The Express.
London, England, 1848-04-12 00:00:00

ship. added, " He had now reason to be pleased with
having followed these suggestions, for the procession
had taken place in the most tranquil manner, and
without any disturbance whatever of the public
Fr" e
. No sooner had Lord MELBOURNE resumed
seat than up jumped Lord BROUGHAM from the
woolsack ; asked "it great numbers of the trades or
other persons were to say that they should like to see
the sovereign, or to accompany those who carried up
an address, how were their lordships to prevent their
doing so?" He added, " The assemblage was no
doubt to be regretted, but to be regretted
only because all assemblages of large numbers
were inconvenient. Nevertheless the assemblage
itself was perfectly legal." The Duke of WELLINGTON
is too modest a man to question rashly the dictum of
a lawyer on a poict of law: nevertheless, he demur, ed
to the LORD CHANCELLOR'S declaration:—" As to the
assemblage being a legal one,—he had not the act of
parliament by him—but he believed it to be alto-
gether illegal."
The noble and learned ex-Chancellor has such
bad luck in being misunderstood and misreported
on all occasions, that we might have been prepared
for an erratum on the passage in Hansard, which we
have been quoting. Au incident, however, which oc-
curred some eleven months later, puts all doubt of its
correctness out of the question. On Saturday, the
Bth of October, 1831, it was resolved at a
meeting of delegates from twelve metropolitan
parishes, that the inhabitants of these parishes
should on the Wednesday following meet at
some central point, and thence proceed in procession
to the palace, with addresses praying his Majesty to
retain and place confidence in his reforming ministers.
On Wednesday, the 12th, the inhabitants of these
twelve parishes marched in as many processions to
Portland-place; the combined procession then pro.
ceeded down Regent-street, across St. James's square,
down St. James's-street, to the palace. Some of them
remained in Pall-mall, a considerable number got
into the palace-yard and the park. A delegation then
waited upon Lord MELBOURNE, who expressed his
regret that there had not been time to consult the
king—his belief that had there been time his
Majesty would have waived etiquette and received
the addresses in person. As matters stood, his lord-
ship advised that they should be presented by the
county members, which was done, and a gracious
answer returned. It so happened that some black-
guards in the crowd collected to witness the preces-
sion, embraced the opportunity to break the Duke
of WELLINGTON'S windows, pelt the Marquis of
LONDONDERRY wish stones, and pull the Duke
of CUMBERLAND from his horse. These outrages
elicited some discussion in both Houses of Par-
liament that evening. And in the Commons
Mr. BANHES said:—" Ile could not refrain from
expressing his regret that the noble and learned
lord on the woolsack should have expressed, through
inadvertency, an opinion that it was lawful
for large bodies to repair in procession to
the Palace for the purpose of presenting
petitions to his Majesty. It was against the
law, and they all saw that day the practical result
of its repetition." Notwithstanding this explicit chal-
lenge, Lord Bain:Guam neither retracted the opinion
he bad expressed of the legality of such proceedings,
nor questioned the accuracy of the report which attri-
buted that opinion to him.
It is to be presumed that the diligent researches of
that eminent legal antiquary, the Duke of WELLING-
TON, have since disentombed the act of the 13th of
Charles 11., which in 1830 "he had not by him ;"
and that Lord BROUGHAM has admitted his error.
Anxious to make amends for lormer mistakes,
he not only recants his doctrine respecting pro-
cessions to present petitions to the sovereign, but
goes further, and denounces all meetings " too
large for any possibility of discussion" as " essentially
illegal." This, it appears, is not exactly a new opi-
nion with Lord BROUGHAM, for he tells us that in
1819 he declared the Manchester meeting to be illegal.
The noble and learned ex-chancellor will not, how-
ever, pretend that he has invariably held this opinion
during the interval between 1819 and 1818 ; for if
he has, what must men think of his conduct, when, in
1831, he allowed his colleagues, Lord ALTHORP and
Lord Jolts RUSSELL, to write letters of thanks in re-
ply to votes of approbation passed at Birmingham by
a meeting of 150,000 men?
The Duke of WELLINGTON, having convinced
Lord BROUGHAM that he was wrong in his views of
the law regarding processions to present addresses
to the Sovereign, naturally lays no great stress
on this other opinion respecting the illegality
of " monster meetings." His grace, no doubt,
politely declared, on Monday evening, that
"he firmly believed the speech of his noble friend
was founder) on tbe law of the country as it exists."
The sequel of his grace's remarks, however, showed
that he used the expression " founded on" in the
same sense as novelists, when they tell us their tales
are " founded on fact." For he explicitly called upon
government to make such a law as Lord Bnounnam
had declared to exist. After alluding to the hardship
of " placing all the inhabitants of the metropolis wider
alarm," " paralysing trade and business of every de-
scription," and ' driving individuals to seek safety by
arming themselves," the duke proceeded to say :
" The inconveniences which were experienced this
day have now been repeated for, I believe, a fourth
time" in this short session of parliament. I
trust that by the bill which is now pend-
ing in the other house of parliament, or by
other measures that may be considered necessary, the
law shall be explained and understood, so that meet-
ings may be limited to the numbers that can properly
discuss the questions that are to be considered by the
individuals who think proper to discuss them." By
a singular coincidence, while the Duke was thus call-
ing on the House of Lords for laws to repress demon-
strations of public opinion, the writers in the govern-
ment organ in Printing-house-square were penning
similar suggestions, and upon exactly the same
grounds. On Tuesday morning the Times was found
declaring :
A population—reckoning only the denser part of the metro-
polis—of owe million persons was yesterday obliged to suspend
its ordinary occupations, and lose a day to industry and im-
provement. Even the militsry movements and other pre-
parations were not without serious cost. The present event
is worth the cost, but we de not want another. If we are
threatened with another, it will be time to think of some
cheaper, less troublesome, and more summary way of sup
pressing Me nuisance.
Here then we have the Duke of WELLINGTON—who
being commander-in-chiet appears by late events to
have been acting as law adviser of the crown, just as
the President of the Board of Trade has been acting
great part of the session as under-secretary for the
colonies—and the government organ in the press,
(which after failing to work up a panic out of the
ITrafalgar-square nestle has succeeded better with
the Kouningtou.common demonstration) clamouring
simultaneously for laws to prevent the exercise of an
old constitutional right. They count upon the appre-
hensions which a skilful use of the culpable language
of certain chartist delegates may have inspired, and
upon the success of tee repressive arrangements of
Monday. We trust that even should government be
weak enough to be misled by such councillors the
common sense of the country will prevent their act-
ing upon unwise fears. As to the expediency of guard-
ing the sovereign and the legislature against intimida-
tion or coercion by a local mob we have repeatedly
expressed our opinion. We wish to see them placed
in security from such attempts by more complete
legislation than at present exists, and by less disrepu-
table statutes than that of CHAS. 11., which imposes
heavy penalties on the soliciting more than twenty
signatures to a petition, or the SIDMOUTH and
CASTLEREAGH Act, which denounces the penalty of
death against twelve persons who may remain together
after a magistrate has ordered them to separate. We
wish to see these flagitious enactments erased from
the statute book, and a reasonable law for keeping
riotous and even numerous and excited assemblages
at safe distance from the sovereign and the national
leislature. But the right of public assembly is a
constitutional right, with which the legislature can-
not be allowed to tamper.
Nor should the government be allowed the arbi-
trary power of wresting statutes for this purpose,
or exhuming old ones from the most tyran-
nical year of a tyrannical and anti-constitutional I
reign. The government organ assured us, re-
terday morning, that but 7,000 chartists passed
the bridges, and that but 3,000 joined them from
Southwark. Most certainly no chartist stayed
away from the pacific demonstration of his
wty. So that government has set topsy-turvy
both London and the statute-book in order to forbid a
--seller' of ten thousand persons. And because this

• We have envie difficulty in making up the four cases. Before
Monday tot there were—the Trafilgar.square maw fr, and the display
at Kenniagtoti-comrnon dispersed by the ram. only three
B this is
in 11. Possibly, hla Grew counts Mr. G: YOUDlutes procession of
n aail= to salon against the repealof Isn4;Mi on Lannon ono