The Sun.
London, England, 1840-02-04 00:00:00

Gen sral, the Court must give way—for this
reason, thst the House would appeal to the
Secretary of St ate, who would address the Crown, and the
House would have a civil and military power granted to
assist them. That was the was' the contest vets to termi-
nate.—(Cheers.) Then let him ask, if that course were
taken, if the Sheriff had refused, and the House had
come into this contest with the Courts, if it was proposed
—he did not say at a time like the present, when con-
tempt of constituted authority' was an evil of astounding
magnitude—but be asked whether, at any time, they were
prepared to employ a civil and mditary force in this coun-
try in a contest like that ?—(Cheers)—What good would
arise from it? He (Sir W. Follett) should shrink f-em
such a contest, and so he believed would every Member of
that House. What was the right course to take ? He
admitted that the House, on privileges which were essen-
tial to the performance of its functions, had a right to say
that it was dissatisfied with the judgment of a Court of
Law ; but he did not think, because the event had
been decided against them, that they were now prepared
to work cut those proceedings to the termination
spoken of by his Learned Friend, which was nothing but
a contest, of course, with the highest tribunal of the king-
dom. He did hold, therefore, not in any party spirit, that
in the action now pending, and in which the House had
taken no steps, it ought at once to depart from that broad
resolution, not to allow the Courts to interfere, and that it
ought to allow its servants to defend the action ; and with
regard to the poker of publishing, if there was any feeling,
as probably there was, that they would not again apply to a
Court of Law, or Error, then it must come to this—the
House must, with the consent of the other branch of the
Legislature, secure itself the power by a declaratory act,
or some other legislative enactment.—( Cheers.) One or
the other must be done, for no one could suppose the House
could go on losing the public time, not merely night after
night, but Session after Session (for he knew the sort of
man they had to deal with) and be thus harassed in the
exercise of its necessary function. He could not, there-
fore, hesitate to say, he did not think it would be any
abandonment of their privileges, with the concurrence of the
other branches of the Legislature, to say there was a psrti-
cuter power, the possession of which was necessary to its
functions, and which they would find the only effectual
mode of preserving their privileges, unless they got
the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench reversed.
He thought the matter was now come to such a point, that
any person who entertained an opinion on the course to be
adopted, was bound to state that opinion. It was for
these reasons he had made these obsei rations which had
for effect the discharge of the Sheriffs. On that point
he should wish to address to the House one word.
After what he had said, nos one could entertain
any doubt in disproving of the decision of the Court of
Queen's Bench, and that he should hare been ready, in
the first instance, with. Hon. Gentlemen on the other side.
But he should now rather address himself to the Noble
Lord and those who had been most ready to maintain with
him the privileges of the House. He did not stand on
the technical merits of the case, but he would ask the No-
ble Lord and those who had taken part with him, whether
enough had been already done to vindicate the privileges
of the House ? Their proceedings had led to one resolu-
tion, which must be satisfactory to those who had been
contending for the privileges of the House—they had now
a resolution by the Court of Queen's Bench, confirming
clearly and specifically their power in the case—the great
and enormous power of the House to be the sole and exclusive
judge of its own privileges, and their right to commit a party
by warrant, without stating the ground of that warrant.
That had been established. It was clear, therefore, that'
no one disputed the power of the House to detain the
Sheriff,: in custody. They had a right to keep them in
custody from this time to the prorogation of Parliament.
He wanted to know for what purpose they could now in-
tend to do so.—(Hear, hear.) Was it for the sake of
punishment? The House itself admitted that, morally
speaking, they had been guilty of no offence. Could they
do it with a view, which he could hardly believe they en-
tertained, that after the Sheriffs had stated that they
thought they were bound by their oaths, and by their
duty, to pay the money ?—could they do it from a de-
termination, under these circumstances, to kee the
Sheriff's in custody, in order that, by intimidating them,
they might extent from them the money ?—( Hear.) That
could not be their object. What was their object, then?
His Hon. and Learned Friend, the Attorney-General,
had told them, in the course of his .speech, that the House
was imprisoning the Sheriffs in order to deter other offf.
cers from taking the, same course. Would it, however,
have that effect? He asked the House whether any
punishment would prevent others from imitating the ex-
ample of those parties, in a case where public sympathy
and public feeling were entirely with them ?—( Hear, hear.)
He thought that no one without had a second feeling on
the question. He thought that, whatever opinion might
be entertained with regard to the privileges of the House,
there was but one universal opinion on the other question.
Hear, hear, and No, no.) He thought that Hon.
Gentlemen opposite, in denying his assertion, were mis-
taken.—( Hear, hear.) He thought that there was
a public feeling and sympathy in favour of parties who had
been imprisoned for discharging a public duty according to
the dictates of their conscience. Hon. Gentlemen appo-
site would recollect that the Sheriffs were not voluntary
agents in this case—they had not come forward willingly—
they were persons holding a public situation, and bound to
perform its duties, in obedience to a writ issued by the
Court of Queen's Beach. How long. he would ask, would
the House keep them in custody? They had already
been there a fortnight. His Hon. and Learned Friend,
the Attorney. General, had said, however, that the punish-
ment was not a severe one. He (Sir W. Follett) could
not agree with his Hon. and Learned Friend, because,
though it was true that they had been confined in a room
of the House, and not in a prison, yet his Learned Friend
should recollect that they were men of business, having
their trades and affairs to look after._( Hear.) He
thought therefore, that under .such . circumstances, the
punishment was a serious one, and he should say, though
he knew not whether that was the feeling of the House,
yet he should repeat, that, looking at the matter even as a
vindication of these privileges, he for one should be glad
that those Gentlemen were discharged 'unconditionally.—
( Hear, hear.) He said unconditionally, because ho felt it
would not be tight to extort, as a condition of their re-
lease, any expression of regret on their parts for having
done what they considered themselves bound to do. He
did not think that that was a situation which men of cha-
racter and of honour should be placed in. He therefore
did not know why petitions should be presented, or why
expressions of regret shpuld be insisted on as essen-
tial to their discharge.—( Hear.) He believed they should
be released without any such expressions of regret for hav-
ing acted as they were bound and authorised to do. He
thought that if the House adopted this proceeding it would
go farther than any other to satisfy the public mind, which
should not be disregarded in the present instance ; and
even though the House should have taken an erroneous
view of the matter it would be right to show that they had
no other wish than a desire to preserve those privileges
which they thought essential. He thought that would be
the just course, and he felt it would have less than half its
weight and effect if it arose from any petitions presented to
them. He should say that he denied the Noble Lord had
made a proposal, and he wished even now that the
Noble Lord should come down with some proposition,
for discharging those Gentlemen. If any one thought that
course ought not to be taken he could only say that, though
he should do so with great reluctance, because the ques-
tion was one which he thought should not be submitted to
the House, yet he would, in that case, feel it to be his
duty to vote with the Hon. Member for Sussex, for
the immediate and unconditional discharge of the Sheriffs.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL begged to assure
the flouse that he should not now have troubled them,
had ho not felt himself placed in circumstances of
considerable anxiety and great responsibility. From the
moment his attention had been first called to the decision
of the Court of Queen's Bench, he was so struck with the
consequences of that decision, that he did not anticipate
that the House would be able to escape from very serious
difficulties. When the Committee had been appointed to
take into consideration the proper course for the House
to pursue in consequence of that decision, he certainly did
not spare any diligence on his part to inform his mind on
the materials for corning to a correct view of the case.
But, feeling deeply as he did, the importance of
the question, and feeling also the. infirmity of h's own
judgment, when at the same time he entertained a strong
opinion on the matter, he had takep•all possible care that
he should not offer to that Committee any suggestions of
his own without taking the utmost pains that those sug-
gestions should not be unworthy of the Committee. When,
therefore, he had learnt the decision of the Court of
Queen's Bench, he had sent to the Hon. Gentleman who
had just addressed the Hotise (Sir W. Follett), for:whose
judgment he, in common with all who knew him, enter-
tained the highest respect. He had sent to his Learned
Colleague, the Attorney-General, and to another Hon.
Friend of his, the Member for Huntingdon, and
he had solicited that Gentleman to read and consider
a paragraph of that report, and he had solicited a meeting
of those gentlexien at his chambers, in order that on that
occasion the lawyers, instead of assisting might not em-
barrass the Committee by having a difference of opinion
on a matter on which the Committee should expect to be
guided-by them ; suggestions had been made by his Hon.
and Learned Friends, and he had adopted:them all. He
had inserted in a draft of the report to be submitted to the
Committee the reasons why he thought the House had not
been wisely advised in alluding to the case of Burnett and
Allen. He had stated the grounds on which he supposed
the House had acted at the time, in order to enforce the
conclusion that, however good the reasons might have
been which had influenced the House in that case,
they were not reasons of a permanent nature.—(Hear,
hear.) They did not stand on the same grounds
now, and that ought not to form a precedent to the House.
He considered, that as the subject-matter of the complaint
in that case was that the House did not truly represent
the people, and that as very strong opinions bad been ex-
pressed upon the subject, the House probably did not
think it worth while to stand on public opinion on the oc-
casion, while they entertained considerable confidence in
the Courts of Law as then constituted, and while they
knew that there was a much greater chance of judgment
being given in their favour in the Court of Queen's Bench
than by the public. Under these circumstances, they did
not wish it should be said that the House did not cor-
rectly represent public opinion. His Hon. and Learned
Friend (Sir William Follett) had, however, objected
to anything being said on the subject and accordingly
the whole had been struck out. The pleadings in
the case alluded to had merely been introduced in
consequence of a previous resolution of the House.
The Committee that presented that Report, not only had
the benefit of the. judgment of all the professional Mem-
bers of the House, bat also of the professional Members of
the Committee. That Report was presented to the
House, and the resolutions were founded on it, of which
they were all aware; and although he rejoiced that his
Hon. and Learned Friend had favoured the House with his
views, be regretted that having given his sanction to the
Report, upon which the resolutions were founded, he had
since then had occasion to change his opinions upon the
subject. He had before stated, that he never addressed the
House without deeply feeling the importance of the subject,
and if such' were his convictions when he stood before it
as an individual Member, his additional responsibility, from
the office he had then the honour to hold, must be much