The Press. — London, England, 1857-07-25 00:00:00

716 Vrott6ings in arliament. HOUSE OF LORDS—MONDAY. THAMES CONSERVANCY BILL. Lord ST. LEONARDS moved the second reading of this bill. The Duke of NEWCASTLE opposed it, upon the ground that it would give the London Corporation a right of licensing encroachments on the river : The question affected the whole of the population along the banks of the river between Staines and Yantlet Creek, and it was therefore absurd to confine the representation at the board to so small a portion of the metropolis as the city of London proper. He did not make it a charge against this body that it would job, but its functions ought to be intrusted to a board thoroughly competent for the task. The bill invested them with immense powers of taxation; it enabled them to grant licences to persons wishing to erect piers or wharfs on its banks, and it even placed the Trinity Board in subjection to this body of con• servators. The future management of the river would be practically in the hands of the city of Loudon, who would be entirely tree from responsibility or control. The Board of Trade had presented a most excellent report, which was wholly adverse to this bill, and it was therefore remarkable that the Government should support the measure. The house divided, and the second reading was carried by a majority of 44 to 5. MERSEY CONSERVANCY AND DOCK BILL. On the order for the second reading of this bill, The Earl of DERBY opposed the bill upon the ground that the principle involved in the bill—viz., the right of taking away private property without coro• pensaticn—was never yet known to be embraced in any private and scarcely in any public bill : A bill had been introduced last year by the right lion. the Vice• President of the Board of Trade the effect of which would have been to confiscate the property of the various corporations of towns throughout England without giving them any compensation ; and perhatis their lordships had not forgotten the extraordinary doctrines which had been laid down upon that occasion by the right bon. gentleman —doctrines of such a character that even the political friends of the right lion. gentleman shrank from defending them, and which approached almost to the old Socialistic motto, "La propriete c'est le vol." That bill had been referred to a select committee, which had proceeded to inquire into the case of Liverpool alone. In the meantime a private bill was introduced by persons unconnected with Liverpool affirming principles similar to those of the measure which was withdrawn in the House of Commons. To this bill the Government lent their support in order to carry out the principle in a private bill with regard to one city, and thus to put at their mercy all other corporations. This was not a matter which ought to be referred to a select committee of five members. It was a principle on which the house ought to decide, and the proper stage at which to take its decision was on the second reading of the bill. The principle involved was the taking away of property from individuals or corporations by legislative enactment without giving them compensation. That was a principle upon which we had not acted either in regard to the Danish Sound dues, or in regard to pensions held by persons who had no right to them except tha t of prescription. Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY vindicated the conduct of the Government:— The arguments by which this bill was opposed were exactly those which were brought forward when the Municipal Corporations Act was under discussion. Then it was said that Parliament had no right to deal with corporate property without compensation, but Parliament did so deal with the property of corporations on that occa sion, with these town dues among the rest, and Parlia ment had an equal right so to deal with them now. Nothing more was done by the bill than to transfer these dues to the purposes for which they were originally in tended—the maintenance and improvement of the harbour. It had undergone very careful and laborious consideration before a select committee of the other house, lasting over twenty-five days, and he hoped their lordships would not consent to the motion for its rejection. Lord REDESDALE was afraid that if in a private bill they dealt with property in the manner proposed without giving any compensation, they would be establishing a precedent which might hereafter most injuriously affect private property. Their lordships divided, when the second reading was carried by 23 to 15. Their lordships then adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS—MONDAY. FALKIRK BURGHS ELECTION. Sir J. PAKINGION reported f tbq Falkirk Dis trict of Burghs Election Committee that Mr. James Merry was not duly elected, and that the last was a void election. INDIA. Mr. V. Bunn, in reply to an inquiry by Mr. Roe buck, stated that no information had been received by the Government of any disaffection among the native troops at Bombay, and that his impression from the last accounts was that none whatever had made its appearance in either the Bombay or the Medi as army. SAVINOS•BANBS BILL. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, in reply to Mr. Baxter, stated that it was not his intention to THE PRESS, JULY 25, 1857. persevere in carrying on the Savings-banks Bill this session, and he subsequently withdrew the bill. TROOPS TO INDIA. On the report of the Committee of Supply, Mr. BENTINCK called attention to the state of the naval and military defences of the country, with the view of obtaining from the Government some more satisfactory information on the subject than had been afforded by them with respect to the steps they contemplated taking to fill up the drain upon us from India. . _ _ MV Lord A. VANE TEMPEST wished to learn what measures the Government proposed to take in order to replace the large force about to be sent abroad. Mr. W. WILLIAMS protested against any attempt to stimulate the Government to increase the stand ing army. Colonel KNOX insisted that the forces about to be sent to the East should be replaced at a very early period. Lord PALMERSTON said, as far as regarded the defences of the country and the state of Europe, there was no reason for calling upon Parliament for a greater amount of force than had been voted; but if an emergency should arise, an application could be made to Parliament. It was true that a portion of the force had been required in India ; but, to fill up the gap, recruiting had been ordered, which would go on without requiring any assistance from Parliament. To have recourse to the militia would be a very expensive mode of recruiting for the line ; Government had no power to embody the militia, except in certain exigencies, without the sanction of Parliament : It is possible (said the noble lord) that events may have happened in India, of which we may receive information before Parliament rises, which will necessitate so large a detachment of forces from this country that the ordinary process of recruiting will not be likely to fill up the gap; and I admit that, without any apprehension of particular danger at home, or anticipating any unfavourable change of political circumstances in Europe, it would not be right and fitting to leave this country, I will not say entirely destitute, but with any diminution for any length of time of the force that is necessary for its home defence. It might, therefore, in such a cast; be proper to ask Parlia ment to give the Crown for a limited period powers to embody a portion of the militia, though not in a state of war. I merely mention that as one of the possible events that might make a recourse to Parliament necessary, though I hope no such necessity will arise. In reply to Lord Vane Tempest, the noble lord stated that the amount of force either embarked or under orders for India was about 20,000 men, partly recruits for the European corps in the service of the Company, partly infantry of the line, partly cavalry, and about 1,000 artillery. If it should he found necessary to send further reinforcements the Govern ment would apply to Parliament. Mr. LINDSAY said the real question was whether the readiest and quickest mode of sending troops to India had been adopted by the Government. The question, in his opiuion, lay between sailing and steam ships : He found from a return he held in his hand that the average passage of 22 sailing ships from this country to Calcutta was 1321 days, and that screw steamers had per formed the same passage in 94 days. less stoppages of 10 days, being a gain of 38 days in favour of the steamers. But, throwing aside stoppages, there would be a saving of 45 days by sending trops to India in screw steamers. Sir C. NAPIER considered it impossible to send the troops to India by line of•battle ships, as they could not he fitted out in less than three months from the day the order was given. Great difficulty, too, would be found in raising men, and he theretore thought the Admiralty were right in going into the market to hire vessels. He did not care what the cost was, but he thought the Government ought to sent out screw ships, and, in order to save their coals, they should take care to have them towed out to catch the trade winds. Sir C. Woon maintained that clipper sailing ships possessed advantages over screw vessels in long voyages, and that hence he believed the East India Company had acted with sound discretion in not relying upon screw vessels only. He asserted that, while these was less prospect of any war, the naval defences of the country were in a better condition than for the last forty years. Admiral DUNCOMBE said he had before him a list of the ships already taken up, and he found among them the Robert Lowe, of only 100 horse power, an other ship of only 150-horse power, and sailing ships of 600 and 700 tons. He did not think the efficiency of the troops would be promoted by embarking them in ships of such a description. Admiral WALCOTT recommended the employment of men-of-war to transport the troops. Sir J. ELPHINSTONE considered our system of trans ports was entirely wrong. In the first place, he thought that iron transports were entirely a mistake. It was perfectly impossible that they could touch ground in the Indian Seas, where coral reefs abounded, without sustaining such damage as to risk the loss of a regiment at once. Moreover, they were very hot, and rolled heavily. These were faults and defects difficult to remedy : We had the most perfect means of remedying the exist+ ing state of things. There was a class of ships in the navy which went by the name of " The Forty Thieves," and which would make the finest transports in the world. They had two tiers of ports, and engines which would enable them to make over fourteen days of calm weather, and perform the whole passage in from seventy to eighty days. He had always observed that the system of taking up ships for the transport of troops was a commercial error, for it raised the price of freights, kept our own ships out of commission, and prevented us having a large addi• tional reserve of able seamen who would be able to man them. If the house would give him 250 men for each of those line•of battle ships, he would undertake to navigate any one of them with the greatest possible ease. CELINA. Sir J. PAKINGTON asked the Government to give some further explanation as to our unfortunate quarrel with China. He wished likewise for more explicit information with respect to the diversion of the troops destined for China to India, not being able to understand, he said, whether the Govern ment bad distinctly authorised this diversion. He was gradually led to discuss at some length the merits of the Chinese quarrel, and contended that the house ought to know what were the intentions of the Government with reference to this quarrel, and what was the force which they designed to em ploy in carrying them into execution. Sir C. Woof), in reply, gave a narrative of opera tions, in which he justified the conduct of the British authorities in China, defending Sir M. Sey mour against the charge of wantonly bombarding the peaceable parts of Canton. The intentions of the Government, he observed, had been already ex plained by Lord Palmerston—namely, that Lord Elgin bad been instructed to open negotiations direct with Pekin. A force of .5,000 troops had been sent out to China, as well as gunboats; but, as a greater necessity arose for the employment of the troops in India, the whole of them were diverted trona China thither, part by Lord Elgin's authority, and part by orders forwarded from home. If any hostilities should take place in China it would be at Canton alone ; in every other part of China we were on the best possible terms with the authorities and the people. Up to the present moment (said Sir C. Wood) no vessel with troops had arrived in China, but seven or eight gunboats which were sent out to assist in putting down piracy are in those waters, and will be of great advantage in following the junks up the shallow waters. The right hon. gentleman then defended the Government : I should like to know what the right hon. gentleman means by saying we are not prosecuting the war in China with vigour. A telegraphic message was received on Saturday morning from India, and the first measure which we took upon its receipt was to stop the India mail which left here on Friday night, and to send out orders to Singapore to stop all the troops who had not passed there, and to divert them at once to India. At the same time we received intelligence that though Lord Canning's letter had not reached Lord Elgin at Ceylon it had overtaken him at Singapore, and that Lord Elgin, acting upon a moat proper estimate of the emergency of the case, had taken upon himself to divert all the troops originally destined for China to the graver need which had arisen in India. That was the step which Lord Elgin took, acting upon the principle sales populi auprenia lex, and the measure has met with the perfect approval of the Govern ment. I believe that the whole of the troops sent from this country and intended for China will necessarily touch at Singapore, and that they will there be diverted to meet the greater need in India. With respect to the state of the Chinese hostilities, according to the last accounts Sir M. Seymour held his own in the river of Canton. Lord Elgin was at Singapore, waiting the arrival of the Shannon frigate to take him on to Canton. He will, when he reaches China, open negotiations with the Emperor, and, acting very much on his own responsibility, he will be guided in what he does by the necessities of the case, and he will have an ample naval force there for hia purpose. Lord C. HAMILTON insisted upon the evidence, public and private, that there had been an enormous sacrifice of private property as well as human life by the bombardment of Canton, which he characterised as a wanton and unnecessary proceeding. Sir C. NAPIER offered a warm defence of Sir M. Seymour. General TuomrsoN contended that there had been a foregone conclusion to get up a quarrel with the Chinese. The report was agreed to. The Finsbury and 13ridport election petitions were discharged. PROBATES AND LETTERS OF ADMINISTRATION BILL. A series of clauses was proposed by the ATTORNEY GENERAL, and agreed to, authorising the Court of Probate to cause questions of fact to be tried by a jury before itself, or direct an issue to a court of law. The ATTORNEY-GENERAL then moved a clause providing that district registrars should not grant probate or administration where the deceased is en titled to Government stock, or other stock or shares transferable in the metropolitan district. This clause was opposed by Sir J. TROLLOPE, as at variance with the understanding ou a former occa sion, when the limitation clause was negatived; and,