The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-07-24 00:00:00

HOUSE OF LORDS-FRIDAY.

Lord BROUGHAM moved the following resolutions, in refe-
rence to the affairs of Italy :—" That it is the right, and was
the duty of the Government to request and to obtain from
foreign powers satisfactory explanations of those recent move-
ments in the Italian states which tend to unsettle the existing
distribution of territory, and to endanger the general peace.
That it is inconsistent with the general interests and duty of
this country to interfere in the concerns of foreign nations, as
between their governments and their subjects. That this
house regrets to observe in the conduct of the Government,
particularly as shown by the papers laid before Parliament, a
want of friendly feeling towards allies, to whom we are bound
by treaty and by mutual acts of good will." The noble and
learned lord gave a succinct narration of the events in Italy
for the last two years, visiting on the heads of the Government
nearly all the responsibility for the unsettled state of affairs in
that country. They had at the outset gone out of their way to
proclaim to all the rebel leaders and Republicans in Northern
Italy that all but threats had been held out to Austria, while in
reality they were addressing. Austria in the mildest and most
amicable terms. In Central Italy a French army of 40,000 or
50,000 men, with 120 guns' was in possession of Rome, and no
one could tell how they got there, what they came for, or what
they were going to do now that they had got there. Perceiving,
also, troops were In the occupation of Ancona and Bologna, he
thought it was high time that these warlike operations should
be brought to a termination, which it seemed to him could
only be effected by a general congress for the settlement of the
affairs of Europe. The noble lord likewise condemned the
interference which had taken place in the affairs of Naples and
Sicily, where, while professing friendship to the King of Naples,
instructions had been given to our diplomatic agent to acknow-
ledge the Duke of Genoa, thus recognising the usurper pro-
chimed by the rebels to that King's authority. The noble and
learned lord regretted to perceive in every act done, and in
every word written, a rooted prejudice against Austria mani-
fested,

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The Earl of CARLISLE characterised the resolution as an at-
tempt to collect into a vote of censure all the various grudges
entertained against the Government by the broken sections of
parties in the house. He regretted many things connected
with the siege of Rome, but the French Government had re-
pudiated all idea of conquest, or of the acquirement of terri-
tory, and expressed their intention to retire from Italy as soon
as they could do so with honour. The noble lord defended the
course pursued by the Government in the affairs of Naples and
Sicily, and denied that his conduct was in any way influenced
by any hostility to Austria. Much blame had been attributed
to Lord Palmerston in all these transactions, but his noble
friend, lie thought, might rest his defence upon the fact that,
amidst the convulsions of all the nations of Europe, he had
succeeded in preserving unbroken the peace of the British
empire.
The discussion was continued by Lord Heytesbury, the Earl
of Minto, the Earl of Aberdeen, the Marquis of Lansdowne,
and Lord Stanley, after which, their lordships divided, and the
motion was negatived by a majority of 12.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.—FRIDAY.
The House of Commons, during its morning sitting yester-
day, read the Pilotage Bill a second time, and advanced several
other bills on the paper one stage.
In the evening sitting, Sir G. GREY announced that it was
not his intention to proceed, this session, with the Juvenile
Offenders Bill.

Mr. LABOUCHERE also announced that it was not his in-
tention to proceed with the Railway Audit Bill.
On the order of the day for the house resolving itself into a
committee of ways and means,
Lord JOCELYN entered into an explanation in defence of the
Earl of Roden in reference to the unfortunate occurrence at
Castrewellan, intimating that his noble relative, having no
power to prevent these Orange processions, had used all his
infillencc 1,-; induce the parties engaged in the one in question
to act w;tt forbearance if !molted,
Sir G. GREY apologized fee his absence on the preying even-
ing, and said that the government were fully convinced, he
regretted to say, that it was necessary to propose to parliament
a bill to put down all party processions in Ireland. There
could be no question MI armed processions like the one in
question were at common isw illegal, for they necessarily endan-
gered t_h..S public peace. The most searching investigation
should, he assured the house. take place into the whole trans-
action which had terminated so deplorably.
After some observations from Mr. BRIGHT and Mr. HUME,
the matter dropped.
Mr. HERItIUiI then called the attention of the house to the
condition of the public revenue, as stated by. the Chancellor of
the Exchequer; and, in connection therewith, to the expedi-
ency of deriving an addition to the national resources from a
fixed duty on the importation of foreign corn. The right lion.
gentleman confined himself altogether to fiscal grounds for the
assent of the house to his resolution, avoiding every other con-
sideration which might be naturally supposed to call for such a
proposition. He showed the loss which the revenue had sus-
tained by the abolition of the ditties on corn ; which, if replaced
in the shape of a fixed duty, would enable them to deal with
other duties which pressed heavily on articles of general con-
sumption. It might be objected that this fixed duty was get-
ting in the small end of the wedge, after which it would be easy
to convert a fiscal duty into a protection duty. He could only
say, that he had no such intention of getting his suggestion
received as the small end of the wedge, but entirely on fiscal
grounds. It would benefit the revenue and would not keep out
corn, though it would have the effect of preventing its being let
in at ruinously low prices, which he did not consider to be an
evil. It was not in his power to propose any fixed duty. He
could only call the attention of the house to the subject, and
the attention he had given to the subject would be amply repaid
if the house should think he had established strong grounds for
increasing the national resources by a fixed duty on c ,rn.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said it did not seem
to him necessary at present to resort to any additional taxa-
tion to increase the revenue, but least of all to a fixed duty on
corn; even for fiscal purposes. Ile also took the opportunity of
expressing his surprise that the right hon. gentleman had so
unequivocally abandoned all idea of resorting to anything like
protecting duties on the importation of foreign Corn.
Mr. SANDARS maintained that a fixed duty would not en-
hance the price to the consumer, and he supported the sugges-
tion of the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Herries), not for the
purpose of protection, but because of the necessity of finding
a new source of revenue under existing circumstances.
After some observations from Mr. MITCHELL and Mr. NEW.
DEGATE,

Mr. COBDEN found fault with gentlemen on the protection
benches for dealing in shams, instead of enabling the house to
deal with realities. The right hon. gentleman (Mr. [terries)
could not suffer the session to close without endeavouring to
keep up the delusion of doing something for the farmer, when,
in reality, he made no motion whatever upon which the house
could express an opinion. People out of doors supposed the
right hon. gentleman was to move a fixed duty on corn, but he
had not done so, and the empty benches behind him proved
that he meant nothing by his speech but to appear to do some-
thing. if they wished to lay a duty on corn for &cal purposes
they should lay a duty on at the mill, and not confine it to
foreign torn, and their not proposing this showed that their
objeetwas protection.
Mr. DISRAELI denied the justice of the charges made by Mr.
Cobden against the Protectionist members, and charged the
honourable member for the West Riding with a want of reality
in the agitation he was seeking to get up for financial reform,
while in that house he sat behind the minister as mute as a
mouse unless he rose to support them. The object of the sug-
gestions of his right hon. friend (Mr. Berries) was that the
foreigner should, as far as possible, pay the taxes of England,
instead of allowing them to fall upon the people.
After some observations from Mr. B. Osborne, Mr. Bright,
Mr. Wodehouse, Mr. Villiers, Sir W. Jolliffe, Mr. Roebuck, and
Mr. Bankes, the subject dropped.
Mr. B. OSBO RNE then proceeded to draw the attention of the
house to the advance of the Russian troops into Hungary, but
at the suggestion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer he post-
poned the subject until this day.
The remaining business on the paper was then disposed of,
and the house adjourned.

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