Sitting of 15 July 1837

Preamble
MINUTES. Bills. Read a third time:—Clerks of the Peace; Documents.

CRIMINAL LAWS.
Lord J. Russell Lord J. Russell moved that the Lords' amendments to the offences against the Person Bill be taken into consideration. The noble Lord said, that without expressing an opinion that
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the amendments of the Lords on the different criminal law Bills were improvements in those Bills, he proposed generally to agree to the amendments, as it was of the greatest importance that those Bills should pass during the present Session. Had those Bills been of less pressing importance, and had the Session not been so near its termination, it would have been desirable that the House should have considered more maturely than could then be done the various alterations which had been made. With respect to these Bills, the term of imprisonment had been changed from five years to three years; and with regard to solitary confinement, the clauses had been altered so as to limit that description of punishment to a month at any one time, and so as not to exceed three months in any one year. He did not say that he objected to these alterations, and he only doubted whether they did not interfere with the operation of an act which had been passed some time ago. There was another amendment which he thought was an improvement, as it took away the capital punishment for offences against the Riot Act. As it had long been his wish to effect that alteration in the criminal law, he proposed that the House should agree with the amendment of the Lords, although he doubted whether the subject had not better have been considered when a measure relating to the law of treason was brought before the House. However, as the object had been effected by the Lords in the present Bills, he should not object to it. Upon the whole, in regard to these Bills he rejoiced to find that the Lords had assimilated their views more nearly to those of that House in regard to reforms in the criminal laws of the country; and none of the alterations which had been made by their lordships were of such a nature, when the importance of passing the bills was considered, as to induce him to call upon the House to reject them.
The Lord's Amendments to the different criminal law bills were then severally agreed to.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS ACT AMENDMENT.
On the Order of the Day having been read for the consideration of the Lords' Amendments to the Municipal Corporations Bill,
Lord John Russellsaid, this was a Bill which had been under the consideration of Parliament for a length of time, and one

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to which the attention of the Lords in the present Session had long been directed. The Bill was sent up to their lordships on the 27th of February, and it was not returned till the 1st of June. Such a proceeding did not give any great promise, that had a number of Bills been sent up at an earlier period of the Session from that House, they would have been returned within a more reasonable period than the present had been. When this Bill was last under consideration, he had stated that there was only one point in regard to which their lordships differed with the Commons. That point related to the election of presiding councillors at borough elections, and although he still held his former opinion on the subject, the other portions of the Bill were of so much importance, that he would not carry his opposition further to the amendments of the Lords on that particular point. If the Bill did not pass in the present Session, the towns of Sunderland and Ipswich would be placed in a situation of the greatest difficulty, and under these circumstances he would move, that the House do not insist on rejecting the amendments of the Lords.
Mr. Hawkinscould not consent to such a motion, for were the clause, as amended by the Lords, to pass, Newport and Rochester would be most injuriously affected by its operation. The Bill might be of advantage to Ipswich and Sunderland, but it would be productive of the worst consequences as regarded Newport and Rochester, and, as the representative of one of those places, he could not consent that the amendments should stand part of the Bill. He was surprised that the noble Lord (John Russell) should consent to the Clause as it now stood, and he was amazed that some other person, instead of that noble Lord whose son was now a candidate for Rochester, should not have been found to propose those amendments in the other House of Parliament. He thought respect for public opinion might have prevented Lord Wynford from coming forward on the subject; and, as the representative of Newport, he (Mr. Hawkins) considered himself bound to protest against the amendment, and to oppose it by every means in his power.
The Attorney-Generalsaid, the case was not Newport and Rochester against Ipswich and Sunderland, but Newport and Rochester against all England; for,
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although Ipswich and Sunderland would, from the peculiar situation in which they were placed by the Municipal Reform Act, derive great advantages from the Bill, yet the advantages were not confined to those two towns but would extend to almost every borough of England. He regretted the way in which the Bill had been treated by the Lords, but on the balance of evils he preferred taking the Bill as it stood to rejecting it altogether.
Alderman Thompsonhoped the hon. Member for Newport, would not press his opposition to a division. If the Bill did not pass, Sunderland would be put to great inconvenience and expense, and it was to be feared, that the greatest confusion would ensue.
Mr. Estcourtwould not enter at all into the merits of the Bill, but seeing no other Friend then present of the noble Lord whose name had been so unnecessarily introduced into the debate, he rose, however incompetent for the task, to answer the charge which had been made and to vindicate the conduct of that noble Lord. No Friend of that noble Lord was present, no notice had been given of the charge which had been brought against him, and under these circumstances he (Mr. Estcourt) thought he had a just right to complain that Lord Wynford's name had been introduced in the manner it had been by the hon. Member for Newport. Had any intimation of such a charge been given to the noble Lord, he had no doubt that some Friend of his Lordship would have been present to defend him, and that the noble Lord would have been able to give the most satisfactory reasons for the course he had pursued. But that intimation had not been given, and there was no Friend of the noble Lord present who was acquainted with his Lordship's reasons for acting as he had done and it was not therefore fair or just that a charge should have been brought against the noble Lord in a place where he could not have an opportunity of replying, and while no Friend was present capable of explaining the reasons of his adoption of the course which he had pursued in regard to this Bill, and of vindicating his character from the charge which had been brought against him. It was also an unusual course to introduce the names of individual Members of the other House in debates in that House in the way in which the name of Lord Wynford had been introduced in the present dis-

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cussion. He was not aware of that noble Lord's reasons for proposing the amendment which had been introduced; but this he would say, that if the noble Lord had thought the alteration unjust, improper, or such as was unfit for the Legislature to adopt, it never would have been proposed by him, for there was no man more incapable of doing what was not strictly honourable and strictly upright than Lord Wynford.
Mr. D. Barclaythen said, that he thought nothing could have been more fair than the proposition sent up by that House to the Lords in regard to the Bill then under consideration. He could not approve of the amendment which had been sent down, but upon the whole he considered the noble Lord (John Russell) justified in the motion he had submitted to the House.
Lords' Amendments agreed to.

Preamble
MINUTES. Bills. Received the Royal assent:—Lords Justices; Exchequer Bills (Public Works); Assessed Taxes; Militia Pay; Militia Ballot Suspension; Ecclesiastical Appointments Suspension; Tithes Commutation; Attorneys and Solicitors; Sheriffs' Fees; Coroners Inquests Expenses; Coroners (Durham); Beet-root Sugar; References to Acts Mistakes; Masters and Workmen; Lands and Buildings Conveyance; Secular Jurisdiction (York and Ely); Slave Treaties; Haileybury College; Tithe Advances (Ireland); Bank of Ireland; Treasurers of Counties (Ireland); Cruelty to Animals (Ireland); Court of Exchequer (Scotland).—Read a third time:—Corporate Property; Church Building Commission; Consolidated Fund.
Petitions Presented, By Lord BROUGHAM, from Protestant Dissenters of Lewisham, Foots Cray, and South Shields, for the abolition of Church-rates; and from Montrose, Annan, and Dumfries, for Municipal Reform for Ireland; and by the Earl of STANHOPE, from the Rev. Mr. Maberly and others, for the repeal of the New Poor-law.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Lord Broughamsaid, that before their Lordships separated he wished to observe that the Committee which, on his motion, had been appointed to take into consideration the state of public and private business in that House had found it necessary to confine their inquiries, and to report on only one branch of the investigation, namely, the private business. Not that the Committee had not entertained the intention of inquiring into the state of the public business, and into the mode in which that state might be
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improved; but, in consequence of the sudden termination of the Session, it had been felt indispensable to proceed no further than with the one portion of the inquiry on which they had already reported. He hoped that early in the next Session their Lordships would re-appoint the Committee, and he had no doubt that an improvement in the conduct of the public business might be effected equal to that respecting the private business, which had already been suggested by the Committee, and which had been introduced into the standing orders. He would take the opportunity of saying, the Committee of the other House of Parliament on the same subject having reported, and that report having been adopted by the House, that he did not find in that report any regulations respecting the private business of the House of Commons at all parallel to those which had been adopted by their Lordships, respecting the private business of the House of Lords. No doubt the wisdom of the Committee of the House of Commons prompted them not to introduce such regulations into their report; or perhaps they thought it proper to wait for the more ample opportunity which the next Session might afford them. But of this he was certain, that great as was the improvement which had been made in the conduct of the private business in their Lordships' House, it was by no means adequate to the necessity of the case in the other House of Parliament.

POOR-LAW AMENDMENT ACT.
Earl Stanhopepresented a great number of petitions, purporting to be from agricultural labourers of the counties of Cambridge, Huntingdon, and Suffolk, all praying for the repeal of the Poor-law Amendment Act. The whole of these petitions, however, were signed by a rev. gentleman who acted as chairman at the different meetings.
The Earl of Radnorrose to order. It appeared that all these petitions were signed by the same person, and were merely copies of each other, being worded precisely alike. By presenting such petitions the noble Earl was making a joke of the proceedings of their Lordships' House. They could only be received as the petitions of the rev. Mr. Maberly who had signed them.
The Bishop of Norwich, stated that the rev. gentleman whose name

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was appended to all these petitions was resident within his diocese, and he was given to understand from his curate that he refused to pay him his small stipend. Now, he must say, that this was not the man who ought to stand up to excite a feeling against the law of his country.
Earl Stanhopewould ask whether the right rev. Prelate meant to say, that Mr. Maberly excited the people to a disobedience of the law; or that, because he was a clergyman, he had no right to an opinion?
The Bishop of Herefordsaid, when a clergyman thought proper to put his single name to a dozen petitions against that which was the law of the land, his conduct could not be approved of. Mr. Maberly had gone round to different villages collecting persons with a view to excite them against the Poor-law Act. Their signatures were not appended to the petitions, but his own merely. And this person who made himself so conspicuous—this person who came forward as the defender of the poor—was driving his curate into a state of poverty, which might oblige him to seek refuge in this law for the comforts of life. He thought the right rev. Prelate was bound by every right feeling to come forward and say this is the gentleman who comes forward against a salutary and wholesome law.
The Duke of Richmondexpressed his disapprobation of the conduct of a clergyman who went about the country, he would not say purposely, but it was very like it, to cause agitation. In the petition the individual in question seemed to wish to inculcate charity to all men, yet what words did he use himself towards others? He said, "These unfeeling Commissioners —as unfeeling as the Secretary of State— imprisoning the poor, and allowing them scarcely a breath of air or the light of heaven." If the petitioner showed his charity thus, he might not see the light of heaven himself.
Petitions laid on the Table.