The Sun.
London, England, 1835-04-17 00:00:00

PROTEST

Of Sir Francis Palgrave, one of the Commissioners for in-
quiring into Municipal Corporations in England And Wales,
in the matter of the Report presented to his Majesty by the
said Commissioners. (Pursuant to an Address to his
Majesty, dated April 3, 1835.)

1. His Majesty having been pleased to issue a commis-
sion under the great seal, dated the Bth day of July, in the
fourth year of his reign, (grounded upon the address of the,
Commons' House of Parliament therein recited) authoriz-
ing John Blackburne, Esq., Sir Francis Pa'grave, Knt.,
George Long, Fortunatus Dwarris, Sampson Augustus
Rumball, George H. Wilkinson, Thomas Jefferson Hogg,
Peregrine Bingham, D. Jardine, Richard Whitcombe,
John Elliot Drinkwater, Edward John Gambier, Thomas
Flower Ellis, James Booth, Henry Roscoe, Charles Austin,
Edward Rushton, Alexander Edward Cockburn, John
Buckle, and Daniel Maude, Esqs., to proceed to inquire as
to the existing state of the existing municipal corporations
in England and Wales, and to collect information respect-
ing the defects in their constitutions ; and also to make sues
other inquiries as are-therein directed ; and also signifying
his Majesty's pleasure that. the said Commissioners, or any
three or more of them, should, under their hands and seals,
to his Majesty what the said Commissioners should
find touching or concerning the premises in such inquiry as
aforesaid ; and also that any one or more of the said Com-
missioners may have liberty to certify their several proceed-
ings from time to time, as the same should be respectively
completed and perfected ; the Commissioner whose name
is hereunto subscribed loth hereby state his objections to
the report addressed to the King's most excellent Majesty
by the said John Blackburne, Esq., and certain other of the
Commissioners in the said commission named, protesting
against the same.
11. (1.) As theundersignad Commissioner differs in opi=
nion from the other Commissioners upon points of great
importance, it is proper to state that the objections to the
report have not been hastily raised.
(2.) The undersigned Commissioner having been informed
in the month of October last, that John Blackbrane, Esq.,
the Chief Commissioner named in the said Commission,
was collecting materiels for the general report, he shortly
afterwards delivered to the said Chief Commissioner a state-
ment containing a summary of the opinions which appeared
to him to be the results of the evidence, so far as the same
had come to his knowledge, and in which, amongst several
other matters, were contained observations to the follow-
ing effect :

In whom is the elective franchise for corporate pur-
poses to be vested ?—ln considering and discussing this
question may it not be proper to pause and inquire, whether
Conservatives and Reformers do not respectively overrate
the dangers as well as the advantages of an extended po-
pular franchise ?—With the fears and apprehensions of the
former, i. e. the Conservatives, which I firmly believe to be
erroneous, we have no concern. But if the last, i. e. the
Reformers, trust too much to the beneficial effects of popular
election ; and if, so trusting, they are thereby induced to
neglect the elements of good government, they will assur-
edly inflict the most serious evils on the country. Popular
suffrage is not a panacea for all the diseases of the body
politic. Popular suffrage, taken by itself alone, affords no
security against the incompetency, corruption, jobbing, or
despotism of the ruling body ; nor does the establishment
of a popular constituency in anywise relieve the Legislature
from the necessity of providing every possible check against
mal-administration. The most open borough must be watched
as jealously by the law as the closest oligarchy. The vices
may differ in feature, but they will be the same in nature.
Popular suffrage is a most powerful engine, which may be
rendered the means of removing causes of offence. It may
tend to premote security and political cheerfulness, but it
cannot be received as the basis and foundation of political
virtue, political integrity, or political order and prosperity.
Municipal suffrage must not be surrendered to the mass of
the people as a right which they are entitled to demand,
but treated as a free gift, bestowed upon them out of a
spirit of conciliation, restoring confidence and harmony be-
tween the governors and the governed, and thus contribut-
ing to the general Welfare of the community.
Of course these observations could not •be applied to a
report then not in existence, but it will be seen that they
involve a main principle of the objections hereinafter taken,
that is to say, that in examining the evidence it is proper to
discriminate between those defects which may be removed
by laws applied to the acts or defaults of individuals, and
those that may require a change in the political constitution
of municipal corporations.

(3.) On Thursday, the 25th February, 1835, the under-
signed received from the Secretary of the Commission a
printed draft of the report, with instructions to return the
same on Saturday, the 27th of the saw, month;vchich the
undersigned Commissioner accorqilcyy did, together with
his observations thereon (the said observations, owinc, to
the shortness of the period between the delivery and the
return of the draft, being very hastily written) contain-
ing amongst other matters, the following remarks upon pas-
sages in the draft, stating the "general unpopularity of the
municipal magistracy, (and which passages, with some alte-
rations, are substantially retained in the report) : " This is
to a certain extent true, but we must, nevertheless, ex-
amine the position a little more closely, and distinguish be-
tween the classes amongst whom this dissatisfaction or dis-
respect is found, * * * and it is our bounden duty in
admitting the facts to ascertain how far such disatisfaction
or disrespect arises from just and reasonable causes, or from
feelings which the Legislature should seek to calm." And
the said observations contain the substance or spirit of the
several objections hereinafter taken ; but, being, as before-
mentioned, written with great haste, they are in a loose and
unconnected form.

(4.) On Friday, the 6th of March, 1833, the under-
s:gned Commissioner received a second or revised printed
draft of the report, corrected and altered, but not so as to
meet any of the suggestions in the before-mentioned obser-
vations, together with a letter from the Secretary: requesting
him to attend the Board on the following day, and the un-
dersigned attended the Board accordingly, having previously-
written a letter to the Secretary, stating various objections
to the report ; and, amongst others, an objection, " That the
report, so far as it extends, does not permit a pertinent, full,
and accurate summary or digest of the evidence relating to
the subjects into which the Commissioners are directed to
inquire ;" which letter was read to the Board.

(5.) On Wednesday, the 11th day of March, the under-
signed Commissioner received a third revised proof of the
printed draft of the report, with instructions to attend a
Board thereon on the following day, viz., on the 12th of
March, which he did accordingly ; and the Board having
sat till a late hour of the evening the same was adjourned
until the following day, the 13th March.
When the Chief Commissioner had read the paragraph
cf the report, headed " Corporate Body" (p. 32, sec. 71) the
undersigned stated verbally, that he had certain general ob-
jections to make, which, if valid, affected the whole of the
report from that paragraph to its conclusion, viz. that the
report did not sufficiently distinguish between those abuses
which could be remedied by Courts of Law, or which muni-
cipal Magistrates might, as individuals, commit in common
with all other Magistrates ; and those defects and abuses
which in terms of the Commission were to be considered as
defects and abuses inherent in municipal constitutions ; and
that for want of this distinction the report, taken as a
whole, made assumptions not sufficiently warranted by the
evidence, inasmuch as it laid charges and affixed imputa-
tions upon the municipal corporations which did not pro-
perly belong to them. And, further, that with respect to
the state of public feeling, the report (in his opinion) con-
tained statements couched in stronger language than could
be supported by the evidence, as would appear by an ana-
lysis of that evidence ; and the undersigned Commissioner,
in support of his opinion, tendered to the Commissioners a
tabular analysis of the -cases reported in the southern cir-
cuit, and proposed that the other circuits should be ana-
lysed in similar manner, requesting that a Commissioner
who had bestowed great pains and attention upon the re-
port would assist him in making such analysis. The general
objections thus made, by the undersigned Commissioner
were over-ruled by the Board, and declared not to be valid ;
and the offer of analysing the evidence was also declined
by the Commissioners. The Coinmissioners then proceeded
to consider the report (as in Committee) ; and the under-
signed (as in Committee) offered various suggestions, some
of which were adopted and others rejected. At the con-
clusion of the sitting the undersigned then again declared
his intention of objecting to the report for the reasons
which he had before stated to the Board. But the Com-a
missioners stated that they should decline allowirg the said
Commissioner to sign the report lir e.cr protest, or to annex
his objections thereto, an intimation to the same effect
having previously been made to him. On the 14th March
the undersigned received from the Secretary a further re-
vised proof of the general report. On the 16th March he
addressed a letter to the Secretary requesting information
as to the course which it was intended to pursue with
respect to the objections. And on the 24th day of March
the Secretary replied that he had not received any answer
from the Chief Commissioner, and informed the under-
signed Commissioner that the report had been transmitted
-o the Secretary of State for the Home Department,
111. (1.) The general objections to the report are the
following, viz. that in the statements professing to be enu-
merations of the principal abuses and defects found in the
constitution and management of the municipal corporations
of England and Wales, the report does not clearly and per-
tinently discriminate between those abuses and defects
which are or may be remedied by law in municipal corpora-
tions as they now exist, and those abuses and defects which
cannot be remedied without an alteration in the constitution
of municipal corporations ; and that by thus refusing to ad-
mit the broad distinction between adventitious defects and
inherent defects, and .Iso between the acts of individuals
and the acts of communities, the report contains Various