The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-13 00:00:00

PRINTED PAPERS BILL.

(From the Times.)
The effect of this Bill, as amended by the Lords, is as
Fellows
It enables any person who is now, or hereafter shall be,
a defendant in any civil or criminal proceeding commenced
or prosecuted on account of the publication of any report,
.I.iper, votes, or proceedings of either House of Parliament,
to obtain an order of the Court or Judge for staying such
proceeding, by producing to such Court or Judge (after
'24 hours' notice of his intention to do so to the plahitiff or
prosecutor) a certificate under the hand of the Lord
'Chancellor or Speaker of the House of Lords, or of
the Clerk of the Parliaments, or of the Speaker of the
House of Commons, or of the Clerk of that House,
.stating that the report, paper, votes, or proceedings, as the
case may be, in respect of which such civil or criminal
proceeding shall have been commenced or prosecuted, was
published by such person, or by his servant or servants, by
order or under the authority of the House of Lords or
Commons, as the case may be; the certificate to be ac-
companied by to affidavit verifying it.
it enables also any person who shall hereafter be a
defendant in any civil or criminal proceeding to be com-
menced or prosecuted on account of the publication of
any copy of such report, paper, votes, or proceedings, to
lay before the Court or Judge such report, paper, &c.,
and such copy, with an affidavit verifying the report,
paper, &c., and the correctness of the copy, and the
Court or Judge is thereupon to stay such civil or criminal
pxc:eding.

It make; also the publication of any extract or abstract
of such report, paper, &c., bona fide, and without malice,
a good defence to any action for such publication.
It provides, as was provided by the Commons' Bill, that
nothing in the Act shall be taken, " directly or indirectly,
by implication or otherwise, to affect the privileges of Par-
liament in any manner whatsoever."
" A Bill entitled An Act to give Summary Protection.
to Persons employed in the Publication of Parliamen-
tary Papers.'
" 1. Whereas it is essential to the due and effectual
exercise and discharge of the functions and duties of
Parliament, and to the promotion of wise legislation, that
no obstructions or impediments should exist to the pub-
lication of such of the reports, papers, votes, or pro-
ceedings of either House of Parliament as such House
of Parliament may deem fit or necessary to be
published ; and whereas obstructions or impediments
to such publication have arisen, and hereafter may
arise, by means of civil or criminal proceedings being taken
against persons employed by, or acting under the authority
of, the Houses of Parliament, or one of them, in the pub.
lication of such reports, papers, votes, or proceedings;
by reason and for remedy whereof, it is expedient that
more speedy protection should be offered to all persons
acting under the authority aforesaid, and that all such
civil or criminal proceedings should be summarily
put an end to and determined in manner hereinafter
mentioned ; be it therefore enacted by the Queen's
Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice
and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal
and Commons in this present Parliament assembled,
and by the authority of the same, that it shall and may be
lawful for any person or persons who now is or are, or
hereafter shall be, a defendant or defendants in any civil or
criminal proceeding commenced or prosecuted in any
manner soever, for or on account or in respect of the pub-
lication of any such report, paper, votes, or proceedings by
such person or persons, or by his, her, or their servant or
servants, by or under the authority of either House of
Parliament, to bring before the Court in which such pro-
ceeding shall have been, or shall be, so commenced or pro-
secuted, or before any Judge of the same (if one of the
Superior Courts at Westminster), first giving twenty_
four hours' notice of his intention so to do to the pro-
secutor or plaintiff in such proceeding, a certificate under
the hand of the Lord High Chancellor of Great Bri-
tain, or the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, or of the
Speaker of the House of Lords for the time being,
er of the Clerk of the Parliaments, or of the Speaker
of the House of Commons, or of the clerk of the same
House, stating that the report, paper, votes, or proceed-
ing, as the case may be, in respect whereof such civil or
criminal proceeding shall have been commenced or prose-
cuted, was published by such person or persons, or by his,
her, or their servant or servants, by order or under the
authority of the House of Lords or of the House of Com-
mons, as the case may be, together with an affidavit veri-
fying such certificate ; and such Court or Judge shall there-
upon immediately stay such civil or criminal proceeding, and
the same, and every writ or process issued therein, shall
be, and shall be deemed and taken to be, finally put an
end to, determined, and superseded, by virtue of this Act.
" 2. And be it enacted, that in case of any civil or cri-
minal proceeding hereafter to be commeneed or prosecuted
for or on account or in respect of the publication of any
copy of such report, paper, votes, or proceedings, it shall
be lawful for the defendant or defendants, at any stage of
the proceedings, to lay before the Court or Judge such
report, paper, votes, or proceedings, and such copy, with
an affidavit verifying such report, paper, votes, or proceed-
ings, and the correctness of such copy, and the Court or
Judge shall immediately stay such civil or criminal pro-
ceeding,:and the same and every writ or process issued
therein shall be, and shall be deemed and taken to be,
finally put an end to, determined, and superseded by virtue
of this Act:

" 3. And be it enacted, that it shall be lawful in any
civil or criminal proceeding to be commenced or prosecuted
for printing any extract from or abstract of such report,
paper, votes, or proceedings, to give in evidence under the
general issue such report, paper, votes, or proceedings, and
to show that such extract or abstract was published bona
_fide and without malice ; and if such shall be the opinion
of the jury, a verdict of not guilty shall be entered for the
defendant or defendants.
" 4. Provided always, and it is hereby expressly declared
and enacted, that nothing herein contained shall be deemed
or taken, or held or construed, directly or indirectly, by
implication or otherwise, to affect the privileges of Parlia-
ment in any manner whatsoever."

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(From the Morning Herald.)
If the question of upholding or repealing the present
Corn-laws were any other than a question of vital, all-ab-
sorbing importance to the welfare of this country, we
should not deem ourselves warranted in solemnly entreating
the most earnest attention of our readers to its bearings.
It is, however, a question of which, in the abstract, every
man who is averse to the hazard of wanton experiments on
the greatness and happiness of Britain, should anxiously
watch, from day to day, the progress. It involves results
that (if in the meantime public opinion be not fully awak-
ened to the necessity of repudiating the further agitation
of the schemes of the Anti-Corn-law Association)
will come fearfully home to the business of all classes
in the community but three. To these three, indeed,
they will ultimately come, if that course of legislation
upon the Corn-laws,which is being now vigorously pushed
for, should be taken; because it is a course which we
shall demonstrate must terminate in the extinction of
our political greatness. The three classes whose present
interests the repeal of these laws would undoubtedly
serve, but whose future destruction they would eventually
effect,and just as surely, are-1. The annuitants, having
fixed incomes. 2. The great capitalists, having money at
their disposal in such masses as to be enabled to lie out
of the return of large portions of it for periods of time
proportioned to the magnitude of their investments.
3. The master manufacturers, men also of large vested
capitals, but as to which their object is to effect rapid,
rather than proportionately large returns.
(From the Morning Post.)

The organs of the Government, with their accustomed
reckless disregard of truth and honesty, are doing their
utmost to misrepresent the proceedings in the House of
Lords on Friday evening, relative to the Clergy Re-
serves in Canada. In a strain of sneering congratula-
tion upon the amendment of their conduct, they represent
the prelates of Canterbury and London as having aban-
doned the course they at first seemed determined to pur-
sue—as haviug, in fact, practically admitted that they had
been wrong and the Government right. Regard to
common veracity compels us to say that this re.
presentation is quite false ; and without having any
wish to retort in this affair upon her Majesty's Govern-
ment, the same regard to fair and honest statements of
matters which concern the public obliges us to assert that
the practice of the Viscount Melbourne on Friday even-
ing appears to have been lamentably deficient in that can-
dour and distinctness which best become a Minister and a
Legislator. He shuffled in the most shameful manner
about a point which, when at last submitted to the Lord
Chancellor, was instantly decided by that Noble and
Learned Lord, whose mind i 3 happily not in that state of
doubt which proceeds from careless ignorance, and whose
manner is not tinctured with that insolence which springs
from indulged habits of careless effrontery.
(From the Times.)
Although we have waited long for the fruits of our la-
bours in exposing the enormous land thefts which, affect-
ing to assume the forms of honest purchase and legal con-
veyance, have for some years been practisedor upon
raga_
the
a-
New Zealanders, both by individual
advertisement,and cporate
nume-
rously we are gratified to see, from an
rously and respectably signed, that the higher class of
merchants, bankers, and ship-owners in the city are at
length bestirring themselves to shame the Government cut
of their connivance in these depredations, and to compel the,
purloiners to disgorge their fraudulent spoils. The conr.,!tuct
of the Whigs in this affair has been uttetly disgraedul By
r(;:emd,antotteocnl(); tthhaet.
nHuomuseerooufs
Lwoirtdnesstsheesy were distinctly examined before
aapp
the New Zealand savages had no more conception of u
bargain alienating their lands in perpetuity, than had the
Hill Coolies in reference to their inveigled servitude in
British Guiana, but that the incommensurate baubles, such
as knives, beads, and hatchets, in consideration of which
they are entrapped into the negotiations alluded to, can be
viewed no otherwis.e than as despicable frauds played off
upon a credulous race, whose ignorance of' real and rela-
tive values is on a par with that of childhood. The Whigs
had further learned from the same unexceptionable tes-
timony, cerroborated by the previous intimations of Mr.
Busby, the British resident at the Bay of Islands, that
this lawless system of cheating the New Zealanders out
of their lands had been practised to a great extent by
Lose and predatory adventurers who had squatted them•
selves upon large portions of territory, upon the most no-
minal and gratuitous pretensions.
( From the Morning Chronicle.)
If any one had ventured to predict, when the intelli-
gence arrived that an armed insurrection had brorkte out
simultaneously in both the Canadas, that the short
which has since elapsed would have sufficed
not
onlyi period
to
ffi
extingush every spark of open rebellion,
tranquillity,
restore the
illity, but
province to the blessings of peaceand
to accomplish the far more arduous and
bitter party spirit,d important task of
composing the animosities, allaying the
,
and rooting out the rankling causes
trust in which those unhappy disturbancesof dissension and di -
originated, such
a prediction might, with reference to all past history and
experience, have been looked upon as in the last de-
That it
gree visionary
and . extravagant.
proved so
u a circumstance honourable in the
highest
degree to the civilization of the age