Star. — London, England, 1822-02-26 00:00:00

...,, n „ S , the Petitioners that a system of-severe economy ought to be adopted; but on that part oftheir Petitiott i rhere they called far a timely and salutary Rfforfn In Ihrliament, he would now say, as be had the honour of sayipg to the Petitioners at the Meet ing, he differed from those who favoured that call. Os this subject o it was fiie, opinion Ir alsonicHaest„ do bisduty to his eon. stituents by acting on his own judgment. The Petition was not framed exactly in the usual way. Instead o 4 praying the House to accord with that which they tleshvjlvtgltr9 confidently relied that the House would afford the relief they craved. He, however, hoped, when he stated that he was present at the Meting.. and knew the intentions of the Petitioners, that any little in formality of this sort would not prevent the House from receiv ing the Petition. Lord G REA VES said, it came within his knowledge, that when it was known that the Petition called for a Reform in Parliament, a great number of respectable men, of high rank and consideration in the County, desired to withdraw their names from it. He did not believe that on that subject tbe sen timents of three-fourths of the County of Devon were expressed in the Petition. Mr. NEW Asti stated many to have been disposed to sign the Petition, and to call for a Reform in Parliament, who had been prevessted from doing so by inability to hear the charge of the travelling expenses. This might account for its not being snore numerously signed. At the Meeting a very large majority had been in favour of a Reform in Parliament. . Lord EBRINGTON thought the Noble Lord could not im pugn the numbers and respectability of the Meeting, and he could not deny that that part of the Petition which related to Reform in Parliament had been carried by a very great majo rity. To prove what were the feelings of the People in Devon generally, he would remind the Noble Lord, that a Meeting had been held last year on the subject of Parliamentaryßeform, and a Petition voted, which, in the course of ten days, received the signatures of 4,000 Freeholders—a greater number, he be lieved, than had ever 'United in one cause in that County. Lord Garrets and Lord Eaarxemox severally explained. The Petition was ordered to be printed. ILCIIESTER JAIL. blr. Alderman WOOD wished shortly to call the attention of the House to the case of two persona who had died in Itches ter Jail; but, in the first place. he thought it necessary to call for the proceedings before the Coroner's Inquest which had been held on their bodies. He moved an Address to his Ma jesty, praying that he would be pleased to direct that a copy of the notes taken on the 18th, 19th, and 20th of January, at the Inquest held on the bodies of James Bryan and Honey wood, before I:phatn, Esq. Coroner for the County, should be laid before the House. Mr. PEEL made a few remarks on the difficulty of comply ing with the motion, and on the attendant expense ; and, after a few words from Mr. BENNET, Mr. Alderman WOOD withdrew his motion till to-morrow. IRISH TITHES. Mr. BROUG 11.1 )1 wished to ask his lion. Friend. Mr. Hume, if he would postpone his motion on the subject of Tithes till after the Easter recess? Ile begged to suggest that it was desirable that the greater part of those Members of the House who were in the profession of the law should be present when the subject came on, and these must leave town to go on the Circuits in the course of next week. lie therefore thought it would he better for the question itself that the subject should Nand over for the present, for the reason he had given, and also for the purpose of affording time to his Majesty. Government to come to some decision on the subject. Dir. IIUDIF. agreed to postpone biz motion till April 16th. Sir J. NEWPORT remarked, that than this there was no question connected with Ireland of more vital importance.- 1k was sure that nothing would be more soothing to the people of that country, than to know that that subject was under the consideration of Government. For forty-four years, within his knowledge, this had been the leading cause of all the evils that had been known in Ireland. Mr. GOL'LBURX said, the attention of the Irish Govern talent had Seen directed to this subject; but, in the present state of that country, the Right lion. Baronet must be aware that, if the Government had been longer there than it had yet been, there were other matters which would have demanded its more inunediate care. Sir J. NEWPORT imputed no blame or dereliction of duty, but he gave it as his opinion that the consideration of the subject would prove highly beneficial. POOR LAWS. Sir T. LETHBRIDGE begged to put a qaestion to the Hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Scarlett). He wished to know if tap Hon. and Learned Gentleman intended to introduce any new Bill on the subject of the Poor Laws? Mr. SCA KLETT could not answer the question till be saw whether or not the Noble Marquis (Londonderry) intended to persevere in his plan for lending £4,000,000, or any consider able sum, to the Overseers of Parishes—( Hear, hear).—lf he did, he (Mr. Scarlett) saw not the least hope of ameliorating the Poor Laws—(Hear, hear). BREACH OF PRIVILEGE. Mr. JAMES said, that he would beg the indul gence of the House while he made some few obser vations on the grounds of the motion which he in tended to submit, in pursuance of his notice. The person whose case rendered his motion necessary had been sentenced to the cruel punishment of two years' confinement in Lancaster Castle, for having attended a Meeting for Parliamentary Reform, in the year 1819. His (Mr. James's) letters to that individual had been broken open repeatedly, and were entirely detained in one instance, and a copy only given him. That was a practice so derogatory from the privileges cif Members of Parliament, that he hoped the House would not sanction it. There was so much of op pression and cruelty in such treatment, that he trusted the House would discountenance it. It was, in his opinion, sufficient punishment to the unfortunate pri soner that he was debarred from the liberty of com municating with his family and friends, but the prac tice of preventing any communication between him and Members of Parliament was intolerable (Hear). It might be answered, perhaps, that an application should have been made to the Magistrates, who would give every satisfaction on the subject, and would re dress any grievance which might really exist. But the Magistrates themselves were not, probably, aware of the abuses which existed; and even though they were, they were not always willing to correct them. It was not clear that they did not authorise and sanction them. In another jail (llchester), it appeared by the Report of the Commissioners who were appointed by that House to make inquiry into the existing abuses, that even torture had in same cases been applied-- (Hear). —From what he had been able to discover, he was inclined to believe that the odious and oppres sive practice of which he complained arose out of a desire which the Magistrates of Lancaster had to op pose the progress of Parliamentary Reform. The Magistrates were hostile to Reform, and were there fore anxious to know if an,ything had been said on that subject in the prisoner's correspondence. With that view they had given orders to the jailer to break open all letters addressed to the prisoner, or sent from him. The Magistrates having at first some doubts of their authority, submitted a case for the opinion of Counsei• The opinion was given in favour of them, and the practice was declared lawful. They did not, however, deem that quite sufficient. They then determined on introducing new rules and regu lations into the government of the prison. He would maintain that the practice was not only a breach of privilege, but was also a violation of the laws. The Hon. Member then adverted to the statute, the 9th of Anne, and read one or two clauses, one of which . prObibited any person knowingly and wittingly to presume to open letters, &c. except by an express war rant hr writing of one of his Majesty's Secritaries of , that statue mind the conformity declaration Si4mow on the 9th jea:coLGloucester. _ . copy Oat every county jail in England. The Hon. Gentleman then read the letter, as ftrllowi: Sta.-1 have just discovered, in consequence of complaints made on the subject of the management of Gloucester jail, that It appears there has been a practice of opening letters from Gs lons confined by the jailer, wander a notion that he had a right to• do so. I think itancessary to repeat the opinion expressed le my letter of the 12th July last, that the law will not warrant such a practice. " SI Dtl OUT IV • —That being the law, declared so by their statutes, and repeated in the letter which he had read, be hoped and trusted the House would support it. The practice was a violation of the Bill of Rights. The Magistrates pretended to the pOwer of making rules aad regulations for the prison, under the authority of the 32d George 11. cap. 28. But he apprehended that that Act did not confer on the Magistrates any such authority. The Hon. Member then read some clauses of the Act, which related to communication with poor debtors, &c. He contended it included all prisoners, felons as well as debtors. The spirit of the Act throughout was humane in the extreme. It I:hewed that the object in the contemplation of Part Lament was to alleviate, and not to exasperate the sufferings of the unfot tunate prisoners. But it might be contended that the practice of opening letters had been sanctioned by the rules of the prison. He would shew that the letters were broken open before those rules on which so much stress would be laid were drawn up. He would not use any harsh expressions when he should say, that rules so oppressive had not been put into practice in any other jail in the king dom. Such oppressive regulations had not been reo sorted to by the Semersetshire Magistrates, even to wards Mr. Hunt. The Magistrates of Somersetshire did not presume to u.e such practices towards that individual, who, whatever the Attorney-General might say of him, had, by his conduct and by the inquiry, of which he was the chief author, rendered the most permanent service to the cause of humanity. He doubted whether, under the 32d of George 11. the Magistrates could enact any such rules as they pretended. For that opinion he had an authority which in that House was entitled to the greatest pos sible repect : he had the authority of a sound lawyer and politician—he meant the late Sir Samuel Ro milly, who gave an opinion on the subject when, in 1812, he presented a petition to that House from a person confined in Lancaster Jail. He, on that oc casion, stated that the County Jail had belonged to the High Sheriff of the County, and that the Magis trates had no right to interfere with him in the ma nagement of it. They should not presume to meddle with the prisoners, the care of whom belonged of right to the County Sheriff, and for whose comfort and safe custody he was bound to provide. That was the opinion of Sir Samuel Romilly, and by that opinion he (Mr. James) felt that he was warranted in saying that the opening and intercepting of those letters were contrary to law. But if, after all, it should be the opinion that the 32d Geo. IL gave to the Magistrates the power of establishing those objectionable and odious regulations, the sooner such an Act was re pealed the better. Having said so much on the il legality of the practice, he would trouble the House with a few observations on it, as a breach of the pri vilege of Parliament. So far as he was personally concerned in the question, hi. intention was, if he had sought for protection at all, it should be in a Court of Law, where he had no doubt of obtaining a verdict before an impartial Judge and Jury: that would be the mode which he would adopt for his own satisfaction; but when he had been informed that the cause of complaint was a breach of Parlia mentary privilege, he at once determined to bring it under the consideration of that House, the Members whereof it so much affected. In bringing forward that question, he felt that he was doing his duty as a Member of that House, ant in defending their pri vileges he was doing more thin that—he was en deavouring to alleviate the sufferings of the poor unhappy prisoners—(Hear, hear).—He concluded by moving the following Resolution a That it is the opinion of this House, that any person breaking open, detaining, or suppressing any letter or letters ad dressed to any, or by any Member of this House, is guilty of a direct breach of the privileges of this house." On the question being put from the Chair, there was a pause of a few seconds before any Member rose; at the end of that time Mr. PEEL and Lord STANLEY rose together, but the former gave way. Lord STANLEY said he felt regret at occupying the attention of the House before the Right Honour able Gentleman (Mr. Peel), who was so much more competent to speak on this subject • however, he would trespass on their notice only f or a very short time. The Honourable Member who brought for ward this motion put the opening of a letter address ed to him as a breach of the privileges of the House. Now he confessed it did not strike him in that light. If it were so, it was rather strange that it had not been so viewed on a former occasion. It was no later than June last that a petition was presented, com plaining of a similar act on the part of a Magistrate of the County of Lancaster, but it was not considered as a breach of privilege. Now, among the Regula tions drawn up for the better government of Lancas ter Jail, and sanctioned by the authorities he had mentioned, was this one : • a That the Keeper of the Jail do examine all letters written by, or addressed to, prisoners confined on the Crown side, and not suffer any improper matter to be thus conveyed to or from the prisoner; that he do shew such letters to the visiting Ma gistrates; that in case of a letter coming addressed to such pri. goner, the jailer do send for him, and read to him the unexcep tionable: parts ; and In the case of his (the prisoner's) sending a latter containing exceptionable passages, the prisoner be sent for, and informed that the letter must be sent without those pas sages: but that ill letters from prisoners preparing for trial, to their Solicitor' or Attornies be seat off without delay, any ex ceptiostable passages being ;Edited." —The whole of the Regulations, of which this was one, were sanctioned by Mr. Justice Bayley and Mr. Justice Park, and, if he was not mistaken, the one he had read was in the handwriting of Mr. Justice Bay ley himself; but without vouching for this as a fact, he could state, that it received the sanction of both Judges, and that after the most mature considera tion. As to the jailer's opening a letter addressed •to a Member of Parliament by a prisoner, he could not say what the opinion'of the House might be, but his own opinion was, that, under the circuinsuutees, . . • • llooltembero pr • ions ; first, fran ed by him was'an a it was a breach of the Now, if he applied him• self to ;disprove both these propositions, he trusted that he should be considered to meet the question fairly. He certainly had heard with much surprise, upon a former occasion, the doctrine laid down by the Hon. and Learned lember forWinchelsea upon this subject ; and he thought that the Honourable and Learned Member himself, upon consideration, would be 'ready to allow that he had taken too wide a ground. The Noble Lord who spoke last had put the House in possession of the facts of the present case, as far as regarded the rules and regulations, complained of. Those regulations had been sanc- tioned by Mr. Justice Park and 'Mr. Justice 13ayley. In the first place, he thought there was strong prot gumption in favour of the legality of the act, in the fact of the Judges having signed the rules which authorised it. And that, too, not without considera tion ; for he understood that they altered some of them, and that the one which gave the power of opening letters, was in the hand-writing of Mr. Jus tice Bayley. He therefore conceived, notwithstand ing the authority of the Hon. Member for Carlisle, that nothing illegal had been committed. The Hon. Member had appealed to the Act of George 11. which bore no reference to the present case, and at'the same time neglected to notice a more recent Act passed in the3lst of Geo. 111. under which these regulations had been made. The former Act applied to debtors only, The Hon. Member had read to the House the title and preamble of that Act, and he would follow his example by stating the contents of the preamble to the other. It was an Act for regulating Jails and other places of confinement. The preamble set forth, that for the better government of such places, 'rules and regulations, and bye-laws, should be made, by persons authorised so to do, in the Act of George IL And who' were those persons? The . Magistrates.— And upon that Act the Judges had undoubtedly signed the rules of which the Honourable Mem ber complained. With such signatures affixed to the orders for enforcing those rules, he felt, indeed, that it would be nasting the time, and abusing the in dulgence of the House, to dwell any longer upon the question of their illegality. He then came to the consideration, whether or not a breach of the privileges of Parliament had been committed.— For the sake of argument, he must get the Honourable Member to concede, , that the rule which authorised the act of opening t he letters of prisoners was legally made. And he would contend, that if it was founded in law, there was nothing which could exempt a Member of Parliament from sharing its common operation. The only privilege which a Member of Parliament possessed was that of franking his letters, but they were as liable to be opened by the authority of the law as those of any other individual in the State. The Act contained no clause which exempted a Member of Parliament from its operation, and it had hitherto been suffered to apply to all parties without distinction. The Hon. Member had alluded to the letter of Lord Sidmouth to the Keeper of Gloucester Jail. That letter was written in conse quence of a complaint made to the House of Lords from two persons confined in Gloucester Jail, one of whom was a debtor, and the other confined for a misdemeanour, which complaint was referred to the Law Officers of the Crown. His belief was, that the word " felons" occurred in the letter by mistake. His Lordship meant to have written " debtors and fines." He had referred to the opinions of the Law Officers, and there he found the words " debtors and fines."— He had also mentioned the circumstance to Lord Sidmouth himself, and his Lordship concurred in the supposition, that the mistake had either been made by himself or by the clerk in copying his letter. The case which led to the Report of 1735, was one with the Post Office. And in a case where a letter had been put into the Post-office and then opened, un doubtedly there was a breach of privilege. But that was no case in point to the question before the House. Before the letter was put in the post, the Magistrates, upon the authority of the law, demanded that certain regulations should be complied with. But in the case of 1735, the Resolution expressly declared that a gross breach of privilege had been committed, by opening a letter, addressed to a Memberof Parliament, at the Post-office. The Hon. Member had stated, that in defending the privileges of the House upon this occasion, he was defending the liberties of the people. He (Mr. Peel) trusted that no Member of that House would ever claim privileges which were not, in fact, the privileges of the People—(Near, hear).—The Right Hon. Gentleman, after again enforcing the position that Members of Parliament had no exemp tion from the regulations in question, founded as they were upon the law of the land, concluded by moving the previous question. Mr. G. KENNET could not agree to the doctrine laid down, that a body of Magistrates and two Judges had the power of legislating and making fresh laws for the government of prisons. All they could do by the Act was to regulate the laws aiready made, such as appointing the time of labour, managing the diet, r and ordering arrangements of that nature. If they had the power attributed tolliem try' . the Right Hon. Gentleman, they had the power' of changing five years simple imprisonment to five years solitary con finement. He thought none of the Law Authorities would boldly state that they had such power. The Circular of Lord Sidmouth applied to fines as well as debtors, and the opinion of the Law Officers at that period expressly said that the law could not ap ply to fines. In this case the Judges had sanctioned a rule by which fines and felons were equally sub mitted to it. He begged to offer his thanks to, the Right Honourable Gentleman, for moving the pre vious question rather than putting a negative upon the proposition of his Hon. Friend. The plevions question only meant that they would say nothing about the merits of the case at the present time. The ATTORNEY-GENERAL did not mean to say that Judges and Magistrates had the power of ' making new laws, but they could, undoubtedly make regulations for the internal police or management of jails. In the present case it would have been a•dere liction of duty on the part of the jailer, if he had, not .opened the letter of the lion. Member fey Car , lisle, tn the case of the Gloucester jaile4 he took After o caninentinge t 1 enacting clauses at not do his dot; tote, the Hon. ikffeliWl&d lr.sve to re- alt • kissed by and to to House ohs slocussuipx. was entirely in the CrOwn e !sky witlibis own opinion. assd which was a Mr. /TEL had . -unisipesteod tion of tlscLiw. He allusiid IA the letter of establish his case upon two pr idmouth, the late Semitary of State, written for any one to open,* letter fr Dth of November, 1814, to the keeper of the illegal act ; and secondly, that iilaucester. A copy of that letter was sent to privileges of Parliament. Noi - t• t t o nPen m r o d n ers th h , fi wr nirose i m tt l en fMt: upon that l oc etn c ten a e sio olettr n, isv:i"flas of bard Imrd a :I::: t g ar ' dtt Hunt enter edfound upon s i ;stti, and the s jot, 6s h ats ei —lt was transcribed by some of the Magistrate f 4 of Smn ll e c r h Somerset, j d ail afterwards,wher where it to have been a circular. There was no priv'ke ße which exempted Members of Parliament from the operation of laws of this nature. Would any n ee say that Members had a right to hold personal ilke e . course with prisoners,while others were denied it?, If, then, they were not allowed personal intercoerse, by what sight could they hold intercourse by letter? . He was quite convinced that there was no law by which Members of Parliament had greater privilege s of communication with felons, or persons confined for misdemeanours, than any other class of subjects in the State—(lleer). Mr. BERNAL did not think that the Right Boni Secretary of State had made out a sufficiently strong case to rebut the opinion of the Hon, at ot , e ,.. H e thought it would be much better to run the risk of the damage which might arise from a flee inter course with prisoaers by letters, than to allow the chance of these acts of cruelty aad oppression to . which the rules and regulations complained of might give rise. Sir ROBERT WILSON said, that he did not at tach much value to precedents; but there was one which bore on the present case in the teig s of William and Mary: it was a Resolution of the /Louse " that any letter being broken open which came from or was directed to a Member of Parliamc ot, is a breach of the privileges of this House." Whc en he saw the Report which the Commissioners had ) made as to the state of Ilchester Jail, he was of oip i,iion that neither jailers nor NI igistrates could be tr, wed, and that Members of Parliament ought to hay e the freest access to prisons, to prevent such practic es. Mr. C. WYNN was of' opinion, that neitl so- a breach of the privileges of that House, nor cif the law of the land had been committed in the pi sr,e-.; instance. The act dearly extended no farther • thRl the Pust-office, and the privileges of Members Irent no farther than as regarded the Post-office. Whe:l they looked at the precedent of the resolution of 16!44, it would be well to look to the causes which led to that resolution. The case was a complaint fro in the Postmaster at Hull against the Governor of F the. place, who was in the practice of sending f r the mail-bags and opening what - raters he chose.. Il e believed that the Acta- . which had been refer. •ed to gave the Magistrates the power which they ha d ex ercised. Before those Acts•were passed, the jailer himself had the power of doing anything whi ch he held necessary to the safe keeping of the j oil a] ii th e safe custody of the prisoners. He could then place prisoners in solitary confinement for refractory con duct, or for offences against the regulations ( I the prison. To place that power in the hands of NI agie. trates better qualified to exercise it was the ohjt xt of the Acts, and he had no doubt of their having now the.power of ordering solitary confinement, v there circumstances called for it. The es ils to which a re moval of the power of examining letters would give rise, were of the most serious character. It meght aid the escape of prisoners, or defeat the detect], o of offenders connected with others already app] ehezhsled. Even (although it was an extreme case) poison might be conveyed to criminals by letter, so as to el able them to avoid suffering the sentence, of the law. He saw no reason whatever why the motion of the lloa. Member should receive the support of the House- Mr. BROUGHANI had wished to hear his flight Hon. Friend, who was formerly well known on his side of the House; and he hoped would still be on that to which he had now gone, as the zealous de fender of the privileges oiParliament ; but after hear ing him, he was more than before convinced that this was a perfect breach of privilege. But first, he roost protest against the monstrous doctrine of the Right Hon. Secretary (Mr. Peel) that regulations, sanctioned by Judges and Magistrates, might do away with the privileges of Parliament. The Resolution, condemn.. ing the Post-office fcr opening letters of Members. was drawn up on a Repoi t of Sir R. Walpole, Sir W. Wyndham, Sands, Winnington, and the greatest men of the day ; and the reason why it only mentioned the breach of privilege by Post-office agents was, because they only were complained of. But it was obvious that the same men would have said the same of any other persons who should have intercepted tits great stream by which the complaints and grievances of the People could be brought to the ear of Parlia ment. The Right Hon. and Learned Gentleman (Mr. Wynn) could not say that the precedent of Colc nel Copley, the Lieutenant-Governor of Hod, was a case confined, to the Post-office, for his conduct was brought before Parliament by Morson, the Deputy I Postmaster. It was strange to say, that it would be wrong in a Military Officer, and not in a jailer, or any other officer belonging to Government. It had been 'Aid, that the privilege of franking was liable to abuse. He knew of none of their privileges but what were liable to abuse. That of arrest for instance—(Hear. He knew of a Member of the last Parliament who made over his property to a near relation, and left 1 1 some of his starving creditors to go to pi ison ; where, but fur his privilege from arrest ; he himself would have gone. It was not decorous to say in that House, that because a Member could abuse his privilege of communicating means of escape, &c. to prisoners they should take it away, and prevent the public cr private abuses and complaints of the People front being conveyed to Members of Parliament, iii order to be brought before the Legislature, and there re dressed. These privileges, and such as these, should be preserved, in order to save the liberties of the People boldly, zealously, and faithfully. Ile was sorry to find a venerable Judge's name to regulations, certainly rendering a prisoner's •onfinement much more severe than it otherwise would have tees; and. notwithstanding that great name, he must pause be fore he pronounced it even then to he legal. Mr. 1101t1tOCKS defended the conduct of the Magistrates on this occasion, and declared that they went by the highest law authorities. This person was convicted of seditious acts of the very worst kind; and if he and such like. him had the means of calm ' municating with others, they would disseminate their poisonons principles. One prisoner wrote to another what the intended to say, and what the other ought to declare: unsthe concluded by telling him—" Mind . youAtiti s iallis and don't fl inch." Members might be nispo cadsy, the misrepresentations of prisoners; fur no man could conceive that any Member woulj r 4' f •