The Sun.
London, England, 1833-04-04 00:00:00

it might be of importance that an opportunity should be
afforded for presenting petitions after the evening sitting.
He was anxious to state further what he felt as a personal
obligation—that though he had received petitions aft.:
the public business was over, in very few instances La I
they been presented without his having been spoken to
beforehand, and there was always every readiness shown
not to present them if it were found personally incoleve-
ni,,nt, and nine-tenths of them he believed had really re-
lated to business immediately pressing.
Mr. S. RICE thought that half-past 11 o'clock would
be a much more convenient arrangement than either 10
or 11 for the list to be on the table, and the new
arrangement he was quite sure would do away
with any possible necessity for the Speaker to receive peti-
tions after night. The Right Hon. Gentleman then
complimented the Speaker for having devoted more time
and attention than any who had ever occupied the chair
before im to the advancement of the business of the
House. —(Cheer s. )
Mr. O'CONNELL said that if a great number of Lion.
Members should be found to be pressing forward at the
same time to put their names upon the list, the ballet
should be used in order to determine their priority.
Mr. WARBURTON felt assured that the House could
not do better than agree to the suggestions of the Speaker.
BOROUGH OF HERTFORD.
Mr. BERNAL moved that the special resolution of the
Committee, appointed by the House to inquire into the
transactions of the late election for Hertford should he
read.
Time resolution, to the following effect, was then read :
" That it appears to this Committee that bribery and cor-
ruption had prevailed, previously to and during the late
election for the borough of Hertford." Taking the pro-
ceedings arising out of a Committee in a past session,
which inquired into the bribery and corruption committed
at an election for Liverpool, the circumstances of which
were precisely similar to those in the Hertford case,
he should for the present confine himself to moving—
" That Mr. Speaker do not issue his warrant for the
election of other Members for the borough of Hertford
until after Monday, the 20th day of May nett."_Motion
agreed to.
Mr. BERNAL then moved " That the minutes and
proceedings of evidence be printed."—Carried.
Mr. WALLACE said, that in consequence of a letter
he had received from the Lord Advocate of Scotland, be
intended to postpone his motion, which stood for: this day.
and that he felt great pleasure in obliging so distinguished
an individual by doing so. The Hon. Member was going
on to speak on the subject—
The SPEAKER—The Hon. Member must either pro -
ceed with or postpone his motion.
Mr. WILKS obtained leave to bring in a Bill to re-
lieve, from the payment of poor rates and church rates,
all churches, chapels, and other places of religious worship.
SCOTCH BURGHS REFORM.
Mr. KENNEDY, in the absence of the Lord Advo-
cate, postponed that Learned Lord's motions for leave to
bring in several Bilis relative to the Scotch burghs, until
the 15th of April.
FACTORIES LABOUR BILL.
Mr. W. PATTEN, before he proceeded with the
motion of which he had given notice, presented three
petitions from the cotton manufacturers of Preston, Black-
burn, and Rochdale, praying for a commission to inquire
into the subject of labour in factories. He then brought
forward his motion for a commission to effect that object.
He was at first in doubt whether he ought to bring it
forward in the absence of the Right Honourable the Secre-
tary of the Board of Trade, with whose department the
subject was particularly connected, but on taking the
advice of those better versed than himself in the forms
of proceedings, he found that the majority were) in
favour of his bringing it forward.—(Hear, bear.)
His only object was to do an act of justice, and therefore
he would proceed at once with it. He regretted that he
lied not been able to bring it forward very early in the
session, as he intended, because if he had done so the
inquiry would have proceeded so far by this time,
that on the House commencing its sittings after the
h2lydays, the Bill of the Noble Lord (Ashley) could
have been brought forward. Circumstances, however,
over which he had no control, had prevented him. He
said thus much to excuse himself from that charge of
wishing to delay the Bill which had been made against
him by several Members, and by the public press. If he had
thought that delay alone would have resulted from his pre.
sent motion, he would have thrown it aside, and washed
his hands of it; but in his conscience he believed that it
was of great importance that the inquiry instituted by the
last Parliament should be proceeded with.—(Hear, hear.)
From the best information which he could obtain, he
believed there was still ample time to prosecute the
inquiry he sought for, and to allow the Bill of the
Noble Lord to be discussed and passed, if necessary, during
the present session. He only wished to do an act which
he conceived to be an act of justice to a large body of
men who, he believed, had been most unjustly accused, and
who had had no opportunity of defending themselves. He
wished also to prevent Hon. Members being led away by their
feelings of humanity, arising from the evidence which had
already been taken, and he must say that if he believed
the whole of that evidence to be correct, the Bil of the
Noble Lord (Ashley) would not go half far enough. He,
however, gave his Noble Friend full credit for the feelings
which had actuated him in proposing :such a measure.
A statement of the whole truth bad just appeared before
the Committee ; but even if what was stated to the Corn.
mittee should appear to be the whole truth, one object of the
inquiry he wished to see instituted was to examine whether
there was not some other way of putting an end to
amuse than that proposed in the Bill of the Noble
Lord. The last Parliament had declined to legislate
upon the subject, because it had not sufficient
information, and he should say, that they were now worse
off than they were before the Committee of last session
sat, because that Committee merely turned its atten-
tion to one part of the subject, and that the least
known.—( Hear, hear.) The Committee had proceeded to
this business in so partial a way, that the result of its
inquiries had been rather to blind and mislead, than
to enlighten the House and the public upon the subject.
—(Hear, hear.) It was the wish of some Members
of the Committee when it met, to conduct the inquiry
in an impartial manner, but the Chairman (Mr.
Sadler) not now in this House, said that he ought
to be allowed to make out what be called his case before
any witnesses to the question at large were examined.
This was at first objected to, but at last the Chairman's
wish was granted. The consequence was, letters were sent
off to the country summoning witnesses to London. Nc
had Teen some of those letters, and they all charged the
parties to whom they were addressed to be particularly
careful not to send up any witnesses upon whom they
could not strictly rely.—(Loud laughter.) The term
used in one of the letters he bad seen was, that
the parties were not to send up any witnesses
" who would let out any thing favourable."—(Re-
newed laughter.) He spoke in the bearing of several
Gentlemen who were Members of the Committee, who
could contradict the different parts of his statement if it
were not correct. The witnesses thus called by the chair-
man amounted to 80, and the time occupied in establishing
the case to his satisfaction was the remainder of the
cession. It might be supposed that the examination of
these 80 witnesses would have given them evidence
with respect to every district of the country, and every
branch of trade. Among these witnesses there were
21 medical men—(Hear, bear.)—but out of them 15
resided in London, and had had little or no practical
experience upon the subject, of which they gave an abstract
opinion. There was no information regarding the manu-
facturers of the West of England—the centre of England,
and very little indeed with regard to Scotland. To make
up for this there were 51 witnesses from Leeds and its
neighbourhood. He could produce evidence of the falsity
of the evidence given, but he would merely state one
fact, to show the reliance the House was to place on the
witnesses examined. He selected the witness whose evidence
had made the greatest impression upon the public,
not only on esscount of his dreadful sufferings, but
the shocking deformity of his limbs and person.
This man stated that, in his youth, he had been
as straight as any Member of the Committee.
He had stated that in consequence of the great labour he
was obliged to undergo in lactories, he had pains in hie
limbs, his joints became distorted, his spine was injured,
and the result was spitting of blood, and the necessity of givin g
up work altogether. Such evidence he had no doubt had
operated moot strongly on the Committee, and he dare say
that the House would hardly believe him when he stated that
the deformity of that witness wan net owing to any extreme
labour or hardship that he had undergone in factories, but
was the result of a wrestling match. But this was not the
only ground
.on which the master manufacturers of the