The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-12 00:00:00

APPROPRIATION mu.

On the motion for going into Conlnnitteeon this Bill,
Sir G. SINCLAIR complained of large sums of 'money
being voted away without due delibjration, when o many days
were wasted in useless debate. If they took together the de-
bates on the Sugar Duties, and:'Ae vote of no confidence,
they Is ou!d be found to occupy nearly a month. He thought the
'practice of aijourned debates must by common consent, be put
ail end to.' lie thought, also, that the leaders of both parti's
were, of all others, the most to blame, since they never got up
until a very late hour in the evenina. He wished the accom-
plished gentlemen in the front benches were an are of the in-
convenience to which this conduct put their friends behind
them ; and of how much gentienclen complained of being
brought down to the House at a very late hour (the early Fart
of the evening having been wastrd), that some gentle-
men might make an eloquent speech to full benches.
—(Cries of " Hear, hear.") 116-thought that if Catiline
bad got up in the Roman Senate, and made a v -ry long speech
at some such an unseasonable hour as Hon. Gentlemen were
accustomed to rise, the conscript f:theri nould not have failed
to apostrophise him, " Quousque tandem. abutere, Catilina,
patientia nostra?" If Brutus hqd risen to speak at three
o'clock in the morning his best f lends would have exclaimed,
" Et 4.u, Brute!" and he conceived; that if ever' Cicero had
kept them to so late an hour, the Senators would have been
found walking listlessly in the lobby,'inquiring " Is Cicero still
up?"—( Laughter.) Ile had two 'remedies for the present
evil of protracted oiscus-ion ; he wlould propose either that on
an understanding between both sidel, tellers might be appointei
who would take the names of all Hon. Members who wished to

Lave the House till eleven o'clock; 'and that they should then
depart, leaving any who might please to remain in the Howe ;
or if that plan were not thought a ivisable, he should recom-
mend th,tt on the mt.eting of the House, after an adjourned
debate, they should proceed immediately to a division.
The Appropriation Bill went through Committee, and tl e
Report was ordered to be brought up en Monday.
ELECTION PETITIONS TRIAL BILL.

Sir GEORGE CLERK having moved the second re idirg
of this Bill,

Mr. VERNON SMITH expressed his belief the. it world
not meet all the exigencies of the. case. In his opinion elec-
tion petitions could never be satisfactorily tried until the juris-
diction was removed altogether from the House.
Sir G. CLERK said that the obSerrations of the Hon. Gen-
.

tleman did nut apply to the immediate question before the
House. It would be impossible at the present period of the
Session to discuss the general subject to which the Hon.
Member had referred. The object of the present Bill
was merely to introduce some alteiations in the present mea-
sure, particularly as regarded the!. Committee of Selection.
It was desirable that the Bill should be made as perfect as pos •
sible, and the provisions now proposed to be introduced in it
were merely intended to remove certain difficulties which had
occurred. One of the alterations proposed was to make
the attendance of the Chairman compulsory. He
agreed entirely with the HonOrable Gentleman that
some such .enactment would be itecesary, as he thought
it would be impossible to secure tliCir attendance without such
enactment. Another alteration was for the purpose
of removing difficulties which had occurred with regard to the
serving of notices. Another difficulty had arisen as to cases
where more than one petition had been presented against a re-
turn. It was proposed to consider'all such as one petition, and
refer them to the Committee of Selection. His Right Hon.
Friend proposed to re-enact the wltole of the former Bill, and
the alterations proposed to be introduced would be printed in
italics, so that ficn. Alembers epuld see at a glance the alte-
rations intended.

Mr. ORD did not think the'Bil ,had totally failed ; on the
contrary, he thought it a great improvement on the old law.
He objectel to givin,r to any tribhnal out of the House the
power of trying election petitions.
Lord M A HON s• ill retained his ...original opinion the. no mea-
sure that did not take away from Committees of the Huse the
power of deciding on election petitions would be satisfactory.
He thcught that, considering the party feelings by which
Members of that House were Agitated, they were quite
disqualified from coming to any Cccision on such a question.
In :aging this he meant to cast no imputation on any Member
or body of Members, and he considered his observations ap-
plied to himself with the same foice that they did to any other
Member.

Mr. C. BULLER thought the'Bill had intrcduced a great
deal of practical good, and he considered it still more valuable
as a step to further improvement. He thought the plan
of the Right Honourable Baronet had bad the effect of
increasing the intelligence of Election Committees. He thought
the mode of selecting the Chairman a great improvement, and
he thought it desirable to have as permanent a Chairman as
possible. The question whether such Chairman should be of
the House or .out .of the House, teas a very grave one, and re-
quired much consideration. He was not prepared to go to
the extent of making the service pf the Chairman compulsory.
INo set of men would be harder worked than they would be
during the next. session, aed it 'Would be a monstrous jujus,
tice to the Chairman and doubling the difficulties of the Com-
mittee of Selection. He therefoix hoped that no such clause
would be proposed.
Mr. PRYME objected to the p'an Of rejecting all lawyers
from Committees, unless they were able to procure the most
eminet.t in the profession. Such a course was most prepos-
terous.

Lord ELIOT thought tie duty of Chairman was not
more onerous than that of any individual serving on the Com.
mit tee.

After a few ♦cords from Mr. OliD and Mr. PAYME, the Bill
was read a second time.

The Metropolis Improvement Bill was read a third time and
pa-sed.