The Sun.
London, England, 1831-07-27 00:00:00

Ind the coupling of them together reminded him of the
information which the Right Hon. Gentleman had com-
municated to the House on a former evening, that there
.vac a river in Macedon and a river in Monmouth. He
thought that Macedon and Old Sarum had as much con-
nection as Old Sarum and St. Germaine.

Mr. LAMBERT (Wexford) said it was impossible
that, when a general rule was laid down, there should not
he some exceptions to it. The real question was, whether
or not the principle was a sound and a wise oae, and whe-
ther it was applied in a fair and honest manner. He be-
lieved that the principle was applied in the present instance
in a fair and honest manner.

Sir IL PEEL said, he supposed that the Hon. Member
for Rye would report the Hon. Member who had just sat
down to those members of the Political Union of Man-
chester, who were becoming exasperated at the delay which
the Reform Bill had experienced, and who had determined
to denounce such Members of that House, who, when the
details of the Bill came under consideration, chose to touch
on perfectly irrelevant topics.--(Cheers and laughter from
the Opposition.) The Hon. Member (Mr. Lambert) had
called upon the different Reformers in that House to come
forward and defend their opinions, and had laid the foun-
dation of almost interminable debates ; and whenever
delay and factious opposition should be again charged
against the gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House,
he would always refer to the example of the Hon. 'Mem-
ber, who had given provocation to debate, which required
the utmost forbearance to resist.—(Hear, hear.) It would
therefore be but fair, for the vengeance of the members of
the Political Union to fall solely and singly on the head of
the Hon. Member himself.—(Hear, and laughter.) The
Right Hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Stanley) slid that
the disfranchisement of the borough of St. Germains
might be a departure from the letter of the Bill, but it was
an adherence to its principle. Then he (Sir R. Peel)
was at a loss to know what the principle was ; and he
thought that the Right Hon. Gentleman was bound to
show that this borough would continue to be a nomina-
tion borough, when the new constituency of 10/. voters
was thrown in. He doubted the policy of disfranchise-
ment of the kind proposed. By it that portion of the
agricultural pepulation, not being freeholders or copy-
holders, but inhabitants of 10/. houses, would be de-
prived of the right of voting; while, on the other
hand, if the franchise of boroughs was extended into
the surrounding districts, that particular class of persons
would be admitted into the franchise, and form a more in-
dependent set of voters than the householders in towns,
because, being more scattered, they would be less likely to
be acted upon by political clubs and unions.—(Hear.)
But the Right Hon. Gentleman had stated that the object
of the Bill was to prevent small towns being swamped by
country constituencies. Now he (Sir R. Peel) had
always understood that the object of the Bill was to de-
stroy the unity and individuality of every town, and admit
a new class of voters from agricultural parishes.—(Hear,
hear.) In fact, how had Ministers acted with respect to
the borough of Christchurch? The area of Christchurch
was 27 square miles, or 1,700 statute acres. The total
number of ten-pound houses in the borough of Christ-
church was eight; and therefore the surrounding district
was to be included, in order to make up the requisite
number of 300. Then how could the Right Hon. Gen-
tletnan contend that the spirit of the Bill was not to
swamp small towns into country districts?—(Hear.) He
therefore was of opinion that the spirit of the Bill would
not be violated by allowing St. Germaine to retain the
elective franchise.—(Hear.)
Mr. LAMBERT stated, in reference to what hod fallen
from the Right Hon. Baronet respecting the Political
Union of Manchester, that the indignation of any indivi-
dual or society was perfectly indifferent to him.--(" Hear,
hear," from the Opposition.)
Sir R. PEEL applauded the sentiments of the Hon.
Member, but informed him, that at an early period of the
evening, during the progress of the Bill, they were
threatened with the enmity of the members of the Political
Union if any delay with respect to the Reform Bill took
place ; aad he certainly thought that the Hon. Member
ought to be the first person against whom their enmity
should be directed.—(Hear.)
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL did not by any means
;pink that the impatience expressed out of doors on the
subject of the Reform Bill was a matter to be thrown

out of consideration by any part of the House. I 3 pro-
posing disfranchisement it was necessary for Goveenment
to draw some line, and it was surprising that gentlemen
on the other aide of the House had not been able to make
out the appearance of more anomalies than they had as
yet.—(Hear hear.) The Bill had not been brought in
fur the purpose of removing anomalies ; its object was to
remove the gross and disgraceful abuses of the system of
nomination boroughs, alike dishonourable to the nomi-
nators and nominees,—(Hear, hear.) Therefore, in pro-
posing to take St. Germaine out of schedule A, it was
not enough for lion. Gentlemen to shew him that there
were some boroughs omitted which ought to have been
inserted in the sebedule—they had to prove that St. Ger-
mains was not a nomination borough. The only question
for the House to consider was, whether the line adopted by
Ministers had not been fairly and honestly acted upon?
In fact, the only difficulty which Ministers had experienced
in applying their principle, arose out of the circumstance
of having paid too much consideration to those boroughs
which were under the influence of persons opposed to the
Government. Take, for instance, the cases of Aldborough
and Buckingham. —(Hear, hear.) The Hon. and Learned
Gentleman had coupled Macedon and Old Sarum together,
fur what purpose he could not imagine. Macedon was
under the sway of Alexander; under whose sway Old
Sarum was, perhaps the Hon. and Learned Gentleman
could tell.—( Laughter.)
Mr. CROKER might observe of the Hon. and Learned
Gentleman's oration " that nothing in his speech became
him like the end of it." In justification of the course
which he and those with whom he acted were pursuing
with regard to the borough under consideration, he begged
to remind the Committee that they had displayed equal
zeal on behalf of Downton. They were equally zealous to
(nHoteanro,whepaori..)tingGoenu-t
thiaevneiejuusotnichis e tsmiteleoonf the ohcfcoaussieonws.e—re
the anomalies which existed in the Bill. There were
and Westminster on lin equal fociting. It was an
plenty of them if they cilosoi.sehtoousreeifieorldteorsthienrn.
Westmoreland
was
san
anomaly to place the
anomaly to give Mahon two representatives, and the great
only
fontlete.
upon by Minis-
ters .e n
complainedofT ioesl teo nowocoiant
caoinfn.ivnhig,adda4tObi
violations
Ons O i n
or
fe
sot
eaebdit it
principles ,
in order to save Caine from disfranchisement, and he
thought he should be able to establish that proposition to
the satisfaction of the Committee. It would he necessary
to refer to some papers upon the table of the House, which
Ministers had referred to as auxiliary of the population
returns of 1821. The information contained in these
th the
developed,intentio intentions
and
Ministers papers
Reforma time
were
en
not
when consequently there could have been no inducement to
vlaisVitfuhrrneissph:Cdt atot
deceive. This information would prove that if Govern-
ment had been true to their intentions, Caine ought to
have been in schedule A. In a paper dated the 24th Ja-
nuary, 1831, the following passage was to be found—" The
borough of Caine is only part of the parish in which it
stands, but the parish includes 8,000 acres." He begged
the Committee to observe that this very same number of
acres in the ease of poor St. Germains, was to exclude that
borough from the representative system. The same paper
stated the male population of Caine at 996 ; therefore,
taking the females to be in equal number, the gross popu-
lation would be under 2,000, and the borough should have
been placed in schedule A. " Oh," said the farmers of the
Bill, " that must never be ; we must proceed upon some
other principle. Let us put the borough and the parish
together, and make 8,000 acres of it, and give it a popu-
lation of 4,500 members, so that it may return two Meta.
bers." " But," said some friend of Ministers, "if you
put the pariah and borough together in the case of St.
Germains, that will return two Members." Ministers,
however, disregarded that suggestion, trusting doubtless
that some lucky accident would allow them to escape front
tiolnti,ch in
the
was
their inconsistencies. In the case of Downton their excuse
was, that the Earl of Radnor met the Noble Lord opposite
in the library, and told him Downton ought to go into
schedule A ; and so because two Lords suet in the library
of the House of Commons, the new constitution of Eng-
land
inconsiderablelielr. )
in Aldborough,population, v
preserved,
amount of taxes, and in every point, than St. Germaine.
was changed.—(Hear.)
wayang moree d.
The population of disfranchised St. Germains was 2,400,
whilst the population of enfranchised Aldborough was
2,129. The number of male inhabitants in despicable St.
Germains was 217, and the number in the flourishing
and dignified borough of Aldborough was 236. Th
number of houses in St. Germains typal 446, and in Alit-
borough 409. Thus it appeared, that Aldborough was
in every respect inferior to Sr. Germains, and yet the former
was preserved, whilst the latter was destroyed,--(Hear).
When the proper time should arrive, he would propose
to remedy these cases of injustice. For the present, he
would content himself with having shown that Ministers
had not honestly adhered to the rule which they had laid
down.—(Hear.)
Lord J. RUSSELL said that Ministers Lad dealt with
other boroughs in precisely the same manner as 'hey had
dealt with Caine. To show that they could not have been
influenced by any desire to promote the political influence
' of the Whig party, he might observe, that out of fifteen
preserved boroughs in schedule B, which were in the same