The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-30 00:00:00

LANCASHIRE .REFO.RIIIE.RS' UNION.

The adjourned meeting of the council, on the
steps to be taken in reference to the alleged aggres-
sion by the House of Lords, took place yesterday
afternoon at Manchester. Mr. Bright, M.P., was
present.
Mr. GEORGE WILSON, who presided, said he had
no doubt the committee of the House of Commons
appointed last week would make a report in ac-
cordance with the principles of the constitution ;
but it would be the most remarkable discovery of
modern times if they discovered any fragment of
authority for the House of Lords to levy £1,200,000
of taxes on the people. (Cheers) He would not
do the House of lords the injustice of supposing
they were actuated by the reasons assigned for
their rejection of the paper duties repeal. The
proxies used on the vote were prepared beforehand
and indicated a foregone conclusion. (Hear, hear.)
The real motive was opposition to the policy of the
Government, to Lord Palmerston, to Parliamentary
reform, and to Mr. Bright. (Cheers.)
Mr. GOADSBY moved the first resolution :
" That this meeting witnesses with great satisfac-
tion the steps taken by the House of Commons to
maintain inviolate its right to determine the sum
of the taxes to be laid upon the people, and pledges
itself to support the house by any means in its
power."
Mr. AsmoN,of Darwen, seconded the resolution
which was unanimously passed.
Mr. C. E. Rawlins moved and Mr. Alderman
Harvey seconded, the Mowing resolution, which
was also supported by Mr. S. Platt, of Oldham :
" That the various branches of the Lancashire
Reformers' Union be recommended to renew their
public meetings to adopt petitions for presenta-
tion to the House of Commons immediately after
the recess."

Tae resolution was adopted unanimously.
The CHAIRMAN then moved a vote of thanks to
Lord Palmerston, Lord J. Russell, Mr. James,
Mr. Duncombe, and Mr. Bright, for the course
they had adopted in the House of Commons on
Friday last.
Dr. WATTS seconded the resolution, which was
passed by acclamation.
Mr. BRIGHT, who was warmly cheered, said the
question now at issue was not one of extending the
frontiers of the ancient realm of English freedom,
but the most unexpected necessity of making a
fight for liberties gained by our fathers. (Cheers.)
The Crown had the sawie technical right to a veto
on these matters of taxation as the Lords, but in
the case of the latter there was a division of respon-
sibility which made their agression the more
dangerous. The principle on which the most able
lawyers, as he believed, would state the case, was
this, that the House of Commons had the sole right
of granting to the Crown what the Crown required.
If there had been an inexhaustible chest under the
floor of the house, from which money could be
drawn and handed to the Crown without the
necessity of an act of Parliament ; a vote of
the House of Commons could apply that money
and hand it over to the Crown. But the
reason why a bill went up to the House of
Lords was this, that we required what was
called statutory machinery to establish a
mode by which the sums granted by
the Commons could be raised from the people.
The soul of the matter was in the grant
of the Commons. (Hear, hear.) No other
power could grant than the Commons; no other
power could accept or apply than the Crown ; and
the Lords, being one of three estates of the realm,
gave their assent to the machinery which was
enacted, in the various clauses of the acts which
(Hear,
principle was entirely overturned. It was not
passedh
e a r.t o
Butregulate
in
the the
present
raising
caseof the
the
money.
)
merely that the House of Lords disapproved some
mode of raising, or approved some other, but they
acknowledged an entire condemnation of the whole
budget. Lord Derby, as he understood him, would
have opposed all those changes, or mainly those,
which had been rendered necessary by the French
treaty. Therefore it was not a mere question of
machinery, but it was the greatest of all questions,
whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer, acting on
behalf of his colleagues and in the name of the
Crown, in conjunction with the House of Lords,
shall now and hereafter determine a matter which
had been thus determined always for 200 year past.
He attributed mainly to the abstention of the House
of Lords from interference with questions of finance
that harmonious co-operation which had so long
existed between our representative body and our pri-
vileged legislators. Such a step as that now taken by
the House of Lords was hardly on record, and if the
people now did their duty he ventured to say such a
step would never be heard of again for a very long
Period; but if the people failed now to resist it was
extremely likely we should witness a similar interfer-
ence almost every session. A privileged order of
rulers was only to be restrained, from acts of tyranny
by this most effectual check, the consciousness of
danger to its own existence. (Cheers.) It was our
duty, therefore, to stand by the Government—as-
miming, as of course he did, that the present
Cabinet had no desire to be known in history as
the feeble Ministry that surrendered without a
struggle those rights of the Commons which had
been maintained for centuries, and which lay at the
k Tory foundation of English freedom.