The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-06 00:00:00

ADMINISTERING POISON BILL

This bill was read a second time.
Their lordships then adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMM OATS.—(YESTERDAY.)
The SPEAKER took the chair at four o'clock.
RnSCOMMON ELECTION.
Mr. DUNLOP, the chairman of the committee ap-
pointed to try the merits of the Roscommon Election peti-
tion, brought up the report of that committee to the eircet
that Captain Gough, the sitting member, was guilty of
treating, through his agents, but without his knowledge;
that he was not duly elected, and that some of the bills fur
his election expenses were not delivered to the election
auditor.

AUGMENTATION OF LIVINGS.
Lord W GRAHAM moved for a return of all tithe rent
charges vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for
England in possession ; showing the parishes and counties
out of which such tithe rent charges arise; the amount at
which they have been commuted ; the names, populations,
and incomes of the benefices in such parishes ; and the
grants which have been made by the Commissioners to
such benefices.—Ordered.

RATE ASESSENTS.
Mr. HUNTPOOR moved an address for reMturn of the number
of persons assessed to the poor rate in respect of property
of the annual rateable value of £lO and under £l2, £l2 and
under £l5, £l5 and under £2O, £2O and under £5O, £5O and
upwards, in each parish or part of a parish in England and
Wales aot within the limits of any city or Parliamentary
borough ; the preceding particulars to be summarised so as
to show in regard to each head of information separate totals
for each county and Parliamentary division of a county ;
together with a total for the entire district returned (the
above to be prepared from the most recent particulars rea-
dily accessible).—Ordered.

METROPOLITAN POLICE FORCE.
Mr. BOWL ER moved for reinrns of the number of
superintendents and inspectors of the metropolitan police
who have been promoted to their present situations from the
force ; of the number who have been in the army and navy;
of the number who have been appointed without having
previously been in the public service, civil or military; of
the number of metropolitan police-constables who have
been reported by sergeants or acting sergeants, within the
last three years ; and of the number of polies-constables
who have eutersd the force, the number who have been
dismissed, and the number who have retired front the force
within the last three years.—Ordered.

BARRACKS.
Mr. MONSELL moved an address for a return of all
barracks in the United Kingdom constructed for not more
than 100, 200, 300, 400, or 500 men, specifying whether
they aro for infantry, cavalry, or artillery ; of the annual
expense of the staff employed for the care and maintenance
of each barrack ; and, of tho aggregate number of infantry.
cavalry, and artillery for whom accommodation is provided
for in barracks constructed each for more than 500 men,
and the aggregate number for whom accommodation is pro •
vided in camp.—Ordered.
COLONELS OF CAVALRY.
Captain ARCHDALL asked the Secretary of State for
War why field officers of the cavalry wore excluded from
the advantages of the late warrant, being prohibited from
taking troop horses as chargers : whether he was swat*
that the receipts of a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry, from
his pay and allowances, were ls. 10d. a day less than the
pay and allowances of a lieutenant-colonel of infantry :
and whether, such being the case, he would raise the pay
and allowances of a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry equal to
those of a lieutenant-colonel of infantry ?
Mr. S. HERBERT was understood to say that it was
not intended to make the increase in question, as there was
no ground for such a proceeding.
MILITARY DEFENCES OF THE COLONIES.
Mr. ADDERLEY asked the Secretary of State for
IVar whether the committee had vet reported, which he
stated last session to be sitting, on the subject of the expen-
diture from the British treasury on the military defences of
the colonies, and on the principle on which such expenses
ought to be apportioned between the imperial and colonial
treasuries, and on the best mode of carry ing out such ap-
portionment; and, if they have made their report, whether
he would present it to the house ?
Mr. S. HERBERT said the report alluded to had been
received, but it was not quite correct. lie had communi-
cated with the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the
subject, but he had not had time to devote his attention to

it, and who did not consider that the report, being of a con-
fidential character, should be laid on the table.
CAVALRY OFFICERS.
Mr. H. STRACEY asked the Secretary of State for War
whether general officers appointed to regiments of cavalry
would in future be obliged to repay the difference, although
the prices of commissions in the infantry and cavalry have
been equalised.
Mr. S. HERBERT replied in the negative.

ARMSTRONG'S AND WHITWORTH'S GUNS.
M. H. BAILLIE asked the Secretary of State for War
whether he intended to continue the manufacture of Arm-
strong's guns, after the remarkable results of the recent ex-
periments with Whitworth's guns, both as to their range
and the accuracy of their fire ; whether it was an
ascertained fact that Armstrong's guns could not be used
unless there was at hand a large supply of water, so that
the gun might be washed out after each shot ; and whe-
ther the Whitworth gun might not be used for any length
of time without the aid of water : and whether the com-
mittee appointed to decide on the respective merits of the
Armstrong and Whitworth cannon adopted the Armstrong
gun without going to Manchester to look at Whitworth's
gun, after having previously fixed a day on which they
were to have visited Mr. Whitworth's works for the pur-
pose of examining his gun ?
Mr. S. HERBERT said that the guns invented by Mr.
Whitworth were very satisfactory, but it was intended to
test it with the guns of Sir W. Armstrons, with respect to
length of range, accuracy of aim, but, above all, with re-
spect to their relative powers of destructability of an enemy.
The Armstrong guns were now supplied with a lubricating
material in the charge that rendered the use of water un-
necessary.
a p t.L.VERNON EMPLOYMENT OOF s
kCeldVt
hI I4cNr
Secretary
a Ar
fGU StateN Nf
for
GUNNERS.
. a r
twhether
st
throe r en
gwgausnasnie
nfot utnodca
ionnafur,our
nthe
rr
thmeo ueo
mt hula ta,with
the Armstrong guns sent to China, under the command of
Col.
send civilian
tn , Royal hadArtiblleelring,litngto
been Sir
w m.
found
expedient
to workmen Armstrong's
manufactory, for the purpose of attending to details which
in ordinary cases fell within the duties ofthe gunners.
Mr. S. HERBERT was understood to state that it was
not usual to employ civilians in that capaciiy, but when it
was had recourse to, means were taken to remedy any de-
fects on their part.
Mr. HANKEY asked the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, whether the provisions of the French Treaty ap-
plied to French colonies in respect of duties upon British
goods imported by these colonies ; and if goods shipped to
Martinique, &c., from England, would be admitted on the
same terms as if shipped to France ?
Lord J. RUSSELL said that there were no provisions in
the treaty relating to the matter, and he took that oppor-
tunity of stating that it had been recommended to the
Legislative Council to abolish the duty on rags. (Hear.)
BERKELEY HOUSE.
Mr. E. JAMES asked the First Commissioner of Works
whether he could stato to tl,e house the sum paid by the
Metropolitan Board of Works for the site of Berkeley
House, upon which that board is erecting a building for
their own use ; and what sum is to be expended by the said
board in the construction of that building ?
Mr. COWPER said that the whole cast would be
£16,000, and that they would have to pay £&00 a-year for
the property for 10 years.

SAVOY AND NICE.
Mr. X. FITZGERALD said that the correspondence
relating to Savoy and Nice was not placed in the hands of
hon. members until that morning, and therefore he must
postpone asking the noble lord this evening a question re-
lative to some apparent inacouracies in that correspondence,
but he would do so to-morrow.

CUSTOMS' ACT.
The report on the Customs' Act was brought up and
agreed to.
THE COMMERCIAL TREATY.—SAVOY
AND NICE.
- -

Lord PALMERSTON—I rise, sir, to make the motion
of which I gave notice,—That the other orders of the day
be postponed till after the motion for an address to her Ma-
jesty on the treaty with France ; and I take this opportu-
nity of making an appeal to my hon. friend the member for
Sunderland, who bas given notice of an addition to the in-
tended address. That addition relates to the differential
daties on shipping—a matter that may very fairly be
brought under the consideration of this house. But it
would, I think, be undesirable to insert it in an address ap-
proving the treaty, which doe 3 not touch the question of•
those duties. And if my hon. friend woull be kind enough
to separate the two subjects, and take the discussion on his
proposal on another day, f undertake on the part of the
Government to assist him in obtaining an opportunity of
bringing it on before Easter; which I suppose will be suft►-
cient for his purpose. I therefore now move the postpone-
ment of the other orders.

Mr. LINDSAY could not answer the noble lord's appeal
until he had himself, in turn, made an appeal to the hon
member for Middlesex (Mr. Byng.) That hon. gentleman
had given notice of motion for an address respecting the
treaty with France; but the terms of that address wore not
before (Hear, hear, from the Opposition.) It
was usual
important
a matter that the house should
the
on
s o house.
be in possession of the words of the address at least one
clear day before they were called upon to discuss it. (Hear,

___.............--........—_—.
hoar.) The terms of the address itself not being before the
helve. of course the terms of his own proposed addition to
it were not before the house either. They could therefore
' have no opportunity of judging whether the words he pro-
posed to add were consistent with the address, and should
be discussed in conjunction with it, or whether they should
form the subject of a. separate and substantive motion. He
thought the words which he wished to add ought to be dis-
cussed at the same time as the address to her Majesty.
—(hear, hear, from the Opppositin)—,weause the noble
lord forgot that the 3d article of the treaty distinctly re-
ferred to British shipping, specifying that the diff rential
duties levied by France against the shipping of England ea-
t :ring her ports were in nowise to to altered. (Hear, hear.)
If therefore he kn:w whether or not they were to defer the
discussion of the address until its terms were regularly be-
fore the house he would be better able to respond to the
noble lord's appeal. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. KINGLAKE rose to state very briefly the grounds
on which he intended to oppose the metion of the noble
viscount. At an unusually late hour for notices of motion
on Friday night—(Hear, hear, from the Opposition)—and
after a very extraordinary speech frem the hon. member for
Birmingham, the noble viscount at the head of the Govern-
ment gave notice of the present motion, and requested, as
it seemed, the hon. member fur Middlesex to give notice of
t'te address the discussion of which they were now ceded
upon to accelerate by that emotion. The very preamble of
ithe treaty which they were asked to sanction began by de-
daring that it was the object of the high contracting parties
to draw closer the ties of friendship which united the two
peoples. Now, they would be trifling with that great sub-
ject and taking part in the emptiest of all imaginable forms
if they consented to enter on the queeeion presented to their
attention without having a far more accurate knowledge
than they now had of the relations really subsisting be-
tween this country and France. (Hear, hear, from the Op-
position.) As lately as Tuesday last the noble lord who was
the constitutional exponent of the views and opinions of her
Majesty's Government on foreign affairs stated in that house
with a frankness which was characteristic of hint, that if
'the proposed annexation of Savoy and Nice should unfortu-
nately be persisted in the Emperor of the French would
expose himself to the distrust and hostility of Europe.
(Hear, hear.) On the day when the noble lord made that
statement he had himself been pressed to postpone his
motion, hut he had persevered in ;Feler, on with it becauso
he know that in this matter time was vital. (Rear, hear.)
And it so happened that within 40 hours of the moment at
which the noble lord the Foreign Secretary made that
statement the Emperor of the Frenea pronounced a speech
from the throne, which scented, as far as he could under-
stand les semewha t ambiguous phraseology-to place the great
empire of France in a position of something like antagonism
to this country. (Hear, hear.) One portion of the Empe-
rot's speech was, he thought, perfectly unexceptionable in
its tone aid language; and if he could only bring himself
to believe that that part of the speech represented the real
views of his Majesty he would not now be endeavouring to
postpone the hon. member for Middlesex's motion. The
Emperor said :

" This reassertion of a claim to a territory of small extent
has nothing in it of a nature to a:arm Europe and give a
denial to the policy of disinterestedness which I have pro-
claimed more than once, for France does not wish to pro-
ceed to this aggrandisement, however small it may be, either
by military occupation or by provoked insurrection, or by
underhand mancouvres, but by frankly explaining the ques •
tion to the Great Powers."
If he could only believe that that was all he would be very
well content. But he found that in other passage% his
Majesty spoke of the proposal for annexing Savoy as though
it were a matter resulting frcm some right possessed by the
Emperor of the French. The Emperor also appealed to one
of the most dangerous principles to which any potentate
could appeal—viz., the principle of natural boundaries.
(Hear, hear.) Now, one plain sentence might remove all
the obscurity which hung upon that question; let it be
said that the determination to consult the Great Powers
of Europe meant that which any plain man would
understand when he spoke of consulting another. Let
it only be understood that France would not proceed
to this annexation without the assent of the other
Great Powers, and then they would all enter on
the discussion of that commercial treaty in a spirit
that would conduce to the peace and tranquillity of
Europe It, however, so happened that rumour rather
reported those questionable portions of the Imperial speech
whi 2h spoke of the proposed annexation as a matter of neces-
sity, and left them less room than they would like for be-
lieving that the fair and courteous expressions contained in
other passages were the true indication of the Emperor's
meaning. As a ground for postponing the debate on which
they were now invited to enter he must beg the house to
remember that from July to the present time two negotia-
tions, or, to speak more accurately, one negotiation and one
discussion, had been going on simultaneously. He alluded,
first, to the negotiation with respect to the commercial
treaty, which had ripened into the instrument with which
they were now acquainted. But, unfortunately, the discus-
sion relating to the proposed annexation of Savoy seemed—
as far as he could judge from the hasty perusal of the cor •
respondence which the late delivery of the papers had per-
, milted him to bestow upon them—to have dragged on and
leached an unfavourable phase precisely after that period
when our assent to the commercial treaty was obtained.
(Hear.) It was of the utmost importance that the house
should have had the opportunity not only of glancing at these
papers, but of reading them, and carefully colleting their
meaning—(hoar, hear)—before they were called upon to ex-
press an opinion upon the commercial treaty. When he spoke
of the opinion which they might express with regard to that
treaty he did not refer so much to the vote to which the
house might be invited to come as to that plainer and clearer
expression of opinion which might perhaps be collected in
the course of the debate. It being of the utmost import-
ance that in the approaching discussion of this treaty they
should have a clear view of the relations actually subsisting
between this country and France—(hear, hear)—he hoped
that the house would not depart from its ordinary course
of proceeding, or, by the vote for which the noble lord
had asked, ac...clerate the consideration of this address.
Had the question come on in its ordinary course, he should
have felt very much disposed to submit to the consideration
of the house some amendment whichmight have given them
an opportunity of deciding whether they ought not to have
better means than they now possessed of forming an opinion
upon this subject before they voted an address to the Cr own.
(Hear.) As it was, it of course followed that he must oppose
the motion of the noble lord, as one which tended to accele-
rate the consideration of a question which, in his opinion,
was not ripe for discussion. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. BYNG said that, having been appealed to by his
hon. friends the members for Sunderland and Bridgewater,
it was only respectful to them and to the house that he
should answer that appeal in the shortest possible manner.
If the house generally was anxious to see the terms of the
motion in which he should have the honour of proposing
that an address should be presented to her Majesty approv-
ing the commercial treaty with France, he would postpone
moving that address until Thursday—(hoar, hear)—and
would in the meantime place upon the paper the exact .'e ma
in which he should propose it. (Hear, hear.) As he was
sure that his hon. friend the member for Bridgewater would
not wish him to go into a long discussion of foreign affairs,
ke would only say that ho understood a fortnight ago from
the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it was intended that
an address of this kind should be proposed at the earliest
possible moment after the house had in committee approved
the various reductions of the Customs' duties. It was on
that account only that ho had given notice of his intent;on
to make this proposal to the house, and if it was the general
wish that the motion should be postponed to Thursday next,
he would accede to that desire. (Hear.)
Lord PALMERSTON.—In accordance with what bus
fallen from my hon. friend (Mr. Byng), and what is evi-
dently the wish of the house, I beg leave to withdraw
the motion which I have made. 1 will only say, in expla-
nation, that in the course of the discussions which took
place upon the previous stages of this matter I stated, in
deference to what we believed to be the general wish of the
house, that at the earliest moment after the resolutionshad
been gone through and reported an address would be pro-
posed to the house in confirmation and approval of the
treaty in general ; therefore, if the course which has been
pursued
adoptedto
been
in deferencemore
sud-
den
and appearsidthou
what we supposed to be the wisher of the house. The right
rap to
tleurtn opposite (Mr. Dis.aali), the hon. member
to hon.
usual,nie itni members
hen. earss
hon. gentleman
possession of the words of the address yesterday, or
fwoerrSeuinnderland, and another active member of this house
certainly this morning. I beg leave towithdraw the motion
for the postponement of the orders.
Mr. ROEBUCK asked the hon. member for Middlesex
whether he would, before Thursday, lay on the table the
words of the address.
Mr. BYNG replied that he would do so that evening.
Mr. DISRAELI—I have always understood that the
earliest moment convenient for taking into consideration
any matter of importance is the earliest moment consistent
with the house having the opportunity of consideration. j
am very glad that the Government ha\ e changed their
course, because I do not think that the members of this
house would have had an opportunity foorrcwonassidtehreatcioonursife
they had been called upon to vote an address to the Crown
with which they had not, speaking generally, had any
opportunity of becoming acquainted. N
originally adopted by her Majesty's Ministers consistent
with the usual custom of this house, because on the last
Crowntwith
itils
wass Russia
occasion of similar importance which I can recall—viz ,
nwoht
ene tohfe
ana
treatydd
address
peasea t o
the
wgiasvoneonoenludmedonH
Mon-
day for that day week, and upon the Saturday f lowing the
language of the address was laid upon the table, so that not
only had we a week's notice of the intention of the Govern-
ment, but we had also 48 hours' notice of the language of
the intended_ address. That is a precedent which I am sure
none of us will question, and of which I am sure that you,.
sir, will approve, because I believe that the gentleman wh%,
moved that address was Mr. Evelyn Denison. As the no'ole
lord has referred to my being in possession of the laurgeage
of the proposed address, I cannot but say that it ap;veses to
me that her Majesty's Ministers, with a desire to. ssonclude
this business which is hardly well considered, have followed
the precedent of Mr. Pitt's time, without reflect/ ng that the
circumstances of the two cases are, owing t 0 the course
which they have followed, very different. Iv the address%
which hon. gentlemen will see upon the par to-morrow„
having expressed our dutyand satisfaction, we arerequested
to go on to say, " We shall proceed to take such steps al