The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-08-04 00:00:00

1535

tore rif-their revetine.pliinged the Corporation was, that it' corn-
-I.elled them to make salft of the next presentation to the churches
of St. Andrewsuid Charles, anct.to apply-the proceeds towards
'the reduction of the debt which they had incurred. No part of
this mama was expended upon
.the churches themselves, which
-required,..repairs, and it consequently became necessary to im-
pose a 4hurch-rate, a measure of courseveryunpopular amongst
the inlabitants.lt seems also to have been the opinion of many
persons, that the sale of the next presentation was in itself, and
- within/ reference to the application of the monies. arising from
it, ilaimproper act on the part of the •corpFiration ; that they
stthcluitynthe situation of trustees for the public, charged with
of providing the, churches with proper.ministers; and
• tlat it was a breach of that duty in thetn,totransfer the right to
• °fors The connexion of. the corporation with .the manage-'
laL of the poor appears, under the present system; to be un-
irable. Although we could not trace the-existence:of any
iMproper conduct on the part of those members of the corpo-
. I_*Jtte body who are e.c. officio guardians of the pooruyet a, strong
Feeling seemed to prevail, on the part, or the inhabitants, with
, regard to the imprapriety of their acting in that character." It
*was signed Henry Roscoe and. Edward Rushton, and he should
,beleady to bear testimony to.the honest termination to which
:,•Oey had broh.ght their magniloquent report. The report to.
4-tirlitchhe had jot !Seen calling their •lordships' attention bore'
the signatures-of-Messrs. Roscoe and Rushton, and however in-
- . 'correct that report might in some respects he, those gentlemen
'redeemed all their errors by means of the extraordinary force
find power With which they pointed out the glaring and icanda-
,tous breaches of trust committed by those popularly chosen cor-.
,pnratiops. Thus there was presented to the house an example.
I—an1—an "example; not alone of what was probable, butthat which
. certainly take place in any bodies similarly constituted.
..„ I hey had, in the case to which he was adverting, a popularly
-s
rn• • s
nstituteu Isody selling the next 'presentation " to a. living, for
, • the purpose of erecting a hotel and a theatre,. at the latter of
which no, dbubt the best educated and most moral of females
, he'the Most constant attendants. Here was a mercantile
'''Peeittation of which the history of no corporation extant could •
furnish an example. The learned gentleman next adverted to
the history ()flits inquiries instituted by the commissioners into.
the Case'of some of the Welsh corporations, in which they found.
,the magistrates unable to speak English; but in his opinion the
just ground of complaint was, not- that the natives of Wales
were unacquainted with that which must have been to them a
'f2rcigo louguage,.Mit that commissioners should have beeinsent
down there who knew nothing of the language of those with
whom they were to communicate. He should now come to
,that report of Mr. Hogg which had occasioned such a sensation,
which was for its statements and its reasonings so-valuable.
-That report, as their lordships knew, had long been delayed, but
:atieugth they wore in possession of it; to obtain it was as diffi-
....tillt as to, get
„hp a fresh manuscript from Herculaneum or
PouiPeil ; When finally it seas unrolled. it contained full re-
Inv/Meet -far :she tronlite inhih acquiring it occasioned. Mr.
iu making up his. report, 'complained that :be had not
been consulted on .the general report;- he 'certainly had a. full
right, to be consulted.: However, his brother commissioners
thought otherwise, nand he expressed hii " cordial disagree-
laent" frosty them. He (Sir C. Wetherell) did not desire to
be hypercritical; but, perhaps, he might he allowed to observe,
that though there were some authorities for "cordial disagree-
ment," insincerity of disagreement might have answered the.
'purposes of the learned coo:ilia:loner equally welt. Ile trusted
that in the course of the observations which-he had been per-
mitted to address .to them, he had succeeded in giving the
house a general view of the bill, as to the rights which it called
,into existence, as to the mode of election under it, as to the
• nature and title of the offices which it created, as to the duties
which it imposed, and-the manner in which those duties were
to be performed : he had thus endeavoured to sketch the corpo-
, ration system which that bill would establish, and he called the
attention of their lordship; to the three propositions which he
• , conceived arose out of the preamble. On this subject the learned
gentlenitio restated, and dwelt unlbn 'those itt reference to the
Preamble, .which on thesprecediug evening he had pressed upon
the attention of their lordships, and recapitulated many of the
leading noiots.,in his ferule, and present address, afterwards
Proceediog• to cooleodthat.the officers of corporations had nei-
ther been convicted of misconduct, nor the trustees of breaches
of trust. It.had..been stated, over and over again, that those
corporations must be wholly remodellM; forsooth they admit-
* of no cure or correction—,thete was no physic to be admin-.
isitered to the sufferer—the malady was to be put an end to, not
by theoperation et.4naticine-but by, the more suntrnary process
of. killing the patient.; 4t the patient were -cold, there was to
be no attempt-hi: warn him ;, if paralytic, no effort to infuse vi-
gour,into the system, but the short mode of overcoming every
Aliculty was to kill him. outright. As • the wise and humane
physician did not desire to destroy the physical man, so the
aound and beneyolenklegislator would not desire to destroy the
rrietaphisical' existence called a municipal corporiition. With-
out requesting much of their lordships' attention to the rules
which. governed philosophical and liberal reformers, without
dwelling on the changes of .circamstances upon which so much
stress had been laid, .heshpuld just direct the attention of their
lordships to some, of the rules which governed the proceedings
of that house. It was perfectly true that a corporation might
forfeit its right, but nothing of the sort was for a moment pre-
tended 'with respect to any of the corporations which had formed
the subject of the report of the counnissioners. The question
therefore, which their lordships bad to consider was in some de-
. glee analogous to a proceeding in the Court of King' Bench,
by a writ of rpm warrant°, or a- proceeding on equitable grounds,
before the Lord Chancellor, in the Court of Chancery. Now
that which the Court of King's Bench or the Court of Chancery
'ould hold to be law in their judicial capacity the House of
Lords would.alsp hold to be law.. That house had not only a
legislative, but a jiitlici;tl character; that which they would not
AO in the latter capacity, they surely ought not to do in the
termer. In both they would he governed by principles consonant
with justice, and with the generalcharacter cifourjtirisprudence.
Were they to proceed otherwise it would not be justice, but ty-
ranny. It was because the Attorney-General _could not and
dared not sign the name of. John Campbell tb any legal infor-
mation, in any of his Majesty's courts, in the shape of quo
Varranic, to strip those corporations of their rightful functions;
hachure he would not, he could not, degrade himself by affixing
his sign:iture to such instruments, to be judged, deliberated, and
sl,ecided,upen according to the 'rifles and law of evidence, the
nee 1-1.445 e „,I.,ettla Was.a.o,be caii npiira, io its leg,ialative capacity,
• to involve in one general sweeping Confisioition and forleithre,
punishing in the lump the supposed guilty, and admittedly
innocent, when, even in case of the supposed guilty, the Attor-
- a:ley-General .could not advance a' single step in, procuring by'
law and evidence the judgment' of proved delinquency.' Ire'
(Sir C. Wetherell) called upon their lordships to recollect that
. while they sat in their legislative charaeter they could not dis-
possess. themselves of their judicial functions ; and whets this
Lill sought to annihilate those corporations in lola, they were
hound to inquire whenhe.: sncli alausennd neglect had been proved
asnyould, on thwordinary piA*les of British law, anthurise a
verdict of forfeiture'audaarutimoion. if abuse and neglect, if
a ce-se of forfeiture or couliscation, were proved, cadet queßtio,
the Conclusion wan tuituitted. But no, said the political specu-
lutists, no,. said the Philantbrdpist, no,. said the changers of the
constitution of the realm,, the tnewwho marctiedwith thechange
. of circumstances—no,- theyrould not think .6f putting an end to
those corporations in the tirdinary course of the law on the head
Of delinqdency, they outst .of• course deal with the case as an
ordinary legislative measure, and-call on that house to' pass this
bill without establishing hy.eyidence any one of the ordinary
grounds on whichasonfiscation or forfeiture could be operated
tecording to the invariable rinciples of the laws- • He was sure
they would not thus vilify- and abuse their. supreme powers 'as
legislators. They would not thus allow themselves to be made
tools of 'by consenting to- do. that in their legislative capacity
which, at judges, they would be ashamed to carry into effect.
Such was the fallacy—he was going to say the political icon-
trivance—of those who thought it expedient to put an cud to
all those communities; by this trickery, by this unwholesome,
tinconstaptional•procet% the case was.converted from being a
matter of right or wrong, and to be treated according to the
ordinary principles of. law-into the shape 'of -a mere • political
question, to answer the purposes of a political party, and or.
which their' lordships, were called on to pronounce in the arbi-
trary exercise of their, powers as legislators, that which in the
shbordinate but sacred eliaracter as judges was inconsistent
with sight and law, and infinitely beneath their honourable con-
. sideration. . This was. a ballot' pains awl penalties—a proceed-
?fig certainly known to the law, of which there were several
• • instances on their
_lordships' journals, and which was usually
adopted where detinciuency existed of that description which it
• was either iinuissible or very difficult to deal with according to
the oidipary principles of the law.- But he was not aware that
any such difficulty existed in the present instance. He 'main-
' tamed that in the case of a delinquent corporation it was not
necessary to resort ,to theextraoruinary measure of pains and
penalties. Where even there was a clear case .of abuse or neg-
lect connected either with charitable trusts. or the general
Powers et the corporation, legal proceedings might have been
taken to n6Complish the ends iu view. There were some autho-
rities on this part of the stihject.to which he considered it mate-
. lief shortly to,call their Itntlships' attention. There was only
one case on the journals of that house which, after considerable
research, ha bad been tilde to find, where there was a sentence
of confiscation of charter pronounced by parliament. "that case
was referred .to in Lord Coke's Fourth Institute, p.2:18, and also
iu the .pelehrated quowarrauto case in the reign of Charles 11.
!Sir Reheat Sawyer, then •aittorney-general; was employed to
.proenrakforfeiture..•of theicity of London charter; and it was
• vnry, necessary ter...sertaiin,persona to be apprized of the fact
thikt that same Slrslt, Sawyer, .was afterwards expelledefrom the
RoAinesoce annisnous,bn.tbe serjeannet-arins, (the Sir William
Ai ' tissatt. of • day,).' venous -handicraft achievetnents in
stealing. with.oPeetoginsß.ei,forethestavelution a judgnierat was
Aartisr.; a perfectly clear cartefor,
• -,
,faitore., k 44 not occurred; kit, it was forfeitable—that he was
• s ready. ItT'sowever, a case did exist, why had not the
.-nterney,gerierii.l.•nreceeded?. No doubt it was said that parties
anent acting legislatively might do sos• He•found nofeaso, how-,
'eFer, -on the jourwali,in which that house, had acted, except
• ,;••the thug Of :RiChand P:„ the case of the corporation of Cant-•
• where the Mayor, :bailiffs, and commonalty made a vita,
••• , teat. aiseult.•on Ihe.4ancellor and scholars of the University,
• compelled them to give a bond for 12000, and, in fact, for the
time.heing„.nuiporessed the university. the matter•was brought
~:before parliautent by,vaay of attainder. The corporation asked
• three things--a copy. of ,the bill, counsel, and time to plead ;
. which settled the question as to counsel being heard in the
Present instance.
.fheir..,had what they requested, and after
• various subterfuges fni:itheen resorted to, as stated in the
• report, the house priumuuced a sentence similar to that
whiCh in, the Court of King's Bench would have been a for-
• feiture by quo slater-rant°, 'rho charter, however, was after-
;wards restored, and peace, and harmony had since prevailed
• xiniong all the parties during the -long interval between that
time and the celebrated case of quo warranty: With respect tv
• the charter of the city of London, and from that up to the pre-
sent moment, there bad not been a single instance of parliamen-
tary attainder or iinpeachment, or proceeding by bills of pains
and penalties, towards the corporations of the country. But
there were some other facts to which he wished to call their lord-
ships' attention... There was a personal remedy, by indictment
or information, Wier polies, against a mayor or any other of-
fiCer who tnisconducted himself in any particular instance; but
that was not to Listen aggregate delinquency on the whole body.
. • Ile would now call their attention to a few facts illustrative of
••• his laniaositia:,- occurred that in 1803 there were riots hi
-.. • NPttingham which- interfered essentially with the freedom of
• -elention. A petition seas. presented to the House of Commons,
•••;;;. .On which a special report, taken on oath, was made, stating that
the Magistrates who were specifically named' had connived at
: •those disturbances. The writ was suspended, and a bill was
. brought in for the purpose of amending that defect in the ma-
gistracy of the corporation cif Nottinghain,.its effect being not
.•to forfeit the charter—not even to take away from the corpora-
-. ,lion thennagieterial functions—not even to declare that those
• o bad so misconducted themselves shonld no longer act as
iztag,istratein.but merely to give the county magistrates a con-
• • nurrent jurisdiction in the town. -On that eceasion Mr. Fox,
.thdithlest cOnatitutionallawyer of the times•in which he lived,
• . Maintained that.... the, corporation. should not in perpettium bear
• n• intrusion of,ceunty magistrates..wfthin the•
e4r.Rnrake j•iiiisdiettau, and that: the remedy should be strictly
delinquency -..whiCh hart; beetk
,;o,yesle - h• -alleng eck • &to rn e.y-G eera t -rniutsi
Sir
'.-ri*rn'ertl*"qe-57'PeFaittP-.ode-offlin clianeellia, to-come f,award
delinquency which* thisorierie4.,
charkedon the. exlijsog.,. esir po ration a,•and: tree pledged hi Luse
...not o leave alas:haw he4oss as the woliterm4y,., of their 'lord-,
. . .;chips' citiker would permit him to remain, in order tii prove how,
utterly. false,,nnaligpant,. ind contemptible they were.' He
would venture to itistiThati in the whole tract of time since this
Louse existed, the instances which he adduced were the only