Sitting of 30 May 1845

MINUTES.
BILLS. Public.—1°. Dog Stealing,
2°. Privy Council.
Reported.—Military Savings Banks.
Private.—1°. Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (Worcester Branch and Cheltenham Extensions).
2°. Diss, Beccles, and Yarmouth Railway; Goole and Doncaster Railway.
Reported.—Newcastle and Darlington (Brandling Junction) Railway; Newcastle and Berwick Railway; Claughton-cum-Grange (St. Andrew's) Church (re-committed); Claughton-cum-Grange (St. John the Baptist's) Church (re-committed); Sheffield and Tinsley Canal; Brighton, Lewes, and Hastings Railway (Keymer Branch); Dundee and Perth Railway; Leeds and West Riding Junction Railways (re-committed); Yarmouth and Norwich Railway; Lowestoft Railway and Harbour.
3°. and passed: — York and North Midland Railway (Bridlington Branch); York and Scarborough Railway Deviation; Ely and Huntingdon Railway; Hull and Selby Railway (Bridlington Branch); Bristol and Exeter Railway Branches; Blackburn, Darwen and Bolton Railway; Whitby and Pickering Railway; Bedford and London and Birmingham Railway; Dunstable and London and Birmingham Railway; Lynn and Ely Railway.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Mr. G. Hamilton, from several places in Ireland, for Encouragement to Schools in connexion with Church Education Society (Ireland).—By Mr. Tollemache, from several places, for Better Observance of the Lord's Day.—By Mr. Deedes, Mr. Forbes, Mr. Herbert, and Sir R. H. Inglis, from St. Lawrence, Thanet, and several other places, against the Grant to Maynooth College—By Mr. Fellowes, from Huntingdon, and Sir R. H. Inglis, from Berks, against Union of Saint Asaph and Bangor.—By Mr. Arbuthnott, and Sir James
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Graham, from the Presbytery of Forfar, and the University of Glasgow, against the Universities (Scotland) Bill.—By Mr. Fellowes, from Huntingdon, for Relief from Agricultural Taxation.—By Mr. Loch, from Shipowners of Cromarty, for Reduction of Tolls and Dues levied by Lighthouses.—By Lord Ashley, and Mr. French, from several places, for Inquiry into the Anatomy Act.—By Lord Ashley, from Bridport, against the Colleges (Ireland) Bill.—By Lord A. Hervey, from Attorneys and Solicitors of Brighton, for Removal of Courts of Law and Equity to Inns of Court.—By Lord Ashley, from East Lothian, for Inquiry into the cause of Accidents in Mines and Collieries.—By Mr. Herbert, Mr. Pusey, and Mr. Tollemache, from several places, against the Parochial Settlement Bill.—By Mr. Deedes, from Ramsgate, and Mr. Oswald, from Glasgow, for Alteration of Physic and Surgery Bill.—By Mr. T. Duncombe, from Merchants of London, for Alteration in the Arrangements of the Post Office—By Mr. Plumptre, from several places, for Alteration of Law relating to Promiscuous Intercourse—By Lord Ashley, from several places, for Diminishing the Number of Public Houses.—By Lord Ashley from Wheatley, and other places, for Alteration of Law relating to the Sale of Beer.—By Mr. Arbuthnott, from Parish Schoolmasters of Fourdoun, for Ameliorating the Condition of Schoolmasters (Scotland).—By Mr. T. Duncombe, from Charles Buckley, of Mason Street, Old Kent Road, for Alteration of Law respecting Waste Lands.

THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.
Mr. Hope: I beg to direct the notice of the House to a matter which, being of a somewhat personal nature, they will, I hope, excuse my directing their attention to it. The House may remember, that on the 2nd of May, I referred to the circumstances of the postponement of a Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Liskeard. I did so in this way—I said that the course was taken by him not at the request of the Government; that it was his own act, and the result of no compromise on the part of the noble Lord at the head of the Colonial Department with the New Zealand Company. A report has been officially promulgated by the New Zealand Company, by which it appears that some parties have drawn a different inference. I will stale exactly what took place. The hon. and learned Gentleman postponed his Motion in the first instance, in consequence, as he stated, of having had some communication with Lord Stanley. I made no observation at the time, not being aware what had passed between them; but, in the course of the next day, I asked my noble Friend whether that postponement took place in consequence of any request on his part, or in consequence of any compromise being entered into with the New Zealand Company. My noble Friend assured me it was the hon. and learned Gentleman's own act, and that no compromise had taken place. In order that there should be no mistake in the matter, I sent the following note to the

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hon. and learned Member for Liskeard, dated May 2, 1845:—
"Colonial Office, May 2, 1845.
"Dear Buller—As I did not know yesterday what had passed between you and Lord Stanley, I did not like to make any observations on what you said as to not bringing on your Motion relative to New Zealand on Tuesday next. I mean, however, to-night, or rather, before public business begins to-day, to state that it must be understood that all Lord Stanley has undertaken to do is, to give a deliberate and candid consideration to any proposal which may be made by the New Zealand Company to him; and I mean, also, to make it clear that the course which you have taken is your own, and not the result of any compromise on his part to avoid the discussion on Wednesday.—Yours, truly,
(Signed) "G. W. HOPE.
"C. Buller, Esq., M.P."
To that note I received the following answer:—
"(Private.)
"5, Hare Court, Friday, May 2.
"Dear Hope — You are quite right to do what you propose, and the words you have used in your note seem to me the very best to guard Lord Stanley, without any imputation on me or the New Zealand Company.
"Your's very truly,
(Signed) "CHAS. BULLER."
I think, therefore, the House will be satisfied, under these circumstances, that the statement I made respecting the cause of the postponement of the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman was correct.
Mr. C. Buller: I rise, under circumstances of very great embarrassment, to make a statement on a matter which involves private communications between the right hon. Secretary for the Home Department (Sir J. Graham), for whom I entertain a most sincere respect, and myself. I must say, that throughout the whole matter the conduct of that right hon. Gentleman has been the most friendly to myself personally, and his proceedings have been conducted in a spirit of the greatest fairness. I believe his sole object is to promote the public service; and I should therefore be exceedingly sorry that any statement of mine should be in any way annoying to him. I am not aware, however, that there is any ground for entertaining such an apprehension. Perhaps the House will allow me to state some circumstances connected with this matter. I had one or two interviews with Lord Stanley and the right hon. Home Secretary, and I proposed an arrangement by
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which I thought the affairs of the Colony of New Zealand might be satisfactorily settled. After an interview with the right hon. Baronet and the noble Lord, I sent Lord Stanley my proposal in writing in greater detail; and at the same time said that, as the Motion of which I had given notice was coming on on the following Tuesday, it was important that the Government should adopt some line of conduct by that time. A day or two afterwards the right hon. Baronet spoke to me on the subject. He said that Lord Stanley had received my second letter; but that he was sorry to say, there was a preliminary objection to entertaining my proposal at all—which was, that I had proposed in my letter, as a sine quâ non, that the proposal should come from the Government, and not from the Company. The right hon. Baronet considered that the proposal should come from the Company, and not from the Government. He also said, there was another obstacle to proceeding with the negotiation, which was my Notice of Motion standing upon the Books of the House of Commons; that, if they entered into the negotiation with that Notice standing upon the Books, it would seem as if they wished to avert the discussion of the question. He also said, that one of two courses must be taken—that the Motion must either be withdrawn or disposed of; and that it remained for me to determine whether I would withdraw my Notice of Motion or bring it on, have the discussion, and renew the negotiation afterwards. The right hon. Baronet was good enough to give me an assurance that my proposal would be considered in a spirit of perfect candour and fairness by the Government; and he begged me to state what had passed to the Directors of the New Zealand Company, and get from them a proposal to renew the negotiation in an official form. Upon this statement, that the arrangement we had proposed was under the calm and fair consideration of the Government, I told some of my hon. Friends and Colleagues in the direction that it seemed to me it would be most unwise in us to withdraw from a negotiation so happily commenced; that nothing ought to be allowed to stand in the way of an arrangement; and that, therefore, the Company should send in their proposal in an official form, and that I ought to withdraw my Notice of Motion. I could not suppose this could be construed into a compromise. My own inference was exactly in accordance with the state-

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ment contained in the letter of the hon. Gentleman on the other side (Mr. G. W. Hope). I never imagined any person could construe such an arrangement into a shrinking on the part of Government from the discussion of the question; or that any one could suppose it to be a compromise entered into by the Government to get rid of my Motion. It was understood that my Notice of Motion was withdrawn, simply that the negotiation might proceed; and that if the negotiation was not brought to a conclusion, I should subsequently submit my Motion to the House. I must say, that the withdrawal of the Motion was my spontaneous act, in accordance with the wishes of my brother directors, to promote the progress of the negotiations. That was the impression which, as it appeared to me, the letter of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. G. W. Hope) conveyed. I therefore gave him the frank answer he has read, and which I thought he was justified in stating to the House. I am prepared to stand by that statement; and I say, that my Notice of Motion was not withdrawn at the request of the Government; but simply because I was determined that the chance of a favourable settlement should not be averted by adhering to the Notice, which, it was clear, was an insuperable obstacle. It was clear that the Government could not freely go on with the negotiation while that Notice of Motion was before the House; and I was induced to withdraw it simply from a regard to the interests of the Company and of the public, which were involved in the arrangement. Let me say one word more, as some remarks have been made upon the negotiation. The only assurance conveyed to me on the subject was, that the Government were prepared to consider the matter in a spirit of calmness and deliberation; and that Lord Stanley was not bound as to the decision he should adopt, but that after fair consideration he would decide as he thought proper. The arrangement which was proposed, after receiving the full consideration of the Government, has not come to a successful issue. I exceedingly regret it. I have heard the reasons for their decision—reasons which they consider to be insuperable. I do not agree in that opinion; but I must fairly and explicitly state, to prevent all misapprehension, that I have nothing to complain of in the conduct pursued by the Government on this subject.
Sir J. Graham: This conversation is, I believe, rather irregular; but, under the
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peculiar circumstances of the case, I may perhaps be pardoned if I ask the attention of the House for a few moments. I rise to corroborate every part of the statement made by the hon. and learned Member for Liskeard as to that portion of the transaction to which he has referred with which I was concerned. At the same time, I must say I think it an unfortunate circumstance that communications which take place privately between hon. Members of this House, should subsequently be made matter of public discussion. I do not say this from any personal feeling; but because I think that private communications on public affairs between Members of this House, even sitting on opposite sides of the House, should be entirely confidential, and that what passes under the seal of strict confidence should not be made public. My belief is, that these private communications, conducted with good faith, frequently facilitate the transaction of public business, and are conducive to the public good. I received last night, from a noble Lord a Member of this House, designating himself the Chairman of the Secret Committee of the New Zealand Company, a communication which I must confess greatly astonished me. That noble Lord states, that minutes were taken from time to time of all the conversations between the hon. and learned Member for Liskeard and myself; and that there was a fixed determination on the part of the Directors to publish these minutes; and all that was offered to me was an opportunity of writing to the New Zealand Company to contradict any portion of those statements with which I might be dissatisfied. There was no assurance that any remonstrance of mine would restrain the publication of these minutes; the only offer made to me was, that my letter should be published with the minutes. I have taken no note of those conversations; I conceived them to be perfectly confidential, as they have been treated by the hon. and learned Member for Liskeard. The frank and candid manner in which that hon. and learned Member made his statement relieves him entirely from the imputation of having any share in the transaction. I only wish to add one observation, in addition to those made by that hon. Gentleman, as to the origin of the negotiation. We chanced to sit writing at the same table, in the immediate neighbourhood of this House, immediately after the last debate on this subject. A conversation arose between us as to what had

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occurred. This interchange of our opinions led the hon. and learned Gentleman to say that he would like to have a conversation with me elsewhere upon the entire case. I said, being a friend of Lord Stanley, and desirous if possible to promote an amicable adjustment of this matter with reference to all the interests concerned, I was quite willing to have another conversation with him. The hon. and learned Gentleman subsequently sought an opportunity of conversing with me, and out of that conversation arose the negotiation that subsequently took place. During the whole of that negotiation never did I contend on the part of the Government, that the progress of the negotiation should interfere with the discretion of the New Zealand Company, or of the hon. and learned Member, as to the course they might deem it expedient to take with reference to a discussion in this House. In fact, it was on the understanding that the negotiation should not preclude any such discussion, that I sanctioned it.
Mr. Aglionbysaid, in the absence of the noble Lord (Lord Ingestre) to whom the right hon. Home Secretary had referred, he might be allowed, perhaps, to say a few words. The right hon. Gentleman said he had received from that noble Lord, as the Chairman of the Secret Committee of the New Zealand Company, a letter referring to certain minutes kept by the Secret Committee, which were sent to the right hon. Baronet, in order that he might make any remarks he chose upon them before they were communicated to the shareholders. It would, of course, be in the recollection of the House, that a report appeared in the newspapers of that morning of what took place at the meeting which was held yesterday; but the minutes to which reference was made were not laid before the Directors. The minutes were merely kept for the use of the Secret Committee, and could not be used against the right hon. Baronet. The Committee were appointed by the directors as a Secret Committee to act during the negotiations, and as soon as those negotiations terminated, the Secret Committee were to report to the Directors for their approbation. In making that report they would, of course, be bound to state the grounds on which they might justify the reception or rejection of the proposition of the Government. The Secret Committee determined that minutes ought to be kept, and they took the statement of his hon. Friend the Member
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for Liskeard with perfect confidence, relying, as they implicitly did, upon his penetration, accuracy, high honour, straightforwardness, and simplicity of mind; in addition to this, he was bound to say that there was nothing in the conduct of the right hon. Baronet which was not perfectly consistent with the zeal which he always evinced in the public service, and the high character which he had always maintained.
Subject at an end.

GAME LAW CONVICTIONS.
Mr. Humerose to put a question to the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department, respecting the committal to prison and subsequent release of a man named Dean, who had been convicted in Berkshire of selling pheasants and pheasants' eggs. That unfortunate man, it appeared, had been committed to Reading gaol for four months. Now, he wished to know whether they had at the Home Office copies of his conviction? whether the right hon. Baronet had taken that conviction into his consideration? whether he thought it legal? and whether, in point of fact, the man had not been released?
Sir J. Grahamsaid, that taking into consideration the consequences that arose out of convictions of this nature, it was a rule at the Home Office not to go into the merits of those convictions with any view to disturb them, otherwise than upon very special grounds, unless when it appeared upon the face of the proceedings that there had been allegations of distinct offences, when in fact there was only one, or when cumulative penalties were inflicted. The case to which the hon. Member referred had been gone into, and one month's imprisonment, it appeared, had been imposed upon Dean for one of the offences charged, and three months for the other, and fines imposed upon him, amounting in the whole to 10 l. 11 s., which, if paid on the instant, would have relieved him from further imprisonment. As it appeared that he had been subjected to two terms of imprisonment, the Crown remitted one of them, namely, the imprisonment for one month.
Mr. Humeinquired if the right hon. Baronet had any objection to producing the record of the case?
Sir J. Grahamsaid, that at the Home Office they had nothing except the conviction and the order for committal.
Mr. M. Gibsonsaid, that the conviction was illegal—that the penalties were cumulative

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and excessive. It appeared that Dean had suffered only one week's imprisonment, and that the public were indebted to the hon. Member for Athlone for his release, that gentleman having taken upon himself to pay the penalty. He thought that the buyers of poached game were greatly in fault, and that, instead of doing anything to prevent poaching, they were only too ready to encourage the supply of too great quantities of that sort of game.
Sir J. Walshsaid he was not in that part of the country at the time when the occurrence in question took place.
Mr. Horsmanobserved, that there was a strong distinction between the case of a man taken in the fact of committing an offence against the game laws, and that of a man who merely committed offences, and was subjected to cumulative penalties in the manner that had happened in Dean's case.
Sir J. Grahamsaid, that the man whose case had been referred to petitioned the Crown for mercy, and one portion of his imprisonment had been remitted.
Mr. Collettwished merely to state to the House that the man having been proceeded against in the name and at the suit of Prince Albert, he (Mr. Collett), entertaining strong opinions upon the subject of the game laws, wishing to see those laws relaxed, deeply commiserating the condition of the poor man who had suffered this injurious imprisonment; he, on the 24th instant, wrote the following letter to Dean:—
"I observe by The Times of to-day, that you have been sent to prison and to hard labour for four months, at the suit of Prince Albert, for having offered to sell some pheasants and some pheasants' eggs. As I disapprove of game laws, and of all proceedings under them, I will release you by paying the fine of 10 l. 11 s. if you will let me know how I can forward it to the proper quarter. Deeply commiserating what I consider an act of tyranny and injustice inflicted upon a poor man. I am, &c."
Subsequently, he sent down his servant to Reading, and had the money paid. Dean's daughter-in-law, when replying to his letter, stated, that the man who had been thus convicted of poaching was treated as a felon, that he had been placed in solitary confinement, compelled to wear a felon's dress, employed in picking oakum and pumping water, and that he could not eat the food which had been supplied to him. In The Times of this morning an article
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had appeared respecting Dean's imprisonment, and he intended to send to the editor the letter which he had just read, accompanied by one from himself.
Subject at an end.

LAWS OF GUERNSEY.
Mr. Roebuckrose to bring under the notice of the House a totally different subject. Some time since an occurrence took place in the island of Guernsey, in consequence of the conduct of the Controller General, a functionary whose office was somewhat analogous to that of Solicitor General in this country. It arose out of the case of a peculiar assault made upon a lady in that island. That lady subsequently made an application to the other law officer of the Crown, and thereupon the matter was brought before the Royal Court, and proceedings were taken at the instance of the Procureur General, when it was determined by the Court, upon the circumstances of the accusation, that the party accused had been guilty of no crime. In Guernsey, by rather a peculiar process, the whole matter went on in secret—it was a secret inquiry; and the Court having determined that there was no ground for a criminal proceeding, the complaining party was informed that she might bring a civil action. He wished to know whether the right hon. Baronet had any information to give the House on the subject—whether any steps had been taken by the Government to remedy the wrong, and to prevent its recurrence?
Sir James Grahamhad received from the Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey (we understood) a statement in substance the same as the hon. and learned Gentleman had just made to the House. That statement directly impugned one of the law officers of the Crown; it was referred to that law officer to give a full explanation of his conduct. At the present moment the accusation rested on the statement only of one party; the officer had not as yet obtained any opportunity of making an explanation; and he was sure the hon. and learned Gentleman, admitting the presumption of innocence in favour of an accused party, would wait until that expiation had been given.
Mr. Roebucksaid, there was an accusation also against one of the jurats, who were equivalent to judges in this country. He was a relation of the party criminated, and was charged with tampering with the judges.
Sir J. Grahamsaid, the letter from the Lieutenant Governor contained two accusations; one against a law officer of the Crown, and another materially involving the administration of justice, which required more mature consideration on the part of the Government with respect to the means of remedy.
Mr. Roebuckobserved, that the judge was removable by the Crown, and wished to know whether any inquiry had been made by the right hon. Gentleman?
Sir J. Grahamreplied, that the accusation appeared to him to embrace the large and entire question of the administration of criminal justice. A matter so grave and important, the hon. and learned Member would see, required the most careful consideration.
Subject at an end.

PRIVILEGE—PRINTED PAPERS.
On the Motion that the House on its rising should adjourn till Monday,
Lord J. Russell: Before the hon. and learned Solicitor General proceeds to move the Order of the Day with respect to the question of Privilege, I think it proper that I should make some inquiry of him as to the course he means to pursue, and state what has occurred to me, and to some friends of mine, Members of the Committee. The hon. and learned Gentleman, in the name of the Committee, presented a Report, which consists, I may say, of two parts; the one with regard to the levy of the execution which will take place on Monday next, as to which the Committee thought it necessary that the House should interfere without delay; the other part stating that the Committee have come to a resolution that it is advisable to proceed by a writ of error in the superior court. It does not appear to me that the first part of the Report presented to the House has any other object than to enable the House, if they so think fit, to interpose to prevent the levy of the execution on Monday next. With respect to the second part, namely, the advice to proceed by a writ of error, the Committee state that they wish to make a more detailed Report to the House. While I think the Solicitor General was justified, being called upon, in proposing that the Report should be taken into consideration to-day, I must express a hope that he will not proceed to move any Resolution as to the writ of error. I think that this is due to the Committee, who after spending a good deal of time in deli-
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beration, made this Report to enable the House to take any steps they may think fit with regard to the execution on Monday. I think the House should take time till we meet again; and it will be for the advantage of the House in the matter of the writ of error, that we should have any detailed Report of information or argument which the Committee might make. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Worcester, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Devonport, agreed that that course would be more desirable than that the Solicitor General should immediately propose, without further consideration, any Resolution to the House on this subject. I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will consider this suggestion, and whether it be necessary to do anything more than move the postponement of the consideration of this Report to some future day, such as he shall think most convenient; which will allow any Member of the House who may differ from the Committee to propose any measure he may think necessary for the immediate interposition of the House to prevent the levy of damages on Monday next.
Sir R. Peel: I certainly think it was the impression of the Committee that it would be premature to call on the House to express an opinion on that important question, whether or no a writ of error should be moved for against the judgment. I think it would be very desirable that the House should have more notice before they affirm such a Motion; and also that the reasons which induced the Committee to come to that conclusion should be laid before us prior to taking any step which is not absolutely necessary. It was our duty to apprize the House of certain proceedings which might be taken possibly on Monday next, in order that the House might have the opportunity of interposing if they thought necessary. But with respect to whether they should interpose, I think it would be highly desirable not to come to that decision without further consideration.
Sir T. Wilde: It is choosing one evil less than the other, which is the only alternative. The House is placed in a situation in which it might either immediately determine or permit the plaintiff to levy his damages. It is certainly not desirable that the party should be permitted to levy damages until he obtains the full success of his suit. But the allowing damages to be levied, in no respect interferes with the complete validity of the writ

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of error for the reversal of the judgment; and if that reversal take place it will be a judgment of restoration, calling on the party to refund all he has gained. I dare say the House will not expect that that judgment, if it be ever pronounced, should be very productive; but it has struck me as a very important point for the House to consider, that the disadvantage of allowing the party to levy his damages bears no proportion to the disadvantage of a hasty decision upon this question. I think the writ of error a proceeding of so much importance, that the House should be put in possession of the reasons of the Committee bearing on that step. I hope I am not acting improperly in saying that I entirely dissent from the propriety of that course; but I think it of the utmost consequence that the Report of the Committee should be submitted to the House before the subject is discussed.
Mr. Roebuckwished to ask his hon. and learned Friend this question. Suppose the money was levied by the execution, and no writ of error was brought, the House would be left without a shadow of remedy. If he understood his hon. and learned Friend, his opinion was, that as for their going into the Court of Queen's Bench, it was all very well, it was a mere service of notice; but if you had a writ of error in the Court of Exchequer, you admitted their jurisdiction, because you demanded a writ of error to say whether their judgment was wrong. So that he feared they would find themselves in this difficulty, that they would have allowed the officer to pay the money or to go prison, without remedy for the evil.
Sir T. Wilde: I will only notice what fell from my hon. and learned Friend with reference to the question of an immediate writ of error. It will be brought, of course, if the House determine it to be an expedient step to take, quite uninfluenced by the circumstance of the damages having been previously levied. The Act of Parliament, which recently passed to prevent writs of error being brought for purposes of delay, has enacted that no writ of error should be a stay of execution, except the party gives bail, undertaking to pay it if the judgment be affirmed; thus securing the plaintiff in recovering damages if it should be affirmed. A writ of error, unless, the judgment be stayed by express order of Court, on application made and came of error shown—has consequently
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ceased to be a stay of execution. But a writ of error for the purpose of impugning the validity of the judgment, is not affected by the levy of the execution. The only evil is, that it is for the time an apparent acquiescence on the part of the House; but when it is understood that that is not a direct acquiescence, but merely a forbearance to act until time can be gained to consider the matter further, no misapprehension can arise on that ground. My hon. and learned Friend was in error if he supposed that I wished the matter to pass without discussion, or without its being in some way or other brought under the consideration of the House. But if it be discussed now whether the writ of error shall be brought or not, the House will be involved in a lengthy discussion without having the reasons of the Committee before it.
Mr. Hume: Sir, I am very sorry to differ from my hon. and learned Friend below me as to the proper steps to be adopted in the present state of the question. This House has implicated its own privileges by making an appeal on that subject to a court of law, which I always was of opinion, and always asserted my opinion, is not competent to deal with our privileges in any shape whatsoever. The House is now getting deeper and deeper into a mess. I say that notice ought to be immediately given of the determination of this House to punish severely whoever shall attempt to arrest or to levy an execution upon our officer. In what does this proceeding originate, Sir? In nothing less than in your warrant, which I shall take leave to read:—
"Martii, 4 die Februarii, 1840.
"Whereas the House of Commons have this day ordered that Thomas Burton Howard be sent for, in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms attending this House; these are therefore to require you to take into your custody the body of the said Thomas Burton Howard; and all Mayors, Bailiffs, Sheriffs, under Sheriffs, Constables, Headboroughs, and other Officers are hereby required to be aiding and assisting to you or your deputy in the execution thereof. For which this shall be your sufficient warrant. Given under my hand, this 4th day of February, 1840.
"CHARLES SHAW LEFEVRE, Speaker.
"To the Sergeant-at-Arms attending the House of Commons."
Either this warrant is a legal document, or it is not. If it is a legal document—and I must be permitted to observe that it

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has been so considered and obeyed for ages, without its authority being disputed—how is it that we are not now prepared to support the authority of the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair? We have succumbed once before; and why, may I ask, are we now called upon to go deeper into the mire? The Report on the Table of the House says, that, at a future period, the Committee will present a more elaborate Report for the guidance of the House. Why has that not been already done? The Committee has been sitting a week, and what possible reason can there be for this further delay? So far from any delay having been suffered to take place in coming to a Resolution as to some Motion asserting our privileges, I hope the House will order any attempt that may be made to seize upon the property of the Sergeant, to be most severely punished forthwith. If any one will draw up a Resolution to that effect, I will move it, and, if necessary, I will assist in executing your warrant. It will not be the first time, Sir, that I have personally assisted in promoting the ends of justice. I was the first to seize upon the person who committed an act of murder within the precincts of this place—I allude to the person who shot the late Mr. Perceval—and I kept him fast until a magistrate was found to whose custody he was delivered. I conceive, Sir, that every Member of this House is bound to act in the same manner; and, as you are authorized to call upon all magistrates and persons in authority to assist in carrying your warrant into effect, so I think you have a prior claim upon the assistance of the Members of this House in enforcing and upholding your authority. I am not readily disposed to quarrel; but I consider this to be a good cause, and, if we do not take care, we shall suffer indelible disgrace; and I, therefore, ask my hon. and learned Friend to lead the way in proposing a Resolution vindicating your authority, Sir, and I will readily follow him.
Sir R. Inglisbegged to remind the hon. Member (Mr. Hume) that the question before them was, whether at its rising the House should adjourn until Monday next; and consequently the discussion was altogether irregular. The hon. Member had exhibited a considerable degree of warmth, and had shown a very praiseworthy readiness to vindicate by his own personal interference the authority of the
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Chair, and the privileges of the House—perhaps the hon. Member would even be so bold as to take the Lord Chief Justice into custody? [Mr. Hume: So I would, if he comes here.] Whatever course the hon. Member might be disposed to take, he would find ultimately that the House stood alone in its contest with the constituted authorities of the country, and that it claimed privileges which no other power in the kingdom ever pretended to assert; privileges which were utterly unknown to the Constitution, and incompatible with the liberties of England. He must, however, repeat the observation which he had made; namely, that the discussion was irregular under the present circumstances.
Viscount Howick: I think the hon. Baronet has not exactly understood the object of this discussion. If I understood my noble Friend the Member for London, he advised that the discussion on this subject should be postponed for the present, inasmuch as it was not necessary that there should be any discussion unless some Gentleman was prepared to move that some actual step should be taken towards resistance. My hon. and learned Friend near me, if I understood him, acquiesced in the proposal of postponing the discussion, not as the hon. Member for Montrose supposes, because he is prepared to depart from the course he formerly recommended, of requiring this House to defend its privileges, and not to trust to other tribunals, but to its own powers. Because, my hon. and learned Friend says, assuming that the House means to defend its privileges, we ought to have further time to consider what steps should be taken with that view. He sees the evil of allowing those damages to be actually paid; but he says it would be a less evil, and open to greater objections, to take any inconsiderate step. What I understand my hon. and learned Friend to say is this, that although we allow the damages in the first instance to be paid, still, if the House take his advice, excellent as I think it, and determine to maintain its privileges, it will be equally in our power to make the party who has received the damages refund what he has obtained, and punish all the parties who had assisted him in infringing the privileges of this House, as it is now to take those strong steps which may be necessary to

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resist the levy of the damages. My hon. and learned Friend says it is inexpedient that we should take those strong steps to resist the levy of the damages, unless we are prepared, having embarked in that contest, to go through with it. On a former occasion we made the great, and, I am afraid, the fatal mistake of embarking in a contest which we had not the nerve to carry out. My hon. and learned Friend wishes to avoid the repetition of that fatal mistake, and, therefore, he says to the House, I do not counsel you to abandon your privileges; I still remain of opinion that you have the power, and it is your duty to defend them; but seeing what passed before, I advise you to postpone discussion on the subject. We admit it is an evil to allow damages to be levied; but still it is a less evil than taking any inconsiderate step. Allow damages to be levied; wait till the Report of the Committee is before you; and having seen that Report, determine deliberately what is the course you ought to pursue. In my view, the advice of my hon. and learned Friend is the best and wisest; and I will, therefore, also press the Solicitor General not to make any specific Motion on the present occasion, but to allow the Report to be taken into consideration hereafter.
The Solicitor General: I entirely concur in the view that it is expedient we should postpone the consideration of this question until we have before us a full and complete Report from the Committee to which we have confided the task of considering the present question, and recommending the course which ought to be adopted. The hon. Member for Montrose has asked why there has not been a complete Report presented to the House. He says, we have had ample time—a week — to prepare our Report. Certainly, if we had the advantage of the industry and diligence of the hon. Member for Montrose we might, by possibility, have been able to frame that Report; but we had it not. He is not at all aware of the infinite pains and research which are requisite to be employed before we can present such a Report to the House as would be satisfactory either to the House or to the Members of the Committee. And this I must say, that in the midst of numerous other important claims on their time, the Members of the Committee have been most faithful and diligent in performing the duty cast upon them by the House,
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and have been as expeditious in their proceedings as was consistent with propriety, and with a regard to what the House would expect from them. Under these circumstances, I certainly agree with the suggestion made from the other side, and I shall not propose any Resolution to be taken on the Report of the Committee. If any hon. Member thinks proper to say that the time has now arrived when it is necessary for the House to come to a decision, and will make a definite proposition for resisting the levy of the damages, it will be competent for him to propose a Motion, and the House may decide in his favour. But, for my part, I shall accede to the suggestion offered, and when the Order of the Day is moved, I shall most certainly move its postponement to Monday week.
Sir T. Wildesaid, he wished only to say one word. He begged, hereafter, it might not be supposed that he had concurred in this recommendation of postponing the discussion, from an impression that there were no difficulties or objections in the way of permitting the execution of the levy. There were; but he said these were much less than in taking any inconsiderate step. The hon. Member for Montrose complained of the want of attention on the part of the Committee. Certainly, he could say that every hour the Committee sat they had had the benefit of his hon. and learned Friends the Solicitor General's attendance; and he would only say, for his own part, that he had allowed no private business to interfere with the duty of being present at its sittings.
Sir R. Peelthought the hon. Member for Montrose very ungrateful to the hon. and learned Members, who, in addition to their other labours, had devoted three or four hours a day to the consideration of this important question, besides other researches out of the Committee. He thought the hon. Member for Montrose had very unfairly imputed to the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Sir T. Wilde) a desire to shrink from the vindication of those privileges, on recommending a Resolution which he was aware was attended with difficulties. The hon. and learned Gentleman had not refused the Committee his powerful assistance in vindicating the privileges of that House; he had given them the advantage of his extensive learning in their deliberations, and when a re-

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commendation was made from which he dissented, he made suggestions which might mitigate the evils he apprehended. He acknowledged with gratitude the value of the hon. and learned Gentleman's assistance.
Mr. C. W. Wynnsaid, it was only due to the Committee to say that they applied themselves to the consideration of the subject before them at the earliest moment after they were furnished with the necessary papers. It was impossible for them to offer any opinion upon the question before them until they had the Speaker's warrant and the pleadings, together with the judgment of Court. They met at the earliest possible hour—12 o'clock—and sat up to the latest moment allowed for their proceedings. He did feel it due, in particular, to the hon. and learned Member for Worcester, to say, that he had not only shown great generalship in the mode of dealing with the question, but, also, that he had devoted a considerable portion of his time out of the hours of the Committee most usefully to promote its objects. He entirely concurred in the propriety of the course recommended to the House, namely, of not coming to a decision under the present circumstances of the case. But, at the same time, if any hon. Member thought that the House ought, before Monday, to come to some resolution to resist the levy threatened upon their officer, the present was the time for adopting that course. But, if the House should act otherwise, it would be probably the better course, as then the Committee would have had time to furnish them with a Report containing the precedents and other materials requisite to enable them to come to a right and becoming decision.
Mr. Humesaid, in explanation, that he was the last man in the House disposed to cast any blame upon the Committee, or upon his hon. and learned Friend below him; but the question had appeared to him to be of the simplest nature as regarded the privileges of the House, namely, whether they were prepared to defend or to abandon them? The hon. and learned Member for Worcester was, in particular, the very first man who advised the House not to take that course which they had since had so much reason to regret. His own mind, however, was made up. He only blamed the hon. and learned Member for having recourse to expediency,
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instead of meeting the difficulty boldly. He did not think the Committee were the best judges of the proper course to be taken, and therefore he should move, as an Amendment on the Question before the House, the following Resolution:—
"That the House will deem it a high breach of its Privileges on the part of any Person, who shall dare to levy Damages upon one of their servants for having obeyed the Speaker's Warrant."
In taking this course, he begged to say, that he should be extremely sorry to be supposed to be doing anything which would not tend more to maintain the privileges of the House, than would be effected by again pleading to the action in the form of a writ of error.
The Speakersuggested to the hon. Member the propriety of suffering the Motion before the House to be disposed of, and of bringing his Resolution forward as an Amendment upon the Motion, when the Order of the Day for considering the question of Privilege was read.
Motion agreed to.
House at its rising to adjourn until Monday.
On the Order of the Day being read for the further consideration of the Report of the Printed Papers Committee,
The Solicitor Generalmoved, that the further consideration of the Report be postponed until Monday week, June 9th.
Viscount Howicksaid, that before the hon. Member for Montrose brought his Resolution forward, he would suggest to him the propriety of listening to the advice of the hon. and learned Member for Worcester. If the Resolution were put, and a division ensued, there were no hopes of its being carried. If there were, he would heartily join in it—no one sooner. But as it was not probable it would be agreed to, nothing but mischief would result from moving it.
Sir T. Wildesaid, that if the Resolution of the hon. Member was put and negatived, how could the House hereafter punish any persons for doing that which they deliberately refused to interfere in preventing from accomplishing?
Lord J. Manners: For the very reason assigned by the hon. and learned Member for Worcester, I hope the hon. Member for Montrose will persevere in pressing his Resolution to a division.
Mr. Humewas perfectly well aware that there existed in that House a party

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whose wish was to destroy all their ancient privileges; but the time was come at which they must interfere to vindicate those privileges; and therefore, in conformity to his determination, he begged to move as an Amendment on the Motion before the House the following Resolution:—
"That this House, adverting to the Resolutions heretofore passed, resolve that they will deem all Persons guilty of a Breach of its Privileges who shall act in the levying any Execution upon the Judgment which has been obtained in the Cause of 'Howard against Gossett,' referred to in the Report presented to this House yesterday."
Mr. Roebuckseconded the Resolution.
Mr. Blewittsaid, there were two ways of proceeding in the case, one by sending the Officer of the House with a proper authority to notify the consequences of further proceedings to the parties, the other by issuing a warrant from the Chair for the apprehension of all who should venture to take any measures against their office.
Viscount Howickstill remained of opinion that it was of such extreme importance that the House should not pronounce any opinion upon the question at present, that he begged leave to move that the debate be adjourned to Monday week.
The question of Adjournment having been put,
Sir R. Peelsaid, that until the noble Lord's Amendment were decided, they could come to no decision upon the real question. It was not competent for them to move the previous question upon that Amendment. The question put was, that the words proposed to be left out stand part of the question. If that were affirmed, they would be in the same position as if the question were put upon the hon. Gentleman's Motion. The effect of the hon. Gentleman's Motion, and the noble Lord's Amendment, would therefore be the same.
Mr. Labouchereagreed with the right hon. Baronet that, technically speaking, there was no distinct difference between them; but (said the hon. Gentleman) regarding the impression upon the public there will be a difference, and to that impression I attach great importance. Those, who, with me, are anxious to maintain the privileges of this House, have already suffered extremely in the struggle by misapprehension on the part of the pub-.
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lic. There would on t hat account, I conceive, be a serious danger to the public generally, if we refused to agree to the Motion of the hon. Member for Montrose; and I, for one, am not prepared to agree to it. If we negative it, the public generally will feel that the majority of this House refuse to assert that those who are concerned in these proceedings against the Sergeant-at-Arms are guilty of a gross and flagrant breach of the privileges of this House; and yet, I apprehend, that the majority of the House are still of opinion that by those proceedings all our privileges have been invaded. [Mr. Roebuck: Hear.] I know that by that cheer the hon. Gentleman means to say that this is the time to defend them. I am as anxious as any one that they should be defended and protected; but if you wish to conduct the contest to a successful issue, you must engage in it with circumspection, as well as act with firmness when in it. It should not be lightly entered into, and when entered into not lightly departed from. I merely wished to state my reason for considering that, circumstanced as the House now is in reference to the whole case, it is not advisable at the present moment to come to a decision upon the Motion of the hon. Member for Montrose; lest, by doing so in the negative, an impression might be created upon the public that the majority of this House are not prepared to adhere to the opinion, that the conduct of the Courts of Law in the case is at variance with the essential privileges of this House.
Sir R. Inglissaid: Although no one can differ upon this question more widely than I do from the hon. Mover and Seconder of the Motion, I nevertheless feel myself bound to say, that I consider the present the only time when they, and those hon. Gentlemen who think with them, can act consistently with the opinions which they entertain upon the subject. If they do not take the sense of the House now, but wait for three days to elapse, when the act of which they complain shall have been perfected, it is idle for them to talk of opposing it. I do not hold, with my right hon. Friend who last addressed the House, that its privileges have been violated; but those who do so contend ought not to shrink from the maintenance of those privileges, but follow the course proposed by the hon. Mover and Seconder of the Motion. I differ from them, and am prepared to oppose the Motion; but with all respect I must say, that they, and

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all other maintained of the high prerogative of this House, will stultify themselves if they allow a verdict to pass against them without an effort in the exercise of what they conceive to be their legitimate functions to avert it. If they suffer the writ to be executed on next Monday, it will be idle for them on the Monday following, when the cause of action shall have ceased, to come down to this House, and show themselves grandiloquent and courageous. It will be mere verbiage on the 9th of June to talk of what they ought to have done on the 30th of May. If you wish to commence a warfare against the law authorities of England, now is your time. If the sentence of the House is to be pronounced upon this subject at all—a step which I deprecate, I must, in justice to those who think differently from me, say, that this is the time for it; and not ten days hence, when the act complained of will have been completed.
Mr. Roebuck: I will not, Sir, be led away from my purpose by the "prudent course which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Labouchere) has advised. I am not influenced by that advice, but I am influenced by the state of the case; and when he says that we are about to come to a hasty decision, I would ask him how often has this question been discussed? Is there, Sir, a human being in the country, or a Member of this House, who has at all thought upon the question, that has not already considered it from beginning to end, and is as well prepared to-night to come to a decision upon it as he could be on Monday, with the assistance of the "learned" Report of the Committee? Sir, this question goes deeper than at first appears. The hon. Baronet opposite, and noble and right hon. Gentlemen on the same side, oppose the privileges of this House—and why? So long as this House was merely the representative of a small portion of the aristocracy, no one stood up for its privileges more eagerly than the high Tory party; but the moment we come to represent the people, or to be something like a representation of the people—the noble Lord (Lord J. Manners) shrugs his shoulders—of course nothing is more contemptible than the representation of the people—but the moment this House comes to represent the people, that moment are its privileges decried. I say, then, now is the time to uphold them.
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I am prepared to pit this House against the Court of Queen's Bench. From its earliest existence to the present day, the Court of Queen's Bench has been the supporter of all that is bad, tyrannical, and despotic in the government of this country. [Dissent.] I am borne out in saying so by the history of the country. Looking back to the time of Hampden, when a cringing and unprincipled Judge wished to satisfy the despotic view of the Government of the day, who stood out for the liberties of the country? This House. The hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford is just the man I should expect to oppose the privileges of this House now; but would he do so if Jack Wilkes were in the case? No, he would then be the first to maintain them. With the changes from an aristocratic to a popular representation, came this system of constantly decrying the House of Commons. We feel and understand, and the people out of doors will feel and understand, that that means a decrying of the representation of the Commons of England. You are prepared to pit us—I do not speak of myself—but you are prepared to pit this great body, representing the commonalty of the country, against the smallest, paltriest authority—you would have us, in obedience to the rule of every petty court in the country, having a prescriptive right, to "'bate our breath with whispered humbleness." The Court of Queen's Bench can bow to the Royal Court of Jersey; but let the Representatives of England say that a person shall be brought to the Bar of this House in the custody of the officer of the House, and the Court of Queen's Bench rises in all its majesty, and demands to know who are the House of Commons? The Royal Court of Jersey is a constituted authority; but the House of Commons nothing—nobody. I would ask, in return, what business the Queen's Bench has to interfere with your jurisdiction? It was plainly stated to that Court that this high and superior Court chose to bring the plaintiff in the action to the Bar, by an order given in all its form of expression through its officer, the Speaker, to its second officer, the Sergeant-at-Arms. The Queen's Bench says, "We are not aware of that, and must know why the House of Commons so decided." I say the House will demean itself, and forfeit all those privileges it is entitled to as the representa-

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tive body of the kingdom, if it yield to that demand. I am prepared to carry this matter out. I cannot suppose that the Queen's Bench will send its Chief Justice to levy this penalty; but whether it levy it or not, you should bring him to the Bar of this House. If you do not, your privilege is gone. Suppose the times altered, and that there should be upon the Bench some Judge desirous of carrying out the despotic propositions of a despotic Sovereign? Suppose the House of Commons to come into collision with that Chief Justice—see in what an abject position it will be if you fail to maintain your privilege on this occasion. We all know the value of a precedent in this country. [An hon. Member: The Chief Justice is a Peer.] I am not speaking of Lord Denman; I am speaking of the Court of Queen's Bench. If the Chief Justice should even happen to be a Peer, we have a way of coming at Peers just as well. Let the hon. Gentleman get himself made a Peer, then commit a breach of privilege against this House, and I shall soon show him how he is to be got at. But if we yield in this, we yield in everything; and so far I differ from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Worcester, although I believe he goes with me in all the other opinions I have expressed upon the subject. But, supposing we bow to this decision, and suffer the writ to be executed, and supposing the Sergeant-at-Arms to have no domicile and no goods to levy upon, then they take his person. I do not go so far as to suppose that they would come here to arrest him; but he was liable on his way to this House to be seized by the catchpole of the Queen's Bench and taken to prison, in spite of the orders of this House, and in spite of your protection, Sir, and that mysterious instrument, the mace. The officer of the House of Commons, of the representative body of the people of England, for having acted in obedience to the commands of that House, is taken to prison—he is gone, and with him your honour and your power, for you thereby confess your inability to defend your own servant when acting in obedience to commands which he would not have dared to refuse to excute. Well, the Queen's Bench seizes him by the neck, and takes him to prison. What follows? The Solicitor-General then comes down to this House
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in great amazement to know what we shall do. I should like to see the face of the hon. and learned Gentleman on such an occasion. He would, no doubt, call upon us to wait until Monday week, and beg of us, for God's sake, not to proceed hastily. But according to the supposed case I have put—and I have a right to suppose it—your officer is all the while in prison; this House is degraded, not only in the eyes of the country, but of Europe, and, having lost its privileges, sunk to the condition of a secondary court. We should not then be the same House of Commons as in olden days, when we ruled everybody; ["Hear, hear!"] ay, and we ought to rule everybody. I see by the face of the hon. Member for the University of Oxford, that if it were the case of Ashby or of John Wilkes, the House of Commons would then be regarded by him as the great bulwark of the liberties of England; but being constituted now of the Representatives of the people, and not of a fraction of the aristocracy, he is prepared to place its privileges at the mercy of the Queen's Bench; a Court which owes its existence to a Royal breath. I know well the education of a lawyer. I know well their past history, and I must protest against their being put up against the House of Commons, when the House of Commons has become the Representatives of the people. It is on these grounds that I stand at once in the breach. I say now is the time for action. If you do not act now, your case is at an end, your power is gone, and you are no longer what you pretend to be, the Representatives of the commonalty of England.
Sir J. Hanmersaid, that if they were at the beginning of the question he should be more disposed to agree to the course recommended by the hon. and learned Gentleman; but after the steps already taken, he thought it behoved them to act with great caution and deliberation. He should therefore vote for the adjournment of the debate.
Mr. Warburtonsaid, if he could anti-pate from the Report of the Committee that the Committee would ultimately recommend that resistance which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Worcester on a former occasion had so ably recommended, and which he thought the Committee ought to recommend, he

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would then accede to the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Abingdon. He only said these few words to justify the vote he was about to give.
Mr. Disraeli: Sir, the hon. and learned Member for Bath has said, that hon. Members on this side of the House are opposed to the alleged privileges of this House, because its Members are now the Representatives of the people of this country; and then, with extreme inconsistency, he asks where would public liberty have been if Hampden had not risen in this House to vindicate its privileges? Why, Sir, the House of Commons of those days was as aristocratic an assembly as any which existed before its late reform. The House of Commons of the time of Hampden was not then elected by a constituency greater or more numerous than it was before the more recent reform of this House; and I cannot understand how the hon. Gentleman can impute to hon. Gentlemen on these benches that they would have wrongly vindicated the privileges of the House of Commons when it was aristocratic and before the recent changes, and then appeal to the name of Hampden as elucidating the great importance of vindicating the privileges of Parliament. Sir, there may have been times when judges were corrupt, and the hon. and learned Member is the last man to deny that there have been times when Parliaments were corrupt; there may have been times when judges were tyrannical, but the hon. and learned Member will scarcely dissent from the assertion that there have been Parliaments which have been tyrannical also. The hon. Gentleman says, that the privileges of this House ought to be defended, because they carry with them the sympathy and the affections of the people of this country; but let the hon. Gentleman see the Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench committed to the Tower, and he will soon be able to discover whom the affections and the sympathies of the people of England do indeed rally. Sir, the difference between the privileges of Parliament and the privileges of the House of Commons has been often shown; and the people of this country do discriminate between Parliamentary privilege and the alleged privileges of one branch of the Legislature. I need not, upon the present occasion, advert to the instances in which the House of Commons, at different periods of its history, has exercised its power;
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sure I am that the hon. Gentleman can bring forward no case of corruption or of tyranny on the part of the Court of Queen's Bench which will not find a parallel in the tyranny and injustice of the House of Commons. But, Sir, these are not the considerations which ought to influence our decision upon the present occasion. The hon. Gentleman, however, has intimated that Gentlemen on this side of the House are opposed to the privileges of the House of Commons, because this House is now the representative of the people; while he admits, at the same time, that the exercise of these privileges, in the most aristocratic period of this assembly, has ever been the bulwark of the liberties of the country. I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman in one of his statements. I agree with him, that the opportunity has arrived, and, I believe, the last opportunity, for trying the great issue which we have so long evaded. I do not understand how any one Member of this House, whatever his opinions on the main question may be, can say, that he has not had the requisite time for consideration; and yet hon. Gentlemen speak of this question as having come suddenly upon us, as a falling star, amidst the serene atmosphere of Parliamentary discussions—as a comet, the course of which has not been ascertained, and the arrival of which has been quite unexpected. Why, Sir, ever since I have had a seat in this House, now for some eight years, the subject has been at intervals before us, and upon every occasion you have evaded a definite conclusion. The system of procrastination, and of avoiding the difficulty, has been invariably pursued; but, though you have postponed the evil day, you have been now brought to that extreme point which has been always foreseen, and which cannot now be avoided. It is impossible to say, after the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench shall have been vindicated under circumstances the most ignominious to this House—it will be impossible to pretend that the opportunity will still remain of trying the justice or propriety of that judgment; and when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Taunton (Mr. Labouchere) enforces the advice he has given us, by a deference to public opinion, I will only ask what that public opinion will be after the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench has been vindicated upon the property and the

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person of the Sergeant-at-Arms? The people will not make these subtle distinctions. They will see that an injured subject of the Crown has appealed to the Courts of Law; that the Courts of Law have vindicated his rights; and that, although there have been ostentatious declarations against him and the Courts, he has succeeded; and the right of the man himself will be inferred from this termination. For myself, Sir, I believe, that these alleged privileges of the House of Commons are not necessary; on the contrary, I believe that they are injurious to the liberties of the people, and I shall not deplore the result which the hon. Gentleman anticipates. I find that the advocates of these privileges always evade a definition of them. Do they mean that the House possesses and can execute an unlimited and irresponsible power? If we adopt the dogma of the hon. Gentleman, we must declare that there is a supreme power centered in this House. Is that your view of the Constitution of this country? Is that your view of what will be acceptable to the people of this country? For myself, I do not see any wish on the part of this country to have a supreme and irresponsible power exercised by this House; and I do not see the desire increased on the part of the public to see this House exercise any more extended power since that reconstruction and reform which, according to the hon. Gentleman, has made us the Representatives of the great body of the people. Every time a contest has been threatened, even in a partial manner, the public sympathy has been rather with those who have appealed from the House of Commons to the tribunals of the country. These feelings and these sentiments do not exist, as the hon. Member for Bath alleges, because those who take an opposite course in this House are the Representatives of the great body of the people; but they arise from an inherent and profound sentiment among the great body of the people of this country in favour of maintaining the majesty of the law of England. The people may have suffered from corrupt and tyrannical Judges; but they cannot forget that they have also suffered from corrupt and tyrannical Parliaments. I do not believe that they enter into any minute considerations of the whole question; they do not enter into any great historical research, but they associate this question with that administration of the
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law in this country for the last century and a half which has made the law the best security for public liberty. These I believe to be the sentiments out of doors; and I only rose to repudiate, on the part of those who sit on these benches, the notion that in the opposition we offer to this alleged privilege of the House of Commons, we wish to oppose the popular sentiment, or the exercise of a privilege which is in accordance with popular feelings. The hon. Gentleman has supposed the case of corrupt Judges, and of the Court of Queen's Bench presided over by persons desirous of subverting public liberty; but I may suppose a Parliament—not such a Parliament as we now know, free from faction, and where no party bias prevails—but I may suppose a Parliament in which the state of parties may be very different from what it now is—a Parliament which may choose to wield this supreme and irresponsible authority in the most objectionable and tyrannical manner. I have a right to suppose such a case as a parallel to that of the hon. Member for Bath; but we ought not to decide this question on either supposition. The real question for Parliament to decide is, whether the House of Commons shall exercise supreme and irresponsible power, or whether the majesty of the law of England, as explained by the Judges of the land, shall be upheld as paramount.
Mr. Fitz Roy Kellyreminded the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland that the course which his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General had proposed, was adopted at the express suggestion of the noble Lord the Member for the city of London. That suggestion for a postponement had been acceded to, and then came the Amendment of the hon. Member for Montrose; and following that the proposal of the noble Lord to adjourn the discussion until Monday week. He must call back the attention of the House to the position of this question. The origin was, that a subject of this realm, Mr. Howard, had commenced an action against the Sergeant-at-Arms. It was then open to the House of Commons to take whatever course it thought best to vindicate its privileges; but, with all the information before them, the House had deliberately authorized the Sergeant-at-Arms to appear and plead to the action; and the consequence was, that they submitted to the Queen's Bench the question whether the act of their officer

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was lawful or not? That mainly depended on the question whether the warrant on which a subject of the realm was imprisoned was legal or not? The question was most ably argued by his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General; and the judgment of the Court had been against the act of their officer. It became, then, a question of transcendent importance to determine what course they should pursue, that due respect might be manifested for the law of the country on the one hand, and that, on the other, the undoubted privileges of the House should be vindicated. This question could not, without injustice, be discussed prematurely, nor decided till after long deliberation and much consideration. It had therefore been referred by the House to a Committee; and it was necessary, for the interests and the dignity of the House, that it should be postponed. They would even enter upon it now at a disadvantage. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Worcester had conclusively shown that no real mischief could arise from the delay. If they determined to bring a writ of error, it might be as effectually brought on Monday week as at present. The worst that could happen would be that the money would be paid. If they appealed to the Exchequer Chamber, and it might be to the House of Lords, and if the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench were reversed, they might recover back the money. There was no suggestion that Mr. Howard would be unable to pay the money; but, even if he were unable, of what importance would it be to the House of Commons, or to the people of this country? They would have vindicated their privileges.
Sir T. Wilde: Sir, I own that I entertain no doubt of the propriety of the advice I offered the House before I heard the speech of my hon. and learned Friend; but if I had hesitated, the speech of my hon. and learned Friend, and the part he has taken on this subject, would have led me to doubt, upon this occasion, the wisdom of the advice I have offered. My hon. and learned Friend has said, that when it was communicated to this House that an action had been commenced, it was put deliberately to this House whether they should appear and plead. I know not whether he was in the House at that time; but if he were, he would have heard on the part of those who advised the House to that course, a statement that, by appearing and
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pleading, they would not submit the privileges of the House of Commons to the Court of Queen's Bench. It was stated that the House could plead consistently with its privileges; that it had only to come to the Court of Queen's Bench and say that their officer did this by their warrant, and it would be sufficient. On that advice, against all caution—against the caution of the right hon. Baronet, who asked, "Who will undertake that the Court of Qneen's Bench will not criticise our warrant?"—against that wholesome caution, against that sagacious prophecy, the House did agree to plead. The House did it on the assurance that it would not do what the hon. and learned Gentleman now says it has done; and that is the reason why we are now so greatly embarrassed. The vote was come to against my protest, but on that assurance the House pleaded; and when my hon. and learned Friend says, "Let the execution be levied," I cannot but believe that my hon. Friend was absent from the division on the former occasion. If he were not absent, we might have expected that, as a Member of this House, and as a friend of the Constitution of the country, his aid might have been afforded in disabusing the House of the error into which it has fallen from following the advice of those who said that by pleading we should not submit our privileges to the judgment of the Court. I regret that, from the beginning to the end of this case, the House has not had the advantage of the talent and of the great ability of my hon. and learned Friend. I say it respectfully; but he has withdrawn from this House the protection of his talent and his learning; and I mention this because the House ought to be cautious in listening to his advice. It happened, when the Sheriffs were in custody, that I was sent for to the Bar of the House; and Mr. Under Sheriff France told me that they were prepared to submit themselves to the House, and asked what they should do. I declined to give any advice till they should fully have considered these matters, and till they had fully made up their minds to submit. Mr. France said that they had done so, and would therefore be obliged to me to tell them the best way of proceeding. I retired for a short time, and prepared a petition with a view to their submission and release; and when I returned I learned, according to their statement and impression, that my hon. and learned Friend had advised them not to submit. The House

1119
will be cautious in the reception of any thing I may urge, because I have taken so strong a view on this subject; and I do hope that it will be equally cautious in listening to the advice of my hon. and learned Friend, who has taken as warm, if not a warmer part, and who has the merit of having been the voluntary counsel for arguing this question against the House of Commons. Therefore, my hon. and learned Friend and myself are at opposite sides; and the House will hear us alike with great caution. I differ from my hon. Friend in regard to now proposing his Resolution; but if he could carry it, I would support him to the utmost of my power. Whether it is judicious to bring it forward as to time is another matter. I know very well that the House was told they are not to commit their privilege by appearing and pleading, and that afterwards they were told, you have, by doing so, put yourselves in the Court of Queen's Bench, and ought not to complain of its decision: and if the decision had been in your favour, you would have been content, and treated the Queen's Bench as a great constitutional Court; but because the decision is against you, you object to it, and seek to exercise your own powers. We ought to stop the levy of the execution—that is a step we ought to prevent. I deprecate above all things the bringing of the writ of error; but I admit that it would be a sad step to allow the levy of the execution. I know but one worse; and that is, that the House should now by a Resolution, either negative or affirmative, go back to proceedings already taken. I think, with the hon. Member for the University of Oxford, that this is the last occasion, in all probability, when you can discuss this question with anything like advantage to it as it now exists. I congratulate myself upon the belief that when a great occasion arises, when the House is intercepted in the exercise of its proper functions, it will cut through, as through a cobweb, all you have done—I beg pardon for saying so—to degrade the House, and to destroy its authority and public usefulness. It is a surrender of the constitutional authority of this House, and with that its usefulness, with that its place in the Constitution; and it deprives the people of England of advantages for which they can receive no compensation. If the hon. Member for Montrose had a chance of carrying his Motion, I would support it and vote with him; but I lament very much that the chances are
1120
that he will be put in a minority. At the same time do not let the House think that no evil would arise from the levying of the execution; the evils of such a course may be great, but they would not be productive of half the evils of the Motion of the hon. Member being put and negatived. I trust that I should be able to convince many hon. Members that the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench, if that were the Motion, is erroneous in every part, and that the puerile criticisms on the warrant of this House are entitled to no respect. I believe the warrant good beyond the severest criticism that could be applied to it; and that the test applied, namely, that it ought to be judged by certain rules laid down in the lowest Courts of Common Law as to magistrates' warrants, is wholly insupportable, and highly derogatory to the dignity and usefulness of this House. It is contrary to law. There is a barrier to every law. Parliamentary Law is regulated by Parliamentary Law, and not by Common Law. I care not whether there were a few more words or less in the warrant than in former warrants; no man could read it without discovering the intention of it upon the face of it. It was, that the party was ordered into custody, and that the Sergeant-at-Arms was to take him—whither? To the place to which he was sent for to come. I will not go into that now. I think the Queen's Bench is decidedly wrong in the test it applied to this warrant, as to whether it was good or bad. The question to be put to that Court is, Have you a right to examine and pronounce upon the warrant or not? Would you examine a process of the Court of Common Pleas? You would not. Neither could the Court of Common Pleas examine yours. Above all, a Parliamentary process is to be judged of by Parliamentary rules, and they are not rules judicially known to the Common Law Courts; it is wholly out of their jurisdiction. But they have greatly erred in the judgment they have pronounced, not only in presuming to apply the test they have, but in the application of that test. I trust that, unless my hon. Friend sees some chance of carrying his Motion, (which, if he does carry, he will be the best friend England has had for some time, and I should rejoice in it;) but unless he should succeed he will only add something like an affirmance or assent to the levying of the execution, which will hereafter be productive of the greatest inconvenience; although my hon. and learned

1121
Friend sees no evil likely to result from, the levying of the execution.
Mr. Fitz Roy Kelly, in explanation, said that with respect to the opinion he had given as to the question, Whether the Sheriffs were to submit to the House of Commons, and refuse to execute the writ? His answer was, that if the Sheriffs, whether under the protection of the House of Commons or not, refused to execute any writ emanating from the Court of Queen's Bench, they would be liable to an attachment, and to remain in prison until they executed the writ. He denied that he had volunteered as a Counsel in the case; he had received a retainer just as he might in any other case, and had argued the question according to his opinion of the law; but he came into that House perfectly free to form an independent opinion, and to do his duty as a Member of that House; and he hoped he should do so until the question had ceased to exist.
Mr. David Dundasthought his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Kelly) attributed more to himself than he was entitled to assume. He did not think it possible that any Gentleman could take a retaining fee for the advocacy of a particular view of a case, and then come into that House and declare that he was at liberty to do his duty as a free and independent Member of Parliament. He (Mr. Dundas) had the honour of being a member of the Bar, and he was prepared to say that no member of the Bar, being a Member of Parliament, ought to take a brief to support any cause that was in contravention of the privileges of that House. One to whom the House had a right to look for his distinguished services in support of its privileges ought to have been, on that very account, the last to take up a position which rendered it impossible for him to give his good services as a Member of Parliament to the upholding of those privileges. These were his (Mr. Dundas's) private sentiments, and he knew that they were shared in by many. He rose principally to meet the observation of the hon. and learned Gentleman, who said that he was free to give his best opinion upon this subject, uninfluenced by any circumstance, and to say that in his (Mr. Dundas's) judgment the advice of the hon. and learned Gentleman was neither safe for the House to receive, any more than it was fair for him to give. It was said that by allowing an appearance, and a plead-
1122
ing to the action, the House of Commons had submitted its privileges to the jurisdiction of the Court of Queen's Bench. He denied that. He denied that the House of Commons either intended to submit its privileges to the decision of any court of law, or that it had in point of fact, by adopting the course recommended by wise and prudent persons, done so. It was true that the House of Commons told the Law Officers of the Crown to defend the action, as was formerly done in the case of Burdett v. Abbott; but he denied that either then or now the House of Commons gave up to the Court of Queen's Bench the power of deciding upon its privileges. He was opposed to the Motion of the hon. Member for Montrose. What would be the consequence if it were carried? The Sheriff's officer would levy on the Sergeant-at-Arms. What then would happen? It would be voted to be an attack upon the privileges of the House. He would advise that the House should maintain themselves where they were. Nothing was so bad as to show a bold fight, and then to shrink from it. What would happen? The officer levies: were they to stand by and do nothing? What were they to do then? They must lay the officer by the heels. That, however, would be but an impotent revenge. He was a very unwise and rash adviser who recommended a superior court, like the House of Commons, to seek counsel from an inferior one as to defending its privileges; and more especially was he unfit to be consulted who should represent the present state of affairs as having nothing dangerous in its aspect. The matter before the House was, in fact, merely a choice of evils. He felt that it would be a very severe blow, if even it were suspected that the House of Commons were shy as to defending their own privileges. He thought it would be the safer and better course to follow the council of the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland, and guard themselves from the danger of giving a vote upon the Motion of the hon. Member for Montrose. Under these circumstances, he should vote for the Amendment of the noble Lord, unless the hon. Member for Montrose should (and which he might do without the least discredit to himself) withdraw his Motion.
The Solicitor Generalthought it impossible for the House to escape from the necessity of coming to a determination as

1123
to whether it was proper or not for the House to exercise its authority in respect to the judgment which had been obtained against the Sergeant-at-Arms. He was bound to declare that he coincided in the opinion which his hon. and learned Friend (Sir Thomas Wilde) had pronounced as to the propriety of the judgment of the House, and the validity of the warrant issued by the Speaker. He went the full extent of saying that whether the warrant was to be considered as the act of the Speaker only, or as a warrant emanating from the House, he had not the slightest doubt that the warrant was good. But the question they now had to consider was, whether they were prepared to resist the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench or not? It was impossible for them to blind their eyes to the fact that the public would never go along with them, if they were content merely to rest with the imprisonment of the subordinate ministers of justice. The ultimate question must be this, would they proceed against the Judges of the land or not? Their conduct would appear pusillanimous in the extreme if they did not go to the utmost extremity against all persons who interfered with their privileges. It would be advisable, however, for them just to stop and consider whether they should have the public opinion with them in such a contest; for whatever might be their privileges, they might depend upon this, that those privileges would be utterly feeble unless they were supported by public opinion; and he would defy any one to satisfy the country that in this particular instance the House was in a condition to assert its privileges to the extent contended for by the hon. Member for Montrose. It had happened unfortunately, in the case of Stockdale v. Hansard, that the Lord Chief Justice, betraying the warmth of a generous nature, gave vent to strong expressions against the privileges of the House, for which, in his judgment afterwards, he atoned in the most graceful manner. Before the House took such a step as was contemplated by the hon. Member for Montrose, he was anxious that it should consider whether it would carry the public feeling with it. In 1843, the opinion of the Court, as indeed had been anticipated, was unfavourable; and in the face of it was the House prepared to commit those by its own power who resisted under a judgment to which the House had submitted? It
1124
seemed to him impossible to adopt the course recommended by the hon. Member for Montrose with safety; and the real question therefore was, what was the House under the circumstances to do? Was it to postpone the question, and allow the levy to take place on the goods of the Sergeant, who had only acted under the orders of the House? Was he to be protected from the consequences? It was clear to him that some resolution ought to be passed to protect the Sergeant, although he was decidedly opposed to any attempt by force to prevent the execution of the judgment. The public feeling would not be with the House in any such attempt. He felt the great difficulty in which the House was placed, and he hardly knew what step to recommend; but he trusted that something might be devised which would extricate the House from its present situation
Lord J. Russell: In 1837 the House was advised by the then Attorney General (Sir J. Campbell) to plead to the action brought against Messrs. Hansard. The House did plead, and then came the question, whether the damages should be paid. I advised their payment then, on the ground that we had not interfered in the earlier stages of the proceeding. In a subsequent case the House did not plead. There the question also arose whether the damages should be levied; and the House proceeded against the Sheriffs. With respect to the present action, the House was advised that it should plead to it, and the House agreed to the Motion in 1843—a Motion made by me that Mr. Howard be summoned to the Bar being rejected. And now what is it that the hon. Member for Montrose proposes? It is this, that having omitted all preceding steps, you should now interfere to prevent the levy of the damages. If the House is prepared to take that course, they should have interposed when the parties first instituted the suit. The hon. and learned Solicitor-General had referred to the Resolution of the House which declared the institution of any suit in these cases to be a breach of privilege; and the Resolution further went on to say that any parties who should presume to be concerned in any such suit, should be amenable to the displeasure of the House, and visited with punishment. An hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. F. Kelly), who was himself concerned in the prosecution of the present suit, has this evening expressed his opinion to the House. Now,

1125
I own that I think that that hon. and learned Gentleman did not do his duty as a Member of this House, in being concerned in such suit. But as the House neither interfered with Mr. Howard, his counsel, or attorney, in respect to this suit, I think it too late to begin now with such interference. We have lost the opportunity of doing that, and therefore I could not be a party to the Motion of the hon. Member for Montrose, that the House should now interpose. The other part of the question would be considered on a future day.
Sir R. H. Inglissaid, he rose to take the part of his hon. and learned Friend, who had been attacked by the noble Lord when he was not in a position to defend himself; and he did so the more readily, because in the able speech of the hon. and learned Member for Sutherlandshire—which he, in common with the whole House, had listened to with the greatest pleasure—the same subject was alluded to; and there was no portion of the noble Lord's speech which was so cheered as what the noble Lord said of his hon. and learned Friend. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cambridge had been attacked for taking a brief in the case of Howard and Gosset. He must say that, if the plaintiff were not to have the advantage of the services of a Member of this House, neither ought the defendant to have the benefit of the services of another Member of this House. In either case the impartiality which his noble Friend was so anxious to preserve in the deliberations of this House, would be violated. Each Member would come into the House alike prejudiced on one side or on the other. He was not conscious of any order of the House on the subject. He was aware it had been alleged by a very high authority that there was a rule prohibiting Members from holding a brief on any matter in which the House was concerned, except with the permission of the House; but, if there were such a rule, he was certain it was violated every day. In a case like that of Queen Caroline's, before the House of Lords, it had been required that Members should have leave to appear; but in no instance of a private action, that he was aware of, had permission been required. He was sure that the value of the services of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cambridge would be admitted by every one; and, as he was not in a position to make this statement for himself, he felt bound to make these
1126
few observations. He would not say a word on the general question, as he did not think on that subject he was entitled again to claim the indulgence of the House.
Sir R. Peel: I am perfectly content to vote for the Motion of the noble Lord, that this debate should be adjourned to a future day. There is a difficulty in this case, and in every case connected with privilege, that we are anxious to postpone the evil day, and it is natural that we should; but do not let us suppose that we are escaping from the real difficulty of this case by adjourning the debate. I cannot conceal from myself that if we are disposed to advise resistance to this encroachment on our privileges, the present is the day when we ought to do it. I quite understand the doctrine that by pleading we did not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Court; but I deeply lament, at the outset, that we ever did consent to plead. I was a party to the Resolutions that the privileges of this House should be exempt from question in a court of law—that we had competent power to protect our privileges, and that we should consider any authority that called them in question guilty of a contempt of this House. Eight days after we came to these Resolutions, we consented to plead in the case of "Stockdale v. Hansard," at the instance of the then Attorney General (Sir J. Campbell) who gave us that advice, not from indifference to the maintenance of our privileges—for they never had a more able or efficient advocate—but from a mature consideration of all the difficulties of the case, and on account of the imperfect powers—for we must make the admission—that we possessed for defending them. Such being the case, the then Attorney General gave us the advice to plead, which was at the same time consistent with a determination to do all he could in defence of our privileges. I foresaw that the consenting to plead in that case would greatly fetter our future course. I repeat that I understand the doctrine, that by pleading for the purpose of informing the court that a certain thing was done by our order, does not amount to an admission of the jurisdiction of the court; but it was nevertheless, a step embarrassing to us. Still I draw a distinction between pleading in a court of law, and paying these damages; but acquiescing in the payment of the damages—that is to say, if we chose to

1127
close our eyes, not giving any direct authority to the Sergeant to refuse the payment, contenting ourselves with saying, that we gave no instructions, and that we would not be parties to the payment, depend on it, that that is tantamount to coming to a resolution, that on the whole it is advisable that the Sergeant should pay the damages. I only mean to say—do not let us disguise from ourselves the real state of things, after paying the damages; or, what is the same thing, after acquiescing in their payment on Monday, by adjourning the present debate, it will then be inconsistent for us on Monday to say, with respect to the parties who might levy the damages, that they should be proceeded against by the exercise of the powers of this House for a breach of privilege. If you consider the levying of these damages a breach of privilege, it is your duty to give notice to the parties that they must not proceed to levy, and that if they do proceed they will be committed; but to let this night pass, and to let damages be levied on your Sergeant, would preclude you from exercising the power of committing the parties to whom you have given no notice not to proceed. We cannot pretend to be ignorant of the facts of the case. The Committee has reported that "they do not deem it expedient to advise the House to interpose to prevent the levy." We have adopted the printing of that Report; and cannot plead ignorance, therefore, of the fact. Sir, I acquiesce in the adjournment, not concealing from myself the consequences, but being prepared to admit that any mode of disposing of this question to-night, excepting a distinct notice to the parties to proceed at their peril in the levy of these damages, will hereafter prevent us from exercising the authority of this House by punishing those parties. But, at the same time, I am bound to state, that foreseeing the consequences of the adjournment, I object to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, because I am not prepared to enter on that conflict, to which I apprehend we are not yet come. I know what the consequences of delay will be; and I think the hon. Gentleman has some reason in calling on the House to affirm his Resolution. But I am not going to enter on that conflict; because, looking back on what has passed, and considering the imperfect means I have of vindicating the privileges of this House,
1128
I see it is absolutely necessary that we should make up our minds not to deal with subordinate officers. It will give no satisfaction to commit those subordinate agents of the Court, to deal with the officer that enters a room, and to call up the Sheriff, who is threatened, on the one hand, with attachment by the Court of Queen's Bench, and, on the other hand, by committal by this House; but when it does become absolutely necessary to vindicate your privileges—and I don't say the time will not come—depend on it you must make up your mind to deal with other men. You must either solve the difficulty—as you did before, in the case of the Printed Papers, where, in my opinion, your privileges were invaded — by legislation, or, feeling the essential importance of maintaining those powers and privileges given to you, not for your own benefit, or for mere capricious exercise, but given to you for the protection of the greatest interests of a free people, you must vindicate them by your own inherent powers. You must be prepared to take a course different from that you took when you committed the Sheriffs in 1840. You must not look out for excuses, that after a certain period you may release those you have committed; you must be prepared to go to all extremities in the vindication of your privileges. And in order to do that—in order to do it with effect—you must feel in your mind and conscience, in order that you may be supported in such a course, that the necessity has absolutely arisen—that there is no room for further delay, or resort to other powers—you must not only have that impression, but, on account of the imperfection and insufficiency of your powers, you must be backed by the prevailing and predominant feeling of the people of England — that you have no other alternative for the protection of their interests than resorting to that course. In that course I believe you will succeed; but don't enter on it without the deepest conviction that the time for it has arrived. I do not think that period has arrived; I do not think we have taken the preliminary proceedings which would justify us in resorting to it. I won't now enter into the general question. If I made no concession of jurisdiction to the Court below, in my opinion I make no concession of jurisdiction by going to another tribunal, and saying, "I believe this decision to be

1129
wrong. I believe that what was done was done by order of the House of Commons. I go to the Court in Error as I went to the Court of Queen's Bench; I believe I shall succeed in establishing my right." That is a course which it is open to me to pursue. Although I trust, from the declarations I have made, and the course I have pursued, I have shown no disinclination to vindicate the privileges of this House—no indifference to their maintenance—no depreciation of their importance; yet, foreseeing what the contest will be—seeing I may be opposed by a powerful minority in this House—I will not resort to a last extremity, till I have exhausted every other means—till I feel the necessity has absolutely arisen—till I feel there is no other resource for maintaining privileges which I believe essential to the welfare of the country, and which I will say I believe endangered by this decision of a court of justice. I believe that decision to be an unjust one; but I will not resort to extreme measures, looking to the imperfections of the instruments I have to deal with, and the difficulties with which I have to contend, until I can, with a safe conscience, say to the people of this country, every other means have been used, and there is no alternative but to resort to our own authority for the vindication of our own privileges.
Mr. Bernallamented that the discussion had this night proceeded to such a length; and that the right hon. Baronet had alluded to certain circumstances to which he did not expect him to advert. At the same time, he concurred in opinion with the right hon. Baronet; and while he did not deny the right of the House to interfere, as the hon. Member for Montrose had suggested, he doubted whether the proposal would be supported by a majority. He agreed that subordinate officers ought not to be made responsible to the House, and that, if necessary, proceedings should be taken against the Judges themselves for the vindication of privilege. He maintained that the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench was a mere thing of shreds and patches; that two of the Judges had contradicted themselves repeatedly; and that the result—to use the mildest term—was erroneous. He entreated the hon. Member for Montrose not to place the House in a difficult and disadvantageous position; and regretted that he had been misled by the hon.
1130
Baronet the Member for Oxford, who was no very skilful Palinurus, to recommend a course which he would not have proposed had he given the subject twenty-four hours' deliberate consideration. If the hon. Member persevered with his Motion, and were defeated, he could never again advance the doctrine of privilege with force and effect.
Mr. Hume, in reply, said, hon. Gentlemen who were in favour of an adjournment, admitted the evil, but had not the courage to grapple with it. The hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford said, there was no rule why a Member of that House should not give advice against the House. The rule was this, that no Member of the House should appear before a Committee to argue any question in which he ought to be, or rather might be, the judge. He thought that if their privilege was to be asserted at all, it should be asserted now. The hon. Gentleman (the Solicitor General) pointed out all the evils and difficulties of the question, and then sat down without telling the House what he was prepared to do. They were placed in a lamentable position. The action might have been brought against the Speaker himself, and, in fact, as their head it should have been so. He thought that the principals alone ought to be amenable; and he was still disposed to think that Lord Denman should be called to the bar of the House; and, from what the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) had said, he thought it would come to that in the end. What reason was there, he would again ask, why they should not proceed with the discussion? They were now ancle-deep in the mud; why should they become knee-deep? They had been kicked on Monday, as it were, and buffeted on Tuesday; on Wednesday they said they would submit to be kicked again, and they would then, when the evil was done, be courageous enough to grapple with it on the Thursday. He hoped that a sufficient number would be found to agree with him in rejecting a proposition for further delay. Every hon. Member who had heard the speech of the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) must be convinced that he was as anxious to go on as he (Mr. Hume) was; and the right hon. Baronet had offered no excuse whatever for postponing the discussion to a future day. The delay could effect no good object, for they were now in possession of as much information as they should hereafter obtain.
Mr. Collettsaid, that at the end of the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Solicitor General, that hon. Gentleman stated, that unless the House interfered immediately, the Sergeant-at-Arms would be put to considerable inconvenience on Monday next. Now, he should be glad to be informed in what way the hon. Gentleman wished the House to interpose to protect the Sergeant-at-Arms.
The Solicitor Generalwas not aware that he had proposed that the House should interfere immediately. He said that he thought the House should do something to prevent the inconvenience to which the Sergeant-at-Arms would be subjected; he, however, agreed in the propriety of postponing the discussion.
Mr. Haweshad listened attentively to the speech of the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel) and, admitting as he did, that their privileges would be violated, supposing the parties in question proceeded to levy, he wished to ask the right hon. Baronet whether he would be disposed to support a Resolution, the effect of which would be to give notice to the parties that if they proceeded in levying the execution, they would be violating the privileges of the House?
Sir R. Peelsaid, the hon. Gentleman could not have listened very attentively to his observations, for if he were to adopt the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman, after having served such a notice as he proposed, if the parties proceeded to levy, it would be necessary to take some steps to punish them; and he (Sir R. Peel) had said that he was not prepared to support the committal of the plaintiff, or any other person. He had said that distinctly, and he was surprised that the hon. Gentleman should have put such a question.
The House divided, on the Question that the debate be adjourned to June 9th:—Ayes 96; Noes 50: Majority, 46.

List of the AYES.

Acland, T. D.

Baskerville, T. B. M.

Acton, Col.

Bernal, R.

Adare, Visct.

Bodkin, W. H.

Adderley, C. B.

Bouverie, hon. E. P.

Ainsworth, P.

Bowles, Adm.

Arundel and Surrey, Earl of

Bruce, Lord E.

Bruce, C. L. C.

Baillie, Col.

Buckley, E.

Barkly, H.

Buller, Sir J. Y.

Baring, rt. hn. W. B.

Campbell, J. H.

Barnard, E. G.

Cardwell, E.

1132

Carew, W. H. P.

M'Taggart, Sir J.

Chute, W. L. W.

Mainwaring, T.

Clerk, rt. hon. Sir G.

Martin, C. W.

Cockburn, rt. hn. Sir G.

Masterman, J.

Connolly, Col.

Meynell, Capt.

Corry, rt. hon. H.

Mitchell, T. A.

Crawford, W. S.

Mundy, E. M.

Cripps, W.

Murphy, F. S.

Darby, G.

Nicholl, rt. hon. J.

Dickinson, F. H.

O'Ferrall, R. M.

Drummond, H. H.

Patten, J. W.

Dundas, D.

Peel, rt. hon. Sir R.

Entwisle, W.

Peel, J.

Fitzroy, hon. H.

Polhill, F.

Flower, Sir J.

Pringle, A.

Fremantle, rt. hn. Sir T.

Pulsford, R.

Gaskell, J. Milnes

Pusey, P.

Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E.

Russell, Lord J.

Godson, R.

Scott, hon. F.

Graham, rt. hn. Sir J.

Seymour, Lord

Greenall, P.

Shaw, rt. hon. F.

Greene, T.

Sheil, rt. hon. R. L.

Grimsditch, T.

Smith, A.

Grogan, E.

Smith, rt. hn. T. B. C.

Hamilton, J. H.

Smollett, A.

Hampden, R.

Somerset, Lord G.

Hanmer, Sir J.

Spooner, R.

Hatton, Capt. V.

Stanton, W. H.

Herbert, rt. hon. S.

Stuart, W. V.

Hope, hon. C.

Sutton, hon. H. M.

Irving, J.

Thesiger, Sir F.

Jermyn, Earl

Vivian, J. E.

Kemble, H.

Wilde, Sir T.

Labouchere, rt. hn. H.

Wood, Col. T.

Langston, J. H.

Wynn, rt. hon. C. W. W.

Loch, J.

Young, J.

Lockhart, W.

TELLERS.

Mackenzie, W. F.

Grey, Sir G.

M'Neill, D.

Howick, Visct.

List of the NOES.

Aglionby, H. A.

Mahon, Visct.

Baillie, H. J.

Manners, Lord J.

Baine, W.

Marshall, W.

Baldwin, B.

Martin, J.

Blake, M. J.

Martin, T. B.

Bowring, Dr.

Mitcalfe, H.

Brotherton, J.

Napier, Sir C.

Browne, hon. W.

Norreys, Sir D. J.

Christie, W. D.

O'Brien, A. S.

Clements, Visct.

O'Brien, J.

Clive, Visct.

O'Connell, M. J.

Collett, J.

O'Conor Don,

Dennistoun, J.

Osborne, R.

Disraeli, B.

Pakington, J. S.

Duncan, G.

Plumridge, Capt.

Gibson, T. M.

Protheroe, E.

Granger, T. C.

Ross, D. R.

Hawes, B.

Rumbold, C. E.

Hope, A.

Stansfield, W. R. C.

Horsman, E.

Strutt, E.

Inglis, Sir R. H.

Tancred, H. W.

James, W.

Trelawny, J. S.

James, Sir W. C.

Warburton, H.

Law, hon. C. E.

Watson, W. H.

1133

Wawn, J. T.

TELLERS.

Williams, W.

Hume, W.

Roebuck, J. A.

Debate adjourned accordingly.

ACADEMICAL INSTITUTIONS (IRELAND).
On the Order of the Day for the Second Reading of the Academical Institutions (Ireland), Bill being read,
Lord J. Russellsaid, he wished to ask whether the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Graham) proposed to introduce any material alterations into this Bill in Committee, and whether the memorial presented by the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland had received the consideration of the Government; whether, in consequence of that memorial, they contemplated any alterations or whether that memorial was under the consideration of Government, with a view to the adoption of any of the recommendations it contained?
Sir J. Grahamsaid, if it had been the intention of the Government to propose any material alterations in this Bill, it would have been his duty, in moving the second reading, to explain such alterations in detail. It was, however, his intention to move the second reading, without announcing any such alterations. At the same time the noble Lord and the House were aware that, when the principle of the Bill had been affirmed upon the second reading, it would be open to any hon. Gentleman in Committee to propose such alterations as were not inconsistent with the principle of the measure. The noble Lord had referred to a memorial presented by the archbishops and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland to the Lord Lieutenant. He (Sir J. Graham) was bound to state that the adoption of the most material of the alterations, suggested in that memorial, appeared to his Colleagues and to himself to be inconsistent with the principle of the Bill.
Lord J. Mannerssaid, this Bill involved what he regarded as a new principle. Considering the late period of the evening at which they had now arrived, it was impossible that this debate could be brought to a conclusion to-night, and he earnestly hoped the right hon. Baronet would have the goodness to postpone the Bill until next week.
Sir R. Peelsaid, if they proceeded with the debate now, there was no disposition on the part of the Government to force the House to a decision on the question to-
1134
night. It was now only a quarter-past nine o'clock, and the state of public business, and the fact that great inconvenience was occasioned to important public interests in consequence of the delay of certain measures, rendered it desirable that they should now proceed with this measure.
Sir R. Inglissuggested that the Poor Law Amendment (Scotland) Bill, the second reading of which was fixed for that night, might be taken instead of the Bill then before the House.
Sir J. Grahamsaid, it was usual to proceed with the Notice which stood first on the Paper for precedence; and several hon. Members connected with Scotland had left the House under the impression that the Scotch Poor Law Bill would not be brought under consideration to-night.
Mr. Sheilsaid, the right hon. Baronet had directly answered the question put to him by the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell), and had stated that it was not his intention to make any material alterations in this Bill. He wished to put a question to the right hon. Baronet; but if any inconvenience or any prejudice to the measure could arise from his peremptorily answering that question, he would not press it. He wished to ask whether the right hon. Home Secretary objected to religious instruction being given in these Colleges through the intervention of clergymen of the Roman Catholic Church, to Roman Catholic students? and whether such clergymen should be paid by the State from the endowment, or by a tax or charge to be levied upon each Roman Catholic student who might enter the Colleges? He considered this a very material point. The right hon. Home Secretary had already stated that the lecture rooms would be allocated to the use of any Roman Catholic clergymen who might wish to instruct the students. Not only was it proposed to give the Roman Catholic clergy the opportunity, the right, of instructing Roman Catholic students, but a locality was allotted to them for the purpose. It had been suggested that a salary should be paid to these clergymen. Now, a salary could be paid in two ways—either out of the endowment, which made it an act of the State, or by the students, upon whom certain small sums might be levied for the provision of religious instruction. In the

1135
latter case the tax would be paid by the individual students, and not out of the endowment. He wished to know whether the right hon. Baronet considered it an essential principle of the Bill that no payment should be made to the Roman Catholics.
Sir R. Peelthought hon. Members ought not to call upon his right hon. Friend and himself to make statements. It was competent to the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sheil) to raise the question he had just mooted in Committee; but he thought it would be premature on the part of Government to give explanations on points relating, as he considered, not to the principle but to the details of the Bill. He hoped the right hon. and learned Gentleman would not press his question now, but that he would reserve it until the Bill went into Committee.
Mr. Sheil: I do not press it.
Mr. B. Osborneunderstood that the principle of the Bill was not to be materially altered. The Roman Catholic bishops had called upon the Government to endow the chairs of Physic, Materia Medica, and Anatomy, in the new Colleges, and to assign them to Roman Catholic professors. As a liberal Protestant, residing in Ireland, he must say that he considered this a most monstrous proposition—he could not apply any other term to it; and he thought the Government deserved great honour for the course they had taken with regard to such a proposal. The declaration of the right hon. Baronet could not be mistaken; the right hon. Baronet had stated that he meant to stand by the principle of the Bill. Although he objected to that portion of the Bill which vested the nomination of professors in the Crown, he should not be doing his duty if he failed to give his most cordial support to the Government in the principle they had laid down; and while they had been upsetting a Protestant supremacy in Ireland, he hoped they would not establish a Roman Catholic supremacy.
Mr. Aclandcould not understand what the Government considered to be the principle of this Bill.
Sir J. Grahamsaid, he had endeavoured to explain the principle of this Bill to the House when he moved its introduction; but he feared he had failed to render himself intelligible. He had stated that it was the earnest desire of
1136
the Government to afford the people in various important districts of Ireland the benefit of academical education; and that, considering the unhappy religious divisions prevalent in that country, it was felt by the Government that it would be impossible to admit all classes of Her Majesty's subjects to the benefit of such education, if they attempted to engraft upon it, by the endowment of the State, any theological instruction. He stated that the Government, therefore, intended to abstain from all interference with religious teaching in these institutions; but that, at the same time, facilities would be afforded for religious instruction by private endowment. These were the statements he (Sir J. Graham) before made to the House, and fully explained; and he believed that, on an examination of the details of the Bill, it would be found that these principles were fully carried out.
Sir R. H. Inglisobserved, that the principle of the Bill was not the denial or encouragement of any specific theological notion; but the absence of all religious instruction whatsoever, at least as far as that House was concerned. A systematic absence of all religious instruction, then, was the avowed principle of the measure.
Mr. E. B. Rochewished to know whether the right hon. Baronet intended to adhere to that portion of the Bill which vested the appointment of professors in the Crown?
Sir J. Grahamdid intend to adhere to that principle. Considering all the circumstances of Ireland, and especially those unhappy religious divisions to which he had before referred, he thought it most important that the right of nominating the professors should be reserved to the responsible advisers of the Crown.
Lord Clivehoped the Government would not press the second reading of the Bill at this hour. It was, however, for the right hon. Baronet the First Lord of the Treasury to decide that question. He had no wish to delay the progress of the Bill; but he thought it was questionable whether, if other business were taken to-night, time would not really be saved in the end.
Sir R. Peelbelieved, that the noble Lord the Member for Newark (Lord J. Manners) was not actuated, in pressing the adjournment of this debate, by any other motives than those he had avowed; but really hours were becoming of great

1137
importance. If they now proceeded with the discussion of this Bill, they would be enabled to continue the debate for three hours, and would make considerable progress with the measure.
Mr. Rochewished to state that, if it were the intention of the Government to reserve the appointment of professors to the Crown, he would feel it his duty to give the Bill all the opposition in his power.
The Order of the Day read; and, on the question that the Bill be read a second time,
Lord J. Mannerssaid: I assure the House that I never rose with more reluctance than on the present occasion to move the rejection of this Bill. So great was my reluctance to adopt such a course, that till this morning I hesitated to take any step on the subject, in the hope that before this measure arrived at its present stage Her Majesty's Ministers would have made some declaration which might enable me, and other hon. Gentlemen, to give as hearty support to this measure as we gave to the proposal for an increased and permanent grant to Maynooth. But in the absence of any declaration on the part of the Government, and after the intimation of the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Graham) that no such alteration as we desire can be admitted, I am induced, however reluctantly, at whatever pain to myself, and with whatever weariness to the House, to meet this measure with a sincere, though reluctant, opposition. I cannot call a system such as this a measure of education for Ireland. In my view, education is something very different from the instruction provided by the enactments of this Bill. I never could consent to call a Bill such as this, which contains such a proviso as that I will now read to the House, a measure for promoting learning in any country:—
"Provided always, that no student shall be compelled by any rule of the College to attend any theological lecture or other religious instruction, and that no religious test shall be administered to any person in order to entitle him to be admitted a student of any such College, or to hold any office therein, or to partake of any advantage or privilege thereof."
I know not what may be the feelings of hon. Gentlemen on this or that side of the House; but I must say for myself that I conceive I should violate my duty as a Member of this House, and as one most deeply anxious to benefit the people of Ire-
1138
land, if I could consent to such a proviso as that. When I heard the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Graham) say that he would not abandon the principle of the Bill—the principle, as I was led to conclude, contained in that proviso—I felt that the only course open to me was to move the rejection of the measure. I know that in this country, as in others, it is fashionable to appeal to the foreign system of education; and we are told to look at the happy results of that system in Prussia, in France, and in Bavaria. But I altogether deny the assertion. I say that, of all the fatal and mischievous measures ever proposed in any country, those measures of education which have so unhappily failed in France and Prussia, must be acknowledged to hold a bad pre-eminence. I think I shall be borne out by any one who has paid the slightest attention to the condition of France—to the volcano on which the Government of that country is standing at this moment with reference to education—when I say that I cannot conceive how the example of France can be quoted to us as a proof of the success of such a system. When I see no less than fifty of the bishops of the Gallican Church, not appointed by the Pope but by the King, protest in the most emphatic terms against that plan of education, and heading their clergy and faithful laymen in opposition to a system which threatens, at no distant day, to rend that Government to pieces, I cannot understand how we can sanction a measure which will, I believe, produce—not similar, but far worse and more deplorable results in Ireland. I have heard, and have seen it written in books sanctioned by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that one effect we should endeavour to attain by enlightened and liberal Government in these days, is to win over and to alienate the Roman Catholic population from that Church with which they are connected. I have seen it stated in a work by an officer high in the confidence of the late Government, who was rewarded for his services by an order—of all orders in the world to give to such a man—of Isabella the Catholic, that the people of the Basque Provinces were daily being seduced from their allegiance to the Church of Rome. [An hon. Member: Who was it?] Lieutenant Colonel Richardson. But this is not the view I take. I think the Government would make a very bad exchange of a faithful and believing people for those who pos-

1139
sessed a mere mass of secular learning. I am far from underrating the value of that learning; but I say this, that without a basis of religion, such learning is worse than useless; and I venture to suggest that, as a necessary preliminary to such a system of secular learning as that now proposed, a basis of religious education should be given. I know that it is said, "Look at the difficulties of Ireland; see how unfortunate religious differences divide us upon this subject, and compel us to take a course we should otherwise willingly avoid." I may be told, "Before you reject a measure which may do some good, you are at least bound to show that you have a measure of your own better and more practical." I am not indisposed to state, very humbly, and in no detail, a measure which I believe would be superior to that now before the House; but, before I do so, I must be allowed to say, that however any measure which might be proposed to be substituted for this might fail in some of its details and objects, I can conceive no measure so bad and inefficient as that now under our consideration. I should like to know what probability there is of this measure being practically acted upon in Ireland. I have heard Gentlemen say, "If this Bill were proposed for England, we should be the first to oppose and defeat it; but, looking at the state of things in Ireland, we are disposed to make every allowance for a measure of this kind; and if it will content the Irish Roman Catholics, and their hierarchy, great as our scruples on the subject may be, we are ready to support the Bill." But how can such an argument be used? This measure will not secure the support and confidence of the great body of the Irish Roman Catholic population; that it will obtain the support of the Members of the Irish Protestant Church, is to my mind, a most unnatural supposition. I cannot suppose that those who have opposed, and those who still do oppose, what is called the national system of education in Ireland, can suddenly turn round and support such a measure as this—a measure denounced in such strong terms by my hon. Friend below me (Sir R. Inglis), and by Gentlemen who profess the Roman Catholic religion with as much zeal and sincerity as my hon. Friend professes the religion of the Established Church. But be that as it may, I am convinced I am not wrong in asserting that this measure is not supported by the feelings and opin-
1140
ions of the Church of England. One of my reasons for respectfully submitting to the Government the propriety of postponing the discussion of this measure is, that the feelings of the people of England and of the English Church have been so much excited on the question of Maynooth, that this Bill, which in my opinion is of far greater importance, and introduces a far broader principle, has not received the consideration it would otherwise have obtained; and I think it is wrong that any step should be taken in a matter of such importance, without giving ample time and opportunity for an expression of opinion, at least, on the part of that Church which has not shown itself so violently opposed to the general policy of the Government. These are some of the reasons which induce me to take the course I have now felt it my duty to adopt. I trust I have not wearied the House by any lengthened observations. I have endeavoured to express my feelings on the subject in as calm a manner as I possibly could do. I assure Her Majesty's Ministers that, could I feel it consistent with my duty to support this measure, I would most heartily and cordially do so. I desire, in common with them, I will not say to conciliate, but to do justice to the people of Ireland; but I cannot help feeling that the terms in which the great leader of the Irish people has expressed his and their opinion of this measure, are such as I heartily concur in—terms in which, I believe, the people of England will also concur, and terms in which, I believe, the Church of England itself will generally be disposed to concur. Those observations the House will, perhaps, allow me read:—
"I want that education should be free. To obtain for the Protestant of the Establishment education for his children such as shall have the father's sanction and the mother's blessing. In like manner would I concede to the Presbyterians a distinct and separate education for Presbyterian youth, and join them in calling upon the Government for a guarantee that the children should be educated in the religious profession of their fathers. That being my principle, here I am ready to work it out—to work for the Protestant, the Presbyterian, and all classes of dissenters. I contend that every persuasion should have a distinct and separate system of religious instruction. Religious education must be in its nature exclusive. It is exclusive to all who hold a contrary belief in religion. There can be no mixed education in religion—whatever 'mixed' education means. The mixed education under this Bill does not mean much,

1141
there are no ingredients to mix up in it—nothing that can be called a mixture—it is an unmixed evil."
In evidence given before a Committee of this House, in the year 1825, Mr. O'Connell stated, that he favoured the plan of having a Protestant College in Dublin, for the use of members of the Church of England, a Presbyterian College in the north, and a Catholic College in the south. That appeared to him to be perfectly reasonable, and so the hon. and learned Gentleman stated in his evidence. He said that that scheme would allay all differences of feeling, and make due allowance for all differences of creed. But for all this, I do hope that the Bill may not be allowed to pass into a law. As long as the Government says we will provide secular instruction for you, and leave you to obtain your religious instruction, discipline, and habits wherever you can, so long will I oppose such measures as this. I say, that under such circumstances secular instruction is worse than useless. By such a system you inflict a dangerous wound on Ireland; instead of being a boon it will prove a curse; in every point of view it is to be deplored. If you succeed, future statesmen may tremble for the consequences, and succeeding generations must deplore your triumph. You may give the people of Ireland secular instruction; but in doing so you deprive them of old habits of faith and veneration, you dash and destroy all the good effects that might be expected to arise from the grant to Maynooth, and you create for future Governments the most fatal of all temptations, namely—interfering with that upon which the salvation of immortal souls depends. The noble Lord moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
Mr. Rosssaid, the noble Lord who had last addressed the House had assumed what he had no right to assume—that persons educated in these academies would be altogether destitute of religious education. He believed, on the contrary, that the practice which had continued up to the present moment in Ireland, of diligently catechising young persons of all religious persuasions at stated occasions, would still prevail. In the part of Ireland with which he was best acquainted, he knew that, on every Sunday, the youths of the Catholics, and the Presbyterians, and the Dissenters, and of the Church of England, regularly attended at their respective places of worship; and he was convinced,
1142
that under the Government system the same care of the religious principles of the students would be persevered in, and that all of them would, without exception, maintain the religion of their fathers. The noble Lord believed that, in two or three generations at the utmost, they would have infidelity prevailing in the country; but he entirely denied the soundness of that supposition. They had instances in the proprietary schools of this country of children being educated on the proposed plan, and being afterwards sent out, in many instances, a credit and an ornament to society. They had also the example of the national system of education in Ireland, under which 400,000 young persons were given a sound religious and moral education. The noble Lord would find scarcely one of these children who would not be able to enter into controversy with him, and state what they believed to be sufficient reasons for the faith which they professed. As to the question of the appointment of the professors being left in the hands of Government, he admitted that there were many good and solid arguments against it; but he felt that the countervailing evils would be as great if these appointments were left to popular elections. In the town with which he was connected (Belfast), he knew that a popular election for professors would be attended with squabbles which would hardly be paralleled by the Parliamentary elections in 1841. But he did not see hereafter, when a good foundation would be laid for the Colleges, that an alteration in the selection of the professors might not be very properly made in favour of popular election; though he believed that at present such a system would cause great inconvenience and embarrassment. He had not come down to the House with an intention of speaking on the question; and if he had intended addressing the House on the subject of the Bill, he would have come prepared with the authority of the Rev. Baptist Noel in favour of secular education without being joined with religious instruction.
Lord Adaresaid, it was not his intention to trouble the House long, as the sentiments expressed with respect to this measure by the noble Lord, corresponded with those which he entertained. He regretted very much to be obliged conscientiously to oppose this Bill in its present state. He opposed it because it did not

1143
give the sanction which should be given to religion. He regretted that more attention had not been paid to the protest of the Roman Catholic bishops. He could not feel that the scheme would be beneficial to Ireland. The plan of founding a Roman Catholic College in the south of Ireland was the only one that would be acceptable to the Irish people. He had voted for the Maynooth grant, but he did not therefore think it inconsistent to oppose the present measure. He voted for the Maynooth Bill because he thought it the duty of the State to provide for the Roman Catholic clergy; but this Bill made no provision for religious instruction. It not only omitted that, but it neglected to provide for the proper training and discipline of the young men who were to come to the Colleges from the country. He could not see why the Government should not provide houses where moral restraint would exist over the students. Under all the circumstances, he could not allow this Bill to proceed without entering his humble protest against it.
Viscount Sandoncould not conceive that the principle of this Bill was one which made it fair to call it a "gigantic scheme of godless education." He conceived that it was framed upon the principle, not of its being generally expedient to set religious instruction aside, but of its being, in the peculiar circumstances of Ireland, extremely inconvenient to apply that instruction to the people through an educational establishment endowed by the State. In former times, when conformity to the religion of the State was the rule, and the departure from it the exception, Colleges were founded on principles of domiciliary and parental instruction, embracing both secular science and religious truth. But in the present very different state of opinion, the adoption of the same principle was clearly impossible. This position the Bill now before them seemed to him, by its provisions, to admit and adopt. It was a measure, he believed, on the right road in regard to the peculiar circumstances of Ireland; and the very fact of his not agreeing with all its provisions, made him the more anxious to see it pass through its second reading, and come before them in a stage when they could introduce into it those improvements which might seem advisable. The demands of the Roman Catholic bishops were such, however, as he was disposed
1144
to think it would be impossible to accede to, without totally giving up the great principle of the measure—that of providing a mixed education. He wished to see both the great religious parties of Ireland come forward, and each contribute what each conscientiously could to the common and the great cause of the moral and literary education of the people.
Sir J. Grahamsaid: I rise with unfeigned pleasure after the speech which has just been made by my noble Friend the Member for Liverpool; for that speech has contributed to relieve me of much pain. It was very painful to me to have it supposed that any proposition of mine should be made to the House under the influence of such motives as upon former occasions, and in other places, have been imputed to me. Although the censure, to which I allude, is in some degree a personal question, yet, I feel that the House of Commons is not the place in which I am willing to make professions upon religious subjects; but I trust that the House will give me the fullest credit when I assure them that no consideration whatever would have induced me to propose any measure to Parliament which could be considered farly open to such condemnation as has beien pronounced upon the Bill now before the House. I am rejoiced to find it admitted, that in the Bill which I introduced I have not neglected to make provision for religious education. But at the same time I still hold, as I always have held, that there would be not the least probability of success for any measure by which it was proposed that the State should make provision for theological instruction. The opinions of more than one hon. Member have been pronounced in favour of a separate system of religious education; and I understood the noble Lord the Member for Newark to contend that there should be a Roman Catholic College in the south, one for Presbyterians in the north, and one for members of the Church of England in Dublin. Instead of removing the angry feelings which unhappily subsist in Ireland, I fear that his scheme of separate instruction, according to difference of creed, would tend to exasperate those feelings to excess; none more certain to produce that effect, none more likely to aggravate existing evils to a lamentable extent. In reference to the passage at the end of the 14th Clause, I must take this opportunity of saying that I consider there would be great difficulty in providing any joint religious

1145
education that would be generally acceptable to the people of Ireland. In the first place, it is absolutely necessary in framing such a measure to make it clear and plain to every man's understanding, that for eligibility to hold office there shall be no religious test, and no religious test to be applied to those persons who seek to become students at those Colleges; in short, that no religious test whatever is to be applied either to students or to professors. We thought, and we are still of opinion, that the more plainly and the more intelligibly those principles are brought out, the more acceptable and the more practically useful will the measure be likely to prove. Is there, then, after all, any novelty in the plan on which we propose to proceed? I will first notice the Universities of Scotland, and show to the House what the practice has been with regard to the enforcement of religious instruction in connexion with education in those establishments. There is no country where religion is more venerated, or where it has greater predominance over the habits and the thoughts of the people, than in Scotland. In that country the prevailing form of faith was established after a long struggle with England against a religion which was opposed to the sentiments of the people; but ultimately, the Presbyterian form of worship prevailed, and was established by the Union—if, indeed, it might not rather be considered as the basis upon which the Act of Union was framed. Now, deeply venerated as is the form of worship established throughout Scotland, and intimately bound up with all the feelings of Scotchmen as are the practices of religion, yet, in so far as the course of education in the Universities of Scotland is concerned, religion is not enforced upon the students as a study; and although professors are certainly subjected to a test to qualify them for their offices, there is no conformity required on the part of the students, neither is their attendance enforced either at divinity or theological lectures; nor, with the exception of the professors, is any test required of those who matriculate in the Scotch Universities. In answer, therefore, to what has been stated by the noble Lord the Member for Newark, I have shown that the system for which he contends does not prevail in Scotland; but, on the contrary, that parents send their children to be instructed at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, notwithstanding they are well aware that attendance on theological or divinity
1146
lectures is not compulsory; and that, in fact, the regulations of those Universities do not recognize any discipline in religious instruction, nor enforce any compulsory attendance either at divinity lectures or even at divine worship. When I look to the opposite side of the House, I see sitting there two noble Lords, both of whom can speak to the practice in this respect of the Scotch Universities, and also as to the sentiments of the parents who send their children to be educated there; and what is that practice? Why, young men are sent from their homes to the houses of professors, who superintend their morals and their education; and the result is satisfactory in both respects. The noble Lord the Member for Tiverton said, during a former debate in this House, that he had had some experience of a Scotch University, previous to his matriculation in an English one; and he stated, that in his opinion, the morals and religion of the pupils are not more neglected in the Scotch, than in the English Universities. With respect to myself, I may, perhaps, be permitted to state that I had the advantage of being a member of the same College as the hon. Baronet the Member for Oxford. We both matriculated at Christ Church; and I must candidly admit that the course with respect to religious education pursued at Oxford does appear to me to be somewhat extraordinary when I look back upon it. When I was matriculated, I was not compelled to state what I knew in matters of religion; but I was called upon to subscribe and to swear to what I believed. But I now solemnly state that during the two years of my residence at College, I was never—with the exception of the required attendance at chapel—once called upon to attend to any lectures either upon theology or divinity. During the whole of that time, I never received any religious instruction whatever independently and apart from that which I derived from the enforced attendance upon chapel. I never, during those two years, attended a university sermon; and I am ashamed to say, that whilst I was at Oxford, I never, during the whole period of my residence, heard one single sermon. I appeal to the hon. Baronet whether he were ever compelled to attend divinity lectures whilst he was at Oxford. I do not know what his taste may have been; but I know that unless he liked he was under no necessity to listen to sermons. I now pass from the consideration of this question, as far as Scot-

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land and England are concerned, to an examination of what the practice has been in Ireland. In the first place, I may observe that the hon. Member for Belfast approves of the Bill which is before the House, and with reason; for he has had some experience as to the success of the scheme of academical education which I have proposed, and which, to some extent, has been in operation in the city with which he is connected, under the direct sanction of an Act of Parliament, for a very long period. There have been objections raised to that part of the Bill which vests in the Crown the nomination of the professors in the establishments to be created in Ireland. Now, the experience of the hon. Member will enable him to inform the House that the nomination of the professors by the local governing body is the very one that has been pursued in the academical institution of Belfast. The nomination of the professors in that institution was originally vested in the governing body; they naturally enough followed the dictates of their own religious feelings, and nominated professors of their own creed. Unitarians obtained the ascendancy; and it was alleged that the professors were all selected from that class of religious teachers. The Presbyterians complained, and appealed to this House. Upon consideration, it was decided that the Regium Donum was not confined to orthodox professors; but that Presbyterians and Unitarians were alike entitled to partake of it. The Presbyterians objected to that state of things at the Belfast Institution; and, therefore, in order to prevent that academy from going to destruction, it became necessary to appoint two sets of professors—one Presbyterian, to obviate the want of orthodoxy—and the other Unitarian, in conformity with the local predominant influence. A petition has been presented against the educational scheme of the Government, with respect to these projected establishments, wherein it is stated that one of two things must inevitably take place, if religious instruction is to constitute one of the features of the scheme—namely, that the professors must of necessity be Roman Catholics, or else that there must be three sets of professors, of the three prevailing forms of belief; and, consequently, that all the branches of abstract science, even down to anatomy, must be taught by different professors to students professing different creeds. In making these observations, I do not mean to imply that the question as
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to the proposed method of nominating the professors under the Bill, is not open to consideration; but I have been asked this question, and I frankly replied that, considering all the different circumstances of the case, I thought it best that at least the first nominations under the Bill should be vested in the Crown. I do not mean to say, that after the first nomination has been made, a governing body might not advantageously have that power confided to it, a veto being reserved to the Crown. Nor do I say that the Bill may not be open to such an amendment hereafter; but I should deceive the House if I were now to say that we are disposed to make any such proposition, or to assent to its introduction. Now, I do not think it would be giving the proposed scheme of education fair play, if we did not take into consideration the extreme, and at the same time the just jealousy which is entertained upon religious grounds, and make a suitable provision to prevent all attempts to proselytize. I believe, with the noble Lord the Member for Newark, that no greater evil can happen to youth than to fall into habits of scepticism; and I also think that these fatal habits may be generated, or at least are much more likely to be grafted on the minds of our young men by the indiscreet attempts to which I refer, than if there were a total abstinence from any attempt to tamper with the articles of their creed. I have, therefore, thought it right to adopt some precautions against any attempts that may be made hereafter to turn lectures on abstract sciences into a vehicle for conveying peculiar religious tenets. I propose to give to the Crown the summary power of removing professors who so abuse their trust; and any such misconduct will be promptly and severely visited I have already stated that I do not contemplate any alteration in the Bill which will have the effect of varying its principle; but I have thought it due to the noble Lord the Member for Newark to make the observation which I have done; at the same time I may state that there are one or two alterations which I shall introduce into the Bill during its progress through the Committee. The first of these is with respect to the visitatorial power of the Crown. By its prerogative, the Crown cannot delegate that power to any other person but the Keeper of the Great Seal for the time being, unless such power be created by Statute. Considering the circumstances in which the new Colleges will be placed, I

1149
think it will be expedient to give such a power of delegation; and that the Executive Government should possess the right of appointing visitors, so that in districts where the Roman Catholic faith predominates, the proportion of visitors of that persuasion may be equal to that of the students at the Colleges. In the north of Ireland, the visitors would be principally selected from the Presbyterians. The Crown, by the aid of such visitors, would be enabled at once to inquire into any alleged abuse that might exist in the Colleges, and provide a remedy against it. I may also state, that although it is not the intention of the Government to endow any theological or divinity lectures, I am, at the same time, of opinion that it is very desirable there should be in connexion with these Colleges some means or some institution for providing, without the walls, religious instruction for the students. I have already stated my reasons for not making such provisions within the Colleges; and I therefore, may state, that I am not indisposed to add a clause to the Bill, when in Committee, for the purpose of facilitating the endowment of divinity lectures by private funds, and the construction of halls where such lectures may be delivered. I am bound to state, that although it is the earnest desire of Her Majesty's Government to meet the reasonable wishes of the great body of the Roman Catholic population of Ireland with regard to academical institutions in that country; and although those Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops from whom we have received a memorial, are, by their talents and their station, entitled to our respect, yet that memorial does contain certain demands to which we cannot, consistently with the principle of the Bill, give our consent. The first demand is—
"That a fair proportion of the professors and other office-bearers in the new Colleges should be members of the Roman Catholic Church."
Now, without entering into any stipulation upon the subject, I cannot conceive it possible that any Government advising Her Majesty as to the nomination of professors, would not, in the first place, endeavour to secure in the different Colleges those who, by their learning and abilities, are the most competent; and, beyond a doubt, on the part of many of the professors, an adherence to the Roman Catholic faith would be an additional recommendation — one, too, which I have as little doubt would not be
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overlooked in the exercise of the prerogative of the Crown, acting under responsible advisers. Then comes the demand—
"That all the office-bearers in these Colleges should be appointed by a board of trustees, of which the Roman Catholic prelates of the province in which any of those Colleges shall be erected shall be members."
I have already said that to a governing board, as contradistinguished from the central and Executive Government, there is an insuperable objection. To that demand, therefore, we cannot consent. Then comes the proposal for appointing Roman Catholic professors to certain classes. The memorial states—
"That the Roman Catholic pupils could not attend the lectures on history, logic, metaphysics, moral philosophy, geology, or anatomy, without exposing their faith or morals to imminent danger, unless a Roman Catholic professor shall be appointed for each of those chairs."
Upon the subject of history I can conceive some difficulty, as it touches upon the confines of religious instruction: at the same time, of the two courses, I would rather exclude the chair of history altogether, than come under the stipulation to fill it with professors of one religious persuasion in preference to another. In the case of metaphysics and moral philosophy, I can see no possible reason or necessity for requiring professors of any particular creed, in order to render them competent teachers in those branches of instruction; and as for the other three branches, logic, geology, and anatomy, it is entirely out of the question to stipulate that they shall be Roman Catholics. Then follows the proposal—
"That if any president, vice-president, professor, or office-bearer in any of the new Colleges, shall be convicted before the Board of Trustees of attempting to undermine the faith or injure the morals of any student in those institutions, he shall be immediately removed from his office by the same Board."
I attach the utmost importance to the necessity of adopting ample precautions against any such attempt; and I believe the most efficient you can adopt is the vesting of a summary power of removal in the Government—that Government possessing visitatorial powers, to be entrusted to certain visitors, who shall be of different religious persuasions. The next demand is—
"That as it is not contemplated that the students shall be provided with lodging in the

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new Colleges, there shall be a Roman Catholic chaplain to superintend the moral and religious instruction of the Roman Catholic students belonging to each of those Colleges; that the appointment of each chaplain with a suitable salary shall be made on the recommendation of the Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese in which the College is situate; and that the same prelate shall have full power and authority to remove such Roman Catholic chaplain from his situation."
I have already said that any such appointment by endowment from the State, or the existence of any authority which shall have such a control and command over the conduct of the pupils as to render their attendance within the walls of the College upon any particular lectures or any form of divine worship compulsory, we consider to be wholly inadmissible. At the same time, I do think, for the purpose of securing discipline, superintendence, control, and training in morals and in religion, it may be desirable to let into the College under private endowments professors or teachers for the purposes of lecturing in ethics and divinity. When we go into Committee I should not be unwilling to add words to the Bill affording a facility of that nature. I have now endeavoured succinctly, but plainly and openly, to answer the leading objections that have been stated to the measure. I am of opinion that it is of the last importance to consider how education has advanced amongst the lower classes of the people in Ireland. You have now under the national scheme, according to the best authority, and apart from all other modes of education, between 400,000 and 500,000 of the lowest classes in Ireland receiving education. You have Trinity College extending the benefits of education to the highest classes, including the Catholics, for in that respect it is not exclusive; but you want the connecting link—a link which I consider to be absolutely necessary with a view to the welfare, and I might almost say the safety of the country. In my opinion these Colleges will supply it. I have already said that I believe the time is not distant when these new Colleges might be united to a university. I do not recede from that opinion; but I think that the period for deciding that question will be after those Colleges have been founded, and when, having been for a short time in operation, they shall contain students ready to seek for honours in a university to be provided by the State. I am satisfied that the present social condition of the people in
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Ireland, particularly with reference to the education which the humbler classes are receiving under the national scheme, demands the present measure. If I wanted to establish the injustice of the designation with which the hon. Member for the University of Oxford has branded the scheme proposed under this Bill, I might appeal to the testimony of the hon. Member for Belfast, in which I quite agree; for I sincerely believe that the national acheme of education, so far from being an irreligious scheme of education, affords the best evidence I can adduce in favour of the Bill. I am assured, on the authority of some of the heads of the Established Church in Ireland, that if you take the children, Roman Catholic and Protestant, educated in the National Schools, in any part of Ireland, and compare their knowledge of the Scriptures, and of their moral duty, with that of the children educated in the National Schools in this country, where religious instruction is strictly attended to by the pastors of the Established Church, they will not suffer by the contrast or comparison. I am satisfied, therefore, that the spread of the great truths of religion by these National Schools throughout Ireland is the noblest effort of Christianity and kind feeling towards the great body of our fellow subjects in that country, and the most successful that has ever yet been made in their behalf. This Collegiate measure is avowedly an extension, and nothing more than an extension, of the present scheme of national education from the children of the humblest to the children of the middle and upper classes. [Mr. Colquhoun: Hear, hear.] I see that the hon. Member for Newcastle dissents from that proposition. In the original measure, introduced by Lord Stanley, when Secretary for Ireland, and when he and I were Colleagues of the noble Lord opposite under the Government of Lord Grey, it was proposed that some provisions should be made for the attendance of the children on Sunday at divine service at their respective places of worship; and the rule laid down in the letter of my noble Friend to the Duke of Leinster, required a registry to be kept in the school of the attendance or non-attendance of each child at his own place of worship. It was then said that there should be compulsory attendance; and under the National School system this attendance was at first enforced; but only for a while: it was objected to by Presbyterians and Church of England mem-

1153
bers as opposed to their conscientious scruples, and has accordingly been abandoned during the last eight years. Now, those who will attend at these Colleges will have arrived at an age when they have, more or less, the right to think for themselves; and it would be harsh, if not unjustifiable, when the basis of these institutions is the exclusion of religious teaching, within the walls of the College, so far as State endowment is concerned, that there should be authority in the College to enforce attendance on any particular form of worship. I am therefore satisfied that any attempt, apart from the college instruction, at enforcing attendance on religious worship would signally fail. With regard to founding exclusive lay colleges, with the view of providing separate instruction of the different sects, we are of opinion that it would not be so effective as the measure we now propose, while I am sure that such a proposition would meet with the greatest possible opposition from this country. In endeavouring to extend to the middle classes in Ireland the benefits of collegiate instruction, I am persuaded that such a measure as the present is the only one that will be found feasible or admissible. Certain I am that some such measure is indispensably necessary. We propose it deliberately—we shall adhere to it firmly; and we feel assured that, based on such principles as those on which it is founded, it will not be rejected by the House of Commons.
Mr. E. B. Rochehad been anxious not to address the House to-night, but after the fair and candid manner in which the right hon. Baronet had stated the course he meant to pursue with regard to this Bill, he felt compelled to make a few observations. He meant to join with the noble Lord the Member for Newark in opposing the further progress of this measure. He admitted the difficulty of dealing with the question of education in the present state of parties in Ireland, and he was ready to give his assent to what had been called the mixed system of education; but he could not but perceive that there were great difficulties in the way of carrying out this measure. By a mixed system of education he understood that the members of different sects and creeds should receive together the ordinary elements of education; that every facility should be given to the clergymen of different denominations to impart religious
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knowledge to those students who adhered to their form of worship. But his main objection was to the Government appointment of the professors. The right hon. Baronet said, you must leave to us the appointment of the professors, because I am determined that no professors shall be appointed in any of these Colleges who are likely to engage in proselytizing. That might be very well while the present Government remained in power; but how soon might they be removed, and who was to replace them? It was not long since they had been challenged to dissolve Parliament, when it was said the Ministry would be defeated. Now, suppose that were so, and that the Government was placed in the hands of such men as the hon. Member for Kent, what security would they have in Ireland that proselytism would not be the order of the day? He wanted some security that the Government, in appointing professors, should be responsible, not to public opinion in England, but to the general feelings of the people of Ireland. Then he wished to ask the hon. Member for Belfast, who advocated the system of Government, what would be the consequence if the appointment of professors were placed in the hands of the Government of the day? He did not fear the spread of religious infidelity—the people of Ireland were too religious and too moral for that—but there was a kind of infidelity which was nearly as bad as religious infidelity—infidelity to one's country. If the appointment of the professors were in the hands of the Government of the day, they would spread among the youth of Ireland infidelity to the interests of their country, and that he and every Irishman would deeply deplore. Neither would he agree to hold out to that class of Irishmen from whom professors were to be taken temptations to forsake their country's interests for sums of 300 l., or 500 l., or 800 l. a year. He had great confidence in his countrymen, but nevertheless he was not prepared to say that they were altogether proof against temptation. He wished to have men in these colleges as free and unshackled as the professors in Trinity College, Dublin, or in Oxford or Cambridge; and, if they were not free, he would say, withhold your colleges altogether rather than give them what, in his mind, would prove a curse to the country. He did not wish for Catholic ascendancy; he believed the days

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of all ascendancy were numbered; but he would prefer a separate system of education to such a system as was proposed by this Bill. He knew it would be objected to him that, by the course he was taking, he was preventing the Irish people from obtaining the advantages of education. He could not help that. Deplorable as their present situation was with respect to education, he would rather that they remained for a time left to their own resources, than be thrown upon such a system as this. He hoped a time would come when an enlightened Government would prevail in this country. He hoped they would not always be annoyed by those horrible principles of bigotry which actuated the people of England now; but still, if they refused them the boon on any other terms than the present measure, they were prepared to do the best they could themselves for the education of the people. They would write for them the history of their country. [An hon. Member: Who would read it?] The hon. Member might not read it; but he would tell him that the people of Ireland would read it. At any rate the blame of the want of education would rest on those who proposed this measure.
Sir R. H. Inglissaid, the right hon. Baronet had referred, in a tone of gentle but marked censure, to an expression used by him in a former debate, when he presumed to characterize this scheme in a way which he was compelled to repeat from the taunts to which it had given rise, that it "was a gigantic scheme of godless education." What did his right hon. Friend say in answer to this charge? His right hon. Friend said, that he (Sir R. H. Inglis) had surely known his right hon. Friend too long and too well to utter such an imputation against him. Now, he could assure his right hon. Friend that he had never uttered that accusation against him, nor did he ever say that either the right hon. Gentleman or his Colleagues received this scheme as he received it, or viewed it in the same light as he viewed it. But, in his apprehension, it was as he had characterized it. He did not accuse the right hon. Gentleman individually: nor did he accuse the measure itself as being of an aggressive character; but it was a negation of all religion. What was the justification of the measure urged to-night by a leading Minister, who had charge of it? His right hon. Friend admitted that it was
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founded on the absence of religious instruction; that that might be right or wrong; but in the present circumstances of Ireland that was a necessary incident to any scheme of education. Now, that was admitting all which he had asserted it to be. His right hon. Friend had illustrated his position by examples drawn from the Universities of the three divisions of this great Empire. Into the case of Scotland he would not refer at that late hour of the night. But the right hon. Baronet had specially called the attention of the House to the religious education communicated in the Universities of England, particularly to Oxford, and more especially still to the College in which both his right hon. Friend and himself had received their education. He did not consider that House the place where he was called upon to give an account of what he had done or what he had neglected to do at Oxford. He admitted that opportunities were lost which could never be recalled; and he also admitted that much besides had been done which it was not necessary to advert to; but he would maintain that, if any young man passed through his University career without the regret which he had to feel, he might humbly thank God for it. Although he disclaimed being personally answerable to that House for his conduct at College, he felt called on to state that the imputation cast upon the general conduct of the College in question by his right hon. Friend was wholly without foundation. His right hon. Friend was utterly mistaken, if he supposed that the state of things to which he had referred existed now. It ought not to have been the case in his right hon. Friend's time, and he believed it was not in his own. In his time there was instruction in the general Christian faith, and in the Articles of the Church of England. One tutor in the University of Oxford had declared that he had matriculated 300 young men, every one of whom was more competent to answer questions on the doctrine of the Christian faith, and on the tenets of their own Church, than they would have been forty years ago, when they took their degree. Even if the lectures to which he had adverted were not given, instruction was secured by other means. Grotius and Burnet were studied. His right hon. Friend must know that theological knowledge did not come by instinct—that it must be encouraged and enforced—and that no young man could take his degree at Oxford without having re-

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ceived such Christian instruction as he would convey to the young men in Ireland? At the College he himself attended, there were weekly lectures in divinity, and his right hon. Friend had not made such inquiries into the present state of things as would justify the statement he had made. He wished that the Colleges founded in Ireland under the auspices of the Government, would enjoy such advantages in classical and general literature, and such theological instruction, as were now enjoyed by the elder Universities of this country. He agreed, and it was strange that he should agree and publicly acknowledge his agreement, with the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. O'Connell); but he was not ashamed to agree with Mr. O'Connell as to what was the only legitimate education for an immortal being; that it was not by the establishment of lecture shops, but by teaching Christian duties and the foundation on which these duties rested. They ought to carry out the same principle as the Roman Catholic prelates advocated, and insist that religion ought to be made the basis of all education whatever. It had been asked by the hon. Member for Bath what had the Fallopian tubes to do with the Gospel; but he concurred on that point with those astute men the Roman Catholic prelates, that the incidental observation of a professor of anatomy might be effective in determining the faith of a student and make him a Christian or an infidel; therefore he did not blame those bishops; but, on the contrary, he adopted their doctrines on that branch of the subject to the fullest extent. And he was, moreover, of opinion, that the House should carry out that principle, and insist on religion being made the fundamental basis of all education. He was quite willing to admit that the connexion between religion and some branches of science were not in all cases obvious at first; but he would maintain that the teacher of any branch was capable of doing much good or evil according as he was disposed. Therefore he (Sir R. H. Inglis) could not but concur with the Roman Catholic bishops, though of a necessity he totally differed with them respecting the claim which they set up to the appointment of these professorships, and also as to the endowment of their religion by the State. He admitted the power of Parliament to establish whatever system it pleased; but he entirely denied its right to do so In the present instance Her Majesty's Government would have done
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better if they had made the established religion of the State the foundation of these Colleges, than to deprive the people of Ireland of all religion, as they proposed. He could not admit the principle of the noble Lord who moved the Amendment, that these Colleges should be endowed with funds for the support of the clergy of three denominations in Ireland; nor did he agree with his noble Friend who seconded it, that the demands of the Roman Catholic bishops should be conceded. The right hon. Baronet had pointed to his 400,000 pupils under the national system of education as a proof of success in the system about to be adopted; but if he were informed aright that system was not so impartially administered as to prevent proselytism. He did not deprecate proselytism, because it was an evidence of sincere belief; but he wished the House to take the right hon. Baronet's argument at its worth. The hon. Baronet concluded by stating that, though he differed in some respects from both his noble Friends, he concurred in the general object which they had in view, and he therefore hoped the House would adopt the Amendment.
Sir J. Grahamexplained that between the years 1810 to 1812, no student in Christchurch, Oxford, intending to take his degrees, was compelled to attend any theological lecture or instruction, other that at chapel, without sermon at the roll-call.
Mr. Redingtonthought no one could doubt the great advantages of an extended system of education; and every one who knew the state of Ireland must feel that it would be beneficial to all classes there. It was equally certain that every parent, wherever he sent his child to be instructed, wished him to be brought up in the same religious principles he himself professed. The question for him to ask was, whether he could adopt the system offered by the State, and accept its benefits without sacrifice of principle? There were two modes of education — individual and mixed. He had never heard of any objection to the latter. He had never heard it asserted that it was necessary for the Professor of Anatomy at Trinity College being a Roman Catholic. In fact, Roman Catholics were in the habit of studying anatomy in all the medical schools of Scotland and England. There was great advantage in having Dr. Buckland as a professor of geology, but he had

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never heard, although that study was said to have a tendency to infidelity, that a geological professor should necessarily be a Roman Catholic. He thought the omission from the proposed plan of a theological professorship might be wise; but if the object was to prevent polemical discussion, that might be counteracted by the permission to found Protestant professorships. After what Hume and other historians had said of Roman Catholics, he should be glad to see a Roman Catholic professor of history, and was also desirous for a chair of moral philosophy. He thought that provision ought to be made for chaplains (not exclusively Roman Catholic, but also Presbyterian and Church of England chaplains) who should have the moral guidance of the youths in these Colleges. It would be wrong to suppose that the question of education in Ireland was settled by this Bill. That great end would not be accomplished until they either created endowments in a new establishment, open to all sects, or broke down the system of exclusion in Trinity College. He trusted that the Bill would go into Committee and be there amended, and made a measure of great importance to Ireland.
Debate adjourned.
House adjourned at half past twelve o'clock.

MINUTES.
Took the Oaths. The Lord Erskine.
Sat First.—The Earl of Munster, after the Death of his Father.
BILLS. Public.—1a. Game Laws Act Amendment.
2a. Indemnity; Museums of Art.
Private.—1a. Exeter and Crediton Railway; Wilts, Somerset, and Weymouth Railway; Leeds and Bradford Railway Extension (Shipley to Colne); Manchester and Leeds Railway (Burnley, Oldham, and Heywood Branches); Castle Hill (Wexford) Docks); Chester and Holyhead Railway; Eastern Counties Railway (Ely and Whittlesea Deviation); Blackburn Waterworks; Shrewsbury, Oswestry, and Chester Junction Railway; Watermen's Company Endowment; Leeds, Dewsbury, and Manchester Railway; Huddersfield and Sheffield Junction Railway; Huddersfield and Manchester Railway and Canal; Cromer (Norfolk) Protection from the Sea; Bristol and Exeter Railway Branches); Hills Estate.
2a. Earl of Onslow's Estate.
Reported.—Hemel Hempstead Small Tenements.
3a. and passed—Newcastle-upon-Tyne Port; Scarborough Water; Hungerford and Lambeth Suspension Bridge; Southampton Docks.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishops of Salisbury, Chester, Norwich, St. David's, Cashel, St. Asaph, Llandaff, Winchester, Exeter, Duke of Richmond, Earls of Fitzhardinge, Roseberry, Roden, Eldon, Winchilsea, Falmouth, Marquess of Breadalbane, and by Lords Kenyon, Kinnaird, Lyttleton, and Feversham, from Otterhampton, and an immense number of other places, against the Increase of Grant to Maynooth College.—From Criccieth, and Ynys Cynhaiarn, and Treflys, against the Union of St. Asaph and Bangor.—By Bishop of St. Asaph, and Earl Powis, from Clergy and others of Monmouth, and Killybebyll, against the Union of St. Asaph and Bangor, but in favour of the Appointment of a Bishop of Manchester.—By the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Cleveland, Earl of Warwick, and Lord Langdale, from the Lord Mayor and others of the City of London, and from numerous other places, praying to be heard by Counsel against the Charitable Trusts Bill.—From W. R. Havens, of East Donyland Hall, in the County of Essex, Barrister, praying that the Provisions of the Insolvent Debtors Act Amendment Act, which abolish the power of Arrest for Debt under 20 l. may be repealed.—From Castle Cary, for Alteration of Insolvent Debtors Act Amendment Act.—By Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishops of St. David's, Llandaff, Winchester, London, Exeter, and Norwich, and by Earl of Roden, and Lord Campbell, from Association of Tradesmen of London, and from Dudley and Bath, for Repeal of the Insolvent Debtors Act Amendment Act, and for the adoption of a Measure for the more easy Recovery of Small Debts.—From Jedburgh, against the present practice of granting Spirit Licenses to Toll Houses (Scotland).—From Nevern, and 3 other places, for the Establishment of Local Courts (Wales).—From Abersychon, and Carlingford, for the Better Regulation of Beer Houses, especially on the Sabbath.—From Clergy and others of Chichester, against the Sale of Beer Act.—From Chichester, against the running of Railway Trains on the Sabbath.—By Earl of Devon, from Stockport, and 5 other places, in favour of the Calico Print Works Bill.—By Lord Portman, from Landowners and others of Southampton, and numerous other places, for Protection to Agriculture.—From Nottingham, in favour of the Nottingham Inclosure Bill.—By the Earl of Clare, the Lord Chancellor and Lord Stanley, from Antrim, and 3 other places, in favour of the Increase of Grant to Maynooth College.

CALICO PRINT WORKS BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read,
The Duke of Buccleuch, having moved that the House do now resolve itself into Committee, explained that the object of this meaeure was to extend to Calico and other Print Works the provisions of the
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Factories Act which was passed two years ago.
Lord Broughamsaid, he could not refrain from entering his protest against their insisting, year after year, on thus legislating in the wrong direction. Professing great concern for the working classes, they were doing all they could by their legislation to injure and oppress them, and were treating them with what he held to be mere cruelty, under the false guise and garb of humanity. He had formerly entered his protest on the Journals of the House in reference to this kind of legislation; and the objections which he had then urged appeared to him to apply with as much force to the present Bill, although its operation was restricted within narrower limits. In particular, he objected to the 22nd Section of the Bill. Could anything be more absurd than that the Legislature should say that an adult woman—say of thirty years of age—shall cease to work in printworks at nine o'clock, whether she wish it or not? Many persons said they supported such interference because they were anxious to increase the morality of the women so engaged. Why, did they think that those women who were not to be allowed to work after nine o'clock in printworks, could not find a less innocent mode of employing their time? After women were turned out at nine o'clock, he was afraid that it would not be any improvement to their morals. Why did not these dealers in humanity turn dealers in morality also, and introduce a clause rendering it compulsory to go to bed on turning out at that hour? Such an absurdity was not beyond the reach of the humanity mongers, who had lately been so much engaged in meddling in the private affairs of other people. It would not be a bit more absurd than this absurdity which they were called upon to sanction, with its notable preamble. Then with reference to the prohibiting children from working after certain hours, they must not suppose that by stopping children from working at nine o'clock at night, they would only prevent children from working. They would thereby prevent men also from working. The child's labour was as necessary for the man, as the man's labour was for the printing. There could be no relays of children to enable the men to continue working, as the order was to be peremptory that all children must stop

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work at nine o'clock at night. Besides, he doubted whether it was within the province of the Legislature to find protection for children. The true protection of the child was that which Nature and Divine Providence had furnished it in the care of the parent. He objected generally to the Bill on principle; but the part which he particularly wished to amend was that which regarded females—was that which prevented females of any age, with their own full consent, with the consent of their husbands, if they had husbands—with their own full consent, which they had a right to give or to withhold, and which their Lordships had no right, with their fantastical notions of what was good for them, to compel them to withhold—with their own full consent—from working as late as they pleased, or as men were allowed to work. Why did they not push their humanity a little further, and prevent men, as well as women, from working at noxious and unhealthy trades? Why did they not interpose between the painter and his unwholesome employment—between the needle pointer and the occupation which was in his case almost sure to engender consumption? Why did they permit their jockeys to live in a manner which produced a state of complicated disease, in order that they might be of small weight, and run their Lordships' races? They were very ready to be humane in matters which concerned the manufacturer, but he wished them to be humane in their own proper persons, if humanity was to be the order of the day. He well knew that he exposed himself to the risk of being reckoned cruel, harsh, and ill-disposed to the labouring people, and, to sum up all in one word, to be called a political economist, to be which was regarded by many as the worst of all crimes, by taking this coarse; but he nevertheless stated what was his opinion upon the subject, and did so in real humanity to the working classes. He hoped they would be no longer haunted by measures of this kind, arising one after another, in such rapid succession—with this kind of cheap virtue—this vicarious humanity—this virtue which cost them nothing—this humanity which was exercised in the person and at the cost of others, and which seemed to him, as he had said before, to be one of the most worthless of all articles, its value being small in proportion as its cost was small, and being almost the only cheap
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article which had neither worth nor value about it. He would take that opportunity of giving notice, that in the next stage of the Bill, when his Amendment could be proposed, he would suggest a small alteration, an alteration so small that it left children to be exposed to the ravages of their humanity, and adults to the infliction of their kindness, with this one exception, as regarded the latter, that of permitting women—women of any age, to work as they pleased.
The Marquess of Normanbythought that the weight, both of argument and authority, was against the position taken by the noble and learned Lord. Was the noble and learned Lord aware that masters had petitioned on this matter, and that those very persons, in whose behalf he had been speaking, had themselves petitioned their Lordships for a limitation of the hours of work, from every place in which a calico printwork was situated? Besides, had they no experience in this matter? Had the noble and learned Lord read the Report of Mr. Tremenhere, showing the results which had followed legislation, in regard to coal mines? On the working of the Bill passed in regard to these mines, they had now an elaborate Report, and the result shown was, that, without one exception, the men and women engaged in the business of these mines, in behalf of themselves and of their children, approved of the great and beneficial change which had been effected by such legislation. His noble and learned Friend said, "Do not meddle with women." He asked what they would do with themselves after nine o'clock, if this Bill prohibited them from working after that hour. They would do in the factories, as they had already done in the collieries, return to their domestic duties, and become good mothers and good housewives; and so far from the limitation of their hours of work being a loss to them or to their families, it would, in point of economy, and from the order which would be introduced into their domestic establishments, be a gain instead of a loss. They were called on to pass another Act last year. Had they read a Report which showed the result of the eleven hour system in Mr. Gardner's factory at Preston? Not only was more work performed, but better work was done, in the shorter time, than under the old system. That was a proof of the beneficial tendency of

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the limitation of the hours of labour, which the present Bill and other Bills secured. He wished to take the first opportunity of assuring their Lordships that he was grateful to the Government for undertaking the conduct of this measure.
The Earl of Radnorthought that there were more important and legitimate concerns with which the Government should meddle; and that it would be much better if they occupied themselves with these, than in attempting to interfere with the affairs of other people. Whenever they interfered in the way now proposed, they did so mischievously. If children, in some works, wrought for eight hours, and others were to have the limit fixed for ten, either these latter were worked too much, or the former too little. This eternal meddling was utterly unnecessary. It was said that the principle of limitation had been introduced with great advantage into Mr. Gardner's factory at Preston. If it had been introduced with advantage into any one factory, could any one doubt what result would follow? Why should the Legislature interfere, if it could be so introduced, and with manifest advantage, without interference? If the experiment worked well, would not the owners of other factories adopt the practice? In such case the Legislature need not step in and compel them to do so. As to the Report in relation to coal mines, which had been alluded to, the impression made by it upon his mind was different from that which seemed to have been left upon the mind of the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Normanby). Instead of the women availing themselves of the privilege conferred by the law, it was said that they put on men's clothes, and worked as men instead of as women. There had been great distress among these women, nor could they return to their domestic habits, because they never had any: from childhood they were brought up to work in the mines, and those who did not work as men were reduced to a state of starvation. A subscription had been set on foot by a noble Friend of his in aid of those women who had been deprived of their livelihood by the Act of the Legislature. Everybody was more competent to manage his own affairs than was the Legislature for him. These matters should be left to themselves, and he would enter his protest against their interfering with those matters which exclusively concerned other people.
Lord Campbellhoped that the Government would, in a future stage of the Bill, reconsider the 22nd Clause. Agreeing with his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) that the Legislature should not interfere with labour any more than it should with capital, he thought, nevertheless, that they were bound to interfere for the protection of those who were incompetent to take care of themselves. His noble and learned Friend might as well have said, that they should not protect minors from contracts into which they might indiscreetly enter, as that they should not protect them against excessive labour. But, as regarded the 22nd Clause, it seemed to him unnecessary to interfere with adult labour, or with the labour of those who were sui juris. He approved of the Bill preventing women from working in coal mines; but the work of women in printworks was allowed to be a fit employment for females. Why, then, should they say, that a woman of forty years of age who had a large family to support, or without a large family, who wished, by working extra hours, to lay by something for her old age, should be compelled to leave the factory, the work of which was perfectly fit for her, when the clock struck nine? That seemed to him to be a wanton interference with adult labour. He hoped the noble Duke (the Duke of Buccleuch) would reconsider this before the Bill was again brought before them. He would again repeat it as his opinion, that Clause 22 was a mischievous interference with adult labour.
The Duke of Buccleuchsaid, that with regard to what had fallen from the noble and learned Lord (Lord Brougham), it was very unfortunate that he had not found fault with the preambles of some Bills which had been introduced a few years ago; for in 1833, a Factory Bill had passed that House, and that Bill had been introduced by the Government of which the noble Lord was a distinguished Member, which Bill recognised the principle that it was necessary that the labour of children should be regulated. With regard to the proposed restrictions upon the labour of women, the work which they had to undergo was not always of so light and fitting a description as the other noble and learned Lord who had spoken (Lord Campbell) seemed to suppose. They had often to stand up to their knees in wet, in washing cloths, preparatory to their being

1033
dyed. He had heard nothing that evening which could induce him to alter his opinion upon the entire Bill, or upon the clause alluded to by the noble and learned Lord, especially when he considered the satisfactory manner in which the Act of last year had worked.
Lord Broughamobserved, that the noble Duke was mistaken as to what he stated about the Bill of 1833, if he thought it similar to the present one in the point to which he (Lord Brougham) took exception. His objection to the present Bill was that it stated that "whereas it is expedient" as a general proposition, "to regulate the labour of women in printworks." His objection, then, was as to their attempting to regulate the labour of women, with which they had nothing to do; and he totally denied that the Bill of last year afforded any precedent for this, because the labour thereby prohibited was improper labour for women to be allowed to be employed in at all.
[It was here intimated that the Bill of last year was the Factories Bill, and not the Mines and Collieries Bill.]
House in Committee.

POST OFFICE OFFENCES ACT—AMENDMENT BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read,
The Earl of Radnorsaid, he would endeavour to state shortly to their Lordships why he called upon them to agree to the second reading of this Bill which he now rose to move. The object of the Bill was to regulate that practice, which to the surprise of the public had become notorious last year—he alluded to the practice at the Post Office of opening letters under warrant of the Secretary of State. Whatever opinion their Lordships might entertain as to the propriety of the mode which he had suggested for the proper and due regulation of this practice, they would, he was sure, agree with him in the opinion that the matter was at present in a very unsatisfactory state. Nobody knew what the law upon the subject was. Committees of both Houses had been appointed during the last Session to examine into the matter. With respect to the law of the case, neither Committee had given much information; but the Committee of the House of Commons suggested that the matter should be left on its present footing in point of law. But nobody exactly knew what was that footing in point
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of law. He had heard it stated that this right of detaining and opening letters was a power vested in the Crown by virtue of its prerogative; and he had read that it had been stated in another place, that by ancient prerogative the Crown was able to detain and open letters. With respect to the Royal Prerogative, he never knew that the power to detain and open the letters of individuals formed a part of it. He had never read in any text book that it was part of the prerogative of the Crown to detain and open letters; and if he was not greatly mistaken, it was impossible that it should be so, because the prerogative of the Crown was founded on prescription; and in order to be so founded, it must go back to a period, upon prescription, beyond which "the memory of man runneth to the contrary," viz., the beginning of the reign of Richard I. Now, the very practice of carrying letters by the institution now known as the Post Office, was not introduced into this country until an infinitely later period than this. No doubt the practice complained of had been the practice since the institution of the Post Office; but that did not stamp it with the legal authority derived from prescription. It was never recognised in a court of law. Its being an undisputed practice seemed to give it the sanction of some authority; but it never was easy to dispute it, because it had always been carried on behind the backs of parties, and without the knowledge of those interested. The fact, therefore, that the right had not been disputed, or that it had never been called into question, gave but very little force to the right. He could not help remarking upon the immorality of the practice. The Legislature should be particularly guarded in making any enactments which might involve an immorality; and if it overlooked this practice, it would be guilty of overlooking a gross immorality. In the first place it was a gross betrayal of confidence. The people of this country were forbidden under a penalty to send their letters by any other conveyance than the post. The Government thus compelled the public to entrust their letters into its hands; and then assumed the right to detain these letters and to take possession of the secrets which they contained. And did the Government not commit a gross act of immorality by the mode in which it attempted to conceal its acts?

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Did it not, for this purpose, forge seals—did it not falsify stamps? The fact was, that this whole matter had been discovered and made public by a foreign gentleman—Mr. Mazzini, who had very ingeniously discovered that the letters he received had their seals forged and their stamps falsified. They were referred to the responsibility of the Secretary of State. But it was, in his judgment, a perfect farce to speak of the responsibility of the Home Office in exculpation of these practices. It turned out, upon inquiry, that it had at all times since the establishment of the Post Office been the practice of Secretaries of State to detain and open letters; and it was discovered, last summer, that letter carriers too—whether following the example of their betters or not, he knew not—opened letters entrusted to them, and made use of the information which they contained, to make great sums by betting on races. And what had been done with these delinquents? They had been merely dismissed from their situations; and though, by the Post Office Act, they had been guilty of a misdemeanor, they had never been brought to trial, but were merely dismissed. It was impossible to say that the power existed by prescription, or was part of the prerogative of the Crown. The question then was, whether the Post Office Acts conferred the power claimed. The principal Acts were those of the 9th Anne, and of the 1st of her present Majesty; and the words of both were pretty much the same. [The noble Lord then read the clause of both Acts, prohibiting all persons, under a penalty, from detaining and opening letters passing through the Post Office, except authorized so to do by warrant from the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, or from one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State in England.] It was inferred that these Acts gave the right to the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, and to the Secretary of State in England, to issue warrants for detaining and opening letters. He thought, however, that every one conversant with these Acts would see that they gave no such right whatever. He admitted that it seemed to assume that such a power existed in the Secretary of State and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and indemnified the clerks at the Post Office and the Postmaster General from any consequences, if they obeyed the warrants of the Secretary of State or the
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Lord Lieutenant. But that was a very different thing from giving the authority claimed to the Secretary of State: and if he derived his authority from no other source, he (Lord Radnor) apprehended that he had no authority whatever; and if by any means the question was brought into a court of law, the court would assuredly say that there was no authority to issue such warrants. There was a case which must be familiar to many noble Lords who acted as magistrates — he meant the provision under the Act of George II., for indemnifying constables for arresting persons under an illegal warrant, under certain circumstances, and throwing the responsibility upon the magistrate by whom the warrant was issued. He had some experience of that enactment; for an action was pending against him for having, in conjunction with another magistrate, issued a warrant, which it was contended was illegal. That case was exactly analogous to those which the words of this Act contemplated. It indemnified the party acting under the warrant, but conferred no power to issue the warrant. The noble Earl then read passages from the Reports of the Committees of that and the other House of Parliament, which he said were drawn up in a see-saw and contradictory manner; and contended that those Reports assigned no sufficient ground for the continuance of the power in question, and left it quite vague and uncertain whether it conduced to any useful end or not. The Report of the Lords' Committee, indeed, said that the power might be more useful in case of war than in the present time of peace; but that, he submitted, was a very bad reason for retaining it in time of peace, as there could be no difficulty, on a prospect of war arising, in passing an Act to revive the power. The Report gave in lists of the warrants issued for opening letters within two periods, the one extending from 1712 to 1798, and the other comprising the subsequent interval down to 1844. In the former period of 87 years only 101 warrants were issued; but in the latter 44 years the number was 372, the proportion being 1¼ per annum in the one case, but having increased to 8 per annum in the other; it was true that the other was stated to be imperfect, and only to extend so far as an account could be made up. Only two of these, it appeared, related to matters of treason or sedition, and all the

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others were criminal warrants. That reduced the number of warrants connected with treason or sedition to 2 per annum in the 45 years, as stated in the Lords' Report. Whether it was necessary for the safety of the country or not to retain such a power, when it was exercised in two cases in the twelve months, it was for their Lordships to decide. He had thought, in the first instance, that it would be better to abolish the power altogether; but on subsequent consideration, and conversation with others, it appeared to be more expedient to regulate the mode of exercising it. That was the object of the Bill of which he now moved the second reading; and if their Lordships agreed with him in the principle of the measure, it would be in their power to make whatever alterations they thought necessary in Committee. The noble Earl moved that the Bill be now read a second time.
Lord Stanleysaid, it was with great regret he felt himself compelled by a sense of public duty, on the part of the Government, to give a decided opposition to the second reading of the Bill proposed by the noble Earl. He felt all the advantage which the noble Earl derived from appealing, in a matter of this kind, to the high and honourable feeling of those who, like their Lordships, would shrink from sanctioning in public life that which they would deem dishonourable in private; but he must say that he should have felt his own task more difficult, and should have considered the noble Earl's appeal to their Lordships' personal honour better founded, if he had followed up the argument with which he set out; and, on the ground of the immorality and the dishonourable nature of the practice which he condemned, and after satisfying them that there was no State necessity which could justify the exercise of this power under any circumstances, had proceeded, not to modify or regulate, but to abolish altogether a power which, according to the noble Earl's view, ought not to be sanctioned in public any more than in private life. And he was fortified in his resistance to this Bill by the declaration of the noble Earl, that, instead of adhering to his first impression, and following out his principles by the clear and intelligible course of proposing the abolition of the practice, subsequent reflection and conversation with others had satisfied him that State necessity, the safety of the realm, and the due administration of justice, demanded that,
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however dishonourable the practice in private life might be considered, it should yet be retained as a State engine; and that it was rather for the good of the realm that the Secretary of State should be subjected to the odium and obloquy which might be cast upon him for exercising the power, than the State should be deprived of a powerful instrument for attaining the ends of justice, and maintaining the interests, and preserving the security and peace of the country. If the two alternatives now proposed were the only alternatives—the alternative of accepting this Bill, by which the practice was to be retained and regulated in the manner in which the noble Earl undertook to do, or of abolishing it altogether, he should not hesitate for an instant; but should say—"In the name of everything that is just, as well as everything that is wise and prudent, abolish the practice if you will—renounce, repudiate the immorality of the practice; but do not retain the immorality and the odium attaching to the exercise of the power, and yet introduce such provisions as, while you continue all that is odious and objectionable in principle, shall render the power altogether unavailable in practice." That, perhaps, was not what the noble Earl proposed; but that was what the Bill would do, if their Lordships sanctioned this measure. The noble Earl proposed two objects. He proposed, in the first place, to define the law, and prescribe the conditions under which the Secretary of State should issue his warrant for opening letters; and, as the second object, he proposed such alterations in the law imposed as restrictions upon the exercise of the power. But when the noble Earl attempted to define the law, it would be found upon perusal of his Bill that he left it quite as undefined and uncertain as he found it; and when he proceeded to place restrictions upon the practice, the restrictions were of such a nature as to render it wholly useless. Fortunately, they could now approach the consideration of this question free from any political or party feelings. On former occasions, it might have been a question whether this or that Government had strained the law, or whether the powers which they possessed had been properly exercised, or had been stretched to an exorbitant extent; but no such question was raised at present. Their Lordships had now to consider, not whether there ought to be vested in the Secretaries of State a power of opening letters—for it

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was admitted by the noble Earl that State necessity required that such a power must exist under certain circumstances — but their Lordships were called upon to decide in what way, and by what practicable mode, they should regulate the discretion of the Secretary of State in doing so. He was not about to enter upon the discussion; indeed, he should feel himself incompetent, in the presence of so many noble and learned Lords, to discuss the origin of that power vested in the Secretary of State. He did not say that this power was a portion of the prerogative; but this he would say, that the Act of Anne was not the Act which gave the Secretary of State this power, or any power at all. That was a restraining Statute, which, for the first time, imposed a penalty upon an act which previously, whether done by order of the Secretary of State, or in any other way, was liable to no penalty whatever: it made it a misdemeanor to open or detain a letter passing through the Post Office, except under a warrant of the Secretary of State. Previous to that Act, no criminal proceeding could be taken against a person, whether connected with the Post Office or the Government, or not, for detaining or opening a letter which came into his hands in that way. The noble Earl had stated—but, at the same time, he thought somewhat in the see-saw manner with which he charged the Reports of the Committee—that this practice of the Secretary of State had increased of late years; but he went to contradict the certainty of that statement by saying he inferred so from the fact, which he frankly owned, that formerly no records had been kept of the number of letters that had been opened in this way, and that subsequently a very inaccurate record had been kept of them. That statement rested entirely upon the supposition of the noble Earl himself. And now as to the definition of the law by this Bill. He had read, and very attentively considered, the second section of this Bill. If there was one point upon which he should expect that the noble Earl, professing to define the law and to regulate the conditions under which the Secretary of State should issue his warrant, would be clear and explicit, he should have thought he would have provided expressly whether there should be a general warrant for opening all the letters of an individual — directed to one party — or whether there should be a special warrant in the case of each particular letter. And
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yet he found no such provision in the Bill upon so important and doubtful a question. On a former occasion there was an opinion expressed by a noble and learned Lord in that House (Lord Campbell) that general warrants were illegal, and that a special warrant was necessary for opening every letter. That opinion was ably controverted by his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, and his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) who sat near him. It was also ably, and in his mind conclusively, controverted by the Lord Chief Justice (Lord Denman), although he regretted that subsequent consideration led that noble and learned Lord to qualify that opinion. But the value of the noble and learned Lord's first declaration was, in his estimation, that the definition of the law then given by him, rested not upon any technical construction of the words of the Act of Parliament, but was pronounced in opposition to the opinion of the noble and learned Lord at the Table (Lord Campbell), upon the rationale of the thing, the common sense, the necessity of the case, and the practical absurdity involved in the contrary interpretation of the law. And, although the noble and learned Lord, as he had said, subsequently qualified his opinion, he trusted their Lordships would permit him to read his words. He said—
"As to the construction to be put upon the provision cited, he was of opinion that the construction stated by his noble and learned Friend who spoke last (that was the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack) was the right one; for he could not see how the Post Office authorities, when directed by the Secretary of State to detect the treasonable correspondence of A. B. could do so, unless they opened all his letters. It was obviously quite impossible for him, as his hon. and learned Friend said, to know which particular letter of A. B.'s perhaps multitudinous correspondence occurring next Monday contained the objectionable matter unless they opened all of them."*
That was a most useful and valuable opinion on the part of so high an authority, and which nothing that had since passed had altered in his (Lord Stanley's) mind. If it was necessary to retain this power—and e confesso it was necessary, for the Bill of the noble Earl did not propose to abolish it—the noble and learned Lord admitted that if the power was to be retained, and the Secretary of State was to exercise it, to issue separate warrants would be impracticable, and general warrants, directed to
* Hansard (Third Series), lxxv. p. 980.

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one individual, were necessary for the exercise of the power, and consequently, as he (Lord Stanley) submitted, incidental to the power itself. The mode in which the noble and learned Chief Justice qualified his former statement was, in his (Lord Stanley's) judgment, a corroboration of his previous opinion, and an additional argument in favour of the necessity of adhering to that doctrine; for what did the noble and learned Lord say? It had been shown to demonstration that special warrants would be utterly impracticable in these days, whatever might have been the case in former times, when letters were counted by scores instead of millions, and were carried to their destination in weeks, not hours—when it was really an event in a man's life when he was going to write a letter, and a greater still when he was going to send to London—when his servant was called upon to prepare for a long and dangerous journey from the north to the south—when the letter was sewed up in the flaps of the saddle—and when the messenger, God willing, got from York to London in fourteen days. Then it might have been practicable to send up word to the Secretary of State, that, on a certain day in a certain week, there would arrive a letter which had been sent off the morning before, or was to be sent the morning after, from York; that it would be carried by a servant wearing a particular livery, riding a horse of a certain colour, and caparisoned in a particular manner; nothing could be so easy then as to stop the horse, open the flap of the saddle, and take out the letter. But he contended that however a special warrant might be available at the time and under the circumstances which he had described, when the circumstances were altogether changed, the argument would no longer apply, and the less so considering the immense number of letters and rapidity with which they were conveyed in the present day. The Lord Chief Justice, however, said, "Yes; but circumstances might occur by which such information could be gained." Now, he prayed their Lordships to look at the difficulty into which the noble and learned Lord, with his well-known love of liberty, was driven, to prove that a special warrant might be made available. He said, "Under a system of espionage a spy could write to the Secretary of State, that such a particular letter might be expected to reach Portsmouth on a particular day and in a particular hand." Under a system of espionage! Mark the words.
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Having admitted the necessity that the power should exist, and that special warrants were impracticable, on consideration the noble and learned Lord discovered that there was a mode in which they might be made available. Surround persons with spies, and under a system of espionage practical objects might be accomplished. Were their Lordships prepared to sanction this principle? Would they permit the opening of the correspondence of persons whose letters the Secretary of State, acting upon his responsibility, was convinced contained dangerous matter; or would they, in order to avoid general warrants, revert to a system which was exploded in this country, that of employing spies to worm out the secrets of those whom they wished to entrap, and to enable those spies, with a previous knowledge that a letter would be written—and it was not uncharitable to suppose with a determination that a letter should be written on a certain day—to give information to the Secretary of State for the most mercenary purposes? That was the alternative offered by the noble and learned Chief Justice. Now, this question of special or general warrants was one which, in a Bill professing to define the power, he should have expected to find occupying a prominent place; and yet, from the beginning to the end of the noble Earl's Bill, he was unable to discover whether it was his intention that a special or general warrant should be required to be issued by the Secretary of State. Look at the 2nd Clause of the Bill. And here he must say, he did not assent to the noble Earl's doctrine, that if their Lordships were of opinion that that practice should be regulated, although they disapproved of the mode in which that was attempted to be done in the Bill, still they should sanction the Bill and alter every word of it in the Committee. The question was, whether it was practicable to preserve the power in principle, and to provide by Statute against its abuse in practice. If that was the proposition, and if their Lordships found it impracticable, he protested against the doctrine, that their Lordships should sanction the principle of a Bill, every word of which they were to reject in Committee. With all possible respect for the noble Earl, he should be glad to be informed what was the meaning of the clause which professed to define the power of the Secretary of State to open letters. It said:—
"In case credible information should be

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given to any of Her Majesty's Secretaries of State, that the safety of Her Majesty's person or Government, or the peace and security of the Realm, require that any letters in the Post Office should be detained or opened, it shall be lawful for such Secretary of State to issue his warrant to the Postmaster General, requiring him to detain and open such letters."
He was at a loss to know what the noble Earl meant by this provision; and, observe, this was the provision which was to make the law certain, clear, and definite. Who was to judge of the credibility of the information? Undoubtedly the Secretary of State. But the information was not to be information of any facts. It was to be information that it was necessary for the safety of Her Majesty's person or Government, or the peace and security of the realm, that certain letters should be opened. If it were said that there should be information of certain facts, which, if true, would render it necessary in the judgment of the Secretary of State to open letters, that would be an intelligible proposition; but the Bill left the whole judgment as to the credibility of the information and the exigency of the case where it was—with the Secretary of State. [The Earl of Radnor: That can be altered in Committee.] He could not agree in the doctrine, that the safety of Her Majesty's person or Government, or the peace and security of the realm, were the only circumstances which rendered it necessary or expedient that this power should be exercised. The noble Earl altogether excluded the great majority of the cases in which this power was applied, namely, for the detection and punishment of crime, which was not unimportant to the welfare of the country, although not connected with the safety of Her Majesty's person or Government. If a knowledge of the concealment of a murderer for whose apprehension a warrant was out, the discovery of the course taken by a forger, or the haunts of a notorious offender, who had escaped from the hands of justice, were to be obtained, the power now exercised by the Secretary of State of opening the correspondence with persons with whom the criminal was known to be in constant communication — perhaps the accomplice of his crime—might enable the administrators of the law to discover the criminal; and yet the noble Earl omitted these cases, Which were four-fifths or three-fourths of the whole number in which warrants were issued by the Secretary of State. Again,
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what did the noble Earl mean by the peace and security of the realm? Did he mean internal peace, or did he refer to the danger of our being involved in war by the machinations of those who, abusing the facilities which they enjoyed in this country, engaged in designs and practices which might expose us to the risk of hostilities and war with foreign countries. A great deal had been said of the rights of hospitality, and God forbid it should be infringed! but while this country was a place of refuge to all political offenders, while it was an asylum for all those who were banished from their own countries for political offences, while we had no Alien Act, and while no man, however dangerous, could be sent out of the country, it was reasonable that we should not afford to such persons, by means of the Post Office, a free, safe, and easy mode of disturbing, with perfect impunity, the peace and tranquillity of countries with which we are in alliance, and thus involving us in the danger of foreign war. He said that if this power was to be given, the law ought to be defined in the first instance; but the Act did not define it, but left it uncertain; and he should now proceed to show clearly, and he hoped incontrovertibly, that when the noble Earl undertook to regulate the power, and where his provisions were intelligible, they frustrated the whole efficacy of the power. The Secretary of State was directed to proceed only upon information in writing. Now, he could conceive cases in which information might be conveyed to the Secretary of State in a mode which did not require to be reduced to the shape of a formal information—[The Earl of Radnor was understood to say, that it was not required that the information should be in writing.] He repeated that it must be in writing, and subscribed with the name of the informant. He must suppose that the noble Earl had not read his own Bill, since he fell into such an error. Not only must the information be in writing, but it must, as he had signified, be signed with the name of the informer; and if, within a given time, no steps were taken upon the information so given, the name was to be handed over to the person referred to in such information, in order to enable him to institute any action against the informer. The noble Earl seemed to have so completely forgotten the whole scope of the Bill, that he was not aware the information must be in writing. There might be

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cases in which it would be extremely difficult to give such a description as the noble Earl's Bill would require of a letter and its contents; and in which it might be absolutely necessary that the Secretary of State should issue his warrant directing such a letter to be opened. Their Lordships had, without doubt, not forgotten the state of the northern and manufacturing districts of this country in the year 1842. At that time there existed a most extensive organization for the purpose of producing a simultaneous movement, the object of which was to effect a display of the physical force of the country at one hundred different parts of the kingdom together, in such a manner, and at once so formidable and dangerous, that no concentration of the military and police force could be rendered effectual to prevent that display, or resist that simultaneous movement, the object of which was to compel, at one and the same time, to abstain from all labour, and thus at once to throw the country into confusion. There could exist no doubt in the mind of any rational person that, whereas Parliament had been prorogued before that state of things had occurred, a serious responsibility was imposed upon the Government, and that they would have neglected their duty if they had refused to avail themselves of the powers which they possessed of opening the letters directed to those at the head of that conspiracy, in order to ascertain and detect their plans, and thus disappoint their expectations by preventing the fulfilment of the evil design which they contemplated, and had resolved to carry into effect. There was no doubt that the Government had a right to take such means as enabled them to bring to bear the military and police force, and to concentrate their power on the very spot where their protection was most required, instead of distributing them over a hundred different points where their presence was unnecessary. That was the course which the Government were justified in adopting; and it was evident that information which enabled them to do so was of the greatest importance for the safety of the State; and really, when this was considered, he could not agree to the proposition contained in the Bill of the noble Earl, namely, that when any man who might have been forced, or induced, rather, against his will, to join such a conspiracy—who had become afterwards alarmed at the length to which he went, and being desirous to make amends for his in-
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cipient treason by counteracting the plans of those engaged in it—he could not, he should say, agree in the proposition that a man desirous of making amends for his incipient treason by preserving the peace and tranquillity of the country, should be required by the Secretary of State, perhaps at the peril of his life, to sign those informations with his name. He (Lord Stanley) had no great respect—he never had entertained any great respect for anonymous communications, and he was, therefore, the more strongly opposed to this provision of the Bill, which, if carried into effect, would be calculated to drive those who were willing to give such information as that to the medium of anonymous communication; and whereas the Secretary of State had many opportunities of judging of the probable value of information under the present system, he would be necessarily obliged to dispense with them in the case of information conveyed solely through anonymous communications. There might be circumstances in which anonymous communications would be attended by circumstances calculated to give them additional weight; such, for example, as coming from four different parties on the same day, and containing the same story or information, which perfectly tallied. In that case, where the information was supported by such circumstances, would the noble Earl say that the Secretary of State ought to have any hesitation as to taking steps with reference to it? If he, as Secretary of State, used the powers which he possessed under such circumstances, in order to secure the peace of the realm, he would not only be justified in doing so, but he would not be justified to his country if he did not act upon it. It so happened that the Department with which he was more immediately connected was one under the supervision of which no such letters came, as no necessity existed for the use of those powers of detaining or opening letters under the superintendence of that Department; but he was speaking of the necessity for using those powers when their use and application might protect the peace and security of the country. He was describing the necessity which the Secretary of State might be placed under to use those powers which the noble Earl had described as so odious and deserving of such obloquy; and yet, it appeared to him, that while the noble Earl retained the whole odium and inconvenience of the present system, he rendered the power to be vested in the

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Secretary of State utterly inefficient. Then the noble Earl proposed that the Secretary of State, having detained and opened the letter in the presence of another person, should, within fourteen days, send a copy of it, and an account of what had been done, to the party to whom it was addressed. Why should it be sent within fourteen days? Within fourteen days, or within fourteen hours, a person who was conscious of guilt, and who knew that he had committed evidence of that guilt, in the shape of a letter through the Post Office, would become anxious to ascertain what had become of the letter, and at the end of fourteen days it would be too late to send any such notice. But suppose a person sent information to the Secretary of State that a movement was about to take place, and that a day was fixed about three weeks distant, and the localities were assigned, but that the party stated that he could not perfect his information until a period of time longer than fourteen days had elapsed, would the noble Earl, under these circumstances, send back an account of the information which he had received to an individual who was engaged in the conspiracy, and one of whose letters, forwarding the designs of that conspiracy, the Secretary of State might have directed to have been detained in consequence of the information which he had received? With respect to sending the information that a letter had been opened, he could state a case which would show how completely that course would counteract the effect of the information. During the war between this country and France, it was discovered that a subject of France residing in this country was in the habit of sending to France information of the intended sailing of merchant vessels from English ports. In one of these cases a letter from him was opened containing an account of the intended sailing of a large fleet of English merchant vessels. It was re-sealed and sent to its destination, and a fleet of French vessels was sent out to intercept the English merchantmen which sailed, but did not sail unaccompanied, for they were accompanied by a strong convoy of English ships of war. The result was that the tables were turned. The French fleet, to use a vulgar phrase, "caught a Tartar," and they were defeated and captured by the English ships. The last provision in the Bill of the noble Earl, or the last provision which he would allude to—indeed, it was almost the only other provision in the Bill
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—was that any person whose letters were opened, or to whom the letters were addressed, could, in six months after the letter or letters had been so opened, proceed by an action at law—could take legal proceedings against the person who gave such information (a most effectual way, by the by, to prevent any information being obtained) to the Secretary of State or the Lord Lieutenant, as the case might be, and that the Secretary of State or the Lord Lieutenant should furnish the plaintiff with the original information, or a certified copy of it, to be used as evidence against the person who furnished it. Was it possible, he would ask, to invent a better mode of preventing all the advantage which would result to the public from such information, than by making the Secretary of State the informant to furnish evidence against the man who conveyed intelligence, for the purpose of preserving the peace and tranquillity of the country? Could they adopt a course better calculated to prevent persons from giving such information, than by saying that the person furnishing it should sign his name to it, and that the Secretary of State should be obliged to furnish his name and a copy of the information which he gave as evidence against him, if the person writing or receiving the letter should afterwards think proper to commence an action at law? That might be deemed by the noble Earl to be sound wisdom and sound morality—it might be deemed to be political wisdom; but its morality was only equalled by its political prudence. But now, what was really the case with respect to the carrying on of such an action at law, and the wisdom of so furnishing the person's name? It was possible that a man giving information might be correct to a tittle in the day on which the letter was to be despatched, and on every other particular, and yet the proper authority in the Post Office might make a mistake, and might, in consequence of that mistake, open the wrong letter, and allow the right one, the letter to which the information referred, to pass through the Post Office. In this case the guilty person would escape by the letter being forwarded without being opened, and the person who was so guilty might take an action against the man who gave that true information to the Secretary of State, because one of the authorities at the Post Office had made a very natural mistake, and opened the wrong letter. In nine cases out of ten they might open the wrong letter. [Lord

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Denman: Hear, hear.] He was glad to hear the noble and learned Lord cheer that statement; for it showed that if there was any advantage to be gained from opening a letter, it could only be derived from the issuing of a warrant to open, not one, but all the letters directed to a certain person in whose correspondence it was suspected that there was contained matter which was dangerous to the peace of the country. He would give their Lordships a striking instance of the necessity for such a warrant by reminding them of an occurrence which had taken place some years ago, namely, the absurd and criminal enterprise of Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, in the rash and mad invasion of France which he planned. He would not ask if the Government of that day had received any intelligence of the designs of Prince Louis Bonaparte; he believed that they had not received any such information. He would not ask whether or not Prince Louis Bonaparte's letters had been opened by the authority of any warrant from the Secretary of State; but he would suppose that the Secretary of State had received an intimation of those designs—had received information that a particular letter would be sent to the Post Office, and that, in consequence of such information, he issued a warrant authorizing the Postmaster to open a particular letter, directed to Prince Lonis Bonaparte. The Postmaster might in such a case open the wrong letter. He might open a letter containing an invitation to dinner, or a tailor's bill, or some other matter equally unimportant;—this harmless epistle would be returned to the party endorsed "opened by order of the Secretary of State, but no further proceedings will be taken thereon;" whilst the letter to which the information referred, the letter written in pursuance of a design to carry on that mad and rash attempt, would be allowed to pass, in consequence of the wrong letter having been opened, and thus the person who wished to preserve the peace of this country, and who had endeavoured to save a friendly Power from the effects of such an absurd and criminal expedition, was to be exposed to a prosecution in consequence of this mistake in the Post Office, if the provisions of the noble Earl's Bill were carried into effect. Because the Postmaster opened a tailor's bill, or an intimation to dinner, instead of a letter referring to the intended expedition, the person giving the information was to be subjected to an action according to that
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Bill; and a copy of his information, with his name, furnished by the Secretary of State. There was another provision in the Bill to which he would refer, that a return of all the warrants, and the circumstances connected with them, should be laid on the Table of the House within twenty-one days after the meeting of Parliament; and, with respect to that, he did not feel called upon on that occasion to make any observations, but he would remind their Lordships that the Bill did not define the law as affecting this subject; that it left the law obscure and uncertain, whilst it proposed a certain remedy, which remedy would only have the effect of nullifying and rendering invalid the powers which it proposed to continue; thus continuing a practice which they looked upon as most odious, whilst they did not retain the advantages it was calculated to confer. Under these circumstances, he (Lord Stanley) did not think he was going too far when he asked their Lordships, in the name of common sense, not to agree to the second reading of such a Bill. The noble Earl said that there was, under the present system, no responsibility attached to the Secretary of State; but he (Lord Stanley) was of opinion that the proceedings of the last Session of Parliament with respect to the Post Office, completely negatived that assumption. Committees were appointed by both Houses of Parliament to inquire into the circumstances connected with the issuing of warrants for opening letters, and they were composed principally of individuals who were not the political friends or partisans of the Government to which the Secretary of State belonged who was charged with issuing warrants to open letters in the particular cases that were more immediately referred to. The Committees investigated all the circumstances connected with every warrant issued by every living. Secretary of State, and they came to the conclusion, which they stated in their Reports, that in no instance had any such warrant been issued for any private object, or used in any manner which would justify any fear for the general security and inviolability of correspondence in this country—that in fact those warrants had always been issued for the general welfare of the State, and the peace and security of the realm. The power had been used by every successive Secretary of State for years, and the Reports of the Committee altogether negatived the idea that there had been any abuse of the power to issue these warrants

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on the part of the Secretary of State. The noble Earl, in introducing the second reading of this Bill, had laid great stress on the small number of warrants which had been issued, and appeared desirous to diminish still further the instances of the exercise of that power, which he did not, however, propose to abolish; but he (Lord Stanley) could not agree with him in the views which he took of the subject, and, as regarded the safety of letters and general inviolability of innocent correspondence, the Reports of the Committee completely refuted any such charge. There had been, in fact, but an average issue for many years of eight warrants annually, while the correspondence passing through the Post Office averaged 200,000,000 letters annually. The power to issue such warrants had always been used by the Secretary of State for the security of the realm—it was, he did not deny, an extreme power, which ought to be cautiously exercised, and only in extreme cases where the public exigencies required it; but being as it was an extreme power, if they were to retain it, if they were satisfied that it ought not to be abolished, what other security could they have for its safe and proper exercise than the high and honourable character of public men of all parties, seconded by the knowledge that it had not been used for any private purpose, or with any view other than maintaining the security of the State? That being the case, and if they were satisfied that, for public purposes, it ought not to be abolished, he trusted their Lordships would not consent to retain it accompanied by such restrictions as the Bill of the noble Lord contained—restrictions which would render the power of issuing such warrants altogether null and void. He would, therefore, move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
Lord Denmanwas of opinion, that any jocularity was misplaced in discussing a question which was of the gravest character and the greatest importance to the country. The character of the country, of that House, and of their Lordships as individuals, required they should give a calm and deliberate investigation to the principles of the Bill, and that they should not, like the noble Lord who had just sat down, apply themselves to the mere technicalities of the measure. Their Lordships had to consider the grave question, whether it was really to be permitted, that in England all letters should be subjected to the authority of a Minister of
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the Crown—whether the private correspondence of every man in the country should be placed wholly at the discretion of the Secretary of State. They were to consider whether, because forsooth only eight warrants had been issued in a year, you would retain a State engine by which the Secretary of State was enabled to have the whole correspondence of the country in his power, and to ascertain the contents of those letters which had been confided to the honour and the sense of public duty of the authorities of the Post Office. He thought it rather misplaced, therefore, to apply solely to the technicalities of a Bill, the principle of which affected the rights of the whole people of England. If the Committees which had investigated the circumstances connected with the issuing of warrants had formed any opinion with respect to the law of the subject, they had not stated that opinion—if they had perceived any difficulty in understanding the law which regulated the issuing of such warrants, they left that difficulty as they found it. He did not wish on that occasion to remark upon the Reports of those Committees, which, in different parts of them, showed that one Member entertained one sentiment, and another Member entertained another sentiment, or upon those sentences in the Reports which appeared to indicate differences of opinion amongst different Members of the Committee. The Committees, if they thought it their duty to define what the law was, had not done so, nor had they recommended any course to be adopted with respect to any difficulty in defining the law. He had the greatest respect for the individuals who composed those Committees; he had the honour of numbering some of them amongst his Friends; and he felt bound to say that they might have abstained from an opinion on the law affecting this power, from a persuasion that the immense importance of the subject would force its way to the attention of Parliament, and that it would be discussed as it ought to be, and as it might be at the present period, in a tone perfectly free, as it ought to be, from all party spirit. He hoped that, although the prerogative of the Crown had been brought forward in reference to this subject in the other House of Parliament, no one in that House thought there was the slightest ground for supposing that the Crown had any prerogative whatsoever

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which could authorize the opening of the letters of any individual in this country. Such an idea was altogether unsupported by legal proof, and had not the slightest foundation. The whole law of this country, with reference to this question, was contained in the Statutes relating to the Post Office. In the first place, the Crown granted a monopoly to certain individuals in carrying letters; the first Parliamentary recognition of it was by an ordinance of Cromwell in 1657; and the Post Office itself was established by Act of Parliament in the twelfth year of Charles II. These Acts, however, took no notice of the great duty which attached to the Postmaster in respect of the monopoly so created in his favour; for they merely required that no person should send letters by other hands, and did not make it the duty of that officer to deliver the letters entrusted to his charge. That was a rational and consistent obligation, however, and one which was most binding; and every one who placed a letter in the hands of any individual so authorized by the Crown, felt that he imposed a duty of a most solemn nature to deliver it. It was not, however, until the Act of Anne, that a provision was made on that subject; and the 42nd of Anne, c. 9, stated that whereas it was dangerous to the interests of the trade and commerce of the country that the letters of individuals should be delayed or opened in the Post Office, it was enacted that from and after that date any person opening or delaying such letters should be subject to a penalty of 20 l., and disqualified from holding a situation in the Post Office in future. Those provisions were followed up by the Statutes of the Georges, by the Act of the late King, and the Act of Her present Majesty's reign; and these were the modes by which the efficient discharge of the duties appertaining to the Post Office were enforced: in the first place, any misconduct or negligence in delivering letters was rendered subject to a penalty on summary conviction; and in the second place, there was a more serious penalty inflicted upon any person stealing or embezzling a letter, such person being declared guilty of felony; and if there were money, or a security for money, in the letter so stolen or embezzled, the person offending was rendered liable to transportation for life. The words of the Act were very clear, and declared that
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stealing or embezzling a letter was a felony subjecting the person to seven years' transportation, and to transportation for life if the letter contained a draft or security for money. The Secretary of State's warrant did not apply to that case, or to negligence in delivering letters; but applied only to the case of letters detained, delayed, or opened by the Postmaster under the authority of such a warrant; and the Act stated that the provisions did not extend to the opening, delay, or detaining of letters returned for want of sufficient description; or opened, detained, or delayed under the authority of an express warrant in writing under the hand of the Secretary of State. The object of that was to relieve the Post Office authorities from the punishment of misdemeanor by fine and imprisonment in case of the detention of a letter. Suppose there was an action against a Secretary of State for detaining a letter, to that action the Act of Parliament would not apply; it would only apply to the person who was authorized by the warrant to open letters. Was that a state of things in which the law was so well defined, that they ought not to consider if it might be altered with advantage? An action would undoubtedly lie, as a person might suffer very great injury by the detention of his correspondence, and holding back information which was necessary to him; and if he brought an action against the Secretary of State or the Postmaster, he was not aware of anything to protect him, unless the inference which might be drawn from that Act of Parliament. He (Lord Denman) did not mean on that occasion to express himself in such a manner as would bind him to an opinion if the case came to be argued; and he must say that it was with great surprise he heard the noble Lord opposite refer to his opinions of last year in that House, as if when the matter came accidentally before them, and he threw out an opinion upon it, such an opinion was to be looked on as the deliberate opinion of the Lord Chief Justice. His noble and learned Friend (Lord Campbell) doubted whether every particular letter must not be described. Ha (Lord Denman) disagreed with him at the time, and he did so still. He could not think it possible. It was quite absurd to suppose that every particular letter should be pointed out. But upon another occasion, when his noble and learned

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Friend pushed that argument to an extent which he did not think it bore, he (Lord Denman) said, that the very nature of the power of opening letters supposed a system of espionage; and he did not know how, if secret information were given, a particular description of a letter was to lead the Secretary of State to ascertain the one referred to. But was he to be held up as a patron of a system of espionage, because he said that under an Act of Parliament, which he condemned, which he thought inconsistent with the liberty of the subject, and which the noble Lord called an engine of State policy—a word that might be made to cover everything that was odious—was he, he said, to be held up as a patron of a system of espionage, because he stated that under that Act he did not see how the power could be restricted to any particular letter? He said that neither he nor his noble and learned Friend was bound to find out the means of giving facility to that odious power; but if there were no means of finding out particular letters, that was no reason why they should extend the power. He objected to the noble Lord quoting a particular passage from his speech in a former Session, in a debate which the noble Lord had not heard, for he could not suppose a more unfair way of dealing with any man in any situation, than by taking two small portions of his speech on a former occasion, and applying them as the noble Lord did, as if they went to support a system which of all other men he most strongly detested and renounced. Was it right that such a state of things as he had described should remain unaltered, that such serious doubts should be permitted to hang about the question? They ought to recollect that the practice could not legalise itself; a fact which had been shown in the case of general warrants, which had been in operation for a century, but which, when they were brought into the air of discussion, were at once abandoned; on which occasion Lord Camden remarked, that opening of private letters was odious and hurtful to the feelings of mankind, and should be always condemned. Suppose the Secretary of State, under the existing practice, issued a warrant to a postmaster to examine an individual's correspondence, could that warrant apply to one letter, or would it apply to all the letters directed to that individual? Was it a general warrant, or would it refer to all letters, or
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to some particular letters? The word "express" before "warrant," in the Act of Parliament, would appear to limit the warrant; but, according to the argument of last year, it was urged that the warrant might apply to all letters directed to an individual, as that, otherwise, it would be impossible to describe a letter with sufficient accuracy to prevent mistakes. He did not mean to say that such a thing was very probable; but it was necessary to be considered, if the law and practice were to come into a court of justice; and he thought their Lordships would be in a much better position if all these matters were considered beforehand. They were then in a state to consider what was best to be done, and it was better to do so than to leave it doubtful, and to be questioned hereafter by a court of justice or by a jury, who would no doubt be regulated by their feelings of what the liberty of the subject required. On the other hand, if the power were confined to a single letter described in the warrant, there would be no use in it. That was a state of things, then, in which it was quite rational and proper for Parliament to consider what was best to be done. It appeared to him that the Secretary of State was expected to act as an honourable man, to lay down certain rules for his conduct with regard to opening letters, and the unbounded nature of this power would impose upon him the necessity of that duty; but he wanted to know why Parliament should be afraid of imposing these restrictions on him? He understood that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister stated, in the other House, that he had no objection to the regulation of that power; that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department spoke of the power as most odious and hateful, and which he would be most happy to get rid of, and that he was willing to agree to any regulations on the subject. Now, what was the use of a Secretary of State making regulations, of which he was to be the judge whether they were broken or not? Why should it not be done by Parliament if it were fit to be done at all? The great object of his noble Friend's Bill was to enact, that if the power were proper under certain circumstances, it was proper under those circumstances only. He could understand that, in such times as those of Charles II., the merry Monarch and his courtiers might find it very entertaining to

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open letters, and he could well believe that even in the present time there might by possibility be some persons to whom suspected letters were addressed who might find themselves betrayed in a very awkward manner to those from whom they might wish certain things to be kept. It was not desirable to have such communications exposed, and it might so happen that it would be particularly disagreeable to have their contents betrayed to the eyes of the very individual who might be Secretary of State. "But," said the noble Lord, "was there no responsibility?" Could that be asserted after what took place in the last Session? He would ask their Lordships, did they wish to hear such things again—to hear such debates, in order to show that a Secretary of State was not irresponsible? On the contrary, was it not a calamity that such a subject was brought forward, and that such a proceeding should have arisen from the mere accident, as it was described by his noble Friend, of Mr. Mazzini detecting some bad language in that which was made to supply what was effaced by tearing off the seal? He fully acquitted all living Secretaries of State, whether in or out of office, of all misconduct in reference to their proceedings in this respect; he had not the slightest ground for imputing anything to their motives, and in the case of an arbitrary power that was all that could be expected; but he wanted to know upon what principle they acted. If it were good, he did not know why Parliament should not defend him instead of leaving him to defend himself. In former times the same delicacy was not observed. Suppose an election turned on a single vote, and that upon that vote the fate of the Ministry depended, did they not believe that 100 years back a Secretary of State would have thought himself a dolt for not opening a letter that would lead to that secret? Then the small number of the warrants made no difference, for if a warrant might run over several months, why might not eighty letters be opened instead of eight? There was no limit to the number that might be opened. A very instructive work had lately appeared—The Correspondence of the late Lord Malmesbury—and it appeared in that work that Lord Malmesbury, both abroad and at home, had some knowledge upon this subject. He supposed that nobody would say there was a more dishonourable act than open-
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ing letters in the course of a negotiation for the formation of a new Ministry; but when Mr. Pitt returned to power, in a letter to Lord Malmesbury he expressed a strong opinion that one of his letters had been opened. Again, the Duke of Portland, in 1792, in a letter on a similar subject—as to the introduction of Mr. Fox into the Cabinet—said, "I shall have this letter directed by another hand, and sealed by another seal." That was a strong intimation of what he expected. The same thing occurred in Mr. Burke's beautiful letters, and also in the letters of Horace Walpole; and he had no doubt that in those times it was considered quite fair that they should avail themselves of every kind of information that could be obtained by the opening of letters. But the same work, Lord Malmesbury's Correspondence, contained a passage which he had thought it right to copy, because, although it related to a foreign post office, still the same practices might be resorted to elsewhere. It was contained in a letter from Lord Malmesbury to the Minister in this country, in which he said his Lordship would scarcely credit it, but that M. Panin, then Prime Minister to Catherine II., employed whole nights in framing supposititious letters calculated to help his friends and hurt his enemies, and which he afterwards pretended had been intercepted in the Post Office, and the falsehood of which could not be detected, because when he showed them to the Empress, he used to state that the originals could only be detained while copies were taken. Another extract he had made, not from Lord Malmesbury's Correspondence, but from a review of the Correspondence; and certainly he believed that it was the remark of a reviewer who was never suspected of in any way favouring liberal opinions; but this particular review was a very acute review, and there the opinion was expressed, that if it was only to obtain such secrets as those which Lord Malmesbury said he was obliged to spend great sums to obtain, he only made a bad bargain, and that mostly money spent in this way would be money thrown away, for that the intelligence thus arrived at was only such as our adversary meant should mislead us, and which ought generally to be taken in the reverse sense to that which it purported to bear. And that brought him to what was the strongest point of the present case, namely, that it was beyond all possibility of doubt or

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cavil that this power was utterly useless. Neither of the Committees could state that it had ever done the smallest service to the State. The Committee stated that the Secretaries of State would be reluctant to see the power abolished. But, as his noble Friend had said, who did not like power, whether he expected office, or was at present in office, or had possessed office? Those who had been in office did not like that you should abrogate a power so liable to abuse as this which they had at one time exerted. Their Lordships would agree that it was most remarkable that no traces of the utility of this power in practice could be found in the Reports of either of the Committees. How easy would it have been for them to say, if such had been the fact, that in such a year the State obtained valuable information by this means? But there was a total absence of any such statement; there was an absence also of any allegation that any one respectable authority believed that it would be useful to the State to have this power continued. Then, as the practice was now known publicly, how easy would it be in future for seditiously disposed persons to take this mode of entrapping the Government; how easy would it be for such persons to take this mode of putting the Secretaries of State on the wrong scent; and if the state of the country was such, that troops were really wanted in the north, to write such letters as upon being opened at the Post Office would cause the troops to be sent away into the west! The practice would become a snare to the Government.
"Oh! what a tangled web we weave
"When first we practise to deceive!"
As had been mentioned in the House of Commons, there had been in former times a letter intercepted in a foreign post office which had led to exactly the reverse consequences to those which the Minister had anticipated, and had hastened a declaration of war on the part of the Government that opened the despatch; and when the Minister in this country remonstrated with our Ambassador for writing such a letter, he replied that the foreign Cabinet had fallen into his snare. Thus there would be no security that the Secretary of State here would not be the victim of the practices he put in force against others. He now came to the third point. When a letter was opened, what was to be
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done with it? The Act of Parliament was silent on the subject. Was it fit that it should be silent? Both the Committees were silent. The noble Lord had abstained from alluding to that part of the question. Who could bear to think of it? What, was a letter that had been opened that you might become possessed of the secrets of the writer, to be sent on to its destination with every appearance that it had travelled the whole way in security, resealed with forged stamps, and with new writing in it, if necessary to complete the deception? If the noble Lord personally gave his assurance to the writer of the letter, the man could not have more assurance that his letter would be conveyed in security. It had been stated so often to have been done, that their Lordships must believe it, that there was a Black-office, either at the Secretary of State's office, or within the walls of the General Post Office, where ingenious individuals were employed in these disgraceful practices, by which you might get at the secrets of persons—guilty persons perhaps, but by which the innocent, it was equally likely, might be wronged and deceived. Was that the mode that a great country like England should have recourse to in order to avail itself of information of the designs of its enemies? He knew of no proceedings at law in which such proceedings had been had recourse to, except the Bill of Pains and Penalties against Bishop Atterbury; but proceedings more disgraceful to the House of Commons than those he had never met with. They admitted copies of the letters of the Bishop and his correspondents in evidence, and would not admit evidence that they had been truly copied or correctly deciphered. In this case, their Lordships had no evidence that the practice had done any good whatever. He gave his noble Friend his cordial thanks for having introduced this Bill, and he was most sure that this Bill, or a mote extensive measure, must ultimately become the law of the land. If this Bill, as he thought not unlikely from the appearance of the House, should go no further, he did hope that some Bill would speedily receive the sanction of Parliament to prevent a person from being entrapped by these odious means, by which, when you have led him to suppose that you were carrying his letter as his agent, at the same time you were taking secret means of making him condemn

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himself. The noble Lord observed that this Bill did not abrogate the practice. He (Lord Denman) certainly should think it much better that the practice should be abrogated altogether, for the greatest possible mischief might arise from the practice, and no good had been shown ever to have arisen from it. The noble Lord had alluded to what was going on in 1842; in 1842 he acknowledged the danger was great. God forbid anybody should endeavour to palliate that danger; but how was it met? The Committee did not state that it was met by means of the information derived from opening the letters of suspected parties. No, it was met by the firmness of the Government and of the magistracy, by the good conduct of the police, and, he might be permitted to add, by the firm and temperate administration of justice. It was not by means like this of opening letters that the men who were then seeking to overturn the institutions of the country were defeated. They were defeated by the good spirit of the country; and that he, for one, believed would have been the case if no letters had been opened by the Secretary of State at all. This Bill might be liable to objections; but, if necessary, a discretionary power might easily be so arranged, that very little more inconvenience would arise from detaining the letters of suspected persons, than arose from detaining goods or searching houses under suspicious circumstances. He took it that this, however, confined the opening of letters to cases affecting the domestic affairs of this country — the internal peace and tranquillity of this kingdom. This country ought not to be the police officer of any Foreign State whatever. Here be could not help referring to the late events which led to this inquiry; and, if he might be allowed to address himself to the noble Earl opposite, he would say that the explanation which the noble Earl gave of his conduct and views on that ocsion was not only perfectly blameless, but very much raised his character as a just and honourable man. His alarm was, lest he might by possibility have contributed to the detection even of guilty men. It was a painful duty, he said, but a duty imposed upon him; and he took pains to prevent any injury to individuals. If they were found guilty, the noble Earl believed it was upon perfectly good and sufficient grounds; and he (Lord Denman) would be sorry, therefore, to interfere with his conviction,
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that nothing which then took place through his means which had injured any one. But he (Lord Denman) thought it was unfortunate, when he found characters brought into question, and persons accused from day to day, and that it was said to be perhaps as well that they should be so as not. He could not help thinking, however, that we entered upon a painful and dangerous course wherever, in any single instance, we interfered for the purpose of carrying out the objects of any Foreign Goverment. It was very easy to say that disturbances in Calabria were connected with seditious proceedings in Corfu, and that those proceedings at Corfu might lead to commotion in Austria, and that if Austria were disturbed that would put France in motion, and France would move England. Why, these remote possibilities were perpetually arising, and might arise on every question. Well did he remember the language of the noble Duke last year—that it was the proud policy of this country to preserve the peace of the world; but he (Lord Denman) thought the peace of the world was best preserved by our declining, on general grounds and on all occasions, to interfere in the concerns of any Foreign Government whatever. If they once interfered in any case, might it not be possible that they might be solicited to interfere in other cases? And if they refused, might not that refusal become the cause of war? If they refused to interfere on behalf of a friendly State, they might give offence which might possibly operate on the feelings of men in such a way as to lead to war. To advert, for instance, to the situation of Mr. Mazzini, was it possible to imagine a more inconvenient situation for a Government than to be told by some Foreign State, "You have a certain Mazzini living among you. He is a dangerous man. Take care what you do with him; and do not fail to open his letters, in order to prevent him from carrying on improper practices?" Year after year had that individual been labouring under the charge of being a dangerous and atrocious character, one who would hire others to commit assassination; and now some leading Member of the Government of England was compelled to declare that there was not the slightest foundation for such imputation. Now, if the Government of England granted this favour to the Pope or the King of Naples, how were they to deny

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it to the Emperor of Russia? If he were not satisfied with the conduct of some of the Poles in this country—if he thought they were carrying on here plans dangerous to his Government, and if he were to call on the Government to take these means of affording him information as to individuals, was it impossible that a refusal might lead to war with Russia? Then, the only ground on which they could enter upon an engagement of this kind was, they were treating with those who were in possession of the reins of Government. But was it always easy to tell who was actually in possession of the Government in Spain and Portugal? and might it not so happen that by serving one party they might in the result find they were playing into the hands of the enemies of this country? He thought this was not a proper kind of assistance for this country to give to any Foreign Government. He could not agree in the expression which had been dropped of regret that we had no longer an Alien Act. He thanked God we had not an Alien Act. He remembered the siege that had been laid to that iniquitous Act in the other House of Parliament. Year after year that siege had been laid, and he did not believe that Sir R. Peel had forgotten the cheers with which he was greeted when he came forward and declared that the Alien Act was gone. He (Lord Denman) trusted that it was gone for ever; but this opening of letters was a substitute for it—much less effectual, it was true, but much more dangerous in its results. In no sense whatever should he wish to see that Act reproduced. He did not think it necessary to disclaim any imputation of motives to those Gentlemen who had filled the high office of Secretary of State; he did not speak of any one living; but there had been unfortunately very unprincipled men in the office to which the exercise of this power was confided, and there might be again, and this power ought not to be again trusted to such hands. Then underlings in office might think, that while these practices were resorted to by their superiors, they might safely play that game of "High Life below Stairs," with which the country had been entertained during the summer months, when letters were opened which referred to the Derby stakes. Subordinates might be induced to act thus by the example of what they knew to be done by
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their superiors in office. His own experience in courts of justice confirmed the unfavourable character that had been given by a person high in the Post Office of the subordinates employed there. Persons in those situations had abused their trusts; that was notorious, and he did not know that they would be induced to discontinue their practice as long as they observed that the law permitted such practices by their superiors, who were equally expected to conduct themselves with reason and integrity. 1844 was the first year that we had seen the opening of foreign letters for the benefit of Foreign States, quite bonâ fide done for that purpose, and for avoiding embarrassment in our relations with these States. The practice was new, and, as he thought, dangerous, and utterly unknown to the people of England. They were not aware of it until it came before Parliament last year. It was true that the power had been contained in Acts of Parliament for a long series of years; but it was utterly unknown to the public. In the Act of Victoria no reference was made to it in the margin. It was the same with the former Acts. Blackstone was not aware of it. His (Lord Denman's) learned brother, Mr. Justice Coleridge, who edited Blackstone about twenty years ago, did not give any notice of it. Mr. Chitty, however, as his noble and learned Friend had pointed out to him, did mention in his edition of Blackstone an Act of Cromwell in which this power was contained—not a very respectable origin that for an Act of Parliament. This practice, then, had its beginning under Cromwell. He (Lord Denman) had last night marked a short passage in Hume respecting the last hours of Cromwell, which he would read to their Lordships:—
"All composure of mind was now for ever fled from the Protector; he felt that the grandeur which he had attained with so much guilt and courage could not insure him that tranquillity which it belongs to virtue alone and moderation fully to ascertain. Overwhelmed with the load of public affairs, dreading perpetually some fatal accident in his distempered government, seeing nothing around him but treacherous friends or enraged enemies, possessing the confidence of no party, resting his title on no principle, civil or religious, he found his power to depend on so delicate a poise of factions and interests as the smallest event was able, without any preparation, in a moment to overturn. Death, too, which with such signal intrepidity he had braved in the field, being incessantly threatened by the

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poniards of fanatical or interested assassins, was ever present to his terrified apprehension, and haunted him in every scene of business or repose. Each action of his life betrayed the terrors under which he laboured. The aspect of strangers was uneasy to him; with a piercing and anxious eye he surveyed every face to which he was not daily accustomed. He never moved a step without strong guards attending him; he wore armour under his clothes, and further secured himself by offensive weapons, a sword, falchion, and pistols, which he always carried about him. He returned from no place by the direct road, or by the same way which he went. Every journey he performed with hurry and precipitation. Seldom he slept above three nights together in the same chamber; and he never let it be known beforehand what chamber he intended to choose, nor intrusted himself in any which was not provided with back doors, at which sentinels were carefully placed. Society terrified him, while he reflected on his numerous, unknown, and implacable enemies; solitude astonished him, by withdrawing that protection which he found so necessary for his security."
If he (Lord Denman) wanted a contrast between two individuals, he should speak of Oliver Cromwell and that illustrious man whose victories in war were crowned by his influence in civil affairs, whose victories had all been journeys on the road to peace, and whose moderation and virtues were the pride, the boast, and the bulwark of this country. He wished the noble Duke would take that contrast into his consideration, and see that the individuals were not more contrasted than the times in which they lived; and that if this hateful power originated in the fears of a gloomy and hypocritical tyrant, there never was a man more proper or more suited to repeal it—to relieve the Government from the odium of it, and the people of England from the oppression and insult, than was the noble Duke in the times in which we lived. This panegyric he would venture to pronounce on the noble Duke, though in his presence:—
"Statesman, yet friend to truth, of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear."
He (Lord Denman) trusted that the noble Duke, at a moment when the Government of this country were reversing the policy of Oliver Cromwell, with regard to Oliver Cromwell, would not lend his support to a more grievous policy towards England than had been pursued in respect to the subject before the House—the Protector.
Lord Broughamsaid, he thought the
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measures of the statesman to whom his noble and learned Friend had just referred, would bear a comparison with any that had been propounded in any age of our history. With the crimes of Oliver Cromwell he was as familiar as his noble and learned Friend—he reprobated and despised no less than he the faults of his character; but he maintained that he had propounded, and, to a certain degree, effected some of the greatest and most salutary improvements in the legal, as well as in the commercial policy of this country; and he only lamented—he said this in the presence of other Members of the profession—that the lawyers of the day were too strong for him. He had been a little alarmed at first at the very severe censure which his noble and learned Friend had been pleased to pronounce on his noble Friend opposite, in the opening of his speech, for having been guilty of what he was pleased to characterize as levity, which was inconsistent with the importance of this serious subject. But his noble and learned Friend, totally forgetting the tone in which he began, did not close his eloquent speech without having recourse to topics of a purely amusing nature. He was afraid to say anything which might excite a smile after the sentence which had been passed that night; but his noble and learned Friend had himself been guilty of the offence of uttering jests, not only at his (Lord Brougham's) expense—of such jests he would not complain—but even at the expense of the subject itself, alluding amongst other things to the mimic court of Charles II. and to the scenes there represented. His theatrical experience being not so great as that of his noble and learned Friend, he would not attempt to follow him in such allusions; but would apply himself in a very few words to the defence of the Committee of which he himself had been a Member. Now, the first charge brought against the Committee was, that they had not given any statement of the law. Surely his noble and learned Friend could not have read the Report, or if he had, it had not been with that careful attention which he usually gave to subjects before he addressed the House. If their Lordships looked at the very first page of the Report, they would find it stated that the power exercised by the Secretaries of State was of immemorial usage—that it dated from the earliest

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institutions in this country for the conveyance of letters, and from the practice of, as well as Orders in, Council; they further state that the practice so established by usage had been recognised over and over again in Statutes passed in the reigns of several Sovereigns—was not that giving some statement of what the state of the law was? His noble and learned Friend must permit him to say, with great deference, that this was one of the ways in which any constitutional power came to deserve the name of constitutional power, in which any unlawful act came to acquire the title to be called a lawful act, by whatever Government it might be exercised. Here was a constant, uninterrupted usage as long as the Post Office had been established, and a recognition of its legality by various Statutes of the realm. He knew of no better foundation; nine-tenths of the Constitution rested on such a foundation as that. His noble Friend who had introduced the Motion said they must go back to the time of Richard I., in order to get back to the time of legal memory. Why, the whole of the powers and privileges of Parliament had originated within the time of legal memory, and it was only by the utmost subtlety and refinement that lawyers had been able to hold that they were beyond it. After giving a statement of the law, and of the foundations of the law, the Committee proceeded to say:—"This appears to the Committee (meaning this proceeding) to be the state of the law with respect to the detaining and opening of letters at the Post Office; and they do not find any other authority for such detaining or opening." His noble and learned Friend had compared this power of detaining and opening letters, under the warrant of the Secretary of State, with that by which general warrants were issued and defended. But such a comparison was ridiculous. Let noble Lords produce the statutory recognitions of general warrants; let them show him Statutes of Anne, George I., George II., or George III., enacting that such and such a thing should not be done, saving and excepting under general warrants issued by the Secretary of State. There was no such clause to be found in any Act in the Statute Book, and therefore a grosser error, a more absurd delusion, a more baseless imagination could not be conceived than that of likening the pre-
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sent case to the case of general warrants, and saying that the practice of two centuries is nothing, because practice would have sanctioned general warrants, which nevertheless on trial were found to be unlawful. If, before Lord Camden pronounced the memorable judgment which, among all his titles to fame, stood first and foremost—if he who was at the same time a lawyer, a statesman, an orator, and a judge, before he delivered that judgment by which his name had been immortalized in his profession as a lawyer, and amongst his countrymen as a patriot, had seen a tenth part of what was quoted on the face of the Report in the shape of statutory recognition of the power of issuing general warrants, he would venture to say, that although Lord Camden's fame would have burnt as brightly as ever, it would have been by having other lights to enshrine it for their veneration than his judgment in the case of Wilkes. Another charge made against the Committee was, that, although they had stated generally that they were in favour of keeping the existing power, they did not assign any one public use to which it might be subservient; and his noble and learned Friend who spoke last was pleased to say that it did not appear from the Report that the community was in any important particular a gainer by the continuance of the present law. Now, in the fifth paragraph of the second page he found the following words:—
"The Committee have not had any means of estimating in what degree the examination of letters thus detained has facilitated the administration of justice, the result never being reported to the Home Office; but it is known"—speaking of the power—"it is known in some instances to have led to the apprehension and conviction of offenders"—that was one little object of law—"and to the recovery of property."
which was another object of some public importance. He thought, therefore, he was entitled to say that the Committee were not liable to the charge of not having shown that the exercise of this power was of any service to the State. In reference to State offences, the Report said—
"It does not appear that from anyone of these letters specific knowledge of great importance has been obtained. The information, however, which has been derived from this source has been regarded as valuable, and may have given better information upon dangers apprehended in particular cases, than could be derived from local observation, or than

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might be collected from the vague and exaggerated rumours which in periods of disturbance usually prevail."
The Committee was one of secrecy—they were not at liberty to divulge all that came to their knowledge; but how did his noble and learned Friend know that the passage there with the hidden meaning did not allude to the dangers to which the country was exposed in 1842? He would not break the secrecy which had been imposed upon him as a Member of the Committee; but without going further, he would only inform his noble and learned Friend that it did. His noble Friend who introduced the measure had as holy an abhorrence of general warrants as his noble and learned Friend behind him; but if the Bill were to pass into a law, general warrants, for the first time, would be legalised. ["Hear, hear!"] It was so, and he referred his noble and learned Friend to the second section of the Bill, and he would find that he (Lord Brougham) had properly described the effect it would have were it to become law. With the sentiments which his noble and learned Friend entertained, he was bound to vote for reading the Bill six months hence; and having got rid of it, let him, to be consistent, introduce a measure altogether abolishing the whole power from beginning to end. In his opinion, the power must be retained. His noble Friend would allow it to exist where parties were suspected of treason against the peace and safety of the State, but he would abolish it in all other cases. If he were required to choose between different cases, he would infinitely rather have the power retained in reference to other cases, than with relation to that which he had mentioned. The reason of this was obvious. People who were brewing high treason did not usually send their letters through the Post Office. [Lord Denman: Of what use, then, was the power?] That was exactly his argument—the power was of no use for such purposes. It might be used, however, with advantage in the detecting of minor offences; it might be resorted to in cases of murder, robbery, forgery, and fraudulent bankruptcy. There could be no doubt whatever that the detaining and opening of letters at the Post Office offered a very ordinary and easy mode of detecting such offences. He himself remembered an instance in which a man
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who had been guilty of felony on a great scale was discovered, together with his gang of mercantile conspirators, seized, tried, condemned, and executed (the case happened before the alteration of the law with respect to capital offences), in consequence of a letter being stopped at the Post Office which was written to a person known to be related to the head of the conspiracy. He must observe that the eighth and ninth sections of this Bill would, if the Bill were carried, utterly prevent spies from giving to the Government information which it might be desirous to obtain. With regard to the Bill itself, he had to remind their Lordships that the Committee which sat upon this question had stated in their Report that they could not recommend the abolition of the present law; they stated that this power had never once been exercised for any bad or sinister purpose; they distinctly alleged that it had never been abused. He (Lord Brougham) had heard no charges brought against any particular Secretaries of State. He found the greatest names involved in the practice ever since it had existed. The name of Mr. Fox was appended to one of the most sweeping warrants which they had before them. His noble and learned Friend who had spoken last said, that Mr. Fox would have been more likely to join those who were against this power, than those who were in favour of it; but he (Lord Brougham) knew too well the acute character of Mr. Fox's mind, to suppose that he would have gone to the extent of supporting this Bill. That he might have supported some other Bill was possible. There was nothing to compel Mr. Fox to issue the warrant which he did issue. He issued it voluntarily; it was signed with his own hand, and it was, he repeated, of the most general and sweeping nature. It was impossible that he could have signed it without attending—without most minutely attending to the subject; for Mr. Fox was a man who possessed the most accurate information upon all details—he was a man who peculiarly loved details—he was a man whose curiosity was ever watchful and awake, and who was especially fond of prying into every particular connected with his own department. He well remembered that on one occasion when he (Lord Brougham) happened to be with him, and when the Under Secretary was unavoidably absent,

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it appeared as though there were no single detail connected with the routine of the Foreign Office with which he was not most intimately acquainted. Mr. Fox was not likely, therefore, to have exercised this power without the most searching inquiry; and he ventured to say, that were Mr. Fox alive at that moment, there was no one case that had been brought forward in the course of the inquiry in either House of Parliament which he would not have shown that he knew as well as they themselves did. It was quite impossible that Mr. Fox could have had any strong opinion against this power as unconstitutional. Yet, he would ask, was there ever a man who would shrink more from anything that was paltry or degrading? Was there ever a man who would more have hated to meet a Foreign Minister on terms of confidence or good will, or even of common courtesy, in society on the day when he had been reading his letters, possibly his private correspondence, under a warrant of his own at the Foreign Office? Mr. Fox must have felt the necessity for the exercise of this power. He signed this warrant, he acted upon this warrant, and never, to the end of his life, either in office or in opposition, did he endeavour to alter a practice of the existence of which he was aware from his own experience. Right or wrong, the practice had the high sanction and authority of one of the soundest statesmen, one of the most constitutional lawyers, one of the most profound historians in all that regarded the antiquities of our Constitution, and one of the most upright and honourable men that ever adorned either a high or a middling station of life. He would give his most hearty assent to the Amendment of his noble Friend.
Lord Campbellobserved that he was, on the present occasion, placed in a peculiar and novel situation, having to defend the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench against that of his noble and learned Friend who had been Attorney General to Queen Caroline, and afterwards had filled the high office of Lord Chancellor. The able and constitutional speech of his noble and learned Friend the Lord Chief Justice would, he was sure, make a deep impression upon the English nation, and add to the admiration and reverence with which his name was every where received. The question, which had been in a great measure, he thought, lost
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sight of, was, whether this Bill of his noble Friend (Lord Radnor) now before their Lordships should be read a second time; but his noble Friend behind him had gone into a discussion of the merits of Oliver Cromwell, a most able statesman no doubt, and a governor in whose time many important legal reforms were effected, with which, however, he had but little to do, and whose only personal measure was a Bill to abolish the Court of Chancery, the result of which might be gathered from his complaint that the lawyers were too hard for him. This, however, had nothing to do with the question before their Lordships, which was simply whether the law on this subject was to be allowed to remain in the state in which it now was, or whether they would not make some attempt to define and regulate it. In his opinion it would be better that this power of opening letters should be entirely abolished. For his part he thought it was a power more likely to be injurious than beneficial to any Government. It was true many cases might be imagined in which it would be convenient that the Government should have such power; but cases could be supposed in which the employment of spies would be convenient to the Government, and cases could also be conceived in which the application of the torture might be convenient. Now let them consider what was the nature of this power as it now existed. It was the power of opening any letter that passed through the Post Office; and what was the process? First, an impression of the seal was taken, and a false seal made, then the letter was broken open, a copy of its contents taken—it was then refolded, a false seal was placed upon it and false stamp, and, if necessary, forged hands, in order to destroy any proof of the letter having been opened. It was then forwarded to its destination, the person to whom it was addressed having no intimation, and no means of knowing, that his correspondence had been tampered with. And this was to be done by the direction of any Secretary of State—the Colonial Secretary as well as the Home Secretary, and in regard to any letter or number of letters. This was a practice so abhorrent to all our notions of honour and propriety, that it was in England only that it was defended. All other nations were ashamed of the practice which his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) had so gallantly

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defended. Even his friend M. Guizot had disclaimed, in the most solemn manner, that any such practice existed in France. He had declared that the French Post Office was sacred, and he should consider it a slur upon his nation if such a practice did exist there. It was reserved for the Legislature of England — the English House of Lords and the English House of Commons, whose honour was supposed to be so dear and so highly prized — that this detestable practice was to be defended and panegyrized. Then it had not been shown, in the whole course of the inquiry that had taken place, that any benefit had resulted from the practice. Why, therefore, continue it? If, however, they determined upon preserving this power, surely it was necessary that it should be defined—that it should be regulated—and that it should be legalized. The Chief Justice of England had declared in his place in Parliament—that was, as far as he could do so, without giving an opinion by which he was to be bound—he had declared in the most solemn manner that in his opinion there were very great doubts whether the power did at this moment by law exist. Was not that alone a sufficient ground for reading this Bill a second time? What might be the result of leaving the law in its present state? An action might be brought against Sir James Graham by Mr. Duncombe or Mr. Mazzini. He imputed no blame to Sir James Graham; he had only done that which he found other Secretaries of State had done before him, and had merely acted upon a practice which he found to exist. If such an action were brought, there would be great difficulty in obtaining the necessary evidence, no doubt; but it was possible it might be obtained, and that a jury, acting under the direction of the judge, might decide that the practice was illegal, and give damages to an enormous amount, in which case a public functionary, who had acted merely in accordance with what he believed to be his duty, would be subjected to inconvenience and pecuniary sacrifice. But not only were there great doubts in his mind whether this power existed, but his belief was that it did not exist. It had been said in another place, and referred to in the course of that debate, that the Prerogative of the Crown gave the power to open all private letters that passed through the Post Office. That opinion had, how-
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ever, been disclaimed by the noble Lord opposite, and no wonder, for it was extravagantly absurd; and he would, as had been said before, care as little for the opinion of the Secretary of State in such a case as that of the porter who waited at his door. There was no pretence for saying that there was any such prerogative in the Crown. It was true this power had been referred to in Proclamations, but that did not make it law. By the Common Law of the land there was no difference between opening a letter in the Post Office and opening a letter in the hands of a common carrier, or in the writing desk of the party to whom it was addressed. Then, if the power did not exist by Common Law, had it been confirmed by Act of Parliament? If it had, where was the Act of Parliament that gave it? They must look to this question, then, as it stood in Queen Anne's time, before the Act of Parliament passed. That the power at that time did not exist in Common Law was obvious; and the noble Lord opposite had admitted that the power was not confirmed by that Act. The Act merely made that which was before a trespass a misdemeanor, and inflicted a penalty accordingly. The same might be said of the subsequent Acts—the Acts of George II., George III., and of Victoria—they imposed a penalty as for a misdemeanor upon that which was before but a civil trespass; but neither of those Acts gave any power to the Secretary of State to open letters passing through the Post Office. Then, if the Secretary of State had not the power by Common Law, and if it had not been confirmed by Statute, from whence did it arise? Under these circumstances, he thought there could be but little doubt that if the power were contested in a court of justice, the judgment of the court would be against it. That it had been the practice of successive Governments could not be denied, and therefore he did not think any blame was due upon those who, presuming the power to exist by law, had exercised it. But the practice of issuing general warrants had existed from time immemorial, but it was found to be illegal; and he believed the same decision would be pronounced against this practice of opening letters at the Post Office, if the question came before the courts of law. It was true that the Secretary of State might issue his warrant to seize and open letters, and so might any justice of the peace, if the interests of

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public justice required it, but he would do it on his peril. Instances had occurred, as in the case of Miss Blandon for murder, in which conviction had been obtained by the seizure of letters under such warrants; but those letters might have been seized whether in the Post Office or in a private writing desk. So much as to the principle of his noble Friend's Bill. As to the enactments which had been objected to by his noble and learned Friend, he thought it was a somewhat unusual course for their Lordships to enter into a discussion of the details of a measure on the second reading. If such a course was adopted, the greatest inconvenience would follow. The question was, whether the law should be permitted to remain in its present state or not? He said that they did not now know what the law was; and it was the duty of their Lordships not to leave the law in so vague and uncertain a state as placed the whole of the correspondence of England at the caprice of any person who might happen to be Secretary of State, without information being laid in the first instance, and without any account being rendered to Parliament of the manner in which the power had been exercised, or the grounds of its exercise. The noble and learned Lord concluded by calling on their Lordships to relieve the country from the odium and obloquy that now rested upon it in regard to this practice of opening letters.
The Lord Chancellor: I am unwilling to interfere with the noble Lord on this occasion; but although it appears to me that the subject is exhausted, I feel that I cannot, with reference to the position in which I stand, remain altogether silent. The point to which I will address myself is that which my noble and learned Friend principally treated in the latter part of his speech—viz., whether this is a power which a Secretary of State possesses by law. I entertain the greatest possible respect for the opinion of my noble and learned Friend the Chief Justice, and my other noble and learned Friend, and therefore it is that I always hesitate when I differ in opinion with them; but it does appear to me that, adverting to the history of this power, and the manner in which it is exercised, it is impossible to entertain any serious doubt as to the law on the subject; that it is a legal power, legally exercised by the person to whom it is entrusted. My Lords, the mode to consider this subject is to inquire what
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has passed in courts of justice upon it, and to consider also what are the Acts of Parliament that have reference to it. If I find that this power has been over and over again recognised by different Acts of Parliament (for the recognition of a power by an Act of Parliament makes it the law of the land); if I find that it has at different times been brought under the view of courts of justice, and that courts of justice have never expressed any doubt respecting it, then I think I am warranted in coming, and come safely, to the conclusion that this is part of the acknowledged law of the land. In order to satisfy you of the propriety of this conclusion, I will only refer to the facts, the distinct facts, that are stated in these different Reports of the two Committees of this and the other House of Parliament. My noble and learned Friend stated that this originated in the time of Cromwell. In that respect he is mistaken. The power is stated to have been exercised, in more than one instance, previous to the Commonwealth; and in the time of the Commonwealth there is a clause in the Act to which my noble and learned Friend has referred, which distinctly recognises the existence of the power. It was one of the very uses of establishing the Post Office—it forms part of the preamble of the Act of Parliament that it was so; and, therefore, that is a distinct recognition by the authority of the Legislature of that time, that it was part of the law of the land. What took place from that time and during the Commonwealth? It was acted upon in a great variety of instances; and the Committee of the other House of Parliament, in their Report, refer, in confirmation of what I have stated, to the intercepted letters, many in number, contained in Thurlow's State Papers; which shows that the Act of Parliament which passed at that time was not suffered merely to rest on the Statute Book, but was acted upon by authority. What is the next step? Immediately after the Restoration, we find the same power, not recognised, indeed, by the Legislature in the first instance, but recognised by various instruments that were executed at the time. We find a lease granted of the Post Office to a person of the name of Bishop. In that lease this very power, which had been previously exercised and recognised by Act of Parliament, is asserted and reserved to the Secretary of State for the time being. My noble and learned Friend says, very

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properly, that a proclamation does not make the law; but a proclamation is evidence of the law. A proclamation ought not to issue by authority of the Crown unless it is founded upon the law. We find that after Bishop's lease terminated, and when a grant of this power was made to another person, of the name of O'Neile, a proclamation was issued by the Crown, reserving the same rights and the same power to the Secretary of State, which was contained in the Act to which I have referred. This brings down the power to an advanced period in the reign of Charles II. Now, I turn to the proceedings of the courts of justice. At that time, Coleman was put on his trial. What was the evidence against Coleman? It consisted of letters intercepted at the Post Office, under the authority of the Secretary of State. I am not approving of that trial—I am not approving of the verdict—I am not approving of the judgment: but these things were brought distinctly to the knowledge of the Court; the evidence was received, it was acted upon; neither the counsel at the time, nor the judges who presided at the trial, expressed any doubt as to the legality of the proceeding. It was considered as part of the acknowledged law. [Lord Campbell said the handwriting was proved, and therefore it could not be opposed as evidence.] If this had been considered as a violation of the law, is it possible that no observation should have been made, either by the counsel for the prisoner, or by the judges who were presiding? But that is not the only case. My noble and learned Friend referred to the case of Atterbury. What was the evidence against Atterbury? A series of letters intercepted at the Post Office, commencing in the month of March, according to the Report of the Committee, and continuing to August the same year. These letters, or copies of them, were all proved at the Bar of this House against Atterbury; and no observation was made by any noble Peer, no observation was made by Atterbury himself, no observation was made by any learned person at the time, calling in question the authority of the Secretary of State to intercept letters, or to produce them in evidence. Observations were made as to the manner in which the prosecution was conducted—observations were made when Atterbury insisted on cross-examining certain witnesses, and having certain other witnesses produced—observations were made, with great force
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and propriety, as to the hardship to which he was exposed, and the injustice that was made use of against him, and as to copies only of his letter being produced, and there being no evidence to prove that the handwriting was compared with the original, and no opportunity offered to cross-examine the persons who had made those copies. If there was so much activity used with respect to these particular points to which I have directed your Lordships' attention, and to which my noble and learned Friend referred, and not a single observation was made as to the authority of the Secretary of State, and the manner in which the letters were obtained, then I put it to your Lordships whether that is not the strongest evidence to show that, at that period at least, it was considered this power was legally exercised by the Secretary of State? But this is not all. Your Lordships very well recollect another most material fact that is referred to, which relates to a complaint made in the other House of Parliament against the Master of the Post Office, for opening the letters of Members of the House. A Resolution was passed upon the subject by the House of Commons. A great deal of excitement and feeling was created upon the occasion, and what was the result? A Resolution was passed by the House of Commons, in which they declared it was a high breach of their privileges to open any of their letters, except under warrant and authority for that purpose by the Secretary of State. What could be a more distinct recognition than this by the other House of Parliament? I do not mean that the other House can make law, or declare that to be law which is not law; but it shows that this was a legal power lawfully exercised, and properly vested in the Secretary of State for the time being. There is another trial that I could refer to of more modern date—that of Hensey, for high treason. His letters were intercepted and produced, and the same observations apply with equal force to that case. No observation was made—no remark or suggestion that the power was not legally exercised by the Secretary of State. When this power thus comes in review before the Judges of the land, and in this and the other House of Parliament, and is never called in question during a period of nearly a century, I ask your Lordships whether that does not itself form a strong evidence of what the law is? The last case in which this power was recognised in a court of

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justice was on the trial of Horne Took. Everybody knows that Mr. Erskine was the distinguished counsel for Horne Took. Letters were produced which had been intercepted at the Post Office. Would not that distinguished advocate have made observations and comments on this abuse of authority, on this illegal act and violation of the law, if he, who so well knew what the law was, considered it an infraction of the law? But no observation was made, either by that distinguished advocate or by any Judge on the bench. Nay, another person equally eminent, profoundly versed in the law of the country, Sir Vicary Gibbs, was also one of the counsel for Home Took. Would he have allowed the evidence to have passed without observation if he had considered there was any doubt existing as to the law? These are observations in aid of the observations made by my noble and learned Friend; but it does not require this aid. I now come to the Acts of Parliament. I have referred in the first instance to an Act passed in the time of the Commonwealth. I now come to the Statute of Anne. What is the observation made on that Statute by my noble and learned Friend? He says it is only an exception from penalties in favour of the Secretary of State. I say it is a distinct recognition of what the law is. It is impossible to suppose the Legislature would have made such an exception, if the Legislature at that time did not consider that the law was such as to warrant such an exception. And the recognition of the law is as clear to establish what the law is, as if an Act of the Legislature had been passed directly upon the subject. But it is not merely to the Statute of Anne I wish to direct your attention. This question has been brought in review before the Legislature at different periods of our history; for instance in the reign of Geo. I. and Geo. II. But I now come to an important period—namely, 1830. What passed then? My noble and learned Friend (Lord Denman) then filled the high office of Attorney General, and he prepared a Bill for the purpose of continuing this very power. That Bill was drawn up with very great care and deliberation. My noble and learned Friend seemed to doubt this fact in the course of this discussion. My noble and learned Friend's attention was then directed to the clauses of that Act; and he said on that occasion that he had considered the subject most maturely; that he had examined into it, and that he
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did not think it either convenient or proper that the power should be given up. I recollect distinctly upon one of those discussions which have taken place here, my noble and learned Friend stated to your Lordships that he saw that such a power had existed, and that he did not think it proper to give it up. That I may not be considered as mis-stating what the noble and learned Lord said, I will read the passage in the speech to which I have referred. This was the object of my noble and learned Friend's proposition:—
"Without casting any blame or seeking to throw any suspicion over the manner in which the power in question had been exercised in the present instance, he certainly thought that the real and entire state of the case ought to be generally promulgated. If blame were attributable to the exercise of such a power, he should share it, for soon after the change of Government in 1830, a new Post Office Bill being required, he took an active part in preparing it. The clause containing the power he observed with a good deal of surprise; but as it was not thought necessary to deprive future Governments of the power, the clause continued to be part of the Bill."*
As my noble and learned Friend did not think it necessary to deprive future Governments of that power, he admitted it to be a legal one; because if it were not legal, to call it a power would be an abuse of terms; the clause therefore continued a part of the Bill. My noble and learned Friend added, "that he did not believe the Bill was in any degree a party measure. Your Lordships will perceive that this power was not only exercised by the Statute of Anne, but also by successive Legislatures, down to the present day; but in the particular instance to which I refer, my noble and learned Friend held the office of Attorney General, when he would not consent to abandon this existing power, and my other noble and learned Friend (Lord Campbell) co-operated with him. How is it possible that they can entertain this doubt as to the legality of this power, which I have proved, by a reference to Acts of Parliament, began with Cromwell, and was continued down to this day, when my noble and learned Friends were themselves the actors—how is it possible, I say, that they can now repudiate this authority, which has been recognised by so many Legislatures, and was then armed with the same force as if it were distinctly enacted by these Legislatures? I have called your Lordships' attention to
* Hansard (Third Series), lxxv. p. 980.

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the manner in which this power has been authorized; and never has it in any one in stance been called into question. Have I not then established to your Lordships' satisfaction that this is a legal power when legally exercised, and which has never been called into question, has never been doubted until now? My noble and learned Friend says, that the parties exercising the power are liable to an action. Has any action been brought to question the exercise of this power? Did Mr. Mazzini ever bring an action to decide the point? Why did not those who questioned the power bring the matter before a legal tribunal? Why not bring an action, if an action could at all be supported in the face of what I have stated? My Lords, I felt that I could not sit silent on this occasion when my noble and learned Friends have stated their serious doubts as to the law on this subject. I felt it my duty to express my opinion on this subject, which is consistent with that of my noble and learned Friend near me (Lord Brougham). I repeat again, that whenever I differ in opinion upon a question of law from my noble and learned Friends, I differ with doubt and hesitation; but in this case I find myself fortified by arguments and facts, to which I have already referred. It is my conviction that the opinion which I have expressed is the correct one, and nothing that I have heard in the course of the present debate has induced me to depart from it. With respect to the present Bill, I think it is wholly unnecessary for me to enter into any discussion upon it. The noble Lord who has last addressed your Lordships has pursued a most extraordinary course with respect to it; he reprobates this power; he says that it has not been lawfully exercised, and that such a power vested in the Secretary of State was abominable. The noble and learned Lord makes use of all his usual eloquence to show how abominable a power it is, and how disgraceful to a country like this that it should exist. But what course does he take? He actually votes for the second reading of this Bill, which proposes to continue and to perpetuate that power, so as to render the existence of it perfectly legal. Now what course can be more inconsistent? If the noble and learned Lord thinks that this power is contrary to law, and disgraceful to the country, he should vote for a very different Bill to that which is before the House. In respect to the inconsistencies of this Bill, these have been so ex-
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posed by my noble Friend (Lord Stanley) who opened the debate, and my noble and learned Friend near me, that I think it would only be an idle waste of time to enter any further into this point. I shall make no observation upon it except this—one of its provisions is, that within fourteen days of a letter being received, it shall be transmitted to the person to whom it is directed; it follows of course that no other letters having reference to that transaction would be attempted to be transmitted, or would be intercepted. Now, as in the case of Atterbury, the illegal correspondence might be carried on for a period of six months, and the greater part of the valuable evidence which was procured in that case would have been altogether lost, if the provisions of this Bill had then been the law of the land. But I will not occupy your Lordships' time further. My object in rising was to state my opinion in respect to what the law in this respect really is, and the reasons upon which such opinion is founded. I have done so as concisely as it was in my power, and I do not mean to make any further observations in respect to this particular Bill.
Lord Denmanexplained: he had been stated to have said that he had maturely considered this subject, and deliberately said that it ought to be the law.
The Lord Chancellor: That the power ought to be continued.
Lord Denman: As to the question of power given by the Act, it had never been considered by him, and never brought before him. What he had said last year on this subject was said in the spirit of conciliation, and in the hope of inducing the Government to give their deliberate consideration to this most important subject. He had said that this was no party question, and it was one in which every party ought to have but one object in view. He had been reminded, by the former Postmaster (the Duke of Richmond), that when he filled the office of Attorney General, he had given it as his opinion that the power ought not to be continued—that he had entered his remonstrance against it; and he must say, that he felt the same objection to it still.
The Marquess of Normanbysaid, that as the immediate predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman who was now Secretary of the Home Department, he had thought it better to attend these discussions, in case any reference should be made to him on the duties of that office as connected

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with this subject. He only meant now to trouble their Lordships with a few words in explanation of the vote he meant to give. He was one of those persons who had been alluded to by his noble and learned Friend, in his admirable speech, as having exercised this power; and his noble and learned Friend had stated that all those who had exercised power once, were influenced by the desire of exercising it again. In the general view of human nature thus given by his noble and learned Friend, he must plead on his part an exception; for it was never but with feelings of unmixed pain he had exercised such power. The question, however, to be decided that night was not whether that power should be continued or not. The question to be decided that night was, whether the Bill introduced by his noble Friend behind him should be read a second time—by which he understood, that the principle of the Bill should be adopted. Whenever the question came before them as to whether they were to continue, or not continue, this disputed power, he should be prepared to give his best attention to the consideration of that question. He would come to that consideration influenced by the peculiar circumstances of the case calling for such a decision, namely, what advantages rose from the exercise of the power, and what practical diminution of the public benefit might arise from it. He was one of those persons who was not aware of the exercise of this power until he came to the situation in which he was called upon to exercise it. What, however, was their situation at present? Not only were their Lordships aware of it, but so also was the other branch of the Legislature, and the public were not only conscious of the exercise of this power, but there were exaggerated notions prevailing as to its exercise, and thus a material diminution in the benefit that might arise from it. But then, if they come to the consideration of the Bill of his noble Friend, they would be bound to consider it clause by clause. He had done so; and he found that whilst it left the public odium of the supposed evasion of this privilege, he sincerely believed, that it would deprive the Minister of any practical benefit for the public service. He was told that the Bill once received in Committee might be amended there; but having listened to the able arguments in support of the Bill, he could not find any of them in favour of the principle of the Bill; because
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every one who argued for the Bill said he was against the principle, for he would prefer the abolition of the power. How, then, was it possible to support the second reading of this Bill? It was not his intention to agree to it; and, in saying so, he requested the noble Lords' opponents to give their serious consideration to the subject. The question, they might be assured, could not be closed here. After the statements made to the House that night; after high legal authorities had given conflicting legal opinions as to the particular state of the law, he thought it was necessary that the other House of Parliament and the Government should take up the question, to see whether a consideration for the public service imperiously called for the continuance of this power, and that, in bringing in a Bill, they might not limit it in such a manner as to establish, at least, a regular official record of every warrant, that which was a very different thing from a publication. He threw out these suggestions to noble Lords opposite, whilst he said that, if his noble Friend pressed his Motion to a division, he must say "not content" to it.
Lord Stanleyobserved that, at the present moment, and for some years past, no warrant for opening letters was ever issued that three persons were not cognizant of—the Secretary of State, the Under Secretary of State, and the Chief Clerk. Thus every warrant issued was placed upon record; and the Post Office, too, kept a record; and in addition to these, the Postmaster preserved the warrants for his own protection.
The Earl Fitzwilliamobserved, that the noble Secretary of State (Lord Stanley), and his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham), both contended for the propriety of the practice of opening letters at the Post Office; but each for different reasons. His noble Friend opposite supported his opinions by much more statesmanlike views than his noble and learned Friend. His noble Friend contended that it was necessary for the commonwealth. His noble and learned Friend said nothing of the kind; he wanted the power as a measure of police, for tracing murderers and robbers, and hunting down fraudulent bankrupts and little thieves. His noble Friend (Lord Stanley) did not descend so low as his noble and learned Friend. [Lord Brougham: It is a gross exaggeration.] His noble and learned Friend argued so well upon different matters,

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that he even forgot the reasons he had urged; and as his topics descended, so did his noble and learned Friend sink in his eloquence. Now, as to his noble Friend (Earl Radnor), he could not greatly compliment him on the construction of his Bill; and if he voted for his Bill, it was not because he was in love with the manner in which he had drawn it up. In its present state, it was extremely doubtful what was and what was not intended to be the law. He, then, only voted for the Bill on consideration that the law required amendment.
Lord Broughamsaid, there never had been so great a misrepresentation as that into which his noble Friend had fallen. He appealed to their Lordships whether he did not put the continuance of this power on two distinct grounds—first, for the purpose of tracing crime; and next, to maintain the tranquillity of the Empire.
The Earl of Carnarvon, thinking that no legislation was necessary on the subject, opposed the second reading of the Bill.
The Earl of Radnorwas not prepared to defend the Bill as to its details, after the criticisms which had been passed upon it. Some of these criticisms, he must say, were exaggerated; but at that late hour, he would not detain their Lordships by dwelling on what he considered the exaggerations. He would, however, observe to the House that if they came to a division upon the second reading, it would be a division upon the principle of the Bill, and not upon its details. It was upon the principle involved in the Bill that he went to a division; and those who voted with him would vote on the principle, and not at all on the details, of the Bill.
The House divided on the Question, That "now" stand part of the Motion:—Contents, 9; Not-contents, 55: Majority, 46.
Bill to be read 2a on this Day Six Months.
House adjourned.
The following Protests were entered on the Journals:—

"1. Because we think that the law, which in a matter directly affecting the rights, interests, and comfort of every class of the community, ought to be perfectly clear and distinct, is in the matter to which this Bill applies obscure and doubtful, affording neither a guarantee to the subject against inquisitorial tyranny and the arbitrary caprice of a Minister, or certain
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protection to a servant of the Crown who may be led by unsound precedents to exceed his lawful authority.

"2. Because it does not appear from either of the Reports of the Secret Committees of this and the other House of Parliament, or from any other authentic source of information, neither has it been alleged in debate, that any danger to the State from foreign foes or from domestic treason has ever been averted or discovered by the stoppage or opening of letters in the Post Office; and we therefore gather from the experience of nearly two centuries, that no benefit arises from a practice which is so unconstitutional, odious, and demoralizing, that nothing but the highest interests of the State, involving the peace of the country or the security of the Sovereign, could justify or palliate its continuance without some such limit and restraint as this Bill is calculated to impose.

"3. Because, even if we could believe that the opening of letters in the Post Office may have been at any past time useful to the Government and beneficial to the community at large, we should nevertheless be convinced that it cannot in future be attended by advantages at all commensurate with the evil of maintaining a system disgraceful to our Government, repugnant to the feelings of the British people, and contrary to every principle of popular or individual liberty.

"SOMERHILL."

"1. Because it is doubtful whether by law any power exists of detaining and opening letters passing through the Post Office.

"2. Because this power, as now exercised by the Secretary of State in England, and in Ireland by the Lord Lieutenant, is abhorrent from the feelings of the people, and is immoral in itself; being in violation of confidence, and requiring for its useful exercise secrecy, which in practice has been obtained by the forging of seals and the falsification of stamps.

"3. Because being exercised secretly, it cannot be questioned; and the person who exercises it, not being known, cannot be proceeded against or made responsible.

"4. Because, if necessary, as is alleged, for the safety of the realm, or for the purposes of police, it ought to be clearly recognised by law, regulated, and well defined; and the provisions of this Bill were intended for that purpose.

"5. Because the clauses and provisions against which in the debate strong objections were urged, might have been altered in the Committee if the Bill had been allowed to proceed, and were not legitimate grounds for objecting to the principle or refusing the Second Reading.

"RADNOR,
"DENMAN."

"1. Because I think the law with respect to the detaining and opening letters at the Post Office extremely doubtful; and that in a

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matter of so much delicacy and importance, it ought to be peculiarly clear and well defined; and because if the law really is what it was contended in the debate to be, I think it ought to undergo immediate amendment.

"2. Because, despairing at present of the entire abolition of the practice, I highly approve of the principle of the Bill, which was meant to restrain it to cases in which it might possibly do some good, and to limit its operation within reasonable bounds.

"3. Because if the clauses of the Bill were liable to the objections urged in the debate, these clauses might have been corrected, and the objections obviated in the Committee.

"4. Because two most desirable objects would have been obtained by this Bill—

"1st, The suppression of the immoral and fraudulent practices naturally arising out of the power itself; and,

"2ndly, The limiting the exercise of the power claimed to matters of internal government, and the preventing of that interference with the concerns of foreigners, relying on English hospitality, which I deem derogatory to the character of the country, and which, as late events have proved, is likely to be prompted by false information, and may, I apprehend, endanger the general peace.

"DENMAN.
"RADNOR.
"CAMPBELL.
"KINNAIRD and ROSSIE."