The Sun.
London, England, 1831-07-06 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS, JULY :1.

Toe -House tnet at Four o'clock, and after prayers NV a%
adjourned till Five o'clock, when
The LORD CHANCELLOR tolk his .seat on the
Woolsack.
The Alatqltis of WESTMEATH presented two peti-
tions from places in the county of Meath, praying for an
alteration in the laws relating to Grand Juries in Ireland.
The Noble Marquis entered into a long statement of facts
within his own knowledge, to show the evil working of
the present system, and begged their Lordships to take the
prayer of these pttitions into their early consideration.
Mr. BEtt.r.AL, and others, from the House of Commons,
brought up two private Bills, which were read a first time.,
Lord Wynfwd's Bill to prevent delay and reduce the ex.;
pence of suits in the Courts of Wcstminster Halt was
passed through a Committee, ordered to be engro,ad, and
to be read a third time on Thursday neat.
The House then adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, JULr
The SrEAKEtt took his seat at Four o'clock. The body
of the House wait very full of Members, and the gallery
was crowded at an early hour.
The Marquis o!' CHANDOS gave notice of his inten-
tion to movi., the following addition to the Reform Bill in
the Committee oil that Bill :..---" That any person occupy-
ing and firming on his own account land of not less value
than 50/. a year, though without a specific tenure of the
land, shall he entitled to vote at elections of Knights of
the Shire wherein the land is situated; provided always
that no such occupant shall he entitled to vote until he
shall have been one year in the bona fide possession of
ouch land."
Mr. HUNT presented a petition from Ashton-under-
Lime, praylo7, for annual Parliamenta, universal suffrage,
and vote liy balled. The petitioners expressed their opinion
that every male adult paying, taxes, of sound mind and free'
from crime, should be entitled to vote for -repr6erstatives'
in Parliament, and he (Mr. Hunt) entirely concurred with
them it that opinion. He was Surprised that the nuinber
of these petition., did not prove a warning to Hon.
Gentlemen on the seine side of the
.House :is he sat, but •
he could not help thinking that before long iloth Whigs'
and Tories would join in granting what the petitioners)
wished for ; he was, however, surprised that gentlemen
opposed even the RN brought in by Ministers, which
went but a short way for the people's rights..—The petition
was read and ordered to be printed;
The HON. Mtantra then presented a petition from four.
parishes in Brecknockshire, detailing the'evils of the tithe,
system, and praying for itn'alteration of the tithe laws.--
-Read and ordered to be printed.
Mr. L. WELLESLEY presented a petition fi mu the in-
habitants of Marlborough, in favour of Reform. The Hon. •
Member referred to a petition which had been presented'
on a former evening gainst the Reform Bill ; he
L. Wellesley) then stated that that petition had beet got.
up by the members of the Corporation, and that persons
had been induced to sign it by being threatened if tiny
fused to be deprived of their share in the funds of a charity
in the hands of the Corporation. This was denied by the.
Hon. Member who presented that petition, but he had -
since received a corroboration of his statement, and the
present petition had been entrusted to him in consequence,'
by which it would he seen that the former petition did
not speak the sentiments of the majority of the inhabitants'
of the town.
Mr. W. J. BANKES felt surprised that the Hon.
Member should be the voluntary machine of presenting
such a petition, the effect intended to be produced by
which was, to neutralise a petition which he bad pro.
sented from the householders of Marlborough. Was it,
he would ask, intended by this petition to prove that
his petition was not true. His petition had
been signed by upwards of 130 persons, while
that of the Hon. Member was only signed by 119, •
which 119 signatures had been procured with the utmost
difficulty, and only by dint of going from house to house.
He (Mr. Bankes) wished to know whether the Hon.
Member was aware that the petition he had presented
asked for election by ballot, as be could not bring himself
to think that it did. The greater part of the inhabitants •
of Marlborough were totally against the proposed plan of.
Reform.

wouldtenkleaititiopn of theonhi vicinityselftostts
thallirtbeWg7EreLatLEinSasiE s'olf the population
Marlborough were in favour of Parliamentary Reform.
REFORM BILL.
Lord J. RUSSELL moved that the Order of the Day
fur the adjourned debate be read. The original motion
and amendment were then read by the Clerk of the House,
and
Mr. R. A. DUNDAS then rose, and said, that having
on a former occasion received the indulgence of the House,
when he had ventured to express his opinion on the sub-
ject now under its consideration, he should trespass very
et,ortly on the patience of the House in the observations
he was now about to offer. Ile could not admit the prin-
ciple laid down by the Hon. Member for Kirkcudbright,
that this was an improper eeason for Members connected
with Scotland, to call the attention of the House to any
hut that part of the Bill which referred to that country.
He had no hesitation in saying, that the thanks of the
House were due for the arrangement which the Hon.
Member for Newark hail made with Government, that
those three measures should be placed before the House at
once, in order that an opportunity might be furnished for
considerately trying the merits of the Bill upon its prin-
ciple and its details as well. lie begged it to be understood
that in the observations he should now offer, if he strictly
confined himself to the two points of the measure which
' applied to England and Scotland, without alluding to that
part which related to Ireland, he could assure
Honourable Members who were connected with that
country, that it did not arise front any indifference to
her interests, but because, feeling himself less conversant
with its history, he should leave that to those who
could do it much better than himself.--(licar, hear.)
He had listened with great attention to the able
speech made by the Right Honourable Member for
Knareshorough, and also to the statement made by the
Noble Lord, the Paymaster of the Forces, on the evening
when he introduced the measure ; and although be did not
pretend to question the facts deduced front history which
the Noble Lord and the Right lion. Gentleman asserted,
to justify the great change which Government wished to
introduce into the Constitution, yet there was nothing in
these facts which could justify the sweeping, unconstitu-
tional proposition to which they called on the House
to accede. The Noble Lord contended that their
never had occurred a period for fifty years together
at which the Constitution had temained the same, and
that Ministers were not the first who, with unhal-
lowed hands, now dared to violate the sacredness of
the Constitution. But if it were admitted that
changes had been progressively going on in the
Constitution, and that these changes tended to coutism
the liberties of the people, he contended that with
all the knowledge from history brought to beer as
precedent on this measure, they did not take
into consideration the gradual succession of these changes.
That changes most important hod taken place he did not
deny, nor did he admit that these were attended with injury ,
to the Constitution. This was obvious from the simple fact,
that in those changes in which they had been at-
tended with benefit they had continued to form
part of the Constitution, while in every instance
in which they had been attended with injury they had
almost immediately been discontinued. But he said
it with firmness, and with much confidence in die
assertion, that from the days of Henry VII., down to
the present time, no change had been introduced, so ge-
neral in its provisions and so sweeping in its nature as that
proposed by Ministers. It might perhaps have happened wh it
he had heat d stated by an Hon. Baronet in that House (the
Member for Westminster) that the first alterations might,
in a manner, be somwhat of an innovation on the Con-
stitution, but he would say in the earliest feudal times of
our history, when the contest was carried on between that
House and the Barons, that the people might at that period
have exercised the right of voting without any particular
definite qualifications. But as good government and social
older were the best proofs of the blessings of a Consti-
tution, he was willing, for the sake of argument, to
take a history of the rights of the electors, of the
elections of England, from the days of Queen Elizabeth.
The Noble Lord who introduced the measure had referred
with much exultation to the Constitution during the reign
of the Tudors; and argued that because the Constitution was
not tl.en settled, he in those days was justified in
making a considerable change. But, although the Con-
stitution was not settled at that time, yet there
did exist, both before and ever since that crisis,
the same right of election throughout the cities and boroughs
of this country, whirls existed at the present moment. The
same system continued to influence the electors of that
House during the subsequent dy nasty of the Stuart,, and by
that influence were secured to the Commons of England
those distinguished privileges whichthey now enjoyed. Itwts
stated by the Noble Lord, and acceded to by the Right
Hon. Member for Knaresborough, to free themselves from.
the charge of Republicanism, that they followed the illus-
trious example of Lord Clarendon. 13nt die system in ‘
troduced by Cromwell was not to be takes as a sample of
what would have been introduced by Lost Clarendon, :is
even that introduced by the fernier Acae much nun
moderate and conservative than that proposed by