Star.
London, England, 1819-12-04 00:00:00

tended to what had been tr:n on for some time
Brit? Eery one had witn the continual sup-
cession okblasphemous and "editions libels-.of works,
written in defiance of all religion, of all decency and
good manners' and settingat nought every principle
of suboidinatibn. If the circulation of such pernici-
ous puhlicationx was not checked, it was utterly im-
possibre that society could exist in this country, with-
out the greatest deterioration ; and he had no hesita-
tion in saying, that great as was the evil arising from
riotous and seditious Meetings, he considered the evil
arising from these publications as infinitely greater,
addressed as they were, to the passions, the feelings.
and the prejudices of the lowest and most illiterate
class of mankind, and calculated to keep up amongst
them a continual fermt. That it was impossible to
check the continual current of these publications
without the aid of the present Bill, must be evident
to the House, when be stated, that out of all the in-
formations filed within the two last years, it had bees
only possible to bring one individual to trial. As to
the objection with regard to the power of the At-
torney General, he could only say, that if any prac-
tical evil was proved to hays& arisen from it, he was
perfectly ready to agree in remedying that eviL The
Attorney General, let it be recollected, was a re-
sponsible Officer, responsible to Parliament, as, well
as to the Crown, and thus answerable for the exercise
of the power entrusted to him. But when all the
complaint was, that the Attorney General had not
prosecuted enough, and when the ,sole complaint
against all Attorney Generals within his recollection,
was, that they had not sufficiently exercised the
power of their office, in instituting prosecutions, he
could not see that there was any abuse in that species
of conduct, that called for a Legislative remedy ;
let a practical evil be proved to exist, and he should
be perfectly ready to meet it by a proper and: effi-
cient remedy.
Lord HOLLAND expressed his surprise at the
•speech of the-Noble Earl, which appeared to him to
throw a slur on the Noble and Learned Lord, which
would not have been considered quite civil, ifit had
proceeded from that side of the House. The Noble
Earl had also expressed himself as if the ancient laws
and Constitution of the country were, if not absurd
in principle, at least inconvenient in practice. The
Noble Earl admitted, that when a change was about
to be made, a ground of necessity should be made
out to justify the change. But his Noble Friend, on
the Woolsack, had made out no ground whatsoever ;
and, therefore, was fairly exposed to the severe re-
buke he received. But, with regard to the Noble
Earl's principle of altering the ancient laws and Con-
ition of the country, on a case being made out,

StitM _ Y, os I,g
what more could the Radicals contend for.? Those,
laws, it should be recollected, were subject to the
;consideration of individuals as distinguished for ta-
lents and information as any in existence at the pre-
lent day. They were considered at the period of
Are Revolution, among others, by no less a man than.
'Lord Somers, who, after taking the opinion of Lord'
Hale, contended that indictment was the best and
safest mode of proceeding. Such was the spirit which,
existed in those times. But the Noble Earl, after
dispatching the laws and Constitution, bag and
baggage, came at length to assign his reason, for
.the passing of the Bill—(Cries of hear, hear, hear).
And here he had begged the question all along. Al-
luding to the blasphemous publications, he had
asked, could it be reasonable that they should be
permitted to go on? The answer was no; for the
Um are sufficient to suppress them. Even in the
case of an individual who had been tried and con-
demned before for the same offence, the law was
ladequate to measure his punishment, for the Judge
had the power to consider that fact, and to deal
with it as an aggravation. But the most curious.
feature in the debate was, that the two Noble Lords
differed.as to the ground of necessity by which the
..Bill was justified. The Noble Lord on the Woolsack,
it was true, did not condescend to state his specific
grounds, but then he had let them into one. fact,
which was sufficient to establish the difference.;—he
had said that be had the Bill a long time under his
consideration, and did not propose it now to meet
the demands of the present alarming' crisis. -On the
contrary, the Noble Earl said that ft w4s no such
`thing—that the blasphemous libels bad rendered its
introduction necessary, and upon that ground alone
had challenged the concurrence of their Lordships--
(Hear!)—But what was the general inference from
the whole of the reasoning on the other side ? That
we were now living 125 years under a Constitution
which, according to their account, provided no ade-
quate punishment for the cases which the Bill was.
intended to meet. The Noble Earl .had informed
them, that es-afficia informations were conducted by
responsible Officers. Of course they were. Our
Constitution knew of none but responsible Officers.—
He had stated further, that if a case of abuse could
be made out, a ground might be laid for an altera-
tion of the law in that respect. But did the Noble
Earl forget a motion Which he (Lord Holland) had
submitted to the House six or seven years ago, not
to take away the power itself, though he w •
that he could do it—not to chargethe then Attorne*.
General with any corrupt abuse, but to obtain pen.
mission to prove, by evidence at the Bar of. that
House, that es-officio informations had increased in the
proportion of twenty to one beyond any other mode of
proceeding, and that out of twenty informations that
were filed, not above two or three were prosecuted:
Upon that occasion he recollected being told by this
Noble Earl, that if they were to remove that sin
stone from the edifice, no one could tell what the
consequences might be ; that though the abuse could
not be defended. it was expedient to stick by the an-
cient law. But here there was another ancient law
for the protection of the people against the power of
the Crown, and the necessity of sucking by the old
Constitution was forgotten. When he had Ara heard
the Bill described as one to prevent unnecessary de-
lay in the administration of justice in cases of misde-
meanour, he expected that it would have been di-
rected against delays on the part of the Crown, as
well as on the part of the accused, either being as
injury to the Public. But now he found that it was
Ito operate only upon one'side, leaving to the other
all the advantages which it possessed before. His
ILordship then entered at length into an examination
of the present practice, and maintained that the Bill
before the House was one of the most clumsy and un-
intelligible specimen:of legislation that had ever come
under his notice. Nothing could have delighted the
164 Lord Stanhope more than where bad such a