The Sun.
London, England, 1839-07-20 00:00:00

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ha thought it gave too much power and greater advantages
to the lessees t.M.rley ought to possess.
Mr. ESTC T did not see any material objection to
the clause, and w,auld off-r it no opposition.
Mr. GOULBURN was much inclined to take the
same view of the clause as that taken by the Noble Lord.
He objected to these Su'pension Bills altogether, as
being detrimental botlisto the Church and the public.
Sir T. D. ACLAND oojected to the Bill, as an
sz post facto law. He would propose that the clause
should be confined to the lives now existing in Church
leases.
After a few words from Mr. Hawes, Mr. Liddell, and
Mr. Wood,
Sir T. D. ACLAND moved to substitute the words Ist
Jan. 1839, in place of 4th Feb. 1835.
Strangers were then ordered to withdraw. The Com-
mittee divided, when there appeared—

For the original clause
For the amendment 3B
Majority for the amendment 5
On our return we found
Mr. HUME moving to insert th 3 Ist January 1836, in
place of Ist January 1839.
Mr. AGLIONBY supported the amendment.
After a few remarks from Sir T. D. Arland, Mr. Hume,
Lord John Russell, Mr. Liddell, and Sir James Graham,
The Committee divided, and there appeared—
For the Amendment
Against it
Majority —3
The CH AIRMAN then reported progress, and the
clause was about to be added to the Bill, when

Lord J. RUSSELL objected to it as being retro-
spective.
Mr. WARBURTON declared his Hon. Friend, the
Member for Cockermouth, had not Leen fairly dealt with
by the Noble Lord.
Mr. LIDDELL was surprised that the Noble Lord
should still object to the clause.
Mr. A G LIONB Y had only proposed the clause from
a sense of justice to the country, and the country would
ailliat see the way in which it had been treated by the
gale Lord.

After a few observations from Lord John Russell, and
Sir James Graham, strangers were ordered to withdraw,
and the Committee divided. The numbers were—

For the clause
Against it 45
Majority against the clause —6
The Bill then passed.
3IETROPOLITAN POLICE COURTS.

Mr. F. MA UL E moved the committal of the Metro-
politan Police Courts Bill.
On the question that the SPEAKER do leave the Chair,
Mr. LA W rose for the purpose of moving that the Bill
be committed that day six Months. He regretted that a
measure of such importance should tee discussed in so thin
a Home, and at so late a period of the Session. He ob-
jected to the principles involved in the Bill, because he
found that by its provisions an enormous amount of patro-
nage was entrusted to the Secretary of State for the Home
Department, which was a circumstance which he looked
upon with not a little jealuuey. In making that statement
he felt bound to ackeowledge the diligence of the Noble
Lord at the head of that Department. The patronage
that was given to that Nobie Lord by the Bill was of
a most important character—no leaf than 27 magistrates
were placed at his disposal, the Noble Lord was to have
the power of removing them at his pleasure, and to grant
to those Magistrates that were removed too-thirds of the
salary which they had enjoyed, and also to increase the
emoluments of those he might appoint from 8001. to
1,2001. a year. His objection was not to the increase of
the emoluments of the Magistrates, but to entrusting the
Secretary of State with so much patronage—patronage
that might be applied to political purposes. He thought
the certificate of the Judges of Westminster Hall should
be a condition precedent to the nomination of gentlemen to
the office of Magistrate. He believed if the House bad been
constituted, a; it was previous to the Reform 6,11, a measure
like the present would have been resisted to the utmost,
for lie believed there never was a measure introduced under
the most despotic Government more subversive of the
liberty of the subject than the press nt.—( Hear.) When
he found gentlemen opposite bringing forward a measure
to do away with trial by jury, he was nut disposed to give
them very great credit fur their wishes to mitigate the se-
verity of the criminal code. This was a most deadly blow
aimed at the Constitution. It gave a Magistrate, appointed
by the Secretary of State. the power of trying cases of
larceny or felony without the intervention of a jury, and as
if the blow thus aimed at the Constitution were not suffi-
ciently heavy, it gave the Magistrate the power of
putting an individual on hi; trial without the inter-
vention of a grand jury. He coeceived this to be one II
of the most fatal and deadly blows that had ever
been aimed at the liberty of the subject—or that
had ever been undertaken by any Government.—( Hear,
hear, from Mr. Hawes.) He would not be deterred by
any cheers from the Hon. Member for Lambeth from
stating his opinion; for although that Hon. Member was most
liberal in his professions of political opinion, he supported
designs more subversive of the liberty of the subject than
any that ever were brought forward from that side of the
House. He thought his constituents would judge him not
by his professions but by his acts.—( Hear, hear, from Sir
J. Hobhouse.) By those cheers of the Right Hon. the
President of the Board of Coiiteoul, he apprehended that
he was displeased at its being discovered that those who,
in their younger years and out of office, were full of pro-
fessions of regard for liberty, were in their maturer years,
since they were in possession of office the least regardful of
it. Such a measure at any former period would not have
been tolerated, and it was only tolerated now on account
of the indifference to public affairs, created by the mal-
administration of the present Government, and they took
advantage of the indifference thus created by disappointed
and blasted hopes--(Cheers)—to introduce measures sub-
versive of the Constitution. He objected to the enormous
patronage which this Bill threw into the hands of the
Secretary of State, and still more did he object to these
Magistrates intrusted with these powers being removable
at the pleasure of the Government. They ocght to be as
independent as the Judges of Westminster Hall. But,
perhaps, the Government, looking to their own wretched
magisterial appointments in Birmingham and other in-
stances, thought it would be advisable to have the power of
removal.—((sheers.) It was also proposed to transfer all
the duties of civil courts to these Magistrates.—(No,
no, from Mr. Hawes.) The Hon. Member was indulg-
ing in verbal criticism, but he contended that, in fact,
the powers of local civil courts were added to the du-
ties of these Magistrates. It was proposed that police
Magistrates should act in both a civil and criminal ca-
pacity, and that any of those stipendiary Magistrates
might do whatever a neighbouring Magistrate or even two
Justices could do under the existing law. The 16th clause
proposed that no Justice Lot a Magistrate of the said
Court should act as a Justice in it, and it was proviced
that no clerk except the clerk of a Police Magistrate
should accept a fee, thus taking away any interest
an unpaid Magistrate might have in administering
the civil or criminal law through the person of his clerk.
The 23d section gave a Magistrate the power of summon-
ing parties before him without having heard any accusation
against them. The 26th section placed petty thieves and
the receivers of stolen goods in tile same class, and gave
the Magistrates, most unjustly, as much power over the
latter as the former. The 32i1 section empowers d magis-
trates to deliver up goods charged to be stolen," without
any proof. The 41st section squ..red with the 26th. It
provided that a prisoner should be tried on an indictment
framed summarily by a Justice, without the iatervention of
a grand jury. The safeguard of a grand jury was here
prospectively abolished at one blow. The Bill also pro-
posed to empower police Magistrates to award eompeosa.
tion for wilful damage inflicted upon a tenement by a tenant
—to use summary power in distress cases—to order goods
supposed to be unjustly detained to be delivered to
.1.
the alleged owners. .ow this was going too far.
_( Hear, bear.) There was no Judge who, in adjudi-
cating upon a mixed question of law and facts,
would act wish to have the opinion of a jury in the
latter case. If the concoctors of the Bill had' consulted
the Lord Chancellor and the Judges of the land, as they
might properly have done by the leave of the House of
Lords, those personages would have protested against the
proposed abolition of the bulwark of Grand and Petty
Juries—for they would have remembered how beneficial
they bad found them to be. L would have been much
wiser to rely upon the wisdom and experience of the
Judges of the land on such a question, than on the in-
formation
and opinions of Commissioners and stipendiary
Magistrates, however respectable. The 46th section
provided, that no other than paid Magistrates should
receive a fee within the metropolitan district. The
48th authorised Magistrates to proceed by warrant with-
out previous information. True the 54th section gave
an appeal to Quarter Sessions, against the commitment
of a Magisti-ate, but that was onitein cases where a pri-
soner had been incarcerated in consequence of the Megis-
vale's sentence for a longer period than one month. These
wore the leading propositions of the measure, but in what he
had stated in commenting on them, he trusted that be
(the Recorder) had shown that, if enacted, they would
be a very serious invasion upon the liberty of the subject,
—( Hear, hear.) He had had a greal deal of expertonse
in the administration of the criminal law ; he had been
obliged to inflict much pain, which he would rather have
avoided, and he felt that those unhappy beings who were
too often the subjects of his jurisdiction, should have the
benefit of that experience, in order that that suff2ring and
that severity, which they had necessarily to undergo, should
not be aggravated, by their being exposed to loss of
liberty and property, without the intervention of that con-
stitutional prit liege which ail Englishmen had long re-
garded as one of our most valuable institutions—
he meant trial by Jury.-1 Hear, hear, and cheers.)
His experience led him to believe that very great and
most intolerant injustice was frequently perpetrated by the
decisions
of police Magistrates. He had had an expe-
rience of twenty years judicially and at the Bar, and he
felt it his duty to give to the utmost of his
power every
Opposition to the further progress of a measure which
was fraught with the greatest injustice, and most perni-
cious and destructive of the liberties of the lower classes
in that couetry.—( Hear, hear.) He moved that the. Bill
be read a third time that day six months.e,
H
Mr. AWES said he might be idered somewhat
presumptuous in replying to the lien, and Learned Mem-
ber who had just sat down, who was both a Judge aid a
lawyer. He must say, however, that he never heard a
speech possessing- so little of :he judicial character, and so
much of the party feelings of a politician than that which
had just been pronounced.—( Hear.) The Hon. and
Learned Member was not content with going through the
clauses, attacking the [till in detail, 'but he had stepped
out of his way, for the purpose of obtaining a paltry party
advantage. —( Cheei s. ) How had the Hon. and Learned
Gentleman acted Kith reepect to a measure which he
(Mr. Hawes) had introduced oil a former s cession
Mr. LAW r ise to order. Tice Hon. Member had, he
submitted, no right to allude to what bed occurred in a
previous debate. —( Oh, and laughter. )
Mr. HAWES was always ready to how to the decision
of the Chair, but he contended that he had in no way
transgressed the rules of the House. He had read some-
where of an Hon. and Learned Gentleman, who was also
a Judge--( Hear, hear)—and who, wnen a measure was
L introduced to afford relief to certain parties who prayed to
`r.' ere