The Sun.
London, England, 1840-03-10 00:00:00

EV

NINE EDITION.

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1 the publications of the Hoose,in order to prevent the 1
sissuing of defamatory matter. He had a motion f
on the paper for the appointment of a Com-
I
mittee on that subject, and he should he quite
waling that the Noble Lord oppoe;ite should take
the management of it into his own hands. He would'
just state the nature of the che,_;l,-.3 he wished to be in:-
} posed. In respect to the Votes 'of the House, he did
rot propose any alteration ; the Judge 3 had thcrwelvcs
admitted that their publication by the House rested on
quite a distinct ground, though they used to be perused
and signed by the Speaker. Neither did he mean to
propose any alteration with respect to the publication of
the Appendix, for in regard to that a Committee al-
-1 ready existed upon printed papers, which Committee,
however, had not been successful in always preventing
i publications of obviously libellous papers. As the publi.•
attention had been called to the matter, he had no doubt
that the Committee would take care that no .lefarnatory
1 matter should go forth, unless it was absolutely neees-
-1 :miry for the public good. Cases might occur in which
It would be necessary for the public good to publish
m utter criminatory of individuals, in which cases the
feelin'gs and interests of individuals must give way. But,
on the ~'they hand, the feelings and interests of indivi-
duals were oot to be wantonly injured. Now the Sup-
plement to the; Votes contained the petitions which were
ordered to be pri.nted, and as the present practice was
I to allow petitions id be printed with very little exami-
nation, so that those ,which contained defamatory mat-
ter were circulated throughout the country as eaten-
t sively as the Votes, and as the most innocent petitions
that might be, he proposed, therefore, that no petition
should be printed unless it had bes,en read at the table,
and perused and approved of by thd Speaker. He
! would pass over for the present the reports; and would
~..o on to the head of " accounts and papers. sto
the accounts and papers they would require no ow
care than that which was taken by the parties who
presented them, and therefore with respect to them he
I did not propose any further check. Then as to the
reports they certainly stood in need of
_some check,
1 and what he would suggest was, that in every report
made by their own Committees, the Committee should
state whether there was any reason why the reports
should not be published generally. if the adoption
of such a course would have the effect of drawing the
attention of the House to the propriety, if any
existed, of publishing particular reports—if the course
he had proposed were adopted, then all the publications
of the House would have such checks upon them as
would afford security to the public against any libel-
lous attack ; but he should propose in addition to those
4 checks that there should be a Committee of Publica-
i tion, as there was already a Committee with respect
i to printing. As to selling the publications of the House
he for one approved of it, as he considered there could
not. be a better mode of circulating their papers than by
sale, provided they did not contain any dangerous mat-
ter. He was therefore prepared to support the resolu-
tion in that respect. He (Sir E. Sugden) would much
4 rather not interfere in this matter if the Noble Lord
wo-uld only siky that he would either move for a Com-
mittee' to consider what checks should be provided—the
cases to :which he referred, or would take time to consider
the propoaii.en he had made, he would at once refrain
from all further- interference, and would vote in favour of
the Bill ; but, at tils!t same time, he must say, that if the
Bill were pressed forb7ard without proper checks, be
should feel compelled, hOwever reluctantly, to vote
against the the third reading of the Bill. As to the
clause regarding pending actions, .he thought is so ob-
jectionable, that unless it was withdriWP he should feel
it to be his duty to move its omission. He thought
that the clause could not be maintained upon boy sound
principle ; and that if the House did not strike it out,
it would be struck out elsewhere. He trusted, there-
fore, that the Noble Lord would withdraw the clause.
Mr. WARBURTON thought that the passing of
the Bill now under consideration of the House, and
the manner of printing their papers, were distinct
questions. He deprecated Hon. Members being put
under duresse in order to place the printing of the pub-
lications of the House under certain restrictions, as
. an inducement to others to press the present Bill.
As to the checks upon reports which had been alluded
to by the Right Hon. Gentleman opposite, he did not
consider they were necessary, as ail the Committees of
that House invariably intimated if there was anything
objectionable in the reports. He must deprecate a
Committee of Publication because there was already a
Committee of Printing ; and if the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman would only return to that Committee, he might
I then bring before them the points which he had now
stated to the House. He was most happy to hear
1 that the Right Hon. Gentleman approved of the mode
of selling the publications ; and he trusted that, upon a
1 reconsideration, he would not press all the suggestions
that had fallen from him.