The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-07-09 00:00:00

THE POLICE.

Colonel EVANS presented a, petition which, he said, had been
agreed to at a pui,:ic meeting of nearly 3,000 persons, at the
Crown and Anchor Tavern, praying for an enquiry into the
conduct of the police and the Secretary of State for the Home
Department, with reference to the Calthorpe-street meeting.
The hon. and gallant member read the petition at length, and
moved that it be referred to the committee appointed to inquire
into the elleged employment of policemen as spies. lie said it
was quite impossible that the matter could rest as it stood at
present. It was necessary for the sake of justice, and for the
sake of justice, and for the honour and credit of government,
that an inquiry should be instituted.
The motion was then agreed to.

Ou the motion of Mr. O!Cosigf.t.t., a committee was appoint-
ed to inquire into till circumstances connected with the late
election for Carrickfergus.

LONDON UNIVERSITY.

Mr. TooKI: presented a petition from Truro, praying that the
house would take measures for granting a charter to the Lon-
don University.

LIVERPOOL ELECTORS,

Mr. M. PHILLIPS rose amidst considerable noise, occasioned
by members leaving the house, and strangers quitting the gal-
lery, to bring forward his motion with respect to the franchise
of Liverpool.- lle said that iu that town there were 200,000
inhabitants, and nearly 11,000 electors, exclusive of 15,000 bur:.
gesses. The facts relative to the late elections • there were
before the house. An inquiry had been commenced, and it
ought to be proceeded' in. Some
.persons •had said that it
ought not, al., the Reform Bill . formed an indemnity for all.
by-gone corruptions.' His desire, however, was to combine in-
-demnity for the past with security for the.future, and he thought
that they had evidence before them that the doors Was still left
4)pen for corruption, Vtlie cases of Warwick and Stafford, as
well as -those of 'Liverpool :and BriStol. The committee ap-
pointed in March last had confined their 'inquiries, exclusively
'to this•point:--whether or not corruption. and, bribery prevailed
- at ;the last- eleetion ; and the'object of his motion was to enable
them to enter upon a more extensive- investigation. He was
most anxious to put an end to the abuSes which had so long pre-
vailed at the elections for Liverpool, and to place, as it were, a
cordon sanitaire round the borough, to prevent its corruption
extending to healthier constituencies. The hon. member cmi-
eluded by moving "that a select committee he formed.to March
the inquiries commenced by the committee appointed on March
6th. into the whole of the matters complained of in the petition.
of the electors and inhabitants of Liverpool, presented to the
house on the 21st February, 1533.
The motion having been seconded,
Mr. LANGDALE said that he should oppose the re-appointment
of the committee, because he concurred in what had fallen from
the noble lord, the Paymaster of the Forces, on a former occa-
sion, that the Reform Yiill ought to be looked upon as a bill of
indemnity as .far as regarded the past delinquencies of the
borough of Liverpool, and no investigation with respect to them
ought to he gone into, unless it, should be found that the consti-
tuency of that borough proceeded in their old career of corrup-
tion. This was the understanding upon which the last committee
had been appointed, and the evidence received before it was not
of a chi:meter to justify the house in renewing the inquiry. The
hon. mambei referred at some length to the evidence taken
before the committee, and expressed his opinion that many of
the charges of corruption hail not been made out. He did not
think that any thing like an extensive system of bribery was
proved to have prevailed at Liverpool at the last election. Ile
considered it to be a great misfortune that the Reform Bill had
left the freemen of-corporations in the enjoyment of the elective
franchise, hut he could not give his consent to, the appointment
of a committee for the purpose of extending the principles f the
Reform Bill in respect to one particular borough.
Mr. WAR BURTON said that it was the understanding of the
house that if, on inquiry, it should he found that the freemen of
Liverpool ha] not repented of their corrupt practices, then a ge- '