The Sun.
London, England, 1852-03-26 00:00:00

large sums expended which had produced great good to the
people of Ireland. This fact ought to be set against any
misapplication of moneys which might in other instances
have occurred. It was not because they might prove that
in certain parts of Ireland abuses had prevailed, that, there-
fore, there existed a claim on the part of the whole of Ireland
for a remission of those advances. To the extent of the
abuses he admitted there existed a claim to consideration,
but, on the other side, equal fairness demanded that where
great aid had been supplied to the people of Ireland in their
utmost need, on those portions of the country the Govern-
ment had claims for repayment which neither justice nor
equity could resist. It would be the duty of the Committee
to be appointed to examine and sift these accounts, and
strike a balance fairly and justly between the parties.
Having done so, it would then be their duty to report to
their Lordships the result, with a view to some further Par-
liamentary provision being made on the subject. The Noble
Earl concluded by saying he had no opposition to make to
the present motion.
The Earl of GLENGALL thought the appointment of a
Committee would be regarded with satisfaction in Ireland.
There was a debt of 4,500,0001. to be paid by the Irish peo-
ple; but 7,500,0001. were claimed, including interest—inte-
rest at rather a Jewish rate. It was morally impossible for
Ireland to sustain the enormous load of taxation imposed on
her. There were counties where 55., 65., or 7s. in the pound
were charged. 55., 65., or 75., in the pound ! Why, where
was the pound? The pound was not there. Whole tracts of
land were left without a beast upon them, or without a blade
of corn. He spoke of counties in the west of Ireland espe-
cially. They could not support their poor, though they levied
as much as possible off the face of the earth. Nobody would
buy in those counties. An Encumbered Estates Act was in-
vented for the purpose of bringing new settlers to those parts.
Those were the very parts to which new settlers had not
gone. A plantation must have been established consist-
ing of new people, and no difficulty in carrying out the un-
ertaking would now arise from the necessity of supplanting
the old population, for the whole population were either
gone to America or were dead. The rates levied were no
test of the wants and requirements of the poor. Last year
there were 780,000 persons in the workhouses, a greater
number absolutely than in 1848. Pauperism might be said
to be increasing. Nobody wanted labourers, because the
cultivation of grain had been given up. The people were
therefore compelled to go into the workhouses, where they
died exactly at the rate of a thousand a-week. And no
wonder; for they got one meal of that nasty filth called
Indian corn," which produced dysentery. That was what
was called supporting the poor through the system of Mr.
Nichols, which had been so lauded as an admirable system.
The existing state of matters was attributable, he repeated,
to the want of employment— to that " displacement of la-
bour" to which Sir R. Peel alluded when he said he did not
believe so large a number of persons could be reduced to
indigence and destitution by any cause as "by a sudden
displacement of so large an amount of labour em-
ployed in the cultivation of wheat." There were
.39,000 acres under wheat cultivation in Ireland

less in 1850 than in 1847, involving a value of 1,300,0001.
From 1841 to 1845 there were transported from Ireland to
14,c00,000 a grain from 1846 to 1850
there were exported in like manner 7,500,000 quarters,
exactly one-half of the quantity exported in the preceding
period. The export of flour from Ireland, in 1845, was
775,000 quarters ; in 1850, 168,000 quarters. Coming to
the great trade in bacon, the house would find that, in 1847,
Ireland exported 480,000 pigs; and, in 1850, only 109,000.
The loss might be estimated at 3,000,000/. or 4,000,0001.
annually. In the salt provision trade, which had involved
hundreds of thousands of pounds, the great contracts were
,gone, and why? Because, following out the principle of
free trade, the late Boarthof Admiralty sent their contract,
not to Cork, but to Galatz, in Wallachia. He only hoped
the Noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty would have the
kindness to deal with Cork.—(A laugh.) People had been
endeavouring to effect an impossibility, to make the poor
support the poor. Almost all classes had been reduced to
nearly the same level. It was said property ought to support
poverty ; but property had been destroyed, and poverty was
left. A manufacturer, very largely connected with the
woollen trade in Ireland, had described in conversation the
ruinous depression which existed, remarking that wherever
his travellers went there were shops closed. The question
was as much an English as it was an Irish question. Before
free trade existed Ireland exported 10,1 00.000/. worth of
produce to England, taking back between 10,000,0001. and
11,000,000/. From the statement issued by a Chamber of
Commerce which was in the practice of publishing informa-
tion on such subjects, it appeared that there had been a falling
off in exports from England to Ireland amounting nearly to
4,000,000/. Everything used in Ireland, from a steam-en-
gine to the commonest nail, came from England. When peo-
ple ran down that country, and said the state of matters was
the fault of the landlords, of the farmers, of the Celts, they
ought to recollect that they had themselves destroyed the
English market by their new policy, and were themselves
losers. It was impossible to go on in this kind of way The
more Ireland was distressed the more did Parliament seem
determined to tax her. The system resembled that of the
celebrated Dr. Sangrado; the more reduced the Irish were
the more did bleeding seem to be thought good for them.
When he reflected on the misery that prevailed, the emigra-
tion which was draining the country of able-bodied persons,
and other subjects connected with Ireland, he could not re-
frain from declaring that he was quite disgusted with the
state to which matters had been brought.

The motion was then agreed to.
THE BISHOP OF COLOMBO.
Lord TORRINGTON said, with reference to the notice
he had given of his intention to inquire whether papers bad
been received from Ceylon, and would be produced, relating
to differences between the Bishop of Colombo and his
clergy, he had put himself in communication with the Noble
Lord opposite, and he concurred in the views stated by the
Noble Lord, namely, that under the present circumstances of
the case it was not desirable that those papers should be laid
on the table. It was undesirable also, under those circum-
stances, that he (Lord Torrington) should enter into the
subject; and therefore he should simply state that, believing
the Noble Lord would be prepared to give the House the in-
formation required as speedily as possible, he should with-
draw the notice he had given, and abstain from putting the
two questions to which it referred, reserving to himself the
right of subsequently calling attention to the differences that
existed in Ceylon between the bishop and his clergy.
The Earl of DONOUGHINIORE had to express his thanks
to the Noble Lord for not having asked for those papers, and
also having abstained from asking whether steps had been
taken by her Majesty's Government on the subject of certain
unfortunate orcurreht,ca which had happeuea ILA tho ialanri of
Ceylon—occurrences to which it would be inconvenient to
give publicity at this moment. The Noble Lord might be
assured that her Majesty's Government would, with the
utmost attention and zeal, proceed to apply those remedies
which they thought moat desirable.
Their Lordships then adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, March 25.
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

Mr. W. WILLIAMS presented a petition from Lam-
beth, signed by 1,641 persons, in favour of Mr. Hume's
motion for Parliamentary reform.
Mr. HUME then rose to move for leave to bring in a Bil
to amend the national representation, by extending the
elective franchise in England and Wales, so that every man
of full age, and not subject to any mental or legal disability,
who shall have been the resident occupier of a house, or of
part of a house as a lodger, for twelve months, and shall
have been duly rated to the poor of that parish for that time,
shall be registered as an elector, and be entitled to vete for
a representative in Parliament. Also by enacting that
votes shall be taken by ballot, that the duration of Par-
liments shall not exceed three years, and that the
proportion of representatives be made more consis-
tent with the amount of population and property.
He had been placed in considerable difficulty in bringing
forward motions for reform, in consequence of many Hon
Members, who pretended to be reformers, objecting to vote
on any abstract questions. In order to overcome those diffi-
culties, he now proposed to submit to the House a definite
plan, and could not concur in any measure which would not
embrace the points included in his motion. He considered,
it necessary to combine with the extension of the suffrage
protection to the voter, so that, if the right of voting should
be extended to him, he should be duly protected in the exer-
cise of that right; for, without such protection, it mast be
evident that the vote would not be the vote of the individual,
but the vote of the party who might have power or influence
over him.—(Hear.) If such a fear was only visionary he
should be the last man to propose such a measure, but having
witnessed the painful consequences of the influence exercised
by men in power, and by masters over their workmen, he did
not think it possible that anything like a fair representation
of the people could take place without such protection being
afforded. The object of his motion was twofold. In the first
place, he wished to extend the right of voting, for it was
a right, and not a favour, or a privilege ; and as it was de-
sirable that it should not rest with the voter himself to re-
gister his vote, he proposed to make it the duty of some
public officer to enrol every man who had been resident in a
house, or a portion of a house, as a lodger. He was of op-
nion that some of the most valuable and intelligent men in
the country were lodgers, and must continue to be so, and the
Bill would contain a provision by which not only every
householder resident for twelve months, but every lodger re-
sident .for the same period, and rated and liable to pay !111
the assessments to the parish, should be placed on the regis-
ter..of
Another object of the Bill was to limit the duratiroionnee
Parliaments. He had in the course of a longexspeves
at
observed how differently Members conducted theme
Instead
the commencement and at the end of a Parham
beenthought the
of giving a Member a lease of seven Yeareas,rs,
trust should only be granted for thr
ork control over his
the electors might possess some cheie
or by mistake, forfeit
con-
duct, in case he should intentionally, in order that
were the principal objects of
the pledges he had given. These
that he had brought forward
subject, because
on the preset occasion
ight be too little or too much; but
a circumstances of the country. He did not
country. Government,
his Bill, and he thought no Heosneourable Membera could
an object
jae
nc
.t
It could be safely brought forward
si
tt
wasa c t proportion.aas
complete
any
But he
in the present
motion last year on the
satisfactory
lteodr
yg t oof
tthhee
ourld have introduced
been
bbreinigmfaogrsivnarJ;v
some la
that they P which
would Luavedldisapointed, and th
bad been sa and
sayountry had also been
disappointed ; he was sorry to that, instead of ful-
filling their promises, the late Government
recede from reform. One part of their l were too ready to
cer-
tainly have effected an extension ate plan would
would not have been effectual, as of the suffrage, but it
ballot. He had recently receive it did not include the
dis-
tricts, every one of whomsaiddeputations from 145
great extension of the they should regret to see any
of Members suffrage without a more equal dis-
tributionwas particularly andanxious protection to the electors. He
an opinion on thethat the House should express
subjectj of reform, in conse-
quence of a declaration
recently made by the Noble Lord
now at the head of the Government. He deeply regretted
the course taken
by that Noble Lord, who was once such an
excellent Reformer. He considered the Noble Lord at one
time the best Church Reformer he had ever met with, for at
one fell swoop he levelled ten bishoprics. The Noble Lord,
after supporting Reform for nineteen years, was not only re-
ceding from his former principles, but abusing those who had
not changed their principles as he had done When he found
any man having recourse to abuse, and making use of nick-
names instead of resorting to reason, it weakened his belief
in that man's intellects and his benesty.—(Hear, hear, and
laughter.) The Noble Lord bad done him and some of his
Honourable Friends near him a great injustice by calling them
" demagogues." On looking into Johnson he found the
definition of a demagogue to be " the ringleader of a rabble."
He treated such an appellation with perfect contempt.
He had often been at the head of large numbers of people,
but never at the head cf a rabble, and never would be; on
the contrary, he had done everything in his power to
pacify men who had sometimes met in great numbers
smarting under a sense of great injustice. His Honourable
Friends the Members for Manchester were in the same
category as himself, and no doubt would answer for them-
selves. For himself he would throw back ti
ie imputation
on the Noble Lord, and say it was unworthy of him, when
alluding to the meeting in Cheslihm- place, to say that it was
attended by nothing but demagogues. He now wished par-
ticularly to direct the attention of the Right Honourable
Gentleman opposite to some of the observations of the Noble
Lord, which were very alarming. The Noble Lord asked,
Will you support a Government which will oxen Rolf, I