The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-19 00:00:00

under the Poor-law Act, and sanctioning the same cold-blooded
and cruel system towards the parties ,who received pensions.
It was net the fault of the most of them who were on the
Pension List, that they were there—the fault lay with those
who placed them on it. He, for one, never would subject
such persons to the searching and cruel examinations which
some Members of that House appeared to think would be in-
stituted.—( Hear.) Reference had been made to the conduct
of the Hon. Member for Southwark on the Poor-law Com-
mittee. He must say of that conduct that he had never seen
anything more fair, more honourable, nor more intrepid.
The Hon. Member had, with respect to the publications corn.
plained of, declared himself their author.—( Hear.) The
Honourable Member had said, " If you believe that I am
violating the privileges of the House, take the sense of the
House upon it.—( Hear, hear.) Carry the question before the
House, and I shall not tell you at present what I mean to do
after you have a resolution of the House."—( Hear, hear.) In
giving these publications the Honourable Member had made
the poor of the kingdom, and the friends of the poor, acquainted
with what was passing in the Committee, and he said to them
—" If you have complaints to make, let them be made now,
for here is a Committee sitting."—( Hear, hear, hear.) Was
it not, he asked of them, a farce to be so nice about a breach
of their privileges when within a few yards of them they be-
held their privileges violated daily ? Was it not a violation of
their privileges to publish their debates, and yet were they
not published daily, and would the people of England submit
to it if they were not published daily ?—( Hear, hear.) He
was glad that the people would be able to see how a man was
treated in that House who stood up for popular rights, a man
whose talents were an honour and dignity to that assembly,
and who shed a lustre upon every subject that he discussed. It
was a disgrace to that House to have permitted him to be so
long and so violently persecuted. As to the inquiry respect-
ing the Woods and Forests, the Hon. Member had been ex-
cluded from it : neither was he permitted to be on the in-
quiry into Charities, when twenty unknown persons were
placed on the Commission. He had seen enough of that
House to know that if a man there steed up for popular
tights, he must always calculate upon violent persecution.
Mr. E. L. Mlle WER having served on Committees of
that House with the Hon. and Learned Member for South.
wark, could state that he had always known the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman to have sincerely and conscientiously dis-
charged his duty.—( Hear, hear.) He had always said that
the Hon. and Learned Member for Southwark was an ill-used
and injured man.---( Hear, hear.) Before, however, he ap-
proached the subject before the Honse he must state that the
Hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Wakley) began his speech
with the most extraordinary misstatement possible. That
Hon. Member had put into the mouth of the Right lion.
Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer the sentiments
which had fallen from the Right Hon. Baronet, the Member
for Tamworth.—(Cries of " Hear, hear!" and " No, no !")
His Right Hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer
had not uttered a single sentence respecting the opinions of
the lion. and Learned Gentleman the Member for Southwark
upon the analogy he had drawn between the Poor-laws and
Pensions. The Hon. Member for Finsbury had also mis-
stated the sentiments of the Noble Lord the Member for
Northumberland. That Noble Lord (Lord ilowick) did not
say that there was anything in the sentiments of the lion, and
Learned Member for Southwark which should preclude him
from serving on this Committee ; but he did say that there was
something in his ( Mr. Harvey's) sentiments which ought to
make them feel doubly the responsibility of entrustirg the lion.
and Learned Member with discretionary poa en—(lean )
lie approached this question with great reluctance. He cer-
tainly did think that the Committee would not be satisfactory
if the name of the Hon. and Learned Member for Southwark
were omitted —( Hear. ) But he considered this, whether it
was not the greater evil of the two, that they should suffer one
Man, however able and influential, openly to disregard and
disdain an express resolution of that House.—( Hear, hear. )
The Honourable Member for Oxford ( Mr. Maclean) and other
Honourable Members who had spoken on this question, ap-
peared to think that punishment was better than prevention.—
( Hear, hear.) Instead cf endeavouring to prevent the con-
sequences that would occur to the Honourable and Learned
Gentleman if he persisted in committing a breach of privilege,
those Honourable Members seemed to exult in the prospect of
the Honourable and Learned Member being brought to the
bar of that House. What would the house do in that case,
supposing the Honourable and Learned Gentleman the Member
for Southwark persisted in his publication? Would they
send for the publisher or printer of the True Sun, and send
him to Newgate, or would they vote for the expulsion
of the Hon. and Learned Member? There might be resolu-
tions of the House of which it was very desirable that the in-
fringement should be punished, but some of those resolutions
might be strained too hardly. Besides, they had a duty to
do towards the pensioners. They would not look for just-lee
from the Committee if they saw one member intrusted with
power, which none of the other Members had, and that man,
too, the most clorent, the most inveterate, and the most
consistent of their enemies.—( Hear, hear.) Under all the
circumstances, what had Government to do ? They never
said—end let it go forth to the people, and be rightly under-
stood—they never said, cr proposed to say, that the Hon. and
Learned Member for Southwark ought not to be placed an the
Committee. He clearly understood them not so to have said.
On the contrary, they carne forward and did justice to his talerts
and services, and incited him to become a member cf the Com-
mittee. They stated that they fully appreciated the services
which the Hon. and Learned Gentleman had rendered, but that
if compelled to form a choice, they would prefer even to his
assistance. valuable though it might be, the certainty of fair
play towards all part ies.—( Hear, hear.) 'limy preferred also,
as men standing up for the dignity of the House, the de-
clared resolution of the House to the opinion of an individual
Member, and they preferred rather to prevent a breach of pri-
vilege than to punish it after it was commi:tad. Ile would
only say further, that, having invariably voted with the Hon.
and Learned mber for Southwark on all his motions for in-
quiry, he thought it but fair and manly in the present instance
to state that it was with a feeling of regret he was compelled
to vote against him ' n the present occasion.
Mr. P. BORTHWICK wculd like to know whether the
Right Hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had
gone to she other t weaty-oae members of the Committee, and
put to them questions such as he had put to the Hon. and
Learned Member for Southwark ?—( ilear.) lie would sup-
port the motion of the Hon. Baronet the Member for Caithness.

Mr. AG LION B Y regretted to be compelled on this occa-
sion to differ from the course taken by the Government. He
thought that the course Government was taking would be un-
popular and deservedly unpopular in the country.--( Hear,
hear.) If they rejected the Hon. and Learned Member, the
country, which had for many years seen that Hon. and Learned
Member call for an investigation into the Pension Lis!.—
which had seen that call at length attended to, and the ques-
tion taken out of the Hon and Learned Member's hands—
the country, he would repeat, would not place much confi-
dence in the report of a Committee on the Pension List if the
Hon. and Learned Member for Southwark were excluded from
the Committee.

Sir A. DA L RY\IPLE would follow the course chalked
out by the Right lion Baronet the Member for Tamworth.
Mr. D. W. fl ARVE Y could not forogo the pleasure of
offering the thanks of a grateful and generous heart to his
Hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. E. L. Bulwer),
and also to the Hon. Baronet the Member for Caithness, for
his noble and manly and kind hearted expressions of opinion
arising from a long sad disinterested attention to the investi-
gation in which he ( Mr. Harvey) had been so deeply in.
terested ; he could not help also stating his hope and
belief, as he was not one of those who disconnected the
destinies of man with higher justice, that the time was
not remote when men, forgetting the low and grovelling con-
flicts of party, would not be the less inclined to believe him
because it had been his misfortune to have suffered one of
the most severe, the most relentless courses of persecution
ever inflicted by an irresponsible despotism. Having said
thus much, he would conic to the question. He could not con-
cede to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the truth of his
anxiety to place him on this Committee. The pretension
was falsified on three palpable grounds. The Chancellor of
the Exchequer had stated that he originally proposed that
the Civil List Committee upon which his (Mr. Harvey's)
name did not appear, should be the only Committee to which
the inquiry into pensions should be committed. What, then,
did the Chancellor of the Exchequer mean by telling the
House,land through him the country, that from the beginning he
thought hins.(s,lr. Harvey) one of the first who ought ta be ap-
pointed? The Chancellor of the Exchequer had himself stated
that the same Committee should inquire into the Pension
List that had carried through the Civil List Reform. Ho
would then come to the letter which the Chancellor of the
Exchequer had written. He would say nothing which should
challenge the right of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, from
his official position, to send letters to Members of that House
which any other Member of that House would not have ven-
tured to have written. But he should like to know by what
right the Chancellor of the Exchequer called a Member of
that House into Downing-street to ask him what he would do,
or what he would not do. But when the Chancellor of the
Exchequer had done so, though his ( Mr. Harvey's) letter
was written in a hurry, he would venture to say that, if the
correspondence were placed on the votes of the House, and
subjected to the deliberate and calm consideration of its Mem-
bers, it would be at once ascertained that the Chancellor of
the Exchequer had come to a conclusion that was untenable.
What was his (Mr. Harvey's) reply? Whilst on the one
hand he spurned the indignity attempted to be put upon him,
by leading him into an unworthy contract, lie said be would
indeed be disqualified from holding a seat in that House, or
to associate in any way with gentlemen, if he had consented
to any agreement of the kind, and that he would not for
a moment consent that a great public right should, in his
humble person, be prejudiced by making contemptible con-
ditions in order to get placed on a hard-working Commit-
tee. He did also say, and he unfeignedly repeated it,
that there might be circumstances in which it would be
not only undesirable, but highly unjust to publish evidence
in the way alluded to. At the same time he (Mr. Harvey)
was not now a new Member—he was of twenty years' standing
in that Houle, and he appealed to those who had known him
during that period, to witness in justification of his statement,
that his course had implied, not only an upright judgment,
but a generous and kindly feeling. Although the Chancellor
of the Exchequer in his letter disclaimed giving an opinion
upon his (Mr. Harvey's) conduct on the Poor-law Committee,
the Noble Lord ( Lord Howick) his colleague, had not done
so, as what the Chancellor of the Exchequer had disclaimed,
that Noble Lord had taken up as a most prominent ground of
objection. The Noble Lord ia referring to his conduct on the
Poor-law Committee, had made a great mistake es to the
• facts. First of all he might be allowed to call the attention
Tee* Lord the Secretary for the Home Department
NfVc sell) to what had passed iii the Committee, and
,-----.. --litilionaitTab Friend the Member for Kilkenny (Mr.
<2;;T::----"Jfjunre) .iii I ' atigable Member of that Committee, would
q1....r 713eaileatinioti' the truth of his statements. The paper
11.-.. i.. : ' Ai:th‘yibtojii Mr. Harvey) was connected, was not the'
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