Star.
London, England, 1812-02-01 00:00:00

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irtly qualified. .-It perhaps wu'not of much conse'
ipience, as tit the amount olr their qualification, that
the tact should he known, but it was of the greatest
irrport.nre to thr public that they should know whe-
ther, since Elul- were appointed, they had lost that
independence, for then it might render them depend-
ent u,i the Goiternment. He was led to suspect this
was thecase,AS ¶he returns were refused andfieshould
vote for the inotiAn.

`l he ATTORNEY GENERAL thought that the
opinion of the Hon. Baronet was not completely un-
derstood by the House ; unless he greatly miscon-
ceived him, he meant in broad terms to state tkat the
appointments to the Magistracy were jobs.—[Sir
,Francis.Burdett here assented to the proposition.]—
The Hon. and Learned Gentleman observed that he
NiaS right in his conjecture ; the Hon. Baronet had
given him the assent which he expected he would
Five, and the observations of his Right Honourable
riend were not thrown away. A doubt had been
suggested whether the returns would be used in evi-
dence, if the House consented to permit them ; they
might anal would be the strongest evidence. The
Legislature had provided the necessary guard against
abuse, by enacting penalties for not being properly
qualified, and actions might he brought in the Courts
of Law against any Isla!,istratel who were liable, but
it would be a direct violation of the law to call on
them to produce and state the nature of their qualifi-
cation,.. Ile had no reason to suspect, in any instance
wh ttever, that the law had hen violated. He resist-
ed the motion on the ground that it would be impro-
per to furnish the account called for. If the House
tolerated the motion, every Magistrate in the king-
dom would he liable to be called upon. With respect
to prosecution, the House might direct one.
Sir JOHN NEWPORT thought the House had
divested itself of its inquisitorial powers by affixing a
penalty.
Sir FRANCIS BURETT replied—in the course
of which he disclaimed all idea of attacking the cha-
racter of the Police Magistrates, or of imputing
blame to the present Government ; his observations
were directed solely to the system.
. The House then divided—fur the Motion 7
. against it sT—majority 50.
LOCAL NIILITLA.
On our readmission to the gsliery,
Mr. RYDER was making some observatiom on the subject of
the Loral Militia, preparatory to asking leave to bring in a Bill
to amend the present system, in whizh Bill it was his infeAtion
to lonit the numbtr of Local Militia to four times, instead of s'x
times, the number of the General Militia, as was now the case,
von a power vested in the Crown to call out the increased num-
ber of sit times the number of regular Milrtia, in case of appre-
' beaded invasion, rrovrded Parliament were called together within
I i days of doins, An. After seating some other of the regulations
. proposed to be introduce:, he concluded with asking leave to
bring in a Bill to amend the Local Militia Laws.
Mr. H. ADDINGTON seconded the motion, and gave his
fullest as.ent to the regulations of she proposed Bill.
Leave one then given, the Bill brought in, read a first time,
ordered to be printed, and read a sccond time this day fortnight.
Adjourned to Monday.