The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-18 00:00:00

if the house considers, they will find that they will only
have a partial and limited means of observation and criti-
cism:L.s.n obeying the line :chalked out by the Government.
There are some most impbri,ant articles in this treaty which,
by this manner, will never come under the consideration of
the house. (Hear, hear.) The house cart only give an opi-
nion where the customs duties are involved. As matters
stand the 13th article of this treaty, regarding c 041) could
not come before us when we go into committee on th' °II*"
i.
toms duties. lam sure the house will not consent to
bi
placed in a worse position in dealing with such matters
in 1860 than they were in 1787. Take for instance the third
article of the treaty in reference to shipping, and it would
be seen that the house would have no opportunity of giving
an, opinion upon that article in going into committee upon
the Customs Acts, as both the noble lords have spoken upon
this motion. I feel sure the First Minister of the Crown
will find an opportunity for stating the course intended to
be pursued. What we ought to know is this : the mode con-
teMplated by the Government by which the House of Com-
mons shall have an opportunity of giving a full and con-
stitutional consideration to this commercial treaty with
France, and I shall be glad if the noble lord at the head of
the Government will state whether the course pursued in
this instance will be the same as that pursued by Mr. Pitt
in 1787.

.2dr. HORSMAN was afraid that the house was being
led into a most irregular course, which would before long
involve it in great difficulty. (Hear, hear.) There were
certain preliminaries to going into committee which ought
not to be passed over. The noble lord the Foreign Secre-
tary seemed to have misapprehended the purport of the
question of the hon. member for Perthshire. The hon.
gentleman did not enter into the merits of the treaty, but,
after pointing out that we were about to make certain
changes which we could make without a treaty, and that
the French Government were now about to make certain
changes which their Legislative Chamber could make with-
out a treaty, he went on to say, " Why does the Govern-
ment resort to a treaty to do that which they can do with-
out a treaty ?" (Hear, hear.) Reciprocity treaties were
an obselete, antiquated, condemned mode of doing business,
and by no gentleman in the house had they been more
strongly condemned than by the two noble lords the princi-
pal members of the Cabinet. (Hear, hear.) The noble lord
said it was too much to expect from him to go into the
question to-night, but it was not too much to expect from
the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he should have gone
into it the other night.. (Hear.) The first thing the Govern-
ment ought to have said was,--" Before we go to consider
the details of the treaty we think it our duty to inform the
House why we take such an exceptional and objectionable
course as to proceed by a treaty at all." (Hear, hear.) This
treaty gave the foreigner the power of intruding himself
into our internal legislation. By it we surrendered our
legislative independence; we abandoned our commercial
policy. (" Hear, hear," and murmurs of dissent.) Certainly
he had always understood that the system of reciprocity and
bartering for equivalents was what we gave up when free
trade was adopted. (Hear, hear.) At any rate, by the
treaty we abandoned the exclusive right of administering
our own internal financial affairs, and what the Government
ought to have said to the house was, " We ask you to take
an exceptional course,. an objectionable and reactionary
course, and it is our duty in the first instance to point
out to you the overwhelming motive and necessity
for it." (Cheers.) That ought to have been done before
going to the consideration of the budget. The point raised
in addition by the right hon. gentleman opposite was still
more important. By the 20th article this treaty was not to
be valid unless the 11th article received the assent of Par-
liament. It was not that the withholding the sanction of
Parliament from the 11th article was to make the 11th. ar-
ticle invalid, but the whole treaty. Another objection had
also struck him. He should much like to hear the opinion
of the law officers of the Crown as to whether her Majesty
had not been advised by her Ministers to exceed the power
of her prerogative. By this clause she fettered the future
action of Parliament in a matter of taxation. She assumed
legislative powers, and she declared that in time to come no
duty should be levied on particular articles of export. That
he believed to be a stretch of the prerogative, and an uncon-
stitutional usurpation of the powers of the Legislature. He
hoped Government would say first in what mode they pro •
posed to ask the consent of Parliament to the treaty ; and
next, whether in this article, by inadvertence, no doubt,her
Majesty had not been advised by her Ministers to assume a
power which by the constitution does not belong to her.
Mr. AYRT ON thought the right hon. gentleman opposite
had done the house some service by the point which he had
raised, because there was another important view of this
question which had not yet been noticed. By the suggested
mode of proceeding what might be called the omissions in
the treaty could not be taken, into consideration. ',low was
the house to discuss such a paint as the liberty reserved to
the French to keep on the duty on the export of raw silk to
this country, while we engaged to levy no duty whatever
on the manufactured goods exported from France to this
country ? (Hear, hear.) There were other questions of
omission which ought to ba considered in connexion with the
treaty, and some mode ought to be devised by which the
whole policy of the treaty might be brought before the house.
An hon. gentleman had given notice of a motion with re-
gard to the shipping interest; but the manner in which
that notice had been framed was most inconvenient. (Hear,
hear.) The question ought to be considered in connexion
with the whole policy of the treaty. In looking at the treaty
the point to be ck.nsidered was whether justice had been done
or not to all the great interests of the country, or whether
it would redound to the benefit of one or two special inte-
rests. (Hear.) lie hoped, therefore, that the Government
would devise me sby which the opinion of the hould could
be distinctly pronounced on the policy of the treaty as a
whole. Before sitting down he wished to know whether the
licences for selling wines were to be granted simply to the
keepers of eating-houses, or whether the keepers of beer-
houses would also be entitled to take theM out.
Mr. NE WDEGATE said he had early called attention to
the very anomalous course which the Government were
pursuing in this matter. It was impossible not to see that
the free discussion of the subject was very much impeded
by the language held by the noble lord the Foreign Secre-
tary, who told the house that he really could not say whe-
ther, if these duties were kept on, it would be agreeable
to the Emperor of the French. It certainly was most em-
barrassing that if we lid not accommodate our system of
free imports in England with the system of protection in
France we should be perpetually reminded that we were
likely to do something disagreeable to the Power over the
way. The most anomalous thing of all was that Parlia-
ment was asked to legislate for both countries, bemuse if it
sanctioned this treaty it would sanction a system of pro-
tection in France for ten years. He was old fashioned
enough to agree with the majority of people in France and
America that raising revenue by Customs' duties was a
sten, good thing if they only fostered native industry.
Whether France'would adhere to that system or not was
her own affair ; but it was his duty to represent an English
constituency, and on that ground he thanked the right hon.
gentleman below for having pointed out the fact that this
matter could not be fully and freely discussed by the pro •
posed mode of procedure.
Mr. LAING explained that it would be competent for
the occupier of any beershop by taking out a licence
as an eatinghouse to obtain in addition a license for selling
wine. But it was right that he should state that a large
number of representations on the subject of the resolutions
as to licenses had been received, which would require a
great deal of consideration (ironical cheers from the Oppo-
sition), and probably some modification would be introduced
into those resolutions, more especially as regarded police
regulations and the hours of opening. (Hear, hear.) He
could only state at present that these modifications would
be submitted to the house in a complete form, and that time
would be given for their consideration before the house was
asked to come to any decision whatever. (Hear, hear.)
Sir H. WILLOUGHBY reminded the noble lord the
Secretary for Foreign Affairs that he had omitted to answer
one question which had been addressed to him by the hon.
member for Perthshire—namely, whether any correspond-
ence bearing upon the foreign treaty existed between her
Majesty's Foreign Secretary and Earl Cowley and Mr. Cob-
den, or between any other official personages who took
part in the late negotiations, and whether
such correspon-
dence would be laid on the table of the house.
Lord H. VANE hoped her Majesty's Government would
take into consideration the reconunendation which had been
made to them, and would cause the whole subject of the
treaty to be submitted to the deliberation of the house.
(Loud cheers.) According to the Method 'originally pro-
posed such unquestionably would not have been the case
and he hoped that the evening would net close without ;
some
distinct intimation of the course which the Government
were prepared to adopt. Allusion had been made by the
right hon. gentleman the member for Buckinghamshire to
the course which had been pursued in 1787, and on a ques-
tion of slum importance he thought it would be inexpedient
to depart from the precedent which had thus been esta-
blished. (Hear, hear.) He differed in opinion from the
hon. member or Stroud, fo he held that all taxation
must proceed from, or, at least, be suggested by the
Crown, and that the house had no right to go into commit-
fee of supply or to vote taxes without such a recommen-
dation, although, of course, the subsequent sanction of Par-
liament was roquired.
Mr. BOUVERIE was most unwilling to address the
house, but he thought it worthy of consideration whether
the suggestion of the right hon. gentleman the member for
Buckinghamshire was sound or not. No one could for a
moment doubt that it. would be necessary for the House of
Commons to pronounce their opinion,' aye or no, upon the
French treaty ; for it was expressly stated in the treaty
itself that its validity was conditional on its acceptance by
the British Houses of Parliament. (Hear.) But the ques-
tion really was as to the order in which they should pro-
ceed—whether they would consider the treaty as a whole,
and pronounce upon it either the approbation or disappro-
bation of the house, and subsequently pass to the considera-
tion of domestic legislation with reference to it; or whe-
ther they would in the first instance enter upon domestic
legislation, deciding the points which arose, not with re-
ference to France, but solely with regard to the interests
of the people of this country—(hear, hear)—and,
having achieved this object, they would then proceed to con-
sider whether the treaty was sound or not. He apprehended
that the fair and proper method for the House of Commons
to pursue was to deliberate in the first instance on the
changes which it was proposed to effect in certain duties in
Contemplation of the treaty, and having decided, purely in
accordance with British interests, whether the Government
were
right or wrong in having recommended these, they
could th.en proceed to the consideration of the treaty itself.
(•""s*
, hear.)
Lord J. MANNERS, while agreeing with the right hon.
gentleman that it was of the utmost importance that these
two questions should be discussed separately and distinctly,
could not believe that the mode which he had proposed
was the convenient
(Hear, hear.) Certainly, even the constitutional course.
in
if he were right, Mr. Pitt was
wrong • and, with all r
point hei would prefer thseltett he must say that on such a
iiiionhority of the elder statesman.
(Hear, hear.) the right
riven
ieVerea-a seemed to have
misapprehended the answer thee noble lord to the
ontest,lmbier for Perthshire, and
question so well put by the honi
question which had
which was, in fact, a reply
been put.
occured to his own mind, and which had
The noble lord (Lord J. Russell) stated distinctly that
thtitevez
his intention (m. Alontlay next, upon the
.Speaker do leave the chair, to go into the whole
the French treaty, and to vindicate the whole question tagot
tents. Surely, then, it was necessary for those who coo_
s'ented from such a course of proceeding to make their .re-
monstrances at once, and to say—as he was happy-to have
heard it said on both sides of the house—thet such was not
the proper and constitutional method of proceeding, lie
now understood from the cheers that the noble lord had
given to two or three hon.
gentlemen, that he was nit pre-
pared to vindicate the treaty on Monday next, but proposed
that a separate occasion should be afforded to the house, in
order that, in the proper and legitimate discharge of its
duties, it should be able to express a deliberate opinion, aye
or no, on the provisions of that treaty. He must again
thank his hon. friend the member for Perthshire
fdr liringina forward this important question; and he beg-
ged to say that to that question her Majesty's Government