The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-08 00:00:00

VrocAings xn V arliantent. HOUSE OF LORDS—Mosoa.Y. THE MILITIA. Lord PANMURE brought in a bill to enable the Government to embody certain regiments of the militia, should the requirements of the public same render such a step necessary during the recess. The noble lord explained the intentions of the Govern ment as follows : It is necessary to supply the vacuum which is created by the demand in India for forces from this country. In order to do that, the Government have determined in the first place to raise ten new battalions to supply the place of those that have already left this country, and they have also determined to raise the battalions of the regiments at home from 840 rank and file to 1,000, and to raise those in India from 1,000 to 1,200. All that, however, can be Anne without going beyond the powers of the present Mutiny Act, which provides that the charge for regiments going to India shall fall upon the revenue of the East India Company, and not upon the revenue of the Imperial Trea sury We shall not exercise the power which this bill gives us unless it shall appear to the Go vernment to be necessary to do so; but if it shall so appear, it will be exercised, and my noble friend at the head of the Government will lay upon the table of the other house to-night an estimate for 200,0001. to provide for the expenses of any regiments that may be embodied between this time and the 23th of March next. The Earls of DERBY and HARDWICHE reminded the Government that it was only a week or so since that they hail maintained that there was no neces sity whatever " for calling out the militia; and that, though they did not complain of the present course adopted by the Government, they thought the Government should have seen the necessity of adopt ing it earlier. 'CRY REFORM. Lord BROUGHAM moved, as a preparatory step towards the measure of parliamentary reform ex pected next session, for returns of the number of electors in every county, city, and borough in the United Kingdom. The noble and learned lord, in the course of his speech, pointed out certain minor evils 01 the Reform Bill of 1832, such as the neces sity for re election upon accepting, or transference from, office. A good deal of improvement might also be made with respect to that portion of the present system with respect to revising barristers. He had very great objection to the manner in which they were appointed : It was always bad to give patronage to judges. It was bad to the judges themselves, to the profession generally, and to those persons whom they selected. It was supposed that favour rather than professional merit guided that selection. He would much rather see the patronage dis pensed by the Home Department than b 3 the judges. Another s tlefect in the Reform Bill was that portion which related to freemen. That part of the bill was a concession to some members of the House of Commons whose oppo• sition might have retarded its progress He timught it was unfortunate that the whole of the freemen's votes were not abolished. They were not the best voters in any respect; in some respects they were the worst, and, gene. rally speaking, corruption prevailed more among that than all the other classes of voters. With regard to the necessity of preserving inviolate the distinction between county and borough electors, the noble lord observed : He viewed not only with jealousy, but with the greatest possible aversion, any measure such as that which had more than once been introduced into the other House of Parliament, for letting in upon the counties the votes of the ten-pound householders, and thereby reducing to a nullity the franchise of the freeholders and other pro- prietors. The inevitable consequence of swamping the counties will' ten-pound householders would ultimately be to throw the whole of the representation into the hands of borough members. He knew it was asked whether any thing could be more unjust than that persons living in ten-pound houses should have no votes for towns, because they did not live in any borough, and should have TIG votes for counties because they were neither forty•shilling free holders nor occupiers of fiftypound tenements under the Chandos clause. He admitted that these persons com• plained of a very great hardship and inequality, but our whole system was full of such hardships and inequalities. Look, for example, at the West Riding, which only re• turned two members with a population of 1,500,000, while the county of Rutland, with a population of 24,000, returned the same number of members. Such inequalities were inevitable, bat the alleged injustice was no ground for such a change as had been proposed. Others had recommended that, instead of counties or lorctighs returning two mem bees, the country should be divided into electoral distiicts, as in France, each consisting of a town and some portion of the country. But the consequence would be, as in France, that the town would return the member, and that the voice of the country district would be lost. The noble lord concluded by saying that he had deemed it to be his duty to enter his protest against any measure of parliamentary reform being proposed, the tendency of which would he to make our Con• stitution more democratic than it has been made by the 8111 of 1832; but, in taking that course, he must beg to be understood as entertaining no unwilling ness to afford the privileges of the franchise to those to whom it might be safely extended. THE PRESS, AUGUST 8, 1857. Lord Gitstivirzz, on the part of the Government, had no objection to the production of the returns, which were accordingly ordered. Some bills were then forwarded a stage, and their lordships adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS—Mom:I:m OATHS BILL. Lord J. RUSSFLL, in moving for a select committee to consider whether the Act 5 and 6 William IV., cap. 62, be applicable to oaths appointed by law to be taken by members of that house at the table, previously to their taking their seats, and in what manner the act can be so applied, made a statement in order to lay a foundation for the motion. He had a hill upon the paper, he observed—the Oaths Va lidity Act Amendment Bill—which stood for a second reading that evening; but Baron Rothschild had informed him that he had been advised that, under the act referred to, the house might, by an order, enable him to make a declaration in lieu of the Oath of Abjuration, and that, if the house took that course, he was ready to make such declaration. Anticipating an objection that the declaration must contain the words " on the true faith of a Christian," Lord John argued, upon the strength of Mr. Pease's case, and upon other authorities, that the house might omit these words. If the house could do so, he was sure that it would be a great relief to many ; and where a person had been duly elected a member, and bad a prima facie right to take his seat, it would be desirable to find that the law interposed no insu perable obstacle. Sir F. THESIGER said he did not intend to divide the house upon the motion, although it proposed to delegate the functions of the house to a committee; but he argued from the proceedings in Mr. Pease's case, and in that of Baron Rothschild, that the omission of any reference to the act, in question was owing to a belief that the act had no bearing upon the question. Ho showed what he considered to be the inconsistency of Lord J. Russell's present course with his past opinions upon this subject, and he rea 1 the words of the act, contending that it never could have been intended by the Legislature that the House of Commons should be comprehended therein. That house, he insisted, had no power to omit the words "on the true faith of a Christian" from a declaration in lieu of the Oath of Abjuration, Mr. Pease, he observed, having been seated, not by a resolution of that house, but under the Act of the 22nd George 11., which authorised the omission of those words. Lord PALMF.IISTON said he concurred in the mo tion, considering the matter to be of sufficient importance to justify its reference to a select com mittee. The motion was agreed to. A good deal of discussion then erase upon the next question, the number of the committee ; and it was at length agreed that the committee should consist of twenty five members, to be nominated by the house, and all gentlemen of the long robe mem bers of the house. The nomination of the committee produced am other discussion, and, Mr. NEWDEGATE having moved that the debate be adjourned, lord J. RussELL consented to defer the motion for the nomination until Tuesday. The debate was consequently ad journed. BEVERLEY ELECTION. Mr. J. A. SMITH reported from the Beverley Election Committee that Mr. Edward Auchmuty Glover was not duly elected, and that the last elec tion, so far as related to Mr. Glover, was a void election. He also reported a resolution of the committee re garding certain acts of Mr. Glover at the election, as follows That the said E. A. Glover, Esq., made and signed a declaration in the form prescribed by the Ist and 2nd Victoria, chap. 44, secs. 3 and 6, and that it is the uuani• mous opinion of the committee that the evidence taken before them should be laid before the Attorney-General, with the view to further proceedings being taken with reference to such declaration. The house then went again into committee upon the Probates and Letters of Administration Bill, and discussed at much length the compensation clauses and certain new clauses, including one moved uy Mr. MALINS, giving to proctors, by way of compensa tion, an annual payment during life equal to one-half of their net proctorial profits. Mr. Matins stated that this clause was identical with one inserted in the Government bills of 1855 and 1856, and that the proctors were willing, if it should be adopted, to re linguish the qualified monopoly of business secured to them by the bill. The ATTORNEY-GENERAL said (upon the under standing that the proctors gave up their monopoly o: business not only in the Testamentary Court, but in the Marriage and Divorce Court and the Court of Admiralty, so that all the courts might be thrown open, he thought the Government welt) pledged to the proposal of last year, from which he would not retire ; but he suggested that at the expiration of three years after the act came into operation an 765 account should be taken of the professional gains of the proctors, and if it should turn out that they had diminished during those three years compared with the three years preceding the act, for that loss they should be compensated. Mr. MALINS elected, on behalf of the proctors, the former alternative ; and upon the understanding that the clauses necessary upon this alteration should be added to the bill on recommitment pro forms, which the ATTORNEY.GENERAL undertook to do, he with drew the clause. The bill was ordered to be reported as amended. The General Board of Health Continuance Bill was read a third time and passed. Other bills wera a Ivancel a stage, and the house adjourned at half•past two o'clock. HOUSE OF LORDS—TUESDAY. Their lordships sat only for a short time, and ad journed after forwarding several bills a stage. HOUSE OF COMMONS..-TUESDAY. At the early sitting, after a short conversation, the Probates and Letters of Administration Bill was recommitted pro forma, when several now clauses were aided to the bill, and certain amend ments were made therein, and the bill was ordered to be reprinted. The Burial Acts Amendment Bill, as amended, was then considered, when Mr. GLADSTONE moved a clause providing that if, upon application in writing by any burial board to the bishop of the diocese for the consecration of a burial-ground declared to be in a fit and proper condition for the purpose of inter ment, the bishop should refuse to consecrate the same, the burial board might appeal to the arch bishop of the province, who should decide the matter in dispute ; and that, if the archbishop decided for the consecration, and the bishop did not consecrate the ground within a month, the archbishop should license the same for the interment of bodies. In the course of the discussion Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Massey, and Mr. Dillwyn severally explained their remarks et the previous debate, an f which had been misconstrued by the Bishop of St. David's. Mr. Gladstone's clause was agreed to. Clause 13 was omitted, and the bill ordered to be read a third time the following day. The Summary Proceedings before Justices of the Peace Bill, the Metropolitan Police Stations, &c., Bill, and the Boundaries of Burghs Extension (Scotland) Bill passed through committee. OATHS BILL COMMITTEE. In the evening, L'rd J. Russzit moved the nomination of his select committee to con-ider the effect of the Act 5 and 6 Will. IV., c. 62, upon parliamentary oaths. The names proposed (in addition to all other hon. members belonging to the legal profession) were—Viscount Palmerston, Sir G. Grey, Mr. Disraeli, Xr. Walpole, Sir J. Pakington, Lord John Russell, Sir J. Graham, Mr. Gladstone, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor- General, Sir F. Thesiger, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Lord Stanley, Mr. Horsman, Mr. Henley, Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Matins, Mr. Headla.n, the Attorney-General for Ireland, the Lord Advocate, Mr. Dillwyn, Mr. Napier, Lord Robert Grosvenor, Mr. Whiteside, and Mr. Cobbett. Sir F. MESMER, after stating that he should him self be unable to attAnd the committee, moved an amendment, with the view of omitting the names of Mr. Dillwyn, Lord R. Grosvenor, Lord Stanley, and Sir F. Kelly, substituting those of Mr. Rolt, Lord Hotham, Mr. Hildyard, and Mr. Wigram. Considerable discussion followed respecting the constitution of the committee. At length the names of Sir F. Kelly and Sir F. Thesiger himself having been struck out, Mr. Rolt included in the panel, and an understanding come to that Lord J. Manners, after the notice had been given, should be also in cluded, further opposition was withdrawn and the committee was nominated. Mr. BENTINCK, MR. NEWDEOATE, and Mr. B. BLAKESIORE, in the course of the debate, pr tested against the onesided composition of the committee, declaring that it would meet only to affirm a foregone conclusion. Power was given to the committee to send for persons, papers, and records; and nine was fixed upon as a quorum. DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL. Mr. WARREN moved to defer the committee for three months. He complained of the breathless haste with which this bill, involving a principle so momentous, was urged through that house at a late period of the session, when the energies of its mem bers were exhausted. He remarked that the com missioners, upon whose report the bill proceeded, were not unanimous, end that that report contra dicted the statement of the Attorney General, that the bill made no material alteration in our marriage law, which he maintained, relying upon various authorities, regarded the marriage tie as indis soluble : He would remind them that this question did not now come under the notice of the house for the first time. As