Star.
London, England, 1814-11-30 00:00:00

MONTAGU AND PELHAM PACKETS.

Lord NUGENT ol,.erved, that the Papers which be had
moved for to the last Session, relative to the above Packets, and
which were accordingly laid before the House, had, on the last
day of the Session, and without any notice or communication on
the sulject, been ordered to be returned to the General Post-
Office, on the ground that their disclosure would be prejudicial
to the public service; and extracts from the same were ordered
to Le laid before the House. His Lordship said, that bad he re-
ceived any intimation of the proceeding which was to be adopt-'
ed, he shoilid have stated his reasons for objecting to it, which,
from their being no question beiore the House, he was at pre-
sent precludid from doing. He b-gged to ask, what was the
na•ure of the danger apprehended to the. public service from the
Palm's which bad been produced; aa.e. wilt', the extracts which
baS been ordered were to be forthcoming
LUSHINGTON said, that lithe Noble Lord would, after
Recess, renew his motion, be bad reason to think that the
reTroduction of the Papers would not be objected to.
BLEACHING VQWDER ACT.
Mr: PONSONBY rose, in pursuance of the notice
he had given, to propose the repeatof an Act,
which had passed in the last Session,' to impose a
•
countervailing dirty on the importation, of Bleaching
toovicier front Ireland to England. This Act, which
Wtiq tbrou4ix the House at the end of the last Sea.
Clot,. contained a clause prohibiting the importation
of Jvipik.Oiv,aching Powder, in direct violation w the

spirit and letter of the Act of Union. Represents.
tions had been made against this Act by the Irish
manufacturers, Who had suffered great hardship by
it. He did net deny that some countervailing duty
would be proper, but as the scales of duty were inor.
dinate, and the clause which he had mentioned of a
nature to contaminate any Act in which it was in-
serted, he supposed there could be no objection to
the repeal ; but if the Gentlemen opposite desired
the introduction of any clauses into the Act, he wish.
ed they would state them. The Right Hon. Gen-
tleman then moved for leave to bring in a Dill to re-
peal the Acts for imposing a countervailing duty of
excise on the importation of Bleaching Powder into
Great Brit4in from Ireland.

Mr. LUSHINGTON stated, that it would be
more proper to move for leave rather to amend than
to repeal the Act, for though he acknowledged that
the clause of prohibition which inadvertently and in
the hurry of business had been inserted was improper,
yet that some countervailing duty should be impos-
ed, since the salt was in Ireland obtained duty free,
and in England a duty of 15s. and in Scotland a
duty of ss. a bushel was paid. It had been stated,
previously to the passing of the Act, that the manu-
facturers in England and Scotland were exposed to
ruin if some duty on the importation of the bleaching
materials from Ireland were not imposed. There
were so many differences of opinion on the subject of
the quantity of salt which were necessary to product
a given quantity of Bleaching Powder—some persons
affirming that 100 bushels of salt would only produce
100Ibs. of Bleaching Powder, and others that it
would produce 20001bs.—that the proper course I,
would be to appoint a Committee to examine into
and report on the Act. He therefore moved, as an
amendment, that a Committee should be appointed
to enquire into the laws relative to the manufacture
and trade in oxymuriatic acid and oxymuriat of lime,
aed to report thereon to the House.
Sir JOHN NEWPORT said, that the proper
course for the HoUse to pursue was to wipe from the
Statute Book a law which was a violation of the Act
.of UoiGn. What should be afterwards done, was
subject for ulterior consideration; but it was the only
way to secure amity existing between the two coun-
tries, to shew that there was no disposition in the
House to tamper with the law which had given them
a common legislature securing the rights of each.—:
As to the regul ttions to be hereafter a:+opted, it
seemed to him that in a manufacture where there
was such uncertainty as to the quantity of materiah
necessary, all drawbacks should be abolished, or the
revenue would suffer by it.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER
suggested, that the motion for a Committee should
be wandrawn, and the original motion amended to &-
motion for a repeal of so much of the Act as prohi-
bited tie impartation from :-cotland to England of
Irish Bleaching Powder. Perhaps eventually the I
best remedy would be to abolish all drawbacks;—
but this was a measure which required smne con-

The suggestion of the CIIANCELLnIt of the Excur-
QUER Nr.ti adopts!, and leave was given to bring iu
a Bill to repeal so much of the Act as prohibited the
importation from • Scotland to Eni;land of Irish
Bleaching Powder.

Illimmom