The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-10-05 00:00:00

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-THIIRSDAY

in reply to a question from Mr. HAWES,
Sir R. PEEL said it was the intention of the government
to appoint a commission, composed of persons of taste in the
fine arts—composed as well of members of parliament as
others—with a view to ascertain in what way the new houses
of Parliament could he made conducive to the promotion of
the fine arts ; and that Prince Albert had announced his in-
tention to form one of the commission.
Dr. BOWRING moved for copies of correspondence be-
tween the Home-office and the poor• law commissioners oft
the subject of distress in Bolton, with the report of the as-
sistant-commissioner sent by her Majesty's government to
inquire into alleged cases of destitution and death, referred
to in the debates in parliament during the present session.
The hon. member, in the course of his observations intro-
ducing his motion, admitted that there were some discre-
pancies in the information which he had received, and upon
which he had made his former statements to the house.
Sir J. GRAHAM read some documents he had received,
showing how very fallacious were some of the statements of
the hon. member, and said it should be a caution to hon.
members to mitre themselves of the correctness of their in-
formation before they made statements to the house as dis-
tressing as they were exciting.

Sir R. PEEL took that opportunity of correcting some
statements made on a former night by the hon. members for
Stockport, Ashton, and Manchester, as to the prevalence of
the distress: The right hon. baronet read some extracts
from the reports of Manchester savings banks, in order to
show that the deposits had increased during the last four
months, as compared with the same period in the years since
1837. He then proceeded to read the returns from the re-
turns from the fever hospitals, to show that typhus fever had
also decreased within the last year. He did not state these
facts as proofs of the non-existence of distress,, but he thought
that they might be taken as some presumption that the ex-
isting distress was exaggerated. The right hon. baronet was
proceeding to reply to statements used on a former occasion,
when
Mr. M. GIBSON rose to order. It was the rule of the
house that no reference should be made to former debates,
and the right hon. baronet was not only violating the rule,
but he was not dealing fairly by the right hon. members who
had made the statements referred to ; for, having no notice
of the right hon. baronet's intention, they were unprepared
to reply to the statements he was making.
Sir R. PEEL said it was extremely hard to stop him by en-
forcing the rules of the house when he was about to give
some information to the house which must afford gratifica-
tion and consolation to the public, inasmuch as it tended to
show that the country, however distressed, was not in the
horrible state of destitution and misery which might be sup-
posed from what had fallen in former debates. Under the
circumFtances the right hon. baronet contented himself with
reading his dc.niments, and resumed his seat.
After some further discussion, in which Mr. M. Gibson,
Mr. Cobden, Lord Sandon, Mr. Hardy, and Mr. Aldam
took part, the motion was agreed to.
On the motion that the house should resolve itself into
committee on the Exchequer bills bill,
Sir C. NAPIER expressed a hope that the right hon. bart.
(Sir R. Peel) woulJ give an assurance that parliament should
not be prorogued until the safety of Mr. M`Leod was as-
sured.
Sir R

EL said he could give no such assurance

Tic house then went into committee, and a clause of ap-
propriation was agreed to.
The house then resumed, the other orders of the day were
disposed of, and the house adjourned.