The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1868-07-14 00:00:00

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

MOSDAV.—:Tie-H-Ouse,-afte-r-p-i;slni.tlie Registration
Bill, set to work in earnest at the further conspieration,
in sommittee, of the clauses of the Election Petitions
and Corrupt Practices at Elections Bills. The clause
before the committee was the fifth. providing for the
preseotation of election petitions to the Contusion Pier ;
and this was not allowed to stand part of the bill until
Mr. Bouverie had made another attempt to retain the
juriedietion over election petitions in the bends of the
house. The proposal of the hon. member for Kilmar-
nock was that the judges should sit not alone, but as
chairmen of committees of the House of Commons.
Upon a division the Glare was carried by •
majority of 77-204 to 127. Later in the evening there
was • rather animated conversation upon the question
whether the Paps to try election petitions should be
specially appointed
ltediiite to the purpose, orthwahtetdhderty•ll the
judges should
amendment was moved by Mr. Ayrton, in order to bring
the point fairly under the consideration of the com-
difomlteidtitnygestaeie7Lo;thsbdirbegalaualbeiMreldlthri:itptirs."hjtdelidae arunHpleari"oinsevaiinnyastdmoulnuerdlip:rdolaPid:Pebiratiredngialecokoontittioenef.
:nitre to &VW to the ClienSo as it stead. However,
upon a division, the amendment was serried by a
majority of 66-136 to 71. At the thrones of the
Prime Yielder, the chairmae reported progress,.
TOZISDAT. —The House had an afternoon sitting, but
most of the time was taken up in a debate on the
Pahl's Schools Bill, which pared throagh Committee'.
The House, upon resuming, went into Committee of
faixpell and several votes for the civil service were
W.
WIDNISDAT. —ln committee On the Mines Assess-
ment Bill, of which Mr. Perey Wyndham had charge,
an amendment upon the first clause, moved by Mr.
Ayrton (and accepted by Mr. Wyndham), rendering
liable to rating all mines width have hitherto been
exempted, was serried by a majority of 113; 119 to 6.
The adoption of .this amendment necessitated con-
siderable alteration in the other provisions of the bill,
especially in those which referred to the division of the
rates between owners and occupiers, and several clauses
were negatived in order that new ones might be brought
up on the report. Mr Newdegate did not permit the
Promissory Oaths Bill to go through committee without
a solemn protest—more solemn in manner even than in
matter—against the omission from the form of the oath
of allegiance prescribed in the bill, of any reference to
the Act of Settlement—en omission from which he
appeared to apprehend the direst consequences. Mr.
Hardy defended the form adopted by reference to the
authority of the Royal oommiesioners, and of the
committee of the House of Lords ; and pointed out that
the oath, as now taken by members of Parliament (for
which Mr. Nevrdegate had expressed a preference),
involved an assertion of the right of the sovereign to
the crown of France. Serjeant Guar did not appear
to share the apprehensions of the member for North
Warwickshire • but he looked with little favour upon
the bill, because, as he declared, amid the laughter of
the House, the leas • man swears the better!' An
attempt on the part of Mr. Housed° to except the oath
taken by the clergy, under the Clerical Subscription
Act, 1865, from the operation of the bill, was defeated
upon a division.; but the hoe. gentleman gave notioe
that be should repeat it on a future occasion. The
measure then pared through committee.
TiIUBSILLT.—An address to eonpattilate her Majesty
on the birth of a Princess, was adopted. Mr. Disraeli
then proceeded to the bar of the house, and while
standing there announced that he was charged with a
I message from the Crown "under her Majesty's din
manuaL" By the direction of the Speaker, the Premier
"brought up" the message, and the right hon. gentle-
man proceeded to read (rum the chair the auttouncescuut

of bee lisiesty's gracious &siesta give to air R. Napier ,
and his next heir peemion of fl,ooo • veer as • sitnal
mark of her Invocir for the distisgaished merits which
he had exhibited in the cot cleat of the Abyssinian
expeditioo, and upon other coos/ions. Yr. Disraeli
made his promised statement with regard to the decision
of the House on liondey night on the Corrupt Practices
Bill. He announced that the government intended
practically to adopt the amendment carried by Mr.
Ayrtoo the other night—to appoint three new judges,
end to cast upon the judges of the three superior courts
the duty of selecting eacib year the members of their
body (excluding the chiefs) who should be charged with
the trial of election petitions. Upon the consideration
of the Locale Amendments In the Beet& Reform Bill,
Kr Illearen carried against the Government en amend-
ment. saving the right, of non-r.tei householders to vote
during the proment year; hid later in the evening Lord
Malluesbury gave notice, in the House of Lords, that he
should object to this alteration, and claimed the
as iistanoe of the opposition (which Lord Russell 'appeared
not unwilling to render) to strike out of the measure
the words Introduced by the hon. member for Edinburgh.
A long and desultory discussion then took place on
various matters connected with the army, and the House
after wards wont into committee of supply.
• •

FRIDAY. —The debate —in committee upon the
Election Petitions Bill, to which maul,' the whole of
the early sitting of the Howe was devoted, was both
animated and important. As soon as the speaker left
the ehair, hon, members found themselves called upon
to grapple with the details of the "chime which Mr.
I/beech had devised to meet the vial of the House,
that the duty of trying election petitions should be
discharged by the whole body of the judgea. This
scheme was very minutely considered, and was made
the subject of several amendments. (These were
generally unsuomadul, and with the exoeptioa that the
necessity for any interference on the part of the
Secretary of State WM removed, the plan IVY ultimately
adopted pretty neatly in the form in which it was
originally proposed. The dismission whioli led to these
results, though in the main sober and practical enough,
was diversieed by two or three rather amusing incidents.
At the outset, Serjmot (lamic* distinguished him-
If by several displays of ingenuous egotism,
and ultimately excited very general laughter by
ejaculating, after the manner of the late Sir C.
Napier (slightly modified), "God bless my soul,
Mr. Speaker r Mr. Bouverie, more than once, ex-
p his anxiety lest judges who had recently
sat in that house should, when called upon to try elem
tion petitions. be suspected of pilitical partizanship,
and a thrill of horror shook the frames of not a few
hon, gentlemen when Mr. Roebuck maliciously sug-
gested to the member for Kilmarnock that if be really
antleipated such a consequence be tied better move that
in future no member of that house should be promoted
to the judicial beech. This woo not the only, or indeed
the most effective interposition of the hon, and learned
member for Shelßell, whose yob's has for some time
been mbseel from the debetea—Upon claws 14. Mr.
Ayrton started the question of the propriety of giving
the judge who has to try election petitions the mut-
awe of a jury; and enforced his opinions In a 'Demob
of such length as to excite frequent cries of " Divide l"
—Mt. Roebuck offered little enamor to the !arguments of
the member for the Tower Hamlets; but • sareutio
remark, 'ln ahnaltitudia of words there is not much
wisdom," was responded to by so loud a cheer as pretty
plaiely to indieate that no answer was needed. The
lest topic which engaged the attention of the com-
mittee was the issuing of bribery commiadons.—
Mr. Sandford proposed that such oommiuions should be
Issued in all eases in which a member had been un-
mated for corrupt practices, and that the cost should be
defrayed by the county or borough incriminated. There
was much difference of opinion aa to the probable effect
of this provision, and being opposed by the Govern-
ment it was defeated by a majority of si-124 to 72.
One of the points most forcibly pressed by those who
supported this proposal was, that unless such a clause
was inserted is the bill there might be no commissions,
because there would be no one upon whom the duty of
moving them would be cast. After the division, Mr.
Bouverie pressed the Premier to state whose would be
be the duty to move an address to the mown for the
WOO of such a commission • and Mr. Disraeli, with
characteristic evasiveness, replied that he saw no reason
to grudge any gentleman the privilege of making such
• motion. Only 16 clauses of the bill had been agreed
to when the sitting was suspended. When the House
re-assembled Mr. Layard brought under the notice
of the house the abuses and ineonvenienees attend.
Inc the system of the consular courts maintained
by European powers in Turkey and Egypt. Although
Lord Stanley in great part admitted the justice of the
eomplaints which had been addressed to hies. he
declined to commit himself to any definite line of action
upon the subject. The motion of Mr. Fawcett upon
' the subject of the opening of Trinity College, Dublin,
! to Roman Catholic. and Presbyterians led to no result,
being withdrawn on the appeal of Mr. Disraeli not to
allow this subject to stand in the way of the other
business. The grant of £1.,010 a year to Sir it. Napier
wet moved by Mr. Disraeli in a few appropriate
'eutectic', in the course of which he co:nmunleated to
the House the intention of her Majesty to elevate
I/ General Napier to the peerage by the title of Lord
Napier of Magdala, and was, of course, agreed to
/ without a dissentient voice. Out of regard for the
period ef the Femion, and the state of public business,
M'Laren did not persevere with his amendment in
; the Scotch Reform Bill, and the Lords were allowed to
have their way in the matter.