The Sun.
London, England, 1837-05-06 00:00:00

that if that Bill when it came up should be such as to pleise
them, they would then pass the present Bill as it now was.—
(No, no I from the Opposition.) He was sure that he should
hear that ! He made the remark on purpose.—( A laugh.)
He was convinced that he should hear from a very consider-
able number of Noble Lords opposite an indignant repudia-
tion of the bare notion of the possibility of their passing any-
thing in the shape of this Bill, or of the measures adopted by
the other House having the slightest influence upon them
towards altering their hostility to every principle, every
feature, and every tittle of this measure.—( Ministerial
cheers.) If, then, the nature of the Bill to come up to them
from the House of Commons would have no effect what-
ever upon their intentions towards. this Bill, if upon no
terms they would be induced to mitigate their feelings of
hostility to this measure, then he came back to his former
position, that let the Bill on the subject of Irish Tithes be,
framed as it might—let the discussions upon the subject
in the other House produce what effect they might—altering,
amending, or modifying its supposed paovisions—in whatevsr
form, in fact, it eventually were to come before their Lord-
ships—such a consideration would not have the effect of win-
ning any substantial support in favour of this measure. Ile
would" nut say it might not affect one or two wavering crot-
chetty votes; but certainly that it would not tend to miti-
gate the general hostility which unfortunately prevailed in
their Lordship's minds against this measure. This being the
case, the two Bills, as it appeared to him, were altogether as
distinct and unconnected as any private Bill, any railroad
or other Bill of such a nature, could be with the Bill now
before the House. Did not this demonstrate—he spoke it
with no disrespect—the absurdity of the proposition of the
Noble Duke to postpone the further consideration of this
Bill, ur.til they saw what was done with other measures
now before the House of Commons ? The Noble Duke's ob-
jections were well known, and avowed to be directed not at
the period when this measure was propounded—not at the
details of which it consisted—not at the mode and manner
in which its great and, as he (Lord Brougham) considered,
its invaluable principle was proposed to be worked out—
he objected to the very principle itself upon which the mea-
sure rested.—( Ministerial cheers.) He objected to the whole
measure. Like a great conqueror, his predecessor in history,
who was said to have been a steady opponent of reform, and,
moreover (in which he could not justly liken him to the
Noble Duke), that he had never suffered anything in favour
of liberty—of this conqueror it was said, as he now said of
the Noble Duke, that he was " the enemy, the irreconcilable
enemy, of the whole measure—of the whole of its details—
of everything comprised within its four comers, and of the
very grounds upon which it was constituted." He would say,
therefore, why talk of putting off the measure for five weeks,
in order to see other measures upon which its fate did actually
not at all depend ? Why put off the going into Committee
on this Bill, in order that they might see how they could
nibble a bit away at one corner, and take-out one clause, and
thrust in another, and make this and that amendment, in
order to Tender it palatable to the Noble Duke and his Noble
Friends on the opposite side ? Such a proposition, so to-
tally uncalled for—so totally unjustifiable—so totally useless,
served but too clearly to show the lengths to which men
might be pushed by the exigencies of political neces-
sity—( Loud Ministerial cheers, responded to from the
other side of the House)—when, having taken up one
ground of opposition to a measure, they found it no longer
safe to occupy that position, and that the troops who were
to hare acted with them in it were no longer united in views
and opinions.—( Renewed cheering.) He came now to consider
the next measure upon the strength of which it was pro-
posed to delay the further proceedings in this Bill, namely,
the Poor-law Bill for Ireland. The only way in which this
measure could bear upon the question before the House, as
the Noble Duke himself had most clearly shown, for most
clearly had the Noble Duke put forward his arguments, and
therefore the more unfortunately, for by reason of its clear-
ness it stood in its simple nakedness, with nothing to protect
it from destructive scrutiny—(a laugh)—most clearly had
the Noble Duke shown that the only reason for delaying
this Bill until they had the Irish Poor-law Bill before them
was, that this measure comprised a matter involving the
consideration of a rating, arid therefore that the provisions
on the subject in the Poor-law Bill would give them an
opportunity of finding a proper sytem of qualification. Now,
he ( Lord Brougham) could not exactly devise a qualification
founded upon a rating, because none existed, but he believed
that he could find a mode of valuing a five-pound house, and
in Committee they might turn their attention to devising a
proper test of that nature, just as well before as after the
passing of the Poor-law Bill, with its rate-paying clause.
But why was it thut he did not think that rating clause re-
quisite as to the foundation of such a matter of legislation ?
It was because lie rec Alected the Act of 9 Geo. IV., passed in
the year 1828 or 1829, by the Noble Duke opposite, which was
applicable to all Ireland, and by which any town, corporate or
incorporate, might manage its own local affairs of lighting and
so forth, and yet there was no qualification, no rating upon
which to found a qualification.—(The Duke of Wellington
arid other Noble Lords on the Opposition side here intimated
that an assessment had existed in Ireland at the period of the
9th Gs°. IV , which had since been repealed.) Oh, the as-
sessment bad been since repealed ; but had the 9th Geo. IV.
been since repealed also ? He believed that in many towns in
Ireland that Act was still enforced, and that by virtue of i.
the inhabitants proceeded every three years to elect their
Commissioners of lighting and paving, offices to which con-
siderable patronage was necessarily attached, although there
was no test of qualification established amongst them by
which they could ascertain a Si. value. There was another
Bill also of some little importance in the of ,sirs not only of
Ireland. but of the State in general, which brought a con-
siderable extent of power into the hands of certain indivi-
duals, and from the dre=ad of which power, in fact, arose much
of the hostility manifested to the measure now before the
'House—a measure affecting infinitely more potently the poli-
tical state of Ireland than the most sanguine anticipations
of the friends, or the most direful anticipations of the enemie s
of the present Bill would bring themselves to iinmeaeine it could
bring about : he meant nothing more nor less, ingret, than the
Irish Parliamentary Reform 811, which went upon the princi-
ple of a Si. qualification, although there was no rating upon
which to estimate such a qualification. [Certain Noble Lords
here intimated that the Irish Parliamentary Reform Bill con-
tsined a 10/. qualification]. Well, the argument was tl.e
same. If they could trust one set of voters without a test
why might they not do so with others? At all events, as he
said before, if a qualification were required, this was a point to
which they could direct their attention in Committee. It was
certainly a most notable absurdity to cay that they could not
proceed with this measure because they had not before them a
certain clause in a certain other measure now. in the House of
Commons. No man could pretend to say that the rejection
or passing of this Bill depended upon the rating clause in
the Irish Poor-law Bill ; but, at the same time, if it was
imagined that the rate clause in that Bill would afford a
convenient test to modify seine of the clauses in this Bill,
a clause might be inserted in this Bill, providing that if a
Bill were to be passed on the subject of the relief of the poor
in Ireland with a rating clause, then that clause should be
adopted as a test of qualification, for the purposes of this
Bill. He should net be dealing fairly with the House if he
did not state that he should not advocate the introduction of
such a clause into this Bill. The rate-paying clause was that
part in the Reform Act which worked the worst, which ope-
rated to the disfranchisement of the constituency, and gave
rise to the greatest discontent, and, as he thought, discontent
justly founded ; and he hoped to lire to see the time when, if
it were not altogether repealed, it would be most essentially
mitigated. He could regard it as nothing but an evil, and he
was rejoiced to see, from something which had taken place
in the other House of Parliament, that, although the prepon-
derance of feeling was not perhaps against the rate-paying
clause altogether, there was certainly an immense majority in
favour of a considerable alteration in it. For the question
now before the House, however, he thought they had only
one of two courses to pursue—either to proceed at once with
the Bill, or to throw it out at once ; as, from what he had
heard on former occasions and to-night, he had no doubt
Noble Lords opposite, with very few exceptions, were re-
solved to do in the end.—( Cheers.) By whatever means
or routes they might each think proper to proceed, he
believed that they all looked to aiming at the same desired
point of rejection. They might in the mean time fritter away
one part of the Bill, insert a rate-paying clause, dock out the:
schedule, insert another, and, in fact, concoct so entirely new
a Bill, that the man who drew the original would not recognise
his work ; but the result would be the same in the end, and
whether te Bills on the Irish Church and the Irish Poor-laws
passed or not, the Bill was doomed to rejection. He would
therefore earnestly suggest the decorum of not losing any more
time in the difficult and inconsistent course which they had
taken up, but at once throw out the Bill by the usual postpone-
ment for six months, or at once proceed in Committee to
strangle it and smother it with their amendments. One thing
or the other he would implore them to do, in order that them-
selves and the country might be able to understand what they
were about—in order that when they were asked by others
what they had been about, they might be able to give a plain
and straightforward answer.—( Hear,[and a laugh.) Were they
so overburdened with legislation, having arrived at the fourth
month of the Session, when they had done precisely nothing—
( A laugh)—were they so fatigued and worn out with their
labour that they could not screw their courage' up for one
night's legislation in Committee ? Why should they be afraid
of one night's business ? He would guarantee them against
more than one night.—(A laugh.) This was the course which
their Lordships should pursue, whilst by the course which they
had taken up, and which by too many reasons which he saw
before him he was aware they were about to persist in, they
would not be doing that which he thought was due to the
country, to their own dignity and character, to what they
owed to the opinion of the public, nor consistently with the
respect and good feeling which should exist between the two
Houses of the Legislature.—( Hear.) Would they, upon
grounds such as had been to-night stated, persist in pursuing
the course which they bad done last year, and which had
then led, if not to conflict, to conference with the other
House—( A laugh)—conference ending in every man retain-
ing just his own opinions on the subject, only very much
strengthened by all the arguments which he had heard
from the other side.—(Laughter.) Would their Lord-
ships be prepared to take this occasion to adopt so new a
mode of proceeding, putting off proceeding with this Bill
with the intention of holding their decision upon it in terror
over certain measures now in progress in another place ; for if
the motion of the Noble Duke meant this he could understand
it ; if not, he was utterly at a loss to imagine the ground upon
which it was made ? He would beg to remind their Lordships
that the other House held out no threats of this kind against
themselves ; it had adopted no course calculated to be deroga-
tory to themselves or disgraceful to their Lordships ; but if
their Lordships were to set a precedent that one House should
hold out in its course of proceeding, an evidently implied
threat over the other----( Hear, hear)—under an apparently in-
different motion for a fire weeks' delay—if they took upon
themselves to set such an example to the other House of Par-