The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-25 00:00:00

THE FOREIGN SECRETARY.

Mr. CAYLEY wished to ask the noble lord the
member for the City of London two questions. He
wished to know in the first place, if it was true that the
noble lord no longer held the seals of the Foreign-office,
and secondly, if that were so, was the noble lord con-
nected with any office to which a salary was attached
Lord J. RUSSELL said it was true that he no longer
held the seals of the Foreign-office, nor did he hold any
office in the Government to which a salary was attached.
Mr. CAYLEY gave notice that ou an early day he
should move a resolution to the effect, that a salary
should be attached to the office of leader of the house.
STEAM-PACKET SERVICE.
In reply to Mr. H. BERKELEY,
Sir J. GRAHAM said it was true that the Peninsular
and Oriental Steam-packet Company had memorialised
the Admiralty to be relieved from a part of their contract
for carrying the mails, and the memorial was now under the
consideration of a committee, of which the Postmaster-
General was the chairman.
PUBLIC BUSINESS.
In reply to Lord J. MANNERS,
Lord J. RUSSELL stated that it was proposed to
take the army estimates to-morrow, the ordnance esti-
mates on Monday, and the Clergy Reserves of Canada
Bill to-morrow week • but this latter arrangement was
not to be considered final.

Mr. SPOONER—But the Clergy Reserves Bill will
not be brought on before to-morrow week.
Lord J. RUSSELL replied certainly not.
BREACH OF PRIVILEGE.
Mr. T. DUNCOMBE presented a petition from Col.
Dickson, complaining of the withdrawal of the petition
against the return of the sitting members for the borough
of Norwich. The hon. member then proceeded to call
the attention of the house to a question of privilege. His
attention was draern..to this subject by an advertisement
in the Times newspaper, in which Colonel Dickson stated
that he was ready to proire at the bar of the house that-
a breach of privilege had been committed by Mr. Brown,
a parliamentary agent, in withdrawing this petition.
Brown was no agent at all of the petitioners, and had no
right to withdraw thepetition, andg that wore the case, a
decided breach of privilege had been committed. Me
would therefore move that Colonel Dickson and Mr.
Brown be summoned to the bar and questioned on the
subject of the petition. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. HUME deprecated the course his hon. friend had
taken in bringing forward this motion without notice.
Mr. W. PATTEN had no wish to strangle the mo-
tion of the hon. member, but considered that the matter
would be better disposed of by a select committee.
Lord J. RUSSELL considered that the petition
should be printed, and then it could be considered by
the house.
The SPEAKER said that it appeared to him at pre-
sent that no breach of privilege had been shown, and
that the motion was out of order unless th•
house decided to the contrary ; but after some conversa-
tion,

Mr. DUNCOMBE consented to withdraw his origi-
nal motion, and moved that the petition be printed, with
the votes, with the view of founding a motion upon it
hereafter.
The original motion was accordingly withdrawn, and
the motion for printing the petition was agreed to.
NEWRY ELECTION COMMITTEE.
Mr. LASCELLES brought up the report of the
Newry committee, which was that Mr. Kirk, the sitting
member, had been dilly elected a burgess to serve in the
present Parliament for the borough of Newry.