The Sun. — London, England, 1819-12-14 00:00:00

s oc!. 11 ' reme dy inissers .A tiNI)Ce, 6111 r hey , v° l l I coro'l ld , ey feareo: I severed : I them o' I . of sag( ordered 7eiretl, et ssed a 131 the ado ll ; anus, ao ise tO tltt CLEREAOII' lered 10.1 BILL. reading ° iced, ' If !: 'or of egret 0 1 H 9 he 0 ( iends rIV I C ly !ban b e u, but 111 . 0 omsist I )yed )i e on - 1 15 0'00 0( nittlel 3 b:ls. l id it illiry objectiA le Friend 9 the st - Ate es as ' Y . ' on, 0- ho eneed , 1 : (hat );eltcMiard fiber I tie to ese (r r: to (10111' e; and 0, !wing O f t .e pa ai rp s ie rims. u the So l) ' his 13; 11(li e , ing c 5, be "1 ‘ccif : 1 3 Wilt, meolfr:" 'l'‘) Il r ma I aii( te tr reAs 1 ../ 1 re . o .• : 611 110 1 A: 0 ' It . g 04 . 0 0 log 105 e lire in le" flclined, it Was it - IS - possible For ItirSl to rerose to 11)be v 1 17 cal. Ile did ant knoee that was usu a l fnthe coarse o f d dwes to eAI - tan individual °r his s =i iments them—(Hear !) ;—but he e e "res!'ed himself sornuch of an Irishman, that be Could not refuse tire challenge no the present ticeasion.—(Hear!),--He felt grateful to the Hoti Gentle man f or the high mention he had made of • lls character and ta l ents; t h e f orm e r , h owever , Ile wasln OO appreh e nsion was likely to suffer.— ' (Hear, hear !)—"Char Hon. Gentleman, he ob ,erved, bad his line of polities, and no doubt the Part he had take. that evenioe was in contormity •vith that line lint he begged him to understood `that he (Mr. P ) had also his, and he hoped tils condu c t on th a t occas io n wou ld agree w i t h it, He had otten had occasion to tiller from 'u ltn, and he never remembered to have re: ; gtett . ed his having done so.—(Hear, hear!)— jhe lion. Gentleman had talked notch about the "Atla s/ and rights of the people having been in- Vatted.; hilt he would ask, what was that liberty, '4lAsthose rights'? He had been siecustomed to 7N'insider liberty as " Potestus fuciendi quicquid der lees beet." One would suppose, however, t hat the liberty contetokd for by the Hon. Gess 'llernan wets - not •the enjoyment of any rights, bat '•, t he power of disturhing others in the possession of • t hem, .•r of excluding them altogether from them.. .(Cheers.)—That kirid of liberty would be best r epresented •by the bird called - Harpy, a bird . that .pierced with poisonous fangs all that it •,uxed on for its prey.— (Cheers respect to) the present measure, on which the Honourable t lember had SO strongly animadverted, lie it oist Ileclare it to be his cooscientious opinion that it 11 '49 not at varistoce will any of the principles. of e t he Constitution. He gave his support to it on a 'Non - ledge of the extent of the distaibed state of ;he country, attsi not from any papers which had °eeti laid on the table at the commencement of e t he Session. He thought th a t s oc ie t y, d ar i ng t h e twvntv or thirty years, had undergone more t ilaterial changes titan it had done since the Con ..ilaest. There lead been an intensity of light t hrown in ilp „, t h e lower orders of society, upon 1111 Matters'in which the public interest was in any ' v ay involved, greater than at any other period tf history. Ile did not regard this circumstance jealousy. On the contrary, tie looked upon the habit of free, open discussioe, which had clot heg that !serif's! been acquired by the press as an 'important accession to that guardian of our free toosll. But when the press had arrived at that de -Itree.t3l degradation which had been Well deumni bated the " seditious and blasphemous"' press, a hning at the destruction of all the good-feeling a nd morality of - the lower classes, it. was time to !dont some measure for its restriction.—(Hear, "ear !)—The lower classes had been made die pe enliar object of its play ; .and where such insidious "nalo s were put in practice, it would be found that there was an under fment. in the lower classes of the community, hasteniog all its weathers into a !otea of sedition —(Hear !)—He did not mean to say that those classes were not to he permitted to 41„ '-•coss their grievances, but he would contend t hat subjects which itivolved esseioid changes in the principles of the Laws and Constitution, were hot such as they should be called to deliberate ' t hou. Stich honest continent:sous could feel that l i ovetnnient was a . restriction on their natural l iberti es , b ut they w ere tartly to perceive also the be ar!)--It they derive;: front it—(Hear, hear, sitarl)-11 w, es i t kw of Nature that those who - IP4 rtted their sostetiaace by doily labour were not ;Ipahi e of d;scossitig, such , matters. It had ten truly said that a little knowledge was Aingetons thing ;" • and this applied equally religion, to politics, mod to literature. The .Man who dipped slightly into literature was its Il c 4 iger of deserving the appellation of a babbling -trifle. If a labourer should snit his daily work . . f ° l ‘ the sake of listening to objections which I "ight be weed to the doctrines of religion, he * mild be subject to become All it.fidei. if a P l Oughotati 'occupied those hours, %%nisi], after liig regular toil, should be devoted to the dis tiStge of his social duties, in pondering over se writings and papers, be would certainly he i ltitly to become a torbuient mats.—(lleAr, hear!) ter the last three years, it had been attempted to oring- the ordinary rights of the people hi array lZtsitiet the ordinary tholes of the Constitution.— it had been argued that its practices it was now t he aim of the Legislature to restrain ; which "ere not intet fered with in the goad old shoes. ...;41efore he admitted this as an argument, he must lhown that such things were permitted. Ile I , i bust - unlearn all that history had taught him. b y these la rg e m eet i ngs were n ever t h oug h t o f b y our ancestors ; and if the good old laws of the Rood old times did not apply to such acts, it was .beCaUSt such never existeds---(Hear, hear !)—The t L e old Legislation wits to provide oew "is for new eases.— (Hear, hear !)—Tht present 'Measure was stigmatized as an iotetlereoce on the : t ight of petitioning; but, in justice, it did not des le tve it, That right consisted in the power of m u lurnunicating freely, and of expressin g p u blicly •Lie s ent i ments th us commu n i ca t e d— so d, he would .as k', was this possible to be accompli s h e d io those . 4e reeehing 'howling meetings, where the spe a k e r atttoable to extend his voice suflicieutly to understood by a twentieth part o f the a ssets, * l ed molliturie ? He would ask, if 100 meetings a ere convened in rooms, where the speaker might heard ; , or, it one urea tint; of .10,000 persous Isere convened., when they could not possibly be th ese by mote (*liar) one-hundredth part, which of i l l ese two plans would b e most con d uc i ve to t h e ' ght of that free communication of seutitneats heat !)----Lie would ch:+llenge the lion. 'entleman (Mr. Hutchinson) oil that polio, It la" contrary to the most elementary principles of A uelety, th a t the physical force of a country should le t let loose upon it in that manner. He e0n :4)144d that it was rot an ex p ress i on o f t h e opi •, ° lts of the people t h at was t h e o bj ect o f t h ese iteethigs, but ass expression of their physical . tt ore e• That physical power which, in the first has e lt gt from barbarism to a state of sc ows y r, nhe was aware, oecasiooally show itself in t/ "lis ; but then it was wily for the purposes of A s i'.'"ltoion.—(Hear, hear !)—lle had exteaded e.,,0e50 whirrs to a greater length (bait he had /11 ,and •d nit ruing to answer the stifilniOns ;:pourable CienLleman.—(Hear again &blared ; that -none or Cot Meetings, kt,ll;eit in Irtiiinci Itrcl aiway s taken place finder cOver, tvoohl be illsected by the provisioni of the Bit, otttkr discussion. The Hot). Gentleman sat down amidst !owl chte;.s. Lord MILTON said, that as much as he wits in clined to do credit to the able and eloquent speech of the Right Honourable and Learned Gentle ., man, he had heard him utter so many sentiments that were so Much better calculated for the be ginuing of the 16th century th an the present pe riod, that he was tempted to make a few observa tionin !)—The Right Honourable Gentleman, hi the course of his speech, had said that there was so much light thrown i n „ pen t h e country that it was necessary to take measures to donioish it—(Cries of No, no ! from tie Ministe, 13eoelies )-1-le said that a little knowledge was a dangerous thing—mettoing, for the lower • classes of the comniunity, Ile meant, then, by that, that it is necessary to put a atop to its further progress—(No, no !)—Then 1( he did not mean that the Ri g ht H on . Grinkorai) meant nothing. nothing. Ile certainly said restrictions were re quisite. Might not the same language have been hell when Luther and Calvin begun the work of Reform - ation, to dispel the igiorratice of the middle ages ? lie also said, that dialog the last 20 years greater ch a nges have been wrought (halt at any former period. Wharkvoidd he say to the periods in which the .Bill of Rights and Magna Charta were trained. The Noble Lord then proceeded to point Out different. circumstatices which existed ill the year 1795, when a prototype of the present Seditious Meetings 11;11 was passed, anti the pre sent state of the Country. It was also a qoestion with hinl how far toe levying 12,000 soldiers, in time of peace, without consent of that House, was not an invasion of the Biil of Rights. Tile tranquillit y - procured for this Country by force would not give security. That this Bill was inteodsd to produce a 6ovt rnment by arbitrary power, he would not assert ; but that it ioteoded to take away the means of resisting arbitrary power, 'lit titan could deny. Though he would not suppose that this was the object of Ministers, be could not but suppose it impossible for them not to see that such must be the consequence of passing it. If they would not stiffer the turbo . lent spirit now abroad to evaporate in the express sion of its grievaoces, they took a course which ! would necessarily produce that state of things that wohld make it almost impossible to return to our ancient state. lie therefore thought this 13111, if it did not absolutely go to annihilate the liberties of t he conotry, would be lik: ly to 'impair them Must considerably. Mr. Roattsrson said, iLlie could by any course of reasoning come to the conclusion at which the Noble Lord who hal just sat down had arrived— it he could think the state of disaffectiou in which the country was fohod, One of recent origin—ef he could perceive that the Gov ernment were b y some ntiaCCOUntalde accident exposed to a sud den ebullition of popular le:ling—if he could be lieve that the persons against whom this Bill was to be directed had no visible and definite entl iu view, .which they were porsoiog with the most persevet log activity, he perhaps might think that untrecessai y which was now proposed. But though no man was wore reluctant to interfere with popular feelings, and even with popular pre indices than he was, he could not hot think 'that in the preset state of the country the interference of the Hotol was necessary. He could not but trace the present disaffection back to that which took place many yea rs Ago-to t h ose tra „,„6 0 ,,,, which Occurred at a period now in the memory, at least in the l'asliamentary memory of but few lie meant those whiall took place at the time of the French Revolution. The country was not I then as note, in a state of distress. He must say that he believed at no time, when Revolution was contemplation, had there failed to be a mixture of the ridiculous with the terrjying ; and there fore it was to be assumed, from the absurdity of the proposition, that no danger is-as to be ap - - prehended frnni those with whom ie originated. The ineetiog at Hutislet Moor had throe the same thing which had been done at the Birmingham meeting. They hail dime it, - not in words, but its substance ; and it had been announced that the object of the Reformers was '° to effect a na tional union, so as to collect together an over whelming mass of the male populstion of the country."--And for what purpose? IVhat was this " overwhelming mass" to do ? Why, " to present a Petition, and then they could not tail of soccess."' Who had ever before heard that such vast num bers were necessary merely to present a petition ? It was, however, further stated, that they were then to " take such other constitutional means as might he necessary to carry their object ion effect."— nour this it would he scent wh a t an id ea t h ose persons had of giving importance to their Peti tion by A display of physical strength. 'Jotter such circumstances it appealed to hurl that the resew danger. went infinitely beyond any the he bad ever known to threaten the Comitry and the Constitution. The Government, be con tended, had been driven to the measures which they now proposed to Parliament. Whalever might be said of its being intended to establish a Gwernment of force, and of a design to Overtlirll the Constitution, such was not the fact. These charges.were easily made, and were made almost as matters of CotilSe; but for hiMS - eif he could say, that he had never supported measures with more regret. He, however, could not snot his ryes to the dangers which menaced the country, and these, he was decidedly of opinion, called for the immediate interference of Parliament. Some Gentlemen bad considered public meetings as the safety-valvesoftheConstittoion. lle would say that that which escaped from these valves as they were called, was but a pestilential vapour. The coo sequences of compressing them might cause some inconvenience, but it compression were nut ap plied they might all fall under the baneful hat coce of the, noxious exhalations which would otherwise escape. Looking then at the circum stances of the country, and balancing between evils, he conid not but decide in favour of the pre sent measures. The liberty now c Wined by the disaffected was unknown to the Constitution. It had grown tip into a frightful abuse. Mr. W. Ssivro, thotigh he, admitted the sting to have been - taken 'out of this Bill in a great measure, by the amendments whi;;li had beat to ade ; rot. allowing public nidetiris to be held under cover, (for the limitation Of the. Bill as to .imt. he thonglo of lest imnortance,) still objected to the measure. Ilk chief ohj'•ction to it \A/As, that it was %vitally unfounded on inquiry. This he thought called for, especially in the case of the Manchester Meeting, which had been dispersed, as no meeting ever had been since the riots of 1780, in London. The ilL'etings then dis persed by the military, were dispersed under very different circumstances. Ile strongly disap proved of the powers to he given to the Magis trates under this Bill. They had heat d munch of an unpaid Magistracy. He would say thi s w a s a narrow view of the case, and he might also say that they were not unpaid. There was a French story in point, that ,occurred to him. An old Chevali e r de St. Louis, on leaving- the 'fl►eatre, saw the crowd run to pay their homage to a cele brated actor of that day, win was coining out at the saute•. time. " What !" said be, ' t and ate you to be thus followed and distinpiished by Ihr public., while no notice is taken of me ? Ought you to he 'thus rewarded, while I, who have so long been fighting your battles, get nothing ?" " Nothing !" replied ihe actor--" Do you call it 110116N:1'0 have the power of accosting me as you do ?" He with the saute feeling would ask, if it was to be thought nothing that the Magistrates enjoyed those powers which were confided to th to ? He, felt it to be his duty to oppose the Bill. Mr. L. WELLItsLEY, if he thought the present Hill we►►t nnjustly , ..to infringe on the liberties of the people, trusted that no motive would induce him to give it his consent. lie, however, could nor see that it went to affect those constitutional lil►erties which the people had a right to enjoy. It did not prevent then► from meeting, as they hid a right to do by law. Any individual who had received the common education of a Gentleman, knew that there never was a period when the people could meet to express their sentiments on public affairs without being under some restrictions. Those now to be imposed were not unjustly se vere, and in his opinion they did not trench on those privileges secured to the people at the time" of tl►e Ilev4.lution. Mr. WILLIAMS considered this Rill to go fur (her than the evil complained of warranted them in going. Had it gone no timber than to pre• vent armed and tumultuous meetings, trainings to military exercises, or meetings to which the parties marched with flags and banners in military ari , 4y, he would have given it his cordial support. He wished to see a moderate and rational Reform ef fected, and this done, the whole country would look up to that Hoose with respect and venera tion RS the best guardian of its best rights and de 3re st interests. Lord MORPETH confessed, that from all the in formation he had been able to obtain on the sob jeer, he was led to conclude that the meetings which had laiely been held disgraced and distress ed the mann:He:llring districts, and he was cem pellet' most reluctantly to believe, that if not re pressed by legislation, they must be put down by the strong men of the civil power, aided perhaps by a military force. He could have wished that it had not been through necessity that the Bill should continue in force so long as five years, but still, miller the peculiar circumstances of the case, he'telt himself bound to vote in its flvour. The ci•y of the discontented was that they would have the Constitution, the whole Constitution, and no thing but the Constitutioo ; and Annual 'Perlia meets and Universal Suffrage were, accord ing to them, essential parts of the Constitution. They declared that they would consider their sigh's to he withheld, and their wrongs to remain . nuredr esse d till these concessions were made; anti they added that it was to themselves that they must look for redress, which they felt they pos sessed ample means of securing. He r•beicrihed the arts by which it wes attempted to ieflenite and contended the present measure, thoneh it was said to iefrinee the liberty of the subject, was necessary to prevent a greater infringement on the liberty of the people. Mr. Berke i►ad described true liberty to be connected with order, " and so connected that it could not at all exist without it." lie 'lid not suppose that the liberty and the order of which Mr. Barke spoke were to be found in those processions, marching in military array, which had been seen advancing to meetings like that of Manchester. Bet it was said that instead of measures like those eovv proposed con ciliation ought to be tried. He had yet to learn why measures of conciliation could not he resort ed to after these Bills had passed, and it would perhaps be the !store the ditty of Govert►ment and of that House to turn an ear to their com plaints, than if such laws had not been carried.— He hoped they would then do all in their power to relieve the distress of the people, and en deavour, by improving outecoenexion with South America, to find new markets for their industry.--- At present it was their duty to remember the pro tection which they owed to the loyal, peaceable, quiet, industrious, and unrepining part of our po pulation—to rescue tl►em front the grasp ot un principled demagogues, to vindicate our religion, and uphold the Constitution. The 9'►estion was loudly called for, and stran gers were ordered to withdraw. The gallery was nearly cleared, when Mr. SCARLETT rose, hut the calls for strangers to withdraw were so loud and so long contilmed, that the whole of the visito►s were excluded, and the gallery doors closed, but no division took place. On returning to the Gallery, we found The SPEAKKa addressing the House on a point of some motion hi vine been made while strangers were Gut Gf the Gallery ; the Speaker remarked, that the grown!. on which it was proposed to withdraw it were not such as the ordinary prac tice and forms of the House would allow it to be withdrawn upon. Mr. LAmwroN offered some explanation of Ms motives for desiring to ►withdraw it, which WEIS not audible, find the tuntioD was withdrawn. It wits u n derstood that the motion was for an Adiournmeot, which Mt. JJAMBTON said he would press, it it we►e irate►t'ierl to continue the debate ►cith closed doors, It was presumed he offered to withdraw it on the re-admission o strangers, anti that this caused the short conversation between him and the Chair. A.l ti CAUL ETT said, if he thought this Bill ne- es3ary to the preservation of the Cons'itution, t e wourl give it his trios, cordi4 stlt , pi.ft ; brlieving it to be Oirc,ctly the conir.ry, he must meet it With his most serious and Soienin nosi !ion. He would not deny that the stale .he Country was such as to , call for some new mea sures, but he could not ihiok this ought to pasi, nor could he approve of -:ny ()titer of the Bilis that had been sithmitted to Parliament by .iioi,tews. lie onjected to rite meashies, hey scented founded in panic and alarm Though there was some danger, that danger thd not lie in the meetings themselves. fle of jeered to the Bill on account of its in:erfereoce with Con .ty Meetings, and on . account of its. making many hundreds of persons guilty of felony ihrough no act of their own, but through the intrusion of sours wiTh whom they had no connexion. To st,ppos e a n extieme case ; a Magistrate, whose private or political feelings were .oif,nded by what was passing, might send n Iverson —a volunteer (he would not say a spy), make the meolng illegal, and having made his first proclamation, and waited a quarter of ' all hour, and then read another proclamation and waited half au ,our more, those who remained, if exceeding twelve nomber, were liable ro be transported for seven yea's. Wi.s this the 1 berry of Englishmen ? Fite best mode of tran q uillizing the country would he by means . of conciliar ion=-- by (Telling their doors w ide to the peti;ions ,of !be people, and by endeavouring to redress their grievances. The ATTORNBY:.GENERAL could not blit think that ltit L.eirned Friend had not read . this I 3 tI with that accurate attention by which he, was usually distinguished. lie had said that the Int er hies, against which this Bill was directed, were not dangerous in themselves, but were only the indications of danger. If such were the case, the House had lost much "time in endeavouring to put them down, believing-, as they had Mine, that they were pregnant with danger. His Hon. and Learned Friend had fallen into a mistake when be stated that a Meeting might. be dis persed by any angle Magistrate, whose private or political feelings might be offended .by the pro -ceedings. He wished ro know where he found such a provision in the Bill ? If the Learried.Gen tleman read it again, lie would find that it con tained no such provision. If the Meeting were intruded upon, the Magistrate might t rder him into custody, but it was only in the event of re sistance being offered to his authority that the Magistrate had power to disperse the meet ing. His Learned Friend had also. said the Magistrate might disperse a meeting on spe culation. No such power was given him by the Bill. He would merely act on his own responsi bility, as the Magistrates did under the Riot Act. In both cases they must be allowed to exercise a discretional NT primer. The last objertion of his Hon. and Learned Friend applied to the intro duction of words, which be considered as depriv ing trades of the right of meeting, and to illus trate this objection, the Woollen Trade had, been mentioned. Now what was there in the Bill to prevent the gentlemen of that trade from meeting in the Town-hall of Leeds ? Did not the mea sure leave all meetings within doors unsl:a , kled ? It was not necessary for any trade to meet in the open air, to the number of 10,000. They might discuss their interests as well, if not bener, within rooms, where the provisions of the Bill - allowed them to assemble when they chose, and as litely and numerously as they pleased. Mr. Scetieerr, in explanation, contended, that it was improper to invest Magistrates with the power which the Bill gave (beta. Men might differ as to what tended to excite sedition, and gross abuses of power be thus committed. He had once been counsel for a man of the name of Lloyd, who was charged with an attempt to ex cite di,affection to his Majesty's person, because he bad said, " Damn all COrporations," and for such an offence the man had been convicted, and had suffered two years' imprisonment. The ATTotteee-Cleteeeee explaieed. Mr. DANNIAN repeated the objections which he had urged in the Committee, to the elenee which enab:ed one Magistrate to disperse a meeting, though called by the Sheriff or Lord Lieutenant of a county. This was entirely superseding the authority of the Sheriff. He also strongly corn bated the clause indemnifying Magistrates for any deaths which might have ensued from the disper sion of the meetings. His Hon. and Learned Friend (the Solicitor-Generai) had contended that the Riot Act gave Magistrates the same power of using force to disperse a popular assembly. This he poSitively denied. The pre sent clause was a fraud upon the House, and went to justify acts of violence committed by Magis trates. His Hon. and Learned Friend tied also maintained that the Commission of the Peace in vested Magistrates with the saute power, and had quoted a statute of Henry VII. to that purpose. few there was no such statute, and lie conceiv ed that it was one of Henry IV. chapter 7, to which allusion had been meant. But even this statute did not give the power of forcible dis persion. The ',resew clause was therefore the only provision which invested Magistrates by itnpli. cation with the right of cointnicting oienslaiightere Let not the House forget that the measure was connected with others tending, to overthrow ail that was valuable in the Constitution of the Cl untry ; that it proceeded froths Cabinet, where the propriety of establishing a Censorship of the Press bad be discussed ; and that the tendency of :he whole was to increase the evils which it professed an iwention to repress, —(Hear, bear !) Mr. R. MARTIN stated, that the Irish MeMbers had come over to defend the Constitution of the Unitary. He acknowledged that he was in sorne degree an alarmist, and conceived that great dan ger would ensile to the Constitivioe of England and Ireland if the present measines did nut pass. He complained, that us it. was now sure stle would pass into a Law, it was acting improperly towards the people . to teach them to beliee th .t the system under which they would have to flee Was The Soucurott-GENERAL asked his Hon. and Leatned Friend opposi.e, on what winds, or what shadow wt (muds he had brought a charge of so grave a nature against Its Majesty', as to say :hit they bad di•vossett th e p r op t i ctv o f imposing a Censorship upon the Press ? Time ►vas