duty to endeavour to correct all kinds of abuses; and it was, above all things, desirable, that questions of this kind should be laid completely bare; for if any thing more than another tended to disgust the public, it was an endeavour at concealment in public affairs. He hoped, therefore, that there would be no objection to his second proposition. His great object in wishing to prevent grants in reversion, was, to remove that bar to the abolition of sinecures and useless places which these grants presented. Much had been already done towards the abolition of sinecures; but their lordships would recollect, that in the bill which had been introduced on this subject, it was the wish of the noble and learned lord to except three offices, namely, that of the clerk of parliament, the clerk of the pleas of the court of Exchequer, and the lord justice general of Scotland. These offices had still been preserved. There were, besides, as he had already said, several offices in the gift of public bodies, of which it had been the practice to grant reversions. Of these, he apprehended parliament ought to have cognizance; and it was with a view to obtain necessary information for their lordships, that he now submitted two motions. First, for a return of all grants in reversion of offices held under the Crown, since the 1st of January, 1818. Secondly, for a similar return of all grants of offices in reversion by any public authority whatever.-The first motion was agreed to.

The Lord Chancellor doubted whether the second motion was so framed as to produce any practical result. He was at a loss to know what the noble lord meant by the general term public authorities. Did he mean departments of state, public boards, and courts of law? It appeared to him that it would be necessary for the noble earl to specify what bodies or persons he meant by public authorities.

Earl Grosvenor wished the motion to be as general as possible, and for that reason had chosen the term public authorities. He was desirous of obtaining a return of grants in reversion from every publie body by which such grants were made.

The Earl of Liverpool thought that the motion must be differently framed. No such term as public authorities was known in the law or constitution of the country, How was the proper officer to proceed when such an order, framed according to

the noble earl's motion, should be put into his hand? It would be impossible for him to know on whom he ought to serve it.

Lord Holland did not think the objection to the motion valid. There were a great many acts of parliament in which the term public authorities occurred; it was, therefore, singular enough to assert that it was unknown to the law and constitution of the country. He was of opinion that parliament had a right to call upon all public authorities, generally, for any information they could afford; but if a particular specification were necessary, the noble secretary of state was, from his office, better qualified than any other person to say how that ought to be done, and might teach his noble friend how to reach his object.

The Earl of Liverpool said, that the House certainly possessed the right of calling for information; but when a noble lord proposed that such a call should be made, he ought at least to explain distinctly what he meant to call for.

Earl Grosvenor said, he had purposely framed the motion in as general terms as possible, because it was his object to reach all grants in reversion of sinecures and places of every kind. His wish was, to obtain returns of those grants which were not made directly by the Crown; but as he understood that there was no intention to oppose the principle of this motion, he would withdraw it, with the view of bringing it forward, on a future occasion, in a shape which he hoped would be more satisfactory to their lordships.

The motion was then withdrawn.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Tuesday, February 9.

IRISH GRAND JURY PRESENTMENTS BILL.] Mr. Dawson presented a petition from the county of Londonderry, praying for the revision of the act passed in the last session, respecting Grand Jury Presentments in Ireland. In doing this, he begged to be understood by his right hon. friend, that the petitioners in no part complained of the principles of the measure which he had introduced. He allowed that the former system of grand jury presentments in Ireland was indefensible; and that the grossest abuses prevailed in the application of the money, to raise which, the tenantry were pressed to the ground by taxes, under the name

of county rates. The petition, which was signed by almost all the magistrates, complained, that, from local circumstances, the act was inoperative in the county of Londonderry. Before a presentment was made to the grand jury, it was required by this act, that it should be approved by a surveyor and three magistrates, who were to possess certain qualifications there specified. The qualification was a certain amount of freehold property or long leases; but it happened, that, in the county of Londonderry, a great proportion of the most active magistrates were the holders of church leases, who were thus incapacitated from giving their consent to the presentments. Without the assistance of the magistrates thus excluded, it was almost impossible that any presentment could be made. The petition was brought up and read. On the question, That it be laid on the table,

Sir J. Stewart said, he disapproved altogether of the act respecting grand juries. General Hart said, that the old system of grand jury presentments, which had been abolished, had been productive of much benefit to Ireland, and only required time to bring it to perfection; but the present system rendered the carrying on of public works impossible. When the judges had recommended at the assizes the employment of the poor on public works, it had not been found possible to follow their advice, in consequence of the difficulties thrown in the way of presentments.

Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald said, he would for the present avoid going into any topics that did not immediately arise out of the petition just presented to the House. Whatever might have been the operation of the act, the House and the country would, he had no doubt, at least, do justice to the motives of those by whom it was introduced, to their anxiety for the public interests, and their desire to put down abuses which were disgraceful to the laws and injurious to the morals and the welfare of the Irish people. He, for one, had no other motive than to promote the public good; and he would not tamely or silently submit to any imputations which gentlemen might think fit to cast upon the bill. As to what had fallen from the hon. gentleman who presented the petition, he had nothing to complain of, nor would he now deny but that local causes might have rendered it difficult,

at a particular time, to carry the provisions of the law into execution, however easy they might be executed in other parts of Ireland, and however well they might have operated. But he would beg the attention of the House to what had fallen from the hon. gentleman in the candid statement he had made. He had said, that most disgraceful abuses and most intolerable burthens pressed upon the people of Ireland before the enactment of the law now complained of. The hon. gentleman who presented the petition, had spoken of him in terms too flattering; but he hoped he might say, without any breach of personal delicacy, that his motives were at least pure, and his zeal untainted by any personal consideration, when he laboured to overturn a system pregnant with public evil. This system might, in the eyes of some, be looked upon with interest and with tenderness -they might bewail its fall as the fall of an old friend-they might describe it as an institution innocent as it was ancient. He had never quarrelled with the institution itself; it was of its abuses that he had always complained; it was those abuses that he had always laboured to overturn. On the different occasions when he had brought the subject before the House, he had admitted the excellency of the ancient laws, but it was manifest that time and corruption had created many abuses, and that new measures were indispensable. But, however necessary these measures might have been, the House would recollect, that the duty of revising the ancient law was not a duty voluntarily undertaken by him-it was not until the reports of different committees had been laid before parliament; it was not until those abuses became manifest, and loudly called for the interference of government, that he, as a member of that government, brought forward some measures to meet an evil so flagrant and so extensive. He was not insensible of the odium which his exertions had collected on him; he had felt it, even in the very county he represented. Government were pledged to investigate the causes of so much public abuse; they did investigate-and he would now challenge those who complained of the present law, whether they could bring the tenth part of the abuses which were proved to flow directly from the old system which they wished to re-establish, against the new law which they wished to

repeal. He could himself prove many abuses which came immediately under his consideration. On the other hand, that some imperfections might be found in the late law, he did not mean to deny. It was difficult to avoid some errors-it was difficult to have every thing complete and perfect, when we substituted new regulations for those which had existed for a century before-which had grown up with the institutions of the country-and which had been administered by a body so transitory as that of a grand jury. But he thought it rather hard, that gentlemen who withheld themselves from the investigation, who refused to contribute their la bour or their information, should now complain of what they never took any trouble to correct. He did not impute any thing unhandsome to gentlemen, but it too frequently happened, that men could not endure the success of a measure which they had originally opposed; they looked on its success with envy, and hailed its fall with an unworthy pride. The principle he sanctioned was the principle of reform-it was a principle that would not sanction the expenditure of the public money, without having that money strictly accounted for; this was a principle which deserved the support of the House, nor would they entertain the views of those who said, "return to the old system, and throw the labours of the late parliament away." He would not conceal the fact, that in various parts of Ireland objections were made to the grand jury laws as they now stood. It would be uncandid on his part not to state the fact; the more particularly as he understood some county meetings were about to be held against it. It had been stated, that the provisions of the law were not found practicable: he would ask, were they tried? He would lament the inconvenience of the country; but that was not the fault of the law. If it was shown that the provisions of the law could not be put in force, he would be the first to abandon it; but he could not help saying that the assertion made, that the law prevented the passing of presentments and the employment of the people, was a gross misrepresentation. Inconvenience might in some places have occurred, but in most parts of Ireland the law operated to the advantage of the country, and he would implore the House not to touch on the principle of the law-that principle which gave security and protection to the people

that the public money should be applied to useful purposes, and should not be advanced without being strictly accounted for. Highly as he valued and respected those gentlemen who compose the grand juries of counties in Ireland, he could not forget that they were a transitory, and, therefore, not a responsible body. that, pressed as they were with a variety of other business, they had little time to bestow on presentment accounts; but when those accounts were examined in open court by magistrates at quarter sessions, and when no account could pass without their sanction, he considered that process a great security for the proper appropriation of the money of the people. The hon. gentleman who presented the petition had called on him to amend the law. Could he anticipate the sentiments of others, as he did those of the hon. gentleman-could he suppose, that they, like him, were sincere, he would willingly undertake any duty that the House should impose on him; but he felt that there was an objection, in the minds of some, to the very principle of the law; he felt that their object was not to amend it, but altogether to overthrow the principle upon which it was founded, and he would therefore beg to liberate himself from any further interference. Indeed, it would be but a fruitless effort on the part of any individual. He recollected when the law was first brought in, recommended as it was by the necessity of the case, and aided as it was by the support of govern ment, it was with difficulty that it passed through the House, and he feared that the principle of that law could receive little support from the unassisted efforts of an individual unconnected as he now was with the government of the country. He would therefore decline the task, and he should make but one observation-he would make it with earnestness, and with a deep sense of the importance of the subject. It was, that the great object of the law deserved the protection of his majesty's government, and he implored of them to protect it. It was, he repeated, too much for an unassisted individual; and when he recollected that the object of that law was, to overturn a system, the growth of a century, he was not surprised at the opposition it met; he was not surprised, however he might lament, that he had been so often called to battle both in and out of parliament. He would beg to state, that when a right hon. baro.

net had formerly brought before this House the state of Ireland, his right hon. friend (Mr. Peel) and himself had pledged themselves to investigate this very subject, as a subject deeply affecting the public and the local interests of that country. He had been, he feared, betrayed into too long a statement; but he assured the House that he had abstained from many things which pressed upon his feelings; he had too much reason not to expect many hostile attempts against the principle of the grand jury laws; whenever they were made, he should rise in his place to combat them-but he felt it right to state that there his interference should end.

Sir H. Parnell said, that he concurred with the opinion of the right hon. gentleman opposite, on the subject of the Irish grand jury laws. He therefore conceived it to be his duty to support him on the present occasion, and to resist, with all his ability, the opposition which was then making to the measure which he had so wisely and ably originated and conducted. The right hon. gentleman had filled his post most honourably, and he therefore hoped that the appeal which he had made to the House would have its due effect; and that the useful work which he had commenced would not be deserted. The opposition to it had no foundation on which it could firmly rest. The new law required that no application of money should be made without the examination of the magistracy; and he did not find that any material error had been committed by the promoters of the law in forming that enactment. In the county which he had the honour to represent, he must say that the law had met with the most complete success. The chairman of the magistracy at the sessions in his own county, to whom he had applied for information on the point, had informed him that no difficulty had occurred at their sessions; but that, on the contrary, the operation of the law had been eminently successful. This he stated from his own inquiries; and he feared that gentlemen who censured it, did not always take the precaution of understanding it. At the assizes, before that law had been tried, in the Queen's County, the amount of the presentments was 13,000.; but when that law came into operation, the amount of the presentments was only 4,000l., and 2,000l. of this sum was disapproved of by the magistrates at the quarter sessions. Thus

Sir George Hill hoped, that as he was the representative of the city of London. derry, the House would bear with the observations which a sense of duty im. pelled him to make. He was prepared to argue, from the words of the petition itself, that the petitioners were not hostile to the principle on which the present Irish grand jury laws were founded. They prayed, indeed, for the repeal or amendment of the present laws, but they did not wish to get rid of the principle on which they rested. He was truly sorry to hear the declaration of his right hon. friend, that he should decline to take the lead in this matter, because he was aware that the want of his right hon. friend's co-ope> ration would be a serious injury to the cause which he was advocating.

Mr. V. Fitzgerald said, that as far as he could lend his aid, he would willingly assist in any amendments that might be found necessary in the law, provided the principle of the law itself was not at tempted to be destroyed. As to the petitioners, nothing was further from his intention than to impute any hostility to them. As to the right hon. baronet, he did not mean to apply any observation to him. He was the gentleman who, in that House, had seconded the measure. He gave it his support: every part of it was submitted to his consideration, for the purpose of receiving his sanction.

Mr. Peel said, he observed with regret the inattention and listlessness with which the House were looking upon a question so important to the interest and prosperity of Ireland. For his own part, he conceived that the affairs of Ireland, relatively situated as Ireland was towards us, and with the comparative minority of members which she sent to the British parliament, deserved to engage the serious consideration of the House whenever