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    724 THE DEADER. [Saturdat,

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    ¦^T Ijbliament Of The Week. Anight In Su...

    freedom of conscience conferred on the country . They established beyond all doubt that ¦ when a Government recognised freedom of conscience , private enterprise always succeeded , and that fact afforded a strong argument in favour of the religious freedom ¦ which had so long existed in this country . ( Cheers . ) The hon . gentleman , in the instances he had quoted , had forgotten , to enumerate the cases of Tuscany and Spain ; in the eighteenth century the wool of this country was largely sent to both those states for the purpose of being used np in manufactures , but as those states became inimical to civil and religious . liberty , the wool trade between them and this country gradually sank into decay . At the

    same time he must repeat that there was a manifest difference between a state giving simple instruction in manufacturing art , and undertaking it with a view to pecuniary profit ; institutions for that -purpose already existed in Paris , Liege , Berlin , and other places on the continent , and he was not prepared to say that in Ireland similar institutions might Dot be undertaken by the Government . However , without giving any opinion as to the success of the experiment in Belgium , or elsewhere , he must decline at the present moment to give the hon- gentleman any promise or pledge that his proposal would be adopted . A small debate followed ; Mr . James Macgregor and Mr . A . Pellatt insisting on political

    economythe former warning- Ireland not to believe State support could create manufactures—the latter suggesting to the Government that this sort of demand was made because Government ( in Lord Clarendon ' s time ) had undertaken to instruct the farmers in the arts of agriculture . Some Irish members expressed their dissatisfaction , without any justice , at Lord John ? s speech . The subject then " dropped ; " but the originality of the proposal made it a topic in Parliamentary circles for the week .

    MB . JEREMIAH SMITH . Mr . J . Smith , ex-Mayor of Bye , convicted of improper electioneering practices , and sentenced to a lengthy imprisonment , has been liberated by our secret police—viz ., by an order from the Home Office . On Tuesday , in tile House of Commons , Mr . Fbewen begged to ask Viscount Palmerston if he had any objection to lay Upon the table of the house a copy of a certificate which it had been stated was signed by every one of the jury who had tried

    Mr . Jeremiah Smith , the late Mayor of Eye , and found him guilty of having committed wilful and corrupt perjury , before a committee of the House , and who had lately represented to his lordship that they believed Mr J . Smith to be innocent of crime ; and whether , in consequence of this representation , his lordship had advised her Majesty to grant him a free pardon ? If such a certificate had really been given , he ( Mr . Frewen ) onust look Upon Mr . Smith as & person who had been virtually acquitted .

    Viscount Pai / merston paid the case of Mr , Smith had been brought under his notice by a great number of petitions ; but upon full consideration of the case , and of the evidence upon which he had been convicted , he ( the noble lord ) had not felt it his duty to advise the crown to interfere between Mr . Smith and the execution of the law . He had received a memorial dated the 20 th of July , and signed by the jury , which he should certainly have no objection to produce . It was as follows : — " We , the undersigned jurors , who tried Mr . Jeremiah Smith , of Rye , and pronounced him guilty of * wilful and corrupt perjury , ' hereby express our strong recommendation for mercy on the ground of its having been represented

    to us , and our believing it to be true at the time when we gave our verdict , that the seat for Uye had not been abandoned when he gave his evidence , and that his false swearing was with a view and corrupt motive to retain his seat ; but believing now that such seat had been previously abandoned , and hence that there was mo corrupt motive , we trust and pray that a free pardon may be granted to him . ' Now his ( Lord Palmerston ' s ) general rule was to attach more weight to what jurors said when they pronounced their verdict upon the evidence given before them upon oath , than to what they might afterwards suggest upon statements made to them out of court , and therefore not subject to the same sifting as if

    they had been made by witnesses under examination . It was not , therefore , in consequence of the memorial of the jurors that he had advised the crown to interfere and to extend its clemency to * Mr . Smith . The ground upon which ho had taken that step was the following letter , which he had received from the surgeon of Newgate , dated the 25 th July : — " I feel it my duty to state to your lordship that the present condition of Mt . Jeremiah Smith , a prisoner hero , is most critical . He is \ ery feeble in every way , and is suffering now , from head symptoms of a very serious character , threatening apoplexy . I consider his illness tlio more alarming on account of several

    members of his family having died from similar attacks , and I cannot answer for the effects of a prolonged imprisonment ; upon a person thus ill whoso habits have previously been very active . " Now , although ho might think that Mr . Smith had been very justly sentenced to imprisonment , ho certainly did not think fcliafc he merited a sentence of detith ; and it was on that ground alone , and nob at nil in consequence of tlio memorial of the jurors , that ho had thought it Ms duty to recommend her Majesty *© ftranfc ft frco pardon to Mr . Smith . Tho House oppressed no astoniahmont : —indeed " cheered . "

    THE BOARD OP HKAI / TH . On Monday and Tuesday the House of Commons was occupied for an hour or two in considering what should be done for the public health . On Monday , Lord Palmerston moved the second reading of the bill to continue the existing Board of Health for two years . His speech was merely official : nominally urging the measure : really not being in earnest about it . LoTd Seymour opposed , in a speech of malignant acuteness and personal spite , which was loudly cheered by the many personal enemies of Mr . Chadwick . Mr . Monckton Milnes deprecated Lord Seymour , and defended the board .

    Mr . Henley was convinced that the board stood condemned both in the eyes of the country and of the Government . The bill , he contended , ¦ would effect no further change than that of transferring the control of the board from the Chief Commissioner of "Works to the Secretary of State for the Home Department , the practical result of which would be merely nominal . He recommended that a short Continuance Bill should be brought in , and the present measure rejected . Lord J . Rtjssei / l ( in a speech marked by a want

    of earnestness , "which accounted for the fate of the bill—that is , for the Ministerialists staying away from the division ) reminded the House that the measure now proposed was but to endure for a year . In that time the whole subject might be investigated by a committee . The existing board had been exposed , as he believed , to undue censure , although he admitted that too little regard had been paid to the principle of self-government , and he had himself ¦ warned Mr . Cliadwick a year ago of the consequences which might arise frorn this negligence .

    Mr . Hetwood , after a warm tribute to Mr . Chad-¦ vvi ek , announced that that gentleman had been recommended by his medical advisers to discontinue the very arduous duties incumbent upon his office in the Board of Health . Mr . Hume confessed Jthafc his vote upon the present bill would turn upon the question whether Mr . Chadwick remained 6 r retired . The statement that this gentleman had been professionally advised to retire was corroborated by Lord Palmerston . After some observations from Sir T . J > . Acxanj > , the House divided—IFor the second reading-, 65 ; for the amendment , 74 ; majority against the bill , 9 .

    xText day the new bill , which the Government had prepared ( evidently , therefore , having arranged for the defeat of the first one ) , was brought in by its author . Sir William Molesworth . Sir W . Molxsworth moved for leave to bring in a bill to make better provision for the administration of the laws relating to the public health . The opinion of the legislature having been pronounced against the continuance of the Board of Health , as at present constituted , as also against the subordination of the department to which the care of the public health

    was intrusted to the Home Secretary , the Government , he said , had determined to remodel the Board of Health , and assimilate it to the pattern of the Poor Law Board . The new bill would accordingly provide for the appointment of a new functionary , with the title of president , with a seat in the House of Commons , who was to be assisted by two secretaries , and undertake the-whole responsibility of administering tlie laws relating to the public health . A clause would also be included in the bill granting an allowance of 1000 £ , by way of compensation to Mr . Chadwick .

    After some remarks from Sir G . Peoiieix , Lord Sletmouh , Mr . Henley , Lord J . Russei-l , and other members , leave was given , and the bill brought in and read a first time . In the Lords , on Tuesday , Lord SiiAFTKSntmY , unpaid president of the defunct board , made some explanations in answer to Lord Seymour ' s speech in the Commons . Tho concluding sentence speaks of tho conscientious earnestness with which Lord Shaftesbury has discharged Ms weary and gratuitous duties at the board . The quarrel bot-wcen tho two nobles is also suggested : ¦—Was it just that asscr . tions should bo made of this kind on such evidence as this ? These wore fair samples of the whole of Lord Seymour ' s speech ; and he did not belicvo that

    tliat speech contained n single statement that might not bo mot by a flat contradiction . But ho had sivid enough to show tho spirit of tho man , and tho character of those attacks by which tho Board of Health had been assailed . Lord Seymour appeared to spenk very contemptuously of him ( Lord Shaftesbury ) and of his principles and hie conduct ; and it might bo from prejudice , infirmity , or inability ; but ho should not make any reply to these things ; yet ho folt conscientiously that ho did not care muoh about tho opinion of Lord Seymour upon tho matter . Ho had a conviction that by Qod ' a graco ho should bo able to do his duly in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him and that conviction could not bo taken away by Lord Seymour , or by -what took place in the Houhq of Commons , { Cheers . )

    KUSflO-imTOH J . OAN . On Tuesday , Lord Dudle y Stuart nt last got an opportunity of stating his views , nnd testing tho

    opinion of the House of Commons , in reference to the Russo-Dutch Loan . There was , of course , a very thin House . The noble lord had appended to his notice of motion a series of explanatory resolutions , and which he now strengthened by a variety of arguments and intentions tending to prove that the engagements into which this country had entered in 1815 for the payment of the loan in question , were practically bound up in a treaty concluded in 1831 with various other conditions which Russia had undertaken to fulfil . As these conditions , and especially one whereby the free navigation of the Sulina mouth of the Danube was to be lcept free

    from all natural or diplomatic obstacles , had been flagrantly violated by the Russian Government . England was , lie contended , exonerated on her side from the obligation of performing her part of the convention . The observance of treaties , he argued , should not be one-sided , and any infraction of their articles on one part justified reprisals on the other . Even if peace had continued this country would have been freed from all further obligation according to the rules of international law . War having broken out , there was a fresli argument in favour of his resolution , under the hypothesis that all treaties lapsed upon the occurrence of hostilities .

    Sir VV . MoiESwroimi saw no difference between the conclusion arrived at by the motion now offered to the House and the doctrine of repudiation . During war he - urged the country was more strictly bound in honour to pay its debts than even in time of peace , and alL modern publicists agreed in deciding that nations were bound to keep faith with their public creditors , without inquiring into the nationality of those creditors , or the accidents of \ var or peace between their respective sovereigns . This doctrine was sanctioned by all modern practice ; it was the sign and token of our improved civilisation ; and any attempt to revert to the system of reprisals was a retrograde step towards the custom of a byegone barbarism . After laying down these general principles , Sir W . Molesworth . adverted to

    the special circuuistances under which the engagements for paying the Dutch loan to Russia had been entered into by this country . These he alleged involved the payment by England of a large sum by way of purchase-money for the colonies of the Cape , Demerara , Essequibo , and Berbicc : and the continuance of our liability depended not upon war or peace but simply upon the abstinence , on the . . part < of Russia of any interference with the territorial arrangements of Belgium and Holhuid . lliissia not having infringed this condition , the obligation of England still remained ; and international law , acts of Parliament , and public honour , alike bound her to its fulfilment . Tho speech of the right honourable baronet was an able and lucid statement of the case .

    Mr . D . Seymour supported the resolution ? , contending that the loan was secured to Russia by a solemn covenant , which Russia herself had broken . The Attorney-General , in opposing the motion , argudd that the character of the transaction was not the payment of a debt , but the honourable completion , of a bargain . Lord D . Stuart replied -, and after a few worJs from Mr . Caylr y and Sir 13 . Noureys , The House divided—For the motion , 5 ; ngainst , 57 ; majority , 52 .

    THE RUSSIAN SECURITIES DII . L . This bill was ogam in committee in the House of Commons on Wednesday : giving rise to sonicdamaging talk ngainst the Government differences on it . Nearly all the "business" members—City men and Manchester men—condemned it as an absurd and impracticable measure ; only the patriotic , but silly , members , such as Lord Dudley Stuart , supported it . Mr . James Wilson consented to forego his opposition : for , said lie , though I opposed itu introduction , yet it would look strange in tho eyes of foreigners if tho House of Commons were now to rojeet such a measure ; and let us , therefore , make it as good us wo cun . Mr . Thomas Having nindc a most effective- speech in describing the " split" in tho Government on tho question . Lord John Russku . snid : —

    " llio mcaRuro would , it wns isnid , not lower tlio valuo ol RubNiiin scrip by more than one-half per cent ., but , if it , » ii , l not do so by moro tluin ono-ciglitli per cunt ., ho thought it wns proper nnd becoming lo legiwlnto upon tlio subject . Whether or no it wiih worthwhile for liin n < iblu friend to bring in such a iill was not a quest ion upon which ho should givo nn opinion , Tlio quontiou now before tJio committed wns , whether , thin not having loon introduced , they Hhould think it proper that , while U wns high tronaon to ndvnncu money to the Emperor of Kuhsui . it nhould be no oiTcneo to doal in tho scrip of that country . ' Mr . BiuaiiT suM : —

    " Kvoi-y ono in tlint Hoiifio -wnti convinced tlint they ivcro ciigngod in didcvBuinp ; u sluun , moro coinploto , moro hollow , mid more childinh tlinn lind uvnr leen brought boforo any legislative assembly , Tho noLlo lord tlio Secretary of tSlatn for the Homo Dojinrlment described tliiH bill an a moral demonstration ; but what wno tho use of a moral dcmoimtration when Hcotti nnd nrmi < w hud been despatched ? Hu wlulled also toluiow how thin bill wan to apply under certain oircumHtnnooB , There wero in Ruswin about 1500 English residents , nnd ho presumed tlint Parliament did not winli to

    724 The Deader. [Saturdat,

    724 THE DEADER . [ Saturdat ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 5, 1854, page 4, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05081854/page/4/