The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-05 00:00:00

ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL.

An MN. MEMBER presented a petition from Wigan
against this Bill.

RAILWAY LEGISLATION.

Mr. ELLICE desired to draw the attention of the
House to the dismissal of two Committees, of one of
which he was chairman, without any explanation being
afforded to the Members. He would, therefore, ask the
Chairman of the Committee of Selection, whether, after
the appointment of Committees, and after having Bills
referred to them, the Committee of Selection would
enter into the consideration of complaints preferred
against members of those Committees?
Sir W. HEATHCOTE called the attention of the
House to the standing orders relating to the selection of
Members on railway Committees, which provided that
no Member should be placed on such Committees who
had any private interest himself in any railway Bill to
be brought before it; or whose constituents bad a direct
interest in the passing of any such Bill. This caused
the Committee of Selection last year to proceed with
great caution. But it was not for any of the above
reasons that the Hon. Member who had asked the ques-
tion, or the other gentleman selected with him, had been
discharged from serving. The Committee on which
they had been named to serve was one to deal with lines
invoking the broad and narrow gauges, and at that
time the question of the gauges excited great interest,
not only i❑ the localities through which the lines passed,
but in towns remote from the routes of the lines. On this
account the Hon. Member, as being the representative for
Coventry, which took a great interest in the narrow
gauge, and, therefore, without the least imputation
on the lion. :Member, but in order that there might
not be the least ground for supposing any undue bias, he
was discharged from attendance. The same applied to

the other Hon. Members, whose services were not re-
quired.
Mr. ELLICE was not satisfied with the explanation
given, as he thought, after Members had been selected on
a Committee, and had made the declaration, they should
not be discharged without some good reason for the same.
fie was very glad that his Hon. Friend had no other ob-
jection to allege than that his constituents were sup-
posed to be in favour of the narrow gauge, in conse-
quence of the railway passing through Coventry. It gave
him the occasion of again pressing upon the consideration
of the House the absolute folly of going on with the pre-
sent system. In order to show that he was disinterested
he would refer to a statement he had already made,
hoping that some member of her Majesty's Government
would propose a resolution by which all competition
between the two gauges should be referred to competent
judges. The Committee bad refused to entertain the
consideration of the gauges, on the ground that they did
not consider themselves competent judges. The parties
interested did not themselves consider the Committees
impartial on the question, and it was impossible to find
any one Committee upon which there could not be found
one Member who bad not already formed opinions on
the question. 300,0001. had been spent in the discussion
of the question before a Committee of that House, and
when such sums were expended the losing party would
be ready enough to accuse the Committee of not being
so pure as they supposed themseles to be. He hoped
that the House would find a remedy for such a s}•stem.
After a few words from Lord G. SOMERSET, which
did not reach the gallery,
Mr. STRUTT said that the Railway Commissioners
had sent round certain returns to be filled up by
the Railway Companies, on this question. Those
returns were afterwards to be reported upon by
the Commissioners to the House. Very likely
early next week this report would be prepared and
in the hands of Honourable Members. With regard
to his own interpretation of the resolution, he did not
know whether his opinion would be of any great im-
portance, but certainly he understood it to mean that no
Bill should be proceeded with till the terms of the reso-
lution had been carried out.
Mr. HOI)GSON said if that were the case no Bills
would be proceeded with till after Easter. He con-
sidered this was most unfair, and the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman the Member for Coventry was to blame for not
having brought forward the subject earlier.
Mr. ELLICE said the reason why ho did not bring
fcrward this subject earlier than he did was, because he
had felt confident that the matter would be taken
up by Government, and be believed it would have
been taken up by them had it not been for the illness
of his Right Hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Ex.
chequer.
Lord SANDON was understood to say that it would be
unwise to proceed with the Bills before the Committees
could have the report of the Commissioners before them.
Without the reports from the Commissioners, it was
impossible for the Select Committees to understand the
merits of the several questions that were to come before
them. Thus a railway company might be at the ex-
pense of depositing their plans, bringing up their
witnesses, and employing their counsel, and,
after all, the report of the Co.umissionere
might render all this expense and exertion abortive.
Before he sat down, he wished to ask his Right Hon.
Friend, the Member for Derby (Mr. Strutt), what course
it was intended to pursue with respect to the several
Bills now before the Commissioners. There were
several Bills now before them, indeed a whole
tribe of Bills, apparently for slight deviations
from established or granted lines, but which, in
reality, involved an immense amount of capital.
He wished to know what restriction was to be placed on
the employment of railway capital, and on the liability
of the several shareholders? For his own part, unless
there was to be some special report made to his Right
Hon. Friend of the nature of those clauses in the several
Bills which might be reported to the House, he would
rather leave the whole matter entirely in his hands
without troublinir the Commissioners at all.

Mr. STRUTT said that this subject had attracted
the attention of the Railway Commissioners, and it was
intended to adopt the recommendation of his Hon.
Friend the Member for Coventry, and have a conside-
ration of the clauses before they were placed before the
Select Committees. With that view it was intended,
issteed of calling the Committees together on Monday
or Tuesday, to defer their meeting till Thursday, so
that the Committees summoned for to-morrow were, it
was understood, only to meet, and adjourn till Thursday.
Mr. GISI3OHNE considered that the course taken by
the Committee of Selection, and complained of by his
Hon. Friend, was most objectionable. The House was
contented that the gentlemen appointed to act on the
Committees should sign a declaration to the effect that
they had no personal interest in the matter, and
that they were unaware that their constituents were
strongly influenced upon the question. The Commit.
tee of Selection, however, was not satisfied that it
should be left to the discretion of the gentlemen
who signed as to their power, but it entered, behind
their backs, into investigation as to whether they would
be able to sign or not. He did not know that it would
have been possible to select five gentlemen in the
House, not Irish Members, whose constituents were
not interested in the question of the gauges.—(Hear.)
He hoped there would be some competent tribunal esta-
blished, as he confessed he was more afraid of an incom-
petent than an interested tribunal.
Mr. ESTCOURT did not see any grounds in the cases
under consideration for blaming the Committee of
Selection, as for many years it had been the prac-
tice to erase the names of Members selected to
serve on particular Committees, and substitute others.
The motion was agreed to.
Sir J. Y. BULLER said, as it appeared to be the
desire of the House that these committees should not
enter on their duties till Monday next, it would be a
saving of expense to the parties concerned in the Bills
if the Committee of Selection were instructed to annul
their order fur meeting to-morrow, and summon the
Committee to meet on Thursday next. He should,
therefore, move an instruction accordingly.
The motion was agreed to.

SECOND READINGS.
The following Bills were read a second time, and
ordered to be committed :

Direct London and Portsmouth, Brighton and Chiches-
ter, London, Brighton, and South Coast, and London
and South-Western Railways.
Edinburgh and Northern, and Edinburgh, Leith, and
Granton Railways Amalgamation.
Great Northern Railway (Deviations between London
and Grantham).
Newcastle and Berwick Railway (East Coast Line,
Blyth, Seaton Sluice, and other Branches).
York and North Midland Railway (Hull Station and
Branches).
York and North Midland Railway (Harrogate Branch
Extension and Terminus).
York and Newcastle Railway (Wearmouth Dock En-
largement).
York and Newcastle, Newcastle and Berwick, and North
British Railways Amalgamation.
QUARANTINE LAWS.
Dr.BOWRING gave notice that, on this day fortnight,
he should move for the continuation of the correspon-
dence on these laws. To-morrow he should put a ques-
tion to the Hon. Gentleman, the Vice-President of the
Board of Trade (Mr. M. Gibson) on the subject.
FACTORIES BILL.

Lord EBRINGTON gave notice that whey this Bill
was in Committee he should move that clauses should
be inserted, appointing medical practitioners, whose
business it would be to report on the health of persons
employed in factories. Further, that clauses should be in-
serted requiring the security of drainage and ventilation,just such as those which now were in operation with
respect to unguarded machinery.
Mr. ROSS gave notice that he should move to except
Ireland from the operation of the Act.
SMITHFIELD MARKET.
Mr. SPOONER, on behalf of the Member for Wor-
cestershire (Mr.Ormsby Gore), gave notice that he should
p istpone his motion respecting the removal of this
market till Thursday, the 18th when' instead of mov-
ing for leave to bring in a he should move for a
Select Committee.

RIOTS IN THE NORTH.
Sir A. LEI rH HAY rose to ask a question of the
Learned Lord-Advocate respecting a circumstar,ce which
had come to his knowledge through the public press.
He understood that in consequence of the delivery of
some grain the military had been called out to quell a
riot, and that they had fired on the people, and several
persons had been seriously injured. He wished to know
why the civil authorities had not interfered without call-
ing out the military ?

The LORD-AI)VOCATE said that it was true that
a riot had been created in consequence of the delivery
of some grain, and that the military were
called out and two persons were injured, one
slightly and the other severely, but the civil authorities
were in no way to blame, for they had taken all necessary
precautions the day before in consequence of some in-
structions which they had received of the probability of a
tumult. In the morning of the day the sheriff received in-
formation that a ve-sel had been attacked in the harbour,
and that it would be advisable to unship the corn, as
the vessel would be scuttled in the harbour, and that the
crew would be thrown overboard. In consequence of that
information, the sheriff of the county applied for a strung
body of eoldiery, and under their protection the crew