Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-24 00:00:00

INDIAN TROOPS.

Mr. B. WILLIAMS asked whether it was the intention
of the government to disband any of the native troops
in India.

Mr. V. Smrru said, in consequence of disaffection the
19th had been disbanded, but unless in similar cases, no
other regiment would be disbanded.

THE IRISH GRAND JURY SYSTEM.

Sir D. NORREYS moved for leave to bringin a bill to pro-
vide for the management of the fiscal affairs of the counties
in Ireland by electoral boards. After pointing out the defects
in the present grand jury system, he urged the advantages
of the proposition which he made by his bill, and added
that in Belgium and Canada the system of electoral divi-
sions had been adopted, and had worked successfully. He
had fixed no qualifications far members of the council, leav-
ing all matters of detail to be decided hereafter ; and all he
asked the house to do was to pass a vote of censure upon
the grand jury system.
Mr. M•IVIAuoN seconded the motion.

Colonel Fromm observed that the grand jury system
had been in operation for nearly a century. It
was simple and economical, and gave general
satisfaction. This it was that the hon. member proposed
to do away with, and to provide in its stead a cumbrous
and expensive machinery. Under the Irish system 43,000
miles of road were kept in order without debt, while in
England 26,000 miles of road wort) bankrupt, and the hiet-
way rates amounted to a million a year. He contended
that no system in any country had been so successful as
the grand jury system in Ireland. By the bill it was pro-
posed to give the Lord Lieutenant power to appoint a
president and vice-president of the council at large salaries,
and an administrative council, and these councils had
authority to appoint a great number of offi,:ers at high
salar:e3. The total expense under the bill would be
£140,000, independent of the travelling expenses of 230
members of the Executive Council, It was the most
objectionable measure that had been proposed to the house
in his exly rience, and he felt it his duty to oppose it at that
stage.

Mr. BAGWELL considered that the grand jury system was
a grand anomaly, because the magistrates could at any time
overrule the opinion of the ce3s powers, and the system
was therefore taxation without representation. He felt
compelled to vote against the bill, as he believed it would
make a bad system ten thousand times worse.
Mr. M‘MAnort objected to the grand jury system, and
demanded that the Lando flers should pay half the cess, or
that the right of levying the rates should be altered. He
supported the bill in order to record his condemnation of
the grand jury.

Mr. COGAN thought that a representative system sh‘.uld
be substituted for the grand jury system, and fur that
reason supported the introduction of this measure.
Mr. H. HERBRaT admitted that there were defects in
the grand jury system, but did not think that there was
anything to justify the description which had been given of
it. He thought that the electoral system should be intro-
duced into the road cessions, but he was not prepared tl
favour a sweeping measure which would have the effect of
altering the whole fiscal management of the country. The
grand jury had no power to originate taxation. The
sbuses complained of had ceased tO exist with the act of

1836, and he felt it his duty to resist the introduction of
the bill.

Mr. MAGUIRE regretted that the Government had not
promised
a bill on the subject. He bore testimony to the
fact that the grand jury system was most unpopular in
Ireland.

After some further discussion, the motion was with-
drawn.

INPROVZHENTS IN INDIA.

Mr. J. B. SMITH moved the following resolution—" That,
in the opinion of this House, it is :expedient that Parlia-
ment shall direct its immediate attention to the best mode
of removing the obstacles which impede the application of
British capital and skill to the improvement of the pro-
ductive powers of India!' The great obstacle stated by
him was the want of roads, and he, at some length, stated
the advantages derived from the attention paid to this
point in Ceylon, and some parts of India—the improve-
ment of land, the development of industry, and the
prosperity of the people following. He also urged the
necessity for an improvement in the tenure of laud, and for
irrigation, to qualify India to compete with America in
the cultivation of cotton. In his concluding remarks, the
hon. member appealed to the house to put an end to the
East India Company, and bring her Majesty's Indian
subjects under her direct rule. _ _

Mr. J. A. TURNER seconded the motion, and drew at-
tention to the vast importance of the cultivation of cotton
in India. The 'demand was overtaking the supply, and
the only direction in which they had to look for an
increase was to the East and West Indies,
Mr. MANGLES vindicated the East India Company, and
stated that the productive powers of India at present
supplied more than England can pay for. There was no
necessity for a reduction of transport expenses, and as
regarded the growth of cotton it was to be considered, in
calculating the quantity produced, that there was a large
consumption in India itself. The reason that cotton could
not be obtained from India was, that there was no demand
except when the American crop failed, and India could
not and would not grew under such circumstances.
Lord STANLEY supported the motion, and Mr. D. SET-
MOUR opposed it.
The debate was then adjourned till Tuesday next.
Lord RAYNILAM obtained leave to bring in a bill to amend
the act for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Mr. BLACK moved a resolution with the object of in-
creasing the silaries of Scotch inspectors and surveyors
of taxes.

Mr. WILSON opposed.
Mr. G. Kinnaird, Mr. Crauford, and Colonel Sykes
having offered some observations, the motion was
negatived.
Leave was given to Mr. GRIFFITHS to bring in a bill to
alter and amend the act of 17 and 18 Vie , cap. 31, corn—
monly call:d the Railway Traffic Act. To Mr. WARREN,
a bill to empowr the House of Commons and its committees
to take evidence upon oath. To Mr. MAssEv, a bill to
amend the law relating to summary proceedings before jus-
tices of peace, and to amend the law c,:mcerning Municipal
Corporations in England.
Some other bills were brought in.
The Highways Bill was withdrawn by Mr. MASSEY.

The Alehouse Licensing Bill was read a third time, and
passed; as was the Insurance of Lives Abatement of In-
come Tax Biil.

The House adjourned at hall past one.

MERSEY CONSERVANCY

AND DOCKS BILL.

(PROM OUR OWN REPORTER.)

HOUSE OF COMMONS, TUESDAY, JUNE 23,

The Committee re-assembled this morning at twelve
o'clock, Sir JAMES GRAHAM, in the Chair,—when
Mr. HOPE SCOTT, Q.C., proceeded to address them. He
said he appeared against the Mersey Conservancy and
Docks Bill,—nominally on behalf of the Corporation of
Liverpool, but substantially for the community of Liver-
pool, and for the interests of a population of four hundred
thousand souls, or thereabouts, for whom the Corporation
were trustees. The questions for consideration as they
affected that population and that community were these;
first, whether they were to be disfranchised and practically
superseded in respect to the management of docks, which
they, themselves had erected, and which now produced for
them a revenue of £326,000 a-year ; and, secondly,
whether they should forfeit, and that upon no crime proved,
—but rather that they should forfeit, in accordance with a
modern theory, than owing to any misconduct of their own—
a property producing £130,030 a year, in the shape of
anchorage, or town due property, which they had enjoyed as
the lessees or owners for GOO years, and which they had
repeatedly shown their readiness to defend in any court
which acknowledged the first principles of the law of Eng-
land. In this great inquiry ha was quite aware that he
represented what was considered the unpopular, and by
some of his most sanguine opponents, the losing side, He
was also aware that a royal commission had struck at them,
and that the Board of Trade, as a department, had pursued
them, and continued to pursue them with an eagerness
amounting almost to personal hostility. He was further
aware that the Government of the day had committed
itself to their destruction by putting words into Her
Majesty's Speech, and introducing a public bill in pursuance
of that speech ; and that a member of the Government
had uttered against them sentiments of sufficient range
and scope, not only to take away their Town Dues and
docks, but even to strip them of their enfranchisement
and possessions. He was also aware that against his
clients the jealousies—for it was more jealousy
than cupidity—of a large manufacturing interest were
bonded together, that against them also, a powerful
railway company, foiled in its attempt to obtain a mono-
poly, at a spot which it reached only on the principle of
competition was arrayed, and that against them of all
men the most miserable, Miss Harriet Mortineau had
written a book. (Laughter.) He could understand a
French journalist giving an account of all that was said
and done against Liverpool, and predicting its fall,
in accordance with the will of a great and powerful
Monarch, but at home we knew how easy it was to got
up an agitation—how, in point of fact, a single active
man—such a man as Mr Heron—could raise an agitation.
How a pressure upon the government at a particular
moment could affect their conduct, and induce them to
give their sanction to that which it was their first duty
to resist. We knew also how excitements of this nature
subsided, and how after a certain amount of fuss, and noise,
and violence, the people recovered their senses, and the
strife was all put an end to. The truth was that ebulitions
of this kind were very much to the spirit of the British
Constitution —whit a wake was to an Irishman—whiskey
and shillelahs, revolutionary principles and a few broken
heads one day, and on the next every body went to bed
as usual, and forgot all the noise and excitement that had
first surrounded them. The Liverpool Corporation now
at length found themselves before a Committee of the
House of Commons composed of gentlemen whom he was
bound to believe were selected because they were utterly
without prejudice, and free from any of those mercantile
theories that had led to this attack upon property, and
who composed a tribunal who were required to hear
patiently, weigh carefully, and decide justly, not upon
what had been said elsewhere, or reported against the
Corporation generally by their antagonists, but upon the
arguments brought before them, in proof or disproof of
the preamble of the present bill. In addition to the
confidence which he possessed in the Committee, he
entertained a deep sense of the injustice both
of the object and of the manner of the attack
upon his clients ; and, secondly, he owned to an
appreciation of a keen kind, almost amounting to an
intellectual enjoyment of the absurdities, contradictions,
mis-statements, and alternations between meanness and
extravagance, which marked the conduct of the case sought
to be made out against the Corporation. But this much
he would venture to say at the outset, that if he failed to
make the committee perceive that the attack upon the com-
munity of Liverpool was not only unjust and unreasonable,
but that, in point Of §Pipment, it was !I.l(VcrOus, it would