The Sun.
London, England, 1832-06-14 00:00:00

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

A message from the House of Lords brought up several
Bills, to which their Lordships had agreed ; among which
were—The Bristol Damages Compensation—the Edin-
burgh Police, the Chorlton.row Improvement, &c. Their
Lordships also requested to be furnished by this House
with a copy of the report and minutes of evidence relative
to the Exchequer of Scotland Bill.
The messengers having retired, and the question, that
the request of the Lords being complied with, being car-
ried in the affirmative, they were again called in, and in-
formed that the copy of the report of the minutes of evi-
dence would be furnished to their Lordships.
Mr. O'CONNELL presented a petition from the Mem-
bers of the National Political Union of the Working Classes,
praying for the repeal of the taxes on newspapers. The
petitioners stated, that having now the certainty of a Re-
formed Parliament, it was incumbent to repeal all taxes on
knowledge, so that all information should be obtained as
cheaply as possible.
Mr. HUNT supported the prayer of the petition, and
promised that when the Hon. Member (Mr. Bulwer)
brought forward his motion upon this subject, he would
give it his hearty support.
Lord KILLEEN presented a petition from the land-
owners of a parish in the county of Meath, praying for
an abolition of tithes or for a different appropriation of
them.

Mr. H. GRATTAN supported the prayer of the peti-
tion. Tithes were now at an end in Ireland. On Mon-
day last there was to have been a meeting in Dublin of
60,000 people belonging to the county of Wexford, upon
the same subject. It was impossible now to collect tithes
in Ireland, except at the point of the bayonet. He hoped
the serious attention of Engliah Gentlemen and of the
Government would be speedily called to this subject.

Lord KILLEEN confirmed the statement of- the Hon.
Member who had just sat down. From what he had
learned lately he knew it would be impossible any longer
to collect tithes, and, therefore, he hoped the attention of
Government would be turned to the subject before the Ses-
sion terminated ; for it was quite clear that tithes might
now be con iilered to be at an end.

Mr. O'CONNELL had, on a former night, heard one of
his Majesty's Ministers speak of his desire for an extinc-
tion of tithes, and consequently in Ireland it was believed
that the word was taken literally ; but it now seemed that
there was not to be an extinction but an adoption of tithes
in some other form.
Sir C. WETHERELL had never understood that there
was to be an extinction of tithes without compensation.

Lord ALTHORP said he had used the words extinc-
tion of titles, and it certainly was the intention of his
Majesty's Government to extinguish tithes, but not with-
out making a compensation in lieu thereof to the clergy.
The mode of collecting the tithes, and various other cir-
cumstances connected with them, were very great evils,
and such as could not be got rid of so long as the present
system existed.
Mr. HUNT said the Right Hon. Secretary for Ireland
had used the word extinction without qualification or ex-
planation, and so it bad gone abroad ; it was not until af-
terwards that an explan.tion was given.
Mr. WELLESLEY did not think that any Govern-
ment would entertain an idea of taking away the tithes
without considering and having due regard for the rights
of the clergy. He knew that most of the clergy were
anxious that tithes should be done away with, but they
were equally anxious that their rights should be re-
spected.—(Hear).
Mr. BLACKNEY :said it was certainly understood in
Ireland that tithes were to be wholly extinct. He de-
tailed at some length the evils of the present system.
The great miseries of Ireland were owing, first, to the
cursed system of tithes, and then to the oppression of the
peasantry. He was convinced there was an end to tithes
in that country. There was great danger in the coercive
system. The people were disposed to keep the peace, but
oppression had its limits. After some further observations
from the Hen. Member, the petition was ordered to be

printed.
Mr. BEAUMONT wished to ask the Right Hon.
Gentleman below (Mr. Lamb) the Under Secretary for
the Home Department, whether Government had re-
ceived authentic intelligence respecting the murder of
a Magistrate in South Shields, under most atrocious
circumstances, by two individuals belonging to some
Trades' Union in that part of the country ?
Mr. LAMB said Government had certainly received in-
formation of the melancholy nature alluded to by the Hon.
Member ; and the proper steps had thereupon immediately
been adopted.

_ .
Mr. BEAMMONT did not wish to make any particu-
lar remarks on the present occasion, but he thought it
was quite necessary some means should be adopted by that
House, to relieve the country of the evils entailed on the
industrious classes by means of these illegal combinations.
Sir 11. HARDINGE hoped the lion. Member would
take an early opportunity of bringing the subject before
the House. He had seen several letters relative to the
matter in question, and it was much to be regretted that
a Magistrate, in the discharge of his public duty, should
so atrociously have been murdered.
Sir R. PEEL had alaiays felt upon the subject of those
Unions, that the industrious classes were more interested
in their suppression than those in the higher classes. The
latter had generally the means of escaping from their fury,
but the industrious classes we! e necessarily exposed to in-
sult and danger, if they did not belong to them. They
lived by their labour, and they could not be allowed to
take their articles to the most profitable market without
being dictated to by these most illegal and hazardous com-
binations. It was, therefore, the duty of the Legislature
to interpose, and afford some protection to those who did
wish to involve themselves in them.

Mr. E. L. 13ULWER then rose to bring forward his
motion for the abolition of all taxes on knowledge. lie
said that almost all lion. Men-wls who entered that
House, did so with some favourite notion—.his, how-
. vi r, wis the abolition of these taxes. W'hat,

indeed, had considerably strengtened his opinior.
on the subject was the uncommon increase of small pub-
lications, some of which, if not seditious, were at all event..
very detrimental to the feelings of the community at large.
He believed that lie would not have to call upon the
Noble Lord (Althorp) to make any, the smallest, reduc-
tion in the revenue. He has clone down to that House
with sufficient facts to show that his plan, so far from re-
ducing the revenue, would have a most beneficial ten-
dency, viz., to increase it. What stronly illustrated his
position was shown in the criminals who were tried in
Berkshire and other places on the occasion of the incen-
diary fires. He found that of the 13S prisoners tried
in Berkshire only ten of them could read or
write, and the same lamentable ratio was to be found
in all those places where incendiarism had predominated.
On the other side it might be said that poverty was
the cause of all that, but Honourable Members would
credit him when he denied that proposition. His
station i❑ life had led him to see many of those who
followed literature for a livetihood, yet from his own
dersonal knowledge he could say that there wac as much
poverty amongst many of that class, yet amongst them
as poor as they were (and they were quite as much so as
any of those who were called the poorer classes, and had
more to struggle with), yet amongst them crime was sel-
dom or ever heard of. To what could this be attri-
buted but to the enlightenment they had received by
education. It was acknowledged that newspapers were
the success of diffusing more knowledge than any other
component part of the system of literature. This could
not well be devised, and the reason was plain—they
were more nire populous than any other part of
that system could well expect to be. He remembered a
story told by a traveller in the United States, who asked
to what cause it was to be attributed that so few persons
in that country were found who were not able to
read ; he was told that every person found in
his neighbour's hands a newspaper, and he was
ashamed to own that he could not read ; therefore,
in the course of a short time this caused the whole
of the population to be a reading one.—(Hear, hear.)
These papers contained a great deal that was necessary
and valuable to the power, but they did not contain
that advice and admonition upon points of law and of
trade which they ought to do. He should like
Hon. Members to be aware of the vast number of publi-
cat'ons that were now in the hen is of the lower order.
It was true that, in some instances, they we e
obscure to the classes to which they were addressed;
but in a great many instances, the number sold of
them was much greater than that of the legiti-
mate journals.—(Hear, hear.) Some of those publica-
tions struck at the very root of property, and advocated
the seizure and equal distribution of all the lands
in the kingdom. Some of them even advocated
assassination itself. These doctrines were circulated
weekly, to the amount of several thousands of copies,
to which there was no reply, unless it could be
said that the reply was to he found in the legitimate
Journals, if so in answer to hat he would say
the poison was sold for a penny, and the antidote for seven-
pence. What he should propose therefore was, to take
away the stamps from the sevenpenny paper, it would fall
at once to threepence three farthings. Probably on an average
they would not be more than twopence each. When the
legitimate papers were sold at so low a rate those
who now went into a public-house for the purpose of
reading them would buy papers for themselves. As an in-
stance of the effect which the stamp duties had upon the
sales of papers, he would instance that of "Carpenter's Po-
litical Journal," which, at the period when it sold for 4d.
had a circulation of upwards of 6,000 ; but the instant
a stamp was affixed to it, its sale fell down to 500.
(LEFT SPEAKING.)