Star.
London, England, 1819-06-15 00:00:00

The %TEARER. having tererred to the Paper
which had been put in, moved that Charles Bell do
attend at the. Bar of the House tomorrow.
Mr. WYNN said, that a question occurred, whe-
ther it would be proper for the House to resolve, in
the first instance, that the publication was a breach
of its privileges, and then to call on the Publisher to
attend ; or to procure his attendance, and an acknow-
ledgment of the publication, in the first place, and
then to come to Resolutions as to the nature of it ?
The SPEAKER said, that in 1805 an instance had
occurred, in which the Publisher of a Paper had been
called to the Bar. He was asked whether he was
Editor of the Paper in question ? and he was then
ordered to withdraw, while the House deliberated on
the nature of the publication. But there was this
difference between that and the present case, that the
article in that instance complained of, was a para-
graph containing a comment on a vote of the House;
in the present instance, the publication was, on the
face of it, a breach of privilege.
The question being put, that Charles Bell (the
Printer and Publisher of The Times) be called te
the BarL-

Mr. WYNN suggested, that the Editor should also
be ordered to attend.

Mr. LITTLETON approved of the motion, as he
had no doubt the misrepresentation was conceived in
malignity.
The SPEAKER—That when a Person was order-
ed to attend the House by name, the Officers of the
House served the order of the House on him ; but if,
according to the suggestion of the Honourable Mem•
ber (Mr. Wynn), the Editor of. the Paper were ordered
to attend, the Officers of the House would be in a
difficulty as to the person upon whom they should
serve the order. It would, therefore, perhaps be best,
first to order the Printer to attend, and to ascertain
who the Editor was, unless any Gentleman could
state to the House the name of the Editor.

Mr. WYNN agreed, that it would be advisable to
follow the course which the Speaker had pointed out.
Mr. LITTLETON oberved, that the Honourable
Member for Aberdeen had stated that he had had
communication with the Editor of the The Times :
perhaps he could inform the House what his name
was•-{Crier of u No I")
Mr. HUME said, that the ndte he had received
was dated a Times Office," and purported to be orris
ten by the Editor of The Times, but had no signature.
Lord C ASTLEREAGH said, that the House should
first determine on the nature of the publication, which
was one of the grossest breaches of the privileges of
the House.

Mr. WYNN said the Resolution declaratory of the
sense of the I louse respecting the publication, should
be framed with due consideration, as there was this
peculiarity in .it, thdt it was a misrepresentation of
the speech of one Member, and grossly libellous on
another Member.

Lord CASTLEREAGH agreed that the Resolu-
tion should be postponed till the Printer was called
to the Bar.—The question having been put,
Mr. BROUGHAM said there could be but one
opinion among those who had heard the clear state-
ment of the Right Honourable Gentleman (Mr. Can-
ning), that the publication complained of was a
breach of the privileges of the House. He did not
rise to offer any observations on what must have been
so universally felt; but he could not help pointing
out what would be the consequence of their proceed-
ing further than they had already done. If they
called the Publisher to the Bar, the matter could not
stop there. He would not say that this was an abso-
lute argument against proceeding, nay he knew some
would cletive from it a further corroboration of the
reasons for the proceeding. This was not the only
Newspaper in which the most malignant and pal-
pable breaches of the privileges of the House occur-
red. He alluded not to what might be termed a
technical breach of privilege, the reporting of their
proceedings, which no mare would desire to take
away, and from which they and the Constitution,
and no part of it more than the Executive Govern-
ment, derived strength and support, but to offences
such as that now brought before the House, the
grossest misrepresentations arising from the most
culpable negligence, or the most malignant private
intentions. there were other gross breaches of the
privileges of the House, in comments containing the
most malignant, the most. wilfully false assertions
respecting Members, not in a bungling manner put
Into the mouth of an Honourable Member, but
coming from the Publisher himself, the meaning of
which could not for one moment be mistaken. To
give instances of this would be not only an irksome,
but an endless task. It was only the last time but
one that a case of this kind had been brought under
the attention of the House, when, in a speech given
to a Noble Member for Yorkshire, something was at-
tributed to him which he had not said, and which he
would have been the last man in the country to say,
containing reflections on him (Mr. Brougham) under
which, if it had been uttered, it would have been
impossible for him to have sat quietly—(Hear, hear).
This wilful and malignant mis-statement attributing
to a Noble Member what he was incapable of saying,
for the purpose of casting reproach on another Mein:
ber, was heightened by comments founded on the
falsehood. And what rendered the transaction more
glaring was that in their report of the transaction a
correct account was inserted, while afterwards, find-1
ing a false one better suited to their purpose, they
gave this false account as a foundation for their com-
ment; This case he had thought fit to mention in
the House, as the Noble Member for Yorkshire had
given an explanation as satisfactory as that which
the Honourable Member for Aberdeen had just given.,
There the matter dropped, the House wisely deter-
mining to take no further step. He would explain
why he thought the House had done wisely. Other
Gentlemen who had the same injustice practised to.,
wards them, would, if any further proceeding hivi
been taken, have been called on to make similar
complaints, because, though while no one chose to
call for punishment on their misrepresentations, no
stigma could attach to any Member who poised ever
in silence those which affected himself, yet when a
practice was created of noticing these offences, a
Member would feel a neglect of, a misrepresentation,
as a confession of its justice. He had been just in-
formed of a gross case of mistatement directed against
the Hon, Member . for Southwark, calculated not
merely to interrupt his good understanding with his
constituents, but to expose himself to popular violence 3
What he apprehended was) that in consequence of