The Express.
London, England, 1853-03-17 00:00:00

committee had acted was a very simpt; and intelligible one.
It was that wherever there was •divisios of, the peace there
I should be a separate financial board. It • non•
would refer to the of nil clause, they would .11d that all the,
gentlemen
legal powers possessed. by the justices would s'e trangeetta,,
to the new financial boards. If any illegal tali, h",_
sprung up in auy counties, of course they winds: not „
transferred but would cease; and he regarded it as ma',
merit In the bill that it would detect and put an end to st;ch
practices.
Mr. BARROW read a passage from an act of parliament,
stating that every divirion of a county having separate
di-
visions of the peace should be taken to be a county for the
purposes of that act.
Mr. WADDINOTON did not quite understand whether
in counties where by arrangement, or prescription, or
statute, divisions now existed, there would be more than one
board ?
Mr. M. GIBSON replied that the financial boards would
stand in the place of the justices for the several purposes of
the act.

Sir W. JOLLIF'FE suggested that the right hon. gentle-
man should postpone not only this but the two next
clauses. (Oh:)
Mr. HENLEY said that the object of the clause was to
do away with the convenient arrangements now in ex-
istence; it was ncceesary to ask for some further explana-
tions. The right boo. member for Manchester had given
them to understand that where there were four divisions of
the peace in one eJunty there would be four financial
boards. [Mr. M. Gibson—No, no.] Well, then, there was
to be only rote for the whole county; and the presenttlivisinns,
whether lawful er unlawful, whether statutable or prescrip-
tive, were to be abolished. That might lead to some inju-tice
because if the larger divieiun happened also to have a larger
amount of burdens it would immediately incorporate the
smaller division with itself, and make it pay equally with
themselves. (Hear, hear.)
The committee then divided,
For the amendment

Against it ll2-72
Mr. W. MILES then moved that the Beetles, Bury St.
Edmunds, losgieb, and Woodbridge divisions of the
county of Suffolk be inserted alter the word Lincoln in the
first clause; but this amendment was negatived without a
division.

The clause was then agreed tn.
Clause 2, which provided that the liberties of St. Albans,
Peterborough, and Ely should, for the purposes of the act,
be considered counties of themselves, was also passed.
On clause 3, which exempted the City of London and
those towns which are counties of themselves from the pro-
visions of the act,
Mr. IiENLEY asked why those places should be excluded
from the op's:111311ot the bill ?
Mr. M. GIBSON replied that th‘se towns were already
under municipal regulations which controlled their e spend-
iture ; and that it was therefore unnecessary to extend the
provisions of the bill to them.
Mr. FRESIIFIELD nevertheless did not see why those
towns which might line to have financial boards should be
deprived of the benefit of the measure.
Mr. BAINES said that in all these places there was
already the representative system; and the object of the bill
was simply to extend that system to the counties, where at
present it did not exist.
Mr. 3EESIIFIELD persisted in urging the applicability
of the measure to towns.

_____
Mr. PRICE added a few remarks respecting the city of
Gloucester.
Mr. SPOONER said that the town of Birmingham, fin
instance, was a part of the county of Warwick, but that it
bad been separated from it for certain purpose., and now
paid its coats to the county rate out or the borough rate.
Would the act at all affect its position ?
Mr. BAINES said that all the excepted towns were
within the purview of the Corporations Act ; and if they
had not been excluded from the bill, the provisions of the
measure might have been held to extend to them. There
was nothing whatever in the bill that would affect Birming-
ham in its relations to the county of Warwick.
Mr. B. DENISON asked why Doncaster and other towns
were nut also specially excluded from the loll?
Sir G. GREY reiterated that the bill applied, hi the first
instance, to all counties; that the cities akd towns referred
to were counties, and that therefore it would have ex-
tended to them. But they were already provided with
financial boards, and therefore they were specially ex-
empted in the measure.
The clause was then agreed to.
On claims 4, which related to the composition of the finan-
cial board.

Sir J. PAKINGTON said that this was the most im-
portant portion of the bill, because it would deprive the
magistracy of England of the powers and functions which
they hail so long possessed, with respect to the expendi-
ture of these rates, to which they were the largest contri-
butors; and would give the mansgement of county affairs
to a board extremely small in number, and pussibly con-
sisting of only one-half magistrates. Allusion had been
made to the absence of the members for West Sussex, and
the answer had been that they were prevented from attend-
ing by the discharge of important duties at the assizes. That
circumstance alone would quite justify the course he was
about to take ; for he must appeal to the noble lord (Vis-
count Palmerston) and to the house, whether it would be
fair, or he might even say, decent, to proceed with a clause
that would deprive nine-tenths of the gentry of England of
the powers they now possessed, at a moment when so many
of them were engaged in important public business, and
when many courts of quarter sessions had expressed a wish
to have time to consider the bill before it was proceeded
with? Indeed, his case was so just, and lie had been so
convinced that the appeal he had made on • former occa-
sion would be listened to, that he hnd not taken any of the
usual means of securing the attendance of hon. members on
that side of the house. (Hear, hear.) He (Sir J. Peking-
ton) was willing to accept the representative system—(hear,
hear)—ant would not object to have representatives added
of those classes who were not at present represented on the
financial boards; but it would be caressively unfair, even
upon their own showing, if hon. members opposite pressed
this clause for the purports of narrowing rights which al-
ready existed until every gentleman in the house connected
with counties should have had an opportunity of being pre-
seat, and until the house should have had time to ascertain
what were the views of the courts of quarter session upon
she subject. (Hem, hear.) Wish no hostile feelings,
therefore, towards the bill, he should move that the Chair-
man report progress. (Hear, hear, and cries of " Divide.")
The gallery was then cleared, but no division took place.
When it was reopened
Viscount PALMERSTON was protesting strongly against
the course pursued by the right hon. baronet as an evident
attempt to defeat the bill by delay. (Cheers.)
Mr. ROBERT PALMER said, his right hon. friend
would not trouble the house to divide upon a motion which
was a very different matter at 4 o'clock from what it would
have been at noon. (Laughter) Whether the Chairmsn
reported progress or not, it was pretty clear that there
would be no division on the substantial motion that day.
(Renewed laughter.)
After • few words from Mr. llustbrie, the motion was
withdrawn.
Sir J. PAKINOTON then proceeded to move the
amendment of which he had given notice. It was quite
clear that the bill had been conceived in a democratic spirit.
(Hear, hear, and cries of " no.") That was the real animus
of the measure, and be was sorry to see the government,
from whatever cause, under such influences weakly to
yield itself to such a proposal. He should propose to insert
words in the clause which would have the effect of making
the financial boards consist of all the qualified be
in
each county, as well as the persons who were to be elected.
His object was to prevent the bill from depriving the ma-
gistrates of those functions which they had exercised for so
long a period and with so much advantage to the country.
Thu magistracy of England consisted of gentlemen of large
property, and in some counties of • certain portion of the
clergy, but whether it was thought desirable or not that
clergymen should be in the commission of the peace, it was
notorious that all such reverend gentlemen as were on the
bench were persons who were bona fide contributors to a
large amount to the county rate. It was objected
that In every county they would find a certain number
of active men, not large ratepayers,who would obtain undue
influence over the public expenditure ; but the truth was
there was no class of the magistracy who did not make large
direct payments to the county rate. In fact, that rate was
really paid by the landlord, and not by the tenant. lie
might be told that there were farmers who held land under
lease, and that a larger public expenditure than usual
might be undertaken after they had entered into arrange-
ments of that kind ; but farmers and landlords knew very
well that the county rate was always liable to some fluc-
tuation, and therefore they took that into their calculations.
(Hear, hear.) lie divided, then, the ratepayers into two
classes—the first consisting of those large owners of pro-
perty who, by long-established custom, were always placed
on the commission of the peace, and who, either directly PA
owners and occupiers, or indirectly through their tenar.ts,
paid by far the largest portion of the rates. The other class
consisted of small landholders. He considered that their
interests were so identical with those of the first dress that
they might safely be left in the hands of that claw How-
ever, in order to fulfil the strictest principles of ;Justice, he
was willing to admit a certain number of rep. .esentativcs
chosen by the secondary classinto the financial t nag,. What
he did object to was that these smaller holders
should obtain
the ascendancy. Ile had moved fur some returr
3 which had not
yet been laid on the table, but the right hon
.2entieman (Hr.
M. Oibeon) had favoured him with a docu mint of a wine.
what similar character. It was a return of the number of
Justices in every county for the year 18 .11, and it certainly
contained some curious particulars. Y or instance, some of
the counties gave the numbers eact wive of the peers and
privy councillors. Surely the noble 1 ord opposite—(Viscount
Palmerston)—being both a peer ar al a privy councillor, did
not consider himself incapacitne ed from acting as a magi-
strate. (A laugh.) Again, so me of the counties were
marked " C," which meant tb at all the justices enumerated
were all living. (A laugh.l Taking then the county of
Lancaster, he found there were 715 magistrates, of whom
450 were qualified to act. Now the number of unions was
'ail, and therefore the Minimum number 3f the financial
board would be 29, and the maximum a ; for which
they would disfranchise no fewer than 450 gentle-
men. In the cour.ty of Oxford there were 161 magi-
strates, of whom 104 were qualified. In this county
there were only nine unions, so that the financial board
would consist. of 9, or at the most 18 members. In Hamp-
shire there was 320 magistrates, of whom 224 were quali-
fied. The 'number of unions was 28. la Worcestershire
the number of qualified magistrates was returned as 250,
but he eimuld think. that some of those could not be ',Mier.
(A lar,gh.) There were only 12 unions, so that they would
emb.ange u finan,,ial hoard of 258 members for one which,
at the outside, could wily c insist of 21. It should be v..
marked that there was nothing to prevent all the unqe..li-
fled justices trom qualifying, and thus the present fiermeinl
body might. be taken as consisting of the gross numiaers he
had mentioned. His experience had uniformly been that
the metlings of the magistrates at which they attended to