The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-04-30 00:00:00

A QUESTION OF "PRIVILEGE."

In the House of Commons, on Monday night, Mr.
Newdegote rose to call attention to a matter personal
to himself, and likewiee touching the privileges of the
House. During the recess a great number of state-
ments had at. peered with respect to his conduct, and
to the observations he made in moving for the Select
Comuiittee If Inquiry rest ecting monastic and con-
ventual institutions •, and it was surprising that Writers
in newspapers should venture to assail a member of
that House in a manner of which he would DOW pro-
ceed to give one in4once. On Saturday last the Tablet
contained the following statement

" We hear that in the clubs people are beginning to ask
bow is it air Newdegate Call suffer the Ile to be given'
lone as he has by Sir Charles Clifford. Father Gordo°, Mr.
Langdale, aid others, and hot come fors,rd like a man to
attend t to auh.tantiate his charges or to retract them."

The House would observe that fais was not only a
libel i itself, but a compendium of libels, ad that,
therefore, it constituted a gross breach of privilege.
He now rose to state that nothing should induce him
to take any action out of the House, either in courts of
1 aw or elsewhere, in reference to statements based on
observations of his own bearing on a matter which
the House had appointed a Select Gun ndttee to
consider. He felt it due to himself to state that, in
deference to the privileges of the House, he would
be tempted by no insult to submit this matter either
directly or indirectly to any other tribunal than that
the appointment of which the House had been pleased
to order. He ventured to make this statement because
in 1865 he prop,sed the appointment of a committee of
a somewhat similar character, which was not agreed to,
but he was afterwards pursued by these some persons
in the most insulting manner, with a view, he was
convinced, to deter him from the performance of his
duty in that House by endeavouring to force him to
seek some other tribunal not appointed by the House
for the solution of the question he raised ; and thereby
make him waive his prvilee as a member of the
House. This deterring system was not i nly attempted
against himself. but alto, he understood, against wit-
nesses whose testimony might be needed for the inquiry,
and it seemed to him to be a direct and deliberate
breach of the privileges of the House. He was pre-
pared to uphold the truth of the statements which he
had made in the House, but he had committed one
error which he now desired to correct. He stated on
moving for the Select Committee on the 29th of March
that the daughter of a respectable person in this town
was persuaded to enter a convent at Hammersmith
before she WAS 16 years old. That was an error, for
the convent referred to was at Find-dry. He would not
now go into the reasons which led to the confusion;
but he hoped the House would excuse his explaining
that it was in deference to the privileges of the House
that he refrained from taking any further steps in
reference to the gross libel he had called attention to.