The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-20 00:00:00

finance. It had been a source of constant and daily anxiety
to him since he entered office, and he was not as yet able to

see his way to any satisfactory result. He agreed with the
noble lord that it was impossible now to fix the amount of
the permanent force. The question, however, did not press
for an immediate decision. They could not immediately dis-
miss the men they had enlisted—such a course would be
most unjust, and of necessity one or two years must elapse
before the army could be reduced to its normal state.
(Hear.) He admitted the force must be considerably re-
duced. (Hear.) He had himself a strong opinion in favour
of an irregular force—(hear, hear)—and when he left the
Board of Control he was in correspondence with Lord Dal-
housie on the subject of putting down the regular cavalry
and substituting irregular forces. He believed it would be
much cheaper, and would afford a means of employment to
native gentlemen. (Hear.)
• The motion for the adjournment was then withdrawn,
and the subject dropped.
WINTER SESSIONS OF PARLIAMENT.

Mr. C. FORSTER then rose to move that an humble
address be presented to her Majesty, representing the incon•
venience of protracting the session of Parliament during the
summer months, and praying that her Majesty would be
graciously pleased to provide a remedy for such inconveni-
ence by assembling Parliament for the despatch of business
before Christmas. When he last brought the subject before
the house the noble lord the member for London declared

:he proposed change would be for the better, and the_then

Leader Of the house, the righthon. member for'Buckingham.

shire, admitted the arguments in favour of it were very
strong. He should be very unwilling to do anything to
interfre with the pursuits of any hon. members, but he

thought they would feel with hitii that the busines of that
house ought to be a matter of first consideration. With regard
to the time at which this change ought to be made, he be-
lieved no time could be more advantageous for it than the
present.
Mr. EWART seconded the motion.
Mr. BENTINCK ( who was received with loud cries of
" divide") said he thought that if the speeches on the Go-
vernment and opposition benches were shortened there would
be a great saving of time. Now, he thought that it was ab-
surd that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Forster) should suppose
he could alter the nature of the house by such a motion as this.
The whole system of the house was procrastination. Twenty
questions were on the paper every evening ; two, perhaps,
were discussed, and the rest stood over. And the idea of a

fixed time for closing the session would be of no value.
Hon. members were aware thatthe practice on Wednesdays,
in order to throw over a troublesome question, was to talk
against time. If the session closed at a fixed time, that
would be done throughout the session.
Mr. A. SMITH thought that it would save much time
if the house sat in the first week of January.
Lord J. RTISSLL did net understand the hon. gentle-
man who introduced this motion to have proposed that Par-
liament should rise at a fixed time. If he had done so, of

course the answer was obvious, that in the case of any mea
sure disagreeable to a small party, it would be in their
power to govern the majority by obstinate procrastination.
The hon. member, as he understood the matter, only pro-
posed that by means of an autumn sitting the house should
be enabled so to progress with public business that their
labours might terminate at an early period of the summer.
No doubt in the six weeks which would be gained before
Easter some progress might be made. This was certainly
to be said in favour of the plan, that the business towards
the end of the session would not be so much hurried as it
now was by the desire of hon. members to leave town. He
certainly thought that the effect of the plan could not be
judged by the results of the late winter sessions, because
they had invariably of late years been held for some spe-
cial purpose only, such as the passing of an act of indem-
nity to the Government for some temporary violation of the
law. Therefore it was no argument at all to say that be-
cause nothing was done that nothing would at any future
time be done. But he must say that he did not think the
merely meeting somewhat earlier would give the house the
relief,: the want of which was no doubt felt. They must
bear in mind that the business of the house had of late
years increased almost four-fold. It was a matter which
should be considered by competent persons, whether some
improvement ought to be made, whereby some of the forms
of the house which caused the delay might not be al-
tered. For instance, at the commencement of a session,
a certain number of days must elapse before a vote of
supply could be taken, and certain other days must pass be-
fore the estimates could be laid on the table. Thus delay
arose for which Government were not responsible, but which
was in fact caused by the farms of the house. The house had
a vast amount of work to get through—it transacted four or
five times as much businesses any other legislative assembly
in the world • on the whole that business was transacted
well, though no doubt occasionally it was done with too great
a hurry. He trusted, however, that the hon. gentleman
having called the attention of the house to the subject, he
would not press his motion. He might in conclusion mention
as showing that it was no unheard-of state of things which
the hon. gentleman sought to bring about, that a letter of
Mrs. Hannah More's came under his (Lord J. Russell's)
notice, in which, commenting on the accession of George
111., he said that the only fault she had to find with the
young monarch was that his birthday was on the 4th of
June, the result of which would be to keep people in town
until that day, and perhaps, she added, even prolong the
sitting of Parliament to that late period. (Hear.)
Lord PALMERST ON said his hon. friend who made this
motion exhibited great confidence in its receiving the sup-
port of the douse, a confidence which, however, the hon.
seconder did not appear to share with him. There was one
defect in the reasoning upon which his hon.. friend founded
his motion. He had not advanced any public grounds, nor
had he advanced any new facts, to justify a sitting before
Christmas. He found a succession of winter sessions to
give the following results. Parliament met 29th November,
1802, to 12th August, 1803; 22d November, 1803, to 31st
July, 1804; 4th November, 1813, to 30th July, 1814; Bth
November, 1814, to 12th July, 1815 ; 21st November, 1826,
to 2d July, 1827 ; 6th December, 1831, to 16th August,
1832 ; 20th November, 1837, to 16th August, 1838 ; 23d
November, 1847, to sth September, 1818 ; 11th November,
1852, to 20th August, 1853 ; 12th Dec., 1854, to 14th Aug.,
1855; 3d Dec., 1857, to the 2d Aug., 1858. It wouldbe seen
from this list that Parliament sat quite as long into the sum-
mer when it had a sitting before Christmas, as when it did
not meet until the usual time in January. The times were
changed, manners were changed, and Parliament had felt
the pressure of the times. Everything was later than it
used to be in the last century. People dined later, and,
perhaps, they did not get up so early. (A laugh.) But
you could not force them to get up at six and go to bed at
ten, and you must adapt your Parliamentary proceedings
to the changed habits of the country. With the assistance
of the chair, he thought arrangements might be made by
means of which the progress of public business would be
much facia ttcd. In any improvement of that kind he
would most heartily concur, but he hoped the house would
not accede to the hon. member's proposition, which was
foundedt, on mere temporary
might grounds. Another summer
ht not be so hot, the Thames would not always smell
as it did at present, nor were therevery year to expect a
sudden dissolution of Parliament. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. FORSTER expressed his readiness to withdraw his
motion, and follow the suggestion of Lord J. Russell, but
an hon. member on the opposition side insisted on a divi
sion.
Ayes 4B
Noes . 121-73
QUEEN'S PRINTERS' PATENT.

Mr. BANES moved fora select committee to inquire
into the nature and extent of the Queen's Printers' Patent
for Englaild and Wales, so far as relates to the right of
printing the Holy Scriptures; and to report their opinion
as to thesropriety of any future grant of that patent. He
was deeply attached to the authorised version. It was
admirable and faithful and the noblest indorsement of the
Saxon tongue, and although that version was not faultless,
he sought no other. Lord Chancellor Clare declared against
the exclusive right of printing the Bible, inasmuch as that
would tend to restrict the circulation of a book intended for
the instruction of mankind. Several other high authorities
had expre:,sed similar opinions. A select committee of the
house had also reported in favour of permitting the free
printing of the Bible. The printing of the Bible was now
thrown open to printers in Scotland, but under the super-
vision of a Bible Board, which had the,power of inflicting
a penalty of £5OO in case errors were permitted to creep in.
He thought competition was the best security for cheap-
ness and excellence; but some objected to this principle, so
far as the Bibla was ancerned, because the Bible was at
present sold at a Cheap rate and printed with accuracy, and
also because ii, was important that the public sheuld have
some guarantee as to the accuracy of the inspired volume.
The increase in the number of Bibles printed in Scotland
after the exclusive principle had been dme away with, was
three-fold. (Hear.) The hon. member, after referring to
the causes for the cheapness of the Bible, said that in 1801
the whole of the number of Bibles in existence was four
millions, but within the last 50 years the number of Bibles
in existence all over the world amounted to forty millions.
He assured the house that accuracy was not the result of
monopoly, as was shown from the introduction of the word
" not," by which it was stated that " the righteous would
not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." There was no fear that
inferior editions of the Bible would obtain currency ammo
the public if the monopoly was done away with. In the first
place, .the trade would take care of that ; and next, the
Christian public could not be deceived as regarded the cor-
rectness of the Bible, as they were—no matter to what sect
or party they belonged—all interested in the correct version
of the Bible. Nor did he think there was any necessity for
a British Board to regulate the printing of the Bible. The
Bible was not given to this or that religious body, and he
called upon the house not to restrict its publication to one
particular class. He begged to conclude by moving for
the appointment of a select committee to consider the
question which he hanhus briefly brought under the con-
sideration of the house.
Sir G. C. LEWIS said that as he came down to the house
prepared to assent to the motion of the hon. gentleman he
had not prepared himself with arguments with the view of
discussing the question. He wished to keep his mind open
respecting it. He must, however, say that he did not anti-
cipate any practical advantage would arise to the public,
even if the hon gentleman succeeded in the object which he
had in view. He admitted that the presumption was
against monopoly, but he would ask whether they did not,
in fact, enjoy all the advantages that could be desired if the
exclusive privilege objected to was got rid of. Let it be
recollected that the privilege in question applied only to
the authorised version of the Holy Scriptures and the
Prayer Book. There were no objections to the printing of
the Hebrew version or the Greek version of the Holy
Scriptures. The authorised version was published under
the authority of the King's printer and the two Universi-
ties, and even in Scotland the Bible could not be published
without the consent of the Bible Board. The Bible was not
printed in Ireland. If the house came to the conclusion that
the authorised version of the Holy Scriptures was not to
be published under the special privilege now enjoyed
by the King's printer and the two Universities, then it
would be published in the same way as were the works
of Shakespeare or Milton. At the same time, he ex-
pressed no opinion on the subject, although he might
observe, that in the second volume of Blackstone it
would be found that, both in law and equity, no doubt v: a$
entertaine3 as to the right of the King's printer and the two
Universities to the monopoly in question. They would not
be able to get Bibles cheaper if the monopoly was done
away with; and he might observe, that the present low
price of
existedth e B i
betweenb Bible—namely, namt ehl
ey ,K9idns
. King—s's
owingprinter
to and
the t
tohte
motion.t esv rivalry
v l r
which
Uni-
versities. He would not, however, object
Mr. BLACK observed that the experiment had been
tried in Scotland, and he must say he could not see much
of a hardship in it; for a printer must, under any circum-
stances, be at the cost of correcting.
Mr. T. CROSSLEY said, that as the patent would ex-
pire next year, it ought not to be renewed before the com-
mittee had reported on the subject, or else it would be of no
use to have the committee appointed at all.
The motion was then as to.
MINISTERS OF THE CROWN.
Mr. V. SCULLY moved an address for a return in chro-
nological order, of all Ministers of the Crown appointed
since the 'Act of Union in 1800, with the dates of their re-
spective aces ptances of, and retirements from, office ; dis-
tinguishing Cabinet Ministers from those not in the Cabi-
net: And, similar return of all persons appointed to the
office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Chief Secretary for Ire-
land, and Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, during the like
period. The documentrho'said, would itself be a most vain-