The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-17 00:00:00

Mr. F. FRENCH desired to know whether his Hon. Friend
was aware that in the month of September last it was found
impossible to collect the rates, and the chairman, the Earl of
Lucan, took upon himself the whole expenses of the house
Wa.. the Right Hon. Gentleman ass are that the board of guar-
dians framed a resolution, ishiell they announced to the Poor-
Ilaw Commissioners, stating that i, was impossible to collect
the rate, and calling on them to sanction the borrowing of
money ? They had stated in that resolution that they were
ready to admit the entire number the house was capable of
containing if they had the means. The Commissioners were a
fortnight before they replied to the application, and they then
gave a general answer.
Sir G. GREY said that the report from the Commissioners
should be laid on the table, but at the same time he was bound
to state that, juc'ging by that report, he had no reason to doubt
that the rates of the Castlebar union might have been much
better collected if the guardians had done their duty.
NOTICES OF /MOTION.
Mr. ETWALL moved to bring under the consideration of
the House the evidence given before the Andover Union Com-
mittee of last session, together with the report of that Com-
mittee.
Mr. BRIGHT moved for the appointment of a Select
Committee to inquire into the progress of the cultivation of
cotton in India.
Lord JOHN MANNERS moved for leave to bring in a Bill
to alter and amend the laws relating to the disposition of
property for pious and charitable purposes.
Mr. GRATTAN moved for returns of the absentees from
Ireland ; the annual value of the property of all absentees
assessed to the poor-rate; and the amount of all annuities
payable to any person not resident in Ireland.
Sir C. NAFIER moved for the production of a copy of the
report of officers appointed to make a trial of Capt. Warner's
lone range, addressed to the Master-General of the Ordnance.
COMMITTEE ON THE NAVIGATION LAWS.
On the motion of Mr. RICARDO to nominate the gentle-
men to be appointed on the Select Committee on the naviga-
tion laws,
Mr. WAWN objected to the name of Mr. Bright, and
moved that it should be omitted. In looking over the list
he found the names of the representatives of the seaports
almost entirely left oat. Ile hoped, in order to give satisfac-
tea to all interests, that the name of the hon. candidate for
Manchester would be left out, and some other substituted.
Mr. FER RAND rose to protest against the constitution of
the Committee, as he found, out of the list, eleven Members
who had voted in favour of free trade. He asked would the
country. be satisfied with such a Committee to inquire into the
operation of the navigatiOn laws ? It was well known, there-
fore, that the Committee would report against the con-
tinuance of those laws as no longer' necessary. On these
grounds he would decidedly support the motion of the Hon.
Member (111 e. Wawn), and would divide the House with him,
even if he stood alone.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL thought the Committee was a
fair one. It was thought right that the Vice-President
of the Board of Trade should be on the Committee,
and if he understood the Hon. Member right, he did not object
to that. With regard to the name of the Hon. AL mber for
Durham being left out because he was a candidate for Man-
chester, he (Lord John Russell) never heard of such a thing
before.
Mr. FINCH was rot satisfied with the Committee.
It was well known that one of the principal petitions
which had led to the appointment of this Committee was from
the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. These petitioners
were in favour of free trade, and therefore the Hon. Member
for Durham would act to secure their support. In fact they
were agreed that the navigation-laws should be repealed.--
( Hear, hear.) Seeing the importance of every interest being
fully satisfied in the selection of the Committee, he hoped as
great an approximation to impartiality as possible would be
made.
Mr. LIDDELL was sorry to hear from many of the Hon.
Members around him that there was no chance of the country
being satisfied with this Committee. Application had been
made to him in the first instance to serve upon the first
Committee that had been appointed, but that ape
plication he had respectfully declined ; but, having
seen the good temper and feeling with which the Right Hon-
the Chancellor of the Exchequer had suggested the recon-
struction of it, and the fairness with which the mover had
acceded to that suggestion, he (Mr. Liddell), on his being
again requested to allow his name to be placed on that
Committee, he at once consented. He did not doubt that the
country would be satisfied with the constitution of the Coin-
nsittee, and, as far as he was concerned, he could assure the
House that he only wished for a fair and impartial inquiry.
Mr. BROWNRIGG said, that he was one of the floe-
Members who was, on the first instance, asked to form one of
this Committee, and as he had not taken part in the discussion,
he might, perhaps, for these reasons, be allowed to address one
or two observations to the House. He had, for more than
a quarter of a century been engaged in commercial pursuits,
and he was, therefore, in possession of some information that
might be considered useful in the consideration of this question.
He did not throw this out as a warning to the members of the
Committee, whom the Noble Lord had described as being
divided into two classes, one of them being persons wh°
would vote for the maintenance of the navigation laws,:whate
ever evidence they might hear, and the other persons who
would vote against them, whatever evidence they might hear.
Sir HARRY VANE trusted the Honourable Member who
had made the motion would not persevere in dividing the
House.
Mr. `PAWN said he would persist in doing so, etell if
he went out alone.
Mr. BERESFORD explained that in the list he meal
out the name of the Honourable Member for Bested
appeared, hut it was withdrawn at the request of the HO;
Member for the city of London, who was anxious, as be h:11
previously been chairman of a similar Committee, to be placed
on the present one. He represented to the Hon. Member that
his health was not such as to admit of his going through tug,
fatigue of a committeeman, but the Hon. Member differed
with him on that point.—(Hear and Laughter)--and of course
he had no alternative but to put his name on the list.
Mr. BRO W ttIGG did not wish ittombiettuee.nderstood that he
complained of not being put on the Committee.
Mr. V. SMITH objected to the practice of placing ohne
Committees an equal number of Members for or against t
• particular question referred to them. The reason why the
Committees of that House did not arrive at any satisfactory
conclusion arose out of the improper mode of nominating these
Committees of Hon. Members, who went into the Committee
with opinions biassed either to one aide or the other.
Strangers were then ordered to withdraw; no division, hoes,
ever, took place, the amendment having been withdrawn.
The following names were then nominated on the Shied
Committee:—Mr. Ricardo, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Mitchell,
Alderman Thompson, Mr. Villiers, Sir Howard Douglas.
Admiral Dundas, Mr. Lyall, Mr. M'Carthy, Mr. Thomas;
Baring, Mr. Hume, Mr. Liddell, Mr. Bright, Sir G. Clerk'
Mr, Milner Gibson.
RAILWAYS (IRELAND) BILL.
Lord G. BEN TINCK presented petitions from a relief come
mittee of the county of Wexford, and from the counties cf
Down and Armagh, in favour of the proposed measure for fa-
cilitating the construction of railways in Ireland.
MODE OF PUNISHMENT ADOPTED BY THE
BOARD OF WORKS IN IRELAND.
Mr. S. O'BRIEN said he would beg to draw attention
to a system of punishment enforced by the Board
l rC
of Works in Ireland. When an outrage took Place
in a district, the whole population resident in
were thrown out of employment. He did not know
whether it was the original intention of the House to admit such
a principle, but this he would say, that it was a most
cruel and barbarous punishment. In consequence of se
outrage committed by eight armed men epees an
overseer of public works in the neighbourhood 0i
the county he had the honour to represent, 288 luau'
women, ar.d boys were thrown out of employment. There
was no injury inflicted upon the overseer, whose name was
Elms, save a slight scratch on his ear, occasioned by a
blow from the butt end of a gun.—( A laugh.) The incident
occurred on the 22d day of last January, and was verified to
him by the letter of a most respected Catholic archdeacon.
They were aware that by an order issued in October by the
Board of Works the overseers were authorised to dismiss the
men on any public work on which violence should have been
offered to any officer engaged. This was a most arbitrary
power to place in the hands of the overseers. 288 persons ena-
ptoyed upon he Kilmaimlsam-road were dismissed upon the
instant, and all st was furnished to the relief committee with
the view of excluding them from any other public works. This
dismissal affected nearly 900 persons, and a torture was in'
flicted upon them, with a view of extracting evidence to
im-
plicate the authors of the attack upon the overseer. 350
those tortured did not know the offenders, and had perhaps
never seen them. Of the 288 dismissed, some were boys, a°,`!
some destitute widows, who had no other resource but ,
by the road side, and break stones under the sky of January-
In the parish of Ballingarry, the torture was inflicted 0°
aged men, women, and children, to discover that which
it was impossible one out of fifty could have known. One Of
these persons was a blind piper. The victims expressed
no malice, but requested that they might be allowed to g°
tO
the workhouse. It was desirable, as it was said, to inspire in
these wretches a sentiment of respect for the law for the time
to come; so starving fathers were, by their dismissal, obliged to
see their children wanting food without being able to assist that*
He had heard of one instance in which 500 families had been
reduced to absolute famine from the suspension of public
works. His object in rising was to know from the Right
Hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland whether die Go..
vernment sanctioned the proceedings to which he had referred?
Mr. LABOUCHERE said it would have been but right for
the Hon. Member to have given notice of his intention of
bringing the subject forward, and then he would have been
prepared to meet the statement. But, with regard to the
general policy of the Government, it was undoubtedly true
that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had found it was absolutely
necessary, for the protectiosa of their servants, and as a duty
required of them in order to protect the lives and persons 01
their officers, to lay it down as a rule that whenever
the labourers, in any instance, injured their officers,
and where there was good reason to believe that the
offending parties were known to any of the other labourers,
to suspend the works till such time as information
was given respecting the offenders.—(Hear, hear.) He con-
fessed he had been astonished at hearing the Hon. Member ap-
prove of the sentiments contained in the leiter which he had
read. He would not yield to the Hon. Member in real sym-
pathy for the Irish people, but at the same time he must say it
was the duty of the Government to see that in pro-
viding for the employment of the people of that
country, their servants were protected.---( Hear, hear.)
The Lord• Lieutenant believed that the only effectual means
of protecting the officers of the public works, was to
down that rule, and to act upon it, and the result ha
fully proved the wisdom of that course.—( Hear.) Ali.
of these outrages had taken place, and the perpetrators 0
them had escaped unpunished ; but he was happy to say, that on
a recent occasion, when an attack on a public officer had taken
place, the labourers on the works did not only not sympathir
with and assist the perpetrators of the outrage, but actual
rose to defend the officer, and they pursued those persons and
took them into custody. Ile was prepared to justify
the conduct
of the Government in this matter, and he did not therefore be-
lieve that the House of Commons, to whom the Hon. 31embefi
had appealed, would decide that the Government of Ireland
had not done its duty in affording that protection
to the officers of those public works to which they were,.
entitled, by giving the labourers on these works the deePeat
interest in preventing outrages. He could not answer
the particular question asked him by the Honourablebut
Member, as he had not given notice of it, Du
he had felt it his duty to explain the general principle 00
which the Government of Ireland had acted.
Mr. HUME said that if there was any one subject tha,
t
should be noticed in this House, this was the most important,
because of all the evils in Ireland, this, if not remedied
by
.I',_euer
by the Government, would lead to other, and perhaps
evils. They read of murders perpetrated openly and in u_
day ; of persons entering dweliing-houses, and, after eot_
metine the most brutal outrages, escaping unpunished,
thought, therefore, that so far from incurring blame for. . tit
e
course they had pursued, that they should rather regard 1,t,,,0na:
a means of restoring order. He regretted that any 11
Member should say in his place that he was glad that the cul-
prits had escaped ; and he thought, that if this impression o
it went abroad, it would do much mischief.
Mr. S. O'BRIEN explained that the gentleman who wrote
the letter did not so much rejoice that the culprits had escaped'
as that they had not been subjected to a process of torture to
force them to do that which they would not otherwise do from
a sense of duty.—(oh, oh.")
Lord CLEMENTS congratulated the House upon
ethuet
firmness the Government had displayed in the PeLese
instance. It would he utterly impossible to carry oi these
works without resorting to the measures authorised by tair