The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-06-23 00:00:00

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-MONDAY

The adjourned debate on the Protection to Life (Ireland)
Bill ;vac resumed.
Sir R. INGLIS and Colonel VERNER severally con-
demned the delays which had taken place in passing this
bill ; but at the same time would support it, having heard
since they bad voted for the first reading no reason which
should induce them to take a different course on this stage
of the bill.

Lord J. RUSSELL maintained that this bill was not ne-
cessary, for if he referred to the increase of crime in Ire-
land, he found there was nothing which might not be met
by increasing the military forces in the disturbed districts,
as had been done when the peace of the country was
threatened to be interfered with in the manufacturing dis-
tricts of the north of England. He also taunted minis-
ters with having adopted all the measures of the Whig
administration without having the candour to admit that
they were doing so. _ . .

Mr. DISRAELI said that the whole nation at once ad-
mitted that the noble lord (Lord J. Russell) had been
harshly and unjustly treated. He then argued at great
length against ti,e course pursued by government in re-
spect to the Coercion Bill, and finally referred to the re-
ply of Sir R. Peel to the attack made upon him by Lord
G. Bentinck of having hunted Mr. Canning to death, al-
though he had previously avowed to Lord Liverpool that
something should be done respecting the Catholic ques-
tion, and had subsequently in 1829 carried that very ques •
tion through Parliament. The reply was, he contended,
no answer. Tne right hon. baronet only relic.] on his
speech of 1827, taking no cotice of his speech of 1829.
But in the speech of 1829 be avowed, according to the re-
ports in the Mirror qf Parliament, and in the morning
papers, that in 1825 he had stated to Lord Liverpool that
something should be done with respect to the Catholic
claims, and that be would retire from office till the bill
were carried. This was his statement in 1829, although
the corrected report in Hansard gave a different version
of the speech, so far as omitting its most important por-
tions. The hon. gentleman also quoted passages from a
speech of Mr. Canning, in which he treated Sir R. Peel's
affected neutrality as open hostility, and expressed his sa-
tisfaction at finding it at length unmasked. The right
bon. baronet bad no right to shelter himself beneath the
cover of the courtesy which induced Lord G. Beutinck to
designate him in parliamentary phraseology " his right
hon. friend."

Sir R. PEEL said the whole question turned upon the
fact as to whether he had stated to Lord Liverpool in 1825
that something should be done with respect to the Catho-
lic claims. In that year he had opposed those claims, and
asked Lord Liverpool to be relieved from his office, find-
ing that he was in a minority respecting matters so essen-
tial to the administration of affairs in Ireland. After such
a lapse of time it was not to be expected that be should be
prepared to reconcile conflicting reports of what he had
said ; but he at once challenged the production of his let-
letter to Lord Liverpool, and he pledged his honour to the
house that if the letter was in existence it should be laid
upon the table in extenso, and at once show its nature
and object.
The debate was then adjourned.