Star. — London, England, 1817-03-15 00:00:00

Pater, Ply Mouth, at a much cheaper rate than the mi. ginal contract ; and, as the workNias a great national on. ! vht it s olight not to be discouraged. , Sir G. HOPE s,:id. the works at every place were reduced. The Admiralty Board was as anxious as possible to go on with the work ; but they did not feel justified in ;:o doing, as the teal necessity was not at present so appirent. Sir J. NEwponx observed, that wherever an essential work could be carried on at a cheaper rate, he tholipht that it ought not to be stopped. N sum o' twenty or thirty thousand 'pounds, which could be employed to so beneficial a purpose as far the Break water, ought not to be. postponed till a future day. was a 14c. that many. eessele had been saved by getting behind this Breakwatt,e;, and if, by neglecting the work, any loss should accrue, it might be strictly charred to the account of the Board fur delaying t ie woiks. Si , G. IV -1 ft If ENDER said, that before a war should arr t• e' w. every probability that a safe anchorage would be oi! ,•••- I in the Breakwater.-- He then moved for a sum of e 49...9): ;for the Trans port Service, &c.—These sums were agreed to, and the Report was ordered to be received to-morrow. The flouse'went into a C •mmittee on the Game ?enervation Bill. Sir KNA ECHBU 1.1. said, as the law in this c ise at present did ree extend to Svitiand, he had no ofjeetion to the intreduction of a clause to that effect. hir C. MONCK • bjected to the severity with which some of the elitists were framed. r some otsservatimis, which W. BAmats, Mr. Serjeaut Best., Sir E. KNATCNBULL. and Mr. BRAND toiik part, the Report was ordered to be re ceived Eiis do , t otnight. SEDITI ASSZNIBLILS. On the queqinn for the third reading of the Sed i- Cons Assemblies Bill, Sir M. W RIDLEY objected to the preamble of the Bill. He contended, that strong grounds for the 8 , 1 l ought to have been shewn. The preamble con tained words which were false, and which were no thing less than a libel'on the people. He would ask where these seditious and unlawful meetings were to be found ? Tne people had met peaceably to peti tion, and. with the exception of one meeting, in which he must regret that disorders arose, they had generally conducted themselves well. The laws, however, were sufficient to punish the guilty ; and we had witnessed the coquet of the Lord Ma)or and a W o rthy Alderman in putting down the tomtits of that day. He then alluded toftlie case of Cash man, and regretted that the sentince had not been carried into execution, tw the sake set example, im mediately atter it had been pronounced. At that execution no symptoms of riot tied occurred ; nor it we looked at the transactions at Bath, were those the consequence of ,any public meetings. The Honour able Baronet alluded to the conduct of Magistrates, who, excited by tears and apprehensions, would step in, and had actually stepped in, to prevent public meetings ; what then must be the fears of such per sons, and how would they act when armed with those powers which this Bill gave them ? He objected, por so much to the principle as to the clauses of the Bin ; and Ire notibed the Spencean Society. About ( 91 ti 'ma ago, thhe,was a society called 44 The Society.' held at Newcastle ; Spence was thee a member ; and heiesil the paper referred to is the Report of the Committee, and the society Opened him, and he shortly after left the town. He therefore had been :Wired to contradict, and he did it most publicly, that the people of Newcastle had any connection with the Spenceans. The Librarian of the Newcastle Society had published a blasphe-, mous parody on the Litany. and he was dismissed from his employment. The Honourable Bananas concluded with moving, 4 4 That this Dill be read a 'third time this day six months." Sir J. C. HIPPISLEY alluded to the disturbances in Soinersetshire. which were owing to the dissemi nation of those son of writings to which the Honour -1 able Baronet had alluded : all these publications had been transmitted to Government. The Cooney of *Somerset was loyal, and the men alluded to had been convinced of their error. Mr. W. SMITH said; whether sediaons writings Mid been circulated or not, was not the immediate quation before the House. but whether there was any t e c e ssisr this Bill. With respect to the gr oun d which . npon this Bill proceeded, it was, that those persons who asked for annual Parliaments and uni versal Suffrage, were actuated by a wish to subvert the British Constitution. Now that was a mere mat- ter of opinion, and it would become persons bolding mach opinions to be careful how they affixed such an odium es any men for holding contrary opinions, and • So impute to them a with to subvert the Constitution. He defended his constituents from the charges con • tuned in the Report. He read a letter from a Gen denims at Norwich, in which he accused a certain person of sending up officiously to the Secretary of State a blasphemous hand-bill, containing a parody on the Litany, which parody had been written 25 years ago—.bad slept ever since—and had never been ciroulated but 'through the medium of a printer, by hii emissaries : he had confessed the fact to the writer of tbe letter. The Honourable Gentlernin ever there was any person more entitled to be ion teamed and treated with disgust than any other, it was s:Venegado; one of those. men, who, having neither character not fortune to lose, are ready td lend their bands, for the sake again, to betray the cause which they professed to support. The Honourable Gentle man read some passages from a work, which con tained the most seditious language. This book he saw infuse shop of a bookseller in Pall-Mall, who serves the Royal Family; it was given to a person of the same of Winterbottom, to publish, if he chose it, for his benefit, by the author. He did not wish to call down the severity of the Attorney-Generalon the au thor or publisher of the work. With respect to the, charge against the Union Club, it was true that brio' of bis constituents came up to town as delegates to the Hampden Club; but not finding the Clubin ei istatce, they turned round and went home, and this ems' the sum of the offence which brought down on the Union Club of Norwich, the notice of the Secret Committee. With respect to the Bill, the penalties were. in . his opinion, greater than the offence would isw rit. He had already given his opinion on that' subpct, and must vote fir the notion of the Ho' nostealile Baronet. Mr. C. WYNNE'defended the eopduct of the an: Thor of the book alluded tn, end complained of the manner in which his friend bad been treated by the Honourable Gentleman. Was it right,that atterhaving recanted the opinions which he entertained when a boy of nineteen, he should now be twitted with his error. He had known him for thirty years, and for the Honourable Gentleman to call him renrgado, in a pine where he could not answer for himself, was not correct Lord W. RUSSELL thought that his Honoura ble Friend had argued very pointedly in respect to the measure under discussion. The Noble Lord was not prepared to surrender the rights and liberties of the country on loose reports and exliarte evidence. however he might he allied by the ties of relationship to any one of the Members of the Committee, upon the report of which the Bill was founded. The NAle Lord said, he had bad a seat in the House many years; be had witnessed several measures of this de. scription. He took satisfaction to himself that he had always opposed them ; and he was fully persuaded that no one of them was ever attended with any good consequences. Mr. FINLAY thought the measures which had been taken viry advisable. He thought them highly proper in preventing those meetings, which might have drawn the country into very considerable dan ger. It was necessary that a part of English liberty should be sacrificed for a moment, in order that the whole might be eventually preserved. On the whole, he could not but give his cardial assent to the Bill. He did not agree with what had been said about some persons of eminence in and about Glasgow be ing connected with the seditious assemblies and transactions which had taken place in that quarter. There had, he believed, been none connected with those proceedings but e'en of the lowest character, and in very inane circumstances. As to the higher class of workingmeople, there were none whom he did not believe to be of the greatest respectability.— The only danger, he could not but believe. was con sequent upon the very bad state of trade, and the great number ot people who were thrown out of em ploymeut. With respect to meetings, be could not think that they were to be called whenever they were requested, and it appeared to him that a Magistrate might very properly•refuse to ca.l a meeting which he did not deem entirely prudent. Sir S. KOMILLY regretted that a measure so important as the present should be discussed in so thin a House. He was himself decidedly against this measure, which went to deprive die people of Eng. land of their dearest ptivitege.that of public discus sion, which rendered the people of this country more attached 'to their Government than any other people were. This valuable privilege had not only an effect on our domestic situation, but operated most benefi cially as regarded foreign Powers. This had been recently shewn in the case of the Slave Trade, which,* by the Treaty ot 1814, was to have existed in France far several years; yet the expression of public opinion in this country had obliged the French Government to abandon that abominable traffic. The House ought therefore to pause long before it deprived the people of this invaluable right. At present, he con tended that there were no grounds for passing the present Bill. He contended. that no political distut bance had existed at any of the Meetings which had taken place. Disturbances had ukso p lace Certainly, but they were disturbances arising out of the distress , and want of the people, and not out of political feel ing. Such, he contended, was the seigin of the dis turbance and riot which took place on the day of the Spafields meeting. If the present Bill did no more than prevent meetings sad , assemblies without the permission of some responsible persons, housekeepers or others, seven or more in number, he would not oppose 'it; but be objected to the capital punish ments which the Bill enacted—(Near, hear, hear.) The Honourable Gentleman then took a review of the provigons of the present Bill, and of the Riot Act, the latter of which he contended had never ope rated to prevent rioting ; as a proof of which he in t aanced the riots in London in 1780, those in Bir mingham in 1793, and lastly, the Corn-bill riots in 1814. He contended that passing the Bill as it at present stood, would only be adding one more capital punishment to our statute-book, already a disgrace tol the country, and which could never be acted upon. `The liberties of the people had never during a time of peace been abridged to such an extent as the House were now about to abridge them; and he called on the House In pause before they adopted it. He was, of opinion with the Noble Lord (Lord W. Russell) that the people had already given up mere of their liberties into the hands of Ministers than they could afford to spare. Mr. BATHURST defended the measure ar neces sary. and contended, that the designs of the Spen ceans were most dangerous, pointing at nothing less than revolution, and a division of all property. The Right Hon. Gentleman repeated all his former argu ments in support of the Bill, which he contended did not at all interfere with the Constitutional Meetings of the People, whether in Corporate Bodies or an Counties, &e. It Was only those Meetings which were not constitetienal which were to be prevented— Meetin;s from which riot and destruction of property had originated. The Committee, is "their Report, stated, that they bad proof that other meetings and other riots were in contemplation. Would Gentle. men who opposed the Bill say, it was not the duty of Government to prevent those meetings taking place or would they say, that these meetings ought to have been allowed to take place, to see whether these new riots would be more successful than those already past? Mr. PONSONBY had heard that the declaration made to-night by the Member for Glasgow (Mr . Findlay) chat ilo persons were concerned in the riots which took place in that city above the lower orders. He had heard the declaration with great satisfaction, because, from the speech of the Learned Lord Advo. cote on a former night, he bad been led to form a different opinion. The Right Honourable Gentleman (Mr. Bathurst) said, the Committee had called on the House to adopt some measure. The Committee had.done no such thing, but left all to the discretion of .the House. The House has adopted three asea sures already, and were now discussing another.— ' With respect to which his opinion was, that part was good and part bad. He was persuaded that at this time some restraint should be laud on public meetings. Hs alio thought the adjournment of meetings should be prevented. He did not deny that it was necessary the thiftegiatrany should be invested with powers of restraint; but be must °blest to this power being vested in the hands of a single. Magistrate. He eons sidered that morelhan one Magistrate should be re quired to act on this occasion. This he considered as the most objectionable part of the Bill, .and as giving such power to a single Magistrate, he could not support the Bill. Mr. Serjeant BEST thought the Bill provided the only remedies which could be applied to the evils which the Right Honourable Gentleman had acknow ledged existed. The Right Honourable Gentleman had found fault with some of the provisions of the Bill; but he had recommended no others in their place. The power given to a Magistrate by the Bill, was certainly considerable ; and it would he desirable that there shoeld, whenever it was possible, be a con currence of opinion between two or more Magistrates. If the power given to the Magistracy by the Bill was great, the House would recollect, it was given for a most important purpose, namely, to protect the honest and quiet part of the community, against the plans of the designing and disaffected. Mr. CA LC RAFT also opposed vesting the power in question in the hands of a single Magistrate. A single Magistrate could not license an alehouse, or order the removal of a pauper. Yet here he was to have the power of stopping the mouths of a starving people. But these were trifles. He objected to the Bill altogether, except those parts which related to secret oaths, calling meetings by unknown persons, and adjournments of meetings. But he would boldly say, that he knew of no conduct on the part of the per,* of this country which could justify any at tempt to abridge their liberties. If this had been the only measure proposed to give power to Government, it would have met with a different reception ; but Government had already got the liberties of the people in their hands. Mr. P. MOORE opposed the Bill, on his own be half, en the behalf of his constituents, and on that of the whole empire. The' conspiracy of the whole country, if it existed, was not against the Throne, but against the Trustees of the Executive Authority. Mr. CANNING did not support the present mea sure because he conceived it permanently necessary to abridge the invaluable right of petition. If he consented to throw restraints around it, they were restraints in the nature of protection, to defend it from misuse. Let this Bill be passed, and let another question arise on which it was the wish of the country to express its opinion, where was the clause that would.silence the national voice ? He supported the measure on the behalf of the people, to separate them from their deluders. He wished to draw a line be tween the ssund and the infected, and to keep the plague from spreading farther than it had yet done. He defended the Report of the Committee, and con tended that it was customary to found measures upon such reports. If those which had been proposed by Government had been brought out singly and suc cessively, he r uld agree that there had been unfair dealing, but the whole system had been laid open at once. There was an almost total unanimity of opi. nion that popular meetings ought to be placed under some controul : the question was therefore become one of mete detail, whether the proposed provisions were adapted to the end in view ? He alluded to the bad nse which had been made of the instruction so carefully bestowed on the lower classes. What could be a higher crime than for designing men to avail themselves of that dawn of improvement, as soon as it rose, so,as to make it almost a question whether it were an advantage or nett It vote-iike'sbnee illegal strata- I gems et war, in which,not satisfied with using fair wea pons, the enemy poisoned the wells and springs of life. An attempt had been made by an Hon. Gentleman opposite to ridicule the little success which had at tended the attempt at insurrection. That Hon. Gen-'' tleman was difficult to be pleased. He wished the Tower not only to be summoned, but taken, and the Metropolis not only to be alarmed but in flames ! Enough had been done, in his opinion, to call for such remedies. For his own part, he was contented to see the mob march to the Tower, without waiting till they should take possession of it; he was content i to see the torch, witho u t wa i t i ng ti ll t h e B a nk was i n flames—(ffeer, hear.) But those who argued against the proposed measura would have us wait till things were carried further—they would have no remedy ' applied till all was irretrievable —(Hear, hear.) I le had no wish . to balk or infringe upon the right of petition ; but when that right was endangered by the conduct of those who pretended to exercise-it—who pretended to speak the voice of the people--when they heard the voice of Jacob but felt the band of Esau—it was against that, and not against the right of petition, they were called upon to struggle—( flour.) In every free Constitution, occasions would occur on which part of it must be put in abeyance, to secure the safety of the rest. Such an occasion, a case of powerful necessity, called upon the House to give its sanction to this meaiure—they were called upon to prevent the exercise of the right of petition from being mixed up with rebellion, devastation, and ruin. Mr. BROUGHAM said he rose, he feared for the last time, to enter his protest against this measure ; and he should perhaps have contented himself with that, but that the Right Hon. Gentleman who bad la* spoken, had perfectly misapprehended the argu ments Made use of on that side of the House. The Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. Canning) had said, that all except three Members on that side of the House, had agreed as to the necessity of limiting by regulations public meetings, meaning of course those who bad spoken—of whom it happened that three would form a majority. But those who had spoken of the necessity of regulations—never said any thing of the necessity of such regulations as those before the House. They had agreed, that the sanction or seven householders might be declared a necessary step previously to the calling any public meeting, on the principle analogous to our constitutional usage, of preventing any idle or mischievous persons, not connected with the vicinage, from calling large bodies together for bad purposes —(Hear, hew.) But was there any thing in common between such a regula tion as that, ;ad giving the power to one Magistrate (while ewe were necessary, as had been observed, to pats a pauper) to enter any meeting to arrest the speakers, and finally to disperse it. That such a power was given by the Bill, it was in vain to deny— the quibble set up by the Learned Serjeant was of no avail. He (Serjeant Best) had said that the Mhistrate possessed such a power already. He possessed no such power, as that not directly given. but awkwardly acknowledged by the Bill. He (Mr. Boughatn) understood the powers postessed i I by the Magistrate 'of arresting persons guilt? of e breach of the puolie peace—he understood the power, though that was doubtful of arresting persons liver , ing words tending to a breach of the peace—hut l!e had never before heard of any power which a More trate possessed of arresting any person for any thing uttered which, in his opluion (for on that the whets rested), tended Le bring the Government Sete ern; tempt. On no such power Lad any Magistrate hie therto acted—tor none had any Magisgaze coo iended —to what dangers did this subject aey one Leo: cisirg the right of petitioning, which the Right lekeeuraele Gentleman had acknowledged to be sacred. These meetings must hereafter depend on the charecter nr prejudices of the neighbouring Jounce of the - Peacee and from the various feelings which would opereie. even upon worthy Magistrates, they night be•at. tined, as great inroads would he made on the rieht of meeting publicly v. - , petition as any eleicsnieot mon insure. The Right Honourable Gentlemen (Mr, Canning) had said, that the Ministers were not much pleased at the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus—. that they looked upon it as a fearful, rather than a valuable gift. He would endeavour to relieve hint from his uneasiness, and to shew him that his alarm, as to the uselessness of that power were as ground less as those of the Report seemed to be. He did not believe, for his own part, that there would be many arrests, or that it had ever been intended to sorest many persons ; but in adopting that measure there were two purposes in view. The one he took to be the desire to increase a wholesome dread, which the Ministers above all others were interested in spread ing over the country. The other was to divert the en. tention of Parliament and the country hem The pressure of taxation ; to prevent the present Session from being, like the last, a Session of rebuts -a Ses sion of defeat to those who attempted to impose taxes, and of victory to those who promoted Reform, and to set aside the demand for Parliamentary Re form. (Hear, Ater.) For when such important questions came nightly before the Hnese, as that of the life or death of the Constitution, or at least of its suspended animation, as the Right Hon. Centlenee (Mr. Canning) had acknowledged, of the aggeg a. ment of a Dictator—(hear; hear)—when gee elens of such fearful magnitude were constantly beftm: them, it was impossible that they could atteed tub . jects, which, though of themselves important, were, in corn. parison with the former, of l e ss consequence.— One only of the numerous nences on the subject of Retrenchment had, in tact, yet Leen be:epee forward. This was some solace to the Ministers tinder the weight the Parliament had laid Loon them. This was not All, the tongues and pens of pnblie !lookers and writers felt the influence of the Bill. Every. ore who sat done' to attack the measures of his Mejestes Ministers, or to enlighten the public, felt that he tfid it with a halter about !xis neck. 'He knew that if l.e passed a certain line, the nest week or the next day he would surely be prevented from continuing to write. The result had been, that the Ministers had been saved from a stormy Session—and what to thern . was of equal importance, they might look at any publication without being offended. The men against whom the powers of the Bill would be direct. ed, might not probably be those whom he reach re spected ; but it mattered not to him in whose person the Constitution WAS violated. The Honourable Member then, to shew the danger of relying on re ports founded on ex-parte evidence, referred to the Report of the Committee in 1812. which gave smash more terrific accounts than those the documents lately presented to the House. It detailed murder and riots, and affiliations of clubs, and meetings of disciplined bodies •of armed men, all the matesir3 parts of which statements. afterwards curved out to be utterly false. The form of a horrid oath was re peated in the House, with much the same Lenore!: effect with which a• similar document had been read the other day. It bad been then also asserted, tha: at the murder of Mr. Horsefield, the populace lid gathered round him,. to revile him—which, on tie trial, had been proved to he a great falnliood.— He warned the House against the system of tricker! pursued in older to magnify a small danger, and blow up the small flame of disaffection into a tie which might consume the Constitution. As a ee• cimen of this system, be mentioned, that an Apple . don had been made to the Court of Session land, to remove prisoners confinea fur sedition, from the gaol to the Castle of Edinburgh. What sett the purpose of this ? The Castle, it was thouglie would sound better, as it was known that only ol tors were confined there. The Court gave it in tee: light—would not lend its authority to tricl: caul: i was to be put on the country—decided that the l a t should take its course—and mimed ta sennien removal of the poisoners. The great point whoe had been relied on in 1791, was, that the reople not apply to Parliament, but relied on thetuselre. They now universally applied to Parliament, oral how had the House requited the ?—(Hter, 7r) —They had refused to inquire into their diorer (Hear)---they had passed to the !Aces Carders of :fa Day ; they had not gratitude enongli even to cone der the came of their evils ; and now they P* 4 ' l fills to Fog them —(llear, hear,, hear). -1 - 10 bored no evil would come of thus; thar the `resent, as was one of the worst, would he found 'the last of series of encroachments on liberty, and that the fanl prediction of his Honnurable Friend (Mr. Calcraftf would not be realieed, that pewee waginsatiable, are whet, they were no longer ready to give, other vion'd .cot be found ready to take—Weer, hea:9. I Hon. and Learned Centlaman then went on to vier tend that the whole of the proceedings of Ministers were caletalaetd to ceeate alarm in the public Mille. to answer their own pnrposes. Lord COCHRANE, amidst loud cries of Qirit!rs! voted• ad, that the Bills whirl. ''ad introdneed re itiwridel to cover their own desi7ns, end be ment.iimid the eases tf a its M 4 7'ear, and a Mr. Weir, who were imprivined mew o:llPetff under it, and one of them, the latter, wa• sines, ards Ji • bur s a: without any crime being imputed to him. Tee Err resting Wl' ear) was confined in the Debtors' at.!, of the prison a: W 2, gow, and was most Larshly treated. tie was a Sisdent of IY 4 vlnity, and had the certificate of several of his felinw.stuileivr prove his unimpeachable character. White these practices air' lifted, no man ViValli be ,Ate in the eoootry. fir, telt eattirmtcl that Mitristets.had no other !ruentien hut to establish desry fa the country. Fur his own parr, he would prefer the ofei A t .1 011 disguised tyranny of Algiers to the system they were at P"' net pursuing to deprive the people of their Isbertie. Mr. FINLAY explained: The person Aided to by the ° s4 lard (Cochrane) was not treated in so harsh a mower as sv.. , rqtreseuteil. He was plated to ;ha debtors' ride in t h e I" 4 ' Brat, sad if he had soy remota to complain, be soiai un AT. t better accosunosiatioti. But teen the debtors wd.: et a me, .ve fret pa fish Le and itir que no' tioi ten Cl au cc t w )tat J• 3 131 L ti°4 l Ip to to a r to at sot rn A :t. free e- but IN 116 bot re. he tats rY -44r1 fief 1 rve of sit a the, to fret qua :d fish a: t Lei d the i.e it, ..wt 'V jest this OUT jett um and ottr 1:, gut itrn tiot ten tha in 1 Fa) ti for to e lea 4 grr .1 I tll int( ; Ste reap 1 awl 'Ti. law will *et si g bat C4 P in for be t rofy be 4. 6 " ' ti dot! t in ti Fur and 11124