The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-06 00:00:00

THE DAY'S NEWS

In the House of Commons last night, Sir Geo.
Grey stated that it was his intention to introduce
his bill on the subject of the Ecclesiastical Com-
mission next week. Mr. Adderley complained of
the vexatious petitions against members which
had been presented this Session. Lord Pal-
merston, in reply to Mr. Roebuck, who asked
the noble lord to lay on the table the documents

from which his statement that the Act of
1846, commonly called Lord Aberdeen's Act, in
reference to Brazil, was by common consent
not re-inforced, was founded, stated that they had
already been laid before the house, but he would
give instructions to facilitate the search of the hon.
member for the portion to which he wished to
refer. A very satisfactory answer, indeed. We
are afraid that Mr. Roebuck will be unable

to find any document bearing such a
construction on its face. The Sound Dues
are settled. Last night the Chancellor

of the Emcb.csacr meovoa. ti t ch. cum .-c 1.1 ON 1101-17
should be granted out of the Consolidated Fund to
remunerate the King of Denmark for the abolition
of the Sound Dues. Sir C. Lewis at some length
entered into the subject. He said that England
had consented to pay one-third, Russsia one-third,
and the remaining powers interested in the question
the other third of the real value of the dues- This
was calculated at 70,000/, a year, the amount re-
ceived by the King. Alter some discussion the
motion was agreed to without a division. The
House then went into Committee of Supply on the

Army Estimates'.
The motion of Mr. Horsfall on Thursday
night, for a Committee of the House of
Commons to sit in judgment on the
Board of Trade, has caused some discussion in our
metropolitan cotemporaries. Mr. Horsfall, if he
has done nothing else, has started a somewhat
interesting discussion on Parliamentary history
by his motion for an inquiry into the origin.
composition, and utility of the Board of Trade,
as our Ministry of Commerce is called. Under
Mr. Huskisson's presidency, the department
for the first time assumed political import-
ance ; and with the progress of economical science
and of commercial reform its importance has gone
on increasing, until now it is in reality, though
not nominally, a first-class Ministry. But the task
of superintending and directing the commercial
policy of the country,and of assisting the Foreign-
office in negotiating commercial treaties, is not now
the only duty of the Board. Important executive
functions have from time to time been thrown on
the board by the Legislature. It has now a railway
department, a mercantile marine depart-
ment, a department of science and art;, it is
charged with the care of our patent laws, of our
registration of design laws, and with several
other minor subjects of legislation, besides
supervising the Consular correspondence of the
Foreign-office. Gradually, then, the Board of
Trade has become a very useful and valuable
department of the State. The question raised last
night substantially was, whether its old organisa-
tion and composition are suited to its modern
duties—whether the form of Committee of Privy
Council ought to be preserved, or whether the
department should not be simplified and elevated
into a Secretary of State. Such is the
opinion of a London evening paper of last night,
which sums up with the following paragraph—
" Mr. Florsfall succeeded in doing that service for
the Board which any independent member is pretty
sure to effect for any public office that he might
single out for animadversion. The official defence
of Mr. Labouchere and Sir James Graham was,
it need hardly be added, a complete parliamentary
success ; and, indeed, it must be pretty generally
felt that of all our public departments the Board of
Trade, even as at present constituted, is less liable
to well-founded censure than almost any other
province of our adminstrative government."
The unfortunate culprit, George Bave, who was
recently convicted of the murder of a corporal at
Woolwich, suffered the penalty of death on the
scaffold on Thursday.
The inquiry into the accident in Tottenham-
court-road, London (by the fall of some houses)
has ended in the jury returning a verdict which,
without imputing criminal blame to any individual,
expressed " strong condemnation of the present
conflicting state of the law as to district and police
surveyors, whose duties appear to be quite inde-
pendent, and even antagonistic." The jury sun'
Bested that an immediate alteration should be
made in the Building Act.
The Leeds election terminated yesterday in the
return of Beecroft, by a very slender majority—
only six. At the close of the poll the numbers
stood thus—Beecroft, 2,070 ; Mills, 2,064. The
official declaration of the poll may, however, alter
these numbers, so as to place Mills at the head of
the poll. The latter gentleman was also defeated
at the general election.
The Masons! strike continues. Yesterday, at
the Clarendon-rooms, Messrs Rathbone, Jeffery,
and the Rev. Hugh Stowel Brown, met deputations
• from the master masons and the workmen. These
gentlemen had undertaken the responsibility of
arbitrating and deciding upon the merits of the