The Press. — London, England, 1858-04-24 00:00:00

•mending Sir W. Clay's bill embodied the principle in a more practical form. The amendment was ultimately withdrawn. Mr. LYGON moved that the chairman report pro gress. This motion, upon a division, was negatived by 340 to 104. It being now past a quarter to six o'clock, the further proceedings of the committee were, by rule, adjourned. The remaining orders were then disposed of, and the house adjourned at six o'clock. HOUSE OF LORDS—THURSDAY. The Earl of MALMESBURY laid on the table addi tional papers relating to the capture of the Cagliari. OATHS BILL. Lord LYNDHURST moved the second reading of the Oaths Bill. He explained that the objection for merly male to a similar measure by the Earl of D a i r y, that the question of the Oath of Abjuration and that of the removal of the disabilities of the Jews were mixed up together, was obviated in the present measure. The two questions were separated, and stood by themselves. On each of them the house could come to a distinct vote. The portions of the Oath of Abjuration referring to the supposed descendants of the Pretender were cancelled, and the rem cinder of it, referring to the succession, s premacy, and all?giance, formed one oath, to which the words "on the true faith of a Christian" were annexed. The question of the disability of the Jew was raised on the fifth clause, by which it was provided that on the oath being administered to a Jew the words "on the true faith of a Christian " might be struck out. In committee on the bill it would be competent for any noble lord to move the omission of the fifth clause, and thus the whole question of the Jewish dis• abilities would be distinctly raised. He thought any discussion till the next stage of the bill would be unnecessary. The Earl of Dsszy saw no objection to modifying the existing form of the oaths, and omttting those portions of them which had become obsolete. He should not, therefore, object to the second reading of the bill. But, as to the clause removing the disabilities of the Jews, he bad heard nothing to change the opinion be had formerly expressed; and he must say, with some regret, but without hesita tion, that he could not take a different course as to the present measure. If the omission of the fifth clause were moved in committee, he should support the motion. Earl GREY recommended the Earl of Derby to follow with regard to this question the example of the Duke of Wellington on the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The hill was then read a second time, and their lordships adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS—Tatramtr. DR. BERNARD. The ATTORNEY-GENERAL, in reply to inquiries by Me. Roebuck and Sir R. Bethell, who desired to know whether the charge of murder was made on the authority of the law officers of the Crown, en tered into a history and an explanation of the pro. ceedings against Dr. Bernard, and stated that, after his acquittal upon the capital charge, and after con. sidering the whole of the evidence in the power of the Crown, it appeared to him that to proceed with the prosecution and put Dr. Bernard again upon trial for conspiracy would be a violation of a well known maxim of law, and therefore the charge would be no further proceeded with. Sir R. &Tagil, pressed for a more explicit:answer to his question, as to whether the later proceedings had been taken under the direction of her Majesty's present law officers ; but The ATTORNEY-GENERAL declined to give any other answer than that for all that had been done, either before the police magistrate, at the Old Bailey, or elsewhere, since the present Government came into office and be became Attorney-General, he Ftood there personally responsible, and was ready at all times to vindicate himself. Subsequently, in answer to a question put by Mr. Sergeant KINGLAKE upon the same subject, Mr. WALPOLE said, in the proceedings against Dr. Bernard no step whatever had been taken without the assistance and advice of the Attorney-General. THE COUNTY FRANCHISE IN SCOTLAND. Mr. CURD gave notice that on this day fortnight ne should call the att ent i on o f t h e h ouse t o th is subject, and propose a resolution expressive of the opinion of the house that a 40s. county franchise ought to be given to the people of Scotland. Mr. Wise moved a resolution, " That the diplo in atie salaries and pens i ons now c h arge d upon t h e Consolidated Fund should be brought under the Mora immediate view and control of Parliament, and be paid out of a vote annually provided by the House of Commons for the purpose." After passing au uufavourable sentence upon diplomacy and mia• 41 ° 131 ,A0 dieouesekt tbe Aasaci4,l part of tbo goes- THE PRESS, APRIL 24, 1858. tion, dwelling upon certain items of diplomatic ex penditure, such as the extraordinary expenses, the charges for couriers, &cc., which were not known to the house until after the money was spent. He re ferred to the recommendations of the committee of 1850 for reducing that expenditure by the revision of salaries, the union of missions, or the substitution of consular agencies for missions, which had not been adopted : Now, he asked the house to consider what had been done with this report of the Committee of 1850. In 1851 there was a Treasuiy minute, ordering that the ambassador at Paris should have a salary of 8,0001. a year ; but a short time afterwards the Foreign-office made another order, raising the salary to 100601. He was not saying whether 10,0001. a year was too much or too little. Paris was an expensive city ; the ambassador was called on to give many dinners, and they had the authority of one of their diplomatists for saying " that dinners were the soul of diplomacy." The salary of 10,0001. was given during the war, but he had never heard of the additional 2,0001. being taken off after the war ceased. At Constantinople the salary was 14,0001. and 8,0001. for allowances. This was a large sum, but if there was one establishment to which more than another he would consent to give a liberal ex. penditnre it would be to that of our Embassy in the East. Nothing could be more important than our mission there. The Eastern question was only adjourned. There could be no doubt that Russia, France, and England looked to the East as a kind of Nabob's vineyard, and nobody could say writ events might occur; therefore, if we would maintain a good position in the East. we must keep able and energetic men in that part of the world, and espe cially in Egypt. In Egypt we had great interests. Mr. Bruce, our Consul-General, received a salary of 1,800 a year, and he had been to China, discharging the duty of secretary to our ambassador in that country. Surely Egypt should not be dealt with after this fashion. Our trade with Egypt had greatly increased, our exports to that country being 2 500,0001., and our imports 1,000.0001., while our transit trade was of the greatest possible impor- tance. To carry on our business in the East we required not only men of great energy, but men instructed in the languages of the East. We paid not less than 6,0001. a year for dragomans, end let the house only consider what our position was at Constantinople and elsewhere when we had to depend on the fidelity of these men. In one case we employed a man as dragoman, whose brother was dragoman to other powers. In this respect we acted in a manner totally different from other countries. France, Austria, and of course Russia, had their own countrymen taught in the Oriental languages, while we alone did not employ our own subjects. It was a great misfortune that 6,0(X/1. a year should be spent in native dragomans. He was aware that young men had been sent out from Oxford or Cambridge, but he believed that the experiment did not succeed, and he thought the most likely mode of getting good interpreters was to train up the young sons of consuls for the work. Turning from the East to the West, what did we find in Germany? At the important Court of Han over our Minister had more than 4,0001. a year; at Bavaria, 4,5001.; Saxony, 3,0001.; and Wurtemburg, 3,0001., the kingdom of Wurtembarg not even thinking it worth while to send a Minister here in return. ft was said these Envoys at small Courts were the eyes and ears of the Foreign-office, but he thought the maintenance of Ministers at Frankfort, Vienna, and Berlin was quite sal cient for the service of Germany. With regard to Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, and one or two smaller missions, the committee of 1850 had a right to say that it was worth y of consideration whether a great deal of money might not be saved by revising these missions and leaving Chargé. d'Affaires to manage the business. In Italy we bad usually three Ministers, with the following salaries : Naples, 5,0001.; Florence, 3,2001.; and Turin, 4,8501. He generally found that some of these smaller missions, such as Florence especially, were held either by influential incapacity or incompetent patricians. They were places for men rather than men for places. They were in fact a kind of disguised misappropriation of the public money. You could not go to the 'Treasury and put your hand in the national sack, but it was easy to create a place that was not wanted and to create a salary. The present Emperor of the French told a story of his great uncle, who getting up very early one morning in the middle of summer, and taking a walk through the apartments of the Tuileries, found a little boy in one of the drawing-rooms heaping up a mass of beechwood upon a roaring fire. When asked what be was doing, the boy replied,—" I am making ashes for my father; they are his,perquisites." Many of these diplomatic places were in like manner what Napoleon called in the case of the ashes " consommation inutile?' In conclusion, Mr. Wise insisted that we were not so well served, especially in respect to interpreters, as other powers, and indicated how, in his opinion, the diplomatic service might be rendered more effi cient and less expensive —viz., by an arnal,gamation of the consular and diplomatic services, and by promo tion from (ho one to the other. Among other re forms, lie insisted that secret diplomacy must be abolished. Mr. S. FITZGERALD remarked that t much of Mr. Wise's speech had not the slightest connection with his motion, which had reference to the mode of paying the diplomatic service. This very question had been decided by the committee of 1831 appointed to inquire into the matter, which had reported that it was not expedient to include these salaries end pensions in the annual estimates, and recommended that they should be charged upon the Consolidated Fund. Some 4' the items, however, most open to observation wer" . i4 4 fact, year by year brought be fore the house, •„ ~iik p lying to the strictures of Mr. Wiee upon our ". \ N 4Eimouir—whiA bo atm kegu • . , C It!O _ terized as an attempt to bring odium upon a dis tinguished• service—he read a list of eminent men. our Ministers at foreign Courts, and, declining to follow Mr. Wise into the various subjects into which he had travelled,—unpaid attaches, dragomans, and other matters,—he refrained, be said, not because he undervalued their importance, but simply because they had no relation to the motion. Mr. Flossess observed that, under the present system, the house was in a state of ignorance of our foreign affairs which was inconsistent with the principles of constitutional government, and that Mr. Fitzgerald had not resisted the motion upon constitutional grounds. Lord PALMERSTON said he could not concur in the resolution, which tended to reverse a decision deli berately come to as to the mode in which diplomatic salaries an 4 pensions should be paid ; and it was incumbent upon those who objected to that mode to show its inconvenience and the advantage of a change. He rested his objection to the abolition of what was termed secret diplomacy upon constitu tional grounds. Parliament must either place con fidence in the Ministers of the Crown in regard to our foreign relations, or appoint a standing corn• mittets of diplomatic relations in their place, which, in his opinion, would be neither constitutional nor consistent with the interests of the country. Mr. KINNAIRD supported the motion. Lord J. Russztr., for one of the reasons stated by Mr. Fitzgerald,—that the bringing these charges annually before the house would not conduce to economy—could not vote for the resolution, but he thought some of the collateral questions raised in the debate were well worthy of consideration. Upon a division the motion was negatived by 142 to 114. DONEGAL. Mr. Itsawm. moved for a Select Committee to inquire into the destitution in Donegal, the northern part of which county, he said, was a wild, moun tainous district, in which there was a great deal of very bad land. The people, according to the evi dence of Lord G. Hill, were quiet and inoffensive, but in a rude state of society. He read statements showing their miserable condition, which, be con tended, called for inquiry. Lord NAAS did not oppose the motion, but bad doubts about the authen►icity of many of the state ments of the Irish priesthood. Mr. MACAULAY and Mr. ROEBUCK opposed the motion, which after some further discussion was carried on a division by 147 to 111. Mr. L. KING moved for and obtained leave to bring in a bill abolishing the property qualification for members of Parliament. The LORD ADVOCATE obtained leave to introduce a bill to make provision for the better government and discipline of the Universities of Scotland, and im proving and regulating the course of study therein ; and for the union of the two universities and col leges of Aberdeen. Leave was given to Viscount Goderioh to bring in a bill to provide for the general registration of part nerships ; and to Mr. Adderley for a bit/ amending the Public Health Act passed in 1848. The motion for the second reading of the Govern ment of India Bill (No. 1) was postponed till Thurs day week, the Bth of May. Viscount R►YNHAK having briefly moved the second reading of the Cruelty to Animals Act Amendment Bill, The HOKE SECRETARY submitted that the exist ing act, which the measure was designed to amend, provided all necessary prohibition against the inftic_ tion of needless cruelty on animals. Believing the measure unnecessary, he moved that the second reading should be deferred for six months. After a few words from Mr. AYRTON and Sir J. EAST, the amendment was agreed to without a division. On the motion of Sir R. Brrueu. the Chancery Amendment Bill was read a second time. The house adjourned at a quarter past twelve o'clock. THE INDIAN RESOLUTIONS. THE following Resolutions were laid upon the table of the Rouse of Commons on Monday MONDAY, April 20. Mr. CHANCELLOR or TUN EXClPNUER—Government of India—To move that this house will upon Friday, the 30th day of this iustant April, resolve its-l( into a committee to consider the Act of the 10th and 17th of Victoria, cap, 95, " to provide for the government of India." RESOLUTIONS TO DE PROPOSED DT THE CHANCILLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER ON THE 30TH OF APRIL. 1. That, as the territories under the government of the East India Company ere by law to remain under such go. verntneut only until Parliament shall otherwise provide, this house is of opinion that it is expedient that the transfer of such government to the Crown should now take place, in order that the direct superintendence of the whole cm• pire may be placed under one exeoutive authority. 2. That for this purpose it is expedient to provide that ber Majesty, by P4O of Ur Fri*cipal Oporttafm of stigso • =