to govern their subjects, either through the means of a concordat, or some treaty granted by His Holiness, by which they obtained that authority which it was necessary for a government to possess over the clergy of the country. Now it was utterly impossible for the government of this country to enter into any arrangement of that kind. He did not mean to say that there was no other arrangement by which His Majesty might have the power of appointing the bishops in Ireland, and of controlling and superintending the intercourse between them and the see of Rome; but in his opinion it was utterly impossible, under the present constitution of the country, to make any such arrangement with the pope as prevailed in foreign states. The discussion of the question, he thought, would lead to no practical result, and would tend only to disturb the public mind. From 1781 to 1791, although many momentous questions had been agitated in Ireland, the Roman Catholic question was never heard of. So little indeed had

it been heard of, that his noble friend, who sat near him, had brought into the House of Commons a bill respecting the Roman Catholics, and it was a fact that the lord Lieutenant of Ireland was never consulted respecting it, and indeed knew nothing of it, till it was before the House, so little did the Catholic question at that time disturb the public mind. He did not, however, expect that such a state of tranquillity would again occur; but it would be well to allow the public mind to rest, and in the end it might be possible to do something, for he was most desirous of seeing the subject brought to an amicable conclusion.

The motion was lost by a majority of 44, the contents being 137, and the not-contents 181, The friends of emancipation, however, professed to augur a less obstinate and uncompromising opposition to their wishes in future, from what they termed the "conciliatory tone," in which the prime minister had delivered his senti

ments.

ARLY in the Session (7th

directed the attention of the House of Commons to the state of the Common Law courts, and of the Common Law itself, in a speech which had been rarely equalled, either in the time consumed in its delivery, which is said to have been upwards of six hours, or in the miscellaneous variety of subjects, on which it touched. Professing to exclude from his consideration, for different reasons, Equity-law, Criminal-law, Commercial-law, and the law of Real Property, he examined the constitution of the Common-law courts, and the mode in which business was divided amongst them, and conducted by them; and, without much accuracy of detail, or profoundness of thought, or soundness of principle, contrived to detain the attention of his hearers by skimming over nearly all the topics of popular speculation, and trite complaint, connected with the administration of justice.

He concluded with moving, "that an humble address be presented to his majesty, respectfully requesting that it may be his majesty's pleasure to cause a commission to issue, to inquire into the abuses which have been introduced, in the course of time, into the administration of the laws of these

realms, and of the courts of com

remedies it may seem fit and expedient to adopt for their removal." On the suggestion of the Solicitorgeneral, the further consideration of the question was adjourned for a fortnight. The discussion was resumed on the 28th of February, when the Attorney-general and the Solicitor-general pointed out the fallacy and errors of many of Mr. Brougham's notions and suggestions. All concurred in the opinion, that there was no subject more worthy of attention than the improvement of the law. The only question was, how improvement could be best attained: and it was very obvious, that the unbounded nature of the inquiry, which Mr. Brougham seemed to recommend, would prevent it from producing any practical good. In the course of the session two commissions issued: one to inquire into the state of the Common-law; the other to take into consideration the state of the law of Real Property.

This session of parliament was distinguished by giving birth to a variety of attempts, to alter, and, as was therefore supposed, to improve, the mode of electing members of the House of Commons. The House had before it, at one time, seven or eight measures all bearing

more or less directly on different parts of the system, In the preceding session an act had been passed, which, among other things, prohibited the candidates at an election from distributing ribbons. An at tempt was now made to repeal it, as being more injurious to the silk weavers of Coventry, than it could be beneficial to the constitution; but leave was refused to bring in the bill. The Commons having convicted the burgesses of Penryn, in Cornwall, of gross and prevailing bribery, passed a bill disfranchising the borough, and transferring its right of electing two members to Manchester: but the lords threw out the bill as not being supported by evidence of corruption sufficient to warrant disfranchisement. In the lower house East Retford, too,in Nottinghamshire, was found guilty of corruption, and a bill was brought in to transfer its franchise to Birmingham. The House, however, having resolved that instead of the borough being disfranchised, the right of voting should be thrown open to the adjoining hundred. Mr. Tennyson, who had brought in the bill, refused to take any farther charge of it, and the measure was allowed to stand over till next session, on an agreement that in the mean time no new writ should be issued for East Retford. In England there are many districts, which have been separated, at different times, from the counties to which they belong: the freeholders resident in them have thus lost the right of voting for the county members, without having gained, in several instances, the privilege of voting for the representatives of the boroughs to which they had been attached. Thus, Kingston upon Hull had been severed

from the county of York; and its freeholders could vote neither for the members for Yorkshire, nor the members for Hull. A bill was brought in to enable the freeholders of such districts to vote at the election of knights of the shire, for the counties from which they had been separated, but it did not make its way even through the House of Commons. A proposed bill for regulating the time and manner of admitting freemen in boroughs, was not allowed to be brought in; another for registering the voters in similar places was thrown out, after it had been brought in ;-and the same treatment was extended to a third for registering the freeholders in counties. The House of Commons, however, passed a bill to prevent corporations from employing the corporate funds for elec tion purposes-a measure which originated in certain complaints regarding the conduct of the corporation of Leicester, at the last general election; but the bill was rejected by the House of Lords. An act regulating the manner of taking the poll at city and borough elections, and whose principal feature was that it cut down the duration of the poll from fifteen days to six, was the only one that passed into a law.

The plan for a permanent settlement of the corn-laws had failed in the preceding session, in consequence of ministers giving up their bill, because an amendment, which they reckoned hostile to its principle, had been engrafted on it by the duke of Wellington. The subject was again introduced by Mr. C. Grant (31st March) on the very same principle, but with some alteration in the proposed duties. He would assume, he said, that the

House was inclined still to adhere to the principle which it had so distinctly adopted in the preceding session, viz. that agriculture was to be protected by duties, not by prohibition; whether these duties should be fixed or varying, -if fixed, at what rate, and if varying, how the fluctuations should be regulated,-were points of minor importance. Government was still convinced, that a scale of varying duties was the best expedient for doing equal justice to all parties interested, but the rate of duties was to be subjected to some modification different from what the bill of last session had contained. On the failure of that bill, a temporary act had been passed, to continue in force till the 1st of May in the present year, permitting the importation of corn on the conditions contained in the bill which had been abandoned. The opponents of the bill had then predicted that the effect of this measure would be, to depress the price of British corn, and to bring Foreign corn into the market. He thought, for his own part, that both of these circumstances might be accounted for in another way; yet, it could not be doubted that they had excited very strong feelings, in the minds of those accustomed to indulge in such predictions. If it was just to take into consideration at all the alarms of those most nearly concerned, the necessity of considering them was strengthened by late facts. The House ought not to forget the fact, that, under a duty of 11. 2s. 8d., and a duty of 1l. 4s. 8d., five hundred thousand quarters of foreign corn had, in the months of July and August last, been admitted into the market, and that, too, when the price of

British corn showed that no foreign supply was necessary. He was very well aware, that it would be in vain to attempt to convince by argument those who were interested, that this was not owing to the law; but he could convince them that the fact was not forgotten, and that the House meant to take it into consideration. It had been taken into account in the resolutions now to be introduced, and the duties at some points of the scale, would be found to be higher than those formerly proposed; an additional protection, in comparison with the bill of last session, being thus afforded to the agricultural interest. It was proposed that wheat should be subject to a dutyof 32s. 8d., whenever the price of British wheat was at 54s.; and it was also proposed that the duty should be decreased by 1s. for every increase of 1s. in the price of British wheat: so that at 56s. the duty would be 30s. 8d. This scale advanced by diminutions of 1s. in the duty for every increase of 1s. in the price, until the price reached 678.; then by a diminution of 2s., until the price reached 69s.; by a diminution of 3s.; until the price reached 71s. ; and by a diminution of 4s.; until the price reached 73s. It would be seen, therefore, that at 59s. and 73s.; the scales of the two bills coincided; but, as they proceeded by different means, the difference between them at the intervals was considerable. The proposed scale was as follows:

Wheat-Imperial Measure.

As to the Winchester measure, it was proposed to impose a duty of 30s. whenever the price in this country was at 54s.; and that the duty should decrease in the same manner as in the scale for the imperial measure.-With respect to other grain, applications had been made for an augmentation of the duty on barley and oats, but especially on oats. After considering the subject, however, he had thought it would be better to make no alteration in these duties. Various applications had been made both for an augmentation of the duties, and for limiting the quantity of foreign corn that should be admitted. Government, however, after taking these applications into consideration, did not feel that it would be proper to comply with them, and thought it would be better to take a duty at once on these kinds of grain, rather than suffer it to be continually fluctuating. The present resolutions, therefore, were in principle the same as the bill of last session, though the scale of duties was somewhat different: and they were presented to the House, not as the best that VOL. LXX.

could be framed, but as being likely to pass into a law, and, if they did pass into a law, to be beneficial to the public. So far as the legislature was concerned, they were permanent, until the minds of men could be led to entertain juster notions upon this subject; and they would be changed only as the notions, which at present prevailed, were altered for the better. They were offered to the landed interest as a resting place, as firm and solid ground on which time and experience might accumulate a richer soil. They were a compromise between conflicting interests and opinions. He himself thought them imperfect, inasmuch as they fell short of the bill of last year; but they had been brought as near to that measure as was consistent with the likelihood of their being passed into a law.

The opposition which had been made to the bill of last year was immediately renewed, from the same quarters, and on the same grounds; the agriculturists struggling for still higher duties, and their adversaries maintaining that those proposed were a great deal too high. The vehemence of the former, however, was some what abated by the increase of duty over that of last year's bill, introduced in deference to their opinions or to their power: but that very alteration furnished to the latter a new ground of complaint and opposition. Other members of the government, besides Mr. Grant, distinctly described the measure as one which did not satisfy their own ideas of what was right and expedient; and what they called a compromise of conflicting opinions was in reality, it was said, nothing less than a sacrifice of what they admitted