The Sun.
London, England, 1830-12-21 00:00:00

REORDER OF DUBLIN.

Mr. O'GORNIAN MAHON presented a petition from
55 persons confined in Newgate, Dublin, complaining
that they could not obtain a trial, on account of
the Judge being a Member of the House of Commons,
as well as tl►e Recorder for the City of Dublin. He
had also another petition from a constituent of the Mem-
ber for Dublin, complaining that that lion. Member
could not do his duty as a Member of Parliament, be-
came he was obliged to attend to his duties as Recorder.
Ile thought these two petitions clearly showed that the
duties of a Judge and a Member of that House were in-
compatible. He hoped, therefore, for the interests of Ire-
land, the House would interfere as it did on a late
occasion, and compel the lion. Member to give up either
one situation or the other.

Mr. LEFROY said the Recorder performed the duties
of his office to the satisfaction of all parties.
Mr. O'GORMAN MAHON did not object to the man-
ner in which the duties of that office had been performed,
but to the incompatibility of the two offices.
Sir R. PEEL could nut think the petitioners suffered
any injustice in the absence of the Itecorder, as it was
known the Sessions were held at stated periods, and they
could not be tried during the interval.
Mr. HUME said is was a questiou well worthy the con•
sideration of the House, and he was astonished to hear
the late Minister of Justice get up and defend two ap-
pointments held by one person. It showed an utter dis-
regard to the interest* of the people.
Sir R. PEEL, with much warmth, said he was ready
to answer any charge that might be brought forward
against him during the time he held office, but
must protest against such insinuations at that of the
Honourable Member, who had shown gross ignorance on
the subject. Ife ought to have known that the Judges
were independent of the Crown ; also that the Recorder
was independent of it, and that there was no law to pre-
vent him sitting in Parliament, neither was there any
law to insist on his giving up the Recordership,
how could he, therefore, (Sir R. Peel) object to his sitting
in that House. He might as well have moved that the
Hon. Member for Middlesex should be turned out of it.
All he would say on the subject was, if it were wrung
let the House alter the law.

Mr. O'OOItMAN MAHON said the Sessions were
not held at fixed periods, as in London; but were ap-
pointed at the pleasure of the Recorder.
After some further discussion the petition wu ordered
to lie on the table.
DUTIES ON
.134RILLA.

Mr. ELLICE moved the third reading of the Conso-
lidated Fund Bill.
Sir GEORGE CLERK would take that opportunity
of asking the Right Hon. Gentleman, the Vice-President
of the Board of Trade, if there were any truth in the
report he had heard of its being the intention of Govern-
ment to reduce the duties en kelp. Ile had heard that
the Officers of the Customs had receiveil orders to admit
foreign bailie at a rate of (hay much below that ordered
by the law. The House would recollect that this subject
had formerly been under discussion, and that the duty
bad been reduced from 111. to t3l. as. The latter duty
bad been tlzed by the law, and those who were engaged
in this branch of business depended on the provisions of
the law being preserved. They were thrown into con-
sternation by the rumoured change. lie wished, there-
fore, to learn of the Right lion. Gyntionma if the repOrt

wete true, and h 6 hoped to hear that it was incorrect, and
that the Government had no such intention.

Mr. P. THOMSON was sorry to say that the answer
he had to give to the question of the Honourable Ba-
ronet was not likely to give him satisfaction, or to
accord with his views. The Government meant to
propose a Bill to the House for reducing the import
duties on• barilla to 21. I Os., and in the mean time
they bad given orders that barilla should be imported
on payment of that duty, the importer giving a bond
to pay the differenCe between that and any higher duty
that might be imposed by Parliament. He had read over
the negotiation which had been carried on for some time
during last year with thekelp-inanufacturers,and he under-
stood that they were ready to admit barilla at such a rate
of duty as he had proposed. He should be ready to justify
the conduct of the Government when he brought in the
Bill, but the House would remember that a discussion took
place on the sut•ject last Session, and it was agreed that
the duty on barilla should be reduced. The present Mini-
sters only followed the course sketched out for them by
their predecessors. He had at the time contorted in the
good reasons then assigned for this reduction, and he con-
curred in the opinions of those who thought that no in-
jury would he inflicted by the absolution. Ile thought, too,
that the House bad consented to the principle, that the raw
materials which entered into some of our more important
manufactures should not lie subject to any heavy duties.
Barilla was much employed in manufactures ; its use was
extending, and, therefore, it appeared to the present
Government as to the late Government, that the duties on
it ought to he reduced.
Mr. BERRIES admitted that it was a correct assertion
of the Right lion. Gentleman, that it was the intention
of his Majesty's late Ministers to propose to Parliament a
reduction of the duties on barilla. A Bill had even been
prepared for that purpose; and in the Bill he w•as free to
confess that there had been introduced a provision some-
thing like the alteration now proposed by the Right Hon.
Gentleman (Mr. Thomson.) He begged, however, to
say most distinctly, that, as Parliament were sitting at the
time the alteration was proposed to be made, it would not
have been attempted without the authority and consent of
Parliament.—(Hear.) He said this much with reference
to the case, not by way of censure, but as a warning to
the members of his Majesty's Government for the future
not to meddle with sources of taxation under the imme-
diate controul of the House.—(Hear, hear.) He must
say, indeed, that unless the Right Hon. Gentleman was
able to state some better remon for the course he had
adopted than any they had yet heard, that there was
no immediate justification for the haste with which he
had acted, or for the manner in which the duty had
been removed.—(Hear, hear.) Parliament had at all
times been applied to in cases of this kind, when it
' happened to be sitting at the time the alteration was de-
tertnined on. He recollected, indeed, one case in which
the Government had taken it on itself to adopt the course
of the Right Hon. Gentleman, and that was with relation
to Mr. Huskisson's plans on the subject of the silk trade ;
but Parliament was not sitting, and although its sanction
had been obtained immediately afterwards, upon a discus-
sion in-which the proposing of a reduction of the duties
was admitted, yet the course had been found so incon-
venient, it was not afterwards resorted to. The Right
lion. Gentleman concluded by declaring that he was
favourable to the reduction, and so were the Members of
the late Government ; but he thought the course adopted
in the alteration one which should not have been made
use of while Parliament was sitting, and as far as he
could see, unoccupied with any business of importance,
which would have delayed an application to it.—(Hear.)
Mr. ROBINSON said he could not allow the opportu-
nity to pass without also expressing his objection to the
course adopted by the Right lion. Gentleman (Thomson.)
He protested against it as unjust, and calculated to pro-
duce mischief. This was the season at which the mer-
chants who dealt in barilla were in the habit of importing
the quantity they required; and the Right Hon. Gentle-
man informed them that those who took out their barilla
under the new regulations were to give a bond for the
payment of duty, in the event of its being required, if
Parliament refused to sanction the reduction made by the
Treasury. Now he (Mr. Robinson) was at liberty to
argue that this assent would be refits. tl. lie had a right,
for argument sake, to assume it ; and what, then, would
be the consequence of this refusal to those who took the
burilla out for general consumption and sold it to the trade,
when they were afterwards called on to make good their
duty on their bond ?—(Hear.) This was one of the many
instances of the inconvenience of the Right lion. Gen.
tleman's interference in the present instance with a duty
levied under the sanction of that House,.--(Hear.)
Mr, P. THOMSON said be thought the Hon. Gentle-
man (Mr. Robinson) might have found a very sufficient
justification for the course pursued by his Majesty's Go-
vernment in the observations which fell from the Right
Hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Berries). That Right
lion. Gentleman had stated that his Majesty's late Go-
vernment were themselves prepared to bring in a Bill for
the purpose of reducing the duties. That intention had
been, indeed, formally announced in the lest Session of
Parliament; and although not carried into effect, the con-
fusion and the indecision which it introduced into every
branch of the trade had bean so extremely prejudicial, that
many of the dealers, whose future condition the Hon.
Member so much pitied, were already quite done up. As
to the method by which the Government had effected the
alteration, they had merely followed the precedents of
former occasions of the same description, and he could pro-
duce ten cases of the adoption of a similar, and full five of
them, too, without the intervening consent of Parliament.
---(Hear, hear.)—The Right lion. Gentleman, who had
shown so much touchiness on the subject, mentioned the
case of the Silk Duties; but there was also the precedent
of the alteration of the Sugar Duties, on which occasion
the Right lion. Gentleman (the then Chancellor of the
Exchequer) sent an order to the Custom-house on the Ist
of July, to take the duty according to the new scale, before
the House gave its consent to the change.
Mr. HERRIES—The Right lion. Gentleman seems
to forget that the House had pasted a resolution sanction-
ing that scaly...--(Near, hear.)

,
Mr. P. THOMPSON then said, that, at all events,
there were precedents for the course adopted, and he
thought that it could not be denominated in the slightest
degree unconstitutional, while, it must be admitted, it was
productive of immediate advantage.
Sir M. W. RIDLEY also protested against the course
pursued by the Right Hon. Gentleman as in the highest
degree dangerous and injurious, and he hoped, for the
sake of the barilla-makers of this country, that the deter-
mination to alter the duty would undergo some recon-
sideration. Ile was convinced that if the basins manu-
facture of oar own shores were properly encouraged, that
barilla would speedily become one of the staples of the
country. They viewed, however, with the greatest alarm,
the intended alteration of the duties, and he feared, if it
was carried into effect, that the ruin of the home manu-
facturer must be the inevitable annottqueoce.—(Hear.)
Mr. MABERLY expressed his surprise to • hear the
Hon. Member for Newcastle (Sir M. Ridley) give utter.
ance to sentiments so strange on the subject of trade and
manufactures.—(Hear.) It was well known that foreign
barilla was both cheaper and better than any which could
be made its this country ; and if the home trade was to be
encouraged, and the foreign sacrificed, it would merely
compel the consumer of barilla to pay double pries for an
inferior article, which could not be male to suit his purpose.
Mr. COURTENAY spoke against the measure adopted
by the Right iron. Gentleman, and observed, that although
the late Government did pursue the same course with re-
spect to the silk trade, they never had recourse to it after-
wards. He regretted, indeed, that the Government had
followed such a precedent in the present instance.
Mr. ATT WOOD said that the five instances alluded to
by the Right lion. Gentleman, even if they had been
foiled to prove that there were precedents for the measure,
formed no justification in his mind for an act of gross
usurpation of the powers of Parliament by any Govern.
ment, and more particularly by the Members of a Go.
vernmeet scarcely yet fully installed in the offices to which
they were appointed.---(Hear, hear.) In his opinion, it
was not for the Members of a Government of that kind
to take on themselves the responsibility of interfering with
the exercise of one of the most important privileges of
Parliament—the regulation of a great branch of corn-
taxation.—(Hear, hear.) It was for Parliament
and not for the Goverment to judge of the fitness of the
reduction of the duties. The Right lion. Gentleman, it
was true, said that it was determined to submit the sub-
ject to Parliament, and that bonds were to be taken for
the duties ; but he thought that the observations of the
Member for Newcastle (Sir Ai. Ridley), with respect to
the feelings and views of the barilla manufacturers of this
country, would show how unwise and impolitic had been
the haste exercised on the occasion, and that Parliament
were not so fully prepared to sanction the alteration as the
Right Hon. Gentleman imagined. Parliament justly and
Eve with
otnolyintotebrfeerreenttvles
aaonryihmrpaonsedch obfy
wisely viewed with jealousy any attempt on the part of the
assent. --(Hear.) ittahaftultlaixsautbioline
UNDER-SECRETARY FOR IRELAND.
Mr. G. IIANKES, on the question being again put,
took the opportunity to ask a question of the Right lion.
Gentleman opposite (Sir S. Graham), on the subject of the
removal from Office of the Under Secretary of State for
Ireland. He understood that Mr. Gregory, the gentle-
min who filled that office under several suet:mire Adnii.

nistrations, had been dismissed by the present Govern-
ment. Now, as it was a recognised principle that Under-
Secretaries, although removable by a new Government,
were generally retained for public convenience, and be-
cause they were not supposed to be influenced by any po.
litival partialities, the dismissal of Mr. Gregory, a man
possessed of great experience in his office, able to serve the
public, and willing to continue his services, had excited
much surprise both in England and Ireland. Under such
circumstances, and when the public convenience would
have been consulted by retaining Mr. Gregory's services,
it was desirable to know if it was true he had been re-
moved, on what ground the country had been subjected to
the expense of the retiring allowance which that gentleman
was entitled to demand.—( Hear.)

Sir JAMES GRAHAM said he should endeavour to
give a short answer to the somewhat lengthy question of
the Hon. Member for Corfe Castle. It was quite true
that Mr. Gregory had been removed from the office he held
under the late Government, because it was the opinion of
the present Government that the removal was necessary
for the public service, and they had, therefore, taken up an
themselves the full reponsibility which attached to it. He
agreed with the Hon. Member that it was not usual to
remove gentlemen placed in the situation of Under Secre-
tary, and he also agreed with him, that one of the reasons
for not removing them was because they were not con•
sidered open to political partialities; but the existence of
political partiality in the present case was precisely the
reason why the removal had taken place.—( Hear.)
Mr. RUTH VEN approved highly of the conduct of the
Ministers an this occasion, and declared it was absolutely
necessary for the good Government of Ireland that the
office of the Under Secretary of State, which bad long
been a nest of partiality and party spirit, should be
thoroughly cleared.—(Hear.)