change of Ambassadors established the in- | said to be a casus omissus, and it was a dependence of a country previously under casus omissus in one sense; but the omission another sovereign and belonging to another was only an exception. The independence country. The interchange of Ambassadors of Belgium was a case not provided for in might be to negociate concerning this very the exception, and the terms and obligaindependence. But he would suppose tions of the treaty must be acted on as if the Ambassador sent to the king of Bel- that exception did not exist. In fact the gium to make the recognition-that the exception did not embrace the case which recognition was, as far as regards this had occurred. If there were any doubt country, good; that was surely very far as to the force of the obligation, it would from saying, that that recognition was be their Lordships duty to free it from binding on other countries. It was good doubt; but there was no doubt; and, quoad this country, and against herself in therefore, it was merely a case of exception. relation to Belgium: we were bound by The noble and learned Lord then adverted our own act; of us it might be said, that to the doctrine, that the Crown alone had we could not use our own act to estop our- the power to conclude treaties, and only selves; but our acknowledgment of the came to Parliament to confirm them; and independence of Belgium could not be contended, that, if, as his learned and binding on Russia, or be a bar to any noble friend contended, the treaty was at claims she might have on us; our own act an end, the Crown must renew it, or make bound ourselves, but it did not include another; and it was the most monstrous, Russia, and it terminated with ourselves. unconstitutional doctrine he had ever Suppose, even that the treaty for the re- heard, to say, that the Crown must come cognition had been completed before the to Parliament to ask its consent to make King's Speech was made, he was prepared that new treaty. If the treaty were in with the authority of Lord Stowell to show, force, the obligation on England was perthat till the treaty was ratified it was not fect; if it were not in force, on what binding, and had no legal authority what- ground did his noble and learned friend. ever. It had been decided by Lord Stowell, blame his Majesty's Ministers for not then Sir William Scott-and it was, rather going to Parliament to tell it that a new than a new decision or a doubtful prin- treaty must be made? His noble and ciple, the mere recognition of a principle learned friend had said, that the Governwhich had never been disputed-it had ment had not had recourse to the best been decided by Lord Stowell, that a advice, and he seemed to suppose that the treaty was not valid till it was ratified. Government had not had recourse to any The case was that of a Swedish vessel person but the Attorney and Solicitor Genecaptured after the signature of a Definitive rals. The Government had consulted these Treaty of Peace, and captured even after officers, but it had also consulted the the ratification of the Treaty by one of the King's Advocate. After the most mature parties. England had ratified it, but consideration, the King's Advocate gave Sweden had not; and because Sweden that opinion on which his Majesty's Gohad not ratified it, that learned Judge held vernment had acted and in that opinion, that the act was not complete, that to humble as he was, and unworthy to give make it complete the ratification must be an opinion, he most cordially and heartily reciprocal, and that, till the ratification concurred. His opinion was precisely the was reciprocal, it was no treaty at all. same as that of the Law Officers and the Till the treaty was fully settled on both King's Advocate; and acting on and statsides, it had no legal effect. If England ing that opinion, he had been ready, in only had ratified the treaty, and had not his responsible capacity as a Minister of ratified till after the payments became the Crown, to give the Crown that advice due, that could not absolve her from the which he had given. He did not wish to payment if Russia had not ratified the pry too curiously into the thoughts of treaty till this day. It was clear that the noble Lords, but he should like to independence of Belgium had not been know, and to conjecture what would have acknowledged by Russia, and had not been said had the Government acted. been caused by her act; and if we had ac- otherwise? If furnished with the opinion knowledged it, that it did not relieve us of the law officers of the Crown, such as from our obligations to Russia. They he had described-if, their own judgment existed in all their pristine force. It was differing from that of the law officers, they had thrown that opinion behind the fire, | a labour, and said that it ought to have and had refused the payments, would there gone to Parliament to sanction its proever have been an end, he would ask, to ceedings. On these grounds he had the imputations of gross and scandalous entered more at large than he otherwise breach of faith-would there ever have should have done, and begged to apologize been an end to the accusations against to their Lordships for the time he had tresMinisters? What would have been said passed on their attention. of the Ministers' jealousy and dread of that great power? and how often would their Lordships have been told, that if it were France, the money would have been paid? The Russian services in the common cause, it would have been said, are all forgotten, and only the common enemy is thought of. All that, and more than that, would have been said, had Ministers thrown the opinion of the law officers away-had given up their own judgment, and had refused to pay the money. Would they not have heard, too, of low petty jealousy, of party quibbling, of base envy, and of carping, under the influence of party feelings, against the treaty they had not concluded? It would have been said-" It is no treaty of yours; if it was your treaty, you would have carried it into execution in the letter and the spirit-you would never have carped or quibbled at it; | and particularly you would not have confined yourselves to the four corners of the treaty; you would have given a liberal construction to it-you would have found means to justify the payment, and the payment would have been made. But now (they would have said), as the treaty is not yours as it is the work of wiser and better men-as you had no share in making it, you are insensible to its value, and put on it no fair, manly, and liberal construction." Certainly, the Ministers were no parties to that treaty, they had no share in approving its provisions; he had himself warmly opposed it; but if the country was bound by the treaty, if the obligation continued, God forbid that his opinion of the impropriety of contracting that obligation should have any influence over his judgment as to the fact whether the obligation existed or not, and as to the spirit in which the obligation ought to be executed. He had entered very fully into the question, and considering that it might be right and fit that this Convention should be hereafter renewed, these observations might, he hoped, tend to smooth the difficulties of those who would have that duty to perform, and tend to conciliate those who, like his noble friend, thought that the Government might not need such The Earl of Eldon said, he rose with some diffidence upon the present occasion, but, as an honest man, he was called upon to state his opinion upon this subject. He wished to say, that he had seen the Motion of his noble friend before it was submitted to their Lordships, and had given it his approbation; but he was bound to say, that, since he had come into the House, he reflected on the subject, and he thought it went too far. He did not remember a single case in which the opinion of the Judges had been asked in order to ascertain whether the proceedings of the Ministers were authorised by law, and in order to ground on that opinion a Parliamentary proceeding. He could not reconcile his mind, after mature consideration, to ask the opinion of the Judges in the first instance. He trusted, therefore, that his noble friend would not press his Motion in its present terms. In what he was about to say, he proposed, therefore, to discuss the legality of the course itself pursued by Government, and thus to narrow the grounds of the Motion. The noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack had entered, at considerable length, into the legality of the course which the Government had pursued, and to such an extent he (Lord Eldon) would not follow him; but this he would say, after the experience of a long political and legal life, that he never heard of any thing more unwarrantable than the payment of money to Russia after the obligations of the Treaty of 1816 had altogether "ceased and determined." He would not say that the Government, for the sake of preserving the general peace, might not be justified in what they had done, but it must be always done upon their own responsibility. If their not doing so might endanger the public peace, then it would be their duty to come to Parliament to state their case, and ask for a Bill of Indemnity. The Treaty of 1816 was laid before Parliament, and the Parliament enacted, that a certain thing should be done; it adopted the treaty to a certain extent, and provided for its execution as long as Holland and Belgium should be united and not sepa it recorded as his opinion, that the payment of money, in violation of the Treaty of 1816, was one of the grossest violations of Ministerial duty which he ever recollected. It was said by the noble and learned Lord (Lord Brougham), that where a treaty was made between two parties, neither was bound, unless both agreed; but here was a case where the King of England recognised a king of Belgium, and yet it was contended that the stipulations of the contract of 1816, being so far rated. As long as that condition lasted, | violation of public duty as had been exGreat Britain was bound to pay the money, hibited by the Government in this transacand pay it for the behoof of Russia. The tion. If they had no opportunity of coming only question was, what had the executive to Parliament for advice, then they might Government to do with the Parliament? have acted as they had done; and if they and the only answer was, to ascertain had not time to do so, yet felt compelled what Parliament had done as to the treaty? to act under the peculiar circumstances of The Parliament had said, Thus far shall the case, their course should have been to ye go, and no further. If the Government apply for an act of indemnity, which posapplied to the law officers of the Crown to sibly might not be refused. He thought know what authority the Acts of Parlia-it was his duty upon this occasion to have ment gave, the law officers of the Crown of former days would have looked only into the Act of Parliament, and by that have defined the authority given by Parliament. But, in this case, an Attorney General, who was a common-law lawyer, applied to a Solicitor General, who was an equity lawyer, to know what was to be done on equitable principles. The Attorney General and Solicitor General, on being called upon to give an opinion, should have confined themselves strictly to the Act of Parliament, and its legal construc-at an end, England was not released from tion. The Government went to Parliament in 1816 with the treaty, and the Parliament said, that the treaty should go no further; but the law officers considered what the Parliament ought to have done. He should like to know, whether their Lordships were to act under the Treaty of 1816, as interpreted by the law officers, or under the Act of Parliament, by which its provisions were to be carried into effect. The stipulation of both the one and the other was the continued union of Belgium and Holland. But that union ceased, or in other words, their separation took place. But the noble and learned Lord (Lord Brougham) contended that the mere fact of separation, without the admitted sovereignty and independence of Belgium, was not such a separation as to exonerate this country from performing her portion of the Treaty of 1816; and yet this observation was made, this argument assumed, while the King of Great Britain recognized a king, an independent sovereign, on the throne of Belgium. That very acknowledgment should have absolved us from paying any further sums to Russia, in virtue of the Treaty of 1816, while it pleased our Government to act in defiance of common sense, and a proper economy, to continue large and unauthorised payments. He was somewhat acquainted with law, with equity, and with politics, and never yet in the course of all his experience did he meet with so gross and unpardonable a her obligations to Russia, which was one of the principal parties to such contract. He never before heard so paltry, so untenable a doctrine attempted to be maintained in that House. No man could deny that force and menace had been used towards the king of Holland, before and since the separation of that country from Belgium. But, after all, the question for their Lordships' decision was, whether or not it would be discreet and wise to have the opinion of the Judges upon the right construction of the Act of Parliament under which certain sums were to be paid to Russia? He would bet his life, even if he were fifty years younger than he was, that there was not one of the fifteen Judges in Westminster Hall who would decide it. in the same manner as his Majesty's Ministers. There was not one of the Judges such an idiot to do so. He ventured to assert, that no other Judge but the learned Lord upon the Woolsack would have interpreted the Treaty of 1816 as he had done. The question of policy or expediency might be for the Government, but their Lordships were called upon to decide simply on the Act of Parliament, by which money was stipulated to be paid to Russia. The noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack had cited the opinions of Lord Stowell in advocacy of the doctrine which he mentioned relative to the distinction between the separation of two States and the acknowledgment of their respective sovereignties; but this he could say, that) there was not a man in Europe who thought worse of the transaction then under discussion than his noble relative. He did not know what course his noble and learned friend meant to pursue, but if a motion had been made calling on Ministers to vindicate themselves on a charge of committing a breach of the laws of the country, and if the matter had been gone into, he felt that it would have been impossible for him to withhold his vote for passing on them the strongest censure. Lord Wynford, in reply, said, that the simple question here was relative to the construction of an Act of Parliament, and he knew of no more competent persons to decide it than the learned Judges of the land. All he sought for by his motion was information for the guidance of their Lordships, because he thought that the conduct of the Ministry was not only open to censure, but was such as to render it advisable to take the most effectual steps to prevent similar mischief in future, and he had no doubt, notwithstanding what had been said by his noble and learned friend upon the Woolsack, that law and justice were in favour of his opinion. With respect to the construction of the treaty, he thought that his noble friend on the Woolsack had not met the real question before the House. He had travelled, indeed, in the course, of his speech all over Europe, but the only way in which he had met the true point in debate was by a something which sounded very much like a quibble; and without once mentioning the consideration. This, he contended, was the most material part of the case. After the triumphant answer which had been given to the noble and learned Lord by his noble and learned friend who immediately preceded him, he would not trespass further upon their Lordships, but withdraw the Motion. The Motion withdrawn. HOUSE OF COMMONS, MINUTES.] Returns ordered. On the Motion of Mr. JEPH SON, Copies of the Charters granted by Elizabeth and of Mr. HUME, the number of Informations, since 5th Yeomanry Infantry in England and Wales, stating the manding Officers, their complement of Men, and the Annual Expenses of each Corps; of the amount of Rate made, and the Money actually levied, up to this time, by the Surveyors appointed under the Act 13th George 3rd, cap. 78, for the repair of the Public Roads of the Parish of Clerkenwell, for the year 1831-2, commencing on the 20th of November, 1831: also, an account of the Amount Expended for the said Repairs; specifying the Amounts under the heads of Salaries, Materials, and Labour; also, the date and abstract of all Contracts entered into by the said Surveyors for repairing the said Roads, stating the Names of the Parties to each contract; also, a Return of the Amount which would be raised in the year by a Sixpenny Rate on the Parish of Clerkenwell, as directed by the Act aforesaid; of the amount of Excise duty collected on each description of Bricks and Tiles in England and Scotland in the year 1831:-On the Motion of Mr. PouLETT THOMSON, the number of Goat Skins, and Kid and Lamb Skins, (distinguishing them) on which Duty has been paid, for Home Consumption, in each year, from 1820 to 1831, inclusive. GENERAL DRAINAGE.] Mr. Penleaze presented a Petition from the town of Southampton, praying that a measure might be adopted for a General System of Draining in that, and all other towns throughout the country. In the prayer of this petition he most fully concurred. There were many suburbs and other places in the vicinity of Towns where there existed no compulsory power to protect the poorer classes, by whom such places were inhabited generally, from the bad effects arising from an impure atmosphere, caused by the want of drains and sewers. The Speaker apprehended that the object of the petition could only be obtained by a multiplicity of private Acts each place having one for itself, and if any places had a local Act which was no longer applicable from the increase of the town to which it applied, the remedy was to bring in a new Act to increase and extend the powers of the former one. Mr. Penleaze only meant to suggest that he thought a general bill might be introduced with great advantage, and when the House considered the misery produced by pestilence in particular districts, the predisposition to which was mainly owing to want of cleansing, he thought his suggestion, particularly at the present time, worth attending to. Mr. Hume did not exactly know the practice of the House, but it appeared to him there were precedents to attain the object the petitioners prayed for. They were, for example, " General Lighting and Police Acts, General Highway Acts," and General Inclosure Act for Scotland." If, by a general statute, local communities could avail themselves of such parts of it as were applicable to themselves, the date when first embodied, the names of the Com-large expenses attendant upon each pri vate act would be avoided; party disputes would frequently be prevented, and the most beneficial measures for the health and convenience of local districts be easily performed. The Speaker said, he was fearful he had not made himself distinctly understood by the hon. member for Middlesex. The House could undoubtedly pass a general bill, but the Legislature hitherto had left. the particular communities to judge for themselves as to the propriety of obtaining local Acts for their own regulation and convenience. But where there was a public Act giving them at the same time the power to effect such purposes without that especial sanction, it was then compulsory upon them, and his object was, to draw the distinction, in order to shew that particular bodies might not obtain private Acts to the injury of the country. Mr. Hume understood perfectly the wisdom and propriety of the rules laid down by the Speaker, which had for their object, that private property should not be invaded at the convenience of individuals, or intruded upon without notice. But a general bill might be made applicable to particular cases, by authorising any local community to meet, and, by a certain majority, accept or reject the proposals made to them. Mr. Sanford said, many considerable towns felt the inconvenience and difficulty of obtaining draining and cleansing Acts. Bath was in that situation; he, therefore, agreed with the hon. Member for Middlesex, that a general measure, the provisions of which could be applied by local districts, was very desirable. Petition to be printed. ANATOMICAL SCIENCE.] Lord Morpeth presented a Petition from the Surgeons of the town and neighbourhood of Halifax, praying that the Legislature, by an alteration in the present state of the law, would afford them additional facilities for the study of Anatomy. made no offer of the sort, but as the hon. Member declared that he had not yet seen a petition from those whose bodies were likely to be dissected, he had the pleasure to inform him, that a petition had been agreed to by several of the inhabitants of Wakefield, offering to give up their bodies for the benefit of anatomical science. Mr. Sheil said, he had also presented a petition containing a similar prayer. Petition to lie on the Table. Lord He GENERAL REGISTRY BILL.] Morpeth said, he had been requested to present a very large number of Petitions from the county of York, of great weight and importance (a statement which, he believed, would be conceded to him, when he mentioned the parties and places from whom and which they proceeded), against the bill of the hon. member for Stafford, for establishing a general office for the registration of deeds in London. was sorry, the hon. member for Stafford was absent, but that was not his (Lord Morpeth's) fault, as he had given notice that he meant to present those petitions. The Bill of the hon. Member had occasioned very great excitement in Yorkshire, and the hon. Member must be responsible for the consequences. The measure was viewed with the utmost disapprobation in the county of York, by every class of persons that was likely to be affected by it. They were satisfied with their now local registry, and were disposed to adopt any regulations to improve the operations of that, but they objected strongly to a general system by which their own local regulations would be abrogated. The hon. member for Stafford had stated, that he had received communications from individuals in Yorkshire, highly approving of his plan; but hitherto those persons were totally unknown, and even their existence was a matter of conjecture. The hon. Member had also asserted, that the opposition to the bill was got up by attornies, and other inter Mr. Hunt said, he did not wonder that such a petition had proceeded from a num-ested persons. ber of surgeons, but he had as yet seen no petition of that nature from the poor, who were to be dissected, he wished that the noble Lord would inform him if those persons who were so ready to dissect others, offered to give up their own bodies for dissection. Lord Morpeth said, the petitioners had VOL. IX. {T} Third But from whom did the petitions which he now produced emanate? From the great landed proprietors, from the most eminent commercial men, and from the whole body of the yeomen of Yorkshire. One of the petitions was from the owners of real property in the West Riding of Yorkshire,-a second from the owners of real property in the North Ri2 Q |