The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-10 00:00:00

THE FACTORY BILL.

Lord MAHON presented a petition from a place in
Yorkshire, in favour of a Bill to limit the time of em-
ployment in factories to ten hours daily.
Mr. ALDAM presented, a similar petition from
Leeds.

Mr. CUMMING BRUCE presented a petition from
Forfar against the provisions of the Tariff with respect to
live stock.

NOTICES OF MOTION.

Dr. BOWRING gave notice that in Committee on the
Tariff he would move, that instead of the duty proposed
on straw-hats and plait, a duty of 20 per cent. ad valorem
be levied.

THE SUN, LONDONi_TUESDAT MORNING, MAY 10; 1842.

introduced by, other parties and supported by the •
Government, it would pass into a law, and put an end to
-she isholesale bribery that had been committed. He
stsoke- it with shame and grief, but he believed that the
practices that had occurred at the last election exceeded •
anything that had been stated in the House, and he did
not wonder at it when it was considered that the two
great parties in the State were striving fur a great prize
—the Government of the country. That prize was
won by the other side, but the practices by which
it was achieved were disgraceful in the extreme.
Why, what had passed in another place with regard to
the Bill of his Noble Friend, was well calculated to lead
to these consequences.—(Hear, hear.) A Bill was
sent up to the House of Lords containing provisions,
which would at least have given Election Committees
far more effectual powers than they at present
possessed, for the investigation and detection of these
practices. That Bill was sent down to them mutilated
and shorn of those provisions—and when was it done ?
Why, on the very eve of the general election.—
(Cheers.) Those who so mutilated that Bill were deeply
responsible for the practices that had prevailed at that
election.—(Hear, hear.) On these grounds he should
feel obliged to vote against the motion of the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman. He thought it unnecessary as
the groundwork of that amendment of the law which
that House was bound to enact, which he did not believe
the House would refuse to enact, and which he was con-
fident, before the end of this session, this House and the
other would have added to the Statutes of the realm.—
(Hear, hear.) But he felt that this partial investigation
against half a dozen individuals selected from the great
herd of cases—(Hear, hear)—would be unjustly holding
up to obloquy those who had done that which was
neither illegal nor against the privileges of the House,
and who therefore did not deserve to be held up to
obloquy in so marked and exclusive a manner. Still he
looked on the evil as one which, more than any other,
tended to sap the foundations of social order, and
thought it one for which it was the bounden
duty of the Government to provide a remedy.
One remedy had been suggested, for which he
should be reluctant to vote, as he believed it would pro-
duce infinitely greater evils of another kind ; this was
the vote by Ballot. But he could only say that if any-
thing could make him vote for it it would be the refusal
of her Majesty's Government to give its cordial support
to a measure corrective of these evils ; and if he should
ever be led, which was not very likely, to vote for a mea-
sure the principles of which he did not approve, it would
be this refusal of the powers necessary to provide
a remedy. •
Sir R. PEEL said he was not aware that this was con-
sidered a question of that party nature—(Cheers)—that
a person in his situation should be called on to indicate,
at the very commencement of the debate, the course he
intended to pursue. He thought that this was a
question which might safely be left to each indi-
vidual Member of the House to form his own opinion
of the course most advisable to be pursued by
the House in respect of the obligations of party.
He did not expect that the Hon. and Learned Gentleman
would have concluded the debate, and he was perfectly
ready to state to the House in the course of the debate
the opinion which he, in his own individual capacity,
had formed on the subject.—(Hear, hear.) If the Noble
Lord thought the Ballot so objectionable in principle
that it would only aggravate the evil, the refusal of her
Majesty's Government to bring forward any particular
Bill ought not justify the Noble Lord in voting for that
measure.—(Cheers.) He agreed with the Noble Lord
that the Vote by Ballot would tend to promote conceal-
ment, aud, in his belief, would aggravate the bribery
which prevailed, and when that subject came under dis-
cussion, he would vote on its abstract merits, and his
conviction as to the probable results of that measure
would not depend on the course the Noble Lord might
pursue—(Cheers)—but if he thought it bad in principle
he would vote against, and the course which the Noble
Lord might deem advisable would not have the
slightest effect whatever on the opinion he (Sir
R. Peel should form.—(Loud cheers.) If the Noble
Lord wished to change his opinion—(Hear, hear, hear)
on the subject, he ought to seek for some other justifi-
cation than to make him (Sir Robert Peel) and his
colleagues responsible for his inconsistency.—(Laughter
and cheers.) With regard to the Bill for the more effec-
tnal prevention of bribery at elections, he could only
say that the Noble Lord received from him a cordial and
unhesitating support when he brought forward that
measure last session.—(Cheers.) There might have
been some defects in the enactments of the Bill, but he
regretted deeply that, on the eve of a general election,
the Bill was not passed, rather than the country should
enter into the excitement and risk of that election
without such a measure having been passed into a law.
He was no party to its not being passed, and the Noble
Lord could confirm his statement that the Bill received
his cordial support.—(Hear, hear.) With regard to the
motion of the Hon. and Learned Member for a Select
Committee to inquire into certain corrupt pro-
ceedings, his opinion was that the charges were
not sufficiently definite to authorise and justify
the House in appointing that Committee.—(Hear, hear,
hear.) He thought that it would be entirely unsatis-
factory to leave such charges on such grounds on the
journals of the House.—(Hear, hear.) With regard to
the subject generally, he was bound to admit the fact
of those compromises having taken place.—(Hear, hear.)
He believed it was impossible to deny that those com-
promises had existed. The impression of Members on
both sides of the House with respect to election petitions
was, that they had contracted no other obligation than
to defend their individual rights, and that the obligation
was not cast upon them of maintaining the rights of the
public.—(Hear.) That, he believed, had been the uniform
impression during the present state of the laws, and he
could not divest himself of the belief that compromises
with respect to election petitions had long existed, and
that they had not been thought to involve the persons
engaged in them in any degree of criminality.—(Hear,
hear.) At the same time, he thought, that the charac-
ter of such compromises must in a great measure de-
pend upon the facts connected with it.—(Hear, hear.)
If a Member, who was not possessed of great pecuniary
means, found that the defence; of his seat would involve
him in great expense, that there was no subscription to
bear that expense, and that he had to make the choice
between serious detriment to his future prospects, and
to the happiness of his family, saving what was the ex-
pense of retaining Counsel and of maintaining witnesses,
he could readily believe, that an individual with those
alternatives before him, would choose the alternative of
compromise rather than of ruin ; and he could not be-
lieve that in that case, there would be anything criminal
in the proceeding. He could readily believe that many
compromises had taken place, which were altogether
free from suspicion, and which subjected. the indivi-
dual who entered into them to no just charge of
criminality:
mnacloityp.s—ro(mHis eettsr, hear.) On the other hand, no
d
had taken place which were of a
difierent character. In his (Sir R. Peel's) opinion, the
Hon. and Learned Gentleman ought distinctly to place
upon record the nature of the charge which be proposed,
and if, when placed upon record, it involved a breach of
the privileges of the House, in his opinion it was for the
character and honour of the House, and for the public
interest,-that that charge should undergo investigation.—
(Hear, hear.) He took that course when a charge was
preferred against the Hon. and Learned Gentleman, the
Member for Cork. In that case there was an allega-
tion of a pecuniary transaction, and he thought it of so
doubtful a nature that he consented to the institution of
an inquiry. He did not rest upon the fact, that election
petitions had been presented, but upon the broad allega-
tion of a breach of privily. It was quite true that they
had appointed another tribunal, for the purpose of de-
termining individual rights, but he apprehended that
they had not divested themselves of the power
of investigating breaches of privilege.—(Hear, hear.)
In this case there was a petition from the electors of
Nottingham, and also from the electors of Reading, and
if the Hon. Gentleman would reduce the charge which was
-preferred by those petitions into a definite form ; and if,
upon seeing that charge, the House of Commons should
be of opinion there was prima facie a case of suspicion,
painful as it would be to come to the conclusion, he did
not think it would be for the credit of the House to re-
fuse to enter into the inquiry.--(Cheers.) He entirely
reserved the question whether he would compel parties
to criminate themselves, whether he would deprive them
of a privilege with which every person was invested by
the law of England. But supposing that the cases were
analagous when a charge of corruption was brought,
he was prepared on this occasion to take the course
which he took with respect to Mr. O'Connell. He spoke
of course, individually, for he thought the question was
one of a judicial nature rather than a party nature. But
he was prepared now to take the conrse which he took
with respect to Carlow, to vote for an inquiry by a Cora-
mitte which had the ordinary constitutional powers for
conducting such an inquiry.
Lord J. RUSSELL said it appeared to him that the
object which they should all have in view was that
charges of bribery should no longer be matter of com-
promise. That they were so at present the Right Hon.
Gentleman and his Noble Friend—that they were so,
no one, he thought, would deny ; and it was upon that
very ground that in 1840 he proposed a measure for in-
stituting an inquiry. He then said that the conse-
quencesofof property, the Grenville Act, and of other Acts which
followed it. were, that the possession of a seat became a
mutter
and that individuals in spending
large sums of money, either in defending or opposing a
seat, were influenced by personal consideration,
and not by public interest. It would be most
unreasonable to expect that an individual should
spend 3,000/. or 4,0001. in order to establish a
case by which a borough might be disfanchised, or bri-
bery and corruption exposed. A very remarkable case
had occurred in the last Parliament—the case of Nor-
wich. Every one who had talked with gentlemen from
Norfolk, or who had read the Norwich newspapers, must
remember that there hardly ever was so gross a case of
Norwich.
bribery and I
n respect corruption
to Norwi
as was statedi
t wasw it h
stated resp ect
thatto
great numbers of the electors had been bribed, some
having received 101. and some 214 for their votes ; but
when that case came to be tried, it ended in a compro-
mise : so with respect to three other cases in the
last Parliament. In the present Parliament it was i,
no-
torious that a greater number of these cases had
been talked of ; and if that were the case,
it would be well that there should be some
remedy, and their remedy should be one by which they
could in future investigite those cases—whether the in-
dividual petitioning were a candidate at the election or
not—on oath and at the public expense, and thereby
they might find some means of protecting these boroughs,
and discountenancing bribery and corruption; , (Lord
J. Russell) was in hopes that the Right Hon. Gentleman
would have held out some prospect to the House of in-
troducing, a measure of this kind. The Right Hon.
Gentleman said truly that be • gave him (Lord J. Rus-
sell) every support• when he brought forward his-motion ;
the Right Hon. Gentleman did do so, and he was not
bound to do more than he did ; but he (Lord J. Russell)
might be permitted to say, that on this occasion he' had
a right to expect something more.—(Hear, hear.) When
, he (Lord J. Russell) introduced a measure in 1834, and