The Sun.
London, England, 1846-05-23 00:00:00

FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.

Mr. BAILEY presented a petition from Strathaven, in
favour of the Bill of the Hon. Member for Montrose for
enabling parties to obtain sites for building churches.
MR. W. S. 0. BRIEN.
_ _

Mr. D. O'COTIVELI. presented seventy petitions from
various parts of Ireland, signeWuwards of 60,000 persons,
praying the House to discharg B. O'Brien from eustody.
TEN HO BILL.

Mr. HUME presented a petition against the proposed Fac-
tories Regulation Bill.

Sir CHARLES NAPIER gave notice that he would, on
Monday next, move for a return of the number of steam-
frigates built for the service of the Royal Navy.
Mr. SHARMAN CRAWFORD gave notice that he would,
on Monday next, put a question to one of her Majesty's
Ministers for the purpose of learning whether it was the inten-
tion of Government to bring in a Bill founded on the report of
the Land Commission of Ireland.

RELIEF OF THE POOR (SCOTLAND.)
Mr. BOUVERIE wished to ask the Lord Advocate of Scot-
land whether a printed paper, entitled " Application for Relief,"
has been printed and circulated in Scotland, with the know-
ledge and sanction of the Board of Supervision of the poor ; if
so, whether it has been with the sanction of the Lord Advocate
or Secretary of State for the Home Department ; and, if it has
been with their knowledge and sanction, whether the appli-
cants for relief are required to answer the queries contained in
that form of application before their claim to relief is consi-
dered, or that claim allowed. There were twenty-three
queries in that paper to read over which would occupy the
House too long. Now according to the law of Scotland every
destitute person was entitled torelief, and he wasgiven to under-
stand that unless all these queries were filled up the
application for relief would be refused. What he wanted to
know, therefore, was, whether the circulation of that paper was
sanctioned by the Board of Supervision, and if so, whether re-
lief was refused unless those queries were answered.
The LORD ADVOCATE said, that with regard to the
first part of the question, he had to state, that the paper en-
titled, " Application for relief," had been printed
and circulated with the knowledge and sanction of the Board
He understood that the queries had been printed at the desire
of some persons as a form of queries to be put to parties apply-
ing for relief. By the statute persons applying for relief were
bound to answer such questions in order that the dis-
pensers of it might be enabled to judge of the
nature of their claim ; but the parties so applying were
entitled to relief in the mean time ; he did not, however, be-
lieve that any one had been refused relief, because they were un-
able, or refused to reply to the questions. But if any one did
refuse, he might, by applying to the local judge, obtain instant
relief, that officer being empowered to grant it. The queries
were absolutely necessary, in order that the different parishes
might not be imposed upon.
The dropped orders of yesterday were then read.
BRIDPORT ELECTION.

Mr. CHRISTIE postponed his motion on this subject until
Thursday next.
__

RAILWAY' COMPANIES' BILL.

Sir GEORGE CLERK expressed his intention of pro-
ceeding with this Bill after the other orders of the day had
been disposed of.
AIR. SMITH O'BRIEN.

On the order of the day for the consideration of Mr. Smith
O'Brien's letter to the Speaker being read,
Mr. O'CONNELL moved that the minutes connected with
the committal of that gntleman be read.
The minutes having been read,
Mr. O'CONNELL said that it was his intention to state the
facts of the case as they really occurred, and to move a resolu-
tion that the order of the 27th April should be discharged, it
being illegal in the first place, and obtained by gross mis-
representation to the !House. Of course he did not impute
to the Honourable Gentleman any wilful misrepresentation,
of which he believed him to be perfectly incapable.
But he had, in his opinion, grossly misinformed the House,
which would never have made the order except upon his state-
ment. The gentleman represented himself to be the chairman
of the Committee of Selection, the existence of which he
begged leave to deny. However, he called himself the chair-
man of it, and stated the substance of a correspondence
which took place between themselves and the Honour-
able Member for Limerick, and upon that statement he ob-
tained the order which he now moved should be discharged.
Now if he was able to show that it was obtained on statements
founded on error, he considered he had a fair claim upon the
House to accede to his motion. He denied the existence of
the Committee of Selection. He granted that the
materials for such Committee existed, but that the
Committee itself existed he wholly denied. And now
he would direct the attention of the House very shortly
to another part of the subject, which, in his judgment,
was one of the utmost importance, and which, on consideration
of the matter, ought to be first attended to. They would
find that by the first standing order of the House a Committee
of 42 Members was appointed, and by the second standing order
these were allowed to be divided into sub- Committees,each Com-
mittee appointing its own chairman, and the next order decided
a Committee should be appointed every session, and that such
Committee should be a Select Committee of Standing Orders.
It was enacted, and to this he begged to:call the particular at-
tention of the House, that that Committee should be appointed
at the commencement of every session, and that it should con-
sist of the chairman of the standing orders, and the chairman
of Sub-Committees, three of whom was to form a quorum, and
that that Committee should be denominated the Committee of
Selection. If that Committee had been formed at the com-
mencement of the session he would give up the question, but
he asserted that no such Committee had been appointed - that
no question of its appointment was brought before the douse ;
in short a total vacancy existed as to the formation of a
Select Committee. This brought the matter within
a very narrow compass, and the letter which
had been received from the Chief Clerk showed clearly that
such a Committee had not been formed at the commencement
of this Session. He had taken the trouble to search the
votes on the journals of the House, and he could find
none such. But it had been suggested to him
that as the materials of the Select Committee were
in existence, it might be supposed to be fully
constituted, 'and that, therefore, its re-appointment on
every succeeding session was unnecessary. He utterly denied
that because it would deprive every Member of the House
of a right to which he was entitled. The House, it
was well known, did not appoint the Chairmen of the
Committees, they were elected by the Committees themselves.
He fuund in the Journals of the House, of the 28th of
February, 1845, that the order of the House had been moved,
relative to the appointment of the Committee of Selection ;
and that such an appointment was accordingly made for
a similar order in the session of 1846. He found that
none such existed. No opportunity had been afforded to the
Hon. Member for complying with the orders of the House.
He then had to consider the right of the Committee of Selection
to enforce his opinions. This was precisely the principle upon
which Mr. Smith O'Brien had acted, and when the Committee
of Selection, he believed, had acted beyond their powers, he
refused to acknowledge their authority, and he believed
that it was quite in accordance with the rules of this House,
Mr. Smith O'Brien had accordingly refused to take any notice
of the application of the Committee of Selection. The ques-
tion then arose, whether the authority of the Committee
of Selection was to be attended to in preference to the rules of
the House of Commons. According to the rules as he under-
stood them, there was an express direction that this Committee
should act in accordance with the rules of the House.
He should therefore move, that as the Committee of Selection
had not, on examination, been instituted in accordance
with the rules of the House, that the order of the
27th of April should be discharged ; and, secondly,
that Mr. Smith O'Brien should be remitted from
custody. If he succeeded in the first of these motions, the
second would follow:as a matter of course, and Mr. S. O'Brien
would be discharged from custody. If he did not succeed in the
first, he would have a right to take the sense of the House,
and he should therefore, on that point, move for the discharge
of Mr. Smith O'Brien.
Mr. ESTCOURT said, he had little or no answer to make
to the motion of the Hon. Member. Acccording to the
rules of the House there had been two Committees
established, which involved the whole of the question.
He need not tell the House what had been the course the
Hon. Member (Mr. Smith O'Brien) had thought proper to
pursue. But this much he might remind them of, that these
several Committees had been appointed for carrying on the
business of the country, and that they had been constituted
with as much view to the convenience of Members as po,
sible. One of these Committees consisted of 48 Mem'oers,
and was termed the Committee of Selection. Another Com-
mittee was appointed for the purpose of carrying OU. the orders
of the House; it consisted of seven Members, and was called
the Standing Orders Committee. It was in contravention of
the rules of this Committee that the Hon. Member for Lime-
rick had committed this default. That Committee was called
the Committee of Selection. It was to that Committee that
the Hon. Gentlemen took exception. He stated as the
grounds of that exception, that unless that Committee w
ap-
pointed in every session, it could not discharge the dutiesas
a
signed to it by the House. It was on that point that hewass-
at issue with the Hon. and Learned Gentleman
Estcourt) conceived that the standing orders ofthe.Hollusee(wleirre
the laws which regulated the Proceedings of the House of Com-
mons. It was well known to the House, and, in fact, by
others, that the standing orders of the House were not an an-
nual piece of legislation, but were laws which would continue
in force to govern the House of Commons until altered or re-
pealed. The Committee of Selection had been established for
several years—it was seven years, he thought, since they were
constituted, under the auspices
of the amse. Now, he con-
tended that when the Stailding Orders' Committee, or the
Committee of Selection had been' consttiuted, that those Com-
mittees were appointed and established by theexpress rules of
the House, and they must continue
untilaltered
or dissolved. lie was borne out in this, because
it was no unfrequent proceeding of the House to appoint Com-
mittees for various purposes each session, -whose labours were
.confined to that particular session of Parliament, unless they
became sessional orders by direction of the House. The dis .
tinction between Committees so appointed . for a particular
purpose in one session of Parliament, and sessional orders,
which continued from session to session, until altered or re-
pealed by the House, was, in his opinion, perfectly evident.