cart, in reference to a branch of taxation which was no real grievance? Supposing that every tax which was

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thought to press particularly upon the agriculturists were removed to-morrow, in what condition would they find themselves when they came to discuss the question of the Corn-laws? Hitherto, in debating that question, the chief argument upon which they had relied had been the particular duties and taxes which pressed exclusively upon them. Should the agriculturists succeed in their present views therefore, they would deprive themselves of their own great argument whenever the question of the Corn-laws should come to be discussed. The noble Marquess (Chandos) had spoken of foreign competition as one of the great evils with which the agriculturist had to contend, and he complained of the importation of butter in particular; but did not the noble Lord recollect that there was a duty of 20 s. per cwt. upon foreign butter, and that there was also a high duty upon cheese and upon seeds? He would just read to the noble Lord a list of the taxes which were imposed for the protection of agriculture. Upon bacon there was a tax, per cwt. of 1l. 8s.; bark, per ton, 13 s. 4d.; beer, per 32 gallons, 2l. 13 s. 4d.; butter, per cwt. 1l.; cider, per tun, 21 l. 10 s.; cheese, per cwt., 10 s. 6d.; hay, per load, 1l. 4s.; hides, per cwt., 2s. 4d.; hops, per cwt., 8l. 11 s., madder, per cwt., 1s. 6d.; mules and asses, 10 s. 6d.; horses, 1l.; oil, rape and linseed, per tun, 39 l. 18 s.; peas, per bushel, 7s. 6d.; perry, per tun, 22 l. 13 s. 8d.; potatos, per cwt., 2s.; seeds, clover, hay, &c. 1l.; spirits, foreign, per gallon, 1l. 2s. 6d.; rum, per gallon, 9s. 6d.; tallow, per cwt., 3s. 2d.; tares, per quarter, 10 s. Did those statements show that the laws were indifferent to the protection of the agricultural interests? Whether the list of duties he had just read had been wisely imposed or not he should not then stop to inquire—he had merely alluded to them to show that the agriculturists had not been so much neglected as the noble Lord seemed to suppose. If the whole taxation of the country were taken together, he believed it would be found that the agriculturists bore a smaller proportion of it than any other class of persons in the kingdom. During the reign of William 3rd, the total revenue of the country amounted to 48,000,000 l., out of which 29,000,000 l. was borne by the general taxation of the country, and 19,000,000 l. by the land-tax. In the reign of Queen Anne the total amount of
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the revenue was 62,518,000 l., out of which 21,285,000 l. only was exclusively borne by the land-tax. In the reign of George 1st. the total amount of the revenue was 76,968,000 l., out of which 18,470,000 l. only was borne by the land-tax. In the reign of George 2nd, the total revenue was 216,015,000 l. out of which only 49,000,000 l. was borne by the land-tax. Thus it would be seen, that at the accession of George 3rd, the burden borne by the agriculturist was far less in proportion to the general amount of taxation than it had been during any of the anterior reigns since the time of the Revolution, so if the landed interest estimated its present contributions it would find them much less in proportion even than they were in the reign of George 3rd, He agreed with the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel), that it might be well for the Government to undertake the expense of the criminal prosecutions throughout the country; but it would be better to take off half at present, rather than at once throw the entire burden on the country, whatever might ultimately appear to be the duty of the Legislature. It would be necessary, in the first instance, to have the assistance of those who had been long connected with the administration of justice in different parts of the kingdom, and not make at once an entire change in the whole system. If they acted in this manner for one year, possibly it might appear advisable to propose a plan to Parliament in the next, by which Government might take the whole of the expense upon itself. The right hon. Gentleman knew by the result of the experiment that had been made in Ireland, that there was great difficulty experienced in checking the expenses attendant upon trials; but it was not so much a question of amount, as one of principle, that he regarded it. Such an important step as this should be taken cautiously—and it would be much easier for Parliament to decide upon the case, after considering the effect of remitting half of these charges to the country, than by commencing with the remission of the whole. With respect to the charge for the conveyance of prisoners, the view taken by the right hon. Baronet was undoubtedly the correct one. He only regretted that it had not been carried into effect before, because all business of that description, and the duty of defraying the expenses, undoubtedly

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belonged to the Government, and not to the county wherein sentence was pronounced. As to the other reports which had been alluded to, there was only one remaining to which he should think it necessary to refer; and that was the recommendation that the House of Commons should be at the expense of all Parliamentary Returns. If that recommendation be adopted, he would take upon self to say that there was no return which, in future, would not be made the subject of a money speculation. If they allowed the Clerk of the Peace to refuse to execute the Order of the House, unless the payment be attached, it would give rise to an appearance of disrespect, and for the first time introduce a new principle—before quite unknown—into the management of this department of the public business. He did not see how the noble Marquess, after all that had been said, could with a due regard to the end which he himself had in view, do otherwise than acquiesce in a compromise which would lead to the attainment of his object, by first producing a conformity of opinion. The noble Marquess having put himself forward as the advocate of the interests of the farmers, must be desirous of producing unanimity between all parties, in order that all might concur in devising the best mode of relieving their distresses. The noble Lord had proposed the relief of the farmers from some of the assessed taxes. With respect to the small amount of Window-tax to which the farmer still remained liable, he felt it would be impossible to comply with the noble Lord's suggestion. The farmers, as he had already shown, had received an immense relief from the repeal of assessed taxes. With what justice, then, could they claim a complete exemption from the Window-tax, unless the Government were prepared to extend a similar exemption to all classes? There were in Great Britain 2,846,179 inhabited houses, out of which 377,000 were charged to the Window-tax—of these only a small proportion were occupied by agriculturists and upon those occupied by agriculturists, the tax was already very considerably reduced. To carry the reduction further, without extending it to all classes, would only be to increase in a tenfold degree, the breach which already existed between the agricultural and commercial and manufacturing classes of the community. But although he differed from the noble Lord
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upon that point, he begged to assure the noble Lord, and to assure the House, that no exertion would be omitted on the part of the present Government to afford every possible practical relief to the agricultural interest. Acting in that spirit it would be their endeavour to carry the recommendations of the Committee of last year into effect to the utmost possible extent. One portion of the recommendations of that Committee was, that a Commission should at once be appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the expense of prosecutions and also of the expense of fees to counsel, county officers, &c. That Commission was appointed by the Government of Lord Melbourne upon the termination of the last Parliament—it was now carrying on its inquiries, and ere long its report would be laid before the House; then, and not till then, would the House be in possession of the information necessary to enable it to form a correct judgment upon the question. He objected generally to the motion of the noble Lord, inasmuch as that it was premature. He was prepared to acquiesce in it as far as it was distinct and intelligible; but he objected to it as far as it was indefinite and unintelligible; Let the noble Lord come forward with his proposition on the subject of horses employed by the agriculturists, and he should be prepared to meet him, but he felt that he could not meet him upon an indefinite motion of the description then before the House. Above all, he would not join with the noble Lord in an Address to the Crown upon the Report, because such a course of proceeding would favour the presumption that it required an interposition either on the part of the Monarch or of the House itself to dispose the Government to adopt any measures which were really calculated to relieve the agriculturist. Whilst, therefore, he saw every reason to adhere to the Report of the Committee of last year, he saw no reason whatever to induce him to acquiesce in an undefined Resolution which might pledge the finance of the country to concessions which it might not afterwards have the power of making. Upon these grounds he should decidedly oppose the Motion, and he thought the noble Lord would much more consult the interest of the agricultural classes of the country by adopting the Amendment that had been moved, than by persevering in his own Resolution.
Sir Charles Burrellwas understood to

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observe, that the desire which had been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to afford assistance to the agriculturists of this country, was an admission that that class of the industrious population of this country did labour under the pressure of great and grievous distress, which justified them in their endeavours to obtain relief. He trusted the noble Lord opposite did not rely upon the operation of the Poor Law Amendment Act as the means of providing employment for the unemployed agricultural population, for he was satisfied that unless that measure underwent considerable alterations, so as to enable parishes to counteract the obstinacy of one or two individuals, it would entirely fail in its object in this respect. His sincere opinion was, that the evil consisted in the currency system of the country, which if not altered in some sale and considerate manner, would, in the end, not only be destructive to the landed interests of the country, but also to the fund holders themselves.
Colonel Sibthorptrusted the noble Lord, the Member for the county of Buckingham, who had again attempted to break the ice which had so long been frozen over the agricultural interests of the country, would at least take the sense of the House upon the present occasion. The Motion of the noble Lord had only been met by promises of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that if he waited till "to-morrow and to-morrow," important measures would be brought forward. Notwithstanding these promises only two measures had been announced, or were known to the House as intended to be dealt with during the present Session; he alluded to the Irish Tithe Bill and the measure of Municipal Reform. He agreed in the opinion expressed by the hon. Member for Oldham, that unless something was speedily done for the agriculturist, a convulsion must be the result, and he was satisfied that the relief most worthy of consideration, as best calculated to save the agricultural interest, was the introduction of a silver standard of currency.
Mr. O'Connellsaid [amidst cries of "Question"] that those hon. Gentlemen who cried out "Question," were totally ignorant of two facts:—first, that there was such a place as Ireland; and secondly, that agricultural distress was as great, if not greater, in that country than
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it was in England. There was not a word said about the agricultural distress of the Irish, and among all the schemes proposed for relief, there was not one mentioned that was applicable to his countrymen. They had been during the debate totally forgotten. The gallant officer, who had just spoken, had made use of many metaphors, and spoke of certain remedies. The remedy proposed by the noble Lord was only like paring or clipping the thorn in the field. One remedy, the only sure one, was passed over—namely, one that would have the effect of mitigating the horrors of the Gold Currency Bill. If no one else would, he would put in his claim for that scheme, which was better than all the other schemes he had heard that night proposed. He had risen merely to remind the House that Irish agricultural distress was totally forgotten by them, and that it was infinitely as great, if not greater, than it was in England.
The Marquess of Chandos,in reply, said that he had not hoped to please both parties by his Motion. It was his duty to bring forward the Question that night, and he would take another opportunity of having it discussed again. Every Motion on agricultural distress was met by arguing that it was impolitic to grant it, or that the remedy required would be inefficacious. When he had brought forward a Motion for the Repeal of the Malt-tax, he was met exactly in the same way. When he brought forward this Question last year it was lost by a majority of only 16; and he was then told by Ministers, and by some of those who voted with him, that it would not be efficacious at all. When the repeal of the Window-tax was mooted, they were told that a partial repeal of it would do no good—that the whole of it must be taken off. The taking off the House-tax was, however, conceded by the Government, and he knew for what reason it was conceded. If the farmers followed the bad example of those who clamoured for the Repeal of the House-duty they would also be relieved. He hoped, nay he was sure, that the farmers of England would not follow that bad example. They would not employ means of intimidation or resistance, but they would come year after year and lay their grievances before that House; and he was sure that in the end that House would do them justice. Whatever might be the vote of that night, he felt that in bringing forward the present Motion he was but dis-

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charging his duty to the country and to his constituents. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that evening, that as long as the present Corn-laws existed the present Motion would not cause relief to the farmer of such magnitude or extent as he (the Marquess of Chandos) expected from it. Whenever a specific motion for the relief of the agriculturists was brought forward, it was met with what amounted almost to a decided negative. The Motion for a Repeal of the Malt-tax was treated just in the same way as the present one. He begged to ask the right hon. Gentleman opposite (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) in what shape lid he propose to grant relief to the farmer? From what he had seen, the intentions of the right hon. Gentleman would not go half so far to relieve the farmer as the measures projected by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer. When the Budget was brought forward, if this Question should be again mooted, it would be met with the objection that it was an attempt to alter all the financial arrangements of the Government. In fact, all motions of the present nature were dealt with in the same way. A Motion like that before the House was lost last year by a majority of sixteen, and he feared that he would have now voting against him some of those who then supported him. He regretted to see on the part of Government, so little attention paid to the wants of the farmers. Conscious that he had, to the best of his ability, discharged his duty towards the country and his constituents, he would for the present say no more, but simply leave the Question in the hands of the House.
The House divided on the original Question: Ayes 150; Noes 211: Majority 61.

List of the Ayes.

Alsager, Richard

Branston, T. W.

Archdall, M.

Brownrigg, J. S.

Astley, Sir Jacob, Bt.

Brudenell, Lord

Attwood, Thomas

Buller, Sir J. B.

Bagot, Hon. W.

Burrell, Sir C. M.

Baillie, Col. H.

Burton, Henry

Barnard, Edward G.

Campbell, Sir H. P.

Barneby, John

Carruthers, D.

Bateson, Sir R.

Chichester, A.

Beauclerk, Major

Clayton, Sir W.

Bell, Matthew

Clive, Hon. R. H.

Benett, J.

Cobbett, W.

Bethell, R.

Codrington, C. W.

Blackburne, J. J.

Cole, Viscount

Blackstone, W. S.

Compton, H. C.

Borthwick, Peter

Corbett, T. G.

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Crawley, Samuel

Ossulston, Lord

Crewe, Sir G.

Palmer, R.

Cripps, J.

Parker, M. N.

Curteis, Herbert B.

Perceval, Colonel

Curteis, Edward B.

Pigot, R.

Dalbiac, Sir C.

Plumptre, J. P.

Dare, R. W. H.

Pollen, Sir J.

Duffield, T.

Pollington, Viscount

Dugdale, W.

Poulter, John Sayer

Duncombe, Hon. W.

Praed, J. B.

Duncombe, Hon. A.

Pringle, A.

Dundas, R. A.

Pryse, Pryse

Eastnor, Viscount

Pusey, P.

Edwards, Colonel

Richards, J.

Elley, Sir J.

Rickford, W.

Elwes, J.

Rooper, J. Bonfoy

Fector, J. M.

Rushbrooke, R

Feilden, W.

Sanderson, R.

Ferguson, G.

Scourfield, W. H.

Fleming, J.

Shaw, Rt. Hon. F.

Foley, E. T.

Sheldon, E. R. C.

Folkes, Sir W. J. H. B.

Sibthorpe, Colonel

Forester, Hon. G. C. W.

Simeon, Sir R. G. Bart,

Fremantle, Sir T. F.

Smith, A.

Gaskell, J. Milnes

Smyth, Sir G. H.

Geary, Sir W. R. P.

Spooner, R.

Gore, W. O.

Spry, S.

Greisley, Sir R.

Stanley, Lord

Greville, Sir C. J.

Stewart, J.

Grimston, Viscount

Surrey, Earl of

Grimston, Hon. E. H.

Talbot, C. R. M.

Halford, H.

Thomas, Colonel

Halse, J.

Townley, R. G.

Hamilton, Lord C.

Trelawney, Sir W. L.

Hanmer, Sir J.

Trevor, Hon. G. R.

Hanmer, H.

Trevor, Hon. Arthur

Handley, Henry

Tyrell, Sir J. T.

Hayes, Sir E. S.

Vere, Sir C. B.

Heathcote, G. J.

Verney, Sir H.

Henniker, Lord

Vernon, G. H.

Hill, Sir R.

Vivian, J. E.

Hodges, Thomas Law

Walpole, Lord

Hope, Hon. J.

Walter, John

Hoskins, Kedgwin

Welby, G. E.

Hotham, Lord

Whitmore, T. C.

Houldsworth, T.

Wilkins, W.

Irton, S.

Williams, Robert

Jones, W.

Williams, Sir J.

Kelly, F.

Wilmot, Sir J. E Bt.

Kerrison, Sir E.

Wilson, Henry

Knatchbull, Sir E.

Wodehouse, Hon. E.

Lefroy, A.

Yorke, E. T.

Lennard, Thomas B.

Young, Sir W. L.

Lewis, David

Young, G. F.

Lowther, Hon. H. C.

TELLERS.

Mandeville, Viscount

Chandos, Marquess of

Manners, Lord R.

Darlington, Earl of

Mathew, Captain

PAIRED OFF.

Maxwell, H.

Baring, H. B.

Miles, W.

Caley, E. S.

Mordaunt, Sir J.

Egerton, Sir P. de M.

Morgan, C. M. R.

Sinclair, G.

Neeld, Joseph

Twiss, H.

Norreys, Lord

Vaughan, Sir R. W.

The Amendment was agreed to.

MINUTES.
Petitions presented. By the Duke of BUCCLEUGH, from the Agriculturists of Wellingborough, for Relief.—By the Earls of WILTON, RODEN, and HARROWBY, from Lancaster, Aberdeen, and Hannury, for Protection to the Protestant Church of Ireland.—By the Duke of SUTHERLAND, from the Synod of Ross, against the Grant to Maynooth College.—By Earl HOWE and the Bishop of LICHFIELD, from three Places,—for the Better Observance of the Sabbath.—By the Dukes of GORDON and SUTHERLAND, and the Earls of ROSSLYN and CAWDOR, from several Places,—in favour of,—and by Lord BROUGHAM and the Earl of ROSEBERY, against—any Grant of Money for Building Churches in Scotland.

CRIMINAL OFFENCES.
The Marquess of Lansdownelaid on the Table the several returns relating to criminal offences in England and Wales; and, seeing the noble Earl (Malmsbury) Who had put a question, to him, relating to the propriety of having similar returns with respect to Scotland

45
and Ireland, he begged to say, that he felt the propriety of having such returns quite as fully as did the noble Earl; that he made inquiries on the subject, in order to ascertain whether it would be practicable to obtain such returns from Ireland and Scotland, and he found, as the noble Earl would find, on looking over those now laid on the Table, that they were of so complicated a nature that it was not likely that they could readily be obtained from those parts of the empire, as means had not been adopted to furnish the materials.

PRISON DISCIPLINE.
The Duke of Richmondsaid, as he found that the evidence taken before the Select Committee, on the subject of Prison Discipline had not been delivered to their Lordships till that morning, he should postpone for a few days the consideration of the subject of which he had given notice. But he should take this opportunity of saying that he was most anxious to make a proposal to his noble Friend at the head of the Government, which, if acceded to, would be of great advantage to the country at large, and would be most satisfactory to all those who had directed their attention to this subject. Every one was now ready to admit, that the Gaol Act required amendment, and he believed that their Lordships agreed with him that that task would be best undertaken by the Government. The Government had greater facility than any Member of the House, and his proposal, therefore, was, that the Government should, without loss of time, introduce a Bill for the amendment of the 4th Geo. 4th, c. 64, commonly called the Gaol Act; that that Bill should enact one uniform system of prison discipline, for every gaol and house of correction in the kingdom; that the rules of the gaols, which had heretofore been submitted to the Judges of Assize, should in future be submitted to the Secretary of State for the Home Department; and that there should be an authorized person appointed inspector of prisons. He should then propose to refer that Bill to the select Committee on Prison Discipline, which Committee, from the attention its Members had already bestowed on the inquiry, and from their having visited most of the prisons, would be the best judges of the amendments that would be required in it. The motive which had induced him to
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recommend humbly, though strenuously, this course was, that he felt it to be almost impossible for any person, whatever might have been his career in life, to be imprisoned, under the present state of our prisons, without injury to his morals. The Committee of the House of Commons in 1831–2, had acknowledged the existence of these evils, and had recommended that measures should be forthwith adopted on the subject. He trusted, therefore, that his noble Friend (Lord Melbourne) would accede to his proposition. He was sure that that was the best course, and the right one; and that if such a measure were carried, it would remove one of the abuses and grievances which, in his opinion, they could not, consistently with their duty, allow another session to pass over without endeavouring to remove. The course he proposed would enable the Parliament to legislate this Session upon the subject, and to get rid of an evil which he considered a positive disgrace to the country.
Viscount Melbournesaid, that although he had not read the evidence which had that day been circulated among the Members of their Lordships' House, yet from all the knowledge and experience he had on the subject, he so entirely concurred in the recommendations of the Committee on the grounds stated by the noble Duke, and so strongly did he feel with him that there should be some effort made without further delay to change the present system, that he had no hesitation to pledge himself, on the part of the Government, to promise their Lordships that he would lay on the Table, a Bill in accordance with the Resolutions of the Committee. The subject was one of some difficulty, but the Bill should be presented as soon as the materials could be digested and prepared.

THE DUBLIN PROCESSION.
The Earl of Shaftesburymoved, that the House do adjourn.
The Earl of Rodensaid, that before their Lordships adjourned, he wished to put a question to the noble Viscount opposite. He thought that it would be wrong to put such a question as had been put the other night, without following it up. He should follow it up, and therefore he asked the noble Viscount if the noble Viscount was prepared to lay on the Table, a copy of the Dispatch which he

47
had received on the subject of the procession into Dublin, from the noble Earl the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland?
Viscount Melbournesaid, that he had not heard any ground laid that would justify the production of this dispatch. He believed that its production would be injurious to the public service, and to the welfare of the country, and therefore he should decline to produce it.
The Earl of Rodenshould only add, with respect to what he had stated the other night, that noble Lords must be convinced that his statement was correct, as he offered then, and he offered now to call to their Lordships bar gentlemen who had been present, who were present, and who saw in the procession the emblems of sedition and green flags, bearing on them inscriptions which no noble Lord would say were not seditious. It was not necessary for him now to enter into a description of what those flags were; but as there were some noble Lords now present, who were not present the other night, he should inform them what he had then stated—namely, that among the flags there was the harp without the crown, and there was the cap of liberty, and there were flags of a green colour, which was known to be a party colour in Ireland, the colour of that party which was ever opposed to the connection with England, and ever most anxious to overturn the Protestant Establishment in that country. He had felt it his duty not to let the matter rest as it stood. He had stated the facts, and he desired to prove them—not that he wished that the persons who had been guilty of exhibiting these flags should be punished, but that he put in a claimer on behalf of the Protestants of Ireland, that should they, in their zeal and loyalty, and desire to support the Constitution of the country, as was their habit, and as in former days they had been encouraged to do, in support of those principles which were known as Orange principles—a claimer that, if they should exhibit their banners, with emblems of loyalty on them, they should not be prosecuted by the law which had been restrained and kept back from those who had taken part in this procession. He believed that never had been a similar procession to that which had accompanied the present Lord Lieutenant's entry into Dublin. It had produced a most painful effect on the minds of all loyal men, and a degree of irritation which
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it would be very difficult to allay. He believed that there never had been such a procession graced with the presence of the Attorney and Solicitor-General, and he did not see how it could be passed over without notice.
The Earl of Leitrimsaid, that he had formed part of the procession, and was enabled to say, that the noble Lord opposite was much mistaken as to the character of the banners displayed there. The procession was most perfectly orderly, and he saw nothing but what appeared to him the mere emblems of the trades to which the individuals belonged. He did hear, after the procession was over, that there had been one solitary banner on which was inscribed "Repeal of the Union." That might be inexpedient, but he was not aware that it was illegal; at all events whether it were or not, it was not right to give a character to a whole body of men from the conduct of one individual among them. The true cause of the great enthusiasm with which the Earl of Mulgrave was received was to be found, not in the party motives usually attributed to it, but in a circumstance which more nearly touched all the citizens of Dublin. The great majority of those citizens were Roman Catholic. By the law they were admissible to offices; but though they contributed most largely to the support of the Corporation, not one of that majority had been admitted to corporate offices.—There certainly was much enthusiasm in the way in which the Earl of Mulgrave was received, but there was nothing that was contrary to the most perfect order and propriety in that reception; and the enthusiasm, as he had already said, was to be accounted for very much from the belief that under the present Administration a Bill would be introduced for the reform of Corporations, and among others, of the Corporation of Dublin. It was the belief that the noble Earl represented a Government which would reform the Corporation abuses that made the people of Dublin so enthusiastic in his reception. Of the sort of spirit which Corporation privileges engendered in Dublin, and of the way in which they were exercised to the annoyance of those who did not enjoy them, he would mention one anecdote. A tradesman, who was not a freeman, expressed to a person who was a freeman of the city his opinions on a certain matter with considerable freedom and received this an-

49
swer:—"How dare you speak in that manner to me?—you, who are not a freeman, and I am!" It was owing to the fear that Corporation abuses would be reformed, that all the clamour might be attributed that had been raised about this much-calumniated and misrepresented procession. It was raised by that party who dreaded in Dublin and elsewhere the reform of those abuses.
The Marquess of Londonderrysaid, that what had fallen from the noble Earl opposite made it necessary that they should have accurate information on the subject. The noble Earl had contradicted what had been stated, but he had not offered to prove his assertions at the bar of the House, as his noble Friend the Earl of Roden had done when he said that there was a Member of the House of Commons ready at their bar to prove what he had stated. He therefore said that the Government was called on to produce the Lord-lieutenant's letter, or to give them some ground to believe that the procession was not what it was represented to be, or to say whether the procession was legal.
The Earl of Wicklowsaid, that if the noble Earl opposite had stated himself to have been a spectator of the procession, he should have placed implicit faith in the noble Earl's representation, but the noble Earl merely said, that he formed part of the procession, Now they all knew that those who formed part of a procession least of all knew what it was. He had formed part of that immense procession which went out to meet George the Fourth, and he saw no more than the inside of his own carriage and the back of the hammercloth. Those who sat and watched it were better able to judge about it. His noble Friend had offered to produce the evidence of competent witnesses upon oath as to what they had seen, namely, not one, but one hundred revolutionary banners. However, sufficient had fallen from the noble Earl to show that this was purely a Roman Catholic assembly. [The Earl of Leitrim "No, no!"] Unless the noble Earl meant that, it was difficult to understand why he had gone into the subject at all, and it was impossible to understand the explanation in any other sense. The noble Earl said, that it was a procession of those who, being Roman Catholics, were aggrieved by being kept out of the Corporation. If so, that contradicted the statement of those who wanted to make it out that it was not
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a party procession, but the spontaneous effusion of a loyal feeling among the people of Dublin towards the representative of their king. As the noble Viscount refused to produce the papers asked for, he should not press that proposal further, for the noble Viscount, as Minister, ought to be the best judge whether papers ought to be produced or not. But as things now stood, there was an offer on one side to produce evidence and none on the other.
The Earl of Leitrimhad not stated that the procession was Roman Catholic, but that the citizens of Dublin, as citizens of Dublin, all looked with anxiety for a Bill for the reform of Corporation abuses—that, of course, the Catholics, as comprising the majority of the citizens, felt most peculiarly anxious about it—but both the Catholic and Protestant citizens of Dublin joined in looking forward with anxiety to that Bill, and on that account heartily welcomed the noble Earl whom they believed to be the representative of a Government that would grant it to them.
Viscount Melbournesaid, that undoubtedly his opinion was, that the paper referred to should not be produced, and he believed, that this discussion of the subject only tended unnecessarily to prolong agitation upon it. He felt for himself the greatest satisfaction at being relieved by the form of the question from entering upon the subject. The question before the House was the question of adjournment, and that did not necessarily call on him to enter on the topics now introduced. If a distinct motion were made for the production of the dispatch, or for an inquiry into the subject, he should then state the circumstances on which he conceived himself justified in resisting it. He should not conceal, that he was anxious to avoid discussion on the subject, not for himself, not for the Government or any one connected with it; but for the reason he had first stated, namely, that such a discussion could not be productive of any satisfactory results, but must embitter old animosities and tend to create fresh discord. He should therefore content himself with entering his protest against the doctrine stated by the noble Earl opposite (Earl of Roden), that because no notice had been taken on the present occasion of the procession, that therefore the law relating to party processions was to be a dead letter, and was not

51
to be enforced against those who, in other parts of the country, should actually violate it. He protested against such a doctrine. The law should not be violated with impunity. He believed that full notice had always been given, full warning not to violate the law in the way alluded to by the noble Earl; and he now said, that so long as the present Ministers had anything to do with the Government of the country, they would continue to enforce the law in the same spirit, but with the same firmness as heretofore.
The Question of Adjournment was then carried.